Reviews

Many have already commented on the vapid plotline of this movie. I have to add my vote to that with the further remark that there is little if no characterization in Blair Witch. Not unless you like whining twenty-some-year-olds who adore using the "f" word a lot.

About half way through, bored out of my mind, I not only was rooting for the witch, but feeling aggressive myself. If there had been "kill Heather" or "kill Josh" buttons to push on my VCR, I would have punched them without an ounce of regret.

The only good things going for Blair Witch is that it would be fairly creative for a high school class project (if it were one) and that it attempts to create suspense without all kinds of overblown special effects. Still, if the writers/directors/etc. had read an article or a book on how to create horror/suspense, they would have developed characters with which the audience could identify (I hate to think about who DOES identify with this bunch) and who have more of a personal stake in finding out about the legend of the witch.

If you're really curious, rent this for 99 cents like I did -- though you may still feel cheated.

Red Angel is a very interesting and strange movie which could make the staunchest warmonger into a pacifist with bloody sights that might delight Mexican/American director Robert Rodriguez. A beautiful, sensual nurse named Nishi battles the 1939 war in China and her own repulsion to its inhuman violence by making love to an amputee and falling in love with a drug-addicted doctor. Be ready for the screams of surgery with no anesthetic and the sight of saws being used to cut off limbs. A little soft core, a lot of action, enough blood to make you happy the film is in black and white. Still . . . it's always worthwhile to take a look at the world through another culture's eyes.

Shanghai Express is another von Sternberg masterpiece, probably not appreciated in his day (no academy awards) and lesser known that it should be in this day. Film theory says this film was an attempt to shade degrees of blackness. At one point, Marlene Dietrich's face blooms like a white flower out of the shadows, then closes again.

Beautiful is not a big enough word enough to describe the cinematography in Shanghai Express. The plot is dreamlike and unrealistic (Sternberg hated realism), the costumes are excessive (impossible to contain in Dietrich's supposed luggage), the atmosphere is deliciously layered with decadence, exoticism (good part for Anna Mae Wong) and deterioration (broken walls, slats and fantasies), punctuated by von Sternberg's caprice (chickens wandering in front of the train -- a symbol of Dietrich's husband's profession as a chicken farmer?).

The storyline is basically a broken romance seeking to be healed between Clive Brook and Dietrich or "Shanghai Lily," the naughty lady who has sold her body the past few years to keep herself in glittery costumes and furs.

The real "story" is "Dietrich and von Sternberg visit China" on some movie lot, on their way from or to Russia (The Scarlet Empress), Spain (The Devil is a Woman), North Africa (Morocco), or somewhere in the U.S. (Blonde Venus).

Gorgeous and lots of fun!

Like most von Sternberg movies, this one is full of light and shadow, layers of fabric and screen space. It all adds up to a dreamlike atmosphere set in a surreal place. Marlene is gorgeous, Gary Cooper is handsome but kind of out of place (the French Foreign Legion?) but, after all, it's a dream. Cooper and Dietrich sizzle in the sexual attraction arena. Fabulous movie and completely unexpected ending!

Son of Fury is a fun movie featuring George Sanders, Frances Farmer, Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. At the height of his allure, Power is gorgeous whether wearing a black velvet outfit for a ball or a diaper-like sarong on a lost Tahiti-like island. Still, no navels visible here! (I think censors believed they were evil.) Supposedly Power was having affairs with both Farmer and Tierney during the making of the film which must have kept him busy.

Otherwise, a slight but interesting historical/romance with a disinherited hero (Power), his evil relative (Sanders), and final revenge.

Alexander's Ragtime Band is a combination musical/drama with Alice Faye belting out Irving Berlin songs and making eyes at her leading man, Tyrone Power. Young Power is far more beautiful than his leading lady and is good as the wealthy classic musician turned band leader who shapes a cheap Faye into a classy performer. Worthwhile to see because of the song Faye sings "to" Power and the kiss they share afterward.

Otherwise, the movie is melodramatic with its storyline stretching over many years, rivalry, and World War I. But what else do you expect from a musical? A classic worthy to be seen.

This is a good, old-fashioned movie featuring brotherly rivalry between Don Ameche's character and Tyrone Power's. Tyrone is the good-hearted scoundrel of the two -- his scenes with Alice Faye have pizzaz despite her not being half as gorgeous as her leading man. The scene where Tyrone ducks objects that Alice throws at him in anger, then wrestles her to the floor and bites her lower lip, is a must-see for Power admirers. The Chicago fire is portrayed so well, this movie won an award for special effects.

This may be an "escapist" movie but it's one of my very favorites: rich technicolor, clever romantic repartee in the script . . . plus Tyrone Power in a red & black outfit "to die for." When old Ty wasn't trying to appear rough and tough with a few hairs and some stray wine drops on his chest, that is (I think they used to shave chests then, along with pit hair).

FUN! This movie proves you don't even have to have a sex scene to get your imagination working and then some.

Throw in some fencing (Tyrone did his own), plenty of tall ships, excellent secondary role actors, including George Sanders and Anthony Quinn. Wow, all I can say is this movie was so good, I bought it so I can see it over and over again.

This costume epic cost a bundle and is an interesting take on Marie Antoinette. However, good acting must mean weeping your way through several tubes of water-proof mascara (did they have it in 1938?), since Norma Shearer rarely is seen without tears spilling out of her eyes.

For Tyrone Power fans, there is way too little seen of him in this movie. No wonder 20th Century Fox executives were furious at loaning him out.

But this is a classic, so watch it. We should respect our film inheritance. Still, they could have cut an hour from this two and a half hour movie, especially at the end. It's no Gone With the Wind.

Although this movie's plot ostensibly is not a bad one, its moral is sadly amiss. I don't understand how audiences can watch it and not realize that the title character sold thousands of lives to the Nazis by turning over maps of North Africa. Why? To return to the side of a dead woman who did not have the grace and courage to tell him to leave her and live on for her as Dawson did in Titanic.

This movie is a sad commentary on where we have gone in our thinking since the days of Casablanca. If I had been the nurse, I would have shot the English patient in the beginning of the film! I know too many people whose relatives died in German gas chambers.

I am complete amazement as to why any critics would give this film more than one star. Although it does have stunning special effects, the movie consists of talking, talking, talking, talking . . . about nothing I haven't heard before that was said in a more concise and enlightening fashion. I love New Age. I love angels. I love stories of the afterlife. I like Richard Christian Matheson (the writer upon whose book this movie was based). I was bored and depressed by this movie which asked me to believe that Robin Williams' character should be soulmates with the lead actress just because she was beautiful and the script called for it.

Honestly, about an hour into the film, I wanted to turn around and tell the teenagers behind me, the ones I'd asked to be quiet, to start talking again. Or else I wanted to fast forward to the end. I should have stayed home and watched Ghost again.