Filmography
May. 19th, 2013 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
I wasn't planning to watch this until my mother raved about it, and I'm glad that I did! There are a couple of problems with the 'exotic India' stereotype, but in the main it's a brilliant film full of great performances by a fabulous cast of actors. There were also some very unexpected twists - for instance, one character turns out to be gay and to have a life goal to achieve which is driven by this fact, and it's one of the most touching and unexpected parts of the film. The locations are, of course, stunning, and the idea is - well, lovely. I don't really want to say much more without issuing spoilers, but I really enjoyed this, not least because they got Maggie Smith to play a character so far from being a national treasure as to be hilarious. I will admit that her last-minute conversion was not entirely convincing, but if that was the only thing that didn't quite feel right - well. That's not bad going, is it?
Drop The Dead Donkey, series one
Ah, DTDD. The series that first taught me that you might want to be a bit sceptical about how your news was being presented to you. Damian Day, the man with a thousand fake tear-inducing props for every humanitarian disaster. Sally Smedley, the news-reading bimbo who doesn't understand why Kashmir isn't the same as cashmere. Henry, the experienced newsreader who also has a penchant for port and promiscuity and fruitiness. George, the poor sod trying to run the operation. And Everybody Else. Obviously it's a piss-take of Rupert Murdoch (i.e. Sir Royston, the station's new owner), but it's still rather good fun. I watched this in dribs and drabs over the years on UK Gold, depending what they were showing when I happened to be around - and I've discovered that LoveFilm have just started streaming all six series on instaplay. Ahaha. Aha.
The impression from series one - good heavens, I missed a lot of the jokes as a teenager; George really gets a lot of stick that he doesn't deserve; and the Tories were banging on about Europe even back then. The jokes should not be feeling as topical as they are at the moment.
The Wicker Man
Why, no, I had not watched this before. And therein lies the problem. I hadn't seen this before, but I had seen (for instance) Hot Fuzz, which owes a big debt to this. And a lot of other things as well. This meant that the vast majority of the film was very enjoyable - policeman arrives on small isolated Scottish island to try and discover what has happened to a missing girl; he believes she has been murdered, then not; then puts two and two together and thinks that she is going to be sacrificed on May Day to bring the crops back after they had failed. In trying to rescue her... well, things don't quite go as planned.
Now, all the way up to the things not quite going as planned was great. The tension was good, the protagonist's horror at discovering that the folk of the isle do things like actively reference phallic symbols was amusing, the costumes for May Day were great, the world was well-realised. But the end bit... just felt a bit... flat, I think. I can see how it would have been profoundly shocking when originally screened, but the world's moved on - the sheer outrage at Pagan Ritual by the protagonist feels extremely dated and makes him much less sympathetic than he would have originally been; the whole set-up is implausible when you can't help think 'but now we have the internet'; and the surprise ending has been seen so many times before that it's lost its freshness. It made me remember reading the actual character of Miss Havisham for the first time - after the amount of presence the image carries in popular culture, the reality can't help but be a let-down. So I'm glad I've seen it, but it hasn't aged as well as it might have done.
I wasn't planning to watch this until my mother raved about it, and I'm glad that I did! There are a couple of problems with the 'exotic India' stereotype, but in the main it's a brilliant film full of great performances by a fabulous cast of actors. There were also some very unexpected twists - for instance, one character turns out to be gay and to have a life goal to achieve which is driven by this fact, and it's one of the most touching and unexpected parts of the film. The locations are, of course, stunning, and the idea is - well, lovely. I don't really want to say much more without issuing spoilers, but I really enjoyed this, not least because they got Maggie Smith to play a character so far from being a national treasure as to be hilarious. I will admit that her last-minute conversion was not entirely convincing, but if that was the only thing that didn't quite feel right - well. That's not bad going, is it?
Drop The Dead Donkey, series one
Ah, DTDD. The series that first taught me that you might want to be a bit sceptical about how your news was being presented to you. Damian Day, the man with a thousand fake tear-inducing props for every humanitarian disaster. Sally Smedley, the news-reading bimbo who doesn't understand why Kashmir isn't the same as cashmere. Henry, the experienced newsreader who also has a penchant for port and promiscuity and fruitiness. George, the poor sod trying to run the operation. And Everybody Else. Obviously it's a piss-take of Rupert Murdoch (i.e. Sir Royston, the station's new owner), but it's still rather good fun. I watched this in dribs and drabs over the years on UK Gold, depending what they were showing when I happened to be around - and I've discovered that LoveFilm have just started streaming all six series on instaplay. Ahaha. Aha.
The impression from series one - good heavens, I missed a lot of the jokes as a teenager; George really gets a lot of stick that he doesn't deserve; and the Tories were banging on about Europe even back then. The jokes should not be feeling as topical as they are at the moment.
The Wicker Man
Why, no, I had not watched this before. And therein lies the problem. I hadn't seen this before, but I had seen (for instance) Hot Fuzz, which owes a big debt to this. And a lot of other things as well. This meant that the vast majority of the film was very enjoyable - policeman arrives on small isolated Scottish island to try and discover what has happened to a missing girl; he believes she has been murdered, then not; then puts two and two together and thinks that she is going to be sacrificed on May Day to bring the crops back after they had failed. In trying to rescue her... well, things don't quite go as planned.
Now, all the way up to the things not quite going as planned was great. The tension was good, the protagonist's horror at discovering that the folk of the isle do things like actively reference phallic symbols was amusing, the costumes for May Day were great, the world was well-realised. But the end bit... just felt a bit... flat, I think. I can see how it would have been profoundly shocking when originally screened, but the world's moved on - the sheer outrage at Pagan Ritual by the protagonist feels extremely dated and makes him much less sympathetic than he would have originally been; the whole set-up is implausible when you can't help think 'but now we have the internet'; and the surprise ending has been seen so many times before that it's lost its freshness. It made me remember reading the actual character of Miss Havisham for the first time - after the amount of presence the image carries in popular culture, the reality can't help but be a let-down. So I'm glad I've seen it, but it hasn't aged as well as it might have done.
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Date: 2013-05-19 11:40 pm (UTC)DDTD is also on 4od, where it's been accessible for ages.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-21 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 06:28 pm (UTC)I think I was just that bit too young to appreciate DTDD the first time around, so now it's actually better because of getting the jokes a bit more.