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thatbookguy
Reviews
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Jingoistic garbage
I was a kid when I first saw this film, and Wayne's portrayal of Sgt. Stryker made him seem god-like in my eyes. I thought the film's telling of the American dream to be the solid truth.
Having watched it recently, it seems like a jingoistic script (with those lousy "nips") fleshed out with mediocre acting (even Wayne doesn't shine like he does in "The Searchers" or "The Quiet Man") spliced between stock footage of real soldiers whom I cared about far more that their cardboard counterparts. Another Hollywood white-wash, in other words. I'm no fan of "Saving Private Ryan", another Hollywood white-wash, but at least its battle scenes had more truth.
Perhaps my problem is that I can't see this movie for what it was in '49. With the censorship code, soldiers didn't talk or act like soldiers (no swearing and no sex). So, to be fair, white-washed was all this film could have been back then. But there's another possibility: perhaps this movie just can't communicate what it needs to some fifty years later.
Wag the Dog (1997)
Most miss the point...
The point of the film is by-and-large how gullible the mainstream media is. During the Clinton years, the Powers That Be could have said the sky was green & anyone who said otherwise a right-wing conspiracist. And, basically, the lap-dog media corps would have marvelled at the spin. Now we see just how much the Clintonestas fooled the press, and this film seems more like allegory than fantasy.
A Performance of Macbeth (1979)
Perhaps the finest recorded version of 'Macbeth'
Possible to find a "perfect" adaptation of a Shakespeare play? If this production isn't it, I don't know what is. The entire script is used to full effect, with magnificent performances all round. Shakespeare's portrait of human evil has never looked better.
California (1947)
Sad, sad film
This film tries so hard to be a sprawling epic, and it ends up just sprawling. The hero barely registers as a blip on the radar, Barbara Stanwyck turns in a bad impression of a heterosexual heroine, the villain is a cardboard stereotype, and Barry Fitzgerald's character is too saintly to be believable with this thankless script. This western even features a stand-in horse: a photo mounted on cardboard (in one of the first scenes). It never really gets much better than that.