mikedonovan Reviews

The Molly Maguires (1970)

Cool coal

[22 August 2006]

Apparently the Molly Maguires were four guys infiltrated by Richard Harris. I once read that they were a large organization of terrorist miners all over eastern Pennsylvania in 1876-77.

I don't know why Don Knotts was in thi8s film without a credit at the end. He played a Pinkerton detective and was surprisingly convincing for someone who usually plays a funnyman.

They took a lot of liberties with the story but what else is new? The priest stole the movie with his sanctimonious lectures to the Maguires at every funeral. Why did they take chowderhead off the IMDb? He was my hero.

Henry Mancini did the music and there's nothing like good music to dance to when people are dying in coal mining accidents.

The Molly Maguires was an amazing mood piece for life in the coal mines in the 19th century but it did not do justice to the injustices that motivated the Molly Maguires to acts of protest. The Mollys were wrong but they were wronged to begin with and the movie does not show the grievances of the workers in any mature way.

I liked the part when they tried to kill Harris with a pile of coal.

Barabbas (1961)

"Give me Barabbas!"

[19 April 2002]

BARABBAS rocks. We saw it at the drive-in in the early 60's and the whole family loved it, all nine of us. I'm not always enamored with Anthony Quinn. Sometimes he seems conceited. But as Barabbas he is brilliantly humble, yet powerful. This is by far, his best movie ever. His faces say a thousand words a thousand times. It's as though he was transformed and really became the character, not played it. He is stoic and disturbed, tortured by the crisis within his soul. Barabbas is the man the crowd chose over Christ and this is a fictionalized account of his life after Christ was crucified. Jack Palance gives the second greatest performance of his life as the man who trains, and sometimes kills, gladiators. That evil laugh. That face. What corner of hell gave birth to this man? It's almost as good as his Jack Wilson gunfighter role in Shane. Palance is so mean in Barabbas that all sorts of pacifists would gladly kill him if they had the chance. There are a couple of slow spots but the sets are fantastic and the story is great.

How did Jack Palance sleep at night?

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

Its "hard" not to like this "whack"y comedy

[18 April 2002]

BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA has many, many chuckles but (he said ‘but') unfortunately no belly laughs. Not one knee slapping, stomach hurting gag. I was a little disappointed. I am a big fan of the TV series; so don't get me wrong; these characters are great. Maybe that's why this didn't work that well; DO AMERICA was more about the plot than about the characters.

I've fallen on the floor laughing at many a TV episode but it was never about the brilliant plot. Also, what plot there is in the TV series is usually logical, within the confines of their brand of insanity. This movie had a plot that went off the deep end way too often. It also got a little redundant with the portrait of the ATF authority figures as being unreasonably macho. Two hours of gung-ho fed men jumping out of trucks with trigger happy attitudes wore thin. Also the hysterical Cornholio character that Beavis made immortal in a hippie poetry café didn't work when transferred to this film. It was forced and not nearly as funny. All right, maybe one scene was killer. The Senate laughing like Beavis and Butthead over a dirty joke. I think Mike Judge deserves all the wealth and fame he has achieved for his comedy work. I liked this movie, but I was hoping to laugh till tears rolled down my cheeks. ..He said ‘cheeks'.

Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)

Didlittle for me

[16 April 2002]

Dr Doolittle 2 was a great concept ruined by cheap junior high school toilet humor from beginning to end. If its not a bear with severe diarrhea (a drawn out and disgusting scene, or a giraffe zeroed in on Andy Richter's fly being open, its some other animal breaking wind or urinating. If it's a FUNNY scene involving body discharge, I could possibly (but not probably) enjoy it. But when that is the joke itself, the fact that the animal is engaged in embarrassing bodily discharges, crapping per se, I am simply offended. And I am no prude. I enjoy many comedians who use profanity and have laughed at many a ribald scene in a genuinely funny movie. But this was not it. Butt plug jokes, the bears are going to get laid, tee-hee, jokes. It was disgustingly unfunny and jerky. Rex Harrison never looked so good. The first Eddie Murphy Doolittle had all the same faults as this one, not the least of which was the smug voice of Norm McDonald as the dog. In fact, ALL of the animals are smug smart-alec put down artists with flip, condescending attitudes. Always a nasty conceited quip for any occasion. Is this supposed to make them likeable? Animals are loveable. I like dogs and birds and racoons as much as the next guy. I even think alligators are cute and lovable in their own feisty way, not that I want to swim with them. Animals are vulnerable and frightened easily. They aren't cocky and full of themselves. DOO 2 gave all of the animals a terrible personality. If they were your pet and you read these minds, you'd turn them in to the pound.

The only time the movie took off (for about five minutes) was when the bear, who always had a cool-guy wise crack for everything finally became sensitive and lonely. At the same time, Murphy's daughter began to communicate with the animals too, and in a nice way. For a few minutes it moved me. But most of it was revolting. There were a few funny moments, none of them in the toilet. In one scene a raven flew off in disgust saying `nevermore!' That's hilarious. Unfortunately, I felt like that raven when mercifully, THE END came up on DOOLITTLE 2.

101 Dalmatians (1996)

Spotty

[16 April 2002]

101 DALMATIANS has some good points. Glenn Close has received a lot of praise for her acting in this film and deservedly so. She is wonderful and very, very funny as the evil lead. She's been given some great lines and delivers them with comedic genius. The puppies are undeniably adorable. Who couldn't love them? But the difference between this and the original animated version is the difference between most old and most new movies. The new one has many cheap unfunny urine and buttocks material. Children's entertainment today seems to revolve around people and animals going to the bathroom, passing gas or scratching their rear end. There are a hundred and one cheap jokes in here that aren't funny and in poor taste. Yeah, I get it, the dog disapproves so he lifts his leg and urinates on a bad persons' photo. Ho ho ho. Ha ha ha ha. I can't stop laughing. Give me a break. The dogs are smart to the point of overkill. They do everything but play chess, solve international disputes, write novels and give dance lessons.

The other villains are annoying and not funny though they are supposed to be. And the whole idea that anyone would want to murder these cute puppies for their fur is not the most pleasant plot theme to live with for two hours. The leading lady who gets her puppies stolen is not ugly but is not attractive either, and I thought romantic leads were supposed to be pretty or handsome. And violence against men is not funny to me either. She whaps the leading man across the face with her heavy handbag just after they meet. Ho ho ho. Ha ha ha. There are now 63,798 movies available for rent where it is supposed to be terribly funny that the woman punches the man in the face or worse. He always is knocked down with the loud ham slap sound effect as the audience howls with delight. There is definitely too much violence against women in this world. I don't think it's a great idea to compensate with unfunny violence against men in the movies. 101 DALMATIANS is a mixed bag of puppies. Long live Glenn Close! WHAT a performance.

Brubaker (1980)

Not a Disney feel-good

[16 April 2002]

BRUBAKER is my kind of movie; grim, realistic, stimulating and a story based around a great struggle between right and wrong. Robert Redford plays Brubaker (based on the real life story of one Thomas Murton of Arkansas, not to be confused with Thomas Merton, the poet) who tries to bring decency to an Arkansas prison that is corrupt from top to bottom. There are rotten scoundrels among the prisoners and some decent men as well. What is worse, Brubaker has to fight a State bureaucracy full of characters who are even more slimy and despicable than the worst of the prisoners. Along with basic reforms, he is out to uncover a series of murders, prisoners who were murdered and secretly buried. He is really up against it and its tough not to get emotionally involved. The writing and acting is more than ok. Redford is very good in spite of being a little too pretty for the rugged guy part. He's the only one in the movie with the 300-dollar blow dry haircut. This reminds me of the movie MARIE, another flick about a single warrior battling a corrupt state system. The Grape Nuts Guy (W Brimley) and the guy who played Mrs. Robinson's husband (M Hamilton)put in a good performance as despicable bureaucrats. Very little background music is another mature plus.

A good, feel-bad movie; and as a Bostonian, it's hard to hate a film that has a character in it named Fenway Park.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Masterpiece

[10 April 2002]

I rented Moulin Rouge because I thought my wife would enjoy it. I was planning on just surviving the ordeal. As it turned out, I absolutely loved it. It is an artistic masterpiece. The plot was secondary to me and not to be judged at face value like plots in 30,000 other films. This was eye and ear candy, entertainment per se. I am amazed at how many reviewers absolutely hated this film. If ROUGE were judged by the plot, it is an awful and simplistic movie. But it isn't about the plot and it is a fine and sophisticated movie. The music is delicious and creative and played with a sense of humor, the songs of the 70's and 80's sung in anachronistic sarcasm and beauty. The leading actors were good-looking without being too old or too young and smug.

The craft of directing and producing is generally overrated. Any nit-wit actor with a lot of clout and money can become one. For once we see a film that is so complex in its art form and brilliantly conceived and executed that the run of the mill actor turned director could not have pulled it off in his or her wildest dreams. I hated to return MOULIN ROUGE to the store and may actually buy it on dvd. However I don't want to watch all the behind the scenes features. I want to always enjoy it in its pure form. The sets,(especially the model of Paris) are wonderful. Hoo-ray for this movie! By the way, I really enjoyed reading the people who rip it to shreds on the IMDB. What a subjective industry!

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pretty Good

[10 April 2002]

I enjoyed this film but some of it was drab. The first 30 minutes were not very good at all. The first speeches between Travolta and the other hit man were contrived and rigid. I didn't buy it. But it got better as it went along. It had some stimulating plot twists, especially when Bruce Willis had to decide whether or not to rescue the man who had been out to kill him ten minutes earlier. It reminds me of THE INTERLOPER by Saki, when two bitter enemies were trapped by a fallen tree and became friends, only to be rescued.... by wolves. The part about the gold watch being hidden up a man's certain area for years was supposed to be funny but I thought it was not and it ruined a plot that until then was supposed to be taken seriously. The writer makes an excellent showing as Jimmy who doesn't think his house has a certain sign on it. Bruce Willis was the best actor in this movie and that doesn't say that much for it since he isn't really the new Laurence Olivier. But PULP had some bite and some very good moments. Why don't we all respect each other and stop ripping anyone who doesn't agree with our opinions about movies? Lets stop insisting that anyone who doesn't agree with me is a moron. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not mine. This isn't the Israel-Palestine dispute. Its movies, for crying out loud.

Bigfoot: Man or Beast? (1972)

So bad its good

[2 April 2002]

This was a great film if it was 20 years ago and about four in the morning and you had a hand rolled cigarette and a couple of glasses of wine and it came on the only station broadcasting all night in your area. This was before cable, folks. Stations really did often shut down from two to six a.m.. They'd play the star spangled banner, show some Air Force jets flying through the Grand Canyon and then suddenly a major network tv station shut off and you got a test pattern and a a four hour high pitched beep. I kid you not. But one would usually stay on and it was your only hope. Whatever movie came on, that was the hand you were dealt, and this miserably amateurish idiot film was the only game in town on more than one sad occasion. The only authentic scientific moment is the frame by frame showing of the famous footage of the Bigfoot walking through a forested area in the U.S. Northwest. This shakey 8 millimeter clip was recently proven to be a total hoax, a guy in a gorilla suit, so if the movie wasn't a joke before, its twice as comical now. By all means, watch this film if it ever comes on TV, but not if you're sober. Another fine film from American International.

The UFO Incident (1975 TV Movie)

Best made for tv movie of all time

[2 April 2002]

I saw this movie in the 70's and it blew me away! I've seen many documentaries about UFO's that include dazzling photographs, but this dramatic recreation of the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire is even more convincing. It takes supreme conceit and a touch of ignorance to believe that we are the only life forms in the universe. I have a friend named Fred who claims he was abducted by UFO's a few years ago in Vermont. His story was authentic enough that he was featured at length on a major UFO documentary produced by the Turner network. He has told me the story in detail so I have to take the subject seriously! James Earl Jones gives a great performance. Remember, these were the days before he became an obnoxious mouthpiece for Verizon. Estelle Parsons is 47 at the time she made this and I was very attracted to her in this role when I saw it in my 20's. She has a pleasant inner beauty although she isn't really pretty. She also has the New England accent down pat and calls him 'Baaaaney.' I watched it again recently and it was just as gripping the second time. I think this is a very spiritual movie and it definitely had an influence on my life and my thinking. If you see it in the tv guide, grab a tape that has several episodes of CHEERS on it and wipe them out with this tremendous film. I consider it the best made for tv movie ever. Don't look for violence or great special effects.

The Front Page (1974)

stop the darned yelling already!

[2 April 2002]

I saw this in the movie theatre in the 70's and all I can remember is leaving with an earache. I just remember that it was non-stop yelling from beginning to end. I watched it last night for the second time and I cannot take the original asessment back. Everyone is yelling and are doing so at a completely fantasial pace. Even a newspaper room doesn't have THAT much non-stop yelling. Matthau is not one of my favorite actors to begin with. Being a movie fan means that 30 or more hours of your life was spent listening to Walter Matthau yelling. The late Wilder made some fine films but this is not one of them. The Jerry Springer Show is an exercise in quiet meditation by comparison. The first rule of comedy is brevity when possible. The second rule is don't overdo it. Don't try too hard. The script was probably pretty good, but when everyone is yelling and yelling and yelling it gets lost in the comedy sauce. The original (GIRL FRIDAY)suffered from the same overdoing the fast pace plague but FRONT PAGE was worse. Where's the aspirin bottle? I know its around here somewhere.

Hoosiers (1986)

Hoopla

[1 April 2002]

Isn't diversity wonderful? Isn't it nice to know that there are all kinds of people in this world, each with different tastes and standards for what pleases them? I think so. So far every single reviewer on the IMDB has absolutely loved this movie. They all think it is an amazing feel-good masterpiece. Not one killjoy has yet to show up and suggest that it is anything short of awesome. Well, ta-daaa, here I am. I wouldn't want to sit through this movie again for anything less than a hundred bucks. Gene Hackman is a new coach in town and for no logical reason everyone treats him like he is a leper out to blow up the school and slaughter the livestock. Okay, he overcomes all this illogical hatred and manages to shape his understaffed basketball team into a unit that will even compete for the Indiana State Championship! High School basketball is big in Indiana in 1951. 79 reporters are outside the locker room fighting to talk to the coach long before they even get to the finals! The music is overbearing and awful. I can't even describe it. Every time they try to show us basketball action they have to include a rock/pop/muzak concert that drowns out everything. I thought the basketball scenes were totally unconvincing. I never got the sense that I was watching game action, only actors. One teenager is supposed to be the greatest basketball player in the state but he won't play anymore because his father died. That's half the plot in the movie, getting this pouting prima Donna to play. What's so great about his game? He's got a good jump shot with very little elevation on his jump. Big deal. That's ALL he's got, and with editing, there are 79,000 teen-agers in Rhode Island that can make 99% of their jump shots. The ending was a predictable as the sunrise in Tahiti and as usual, was a rip-off of THE LONGEST YARD. That's the film that initiated the slow-mo final play that all the others have copied. And YARD had a dynamite story to go along with it, unlike the snooze-plot in HOOSIERS. Hackman is way too old to be making out with Barbara Hershey. It's the standard Hollywood casting nonsense. Of course, they hate each other when they first meet. I immediately knew they'd be necking before this flick was out. That's always the dead giveaway. I wish that reviewers would speak for themselves in their reviews. Just tell me what YOU think and we can compare notes accordingly. But please stop insisting that, `you will absolutely love this movie.' You don't know me. I did not like this move. My wife loved it. All of the others on this board loved it. And by the way, it IS fiction. The tiniest school in the state does not go on to the state championships with an undermanned squad to boot. I did like one thing. Dennis Hopper was excellent and his role as the boozer battling his problem was touching and effective. But the feel-good sports story was dopey.

The Facts of Life (1960)

Romantic and funny

[24 March 2002]

I only saw the last half hour of this on TV and I can't wait to watch it from the beginning. This movie is hilarious and touching. Its a brilliant script and Bob Hope and Lucille Ball both show off their comedic talents. It had me both laughing and crying by the end, and what more can you ask from romantic comedy? Moral of the movie; respect your marriage. A winner.

Kings Go Forth (1958)

I'm upset about this film

[18 March 2002]

I'm still upset about this film. Its been over for 15 minutes and I'm still having bursts of tears and I want to settle down so I can go upstairs to sleep. Its a good war movie and a great love story about a triangle between Wood, Sinatra and Curtis. Sinatra plays the guy a lot of us feel like in high school when the slickster scum (Curtis) moves in on the one you're crazy about. The racial issue is not nearly as important as the basic trianglular struggle, with a not meagre war plot well mixed in. Obviously Wood does not remotely look half black (as she is supposed to be) and her French accent leaves a bit to be desired but she is beautiful, Curtis is handsome and Sinatra plays quite well the man whose beauty lies within. Most of today's movies are 50 cent scripts with 50 million dollar special effects and no class. This movie is the exact opposite on all counts. Super acting, story and heart. Made me cry more than once. This is why I like old movies better than new. A movie that its makers could be proud to offer their maker.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Requiem for a Heavyweight was 20 times bettter

[17 March 2002]

I'll give it this much; it wasn't boring. But.. This movie told me absolutely nothing that I didn't already know. If you get addicted to dangerous drugs, you will end up in a bad way. Thanks for the tip, McGruff. It is a grim, gross depressing film about a pack of losers WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN LOSERS EVEN IF THEY HAD NEVER DONE DRUGS. You might have made it more appetizing if drugs had ruined the lives of some people who had a single good quality in the first place. The directing is really artsy and conceited and my brethren, I saw all this avant-garde cinemo-crap in the late 60's, when many a good movie was ruined by the hippie wannabe directors using multiple screens, slow-mo audio, fuzzy hallucination sequences, rapid fire splicing, weird angles, keystone cops speed-ups and many, many other tricks. But since this film is geared to a young audience (the young characters are H-addicts who are also supposed to be somewhat hip and cool, but the old one addicted to diet pills is a total pathetic mundane ditz in the first place, and the other older characters are patently despicable) the public thinks its seeing directing innovations. The TV ad for the film called it `the most controversial film of the year?' Controversial? Like someone is out there arguing that heroin addiction is a good thing and it never ruined anyone's life.

I'm sad to dislike this because some people I really respect recommended it so highly. They insisted that I had to see it, that it was the best. REQUIEM is just another downer, a cold front blown in from Canada. My wife asked me at the end of it, `So what did you think?' `What did you think,' I countered. `Well it was kind of arty.' `Yeah, I said, `That was the whole point, not the story itself. My life would have been better off if I had never seen it.'

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997 TV Movie)

Book was 20,000 times better

[17 March 2002]

Richard Crenna is the only name I recognized in this cast and it is fitting because he gives the only credible acting performance. The film is too preoccupied with the good looks of both the young harpooner and the young female stowaway who is posing as a boy. She doesn't remotely look like a boy. Mr. McGoo without his glasses would say, ‘by George, why is that girl making a fool of herself pretending to be a boy?' On top of that she is a bad actress with an ugly nose. This version of the great Jules Verne novel takes liberties with the masterpiece. We are informed that it is `based on' the novel by the same title. Those two dreadful words; based on. And the clown who plays Captain Nemo does no justice to that fabulous character. When he made his grand entrance I was down on him before he even opened his mouth for his first line. His is a rigid, laughably solemn and overplayed part.

Crenna is 20,000 leagues a better actor than the others and the book and the ‘54 movie are each 20,000 leagues superior to this production.

Luckily the story is good enough that even a bad version of it is tolerable. Its not a groaner, but its junior high lame and shouldn't be.

Gorky Park (1983)

Dorky Park

[17 March 2002]

GORKY PARK held my interest for the first eight thousand minutes but the next eight million were confusing and I began shouting at my television for this movie to please end so I can get on with my life. Why do movies have to be too long too often? Brian Dennehy is charismatic and Lee Marvin is smooth and entertaining as always. But William Hurt is William dull and the leading lady is a negative soul, always on the verge of tears but never quite gets there. It is a movie without smiles. Things turn stupidly violent near the end, losing all the subtlety that had carried the film in the first half. It's about Moscow and the KGB but it is so obvious that it was not shot in Moscow as to be a joke. They pan all around the city repeatedly and there is not one thing recognizable as Moscow. Certainly at the height of the Chernenko-Reagan cold war, the Russians would not want to assist in the making of this film that doesn't exactly make them look like good guys. You want plot details? Try other reviews. I followed it up to a point but then I lost both track and interest. The most creative thing in the movie is the wizard who is reconstructing a human face from the skull of a murdered woman. He is spliced in from time to time as his work progresses until his finished product eventually plays a key role. I really liked the sables near the end. They were rascally and cute but their role in the plot was the most confusing thing of all; major disappointing flick.

Moby Dick (1998)

One tough fish

[16 March 2002]

Sigh. I just can't seem to get with the program. Every time I trash a movie I read eight thousand glowing reviews on the ever-fun IMDB. Now that I find one that I really like I see that it has an inordinately high number of reviewers who despised it. Oh well. I thought this was a highly enjoyable film, marvelously cast, acted and directed. The special effects were mediocre, but this was the equivalent of a book I couldn't put down. I wanted to watch it in installments because I was busy with other things and it was a free children's movie rental (my video store has two free kids movies on Wednesdays). But every time I reached for the stop button the hand of Borgus Weims (reference is from great NIGHT GALLERY episode where the man's hand had a mind of its own) stopped me and I had to keep watching. Pat Swayze is tremendous as Ahab the deranged captain. Even Captain Bligh thinks that Ahab is a little too inconsiderate of his men's welfare. By the way, Moby Dick IS the greatest novel of all time, in case you didn't know, although Melville was on some mighty fine mushrooms when he wrote it.

The Grifters (1990)

useless con artists

[13 March 2002]

The Grifters is a useless movie about con artists. Every movie has its own spirit. You walk through the looking glass when you sit and watch it. You become roped in to the concept of the world, as painted by the producer, the director, the writers and the actors. In this case it is a weird, bleak world where everyone is either a corrupt mobster, or a flaky con artist working for one. Lilly is the supposedly hot older woman scam artist who also happens to be the mother of John Cusak, the hot young scam artist, who is getting it on with Annette Bening, a scam artist in search of a new partner. Its all vague and uninteresting, all within a certain creative mist; But a grim and useless one. An early scene shows Cusak flashing a twenty at a bartender and ordering a drink. When the bartender returns to gives him the beer, Cusak hands him a ten instead. The bartender returns with change for a twenty. Doyeeee! No one would ever fall for this stupid trick. That is an asinine piece of writing. There's violence and sex and crime. The characters are all unlikable. Bening shows a lot of breast and there is a tasteless Oedipus undertone to the relationship between Cusak and his mother. Lilly has a con game going for the mob at the track where she makes large bets on long shot horses and makes the odds go down. It is entirely unclear how this pays off for her or her mob boss, a cruel sadist who burns a huge scar into her hand with a fat cigar. GRIFTERS is a very, very useless movie.

Angela's Ashes (1999)

relentless downer

[11 March 2002]

Give me a break. I'm sorry this guy had a rotten childhood but does one have to share everything? This movie is one relentless downer. Every single scene in this too long of a film is miserable and depressing. It's not only depressing it's gross! There are endless scenes of children and adults urinating, vomiting, crapping, gang masturbating, getting beaten by their teachers, eating the eye of a lamb, showing their buttocks and consistently emptying the urine bucket. Okay, okay we get the point. The great writer had a tough childhood, but he overcame it all and now he's rich and famous. Look where he came from! The father is a anti-provider alcoholic, men pass gas, all the villagers are ignorant brutal religious bigots, the mother gets slapped by the son for being a tramp, and everywhere is death. death, death. There is barely a happy THOUGHT to be found in here let alone a happy scene. Someone light a candle in this black room of a movie. I don't rent movies to have a misery festival. I'm sorry you had a rough and miserably poor childhood. I'm sorry that you had to crawl over broken glass for 76 miles to maybe if you're lucky get a three day old bread crumb that fell off a beggar's plate.

I'm sorry. I understand that a lot of people have been moved by this book and by this film. To me it's rather self-indulgent. I fail to see what it has to offer me. Besides, I already spent my ten years in Catholic school. I could tell stories about those bad times, but why share? It is a creative film and very well directed and cast. But it's gross and depressing and added nothing to my knowledge. Like I already didn't know that it stinks to be incredibly poor. I didn't need 157 miserable scenes to gather that one in.

Wag the Dog (1997)

"positive" feelings

[2 March 2002]

I have a lot of positive feelings about this movie. It was positively one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was positively inane and insulting to both my intelligence and the intelligence of our nation. It was the most far fetched, stupid and smug satire I've positively ever seen. It was positively DiNiro's worst role ever. A good satire must have at least a marginal thread of credibility, but at every turn, this stupid movie is 8 billion light years from the magical formula of plausible satire with subtle exaggeration. Its totally conceited and jerky. It positively stunk to high heaven. Not one person in America, not even a illiterate rube living in a cabin with no electricity would ever fall for the hoax upon which this entire movie is founded. America flagellating itself as entertainment. No, thank you. I am positively astounded that the country loved this film as much as it did. And I rented it with positive expectations. I was expecting it to be good. Instead I got positively repulsed. To compare Clinton's attack on Iraq on the eve of his impeachment to the ridiculous premise of this movie is convoluted sophistry. A dreadful movie. A positive groaner from beginning to end. And Woody Harrelson's character was as badly conceived and acted as anything that has ever left the Hollywood lots. WAG THE DOG is worse than a waste of time. It is positively nauseating.

The Parallax View (1974)

Well made but too far-fetched

[3 January 2002]

Parralax is a fictionalized reflected novel that is indirectly about the John Kennedy assassination. It's a movie where corruption and conspiracy abound. Senators are assassinated and the corrupt conspiracies behind them are beyond imagination. Warren Beatty is the hero reporter who smells trouble and investigates at his own great peril. Overall it is a well made and entertaining film but its too far fetched for my taste. Granted, the Warren Commisssion was inept and inaccurate. But if you take the most far out of the Kennedy conspiracy theories, you would still have to multiply it to the 30th power to reach the absurd level of conspiracy and corruption depicted here. There are simply too many movies painting too much off the planet conspiracy. Everyone is corrupt and everyone is conspiring. The higher up you go, the more deep and evil the corruption and the more murderous. In a nation with a free press, it is just too much to buy. Its like a thousand other movies out there. Conspiracy fiction of such absurd proportions that it goes beyong espionage and spills over into science fiction unintentionally. PARRALAX's best quality is lack of too much insulting background music instructing us how to emote. There are many stretches of refined quiet that steal the show more than the acting or the writing.

The Song Remains the Same (1976)

nice blokes rock

[2 November 2001]

Pretty good concert film by a pretty good band. Very professional and creative musicians. Real talents. After their first two albums though, they never got my attention all that much. Some of the special effects in this movie are very funny. They weren't meant to be. The opening scene, a non-musical gangster drama was pretty useless. The hippie scrapping with the two black cops was pretty entertaining. A great 1976 time piece about and by a winning band. But studio recordings are always better than live music and Plant has a whole lotta love for himself so its not perfect. And why do rock stars ALWAYS stick the microphone out and ask the audience to do some of the singing? They didn't pay thirty bucks to hear themselves.