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Reviews
Scrubs: My Cabbage (2006)
One of the best Scrubs Episodes
I think it is generally agreed that one of the most heart felt Scrubs endings is where **SPOILERRRRSSSS** Ben dies ****END SPOILERRRSSSSS****, and of course it is, I still cry every time I watch that episode. But unfortunately for me, I kinda caught on pretty early what was going to happen at the end so the "twist" wasn't so much of a twist for me.
This episode however I think is brilliant in taking a pretty minor joke right at the beginning of the show and turning it into a horrible tragedy. Initially anyone would think the intern is to blame, but obviously its JD. He should've fired him long ago. Thats another thing I love about Scurbs, for such a protagonist centred show they don't make the 'perfect' main guy. If anything I think JD is probably one of the most unappealing characters in terms of morals etc. He is always narrating the episodes' morals but on so many occasions he does wrong.
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Subjectively : One of my favourite films of all time; Objectively : one of the best films of all time
If you're on its IMDb page you've probably heard a lot about "Midnight Cowboy", and I hope to say a bit more about it than its re-release tag line that "everything you've heard about Midnight Cowboy is true".
Firstly, the driving force of the film comes from its two protagonists, their wonderful characters astonishingly acted by Voight and Hoffman. If you're an actor who appreciates fine performances and perhaps wants to learn from some of the masters of the profession look no further than Midnight Cowboy -- this is not to say that Voight and Hoffman's performances are THE best of all time, but perhaps no other film has showcased such quality performances in such a saturated way.
Joe Buck (Voight) is the charming, good looking blue eyed 'cowboy' from Texas. He is confident, charismatic and charming but helplessly naive. Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo is in many ways opposite to Joe, he is sickly, crippled and has none of the sexual confidence of Joe, yet these two men share a friendship that will follow you the rest of your life.
Roger Ebert said of Midnight Cowboy that people we've forgotten the the off-filming style, and remembered the purity of the central characters and the Voight and Hoffman performances, which brings me onto the only criticism of the film, the filming style. The film frequently uses very dated (though fashionable at the time) flash backs and bizarre dream sequences that seem to break the general bleak atmosphere of the film, however these are soon forgotten and does not warrant deducting a star from the overall score as compared to the fine narrative, setting and performances it is trivial.
Also on the topic of it being dated, the film is about a time when New York was a completely different to the rich man's playground it has now become. In this sense yes the film has dated but that phrase seems to always imply a negative connotation, a more fitting way to describe it is to call it a time capsule, and it really, truly is.
But the themes : loneliness, friendship, camaraderie and the false hope of the horizon will ring true for eternity.
Choses secrètes (2002)
Les Choses Secretes and its discontents...
First of all I think something should be clarified, namely the explicitness of this film. If you are familiar with French films, there is a relatively little amount of full frontal nudity. And the sex scenes are on par with those of many a British film. Though that being said whilst the nudity of french cinema might be there to merely add a simple level of realism or aesthetic to the film, and the sex of British cinema be there again to add realism and a bit of British bravado. Les Choses Secretes uses sex merely as a plot device, and since the plot is pretty awful, so is the sex and by extension, the film.
The film starts with a woman masturbating in front of a big crowd of people at a bar. The bar tender is a young twenty something who seems to have formidable maths skills yet is working at a sleazy bar(?). She befriends the masturbating lady and from then the two girls seem intent on playing a game of manipulating men for no apparent reason other than to assert their female dominance on them.
What has the potential of being an interesting treatise on feminism, ends up essentially being a misogynistic bore. Whilst the first two acts keep you mildly interested with suspense to see how things unfold, it is the third act which ruins the film. Too much is given too late, we are suddenly confronted with a character, and a whole other plot dimension within the last 10 minutes. We are left asking many questions and none of them are answered. This coupled with a bizarrely surprising orgy scene and a curiously operatic score, shows how confused the film is. It sits on the fine line between potentially an arty shoot and a soft core porn shoot.
It would have been a lot better if it chose to be one or the other.