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An error has ocurred. Please try againMAY BE MILD SPOILERS!!!! How the heck could I make such a list without some spoilage?
Reviews
Tabula Rasa (2017)
Slow but good
Several episodes seem to lack luster at the beginning. I began with an expectation of supernatural involvement, and was constantly irritated at the slow development.
But, the relationships between husband and wife, the mysteries, and the emotional turmoil kept me in it. I am not easily surprised, yet this did exactly that. The end is well worth the wait. You can argue that it's unbelievable, but I don't think that comes into it. It's explanatory and dramatic. You will be hard-paced to find any single season drama that resolves so well.
The key to any resolution is that it meets some criteria:
1) It is not fantastical. It could happen without violating physical laws.
2) It has a certain bitter-sweetness. Not a requirement, but definitely helps.
3) It resolves the crisis of the main character.
4) It lets us love the character, after having had her character impuned upon throughout. It redeems her believably.
Give it a try. Relax.
The Fall (2013)
Dark must-see for dark soul searchers
By the time I got to the third season, I was feeling a bit tentative. I was worried that the show, though exciting up to that point, would fail to deliver in this season. But it does.
One thing, not a spoiler, but the third season starts out very slow. I hope that if you know that going in, you might be more patient than I was. Many things in life are more effective when they're allowed to build slowly, even excruciatingly slowly. By S3 E6, I realized that the writers had outdone themselves, going a completely different way than I'd expected.
I confess that the nature of evil, and nature vs. nurture, what can and cannot be healed, what is the limit of experience, what is love - all these questions, when framed in a serial killer/detective format, are really just extreme philosophy 101. These questions are cute in a movie like Steve Martin's Parenthood. What is the meaning of life? All fine and grand, but for some of us, life went dark early, and the answers that Friends (the series) gives us are wanting. We are not slaked.
The Fall brings these questions out in stark relief, extending both black and white to their maximum contrast, and yet with an infinity of gray behind every seemly clear interpretation.
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
I'm strangely driven to watch repeatedly
I should give it a higher rating, simply because I've gotten so much pleasure out of it. It's just that I can't put my finger on why I enjoy it. I believe that most people might not like it, so I don't give it an 8, since it is a personal avarice.
The set coloring is one of my favorite styles, similar to that of the Star Trek series, but darker and grittier. The sound of the mental telekinesis effect is spine-tingling for me, in a childish horror way. The shape of the alien vessel is strange and intriguing. I like 60's spaceship design.
The dialogue is realistic and simple. The tracing of Hobb's Corner back to Roman times is quickly and tastefully done, and there's no annoying background music to try and force an ominous attitude. I get more spooked when there's not a soundtrack telegraphing what I'm supposed to feel. It allows you the viewer to feel as if you uniquely detected an issue. It's purely a subconscious response. I mean, who would watch a detective story if at every clue there was a "Dun-dun- dun!"
The Bride Wore Boots (1946)
Too exaggerated; made me anxious
Sorry to be sour; I enjoy older movies, even silly ones, but when they have that grating fingernails-on-chalkboard caricatures that just set-up bad feelings as being funny, then I'm not amused.
It's not much of a spoiler, but the scene early in where Jeff has fallen off his horse, is trying to get back on, and then a car comes around and blast its horn loooong, and then you find out the driver, Grant, is a highly experienced horse owner, it's too unbelievable.
Obvious manipulation of the viewer always tells me that the writer was immature or spent little time on the script. Why waste an entire movie on a weak script? It's filler, and who needs to waste their time that badly?
Stanwyck is good, but gets only shallow lines. None of her brilliant smiles or coy glances that delight me in other pictures.
Real Steel (2011)
Futuristic Feel-good Movie
I tend to overrate movies I enjoyed thoroughly, since the measure of any experience is how much I enjoyed it at the time. An ice-cold Coke on a hot day could get a 10 one day, then caviar could get a 10 on another day. I never limit my voting by some 30,000 foot perspective, placing my reward in relation to all that I've seen and against my expectations for future work in the genre.
So when I give Real Steel a nine, I mean I had just about as much fun as you can have watching a sci-fi action heart-of-gold estranged-down-on- his-luck dad wins the love of his son back movie. The robots are so real I couldn't treat them as CGI. They were believable in their variety. Much of the audaciousness reflected how things are done in wrestling. The grimy parts of the movie added a flavor that is missing in some films, such as Demolition Man, where the under-city lacked any believability. Hugh Jackman has a natural likability, and I didn't sense any tension between him and the kid. My wife assures me that he's a good person in real life, which doesn't hurt. Watching a jerk actor try to convince me that he's a lovable character strains the suspended disbelief more than the natural weight of the fictionalization.
Some reviewers said Jackman's negative character made it hard to forgive him, but for me, with my own issues with self-loathing make it easy to forgive just about anything - and what does he really do that's so bad? He's cynical, money-grubbing, greedy, selfish - basic American qualities, especially in men. I think some people don't like movies that portray realistic characters come out as redeemed.
The different strata of the future society are a side story that most people probably miss. There's a sense of dystopic unrest, as if we're being treated to a hidden view of the future, an underbelly that's coincidental to the main story, but it was very nice. I also enjoyed seeing great effects and technology being used as simply a tool instead of the focus. Consider the failures of Lucas, and then say that the understatement in this film isn't a breath of fresh air. Lucas tried to get his audience to go for the kid, with opposite results. It was so saccharine and obviously manipulative that we despised Anakin. Plus there was no connection between Ben Kenobi and the kid, horrid to watch. Here we have a plausible connection - Who would dis that? It seems a shame to be angry (as many reviewers are) that the story tellers didn't go for some Asmovian robot-becoming-sentient or violating "The Three Laws" by harming a human, or expressing shame at its treatment as a mere machine. It is a machine! Thank you, filmmakers, for not getting sappy about machines! Liberals. Everything's about human rights - even when they're not human! Let it go, Greenies! Oh, and too bad there's no commentary on how hot it is in the future because of global warming, tsk tsk. The director should have his red card revoked.
The human heart is a simple thing, and humans love stories that are simple. Aliens would look at this film and say, "What's the point?" This is a humans-only event. Spock types won't get it. I'm thinky a lot of the time, but ah, the luxury of moving between the sublime and the brutish. If you want deep, then: "Life is nasty, brutish, and short." That's what robot boxing is about! But without the brain damage, which is nice.
The love story, if you can call it that, is so underplayed that anyone worn out on sap must appreciate. The kid is just annoying enough to be believable as a kid.
The music is a lot of fun, too. Very hip-hop, which I often don't like. Watching the kid dance with the robot is, I'm sure, one thing many elite reviewers puked at. For me, enjoying a film is all about looking for ways to enjoy it, by altering my perceptions and expectations. Is this scene well-timed, well-executed, well-shot, well-lit, timely in the story, effective in building character alignment and strength, is it believable within the context so far? Yes to all of these. Jackman even has a great line: "It's all entertainment, that's what they come to see. They love the kid thing." Normally that tongue-in-cheek meta-commentary in a film is dangerous, unless it works. I'd bet most people didn't even notice the relevance to their own perspective while watching the film. People love the kid thing, and it's all entertainment.