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derekobr-01067
Reviews
Homebodies (1974)
Never Mind the Youth... Beware the Elderly!
I saw this little gem decades ago, when I was a child, on WOR-TV in NYC, and it unnerved me, becoming one of those.films that stayed with me for decades, like Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Lemora, Race With the Devil and Deathdream. It unnerved me chiefly because, like many movies from the 70s, it was bleak, that people died in grisly and were never found again (something about dying alone with only your killer for company struck a chord in my young soul), that bad guys committed crimes and got away with it.
It took 40+ years for me to work up the courage to see it again. This time, I could bring with me a lifetime of experience, and eyes and spirit that are closer in age to the principal characters in this movie: elderly folk who have lived in the same place for decades, being forced out of their tenement building to uncertain accommodations and uncertain futures, and resorting to sabotage and murder to delay the inevitable.
Our cast take their collective acting chops and you fully beleive that they have been fixed in the same place for years on end, have no desire to change their routine. I can more properly appreciate the black humour behind many of the set pieces, as well as the tragedy of it all.
The tragedy is that despite their efforts, despite the murders committed of people (none of whom really deserve their fates), they're only delaying the inevitable. And they know it, they see it; yes, the construction crews might take a day off to attend the funerals of their dead co-workers, but they're back on again. Yes, the city official trying to relocate them is stabbed and thrown onto a passing train, but the wrecking ball still arrives to knock down the buildings. And yes, the asshole condemning their home to build his luxury tower may get himself buried alive in the cement of his own building, but the company is still running.
But the elderly, so bound by their memories and their routines and their fear and inability toa dapt at their age, know that they'll eventually have to go. Do I think they were right to take these actions? Absolutely not. But, finding myself approaching retirement age, I can eat least be empathetic to them.
9-1-1: Lone Star: Double Trouble (2023)
"9-1-1, What's Your Emergency? "Help, the Show's Jumped the Shark!"
It used to be good. Really. Lots of, you know, actual emergencies worthy of 9-1-1. Yes, maybe many were unrealistic-seeming, but they were often based on actual cases that they gathered and adapted.
And I liked the mix of characters, liked them from the start. But their soap opea antics always took second stage to the cases they faced. Now I'm sitting here watching it, guessing every line, every plot twist, until we finally get this episode, with an extended, self-indulgent dream sequence with the cast that just went on and on and on until I finally turned it off.
What the hell happened? Did they simply run out of ideas? Are the cast all just bored at this stage?
Detectorists: Special (2022)
An Episode Too Far...
I had hoped to feel welcomed back to the world of Lance and Andy. It had been a joy when the show was on air regularly. Now, however, we have a rift between our two best friends in account of greed and selfishness. Worse, Andy's partner Becky is written as a screeching, selfish cow. Almost from the start her character is taking it up to 11, when we haven't had the benefit of the traumas and crises that the couple have faced since the end of the last episode. Never jump to fifth gear from a standing position. There was no reason for her to be so unsympathetic, unless Mackenzie was going through a bad relationship at the time when he wrote it.
And the outcome of Lance's selfish scheme to contrive discovering his earlier find in public later screams of predictability. Of course it wasn't going to work out the way he expected!
There wasn't really any laughs to be had in it, even when "Simon and Garfunkle" made an appearance, usually a highlight of the episodes. It's definitely a case of an episode too far.
Chicago Fire: Take a Knee (2017)
This One Did Not Age Well...
I don't know what raises my hackles most: Hermann's Archie Bunker response to his son's protest (though he did turn around after the school meeting); the fact that his son took a specific gesture used to highlight police brutality and racism in order to protest an increase in prices in vending machines; or the fact that a person of color like Boden didn't point this very thing.
9-1-1: Lone Star: Child Care (2022)
Drama For Drama's Sake
I have been catching up with this series, up to this point, and have enjoyed it more than I thought, having expected a Good Ole Boy, God Guns and Guts show; it's only partly that LOL
I'm only halfway through the episode, and I have to agree with some of the other reviewers: Grace's reaction and attitude did not jibe with the faithful but forgiving character to date. It was Drama For Drama's Sake, a sign of a poor writing choice. Hopefully, it will improve as I continue through the rest of the series to catch up.
The Protégé (2021)
Okay Thriller Spoiled By...
Spoiled by an uitterly disappointing part where Maggie and Michael's characters have sex midway through. Even setting aside the utter ridiculousness of it (70-year-old Keaton bedding 42-year-old Maggie?), there is minimal chemistry between the two actors. There comes at least one part in a script when it becomes obvious that it was written by a hack, and that certainly is it (it's as clumsy-assembled as the previous scenes where Keaton alternates with his stunt double in a restaurant fight.
It really spoils all of the reasonable build up of the eponymous character as a strong, capable female character.
Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (2017)
Stunning - for all the wrong reasons
Firstly, the DVD cover claims it's an 'original movie'.
Yeah, let's talk about that.
This is a huge recreation of the Gene Wilder movie, complete with the look of the movie, the look of the original characters, huge chunks of dialogue, the incidental music as well as the songs, the basic plot. There's the obvious addition of tagalongs Tom and Jerry (and a mouse who wants to be an Oompa Lompa), and a subplot of T&J trying to stop Slugworth when he seemingly sneaks into the factory during the Golden Ticket Tour, but really, 'original movie'? That's chutzpah.
The animation hurts. It's like some Eastern European ripoff that would have been made soon after the Gene Wilder movie. The voice actors approximate the original cast voices to varying degrees of success (I find it hard to criticise the voice actors, they're just collecting a paycheck).
I'm old, but I'm not so set in my ways that I can't appreciate a good remake - if the remake can bring something good and interesting to its interpretation. This, like that Gus Van Sant Psycho remake, fails that requirement. Though I suppose it will amuse the younger and less demanding demographic.
I still wonder why Tom and Jerry are the only animals in this world that can't talk. And why the makers didn't put a warning at the start to tell kids that chocolate is highly toxic to cats and mice and other animals.
Nativity! (2009)
My Wife Loved This Movie. I Hope She Doesn't Read This
(Slight Spoilers Ahoy!)
To be fair up front, Nativity! seems to hit all the buttons in being an inoffensive, emotional Christmas movie, filled with lots of children being themselves rather than acting at being movie kids. It has appealing characters (with at least one big exception), a plot the ankle biters can follow, no product placement (unless you count Coventry), and songs that they can sing along with. And yes, the ending is warm and fuzzy.
Oh, but how annoying for me nevertheless! Freeman's character is a failed actor/director/producer (whatever he's supposed to be) who leaves entertainment and goes into teaching primary school kids. Am I supposed to pity him? Apparently so. A hell of a lot of people want to be teachers in the first place, a thankless job (one my wife does) and not to be seen as something you fall back on.
But Freeman lies, and thanks to his idiot classroom assistant (more on him in a moment), everything snowballs, and though he has many opportunities to stop it by telling the truth (or at least telling another lie to stop it), he doesn't.
The head teacher is a self-serving b**** out for personal recognition rather than for the children, a trait shared by many real-life head teachers out there (admittedly, this day and age requires that head teachers act more like CEOs than teachers, despite the word in their job title), and though she berates Freeman for taking away two of their children to America without proper release forms, she never bothered checking herself before they left (and the parents themselves never show up to wonder what happened to their kids, or even if they used passports or just went with Hollywood rules that say passports are only mentioned if integral to the plot) and then she cancels the play. But then later we see her crying because now she knows the truth and Hollywood isn't gonna come and give her some acclaim - and again I'm wondering at what point I'm supposed to be feeling sorry for her.
But the absolute worst character was classroom assistant Mr Poppy, who plays the movie trope of Idiot With a Heart of Gold. Oh look at him, the child-like man who bonds with the kids - and is just as irresponsible as they are. He overhears Freeman's lies and spreads them to all and sundry, he takes the kids on trips without clearing it first with anyone, he forges permission slips to let Freeman take two of the kids to America and ends up getting him fired, and in the climax, risks several children having them perform stunts that in real life would give Health and Safety people strokes.
Oh, but he has a kind, innocent heart! You know what, **** that. A kind, innocent heart and a penny is just about worth a penny. Even Freeman's character points out to Poppy that any idiot can be a friend to the kids, and Poppy has proved to be just that idiot. The only thing this movie does right is by clearing up how such a dimwit can get a position in a school - by being a relative of the head teacher, because nepotism is another fact of life with many of today's primary schools. Even my wife has admitted that, though she loved his character, she would quit her job before having him as a real classroom assistant. And what does this tell the kids watching it, and maybe expecting their classroom assistants to act like that instead of, you know, doing their jobs and supporting the teacher, not being the kids' friend?
Okay, I get it, the movie is made for the younger crowd, and that's somehow supposed to excuse its faults. But strangely enough, I've found that you can make a decent movie and make it for the whole family, but that fact somehow seems to escape the notice of many filmmakers.