Fargo episode 101: “The Crocodile’s Dilemma” REVIEW

“If that was me, i would have killed that man.”

This review is spoiler-free.

Fargo is a remake of the classic Coen Brothers film of the same name that was released in 1996. It changes the character names and situations from the original, and seems to become a completely different monster altogether. It follows Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) as he is tormented by life in general. After meeting Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), who offers to kill someone who has been tormenting him, Nygaard begins to follow a dark, violent path, which leads him into making some decisions that he will probably regret. As this happens, Greta Grimly (Joey King) begins to track the case.

The cast are great, all emulating the vibe given from the original film. Although, i was surprised how much different it was from the film – the characters had all been changed, and it seemed like only the messages, and ideas surrounding life remained, as well as the setting. That really is how a remake should always be handled. It shouldn’t religiously recreate the original, but it should reference it subtly, while making the situations different. Billy Bob Thornton has the stand out performance, as his characters is so malicious and evil, that i loved to hate him. At the same time, he gave off an anti-hero vibe which made him strangely likable at rare times. He was terrifying. The other two main players were very good too, with Freeman’s descent into madness being highly engrossing to watch. Grimly gave a good performance also, but as her character was the stand out part in the original, where she was famously played by the fantastic Francis MacDormand, she fails to ever be as good as her original actress. This is a hard act to follow, but hopefully she will succeed to impress more in later episodes.

The direction was fine, but after having the Coen’s direct the source material, no director can really live up to that. It did, however, come off as a much darker piece than the original though, which i liked. Cinematography was good, if a bit simple. It had a sharp script that slightly lacked the humor of the original, but achieved portraying cruelty and malice very well.

The story was spot on for me, showing the idea of a man corrupting himself to try and do some good of the original film and turning it up to eleven. It was mad, with crazed, twisted, unexpected and bloody sequences continuously shocking. But thankfully these scenes were few and far between, leaving lots of time for great character development and plot intrigue.

I will be reviewing every episode of this ten episode mini-series, and after this review, the others will be spoiler filled.

Game of Thrones episode 403: “Breaker of Chains” REVIEW

“Money buys a man’s silence for a time. A bolt in the heart buys it forever.”

*WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD*

After the excitement of last weeks episode, this one had a lot to live up to, and it partly does that.

It starts straight after Joffrey’s death, as Sansa is escorted to Lord Baelish. This is an interesting scene, as the plot of Joffrey’s death is furthered. We see that her necklace was possibly the murder weapon, as it had a string of poison on it. I was also thankful to see Little-finger again, since he has been gone since the end of last season. I felt that not enough time was given to these characters, but i’m sure their story will be greatly developed throughout the season.

In Kings Landing, Tywin gave a great speech to Joffrey’s brother, who will now become King, about what makes a good King. Three uses of King in the same sentence. Impressive. In the same scene, Cersei furthers her ignorant and villainous nature by blaming the murder completely on Tyrion. Succeeding this, Jamie professes his love for her and subsequently rapes her. This was pretty shocking, as throughout the previous season he had steadily become a likable character, only to downplay that here unfortunately. Cersei is a horror, but it will take a lot for Jaime to redeem himself after this. Oberyn of Dorn also got some screen-time, as Tywin asked him to join the King’s advisers. He is becoming a fantastic character, and very different from anyone we’ve seen yet, due to his rebellious nature and bisexuality. Furthermore, Pod telling Tyrion of his situation was fairly emotional. Tyrion telling him how much he respected him and wished that he would die so that Pod would live reinforced how much i like Tyrion as a character.

We also got to catch up with Arya and the Hound, as they were given food and rest by a small religious family. When the Hound stole and harmed the Father, he showed himself to be yet again quite sinister, but his explanation for why he did it was profound and i found myself forgiving him somewhat, even though i probably shouldn’t have.

There were so many plot threads in this episode, so i won’t talk about all of them, but Samwell’s quest to save Gilly and her child seemed of great importance, and showed Sam to be a pivotal character, which he hasn’t really been thus far. Jon Snow did not get much to do, but he did advise the Watch about the Wildlings, who all became incredibly unlikable savages in this episode. In a particularly unsettling scene, they slaughter a village of innocent people with the help from the cannibals seen in episode one of this season. Ygritte becoming an out and out villain is saddening, but powerful.

Lastly, Dany had the best scene in the episode, as the her battle to free even more slaves continued. Daario dueling with a horseman without a horse was hilarious and truly bad-ass, and Daenerys ordering barrels of chains to be thrown at the city walls showed that she is innately good, if not a tad power hungry.

A good episode, if a bit under-whelming. There were so many different settings that only some felt important and hard hitting. Also there were no real surprises, but at the same time, not every episode needs to be shocking. It was fulfilling overall, and it has made me very excited for Daenerys’s battle to take place.

Game of Thrones episode 401: “Two Swords” REVIEW

“The Lannisters aren’t the only ones who pay their debts.”

*WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD*

I only recently caught up with the last season of game of thrones, so the horrific events of the end of season three are still fresh in my mind. Those poor Starks…

Anyway, i just thought i would let you all know that it is the best television show that I’ve ever seen, although there are obviously many TV shows, like Breaking Bad and the Sopranos, that i haven’t seen, so my view is slightly bias. Probably shouldn’t say that…

The episode mainly focuses on, at least in the first half, the Lannisters in King’s Landing. Joffrey is being a completely infuriating, horrible ass-hole as usual. The character of Joffrey has been a fascinating villain, as he is just completely evil, but not in a campy way. We all love to hate him, and that is testament to Jack Gleeson’s acting chops. Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion is fantastic, as usual, as he welcomes two new characters (pictured) from royal Dorn heritage to King’s Landing. They were exciting to meet, as they had very odd and quite bad-ass personalities. I have a feeling that they will clash the Lannisters in a big way by the end of the season. It was also nice to see Jamie back in Kings Landing for the first time in two seasons, with a swanky new metal hand. Cersei was also as sinister as she always is, and seeing Sansa after the Red Wedding was also pretty heart-breaking.

Outside King’s Landing, Jon Snow telling the Nights Watch of what was behind the wall was fairly interesting, but he only got a bit of screen time, which was a shame. I really have know idea where his character is going, but i’m sure i will be satisfied when i find out. Also, seeing Jon’s red-headed squeeze Ygritte and her growing rage towards Jon leaving her is terrific and terrifying.

Daenerys’s segment was also good, mainly due to seeing the Dragons…boy they’ve grown. But honestly, I’ve never found her to be a very interesting character, well considering how much the public seem to love her.

The stand out segment however was seeing Arya and the Hound fight and kill her captures from Season two. Scary stuff, considering Ayra is a very young girl.

The writing was fantastic as always, and the cinematography was top notch.

I won’t be scoring the episode, as i will hopefully do a review for each episode, and i’ll give a score for the season at the end. But needless to say, I loved it!

RoboCop (Remake) REVIEW

“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”

Which is of course one of the many excellent lines in the 1987 original, and the only memorable line in the remake…

Firstly, the original RoboCop, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is an undeniable classic in my opinion. It was smart because of it’s quitty stabs at consumerism, politics and capitalism, through great satire. It packed emotional punch, through RoboCop’s realisation that he used to be human. And most importantly, it was fun! With it’s copious blood squibs, superb score and a fantastic hero, as well as horrid villain’s who you love to hate.

Unfortunately, the remake fails to recreate basically any of the originals charm.

The tone of the movie was misplaced. The filmmakers went down the route most filmmakers take when aiming a movie at a largely male teenage audience, and took a bit of Chris Nolan’s dark and angsty juice. I love Nolan, but nobody can nail dark and angsty apart from him. Seriously, the film was so sullen that it becomes yet another film devoid of fun simply because Hollywood believes that nobody likes to have fun at the cinema. Just because of Batman Begins/Bournes success, apparently the only reason for going to the cinema is to watch a 30-something year old white man mope for 2 hours over some trauma that he experienced in the past. A film like this needs to be tongue and cheek – it’s called RoboCop for God’s sake! People go into this movie wanting to have fun, not be emotionally drained!

As well as this major fault, the film’s changes to the original source material are absolutely pointless. Giving Murphy emotion once he enters the RoboCop suit ruins one of the integral premises of the original film – the fact that Murphy regains some emotional recollection after dying. Honestly it might not seem like much, but the original film created such a sad idea around that concept, by having RoboCop visit his house in the original and have flashbacks of his family. In this the family are front and center of the story, which doesn’t work because they have very little point, and in the original it was done a whole lot better without them even being in it.

But the main problem with the film is that it’s too generic. The action scenes are in particular, which are simply overlong shaky-cam shots. Out of the four main action scenes, one of the major ones is shot almost completely in the dark, clouding the view of the probably great choreography. Everything about the film is unoriginal, and therefore uninteresting.

The acting is ok, but nothing to write home about. Same with the cinematography and the direction.

The one thing that i really liked about the movie was the way it melded some scenes with music. For example, there is an excellent scene in which RoboCop’s mind goes through a training simulation, while the Tin Man song from The Wizard of Oz plays. A true stroke of genius. As well as the Clash song “I fought the Law” playing in the end credits.

Overall the movie was poor, but there are things which are enjoyable about it. Gary Oldman and Sam Jackson are good in their roles, although Jackson does seem to be phoning it in. It was not so much a bad movie as it was a completely unremarkable one. It was pointless, since the original is such a masterpiece.

5/10

The Wolf of Wall Street REVIEW

“My name is Jordan Belfort. The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.”

Sex, Drugs and Stocks & Shares… I should really go into the tag-line business (if there is one).

The Wolf of Wall Street tells the true story of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) on his rise to fame in the world of dollar signs, known as the stock market. A subject I knew nothing about before seeing this movie, and after watching it I don’t really know what to feel about it.

This is my first Martin Scorsese film and I have to say that I wasn’t overly impressed. I did enjoy a lot of it nonetheless – the cinematography was sublime, with almost every shot looking marvellously thought through. The artistic flare shone through as one of the strongest aspects of the film. Although, there were many uses of CGI, including the  rendering of Belfort’s yacht, which to me looked obviously fake. The CGI was impressive in some scenes though.

The script was excellent. Terence winter provided copious amounts of smart, sinister, and somewhat funny dialogue for the film.

The acting was top notch all round with Leonardo DiCaprio giving a possible career best as the hedonist behemoth Belfort. Personally, I think he definitely deserves an Oscar for this. Jonah hill also gave a superb performance, giving many of the funniest lines in the film. I didn’t find it that funny though, even if there were a few instances in which I chuckled. I almost always felt bad for laughing afterwards.

The film was way too long. I have heard that many countries have insisted on shortening it to make it more palatable to viewers, which on one hand I think goes against Scorsese’s vision, but on the other makes me jealous of those countries. The run-time may seem necessary to show the sickly nature of the vile excess that these characters wallow in, but it is in the end self-indulgent and unnecessary. I could have probably have done without a couple of the orgies, or drug-induced spats – editing was obviously a bad word with the makers of the movie.

Another criticism is that the treatment of women was pretty horrible. I agree that some of it was necessary, but there was not a single female character who wasn’t a prostitute, someone’s wife/girl friend, or just completely loathsome. There was one likeable male character – the FBI agent, played by Kyle Chandler. This brings me to the fact that Jordan Belfort was a completely hateful figure, who was not at any time relateable or empathetic. I hated almost every character in the movie, so why would I want to watch 3 hours of these terrible people coning honest, hard working people and doing horrible things? Also the up-beat ending left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, as did the real Belfort’s cameo.

However, it was insightful and enjoyable a lot of the time, but I have to be honest, I was bored quite a lot. Furthermore, I have forgotten some of the film because parts of it were simply forgettable. Sorry to repeat myself, but it should have been shorter.

6/10