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jeanjohn
Reviews
The American President (1995)
Pleasant potential overtaken by hippy dippy politics
I've had this movie in my library for a long time and recently viewed it for the 1st time in about 5 years. The base story is a cute little romance with some comedy elements thrown in. Even the very clichéd character portrayals as all Democrats good and all Republicans bad is tolerable, even though some of the depictions are really nonsensical. I can accept this somewhat as it comes from Rob Reiner who has talent but continues to let his artistic endeavors get heavily tainted by his childish and buffoonish life outlook.
The acting is universally good and the nonpolitical portions of the script were very well done. But in the end the movie is completely undone by the loony toony pronouncements by the characters as to what cataclysmic results await us in 10 years if we don't toe the proper Al Gore line on global warming or whatever we're calling it now. It's 20 years down the road and were all still here and doing fine.
The only value to watching this movie now is to realize the extent of the liberal nonsense that was routinely included in movies in the 90s. Today, at least they make an attempt to incorporate their agenda in a little more sophisticated manner. This movie is now hopeless for anybody with a brain.
Ain't in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm (2010)
Very Disappointing
Huge fan of the music of the Band and Levon Helm in particular. Also very much enjoy documentaries of musicians as they lay out their influences, innovations, interactions, etc.
You'll get none of that here. Here you will get the presentation of an apparent drug addled simpleton. The contemporaries presented are also one dimensional vapids. I understand the man was going through medical problems but this was indulgent in the extreme.
Levon Helm had produced Electric Dirt and Dirt Farmer in close proximity to this film and great musical accomplishments prior as a solo artist and Band leader. There has to be more to that person than depicted here.