☆"What's in the box, Orson?"☆Mark Cousins made one of the most acclaimed works on cinema in history, the 15-hour series The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Yikes, with this kind of voice narrating? Oh boy.Christ, I really had a hard time listening to this ridiculous-sounding motherfucker narrate like he was talking to the eponymous filmmaker in The Eyes of Orson Welles. He is comically annoying and pompous and absolutely exhausting.Like, how self-centered do you have to be to think that people would enjoy hearing you speak to a disembodied Orson Welles for two hours? This constant use of second person dialogue, with half of it rhetorical and personal questions like you're praying to a god, is some of the most awful shit I have ever had to sit through. Look, Cousins is an informed and intelligent guy. He collects a gigantic array of interesting clips, anecdotes, and forgotten memories of Welles from both his personal and professional life. It's impressive to see at times what is a very large amount of, well, stuff. I can imagine these intricate details being tantalizing to some viewers.But not me. Or, well, not enough. The dull narration and tediously silly supposition was too much for me. Analyzing little doodles by Welles as a child with painfully stupid overreach as if you can get into his head, my goodness, it's a caricature of the worst kind of fandom."Dear Orson… notice something missing? The Twin Towers are no more." Oh my shit. "Are you getting goosebumps just thinking about it?" Nobody can say stuff like this and not be joking, right? I mean, it has to be a gag. Like an elaborate Andy Kaufman routine or something. I dunno, maybe there was a way to make this thing a personal essay combined with an unabashed adoration for Welles, without coming off like this smarmy horseshit. Whatever truths or essential pieces of information we're supposed to take are diluted into nonsense by the rambling nature of Cousins and his allegedly deep connection with a man he never met but talks to for two hours.I would have muted the entire movie but it's not like the closed captions are any better. You still have to read the stunningly pathetic words. "Do you recognize this place, Orson? The City of Light?" FUCK. Are you kidding me?It's truly one of the most pretentious and tone deaf documentaries I've ever watched. Question after question is proposed to a man dead for 35 years, but not really of course, because they are mere mutterings of a sociopath who thinks anybody would care about what he thinks. And truly, can you imagine the actual Orson Welles listening to this idiocy? Like if Cousins got to talk with him for real, and wanted actual answers? Welles would have slapped the shit out of this douchebag. Sentimental completely hagiographic trash, as if asking hundreds of asinine things wasn't bad enough he then actually gets someone to impersonate Welles and respond back by the end of the film. Dear lord. Close to unwatchable. Only not a half-star rating because there truly are some nice images and clips. This is not a crime against humanity but I will absolutely never watch anything from Mark Cousins again.Friend who wrote a better review than me: Nathan Gregory.Find others like them on my two special lists here and here!Added to I Don’t Like These Movies and Neither Should You (a.k.a. “My Hot Takes List”).Removed from What's on My DVR?
