thedavidovitch Reviews

Yellowstone Kelly (1959)

Implausible and unpleasantly dated

[4/10 · 21 September 2013]

A real B movie Western that's showing its age. Of course it wasn't unusual during the genre's heyday to find white actors playing Native Americans or to find story lines that portrayed them as duplicitous savages, but the breathtaking racism of this script, coupled with some hilarious casting, with a quite obviously blue-eyed white guy as the Sioux chief, makes it a pretty challenging watch for a modern audience.

Some nice cinematography and decent enough fight scenes are mildly diverting, but it's certainly not a classic of the genre. More, it's a reminder of how, at worst, the Western was a pretty ruthless exercise in historical revisionism.

Juno (2007)

Hideous beyond all human comprehension

[1/10 · 22 January 2009]

I almost feel sorry for Diablo Cody. Imagine being a fully grown adult and having a mind that infantile, that pathetically obsessed with idiotic pop culture references and faux-indie pretensions that you could write a script as bad as this. Worst still, the poor gal will now be saddled with that creative immaturity for as long as she lives, because now she's been mystifyingly lauded as a great writer, she's gonna have to keep churning out this pap forever.

Think of the most over-rated film you've ever seen. Multiply it by a thousand. You're not even close. It's jaw-droppingly bad and really almost impossible to watch unless you have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old.

Put it this: Juno makes Garden State look almost bearable. Yes, THAT bad.

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

A disgusting ego trip that made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach

[1/10 · 21 November 2007]

Words fail me. How can Hollywood have duped by such a simpleton? Truly one of the most wretched films of the decade, this sentimental dreck insults its audience as much as it does its basic grasp of history. How dare Benigni think he's capable of pulling a trick like this? Except - gasp - he did and he won an Oscar in doing so.

This film is cast iron proof that the Oscars are largely meaningless and occasionally just plain insulting. The final insult is that this film continues to occupy a place in the all-time top 250 movies on this site. Come on, guys, you're doing humanity a grave disservice. Let's drag it down to the gutter where it belongs.

Robin Hood (2006–2009)

Appalling tosh - but then I guess I'm not the target audience.

[2/10 · 24 October 2007]

Historical inaccuracy? Check. Badly misjudged 'modern' youth speak dialogue? Check. Basically the same story every week? Check. The worst baddie in British television history? Check. A total lack of wit, drama, humanity or fun? Check. Dreadful dreary writing full of cliché? Check. A great English myth defiled and debased for the 21st Century? Check. Makes even Kevin Costner look competent? Yikes but, er, check. Loved the nation over by 7 year olds? Checkity check.

The big difference between this and Dr Who (which occupies the same slot on BBC1) is this: Dr Who is family entertainment, because it doesn't treat the audience like idiots and thus adults can watch too. Anyone over the age of 10 will feel their intelligence is being insulted by this unspeakable dreck. Still, as I say, the kids won't mind, but it's got to go down as a missed opportunity.

Grand Theft Parsons (2003)

Dire, unfunny and shockingly badly executed

[1/10 · 25 November 2004]

I'm not sure if users ought to be allowed to review films after only sitting through half, but I'm afraid I just couldn't stand another minute.

If this abject excuse for a film doesn't have the late, great GP spinning like a wheel in his grave, then I doubt anything will.

The excellent review above 'Not a film for Parsons fans' sums up most of my feelings. How dare a (second rate) director and writer attempt something to which they're so clearly incapable of delivering. What were they thinking? Where to start?

THE SCRIPT: I thought I'd be getting a slice of bittersweet Americana. What I got was poorly executed slapstick with no cliché left unturned. Stupid hippy? Check. Stupid fat cop? Check. Awful plot contrivances? Check. Embarrassingly written female characters? Double check. Total disregard for the story which you're trying to portray? Check.

After a while, you realize that what you're watching is a soap and not a very well written one at that. Scene with Knoxville. Scene with Ex girlfriend. Scene with Knoxville which hasn't moved on much. Scene with Ex girlfriend which was a bit like the last one. And so on...

THE DIRECTION: My friends and I decided, after some consideration, that watching this was like watching a bad episode of Quincy, or maybe a particularly poor Dukes of Hazzard. That's how bad the direction was. Terrible jump cuts, awful camera work, clunky ins and outs to scenes. God, it was cringeworthy. And then I discovered the director was an Irishman who's most noteworthy recent work is a really lousy BBC Sunday night drama called Monarch of the Glen (trust me, it's lowest common denominator TV). And then it all made sense...

THE ACTING: Are we now so critical that when some random guy from the TV decides to give acting a go, if he's not so bad, he stinks, we applaud his efforts? Knoxville JUST ABOUT manages to get through every scene. Poor Christina A. has no such luck. Her performance is a car crash (though what you do with those lines, I don't know). The 'hippy' in the hearse: oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Have we not moved on since Cheech and Chong?

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. What I would say is that, as other reviews have mentioned, no one on this film clearly gives a flying damn for The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers or Gram's solo work. They knew nothing about the American road movie and they certainly give a damn about trying to do anything with an admittedly decent story from rock mythology. This film was shallow, failed to explore anything and was jaw droppingly unfunny from beginning to...oh wait, I didn't quite make the end. And I suggest you stay away too.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Mystifyingly adored piece of melodrama

[4/10 · 23 September 2003]

That this film ranks as No2 in the 'all time' list on IMDB says a lot for how folks don't watch films from any era before the 90s anymore, for how else could it genuinely sit atop that list? I suppose in an age where everything on amazon gets at least four stars, good subjective criticism is proving harder and harder to find...but really...is this film better than Chinatown? Better than Casablanca? The Third Man? Mean Streets? Withnail and I? Better than Adam's Rib, Singin' in the Rain, Rear Window, Day for Night, Bande a Part, Taxi Driver, West Side Story, Les Quatre Cent Coups, Some Like it Hot, Seven Samurai?

I've seen this film twice, once at the cinema and once on TV as I lie stuffed with Xmas dinner. The first time was mildly enjoyable, the second pretty turgid. Despite the presence of the ever excellent Robbins (though Morgan Freeman phones in the same performance he's given in every film ever since), this film never transcends the humble source of its story - a Stephen King short - and whilst it's a 'nice' tale with a reasonable twist at the end, can anyone else explain to me why such praise has been heaped on this utterly average experience?

And it's not just IMDB. A recent UK Channel Four poll found Shawshank right up there. Perhaps it's the combination of pseudo-harsh prison story and a buddy tale along with the lashings of on the nose humanism that appeals across genders and other boundaries. I don't know. But believe me, if this were the 2nd best film ever made in the world ever, let's just say cinema wouldn't be the popular influence it is today.

Go out there, people. Find the true 'classics', find the films this piece of sentimentalia stole its every beat, every note, every word of dialogue from. And then come back and tell me this is anything other than a hotch potch, a 50s throwback with a 90s sentiment.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

It makes my heart ache just to think about it...

[10/10 · 19 September 2003]

Some things are so wonderful you can't quite believe they exist. A technicolour heaven with a young Catherine Deneuve at her most beguiling and beautiful in a film that's entirely sung in the most exquisite way? Pinch me, I still can't get over the fact this film exists.

Everyone has a film they return to when they're feeling jaded, sick of Hollywood or simply because it's raining outside. I have two films I turn to at these times. One is Singin' in the Rain; the other is this little gem. Both transport me to a world of colour, joy and heartache, yet both stay just the right side of sentimental too.

Of course the plot is a little convoluted; of course the entirely sung script makes it a little jarring at first - but just sit back and let Les Parapluies do its magic. You won't regret it. I promise ;-)