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heretongan
Reviews
Holy Smoke (1999)
Shows Campion In Her True Dark
The ingredients are all here to make this recipe into a winner. It's very much Campion fare with Winslet at perfection (most of the time). However, from the time the protagonist wets herself, we see Campion lose herself in the lush lust of the attraction and she doesn't stop at any time to pull herself out of it and get back to the story.
This movie shows the director's personal thoughts exposing themselves on the screen. She seems to get just as horny as Keitel in directing the movie as his character does in it. She's irresistibly drawn to the sensual and doesn't seem to notice. Pity, because it was such an intriguing first half.
Jane Campion is definitely not a prude and neither is she the least bit uncomfortable about outpicturing her carnal instinctiveness. I just wish she could keep her aspirations separate.
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016)
The Dream Is Over
This was a pretty bland film. But there's no doubt that it will garner a good rating mainly because of the goosebumps the material engenders. But, as other reviewers have said, there's really nothing new and even some stuff is taken from the Anthology Set which most baby boomers have already seen.
As a dedicated Beatles fan (I was 14 in 1962) I could not help but enjoy the show. But now I feel that I can finally put my Beatle memories out to pasture because I realised this crappy, old, archival film material, is so outdated compared with UHD television these days. And the black and white just shows up the mundanity of it all, into which our Beatles brought all that excitement.
I no longer look at the fab four as rock star heroes but, rather, as the leaders of the adventure we were on. We were all on the bus together travelling from monochrome black and white to stereo, psychedelic colour, with music as the driver and the Beatles as our tour guides. We all knew them and we all knew each other, and in a way, we were all very close. But we have finally drifted so far apart now that we've lost touch with each other like old soldiers who returned from the battlefields of World War two. We try to maintain the camaraderie but it's fading away, nevertheless.
And if this is the best that Ron Howard can do, then I suspect it's the best anyone can do with what's available and it doesn't do very much any more. You won't be disappointed for spending your time at this event but you might come away like me, knowing that it's closure time for my own Beatlemania.
Mildred Pierce (2011)
Some aspects masterful - others nauseating
After watching this version of Mildred Pierce I can only conclude that no one does atmosphere like Mr Haynes. The period was stunningly creative and very hard to fault. And the music was just as good. I get nauseous about a lot of background music in movies but the way this score was played out through the video footage was just mesmerising. It felt like the movie was put into the score and not the other way round. One may have trouble figuring out whether they prefer the audio or the video. And the characters were all very good. Costume wise, makeup wise, casting wise. In fact some of the characters were so realistic that you lost track of which period you were presently in yourself. Ida and Bert were incredibly periodic. That was masterful. But those are the only places the sun really shone for me. The script was okay and the acting was very good, which you expect with this calibre of movie direction, but at least a third of the movie was just a portrait of Kate Winslet looking distraught. Actually, it may even have been half of it. The first time she was distraught you thought, "My word, she acts that well", but by the third time I was cringing and even more so each additional time. And sadly, the film ended with a final very distraught Kate which left me unimpressed overall. The scene in the bedroom with her daughter, I thought she was never going to snap out of. When you have to look that distraught in a scene it's nigh impossible to be able to vary it, so much of what we see of Kate is very repetitive. I mean very repetitive. I get the feeling that the director is just too melodramatic. At least for my liking. Something that irks me a bit, is that it's very chic for movies to have vomiting in them these days. There were two scenes of vomiting in this movie. Why do directors just follow along. Obviously, vomiting works for many moviegoers. And they weren't scenes where I would have expected anyone in real life to vomit. Gratuitous vomiting, is this what we've come to? But, I have to admit, the guy makes a great movie overall. I sat through the whole five and a half hours in two sittings. It wasn't the least bit boring, just a bit disappointing when it didn't have to be. But there wouldn't be too many directors who can get their head around this many hours and keep it all together. Mostly.