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Prelude to War (1942)
I enjoyed it
I found this short film fascinating. It very clearly lays out to the "common man" the argument in favor of getting involved in WW II. Yes, the animation is crude by today's standards and the voice-over is melodramatic, but considering most people of fifty-odd years ago never got anywhere near a college campus and their lives stopped at the city limits of their hometowns, this film does a good job of spelling out what was going on around the world and what was at stake. The earnestness with which it is presented may be seen as campy today, but just imagine what it must have been like, trying to understand it all and trying to guess what it would mean to you and your family.
That's Hollywood! (1976)
Why isn't this great series available on tape?
This was a brilliant documentary series that analyzed a particular genre of film or a particular performer's career each week. Made by and for people who love the movies and want to know more, it's fascinating and great fun. I've been waiting for this great series to be available on tape; I'd snap it up in a minute.
McLintock! (1963)
I don't know...
This movie starts out as a serious movie about the proud man of accomplishment with one heart-wrenching problem: trying to hang on to his wife and daughter. His wife at some point decided she hated the West and the uncouth yokels there and took their daughter away to be educated in the East, and is trying to make the daughter into a woman after her own views, while McLintock is trying to make sure that she can appreciate the beauty of the West and the glory of living there.
Then there's a second-string romance between the daughter and a college-educated ranch hand (which I didn't buy for a minute because the daughter is just so unappealing -- that nice young man deserves better), and finally there's a slapstick ending with Mrs. McLintock getting a public spanking.
It's not that I expect older movies or movies that take place in an earlier time period to conform to modern ideas of political correctness, but I guess I just didn't buy that Mrs. McLintock really DIDN'T want to leave her husband. She seemed an awful shrew to me, and her husband seemed better off without her. I don't find people constantly squabbling to be amusing. It seemed to me the plot had to find excuses for her to be there and to be angry -- the whole "fiery Irish redhead" thing.
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
If Jesse Helms and Pat Buchanan made movies...
Oh. My. God! I rented this movie out of curiosity; I honestly thought it would be so dated that it couldn't be truly offensive. The blacks in this movie are portrayed as simple-minded, violent children. There is not one sympathetic black character. The movie tells the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the point of view of the white supremacists. The disenfranchised whites suddenly find themselves at the mercy of the black voters, jurors, legislators and business owners running the show. Lillian Gish plays the daughter of a white politician who is the "leader" of the blacks, a "Radical" who believes not only that blacks and whites are equal but also that blacks will and should take over from the whites, using violence if necessary. Gish's fiance forms the Ku Klux Klan to end the anarchy, and when she finds out what he does she ends their engagement (though she won't "tell" on him 'cause she's a lady and a good daughter of the South). Later she is at the mercy of her father's mulatto henchman, an evil character with political ambitions of his own, who gets drunk and tries to persuade her to marry him and be the "queen" of his black nation, while dozens of blacks riot outside. Of course her fiance, along with dozens of other Klansmen, ride triumphantly to her rescue and trounce the rioters. Then the blacks are intimidated into giving up their political power and peace is restored, and Gish and her fiance marry and live happily ever after. Just appallingly offensive stuff. Yeah, it's historically significant and it's well-made (it's kind of long, and tends to be slow until the second half of the story), but WOW.
Ultimately it's just so sad in the way it's so matter-of-fact. Sure, the idea of a population of uneducated, unsophisticated people being in charge is worrisome, but this movie jumps to conclusions about how their society would immediately collapse into anarchy, and that all blacks (and mulattoes) are dangerous, violent people with political agendas. You want to write a big check to the NAACP or the Southern Poverty Law Center (they fight the Klan) after seeing this movie.
Lillian Gish never married; she said the only man she ever loved was D.W. Griffith. After I saw this movie I lost all respect for her.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Well, this is why I'm an atheist.
Even though I do not believe in an afterlife, I was very impressed by a trailer for this movie awhile back and I had hoped it would be stunning and moving and all kinds of other superlatives. Well, it IS good-looking in a way that I've not seen since "Baron Munchausen" or maybe "Brazil." But then I got mired in the conception of Heaven/Hell as seen in this movie. You can have anything in Heaven, but there are rules about how to perceive things and move around. It's whatever you want it to be, but Chris can't have Annie (first she's alive, then she's in Hell; what if they'd had a different kind of relationship and she didn't want HIM? Chris' perception of Annie can be just fantasy anyway, right?). And of course, how could you enjoy Heaven knowing the "lost souls" are stuck and in torment? And once Chris sets out to find Annie, the movie starts to sound like a quest film ("these are your instructions, these are the rules"), but the action never takes off (he finds her and saves her in an inexplicably short time). I will say the movie makes one think, if one hasn't already, about the nature of the afterlife, and it's great to look at, but it's very frustrating. Funny that this movie is getting so many bad reviews; given that it seems pretty mainstream, it seems to have offended a lot of people.