Reviews

This is the one that has invaded my dreams ever since it was first on, fifty-nine years ago! The characters are perfect: the older, bickering couple, the has-been actress straight out of Sunset Boulevard, the sincere ingenue in 19th-centuery dress, the drifter who is, at heart, a good person. He and the ingenue immediately fall for each other. I knew the ingenue could not leave because her years would catch up to her once she stepped outside the garden gate. Nevertheless, she went out of love so that the drifter, who could not have left without her, has a chance at a real life.

The creature had never before encountered love, yet he created the conditions for the ingenue and the drifter to fall in love.

Twice in this episode, Julia Child has to deal with the role of women in the 1960's. In general, at the time, once an occupation commanded a good salary, it was male only. The exceptions were the "female ghetto" occupations: mother, nurse, teacher, secretary. In most instances, women were not even allowed to to apply for other kinds of jobs.

First, she encounters chef Andre Soltner at the New York French restaurant Lutece. At the time, home cooking was considered the province of women while restaurant cooking was in the domain of men. He tells Julia to remember that professional cooking can only be dome by men.

Next she meets Betty Friedan, one of the founders of women's liberation, who was fighting to give women an equal place. A clueless viewer reviewed this episode and called Betty Friedan a Marxist. She was not. (Marx wanted to replace private ownership with cooperative ownership to eliminate social classes.)

If you are a woman with a professional job today, you have Betty Friedan to thank. However, in this episode she wrongly thinks The French Chef was doing its part to keep women in their place, i.e. The kitchen.

Both Soltner and Friedan were wrong. Julia Child was sharing her love of French cuisine with the world. Both men and women watched her show, cooked her recipes, and ventured beyond what they knew. The French Chef made public TV popular and created the cooking show genre.

I watched this at home on October 21 because I couldn't wait. Then I went to see it in Imax on the 23rd. I'm glad I did both and I think everyone should see this on the big screen.

The sets and costumes were beyond my expectations. The feudal society didn't make Villeneuve use cliched Renaissance images like those in the 1984 film or Game of Thrones. This film does something new, a true vision of the year 10191. In particular, Villeneuve captured the Bedouin flavor of the book, my all-time favorite. Some of the technology in the book came alive for the first time: personal shields, the Baron's suspensor suit, and in particular the ornithopters, which I had previously imagined as helicopters shaped like birds.

One of my issues with the 1984 film was always the Toto score. It was nice as a generic film score, but had nothing to do with Dune. The Hans Zimmer score in the new film did not have any themes you could hum, but supported the story and its setting so much better.

Some quibbles: The biggest is that in a few places the acting was flat and unemotional. The one person whose acting truly showed her character's feelings was Rebecca Ferguson. Timothy Chalamet does not look like red-headed Paul Atreides from the book. The closest any film adaptation has come was the Alec Newman from the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. The early part of the film was misleading about the importance of the spice melange. The film made the spice sound like a mere navigation aid, much different from giving Spacing Guild navigators the ability to fold the space between two planets, which is the equivalent of creating a wormhole. Finally, I had been hoping this first film would include Paul and Jessica being taken to Sietch Tabr and Paul getting his new name, Muad Dib. That would be a better demonstration of the death of Paul Atreides and the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach.

I am now eagerly awaiting part 2.

I knew throughout season 6 that Amenadiel would become God, not Lucifer. However, I found Lucifer becoming hell's psychotherapist a bit disappointing. Season 5 was so much better and should have been the series finale.

From the moment the unknown Jedi knight appears, vanquishing all the dark warriors with his lightsaber and the Force, this is truly Star Wars. It puts all the prequel and sequel movies to shame. My heart leapt with joy when Luke revealed himself and from that point on I was in tears. He even brought R2 with him! Din's farewell to Gorgu was another shining moment. I have rewatched this ending several times and felt tears well up each time. This set a standard for all future Star Wars movies and TV series.

Do the writers of this sappy show think viewers who have been watching since the "The Good Witch" movies have forgotten all the characters? I seem to recall George falling for Gwen and eventually getting married to her. Now that he's romancing another lady, where did he hide Gwen's body? In his garden?

Meanwhile, Cassie and Sam seem to have shed their biological and step children, Grace, Nick, Laurie, and Brendan. They conveniently no longer seem to exist.

Meanwhile, the plots keep getting sappier. You used to count on Martha, Abigail, and later Sam's ex-wife to spice things up with a little conflict.

I think my DVR is going to find something better to do on Sunday evenings.

Absolutely the most stupid thing in this movie was the ages of the people whom a judge committed to this swindler's supervision. One victim was 69, another was 70. In that age group the worst thing that happens to the majority of people is aching joints. They still have full mental acuity. Maybe some people are incapable of caring for themselves physically when they reach 80 and even then they are mentally sound. Most take a decade longer than that. In this film, the people who needed guardianship the most were the judge and the writers.