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9/10
visually beautiful, appealing, lovely sound design and music, lots to think about
24 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I was really struck when this film was withdrawn from uk cinemas and am still looking for a place where i can see it on a large screen, hopefully we will all be able to at some point. I am not sure whether this film will be for everyone as it leans very much on artistry and drama and character and has limited action which is what many people look for in their entertainment; the green knight is looking for something much deeper and longer lasting, and i think that it is a film which will endure. It feels distinctly different from excalibur, perhaps the most obvious point of comparison. Although there are some signs of combat, unlike excalibur the combat is very much in the background. Dev patel does a great job providing sir gawain with layers of development, making him believable and watchable even though he is not obviously likeable; gawain is highly flawed in many ways and there is every suggestion that his mission is misguided or even a failure. This film is very much about an individual's personal quest to find themselves. Gawain is not a knight at the beginning and there are frequent questions over whether he is ever really a knight in the true sense. There is also the question of whether the quest is more important than the destination. I must say that this film looks absolutely beautiful and is well worth seeing on that basis, it is not likely that you will soon see a film which appears more stunning. The film can be very dark in places, which sometimes made it hard to work out what was actually happening. Darkness and shadow are used quite heavily here at many points. The sound design and music are equally wonderful, as is the choir which sometimes appears in the background. Some of the music is medieval, some is very strange indeed; i was absorbed by the very weirdness of certain pieces such as the green knight theme. The green knight is an excellent design clearly designed to represent the green man legend. Nature is seen as a palpable force in its own right, and magic as being real; the green knight's appearances often bring supernatural phenomena of some form with them. The talking fox was a nice idea but i didn't get it, i didn't understand quite what it was supposed to be and the cgi was not completely convincing. Aside from the knight himself we also have the mysterious giants, an overtly fantastical element; much of the rest of the film feels fairly realistic and convincing. Arthur is portrayed in a rather interesting way as a very elderly king who is looking increasingly fragile and helpless. Morgana is depicted in a somewhat understated manner. There are a few unexpected and almost random incidents which do change the course of events, some were straightforward some i did not quite understand. Joel edgerton's lord is quite important, by his words he implies that he actually knows gawain quite well; raising questions as to how this is so, possibly edgerton is another manifestation of the green knight himself. Gawain takes the axe at an early stage and keeps it with him for some time; clearly this is symbolic in itself in some way as the camera often lingers on it and it becomes part of the plot, although exactly what it means i couldn't quite work out. There is a magical scarf which gawain wears around his waist which supposedly grants him invulnerability, this gift is significant as well and turns up at a number of points. Gawain is passed arthur's sword at one point but has to give it up for the green knight's axe instead, perhaps this means that nature is more important than the human kingdom. Another important point is that sometimes women turn up wearing blindfolds, there are at least two women who do this although why they do so is again not completely clear.
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Candyman (2021)
8/10
slow first half plot building leads to really good scares later on
27 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I was very interested in seeing this film mainly due to jordan peele's previous movies get out and us, both good horror movies with good scares original ideas and things to say. I have to say that i was very pleased with the result, although to my mind the first half of this movie was perhaps a little slow, certainly much slower than the second half where most of the horror and scares lie. This is not really a serious criticism as the first half performs an essential task in building important story elements including character background, setting, back story and themes, elements which pay off later on. The film works better in the end because it spends time and effort working on these important points. The film maintains continuity as far as i could tell with the original and i will certainly be giving the original another look based on what i experienced here. Yahya abdul mateen grew on me as the film progressed, at first i did not like his character who seemed to be a bit obsessed and even self centred but yahya's performance made the character's weaknesses believable and gripping on a dramatic level, as he becomes more unhinged during his pursuit of the candyman legend which becomes his downfall in every way. Teyonah parris is good and likeable as the girlfriend and becomes eventually my identification figure more than yahya's character does; at first i was much more on his side but my perspective definitely changed throughout the movie. Colman domingo was a completely new face to me but again he was very good, providing one of the faces of evil within this film surprisingly enough and i never saw it coming, just a laundry attendant of all things yet with a really nasty side in the end, as we find out. Michael hargrove was very good too, playing the original candyman character as well as his supernatural later form. Overall i thought that all of the actors did quite well here, the list above were the ones which stood out for me. Evil within this film comes in a number of different forms, at first oen thinks that the candyman is evil, then it emerges that there are other sides, society itself is depicted as full of unpleasantness, racism amongst the police force is one of the key underlying messages. For me, one of the best scares came very near the ending, when teyonah parris is sitting in the back of a police car following a series of murders and the cop says some very frightening things to her, this underlying racism theme gives this film more substance and indeed is present from the beginning, with the candyman's sad fate (he never apparently used razor blades after all, someone else did so he was innocent) an important early moment. Shadow puppets are used on occasion, although i have never seen this used in a film before it worked quite well and made a nice contrast with the standard filming. The cgi within the film is used sparingly to make physically impossible events work, and they do, although you can tell where the cgi has been used it makes for some dramatic moments and gore. The makeup effects used for yahya's physical decline match his inward mental decline and were sometimes too disgusting to look at, i did look away from the screen once or twice. The murders when they came were quite bloody, and not necessarily handled in the way one might have expected, some imagination was used in the way that they were shown, making them more interesting. The theme of obsession is very important within this film, as yahya's character anthony becomes obsessed with the candyman and with trying to create new works of art, which comes with serious and upsetting consequences.
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Play for Today: Robin Redbreast (1970)
Season 1, Episode 9
8/10
interesting precursor to the wicker man with a debt to the golden bough
6 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This play was much better than i had expected, i discovered this play by accident while researching folk horror and decided that i would give it a look. It is in black and white and much shorter than expected, the length helps as the pacing feels about right and events keep moving. Anna cropper is extremely good as norah palmer and really holds the story together, she is a strong sometimes fallible female lead and still appears strong even when the odds against her are hopeless. The villagers are engaged in some kind of conspiracy involving her, a somewhat strange and slightly simple villager called rob played by andy bradford, and the unplanned child which they conceive together. The locals soon move in and act towards norah in ways which are really creepy and manipulative. There are clear elements of the wicker man here although this story was made years before robin hardy's film. The tone is somewhere between the wicker man and children of the stones, again years before that was made. There are mature themes of sacrifice, unplanned pregnancy and abortion contained here. The ending has a distinct suggestion of the supernatural within it, although hints of something beyond nature are dropped from time to time earlier on. James frazer's the golden bough is directly quoted as an explanation at one point for everything that is going on, making the actions of the villagers frightening and yet explicable. Penda's fen is also part of play for today and is similarly very good, i have seen this recently too. Apparently the story was based on a real case where a group of villagers abducted and murdered a tramp in order to use his blood as an offering, although this may be apocryphal. There is a ten minute interview with the director at the end, the play almost feels like something which robin hardy might have made.
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9/10
better action and effects, better story, improved characters and suspense
1 June 2021
Pretty good for a superhero movie, maybe as good as it is possible to get. I noticed numerous improvements over the joss whedon version, i felt it was right that this version got made in the end. The characters get much more time, cyborg and the flash in particular seemed to really benefit from this. There was more action and the effects were better and more exciting, there were less quips and less humour and some frightening nightmare sequences which provide some truly disturbing hints about a possible future. The joker and deathlok make brief appearances but are very effective and interesting. Lex luthor is very well played by jesse eisenberg, becoming a truly essential character. Henry cavill is a little bit gentle as a superhero, maybe a little too soft to be so important to the plot. Ben affleck was fairly convincing as batman, halfway between civilised and brutal and sometimes stepping back from the line while sometime crossing over it. Wonderwoman is a strong character while being still maybe a little bit conventional and decent. I would be intrigued to see more of batman, aquaman, the flash, cyborg and wonderwoman certainly, maybe cyborg as he is so well played and i still know him the least well.
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6/10
Watchable movie but could have been better more epic and more involving
22 May 2021
I happened across a trailer for this film somewhere on the internet and it looked kind of intriguing at the time, when I found out that I could watch it for free on Amazon Prime I decided to give it a look. It must be said that there are a great many variations of the Arthur and Merlin story in film and these are very easy to find, I imagine that the quality varies the idea is certainly not original and it must be hard to think of some variation of it which someone else has not already done. I will probably be watching more of these in the future as I like mythological stories. The upcoming The Green Knight does however appear to be better than this film.

The central threat of this story is the Saxon army. You will soon notice that the Saxons never really appear, neither do we see any signs of an actual army let alone any war scenes. This is a bit of a giveaway that budgetary restrictions may have been involved in the production, as this threat is all about talk, not about revealing. Mordred is supposedly an agent of the Saxons, Joel Phillimore plays it very corrupt and creepy, at the same time Mordred never does anything really evil and it becomes difficult to believe that he is actually a real threat, a conclusion borne out by the eventual climax. The sorceress Vortigone is slightly more interesting, an occasional magic user which makes her a little more unpredictable than Mordred. I spent some time trying to figure out where Morgana was, before coming to the conclusion that she is not actually part of this story. This is one of the factors which makes Knights of Camelot feel more like a sequel than an original story.

Arthur himself is played by Richard Short. The story appears to be missing the true beginning of Arthur, who is having many problems and appears to have lost his kingdom. Regaining the throne is the central thrust of the story. Short shows lots of emotion and I began to find his performance engaging, in spite of not really knowing this actor and not really having seen him before. He appears to be the best actor in the cast and gives more to his role than anyone else. Merlin is played by Richard Brake. Merlin can change into the form of a bird, he can also teleport, apart from this his magic is not really used very much, indeed Merlin appears very little in the film and remains very mysterious, or underdeveloped, throughout. There is some use of magic throughout the film, this does make it stand out slightly as apart from this the film appears to follow a very realistic tone. Like the acting the magic appears to be underplayed.

The film is very dark and shadowy, almost like black and white, the shadows stand out as being really dark. This makes the film look and feel really moody, the technique itself is probably achieved quite simply but can give a film a striking visual intensity with little effort. The landscape shots are sweeping and give the film an occasionally epic feel when they do occur. I think that most of the outdoor shots or certainly a majority of them were filmed under circumstances where there was a lot of tree cover or cloud cover, making the settings deliberately darker.

The film was certainly not a letdown, on the other hand it does not really rise to any great heights either. It was probably under budgeted, as there are signs of shortcuts of one kind or another in various forms. The acting is fair to middling, with Richard Short's Arthur probably the best performance of the cast. There was some nice use of magic, but the film feels more like a drama than an epic. The fight scenes are not bad, but not very large in scope and they could have been a little more exciting.
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8/10
flight of the phoenix
28 August 2020
A shuttle carrying picard, wesley and an alien pilot goes out of control and crash lands on an alien planet, luckily they all survive unharmed but a struggle for survival is now about to begin as they have no shelter and no water. alan carter, eagle pilot alan carter from space: 1999, turns up here as another pilot, an alcoholic and reckless alien who gets them all into trouble. there is a secondary plot about an alien vessel needing rescue by the enterprise, but it is the interaction between picard and wesley, and wesley's chance to prove himself a hero, which matters the most.
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SeaQuest 2032: The Last Lap at Luxury (1994)
Season 1, Episode 18
8/10
above average for excitement and drama
27 August 2020
What we have here is a pretty tense scenario as a terrorist who possesses an earthquake making device uses it to attack a city and leave an international conference stranded deep under the sea. lucas surprisingly takes a key role here and gets to do far more than usual, even addressing the conference before becoming key to their survival. scheider gets a fair bit of physical action, mounting a daring rescue attempt of a kind usually expected from bid budget hollywood action movies. it gives him more to do than arguing with his superiors or the latest nutcase, although he gets to meet the man behind the terror at one point.
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Tales from the Darkside: Lifebomb (1985)
Season 2, Episode 2
8/10
a bad way to die
24 August 2020
Another moral story here as a man with far too much time and money decides that he will try to cheat death, only to find out that some fates are worse than death which indeed they are. the situation which he is drawn into and ends up suffering is indeed hopeless. if only he had lived a different life he might have ended up somewhere far better. another case of a man's sins bringing him down.
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Tales from the Darkside: The Tear Collector (1985)
Season 1, Episode 16
9/10
strange beautiful and ultimately moving
24 August 2020
A woman falls in love with a handsome man who turns out to have an extremely strange habit: he likes to collect people's tears, believing them to have magical qualities. tears are indeed precious and impossible to take back. while appearing to love her, his manipulations are designed for no other purpose than to serve his weird obsession. the woman is almost destroyed by this liar and is is sad to see her being broken down; one wonders exactly how she is going to save herself, fortunately she does turn the tables on him in the end.
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Tales from the Darkside: The Satanic Piano (1985)
Season 2, Episode 6
9/10
pride comes before a fall
24 August 2020
A vain and arrogant musician must face the consequences of his actions when an apparently miraculous machine offers him everything that he wants but at a great price. the story is fantastical but it's the hidden if obvious message underneath which hits hard. anyone of us can become obsessed with fame, with fortune, with work, to the detriment of our lives, when the rewards appear high enough. does there finally come a point when the price of fulfilling our dreams is no longer worthwhile? the answer appears to be yes, indeed it is. the musician realises that he has done harm to himself and his loved ones in the end, although the cost becomes even higher to himself.
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SeaQuest 2032: Whale Song (1994)
Season 1, Episode 15
7/10
some tough decisions for schieder to make
21 August 2020
It was very interesting to see roy schieder's captain being hauled over the coals by the senior navy personnel, clearly they did not believe that he was the man for the job of stopping a rogue submarine, he proves them right in a way by resigning, only they don't know what he has actually done. you may find yourself asking whether schieder was right as the submarine has killed many people including civilians; is schieder doing what he thinks is right or is he just running away? this aspect of the plot is tense and involving as you can't wait to see how far schieder will really go. i felt that the comedy plot involving the smuggling of fake meat was just cheap filler compared to the real moral dilemma, although it did make me smile a few times.
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SeaQuest 2032: Nothing But the Truth (1994)
Season 1, Episode 13
8/10
Die Hard underwater
19 August 2020
When the Seaquest is hijacked and the crew locked up, one man, Commander Jonathan Ford, is left alone to fight back. The comparisons with action staple Die Hard are obvious, but it works well enough as an action story and we get to see a lot more of the Seaquest's interior than usual. It is also good to see the whole crew struggling and being beaten up, putting them in more danger than usual.
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Fright Night (1985)
9/10
Near perfect entertainment
18 August 2020
This film has great wit, humour and scares as well as really good make-up fx. If you are looking for entertainment this film will give you what you want. It is great to see genre stalwart Roddy McDowell appear here as the vampire slayer, he brings the right humorous tone to a role that might have become a little bit serious if handled by someone else. This film prefigures the great Buffy the Vampire Slayer in many ways, you can see how that tv show might have drawn some inspiration from this film. It is very clued in to the younger, teen generation while also being clever, well thought out and sometimes mature and even frightening where necessary.
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SeaQuest 2032: Photon Bullet (1993)
Season 1, Episode 11
7/10
just like matthew broderick in war games
17 August 2020
This is a coming of age story with a computer hacker twist. lucas is the teenage genius (kind of like wesley crusher in star trek: the next generation), in this episode all of his dreams appear to come true - new opportunities, great job, great friends, even a love interest. he has it all going, of course it is too good to be true as he eventually finds out. fortunately lucas has a moral centre and decides to do the right thing. it was nice to see some actors who would turn up again in later series like buffy the vampire slayer or star trek: voyager. the whole thing is entertaining while providing just a bit of a shock.
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8/10
powerful alien who wants to help
14 August 2020
This episode is basically a morality play about a misunderstood character who wants to do the right thing. his powers are unique and out of the ordinary, making him seem at first a little threatening. there is far more to it of course, we are soon taught not to judge someone by first impressions and he actually turns out to be really nice. kindness and trust are the key values lying at the heart of the story, naturally john doe has enemies who want to get rid of him and the enterprise crew find themselves with choices to make. this shows that the situations which they face require personal discretion of a high order, not just following rules and regulations. fortunately the enterprise crew does what is right and try to sort things out.
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SeaQuest 2032: SeaWest (1993)
Season 1, Episode 10
7/10
straightforward action drama
14 August 2020
The first thing which i noticed, and liked, about this episode was the effects. overall i thought they were very nicely done, and convincingly conveyed the impression of an underwater world. the sharks, which i assume were computer generated, looked fairly real. there was a realistic looking underwater base or dock which cropped up a few times, this building looked like real, usable hardware. there is trouble stirring at a mining operation, it turns out that familiar genre stalwart david mccallum is at the centre of it. i remember this actor well and it was a pleasure to see him turning up in a surprise role. the rest of the story is straightforward but effective; so far, with my limited experience in seaquest dsv, this looks like being a straightforward action adventure series with an underwater setting used to add a bit of novelty.
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SeaQuest 2032: Bad Water (1993)
Season 1, Episode 8
7/10
Fair underwater thriller
13 August 2020
I really like the design of the Seaquest, this is a neat looking ship; the producers have a done a good job with the CGI effects, the set design is also excellent; the whole thing looks very organic, kind of like a squid or some other sea creature. the nearest comparison that i can think of is the nautilus from disney's 20000 leagues under the design, another amazing design. having said this, the craft doesn't seem all that advanced as it soon runs into trouble and gets stuck on the sea bed along with another unfortunate craft. the seaquest is not ultra modern like the uss enterprise, far from it it is far more fallible. the use of the underwater element is quite nice, and must have been hard to film, water usually is. i wonder whether the scenes with a dinghy were filmed at sea or in a very large floatation tank? it looks quite convincing whichever it is. i couldn't understand how an electrical charge could penetrate the hull of the craft, haven't the writer's ever heard of the faraday cage effect? apparently not. the acting appeared fair. the production was lucky to get jaws's roy scheider onboard, although i have read that he leaves after season two. his presence has just the right touch of humanity and authority. the whole concept does remind me a little of irwin allen's voyage to the bottom of the sea, a childhood favourite of mine. this show does not seem to share the same irwin allen mix of ambition and tackiness though, at least from what i have seen so far. we will have to see how that develops.
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6/10
Entertaining but some of the acting is not there
11 August 2020
I found this film to be pretty entertaining to watch, I notice that there are a lot of films about Merlin and King Arthur I don't know which ones to pick and which ones to avoid so this choice was almost random. The three lead actors are pretty good in their roles, although few others try; I kept noticing that there was very little acting going on from most of the cast, who seemed to be very uninvolved and disinterested in what they were doing. I thought that the film looked fairly authentic in its settings, the villages looked like what you would expect to see for this sort of time period. The filming was very good, I loved the rays of light shining through the shadows in the forest and thought that the forest scenes looked really good, I also liked some of the location photography which sometimes made this film look far more epic and far more expensive than I think it really was. The Lord of the Rings series kept coming to mind, which shows that some effort was made with the production. Kirk Barker and Stefan Butler seemed a little bit young for their roles, in some ways this worked well as Arthur and Merlin are at an early stage in their friendship and would have been a little bit younger and more naive than their legends which they will acquire after further adventures. Stefan kept making me think of Russel Brand and several times I had to check that the film had not cast Russel Brand as Merlin. Kirk is appropriately heroic while Stefan is as eccentric as you would expect the wizard to be. Nigel Cooke is solid as Aberthol, he is the expected big bad villain who makes everything into a problem. He is maybe not quite evil enough, but then this is I think meant to be a family film, so you can't go too far. In some ways it does work as he has to convey menace through suggestion and implication, which requires far more skill and I think he manages to do it. David Sterne convinces as King Vortigern, taking into account the fact that he has suffered a severe head trauma, is under Aberthol's influence and is probably suffering from dementia; Sterne successfully conveys the king's uncertainty and his tendency to forget where he is and what he is doing, which is exactly what you would expect. There is humour throughout the film and Kirk Barker and Stefan Butler have some good interplay with each other.
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Merlin: The Diamond of the Day: Part Two (2012)
Season 5, Episode 13
8/10
Sad but fitting conclusion that leaves something open
7 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This episode starts with a massive and tremendously exciting battle before getting up close and personal as we see a lot of interaction between Merlin and Arthur in some well acted, crucial and moving scenes. Their story arcs arguably remain somewhat open, while Morgana and Mordred both find the end of their arcs. As for what happens to everyone else, we can only guess. A surprise final twist leaves open the possibility of a sequel, should one ever be decided upon. The knights do get involved to some degree, although not all of them. It was a satisfying story, if a little dissatisfying due to some loose ends which were surely deliberate, also due to being a little bit abrupt the show could have sustained a few more seasons.
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Merlin: The Diamond of the Day: Part One (2012)
Season 5, Episode 12
9/10
Merlin approaches his destiny
6 August 2020
More now than ever this really is Merlin's story, he even gets to meet his father who helps him to understand what he has to do in order to save the kingdom. Some fairly dramatic battle scenes occur although we only get to see half of them as this is a two parter. Who will finally survive and what will happen to them? In some ways Merlin has always been his own worst enemy as his actions have often resulted in harm coming to others often a little naively as he does not always appear to be aware of the consequences of his own actions. Will he do the right thing this time?
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Merlin: The Drawing of the Dark (2012)
Season 5, Episode 11
8/10
Building up to the final conclusion
5 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I am surprised that Merlin only ran to five seasons, I would have thought that there was more than enough story left to run to six or seven series at least. From what I understand the series has enjoyed some popularity, yet here we are, almost at the end. Kara might have worked a little bit better if she had been introduced a little earlier, given more shades of character; the plot still works very well indeed, yet she turns bad very quickly and we know how guilty she really is, there is no room for doubt. This is all a bit sad as another character might have displayed some redeemable qualities. Arthur's judgement seems necessary, yet at the same time we know it will bring about the end. Merlin tries to change his mind but once again proves helpless to change fate.
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Merlin: The Kindness of Strangers (2012)
Season 5, Episode 10
8/10
the value of friendship
4 August 2020
Merlin finds out who he can trust as all of his friends play their roles in saving him in one way or another. an unexpected face from the past turns out to be really important, while merlin finds out that he has an ally who he didn't know he had. once again others sacrifice their lives while merlin moves closer and closer to his destiny.
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Merlin: The Hollow Queen (2012)
Season 5, Episode 8
9/10
gripping plot of betrayal and assassination
31 July 2020
A good story again with morgana up to her evil worst, and guinevere even joins in on it. how far is she bewitched and how far is she wanting to take part? Merlin is taken out of action thanks to the actions of a young Druid boy who makes the mistake of helping Morgana, luckily he still possesses a conscience and stays behind to help after Morgana has gone. One wonders how far Guinevere will go to undermine Camelot, as a new warrior leader is plotting against Arthur and she gets involved in that too. It's really not poor Arthur's day.
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Y Mabinogi (2003)
9/10
cracking version of the mabinogion, although bran is not blue
31 July 2020
I thought that this film was really nice, a satisfying drama in the style of something like the owl service, elidor or children of the stones, at least within the opening scenes. this sets things up quite nicely for the transition into the next world, which all feels very magical and very believable. the characters are related to certain heros and heroines from the welsh mythology, when they move to the next world they retain those characteristics and must work through their problems. i would not say that this film is soft, some of the violence and incidents are extremely shocking for a family drama and indeed would be hard to explain to younger viewers; i would have rated this film at least 15 for frequent violence, it almost gets like game of thrones from time to time. the animation style is not bad, kind of painterly and sometimes cgi is used in certain scenes or parts of scenes, which was slightly jarring but effective. i was quite shocked when llew turned into an eagle and still think this moment is absolutely amazing.
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Merlin: A Lesson in Vengeance (2012)
Season 5, Episode 7
9/10
guinevere turns evil
30 July 2020
It was great seeing guinevere turn evil and start plotting against camelot, this was an obvious plot choice but it works out really well. i get a kick out of seeing good people turn bad and i am sure that it gave the actors much more to work with than usual. not that they are bad as they are far from it, but acting involves showing different sides this makes for proper drama. merlin is outstanding as a tv show and getting proper character development twists conflicts and shading just makes it even better. merlin gets blamed for it all of course leading to some extremely exciting sequences as he is chased around camelot and has to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, using all of his knowledge and magical skills in the process. just what entertainment was made for. there is a distinct what know vibe to the closing scenes, as we wonder what arthur will do next and what plot guinevere and behind her morgana are hatching.
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