dalesh Reviews

A League of Their Own (1992)

A good sports movie about women's baseball

[9 February 2003]

Warning: Spoilers!!! Tom Hanks is very good in this movie. He clearly has the best lines. "There's no crying in baseball!" will probably go down as one of the most memorable line in movie history. But don't forget the line, "The hard is what makes it great." That just stops you in your tracks. The movie centers on two sisters, Dottie and Kitt, and their sibling rivalry. Both play for the Rockford Peaches. Dottie is a better player than Kitt, but Kitt is no slouch. Kitt gets very jealous over the attention being showered on Dottie. One day Kitt boils over into a jealous rage and starts a fight with one of her team mates and as a result gets traded to the team in Racine. Both Rockford and Racine face each other in the league championship series. Kitt has a hard time overcoming the psychological effects of sibling rivalry. It almost costs her the series. Kitt finally beats her sister when she runs for home and Dottie drops the ball. Kitt is ruled safe and that wins the series for the Racine team. I think that this is a brilliant move for a sports movie. It goes against the sports movie convention that the featured team must win in the end. This sports movie becomes more of a vehicle for sisterhood rivalry than for baseball. Anyone who had competing sisters or are women who were competing sisters can surely appreciate this movie and how the rivalries and jealousies were resolved. The modern day scenes(circa 1992)that bookended the movie were so unnecessary and distracting. A paragraph in the closing credits could have easily sufficed to explain the history of women's baseball.

The Hunt for Red October (1990)

A great submarine movie

[9 February 2003]

Fortuneately, this movie is not entirely true to Tom Clancy's vision and book. Tom Clancy is an American superpatriot and nationalist. He loves to gush about the superiority of the American military establishment and its high technology. This movie puts a more sympathetic face on the Russians and the commoner's point of view. Sean Connery plays a very likable Russian Submarine Commander. Of course, Sean Connery is always going to steal the show in any movie. He's kind of like the John Wayne of the last twenty five years. But the supporting actors are also engaging as well. Scott Glenn, Fred Thompson, and James Earl Jones all do very well at commanding our attention. These actors always give strong, interesting, and dynamic performances. With all the high technology and military hardware in this movie it is interesting to note how a simple seaman(an enlisted man at that!) solves the great technical puzzle in this movie. All the officers, admirals, computers, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and what have you are clearly stumped. But, Jonesy, with simple reasoning and a keen intuition, solves the riddle that is the Red October. Yes, he uses a computer to help him, but most importantly, he uses his mind! The strength of this movie is that with all the gadgetry and high technology, the human element is not lost but is always on top. Plus, it does not degrade into pro-American propaganda. Because of this, I think that people who know nothing about the military or who don't even like war movies will find this movie enjoyable.

Clockers (1995)

Crime and Punishment in the Projects

[22 December 2002]

Warning: Spoilers!! I know I am not the first to say this, but this movie can be compared to the novel "Crime and Punishment". Raskolnikov is Strike the young drug dealer. Strike is always feeling nauseous due to his ulcer. Raskolnikov was always sickly. Harvey Keitel plays a role similar to the Police Inspector in the novel. Who knew that Spike Lee read Russian literature. I like the main character, Strike, because he is a train buff. I never figured that black people in the ghettos or Projects would be train enthusiasts! OK, so I'm a white guy. I don't really like Rap music. I don't really know much about the black underclass culture that exists in the ghettos and projects but I'm trying to understand. This movie helped me learn a little bit about what life is like for these people. Strike is tied up in a murder, just like Raskolnikov was. Harvey Keitel likes Strike, but disdains his drug dealing. Harvey Keitel has more sympathy for these black people than do the other white cops. He helps coach one little black boy into saying that he killed a hoodlum in self defense so he wouldn't do hard time. Keitel's character wants to give Strike a break, so he exiles him from New York City to keep him from facing a certain conviction with a long prison sentence. At first I liked Delroy Lindo, because I thought that he was a simple shopkeeper, a good man trying to run a small business in a bad neighborhood. But that's deceptive because Lindo is a distributor for drugs and has a lot of the drug dealers under his controll. Lindo is basically a drug lord so he is not a good man! What was sad in this movie was seeing the apartment of Strike's mother. She was living in the Projects yet had the apartment as nicely furnished as she could manage. I could tell that she was a good woman who worried about her family while living in a world getting worse. What dignity! I liked the very last scene. Strike is sitting in the lounge car of an AmTrak train looking out the window at the desert scenery going by. Obviously, he did leave New York and went out West to start a new life! THis is a good movie.

The Cowboys (1972)

A different kind of movie for John Wayne

[22 December 2002]

Warning: Spoilers! In this movie, John Wayne really reminded me of my Grandfather. I had an emotional tie to this movie. I could easily picture myself being one of those boys, trying not to get on the bad side of Mr. Anderson. Of course, winning an "atta boy" from Mr. Anderson would have been like winning a trip to Disneyland! This was a different kind of movie for John Wayne. Instead of being a leader of men, he finds himself being a leader of boys! The extra weight of instructing these boys in the fine art of herding cattle and helping them learn to be men rests squarely on John Wayne's shoulders. He has to do all that and lead a cattle drive to market, a tough job with experienced cowmen as it is. Here's the spoiler: John Wayne gets killed in this movie. This totally goes against the convention of Westerns! The lead character does not die! It makes for a better movie to take such a risk. During the last 20 minutes or so, the boys have to carry this movie and they do a fair job of it. They resolve the battle of good versus evil without their trail boss to bail them out. I liked this movie. I think that boys should watch this to learn about life.

The Patriot (2000)

Mel Gibson and the Revolutionary War

[16 December 2002]

This movie has its good and bad points. What is good: 1. It focuses on the war in the Southern colonies. This is a unique approach to what is commonly known about the Revolutionary War. 2. Mel Gibson's character is abruptly brought into the war. The events that force him into the war are compelling. The viewers get to explore the emotional and psychological nature of Mel Gibson's Character. 3. The guerilla war. This is very interesting because the movie takes the viewer from the very beginning of a guerilla band through the end of the war. 4. Tom Wilkinson. He is a joy to watch. He's kind of like the Sir Laurence Olivier of our day. Tom plays General Cornwallis, a decent man with good military skills who is confronted with moral dilemmas as he fights the war in the South. 5. Clean sexuality. For people tired of seeing teenagers and 20 somethings endlessly talk about sex, engage in sex, or being addicted to pornography and extremely foul language, this movie is refreshingly clean. The young people in this movie wait till after the wedding ceremony to engage in the sexual acts and they don't talk about it.

Here are the minuses:

1. The British as villians. This movie is trying to portray the as the bad guys to the endth degree. This is not WWII and there aren't any Nazi,SS, or SA troops in the Revolutionary war! The British were actually fairly humane and reasonable throughout the war, for the most part. 2. The battle of Cowpens. This movie tries to make the battle of Cowpens into a big hollywood style blockbuster action sequence. 3. The movie is too long. Maybe some scenes could have been cut out.

All in all, I liked this movie. It's an enjoyable way to learn some history. Mel Gibson is always a good draw.

Real Women Have Curves (2002)

A young girl's struggle to chase her dreams.

[13 November 2002]

This movie is about the struggle that Ana, an 18 year old Mexican-American girl in Los Angeles, has in trying to find self-fulfillment. She is torn between the traditions of her heritage, the obligations to her family, and achieving her full potential. Ana's mother is an embodiment of her Mexican heritage and family obligations. Mr. Guzman, a Mexican-American himself, is the modern world personified. That is what is brilliant about this movie: the two ideals that the girl must choose between is represented by two different characters. Ana's mother is a die-hard traditionalist. She has seen the world change in her lifetime and she is desperately hoping to save her daughter from this new, scary world. Plus, she wants her daughter to stay at home and work in the family business to help out the family. Mr. Guzman is Ana's High School Teacher. He sees the brilliant potential in Ana and perhaps because of her Mexican heritage, he is very concerned that her bright future will be wasted away if she takes the usual life path that most Mexican-American kids take. Despite the title, this movie isn't really about positive self-images for women. It's about a young person trying to make a very difficult choice on what to do with her life.

Memphis Belle (1990)

A movie about a B-17 and her crew

[16 October 2002]

When I was 15, I was totally enthralled with WWII aircraft. I built several models of these airplanes, B-17's included. So I was a big fan of Memphis Belle when it came out. I saw it 5 times in the theaters. The B-17's are the queens of this movie. It's all about these magnificent flying machines. As a heavy bomber, the B-17 with its graceful lines is probably the most beautiful bomber to come out of WWII. For a fan like me, this movie is two hours of viewing pleasure. Such beautiful birds! Second to the B-17's is the teamwork that the men demonstrate to complete their mission. They not only work hard to learn their jobs and to serve well at their posts, but they also help each other when different emergencies happen. They care about each other and do all they can to get home as best they can. The one inaccuracy that I did not like was the absence of any .50 caliber machine guns mounted in the nose canopy at the bombardier position. The bombardier in the movie is actually firing one of the navigator's guns. In a B-17F there would have been at least 2 machine guns mounted in the nose canopy. Overall, I enjoyed this movie. I think that people that do not know anything about B-17's or WWII planes would still enjoy this movie. It has a good story with likeable characters.

Songcatcher (2000)

A good movie about great mountain music

[12 October 2002]

This was a charming movie. The music was great. One could really feel the soul of these mountain people pouring forth through their songs. What really captured the essence of the people was when Lily said that music is to them as breathing the air is to everyone else. One can see that these primitive, backward white people were as in tune to nature and the universe just as the Indian tribes were that had resided in America more than 100 years prior to the setting of this film. This movie does have a typical Hollywood love affair with the homosexual life style. And it is a little bit feminist leaning. In one scene, Lily rebukes her love interest as being like all the other men on the mountain, only wanting to sit around all day and play music. That seems odd and inconsistent coming from a music professor who in every other scene shows an intense love and fascination for music. Even though this film is hard on the menfolk, what makes it a delight is the way Lily is won over by the Mountain music and how she comes to appreciate the Mountain People and their peculiar ways. That is the foundation of this movie.

Predator (1987)

Predator and the relationship between man and technology.

[24 March 2002]

Warning: SPOILER!! I liked this movie. I believe that it is Arnold's Schwartzenegger's best movie. The tension and suspense are excellent. This movie effectively combines horror and action-adventure. The movie starts out with a raid on a military camp in some banana republic. I was taken in at that moment with the victory over the guerillas by Arnold's special forces team. It seemed as if the movie would be about a campaign against corrupt and possibly communist Latin-American military forces. Americans with their excellent combat skills, training, and technology would win out in the end. But that is what makes this a good movie. On the moment of their greatest victory, a seed of doubt is planted. We see what the Predator sees but we just don't know what is going on. When Billy squishes the scorpion, it is symbolic of the fate of the special forces team. One by one the team is hunted down and killed. They try to use their imposing technology to fight against the predator but to no avail. The high technology fails. When Blaine's gatlin gun runs out of ammo and is humming impotently on, this is symbolic of the utter futility of their high tech gadgets. To finally defeat the Predator, Arnold must give up the empty shell of high technology. Arnold makes primitive snares out of rope, sticks, and logs, and covers himself with mud. The mud is symbolic of the main character being one with nature, shedding the trappings of civilization, as the only way to survive against the ultimate of hunters. This movie reminds us of our primitive roots and the importance of being one with nature.