Reviews

Saw it today.

As good as the previous one, and just as moving.

Narnia has been taken over for several generations by a foreign human people who have settled there, the Telmarine. Prince Caspian's father, the king, has been killed and the uncle is the usurper. (Can you say "Hamlet"?!). Caspian is on the lam. Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan are summoned to help by the prince's horn as they are needed. Caspian is found hiding out underground with the Narnians whom the Telmarines thought were extinct.

Alliances were formed with talking animals and various creatures, even some dwarfs and minotaurs previously allied to the White Witch--all oppose the foreigners in Narnia. Various exploits and battles ensue.

Aslan shows up briefly later in the film. The White Witch even has a brief scene.

This film is much less allegorical than the first, with much less sibling discord among the four English youngsters--Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan. They are all far more self-assured. especially Edmund.

Action sequences are top notch, and it seems they used fewer digital "people" than Lord of the Rings, which was OK: if you saw a cavalryman in the distance it was a real man and horse.

Prince Caspian, interestingly, several times was a real screw-up, Peter and Edmund basically saved his throne for him. At least Aslan showed confidence in him.

What was oddest was that although this film was made in New Zealand (as usual!), Slovenia, and Poland, all the Telmarines looked and sounded Spanish! ??? They all had Spanish accents, and even Caspian, played by Ben Barnes (born in London) spoke with a Spanish accent. The Italian actor who played Miraz said that the director wanted such an accent from all Telmarines.

Best new talking animals: Trufflehunter (badger), and Reepicheep (sword wielding mouse with attitude).

As others have said, "The new Narnia can be seen as a parallel to the modern world, in which old beliefs are scoffed at. "Who believes in Aslan nowadays?" asks Trumpkin (dwarf) when he first meets Caspian. Those who "hold on", like the badgers, are praised: this links with Lewis's views on religious faith".

I can't say more about this film without giving away spoilers. But it was top notch.

I just finished watching on PBS, for the very first time, a highly regarded movie comedy from 1961, "One, Two, Three". And I have a headache from it. A very quirky film. I have never seen its like.

It was written and directed by Billy Wilder at his height of fame, he being one of the legends of screen writing and movie direction. He had just won huge acclaim for the classic and charming "The Apartment".

Even after watching this the title is itself odd. If you look at IMDb the rating and written reviews are mostly glowing. And it is clever. No doubt the lovers of this film were the ones who wrote.

BUT. . . although it is very well done it was like a movie on uppers. I was paying close attention and I felt like I was in a cyclone of jokes, many not good; a few hilarious. I did laugh out loud at Arlene Francis' character commenting on how she knew Cagney was having an affair because he started wearing his "elevator shoes".

Jimmy Cagney (acting legend) headed a frenzied hyper cast delivering lines fast rat-a-tat like machine guns, and doing so at the top of their lungs. So much yelling. The jokes and apparent jokes and all the lines went flying by; you hardly knew when one ended and another began. And if something was funny if you laughed you'd miss the next line! :o And I had the volume way up.

You get the idea. Somehow, it being in black and white didn't help.

It was set in Berlin in 1961, just before the Berlin Wall went up, and the Cold War jokes had to be understood in historical context.

It was good and well done, BUT. . . if ever there was an example of "Less is More" this is it. If Wilder removed a third of the jokes, especially the poorer ones and slowed the pace it would have worked better.

How Cagney could deliver lengthy lines that loudly and fast I don't know, but he did. It was almost funny to see that alone; he was like some kind of crazed machine not a man in his sixties.

Jeez. It was like the entire film was on heavy doses of caffeine.That thing lasted almost two hours, and it needed two intermissions for the audience to take a break! But it was good, sure. But I still have a headache trying to follow its frenetic pace.

Saw "Cabin Fever" last night.

In "Narc" there was a better example of a head being blown off with a shotgun. In "Underworld" and "Ghost Ship" we saw heads cut in half with the upper part sliding off - more interesting than horrifying, actually. In "Blade II" I saw actor Ron Perlman, the current "Hellboy", cut in two from crotch to scalp with both halves falling to either side.

When you've seen that, where else do you go? Do the non-CG FX and buckets of Karo syrup and red dye in "Cabin Fever" shock me? Hardly. And director/writer Eli Roth surely is obsessed with blood, and more and more blood.

So, it was not really horrifying, although it was somewhat gruesome and very gross. The idea of a skin-eating disease randomly and unexpectedly striking down people, who then begin and inexorable slide into blood and decay, is not that scary. Scary means somebody - some maniac - out to get you and you never know when he will.

So, did I like it? 2 1/2 stars out of 4. If you see the DVD check director Roth's sanguinary claymations - "Rotten Fruit", which are also steeped in blood. It was worth a rental.

I should add the lemonade scene at the end of "Cabin Fever" was pretty good. By then Roth and everyone was having a good laugh, which is fine and entertaining, but also tells me no one walked out "horrified".

I'm back from seeing "Open Range", the first good Kevin Costner movie in years.

He was good; Annette Bening better; and Robert Duvall the best. Duvall sort of rehashes his "Lonesome Dove" routine, but gives it a softer edge but filled with crusty gravitas and grit. Just a great actor. Costner directed it very well.

Not quite as good as "Unforgiven", and certainly not as dark, but still maybe the best movie this Summer. Authentic-looking, with fine character development, all the gunplay is saved for the climax as the plot builds to it nicely, and that shootout is messy and chaotic - the way it should be and the way they were, unlike Eastwood Westerns where every bullet fired immediately kills a rival, all fired in a few seconds.

Often beautiful cinematography, and fine realistic performances right through the cast including the hateful bad guys.

The one surprising thing about it is that the film played out in a manner that would have been almost predictable - for most Westerns from a few generations ago, it being straightforward, and good triumphing over evil, with only a few touches of ambiguity. As such, and in "look", it reminded me of George Stevens' classic "Shane", with Alan Ladd, but even that classic had a slightly dark ending.

Anyway, lovely film. In the theater I was in it got applause at the end.

BTW, for those into Westerns I highly recommended "The Big Country" from the 1950's, but always thought John Wayne's "Red River" slightly overrated, though still good.

Having just seen "Tears of the Sun" I can understand why certain left-wing liberal reviewers ripped it. Here are the reasons:

1. It honestly and correctly showed Muslim Fulanis in Nigeria massacring and slaughtering Christian blacks.

2. It correctly showed the U.S. Military as good guys taking action against evil.

3. It correctly showed the "the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" - a clear reference to al-Qaeda, terrorism, and Iraq in 2003.

The PC liberal America-haters and Hollywood degenerates and Communists will hate this film. But I thought it superb.

In the tradition of many films such as "Operation: Burma", "Distant Drums", "Predator", and many others, an elite team goes on a mission behind enemy lines and has to march out fighting along the way. Willis' team was sent to rescue some white missionaries and a doctor in Nigeria being threatened by Muslim ethnic Fulanis who were massacring the Christian Ibo. The missionaries, typically, won't leave, and the good-looking female doctor, Monica Bellucci, with shirt conveniently unbuttoned at the top, will not leave without her patients, those who can walk. But there is a crucial secret about this she tells no one, endangering the entire mission - some the refugees are not what they seem.

But the epiphany for Willis' character is seeing the massacred mission they just left, that after having lied to the doctor and abandoned her refugees and patients while flying away on helicopters. Exactly WHY Willis he has this epiphany, this revelation, to GO BACK in violation of orders to rescue these refugees, is never fully explained: he himself said "I'm trying to figure it out". Perhaps it doesn't even matter - what matters is he DID take a moral and humane course.

They continue the march out of Nigeria heading towards the Cameroon border, all the while being suspiciously tracked all too easily by pursuing Fulanis, who for some reason seem very determined to stop them. Again, one of the refugees is not what he seems.

After the climactic fight upon reaching Cameroon, the film ends with the famous Edmund Burke quote, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". President Bush is NOT going to "do nothing" about Saddam Hussein, and that is why liberal reviewers feel so uncomfortable with this movie.

The gore was much less than "Blackhawk Down", although some atrocities are referred to, but not shown in great detail. Some younger teenagers could see this, but I doubt if they'd appreciate the moral dilemma facing the Willis' character and his men: obey orders and abandon innocent people to certain horrible death, or, take action and do what is necessary. For those interested, there was also a lot less military hardware on display here.

My complaints were minor. Eastern Nigeria looked a bit too much like Hawaii, which is where it was filmed. Willis was slightly too laconic, but good enough. One American character was an obligatory black man making reference to "my people". Puhleeze.

Good film. Entertaining and compelling all the way. With a message very relevant for the world in 2003 - a cowardly world willing to do nothing about terrorists and mass murderers. You can also be sure the Hollywood liberal America-haters will despise this movie.

"The Clock" is simply my favorite romantic movie ever. It captures the characters and personalities of the couple superbly; we care about them almost immediately and are entirely involved in their chance meeting romance in New York City at the end of World War Two.

The genius of this gem is in the details, the vignettes, and all the little small adventures they experience. The fascinating people and places they meet all come together so very well to make for an enthralling experience.

If I have a complaint it is that we wish we knew how the marriage worked after his return from the Army. The direction of all the film was perfect - Vincente Minnelli directing his wife, Judy Garland, who looked beautiful in this movie.

The scene towards the end of the film where they have a private little ceremony in a church on Fifth Avenue was magnificent and so very lovely.

Look for two long gone New York landmarks: the Astor Hotel in Times Square where "the clock" is, and the great original Penn Station - the outrage over the sudden destruction of this landmark saved many more great buildings; it did not die in vain. There is no doubt such as Radio City Music Hall and Grand Central still stand as a result.

By the way, Hollywood may well have reconstructed all these locales on a sound stage rather than do location shooting. It is just the way things were done until location shooting started to be occasionally done in the late Forties and into the Fifties.

A GREAT film. Fire up your VCRs if you see it on TV.

A lot of people, including professional reviewers, found "Signs" to be disappointing on many levels and for many reasons.

The movie trailers and ads were blatantly deceptive: this is NOT an "alien" movie, nor was it especially scary. Also, the direction was derivative and simply ripped-off from other films.

Besides that, the screenplay is nonsensical, filled with inconsistencies, and is just illogical in so many ways. These have been described at length and in detail in the reviews and on the IMDB "Signs" message board. Read them. The only question is who was dumber - the aliens or the humans.

But then an interesting phenomenon occurs. We see fanatical and sycophantic comments from a hardcore cadre of people who are in fact pseudo-intellectuals who think only they can fully comprehend what M. Night Shyamalan was trying to do. It appears to make them think they are smarter than they are by imagining they have unique (but in reality false) insights into this movie.

The reality is that "Signs" is a superficial and manipulative movie that is also highly pretentious intellectually. As such, it appeals to those who are equally pretentious. It's an interesting phenomenon.

I agree with other reviewers of this film. It is quite good. You can watch it just to see what Japan looked like in the 1950's. You can watch it to see Jon Provost's first role; we remember him from "Lassie". You can enjoy the chase. Pretty cinematography too; filmed in very nice color. Worth watching if you ever see it on cable or dish. Nice movie.

This may be the fourth remake of the A.E.W. Mason novel, and it surely is the best. The 2002 remake has not yet been released, but based on the trailers it may be both spectacular and regrettably Politically Correct. This 1939 version is just superb in every way.

There is no scene better than the venerable C. Aubrey Smith as an old general reconstructing the events of a long past battle with the food and utensils at the dinner table. The family military tradition is made clear in the scene to young Harry Faversham - who soon quits his regiment just before they go overseas to fight in the Sudan. This is seen, probably correctly, as an act of cowardice, and his former comrades give him the four feathers, symbols of cowardice. He spends the rest of the movie redeeming himself, quite heroically.

Although something of a salute to the British Empire, the film is reasonably accurate (beyond the fictious lead characters) historically, beautifully photographed in color, and filmed on location. The battles are quite spectacular.

It is not only well worth seeing but worth adding to your video library.

We waited a long time for the prequel to "Zulu", so eventually we got "Zulu Dawn". It depicts the Battle of Isandhlwana between the British and the Zulus. It turned out to be one of the great disasters the British ever experienced.

The Zulus in this film are accurately depicted as highly disciplined soldiers, and in some ways shows them in a more human way than "Zulu". Historically, it is reasonably accurate - at the time it was filmed. By that I mean, recent scholarship has showed that the assumed reasons for the British problems were really not the case. It wasn't that there were difficulties with ammunition, it was that the rifles were used so much they began to misfire, plus atmospheric conditions degraded visibility contributing to British disaster.

But a fine, entertaining movie filmed on a much bigger scale than "Sulu" was. If you can find it, SEE it. Burt Lancaster was especially good in his role.

It is always amazing how people can be fooled by style, or how they think a film that jives with their own anti-war views is therefore great. This is not even a good movie.

The plot, such as it is, is in bits and pieces, episodic and disjointed. There are no combat scenes. It is unrelentingly dismal with one in-your-face anti-war scene after another. Hey, there's the scene where the soldiers prove how brutalized they've become by shooting a dog. Hey, there's the scene at the end of the U.S. soldier and Soviet soldier killing each other in bombed out Berlin. No kidding.

If war is always so bad, WHAT ABOUT THE NAZI'S CONCENTRATION AND DEATH CAMPS American and Soviet soldiers liberated?? But no, this lousy movie won't show how WW II was necessary to stop evil.

The movie is a lie, and nonsense. Sure war is terrible, but sometimes it is needed, and it sure was needed against Hitler and Nazism.

One wonders how sick and old Clint's movie persona will have to become before he finally becomes unable to bed the young babe and shoot it out with the bad guy. Well, not yet, although his mortality is surely front and center in "Blood Work".

As a former FBI profiler, he suffered a heart attack while chasing a serial murder suspect; after a long wait due to his rare blood type he finally got a heart transplant - the catch is he now has the heart of the woman whom that serial killer may have murdered specifically so that McCabe could get the heart. The killer wanted McCabe active as he enjoyed the challenge and the chase. Then, the sister of the murdered woman seeks McCabe's help, and tells him whose heart he has, thus bringing him out of retirement and into the hunt despite his doctor's orders.

All the pieces of the plot fit together rather well, except for the plot hole listed below that to me ruled out a major character as a potential suspect.

Paul Rodriguez is both ridiculous and obnoxious as an Hispanic detective with a bad attitude. I suppose he was there for comic relief, but I never found him funny, not in the film nor anywhere else. Jeff Daniels dusts off his "Dumb and Dumber" schtick as the marina neighbor. Tina Lifford is very effective as a helpful Sherriff's deputy, and so is Wanda De Jesus as the rather angry sister who jumps Clint's bones despite the huge transplant scar - and her own sister's heart beating underneath (or was that a turn-on?).

It is all rather familiar, and basically the same "old" Clint, but nonetheless a very enjoyable movie and a well-written story. For those who say "when will we see a different Clint?", well, we already have in a number of more sensitive films.

PLOT HOLE:

At the ATM early in the film he unknowingly confronts the actual killer - wearing a woman's crucifix earring in his right ear. Unfortunately, there is a close-up of that same ear subsequently (before we know who the killer is), and it is NOT a pierced ear; thus, I ruled him OUT as a suspect. He could not have worn that earring, and don't tell me he used Crazy Glue. This is a plot hole.

The only people who will like this dumb movie are those who drive around with Confederate flag license plates. This is not only one of the most racist films I have ever seen after "Birth of a Nation", but it is also a gross distortion of reality and actual events; hell, "Santa Fe Trail" just makes a lot it up - all to make it appear that Southern slaveowners were great guys, and the Civil War was started not by the slaveholders but by those abolitionists whom the movie tries to portray as fanatics. Yea, wanting to end slavery was "fanatical"!

The movie lies about John Brown - one of the few people who believed in equality for everyone in the 1850's - and actually says there was no need for the Civil War as slavery would eventually have gone away. Or some other such nonsense.

As such, it is pure propaganda and an absolute lying disgrace.

Go see the TV mini series "Blue and Gray" if only for Sterling Hayden's wonderful depiction of Brown's stirring courtroom speech, which this movie ignored.

The concept borders on the ludicrous: a subway construction site in London (deeper than those in the U.S.) unearths a live DRAGON that spawns a multitude of other dragons who destroy London, and manage to virtually take over the earth despite nuclear weapons being used against them. Humanity is scattered to small communities.

It gets more crazy. Two hundred soldiers can be quickly reduced to nothing but ashes, totally cremated, by the fire breathing dragon, but their leader is unharmed hiding under a tank - he should have been dry roasted by the heat.

It gets crazier. To fight the dragon scourge humanity decides that if they kill the one male who is fertilizing that host of female egg-laying dragons no more baby dragons will appear and they will die out. One problem with that: just because only one male animal fertilizes many females does NOT mean there are no other males! How many male trout, or other animals, die or are fought off by the dominant male, when trying to fertilize or mate with the female? A great many. So the method of defeating the dragons is ridiculous. It would never work.

Even more ridiculous is Matthew McConaughey, leading the soon-to-be-cremated American army unit. He overacts so much he is almost laughable, while at the same time looking like he is undergoing Steroid Rage; he is so pumped up since the last time we saw him he must have been hitting "the juice". Perhaps he thought "Reign of Fire" was a satire.

Now for the good parts. The dragon FX are great. The dragons are fun. Burned out London reminds me of Stalingrad in World War Two from "Enemy at the Gates". Very nicely done.

The bottom line is that the humans were so stupid and obnoxious in this film I am very sorry the dragons didn't kill them all.

BTW, if you like movies about London subway stations unearthing some sort of other-worldy horror, check out "Quatermass and the Pit"; it got a 7.0 on this site.

Disney sure blew it with this mess of a movie. Here I was hoping for another "Saving Private Ryan", but what I got was a brainless stupid plot, a corny insipid love story, and cliche after cliche followed by banal dialogue. What a BORE!

As for History, it was almost as bad. Sure the battle scenes were good with their nice digital FX, but they were only about ten minutes of the movie, not "forty minutes" as Disney claimed.

The rest of the History was a pro-Japanese whitewash. There was no mention of Japanese atrocities, war crimes, and aggression in Asia and especially in China. No mention by Disney of Japanese militarism and plans for expansion. This stupid movie didn't even tell us why the Americans cut off Japan's oil supply (their aggression), nor did the film mention that Japan and Nazi Germany were allies!!

Obviously, Disney aimed this movie at teeny boppers (the corny love story) and whitewashed Japanese abominations and crimes to keep ticket sales up in Japan.

I wouldn't even rent this on DVD again. It stunk.