Reviews

I concur with the previous posts that Ozzie and Harriet was really a show "about nothing," and was quite funny until the boys got married (even then, it had its moments). Rather than showing how dull and boring the perfect traditional family could be, it celebrated the humor and fun in everyday life and its quirks. Most underrated was the comic talent of Ozzie. Not only was he hilariously adept and creative in his efforts to avoid work around the house, but when the situation resulted in physical comedy he was nothing short of amazing. I remember seeing a rerun 35 years ago, in which Ozzie has to swallow a big wad of ice cream. Just watching him, I could FEEL the brain freeze he got, and I still feel it just remembering. Personally, I like the 1952-1955 episodes with Don Defore as Thorny. The situations were believable but still funny-- Ozzie trying to convince everyone that he bought spot cleaner to help out an old lady instead of buying it to help out her sexy daughter, Ozzie scouring the town for tutti-fruity ice cream, Ozzie fretting over the rain damage that he knows he will get if he permits a nest of birds to remain in his rain gutter, Ozzie trying to send back a pair of chairs sent by mistake, Ozzie having to sleep apart from Harriet because she misinterprets Ozzie's support for separate rooms for the boys. In a way, Ozzie is a more functional and less stupid Homer Simpson. Since some of the shows can be obtained in the bargain DVD bins at Walmart and other places, do yourself a favor and give a few episodes a try.

The Arrow is a compelling story of inventive and persistent people who strive to make an "impossible" airplane. Overcoming setback after setback, a team of Canadian engineers, managers and workers create one of the fastest and most capable fighter-interceptors in the world.

This somewhat fictionalized miniseries effectively pulls the viewer into their struggles, much as "From The Earth To The Moon" created a feeling for the efforts behind the U.S. Apollo program. Indeed, the parallels between the American Apollo program and the Canadian Arrow program are subtly drawn several times in the film (many of the engineers who worked on the Arrow went stateside to work on the Saturn V and the Lunar Module). About halfway through the 3-hour film, it becomes apparent that the true challenges to the Arrow project are not engineering or practical problems, but political realities. Unlike the journey to the moon, the goal of building the world's greatest airplane cannot survive the conflicts of personalities, vagaries of public opinion, and budget overruns that plague any huge engineering project.

The film effectively depicts the drama of the project. However, even if one overlooks the factual discrepancies, the film suffers from a few flaws: 1) The film is a bit slow in some places, and certainly feels as if it were padded to fill the time for a two-part miniseries. If it had been paced differently, or edited down by 30 minutes or so, it certainly would have flowed better. 2) While most of the characters are based on real people, and indeed seem fleshed-out rather well, the film also includes a composite character, representing all the female workers on the Arrow project. This character seems artificial and out of place; much like the Charlton Heston character in the movie Midway, she seems to be everywhere doing everything, and thus comes across as a caricature. This is not helped by the performance of Sara Botsford, who seems to be playing the role as if she is thinking, "my character is 50% of the population, dammit." 3) Some of the other casting seems odd. For example, Michael Moriarty is a fine actor, but he is singularly unconvincing as Ike.

Despite its flaws, this is an entertaining and inspiring film if you enjoy stories of people who strive to achieve.