dent-7 Reviews

The Last Thing He Told Me (2023– )

Much better than many reviews, not for CSI quick gratification fans.

[8/10 · 15 August 2023]

Bit of a slow burn but I can't believe how many reviewers expect instant improvement in relationships with a teen within a couple of episodes.

I thought it was understated but realistic. Teenagers can be truly horrible people and step-family relationships are very complicated. In particular, the back story shows how this girl who has been the utter centre of her father's life, now finds herself coping with the displacement of a new love.

Yeah I'd figured out where some of the plot was heading by at least a couple of episodes before the reveal.

People complained about some slow "wandering around like dimwits" which is *exactly* what real people do. Memory is fragmentary, trying to trigger it is a slow process. Insight and evidence don't jump up with the pace you see on CSI whatever.

I also really believed in the ending.

The Night Agent (2023– )

Tough, intelligent female characters & moral ambiguities

[10/10 · 28 March 2023]

I have been involved in the tech startup space for years and loved (finally?) seeing a non-lampooned character.

People who succeed in this space are often very smart, super-quick thinkers and tough characters. Rose was a perfect illustration of this.

The scenes where Farr is berating much bigger men are great - worth watching again to appreciate how the camera pulls back to see the projection of her anger.

As a long-time martial artist, I thought the fight scenes were well also very well done. We didn't see the shaky-cam that's made some of the Bourne movies so annoying.

Much of the series is framed with moral ambiguity. How do you know you're on the right side of something? Does a simplistic moral viewpoint mean you let the country down?

The pace was engaging. It could maybe have been tightened down to 8 episodes but I didn't feel it was dragged out. (My wife, who's not much of a fan of this genre, thought it was a bit long).

White Wall (2020– )

Slow is OK, stupid is not

[4/10 · 15 July 2022]

I like thoughtful SF and didn't mind the slow pace, although my wife gave up on it.

The mining people and differences with management are spot-on (years in mining companies). The engineering manager with difficulty relating to family and labouring over public speaking was very plausible.

Sub-plot with autistic child was clichéd and where I started having doubts.

The ending contains some plain silly stuff which spoiled the entire show for me.

Pine Gap (2018)

Nails the contemporary Australian political dilemma

[9/10 · 17 November 2018]

I'm an Australian programmer and whilst not quite at the intellectual level of the main characters here, have worked with people like that.

Most of the technical characters are very credible and some of the computer hacking descriptions more plausible than anything I've seen on most TV shows.

I loved the twists and turns, personal angst and especially the developing political tensions. This is absolutely a thriller for 2018.

I just watched it now on ABC iView, really hope it gets a broad distribution and would recommend to anyone wondering where US-China relations may be going.

Watch it on a big screen if you can because the landscape shots deserve it.

Secret City (2016–2019)

Truly chilling to watch Season 1 in 2018

[9/10 · 16 July 2018]

Just binge-watched Season 1 in 2018. Was a little slow to start but much plausible manipulation and we are currently facing an Australian bipartisan attempt to put the through legislation that's as scary as anything in this thriller.

Dingo (1991)

Bit slow and dated but beautiful

[8/10 · 25 February 2015]

This was on SBS TV recently in Australia and is still listed on SBS on Demand http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/369526339639/dingo as of Feb 2015

I'm a country boy, although growing up in the South-West of Western Australia is nowhere near as remote as the countryside shown in the movie.

Still, I could relate to that music, in that setting, as the perfect eerie accompaniment to the land's empty indifference.

The reviewers who have said it is unrealistic because of the lack of Aboriginal characters are wrong - I counted at least four in the background of the 1969 scene - look for the pink shirt and the guy in the blue tank-top behind the kids at the airport.

The Australian characters are absolutely spot-on, not the caricatures of Croc Dundee.

These Final Hours (2013)

Gritty, brilliant, realistic

[10/10 · 23 December 2014]

What would you do?

It's the end of the world and Perth's location means we've had a day of hearing the rest of the planet die.

Most of the nice people have taken the quiet way out with their loved ones. Very few are left apart from the party-hard animals and the crazies.

If we are who we remember being, then the acts we take in our final hours are who we are when we die. They may be the most important hours of your life.

I'd like to think I could find a bit of heroism in me and this is a film about a kind of hope, a film about redemption.

It was also a fun film in part to watch as a local. I've skated in the rink that's shown and a friend was a girl-mauling extra in a party scene.

The cinematography is brilliant. Perth in summer, especially in the Northern suburbs, really is that searingly dry.

The Signal (2014)

Pay attention

[8/10 · 4 August 2014]

I've read a number of reviews that raise questions which were answered in the movie but only in single lines of dialog.

Some bits of the movie were just left dangling, especially behaviour of the minor characters but that didn't bother me much.

A lot of the floating, lyrical visual scenes you see in the trailer are the kind of things that stay in our memories and, unlike other reviewers, I thought they made sense when they occurred in the movie. There are precious memories we seek as comfort when hurt or stressed - for me these worked.

I'm a long-term SF fan of books and movies. I've seen and read a lot worse.

I'm also a programmer and the obsessive characters shown here were extremely plausible especially the MIT references. People like that are relentless in tracking things down.