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Reviews
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
You have to see it in its original form...
I saw the movie at the Cinerama theater in 1968...if you don't know what Cinerama was, look it up. It's kind of like IMAX but done with three projectors. Yes, now the fact that it is a set is rather obvious but then, just seeing this on a huge, huge screen was breathtaking. The movie holds up even though today's standards would have forced them off the sound stage and generate 4/5 of it with a computer. I thought the twist with the death of Jim Brown was cool, even now as I just saw it on TCM. The "oh well, we both accomplished our mission as best we could, now let's just walk away, no sense killing each other" finale...was interesting but not so sure I buy it. Another reviewer here asked why they just didn't blow the whole place up immediately and leave so no one would get the capsule, if they suspected that the capsule was there. First, the allies wanted the capsule because it had important Russian information on it as well. 2nd, they were looking to see what happened to the people there first, so they had to investigate. As an added point, Borgnine's accent was horrid. It went on and off and at first, it sounded like he was trying to do an Irish accent. Awful.
The Final Cut (2004)
You can't get past the flawed premise
The idea that people would voluntarily implant something in their bodies to present all memories throughout their life as an after-life gift makes no sense as a voluntary proposition. If a dictatorship government forced the issue, then I can understand the objection and the risks. But to have every event, including your most intimate experiences or evil experiences viewed by an editor and then presented to a living relative...unless you are a reality show exhibitionist...it's not likely. The movie tries to sell this premise as something important but it doesn't work. It kills everything that follows.
Too Young to Kiss (1951)
Positively ridiculous....
To watch June Allyson fake playing the piano is hysterical. She is late on some banging of the chords and early on others...tentative. It's so obvious that they should have given up or practiced better. At least in La La Land, it looked like he was playing most of the time. Also, to believe that Van Johnson couldn't tell that June was the same person as an adult and a child is asking too much. This was done much better in The Major and the Minor (even then...Ginger Rogers didn't look like a kid, either). MGM took advantage of the audience believability in many their movies. Most people didn't sing for themselves and they obviously thought they could get people to believe that June could play piano in this film. Oh my gosh....terrible!!
Godsend (2004)
The movie with no ending.
The movie is an incoherent mess. The movie actually has no ending. The kid is whako and the parents leave it at that. None of the visions make any sense or is explained in a way that doesn't make you laugh. The father's head is cracked open and recovers without even a band-aid.
As suggested in other movies: The kid should have killed the doctor, the father who doesn't even seem to have a concussion should have started having visions from getting whacked in the head, the mother should have been committed to an institution (hopefully with an accompanying nude scene). The kid then gets cured at some point by re-engineering his genes. He is now living serenely with the father who now calls himself "Zach". The picture ends with a freeze frame of his eyes lighting up like Michael Jackson at the end of thriller. Good night.
Blast from the Past (1999)
Contrived story to get to a particular idea
An example of bad writing is when you want to get to an idea: Guy appears 35 years in the future and is a fish out of water - a single joke movie. So, how do you get to this idea?--by bad writing: having a family live in a bomb shelter for 35 years. The movie doesn't deal with the psychological depression, rotting food, removal of waste, things aging, breaking down...etc. The 35 years pass as though this was a shelter funded by NASA. In short, suspend your disbelief so we can get to the funny situation of a guy showing up in a future far from the supposedly 1950s bland homogeneous lifestyle that appeared on some TV shows at the time. This has been done in other movies and done much better. So, their house is not just turned into a mall...but the lily white middle class neighborhood becomes a porn infested ghetto in 35 years....it's OK...suspending your disbelief is what you are supposed to do for the entire film. It just can't get any dumber.
The Lion (1962)
The point of view of the movie....not sure, but you have to feel sorry for Trevor Howard
So, a guy gets divorced (Holden) ...never visits his kid who is in Africa, goes to get his kid because his ex-wife has summoned him. He steals his ex-wife and child from a guy (Howard) who raised his kid and who the kid loves. This was all selfishly orchestrated by his wife (Cappucine). The point of the movie seems very sympathetic to Holden and Cappucine (with a happy ending for those two!). But, from this viewer's point of view, they are selfish and a couple of jerks. Yes, the kid needed to leave Africa...but by every right, Trevor Howard's character should have shot both of those scheming adults. The acting and cinematography are great (although the blue screen effects are obvious as you see a glow around the actors during those scenes). Unfortunately, I saw an old TV version of this movie that was not wide screen but pan and scan. Hopefully, when they arrived in Connecticut at the end of the movie, they all went to family counseling...as this is one screwed up family.
Naked City: No Naked Ladies in Front of Giovanni's House! (1963)
All good series have a dud and this is one dud.
Interestingly, having been a kid when the series was aired, looking back...I am not sure this era actually existed at that time. 3 Cops spending a lot of time on stories that seem more like small town events on many of the episodes. Not to mention, watching these shows, you would think that there were l0 black people living in all of NYC. However, those were the times on TV. For the most part, this show is really great and true film noir. The stories on the old Italian, Polish or German ways is more for dramatic effect or even a throwback by the time 1963 came along. I won't get into the story of this episode too much...but it's silly and one of their lighter episodes, with a low believability quotient. It was difficult to sit through as opposed to some of their really great episodes.
The Great American Pastime (1956)
Poor excuse for The Seven Year Itch 2
Cashing in on the character that Tom Ewell created in The Seven Year Itch, he again plays a clueless middle-aged family man...talks to himself, misjudges relationships...narrates and resolves his existence at the end of the movie. There are a lot of "hard to believes" in this movie. Anne Francis, looking as beautiful as ever, is Tom's wife. Her looks were not played down as in Blackboard Jungle and she even appears with her hair up, in full makeup in a bubble bath...and later a towel. Ewell's wife in this movie? He's not rich and is a bit of a doofus...so...not believable. It's also hard to believe that the talented Ann Miller took such a nothing part...her agent must have lied about something. I guess her movie career was winding down. This movie is MOST forgettable. I know...no spoilers here really but I didn't want the review to get rejected because I gave some plot description.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Eleven Days to Zero (1964)
Best episode of the series, of course, my rating is for the pilot, not the show.
Like most Irwin Allen shows (going cheap and lousy, usually after one season...actually all Irwin Allen shows), the pilot is usually the best episode of the series. Never again will there be so many sets, such good special effects, tension and quality in any of their subsequent episodes. I saw the pilot recently on METV. It's in color, fun, has the biggest budget of any of the episodes to follow and is a really good show. It was strange because when I first started watching the episode...it had that pilot feeling: characters didn't know each other, characters were there that are not in the series and there are some strange references that don't come up again in the later episodes. The color confused me until I realized that they had a color pilot but went to black and white when the series first aired. If you are a fan of the show, this episode is a must. Then again, you scratch your head wondering why they couldn't make the series this good. I watched it when it first aired in the 60s and liked it but then again...I was 9.
The Helen Morgan Story (1957)
Nice try, but lacking in heft
The movie doesn't come up to the height of Love Me or Leave Me. The reviews of the day called it a soap opera and it has that feeling. Love Me or Leave had a better script and a better cast. The reason that Blyth was miscast is the same reason that they didn't use her voice (Gogi Grant dubbed over all the singing). Blyth doesn't have the emotional heft to match the torch-singing quality that is necessary for the part or necessary to match the dubbed singing by Gogi. A more powerful actress would have made the scenes with her and Newman much better. His acting ability stands out of course, but it is mostly wasted on this script. Who would have been perfect for this?...easy...Judy Garland. She may have looked to old for the part at this point...she didn't have the beauty of Blyth...who was a good singer in her own right...but not for this. Blyth looked like Morgan...and she was fantastic in Kismet...perfect. I had the pleasure of meeting her about 10 years ago and shared some coffee with her and her husband. She's a lovely lady. This movie is just lacking.
The Jolson Story (1946)
A very entertaining film but of its era
Most of the reviewers here give this movie a great review and deservedly so. Most of the viewers here are also probably close to my generation....born around the 1950s. No doubt this film is extremely entertaining, however, to be too comfortable with the blackface numbers and the bulging eyes and grimaces shows a bit of disconnect from people who see this film for the first time today. In addition, this movie is so far from fact, typical for Hollywood biopics of its day. The retiring to the farm and being unhappy cliché is right out of Yankee Doodle Dandy. In addition, if you have seen the story of George Gershwin from that era, the father, usually Jewish is again played up a bit buffoonish.
One very interesting thing about the film is the downer ending which most Hollywood moguls of the day would have had rewritten. It's an extremely entertaining film for those of us used to watching movies of that era...but it is cliché ridden and a story that's truly from fantasy land....but oh, that singing!! It's success spawned a sequel, equally entertaining.
The Manitou (1978)
Cheap, cheap, cheap
I saw this for the first time in 2015 on TCM of all places, but I remember when it came out. What makes this so laughable are the effects which look like an old SCTV skit. The movie loses me totally with the guy in the alligator suit. This feels more like a TV movie than a theatrical movie. It's a 1970s "B" movie but with a considerable cast of Tony Curtis, Michael Ansara and Susan Strasberg of all people. It's probably typical for its time. I also would like to make a suggestion to Amazon that they change the minimum of a review from 10 lines to 5 lines. The reviews can still be good without having to make so many points about the movie.
Naked City: A Run for the Money (1962)
Sorry but...
This episode could have been one of the best, but the ending is so ridiculous that I felt as though I wasted an hour of my time. You have two stars with a feeling of film noir and they blew it. That is, the writers blew it. I don't know how they thought that the conclusion of this story would be believable. I really love this series and this was the first time that I was totally let down by the end of the show. I was watching this with a friend and we just couldn't believe that the quality of the writing which is usually so good, was allowed to just deflate like a lead balloon. If I sound like I keep repeating myself, you have to wonder why IMDb forces you to write ten lines as a minimum for its reviews.
Meet Joe Black (1998)
This movie does not deliver...to the point of being silly.
What a great premise...what potential! Unfortunately, what you have is a stiff, trite, dull movie. The performers are fine, although Pitt is miscast in the role. The movie sombers itself to death. The script is weak, the direction...ordinary. The dreariness of the Joe character buries the film. The movie has no charm, humor and cleverness. Pitt wanders through the role like an automaton. It reminded me a bit of Peter Sellars in Being There but without the script, charisma or humor to make it work. This movie has been done before in other incarnations and this type of story works best when it doesn't take itself so, so seriously. I would love to see a remake with the same story but a much better script.
The Fountainhead (1949)
Whew... painfully written and miscast
This movie should have been made 10 years later without Rand writing the screenplay and starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodword. Neale and Cooper had an affair in real life...I hope it was more steamy and natural than this stiffly-acted, miscast mess. Massey is the only performance worth writing home about. The dialog is putrid and preachy. Supposedly the audience at the premiere couldn't look Neale in the eye while exiting the theater. The critics unanimously panned it. The "hero" is selfish and most of all obnoxious and boring. Unfortunately, Cooper looked the part more than he could successfully deliver the lines. The courtroom scene was ridiculous.
Enough Said (2013)
Whew...
This should be titled "Enough Said, Enough Seen, and Enough Heard". This is sort of an enhanced Lifetime Channel movie (they can curse). It is so dreary and ordinary that it's sad that this is the legacy of Gandolfini's last film. The humor falls flat and it has the weakness that so many American light comedies have--poor writing and punchline humor that crosses into sitcom. If I had seen this in the movies, I would have been asleep in no time. You love to see Julia and James together but it's too bad that they couldn't have been given a script of more substance. This film just seems like too many other duds of recent years.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Good movie...but a product of its time, like almost all movies
A few thoughts...some of the ways that they try to capture the crooks are so unethical that truly all the law enforcement and insurance investigators would be up on criminal charges. What a previous reviewer found sexy in the chess game would probably draw snickers from today's audiences...almost as a parody. Lastly, I guess they still felt that the cops and robbers had to wear hats, when this was really filmed at a time when hats were no longer being worn except by old men. It was out of style by then. I hear that the remake was also quite good but over-sexed. Unfortunately, Hollywood likes to remake good movies more than remaking bad movies and making them better.
Monkey Businessmen (1946)
Interesting...
This short is most notable because of Curly's bad health. It's his worst showing. He couldn't remember any of his lines and the film had to be shot one line at a time for him. You can even see Moe coaching Curly before some of his lines. His energy and language are notably low and slow due to strokes he had prior to the 7 month rest taken before this was shot. The slapstick was kept to a minimum for his benefit. It's not that there isn't any humor in the movie, it's not bad, it's just that you could see that a change would be necessary in the near future to keep the act going. Adding Shemp, was perfect, he was great in a different way. Rarely could a team replace a character member so successfully.