Change Your Image
ccocat
Reviews
Baseball (1994)
Uneven and overlong, but still worthwhile
Being only a casual baseball fan, I was concerned about devoting 19 hours to this miniseries. I did so partly because of IMDb's unusually high 9.2 rating and my love of other Ken Burns efforts like "The Civil War" & "Lewis & Clark."
The first 2 or 3 "innings" on the early days of baseball were wonderful--chock full of interesting things I didn't know about the game and organized and presented as beautifully as I have come to expect from Burns. However, the end of the Ty Cobb era ushered in a heavy East Coast (especially New York area) bias that remained for the rest of the series. I didn't time it, but I'm sure there was substantially more time devoted to New York players and teams than to all other players and teams combined. For New York fans I recommend it highly. For me and probably a lot of other non-New Yorkers it got tiresome after a while. Like the endless renditions of "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" it was way too much of a good thing.
Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure (2010)
Marginally entertaining family adventure
Fans of the Mandie books and the previous Mandie film (Mandie and the Secret Tunnel) will probably enjoy this offering as well. For others it is a marginally entertaining family adventure film that probably won't hold a lot of interest. Young Lexi Johnson is personable and lively and gives a solid performance in the lead role. Many of the supporting performances appear much more amateurish.
Fans of Hayley Mills will be disappointed to find that, despite major billing, she appears (as Mandie's grandmother) in only about 6 minutes of the film.
Overall, if you are looking for family adventure films, you can do a lot better.