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Reviews
She Goes to War (1929)
Chopped-up print still has great scenes
Others have talked about the chopped-up, difficult-to-follow nature of this film. Knowing all that, it's still worth seeing for:
- Alma Rubens' two poignant performances of There is a Happy Land. Eleanor Boardman's facial reaction to the second performance helped make that a powerful scene.
- The battlefield scenes, which are as harrowing as anything in Big Parade, All Quiet on the Western Front, Wings, and other WW I movies of that era. A June 8, 1929 review of the original print of the movie in the Detroit Free Press focused on these war scenes, so it seems like one of the best parts of the movie survived.
- Eleanor Boardman's beauty and acting.
Court (2014)
Very predictable
Technically, it is a very good movie, with good acting and cinematography. It also is an illuminating movie about the everyday world of India, which I found particularly interesting because I've worked with a lot of people who are based in India.
Other than that, though, it was very predictable, in a politically correct sort of way. The people's poet and his lawyer are portrayed very sympathetically, while judges and prosecutors are always made out to be the bad guys.
The people's poet seemed to be a very unhappy person who just couldn't believe that the world wasn't as perfect as he thought it should be.
My Old Lady (2014)
Okay until the last 30 minutes...
...when a mixture of melodramatic plot twists left me wondering how all of the main characters were related biologically, psychologically, and emotionally.
I kept wondering, what's next, that will tell me the REAL story of this film?
If you have a romantic view of Paris, this movie won't disappoint you. The backgrounds always seemed to include couples cuddling up with each other.
The movie also teased us with a subplot about a female neighbor who keeps observing Kevin Kline, but nothing was developed that added to the plot.
Somebody sitting near me said, that's a cute movie, which is true, but it's also frustrating in its complicated plot.
It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)
Classic Elvis
I discovered this movie during some research on the original release of A Hard Day's Night 50 years ago. It Happened at the World's Fair was the second feature of a drive-in double bill with A Hard Day's Night in Wayne, Michigan in September 1964. I thought how cool is that, and I've watched it about five or six times on the Warner Archive web site.
It grabs you from the very beginning with Elvis flying across the beautiful blue widescreen sky, singing Around the Bend. The scene with Yvonne Craig leaves me in cold sweats every time, and then Joan O'Brien's mature, classy beauty helps carry the rest of the movie.
It's a great snapshot of a moment in time, the early 1960s, when world's fairs showed us an exciting future and there was great enthusiasm about the space program.
The songs are all fairly good, and mesh in well with the plot. And it's intriguing to see Gary Lockwood in such a light-hearted role a few years before his much more serious performance in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
No it's not Grand Illusion or Tokyo Story or The Battleship Potemkin, but it's a great example of Hollywood Elvis at his peak in the early 1960s.
Higher Ground (2011)
Mockery
Based on the other reviews, I had some hope that this would be a respectful, fair portrait of the struggles of being a Christian. Instead, I found mocking, patronizing stereotypes of Christians, from the leering summer camp preacher to the prune-faced prudish librarian to the "weird" men's group. From the laughter in the theater, I can only guess that this effect was intentional.
I walked out about halfway through. I'm sure there was some kind of tasteful, dramatic moment of self-awareness for the main character that was supposed to justify all that came before. But I had already wasted time and money, and I had better things to do.
If you want to see a really good movie about someone struggling with their faith, see the French film Ponette, about a 4-year-old who loses her mother and goes through a crisis of faith that is more sincere and mature than anything I saw in Higher Ground.