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Pamela, a Love Story (2023)

Elephant in the room...

This gentle documentary reveals the person behind the sex star, who has been very hurt by being turned from a soft-porn Playgirl pin-up into a hard porn film star entirely against her will, by a theft from her and her then-husband's property. Regardless of celebrity status, whenever anyone's free will is violated, they will be wounded, and when it is as public as this one against the world-famous star of the wildly successful Baywatch TV series, then it is truly traumatising. As much as Ms. Anderson insists she is not a victim, the fact remains that she was victimised, and that justice was never done to right that wrong. Whoever pathetic attorney represented her in her short-lived law suit against the perpetrators of those selling the notorious unauthorised sex video spliced together from private footage of her and then husband, should be disbarred for their utter inadequacy to prove such a clear-cut case of theft and violation of privacy, with enormously damaging consequences to the parties stolen from. That their marriage ended shortly after this additional violation of inadequate representation in a 'show-room' style court presented by the defendants in that trial, which should have been struck down by the Lee's legal representative within minutes, is firmly the fault of the husband who resorted to violence against his wife, who rightly divorced him as a result, as no woman who can no longer feel defended by the man who most of all she should be able to trust to champion and defend her, and no longer feels safe with him, should remain his wife - yet his irreparable behaviour was evidently exacerbated by the circumstances of the 'show-trial' which misrepresented their otherwise clear-cut case of theft and violation of privacy. In this time when even the murderous Mendendez brothers' trial is being reviewed, it is high time for the perpetrators of the crime committed against Pamela Anderson Lee and Tommy Lee to be properly acknowledged, and properly represented in a court of law, so that they can receive the full healing from it which can only come when justice is served, when victims are heard - including, in this case, full recompense and reimbursement of the millions of dollars made by the thieves from the sales of the illicit sex tape to which they never gave permission, to both them as well as their innocent children, who have suffered the consequences thereof in perpetuity. If this documentary effects that core issue hiding in plain sight at the heart of it, then it will have succeeded. In light of yet more recent profit-mongering of Pamela and Tommy by yet more unscrupulous and unauthorized film makers, who will boldly step up to take on their case in a court of law, so as to right these wrongs?! Awaiting THAT documentary...

The Pale Horse (2020)

Re-writing a classic author's work requires more authenticity.

Beautifully produced, skilfully enacted, transposed from Christie's original post-war years to carefully re-created 1960/61, this re-telling of The Pale Horse pulls the viewer in masterfully but ultimately doesn't quite deliver - because the writer wasn't sufficiently true to the original writer/author's moral core and spirit. Which means that it ought to have billed as The Pale Horse based on the book by Agatha Christie. Thus, Christie's ultimate delivery of a satisfying ending was missing, leaving this viewer - a seasoned Christie viewer - slightly mystified and certainly unsatisfied, with a very un-Christie closing scenario of the wicked being punished while the somewhat wicked but now penitent is also punished? Too bad, because after watching the first two episodes, I was really enjoying this retelling and willing to go along with the multiple changes in characters and plot line... Plus, Christie by all accounts had no belief in the supernatural, whereas this storyline features supernatural elements not clearly delineated (which, one feels, IF Christie had included them, they would have been!). In summary; when re-working a well-known author's work, a modern writer should be more careful, and IMHO those working with them should hold them more closely to the original before unleashing it on the public.

Murder, Mystery and My Family (2018)

Where's the new, updated material to make this show compelling?

One of the most compelling arguments against capital punishment is the irreversibility of it, if exonerating evidence shows up after sentence is passed; this show IMHO misses a key component which would make revisiting past death sentence cases truly compelling, and worthwhile - the invaluable element of hindsight. At the time of trial and sentencing, the future is still unknown. But over time, in addition to new evidence (on the basis of which a case can of course be re-opened), certain actions and behaviours by still-living persons sometimes reveal patterns and hidden motives which would have changed the outcome of the trial IF they had been possible to perceive, prior to such patterns having emerged. Hence, surely, the whole point of this show! For example: In the first episode, the outcome of the original conviction was not reversed because no new evidence was provided, even though no motive was presented for Charlotte's alleged crime (other than a spurious accusation by unkind neighbours of sexual relations with a lodger which she vehemently denied and which wasn't proven), she had no record or history of murderous behaviours or intent, and there was no assertion that her husband was unpleasant or violent towards her or their children - in fact she had an 'anti-motive' of being mother to the murdered man's 5 children, who, if she was not convicted for murdering him, faced abject poverty and the workhouse in the wake of his sudden death. But her 'best friend' Lucy, on whose testimony the bulk of the damning evidence against Charlotte rests, had lost her husband prematurely 4 years previously...so, surely the first line of research should be, how did the rest of Lucy's life play out post-trial and execution of her 'best friend' Charlotte? Did she re-marry and if so, when and how did that husband die? Did other people in her life die unexpectedly and prematurely? Keeping in mind that a serial killer tends not to need a motive to kill, other than the thrill, and subsequent pleasure of getting away with murder. Obviously, it need not have been Lucy, but hindsight provides the invaluable capacity to re-examine everyone closely associated with the victim as well as his (possibly also victimised) wife, to detect a pattern somewhere. Insufficient detective work may be excusable almost 100 years ago, but surely not in the 21st century, and in the context of a TV show dedicated to re-examining old cases! Certain is, someone murdered this man, but very possibly his wife was subsequently wrongfully murdered by his country; I wanted to watch historical detective research unfolding which would at very least shed new light on WHO might have dunnit besides the person protesting that they hadn't, but condemned and put to death for it anyway, but I was sorely disappointed...as was, surely, the emotionally wounded family of both the deceased.

Kiss the Ground (2020)

Save Our Soil!

This is the documentary to watch when feeling completely helpless to change the current course of climate change - the facts shown here conclude that there is still time (not much, though!) to alter the present trajectory and reclaim an Eden-like Earth, by ending the practices of poisoning the earth and cultivating old tried-and-true principles of farming ('regenerative farming') and animal husbandry. Yes, we CAN feed our planet and the people on it without too much modern technology, or even by requiring everyone to give up eating meat (though that would be my personal preference, it is not a requirement of the regenerative farming movement). We 'just' have to put an end to ludicrously outdated government subsidies and the profits of corporations peddling poison and lies about what we need to feed. Kiss the Ground shows how this is change all societies can take charge of and support if people are properly informed. It is also what everyone in their right minds wants! Regardless of whether we care about what goes on down on the farm, we should care about the outcome and give support to those who are healing the planet, one acre at a time.

The Invisible Woman (2013)

Dickens as Pygmalion

This beautiful and beautifully filmed, 'English classic' style piece is slow-moving but compelling, though sadly because it shows the side of a well-loved and much-lauded English author and social critic at his most selfish, during his process of betraying his most deeply-espoused (pun intended!) values of Home, Hearth, Authenticity and Kindness. A vulnerable, fatherless young woman (younger than his oldest daughter) brought up on Dickens' works (which she admires and understands exceptionally well) is preyed upon by a man 27 years her senior, who ought to behave like her father (encourage and be a benefactor to her and her bereft, genteel-poor family of females in a dubious profession, in Victorian society), but instead he publically spurns and humiliates his dowdy, dutiful same-aged wife (and mother of their umpteen children) in strenuous attempts to cast her aside and end their marriage (without her consent), due to being deeply in love with his afore-mentioned prey, and without (apparently) seeing (or if so, caring about) anything remotely Pygmalion-like about his (and their) predicament; nope, its Romantic Love, deep and intellectual and undeniable, according to the primary actor and director (Ralph Fiennes' portrayal is very believable), and reciprocated (Felicity Jones portrays the sometimes cool conflictedness of The Invisible Woman as she succumbs to her seducer, without ever fully giving her consent to a situation of his making and is therefore tormented by). Thank God Dickens died when he did! Giving his reluctant mistress/victim the opportunity to forge the life for herself she might have had if he had let her be, unselfishly, instead of blindly pursuing his narcissistic emotions inspired by such a young and pretty mirror of his own mind and imaginings...albeit, this new life comes with a price - but never mind. Ironically the young woman he wanted to make his second wife - but that would have been at the expense of his rock-star like career, so he settled for 'having his cake and eating it' instead - had imbibed the virtues extolled by her seducer in his works of imagination too well to fit his revised morals. Wondering whether a new Dickens novel will ever surface telling the tale of how a very nice, normal young lady, brought up by a good, widowed mother who spared no sacrifice for her daughters, and with no father to protect her from an admired father-figure, repelled him when he became predatory, despite her very vulnerable emotions? If so, it was probably incinerated along with all the other incriminating papers in the bonfire of Dickens' back yard...

The Velvet Underground (2021)

Documentary as an art-form unto itself

Thank you, Todd Haynes, for understanding that the key to making an accurate documentary is to immerse the viewer into the world and Zeitgeist of the people one is documenting. I was riveted from start to finish - which was a welcome surprise, considering I almost passed up on watching it completely after having just struggled through the first 25 minutes of the woefully banal 'Bruce Being King' Springsteen & his band documentary which is listed next to it on Apple TV (BTW note to THAT director; in this day and age, making an entire movie - let alone a documentary - in black and white is a ludicrous pretention with absolutely no justification), and was at the point of practically dying of boredom before the first few frames of Velvet Underground fortunately revived me. Transformer, for sure.

Bad Sisters (2022)

Dark comedy, deeply Irish...

Having gotten hooked on this series within the first 2 episodes, and having shared a substantial segment of my life with an Irish friend, and after sharing some of my primary reactions to it with another friend and former resident of Ireland, and curious to see what others were writing about it, all confirms my initial impression that Bad Sisters is deeply Irish in a way which makes it almost impossible for anyone who hasn't had an up-close look into Irish culture to understand. Think of this story as a modern-day Morality Tale and enjoy the ride without examining the issues too closely; in other words, just entertainment, set in an affluent modern-day Ireland we so seldom see. In summary, I recommend enjoying this ingeniously crafted and excellently depicted series by setting aside reactions such as moral outrage and anger over mangled Feminist themes, etc, and just enjoying the absolutely first-class depiction of the Bad Guy by Danish actor Claes Bang, and the comedic aspects of it - which are abundant. I haven't seen it thru to the end yet, but already it has become clear that there are consequences sufficient to go around..!

Home Before Dark (2020)

Starts out with a twist on the theme of but certainly not Stranger Things...

So the problem at the core of Home Before Dark is that what appears at first to have a new twist to it, i.e. A true story about a 9-year old child reporter whose sleuthing makes a difference - proves to comprise of the same-old over-used format we audiences are surely all growing weary of in this era of streaming-on-demand, which is, to make the assumption that we will become invested in the characters to the extent that it barely matters what the plot-line is, as they are sent off over endless series of diversions of doing this 'n that, replete with mini-dramas, Deep Conversations, and mini-revelations, all of which add up - over the course of 20+ episodes - to the resolution of a mystery - which is what we tuned into for the resolution of in the first place. At the risk of raising the ire of umpteen Millennials, who appear to feed off this sort of Silver Linings Playbook stuff, Agatha Christie never made this mistake with her mysteries; all her plot diversions were about red herrings, which one followed willingly because one could always trust that ultimately, all the loose ends would tie up and the mystery would be resolved within a reasonable attention span. Yes, I loved the first season of Stranger Things, but once the basic mystery was resolved, the storyline couldn't be sustained and I found myself reaching backwards in time to re-watch the original inspiration, E. T. Unfortunately, many of the characters in Home Before Dark are simply uninspired, with our intrepid primary reporter never reined in by her doting parents, who permit her to run around a town harboring a dark secret (an abducted child, no less!) and some dangerous authority figures, her two 9-year old friends in tow - whose parents are apparently oblivious to the danger by association - as she pleases, in pursuit of The Truth.

Blue Ridge (2020)

Misplaced aspirations to be the next Fargo...

In the world of movies - especially independent movies - Blue Ridge is that rare anomaly; a film that doesn't take itself seriously enough. Whatever movie one makes, the maker must believe in his/her creation whole-heartedly, and evidently this is not the case here; some ironic (or simply dishonest) distancing of the heart at the core of this tale spoils the near-cohesive soup of ingredients 'selling' us this story of a New Sheriff with a troubled marriage in a Small Town with Trouble. The casting, acting, filmography, dialogue and music were all very good, but could not transcend this fatal flaw. The tongue-in-cheek stretches were over-extended to the point of making the climatic face-off of the primary protagonists cliche'd and unbelievable. (& BTW the over-done SFX flash of fire from his gun when the grieving Native American leader fired it in the air is jarringly unbelievable, too.) Although intelligent, the writers missed an easy opportunity to weave the theme of Thanksgiving into the storyline which would have enriched this film overall, plus make it fit into a popular market in need of refreshing alternatives to the classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles; all those lovely touches of Autumnal colour (though we were denied pumpkins - presumably because of this strange preference for neutrality of time and place) resulted in an unfulfilled seasonal promise, and missed out on a heart-warming closing scene of our heroic crime-solving Sheriff and his wife and daughter reuniting as a once-again happy family around a Thanksgiving table peopled with grateful new neighbours and friends. Too bad. Blue Ridge shoulda/coulda been a little gem, instead of a Fargo wanna-be.

Nobody Walks (2012)

Mismanaged midlife crises...

This movie is easy to watch because it's beautifully filmed, depicting a halcyon side of Los Angeles which in reality, only a privileged few ever see, far less live. And the acting is very good, too. But the script is gapingly immature (the young female disrupter stroking a snake-skin left by the side of her bed early in the story is an almost unforgiveably clumsy metaphor!), and though released in only 2012, is already dated due to the seismic shifts of the MeToo movement. In summary, it's a familiar story of adults mishandling their mislife crises and an ambitious young woman having to navigate her way through them, despite being the (much) younger adult in the situation - which she should have some protection within; instead, her champion turns predator, then turns her out of the house when she refuses to complete the fulfilment of his fantasy mistress-wish, while his wife - an otherwise patient therapist accustomed to listening to self-absorbed bratty celebrities and who presumably has an understanding of human behaviour - calls him out on his 'crush' (which he, with typical male dishonesty, denies) but fails to help him come to grips with it before it takes a more serious turn, and denies him her honest feelings about his feelings, closing the call-out with a superficial "Don't embarrass me" (signalling to him that as long as he keeps a relationship with a much younger woman clandestine, she doesn't really mind - which, we soon discover, isn't true).

Ultimately this male in a classic midlife crisis can count his lucky stars that the women he is involved with both have a sounder understanding of the situation than he does, and both act on that - herding him back into his enviable way of life from which he had temporarily strayed, honour intact (superficially, anyway). He pays no price for his transgressions, while the young ingenue goes home with the somewhat improved files of her avant-garde museum movie piece, wiser about the ways of wicked L. A...gee, thanks, that sucks so much!! Sheesh.

American Pastoral (2016)

A dreadful, dismal, depressing movie - a definite miss.

This film is a miserable trip down an inexplicable rabbit hole with no explanations or resolutions and thus constitutes a distressing waste of talent and resources. The story is full of holes, featuring a near saintly-dispositioned hero with the patience of Job - but without any rewards for his suffering; how, exactly, his beautiful, smart, stuttering daughter transforms from adoring and adored darling to a spoiled and disrespectful brat who morphs into a terrorist who is then in turn terrorised into a state of trauma from which there is no return, makes no sense within the story presented to the audience suckered into it by beautiful photography, cast and an upbeat beginning. How this film was greenlit by any studio anywhere, remains a mystery. Furthermore, it's a liability to put entertainment out there like this: I wish I'd spent my precious 1.5 hours leisure time watching something more interesting and uplifting. If I'd watched it in a cinema, you can be certain I'd demand my money back!

Evil Eye (2020)

An absorbing thriller unfortunately flawed, which could have been much more.

On the face of it, this low-budget film successively entertains with an engaging story told skilfully by a very good cast of ensemble actors playing a properly paced plot which escalates the growing tension to climax, and the moving 'moral' of the tale as told by mother to daughter makes the whole movie worth watching on its own merits ("we have to understand that we cannot change the fact that there will always be men like that...but it's not our fault...and we must fight them, mother and daughter together...").

That said - the problems of this movie are annoying avoidable and prevent it from being much better than was possible.

For starters, it takes an actor with considerably more on-camera charisma and/or physical beauty to complement and compete with the power-house presence of Sarita Choudhury than the one cast in the role of the self-reliant (but ultimately compliant) Americanised Indian daughter, who doesn't physically resemble her 'mother' remotely (and her resemblance is important to the plot); why did the casting director not cast the young woman who played the part of the young Choudhury as the daughter, also, which would have made the whole storyline much more plausible? This mistake created a breach of belief which the audience is obliged to bridge or stretch, particularly when an exceptionally good-looking and wealthy young man finds and subsequently seeks her out. Secondly, while we understand the allure of the title, the Evil Eye protection/superstitious falls flat as the plot progresses, when it might easily have been mobilised to mean much more. Thirdly, and most glaringly, the entire principle/belief system of reincarnation is turned upside down as the rich, obsessive and murderous boyfriend is reincarnated as another rich, obsessive and murderous boyfriend - as anyone who is even a little bit informed or invested in reincarnation knows, that's NOT how it goes... Fourthly, the tell-tale gift of blue heart-shaped sapphires makes no sense whereas red heart-shaped rubies would have ("two hearts afire with true love, exactly the same, a perfect pair belonging together...forever..."etc!). Fifthly, instead of ending it with the classic sound of a flat-lining life support machine, the narrative tastelessly infers the departed soul immediately entering the innocent body of a new-born baby (hey, what happened to THAT 9 months?!). Sixthly, the obsession of he anti-hero is too baseless to ring true, especially after facing the now middle-aged reality of the object of that obsession; not to imply any deficiencies in Ms. Chowdury's commanding (and still beautiful) physicality, but as he himself says to her upon their re-meeting, "You've changed - a lot", i.e. she is no longer the young woman he was once so crazy about that he was willing to kill rather than let her remain with her husband, whereas - according to the script, anyway - her daughter is, and she is already agreed to marry him = to be his, unlike her mother. So it is difficult for an audience to accept that he would not trade his old/original obsession for a new one, i.e. ownership of another woman similar to the other he wanted 30 years ago. Even egotistical homicidal stalkers have some limits and it seems evident that this one would more likely have met his in that moment of re-meeting, so that - at most - his desire would have been to avenge her spurning and accidental annihilation of him 30 years before on her, not her daughter, whom he can now have all to himself...and seventh, it is almost impossible to believe that this daughter of loving Indian parents has no siblings! An inconsistency easily solved by saying that unfortunately the injury she sustained during the altercation which brought about the premature first/only birth prevented further successful pregnancies - in which case, that injury would have had to have been something other than a head injury...for example, the jealous and spurned boyfriend furiously lashing out at the unborn baby after she assured him that the child was not his (the timeline of 2 years between their breakup and her marriage would and could have been condensed to 9 months, especially in a society where arranged marriages were still the norm), bringing on the premature birth but having damaged the womb. Just sayin'... !! If the story hadn't been so full of holes, this movie might have succeeded in becoming something along the lines of a cult classic about female empowerment and mother-daughter dynamics. As-is, it constitutes a good couple of hours of entertainment which leaves one feeling frustrated for being less than what it might have been.

Radioactive (2019)

A disappointing mess of a movie.

I was looking forward to a celebration of the accomplishments of an exceptional Nobel-winning 19th century female scientist and instead found myself saddled with a depressing and startlingly edited mess of a movie which spliced segments of other (ostensibly, anyway) movies from entirely different periods into it, for no apparent reason. Are we to infer that scientists are responsible for their discoveries and the inventions spun from them? Or that, inadvertently sick of radioactive poisoning, the simultaneously celebrated and reviled discoverer somehow foresaw the terrifying consequences of her work? It made no sense to show the horrific depiction of Hiroshima in 1945 in a clumsy attempt to create context with work done in Paris between 1893 and 1927, and it was both tasteless and jarring to attempt such a thing. And how are we supposed to put the little boy in Cleveland receiving cutting edge radiation therapy for his tumour into context, too? Then the overlapping scene from 19th century Paris to late 20th century Chernobyl was so clumsy as to be worthy of the over-reach of a first-year film student. The overall result was that it was almost impossible to retain any sense of wonder over the unusually equitable partnership and marriage of Pierre and Marie Curie with such shenanigans inter- and undercutting it, and the crass psychological explanation of Marie's motivation formed by the early death of her mother detracted from her remarkable focus and drive. The discussion between the reunited couple in apparition form at the very end was depicted touchingly, but almost made one want to gag with its ludicrous effort to tie together any number of loose ends. Pass. And please, at some point in the not-too-distant future, someone make another movie that is actually about the remarkable partnership between Pierre and Marie Curie!

The Vast of Night (2019)

An old tale told so well, it feels completely fresh...

Watch 'The Vast of Night' in one sitting and experience a fully immersive experience to rival any number of movies made for vastly(!) more money; this is a textbook case of how an independently made movie can (and should) be - the vision is intact, so that within minutes the viewer is drawn into its world...a world which we've heard about so many times before, I almost passed on it, assuming I'd be bored by yet another retelling. So truly, it was a pleasant surprise to find myself not tuning out within the first 15 minutes (as I find myself doing with most movies I start watching these days! Since most are so clumsy and contrived). With the exception of the unnecessarily quirky ('cool and clever') framing of the film as a 1950s movie, everything else is cohesive; casting, characters, relationships, styling, sound design...the hauntingly beautiful original score contributes to the tension without overly ramping it up (e.g. in the style of John Williams & co), or detracting from the overall poignancy of this modern fairy tale by superimposing comic relief. The comedic elements that do exist are strictly deadpan and situational - in brief, believeable. I was ultimately seduced into sharing a (possibly mythical) moment in time when people were serious but not cynical, where intelligent and self-reliant 16-year old girls were also honest and sexually innocent, and people in a small town still open to possibilities which today almost feel blah-so-what. By the time the depicted events reached their conclusion, I could hardly bear to lose the young couple who had resolutely resisted throughout all implications by others of their relationship being remotely romantic, yet who were so naturally drawn together by mutual interests, smarts and affection that they were simply unaware of the bonding that they were undergoing throughout this night of intense re-evaluation and adventure.

Midsomer Murders: Painted in Blood (2003)

The Jewel in the Crown...

...or perhaps, the shiniest brass badge of the fictional Midsomer constabulary!?

Every long-running TV series has one episode which is better than the rest, and in the case of Midsomer Murders, this is the one. A perfect balance of understated English comedy combined with mystery and deftly depicted character interactions, directed with wit and without the heavy handedness that marrs many Midsomer episodes. Only ONE (non-gory!)murder was a most refreshing change from the same-old same-old. Bad guys got come-uppances and there were consolation prizes for the Downtrodden, while the lecherous Busy-body played by veteran thespian Trevor Eve got nothing but bragging rights. Too fun! Every minute was enjoyable (but will sadly spoil the handful of episodes I haven't yet seen, by comparison...)

Queen of the Desert (2015)

A bit baffling...

...inasmuch as; here was a real-life woman who did so many extraordinarily adventurous things/exploits at a time, historically, when few men did the same, and who left a contentious legacy, who was by all accounts and standards exceptionally intelligent, and yet the story told here is almost devoid of drama, and we never gain any insight into what this astonishing (some might say, 'bizarre') person/woman was actually thinking at any given moment, besides extreme boredom during the opening scenes in her native England. Furthermore, the dramas of others' whose lives she affects are left entirely open-ended; her unfortunate cousin, love-sick to the point of stalker-like madness for the man who then proposes to her instead - and then kills himself in apparent despair when his beloved and intended goes home for 9 months and doesn't come back - the cameo young servant at the consulate in Tehran who hands her a letter from the mailroom while confessing that he would lay down his life for a woman like her, the faithful guide/sherpa on whom she totally depends during her long desert wanderings/travels and who has by her own admission saved her life many times...what becomes of all of them, we wonder? And are we really to believe that, having consented to write him many passionate and ardent love-letters after he promised her to 'put things in order' with his wife but returning to find out that (a) he hasn't, and (b) he has enlisted to fight in a fierce war on a dangerous front, that this strong-willed personality would meekly say "I see..."?!? Unusual though she was, by her writings we know her to have been an emotional poetic person as well as a shrewd intellect, with plenty of personal opinions, so we cannot blame Nicole Kidman for a vacuous performance but must surely place the blame firmly at the feet of the director. While Herzog has always avoided Hollywood cliches and pat conclusions or summations, in this film he goes too far with his open-endedness and leaves the viewer with far more questions than answers. I began Googling about Gertrude about a third of the way through the movie because I needed to understand better about her background, to try to gauge her motivations to various situations, but by the end of a protracted fest of beauteous desert shots plus mysterious Middle-Eastern music I remained basically baffled. Plus, Pattison's portrayal of T.E. Lawrence was tediously immature, which after watching Lean's famous 'Lawrence of Arabia' starring Peter O'Toole's perpetually shell-shocked hero was a bit indigestible. I do applaud the impetus to put a proper historical frame of reference on this long-overlooked political player and explorer who was also female, and I did enjoy the joyfulness of the (brief!) love scenes between James Franco's character and the (presumably) still very young Gertrude (Gertie? Apparently not - nobody dared to use any nicknames on this imposing person, so it seems...), and of course I very much appreciated the equality of Middle-Eastern characters juxtaposed with the then-colonial and frequently superiority-deluded British, though I was a tad troubled by a distinctly suspicious and hostile glance directly at the camera by an Arab merchant in a marketplace which made me wonder whether the crew had forgotten to get permission from people not paid to be extras?! Hmmm, more bafflement...

Pompeii (2014)

Explosive action, predictable and gory story...

So - it's not All bad; but the sad thing is, it could've been such a solid historical epic with a little more effort…as-is, it really seems to fall between stools so that it's neither a blockbuster format film to satisfy family audiences, nor a super-hero fantasy movie, but something in between but not good enough to qualify as an Original. Some good actors turn in solid but uninspired performances - perhaps uninspired because of the stolid script, peppered with modernisms but with odd echoes of something along the lines of what Vincent Price might have spoofed, only this is supposed to be serious. Kiefer Sutherland's attempt to be a Baddie with an English accent is baffling (this being about 1,700 years before the British Empire was invented, along with the upper-class English accent of that particular ruling class), and his by now standard Sociopath personality replete with cold-hearted butchery is flat and boring because we've seen it all before. Carrie Ann Moss as the Pompei'i mother of the heroine and mistress of her important husband's house, looks the part impressively, but is rather wasted otherwise. Kit Harington, though possessed of suitably poetic pools of romantic ruminations in the form of beautiful eyes which melt when he sees a suffering horse, or his true love, seems ludicrously athletic and strong by contrast to the top gladiator with whom he shares a cell…in other words, it sorely stretches the imagination, that he can complete the various amazing feats of swordsmanship and so forth when up against legions of guards and other gladiators. The mistress of his heart is extremely well-cast as she bears an astonishing likeness to a classic painting of a lady of Pompei'i…but otherwise, even her huge brown eyes ever emoting cannot hold our attention, since she simply doesn't have sufficient to do besides be the object of ardent love (from our hero) and lust (from our English accent spouting Kiefer being a bad Roman overlord). The plot line is also strangely thin, considering. But above all what was missing from it was some sense of perspective about catastrophic events. I find it impossible to believe that people in Pompei'i wholesale stayed in place while the walls and ceilings were crumbling, citing the anger of the Gods. Though history has many sad instances of people denying the hard evidence of impending doom until too late, surely these ancients knew what an erupting volcano could and would do? Surely, then, Vesuvius exploded much like the sudden striking of the San Francisco earthquake - without warning? Unlike a tidal wave or tsunami which centuries ago could not be foreseen or prepared for, in this movie, the pending eruption provides plenty of signs which IF they were ignored, would surely have been interpreted with some alarm, with some suitable reason placating the populace - for example, The Gods are Angry, so Let's Sacrifice more Slaves and Gladiators! (Though I'm not convinced there's any evidence of that having happened in Pompei'i, so I suggest it strictly in service of the so-so storyline!) That could have provided a platform for Reason vs Superstition (for example), which would surely have been preferable to the heroine's weak 'Why are the Gods doing/what have we done to deserve this?' (though that would have been the start of that sort of discussion, I suppose!). Obviously this movie has no aspirations to the philosophical or spiritual - it is all about high emotions and overwrought action, in such excess that it is exhausting to watch and in the end we hardly care what happens to any of them (and as it turns out, they are all doomed, anyway…which makes me wonder whether the writer stopped caring about the characters, knowing their fates!?). From start to finish, the overall message we get is that life in those days was brutish, unfair, and therefore mercifully short. Which it probably was - but this was a movie, so we needed to care about the characters anyway.

But now to the Good: the opening credits over the falling snowflake-like volcanic ash, the music score throughout, the set designs (particularly the opening battle scenes in Britain, as well as some of the halls of Pompei'i), and most of the spectacular special effects (notably, the erupting volcano wracked harbour with ships being seemingly attacked by projectiles from exploding Vesuvius), and most of the costumes were all well observed and executed. The horse wranglers did a great job (I found myself far more concerned about the fate of the horses than the fleeing citizenry of Pompei'i!), so that overall one was left with a strong impression of that catastrophic event in a city far away and many centuries ago, having been immersed in it for an hour or so. But besides that - which is worth something, IMO - the movie as a whole didn't amount to much.

Lucy (2014)

Cher Luc - your Lucy is le mess-du-chaud…j'regrais!

OK so my 'franglais' aside - as a fan of the Fifth Element (which like most fans I've watched about 5 times!) and the witty, fast-paced Transporter films, I was intrigued by the ambitions of Lucy and in full readiness to be wowed by whatever progressive quantum physics-ish theories or summaries Monsieur Besson was positing…only to be completely frustrated & disappointed...from the early and amateurish editing conceits of cross-cutting National Geographic footage of hunting lions with the unfolding plot line all the way to the no-doubt secretly amused but on-screen on podium pontificating Morgan Freeman sporting serious demean strapping the Ueber-female in the sexy form of the seriously underutilized talents of Scarlett J into some sort of chair with electrodes to record whatever wisdom she would wow the assembled Great Minds of Europe with while the Great Police Chief of Paris assured them he'd 'try' to keep a violent Chinese drug cartel at bay so they could complete their all-important downloading process prior to all being killed (potentially), but which sadly was a feat evidently beyond the means of the entire Paris police to achieve… sheesh, the list of anomalies is as long as this violent yet ultimately yawn-worthy yarn of hotch-potch theories springing from an apparently atheist writer/director's mind. I seriously, simply couldn't believe what a hot mess it all was! It seems that all auteurish early success male independent writer/directors go thru this particular stage of middle age (in the case of M.Night Shyamalan, early middle-age...perhaps because his success was so great and SO soon?!) creative crisis when they're determined to make Something Serious & Significant - but by stepping outside the perimeters of what they do best, fall flat on their fully funded faces! So sorry. Hope for better ( = MUCH better!!!) next time. Merci, beaucoup! :)

The Physician (2013)

Beautifully filmed and staged, but not for the squeamish...

or anyone English with a modicum of knowledge of History! Because that final shot of London with the completed Tower of London - after the movie clearly stated it started in the year 1021 - was SO jarring, it really ruined the ending for me, personally! This after 2 and a half hours of successfully suspending disbelief over so many maybe-it-'twas-really-so (i.e. back then in the 11th century) moments in scenes so attractively staged and nicely acted, that I was willing to believe them: But that willingness was shot with that final shot! :( Beautiful film but a BIG mistake to cast the relatively unknown Tom Payne in the leading role, IMO; though certainly NOT recommending the makers cast Shia LaBeouf or one of the Jonas bros (!?!) - HOWEVER, the star power of Ben Kingsley was undeniable and made poor Mr. Payne pale by comparison beside him…which is not what one wants, surely, from one's primary (and in almost every scene) player?

(Noticed that the primary producer was just promoted to C.E.O. of U.F.A., perhaps he's not held accountable for casting inconsistencies?!)

Overall definitely worth watching and listening to due to a very nice Howard James Newton-esque score, but dangerously similar to the many (also very attractive yet too slowly paced) filmed Biblical stories shown on T.V. as made-for-TV movies on channels such as TBN, 3ABN. and Lifetime.

The Switch (2010)

Mediocre man makes good against all odds...

• yet another attempt in what seems like a recent (i.e. over the past 10 years or so) relentless trend trying to placate, pacify and assure Mr. Average (& in the audience!) Dude that he CAN Have It All, just by Being Himself - as personified by the main character's pathetic excuse for a modern man (played by Jason Bateman - himself an average & average looking actor); when Oh When will this trend run its course, PLEASE?!? Because it's simply ludicrous & borderline insulting to an audience to show some Story about how an urban mediocre modern man (written deliberately in lower casing, please-to- note!) eventually and with an absolute minimum of effort gets a wife as depicted by Jennifer Aniston, i.e. fantastic looking (replete with golden tan despite living & working in NYC), well-groomed, smart, sweet-natured, yet somehow with a great/dream job which ALSO pulls down a well-above average salary! PLUS this lucky dude gets to miss out on all the awkwardly tricky becoming-a-father stuff, e.g. a pregnant mate going through mood and body swings, post-natally disinterested in sex, years of changing diapers, months of sleepless nights due to a screaming and/or teething baby, 'terrible toddler' tantrums, etc! HOW lucky is HE?! WHAT exactly did this amazing (apparently/evidently!) tho' average dude DO to deserve or just plain GET such ABOVE- average Good Fortune? Errr…exactly NOTHING. Nope. Nada/Nichts/Niente; he just bungled along in his boring sweaters and pessimistic (which predictably, he calls 'realistic') 'tudes & views, marginally amusing and somewhat smart, holding down a good job where his significantly older, more charismatic, more confident and/or worldly buddy uselessly counsels him - because Mediocre Man (ok so we'll allow an upper case when paired with the former since it now fits!) is impervious to changing his way of Being, because (presumably) he has some stubborn sense (judging by the dull narrative over the whole movie) that SOMEHOW, Things Will Go HIS Way, if he just sticks to being himself long enough… !?! There are no breakthroughs of insight, no therapy (for his abandonment issues - which surely would've been re-triggered when the (undeclared) Love of his Life leaves NYC for her native Minnesota?), precious little character development beyond an upgrade in wardrobe (from sweaters to natty shirts & jackets) and hesitant stepping/dragging into latently desired fatherhood - as would surely ANY guy in his 30s, in love with the mother and besieged with the attentions of an adorable 5 (nearly 6!) year old boy who so evidently resembles himself WOULD (@ any rate, I'd defy almost any guy NOT to respond/develop such feelings under such circumstances, so there's nothing special about Mr. Average doing so!). Somehow - because Someone Up There Loves him?! (unspecified; this is NOT a movie about Faith, only dogged faith in Self, for no special reason) - without being especially attractive, charismatic, charming, witty, smart, energetic, forthcoming or overtly loving, and despite being emotionally reserved/intimacy-inaccessible, reticent in actions, deeds & words, and repeatedly missing out on every single God-given opportunity to declare his love for this gorgeous catch-of-a-future-wife woman, and ruining her chance with another eligible, exciting, energetic, great-looking and openly loving man who seems to excel at several things (notably, a Carpe Diem 'tude!) - unlike him - in an outrageously rude, selfish and completely inconsiderate and long overdue outburst of self- expressing during an important gathering/party of her friends and future family and in front of said adorable child whom he accidentally fathered, who has been practically begging for him to BE his Dad, but whom he has thus far entirely denied that explanation & reassurance due to his own inexplicable & inexcusable timidity, he IS excused (eventually) - without offered apology, apparently!?! - and skips even the most basic bare-bones effort of declaration of his feelings, proposal of marriage, offering of a ring - in short, ANY situation which risks rejection - which is all part of what makes a man & defines ANY one's character, man or woman - and by a modicum of dependability (as a friend) plus sheer fantastic luck likewise entirely inexplicable, leaves ALL the proactive Doing to the woman…when in real life she would be (rightly!) seething with resentment, sense of rejection, unappreciation, and - last but not least! - anger over having been duped! It's absurd, ridiculous, and offensive to expect us to believe such scenarios are likely in life, and a subtle endorsement of everything which is wrong with modern western urban men who wimp their way through every situation and relationship while women in the modern urban West struggle to straddle some unspecified and unstraddalable(!) gap between being both a woman AND a man…because modern men don't/won't do the work of BEING Men, and want their female mates to figure it all out for them…while grumbling about being emasculated by women who want It All: Yeuch! A firm thumbs down all around except for the adorable child who sadly still has no sufficient role model for manhood, and is well on track for roundly resenting his too-capable mother for 'smothering' him, i.e. for being significantly and obviously superior to his father from almost every standpoint! Roll on the 22nd century and robots mates/men and basting sticks & anonymous semen & artificial insemination all around! Surely no worse a travesty than what was represented here in 21st century's mutual mates of flesh & blood..? !

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Tried to watch this, but...

basically, it was unwatchable; 45 minutes into it I gave up; admittedly, I could tell after the first 10 minutes (i.e. after the prologue retelling of the original fairy tale) that I wasn't the target demographic or audience but that's no excuse (IMO) for the awful spectacle of ugly old women being gruesomely murdered by a handsome man & largely skin-tight leather-clad (which showcases her generally straddling - and ample - thighs) young woman clearly enjoying their 'job'; it felt to me like watching mediaeval Bonny & Clyde type psychos with serious granny issues…nor was there any excuse for such a poor plot-line and almost complete absence of wit in the script. I'm all in favour of updated 'takes' of traditional tales and spinning out alternative story lines on classics - but creatively; otherwise it's just a disservice to a tale which teaches children about self-empowerment in terrible circumstances (courtesy of the extensive work of Bruno Bettelheim, we have an understanding now of the importance of traditional fairy tales, even those which are traditionally gruesome…but FOR A REASON!) and when they have NO weaponry, with only their wits to defend them…what a travesty of THAT teaching, this is….the only 'redeeming' aspects are the contributions of the Art Department, otherwise the lowest review I've given any movie, ever, and to which I'll add a resounding UGH!!!

Gravity (2013)

Gravity: the title is either a misnomer or metaphor...

in my opinion, neither quite explains the title which was part of the reason I had so little interest in seeing what looked like (from the trailer) yet another flick about explosions in Space and debris-splattered disasters; so it was a genuine surprise to finally find out that that's NOT what it's primarily about - in fact, this film isn't really and truly 'about' Space at all… The storyline slowly but surely reveals it's baseline Story to be about the fight for life after losing life - not literally, but emotionally and spiritually - in the wake of the devastation of grief. So after suspending disbelief for the umpteenth time (e.g. we're asked to believe a sequence of totally improbably events all taking place 500 km above Earth - which incidentally once again visually supports a theory I've heard and agree with that in actuality, our planet is itself suffering from a misnomer as by all evidence it ought to be called Ocean instead!), we let ourselves be seduced by the beautifully apropos music in tandem with Bullock's moving performance of a person who has only been existing instead of living - and now needs to make up her mind, whether she's willing to fight for life - which ironically has been taken from people around her who it's clear all wanted to live, but didn't. Her metaphorical salvation (OK so I personally objected to the utilization of the Clooney character as a stand-in for Christ! But let it pass…) and rebirth, culminating in the humble last-word utterance of an otherwise unremarkable script ('Thank you'), which was by this point a prayer reduced in simplicity to the essence of this experience and gratitude for having made it back, moving me to tears - and coming as it did after our witnessing her tremendous struggle, was genuinely and unusually good…particularly, in a film emerging from Hollywood and masquerading as an action movie! I was impressed by such artful use of technology appealing to mass audiences while hiding an important message: Life IS worth fighting for, and we all die eventually anyway, so why not try to enjoy the ride while it lasts? :)

Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart (2010)

An appropriate use of the movie/film medium...

inasmuch as THIS is what it's good for - amongst the perhaps most obvious one of entertaining - i.e. the ability to take us on a trip through history and meet people within the context of what we know, rounded out with a good writer's imagination…and as a result, make us THINK about what really happened, and/or how it FELT to be the people portrayed, in those days; what other medium can do this as easily, really and truly? I adore film-making for this capacity but it's so often overlooked in the mad rush for box office profits, which puts movies firmly in the money-making Entertainment category, first and foremost, frequently regardless of content, characters, correct costuming…

So, I loved this movie and found it completely absorbing, though I'm well aware it won't appeal to 'the masses', basically because it's a quintessentially French ('foreign') film which lacks the overt Drama and character arcs of Hollywood and the colourful characters and quirky story lines of other U.S.A. movies. It's food for thought over food for entertainment (though I WAS entertained in the process, too - but then I possess an old-fashioned attention span of more than 5 minutes, and don't need a car-chase or anything to blow up in order to feel something!) ;) Especially telling were what are most likely the historical truisms; the fact that Nannerl was an older sister who almost certainly DID co-create (if not co-write, as she was refused tuition) her famously talented younger brother's early works, completely uncredited - and this of course is a perennial problem for female artistes everywhere, even today (if it's not their brothers, then for their boyfriends &/or significant others…who absorb their contributions as natural extensions of themselves, rather than acknowledging them at very least, as addendums given to them as gifts by another person other than themselves), along with the problem of not receiving sufficient support from their fathers for their innate talent, on the basis of being a girl. I really appreciated the fact that the entire problem of gender was shown throughout this film in a genteel and non-bombastic way, by comparisons and conversations void of overtly angry emotions - which, and we so easily tend to forget this fact - were within the context of the society(ies) shown in this particular time & place, INDULGENCES which really & truly only the most powerful (e.g. the Dauphin), could afford to show, far less, vent; we forget, the era of all-out Self-Expression in the West really only arose post-war across all classes & societies. This was not Italy, after all, nor America or Britain in the '60s or '70s+, but chiefly the priories and courts of France, a couple of decades BEFORE the revolution; best behaviour between family members so close-knit as the Mozarts, who for so many years shared such close quarters as coach carriages and bedrooms in the houses of hosts, was likely the norm; feelings festered under the surface because it wasn't safe to fully express them, and then they were complicated - painfully - by deep feelings of love, appreciation, and humility fostered by the awareness of how much humiliation the average person had to put up with during the course of their lives, just to survive; the waiting on a prince for 3 whole weeks while he indulged in excesses they could never afford, wasting this talented family's time, which they would have had to 'swallow' without a whimper, was a very good example. We in our (relative) freedom forget how self-expression is a part of being free - which most people were not. No matter how talented - which evidently, Leopold, Nannerl & little Wolfgang ALL were, back then, talent was the ticket but not the money-maker, per se…& women never owned any money anyway, no matter what work they did, nor even who they married. So they were the subjects of men, which feminist point is pointed out succinctly yet never with a big banging of any drums! The fact that Mrs. Mozart adored her talented, forceful and resourceful husband, was a bonus - and later in life, a model unconsciously copied by her famous surviving (remember, these were her only two children who lived, so death was an ever-present reminder to boot in the lives of these people and indeed most of the populace back then) son, but was not necessarily guaranteed in every marriage. The touching small scene of the ill-fated fifteen year old future Marie Antoinette already doting on pleasing her deeply troubled young widowed husband, speaks volumes to this - she was a woman of her time, determined to make the most of her lot in life, ergo, to become a good and dutiful wife…something which Nannerl simply cannot strive to do till the advanced (back then) age of 32 - and when we watch this movie in it's entirety, even setting aside the imagined/fictitious aspects of her story - we know, why.

Under Suspicion (2000)

Just one thing to add...

to everything else already said about this film - which I gave a 7 out of 10 rating due to the outstanding performances by Hackman, Freeman and Bellucci (who here transcended her fairly squarely decorative role in ways I haven't witnessed her managing to do in any of her other roles, sorry to say, so far - !), despite detesting the directing (which I suspect was exacerbated by bad editing, to boot…) - I wish to add what I notice seems to be missing from almost all other reviews (pro & IMDb); the very real problem of reducing a person down by the process of police (or any official or organised) interrogation which can indeed result in a person credibly confessing to crimes NOT committed; not to make the claim that most of the inmates of the incarceration system confessed to crimes not committed, but high-profile, high pressure crimes can really become a sort of psychological pressure-cooker, perhaps in collaboration with a media circus, reducing wrong results - and thereby not only 'breaking' an otherwise OK or perhaps even decent & upright person caught in the wrong place @ the wrong time, but permitting the actual perpetrator to get away with an unspeakable &/or awful crime. Ironically, serial killers & sociopaths KNOW that, and so manipulating others in ways which will most likely result in this sort of thing IS their thing! (I recall there was a famous case of precisely this in England with a serial killer who started during the war, when getting away with murder was relatively easy, then through a series of elaborate manipulations, resuming his murdering while cunningly framing another for it afterward.) By way of a more simple example; a friend of mine's mother was once questioned by the FBI on the basis of a matter carried out by someone with her exact same name, which mistake revealed itself during the course of their conversation and so was corrected - but she said that by the end of the interview/interrogation, she herself was questioning whether she really was the person she and her family & friends knew herself to be, or the one they THOUGHT she was! Which is hilarious on the one hand, on the other hand it shows how when convinced persons in authority assert something with sufficient confidence, their conviction can be so compelling as to have unintended consequences.

Obviously this movie revolves around the relationship of a very flawed couple caught up in a painful & toxic marriage, and a detective who is motivated by his own largely unspoken post-divorce demons, in addition to his genuine outrage over the crimes committed and concern for the public and other potential victims (justified, as he's unable to prevent a third crime - and as a direct result, could be argued, of taking up SO much time trying to pin the first two on the guy under suspicion and in his custody during the time of the 3rd crime…), and being - as already pointed out - really & truly a play, not a movie, it visits much (mostly murky!) subject-matter much more suited to staging than filming, IMO. But as-said, the acting is outstanding in this and worth watching for that, as well as perhaps this very pertinent and perhaps also primary point - which I really want to make, as I really think it matters. :)

The Chase (1966)

Through the Past, Darkly...

With movies such as Selma now making the Golden Globes & soon also Oscar Sweeps, it's pertinent, I think, to revisit epic - albeit, flawed - films of in-your-face racism & bigotry from over half a century ago, when those themes were still so much more current, therefore, their depiction inevitably more raw & with less tendency to sentimentalise; it's easy to see how much of the material touched too many nerves at the time of release to receive good reviews, and the brutality & general ugliness of so many of the characters portrayed - although portrayed exceptionally well, many by actors now well-known whose careers were still in infancy - IS wearying after a while. However, this is truly one of Brando's best performances - period, and IMO, one of Jane Fonda's best, too; beautiful, sexy, angry, unfaithful (basically, torn between two men, one of whom messed up by bowing to conventional expectations at a key moment in their lives, thereby effectively messing it up for all three of them, romantically & personally) yet in almost odd juxtaposition, faithful when it really counts, I found her far more believable in this than in any of her other almost-always over-acted roles (e.g. the awful, also once again opposite Redford, 'Barefoot in the Park' from the same time-line), and her tragic fate was so well UNDER-played, as she walked away to what we already can predict is likely to be an ignominious & uncertain future after being loved ardently by two men, my heart bled for this unlucky survivor of the 'GoetterDaemmerung' style finale! No tears or lamentations necessary - we 'get' it, already… :( Also interesting was the perhaps slightly over-emphasised saint-like aspect of the unlucky 'Bubba' as played by Redford, not even so much because he's entirely innocent of crimes accused & now ruining his young & virile life, but because he has an unexpectedly grown-up response to the revelation of the affair between his (beloved) wife & old friend, while others around him have hysterics over it; he alone seems to truly understand, love is not necessarily non-inclusive. When he lays out his sadly doomed, desperate plan to them both, it is moving that he remembers to give her a choice - even though she's HIS wife…in a town full of ugly & apparently over-sexed citizens, he seems to understand, she's not his possession, and seems to be the last person inclined to call her a slut, when everyone else is!

Certainly, Brando's IS the stand-out performance, in part because he has the most complex - and believable - character's role; also liked Angie Dickenson's on-point performance, never straying into the melodramatic despite many opportunities, and was engaged by a young Robert Duval's perfect portrayal of a really unattractive man/husband - a precursor to all the complexly tortured personalities he was to play in future…etc. In short, this movie is becoming a classic, despite it's bleak portrayal of a nasty, bigoted, largely lawless, racist town in Texas and tendency to 2-dimensional characters, overall; the fact that it has now become a period piece, fascinates for the simple everyday way of life (cars, costumes) of what was still privileged white Middle America enjoying (?!) an excess of wealth & wellbeing, being wasted.