Change Your Image
jodyraggo
Reviews
Big Brother (2000)
One Look and You're Hooked
As an U.S. critic so finely put it, once you watched it once you just can't take your eyes away from it. It may be just a bunch of 20 something men and women walking around a house, doing meaningless tasks, looking completely bored and sunbathing but it is not what is physically happening that is intriguing to me, it is what is happening below the surface. By placing a load of people in a house, it gives the viewer an insight into our own meaningless lives and our same boring routine. We get up, have breakfast, go to work (in the housemates case, sunbathe), have an evening meal, watch television (or drink copious amounts of alcohol as in BB's case) and then go to bed. That's it.
Big Brother can be seen to be a social and psychological experiment. The viewer is able to see how different character types bond and interact with each other and you can see character arches emerging within the participates. The show can also be accused of being a brilliant piece of media manipulation. Through careful editing the show's producers and editors could literally produce a winner themselves and at the same time villify another. But still Big Brother will pull in the money for channel 4 and while it does that there will be no stopping this media machine. Boring it may be but absolutely hypnotic. For once, the Dutch are geniuses.
Brass Eye (1997)
Innovative, imaginative and insanely hilarious.
What can be said about Christopher Morris that has not already been said. He is one of the most talked about comedians and satirists to come out of these shores in a long, long time. Everyone has an opinion on him, whether it be good or bad. Whatever it is he is doing his job. He is making people talk about the issues of media manipulation and sensationalism and the power of celebrity.
With his Brass Eye shows, not only did he cover a diverse range of subjects (everything from animal cruelty, paedophilia, sex and drugs) but also mimicked and mocked a wide range of media (such as the talk show, investigative reporting made famous by Roger Cook and his Cook Report and the CrimeWatch appeal shows seen within the 2001 controversial special. But as with any comedian, he has to be funny and he certainly is that. Whether it be a 25 ft wicker phallus or the Virgin Mary driving a car, you just can't help but laugh. The subject may be deadly serious but the subject matter certainly is not. Morris does not mock the subject itself but the media's handling of the subject and what lengths B-list celebrities will go to get into the spotlight. You can't help but laugh at Phil Collins wearing a Nonce Sence T-shirt or NIck Owen talking about fake electricity. How these people don't realise they are talking rubbish is anyone's guess.
Whether he is doing television, radio or writing Christopher Morris will always be etched on the minds of the British public in one way or another. Who said British television was dead when we can produce programmes as innovative as Brass Eye.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
A Frightful and Dread-filled film
Despite many people's criticisms of The Blair Witch Project that things don't happen within the film, I still enjoyed the film entirely. Things may not happen on screen, there may be no jump out of your seat moments or no moments featuring blood and guts, which are normally associated with the modern-day horror film but Blair Witch did, in my opinion, fill the viewer with a sense of discomfort and dread in much the same ways as the equally chilling Japanese films Ring and Audition did. It may have taken many of its stylistic inventions from such films like The Last Broadcast and Cannibal Holocaust (both great films in their own right) but it doesn't distract from the fact that the film engulfs the viewer with a sense of horror and dread and a uncontrollable fear for the viewer is not in control when watching the film for they have no idea what is going to happen next. In our times when the silver screen is filled with teen-slasher movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend it is good to see that independent films can make a load of money and be critically successful at the same time. The Blair Witch Project is still one of the most talked about films in recent years and one of the most innovative as can be seen when you compare it to its glamourised and Hollywoodised very poor follow-up Blair Witch 2.
Fong Sai-Yuk (1993)
Cool! Cool! Cool!
The dubbing is poor on the American version, The fights are over-the-top and the acting is average. It is your typical brilliant martial-arts movie. Never have I watched a movie where my jaw has dropped constantly during the fight sequences. The closeness the fighters got the better the fights were. The combats were absolutely superb. The fight coordinator needs all the recognition he deserves.You can sum upthis film in one word: cool.