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Reviews
Hogfather (2006)
In the middle
Funny how half the reviews are trashing this series and half are raving. I'm smack in the middle. It had a glacial pace that I really did not like and it had a sort of flat trajectory that didn't make me want to sit there for the whole thing. I did anyway. I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's books like the vast majority of the reviewers and I know there's no way on earth to please us all but while I thought Michelle Dockery was fabulous, I wasn't particularly impressed by anything else about it. The look was great but it wasn't Ankh-Morpork. Though Mr. P has said the city probably leans toward the early 19th century, he writes it a bit older than that and so this felt, as one person said, more like a Harry Potter than the Discworld. There was no feeling of Ankh-Morpork as the sprawling whore of a city she is--this could've been a Dickens set, reused. Beautiful but not right. Likewise, the humor felt strangely flat. I didn't crack a smile once and that is odd--the books invariably have me laughing out loud, often and long. All the books. Every one of these actors is talented and some of them shone but frankly I found the only other person I wanted to see on the screen was Peter Guinness; he had presence in his tiny bits that worked. Little else was engaging and the timing or the editing or the pace just killed the jokes dead. It comes out like a bunch of adults making stupid faces. Good for kids, maybe. Disappointing to someone who knows how Pratchett can make a joke about the most serious elements of the human condition and distill it into what we all share as humans. Which was also missing. I didn't feel like any of the characters were real people. The bottom line of the Discworld is that no matter what fantastic thing is happening, it's happening to people like us. This was like watching Eragon or Narnia. It never once touched me. And I disagree heavily with Nobby Nobbs. The actor was fine but the portrayal was not even in the same universe as my Nobby Nobbs. I shudder to see what would happen if they made a film with Vimes, who is my favorite. After the plays, which read all slapstick and no humanity (still worth reading but too thin without the pathos and beauty of people doing the things people do), and the Wyrd Sisters animated (plodding, overly comic voice acting that sounds like everyone has been slowed down deliberately) I had some high hopes for this. It's worth a look for fans but if you haven't read the book, you're lost and irritated (why are Nobbs and Visit in here anyway? The whole sequence in the store didn't require the Watch to work in a film. Tony Robinson had it handled and the uninitiated will be going "who are these people, because clearly I'm supposed to know them." Too much weight is given to something that doesn't advance the plot. Ditto BSJ's shower. I'm still not even sure what was meant to have happened there.) So, not a bad film but not a satisfying translation of a Pratchett book and that is the worst of it. Like others have said before me, please:if this is your introduction to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, do yourself a favor and ---Read The Books---.
Twister (1989)
A few decent scenes
While everyone does a decent job in this film, I agree with the other comment: it's too loose and scattered, too much like a script-less experiment with really talented actors. As such, it isn't enough to hold your attention. Having said that, there are a few really funny moments, one involving Dylan McDermott and a flaming shot glass that I think anyone who's been that drunk would find as funny as I did; the other is a split-second with an inflatable dinosaur. Crispin Glover does his usual nutty twitch-fest guy and does it fine, Harry Dean Stanton does his usual nutty patriarch (Repo Man, anyone?) etc. Good cast, not enough to keep it going. Just a few gems, seconds long.
Torpedo Run (1958)
Dramatic sub movie
More a drama than an action film, this movie may have a fairly simplistic plot line and a few implausible events but it's primarily about the sort of awful decisions men sometimes have to make in war and the actors all do an admirable job of conveying different reactions to the consequences of a bad call. Particularly good is Glenn Ford as a commander who finds himself risking the lives of his own wife and child for the greater good. Ernest Borgnine is as always superb as his first officer and best friend and the very personal events unfolding in front of the entire crew give an excellent example of how an extremely insular environment like a submarine can be, while still stripping everyone on board of the luxury of privacy. The setting--World War II, and a hunt for an infamous Japanese aircraft carrier--are handled well and if details aren't 100%, it is no less accurate than most Hollywood submarine films, with an interesting personal tone amidst the technical and Navy confines.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
More accessible than the play
This film version of Tom Stoppard's best-known play is more accessible than the play text itself. I had always found the play to be self-indulgent collegiate rambling but the film manages to bring all the same play-on words and double-entendres Stoppard (and Shakespeare, in fact) is famous for, along with visual puns and excellent understated humour from the lead actors. While it may not make all viewers laugh out loud, I found it to be extremely clever, well-knit and jammed with references to Shakespeare's work and the lore that surrounds it as well as in-jokes about the absurdities of the profession of stage. Without a thorough knowledge of those references, some viewers may feel left out or confused why others find the film so funny, but seeing that it is based on a play infinitely more narrow in appeal, to some degree the viewer should keep in mind they're seeing what is really a filmed play. That Stoppard never makes you feel like you're watching a filmed play and in fact uses the media of cinema to the nth degree makes this a very enjoyable film, as long as you know what you're getting into.
Farscape: Premiere (1999)
Best Sci-Fi show in decades
Farscape manages to capture interesting storylines, sympathetic characters, fantastic science and hip humor, evenly mixed, in nearly every episode. The production design is excellent and the stories are never tired rehashes of old Star Treks, which in the tv sci-fi world seems to be a real trick. The scripts are uniformly intelligent, engaging treatments of the adventures of our hero, John Crichton, slightly futuristic U.S. astronaut who has been transported by accident through a worm-hole into a world of living space ships and daily alien contact. It's far more action oriented than meditative and always presents fresh perspectives. And the dialogue really is excellent, being by turns dramatic (but believable--the acting also is excellent) and very funny. Worth checking out.