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Reviews
The Idea of You (2024)
Rom-com without the Com
40 y/o soccer mom goes to a festival, meets, pulls, and falls in love with a member of a top boy band. Sounds implausible, but "Implausible" is by no means a bad thing.
I should blame Amazon, as it was they who advertised this as a comedy-drama, but it's in reality (in part at least) a fairly standard and deja vu chick flick. There's a dearth of laugh out loud moments, and when an overdue story arc does hit a turning point, it makes sense, but there is a slight lack of oomph.
I've long thought of Anne Hathaway as being short of a top drawer actress, but sadly it looks as though this is her level these days. At times, her efforts to convey some emotion look a little constipated.
Overall, although I've given it as many marks as I honestly can, and they're not outstanding, this film is still a keeper. If it can hold my attention for the better part of 2 hours, it can do the same for you, but it suffers from being a film of two halves. Goofy at first, deeper and more meaningful later on, and ending a little anticlimactically.
And therein lines the issue. It doesn't matter what side this film picked, whether a goofy chick flick, or a Sunday afternoon Hallmark offering, or a serious critique of celebrity culture and online harassment, as long as it picked one. If it had planted its flag somewhere definite in the sand, it'd have potentially got a lot more marks.
A Christmas Karen (2022)
Not bad....
Watching this on Freeserve, my assumption was that.it would be a cheapo, and it is. It is a bit amateur, and kind of lurches across a range of emotions, from humourous to silly, to cringeworthy, to poignant.
I didn't like Michele Sims's portrayal of Karen, whereas to my mind a "proper" Karen is simply stressed, deluded and possibly on something, this one has more of a genuinely malicious streak.
It's pretty predictable, which isn't a problem as we already know the basic premise. It's basically a silly, occasionally juvenile seasonal fun, and whilst there are plenty of holes the viewer could pick, ironically at this time of year, to spend much time doing so would reveal the viewer's inner Karen.
The Mother (2023)
Jenny from the Bore Block
There would have been the day when those of us of a certain
vintage would have relished the thought of J-Lo turning all bad-
us. In this, credit: where its' due, she certainly does. Lord knows,
after the abominations of "shotgun Wedding", she had a LOT of
making up to do.
In fairness, she pulls off some pretty gory kills, but in the end, this turns out to be the most bizarre "Take your daughter to work day" you'll ever see. The good bits are that Lopes transitions quite well into a killing machine, there is some great scenery to be had, and there is some classic UK hiphop on the soundtrack,
The trouble is, she is too soulless, with few if any redeeming qualities. As such, it is hard to care about her. Unless it's a misplaced attempt to send out a message of empowering a young generation of females, bringing up your pre-teen who you barely know to be another bad-ass in a cabin in the middle of nowhere seems an unusual means of bonding. I'm probably overthinking
here, but in the implausible scenes with the wolves, you'd think
that as well as getting the daughter's bite patched up, she'd
have taken the risk of taking her into town for a rabies shot, wouldn't you?
In the end, she's an emotional flatliner who, despite what she might put in a letter, is a bit casual about palming her daughter off to someone else.
This could have been better, but instead it leaves the viewer thinking its all been a bit hackneyed, to the point of it looking like its' all been done before. Speaking of the soundtrack, the closing titles are accompanied by Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work", which features the line "Make it go away". Draw your own conclusions with that.
Shotgun Wedding (2022)
Puerile comedy
Going into this as a known rom-com, I was prepared that it
might not be my cup of tea, but it looked fun.
Fun it was not. It was basically some fairly juvenile stuff which did little to involve the viewer, and bordered on annoying.
It was somehow clear from around the five minute mark that this was going to be a wrong 'un, as we get introduced to an unsympathetic and dysfunctional family gathering for a wedding at a Philippines
island, only to be taken hostage at a stage managed pirate
attack.
It's not necessarily boring as such, just a sense of deja vu, with seemingly little evidence of any thought given towards anything being done to create originality to the script.
It does improve in the later stages, but still remains corny.
Jennifer Lopez is better than this, I'm quite sure Lenny Kravitz is
as well, but most of my marks come from the scenery, the
cinematography, and a decent score.
I Used to Be Famous (2022)
Sadly, below average.
If you're looking for a feel-good film that leaves you not feeling that great, or an uplifting film without the uplift, look no further than this.
I was surprised to see as many 9's and 10's being awarded to this, many of them saying that anyone who didn't like it was in need of a soul transplant. Well, you know what, bring it on, because, to quote the Ramones, I wanna be sedated.
It's very clear what this film is trying to do. It's the old format of bringing together a collection of life's underdogs, those needing redemption and those who gave up their dreams too early, with a view to a grandstand finish and/or a rousing "Rocky IV" declaration of faith.
The main character (Vinnie) is a washed-up former member of a boy band from the era when such nonsense was overthrowing Britpop, who'd had some sort of Robbie Williams moment and quit the band for no clearly-defined reason ("musical differences")? , and in the intervening 20 years, he's all but on the street.
While out and about writing "new material", he randomly encounters an autistic teenager (Stevie) who's quite the drummer. No Keith Moon, or Clem Burke, or even Jet Black, God rest his soul, but pretty good, and they happen to start jamming in front of a bunch of high street shoppers with nothing else to do..
From then on, it's a tale about this unlikely pair trying to get a gig and get out on the road, all under the disapproving glare of the lad's mother (Amber), who looks like she'd rather her son went on tour with Gary Glitter.
Our protagonist clearly has had a number of moments in the previous two decades that have impacted his life badly, but none are given the time to properly work out at what point it all finally went wrong. One of the problems with Vinnie is he is quite one-dimensional. Nobody is expecting a boy band version of Sid Vicious or Kurt Cobain, but the simple fact is that he isn't that interesting. In fact, the only performance I'd give any real credit to is the embittered Amber, played by Eleanor Matsuura.
The bit on the story arc which could have been the main turning point is squeezed in in the latter parts, and given a bit of a shrug-shouldered response by all concerned , who are more or less brushing it off as one of those things.
As for the grandstand finish, it's twee, underwhelming and it's like eating Chinese food without wanting to go back for more.
One of the failings of this film is that what Stevie and Vinnie have to offer is that musically, it is very, very poor. Perhaps if they'd marketed themselves as a UK 21st century Kraftwerk, there'd have been an (admittedly niche) audience for what they were doing , even if it sounded like for the sort of thing I was banging out in the 80's on my little Bontempi, but musically it bordered on the childish. It wasn't anything that would attract being offered even a pub gig.
I won't deny that "I Used To VBe Famous" is sweet, it tries to be upbeat when necessary, but ultimately the road to mediocre films is paved with good intentions, and this is full of good intentions. And it is, as it means well, but there simply isn't the quality of the writing or the acting from a cast that in no way lacks ability, but this will be forgotten pretty quickly.
The Mad Death (1983)
Sinister cult 80's classic
In the UK in the 80's, reminders of the threat of a rabies outbreak were everywhere. The iconic poster with the skull and the jagged writing was put up on the most unlikely of public buildings, public information films would jump out during teatime ad breaks, and newspapers would print the story of the occasional instance where someone resident in the UK would contract rabies abroad and die horribly having returned. Make no mistake, the paranoia was huge.
We're taken quickly through the sequence of events that causes rabies to establish in the UK. A French woman smuggles in her cat that's been infected by a fox, and brings it when attending a party amongst the gentry in the Scottish highlands. The cat gets loose, and having scratched the lovable collie owned by one of the attendees, is run over by a partygoer, its dying body being feasted on by a feral fox.
Enter Tom Siegler, an eccentric US expat played by UFO's Ed Bishop, who, when stopping to call his mistress from a phone box, notices a docile-looking fox lying by the road. For reasons only he would know, he decides the fox might make for a pet. Unbeknown to him, it is rabid, and ultimately causes his downfall.
The fox infects him in slightly implausible circumstances, and thereafter we see him decline until he progressively experiences the symptoms of rabies until he is hallucinating and convulsing in terrifying ways until his death is a merciful release. Unfortunately, he's also infected his mistress through a misplaced lovebite.
The second episode of this 3-part series examines the public reaction to the outbreak. The locals watch angrily as their pets are impounded, and we get to know Miss Stonecroft, a deranged old woman with nothing else in her life than to take in stray animals, who finds herself in conflict with the team tasked with combating the outbreak, vet Mike Hilliard and Dr Anne Maitland. Back stories include seeing the death of Siegler's mistress, and a rabid stray alsatian terorrising shoppers in East Kilbride shopping centre. A wordless season in which a group of seemingly inbred locals confront Hilliard in a pub is in its own way really unpleasant.
This episode brings one of the saddest scenes, as we see Siegler's mistress slip away in the same manner he did, in an oxygen tent in an isolation room. Just before she dies, unable to speak, she mouths the words to Dr Maitland asking if Siegler is there, Maitland's casual reply to say that he is not is borderline cruel.
The third and final episode ends in a bit of a bloodbath. Miss Stonecroft has released a number of impounded animals, which causes the infected area to increase. Hilliard coldly calls in the army to cull the escaped animals, and any bit of wildlife that gets in the way. We don't see anyone dying from rabies, but this still includes some harrowing scenes, including when Dr Maitland visits an increasingly unhinged Miss Stonecroft. Things calm down once the slaughter is over, and the series ends at Glasgow airport, where Hilliard is thanked by the DEFRA minister played brilliantly by Jimmy Logan, whilst the woman whose fault this was all along returns home to France. Everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they?
It's debatable if this fully communicates the real horror of rabies, but it still stands the test of time nearly 40 years later. The scenes in the first episode in particular are especially horrifying, with creative effects. It's basically every rabies public information film of the 70's and 80's rolled into a mini series. This is the risk if you smuggle an animal, this is how you die, these are the draconian measures that would be brought in to control it.
It's probably the second most scary 80's BBC drama to "Threads". The good bits speak for themselves. The surprising bits are how the best characters are the more peripheral ones. The jealous and controlling lord of the manor, the bumbling but likable PR man, and the magnificent cigar-munching minister.are examples.
The bad bits centre around the unnecessary love triangle between Hilliard, Maitland and the deeply unpleasant country gent, and that the parts which should have gone further don't, and the bits which go a little too far are left alone. . That being said, it was a bit of an own goal to set this series amongst the wealthy and the privileged in the Scottish highlands. It's too remote to bring home the message that this could happen in your neck of the woods, and to regular people.
That doesn't take away that this is a classic and genuinely disturbing piece of 80's cult television, which if you haven't checked out, you should.
Brazen (2022)
Joke of a film
Showing my age but back in my day this'd be categorised "Straight to Video". If this was something found in a 3,000 word short story competition in a creative writers' magazine, it'd probably do well.
Except, this is supposed to be a 96 minute film. In brief, a serial killer's on the loose, the victims are part-time online dominatrixes . Somehow, a crime writer whose sister was one of the victims finds herself appointed by a police chief she'd never met, and who looks like she's straight out of school as a "consultant". The local police, including some guy with a Don King haircut, seemingly are that incompetent. Eventually a lanky teenage screw-up with mommy issues is in the frame.
Things to not like include, but aren't limited to, wooden acting, unbelievable characters, doubtless flawed representation of police procedures, and distinctly ropey and cliched storyline, such as it is.
It can only be in the backdrop of the madness of 2022 that Netflix could have the cheek to increase irs charges whilst asking the subscriber to accept tripe like this.
The Wrong Missy (2020)
Puerile, but got some amusement
Not the greatest film ever made, not the most clever or the most funny, but look at it in context, and you'll enjoy it. If you're looking for a slick 90's style romcom, or you're someone who's not satisfied unless you've found something to be offended by, this is not for you. The basic premise could have applied to a slick 90's romcom. Middle aged guy has a disastrous blind date, later meets a possible soulmate, can't believe his luck, tries to invite her on a work retreat (wish we had something like that in the UK) and finds to his horror that he's inadvertently invited the nightmare of the same name. What ensues isn't PC. It's at times charmless, cringeworthy, even slightly juvenile. Lauren Lapkus, barring one particular scene when she opens up about her life, is quite annoying. In the end, love wins the day after all seems lost, and one or two unsavoury characters get taken down.
This is best watched on a Friday night when you're glad to see the back of the week, fed up with lockdown, having a few drinks, and most importantly, like the film itself, not taking it too seriously.