Review of State and Main (2000) by Reginald R — 05 Jul 2005

Christ. I guess I'll have to do this.

So Roy Andersson, Songs from the Second Floor, Sweden. It looks like some very modern comedy series. I can't think of an exact example, but there have been such shows in britain and scandinavia in the last few years. The visuals are very grey, the look is artificial, the humor is dry, the camera doesn't move, the shots are framed annoyingly, the scenes are like sketches, the humor is slow and quiet. The story is amusing and twisted in a sharp and deep enough way to make the film worth watching.

Tin Drum, mmm, a good boring german film about a strange kid in nazi times. It's pretty much the classic german idea of a good film. Those perverts. Certainly not a bad film, but I'm generally glad they don't make these any more.

Attack is a theatrical, not all that realistic war flick, concentrating on character drama. Anyway it's very good.

Fiddler on the Roof is largely a failure, but not completely without merit. It's visually pretty, and overall happy-mooded.'.

State and Main is an uninteresting, dreadfully mediocre piece of work from David Mamet. It's about filmmaking. You'll be bored out of your ass.