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Reviews
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Bardem channels Topol
The nutshell review is that it's good, a little too much mood lighting and dark. Paul's night in the desert is practically over once it begins, and I think the actual novel is self contained and not set up for a sequel--I don't remember all the houses being arrayed at the end against Paul and the freemen, but I'm a little hazy--I read the book fifty years ago and the first movie forty years ago and I haven't read any of the sequels. But mostly I wanted to comment on Javier Bardem's performance. I believe he must have watched 'Fiddler on the Roof' twenty times to prepare for this role because he sounds just like Topol playing Tevye! Maybe if they do a remake he should play the milkman. So I liked the movie, it's good to show Paul being a reluctant savior--there are too many eager saviors in this world of ours but I wasn't totally wrapped up in the world of the movie and kept thinking back to other versions. I give it three popcorn bags.
The Gathering (2002)
Stupid plot
I'm giving this three stars because the production values are good, the art direction is excellent, good actors and it's reasonably well directed. The final chase through the cornfield although I question whether someone who's been blasting a shotgun as well as a pistol could hear the puff of an inhaler thirty feet away. But that plot! A bunch of creepy looking people go throughout the ages witnessing violence. Not doing it and not preventing it but just watching it and apparently these people can get amnesia. You've got to be kidding me! Not truly scary and when it's over I went what!? This is the movie for people who feel everybody's watching them--it will give them some validation!
The Lost World (1960)
Hamburger instead foie gras
I love this movie! Every time I come across it I linger on it. It brings me back to my childhood in the sixties when the Galion theater would show movies like this on Saturday matinees. Good times. The plot--who cares!!?? A group of adventurers go to a strange locale and have an adventure. Good looking men and good looking women and character actors get a job. No one is going to get an Oscar for this and you can leave the method on your dresser. I will say the 'dinosaur' fight is unexciting--two lizards thrashing about. This is the first movie where I saw smoke on the water and the characters have to escape on a row of rocks. It seemed very mysterious at the time. So if you're in the mood for hamburgers instead of foie gras this is your movie.
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Ho-hum but reminded me of youthful movie going
First I want my twelve year old self to give his review: It's okay. That was the way I felt at the time. So fifty six years have passed and my wife was watching it on TCM. I found my past assessment on the nose. A spy, Harry Palmer, gets involved with a crazy oil millionaire, a former KGB nemesis, a beautiful woman, an untrustworthy associate. Yada, yada, yada. None of it is very compelling but Ken Russell shows early promise by livening up a ho-hum script and making a small group of extras look numerous. You really should watch 'Women in Love' for a coherent Russell film. This is one of those stories that irritates me because the protagonist just stumbles from on bit of action to the next and is not really a participant in the action but simply reacting to it. Two more things--one, Oscar Homolka is the best. In the Times' By the Book section they ask 'which three authors would you invite to a dinner party? I will say which three character actors would you invite? Today's list is Oscar Homolka, Akim Tamaroff and Peter Lorre. These guys have seen and done things. Second thank you, Dad, for taking me to so many movies in my youth, it was time well spent.
The Split (1968)
Fifty years later it looks a lot different
I last saw this movie when it was released at the Galion Theater when double features were common and the local theaters would show strange combinations for kids at the matinees--but enough about my journey to the past --when I thought of this movie I remembered a pretty good heist movie with good actors
Now that I see it again it is not perfectly awful but not that good. The scenes where Jim Brown recruits his team--usually this is a good sequence from Seven Samurai to today's films --is kinda stupid with Brown provoking all his candidates, though it is fun to see him and Ernest Borgnine punching it out. Was the scene between Jim and Diahanna Carroll improvised? Because they don't seem to have much to say. They look good together but she is completely wasted. The business with James Whitmore is really weird and he disappears quickly. The hold-up of the stadium is the best part. Maybe they should have had the final shout-out there. And speak of the final shoot-out it is poorly staged and without tension. What is good about the film is that we can watch Donald Sutherland in an early bad guy role, Borgnine and Gene Hackman(who is also wasted) and other good actors. And Jim Brown has never looked any better or more relaxed. If this was from a book, perhaps the book put it together better but I was disappointed. The script needed six more revisions.
Sorcerer (1977)
Great but too long
I loved this movie as well as the original, the wages of fear', but Sorcerer is too long. The back stories, especially of the French businessman and the Palestinian are way too long and perhaps unnecessary. Once the trip begins I give it an Aplus plus an Aplus. Great acting cinematography, suspense, editing. Four men against the elements and their own personalities. The river crossing is great, and the mountain scenes are otherworldly. It might have done better box office if the initial slog wasn't so long. That, and unsympathetic characters make it a difficult sell. It is good to see Roy Scheider in a role that challenges him.
The Postman (1997)
Too much schmaltz
As a working letter carrier I looked forward to this movie but I was completely disappointed. Most of the good stuff was at the beginning--the story of someone who starts a story and it becomes way bigger than he could have dreamed of. Maybe Costner's heart swelled when he dreamt up the scene of grabbing the letter from the boy but it struck me as total schmaltz. Later there is a cable car ride that is completely pointless--we'll put that in the file 'looks good but makes no sense'. And then the music swells, a buncha guys on horseback and the set up for a big action finale-- and it ends in a fistfight between the protagonist and antagonist. That wouldn't be so bad --not every movie needs to end in a blood bath--but it is such a poorly staged fight it was a complete disappointment to me.
Robin Hood (2010)
Too much at the end
I loved this movie but I feel it lost its way in the big conclusion. It got lost in the 'bigs'--like 'we need a really, really big ending here so it was not enough to tussle with Mark Strong and his gang but the French had to invade too! Better to have the two English groups fight and with proper staging and editing it would have been just as exciting and would make a little more sense. I would have liked to see a sequel but money talks and it was silent on this film. And since I'm short I'll pile on to a previous review--the side characters need more to do and say. This is a failing of many films but the ones that take time and thought to these little bits of business are usually more enjoyable.