Reviews

No joke. I was watching this movie today on TNT, and it was actually sponsored by Kleenex -- that's some good marketing. Field of Dreams is a wonderful movie that always makes me want to go to the batting cage to hit some balls or find someone to go play some catch with. It's a great American fantasy, packed full of nostalgia.

This film is less about the pageant "Miss America Georgia," and more about a few of the girls who are entered into it. We see how different all the girls are -- each one has a little more or less interest in actual "Indian Culture." Some just want to be like their white friends and feel like regular Americans while some try to incorporate more of their parents' values into their lives. ---- Entertaining, but I only give it a 6/10 because it could use some more depth, more interviews with the parents and friends of the girls.

This film is less about the pageant "Miss America Georgia," and more about a few of the girls who are entered into it. We see how different all the girls are -- each one has a little more or less interest in actual "Indian Culture." Some just want to be like their white friends and feel like regular Americans while some try to incorporate more of their parents' values into their lives. ---- Entertaining, but I only give it a 6/10 because it could use some more depth, more interviews with the parents and friends of the girls.

This one gave me nightmares. Circus on Ice should actually be called horror on ice. Its a story about demonic ice dancers, fighting with Earth animals until their frozen deaths (loose interpretation). Only watch this for a dangerous nerve experiment.

I'm really looking forward to see what Richard Kelly has next. This was one of those few films that had a great effect on me and got better seeing it again.

Really cool style of directing...

The kind of story that makes you think, "How the hell did someone manage to come up with all this?"

Really unique.

Kazan's version of East of Eden captures the mood and main points of the Steinbeck novel very well. Sure, its a bit annoying that main characters from the book (Sam Hamilton, Lee...) were not a part of the film. For a two hour movie, it did manage to cram a lot in and even stands as its own work (it would not be a requirement for the viewer to have read the book -- though I think it made it better for me knowing the backstory.

Highs--- (1) The climax scenes (those between Cal and his father, and Cal and Aron) were pulled off incredibly -- really effective and moving. (2) Jo Van Fleet's performance as Kate was great -- she was just the type of snake I imagined from the book. (3) James Dean's Cal was at times excellent -- His portrayal was a good mixture of Steinbeck's character and the typical James Dean character fans of his would like to see.

Lows---- (1) The video quality is awful. The movie was shot by Kazan in cinemascope (really wide) and doesn't translate well to small screen non-letterboxed. It makes it real hard to tell what kind of job Kazan did visually as a director -- not to mention there was text cut-off in some scenes, and a lot of scenery missing (an important part to Steinbeck anything). (2) Julie Harris hams it up a bit as Abra, but I guess that's normal for old movies (when most actors were trained for stage).

Overall: (1) Captures emotion of the Steinbeck novel (2) Entertaining story that most people could keep interest in for two hours (3) Worth the 2 bucks it'll cost to rent for 5 days... and will be worth 20 bucks to own on DVD in widescreen.

Score: 4 out of 5 popcorn buckets...