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dpharrington
Reviews
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
the stench explodes
I was forced to watch this horror by people who should have known me better. (The only movie I really wanted to watch this week was a Polish film, Ida, which was playing nowhere).
Godalmighty, what a stinker this was. Character development? None. Dialogue? Laughable. Plot? Who knows.
Against a ridiculous and badly done Washington process screen, I saw a ton of cgi star trek crap, mostly consisting in four-frame quick-cut scenes of people (?} kicking each other to no effect, a hell of a lot of useless machine-gun fire to equal effect, and explosions filling the screen followed by firy explosions filling self-same screen, giving way to yet more kicking and firy explosions.
It did occur to me that I was not the target audience for this total crap, but then, as I have said, I was dragged to it.
Something in the Wind (1947)
How could they do this to her?
If you love Deanna -- and if you don't, what are you doing here? -- you must be dismayed at the dreck Universal threw at her, she who had saved them from bankruptcy and was still the best box-office draw in the country, even with atrocious scripts like this.
The moral is that rich people, however undeserving, get to do whatever they like. For them kidnapping a young woman is everyday business, and keeping her from a major career opportunity through a false arrest is amusing, as she is not in the same species as those rich people, however undeserving (total change at the end is thoroughly unconvincing); and that Universal does not owe even a halfway-decent script to its finest star. Ever.
Oh, and I left out the worst part: This movie makes her fall in love with John Dall -- the dragging-her-kicking-and-screaming part must have been cut out. I reckon Dall is okay for Peggy Cummins, who's mostly interested in his marksmanship. But for Deanna? Look, in his unlovability, this guy is to the 40s what Lawrence Harvey was to the 60s. Inevitably, the chemistry between them here is strictly H2S.
Oh, but I gave it an 8, did I? Well, 6.5 is for Deanna, who has half a dozen great performances of mostly mediocre songs, and manages to remain chipper despite all the indignities, and the other 1.5 for Donald O'Connor, whose hair is too big but still shows off his inimitable brand of comic dancing. I did not deduct for the script.
Anger Management (2003)
the usual Sandler imbecile
The only real question about Sandler is how he gets real actors like Buscemi and Turturro, and now Tomei and Nicholson, into his horrid pictures.
This one isn't as revolting as this monkey's nauseating remake of Mr Deeds Goes to Town, and he doesn't play the malicious retard of Billy Madison, etc. This is probably the best that can be said about it. By anyone with reasonable taste, anyhow.
There isn't a single real laugh anywhere in it, but that rather goes without saying; it's a Sandler movie.
Well, there is actually a second real Sandler question: When they could have Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, WC Fields, Bob Hope, even Jerry Lewis for crissake, how can anyone spend twelve seconds with this guy without a fervent desire to push him off a high bridge?