Change Your Image
ekimak
Reviews
Top Banana (1954)
Half-hearted effort but with some great talent
I remember seeing this on TV as a kid in the mid-1950s and was curious about seeing it again. Then I found it on Kanopy. What was I thinking?
I won't repeat the other comments here; they are mostly accurate. The burlesque routines are spectacular and Silvers and his friends are terrific. But musically, it's a dud all around except for the title number. I expected much more from Johnny Mercer who otherwise has a great catalog of compositions.
As I learned from the other reviews, there were more songs on Broadway than here. It is disappointing that most of Rose Marie's role was cut yet she suddenly appears in a production number in the second act. It is billed as her big song on the TV show but she shows up only at the end of a long dance sequence singing a final chorus with everyone else. You can hardly hear her voice above the din. So much for editing.
I'm a Broadway baby, so I don't mind the single camera shots of a stage. That's how I would see it in a theater. But please, edit for continuity. Silvers, in a suit at the department store, suddenly changes into an artists outfit with no explanation or set up. There are other sudden unexplained jumps that are very distracting.
This film seems like a last ditch effort to salvage something from the stage production for a quick buck in movie theaters. And it shows.
Civil War (2024)
A shocking critique of our own times: fascinating and destructive
A chilling depiction of civil war----any war, actually. It cannily ignores political labels, although when one character asks: "What kind of American are you?", we can prettily easily identify his values.
On a micro level, Lee, Joel, and Sammy's journey illustrates society's current obsession with violence---a quote or picture at any cost, even if its existence inflames more bloodshed. Yes, yes, journalism does have a positive role to play in creating an historical record that can also act to reduce violence, but it cannot deny its own complicity. (Just look at social media postings these days.) It was not hard to foresee which of the traveling journalists would survive and which would not; and for the new ones coming on board, what character arc awaits.
On a macro level, scenes of destruction caused by Americans on both sides are shocking. That makes the one town that seems like an idyllic Main Street, USA so startling. "Finally sanity and peace" we say to ourselves . . . Until we discover the cost of that peace on the rooftops.