Movies
A pretty cool crime flick carried by a strong performance of Terence Stamp. At times, it reminded me of Soderbergh's The Limey, but that may just be my memory failing. I wasn't expecting much, but this was a perfectly pleasant film, sporting a fun premise and some memorable moments. Stamp is truly great here, the setup is funny and Frears uses it to pepper The Hit with some dark comedy. The film's a bit fragmented, but that's normal for a road movie, and the runtime could've been a tad shorter maybe, but other than that I had a good time watching this. A cute little surprise.Read all
Somewhat pedestrian drama. I'm sure some of the themes were a bit more eye-opening back then (the culture shock, the LGBTQ angle), take that away and there's not all that much left. Frear's direction is way too functional and the performances are a bit too stilted for a drama, but it's not the worst classic either. The characters are pretty nice, the pacing is decent and the film isn't too depressing. On the other hand, the drama didn't really move me, the direction is bland and the film lacks any truly memorable scenes. Not all that great, but it's better than Frear's American films I've seen, so that's at least something.Read all
Stephen Frears has yet to impress me. The Grifters sees his tackling a more crime-based story, but the film fails to stand out in any way. It doesn't help that Cusack is there again, it's one of the few actors I really can't stand, but it's really Frears's saltless direction that lets the film down. The performances aren't great, the cinematography and the score are dim and the plot isn't all that interesting. It doesn't help that the film is almost two hours long either. It's pretty generic genre fluff, I'm not entirely sure where the film got its reputation from, but it sure didn't stand the test of time.Read all
A pretty popular costume drama, with a star-studded cast, lots of romance (at least, sex and relationships, not sure how much actual romance there was), but very little beyond that. Of course, I don't really care for the setting, illustrated by the fact that I'd never even seen this film before. Some familiar faces here, who do a pretty decent job. But I didn't care much for the characters, I wasn't really impressed with all the easy flirting and I have little love for the classic setting. Things move along quite swiftly and it wasn't that the film was too longwinded, it's just that 120 minutes is quite long if there's nothing of note.Read all
