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Reviews
Comoara (2015)
This Guy Is An Idiot
I agree with the other reviewers that the trailer was seriously misleading when it led a viewer to believe the film is a comedy. Irritation number 1. The protagonist picks his son up from school and the kid bullies his father into apologizing for being late! Granted we learn the man adores his son but who is the adult here? Irritation number 2. When the man learns about the "treasure" hidden from the Communists immediately after World War II, he tells everybody and his brother about it. Irritation number 3. After the "treasure" is found - which turns out to have been buried at least 25 years after WWII - a lot of trouble is taken to open the TIN box which contains the "treasure". It should be easy to pry the damn thing open. Irritation number 4. After the man gets his share of the treasure, he immediately goes out and starts buying lots of jewelry - for his wife, maybe? (Since his wife appears to be a lot smarter than him, this is obviously a bad idea.) No - the jewelry is placed into the box so the man's son can realize his dream of finding treasure. The man gives his son the box to distribute the contents to whomever he wants - I sure hope the jewelry is fake! Yet another instance in which the man is giving in to his son. Irritation number 5. So, you have a weak main character, misleading description of the film, unsympathetic supporting characters, a pointless switch about the substance of the "treasure" and an ending which is deflating. The film is a bust.
Snowball (1960)
Good, But Too Many Plot Holes
Like many pictures, this film seems very good but on second thought plot holes appear. The boy forgot his annual bus ticket and didn't have any money so he had to walk home - a four-mile walk. It rained when the boy was on his way home - why isn't he wet when he arrives home? Why does the boy hide from father when his father goes out to look for him? The next day he starts riding the bus again with the same conductor who supposedly wouldn't let him on without his annual pass. Since the conductor can't remember refusing a ride to the boy, the bus line holds a line up so the boy can identify the conductor at fault. But the boy just rode home on the bus with the conductor under suspicion and has been doing so for days. The idea that a lineup would enable the boy to identify the conductor just doesn't make sense. The conductor becomes depressed over the fact that the word of a 10-year-old boy is being taken over his. He goes to a railroad bridge - supposedly to commit suicide - sees a dog on the tracks and goes to rescue the dog. He falls down an embankment, becomes disoriented and ends up getting run over by a train. The manner of the conductor's death has nothing to do with the plot of the film. In sum, this film is based on a good idea but the screenplay just isn't well thought out.
Rendezvous 24 (1946)
William Gargan Saves the World From Neo-Nazis
Amusingly wrong-headed film in which Nazi die-hards developing an atomic bomb are seen as a threat to the world. By the time this film was released in May of 1946, the world already knew that a Communist spy ring was operating in Canada and that Winston Churchill had warned of an "Iron Curtain" descending upon Europe. So, the real threat to the world was Russian Communism, not German Naziism. But nobody wanted to hear that in 1946. A miscast William Gargan plays his usual wise cracking American who can outsmart any Nazi with one eye closed and ordinary Germans are portrayed as clowns. Shockingly inept considering it was a product of 20th Centry Fox.
The Switch (1963)
Misogynistic
After watching thousands of movies, I get really tired of stereotyped characters - the stupid black person, the dumb sidekick, the precocious child, the hot head that endangers the mission, the girl that is being stalked in the empty house, etc. The list goes on and on. Too much screen time spent on a stereotyped character ruins the film for me. Here we have two dumb women. One of the villain's girlfriends is an airhead and the leading lady is beautiful but dumb. Upon being kidnapped, Miss Beautiful refuses to tell the bad guys that the police already have what they are looking for. It would be no skin off of her nose if she told them but then there wouldn't be enough drama.
Hot Rod (1950)
Talks Out of Both Sides of Its Mouth
Although the location shooting and nostalgia is entertaining, this two-faced film is dangerous. The thrust of the movie is that operating a hot rod at high speeds on city streets is a danger to the public - doing so should only be allowed in areas specifically set up for it. After all the sermonizing, however, the "juvenile" protagonist pursues a robber through the streets at high speed and contributes to his capture. For this he is rewarded. If any of us was to do this in real life, we might be facing reckless driving charges,
cause a car accident or injuries to another person or suffer injury or attack by the other driver.
Where the Difference Begins (1961)
Great But Barely Understandable
This is a great play with great performances, but the accents are so strong an American audience will have a very tough time with it. This play has everything - the class struggle, nuclear fallout, dementia, a woman sacrificing her career for her husband ... All the knives come out when the family matriarch dies. Mother and father were members of the working class who believed in post-war socialist Britain. They sent their sons to good schools to help them deal with the evil capitalists, but the sons come back changed men - they want the things that capitalism can give them. One son is now a scientist and a prig. The other lives off his rich wife but has numerous affairs and now has a pregnant girlfriend to deal with. This play is in the tradition of Room at the Top, Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and all the other films in the so-called British New Wave. You'd be better off watching them because you would be able to understand the dialogue.
House of Mystery (1961)
Perfect Little Ghost Story
At just under an hour long, this film shows what can be done with a good script and good acting. Everything makes sense and there are no plot holes. Although you can guess who the mysterious woman telling the story is pretty easily, this doesn't detract from a fascinating tale of avarice and horror. A couple want to buy a house but are curious why the price is so low. The woman who lets them in shows them around and tells them the story of the house. A woman and her lover vanish. An inventor mysteriously dies. Lights go on and off in the house. A man's figure appears and disappears. All this is knitted into a tight story which would have done justice to "Lights Out", "Inner Sanctum" or "Thriller".
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
Screenplay Only Somewhat Faithful to Novel
Although the film is somewhat faithful to the novel, certain facts were omitted from the film which can be misleading about the main characters' motivations.
Why is Betsy Rath so dissatisfied with her life?
Tom and Betsy Rath both come from wealthy families. Tom lived in the mansion in South Bay, went to private schools and is a graduate of Harvard University. Betsy was living with her parents on Beacon Hill in Boston when Tom met her at her coming out party. No wonder she's dissatisfied with the house they're living in!
Is Tom Rath suffering from PTSD caused by his experiences during the war?
Although Tom Rath's late grandfather was a Connecticut state senator for one term and after that did nothing, Tom's grandmother still refers to him as "The Senator". Tom's father, Stephen Rath, was a lieutenant in France during the First World War and returned home before the armistice under mysterious circumstances. (Tom's grandmother refers to Tom's father as "The Major" even though he was only a lieutenant.) Stephan Rath joined an investment firm but was fired in 1921. In order to give him some confidence, Tom's grandmother turned the management of the family finances over to him. When Tom was 3 years old, his grandmother took control of the family finances away from his father because Stephen Rath made too many poor investment decisions. Stephen Rath promptly jumped into his car, took off at high speed and killed himself by deliberately crashing into a large boulder at the entrance to the family estate. (Tom thought Betsy was going to do the same thing when she went on her wild ride.) Tom never knew how his father had died until he spoke with the elderly attorney handling his grandmother's estate. Tom's mother, an unhappy, bitter woman, died of pneumonia when he was 15 and Tom was left in the care of his grandmother who insisted upon living the life of the idle rich. Tom's emotional scarring is clearly not solely due to his experiences during the war.
Why is Tom Rath so hesitant about leaving his job at the Foundation?
Immediately after graduating from Harvard in 1941, Tom Rath entered the Army. After being discharged, his grandmother used her connections to get him his current job at the Foundation. The job at United Broadcasting is the first one he has had to get based solely on his own efforts.
What's the real reason behind Tom Rath's refusal to work the long hours that are expected of him? Isn't he committing financial suicide?
When Tom and Ralph Hopkins are in Hollywood to see if United Broadcasting should begin broadcasting filmed instead of live programming, Hopkins asks Tom if he would be willing to move to Hollywood for a year or two to handle the conversion to film. Tom has been working as a personal assistant to Hopkins and is already feeling overwhelmed. Moreover, he and Betsy are planning to subdivide the family estate into ¼-acre lots and build a version of Levittown in South Bay. They expect to clear $800,000 ($9, 000,000 today) on the deal. Now Tom is being asked to give all that up, move his family to California and become a workaholic like Hopkins. Tom bites the bullet and says "I don't think I'm the kind of guy who should try to be a big executive. I'll say it frankly: I don't think I have the willingness to make the sacrifices. I don't want to give up the time. ..." Hopkins gives a little incredulous laugh and then tells Tom "There are plenty of good positions where it's not necessary for a man to put in an unusual amount of work. Now it's just a matter of finding the right spot for you ... How would you like to go back to the mental-health committee? That will be developing into a small, permanent organization. I'm thinking of giving my house in South Bay to be its headquarters. (Hopkins' wife instructed him to sell the house after their daughter eloped with Byron Holgate.) That would be quite nice for you - you wouldn't even have any commuting. How would you like to be director of the outfit?" Far from putting himself in a financial bind, Tom Rath is now in the catbird seat - he will have a steady job, can spend time with his family and also work on the housing development which will make him financially independent. The film's ending showing Gregory Peck sacrificing his future for the good of his family is one that I'm sure the woman viewers loved, it is yet another reason to say "If you loved the book, don't see the movie."
The Automat (2021)
Must Be Taken With a Grain of Salt
Yes, yes, we get it. Everybody loved the Automat, the company loved its employees and this is the way America used to be and should be again. But the truth is that, in the end, Horn & Hardart did not take care of its employees. The employees were forced to retire and DID NOT GET ANY PENSION AT ALL. Several employees of Horn & Hardart can be seen testifying to these facts before a Senate commitee on NBC Reports: Pensions - The Broken Promise broadcast on September 12, 1972. After you see this Peabody award winning television program (available on Youtube), you will wonder what else in this program is propanganda.
The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970)
All Too Believable Tale of Big City Corruption
This film was made in 1970 when the average life expectancy of a white male in the U.S. was 68 so Emile Pulska has a right to be proud that he is celebrating his 70th birthday. When he claims that his friend was murdered and he was attacked during a visit to the decaying center of the city (unnamed in this film), his family suspects he getting senile. After all, didn't the police report state that a woman customer was in the friend's store when he had a heart attack and Emile fell down hitting his head? No matter how hard Emile tries to show his family the truth of his allegations, they don't want to believe him. They fled the city for the suburbs as so many other white Americans were doing at that time and anyway those things don't happen in our world. But there are people who know Emile is telling the truth, that he's causing trouble and has to be gotten rid of. People like the police and the city government. In the end, Emile proves to his son he was right with his dying word "See?" after being shot. This is a bleak film, typical of those in the early 70's, which shows the American city to be totally corrupt and rotten to the core. Excellent and worth a look if you are sick of the pablum that we are fed today.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Wildly Inconsistent
Although I had seen parts of the film ever since it was released in 1968, I never watched the entire film until yesterday. I am very skeptical of films that try to predict the future and this case my doubts were justified. Although the central action is supposed to occur in 2001, Kubrick & Clarke were wildly optimistic about the progress of space exploration in the 33 years since the film was made. They were also too optimistic about the continued existence of the American corporate giants of the day. Several corporate logos are used in the film - Pan American Airlines, Bell Telephone, IBM & Hilton Hotels. Pan American and Bell are gone. IBM is no longer the computer monolith it once was. Only Hilton is still a well known corporation. On the other hand, there is no optimism about race relations or the ability of minorities to move into positions of power - every person in the film is white. No imagination was used in the creation of the characters' clothing either - the men's suits are straight of of the 1960's as are the flight attendants'. The film seems to have been made in separate parts by different directors - no expense spared on some parts and corners cut in others. What I think happened is that MGM got cold feet and cut off Kubrick's funding at some point. He then had to make do with scenes like the one in the earthly room at the end - using sets and props easily available at the studio. I'm not going to comment on the plot because I think we're dealing with an incomplete realization of Kubrick's vision.
Between the Lines (1977)
Extremely boring film about self-centered men and the women who love them
Since I grew up in Boston and worked in Back Bay area at the time period of this film, I though it would be really interesting. Some of the scenes brought back memories but why try to set the film in the Back Bay in the opening shot and then move it to the Harvard Square area shortly afterward? This is, after all, about the staff of the Back Bay Mainliner. But the worst thing about this film is how self-centered Harry, Michael and Max are. The film just dies when they are spouting about their problems and trying to get another woman into the sack. The women in this film seem to be much more interesting, especially when they interact with each other. Too bad they weren't given more screen time.