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Movie Critics (823 KP) rated A Quiet Passion (2017) in Movies

Apr 14, 2017

Director Terence Davies dodges biopic cliches in his subversive, sensitive portrait of the great American poet

Critic: Peter Travers - Rolling Stone
Original Score: 3.5 out of 4

Read review: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/peter-travers-a-quiet-passion-review-cynthia-nixon-w475870

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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Dream Horse (2021) in Movies

Jun 12, 2021

Dream Horse (2021)

2021 | Biography, Comedy, Drama, Sport

8.7

(3 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Ensemble cast (1 more)

Cinematography of racing scenes

Predictable storyline (0 more)

My lovely lovely horse fails to fully engage

An extraordinary story of ambition against all the odds - based on a true story - will Dream Alliance fulfil the town's dreams, or will it all end in tears?

Positives:
- Toni Collette! Without her powerful acting presence at the heart of the piece, I think the movie would have died in a ditch. As for her Welsh accent I (as an Englishman) thought it was pretty good: on my 'Welshometer', using the scale of Richard Burton as a 10 to RDW's "Doctor Dolittle" as a 1, I'd give Ms Collette about an 8. The illustrious Mrs Movie Man (as a Welsh lady) was less impressed, but found her "tolerable" when mixed with the other Welsh-born actors!
- And what a wonderful supporting cast of well know names from all our yesterdays. Just so great to see the great Siân Phillips ("I, Claudius"), Lynda Baron ('Nurse Gladys' from "Open all Hours"), Peter Davison ("Doctor Who") and Nicholas Farrell ("Chariots of Fire") in the cast. It was also (as is traditional in these "true stories") for the actual people to appear alongside their acting counterparts in the end titles: Howard Davies in particular seemed to be chuffed to bits to be singing alongside Damien Lewis!
- Hats off to cinematographer Erik Wilson and Chris Bates (the "drone operator"), for some impressive shots. The camera angles from the turf-pumping racing scenes are very impressive.

Negatives:
- How did it make me feel? Very little at all. Which is a problem. The movie is so utterly predictable that I saw every element of the story play out way before it did. Did this happen in real life? In which case, that's annoying that life was so unrealistically predictable in its ups and downs!
- Elements of the story also felt formulaic: from the token comedy cranky old bloke (Karl Johnson) to Jan's brooding father-with-a-grudge. This latter element seems unnecessarily bolted onto the plot: poorly worked through and pretty superfluous.

Summary Thoughts on "Dream Horse": This is a feature debut for welsh-born Euros Lyn, most familiar (as a peculiar name) for popping up in the end credits of TV shows such as "Doctor Who", "Torchwood" and "His Dark Materials". And, as a great supporter of UK films, I really wanted to like this one. But it just didn't do it for me. It's also unfortunate that some of the subject material makes it unsuitable for the 6-to-8 year old horse fanatics... this is no "International Velvet".

I've seen some social media comments from people who adore the movie. And, to be clear, it's NOT a bad movie. I just personally didn't connect with me. Just goes to show that cinema really is 'horses for courses' sometimes!

(For the full graphical review, please check out the One Mann's Movies review here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/06/11/dream-horse-%e2%99%abi-want-to-shower-you-in-sugar-lumps-and-ride-you-over-fences%e2%99%ab/ . Thanks).

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Sarah (7799 KP) created a post

Jan 18, 2021 (Updated Jan 18, 2021)

(Posting this separately as it covers as a review for 3 films @The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) , @The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and @The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) )
Film(s) #11 on the 100 Movies Bucket List: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Film 11 is actually the three films that make up the Lord of the Rings trilogy: Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and Return of the King. Whilst I can entirely understand featuring the trilogy as a whole, especially as they were filmed back to back and follow the same continuing storyline, however as a watcher this is a tad frustrating. The extended editions of these films, which I own of course, come in at a hefty runtime of just under 12 hours and this means a marathon of a film screening. But gripes about the runtime aside, this trilogy is still every bit the epic I remember it being when they were first released nearly 20 years ago.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is based by JRR Tolkien’s book of the same name that follows Frodo (Elijah Wood), a hobbit who must journey to the darkest lands of Mordor to destroy a powerful ring before it falls into the hands of the evil lord Sauron. Throughout Frodo’s journey across Middle Earth, he is accompanied by a 9 strong fellowship: hobbits Sam (Sean Astin), Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd); men Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean); elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) and dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies). All of whom must also face their own battles in the war to defeat Sauron.

At the time these films were released between 2001 and 2003, we’d never seen filmmaking taken to such extremes and I’d argue that aside from the later Hobbit film trilogy (the less said about those the better), we still haven’t seen anything like it in the decades since. To film these back to back over 15 months with a immense cast, sets and filming locations across New Zealand is no mean feat and watching these back you can really appreciate the sheer amount of work that has gone into these films. The cinematography is stunning and really highlights the beautiful scenery of New Zealand, and the CGI for it’s time was beyond impressive. The motion capture technology used for Andy Serkis’ portrayal of Gollum was incredible and like nothing we’d seen before. All of this paired with Howard Shore’s hugely memorable and iconic score makes for a superb bit of filmmaking.

What makes director Peter Jackson’s take on Lord of the Rings so engaging is the story and the fact that there’s nothing in the main plot that is unnecessary. Jackson had removed all of the erroneous side plots from the book (think Tom Bombadil) yet kept the main thread of the story intact, which effortlessly weaves serious fantasy and war with some rather light hearted and funny moments. While I would normally be an advocate of books over their film counterparts, I happily make an exception for the Lord of the Rings. The films are definitely better than the book. They’re also helped by a stellar cast, from seasoned veterans like Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee (Saruman), to relative newcomers at the time like Viggo Mortensen, who has by far a standout performance, who all do their part to make this trilogy come alive.

This isn’t to say that the trilogy is flawless. Whilst the films look good for their age, some of the special effects haven’t aged quite as well as you’d expect and there are some that are looking decidedly ragged around the edges – Treebeard in Fangorn forest is but one example. The casting of Orlando Bloom was also a questionable one. His acting skills are limited at best and while he is meant to be playing a rather emotionless elf, his performance is very poor compared the rest of the elvish actors. He probably isn’t helped by the fact that Legolas has been given some rather ridiculous and farfetched acrobatics that just look quite silly. And then there’s Éowyn, who is possibly one of the most irritating characters of all, her doe eyed fawning over Aragorn completely overruling the tough, feisty woman she’s trying to be. Finally I’d also question about whether the extended editions are truly necessary, which I appreciate does make me a bit of a hypocrite seen as I own them. They might include scenes we’d never seen in the theatrical releases, but I’d argue that none of these ads particularly much to the overall story.

However despite these flaws, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is undeniably an epic masterclass in filmmaking from Peter Jackson and these are 3 films that you won’t forget in a hurry. It can only be 10/10.

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