Trey_BigTime_Film_Critic Reviews

The Prestige TV Podcast: 'Fargo' Season 5, Episode 9 Recap (2024 Podcast Episode)

The monologue of Sheriff Roy Tillman. Ep Nine, The Penultimate Episode.

[9/10 · 15 January 2024]

I will preface this by saying I haven't enjoyed Fargo since Series One. Series Two & Three were just too convoluted but now the writers are back on track.

Episode Nine is particularly riveting, the narrative unfurls against the backdrop of Tillman Ranch's last stand, as federal agents, spurred into action by Danish's enigmatic disappearance and Dot's kidnapping, finally converge to hold Roy accountable. The urgency of the situation prompts a closer examination of Roy, revealing him not as the calculating mastermind, but rather a faux cowboy propelled by emotion. The chaos that ensues serves as a canvas to paint the portrait of a man whose power is built on visceral instincts rather than strategic foresight.

As the saga unfolds, Roy's character is laid bare, exposing the incongruence between his outward image and the reality of his actions. The disappearance of the lawyer, a key figure in the employ of Minnesota's billionaire debt queen, is a reckless maneuver born out of embarrassment and anger. Roy's desire to put a "smug slickster" in his place takes precedence over rational decision-making, setting the stage for repercussions that resonate far beyond the dusty landscapes of Tillman Ranch. In this episode, the tension escalates, unveiling the complexities of a man whose facade begins to crumble under the weight of his own impulsive choices.

But if I could lay down some of the amazing monologue of Sheriff Roy Tillman in his desolate backwoods world - when he delivers the haunting sermon, declaring life's journey as far from a casual stroll. And when he goes on to say that birth, marks the beginning, and only when God carves our names into bone do we truly exist; you know you are in an exceptional TV program. Roy espouses that God's work paints a bleak picture, with divine trumpets signalling walls crumbling, and reminiscent of the biblical tales we all inherently know (and some too well or with little knowledge or twisted interpretations.) The quest for love becomes futile, as the beloved is already a pillar of salt. Amidst uncertainty, Sheriff Roy urges a choice: live or embrace impending demise.

In the midst of this, the lawyer Danish's car becomes a pivotal element, a traceable link to a mysterious disappearance. The reference to Minnesota hints at hidden layers, a puzzle waiting to unravel and/or a dead-end. The queens of death, both Dorothy (Dot) the Minnesotan accent always pulling you in and her new-benefactor the mother-in-law Lorraine can wield power, capable of unleashing the deep state as a weapon for justice. Suits and ties symbolize an ominous force, conducting a relentless search. The narrative unfolds, weaving suspense and intrigue, leaving us to ponder the whereabouts of Dorothy in unexpected places. And now we look to Episode Ten, possibly a finale or maybe just a teaser now that the series is back on track.

The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021)

We finally see through one woman's eyes, the reality of Australian frontier life.

[9/10 · 20 December 2023]

There aren't many downsides in production, to this confronting spin-off of Henry Lawson's 'The Drover's Wife' (published in 1893, but even so, this movie depicts roughly the Ned Kelly era, circa 1880.) We get to see through one woman's eyes in this frontier tale as it explores what a woman's place was truly like in the unforgiving Australian high country. The theme of family hardship may feel somewhat familiar, reminiscent of narratives explored in films like 'My Brilliant Career' and others such as 'Careful He Might Hear You.' Indeed, family struggles are a recurring motif in Australian cinema. However, 'The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson not only treads on this well-explored ground but also manages to carve its place in that cinematic pantheon. Australia throughout its short history has had some formidable impresarios such as J. C. Williamson and Frank Thring Snr. At this late stage in that history, we welcome Leah Purcell to that list. Well done Leah a truly remarkable movie.

Bay of Fires (2023– )

MAX DANN from Spotswood to Mystery Bay

[6/10 · 20 July 2023]

Q/. What did you watch last night that I missed?

A/. Well I played with my phone as well but watched Bay of fires then the next thing and played with the phone a lot thru an Agatha Christie. The Australians have gone down the US road on Bay of Fires and everyone or any random person will be shot dead, so good luck to the all-star cast-off actors. Another quaint touch is to make Mystery Bay a bit more interesting - they have Computer generated old buildings. Funny because most Australian towns had fantastic interesting architecture and this town they used for Mystery Bay possibly had them too ! But that kind of architecture just a bit too, how will we say - Australian, for the blow-ins that would have demolished them.

Q/. Were you familiar with any of the creatives on the series?

A/. Only Max Dann (co-writer) - who also wrote Spotswood - because when you work in some Primary or Secondary schools some of the downtime aspects can be boring but looking for Max Dann books in the library was always an option. Any children's author who can deliver the line: "It was Ok though I was nine by then," to justify some immense tragedy is a good writer. Very disappointed that he would have to resort to guns as a drama device; especially in Tasmania, they don't even add drama (I could go on and on but I won't even name names of people in film whose only plot device are guns on a continuum - boring! I'm guessing they had that discussion, "yep, has to be gun," when in fact any clever thing you never saw coming is 100% better, I mean even a gun, you didn't expect but a couple of Russian hitmen?? Better off ..ahh you should know what I mean, anyways 6/10 for the decaying house - I like that. Oh yeah, Bay of Fires does that mean we get a good old Aussie wildfire with volunteer fire fighters going frantic to save all the buildings built basically on top of the exploding eucalyptus gums and as we pan across the bay we see all the towns (those not randomly shot) taking refuge in the sea?

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

No man's an Inisherin (Island)

[10/10 · 9 February 2023]

I go to the movies as such rarely, I leave it for something worthwhile (last one Bladerunner 2049); and I wasn't disappointed, yes I like this director's body of work but yes they are movies you see only once, the tropes are such that once seen you know exactly what happens next. Some movies you can re-watch -as you can't even remember how it ends. As a screenplay goes, however I note yes beer was poured only from bottles in 1923 but some dialogue is from the modern idiom. No-one said wank in 1923, or the phrase (Doesn't) time (be) fly (ing)s? When you're having fun and I am not sure whether "So move on," was in current use then, as well. The simplicity of the script and the limited area the characters live in - is brilliantly projected by the cast. Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan and the lilting voice of Kerry Condon.

So, apart from these complete minor flaws only a linguist would note. And in my opinion little Jenny the dwarf donkey, Minnie the miniature pony; as well as the trap horse especially in the last few scenes not forgetting the brilliant performance of Colin Farrell are all Oscar worthy. Don't Vote it only encourages them. Don't buy advertised products it encourages them even more.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

My Reviewing Style discussed via the lense of Pulp Fiction

[10/10 · 4 January 2021]

Let me however extrapolate, embedded in a Pulp Fiction review which I couldn't care less for - on my film review style - from someone who has a media degree in film studies, and began their career wagging school at fourteen to watch French Cinema; and you know what they say about people who have experiences at an impressionable age - it sticks! I gave up on Hollywood in approximately the early seventies after Easy Rider and Zabriskie Point. I even walked out on Five Easy Pieces, even though in retrospect, that wasn't the film's fault, in those days we were keen on life and not on introspection and reflection. Though retrospection, tells me that was a good film. In fact it is the kind of film that the baby boomers now crave, good writing, and good characterisation from a period in history when just being alive was an entertainment, and not bogged down with crazy little computer screens and cowards with their wise-arse messages tweeted because they are too afraid to speak, possibly because even the modulation of the voice has been colonised by trendoids, who are so post-modern and wise-arsed they know everything; but at the head of the pack are a bunch of no-talents who have clamoured to the high ground. And that list is endless in entertainment, now: Quentin Tarantino (highlight-dialogue in Pulp Fiction, "In Holland, they have mayonnaise on their fries." - conclusion - lame) Johnny Depp (the guy can't act, get it? That's why Australians get Oscars now, as Hollywood is beyond knowing, who can act]; Russell Crowe (just because Hollywood couldn't get anyone else to fill out a Roman general's tunic except maybe some wooden ex-wrestlers), he wins the Oscar-but in his next movie, A Beautiful Mind, everyone gets an Oscar except him, because basically, when you play a screw-loose professor, exchanging walking around in circles for walking around in squares, it is not acting! It is a guy walking around in squares cos he worked out that was a riff on walking around in circles]; Saving Private Ryan, though I hate to admit it is a brilliant film - through its depiction of my grandfather's generation, who when I was growing thought wasn't cool; but mine who made every piece of furniture in their house to a French polished standard; as well as, the P.A. system for my Uncle's successful band including the foldback cabinets-which even The Beatles didn't have-as well as keeping a 200 acre dairy farm as a hobby. Cool, I don't think I knew the meaning of the word; but the Juden angle in Saving Private Ryan which is shoved towards the POWs by a man brandishing - a Star of David (on his dog-tags?)-as the POWs march past-I'm not buying because usually and in that war in particular - it is the politicians, the military hierarchy and their bureaucratic underlings who systematically entrench racism as a tool of their propaganda and the common soldier is generally ideologically neuter as they have to follow orders or get shot - otherwise on the western front in 1915 both sides would have turned around and marched home. But that was the only glaring error in my opinion but this ethno-stereotyping, though understandable has spilled into his other films, especially the Star Wars epics, wherein Cowboys and Indians in Outer Space in the early films becomes metaphoric American foreign policy in latter films... to be continued...

Jack Irish: Bad Debts (2012 TV Movie)

Don't forget the guy who does the Cascade Tasmanian beer adverts

[7/10 · 15 December 2020]

I just found this one and since then Peter Temple has died and I also have decided since reading our other guest Nobel Laureate - Coetzee - a fellow South African immigrant like Temple - that they must have known each other - as Coetzee has an insight into Ballarat, in his 2006 novel Slow Man - and bravo Craig McLachlan for staring down that B-grade harassment charge recently - also written after the fact. As follows: - The recent Peter Temple TV dramatisation, of the Jack Irish stories - was very impressive, even though there were a few faults in the general mise-en-scene, and let me list a few of those faults. First of all Guy Pearce, held it together, w/out him no show; the rest could hardly act , or is it because Temple gives the immigrant's view of Melbourne; the cliché-ridden world of references to Harold Holt, Southbank and Brunswick, and the film-maker's augment this with continual visuals of graffito walls, as backdrops. By deciding to live in Ballarat, Temple has saved himself from the ultimate Melbourne egocentric cliché, as this is new and original for the contained Melbourne viewer-reliant on 'worlds-mot-liveable-city' clichés that abound amongst, I assume property speculators. A few minor points: where did the key turn up from in the final scenes to get the photographic evidence, which seems to be done by a professional paparazzi with a million dollars worth of camera gear, of no less-Ministers of state in Victoria (too big a brush stroke); which is all to do with endings, trying to close down a complicated story with many threads, leads to either lazy writing and/or just losing the plot for the viewer themselves. Some of the references like Aussie Rules football, and people who live at their local pubs (day in and day out), and follow St Kilda or still follow Fitzroy and watch replays from 1994 of their 100 point loss are good but improbable; as no-one could afford to live in the public bar, at the local, next to the prices that are charged, now! And no Fitzroy fan would watch that penultimate MCG flogging, you might as well watch their very last, where the umpires gave 50 metre and 100 metre penalties, just to show 'em who was boss, out there in the wilds (as it was then) of the Perth W.A. suburb of Subiaco. As if that place where Fitzroy last played was a launching pad into their stratosphere of nostalgia. Lastly on endings: the PO box was found via the text on the back of a Nat King Cole CD given by one of the minor protagonists to his mother and then given very generously by his mother to the Guy Pearce character - too generous from the mother of a boy who was missing and possibly murdered, and then the John Flaus character from the live-in pub (the guy who does the Cascade Tasmanian beer adverts-but is a film studies tutor, who I had in 1981 at C.A.E.) - finds the PO box on the back of the Nat King Cole CD, and says: "Nat King Cole, never came to Abbotsford to record!" Hopefully, that reference said: ( i.e. The Nat King Cole CD ) - (said) Recorded at Abbotsford and the PO box is a reference to where you can get that CD, that was recorded in Abbotsford." Otherwise, the miniscule clue would be even beyond an Agatha Christie fan. Or since writing this - a Vera fan of convoluted plots - I always find them easy - the person who hardly appeared in the initial stages is generally the murderer. Most anti-critics, sold on this Australia's got talent across the board and not as I contend, people in our mirror-image western democracy, located in south, south east Asia, just put their hand up and say I will be a David Letterman (Steve Vizard), or an appalling Ben Elton wanna-be (The guy who does Randling etc.), would find some of these lines of critique all a bit trivial maybe, because the average viewer only wants to see the violence, and then the come-uppance, in that order. I was only interested in, whether the horse scenes made my work redundant; but Temple only has one aspect to that, and that's the putting a lot of people at the track to bet on a horse when you know another horse is going to win (to better the odds for your fancy); duh!-it is the bookies themselves that do this, perhaps not the punters, getting people to put a thou on a horse, so everyone follows suit and they don't lose money on the possibilities, that will win! In fact at a country track, i.e. Balnarring, I witnessed this! And that's a wrap.

The Mule (2018)

Clint Eastwood is in the building

[8/10 · 1 December 2020]

Clint Eastwood shows incredible respect to all participant cultures in this movie; whether Latinos, Black guys (though another culturally-dead term is used in the film and it is not the obvious one - not to me anyway), police officers, SWAT and FBI teams. It is as if he is the voice of America and so he has to make sure no one is offended, but it is one of those completely cinematic experiences - the old dog is as chill as it gets, and he is playing a 90-year-old. If Crocodile Dundee hadn't got the facelift, read a few books an added to his jazz collection, yes he could have been the Clint Eastwood from down-under but he hasn't and won't be. Another item to ponder on, this movie is so very cinematic and the only guns ever fired were the Mexican cartel bosses grouse shooting exploits. Very much in the Nebraska mould and films don't get any better when Clint Eastwood is in the building.

C.B. Strike (2017– )

Will the real Robert Galbraith, please step forward.

[9/10 · 1 December 2020]

J.K.Rowling's redeems her work in Strike - and I really rate it apart from the dead bodies (dead-uns) adored by the English. And I thought I'd watched something really adult and really alternative - an amputee detective no-less, the son of a rock star and for me having only discovered them on DVD I only knew the original novels were written by a guy called Robert Galbraith. One very interesting episode (The Silkworm) was a histrionic account of writers in professional flux. And the minute detail about utilising a literary styles expert or a literary forensic more to the point was really something I found interesting; and when it was discovered that a semi-colon found in some passages of the literary work were not consistent and that the semi-colon goes by the moniker of an Oxford comma, I knew that writers had actually really written these scripts/novels and not the brother-in-law (my original conception the brother-in-law script©, wherein the producer says my brother-in-law can write the script - it will be cheaper). I found out it was J.K.Rowling's work by being curious about the lead actors amputated leg and Googled Tom Burke and found out that his legs are intact but here I first I came across the author the mysterious Robert Galbraith and more was revealed -- it was J.K. Rowling! "Fancy that", as my girlfriend said. Generally, if J.K. Rowling's name was written on the DVD box I wouldn't have gone near it with a fifty foot butterfly net, as I don't know about you, but the character names in Harry Poppins© just leave me gutted (for a full explanation of the term gutted - see Career of Evil, Strike series for full meaning). They leave me gutted because I can't suspend disbelief since the characters' names are meaningless. In E. Annie Proulx's work for example, characters might be named Car and Train Scrope or Pake Bitts, but the writing is so strong, so evocative. You are there in Wyoming or Nebraska with these funny named people but all else is real. I do wonder, however - why hadn't this series been on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)? And then I thought it couldn't have been the wall-to-wall bodies (and to cut myself off in full poetic flight-it probably was), but the fact that the disabled main character was too uppity - made me consider that the ABC were inferring we do benevolence here in Australia and that doesn't include uppity disabled people they should be happy with sport!

Personal Shopper (2016)

Bespoke poltergeists

[7/10 · 1 December 2020]

The protagonist is a waif-like personal shopper for a professional fashionista - Kyra. The personal shopper, Maureen is drawn to Paris after the death of her twin brother, who was a successful bespoke carpenter and medium. Personal shopper Maureen is also a medium and is invited to see whether a house that her brother Lewis had owned is haunted by his or another 'presence'. Having made a pledge with her brother, that the first to die would attempt to contact the other after death, adds an underlying poltergeist sub-text throughout the film; as well as the strange relationship, she has with her employer Kyra, selecting her clothes and predicting her tastes, is made a demanding chore when Maureen rarely sees her, when delivering the clothes. There is an undercurrent of schooling the viewer into understanding the symbolic sub-text of mediumship that runs concurrently throughout the script. Alluding to the spiritualism of the great writer Victor Hugo and his séances where historical antecedents communicated via banging a table, where the mediums had placed their hands, with one bang for yes and two for no, as well as words communicated by banging up to the number twenty-six of the alphabet. And the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint who totally believed her abstract art, that predated Kandinsky and Mondrian was really painted by an unseen hand. Also, the tech-savvy driven plot utilises the mobile phone in a leading role, as the personal shopper, corresponds while on a buying trip to London, to an anonymous texter - and she is vulnerable, for mysterious signs because of her need to make contact with her dead brother. The finale includes a Cartier jewellery purchase, which is used in a frame-up, a murder, a visit to the French constabulary to explain the protagonist's bona fides; and a long-awaited trip to Arabia. But are the poltergeists; either good or evil - coming too?

After Life (2019–2022)

There are really only four archetypal storylines

[7/10 · 29 November 2020]

The following is a review of Ricky Gervais as much as Afterlife - R.G. --> his personal (as if I know - so his "professional" philosophy) tends towards the when you are dead there is nothing -- his fraternity has the claim that being around for eternity would be boring -- that as the wise guy said-is completely anthropomorphic - (as) who is doing the counting - a guy with a stopwatch¿ Indigenous cultures call it The Dreaming - I'm with them !? First up let me reiterate the media lesson from last class - the correct way to review a film or Episodic is too hardly refer to it, it has to be placed in film history; a sociological as well as anecdotal reality. It's not enough to say: the postman should not have got in the bath - it is a fiction, the postman can do anything in a fiction. Also a film or TV review where its entirety is merely the rehashing of the plot is called 'an Australian Review' and should be avoided. Every Century or so a storyteller exists who truly can supersede the rule for storylines (the idea that there are really only four - even though one category of storyline is called Comedy makes even this theory a duh!) and Ricky Gervais's doesn't fit the others - The Monster Overcome, Rags to Riches, the Quest and Voyage & Return (boring). So we are dealing here with a completely original artist. And an aside - When the writer Ben Elton tried to diss Ricky Gervais as a lardish nuffster in the Shakespeare spoof Black Crow - I can only go by the look on David Mitchell's face when the idiot trying to take down Gervais, spoke - the expression on his face was complete and utter 'I didn't sign up for this' - Ben Elton was the first writer I came across whose name on the front of his books was bigger than the title - and I didn't realise then there was an era coming when your name was more important than the work, when I said across a barstool one day in the eighties: "No-one is going to buy a book called Ben Elton! " - thinking that was the title. Now Gervais might be the fifth column on a Parthenon of the four archetypal stories but don't forget - Steve Coogan got their first with Alan Partridge in the 1990s and The Office was not until the 2 thousands'. So apart from the film theory of AfterLife - I basically enjoyed it and would rate it, but like most modern stuff, even with big life and death themes - it is disposable. Personally I thought I had found a new series on Netflix and attempted to watch - it again - series two I got as far into it w/ the old dear in the nursing home - who couldn't be bothered living - though the premise of the show when grieving time should end is good and visiting his own father in a nursing home when the guy never even knew who he was - were original characterisations, though I have a lot of ambiguity towards the frickin' mailman! Blah de blah. Over to you static viewer.

The Captain (2017)

The Captain has a shtick... one shtick

[2/10 · 17 November 2020]

The Captain - seems to have one shtick - it's not who you are its what you look like - especially in a stolen Captain's uniform - the grotesque nature of this tale is more alarming when you consider it is true. Because I thought initially they were attempting a Tarrantino or at least one of those confusing Coen Bros epics - that always profess to be true - but aren't. Who was this little dittie made for? Its not in Brazilian - so not for escaped Nazis - so must be some kind of farce-entertainment like the Irish do - but at least the bog wogs are articulate and even funny. This has one or two redeeming features - shot in B&W and the Freytag character could act...just...BEAT... It might have been bearable if it wasn't the usual hierarchical set up. I suggest shoot a few in charge for a change storyline - might solve the penchant of the seemingly anti-war brigade who arent anti-war they've justice seen a good moral loophole to make war movies. And its always the soldier pawn that gets it in the neck. That it is a true story bellies the sanity of the entire human race in the 20th C. A pointless person in history and not really worth documenting, is my take. Over to you static viewer.

Wentworth (2013–2021)

All Killer, no Filler

[8/10 · 12 August 2020]

I watch Wentworth at the moment five days a week on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) at midnight. It has an honest morality - as well as what I call a common decency and every scene has a trajectory driving the plot forward - all killer scenes and no filler. When you are entrenched into the story - the Luis Borges plotlines seem fair enough (read South American absurdist soap operas - hopefully theirs are also used to sell soap powder, as is the history of ours). Australia of course has a long history of penal servitude. It was omnipresent in the 18th century, still going in the 19th and graffiti as late as 1969 in the State of Victoria - declared, 'Mutate in Police State'. Now in the 21st, terrorists learn rather quickly if they want to ply their trade they have to do it offshore - as thought-crime carries a minimum of about 15 years in jail. So that is where the excellent morality in Wentworth has been formulated on the anvil of the penal state. And more over the long game for each main character has to be unique - but don't get on the wrong side of the script writers, as your tenure can be terminated in an instant. A highly recommended Australian art project with a foundation in realism and on the basis that the best work - is something that is profoundly personal, each character and scene are enthralling. Is it the fact that the settings and scenes are so stark, that brings the acting to the fore? Which is unheard of generally in the wooden Australian soaps.

The Life of David Gale (2003)

gather news the mission

[6/10 · 25 July 2020]

I just have to share the translation for this 2003 - Chinese bootleg copy (Verbatim) as follows :- The Life of David Gale. Shell cloth the is a some and journalistic chief reporter in New York, and were accept ordered to gather news a death penalty to make the David - the Al Gore. Al Gore quilt the accusation rape and murdered the silk - the to pull the but is sentenced, and will is sentence to deathed at 6:00 P. M. in Friday, but cloth the must only remain in the exploitation of 3 weathers complete the own to gather news the mission. The film is around hum an life for form for of gather newsing be divided intoing... (end) - Well there you go pretty concise critique! ¿!¿!

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019)

I also have an Anecdotal Review

[7/10 · 31 July 2019]

Having just seen the documentary Marianne & Leonard. I thought I might add my own anecdote vis a vis Leonard. I remember in 1980 - Leonard Cohen played the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne - an intimate venue and he was still dragging around that pseudo-minstrel looking guitar - an Ovation with its awkward rounded back and very easily dropped. Lo & behold in mid-poignant song he did just that. I yelled out "Get a Maton" an Australian brand of renown. Leonard never used an Ovation again - mostly flat backed Martins or possibly even Matons. Some might be asking what is his guitar got to do with the documentary - well his black Ovation is one of the items in the documentary - his psuedo-minstrel muse. So after having heard approximately 95% of Leonard's music and read possibly all his hard copy books from Flowers for Hitler and Beautiful Losers , to the Book of Longing - which will I am sure have to make a comeback. Well that's all folks and until next time -- maybe see you at La Belle Époque or even Miles Davis: The Birth of the Cool, or even in the Tower of Song: Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song. L.C. Which is a song from his real heyday period (though that is probably the most subjective thing you will read for many a year as Leonard's heyday was many periods). In retrospect this movie is a threading together of home movies, but very interesting home movies; but happy viewing, anyhows.

Mrs Lowry & Son (2019)

The old Lady in the bed and her son the Painter.

[7/10 · 31 July 2019]

I got very lucky on this one as I wandered into a senior cits viewing. At the beginning they tittered and the ones who felt they always should get their money's worth - guffawed. Oh she was so sweet & humurous the old Lady in the bed with just harmless jibes at her son. But then when it never stops, and we hear things like ( to paraphrase): "it is important to always be seen in a good light by your neighbours" as well she only began to see her son's talent when a recently entrenched neighbour with bourgeois pretensions said his seaside painting was delightful - did she then consider it. This is a deeply ingrained bourgeois-ism in the English psyche~and not say like Gerard Depardieu not wanting to appear in a Truffaut movie because he felt he had 'gone bourgeois' - you don't go bourgeois - it is a heavily sanctioned part of the society you grow up in. Luckily through all the turmoil he kept at his painting because near the end of his life they were worth a fortune. And as we learn about how little support he had as an artist the audience quietened down considerably - reflecting you would think on bourgeois pretensions of their own.

The Wild Goose Lake (2019)

The Future of Cinema - has arrived

[10/10 · 31 July 2019]

When I saw Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love"(2000) with Maggie Cheung - I knew we were watching a complete new cinema that would one day self-realise into epic cinema ~ epic Chinese cinema. And I have now seen that realisation in The Wild Goose Lake. This film is like a cross between Godard's Breathless and de Sica's Bicycle Thieves - and is so satisfying you could watch it upside down. It is possibly the grittiest film I have ever seen, with the urgency and cinematic style of French cinema of the 1960s - where the possibilities are endless and every new film in this genre will be waited for in anticipation.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

The Guy should be allocated w/ 'Zombie Movies Only Director' on his green card

[1/10 · 27 February 2019]

I have to say since hearing that line in Pulp Fiction allocated to John Travolta "oh they have mayonnaise on the frites (chips) at the McDonalds in Amsterdam', made me forever think I was dealing with a lightweight talent. Here was me in about the same era as a gem hustler in the bars of Rotterdam having to hear that lame dialogue. All I can say about the film the Hateful Eight that hasn't already been said, is that the way the 'four passengers' are allowed to saunter into a downhome establishment all heavily armed is an indictment on America - and this is the way an apparent huge part of their society still want the status quo to be. And as I have said before, if your only way to end a story is just by killing everyone, well you are a no-talent. Pay a writer, Tarrantino - you are a director.

3 Days to Kill (2014)

For those people who pick on a good movie, as the worst they have seen, but dross passes muster

[1/10 · 2 April 2018]

I was reading the reviews of the brilliant FENCES - where people were saying it was so bad etc. well guess what that was double racism, as it was about the ex-slaves of America in a contemporary setting - but it was also obviously hand-picked by Denzel Washington, for production - so what are you really saying? Anyway Kevin Costner's 3 Days to A Kill is the worst movie so far in the 20th C, I think -- the bit I was watching, anyway. And as I write crits without polluting my senses, as you don't need to be run over by a train to know how that feels; as well you don't need to hear the end of a song to know you don't like it. This doesn't apply to artists, because when I first heard Amy Winehouse, I thought she sounded like a female Louie Armstrong and I was later to learn her complete oeuvre is brilliant. Anyway (again please note this is the correct way to review a film, you need to discuss cultural relevant matters, you don't just give a blow-by-blow account of the plot!) - back to the film - In it they relate killing about 6 people w/ the boss woman entering on stiletto heels - and a big emphasis on and close up shots of her stiletto heels, stiletto heels apparently is the signifier of ' you have to die' and then he takes the boss who arrived later back to some apartment where there was a negro woman and her young children -- and he said to the kids who on enquiring what he was doing: I am going to be in the bathroom, so Do Not Disturb Me, and the kid retorts: Are you the good guy or the bad guy? And then he begins to gaffer tape this boss guy to the bathroom fittings - when the phone rang, and it was the headmistress of his daughter's school - she needed to talk to him about his daughter, and he turns to that boss guy and says: We are going to school ! Luckily at that point I was saved by an advert. Yep poss could be the worst, and another thing was Kevin Costner had grown a short beard, for the role but it was a real Neanderthal effort -- he looked strange, take that... Costner !

Fences (2016)

Mediocre Theory

[10/10 · 9 October 2017]

This theory simply states, that anthropologically, humans gave succor to the familiar, for survival purposes. If they knew the animal from past encounters, it meant it had not eaten them; therefore it was not a threat and a familiar interloper. Humankind can also be seen on the sidelines (i.e., the cave) clapping, when threatening species are killed by other predators. Fast-forward to entertainment in the twenty-first century; and why the mediocre are pushed forward as exemplars of entertainment.

It can be noted that Australian actors win many awards in the USA, but do they win any awards anywhere else, no!? This is a false reading, as American acting has a limited pool of participants, who are not nurtured but then rushed in front of the cameras for what is termed 'product'. So when an Australian wins an American acting award, it is not anything more than a nod to being little more than mediocre. It is the mediocre defeating the mediocre. Case in point, Denzel Washington's brilliant performance in Fences, as leading male actor, was not familiar, was not mediocre, was utterly brilliant, as was the movie; but he was supplanted by the lead from the movie Manchester by Sea, as this was more familiar territory, a black man can't beat a white boy when he is acting the white man blues, this is the familiarity of survival. So Denzel's appropriate Oscar goes begging but will come up again, when the acting agenda is more familiar.

In the USA, unlike Australia, there are no acting schools linked to a government fee program, hence the actors in America come from a fraternity of professionally focused individuals, the attrition levels must be incredible, but the actors who do make it to stardom, are then fully-supported in a 'star-system'. In Australia, it is more of an elite group, who are professionally trained but on the whim of perceived talents. Reading some of the other reviews for Fences reminds me of the Charles Bukowski line: 'They hate a man with a vocabulary'. Some here object to the fact that, the script is wall-to-wall text. Well for some of us that is all that matters, as one gun in a script is one gun too many, as the gun is meant to solve all script problems, beginnings, middles and endings – when in doubt shoot someone.

Fences to me, as a scribbler, is 10/10, and when I see a movie rated thus I wouldn't see it, I generally become interested in a movie if it is rated 1/10 from the critics, as I have molded my tastes differently.

Radio On (1979)

Could easily be called 1979.

[4/10 · 6 October 2017]

This film could easily be called just "1979" – what a year, and certainly, Fritz Lang's industrial vision had then come to pass in the UK. We were heading for 1984 – with suspicion, and if Orwell had not written, 1984 – we would have lapsed into robot conformity exactly on time as per the great writer's prediction. Radio On has everything from the obsession of keeping an "antique" car on the road - not so antique, then; the rare white Christmas coming, the remnant hotels and high-rise low income tenanted towers jutting up next to the flyovers; and the Fritz Lang lens poking in and out of random industrial scenarios. Even my favorite panning effect using the flyover in transit to view the Grosvenor Hotel room of the German protagonists predates the same effect used in the 1991 film Zentropa by Lars 'von' Trier but then shot from a train line viaduct, into the protagonist's home.

We were there, in Bristol in 1979, we went to the Devo concert, and also saw Lene Lovich at the Bristol, Locarno. We bought Stiff Samplers to hear Wreckless Eric, we bought Ian Dury records and listened to Kraftwerk at home on the stereo; as well as hearing the chameleon (David Bowie) on the radio, when the John Peel Radio Show wasn't on. Radio On is a home movie of all our lives from 1979, but here is a thought, instead of just talent scouting good looking boys and mysterious brunettes, how about talent scouting some writers from all their junk jobs all over the planet, as Radio On is devoid of a script. But approximately 65% of all film scripts ever written in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, are not worthy of the name.