Movie Review - Secrets Of The Summer House

Secrets Of The Summer House

(2008)

Incendo Productions : Incendo Media / Lifetime Movie Network

5 / 10

Since this is a television movie the subject matter has been toned down.  This would have made a good average budget DVD release movie and could have handled the matter a little more accordingly.

That said, the director, Jean-Claude Lord (who directed Visiting Hours (1982) and Second Chances (2010) - reviewed in my blogs), does an amiable job with the story by John Benjamin Martin and Donald David Martin.

This is a ghost story, but due to lack of horror elements and the amount of time it takes to get to the ghostly action, it is more of a drama.  This has so much of a TV movie feel to it.  The characters are stereotypical; you can see the twists coming; and the characters relationships are pretty standard and have been done a thousand times before.  Nevertheless, the actors and the director do make the film watchable... and at times, enjoyable.

Lindsey Price who plays the lead role of Nikki Wickersham gives a passable rendition of a troubled woman who loses her husband, though it's not played as a tear-jerker.  Nikki's friend, Margie Mancuso (played by Sadie LeBlanc) and her handyman boyfriend (Niall Matter) are pretty realistic and believable, to a point - this is a TV Movie, after all.

It's the lack of direction the story takes which is a stalling point for the film.  It sits uncomfortably between, drama, thriller, mystery, and horror.  This makes it a bland affair, had the writers or the director chosen just one path to take this could have been better.  It needed to be spookier with more tension.  The mysterious elements could have been heightened and extended upon.  Because the cause of the haunting is hateful, terrible, and unpleasant it was required to be much darker than portrayed here.

If there's nothing on the telly and hell has frozen over, then you could do worse than watch this film.

Movie Review - My Old Lady

My Old Lady

(2014)

BBC Films / Cohen Media Group : BBC Two / Curzon Film World / Universal Pictures Entertainment.

8.25 / 10

The trailer for this film pushes it towards being a comedy, though what you actually get is a profound observation of life and the ways that our decisions have effects on others, sometimes not for the best.

The story starts out on a comedic level with Kevin Kline's character, Mathias Gold (which he portrays charmingly), turning up at an apartment in Paris, which his father owned, only to find an old lady living there.  Mathilde Girard, played perfectly by Maggie Smith, is the tenant who had sold her apartment to Gold's father on a life lease; this means he has to pay her a monthly stipend until she dies, at which point the apartment then becomes his.  This stipend now passes onto Mathias.

Being in desperate need of money he decides to go ahead and sell the apartment along with the ongoing contract.  However, as we progress through the film we are introduced to Mathilde Girard's daughter, Chloe who is portrayed beautifully by Kristin Scott Thomas, who is utterly opposed to both Gold and his plans.

As the obstacles build up to his scheme other secrets and lies are revealed which takes the movie into a melancholic and bittersweet province.  This adds depths to all the characters as they start to reveal their true selves and feelings towards one another.

Credit is due to the main actors as they pull this off seamlessly and make you empathise with them.  The writer of the play, as well as this screenplay and director of the film, Israel Horovitz does a magnificent job of taking everyday life and placing it under a microscope.  The change from comedic to bittersweet is so smooth and realistic that it draws the audience into the film more without them realising that the entire attitude has changed.

The only thing I found slightly irksome was the happy ending.  This is certainly one way the story could go, but there are a couple of others too - one, not so happy - the other, totally bleak.  With the feel of the story towards the end, I think the happy ending was thrown in to let the audiences know that everything works out in the end...  However, this is not the sentiment at the heart of the movie, because of this the ending feels strange and a little strained.

This is a wonderful piece of storytelling and film-making and is worth a viewing, especially if you like to see life as it really is.

Movie Review - Stonehearst Asylum

Stonehearst Asylum

(2014)

Icon Productions / Sobini Films : Lionsgate / Millennium Entertainment

7.5 / 10

From a master of mystery & suspense, comes a journey into the dark depths of the mind...

...well not exactly.

This is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."  The term here is "based".  Because they've tagged on Poe's name they've made it into the horror genre without making a horror film.  In fact. there's not much mystery or suspense in this movie either.

Don't get me wrong this is a solid story with a great cast of British actors, including good performances from Kate Beckinsale as Eliza Graves, Ben Kingsley as Silas Lamb, David Thewlis as Mickey Finn, Jason Flemyng as Swanwick, and Jim Sturgess as Edward Newgate.  Brad Anderson also does a good job of bringing out the performances of the cast and setting a decent atmosphere within the confines of the asylum, not as unsettling and mysterious as it should have been, though.

There was plenty of settings and scenes where Anderson could have created tension and suspense, which could have added an oppressive atmosphere to the asylum, making the film stronger and a little darker.  For me, this film was too light and required more sense of mystery, given the synopsis of the story - there could have been twist on twist. 

However, the main storyline was the blossoming love story.  This annoyed me as the stronger elements were pushed to the side and even ignored - with all that is lacking in this film, I believe it's more drama than anything else.

That said, the story was okay but it was the good acting, direction, and location, which kept my attention and my finger from hitting the stop button.

A good film but could have been so much more.

Worth a watch while cuddled up with your loved one on the sofa.  A watch once movie.

Movie Review - The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger 

(2013)

Walt Disney Pictures / Jerry Bruckheimer Films / Silver Bullet Productions : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Buena Vista Home Entertainment

6.5 / 10

As a kid, I remember watching the old black and white television series at my Nan's while mum and dad did their shopping.  Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels bringing much-needed justice to the wild west.  In 1981 they brought out The Legend Of The Lone Ranger, another big budget movie, for its time, and I remember I enjoyed that too.  So when this was released I had to watch it, after all, it was The Lone Ranger, starring one of my favourite actors, Johnny Depp...

...  However...

This is the most ludicrous telling of The Lone Ranger mythos ever filmed.  It verges on the insane and stupid.  It definitely feels as though they had too much money in the budget to burn and they did just that with the completely farcical CGI, of which there is way too much.  In one section it looks like the director was trying to better the awesome, and equally silly, horseback running of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, by having The Lone Ranger ride Silver on top of the train carriages and then through them; it's just not awesome, just silly.

Poor Johnny Depp's acting skills seem to now range from Jack Sparrow to Native American Jack Sparrow, even the headdress he wears gives his silhouette an all-to-familiar feel.  He's also brought across Helena Bonham Carter from his directing buddy Tim Burton.  It's a shame though as it appears only Mr Burton can give these two good actors decent enough characters to push them into giving a great performance.  

Unfortunately, the director here, Gore Verbinski, can only manage mediocre performances from the talented cast.  The worst thing being the actual acting scenes.  These look to have been added so the actors can actually stretch their acting legs a little.  These scenes though appear boring and dull, nearly to the extreme.  I think the main problem is there's not much characterisation to be done, apart from Tonto... and one man cannot hold a film of this size together.  The other characters should have been deeper and better thought out.  When you have a cast like this use them to their best potential, even if you need a rewrite, or two, to do it.  Spend the budget there and not the needless CGI segments.

So why the average rating if I didn't like the movie?  Well, there are a few things which give the mythos of The Lone Ranger a more powerful storyline.  Tonto's story is the prime example; as far as I remember no film or television series touched on why Tonto is called Tonto (which means fool); in this telling, there's a perfectly good and plausible explanation for his naming.  There's also a nice spiritual side with The Lone Ranger's horse, Silver, actually being a Spirit Horse who chooses which ranger to bring back from the dead, after Cavendish's ambush.

The comedy, which mainly comes from Johnny Depp, is right on point and pretty funny.  There are also some great Iconic moments in the film, especially Tonto standing at the top of a ladder on a speeding train, once you see it you'll understand.

So it's these issues that raise the film out of the doldrums to become a "watch once" film, possibly on a wet Sunday afternoon, after a decent dinner, and with the family.