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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This was good. A pretty accurate cast of customers and staff in a high-end restaurant. With an end that every staff member has at one time or another fantasized about.
More and more films on this as of late, genre films like "Triangle of Sadness" and "Parasite" that talk about the overthrow of the clueless patrons and elite who quite literally feed upon the misery of their servants.
Ralph Fiennes plays an excellent chef, the power dynamic is spot on, it's clear they Paid a Writer. This is pretty rare these days, you have to applaud them.
I mean, I worked here, not even a year ago...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Good News! There won't be one...
https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a42383449/1899-season-2/?utm_source=digg
But I'm still puzzled how they made a season 1.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Now this, off to an amazing start - and then, somewhere about 2/3 of the way through, falls apart.
To be sure, the first hour is worth the price of admission alone. The trailer does not lie, it's an orgy of every conceivable decadence, a tour-de-force of camera shots, choreography, it's got it all. And then as the character development kicks in it slows down. A lot. And then more so.
Margot Robbie is amazing. Brad Pitt is good. Diego Calvo is great as Manny Torres, but - his role suffers development. Jovan Adepo keeps the music going and provides a glimpse of depth and integrity.
And the end - the end, it's a Hollywood wank-fest to all the joy that the movies have brought people - really, truly, unnecessary.
So - a great film - to a point, but an hour - or more - should have been left on the cutting room floor. What it wanted in this is a good bit of editing.
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This, for a Netflix movie, was well done. The dialogue, the background ambience (watch with CC to catch it all - although, probably you won't...it may need a revisit) - snappy, sharp, incisive. This is what you get when you pay a writer. And a competent director. The difference - not quite a great movie, but so far head and shoulders above the rest it deserves mention.
And - while set in 1984, is ever more relevant today. The themes of "keep-em-distracted" and "life happens to those who don't pay attention" and the brainwashing of the populace by consumer-culture, mass media, and the - both obviousness and irrelevance of it all - well -
These themes have been resonating for a while.
Well done, and I have to admire Adam Driver for his commitment to rather less commercially spectacular films (think Annette) that make him someone worth watching. I look for the director first - but - on occasion the actors will compel me. He's one.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Xmas Eve, Day, Boxing Day, today even, as Xmas Day was on a Sunday and nobody wants to pay overtime.
I'm trapped in somebody else's Christmas dream. Worse yet, they are most probably trapped, however well intended, in my Xmas nightmare...
Netflix, the TV, on 16/24 hours, playing inane Netflix Christmas Movies. And - as there's no place to go, everything is closed, I'm obliged to sit around and watch them.
This is spiritual suicide.
The first movie, something about a couple getting married, the families names "Christmas" and "Hope" and so following the wedding it becomes "Christmas-Hope".
I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
"Starring" Kelsey Grammer, Elizabeth Hurley, John Cleese...
I'm surprised at the Elizabeth Hurley because the last movie on Netflix I watched - "Glass Onion - A Knives Out Mystery" - 'starred' Hugh Grant as the sexually ambiguous housekeeper designed to lend emotional/personal depth to our protagonist Benoit Blanc. I shudder to think that this is Daniel Craig's retirement.
Now this movie, not nearly as well written, merely hashing up stereotypes, setting the Xmas in a "quaint" English Village with beautiful, homogenous people, it's setting the type. The themes.
And it's inane. Beyond belief. You watch it like you'd watch a train-wreck. You can't look away. A beautiful estate, worth in the tens of millions of pounds, millions of pounds a year on the upkeep alone...these comprise our "relatable protagonists".
And dialogue, acting - well...this was filmed in one take. The stars, 'stars' how they've fallen, and I can't figure out why they're here.
I google "Kelsey Grammer". Why is he fucking here? Ooops. He lost 2 of his half brothers to a shark attack. I'm not making this up. And this - THIS - is probably the least traumatic thing you can say about him, look him up if you dare. The drugs, alcohol, rehab, they've got nothing on his life. Bloody hell.
Obligatory Black Guy driving Rolls-Royce he presumably didn't steal and Lesbian waiting to pounce from the closet.
The plot meanders in every predictable way towards it's happy ending. I mean, it stoops lower than most, but it gets there.
Summary, probably filmed in "1 take", over a weekend (rental of the mansion - expensive), feeble, appalling humor, the "stars" were probably on-set for no more than 2 or 3 hours and then paid off with $20,000 or $30,000 paychecks. I mean, how else?
Next up: "Holidate", about a girl that finds a date for the holidays and then ends up with him. Hallmark? I dunno But you could see the ending from the beginning .
Another predictable "fall-in-love-with-the-guy-I-was-meant-to-fall-in-love-with" film.
Starring some actresses that resemble famous actresses and actors that resemble famous actors only with enticing accents - is 'he" meant to be Australian or English? Or merely retarded? I can't tell anymore....
Anyways, it comes to pass that Aussie Chris Pratt finds true love in the love interest he's had all along.
Fucking hell. Day one of Xmas. I'm being held hostage and I don't know who to call...
It goes on and gets worse. Much worse. I'm going out for walks, bailing in every conceivable way on the shows being offered. But nothing is open and they're always there playing when I get back.
The next one, about an idyllic small town in which a dying village is lent a helping hand by the unexpected appearance of "Bigfoot". A "Jon-bon-jovi" production.
And yet again, a couple of stars I recognize, him, from "Shape of Water" and her, from the secretary in "Arrested Development".
And Lovejoy (Ian McShane), or - more widely known as the concierge in "John Wick".
How, how, how did this ever get made? What does it add to the Christmas Canon? My God!!!!
The idiocy continues. All of it, wholesale, a "Very Murray Xmas Special" which uses Bill Murray and friends, including George Clooney and the entire SNL cast - all to very bad effect, then comes the "El Camino Xmas", which only got 3 stars because everyone was hoping they would be getting a Merry Xmas update Jesse from Breaking Bad, starring Tim Allen, and then a "Bad Mom's Christmas" starring Kristen Bell and Susan Sarandon, and - like how - how? HOW HOW HOW?
Like fucking how.
The generic ideas of beauty (applicable only to women, never or seldom to men), the small town idylls portrayed by people who clearly have never set foot in one, the contrived and predictable plots, the "filmed entirely in a single take" aesthetic, never a "take 2", the cast and crew is as bored with the formula as the audience, this, this is hell.
Scripted inclusivity, every show a written in minority, funny/rich black sidekick/groom/suitor, alternative (lgbt) subplot, characters scripted into a loveable "Disney" utopia that would never have them, a vanilla enclave that has rejected them from time immemorial, yet - here they are, funny, witty, "ha-ha-ha", fooling no one and yet - clearly - fooling enough.
This is bullshit.
And I still can't figure out "how", I mean, even if every star's an idiot, wouldn't they still realize how shite this stuff is and give it a pass? They have agents...
Then I realize, they're committed, it's part of the "we give you good role, we give you bad role, you take what you're given...", few actors have the clout to escape the clauses that bind them to their studios. And, to be frank, most of these "films" take longer to watch then they do to film, and so - well - small investments for mediocre returns still=profit or money laundered.
Anyways, looking forward to my luddite, Netflix-Free Xmas next year, wherever that might be...