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The Royle Family (1998)
All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter
I'm very late to the party, having only recently discovered this hidden gem of a program through Netflix. Watching for the first time twenty years after the show's initial air, I immediately got the sense that I'd stumbled upon a classic---or, at the very least, a cult classic. The Royle Family isn't quite like anything else I've ever seen. It's definitely a slow burn, but that's part of its charm. Don't watch it expecting plot twists and cliffhangers because the show is not action-oriented. You watch this show for the dialogue and the character development. Both are exquisite.
Each member of the Royle clan is deeply flawed, and together they're downright dysfunctional. You'll come to love and root for all of them, though. They'll remind you of your own family, or maybe another family you know. You'll want to punch Jim Royle in his smug face from time to time, but only because you desperately want him to realize how fortunate he is to have such a loving, supportive family, before it's too late. You'll want to hug Barbara and extend your sympathies to Antony. You'll pick up on the unspoken tension between the family in any given scene, and your heart will tangibly ache for this fictional clan in their mundane struggles.
There's nothing pretentious about The Royle Family. It's a dry sitcom about a working-class family of incredibly average people. The entire show takes place inside the Royles' dimly lit home, and most of the time the characters are just watching evening television or gossiping idly about neighbors we never get to see. It's all very, well, mundane, but you'd be amazed how all this simplicity only emphasizes the complexity of human emotions and relationships.
Elephant (2003)
Lackluster
As someone fascinated by Columbine, I've been meaning to watch this movie for a long time; having finally seen it, I must say that Elephant is a bit disappointing for me. I understand that Gus Van Sant is a well-respected director known for his subtle, pseudo-documentary style. I sat down to watch Elephant fully expecting a understated interpretation of Columbine focused on showcasing realistic high school students going about a seemingly normal day. But I found that style tended to precede substance in this film. It's as though the director was so concerned with putting out a stylistically subtle, artistically shot indie film that he neglected crucial aspects like character development, plot, action.
You'd think a movie so focused on the activities and interactions of a select few high school students would do a little more in the way of establishing those students as real, multidimensional characters for the audience to empathize with. But all those mundane interactions and conversations tell us little about our focal students. We see snippets, sure: Elias loves photography, John has to act as a parent to his own father, Michelle is insecure about her body. But that's really the extent of it. We know even less about others like Acadia and Bobby, who play no role whatsoever but, for whatever reason, merit their own on-screen title cards displaying their names. Moreover, we see more of these side characters than we see of the gunmen themselves, who have virtually no character development. It's hard to engage an audience through flat characters and their inconsequential activities. If you're going to show us a five-minute shot of a student walking, at least give us a reason to care about him.
Or maybe just don't insert five consecutive minutes of walking. That's another flaw here: there's no action at all, even when two students show up to school armed and ready to kill. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no adrenaline junkie. I didn't turn it on expecting a Tarantino- esque gun action sequence. But every death is off screen. The shooting sequences are filmed in such a way that you can't see any of what's going on, just a generic close-up of the killer's blank face. As Alex and Dylan go on their rampage, the reactions of the students are somewhat underwhelming and unrealistic. There's some screaming and running from select students, but none of the widespread panic you'd expect during a high school massacre. John and his father watch from outside with blank expressions as students flee the smoking building. Even more ridiculous is Bobby, the black kid introduced at the last moment and intended to be relevant, who walks calmly down a hallway of running students, watches a girl jump out a window to escape but for some reason doesn't evacuate himself, and finally walks right up to the killer, unarmed, seemingly unconcerned, virtually asking for death.
Elephant isn't a bad movie, but I'd definitely say it's overrated. For a film that prides itself in "realism", it strikes me as highly unrealistic. Boring, really. Nothing happens until the last ~20 minutes, and by that point I was a bit peeved to have watched an hour's worth of walking, mundane conversations, film developing, and not much else.
Waiting for Forever (2010)
NOT a Romance
Okay, this movie is really bizarre. I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, but it's really strange that the creators try to sell it as a romance. In order for anything about this movie to make any sense, you have to look at it as a drama, NOT a romance. The main character, wandering hopeless romantic Will, clearly has some sort of mental illness, likely related to the trauma of losing his parents at a young age (not a spoiler). He has the emotional maturity of a small child, but the movie seems to play it off as whimsical idealism: he's mostly portrayed not as a seriously deluded man but as, for lack of better term, a manic pixie dream boy. The audience is evidently supposed to find it charming that a man of 25 has no job, wears the same dirty clothes every day, and spends his life stalking his childhood friend without her knowledge, fantasizing about their nonexistent relationship. The only person privy to Will's mental instability is his older brother Jim, who is made out to be the no-fun bad guy for merely pointing out the truth about Will.
The movie is semi-enjoyable in the context of a drama dealing with mental illness, unsettling and dysfunctional if you're expecting a romance. Will is a creepy character; there's no way around it.
Thunderpants (2002)
Quite Possibly the Worst Movie Ever.
This was actually the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. I watched it when I was, like, 11, so it's not like I was expecting sophisticated, polished comedy. It was just absolute sh**, and the more I thought about it, the more I hated it. I don't know exactly why, but it made me sick to the stomach, and it had nothing to do with the excessive flatulence. I'm typically a huge fan of really bad comedy (e.g., the Scary Movie franchise) and movies that are so bad, they're good, but this was just sh**. I don't know why the hell an actor like Rupert Grint would decide to do this as a side project between Harry Potter installments, but it kind of pisses me off that he did because his presence was the main reason I wanted to see the movie in the first place. Anyone who gave this film above a three-star rating is dead to me.