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ricepritchard
Reviews
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Mann's The Magic Mountain In A Horror Film
This movie is frankly a long, drawn out, messy affair that copies or "rip off" various and sundry horror movies as well as Thomas Mann's famous work 'The Magic Mountain". During the course of this long, winding, frequently boring and rarely scary movie I saw scenes lifted whole or in part from nearly every Frankenstein talking picture from the 1932 classic Frankenstein to the horror comedy Young Frankenstein from 1974, The Phantom of The Opera, The Brides of Dracula, Carrie, The Marathon Man, Below,Piranha,Phantasm, etc. This borrowing ran the gamut from classic to campy to trash. The acting was wooden and uninspired and the story made little sense even for a horror movie. About the only redeeming feature was the magnificent Alps scenery filmed in Germany, not Switzerland, as some people think. I would advise readers to save their money and maybe watch this mess in a few months on TV if they are mildly interested and want to waste 2 1/2 hours watching sheer nonsense.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Where the Woodbine Twineth (1965)
Unusual Story About An Orphan and Her Unseen Playmates
This is a story about a little orphan girl and her family and a doll that seems to come to life at times and an imaginary family of little people living under the parlor couch. There was so much wrong with this. One it was supposed to be summer in the 1960s with scorching heat and humidity somewhere on the lower Mississippi River but here was a well to do family with two servants but no fans or air conditioners. Not likely.The little girl was a woefully inadequate actress who showed no emotion at her father's funeral or grief afterwards. The spinster aunt in real life would have held a job in an office or owned a shop in a nearby town, not just kept house for her father. Also the houseman Jessie would not have been driving "Miss Nell" all over the place; she would have driven herself except on rare occasions.Jesse and his wife Suzy would not have been live in servants unless there was an invalid requiring 24/7 care. They would have had their own small shotgun house nearby and do in the short story. The TV show was an anachronism because reading the original source short story on line by Davis Grubb makes it clear the grandfather was a steamboat captain. Steamboats were nearly extinct by World War I, much less the 1960s. An ice house is mentioned which were impossible due to heat in the Deep South so the setting is likely Kentucky since Louisville and nearby Cincinnati were steamboat hubs in the river packets' heyday from 1840-1890. The story is probably set in the 1890s or 1900s. The doll was supposed to be a Creole doll with gold earrings, head scarf, multi colored dress and apron. Most importantly the aunt would not have objected to the child having a little Black girl for a playmate as was common in the South pre 1970. Now if there had been "river rats",i.e. low class Whites, living in shanties or houseboats on a nearby backwater and one of their kids was playing with the little girl that would have been a different story entirely.The story did have a good plot overall and unusual story line so it was adequate but definitely not outstanding nor a real classic.
Me Before You (2016)
Main Character Puts His Own Wishes Above All Else
Sorry but this movie has several problems. Story is about a paralyzed man who falls in love with a young local woman hired to be his companion/help mate. However he wants to commit suicide because of the pain and inability to live normally. The Trainers are supposedly the most prominent and wealthy local gentry family and yet they appear to have no servants at the manor house. Really? I mean people like them would have at least a few flunkies doing chores. It was laughable that Mrs. Trainor would answer the door herself to let the "shop girl" in to interview for the companion to her disabled son job. Normally when people are interviewing for a job like this with well to do people, a maid would let them in and allow them to be seated in the hallway and go in and tell the lady of the house she had a "person" to interview for the job. The local upper class upon calling would be shown into a sitting room and then the lady of the house informed of their presence. Also in a small village, the Trainers would likely have found someone by "word of mouth" and not gone through the employment office at all. Furthermore it was mentioned in passing that the disabled son had been a corporate raider in London prior to his accident and yet he shows no compassion nor remorse for the jobs he has cost working stiffs nor companies looted and destroyed.It is hard to feel sympathy for such an unrepentant sleaze ball. One last point: Was it really necessary to jet off to Switzerland for "voluntary euthanasia"? In real life a hefty overdose of morphine or bottle of sleeping tablets and whiskey together would have done the job with much less fuss and trouble and trauma and upset for the parents. Apparently the handicapped young man really did put himself before and above everyone else.