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Reviews
Incorporated (2016)
Interesting Show but Predictable.
A future where governments collapse because of too much debt, too many promises, and too little delivery certainly seems plausible by today's standards.
Corporations taking government's place has been worked in the Sci-Fi realm with better results.
But it follows the same old Hollywood playbook that Hollywood has been using since the 1930's:
1. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
2. Corporations are inherently evil trampling over everyone in their path.
3. Rich is bad, poor is good.
A reworking of the plot line could have made a great series that was renewed.
Sabrina (1995)
Fewer plot holes than original made a better movie.
Most of the plot holes in the original were fixed except one necessary hole. Sabrina flying in from Paris would take a taxi or shuttle service all the way to the Larrabee mansion, and not leave her in the middle of a street somewhere on Long Island. Of course this is needed because the original Billy Wilder script had her being picking up by David at a LIRR train station. (Evidently Wilder knew nothing about LIRR train service.)
A possible error. At the party before Sabrina goes to Paris, Linus says he wants to check how the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed. TSE closing at 3 PM Tokyo time or 1 AM NY time. Unclear what time it was when the party was breaking up.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988)
Meaningless Movie
Supposedly a sequel to "Alien from LA". But not really anything. No plot. Not ending. Nothing. Why did actors take this job? Were they that short of money? Producers must have been pretending to fulfill a contract obligation, but produced zero budget garbage. Even as a camp comedy it fails. Don't bother.
Z for Zachariah (2015)
Major Changes from Book
Original book was a two-person story. In rewriting it for the screen, a third character was added. Obviously, the screenwriters had used the 1959 movie "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil" staring Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens, and Mel Ferrer as a basis. If you have scene that movie, you can almost guess what will happen with a white girl, black male, and third act addition of another white male in a sexual triangle.
John Loomis character changed from bad guy to mostly good guy. Much more emphasis on religion undertones.
And it leaves unresolved whether the Caleb character actually left after the falling incident at the waterfall (it was the Ann character who left in the book using the safe suit) or if John killed him to get Ann.
Original book was more of a teen book. Movie is mostly boring with long silences.
The Decks Ran Red (1958)
SoSo Suspense But No Mystery At Sea
The Decks Ran Red (also called Infamy) is a 1958 MGM seagoing suspense drama based on the book Infamy at Sea. The film received generally poor reviews, but received wide viewership for Dorothy Dandridge's role. Filming took place in southern California aboard the Chios, Greece-registered SS Igor (originally the Philip C. Shera), a World War II Liberty Ship owned by the Los and Pezas shipowning families. (from Wikipedia)
James Mason as Captain versus vicious Broderick Crawford as a too smart for own good engineer out to pirate an old cargo ship for insurance money. You know Mason will win in the end. Just a matter of how.
The Swan (1956)
A Nice Story
A nice story about duties as European royalty viewed it in 1910. But the story is a little stilted. And actors ages don't match. For example Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of UK were both 20 when they married. Grace Kelly was about 27 and Alex Guinness was about 41 when the story was made. Nowhere in the story, even at the end, do either show any real attraction toward each other.
The Women (1939)
Why No Color
An excellent movie about gossip, infidelity, and divorce, circa 1936 (from original play) even if the movie was made in 1939. But the movie was made in black and white, which I think detracted some. Except for the 6-minute fashion parade in color (deleted per director in some versions, but restored on TCM version), all the scenes were in B/W. But you can tell that most of the ladies are wearing great dresses that would have really stood out if the whole movie had been made in color. Also several scenes involving "Jungle Red" nail polish would have stood out better in color.
Atlantis (2013)
Typical Atlantis Story with Problems
Scene 1 Episode 1. Jason is piloting and modern day underwater submersible when drawn into white light. Never again shows any knowledge of history or science. Father supposedly from Atlantis. Of course he becomes the hero with the Princess falling for him. Other characters rewritten, starting with Hercules who wasn't the epic strongman. Ends without a resolution of story.
The 5th Wave (2016)
Politcially Incorrect Movie
If you know the book trilogy, of which this is just the first book, then you know the secret of the alien "others." It could have been revealed in this movie, but then the movie would never have been made. The "Others" are rabid environmentalists, going around the universe to different planets killing off the top-dog species on each planet on the assumption that the top species is a danger to all the others. So that is their motive to exterminating the human race. But you can't have "good" environmentalists as "bad" aliens without a lot of thinking, which this movie doesn't have.
Unexpected Uncle (1941)
Slightly Amusing Story
Short story about a fairy godfather as pretend uncle (Coburn) helping out course of love.Of course, it helps if you believe both the godfather and business man both don't know how to delegate responsibility to subordinates, or they wouldn't be working 18 hour days which was cause of both their problems.
The Time Machine (1960)
The Three Book Problem
At the end, George takes three books to help recreate civilization. This is a Science Fiction discussion of long standing, although not clear how George Pal picked up on it. The problem is similar to the one posed in the movie: The Martian. What knowledge in an underdeveloped world do you need to survive and prosper?
After eliminating books on religion, philosophy, politics, art, music and the like that aren't directly survival related, you narrow your choices down. Farming. Food Preparation. Basic Medicine or First Aid. Tool making. Wood working. Metal working. Stone Working. Animal husbandry. Basic language or reading. Basic Mathematics. Basic Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Astronomy. But how to condense all that or choose into just three books?
Bittersweet Love (1976)
Moral
Moral at the end is simply that family secrets are better left kept secret. Truth doesn't set you free. Movie takes a long time to spoil a relationship that started out happy.
The Lady Eve (1941)
Excellent Except for Big Plot Hole
A big plot hole that spoils the fun. On a ship, Charles (Henry Fonda) might have had trouble checking up on Jean (Barbara Stanwyck) and had to rely on ship's purser. But at the Pike house, as soon as "Lady Eve" and "Sir Alfred" showed up, you would think a rich guy (probably a billionaire by today's wealth) would have been burning up the transatlantic telegraph cable (in spite of WW 2) to check up on the existence and whereabouts of the two. He would have found out in 1-2 days that either they didn't exist, or weren't in U.S. So there would be no question about "Lady Eve" actually being Jean.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Ups and Downs
An uneven start to the series. Lightsaber battle much better than anything in episodes 4-6, although probably due to superior special effects. Having a little kid in the pod race and later shooting up the space ship is typical juvenile Hollywood antics.
But the most illogical is having Anakin and his mother as slaves shows Hollywood's failure to understand slavery. His mother would have to be purchased, and she and later the boy, would have to be fed, clothed, trained, and prevented from leaving (even with the bomb implants which someone would figure out how to overcome.) All to get maybe 12 hours work or less. But in a droid based society, you would get 18 or more hours (after recharging) without the additional costs. Cost factors don't support slavery on these worlds, except possibly for Jabba's sex slaves.
Libeled Lady (1936)
Great Movie except for Marriage Legality Plot Hole
Given the nature of the "marriage" of Harlow and Powell characters, a Reno divorce shouldn't have been necessary. A fast and simple annulment on the grounds that the marriage was never consummated or ever intended to be real. That would end the problem at the end of who was married to whom.
Damnation Alley (1977)
Nothing in Common with Book
Nothing in common with the book by Roger Zelazny except the title and a cross-country expedition. And even the book was one of Zelazny's weakest, which he admitted. In book, story starts years after the war. Reason for expedition cross-country change. Destination change. Characters added. Principal character drastically changed. Events along route change. Ending had no relationship with original story. Star of the film became the Landmaster versus the actual story and characters. This movie shows how Hollywood Sci-fi movie budgets of 1950-2000 period usually influenced most Sci-fi scripts, usually for the worse. Putting special effects ahead of the story.
Let's Make Love (1960)
Weak Movie with Good Songs
I first thought this was a nice movie, but the more I think about it, aside from the good songs, it is a stupid story. Full of plot holes: The billionaire could have purchased the show and deleted his part without ever going near the theater.
And even in 1960, could a billionaire be totally unrecognized in New York City? At the end, the billionaire is trying to prove to singer Amanda who he was. And takes about 15 minutes to do it. An Elvis movie a few years later was in a similar situation and he did it in 10 seconds. Just pull out some identification: driver's license, passport.
Error: In 1960, interest on the interest of a billion dollars would be $30,000 per week.
And wastes too much time with cameo's from Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, and Milton Berle trying to teach billionaire to perform.
Concussion (2015)
CTE History and Sports
A reasonably important movie to warn people (especially parents) about the danger of head related injuries from combat-style sports. And it does veer into the usual Hollywood conspiracy type movie of big bad organizations trying to suppress the knowledge from people.
However, one important fact, Dr. Bennett Omalu didn't discover or name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy as claimed in the movie. Although he was probably most responsible for extending it to American style football in his 2006 paper.
"CTE was originally studied in boxers in the 1920s as dementia pugilistica. The seminal work on the disease came from British neurologist Macdonald Critchley, who in 1949 wrote a paper titled "Punch-drunk syndromes: the chronic traumatic encephalopathy of boxers." CTE was first recognized as affecting individuals who took considerable blows to the head, but was believed to be confined to boxers and not other athletes." (Wikipedia)
Also not mention is that in has impacted players in wrestling, ice hockey, mixed martial arts, soccer, Rugby, Australian rules football, baseball, and extreme (BMX) sports. (Wikipedia)
We're Not Married! (1952)
Common Law Marriage
The section with Louis Calhern getting out of nasty divorce with gold digger Zsa Zsa Gabor due to the letter stating they weren't married was great, but probably doesn't work. I believe they lived in Dallas Texas which was and is a common law state. In Texas a common law marriage can be created if a couple meets a three-prong test showing evidence of all of the following:
-first, an agreement to be married;
-after such agreement, cohabitation within the State of Texas; and
-after such agreement, representation to others (within the State of Texas) that the parties are married.
So they were probably legally married.
Rich people beware, always get a prenuptial agreement which existed (under different names) even when this movie was made
BUtterfield 8 (1960)
Car Chase at End
At the end of the movie, Taylor is driving from NYC to Boston followed separately, and out of line-of-sight, by Harvey. But the road sign clearly shows Taylor entering NY State Thruway which goes north toward Albany. At the time the movie was made, they would have taken the (now defunct and replaced by separate interstate highways)Connecticut Turnpike which went northeast toward Boston. The movie plot assumes both characters would have taken the same wrong route. A mix up like this might have been possible when original book was published in 1935 before both highways were built, but producer's obviously didn't know NY and New England highway routes.
Passengers (2016)
Illogical Plot
A ship on full autopilot would, when detecting a problem or malfunction, awaken senior members of the command staff, not a minor engineer. They would then awaken necessary repair staff. An android bartender who works but no (HAL 9000) type computer monitoring things is illogical.
Jim could also have awaken the command staff to make repairs and fix a pod so both Jim and Aurora could go back into hibernation, so neither has to die.
How to Murder Your Wife (1965)
Lawyer
Possible spoilers. This movie only works because Jack Lemon's (Ford character) lawyer is probably the most incompetent lawyer in motion picture history. Everything the lawyer said showed he wasn't working for his client. After the couple came to his office, there are several totally legal ways the lawyer could have gotten Lemon's character out of the marriage. (Check out annulment, Vegas marriage, and marriage of foreigner to U.S. citizen rules.) And at least one at the end to stop the trial before it begins, like checking on people who airline flights to Rome. But all this would kill the movie.