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Reviews
Philophobia (2019)
Underrated. One to settle down and watch closely.
Beautifully filmed, with an engaging cast and an often dreamy and immersive style.
Fire Down Below (1997)
Marvellous
This is a marvelous film.
The juxtaposition of a petite beekeeping blonde with a large muscular dark haired Federal good all round chap has not often been done better. Nuclear cyanide, a wimpy son and heir to a poisoning conglomerate added to the eclectic mix.
Fast staging of semi-martial arts fights with quick quips about damaged wood sticks just about sealed it for me.
Sadly I watched this film for the first time on the day that Levon Helm died. He died in the film, as the preacher. I could write some great stuff about Seven Seagulls as an actor and mock the film, but won't, out of respect for Mr. Helm.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
1d
I watched this on Sky 3d. I paid for Pay Per View to watch it as I have 3D equipment and wanted a test beyond the files you can get online.
Why 1d? Well, any film should start with 2D, obviously. Showing it on Sky 3d should give it an extra D. Well, if the 3D gave it an extra D then it has 1d as the score. This is a 0D film, made better by the fact that the one dimensional characters can gain an extra dimension through technology.
To be honest, the plot has the same advantage. The plot is significantly improved by the presence of the third dimension. It is weak, hard to follow and well, weak.
PS. Some of the d's in the review are lowercase when they should be uppercase. That's because the spam-filter suggest that I am shouting. Well, I am shouting, but only internally, and definitely not in stereo.
Seconds from Disaster: Paddington Rail Disaster (2011)
Emotional dramatisation/reconstruction of dreadful incident
As a survivor and someone who took part in this programme, I came away from watching it with mixed views.
Obviously I have very strong views about the events leading up to the crash and the causes. I watched it with my family and found myself veering between pointing out factual inaccuracies (30 died in the crash, 1 died a few days later etc. - inaccuracies that really would only have mattered to people closely involved) and crying at the intensity of the reconstructions and detail.
Although I didn't get evacuated to Sainsbury's the interviews with the member of staff from the store were harrowing. Also the video from their CCTV. I said to my kids - I went through that fireball. The footage of the scientific tests to prove you can make a fireball from diesel was also very harrowing.
I'm glad I watched it and I will watch again. Nearly 12 years on there is still a healing process going on. Those that were responsible for causing the crash should take note. The survivors and bereaved still live with your decisions (or lack of them) every day of our lives.
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)
Just how do you take this movie
For me there is only one question about this film.
At what point did McDonagh cross over totally from reality to drug-induced hallucination and paranoia.
Was it before the hoods were killed in the Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels style shoot-up, was it when the football game was miraculously won, was it the planting of evidence that convicted the villain, was it the promotion to Captain, was it the baby and marriage to his hooker Frankie? Was it the meet-up with the criminal that he saved and the scene in the aquarium?
The answer is probably somewhere in the middle of that.
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Funniest film of the year, what a treat!
I can't really add to what has been said before, superb animation, great plot, nice suspense, wonderful modelling etc. etc.
However I couldn't understand why anyone would give this film a 1 rating. So I read through the comments. I really don't understand how you cannot make jokes about religion in a film, how you can believe some of the jokes in COTWR are too sexy for a U film, or how on earth you can take a 4 year old to a cinema and then blame the film because the 4 year old is badly behaved!
In the cinema I was in the audience was noisy during the ads, bludgeoned into silence for the Penguin short and then noisy again during the changeover. During the 85 minutes of COTWR the only sounds from the audience, which was about 2/3rds kids, was laughter, giggles and enjoyment.
Ignore the moaners - GO AND SEE THIS FILM!!!!!!
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Technically excellent - but flawed.
Well, I have just seen it on rental.
I remember the reviews... Did I expect a glorious presentation of the way America fights battles? - a sort of 'We teach the World - OK?' kind of movie? Or a 'We f****ed up - we all learnt' kind of moral tale?
Well it wasn't either of these. I'm still not quite sure what it was...
The fear/desperation/futility was clearly there - men dying, men fearing death, equipment & lives lost to careless errors and ignorant leadership. It is certainly a war movie, like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. It is actually anti-war - but not simply putting flowers in gun barrels - it is about real life and death.
Just who were the people they caught? Stooges? Warlords? On my copy the credits were too small to see - and besides most people would have left by the time they came up.
How many of the 19 deaths resulted because 'We don't leave anyone behind'??? Is this really the way war is fought by America? If so - be afraid - be VERY afraid. How do you score a result against the Satan USA? Hit a few of their men - the others will be sure to come back to get them - even if it is only bodies. It is better to claim bodies and lose more than it is to cut losses and get out? `Well, Mrs Robinson, I can tell you that we got your son's body out, we are proud of that. Excuse me if I don't stay to chat, but the parents of the 20 people that died getting him out are here too...'
I know this isn't an artistic point - but hey, your enemies watch these films too! I don't have reason to doubt that this is what happened - but it spoilt the film for me.
As for characters in the film - well, my Blue Burmese cat has far more character. By the time the grunt with the photo of his family died I had no idea if he was a pilot, crew member, a cameraman or whatever. The moment in the film that conveyed the most to me was of a Somalian carrying his injured infant son across the line of sight. This is real life in war. This is what war does. This is what we would be doing if war came here.
I really have no idea how to rate the film... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9? I'll have to come back later to do that!