Reviews
Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Kindergarten Cop fails divorced children
What can I say? It's a feel-good movie and it does deliver.
Arnie gets a run for his acting money from some of the kids, particularly "Emma".
The movie has a go at addressing the issue of how kids deal with their feelings regarding their divorced parents but fails to deliver. In a classroom scene "Kimble" basically implies his pain at being separated from his son and I feel this is inadequate. The kids in the film (and the kids, and parents, in the audience) deserve more.
Lots of kids don't understand why their parents are separated and the film could have done some of the explaining that real life parents might find so hard to do. It wasn't a docu-drama after all!
Portrait from Life (1949)
A snapshot of the time.
What drew me to this film was its focus on the lives of some inmates of the Displaced People's Camps in Post WW2 Europe. Its depiction, though considerably cleaned up for the consumption of the movie-going public, illustrates some of the key elements in DP camp life. The plot focusses on the attempts of a British Officer in Occupied Germany to help an amnesiac Concentration Camp inmate regain her memory. Unknown to all, a wanted Nazi war criminal is using her amnesia and the names of an exterminated Jewish family to escape Justice.
Typical for British dramas of the period, though not as excruciating as some, there is plenty of "British reserve" in Guy Rolfe's role. The consistently understated (or absent) emotion is a bit difficult for today's audiences. Also "Hildegaard", the amnesiac, seems to fall in love at the drop of a hat which, given her circumstances, I found to be quite neurotic. I'm not sure that this would have been the intention of the director.
The film's street scenes also give some fleeting insights into London's appearance in the late '40's.
On the whole I'd say it would be a worthwhile film to catch if you had a particular interest in the period.