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Reviews
Godfather of Harlem (2019)
The writing is a joke
I am pretty sure the writers are very young or...while maybe not white have lived a sheltered life and really have little sense of the history and reality of the time and place. The dialogue is riddled with cliches. As is the way addiction is handled.
Whitaker--who I love--seems uncomfortable a lot. I imagine the writing is hard for him to swallow as well. Some of the actors are simply terrible, some are really good. The role of Bumpy's wife is well played by the actress and the guy playing Columbo is good. Giancarlo is having fun with Adam Clayton Powell's persona.
I need to go back and watch past seasons again, but the most recent season had mr wincing.
The direction...as with most episodic television is inconsistent, since it is often many different directors. But ultimately, I think the caliber of the writing is where it starts. And it is childish.
To Leslie (2022)
The finest acting I have witnessed
Andrea Riseborough in the leading role does the most incredible job portraying a broken woman. I am amazed she is a classically trained English actor--she has done her homework and cast a keen eye in some bars--she nails that world.
The entire cast does a great job and the screenplay and direction it is a poignant heartbreaking depiction of people in a particular time and place. Texas, America, land of broken dreams.
I am watching it for the third time just to catch her uncanny moments.
I do have a question--the beginning her son talks about her parents, then mentions Nancy and Dutch--later to be revealed her parents--as if they are different people.
Later in a bar scene Nancy also names others as her parents...Did I miss something? Did she have two sets of parents? Somebody help me out here.
Alone Together (2022)
pretty awful....
There is no there there...I assume Katie Holmes can afford to hire professionals to direct and write--at least punch up the script.
No real plot--2 strangers find themselves together at the beginning of the pandemic thru an airbnb screw up--and like attracts like--two of the most boring people in the world fall for each other. Zero chemistry between the actors.
The usual rom com cliches: montages of mundane cute--her boyfriend shows up/new guy splits--again no chemistry, no anger, no drama-no questions--he sees she is not emotionally there anymore, leaves--she sees kids, realizes she wants some, she looks up the new guy again. They missed each other. The end. (Thank God)
The Birdcatcher (2019)
A beautiful story based on true events...some rare wisdom is shared
This was beautifully acted, written and directed true story--one out of millions of stories of lives destroyed/inexorably altered by the profound tragedy of WW2 and the holocaust. The smug bad reviews reflect a segment of society raised on Marvel/superhero crap-same low information crowd that is being sucked into our fascist/nationalist cult that currently permeates the US. Petty opinions of "she looks too old" or "she doesn't look like a boy" turned them away from appreciating the story that was poignant and relevant to our current dystopia.
Many pre-pubescent boys have delicate features and as for ignorant comments such as "real" holocaust stories--Nazi ideology had far reaching tentacles and it touched millions across the world, particularly Europe. Whether you survived and how, whether you were a Jew or not, whether you resisted and how or collaborated and why--this is all profound thought- provoking stuff--superficial assumptions do not tell the stories about the causes, effects and choices of this travesty--and making them just betrays your own lack of insight.
This is one of the better tales of this history and if you are wise enough to watch and pay attention until the end you will be a better person for it.
In the Cut (2003)
one of the worse movies I have ever seen
Wow. If you have Jennifer Jason Leigh on board why on earth use Ryan in the lead? Meg Ryan, while the write did not give her much to work with she could have done something with it. I had no idea who her character was, what motivated her, or why she moved through the entire movie as if she was on a high dose of.... Xanax? Klonpin? Seroquel?
It failed on so many levels. I was shocked to discover Campion wrote and directed this. Never been a huge fan of her work but um, this was remarkably bad.
Exterminate All the Brutes (2021)
Raoul Peck explains where we are now 2021 and why we are here and it is heartbreaking
I read the expected negative reviews. It seems white patriarchal types--and yes that definition is accurate--the patriarchy is so interwoven with the myth of white supremacy. Men rule the world, would you agree? They have always held the power. And we see what they have done with it. Someday perhaps that interconnectedness will be told in coherent linear fashion.
But the horrors mankind have inflicted on their brothers and sisters based on some artificial bs they were brainwashed with by a culture born into was a myth woven by royalty, wealthy land-owning men and legitimized by the Christian church. There is no denying that violence greed, anger, stupidity was not part of the landscape of the earth since evolution brought us the upright species know as human (homo sapiens and others). But the last 500 years Europeans acquired the weaponry and the wealth and the twisted ideology to exploit the myth of superiority to grab land and resources all over the world.
This four part documentary does a lot to explain that history and the root cause of the tragedies inflicted on millions all over the world. And how its legacy is destroying us all. It really should be school curriculum.
Brown Paper Bag (2019)
The premise was decent....it went downhill from there
C for effort. I applaud the writer/director's tenacity but please. I hate to be harsh, but...Study writing and directing. And try harder with getting the right cast. I am pretty shocked he is a professional sound guy--the production values were not great either.
The dialogue was awful. Just awful. And the acting---somebody else said that is on the director and I partly agree. Some people cannot act no matter how many takes but a skilled director can make a mediocre actor look good. This director did his actors no favors. Some of his bit players had skills.
And for God sake, quit padding all the reviews with glowing reviews from cast and crew!
The Last Train from Madrid (1937)
Written by Courtney Love's great grandmother....
....who by all accounts was very much like Courtney. According to her daughter, brilliant writer Paula Fox, and her granddaughter writer and therapist Linda Carroll Elsie was a horrible sociopath like person.
With genes like that, add Marlon Brando's peculiar brand of insanity (Love's rumored grandfather) and it explains a lot about the Courtney Love mythology (her mother's memoir describes a surreal Pattry McCormack (The Bad Seed) type of kid.
So am most eager to see if the lead character played by Lamour, offers insights into her psyche.
Okay just saw it and is fascinating. It uses the Raymond Carver (Robert Altman's Short Cuts) utilized tool of inter woven story lines. Very Ship of Fools, Grand Hotel..
Robert Cummings (Love That Bob) as Juan Ramos? Was he Latino?
Many panned this over the years (Graham Greene "The worst movie ever made) but the premise is great and provides fertile ground for exploration of the characters. However it is true the war is simply a plot device and could be any war any time.
I wonder watching it how much Elsie Fox wrote or how much her screenwriter husband, Paul Hervey Fox, contributed. Maybe he did the bulk of it and as Love did what she allegedly did with Cobain's work-- she simply took writing credit. At least he survived the relationship.
Then again, with this literary pedigree (Paula Fox is a genius) maybe Love is more of a heavyweight than I thought.
Somewhere (2010)
Pretentious horrid little film
Well, I am considerably shocked that anybody found this big yawn some kind of brilliant statement. It made most minimalist European art films look like exhilarating action flicks. Not that I'm a fan of action flicks. I am a fan of well written scripts, usually character driven. This character, well there is no there there. Which I guess is the filmmaker's point. But in making a movie about how empty and superficial Hollywood is, Sofia, a product of said Hollywood, proved her point by making an empty superficial film.
The only compelling bit was when the daughter signaled her emotions without much help, it appears, from the script, and this was a few fleeting moments.
Now I guess this is a spoiler. But since not much really happened, I am not sure. I knew I was in trouble when the car went around the track half a dozen times at the intro, when 2 or 3 would suffice. Then I was treated to a pole dance that lasted a few minutes too long, the daughter dancing about 4 minutes when 2 would suffice, an eternity watching the actor sit in a plaster cast (I know, it was MEANINGFUL-he was suffocating), etc etc etc.
Obviously Sofia is of the school that painfully long sequences of nothing much happening is broadcasting to us that something IS happening. But I'm an old fashioned girl. I like actual drama.