DottoreHolliday Reviews

RED 2 (2013)

O.D.T.A.A. Redux

[9/10 · 21 December 2013]

ODTAA is an adventure novel first published in February 1926 by John Masefield. Its title stands for One Damn Thing After Another.

This is an action adventure farce played deadpan for fun providing "One Damn Thing After Another." It is fun and worth seeing again.

The sub-7 ratings here seem to be by people predisposed to pan the movie before they walked in. Those who expected anything more did not understand the form of the original. When you understand the form and the central idea the film makers were striving for the movie, you can just relax and enjoy the ride while being entertained by an ensemble of great actors enjoying themselves and their work.

It is worth watching again.

Mannequin (1987)

Come on IMDb Users, It's A FARCE!

[8/10 · 8 December 2013]

Evidently, the IMDb Users are not familiar with the farce as a theatrical form - a comic dramatic work that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farces are often highly incomprehensible plot-wise (due to the large number of plot twists and random events that occur), but viewers are encouraged not to try to follow the plot in order to avoid becoming confused and overwhelmed. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, broadly stylized performances (buffoonery and horseplay) and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.

Here a great cast of character actors and a supernatural plot, adds up to a farce. A form where great character actors Andrew McCarthy, Kim Cattrall, Estelle Getty, James Spader, G.W. Bailey and Mesach Taylor can ham it up and overact for the laughs. Even the minor players Carole Davis, Steve Vinovich and Christopher Maher continue the broadly played comedic characters with an excess of ham and absurdity.

It's just fun and a guilty pleasure.

It you didn't get either, you must have checked your sense of humor at the opening credits or you've become too sophisticated for I Love Lucy or the Three Stooges and that is sad.

Darker Than Amber (1970)

At least they got some of the names right

[2/10 · 17 November 2013]

Had the director or the principal actors (Rod Taylor and Theodore Bikel) bothered to read the novel(s) before the script, it would have been vastly improved. However, Travis McGee with an Australian accent, played by an actor whose skills are in playing himself in every role? Theodore Bikel was slightly better, but he took his cues from Mr. Taylor's performance unfortunately.

The plot line made it worth watching despite the best efforts of the lead actors and director. Either John D. MacDonald was drunk or given points in the production to give it the review he did. The names were the same and some of the settings, but the Travis McGee novels are character driven and the tone is crucial to the story. This movie, and I use the term lightly, had none of the tone or character that makes McGee beloved and a long-lived mystery/action series. It followed the plot line and had a brutal fight scene, but is really, thankfully, eminently forgettable.

After watching the movie, the changes and director's method showed no concept of the story and I got a clear vision of the director, a.d., and studio execs responding over and over "What's the diff?" When queried about Taylor's Aussie accent, Travis McGee wearing coat and tie readily, Bikel's eastern European accent, killing off the Alabama Tiger to cameo Jane Russell, and wiping Trav's repugnance and distaste at shopworn hooker Vangie's attempts at seduction, etc. etc. etc.

All in all a very poor movie, unworthy of the plot line and story. If you watch it, you'll realize what a superior story teller John D. MacDonald was and how untalented this crew of filmmakers were in telling a story. It's no wonder during the 60's and 70's most of the films rewrote the basic story totally. You can see how badly they did with filming a good story and plot line in this effort.

It doesn't even come near the original story.

Iron Man Three (2013)

A Waste: The Writer and Director should have their Guild cards revoked

[2/10 · 18 October 2013]

Any film, no matter how hot the franchise is or has been, needs a plot and some coherence. This film had neither in my opinion. I, luckily, waited and rented it on DVD, but still feel like I wasted my money. Robert Downy, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Rebecca Hall did a good job with a horrible plot line and terrible dialogue, but that's not enough to save a terrible film. If you want to know how the producers, director, writers and crew could waste so much money producing this bad a film, look at the bonus features on the DVD. The sole feature is 17 minutes on how they made repeated skydives to make the special effects sequences of about a minute of the 130 minute movie realistic because computer graphic images (cgi) are not. Then after shooting all these skydives they replaced the real background and much of the actors parts with cgi. Instead of telling a story, they spent the majority of the production time playing and being fascinated with special effects. That may have amused some of the cast and the crew, but does not and will not amuse or entertain the audience. What a terrible shame.

The Bucket List (2007)

A very, very good movie

[9/10 · 21 March 2010]

Considering your mortality and how you would handle facing your immediate (within a few months) death is a highly morbid subject. Thanks to the skill of two old and mature masters of their craft, a skillfully crafted script, a versatile and thoughtful director, and several stellar supporting performances the "Bucket List" invites you to do exactly that while being entertained and avoiding the morbid and maudlin clichés.

"The Bucket List" could have been a hackneyed type-cast of roles Freeman and Nicholdson played often before. It could have been a maudlin wallow in effusive sentimentality by them and their supporting cast. The movie, director and actors do not allow the movie to descend to those clichés. Instead, you are drawn into a relationship between two dissimilar strong resilient men with opposing internal motives, lifestyles and characters facing the one thing they have in common . . . their oncoming appointment with the end of their existence.

They face a situation that each of us will face. Most of us will face it without this type of foreknowledge or even an inkling of death's imminence. However, there are none of us who haven't contemplated the situation and how we will react to it. I appreciated the invitation from "The Bucket List" cast and crew to vicariously enjoy a version of this experience and the seven stages of grief without the personal pain and shock of hitting my finger with a hammer. Perhaps you will as well.

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman prove their many previous accolades as American masters of the craft of acting, Rob Reiner again deftly and thoughtfully allows the well written Just Zackham script to be portrayed. Sean Hayes, Beverly Todd, Rob Morrow, Alfonso Freeman and Rowena King support the leads and story with restraint and skill.

If this is not one of the best films you see this year, you have been very fortunate in your selections of films to view. You will be entertained, if you watch it and I believe, educated about some of the possibilities of the situation. I expect we all will eventually need it.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Unbelievably Bad

[1/10 · 20 March 2010]

This is the worse movie I have watched in a long, long, time. The Weinsteins should provide a carload of toilet paper for the viewer who paid money to sit through this.

Quentin Tarantino has proved himself the equal of Just Jaeckin as a writer/director with this effort. I can honestly say I've heard my five year old nephew generate better stories and dialogue than this abortion of puerile immature unlettered lack of imagination and talent.

Quentin, save your money. You'll need it to pay viewers of your films. in the future.

How bad was the film, I suspect the cast and crew have carpal tunnel syndrome from writing these reviews. No one who watched the movie and is not making money off of it could possibly give it more than one star. It was like watching a 2 1/2 hr. car accident.

I would rather go see a prequel to Heaven's Gate. The only saving grace was that I didn't pay money for the experience.

Skip this movie, and I use the term movie very, very, loosely.

The Jericho Mile (1979 TV Movie)

Absolutely superlative and does not become dated

[9/10 · 6 April 2009]

A film that deserved theatrical release. This made-for-television movie is a cinematic gem that exemplifies the technique of Michael Mann with stirring contemporary music tightly integrated to the visual images. Always with Mr. Mann, the amplification of impact by the music is almost as if there is an invisible academy-award-winning actor added to the ensemble of cast, writer, director and cinematographer.

This film is definitely one of my all time favorites. While nothing is perfect, this film comes very, very close.

Along with an excellent script, great direction and masterful acting by Richard Strauss, there is an all-star ensemble of character actors at their finest: Roger Mosely; Brian Dennehy; Ed Lauter; Geoffrey Lewis; Richard Moll; Miguel Pinero; William Prince; Burton Guilliam; Ji-Tu Cumbuka; Richard Lawson and Billy Green Bush. You may not recognize the names, but you will recognize every face.

If this comes on TV, sit down with popcorn, turn up the sound for an amazing soundtrack and score, and prepare to be riveted for the 97 minutes of the film. I highly recommend recording it, since it is only available on VHS and DVD from Holland and the DVD is region 2 encoded.