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mregor532
Reviews
See You in Valhalla (2015)
remake
This movie is a remake of Rocket Gibraltar. Not a literal, scene by scene remake, but a remake nonetheless. The central concept of both movies is the Viking funeral. In this movie we have the mystic Hawaiian. In Rocket Gibraltar there are the children. In this movie there is alienation from the father, though for reasons that are really unclear. I mean really, in the explanatory speech of Don, the father did not go to see his son play baseball? In Rocket Gibraltar it is the natural distance that grows between parents and children, who grow up to be parents themselves and have to live lives of their own. This is not a bad movie. Rocket Gibraltar is better.
Hard Justice (1995)
parody
This movie is a parody. I even thought at one point about James Cagney in White Heat. Cliché after cliché pile up. I mean really, a character called Mister Clean? After a fight our hero and he are buds forever. A corrupt warden, his sadistic henchman, these are staples of the genre. I laughed through much of this movie. I watched because I wanted mindless entertainment. I got a little bit more. IMDb requires me to say more about this movie, if I want the review posted. I have said all I have to say. I think the IMDb policy is stupid. The first line I have submitted is actually the only original thought about the movie in the comments. It should have been enough.
Rogue Trader (1999)
IMDb sucks"Dies Bildnis ist bezauberd schön"
"Dies Bildnis ist bezauberd schön"
this was my title!
The movie is constrained and limited to one side of the story. I do not think the movie was entirely successful, but the theme was pretty clear. Do we really know what we really want? Nick Leeson saw a picture and he tried for it. Of course in the movie, pretty much every one else was doing the same thing. I am sorry, your guidelines are bullshit. I quoted the title of a sound track item. I am no more to say. Post this as I have written, without the comment to you. IMDb policy sucks, IMDb policy sucks, IMDb policy sucks.
The Debt (2010)
the original is better
I watched the original movie from 2007,before I even knew there was a remake. I watched this remake. I cannot figure out why John Madden wanted to do this. There is the whiz bang. There is a shoot out added. At the end there is the redemption, the white screen of departure from the plane of the three "heroes." Madden takes a drama of real people in extraordinary circumstances and turns it into a morality play about truth. The manipulation's of Vogel in captivity, central to the original are limited in the remake in favor of violent reactions. A key change in the position of dialog is this paraphrase. Jews do not know how to kill, only to die. In the Madden version this occurs while Rachel is shaving Vogel! In the original it occurs in the penultimate scene in the bathroom. The original movie was about the test of wills. The remake was about truth. Madden could have taken the original as a point of departure and made truth the central idea of a good movie. That would have required major changes in the plot. I did see all of the additions, the unhappy marriage with the unfaithful Stefan, the remorse of David, the unrequited love between Rachel and David. For some this might work, for me it is just a distorted remake.
Courage Under Fire (1996)
Mistakes
I do not vote on movies. I have read most of the comments. There is talk of Rashomon, an interesting idea, an important idea and a technique in cinema. That is the style. The movie opens with a battle and a mistake. Serling orders fire on a suspected Iraqi tank. He is wrong, he kills a friend. The psychology is interesting. If only he had known. The truth would have saved him from killing his friend. Walden's mistake, after the crash in the night, Monfriez was right though for the wrong reason. He was afraid. He wanted to save himself. She wanted to save Rady. She thought Rady could not survive the carry out. In the end he did not die, he survived. Along the way to the end we have mutiny and accidental murder and long after, not redemption, but at least relief by suicide. I was puzzled by the end. Serling places his silver star on the grave. He made a mistake in battle and killed his friend. She made a mistake and in the end the price was only her own.
Z (1969)
not so great
I saw this movie many years ago. I thought it if not great, at least memorable. I watched it again recently. It is not that good. Yes there are all the directorial, dare I say it, tricks. In the end, we are supposed to feel about this because of assertions about truth, justice and what we are all supposed to believe in. For those looking for well done propaganda, this is the movie for you. Less slick, but a better done movie with the same theme is "The Night of the Generals." This is the granddaddy of them all. There is of course "Off Limits" and most contemporaneous, "Green Zone." For me the best of this genre, honest man against a corrupt or at least ambiguous world, is "The Dancer Upstairs."
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Politics
I watched the movie. I was profoundly moved by it. Yes, the movie is one sided. It is not a dispassionate history from all sides of what occurred. I do agree with the article that pops up when the limit is hated. The background is not complete in all of its complexity. I do not understand this review.
"Like all the films the British-born director Ridley Scott has made, it is gripping, intense and beautifully shot. It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia." I have no problem with the criticism of the background as presented in the movie. I do not understand a criticism of a film that is "is gripping, intense and beautifully shot" because "It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia." The film is not about what happened in Somalia as described in the review. It is not about the background, it is about what happened in Mogadishu on two specific days of October. It is not about whether the soldiers should have been there. It is about what happened when they were.
Housesitter (1992)
Counterpoint
I liked the movie. I could watch it again. I listened to the score as it played out. It seemed to me to be very Baroque, one theme against another, though all fitting together. Gwen and Newton have a one night stand. He leaves! She is resentful, he is regretful. These are not the only voices. The father, the mother and the girlfriend they come in and they come out. There is nothing deep here. There is nothing to be learned. There is only the pleasure as the different strands go against each other and resolve at the end. I laughed as I watched. I have been now told by IMDb that I must have ten lines of text. I have nothing more to say.
The Doctor (1991)
Not just about a doctor
I have watched this movie several times and I could watch it again. Each time that I watch I see a little more. If this were about Jack as a doctor, it could have ended with the scene of him tossing the interns the gowns and consigning them to 72 hours of endurance as patients. The movie ends on the roof of the hospital as Jack reads the letter from June. She tells the parable of the farmer and his fences. How the farmer changes his mind and wants the animals to return. He stands in the field and flaps his arms to attract them, but the animals are frightened by the new scarecrow. At first, I did not understand this. Then I thought back to the scene of Jack blowing his whistle and pointing to the board where he has written I need you. For me the movie works not as a story about a doctor who is brought to the light by seeing the world from the viewpoint of the patient. It is about how one cannot live a life alone.
The Cider House Rules (1999)
not sure
I watched the movie. I thought it funny and moving. There was something that bothered me. Here is the first scene that bothered me. Homer takes a pot outside to an incinerator, he looks in the pot, there is revulsion. I knew immediately what was in the pot. Shortly thereafter we get the lecture on abortion by Dr. Larch. It did not seem right to me. The lecture did not fit the opening, arrival at a place to gain or lose a child. Later in the movie we are introduced to the actual cider house rules. They are dismissed as something that have not been chosen and absurd and do not have to be followed by those who work in the cider house. Of course, there are real cider house rules, you do not throw a cigarette in the cider! I guess we are supposed to come away with the idea that there are real rules we accept and have to follow and there are other rules that are imposed and mean nothing and we do not need to follow. This is a pretty empty message. There is the scene where Mr. Rose's body is being taken out of the dormitory. We see the migrants sitting on the cider house roof, watching. If they had accepted the rule, and violated it as a tribute, that would have had dramatic impact. The problem with this movie is that in its world there are no rules. The most important scene for me is when Mr. Rose confronts Homer and says we make up the rules every day. This is supposed to be some sort of learning experience for Homer, I guess. You have to watch the scene and decide for yourself. For me this was the worm at the heart of the movie. A rule is not something you make up every day. Rules are something that persist from day to day. Rules are something that a character believes in. Dramatic power does not come out of breaking a rule. Dramatic power does not come out of consequences for breaking a rule. Dramatic power comes out of the agony of a character for breaking a rule. In this movie many rules are broken. I see no torment. I see reaction to consequences, but no internal conflict. Let me put this crudely, Mr. Rose can bang his daughter and that is OK if she acquiesces. When she is fed up and wants to run away and stabs him that is OK too? He will do the right thing and cover up her guilt for the stabbing? What if she had not run away, would he have continued to bang her? This is not a bad movie. It could have been a great movie for me, if it had stuck to the tagline.
Gosford Park (2001)
Would you watch this again?
I watched this movie with my aunt, a woman of 90, though in decline still intelligent or at least persistent. In the course of the movie I made my guesses about the murder. They were correct. After it was over, I spent a lot of time talking about the confusion and about Robert Altman. I told her about the first Altman movie I had seen, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. I told her about the pioneering of the rumble. You enter a room with many people talking. You cannot figure out what any one person is saying. I told her about Alman's interest in sociology, how people interact and how it relates to the world around them. She was fascinated. She thought how neat I was. It was entertaining to listen to me. I did not care about that. As I thought about what I was saying to her, I said the movie was interesting as an intellectual puzzle. It did not engage me emotionally. Though I did not say this to her, the "cri de coeur" of Helen Mirren, I found very startling. I did not understand her cry, until it was explained in the movie. I volunteered the most important point. I knew what the movie had to say and I would never watch it again. Gosford Park is a Rubic's cube that I had solved, The Remains of the Day is a movie that I would watch again.