wainscoat-1 Reviews

One Foot in Heaven (1941)

Loved this movie - and I'm an athiest

[10/10 · 2 September 2021]

Whenever this movie is on, I always try to watch the end, which is one of my favorite movie endings of all times. If you can get through it with a dry eye, your heart is made of stone.

Although I am an atheist now, as a child I was taken care of by an extremely kind Christian lady. The film reminds me a lot of her. I like how the dad was something of a realist about people, but also saw the good in them. And then, in the end, they saw the good in each other, because of him.

Bloodline (2015–2017)

Trashy People is a Pretty Setting

[1/10 · 24 June 2021]

Every script was EXACTLY the same. F-word, F-word, F-word, a weird misunderstanding about the basics of money, including wills and mortgages, and then....someone would intone that "It's all about family."

Well, the family-run hotel was pretty, but I doubt that Bloodline's Rayburn family could run their hotel any better than the Bates family ran theirs.

I only made it through Season 1.

Master of None (2015–2021)

Season 3: What was Aziz thinking?

[1/10 · 13 June 2021]

I was a huge fan of seasons 1 and 2 - which I still recommend as original, insightful, and funny. In fact, I rank Master of None (S1 and S2) in my top 5 Netflix series. Master of None - season 3, however, ranks as the worst Netflix show I have ever seen.

I had make myself watch the first half hour of episode 1 in season 3. Before turning it off. There didn't seem to be an actual script, just a camera set up in a lovely house inhabited by two of the most boring people ever shown on TV.

Seriously, Aziz....why did you do this to your fans?

Away (2020)

Stay "Away"

[3/10 · 11 October 2020]

I could not make it through one episode. Every person we meet is introduced as a genius/hero/perfect person. Even the 13 year old daughter is a model of adorable sensitivity - unlike any other 13 year old girl I have ever met. What is with this new hagiographic style of drama? It's every place. How could this braggy style of storytelling ever be interesting?

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019)

Best Television Show Ever

[10/10 · 9 December 2019]

I'm worried that I will decrease the coolness factor of the show by saying that I am a 62 year old woman, have watched way too much TV in life, and that this is the best TV show I've ever seen......by far.

Yes, sometimes it was a bit too raunchy for me (and Santino Fontana - you broke my heart!) but the show really captures what it's like to be a woman in your twenties in a way that nothing else has ever done. It immediately brought back so many feelings that I've tried to forget, primarily because the feelings were so painful at the time. The fact that I was in my twenties decades ago, speaks to the raw honesty of the show.

It's also extremely witty and well-written, with excellent songwriting by Adam Schlesinger, Jack Dolgen, and Rachel Bloom. Many of the songs (Fit Hot Guys, Tap that *ss, Sports Analogies, OMG - I Think I Like You) are laugh-out-loud funny, while others (The End of the Movie, It was a S-Show, You Stupid B*ch) are extremely moving.

All the cast (esp Scott Michael Foster and Donna Lynne Champlin) are fantastic, but Rachel Bloom (lead, creator, songwriter) is, I think, the Charlie Chaplin of our times - multi-talented in a way that creates a whole new kind of popular art - one that captures today's reality perfectly.

S.W.A.T. (2017– )

So Bad and So Hot that I Watch It Every Week

[5/10 · 20 April 2019]

This is the only TV show that I tune into every week. I don't think I could even name another Network TV Drama that is on.

It's bad. My favorite moment is when Hondo, the hunky SWAT Leader, helpfully explains to the L.A. Police Commissioner about the existence of Fentanyl, because apparently the L.A. Police Commissioner had never heard of it.

It's hot. Shemar Moore as Hondo, the hunky SWAT leader, helpfully takes his shirt off at least once an episode and also has a dynamite smile.

I'm female and, in the beginning, I would just turn on the show to watch the credits in which the adorable SWAT cast would strut around in their tight uniforms to the fantastic music. But now I watch the show so faithfully that my husband of 30 years is starting to feel insecure.

The male audience, however, might need a little Fentanyl in order to sit through an entire episode.

The Grand Inquisitor (2008)

Great Performance by Marsha Hunt

[8/10 · 18 October 2017]

I didn't like the story - as I saw (almost) what as going to happen right away. But the acting by Marsha Hunt was amazing. You would never know she was 90 by the intensity of her acting.

I had never heard of Ms. Hunt, but TCM was running a series of movies on her. I saw (part of) two 1940's movies in which she seemed both beautiful and highly intelligent. The last movie shown was "The Grand Inquisitor", and she brought the same intelligence to a much darker and more dramatic role. Watch the movie for her. (The other actress is good as well.)

On a trivia note, I had always thought that John Wayne had the longest film career, with movies stretching from 1926 to 1976. But Ms. Hunt's movies go from 1935 to 2008, beating him by almost 20 years.

Columbus (I) (2017)

An unusually great movie (because of/ in spite of) its very slow pace.

[9/10 · 2 October 2017]

I really enjoyed this movie, even though it was easily the slowest paced movie I have ever seen. I'm not sure why this worked. It was almost as if the movie gave the viewer time to think about the characters because there were so many pauses in dialog. There was a mysterious "real life" experience to watching the movie, unlike any I had ever had before, and I found myself thinking about the characters for days afterwards in the way I might think about a puzzling friend. "Columbus" should have been boring, but it wasn't.

Magic Mike XXL (2015)

XXL is XX Lame

[1/10 · 12 July 2015]

I totally loved the first Magic Mike and the first 5 minutes of XXL looked good too. But after those first 5 minutes....XXL suddenly turned into one long improv show - The sort of improv done by people with fabulous bodies and no sense of humor whatsoever - The sort of improv where audience members shout out topics like "Frozen Yogurt" or "A boring person sits next to you on a bus and just won't shut up." After a while I felt sorry for the actors who seemed to try so hard to come up with something, anything, to say, while growing more and more resentful as in "Hey - we're strippers, not writers. Do we have to do everything?"

And the dancing this time? Yuck. I even felt sorry for the female audience members in the dance sequences. Imagine that you are just out for a fun bachelorette party, when you suddenly find yourself thrust 6 feet in the air with your "bachelorette parts" strapped across some strange guy's face and then the guy starts doing somersaults and cartwheels. Ouch.

I left about 3/4ths of the way through. It was just all too sad.

Liberal Arts (2012)

Unsentimental Education

[10/10 · 4 November 2012]

I was prepared to hate this movie, but I loved it. "Liberal Arts" is the very rare modern movie that is actually about something, other than the pleasant passing of 90 minutes with clever and attractive people.

To me, it seemed like "Liberal Arts" tried to deal with the idea that the life of the mind begins in college and is then immediately crushed the day after college. This can sometimes make the believers in this life angry and inert and disappointed for the rest of their lives, to the point that the whole value of college, or thinking, is questioned. Questioned, but never totally disbelieved.

Mr. Radnor was born the year before I went to college, but I still found much of his excellent writing to be a heartfelt, but unsentimental, depiction of the struggles that adults face every day.

Like many of his characters, I too found that reading is often so much more interesting than living, to the extent that I had to give up meaningful reading fifteen years ago to raise a family. "Liberal Arts" made me long to pick up a real book again, while continuing to question if the intensity of that longing is good or bad

Toy Story 3 (2010)

A wonderful movie in every single way, especially in the most important way.

[10/10 · 20 June 2010]

I am 52 years old and have seen an embarrassingly huge amount of movies over the past 45+ years. Toy Story 3 is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

It took me a few days to figure out why I was so affected by the movie. Toy Story 3 is really funny and imaginative, but so are a lot of other movies. I could see that the audience, including my own two children (16 and 11), were deeply engrossed in the film, laughing and crying, and bursting into applause together after the final scene. It is very rare today to see a theater audience having such a deep and common understanding of something as a group. I had seen this occur more frequently in the past, however, so the shared experience (while very nice) isn't really what makes the movie so great for me.

I think that the movie is great because Woody has to struggle with his age and purpose in way that seems so shockingly real. In the first part of my life, I only wanted to find a role that was worthy of me, an education or a job or a spouse that would let me....well...what I did wasn't really important, only that I be the greatest at whatever unique thing I was supposed to do. In the second part of my life, I found myself doing something that wasn't unique - it was pretty much what others did; Nor was I the greatest - I was only average. But I did it anyway, because the things I was to trying create and help, both in job and family, those things were important, even if they were ordinary. In the third part of my life....I sense there will come a time when I will still be loved but not needed. And it has to be that way, because otherwise death would be too hard to bear, for me and for those I leave behind.

I can accept all of this....but still be really happy when Andy plays with his toys one last time.

The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

Absolutely the Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen

[1/10 · 13 May 2009]

For almost 40 years, the worst movie I had ever seen was "Billyjack," followed by the second worst movie, "Return of Billyjack." Frankly, I was feeling a bit old, a bit behind the times, a bit out of it, for not being able to update the top of my "Worst Movie List" with a more current selection.

But then along came "The Triplets of Belleville," a film that is so unremittingly ugly and bleak and just horrible that I still have flashbacks to watching it.

First Question - What do the filmmakers have against poor Josephine Baker? Big lips, Big breasts, Big banana skirt all flapping together while she sings off-key; I can't think of a more cruel and insulting and just plain inaccurate caricature of a talented performer.

Second Question - Why does the Grandmother bother to rescue the Grandson? His life at home didn't seem any better than being a captive racer for rich people. He still has to be in this movie after all.

Yuck!

Cleopatra Jones (1973)

My Crash Course in Race Relations

[8/10 · 27 March 2009]

I saw this film the weekend it came out in 1973 in downtown Baltimore, Tamara Dobson's hometown. Although that was 36 years ago, I remember it very well.

1973 was about 5 years past the golden age of the beautiful but unbeatable-in-a-fight female heroine. A total fantasy, but as a middle-aged woman now, I still sometimes ask myself "What would Emma Peele do?" I found the early '70's heroines to be complete wimps compared to the late 60's heroines.

So when the ad campaign hit in 1973 for "Tamara Dobson IS Cleopatra Jones," with the poster of the tall gun-toting Ms. Dobson, I begged and begged to go.

I went downtown with an older woman friend of the family, and the two of us were literally the only white people in the entire packed theater of black people.

In the film. the villains are all white and the good guys are all black. Also, there are many many scenes in which white people are killed by black people. During these scenes, the theater cheered wildly. This is probably not something you would notice watching the film on T.V., but believe me, if you are one of two white people in the theater, it makes a big impression.

There was also a well-written and clever scene in the film in which one of Cleopatra's male assistants is lying in wait for the white villains. When they arrive, he pulls a gun on them and says "Guess what just jumped out of the woodpile?" The older woman who took me to the movie was southern. She thought this joke was hysterical and kept trying to explain it to me several times, with her extremely clear explanations catching the attention of everyone sitting around us. For those of you not blessed by an older southern friend, the phrase "Guess what just jumped out of the woodpile?" refers to the expression "N-word in the woodpile," a southern term for an unpleasant surprise.

So what did I learn in my trip to the movies?

1) The term "blaxploitation" is totally false. This "blaxploitation" movie seemed to be about blacks who were superior in every way to whites, both morally and physically.

2) It is really scary and uncomfortable being in the minority.

Harry & Son (1984)

But what about that cruel "Harry & Daughter" story line?

[5/10 · 8 February 2009]

While I thought the movie was good, I had a very hard time with the scene in which Harry's daughter visits. Harry was so unbelievably cruel to his daughter in this scene, that I really wish I hadn't seen it. It actually depressed me for days.

Harry's daughter visits Harry and his son with her husband and newborn daughter. Her husband, a life insurance salesman, shockingly tries to sell Harry life insurance, which Harry takes great offense at. The daughter then very nicely asks if she could possibly take her dead mother's china if Harry and his son aren't using it.

Okay, so maybe this was a bit insensitive, but it struck me that the daughter seemed like a very hard worker with a full time job and a new baby and, maybe, just maybe it was really tough for her without her mother and that's why she wanted the china.

Harry says that she can have the china, but then he maliciously wets the bottom of the box he gives her to carry it in. The china then falls out and breaks in a million pieces. The daughter then sees that the bottom of the box is wet, and she becomes very hurt and angry. She then exits with husband and screaming newborn.

Harry finds this funny. I did not.

My mother died when I was four, and I must confess that I have always wanted her china as well. It has sat in the china cabinet since her death, one of the few relatively unchanged items since. There are many times when I have missed having a mother and perhaps illogically have associated the china too strongly with her presence.

Perhaps wanting the china is materialistic, but it seems inhuman on a Father's part to not understand why his daughter might want something from her mother.

I really had a hard time caring about Harry after that scene.

Australia (2008)

Looks 10 / Plot 3

[5/10 · 29 November 2008]

Sadly, even the considerable physical charms of Hugh Jackman do not make up for the convoluted and shamelessly manipulative script. Stranded orphans, villains who shoot puppies, snobbish society ladies, and black secondary characters who nobly perform their usual back-up singer/friendless victim/wise mentor roles for the white leads, the movie has it all. Charles Dickens is a master of minimalist restraint compared to the screenwriters for "Australia."

The acting is good. Nicole Kidman gives one of her best performances, and the child actor, Brandon Walters, is terrific. And Mr.Jackman is, as usual, sheer perfection in a series of shirtless scenes, as well as scenes with shirts so tight that he might as well be shirtless. With his dazzling smile and ironic mischievous eyes, he is easily one of the sexiest actors to come out of Hollywood in the last twenty years, and a welcome throwback to the compelling and witty leading men of the thirties and forties.

The script, however, is all too modern, an ADHD mishmash of many inoffensive little characters who arrive, deliver an inoffensive little life lesson, and are then suddenly and brutally offed so that we can experience an inoffensive little stab of tragedy. Strong linear storytelling is much harder than it looks and is not achieved by all these inoffensive little moments, no matter how thickly piled on.

Man on Fire (2004)

Bipolar Express

[1/10 · 24 November 2006]

If a serial killer was dating a woman who loved little kitten figurines and romance novels, then this would be the date movie for them.

The first part of the film, in which a bitter and cynical Denzel Washington finds renewed faith in the beauty of the world, because he has met the perfect little blond girl, is basically a black version of Heidi (although the character of Heidi remains, of course, very white.) The second part of the film, in which Denzel uses his renewed faith in the beauty of the world to think up ever more creative ways to lovingly torture each bad guy (including shoving an explosive up one poor villain's anus), is as unwatchable as all of the other Hollywood torture fetish flicks out there.

Oh, but it all made sense in the end. The perfect little blond girl is saved only because Denzel is able to get in touch with his inner Nazi and do whatever unspeakable things he had to do to all those evil foreigners to save her. Guantanamo Bay, anyone?

Derailed (I) (2005)

And All They Really Needed Was a Decent Financial Planner

[25 April 2006]

Yet another movie where the set designer was obviously more important than the writer. Yet another movie where the luxury of the hero's home totally undercut his "desperate" need for money.

The Schines seemed to be living in a two million dollar house jammed with enough generic knick-knacks to qualify for a Pottery Barn shoot location - and yet it has taken them 7 years to save the $100K for their daughter's operation? When Schine's wife asked him the perfectly reasonable question about why they couldn't just sell the house to get money, he replied that it was fully mortgaged. Guess what? If you sell the house, they don't make you pay the 100K in interest a year than he must be paying on his fully mortgaged $2 million.

In the end Schine was willing to kill for his daughter; but getting a dinky little two bedroom apartment in an ugly burb with a bad commute was out of the question.

If you really want to shock an audience today, forget the rapes and stabbings, just try making a movie with bad decor.