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Reviews
Cats (2019)
Ignore the critics
I can't understand all the negative reviews - I saw this with my wife and daughters, and we all thought it was brilliant. Maybe it helps if you've seen the stage version, then you'd understand that it wasn't originally conceived as a story as such - it was a series of poems by T.S. Eliott: "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" - so if you were expecting a clear storyline you would be disappointed. However, Andrew Lloyd Webber had woven them together along with the music to create a coherent whole. The film version breaks out of the confines of the stage into a wider Old London setting; the choreography and costumes make for a visual, even balletic, spectacle, with strands of humour, menace and pathos. Don't believe the rubbish reviews and the reviewers who don't know a good thing when they see it - go, see it, sit back and enjoy it!
Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
Don't waste an evening watching this.
I needn't go into much detail of why I feel this film is so awful, as other reviewers have covered it all. Previous film versions of the Exodus story (such as Cecil B. DeMille's 'The Ten Commandments') have been so much better, so why this dreadful remake was even considered is beyond me. It is Hollywood at its worst — at times ridiculously over-dramatised, at others just plain boring, and a severe distortion of the biblical account. In the scene about the burning bush, for instance, instead of Moses kneeling awestruck at the incredible sight as the majestic voice of God calls out from the bush, he is depicted as lying submerged in mud (on Mount Sinai?) while God appears as a young boy. The pathetic way the plagues are portrayed is ridiculous, and the details of the Passover are so minimal that I must have dozed off for half a minute and missed it. It was 2 hours 24 minutes of my life wasted.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
The innocence and inexperience of young love
One of my all-time favourite films is 'Melody' (1971, aka S.W.A.L.K.), and although it's a very different film, when I stumbled upon Moonrise Kingdom I was struck by a number of similarities. Moonrise Kingdom features Sam, a Boy Scout who falls in love at first sight with fellow 12 year-old Suzy, in the context of a musical theatre production. In Melody, 10 year-old Boys' Brigade member Daniel is equally stricken by Melody Perkins on spotting her in her school ballet class. The scene where Suzy's mother tries to sympathise with her daughter's heartache echoes that in which Melody's parents try to reason with her, and Suzy's poignant remark, 'We're in love. We just want to be together – what's wrong with that?' recall's Daniel's cry of 'All we want to do is be with one another all the time.' In both films the young couples run away together and undergo a 'marriage' ceremony aided and abetted by their peers, and other common factors are dysfunctional backgrounds and the conflict between youth and authority. There is also a strong musical element: Melody has songs by the Bee Gees, whereas Benjamin Britten, Hank Williams, Françoise Hardy and others provide the background for Moonrise Kingdom. Sam and Suzy (portrayed superbly by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are two years older and that much more mature than Danny and Melody, and this is reflected in the storyline. The general tenor is more quirky and the humour more subtle and deadpan, but Moonrise Kingdom has instantly appealed to me and found a well-deserved place among my best-loved films.
Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)
If anything, it's the film, rather than the planet, that's off course.
Being a fan of sci-fi films, I was initially attracted by the title, but as it appeared this was going to be yet another near-disaster movie of the "asteroid/comet/meteor about to hit the earth and wipe out humanity, but Hooray! America will save the world" genre which has been done so many times before, I nearly didn't bother to continue watching, and with hindsight I'm sorry I did. However, what did sway me was the unusual premise that the asteroid's gravitational effect as it narrowly missed the earth pulled our planet nearer to the sun. (It wasn't clear whether Earth was continuing to approach the sun or whether it was simply in a stable new orbit, but maybe I was losing concentration if that was stated.) However, while raging fires are sweeping across the globe and two rival groups of characters (the goodies and the baddies) are desperately trying to get to a plane to fly them to the Arctic, the possibility is aired that the gravitational force of the other planets might pull the earth back into its proper orbit, and the sign that this has happened would be that rain would once again start to fall. So when the rival factions get to the airport and learn that the plane - their last hope of survival - has crashed, a battle takes place and surprise, surprise - the goodies win. But just as our heroes seem doomed to burn up anyway, Hey presto! Down comes the rain! Gosh - those planets worked pretty fast to get the earth back in place in such un-cosmic haste! My advice is: don't waste an hour and a half watching this!
Rapid Fear (2004)
Don't rush out and buy this!
I picked up Rapid Fear (released in the UK as White Panic) for a quid (£1) at my local supermarket, which was a pretty fair price on reflection. It's rather formulaic in showing terrified teenagers being picked off one by one by some unseen foe while trekking through the forest, and how a bunch of delinquents are forced to co-operate and come through the ordeal as better people. OK to fill an evening when there's nothing else worth watching, I suppose. There are some anomalies too, for instance, it's clearly supposed to be set in America (the opening bank sequence shows US dollars being loaded into a bag, and most of the accents are American), but the vehicles are right-hand drive, because the film was produced and shot in Australia. One plus point is the attractive and delightfully named actress Belle Shootingstar. (Co-star Dragista Derbert also has a cool name!)