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Reviews
Tulsa King: Visitation Place (2022)
Great show
I really didn't expect to like this show at all. I think the premise is outlandish and yet the execution is very entertaining. There are no ground breaking ideas, characters are stereotypes and plot lines are not particularly innovative. Despite all of that the writing pulls the best out of a great group of actors with Sly leading from the front in a perfect star vehicle. I have been engaged since the first scene and at only 4 episodes in I am holding back from bingeing the lot because it will brighten many more nights if I show some self restraint. I do t really mind where the story goes (feels like I can probably guess) because the journey is worth it.
Deadloch (2023)
Half of it works, the other half is awful
It feels like there was a lack of independent script editing in the process as the things that are theoretically funny are in practice derivative slapstick. Nothing wrong with slapstick, but it was perfected 100 years ago and this is not at all innovative. It is interesting to have a mystery show driven by the female characters that is also funny. It would have been great if this has actually been witty rather than blunt.
The murder plots are well worked, the lead police person played by Kate Box is believable much of the time, unlike every other character. The details of the plot are rushed, it is not legal to compel DNA samples for example. The Commissioner is the worst form of derivative pantomime villain shortcut.
It is a shame, much of it is entertaining, but the rating I have given is warn people like me off. If I start I have to find out what happened, even putting up with some awful dialogue along the way. Better not to start in the first place.
Ted Lasso: Mom City (2023)
Circling the wagons
One thing about ending a series is fixing a point of farewell. To do that it is hard to be abrupt. If this wasn't the second last episode I probably would have given it a lower score. I have my views on how it will end and the writers will be up against it to surprise us. But Ted Lasso is not about confronting us, the natural conclusion will play nicely and we will all be happy that the characters will prosper in the post series afterlife.
The cameos in the episode were very hard to stomach, if Pep lost at home to a team and had a one point lead going into the last match of the season there would only be a speech about the players living their best lives after hell started serving ice cream sundaes. The messages about how to live a life are heavy handed, but I am loving them because it is far to easy to be cynical and actually, being alive is a pretty nice thing.
Hopefully the tie ups next week which have been well flagged don't fall flat and for sure many people will hate it because unlike life, a dramatic end is always stilted. I have loved this series and excited to see how it concludes.
The Lost Daughter (2021)
Maybe some people are like this
There are some great studies of the human condition which are engaging and narrative thread is not the key reward. This film is a classically academic movie which takes a person who is not reflective of many of us and hones in with some precision on particular characteristics. The audience is supposed to feel at least recognition if not empathy with that person, perhaps seeking to excuse or embrace these foibles. The characters here are not representative of most viewers but the luvvies will fawn over the whole obscurity of it all and the lack of much happening because that would get in the way of languorous cinemaaaaa.
The Unusual Suspects (2021)
Weak, over hyped by reviewers
I truly hate negative reviews, they are often people seeking attention. My negativity on this TV show would normally pass but reviewers both here in in the daily papers seem to have given this show a massive boost because it is Australian and comes from one of the public broadcasters. It is in fact a very cliched story of the excesses of the well off overlaid by a story of Filipino people living in Sydney with various immigrant statuses and troubles. The writing is incredibly loose with some stark errors that should have been fact checked or script edited properly.
The story of a rich woman who has her livelihood threatened is wildly overacted by Miranda Otto and there is no indication of any actual connection between her and her children and husband. That may have been a legitimate narrative, but removes completely their agency in the family and is completely without nuance. Her real life husband and sometime love interest here, Peter O'Brien, is far more engaging, but again the lack of nuance and lazy writing relegates him to a silent movie villain, just a surprise we didn't have speech cards to reinforce how we were supposed to feel about him. Her character's actions during the caper could have been dealt with more subtly had the writers not bothered to go down the most obvious path.
The caper ties up very nicely at the end, but that is not enough to justify having sat through the previous 3.5 hours. Over boosted by the press and the reviewers here, there are much better ways to while away a lockdown.
Black Monday (2019)
Not nearly as funny as it actually was
There were plenty of poisonous players in the 80's, but oddly for a comedy they have missed the humour. Jokes in this pastiche of cliche are aimed at people used to a laugh track, they are signposted and lazy. Some of the trading stuff is close to what might have happened but not much of it. If Mo was such a killer trader why did he panic in episode 2 and not double down on the position to squeeze the shorts? Starve them of the repo and push the stock well higher. Shame the writer is skipping the good stories for the ones they have decided people might snap up.
Roma (2018)
An a extremely well made thoroughly unenjoyable film
A noble and heartfelt curio of power relationships and acceptance of adversity that I never want to see again. The black and white cinematography emphasises a foreboding and lack of release that blankets this film from the first frame to the last.
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Idi (Forrest) great, movie is trash
Peole who go to movies surprise me by their ignorance time and time again. This movie covers the mood of an era and conveys the character of Idi Amin Dada really well, but the framework of the story is a totally fictionalized potboiler. People, please note almost everything you see that is supposed to be behind the scenes in the film did not happen! Other similar stuff might have, but this is not history.
Folk on this site have given the movie 8 or more because it is a good historical fiction, and then go on to comment how much more satisfying the movie could have been if they had done it properly. That in my mind makes this a mediocre move. Forrest is great, but at the end of the day he is imitating a very well documented person, with untold hours of historical material to work from.
In my mind a movie with as many fundamental flaws as this one does not deserve to be called great. Clearly the academy agrees as it has no director or picture nod. A bloke who is being another bloke is not acting he is impersonating, but how often does the academy award that! I just hope this year's winner is one of the actors who actually acts.That being said Will Smith and Forrest Whittaker do great impersonations in their nominated roles this year.
L'outremangeur (2003)
Modern Fairy Tale
For those reviewers who did not notice, did the content not strike you as somewhat familiar. This is a brilliant retelling of Beauty and the Beast, right down to the symbolism of the rose petals. Unsurprisingly some of the characterisation is a little stilted.
Eric Cantona is the best footballer I have ever seen, and was outstanding in the detective/beast role. His transformation happens in a pleasantly measured way. Ooh, aah, Cantona!
Rachida Brakni, of Moroccan descent, is truly cast as a "belle". As the constraints of the original force her to fall for the beast we are pretty certain she and the detective will eventually find something in each other. It is, however, very well played out and retains tension until the last scene.