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Reviews
Mank (2020)
Not worth caring about
A grand production, clever dialogue, and great casting cannot overcome a boring script. The screenplay didn't present a leading character we could care about. Mank comes across as yet another spoiled artiste, who got everything he wanted and was still mad about it.
The movie came across as disjointed, pretentious, and self-congratulatory.
Barnum (1986)
Burt = Barnum!
This could be the most accurate screen dramatization of P.T. Barnum's colorful life. It makes perfect sense to have a larger-than-life actor with circus experience in the title role. Burt Lancaster was an acrobat, who became an Oscar winning actor and a successful film producer.
Lancaster has the charisma to chat directly with the viewer. His narration and the use of illustrations help to summarize certain crises that would have required entire feature length movies of their own.
This movie should have been released to theaters. Perhaps it was in Europe.
Foyle's War: The Eternity Ring (2013)
Should be "Foyle's Cold War"
The last two seasons of "Foyle's War" were well produced and well written. They were not titled correctly. This is more like a spin-off that they should have called "Foyle's Cold War."
We lose Sgt. Milner and the funny desk sergeant, Brookie. The indestructible Samantha Stewart married Adam Wainwright, played by a different actor in this series. The show was at its best with Foyle as a regional police detective, coping with an understaffed constabulary during wartime. It had a sense of immediacy, danger, and suspense. We never knew when they might barely survive an air raid, or lose a loved one in combat. They had reason to fear a German invasion from Normandy to Hastings. Precedent existed.
Foyle didn't have the same chemistry with the MI-5 spy network that he did with the villagers and cops in Hastings.
The Rockford Files: White on White and Nearly Perfect (1978)
"It's Like a Fairy Tale"
That's what a lady says about the adventures of Lance White. This brilliantly written episode follows the formula of fairy tales (also known as wonder tales). Here are iconic characters translated into "The Rockford Files":
1. Lance White: our hero, the White Knight, hence the first name Lance. His white steed is an ostentatious convertible.
2. Veronica Teasedale: the captive princess.
3. Jim Rockford: the helper. He is the hero's assistant, who really does most of the work.
4. Armand Teasedale: the Fisher King. He is the moribund ruler, laid low by the kidnapping of his daughter. In this case, he's an arms manufacturer.
5. Brad Davies: the false hero. He works here as the go-between to the kidnappers. His negotiations and rescue attempt, with Dobermans, are all failures.
6. Meyer Ziegler, the evil ogre or troll, who has the princess in captivity. He is an aging gangster here. Lance actually preaches to him, "Crime does not pay."
7. Belle LaBelle: the donor. This character is usually a helpful old crone who gives the hero a magic charm, weapon, or important information. In this case, Belle is a stripper. Another donor is Mr. Teasedale's secretary, who starts Lance's involvement in the case.
The kidnapping takes place in an allusion to the Black Forest: the home of a gangster, Harry Blackwood.
My Favorite Brunette (1947)
Best for the Hope
Bob Hope's movie career reached its paramount (!) heights in the 1940s. Mystery-comedies like "My Favorite Brunette" were actually funnier than Road movies with Bing.
"My Favorite Brunette" parodies hard boiled detective novels and film noir, hilariously. Our would-be hero explains of private investigation:"All it took was brains, courage, and a gun--and I had a gun." He's a baby photographer wants to be a tough sleuth like his neighbor, played by Alan Ladd. Dorothy Lamour slinks in with a mystery, and hilarity ensues.
Bob is a rank amateur, outwitted by Peter Lorre's gang at every step. Quotable dialogue, slick villains, ridiculous escapes, and a jokes that work in the context of the story make this an ideal comedy.
Cancel My Reservation (1972)
Dated, uneven
The narrator of Louis L'Amour's novel, "The Broken Gun" is a rugged novelist adventurer, a great deal like the author himself. The only character who comes from the book accurately is the evil ranch foreman, Reese, played by Forrest Tucker. Apparently, from the novel's dedication, Louis L'Amour visualized Alan Ladd as Dan, the hero. The William Bendix character would have been the lawman, Riley.
Bob Hope sought to recapture the magic of his vastly superior mystery-comedies, "The Cat and the Canary" and "Ghost Breakers" with Paulette Goddard; "My Favorite Blonde" with Madeleine Carroll; "My Favorite Brunette" with Dorothy L'Amour; and "My Favorite Spy" with Hedy Lamarr. "Cancel My Reservation" suffers from dated gags just meant to get a quick laugh, rather than to move the story ahead.
Paul Bogart directed this picture, in a nominal sense; but Bob was the executive producer. Any credit or blame goes to our star, who was otherwise a great entertainer.
The best scene is a skit within the movie, when Bob visualizes his lynching, attended gleefully by Bing Crosby (of course), Johnny Carson, John Wayne, and the latest hot TV star, Flip Wilson. Johnny observes, "He'll do anything to win an Oscar."
The screenwriter of this movie was Arthur Marx, son of Groucho. Arthur and Bob must have had a major falling out, since the writer penned a vicious unauthorized biography of his former boss. Other writers remained loyal to their former benefactor, such as Larry Gelbart, Sherwood Schwartz, and Melville Shavelson.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Disgraceful glorification of torture
The same people who condemned "Zero Dark Thirty" for a disgusting torture scene lauded "Inglourious Basterds" for even worse torture sequences. Bludgeoning and disfiguring of German prisoners is a blatant war crime, never performed by commandos. Writer-director Tarantino makes it seem commendable.
The film is also historically inaccurate on nearly every level. It shows Hitler relishing a violent sniper movie, in a public theater. Hitler enjoyed musicals, opera, and Mickey Mouse cartoons, not war pictures. He visited occupied France once, in 1940, and never again. The man had a bunker mentality early on.
Goebbels also would not have attended a contemporary propaganda shoot-em-up picture. He preferred over-produced costume dramas, such as "Kolberg". Even he thought "The Eternal Jew" pseudo-documentary was in bad taste. Goebbels was a suave, sprightly intellectual, thus making him far more sinister in real life than in this shallow film.
We all laud Christoph Waltz's performance, but he was a cultured villain from another movie, like "The Train", "How I Won the War", "Three Came Home", or "Bridge on the River Kwai." He should have been in a more accurate, believable drama.
Offensive inaccuracy aside, this tedious film gives you no one to root for.
Laverne & Shirley: Death Row: Part 2 (1982)
Unfunny, far-fetched, and truly embarrassing
The audience is suppose to believe that Laverne & Sheba (!) wind up on death row, because of mistaken identity. The basis of the error arises from the girls giving aliases of Smith and Jones--the same surnames as the condemned. Nobody bothers to check if the matron extradited the correct inmates.
The situation worsens, by becoming a musical. Laverne and the ladies of death row belt out, "I'm Going to a Place Where I Can Sit Down."
The poor quality probably indicates drug and alcohol use behind the scenes. That's the only possible explanation. All attempts at credibility and cohesion with the original concept had disappeared.
La La Land (2016)
Glossy musical ruined by JB Priestley conclusion
I can defend almost everything about this movie, like certain leaps of logic. That's normal for the genre. Gosling and Stone's vocals start out flatly, but they grow into the songs. The colors and Emma's dresses were eye catching.
They began with a peppy dance number, right before we meet the hero & heroine. The movie should have ended that way--before the epilogue. Musicals usually have tacked-on happy endings, not tacked-on depressing endings. I felt cheated, and thought, "This doesn't make sense."
The Seventh Cross (1944)
Outstanding melodrama
Seven inmates escape from a German concentration camp in 1936. The Nazis round them up, one-by-one, and hang their bodies from crosses erected on the grounds. Only George Heisler evades the dragnet.
He seeks refuge in his hometown of Mainz, in a terrifying journey. He watches a comrade commit suicide, and suffers betrayal by his former girlfriend. Meanwhile, German resistance volunteers try desperately to find George.
Halfway through the film, he decides to look up an old friend. Hume Cronyn completely steals the show as the armaments worker, Paul Roeder. As soon as he joyfully calls out George's name, the entire mood of the film changes from relentless terror to suspenseful optimism.
This is an unusual Hollywood movie for 1944. Most films of the era portrayed Germans as irredeemably evil. "The Seventh Cross" differentiates between Nazis and German anti-Nazis. It shows how ordinary people, like Paul Roeder, can rise to the occasion during a moral crisis.
George Heisler is right when he says, "There are no better men than Paul Roeder."