kennprop Reviews

Shōgun (2024–2026)

Sputtered to an end

[8/10 · 6 May 2024]

Good story well acted. High quality production cinematography was first rate, but the ending was abrupt. Expecting a Season 2 and evidently that is it. I was reading an old copy of the book and it is 1200 pages in total. I expected something more but that is it. I will not wade thru 900 more pages to reach this end..The old cheap copy I had was crumbling as it was CA 1975. In the woodstove it goes or in the trash. Clavell wrote several novels in different periods set in the far east I saw the old series years ago with Chamberlain. I didn't remember it's ending. Maybe it wasn't memorable. My review was deemed too short. Maybe this series was too short inadequate or unfinished. I get it. Toranaga becomes Shogun. That was his plan all along. Mariko was supposed to force the hands of the council by dying. His old pal who committed suicide was to do that in protest when it seemed T had given up It was all a subtle ploy. It played out with scarcely a ripple and the story ended with a whimper. I am very chagrined it did.

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Belgravia (2020)

Aristoporn

[3/10 · 14 January 2024]

Julian Fellows has made an industry of the rich fantasy worlds that only the few inhabited. DowntonAbbey Gilded Age Belgravia Eat the rich and down with monarchyI say. This is another such series and where are the huddled masses? Not in his flicks. Sugar coating privilege is an English specialty. That is why they still have a monarchy. I liked The Queen .She had done her part in WW2. So did Philip. The others should be jettisoned asap. In fact all nobility should be abolished. All their privileges rituals. Perks Middle ages mumbo jumbo should go in the wastebasket of history. My wife lived in England and she loved it SO I am forced to endure this soapy drivel. Its out and out predictable and boring. Like we couldnt have figured that the heir had an illegitimate son by a gasp, commoner. Whom he had hoodwinked into thinking he had married. What a despicable cad . Reminds me of Prince Andrew preying on young girls? Runs in the social class, I guess. Drivel.

1883 (2021–2022)

Ridin ropin yahoo.

[4/10 · 13 January 2024]

My question is why didnt they just take the train? Even they admit while recruiting the cook,the train runs almost everywhere.

So what is going on here? 75 % Lonesome Dove? Not as well acted. Sam Elliot is too old to do this stuff now. Hes 79. Retire. Graham Greene looks awful. Mcgraw? Just grimaces again and again. Faith Hill has nice teeth but she is a flat actor.

Mcgraw is Hell on Wheels and he cant act either. The Girl is Newt Transformed? They even have a black scout like LD had. I like westerns . The horses,the Hats, the outfits,the scenery. I dont like the politics of these western states. Maybe their ancestors were the bandits ,degenerates, and thieves in these movies.

The interracial love match Indian-white woman is unlikely in that era. A black guy and a white woman ditto. I will come find you. Sure you will. He has to get back to the res and he has had some fun with her. In the real world daddy would have bushwhacked him somewhere and nobody would be the wiser.

Is this a dumb R dogma here that immigrants will never be like Real Red Blooded Anglo Americans? Like The R party claims today. In 6 episodes I havent seen one Mexican. Well I did see somebody wearing a sombrero from far off. That is odd since the Mexican Cowboy is the original. Texas was Mexican before it was American. Good turn by Billy Bob Thornton as the grumpy sheriff whose solution to crime is shoot everybody. Anybody else? Pointing at him. BAM. Hanks has a little walk on as the kindly union general who embraces the injured reb captain. There, There, Johnny. Not likely. Not at Antietam.

So ten stars for Mexico and 4 for this LD ripoff. Slow,boring predictable. The Native Americans look much better in this than the ragged degenerate misit whites. I guess they needed to be starved more to render them helpless and under control. Look at the politics that come from Texas, Montana, Neb and Wyoming today. Pretty awful. Like this series. It got slower and slower as it went on.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

6 very slow

[6/10 · 12 January 2024]

Slow burn. O was a climber within the community. Many rival scientists. The bomb was created and its destructive power was immense.

.The Germans would have used it if they had had it. The Japanese were victimized because they were not white. Was it necessary? Maybe once. Was a second necessary ? No .O was morally conflicted because the carnage mostly civilians was huge. He was black listed in the Mcarthy era and not rehabbed until years later. A commie? No. Did he want social justice? Yes in the 1930s. I mean he was Jewish and was aware of Hitlers crimes Security within the program was lax . His friends tried to protect him but he knew better and was stubborn.

Some tossed him under the bus in the Mcarthy era. The movie was OK, nothing great. He seems to have been a rather yucky guy personally. He was a star and he knew it. I saw him on TV as a child. I have no idea if this is a Hollywood rendering of events or near the truth. Does it matter? We know plenty of weasles inhabit Washington, the power structure,the military etc.

Gen Grant felt a large standing military was bad. After WW2 the MIC maintained itself on a huge level, because they make tons of $$ off of it. They always have an excuse why this should be so.

The English (2022)

Decent different I liked it.

[8/10 · 8 January 2024]

Big snowstorm on Sunday. After a NE Pats final debacle and plowing the road twice ,I settled in to watch this movie. Its plot is rather late, 1890, in the western era but I guess it is within the time scape of reality. The Crow Indians did scout for the US Army. Custer had them at the Little Big Horn and before. The Pawnees? Not sure, The Sioux were the hereditary enemy of the Crow Indians. The Fetterman fight was long before this era. But it is possible you could have been a soldier in both eras. It starts in England,moves to the high plains of Kansas... Who knew Kansas had High plains . The scout is going north to Nebraska and she is going to Wyoming. Why they are passing thru OKlahoma,The Indian Nations territory, is a rather round about trip. Under every bush there are degenerate whitemen, Indians,Murderers, robbers and the good folk are few and far between. Perhaps that is why these are all red states.... Its in the genes?

My wifes GGrandfather was a Baptist Missionary to such areas in the late 1800s- early 1900s. He would build a church and school. He did a lot of this in Texas- Oklahoma. One in CARRIZO Springs . He had a couple of kids there. A two year stint. Back to the movie. It is well filmed. Has some good dialogue Well cast, All English actors? Very violent like a Spaghetti western. The graphics and music are ...different again, like a Sergio Leone flick. This is season one. I think it is a miniseries and I have a couple of episodes to go. As a genre I dont like westerns as much as I did years ago. They have to be a bit different and this one is quirky enuf to be that. Wife says the night scenes are too dark to see. That is true.i sometimes wonder foes anybody tweak the sound or lighting when a movie is finished THIS ONE IS SO daRK U CANT SEE WHAT IS GOING ON OTHERS THE DIALOGIE IS IN A WHISPER AND YOU NEED CC to follow along. Why is that so? On whole it is well done if a bit far fetched. This is the revenge motif,a standard of many westerns.

The Duellists (1977)

dealing with a whacko. The kind of man that makes mountains out of molehills for fun.

[8/10 · 9 December 2023]

Feraud is nuts. Because 2023, Ridley Scott, Napoleon just came out reference was made to this movie. So we watched it last night. Beautiful scenery we ll filmed and acted. The normal Dhubert has to duel repeatedly with the crazed Feraud within a backdrop of the Napoleonic era. No battles and No Napoleon in the movie , yet his influence pervades it all. Women dont come off well in this movie. Their roles are limited to prostitutes, rich parasites, or ornaments to marry. Does Dhubert love his wife? One wonders. Or is it best to settle down finally at the nearby chateau?

Feraud turns an innocent encounter with DHUBERT into an unending obsession. To which Dhubert must reply time after time to preserve his honor. Feraud says it is about DHUBERT dissing Napoleon,which is a lie. Feraud knows he is a good swordsman and he seems a bully too.

They certainly had an odd code of honor and I dont think duels always ended in a death. Swords were not used in the US. Pistols were more common. Andy Jackson was a noted duelist but he was kind of whacky too.

Waterloo (I) (1970)

Excellent

[8/10 · 26 November 2023]

Well acted,well cast,superb uniforms and battle sequences. NAP 1 was not at his best that day. This movie is extremely correct for the period. You do need to know something about the Napoleonic era to put it in context. Napoleon was a brilliant tactical commander . He made many positive contributions to France. He was not that great at strategic planning. He stole the French Revolution and created himself as a rather short term emperor. The Soviet Army provided the extras for the film and they had to be trained in the Napoleonic Era type of fighting. This is not a CGI movie. It makes Gettysburg look like an amateur production.

Gettysburg (1993)

Slow,Bloated , inane speechifying.

[6/10 · 25 November 2023]

A very slow story acted out with wooden performances,sanitized battle scenes, with fat old reenactors. There are no dramatic incidents because it is so lacking in urgency. You can see that any hand to hand fighting is faker than a wrestling match. The music is the only key that something important is happening. Sheen is Ok as Lee. Meade barely appears. Chamberlain is the star because this was inspired by a book on the 20th Maine,his regiment. Culps Hill fight and the RR cut fighting, day one, are missing. This aggravates my wife no end as her GGrandfather fought in both places in the 53 NC.. Ewell seems a dimwit ,which he was not. Lee takes the brunt of criticism for this battle which was his fault for sure. Lee was noted for poorly written orders and bad staff work. Both Longstreet and E P Alexander knew that Picketts Charge was going to fail. They followed orders and it did. So the CSA tide receded back to Va.

A bloated production with staged hokey battle sequences and poorly written why we fight speeches. Keep in mind Meade only took command 3 days before this battle. Lee was not a small man like Sheen.

1864 (2014)

A sleeper

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

I must confess as an American I know little or nothing about this war. Why it was fought,etc. In the movie it is an almost nutty idea pushed by Monrad the PM. I believe it was more likely fought to bring about a joining of German speaking regions under a future united German state. Why would you be a patriotic Dane if your future was to be a tenant farmer or laborer on a nobles estate? This series is decent. Told thru a diary and flashbacks it is about a war few Americans have heard of. It gives us some insight into Danish society at the time. The battle scenes are epic. It makes Gettysburg look like an amateur production. Denmark was a tiny country,. Prussia was not a united Germany. The players were on scene to eventually do that Monarchy was still paramount but those pesky reforming Liberals were forcing changes. It has good acting and excellent cinematography. Schleswig was a German ethnic area which Denmark ruled. Given the conditions of people and their prospects, in Europe, you can understand why so many came to the USA. There are plenty of sex scenes in this movie. Some are integral to the story line,some are rather .... weird. It was a better than average historical production. Flashing forward we find soldiers still die ,in dusty places, for weird political reasons their leaders dream up. I assume Sebastian died in IRAQ as part of the NATO effort ?

The Wind and the Lion (1975)

Its Epic,Its Connery,Its kind of a comic book. story..

[7/10 · 20 March 2023]

Connery is perfect for the role. Conveniently everybody but the dastardly Germans speak English. The scenery is great. The cinematography is beautiful. The story and perky Dialogue are really kind of silly. Its on a par with WAYNes Green Berets. All shooting ,death and the bad guys get stroked. The Super Americans win. 10 Marines is the match of any number of other troops. Its almost comic book story quality. Unlike the Man Who Would be King it is loosely based on a true incident,but.... There was a Mr. Pedacaris abducted and he did make friends with the Arab chief who took him. They did send in the Naval squadron. No children were involved. No Romance from afar happened. Very loosely I say.

Some good characters in this,The fluent Japanese envoy get in his shots. You likee Speechee? Houston is incredibly ignorant.

I guess the contrast between the Berber leader and the TR character is the difference between the ancient and the modern. Its a very macho movie but Eden does get some good moments and she is a big part of the story. She is a lot of trouble but Raisuli doesnt want to sit home in his castle eating dates. Its so boring. Funny thing is the evil German he fights is bored stiff too. The bicycle polo game and service under the childish sultan is not his cup of tea. Since the USa has certainly had its share of Foreign misadventures I dont find that amusing,just arrogant and dumb. Unnecessary and not what this country should be about. We have had some really bad leaders in fact.

Almost Famous (2000)

Refreshing.

[9/10 · 31 January 2023]

I recently saw the guy this movie was based on,the child critic, on a TV show. This movie was mentioned and as a change of pace from binge watching Vikings we watched it. My wife was once the road manager for an almost famous jazz band MATRix. Their album dropped the week that Elvis died and their record co focused all its efforts on churning out Elvis stuff for his grieving fans. Their representative said the music and record business was like selling underwear! Love of music and its art was not a real factor in the business. MATRIX was rated a musicians band. When musical people wanted to enjoy some cutting edge stuff they went and saw MATRIX.

My wife lived it and could relate to the bus rides,boredom, personality issues, etc involved in touring with a band.

I think this flick is a little gem. So many characters. So much truth. The Band Aids, the fans,the devotees, the business,the politics, the jealousy. I think it was very well done and the Penny Lane character was Excellent. Good job GH Jr. Billy Crudup has the looks to be a rockstar but he has gone nowhere,I know of. With all the hair and beards some other well known actors could be in this. Fallon has a minor roll.

Vikings (2013–2020)

ok but not historic

[6/10 · 29 January 2023]

When Ragnar died,so did this series. His children are awful actors. Later years are boring. Some real characters, some invented. WHY? Timeline is way off. Murderous blond white people. White Supremacists will like this. I did like the nautical aspects. The clothes are weird. The Flocki colony thing, Iceland,? Is way too long. Iceland had trees ,I think, at that time. Greenland was green...

Murdering helpless peasants gets you what? Nothing. You cant work them. You cant tax them. Viking means raid. They should be called Northmen or maybe generic Danes. It was a barbarous age. Drags quite a bit after Ragnars death. Seasons 5-6 are pretty blah. At last some of the characters age a bit. Evidently leading such a life would keep you young? Lagertha stays the same too long. Years 1-4- 8. Last 3- 1

Some o f the acting is good. Some is mediocre. The accents are????

Evidently being a Yarl or a King in the north was no big deal. You were the head of a rather small area. Kattegat is a body of water . Like a strait between bodies of land. It is not a city.

No wonder it was called the DARK Ages. The myth was the Roman ruins had been built by a race of giants! Yes, they were giants compared to this age of chaos and poverty.

Elvis (2022)

Not sure

[8/10 · 22 August 2022]

I am not sure this is near the truth or fabricated nonsense. Elvis was passe when I was a teenager. I became aware of music,post Beatles. I did not like their early music, but some of their later stuff was exceptional. Like Frank Sinatra ,to me Elvis was a name I had no interest in. He seemed stuck in a time warp. He had fans from that period of course. My music was Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, Clapton Joe Cocker etc.. In country it was George Jones Merle Haggard,and others. I did remember Elvis as a hideous bloated freak playing in Vegas toward the end.

Having seen several Elvis Documentaries, I found out he was a doctor shopping druggie. He had a huge retinue of leaches that drained whatever money he didnt squander himself. Parker was a degenerate gambler and at the end Elvis was in serious financial difficulty.

In a recent poll of random music experts, myself, Wife, UPS guy, Cop neighbor and his wife Elvis got the nod over the Beatles as most influential in music. Keep in mind none of us were alive or aware of him during his peak days. I went with the Beatles but was outvoted by a large margin. I mean the guy sold a billion records, world wide. The Beatles considered him an icon. His music, with black influences,but sung by a white guy was truly original.

My main complaint with this movie is the sound quality on Amazon. We saw Bohemian Rhapsody at the movies and it was great. Maybe this would be in a better venue. We are trying to correct the sound quality and that really hurt this production. Yes the actor does look very Elvis like and Hanks does a great evil Col. Parker. Evidently Parker was Dutch ,so the weird accent is correct.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023)

Best comedy EVER!!

[10/10 · 15 August 2022]

We loved it the first time. We have never watched anything twice. But then we watched it again and it was better the second time. We are now watching it for the third time. It is quite simply the best show we have ever watched! We missed the social commentary the first time. The writing is spectacular. The acting is off the charts. The casting was genius.

This is the first time I have ever written a review but this show moved me to make the effort. I wish they would make more shows of this caliber. Most television is barely watchable.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Dated but decent.

[8/10 · 13 April 2022]

E. Bernsteins score is great. Everybody knows he did West Side Story, not brother L.

The Mexicans kind of steal the movie. The old man,the villagers, the scenery and those bandits! The best hats,the best actor, WaLlach .The village is nice. Heck I would retire there and hang out at the cantina. The farmers are too cLean to be working and they have pLenty of energy for gun training. Seven Americans are more than enuf to defeat 40 Mexicans. Of course the villagers do tip the scale in the end.

I have never seen Seven Samurai on which this was based. Some JApanese influence, honor among killers , knife fights, the interest in flowers by Coburn.

For such a tremendous battle not many wounded. The bandits die easily But Calvera has time for a speech. Only Harry is obsessed with gold but he is redeemed in the end. A decent, dated western.

Some star power in the cast ,Wallach, Bryner, Mcqueen , Coburn. Vaughan is weak, Chico is ? Who is Harry? Some good performances among the villagers. The old man steals his scenes.

I never got Bronson ,Coburn , Mcqueen as actors. They were personaIitys, Iike John Wayne was. They are not Anthony Hopkins.

Crossing Delancey (1988)

interesting and some funny characters. 7-8 stars.

[7/10 · 13 February 2022]

Its romantic lite but does raise some issues. Do the children of immigrant ethnic families ever shake their ghetto roots? Do you have to move away to ditch the old baggage? By ghetto, I mean any ethnic neighborhood with its old-world mores. There are some strengths in these places but also some definite baggage.

My family is Italian, and truth be told the compulsory family emphasis drove me nuts. The continual harping on food, the role of the Catholic church. It was suffocating to me. Of course, the American Experience is kind of shallow too. Its blah like. Roast beef? I mean it's only a slab of meat, my friends.

In addition, is the pressure to marry and have kids? A reason to settle for the pickle guy? Yes, he does have other qualities. Her real yen is for that self-centered writer user. He is a bad choice.

Family pressure can be stifling. If most of them dont move on or elsewhere, their influence can be profound.

Is a professional woman complete without marriage and kids? . I would say its your life, live it. If it's wrong, it was your choice.

I know nothing about this ethnic NY area. It may not exist today. Little Italy's still exist, but like Boston's North End they are not what they were. My own grandfather immigrated to the US in 1903. He had no desire to return to the old country. He did work in the almost exclusively Italian community. My father moved away from that. I moved away still further. I think that resonated to me in this movie.

Duck, You Sucker! (1971)

A decent movie with flaws

[7/10 · 12 February 2022]

Coburn is weak as an Irishman. One machine gun was a_German MG42 and this is early 1900/s...Steigers hat looks wrong. Old pics of Villa and Zapata always show them wearing those big sombreros that were so typically Mexican.

Why do they always stereotype Mexicans as bandits?

They werent bandits . They fought a corrupt. RW Greedy govt. In league with American banks and business. Of course that group was stealing everything in sight.

This movie stages some big fight scenes, epic carnage, and poses some moral dilemmas. Is a man under torture who breaks,a traitor? Or is he just human.? Did Coburn have an incentive to kill his friend? The three some thing at the end was kind of surprising.

I diDnt find this movie to be slow, the scenery was epic.some of the plot was kind of silly. The score was not as magnificent as some of Morricones other efforts. ? I would rate this the weakest of Leones efforts. His italian perspective is not very Mexican..

Don't Look Up (2021)

Exagerated ,yet funny.

[8/10 · 30 December 2021]

Takes pot shots at the corruption, greed, stupidity, and ignorance of ??? A female but Trump like president. I note her son seems very like Don Jr. Her VP seems to look like Biden but it could be Pence. Her followers are red hatted gun nut yahoos. If you sub climate crisis for meteor crisis.... I enjoyed this satiric comedy.

Planet of the Humans (2019)

Grim analysis of clean energy. Wrong or truth?

[8/10 · 4 September 2021]

One does wonder if these power alternatives are efficient and practical. Or are they done for govt $$ giveaways and subsidy? Is the clean power equiptment needed, beyond our ability to produce?. Does it require FF backup.?

Ethanol production was supposed to be green but more FF is used to produce it. A net deficit of energy.

No mention of hydro power or tidal generation. They should upgrade Hydro facility's and create new ones. Tidal is not random. I feel these maybe viable sources.

This doc. Does make you think. Unless we have a mass death event,the political will to change would not happen anyway. We are probably doomed for many reasons. Perhaps we cannot change and that is something we will find out soon.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Redux is a complete coherent story

[9/10 · 23 August 2021]

I agree This is the End. The end of the myth of the US as a competent force for Good in the world. The end of belief in our govt. The river journey is a twisted voyage of the US inVietnam. At the mouth of the river, the US rules. As you go up, it's VC country. Then you reach the ruthless compound of Col. Kurtz. Kurtz is not God worship, it is leader worship. He can defeat the VC or NVA. The US with its deteriorating commitment and lack of cause cannot. Today we have the end in Afghanistan also. Vietnam 2. That was why I watched this again. I was reminded of that time. The younger generations cannot know the role this war played for my generation and our country as as whole. It's boring? It's slow? It's a fitting metaphor for a war that ruined the lives of many people. All for nothing.

I saw the original short version years ago and as I remember the story was choppy and was not that ....complete. Redux puts in parts that flesh out the story much better. The end is different. The original had the airstrike destroying the Kurtz compound. In redux Captain W takes the insane Lance and just leaves. I guess the Chefs message did not get thru. The French plantation scene is rather odd but good as an explanation of the vapid thinking of The USA. Any Vietnamese Communist govt.,would be Vietnamese. I mean they fought everyone for 30 years. I thought this scene would be a dream or a drug trip. It seems unlikely they would have survived since the 1950\s in a war zone.

The whole Vietnam War is madness in this movie. Surfing nuts like Duvalls character for instance. He helps a wounded little girl,but incinerates people in the forest so he can surf. He offers water to a wounded VietCong but forgets the man when the surf star is found.. Col. Kurtz is destroyed by his battle between ruthless soldiering, the morality of that ruthlessness, and the guilt born by soldiers who do the deed. Captain Willard finishes off an innocent wounded girl on a boat. To take her to an aid station would delay his mission to kill Kurtz. Kurtz feels that determination , training, and ruthlessness is lacking in the US effort. He criticizes the US leadership strategy. He must be killed. This final crazy solution is to nuke the whole country !The S Vietnamese are double agents and corrupt. The NV are determined ruthless warriors. They will do anything to win. They have a cause, the US cause is weak. The whole bunny scene shows,how out of focus the US effort is.

I found this to be well cast, had excellent photography ,and a fine coherent story in the longer version. It's like a long dreamlike trip, on drugs ? Or a nightmare, lived by the soldiers, caused by lying sit at home politicians and incompetent rear echelon strategists. I find the whole mess to be incredibly sad. It was the end of our nation.

Voyage of the Damned (1976)

Boring performances from some,quality actors

[6/10 · 8 June 2021]

God, this was awful. It's a terrible true episode in the run-up to WW2. A compelling story but this movie was awful. Stereotypical characters. Poor script. An ensemble cast but that is a distraction too. It makes you say isnt that Jose Ferrer, Orson Welles, etc etc. ? Way too long. Oscar material ?No way.

City on a Hill (2019–2022)

A series for Bostonophiles ,others maybe lost or bored

[8/10 · 28 March 2021]

A Bostonophiles series. You kind of have to know the general late history, ethnic makeup, neighborhoods, culcha, of the area . I grew up around Boston and its like old home week for me. Boston has a veneer of education, money, etc.but underneath are a lot of working class people. Among them you have a subclass of druggies, crminals, mafia, shysters, and this series focuses on them. The police are kind of corrupt and racist. Racism among the worki ng class is big, and Boston was a racist city. You have a lot of ethnic division. This is set in the early 90's , with the Big Dig going on. That turned into a corrupt bloated farce,of course. I think it ultimately cost $17 billion ,tremendously over the budget.

I expected more reference to the corrupt FIB agent and his work with Whitey Bolgers Winter Hill gang. Maybe that will come on. Kevin Bacon is over the top as a sleazy FBI agent. I don't think the actual FBI character was as openly blatant as Bacon acts.

How bad was Boston? Whitey Bolger was a gangster deluxe for years. His brother was Speaker of the Mass. Senate or House at the same time. They and the FBI guy had grown up together in the same neighborhood,South Boston. So... Some good location stuff here and acting. Funy dialogue. Kind of a lot of subplots that go here and there. It's a decent series. Damon and Affleck love their Boston stuff. Of course they came from Brookline,not exactly the city.

Moby Dick (1956)

Decent effort 7.5-8 ?

[7/10 · 21 March 2021]

This is the best of the adaptations.It's very hard to match a giant of a book like Moby Dick is. The book is a bit dated in its style.It has tremendous detail, numerous well defined characters, and many digressions.Ahab is a tortured soul. Part arrogant, part driven, semi insane on the subject of the white whale. The sailors are a colorful group from all over. Ishmael is the innocent narrator, and the only survivor of the ship Pequod. The harbor scenery to me does not look like New England. The women on the dock look Irish. The Yankee women didn't wear shawls for one thing. The actors,except for a couple, are English. Peck to me, was always a personna, and not an actor. He is kind of like John Wayne in that regard. Pecks Ahab is ok. Queequeg is an Austrian actor, which I found out recently. The sailing scenes are good. The white whale, sinking ship , modeled finale looks fake. It would be hard to do this convincingly without CGI,but then that might look CGI too? The best rendition of MD,about a C plus,B minus.

Black Robe (1991)

A Historic novel

[9/10 · 17 March 2021]

This is based on a historical novel , loosely based on actual events. What is true religion, Catholicism or Shamanism? What is the best religion for these northern natives.? They live in a very harsh environment ,surrounded by hostile enemy tribes. The religion of the white Christ is not really suited to that. French colonialism and religion bring dependence, disease, and alcohol. All deadly to their civilization. The Huron tribe that accepts Christianity is wiped out in the end after an epidemic weakens them. The fathers faith is kind of half baked. It makes it look like the priesthood is full of semi dysfunctional beings, full of odd motivations. Bringing the true religion? Did they ask for it? No! This story is very accurate in the historic sense. The scenery and cinematography are top notch. The acting is excellent and the Indian characters are individuals, not stereotypes. It is a fine movie. I just don't understand the mediocre reviews. .Maybe the subject matter,historic period , and general lack of understanding of the Canadian Catholic- French historic context ,for Americans, is why. Somebody mentions the French and Indian War? That happened about 125 years + or - after these events....Dances With Wolves compared to this ,is a simplistic American oriented cartoon, my opinion. I enjoyed BR very much.

Parade's End (2012)

Soaper of the upper class

[7/10 · 14 March 2021]

Aristo soaper ? Is this a send up of classic English upper class WW1 pieces? I almost wonder. Its kind of a strange story. Is it to be taken seriously? Its hard not to wonder. Lots of problems of the English upper class. A man with a rigid code ,not in sync with the modern,1912 , times. He marries a pregnant party girl because the child maybe his. Of course it isnt. That wife comes and goes and wants what she wants. She decides she wants him, in the end. He becomes repulsed by her or at least indifferent. He meets an intelligent young woman to love , more in sync with his intellect and values. Of course they can't marry. Feeling it is his duty, he enlists in WW1 as an officer. He is of the officer class qualified or not. Lots of gossip , backbiting, undermining and affairs permeate it This is a very slow story. Beautiful scenery shots , period clothes, and lifestyle instead. This type story is always set in a similar upper class lifestyle, as if no other class existed. I guess they would not be as interesting? No miners, no factory workers,no poor, no reality ? The one man not of this class ,Mcmaster seems a rather dubious climber with no morals to speak of. I assume this is to make a point? Lots of loyal servants. High class fantasy. Perhaps it's a spoof. 7 stars is about right.