All's Faire in Love

Rating: 80%


(http://www.coveringmedia.com)

Also Known As:

Unknown

Year:

2009

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Comedy

Director:

Outstanding Performances:

Premiss:

Two rival Medieval shows vie for supremacy in the world of Renaissance Faires.

Themes:

Alienation | Coming-of-age | Compassion | Emotional repression | Identity | Loneliness | Materialism | Narcissism | Nostalgia | Personal | Personal change | Political | Political Correctness | Self-belief | Self-expression | Sexual Repression | Solipsism | Stereotyping | White culture | White guilt

Similar to:

Review Format:

DVD

Oddly Original

Summary: Engaging & Affectionate Romantic Comedy about Cultural Superficiality.

Movie about the process of acting, itself, in that the various performers portray the differing levels of commitment to their roles that one would expect from historical re-enactors in real life.

The ever-petite Christina RICCI is her usual excellent self and perfectly complements the highly-tall and apparently-gormless Owen BENJAMIN.

BENJAMIN is, in fact, unhilariously-hilarious as he wanders around this movie acting like he is amazed that anyone would ask him to appear in a movie at all. It is as if his first impressions of being in a movie are being recorded for no good reason - other than posterity; as if he were watching the other performers from a distance rather than directly interacting with them - as would be the case in a more conventional movie.

Apart from the fact that there is no explanation as to why any Whites would ever choose to dress up as other people and start living an alternate reality (outside the acting field), this film is kind of brilliant - in an Adventures of Power sort of way.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form - provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.

Carry on Emmannuelle

Rating: 60%


(http://www.allmovie.com)

Also Known As:

Unknown

Year:

1978

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Comedy

Director:

Outstanding Performances:

Premiss:

Sex-starved beauty cannot inflame her husband’s ardor. In frustration, she seduces a string of VIPs.

Themes:

Courage

Destiny

Emotional repression

Empathy

Free Speech

Humanity

Identity

Self-belief

Self-expression

Sexual Repression

Social class

White culture

Similar to:

Emmanuelle

Review Format:

DVD

She doesn’t want “Tom” or “Harry” - she wants “Dick”!

Summary: Good, clean sexy fun.

If not for the presence of the clearly-enjoying-himself Kenneth CONNOR & and the very game and immensely prick-stiffening Suzanne DANIELLE, this movie would not be much fun.

The problem throughout is a crisis of identity. Is it a typical Carry On, where sexual activity is hinted-at - via double entendre and innuendo - but never shown. Or, a Confessions- or Adventures of-type comedy where the fleshy couplings are more explicit? It cannot quite decide and falls a little flat by attempting a compromise between the two.

(http://www.amazon.co.uk)

In a sense, this movie is not a veritable Carry On, since the attempt to change such a rigid formula could never really work because it relied on certain, unique, performers who could never be replaced. (In this, Carry on Emmannuelle had much the same problem as the Hammer horror movies; hence, their decline.) Unlike Bond or Dr Who, the producers of this movie discovered they could not change the leading players or style without hurting the franchise.

Not one of the best Carry Ons, yet still an agreeable way to spend some time with old friends who have given so much comedic pleasure to so many.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form; provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.

Jury II

Rating: 60%


(http://unitedagents.co.uk)

Also Known As:

The Jury

Year:

2011

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Crime

Director:

Outstanding Performance:

Premiss:

Twelve men and women are called for jury service in the retrial of a man accused of triple murder.

Themes:

Alienation

Christianity

Compassion

Emotional repression

Empathy

Grieving

Guilt

Justice

Loneliness

Materialism

Narcissism

Personal

Political

Political Correctness

Sexual Repression

Solipsism

Stereotyping

White culture

Similar to:

12 Angry Men

The Jury

Review Format:

DVD

Whites Should Get Out More

Summary: Compelling. but empty.

As usual with this writer, he is good at addressing political issues but poor at dealing with character - almost as if he thinks politics has nothing to do with who people are.

The attempt to abolish trial-by-jury (to increase conviction rates) comes down to little more than greedy police officers and obnoxious politicians caring more about criminal convictions than actual guilt - with no attendant analysis as to the real reasons the UK police service has such a currently-low crime detection rate (29%).

The non-Black characters are little more than cyphers who (like the drama itself) possess no self-understanding - while the People of Color are merely chocolate-colored Whites. (As males cannot write convincing non-male characters, Whites cannot write convincing non-White ones.)

The emotional repression of Whites (which produces such writing) is only hinted at here, yet the culture-of-loneliness depicted is the main event. Whites find it so hard to find soul-mates that Exhibitionism is practiced alongside on-line dating in providing the solace of a good shag, yet the writing never explores this as an upfront issue - nor does it suggest solutions.

Such cultural inadequacy is not fruitfully explored here and, as the prosecution case lacks unambiguous evidence of guilt, so the case made by the drama itself (British Justice is a political tool of the vindictive & that not all Whites are hysterical fools) lacks the detail necessary to convince.

Lacking an intact humanity, non-Blacks continue producing psychologically-unintegrated and cowardly drama like this. Still, the first-rate acting holds the interest - along with the desperate desire to know what the jury’s verdict will be and whether the jury’s verdict is actually correct.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form; provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.

300 Spartans

Rating: 60%


(http://madhulikaliddle.com)

Also Known As:

Unknown

Year:

1961

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Historical

Director:

Outstanding Performances:

Premiss:

Military spearhead of 300 soldiers battles an entire invading army.

Themes:

Communism | Courage | Destiny | Emotional repression | Family | Identity | Loyalty | Narcissism | Personal | Personal change | Political | Republicanism | Self-belief | Self-expression | Totalitarianism | White culture

Similar to:

Review Format:

DVD

With This or On This

Women of Britain, Say Go!

Summary: Weak history-lesson with rousing battle-scenes.

White propaganda expressed in expository dialogue of exceeding banality. Even though there are some fine actors here, the characters remain resolutely two-dimensional despite the best efforts of the performers.

The political simplifications of endlessly-stating that the Ancient Greek city states were endlessly disunited are designed to mask the attempt to make this film palatable to modern audiences by making the Asiatic Persians substitutes for the Asiatic Soviets; while offering no real insight into life in either circa 480 BC or 1961 AD.

(http://madhulikaliddle.com)

The Battle of Thermopylae is handsomely-mounted (the only real reason this entertainment was ever produced) with large numbers of butch, hairy-legged Caucasian males dressed in battle skirts and ready to die for Sparta - along with the political delusion of a united Greece.

Diane BAKER is very fetching (with winning ways) and Ralph RICHARDSON does reasonably-well at making the indigestible dialogue sound convincing. But what makes this movie less than it could have been is the White belief that the Personal is Political; explaining why none of the characters possess a private life that is considered as important as their duties to the state.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form; provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.

Final Countdown

Rating: 60%


(http://awesomebmovies.com)

Also Known As:

Unknown

Year:

1980

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Science-Fiction

Director:

Outstanding Performance:

Premiss:

Modern aircraft carrier is thrown back in time, just hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Themes:

Courage | Destiny | Family | God | Identity | Personal change | Science | Sexism | Stereotyping | White culture

Similar to:

Review Format:

DVD

Stitch in Time

Summary: Ridiculous, but fun.

One of the few time-travel movies that actually makes any kind of sense. By carefully-avoiding the contradictions inherent in travelling backwards in time - in trying to ensure nothing changes to alter the future - the time travel is shown as having already happened so that nothing could change (until a partial volte-face at the very end of the movie).

Moreover, the fallacy of pretending that such time travel is possible is emphasized in suggesting that any such travel would have no effect precisely because it must already have happened. We know that travelling back in time is never achieved at any time in the future precisely because we never meet travelers from that future to attest to its ever having been achieved. (In the same way that there are no physical artifacts of alien spacecraft ever having visited the Earth.)

(http://awesomebmovies.com)

Most time travel stories (with the notable exception of Jetée) claim the need to travel back in time on the principle that crying over spilt milk is rational and going backwards to prevent something bad from happening would be a very good reason for such a trip.

The only fly-in-the-ointment here is in the character played by the excellent James FARENTINO. He exists in the present, but is then stranded in the past when his compatriots return to the now. No explanation is offered as to how he manages to live two lives - unless it is possible to change past events and/or because doppelgängers really do exist - a contradiction of the carefully-constructed theory-of-time presented here.

Dramatically, the love story between FARENTINO and Katherine ROSS is poorly-explored - to the movie’s detriment. There is an interesting, untold story here of a woman who loves a man from the future and a man who must accept the loss of the technological advantages of living now. Although, maybe he becomes rich because of that very (advanced) knowledge? But nowhere is this clearly stated.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form; provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.