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Reviews
The Big C: Blue-Eyed Iris (2010)
Sex sells
The producers and the writers must have sat around the table after about the 3rd or 4th episode discussing the mediocre amount of viewers. Everyone present agrees the series is great, funny, fresh and that it deserves better. But there is no time to waste.. either they get more viewers or the series will get ditched. What to do, what to do? Suddenly someone says: "Sex sells" and explains that to draw some real attention there would have to be a lot more sex in it. Not in a clever way, or in a real romantic way, no, just blunt, irrational, casual sex without rhyme or reason. Bring in a new hunk for her to have casual sex with, let Paul find another woman to have sex with, let the boy experiment with sex, let the big girl Andrea experiment with sex, let Cathy's brother hit it on with the old lady across the road... just everyone! Let's see if we can't turn this thing around! If you, like me, wondered what made this episode so crass, stupid, blunt and absolutely not believable, think about the motivations of a TV show producer and then it all makes sense again.
Impact (2009)
Superficial entertainment
This is watchable, the acting is mostly decent, the special effects reasonably well done for a TV series and they even took the effort to shoot in Germany and Canada. The cinematography and the directing are actually quite good. CGI is so-so, but there may just not have been enough money to make a train fly through the air in a believable manner.
The scientific part of the story on the other hand is so impossible it hurts. Michael Vickerman, the screenwriter, has no idea of the basics of physics, doesn't know magnetism from gravity and continually mixes them up. Consequently all the effects from the moon coming closer to earth and the final successful solution of the problem are completely wrong.
This production cost more than 10 million to make. Shouldn't the screenwriter at least have asked a hobby astronomer whether the stuff in the story is even remotely possible? Good grief! Still, mostly entertaining and wholesome.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Bitter, cynical and unsatisfactory
This is no feel-good movie. It has been compared to the Big Lebowski, which shows similar quirky humor, except there still was some affection for the main protagonists in that story. This is my main concern with Burn After Reading: it has no heart. Why the choleric ex-CIA man has to beat the friend of the misguided woman to pulp will always remain a mystery to me. No happy endings allowed, I guess. This is just a bitter self-righteous farce, well acted and beautifully filmed, but also deeply sad in its hopelessness. Not comparable to O Brother Where Art Thou. I doubt whether I'll ever watch this again. Self-declared aloof intellectuals will probably love it and declare it a masterpiece. In that case, I prefer not to be intellectual.