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Modern Marvels: The Railroads That Tamed the West (1996)
Excellent Portrayal of the Growth of the Western Rail Sytem
This episode is full of many fascinating facts about how the railroads in the west evolved and grew. Thorough research behind the stories is always impressive combined with great images and historic video. The story of the invention of the rail car coupler and the air brake system was crucial to the successful development of the railroads in the West. And this episode also revealed a little-known fact that the railroads were actually behind the creation of the United States Park system.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Ignore the Negative Reviews. This is a fun action-packed exciting movie!
This is a fun action 4th of July movie. An interesting derivative mix of many former action and end-of-the-world movies, but this movie is original and exciting enough to stand on it's own. Just watch it and enjoy it for what it is.
Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021)
Horrible! Boring. Dull as dishwater.
I am a big fan of all the previous Law and Order series. And I like the actors here. But all we get is long serious stupid scenes, no real action. Formulaic, dull, pretty much unwatchable. One and done! I will just keep watching the older better-written Law and Order series.
For the People: One Big Happy Family (2019)
Wasn't that Dabney Coleman as Donald, the stamp thief?
I am almost sure it was him. Why was he not credited?
Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
I really loved this movie - and I just watched it today by accident.
I have watched over 7,000 movies, of many different genres and time periods, in my lifetime and I keep track of them here on IMDb. Honestly, only about half of them are just OK. And I consider only about one in ten to be a really good movie. But this "Starting Out in the Evening" is now one of my all-time favorites. I never knew about this movie when it was released in 2007 but I found it recently and added it to my DVD queue. I never expected it to be this engaging. I have seen Frank Langella act in many movies and a few times I have seen him perform live on Broadway. I have always considered Langella to be a talented and versatile actor. His portrayal as the aging author Leonard Schiller was masterful, understated and honest and I think one of his better movie performances. It takes an intelligent, seasoned performer not to overact. The interplay between the aging, patient and soft-spoken Langella and the youthful Lauren Ambrose was surprising but also plausible. As other reviewers wrote, the plot was not predictable but the story gently drew me into the writer's world. I lived in New York City for 22 years and I know many people in the publishing world: writers, authors, editors, etc. So I have some real life experience about publishing. No, this movie was not a blockbuster. But this gem of a movie was an honest portrayal about the unpredictable nature of human relationships. At the end of the movie, I felt that I knew each of the endearing and somewhat flawed characters. But I was also left with the hope that everything would turn out alright for each of them.
Disco: Spinning the Story (2005)
I Was Surprisingly Fascinated by this Documentary!
I have always loved disco and have seen most of the movies ever produced with a disco theme. Frankly, I was not expecting much from this documentary, but I was happily surprised. It was very well written and researched and while I knew most of the artists who were interviewed, but I did not know their particular roles and the specific origins of disco. The apparently spontaneous interviews were lively, thoughtful, well-edited and interspersed with personal stories, snippets of the original music and factual backgrounds of the many creators of the disco movement. What I loved most about this film was the excellent quality of the many original video recordings, presumably done for TV. I would recommend this film for anyone who is interested in disco's short-lived dominant role in th world of music. Particularly interesting to me was disco's genesis from funk, soul, R&B and the strong influences from black music.
Gay Sex in the 70s (2005)
Excellent Movie: accurate, thoughtful and well-researched, with a very human touch
This movie brought back many memories for me, as I moved to New York in 1979 and lived there until 2004. I was 29 years old in '79, having come out at the tender age of 16 in Kansas City, where I grew up. I considered moving to New York earlier, but now I am sure that I would not have survived if I had. I moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village and in those few short years before AIDS was discovered, I had sex in many of the places featured in the film. For those who may be somewhat critical of this movie or the mores of the era, it is helpful to understand that sexual liberation really began in San Francisco with the straight hippies in the late 1960's, before Stonewall ever happened. Then after Stonewall, gay life and gay sexual liberation just exploded. While I missed much of the nonstop sexual activity of the mid to late 1970's, I certainly enjoyed my fair share of sex in New York during those few short years prior to the early 1980's. The most remarkable events which occurred were only alluded to in a brief comments by Larry Kramer (and others) towards the end of the film. Larry Kramer said that when the gay community began to discover AIDS and act upon it, this was the first time that an afflicted population ever took it upon themselves to demand radical change on the part of the US government and the US medical community. The gay and lesbian communities, particularly in New York and San Francisco which were the epicenters of AIDS, came together remarkably fast and formed several political and community organizations, which ultimately raised huge sums of money and began to bring about real change and awareness of AIDS to the world. In the past 20 years, there have been many books and films which document the relatively brief history of gays and lesbians. Joe Lovett's film has added an important piece to our history.
The New World (2005)
A 2-1/2 hours movie that seemed like 8 hours
Will this movie ever end? . . . was all I kept asking during myself the last hour and one-half. The New World is maddeningly, excruciating slow, with way too many long, thoughtful musings. The director seems to have watched too many Ingmar Bergman movies. The New World was as boring, long, incomprehensible and ponderous as five Ingmar Bergman movies and Wagner's Ring opera combined. A good third of the dialog was unintelligible. There were many beautiful scenes, but many of the water scenes were numbingly repetitive. How many times do we have to watch the main characters staring wistfully out at the water? The casting was great, but generally wasted on this ridiculous movie. On a positive note, the depiction of the squalor and suffering seemed very realistic. No expense appears to have been spared on creating the authentic costumes and sets. And on a final note, the depiction of the beginning of the white man's ultimately tragic mistreatment of the native American Indians added a sad note to the movie.