neilharold Reviews

Nixon (1995)

Comment on Nixon

[7 May 2003]

I have been watching video rentals two times. Sometimes I renew my video and watch the film two more times for a total of four viewings. I borrowed and watched Nixon. The film is two VCR tapes and I have watched the complete film once and the first tape, part one, twice. I am going to renew Nixon and watch a total of four times.

Why does Nixon have so much interest in Cuba and Fidel Castro? President Nixon's friend, Bebe Robozo if mentioned, does not have a presence in the story. I can't quite believe that there was quite so much alcohol use on the job at the White House and on the campaigns as is shown. Towards the end I read there was drinking but maybe it was the ladies having a drink during the Vice Presidency, California in 62 and the rise from 1968.

If it is important to declare one's view about the President as well as the film I can try. I do not think President Nixon was ever a media figure. What would he think about cellphone and internet messaging and all the rest? Having to vote or create national budgets, including computer systems during the fifties and sixties what would he think about emoticons or HTML? What did he know about Fortran (used in NASA) and when did he know it? Interesting maybe.

When I read President Nixon's writing he does political essays very well. Henry Kissinger who also does political writing very well worked in the Nixon White House. I was able to borrow from a local library David McCullough's post presidential interview with the Ex-President. PBS 1991.

I think Oliver Stone's director's touch shows that he creates good movies. But also Mr. Stone might have a touch with other film types. TV pilot, or music video, documentary, short subject, younger adult material. For instance a Vietnamese music video. Certainly another major feature. Maybe an animal hero?

The new manufacturing products since color TV, cable, satellite, like HDTV, panel screens, home theatre-TV for sports, internet video need material and audiences of Mr. Stone's, my own and future generations.

Looking over the imdb filmography I read that Mr. Stone was the writer in 1978 for Midnight Express. With the new age of digital media things might change for theatre distribution. Might.

Reading slowly other user comments on the film I agree that Hopkins is very good as President Nixon. But if I remember some of the newspaper copy from the film's release some of the film time of Mrs. Nixon character was revealing about her personal part in her husband's political career.

Much of the early years of Richard Nixon's life are filmed in black and white. I could comment on specific points raised in the comments but those are written by other users. I can rate Nixon an seven point five out of ten and certainly a Very Good American Movie! By Neil Hauser.

Last Run (2001)

By Neil.

[29 December 2002]

I rented a DVD of Last Run and I would like to comment. I have watched the film one time and part-way a second time. The photography is very attractive with European Landscapes and some urban subjects. The movie must be watched more than one time to get the plot. The politics of the plot are suppressed. There is a dialogue line about "I do not know which side won the cold war". The movie could go either of two ways. One is more of the action movie comic book plot. I go to a lot of movies for the simple plotting. The other way and I think maybe a follow-up movie like Last Run is something like the alienated existential intelligence man. The lead role is smoother than "Frank Banner" (I am using the IMDB credits page for my information here) but the art direction and production would be similar to what I watched last night. Last Run is pretty good. I can give the movie three stars out of five. But I want to write some more.

The woman in the movie are all mature, adult and over eighteen years of age. I must write that I wonder if they rent or own. They all die in the movie and Frank gets upset and yells the word NO and tries to revive one of the women. (The cast link does not work on the IMDB credits page to get the names. What do you know?) The women are attractive and European. Since I had problems following the politics of the plot story line I wonder how much the locations, which are in Hungary and Austria, are important. One scene shows a map in color and I want to use the stop button on my remote to look at the map a little more closely. There are weapons in the movie. The audio seems to be subdued and filtered which is a good thing because I do not need to pay for volume that it too loud and would damage my equipment or my friendship with my neighbors. The music is recorded, interesting and orchestral. There is little Rock music in this film. I do not remember indigenous music in the native languages. But the weapons could need to be identified by a specialist in arms. I do not know. I just wondered if identifying the arms and the locations would help in the plotting.

The end of the movie is a scene from a open space of land with statues and monuments from the communist era. One statue of Lenin is photographed on the screen. The end of the story is the digging up of dirt on one of the Eastern intelligence bosses from a safebox that has been hidden near the statues. And that is it. Kind of anti-climactic! I have gone through critiquing and letting people read my thoughts. Thanks. But what makes my review important? Why not enjoy the film and let it ride? Let the show go on. Well the answer is technical really and not aesthetic. The beginning of the movie reminds me of the computer game Myst and also Sim-Isle. The point in the game where the statuary is around the fountain. And just a little of the soundtrack of Last Run seems to be from Sim-Isle. I have both games and returned my warranties. The main part of the movie does not continue this. Just briefly in the beginning. Then the last scene with the communist statuary resembles the earlier scene and Myst also. The open space of land with the statuary appears to be a real place. But the games are hard to play. I mean for the audience and the market for computers, PCs and DVDs a lot of people might not be able to figure out the solution to puzzle games or to work to successfully development an island's economy like in Sim-Isle. I know that I can't. I just play for fun. Why sell game software to this market? You see some customers would never be writing a program script. It is just not something they will learn. But the PCs and DVD drives have enough processor power to enable these scripts and integrated programming environments.

I cleansed my DVD disk wiping from inside to outside with glass cleaner. The photography which is excellent in Last Run sometimes is washy looking and I wondered if this had something to do with the suppressed plot or the movie business because there is rain in some of the scenes and raindrops appear on the automobile glass and resemble the problems with the disk. I do not think it was the cleanser because the washy look was always cut with the scene and the lighting. Like a dark scene with a washy fault on my disk and cut to a brilliant outdoor landscape shot that was very attractive and had no technical faults. Maybe I am not washing the disk correctly?

Finally when rewatching the film the second time I turned on the Spanish subtitles to see if I could follow the plot-line by reading and including the Latin. But except for the characters names, no deal. But I enjoyed the disk more with the subtitles on. I watch the subtitles all the time on other disks.

Best Laid Plans (1999)

I have a good comment.

[7/10 · 8 October 2002]

My first IMDB comment. Briefly; the Nick character, a protaganist, his Father is never sighted. There is the scene after the visit to the lawyer to hear about the Father's assets being held in lien and Nick then burns all the textbooks. It is not in view whether the Father's graduate paper is included among the books burned or not. During my second run of the movie I heard the dialogue twice that the Father,s profession was art teacher but the thesis was in the degree field of history. So I had to watch this film, Best Laid Plans, at least twice to catch more of the story than just watching once. Which I always enjoy doing and think is a plus. The point of my comment is this: One important theme of the film is that Nick's Father was a better teacher than he was a father. And that Nick's problems at work and at the recycling business were related to the situation that his Father was a better teacher than dad. The movie had several themes like this that though the themes are very subtle it is not everyday that a production will plot thematic development at all.