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The Blacklist: Cape May (2016)
Oh No! They've attempted a.......
I'll finish the title "Oh no! They've attempted a cheap knock off of the "Kevin Finerty" storyline from The Sopranos in an attempt to give the (false) impression that this series has ANY of the depth or quality writing of that show!" I've given it 3 out of 10 rather than 1 because,well, JAMES SPADER! His performance as Red is the main reason why I (and I suspect many other people) watch a show that is dogged by poor writing and feeble plot twists. Even with Spader, who I always find an enjoyable screen presence, this episode just comes across as obvious and poorly executed. I had the basic premise of what was going on nailed very early in the episode with the only surprise being that I actually expected him to come around to find himself still in the opium den. It is the televisual equivalent of a school kid ending a fantastical short story with "And I woke up and it was all a dream!"
Inherent Vice (2014)
A beautifully crafted homage to several aspects of cinema
Wow!Just finished watching Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film "Inherent Vice" and thought it was incredible!At it's heart it's a 70's film noir that captures the spirit and feel of the 70's perfectly but in it's whole it is sooo much more than that.It's a rumble tumble roller coaster of a watch that whilst conveying a sense of the main protagonists tenuous drug fuelled grasp on what is going on still manages to maintain a coherent narrative right to the end.It's got elements of classic film noir,70's counter culture movies (the voice over reminds me both of classic noir and the radio station from "Vanishing Point"),70's "cinema of the paranoid" and dashes of "The Big Lebowski".All the while there's an underlying religious parable, (that I think I'm gonna have to watch it again to fully grasp what he was getting at) with one image in particular mirroring "The Last Supper", themes of resurrection and many other little references and images relating to Christian dogma.To top it all off one character virtually transforms into a metaphor for "the man" (which he always was throughout the film but it's just more blatant in the scene I'm referring to) without it seeming clumsy or forced.Oh god.Love,love loved this film!
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Bit Of A Rant!
Firstly I have to say that I believe that Bob Dobson's one star rating of this film (that for some reason ,at the time of writing, occupies top spot in terms of reviews) may be based on (to paraphrase a moron) "the classic dim witted American "misogynist with a chip on his shoulder" view of life!"This idiot can't even reconcile the fact that some western translations of the guy's name call him Usama rather than Osama.I'm guessing if Fox News doesn't verify it for him he doesn't understand it.Honestly, check his review, he simply can't comprehend why they call him UBL in the film and simply doesn't possess the curiosity or more likely intellect to even investigate further via the dark and mysterious portal into what us Liberal's like to call "knowledge" that is Google!
Putting my initial rant aside, I found this to be an intelligent and understated portrayal of a subject that could so easily have been handled in a crass and jingoistic manner by a lesser director. God know's I've seen enough adverts for film's loosely based on the same material, all of them seeming to resemble "Call Of D..." sorry I mean "Act Of Valor" type Gung Ho fest's designed to make the cerebrally challenged amongst us whoop and holler as the bullets reign down and the eyelids droop.
As an historic document of what probably happened this film is surely a triumph.It doesn't tackle the reasons that 9/11 happened in the first place( Come on Americans do you think people would do that without you REALLY pissing them off first?) but then it was never meant to.At least it was honest about what very likely happened in the aftermath (P.S. I was very drunk when I wrote this!(But I still stand by it!)