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The Split (2018)
I'm split
Excellent actors, truly amazing. Some good dialogues too.
But where do they live these people? Is this a good depiction of how the rich and famous live? They never pay bills, never try to end the month really struggling, including the younger sister pretending to be "on the other side" of the barrier and looking for a flat, as if the richer of her sisters or her mother wouldn't be able to give guarantees enough or lend money. And even her difficult moment just lasts a little over five minutes.
They never touch ground, being either in their fancy houses or luxurious offices, or in their cars with chauffeur. We never see them cleaning their houses (getting the trash out from time to time is not it, especially given the fact that they don't seem to have a lot of it for people who constantly buy food by deliveroo), neither can we see the army of cleaning people around them, they do the cleaning themselves (when?) we even witness this bit about Hannah choosing to stay after the party to "help cleaning up" - what utter non sense: do you know how long it takes to clean up the mess of an after party of over 50 people in a house this size?
They live in a bubble. Is this how the super rich with power get it so wrong when they consider hardship to be just a little passing obstacle one can fight by getting up early in the morning like they do and do whatever they consider is a work of merit?
So what? Well, it's the story of family law firms, focusing on rich people divorces settlements and prenups, in other words how to maximise money in a marriage. Which is all this series is about. The other stuff, the romantic stories, the soap, treason and lies, they are just extremely immature garnish.
Actors are good, they give substance to this vast emptiness. Quite extraordinary.
I liked watching it though. It's shallow distraction.
Invitation to a Murder (2023)
Minus 7 stars for the dialogues
The landscapes, the house, the costumes, accessories are all very nice, beautiful, elegant, plus the fact that the story furthers the reminiscence of Agatha Christie by choosing to group apparent strangers on an Island.
But the dialogues are terrible! Really, really bad. It's the "me, me, me" syndrome where characters spend most of their time congratulating each other, here more specifically, the character played by Mischa Barton. We get it, she is fantastic, intelligent, hyper conscious, has a good sense of observation, is independent, knows loads of things, reads all the time, etc etc No need to bring it out at every turn. Was the movie produced by a relative of hers to be that insistent? Autocongratulation stinks. If you read me, please give Ms Barton a good script, I'm pretty sure she can do better than being this stilted goddess of crime with unconditional admirers.
The "We don't need his money" bit is quite funny given the fact that none of these people dress in the same outfit from one scene to the other, have new shoes and nice accessories, that their clothes are always spotless and well pressed, that their haircut are perfectly done albeit not always suited, and their 32 very apparent teeth are whiter than white, all of which very expensive. By the way, for a billionaire like Mr Finley, giving away a couple of thousands of dollars every year for an illegitimate child would have been very easy indeed, he could even do it in extreme secrecy. There are millions of reason why an illegitimate pregnancy could have produced misery and resentment without being "he couldn't give money because it would have risen questions". It was actually quite common among rich men to have fathered illegitimate children without to splatter a drop of shame on them. The shame was always entirely on the shoulders of the woman, especially when they were so utterly devoid of power, like a maid for instance.
What made the success of Christie lies in these details. She knew where to look, how to bring to life characters with complex personalities and upbringing and let them interact naturally. None of this here.
To watch without the sound - on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
La clé sur la porte (1978)
One star for Annie and one for Patrick
I love these two actors very much and they are so very good in this even though the Story -both in the book and in the movie- didn't move me a bit. I was a teenager in France at about the same time, this really feels very bourgeois from Paris, thus different in every possible ways to the way most teenagers were experiencing this era in other parts of France outside of the capital. Marie Cardinal hated the movie, she probably felt betrayed as it is quite caricatural. To be fair the material in her book is quite weak, no deepness in any of her character, even her fictional self seems to be in a blind spot.
It didn't age very well either.
But with the old cars, Paris streets, clothes, smoking everywhere, there is an undeniable documentary quality to it which makes the film bearable at the end.
La Forêt des disparus (2022)
Wonderful landscapes
Wonderful landscape worth two stars
Being half French half German, from Strasbourg, I was very much looking forward to watching this series.
But, beside the fact that French actors playing German characters is just hilarious, the story itself is far too far-fetched to convey any believable thrill. Lots of interesting ideas I guess, and battles worth to fight, but the script, the writing is really -really!- poor, as for much of the productions nowadays.
Here are some questions/remarks
- I don't understand the reasons behind what has become the stereotypical rotten adolescent, always extreme, always angry, always shouting, always impolite when not constantly insulting everyone and anyone over the age of 20. Is incivility synonymous to genius in the little heads of the writers?
- You'd think that someone like a "Juge d'Instruction" wouldn't steal anything in a house being searched "sur commission rogatoire", especially as she is the one insisting the procedure should be respected, but hell, no, why?
- The house is being searched without gloves and no body cameras
- People seem to go back and forth from France to Germany meddling in each others criminal affairs without official papers all the time
- Why doesn't Mme le Juge go for another specialist, ask for a second opinion sooner? It's been a year, and yet, we are supposed to believe that the whole follow-up was done by one single person, a Dr Stein? No neurologist, no post-operative team, no surgeon, no psychotherapy, nothing? No pharmacist either, no revision, no "Médecin traitant"? Are these people so far away from the medical world and the french welfare system?
These small details are legions, and this is what makes it so impossible, and why it is so bad.
Do not recommend.
Doc Martin: Haemophobia (2004)
Repulsive doesn't quite cover it
I've been watching some episodes of this series and I find it utterly appalling. How it can have such a high rate is even more disturbing.
I watched it because my aunt asked me too: she hated it and couldn't understand why it's so popular. I'm leaving this comment here for the future generations: if this site is still there I want them to know that not everybody had the same taste for mediocrity.
I gave up in the episode where the so-called doctor is tricked into a pub where there is a supposedly wounded fat man. How this could be acted is beyond understanding. It's not human it's neanderthal.
New Tricks: Object of Desire (2011)
Brian is not special, he is a bully
I used to like this series. But then I watched it again recently and I had a growing dislike toward Brian character, especially in the way he behaves with his wife. It didn't matter too much most of the time, but in this episode he simply is abhorrent. The way he shouts at his wife, forbid her to dispose of some items in the attic (when he himself considers as normal to sell objects that don't belong to him), opens her email, justifies his bout of temper, it's appalling.
It's not just that it didn't age well, it never was ok in the first place.
It's too bad really because the episode is above average but for this utterly repulsive character.
Karen Pirie (2022)
Zero for the "time period" atmosphere - other than that, I'm still waiting
Why did they depict 1996 as if it were the 70s?! The tapes, the total absence of computers, (there were PLENTY of them in 96, in a vast majority of homes AND in offices), the way they dressed up (although some of it comes straight out of the 80s), the caricatural patronizing style of men in general, policemen more particularly (to that matter, even in the way they portray them today is absurd)
It looks like Prime suspects the beginning - redux.
To the person whose profession it is supposed to be to make it look real : have you spent times watching documentaries or news from this period? I mean, other than series of the 90s, coloured in yellowish sepia-style to add a kind of pre-cinema era touch?
What you did is utterly ridiculous and ugly. How you got this job is incomprehensible, but even more incomprehensible is that nobody dared to say "No, 1996 did most definitely NOT look like this"
Ridley: The Numbered Days (2022)
Acting is great - story is so bad it destroys everything
A back story is only interesting if it stays in the background, to give the main character his deepness, his texture, a halo of mystery. It allows the audience -us- to develop our own myth around his past, his motivations, his future too.
But, no, we are stupid, so we are force-fed an extraordinary amount of absurdities passing as acts of independence, rebellion or humanity -when actually it's just plain idiocy- just to mask the inability to actually invent other characters, other stories, other cases. Subsequently the main character becomes and behaves like a superhero in a marvel : erratic, heroic, alone, like a poor lonesome cowboy and everybody else's life just melt in a saturated soap-like sentimentalism.
Fine actors deserve better.
Shetland: Episode #7.6 (2022)
HA - I did a review of THIS episode but posted it in Season 7.1
This the review for Episode 6 of season 7
I started laughing after 2 minutes into this episode (Recap and Intro included) - And the more it became absolutely unrealistic the more I laughed, so definitely has to be recast as a comedy.
It's so conspicuous that Perez-Henshall gestalt only exists mainly for the camera only, and secondarily for his buddies cum actors, enemies cum actors, landscape cum Shetland, that calling this acting is an insult to the profession. He is SO concerned for humanity, the viewers, and probably even alien life, but first essentially for himself-playing-the-role-right-with-the-perfect-frown. The amount of coincidences is galactical, The fact that the special forces dedicated to antiterrorism have to rely on the local police force in "slow motion knowledge mode" for information as to which target might be next, is just so utterly absurd that I wonder how they could keep serious playing their parts (mostly getting out of cars, or getting back into it in full gears all the time, they must have slept in it)
But wait, I'm not done yet, at 18'40 something Perez morphs into James Bond! Yes, yes, yes! At this point I was waiting for Dr No, Blofeld, or any new omnipotent malevolent incarnation of "the evil forces of this world" to land into the show.
Writers!, I was extremely disappointed when they didn't come.
Anyway, one minute into the car chase Perez-Bond calls the "Centre" to let them know well, he's chasing the archvillain by himself alone, because really he is just Perez and sixty second of Bondesquitude is enough. They all come in numbers, lots and lots and lots of cars, don't know the brand though, you? And the chase ends up like a wet firecracker (pétard mouillé).
INTERLUDE - the sea is really really really beautiful - the waves, the wind, the green of the land, the peculiar colour of the ocean, fantastic - End of INTERLUDE.
So all of this ends up close to the cliff. I'm not going further in the description. Just one thing though, I did a screenshot of the very handsome eye of a special force sniper : green/hazelnut, very sweet, very sexy, huh, no sorry, rewind, very fierce and very determined.
2 stars for the super relaxing laughing effect 1 star for the magnificent landscape, I envy your fresh air guys!
For those of you who really liked it, I am deeply sorry, I don't wish to offend you. It just didn't work AT ALL for me.
Shetland: Episode #7.1 (2022)
Episode 1 to 6 good entertainment - episode 7 WHAT? REALLY?
I started laughing after 2 minutes into this episode (Recap and Intro included) - And the more it became absolutely unrealistic the more I laughed, so definitely has to be recast as a comedy.
It's so conspicuous that Perez-Henshall gestalt only exists mainly for the camera only, and secondarily for his buddies cum actors, enemies cum actors, landscape cum Shetland, that calling this acting is an insult to the profession. He is SO concerned for humanity, the viewers, and probably even alien life, but first essentially for himself-playing-the-role-right-with-the-perfect-frown. The amount of coincidences is galactical, The fact that the special forces dedicated to antiterrorism have to rely on the local police force in "slow motion knowledge mode" for information as to which target might be next, is just so utterly absurd that I wonder how they could keep serious playing their parts (mostly getting out of cars, or getting back into it in full gears all the time, they must have slept in it)
But wait, I'm not done yet, at 18'40 something Perez morphs into James Bond! Yes, yes, yes! At this point I was waiting for Dr No, Blofeld, or any new omnipotent malevolent incarnation of "the evil forces of this world" to land into the show.
Writers!, I was extremely disappointed when they didn't come.
Anyway, one minute into the car chase Perez-Bond calls the "Centre" to let them know well, he's chasing the archvillain by himself alone, because really he is just Perez and sixty second of Bondesquitude is enough. They all come in numbers, lots and lots and lots of cars, don't know the brand though, you? And the chase ends up like a wet firecracker (pétard mouillé).
INTERLUDE - the sea is really really really beautiful - the waves, the wind, the green of the land, the peculiar colour of the ocean, fantastic - End of INTERLUDE.
So all of this ends up close to the cliff. I'm not going further in the description. Just one thing though, I did a screenshot of the very handsome eye of a special force sniper : green/hazelnut, very sweet, very sexy, huh, no sorry, rewind, very fierce and very determined.
2 stars for the super relaxing laughing effect
1 star for the magnificent landscape, I envy your fresh air guys!
For those of you who really liked it, I am deeply sorry, I don't wish to offend you. It just didn't work AT ALL for me.
The Capture: Invisible Men (2022)
Propaganda when it doesn't say its name
Well, I'm almost at the end of episode two and I am so tired of being led to the obvious. We know which one is the monster don't we?
So it's not hard to see where the whole shenanigans of "invisible men" will end up : let me tell you the story so you can spare some hours from wasting your time. At the end we'll know that the rotten government of the UK wants to justify the strengthening of video surveillance of their citizens by staging all these assassinations using "advanced AI" to doctor video surveillance feeds.
And no doubt, somehow, somewhere the good guys will uncover the whole conspiration by unveiling ties between China cum dictatorship ie one of "the_current_ennemy" and a certain privileged rotten British political class, all for the good of the citizens, blessed and ignorant, innocent and free...
Writers, you really really are at the bottom of the propaganda pit.
Van der Valk: Blood in Amsterdam (2022)
A nail...in the coffin
She left a tiny bit of her nail on the body? Which is found, very conveniently, as one of the perpetrator accomplice is just stepping out on a balcony to witness it. Oh and yes, the nail was found in situ, ON the body, which was in a crate, which, no doubt, was moved around when delivered, so the nail must have been stuck into this part of the skin, even though the guy was wearing clothes. And that leads to finding who did it. When exactly did this bit of nail come off her finger? And how can it be encrusted in the torso when it wasn't the part hit with the brick? Not to mention that she would probably immediately notice missing a part of her nail...
And then, there is this other character who recognises the body to belong to one of her many "flings" by a conveniently situated birthmark on his groin?
And this woman and her lover couldn't find another way to distract attention from them but to deliver the say body, divided into three pieces to her own 3 children?
I mean, really! What utter utter tosh! It's not a story, it's a giant grass snake that you are trying to make us swallow
Too bad really because I like the actors, the city, the moods, the interactions. Not a good excuse for such a flawed plot.
2 stars only for the actors and location.
Minus something for the "writer"
A Stranger in My Home: Shades of Jade (2016)
I hope she got paroled at the end
Murder is horrendous, and the fact that she was eventually found out and then sentenced is both for family and justice a good thing. But when I see the daughter in law being this self-righteous avenging philistine, I cannot but wonder what she'd had thought if her own daughter would have brought a 53 years old sugar daddy at home when 19. This guy was paying for an escort GIRL, she could have been his GRAND DAUGHTER. It's disgusting.
Death in Paradise: Death of a Pawn (2022)
The Preposterous episode
That the KGB would murder somebody in 1986 in the UK by kidnapping a dissident at gun point with the main organiser of the present tournament having witnessed it, and having testified to it, without this to immediately come up in the story right at the beginning, is utterly ridiculous and truly unbelievable..
Even if the journalist had erased the name of the dissident in her interview, (why does she erase it again? For fear it would compromise what again, her article, her research...) it would have been public knowledge at this point, it makes no sense that she'd want to erase this part of the interview.
There was a press and television, and broadcast at this time you know. Such an event would have been more than extensively covered!
Everybody would have thought about it, especially if all these big chess masters names had been associated with the event at the time in 86.
They seem to live in a parallel universe where there seem to be no Wikipedia, no access to any archives, either from newspaper or the Mitrokhin Archive (which would most certainly have mentioned this assassination of a dissident by the KGB and the fact that there was a witness to the kidnapping), no phone, no emails.
Aside of that, there are several other points in this episode that are really, really bad, the least not being Commissioner Patterson sleeping with his ex-wife against any common sense after a couple of drinks. Knowing she is involved in the enquiry, it just does not add up with his personality and his sense of duty. Oh and, his ex-wife's daughter is his? Really? Planning on introducing us to her in the next series are we? That's a parachute drop !
Also, there is no chemistry either between the members of the team or between the team and Neville. Naomi, Marlon and Darlene give a glimpse on what could be their personalities on their own, but there is no sense of a team, no history between themselves which leads to curiosity about their future in the series. It's always caricatural, it lacks deepness, and the humour is terrible. Neville who seemed to have matured in the latest episodes is back to his shallowness and clownish self, which is probably why the writers have decided to reactivate the animosity between him and Selwyn.
It's SO bad, it doesn't even deserve 1 star. But the landscape is, as usual wonderful. And Catherine always lovable.
La promesse (2020)
Excellent cinematography, beautiful picture - ridiculous story and very bad dialogues
Someone else summarized it perfectly : "cliché after cliché after cliché" and indeed it is.
I know one of the actors was in the police before he changed profession - well, good for the police. I wouldn't want to imagine the French police acting like in this film. I don't see anything positive in a cop so utterly naïve she accepts to be, alone, in a closed room with someone she considers a relapsed paedophile, not recording the meeting.
She makes all the decisions on her own without any consulting or meeting, for instance by going to the suspect house with a whole group of armed force, without verifying he actually is there, and of course he isn't - what a waste of public money, of time, of resources, but mostly it shows a lack of imagination by the writers of this show.
The Charlotte case happened in Bayonne which is about190km from Bordeaux, and yet, not mentioning the fact that her colleagues are in the police -yes it begs the obvious question about their detective abilities- nobody knows anything about a child disappearing there in 1999? They don't try to fetch information on internet, they don't have archived newspapers? In which parallel world do they live?
Something else : Sarah is 15 in 99, Sarah Castaing's mother, Ines (Nadia Fares) seems a lot younger than her husband Pierre (Olivier Marchal), in fact according to their real life ages she would have been 16 when she gave birth to Sarah in 1984. I find the make-believe about this cop being a hater of paedophiles really really hard when he himself was about 25 when he got a 15 years old pregnant.
I watched episodes 1 and 2 and then jumped to 6: even this was a waste of time.
Not recommended.
One star for the beautiful landscape and the photography.