Change Your Image
HildyJohnson
Reviews
Normal People (2020)
The miscommunication and misunderstandings are aggravating
The acting, direction and cinematography in this series is exquisite. Absolutely spot-on.
But the story and the dialogue and the characters... no. Just no.
I found myself wanting to shake the characters all the time. Just talk to each other, for crying out loud. How can two such supposedly brilliant people be so bad at communicating? I get that they're still young, but even so, why were they so awful at having a proper conversation?
The characters' inability to express themselves was infuriating. Connell mumbled his way through life, unable to articulate a single opinion. Marianne wallowed in her endless misery.
Their break-up at the end of their first year at university was particularly aggravating, involving about three inarticulate sentences and then that was it - they were over. What?! You don't just give up after three sentences - you continue talking and have a conversation to clear up the misunderstanding. Arrgggghh. *headdesk*
And these characters were supposed to be highly intelligent and literate?? Based on their conversations, neither of them seemed particularly interesting, so why were they so interested in each other - and for that matter, why should we, the viewers, be interested in them? There was plenty of *telling* that Marianne and Connell were fascinating and brilliant - their scholarships, Marianne's coterie of admiring friends at university, Connell apparently a fantastic editor - but we were *told* this, not shown it.
Crucially, those two never seemed to have any fun together. Why would you want to be with someone who doesn't make you laugh, who doesn't put a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye?
And then the ending. Ah yes, let's self-sabotage the relationship yet again. Just go to New York with him, for god's sake, Marianne - you're rich enough, you can afford it. Marianne's reason for not going was because she was finally happy with her life. That's because you're with Connell, you eejit!
I'm just too old for this show, because I have zero patience - either in fiction or in real life - for the kind of stupid miscommunication and misunderstandings displayed here. If the characters had just had *one* proper conversation, they could have been together from university onwards and we would have been spared six more episodes that frantically contrived to keep them apart.
The Orville: Sanctuary (2019)
Enough with the Moclans already
What's up with all the Moclan episodes in Season 2? They're so boring. I happen to agree with the messages the show's trying to get across, but that's not the point - the point is that the acting and writing is so bad that I don't care in the least about the characters. I can't tell: are they in fact bad actors, or do they just have nothing to work with, what with Moclan culture's lack of emotions and general stiffness? Either way.... zzzz.....
The Orville: Primal Urges (2019)
Season 2 is a dud so far
I enjoyed Season 1 a lot, so having two dud episodes in a row in Season 2 is disappointing.
The series feels oddly sterile: clean, empty sets; no background noise; no grit. It feels very, very odd, like someone is filming a theatre set. That, in turn, influences the acting, which is stiff and uncharismatic.
But my main complaint is the writing. It's just bad. The dialogue is incredibly stilted. It's like the actors are standing there thinking: "and now I say my line", "and now you say yours", "and then I say mine again". There's zero emotional connection, no sense of peril, no investment in the characters or the story. I got bored very quickly. Such a pity. I hope the next episodes are better, otherwise I'm out.
The visual effects at least are fantastic, I'll give them that.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
A note on violence
In all the reviews I've read here, none seems to mention one basic thing: the explicit cartoon-style violence of the film. I know that's the whole point of the film, I know it's a parallel world, and I know it's supposed to be comic-like, but the constant slow-mo beheadings and blood splattering are nauseating. I've clearly seen too few of these kinds of movies and am equally clearly old-fashioned. But to read reviews saying "it's boring" or "the action is fun" – have we become so completely jaded that we think killing sprees are a bit of fun (yes, I know it's like a cartoon, yes, I know Lincoln's slaying evil in the film - I'm talking about the principle of the thing)? Are we so blasé that we need even more gore to be stimulated into feeling anything?
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)
Stay away
While the first film was fairly charming, this sequel is painfully hokey and strains to be funny. Exposition is clumsily done through Princess Mia's voice-over at the beginning of the film; and just in case you miss important plot points, she
continues her (diary) comments throughout the film. This is not good film-making; a director should be able to tell a story visually, without resorting to narration.
Production values are flawless but so sugary and disneyfied that it hardly bears watching (has Europe EVER looked like this??). Jokes and certain plot points
are delivered with a sledgehammer rather than with subtlety look, the dog is chasing the cat again!', look, Mia is goodhearted!', look, Mia is endearingly klutzy!'. In one scene, Mia sees orphaned children during a parade and turns all the girls into princesses by giving them tiaras to wear note that the boys are not included, presumably because they have more interesting goals in life, and quite rightly so.
Overall, a saccharine film with an admittedly charming lead actress that has many squirm-inducing moments of kitsch and sentimentality and a forced air of let's be delightful and funny and a little bit hip'. Not recommended, even for children (especially girls), because it gives us yet another pseudo-modern
female role model of no real value.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Overacted
I'm as big a Russell Crowe fan as they come, but this time he has taken the facial tics too far. All one sees on screen is (O-V-E-R)A-C-T-I-N-G rather than a believably portrayed character. One can never get past the fact that it's Russell-Crowe-as-John-Nash rather than just John Nash. This does not matter so much in other (types of) movies, but here it disturbs the whole process of spectator involvement, never allowing you to relax and settle back in your seat in order to watch the drama unfold.
The film does manage to take the spectator into the world of schizophrenia and make it seem "real", and the moment of realisation (when Nash is suddenly able to separate reality from delusion) is cleverly done. As a whole, however, the film is belaboured and conventional, crying out for Academy attention with its uplifting love-conquers-all story featuring a mentally disturbed genius as the protagonist. (This practically sounds like the Oscar instruction manual on How To Get Nominated.) The attention was duly given. Never mind that the actual facts of the real John Nash's life were somewhat white-washed in the movie for mass appeal.
Jennifer Connelly is a graceful presence throughout the film, but her character is too good to be true. Only one or two scenes show her as a human being with messy emotions and desperation rather than as that June Allyson cypher, the long-suffering 50s wife. The standout is Paul Bettany as Nash's room-mate - charming, believable and natural, as effortless in his acting as Crowe is obvious.
The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986)
So bad it's almost good
This film most definitely belongs in the so-bad-it's-almost-good category. Very much a product of its time (1985), the hairstyles, fashions and soundtrack songs are hysterical to those of us who were fortunate (?!) enough to grow up in the 80s. There are embarrassing dance sequences, bikinis that are testament to the aerobics craze - and of course there's lots of flesh on display. Hmmm, must be a guy thing... Bruce Greenwood is the only actor in the cast who has moved on to bigger and better things - I bet a clip of this will come to haunt him one day on The Tonight Show!