Videovista Reviews for August

As a rainy July turns into a potentially humid August, the Videovista website has updated and I have some new reviews.

 

• Sherlock Holmes - The Incident at Victoria Falls is one of the weirdest pieces of television that I have ever seen.  Starring Christopher Lee and Patrick MacNee in a rather crumbly state, this miniseries was funded by Silvio Berlusconi and not based upon an actual Holmes story.  The result is some lovely South African countryside (though at no point does any overweight copper come running in gasping "The kaffirs are running amok!" which I think is a real loss for any film set in South Africa) and lots of weird League of Extraodinary Gentlemen-style melding of history and fiction.
• 10th and Wolf is  written and directed by the man who recently won a best screenplay Oscar for Crash (no... not JG Ballard... the other Crash) but his award-winning talents seem to have deserted him as the film is a collection of cliches barely held together by lots of people being very emotional at the drop of the hat.
• Labyrinth of Passion is Pedro Almodovar's second film and it is pretty much what you'd expect of an Almodovar film.  Lots of transgressive sexuality, lots of OTT style and a rather flimsy if entertaining plot.  To air an old marketing cliche, Almodovar's a bit of a Marmite director.  He's brown, sticky and is entirely made up of fermented yeast.  No... wait... I mean that he's a director you either love or hate and I can't help but love his weirdly kitsch world.

Not a particularly heavy month or a particularly satisfying one I'm sorry to say.  My recommendation goes to Labyrinth of Passion but I'm not completely happy with my own reasons for liking it.  I suspect that the fact that Almodovar is such a divisive director makes it easy for us to either damn him or complete accept him and I can't help but feel that I'm letting the film off easily as a result.  Alternately, Incident at Victoria Falls might well be worth a look if you're considering a long plane journey as it really is quite a strange piece of TV.  It also has Joss Ackland in it and I adore Joss Ackland partly as a result of his fantastic performance as Jerry Westerby in the TV adaptation of John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (for shame if you haven't seen it!) and partly as a result of his scenery chewing in this golden oldie... "I'm going there... but I like it here wherever it is".

Comments

[Serdar]

Not that the non-Ballard "Crash" was anything other than a collection of cliches barely held together by lots of people being very emotional at the drop of the hat in the first place. I've seen it twice now, and I still fail to see what it is about the movie that makes people sit up and bark -- it's like five upscale Made-For-TV Issue Movies chopped together.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

There's a broadway musical called Avenue Q that features a song called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist". Many people considered this to be a not at all pedestrian and blindingly obvious observation.

I suspect that this is what won Crash the Oscar. I thought it had its moments but I can't remember any of them or any of the characters so I think you may well be right about its entirely forgettable status.