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Alexagrrr
Reviews
Annika (2021)
Soapy but not mysterious
Love Nicola Walker but not in this. As others have noted, the murders are not terribly interesting so the real story is in the interpersonal relationships, and those are pretty cringy: Annika encourages her underling to befriend her teenaged daughter (unlikely, creepy). Annika embarks upon a relationship with her daughter's therapist (unlikely, really creepy). Annika informs a man he is her daughter's father at an open-mike stand-up thing (SO unlikely, super cringe-worthy). The fourth wall thing is awful, with Nicola doing her lines in a halting fashion punctuated by self-deprecating smiles, which is something she's done in other roles and is getting old. Not a single character is believable - they are all so grubby-looking and unprofessional, blundering about their duties. Very weak entry in the UK police genre.
Van der Valk (2020)
What is wrong here?
I don't like this show. Why don't I like this show? I want to like this show. I love British police procedurals! But I don't like this.
Watching it the other night, I figured it out. Everyone involved with this show might be from the UK but this is an American police procedural. All of the characters are straight out of central casting: svelte and way-too-pretty female officers; grumpy but eerily competent main detective; quirky doctor, plucky rookie, sundry other stock characters. Not a Vera or Barnaby in sight.
It's not hideously bad, so I gave it four stars for effort. If you like "CSI," "NCIS," or any of the other lettery American cop shows, you will enjoy this. I don't, and I didn't.
The Goes Wrong Show: The Most Lamentable... (2021)
Best of a most excellent series
This is, IMHO, the best of the bunch in a very funny series. I am a sucker for Shakespearean parodies, and this one is great. It is the story of a dying king and the machinations to take the crown amongst his potential heirs: his scheming queen; his brother (and the queen's lover), Malcolm; his illegitimate son, Richard; and Richard's secret twin, a prince of France. The sight gags are laugh-out-loud, and the actors come up with hilarious "improvisation" when things go wrong - which they do, of course, constantly.
This also culminates the long-simmering feud between Robert and Chris, who plays Prince Richard ("Diiiiiick") in the play. Chris, the newly-reinstated "Die-rector," relegates Robert (unsuccessfully) to non-speaking roles only. Dennis is his usual hapless incompetent, forgetting the most important line in the play ("The twist!") and Annie makes a great king in a "revealing" role.
The Ritual (2017)
Loosely based on the book
I watched this, and totally forgot about it. Then months later I got the book. I thought, gosh this seems familiar. Finished the book, rewatched the film. Book much better.
I could see where some of the changes were necessary in order to keep this at a reasonable running time. But the monsters in the book, both human and supernatural, were way more horrifying. If you enjoy a good horror read, get the book.
As for the movie, I would agree that the last act is a little thrown together and kind of a let down, but overall it's okay.
What We Do in the Shadows (2019)
Sly and brilliant comedy
"What We Do In the Shadows" is one of my favorite movies and I was very happy to see that a TV series was being made. This is a great little show with a brilliant cast. It's similar to but quite different from the original, as it is set on Staten Island ("it's where the ship dropped us off"). Kayvan Novak has slipped ably into the role similarly played by Taika Waititi in the movie, but Matt Berry (great Shakespearean voice) and Natasia Demetriou have created two new and hilarious vampires. Watch especially for Nadja's facial expressions. Harvey Guillen is perfect as the sweet but inept familiar Guillermo ("being a familiar is like being a best friend ... who's also a slave") and the addition of Mark Proksch as the "psychic vampire" is very funny. In the pilot, the great Doug Jones plays the Baron to great effect.
Jemaine Clement has created very funny scenes with quick and witty dialogue and characters that make the incredibly ridiculous situation seem plausible, just as the movie did. And the actors make these characters so much fun to watch.
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (2018)
Surreal and funny
This odd little movie reminded me of early John Waters, David Lynch, and Wes Anderson. Surreal and supremely stupid, it made me laugh out loud more than once. Worth noting: strange costuming and hair styles, and odd delivery of bizarre dialog. Not a movie for everyone but if you're a fan of the off-beat, give it a go.
Wormwood (2017)
True life X-Files
I've been a big fan of Errol Morris since the release of "The Thin Blue Line." His films don't resemble anyone else's, with their use of documentary interviews mixed with re-enactment and unrelated but illustrative footage.
This time he takes on the story of Frank Olson, a scientist working on top secret government projects, who fell or jumped (or was pushed or was thrown) from a hotel window in 1953. His boss and others told the family Frank was depressed and accidentally or intentionally propelled himself through this window.
But they didn't count on Frank's son Eric, who never accepted this explanation. Twenty years later, Eric and his family hire an attorney to try to get more details about Frank's death after it was revealed that the government had used LSD in mind-control experiments in the '50's. What do you know, now the official explanation is that Frank had volunteered to take the drug sometime before his death and must have killed himself as the result of a "bad trip." The Olson family were invited to meet with President Ford and pressed to accept a settlement crafted by none other than Cheney and Rumsfeld. (Cheney and Rumsfeld! Pulling strings from the shadows for more than thirty years!)
Of course, this story wasn't true either, and Eric would not let it rest. Years later, events occur that lead to a much more sinister scenario, which I won't reveal, but suffice it to say our government was (is?) not above eliminating those deemed to be potential threats to it. There were an alarming number of people falling out of windows in the '50's, and coincidentally a CIA manual from that time descibes defenestration as the most effective and plausibly deniable method of assassination. Some of the activities of Cold War-era CIA would be comical if they didn't have such tragic results.
The series could have been a bit more tightly edited, but at four plus hours it's not overlong. The re-enactments and old film footage allow the viewer to absorb information as it is slowly revealed. Eric Olson, a Ph.D. psychologist, is forthcoming and entertaining in explaining his decades-long obsession for answers. Ultimately, though, maybe the truth is NOT out there.
The Party (2017)
Started slow but worth the time
At first I did not like this little film but it grew on me. It's in black and white, sometimes harshly lit. The characters seem self-absorbed and not terribly interesting. And then Spall's character drops a bombshell that changes everything. There were quite a few laughs. Patricia Clarkson was especially good. Nice twist at the end. At just over an hour, it's a tight little diversion worth the small investment of time.