stein-elliottd Reviews

Jamie Marks Is Dead (2014)

Good cinematography, but what even happened?

[4/10 · 31 October 2023]

I'll start by giving credit where it is due here: There are some really good shots, and the soundtrack also fits them pretty well. In this sense, I can see the artistic value of the film.

That being said, I felt like a lot of context was missing when it came to the story/characters. There were a lot of things that just left me asking "Wait, wtf is happening?" as a watcher who hasn't read the original novel. And maybe with that context, it would have been better, but having watched this expecting an experience with no prior research required, it fell very short. I couldn't figure out the lore of this world when it comes to ghosts, etc. If there even was any. I did appreciate those moments of stereotypical but effective hints in small details, but there seemed to be so much extra added here with absolutely no context to add any emotional depth to the story itself. It was a sort of "I want to like this but the only merits are in the aesthetics of shots and the use of music, I am not actually feeling any emotion for anyone throughout the duration of this story (apart from annoyance and confusion)."

At least it wasn't painfully long; I just kept hoping for something more than what was given. It might just be my personality, but no character was relatable. (And I'm not talking about the stereotypical Hollywood sense; I legitimately just found these portrayals unrealistic and forced, with no explanation and minimal to no context as to what the dynamics were to establish a lot of the "conflicts" that arise in the film.)

The book is probably better, because I can see where there was potential here, but the script, in my opinion, was mostly a waste of my time. At least I did get the nice music and pretty visuals, but still.

Days and Nights (2014)

Ben Whishaw was the only good thing about this film.

[2/10 · 6 April 2015]

Honestly I had no idea what was happening throughout... Well, the entire film. And normally, I love obscure character driven stories like this appeared to be set up as. I also had high hopes because of the stellar cast, but that was little help. Ben Whishaw was literally the ONLY actor who managed to hold my full attention or make me feel any emotion, and I found myself becoming irritated during the parts of the film that didn't involve his character.

**** spoiler alert here ****

And I didn't even know what the hell his character was doing. I haven't read the play that this movie was based on, so when things were implied, I never got them. The whole thing is so disjoint, and then randomly Christian Camargo's character leaves, and then hits something with his car, which is implied to be Eva from her shoe, but this isn't ever made explicit, then it fast forwards to three years later. Then, this ending confused me so much that I just HAD to look it up. Both Camargo and Whishaw leave the table, distraught, and then you never see Camargo's character again, but Whishaw runs down and Eva shows up again - so the car crash didn't kill her, I assumed, wrongly. So she congratulates him and then runs away, we see Whishaw go after her unsuccessfully, and the scene goes back to the dinner table. You hear a gunshot, and it's clear someone has killed them self, but you're not told who. The way the ending is shot, either Camargo's or Whishaw's character could've done it, but neither had been developed enough for me to figure out who. I had to read about the play, Seagull, to figure out that it was Whishaw's character after he had apparently had a hallucination of Eva coming back - I have no idea how the hell anyone is supposed to put that together from this film!! None!

***** end spoilers *****

So, to conclude, this movie is incredibly confusing and only worth watching if you're a huge Whishaw fan like myself, and are willing to put up with the rest of it for the sake of having seen all of his films; but be warned, even his captivating talent is not enough to make any sense of how the story unfolds.

Camargos acting is mediocre, which upset me as I have been a fan of his in multiple other places, Katie Holmes does an okay job but is given a boring character whose presence itself does nothing for the film, and none of the other performances even warrant mentioning.

Prepare to be disappointed if you go into this film hoping to get anything substantial out of it.