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Reviews
Lost in the Arctic (2023)
A big nothing
This special-ostensibly about the discovery of the grave of Arctic explorer John Franklin, of the ill-fated Erebus expedition-ends up being nothing but footage of guys sailing a boat and getting their ATVs stuck in mud. One guy goes on and on about a long-ago flight on which he saw rocks that are certain to mark Franklin's grave, which is certain to contain log books (and even photographs) that will solve mysteries. But they find NOTHING new, and the whole show consists of footage that should have been a five-minute prelude to the story they expected to tell. Worst of all, they pat themselves on the back for how their quest for answers is nobly honoring the expedition victims, while also exploiting those victims by showing explicit footage of the thawing and examination of three corpses from graves (not Franklin's) previously discovered on a different trek. The only value is that you get to see the actual terrain in places where the expedition members may have trod, but it's totally irrelevant to the Erebus story since the sun is blazing and the boggy ground is thawed to the point of soupiness.
The Gardener (2016)
Visuals, 10; audio, 3
An exceptionally beautiful garden gets plenty of justified attention, and there must be 50 vantage points that would be viable scenes for use in, say, a calendar. Marvelous views, enchanting surprises. But the interviews are flat, and it's strange to never give one teensy hint at the source of this man's gigantic pools of cash ("family money," evidently). The clumsiest aspect is the amateurishly trite music selection, consisting of the most obvious overused warhorses: Clair de Lune, Well-Tempered Clavier, Carnival of the Animals, etc., seemingly paired at random with images. Even so, worth a look, as few films offer ways to spend such a lot of time in such a delightful place.
The Twilight Zone: The Four of Us Are Dying (1960)
Unfulfilled promise
The premise is intriguing, the acting is good (especially from Beverly Garland), the music by Jerry Goldsmith is fantastic, and the visuals are jazzy, what with all those expressionistically angled and seemingly superimposed shots of neon signs. But the story isn't parlayed into a satisfying ending. As presented, the gist is "Even if you can change faces, you can still die," which is not that compelling. I was expecting that two different moments would turn into spellbinding twists: When the detective is leading him away, I thought Arch would take advantage of the revolving door to change his face to match the detective, somehow resulting in the wrong guy getting accused (or at least befuddling the detective long enough to allow an escape). When that didn't happen, I expected the dad to see his son change to Arch, and then shoot Arch anyway, and then we'd see the dad's face change to somebody else (ideally Beverly Garland, which would be shocking and hilarious and would bring the story full circle). But if the twist is "A gun can kill you," I can't get too excited.
The Holiday (2006)
Would be better with the sound off
I'm serious. The sets are gorgeous, the cast is attractive, but the dialogue is maddening and the plot defies reality in ways that are brazen even for a rom-com. It is a given that everyone has unlimited amounts of money AND no time commitments. Kate Winslet has a relatively low-level newsroom job, yet she can impulsively get leave time covering both Christmas and New Year's, with no advance notice. She commutes from a spot so distant that there seem to be no two-story buildings within 10 miles. And she manages to get back and forth even though route involves a mile-long stretch of road that is deemed impassable by someone who drives cars for a living.
The most insulting offense accompanies the scene setting up the home exchange. There are numerous shots of people typing text onto computers or reading text on phones - text like "vacation ideas" or "is tomorrow too soon?" And while the screen is showing us nothing but this text, the director chooses to help us by having both characters be the kind of person who pronounces every word out loud as she types or reads it. Viewing with the sound off preserves almost all the enjoyable aspects of the movie while eliminating many of the eye-rolling components.
Coraline (2009)
Darkness is not enough
"Coraline" has an appealing dark sensibility, and avoids the formulaic nature of so many popular films. But there's no point in being dark if you can't also be interesting, and even unpredictable films must make some sense in order to be satisfying.
I haven't been this disappointed in a film in decades. It provided no dramatic momentum for ages; and even after the plot got going, none of the characters was likable enough to invest in. The three characters in peril are never really explained.The 3-D technology was wasted.
The film carefully sets up a parallel universe, but then fails to make sense of the parallels, in that the parents are equally weighted in one world but wildly out of balance in the other, with no real reasoning for the discrepancy.
Other reviewers praise this as a movie for "kids who think," but it's more likely to be tolerated by the kind of kids who will stare at anything that passes before them. The ones who pay attention will be alternately bored, confused and creeped out. Others also praise the movie for being so "visual," not noting how clumsy and redundant it is at delivering information visually and then again aurally -- the equivalent, for instance, of showing the handwritten note and then having a character read it out loud. A step backward for animated film.
I did enjoy the voice work of Teri Hatcher, whose acting I have never had cause to notice before, and Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French did their best to drag in some entertainment, though their characters' voices could hardly match the less-enjoyable grotesque images.
I have nothing against Neil Gaiman; I am a huge fan of "Stardust." But I can't understand why so many people on IMDb are using phrases like "the best movie known to mankind." A little bit of goth style is enough to dazzle some people, I guess.