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Reviews
Bodkin (2024)
Interpol agents ... again
Are the writers of this series just as ignorant as so many others? Or are they just counting on audience ignorance? Interpol field agents with guns again. So annoying.
What part of There is no such thing as an Interpol field agent do you not understand? There never was such a thing.
Interpol is an information exchange organization that national police forces use to shunt information between them. And that's all they do.
More interesting is the evolution of Interpol and the fact that at one time its director was the infamous Reinhardt Heydrich. That was because the original headquarters was in Austria. It was moved to Lyon after WW2.
World War II: From the Frontlines (2023)
Won't watch a falsification of history
Episode 2."Slowly after the Battle of Stalingrad, the tide starts to turn". After Stalingrad Germany had no chance. In fact Hitler knew that this was so after the failure of Barbarossa by the first days of December, 1941. The war diary of the OKW rocords him saying then: "Tje war in the East can no longer be won.
Episode 6. "... Japan shows no signs of giving up." Truman wrote in his diary in July-August 1945, that the Japanese are ready to capitulate. The atom bomb was droped to push faster capitulation to prevent the Soviets from entering the war agaist Japan (this failed). The justification that it was done to avoid a million US casualties: a fairy tale.
Soulcatcher (2023)
Now my #1 worst movie
The good news for this movie, is that when I think it can't get worse, along comes one that is even more terrible. Incoherent story, two people are listed as written by but there is no trace of any writing anywhere. Lots of fighting between people dressed in black mostly at night by flickering flames. The operation of "the weapon" is never explained, nor are its effects elucidated. "The enemy" seems to have endless troops (wonder what the killed/minute average is), the alarms are blaring, but there is a minutes long single combat between "the villain" and "the hero" with all those "enemy" swarming everywhere else politely not intervening.
Early on I decided that it was actually a spoof-wannabe ... but it didn't help.
The Batman (2022)
Why, oh , why ...
... did I start wathcing this piece of total garbage ... I started to wonder after an hour. Of course, all Marvel movies are pretentious crap, but this really takes the cake. About 80% of the first hour takes place in almost complete darkness, so the view can only guess at what is going on. Half of the remainder is dedicated to views of the Batman's face. Mostly with no expression, presumably trying to represent stoic inscrutability, succeeding in looking stupid. But perhaps that's the best that this "actor" can do. I'm also supposed to believe that the Catwoman who is smart enough to open a safe with sophisticated tools is only a bit later stupd enough to ask direct questions about her missing friend. Presumably it will only gets worse ... but not for me the first hour out of the 3 was more than enoguh of an insult to my intelligence.
Pour Sarah (2015)
Great series...
I especially liked all the heretofore to me unknown information about what people go through after losing a large part of their intestines and especially what they have to do for the rest of their lives. One of my grandmothers had 9/10 of her stomach removed at around age 50, and I thought I knew all about these kinds of issues. But the regimen she had to follow was a breeze compared to the heroine of this series.
There was one thing that I noticed, that many might miss. In episode 8, two characters drive up to a place in a yellow sports car. Remember, this series takes place in Québec, Canada. The car has German, more specifically Stuttgart license plates. Completely unlikely and incomprehensible.
Sniper: Assassin's End (2020)
The screen writer and director never finished elememtary school?
It looks like they don't understand that a) Vancouver is in Canada and b) Canada is not part of the US, is is a diffrent country. As such, an agent of US Homeland Security is a civilian, i.e. A nobody in Canada with zero authority. To be more precise his actions are criminal.
Given that, it is of course entirely believable that another agent is allowed to use a private cell-phone while on covert operation to feed informaition to the above agent.
I other words, it is rare to see a movie where the screenplay is so unrealistic. What's more, rarely have I seen a movie where the makers are so abusive of the viewrs intelligence.
Munich: The Edge of War (2021)
Ah, the mythology!
After all, why mention that together with France the USSR was also part of an undertaking to defend Czechoslovakia? And they were prepared to meet those obligations by offerring to send troops. Poland would have had to allow them transit, and the Poles refused. Chamberlain and Daladier did nothing to change the mind of the Poles. Then again, the movie also doesn't mention that the Poles were also in on the deal and received a slice of Czechoslovakia at Munich. Ah well, it was a small slice and they paid heavily enough for it a year later.
A Doll's House (1973)
A revolutionary play in 1879
It may be difficult for cotnemporary viewers to comprehend just how revolutionary this play was at the time it was written and published. In the UK married women acquired partial rights to own property in 1870 and full rights in 1882. In Norway that took place in 1888 and until then their husband had full guardianship over them. No surprise therefore that there was a great uproar and the play was universally condemned as an immoral attack on society. Indeed for the first performances in Germany Ibsen was forced to alter the play to a "happy ending" where Nora stays (he considered this to be barbarism).
Also note that the basis of the play is an actual event that happened to a freind of Ibsen. You can read about it in the Wikipedia entry for the play.
I just reread the play again afterm some 15-20 years and I thought I would try to watch a screen adaptation. This is a great play and the adaptation is worthy of Ibsen. I was very pleased with the performances that conveyed the cringeworthy stiffling atmosphere of the Helmer household. This is very much a theatre movie which may not be to everyone's taste.
Shadowplay (2020)
Who or what is Izusimov supposed to be?
At one point he is referred to as the commandant of the Soviet sector of Berlin. A position held by generals, at this point in time Maj. Gen. Aleksandr Kotikov. But Izosimov shoulder boards show him to be a major. Then Elsie calls him a commissar. But that rank was abolished in 1941 with the reintroduction of unitary command. It only exisisted at the higher levels of army organization, and only on an advisory role. In the prison, he seems to be in command. But all the guards are NKVD (blue hats), but his hat is regular army. It would have been impossible for an army man to be in command of NKVD troops. Why take the trobule, I guess, to pay attention to factual accuracy?
Valahol Európában (1947)
A highpoint of Hungarian cinema
The script was co-written by Béla Balázs who also wrote the libretto of Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle. He was a renowned film theorist influencing among others Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Pabst. He also wrote the script for Leni Riefenstahl's Blue Light. Balázs's masterful cinematography is ever present in the film, but is perhaps best exemplified by the sequence with the girl and officer. Generations of Hungarians have seen and valued this movie.
It is of course no surprise that Tamas Polgar (who uses the moniker of Tomcat on IMDb and either is, or is not identical with the well known Hungarian neo-Nazi and anti-Semite with the same name and moniker) hates this movie. After all, Balázs was a Jew, and a Marxist Jew at that. While the film was produced by the movie company of the communist party, it was made before the party came to power. The movie was compulsory viewing for generations of Hungarian schoolchildren. Watching it again now ... this frankly surprises me: a masterpiece of socialist realism it is not. Dismissing it as communist propaganda is about as useful as saying the same thing about the Ballad of a Soldier.
The Last Escape (1970)
Awful, just awful ...
The plot is completely implausible in so many ways, just a few points:
* How do the Soviet tanks get through the German lines and drive around unmolested in what is presumably still German held territory?
* Why would the Germans set up a complicated ambush with less than 5 men in the small town instead of doing it with proper force?
* Why do both the Brit and American soldiers have a penchant for jumping out of cover so the Germans can kill them? And they do get killed. They are all supposed to be special forces, I'd think they would have been through basic training at least ...
* The commander of the British unit is said to be a major and his second in command to be a lieutenant. But they are both wearing Waffen-SS obersturmführer insignia. It would be rather suspicious that two officers of the same rank are commanding a unit. But no problem ... the major gets himself killed very quickly using the standard method of leaving cover to step in the way of German bullets.
* I pointed out elsewhere that the at the beginning of the movie the narrator explains that OSS officer is posing as a Wehrmacht Major. A bit later he and his team is exposed and the entire team (except him) are wiped out. Well, no wonder. If he is posing as a Wehrmacht Major then perhaps he should not be wearing the uniform and rank insignia of a Waffen-SS obersturmführer (army equivalent rank is oberleutnant, or first-lieutenant).
* Points for getting the insignia and shoulder boards right for both the Soviet major and the German Waffen-SS Sturmbannführer (now that is actually a major).
* I have no idea what those tanks are that the Soviets are using, but they certainly are not Soviet tanks; neither are they WW2 era tanks. Also, the red stars are in the wrong place: on the glacis (the front); they should be on both sides of the turret.
* I have no idea what those tanks are that the Americans are using, but they certainly are not Shermans or any other US WW2 era tanks.
* In 1945, under no circumstances would US line units have fired on Soviet tanks (not even "near-misses"); probably would not have called them reds either. They were allies, comrades-in-arms. Just look at some photos of the link up at the Elbe river. The opinions of their higher ranking officers (e.g., Patton) may have been a different story...