dongwangfu Reviews

Dangerous Assignment: The Alien Smuggler Story (1950) Season 1, Episode 1

Donlevy's donnybrook

[2/10 · 4 December 2022]

These are radio dramas barely changed for the screen. Although each episode is set in a different locale, they are all filmed, it seems, on LA area back lots. Quite a difference from "I Spy," say, which is uses a very similar conceit but makes the most of the scenery. Also, I wonder if the "commissioner" got sick during the filming, because his character disappears a few episodes in.

The cold war ethos is such that Donlevy's character is sympathetic to Eastern Europeans seeking to escape the Eastern bloc, but if there is a rebellious movement in Africa he is sent to quash it. He's such a "lovable dope" that all he does is follow orders -- no Patrick McGoohan style angst here.

While fairly cookie-cutter, the first is a pretty good episode relative to some of the later ones. Also, all the characters appear to be speaking Spanish, even though the episode was set in Portugal. Last I checked Spain and Portugal were different countries, but, then again, this was the era of the "Ugly American."

The Lloyd Bridges Show: Freedom Is for Those Who Want It (1963) Season 1, Episode 30

Martin Berkeley: Communist turned anti-Communist

[11 August 2021]

I have not seen this episode but would be very interested, given the subject matter, and Martin Berkeley's role in cooperating with HUAC in the 1950's.

The Widow (I) (2019)

Flawed thriller buoyed by excellent direction

[8/10 · 3 May 2021]

While we were distracted keeping track of errors of continuity and plot inconsistencies during the first few episodes, the story really picked up and we eventually started to let them slide (even though what different characters know at different times sometimes did not jibe with their actions).

But what is really notable about "The Widow" are several bravura choices by the director, including revisiting scenes from different characters' perspectives, and some excellent stylish montages from following a bobblehead in front of back window of a car through a drive through Kinshasa, to a montage following the production and processing of Coltan through all of its stages. In the end, this was an above-average thriller with good performances.

Siesta (1987)

Truly the worst movie I have ever seen

[1/10 · 5 October 2020]

My brother and I saw this movie when it was playing at Stanford, and we both felt it was the most pretentious dreck we had ever seen. People try to rescue it with words like "surreal" -- no, I've seen Buñuel and this film simply presents its lack of consistent characterization as real -- there is no surreal level to it. Others say it is "film noir" and while there is some idea of a mystery to be solved, there is no tension, and any critique of conventional mores is undone by its voyeuristic gaze on Ellen Barkin. Siesta is a fiesta of cliches and puerile dialog, a masochism-curious vicar's idea of an art film, and a barely disguised attempt to discredit Martin Sheen's movie career. I've been in more enjoyable automobile accidents.

Private Information (1952)

Social problem film with strong lead performance

[7/10 · 23 December 2018]

In one of her last performances, Jill Esmond does an excellent job in both the domestic drama aspect of this movie, and in the borough council scenes at the center of the "social problem" aspect. Of these two, there is nothing surprising or unpredictable about the former, but the latter is well done. The writer is clearly more interested in the psychology of the pompous and entitled officials and providing both an anatomy of public corruption, and a view of how it can be countered. As a result, the film is didactic but enjoyable.

The Guard (2011)

One of the best movies of the last decade

[10/10 · 16 October 2017]

I've seen this film three times, and it simply is incredibly complete. Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle are great in both the comedic and dramatic scenes, and especially good playing off each other. It works as a buddy cop movie and as a wry commentary on the genre, all the way until the photographer's wry meta-commentary signals the merging of the two at the end. Consistently unexpected and original, it captures the Irish penchant for deadpan humor very effectively -- and while there are some significant differences in approach, I left the theater with a respect for the director's craft that I only reliably experience with the Coen brothers.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Lots of potential

[8/10 · 25 September 2017]

Having just watched the first two episodes, I want to chime in on behalf of those people who have seen every episode of every series, but who are not "purists" about Star Trek. Frankly, these first episode were much better than my admittedly low expectations. On the positive side, there are at least three characters that are fleshed out, given backstories, and show some development. There is a story arc, one that reminds me of the one with the Cardassians in DS9. Finally, and I don't know how to say this any better, but there is a welcome dearth of stupid bangles -- no holosuites, no tribbles, no Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis romance. On the negative side, there is a lot more action than discovery, and while in many people's eyes that made "First Contact" a winning entry in the series, there is something that fails about that approach when one is forced to watch commercials every seven minutes. This lack of puzzles is echoed by a crew member who says something like "we were supposed to be on a journey of exploration not a war," which was my sentiment throughout the JJ movies, and so I hope there is more "discovery" in the rest of the series.

Two things make me optimistic going forward. First, the teaser for coming episodes indicates we are getting to the "journey of exploration" starting in episode 3. Also, Sonequa Martin-Green is really rather good, as is Doug Jones, and they appear to both be in the continuing arc along with Jason Isaacs. I'm old enough to remember how lame the first episodes of DS9 seemed to be -- a lot of stuff about baseballs -- and yet it is the series of which I am most fond. It is hard to start a series like this, but the foundation that is laid here could sustain. But "Discovery" got quite a bit more right in terms of creating a unique feel within a familiar context than I expected based on the ever-changing group of people involved in creating it.

The Handmaid's Tale (2017–2025)

Very timely given the Christian Right influence on our government

[9/10 · 29 April 2017]

Frankly, I understand why people reviewing this timely and well-crafted series want to point out we are a long way from Gilead. It seems important to assert that we do not and would not want to live there. But I think it is just as important to note that in several significant ways things are moving in that direction. How fast and how permanently is open for discussion, but here are some changes over the last few months that match with aspects of "The Handmaid's Tale":

TODAY: The Secretary of Education is in favor of voucher programs that will send taxpayer dollars to support Christian schools. GILEAD: Gilead's slogan is "God is a National Resource" and the schools are run by the theocracy.

TODAY: As states begin to defund Planned Parenthood, and Republican legislators seek to replace Obamacare with a tax credit scheme that would exclude citizens of states like California and New York where insurers are required to provide abortion coverage in certain situations. These measures will decrease access to contraception and hollow out women's rights as defined by Roe v. Wade. GILEAD: Women's reproductive choices are completely controlled by the state.

TODAY: Climate science is removed from policy-making, and the EPA is run by a person who routinely let industry write environmental regulations. GILEAD: Ofglen was a scientist whose prior employment would have gotten her sent to the colonies, if she was not fertile.

TODAY: The presidential cabinet has more white men than that of any of the previous five presidents, including Reagan. GILEAD: Women were forced out of the workforce, and then barred from owning property.

True, there is still a long way to go to get to Gilead, but "The Handmaid's Tale" is speculative fiction. The point is not that we should feel good we are better than Gilead, but rather we should be asking why are we moving in that direction?

The Prowler (1951)

Hoosiers, with murder instead of Gene Hackman

[8/10 · 29 July 2016]

This note contains spoilers.

Although I am not really interested in whether this meets whichever of the many definitions of noir, it is worth saying that this film plays more like a tragedy -- the Van Heflin character is tormented by multiple motivations and ultimately sows the seed of his own destruction. There is no force of order pursuing him, at least not one that he didn't put into action himself.

While Helfin's character proves that athletes who fail to realize their ambitions to turn pro are the true engine of criminality in society, the Evelyn Keyes character is more complicated, and by that I mean she is not written entirely consistently. She vacillates from satisfied and loyal to..., well, the opposite, in the same scene. Is this hidden character assassination by the director?

Which brings us to the main question I had: who reports the second prowler? For the longest time I assumed it was Susan and that there would be a second act in which it turns out she was manipulating Webb all along. And with films of this era, often there are signs of previous resolutions that were deemed inappropriate. They sure spend a long time making sure Webb and Willam Gilvray never see each other prior to the denouement. I wonder if some early Dalton Trumbo version of the script had Webb as a manipulated lover being set up as the fall guy?

The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018)

Why is this show so polarizing?

[9/10 · 21 September 2015]

For some reason, there are a huge number of reviews that expect this to portray all the details of its post-apocalyptic premise exactly the way each reviewer imagines it should.

It is a sit-com! Was "Bob Newhart" accurate about mental illness? No. Could actual human beings live the summer camp style lives led by the central characters in "Friends"? No. Is "Last Man on Earth" anything more than an excuse to throw together different character types for humorous effect? No.

But as a sit-com style serial it is really very, very funny. Will Forte, the central character, is weak-willed but occasionally self-reflective anti-hero, and Kristin Schaal and January Jones are just two of a set of excellent comedians who play supporting roles.

The only reason I can think that so many ratings are so low is that people may have been looking for show in a different genre, and started watching and were unhappy it was basically a sit-com.

Escape by Night (1960)

At night in Rome

[6/10 · 30 July 2013]

I watched this on Netflix also and although I like De Sica much better (for some reason his melodrama seems less melodramatic!) there were a few points in other reviews with which I wanted to take issue. First, the title means (I think, given my pidgin Italian) "It was night in Rome". "Escape by Night" is indeed a weird choice for an English title, but one can't really fault the movie for that. Also, as for the American acting like an Italian, even Americans can occasionally act according to the adage "When in Rome..." so I don't buy that as an indictment of the historical sense of the film.

The point that is made above about stereotypes is a good one. I would expect Rossellini to accept this criticism -- it is almost as if, fifteen years later, he is setting out to tell his story of the way Italian society adapted to the end of the occupation. The black market, the Church, the aristocracy, the professional class -- they all are caricatured, almost as if he was doing a sociological study of the time. I thought that film succeeded at that level, although of course there is really little character development if all of them are a "type."

One other distinctive feature I wanted to point out is the role of the Communists in the film - - Rossellini paints the Communists as the major anti-fascists and as having sacrificed quite a bit. This wholeheartedly positive portrayal is unfamiliar for me, as someone who grew up in the Cold War era, but according to my limited understanding, historically accurate. Since the film was made in 1960, at the end of the decade of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, though, I wonder if this portrayal was not somewhat pointed?

Riders of the Whistling Pines (1949)

Amber waves of DDT-laced grain

[6/10 · 25 February 2011]

Gene Autry's movies are so much more complex than Tex Ritter or Ken Maynard, and it is hard not to admire the way that his movies have more explicit social messages. This movie is particularly intriguing because it is both pro-environment and pro-DDT. Remember, this was 1949, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring came out in 1962, in part a reaction to the fire ant eradication program of 1957. Not only was DDT seen as a boon to forest management, but the previous year (1948) its inventor won a Nobel Prize for "for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT."

At the core of this movie is an effort to control an infestation by aerial spraying, similar to the fire ant eradication effort a decade later. It is also about a lumber company's effort to first hide the infestation and then sabotage the spraying, so as to make a fortune harvesting the diseased trees. So, DDT is used by protectors of the forest, but the ones intent on letting a natural infestation decimate the forest to profit are trying to convince the farmers that DDT is killing their livestock. One of the townsfolk even says something like "once it gets in the fish, then it gets in everything..."

Which all goes to show that what is environmentally sound changes as our understanding of nature changes. Autry keeps insisting that DDT had been tested and couldn't be killing off the animals. Of course, by the time it was banned in 1972 its persistent toxicity and effect on animals were scientifically well-documented.

Which, to me, makes this a fascinating movie. Yes, the greed of the timber companies led them to do bad things. But the concern of Gene Autry for the forest also led him to do something that we now know was bad, too -- albeit unknowingly.

Phantom Rancher (1940)

Tarzan steals the show

[3/10 · 28 December 2010]

Spoilers below:

I assume that Ken Maynard's horse Tarzan has some Jedi mind control tricks, because no one ever recognizes the fact that the "Phantom Rider" and one of the main characters ride the same horse. At one point, Tarzan rolls in the mud, to become a horse of a different color, and feigns lameness. Then, the next scene, Tarzan appears without mud and not lame. Good thing that cowboys don't pay any attention to anything besides the color of horses!

That is only one of a number of deeply implausible aspects of "The Phantom Rider". In its favor, the title character is likable and the plot a little different than the standard -- the writer plays a little with whitehat/blackhat conventions. While he doesn't break the cardinal rule of westerns of this era that it has to culminate in a fight on a rock outcropping, at least the lead doesn't ever break into song. His telepathic horse, though, is worth at least three stars.

No Way Out (1950)

Forward-looking take on race in 1950's America

[7/10 · 7 December 2010]

Whether you like Mankiewicz or not (generally, I find his films too melodramatic), this one is very worth watching just as a window into the past.

It was released in 1950, and gives a fascinating critique of race in America when Martin Luther King, Jr., was still in Divinity School. The resentments and misconceptions of the various characters -- the white hospital administrator who believes graduating black doctors will increase funding, the black elevator operator who believes black doctors have to pass tests white doctors don't. Then there is the depiction of racism as virulent, irrational, and pathological -- Widmark takes the bus to crazy-town and doesn't take a transfer for the return trip.

But the one character that holds everything together is Linda Darnell's Edie Johnson. She's the character who develops -- everyone else is basically static. She's a lot like Widmark's Ray Biddle. As a woman from the wrong side of the tracks, she's not gotten a lot of breaks. So she's prey to his "blame-the-negro" rhetoric. But the best scene in the movie is one in which she is in her apartment with Biddle's brother George. She hears a domestic dispute out the window, and maybe it is a coincidence, but it spurs her to action -- and the action she takes is the hinge for the end of the movie.

So while this movie had a lot of Drama (Widmark chews the scenery in a way the more understated Poitier is generally able to avoid), it was truly fascinating.

The Mystery Man (1935)

Some wit in this inelegant hybrid

[5/10 · 5 December 2010]

This uneasy cross between a "Front Page" style newspaper yarn and a cops and robbers movie was entertaining at times but never really dramatically engaging. It was made less than a decade after the stage version, and only a few years after the Menjou/O'Brien version of Front Page. The comedic elements in the first part of the movie, as well as some funny ironic dialog come out of the interactions between news hound Larry Doyle, his editor, and his fellow reporters, come from that style of film. Halfway through, we leave that movie and enter into a crime flick, with a decent ingénue mistaken for Mrs. Doyle (played by an actress who was really named Doyle, by the way) and a case of mistaken identity leaving the reporter holding the bag. The resolution is not very clever, and the light tone of the first part of the movie means we're never really worried something bad will happen in the second. I mean, if it had been made in the 1970's, that may have happened, but in 1935, no way.

There's a really neat moment at the end, though, that illustrates how in the 1930's everyone knew that newspapers could make or break elected officials, and how the publishers could influence what was published. I don't know when we lost that breezy cynicism about money and media, but I prefer it to the sacred cow of editorial independence that characterized the movies about the media I watched growing up. Doesn't really save the movie, but it is an interesting difference from things 75 years ago.

Secret Agent (1964–1967)

Complex spy series

[9/10 · 8 May 2010]

I was born in the year that production of this series ended, and am only now watching the entire back-list. What I'm seeing is such a breath of fresh air. You see, growing up in the 1970's I saw all the Bond movies as a boy and, well, it took me a long time to unlearn many of the lessons that they contained.

And in this series, even before the cinematic Bond, someone has considered and rejected those movies' facile acceptance of Cold War propaganda, western superiority, and male chauvinism.

Take, for instance, the episode "That's Two of Us Sorry" which I saw yesterday. Ahead, I will spoil this one episode, just to explain the complex way that this series runs counter to the standard narrative that I learned. The episode takes place in the Western Highlands of Scotland, where a file of secrets is missing from a nuclear facility. When Dr. Twit (not the character's real name) finds the file missing from his suitcase, it is dusted for fingerprints and the prints of a man who disappeared twenty years ago after stealing some state secrets and selling them to Russia.

Enter Drake, who investigates and follows a lead to a fishing village on an island, where other prints confirm the disappeared criminal is still living. Ever astute, he gets closer and closer until the "bad guy" realizes he is caught. This is where the Bond movie or standard narrative would end.

But the episode is not over. Even after the criminal turns himself in, although he admits to the crime of his youth he still denies the recent theft. Drake brings him back to the nuclear facility, and it turns out that the criminal and Dr. Twit are acquainted from Twit's recent vacation to the fishing village. Drake smells a rat, and it turns out that the fingerprint on Twit's suitcase was from that vacation, and Twit had simply misplaced the file prior to the vacation. The criminal, despite having redeemed himself by helping his community, was falsely implicated because Dr. Twit cried wolf about missing secrets. Drake still has to arrest the criminal for earlier crimes, despite knowing that in doing this he is hurting the fishing community.

In other words, the show is telling us, Drake's spy qualities are being used as a tool by the forces that control the society. You can appreciate his cleverness, but the show does not permit you to assume just because he's good at what he does, he is doing good.

That's what the episode is really about. Drake is sworn to uphold the security of the nation, but is aware of the fact that the way the British hereditary ruling class is running things is the real danger. This is obvious in a rather harsh conversation between Drake and the Dr. Twit near the beginning as Drake upbraids Twit for saying none of his colleagues could have stolen the secrets because they are all upright blokes. Drake ridicules the idea that just because someone plays golf, they can't be criminals.

When Drake goes to the fishing village on the island, there are half a dozen red herrings that he chases and rejects (almost like the prototype for an episode of "Castle"). In so doing, the series shows how interdependent the members of the fishing village are, and paints the village as having its own moral codes that it effectively uses to keep order. In the end, because of the machinery of the state, the machinery that Drake is cog in, doesn't work right, Drake's efficiency ends up making things worse for the people he is supposed to protect. So is Drake a "good guy"?

Worth thinking about. Don't recall being asked to think about that with the Bond movies. All in all, a level of complexity much higher than one would expect for an hour of television.

Three Blondes in His Life (1961)

Guns! Blondes! Insurance!

[5/10 · 22 July 2009]

Jock Mahoney embraces the tough ladykiller detective role with a deadpan smirk, and not much in the way of complexity. Which fits a movie that despite some good plot points, devolves into an excuse for Jock to kiss the titular three blondes. At first I thought he was repeating a mistake that had been made before (I'm being intentionally vague here to avoid spoilers) but as it turned out such considerations were beyond the ambitions of Three Blondes in His Life. Don't expect Philip Marlowe and you might find it a passable flick. Where it really excels is as source material for a paper on attitudes towards women at mid-century.

Available at Internet Archive.

Up the Yangtze (2007)

Worthy of comparison to "Still Life"

[8/10 · 8 July 2009]

I just finished reading an excellent comment comparing this documentary to "Sanxia haoren" by Jia Zhangke, saying that this film has "a hard act to follow." This was a very insightful comment by someone who knows Jia's films very well, but something about it struck me as unfair, and I wanted to offer an alternative point of view.

Both "Up the Yangtze" and "Sanxia haoren" are terrific films, but they are fundamentally different kinds of film. I actually think the relatively unheralded "Up the Yangtze" is just as good as "Sanxia Haoren" on its own terms. The director filmed a number of people's stories over the time that the Three Gorges dam was raising the water level of the river, documenting the ensuing social dislocations. Using this "Spellbound" method, he singled out one and half narratives that turned out to be the most interesting, and the result succeeded both as social science and as an engaging and moving narrative.

Jia's project was to take two couples' stories and dramatize them against the same backdrop. The two movies share similar scenery and locations, but "Sanxia haoren" works off a screenplay, and while the look strives for verité, the drama builds on precedents that are non-documentary in nature.

An example of what I mean is when Cindy (in "Up the Yangtze") reacts to a decision by her parents by being a drama queen, the viewer reads it as a real person borrowing from a script from the realm of fiction. By contrast, the Shen Hong character (in "Sanxia haoren") is a dramatic one and she never leaves the realm of fiction -- the viewer accepts her as a "real person" only in the sense that we know that she is being presented to us as one by Jia, who likely imagined her as a variation on actress Tao Zhao's personality. It is not social science at all but fiction -- which is worthy in its own right, but something different from watching Cindy grow up.

Of course, documentaries are not entirely non-fiction, and documentarians influence their subjects in some of the ways that dramatists do, and in other ways that are entirely their own. But I think that to compare these two films as if they were both trying to do the same thing is not to do justice to "Up the Yangtze" -- a gem that deserves to be appreciated on its own terms.