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Reviews
The Ghost Writer (2010)
Impressive thriller that oozes Hitchcockian style
I saw this film quite a while ago now and I was blown away. Roman Polanski bounced back and gave us this excellent thriller based on the novel by Robert Harris. I've heard parallels drawn between this film and Shutter Island, but I'm going to leave that out of the review and appreciate The Ghost Writer (released as "The Ghost" in the UK) for what it is. This film follows an amateurish and unsuspecting ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) as he takes on a doomed project that resulted in his predecessor's untimely and mysterious death. He is to write the biography of controversial Prime Minister Adam Lang (amazingly acted by Pierce Brosnan). As the film moves, the tension builds and the atmosphere becomes increasingly dark. There was one other unmissable quality about this film and that was it's pertinence to recent events and figures and socio-political ramifications. The character of Adam Lang is an obvious analogy for Tony Blair. The main outstanding performances came from Olivia Williams and Tom Wilkinson. Kim Cattrall however was atrocious. This is a fine example of good film-making. Mr. Polanski, thank you for this masterpiece, I sincerely hope all your troubles subside.
American History X (1998)
A powerful film exploring white nationalist culture
Watching this film was really quite an experience. I found the film to be intelligent and culturally informed. It bought up a lot of issues and explored them in depth. There were references to the Rodney King incident, various historical studies and more involved. Another thing about this film was the sheer intensity and violence. That image of Edward Norton's character pavement-stomping the African-American man who was breaking into his house and then him lifting his arms before the police revealing the swastika tattoo on his chest, that remains etched into many people's memories as a rather classical film moment. The whole make-up of white nationalist culture is probed here as Derek Vinyard (excellently portrayed by Edward Norton) attempts to escape from the neo-nazi gang he was once the second-in-command of and prevent his brother Danny (Edward Furlong) going down the same path. There is one other performance that stands out and that is Stacy Keach's menacing portrayal of white nationalist mentor, Cameron Alexander. Overall this is an excellent film, a classic that should be remembered. I've said enough.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Cruddy, pseudo-intellectual garbage
Can I just say that this film was the most vile mind-raping phenomenon to ever exist. People on this site are out of their minds to give it a good review for it even failed to deliver as entertainment. This film adapted a pseudo-intellectual potboiler airport novel into a Hollywood cringe-fest.
It wasted good actors like Tom Hanks, Jean Reno and Ian McKellen. It couldn't move like a thriller should, it was poorly directed by the infamous hack Ron Howard.
I don't even see why there was a controversy. I would have thought that even brainless Christians would have disregarded this since it had no factual basis for any criticism. I mean seriously, Dan Brown has no intellectual standing. He used to write and perform pop songs and he read Sidney Sheldon and decided to write thrillers instead. His novel was poorly researched and the prose style was clumsy.
Blunder (2006)
A brilliant, completely under-appreciated gem of sketch comedy
For some reason almost everybody hated this show. I don't know why, it was amazing. I mean Blunder was comedy genius. The sketches were all insanely funny.I was particularly impressed with Tom Meeten's controversial character, The Baron. This character was topical and culturally informed, for instance his one joke mentioned that he "hunts foxes with nuclear weapons". They reference two controversial topics. The Baron impressed also with his ingenious spoof apology. This show got cruder, funnier and zanier every episode. It was an unrelenting and rebellious little show whom the wrongly offended public got rid off. People these days have lost their sense of humour. We should hold this show in high regard as a crude comedy-fest that pokes at your sensibilities and entertains endlessly.