Change Your Image
Wm Lambe
Reviews
V for Vendetta (2005)
Blowing up buildings can change the world? How about cutting off heads, too?
It is funny that half the people who admire this film for its activist components claim it has nothing to do with the Bush-bashers, just oppression in general - yet the other half admire it for putting the Bush administration in its cross hairs very specifically. They love to find the many inside code words and concepts that do this, but then miss the main point... that this film does glorify terrorism as a legitimate tool of revolution. "Blowing up buildings can change the world." Those who agree with the admittedly anti-Bush filmmakers place themselves firmly behind the hijackers who flew planes into the WTC and the Pentagon.
Whether Bush lied about Saddam Hussein or WMD (pretty much disproved because of the recent Hussein tapes that ABC released) makes little difference. Terrorism is evil by definition - and two evils do not make it right.
Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure (2005)
More Liberal bias
Interesting how the show used news cuts of Reagan embroiled in Iran-Contra or other derogatory reports in order to mark the time frame of the scene. The show ended with a Voice-over attesting to how Reagan's everlasting legacy will be making a creditor nation into a debtor nation.
Will Hollywood never tire of spinning political agenda instead of making good entertainment?
The characters were all parodies and the show seemed to be only about the wish of the creator to create a legacy. The actors chosen looked like John Forsythe, Linda Evans, and Joan Collins and were passable lookalikes - but were not credible acting impersonators. The show seemed aimed at defining the creator and producer - everything else was unimportant. Even the average viewers who were cut to every so often were parodies. If an unemployed overweight couch potato grousing at everything and his wife were the target demographic group then how the show ever made it past the first season is unknown. It seems "Muldavia" and "Crystal's evil twin" were Dynasty's self proclaimed Fonzie jumping the shark on waterskis wearing his leather jacket.
The Australian and New Zealand actors and camera teams seemed to distance the work from the Hollywood elites - but they are what they are. I noticed none of the directors or producers allowed their names to be attached to the actual presentation. They must have feared for their reputations or careers - yet put their idealogy out front.
Watermelon Man (1970)
Essential movie. It's not perfect - but must be seen.
Cambridge does an interesting lob playing a white man turned into a black man, but Van Peebles evidently wanted to make some pejorative assessments of both cultures. The negativity of the film is offset by slapstick and schtik - like the moment of awareness of the transition when Gerber goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night and when he gets off the toilet, a big black rear end fills the screen. The transition, itself, is never adequately explained: recessive gene gone berserk, sardonic God teaching a lesson, who knows?
The sad part of the film is the inability to ever find purchase in the community. Not everyone is bigoted but they are all portrayed as one big cliché. Any normal unbiased people are immediately put off by the reprehensible actions of Cambridge - so there are no friends or allies except of the same race - or more purely - of the same anger.
How nice this movie could have been if Van Peebles had allowed Gerber to rise to the top in spite of everything - to showcase hope instead of futility.
They Might Be Giants (1971)
Ought to be on everybody's top-ten list.
(Contains spoiler.) I recently did a free-lance graphic-design job for a video store owner. My pay? He had to come up with a copy of "They Might Be Giants" for me. He swore it was the last copy on Earth.
George C. Scott made Justin Playfair/Sherlock Holmes into a great film character. If you pay attention to his delightful patter, you hear a soulful philosophy of life that nails our culture whether in 1971 or 1999. His rescue of poor Mr. Small made me want to cheer. Joanne Woodward's portrayal of Dr. Watson was brilliant. You could palpably feel the missing pieces of her wretched existence. "Just keep repeating to yourself, "I am adequate!"
This may be one of the all-time best collection of character actors ever put together. Jack Guilford and Rue McClanahan were wonderful
But so was every other actor that appeared. Al Lewis (III) as the messenger, "You were right, Mr. Holmes. My dog did have Pellegra." The clueless march of the crazies en route to the supermarket was heroic. Too few people remember this film. If you get a chance, check this one out.
***Note - I originally wrote this comment seven years ago, but some of the new user comments prompted me to add to it. First, understand that Justin Playfair's condition is totally explained by Rue McClanahan, his sister-in-law. He was a brilliant jurist until his wife was killed. He couldn't cope with a world that allowed such bad things to happen. In an attempt to understand how bad things can happen to good people, he became the world's greatest sleuth in a relentless effort to understand evil. He showed saved newspaper clippings, of innocent people killed by inexplicable accidents, buses going off a cliff, boyscouts attacked, and so on. His one thread that held him to a tenuous sanity was the belief he could always figure it out... and that there were always clues.
He frequented an old movie house that showed old Westerns, where Randolph Scott always wore a white hat and won over the bad guys in black hats. The purest celluloid version of ultimate good over evil. In black and white. He did the London Times crossword puzzle in ink, and could read a person's life with the same exactitude as the original Sherlock. When he rescued Mr. Small, he commented under his breath, "Why can't analysts ever analyze?" The more he studied and investigated the clues, the surer he became that all the clues pointed toward one malevolent perpetrator - the evil mastermind, Moriarity. In the end, he knew he and Watson were no match for him, but that the noblest thing a Man could do was stand up against evil, even if it was a futile gesture. In that acceptance of holding onto good - even in the face of absolute evil - was his salvation.
In an insane world - only the insane are sane.