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mrood
Reviews
Ridley Road (2021)
Tepid thriller about interesting moment in history.
I have to agree with others that there's something oddly unsatisfactory about this drama, despite the compelling material. Thank you, DoctorStrabismus, for your insight as someone who lived in the location and the era. As someone who lived in areas where the Klan and Nazis were active in the U. S. about 20 years later, I was a bit startled to learn that the fascist movement had so much traction in England in the early 60s. I had would have though Britain's all-consuming struggle with Germany, there wouldn't have been much public investment in or tolerance for fascism. Yes, the local Nazi leader in the area where I grew up was the object of mostly ridicule, so I believe Dr. S. when he says that giving Colin Jordan this level of perverse stature or attention is unwarranted.
That's not to say it isn't worth watching; the cast is top-notch, the period scenery provides interest, and it does have some expository scenes that help viewers understand what would make some British people susceptible to fascism when it feels counterintuitive that they would be. You just need to watch with limited expectations.
Self/less (2015)
Competent sci fi thriller; don't know why critics were so harsh
Certainly it treads some well-worn sci-fi territory, but I thought its spin was fresh enough not to get bashed the way it did. I ran into this film on Netflix and hadn't heard of it, probably because my kids were little then and I stopped following new movies closely as I couldn't see them in theaters. It definitely gave me more insight into Ryan Reynolds' appeal, which had mostly eluded me before.
My suspicion is that this film didn't work as well on a large screen, but the action sequences are well-staged, and you've got Sir Ben Kingsley and Michelle Dockery fer cryin' out loud. OK, Sir Ben could have troweled on that New York accent a little more lightly, but his performance launches the movie with enough energy that I was drawn in. The film's trite electronic score, which mercifully intrudes less as the film progresses, may have contributed to its bad reception. Is the movie predictable as charged? Only in the way that all sci fi thrillers tend to be, but its ending is also the logical conclusion of the story the movie tells. If you're a fan of the genre, you'll probably enjoy this movie more than the critics led you to suspect.
Knightfall (2017)
So much talent wasted, pretty much hilariously bad.
There's a 1940s sensibility to this teleplay that almost had me expecting to see Stewart Granger or Olivia de Havilland appear on the screen. Actors you know and appreciate from British dramas are crunching up the scenery with no apparent regard to their professional reputations. Mustachios practically twirl with evil. Indeed, one wonders whether the writers didn't come upon a cache of discarded scripts for historical films from the 30s-40s and paste together the dialog from them.
And that's *before* you get to the history -- uh, or nearly complete lack thereof. You really don't have to know much about the history of this era to know it's totally off the rails. I give three stars, because I *am* still watching this ham salad, because it does have some entertainment value nonetheless. But I'm ashamed to admit it.
Texas Rising (2015)
A real stinker.
I'm guessing that the writers consulted period authors to try to make the dialog authentic, but it comes off as cringe-inducingly corny. I don't know much about the history around these events, so it was especially disappointing to learn from the reviewers who do that the history is badly misrepresented, too. The escapades of the two young yahoos who are supposed to provide comic relief are particularly tedious, but so is everything else about the production, for that matter. Stereotypes abound.
As much as I like Brendan Fraser, he can't redeem this malodorous debacle. Save the space on your DVR.
Hell on Wheels (2011)
Handsomely mounted, but lackluster writing and lack of character depth . . .
Mar the series. Some of the dialogue was so cringe-inducing in the first episode, I'm not sure how I made it to #2. One Washington Post reviewer described Colm Meany as chewing the scenery, but there's only so much the best actor can do with bad writing. Subsequent episodes are better, although this is certainly not Deadwood or even close. At first, it seemed like a mash-up of The Outlaw Josie Wales, Deadwood, and bits and pieces of dozen westerns other reviewers have mentioned. It's not exactly new news that life was brutal in the nineteenth century American west, so why anyone would think this makes the series innovative, I have no idea.
Still, there's a good deal to appreciate cinematographically and dramatically if you start viewing with your expectations in check. One thing I found curious: one subplot depicts the affection that emerges between a black railroad worker and a white prostitute, but with so many black railroad workers, why wouldn't there be black prostitutes, too? It may be historically accurate and perhaps there's a reason for it, but it would be nice if some kind of explanation were given through the plot.
Amazing Grace (2006)
The subject matter deserves so much better . . .
I'm sorry: even the people who are unenthusiastic about this film are being a-way too nice. This is a bad movie. Gorgeously mounted, chock-a-block full of A-list stars, but deadly dull, and on a topic that could have made for a great picture. My companion dozed off on several occasions, and only having recently read Vincent Carretta's biography of Olaudah Equiano sustained me. So it was jarring to find Apted uncritically depicting Equiano's assertions that he was of noble birth in Africa. One of the most pathetically laughable scenes is one in which lawyer James Stephens throws out a critical legal term and then explains that it's Latin: Hellllooo? They've established earlier in the scene that only the abolitionist faithful have come to the meeting, and all educated Englishmen of the time would know Latin, probably even self-educated Equiano. Stephens' remark is for the benefit of 21st century audiences, but surely there was a less ridiculous way to impart that. By the end of the film, I think I was actually cringing and wondering how much of what I was seeing was accurate.