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Nails (1992)
Best 90s Renegade Cop
Deplorable this property has yet to be properly telecined (w exception of long out-of-circulation German DVD); still only accessible via used VHS cassette tapes. Infinitely better than Striking Distance (1993) or Boiling Point (1993). Nails is director John Flynn's Vice Squad (1982).
Fantastic casting; everyone steps up here - with Hopper eclipsing his crazy-mad Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (1986) performance. The narrative is not without its flaws and could have benefitted with an additional 12 - 20 minutes breathing room. Nails is still easily one of the best renegade cop flicks of the 90s, alongside China O'Brien (1990) imho.
Marco effekten (2021)
Why mess with a golden thing?
***½ Much like Stephen King clawing back his 'The Shining' (1980) from Kubrick's theatrically-perfected clutches (so he might offer a more sincere iteration of his ip) only to spoil what was perfectly exceptional with their own inferior product (i.e. 'The Shining' (1997), so goes 'Marco Effect' -- Department Q: Part 5) -- nullifying what was easily one of contemporary cinema's Best Onscreen Pairing:
Nikolaj Lie Kaas -- the Nordic Sebastian Stan -- (Carl Mørck), and
the essential Fares Fares (Assad).
Ulrich Thomsen performs adequately (as the new Mørck) but serves only lateral improvement over his predecessor. That's the only functional upgrade (from the initial series); unfortunately 'Marco' plays like Lifetime Channel miniseries, with its muddled narrative, hamfisted character development, meandering pace, and disconnected (if only heavy handed) appeal.
Unfortunate since prior this the series was quite remarkable -- w
'Fasandræberne' (2014; Department Q: Part 2) reigning best of the best; At least 'Marco' now dethrones 'Journal 64' (2018; Department Q: Part 4) as least appealing (of the DQ cinematic universe), imho.
'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (2021)
first 25 min review .. A small-minded egoist
Like any good, proper, documentary an audience should come in with clean slate (zero presentiment towards producer's agenda), if only to facilitate opportunity for audience to draw their own unbiased conclusions, organically -- it's the definitive distinction between producing propaganda and sincerity, imo.
Try as they might (and they do pretty well for a bit), there's absolutely no away they could make Jeremy Morris appear as anything else but the bigoted tyrant, Anti-Semite, Black Hat, VILLIAN he so natively inhibits.
Approx. 8-10 mins in producers are editing around Morris' injured party-posturing; via L-cuts/cutaways, tightening (delivery) cadence (diminishing inflection(s) in speech), clipping Morris' pantomiming authenticity... there's no getting round Morris has only TWO Modes (in front of the camera):
1. Acknowledging (concurring with Producer/interview queries), and
2. Pandering
Once you're cognizant this (i.e. Jeremy Morris' narrow outlook) it's only so plain what producers/editors are scrambling to obfuscate, e.g. Suppressing those Cues that might reveal Morris' temperament / the documentary's Anti-hero.