shozzas15 Reviews

The Human Jungle (1963–1964)

Awful

[2/10 · 11 October 2017]

For the life of me I cannot understand why this gets such good reviews.

Despite the best efforts of Herbert Lom, a superb actor, the cod 'psychology' of the script is risibly simplistic. The directing isn't up to much either. The actors haven't a chance dealing with such an appalling script, so I'll let them off.

Portentous & pretentious rubbish. Compare & contrast to the Scales Of Justice or Scotland Yard series from a similar era, which are generally sharp, fast paced, intriguing & narrated in an understated ironic & intelligent manner by the excellent, if slightly odd, Edgar Lustgarten.

For Lom's sake I really wanted to like this series, but it really is awful. Oh - the theme music was rather good. I'll give it an extra star for that

The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1954)

Utterly Charming

[10/10 · 19 August 2017]

I don't do lists, but this may be the loveliest film I've ever seen. It grabbed me from the opening sequence, the camera sweeping over Islington while there is a distinctly odd, & oddly amusing conversation going on. At this point though you feel this film could go either way. But as soon as the angel appears at the pawnbrokers you know it's going to be good. Cilento is just perfect; innocent & wise at the same time, her beauty transcending sexuality. What followed was a small scale unpretentious masterpiece. There are caricatures & characters, some good performances, some excellent, some lovely comic touches (the drunken drummer confused as he exited the dance amused me inordinately). Possibly the only complaint was Aylmer's accent, which I think was meant to be Oi Vey Jewish but kept wandering across several ethnic possibilities. Apart from that his actual performance was excellent.

Are we supposed to take any of it seriously? Of course not. But there was a serious message at its core, something rather wonderful about things that really matter, something sometimes more effective for being told in a whimsical, light-hearted way.

It's the oldest & most important message ever. It's inherently implicit in every significant piece of art, literature & music - even if by it's absence. Love. Genuine transcendental love & compassion for all the human race, for all that lives & breathes. That quality suffused this modest little film, & it moved me immensely, far more than many big budget extravaganzas that hit you over the head trying to force a similar response. I adored it. I will treasure it till the day I (hopefully) acquire a harp of my own :-)

Amazing Stories: The Wedding Ring (1986) Season 2, Episode 1

Excellent little episode

[9/10 · 3 December 2016]

Just watched this on TV. I suppose having no expectations helped, but this knocked spots off many other high budget comedy horror efforts I've seen. The scene between Lois, tired & careworn, & Herbert, tired but frisky on their anniversary night, was genuinely touching. The love between them looked tender & genuine (incidentally, in real life they've been married for 34 years now). My heart went out to Lois' put-upon timid doormat who looked like .... well, she wouldn't win any beauty contests. BUT the transformation when she put the ring on! Hubba hubba! It just proves it ain't what you got, it's what you do with it. The rest was pretty well what you'd expect - but done with panache. In fact the whole thing was directed & edited with so many nice touches; one that springs to mind was the cuts to the waxwork faces looking at Danny DeVito when he steals the ring.

Brilliant. An unpretentious little gem.

The Secret Agent (2016)

A Travesty

[3/10 · 28 July 2016]

This has only the vaguest connection to the book. The names are the same, just about everything else has been modified out of all recognition. Coincidentally I read the book a few weeks ago. It's a subtle & quite unnerving book, a black comedy really, with no heroes, just people enmeshed in a fallen world of deceit & corruption.

There's very little dialogue, until near the end, when it all bursts like a suppurating boil. This obviously makes it difficult to adapt, but is no excuse for wholesale butchery; frankly if that's the best the adaptor can do he'd best just leave it. The acting was OK, but there was some poor casting. Overall a waste of everyone's time.

Ballot Monkeys (2015)

I nearly soiled myself

[10/10 · 2 May 2015]

I cannot believe the above review. I think I might have woken the neighbours with the racket I made (I watched on 4od just now). There were so many good lines - & visual jokes - I couldn't keep up. It was absolutely priceless. Andy Hamilton is a bit of a genius. Admittedly the guffaw quotient dropped off, but that was probably a good thing (for my neighbours). It got slightly subtler but still with a lot of belly laughs. The cast were uniformly superb. They were caricatures, but no more than in the Thick Of It. There were desperate men (& women), people resigned to their fate, stupid people, devious people, nice people, weird people, all horribly trapped in a confined space. The writing was witty & the timing excellent. It was delicious.

A Serious Man (2009)

Jefferson Airplane

[10/10 · 24 March 2015]

Just wanted to add a footnote: I haven't read through all the reviews, but I don't think anyone has mentioned, or really appreciated, the significance of 'Somebody To Love'.

For me, it's central. Religion or science will not & can not solve the problem of being human, of being physical beings despite our yearnings to be something greater. The huge irony is that a bunch of dope-addled hippies came closer to an answer than quantum electrodynamics or centuries of Talmudic scholarship

When the truth is found To be lies And all the joy Within you dies

Don't you want somebody to love? Don't you need somebody to love? Wouldn't you love somebody to love? You better find somebody to love Love

Curse of the Demon (1957)

Confused

[8/10 · 11 September 2014]

I'm completely puzzled by my reaction to this film. I think the 'Demon' epitomises it for me. On the one hand it's a totally cheesy, comical, daft looking rubber puppet, but ... the twittering noise, the ball of firesmoke, the smoking footsteps, all the effects heralding its arrival are well done. And its face ... I suddenly realised ... - it's Karswell!! OK, the features have been distorted ('demonified' if you like), but the look of amiable, leering corruption is unmistakable. A brilliant touch!

And Karswell is by far the best character in the film; Peggy Cummins is gorgeous, but trying to play against the wooden American interest gave her no chance. The script didn't help, mind.

The black & white cinematography was wonderful. But there were a lot of under thought & superficial characters. The worst thing was the fight (!) with the 'cat'; purest Python if ever there was!

Even the music left me ambivalent. Overdone a lot of the time, but the intro seemed to be inspired (if only distantly) by Vaughan Williams 6th, which has to be good. So ... good film or bad film??

I'm still confused!

The Salt of Life (2011)

Nice, but that's about it.

[5/10 · 3 February 2013]

Being someone of a similar age, & in a vaguely similar situation, I felt very sympathetic to the central character. But it just wasn't enough. I love gentle, wry comedy, 50s films such as The Ladykillers being among my favourites, but there was always something else, something more darkly comic & sardonic going on beneath the surface of such films.

This was a pleasant film, but slight in the extreme; full of commonplaces, all performed with a sigh & a shrug of the shoulders, his friend was a stereotype, so were the girls, he seemed to have no real interest in anything. The only thing which made me laugh was the wheel spinning nuns. And I really couldn't see the significance of the ending.

There are worse ways to kill a couple of hours, but life, as the lead character evidently knows, is far too short for that!

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

Mildly amusing

[2/10 · 7 November 2010]

Mildly amusing. No appreciable wit or originality, all jokes seen coming 20 miles off. Better than the winter vomiting bug I just had though, so a plus point there. Apparently I have to submit ten lines of text. Hmmm Tricky Apparently there were some pretty girls in it too, which is always good. I suppose it's not aimed at my age/demographic. But I often find I like things not aimed at me - or anyone else in particular. In general the more a film tries to provoke a reaction in me the less it does so. Although the so-&-sos who put the sad bits in 'Up' & 'Toy Story' get me every time. But this film left me unmoved in any sense, I'm afraid. Except to go to bed.

Toy Story 2 (1999)

more profound than gotterdammerung

[10/10 · 18 July 2010]

Some films just come at you from nowhere & completely subvert your expectations. I'd seen TS1 - I can't remember when, probably around a recent Christmas - & been unexpectedly entertained & amused, so when I sat down to eat my tea last night & found yet more golf on the News Channel & the usual carp elsewhere, I idly flicked to BBC1 & happened upon TS2. My digit hovered over the remote, but, well there was nothing else on & it would be instructive to see how much worse it was than TS1, so, half-heartedly, I continued watching. I rapidly became engaged, I'd missed a fair chunk of the film, but it wasn't difficult to work out the plot. And the toys' characters drew me in. The first rule of any narrative is that you have to care about the characters. That's why I gave up watching Mad Men; ultimately the protagonists were so devoid of any humanity I didn't care whether they lived or died, so something of a paradox that a bunch of toys should have more more emotional depth. Then, with superb timing, they introduced an intriguing moral dilemma for Woody, an actually intractable dilemma which was only partly resolved at the end of the film - rightly so, because it is genuinely intractable, & has to do with the physical nature of our being. Then the cowgirl sang a song. It was a small song about the nature of a child's love for a toy. Except the toy is a surrogate for that forgotten part of us, the spontaneous, loving part of us that we can only know as a child. And thus our relationship with our parents, the World, &, if you like, God.

She sang & I wept.

Ridiculous, I know. The prospect of a sixty rear old man crying over a children's film, but there you go. It's certainly not something that any amount of Wagner, with its overblown, egomaniacal combatants has ever been able to do. Finzi's Dies Natalis has come close though. There you have it then. A beautifully constructed, fast-paced, funny, clever, good-hearted film - even the villains are given some sympathy for their all too human (sic) failings - carrying an unpretentious depth of moral message. Brilliant.