Reviews

It's a strange movie, but I would heartily recommend it to people who either like or love Neil Young and are interested in experimental cinema. The story is thin (but there is one), yes, but it's definitely a mind-affecting experience.

The thing I took away from it most (apart from the obvious ecological message, but that's always been a theme of Young's) was the stylistic choice to film most of the scenes in extra-grainy Super 8, but to insert these highly-produced segments from (fictional) TV news stations and the like. It's a simple message, but a good one: Young's trying to tell us that the world we see on TV, even the allegedly real world of news, isn't real, and that we trust it at our peril. The real world is shaky, and blurry, and hard to make out sometimes. Anything that looks slick, and easy to understand, is probably fake.

Budikavlan hasn't seen the end of season 1, which explains him not understanding why Percy seems the same age as she did in season 1. Overall, this show is something of an improvement on the first season: the effects are better, the writing remains at a fairly high level, and most of the acting is better.

Don't watch it unless you're prepared to see restrained acting, though. Allen, Robertson and the rest of the cast fit the Canadian mold of understated acting perfectly.

Don't get me wrong; Carrey's an excellent comic. However, he has made a habit of appearing in terrible movies and almost saving them. This is the exception.

The Mask is a comic book movie, something many people are unaware of. Carrey was perfectly cast as the main character: a boring no-name who discovers a magical mask that makes him invulnerable and extremely extroverted. Most of the jokes are directed at teenagers; this is a really funny film for about age 14-25 or so, plus other people who remember the horror of puberty. The humour tends to focus on Ipkiss' attempts to reintegrate the extroverted character into his own life, while trying to clean up the mess that the Mask character tends to leave lying around, and avoid getting killed.

If you're a Carrey fan, watch this movie. If you're not, maybe you should anyway. If you passionately hate him, including his standup, then avoid it like the plague.

This is a bad romantic comedy/action flick in the Lethal Weapon mold. All of the main characters are out of that strange Hollywood universe; however, John Lithgow and Donald Sutherland both turn in exceptional performances, and save the film, except for the times when they're not on the screen. See it if you're a film of Lithgow and/or Sutherland, avoid it otherwise.

I watch this show most of the time. It's erratic, but I like it a lot anyway.

The producers seem to have relatively little idea of what kind of show they want to do. It's now in its third season, and it appears to have gone to heroic fantasy. (Any episodes you see Dar having a sword, they're all third season. And he puts up quite a protest around it, but you'd have to actually watch the show to see it.) Last season would be better characterized as a sort of low-level high fantasy, where most of the emphasis was on complex relationships between all the different characters. And a lot of the first season was a (tragic) love story.

The acting is great, but it's very much in a particular style. It's an understated style that shows up a lot in Canadian productions (it's a Canada-Australia joint production).

But the best part is: They kill characters. Major characters. Not many of them, but people actually die. The storyline moves on. I get really tired of watching adventure shows with no threat of death. It's pretty much a given that Dar won't die (or they'd have to rename the show) but everybody else, except for gods (none of which have made appearances, unlike in a show like Xena) and some of the demigod-level characters (I'm thinking of The Ancient One) has been fair game. It helps make the show exciting, which is the whole point of adventure, right?

The acting style's not for everyone, but if you like it, watch the show. The stories are generally pretty well-written, and the show's got guts.