Flavour of the Year?

Rating: 6/10 (22 September 2011)

I remember 17 years ago, I'm guessing, buying a film magazine (presumably Empire, here in the UK) that had an article entitled "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time" or some-such. Somewhere in the list was Interview With The Vampire and I remember thinking that it was only in the list because it was new and that if a similar list was drawn up at any year in the future then the film wouldn't appear. Sure enough, I've never seen it on such a list since, fine film though it is. It's very good, but one of the best 100 ever? I don't think so. Which brings me to TSN. It's a good film, possible a very good one, but one worthy of IMDb's Top 250? I don't think so. It's an interesting story with some interesting characters that tell the story of one of the major social developments of our time but it certainly isn't a Great film. Much of the acting is of a high standard, the direction is strong and the film certainly looks nice thanks to some inspired cinematography but I just didn't think it was as good as the IMDb rating led me to expect. I saw it last night; within a week of watching The Secret In Their Eyes. To me, unless you have a pathological hatred of subtitled movies there's no question at all as to which is the better film. One is good going on very good; the other is magnificent. Yet their scores on here are almost identical. But, we're all different. If you haven't seen TSN I'd recommend that you do so as it's a nice way to spend a couple of hours. If you go to see it expecting to have to re-write your own personal list of Greatest Films Of All Time then you might not need to do so after watching it. I'd be interested to see if the film's score drops over the years. My bet is that it will.