The Critical Filmmaker

Bride Flight (Dutch with English subtitles) is a fictional account of three women, who leave their native Netherlands in the 1950s, heading to New Zealand to reunite with their fiances, marry and start a new life.  The women meet on the plane, and their lives soon intertwine in a story of love, loss and independence. The film spans several decades flashing forward and backward from present day to the past as it chronicles what each woman goes through alone and together, and the link that binds them to each other. The film was shot in Holland and New Zealand, the latter location allows for some English to be spoken in the film with most of the dialog in Dutch A friend of mine in The Netherlands tells me its a bit hit over there, and I can see why.  I highly recommend this film.

Tied to a Chair is one of those films that makes me sit back and wonder whether it might have been better served if the writer/director had given one of his roles to someone else.  A low budget film that reveals its inadequacies in its editing and mish mash of a storyline. The film has essentially three plots revolving around one character who is essentially the amalgam of three.  The Naomi we meet from the outset is a ditzy British wife who can't cook nor do anything right.  When her husband asks her what she wants to do with her life, she reveals that she threw her dreams out the window when she married him.  She wanted to be an actress. So she ups and leaves her staid life in Britain and heads off to Cannes, and this is where plot two begins.  She no longer has the British accent and instead she's an American, desperately seeking the role of a lifetime. Her quest eventually leads her to New York, her hometown, where she gets embroiled in some criminal a...

This is an engaging film, harkening back to classic suspense films of the 1940's and 50's.  Some might find it cliche'd, but I truly enjoyed it. The plot revolves around a young woman who works as a hotel housekeeper and an ex-cop who meets her at a speed dating event.  They date for a while, but things soon turn ugly, and she must find out what really happened that day they spent together on the grounds of his boss's mansion. The scenes are woven together nicely and it will definitely keep you guessing.

Everybody Loves Raymond... Well, almost.  I was never an avid watcher of the TV show myself, although I did land on it on occasion and have a good laugh.  So I could see the appeal and often watch an episode when I come across it in reruns. Exporting Raymond is a comedic documentary featuring the producer of the TV series and the hurdles and challenges he goes through helping a Russian crew create their own version of the show in Russia. Phil Rosenthal, producer and stand-up comic, gives us a somewhat amusing look at what it was like for him to ensure the show retained its theme and humor as it was translated for a new audience.  He reveals the culture clash and marvels at the differences in cultures, despite his ardent belief that the quirks of married life is universal. I found this film a bit self-serving and naive at times, but if you liked the TV show and enjoy this humor, I think you'll find it an entertaining ride.

Growing up watching TV most of my life, I've often noticed and pondered why producers and writers do things to characters that are inconsistant, thinking that audiences won't notice. Many times I've seen shows change the background of a character in such an obvious way that viewers notice.  And yet in this day and age of DVDs, DVRs, computers, and any other technology in which we can rewatch episodes (even reruns that were in place as far back as the 1970's), producers and writers forget this aspect and assume the audience won't notice for the sake of entertainment. News flash:  We do notice.  We notice all the time and we comment and critique it in message boards all over the internet. I want to talk about one such instance that's been becoming more and more obvious recently.  And this involves a regular character named Ben Jones who is in the British murder mystery called Midsomer Murders. For those of you who don't know Midsomer Murders is a show ...

Apologies for not posting in a long time.  Real life sneaked up on me and caused me to take a breather. First there was the Bell's Palsy that hit around mid-August of 2010.  That made me feel very tired, so my evenings after work were spent lounging on the sofa, watching TV or snoozing. Then I bid on a condo in late September and that was a nerve-wracking experience getting all my i's dotted and my t's crossed.  I finally closed in December, but the place needed plenty of work, and still does.  So that's occupied my time as well. I know I am very late in posting film reviews, but I still want to do that.  This means there will be plenty of belated reviews from the past several months, but I'll try to intersperse them with more recent films. I also plan to change the layout of my reviews, as one thing that causes me to procrastinate is the listing of credits.  I like having them, but I'm finding myself less motivated to post when I think of the work ...

Film:   Little Fish Starring :  Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Dustin Nguyen, Sam Neill, Martin Henderson, Joel Tobeck Director:   Rowan Woods   Screenwriter :  Jacqueline Perske Based on a short film by Rowan Woods called Tran the Man , Little Fish is about a woman trying to turn her life around after beating her drug habit, but no matter what that life keeps rearing its ugly head and she must take extreme measures to start fresh. Cate Blanchett is Tracy, a manager at a local video store who dreams up the idea of expanding the business to the internet.  Sadly, she doesn't have the money to do it.  Her brother, Ray (Martin Henderson) meanwhile, is still involved in drug dealing, despite her best efforts to steer him otherwise.  Then there's Lionel (Hugo Weaving), an addict who finds himself cut off from his supplier (Sam Neill) who claims to be retiring from the business.  Tracy as a thing for Lionel, but his drug habit gets in the ...