BoyActors - Reviews/Ratings by diogenes

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Reviews by diogenes

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350 reviews/ratings - 18 pages (20 reviews/ratings per page)

Stutter (2016)

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The White King (2016)

There's a certain thinness to this dystopia - we learn nothing about the ideology of the ruling group. The boy's father is taken away for 'speaking out', but we are never told what precisely he spoke out against. The plot doesn't really seem to go anywhere in particular. Furthermore, the film seems to contrast a repressive imagined future with a supposedly 'free' present, despite the fact that ubiquitous CCTV and populations susceptible to mass manipulation on the basis of irrational fears are a characteristic of our own societies.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Boy Slaves (1939)

RKO's hilariously inept attempt to come up with their own version of the Dead End Kids (one of the cast even looks like a rattier version of Bobby Jordan). The messy plot incorporates a great deal of moral earnestness, and the maudlin sentiment is laid on with a trowel. The boys attempt to reproduce the banter of the Dead End Kids, but it just comes across as weird. They meet Julian Clary driving a cart (no, really). The only thing to be said in favour of this film is that it really is so bad that it's frequently quite entertaining in its sheer maladroitness. Enjoy!

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Boyhood (2014)

There is no doubt that this film gets pretty dull. The problem is that the narrative revolves not so much around Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as around the adults - Mason's somewhat hippyish parents and particularly his mother's terrible choices of partner. Indeed, what is surprising is how little we learn in the first half of the film about Mason himself - what makes him tick, how he sees the world. The film samples events in his life - such as his getting a severe haircut at the hands of his mother's latest beau - but these pieces are too fragmentary to add up to a portrait. There is therefore no psychological development, just a series of events in his external life involving his parents and (later on) his sometime girlfriends, in what appears a somewhat privileged, if disordered, upbringing. He seems to go from lacklustre child to boring young adult via uncommunicative emo, and at no point do we actually care about him in the slightest.

I will admit that on the technical side the film is very good. It is put together remarkably well and Mason's (and his sister's) growing up is almost seamless. And the adult actors are all superb. But since this film is not really about its nominal protagonist but about the people around him, it isn't in fact about 'boyhood' at all. A disappointment.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

A Christmas Carol (2004)

Rather astonishingly awful. Forgettable 'songs' and some of the worst 'singing' (occasionally screeching) ever committed to film, in what has the temerity to call itself a 'musical', only partially redeemed by some very personable boys -who, however, are all entirely incapable of acting their way out of a small brown paper envelope. The promiscuous use of CGI in this film is particularly obtrusive, adding to the thin, 'chocolate box' look of everything. A positive trial to get through, this production has the honour of being the worst live action version of Dickens' story ever.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Doctor Dolittle (1967)

After revealing what an exceptionally talented young actor he was in "The Nanny", it's a pity that William Dix was reduced to a fairly two-dimensional role in this dull, overlong, poorly paced, great big turkey of a film.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

How Olin Lost His Eye (2013)

Rather silly. Appealing boy actor.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Incarnate (2016)

Silly and boring.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Krull (1983)

Piffle.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Oliver Twist (1997)

Well, this is a 'Disneyfied' version of Oliver Twist. Fluffiness abounds. There is nothing here that is authentically Dickensian. The attitudes of the characters are very much those of the 1990s, and the London of Dickens with its rich characters has been replaced by a chocolate box image. It's as though the director believed that it is enough to put people in funny 19th century clothes and give them funny hair-dos and funny hats and bonnets, in order to make them authentically 19th century. All the characters in this version are shallow, one-dimensional, clearly sorted into 'good' and 'bad' - and utterly uninteresting. Nothing is subtle; everything is laid on thick, just in case you didn't 'get the message'. So, for example, when Bill Sikes appears for the first time we get some menacing music just so you know that he's The Villain. Elijah Wood's attempt at a sort of cockney accent (it sounds more like an Oz accent to me) is up there with Dick van Dyke as one of the very worst. And although in other films Elijah Wood has displayed a certain amount of talent, it has to be said that in this film he rattles off his lines with about as much nuance as a man reading through the telephone directory. Besides which he looks, frankly, weird, with his overlarge eyes and chipmunk cheeks. He's no London boy, and is hopelessly miscast as the Dodger. With all due respect to the other reviewers, as Aristotle said, one swallow does not make a summer - and one highly personable actor (i.e. Alex Trench) does not add up to even a passably decent movie.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

The Race (2009)

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007)

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

The Wilderness (2010)

There's absolutely no subtlety or nuance in the portrayal of the stepfather (or whomever he's supposed to be) - who is just a grotesque - and thus no real sense of conflict at the denouement - we're just thinking 'For Heaven's sake, get on with it, kid, so this film can end' (which he obligingly does). Lazy, unimaginative story writing. The camerawork and cinematography are good, and Cody is fine as Alex, but this can hardly make up for a narrative that is scarcely worth the telling.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Beau (2016)

Clumsy, confusing and somewhat unpleasant.

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

Cried Wolf (2018)

...And immediately, as predictable as clockwork, we get the stereotype of the father as stupid and abusive. Yawn! Yawn! You know, do these directors realise that boys will grow up to be men and fathers themselves? Boys and men aren't two separate species. You denigrate men, you attack boys as well. Of course, some men are stupid and violent - but the point is that the presentation of the father as Neanderthal in this film serves no purpose at all in the film's narrative. It is simply a stereotypical image from our culture that the director has thoughtlessly grabbed. The narrative itself is pedestrian and unimaginative. It is also a little absurd for the director to present the make-believe and fantasy life of children as somehow dangerous. It's called imagination - children are especially imbued with it, and maybe the director could learn from this characteristic rather than implausibly suggest that it might lead to one's parents being killed by unseen predators (Lord, give me strength!). For a contrasting short film, I would suggest "4000 Steps" (2010), also in this database.

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

Dr. Zack (2010)

Blah blah blah...working class men are neanderthals...blah blah blah...women are angels...blah blah blah...toxic masculinity...How much more of this can we take before we are all idiotized into imbecility? Oh, the boy's mother bathes him with his shorts on!!! Right, that's the last straw. I have nothing further in common with this civilisation. I'm off now to stick my head in a gas oven. Bye!

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

EastEnders (1985-????)

I really hate this soap. Everyone is always perpetually arguing and shouting at each other - most unpleasant. The moment when this soap started (1985) was the moment when English society and culture began to go seriously downhill, when English civil society became noticeably less civil.

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

The Harvest (2016)

What a NASTY little film!

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

Hideaway (2017)

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

I Killer (2012)

An astonishingly silly short film, leading up to an absurd and contrived plot twist, and capped with some pseudo-profound poppycock.

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

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