sarasdano

I saw this in the theater when I was nine, and I can tell you it truly terrified me. I can't bring myself to watch it today. That black blob monster of oil/sap that fed on the exhaust from the logging truck was the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen. In general, the film is a bit of a one-sided propaganda piece on saving the environment, but it gets it's message across. Speaking from my reaction from the film, terrifying kids to get them to recycle or save the forest is not the way to go. It's okay for kids movies to be scary, like the slightly disturbing pink elephant dream sequence from Dumbo, but this one really crosses the line.

Enjoyable but slightly flawed, In Her Shoes is definitely deeper than a chick-flick in the handling of the characters. Toni Collette is excellent as usual, as well as Shirley MacLaine, yet I couldn't help thinking while watching that I should read the book it was based on and get a deeper look at these people and their lives. I felt the film could have gone into more detail and I expected it to be longer, as so many plot developments felt somewhat simplified to fit them all in to a 2-hour running time. That's my biggest criticism of the film, but it was enjoyable in general and I had a wonderful time watching. A few other things I enjoyed: the Rocky reference (my favorite), and the opening sequence during the credits. I have to credit this last one to both screenwriter and director for this incredible opening, which in completely visual terms sets up the film's themes. The titles are presented in cuts between the two sisters, highlighting both their conflict and their connection to one another. Generally, it has a nice balance between dead-seriousness and light drama, but I wish there was more of it to comment on.

Sexy without being raunchy, frank without being overly explicit, I appreciate how difficult it is to write and perform a good comedy series, and I can say that Coupling is the most consistently humorous I have seen in recent years. Comparisons between this show and Friends are unfounded. It is easy to reduce sitcom down to its formula, since most mediocre and downright terrible sitcoms can be grouped together without question, but does having 6 people talking about sex and hanging out in a bar/coffee shop make it the same? I ask you...

Coupling is a character-oriented farce, and unfortunate since 'farce' is often used as a derogatory term. I know I may be looking at it much too deeply being a FTV student, but several episodes are noteworthy for being incredibly complicated and, somehow, resolved in a mere 30 minutes. "The End of the Line" is one of them, the other being "9 1/2 Minutes", and both in a way break the mundane sitcom format telling a story from three different points of view. Most episodes have flashbacks and flashforwards, even in the middle of conversations, that keep the story fresh and interesting.

Some sitcom episodes you can describe in one sentence. With Coupling, it may take you ten minutes to tell your friends all about this great new, well new to me, series you found on DVD. That's saying a lot for the incredible writing, though significantly weaker in the 4th series but still enjoyable. Highly recommended on both sides of the Atlantic.