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Reviews
For Richer or Poorer (1997)
be submissive or be adhesive
Don't know why the ratings are so low on this one. Tim Allen at his best in a hilarious clash of cultures in a Witness spoof.
Totally off the wall plot but who cares, the characters get sent up so well. Kirsty Allen perfect as the spoilt frustrated socialite who finds redemption and fulfilment in an Amish community, and J O'Sanders so convincing as the hard working, no nonsense yet caring head of the one Yoder family which we are concerned, out of the many families Yoder in the area. Larry Miller as the deranged IRS officer on the trail of the Sextons is a marvel. Tim Allen impresses with his astonishing real life horse handling skills.
Even a little sober moment toward the end where the movie very subtly has us question the madness of modern life, and wonder if these people really have got their lives right. Can only say don't get put off by the low score. Hope you enjoy!
Rambo (2008)
Shameless exploitation of real suffering
The thing that really deeply offended me about this movie was the appropriation of the heartrending opening scenes of REAL pogroms, killings, traumatised children, and the hell of real human suffering. Why? - because they're a great opener and set the scene nicely for Stallone's latest money spinning violence fest. Has he got no conscience? Or even a human mind of any kind? Maybe not, and this movie takes the idea of 'mindless violence' to a whole new level
Prison of Secrets (1997)
Some movies are worth making
Seen quite a few TV movies and on average they often seem so much more worthwhile than those on general release. Why? Well a film like this isn't likely to be a cash cow no matter how much you throw at it, hence it's unworthy of Hollywood big bucks. One reviewer here saw it as a typical women's prison flick. I rest my case. But somebody cared enough about the storyline to produce it with a modest budget, presumably hoping only for equally modest returns. These are the guys I admire, as I do the characters in the film. Absolutely believable, I've heard sufficient of these horror stories to know they happen. Maybe we don't hear more of them because of a dearth of courageous characters like the one portrayed here that expose them. God help us - abuse and exploition such as this and in other forms are going on all around us. Stephanie Zimbalist was perfectly cast as the woman who kept her integrity intact. Stephanie Sawyer as her little daughter was amazing. In fact excellent turns were put in by all the cast here. I said this movie was believable throughout, and only in the final few moments of the dramatic climax does reality kick in and you realise it's a dramatised version of a true story you're seeing. But I'm still going to give it 10 stars because some movies are worth making. This is one of them.
The Angels' Share (2012)
Fantastic start, lost its way
The first part of this film was to me something that had never been seen before in cinema. We were drawn into the violent world of the Glasgow street thug. We saw the drugs, the mindless violence, the broken lives of the victims and the perpetrators. We saw the destitution of the young people in the worst parts of the city, those without any hope of a future, whose only recourse was to a life of drugs and crime. We saw that a self-centred, uncaring society itself had played a large part in forming these young people and had them under its heel, where there was no escape. We saw the young thug facing his victim and his family in some sort of meeting, as he recounted the terrible frenzied attack where he thought he was going to die. We saw the effect it had on the victim's family. And most touchingly we saw the deep remorse on the thug's face as the victim's mother remonstrated with him about the heartbreak he had created in a moment of madness, and he thought about his own newborn son. And we looked at the broken lives on both sides of the table. I wouldn't have thought it possible to be so moved to compassion over a hood's life until I saw this film. Then there was the friendship and help offered to him by strangers as he tries to reform now he is a father. It would have been wonderful to see this life lifting itself out of the morass of crime and violence into a world of decency. It can and does happen, and what a wonderful heartwarming tale this would have been if that had been the destination of the movie. Such an idea should not be seen as a fairy tale and discarded in favour of 'realism'. We could have seen redemption (it does say it's there on the jacket), we could have seen reconciliation, we could have seen hope. To me the film slipped steadily after the opening scenes and the consummation of the story seems to be 'crime can pay - just be enterprising'. Or 'just one more heist, and then we're through'. Really? The screenplay, acting and direction were brilliant.