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curehalo
Reviews
Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007)
It wasn't that bad!
Maybe it's because I am an American living in the UK (four years now) and I have low expectations for British made films at this point, but I didn't think this was a bad movie at all! And I don't even like Catherine Tate! Well, I didn't, but I do now.
The movie is based on a true story, and I guess true stories can only only be funny incidentally. It does not have laugh out loud moments, but I didn't fast forward through any of it either. Catherine Tate is really lovely in this film, but then again, she is really the only truly filled out character in the movie. She's a put upon housewife and her struggle to remain in control of a household in a country where you can't even control your own wallpaper is amusing. My family was stationed in Germany in the seventies, and I think this film is a pretty light-hearted view of everything, really skimming over people being shot and led away, so it is hard to take it too seriously.
I think what is lacking in this movie is that, because it is based on facts, and although they ARE interesting facts, it tries to fit so much in that it cannot always give us enough of every character. Her daughters feel like caricatures, one like a child of the damned really, as does her husband, and even the Germans around them. Despite her brother having nearly no lines, he is a pretty solid character and I kept wanting to see more of him. Her neighbor is also very intriguing, although I wanted her to have a bit more screen time as well.
Part of the movie preview I saw, had it say that she wanted to save her children from a bleak future, but I don't feel that the children's future looked so bleak. The youngest one was involved in sports and winning lots of things, as well as joining in clubs. They make an attempt to show her as an outsider, but never go into detail. As for her older daughter, all she was doing in the UK was sleeping around, and she's still sleeping around, so I don't see the difference. She only seems to be miserable that she can't listen to the music she wants to. her clothes and hair don't change, and she was moody before. I think Mrs. Ratcliffe's main motive's for leaving are feeling useless, bored, and utterly depressed and frightened by the fact her neighbors keep disappearing. The final straw clearly is being spied on. I think she just doesn't want to live with the fear anymore. I think that should have been explored more. Catherine Tate does her best to express this with her face and her tone of voice, but no one wrote it for her in depth and so she can't act on it.
But for having oh, eight main characters, and a crazy sequence of events, I think the film does it's best. I only rented it, but I did watch it a second time before bringing it back. I wish they had made it darker so it would have been a real black comedy, but, like I said, it's not that bad!
Freak Talks About Sex (1999)
True to Life
I will start off this review by saying I am totally and completely biased. This movie was filmed in my hometown, shot in our actual mall, and has a bunch of locals as extras, including the film makers parents. If anyone finds this movie boring, it's because Syracuse, NY is the worlds's most boring town with high levels of poverty and where the biggest employer is the mall. This movie is scarily like watching a documentary. It captures what it is like to be stuck in upstate perfectly.
I watch this movie and I see my life when I was ages 15-20 and some of the lines sound exactly like things my friends and I have said to each other.
"Why do you work at the mall?" "What else am I supposed to do?"
I also am biased because I love Josh Hamilton, and have since I saw "Kick and Screaming." I think he does a great job in this movie, although certainly Steve Zahn is perfect as well.
The movie has little plot per se. It's not a movie about moving forward, it's a movie about being stuck in a time and a place and being unable to escape. Everyday is eerily the same and the characters are just trying to not pay attention to how bored they are. Josh Hamilton's character is trying to get over his life before, a life outside of Syracuse. It hurt him badly and he is just trying to nurse his wounds in a place where life stands still. Freak is someone who is simply trying to make a life where he is. The two men share the same habit of smoking weed, but clearly for two different reasons: one, like a true addict, to forget and try to blur his brain back to a place where he can feel comfortable without his lost love and the other, in a more juvenile way: just because it's there.
If you have ever been stuck in a situation you are simply tolerating or felt lost during your big choice making years, this movie, like "Kicking and Screaming" covers you. Yes, it meanders, but the point is that life happened before and after the movie, and this middle part is just life standing still in the giant void that is Syracuse.