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The Trip to Greece Blu-ray Review

 




  • Actors: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon
  • Director: Michael Winterbottom
  • Format: Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: 
     NR 
     Not Rated
  • Studio: IFC Independent Film
  • Release Date: August 25, 2020
  • Run Time: 104 minutes




 

         In a scene near the end of The Trip to Greece, Rob Brydon remarks that it has been ten years since the first trip he took with friend and adversary, Steve Coogan. This is surprising to Coogan, as it may also be to audience members that have been following their journeys to beautiful scenery and expensive meals. The breezy irreverence often seems to main selling point of the series, which sets the dramatic character development behind overlong scenes of competing celebrity impressions and two men never afraid to talk with their mouths full, if it means they get to hog the spotlight. That this is the supposed last installment in the franchise doesn’t bring with it the promise of any grand revelations or resolutions, but simply another serving of the same.

 


How to Build a Girl Blu-ray Review

 





  • Actors: Beanie Feldstein, Alfie Allen
  • Director: Coky Giedroyc
  • Format: Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: 
     
     Restricted
  • Studio: IFC Independent Film
  • DVD Release Date: August 11, 2020
  • Run Time: 104 minutes




 

        How to Build a Girl feels like watching an entire TV series in fast-forward. The character arcs and development may make sense in real-time, but as movie, we watch a shy and awkward 16-year-old turn into a completely different person in less time than a montage would take. Perhaps if the film actually took place over a longer period of time, it would only be an issue of poor screenplay adaptation and sloppy editing, but since she remains 16 for the entirety, there is also the unsavory inclusion of her explicit sexual awakening with older men. However progressively feminist the narrative may be, there is nothing particularly enjoyable about watching an underage girl allow herself to be exploited in a misguided pursuit of liberation.