Change Your Image
barryriley-1
Reviews
Among Those Present (1921)
Decent Lloyd flick
Poor Neil Doyle who switched off after half the film; he missed the best part of the movie - Lloyd with no trousers. How society has changed since the days when a man with bare legs was enough to send women into a faint (I write as I sit on the beach in just a pair of trunks!).
The scene the lion also comic gold. Was it Woody who reprised this scene with an octopus?
Not one of Lloyd's best but still enough great moments to make it worthwhile (although it does come as a shock when Lloyd's character is given the name O'Reilly at the end!).
Lost in Translation (2003)
Lost in Translation
The main problem with this film is the lack of chemistry between the two principals who never convince that there is any true feeling between them. The script is also to blame since they never get to say anything to each other but meaningless snippets of dialogue. Compare with the masterly "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" where you believe in those characters and in their mutual affection.
The party scenes were also lame (the Japanese seem to be a cool breed and yet we, the audience, never were allowed to enter to enter their world as the main characters patently did) and the one joke ("hey let's take the p*ss out of the Japs!!") soon began to tire and appear quite offensive.
The hypocrisy of the leads characters (being sweet to their spouses while angling for sex) was also a great turnoff (as if was not for me in "Before Sunset") simply because we are never given the chance to feel any warmth for this pair of insomniacs.
All in all a good idea badly executed.