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kentrasmussen
Reviews
Mysterious Island (2010)
An insult to Jules Verne's name
This movie stinks. There's no getting around that. I can think of nothing positive to say about it. I've watched a lot of terrible movies made for the SyFy channel, and this one ranks among the very worst. It's right up there with that awful version of KING SOLOMON'S MINES that looked like it was filmed in a city park.
I don't object to films adapting works of classic literature in ways their original authors never imagined, but I do object strongly to attaching the original authors' names to the often unrecognizable results. Such is the case with this virtually unwatchable atrocity. It has little to do with Jules Verne's original story, which is set in the time of the U.S. Civil War, when five Yankee prisoners escape from Confederate captivity in a balloon craft and are blown by an immense storm all the way to an uncharted South Pacific island. That's the essential premise of this film, though the geography is vague. Beyond that premise, however, the film has little to do with the novel. In fact, I'm willing to bet it was based not on Verne's novel but on the 1961 film of the same title that was itself a major departure from the novel. Like that film, this SyFy stinker adds several similar characters not in the novel–namely a Confederate soldier and two women. This version differs mainly in having the female characters arrive on the island in a airplane after–apparently–being blown through the Bermuda Triangle. Is the ensuring story now set in the mid-19th century or in the early 21st century? It's impossible to say, but I doubt the creators of this film themselves knew–or cared.
Like the 1961 film, this one moves the action along far more swiftly than the novel does. It has the characters leave the island within days of their arrival there. By contrast, in the novel the castaways are on the island nearly four years, during which time they raise extensive crops, breed animals, mine minerals, make tools and machines, and build houses, bridges, and boats. One of the chief points of interest in the novel is how they meet the many challenges they face, while dangers posed by harsh weather, fierce animals, pirates, and a volcano make for frequent thrills. The novel is a robust, fascinating book that might be thought of as like THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON on steroids. In this SyFy movie, nothing interesting happens. The chief questions one has while trying to watch it is this: Did someone actually write a screenplay for this mess? Or, were they making it up as they went along? What does this terrible SyFy movie have to do with Verne's novel? Not much, aside from its undeserved title. If the SyFy channel wants to produce lousy movies, that's fine. They'll always find an undiscriminating audience that will enjoy them. I have no problem with that. However, if they must do that, it would be far better if they would come up with totally original stories and not pretend they are producing adaptations of classic works that can only serve to give real science fiction a bad name.
Drain the Titanic (2015)
fascinating documentary but it could easily have been better
This fascinating documentary uses painstakingly detailed digital 3-D reconstructions of the Titanic's wreckage made from thousands of underwater photographs. The program's chief interest is that it provides clear views of entire sections of the ship that are impossible to see of the real ship because of the darkness of the water more than two miles below the ocean's surface. The digital images look very much like what one would expect the actual wreckage to look if the surrounding ocean could be drained away.
It's all very impressive, but the documentary's presentation has some irritating features. After explaining how the digital images were made, virtual cameras move past wreckage so rapidly it is difficult to take in details. The images would be far more interesting if the cameras were to linger over parts of the ship longer. For example, instead of showing the same rapid panning shots of the ship's bow repeatedly, it would have been better to use some of that time for much slower close-ups. It is also disappointing that the documentary provides almost no close-ups of the surrounding debris fields. What are all those large objects scattered around the ship's hull sections? Despite these reservations, the documentary is fascinating and well worth watching. Perhaps a future documentary will use the digital images to give us better views of the wreckage.
The Seven Little Foys (1955)
An antifamily film?
I'm puzzled why a number of reviewers here call this a wonderful family film. I like a lot of Bob Hope films, but I found this one generally unpleasant. I have little idea how the storyline compares to the life of the real Eddie Foy, but what we see on the screen doesn't always make sense. At the beginning, Hope plays Foy as a seemingly asexual loner, anxious to build his vaudeville career as a solo act that he wants eventually to take to Broadway. He shuns women until he encounters an Italian ballerina who is part of a sister act. Acting like a buffoon, he imposes himself in their act on stage. An impresario thinks the combination of crude slapstick and classical ballet is a winner and wants to sign Foy and the sisters and take their act to Broadway. Modern audiences may see the act differently, but that's beside the point. For no discernible reason, the ballerina falls in love with Foy. When he fails to reciprocate her affection, she and her sister return to Italy. Eventually Foy follows her there and proposes. From that moment, their relationship seems to deteriorate. It's difficult not to side with the sister who can't understand what her sister sees in Foy. Meanwhile, Foy's wife bears child after child, while Foy is off on the road, pursuing his career and paying no attention to her or his children. The children are well provided for and are well looked after by their mother and aunt, but they have no relationship with their father. So far, not much of a family film.
***Spoiler*** Eventually, Foy returns home to find his wife has just died. He doesn't even know she had been ill for months. He expresses remorse and appears ready to become a better parent. Instead, he simply stops working, stays at home and drinks, while his children run wild, to his sister-in-law's despair. Later, Foy's manager persuades him to go back to work--and to include all seven of his children i his act. The children are uniformly so untalented that Foy fears preparing a professional act will be impossible. To his surprise, however, the family act is well received, despite the children's many gaffes, and they gradually improve.
With the family now constantly on the road, the sister-in-law begs Foy to take the children home for Christmas. He agrees but later reneges on his promise when the family is booked for a prestigious Christmas Day performance. The sister-in-law is so angry she leaves the family and threatens to take the children away. Still not much of a warm family film thus far.
The climax of the film comes in a court scene, after the sister-in-law gets a New York City government agency to investigate whether Foy is breaking the law by forcing his children to work. For the first time, Foy demonstrates some remorse. He offers to plead guilty so the children can be cared for in a more suitable environment. It appears that the sister-in-law has finally won. However, just as the judge is about to make a ruling, the children themselves come to their father's defense by proclaiming they actually like being in show business and that they want to keep their family act together. Where does this sudden change of heart come from? Until this scene, there is scarcely a moment in the entire film in which Foy and his children appear even to like each other.
Leaving aside the question of whether this surprising ending reflects what really happened in Foy's life, it's a very unconvincing moment. The judge dismisses the case against Foy, and even the sister-in-law seems to be smiling. In the next scene, Foy wakes up in his bed at home on a Sunday morning and asks where everyone has gone. The answer, of course, is to church. Foy then rushes to get dressed so he can join his family at church, where he apparently has never gone before. The film ends with him and his sister-in-law walking arm-in-arm into a church after the children.
This is what passes for a warm family film? Even a Disney film isn't this bad.
Jungle Jim (1948)
Fun with Jungle James
Other reviews here say pretty much all that need be said about the merits of this silly film, so I'll merely add a few observations on peculiar details in the film.
--Like many of the early Tarzan films, this film contains stock footage of Asian elephants wearing ill-fitting rubber ears in a failed attempt to make them resemble African elephants. Why bother? The movie was obviously shot in Chatsworth, Calif., and there are scarcely any actors in the film who resemble Africans. Incidentally, it would be interesting to know why so many Tarzan, Bomba, and Jungle Jim films didn't employ African Americans to play Africans instead of using nonblack actors wearing makeup to give them a dusky appearance. (By the way, that Chatsworth lake in which the characters swim in the film became known as "Jungle Jim Lake." It must have been used in more than one JJ film.)
--Speaking of that lake, the scene in which the characters are swimming is confusing. Virginia Grey is attacked by some kind of aquatic beast. It looks vaguely like an alligator with a head similar to that of the lizard man whom Capt. Kirk fights in STAR TREK, but the pictures of it are so fuzzy it sometimes resembles a nearby floating log. And is that a tentacle or a tail that grabs Grey by the leg? Whatever it is, it doesn't look like it belongs on the swimming lizardgator.
--Considering that Virginia Grey's character is an all-business medical researcher intent on finding a paralyzing poison" that may cure cancer, it was a bit surprising to see that she thought of bringing a swimming suit and even a swimming cap on the expedition. Equally surprising is the championship diving form she displays.
--One of the comic highlights of this film is a scene in which an ostensible crocodile is chasing Virginia Grey. The animal is obviously an American alligator, but it's dressed up in a way I don't recall ever seeing in a film before. A key distinction between crocodiles and alligators is that the lower teeth of alligators can't be seen when the animals' mouths are closed--like those of the animal in this scene
--Almost every action scene is sped up. I've never understood why movie makers did this sort of thing, as it succeeds only in making the action look unnatural. Johnny Weismuller looks awkward when he's running at normal speed, but he looks ridiculous when his running scenes are accelerated. The sped-up stampeding elephants look equally silly.
--George Reeves's character, we discover, has ingratiated himself with the evil "native" tribe by taking photographs of the tribesmen and giving them prints. He carries a camera with him, but how he produces prints is a mystery. The film came out in 1948, the same time when the Polaroid Land company was starting to produce instant-print cameras; however, Reeve's camera is obviously not a Polaroid. In one scene, toward the end of the film, he snaps a group picture of the evil tribesmen (who mug for the camera like a bunch of drunken fraternity boys), then goes off, saying he needs a moment to "develop the film." Moments later, he returns with nice, dry prints of the pictures he has just taken. I don't know what he was doing in the interim, but I when I used to print photographs, I had to unload my camera in a darkroom, chemically develop the film, allow it dry, and then use an enlarger to project the negatives on printing paper. The exposed paper, in turn had to be submersed in a chemical solution, rinsed, and then soaked in a fixing solution and dried. Oh, Reeves's prints are very glossy, so he must have dried them on a ferrotype plate. So, how did Reeves do all that so quickly? He wasn't even carrying all the necessary equipment with him.
--Women may enjoy this film's heavy-handed feminist message. Grey's character, Dr. Hilary Parker, is constantly miffed because people are surprised she is a woman. Even Jungle Jim is unliberated. When he meets her, he shakes his head and says something along the lines of "You're not exactly my idea of a doctor."
--After watching the whole film inattentively, I sped through it a second time to review some details. I see that the "native" bearers are supposed to be Masai. Yeah, right. Most of them are European Americans or perhaps South Asians, and some are wearing turbans. Not exactly traditional Masai accoutrements.
--Did I mention low production values? Much of JJ's fight with a leopard is hidden behind a big log, and the climax of his fight with a lion is hidden in a recess of a pit. Well, actually the latter scene has some justification, as it leaves us wondering (for about 30 seconds) whether JJ has survived his fight.
--One final observation: JJ is often seen with a big raven on his shoulder. What I'd like to know is why his shirt is always clean and well pressed. In fact, it looks freshly pressed immediately after his struggle with a lion and his free-for-all brawl with the evil tribesmen in the temple of Zimbalu. Perhaps the raven did something requiring Weismuller to change his shirt before the final scene.
Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1968)
An interesting period piece
(Disclaimer: IMDb's text editor, not I, put a space in the middle of Peter No one's surname, which should be one word, even in this sentence. The text editor must have been designed by Microsoft.)
I was well aware of the pop group Herman's Hermits during the sixties and rather liked their hit song "I'm Henry VIII I Am." However, I've always regarded the group as a featherweight novelty act and never even heard of this film until it aired on TCM a few nights ago. I watched the film out of curiosity because of my fondness for music of the sixties. I didn't expect sparkling musical numbers and wasn't disappointed (or pleasantly surprised).
As other notes posted here explain, the film got virtually no exposure in the United States on its 1968 release, which helps explains why I never heard of it before. Other postings also discuss how the film was aimed at British, not American, audiences. That makes sense, too. It shows aspects of British life that would hold little appeal for Americans. However, that may be a reason for seeing the film. Britain wasn't all "swinging London" during the sixties.
I don't quite buy the suggestion that the film is not a deliberate takeoff on the Beatle films HARD DAYS NIGHT and HELP! I see it very much in that same genre, with clear (but failed) attempts to mimic the seemingly ad-libbed dialog of those other films. As I watched MRS. BROWN, I couldn't help but wonder how the same script would have worked with the Beatles playing the leads instead of Peter No one's band. It almost certainly would have been much better, as the Beatles projected significantly more personality with similar dialog in their own films. I don't know if that's because the Beatles had more personality (they did) or because audience were more familiar with the individual members of the Beatles before seeing their films. A few times as I watched MRS. BROWN, I imagined how I probably would have laughed if Ringo or George uttered lines that fell flat from the mouths of the Hermits. The problem with the Hermits is that both they and their music are simply too bland. In any case, it might be interesting to watch MRS. BROWN and HARD DAY'S NIGHT back to back. I expect my own reaction would similar to that which I experienced when I saw POLICE ACADEMY 4 and RAISING ARIZONA back to back at drive-in many years ago. After suffering through PA4, I was ready to award RA a best-picture Oscar five minutes into it. (Of course, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that HARD DAY'S NIGHT was Oscar-worthy on its own merits.) While I would argue that MRS. BROWN was directly influenced by the Beatle films, it also shows influences of other sixties British films, such as MORGAN: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT. In that delightful film, David Warner plays a slightly crazy member of a working-class family. The scenes in his gritty home and neighborhood are similar to those in the Manchester home of No one's character (imagine No one in an undershirt washing dishes in cramp, messy kitchen). However, whereas Warner's character is obsessed with reclaiming his upperclass wife (Vanessa Redgrave), No one's character is obsessed with having his female dog ("Mrs. Brown") run in races.
A side note: Sheila White, the blonde who plays Tulip, the shy girl with a crush on No one, later played the treacherous Messalina in I, CLAUDIUS. Quite a startling contrast in characters.
One more comment: It's hard to believe that Peter No one is still performing Herman's Hermits songs. What's next? Will Nancy Sinatra reemerge to tour with "Boots"? Actually, for all I know, she has her own club in Branson, Mo. I wonder if there is a similar elephant graveyard in Britain.
Finally, to anyone wondering if they should watch this film the next time it turns up on TCM, I would recommend giving it a look. It's an interesting perspective on sixties pop culture ... and it would be a much better investment of 90 minutes of your life than a SyFy Channel movie of the week.