Tag: Jessica Barden

I believe I told my wife that I wanted to watch Mindhorn on Netflix for a review. Her response was something similar to “What the fuck is Mindhorn?”

And of course I gave her the netflix description of it, and she said “That sounds fucking stupid.” Yes, yes it does. And that is of course why I watched it.

Also the title is powerful. Mindhorn. Mind. Horn. Mindh. Orn.

MINDHORN.

I am now in your brain, learning your secrets.

Mindhorn is a British television show about Detective Mindhorn, played by actor Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt). He has some telepathic powers, and he solves crime. It is the hottest TV show around. It is on the cover of magazines, everyone talks about it, and it is getting a spin-off led by one of its minor characters played by Peter Eastman (Steve Coogan).

And now? It is 25 years later, Thorncroft is living in poverty, doing commercials, no one caring about Mindhorn anymore. It lasted three seasons and was cancelled and Thorncroft was a dick, so he left all his friends behind to try for something better. And shit, the spinoff lasted over 10 seasons and is what everyone cares about now.

But things will change. Because on the Isle of Man, where the series was filmed, a MURDER has occurred. By a “lunatic” Paul Melly (Russell Tovey), who will only speak to Detective Mindhorn. He thinks that Mindhorn is real and will only deal with the character. So Thorncroft is brought in, to act and help deal with the boy. But Thorncroft needs money and fame, so he will make this last as long as it needs to be to get people saying his name again.

Also starring Richard McCabe, David Schofield, Simon Farnaby, Kenneth Branagh, Jessica Barden, Andrea Riseborough, Essie Davis, and Nicholas Farrell.

If this movie was in 3D, this would be an intense, frightening scene. Because of the shots, not the weed wacker.

Mindhorn takes an interesting premise, makes it British, adds some comedy, and still doesn’t fully deliver an amazing movie.

It had amusing moments, it had interesting characters (a lot of the side characters were brimming with personality), but I feel it was also plagued with pacing issues and not being strong on the humor. It is adequately bizarre (not extremely bizarre), even a bit zany, just not incredibly humorous. That is one of my biggest issues.

As for pacing issues, at times it feels clunky. It is easy for mystery-esque movies to lead you all over the place with only tiny details mattering by the end, but this one isn’t even a real mystery. The police believe they know who the killer is right away, and when things inevitably change, we have a new obvious killer, and the majority of the film is just trying to get the proof. So not really a mystery, despite set up like one.

It makes the film just so hard to define. That isn’t a negative, given some of my favorite movies this year have hard to define genres. But when it comes out like a mystery and is instead just a slightly eccentric comedy, you just find yourself wanting a lot more in the film.

The Lobster is weird. That is the only thing I knew about this film going into it. I only know that because that is what everyone says about the movie. And if everyone says something is weird, then it must be weird, and that excites me.

The Lobster also came out in Europe and everywhere else in the world like, last summer/fall. Seriously, everyone has seen this movie but US. It was already released on their DVDs I believe before it came over here to theaters.

That made it really tempting to just watch it online, but I am happy to say I held out and wanted to see this movie in theaters, knowing only it was weird and slightly foreign. Let’s do this!

“Only foreign people run through fields like this,” he said, maybe racist-ly.

The Lobster takes place in a near future setting, somewhere in the United Kingdom, and the world is different now. Or at least this unnamed city is different.

Basically, if you aren’t with your family as a child or currently in a relationship, then you are wasting space. The world doesn’t need loaners. It isn’t as safe with them. They aren’t being productive members of society. David (Colin Farrell) is now single after his wife left him for another man.

This means that David has to go to The Hotel. He has to leave all of his possessions behind, except for his dog. The Hotel stay is only temporary though. If he doesn’t find someone to love and marry in 45 days, someone who shares a trait with him and can live with him for a few weeks without major issues, then he can move back into the city.

Oh yeah, what happens if your time is up and you don’t find someone to love? You get turned into an animal of your choosing for a second chance of life. Yay!

Also featuring the Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), the Limping Man (Ben Whishaw), the Lisping Man (John C. Reilly), the Biscuit Woman (Ashley Jensen), a Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia), the Nosebleed Woman (Jessica Barden) and her best friend (EmmaEdel O’Shea).

As for people not named after physical traits, we have a maid (Ariane Labed), hotel manager (Olivia Colman), her husband (Garry Mountaine), and the Loaner Leader (Léa Seydoux).

Bet you can’t figure out what David would want to become.

Hey! Did you read my intro? If not, The Lobster is a weird movie!

I haven’t seen any of the other films by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, but everyone is telling me I basically have to see Dogtooth if I liked the absurdness of this film. It is clearly done by a director who knew what he wanted for absolutely every moment of the film and put a lot of effort into the message.

The acting is a strange thing to talk about, because everyone on purpose tends to be emotionless and straight faced, as if they are walking talking dating profile pages. It took awhile to get comfortable with, but it produced some of the hardest laughs in the film. Sometimes I laughed due to pure jokes, sometimes due to the awkward moments, and sometimes to keep myself from crying at the darker parts of the movie.

The Lobster does seem to drag a bit though. Most notably when David leaves the Hotel. In the forest we meet interesting characters, but it just feels repetitive and, honestly, I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind all of the rules. The two hour film feels a half hour longer. The final scenes are interesting at least and say a lot about the world they are living in.

If you can make it through the forest, you can make it to the end of a pretty good and unique movie.