"Sebastian's gone missing. He's in a house in Morocco
" It's not only because of lines like this that I think Brideshead Revisited is one of the worst films I have seen in quite a long time
but it doesn't help. You know a film is in trouble when actors of the calibre of Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon absolutely stink up the screen. Thompson is perfectly (and unintentionally) grotesque as Lady Marchmain. What on earth were the scriptwriters and director thinking? The film is based, allegedly, on the Evelyn Waugh novel of the same name (which was made into a truly wonderful TV series in the early '80s), but takes such liberties with the plot that poor old Evelyn must be spinning in his grave. The element of divine grace which informs the novel is simply absent (albeit replaced, to a minor extent, by an entirely spurious and dramatically inexplicable sense of guilt on the part of Charles Ryder, the main character); and even the Catholicism whose tenets direct, consciously or otherwise, the life trajectories of many of the main characters is largely reduced to parody. What else? Sebastian and Julia Flyte are spectacularly miscast; the actor playing Charles' father (the normally reliable Patrick Malahide) badly misjudges the tone of his character; Brideshead, Sebastian's brother, rather brought to mind Michael Palin portraying a WWI German flying ace; the whole emotional driving force of the novel (Charles' graduation from his early infatuation with Sebastian to his more mature love for Julia) is shot to pieces by the asinine attempt to portray, quite early in the film, a kind of rivalry for Charles' affections between Julia and Sebastian. As someone who loves both the novel and the TV series deeply, I found this movie truly revolting. Shouldn't have been made. Don't see it.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Death at a Funeral
(2007)
Wretched
4 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I think I've used this line before, but, here goes: I refuse to believe that this is the worst film ever made. I simply won't have it... It's a bit like that line in Fawlty Towers, where the exasperated American guest says to Basil: "This is the lousiest, crummiest hotel in the whole of Western Europe!", at which the Major interjects: "No! I won't have that! (Pause) There's a place in Eastbourne
" So what's wrong with it (this film, not Basil Fawlty's hotel)? I will start by suggesting that the least one ought to be able to expect of a comedy is that it should be funny. I have to report that I found the various attempts to provoke laughter either crass, embarrassing, puerile, crude, cringe worthy, or in downright bad taste. Cadaver falls out of coffin. Yeah, hilarious. Man helping paraplegic to sit on toilet gets excrement on his hand (and face). A real thigh slapper. Dwarf ends up in coffin with his dead lover's body. Highly risible. And so it continues
Of course, humour is a highly subjective animal, and I have to believe accounts of people roaring at this little turkey. I submit, however, that great or even good - comedy films will stand the test of time: the gags will still be funny at second or third viewing. I am not confident that time will treat DAAF too kindly. Subjective notions of humour aside, there is plenty wrong with this film. I am immediately suspicious of movies in which foul language is used as a substitute for funny lines. Uncle Alfie announces his arrival on screen with a spray of obscenities; and his character never rises far above that level. Something else that sticks out a mile is that practically every actor is firmly in autopilot mode. Rupert Graves in particular looks as though he was wishing he was somewhere else; and what an actor of the stature of Jane Asher is doing in this little number is anyone's guess. That she is absolutely appalling can most likely be put down to a combination of a commensurately wretched script, and criminal miscasting. And the alleged similarity to Four Weddings and a Funeral ends with the "F" word in their respective titles. I nearly died but not from laughing.
The Lake House
(2006)
A stinker!
17 December 2006
I simply can't believe that this film has received a single positive review! What's wrong with it? Well...let's start with the absurd premise, the lousy dialogue, the appalling, "auto pilot" acting, the bizarre casting... Am I making myself clear so far? Let's face it: this little stinker was the result of a cynical, money making enterprise dreamed up in the office of some Hollywood executive. Picture the scene: "Hey, Fred, this script has just landed on my desk. It's not Million Dollar Baby, but who cares? I reckon if we can line up a couple of big stars to play the leads - let's see, Sandra and Keanu might be free at the moment - and package it the right way, we might be onto a winner! Whaddaya reckon?" OK, I know most Hollywood films start life that way; but many of them at least aspire to some kind of artistic, or cinematic, integrity. This little number, however, has virtually nothing to recommend it: the Hollywood movie factory at its absolute worst...
Jindabyne
(2006)
Disappointing
10 August 2006
Warning: Spoilers
It was reassuring to see, here, a couple of negative reviews of Jindabyne: I was starting to think I was the only person in the world who found this film disappointing. Why disappointing? First and foremost, I had expected better from the makers of Lantana, which, while slightly overrated, was a fine film. I had expected that Ray Lawrence's next film would be better still, whereas in fact it is not in the same class. I realise that film reviews are largely subjective, and saying that it just didn't "work" for me is not saying a great deal. The best I can do is to explain why it didn't "work". I found the depiction of the film's central incident the men's reaction to the finding of the body, and their subsequent actions (or inactions) frankly unbelievable. To react with (it seemed to me) almost exaggerated horror, and then for the next couple of days to blithely ignore the fact that there was a dead body tethered to a log a short distance away, while they angled pleasantly in the same river, seemed something that people simply wouldn't do. I mean, if their initial reaction had been a lot more low-key, or if there had been some other aspect of their reaction which had made their subsequent heartless indifference to their obvious moral and legal duty more believable, then the whole scenario would have been more credible. For me, the film suffered a blow at that point from which it never recovered. The other main aspect of the film which I felt didn't work was the rather muddled attempt to establish a kind of spiritual undercurrent (if you'll excuse the pun) which ran through the film. It was, like, the drowned town, with its old folks (now, presumably, dead) sitting in their rocking chairs; likewise the old people interviewed in the video: all those dead people, down there, under the water; and the spirits of those dead people rising from their watery graves to come and threaten to drag people swimming in the lake down to the depths (how many times was that motif used!); and those same spirits humming through the wires to freak Billy out as he takes a leak down in the bush, and infecting the mind of the serial killer; and the unearthly, orphaned child with the weird name practising the black arts she learned (inherited?) from her dead (drowned?) mother; and the aboriginal smoke ceremony; and the invocation of St. Brigid; and and and
Mumbo-jumbo was the term that sprang to mind. Further criticism? I thought the serial killer was a quite gratuitous imposition on the film. In Lantana, the death which drove the action of the film was accidental. Why wasn't a similar device used here? Why a serial killer? Why that final scene?? The theme of the serial killer as a kind of malevolent force in nature was dealt with much better (and with a nicely gruesome humour) in Wolf Creek (another Australian film). What else? I found the characters on the whole a highly unsympathetic bunch, which for me made it difficult to get emotionally involved with their lives and issues. A better actor than Laura Linney might have carried off more successfully the attempt to portray the guilt associated with her realisation of her family's part in the tragedy, and also with her decision to kill her own (unborn) child, and her resulting clumsy attempts to "make things right". I think a good film could have been made using this subject matter, but only by going about it very differently.
Local Hero
(1983)
I want to see this film one more time before I die
3 August 2006
Difficult to add much to the reviews already posted, but since it's one of my two favourite movies (the other is Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire"), I feel I ought to put in my two bob's worth. In its own quiet, understated way, this is one of the funniest movies ever made. It is one of those rare, rare films that, far from becoming predictable and boring with repeated viewings, if anything seems to get better. Having seen it about ten times, of course I know all the deliciously funny moments before they come; but that doesn't detract from their humour if anything, the reverse. The "whose baby is that" scene mentioned by someone else is my favourite moment; but it's barely ahead of: "You mean you've never liked the music?"; "I'd make a good Gordon, Gordon"; "What lovely long eyelashes you've got"; 'Do you think Gordon and Stella do it every night?"; not to mention Marina's toes; the motorbike; Reverend Macpherson; the expression on the face of the elderly local woman watching Victor sing
; and of course the whole premise of the film: a brash, city-dwelling, American oil man coming increasingly to regret the fact that he is the instrument by which the inhabitants of a tiny, remote, Scottish fishing village are to become, as one of them puts it, "stinking rich" and what that will mean for the place he has come to regard, in the space of a few short days, as home. Of course, this will mean nothing to those who have never seen the film. All I can advise is: rectify that glaring omission as soon as possible!
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