ste-34's reviews

Things that drive me up the wall in film and TV: 1. When people are perfectly happy to kneel/sit on the floor of a public toilet. Who in their right mind?

In this episode, our hero is led to a new place of work and told there are NO CLEANERS "...so clean up after yourself...".

He then rushes to the toilet to be sick, which he does by putting his head RIGHT DOWN INTO THE BOWL. He then wipes the bowl out, then rushes over to the sink, where he scoops water into his mouth WITH THE SAME HAND.

There are some far fetched ideas in this show, but this is the one that lifts you out of the pretence. Come on Alex.

For starters, the idea that a building full of code-heads who have to do their own cleaning would have a toilet that's humanly tolerable, let alone one that looks like it's been installed that morning and then firehosed with bleach is a bit ridiculous.

Quite enjoyed the show though. Hope it doesn't degenerate into "she's got the thin, let's kill her".

I get the suspension of disbelief. I do.

But the premise of this film is that Nicolas Cage is playing himself in a fish-out-of-water situation, and for that to mean anything, the premise has to be consistent.

So when he's instructed by his ostensibly real CIA handlers to use a patch to render a possible intruder unconscious, and he accidentally uses it on himself and takes god knows how long to pass out, it stretches the premise. Not only that, but his handler then tells him that the best thing he can do now is to step out of the window onto a tiny ledge. Just before he passes out.

All of which just causes the entire premise of the film to collapse in on itself.

This sort of metatextual thing has been done before, with much greater success, because the writers of those films were smarter and more diligent than the ones we have here.

"Paddington 2 is amazing". Oh my aching sides. What a fantastic, original joke that is.

It's a lazy, and ultimately pointless film for people with a "Big Bang Theory" sense of humour, which only exists because someone of Cage's standing agreed to take part, which in turn is no doubt due to film-star vanity.

This is a modern retelling of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, with property transactions standing in for Schnitzler's sexual ones. Rosenthal also effectively plugs in the seven deadly sins.

Whilst it may seem like a TV drama, this was made for cinema release so it's a bit depressing that the only version seemingly available at the moment is in 4:3.

I'd forgotten just how good a script it is. It has dated a little since its release, but the cleverness of it, and some of the performances make it deserving of preservation. Mitchell and Hill are spot on as usual and Nigel Hawthorne and Anna Massey are particularly hilarious.

It's not perfect though. The awful source music (i.e. What people are listening to on the radio/ghetto blaster) that's meant to be "what the kids are listening to" but has clearly been composed by Stanley Myers to save money, really dates it, and there are one or two truly shockingly bad performances from some of the younger actors. Billie Whitelaw is totally miscast, and a number of the lines (mainly from the character Paul) don't land, which is the fault of the director. For these reasons it loses a star from me.

Overall though, they don't write em like this any more.

Don't waste your time. It looks like it's going somewhere (verrry slowly) right up to the last minute and then it doesn't.

Sod the rules designed to keep people safe. Just lie cheat and steal to get what you want. It's the American Way. That seems to be the message from this film.

I got as far as the first rehearsal scene, which is spectacularly, insultingly inept both musically and cinematically. Not funny. No cliche unmined. Horrible cynical cash in.

Not being American I've no idea who this guy is, but when T Hanks looks directly into the camera it's the creepiest frickin thing I think I've ever seen him do. It led me to read the original article on which it's based and I'm afraid I don't feel any better toward the subject. Never trust anyone who believes in prayer.

Imagine every cliche you've ever seen in a sports film made to pander to an American audience. Now imagine someone pretending to be Pele in the middle of all that. Congratulations. You've just saved yourself 100 minutes of your life. It's too late for me. I'm never getting them back. Save yourself.

Right before the woman who turns out to be a collaborator kisses Grant at about 20 mins, there's an old man in the bottom left of the screen who looks exactly like Babe Heffron. He doesn't seem to be referred to in the cast list and I wanted to be sure before submitting him as an uncredited actor.

Looks good, and a good idea, but the music is lousy. It's composed almost entirely of those tuneless dialogue/exposition scenes that make up the boring bits of all the great musicals you've seen, all the same tone, level and mood, and none of the tunes you leave the theatre humming. Watch Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog, and you pick up the songs immediately. Not so with this. A sadly wasted opportunity. Most of the cast are fine, but Alexa Vega's surprisingly weak. It's a shame, because cinema's crying out for something different like this, and the more failures we have like this the less likely it will be that they take off. I notice a lot of people are comparing it with Rocky Horror, which is apt, because that's another film loved by people who want to belong to something. But at least that has some songs you can hum.