Reviews

The Boxing Girls of Kabul is an engrossing glimpse into post-Taliban Afghanistan, where life is freer than before, but women can still be stoned and hung for perceived immorality. The 3 young boxers are both encouraged and criticized, and as such demonstrate the precarious state of social pressure in a poor, religious, fractured country. Their fathers and their coach, despite serious threats against them, are all determined that the girls have the right to fight, and so seem similar to the father of Malala Yousafzai -- liberal people in an oppressive society.

In the narrative itself, the girls are at once inspiring. brave, naive, unrealistic, and seen through a certain lens, pathetic. With only amateur training, few resources, primitive equipment, and not even a ring in which to spar, their hopeful trips to tournaments in Vietnam and Kazakhstan become sobering collisions with reality, facing better trained, faster, fitter girls.

So, a story about the human condition, about brave young people, about coping in a hostile society, all in 50 fascinating minutes. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, it is on Netflix. It is worth seeing.

I'm sorry, but I do not understand most of the reviews here taking so much time on Mae West (not my aunt). This was the first movie in which I was aware of Constance Cummings, and for me, she makes it. Mae West is an amusing diversion, a counterpoint to the core story, but it is not her movie. Constance Cummings is both gorgeous and icily, mysteriously seductive. In every one of her scenes. she fascinates and dominates.

Yes, it's fun to hear the first iteration of Mae's "goodness had nothing to do with it", and yes, the ending is simplistic and abrupt, but it was the Cummings character that kept me watching.

I have been a grouchy, childless, curmudgeon for the last 30 years. OK, 40. I especially get cranky with movies of easy sentimentality and clumsy "messages", eg., about patriotism or religion or love or whatever.

So, I have no idea why I bothered to tune into this movie, (other than it featuring Cary Grant), since the listing told me everything I needed to not watch it: children, family, adoption, disabilities, etc. Once into it, however, I just had to keep watching. It surely has all sorts of sentimentality, and blatant messages about adoption and the Boy Scouts; however the writing is so wonderfully deft, and the performances (including those of the children) so perfectly understated that I was fully engaged and easily able to forgive the more obvious "message moments" such as Jane being the belle of the ball, and Jimmy-John's predictable physical and emotional transformation into an Eagle Scout.

Perhaps being a boy scout, and perhaps remembering a sister's first big dance helps to suck you in, but there are eye-stinging moments enough for anyone, such as Jane refusing her (foster)mother's kiss, and the kids in the orphanage playground stopping their noisy play to watch anxiously the visitors looking at them from the balcony.

Next Sunday I'm going to watch the golf, dammit.

"Surrender her pronto, or we'll level Toronto."

(Reminds me of an old joke:

"The Lone Ranger goes to Canada" . . . or . .

"On to Toronto,Tonto, pronto!")

It's probably easier for a Canadian to like this movie, and to find it funny. Allan Alda's line, above, was one of the many times I laughed out loud -- my real test for a funny movie.

What it is, is, an exaggeration of the exaggerated perception that (we think) Americans have about Canada -- the cleanliness, the politeness, the accent ootandabooot etc. Plus, the portrayal of Americans looking like goofs as they stumble around and over-react to those exaggerations. Canadians understand both the substance and the hyperbole around those clichés, and the LOLs are easy to come by.

Then, of course, the movie exaggerates American clichés also, and "everybody" loves to laugh at Americans, even though most Canadians (certaintly the ones that have visited often) have great admiration for the giant to the south, and lots of envy too.

Also, lots of movie clichés get the same satirical treatment.

Hey, it's really great fun at the expense of both sides, although in different ways. I can't believe that it's Roger Moore who put it together -- most of his stuff is so heavy and self-important as to be unwatchable. (On second thought, I guess it IS typical MM -- mocking as much Americana per minute as he can) But he must have been doing different drugs when he did this mini-masterpiece.

It cannot go unnoticed, of course, that John Candy, the American sheriff is/was very, very Canadian.

Canadians, and Americans who know about Canada, should find this a funny movie worth their time.

OK, so the plot is far fetched; but the songs are classic, the singing is great, the dancing is sometimes amazing, the stars are fresh and cheerful -- it's just a great hour and a half of enjoyment.

Early Doris Day shows why she was to become the biggest box-office draw of the mid '50s. Perfect pitch, perfect demeanour, perfect pertness -- a happy delight whatever your mood.

And, if for no other reason than Eve Arden's cut and thrust, which made me laugh out loud, literally, this is worth watching, and enjoying. They just don't write lines like that any more.

It is, as they say, what it is, and what it is is worth an 8.

This is a film that is very much worth seeing, regardless of some serious difficulties.

The portrayal of the well-documented stress between Darwin and his wife Emma, and the despair of losing his daughter Annie, poignantly illustrates the very human side of a historic figure who today is regarded with an increasing dichotomy of reverence and contempt, depending on where one stands with respect to evolution vs religious creationism.

What a powerful quandary! That a faith-altering treatise on the source of biological diversity and progress should be withheld for years, due in part to the love between a husband and wife: the one harbouring a revelation that the other fears. This is a beautiful portrayal of their love, and their mutual respect, and the anguish that derives from a threatening idea being thrust between them.

Likewise, Darwin's love for his children, and the anguish of losing Annie is convincing for sure. The episode of Annie kneeling in penitential salt, and the reactions of each of her parents, was so illuminating of the conflicting perspectives on their place in the universe.

There is much elaboration and probable fictionalization around those 2 relationships, but I was prepared to accept them as legitimate devices to illuminate the well known facts of their domestic life.

What I was not prepared to accept was the portrayal of Darwin's hallucinations (which I do not believe have any basis in fact), and the flash-backs, (or flash-forwards – it became difficult to differentiate), which taken alone were tedious, and together ranged between silly and infuriating. Perhaps I was conditioned for irritation having suffered through the torment of Jennifer Connelly's other movie scientist-husband, John Nash and his Beautiful Mind, but whatever – for 20 minutes as Annie faded, and Darwin saw crazy things, and time switched back and forth needlessly and pretentiously, I squirmed with annoyance and found myself wishing that she would just get it over with.

Thankfully the visions and the time-travel finally end, things are resolved as the movie concludes, as we know they would be, and the bonfire and the cart provide a nice release to go out on.

To those here who complain that the title is misleading because the movie is scant on the details of the derivation of the theory of evolution, I can agree. In truth, I think appreciation of this movie will be improved the more one knows of Darwin's story – the Beagle and the Finches and all that; but to those who complain that it should in fact have delved more deeply into the science, I just say that this is not a story about science – it is a story about the people around the science and social consequences of it. (Whenever I hear that a movie "should have . . .", my usual response is: go make your own damn movie.)

I want to give Creation an "8", but the 20 minutes was barely a "4", so a "6" it is.

Still, despite those 20 minutes, I am glad I saw this movie.

Cary Grant, of course, is always worth watching (Father Goose notwithstanding). Betsy Drake has a great cadence to support her slightly ditsy intonation, and I did not tire of it, as some have said, any more than I do the affectations of July Holiday or Marilyn Monroe.

The plot is not trivial, nor is it totally predictable.

Where this film fails in comparison to others of its era and genre is in the writing. The comedy is amusing enough, and there are some good moments, but the lines do not propel the viewer with the rapid-fire bite that is expected with a setup like this one.

I wanted it to be good enough for a 7, but I will stick with my 6 which in my metrics is still "definitely worth watching".

To those PC reviewers who were "disturbed" by the "stalker" aspect, I say: loosen up, it is a COMEDY! We have all laughed at Lucy being sillier, more extreme and more persistent. Beside, the movie starts by laying out the very sensible premise that a woman should be able to pursue an attractive man in ways similar to a man going after a desirable woman.

eg., Rough paraphrase of girl talk: "What would you do on a date?" "Take him on a drive in the country."

"And run out of gas?" "If I wanted to".

. . . and everything follows from that premise -- logical, consistent and, for me, engaging.

Lastly, I note that the best user ratings, as of this date, are by women of the age of Betsy Drake's character, and not by nostalgic curmudgeons like me.

When you consider that this movie was made only 13 years after the end of the war in the Pacific, with its brutality and carnage, it is quite surprising to see that the "The Barbarian and the Geisha" tries to to present the clash of cultures, 100 years earlier, with such apparent equity and fairness.

While some may see John Wayne as the archetypical posterboy for American jingoism, in fact his character clearly tries to understand the country in which he is trying to establish the consulate, and shows genuine remorse, not arrogance, in noting that in early part of his assignment, all that the Americans had established was a cholera epidemic and the torching of the city to quell it.

While the interracial love story behind the title was somewhat superficial, I thought that the more important aspects of colliding cultures and political shadowboxing was quite interesting and well presented.