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Reviews
Bleak House (2005)
Easy on the ears. Hard on the eyes
For the past forty years cinematographers have been trying to perfect their art through good lighting, steady camera work, sharp colorful images and clear sound. Now that technology has perfected these elements, the directors and cinematographers seek now to subvert their medium as they have in this adaptation of Bleak House. The viewer is subjected to camcorder quality filming complete with blurred and grainy wobbly images, cut aways every two seconds and lots of whooshing sounds to affect a pulsing storyline. I felt I was watching NYPD Blue in a time warp. Unfortunately, all this clever editing gets in the way of the story rather than helps present it. And ultimately if you are admiring or otherwise the film work rather than watching the storyline then the production has failed in its adaptation. Contrary to the comment of a previous reviewer, Bleak House is one of the greatest Dickens novels, made more epic by the slow and pedantic way it traverses its subject to highlight the arcane British judicial system. In the end I decided to watch Bleak House with my eyes closed, which heightened my appreciation of the language, characterization and story far more than the theatrical gimmickry that the production employed.
The Brittas Empire (1991)
Before there was David Brent there was Gordon Brittas
I tried not to like the Brittas Empire, writing it off as just a banal offering churned out from the comedy mill at the BBC. But as I viewed more I began to see Gordon Brittas as a train wreck that you could just not avert your eyes from. Everyone, including the viewers are in the joke except him because he is the joke Gordon is a well-meaning do-it-by-the-book type of manager of a Sports Centre who thinks of everything except doing the one thing that a manager should do and that is to ensure that the customers enjoy themselves. Everyone sees his flaws; his staff, his customers even his hypochondriac wife, everyone except himself and his loyal if somewhat smelly acolyte, Colin. Nonetheless, there is a noble, virtuous streak in him which redeems him and makes him above all else a sympathetic character. After the first season, the writers got to grips with the character and placed him in even more embarrassing scenarios and he continued to grow ever more unaware of his wife's adultery, her pill popping, the staff's gay relationships and the fact that the receptionist is clearly delusional and keeps her two children hidden in a cupboard behind the reception desk. Clearly, the Brittas Empire is not as well observed as the David Brent's Office and is not quite as hopeless and error prone as Frank Spencer but as an iconic representation of post Thatcherite Essex Man you could not wish for more
Screen One: Running Late (1992)
A fast paced romp full of disasters
This play is somewhat in the John Cleese Chaos mold of film making where a seemingly minor "glitch" in the vainglorious life of its subject multiplies in to ever greater disasters and the more the victim intervenes to fix the disasters the worse he makes them. In this film the egocentric executive who cares nothing of other people finds by tribulation that his world is falling apart and no one or nothing can help him. The film has some hilarious moments and the plot becomes increasingly bizarre and for good reason as their is an unexpected twist at the end that explains the increasing incongruity of the action. One wonders if M Knight Shyamalan learned a few tricks from this film wink wink
Blithe Spirit (1945)
A comic masterpiece with all the right ingredients
Noel Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in 5 days during Britain's darkest days of the Second World War. The play completed 3 decades as Britain's longest run in West End for a comedic play. The film which was adapted from the play was directed by David Lean and incorporated some of the most sophisticated special effects yet seen in a movie. The film tackles some dark themes such as death and falling in and out of love. The characters themselves are on the face of it unsympathetic. Elvira is a siren, Ruth is shrewish and Charles a misogynist. Despite this the film works well as a comedy because of the quick and clever dialogue between the characters and the scene stealing performances of Margaret Rutherford's Madame Arcarti. You end laughing at and sometimes with the characters as one would do a Shakespeare comedy. Never has a film about death been so funny