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Reviews
Mothering Sunday (2021)
Merchant Ivory it ain't
A country house love movie with a star studded cast lured me into the cinema. Yes, the country houses were there and still looking pretty good. So I really can't complain on on that score. But, the love part seemed to have got dropped because this film was utterly devoid of love. There was though some pretty gratuitous sex that happens in a country house and then a servant girl decides she will explore the house stark naked in soft porn fashion, which as we all know young working class women were prone to do just after the first world war. And we learn that one of the important things that distinguishes the aristocracy from the rest of us is that when they dress they put their shirt and vest on before their underpants.
As for Olivia Colman and Colin Firth they portray their boring characters to Oscar winning perfection. But so what - they are boring. Now if like me you were expecting the film to twist somewhere so that the servant girl actually take some action against the class system. Stand by to be disappointed.
Very disappointed.
Sogongnyeo (2017)
Well observed and beautiful
I think this film can be compared with 'Roma'. Its not so much the telling of a story - but there is a story - as a well crafted observation of life. Through the eyes of the main protagonist, Mi-So, we see how a group of friends from University, have both moved on it their lives but yet are imprisoned in and by their new existences. Mi-So makes the decision to give up her tiny apartment and sofa surf at the homes of each her friends and so giving her and us a chance to see into her friends' lives. Each friend is trapped in some way by their life's circumstance - marriages, separations, in-laws, dull jobs, moving back home to live with parents etc. They have all moved on but none have found freedom or real fulfillment. In the end even Mi-So's boyfriend gives up on his dream of being a comic book creator and takes a job off in the Middle East. Mi-So herself either chooses not to move on or cannot and remains somehow true to terms of her own existence. This film is moving, compassionate and joy to watch. If you loved Roma I think you will love this. If you loved Tokyo Story you will love this. A classic.
Sex Education (2019)
Really? Maybe Marmite.
I'm not sure what the demographic is of those who like this series but it really mindless drivel and hence a lot of the sex etc becomes somewhat distasteful. Clearly a Marmite production.
The Children (2008)
Intelligent Horror
I find watching horror films often to be a dissastisfying experience. Being scared for a short while has a kind of thrill but the satisfaction is shortlived. Often as the lights come on at the end of the film I am left wondering why I bothered and apart from feeling slightly nervous the next time I go down to the cellar, the effect of the film is minimal.
Not so with The Children. Not only is this film well shot, well directed and well acted by both adults and children it has a great script which delivers a good story. Unlike films like 28 Days Later which present you with the scenario and then leave you to enjoy the ride (or not) this film leaves you to pick up clues and make dedcutions as you go along. I look forward to watching this again in a few months time.
An intelligent horror film - I like it. Can we have more please.
Como agua para chocolate (1992)
More Romp than Romance
I don't believe that there are viewers of this film clutching their damp handkerchiefs as the closing credit roll. This is a film more about passion than romance and has one of the all time best food and sensuality sequences etched onto celluloid. Tita makes a sauce using the rose petals from a bouquet given to her by Marco, the effect of which is particularly marked on her red haired sister Gertrudis. Overcome by her sensuality Gertrudis goes and has a hot shower in hut that serves as a bathroom. Outside the civil war comes vibrantly to life, the hut catches fire and she runs out naked. She is on fire but not literally and a woman with an Amazonian body that probably only Robert Crumb can truly appreciate in all its glory. She is lifted by a Mexican officer up onto his horse not to demur position behind him but facing him as if instantly in a position of coitus.
OK there are some characters here who seemed to have drifted in from some cheap budget 80's soap opera and the sound track sometimes seems to be been made when all the finance had spent but this film is undeniable fun and has a whole tureen of charm.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
All Craft and no Substance
You can imagine that when it came to editing this film that they were scared that might lose for ever a few minutes of fine acting. Yes all these actors can act and they do it very well. They do it in worthy style in hushed voices for about two and half hours. But surely there is more to a good film than fine performances? In an effort to bolster the film they have stolen a central strand from 'The Conversation' (the reconstruction and deciphering of a taped conversation over a period of time) and mixed it with an array of characters who might have stepped from some mirror version of 'The Godfather' featuring families of WASPs and for good measure thrown in the worst part of 'Eyes Wide Shut' - namely the secret society that everyone who is everyone is a member of but of course is so secret no one knows about it. I suspect that if about 50 minutes were taken out of the film and the plot tightened up and if Matt Damon did not look perpetually adolescent then one might finish watching this feeling the experience was worthwhile. As it is some will be fooled by the smoke and mirrors that they have seen a masterpiece and others will have fallen asleep.
Shortbus (2006)
Groundbreaking masking the fact its a poor film.
What is really annoying about this film is that its groundbreaking nature makes me feel I should like it. But really the fact there is lots of explicit sex can never cover up the fact that the actions of the central woman character are just implausible. So she has never had an orgasm but is a couples counsellor who physically hits her clients and then goes and meets those same clients in a sex club? I just didn't believe it. Thereafter the sex look even more gratuitous than in a porn movie. My prediction is that any popularity that this film has will fade fast and in a few years time the main reaction of any viewers will just to be to laugh at the notion that the makers were taking themselves seriously.