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7 donne e un mistero (2021)
Would have been tolerable if I spoke Italian
I saw this on Netflix dubbed into American English. I could actually understand what the gals were saying which should have pleased me. It didn't because the bland AMURIKEN accents didn't match up with the rest of it. It was pretty dull. Lacked suspense. I think hearing the lovelyItalian language would have helped. I enjoyed that the women all wore vivid jewel tone dresses. It made them easy to tell apart. The sets were incredibly colorful. They were the best part.
For some reason, this movie is set at Christmas. It was lovely to see that the only Christmas decoration was a tree. So anti-Hallmark! I could live in Italy.
The Fabelmans (2022)
Spielberg opens up about moviemaking
Younger audiences should love this. Any kid who dreams of making movies should get a boost out of seeing Spielberg recreate his initial fascination with films and how he finds his way into crafting them. You could learn a lot watching him splice the bits of film together so that he is really telling a story. He needs to make the shooting of little toy cap pistols seem dramatic so he gets the idea of pricking the film with pins so that light comes through and lends realism.
And that is just the beginning. The scenes in high school where he makes the Senior ditch day flick and manages to piss off the guy he makes the hero and also the guy he makes the butt of the joke is fantastic. The more success he has the more intense is the reaction. It really parallels his life and life in general.
The scenes with his parents and the family are beautiful and painful. Spielberg doesn't hesitate to open his heart.
John Williams should be so lucky. People probably think he wrote those incredible piano sonatas. The one that is a knock out is by Beethoven and Haydn is in there also. One good thing about our Brave New World is that you can still access the great things from our Brave Old World like Beethoven. Love to Spielberg.
Celebrity Jeopardy! (2022)
Viewers of regular Jeopardy probably don't need this show
It seems as if there is a market for shows that are played for fun rather than as a genuine contest and this is one of them. It looks like the contestants are encouraged to joke around. Mayim Bialik is encouraged to giggle irrepressibly. As the host on regular Jeopardy, this quality was distracting and made her seem nervous and uncomfortable. The question is why is she nervous and uncomfortable
now? Maybe because she is embarrassed to be on a show where the questions are dumb and the contestants are dumber.
Regular Jeopardy is a great show when the questions are challenging and the contestants are brilliant. This show can't measure up.
The Letter (1940)
Entertaining melodrama with great acting, direction and a terrible score
This is a very entertaining movie . Always look forward to seeing direction by Wyler and the acting of Bette Davis. Disturbed as anyone by the non-inclusion of an Asian woman and the insistence on calling Gale Sondergaard Eurasian.
So sit down and turn it on and here comes what can't be borne: the ludicrous ersatz unrelenting score by Max Steiner. He keeps the string section sawing away as if they are trying to cut their way through a bamboo swamp. This phony smaltzy made-up junk!
Steiner leans on folk tunes like Dixie in GWTW and Little Women. In this movie he just makes up some fake riffs and repeats them endlessly. Maybe he was worn out or maybe he was just lazy.
It would be great if some of the films Steiner scored could be redone. This one should go to the top of the list because of the cultural insensitivity of the present score.3.
Finishing School (1934)
"And now I will dispose of Tolstoy and his works in a few brief words"
This film doesn't focus very much on the repressive aspects of the school itself except in the case of Beulah Bondi who seems to have a personal vendetta against our sweet heroine.
The only classroom scene is very near the end and here is the lecture :
"And now I will dispose of Tolstoy and his works in a few brief words. If you will take notes on this it will be sufficient for all conversational purposes. It will also save you the time and effort of reading the books yourselves.
Anna Karenina is not only Tolstoy's best known work it is also his best known character portrayal; that of a woman who abandoned herself to passion, defied convention, came face to face with her own soul which mocked her with the horror she had brought upon herself and others. Sought for a solution and found only one: Suicide. Self-destruction was the only way out. Although the story doesn't advocate doing away with oneself, it does show taking the easy way out one often finds peace in death."
This lecture has a twofold purpose. First, it shows how demented and small-minded the teacher is who is trying to dismiss Tolstoy in this way. Second it is setting up the suspense for us to wonder whether our poor heroine will follow in Anna's footsteps by taking the "easy way out".
This is about all the suspense there is so even though Frances Dee is pretty and sweet and Ginger Rogers cracks wise this movie doesn't really take off like it should.
It was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency partly because our heroine was pregnant (never stated out right) and partly because it made parochial girls' schools look repressive and interfering.
Possessed (1947)
She doesn't even realize how much she gets in her own way
Joan Crawford is pretty good in Possessed. After all, she gets to play a jealous clingy manipulative neurotic with hallucinations who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. This should be fun for Joan.
But in addition to being the evil insane villain with murder on her mind we are still forced to accept her as a poor lovelorn victim who may or may not get away with murder.
I don't know that the stupid tortured plot twists were Joan's doing but she had a lot of say in what went on in the making of this movie. And whom did it benefit other than her? It certainly didn't help the movie to have it end in such a despicable way.
It would have been a better movie if she had taken her lumps and exited allowing the lovers to live happily. But no! She has to take her revenge, ruin lives and be offered "understanding" by the shrinks.
Consider the Bette Davis vehicle "In this our Life".. Bette is similarly depraved like Joan but after committing a series of atrocities she exits the movie in a fiery crash.
The audience would have thrown things at the screen if Bette had made a ridiculous play for redemption and it would also have ruined the movie .
So Joan was allowed to retain what she thought was sympathy and succeeded in spoiling one of her few great performances with a lousy ending.
Love (1927)
Some aspects of this story shouldn't be altered
Despite being a lover of the novel Anna Karenina, I can accept and excuse many of the changes to the story that are necessary when adapting a novel of it's length and breadth. I also love Garbo and John Gilbert and they are wonderful here.
The part of the story I have trouble with is not even the ending. It is the removal of the entire motivation for Anna's self-destructiveness. In this version She has to be the self-sacrificing saint who will give up Vronsky because she loves him so much. Tolstoy's portrayal of Anna as a loving attractive person who resists Vronsky but who eventually succumbs to his love and is destroyed by the guilt over her son, her sorrow over losing her social position, and her grief over the loss of Vronsky's love is necessary to this story.
. We are expected to believe that she has lost her son and reputation and that now she will give up Vronsky entirely to save him. Neither her suicide in the European version nor the happily ever after Hollywood version take into account what a real woman would have done.
The talking version that Garbo did is a much more faithful to what is driving Anna. I 3recommend seeing it and then reading the book.
Also, about the version which was recorded live and has the odd moments of inappropriate laughter. I found it hard to believe that the music was supposed to be live. It was very repetitious as if it was on a loop.
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
How could you contain Betty Hutton?
This movie should work. Betty Hutton has boundless energy. She is cute and sings those great Irving Berlin songs with pizzaz and verve and all the other hyperboles.
But I can't believe that the director wasn't pulling her aside between takes and saying "That was great, honey, but do you think you could tone it down? You're waking up the people who came here to nap."
And i think maybe Betty tried to tone it down but she just couldn't do it. She steps up to the camera, looks directly in it, throws out her hands and belts. What director wouldn't snatch her up and tell her not to do that?
In one song which was deleted, she clearly tries to tone it down. It is about going West and they are on the boat. I don't know whether it is much of a song but Betty tries to be soft and thoughtful and it flops.
There are so many great numbers here and she is clearly up to the task. I think she is so great singing "Sun in the morning and the moon at night". She looks great too wearing that red gown with her medals covering her chest. But she is whirling around so fast she is almost airborne. Her movements distract from her singing and the song.
When she and Frank sing "Anything you can do". She is so loud I had to turn down the volume. And I think "why didn't somebody tell her?"
The DVD shows the outtakes of Judy Garland and in the Indian ceremony she is listless. But in the "Doin what comes naturally " she is charming. When I watch the first number I see why she had to be removed. When I watch the second I feel sad that we didn't get to see what a healthy Judy could have done.
When I think about why I feel let down by this movie I'm going to blame Betty Hutton. She doesn't portray Annie Oakley at all. She just rubs some makeup on her own face and tries to mug and belt her way through. That is not entirely her fault because she didn't know any better. But somebody should have.
Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
Having a great singer portray a great singer
Doris Day is squeaky-clean and I don't think she can change that no matter how good her acting. So maybe someone sultry like Ava Gardner could have given more of a Gangster's Moll performance but what about the singing? It never rings true when a non-singing actress is asked to fake all the songs in a musical at least not to me.
So even though Doris is wholesome her voice is great, the songs are great, Cagney is great. I enjoyed this.
The Lady Vanishes (2013)
Don't be fooled into thinking this is a remake of the Hitchcock film of the same name
I came across this version of The Lady Vanishes while searching for the Hitchcock version which I enjoy.
I recommend the Hitchcock which has romance and suspense. There is redemption for the heroine who when confronted with danger and catastrophe seems to grow up before our eyes. There is mystery and comic relief. All together it is very enjoyable.
This movie, however, is not. Seek out the Hitchcock version.
Born to Be Bad (1950)
Pale, thin and chilly
I feel kind of guilty being critical of Joan Fontaine's looks. She is cute in a waif-like way.
But she is not the sexy, irresistible femme fatale this picture asks you to buy into. And if you can't believe Joan Fontaine is a gorgeous babe how can be expected to accept the effect she has on all the characters around her?
There is some fun stuff here and some good performances but I can never take my eyes off Joan's thin little angel-wing shoulders long enough to find much of this believable.
I guess Howard Hughes was under Joan's spell in real life. I hope that was fun.
Family Feud (1999)
Fun Show but the prizes are too hard to win.
I like Steve Harvey. He is able to point out the absurdity of the questions and the way folks answer the questions without being condescending. When a question is truly idiotic the look on his face is priceless. He invites us in to marvel at how dumb things can be. He really makes this fun.
That is fine for us because we tuned in to be entertained. But the people on the show came there to win money and where is the payoff? After they beat the other family, the winning group is subjected to fast money. They need to reach 200 points to win 20,000. I'm not sure what the stats are but I would guess that only about once in every four games does a family win the 20,000. They usually end up with 5 dollars a point to be divided 5 ways.
So to compensate for the paltry payoff, the show gives you a car if you win 5 games. This is fine and a good prize but it is hard to win 5 times. The other day I watched a block of shows and the family had won 4 games without winning the fast money. They lost the fifth game so they went home with a few hundred dollars after spending 5 days making money for the guys who produce this show. I think the families who come on this show are the salt of the earth (look it up). The least these guys could do is pay out a better reward. Or lob easy questions when it is someone deserves to win.
The Boy Friend (1971)
Dreary music
Let me start by saying I love the sets and costumes for this show. I don't know how many backdrops they created but they are works of art. And Twiggy looks darling and perfectly turned out as a 1920's musical heroine.
The music is poor. It all sounds the same, it goes on and on and it's dreary. Here's how I confirmed this to myself. I was just wandering through my living room with the TV on listening. All of a sudden my ears were pleased by the sounds of some real music. The band had just started "You Are My Lucky Star" which is a real 20's tune written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed.
By comparison to other 20's tunes "You Are My Lucky Star" may just be average but compared to anything in "The Boyfriend" it is a radiant hit.
My advice to anyone wanting to stage this in an amateur production: study the sets and costumes. Throw out the story and music.
Vertigo (1958)
A policeman with dizzy spells thinks he is tracking a woman possessed by a suicidal dead spirit and he gets more than he bargained for.
Let's hearken back to a time when you couldn't have seen this movie unless you had seen it on its first run. Can you even imagine such a thing? Movies have reputations and legends spring up around them. In 1966, this movie was not one of those.
I first saw it about a decade after its release. I saw it in the auditorium of my all-girls Catholic high school with 400 screaming girls who, like me, were surprised and overwhelmed by what we saw.
The suspense and shock was increased greatly for me and all my friends because of the difference between what we expected to see and what we got to experience.
This was a very conservative Catholic school and seeing a movie was a rare treat. The movie we had been subjected to the year before was a real stinker with a moral (Your parents are doing their best so you should obey them in everything even if they are wrongheaded and negligent.)
So how did it happen that the nuns this year allowed us to see a tense wild tale of obsession and unpunished murder? The only explanation is that somebody goofed.
The Sisters of the Holy Name who ran our school had roots in the Bay Area. Some of them were homesick for Marin and San Francisco. So the way Vertigo was selected as our annual movie, I imagine, was this. One of them read a synopsis and ignoring the parts about sexual obsession and wife killing only noticed that there were scenes shot in Old San Francisco and San Juan Baptista. Add in a scenic drive through Monterey and it was practically a travelogue with the Presidio and Coit Tower.
My friend Patti and I were so engrossed in this viewing of Vertigo that we never forgot it and can instantly crack each other up by bringing it up. It was wonderful. We had come in late after lunch because we spent the end of the lunch hour dumpster diving for Patti's retainer which she had carefully wrapped in her napkin and thrown away for the third time that year. We had to sit on folding chairs in the back so we could clutch each other (not that way) and pinch each other to make sure this was really happening. This means that I wasn't paying attention to whether the nuns were in attendance. Something tells me that they were there because they didn't want to miss out. I hope they were there and I hope that they were as gratified as we were. I doubt it but I hope they were. And I hope that the homesick goofball who recommended it didn't get into too much trouble. The plot is kind of hard to understand on the first viewing so I doubt that any of them realized what a treasure they had dumped in our laps.
Friends (1994)
Friends seen from the Post-Friends era
It probably isn't fair to judge this show when it has been off the air for several years but that is what the internet is for isn't it?
I like certain superficial things about this show. The female characters are all physically attractive. They have very shiny hair, beautiful faces, great legs, tits, and eyes. When Rachel is bustling around in her designer clothes I just think no one on TV has ever looked so good. I love Phoebe's bohemian style and her complicated hair-dos that must have taken at least two stylists to arrange. Monica is played by one of the great beauties of this or any era.
The male stars are appealing as well. Ross passes himself off as a nerd who never got girls but he is tall and handsome with movie star good looks and an unfortunate hang-dog expression. Chandler is funny and lively. Joey is a beautiful hunk and a great comic actor.
I also like the sets. I feel that the girls' apartment influenced a whole era of home design. The rooms are adorned with a lot of stuff yet they don't seem crowded. If I were a young person aspiring to the lifestyle these people lead I would have studied that apartment for inspiration and I'm sure many people did either consciously or unconsciously.
On the other hand there is much about this show that is hard to stomach.
The romance between Ross and Rachel was what sparked much of the interest in this show, but as soon as they were happy together all the spark died out. Since the plots needed to be contrived in such a way that they would long for each other but never have satisfaction, we were subjected to some really dumb stuff. How much can you admire or care about a girl who only wants the love of her life when he is in love with someone else? She shows up at his wedding to Emily causing Ross to blow his vows and never set things right. We are expected to follow along with her when she never did the smart thing and always did the dumb thing. I give Rachel and Ross 10 out of 10 each on the annoying scale.
Speaking of dumb things what about Phoebe? It is so hard to watch someone try so hard to be quirky and only succeed at being obnoxious. I realize that we are supposed to find Lisa Kudrow incredibly talented at playing someone so untalented but it just got old.
Maybe if this show had only lasted 4 or 5 seasons I wouldn't be finding fault with it. But then there would be a lot fewer zillionaires in the world wouldn't there? "Just turn it off" I keep telling myself.