"The music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over."
A few reviews and a request.
First, the request: I have a cravat. I also have some silk and matching thread. Is there someone skilled with a needle who can take the latter, and make another of the former with it? Can offer modest remuneration for the service (name a price), and obviously any of the material left over is yours to keep and use as you wish.
I have been to the cinema six times already this year. Thoughts on the films:
I Am Legend: Jolly good for the first two thirds, actually. Will Smith acquits himself surprisingly well. Unfortunately Hollywood, for the third adaptation in a row, has taken one of the best short horror story endings ever written and ruined it. 7/10
Hammett: Early 80s Wim Wenders film based on Dashiell Hammett. Quite good in places, downright peculiar casting at times. Very complicated plot. Fell asleep for five minutes, and woke up completely lost. 5/10
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead: Starts really well; the characters quickly turn out to be universally unlikeable; the turgid, morose drama gets more and more depressing and strangely disengaging, not least because of the unlikeability of the characters; descends into high camp farce at the end. Well acted, but preposterous and gloomy, and ultimately very forgettable. A charitable 4/10
No Country For Old Men: stunning. Easily one of the best films I've seen in the last twelve months. The Coen Brothers trademark quirkiness is very pared down, the mood is slow and almost mournful, and at its heart is the story of a good man realising the world has become too awful and random to comprehend anymore. 9/10
Rescue Dawn: Werner Hertzog Vietnam war drama about some covert US pilots kept prisoner in Laos. I've got a rant brewing about emotional "money shots" in modern tv/film, but in this instance, I actually felt robbed of one here - in the end (the film is based on his memoirs, so I don't think that counts as a spoiler), the lead character is laughing and happy and apparently completely emotionally untouched by the horrors he faced in a POW camp where the guards were as starving as the prisoners. 6/10
Sweeney Todd: hmmm. Looks stunning. The lighting, make-up, production design, costumes etc are all amazing, as is the acting (if not the singing). The problem, really, is the nature of this bloody beast. There are just too many damned songs. Sometimes they improve the atmosphere and forward the plot, to be sure, but often they drag the pace down, they last too long, and there are so many poses the actors can strike while singing. And when all is said and done, the story is too thin. I felt that more time spent on Todd's growing taste for his crimes, and less on singing about London AGAIN/annoying flatly squawking urchins would have been wiser. Also, the young man who arrives in London with Todd has a shallower learning curve than Kim Bauer. 7/10
More later - have been sent off to work elsewhere.
First, the request: I have a cravat. I also have some silk and matching thread. Is there someone skilled with a needle who can take the latter, and make another of the former with it? Can offer modest remuneration for the service (name a price), and obviously any of the material left over is yours to keep and use as you wish.
I have been to the cinema six times already this year. Thoughts on the films:
I Am Legend: Jolly good for the first two thirds, actually. Will Smith acquits himself surprisingly well. Unfortunately Hollywood, for the third adaptation in a row, has taken one of the best short horror story endings ever written and ruined it. 7/10
Hammett: Early 80s Wim Wenders film based on Dashiell Hammett. Quite good in places, downright peculiar casting at times. Very complicated plot. Fell asleep for five minutes, and woke up completely lost. 5/10
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead: Starts really well; the characters quickly turn out to be universally unlikeable; the turgid, morose drama gets more and more depressing and strangely disengaging, not least because of the unlikeability of the characters; descends into high camp farce at the end. Well acted, but preposterous and gloomy, and ultimately very forgettable. A charitable 4/10
No Country For Old Men: stunning. Easily one of the best films I've seen in the last twelve months. The Coen Brothers trademark quirkiness is very pared down, the mood is slow and almost mournful, and at its heart is the story of a good man realising the world has become too awful and random to comprehend anymore. 9/10
Rescue Dawn: Werner Hertzog Vietnam war drama about some covert US pilots kept prisoner in Laos. I've got a rant brewing about emotional "money shots" in modern tv/film, but in this instance, I actually felt robbed of one here - in the end (the film is based on his memoirs, so I don't think that counts as a spoiler), the lead character is laughing and happy and apparently completely emotionally untouched by the horrors he faced in a POW camp where the guards were as starving as the prisoners. 6/10
Sweeney Todd: hmmm. Looks stunning. The lighting, make-up, production design, costumes etc are all amazing, as is the acting (if not the singing). The problem, really, is the nature of this bloody beast. There are just too many damned songs. Sometimes they improve the atmosphere and forward the plot, to be sure, but often they drag the pace down, they last too long, and there are so many poses the actors can strike while singing. And when all is said and done, the story is too thin. I felt that more time spent on Todd's growing taste for his crimes, and less on singing about London AGAIN/annoying flatly squawking urchins would have been wiser. Also, the young man who arrives in London with Todd has a shallower learning curve than Kim Bauer. 7/10
More later - have been sent off to work elsewhere.