venkatesh-panchapakesan Reviews

The Wall (2012)

Brilliant and Terrible at the same time

[6/10 · 24 January 2014]

I have not read the book nor read about the movie before watching it.

Almost everything about this movie is brilliant - location story cinematography acting editing - should have belonged in my top list of favorites. It is not. Even with the thematic similarities with Cast Away (7.7), Life of Pi (8.1) and elements from The Mist (7.2 - looking inwards at the face of a larger unknown), this premise and the story works beautifully. Stunning visual compositions and the soulful performance absolutely stand out.

What positively do not work are the monologues and the music. 'The wind was howling and the house was creaking' is something that needs to be written in a book – to say the same thing in the movie is an annoying intrusion while the audience is riveted with the visuals, sound and performance. There is at least 50% excessive pointless monologue in the movie – anybody heard of the use of silence? The movie is meant to be philosophical and inward looking. Lingering beautiful shots will be totally understood by the audience who are willing to invest in a movie like this. Why impose a monologue when it is only going to kill the impact of the moment? See Cast Away for comparison – for almost one hour in the movie there is no music no monologues – just the background sounds.

The "music" is unsuitable and almost completely not required. It is disappointing that the director who could write such screenplay, extract such magnificent visuals and riveting performance has no taste in music.

Perhaps with 15 less minutes and 50% less monologues, it could have made it to top ranks instead of the 6.7 it currently is.

Mankind: The Story of All of Us (2012)

Garbage

[1/10 · 1 November 2013]

Well my mistake was not to listen to other reviewers and buy this garbage for £15. I had never seen anything from History channel before and somehow I thought History channel could be as good as the other Geography channel, just given some allowance for propaganda. After patiently watching about 8 episodes, I took this piece of sh**, broke the disks and threw into garbage where this belongs. So what is wrong?

First – If this series is the only thing you ever read or learnt about history, you would think that the history of mankind is history of wars and the most important people in the world are the psychopaths, sociopaths, plunderers, looters, mass murderers, deranged grunts, intellectually challenged minions and other un-evolved muscular part-apes. Add some dose of the usual expected 'West' propaganda and you get some really weird incomplete almost-inaccurate delusional half-baked view of the history of humanity.

Shame on you History channel for just calling yourself that

Second – the annoying seriously imbecile editing and sound – here is an analogy of the editing style – the man walks into the kitchen – dadda dadda dush – two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo – takes a cup – white – cut – with handle – cut – having a saucer – cut - two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo – goes to the kettle – black – cut – hot – cut – water boiling – cut - two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo all accompanies by noises and dadda dadda dush – it might have been interesting if it was used sparingly and to good use – to use it EVERY minute for every insignificant piece of information is really child like – this is the kind of professional who should never ever be allowed to cut anything other than tomatoes in his/ her home

Third – I knew Josh Brolin as an incompetent actor, did not know he is also an incompetent narrator – every frigging word is emphasised and told and retold in an annoyingly dramatized voice - please check David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman on how to use your voice effectively and non-intrusively

Fourth – who are these 'experts' with their meaningless soundbites? – are all the historians dead? – where do you find people so totally unrelated to the field (except the doctors on the episode of plague) – why not ask the corner grocery stores guy for his opinion on the important historic events?

Fifth – This is NOT the history of all of us – just the history of Europe and some sprinklings of other insignificant pieces from few parts of the world – where is Indus valley where is Mesopotamia – and all the Chinese did was to invent crossbow and gunpowder and build a long wall? – the entire America before the virus infected Columbus came was that they were eating each other?

Again, my mistake for thinking History channel would be competent – Never ever will I buy another documentary from this garbage channel