itspoop

PLEASE. GO WATCH THE ORIGINAL UK VERSION OF UTOPIA. IT'S ON AMAZON PRIME TOO, so it's just as easy to access. friends don't let friends watch the american version of this show. the original was ONE OF THE BEST SHOWS OF THE LAST DECADE...and you want to watch the knock off, watered down, version of it? NO. DON'T. don't deprive your self of the brilliance of the original show. Look. i know you've heard things about this show, but...it sucks. it does. it is dumbed down in the worst possible way. it actually insults your intelligence. it's not enough for a character to do something, they literally make characters say what just happened. every scene is like this: (A hits B with a pipe and knocks him out while C watches. then C says to A:) did you just hit B with a pipe? (A nods. then C asks:) is he unconscious? (A nods again) C: ok then, you've just knocked out A with a pipe. they can't trust you to know what just happened, even though they've LITERALLY JUST SHOWN YOU. everything, and i mean EVERY. LAST. THING. is spelled out like that. the original trusted you enough to keep up with the scenes and plot, where this one wants to hold your had and read you closed caption descriptions while you watch. it's that bad. i love american tv as much as the next person, but one of the virtues of the original series was it was taut. not a single shot, scene, word more than was wasted. everything is in service of the plot. the music, color, composition, blocking, dialog, and editing, all as lean as possible, the net effect is a claustrophobic feeling even in shots in open fields. and it's breathtakingly good. friends don't let friends watch the american version of this show. am i biased? yeah. i have been telling people to watch the original version since it originally aired, and every single person who took my advice THANKED ME FOR IT. they'd come back raving. i know you don't know me from adam, but if you trust me on nothing else. trust me on this, the original is brilliant and it is better.

this is another one of those movies that i loved so much the first time i saw it, i cried in the theater, went home, came back the next day with a friend in tow.

unlike the other movies i did this with (raising Arizona, after hours), the person i saw it with actually got the movie the first time, and loved it as much as i did. yes, naked and Topsy turvy got all the praise, but this is my favorite Leigh movie. it is just so...sweet.

i would talk about this movie years after seeing it saying that it was so heartbreakingly real, if you cut the screen, it would bleed. the was something so compelling about everyone in this movie. someone said they were pathetic, but i couldn't say i saw it like that. they were just flawed people doing the best they could. to me that is so beautiful. for years i would wish that America had a real working class director like mike Leigh. someone who showed people struggling. we need it so very badly, as the aftermath of Katrina can attest to. we forget our poor over here.

the funniest thing was i wold watch this movie when i got depressed, and it made me feel less alone. it cheered me up.