Burt Lancaster plays a major during the Vietnam war when he was actually 65 years old and his age is impressed upon you in the first scene as he scrambles through the wire. His obvious age demands such a suspension of belief that it is difficult to focus on the movie. He makes a comment that he was once the General's commander so obviously got into trouble and was passed over for promotion in an attempt to "Explain away" the glaring visual age dysynchrony. But if he was a screwup at the rank of major he would have had his twenty years in and been discharged after being passed over for Lieutenant Colonel. I am sure the technical adviser pointed this out but hey they had Burt Lancaster starring. I was a major equivalent during the Vietnam War (US NAVY LCDR)and was 29 years old as were many of my peers + or - a couple of years so maybe it's not a problem with the non-military knowledgeable viewer.
Reviews
6 Reviews
So Fine
(1981)
New York, the garment industry, the mob, academia and opera
11 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The perfect storm of a comedy; many themes come together to create a perfect blend. If you're a New Yorker, had anything to do with the garment industry, brushed against the Mob, laughed at the pretensions of academia and Otello is your favorite opera, this is the funniest movie ever, ever. Okay, those are a lot of constraints but having peripherally known them all, the film's a great parody and can be appreciated on many levels. The plot's based on the concept of jeans that..........well, to say more may be a spoiler so let me just say you can't imagine anyone other than the cast playing any of the major roles. The cast may each giving their best individual comedy performances
Dinner Rush
(2000)
It helps to be a New Yawkher
3 February 2007
I am a hedonist and believe a film should entertain though I would not necessarily dis a film that only educated. Dinner Rush entertains but I suspect it would especially appeal to those of us who enjoyed the NYC restaurant scene of the eighties and nineties and did not take its pretensions too seriously. The flick maybe be limited in its appeal to, dare I say, NYC yuppies with a sense of humor. Within its context, though, it works very well. So you can give it an 8 or a 3 depending on where you come from. The flick's characters' behavior is not to far from what I knew and appreciated back then. The movie captures a slice of life from a time and place in our recent past. Personally I highly recommend it with the caveats stated above.
Carmen
(1984)
Who is the most erotic Carmen
8 December 2006
Julia M-J oozes sexuality. She is the most erotic Carmen I have ever seen at the Met, Statsoper, Covent Garden, La Scala, on TV or in flicks and I go back to the forties. The photography is superb, it gives a sun drenched washed out effect that takes you back in time when all that happens is where you want to be. People have trashed the opening Bullfight background to the overture, I don't agree but then I am not very PC and don't believe in a sanitized blood free world. In the context of a nineteenth century opera it's valid. So listen to a young Domingo and watch Julia Mi-J have her way with him. I wold rate this as an opera movie second only to the Domingo-Richiarelli Otello.
Aria
(1987)
Great Fun, IF..........
27 November 2006
Guess a few upscale film directors were sitting around sipping their absinthe, grappa, aramangac or jungle juice some night in the 80's during the Cannes or other film festival and one said "Hey, guys let's do a movie where each of us creates a segment around a world class aria." Welllll...it kind of sort of worked. Clearly someone was smart enough to select some of the best recordings of the arias chosen, for example Bjoreling's Nessun Dorma, so if you were blind and lying on the floor just listening to the DVD you got more than your money's worth. Not every director succeeded but more did than not and the flick seems to improve with each viewing over the years. My favorite is the eerily beautiful love duet from Die Todt Statd; okay a young naked Elizabeth Hurley is eye candy but her husband singing to her, his wife's ghost, is incredibly beautiful with the love music second only to Otello and Desdemona's "Gia nella Notte Densa" in all the operatic repertoire. Could the flick been better, sure, what couldn't not have been but it's well worth a view especially of you're in a hyper-romantic mood.
Big Deal on Madonna Street
(1958)
Comedy Tonight
25 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I am avoiding any sophisticated film analysis and simply stating this film is very funny. I admit I am afictionado of Italian films so perhaps I am overly generous in my appraisal. The photography evokes a time when Italy was just beginning to rise from the chaos of WWII and it offers a wonderful emotional change from the neo-realism of many of the era's classic films. It's the best slapstick, tried and true but presented with style and timing before the shticks became clichés......when Cosimo attempts to rob a jewelry pawn shop and points his gun at the owner asking him if he knows what he has in his hand, the proprietor insouciantly takes the gun from his hand and says "A Beretta in poor condition" and offers him 1000 Lire for it. There are many, many more examples but for me to recount them would detract from your enjoyment. To see Marcello and Claudia when they were younger than my children and before they were stars is good fun. Apropos of James Bond, just saw the new Casino Royale, in BDOMS when Cosimo is outside the jewelry pawn shop, 52 minutes+ into the DVD, the background music is the repeated opening bars of "Diamonds Are Forever" almost twenty years before Barry wrote the song for the James Bond flick.
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