Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (1678)

Content

Awix (3310 KP) rated Barry Lyndon (1975) in Movies

Jun 27, 2018

Barry Lyndon (1975)

1975 | Drama, History, War

8.0

(8 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Famously demanding costume drama/endurance challenge from Stanley Kubrick. Handsome but dimwitted Irish lad does his thinking with the wrong body parts, becomes fugitive from justice, soldier, duellist, deserter, gambler, and spy before marrying into money; his attempts to climb further up society's tree go badly wrong.

Sounds like a rollicking tale, but many will probably find the, erm, stately pace at which events unfold to be rather punishing; there's also the problem that Ryan O'Neal is basically just an absence of hiatus in the middle of the film - you never really care about Barry Lyndon himself. On the other hand, the film is stuffed with wonderful character cameos and subtly magical moments, and the appearance of the thing is utterly gorgeous. If you're prepared to treat the film essentially as a visual feast peppered with incidental pleasures such as Leonard Rossiter's dancing or the climactic duel, then you will probably find it rather mesmerising - as a conventional piece of entertainment, probably less so.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Stan & Ollie (2018) in Movies

Jan 21, 2019

Stan & Ollie (2018)

2018 | Biography, Comedy, Drama

8.0

(30 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Surely-long-overdue Laurel and Hardy bio-pic focuses on their tour of British and Irish music halls in the early 50s, presumably because this is a low-ish budget British film. A sixty-something Stan and Ollie have to try and persuade the world they haven't died or retired just yet while waiting for the finance on a new movie to come together and coping with some long-standing tensions in their relationship.

Movie does a pretty good job of balancing what you'd expect from a L&H movie (timeless slapstick, perfectly performed) with less obvious and more dramatic material (some of the boys' personal foibles, amongst other things). The thing it does better than any other movie I can think of is capture the feeling of what it's like to be in a successful double act, and all the positives and negatives that go with it. Very good performances from Reilly and Coogan, clearly made with affection and skill; well worth watching.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Star Trek: Picard in TV

Apr 27, 2020

Star Trek: Picard

2019 | Drama, Sci-Fi

8.6

(31 Ratings)

TV Show Rating Watch

The latest big-budget generic sci-fi series to have the Star Trek brand on it in an attempt to secure an audience. Ex-Admiral Picard meets the hot young daughter of his dead android mate and goes off to help save her twin sister with a bunch of young actors who are cheaper to employ than the ones playing his actual friends.

Not quite as mad as Discovery, and seeing the old characters again (mostly in cameos) is undeniably affecting for those of us who were there thirty years ago. But the plotting is laborious and lazy, and we seem to have lost the idea that the whole point of Star Trek is that things will improve and be different in the future: regardless of the odd ways in which this setting doesn't really match canon, this lot just act like 21st century folks in fancy dress. I'm not even going to get started on the F-bombing Starfleet Admiral or the Irish and Australian Romulans.