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Reviews
Too Hot to Handle (1938)
Very enjoyable, action-packed movie
I'm an anthropologist, and I quite enjoyed this 1939 movie where pilot Myrna Loy and newsreel videographer Clark Gable set off to rescue her brother in French Guiana, where he's being held by members of the Saramaka (aka Saamaka) people. The opening credits thanked the chief of a particular Saamaka group for letting the movie crew film a certain dance for the first time, but the characters assume the Saamaka are cannibals who practice "Voodoo." I kept stopping the movie to read about the Saamaka folks' origins as enslaved Africans who escaped their kidnappers and started communities in Suriname and French Guiana (another reviewer wondered why the "natives" were African, that's why), and I kept wondering if filming actual members of a group on site with their permission was going to make it so this movie was somehow less ignorant and prejudiced than others filmed in this era. Unfortunately there was no effort to treat the Saamaka as human here, instead one was shot in cold blood, they were treated as children, and Gable let loose with a couple of racist remarks. It was 1939, and on par with the time it was filmed.
Otherwise, though, it's pretty sweet. Loy plays an amazing pilot who takes Gable up to take pictures of a burning armaments ship and she can also translate Morse code on the fly. Myrna Loy as Alma Harding was heroic, capable, funny and smart. Gable rescued her once, but the scene where she takes him up to record the burning ship and her role in the rescue of her brother (spoiler alert) portrayed her character as a very strong, very capable and independent person.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
True to the spirit of Han and Lando
I had a feeling of dread when I heard about the behind-the-scenes troubles in Solo's acting and directing, and a bit better, when some of the critics' reviews came out and praised the movie. The Empire Strikes Back came out when I was 10 and I immediately fell in love with Han Solo, so I was prepared to be disappointed.
I was not disappointed. I was entertained and delighted throughout the movie, feeling like it really provided a worthy backstory to the relationship between Han and Lando (and of course, Chewbacca). The acting was uniformly excellent and the characters were compelling (L3 is my spirit droid). I was happy to see that the characters new to me (Qi'ra, Beckett, Rio, Val) fit in with the characters I already knew. I had some cringe-y moments watching The Last Jedi, but I didn't get that feeling here at all.
If you know the way TESB was directed, it moved back and forth from Luke's adventure to that of Han and Leia - this movie *felt* like the Han and Leia portions. There was lots of action, witty dialogue, interesting encounters with different humanoid species, etc. It was extremely fun, very smooth, playful and sexy in an interesting way (that may have just been Daniel Glover). I also thought it shed an interesting light on events in Empire and Return of the Jedi.
Of the new films, I would place it just under TFA and just above Rogue One, with TLJ heading out the list. They were all better than the prequels.
I loved Solo. Fight me.