tsmith417 Reviews

When the Legends Die (1972)

A surprisingly good movie

[7/10 · 13 August 2015]

I watched this on the Encore Western Channel. I didn't expect much going in, based on the description on the channel guide, and the film started off slow, but I found myself more interested as the film went on, and half-expected to find out it was based on a true story.

I am a fan of Frederic Forest, altho in this film he is so quiet and seems almost uncomfortable that it's hard to understand how he could have played such a scary character as Blue Duck a few years later in the "Lonesome Dove" mini-series.

Richard Widmark seems to be having too much fun with his role as Red, a departure from the stoic characters he played for many years, and almost seems to be saying, "I don't care what the other actors do, I'm gonna do what I want."

Widmark's character is unapologetically racist, calling Thomas Black Bull "Chief" from the first time they meet, and telling him, "If it weren't for me, you'd be selling blankets."

Red is all about the money, not the sport or Thomas, and scams all the locals at every rodeo Thomas rides in, only to waste all his profits on booze and women and gambling. Thomas doesn't want to go along with the scams but does because deep down he truly loves Red as a father figure. He gets frustrated and tries a couple of times to rebel but fails because his heart isn't really in it.

The film gets a little choppy after Thomas Black Bull finally makes up his mind to do things his own way and abandons Red at a roadside liquor store. All of a sudden his name is Tom Black and he gets the nickname Killer because he rides the horses so hard they drop dead in the arena. Supposedly he has killed four horses this way but we only see one incident.

Tom starts drinking scotch, smokes a few cigarettes, hooks up with a few women who disappear as quickly as they appear, and starts on his own downhill slide, not from the booze or women but from arrogance.

When he gets thrown one too many times and realizes his arrogance isn't going to get him thru life any more he goes back to Red, who is now reaping the results of his hard-drinking, partying life.

* Spoiler *

Tom is finally freed when Red dies and he has nowhere to go any more, and no-one to turn to.

The ending of the film is abrupt, and the only thing I really didn't like about the film, with Tom going back to the Indian school he hated as a boy, which is now being run by tribal elders instead of the White Man, and says he wants to work with horses.

I found this to be slightly out of character. He had no qualms about letting horses buck themselves to death at rodeos, yet we are now to believe that his love of horses is what has been driving him all this time and the only thing he ever really wanted to do.

* End Spoiler *

All in all, I liked the movie. I don't know if I'd put it on my 10-best list, but the story was interesting, the characters were believable, and if nothing else, Richard Widmark's portrayal of Red is worth your time.

Scalplock (1966 TV Movie)

Good for getting drunk to, and that's about all.

[4/10 · 17 July 2015]

Next time you want to start a drinking game, pop a copy of this stupid movie into the ole DVR and do a shot every time someone says, "build a railroad". You'll have a room full of drunken people within 20 minutes.

Considering the amount of time everyone spends talking about "building a railroad", the kicker is that movie ends just as they finally decide to start to "build the railroad" and we never get to see anyone actually "build a railroad" even tho Dale Robertson has spent the entire film film-flamming and double-talking his way into getting the money to "build the railroad" and convincing everyone that he can "build a railroad" even tho he never "built a railroad" before ... hic! oh, excuse me, I'm a little tipsy ...

I Was Bitten: The Walker County Incident (2014 TV Movie)

Embarrassing

[1/10 · 23 May 2015]

As a resident of Walker County and the city of Jasper, Alabama, I would like to go on record as saying that the morons featured in this show are in no way representative of the citizens of this fair city.

I wish the producers of these idiotic shows would stop showing scenes of rusted-out trucks sitting in yards full of weeds and stray dogs, abandoned buildings, and trashy trailer parks. Walker County is replete with lovely old homes with colorful gardens, quaint restaurants and shops, and million-dollar mansions on Smith Lake, yet somehow none of these ever make it to the screen.

I have never met anyone who believes there is a Sasquatch or any other strange crossbreed creature living in the caves or woods in this area.

Thank you for letting me speak my piece.

Killing Jesus (2015 TV Movie)

Why mess with perfection?

[1/10 · 30 March 2015]

Why do people keep thinking that the Bible isn't a good enough story, that they have to keep changing it and embellishing it with made-up stuff? It isn't enough that Ridley Scott completely changed the story of Exodus and Moses; now someone has to move up to the New Testament and mess with it too.

The Wise Men did not stop at King Herod's place for dinner and entertainment to tell him about the Baby Jesus.

The part about Jesus preaching in the temple apparently wasn't interesting enough to be included.

Jesus did not have to be told by John The Baptist that He was the Son of God; He knew very well who He was. And after being baptized, "the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove"; why was this "insignificant" fact left out of the film?

It was at this point that I turned the movie off and went back to the "Columbo" marathon on the Hallmark channel; at least that show was supposed to be fiction.

I thank God that there are only two Testaments to the Bible. Maybe Hollywood will find something else to use now to promote their atheist agenda.

Oh yeah, one more thing ... I didn't know Joseph looked like Sonny Bono. I never saw so many bad wigs in one movie since the Marx Brothers stopped making films.

The Aviator (2004)

The story of a man who was a success at being a failure

[8/10 · 16 February 2015]

The first time I saw this film I thought, "It's pretty good," but the second time I watched it I came away with a much different perspective.

Most of us knew about Howard Hughes' obsession with germs and about the Spruce Goose but not a lot about his early years or the extent of his involvement with airplanes.

"The Aviator", but virtue of its very title, lets us know that flying was Hughes' magnificent obsession and everything else came second.

Watching the film the second time I was stuck by the importance of color. At first I thought something was wrong with the color on my television because when Hughes and Hepburn are playing golf the grass and leaves are a bright turquoise instead of green and the color of the sky looked odd too, yet the flesh tones were correct. Then it hit me that the color must have been "correct" too, according to something Scorcese wanted to imply. What that might have been I don't know but it got my attention and the colors kept my attention for the rest of the film.

Vibrant decor and flashes of colors showed up throughout the film while the clothing and characters remained bland in comparison. People wearing brown jackets and slacks stood in rooms with bright green upholstered furniture or dark red walls, and the people seemed to fade into the background. Your attention was on their surroundings, not them, so that you concentrated on what they were saying instead of what they looked like.

But what do I mean by saying it's the story of a man who was a success at being a failure? Hughes, for all his billions in financial assets, never truly was a success at anything, according to this film.

Hughes' movies could never recoup their extravagant costs, he kept losing (or driving away) the women he loved, and even all his aviation dreams fizzled out when he lost contracts and ultimately a whole airline. He put too much of himself into everything he did, trying to achieve perfection, which only pushed him further and further away from it, and I came away from the film feeling sorry for Mr. Hughes. Whether that was Mr. Scorcese's intention, again, I don't know, but that was the message I got.

If you're looking for just another biopic where characters are explained to death and situations are always resolved, this isn't the film for you. But if you're willing to relax and let the images and characterizations take you over in a more subtle way, you're in for a treat.

America Unearthed (2012– )

Beyond bad

[1/10 · 29 January 2015]

Since I live in Alabama I was interested in the episode about Davy Crockett, where he had been deeded land in Alabama (or something like that).

There was this woman who had a signed deed and she showed it to Scott. Now if I were the person with a signed deed or I were the one to whom this signed deed was shown, the first, and I mean the very FIRST thing I would do is find a sample of Davy Crockett's signature for comparison, yet this was the very LAST thing Scott did.

Then, when he did the comparison and it was blatantly obvious that the two signatures were not the same, he STILL said something to the effect that they might have been written by the same person!

They made a 1-hour show about NOTHING! And that's what they do for every episode. "Facts" are shown to be outright falsehoods or hoaxes, Scott takes one tiny piece of something and declares it to be the same as an entire something else, and twists and manipulates everything to fit his pre-conceived notions.

I feel sorry for the real experts that Scott talks to. It must be extremely frustrating for these learned people to have to 1) try to explain to Scott that he's a moron and 2) have to watch themselves later on national television, talking to a moron.

What a waste of airtime and money. The History Channel needs to either rename itself to the Fantasy Channel or stop broadcasting these stupid shows that do nothing but fuel the tin-foil hat community and their ridiculous theories.

The Twilight Zone (1959–1964)

Great in small doses

[8/10 · 31 December 2014]

I was about 10 or 12 when "Twilight Zone" was in its heyday and my parents would let us watch it every week; my whole family looked forward to it.

When taken one episode at a time it's a masterpiece of early television, and Rod Serling is a veritable genius who could weave words together beautifully and effortlessly. But now, 45 years later, I've been watching marathons of "Twilight Zone" and I have to say that when you watch 20 episodes in one day it becomes rather disturbing.

Rod Serling was apparently a very troubled man because he had several depressing, recurring themes in his stories (I must say here that it is possible that some of the stories were written by other writers, and I apologize if I'm giving Mr. Serling too hard a time, but the themes seem to remain the same).

What we see, time and time again, in the episodes are these themes: - weak husbands with shrewish wives who force the men to work at jobs they hate - mean men who take delight in belittling women - a fear of what we might find in outer space - a fear of being conquered by beings from outer space - a hatred of machines that are devoid of human kindness and compassion - regret, sadness, and longing for "the good old days" - complete and utter hopelessness for the whole of mankind.

Inanimate objects take on human characteristics and then try to get rid of their human owners. Humans are at the mercy of time and wish to remain young at any cost. Man is beaten down at every opportunity and death is welcomed and longed for as the only way to escape the ugliness of this world.

Very few episodes have what you might call a happy ending; at the most some of them have an ending that is just slightly optimistic, but the viewer knows that this tiny bit of happiness won't last very long.

I still watch "Twilight Zone" and still enjoy it for the artistic value and intellectuality that is sorely lacking in newer television series, but I am watching them now thru different, older eyes, and can't help but feel sorry for the man behind it, whose mind was so obsessed with these troubling thoughts.

Past Midnight (1991)

Move along, there's nothing to see here.

[4/10 · 11 November 2014]

I watched this last night since there was absolutely nothing else of interest on. While I made it thru the whole movie, I was bored.

A man (Rutger Hauer) spends 15 years in prison for the murder of his wife and then is released and meets up with his social worker (Natasha Richardson) so that she can find him a job.

They fall in love and she spends a lot of time trying to find out the details of the murder that he was accused of and for the next half-hour it's a matter of is he or isn't he guilty.

The movie takes place in Washington state so it rains. A lot. I guess that's supposed to add to the suspense but all it did for me was make me feel cold and damp.

The ending came out of nowhere and the viewer is left wondering why nobody in the last 15 years, not the people living in the town, not the man's lawyer, and especially not the police, ever knew anything about any of it.

If you're desperate for something to watch and find a copy of this film in the bargain bin at WalMart you can give it a try, but don't go out of your way to get it.

Her Sister's Secret (1946)

Apologies to Robert Osborne, but this is a bad movie.

[4/10 · 23 October 2014]

This film was shown on TCM the other night and before it started there was Robert Osborne, lauding the talents of the director and saying what a great movie it was.

I don't know what Mr. Osborne uses as his criteria for a great movie, but it sure ain't the same as mine.

The acting was wooden. Everyone just stood there and spoke their lines at each other, not necessarily to each other. I've seen more emotion displayed by a marionette.

The editing was choppy. In one scene the girl and boy are riding in a hansom cab and they're seated one way, in the next frame they've switched places, and then they go back to the first way.

The sound quality was poor.

I apologize to the reviewer who said he was so happy to have played the part of the child, but he was not that good and seemed to not even know what was going on most of the time he was on-screen.

The story is an old one: an unmarried girl gets pregnant the first time she has sex, the father of the child disappears from her life so she goes away for 9 months and her sister/friend/mother tells everyone the child is hers, and the girl spends the rest of her life regretting her decision.

The story was done much better by Bette Davis in both "The Old Maid" (where she plays the unwed mother) and "The Great Lie" (where she plays the one who adopts the child as her own).

Don't listen to Robert Osborne and don't waste your time on this mess of a movie.

The Blue and the Gray (1982)

Ridiculous

[3/10 · 7 July 2014]

I tried watching this silly thing but found the acting so stilted that it was difficult to sit thru much of it.

Then there were all the glaring errors that had me taking back to the TV. Abraham Lincoln did not have a beard when he was first elected. The character playing the artist/correspondent referred to "the Confederacy" before the Civil War even started.

But when that brother was lauded for capturing all those prisoners and received a battlefield promotion and then saluted with his left hand, that was when I had to turn it off.

"North and South" was much better.

Bonnie & Clyde (2013)

It took only 30 minutes for me to make my decision ...

[1/10 · 8 December 2013]

... to change the channel.

Clyde had "second sight"?

He first saw Bonnie in a vision brought on by a fever when he was a child and then met her when he and Buck crashed her wedding?

He played saxophone in a speakeasy band?

This is a true story? True story of whom?

Don't waste your time on this nonsense. I couldn't change the channel fast enough to avoid seeing any more ridiculous made-up "facts".

I wish I could give this a negative rating. For some reason I'm not even being given the option of rating it at all, but I will state here that I give it zero stars.

Hitchcock (2012)

It's about everything BUT Hitchcock

[5/10 · 9 October 2013]

I'm not quite sure what to make of this movie. With a title like "Hitchcock" you'd think it would be about Alfred Hitchcock's life in some way or maybe about his meticulous directing style, but it was about everything BUT those things.

Let's see, how many different story lines were there? 1) Hitch and Alma's home life 2) Hitch and Alma's creative collaboration 3) Hitch's issues with the studio bosses 4) Hitch's issues with the censors 5) Hitch's jealousy of his wife 6) Hitch's obsession with his leading ladies 7) Hitch's financial problems 8) the making of the movie Psycho 9) Alma's friendship with Whitfield Cook ...

... and none of them were developed beyond an outline; they included so many different stories that none of them had enough time to become interesting. Just as you start to wonder why the studio boss is giving him so much grief over financing Psycho the scene cuts to Alma talking on the phone to this writer (and who was he to her anyway? I never could figure that out) and then to some kind of hallucination about Ed Gein that came out of absolutely nowhere and I'm not sure has any basis in fact!

Anthony Hopkins nailed Hitchcock in voice and mannerisms and Scarlett Johannson made a believable Janet Leigh (another storyline that never went anywhere).

I don't know what Alma looked like so I can't comment on Helen Mirren's resemblance to her but I do know that Alma was a lot stronger and influential and not just a lonely housewife who made a few notes once in a while, as she was portrayed.

Jessica Biel was a horrible choice to play Vera Miles, with those gigantic lips of hers that are twice the size of Ms. Miles' own lips.

And where was the Hitchcocks' daughter, Pat? No mention of her is made at all, and she acted in at least two of her father's movies. They included side stories about everything but the kitchen sink and then leave out a daughter?

If you want to find out anything about Hitchcock the man or even Hitchcock the director look elsewhere because this movie includes none of that.

Tender Mercies (1983)

It's the women who matter most to this story

[10/10 · 31 August 2013]

I won't go into describing the plot because so many other people already have, but there's one thing that I don't think anyone else has touched on and I wanted to give my opinion on it.

If you look at the two women in Mac Sledge's life, that's where you'll see the point of the whole story.

Rosa lost her young husband to a war not long after they got married and could never find out how or even when he died. She speaks matter-of-factly about it now but she spent many years raising a son alone, doing what she could to put food on the table. She owns a run-down gas station/motel in the middle of nowhere and has practically nothing of monetary value, yet she thanks God for His tender mercies toward her.

Dixie, on the other hand, is rich and famous. Even tho she too was a single mother she gave her daughter "everything money could buy." And when her daughter is killed, Dixie cries, "Why has God done this to ME?"

We can only hope that, as his life with Rosa continues, Mac eventually learns to accept -- and trust -- happiness in small doses.

Middle of the Night (1959)

It's more about everyone else.

[7/10 · 27 August 2013]

This film reminds me very much of "Marty", another Chayefsky screenplay, where two allegedly mismatched main characters are criticized by family and friends, only for them to say the hell with everyone at the end because they know they're meant to be together.

In "Marty" nobody approved of the pairing because the girl was too unattractive and too old; here the complaints are that the girl is too attractive and too young.

Ultimately, tho, each story is not really about the main characters, who are just trying to go about the business of finding some happiness for themselves, but about everyone around them and how they perceive the pairing.

Marty's mother is afraid of being deserted by her son; Jerry's sister is afraid of being kicked out of the house. Marty's friends are afraid of being abandoned on Saturday night; Jerry's daughter is afraid of being abandoned in favor of the new wife.

All the women around Jerry and Betty are against the couple for one reason or another. He's a dirty old man, she's a gold-digger. He's foolish, she's desperate.

Only Martin Balsam's character, Jerry's son-in-law, seems to be happy for his father-in-law. Is it because he's a man and is also afraid of getting old and being alone some day?

In the end, Jerry and Betty push everyone else and their unsolicited opinions aside and fall into each other's arms and profess their love for each other, just as Marty pushes Angie away and reaches for the phone so that "Come New Year's Eve, I got a date!" We are left with the happy and romantic ending we wanted for these people.

It's a nice idea, but is it realistic? I have to wonder what happened a year after the wedding. I highly doubt Betty's mother would ever stop telling her about George, the ex-husband, and how well he's doing with his new job. I don't think Jerry's sister would really move out, and would constantly try to control the household just as she always did and keep Betty in a subservient role. I don't think Betty would ever feel comfortable among Jerry's friends, who are all 30 years older than her.

Marty's future looked a little bit brighter, but not by much.

It makes me wonder also about Mr. Chayefsky's view on the human race, that he wrote two such sad stories about happiness. Both films are excellent as far as the technical aspects -- photography, dialogue, acting -- but neither one ever leaves me feeling very optimistic for the characters.

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Choppy and confusing and not about Liberace at all

[4/10 · 11 June 2013]

I remember watching Liberace on television when I was very young. Even at that tender age I knew something was odd about him, but he was perhaps one of the greatest showmen of all time and seemed to thoroughly enjoy performing for people.

WARNING! Spoilers throughout!

But this movie doesn't show any of that. Since it's written from Scott Thorson's POV the movie doesn't concern itself much with Liberace's life as much as Scott's life with him, which occurred long after Liberace became famous.

Frankly, I thought the movie could have been about any two gay men's relationship; that Liberace was one of those men was coincidental and a very small part of the story.

I found the storyline to be very confusing. Thorson is shown in a gay bar and he meets Scott Bakula's character and in the next scene they're driving off together like they've known each other for a long time. We aren't told who this character is. I assume he works for and is a procurer for Liberace, but I have no idea how he came to be in that position or what his ties to Liberace were or how long he's been doing this.

For all Thorson's protests that he's bisexual and likes women too, we never see him with any women at all. He doesn't like to watch gay porn because he thinks it's disgusting and wouldn't want anything like that done to him, yet he has no qualms about doing it to someone else. Huh?

When Liberace's mother -- played by Debbie Reynolds, who is completely unrecognizable and I had to watch the movie twice to make sure it was really her -- he shouts, "I'm finally free!" but we, the viewers, have no idea why he felt so trapped by her.

The palimony case went by too quickly.

When Liberace dies and the state forces an autopsy, the results are revealed and then that's it, they don't show anything about the public's reaction to the news the way they did with the Rock Hudson gay revelation.

What really bothered me about the movie was the part when Liberace is on his death bed and Thorson visits him. Liberace begs him, "Please don't tell anyone I looked like this," and Scott promises he won't, yet there it is.

Did he tell in his book how Liberace looked? I don't know, but he allowed it to be shown in the film. He broke his promise to a dying man, a man he professed to love deeply. There's no excuse for that.

Michael Douglas was phenomenal in his portrayal and literally became Liberace for me. I'm not a big fan of Matt Damon and I don't have anything to judge his performance by because I don't know anything about Scott Thorson, but he seemed comfortable playing the part. Dan Akroyd's part could've been played by anyone because it was small; maybe he just wanted to be in the movie. Rob Lowe's performance was, shall I say, a bit over-the-top, and once again I don't know if the real person was like that, but I can't imagine someone like that not being stripped of his medical license a long time ago.

If writing his book was a catharsis for Scott Thorson I don't know, but as a movie on its own merits, it was unnecessary. It bordered on soft gay porn at times, it couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be a tribute to Liberace or a "queenie dearest" kind of story, and I really can't say I liked it.

The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway (2011 TV Movie)

It didn't work for me.

[6/10 · 22 May 2013]

I'm sorry, but the sight of an almost-6o-year-old man prancing around in a playhouse with talking chairs and characters in cowboy costumes is just sad.

I was a huge fan of Pee Wee Herman 30 years ago, but so much has happened since then that it's painful to watch now. With his somewhat checkered history, being a grown man playing with children's toys takes on a whole different meaning now.

The Pee Wee of 2011 has jowls and his hair is either obviously dyed too dark or a very bad wig and the pale face and pink cheeks just make him look like an old man who is trying to make himself look younger after going thru chemotherapy.

I had to turn off the show because I was feeling too embarrassed for him .. and for me too.

The Big Fisherman (1959)

I must not have watched the same movie

[3/10 · 16 May 2013]

I have to go along with the other person who said this was one of the worst movies s/he ever saw and didn't understand why everyone else was raving about it.

The color photography is horrible, the acting is stilted, the constant melody-less background music drowns out the dialogue (which might not be a bad thing) and it comes across like a church pageant produced, directed, and starring middle schoolers rather than a Hollywod film featuring all these prestigious names.

It's so bad, as a matter of fact, that I was actually surprised everyone was speaking English and that it wasn't dubbed.

This was nominated for Oscars? Amazing.

Phil Spector (2013 TV Movie)

Pacino as Spector ... or Harpo?

[25 March 2013]

My goodness! I turned this on halfway thru the movie and frankly I couldn't tell you what it was about because I was immediately and constantly distracted by Al Pacino in all those wigs. I mean really, at one point, with his bulging eyes and fright wig he looked exactly like Harpo Marx! To be honest tho, Helen Mirren's wig was pretty bad too, and her accent, whatever it was supposed to be, was very odd.

When the audience is more concerned with the characters' hair than with the story, you know something is really wrong.

Al Pacino as Phil Spector is one of the worst casting decisions ever made, even worse than casting John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

Secondhand Lions (2003)

A nice movie, but too many unexplained details.

[6/10 · 24 June 2012]

I'll watch any movie with Robert Duvall in it, and his presence alone will raise a film's rating by at least two stars for me. I'm not a big fan of Michael Caine but I have to admit that he was perfect in this movie, low-key and believable as a Texan.

Overall I liked this movie. It was warm without being sappy, funny without resorting to cheap shots, and intelligent enough that adults could appreciate it as well as kids, but there were so many questions left unanswered that I was distracted more often than not.

Here are two men who have been in the French Foreign Legion for the last 40 years, traveling all over the world, amassing a fortune and experiencing things that regular people can't even start to imagine, and then they pick this tiny Texas town to retire to? Why?

How did all these money-grubbing distant relatives find the uncles? I doubt Garth and Hub kept in touch with anyone over the past 40 years and once they came back they stayed to themselves, so how would these relatives even know who they were, much less that they had returned and where they were living?

If they just came back why is everything in the house covered with dust? Was this their childhood home? A house they bought while they were away? Why don't they have a phone? We don't know.

Another thing is that when Walter finds the stash of money it looks like it's been there for years, thrown into the hole haphazardly, which makes no sense, but then again it doesn't make any sense at all that they would have been carrying all those piles and piles of cash around with them for the past 40 years, or even that they still have the entire amount given to them by the Sheik all those years ago.

I loved the garden scene, where they think they've planted beets and lettuce but all they've planted is corn, and I loved the matching farmer outfits they all wore because "that's what people wear when they do gardening."

I didn't like that they didn't go into more detail about Jasmine; Hub just said she and a baby died in childbirth and that was it. For him to still be looking for her in his dreams so many years later there should have been more to the story, and why did he always go to the lake to look for her?

Why did Walter grow up to be a cartoonist? There was no indication that he liked to draw or that he had any talent for it. With the way he cared about the lioness I would've assumed that he would grow up to work with animals or that he too would run off to travel the world seeking adventure, the way his beloved uncles did.

There were so many questions raised that were left unexplained that it sort of ruined the story for me, but all in all it was a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

North (1994)

Why does everyone hate this movie so much?

[6/10 · 15 June 2012]

I saw this movie just yesterday on the Encore family channel and I thought it was kind of funny. Not the best movie I've ever seen certainly, but not the absolute worst as everyone seems to be saying.

So it turns out that in the end it's all a dream, so what? You really felt cheated by this revelation? You couldn't figure it out for yourself? I knew what it was all along.

I was a little disappointed that every set of parents didn't include a big musical number like the ones from Texas; I think Mr. Reiner set us up on that one and then let us all down.

I have to admit I fell asleep at one point and missed the Amish parents, but I wasn't offended by any stereotypes when it came to the other parents.

Okay, so the Hawaiian Tropic thing was a little tasteless and I don't care much for hearing cusswords come out of the mouths of children, but other than that I thought there were some very funny bits here and there and enjoyed seeing some actors who do mostly serious grown-up parts do a bit of light comedy and family-oriented entertainment.

When you get right down to it, the storyline of this film was really no different than The Wizard of Oz, where a child goes looking for something better than what s/he has, only to find s/he had the best there was all along, right in his/her own home.

The rest of you need to lighten up. Save your hated for "The Bluebird".

Get Low (2009)

A wonderful film, but then Duvall is in it, so that's a given.

[4 September 2011]

I almost didn't watch this film when I saw the title on the on-screen guide, and to be perfectly honest, after sitting thru the whole movie I'm still not sure what the title means, but boy, am I glad I didn't let the title stop me from seeing this wonderful story.

Robert Duvall plays the main character, Felix Bush, and I can't think of anyone who might have played it better. He is so honest, so real, so human, that the viewer can't help but be drawn into the movie.

Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are the other two main characters and they are both charming and the chemistry between them and Duvall is almost palpable.

Lucas Black plays a young man who works for a funeral home, and his job is mostly to drive Duvall's character around, but don't think his part is small by any stretch of the imagination. I spent a lot of time watching young Mr. Black, who can't help but smile or laugh when Duvall or Murray is talking. Watch him especially in the scene where Duvall's character is buying a new suit of clothes; he laughs spontaneously at Duvall's comments to Murray and Murray's reaction. You just know this kid, who has grown up to be quite handsome by the way, used this movie as an exercise in learning and honing his craft by studying the experts.

I have to agree with another poster who said the movie should have ended two minutes sooner than it did, and I have a minor quibble in that Felix Bush's funeral guests were supposed to be all the people who had a story about him and we didn't get to hear even one of those stories from anyone, but all in all, this was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

Country Strong (2010)

I couldn't figure out the "strong" part.

[23 August 2011]

Right off the bat I'm going to admit that I missed the first 15 minutes, turned it off after an hour, and then saw the last 30 minutes another day, but from what I saw I can't figure out where they got the title from. Nobody was strong, country or in any other way, in this film.

I had to turn it off after an hour because all I saw was a bunch of bed-hopping. Kelly is sleeping with Beau but is in love with her husband, and Beau is sleeping with Kelly but is in love with Chiles, and nobody seemed happy to be doing any of it, with the possible exception of Chiles because she was too naive or stupid to realize all the other stuff that was going on.

Tim McGraw surprised me with his acting ability and that was the only good thing I can say about what I saw. I couldn't tell if his character was supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. One minute he was loving and sweet with his wife, and the next minute he was walking away from her. He would be her crutch but he would also knock that crutch right out from under her.

The character of Kelly was annoying and I had no sympathy for her whatsoever. She used people and didn't seem to care how many problems she made for them with her lack of responsibility, and just when she started to shape up she took the easy way out and created just more problems for everyone involved.

A strong person does not jump from one bed to another. A strong person does not dwell on tragedies she caused for herself. A strong person does not kill herself.

The music was good, but I never got to hear one complete song, just bits and pieces of lots of different songs, and no sooner did I start to enjoy one than they cut to another.

The characters could have worked in a hospital or a hotel or as steel workers for all that country music had to do with anything. It was a lame story with annoying characters and the least strong ending ever.

The Blue Bird (1940)

A very depressing story.

[4/10 · 26 December 2010]

I tuned it at the point where Shirley Temple's character was just meeting the witch/fairy so I didn't know this little girl was an obnoxious child and I didn't know their pet dog was a bulldog.

I immediately saw the Oz connection, but this story seemed much darker and sadder. The children visit a graveyard where they see the tombstones of their grandparents who awake because someone is thinking of them. The grandparents are happy to be visited by the children, but then the little girl insists they have to leave right away, even tho Grandma wants so desperately for them to stay so she can bake them an apple tart (she mentions it twice). It seemed to me that the little girl was too anxious to leave such a happy time with the grandparents she supposedly missed so much and was so happy to see, and for no other reason than to look for something that was supposed to make her happy.

I couldn't figure out the cat character. Why was she trying so hard to keep the children from finding the bluebird and being so mean about delaying them? What difference would it have made to her if they found the bird? I realize that some people think that all cats are conniving, but I don't think there's a one that would conspire to actually kill the humans that it lives with! The scenes of living in luxury were confusing. At first, Mr. and Mrs. Luxury welcomed the children and told them about how wonderful it would be to live in their house and couldn't wait to give them fancy clothes. Next thing you know the children are fighting over who gets to play with which toy and the adults can't be bothered with them. Mr. Luxury all but ignores the little girl when she comes to him and he speaks to her in harsh tones and is concerned only with whether she will hurt his gouty foot.

A few reviewers mentioned the last scene, where the children meet the unborn. Why these unborn children would be different ages was a puzzle, and this scene was the saddest of all for me. The little girl meets her sister who is not yet born, but the sister says she will not be with them very long before she goes away (dies), and what does Shirley Temple's character do? She hugs the sister and flashes her dimples and says "I'll tell mother to expect you" and how nice it was to meet her. Did she not understand what the child was telling her? And the boy who I assumed would grow up to be Abraham Lincoln, he was such a sad character; he didn't even have the happiness of childhood to look forward to. He would be born sad and remain sad for his whole life. That's a terrible thing for anyone to imagine, that people might know when they will die before they're even born and then live their lives only as a means to complete what they already know to be their destinies.

Let's not forget the two unborn children who loved each other so much that they couldn't stand to be parted. I expected the Father Time character to tell them not to worry, that they would be reunited one day to love each other once again, but this was not the case. Indeed, Father Time rather angrily forced the boy to leave the girl, who sobbed uncontrollably. One can only imagine the lives both of them would live on earth when they started out so unhappy.

I was confused by the end, where both children had had the same dream. And considering that they never did find the bluebird, they both seemed to be extraordinarily cheerful about it. Frankly, I didn't see anything in their dream that would cause them to be that happy when they woke up; if anything, I would imagine they would be more depressed than they were before.

As I said, I didn't know the dog was a bulldog, so to have made his human form such a dopey thing that was scared of the dark and unable to assert himself in front of other dogs, made no sense. And if the cat perished in the fire, why was she there in the house the next morning? All in all, even though the sets were lovely to look at, I thought this was a very depressing story and not one I would recommend for small children to watch, considering all the references to death. Heck, I don't think I'll even watch it again, that's how depressing I thought it was.

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Natalie Wood as Harpo Marx

[1/10 · 13 December 2010]

I admit I haven't read all the reviews of this movie, but of the ones I did read I was surprised to find that nobody mentioned that Natalie Wood has only about 12 lines of dialogue in a film in which she is the star. And to top it off, most of those lines make no sense in the context of the scene! The whole movie is like one big parade of soliloquies, where a character walks into the room and starts talking to, not with, Ms. Wood, and all she does is sit there and glare at them. She doesn't even talk to herself after they leave.

I don't know what the director was going for but unfortunately God gave Ms. Wood a completely expressionless face, so we as the audience have no way of knowing what she's thinking during all these one-sided conversations. Once in a while her eyebrows will move or she'll attempt a half-smile, but other than that she never says, "Hello, how are you?" or "What are you doing here?" or "Get out before I kill you!" She doesn't even move her arms or shift position. It's as though the screenwriters forgot that she was even in the film. The lawn furniture showed more depth and emotion than Ms. Wood.

As an example of how ridiculous Ms. Wood's line are when she has any at all, take this scene: Daisy just got married to Wade Lewis and they check into a motel in the middle of nowhere for their honeymoon. Instead of saying something like, "I love you Wade, with all my heart, and this is the happiest day of my life!" she says, "I'm going to learn how to cook! And not just fishburgers either." Huh? Where in the heck did that come from? Daisy Clover's signature song is "You're Gonna Hear From Me." Not in this movie they won't. This thing stunk worse than yesterday's leftover fishburgers.

The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)

What a bunch of quiet women!

[2/10 · 25 July 2010]

The first thought I had about this silly movie was, "They must have been on a really tight budget" because nobody except the main characters ever say a word! I mean really, there's this bunch of about 10 women and none of them ever talk! When was the last time that ever happened? The pardoned criminals who make up this latest batch of not-so-magnificent avengers (and why doesn't Chris ever learn from his past and maybe try to recruit a few more than just six other guys to help him?) are told to take their pick of women to be their battle assistants and none of the ladies make a peep or say anything like, "Hey wait a minute!" or "Don't touch me you ugly brute!" or "What the heck kind of an idea is that?" They just stand there and quietly allow the men to grab them by the arm and lead them to the other side of the room.

Try getting ten real women in one place at the same time and see if you can get them to be that quiet for that long. Fighting the whole Mexican army with just seven guys is a piece of cake in comparison.