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Ammonite (2020)
An insult to paleontologists, geologists, historians, lesbians and women in general
Director and producer of this travesty, Francis Lee, apparently said that with this film he wanted to give Mary Anning "the relationship she deserved", to which I say; What did the poor woman ever do to you?
If anyone don't understand why this is a massive insult to Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison, just imagine a film made about any famous historical man portrayed in this way. It'd be ridiculous to take say, George Cuvier or Charles Darwin and completely eject all their scientific endeavors from a film about them in favor of injecting a fictional and unrealistic gay love story into their lives, complete with an explicit sex scene that looks more like the work of a sweaty teenage boy than a respected filmmaker. The very notion would be deemed absurd if it was a male scientist, but with women it's apparently OK.
The real Mary Anning was a huge pioneer within paleontology, made even more remarkable by the fact that she was both a woman, and working class in a time where nearly all other scientists and their institutions were exclusive to men from the upper class. But the film doesn't really showcase any of it, all her amazing scientific work is shoved to the far background whilst the writer/director seems far more interested in speculating what Mary Anning's sex life was like.
Now, Francis Lee is a gay man himself, and I liked his previous film, God's own Country, which I thought handled the trials of gay men in a small town excellent, but what Francis Lee seems to have failed to realize is that in using famous historical women to tell a gender-swapped version of God's own country, instead of a progressive gay drama he plays into massively sexist notions that women's professional work doesn't matter and the most interesting about them is their sexual and romantic relationships, and the idea that women can't have platonic relationships worth telling stories about, they need to be sexual.
Not only does the film greatly reduce the work of Mary Anning, but Charlotte Murchison, in the film portrayed as a just a bored housewife that needs to have her depression cured by romance, was a competent geologist in her own right, but this is COMPLETELY ignored in this film. Also ignored was the fact that people couldn't just have casual lesbian relationships and kiss openly without fear of consequences in 1800s England, and treating it as such does all real lesbians who had to stay in the closet or be forced into loveless marriages for the sake of appearances a great disservice.
And it's not even a good romance between them, both main actresses look bored throughout and I literally saw more chemistry between the protagonist and a fossilized ichtyosaur than with her co-actor.
If you want a good lesbian historical drama, just watch Gentleman Jack instead, if you just want to see Kate Winslet topless, just watch Titanic instead,
and if you want a good film about paleontologist Mary Anning... well, I can't think of a good film about that, but you certainly won't find it in Ammonite.
Der Überläufer (2020)
A touching drama, despite the blocky start
This is partially a story about the meaninglessness of war, and partially a story about star-crossed lovers, but the main theme recurring through both deals with the protagonist's inner conflicts as he winds up changing allegiances multiple times throughout, sometimes through choice, sometimes necessity.
Now, it really requires a lot of suspension of disbelief in the beginning of the story to buy that a German soldier and a woman in the resistance would be able to both sneak off from their duties and none of their fellow soldiers on either side noticing, but if you can look past this, this is a well-produced and well acted drama that manages well to depict the cruelty of war and tough choices without feeling gratuitous or cliched, though the ending is rather ambiguous and will leave you thinking.
The Name of the Rose (2019)
A classic mystery ruined by awful additions
It seems the creators of this adaption thought so little of their audience that they couldn't imagine they would want to watch a mystery set in a monastery without adding a bunch of female nudity and big battle scenes.
This series if full of unnecessary filler material, and all of it feels like it was tacked on by an edgy teenage boy, and it takes a particularly strong combination of woman-hating and homophobia to decide to add a bunch of gratuitous scenes of sexual assault and undressed women being tortured and killed just to show how evil the bad guys are, none of which was in the original story, but look at the homosexual relationships between monks, which was in the book and a big part of the characters motivations, and decide that those things don't need to be shown and just mentioned in passing, and carefully avoid showing the private parts of any male actors.
And that's not digging into the can of worms of portraying the main antagonist, the inquisitor, as mentally ill and his fanaticism as some sort of psychosis. Not only is it a gross cliche, but there are literal Disney villains who have managed to deal with themes of religion, misogyny and bigotry in a more subtle and nuanced manner.
Furthermore, the series is full of stupid mistakes, like the characters discussing a brown horse but the camera clearly showing a black horse, and in the final episode, the big narrative climax, was left filled with horrible green-screen effects just to mention the most egregious ones, but the series has plenty of plot holes and confusing flashbacks created by the added subplots not present in the book.
Lastly, while the supporting cast was decent with what material they were given, John Turturro was terrible as the main character. He's supposed to be a person so bright and colorful that the narrator follows him across all of Europe just because he's that interesting, but Turturro fades into the background of every scene he's in and is overshadowed by everyone else on the set, and that includes the previously mentioned horse.
There are only one saving grace to this series, there are some pretty shots of the landscapes and environments that are beautifully lit and atmospheric, but that alone cannot save a story ruined by terrible subplots and questionable decisions.
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Rather disappointing, but at least the effects were good
I started watching this film expecting a dark comedy centered on the twisted effects on the magical potion mentioned in the poster, and it delivers... ...about two thirds into the movie. Leading up to it is a drawn out shallow love triangle drama that's not particularly interesting and could have benefited from being shortened down without really losing much of either the plot or the comedy. Some of the comedy also have questionable humor, and it's not something I'd recommend for survivors of domestic abuse for one, but I wouldn't place this move in the same category as comedies that intentionally bank on being shocking and offensive , and the main message is centered on satirizing unhealthy obsession with looks and youth.
The highlight of the movie i definitively when we see the two main characters fight one another after drinking the magical elixir and we see it's full effects on them (and the special effects are fantastic for a film from the 90s) while they simultaneously offer up some witty banter, but everything towards the end of the story feels rushed and the final scene, while meant to be comical, instead just felt disturbing with both main heroines seemingly stuck in a terrible situation impossible to get out of.
All in all, if you'd already seen a few clips on the scenes with the big special effects, I wouldn't say that you'd gain much from seeing the rest of the movie.
Les femmes de l'ombre (2008)
Misogynistic fantasies that does not make the real heroines of WW2 justice
First and most importantly, this movie was strongly criticized by female resistance veterans who were actually there in WW2; in the Telegraph article titled Sophie Marceau's New Film Sparks Resistance, veteran Denise Vernay literally said that "This film is worse than if they had done nothing" and "I am very sorry that it was made at all, especially at a time when those generations watching it who didn't know the war can no longer differentiate between the reality of our commitment and these ridiculous women portrayed in the film" and judging by the positive reviews thinking this movie is based on real history, she was sadly right.
To anyone still thinking that this is a respectful portrayal of the female agents of WW2 I ask, can you sincerely imagine a movie based on a group of male agents depicting them as a group of strippers and prostitutes blackmailed into becoming agents, followed by a bunch of torture scenes where we see naked or half-naked men crying, screaming and begging for mercy and a scene where a man about to take his own life strips naked for the camera for no reason whatsoever before killing himself? All of this happens to the women in this film and NONE of it has any basis in the real lives of the real heroines this movie is ostensibly based on.
If you look up the real lives of agents like Andrée Borrel and Noor Inayat Khan, you will see that they joined out of their own convictions and their captors and interrogators described them as remaining strong and defiant until the very moment of their death, but most insulting of all, Lise de Baissac, whom the protagonist in the movie is supposed to be based on, is depicted in the movie as having lost her unborn child as a result of being captured and tortured, which never happened to her in reality, and all in all it feels like the writers of this movie are unable to comprehend the idea of women wanting to fight out of patriotism just as any man, and likewise working under the sexist assumption that trauma in women's lives "doesn't count" unless you add a bunch of sexual assault and/or them losing their ability to have babies, not to mention a ridiculous double standard in how the director tiptoes around male nudity yet sees now problem in showing a bunch of pointless full frontal female nudity, even scenes supposed to be sad and traumatic wind up sexualized and sometimes bordering the pornographic instead because of this.
My younger and more ignorant self maybe could have given this movie a somewhat higher rating for at least trying to showcase the women fighting in WW2, but looking back and comparing these misogynistic fantasies with the real lives of the real women serving, I can only agree with Denise Vernay in that this film is worse than if they had done nothing.
Das Boot (1981)
A timeless masterpiece well worth all the praise
It's hard to say something that has not already been said of this film, but if I were to try, I would say that it succeeds brilliantly at being an anti-war movie not because it shows the violence in war, but because it doesn't.
Instead the Das Boot is centered around the everyday life of the submarine crew, but it manages to capture the ennui without ever feeling boring, and it shows the men as real flawed and vulnerable people rather than stoic heroes with anything undignified edited out, and by doing so, the one and only time the film shows any violence up close, rather than having already been desensitized by it, it hits the viewer with the full shock and impact of the events and makes you feel the true horror and meaninglessness of the war in a way no other film I have ever seen has.
Das Boot (2018)
A terrible attempt at portraying grey morality, just trivializes the brutality instead
I have seen plenty of bad war dramas and terrible attempts at grimdark before, yet the first season of this series still managed be surprising with how bad it was in these aspects. However, against all odds, season 2, having changed writer and director, felt like a wholly different, better, series.
To start from the beginning, there are media that tries to show all the brutality of war upfront, and there are media that also tries to show that not all Germans in WW2 were monsters, but the first season of this series is neither, it's a sad mess that set up a ridiculously contrived scenario in order to show members of the submarine crew the series follows commit rape and have Jewish civilians killed only to immediately gloss over it like it was nothing and expect us to still root for them, as if it was all just a random minor mistake and not a severe war crime, and the side plot centered on the resistance is not much better, it quickly devolves into the world's worst love triangle with unsympathetic heroes and a cliched villain.
I have seen plenty of people complain that it's bad a bad series because of political correctness gone mad due to the series having several prominent female characters and minorities, but I'd say season 1 is the stark opposite, because the only purpose of all the female characters on the show is to either show boobs, get raped and die right afterwards or be part of a terribly written love triangle, and at the end it got bad enough that I was asking how this script could possibly get approved, and that's not even mentioning all the other plot holes.
In short, season one is a giant insult to anyone wanting to see strong female characters, an equally big insult to those wanting to see a good portrayal of the men manning the submarines and their struggles, but most of all it's an insult to those who liked the original 1981 masterpiece unfortunate enough to share the same title.
In contrast, season 2 feels as if the producers somehow actually listened to critiques similar to the ones above and made several important changes. Firstly, there are no rape scenes or gratuitous misogyny, and whilst still violent, season two does limit the worst scenes to characters important to the story, actually cuts away from scenes of torture/interrogation rather than reveling in it, kills off several bad characters in order to make room for people you can actually root for and want to see succeed, and just about the entire nasty and hateful grimdark shtick from season one is more or less gone. Plus they even throw in some fanservice for female viewers too.
HOWEVER, season 2 still has problems with plot holes and nonsensical character decisions, and it's far from certain the positive changes will remain in season 3 and the second season is still attached to a just absolutely horrible first season. If the first season in a definite one star rating, the second is about a 6. In short, it's basically an awful series that got followed up by a more or less decent one, but I have no wish to watch more.