Reviews

It was my once in a lifetime opportunity to fly business and be a pod person for an overnight international flight last fall and I found Gentleman Jack in the flight video offerings. It made the flight fly by. It was riveting, and enjoyed watching a strong woman be strong in a period when well to do women could do less than the mantle clock. Lister was different, she knew it, and didn't try to hide it. She lived life the way she wanted and took the men around her to task. The only thing that would tip her was being rejected in love. So I watched as much as I could on that flight out, until they shut off the video feed. But was overjoyed on the flight back to find it again - and I got to binge the rest of the series. I hope they do the Second season, eventually. I will look for the actress in other roles - she was riveting to watch. If you can find Gentleman Jack - settle in for a sleepless night of binging.

This long lost film shows many iconic Takoma landmarks, including the Totem of the title. The bulk of the film is a melodrama of a single mother surviving the best she can. Making the hardest decision of placing her young daughter in a private boarding school. Destitute, homeless, this woman lives by the only option available to her as a begger. Her predicament resonants today, as so many cross into poverty and homelessness through no fault of their own. Her daughter grows into a lively teen befriended by a wealthy family. The film villian is a predatory club owner who entices respectable young women into sex trafficking. One scene is very much like Ghislane Maxwell, as the daughter is tricked by one of these women into the predators office. As the teen attempts to fights off her rapist the wealthy son comes to her rescue. That begins one of the best shot fight scenes in films. This is no slapstick fight. This is a brutal, no hold barred fight. With stunning film shots and camera angles. This fight scene reminded me that the Directors of the Silents pushed the boundaries of composition and cinamatography. The film drags a bit in the middle of the melodrama, but stick it out. The last 15 minutes more than makes up for it.

It's been a long time since I've read Preston's book the Hot Zone but I remember being scared sleepless by his book. More so when I realized that I frequently visited the office park where the Hazelton Lab was located, just a couple years before the event took place. The mini series makes the lab out to be a cavernous old 30's era industrial building. It was actually a one story office park building from the early 70's. There was a central parking lot surrounded on 4 sides by a variety of small businesses renting space in the office park , including the printing company I visited on a regular basis. It's the banality of the office park setting that chilled me when I read the book and it scares me still. It was not a fenced off derelict building, people came and went right outside the front door of the lab every single day. When they cleaned that lab out, they didn't seal off the whole area - they did it at night and on weekends. There were probably people working in some of those other buildings on late shifts. They got lucky they caught it in time. That virus is called Ebola-Reston. It could have been Reston - the town that Ebola killed.

That said - I thought the series caught the fear, claustrophobia and exhaustion of the HAZMAT Team. Also, how inter agency competition was making the problem worse not better. The kids playing next door are a tired trope, how about a Mom in a station wagon dropping off her PTA newsletter for printing? that probably really happened.

Read the book and be prepared to have some sleepless nights.

They say a story is good if it keeps rolling around in your head when your not watching it. This retelling of a true crime was a gripping and authentic production that had me thinking for days afterward. I very much appreciated the no nonsense, factual production. No sexy actors in ridiculous outfits, no superfluous car chases or violence on screen. It accurately showed what police work is - the methodical tracking down of evidence until the parts become a whole. It's professional team work, with all the frustration that entails, and it can mean bucking the system. I recall this investigation was one of the first that relied almost entirely on CCTV. Hollywood could take a few lessons from this series. BBC could as well. Except that BBB does formulaic better than Hollywood. At least on BBC there's a chance the actors will look and dress like normal people. I admit I am a Martin Clunes fan - going back to his pre Doc Martin days.

Anyhow, I felt so sorry for the random victims of the very violent offender and their grief stricken families. But I also felt sorry for the killer's wife and children - who were trapped in a relationship with him, and will forever have their lives haunted by his crimes.

My husband asked me if this was a Disney movie, and I wasn't sure. It was a little too lite for a serious drama and then had some moments that were definitely to dark for Disney. Jimmy Stewart is good at chewing up the corn rows but most of the supporting younger actors were working with undeveloped characters and said little and woodenly when they did talk. A few complaints: Why did the Father take seven of his kids, including a daughter, to find the lost son, and leave the homestead protected by only one son, with a wife and baby. It would have been wildly dangerous to be traveling back and forth across battle lines at the end of the war. Better to have a few riders, and certainly not a young woman along. More dangerous was to leave such a wealthy home insufficiently protected. A fine home like that would have been ransacked and burned by both sides. Speaking of the house. That was one very fine home for that era and location. A single farmer who had to clear his own land with a growing family would have had a more modest farmhouse with more common interiors. That was mansion for a man who was a politician or lawyer. Fine millwork, big rooms, nice furniture. Were there really mansions like that in the Shenandoah in the 1860's for a farmer? I'm surprised that the Confederate Army hadn't already seized his stock and crops earlier in the war. Cold Mountain was more realistic. So was Friendly Persuasion for that matter. The scene where the scavenger trio go after the young wife was dark for a movie that up to that point had treated the female characters with delicacy. Again, it was the middle of the war, both armies are in the Valley. Yet the door is unlocked, and she didn't have a gun at hand to protect her baby? Costumes were nice, and close to realistic, for a Hollywood film, no hoop skirts. It just felt like a made for TV movie, or a John Wayne movie.

Saw Transatlantic on June 23 at a special screening at AFI/Silver, in the glorious restored Art Deco Silver Theater. In a joint presentation with the Art Deco Society of Washington an audience of almost 300 people enjoyed a restored copy of a little know early talking film Transatlantic. I was expecting a film like many of the early 30's films, a little slow, flat sets, and a thin story line. I was stunned to watch a fast paced, gripping story line that was definitely Pre Code, with a touch of Noir, and had stunning sets. Its called Grand Hotel on the Ocean, which is a bit unfair. You can see the similarities but this is a piece on its own. The gorgeous Art Deco furnishings, wood work, and grills, the flashing directional signage, exuberant jazz music, and costumes that would be popular today. There is infidelity, corruption, theft, and raspberry pie. The finally is a cat and mouse chase scene through a multi tiered engine room with tracking shots that is as good as any CGI super hero film today. A really amazing and superior film for its time, and you definitely see the talents of James Wong in its design. The AFI presentation included a pre film lecture by Christian Roden on early 20th century ocean liners and how the Liner companies updated their interior designs from the English country house look to the very latest cutting edge designs that are now referred to as Art Deco. The lecture provide helpful context on an industry now known more for Caribbean cruises than necessary and elegant transportation. Pay particular attention to a montage of scenes when the ship is going through high seas - couples on a dance floor and elegantly clad ladies falling down steps provide a look at how the real transatlantic crossing passengers braved high seas in practiced good humor. Many thanks to MoMa for the restoration. They made the overlap transition to subtitle, in sections where dialogue is missing, seamless to the viewer. Many thanks to all the technicians who pulled together the many foreign copies to recreate this film. Many in last nights audience wanted to know if the film would be shown again, and when it will be released for sale. We all want to see it again and again, and hit pause to admire the sets. If you have a chance to see this film, it is worth the time and effort. .

Binge watching this series on Acorn. Thoroughly enjoying the story. It takes its time to develop the various plots, and we are wondering who will be agents for the Americans and Soviets. While on the surface this story is about finding and keeping the Nazi scientists. It is really about the decline of the British Empire. The complex ornate hotel with its damaged and dark corners, the weary inhabitants, each adrift in their own way. It reminds me of the ocean liner - floating through purgatory. The British empire at this point is badly damaged, and tatty, its glory days behind, and it clearly sees that it has fallen behind the US and USSR. Yes, there are stereotypical characters, but each represents a different aspect of society. Even the Jazz singers represent a coming reckoning with race in society. The War Crimes investigator represents the conscious of society in the plot line during this particularly questionable moment in the post war era. Cal represents the military complex, conflicted but understanding the need to do the worst to prevent worse. I find Cal an interesting character - he is suffering from PTSD like his brother, he just has more control over the symptoms. The dare devil attitude, pushing boundaries of authority, the violence, the ADD, and maintaining a distance from people who can see him his pain. Cal also understands that he is stepping over the lines of morality when it comes to snatching the German engineer and his daughter.

The sets are spectacular - shooting in some amazing and never seen locations in England. (Never seen by this American.) I went hunting to find out where they are. Beautiful and haunting. Again I go back to the sets representing the death of the Empire, the death of the prior way of life, a type of haunted purgatory for the inhabitants. Outside the faded glory of the hotel is a smoking wasteland of war, a barrier to the outside world.

My one criticism is the way the party guests greet the jazz music - with disdain and dislike. Jazz was very popular in London in the 20's and 30's, particularly with the youth. Most of the people at that party would have been of an age to go to the jazz clubs before the war. I suspect the party guests represent the old, stiff England, while the Americans represent the future.