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Last Night in Soho (2021)
Keep expectations very low...but
...you will still be disappointed.
I went in to this with absolutely no expectations as I had herd little to nothing about it. As such I was happy to take a punt on an unknown quantity and see how it went. It takes about 30 seconds into the arduous almost 2 hour runtime for the cliches to start landing thick and fast. Naive country girl goes to the big bad city and is immediately a "fish out of water".
Before we put the boot in there's some good things here, a decent budget allowed the filmmakers put together some good visuals and a strong evocation of London in the swinging sixties. However they then refuse to stop beating you over the head with the "sixties-ness" of the setting.
Sadly that's where the good stuff ends as we are then presented with two-dimensional paper-thin characters, thinly veiled social commentary and a tedious build up to a laughable ending. The cast do their best with the material but even they must have been aware of how turgid this was going to be in the final cut.
This is a film that could be vastly improved with a radical director's cut that removed at least 40 minutes of running time.
Avoid. You won't get those two hours of your life back!
Top of the Lake (2013)
Please ignore Season 2
It really does need to be said, for people coming to the series for the first time - please watch season one only!
Season 1 is an intelligent, unsettling and compelling short series that is worthy of the talents of one of the finest actors currently working. Elisabeth Moss immerses herself in her role as a Kiwi cop returning to her home town from Australia to investigate a child's disappearance. Over the course of the investigation we get to learn more about her past and the demons that haunt her. A great supporting cast, outstanding performance from Moss and the wonderful locations in New Zealand make this a very strong drama.
Season 2 returns Moss' character, Robin Griffin, to Sydney and a new story. But from the very start we have what feels like a completely different and very amateur writing / directing team. From the stilted unnatural dialogue to the bizarre behaviour of the lead characters, total lack of pacing and excess of "filler" scenes this is a complete mess. To be fair, Moss shows her true talent by making her character still plausible despite the erratic plot and dialog lines being thrown at her but really she's wasted here.
Final advice, watch the first series and pretend that there isn't a second.
A Good Woman Is Hard to Find (2019)
The bones aof a good movie....but....
This could have been solid little indie movie that punched well above it's weight but it is let down by some serious plot holes and simplistic writing. What is good though is the performance from Sarah Bolger, the cinematography and the sound design.
Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half but sadly flawed enough to make it good rather than very good.
Ray & Liz (2018)
Astounding piece of work.
Poverty and despair are depicted in painful, beautiful detail in this autobiographical debut film from Richard Billingham. The performances are subtly brilliant and the overall attention to detail makes this feel more like a documentary at times. As such there's not really a story here but a glimpse into the lives of a dysfunctional family at a very specific time and place. This is not easy viewing but stands as one of the best films I've seen in years.
Us (2019)
Weak script wastes good talent
Seem like an opportunity wasted here. An interesting core idea is squandered on an inconsistent and confusing script with a somewhat predictable "twist" at the end. Well shot and acted but ultimately over engineered and not as much fun as it could have been. If directed in another way this could have played as a great comedy horror. Moments of tension were ruined by long drawn out expositions where a character sits down to explain some plot points/origin story to us at length!
Euphoria (2019)
Nothing new here unfortunately.
When stripped of the "look at what I did" cinematography and over-reliance on sex as a plot device, there is nothing more here than you will find in any below average teen drama. Quite simply it's DeGrassi Junior High with a bigger budget and a tedious amount of sex and drugs.
Populated entirely with unlikable, self-obsessed characters, Euphoria, tries to distract from its many plot holes, cliches and reality gaps with camera trickery and a pervasive (admittedly very good) soundtrack. It's impossible to relate to or even feel sympathy for any of the characters. And just when you think you might have a sliver of empathy for somebody, the director will dump you right back in the real world with a 4 minute long tracking shot that ruins any sense of being immersed in the world of Euphoria.
In many ways it's comparable to the British series, Skins - which although flawed in its own ways at least had some humour to lighten the mood. Euphoria is devoid of anything even remotely funny or entertaining.
So final words, the only people who should watch this are film students, there are some great camera tricks here, watch it with the sound off. For everybody else, just stream the soundtrack on Spotify and save yourself several hours of dullness.
Under the Silver Lake (2018)
An odd little movie
Quite a strange movie that doesn't really go anywhere but is nonetheless compelling in that the journey to nowhere is quite entertaining.
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Had all the potential to be great, but......
Solid cast and an interesting premise. All going well until the arrival of the Hemsworth character whose Jim Morrision-esque open shirted shenanigans completely ruined the whole thing. At that point though the film had run too long so it was already losing steam.
Adrift (2018)
Badly structured and written
Let's start with the positives, there's some good photography in this movie. If you like sailing there's some eye candy for you here. Also the storm scenes are well shot and convincingly scary and.... well unfortunately that's it.
Shailene Woodley is not a bad actress and she's a producer on this too but the scene-setting romance in this movie is just plain embarassing. It's like it was lifted from a bad teen romcom. The whirlwind romance between the two leads is utterly unconvincing so when it comes to the survival part of the movie they are just not credible.
The film is awkwardly structured in a way that jumps back and forth in a short timeline. There was no real need do do this and it just makes the drama more disjointed and reduces the tension. It may have been done to hide the fact that this is an otherwise dull storyline and possibly to distract the audience from the upcoming "twist" in the plot. A twist that everybody can see a nautical mile away!
This true life story could have been turned into a compelling movie but sadly this isn't it.