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Reviews
Elementary: While You Were Sleeping (2012)
Ok until the denoument
Warning: Spoiler. Exactly how did the perp unhook all the tubes,get out of her hospital bed,out of the hospital, to the two victims' homes, back into the hospital, back into her and rehook the tubes - with absolutely no one noticing?
Perry Mason (2020)
All Angst and No Action
The original - and Gardner's and Burr's - Perry Mason was an intellectual exercise - nothing outside the case and the courtroom. No sex, no violence, just thinking. This Perry Mason is more about his problems than the case -his sex, drinking, absent ex and son. And no suspense - a two-minute scene shows us the kidnappers. Drags and drags as he writhes.
Jack Reacher (2012)
good thinking; stereotyped scenes
Movie adheres to Lee Child's formula of presenting facts and data; giving you a few seconds to analyze; then having Jack Reacher interpret them for you. Sure, lotsa shooting and fighting, but the real interest is in Reacher's unraveling and reversing the obvious. Reacher very much an older TV series Equalizer or Lone Ranger: no connections, no relationships, just sorta appears, sets things right, and rides off into the sunset. The outcome of the sexual tension between the buff Jack and buxom Helen unexpected. The empty parking garage, streets during car chases, positioning of cars in the tunnel, elevator, courthouse, stereotyped. Example (spoiler?): How do the two bad guys lug a comatose Helen from the elevator through the ground floor of the courthouse with no one noticing? And we never do find out why the "mole" became a bad guy.
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
A Time Capsule
Excellent in the way a classic car is excellent: The accepted standards of the past. Col. Calder (Paul Drake of Perry Mason fame) is always lighting a cigarette; every speaking actor wears a coat and tie or a uniform; the women, dresses. Except for the one Japanese scientist, everyone is white; the Italians speak English with an Italian accent, even to each other. The supporting actors are memorable. Commissioner Chiara is voluble and excitable; Pepe,clever and fixated on his Texas hat and horse. Paying Pepe his half-million lira, the officer utters a classic line: "I have to see a man about a horse". Ray Harryhausen's idol and mentor was Willis O'Brien, of King Kong fame: the echoes of that movie drive the plot of "20 Million" from the zoo lab (chained down like Kong) through the rampage in a Rome (New York) through the climbing of a famous landmark (Coliseum = Empire State Building) to the last fall. The battle with the elephant parallels Kong's with the Tyrannosaur. And both movies end with memorable quotes eliciting sympathy for the beast.
The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Poor Ava
Excellent ensemble acting, especially O'Brien, who has the most scene-chomping role as a PR man who never shuts up. Bogart and Ava are the characters who see the vacuity of the rich and glamorous. Why poor Ava? Once again, as in The Sun Also Rises, she gets stuck loving (here follows spoiler) a man rendered impotent by "the war". And, like her character, Lady Brett Ashley, in Sun, she is forced to turn to, one might say, stereotyped studs - a bullfighter (Sun) and a flamenco gypsy dancer (Barefoot). My question is: The Count was impotent, so did he marry her? If he married her to continue his family, as he tells his sister, why should he object to Maria having an affair that could result in a child that he could make his heir?
Salt (2010)
Excellent within confines of Action Film genre
As with any action movie, this film must be taken with a grain of salt (sorry: couldn't resist). Don't think, just watch, anticipating a continuous series of perils narrowly escaped by nearly, but not completely, impossible feats of body or brain. Why a 7. Several reasons. 1. A flaw (I think). The double-agent Colonel has three stars (Lieutenant General) on his epaulets, not a silver eagle. 2. Our heroine kills only bad guys: misinformed American agents, cops, and soldiers she merely kung-fu's unconscious (and they stay so throughout the particular scene). Deliberate? 3. Speaking of bad guys: they're all male - despite the background brainwashing scenes showing boys and girls. Ditto for the good guys: Jolie is the only female (who speaks more than 5 words) in the flick. Deliberate? 4. When Salt is trying to convince Peabody that she's on his side, she comes up with several iffy reasons, but not the obvious clincher: "Ask the President when he recovers who was the bad guy - me or Winter".
Streets of Blood (2009)
Unrealistic
Good emoting, but unrealistic. None of the gangs post any guards. At the end, when the four musketeers sneak into the trailer park, all the bad guys are clustered around a fire. No guards, no dogs, nothing. Everyone stands straight up so they can make better targets. When the Captain sees his assassin, he stands there as he reaches for his pistol, never thinking of hitting the dirt. Of course, no one noticed the killers' car, with them sitting inside it, sitting in front of his house on an otherwise deserted street. Sharon Stone, wearing the same white scoop-neck blouse that she has worn throughout the film, asks Kilmer if his partner shot himself. Given that Kilmer shot 50-cent in the back, with his (Kilmer's) own pistol, 50-cent would have had to be a contortionist. And, I guess, no one will ever run a ballistics check on Kilmer's gun. In New Orleans, no cop is ever suspended until a panel has reviewed his killing someone. Not realistic.
The Hurt Locker (2008)
ridiculously implausible
Watched the first five minutes: if I ever watch more, I'll add to this. I stopped because of the implausibility of the action. In the opening scene, (a) how did whoever exploded the bomb know that the "bot" wagon would break a wheel? (b) why not simply fix the wheel and sent the bot, rather than sending a man who dies (c) when the bomb exploded, why remain standing? dive, prone, with feet facing bomb. Second scene: why don't the soldiers in the apartment simply call or radio the bomb squad? Why do they remain silent until the new Sergeant sticks his head in the door? An overall question: why bother with a bot? Simply shoot at the bags of explosives until they explode.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Implausible
A most implausible movie. Events occur in a world in which no one seems to notice anything. (1) Opening: man lugging gas cylinder walks out of substation, drives off in police car. No one notices then - and, apparently, no one ever checks the substation. (2) Police car stops another driver. OK. Man, in civilian clothes, lugging gas cylinder, gets out and approaches. Driver politely waits. No other cars pass during this scene. (3) For the rest of the movie, no APB is ever sent out for the assassin. (4) In the seedy hotel scene, (a) desk clerk killed - no one notices; (b) two characters exchange volleys of shots for about five minutes - no police cars ever appear. (5) Tommy Lee Jones character apparently drives his pick-up from Del Rio to El Paso - about 450 miles - rather than just telephone a warning. (6) In hotel, shotgun-wielding assassin approaches PI. No one notices. And PI, knowing assassin is an assassin, politely goes with him to hotel room, where he (the PI) can quietly get shotgunned. (7) End of movie: (a) woman returns home, there's assassin, sitting in chair, Rather than turning around and running out, she apparently stays to chat (and die). (b) assassin leaves; another car hits him. No one notices. No one calls police. He talks with two boys, buys a shirt to wrap his broken arm and walks away. Apparently, bleeding men walking away from two wrecked cars is a common occurrence in this neighborhood, because, again, no one notices. Now, that's a high-crime neighborhood.