Film Reviews by IcePee

Any artistic endeavor is made up of decisions. Unfortunately this particular endeavour took some unfortunate directions. And, it began right at the beginning. Not just the beginning of the actual production, having a song that has nothing to do with Tubular Bells, Mike Oldfield or anything. Just a bunch of noodling.

The other thing that was fundamentally wrong is the idea that the music needed guilding. I'm not talking about altering it sonically. I'd be all for that, I'm talking about the acrobats. Why? Why have them? I think it speaks to a lack of confidence. On one hand they seemed to fearful to change the music beyond a very limited point, and on another they understood they are competing against all the other recordings and productions of the piece. So they felt a need to differentiate themselves. In my opinion they should have focused on the music, iterate on that rather than what they did and glom on irrelevant acrobatics.

Jumping the Shark is colloquially used when writers and producers run out of story ideas and instead reach for cheap methods to create an impact. It was first attributed to Happy Days when in a latter episode The Fonze literally jumped a shark. It was seen as a sign of a decline of a much loved show. I could also be attributed to the last series of this show.

I can see where the writers were going with this series, they just whiffed in the implementation. It was a total volte-face in the style of show this was. From a sober drama to something akin to an action show. In the process they broke the characters' personalities and motivation. Much like Game Of Thrones season 8 did much later on.

Don't fall for the stinger at the end of series 2 and avoid watching this series. Or, if you do lower your expectations so they are scraping the floor for this flawed end to the series.

This film is no The Shining. It's not as good. But, that's no mark against this film. Very few films are. But, this film has the distinct disadvantage from being compared to that film. The first half was actually quite good, before descending into unseemly fan service.

There was always an antagonism between the Kubrick vision and the author's - Steven King - While I prefer Kubrick's cold cynicism with this film you do get a sense that King won purely by outliving Kubrick.

I was quite surprised about how much I liked this movie. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's the pinnacle of high art but, to me, it's rollicking good fun.

Wow, I only half remember this program. I was very young at the time but I remembered it being hard hitting. Now, however, it feels incredibly dated and tame. The acting at times is quite hammy. And the supposedly severe and tasertern governor now feels more vaudevillian.

Not worth watching outside a nostalgia trip. But, still miles better than The Bill (don't @ me).