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The Hill Chris Climbed: The Gridiron Heroes Story (2012)
This was FANTASTIC!
Going into it, I thought it was going to be a commercial for the NFL, which I love, but it was not. Keep in mind, especially in the NFL, the game is much safer, and I am all for the restrictions that they have implemented. These kids ARE heroes and they deserve all the support that they can get. If you want to see a drama about CTE in the NFL, see "Concussion" (2015) starring Will Smith, who I thought deserved the Oscar that year for his portrayal of Dr. Bennet Omalu. Dr. Omalu is the person who discovered CTE in NFL players.
I STRONGLY recommend both films!!
FBI (2018)
Runs at a breakneck speed, and never looks back!
F.B.I. is absolutely RIVETING! Runs at a breakneck speed, and never looks back! :-) May be my new favorite show, and I never say about any show after only one episode. I kept playing thirty second to one minute segments over, before moving on.
BraVO!!
Now Is Good (2012)
Dakota Fanning Comes Of Age In The Film, "Now Is Good" – My Mini-Review
A 16 year old girl who knows that she will die of leukemia, and there is nothing that anybody can do about it at all. What could possibly be worse than that?
In the film, "Now Is Good," this is what we are confronted with. For many years with millions of others, I have watched Dakota Fanning literally grow up on screen. I know that in this film she is an actress playing a character, but that doesn't necessarily make this film that much easier to watch. She is a very good actress, and in this film I was very surprised: She is not the typical movie character that faces this catastrophe with an unflinching smile, who is ready to take that long walk in to the abyss like a true hero. Her character is HUMAN......and at times her short lived, permanent dilemma makes her angry, confused, anxious, and a myriad of many emotions that only she can cover in this film. It makes her act out with some of the things that she wants to do on her bucket list that no young person should ever have to write.
In this film Dakota's character Tessa is English with a perfect English accent to top off her whole performance. When I discovered that, I asked myself why they just did not get an English actress to play the role. Ten minutes in to this film, I had my answer. This is an astonishing performance by our National Treasure, Dakota who is now just barely a post-kid. This may be her finest film statement so far. It is a Dakota Fanning tour de force. I could easily see her getting a nomination for an Academy Award for this, but now we know that did not happen. The great thing about this film, and the performance is that at no time did I feel manipulated. I never felt like it's goal was to make the viewer cry like so many similar ones. It is not a, "Tear Jerker" in that regard. Sometimes the burst of emotions that a film can produce are not necessarily intended. It just naturally happens. That is why in a film with a performance like this one, that emotional break happens so easily. – At least it did for me.
"Death Be Not Proud." So many things in life are not fair......and so it is with The Academy.
MegaFault (2009)
One of the worst ever!
I rented it on Blu Ray, and it is a poor looking Blu Ray. I gave it a 1 and I didn't know that it was made for T.V. but then I suspected that it was when I saw how poor the special effects were. They did not even shake the camera manually (a technique that should hardly ever be used) but it was a type of fake digital camera shake. I agree with jmgalvan in that I would almost recommend it to watch in a Gilmore Girls kind of a way: Sit there and ridicule it. In that respect I found it entertaining, and I laughed a lot. The trouble is, it's an action-drama, and you are supposed to have the myriad of emotions that come with that genre. I love film, and I would much prefer to see a GOOD disaster movie.
It is beyond me how Britney, (8 Mile) who I think is a fine actress, with 6 films coming out, and the incredible Bruce Davison, (Short Cuts) with four films coming would ever say yes to this. They should fire their agents. Eric LaSalle, (E.R.) is another fine actor, but he hasn't done all that much since he left E.R. which is a shame, and it might explain why he took this role. I thought the acting was good, but with a good script and director, all three of them would have really knocked the walls down which is what I expected, and it was the reason that I rented it.
The special effects are the worst that I have seen since Buck Rogers, but......back then they had an excuse! LOL
Under Suspicion (1994)
One of the best......but long gone.
Well, I guess this excellent show was thrown on to the mile high heap of other shows which the network felt were not making enough money for them. I am positive, that if it had run more recently and then got canned, it would have wound up on DVD, but it has been forgotten about. On Wikipedia, and elsewhere I have seen the term, "Under Suspicion" used to describe the other characters reactions to detective Rose Phillips, (Karen Sillas) being a female detective on the job with the big boys. I think the title may be a double entendre, because the whole precinct that she worked in was, "Under Suspicion" by internal affairs, thus the name of the show. In most of the episodes the police were interviewed one by one - a different cop in every episode. It was done in the dark room, with the bright light in the center, reminding the viewer of classic, Cagney, film noir. That added a very nerve-wracking quality to the show, because every cop new that at any time, he might be fired or even indicted. As a result everyone was always on edge to an unusual degree and more than anyone, this included the viewer. The color pallet, was blue tinted with high contrast and laid back.
The episode entitled, "A Haunting Case" (Episode 1-14) was both one of the creepiest, and also tasteful episodes that I've ever seen on T.V. It starts with the song by Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and the camera does a very slow pan from the harbor up to the victim. You never see the whole victim laying there, but rather three separate shots. What is left to your imagination is not only more unsettling, but to me far more sympathetic and respectful to the victim than showing the whole body. You see the expressions on the faces of the other detectives before Rose gets there. These are battle hardened police, and when you see an ever so slight wince on one of their faces, you know that Rose and the viewer are going to be in for a tough time. The perpetrator is possibly the same person who did a similar crime exactly 20 years ago hence many flashbacks to the cops when they were much younger, including one who made a terrible technical mistake. The appropriate music of that time is used. It was a very effective episode. It brings out many different thoughts, and emotions from those of us who were early 20ish back then.
I remember the fall preview write-up for this show. The people who wrote it at T.V. Guide liked the show very much. They described Det. Rose Phillips as, "...possibly a bit too hard boiled for the average viewer." Then again......if she wasn't hard boiled, she could not have functioned as a homicide detective.
Across the Universe (2007)
I Loved It! :)
As an American, I came of age in the late 60's, and when it comes to this film, I will cut to the chase: It was a touching, beautiful film. Of all the films that I have ever seen, and I have seen thousands, this one went by the fastest. Toward the very end, I looked at my watch and thought, "Yikes!" this will end any minute, and 3 minutes later it was over. It left me wanting more.......a lot more. I wanted to see more sequences, about the horror that was Vietnam, and more about the raw, confusing, and slightly naive politics of the young people who thought that they could change the world. Those two issues are very complex, but this film was much more about the love affair between it's two lead characters. I honestly think that if it was thirty minutes longer, with about 15 minutes devoted to each of those topics, and with a few seconds devoted to man's first walk on the moon, (I can't believe they left that out.) it would have been a masterpiece. Obviously, that is not what Julie Tamor, or the writers had in mind.
In most films when they re-do famous songs it always leaves me cold. Not with this film. I am trying to find out who sang for the actors during the dance numbers. (Was it the actors themselves?) If not, there were some truly superb, powerful, clear, honest, on key, melisma free singers who sang for some of the cast. (I kept thinking how they sounded like Ewan McGregor, and Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge - they shocked the producers, who let them try their own singing in that film.) I thought the re-do of the Beetles songs sounded fantastic, except for "Mr. Kite" which I hated. Also the way they synched the songs with what was going on in the story, and the way they synched certain lyrics with a few things on screen here and there was very clever, and refreshing.
I have always remembered the 60's with the Dickens quote from A Tale Of Two Cities "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times......." If you are too young to have lived the 60's, look that entire opening sentence up, and see this film, because it so perfectly captures the awe and turbulence, the artistry and combustion, and more than anything the wonderment and beauty of that controversial time in American history.
Collier & Co. (2006)
I didn't like it at all...
I have to say that there is nothing wrong with low budget films, so that was not my problem with it. My problem with it is that I felt like I was watching my next door neighbor's home movie. IMO everything about it just seemed like a guy wrote out a quick story, grabbed a camera, and started shooting. I understand how hard this must be to do effectively, but when I pay to rent a film, I expect to feel like I am watching some type of professionally made movie.
John Schneider has a huge resume, is a great actor, and was fine in this film. The other people in it were not. I understand how it must be fun, and cheaper to use friends, and relatives as the cast, but it doesn't make for convincing acting. It seemed like the way it was shot, he was trying to give many of the scenes a more interesting look, but when the writing, plot, and acting are there to begin with, that type of style isn't necessary, and it is a distraction.
Also on a technical level, it had digital artifacts all over the place. In the first scene of all of those fine cars, when they did a slow scan of them, they appeared to jerk back and forth just a little bit. The problem isn't in my viewing equipment, (Benq PE-8700 84" diagonal) but somewhere in the production. I've never seen that kind of artifact in a professionally made film before. Then there was the sound. It sounded like they didn't do any voice-overs, which may be o.k. unless it sounded like the track in this film. It sounded like the built in microphone on the camera.