fiat0903 Reviews

NCIS: Semper Fortis (2014) Season 12, Episode 8

Must you assist

[8/10 · 4 July 2017]

To add to the other comments, there are states in which, if you have the ability, you must render assistance. These laws were passed when news reporters stood by as Buddhist monks immolated themselves. The cameras rolled even though many of the news camera teams had fire extinguishers at the ready, ostensibly to protect the news crew. Once the law was passed, the suicides stopped.

Further, there is a painful irony in the comments of the police sergeant that "you can't change the law". When I was a child in Virginia, it would have been unthinkable for an African American to be a policeman, let alone a sergeant. The laws limiting such jobs to White people were changed. Laws are changed regularly. Sometimes by legislatures, sometimes by courts. Sorry, Sarge, but you were wrong, painfully so.

Die Csárdásfürstin (1971)

For Unabashed Romantic Slobs

[9/10 · 3 January 2009]

Czardasfurstin is a personal favorite even if it is more than a bit outdated. This DVD is descended more from the Broadway/Hollywood style than from the Wiener Volksoper. The script was heavily rewritten but is far, far closer to the original than the horrible butcherings of Lustige Witwe, the best of all operettas of the era just before World War One. There is some rewriting of lyrics in the better known numbers, for example, the very popular "Let Me Dance and Let Me Sing". The changes are minor. Maybe Kallman had different versions.

The writers added the non-singing role Miska to move the plot along. It makes the story fall together. With the scene shifting that film made available, a facilitator like Miska helps a lot.

It is obvious that the singing is overdubbed. So what?

Anna Moffo is gorgeous both in face and voice. Rene Kollo looks a decade younger than she. An excellent voice for the role. How can you not love Dagmar Koller? (See her on the recent Andre Rieu Live in Vienna. Still lovely.) Sandar Nemeth as Boni is a bit over-matched by Moffo and Kollo's singing but his dancing with Koller (who is excellent) makes up for it. (Moffo fakes the stage dancing. Step left. Together. Step right. Together. Repeat. But, she was not hired for her dancing. Again, so what?) The rest of the cast do a creditable job. Wonder how long it took Peter Huszti (Rohnsdorff)to get that broomstick out of his butt.

The orchestration is a bit pinched. Instead of the big sound from a motion picture sound studio, we get the sound of a stage show pit band. Might even have been recorded in someone's garage. Considering that Kallman's writing is lush, almost gooey, we feel cheated.

The subtitles suffer from what so many subtitles do. They are paraphrases, not translations of the original. Since they do not scan poetically, why paraphrase?

Still, the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Considering some of the schlock given 8's and 9's here, this is easily a 9 or better. If you are, like I am, an Unabashed Romantic Slob, this is well worth watching.

Candyman (1992)

Good start, goes bad

[3/10 · 5 January 2008]

The first half of this film is about average for a mystery-thriller. Madsen plays a woman researching the urban myth of a hook-handed murderer. This is for a Ph.D. thesis. So our heroine is well above average in intelligence. She finds evidence that the myth may have basis in fact. She investigates, going to the scene of two murders. She is attacked by thugs, sustaining serious eye injury. Magically, a few days later she she is healed. (That is forgivable.) Not long after, she acts as if nothing had happened to her. She takes no care for her safety. She enters a parking garage. (Why do somany bad films have parking garage scenes?). She hears her name called from a great distance away. Normal people would hurry to get into their car and escape. Not our girl. She freezes, dropping her keys. Aw, c'mon. We are expected to believe that this woman is, in one scene, brilliant. Then, in the next, she is abysmally stupid. Inconsistency in a character is textbook bad script writing. The film then becomes unwatchable. Don't waste your time with this drivel.

Dinner at Eight (1933)

Not a Goof

[9/10 · 17 December 2006]

You report as a goof that Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) first tells Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) that she sold her stock to a Mr. Baldridge but moments later says it was a Mr. Bainbridge.

When Vance first tells Jordan the name, she has to look at the check to get the name. When Jordan is on the phone, she states the name as she remembers it and the two differ.

The change in the name is not a goof but a wonderfully done Dressler moment showing that her character, after downing a large glass of whiskey, neat, that she is more than a bit addled.

It was so marvelously done that she fooled even the IMDb staff!

Hurrah, Marie. Well done!

Hero (I) (1992)

Don't Confuse Heartwarming with Great

[6/10 · 27 November 2006]

One of those mediocre films that many people are fooled by because it is "heartwarming". It is not a bad film. It is just not much better than average. It is a pleasant film, an enjoyable film, but it hardly ranks with It's A Wonderful Life, the paragon of this type. If IAWL is a 10, this is a 6. Look at the demographics of the vote. The highest ratings came from females under 18. Older viewers rated it as just above average. That is predictable. The older a viewer is, the more likely that the viewer has seen many films of this type. We have seen it all before - and better done. Films of this type were common during the Depression, films to buoy the spirits of a nation on the ropes.

The Merry Widow (1934)

A Delightful Travesty

[8/10 · 28 January 2006]

No need to add to the many reviews finding this a delightful, well made film. It is every bit that. Yet, this film violates one of the principles of truth in filming. It is NOT the Lehar Merry Widow. At best it is a distant cousin. To be sure, the film uses some of the music, albeit in odd places. and uses the names of some of the characters.

One of the plot elements of both the Lehar and the Lubitsch is the need for the tiny country to have the widow marry to keep her millions in the country's bank. The male lead is Danilo in both but in Lehar he is a playboy count. Here he is a bold captain. In Lehar, the leads were lovers in the past. Here they are newly met. And so it goes.

From the standpoint of faithfulness to the Lehar work, a work which still enraptures, this film is a travesty. Yet, it is a delightful travesty. Too bad they did not give it a different name.

Naked City: Justice with a Bullet (1998 TV Movie)

Fatally Bad

[1/10 · 22 January 2006]

As bad as they get. This film commits the fatal error of making the viewer not care what happens to characters. The two women in this flick are so stupid that you begin to root for the bad guys so this thing would end.

This film is one of the few that was so bad that I had to turn to another channel.

Put in highbrow language, this film lacks verisimilitude. People, not even people from Ohio, simply do not act like this. Well, maybe the writers do.

There is not enough beer in the world to make this film bearable.

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