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Stella and Sam (2011)
Hidden Gem
What I like best about Stella and Sam is that the relationships between Stella, Sam and their friends are perpetually innocent, loving and imaginative. I am not used to seeing a sister and brother have such an unremittingly constructive relationship – no put-downs, no fighting, no impatience – as they run around playing in some idyllic (likely Canadian) landscape full of harmless animals and farms. (I wonder where the parents are, though.) And it is actually plausible to a degree. We've shown it to our 5 year-old daughter and her 2 year-old brother in the hope that this show will help them and us to see how they can grow up in a little happier way. Although, maybe we should get a dog and move to the countryside!
The title song, which is also used for incidental themes during the episodes, is catchy and is a perfect fit for the show.
This might be my favourite children's TV cartoon series along with Harold and the Purple Crayon.
I am pleasantly surprised that a show with so many companies and government agencies getting their share of credits in it (as is so often the case with Canadian productions) turned out so well. I don't know if any of the people involved in its making has had or will have much of a career, but I hope that they all do.
Walk the Line (2005)
Outstanding acting and music
What a good movie! My friend and I whispered this to each other several times during the movie. If you like mature biographies, superb acting, and terrific music, then you should like this. Never mind the critics who moan that the story follows "the standard biopic formula." I think that they've been too jaded by watching too many movies to appreciate a good, real-life story.
Phoenix and Witherspoon were superb in this engrossing, true story of the love and music of two legendary star musicians. Many others have already praised them for their acting and singing, so I won't repeat that in detail here. For me, it was important to know that the real Cash and Carter gave their approval to these wonderful young actors. I was glad as I watched that I could trust that the movie was being fairly faithful, at least, to the facts.
However, I couldn't rate the movie 10 out of 10 because of a few problems. The biggest is the downplay of the Christian content. A few allusions are made to Johnny's crisis of faith and his redemption, the attitude of some of June's conservative fans to her divorces, and her remarkable parents, but only a few. As a Christian, I think that I could extrapolate some of what Johnny and June must have been thinking or feeling with respect to their beliefs at crucial moments, but I couldn't be sure without a more explicit portrayal. Doubtless this is the result of a decision by the producers and director to avoid making secular audiences uncomfortable, but Jesus Christ was, in reality, very important to these peoples' lives. For example, I doubt that Johnny's recovery from drug addiction was just a matter of him learning to find and love himself, as the film seems to imply. After the events of the film, the couple spent years making gospel records and performing shows with evangelical services included. Additionally, for a Christian, adultery and divorce for the sake of love is not just a matter of considering morals and hurt feelings, but also of sin and obedience to God. A brief scene after his drug recovery showing June taking Johnny to church that stops at the church door just doesn't show enough about what must have went on inside them. This would have been a more powerful and meaningful film if it had.
Another problem is that, according to one of her daughters, Vivian Cash was not quite the antagonistic shrew portrayed in the movie. She was actually proud of her husband's career until he started the drugs and "stopped coming home." This sounds plausible to me, and I suspect that there was some minor telescoping and fudging of the truth, besides.
It's difficult covering 25 years in 2 hours, but there's virtually nothing about significant people like Johnny's long-term band mates or June's children.
But I still loved this movie. Even if there weren't enough scenes for the story, almost all of the them were plausible.
Some of my favourite scenes: Sam Phillips telling Johnny that he didn't believe him when he sang his gospel tune for his audition. That gave me food for thought for when I sing hymns in church!
June modestly, politely telling a judgmental fan that she was sorry for letting her down when the fan called her unworthy of her parents and un-Christian because of her divorce. A natural reaction would have been to bite back or run away, but Witherspoon made a lovely show of restraint and humility.
June's mother telling her to go back and help Johnny when I as her parent would have opted to keep such a loser away from my daughter.
June's parents helping out Johnny's drug recovery by chasing away Waylon Jennings from Johnny with shotguns!
P.S. I found Reese Witherspoon more beautiful and charming in this movie than in any of her previous ones I've seen.
P.P.S. For those of us here in Canada who were wondering what that tiny town somewhere in "Ontario, Canada" (it must be too insignificant to be named) was where Johnny proposed to June on-stage: it was the mid-sized city of London! Did the subtitle editors omit "London" because they thought that it was going to be confused with London, England?! Or is Canada just not important enough in their minds? They wouldn't have done that if the city had been, say, the smaller Buffalo, New York, eh?!
Elektra (2005)
A disappointing, unfortunate mess.
My rating is 5 of 10.
I am sorry to say this because I wanted it to be good. I liked "Daredevil", and I was impressed with the reports of how hard Jennifer Garner worked on "Elektra". (I've always liked Jennifer Garner, anyway.)
The cast is not at fault. I don't think that the director is primarily at fault, either. My guess is that the editor, perhaps under direction from the studio, is the villain. Virtually all references to "Daredevil" have been eliminated. I remember no scene showing how Stick got her dead body after the events of "Daredevil". And since those emphatically took place in New York City, where is this story set? It sort of looks like Japan and Washington State. (The film was actually made on the south coast of my beautiful province of British Columbia, of course.) The dramatic events of her initial time with Stick are merely skimmed over. There is no explanation of how she is able move from one place to another in an instant. There is no explanation of what the powers of the main villain are. There is no explanation of what happens after she kills him and the other members of The Hand. Is the "war" over, then? If so, then why doesn't she settle down with the father of the girl, or go back to Matt Murdock? And there are plenty of other questions and omissions. With all of the consequent lack of back story and context, by the time the climax arrived, I had little interest in the scenes apart from the action in the fights. OK, as a man, I'll admit it - and how good Garner looked and acted.
Still, there are some good things. The flashbacks showing how her father was hard on her give insight into her character. (But there was no mention of how he was killed by Bullseye.) Elektra's OCD seems plausible and interesting. The action scenes were slickly shot (although they often lacked continuity). Jennifer Garner delivered an outstanding performance. Kirsten Prout looks she has the potential to have a good career as an adult. But they and the rest of the cast deserved better from those in charge of this production.
If there is a director's cut on DVD, then I am sure that it will be a better movie. It looked to me like a good movie had been filmed, then edited to death. I wonder what actually happened.
Underworld (2003)
It's 1980s B Movie!
5/10. Never mind any positive reviews to the contrary, this is not a good movie! It is better than, say, "Red Sonja", but not by too much. I don't have the time to describe everything that is wrong about this movie, and I'm only writing this much because I am shocked at the amount of positive response on this site to date. The biggest problem with Underworld is that not enough is done to establish sympathy and interest in the characters, apart from Selene. The premise of the conflict is set forth, the scenarios and fights are played out, the twists and secrets are revealed, the climatic fight is staged - and I barely care, apart from Selene. Even then, I only except Selene because of Kate Beckinsale's striking allure that stems from her combination of sultry beauty, fine intelligence, and faultless acting. She actually has little to do in the way of emoting, but she does her emoting well. It isn't her fault that there is almost no indication of romantic interest from her or Scott Speedman until the script calls for a kiss to establish it. It isn't her fault that this is a continuous melodrama with no significant break for comedy or romance. (Then again, she lacks enough taste to be engaged to the director of this dog.) My friend Katja put it this way: she has seen better character development in video games. And the score was inconsistent, loud, and mostly lousy. The trailers for this movie are indeed far superior to the product they have been promoting. This is not surprising after one takes a look at the director's resume on this very site and considers that the producers of the trailers probably have more filmmaking experience than he does. And there are plenty of other problems, but, as I said, I don't have the time.
However, I'll admit that there are other good things about it. Bill Nighy as Victor was impressive. Victor's awakening may have supplied one of the most memorable scenes in vampire movie history. And the Budapest Fire Department are real heroes for staying up night after night to supply the film crew with rain water for every single scene in the movie. (It's a gothic, 1980s B-movie, after all.)
S.W.A.T. (2003)
Good, but not great.
7/10. I think that S.W.A.T. fails to be great, but it is still good. Its premise is great: a billionaire criminal throws out an $100-million reward for his escape from police custody. While the story of what makes him do that unfolds, the parallel story of the genesis of a young SWAT team is interwoven. It's good scripting with mostly plausible characters in mostly plausible situations. The acting is very good, especially from Farrell and Renner, and the directing is good enough overall. However, there are flaws, and they became more prominent for me as the film reached its conclusion. *** SPOILERS *** The Sanchez character seems to be there just so that there can be a feminist romantic interest among the leads, and she takes the place of what could be a more plausible and interesting male character. The role of the beautiful, elite warrior-mother is so rare in real life that it doesn't belong in a movie that pretends to be realistic, and it should be a worn-out cliche by now in entertainment. Another worn-out cliche is the personal, man-to-man climax between former partners, although this could be excused on the basis that the old TV series used that device, too. And why didn't Gamble just kill Sweet when it was easy to do so when he captured Montel or stabbed Sweet? I know - a Hollywood thriller must, by law, have a prolonged, personal, man-to-man struggle to end a prolonged sequence of action set-pieces. But the worst flaw is the movie's failure to properly use its main asset - the extraordinarily dynamic, hit theme from the TV series. The Mission Impossible movies exploited their memorable theme, so what was the problem here? S.W.A.T. uses an old Rolling Stones tune. It uses a variety of tunes from other artists. Its incidental themes sometimes tease the old theme. But, apart from an useless old clip briefly shown on a TV (which helps to establish that the movie is actually outside of the universe of the series it is based on, as does the celebration scene where the group mimics the theme), the theme is never fully exploited in either its original or reworked orchestrations. And that is a crime. ;)
Hulk (2003)
An Interesting But Questionable Experiment
7/10
This is a difficult movie for me to assess because it is an interesting but questionable experiment. It seems that Ang Lee, the director, decided to adapt a superhero comic by fleshing out a serious, profound drama on the skeleton of a literally-translated, comicbook framework of style, dialogue, and story. This is a fresh but risky approach to the adaptation of a comicbook, and I admire Lee for his daring. However, I think that his lack of familiarity with the Marvel comics disqualified him from being able to follow his own approach successfully. The film's problem is not that it tries to tackle psychological and religious themes that are too pretentious for a comicbook - after all, those of us who grew up on Marvel know that their comicbooks always tried to combine (often unsuccessfully) these kinds of literary themes with the superhero action. The problem is that too much of the dialogue is delivered as isolated talking points meant only to describe the characters or drive the plot, in the same way as dialogue in the comicbooks is delivered frame-by-frame and baloon-by-baloon for the same purposes. I believe that, if Lee knew (and loved) his source material better, he would have followed the Marvel writers who dealt with this limitation of their medium by inserting liberal amounts of action, humour, and romance to prevent the more esoteric stretches from being overlong. However, it does speak well of Lee's talent that he was perceptive and consistent enough in his innocence to translate the style of the dialogue so literally to screen, in addition to the obvious, comicbook-inspired scene transitions and split screens. (Unless I am misinterpreting as an artistic decision an inclination to use actors too much as tools to speak to the audience.) Personally, in Lee's place, I would have adopted the more standard approach by taking advantage of my medium with more naturalistic direction of my actors that depicted more casual interaction between the characters.
I wanted more explanation of the genetics involved in the story - it is about scientists, after all. There is more technical detail about the U.S. military then the biology of the Hulk and his father. Danny Elfman's score, as usual from him, fitted and enhanced the action with some lively themes. The CGI was impressive to me as a computer programmer. There are some scenes where the expressions of compassion on Hulk's face show why live-action movies will be made with CGI stars in the future, as depicted in "Simone" last year. The acting was good. Nick Nolte, Sam Elliot, and the beautiful and graceful Jennifer Connelly were all superb. However, I think that Eric Bana was miscast and misdirected because he actually had too much personality and not enough self-repression, especially in his opening scenes in the lab, and especially for an introverted, dedicated, nerdy, 35-year-old academic. And I don't think that Nolte's character was written clearly enough. He should have been given more time to depict his motivations or have been deleted from the film altogether. *** SPOILERS *** His comment in his final tirade that he made about super-beings "walking the earth before the pale religions of modern man" interested me, but where did an obsessive genetic scientist get that from? If he loved his wife and son so much, why would he try to hurt the only thing he had left from his marriage after so tragically killing her? If it is because he is a power-mad scientist, why couldn't he just continue trying to guide and persuade his son instead of trying to take all the power himself? I think that this needs more explanation, other than the desire to see a climatic battle between super-powered father and super-powered son. And, despite the spectacular, artistically conceived, flying tackle through the clouds, the ending is weak because what happens to "Energy Man" is presented too quickly and with too little explanation.
In a nutshell, "Hulk" is a mixed bag to me. I would give it less than 7/10 if it weren't for its interesting creative elements.
S1m0ne (2002)
Entertaining and Thought-Provoking
"Simone" is a good comedy that made me and my date laugh a lot, and that made us talk about it afterwards. It is also surprisingly and pleasantly clean of profanity, nudity, and violence, unlike most "mature" Hollywood satires that I have seen. And it is very plausible that we will soon have computer-generated stars like Simone. We already had something similar to her in the 1980s with TV's "Max Headroom". If you doubt this, you are probably thinking that no computer can generate real human emotion. However, the feasibility of Simone is that her artificial intelligence recycles the emotion that her user generates instead of creating it herself. We have the technology now, and it is what actors have been doing throughout time in reading scripts and obeying directors, anyway. I give "Simone" 7/10.
*** SPOILERS FOLLOW *** My favourite laugh was the interview with Simone on her goodwill "tour" of the Third World as she calmly sits in her chair in the middle of some windswept shantytown, oblivious to the wild dogs foraging in the background behind her. However, despite the laughs, the light feel, and the family reunion, it is ultimately a dark satire. The moral conclusion as spoken by the daughter - that it is OK to be fake so long as you don't lie about it - is cynical rather uplifting. I interpret Taransky's ultimate realization that art is really about boosting his own ego, and that he doesn't really have anything important to say, as the script saying that idealism in art is dead. The script makes it clear that this theme is central to the movie when we are treated at the beginning to the argument between Taransky, representing socially-conscious filmmakers of 1960's like John Cassavetes, and his ex-wife, representing current, profit-centered, studio corporations. The satirical flourish on this point is made in the final scene when Simone expresses an interest in going into politics. Thus, the hero sells out. In this sense, another dark satire with Al Pacino from those long-past days of Hollywood social activism, "... And Justice for All", is hopeful and optimistic by comparison. That's the one with the climax in which a young and indignant Pacino throws his career on his sword rather than sell out in a spectacular, profanity-filled, scream-at-the-moon tirade in court. ("No! You're out of order! You're out of order!")
Despite a superb premise for a Hollywood movie, I think that "Simone" falls a little short of its promise. I like Al Pacino, but I think that he is too tired in his old age for this role. His perpetual fatigue, although helping to make him likable, drags the energy of the movie down. I felt that the script required me to suspend my disbelief a little too much. For example, there is no plausible way a virtual superstar entertainer could go on a world tour without being found out. And, I know as a programmer that you can't recover a program from thin air if you have dumped all of the disks that it was stored on into the ocean. (I use a screen guard to protect my eyes, by the way.) I don't think that the script was as creative as it could have been in inventing situations and dilemmas for its hero, although it was still good. But it is nice to see yet another Canadian from my part of the woods, Rachel Roberts, make the big time and do well in a part that might be more challenging than many seem to realize.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Good, but not great.
7/10. I was disappointed given its tremendous box office and critical support. I predict that its current #1 ranking and 9.2 user rating on IMDb will fall with hindsight and backlash. Now, keep in mind that I haven't read the books on which it's based. I found that the plot is far too compressed and rushed, even though it's three hours long. *** Spoiler Follows *** The slow moments, like whenever a hero dies, then become too slow in contrast. A long mini-series would be needed to do justice to this story, especially given that it is just a part of a much longer story. As with so many other action films, small numbers of heroes always seem to beat enormous numbers of anonymous villains; the chasers never seem able to catch the chased although they are clearly shown catching up to them; and distracting, extravagant camera movement is over-used. This movie is not as good as the best "Star Wars" movies, contrary to the opinion of many fantasy fans. I noticed other problems. Nevertheless, it was good overall. I particularly enjoyed Gandalf, Arwen, and Aragorn. This movie works well enough for me that I would like to read the books sometime, so I wouldn't criticize it too much.
Captain James Cook (1987)
An enjoyable, intelligent, true story of exploration.
7/10. This is yet another neglected non-American history, and it is one of my favourite mini-series. If you like the exploration of strange new worlds, the romance of the high seas, its practical difficulties, and perhaps "Star Trek", then you should appreciate this true story of what the age of exploration was like. Keith Mitchell plays well as the legitimately great and controversial English explorer. I imagine that the all of the cast and crew relished the experience aboard the replica of HMS Bounty used for the big, Mel Gibson, Hollywood movie made earlier in the 1980s. On the other, in keeping with the small budgets that non-American productions are typically allotted, the special effects are especially poor when they are supposed to simulate polar conditions. There is some Tahitian nudity that would be acceptable for the same reason that native nudity in National Geographic would be. I still fondly remember the theme three years after seeing it on the History Channel. However, I suspect that much dramatic license was taken and that many interesting items were omitted. *** Spoilers Follow *** Given its eight-hour length, I was particularly disappointed that Cook's visit in his third voyage to where I live was ignored. In Victoria, BC, there are statues of Captain Cook in the harbour, I lived just off Cook Street, and I ate at Captain Cook's Bakery. I live in a city named after one of his unmentioned officers, Vancouver. An Australian production reserves the right to concentrate on matters that interest Australians, of course, but one might think that a rape of native women by Cook's men here at Vancouver Island would rate some air time. However, this helps to show that Cook's story is so rich that it should be covered in a much longer series. With better special effects and more narrative focus, I expect that these same filmmakers would have elicited at least a 9/10 from me.
The Arrow (1997)
Good if you're interested in invention or Canadian history.
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** 7/10. I loved The Arrow, but I have to admit its shortcomings. This film has a lot of faults, but the film producers, like the plane manufacturer itself, had an uphill battle just trying to get this four-hour mini-series made. It looks like Dan Ackroyd is ideal for playing Avro president Crawford Gordon, and I understand that Ackroyd as a child actually met Gordon. The rest of the cast play sympathetic characters well, although I don't know how true to life they are. However, Robert Haley and Michael Moriarty do bad impressions of John Diefenbaker and Dwight Eisenhower, which is a shame given Dief's real-life colour. The political bias shown against the Conservative Party and for the Liberal Party is a little shocking. Much dramatic license is taken with the actual story. *** Spoilers Follow *** Computerized piloting was not really included in the final prototype planes. The real design called for the planes to be fitted with nuclear missiles, but that detail is conveniently omitted from the story. There were actually no key leaders at Avro who were female, so the charming Sara Botsford is inserted for gender balance and romantic interest as a key, single-mother engineer. However, I found out about these dramatizations because the show impressed me so much that I read the non-fiction book that it was based on. Therefore, I have to admit that the show works for me. If you like invention stories, then you should like The Arrow. If you are a Canadian who has some patriotism, then know that this is one of those rare specimens that appeal to Canadian patriotism. After the catastrophic way in which the Arrow project ended, I found nothing so poignant and bittersweet as the long list shown before the closing credits of Avro talent that left Canada to help lead the development of Apollo, Concorde, and the Space Shuttle.
Rhinestone (1984)
Incredibly awful.
1/10. If IMDb could go lower, then I might. "Rhinestone" is the worst movie that I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it's not at that level of bad at which you can enjoy the campy idiocy of all of it, like "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" might be. It has just enough Hollywood production value to make it unendurable. I liked the song on which it is "based", I usually like Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton as stars, and I love Richard Farnsworth as a character actor. Therefore, I am baffled about this hideous waste of time and talent - and let there be no doubt about the extent of the hideousness. I can only conclude that any positive reviews out there in this world are sarcastic, or from people who are unfamiliar with Hollywood movies, or from people with bad taste, or are simply beyond my understanding at this time. This review deserves more scorn than my powers of sarcasm can conjure. *** Spoilers Follow - But They're More Entertaining Than The Movie *** Imagine the continuous mediocrity and boredom of an unlikely romance with no chemistry culminating into the mighty crescendo of a horrible, horrible, karaoke-quality song by Stallone. What makes that performance notorious and infamous for all like me who witnessed it was that it was clearly meant to be the triumphant climax of the saga of a hard-working, underdog hero, in the style of "Rocky". I can tell you that "Rhinestone" is to blame for a traumatic childhood memory. I was a teenager visiting my aged great uncle and aunt with several others in order to spend some precious family time. After dinner, we started watching the video with reasonable hopes, knowing that my Great Uncle Bob enjoys western music. All of us dutifully forced ourselves through to the end, but even the complacent Bob trashed the movie as soon as it was over. Even though I hadn't picked it in the video store, I felt guilty and dirty through participation, as if we had accidentally watched "Deep Throat".
Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981)
My favourite mini-series.
10/10. This rare eight-hour, four-part series chronicles the decade before World War II when Churchill was out of power and was the "lone voice in the wilderness" against Hitler. If you have any interest in biography, politics, war and history, then you may love this richly-endowed, true story as much as I did. Given that the production's budget probably excluded the use of massive crowd scenes (unless you qualify The House of Commons), everything about it - acting, writing, casting, cinematography, score - appears flawless to me in its quiet, solid style. Then again, I may be over-awed by what might be a perfect performance in one of the best roles that an English-speaking actor could have. Robert Hardy delivers a first-class impression of one of the greatest figures of history. It helps that Winston Churchill was not just noble but entertaining, showing eloquence with comedic flourish even in his private moments. *** Spoilers May Follow *** Indeed, I was struck by how consistent the public Churchill was in speaking to the House with the private Churchill in confronting his son. Love him or hate him, he is shown to be a honest, emotional, principled creature who lived in the grand style, acted as he preached, and dealt warmly and fairly with everyone. Perhaps this was because he had a born star's aristocratic ego. A Canadian counterpart might be Don Cherry. An American counterpart might be Muhammad Ali or Rush Limbaugh. If the historical material is as accurate as it seems to be, then I rate this as the best biographical drama that I have ever seen for its accuracy, entertainment, and importance. I guess that it is historically faithful, because Churchill's fight against Indian independence and Ghandi is chronicled. In these "politically correct" post-sixties times, his defence of King and Empire, although consistent with his now-easy stance against Hitler, probably helped the BBC to decide to turn down producing this mini-series. When it aired in 1999 and 2001 on British Columbia's Knowledge Network, it had me reserving every Friday night in anticipation for the next episode. "Roots" also held me in great suspense as a child, but I saw as an adult that its class is far lower than that of "Churchill." Therefore, I also rate this film as the best mini-series that I've ever seen.
Cross My Heart (1987)
Very good for what it is, and possibly under-appreciated.
9/10. This is a small, intimate, comedic romance in which most of the story takes place in one apartment on one night. I imagine that it is the kind of set-piece film that actors and writers who love their profession look forward to doing. I painfully identified with David, had some laughs, marvelled at O'Toole's beauty, charm, and talent, and probably over-analyzed an entertainment that is not meant to be an exhaustive study on sexual relations in our secular society. Nevertheless, it seems to honestly portray a plausibly awkward third date between two ordinary, nice, intelligent, but nearly amoral adults. If you've only seen Short do caricatures and impressions, then you might be pleasantly surprised by him here. O'Toole is so believably natural that she doesn't seem to be acting. That impresses me when I consider how much of herself she must have revealed to Short and a set full of men with cameras, microphones, and lights. It must have been rated R because of the nudity and sexuality since there is, thankfully, little coarse language and no violence. *** Possible Spoilers Follow *** One lies about his employment status while the other conceals that she is a single mother. The moral issues of pre-marital sex and the need for a responsible father for the child are implicit in the story but are finally avoided by two characters who are motivated most by feelings. I didn't give it 10/10 because of the implausible plot device of a car theft. However, most might find it an acceptable way to facilitate a happy ending in this genre.