tambourinist Reviews

High Water (2022– )

I wanted to like it

[3/10 · 22 October 2022]

I was around 14 when the flood happened and still remember watching the news about it. I find the topic of the series very interesting.

Unfortunately, the acting and the script in this series are simply unbearable.

The main character is the worst. Horribly over the top, she's unwatchable in the role. As much as I love strong female characters, this one is absolutely unconvincing in her role of "one woman against everybody". The series creators decided to make Jasmina some kind of House, M. D. - a brillant, but complex character and unfortunately this goal is clearly recognizable from the beginning. 10 minutes into the series you know what role she will play in the story and you know everything about her. She's not a character, she's a cliche.

The problem with the Polish cinema is it tends to take viewers for idiots, it avoids any kind of ambiguity and character development. Simply horrible.

I only give it 3 stars because of an interesting topic.

Master of None (2015–2021)

Not worth the hype

[3/10 · 12 April 2020]

This show has been loved by so many critics. Its liberal message probably played a role.

Whereas I sympathize with the message overall, the way to present it lacks subtlety and depth. Many dialogues are incredibly cumbersome. Most characters don't have believable personalities, they are stereotypical. The acting is very unequal, with some excellent actors but also some who are abysmal.

Everyone is friendly and nice, there's real no conflict, nothing worthwhile. If they did something egoistic this always results to be just a misunderstanding.

The liberal message lacks depth too. Characters live in individual apartments in one of the most expensive city in the world, don't work most of the time but can afford eating out and travelling all the time. But hey, they do have problems: he hasn't mentioned his girlfriend to his parents, what a huge issue! The topics raised might suit a teenage drama, but not a show about thirty somethings in late 2010s.

Not to mention that all these topics have been handled million times in different shows, quite frequently with much more subtlety and humor. Overall, I just can't fathom the hype surrounding the show.

Little Rose (2010)

3/10

[2/10 · 18 February 2018]

I expected something like "The Lives of Others", found the topic fascinating. There are several problems with this movie however.

First is the lacking historical realism. "Kamila" is a name that only got popular in Poland in the last years. The protagonists speak very contemporary Polish. The way Kamila dresses doesn't come from the 1960s. The authors clearly had access to historical images and it's strange they didn't base on them.

The second problem is the main heroin. She's too pretty and she's pretty in a very contemporary way. She doesn't look or behave as women did back then. Also the actress' acting is simply horrible, she didn't manage to portray the doubts and psychological struggles of a woman that leads a double life.

The film has too much pathos in it. In the main original story the movie was based on the writer died of cancer. In the movie, he's beaten up and then probably murdered. It's as if the authors were trying hard to make the story even more dramatic than it was. The result is over the top, hardly watchable.

Then there are problems with the script, which is just too obvious, doesn't show any psychological dilemma. Characters aren't realistic, were written just to represent specific attitudes towards the Communist Poland.

Seweryn's and most other actors' acting was really good, but the movie doesn't deserve more than 3-4 stars.

Girls (2012–2017)

3/10

[3/10 · 29 April 2017]

I quite liked the first season, so I was surprised the following ones were so awful. The show deserves kudos for showing the female body as it is and for the realistic view of sex. Unfortunately, that's not frequently done in this industry.

And why I didn't like it? The script is random and full of clichés we had seen in so many series before. You can actually predict what will happen. The show lacks any psychological depth. Hannah has OCD in one episode and then never again. Marnie's ex first gets very rich and then loses everything to the point of selling drugs in the park. Marnie - an independent, self-confident woman at the beginning of the series - turns into somebody completely different, directionless later. I liked the persona of Shoshanna, since she was more probable psychologically than the rest of them. To bad she was the one appearing least in the series.

Some acting was bad, most notably that of Allison Williams. Although to be honest, I sometimes had the impression the actors just found it difficult to tell lines which were so out of their characters.

Another problem is the veracity of the life portrayed. The series seems to tell us you can live in NYC, wear trendy clothes, party till you drop, do drugs and go to gym several times a week, all that without having a job or any other source of income. Just, you know, money will magically appear every morning on your table. That contrasts with the series' alleged aspirations to show "real life". Lena should have presented this show as one about fashionable, upper middle class twenty-somethings in NYC openly without a pretense to represent the real life of twenty-somethings including money problems.

The series is pretentious. I know in your early twenties most people tend to use words like "life", "forever", "love" too much. However, their constant use in dialogues makes it really difficult to watch. There is just too much drama. It's like reading teenager poetry.

Finely, I would like to mention here the author's uncritical attitude towards Hannah. It's very visible that Lena identifies with Hannah, who is her alter ego. This is problematic, since Hannah is treated positively in the script even when that's totally unrealistic. Most attractive men get attracted to her. She is constantly told she has a great talent, although, honestly, we don't see much of it. It is showed that people, even random people, instantly like her, although she really gives them no reasons to be friendly to her. It's a kind of a therapeutic series for Lena I would think. But this treatment of Hannah disturbs the realism of the world portrayed and makes the show difficult to watch.

3/10

Parks and Recreation (2009–2015)

You can skip this one

[5/10 · 11 February 2017]

The two first seasons were OK, if not extraordinary. The series managed to develop its characters. Then it started to deteriorate and get preachy and there were several reasons for that.

At first the series made fun also of the main character, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler). Then, however, Leslie gradually lost its characterisation as a clumsy and not very competent employees of the Parks and Recreation Department with her funny quirks. In later episodes she is portrayed as a role model for... basically everybody. It's not clear why she should be a role model and enjoys such a support of her co-workers since she becomes quite unbearable by then.

Also, given that the employees of the department do everything apart from working for most of the series, it's really hard to see why they are such role models of public service. These people's avoiding citizens seems funny in the first episodes, when the series has not got preachy yet, but after the characters are made to stand for public virtues the story simply doesn't make much sense.

Bulling Jerry/Gary is another example where the story is simply not funny. Not sure what the purpose of showing that multiple times was. It's simply cringeworthy.

A similar example is Tom's behaviour towards women especially in the first episodes. It's incredibly sexist with Tom making comments about their bodies and proposing them sex. I don't need characters to be likable to like a show. However, the problem is, in this case, this kind of behaviour is portrayed as something to laugh about and all those people as highly likable, which is simply not the case.

There's a complete lack of conflict and hostility in this idealized little world, which makes the series boring. Everything is simply too cute and predictable.

I give it 5 stars mainly because of the two first seasons.

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Excellent

[10/10 · 30 January 2017]

I loved the movie but at first wasn't sure why. The clue is probably that the movie is quite refreshing. The authors stayed away from the common clichés and comedy tricks.

I also loved it because working in the same professional area as Ines I was able to appreciate the deep satire of the corporate newspeak and consulting culture presented in this movie. The overzealous assistant, the culture of feedback and team building (getting naked as a team building activity is a genius idea!), body language and the politics behind client meetings - all that is satirized in this movie in a hilarious manner.

The acting was great too. The best film I've seen for a while.

Above Us Only Sky (2011)

Great acting, poor script

[6/10 · 30 January 2017]

I won't summarize the plot here, other reviewers have done it very well, just share a few observations about the film.

First of all, what has to be noticed is the good acting of all the main actors. The dialogues are also OK (I watched it in the original German version).

However, the film is much worse on the script level, which becomes visible especially in the second half of the film, after the main character (Martha) meets her new love interest (Alexander). Exactly... She meets him... But how? The circumstances are not clear given that she is looking for the traces of her husband at the School of Medicine and she runs into a professor of history.

There are more problems like that. Like the fact she discovers she doesn't know her husband's friends only after his death. Or all the strange coincidences like the fact that Alexander just sees her (has he just run into her? or has he been following her?) when she's asking students at the university for some info on her husband.

The film resembles Trois Couleurs: Blue by Kieślowski, but unfortunately doesn't compare to it in terms of quality.

Easy (2016–2019)

Excellent actors, unwatchable show

[3/10 · 22 January 2017]

The show is really well made, the acting is impressive, the story flows easy. The problem is that the plots of the episodes are simply not interesting enough for this show to be worthwhile.

I've watched 3 first episodes. After the first one I expected the show to get better after introducing the characters at the beginning of the series. But the second episode focused on a different story and different characters, unrelated to the first one. And stayed at the surface of the events portrayed just as the first one.

The stories are incredibly banal. These are stories that happened to you and your friends. The show doesn't add any humor or observations, which could have saved the otherwise boring story line. Also, I had the impression it got quite patronizing/ preachy at some points, as if the movie makers wanted to show the audience what a good communication in a relationship looks like.

4/10

Lolo (2015)

Simply awful

[1/10 · 30 December 2016]

I'm a Julie Delpy fan, "Two days in Paris" is one of my favourite movies of all times. This film, however, is impossible to watch.

It's incredibly predictable, the humour is silly and you've seen all the gags in plenty of (bad) films before.

The storyline is not credible at all. Even if you're not looking for sophisticated humour, just want some slapstick laughs, this film is simply not very funny. I watched it in the dubbed version, maybe it's slightly better in the French original, although to be honest, I don't think so, given how bad the storyline and the jokes are.

The acting is OK, but it can't save the film.

Ida (2013)

Not a masterpiece

[5/10 · 29 December 2016]

The story is incredibly interesting and could have been turned into a great film.

The problem however are the dialogues, at least in the Polish original. They are totally unrealistic. The characters talk contemporary Polish, I would say the language young people currently speak. There is no effort to depict the way it was spoken in Poland a few decades ago. Also, the acting is not very good, especially from Trzebuchowska, Kulesza is much better. All in all, when I'm watching the movie I can't lose the impression that I'm watching people pretending to live in very different times.

Not sure if the problem also exists in other language versions, hopefully not.

It's not a bad film, but definitely not a masterpiece.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Overrated

[2/10 · 28 December 2016]

So I've now seen the film, more than 10 years after its being created.

The idea behind the movie is great and when you read the summary the story seems fascinating. Well, that's why I decided to watch it. The problem is, the movie doesn't fulfil these promises at all. It is simply boring. You can guess the end of the story after the first half an hour.

Basically, the idea was great, the implementation very poor. The problem are, for example, the moments showing the two employees dancing in their underwear, plenty of meaningless stories within the main plot and generally, the feeling of chaos. The acting is good, even the actor from Ace Ventura.

I can't believe this movie got so much critical acclaim.

3/10