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Reviews
Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests (2021)
Sloppy attempt at documentary making
There's no question that personality tests are psuedoscientific nonsense, and yet, like astrology or homeopathy, a vast number of people are still convinced by their efficacy. This amateur documentary is a compilation of interviews with random people, presenting no central thesis, all whilst stock library synth music blares constantly and loudly in the background. There are no academics or anyone with any kind of background in psychology or science interviewed, no research is ever specifically cited. It feels like a hastily cobbled together student project which might barely scrape a pass at a less reputable film school.
The Mr. Men Show (2008)
Absolutely dire
Producing children's shows nowadays involves either ripping off currently successful shows or finding old shows that were successful a generation ago, buying the rights to them and doing what Ronan Keating did to "When You Say Nothing At All" i.e. murder them. This show seems to be designed to be the gold standard of this kind of thing - it is truly, truly awful.
The scripts are obviously banged out in assembly line fashion. The characters all have regional accents, presumably some sort of attempt at political correctness which completely backfires considering the only French accent belongs to Mr Rude.
It all seems to have very little to do with Roger Hargreaves's original creation - if he was alive today he'd be horrified.
Action (1999)
"Plumbing the depths of depravity, crudeness, meanness, sexual license and perversion, and overall human nastiness" - awesome!
This was a really great show, I just can't help wondering why it was buried? I, personally, know of no-one who actually saw this (apart from me!). Here in the UK it aired late night on channel 4 in 1999. It's witty and clever, a scathing satire of the movie industry in Hollywood (a little reminiscent of The Player).
It's also a very modern comedy, in that it doesn't have a laughter track or a sofa and it's got realistic Dialogue (ie Sweary words - Oooh). Such a shame it got no publicity.
Jay Mohr as the ruthless Peter Dragon is strangely likable - he lies to get whatever he needs but at the same time he's brutally honest about certain things - for example in the courtroom scene (which is really brilliant, BTW) where he takes on the senator accusing him of promoting violence.
I hope this does a bit better now that it's available on DVD.