Change Your Image
cam-23266
Reviews
The Furnace (2020)
Slow and raw - tense yet wonderous
An enjoyable watch, but albeit perhaps 15min too long in the second half of the film. All the performances are excellent and very believable in this late 1800s outback Western Australian setting. The climax of the film is very well done and was not exactly what I was expecting, which was great storytelling. The on-location shoot adds to the wonder, complete with annoying bushflies in eyes, on faces and in mouths, and the regular shots of the sky and stars, highlighting the remoteness and helplessness of the setting.
This film pulls no punches in so far as to the harsheness of the conditions faced by the Afghans, Sikhs, Chinese and Australians (Indigenous and European) at the time in outback Australia. The cinematography adds to scope and wonder of the landscape and the story. Looking back on reflection, surprisingly perhaps, I did not have much empathy for either of the main characters, including our Afghan 'hero'. Maybe it was his reserved, shy manner? Or the fact we never truly knew his intentions.
Minor spoiler - I was a little annoyed that the backstory around the 'tracker' and his accomplice was not fully realised.
All in all, a slow, perhaps a little long and tedious in parts, but highly watchable and at times tense drama.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
A good first hour with a messy, prepostorous eye-rolling second hour
Disclaimer - I'm not a fan of the modern superhero movie genre, but always fancy some escapism now and then. Just like the 2017 Wonder Woman, this was a movie with an entertaining first hour set up nicely with some character development and byplay, interwoven with an intriguing plot line, but just like the 2017 film - it turns into a preposterous, jumbled overproduced mess where the CGI team have been given 'carte blanche' to do whatever. Yes, I know this is a 'superhero' movie, but the actions of both animate and inanimate objects now defy the laws of physics and then some, and look flat, rushed and silly. It saw me laughing several times at the action sequences, which reminded me of the sort of things I saw on my Saturday morning breakfast cartoons in the 1980s! Hey - maybe there was a nod to that in this film, given the time setting The CGI was as 'one dimensional' as those cartoons too! I think the production crew could look to the polish of ILM who have re-defined CGI-based action sequences in The Mandalorian.
(Minor spoiler here).. so Wonder Woman can fly now, and now imagine things to become invisible??! Pah-lease - these are just made up scenarios purely to keep a story alive. and had me rolling my eyes constantly.
Gadot is very good, and is really turning into a fine actress, and I hope she can get into some more dramatic roles soon, before she gets stigmatized with the 'action hero' label. It was also great to see Pedro 'Mandalorian' Pascal in his over the top portrayal as the main villain, Max Lord - the complete antithesis of his SW character.
This was a real letdown, after a decent first 45-60mins or so.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)
Nearly got it, but flawed in the end
It wasn't until the third episode that I started to enjoy it, and I was close to calling it quits during the second, but something kept me hanging on. The intrigue kept building in the last three episodes and the at times 'over experimentalisation' in the first two episodes on the cinematography and story telling became more derivative which in turn actually started to build the suspense.
I have seen a few times the original Peter Weir film, and whilst at times the mini-series tries to replicate the mood and timbre of the film, for the most part it does its own thing, and credit to the production crew for doing so.
At times, it drags so very slow, whilst at others it moves along at an appropriate pace. And herein lies the biggest problem with the production, and that is inconsistency. The cinematography at times is brilliant, whilst at other times too experimental and trying too hard to be quirky. The music at times is haunting, minimalist and other-wordly, then it overpowers completely with modern industrial loops and phrases which simply don't fit. Sometimes the storytelling is exquisite in its timing, dialog and intrigue, whilst just around the corner it becomes vague, confusing and amateur.
I felt the jumping around on the timeline was a little 'over done', and the story could very well have been told in a slightly more 'linear' fashion, whilst still maintaining the tension and intrigue.
Far too much overlap and duplication in the first two hours also, whilst in the last two hours a number of interesting sub-plots that emerge are simply glossed over. I thought the extension of the plotline from the book and movie was generally well done and early in the last episode, one felt that perhaps it could be extended with a second series. But alas it does all wrap up in the last ten minutes rather abruptly (and of course with more overlap and duplication from the first hour)
It's a well cast and beautifully produced mini-series. Natalie Dormer is a class-above and her effort on this holds the series together powerfully. A truly wonderful actor - that without her presence on this mini-series, it may have fallen very flat.
Overall, it felt like there were too many 'cooks in the kitchen' when it came to producing this. Often less is more, especially in film making, and this series could've done with less - one less hour, less experimentation with the camera, less timejumps, less duplication, less overpowering industrial music loops and less random symbolisms.
They nearly nailed this one, but not quite - a missed opportunity to make a masterpiece.