Rag Tale

This is a shame. Great cast (why aren't these people on our screens all the time?), completely wasted. The direction in this movie is the worst I've ever had the misfortune to see - the camera is constantly moving, often rotating round so actors are at angles, or zooming. Combined with extremely quick editing, it makes it difficult to tell which actor is which, let alone what their facial expressions are. This would be excusable perhaps if an inexperienced director tried it for one scene, but it's the entire movie. I suppose the attempt is to convey the pressure and fast pace of a newsroom: instead, it conveyed to me a headache (a good director would allow the actors to do some of the conveying emotion: the direction more or less screams look at me in every scene, to the extent the participant I was most aware of was the camera).

Putting aside the direction, the improvised script does not produce a comedy. The cast do a good job of conveying some relationships between the group, some amusing, but really asking them to improvise a script of one liners in a few weeks was always insane and this really could have used a decent scriptwriter. The audience I was in laughed twice. The original concept isn't bad, the cast try hard and are good, but the director never gives them the chance to salvage this. Avoid.

There is hardly a shot in this film that lasts longer than 2 seconds. MTV style plus plus. A formal choice made to stress the hectic and crazy world of tabloid journalism. The cast is good, but when people get so much visually fragmented and reduced to mere short visual and aural stimuli it's difficult to care at all for them. Foul language is omnipresent and the ending is ludicrous. At least some of the film is funny as absurd headlines for tomorrow's edition of the "Rag" are discussed and a battle for power and control between the chief editor and management breaks out. A big headache is more likely what you take home from this experience than insight, concernment or merely a good time. Textbook example of style over substance.

It's sad that directors with no talent use odd cinematographic techniques in an attempt to disguise the film's inadequacies. What's worse though, is the stupid sheep-like gullibility of some of the viewing public who interpret such "novelty" as daring and mold-breaking. Mary McGuckian is plainly a person devoid of talent, vision or taste. Do I hear you say "But it's refreshing to see a director explore new ideas"? Yes, it is refreshing but this no-talent director has simply exhibited pretension and stupidity - any fool can do that. Mary McGuckian is not going to be part of cinema's future. - She'll just slink into the shadows of obscurity and those few who remember her so-called efforts will regard the experience with revulsion. I would have rather been able to sum up Rag Tale as MINUS 10 but 1 out of 10 was the lowest I could award. 1 out of 10 is clearly undeserved praise and might (horror of horrors) encourage this egregious blight on cinema to direct another movie. - I (as I'm sure most other people will) shudder at the thought.

Somehow, I imagine this breathtakingly inadequate director could even mess up sweeping the streets, so I won't suggest she takes this up as a profession. - If she did, walking around her home town would be a whole lot harder than it is now.

Ed Wood's movies were so mind-bogglingly superior (even at their worst) to this woman's pathetic offerings that I feel embarrassed at those who awarded Ed Wood the soubriquet as "worst director ever". At least we could watch his films and laugh at how amateurish they were. In Mary McGuckian's case, we can't even do that. There's nothing in Rag Tale to raise a smile - not even a smile of poignant sadness. What in heaven's name was the producer thinking about to allow this claptrap to be released? He should be jailed for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on the audience. Don't watch this film within 5 hours of eating food - it'll come right back in your lap.

As a newspaper journalist myself, seeing this film was almost a duty. By the end of it, I wished that I enjoyed a different vocation.

The script is unremarkable, slightly below average with all of the clichés surrounding journalism pandered to. The plot is almost non-existent, it was difficult to fathom what the film was actually about other than ticking the boxes on how the man in the street views journalists.

What really grated, and which actually gave me a headache, was the way the film was shot. Jaunty angles and quick-cut editing abound. This made the remake of 'Rollerball' look sedate by comparison. One can only assume that the editor or director has recently been dumped by someone with photo-sensitive epilepsy.

Jennifer Jason Lee, Malcolm McDowell, Kerry Fox - what were you thinking of? A terrible, terrible movie. Avoid at all costs.

If this is meant to be a fly on the wall appreciation of a newsroom it is hard to imagine that flies can stick to walls, rather than fall to the floor suffering from some severe form of motion sickness. I could barely watch 24 minutes of this picture, as my head was spinning out of control. If I had watched it any further I may have ended with my face in the toilet bowl.

Yes this movie is quite unconventional in it's use of short shots, and rapid edits. But its lack of convention adds to its almost complete lack of veiwability (I may have invented that word). I do not know why someone would revert to a nauseating MTV style of editing with such a subject. Some reviewers here have said it adds to the fly on the wall experience. But flies on a wall have one perspective, because they are sitting still on a wall.

A sense of pace can be portrayed by other means. Such as using shots that last for more than two seconds depicting people moving frenetically, and exploiting these actors' abilities to show stress, see Broadcast News. I can't imagine this would be too much of a stretch for the cast in this pic.

It is a pity that many of the audience would not be able to watch this movie given the stellar cast and subject matter. JJL is one of my all time faves, and I was quite disappointed that I could not see more than 23 minutes and 55 seconds of this pic. I watched this movie on DVD, and I've never asked for money back; but on this occasion I shall.

If you want to have a good time that results in you being very sick at the end of the night, I recommend a night at the pub. This movie does not provide you with a good time.

0.5/10 Unfortunately IMDb doesn't allow for a 0.5 rating.