The opposite here, but i noticed the really poor reviews (averaging 3-4/10) compared to the high rating (7.9/10). I'm glad I didn't pay attention to the reviews - they seem to be written by wind bags who wish they did this documentary themselves. I've seen episodes 1-3. I'm familiar with about two-thirds of what he covers, with a renewed interest in many of them. Of the third that is somewhat new to me, I feel a new interest in discovering them.
Some of the common complaints on IMDB reviews:
"He should shut up and let the film clips play." I too wanted some to last longer, but since he's covering 100 years of film in 15 hours, it doesn't seem this is possible. Fortunately we've got the actual films to see, rather than the documentary. That's the point isn't it?
"His voice is annoying." Yeah, it turned me off for a while. His voice doesn't have much character (other than an annoying high rising terminal) and didn't get in the way of the film clips I was seeing, and that ends up being a benefit. One of the best film narrators in my book is Thom Anderson in "Los Angeles Plays Itself" and he's completely monotone.
"He made mistakes." I noticed a few myself. Big deal. This complaint is made by people who seem to want to have made this documentary themselves, but didn't.
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TxMike
11 years ago
Good post, "hoyo". I am one of those reviewers who give this series a high mark, not because it is perfect, but because it exposed me to a great amount of film history that I never would have been exposed to otherwise.
We all have to remember, this is really "Mark Cousin's Story of Film". Every other film lover or film critic would do it differently. This doesn't make Cousins right or wrong.
I found the whole series fascinating and for those who claimed they couldn't watch it because of Cousin's narration, I say they are the losers for missing some really interesting film history.
TxMike
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.
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