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brightfamouscucumber
Reviews
The Woman in Black (2012)
Be sure to watch it in the dark the first time through.
It is good to see Daniel Radcliffe in a less iconic role than the one that made him famous, requiring a different set of emotional display than he is known for. It makes one think that the guy has a chance at making a lifetime career in a profession that often chews children up and spits them out. The story, however, not Mr. Radcliffe's fault, was rather difficult to follow, to discern, and understand. Apparently one is required to have read the novel, which is a bit too much like some of his other movies. I wish I had been given more of the story before having to watch the special features afterward, to understand it better, which they could have done for me, had they so desired. According to the commentary, however, it was intentional. The scenes, the sets, and the special effects, however, are quite delightful (pun intended). Be careful how you This is probably not the kind of movie to be enjoyed if it can't be seen in nearly total darkness the first time through.
Trial by Fire (2008)
To be avoided at all costs... Unless you can't live without very unrealistic storybook heroines
Former Baywatch babe Brook Burns plays the role of Kristin Scoot, a woman seeking success in an apparently all-male world of firefighters, and, according to this flick, she does find success, again and again and again, only to meet criticism and scorn from her all-male co-workers, until she finds herself in a situation where they all feel overwhelmingly compelled to applaud her at the very end (of the flick).
I can usually overlook a few technical errors, a few shabby bits of computer graphic imagery, a few story-line flaws, or a few shots of inept acting, and still enjoy a decent story line. Sadly, I must say that even the story line was a failure, as it completely failed to develop any of the characters enough to be understood, much less be sympathized with, and by no means empathized with.
The very best thing about this flick is that actress Brooke Burns still displays her patently stunning smile. Of course, that is also one of the worst things about this flick, as she displays that smile in no fewer than a dozen moments where in real life, anyone's ability to smile more than a very weak smirk would likely mark him (or her) as a lunatic.
Another thing done quite poorly in this film were the computer generated forest fires and flames. Clearly, filming without real flames is a lot safer for actors and actresses who are not certified safe enough to perform stunts, and it drops the cost of the overall production, but, to see a scene where our young heroine Kristin crawls on her belly beneath the blazing trunk of a fallen tree -- and then PAUSES -- without receiving third-degree burns to her back, the back of her head, her neck, legs, and arms, is just plain insidious, because of all the young heroine worshipers in the audience who might just try a similar-looking REAL stunt of their own.
Nor did many of the computer-generated parachute drops appear to be very real, but at least those didn't look any less dangerous than they can be in real life.
As for the story: I happen to have been trained in my youth as a forest-fire fighter, not a jumper, but in my state's forest-fire-fighting reserve. My job was mainly to cut fire lines and stay alive. I was also trained somewhat in the realm of search and rescue. In this flick's opening scenes, the heroine is portrayed as turning off her radio in order to listen for a missing person's shout, which is expected, but NEVER would you turn off your most valuable lifeline without first broadcasting your intention and your location, just in case for some reason you fail to get it turned back on, and NEVER EVER EVER would you attempt to actually perform such a rescue as our heroine without indeed turning it back on to alert everyone withing range of both your success in locating the victim and what you were about to do. In real life, our pretty heroine would have been fired the very moment she got back to camp, regardless of who her father might have happened to be; she would never have been allowed to be put into another unsafe situation, like the next firefighting scene which claims the heroine's father's life.
But the very worst part of this flick is the way the heroine's father is portrayed on the day of his impending doom, being the very last day of his twenty-six year career in a small-city fire department, after having been given his retirement party, and after having been told not to report thereafter, out of a not-really-all-that-superstitious belief in bad luck to do so. Yet, there he is, on his very last day, not only singing and humming, but actually celebrating the alleged GOOD luck that on the very last day of his career, another call comes in. This, in my opinion, is VERY bad taste. I have never met a career fire fighter of any age who has ever reacted so brazenly insensitive as that. All real fire fighters I know acknowledge themselves as being nothing short of a very necessary evil in today's society. They realize that the very fact that anybody actually pays them for the job they do is because they combat the much greater evil of anybody losing life, limb, and/or property, if it can be prevented. They don't celebrate anything that might cause harm to anybody else. At most, they celebrate the opportunity to exercise their training, but they NEVER call it good luck. Ever.
Again, in my youth, I was trained to be a firefighter, not just in forests, but my little cow town's volunteer department. Between the time I became old enough to enroll, and the day I left town for college, we had absolutely zero fires and nobody in need of being rescued by us. As a result of that, I was never actually paid so much as a penny in exchange for all the mandatory meetings, training and public-relations activities that took up so much of my otherwise free time, yet THAT is exactly what a real firefighter calls good luck.
The firefighting lacked authenticity, the acting (directing) was mostly sophomoric and unconvincing, and the story was just barely above becoming absurd.
If you're looking for an authentic movie about firefighting and search and rescue, or a realistic role model flick, this is NOT the movie you are looking for. It could have become a thrilling motion picture with a very powerful message about how to hurdle the frustrations of discrimination. I am afraid, however, that all it will become now, is an very unsafe role model story for pre-pubescent girls.
It's greatest value lies in the entertainment value derived from its absurdity.
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
The million-dollar controversy.
Like many of its viewers, when Battlestar Galactica (BSG) aired on the third weekend of my Eighth Grade year of school, I found myself both loving it and hating it, all at the very same time. And I had no idea why... for a very long time.
Even before it aired, I loved it, because, as a Seventh Grader, I had ordered the book which corresponds with the first five hours of the show, and even though I wound up having to share it first with each of my four siblings, and was the last to read the book I had paid for with my own money, I found the story to be utterly compelling.
Similar to previous Sci-Fi TV series, BSG is steeped with social, moral, and political scenarios, pertinent to the era in which it was aired: Those were the years of the heights of the Cold War, where EVERYBODY was HOPING for some sort of peace agreement between the CCCP and the USA, lest there be a nuclear holocaust bestowed upon the whole world. In fact, it was during the airing of the one episode that the episode was interrupted with a news report of a Camp David peace treaty being reached and signed, which, while it wasn't a peace treaty between the USA and the CCCP, but between Israel and the Palistinian Liberation Organization, it spoke untold volumes of how much the whole world wanted peace. So, BSG's warning that overtures of peace might not actually be what they appeared to be, became a very controversial stance to take at the time.
The pilot episodes for one of BSG's well-known predecessors, Star Trek, contained a notion so controversial that when Star Trek aired, it's creator, Gene Roddenberry had to leave it behind: the concept of a woman being in the role of a military leader. BSG's creator, Glen A. Larsen, revisited this theme in a completely different manner: the first three hours of the series had nothing but men in complete command of all situations.. and then, in the fourth, most of the men fell ill, leaving their whole civilization left in the hands of some unexpected heroes (who, by other characters, were bemoaned as being lowly "SHUTTLE PILOTS", but, who, on camera, were clearly all of exactly one gender, and not the more masculine of the two), who clearly came out to save the day (but not the series).
This theme resurfaced from time to time throughout the rest of the remaining short-lived series, when the commanding combat pilot of another battlegroup happened to be a much-better, albeit lesser-ranking woman, who wound up having to demonstrate her own capabilities of fitting in to the more male-dominant battlegroup, but from then on remained a firm character in the show.
That's when I, a barely-adolescent male, decided forever and firmly, that given the choice between a capable female or a higher-ranking member of my own gender, who wasn't nearly as capable, I would choose to go to battle with the woman at my side.. which of course, was NOT a very popular notion in the late Seventies, nor throughout the whole decade of the Eighties, for that matter.
And then, of course, there is the VERY overt matter of religion. The creator, Glen A. Larsen, being a member of a pretty controversial church, to begin with, of course began sharing some of his church's more controversial beliefs, as part of the story lines of this show, which can be seen in every single episode, thus earning him the accusation of forcing his beliefs upon anyone who watched the show, despite the repeated caveats that beliefs are for those who CHOOSE to believe them, and not the other way around. Having myself studied his church's beliefs to no small extent, I can tell that he didn't even share the most controversial forms of those beliefs, but watered them down quite a bit, yet, still, they stirred so much controversy.
Again, every single episode of BSG is laced with multifaceted socio-political problems, to which the show's creator, directors, and producors provided a very plausible solution, not only for that day and age, but for any day and age to come, for those who are at least willing to think about it.
In my opinion, however, this is what doomed the show from the beginning, is that although people are very willing to seek out topics of a controversial nature in small doses, Larsen's ability to present multiple controversies in each and every episode, was a bit more than the average viewer was willing to take, so ratings fell, and the series ended.
Or did it? It was revived in an even shorter-lived spin-off, two years later, and it has become the background of much-longer-lasting series which, to my knowledge, is still going strong, even as I type.
That, to me, if more than ample proof that that Gary A. Larsen's idea was nowhere near as bad as some people think it to have been, but were both entertaining and enlightening, despite the popular opinion of the day.
Girls Bravo (2004)
Artistic Anime
This multi-season series of Japanese Anime, centers around a teenager who is so small for his age, that he grew up being beat up by the girls of his school, so much and so often that he's developed an acute case of gynophobia, not just fearing all girls, but breaking out in hives every time he comes into contact with any.
This includes the girl next door, who, unlike most of the rest, has a crush on him, in spite of being just as willing as the rest to react violently to his faux pa's.
The one exception to his gynophobic reaction, is a girl he meets on another planet, who follows him to earth, and stays with him-- And that's when the adventures really begin! Add to the mix an insanely rich androphobic guy, his literal witch of a little sister, their not-so-covert security/intelligence team, a darling but androphobic secret agent from the other planet, a young sorceress from the other planet, and more, and you can't help but hope the fun doesn't end.
There is nudity, which for many folks might be too taboo to begin to watch the series enough to begin to enjoy it, but, the messages in many of the episodes indicate that the creators are including the nudity as a mode of introducing the taboos of nudism (and beyond) and a portrayal of the need for less nudity (and beyond) in social settings, especially among teens, so, I, for one, believe the nudity to be necessary, not only from the standpoint of ratings, but, as a basis from which to portray the taboos around which many of the episodes revolve.
More anime should be like this!
Marie de Nazareth (1995)
An Interesting Interpretation of Scripture.
Being the first movie of the Gospel I've ever seen which was produced in France with English duologue, at first I was intrigued when the duologue contained snippets of what I recognized as Scripture, but which was NOT from any of the English versions I have ever studied, so it piqued my interest.
It contains a plethora of interpretations that do not coincide with my own interpretations of the events surrounding His ministry based on my study of the Gospel in multiple languages, however, as I have yet to undertake a study of the Gospel from the perspective of the French language, I cannot help but say that I found it to be a lot more interesting than some quicker-cheaper productions about the Word.
It was enough to help me overlook so many of the technical flaws that I saw in this film, as being perhaps translational inaccuracies and errors.
The Heart Is a Rebel (1958)
surprisingly riveting
It's Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm somewhat ill, so I'm wide awake in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning, and I'm in need of something to remind me of the things I should be thankful for, and whom I should be thankful to, so I'm flipping channels, and my local Christian network TV station is showing something that I readily recognize as a pre-ratings (and therefore, likely safe) flick that I've never seen before, with a grandmotherly lady of indigenous African descent with a wonderful voice raising praise in the form of a sweet Southern Spiritual.
That captured me. Normally, it wouldn't necessarily. This morning, it did.
And, it worked.
The story was so-so, the resolution was predictable, the special effects and props were few, but the lines and acting were superb, which is what Drama's all about in the first place. So good was it, that even though I predicted the resolution long before half way, at the climax, It could easily have going in a variety of other directions, so it was by no means a cheesy mono-dimensional storyline, and I found myself pleasantly more riveted than I had expected.
The least entertaining, least riveting, least rewarding parts of the film, however, was the incorporation of footage of a renowned televangelist. Personally, I have nothing major against that ministry nor that style of televangelism, but that televangelistic style appeared to clash with the acting styles of the entire cast. It just didn't quite fit. Although that might have been a selling point at the time this flick was produced, I believe it would have been a much more entertaining and therefor, reaching flick, without it.
Cops (1989)
Lesser evil, but not always, and even then, not by much
Cops is weekend prime-time 30-minute action-packed "reality" TV show, where cameramen ride along with on-duty police officers, purportedly showing real-live incidents as they occur while the police officers are on duty.
Unlike other law-enforcement-biased "reality" shows, such as "Real Stories of the Highay Patrol", COPS restricts any and all commentary to the video-recorded events of the same duty-shift. At least as far as I have seen, except when COPS combines episodes with other "reality" based law-enforcement shows, each segment starts with a police officer driving along in his car, or meeting with other law-enforcement officers, making general comments about their perception of law-enforcement, or saying something specific, to set up the upcoming action scenes.
Then it shows some scenes of the ride-along officers encountering the public in response to form of complaint, and sometimes it shows the resolution of those complaints.
It is completely unscripted, and off the cuff.
It often shows actual disturbances, violence, bloodshed, and actual death.
It often shows police brutality and officers defaming the character of the people they encounter.
It often shows people in the process of committing a crime.
It also, often shows police officers in the process of committing crimes.
But it never shows the crime-committing cops being handcuffed.
This is a dangerously biased show.
It is a show depicting that COPS can do no wrong.
It does state at the beginning of each episode that "all suspects are considered innocent until proved guilty in a court of law", but it's always some other bad guys, not the criminals of a badge-bearing kind, who get cuffed and stuffed, and in some cases, brutalized. And it is quite clear that the vast majority of the badge-bearers consider the suspects guilty.
And it's edited to be this way.
It's edited to appear to be some sort of "good versus evil", but it is not. It is nothing short of evil vs. evil, and sometimes its the perp who's more evil, and other times it's the badge-bearer. But it's always the badge-bearer whose opinions get final input on each and every segment, and usually a very rude bash of the people they were hired to protect and serve.
It is sick and it it is twisted, and it is in a time spot known to be predominantly viewed by adolescents.
On a scale of one-to-ten for entertainment value, I would quite honestly and with great justification give it a negative ninety-nine.
The worst nightly news show in a third-world country would receive a greater rating from me than this atrocious filth.
Saints and Soldiers (2003)
Gould, the Cleverly Unlikely Ingénue
Beginning with a brilliantly plausible depiction of the WWII tragedy known as the Malmedy Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge, Saints and Soldiers portrays the journey of a survivor of that "Massacre", Army Medic Stephen Gould (Aexander Niver, best know to me for his role more than a decade ago in Charles in Charge), and his internal struggle to come to terms with the causes of the onslaught, death, and mayhem, which surround him.
Evading death in the meadow at Five-Points Crossroads, Gould escapes captivity, and bands together with four unlikely, but dramatically aesthetic fellow surviving P.O.W. escapee G.I.s.
Gould's first acquaintance, an unnamed and unarmed fellow escapee is mercilessly gunned down by a German solder, whose next target would have been Gould himself, but for the timely courageous act of Corporal Nathan Greer, (Corbin Allred, from the Time Warrior series), who single-handedly saves Gould's life, but then inexplicably lets the German escape as well.
Gould and Greer then join up with Sergeant Gordon Gunderson (Peter Holden), who also owes his life to Corporal Greer, whom he respectfully refers to as "Deke" or "The Deacon".
While hiding out, armed with a single captured German rifle, these three are joined by the gung-ho, trigger-happy, Kraut-killing Private Shirl Kendrick, who has already made Gould's acquaintance.
This rag-tag band tries to hole up, to await rescue by the advancing Allied Forces, but when an Allied airplane gets shot down not far away, they and venture forth and rescue an airman, trapped in a tree by his own parachute, R.A.F. Flight Sergeant Oberon Winley (Kirby Heybourn, The R.M.), who possesses information crucial to the war which simply must get back to Headquarters.
Armed only with Winley's revolver and Deacon's captured Kraut rifle, these five make an heroic effort to save the battle, by making their way back across enemy lines.
Gould, the incurably bitter realist, secure in knowing that the war's atrocities of war are embodied by those in the other uniform, now behind enemy lines, begins to see the barbarism of warfare from a new perspective as he begins to see that his new comrades consist of: a women- and children-killer, an outwardly gung-ho closet coward, a subtle sadist, a naïve and overly-loyal optimist, and worst of all, a German sympathizer, each of whom is also contributing to the horrors of Gould's personal war, waging against Gould's outlook on life.
Gould makes a cleverly unlikely ingénue whose simplistic understanding of war takes several turns, as he seeks to make sense of new revelations of who are his enemies and who are his allies, who are the cowards and criminals of war, and what courage these cowards and criminals are capable of.
By movie's end, Gould is looking at war, and life, from a whole new perspective.
Something that each of us should do.
Brilliantly, however, the movie ends without Gould declaring any new beliefs of good or evil, it's just clear that everything that Gould started out believing so vehemently is no longer quite so crystal-clear, with a lot of compelling screenplay to justify Gould's conversion to a variety of possible ideals: is there an afterlife? is there redemption? is honor to be found among one's enemies? can cowards become courageous? can anything good come of so much death? is anything worth dying for? and a whole lot more.
Especially clever are the many unlikely but reportedly true war stories from other battles, which have been threaded into Gould's journey. Every "unbelievable" part of the movie has been reported by more than one eyewitness to similar real-life events.
Also cleverly incorporated into the story line is how this war story is relatively free of violence and "foul-language".
Most compelling of all, is how this movie, made in Utah, by predominantly (but not exclusively) Latter-day Saint artists, have incorporated the aspect of religion so subtly into the story, that although there are several inferences to Mormonism, those same inferences could easily also be drawn on any Christian religion, which, in the truest aspect of Islam, is a perfectly valid example of Islamically acceptable Christianity as well, which is an extremely important in light of today's religion-instigated wars in the Middle East.
Gould, a common Jewish surname, could easily be addressing in Greer: a returned Mormon missionary with a pocket-sized Book of Mormon, or a coffee intolerant traveling Baptist lay-minister with his New Testament and Psalms, or even a reasonably devout Islamic Suni with a pocket-sized portion of the Q'ran. This movie is not about any particular, but could easily be inferring the beliefs of any of a dozen of religions.
Again, Gould does not get to decide if Greer's religion is right, but we see Gould recognizing value in Greer's beliefs.
All in all, this is an extremely well-done movie.
The problem I find in this film is that Corbin Allred and not Alexander Niver, gets first billing. This is Gould's story, after all, not Deacon's. Deacon just gets under Gould's skin the most. But when you consider that the producers must have originally thought that the their audience would turn out to be predominantly Latter-day Saints in Utah, where the movie was made, it is somewhat understandable.
The entire cast was well played. Some of the pyrotechnics were pretty low budget, but, I go to the movies to see a story, not to see special effects.
All in all, this is an excellently made film, entirely deserving of its fourteen best-picture awards.
Baby Geniuses (1999)
Not so bad.
Okay, I finally made it through the comments of hundreds of my fellow contributors, the vast majority of whom thoroughly disliked this film, blasting it and saying it deserved to be on the bottom 100 worst films of all time. I disagree.
I agree that it isn't the best film in the world, but I've seen so many which were so much much worse, on so many different levels.
I could see what it was that the director and the producers were aiming for.. and they came so very very close... unfortunately, because they came close in almost everything, they didn't have anything that turned out very good. And this, I'm sure, is the reason so many people don't like it and don't think it has any redeeming qualities.. because nothing was done excellently.
In my opinion, John Wayne's first thirty or so films are all worse and less entertaining than this. But, you don't get to see them very often nowadays, so people who haven't seen them don't realize just how bad, in comparison to today's special effects, they were.
Sure, the acting was less than stellar, which would be surprising from an all-star cast of adults. And so many people try to compare this flick to Baby's Day Out and Look Who's Talking... but in this flick, unlike those others... the main characters are the children, not the adults, so it only makes sense to have all the adult actors tone down their performances... and since it's so hard to get toddlers to do anything on cue, the adults needed to tone down their performances just that much more.
It was a very ingenious concept, that unfortunately was much less well received by it's overly picky audience.
Sure, there were some less-than-stellar special effects, too. So many of my fellow contributors cued in on the fact that the kids' lips weren't properly synching to the dialog, but not many noticed that in the vast majority of those shots, the babies' lips and facial expressions were computer generated... so, apparently that effect pulled itself off adequately.. just not superbly, or there would not have been the synching problems.
If you're the kind of person who can enjoy a story without having to base your enjoyment on stellar performances, you'll be able to enjoy this flick, too.