philip-1

I gave up on this movie one hour in, when all I could discern was that there was a "mole" in the British spy service. I don't think that's really a spoiler since the subject of the film and novel is well known. However, when that is the only clear plot detail to emerge in an hour's time, you know the movie is a complete disaster.

Regardless of the who's who of British acting talent in the film, none of them under the misguided director's influence can save the experience from being dull, boring, confusing, and in the end, annoying.

Who are these characters; after an hour you still don't really know. Why are they all so depressing? You don't care because you really don't know them.

This may be one of the SLOWEST paced movies in cinema history. The actors mumble lines in a host of British accents; the musical score is slow; there is a lot of space between speeches; lots of deadpan staring; the director's art house cutting takes us all over the place without helping us to know where we are; flashbacks come and go but your not sure they are flashbacks. This is only part of the frustration of suffering through the first hour of the film. You keep on waiting and hoping for something INTERESTING to happen. You get nowhere!

No one seems to have bothered, and I am talking specifically about the director and screenwriter, to tell the story in this movie to keep the viewer interested; a damning and hideous flaw.

I decided to see the movie based on many of the positive reviews in the press. Well, I admit, to all, I gave up after 1 hour. I have no desire to return and see if things improved after that; doubtful, since the film is so consistently lifeless. Life is really too short to waste a minute of your time on this tedious exercise in obtuse anti-narrative.

Seeing Heaven is a very artistic film that certainly has a unique and often hypnotic aesthetic. The depiction of the gay porn sub culture is rather plastic and not very believable, but that is not what really defines the film.

The bizarre visions that the lead character has while attaining orgasm is really the main focus. The fatal mistake here is that director Ian Powell lingers on these nightmarish visions and repeats them with little variation, over and over again until the viewer just loses patience with the entire project. They certainly are intriguing at the beginning of the film, but when one sees the same collage of clips reoccurring throughout, they become annoyances that only hold up what little story there is. Ken Watanabe's constantly repeating music adds to the ever increasing monotony of the entire proceedings.

Actor Alexander Bracq is believable and beautiful to look at, but his understated, almost sleeping-walking like presence adds to the gradual boredom that sets in for the viewer. There is plenty of steamy sex and attractive bodies in the film, but frankly, if this is what you're looking for you might as well watch a real porn film rather than an artistic miscalculation about the porn industry.

With a faster pace, a better editor, and a more interesting script this might have been a really great experience. As it is, I'm glad to have seen it, but certainly would never return to this unsatisfying picture.

After experiencing Alan Ball's amazingly creative series about vampires on HBO, I approached this with some excitement as I enjoy vampire tales. Sad to say, based on the first three episodes, the series is woefully devoid of any originality or inspiration. It plays like any one of the CW's teen angst series. It's infantile, badly written, and dreadfully dull.

STORY LINE: Very run of the mill. At least Twilight had interesting characters. The supposed teenage girls in the series are your typical lot of vacuous mental lightweights. They were obviously cast for their looks as opposed to any Thespian ability. The two brothers are better, but after one episode they are so predictable, it's laughable. And who write's this stuff. It plays like a Grade C, low budget horror movie. The lines are trite and barely plausible. The story line so far could have been written by a third grader. No, I take that back. There are third graders who could do better. Even the directing is bad; episodes drag badly and Ian Somerhalder pops of the same way every time. It's not scary and worse, it's not alluring or interesting. There's not a whit of real fancy or fantasy.

ATMOSPHERE: The show really doesn't have a particularly creative atmosphere unless you count a few CGI effects and fog rolling in every time something sinister is going to happen; how cliché is that! Twilight had terrific art direction, as does Trueblood.

SOUNDTRACK: I suppose the target audience (teenieboppers) like the endless and annoying soundtrack of rock and pop songs. Again, it's indistinguishable from all the other CW teen shows. This crappy music has become boilerplate with these shows. Don't bother telling an interesting story; just pummel the TV audience with a noisy song track. The sound editor should be shot! The songs were so loud in the pilot, that you could barely hear the dialogue. The music in Trueblood is inspired; in the Vampire Diaries it's just schlock and it gets in the way.

VAMPIRE MYTHOS: There is nothing new, interesting, or particularly creative here. The Ann Rice novels are masterpieces compared to this. Twilight was vastly superior. Vampire Diaries has absolutely nothing new to say about vampires; Gilmore Girls meet the cute vamps. Ugh!

What's truly distressing is that a network like the CW caters to the lowest possible common denominator. If HBO can produce something so rich and appetizing, why is the CW content to feed our teenagers this steady diet of trash! Very depressing! Maybe something will develop in future episodes, but unless a new writing team, new director and some new actors are brought in, I don't hold out much hope.