davidjaldred Reviews

The Creator (2023)

Learn your craft.

[5/10 · 16 November 2023]

As most of us know, no matter how good you are, it takes a long time to learn your craft. Most people learn it over many years, improving slowly, being offered more and more responsibilities as their talent finds its form. Others are catapulted into the spotlight seemingly instantaneously, and their flame burns bright and everyone flutters around it for a while. These prodigies seem to arrive from nowhere-although of course they don't. It takes a lot of hard work to get anything up there on screen, and that should always be respected. But they arrive before us apparently ready-baked geniuses, manna for our hungry eyes. I bought this movie. What I mean is, I bought the hype. Then I bought it on Apple TV. More fool me. I absolutely love Rogue One, but now I'm wondering about all those reshoots. Maybe the ingénue who made Monsters on a shoestring is just another director when all's said and done-a director who's surfed the zeitgeist a while, but who maybe ought to jump off that magic board and start learning to swim now, before the sharks eat him*; maybe he needs to learn his craft a bit more. I hope he does. So with great sadness I refer you to the eloquent, incisive and entirely accurate review written here by alex_with_a_P 1 October 2023.

*Apologies for the silly surf/shark metaphor.

Inside Man (II) (2022)

Stinker.

[5/10 · 29 July 2023]

I am so, so, sorely tempted to type in capitals. Every single one of the actors in this four part drama performs their role with aplomb, in fact they're all brilliant actors. The story is OK and I have no problem with the director or the cinematographer but, let's face it, everyone in front and behind the camera is hobbled by a script which gives them no room for manoeuvre, no chance to make something believable out of what they've been given. And my goodness, they try. David Tennent pulls out all the stops to give us what should have been a Bafta winning performance, but he shouldn't have bothered. He could have phoned in his part and saved himself several weeks of unnecessary stress. This serial was rubbish. It looked great, the actors were all superb, the director did their job and everything was as it should be. Except that the script was a stinker. A STINKER!

Ted Lasso (2020–2023)

Review by a soccer agnostic

[10/10 · 31 May 2023]

Football never made any sense to me. When I was about 7 years old I remember getting hit in the face by a football. I was always susceptible to nosebleeds and that didn't enamour me to the Wonderful Game. I've never sat through a soccer game on TV and I probably never will.

BUT... I watched all three seasons of TED LASSO on Apple TV+ and I absolutely loved every single second of it all. And now the last season is finished and I am bereft! No longer will I cheer when my team Richmond wins a match; never more will I weep when our striker misses a vital goal.

And yes, it maybe sounds like I'm a convert to soccer. But you're wrong, I just love well written drama.

Schmigadoon! (2021–2023)

Wow!

[10/10 · 3 May 2023]

Just wow! These two seasons deserve every accolade going. It's why everyone should have a TV set, it's one of the best reasons to have tear ducts, it's the reason to have the - perhaps delusional - belief that one can sing like an angel and dance like a Tiller girl! This show is so brilliantly performed by all (especially Alan Cumming). The songs are fabulous and, OK, if you stop to analyse the lyrics they might seem paper-thin, but that's all the more reason not to stop and think too hard: dive in and stay submerged in this glorious, fantastical, tongue in cheek - yet also reverent conjuring up of the great days of MGM musicals, musicals in general, and all those those shows you left the theatre grinning, singing, dancing!

Hello Tomorrow! (2023)

I love it - so there!

[8/10 · 1 April 2023]

I love it. Forget all the delicious production design and fabulous clothes, the brilliant, perfectly cast actors and the sublime music - and if you can do all that, you'll find a well crafted family drama. The (perhaps over-done but I love it!) plot serves the characters.

OK, maybe I am the producers' demographic - but I I love the Jetsons styling, I wake up every morning expecting to be in a future powered by "clean" atomic energy, where we've conquered anti-gravity and we're served cocktails by robots - yet I'm also a vegan who likes growing my own vegetables and walking everywhere. Cognitive dissonance? Maybe. But fun!

We Have a Ghost (2023)

Disappointing

[4/10 · 4 March 2023]

I watched nearly an hour and then I gave up. After an hour I want to have got a reasonable grasp of the dynamics of the main characters, and that means I need some clues as to where they're coming from and where they might want to be heading. I got very few clues. The kid is the one (living) character with any reason for the viewer to identify with him: he's the outsider, the nerd; hell, he listens to electric guitar ballads when everyone else is in his family is into more modern musical forms. That's fine. The rest of the characters can all be monsters - but they need motivation, and the director isn't giving us any clues as to why exactly the family seem to hate this kid. Does he smell? Is he adopted or something? Is he gay, perhaps, and he's found himself in a homophobic family? I need some clues. I liked the ghost and the kid, and their (rather too rapidly blossoming) relationship and I respect the other actors - every single one of them - for their supreme artistry in portraying the most annoying, venal, dislikable ensemble of characters anyone could wish to see. But although I salute that merry band of performers, it takes more to make a good movie than filling the screen with idiots grasping and falling over themselves and clawing their way towards the camera as well as through the story. I was disappointed and a bit disgusted.

Servant (2019–2023)

Addictive but ultimately stupid

[6/10 · 25 January 2023]

Although I enjoyed the first season and although I think all the actors really inhabit their characters, and I love some of the episodes and I've been engrossed in trying to work out what's going on, there comes a point where it all comes just too stupid. For me it was somewhere in Season 2, maybe Episode 6 or 7 - but maybe sooner, when I began to realise that all the characters are really, really stupid. They just would not be able to function in our world, the real world; the only place they can exist is in M. Night Shyamalan's 2-D world. I'll keep on watching, but that makes me even more foolish.

Soul (2020)

Run.

[5/10 · 29 November 2022]

I absolutely adored the opening reel, where we see the protagonist teaching a class of unruly pupils, and then one of his kids goes wild on the trombone, then he sits down at the piano and demonstrates to them the magic of jazz.

When I watch a Pixar movie I expect to be invited into another world that's similar in a number of ways to the one I inhabit. And I recognised that world, and the world he enters a little later too, of dive bars bee-bop and improvisation. I thought that it was beautifully realised and I wanted more.

But then the story took a turn. I do not live in the ensuing world we were asked to believe in. I don't want children to think it exists either, because it's idiotic. One of Pixar's previous movies, Inside Out, was at least grounded in the real world but this failed terribly - for me anyway. I disliked it so much that I didn't even watch it to the end. Perhaps I'll try again one day, but I'll need a bottle vodka and a lobotomy. I don't walk out of screenings as a rule but I would have run out of this one. Fortunately I just rented the video.

The Wonder (I) (2022)

There's humanism in them there Irish bogs.

[7/10 · 22 November 2022]

An intriguing and disturbing, sweet, simplistic and idealised sketch of a "period" movie set in Ireland after the terrible Potato Famine of the late 19th Century. Wow, that's a lot of adjectives! I began watching this because I'd run out of dumb movies to watch. I wasn't expecting much because I knew it was going to have a heavy religious slant to it, and that turned out to be true. But if, like me, you can take only so much god-bothering twaddle, then I implore you to hang on in there: humanism and basic goodness are right there, battling it out with the weirdo christians - right to the very end.

So I'm very glad I saw it through. Not sure what the top-and-tail were about though.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

Witty and irreverent

[8/10 · 20 November 2022]

It would be such a terrible shame if this was the last time we ever got to see Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law. The writing is witty and irreverent but it still manages to steer a believable course through the Marvel universe. And just like I miss Matt Murdock in his own show as Daredevil, I would be very happy to keep watching Lady-Hulk - oops, sorry, Girl-Hu... no, She-Hulk, for at least another season. It's lovely to see that fourth wall being smashed - and who else is qualified to smash it than someone with green skin? I'd like to see perhaps a bit more courtroom intrigue, but in all I thought they got the balance pretty good. It would be such a waste if we had to say goodbye to her and her attorney associates now, and it's just such a relief to see that people are still going about their daily lives even as the world is being threatened by ineffable alien adversaries.

County Lines (2019)

Bloodshot

[8/10 · 21 August 2022]

There aren't many films that bring a tear to this cynical old eye, and I thought I'd sail through this little drama and remain dry. But a son saying "Thanks" is enough to start the waterworks, it seems. And I didn't feel manipulated; that tear was not squeezed out of me by foul means. That tear was gladly given and well earned. I cannot say how true to life this film is, although I do no doubt this goes on. Nevertheless, the drama was enough to open my eyes - bloodshot with crying though they might have been.

Moonfall (2022)

But hey, what the heck?

[8/10 · 20 August 2022]

I didn't even realise who the director was until the closing credits. I'd read a load of reviews saying how silly this movie was, so I just assumed it was a made-for-Amazon rip-off of the whole Roland Emerich/Michael Bay sci-popcorn genre. And I was wrong. This is a quintessential Emerich movie and I loved it. OK, maybe it didn't make much sense in that all the timelines were compressed into mini comic-book, micro-MTV-time, and the physics was all over the place and the USA was once again both the sole (on-screen at least) victim and the ultimate source of our salvation but, hey, what the heck, It was a good ride!

The Gray Man (2022)

As Fitzroy said, "Boring!"

[4/10 · 24 July 2022]

Lazy, over-budgeted garbage. I can't be bothered to actually go in depth critiquing this, but one thing really stuck in my craw: did these writers/directors not learn about repeating beats - or should that be booms? Cahill and Fitzroy both choosing to go the same way? Really? As Fitzroy said, "Boring!"

Halston (2021)

No angel

[8/10 · 7 February 2022]

Watching HALSTON on Netflix reminded me of how devastating the AIDS epidemic was - and in parts of this world continues to be. And even now, folk will claim there was some sort of justice, because people were enjoying homosexual sex, so they sort-of 'deserved' to die from that terrible disease. Ewan McGregor played Halston with dignity and grace. The man was no angel but he was loved by the women he clothed. I think this was a beautiful epitaph.

Old (2021)

Don't ask the magician how his trick works.

[6/10 · 18 November 2021]

Anyone who compares this to that time-sucking TV series called 'Lost' is missing one big difference: 'Old' has a proper resolution that makes sense. The problem is, though, that it might have been better if M. Night Shyamalan had not wrapped it all up so neatly: never ask a magician how they perform their trick, because once you know, the magic evaporates. This is not Shyamalan's worst movie. I enjoyed it mostly - but did he need to actually make a movie? Apart from the pleasant scenery it felt small. It reminded me of those TV movies in the late 1970s, starring vaguely familiar soap stars. At least the actors in this were generally a bit above soap level though. The plot was really quite predictable, and although I didn't predict the big reveal at the end, it was all a bit cartoony, like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. Better than 'Lost', if you switch off 10 minutes before the end, and then just take it from me that there is a resolution but you don't have to actually watch it.

Invasion (2021–2024)

Sponge pudding

[4/10 · 5 November 2021]

No. No, I really tried. I wanted to like this. I sat through three episode and got through over half of episode 4, and then it all got too much (or too little) for me to bear. This form of storytelling has its place, whipping around from one bunch of characters to the next - but only if the story is developing at some kind of pace. But this is an exercise in how to fill air-time without actually creating anything. It's a great big, pretty looking sponge pudding of nothingness.

The Guilty (2021)

So, er, these people are OK?

[1/10 · 11 October 2021]

SPOILER COMING... I loved this Netflix movie from beginning to - almost the end. And then in the last seconds of the final reel they completely ruined it for me. I don't consider myself to be highly sensitive to the BLM movement, but this, like I said, right at the very end of an otherwise gripping, even tear-jerking film - betrayed (or redefined) its core message: if you're a cop who kills a kid (and I must admit I assumed it was a black kid - and if I'm wrong, then ignore this whole critique, please!), and you probably have a heart of gold and you've probably got a cute little kid of your own and you're separated but you still love your ex, and yet, just when everybody thinks they have the full measure of you, you show your true, liberal, egalitarian, near-superhuman colours. What a shame. The acting was great, the directing too; the writing was just that little bit too much.

Ted Lasso: The Signal (2021) Season 2, Episode 6

Back on track

[8/10 · 27 August 2021]

After the disappointing Christmas episode "Caro of the Bells", the next episode "Rainbow" made a valiant effort to drag me back. And this episode "The Signal" sealed the deal. As I've said before, I do not like football. I just don't get it; I think it's a foolish sport. But Ted Lasso - in its more sublime moments, explains it to me in pictures. This episode had me cheering at the TV! More of this please.

Open Your Eyes (2021)

What's going on? Keep guessing!

[8/10 · 26 August 2021]

I'm looking forward to season 2 (with fingers crossed). This is a great show: constantly wrong-footing you; always making you want to know more, to discover what is going on. Is it some virtual reality hell? Is it a dream, or maybe it's aliens experimenting on drugged-up abductees? It's aimed at a young adult audience but heck, if only some adult shows were this grown-up!

Ted Lasso: Carol of the Bells (2021) Season 2, Episode 4

I gave up

[2/10 · 15 August 2021]

I love this series - and you might think that's peculiar, as I just don't like football. But Ted Lasso isn't really about football, it's about people. I tried to wade through this bog of festive sugar but I feared being sucked into it, only for my perfectly preserved corpse to be discovered thousands of years later, like some prehistoric beetle trapped in amber, so I climbed out. Hopefully next episode will get back on track - or maybe we'll have a whole episode based around Ramadan, Yom Kippur or Gurupurab.

Sweet Tooth (2021– )

Dated

[2/10 · 10 June 2021]

I couldn't get through even the first episode. Although the setting is modern (post pandemic, ecologically ravaged world; greatly reduced number of humans, etc.) this felt to me like a kids' TV series from the 1970's. But at least there weren't any more zombies.

The Man from Earth (2007)

Exposition in my favourite position

[7/10 · 29 April 2021]

I really enjoyed this film. When I watched it I wasn't aware that it cane from the pen of a Star Trek and Twilight Zone writer, but it's quite obvious. This could be a stage play; certainly a radio play. There are no special effects! None! Yet we are transported across millennia - simply by conversation, and a believable cast of characters. While these people are sketches, that's all they need to be: the tale is the thing that they serve. I thought this was great: it reminded me of K-Pax a bit. But there are plenty of science fiction stories whose main character asks us to make a leap of, well maybe "faith" is the best word in this case.

The Serpent (2021)

preliminary critique - just of ep. 1

[5/10 · 1 January 2021]

It's very disturbing and awfully well made, and the actors are great - but all the backwards-and-forwards time shifting was really really irritating! If I wanted to watch a time-travel epic I'd watch Tenet, not this. I don't mean to say it's bad, because it isn't; I simply do not understand why the editor was allowed to cut it up so savagely. Maybe it'll calm down as the series progresses.

Peninsula (2020)

First time I've gone with the crowd

[6/10 · 8 December 2020]

I gave this movie 6 out of 10 because I loved Train to Busan. I then read some of the User Reviews and I realised I'd been way too generous: I had watched this film wearing the rose-tinted spectacles the original film provided free of charge. Now the shades are off and the house lights are up and I see that I was cheated: this film is a sequel - okay, so it's a given that sequels are worse than their progenitors - but there are exceptions, like The Godfather II, The Empire Strikes Back and, er, well there are loads of examples, er, probably. Anyway this ain't one of them. Shame. Maybe it's just the "2nd Album Problem"; maybe number three will scare the pants off us.

Fantasy Island (2020)

20 pages too long.

[5/10 · 29 November 2020]

This film starts well, and the actors do their jobs. But the screenplay - although it makes sense - needed about 20 pages torn out. It's way too long.