Reviews

Mr. McCoy needs to look up the word "bimbo" in the dictionary. The woman McCoy labeled as such did not sound dumb when answering Abbie's questions. It was the banker who seemed to fit the very definition of the word. Sadly, female characters and real women are easily referred to as bimbos while their male counterparts, who may be the actual bimbos, are labeled by their respectable positions.

This episode reminds me a lot of the 1959 British movie, Room at the Top. Laurence Harvey played Joe Lampton, an ambitious young accountant with two women in his life: the wealthy factory owner's daughter he wanted to marry (played by Heather Sears) and a married older woman he was actually in love with (Simone Signoret won the Oscar for this performance). Joe Lampton and Tommy Beltran are similar in that they are more concerned with their potential fathers-in-law than their fiancees. Joe tells his aunt and uncle that he is going to be married. They point out that he spoke more about the father's wealth than the young woman he was supposed to love. Tommy Beltran betrayed similar tendencies.

I agree with the criticisms of this film posted so far but I still enjoyed it enough to watch the entire film. What I know about Danny Greene I learned from his episode of the excellent Mobsters, so I will leave it to better-informed viewers to determine how true to life it is. What I do know is what a Cleveland accent sounds like and these veterans of Goodfellas, The Sopranos and the Law and Order franchises didn't take the time to learn it.

Dr. Olivet hit the mail on the head. I know at least two attractive young models - twenty years apart in age - with self-esteem issues. One was a young cousin who pursued a career after high school, appearing in print and runway in the U.S. and abroad. The other was a neighbor who modeled for a fashion store while in high school. Daddy issues? Yes, for both, although not nasty as those portrayed in this episode. Both women found their way to happier lives but it took time and the right help.

Lenny Briscoe reaches out to Logan in a metaphysical way in the form of a friend of his, Father Shea. After hearing a deathbed confession concerning a sixteen year old crime, Father Shea seeks out Logan as Lenny's former partner. Lenny had had many partners but Father Shea sought out Logan. Why? During the last episode of season 6, Logan told a neighbor that, in a dream, Lenny Briscoe said he wasn't dead. Given how this episode ends a season later, this viewer wondered if Lenny had been helping Logan find his way to happiness through Father Shea.

The Mike Logan story in particular really got to me. I have seen it a number of times. When it aired recently, I started to tell my husband about it during a commercial break. I found I couldn't due to crying!

I was totally opposed to how the Mike Logan character left L &O at the end of season 5. However, producers took the opportunity to explore his "story arc" in CI ten years later. Chris Noth's portrayal of the impact his attractive yet doomed neighbor made on him lifted the episode to a high level and an unexpected direction.

I will leave Bobby Goren/Vincent D'Onofrio to fellow posters but his part of this season ender was also superlative.

Loved how costume contrasted the personalities of mother and daughter. Mother wore crisp, metallic white suits and gowns while "colorful," poetic daughter wore lacy, dark vintage.

Even Arthur Beach's final quote of the episode reflects the care and attention paid to costume.

Rutanya Alda's performance as James Rebhorn's wife haunted me. She conveyed the process of coming to terms with the facts of the case very well.

This episode focuses on the health insurance industry. This particular company offered the patient's family two choices: a bone marrow transplant (it was unlikely this particular patient would find a match in time.) Or, a drug recently made available the company would not cover and the family could not afford

However, both sides of the aisle could have questioned the pharmaceutical industry as well. One dose of the new drug the insurance company voted not to support was $2,500 and the young leukemia patient would need it monthly for life . Apart from the lack of longitudinal studies, cost was clearly the main reason it was turned down by the majority of the company"s special cases committee.

But, did the drug have to be this costly?

This beautiful actress was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis shortly before her fortieth birthday as revealed by a simple Internet search. (I remember when this story was made public.) An autoimmune disease, RA causes debilitating joint pain and swelling. Also, Miss Turner may have received steroid treatment that accounted for her appearance in this episode. As a result of that treatment, her feeling "fuzzy" and easily dropping things undermined her Hollywood career. Kudos to Law and Order for offering this fine actress an opportunity to play a strong, intelligent defense counsel.

I was disturbed by Abbie's total lack of empathy toward the perpetrator and his parents in this episode. She had no understanding of the parents as they portrayed how difficult and dangerous their son was and how gut-wrenching it was to not understand why this was so. My heart went out to the father as he made his final decision about his son's future. Why didn't Abbie's?

I doubt that Abbie was an "outie" in high school. But, I would have expected that by now she could walk in another's shoes without undermining her effectiveness as a prosecutor. Jack McCoy could.

Breastfeeding got a bad rap in this episode. Breast is best but it isn't easy to accomplish in a bottlefeeding world. The lactation consultant in this episode was correct that women have breastfed for millennia but she was wrong to insist that this immature and isolated mother do so. The lactation consultant should have known that through "the millennia" many new mothers received plenty of support from the community so that they can concentrate on the breast feeding relationship with baby. The mother in this ep did not have or seek this support and her husband was no help

Also, bottle feeding is no panacea; depressed or detached parents find mixing formula, sanitizing bottles and heating the contents without using the microwave to be a challenge.

As a registered dietitian, a lay breastfeeding counselor in the 1980-90's and former breastfeeding mom myself, I would never make a client sign a contract agreeing to breastfeed at all costs as did the show's counselor. Our goal was to instead enable the mother and family to make an informed decision about the best way to feed their infant. Most of us would have determined that the baby in this episode was doing poorly and the parents were not caring for the infant including feeding How? By counseling new mothers by phone. We also held monthly mothers meetings or pen to mom's, dad's and babies plus speakers about relevant topics. We rarely had parents who seemed to be as unfit as those in this episode but we sometimes had to call the baby's pediatrician or mother's ob gyn.

Today in Pennsylvania, as a health care provider, I would have to report them to the authorities.

What was sad about this episode was that no one in this baby's life cared for him properly. Everyone in this baby's life was focused on something else. When they did focus on the baby, they didn't see him as he really was. Instead, to they seemed to project their hopes and dreams into him.

In the very first scene, the father expected behavior and ability that no 5 month old could achieve. Even the au pair pointed this out to him. The parents had been cursory when searching for a caregiver. The agency did not match the abilities of this particular au pair with the right family. The young mother was the father's second wife. His ex-wife had no love for the new baby and focused on her resentment over being forgotten. Son #1 stood off to the side.

The ending leaves all involved with plenty of regrets.

I was moved by this film. I was aware of Kate Nelligan's performance as Susan Traherne in the original stage version, a lusty, glowing former Resistance heroine with a shattered psyche. In the film, Meryl Streep focused on a beautiful, disarming character's inconsistent control of the crazy energy lurking underneath.

Plenty could be re-released today on a double bill with the recently released Brothers. Both show the long-term effects of war, fought overtly and covertly, on combatants and those who love them. It is no secret that the soldier in Brothers wreaks havoc on his family after returning from one tour of duty too many in Iraq. "People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to."

So, one way to view and appreciate Susan Traherne and her effect on her husband, friends and co-workers is from this perspective within the context of their cultures.

You can tell from the posts on this page that On Our Own was not a big hit. But, the audience for this show would be phenomenally large for any show today. I watched a few episodes but millions of others must have, too. I looked and acted a lot like Lynne Greene. Everywhere I went, parties, discos, total strangers told me I looked and acted like this actress (who was an inch taller and ten pounds thinner than me.) Even my family, living 1,500 miles away, called me long distance telling me to turn on the TV to watch my double. Not just because I look like her, I thought the character was a good one, really funny. In the second season, the characters were no longer roommates. One night, the Bess Armstrong character got sick. Being out of town and young, she did not have a doctor in NYC, so she called Maria, the New Yorker. Of course, Maria had the phone number of a cousin who was a doctor. When reading the number to Bess, she began, "Area code...." Back then, that meant long distance! What a trip.

I saw this film in the late '60's on our local TV station. It was not unusual to catch B movies starring our television personalities back in the day. What a film! I cried at the end. What shines through is the portrayal of the class levels within American society then. Lucille Ball's dame certainly internalized the idea that she was above the class of Henry Fonda's Pinky even while she subsisted on the food he brought home for her after she was no longer a gangster's moll. Henry Fonda's Pinky was a true codependent, picking her up from the floor, keeping her alive, even moving her from cold, icy New York City to the east coast Eden of Miami (shades of Midnight Cowboy!)with nary a thank you from this ungrateful woman. Through a plot device, Pinky and the busboys don tuxedos at the end so she condescends to be carried up the stairs by one of their own, enabling her self deceit that she is an upper class lady. Someone wrote it was too much of a downer to have been successful when released and couldn't be made today as the bit players do not exist to round out the cast. Rise above the limitations of both eras and enjoy this film.

This film was historically correct in how it showed the attitudes of the times. I saw this film finally after reading a book attempting to explain why American history, including the Wild West years, has been so violent. I was amazed how accurately the film showed those reasons in the Wild West. Mostly men, few women, lived in that part of the country then. The West was spacious and spectacular but also boring, leaving men with little to do but get drunk and play a mouth harp. Also, many of the tough guys hailed from the post-Confederate South. In the film, after taking the long, boring train ride north to a town in Minnesota (to the tune of a mouth harp,) they encountered well-dressed, prosperous Scandinavian-Americans in the streets. These people were barely intelligible as they mocked the long riders. When our anti-heroes arrived at the bank, they discovered what the townsfolk were saying. What they said to the lone teller revealed they were from the South. I was mesmerized by this part of the film and hope others were, too.

I love this movie, too. To me, it is almost a guilty pleasure, considering its flat characterizations. But, they have some redeeming qualities. Although the character actors who play the German military(Anton Diffring) and SS command (Derren Nesbitt) in the castle play to the German stereotype, their spats reveal the antagonism that existed between these two groups. Richard Burton's character gave the impression of really enjoying the mission. Clint played his straight-man from the American heartland who is somewhat shocked by Burton's over-the-top character, similar to Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Watching Mary Ure and the actress who played Heidi play an active role in the dangerous mission made an impression on me when I was younger. Neither woman cowers, but instead contributes to the action and helps to drive the plot on to the end. Their characters also deal more intimately with the male characters. The adult relationship between Mary Ure's capable character and Richard Burton's commando leader is light years from the tense, immature marriage they portrayed in "Look Back in Anger" ten years before. Mary Ure's character has a nerve-wracking conversation with the dangerous SS officer minutes after arriving at the castle. Again, an entertaining movie.

I was amazed this film was made today. It was a long movie made as an independent film with no regard for the box office. There must have been a lot of international financiers contributing to the expense of this film. Although I never saw the film in the theater, I gave the DVD to my husband for his birthday. Later, I liked Rosario Dawson in Clerks II and wondered how she acted in Alexander. (I know enough not to say "appeared".) She was great! I started to watch the DVD whenever I could, a few scenes at a time, and found that worked for me. I liked the flashbacks. They were absorbing, footnoted what had just happened, what was about to happen. Colin Farrel and Jared Leto inhabited what must have been arduous roles. I hate saying this but I remember Jared Leto from his Camryn Diaz days, left adrift on the red carpet as flashbulbs burst around Camryn. But, in this film, Jared shows he has acting chops, playing a tortured, sad character. The film's sociology was interesting. I liked how the film showed life on the road, how Macedonian soldiers started families and spawned kids along the way. Alexander cared for them, too.