Reviews
Live from Lincoln Center: South Pacific (2010)
A Perfect Production
Principal New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley wrote in his original review of this production that, "I know we're not supposed to expect perfection in this imperfect world, but I'm darned if I can find one serious flaw in this production."
That sums it up for me. It's unfortunate, not to mention very confusing, that Live From Lincoln Center never released a DVD, but thousands made perfectly legal recordings of the broadcast on their DVRs, and it shouldn't be too hard to find a copy.
The Best of Times (1986)
A sweet little comedy that will bring tears to the eyes of life's chronic losers
High School. How much is packed into that four year period that will mold and define our lives ever after. As definitively portrayed by Janis Ian in her surprise hit classic "At Seventeen," the real high school stories are not about the Beach Boys driving around town in their deuce coupe and their woody, surrounded by the finest of high school womanhood, but rather about the poor souls alone at home on Saturday night.
Recently someone I know had his guitar stolen. It was not just any guitar, but one he cherished that was given to him, a good looking young man, as a present by family friends in thanks for his having taken their daughter to her senior prom when she had no one else who would have taken her. To the parents, that was what it was worth to have their daughter holding her head up proudly at the prom versus being miserably alone at home.
Jack, here played to perfection by Robin Williams, was one of those chronic losers, forever unable to escape the disgrace of having dropped an easy game-winning catch that would have propelled his team to victory for the first time ever against rival big, bad Bakersfield. This film depicts Jack's unlikely redemption and, if you were one who was greatly moved by "At Seventeen," you will probably brush a tear from your eye at the end.
Cannery Row (1982)
A Gem for the Sentimental
I was at first a little surprised that this film had received such middling reviews and was not a box-office success. I had loved it when I first saw it in the 80s on some pay TV channel and thought that Nolte and Winger were a terrific couple. (My discovery that Rachel Welch was originally cast in Winger's role was completely unfathomable.) After seeing the film I read the Steinbeck novels on which it was based: Cannery Row and the sequel Sweet Thursday. I also loved the novels and thought that the film was generally faithful to them.
But I soon realized that I was a lover of sentimental films, and that this was a sentimental film. Skid rows are not full of the lovable and eccentric characters that inhabit Cannery Row. But if you are also a lover of sentimental films, and especially if you are a fan of one of the stars, by all means see the film. You may be enormously pleased.
Thirteen Days (2000)
Time at last to tell the true story of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Now that we are removed almost 50 years from this event, can we at last give the straightforward account of the Cuban Missle Crisis.
In 1961 the United States moved one hundred Intermediate Range Ballastic Missiles onto the territory of its allies Turkey and Italy. These missiles could strike Moscow with nuclear warheads on very short notice.
The Soviet Union, not being pleased by this, countered by moving intermediate range ballistic missiles into its ally Cuba, where they could strike Washington on short notice.
The United States showed outrage at this provocative policy without drawing the obvious comparison with the US missiles in Turkey and Italy, except to getting around to saying that the missiles were obsolete anyway one year after being deployed. The US threatened to attack the missiles in Cuba and then invade.
This supposedly would move us to the brink of mutual nuclear annihilation. But given the reasonable sanity of our government (except for Gen. Curtis Lemay, the mass murderer of millions of Japanese women and children in WWII), would this have actually happened? Someone would have pulled back from the brink at the cost of looking weak.
This someone turned out to be the "stupid peasant" leader of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev, who arranged a back door deal to break the deadlock.
What the deal came down to really required brilliance: the Russians would remove the missiles from Cuba and the US would remove the missiles from Turkey (which were obsolete, you recall). But the removal of the Turkish missiles was not to be made public. Instead it would be said that the missiles were being removed because the US promised never to invade Cuba. As if a diplomatic promise between two enemies was ever good for anything.
So the hero turns out to be stupid Khrushchev, who appeared to be making the bargain of a weak fool, but did not let that stop him from preventing the destruction of the world.
Cat Ballou (1965)
A Forgotten Delight
I'm surprised that this film didn't receive a higher rating. It was one of the ten most popular films of 1965. It is a funny and witty western satire featuring a young and adorable Jane Fonda and a hilarious Lee Marvin as a one time legendary gun fighter who is now a filthy drunk who can't hit the proverbial broad side of a barn. The evil businessmen want the water rights under Fonda's father's ranch and they will stop at nothing to get them. Fonda hires Marvin to face off with the gunslinger hired by the villains and at first it does not go well.
A really nice touch is the addition of Nat King Cole and Stubby Kay as the "Greek chorus" who sing directly to the audience at intervals to comment on the story. (Think of the singers who open and close "There's Something About Mary.") Unfortunately Nat Cole was already fighting lung cancer while the film was being made and he died before it opened.
Leaves you wondering why Hollywood just doesn't make films like this anymore. No special effects, no obscenity and no gratuitous sex. Humor arises from the characters and from the screenplay.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
I give up! I just don't get it.
As I approach my 60th birthday and am confronted with these hundreds of rave reviews for this, (in my poor estimation only) seedy, slow moving, dull and grisly adaptation of Sondheim's "classic" musical which ran for less than 600 performances in its initial run in 1979, with the presence of the wonderful Angela Lansbury in the lead female role, 200 performances in its 1989 Broadway revival and only 384 performances in the 2005 revival despite the always dynamic presence of Patti Lupone in the Lansbury role. In contrast, the last Broadway revivals of Show Boat and South Pacific ran for 1000 performances.
I've just become disconnected with what entrances the younger film goers these days. Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Philadelphia Story, Twelve Angry Men, Inherit the Wind. All well-acted dramas with a point to make (except perhaps GWTW).
Sweeney. What is the attraction or point of having the actors chant their lyrics musically instead of speaking them. Most of the "good" songs, (as opposed to popular songs, of which there are none) have been cut.
But why the appeal of the gore. Is it because this generation grew up idolizing The Godfather, Goodfellas, and many other gangster films and violent Vietnam War films? I just don't know and would be happy to have someone explain it to me. I would love to see a breakdown of the film's popularity by sex and age. I have to think that a lot of the film's critics are just too reluctant to post negative views in the face of all the ten star reviews.
Certainly Johnny Depp is a very good actor and Tim Burton a talented film-maker. But why the great popularity for gruesome fantasies? Times change, I guess, and taste with them.
Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982)
Most Others Don't Share Your Opinion
Well, Herthh, you're entitled to your long, senseless and mostly incoherent opinion. It's good to see that you're a fan of the eight copy-cat prime time crime dramas currently ruling the fading major networks.
"Gold Monkey" had a great cast of talented actors who had strong chemistry together. That's why it developed such a strong group of devotees during its short life time. The Kirk, Spock and McCoy characters could have been plunked down into almost any plot and had a hit because of the appealing interaction between them.
If you didn't find the relationships between Jake and Corky and Jake and Sarah appealing then you're just not a 30's kind of guy.
Thank You for Smoking (2005)
A "Titanic" oversight
It was very refreshing to see Hollywood tackle the most difficult genre of satire in such a humorous and objective fashion.
I had to laugh when Naylor proposed that the cigarette industry needed Hollywood stars to start lighting up again in its films.
Only a few years previously in the blockbuster "Titanic," a film reportedly seen a half dozen times each by every thirteen year old girl in the country, featured the heroic romantic couple of Kate and Leo both prominently smoking cigarettes. For him it was cool and for her it was rebellious.
I can't recall seeing a single complaint at the time.
Lost (2004)
After Season 5, there is no way that Season 6 can resolve the story
Sawyer just appeared on Ellen's talk show and said that with only six or seven episodes left to film he still couldn't make any sense out of the story.
The writers blew it in season 5 when, instead of starting to wind down the already mega-complicated plot, they introduced new characters, live and dead, new relationships and above all brought in time-travel to make the science fiction element of LOST predominant. This led to two and three story lines proceeding at the same time in different years.
A sign of writer fatigue was in the last episode when Sayid, an Iraqi torturer with no known degree from a prestigious university, became the world's quickest study on nuclear physics. Reading from Faraday's notebook he figured out how to extract the core of the H-bomb and set it to detonate on impact (which, from my moderate knowledge of such bombs, is impossible).
Still one of the memorable series in TV history, but I'm afraid it will be known as a series the writers let get away from them.
Avatar (2009)
Wow - What Special Effects
Another sorry commentary on the current state of our pop culture that this film is rated as of now the 26th best of all time. Advertising, action and special effects over story and characters.
Fortunately we have hundreds of movie classics with real movie stars readily available for rental and download to those intelligent enough to want more from the magic of movies. The children who comprise most of today's movie-goers are not interested in thinking, only in sitting back and being "entertained." 3-D films came and quickly disappeared in the mid-20th century. Now a new audience thinks that they are beyond a worthless gimmick
Remember WENN (1996)
Overlooked Gem
WENN was a series of paramount humor, nostalgia and sentiment. Melinda Mullins as Hilary Booth by herself turned in a performance worthy of an Emmy. The Christmas show with Betty Buckley was a classic and Rupert Holmes contributed excellent original music. This series reminded us that great entertainment could be generated without requiring an 'R' rating.
The creative forces behind this series could do us all a great favor if they could see to its release on DVD. It far outshines many other series so released. Our generation deserves a chance to share in the short-lived but memorable era of pre-television radio.