Come on, 7.9/10? Really? Confused and chaotic version of the novel. Probably nectar for the feminist, right-on, leftist, holier-than-men lobby but a poor movie. We were really looking forward to seeing it but ten minutes in and each of us wondering if we would be the one to say something first. Rubbish!
Reviews
5 Reviews
The Land of Steady Habits
(2018)
Liked it despite...
30 September 2018
I liked it despite it being somewhat less than uplifting and some shortcomings with the characterisations of some of the cast. No, maybe not too many of the characters were likeable but then that's very like life - well, mine after more than fifty years - and I did care what happened to them. Worth seeing.
Britannia
(2017–2021)
Intriging mystery
21 January 2018
The intriguing mystery is what anyone has seen that is of value in this dreadful production. The historical accuracy thing is in many respects neither here nor there for me but I suppose would have been nice for those that care (quite a few, by all accounts) It is just about everything else that bothers me. Casting (David Morrissey transplanted straight from The Walking Dead in which he was crap) Dialogue (speaking like we do today doesn't I'm afraid make it 'relevant', it just squashes flat the escapist element which I would have thought an essential ingredient for a series of this genre) Wonky camera angles (really?, come on) Swimmy, foggy out-of-body experiences (mostly pointless padding) PC-ness (it's all very nice giving everyone a fair go but it didn't happen did it?) But we mustn't forget that it was made by Jez Butterworth who has done some great stuff before, ergo, this must be great stuff. Quite astonished by most media reviews, must be me.
The Living and the Dead
(2016)
Could have been good - but isn't
26 July 2016
Sadly like so much that the BBC and British producers in general make now it doesn't know what it is supposed to be, the result being that it isn't anything at all. Perhaps that it's just that British producers simply don't have the budget but I am sure that some of the truly great British TV of the last forty years or so were produced on a shoestring. Back to the series in question. The reliance on what has gone before is simply not good enough today. One can hear poorly-disguised Hardyesque dialogue oozing out in almost every scene and it devalues the writer's credibility and seriously undermines the actors' performances. Possibly the worst offence so far was poor Charlotte Spencer's line to the assembled farm workers about her commitment to her new role as farm manager. I can't really be bothered to look back at what the words were exactly but they so cringingly close to Hardy's Bathsheba Everdine's 'I shall be up before you're awake...' etc, etc, speech that I felt sorry for the actress delivering the lines. The writer really should have tried harder. The flashes of 21st century images are not to my taste so can't really objectively comment but for the record it just seems to be another layer of 'mystery' that is not required if you get the others right. the costume department has gone for it but unfortunately it just seems so unlikely that the new mistress would be (badly, I might add) tossing hay in such an new, immaculate and complete late 1800's outfit. Costumes also do not really help out the very, very familiar faces of the workers who look like they were assembled on set and asked to raid the dressing up box in five minutes before shooting started. The thing is, if the substance is not there, accuracy in other departments can carry it along if you are lucky. at the moment the Americans are doing all the right things (in a very general sense) while us Brits are going backwards fast. Come on, sort it out guys and gals !!!
War Horse
(2011)
Spielberg or Disney?
20 May 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Wow, what an incredible let down this film was. I hardly know where to start but here goes. Horses and foals do not constantly whinny and wicker and generally make a noise all of the time. All males, young and old whether in the army or not had their hair cut VERY short, pudding basin style at that time. Thatch has NEVER been laid on shallow pitched roofs anywhere, the water wouldn't run off and it would rot very quickly. You cannot plough a field with huge gaps between the furrows and then somehow go back and fill them in, creating a perfectly ploughed field. You cannot plough ground that clearly has no soil on it. Soft pliable soil does not ever appear on a previously barren hard stony field even after a shower of rain. Chucking handfuls of some kind of seed into holes made with a stout stick will not ever produce the neat regimented rows of any crop that we saw on the 'Dartmoor' farm. The film sets looked just like film sets, the cottage was particularly poor, I think possibly the same set director / designer that 'designed' 'Larkrise' and 'Candleford' had been at work. Rubbish. The Old man and his 'Allo Allo' granddaughter seemed to be living in the mill vacated by Caractacus Potts and his family in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You CAN and often DO put a heavy horse collar on upside down and rotate it around a horses neck just under the jaw before settling it on the shoulder, I know, I've done it. One night of rain wouldn't uproot a field of turnips or anything else for that matter AND if they really had been uprooted fully developed as seemed to be the case in the film the rain would have done them a huge favour. Mills didn't tend to be unattended overnight, they were hugely valuable pieces of equipment and a miller would have been on site at all times. Aside from this small selection of hundreds of pretty daft technical / historical / factual errors the film was almost totally lacking in real passion or feeling. I was expecting to be hiding my watery eyes from my wife and family - I am very soft when it comes to animals - but I couldn't have cared less by the end. Really poor Mr Spielberg, my title might even be a bit of a slur on Disney.
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