Reviews

Yes, there were wild parties etc. During the early years of Hollywood but this movie turned them up to 11. Being so far from the reality of a real time and place but with fictional characters loosely based on real people makes the movie difficult to enjoy. Some scenes, especially where Margot Robbie's character, Nellie LaRoy, is at snobbish cocktail party are also over the top. That one went up to 12. And the scene where Toby Maguire's character, James McKay, takes the lead character Manny to see his next movie hero is just plain gross. "Once Upon a Time a Hollywood" was 100 times better. It was a fictionalized version of Hollywood during a later period but more resembled reality.

Those mocking the premise of this movie would also be mocking the premise of a movie about a department store Santa Claus who thinks he's actually is Santa Claus. If the script had been punched up a bit and the direction and editing had been given a better rhythm, this could have been on par with "Miracle on 34th Street". As it is, it is still enjoyable and came as a bit of a surprise for me since I thought I had seen nearly all Cary Grant movies. there is one major plot hole though. You think they would have provided such a valuable caterpillar more protection.

John Garfield nearly ruins this movie for me. He is not a good actor, he's short, and not attractive (of course I'm a guy). Lana Turner saves the movie. Not only is she beautiful, but she's a really good actress. The other things that make this movie appealing is the classic noir atmosphere, even though so of the double entendres are overt and ham handed. It also has one of the greatest titles in film history.

The visuals are good, and interesting, but the pacing is slow, the songs are cheesy, and the ending rips off another fairy tale in a dumb way. However, it's worth a glance to see the beautiful Catherine Deneuve.

Having never heard of this movie before, I found it to be a pleasant surprise when I found it on youtube. From reading the other reviews, it appears I'm in the minority, but I can't help it. In most cases, a film either has me after a few minutes, or it doesn't. From the start, I found Gene Tierney to be enchanting and, as the plot unfolded, I thought, "Ooh, this going to be fun.", and it was. People have compared this to "The Lady Eve", but that has a plot even more preposterous. I mean, come one, only someone with brain damage wouldn't know Eve and Jean are the same person. So, John thinking he had discovered a method for gambling doesn't seem that far-fetched. Though not one of the best film comedies of all time, it was still enjoyable.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I tried to lower my expectations for this movie, but I didn't expect, as so many others have pointed out, that it would simply be a retread of Episode IV in order to reboot the series. The story of how Kylo Ren turned to the dark side would have been far more compelling. Also, given that he's Darth Vader's grandson, don't you think Han, Leia, and Luke would have been on the lookout to make sure he didn't turn? I mean, WTF?

The only good thing is a return to real sets and a tasteful use of CG. The CG mess that is the prequels was my biggest gripe with them, and the promise of doing it right in Episode VII is what got my hopes up a bit. But that all means nothing if they're not going to tell an original story. For crying out loud, how many times are they going to have a Death Star with vulnerability that X-wing fighters use to blow it up?

As a result of this mess, I've given up all hope of ever having another good Star Wars movie. The franchise is dead to me except for watching the original three. It's pretty depressing really.

I started watching this series with the apprehension that they may focus too much on happened to Native Americans and portray them solely as innocent victims and portray all whites as evil perpetrators, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a pretty good balance. Yes, whites did do some terrible things to innocent people, but the native tribes also did terrible things to each other. This allowed me to enjoy the series, that is, until the last third. At that point, it seems 80% of the focus was on Native Americans and their plight, and many of the commentators became annoying by trying to wax too poetically in their analyses. It's a shame because some parts, especially the part about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad (episode 5) was very good.