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Reviews
A View from a Hill (2005)
Fairly effective little ghost story
This adaptation of M.R. James's short story 'A View From A Hill' was first shown on British television in 2005, on the little watched digital channel BBC 4. I saw that it was being repeated again on BBC 4, and decided to give it a go, remembering the BBC's successful 1970's adaptations of other M.R. James stories including 'Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad' and 'The Signalman'. Though not in the same class as these masterpieces, 'A View From A Hill' is nonetheless an enjoyable and at times suspenseful drama.
A historian arrives in a small rural village to look over the collection of a recently deceased collector of antique artifacts. Whilst out in the countryside, he sees an abbey that has been in ruins for hundreds of years. But what does this have in connection with an old pair of binoculars and a gruesome legend about the ominously named Gallows Hill? And what do the brusque country squire and his servant know about the situation? Whilst not scary in any way, I enjoyed this little production, and had the running time been longer than 40 minutes it could have become a truly great adaptation. As it is, it all feels a little rushed and a bit more exposition to set the mood would have been welcome.
I give it 7 out of 10.
Supernova (2005)
Supernova fails to shine *SPOILERS*
I, too, watched this atrocity recently on SkyTV and jeez, do I wish I hadn't bothered. I'll leave out all the awful geographical errors and mediocre acting that everyone else has pointed out; I didn't really watch this to see an Oscar winning performance. I wanted to see a supernova! Hell yeah. It started reasonably promisingly, some cool meteors and electrical storms, St. Louis gets destroyed. I was a bit suspicious when the sun only started playing up after Austin Shephard got his results, as if it had been waiting billions of years for this moment, but I stuck with it... until the part when they discovered the error in Shepherd's back up research (Luke Perry cannot act nor correctly research astro physics). The sun just stops having problems like it's listening outside..."Oh I'm not supposed to blowing up yet!...what a relief"! That really annoyed me, and having to sit through the conclusion of the turgid subplot for the last 30 minutes (I only did it in the hope that there would be a shock ending and the world got blown up hehehe) almost made me throw my remote at the TV screen. Terrible disappointment. Only worth watching to laugh when two characters are vaporised by a meteorite on the porch of a flimsy beach hut which remains complained unscathed.
The Shining (1980)
"See? It's OK, he saw it on the television!"
Personally I love this film, I think it's a great movie and stylistically brilliant. But I'm obviously not going to change anyone else's opinion on this film, so I won't try.
I'd just like to say that most of the people who seem to hate this film hate it because it doesn't follow the exact plot of Stephen King's book (which I have read and also like!) Well, it's an adaptation of the book not an unerringly faithful cover. It's Kubrick's version of the story- like a cover version of a song, and you'd probably feel a bit ripped off if the cover version was identical to the original, no? Other famous adaptations have changed source material- I mean The Godfather leaves out an entire subplot from Mario Puzo's book and I haven't seen anyone mark that film with one star because the source is changed! Approach the film without expecting to see exactly what is in the book and you might enjoy it a bit more. Make your own judgement on Kubrick's direction, but some of the tracking steadicam shots are undeniably great and the creepy visuals really get under your skin.
The one point I will concede to the 'haters'(sorry chaps can't think of a better word at the mo) is the ambiguity concerning Jack Torrance's character at the start of the movie. Is he already supposed to be crazy? He is a bit over the top to begin with.* In short, though I love this film i can understand why some people might not. I just don't think a good reason to hate it is because the source material has been altered.
*Not sure if this counts as a spoiler but I'm just covering my back!