Andy Bolstridge Reviews

Cosmic Sin (2021)

Its the editing, surely

[3/10 · 7 August 2021]

Its not bad, like bad awful, can't watch this nonsense bad.

Its just lacking. A lot. Its disconnected and plenty meaningless and much unexplained and a great deal that just appears out of nowhere.

Which all makes me think this was a 2 and a half hour movie that was deliberately cut down to 1 and a half hours, andf the editor kept the bits he coulnd't get rid of and stitched them all together in a way that leave huge holes here and there that might, perhaps, have turned it into something that might have made more sense.

What we do have is a standard sci fi "aliens and man have guns" trope.

I'm sure if they had the rest of the movie and released a director's uncut, then it'd be a 5 or 6 out of 10, so don;t get your hopes up that its salvageable, it might have been "meh" instead of bad.

Devs (2020)

Pretentious and plodding

[4/10 · 2 January 2021]

Its got good production values but appears too interested in itself to make sense of a confused storyline that frankly does not hold up to scrutiny. Although that is OK, this is TV after all. If you like this kind of deep, metaphysical conceptual storyline, then you will like this, but only if you can not think too hard about the actions of the characters or where they take the storyline. A concept like this show's doesn't have much scope for variety anyway, which is why it ends up having to take a turn later on.

Its almost like its trying to take a great Asimov series and make it silicon-valley computerised shiny, with a sense of spy thriller mixed in, but fails at both.

The cinematography is good, some of the acting is good, too much of the scenes though are staring into space with annoyingly shrieking music that overall has little to offer in drawing you in. I recommend watching this with the sound turned off.

The Curse of Oak Island (2014– )

Narrator

[8/10 · 25 June 2020]

For those complaining of the US narrator, the British version of this show has a guy who is brilliant. James Thornton.

sure, he does say mostly the same script, but he adds a certain gravitas that doesn't try to indude some sort of artifcial excitement. He just says his thing, lets you get interested all by yourself.

As for the show, its a reality TV thing, a lot of it is going to have been done specifically for the camera, once you get that, you can enjoy it a bit more.

The Beyond (2017)

Pretty bad

[3/10 · 29 September 2018]

Ok, I've watched it and almost gave up but stuck with it to the end to wish I hadn't.

The movie itself is shaky-cam documentary style, which is OK and the acting and presentation is OK (not brilliant).

But... the story is awful. Truly.

I'll give one example: they want to send a human through a wormhole but need to transplant the brain into a robot body because people are squishy. OK, so they engage on a groundbreaking procedure that first fails, then succeeds due to some magical enzyme handwaving.

And you think, well, fair enough, nobody said transplanting brains into robot bodies would be easy. Except there were several of them in the military already (as the programme was a classified military super soldier thing)

OK, let that one go... only there are loads more like it, eg the super powerful aliens that can reshape the solar system had to kill the cyborg soldier they sent into the wormhole too, because he obviously posed a threat to them, or maybe because the writers just wanted to show that if you have a gun, you'll be the first to be killed. By the super peaceful protective aliens.

The story just makes it worse, the whole robot thing was pretty pointless anyway. But it turned out in the end to be some hippy dream that the military is bad, and we should all be like peaceful man, and everything will be OK if you only want it to be, even though space aliens with the power to destroy the solar system turn up but they like us because we're nice, even though we show them images of overcrowding, famine and rioting. But we added a picture of a smiling African child, so all's ok.

And it ends with the worst kind of utopian daydream (the aliens make us a new planet just like Earth, only this time its all clean and new so all the problems of overpopulation are suddenly solved! Huzzah, we can now colonise it and all Earth's problems are fixed ... Yeah, right.

Its just silly stuff. I'd like to say it had merit on its visuals, but I wasn't too impressed with them, many reminded me of music visualisations on PC desktop media players.

It seems the reviews here fall into 2 camps: those who think its a pile of nonsense, and those who wish the not-so-hidden message that the military are bad and we should all be nice and think only of the best possibilities was something they liked.

I was hoping for something like the significantly better Europa Report. Didn't get it.

Forbrydelsen (2007–2012)

amazing

[9/10 · 26 March 2011]

I've just finished watching all the episodes and I've not been so engrossed in a series since 24 (the original series) was on TV many years ago. In many respects it does remind me of 24.. 20 episodes spread over 20 days, many twists and turns, the main characters stumble from one wrong turn to another until the final denouement.

But that isn't its main appeal, I'd even go so far to say that it detracted slightly from the series as a whole. The absolute best part of this is just the sublime acting. The whole thing is about characters wrapped up in a mild cliffhanger plot, its how they react to each other and developments that really makes the difference from what we usually get on TV.

The filming is very good, and little touches abound in it - my favourite is still how Sarah Lund can breeze along with her eyes shut, yet Jan Meyer cannot follow behind her without stepping in something. That's a double act that Hollywood will never be able to match.

There are faults with it though. Unless the Danish police are really well funded I found forensics turning up at a snap of Sarah's fingers in the middle of the night to be somewhat unrealistic (they must have good overtime payments in Denmark), similarly a DNA sample would be tested and the results back in less than an hour, and its nearly always dark too - maybe they all sleep during the day. Either way, these are things you just live with as its a TV show and reality has to be strained.

In short - watch it, even with subtitles, you won't miss the developing characters and their reactions to their changing lives.

The Beiderbecke Affair (1985)

corking soundtrack

[9/10 · 6 August 2004]

As some reviews have said "A jazz soundtrack paces this British series, adding more mystery to the lovers' quest for the truth" and "This outlandishly funny series weaves quirky characters, witty dialogue and a wonderfully smooth, jazz soundtrack into a uniquely satisfying, entertainment experience."

Well, that's not how I'd describe it.. The jazz soundtrack is fabulous, Bix Beiderbecke tracks blast through the slow bits in between the meat of the show, making this a truly immersive, grab-you-by-the-ears and drag-you-along series.

Oh yeah, the dialog, plot, setting are all excellent too - if you haven't seen it, it's worth the 9.3 rating at time of writing this!

Split Second (1992)

A cult classic buddy movie. With bigger guns

[8/10 · 28 June 2003]

another poster commented that this is not an intentionally funny film (as the original script was going to be serious). Well so what! Who cares what the original script was going to be - we only care what the film actually turned out to be.

As it happens, I think it starts off serious - serial killer on the loose, bad ass cop goes after it. but about half way through, and you can almost see the cut, it changes its mind.

The film is a buddy movie, bad ass cop gets partnered with accountant cop, and they end up living happily ever after. This film has a slightly different take on the 'buddyness' by bringing the accountant-cop up the level of Rutger, outdoing him in many places even. Its worth watching the film just for the scenes in the armoury.

Don't expect anything from this, you should know what to expect (guns, explosions, yada yada yada), but in a way that makes it a cult classic.

Get Carter (2000)

Stylish thriller

[8/10 · 20 April 2002]

I suppose not many people would appreciate the direction on this film, but I found it to have a lot of little touches that, combined with the excellent story, made this film really good.

The car chase was different, no boring old drive around town fast, these guys drove like rally drivers (you don't see that in movies); the cuts where the director gets more in a scene without making it long and boring (eg, when he walks up the stairs - you see him come in the door, put his gloves on, then it skips to him halfway up the stairs, then again at the top). You got all you would want without the scene being artificially altered for the movie, yet without taking up too much time.

Excellent film, well worth seeing.

Twin Town (1997)

Good film, but bad ending

[5/10 · 1 September 2000]

It is a good film, worth seeing I guess, but it was let down by the poor ending. It has the feel of an ending that was cut down to fit a set length to the film. Also, the ending was a bit immature - gratuitous violence was introduced which compares very badly with the humorous violence shown earlier.

Such a shame, could have been a brilliant film otherwise.