Well I should have attended my first screenings yesterday but I was too ill to inflict myself on the world (or vice versa), so did the sensible thing and stayed in. I will however be bringing you a guest reviewer to comment on what I missed. Hopefully I'll be in shape to take up my heavy programme from Monday. I used this enforced time at home to clear some of the backlog from my hard disk and some capsules follow:
Tupac - Resurrection (2003): This documentary was culled from old footage and told, in his own words, of the violent life of the rapper who was shot dead in 1996. I must admit that it was well put together, even if the subject matter was not really to my taste. The man had talent, but he courted controversy.
One for the Road (2003): A Channel Four production which I guess few people have seen (and this does not surprise me). It followed four men who had lost their driving licenses for being over the limit who had agreed to attend group therapy to minimise their penalties. None of them were overly likeable and all of them continued to drink as if there was no tomorrow. However it was nice to see Hywel Bennett back in a showy role as the rich one of the group.
Code 11-14 (2003): This made for television movie with a no-name cast was watchable, but extrememly stupid. Our hero, an FBI man, was on the trail of a serial killer in Los Angeles; a man with the same M.O. is arrested in Australia and he goes to investigate. However he insists on taking his wife and young son with him (I'm sure this is definitely FBI procedure!) It is not the right perp and on the return flight a woman is killed and his family is terrorized -- talk about a phony set-up for the action. Apart from anything else, it is clear as a bell who the real killer is despite the red herrings which only an idiotic viewer would grab.
1 comment:
Saw one for the road as part of a film making workshop, with the director, producer, one of the actors and the writer, who explained the improvisation techniques, and the organic way they created a script, starting from an idea and working off the actors, and how they assemble the people they know will work for them and get the team thing together.
After that kind of introduction I guess we saw it differently. It's another of those films where the meaning is more obscure, and it's character-led. It was interesting to see however many backgrounds they had, experience, even number of years. But they were all the same, living under the same self-imposed constraints.
Hope you get to the LFF!
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