ruthandjan Reviews

Last Tango in Halifax (2012–2020)

Stellar cast, great characters, but too bad about the plot.

[6/10 · 12 January 2015]

The cast is brilliant, the characters are 3 dimensional, and the setting is solid and real. I watched faithfully and enjoyed all last season and the first episode this season, until the absurd plot twists finally got to me.

The story-lines are terrible now, completely unbelievable and unrelated to any viewer's home life.

The producer and the writers have lost the thread and are trying too hard to come up with a plot. They need to step back and allow the characters to live their life a little bit. At this point throwing more stupid twists and turns into the story is detrimental to the whole presentation.

It would be helpful to the cast as well. They have used up all their "wide-eyed astonishment" faces and it is cruel to ask them for more.

Mr. Turner (2014)

Beautiful but. . . .

[7/10 · 29 December 2014]

Beautiful images but at the end of the movie I wondered why Mike Leigh made it. I did not feel I got to know Turner at all. I learned nothing about what made Turner paint the way he did, what inspired him, or where his genius came from.

I never felt that I could see past Mr. Spall into the character he was portraying. I was watching a good actor act instead of being drawn into the character of Turner. His performance is flat and unchanging from scene to scene, except for one scene where he inexplicably breaks down for some reason that is never explained. The man seemed completely without any passion.

The rest of the performances reminded me of the Alastair Sims version of The Christmas Carol. Over the top "Victorian" but not unpleasant.

The movie is beautiful but the colourist should have received a bigger credit. He did a lot of the work to achieve the look of the film. Hopefully if the photographer wins any awards he will mention him.

I gave it a 7 because it is very well made, but I left the theatre disappointed at the emptiness of it.

Blue Jasmine (2013)

An unfinished tragedy

[7/10 · 22 September 2013]

Woody Allen cannot complain about the performances of his actors in this movie. They are fantastic. However, the story relies upon some absurd coincidences which seem amateurish and unreal. Glimpsing an affair from the back seat of a taxi in New York? Come on. Bumping into the ex brother-in-law at the moment of getting an engagement ring? That is just silly. My main disappointment with the movie is how it strayed from the main thread, Jasmine's desperate need to be seen to be someone better than she really was. She was like that as a child and because she never learned to overcome it, it eventually brought about her downfall. Instead of sticking with this tragic story, the movie keeps getting distracted with pointless side trips, like Ginger's little dalliance or a horny dentist and you never get to see what finally happens to her. For the tragedy to be complete you need to see her doom. I am giving this a seven because the actors were sensational but in the end I was disappointed because this movie could have been so much greater.

Black Swan (2010)

Powerful but lacking

[7/10 · 20 December 2010]

First the stuff I liked. Beautifully designed, photographed and acted. The movie is stylish and full of powerful images and intense emotions. Worth it just for that.

Stuff I was disappointed with. Easy stuff first. The sex was way too explicit. It was embarrassing and threw me out of the movie. I was aware of sitting in a theatre with a bunch of other people watching this stuff instead of staying with the story.

My main criticism is that a movie like this needs to be centred around the lead character's relationship with the people around her, but her relationship was mainly to the character in the ballet. What was her fear about? Why was she so afraid of exposing her inner self? What demons lived there? You never find out.

Her relationship with her mother should have been the bedrock of what troubled her, but their relationship was never exposed. What was the problem? Was it her mother's oppressive love, her mother's too high expectations? Could she only see herself through her mother's eyes? The movie does not explore their relationship at all.

The first scene where we see them together was completely wrong. Instead of a couple who have lived together for thirty years with a relationship set in stone, they seem to be flirting with each other like they are just getting to know each other. As a parent of older children myself, it all seemed false.

Her relationship with the ballet director, the man driving her out of her comfort zone was also way too lightly sketched out. He was driving her to the point of insanity yet you never got any idea of the level of emotion, whether love or hate, that could possible cause that. And his suggestion that she needed to experience an orgasm was just silly. Any 30 year old woman will have had one. He needed to draw her into a darker place in her psyche and show her that that place was a part of her too. He needed to be a lot more depraved.

This movie is good and worth seeing, but it could have been truly great, and it wasn't.

Australia (2008)

needed something more

[7/10 · 23 February 2009]

This movie isn't nearly as bad as many people are saying. The acting is good, the characters connect well and the story is strong.

However, it seems to be lacking something to make it really great. It just seems a bit flat.

One thing that would have helped would have been a better score. The music is completely unmemorable. Try to imagine Star Wars without that theme, or Titanic without the Irish flute. This is a huge sweeping movie and the music is no better than wallpaper. That was a real disappointment.

Hugh Jackman also needed something extra to help define his character and emphasize his connection to the land and the people. I think a stronger relationship with his aboriginal riding mate could have helped, more of a close buddy thing, insulting each other, having a bit of fun. There really are no laughs at all. You might have also found a better reason why his lust turned to love if you knew more about him.

The Road to Guantanamo (2006)

Appreciate this movie on two levels

[8/10 · 7 October 2006]

This movie can be appreciated for it's message, which is shocking and powerful. It shows how the reality of war at ground level destroys any pretense of morality preached by the wagers of that war. The movie never addresses the basis for this war, it doesn't pick sides, it never passes judgment on whether the war was necessary. Its message is that while we sit at home and think that we are the good guys and that the war is reflecting our moral sense of what is right or wrong, the truth of what our soldiers are doing in our name is very different. The marines treat the prisoners like animals yet in the end the prisoners come across as the most human, and the marines are the real animals. The cynical may say that "war is hell so get used to it" but this movie shows what that hell looks like and why we should never get used to it. The second level that this movie can be appreciated for is the great skill of the filmmakers. These are actors. These are sets. People are following a script. Yet you are immediately convinced you are watching a powerful documentary and that everything you see is happening for real. You are there on the battlefield, you are there in the planes with the prisoners shackled to the floor, you are there in the cells. The illusion is so complete you wonder sometimes how they got the cameras in there. If you are a grizzled film veteran and think that it is no longer possible for you to suspend your disbelief, this film will show you that there still are some things that you haven't seen before.