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Reviews
The Day the Music Died (2022)
This is a parody, right?
About 15-20 minutes of this tribute to a 1970s novelty song are spent providing background on the tragedy that produced it and explaining the highly personalized lyrics that resulted.
The rest mostly unleashes a barrage of other-worldly praise that at first caused me to react, "Me thinkith they doth praise too much" -- that the lavish, worshipful outpouring was both intended to convince the producers of the film that it had been worth financing and to convince the makers of the film themselves that they actually were telling a story about something special.
I mean, this was a curious, modest hit that faded into 70s Gold history with the rest of the songs on the Billboard pop chart. I doubt many have seen or heard anyone declare it anything close to a classic before this documentary.
But then, as I watched the smile on the face of Garth Brooks as he proclaims this ditty is "quite possibly the greatest song in music history," I concluded this must be a parody, something along the lines of "Spinal Tap" or the Ruttles.
That theory at least helped explain the laughable premise that the song is something great because thousands of people know the lyrics and sing along at concerts, even 50 years later.
As anyone who has attended rock concerts knows, singing along to tunes is just part of the whole scene. I've been to concerts by the late Tom Petty and the Beach Boys where just about the entire audience knew and sang along to EVERY SONG over the course of two to three hours.
Much less funny, though, is the film's attempt to tie the tragic death of three pop stars to actual world-shaking events - the Vietnam war and the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy - to support statements about the song's importance to the United States of America.
Really, even the song's title is a gross exaggeration. Music most certainly did not die after Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens perished in the 1959 plane crash. Rock 'n roll continued to flourish unabated in the early 1960s. It took the Kennedy assassination to crash the lingering "age of innocence" from the 1950s, and then came Beatlemania and a new explosion of rock ' roll into the dominant worldwide music force it is today.
I have no doubt that for Don McClean the music may have died. He took the deaths pretty hard and was still writing about it 10 years later.
And it's also true many important contributions to the music world by at least Holly would have been forthcoming had the crash not occurred. One only has to look at the hugely successful career of Waylon Jennings, a bandmate who narrowly missed being a passenger on the plane, to see what a bright future was possible for Holly and the others.
But any theory that the song based on the tragedy was anything more one person's sad reaction is a crazy overstatement.
And it's so crazy that this documentary really has to be at least partly a parody of documentaries that take their subject matter too seriously.
WeCrashed (2022)
Who cares?
Watched episode one. Got it. Time to move on. (And here I need to type enough to fill the 150-character requirement set by IMBD on this date, March 26, 2022.)
American Crime Story (2016)
Not worth a series; questionable casting
Re: "Impeachment"
It doesn't seem like a dramatization of this sleazy chapter in our history can be very illustrative. We know the details so it's just about seeing it play out all over again with some fun portrayals by name actors/actresses.
But even that justification falls apart with the choice of the actress to play Monica Lewinsky. The production goes to great lengths to mimic the appearances of all the major players in the drama -- the hulking double-chinned Linda Tripp, soft-spoken gray-haired Bill Clinton, mousy Paula Jones (the nose!), etc. -- with this one curious exception.
Beanie Feldstein's only resemblance to Lewinsky is the hair style. It would be like having Adam Sandler play Clinton or Kristin Chenoweth play Tripp or Britney Spears play Jones. Just different body types, different appearances. Each attractive in their own way.
The whole narrative falls apart if all of the principal actors/actresses look just like the people they're portraying except the woman at the center of it all.
Perhaps the people behind the production were attempting to say that Clinton would have sought sex from anything in a skirt that passed his way in the White House, that it did not matter what she looked like.
Buffaloed (2019)
Awful
Tortuous. If I hadn't paid to rent this I would have turned it off after the lead's first appearance. She is repulsive. And, be forewarned, the actress's in-your-face portrayal of the vile character - her desperation to be cute and fun - makes her more unattractive with each passing minute.
Gisaengchung (2019)
Killed by violence
There was no need for the bloodbath ending. All of the film's points could have been made without it. A 10 review until then,
The Laundromat (2019)
Simply awful
A mish-mash. Annoying performances from all the leads, particularly Oldman. Nonsensical guide to complex situation. Couldn't wait for it to end.
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Why?
One star for Holly Hunter, a half star for Delroy Lindo (whose current role on "The Good Fight" led me to check out this movie) and a half star for Dan Hadata. Otherwise awful.
Aladdin (2019)
Great start and finish sandwiched around out-of-place action-movie stretch
For about the first 90 minutes, this was tremendously (and surprisingly) enjoyable - the humor, the music, the animation, the CGI. Great show. Had this geezer grandpa charmed.
Then comes about a 20-minute indulgence in spectacle over substance - big melodramatic confrontations of the Marvel comics, action picture, superhero variety.
The preceding "Aladdin" movie, which had proceeded in the spirit of its predecessors, is set aside. (Along the way, we also get the now-mandatory Disney female-empowerment song, particularly unnecessary for a Jasmine character that already has shown herself to be strong, independent, smart, wise, caring and bold while also being, by the way, incredibly beautiful and attractive to stud-muffin Aladdin. Now, go live up to that role model, girls!)
But finally, after all the chaos, we get the sweet ending, so all is forgiven.
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
Barely worth streaming
This Mary Poppins is bossy, distant (even icy at times), pompous, vain.
She has the power to float high in the air and to transport people to magical other-worlds, where she is immensely popular, or take them to magical places, where seemingly irreparable broken items can get repaired.
Yet, she is powerless to help her chosen family as it is being sadly displaced from its home and powerless to help the family make a desperation ride to save it, which just required getting them to their destination about five minutes faster than normal modes of transportation.
But she does float in at the last second to save the day after letting a team of lamplighters risk their lives for several minutes, climbing the side of Big Ben.
For the closing song, I give it two stars.
Roma (2018)
Wake me
In a word: boring. In two words: very boring. No reason to watch unless you are into black and white cinematography.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)
Good for all ages
Oldsters (like me) are decades removed from this movie's target YA audience but, if you liked the teenage angst movies of John Hughes ("Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," "Some Kind of Wonderful") you can truly enjoy this modern-day, politically corrected dip into that genre. ("Sixteen Candles" actually gets a shout-out in the flick.)
It takes some suspension of disbelief (some relaxation of the critical mindset that comes with age) but no more than others of its type. ("Lady Bird" being the exception -- a teen angst movie that overlaid the Hughes blueprint with grit and realism.)
The biggest obstacle is accepting the obviously older actors playing teens, especially the 30-something actress playing the 18-year-old sister. (Molly Ringwald was 16 when she played a 16-year-old.) If that doesn't bother you, then go for it. (Mostly it's 20-somethings in the late-teen roles, according to birthdates on IMBD.)
Killing Eve (2018)
10-star build-up, 1-star finale
The first seven episodes had me on the edge of my seat. The finale sent me to the floor in utter disappointment.
The failure to conclude the primary plot point - the pursuit of an evil, psychopathic killer by a smart, wily, unconventional investigator - ruined the series, which had built up to it with seven intriguing, thrilling episodes. Leaving open the fate of Villanelle is simply lazy writing; quality writing in the detective-pursuit genre involves a beginning, a middle and an end, which wraps up the plot points raised in the previous sections.
Viewers deserved a resolution. Who wants to watch another eight hours of a conflicted investigator pursuing a pathetic, heartless killer?
I know the writers can claim they simply were capitulating to the mores of television by providing a cliffhanger that will bring back viewers for a second season but that is no excuse for leading us to a concluding confrontation and then leaving us hanging.
Eve's complete obsession with Villanelle, as a woman, just didn't wash, and her panic upon stabbing her also made no sense.
This was built up and presented as part detective-pursuit drama and part character study. In failing to deliver a conclusion on the former it left viewers to concentrate on the latter. If I had known that in advance I would not have watched.