Accelerated NetFlix Reviews #6
Yeah, mostly Cold War intrigue and TV series.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD: * * * *
Been toying with a Cold War story of sorts - testing it out as a game campaign first - and I decided to steep myself in some relevant material, more for mood than any historical information. This... was a really f'ing long film. And then I watched the twenty-plus minutes of bonus material that contains at least one complete additional storyline. While not necessary, it added some very significant new tone to the whole thing. Good stuff, though. One odd thing about the film, I thought, was the constant theme that there was, would be, nobody that could be trusted to remain loyal at all times, to the end... and yet, there was exactly one character who was, did, could, and it never really gets acknowledged. (Hint: He mentions turning out the lights at the end.)
THE LIVES OF OTHERS: * * * *
This was almost precisely what I had imagined THE CONVERSATION (* * *) was going to be like, plus some bonus East German weirdness thrown in for extra-chilling fun. Even realizing, very early on, what the most probable, inexorable, tragic ending would involve did nothing to lessen the impact when it came.
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD: * * * *
Continuing on the Cold War theme. Elements of these films are really hard to wrap your head around nowadays - such as the genuine, gripping fear that somehow socialist communism was going to be a more successful and appealing system to the world than capitalist democracy. Fear of nuclear annihilation I understand, but fear of collectivist ideology? That socialist subversives within your own society are somehow going to infect everyone else with their little local unions and collectives and town hall meetings? Just seems completely ridiculous and alien to me, here where I have the benefit of hindsight. I can only hope that eighty years from now, the ideological fear of religious fundamentalist apocalypsism seems as historically foolish.
PRIMER: * * * *
I was thinking recently about what sorts of science fiction one could do as a film on an extremely restrictive budget and set options. It turns out that "garage science time travel" is one of them, and now I have a serious hankering to do a microbudget SF film. I will have to watch this again, before too long, to see if maybe it's five stars once I've untangled the plot armed with foreknowledge. It lures you along for most of its length, making you think it's a moderately complicated mess, and then it curves very sharply at the end into an almost asymptotically complicated mess, which I dug very much. I like a time travel story that feels like it's thought about time travel more than I have. (I think about time travel a whole lot.)
THE OFFICE SEASON 3: * * * * *
We saw most of this in re-run, out of order, but wanted to go back and review it all in a sequential pass. Did I mention that I was a latecomer to The Office US because I thought it would be yet another anemic shadow of a British original? Yeah, I was dumb. (But if they ever make a US version of FATHER TED (* * *), I'm still going to pass.)
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON 4.0: * * * *
At the end of season 3, I was not particularly pleased. Then we dropped most of our cable channels because we were spending money on TV that we weren't watching, and SciFi fell off because the way they bundle cable, you can't just keep the one channel here, one channel there that you want. It's all giant bundle package bullcrap. Anyway, everyone else started watching season 4 while I pretended it didn't exist. Then they hit the mid-season cliffhanger and everyone was, like, OOOOOO and AAAAAAA and EEEEEE and so I decided go to ahead and see season 4 after all (on Hulu, mostly), which meant catching up on the first half of the season before the second half kicked in. I am writing this after the series is over, and I'll say this much: for a show that lied from the beginning about "having a plan", that made a large number of fundamental plot and direction choices in its back half that I totally disagree with, they did a fine job of bringing it back around to something I could still enjoy. Any landing you can walk away from, right? (That being said, my four-star rating is for the first half of season 4; I would only give the back half three stars, I think.)
MAMMA MIA!: * *
C watched this while I had a weekend work day. I think all you need to know is that even being positively inclined towards all the elements that went into the movie (i.e. ABBA, Meryl Streep, etc.) she was unable to get even halfway through it. Well, maybe you need to know more, but that's all *I* need to know.
30 ROCK SEASON 1: * * * *
Remember when there were two shows starting in the same season about backstage life at a sketch comedy show, and one died a well-deserved death and the other is still going and getting better with each season? I chose to try the one that's dead now and hated it so much that I didn't even try looking at the other one. Yes, sometimes I am a tremendous idiot.
THE FALL: * * * * *
I had high hopes for this movie from its trailer, but I suspected it might be a mess. I had low hopes for this movie based on the fact that the director's other film was THE CELL, which I only ever heard bad things about. I had low hopes for the movie based on a lot of feedback I read and the fact that it went a couple of years after completion without any distribution. I had low hopes for the movie because it was a labor of love by a director who wanted to insure that His Vision was completely untainted by anyone else. Seriously, it's almost never a good idea for a director to be allowed to pursue their personal project without any sort of oversight. Artsy, pretentious films made for the obsessive love of filmmaking itself are almost invariably a disaster, an unenjoyable drag to even attempt to watch. This film, I believe, is one of those exceptions that prove the rule, because make no mistake: it is artsy, and pretentious, and made for the obsessive love of filmmaking itself - but it's also about a storyteller's obligation to the audience and that theme shows through in the result. I was one thoroughly satisfied audience. I could go on for a long, long time about this movie and why I think it was brilliant, a beautiful love letter to the crafts of storytelling and moviemaking, but I won't. It may or may not be for you, but I think it's worth your time regardless, and what you get out of it will be proportional to what you put into viewing it. (Also, the film is an excellent checklist of scenic travel destinations to consider visiting. C and I have already been to several but our list of Things to See has grown by a few items as a direct result of this film, I think.)
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE: * * *
Another one for Carmel while I was caught up in work load. She gave it big respect for the period setting and costuming, but said pretty much everything else was a little off.
------
For consideration: next time - Spies! Dirtiness! More TV!
THE GOOD SHEPHERD: * * * *
Been toying with a Cold War story of sorts - testing it out as a game campaign first - and I decided to steep myself in some relevant material, more for mood than any historical information. This... was a really f'ing long film. And then I watched the twenty-plus minutes of bonus material that contains at least one complete additional storyline. While not necessary, it added some very significant new tone to the whole thing. Good stuff, though. One odd thing about the film, I thought, was the constant theme that there was, would be, nobody that could be trusted to remain loyal at all times, to the end... and yet, there was exactly one character who was, did, could, and it never really gets acknowledged. (Hint: He mentions turning out the lights at the end.)
THE LIVES OF OTHERS: * * * *
This was almost precisely what I had imagined THE CONVERSATION (* * *) was going to be like, plus some bonus East German weirdness thrown in for extra-chilling fun. Even realizing, very early on, what the most probable, inexorable, tragic ending would involve did nothing to lessen the impact when it came.
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD: * * * *
Continuing on the Cold War theme. Elements of these films are really hard to wrap your head around nowadays - such as the genuine, gripping fear that somehow socialist communism was going to be a more successful and appealing system to the world than capitalist democracy. Fear of nuclear annihilation I understand, but fear of collectivist ideology? That socialist subversives within your own society are somehow going to infect everyone else with their little local unions and collectives and town hall meetings? Just seems completely ridiculous and alien to me, here where I have the benefit of hindsight. I can only hope that eighty years from now, the ideological fear of religious fundamentalist apocalypsism seems as historically foolish.
PRIMER: * * * *
I was thinking recently about what sorts of science fiction one could do as a film on an extremely restrictive budget and set options. It turns out that "garage science time travel" is one of them, and now I have a serious hankering to do a microbudget SF film. I will have to watch this again, before too long, to see if maybe it's five stars once I've untangled the plot armed with foreknowledge. It lures you along for most of its length, making you think it's a moderately complicated mess, and then it curves very sharply at the end into an almost asymptotically complicated mess, which I dug very much. I like a time travel story that feels like it's thought about time travel more than I have. (I think about time travel a whole lot.)
THE OFFICE SEASON 3: * * * * *
We saw most of this in re-run, out of order, but wanted to go back and review it all in a sequential pass. Did I mention that I was a latecomer to The Office US because I thought it would be yet another anemic shadow of a British original? Yeah, I was dumb. (But if they ever make a US version of FATHER TED (* * *), I'm still going to pass.)
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON 4.0: * * * *
At the end of season 3, I was not particularly pleased. Then we dropped most of our cable channels because we were spending money on TV that we weren't watching, and SciFi fell off because the way they bundle cable, you can't just keep the one channel here, one channel there that you want. It's all giant bundle package bullcrap. Anyway, everyone else started watching season 4 while I pretended it didn't exist. Then they hit the mid-season cliffhanger and everyone was, like, OOOOOO and AAAAAAA and EEEEEE and so I decided go to ahead and see season 4 after all (on Hulu, mostly), which meant catching up on the first half of the season before the second half kicked in. I am writing this after the series is over, and I'll say this much: for a show that lied from the beginning about "having a plan", that made a large number of fundamental plot and direction choices in its back half that I totally disagree with, they did a fine job of bringing it back around to something I could still enjoy. Any landing you can walk away from, right? (That being said, my four-star rating is for the first half of season 4; I would only give the back half three stars, I think.)
MAMMA MIA!: * *
C watched this while I had a weekend work day. I think all you need to know is that even being positively inclined towards all the elements that went into the movie (i.e. ABBA, Meryl Streep, etc.) she was unable to get even halfway through it. Well, maybe you need to know more, but that's all *I* need to know.
30 ROCK SEASON 1: * * * *
Remember when there were two shows starting in the same season about backstage life at a sketch comedy show, and one died a well-deserved death and the other is still going and getting better with each season? I chose to try the one that's dead now and hated it so much that I didn't even try looking at the other one. Yes, sometimes I am a tremendous idiot.
THE FALL: * * * * *
I had high hopes for this movie from its trailer, but I suspected it might be a mess. I had low hopes for this movie based on the fact that the director's other film was THE CELL, which I only ever heard bad things about. I had low hopes for the movie based on a lot of feedback I read and the fact that it went a couple of years after completion without any distribution. I had low hopes for the movie because it was a labor of love by a director who wanted to insure that His Vision was completely untainted by anyone else. Seriously, it's almost never a good idea for a director to be allowed to pursue their personal project without any sort of oversight. Artsy, pretentious films made for the obsessive love of filmmaking itself are almost invariably a disaster, an unenjoyable drag to even attempt to watch. This film, I believe, is one of those exceptions that prove the rule, because make no mistake: it is artsy, and pretentious, and made for the obsessive love of filmmaking itself - but it's also about a storyteller's obligation to the audience and that theme shows through in the result. I was one thoroughly satisfied audience. I could go on for a long, long time about this movie and why I think it was brilliant, a beautiful love letter to the crafts of storytelling and moviemaking, but I won't. It may or may not be for you, but I think it's worth your time regardless, and what you get out of it will be proportional to what you put into viewing it. (Also, the film is an excellent checklist of scenic travel destinations to consider visiting. C and I have already been to several but our list of Things to See has grown by a few items as a direct result of this film, I think.)
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE: * * *
Another one for Carmel while I was caught up in work load. She gave it big respect for the period setting and costuming, but said pretty much everything else was a little off.
------
For consideration: next time - Spies! Dirtiness! More TV!