talula1060 Reviews

Hotel: Lost and Found (1985) Season 2, Episode 25

BAD ACTING

[3/10 · 6 March 2024]

Episode was one of the worst in the show. Main reason is some of the actors were total hams. The actress playing the adoptive mother of the little girl was like a bad silent film actress. She kept widening her eyes and waving her arms. She was borderline hysterical for most of the show. She chewed up as much of the scenery as she could and went back for more. She was the type of actress who would be on screen listening to another actor and would raise her eyebrows dramatically, cock her head, or do overly dramatic reactions to get the attention of the audience. The little girl actress must have learned from her because she was also very bad. She spoke in a sugary sweet voice and said things like, "goody mommy!" A 10 years old child who acted this way in real life would have been put in Special Ed classes. At the end, the little girl sounds a lot like the little girl in Poltergeist. Part of the problem was that there was no chemistry at all between this supposed family so they were not believable.

On the other hand, the acting of the real parents was believable, subtle, and touching at times. You felt their tragedy and sadness. Would have enjoyed seeing more of them and less of the Cleaver wannabes.

Hotel: Passages (1984) Season 1, Episode 15

BRIDGE TOO FAR

[4/10 · 18 February 2024]

Was an entertaining episode til the very end. The story of a Holocaust survivor confronting a Nazi guard was a good one. But having him dress in the uniform brought this to the level of farce. It's as though the writers were saying, "He survived the Holocaust and is Jewish. Get it?" Why would he still have the uniform? Considering he emigrated from Austria to the US, are we to believe he saved that uniform as a remembrance of the horror it brought to his life? Even if he did, how would it still fit him? Did he have it tailored for the occasion? Also, the actor playing the survivor was miscast. He looked like he would be more comfortable down at Kelsey's Bar than in a concentration camp. Too bad. This show always has great ideas but the execution is poor.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Fickle Filly (1962) Season 6, Episode 11

BURGER SHOULD BE FIRED

[9/10 · 24 November 2023]

Great episode though this same premise was used in an earlier season. A girl's horse is sold and she tries to get it back, etc. The thing that is starting to make this series infuriating is Burger's attitude and incompetence. He tries to yell, threaten, and badger every single person he cross-examines. He is rude and smarmy even to the judge. And his record as a lawyer is of a person who prosecutes people on the most obvious evidence and then tries to obstruct Perry when he tries to get at the truth. Some prosecutors have a habit of just wanting to win regardless if they have the right person. Though Burger makes halfhearted claims to care about justice, his behavior completely contradicts this. He should have received multiple contempt charges, but he somehow manages to slide by even when he is rude and questions the judges' decisions! He is supposed to represent the people, but he treats everyone like crap even the family members of victims! It is getting more and more maddening to watch his behavior get worse and worse. Seems like he resents Perry's masculinity. If you watch his body language, Burger walks on his toes around the courtroom flailing his arms like a performer at a drag show. I think he may have some unanswered questions about himself that make him such a jerk.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Deadly Toy (1959) Season 2, Episode 27

LOTS OF PROBLEMS WITH EPISODE

[4/10 · 7 October 2023]

There are quite a lot of problems in this episode. First, all the child actors are horrible. You can see them looking off camera, not paying attention, and generally being awful. Plenty of child actors can actually act and focus on what's happening in the scene. Maybe these kids were too young.

The major problem in the episode are several plot holes that are never filled in. The parents not knowing that their son wasn't in Mexico is beyond ridiculous. They had to have known the grandfather wanted him and they certainly knew he had just supposedly shot his father. Your son has just gone through a traumatic experience and you send him away with some strange woman and then don't even track him to make sure he got there? Couldn't one of them taken him themselves or at least traveled with him to ensure he got there? The script gave us some lame story about how the grandfather was going to send a wire saying he had arrived safely. It didn't fit with what we know about David's mother and stepfather.

The other glaring plot hole was when the Beverly Hillbillies lady claims everyone was telling David the shooting was all a bad dream. She hoped some day he would believe it. Unless his father was planning on coming back from the dead, why would any of them think this was even possible? I realize he's a young kid, but lying to him about his father isn't going to help him get through it. Particularly since he'll never see him again. A very lame plot point that made little sense.

This episode moves the kid around like a chess piece. "Come on David. Come with me David." The kid seemed totally unconcerned that he was with a strange lady instead of his mother. Considering he had witnessed a lot of emotional scenes with his father, it seems unrealistic that a 5-yr old wouldn't be crying for his mother. He seems willing to go along with anyone who wants him so long as they watch him wiggle his ears.

Considering a murder case generally takes months to prepare, how was it that Dick Benedict's jaw was still wired shut all that time? The actor kept rubbing his jaw while testifying as though he was still in pain. Very unlikely for an injury that had to have been several months old by that point.

The way that restaurant punching scene happened was so ham handed and poorly directed. First of all, Selkirk was sitting within clear view of Claire. How could she not have seen him? He had to knock her boyfriend out before she noticed him. And even that scene was ridiculous. Claire's boyfriend was tripped and then allowed another man to hold him while a second man punched him. No man would allow himself to be manhandled like that. I realize he fell on the floor, but he hadn' t hit his head so there was no reason he should have stood still to have his jaw broken. Again, very ham handed. That's a directing issue.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Bedeviled Doctor (1959) Season 2, Episode 22

ACTOR PLAYING BROTHER ALMOST DERAILS EPISODE

[4/10 · 5 October 2023]

The actor playing Mark, the brother of the nurse is completely awful and almost ruins the entire episode. First of all, he's way too young or the actress playing the nurse is way too old. She looks 50 and he looks to be about 17. Something wrong there. But it's his acting that's really the problem. He is overly dramatic and makes many amateur mistakes. It reminded me of a 30s B movie. If someone knocks on the door, he jumps as though he was shot out of a cannon. He gives this ridiculously exaggerated grin when he successfully cons his sister. It doesn't help matters that he's got a face for radio so isn't easy on the eyes. I watch a lot of old movies and I don't think I've ever seen him before. Maybe he was only on TV? He's just awful and very hataeble but not for the reasons written into the script. All 50s actors exaggerate their movements to some extent. It was just the style of the time. But this kid behaved like he was a mime in a silent film. Waving his arms, tiptoeing dramatically, and trying to keep audience attention on him even if he wasn't supposed to be the center of attention. Very glad when he got killed but it wasn't soon enough for me.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lucky Loser (1958) Season 2, Episode 2

CASE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN TRIED TWICE

[4/10 · 28 September 2023]

While the story is certainly interesting, I couldn't help thinking that the entire thing was totally illogical and probably a violation of Ted Balfour's constitutional rights. Since another court had already ruled on the illegality of double jeopardy, it made very little sense that the judge in this case overruled Mason's writ of habeas corpus. The case law quoted by Perry clearly stated that the same person cannot be tried for the same death more than once. Not even if the prosecution was incompetent and didn't adequately investigate. Once again, Burger was so anxious to get to court that he didn't notice a bullet in the head of the victim. He always had a habit of taking the most obvious answer and running with it. This led to his prosecuting Ted on a lesser charge of manslaughter. In any other court in America, that would have been case closed.

For some reason, the judge in the episode claimed he would send it to a higher court and then somehow they overruled it. Case law is there for a reason. It sets a precedent for judges to rule on tricky constitutional issues.

There were also way too many characters thrown at us at once (Boles, multiple Balfours and their wives, Mrs Ingle, and a butler). But the main problem with the episode is that this show is supposed to be all about justice. The double jeopardy thing was the opposite of justice. Even though the truth was exposed, the entire thing was a violation of Ted's rights. Why bring up double jeopardy at all if it's just going to be quickly overruled? Another thing that's weird is the judges seem a lot more cranky in this season. The judge in this case used to be a kindly old man who usually took Perry's side. In this case, he's crotchety and is downright rude at times. Wondering if the creators were trying to create more suspense by making it seem as though even the judges were against Mason?

Even with all the flaws in this episode, it's still miles ahead of any show on television today.

The Jeffersons: The Last Leaf (1977) Season 4, Episode 9

RIDICULOUS OVERACTING

[2/10 · 16 May 2022]

Not a bad episode aside from Isabel Sanford's ridiculous overacting. She behaves like a cross between Mae West (with the swishing hips) and a hysterical harpy. As the Jeffersons got wealthier (despite the horrible economy of the mid-late 70s), Louise gets lazier and far more boring. She doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. I know George doesn't want her to work at the store, but why did they have her go to nursing school only to immediately quit? What was the point of that entire storyline?

And then there are Louise's clothes. The costume designers got a little ridiculous with Isabel Sanford. I went to college with a few wealthy people and none of their mothers ever wore silk evening gowns to bed. And the different wigs every episode and ridiculous gaudy outfits just to sit around the house. She is constantly whining about being bored, but makes no attempts to do anything about it (aside from her awful French lessons) or maybe even go back to school or get a job. It felt like Isabel became more of a ham as Louise had less to do in the show. All she did was bother George with her nonsense and whine about everything. She did not overact this much on All in the Family. With the addition of Marla Gibbs' excellent comedic timing, Sanford did not have as many funny lines. She tried to overcompensate by overdoing it every time she was onscreen.

The Sheltering Sky (1990)

FOUR STARS FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY 1 STAR FOR THE REST

[4/10 · 11 June 2020]

I started off intrigued by this film. A story of three intellectual Americans traveling in North Africa right after WW2. It reminded me of countless other films from the golden age of Hollywood where safari hats and khaki suits are the chosen wardrobe and adventures abound. The English Patient did something similar but that film actually had mystery and intrigue so it held my attention. This film had none of those elements that make a fish out of water story like this one interesting. Its biggest flaw was that none of the characters were particularly likable so you didn't care what happened to them. They all seemed self-righteous, snobbish, unaware, self-indulgent, and self-involved. (See a pattern here?) Apparently, the original cast was supposed to be William Hurt, Melanie Griffith, and Dennis Quaid. I think that film would have been far more entertaining just because the actors are far more interesting to watch. Unfortunately, the $25 million budget couldn't afford those three stars so they settled for Malkovich, Winger, and Scott.

I won't go into too much of the story since it's readily available in other reviews. The characters are Kit, Port, and Tunner .Lovely pretentious names aren't they? All but one are woefully miscast. Campbell Scott as Tunner does a fair job of portraying the filthy rich tourist tooling around Europe on a lark. He portrays the typical American who is put off by the natives not speaking English, put off by the dust and flies, put off by the awful cuisine, and the increasingly uninhabitable hotels in the middle of the Sahara. Port and Kit are in a dying marriage and seem to be using the trip to rekindle it. They are both searching for something, though neither could tell you what that is. They just want to experience SOMETHING different in the hopes it will make them want to enjoy life again.

In the course of the film, we see Port take reckless chances purposely just to see what will happen. He follows a random native guy to a prostitute's tent where he sleeps with her and watches as she steals his wallet. He takes it back and instead of leaving quietly, he holds it up to show her he caught her stealing it. Instead of hanging her head in shame, she quickly sings out for her handlers to come and beat Port up. This may actually have been what Port wanted since he's clearly depressed and looking for something to change his life. After staying out all night, he comes back to his hotel room where he tries to make up with his wife but she isn't having it. The relationship between Port and Kit is boring at best, irritating at worst. When the pimply faced, closted Australian traveler Eric repeatedly borrows money from him, Port claims he doesn't have much money yet he and his wife always rent separate hotel rooms. In fact, if you were pinching pennies, would you be able to travel around aimlessly not knowing when you would return home? I don't think so. At the very least you would need to know how much money you might need to get where you were going.

Malkovich and Winger have absolutely no chemistry. This film was billed as a story of passion between two doomed lovers. That's the last thing it is. There's absolutely no passion between them on screen other than things they say to each other. "Maybe we're both afraid to love too much." Really? We don't see any love at all between these two except for a halfhearted coupling in the Sahara sun that is interrupted by Port's attempts at philosophical ramblings. Afterward they both burst into tears. Later, Kit seems frantic at the thought of her losing her husband but only because he's leaving her alone to face the world on her own. It's not because of any great love between them.

Malkovich plays Port as John Malkovich. In other words, he's the same as he is in every role. He has that clipped manner of speaking that comes off like he's a snobby elitist who might lose his temper at any moment. There are times in the film where he will suddenly scream really loudly or throw something violently and you wish for more of that just to keep your interest. However, it bears no resemblance to the character of Port as written in the book. Debra Winger should not have played this role since she is far too strong for the character. Kit is written as a neurotic basketcase on the edge of sanity at any given moment. From her 80s hairdo to her elation at women getting the vote in Italy and her strong-willed attitude with her husband, Winger does not capture the spirit of Kit at all. That's why when she goes insane in the last part of the film it comes as a major surprise.

I was intrigued by the film up until the final hour. Once Port died and it was all about Kit, the film dragged horribly. I'm not sure if it was Winger's acting or just the idea that this woman would suddenly allow herself to be kept in a harem by an African tribal chief merely because she's shocked at finding herself alone. Yes, the camerawork was brilliant but man cannot live on sweeping vistas alone. It takes more than grand desert shots to make a good movie.

The major question I had about this film was why Bertolucci removed some of the most interesting elements of the book. A lot of reviews have mentioned their confusion at the storyline and said they had no idea of the motivation of the characters. IN the book, both Kit and Port are bisexual and live in an open marriage. They love one another platonically but are no longer intimate. Also, Kit is extremely neurotic with lots of superstitions and plenty of fragility which better explains her breakdown at the end. She is deathly afraid of trains and after enduring a four hour, white knuckle train ride, only then does she succumb to Tunner's advances. In addition, her total loss of sanity occurs not because of her being disoriented in an unfamiliar marketplace as shown in the film. Instead, she runs into the nomads in the desert who repeatedly rape her for days and hold her prisoner. Her acceptance of her debasement is explained in the book as almost a sexual awakening and freedom in embracing how how low she had sunk. None of this was shown in the film and it's not clear why Bertolucci decided to sanitize the character of Kit. Instead of understanding the character's motivation, we are left with far too many questions.

Ultimately, the most egregious mistake this film made was not giving us anyone to root for. Every character was hatable in their own way which made for an uncomfortable watch. Were we expected to grieve for Port's death after being subjected to 17 minutes of a death scene? We watch Kit nurse him knowing he's going to die despite her best efforts. Was it necessary to have to watch her crushing up his pills, taking his temperature, covering him up, blocking the windows to keep out the sand? Over and over again we see the process of nursing someone and none of it means anything. These are two characters who cheated on each other without a care, tried to avoid one another as much as possible, and didn't seem to have anything in common. Now because they are alone in the desert, suddenly we are expected to see them as some great lovers? Nope. Even after Port dies, Kit wastes no time jumping into bed with a native chief and somehow ties it to her love for Port. Just doesn't wash.

I could go on but the film wasted enough of your time. Judge for yourself but if it's story and explanation you're after, move along. This film is incomprehensible if you haven't read the book.

Anna (1975)

GASPING FOR AIR

[5/10 · 6 June 2020]

As I watched this film, all I kept thinking about was how selfish everyone in the film was. Anna was the worst culprit and the poor baby inside her stomach was a prisoner of her selfish whims. In the film, we watch as 16 year old Anna chain smokes cigarettes, hear tales of all the drugs she's done while pregnant, and appears catatonic from whatever chemicals she secretly ingested that day. It is a miracle that the child was even born let alone born healthy. In a broader sense, Anna's story is one of a changing post-war Italian society that didn't want to work for their living, was perfectly happy to beg for food, and felt the government had left them out in the cold.

When we meet Anna, she is about nine months pregnant. The baby doesn't seem to exist for her beyond being a nuisance. She tells different stories about who the father is (chances are she has no idea) and seems unaware of what having a baby means. Though filmed on the streets of Rome, Anna is a Sardinian from a small town who left home at a young age and grew up in orphanages and institutions in France. She tells dubious stories about nuns who abused children by smearing spicy mustard on them to prevent them wetting the bed, whipped infants for crying, and forced children who vomited or wet the bed to eat or drink it. As you watch the film, you'll soon discover that Anna's stories are often exaggerated and hinge on whether she's got the attention of the listener, usually Massimo. There is no doubt Anna had a rough upbringing but she has learned how to hustle to survive and uses this skill almost without thinking.

When she first enters the scene, Anna has a nasty cough and is clearly malnourished and riddled with filth and possibly disease. Despite her pregnancy, she had been living on the street for months and earning money as a prostitute to support her drug habit. At one point, she discovers she has lice and spreads it to the crew. In one particularly creepy scene, her benefactor Massimo (the 30-something David Crosby lookalike who found her on the street and took her in), orders her to strip and scrubs her body with soap. When she washes her private parts with shampoo, he watches closely and narrates. "Shampoo on your p***y," he exclaims with delight. Massimo's intentions toggle between well-meaning sympathy for a human being in need to creepy excitement over his control of a teenage girl who will pretty much do whatever he asks so she can stay in his home, eat his food, and smoke his cigarettes. In exchange, she agrees to allow him and Alberto (director) to film whatever they want of her life. Legal ramifications are briefly mentioned in the film since Anna is legally a minor and cannot consent to what they're asking of her. In addition, there are several scenes of Anna completely nude including a few where Massimo reacts joyfully to her lactating breasts.

The film has an extremely bloated runtime clocking in at just under four hours. Most of it is taken up by man on the street interviews with some of Anna's friends and acquaintances as well as other random people who spend their days debating societal ills. One guy who claims he is Anna's boyfriend describes her as a b*tch who needs a crack in the face. Very few of them have anything nice to say about Anna, claiming she's selfish, mean, and addicted. They warn Massimo that she is a freeloader who uses people. In a later scene, they discuss the reasons why they don't want to work and outrage that society condemns them for having been in and out of jails and institutions. This leads to a sub-plot of the film: universal condemnation of hospitals, institutions, and social welfare agencies. All who have had experience with such places claim that they don't help the people they are supposed to and look down on those in need. They claim that police target political activists such as themselves and falsely arrest and jail them. Some of those interviewed do seem genuinely interested in politics while others are portrayed as freeloaders and addicts angry at the world for not giving them a handout.

As the film goes on, Anna begins a relationship with Vincenzo, one of the crew members who seems enchanted by her. She moves in with him and he helps her when she goes into labor. At that point, she completely shuts the film crew out and doesn't allow them into the hospital. They are outraged at what they deem her selfishness despite their best efforts at helping her. Anna delivers the baby which is subsequently taken from her. She is abusive to hospital staff and eventually escapes from the hospital and leaves the baby with Vincenzo who is stunned that she would leave so suddenly. Nobody ever sees her again.

Anna is a microcosm of street people everywhere. Even in countries with social welfare institutions, lots of homeless people slip through the cracks. The film doesn't seem to have a message other than to document how these people live and what they deal with. It does not justify its extremely long running time as the political diatribes grow wearisome after the first hour. However, the scenes with Anna are captivating.

Project A 2 (1987)

STOLEN STUNTS

[5/10 · 18 April 2020]

There was a lot of action in this film which is business as usual for a Jackie Chan film. However, it would have been nice if Chan had bothered to come up with his own death defying, comedic set pieces for this film and the first Project A. In the first one, he hung from a clock just as Harold Lloyd did in Safety Last. He didn't even bother to change the type of clock to make it seem a little different. It was literally the exact same clock face as Lloyd used. But Chan must have thought it was okay because instead of just hanging from it, he (gasp) fell off of it too. The death defying part of Lloyd's stunt was that he swung from the clock but DIDN'T fall.

In Project A 2, this time Chan stole/borrowed from the Marx Bros and Buster Keaton. The scene where a whole bunch of people crowd into Yesan's house was lifted from A Night at the Opera. In that picture, a bunch of people crowd into one stateroom on a steamship. It was way funnier because they were literally crammed against each other with very little room to move around. In this picture, Chan missed the point because he had a bunch of people hiding in the same house but there was plenty of room to move around so the comedic elements were lessened.

Chan also borrowed directly from Steamboat Bill Jr where Buster Keaton has a house fall on him but emerges unscathed because he was standing in front of an open window. In this film, Chan does the exact same thing except it's a wall that falls on him instead of a whole house. Not sure how he was able to get away with literally stealing these ideas from more talented comedians. It's not an homage if you don't change anything!

Finally, the clothes in this film were extremely wrong for the period being portrayed. Jackie Chan is wearing a child's newsboy cap (which would not usually be worn by a grown man and certainly not in Hong Kong) and a Miami Vice style oversized suit with a perpetually loose tie around his neck. Some of the other characters are dressed in plaid suits while others don't even bother with period specific clothing and just wear 80s suits. Not sure who was in charge of costume design, but considering Chan wrote, directed, and starred, I suspect this may have been his idea as well.

The story is extremely convoluted and designed to make Chan seem like the hero to every single person in the film. Even the bad guys think he's a good guy when he acquires medicine to save one of them. Yes, that's right. Pirates who want to kill him suddenly think he's a swell guy and forget all about the fact that he can put them in jail or worse, have them executed for their crimes. It's as though Chan HAD to be the hero and couldn't have any flaws in the movie. Part of being a memorable character is being human also. Ma had no flaws, made all the right decisions, and was totally perfect in every way. Chan needed someone to tell him that it was okay for his character to make mistakes sometimes because it would endear him to the audience. Unfortunately, he seemed to have complete control over every element of the film which is why it came off phony and contrived with a very poor script.

Puissance de la parole (1988)

ONCE AGAIN GODARD COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE AUDIENCE

[1/10 · 7 March 2020]

Another of JLG's experimental films. This one is similar to another film of his made after this one (Nouvelle Vague) where the dialogue is from literature written by others. At least in that one, he had actors (Alain Resnais starred) who tried to construct some kind of narrative. It seemed as though Godard was uninspired to write any dialogue of his own and created films based on a major case of writer's block. Frankly, I think it's a copout to filch the words of others to create dialogue for a poorly constructed film. Poe features prominently in this film and I highly doubt he would be pleased to see what Godard did with his words. Poe understood that poetry and literature were for the enjoyment of readers. I am a huge Poe fan and I was disgusted to hear Poe's words used in such a repetitive and ponderous way. I didn't think it was possible to make Poe's words boring but Godard managed to do it.

The more of his films I see, the more I'm convinced that Godard's visionary days were left in the 1960s. It seems like once he discovered socialism, his creativity went out the window. None of his films from the 70s up to the present were of the same calibre as Breathless or Masculin/Feminin. Godard seemed to relish the fact that he left all semblance of narrative behind and put his viewers to sleep. Maybe it was his contempt for film audiences. And sheeple critics kept reviewing these worthless experimental films positively not because they were works of genius, but because they didn't understand what he was trying to do. But since it was Godard, they figured it had to be a work of art. WRONG. Even da Vinci had bad days.

This film is useless, boring, and pretentious (watch words for Godard after the 60s). Do yourself a favor and skip it. Even 25 minutes of an 80s Godard film is far too long.

Perceval le Gallois (1978)

HORRIBLE

[2/10 · 14 January 2020]

Rohmer was a teacher of the classics before becoming a director. In that capacity, he also produced several educational films teaching students about classic works of literature. This film seems to be a holdover from that period of his life. While I understand his goal of not making his interpretation of the original French work, somehow he managed to do exactly that. Instead of being a brave, naive wannabe knight, Perceval is a rude, arrogant narcissist who forces himself on everyone he meets. He forces himself on a young damsel and then robs her of her ring and food. Not a great start for this supposedly brave hero. Then he tries to strong arm King Arthur because he wants to be the Red Knight. He's disrespectful to the man who will become his lord and master. But all is forgiven because he manages to kill Arthur's enemy. This guy is a total jerk. As I watched the film, I hated him more and more and wondered why I was wasting my time. It was also difficult to believe that this effeminate weakling is a courageous knight. Put a dress on him and you wouldn't be able to tell him from the damsels in the film. He's far too delicate to be a knight.

Rohmer said that he was only interested in taking what was written by de Troyes and putting it on screen. He did not want to make his interpretation of de Troyes' work because he wanted to emphasize the original language of the 12th Century to stimulate interest in the original work. Unfortunately, he forgot that any performance of a literary work not produced by the original author can only ever hope to be an interpretation. Nobody but de Troyes knows what he was trying to say with the story of Perceval. The actors' performances are their interpretations of the words on the page. The costumes and sets (or lack thereof) are the director's vision of how he wanted to portray these characters. It's impossible to get around this when you're making a film. Unfortunately, Rohmer's stated goal of trying to stimulate interest in the original literary work has failed miserably because what is shown on screen is so two-dimensional that it blocks any emotional involvement viewers might have to the story. If the characters are riding through a forest, what harm would it do to actually have real trees and birds on screen? In de Troyes' time, trees were very much the same as they are today. It's not ruining the integrity of the story to show this on screen. If Rohmer is trying to share his love of 12th Century literature with cinema viewers, why not make the story interesting engaging? Somehow he managed to make a tale of heroism and love into a boring, cheaply made high school production. The first rule of attracting new fans to a literary work is to make it entertaining enough to warrant further study. Rohmer failed horribly in this.

Man of Marble (1977)

PERFECT MOVIE EXCEPT FOR AGNIESZKA

[6/10 · 3 January 2020]

I won't go into all the great things about the film since others have already done that. The thing that bothered me about this film and made me angry because it ruined the movie for me was the actress playing Agnieszka. She was absolutely terrible. Her movements were contrived and amateur, her behavior offputting, and her voice grating on the ears. I know this woman wound up becoming a famous actress in Poland but this was her first film and it certainly shows.

It seems that the script called for her character to show drive and motivation to get the full story. Instead, the actress mistook that direction for overconfidence and rudeness. She spent the entire film yelling at everyone, physically assaulting them, and violating the personal space of everyone she came into contact with. In fact her acting skills were so nonexistent that if you were to watch the film without sound, you would see what looks like a silent movie playing out when she's on screen. She kept making these exaggerated faces, scrunching up her face, squinting her eyes, and blowing out cigarette smoke impatiently. She had sharp teeth and pale skin so when she forced a smile, it made her look like a vampire who was about to suck the lifeblood out of someone. She had three weeks to do the film and yet on the first day, she was yelling at people telling them to hurry up. She was an unethical liar who didn't listen to anyone. She was supposed to be something like a journalist interviewing people but she had absolutely no social skills and was incapable of reading body language. She barreled her way into people's homes and behaved as though she belonged there. She routinely made people uncomfortable and didn't care about anything but what she wanted from them. Even when she met a famous director who she could have learned from, she pushed her way into his car and proceeded to try to tell him how to do his job. Her only frame of reference as a filmmaker was to tell the cameraman to shoot handheld like "those new American films." Not only is she a pushy liar but is so unoriginal and uncreative that she steals her technique from far more talented people.

Agnieszka's presence made me so upset because I loved the rest of the film and thought she ruined it. If another actor had been cast in the role, it could have been so much better. Too bad Wajda seemed to be dazzled by this blond vampire's high beam eyes and sharp fangs to see through how awful she really was.

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)

NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER

[2/10 · 29 December 2019]

Once again, I watched yet another film by the two most boring husband/wife filmmaking team to ever grace the director's chair. For some reason, Straub and Huillet's films keep showing up on lists of the greatest films of world cinema. They never should have taken up filmmaking because they have no desire to actually make movies. Instead, they just want to point a camera at someone reading classical works of literature or shoot three hours of communist propaganda or in this case, have someone perform Bach music while reading letters written by his wife. That's the thing that bugs me the most about their movies. I realize Straub and Huillet don't usually use actors in their films. But the least they could have done was require the people in the film to actually learn their lines. There is absolutely NOTHING entertaining about watching some guy in 18th Century dress READ his lines. This is common in all of their films. From Clouds to Resistance showed people reading poetry and classical literature while dressed like Greek gods. I don't mind the concept but why not have them learn the lines? Or at least hold up some cue cards? Every time I watch one of Straub/Huillet's films, I wonder why they didn't either make a documentary or better yet, write a book? That would have totally suited their purposes much better than film as they have no concept of filmmaking. I feel like they are trying to share their love of classical music here and perhaps interest the audience in Bach. They failed miserably because they forgot the first rule of filmmaking: TO ENTERTAIN. Once again, they are so wrapped up in their own agenda they don't think about how the film will be perceived. Those who say this is a masterpiece are confused or just plain wrong. I have read countless reviews of Straub and Huillet's films where the reviewers confessed to not understanding what they were trying to do but gave it a "thumbs up" anyway. Not understanding something does not make it a masterpiece. These two rely on audience confusion to keep making movies. It's simply ludicrous. This is not a masterpiece. Just because you feel insecure for not finding it interesting or not understanding it, does not make you any less of an intelligent person. It's ok to say this movie is dreck. It IS. You don't have to pretend this was interesting or engaging. It wasn't. Even the Bach fans have trouble sitting through this. My colleague is a music professor and HE could barely make it through. In fact he was insulted that these two "directors" managed to take a man who already had a horrible life but was a genius composer and make him mundane and boring. Bach fans should be outraged at this horrid rendition of his story.

Cheers: Those Lips, Those Ice (1988) Season 7, Episode 5

EDDIE PREFERS EAST GERMAN COMMIE OVER CARLA...OR DOES HE?

[6/10 · 13 December 2019]

The Carla episodes are always the worst ones in general because Carla has only one emotion: anger. Even when she's supposed to seem hurt or upset, it usually always comes out as anger. Therefore, her episodes get boring quickly. I did love when Sam was trying to tell Carla to be nice to her husband and she was totally appalled that he suggested it. The fact is that nobody said what was actually the truth. That Carla had absolutely nothing to recommend her to Eddie or any other man. Not only is she a totally rude, mean-spirited, angry, vicious harridan-like woman but she also never ever fixes herself up. Even at her own wedding, she couldn't be bothered to fix her hair or even slap on a little makeup. She's not a very attractive woman naturally nor does she have any curves to speak of but you would think she would at least try to make herself look nice once in awhile for her own husband. Again, she is outraged at the very thought of doing something for someone else that doesn't benefit her. Apparently, the actor playing Eddie agreed about Carla because he was fired from the show for making a joke on a radio show about how awful it is to kiss Carla. Rhea Perlman happened to hear his comments and asked for him to be written out. The actor tried to defend himself by saying he was referring to the character Carla, not the actress Rhea but the damage was already done.

Cheers: Our Hourly Bread (1988) Season 6, Episode 21

ONE WEIRD THING ABOUT THIS EPISODE

[8/10 · 4 December 2019]

Great episode but Norm keeps asking for free drinks which got old. It was also very strange that he kept shouting about free drinks during the raffle when he knew that the bar was on the edge of bankruptcy. Why would Norm, who loved the bar and would hate to see it close, stir the crowd into demanding free drinks? The whole point of the raffle was to get more money into the bar. That seemed extremely out of character for Norm. Woody or Cliff I could see doing it because they were slow enough to miss the point. But Norm the former accountant? Just seemed almost like he wanted to sabotage the raffle.

It also seemed strange that nobody brought up the fact that when Sam was running the bar, it never had money trouble. I would think Mr Drake would immediately look into putting Sam in charge of the bar again since he clearly was a better manager...

Cheers: Yacht of Fools (1988) Season 6, Episode 16

TOM SKERRITT SAVES THE EPISODE

[6/10 · 29 November 2019]

Skerritt is great in this episode as he is in all the episodes he appears in. Unfortunately, Rebecca's chasing Mr Drake storyline has long since run out of gas. I realize they used this story arc to make Rebecca more foolish and silly but it really got annoying after the first few episodes. She threw herself at him several episodes ago and he let her know then that he wasn't interested in her. Somehow that was all forgotten the next episode when she acted as though nothing had ever happened. Her constant whining about Evan in this episode is silly because she never even tried to speak to him let alone tell him she's interested. Most ridiculous of all, she's there under the guise of being Sam's girlfriend. Does she honestly think Drake would be receptive to her switching rooms while Sam is right there? Especially considering that he really seems to like Sam and considers him a friend. This entire episode would have been better if not for Rebecca's constant whining over Drake.

Cheers: Tale of Two Cuties (1988) Season 6, Episode 15

Trying too hard

[2/10 · 26 November 2019]

This was a bad episode for implausibility reasons but also the acting was hideous. First of all, how on Earth could Annie work at a bar when she's clearly under 21? We know it would be an automatic loss of liquor license for a teenager to serve alcohol in a popular bar. She tries way too hard to be like Carla which I guess is the joke. Someone mentioned that they thought these two used to be funny in their first episode. That may be the case. For some reason, the actor playing Anthony decided to stop speaking normally and start mimicking the actor who plays his father Nick. He puts on this gravelly voice and even tries to mimic Nick's little vocal inflections. I think the director/writers may have instructed him to do this because isn't it HILARIOUS that Carla's son is just like his father and isn't it a KNEE-SLAPPER that he married a girl just like his mother? In a word: no. It isn't funny at all. It's just annoying. The girl playing Annie has exactly one note: aggressive. She is mean-spirited, rarely smiles, and her jokes aren't funny. They are trying to make her just like Carla which means she's not going to be funny. Listen to the audience sometimes when Carla makes jokes. She will get a few laughs but not the big belly laughs some of the other actors' jokes get. I think it's because she's so mean spirited about it. Annie is the exact same way which is why she isn't funny either. Considering it's a comedy show, not being funny makes this a complete failure as an episode.

The Decline of the American Empire (1986)

Devoid of Heart

[2/10 · 18 October 2019]

This film was pretty awful but not for the reasons you'd expect. The director claimed he wanted to make a film similar to My Dinner With Andre in which conversation was the main focus. He decided to have the topic of conversation be about sex because he figured it was the only thing that would keep the audience's attention for two hours. He was basically pandering to the audience by attempting to titillate them through graphic discussions of sex. This is the main reason the film seemed to have no heart or purpose. Most directors will make a film that means something to them. My Dinner With Andre was a prime example. The director wanted to engage the audience by broaching subjects that hadn't really been seen before in quite that way. Not Arcand. He wrote a script designed to trick an audience rather than writing something he believed in. He peppered in anti-Americanism throughout; not just the USA but the entire continent of North America. Some of the dialogue seemed to indicate Marxist ideology which was tiresome.

In the beginning of the film, the director lays out his main point about the decline of North American civilization. At one point a character says stable nations marry for economic purposes rather than personal happiness whereas developing nations are more concerned with future happiness and the common good. That's simply untrue. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that developing nations marry for economic purposes rather than happiness. Some women are even sold into marriage by their families. Western nations undoubtedly marry for happiness but also economics. The idea that wanting to marry someone who will make you happy suggests the decline of society is ludicrous. Therefore, even the director's main premise was false. By their very nature, humans are concerned with their own happiness. Nobody wants to be uncomfortable. The whole idea is just silly.

The acting was extremely forced. Often the actors seemed to be making faces and over-enunciating their words. It seemed like they knew the movie had the potential to be very boring so they were talking excitedly hoping to be more entertaining. Many of them laughed uproariously at things that weren't at all amusing. The character Diane was particularly guilty of this and so were Remy and Pierre. They kept laughing hysterically for no reason at all. Like they were trying to seem like they were having such a great time because they were all such great friends, but it felt forced. I have close friends too but we don't laugh at every little comment that's made. And we certainly don't go on and on about our sex lives the way these folks did. If they were such great friends, why were they talking as though they knew nothing about each other?

The sex scenes (what there were of them) were embarrassingly bad. At one point we see a nude Remy who jumped up in the middle of the act. I don't know if it was cold in the room or what but his male parts were so tiny as to be invisible. He was supposed to be in the middle of having sex so you would think there would have been some blood flow. I was humiliated for the actor. Also, the director included a scene where the gay character pees red which makes him nervous he might have an STD. The amount of blood should have made him rush to the hospital, but all we got from the actor was a little sweat on his brow and a mildly nervous expression. Incidentally, with that amount of blood there would have been some pain but there's nothing to indicate this from the actor. Poorly done scene meant to shock and attract the audience's attention. Cheap pandering.

I'm not sure why the director expected us to believe that these middle aged, podgy, unattractive people were having so much sex in their lives. Even in their younger days, none of them would have been attractive enough to put up the kind of numbers they were claiming. I'm not sure if we were supposed to think they were lying to top one another or if it was meant to be ironic. Remy was apparently sleeping with everyone despite being extremely unattractive. Not only that, he had one of the worst and most annoying personalities of any of them. Pierre looked as though he had exchanged his teeth with a horse. His dentures were too large for his mouth. The guy playing the gay character looked like Kevin Kline with an afro. As for the women, Diane was halfway decent but her overly intellectual, know it all attitude killed any attraction. Louise was the worst with her badly stained teeth and short, boyish hairdo that screams, "I'm middle aged and have given up!" She mistakenly believed that putting it up on top would make it look better. Boy was she wrong. Finally we have the director's brother, a Bob Geldof wannabe with an earring and badly applied eyeliner. All of these people were caricatures of stereotypical "types." Here's the bad boy, here's the uptight career woman in denial, here's the aging lonely woman engaged in risk taking, etc. None of these people would exist in real life because they were two-dimensional.

They all claimed to be intellectual historians but all they talked about were psychological theories about societal decline. Once in awhile they would throw out names of treaties or famous people from the past but it seemed as though they were more concerned with sociology or psychology than history. I am also a historian of culture and society and neither me nor my colleagues talk the way these people did. It was just a poor portrayal of historians and intellectuals in general. Just because they all do the same type of work doesn't mean that's all they talk about. Some scenes had one character lecturing another as though they had no education of their own.

The film was pretentious, boring, forced, and irritating. It was unrealistic, poorly acted, and embarrassing at times. I don't mind movies where people talk more than act but the director was mistaken when he had Louise say, "we're intellectuals so all we do is talk." That's simply not true. Plenty of intellectuals do more than talk. In fact most of them do. The idea that intellectuals spend all day talking about their field only to spend all their private time talking about their field is simply ridiculous. Oh but they're also sex maniacs so that makes them more human! FALSE! Not one of these people expressed any disinterest in sex which is extremely uncommon for middle aged people. Don't waste your time with this film because you'll wind up irritated or very very tired.

Cheers: Chambers vs. Malone (1987) Season 5, Episode 13

BY FAR WORST CHEERS EPISODE

[1/10 · 22 September 2019]

The consensus among Cheers aficionados, TV critics, and anyone with a brain consider Chambers vs Malone the worst episode in the show's history. Diane had already become insufferable by this point and her welcome had worn out well before this season even began. Here we have her suing Sam to get him to propose and a judge actually forces him to do so. The laughs are few and far between. Diane is just an annoying idiot who is so desperate to get what she wants that she will stop at nothing. That's the key here. She doesn't even necessarily want SAM. She just wants him to give her what she wants: a proposal and eventual marriage. If she were truly in love with him and wanted what's best for him, she would never ever behave the way she did here. However, she realizes she's pushing 40 and has no marriage prospects, her chances at motherhood are close to nil, and her life is pretty much a failure with regard to career opportunities. Therefore, she is trying to turn back the clock and fix some of the mistakes she made. Hence her forcing Sam to propose.

Can you imagine if the wedding had taken place? As Sam realizes later on, they would never have been happy together and it's largely Diane's fault. She could never be happy with Sam, nor could she be happy with someone similar to her (like Frasier). She could never be happy with anyone because she is an insecure, anxiety-ridden person who needs to constantly talk, lecture, and argue to feel like a whole person.

By this point in the series, the writers had no idea what to do with Sam and Diane. They were afraid to abandon the relationship because it was part of the reason the show had such great ratings. They were afraid that without the conflict of the relationship, the show would fail. Boy were they wrong. Cheers saw its highest ratings ever in the Rebecca years. At this point, the jokes were stale, Diane was more annoying than funny, and the audience seemed tired of the same old back and forth between them. Even Shelley Long had grown sick of playing the same old storylines over and over which is part of the reason she left the show. She felt they had said all they could say about her character.

I remember this season when it aired and used to wonder what the big deal was with Sam and Diane. It seemed pretty clear nothing was going to happen and neither Sam nor Diane were my favorite characters to begin with. I always wanted more of Frasier and Norm who were the real comedic geniuses of the show in my opinion. Luckily, Diane's departure allowed for the other characters to grow because there was a lot more room for other stories.

It's Garry Shandling's Show.: The Proposal (1990) Season 4, Episode 6

POINTLESS NEW CHARACTERS

[2/10 · 13 September 2019]

The 4th season of this show introduced all these new characters who didn't fit the tone of the show and really brought it down. Phoebe was the worst and probably only there because she was married to a network executive. The audience didn't seem to like her either and rarely applauded for her unless Garry really pushed it.

This episode introduced Phoebe's family. The brother is supposed to be a half wit but it was written and acted really poorly. The guy didn't act like he was confused or dumb, he acted like he was about 8 years old. It wasn't funny. It was annoying. Garry has talked openly about how bad this season was because they relied on gimmicks rather than character and story. I just don't understand why they would choose to move away from the familiar characters we knew from previous seasons and focus on all new people. Not only wasn't it funny but even Garry seemed like he wasn't having a good time because he knew it wasn't working. Usually if a show introduces new characters, they will do it piecemeal but also keep the old characters in the show. This show basically forced new people on us and barely kept the familiar characters in. It was a very poor choice.

The fourth season is hardly watchable but it's not because of the gimmicks. The primary reason for its failure is the addition of Jessica Harper to the show and the move away from Leonard, the Schumachers, and Nancy and Ian. Harper drags the show down and does not have a comedic bone in her body. She's terrible which is probably why her movie career was restricted to playing off beat roles in strange films. This seems to be a classic example of knowing someone in Hollywood and getting your career that way. In her case, she was married to someone who could get her roles. Too bad she destroyed this show because it was a good one. On the positive side, if this show had not gone away, Larry Sanders Show would probably never have happened. THAT is one of the best shows of all time.

Cheers: Dark Imaginings (1986) Season 4, Episode 19

AWFUL EPISODE BY AN AWFUL WRITER

[2/10 · 3 September 2019]

This episode was pretty bad as Cheers episodes go. It was filled with silly coincidences that were totally implausible and lowered the caliber of the show. More annoying than funny which is not good for a sitcom.

I looked up who wrote the episode and it's the same guy who wrote Chambers vs Malone (arguably the worst Cheers episode), Peterson Crusoe (where Cliff inexplicably decides to move to Tahiti because of a health scare but hides in Sam's office for days without anyone noticing), and Coach in Love where Coach came off like an inexperienced buffoon (more than usual ) who spent the entire two episode arc in denial and struggling with what seemed like mental illness over a woman. It ended poorly and again, there weren't very many laughs. This writer seems to love to fill his episodes with totally unrealistic plot points and totally cumbersome dialogue that has no humor whatsoever. None of these episodes were any good and all of them completely disregarded what we already knew about the characters to that point. If you listen to the audience in this episode, you'll see that the audience isn't laughing all that much because the jokes just aren't funny.

Diane's behavior in this episode got a little ridiculous. She spent the entire episode nosing around where she didn't belong and didn't even try to hide it. Granted, she does that a lot anyway but in this episode, it really got silly. Frantically salling every hotel in Sugar Loaf even though Sam didn't say where he was going skiing? He could have been skiing anywhere. It seems a bit out of character for her to spend that kind of time openly stalking Sam and for no apparent reason other than a feeling she had. And the feeling seemed to be based on nothing which was also lazy writing. Sam has dated plenty of younger women so why no Earth was Diane suddenly concerned that Sam was getting old when she saw him with a younger girl? It made no sense and disregarded everything that came before it.

The worst thing in this episode is the way Diane found out Sam was in the hospital. Two nurses randomly discuss a patient while Diane happened to be standing there? When Diane asks about the patient, the nurses just give up that information to a waitress in a bar? This would never happen and the fact that it was written into the episode was an insult to intelligent viewers. It was just lazy writing. Why couldn't they have had the hospital call the bar to confirm employment and Diane answered the phone? Anything was preferable to what this writer did.

Generally, writers expect viewers to suspend their disbelief to some extent while watching a sitcom. This episode asked too much of us with its lazy writing, unrealistic plot points, and far too many coincidences with far too few laughs. Not one of Cheers' best. This writer should have been fired before he had the chance to subject Chambers vs Malone on us in the fifth season. Ugh.

Murmur of the Heart (1971)

ENTITLED KID PRETENDING HE'S OEDIPUS

[4/10 · 4 July 2019]

There is more bad than good in this film. The good parts involve the feel of the film in terms of what it was like in 50s France outside Paris. I enjoyed some of the little touches like the comments on French politics, the irony of the kids being bored with their first television while the parents are fascinated, and protests over the unpopular war in Indochina. At one point, Laurent has an argument about the war with a budding young fascist. The kid defends France's right to colonies and Laurent imperiously looks down on him for his elitist behavior. There's some irony here because Laurent has been treating the waiters in the hotel poorly, demanding food not on the menu and refusing to wear a jacket in a fancy dining hall.

Like many kids his age, he thinks he knows everything about everything because he's read a few books. He hasn't learned about the school of life nor will he if he doesn't get out away from his family. Even his first sexual experience is paid for rather than happening organically with someone he cares about. Laurent collects money for the war wounded from a record shop owner, then steals an album from his store. He's never been told no in his life and has never wanted for anything. There's a lot of irony in the film which makes it somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.

As for the bad, where to begin? The lead "actor" is so bland as to be almost corpse-like. He wanders around with this blank stare on his face while waving his inordinately long arms and legs in everyone's face. He was not an actor when Malle cast him in the film. After this film, he went on to act in some other movies but never any starring roles. The reason why he had such a hard time as an actor after this film can be found in this film. He has no acting skills whatsoever. He has no range of emotion and often seems like he could be autistic. I think he is supposed to behave as though he's superior to everyone but also sensitive. We don't get any nuance in his performance because he's not capable of it. He is a complete nothing as an actor and possibly as a person. He reacts the same way whether he's happy, sad, or angry. There's nothing there! He walks around with an entitled attitude because his father has money and his mother dotes on him. He believes he can take anything he wants and does. At one point, he violently cuts in to dance with a girl he wants and even tries to force himself on her because that's what he wants and and his daddy has money so why shouldn't he get it? He keeps trying to wrap his too long arms around every girl he meets and it's beyond awkward. The girl isn't having it which is nice to see but he calls her a lesbian when he's rejected because he's a spoiled elitist jerk. This kid is so annoying that by the end of the movie, you'll be wishing you could watch him get beaten up and left on the side of an unfamiliar road. Not to mention that he's very unattractive in the way only a growing 15 year old can be. His arms and legs are too long for his body, his head is enormous, and he's skinny and gangly. That's why it's so strange that in the latter half of the film, girls are checking him out as though he's Cary Grant. Every woman who sees him nude (nurses, etc) stares at his nether regions admiringly and makes comments about what they see. The kid has NOTHING in the way of attractiveness yet Malle tries to make us believe that teenage girls in the 50s are openly flirting with him in front of their mothers. Not likely.

Laurent has a major love for jazz which is also ironic. A kid as elitist as he is loves music made by men who followed no rules and no musical form. None of these players grew up rich and would probably not like Laurent if they met him. Laurent would probably try to flash some cash at them to get them to spend time with him and destroy his record player when they refused.

The entire family is really really disgusting in their demeanor and ideas about wealth and power. And the narcissism is staggering! The kids have been raised totally wrong and have no sense of the value of a franc. They destroy the house when the parents aren't home, don't take any discipline seriously, and find it hilarious to steal valuable works of art from their parents. They have no respect for women and think money can buy them respect. In many cases, they turn out to be correct which is a shame. They have no boundaries with anyone, particularly the older brothers. They manhandle the female servants, grab and grope them, and laugh hysterically about it. These are kids that have had no consequences for any of their actions because their mother lets them get away with murder and their father is uncaring about anything but his own life and work. The mother spends a lot of time laughing hysterically at things that aren't really very funny. It's strange because there's a desperation about her that doesn't make much sense. The mother also does whatever she wants without regard for anyone else. She cheats on her husband in the same hotel her son is sleeping in and then abandons him for two days while she goes off with her lover. She hasn't a care in the world and knows she's a bad mother but doesn't care to change her behavior. There aren't any boundaries between her and her sons. They all run around nude in front of each other as though this is normal in the 50s or in any era.

These kids are spoiled and not used to not getting their way. This is shown several times when Laurent is disappointed in any way. He goes around punching things, trashing rooms, and generally making a mess. He's openly rude to other adults and knows there won't be consequences. He's unable to deal with not getting his way so turns violent and destructive. He's a kid that seems like he might commit suicide one day. Apparently Malle thinks so too because Laurent mentions suicide several times and even writes papers on it.

There's an obsession with sex in the film that's very strange. Others have mentioned the scene between Laurent and his mom but there are other parts that are equally strange. The older brothers seem to have a fixation on seeing their younger brother nude. They keep bursting in on him when he's "abusing himself" and even when he's losing his virginity. They think it's hilarious but there's also something sexual in it for them. At least two of the boys dress up in their mother's clothes complete with makeup. Laurent lays out his mother's underwear and fondles it lovingly. It's very very odd.

Then there's the priest that's known by the students as being creepy and touchy feely. This is well before the scandal in the Catholic Church. At one point, Laurent admits that he' has abused himself and the priest almost bites his lip and you can see his breathing quicken. The shot is framed beautifully. As the priest listens to Laurent describe how he has touched himself, there's a painting on the wall behind him of The Creation of Adam in which a nude Adam is touching the hand of God. The camera makes sure we see only Adam in all his naked glory.

It should be noted that Malle claimed this film was a semi-autobiography of his formative years. There was no incest nor an Italian mother and the time frame was wrong, but the rest is pretty close to his life. He did grow up wealthy, was sick with scarlet fever, and had a close relationship with his mother. The way he portrayed the arrogance and smugness of the Chevalier family says a lot about how Malle remembers the snobbish attitudes of himself and his family.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)

quiet quiet quiet BLARING BLARING SCREAMING SOUND

[4/10 · 29 June 2019]

Others have mentioned the problems with this film so I'll give my two cents also.

The score: Yes it was boring but the biggest issue for me was how it would be very soft and then suddenly a CRASH of synth music that was far too distracting for what was being shown on screen and far too loud in general. I was using headphones watching on a laptop and had to keep turning it down because it kept startling me. It was beyond repetitive. Just the same few notes over and over played louder or softer. Oddly, the director made a big deal about the composer Alex Somers as though the music was something to be proud of. My guess is he's not at all musically inclined so when he meets someone who can actually create somewhat coherent music, he's really impressed. It was awful too because I suspect he made the film mostly silent as an homage to the films that were found. Unfortunately, his score had no bearing on the era and actually took away from what was on screen. I figured that maybe the director didn't narrate himself because he didn't want to fall into the Michael Moore trap where his voice is so whiny and annoying that people hate the way it sounds and downgrade the film because of it. I suspect that if DW Griffith or Erich von Stroheim had that score played over any of their films, they would make sure whoever was responsible never worked in Hollywood again.

The zooming in on pictures: Got really annoying really fast. Some have called this the Ken Burns effect but I call it "Look what I can do with Powerpoint!" That zooming in and out effect is part of the slide show features on Powerpoint. I wouldn't be surprised if the director may have organized the pictures using Powerpoint initially because he really didn't have to film much for this. Instead of director, he should have been called photograph organizer because that's really what most of the film was. It was a glorified slide show and not much else. Yes there were clips from the films that were discovered but only small snippets of them without any context beyond quick titles and dates.

Subtitles: Too small, poorly placed, and often off topic. I'm glad I watched at home where I could rewind and reread. I can't imagine seeing in a theater and not having any idea what was going on.

Story: The stuff about the town and the Gold Rush was interesting at first until I realized that was going to be the bulk of the film. When I saw that I was 55 minutes into a two hour movie and we still hadn't gotten to the discovery of the films, I was very disappointed. Like most others, I expected this to be about the films themselves and how they were restored and added to the fields of film history and history in general. No such luck. The big problem is that Dawson is a pretty unremarkable town. It could have easily been San Francisco Frozen in Time or any of the other places where gold rushes took place. At least the history would have been more interesting. Dawson City was used as a lens to look at how gold rushes affected society and the community but even the director started to veer off topic and discuss things outside Dawson. He must have realized that it was not a very interesting place and that it's only claim to fame was the gold rush. Once that was over, what more was there to talk about that would keep people interested? He really couldn't find anything so he started going into things that happened in the US. Don't get me wrong, I do find the history very interesting. It's just that there are far more interesting places than Dawson. If you're not going to talk about film preservation in Dawson, then you might as well not even make the movie. It's an unremarkable place not deserving of a two hour movie about its history.

Completely wasted opportunity by Bill Morrison to tell the story of film preservation and to actually make the film that was advertised.

Four Friends (1981)

THE WORST OF TIMES IN THE WORST OF FILMS

[1/10 · 1 June 2019]

This has to be one of the worst I've seen in awhile. The directing, the writing, the acting was all SO BAD. I expected much more from the guy who directed Bonnie and Clyde and Alice's Restaurant. What happened to him in the 80s? He fell asleep at the wheel or else got really really nostalgic for the past.

A lot of this film felt like there were scenes missing. Every character was a prototype rather than a real person. The confused sensitive artist, the good son who does what his parents want, the free spirit. The characters are the same from beginning to end. Nobody changes or grows. Things happen to them but they are the exact same as they always were which is wholly unrealistic. The parents are all monochromatic and might as well be speaking like the parents from Charlie Brown. None of them understand anything and are confrontational with their kids. The generation gap is wider than the Grand Canyon and Penn is not going to let us forget it.

Danilo's father is a hardworking, stoic, silent type who out of nowhere starts beating on him at the kitchen table. He's suddenly a caricature of an immigrant parent who wants to toughen up his kid. Oh and his kid looks to be about 45 years old in the scene even though he's supposed to be a teenager. The father came to America to escape communism in Yugoslavia NOT to make a better life for his family. That's a key point because when his son wants to go to college, his father tells him no because he and his mother work very hard scrubbing floors and the kid should too. What kind of father would escape communism and risk it all to move to America only to hold his kid down and discourage an education? The answer is NO FATHER would do that. None. If all he wanted was hard work at a crappy job, why didn't he stay in the communist bloc? Another adult criticizes those who don't want to fight for their country. Another adult forces his son to work in the family business. Parents just don't understand, right Will Smith? None of these adults have any real emotion and are simply projecting generalizations from the time period.

In another scene, a bunch of teenage kids are dancing on the beach. There are some black kids there who are part of the group. Suddenly, a few of the kids inexplicably start hurling racial slurs at the black and Jewish kids and fighting with them. It's as though the director was holding up a sign saying, "the Civil Rights Movement is coming!!! It was so heavy handed as to be ridiculous. The writer seemed determined to pack in every single event of the 60s regardless if it made sense to the story.

The film is about four baby boomers growing up during the turbulent 60s. They take turns narrating which is fine but out of nowhere, the director has a short narration by the mother of one of the kids. She says something vague about autumn coming early and is never heard from again. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a story about young people should not incorporate the ramblings of one of their parents. The widening generation gap was also something that came out of the 60s and you would think the director would have recognized that.

The acting is probably the most egregious thing about this picture that made it really awful. All of the four friends and their parents come off as amateur summer stock players at best, attention seeking children at worst. The actor playing Danilo and the one playing Georgia are probably the worst of the bunch. Georgia waves her arms, yells her lines, and screws up her face into exaggerated, silent movie actress expressions. She's extremely physical in everything she does and is embarrassingly asexual despite her best efforts at trying to be a seductress. Her drama teacher in high school must have told her that acting begins with the body because she is constantly widening her eyes, exaggerating the movement of her mouth, and waving her arms in her attempts to seem like a carefree dreamer. At one point, she dramatically sings Hit the Road Jack to a steel executive visiting for Career Day. She's staring him down with this serious look on her face that is so silly that I had to avert my eyes out of sympathy for her.

The actor playing Danilo also shouts his lines and waves his arms. His dialogue is extremely unrealistic as it is for all of the characters. At one point, he's at loose ends about what to do with his life and throws himself on his bed yelling, "I must be insane." Then his roommate starts chanting slang terms for the female anatomy and they both start abusing themselves with girlie magazines. Who does this? I realize it's supposed to be the end of the repression of the early 60s but this was just ridiculous. They behaved as though they were in a monastery. The roommate seemed gay at times which may have been accidental or may not have been. They were at college so why didn't they go out and meet some women or maybe even call an escort service? Also, the actor playing Danilo looked way too old to be a teenage college student. The light kept bouncing off his receding hairline, a reminder that he was probably closer to 50 than 20. His girlfriend looks old enough to be his mother. As he gets older, he "grows" a wispy beard that looks like he pasted it on for Halloween. It's comical how awful and phony this beard looks. The makeup artist should have been fired the minute she put that on his face. It's one of those ironic pointy jobs that artistic cafe dwellers used to wear. See how the times are CHANGING???

Does the director really believe that nobody was having sex at this point in history? Especially in a college in Chicago? That everyone was as innocent as is portrayed here? He lived through this period so how could he make a film that was so unbelievably phony and maudlin? Why couldn't he cast some actors who knew what they were doing? None of the storylines rang true. Though some of the tidbits thrown in could have and probably did happen, most of the story was cloaked in sentimentalism and melodrama. None of the character motivations made much sense because they were nothing more than plot devices to tell the overarching story of the changing times. There was a loss of innocence so the director showed us nothing but naive innocence among four friends. They were all goody goody kids who never did anything wrong until the politics of the time dictated they completely change. There was no nuance whatsoever.

The foreshadowing was done with a hammer so we wouldn't miss it. One of the friends joins the army and as he's shipping out, Danilo says, "it would be just like you to get yourself killed in a war." That's right folks. Vietnam is coming though the characters don't know it but the viewers do, don't we? Since we know very little about this character, I guess we'll have to take Danilo's word for it that his crazy friend would do something silly like go die in a war. What does that even MEAN? As the friend is leaving he says dramatically, "maybe I'll never see you again," as he stares off into the distance. Then just so we don't think it's too much, he says, "but maybe I will!" Who on earth approved this script?

Remember Georgia the carefree girl who danced around and had sex before anyone else? She's going to be a HIPPY!! Just for good measure let's put her in a red wedding dress and get her pregnant out of wedlock. She's so carefree that during natural childbirth, she's laughing and mugging for her friend who is taking video of the blessed event. She's such a happy girl that squeezing a baby out of her womb isn't even painful to her. GIMME A BREAK ALREADY!

Everyone dies at once in this film. This is somewhat clever in that the director was probably trying to mirror the reality of the 60s with all the assassinations. He takes it too far again when he has a character dress like Jackie Kennedy, complete with sunglasses inside the house. There's a love story tacked on for good measure that nobody cares about and then the movie thankfully ends.

I love this time period, especially the music and the culture. This is perhaps why this film made me so angry. It could have been done so much better if the director had allowed some realism into his characters.