by Dean | Nov 9, 2016 | General
This week’s Jane the Virgin had a nice flow to it and sensibly dealt with the difficulty of financially getting by. It was also briefly moving in its treatment of sad Luisa (a sapid acting job by Yara Martinez).
But probably nothing on TV this week will be as gripping as last night’s broadcast of the Presidential and Congressional elections. Spittin’ mad, foul-mouthed celebrities like Madonna and Rachel Bloom deserve what they got, but, well, the Republican voters who preferred Trump over Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, et al. did not.
by Dean | Nov 8, 2016 | General
Cover of The Opposite of Sex
The teenaged girl acted by Christina Ricci in the 1998 Don Roos film, The Opposite of Sex, is unsavory and callow and makes a number of politically incorrect remarks about homosexuals (the impetus: her gay half-brother). Despite this, the movie is every bit as pro-gay as it is pro-straight if pro-straight is a necessary designation. What it so tritely and predictably scorns are evangelical Christians. It pretends to understand homosexuality when in fact it is as ignorant as a stone, and about Christianity it is not ignorant so much as culpably blind.
by Dean | Nov 6, 2016 | General
Cover of Duel (Collector’s Edition)
Man-made cars and the interstate highway system are not the modern wonders to make us forget, and not be shocked by, the strange brutality in human behavior. Indeed, it is on the interstate that businessman David Mann (Dennis Weaver)—in Steven Spielberg‘s Duel (1971)—encounters a stranger who tries to off him with a tanker truck, the reason for which is never revealed. It is activity as absurd as it is horrible.
Spielberg’s first notable success, Duel is a made-for-TV action thriller which has been called “Jaws on wheels” except that it’s a better flick than Master Steven’s Jaws. It has a shaky climax, but is consistently fun and nicely economical. The smart script is by Richard Matheson, and Weaver is constantly on screen but never abandoned by skill. As well, Duel is one of those many 1970s films enamored of rural American settings, as though it is only in these pristine outdoor places that insights about life may be had.
by Dean | Nov 3, 2016 | General
![Cover of "The Siege [Blu-ray]"](//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PcaaYPBdL._SL350_.jpg "Cover of \"The Siege [Blu-ray]\"")
Cover of The Siege [Blu-ray]
Not when the balderdash is this strong.
About the only item to be taken seriously here is that, even in 1998, Arab terrorism in the United States is, to whatever degree, a continual threat. The most preposterous item is that a U.S. army general, during a state of martial law in New York City, becomes so brutish as to torture and even kill an Arab who is an American citizen. Or is the martial law itself the most preposterous item?
The CIA agent Annette Bening plays, by the way, is there when the torture goes on, and why she tolerates it is hard to fathom. Patently the filmmakers were dreadfully sloppy in creating her character: she is a pleasant woman made to look like an utter fool. Little does director Edward Zwick know it, but virtually the same is true of the film’s black hero, the FBI agent played by Denzel Washington. Poor Zwick. He’s making a mockery of his liberal principles without knowing it.
by Dean | Nov 1, 2016 | General
The virginity of Jane The Virgin, now married, is gone. She and Michael had sex, and the show is sophisticated enough to present Jane feeling rather dismayed as though part of her identity has fallen away. But, hey, she’ll get used to it—already is used to it by the episode’s end. Why was an odd animated sequence used to confirm it? (Is this show gimmicky, or what?)
Jane and Michael are true to each other. Not so Luisa and Rose, a.k.a Sin Rostro (Bridget Regan), and no wonder. We are shown a list of Rose’s murder victims, one of whom is Luisa’s father. It’s a deal breaker, you could say, except where the lesbian sex is concerned. (Luisa will still have that. Incidentally, will she ever practice medicine again?) Anyway, Jane the Virgin is always better when sinister doings and thus police actions are taking place, as they do near the conclusion of last night’s episode. Before this, what we saw was ALMOST boring. Not quite, but almost.
by Dean | Oct 30, 2016 | General
Rachel Scott was the first person—and the first Christian—killed by the pathological murderers at Columbine High in Colorado in 1999. In the new film I’m Not Ashamed (2016), there is supposed to be some fictionalizing of Rachel’s story, but how much fictionalizing I don’t know. This in itself does not render the picture a failure, which in my view it is, though a very interesting failure—and, in fact, a film other critics have been unsurprisingly wrong about. One accused it of having “perfunctory” images, which is mostly a canard. What is true is that the cinematography here is crude, although in the daytime scenes it gets better.
Rachel (Masey McLain) is the daughter of a born-again mother, divorced. Through the influence of a relative she, too, becomes a Christian, keeping old friends (as best she can) and making new, devout ones. She starts a wobbly love relationship, however, with a nonbelieving kid to whom she doesn’t reveal she is a Christian. Meanwhile, the two evildoers, Harris and Klebold, conspire about their future killings.
Scott is a future martyr, but what the film explores is what it means to be a religious young person in a secular environment, the struggle of a Christian youth to discover an identity and a proper, or faithful, way of life. This is something I’m Not Ashamed does well. And it is forced to show us that this secular environment can be unjust and dangerous. The moviemakers have every right to blame Darwinian theory for the killing of Christians and others at Columbine, whether it’s intellectually defensible or not. They surely see it (Darwinian theory, not evolutionary theory, to the extent it is a theory) as anti-biblical and false. This particular element, though, is not as interesting as the movie itself.
Again, an interesting failure—riveting in several ways, lame in many others. I’m glad I saw it. The acting of Miss McLain, by the way, is not lame. As Rachel she does terrifically effective and modulated work.
Directed by Brian Baugh.
by Dean | Oct 26, 2016 | General
Cover of The Long, Long Trailer
What pains and stresses are associated with making a long trailer your home!
The problem with The Long, Long Trailer (1953), the Vincente Minnelli movie centering on those pains and stresses, is that it is a comedy that stops being comedic. The last third of it contains no laughs at all, but only some mild suspense which seems to belong to another movie.
Comic difficulties the characters face are often the result of the dopiness of the husband, Nicky (Desi Arnaz), and the wife, Tacy (Lucille Ball), and not so much the trailer itself. This makes for some rather cheap humor, for all its decent sight gags. And it should be pointed out that Trailer is a romantic comedy; and, yes, the romance is there, but certain aspects of the liaison (between Nicky and Tacy) are unconvincing. A good example of this is Tacy’s temporary silent treatment of Nicky. Yuck!
by Dean | Oct 25, 2016 | General
Cover of All the King’s Men (Special Edition)
All the King’s Men, the 2006 remake, is as stupid as it is tired, as overblown as it is unnecessary. This despite the fine, authentic production design and the “Christian worldview” applauded on Ted Behr’s Movieguide website. Also, I disesteem much of the acting. James Gandolfini is all sleazy balderdash. Kate Winslet and Patricia Clarkson are uninteresting. Sean Penn, however, may be mannered now and then as Willie Stark, but for the most part his performance is solid and lived-in.
Re Vanity Fair (2004), I couldn’t get through William Makepeace Thackeray’s great novel, but I am utterly certain that what Mira Nair and Focus Features put on film in the early Aughts is greatly detached from it. Something meaningful becomes something ultimately pointless. It’s gorgeous, though; many, I’m sure, have found it quite watchable.
by Dean | Oct 23, 2016 | General
If you haven’t read Martin Ford‘s nonfiction book, Rise of the Robots (2015), you should, notwithstanding some of the language is too technical for me. The subtitle reads: “Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future,” so, yes, it’s a book about vocations that might be swallowed up by automation. If we’re dumb—be sure to read Chapter 8—they will be. Everything in moderation.
Rise of the Robots (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Oct 20, 2016 | General
Cover of T-Men
T-men, in T-Men (1947), are agents of the U.S. Treasury Department’s law enforcement division. Early on, the movie more or less informs us that these taxpayer-supported agents do not make that much money (lest moviegoers then were understandably worried about massive federal spending) and, anyway, the story begins with a murder! Treasury has its work cut out for it.
What happens is that an informer is killed by counterfeiters, and off go two likable-looking T-men (Dennis O’Keefe and Alfred Ryder) to infiltrate the band of culprits.
This is recommendable film noir, better than most pics at presenting the unusual nature of crime investigation. Granted, the characters are ciphers, but this was perennially the case in old crime movies, and at least the drama in T-Men is rough-and-tumble fun. What’s more, there are two alluring femme fatales, played by Mary Meade and Vivien Austen (shamefully uncredited; she plays Genevieve).
Directed by Anthony Mann.
![Cover of "The Siege [Blu-ray]"](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PcaaYPBdL._SL350_.jpg "Cover of \"The Siege [Blu-ray]\"")
