This was good. Very much Oscar bait, but still. It’s based on an interesting true story. I enjoyed watching stuff about the early days of television, and the power (perceived or real) it had. All the performances were good. Yeah, it was a little by-the-numbers, but I liked it. Also, Martin Scorsese’s cameo was odd. But cool, I suppose.
I’d heard mostly positive things about this, so it was kind of a disappointment. The screenplay’s just not very good. It doesn’t have the weight or pace to keep the film interesting for very long. The dialogue was seriously underdeveloped too. The references to past James Bond films didn’t work that well either. The one thing I thought I could count on this film to deliver was great action sequences, but there weren’t really any. It’s not all bad though. The cinematography was quite often gorgeous, and Javier Bardem was excellent. From what I remember, it’s probably a bit better than Quantum of Solace (2008), but not as strong as Casino Royale (2006). My favourite part about it was Adele’s song, and I’ve already heard that a bunch of times by now.
This turned out to be pretty much what I expected. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was a nice marriage of the humour as well as the heartfelt intelligence I’ve come to expect from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. I liked the 70s style too. It was pretty formulaic and predictable overall though. I’ve seen the same sort of story a few times before. In the end, I enjoyed it. It was nice and had plenty of great, funny moments.
Coriolanus isn’t one of the more famous Shakespeare plays, and I didn’t know anything about it before watching this adaptation. I found it pretty easy to follow though, even with the Shakespearean language. It’s really beautiful to listen to. I will admit though, that I did tune out a couple of times. Anyway, I thought it was pretty decent. The story was interesting enough. I liked the modern take on it and the setting seemed to work well enough. I thought the cast did a fantastic job. Especially Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave. Yeah, it was good. Not amazing. But good.
P365 Film #190
Well, well, well. Here we are. After 11 years, eight of which had a movie released, we are finally at the end of the Harry Potter saga. I think I read the first book when I was about 11 or 12 and and books 2-4 shortly thereafter. The first movie came out not long after that. And I kept up with the books and movies, right up until today. So what did I think of this final film? It was good. But the word that kept coming to mind was… “underwhelming”. I’m not sure if I put too much expectation on it, or if I was remaining too faithful the book but most things fell flat for me. It started off really well. There were some really awesome moody shots and I was getting amped for the ending. But I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting for something epic and amazing and I didn’t feel it ever quite delivered. I was particularly disappointed in how it kind of glossed over some of the deaths of certain characters. I was looking forward to some emotional intensity at characters being killed, but they were very casually dealt with. It showed them dead for a second, then moved on to whatever Harry was doing. Everything moved so fast - they hardly ever dwelled on anything (though that’s been true of most of the films for me). So, yeah, most things felt disappointing to me. Harry’s final confrontation with Voldemort should’ve been the grandest moment of the series, but it was nothing too spectacular. Also, I guess it was inevitable with it being all about Harry and there being so many characters, but a lot of them really felt marginalised. Some of the pretty important or memorable characters only got one line, if that. One thing I will praise greatly was Alan Rickman. He was the best actor in the film and I really liked the flashbacks to his past. Maggie Smith was also brilliant. Anyway, I guess I wish I didn’t have the baggage of having already read the books. It’s really nowhere near as bad as I’m making it sound - it was still pretty well-made and enjoyable, but, like I said, underwhelming. I’m now pretty keen to read all the books again, to see how the stories should be experienced.
