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david_candlish
Reviews
Clarkson's Farm (2021)
Genuinely entertaining and thought provoking
Do more of this Amazon. You have a good thing here.
K2: Siren of the Himalayas (2012)
Inspiring & enjoyable documentary
The premise is very simple, it simply charts the attempts by a group of climbers wanting to tackle K2, one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. Although it wasn't as detailed as I'd have liked in terms of the actual ascent and the specific challenges faced (we go from base to camp 4 in one scene, essentially) it shows the types of people who take in this challenge and does a good job of explaining what motivates them. In some respects, what we lose in terms of a technical/detailed discussion of WHY K2 is the siren of the Himalayas we gain in more personal, human insight. Experienced & avid climbing enthusiasts will probably enjoy it but possibly won't learn anything they don't already know.
I liked the way it used the accounts of the early expedition Abruzzi as a narrative device and showed how similar & yet how different early & modern climbing is.
Overall I thought it worth the download.
Chernobyl 30 Years On: Nuclear Heritage (2015)
Fear-mongering, conspiracy theory garbage
I'd hoped this would be a feature touching on the disaster - of which there is already a lot of material available - but spend the bulk of its time discussing the state of the cleanup, new safe confinement, effect on people and animals...
Instead it's an hour long anti-nuclear, absurdly biased rant. Filmed using cheap tricks to imply threat and terror and reusing the same footage time and again, it adds nothing to the legacy of Chernobyl & nothing to the discussion. It is an hour long diatribe against nuclear power with nothing to recommend it.
It doesn't even focus on Chernobyl, cutting back and forth to other radiological stories such as the salt mine at Asse, all in its quest to try and sell nuclear power as some kind of uncashed demon and unless we all live off grid as vegans we're doomed.
Do not waste your time on this pile.
(I made a nuclear based joke for those truly interested in the source material)
Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Absolute garbage
Nothing at all to recommend it. It's a deplorable horror and also insults the memory & sacrifice of the people who risked & gave their lives to clean up Chernobyl.
Characters are paper thin, it's built entirely around jump scares and the premise is absolutely ludicrous. You can suspend disbelief when the film earns it but this... this is a few hours of my life I will never see again.
As toxic a movie as the exploded reactor.