Change Your Image
Jim_and_Glenda
Reviews
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
oh dear
One of the worst films I have ever seen. I find it amazing how highly rated this is and what good reviews people have given it. Not a laugh from me. Aimed at 10 year old kids. The dialogue in particular had the same quality as the stuff that ended up in someone's hat. It was DULL and mushy if you take out the swearing. I mean, swearing just does not turn boring drivel into comedy, even if it does make you laugh.
Edith Walks (2017)
Someone misunderstands space-time
So, spacetime is a 4D solid, which gives some people the impression that the past is somehow closer, more here, than if they think of space as 3D and time as another independent dimension. This is pants. Think of a one dimensional line passing through the universe - and someone within that line says, there is a second dimension, creating a "plane", which is fair enough. But it is not fair enough to claim that all the infinite things in the 2nd dimension seem "closer" to the line just because you understand that it is there.
The past is not here, and neither is the future. They are as distant and untouchable as a 4th "spatial" dimension.
The problem for the artistic sensibility is that we all lives our lives in time, experiencing for ourselves "now" continuously throughout our lives. And, we know about history, and can predict the future. But this does not make 1066 close, any more than a point on the plane is close to the line.
OK, added to all the cod philosophy beloved by middle-aged men is a terrible film.
The Loch (2017)
hmmm
It's not a genre rural cop-show like Shetland. It's certainly not a compelling quirky work of art like Top of the Lake. It's lacking strong compelling central characters, like Broadchurch. Amazingly, it even lacks a sense of place - there are landscape shots, but it takes more than that. It's got cheap effects and production values, cliché characters with odd casting, woeful attempts at humour, and a wooden script. John Sessions must be down on his luck. Sorry.
Wide Open Spaces (2009)
Very poor.
I couldn't work out if the slacker characters in the dreich muddy locations, with a hard and boring job, sleeping in a cold and boring tin hut, being ripped off, with no interesting future in front of them were:
a. a metaphor for me and the rest of the audience
b. having more fun than me and the rest of the audience.
I also worry about the careers of the actors and screen-writer and I hate posting such a negative review, but I feel quite cross about my wasted afternoon.
This was purportedly a dark comedy, but being a bit dull with a couple of gags that raised a mild titter from the audience leaves it short on both counts. There are very mild echoes of Withnail and I, none of Father Ted, and an overall impression that nobody really believed in what they were doing.