Change Your Image
Sr_Moreno
Reviews
The Human Factor (1979)
Great cast, writer & director. Terrible film.
I recently saw this as part of the Graham Greene season on the BBC. I had been quite looking forward to it, given the quality of its cast, director and writer. Unfortunately its production values seemed to be on a par with contemporary television, apparently due to serious budget problems. Performances all round are not particularly good, even Attenbrough seems poor. Iman, in what I understand to be her first role, is embarrassingly bad. She struggles with most of her lines and has difficulty dealing with the most simple props such as telephones. Apparently Otto Preminger also bought the option on another Greene novel although it was never made. Greene, in an interview shown as part of the same season, commented that having seen "The Human Factor" he was glad he never adapted another of his books. I think, for the reputations of all concerned with this film it is best forgotten.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Incoherent Tosh
Incredibly dull, hopelessly pretentious and possibly the biggest waste of five quid in my life. Oh how I wish I could have those two hours back, I could do something more constructive like clipping my toenails. I find it incredible that there are so many positive comments for this film, clearly the fanboys are blind to the very obvious flaws. The acting is atrocious, the dialogue is worse and the plot is laughable. The fact that the Directors are acclaimed as visionaries only goes to show that marketing is more important than content.
Patton (1970)
Great film, bad history
This has to be considered among the top war films ever made, but that's not to say it's without its flaws. Patton's importance in the overall war seems to be overstated, but this can be forgiven given that it's his biopic. What is less easy to forgive is the rather typical Hollywood historical revisions. German generals Keitel and Rommel seem to cower in fear at Patton's name. British generals like Montgomery are portrayed as cowardly braggarts. This is simply wrong. North Africa was won by Montgomery long before Patton even set foot on the continent. Rommel suffered from diversion of his supplies to the eastern front. It's an interesting question as to what would have happened if he had the support he required. This isn't to say that Patton and Bradley weren't great generals. I simply don't understand why the film had to revise history to make their enemies appear fearful and their allies cowardly.
American Splendor (2003)
Slanted & Enchanted
I saw this film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and prior to a screening, and at a seminar the previous day, the festival director described the protagonist Harvey Pekar as an "everyman", despite objections from his wife Joyce Brabner. This seems to me to missing the point. Pekar found himself living an empty and meaningless existence, and chose to do something about it. Most people would move, find a new partner or change jobs. Pekar chose to write a comic about his day to day life, this makes him unique among US comics creators. That he chose to use such an unfashionable and denigrated medium to tell his story says much about him. He's a man with an awkward and unusual personality and we see the world through his skewed perspective. When watching the film you're never sure if his friends and colleagues really are as strange as they seem, or if you're simply seeing them the way Pekar perceives them.
The film is also unusual among the recent spate of comics adaptations in that it remains true to the source material whilst matching the quality. Ghost World is the only other film that has achieved this.
The film is well worth seeing for anyone with an affection for comics or quality cinema.
Yeseuteodei (2002)
Enjoyable but flawed
If you go to see Yesterday expecting a Hollywood style science-fiction blockbuster you're bound to be disappointed. This film has a slow and morbid pace and tension and comparisons to Minority Report are misguided. A better comparison is Se7en, although it's considerably less gory.
The version I saw was sub-titled and was clearly translated by someone for whom English wasn't their first language. There are a number of lines in the film that simply don't make sense. At one point the detective asks for a "posterior analysis" to be made, which brought a smile to my face. During the credits sequence at the beginning the dialogue translations are mixed with the credits causing considerable confusion. These faults don't generally impede enjoyment of the film but they don't help.
It's certainly worth watching this film if you enjoy more intelligent science-fiction, but I can't see it making a wider impact.