jambro-1 Reviews

Jacknife (1989)

Empathy from a non-combat vet

[10/10 · 16 January 2021]

Lucky, I was in the Air Force then but missed ground combat & the film challenged me to ask who I would have been - hero, clown, coward or dead? Aside from great actors & superb acting, a strong script & powerfully sensitive directing, it was about survival & healing as a challenge as we all have been wounded someway at some time & place!

True Confessions (1981)

True Corruptions

[10/10 · 14 January 2021]

Los Angeles as the Wild West of opportunism divided into socio economic enclaves of power with a large Okie redneck population controlling police and the minority Irish Catholic and Italian mobs infiltrating power structure is portrayed in true confessions and Chinatown

Mozart in the Jungle (2014–2018)

Best postmodern Classical Music film ever

[9/10 · 2 January 2019]

Fellini in America on an experimental journey into multi generational, multicultural farce set amidst bizarre realities across social classes, brilliant music, musicians & actors portraying them so vividly as to be indistinguishable from the real thing

The Kominsky Method (2018–2021)

This week I turn 77 - what a laugh!

[10/10 · 23 November 2018]

While two great actors play out an amazing script, a dynamic production, sensitive direction & a hilarious but tragic experience. It helps that at my age I see myself & empathize in ways a younger person might possibly, but probably can't understand. Yes, the experience demonstrates who we all are & how full of our own angst, however common the emotions, but living so many decades validates my reality. OK, so it's Hollywood, an imaginary world w label so many ways, so familiar yet still so mysterious. We see two famous actors whose faces we all recognize but also portraying themselves & bringing a potentially reflective situation

Troy: Fall of a City (2018– )

Forget history, it's cinematic drama

[8/10 · 8 April 2018]

Caveat: I've only watched the first two episodes & so far so good. However much I enjoy history as an academic, I watch drama to enjoy & critique the overall production & this was well done all around. Good professional actors well directed & produced. Excellent costumes & special effects, with a well balanced shooting & editing of battle scenes, just enough action without endless boring violence evoking a symbolic meaning rather than overly shooting pseudo/hyper-realism. I enjoyed the muse-en-scene, as settings, choreography, positioning of the actors & their dramatic interactions were both symbolic & believable without being over acted & shot to be overly realistic thus meaningful & aesthetically enjoyable. Overall kudos to directors & entire production staff: the producers made a good investment.

The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

brilliance needs no labels

[9/10 · 5 October 2005]

... a bit of Champion offered in luxurious cinematography, rich costume & setting, stunning little pieces, paying attention to details, a couple of exotic time switch almost animations thrown in a la Fellini, (train, trip to Egypt, etc.) art should not try to mimic life, but comment on it, without losing us in abstraction or burdening us with ephemera ... a film is just that, a comment in film on film, however much it depends on a pre-existing text, acting should not try to convince us that actors are not acting, rather draw out the dramatic character and scene of the act ... champion is brilliant at this, even when she misses some marks, which she seldom does ... no matter, without comparing other Lady to other Champion films, a close reading of this Portrait revels a very theatrical production, brilliant as such, a superb cast of actors, not one weak portrayal, each characteristically a different archetype to dwell on as icon .... e'nuff ... have to get it on DVD