Reviews

I found "Killing Time" to be clever, straightforward and effective in its humor: a young woman is planning to commit suicide. In these scenes we see she's focused on entirely on her wardrobe because she wants to leave an attractive corpse.

The problem for the film, in my mind, is that some viewers might find any lighthearted play about suicide to be callous or insensitive. Suicide for some/many is not an subject for jokes.

Perhaps the ending is predictable. Perhaps the characters fit he mold. Don't measure this film by its contribution to cinema history. Instead, look at it because it is an entertaining evening. The dancing is energetic and joyful. The movie's romantic plot is believable, and that's all you really need for the story.

Gathered with movie club friends from our old neighborhood last night and watched "Kubo and the Two Strings" - worthy entertainment. The visuals are continually clever, the challenges of the hero's journey are always surprising, and the moral resolution of the journey is hopeful. Produced by the studio that gave us "Coraline," "Kubo" is a great stop-motion animation that is almost too scary for little kids (there were some in the audience, but nobody screamed) but a worthy evening for adults. The story is set in old Japan and revolves around young Kubo and his parents (sort of) and a lot of dangerous spirit world nemeses. Enjoy the visuals and stay through the closing credits.

"Ida" is a Polish film (with subtitles), set around 1960; the title character is a young novitiate, about to take her vows to become a cloistered nun in the convent where she had grown up as an orphan. The senior nun (abbess? prioress?) tells Ida that she has an aunt and instructs the girl to visit with her before she takes her vows. Dutifully, Ida travels outside the convent to meet her aunt Wanda, who informs her that she is Jewish. I found "Ida" to be as effective as "Sophie's Choice," yet more subdued (there are, for example, no flashbacks). The black & white cinematography is gorgeous in its austerity, the major characters are all complicatedly human – I would not be surprised with a couple of Oscar nominations. If you can find it in your local theaters, go see it on the big screen. I think you will be changed.

The story of Stonehenge is fascinating, bringing together ancient technology and beliefs, combined with interesting speculation and research over the generations trying to make sense of its construction and use in prehistoric times. This show promised to help us make sense of those achievements. Unfortunately, its claims stretch beyond what is accepted; too often the archaeologists and cultural anthropologists speculate poetically on what might have been true for the builders of Stonehenge, and then the show's producers move the storyline forward, assuming that their imaginings are fact. It brings "modern day Druids" to the reconstruction to "bless it," then mention offhandedly that the original Druids did not show up in the region until more than a thousand years after Stonehenge was completed. Other times the show suggests that the scientists are making new and startling discoveries about Stonehenge, discoveries about its orientation (equinox alignments, for example) - claims that Hawkins presented in his book "Stonehenge Decoded" in the 1960s. The scientists here are building on the shoulders of earlier scientific research, research that is much more complex (what, for example, of the outside circle of wooden posts?). What is good about the show is that the full-size reproduction is indeed good for experiencing the space, to enjoy for example the open area in the middle of the stones. Also a useful expansion is the visit to the site where the blue stones were (probably) mined to seek out prehistoric evidence - but that story is nipped before seeing more than just the clues of an ancient stone wall.

This story needed to be told - and this telling is stronger because the writers and producers took the time to emphasize the complexity of the people and their relationships before, during and after this series of events. The Hoxie school board, composed of white men, decided in 1954 that it was the moral thing to do to obey the ruling of the Supreme Court (in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education) that segregated schools were inherently unequal. Through this video documentary we can recognize that not all Southern whites were die-hard segregationists. Through this documentary we can see that it was not just abstract points of law in conflict -it was struggles within the members of a community that had always grown up, side by side, and now they struggled to encourage or resist change in their community's life. The documentary is forthright in laying out the ferocity of the segregationists' insistence that integration be resisted. Through the gathering of historical footage and current-day interviews, the film effectively breathes life into this important piece of American history. If Hoxie had not happened the way it did, the Little Rock integration in 1957 would have happened differently. The documentary connects the events in this small Arkansas town to changing national thought and federal policy.It is just such events as this that help us to understand better why we have the world we have today - Bravo, for a magnificent telling!

Two years ago I saw this film for the first time. I thought it slow, and I missed dialogue. The location was interesting, though - and still the story came alive in the hands of this powerful actress. I was fascinated - and even months later, the story continued to resonate within me.

The events are small. The heroism is of a human scale. The motivation for change is believable. These appear to be real people, captured so effectively by a documentary filmmaker - and yet it is a created story. If it is not factually based, it tells truth.

Yes, the film is slow and deliberate, but "Ramparts of Clay" has substance. The humanity of all the actors makes them my kin - and I care about them, and what will happen to them.

This is an awesome intro to a broad range of ads. While the film is now a little dated (see Killing Us Softly 3), the fact that much of the analysis still applies after 25 years underscores her point: advertising continually reinforces the idea that women are to be regarded for their appearance - young, thin and white is good, breasts need to be the right shape - and nobody measures up to the standards

presented in advertising. Further, these many ads continually emphasize

women as objects, as dehumanized - which means that they can be treated as

less than fully human.

"Killing Us Softly" also underscores the point that the ads do this on purpose: advertising is an expensive proposition, and every little moment, every nuance in image and wording is carefully planned and constructed. This encourages

sales - "buy something to take care of your shortcomings."

Kilbourne connects the consequences of this advertising to American social

issues as diverse as anorexia, violence against women, pornography, the

eroticizing of little girls, the infantilizing of adult women, the demeaning of older women, and the special case of the portraying of non-white women as wild

animals (although this last issue gets little attention in this first film in the series). "Sex is more important and less important than what we see in these ads."

My (college) students sometimes tell me that they believe she occasionally

overstates her case on a few of her examples, but I think their quibbles are few and minor (I find that it's males who are more reluctant to accept her evidence, by the way - females generally agree with Kilbourne's analysis).

The film is a recording distilled from public lectures before live audiences. Her data draws on ads collected from tv, magazines, newspapers, bus signs,

billboards, album covers. The audience appreciates both her abundant

examples, her insights and her humor - and I did, too.

The subtleties of interactions are amazing here. Note, for example, the racial and ethnic diversity - there are African American blacks, Jamaican American

blacks, Irish American whites, Italian American whites, Puerto Rican Hispanics, Salvadoran Hispanics, Korean Americans, and (by reference) Jewish

Americans. Where are the WASPS? They probably own the brownstones, but

they never show up in the neighborhoods!

I think that Lee sought to show that everybody could be doin' "the right thing" by their own code, and yet the people are still jobless and poor and without air conditioning, and there are larger differences in this society.

"Doing the Right Thing" here means seeking/demanding visibility for minorities that are overlooked, except when they riot. Doing the Right Thing means

operating your restaurant the way you want. Doing the Right Thing means

stopping a violent riot with police force. Doing the Right Thing means insisting on respect for you as a customer and a person (even if you express your person with your music). Each one of these people is trying to do good, and is very human and sometimes falls short. And even that is not enough to provide a

secure life with dignity. Bravo, Spike Lee!

Sorry, folks - if you have a relative who was involved in this awful flick, you should avoid my comments - because you won't be happy with my review.

This was awful in every way. The characters are hollow, the plot is hopeless, and the "comic" moments are painful.

The storyline involves winning a race and saving the ranch for Grandma. Examples of the implausible and unfunny sketches: two folks use a wolf howl as a signal, and a real wolf's howl confuses their signaling. The sheriff must

secretly check Joe for a tattoo, but he has to get Joe to take his shirt off to peek, and Joe is ticklish. Get the picture?

If you are still contemplating trying this one, I suggest you choose acupuncture using railroad spikes, instead.

Once you read through all the viewers' comments, you can see that "Butterflies" had a devoted crop of followers who found this show fresh, gentle, involving and - funny. Even today I think back fondly for that show. I watched each week, and I was so grateful for each of these wonderful characters. Geoffrey Palmer was remarkable in playing what I would think a difficult role (makes me think of the husband's part in "Iris," or a couple of the husbands in "Enchanted April"). Ria's character was of course the center, and I appreciated her situation - even sympathized with her, for I was in her kind of spot when I got hooked on the series.

"Butterflies" showed real people making sense of their lives. I loved it!

I grew up - white - in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and was a teenager in town when these events happened, in 1964. The film is based on a true story, and here the story is portrayed much more accurately than in the highly-popular "Mississippi Burning" (also based, more loosely, on these events). If anything is missing in this TV movie, it's that the brutality was worse than portrayed here. If anything is misleading, it's that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were generally not this noble in their fighting civil rights hate crimes. The acting is also good (though the accents are not on-target; noticeable to a local). If you want to know more about this history, read the gripping books "Three Lives for Mississippi" and "Witness in Philadelphia."

This movie is about sweet revenge for a betrayal.

Chaplin's character was once a trusting innocent and was used; now she gives him his fair due. Perkins and Chaplin and Gunn are all so right in their characters (though Chaplin's accent is "off," as it was again in "Nashville"), but they each gave real humanity to their characters. And the haunting music is for me the best part of the show. This film introduced me to Alberta Hunter, and in the years following this film I searched out five more albums by her. Bravo! And when shall we EVER get a DVD publication of the full film? Evidently Ms. Hunter died before signing a release for a commercial VHS (or DVD), so it's legal wrangling that prevents us from having our own copies of this powerful character study.

When I first saw this movie (at age 13) I was frustrated with the inept, impotent bureaucrat portrayed by Clift. The when I next saw it (age 16), I was vexed by his girl, who seemed to be too patient and wise. The third time (age 18) had me trying to take sides on this complex question - does the good for the many always trump the good for the few, or the one? And I was hooked on this complex, multi-layered drama - I'll see it again whenever and wherever I can. See it if you can find it. Although it's one of Kazan's best, and one of his favorites, it's STILL not in public distribution.