This channel is what the Internet was made for (aside from cat videos and staged pranks). The wealth and detail of info in these vids, the animation, the music, the narrator and his redoubtable voice.
Category Archives: Scotland
The Big Man (1990).
This has the most insane sudden shifts in style and tone. It fees like a student movie, and then you have some ludicrous sentimental schmaltz – strong Rocky (1976) pretensions – thrown in the mix. It’s certainly unpredictable and often entertaining, and the confidence of it all is twinned to an actual story with proper societal issues. Visually, it has some impressive and daring scenes, and the physical specimen that is peak Liam Neeson.
But, unfortunately, Hugh Grant turns up. I don’t know what accent he’s speaking in because I’ve never heard anyone talk like that.
I didn’t believe a minute of this movie. But I’m not bothered.
I’m more perplexed as to how and why Ennio Morricone scored this to tunes that sound like the b-side of The Untouchables (1987).
Rob Roy (1995).
A decent enough, semi-rousing yarn that is better as an example of missed stylistic choices than a superior entertainment. It’s mature but has a soap opera ‘quality’ to it, which makes you wish it went all out and 100% ridiculous for it’s so damn plodding at times. The cast are the best thing about it. Tim Roth is suitably supercilious and looks like he’s having a ball. What happened to him? He was Mr. Nineties. Perhaps that’s his decade and no more. Brian Cox, though, is the gem here. He’s a total slimeball and unashamedly so. He excels at those roles.
The score, sadly, is horrendous and frankly intrusive; it detracts from the would-be drama on display. Listening to it, I kept thinking of Miller’s Crossing (1990) or Fargo (1996), and then realised it was the same bloke who scored those movies.
A cracking sword fight with actual decent editing rounds off proceedings. There aren’t a million cuts to the sequence, which is shocking. But then this was made prior to ADHD being a prerequisite for the job of editor.
Grainy (shitty) camera phone shot of Rose Street, Edinburgh.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 