Change Your Image
timbriffa
Reviews
The Wrestler (2008)
Not as good as the original
I give it 8/10. This looked a bit like a high budget remake of a low budget early 70's film, possibly directed by Clint Eastwood and featuring Sondra Locke as the stripper and Bruce Dern in a small part (maybe the guy who gives him the deli job.) Even though some of the fight scenes were better in the modern version, I still preferred the 70's version. If they'd made it that is.
Also Mickey Rourke's face looks quite odd.
And Marilyn Manson's girlfriend plays the daughter.
And I thinks it's shot in Pennsylvania.
Or maybe Detroit.
Is that ten lines yet?
Open Water (2003)
We paid to see this?
Actually I just saw it for nothing on TV, but if I had paid to see this I would have been seriously annoyed. Here is a summary of the plot: (Spoiler Alert) Couple go on scuba diving trip; Couple get left behind in the sea by careless boat owner; Couple get bitten by some jellyfish; Couple have an argument; Guy gets bitten by a shark and then dies, Girl then commits suicide by drowning herself (I think, it was a bit unclear.) The end.
That's pretty much it, no subplots or anything interesting like that. The acting and occasional bits of dialogue aren't very exiting, the Digital Video looks a bit rubbish and there isn't a proper soundtrack. Don't let that put you off though.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
2 hours of my life I will never get back
I took a girlfriend to see this when it came out (on someone's recommendation) and had to apologise to her afterwards. It would take a long time to list all the things I hated about this film, so here are just a handful:
The scene where Andi McDowell lists all 30 men she's slept with in order. As if anyone would remember thirty names in the right order off the top of their head.
Every scene with Andi McDowell (a producer's decision to appeal to US as well as UK markets?) but especially the one during the downpour when Hugh Grant says they should get out of the rain, and she goes 'is it raining? I hadn't noticed,' such is the power of Hugh's love. Even the rest of the cinema audience (who for some reason seemed to love the film,) made a loud collective groan at this line.
The clichéd British stereotyping.
Hugh Grant in particular.
Rowan Atkinson's 'Holy Goat' and 'awful wedded wife' jokes. Last time I heard those I fell off my dinosaur.
The scene where Hugh tells the guy how lucky he was to have split with his wife because everyone knew she used to sleep around, only (wait for it) the guy didn't know! How funny is that! Bumbling lovable Hugh puts his foot in it again and can stutter some more.
The deaf brother. Completely irrelevant to the plot, except that it he helps prove that despite his philandering ways deep down Hugh must be a good chap because he has a deaf brother and knows signing. Also because having a deaf character is one of many right-on/politically correct boxes this film seems so desperate to tick. Others include the fact that that Andi McDowell has slept with 30 men (because hey, why shouldn't a woman be able to sleep around too?) that Hugh shares a room with a girl (because hey, why can't a guy and a girl share a room without having to have sex with each other?) and that they realise eventually that the gay couple were as committed as any of them (because hey, not all gay people sleep around you know.)
Oh yeah and despite the endless Time Out-friendly politics, the film still manages to remain resolutely conservative throughout in its underlying message, namely that marriage (or at least settling down) is the surest way to find lasting happiness. Not one character questions the institution in the whole film. Hugh may be afraid of commitment, but he isn't against marriage as such, and you feel sure the gay characters would have got married if they could have done. Even at the end we are told that Hugh's quirky but nice flatmate got married eventually. Thank God, or she might have ended up a spinster!
I Start Counting (1970)
two teenage girls take an interest in a local sex murder case, against a backdrop of their own repressed sexuality
Though I can't remember it in detail, I do remember liking this film a lot and as a teenager going to bed scared, as well as having impure thoughts about Jenny Agutter, (again.) Very atmospheric, very English and very 60s, full of the kinds of faces you seemed to only get during that decade.
I don't know why it's hardly ever shown, but if someone were to air it occasionally, I'm sure it would gradually start to pick up a reputation as a bit of lost cult classic (a la the Wickerman.) I did find a fairly negative review in Time Out, but that probably says more about them than this film.