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AgentLouisa
Reviews
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Everything was fine yesterday.
Absolute classic.
Wonderfully darkly comedic, brilliant characters. Fantastic acting, directing, cinematography. The lucky shamrock of Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Martin McDonagh. Moments of concentrated silence where viewers, seated in the dark cinema, tried to stifle their tears, and failed, moments after laughter. An island so beautiful that when we left the cinema we immediately wanted to go live there...or maybe visit. And please, please, see it at the cinema.
An interesting 20th century time period - I did not know that the Republic of Ireland was still governed by the British then, so I learned something historic on top of learning something about myself.
It's an-anti buddy movie of sorts. Why does Colm now hate Padraic? Colm must hate him, because of the extremes he goes too with his fiddling fingers. Literally as I'm writing this, a couple of weeks later, I'm musing on these two former friends, Pad's sister Siobhan and donkey, the pub; Dominic, Pad's young friend, grown up like the psychological version of rickets from the island-isolation from his own age (covid-lockdown, anyone?) cemented in by an abusive father-son relationship which everyone ignores, and his dazzlingly awkward precursive monologue with Siobhan. And island life - the beauty but how beauty is not enough, not even in the sea and the cliffs and the hills. So much but I won't say anymore because, please see it and let it talk to you, quietly.
Star Trek: Discovery: Coming Home (2022)
Loved it! Back to a Trek future
What I loved about Star Trek was the utopian future it embodied - a wonderful hope that one day we'd have world peace and hunger, homelessness, bigotry, etc, etc would be a thing resigned to their history and our present.
Previous series of Star Trek, and Picard, if I'm honest seemed to have forgotten that the threat to the Federation comes not from within - if society's problems have been solved why would it? - but from the clash with other cultures who haven't got this yet sorted out. But we always reach out with the hand of friendship with the Prime Directive in mind. Blowing stuff up is not the way, but that doesn't mean you can't have the threat of blowing stuff up!
So, yay, this series and this ending is right back to that. And they've gone to lengths to show us the beauty of the team and family, friendships, communication, no lone heroes. Embracing emotion. The hard way not the easy way. I was glad to get to know more of the crew. The series wasn't perfect but it made me very emotional, as you'd want from great drama.
Awesome stuff. I nearly didn't watch this season but I'm so glad I did now. Looking forward to the next one.
Roar: The Woman Who Ate Photographs (2022)
Mothers and daughters
'I don't like talking to her. I don't like spending time with her. But I love her. I don't want to lose her.'
Robin is losing her mum to dementia. I lost my mum to cancer. Feelings are complicated and this gets it exactly right.
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
The final scene made it for me
The final scene made it for me. Giving it a ten out of ten because I have never seen an action movie end like that. Bl**dy brilliant! Well done Maude. More please.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Sanctuary (2020)
Why wasn't this exciting?
Don't get me wrong: the STs which came before had their problems, too white, straight and masculine, so it's good to see this address that. But previous STs would be exciting, funny, dramatic, sexy, must-see TV for a Sci-fi fan. DS9 ran for 26 episodes a season with no duds. Voyager (and that had some serious turkeys) episode The Void where Voyager had to convince all the other ships to stop fighting and band together to escape a region of space literally had me in tears it was so inspirational. But this ST has perfunctory dialogue and heavy handed with issues - it makes the scriptwriting sin of preaching, rather than storytelling. Here's an example: Adina, who I agree feels like they've been shoehorned in with nothing interesting to do, tells Stamets they are not 'she' but 'they' and they've never told anyone before. What? You mean in 1,100 years they are still worried about coming out as 'they'? Oh, no! (And why hasn't the future come up with a less confusing non-binary pronoun?) ST has always been a beautiful vision of the future where the inequality that we wrestle with today is solved and people are comfortable with who they are; the messiness came when the federation dealt with old school civilisations, or power-mad parasites. I'd like to see more characterisation of other crew members and more actual peril, 'shields are down captain', 'she canna take anymore!'
Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020)
Fun, funny and sassy
Middle aged white woman here. I loved this movie. It had a lot of heart and loved its characters and its home, and I liked that the rich white folk got what was coming to them. (The more I think of it, the more it seems a fitting allegory.) If you like tongue-in-cheek sassy coming-of-age vampire flicks, this one is for you.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Beautiful ghost love story
If you are looking for the usual shock horror then you may wish to look elsewhere. If you fancy an intelligently put together story of love, loss, family and sacrifice wound tightly around women, with a slow burn creep factor, get stuck in. The first two episodes were almost too slow, and almost put off by the source material (not a huge fan of Turn of the Screw, but I'm going to give it another go) but, after a couple more episodes, I tuned into the mood and mysteries of Bly Manor. I couldn't sleep before clearing my head of it. I loved each character and felt they were all fairly treated, even the monstrous, sucked into the Manor's centuries-in-the-making 'gravity well' of injustice. Bly is simple but ambitious with a lovely bitter sweet poignancy.
Away (2020)
Emotional space drama
I remember Jonathan Frakes saying what mattered in Star Trek was not the worlds, or technology or aliens, but the drama between people. This show does not have lots of science or space and there's no aliens, but it does have nail-biting drama of the Apollo 13 variety (but, thank God, with more women), lots of well drawn characters and relationships of both extreme close up and ultra long distance variety.
There's strong themes of parenthood - the fathers who couldn't hack it and are working through redemption, the mothers desperate to fulfil their potential of an epic achievement but sometimes paralysed with guilt at the effect on their families.
I loved all of these people, doing their best even when they didn't see eye to eye.
Yes, people cry in this. Good!
Absentia: Committed (2019)
Suspect agenda
Just like the reviewers who pointed out that administering insulin to a diabetic who'd passed out would have killed her, the condemnation of a suspect was extremely, well, suspect. Watch the Innocence Files on Netflix and you will see that offering a single photograph (rather than a line up) to an eye witness, especially of a difference race from their own, will likely plant that image in their mind and make them believe that this suspect was indeed the perpetrator regardless of the truth. So, four white investigators and one white witness decide a black man is guilty. And, after a bit of torture, oh, look - turns out they are! Hmm. Viewers (and Hugh Quarshie) deserve more these days. Giving up on this series.
Dragons: Rescue Riders: Secrets of the Songwing (2020)
My seven year old loves this!
My daughter has watched this three times on the trot and counting! She loves the songs, that Layla is a hero, and a girl plays the songwing.
It makes her laugh and she's enjoying learning the songs.
Snowpiercer (2020)
Intelligent dystopia
I liked the film and this TV show. Lots of interesting characters surviving in the strange environment of a train that can't slow down. Slow burn realisations of the ramifications of accidents on the train.
I wish reviewers would show a little patience before they angrily downvoted. No it's not a detective show, not past the first few episodes anyway, but it does have lots of mystery and intrigue.
And so it has people of colour, women in charge, LBTQ+ Ahole white people, complex female antiheroes and nuanced acting? Great! Isn't that more interesting? Not every show has to have a rightwing agenda.
Enterprise: Dear Doctor (2002)
Thinky episode
This is not so much a review but a consideration of the themes of 'Dear Doctor'.
I did enjoy this episode but, after reading the reviews, changed my mind about agreeing with Archer's decision.
As some reviewers have said, evolution is about the best adaptation for survival in any given environment.
If we accept that our large brains have given human primates the evolutional advantage on earth, then any advantage our brains can afford is 'letting nature take its course'.
So although the Valakians have a disease arising from some evolutionary dead end in their physical make up, their larger brains gives them the advantage of space travel, which allows them to find, and ask for help from, a more medically advanced species.
Moreover, as has also been pointed out, how did the Menk evolve? If they are given everything they need to survive - food, water, shelter - then we could assume that their exposure to Valakian culture is the reason for their brain development.
This is the flaw with the (future) 'prime directive'. The prime directive assumes that any interference gets in the way of nature and natural development, unique culture, etc. And I can understand this urge not to repeat shameful history, given the interference of imperialistic Europeans on American, African and Australian indigenous cultures in particular, and the excuse of better medicine to subjugate a people.
But the ideals of the prime directive do not hold water in this instance. Dr Phlox and Captain Archer decide not to save the Valakians, and their decision is based on their own (limited) command of science and philosophy and their own cultural prejudices (and privilege). Surely this is the point of a prime directive, to make these hard decisions easy? Not when a principle lacks nuance, because, again, it relies on individual interpretation, namely that of the captain.
Better to think with compassion of the lives in the here and now, not those in the future.
Because scientific principles without compassion has also landed humanity in hot water.
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
Lots of fun!
Loved this movie - great cartoon silliness. More movies like this directed, written, produced and starred in by women, please!
Men - hush.
Raising Dion (2019)
If you are fed up with superheroes throwing each other against buildings
It's hard enough being a mum, especially if you've been widowed and you've given up your dreams to raise your child and now you have to take any old job to make ends meet. But what if, on top of all that, your kid has super powers?
I like that this show is not just about the powered child (around my daughter's age) but about the mum trying to get a piece of herself back, and finds she must seek help from others - especially other women - to bring it all together.
There's so many things in this show which reflect my reality - child rearing, schooling, fitting in, making work/career and childcare fit together. I loved that the mother was emotional and fought for her family in a genre that I enjoy, I think she's the real hero. The kids were just kids, not precocious - annoying, self-absorbed but also fun and wide-eyed at the world. It's really well done too, a great story, convincing dialogue and characters throughout. Men don't come off too well in this so I'm unsurprised some reviewers have taken umbrage. But, really, women and people with left-leaning politics have to put up with macho shows and right wing agendas thrust down our throats all the time, so get over that this is a different kind of narrative and stop with the political review bombing.
There's a great twist, too!
Drive (2011)
Don't expect an action movie. I did, but I got over it.
Drive is the kind of film that sits around in my head, gnawing away like a toothache.
Probably my favourite film of the last twelve months is Tarantino's Django Unchained. But now I've seen Drive and there the two of them are, opposite sides of the fence: Django snarling and snapping, Drive looking stoical.
There's a heist gone wrong, but it's not a heist movie. There's car chases but it's not about the action. It's got a passionate love affair but no sex. The lead character commits criminal acts but he's a hero (and not an anti-hero). There's ultra-violence, but it's not about the blood. There's amazing cars, but they are just, well, good looking props. It's got Wise Guys but it isn't a gangster film.
It used all these things to suck me in, tell its story, and then leave me to obsess over everything unsaid.
It's pointless comparing this to an action movie like The Transporter, or even the films of Tarantino. Better to view it in the same spirit as Scorsese's Goodfellas, Lynch's Blue Velvet, Noe's Irreversible or even the early 1950s western, Shane.
The opening scene is a lesson in how to play out a getaway: no emotional dialogue, no screaming, no panicking, no rants on how the heist went: simply full concentration on losing the police helicopters and squad cars. And I completely believed that Ryan Gosing, cast as the driver, was driving that car.
The violence is not there to bask in the blood or to revel in the victim's downfall, it's an intense burst of emotion boiling into a pure expression of anger. It made me look away, in the same way I would if I saw a couple kissing tenderly on the street, or a close up of a person crying over their dead loved one. It told me I needed to watch this, or at least believe in the conviction behind the violence.
The professional reviewers talked a lot about a 'nuanced' performance by Gosling. I had to concentrate on every look he made; every small change in expression. And I loved it.
And at the heart was a story of love at first sight, the intense yearning for a family, and the lengths a man will go to protect these things - to commit crimes, kill and even give up the girl.
And what of the driver - where did he come from? Was he running? Was he trying to be a different person? Did he know how his life would inevitably end? Did it end?
I'm so glad Drive left me to answer these questions for myself.