Change Your Image
brandaine
Reviews
Ironside: The Leaf in the Forest (1967)
Ironside: The Leaf in the Forest
This is the second outing for consultant "Chief" Ironside ( not including the pilot).It is not one of the more memorable episodes; perhaps the cast are just finding their feet. The plot is pedestrian and the acting rather wooden.
The principal failure is the plot which fails to engage- principally because it fails to draw out the characters. The murderer's motives seem ostensibly plausible, but there is no sense in which we gain any psychological insight into the protagonist (vetern actor John Larch)and his motives.The episode title exercises only a tenuous link to the plot ( from a proverb apparently.The continuity seems to be contrived and there is little sense that it develops the plot or the characters. there are the usual shots of the paddy-wagon racing uptown but nothing really seems to come together.
The consummate eponymous Chief, Raymond Burr seems quite adrift in this rather slight plot and there is little for him to actually do.Fortunately, the series does improve and there is much to commend such a long and distinguished series.
Yella (2007)
The Phenomenology of Being Yella
This might have been a very intriguing movie but for the lacklustre plot.To write a movie script for a film like this needs the kind of intuition and knowledge one finds in Tarkovsky, Alain Renais or Luis Buñuel.
This is a slight movie in which the director Christian Petzold should have been able to carry off.
There is some intertextuality nudging in the direction of Tarkovsky (verdant tree swaying leitmotivs)but the movie never really gets airborne. It's dogged by repetitive mis en scene and dull dialogue and the script never exploits the possibilities of the plot.This is certainly not a bad movie, it just can't live up to the aspiration of its essential donnee and "surprise" if tacked on denouement.