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The Politician's Husband (2013)
House of Cards meets Good Wife but not in a good way
LEt me say first that I am a big fan of both the leads. Tenant will always be Doctor Who for me after Tom Baker and Watson is fantastic. Only problem? We've seen this backroom politic drama before and almost always done better. Whether it is the deliciously evil House of Cards (UK) or in drama form in the Good Wife n the US, so I really wanted a new spin or feel.
Didn't get that. Tenant's motivation are sound, but in no real way would it have happened like this. He either makes a push knowing there will be huge backing or at least have a fail safe. IN this case there were none and he is left to try a back handed way at prominence again through his wife. OK fine. It's well acted, but mostly soulless. The autistic son could have been compelling, but is mostly left for easy emotional pulls later (more on this).
There are non-affairs, political maneuvering that is beneath the intelligence of the film, and too literal analogies between their sex life and their current political status. It seems made for those who get their news from The Sun and can't sit through House of Cards.
My biggest problem is that even with the plodding through 4 hours they ACTUALLY HAD the right ending!! If only they had stopped it after his autistic son gives him the toy at the diner table. It was a complete illustration of how ambition and lies can destroy your soul and your family. He lost everything for nothing and couldn't see all the good around him until it was too late. I almost felt the show vindicated itself with that ending.....
But no. They have to add this strange pc ending where they both are magically in power and she is prime minister and he is on HER cabinet. For shame. The point was not to have her make it to the top and him drag along. It was to show them as both miserable people who have self imposed this upon themselves and we are all worse off for these people in power. What a missed opportunity. Or perhaps England has gotten so nihilistic that it cannot see higher truth anymore?? Ahwell. 5/10
The War of the Worlds (2005)
This may indeed be the worst movie ever created
Normally when I write a review for a movie online, it is for one of three reasons. Either, I have found something exceptionally lacking in a film that otherwise would have been excellent, I feel that the public's perception of a film before viewing it is inaccurate for a number of reasons, or I believe that the purpose or message of a film needs to be clarified or explained with the help of other reviewers. While all of these reasons may appear to be somewhat negative, I find that writing a review that lavishes nothing but praise and statements such as, "This is one of the best films of all time!", does nothing to enlighten a potential viewer on its merits and downsides, nor does it often give reasoning as to why a movie is so good, which should be the point of the review in the first place. With that being said, War of the Worlds is nothing more than a hurried, incompetent attempt at a money grab; piggy-backing its loathsome carcass on the multi-million dollar advertising campaign of the film of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg. Many people will buy this DVD in anticipation of the summer blockbuster and many more poor souls will buy it looking for more material on the same subject. This movie is not even "so bad" that it becomes funny or endearing, rather the audience will be so unbelievably disappointed as to reach the point of anger. Now with most of the insults out of the way, allow me to give some arguments as a warning to those more fortunate than I.
Judging from the cover and the lack of any publicity for this film (I found it as SAM's Club for 8 bucks), I assumed that the cast would be no-names and that the special effects would be nothing too spectacular. Check. This is not a big deal for me, as I find a large budget and an over-reliance on big name stars and SE can diminish an otherwise decent movie. I also did not expect to be blown away by great dialog or a moving score. Check again. What I did hope for was an actual serious attempt at a classic theme and a few alien/battle scenes.
Now, as per IMDb's policy any spoilers must be announced in advance, no matter how small, so here is fair warning. The movie opens with a lot of inane small-talk, followed by a trip to an observatory to look at a red dot. Seriously, it is a pictures of a red dot in a tube. It is very hard to describe every little issue in depth, but by the end of the first ten minutes, the combination of shaky camera-work, spliced scenes, and a LOT of walking begin to frustrate the viewer. However, the costuming is surprisingly not bad and the hope that the pods will reveal something mysterious keeps you going. The next 30 minutes basically go as follows: one of the main characters walks to one of the pods, he looks at the pods and talks to another main character about looking at the pod and it may be hot. They both walk back to town. These walks aren't two seconds or added so that dialog may be exchanged. They are twenty seconds or more and are there simply to add filler to an already bloated three hour movie. In a particularly grueling scene, the main character is shown looking at a pod, then he is shown pacing and panting, then he looks at the pod, then he takes a one minute walk through a field to town, then comes in to town and walks into a building, then he has a cup of coffee and says "Thank you Mary" to a random maid that serves him coffee, then he puts down the coffee and walks out the building, then he walks a minutes through the field and back to the pod. I apologize for the extreme run-on sentence, but it is perhaps the best way to summarize this entire film. Characters speak way too long about mundane things, they walk a lot, they send other people to walk, the camera fluctuates between high speed and slow speed, but for no dramatic effect, simply the camera man is a sophomore at Tech somewhere. The editing is mind-bogglingly bad. People actions make little sense. For instance, when the professor goes to a farmer's house and says that he needs the farmer to give him a ride to town, the farmer stutters and paces around. When the professor says that there is a pod and that men might be trapped inside, the farmer locks him in a shed only to see the professor grab a pitchfork and open the weak shed a second later. Nothing of any consequence of course comes from this entire scene, as the professor runs into the main character a moment later so they can begin their afternoon walk. The entire film feels as if someone at one point had a good idea about making a film, but absolutely no idea how to put that in motion. I have seen better high school video productions. Finally, the special effects are laughable and do nothing to advance the story. I get the feeling that the director really wanted this film to become somewhat of a cult classic of campy garbage. However, it is so awful in technical aspects, and in sheer common sense that it only makes people mad. Avoid this film at all costs.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Fine child acting, poor direction and story. Extremely Overrated.
Before I start my explanation of the above statements, I would like to comment that I am an avid Gregory Peck fan and I have also found his work to be of exceptional quality. This movie is no exception. I have also read Harper Lee's novel of the same name and found it to succeed in every area and every issue that it was trying to portray. Unfortunately, this success did not transfer to film, even with Mr. Peck and a cast of exceptionally talented child-actors. Every aspect of the film, with the exception of Mr. Peck and the children, is lacking, misguided, and often tries to pull at the heartstrings of early 1960's viewers with lame set-ups and other devices used to show one side and one man as being absolutely unerring and without vice. The movie takes a while to develop and for the first half-hour focuses primarily on the children. The children do rather everyday things and converse with each other about nothing of consequence on the film. They finally decide to explore a "haunted house" to see the "maniac" that lives within it. While I felt that this avenue might lead somewhere, nothing of any consequence, albeit a small meeting with the maniac at the end of the film, came of this rather long and drawn out plot line. Next, we see that Mr. Peck, who portrays a compassionate, strong father and lawyer, is assigned to defend a black man who has supposedly committed a rape of a white female. Subsequent to this, there is never any conversation among Peck and the defendant, no evidence discussed prior to trial, and no real character development of the defendant and even to a larger extent Mr. Peck. We then see a few scattered scenes of the ultra-racist and completely ignorant father-of-the-victim, who tries his best to cause trouble and say dirty things to black people. Though he is shown as mean and stupid, he doesn't do anything particularly characteristic of an enraged racist father, he merely calls Mr. Peck a "ni$%er lover " and spits a lot. You will notice that he is not even with the angry mob that tells Mr. Peck to hand over the prisoner so that they can lynch him. Finally, we arrive at a trial, where it is unbelievable that this case would have even gone to trial based on certain obvious fact that you will see in the movie. In trying to say any more directly involving the film's plot, I would be spoiling the movie for you, but suffice it to say, if Mr. Peck were not in this film and did not give such a rousing courtroom speech, this movie would have been forgotten long ago. The direction is poor and uneven, plot tangents go untouched or under-developed, and many of the characters and actors seem rather silly. Instead of achieving what the book did in terms of portraying racism in the Depression South and the intriguing stories of the children, the film manages to seem poorly done, even cheap, and the child actors's obvious talents go to waste on dead end plot lines. Even the costuming seems badly done. You will notice that all of the whites wear overalls, while the "enlightened" Mr. Peck and a handful of kind blacks wear suits. In closing instead of being a thoughtful and poignant depiction of racism in the South, it seems contrived. My recommendation is to avoid this unless you are an avid Gregory Peck fan and read the novel. But if you really want to watch a movie close to this subject that is done well, try In the Heat of the Night or any number of Sidney Portier's films. 4/10
American Psycho (2000)
A horribly awful and wasteful movie
This movie had all the potential of being a quality suspense/psychological thriller. Unfortunately it tries too hard, relies on a horrible script and leave the viewer feeling numb and asking himself why did I just waste almost two hours on this. The main actor (Bale) does about a good a job as possible with the material given to him while the surrounding cast add absolutely nothing to the film. At first, the movie was strange enough, but interesting enough to make me feel like it was some strange blend of Fight Club meets Clockwork Orange, but this film lacked any depth so the morbidity of the scenes just leave you feeling ill for no purpose. The sets weren't all that great, the little things that set the main actor off were just stupid, and their commentary on upscale, snobbish life in New York in the 1980's was at first interesting, but then mind-bogglingly exaggerated and idiotic. If anything, one might get this for the gore and horror effect, but alas it falls short in that area as well as the movie has only a sprinkle of blood and wouldn't scare a 5 year old. Do not rent this movie unless you like sloppily-done films with no actors and a plot about as meaningless as a traffic cop.