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Lost in the Arctic (2023)
Melodrama and Naivety, Beautifully Shot
Was great to see such beautiful footage and exploration on the island. But it was melodramatic. And the idea that the entire mystery will be solved by finding the "tomb" doesn't seem plausible. Many survived well after Franklin died (years?) so the tomb could not possibly reveal everything that happened. It could only ever be part of the story. Yet Gross says at the end "we find one thing, we have it all". Just seems like everything is pinned on finding this mythical 'tomb' which will conveniently solve everything. It doesn't seem realistic and doesnt reflect the wide range of evidence that is out there to be recovered, including on the two ships, Inuit testimony etc. And wouldn't the ship's log be passed to Fitzjames rather than buried with Franklin? Diaries maybe but I doubt burying the log was protocol? But the filmmakers just repeat this stuff seemingly without considering these basic questions. It is odd the film is so singularly focused on this all too convenient catch-all holy grail and it just comes across as naïve click-bait filmmaking.
MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023)
Send in the kooks...
Spends just about all its efforts on the armchair 'experts' who aren't pilots, aviation experts or accident investigators and instead interviews every man and his dog who doesn't believe the official version. By all means, present alternate views and explore them but balance it. Instead it strives shamelessly towards sensationalist counter-theories by people who have questionable to non-existent understanding of aviation with added flawed logic. They do offer some expert views but it is so minor in screen time. Expert responses in episode 3 were limited to a couple of sentences. Whereas the kooks spend the majority of each episode discussing what they think happened supported with all the visuals the filmmakers can dream up. You'd never see this nonsense on an episode Air Crash Investigations.
Yes, it is an incredible mystery and so much of it doesn't make sense. It had never happened before. It follows that people will try and make sense of it, and sometimes as fallible humans we make a mess of trying to comprehend a mystery of this scale. But the documentarians should know better than to exploit this tragedy in the way they have. The film lacks any credibility and instead indulges too many illogical viewpoints for the sake of hype. It's pathetic, really. It's a prefect lesson on indulging the farcical.
Passage (2008)
Strange, a bit of a mess, but interesting
For Franklin buffs there is a lot of interesting material here, although it is presented in an odd way. It's a documentary of a making of a dramatic retelling of John Rae's search for the lost expedition. Unique and kind of clever but isn't successful in its delivery.
While overall it is strangely presented, at times self-absorbed and seems to lose focus, it is worth watching for the scenes where the Inuit man visits England. In particular, there are some very heated and upsetting scenes where experts contest the fate of the expedition with the Inuit man. It's this climax that is worth watching this film for. And the discussion on Dickens was very interesting too.
It's a bit of a mess, poorly shot and gets itself distracted. But it is still an interesting mess, particularly if you have a curiosity for the subject matter.
As an aside, I'd love to know why they used so much of the rehearsal and script reading shots instead of the actual dramatisation they filmed. It was quirky but you wonder what the point of the dramatisation was when they used so little of it. Was this always the plan? Or did they realise the making of was more interesting than the dramatisation? Perhaps they couldn't decide, so they did both?
The Girl from Plainville: Teenage Dirtbag (2022)
Bad writing
Terrible writing in what should have been a climactic episode and court room drama. Instead we are told speculation can be entered into evidence and the closing arguments are about 4 sentences each. Really?! It was as if the intern wrote it in 15 mins while on break. The Dramatisation of the texts was good once again. But the courtrooms scenes were incredibly poor.
Scandal: Crash and Burn (2012)
Written by the work experience kid?
Terrible episode from a writing perspective. Too much suspension of reality. Are we expected to believe that that is how the aviation industry works? After 20+ seasons of air crash and other shows? The crash plot line was bereft of any realism and insults its audience's intelligence. Absolute fantasy.
Homeland: 13 Hours in Islamabad (2014)
Suspend Rational Thinking and Apply
Preposterous episode in so many ways. No one in the embassy has any scenario training. They all fall for the obvious bait. The political fallout if Pakistan/ISI allowed this. The Ambassador's belt choice. Lockhart's complete lack of training. Complete Hollywood nonsense. There's a reason this kind of thing doesn't happen in real life - the marines, the diplomatic staff, CIA are not stupid people. Yet Homeland writers would have us believe so.
The Morning Show: My Least Favorite Year (2021)
Seen this all before
A very stock, familiar feeling episode that recycles some worn tropes to set up a new season. It's high quality production and acting, as you'd expect. But a fairly mundane and predictable start, sadly. Hopefully it can get back to some more original writing and ideas in coming episodes.
Moby Doc (2021)
Somehow makes trauma feel like vanity
As a big Moby fan back in the day I was really excited to see it. But what a bizarre documentary. Very contrived interview set up with fake conversations with fake psychiatrists and with people on the phone. Stylistically it jumps around and is very inconsistent. The story leaps around and doesn't link together and huge periods of his life are just left out. There's very odd b-roll choices and over-use of space and rockets. The humour feels awkward and makes the deeper stuff seem like it wasn't to be taken serious.
But the most disappointing thing was how insincere it comes across. For a story with so much trauma, sadness, suicide etc it comes across more as vanity than vulnerability. I appreciate bold creative choices, but boy did they make the wrong ones here. It just completely undermined the themes of the film. It's a mess that makes Moby less relatable. This is exactly how NOT to make a documentary about this subject matter.
The Umbrella Academy (2019)
Style over substance (and plausibility)
I can suspend reality for the concept superpowers. And like Watchmen I enjoy a gritty superhero adventure. But being asked to suspend belief to allow for every plot device is too much. Season 1 was tolerable although frustrating (Klaus being let overnight into a platoon in modern war is absurd for too many reasons to count), while S2 has turned the silliness up to 11 (a cop receptionist convincing an entire Dallas PD to let one suspect go because his typewriter magically said; people with time travel travelling capability always being in the wrong place at the wrong time; Carlos thinking Oswald was the shooter but also being aware that the grassy knoll was a thing - cognitive dissonance much?). I could handle this if this was a children's show, hell it would make more sense from a writing point of view. Superpowers or not, the motivations of characters and the situations they find themselves in are supposed to make some sense and have plausibility.
Unfortunately this is an adult drama that appears to be written by a child's mind. Or by someone that treats its audience as if we haven't seen a lot of tv or read a lot of books or don't have internet access and therefore don't know how the world works. It's not just an alternative history, it's an alternative reality that doesn't resemble anything we know and can relate to. It's trash tv dressed up as a drama, or lipstick on a pig.
It is a shame because there are so many good aspects of the show, or at least potential, that could have made this amazing even coupled with the time travel and superpowers. But instead these fantastic aspects are ruined because of the numerous plot holes that keep the story moving. It leaves you with no mystery, tension or suspense because everything is possible and details are irrelevant.
Sherpa (2015)
Good, but still more to be told
Beautifully shot, Sherpa is certainly pretty to watch. The cinematography is stunning, assisted very much by beautiful natural landscape and the people at the centre of the film. Technically the film has little to no faults. But I feel as though it only captured a small part of the lives of the Nepalis who work at the mountain. It is very much a film about porters, but there is some distance between their job and them as people. The story at the centre of the film is fantastic, helped in no small part by the film crew being in the right place at the right time, while others were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a good film that captures a microcosm of the issues with the Everest tourism industry. I just feel that despite the big budget, the beautiful shots and access to the Sherpas that there is far more to their lives than Everest, and the final edit of the film could have addressed this. But otherwise a fine documentary.
To the Wonder (2012)
Beautiful, tragic, meditative. A film for heart.
A captivating, meditative piece of art that explores different experiences of love, To the Wonder is a movie for the soul. For all its beautiful imagery, it is however a tragic portrayal of life. For all we want and can't obtain, To the Wonder delves into these flashes of pure love but only lets us glimpse love's true potential; for the majority of the film we see the tragedy of love and life. Desire to be loved, desire to love life.
Beginning in stunning Paris, the film moves to suburban Oklahoma - bereft of character, inspiration or joy. The estate is bland, banal and seemingly empty. Even their modern house is never filled with furniture, a half-empty shell that the characters never make their own. The choices of set design, location and texture leave an imprint of dreams unfulfilled, which to me is the essence of the story Mallick is telling.
While Affleck's character shows glimpses of warmth, he appears content with his surroundings. Kurylenko's character on the other hand wants a life filled with joy which neither Oklahoma or her partner can give her. And there in lies the tragedy of the life half lived.
This is Mallick at his minimalist best. There is very little dialogue between characters, or even as voice over. The film's language is almost entirely visual. Everything you need understand happens within the frame. It is what is said with the eyes, the fingers. It's beautiful, heartbreaking emotion on screen.
The soundtrack is also fantastic. While there are times where a piece of music seems misplaced, it is otherwise beautiful. A reworked version of Shostakovich's piano concerto for example is used perfectly.
The subplot of the priest is also compelling. His quest is for love from God, but all he sees and experiences is God's painful absence from the lives of those he reaches out to. Another simple desire that tugs on the heartstrings.
It would be tough to argue this is his best film, but it is a fantastic exploration of life and love told in a minimalist style. It is not ambitious in terms of plot, but the way he captures and contrasts desires, expectations and reality is stunning, and indeed too close to home for many of us. A movie for an existential, contemplative mood, it is not the kind of movie to just put on for entertainment's sake.
Titanic (2012)
Poor effort = poor results
I couldn't believe how bad the 2012 mini series 'Titanic' was. Insipid directing, poor acting and soap-opera script writing. What a missed opportunity. A hack attempt to milk the publicity of the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic to sell some advertising space on a network. It makes Maid in Manhattan look like To Kill a Mockingbird. Don't even get me started on the goofs that somehow made it into the final cut and the massive inaccuracies, such as the second class stairs being the entrance to the Officer's quarters. You kidding me? They didn't even bother to google the Titanic blueprints? What an absolute crock of a production.
I was really looking forward to this series, and I have seen my fair share of TV-movie hatchet jobs, but I still can't believe the quality of this production. After Cameron's Titanic in 97, the bar was set quite high. If you were going to do another Titanic mini series, then you needed to bring something new to the table. It was the 96 mini series all over again, but done even more poorly.
Can anyone tell me: what did this production bring to the table? Forget the poor quality of acting, directing, lighting. What did we learn about the disaster that we didn't already know? Why throw in a soap-opera to such a rich, historical story? Why not focus on the real life characters and what DID actually happen, which would have been far more interesting? Why not look at the building of the ship, the court case and the aftermath. Virtually no films have been made of these key events in the larger Titanic picture. In all, this was an absolute waste of time and as a Titanic enthusiast, I can't help but be appalled at how this turned out.
It was very, very disappointing and I don't think this captured any part of the Titanic legacy.
The actors seemed like 21st century actors wearing 1910's clothing. Parts of the ship were wrong. There was little to no chemistry between actors, and their motivations were unoriginal and melodramatic.
At least James Cameron could balance a historical drama through the eyes of fictitious characters. It might have been a bit soppy, but at least there was attention to detail, historical accuracy and believable characters. This mini series only goes to show just how good of a job Cameron did.
If you want to watch a film about Titanic, watch Cameron's Titanic, or A Night to Remember with Kenneth Moore. This is just rubbish.