Reviews

My brother, Joe, joined the Marines right after Pearl Harbor, as an underage boy with false papers. So did his cousin. Now it's over seventy years later and for the first time I realize the anguish of my mother and all mothers when their sons went to war. Claudette Colbert stole my heart as she made me understand what my mother, and all mothers then and today, must have been going through when their sons (and now their daughters go to war).

I was 3 1/2 years old in 1942, and so during the war, while he was in the South Pacific, I heard my mother's stories about 'Brother Joe,' that she told so that I would understand that I had a brother and he would eventually come home and live with us.

Natalie Wood is a wonderful surprise as a tiny war orphan, perhaps eight years old; Orson Welles was at the top of his form, but Claudette Colbert was the brightest star of this film.

This is not an anti-war film, it's much more a 'why we must go to war film.' There's a lot of philosophy buried in the script, but it never slows the film.

Warning, bring at least two handkerchiefs to "Tomorrow is Forever".

Falling in love with your brother's wife is a good starter. There's plenty of tension between the brothers. Their mother is in between but obviously sees the failings of the successful, stay at home, brother. His wife is bored as her husband fails to think of her...Lawrence Tibbitt gets to sing, and he's as good an actor as most opera stars(not very).

This reviewer was glad to her his voice. The justly criticized scenes with stereotyped darkies are as bad as you'll ever see, but Steppin Fetchet answered critics of his portrayals with the remark that he "laughed all the way to the bank."

I am pretty far to the left, but I judge art as a product of its time. The singing and dancing of African-Americans in this film was joyful and artful, though admittedly stereo-typed. It was not embarrassing.

Look, I would have given it a ten but then what grade would I give to Bergman films?

I loved this quirky film. My wife, who likes action films didn't. But she stayed for whole film--so what does that mean?... I hate action movies but as you deduced this was almost a farce. very funny. Neither my wife nor I could remember who ordered from Netflix. She might have thought it was an action movie which she likes; or I might have read something about it in the New York Review of Books or the London Review.

As I said above, it has so many twists that my back hurts. Kept me guessing throughout.

Anyway I loved it. Have fun, see it.

This is a well written script based on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." I think it is essentially a remake of a French film, with Jean Gabin,called "Crime and Punishment," later changed to "The Most Dangerous Sin," made around the same time. At any rate, self- justification, remorse, rationalization, guilt, and Truth are the subjects at hand. Each is handled slowly, without emphasis; the viewer is expected to bring much to the picture. This explains the films lower ratings. Hamilton, as an actor, is weak, others have been reminded of Tony Perkins. He was too handsome, and wasn't smart enough to use make up or a cheap haircut to make himself appear to be the poor student of his role. But, the real star is Frank Silvera, who underplays the cagey Detective, and is a joy to watch in action. He toys with Hamilton, who, unfortunately, just isn't his match (as an actor.) Marian Seldes plays Hamilton's long suffering sister.

I don't know what was in the Director's mind when he approved the score for the film, but it is the worst movie music I have ever endured. Only Bob Hoskins kept me in my seat--I would have walked out if it weren't for Hoskins. A relatively young Helen Mirrin does a decent job with a peripheral role, but Hoskins is the quintessence of gangster boss;Hoskins suits were perfect. Every Boss will need to study the film so that they can understand how they should behave. A very original opening sequence, peaks the imagination; it's hard to understand what is happening, and why-- And a dramatic spit in the face at the beginning of the movie is finally explained towards the end. I shaved several stars off my review because of the jarring, twanging music.

This film brings us Rex Harrison already foreshadowing Professor Higgins. He tries out the arrogant, picayune, verbally acute role and is absolutely successful. The seed is planted and we, who know what is to come twenty years hence, rub our hands gleefully in anticipation of Higgins. But Linda Darnell is no Eliza. Instead, she is a loving, docile, trusting wife, already dressed as though she will be meeting the Queen and looking beautiful and so very desirable.

The dialog crackles and moves fast. Only Rex Harrison and perhaps Cary Grant could have have delivered with the wit and brio that Sturges deserved.

There are two extended slapstick scenes that should have been cut shorter.

Edgar Kennedy as a Private Eye has a couple of great scenes when he turns out to be a classical music devotee and is knowledgeably enthusiastic about Harrison's conducting.

A digression: Harrison tosses a couple of tickets to the Philharmonic concert, they are orchestra tickets a few rows from the front row. Price $3.80, designated as "Patron"' seats.

A human with with super-human or perhaps super-natural powers walks alone through the breadth of the United States after nuclear winter has struck. He must overcome many trials and does so using his formidable physical skill. Better than Robin Hood with a bow, better than David Carridine with his hands, shooting straighter than the Lone Ranger and having reflexes quicker than Jack Rabbit, he perseveres through the driest of deserts, the deepest of lakes, the swiftest of rivers. - You get the idea. So did I after the first five minutes. Mel Gibson did in 1979; there was no need for an updated remake. - There are two very beautiful women in the film, Mila Kunis, and Jenifer Beals; but neither could do better than take the director's direction--stand here, run there, smile, cry... - Why a man like Denzel Washington, thought this replay worthy of investing his own money and time I cannot fathom.

Audrey Tatou is believable as a very young Chanel. We see her grow up from 9 years until the beginnings of her success in Paris. The print I watched at Cinema Paradiso in Ft. Lauderdale seemed washed out. Was the director imitating french painting of the time? (pre WWI) Perhaps.

Chanel was very courageous. She tried anything. Horses, singing, and even men. The viewer sees her seamstress skills combined with her critical eye, and it's easy to understand why she became such a success. We meet two of her lovers and pull for them to become her guides and money men.

The settings in French Château's of the day are beautiful, the costumes perfect, Longchamp is created for the camera, as is an orphanage.

I'dreally like to give this zero stars. Or less.

One of the most frustrating movies I have ever sat through. This film was awful. My granddaughter thought it was about little children because of the children in the beginning of the film, and the contrived "artful" dialog and camera work. Motivation is non-existent. The characters find lots of stage business to do on camera. Quirky music abounds. There is even a three legged cat that is supposed to get laughs. I like bright colors in color films and they are bright in this one. There are some things to look at. The grass is very green and the sky perfectly blue. If there are clouds in the heavens you can be sure that they will be cotton-puffy and very white. The con artists play cons on each other. But there is a subplot.An older brother has a lesson for the younger brother. He's been writing his brother's life since they were little. He wants his little brother to write his own life. So he tricks him. And then tricks him again. This is not the Socratic Method. The writer-director thinks that Spelling Ryan "Rian" is creative. That's the level of creativity that this movie aspires to.There's an Asian character who has no place in the move, but then none of the charactoers have any place in the movie.

The actors must have been conned into playing in this movie.

Bogart acts! "In a Lonely Place" is where we all live. A screenwriter, recently demobilized from the WW2 Army where he was a CO, packs the violence of the war in his heart and is helpless when it escapes. His girl friends wants to help him, but his pain is overwhelming. You never saw this side of Bogart. Magnificent.

This film has a place next to the great Bogart roles. Nicholas Ray directed with close attention to architectural detail. Secondary plot: an attack on Hollywood's need for profit over art.

Hedda Brooks, an unsung singer, seen in many movies as a piano playing singer plays right into the plot when she sings for lovers, Bogart and Grahame.

I stuck with this movie because (1) I hoped to learn more about wine making (2) the photography was A+ and as a travelogue it was was enlightening.

But almost every scene in California seemed to have been written by a teen-ager who knew only cute. Or perhaps someone wearing pink lensed glasses. Sweet is the word for this movie. Overly sweet. Saccharine.

Ramshackle cars and trucks on their last legs trucks predominate, showing us that everyone is on their last nickle. A young girl-intern lives in a cabin right out of Hans Christian Anderson. The art director and whoever built the cabin must have been living out a childhood fairy tale. It was a perfect cabin, perched on a little hill-top, in the midst of miles of grape vines, under the heavenly blue sky usually seen on Hallmark greeting cards. Only Toto was missing.

On the other hand the moment that Alan Rickman and Denis Farina get to work, I felt like they brought their own writer. Funny, intelligent, and engaging, most of their scenes were fine. Although someone thought that Farina wasn't quite enough of a character so he was constantly dressed in very noisy sport jackets, ones that may have been cut from some surplus horse blankets. -- More cuteness, I guess. Also, he's given an Elvis pompadour to wear -- Farina is a strong enough character on his own, he doesn't need any props to make him more than he is on his own. maybe the director is insecure or never learned that less is more.

Everything in this movie is too cute and over sugared. There is the usual father-son conflict. There is actually a boxing ring set up on the verge of the vineyard so that Dad and son can go to it in the ring.I know you don't believe me--but you'll see it when you get to this film.

The writers and directors must have been classmates at the California College of Cliché.

This script has two plots one not so related to the other. There is a love story, that of a failing marriage and blossoming love affair and the second of a three way war in Chinatown, NY, between two sides of a Chinese Tong and on the third side an uncompromising honest policeman. he actors in the love story, (Mickey Rourke and "Ariane,") acted so stiffly that I thought that they were made of frozen sheet metal. It may have been their lines,because when Mickey Rourke, at least, plays in the rest of the film the acting lights up and there is a real person on the screen. Perhaps the two screen writers, (Oliver Stone and Michael Cimino) split the writing and one took the romantic scenes and the other the action. Which ever one took the romance gets a 1 out of 10, while the other moves up to an eight. I discounted completely the romantic thread of the story and gave the film a seven.

• I believe in Michael Cimino, and think that his work is first rate, and usually underrated, but his principle weakness is unnecessary extension of scenes.

Michael Cimino has a great film buried deep in himself, but he should get himself to a monastery and read Hemingway for a few years, then come back to film.

This story was re-plotted for unfathomable reasons and becomes very hard to follow. With all Sean Penn's power it is amazing that the relationship between Kate Winslet, playing Anne Stanton and Mark Ruffalo, as Adam Stanton, and Jude Law, who played Jack Burden, who somehow was brought up in Judge Irwin's home, and may have been the son of Judge Irwin and Mrs Burdin, but the film leaves that unclear.

Judge, Jude and Law confuse matters more, but the writers really messed this great story up. Had they really done their homework, and followed Huey Long's story more closely, they might have made use of Sean Penn's amazing talent at making characters his own.

What was the object of the writers? To impose a trifling love story on a great American Tale? Next time, perhaps, they will tell us what George Washington's mistress was doing during the battle of Brooklyn Heights.

How do films like this get made? What a waste of talent.

I gave this picture a 9. It blazes with emotion and truth. The music is alive. Amazing. I see Oscar nominations in the air for Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy...

And the music was great. I am a classical music and jazz fan. I haven't ever learned to like the Motown Sound, as I thought it was artificial and lacked emotion--but when Jennifer Hudson sings--wow! all the emotion and truth is out on the table. Nothing is held back. I should have paid double for this movie.

Lately Hollywood has come back to making serious movies (films?) and this is one of them. I learned some about the music business, Motown, desperation, honesty, and how hard musicians work to make their records perfect.

This film, based on the true founding of the CIA from its' beginnings as the OSS in World War II, shows the CIA in its glory and in its mistakes. A power within the government, it was (is?) made up at the highest levels by trustworthy patriots from America's "best" most accomplished families, usually from Yale and almost always WASPs. No Jews or Negroes need apply.

These people think that America belongs to them and that the rest of us are "just visitors." They know that generation after generation of them will continue to run the government, the state department, and the White House. Oh, maybe one of them may not occupy the Oval Office, but he will be controlled by the families, by these legacy Yalies and their Skull & Bones secret societies.

Lasser's love scene is one of the best in the movies, and may be her best work over all. What an actress. She and Robert Modica are electric lovers as two older people, senior citizens, who fall in love, who care for each other in ways that only lovers can care. And maybe only older lovers.

Loneliness and getting older are dealt with sensitively, and every movie goer who looks for something more than action will find Kolek's (the son of the famous Israeli Mayor)film moving and worth the time. Why are't there more roles for older actresses? Because there are't many actresses with Louise Lasser's sensitive emotion. She digs deep and the audience falls with her. Robert Modica is also attuned to the feelings of older men left alone.

Streep: 15 Stars out of 10. The movie: 8 out of 10

Streep plays a boss who lives for her work. She loves her work and becomes the best in the Cosmos at it. She can't tolerate fools gladly--and if she did she would be taking away from the energy she gives solely to her company. It's all for the company.

She needs what she needs NOW and not later and expects to get it. Underlings don't understand; and some of them hate her for it, others merely fear her. None understand that her genius requires, deserves the instant gratification the Miranda (Streep) demands.

Streep masters this part; as an actor she starts at the top and rises still higher. But, except for Stanley Tucci, everyone else in the cast is just coasting. Anne Hathaway is miscast as Andrea, the second assistant, --she doesn't look or fit the part; she's weak, mooney, and her boyfriend, Nate, Adrian Grienier, is just a pretty face playing a sous chef, (well, Woody sees something in him, as he's in a Woody Allen film but, I don't know. I kept wishing that he'd leave the sixties and get a haircut. We've seen his act already in a thousand pictures from the sixties.)

Stanley Tuccci is fine as a gay guy in the company. Loyal to Miranda, helpful to Andrea, he dances though the film and adds to every scene they give him.

Besides the comedy, film goers will note there's a serious theme in the film too.

mek

Between Treadwell the maniac photographer; and Herzog his genius editor this film is a work to be reckoned with. Nature at it's realest; man at his most innocent, life: tooth and claw. It's all here.

This how it must have been when we were just visitors on a wild planet. Treadwell decides to live in close proximity to some Alaskan Grizzlys in an isolated part of a huge park. He is flown in at the beginning of spring in each of thirteen years, left on his own, and he camps beside the bears. He comes to believe that he is one with them--even that they know and love him as one of their own.

Treadwell films miles of film and tape and Herzog edits it for us. We see the Grizzleys close up, not telescopically close up; but, right in with Treatwell, so close we can see the food they're rippling of an elk carcass in between their teeth; and it seems as though we can smell their pungent animal spoor as well.

God's terrible beauty is laid out for us.

The Lost City. Bad reviews in the press, but a very interesting and music filled rendition of why Cuba needed a Castro, how Castro failed his own revolution, why the middle class left, and lots of great music , some of it old film of actual stars of the pre-Castro Cuban music scene.

I don't understand the bad reviews. Maybe the intertwined stories were too much for the reviewers to handle: Love of a Family, love of men and women, love of Cuba, Meyer Lansky as a sort of good guy, music, dancing, Batista as a strange, bad guy and Castro as a hero with feet of clay.

Additional virtue: Ines Sastre, the woman who plays the wife of Andy Garcia's brother is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen on the screen.

My family loved What's My Line for the repartee mostly, although I think my Dad had a crush on Dorothy Killgallan because of her intelligence and subtle sense of humor. Dad always liked smart women, and Mom understood and was tolerant.

One night Dad took us Toots Shor for dinner where Mom and he were introduced to Miss Killgallan by Joe Harrison, Dad's friend and the Maitre 'D. Dad and Mom had a drink with her and her husband Dick Kollmar. She drank Champagne and Kollmar paid for the drinks.

Back to What's My Line: John Daly was also great, and I learned my love of punning from the irrepressible Bennet Cerf.

Let's see, was Stoppette (an underarm deodorant) a sponsor? And for some reason another early sponsor, Timex comes to mind too.

Michael E. Katz