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kittymaloona
Reviews
Far from Heaven (2002)
Interesting about the theme music
This is one of my favourite movies. I have watched it over and over again. It is a glorious homage to Douglas Sirk and the colour palette and nostalgic settings are gorgeous. I watch some scenes over and over again and always gain such fabulous escapist pleasure from it all. Acting wonderful, costumes wonderful, retro touches pitch perfect. Of course it was very contrived, very stagey, very derivative - but it was meant to be all those things. However, there is a curious thing about the theme music; has anyone compared it to the finale of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony? Solanen and Bernstein's versions of the symphony are my absolute preferred ones and I have watched them many times on YouTube. Watching both of these this evening I suddenly felt I should have been watching Julianne Moore step out of her car ....... But Is it my imagination?? :D.
The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)
Does Nobody Know That This Was A Novel By Joan Didion
'The Last Thing He Wanted' is a novel by Joan Didion. A flawless, faultless, word-perfect piece of genius. It was madness to try and turn it into a movie. They left out the key parts of the story and half the characters! No wonder it made no sense to viewers! What audacity to try and re-write a Joan Didion novel! Ridiculous.
Ben Affleck's padded, snap-frozen face was just too ghastly to behold. Anne Hathaway wasn't as annoying as usual but completely wrong for the role. The character of Elena is not panicky and running everywhere like a lumpish schoolgirl, she is ice cold and contained and elegant and always in control - if only on the outside. Everything about it was wrong, wrong, wrong. Just leave Joan Didion's works alone. A movie is always less than the book upon which it is based; sometimes a little less, somethings grotesquely less. This was plainly in the latter category.
Berlin Syndrome (2017)
Subtle, slow-burn, intense, satisfying
Mention should be made of the soundtrack - so clever to use this ethereal, beautiful music instead of the usual predictable fast electro beat for scary parts and tinkly piano for sad parts - I felt that the soundtrack was integral to the movement of time for the woman. Teresa Palmer's performance was nuanced and intuitive. You ricocheted uncomfortably from one response to another as she did from one conflicting emotion to another. The suspense build up was compellingly done. And thank HEAVENS it didn't end with police cars screaming up with lights blazing and sirens blaring and people being wrapped in blankets and comforted by female police officers, with the camera panning up and out ..... It managed to avoid the cliches and the ghastly predictability that one finds in so much lazy film making pandering to mass expectation. A very well-made film.
Measure for Measure (2019)
Soap Opera Cringe
WHY WHY WHHYYYY do so many Australian films end up seeming like just another episode of Home and Away? Did at some point the wild success of Australian soaps just paralyse cinematic creativity and the cliches and tropes submerge film making in a top loader of soapsuds?
The older actors speaking with a bizarre drawn out drawl that is probably meant to suggest world weariness but merely sounds as though the vinyl is slowing down. Cringe-making teen love affairs so full of lingering gazes your eyes scrinch up and your finger reaches convulsively for the forward ten seconds button. That kitchen scene with the brother and sister so excruciating I actually blushed watching it. Endlessly long face shots of comical emotion switches. Over-acting! Under-acting! More over-acting! Numbingly facile scenarios played out with lazy predictability.
I watched most of this. I tried. I really did.
Watch Home and Away. At least it's not pretending to be something.
Archive 81 (2022)
Half Really Good, Half Really Bad
Loved the concept, the aesthetic, the colour palette, the use of chiaroscuro, the idea of the secret restoring of damaged tapes in a remote mysterious building in desolate woods, liked Mamoudou Athie who was convincing and watchable, loved the build up. So far so good, very intrigued and happily watching.
But OH Dina Shihabi! Sometimes it's hard to extricate an actor from a really bad script. This is the first film I've seen her in so have nothing to compare this with but her performance just devolved into endless gasping and panting and swearing until I wanted to shout GET A GRIP!! The swearing was over the top and did not meld with her appeasing, nervously-smiling, self-deprecating character. I kept forwarding ten seconds hoping she would go away and we could get back to Mamoudou Athie or in fact ANYONE else. Yes the script was dreadful but I felt some of the actors managed a work around. I felt the character of Melody needed to be cooler, calmer, harder, tougher.
The atmosphere, mood, aesthetic, setting, all made me watch to the end. But why get all this right and then (a) fall down on script and (b) have 8 episodes when it would have been better as a two hour movie and (c) get the Melody character so wrong. I felt it was a frustratingly wasted opportunity.