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Reviews
The Drowning (2016)
A brilliant and complex low key film
Drowning as this film is, under incomprehensibly bad reviews, I now understand why there is so much puerile dross crammed onto Netflix. I thought that they were just begin stingy since are so many great films not on there. One unpretentious and complex film and it is as if it has broken some kind of taboo!
I'm so glad that it did. A really clever study of morals motives and psychopathy which keep you thinking right to the end. No one gets a leg torn off and there was no overt sex action.
Stepping out of a formula is a great thing and not some kind of offence. The characters were either ambiguous or psychopathic. We never get to totally decide just how much of either each one is. To combine this with an entertaining plot comes close to genius since the writer and producer do not sell out at all.
It was neither artily melancholic nor unsubtle block buster. Just thought provoking, tense and beautifully performed by everyone.
More Netflix more!
Running for Grace (2018)
Slow and massively overacted
Every moment of this film was stilted, corny and overdone.
It is a film which loves itself too much.
Caviezil and Dillon both over-act horribly and just embarrassed and bored me.
Ryan Potter was engaging and more convincing but swamped amongst the buzzing egos around him. The end is on TV now and it runs like a school play to the very last moment.
And as another review mentions here a ludicrously small amount of the narrative is dedicated to the main theme, the 'transgressional' love affair.
The pace is dreadful and the acting verges on farcical on many occasions.
An utterly self absorbed film.
(The scenery, props and costumes were wonderful hence 3 stars and not one)
Mary Shelley (2017)
A graceful portrayal of a precious pioneer
This is beautifully directed, the costumes are lovely and seem very accurate, sets and locations are satisfying and I enjoyed the acting.
I will look for this director again, I thought that she did a great job.
The one thing lacking for me is a clear voice behind the telling of this story. This rendered the pace a little bit jerky and at times the tone was rather vapid as if periodically the writer completely forgets the strength and passion of these people. Young as they were, they were giants, individually and together who conspired to overturn the tyranny of a massively powerful and inflexible social system. We are watching the continued inception of modern feminism born out of brilliant philosophy, empathy and insight. The dilemmas faced by Mary Shelly as a result of her own and her comrades' beliefs are well drawn in the film, but only so far as the very limited and episodic screenplay allows.
And this is the base for my only and major criticism of this production. A film can surely only be as good as the screenplay allows and as far as I can see this was lifted straight from the Wikipedia entry with dialogue inserted. The film is there in Wiki, at times line by line in exact order. No new research evident, no perceptible interpretation of these events with relation to the characters. Rather a series of loosely confirmed episodes linked by speech. A fascinating and timely topic, and an opportunity half missed by possible lack of dedication to the subject at the outset.
I congratulate everyone else involved with the film for such a lovely finished product achieved despite seemingly minimal foundations
The Long Song (2018)
Costume
Its ok.
Zip fasteners on the dresses though!
A 20th century invention. Always a crass mistake.
Crossing Lines (2013)
Wooden tops with guns
As someone else has said here 'Has no one heard of Interpol?'
The script is hammy, the acting wooden and the editing is fractured and episodic so that every episode is presented in the style of one long trailer. There is a general lack of continuity and many many narrative elements are left unexplained.
The cast resembles a massive group of action heroes, all fitting into the same stereotypical requirements for appearance and acting style to the point that by the 4th episode I can hardly tell one from the other. Apart from the three figures in authority they are all thirty something and sharing identical vital statistics and hairstyles. 'Is that the Irish good guy turned bank robber all of a sudden?...Oh no his accent is English, it's just another thirty something chizzler with executive stubble and the same haircut.' The women are similarly interchangeable a lot of the time but their hair colour varies more which make it a bit easier to distinguish between them. A box full of glamorous puppet like characters.
In short there is a deadly lack of character development so necessary to support a long series. For me it is an episodic event including chunky firearms and stories of routinely bizarre crimes each with a very unlikely basic plot.
In its effort to be 'hyper paced', the shooting and editing are very stylistic and the massive montages of dizzifying jump cuts combined with staccato and hyped up delivery of a substandard script in a wooden acting style. ..... 4 episodes and I'm done.