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West Side Story (2021)
Don't remake a classic unless you can knock it out of the park.
The cinematography, music and dance are very well done. This is the backbone of the film. However, there are modifications to the plot and character development and all of them diminished the dramatic impact. There was no need to develop the character Gino. If we needed to know more, Shakespeare would have written a bigger part for County Paris. (Note to dramatists: Shakespeare got it right!) The details about Tony leaving the Jets diminishes the story. It is more moving if he matured and just moved on from the gang life. The point where Spielberg the director really missed the boat was the conclusion where both gangs raise up Tony's body. In the film and every stage production I've ever seen of West Side Story, the Jets are at first reluctant to allow the Sharks to participate. But they understand the respect and grief felt by their opponents and relent. The fact that the tragedy produced blessed peace is lost in this version.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
No plot, just special effects
In the early days of cinema, people would instinctively run away from a film of an approaching train. Audiences got more sophisticated and special effects got much more convincing. Top Gun: Maverick marks the point where a movie can, once again, consist only of special effects. The plot was totally predictable, the character development was trivial. They repeat the plot hole of having planes arm and fuel themselves only because the pilot wants to fly them - over and over again. An actual Naval Aviator wrote an exhaustive list of errors in the movie. For one, Maverick would have been discharged because he didn't get promotions on time. At best, he might have been a civilian test pilot.
There is one good thing in the movie. The P-51 Mustang is Tom Cruise's own plane. He is an accomplished pilot in real life. For me, seeing him fly his P-51 was the high point of the movie.
Darkest Hour (2017)
Not an Accurate Churchill
About the time of these events, according to the story, Churchill had his driver take him to the shooting range so he could practice with his American 45 Automatic. He was intent on personally taking out as many Nazi's as he could. He was a combat-tested cavalry officer. When the War Office wrote a speech he would give in the event of an invasion, he rejected. He said it must end with "The hour has come; Kill the hun!". He also told a friend, "You know, in 3 months, we'll both be dead." THAT was the historical Churchill, not the whiny, sniveling drunk portrayed in the movie. Great acting... maybe. But the character Oldman is portraying is a fiction. I just finished reading "Churchill Walking with Destiny". I can state unequivocally that the Churchill character in this movie bears no resemblance to the real Churchill. If you want to know about Churchill, read the biography.
Madame Bovary (2014)
Madame Bovary is not a French Anna Karenina
Any student of world literature 101 will tell you Anna Karenina is a *tragic* story of an adulterous woman, and that Madame Bovary is a *farcical* story of an adulterous woman. The screenplay uses the broad outline of the story as a platform for some stylish acting and cinematography, but it totally misses the point of the novel. There is much more - oh, so much more - in the novel.
Let's look at the deletions. No mention of the first Madame Bovary. Yes, the reader meets Madame Bovary in the first chapter, and she's dead by the end of the second. This is a piece of misdirection only equaled by Catch-22 almost a century later. No mention of Emma's child. Emma's reaction to the child is essential to her character development. The dialogue at the awards ceremony between Emma, Rudolph, and the speakers below, is a classical of dry, insulting humor. There's none of it in the film. The piano lessons are hinted at, but they were so important in the novel, both as a plot device, and as a vehicle for humor that there's a sign in modern Rouen saying "Ici, Emma Bovary n'a Jamais pris de lecon de piano" (Here, Emma Bovary has never taken piano lessons.). Even now - the humor!
Emma's death in the novel is very different from the movie. In the novel, it's disgustingly painful. It is juxtaposed to Charles' death at the end which is so, so beautiful, in the garden with the overwhelming aroma of the flowers. In the movie, Emma's death is so, so beautiful, flying in the face of exactly the comparison Flaubert intended.
Lady Bird (2017)
Teenage girl as an anti-hero
I found nothing enlightening or entertaining about this film. It's as if Gerwig set out to produce a movie in which a teenage girl is a Dostoevskian anti-hero. Her parents make every sacrifice for her. No thanks, no appreciation, constant laziness, sloth, and disrespect.
Her goal is to go to college in NYC somewhere. Study...? ... No. Earn money ...? maybe a little. To get to her lifetime goal, she eventually drives her family further into debt, then immediately winds up in a drunk ward in NYC. Mission accomplished! Maybe we were supposed to view this as a victory for the human spirit. On what planet?
We leave our heroine wandering the streets of New York hung over. We have no idea if she wised up, or just added drunkard to her resume.
Emma (1996)
Totally Decadent Era
If you like the musical "Grease", and I don't, and if you think 19th century British upper crust culture was exciting and vibrant, and I don't, then you might like this movie.
This is a view of young people, totally devoid of responsibility, trying to decide who to take to the prom. Wait! ... not the prom, the altar. We constantly see evidence of actual work: the meals are elegantly set, various outdoor venues for embroidery or archery are set, but we only see one servant in the entire movie. He stands perfectly still, out of focus in the background, and has no lines. When the "lower classes" actually move around, they immediately attack 2 defenseless ladies.
I'm giving it 3 stars for sets and costumes. The actors mostly hit their marks and remember their lines. There is no passion whatsoever in anything they do.
I say, lock them all in their elegantly appointed staterooms in the Titanic.