Month / May 2011

by Jonathan M

REVIEW – Marchlands (2011)

Videovista have my review of ITV’s recent miniseries Marchlands:

Those who approach Marchlands expecting a traditional Jamesian ghost story are destined for disappointment. Marchlands is not scary, or creepy, or even particularly tense, and the few supernatural set-pieces the series does contain are fiercely derivative and quite poorly implemented by two writers and a director who are clearly incapable of moving beyond the increasingly shop-worn genre ornaments of dead pets and ghostly dripping water.

I then go on to explain that, even if one judges Marchlands not as a ghost story but as a drama, it is still a sexist, stupid and boring piece of television.

by Jonathan M

REVIEW – Monsters (2010)

Videovista has my review of Gareth Edwards’ low-budget science fiction film Monsters:

The ‘big idea’ behind Monsters is that instead of fearing the alien and trying to isolate ourselves from the ‘other’, we should be opening ourselves up to its strangeness by looking at it with an open mind and an open heart. Edwards initially makes us fear the creatures by drawing upon our fears of terrorism, immigration, chemical weapons and third world squalor. However, he then makes us come to appreciate the innate beauty of the creatures and, in so doing, suggests that there may be some beauty to be found in the things that we, as a culture, fear the most.

Easily one of the best science fiction films in recent memory, Monsters was (of course) absent from the recently released Hugo award shortlist for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form thereby raising the question, yet again, of what point the award actually serves beyond reminding the world that Hugo voters know fuck all about film.