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Reviews
Don't Make Waves (1967)
What an Odd Movie
It's like it's trying to be a naive, dopey 'Beach Party' movie. Nice to look at, a cast worth looking at - but curiously dated, and misses the mark.... Tony Curtis was about...40? (he must have been in it for the paycheck)... and the tragic gorgeous Sharon Tate showed off her slim acting talents to fit right up with him! Claudia Cardinale is breathtaking, and doesn't belong here....no nice peppy music, curious flat. Maybe they were trying to make a 'beach party movie for adults? I suppose it's a good time killer to just look at the beautiful beaches and beautiful actors, but they all seem miscast and run around like 16 year old ninnies. MEH.
Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)
What a hoot! from 1967
Ludicrous in every way. Explosions and concerned looking workers in a control room with headphones looking at the shenanigans going on. Which are amazingly silly - underground are huge well-lit tunnels with an endless line of yellow commie-driven trucks, and soldiers in red hats tramp tramp tramping along. Endless!..... A simper-y lady geologist thrown in for romance to attract 'the ladies' in the audience, I guess. Ridiculous makeup. The music is so Austin-Powers/Quinn Martin Production loud and blaring, you expect to see Mannix as the head 'good guy'. I will leave out the comic book plot which involves the evil plot to dig tunnels below the earth and threaten 'Muricans. It is a very British production and typical of the stolid plodding good guys versus the stolid plodding bad guys. Hardly any dialogue, just blaring music and yellow vehicles driving stolidly and ploddingly along in those massive tunnels.
Top Hat (1935)
I have an objection here....
I love Fred and Ginger, I love their dancing. But I think this movie, if not started, made very popular indeed, the notion that if you stalk and pursue a woman, even if she tells you multiple times to bug off, if you only persevere she will see the error of her ways. And in the end she will give in and be yours. This is despicable, it was in every single rom-com, movies and tv both, for decades. The fashions and the dancing and the songs are classic. The set designs are spectacular. But that chasing after 'the girl', not taking NO for an answer - not good! (funny, I just noticed during the Fred and Ginger marathon today: Fred Astaire looks the same, same looks, same age, in all of their movies.
Confidentially Connie (1953)
A movie for the meat-deprived?
Sorry. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever the real life Janet Leigh lived on 900 calories a day, IF THAT, and black coffee, cigarettes, and lettuce leaves till someone took her out for what dinner she could get down. She craved lots of meat? (back then, I heard it's shunned now.)
A dumb early movie of hers, like a black and white forgotten sitcom. She did better later.
1776 (1972)
This movie....
.....this movie....well, I hate to be crass on this, the glorious 4th of July, so I will relate what a relative said after watching it for as long as he could:
"This movie blows."
It probably seemed like a good idea, and people apparently loved it and the play it was based on won a Tony award. But I, like my relative, found it tedious, and the songs were unmemorable. They didn't seem to 'go with' the movie at all - too modern or something. Sorry, patriots!
An American in Paris (1951)
I hate this, I always have
Overblown. Overdone. Too loud and frenzied, and just plain stupid. I don't like the score, and I don't like Gene Kelly stomping around in his white socks....he's too old and unattractive . I thought Leslie Caron, a 'ballerina' was too frail and malnourished from the war to do such strenuous work. Maybe mean Gene Kelly barked at her to get the F up and start doing the dancing. Just overdone and dopey, I didn't buy that hulking geek as a starving artiste for a moment.....I will give it a star for frenzied stagework, always fun to see, and gaudy eye-searing technicolor. Otherwise, like 'My Fair Lady' - it's an expensive loud production, but a swing and a miss.
The Entertainer (1960)
Glum, Gray, Sleazy, Depressing...
...and yet, there is a place in the world for such a film. Very gritty, down and dirty and sleazy and depressing - YES. Just like real life of. The time. Very kitchen-sink, like a long black and white season of EastEnders, but not so much fun as that soap opera....you can almost smell this film, stagnant water, ancient theaters, grubby digs. Lawrence Olivier plays a right dooosh, and it's disgusting when the young 'beauty queen' tries to curry favor by sleeping with his flabby old azzz. There's a scene where she licks. His. Nipple. Licks it. JFC. It fits right in to the film, but ....ICK.
Catalina Caper (1967)
Good Mindless Fun
That's what it is, It has terrible reviews and is pretty stupid. But it's good mindless fun, with not horrible musical numbers (including Little Richard), babes in great 60's fashions and all dancing, flailing away as they do in those beach movies wearing good, sturdy bikinis (no two bottle caps and a cork swimsuits here!) - just kind of mindless wallpaper to have in the background on tv. (it was made in 1967, the height of the mods/hippies psychedelic era, but seems curiously dated, trapped back in the time period of Annette/Frankie beach party movies.). Still -chewing gum for the eyes!
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Re-Watching today...and it's still a steaming pile
I'm only watching to watch frail stick-insect-thin Padme die in childbirth. (you'd think they would have solved that problem, robot midwives or not, by then!). Natalie Portman is SO miscast. She looks barely capable of hefting a cosmopolitan martini to her trembling lips, never mind wielding a sword and hopping around. No feeling about any other dumb thing and not a flicker of awe over THA RISE OF DARTH VADER. Ho and hum. ....I will say this in defense of Hayden Christensen: he said in an interview he was ORDERED to play his role in an emotionless way. If people watched the young future DV and sympathized with him, it would kill the vibe of him as a villain.
Roseanne: Wait till Your Father Gets Home (1993)
Hilarious and Heart-Wrenching
Roseanne and Jackie's father dies. As always, nothing is simple and linear, there are layers and depths. Jackie is distraught over losing her dad, and Roseanne is torn. He was NOT a good father to them, and deserted their mother and family for another woman. There are achingly funny moments interspersed with sad moments. Hate is not always solid hate, love is not always solid love. Roseanne's little monologue at the end, standing in the funeral home alone with her father's coffin, always makes me tear up.
The New Adventures of Old Christine: The New Adventures of Old Christine (2008)
Maybe the funniest episode of all of them
New Christine (who 'doesn't see 'age, it's only a number') fixes Old Christine up with a co-worker in her office. Co-worker fixup is a young man - a VERY young man. Like half Christine's age! Hilarity results! The man's mother spots them canoodling on the couch and has a fit, lol.... I laugh out loud every time I come across this episode. The very last scene, less than a minute, if you pay attention during the show, is equally hilarious.
The V.I.P.s (1963)
Inadvertently Funny
So much here! Ludicrous soapy dialogue (Burton and Taylor are really flying!) Liz is running off with a 'gigolo' she hasn't even road-tested, if you get my drift! :-D and she hints she may want to have babies with him! Poor lady is very neglected by her husband and wants LOVE, only LOVE. ... Burton is obviously drunk and bloviating, but is of course the voice of reason, regretting his tragic neglect and trying to win her back. (some critic once wrote of her role "she looks like a mattress with a string tied around it" - she is not that bad! I think she looks lovely as usual). ... some people here seem puzzled by Rod Taylor's Australian accent, saying it's bad or put on - hello, he is actually AUSTRALIAN... Louis Jourdan is sort of shifty, of course, but I am pleased to announce propriety is upheld and though the airport put her up in a suite because the flight was cancelled, they put him up in a separate room.... The other actors are good, Margaret Rutherford plays a winsome addled old Englishwoman and won an Oscar for that small, cliched role... I am not criticizing this movie as bad, mind you. It is bad, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable! (People like fine dining, steak and champagne, but there is much pleasure in a burger and beer, too.)
Under the Skin (2013)
If I could give it zero stars, I would
Dreadful. If I hadn't read up on this atrocity beforehand and vaguely knew what was going on, I would have been as lost as if viewing a student film made in Hungarian. OK, I am not totally stupid, I DO appreciate an artsy meaningless movie, and it had some nice scenery and special effects. But it was very dull, almost impossible to parse the thick Scottish accents, and left so many unanswered questions it was ridiculous. I understand this movie was popular mostly because the flavor of the month appears naked. If that floats your boat, there's maybe 30 seconds of that. Enjoy. We put it on fast-forward about halfway through just to see if anything was going to happen. It didn't, though the ending was very satisfying. To me.
Also: poor baby! :-(