williamfjack-619-266033 Reviews

Ozark (2017–2022)

It's great and lousy, nothing in-between

[3/10 · 1 February 2022]

The acting is tremendous, and the script is top-notch...How can one screen-writer (or a team of them) construct such an elaborate, compelling plot with so many turns and detours along the way? Why, then, did someone decide that they needed to stoop to cheap tricks to sustain suspense? So many tricks: A character is talking on the phone but we don't know who's on the other end of the call until much later. Unknown characters appear in their own scenes, occupied only by other people whom we don't know. It can be a long time before we discover who they are (e.g., Ben, and the P. I). And the viewer might decide: "Oh, I see! That's Wendy's father we've been watching for 5 minutes!" We don't know what's a flashback (and whose flashback?) until later (e.g., Marty as a boy), after we're done trying to figure out what the heck was going on until later (and often, much later).

How many scenes occur in the dark -- We don't know who's doing what to whom? Sure, all these things are explained later, but too many of them can irrigate viewers (like me). And sure, such devices often occur in crime dramas and are a hallmark of film noire (e.g. "Casablanca."... But how many times must we pull ourselves out of the "Casablanca" story for more than a couple seconds to figure out what's going on? ) And that's the problem. Rather than being involved in a story, a viewer must step back to analyze it.

These tricks always appeared in those cheap black-and-white serial adventures that came on the theater screen before the main movie. Each episode ended with a cliff-hanger (in fact, that term comes from serials; e.g., "Buck Rogers," "The Mask of Fu Manchu," "The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand," etc.). But the use of cheap shots in those serials are often more restrained than in this film.

As long as I'm griping, I'll add one more bit. Season 3 ended with a big cliff-hanger even though it was expected for a while, I think, to be the last of the series. There's a whopper of a cliff-hanger at the last seconds of the last episode of Season Four, which, they say, is the final season for the show. That means we spent many hours watching many characters win and lose, but ultimately, we don't know anything about them, except who's dead. But what happened with the characters who came out alive? Did Mary and Wendy divorce, get killed, start working for another cartel, become political big-wigs, or did they buy a furniture store in suburban Chicago?

So, I give the movie 5 stars because it's located half-way between 1 (lousy) and 10 (great). The film deserves all the awards it's received. I would have loved to give it a 10.

Tri Sestry (1984 TV Movie)

Simply the best -- as Chekov deserves

[10/10 · 23 December 2021]

Okay, every film of "Three Sisters" works from the same script, so it's other things that make the difference. I've seen this play about 9 times, have watched several video performances, and this is bar none the best. The acting stands out -- Each character is perfect for me -- exactly what I figure Chekov had in mind. One comparison as an example. The scene with the doctor and the spinning top. Laurence Olivier treats it as a Shakespearean soliloquy, but in this performance, the doctor nails the role. Just one of many examples. The sets and costumes are also great, and just as they should be. I wish that all screen renditions of classics were this good.

A Month in the Country (1987)

Worth many viewings

[10/10 · 12 April 2021]

This film awes me more each time that I watch it -- The movie is so powerful, so understated, so deftly executed, unlike the blockbusters that populate Netflix and Amazon Prime. Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh are at their best (which means "better than most best's"), as are Miranda Richardson, Jim Carter, and Patrick Malahide. (Those last two actors also appear together in "The Singing Detective," another favorite.)

I take polite exception to the comments of a few reviewers. Sure, knowing the County of Yorkshire certainly could add to a person's appreciation of the film, but it's not the only criterion to be sure, and lacking it doesn't mean you lose out. I love and appreciate Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" without having been on the Islaev country estate, and I love and appreciate "Seven Samurai" even though I spent only one hour in Japan (and never got out of the airport's international area). Having familiarity with a film's or book's location is a nice boost, but not having it doesn't prevent one from appreciating just as fully the offerings in the book or film. After all, great authors and directors depict settings in ways that those who've never been there may feel that they have. - An appreciative Minnesota USA William.

Slon (2010)

A very nice story, nicely told, but under which lies much depth

[10/10 · 5 May 2018]

I was very much prepared not to like this film. I don't go for "fun" or "light," and certainly not for "uplifting." I prefer movies with depth and substance. Well, I found it here. This bright tale offers an excellent script, great acting, beautiful cinematography, and compelling music. They work in unison to create a whole that's greater than the sum of it parts. Sure, this flick can be viewed as a light, pretty coming-of-age story of a young girl (which it is and, yes, she is extremely pretty, no, downright beautiful), but there's a lot more going on that I didn't sense at first. I knew "something was up," but didn't know what it was. Why was I so drawn to such a "cute" tale? I needed to watch it a couple of times to find out why. It's because one inch beneath the movie's shiny surface lies a complex, confoundingly universal dynamic: Who are the captives, who are the captors, what causes the capturing, and what is the nature of capture? In this tale, things blow up, and then they fall into place. All is made clear. Who's confined to a cage at the beginning? Who at the end? How did things flip like that? What does it mean to be free? Well, I guess walking with an elephant from Russia to India means being free, and it does. And what about ending up serving (probably) many life sentences in prison for destroying two dozen police vehicles? Maybe Zarezin is actually freed, even though the final time that we see him he's confined in a tiny "cage" in the back of a police wagon. But then that hardened cynic puts on a circus nose. He's free. The quotation at the end of the film reminds me to ponder its deeper substrata of meaning. Oh, and Zarezin's wife? She too is freed.

Master i Margarita (2005)

A great blessing with a few flaws, but what in art or in life is not flawed?

[10/10 · 7 April 2018]

Transferring a work of art from one medium to another is a massive challenge, especially because each medium offers its own jewels but has its own limitations. To make a film of Bulgakov's masterpiece? Impossible! Why, the novel can't even be translated very well into English! You lose the richness of the original, lose Bulgakov's astounding exploitation of language and his multi-faceted (furious, detached, satiric, funny, dead-serious) depiction of Moscow. And don't forget that the Yeshua scenes are connected tightly with the Moscow scenes, offering yet more facets for Moscow (and vice-versa), as Bulgakov intended.

Vladimir Bortko performed a miracle. The dialog comes from the novel, the acting is superb, the settings magnificent and faithful.

Limitations in transforming the novel to a film? Many. One of them? Conveying the darkness of Stalinism that hangs over the novel. How did Bulgakov do it in his novel?

Many have criticized this film for treading too lightly over the horrors of Stalinism as a way to accommodate Putin's Russia. No. Bulgakov also tread over Stalinism lightly, but in extremely dark shadows. The terror is inferred, and that's how it is in the film. One difference in this regard is that the film doesn't show "Nikanor's Dream," but, there are a hundred or so inferences to Stalinism within the film, often just under the surface. To bring the backdrop of terror to the screen, Vladimir Bortko needed to do something else. He created the scenes at the end that comprise contemporaries footage from the 1930s. This was the best that he could do, and he did it well.

He leaves out an awful lot, many say. Well, what movie adaptation of any novel doesn't? Watch the 10-hour film adaptation of "The Brothers Karamazov."

The acting? Many claim that the Margarita and the Master roles come off as bland, one-dimensional. To me, I confess, that's pretty much how they come off in the novel. Sorry. This is a passionate love affair, except that we see little of the passion. This affair consists of two vital characters, but I confess that to me, they aren't very three-dimensional in the novel. Other characters, so richly drawn, demand our attention, both in the novel and the film.

Sure, the roles of Woland and Pilate are performed by actors who are way too old for their parts, but they are absolute masters and so who cares about anything as relatively insignificant as age? Sure, the devil and his retinue aren't as outrageously-appearing as they appear in the novel, but I think that depicting those things accurately and completely in the film would, for many viewers, turn the film too much in the direction of a farce. (The novel is farce, to some degree, of course, but certainly not to an overwhelming degree that cancels out its dozens of other facets.)

For fun (and some kind of edification, I suppose), I've re-read the novel in Russian and in English (all versions) after watching the film many times. As I'm reading any of them, images from the film pop up, out of my control, and they correspond with what I am reading.

In short, this is a job worthy of ten stars.

Progulka (2003)

A perhaps naive view of the film? I believe not.

[10/10 · 5 April 2018]

In this film, during one very long walk, we get to look deeply into three distinct, young characters, and we get extremely brief but telling glimpses of others as well: Sewer workers, two guys yelling over a minor car accident, a band of gypsies, workers on top of Saint Isaac's, young folks dressed in historic costumes (a gimmick that has become a tacky part of too many historic places). And we also learn much in just a few seconds about many other characters of everyday life in a big and bustling city. This guy can tell a whole story about extremely minor characters in fewer than thirty seconds.

Other reviewers have said that it paints beautiful pictures of Saint Petersburg for foreigners and tourists. Well, I'm a foreigner and I've been to the city about 20 times, sometimes as a tourist, and I don't agree at all. Where are the "touristy" shots? I see a focus on chunks of everyday life, and it's not always pleasant. I see a heck of a lot of the grit that you can find in any big city. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone who hasn't been there because there are so many pretty, filmic representations elsewhere. They need to look at them, not this.

I know that great monuments and palaces and squares and astonishing bridges lurk in the background, but attention is never drawn to them. I see a whole lot of dirt and ugliness, the prosaic details of life, unpleasing details that could be observed in any city in the world.

To me, the city often looks more like the bad end of Chicago, but with a couple of dazzling edifices and statues thrown in to negate the naive, highly-superficial, romanticized view of that beautiful city. We see parts of it only as we are dashing through it rapidly, passing by scenes so fast and often with many obstructions.

This film doesn't pause to show off anything. The city is background, unfocused and surely not showing off its best parts. I believe that we learn the very same things about each of the three main characters.

What masters, all who worked on this film! Did the cameramen manage to avoid getting smashed by trucks or cars? And this is astounding: How did they get to film this movie on crowded Nevsky and other places just jammed with people, without them staring into the camera, like I probably would.

Mr. Uchitel is a true master at selecting the most telling details, and so this short, seemingly simple movie tells much. I feel that I know those three people better than I know Dmitri and Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov, after reading "The Brothers Karamazov" too many times to count, watching the ten-hour series of "The Brothers Karamazov" far more times than once.

I think I love this movie as much for the cinematic techniques as for the characters and their truly quirky story. If I was in Russia now, I would try to hunt down Mr. Uchitel and those three actors and all others who worked on the film and ask each of them if I might bow in awe in front of them.

This movie is astonishing, in story, character, plot, and execution. I've been watching movies since 1950. This one is towards the top of my list of films that have affected me deeply.