Reviews

I don't know why I watched it after seeing the low ratings. It may have been curiosity or the presence of a good cast (I love Rhea Seehorn from Better call saul). But it was a total waste of two hours. The authors had nothing new or interesting to say. Each twist was entirely predictable. Why do people get funding to shoot such a bad story is beyond me.

Horse Girl is unfortunately marketed as a quirky, surreal romantic comedy. The elements are all there: an aloof protagonist waiting to blossom, Sarah, played by an outstanding Alison Brie; a boss/friend/maternal figure/dispenser of good advice, played by Molly Shannon; a shy, good natured love interest, played by John Reynolds; plus the pretty mean flatmate with her jock boyfriend and a few more minor characters to entertain us. From the beginning we understand that she is peculiar, has no friends, lost her mother, and loves horses. In fact, she's obsessed with one horse in particular that she used to own but had to sell for some unexplained reason (possibly an accident?). Sarah spends most of her time in a fantasy world, obsessively watching a Buffyesque TV show called Purgatory. At some point, she starts having strange dreams, from which she wakes up finding herself in unusual places, such as in the middle of the road wearing a nightgown. Through her flatmate's boyfriend she meets a nice guy who falls for her and asks her out, so that we, the audience, are led to believe that her lonely life may have a happy ending. Unfortunately, that's when trouble begins. I'm not goign to spoil the rest of the film for those who haven't watched it, but the only thing I want to say is that it was really badly marketed (by Netflix or whoever). This film is not a comedy; it's a silent, understated tragedy; a study of slow, irreparable descent into mental illness. Sarah is one of those unreliable narrators that are so fashionable these days, so it is hard to discern what is true from what's part of her imagination, who is real and who's not. But one thing is for sure: she is ill, she needs help, and she has no one to give it to her. After one of her episodes, she tells a doctor about her mentally ill grandma (whom she ends up believing she's a clone of) and how she was kicked out of a mental hospital due to lack of funding and ended up dying alone and homeless - something that may as well happen to Sarah. The film subtly criticises capitalist neoliberal individualist america, but never quite makes a strong enough statement for everyone to grasp. Overall, I liked this movie, even though I cannot say I enjoyed watching it. It surely left an impression on me and I would recommend it to people, as long as they understand what it is they are about to watch.

What makes us watch films? We want to be moved, scared, entertained, or simply engaged. At times we achieve catharsis, but in any case we always expect the filmmaker to have something new and interesting to say. Baumbach could have given us a new perspective on divorce or engaged us emotionally, especially given his personal experience, but he failed to dig deep enough. The problem is that in trying to be somehow objective and presenting the story from both perspectives he fails to explore the inner workings of either character. We see what is happening to them but we cannot feel it. It's like listening to a guy you just met in a pub talking about his devastated love life. You can feel sorry for him, but after a while you just want to get back to your business. The most obvious comparison, Kramer vs Kramer was a bit of a melodrama, but it had something new to say, as it was questioning traditional parental roles. Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage gave us a precise dissection of the ego of its two protagonists and showed us new depths of human psyche. The war of the Roses was as far fetched as it was hilarious, but represented a cautionary tale for all those who do not choose to split up amicably. What did marriage story give us after two and a half long long hours? We find out that divorcing is not pleasant and that divorce lawyers say nasty things. The only reason we end up feeling sorry for the couple is that because of their expensive lawyers they are going broke. They are supposed to fight for their kid's custody, but we never really feel their love for the kid. We have to believe that they care because that's what's parents do, but from what I see I don't understand why adam driver simply didn't go back to his life in New York. As per the acting, to me it looks like good but not outstanding improvisation. Adam driver could pull convincing facial expressions, but he seems to have lost his charm, while Scarlett Johansson tries so hard to deliver her monologues in an oscar worthy fashion but looks like she's acting all the time. I really don't understand Hollywood's obsession with Baumbach and his partner Greta Gerwig. I find them so dull and boring. Maybe you have to be a millennial to get their movies.

In the 2012 male dominated world of TV shows, Girls has been a welcomed addition. The fact that its main character is also the show's creator, writer and often director, makes it even more welcome. But, as an avid consumer of films and TV, I cannot rate Girls more than 6 (and I am being generous for the previous reasons). The most obvious comparisons to Lena Dunham's "Girls" is Sex & the City, both because of its 4 female leads living in NYC , and because of the emphasis on friendship and relashionsips. However, to me, Girls is more similar to any mumblecore movie (think Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha) or to a certain extent TV shows like Freak and Geeks or Love (unsurprisingly, Judd Apatow is an exec producer). Ordinary stories about ordinary people with ordinary feelings and ordinary ideas who somehow believe to be extraordinary. The show is well crafted, the acting is good, and the characters are believable, but like the whole mumblecore genre, it is too focused on the inner life of middle class, self obsessed, ordinary people and so it risks to be just as boring as the people it tries to portray. I do applaud Lena Dunham's courage in exposing her imperfect naked body and inner psychological issues, especially given the abuse she had to go through (even on this website with some of the reviews gratuitously cruel). However, I doubt that is enough to make good TV for a sustained period of time. Interestingly for a show written by a girl for other girls, the male characters (Adam, Ray) are a lot more interesting and have a lot more life in them than any of the female characters, except for Hannah. While the boys in the show have interests and thoughts,the girls are defined by their relationships with men (or lack thereof). We learn more about the internal life and motivations of a marginal character like Thomas John in his two minute monologue than about Marnie or Jessa during the entire first season. It's true that except for Carrie, the characters in sex & the city were also fairly thin, but that show was a hell of a lot more fun. Finally, since Lena Dunham is now heralded as the bulwark of modern feminism, does it really matter if the writer/director/producer of a show is a woman when the female characters she creates are so thin?

PKD's work has been ransacked by film and TV producers for decades. Some adaptations are great, some good, and some not so much. Same goes for the episodes in electric dreams. It's hard to understand whether differences in quality are due to the original story, its adaptation, the cast and crew, or simply personal taste, but the disparity is undeniably there. Real life is a good idea, but underdeveloped, in that we (the audience) cannot really buy the final choice. Also, the sex scene is completely unnecessary. It's not as bad as the one in autofac at least, but if the producers think that they need to spice things up with a bit of sex to attract more viewers, then maybe they should spend more money on developing a good script. Impossible Planet was quite good, but the screenwriters changed the story and the ending without really adding much, and made it actually less believable. 'Human is' has the best direction and a glorious Bryan Cranston who gets to act two different parts. By contrast, the direction in Crazy Diamond is just too arty and, despite the beautiful photography and masterful acting, we never really care too much about any of the characters or how the plot unfolds. The hoodmaker is a jewel and robb stark is super hot in his native scottish accent. Safe and Sound was nearly perfect, with its typical dickian paranoia exploited to the max. Anyone familiar with PKD's writing would have known exactly where the episode was going, but that did not make it any less enjoyable. And then, someone had the ingenuous idea to add an extra couple of minutes to explain the ending! Seriously?! I still have a few to watch but so far, I think it deserves an 8.

JG Ballard's book High Rise is a dystopian masterpiece. It is a small book, less than 200 pages, in which words are used sparingly, and yet manages to paint vivid pictures in your head. It starts with Laing eating a dog, as if that was the natural conclusion of all the events that preceded it, and then takes you on that journey during which all human of all decency is replaced by tribal, basic survival instincts. Ben Wheatley's film is well acted and atmospheric. It is also wonderfully photographed and choreographed, but it ultimately fails to convince the audience about the inevitability of its ending. The pace is wrong. The audience is not shown the importance of the supermarket or the car incidents, and the tenants' behaviour spirals out of control too quickly to be believable. Everything happens in the first 45 minutes, so the remaining hour becomes dull and boring. The book was a dark portrayal of human nature. It convinces us that we are only a few bad incidents away from cold blooded murders and incest. The film is perhaps too faithful to the book to convey the same meaning. To me, it feels as though Wheatley respected the source material so much he failed to change it where necessary to accommodate a different medium. It's similar to what Linklater did with a scanner darkly (which I loved, but not as much as the book... of course), for which he seemed to take full scenes from the book without providing a meaningful synthesis. As someone who read the book and appreciated all the details, I still enjoyed watching the movie, and I am sure I will watch it again, but with a different mindset, considering it as a piece of art. But I can see why people who were not familiar with the material could not appreciate it, and I find it a real shame.