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Reviews
Tales from the Lodge (2019)
Coming of Middle Age Dark Comedy-Horror
I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but I enjoyed watching it, certainly it's better than the current 5.3 rating in my opinion.
The film has a weirdly warm feel, it's structured like a British horror anthology from the 70s/80s. The cast and acting is good, and the writing is really good in places. The framing device is friends meet at a fishing lodge to scatter the ashes of a friend who committed suicide there a few years ago. Just like the anothology movies, they tell eachother horrific tales. These aren't particularly horrific but are extremely well done, revealing a bit about each person's character, how well done they are isn't immediately apparent.
The dark comedy is classically British, stemming from the characters' various flaws and relationships. Not all the characters are entirely likeable, some of the behaviour is odd until you understand the motives. You do get a sense of long standing friends who know eachother well, accept eachother for who they are but have drifted apart slightly as life progressed for them.
It's hard not to write spoliers for this one, a lot of what is going on is very subtle and would probably benefit from a re-watch. The only real negative is the film goes of the rails a little before the end, but it isn't a huge flaw.
Jeruzalem (2015)
Enjoyable, Could Have Been Great
The concept is good, and it plays well on the claustrophobic atmosphere of the old city well, with some stunning cinematography.
There are a few deficiencies, some of which could easily be fixed. Firstly Sarah is too whiney, you see the movie through her "eyes" and you really ought to empathise with her more. The start of the movie could do with setting up later events more, but in a more compact way, it takes time to get going and doesn't could establish then characters slightly more efficiently. Some later scenes could be cut and little lost, some of it feels like side missions in a computer game. Despite this the ending feels rushed, if they'd built up what was happening a bit more to ramp up the tension that would have been great, they could have developed the characters more during this time. Also some well foreshadowed plot points sort of peter out or don't lead anywhere, this and the lack of increasing tension leave the ending a little underwhelming.
The device of shooting through smart glasses is really good, but they shoot themselves in the foot occasionally. It does feel like they're playing with the idea of flagging something with the "fatal error" message, but it gets really annoying when the glasses misinterpret something and suddenly you get incongruous music during a tense scenes. Sometimes the interuptions work well - mostly when Sarah's father tries to get in touch.
I don't think any of this should make you think it's a terrible movie - it's a good concept, often well handled. I hope the people involved produce something bigger & better next time.
The Vast of Night (2019)
A Sort of Meta-Review
I suggest you read the other reviews, my guess is you are going to fall into one of two camps.
The first camp are the "low scorers" - if you are in this camp you'll find the dialogue too much, and the pacing very slow, where almost no action takes place.
The second camp are the "high scorers" who enjoy the relaxed pace which allows the story and characters to unfold - and time for fantastic dialogue.
For what it's worth I have a foot in both camps I suppose. The slow pacing does give the film space to unfold, but there is also a lot of wastage - camera panning facades lingering establishing shots. The dialogue faces a similar dichotomy: I really enjoyed the play-like nature and much of the dialogue alone, but again there was a lot of "waste", the opening sequence seems to go on and on - Everett's character seems to talk at a thousand miles per hour (which is good acting on Jake Horowitz's part) but it gets wearing as there is so much of it. There are a couple of bits of exposition that could have been better handled.
All that said, if the "wastages" of dialogue and pacing were removed, the film would lose some of its character, so are they really waste?
The acting is really good, as is the cinematography and actually the direction. The film pushes lightly on a couple of "hot button topics", namely racism and division in society but that really isn't in your face. For me I guess the biggest let down is the plot, some things are left unexplained and the actual ending actually fizzles put. The story itself is a pretty linear, something unusual happens, they speak to people who help the unfold the mystery, leading to a conclusion.
Personally I enjoyed it, I get both the bad and good reviews - it's pretty well done but not everyone's cup of tea.
Game of Thrones: The Long Night (2019)
Eight Series of Build Up, Destroyed by this Episode
As usual the production values are excellent, the actors do brilliant job given the source material. The problem is the the source material. First mention goes to how dark (physically, not in terms of substance) part of this episode is - you can see almost nothing for a good chunk of the action.
The battle sequences are well delivered,where you can see them,in terms of choreography etc - but the way the human army is deployed makes no sense. This is the fault of the writers, who clearly miss George R Martin's source material.
Plot holes and armour abound, without being spoiler-y a solution to a problem suddenly appears from thin air with no explanation. At the end of this you come away with the sense of eight years of Game Of Thrones diligently building the threat of The Night King, destroyed by one episode.
This was the episode where Game of Thrones finally jumped the shark for me as the damage done was irredeemable.