Reviews
The Trap (1966)
Okay, you've gotta be joking
I don't usually add comments, but just so someone else doesn't make the same mistake I did based on all these glowing comments above, I must add my opinion. I taped the film and it was ridiculously bad. How about these minor flaws?
* Two Italian guys playing the indigenous people? And their names are 'Yellow Dog' and 'No Name'?
* How about taking a look at the dialogue in this film for the female characters? Not only was Rita Tushingham's character mute, but so was the older woman with child who was being auctioned off? For a while I thought this movie was going to be "Island of the Mute Women." Except that the mother and daughter's dialogue is profuse and terribly written too.
* Wouldn't the mute Eve have learned a bit of basic sign language? She never even uses her hands when she communicates! Couldn't she still write?
* What about la Bete the trapper being attacked by vicous wolves? How corny is that? Or Eve falling asleep in the canoe and going down the rapids which suddenly appear out of nowhere right near the cabin? Or the Amazing Growing Deer? la Bete goes to shoot a tiny juvenile doe (this animal was in the studio) and misses, and the next shot we see is this half a second of blurry file footage of a huge adult deer scampering away!
Look, I enjoyed the film. It was definitely bad enough to be good, but that's the nicest thing I can say.
Crazy Horse (1996)
It could have been much better.
This made-for-TV film about Crazy Horse has good acting and beautiful visual images. However, key details have been left out of the story in its hurry to wrap up a very complex issue and time in history. (For more detail, I'd highly suggest you read "Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas" by Mari Sandoz). Additionally, though the story fortunately does stay focused on Crazy Horse and his people, the script makes only a half-hearted attempt to tell the tale with a native american voice. For example, very little of the music sounds native American. However, this movie does probably set the record for Most Horses Knocked Over, and If there isn't an Academy Award for that, well gosh darnit there should be!