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marc-warner
Reviews
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
What a Weeney Turdd
This is a genuinely bad film; one dimensional, poor songs and a terminally slow plot. The Gothic landscapes are the only good thing about it (and they are brilliant). The fact that this is anywhere near, never mind in, the top 250 movies of ALL TIME is an absolute scandal.
With it's 18 certificate and ludicrously high rating it can only point to the need to tighten restrictions to prevent love struck teenage girls from getting into unsuitable movies. Sure Johnny looks great in mascara but can that really justify an 8.3 rating to those of us over 15?
Let's not hear any talk about depth. This was based on a Broadway musical. The cinematography was fantastic and brooding but watching the 95 minutes of the movie felt like i was transported back to the Victorian age and was forced to live through the intervening 150 odd years just to get out of the theatre.
If anyone invents a time machine I'd like to propose that those who think like me chip in to send Tim Burton back to Victorian London. That way he can w*^! it all out of his system and stop inflicting his fetishes on us.
The Constant Gardener (2005)
Not a great movie
The constant gardener has it easy. It picks an emotionally charged subject matter and involves issues that are at the forefront of the political agenda. It has to be easier to make a film that has an impact on its audience from this starting point. It could have been genuinely awesome.
However i felt that the film was totally one dimensional. For those that haven't seen it (and this will in no way spoil the plot), the central theme is large biotech companies in Africa. It is undeniable that such companies do exploit the poorer nations but it is likewise undeniable that if such companies didn't exist we would not possess the range of drugs that we do today. There is no question that these companies do some good. With such a rich subject matter an exploration of shades of grey of the debate could be the basis for an excellent film. Sadly the film fell firmly on the anti-biotech side without any sort of fair trial. It is the lack of sophistication about the biotech = bad message that i objected to. Then as if the portrayal wasn't one sided enough anyone involved with either the British government or the biotech company was made a thoroughly unlikeable character in terms of personality.
I don't mean to suggest that as a stand alone piece of work the film was bad. The fact is that by choosing a subject matter that is so emotive the filmmaker must take on certain responsibilities. In the case of the constant gardener i thought the complex issues were not explored at all. We've all seen brilliant movies that balance both sides of a debate, exploring both the "hero's" and the "villain's" motivations, and justifying both to us. The constant gardener does not do this, and i believe is a worse movie for it.
Gangs of New York (2002)
A masterpiece of direction, cinematography and acting
Anyone who has seen this film can be in no doubt of the skill of Martin Scorsese as a director, or Daniel Day Lewis as an actor. Both perform superbly in what surely must go down in history as a (slightly) flawed classic. The fact that Cameron Diaz and Leonardo Di Caprio were not in the same league as Day Lewis should not spoil the film. The difference was more due to the amazing performance by Day Lewis than any particular faults on the part of Di Caprio or Diaz. I felt that Diaz's character was not given the time to develop into someone very meaningful and she is therefore an easy target when criticizing this film. However due to commercial pressures, Scorsese (allegedly) had to cut the film from the 4hours that he felt was necessary, to a more public friendly format of 3hours (approx), so the directors cut on DVD should prove interesting. This also leads to some rather bizarre jumps in the plot; an example might be the speed and ease with which Di Caprio forms an army. But from the very first battle sequence it is clear that this is a film of the finest quality.