I'd heard about this movie for years, but just saw it last night. The first half is dazzling: mood, lighting, set design, oddball characters - everything fits beautifully into a brilliant pastiche of small-town Italy right after the war. The rapport between the little kid and the movie projectionist is flawless. We're drawn in, utterly charmed, convinced we're seeing a classic unfold right before our eyes...then, suddenly, the little kid disappears, a teenage kid takes his place, and all the magic just disappears. Why not continue the relationship between the kid and the projectionist and have the movie end with the kid and his family moving to the U. S. or something? This makes sense and gives us a reason why the kid wouldn't return until years later as an adult. Instead, we're left with a teen romance sub-plot that grinds on and on, an army sequence that left me yawning, and a conclusion that's just a head-scratcher. Why does the boy (now a young man) go off to a place that's about an hour away (by airplane, anyway) and not see his own mother and sister for 30 years? He's supposed to become an affluent filmmaker, so can't he afford a simple plane ticket every now and again? It makes no sense, unless I missed something. All in all, worth watching, but a bit of a letdown after a dazzling first hour.
Reviews
49 Reviews
The Whale
(2022)
The acting is great, but...
12 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
A skinny heterosexual who leaves his wife and young daughter for another woman and then turns into a self-loathing house hermit because the girlfriend kills herself...not really the stuff that fills a theatre. But a grotesquely obese slob who watches gay porn and gorges himself until he vomits...now there's drama! Call me a curmudgeon, but I didn't buy any of it. The acting is great and I'd rate the movie a "5" for that alone, but long before the first hour was up, I was looking at my watch. The basic premise is worth a look, but the movie quickly runs out of ideas and the repetitive, freakshow nature of it all just grinds on and on.
A Man Called Otto
(2022)
Tom Hanks is great as always, but...
31 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Otto is a complete ******* to everyone he meets. The movie establishes this right out of the gate in a scene where Otto goes to a hardware store to purchase some rope (he wants to hang himself), makes gratuitously insulting comments to the clerk offering to help him, and then makes a scene at the cash register where he feels he's been cheated out of a few cents. (He buys five feet of rope but the "rules" dictate that he has to pay for six feet, you see?) Do grumpy, suicidal people really do these things? I don't have a clue, but the movie shoves Otto's rudeness straight at us with all the nuance of a shotgun blast. He's even rude to his very-pregnant new neighbor who arrives at his condo building with her two cute kids and a hapless husband who can't park the U-Haul. Inexplicably, Otto's boorish display to the new neighbors doesn't stop the mommy-to-be from showing up unannounced at his front door with some food, because "You look hungry, Otto". (I may have this dialogue slightly wrong, don't write in.) Do people really bring offerings of food after they've been welcomed out of the neighborhood by some uncompromising ***** who lacks a single redeeming quality? At some point a stray cat shows up and Otto is an uncompromising ***** to the cat, too, but we all know that the homeless tabby will soon be sleeping on Otto's bed as part of Otto's metamorphosis from bad-Otto to good-Otto. (There is even an obligatory going-into-labor scene later on that helps push things along - no pun intended - although this happens at a hospital, so we don't have to watch Otto assist in the actual delivery, something I was certain was going to happen as part of Otto's newfound self-awareness.) This movie is apparently based on a Swedish movie (I haven't seen it) and it may be that with a cast of unknowns and just the right pacing, the story might be a convincing portrait of a man's triumph over his personal demons. But this requires just the right elements of atmosphere and subtlety, and - trust me - there isn't a nanosecond of subtlety in A Man Called Otto. Tom Hanks, great as he is, just doesn't seem right for the part, it's like casting Jimmy Stewart as Scrooge. Nothing about this movie made me laugh or cry, although a few people around me in the theater were sobbing during the obligatory reading-of-the-will scene where Otto leaves everything to the cat. Just kidding.
Oklahoma!
(1999 TV Movie)
Let's Be Honest
30 January 2022
We (five of us) were going to watch the original movie (which I saw as a 6 year old back in the 50s), but we couldn't find it anywhere and we settled on this version. Yes, a couple of the songs are memorable and uplifting ("Oh What a Beautiful Morning" & "Surrey With a Fringe on Top", along with the title song). But folks, the plot is so stupid and dated that it ruined the experience was for us - along with an endless running time that was pure torture. Why oh why does the musical theatre genre just take it for granted that the beautiful songs and the great choreography will make up for all those lame characters and laughably illogical plot twists, as if we're all too stupid to notice? Not for me - but, yep, the singin' and the dancin' was first rate!
No more need be said
27 January 2022
Quite simply, not only the best Have Gun Will Travel you will ever see, but one of the best half hour dramas you will ever see on television. Watch the first 30 seconds of Odetta's performance, and you'll understand why no more needs to be said. Except, perhaps - well done director Richard Boone!
Hello, Dolly!
(1969)
Agonizing
23 January 2022
What do they mean, "Hello Dolly"? Has this lady been out of town or something? The Dolly Levi character is so embarrassingly ill-defined that I thought there had to be a missing reel somewhere in vaults of 20th Century Fox. She appears fully-formed without the slightest hint of any character arc, and the plot has her pop in and out of the action only when a song is required to break up all the boredom. She's also charmless, meddling, and unfunny. I found the incessant chit-chat between the supporting players mostly pointless, and the musical score lacks a single hummable tune - with the possible exception of the title number, which never grabbed me in the first place and which I've now heard 80,724 times (give or take) over the last 50+ years. I know that the musical theatre genre requires us to accept some thinly drawn characters and the usual cornball romantic plotlines, but Hello Dolly! Stretches our patience to the max. Why on this earth would a snobby, hyper-expensive New York restaurant that caters to the barons of the Gilded Age make such a fuss over an irritating blabbermouth like Dolly and then top it all off with an endless song and dance number in some sort of fawning tribute? Why does professional matchmaker Dolly set her sights for her own marriage upon a jowly, wholly loathsome feed-and-tack merchant from Yonkers? Not only is there zero chemistry between these two (the age difference alone is downright embarrassing), but this odd couple seem to become increasingly wrong for each other as the silly plot grinds on. Why Tommy Tune, or the dancing waiters, or the hat shop girl subplot, or the bloated street parade with zillions of extras? And why Walter Matthau at all? Agonizing from start to finish.
Forgotten 30 Minute Classic
16 December 2021
Jaw-dropping. See it to believe it. When it was over, I continued watching to see who wrote the script. When I saw the screenwriting credit "Sam Peckinpah" I thought, yes!!!!! The ending had me hooked (and fooled) and I like to think I don't fool easily!!
Casino
(1995)
"2" for effort
20 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A hideous, pointless, plotless film, full of meandering dialogues that go nowhere and more gratuitous violence than a Sam Peckinpah parody. The only thing more repulsive than all the blood and the gore and the f-bombs are the "love" scenes between Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone. What the hell were they thinking?
Too dopey
2 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Anne Baxter is supposed to be a successful, intelligent career woman, so why does she let this yammering, sociopathic creep into her apartment after knowing him for all of ten minutes? George Segal is sorely miscast as the ambitious creep-actor - you wouldn't hire this guy to sweep the stage, let alone act upon it - and the silly plot has Baxter falling into his arms when she should be calling the police to have him arrested for trespassing and/or sexual assault. This duo are painfully mismatched from the get-go, and nothing they do or say after they fall in "love" is the slightest bit interesting or even believable. Baxter has always been good at emoting, but here she is waaaaay over the top. Her tearful - and painfully extended - phone calls with Segal are truly nauseating. Hitchcock is noted for his "mysteries", right? Well, this episode has two mysteries. The first mystery is why someone of Anne Baxter's stature didn't throw the script across the room and fire her agent. The second is how the episode ever got the green light in the first place. You can decide which mystery is the more baffling.
Psycho
(1998)
Miscasting garners a single star only
14 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
There is a funny moment at the beginning of the original "Psycho" that happens in the real estate office. After the Big Daddy guy with the money jokes with Janet Leigh, the other secretary says, "He was flirting with you...(beat)...he must have noticed my wedding ring." The other secretary is played by Pat Hitchcock (yep, the Great Man's daughter) and she absolutely nails the very brief role. A wonderful actress (but definitely not a dazzling Janet Leigh type) she was "made-down" for the part, and her sad, empty expression really made the scene work. A bold actress who knew her craft!
CUT TO: the new version, and who gets cast in the Pat Hitchcock role of the mousey office clerk? The dazzling Rita Wilson!!!! And who gets cast in the luscious Janet Leigh leading lady role? The skinny Anne Heche (of all people), who shows up with a crew cut (well, almost) and starving eyes that seem to be looking for the next meal. Of course the real estate office scene flopped, along with the whole movie. Go figure.
So...one star for the appalling casting alone.
Ps - RIP Pat Hitchcock, you were great-great-great.
CUT TO: the new version, and who gets cast in the Pat Hitchcock role of the mousey office clerk? The dazzling Rita Wilson!!!! And who gets cast in the luscious Janet Leigh leading lady role? The skinny Anne Heche (of all people), who shows up with a crew cut (well, almost) and starving eyes that seem to be looking for the next meal. Of course the real estate office scene flopped, along with the whole movie. Go figure.
So...one star for the appalling casting alone.
Ps - RIP Pat Hitchcock, you were great-great-great.
Spot the Actor
4 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Good episode, but it was Dabney Coleman's role than had me stumped. I've always prided myself in my ability to recognize and name a well-known actor from his/her early TV roles, but even when I played a few bits of the pre-recorded show again, I couldn't spot him. I had to look up some Internet trivia before it occurred to me that Coleman was the actor playing the artist who was being wrongly accused of murder. I've never, ever seen a young unknown actor who looked so different in his later, "famous" years. Trivial, I know...but I seem drawn to these things!
The Man from Earth
(2007)
Filmmakers Beware
25 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The problem with this movie is not just the endless, ho-hum, high school level philosophical chit-chat - this is the entire move, actually - it's the fact that none of the supporting players ever react in a normal, believable manner to the main character's whacko revelations. Their comments run the gamut from nervous joking, to cautious disbelief, to serious inquiry - all in a painfully squeezed time-frame. (The "action" is confined to one location and takes place in a single talk-talk-talk evening.) If this isn't phony enough, we get to see the reaction shots in lots of "filler" close-ups and every image looks painfully contrived and B-movie fake. Imagine your own reaction if one of your friends - who looks like a stock player from a TV soap opera - told you at a party that he was really some 14,000 year old immortal (or whatever) who had survived all the historical diseases (including the Black Plague), travelled worldwide for hundreds of years with no apparent means of support (or means of travel, for that matter), studied with the Buddha, known Van Gogh (he still has the painting), and - oh yeah - also happened to be Jesus...
Note to aspiring filmmakers everywhere: no matter how earnest your vision may be, your audience still has to WATCH it.
Note to aspiring filmmakers everywhere: no matter how earnest your vision may be, your audience still has to WATCH it.
Lots of Fun
15 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This episode has EVERYTHING: a bizarre love story, mistaken identities, a man in drag, Mexican bandits, hostile Indians, hostile cowboys, shootouts, a wild stagecoach ride, impromptu comedy (Paget's "southern belle" routine at the Mexican border is a hoot), a dozen major plot twists (well, maybe 13), more fake "accents" than you can shake a stick at..it even has one of those maps that the camera zeros in on every now and again to show us the progress of the journey and the site of the next adventure! I felt like I was watching a feature movie with a cast of thousands all crammed into 60 minutes! A lot of tongue-in-cheek fun and well worth a look.
Hey, what an idea!
1 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
"I hear you're writing a TV script."
"Yeah, it's about a western scout who gets off his horse and climbs a treacherous, snow-capped mountain in his cowboy boots without any climbing gear except a rope."
"Um, sounds a little far-fetched."
"Heck, no! He climbs way, way up to the top in all the cold and snow and finds a cave where all these scary monsters howl at him in the darkness!"
"Monsters? Like Frankenstein?"
"No, no, they're saber-toothed tiger monsters who've become blind through generations of living in darkness. Evolution and natural selection has passed them by..."
"You mean like, Twilight Zone or Outer Limits?"
"No, I mean like, Wagon Train!"
"Yeah, it's about a western scout who gets off his horse and climbs a treacherous, snow-capped mountain in his cowboy boots without any climbing gear except a rope."
"Um, sounds a little far-fetched."
"Heck, no! He climbs way, way up to the top in all the cold and snow and finds a cave where all these scary monsters howl at him in the darkness!"
"Monsters? Like Frankenstein?"
"No, no, they're saber-toothed tiger monsters who've become blind through generations of living in darkness. Evolution and natural selection has passed them by..."
"You mean like, Twilight Zone or Outer Limits?"
"No, I mean like, Wagon Train!"
Biggest let-down I've ever seen
21 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The old sadist-psychopath and his sadist-psychopath sons are the worse batch of scum you can imagine. They give McCullough an absolutely savage beating and then leave him and a woman and two children - all starving and shoeless, without water - to die in the wilderness. The group manages to survive after an appalling, tortured journey, and when McCullough gets the chance to dish out some well-deserved justice of equal measure on these scum, all they get is arrested and sent off to jail. The old man even vows revenge on McCullough as he's carted away! This grizzly sadist deserved to have his throat slit while his sons watched, followed by a bullet to each of their lice-ridden heads. Awful, I know, but that's EXACTLY what the build-up was, and the let-down just gnaws at me!
Too unbelievable.
15 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
There is NO WAY the mother would allow the stranger another second in her house after she knew the stranger was messing with her baby. For me, the story went straight downhill after that.
That said, the doll-baby's face shouldn't have been seen until the very end, even though we know it's a doll. Only the back of the head is seen. Then, as the nut lady-walks out cradling the doll in a blanket, we finally see the face: the creepiest, staring-eyed face imaginable, with a crack running from its lip up to one cheek - giving us the chilling impression that the doll is about to speak.
That said, the doll-baby's face shouldn't have been seen until the very end, even though we know it's a doll. Only the back of the head is seen. Then, as the nut lady-walks out cradling the doll in a blanket, we finally see the face: the creepiest, staring-eyed face imaginable, with a crack running from its lip up to one cheek - giving us the chilling impression that the doll is about to speak.
Nomadland
(2020)
How far we've come
14 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I can't really fault this movie as it plods along from one dreary, depressing set piece to the next. The atmosphere was real, and I felt sympathy for the main character. That said, "Nomadland" really only evoked one deep feeling inside me, and it was a longing for the days of "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Lawrence of Arabia", and "The Godfather". How far-far-far we've come in our concept of a Best Picture winner, and how low-low-low our expectations have become. I can appreciate a story about "real" people doing "real" things, but Francis McDormand defecating in a bucket is a little over the top.
Don't miss this series
3 June 2021
MeTV (among others, presumably) is a network that runs TV shows from the 50s and 60s. If you have access, don't miss the "Wagon Train" series. This is "nostalgic" television at its absolute best, where the emphasis was on strong characters and an equally strong story that touched the emotions of the viewer - and not on Woke ideology. "The Millie Davis Story" is a shining example, and there are many more. The ending makes you tearful AND joyous, no small feat!
Agree with "ben-thayer"
18 April 2021
I read the review by "ben-thayer" and agree completely. The only thing I would add is that the kid is so annoying, so grating on the nerves, so shamelessly "fake", I kept hoping he'd be kidnapped by the Indians. No such luck.
Grim Beyond Belief
7 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I'm still shaking my head over this one, wondering how the script ever got approved in the first place. In the opening shot, a filthy bounty hunter type (Bruce Dern, natch) is shown leading a bedraggled Apache girl by a rope around her neck. He apparently wants to lead her to the local Apache chief who intends to torture her to death because she allegedly murdered his son. The Wagon Train boys intercede and send the bounty hunter on his way, and then the fun begins. Circle the wagons folks, and start shooting the savages as they come for the girl! The young Wagon Train kid is sent out at night to scout for help, whereupon he is captured and his hands are burned and/or mutilated (only temporary!) so he can't shoot a gun. (All at the suggestion of the scumbag bounty hunter, who gets more loathsome with each scene.) In the end, the doomed Wagon Train folk have a "vote" (a really dopey scene that goes on forever) and they surrender the girl to the Apaches, who murder her on the spot and then ride off. The Wagon Train guy then cradles her body in his arms and has a glassy, faraway look, as if the actor has forgotten his lines. Somewhere in all of this is a subplot featuring a sweaty, foul-mouthed criminal in a "jail" with wheels, and this guy makes the Bruce Dern character look like Mother Teresa! Don't watch this one if you're depressed.
Diane Baker
18 March 2021
One Of The Best
26 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
My wife and I have "MeTV" as part of our cable package, and the network runs all the popular shows from the 60s and 70s, including the classic westerns: Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, Rifleman, Wanted Dead or Alive, to name a few. We've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of these shows, but nothing comes close to the Wagon Train episodes. "The Michael McGoo Story" is one of the best. Charlie Wooster (Frank McGrath) is the lonely, grizzled old cook who forms an attachment to four suddenly orphaned boys on the train. He is so devoted to them that he asks an aging spinster (Jocelyn Brando) to marry him so they can adopt the boys! She spurns him (nicely, of course) but falls for another bachelor on the train, a one-legged, yarn-spinning, landlocked sea captain (the McGoo character). They decide to get married and adopt the boys, and Wooster has to watch helplessly as his beloved children leave the train with their new parents. Nothing on television makes me cry, least of all a western series over 50 years old...but if you aren't crying after this one, you have no heart. This one should have won Emmys all around, with particular kudos to Frank McGrath and veteran TV writer Norman Jolly. McGrath is able to convey a breaking heart with a simple look in his eyes, and Jolly's deft touch (especially the "proposal" scene between McGrath and Brando) puts him at the top of his game. This is television at its best.
Trivia footnote
23 February 2021
Jean Hagen, who plays the doctor-mother in this one, also played the ditsy blond actress trying to make the transition from silent film to talkies in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952). This was 10-11 years earlier. Impossible to believe it's the same actress - the hallmark of great acting.
Perfect Gem
20 January 2021
I like to watch the TV shows from the late 50s and early 60s, because every now and again you find a dazzling episode tucked amongst the standard fare. This episode is one of them. Beautifully acted, written, and directed. A perfect gem.
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