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dan1406
Reviews
Into the Wild (2007)
Never heard of the story of Chris McCandless until now
I loved this film! The storyline and the cinematography were simply sublime. I live in Southern BC (Canada) and although somewhat used to seeing snow-capped mountains in June (etc., etc.) you can't see this kind of nature in all parts of the world. Having said that... here's a few thoughts I had after watching the film:
Chris' idea of what the perfect life should be, is that he should run away and live life by himself while communing with nature. He had no provisions - no food, no money, no place to stay, and no transportation. Given his situation at home, it was his expectation that he will live forever just being content to spend the rest of his days by himself. While an idealist idea, it is very impractical for a person to just pack up and leave and hope nobody finds you, with the ultimate goal of reaching some far away place where you can live your life in quiet solitude.
Granted, the world is in a very fragile state right now and we think we might be better off finding a place where we can simply shut out the outside world. It sounds like a cool idea! I could go for that right now (March 2022). But it's Chris' belief that the world is simply one big rat race, where you have to conform to everyone else's standards, pay tax, get a job, blah blah blah, although somewhat true, the world deserves to be in better shape than it is now (early 1990s "now") and we shouldn't have to answer to anyone but ourselves. As pleasing as this sounds, it's a ridiculous notion and Chris should have known better than to simply abandon life as he knew it.
By now, I'm sure you all know what the film is about if you're reading this right now, so I won't post a recap, but I will say that although Chris had good intentions, he didn't deserve to die alone in the middle of Alaska, and his life didn't have to take a dramatic turn for such a free spirit as Chris McCandless. The film will tug at your heart strings, and surprise you in some ways. Give it a watch if you haven't done so yet, and you (probably) won't regret it. It's a beautiful film.
30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007)
That was 1 hr 30 min I'll never get back
Really, I expected much more out of Lorenzo Lamas. This was a horrible remake of the Jules Verne and Disney classics that I could have gone without seeing. The acting was bad, the music was bad, the sound effects were bad, the special effects were bad, everything about this "movie" (and I use the term loosely) was bad. Don't worry, you can afford to miss this one.
Our Planet (2019)
Stunning visuals, important message
This series looks fantastic on my 10-year old Samsung LCD TV. I can only imagine what it looks like on some of the new 4K+ televisions!
I'm blown away by the visuals, especially how they got footage of stalking tigers in the tall grass, and from 1000 meters below the sea, or how they got into the hollow tunnels of an ant colony. How the people who get into some of these tight spots simply amazes me! I said "Wow!" a number of times throughout the series!
But there is one really important message (over-emphasized in this series in my humble opinion) about planet protection I could have done without but I gave the series a 10 rating anyway because of the visuals. We know the planet is in danger, and many animal species will perish if we continue the way we are headed, but it's good to hear that some animals that were near extinction are now thriving and coming back after many decades.
David Attenborough and Netflix are a marriage made in Heaven.
Here's Lucy: Lucy the Fixer (1969)
They don't make comedy like this anymore!
This is one of my favourite slapstick comedy routines played by Lucy and her on-screen brother-in-law Harry played by the magnificent Gale Gordon. As expected both Ball and Gordon deliver such a precision and hilariously executed comedy routine one cannot help but get caught up in the short 22 minutes of the episode and not feel good at the end of the episode.
On Saturday morning, Lucy's day off, Craig gets accepted into the 3rd standby football team and is expected to play at his 2PM game, and wants his mom and sister Kim to come and watch the game. But before Lucy can leave, Harry calls her up and needs some dictation taken, but promises to have her in and out in less than an hour so she can join Craig and Kim. Lucy reluctantly goes to Harry's house and is all set to take dictation but needs more light, so she can see what she's writing down.
She goes to turn the lamp on, and it's not working. Harry explains to her that the lamp is controlled by the switch on the wall, but when he tries switching it off and on, the lamp still doesn't come on. Lucy believes she can fix it by tightening up the wires behind the switch, so she takes the switch off the wall and it comes right off and sees that the electrical wires have become detached and fallen behind the wall. She tries to reach for them but can't reach, so she asks Harry to dig behind the wall and pull them out because he has longer arms. He puts his arm in the wall and grasps what he thinks is the wires, but gets stuck trying to pull his arm back out. Lucy says she can get him loose by scoring a bit of the drywall, but when she tries to do that, the drywall cracks and falls off.
Harry becomes outraged (as usual) but she still insists that she can still fix it if she can get behind the wall. Harry is so vehemently against this, so he reaches behind the wall himself and gets shocked by some live wires, hilariously executing a shocking performance!
Lucy goes in behind the wall and fireplace, and pulls on what she thinks is the wires, and the phone goes flying off the table. Then she pulls another wire and while Harry is putting the phone back on the table, the chandelier comes crashing down on him.
Lucy breaks a little bit more of the drywall, and crawls behind looking for the wires but finds a scary animal behind the fireplace and when she comes out from behind the wall, Harry reaches in and pulls out a little kitten.
And when Harry decides to look up the fireplace to see if he can see some wires, Lucy bangs on the bricks with a poker, and black soot from the chimney comes pouring down on him.
Finally, when Craig and Kim come into the house on their way to the football game, they see the damage that Lucy and Harry have caused and Craig says he can fix it. Harry insists that he can't, and Craig says he needs a little more light. So he grabs the lamp and Harry says, "That lamp doesn't work", and Craig says, "It will if you plug it in!"
Brilliantly and hilariously played by all 4 actors, "Lucy The Fixer" is at the top of my best and funniest episodes of Here's Lucy.
As I said in the title, they certainly don't make comedy like this anymore.
The Windsors (2016)
Couldn't get interested enough to watch episode 2
If you haven't seen it, this short review may contain spoilers, so...fair warning to you.
Well, I can't say that I sat there and thoroughly watched the first episode all the way through, as I found the language quite offensive and the story lines to be fairly unbelievable.
The acting is simply awful, except for the clean-cut "Kate", who has a lot of potential. If you don't like Camilla as a true Royal, you will simply hate her character here after you find out what kind of person they portray her to be! William is portrayed as a buffoon who works in a fast-food joint wearing a fake moustache and nobody suspects he's Prince William, Harry is portrayed as sex-starved illiterate nincompoop, and Charles is a hen-pecked husband, dominated by Camilla. I never saw the Queen at all! Whether they'll work her in to a future episode remains to be seen.
I found it hard to pay attention and mostly had it on for noise while I did other things around the house, but from what I watched I don't think I'll be moving on to episode 2!
If this is what passes today as British humour, count me out on this one!
Redwoods (2009)
Cheesy acting and schmaltzy ending
I'm not Jewish, but I'll use a Yiddish term here. Does anyone know the meaning of "schmaltz"? The definition is "excessive sentimentality, esp. in music or movies", and there was plenty of excessive sentimentality going around in Redwoods.
The story revolves around two gay characters, one being a stuck-in-a-rut type guy (Bradley) whose relationship is going nowhere, and the other being a "lost soul" (Montgomery) trying to find himself. Montgomery's character Chase tries to find the nearest B&B to finish his book and gets lost on the wrong street. He asks for directions from Everett and while giving directions, there is a spark and the two eventually fall in love. This is so wrong, because a) it happens too quickly, and b) Everett is already in a relationship.
While Everett's partner and son are away, Chase and Everett spend a lot of time together and then Everett's partner calls and says he's coming back early. The relationship between Chase and Everett has to end abruptly but they make a point to meet at the same place at the same time, 5 years from now. Unfortnately Chase doesn't make it back (he has a good reason) and then we get the schmaltzy ending.
Redwoods is nice, scenery wise, but is full of cheesy acting and moments where there is too much silence or not enough movement to keep the viewer interested. Parts of it are slow and poorly acted. With a better cast and supporting characters, this could have been a really good gay tear-jerker but it falls short of that due to characters who don't put their heart and soul into their roles.
I've seen lots of gay-themed movies, and this one falls way down the list near the bottom, right above "And Then Came Summer". If you want to get all verklempt, skip this one and watch "Prayers for Bobby", then you'll know what good acting is.