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porcupinewebb
Reviews
House M.D.: Both Sides Now (2009)
Absolutely fan-bloody-tastic
Well just how much can I say without the risk of giving anything away? This was just the most unexpected ending done so remarkably well but at the same time it was totally understandable that it deserves an award of some kind both for the acting and writing.
I have no idea how they can, but am sure there will be a sixth series by the end of the year. Without giving too much away I hope they do not take a 'Dallas' way out of a problem that now exists. The silly thing is though that they have almost used this theme exactly the same way before!
Enough said except to say that the whole House M.D thing is just too good to be just an American TV series!
Si j'étais toi (2007)
An American remake of a foreign film.
I watched this film on satellite totally by accident believing the name used, 'The Secret' was something totally different that the wife wanted watch. I was most surprised that it turned out to be this one, and more surprised that it had David Duchovny in as I had never even heard of this film.
Not to bad as things go, if you have never even heard of the X-Files. David Duchovny had been so type cast in this that if it was thirty minutes shorter, and his characters name was changed to Mulder they could have called it The X-Files - Ten Years Later.
Enough of that, It did have a slightly different and better ending than I was expending. There was no wasted budget on excessive special effects that were not absolutely needed for one scene, which is something I totally believe should be the way. To end I have just upped the score a little from when I started writing.
The Perfect Storm (2000)
One of the only films to leave me crying. I could only watch this film once.
One of the only films to leave me crying, not for the great acting, the shooting or anything else but just the story and how it relates to my past life. Not long after leaving school I went to work on a long line boat catching cod. A few weeks after starting went out with a young skipper and we got caught in some awful weather that resulted in the loss of the boat, it was breaking up on the shingle. Whilst we were pretty sure of our position in general we were not sure if we were breaking up on the beach or the sand bar a few hundred metres off-shore. We had no choice, the boat was disintegrating around us, we had to leave the boat. Visibility was less than twenty metres. Taking that step out of the boat, knowing that if this was the sand bar and not the beach we would be dead in minutes, well you just can not explain what it feels like. Seeing this film brought back such memories as I have tried to forget and is the reason I have only seen this film the once although I do have a still shrink-wrapped copy on DVD and hope to watch it again one day.
The line, "this is going to be hard on my little boy" as one of the crew accepts his fate is just so , how it was. No panic, no hysterics, just resignation after working to try and make things come to together. That is just how I felt when I stepped of the wreck boat and in the direction the waves were breaking. After a few metres we knew we were on the beach.
Wolfgang Petterson does a great job of capturing everything that the life of a long-line fisherman is about. I can not comment on how factually accurate the story is to the real events of the real Andrea Gail but I will personally vouch for the feelings and emotions this film conveys.
As for me, I was rescued form the beach along with my skipper by the coastguard and after a night in hospital being treated for exposure was back working on a different boat in less than a week.
Osobennosti natsionalnoy rybalki (1998)
Second best of this series, funny, definitely worth watching
The cast of the first film are re-united in this comedy caper, and they actually do catch at least one fish between the drinking and the hangovers. Some of the jokes might go over your head and you even need some history to understand one of them.
I keep reading that this series of films will not be understood by Americans and that good comedy is funny in any language. That simply is not true and I believe that many 'Friends' or 'Frasier' fans from ANY part of the world will not get even a fraction of the humour when they watch this in their native language. My tip:- if you watch a dubbed or subtitled version of this and do not find it too funny, become Reivo, buy a ticket to Russia or the Ukraine, make some friends and live the film and when you come back to your own world look around and tell me which you can identify with more. You might like it and the experience will put a whole new slant on things you have found un-funny. You probably did not think much of Fawlty Towers either. The only thing from America that comes close would be MASH.
Samogonshchiki (1962)
Lovely short from the Soviet Union
Lovely short film from the Soviet Union, complete with the obligatory for the time, positive political message that for once does not spoil the film. The bonus is that you do not need to understand Russian to have a good laugh, as it should be with good comedy. If you are of a more closed mind you would just say that this is just a rip-off of the Three Stooges, and in a way you would be correct but for the wrong reasons! The Three Stooges were great and so are these three fellows although the undoubted star is the dog.
I do not know if there still exists a good print of this, I have never seen one, even on DVD but would recommend anyone to watch this no matter what languages you do or do not speak.
Tot samyy Myunkhgauzen (1980)
Side splitting comedy the likes of which is long gone from this world
Do not confuse this with the dreadful eighties version from Hollywood. They both contain a central character called Baron Von Munchaussen and that is it!
Oleg Yankovsky gives his funniest performance ever as the title character who refuses to give to give up his own beliefs even though it would get him the thing he most desires in this world. (no more for fear of spoilers) I can not remember which film or book, but someone once said that 'a mans honour is his gift to himself.' and that is what this film is about if you are looking for a meaning,.......But that does not matter! If you are American and did not get the humour of Monty Python I am afraid this is also going to go whoosh, straight over your head too. Sorry if that offends, you probably do not think the Hitch Hickers Guide to the Galaxy was a particularly funny book either. The jokes and innuendo just fly non-stop from all the players. By far the best of the Mark Zakharov films.
I would have given in so that I could marry Marta!
Transporter 2 (2005)
Hollywood does it again!! . . . and that ain't no compliment!
The first transporter, a brilliant film. An almost unexpected hit. The plot not too far out, the action sequences not too far out and certainly believable. Hollywood sees a chance to make some money and thinks it can do better, puts up lots of money and obviously wants to call the shots. Hey presto - a sequel too far! With too much CGI work for its own good and action sequences that are like doggy doo-doo from Chine, just a little too far fetched. Statham is his usual superb self again, then I have never seen a bad performance from him to date. If you like your action sequences written and directed by Hans Christian Anderson and produced on an X Box you'll love it. Better rent the first one again than this one.
Threads (1984)
If this does not scare you then you are already dead!
I will try not to go over everything everyone else has already written about this film, I have never seen so many user comments about a single film.
This film kept me awake at night for months after first watching it at its original 1985 BBC screening. At the time I was living at home with my parents, home then being a front line RAF Phantom base in the East of England similar to the one mentioned in the film, and I do not know if this just increased the impact of this film on me, or maybe it was seeing the gaunt, deformed post-apocalypse children watching a Phillips Video 2000 cassette of 'Words and Pictures' in school, something I can remember doing in Junior school on exactly the same Phillips machine. It is reassuring to read other viewers comments on how this made them feel at the time, especially those who were teenagers at the time of original broadcast as I was then. I honestly thought that my feelings at the time were, well strange. That I was so affected by a film was something I had never experienced, and would not again for a long time.
I can see how the BBC never did show 'The War Game' twenty odd years before. In those times I just can not imagine the effect on the general population of Britain. But times change and although this is very similar in execution also to the earlier 'The War Game', Threads is just mind blowing. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, then this movie is worth a thousand volumes, even twenty years after being made.
Operatsiya 'S novym godom' (1996)
Outrageously funny Russian comedy akin to 1970's Carry On series
Nothing but pure comedy from start to finish it even carries well if you can not get hold of a subtitled version. One of a series of films by one of my favourite Russian Director/Producers, Alexander Rogozhkin starring basically the same core cast of actors, and lots of vodka. The story revolves around a hospital casualty ward on New Years Eve, arguably the biggest holiday in Russia. The characters are determined that despite the unfortunate accidents that have landed them here, they will triumph and have a good time. Just like the British 'Carry-On' series of the sixties and seventies some of the gags can be seen coming a mile off, but you still split your sides laughing. Pure escapist fun that demands nothing more from you than to enjoy the moment, the sort of comedy that a Hollywood script team could just never match. See also the others in the series; Peculiarities of National Hunting, Fishing, Hunting in the Wintertime and Politics.