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mrsTrellis-2
Reviews
Home for the Holidays (1995)
Aren't holidays supposed to be fun?
Woman goes home for holiday, meets irritating relatives and finds a bloke. It's two hours of your life that you will wish you had spent being tasered.
So, the set-up, woman (Hunter) is fired, her daughter is about to have sex with her boyfriend but going home for a holiday dinner still beckons. Gathering is a variety of characters all of which have something annoying to say from the obsessively wacky brother (Downey Junior ..why he isn't covered in bruises from casual passers-by hitting him seems to be a hole in the plot) to the obsessively dull brother (Guttenberg). The mother (Bancroft) seems to be the source of the wackiness and the father (Durning) the source of obsession. A thanksgiving dinner ensues with nobody seeming to pay attention to anyone else so self-obsessed are they all and an 'absolutely hilarious' scene with the turkey. Oh yes, enter handsome stranger. Other things happen but frankly I won't bore you with them.
The film is peppered with good actors all of whom seem to fail so I would guess that the main fault is in the story and direction of it. Hollie Hunter is someone who I have liked as an actress for many years but am beginning to revise my opinion. There is not much good to say about this film except the fact that the characters were realistic ... so much so that you wanted to stick then with a fork instead of the Turkey. It is based on a short story and the only positive thing I have to say is to thank the lord the author didn't write the full version.
The 100 (2014)
Teenagers with nice teeth read cheesy lines
Good job that the nuclear holocaust left a crowd of adults on a space station with lots of toothpaste, dentists and hair product wasn't it? Without this it is unlikely that they would have produced a bunch of children who are all good looking and mainly delinquent. Are they? The initial premise seems to be that there are 100 under-eighteens (out of 4000 people) locked-up in a prison who can be shipped-off to Earth to do ... something or other. Strange that they managed to build a prison on the Arc by the way, not what I would have expected as part of an arc design. And what were their parents doing while the children were being shipped-off to Earth? We do hear of a few of them but one might have expected a bit more fuss about that but, ho hum, parents of the future seem to care more about teeth than, oh, let's say sending their children to a radiation-infected planet before they are entitled to vote.
This drivel might appeal to teenagers but adults, do yourself a favour and read a book; this sort of thing has been covered well in science fiction literature and you won't have to suffer the dreadfully forced plot-lines.
One last thing ... I have no problems with strong female leads but why name one "Clarke"?
One Magic Christmas (1985)
Oi Veh !
Read on and take note - you could save 88 minutes of your life (was that all!).
Unremittingly bleak, this film sets out to produce (I'm guessing) a modern small town American Christmas fable in the Capra style. If fails....completely and absolutely fails. I've been trying to think of one good thing about it and can't. Let me mention some of the highlights ...
People don't die, they get to spend eternity as immigrant workers in Santa's factory. Angels are actually ex-cowboys who sit in trees. Santa can bring people back from the dead (if you send him a nice letter).
And the plot.. I won't spoil it for you but there has to be some light in films if only to contrast with the darkness but there isn't any. Even the photography is bleak - snow shown at the end of a freeze, everywhere looking cold, damp and miserable.
As you might guess, the film has a happy (schmaltzy) ending. What a relief !
The All Together (2007)
All Together Rubbish
Almost from the word go this film is poor and lacking conviction but then again most people would struggle to show commitment to a script as uninspiring as this. The dialogue really does not flow and sometimes as in this case more is less (or should have been). This is also backed-up by odd scenes (e.g. the Cemetry slow-motion walk) that you think might lead somewhere but only seem to waste a few more seconds of your life.
The plot is a strange combination of gangster / situation comedy which I am sure seemed a good idea at the time but if ever there was a case for someone needing to be honest with the scriptwriter then here was it.
Martin Freeman is okay but then he seems to have one character which always plays so I am beginning to wonder if he was given a script or just filmed and told to react as normal.
Finally - humour. This reminds me of the 'Python (I think) quote about Shakespere, of his 'comedies' - If he had meant it to be humorous he would have put a joke in it. Well I didn't see one.
Don't waste your time - I did because I was watching it with a friend and kept hoping that it was going to get better.
It didn't.