Change Your Image
michellepaints
Reviews
Ancients Behaving Badly (2009)
YTV meets the History Channel
I can only assume the History Channel was attempting to reach out to a younger audience with this series. I certainly felt old watching it - comic book illustrations complete with spurting animated blood? Please (and fast forward). Take warning from the title: Ancients Behaving Badly!!! It's a title pulled right from the front page of any celebrity news rag.
I give it a little more credit than the previous (excellent) reviewer did because there was some actual nuggets of real information. The analyzing of battle strategies and reconstruction of some of the weapons and fighting methods was actually informative. Apart from that it was like watching Hamlet rewritten by a teenage drama club: "Yo Yorick! He was my bro Horatio!"
Falling (2005)
Novelist Daisy moves to the country after an unfortunate second marriage. She falls for local man Henry Kent, a charming sociopath.
This is a disturbing story, that in the hands of a less skilled director and cast may have ended up looking like an American TV movie of the week (banal and predictable). Penelope Wilton and Michael Kitchen deliver beautifully nuanced performances and the story is such that the outcome isn't what we've been conditioned to think it will be. As Daisy is falling for Henry and one is listening to Henry's inner dialogs, it's difficult not to agree aloud with the warnings of her friends, and hard to imagine that someone of Daisy's intelligence can't see through his facade. One is forced to separate what Daisy sees with what the audience hears - clever that. Thankfully, Penelope Wilton and Michael Kitchen are both actors of impressive depth and and subtlety and their motivations are easy (if not easily internalized to our own experiences) to understand.
What I enjoyed the most about this movie is that the apparent emotional frailty that Daisy embodies is turned around in a satisfying way when she discovers the truth about Henry's manipulations and faces off with him, forcing him to give the ground. Huzzah Daisy (and well done Penelope Wilton)! The violence and need for control underlying Henry's character is most disturbing and should be what viewers remember about Michael Kitchen's clever, insightful portrayal of Henry. Remember - with a view to learning from and being conscious of. Although we've seen Henry's memories and ought to be prepared for physical violence, Daisy's shock and sense of betrayal is touchingly rendered in her response. Her ability to take charge and "rise above" when the viewer expects her to meekly submit or run off is the crowning moment of this film and why I would rate it an eight out of ten.