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Three Pines (2022)
Good but wished for more
The positives: Alfred Molina is the heart and soul of the show. He carries himself with grace and calmness. The show is amazingly picturesque, I wish we got to see more of the surrounding area. Finally, you have to commend the use of so
many indigenous people in the show.
The negatives: the characters- the town is full of horrible people, who very quickly become tiring. Some may have a quirky trait but are nothing much more beyond that. And the Blue-Jean family are a different level of annoying, their reactions, responses, approach just comes across as overly melodramatic. The suffer from bad writing and bad direction. But my biggest issue with the show is the mystery/whodunnit aspect, the reveals are so mundane.
So what you're left with is either a murder mystery show, where the mystery is mundane or a drama where the characters outside of the lead are shallow and unlikeable.
The Midnight Club (2022)
Just misses the mark
From the trailer I was expecting something similar to 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark?' But instead we get a lite version, where the stories shared is less than 40% of each episode. The remaining 60% is tediously spent on the story tellers. Tedious because the central character Ilonka is not a believable 90's kid. She is some modern day teen equivalent making it difficult to empathise or even like. Maybe that's harsh and it's a character with little to no space for growth or an arc
It leaves you wishing for a different balance in the episode and a different lead character. Personally I think it should have been centred around Amesh.
Goodachari (2018)
Amateurish
Watched this film because it was repeatedly mentioned as a good film. Genuinely struggling to see what's good about it.
The story is fairly generic with a twist you see a mile away.
The lead actor is poor, he cannot emote and is more interested in looking stylish and a wanna be James Bond.
Certain actors who are made to look old just look like someone has thrown chalk dust in their face.
My biggest problem is with the amateurish execution of the film, it's little things that wound me up and they mounted up to the point I lost patience.
If there was a better lead actor and a better director at the helm the film could be passable at best but as is, it's just been a waste of my time
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)
Good content shame about the presentation
If you are a fan of film making and film makers then this documentary certainly has the right subject matter. There are elements of this which reminded me of Lost In La Mancha, another documentary about a doomed project where the maverick director tried their best to drag the film to life.
But if you are looking for insight in to the mind and passion of Orson Wells, then be prepared to wade through over an indulgent stylised presentation. It somehow finds a half-way house between a typical talking heads documentary and a pure voiceover (like Senna), and it doesn't really work, you don't really have an idea of who is talking.
The extensive use of footage from different sources is just a distraction to the narrative that is being told by voiceovers
The biggest misstep is Alan Cummings, I have no idea what he's purpose was. He did not feature enough to be a narrator, he did not have any kind of associate with anyone involved in The Other Side of The Wind, it was just pointless.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
A Poor Imitation Of A QT Movie
My opinions on the first film were "hmm, very different, lets see where this goes in the next volume" When I finally did watch volume two, I cannot fully describe my disappointment. Not just with the film but with Quinton Tarantino. To me, he hadn't directed this movie, he basically ticked the boxes of people expect of him.
Non-Linear story Chapaterised; Classic songs; Interesting dialogue; References to dozens of films from various decades from various genres.
To be fair to him, he did tick all of them but what he ticked them with was very lame stuff, but the overall product was just plain disappointing. And it seems to me that it has got to a point where Tarantino's ego has become more important than the script. Ultimately I get the feeling that Tarantino has peeked with Pulp Fiction, but he is deluded in to thinking that is he can deliver that every time. I think that he has lost his "voice" in the same way I think Kevin Smith has lost his. The spark/flare in the dialogues that were in his earlier films has gone, what we get instead is stuff which is very laboured. Likewise the use of music in his films, he has used the music so badly in this film it is unbelievable.
I guess the best analogy that I could give is M.Night Shyamalan films, you go watch his films expecting a twist, and when he does deliver the twist, you are kind of left disappointed with it. Likewise you go to watch a QT film expecting the stuff mentioned above, and what you get isn't what you had hoped.
Thiruda Thiruda (1993)
I actually quite enjoyed it
I have to admit, though I am a huge Mani Ratnam fan, I was reluctant to watch this film, mainly because the impression I got was that it was a bad film. But i kept reading about the use of lighting and the cinematography, and i thought i'd give it a go.
This is probably the least Mani Ratnam-esquire film I have seen, the first 10 minutes i kept seeing homages to Sholay (the initial train sequence and the motorbike the police use) and i mainly put that down to RGV writing. The film gathers pace, characters get introduced, u have the fun chase sequences, some nice little exchanges, and before u realise it the film has finished. The result, a nice little commercial film, which I think is much better than most of the films of this genre made in 2005 in Bollywood. But then again this is Mani Ratnam we are talking about.
The really good things about this film; Brilliant songs, brilliant cinematography, you have to watch the song sequence of Chandralekha simply superb. Technically it is a good film. Well directed.
The bad things about this film; well i have to say, at times the film just looks really low-budget (especially when it comes to the special effects), the lead actors are a little disappointing i thought, apart from one of the actresses ( her character was called rasathi) the lead actors just lack charisma and anu agrawal at times looked a little overweight. the love-triangle was a little a pointless and the fact that it remained unresolved was disappointing.
i do recommend this film, but be aware that this is not a typical Mani Ratnam film so do not start watching the film with expectations of brilliant dialogues, a film grounded in realism, because you will feel a little disappointed.
Black (2005)
Just Plain Bad
Once again a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film has just shown everyone what is wrong with Bollywood, how mediocre and pretentious films can be over glorified by critics, just because it has been made by a "great" director. Black is just another take another take on the ever-green classic Koshish which was made by a truly great director Gulzar. SLB first film Khamoshi was his first attempt at trying to emulate Koshish, he failed that time and frankly he has failed on his second attempt, but I take it from this film, he will continue to attempt to the original until he finally succeeds. Once again SLB has used fanciful camera-work and lavish art direction to cover the gaping holes in his film, something which he has been doing since his first film. I have read many reviews praising Amitabh Bachchan's performance in this film, but I akin his performance to Kiron Kher's performance in Devdas, something which is truly horrific. Rani Mukerjee acted very well, amongst the present crop of actors in Hindi speaking films, her performance is one of the best, but when you widen the scope to all time, she would be way down the list. But lets just compare her acting to that of Seema Biswas or Jaya Bhaduri and you do find her lacking. As for the other faults in the film, once again overly melodramatic, with a background score which keeps pushing the ambiance in to melodrama. Monty's background score once again weak. Though I do admit that apart from A.R Rahman and Maestro Illayraja, there isn't anyone who can do justice to a film with a quality background score. One of the biggest problem with Black, is that it doesn't engage the audience, you don't care about Michelle's struggle and nor are we made to care, until perhaps the last scene where once again the scene is over melodramatic, and has strong shades of Nana Patekar's speech in Khamoshi, which was much better.
Is this the best of Bollywood? I sincerely hope not, these are the kind of films which have caused me to turn my back on Hindi films and look at other films, ranging from Tamil to Japanese. All I can say is that Bollywood lags far far behind
Swades: We, the People (2004)
Great Stuff
Many people, western and Indian, complain that Indian films don't offer anything different, that they aren't grown up enough, but when great films like swades get made and released they either lambasted or ignored. Swades is the kind of film which brings hope to bollywood. As someone who was an ardent supporter of bollywood i have found that since 2001 the quality of films have generally been poor, and my attention turned towards south India, where you get to see truly great films.
As for the film, it has a novel storyline, which incidentally is based on a true story. Shah Rukh Khan gives a brilliant performance, he becomes his character and it is a welcome change from the screen persona that he has had in so many countless over-rated films. The background music to film adds a real dimension to the film, a lesser musician could have easily made the scenes melodramatic with a poor background score.
What prevents Swades from being a truly magnificent film, and in my eyes prevents it from being as good as films like Kannathil Muthamittal and Lagaan, is that the film suffers from an average cinematography and from average editing. With all due respect to Mahesh Aney, he not in the same league as Anil Mehta or Ravi Chandran or Santosh Sivan, you never felt in awe of a scene. The editing I felt was poor, but I believe this was due to a script which turned out to be more than four hours long, and a great deal was done to cut the running time to something respectable but in doing so the importance of certain scenes got diluted, for example when Mohan goes to meet the farmer, his journey there is turned in to a montage for a song, and the impact of the final song in the film is diluted when the song is interrupted with other important scenes.
Swades is a great film and also a great message, and it is a shame that certain reviewers didn't see that. Thankfully the Indian public eventually saw the film and got to see the message the director wanted convey.