ok_english_bt

Firstly, credit where credit's due, I disliked every single character in 'Disclaimer', unusual for me as I can usually find something I like. Maybe that was what esteemed director Alfonso Cuarón (Children Of Men', 'Roma', Gravity') intended in his adaptation of Renée Knight's 2015 novel of the same name. The characters were all too black & white, scarcely believable. Life isn't usually so straightforward, and drama needs to reflect that. The story uses so-called 'unreliable narrative' so you're meant to question the information presented, but it's hard to get behind any message when you don't feel sympathy for the characters involved. When I'm struggling with any drama I ask myself the same question: "Do I care what happens to these people?". Sad to say, in this case I really don't. Actors as good as Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline & Sacha Baron Cohen probably share some of the blame, but I guess you can only do so much with the writing in front of you. Turgid. There's quite a clever 'twist' by the end but you can see it coming a mile off so it's hardly worth sitting through all the misery that leads up to it. That's a pity because Cuarón clearly has things to say in 'Disclaimer'.

I wonder if British society is really so cold, uptight, sanctimonious & cruel, no wonder people around the world hate us so much? The references to social media are also quite telling, a tendency to believe anything online without question. 'Disclaimer' is one of the darkest series I've ever seen because it points a finger directly at who we are in this digital age perhaps? At the end, I felt too depressed to care. Worst of all, I think by exaggerating to make a point, people will dismiss the series as 'woke' nonsense without examining the important issues behind its drama, particularly the rape of a woman. Not good.

I don't buy any of this arty nonsense about "life", "faith", "death" etc. All I know is that Thien An Pham's 'Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell' was 3 hours of my life I'll never get back, and anybody thinking of watching it would be well-advised to find something else. The film starts with a good idea, a sudden death, a bereaved relative, a search for meaning ... but then the central character Thien played by Le Phong Vu goes on an aimless odyssey through rural Vietnam in search of God-knows-what? For me, at least, the film could use basic editing and a narrative device. Tell a proper story why don't you? It's not without charm in places (for example, his chance meeting at a road stop with an old lady (Nsnd Phi Dieu) who sounds very wise, and the relationship between Thien and the orphaned son of his sister-in-law Dao (Nguyen Thinh) is quite touching), but is largely spoilt by having no clear purpose or pace. You can't really apply a 'one-take' mentality to a travelogue feature, it's just too slow. Magic Realism? Pah! And pointing a camera at something doesn't necessarily make for good camera work either, whatever the subject, certainly not the Caméra d'Or ("Golden Camera") the film was apparently awarded at Cannes 2023. And don't kid yourself the things will get better over time, they certainly don't. 'Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell' is a long drawn-out borefest and is frankly best avoided. The emperor really has no clothes!

In the end, 'Sick' was a rather long 83 minutes! John Hyams slasher flick stars Gideon Adlon & Beth Million as a pair of college students quarantining in a remote Lakeside house during the Covid 19 Pandemic. I know, right? What could possibly go wrong? The tension building at the beginning of the movie was promising, but then it unraveled in a series of classic horror 'stunts'. Ideas seemed too loosely strung together to produce anything coherent and whole. 'Sick' has that unedited feeling that runs through many films produced during the Covid era. Perhaps the right sort of staff weren't available, budgets might have been squeezed or maybe it just wasn't practical to spend time working the film over to achieve a decent production value. It might have been 'none of the above', just that the film makers wanted to keep the whole thing 'fluid' or free-formed? Whatever, for me 'Sick' doesn't seem edited adequately, and as a result the time dragged!

I can't fault the undeniable pedigree of people like Kevin Williamson and John Hyams, both of whom are responsible for great work, nor the actors who all seemed to play their parts. The idea of being accosted by people in masks is, of course, nothing new to Williamson who created the 'Scream' horror franchise, and I'm sure he felt there was some fun to be had playing around with the Covid themes! In the end though, when the intruders and assailants were revealed it all felt a bit preposterous!

'Sick' reminds me of the anxieties surrounding the Covid 19 Pandemic, particularly at its inception in early 2020. What was this strange airborne virus, where was it taking humankind and what would it leave behind? So, to be kind to everybody involved in 'Sick', let's put it all down to the pandemic! Hyam's slasher flick is sort of mid-level horror, but my advice would be to find something better or go back to the Scream series!