dcnfwrsgb Reviews

Secrets of Eden (2012 TV Movie)

If Hallmark Made Murder Mysteries ...

[2/10 · 15 February 2024]

... this would be it. Everything bright, shiny, and clean. Totally unrealistic lighting, sets, and locales. The cast looks - and talks - like they just popped in from, well, let's just say not Vermont where, by contrast, clothes tend to be more practical and makeup restrained (when worn at all).

The landscape? Definitely not Vermont.

Architecture? Definitely not Vermont.

Stamos plays an evangelical pastor with a big church in town. The center of town churches in New England, however, are typically the oldest mainline protestant denominations or Catholic. While there are exceptions, evangelical congregations tend to be small and their buildings tucked away somewhere. The evangelical content comes off as a non-sequitur in this context.

The plot is obvious. John Stamos' acting is wooden. Most of the rest of the cast is forgettable. I don't know where to place the responsibility other than the director, as the cast itself is certainly capable of better.

A fresh scrubbed murder mystery set among the beautiful people of the make-believe land of non-Vermont.

Awful. Just awful.

Slow Horses (2022– )

Terrific Spy vs Spy

[8/10 · 22 January 2023]

Deliciously fast-paced with incredibly strong performances, great writing, and loads of twists and turns. Gary Oldman is a standout as a canny, older spymaster who is a personal mess, an interpersonal disaster, and ruthless in doing what he needs to do. He makes an art of taking advantage of those who think him past his prime. Kristen Scott-Thomas doesn't quite rise to the same level in terms of pure personality projection, but still delivers one of her better performances.

Loads of plots, subplots, betrayals, sleeper agents, deceptions and diversions. There are lots of cliches, but they play fresh somehow. Salted with cynical politics and a grey moral view of realpolitik.

Very enjoyable.

Minority Report (2002)

Science Fiction Done Well

[8/10 · 11 January 2023]

Is is Philip K. Dick's story? Nope. It's better, with more twists.

Spielberg had a top cast to work with on this film, which is chock-full of name actors. Just read through the cast list! I'm going to say, however, that the acting itself is good, occasionally very good, but the strength of the movie isn't in the acting, it's in the filming, direction, and plot. Still, I think Samantha Morton gives the strongest performance, but also enjoyed the minor roles played by Peter Stormare and Tim Blake Nelson, both of whom were at their oddball best.

The film plays mostly serious but for one major action sequence when Tom Cruise blasts through an apartment building while holding onto, and fighting, a jet pack-equipped fellow cop. Here, Spielberg couldn't resist playing for comedy, and it really doesn't help the film.

Pacing is fast. Editing is tight. Cinematography is excellent. Special effects are good for their time and still play well. These are the stars, again, all in support of good writing and good plot. Sci-fi and futuristic, but not so out there that you can't relate at all. (Well, OK, maybe the cars are a road too far ...) The storyline is unique, unlike all the space operas out there, and the human motivations behind the final twist play very well.

This is good Science Fiction.

Wednesday (2022– )

Atmospheric and Quirky - as it should be

[9/10 · 11 January 2023]

Jenna Ortega is a wonderful Wednesday! I do wish they played the character younger, the tendency being to make Wednesday older and older as time (and movies) have gone by, but it totally works.

Storylines are fun and quirky in all the usual Addams Family ways. Sets, scenery, costuming, etc. Is all excellent with nothing out of place or over-done. Production values are high.

Casting is somewhat uneven. I personally dislike Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia and I don't care for how the character is written. Luis Guzman initially put me off as Gomez, as I'm more accustomed to the bizarre yet suave versions of John Astin and Raul Julia. I've come to appreciate Guzman's version as closer to the Gomez of the original cartoons, however, and enjoyable in its own right.

Highlights include Christina Ricci's appearance and performance, completely different than her turn at Wednesday, and especially Gwendoline Christie in a BRILLIANT bit of casting as Wednesday's school principal.

A worthy and fun addition to the Addams canon.

Drink Masters (2022– )

A Very Tired Formula

[6/10 · 11 January 2023]

Just as police and legal procedural dramas get really tired after a while, so do food and (in this case) beverage competition shows. Same old, same old, this time with a slate of bartenders plucked from among the widely known to the barely known. Challenges, eliminations, teams, scoring, skills bits, sprints, countdowns with sweaty closeups, the balcony, hyped inter-competitor tensions ... all of it. The set even looks like one of Gordon Ramsay's. I'll confess to having binge-watched most seasons of too many such shows. In fact, one is playing on my bedroom TV as I write this. Drink Masters, however, has less to work with in many respects than the food shows. It's harder to connect with some of the concoctions, beautiful though some of them may appear. It tends to creep too much into cooking, too, with presentations moving primarily from cocktails to drinks with side dishes as the episodes progress. Entirely different skills, and it's kind of odd watching bartenders prepare food. Match drinks to food, sure, but cook it? The focus is spirits, not wine or beer, which make appearances as ingredients on occasion. I suppose this leaves things open to wine and beer competition shows, but as beer consumption (at least) is roughly 10x that of spirits, it certainly wouldn't have a relatability issue! One bit of advice to the producers: it's a non-sequitur to pop a champagne bottle at the end of a spirits-based show. Y'ought to crack open a bottle of 50 year-old scotch or something instead. With prize money in the 6 figures, you can afford it.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

An Extended Metaphor That Goes a Little Too Far

[7/10 · 11 January 2023]

Terrific acting and a wonderful gloomy and lonely depiction of isolated island life in poverty. The story - nominally about a falling out between friends - is really a metaphor for several things, including alienation, depression, dependency ... even the Irish Civil War (I kid you not). It pretty much works, except that the plot goes to a non-believable extreme when Brendan Gleeson's character resorts to cutting his fingers off to prove that he's serious about no longer wishing Colin Farrell's companionship. More serious repercussions follow that ...

Kerry Condon gives a strong performance as Colin Farrell's sister and presents a dose of reality among the rest of the characters, each of whom carry their own versions of damage and odd obsessions.

Barry Keoghan's performance as Dominic is at once bizarre and wistful and Gary Lydon's as his constable father Paeder gives a strong depiction of suppressed rage and violence that crops up throughout.

I would have rated this a 10 as an art-house film but for the less believable aspects. More conventional interpersonal rejection and even violence would have improved the movie without changing anything else at all.

Persuasion (I) (2022)

Contrived and Slow

[5/10 · 11 January 2023]

This version of Persuasion consists mostly of the cast wandering about the outdoors, punctuated by the occasional salon scene, all the while emoting sadly. Even the scene near the end where Anne and Wentworth finally get together, he barely smiles for a moment or two before looking like he's in pain. Again. There is no chemistry between the two of them.

The script is plodding and written with comic bits that often fall flat. Dakota Johnson's performance is excellent, though the frequent 4th wall, inner voice asides detract from what little flow the movie has. The final one, in the final scene, makes the movie more about her asides than the scene and perhaps the rest of the movie itself. Dakota Johnson's only competition for holding the viewer's attention is Henry Golding in scenes as Mr. Elliot, an invariably refreshing and magnetic presence. The rest of the cast is forgettable.

The cinematography is quite good. The scenery and settings are beautiful. But the movie simply doesn't work. It's an interesting adaptation in some respects, but might have been better, even as written, if the writers and director had gone for broke and set it in the present. It's contrivances combine to become just too anachronistic for the period setting.