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chrisbedford
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Freelance (2023)
So many lost opportunities
Decent comedy outline and some really plausible performances but oh what a load of lazy writing. They even went to the trouble of getting a language coach for Marton Csokas and he does a fairly believable job of his "South African" accent (well, one that non-South Africans will believe, anyway).
Major plot holes. Lots of major plot holes. And the tragedy is they aren't even material to the story and could have - for the most part - been covered with a few lines of dialogue or some slightly better writing. But no, they left them in to jar you out of your immersion and remind you it's just a damn movie.
Clichéd characters aside, this could have been a lot more enjoyable. Instead it was just disappointing.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
Not so much a film as a compendium of short films
...And not so much short films as short story readings sort-of acted out against a low-budget backdrop of deliberately obvious stage sets in an old-fashioned 4x3 TV screen format.
It's really just an audiobook of the full text of Dahl's book, with bare minimum (and quite unnecessary) visuals. The acting is quite engaging, in a sort of deadpan melodrama parody way, and the cast is quite the collection of British stars - but it doesn't quite do it for me. Comes across as sort of a Saturday afternoon project with rather too little effort expended.
It's fine, I suppose, if you can't find anything more interesting. Like a replay of a 2nd division football match from the start of the 1982 season. But for my money I'd rather re-read the book and let my imagination draw the pictures.
Good Sam (2022)
Needed better writing
The flawed underlying premise notwithstanding, they could have made this a lot better with more plausible storylines. But too many gaping plot holes and flimsy situations turned it into a teen melodrama. More like a soap opera than a proper prime time drama and it looks like the network agreed - no evidence it has been renewed so far. It's not likely to be sorely missed.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
What a bore
Two hours of contrived (as they all are) martial arts and property destruction with the poor writing poorly camouflaged by constant shifting between scenes. There's a story, sort of, but it's more of a heavy-handed and very long drawn-out parable, or rather as one character says, it's all just swirling bucket of bulls#!t. How anyone gave this more than two stars - how I managed to sit through the whole thing - I'll never understand.
Also it's completely unfunny despite the desperate, relentless attempts at humour almost all the way through. Seriously tedious. Watch at your own peril.
Little Italy (2018)
Cheesy
Runs the gamut of cliches. You only have to read the blurb to know how the story is going to run and how it's going to end - even to the details you can predict along the way as you get to know the characters.
Which is not to say it isn't a fun diversion and a great way to spend a Sunday night as long as you are happy to suspend belief and go with the flow for an hour and a half. Some pretty faces to look at, some nice characters to smile with. Even the feuding fathers are objectionable in a charming way. Enjoy.
The Beastmaster (1982)
Cheesy effects, terrible makeup, absurd costumes, worse acting
I remember being quite impressed with this movie when I saw it on theatrical release. But I was young and easily impressed then. But nearly forty years have passed and it's now just sadly dated.
The story line is fairly formulaic - at least in the beginning - and predictable. But it does have a strong hero, some heavy-duty hand-to-hand combat, magic, and semi-naked young women, so there's that. Plus of course adventure. Watch it if you have nothing better to do, by which I mean no homework, paint to watch drying, or trolls to bait on Twitter. Break it up into 20-minute episodes, I found it more watchable that way.
A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Not complete awful
...but very close.
Overwrought, overlong, and overcome with a sense of its own importance.
Even given the melodrama, it could have been made a whole lot more watchable with just some tighter editing - too much of the movie is taken up with standing around talking, and long dramatic pauses that instead of adding to the tension just make it BORING.
I got the impression that this film, if not intended to be an update of Never-ending Story, was at least inspired by it; either way, the intention is clearly to be for older kids and of course the accompanying adults. But most kids - of any age - are going to be bored out of their minds, and their parents are not likely to be any more engaged.
One or two good lines (Zach Galifianakis's "Thank you. Earth tones" in reply to a compliment on his outfit comes to mind); the three leading ladies ("The Misses") all can be good, but not with these bad parts; the diversity of the cast was unusual, and commendable, and I liked it; the leading kids were all decent actors and nice to look at without being obviously just "eye candy". All wasted though on a highly missable movie.
Crackerjack (1994)
What a crock!
Dialogue: stilted, clichéd; Acting: hammy, clichéd; Plot: predictable, clichéd.
Just what are Christopher Plummer Nastassia Kinski doing in this "B" rubbish? Plummer was well established decades before this movie was made, Kinski had masterpieces like "Tess" and "Cat People" behind her... Must have been desperate.
The bad guys all have bad-guy accents - *bad* bad-guy accents! (Plummer especially! Where *did* he learn to do "German"?) and most of them have bad-guy sneers as well. The innocent bystanders all overdo their panicking enough to make you laugh. The good guy survives, amongst other things: * a 5" throwing knife buried hilt-deep in his shoulder - just pulls it out and seconds later is using the arm with no difficulty at all; * marines' machine-gun fire (I think someone referred to a .50) in the leg which he sorts out by tying a bandage around his pants leg and thereafter he barely has a limp; * several fist-fights in which he sustains multiple punches to the face as well as being run cranium-first into a door frame; * a fall, backwards, from what looks like the third floor, onto paving, without the slightest sign of a twisted ankle or any other such trifling inconvenience. The script has exactly 3 clever lines, the rest of the time it's all so dull and boring.
OK it's not all bad. Plummer does bring a certain class to his part, and is undoubtedly the best actor in this flick. Of course that doesn't say much, but he can do the callous villain without resorting to the ham techniques most of the villains use here. He delivers his "Ve haff vays and meance" type lines with some menace, but you are always aware you are watching Christopher Plummer acting the villain.
This movie is truly an awful waste of time. The acting, such as it is, is sort of 70's 007 movies wooden line delivery meets Bruce Lee's very obviously faked fight scenes, but it's not even anywhere near as good as either a Roger Moore 007 or a Bruce Lee film. Don't bother.
What a Girl Wants (2003)
Formula, formula, yawn
Pardon me if I've seen this before, but
* free-spirited American goes to * uptight England, where he/she gets * screwed by the underhanded, nasty, back-stabbing Brits, but * wins out in the end anyway
does sound a bit familiar. Oxford Blues is one obvious previous example of the formula (and probably a hundred times better movie) but there are plenty other examples of Hollywood Takes Revenge for Colonialism.
In this case the acting was hammy (just what Colin Firth is doing in this movie is hard to say - probably just hard up), the whole story completely predictable from start to finish, the plot so full of silly holes it got boring - even looked to me like the director was bored.
There were some nice gems. Old Lord Whatsisface waffling pompously on about his chandelier raised a smile, and I enjoyed Lady Dashwood's comment "No hugging! I'm British - we only show affection for dogs and horses" (another American misconception: should have been English, British refers to four quite distinct nations, and the Scots are not noted for showing affection for horses) - but in general this really wasn't much of an anything movie. I normally enjoy escapist pot-boilers as much as the next man but this one tried to... well I'm not sure *what* it tried to do, except show us that the English (with one or two notable exceptions) are a bunch of dirty rotten scoundrels. Yada yada, tell me something you haven't said a hundred times before.
The Constant Gardener (2005)
Very avant garde...
Excellent movie - glad I didn't know before I went that it was a John le Carré, though! I stopped reading his books in the 70s because I simply didn't understand, couldn't work out what was happening in them... either he's improved, or I've gained a couple of IQ points. Anyway, I thought that almost everything about this movie was good.
Almost everything. Why oh why the hand-held cameras? I came out of the cinema feeling seasick! I don't think it adds anything to a movie to make it look like it was shot by your cousin Arthur for his 9th grade English project... and it says something about a director if he feels it is necessary to use a technique that has been tried and discarded several times by many producers over the years - perhaps he thnks he is compensating for something else that his direction, or the script, or the actors, couldn't provide? That's the message that comes across, anyway, even if it's patently not the case.
Please, directors, you have all that wonderful technology (tripods) at your disposal - bloody use it! Don't insult your audience by making them feel like upchucking their popcorn halfway through the flick...