brett-syndercombe Reviews

Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019)

Great archival footage and some interviews but ruined by feminist propaganda

[6/10 · 5 January 2020]

It was quite a moment when the feminist explicitly implied that the aliens are payback for patriarchy, almost like a chest-bursting moment, except in this instance a massive Andrea Dworkin exploding out of her own rectum. I'm sure Francis Bacon would have been able to render that, and Giger too now that I think about it. How this is possible when the lead is played by a female, and one of the victims is female...? Oh well, it was nonesense, like most post-structural argumentation and pontification. But having said that there was a lot to enjoy if you are an admirer of the work. Lots of out-takes and interviews with actual people who were involved with the making of the film. You just need to be able to ignore the "teachers", you know, those who can't do, whom tower over all the poor toilers who created this masterpiece, and dispense their putrid self satisfied BS from their ivory towers - film studies professors and the like. It was easy enough to imagine the smell that the crew needed to tolerate during the chest burster scene, it being strewn about with offal under filming lights for a day, thanks to the presence in the documentary of these harpies.

Sick (1997)

Unforgettable and enlightening

[10/10 · 2 November 2008]

I saw this film twice within the same week, and could have seen it again. I thought I understood BDSM (which is incidentally not my bag anyway, although you never know... ) fairly well but when I watched this movie I realised that I knew precisely nothing. I think everyone should watch this film purely so that they can improve their understanding of human nature and appreciate what real bravery is about. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, I gagged and I was astounded. But mostly I laughed. The only thing sick in this film is Bob's condition as a result of his Cystic Fibrosis. For the rest it is the most unlikely celebration of creativity and life I have ever seen in documentary form. I found his art, although not particularly good in a Damien Hurst kinda way, which is the sort of direction it was going, spot on as a lens through which to view his health condition. More than anything else it is a love story; combining the bizarre and the outrageous with the tender and the prosaic, all with a sensitivity and humor I doubt has ever been seen before. Not for the faint of heart or stomach though; REALLY!