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Reviews
Kiss Me, Kill Me (2015)
Crime Scene
I didn't realize saying "I'm the landlord" or "I'm the lawyer" allows people to walk into an active crime scene. A suggestion to any aspiring screenwriters: If you want to write about something you don't have personal experience with, there is no shame in doing research. It might make the story more believable.
Live Shot (1995)
An unappreciated early UPN show
This was high quality offering from UPN's first season. It was a smart, flashy, behind the scenes drama about an L.A. tv news program. The writing and stories were uniformly good, the look and feel of the show very slick (almost to a fault), the use of background music exceptional. The actors were all good and worked together well. A minor drawback was that all the actors were so good-looking to the point of straining credibility.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Good intentions, so-so results
This time they go out on a limb with a story that doesn't involve saving the lives of millions or billions of people (as in ST:I,IV,VII,VIII) but only 600. The story is meant to have parallels with episodes in our past, the forced relocation of people for the benefit of larger, more powerful group. I'm glad to see a more personal Trek that is more character driven than usual, and where its hard to tell the heroes and the villains apart.
Where the movie starts to lose me is with the portrayal of the oppressed people. We meet this settlement of blonde haired, earnest, white skinned humans who live in paradise. The planet they live on gives them a special energy that keeps them young-looking, good-looking, and thin.They knead their bread and weed their gardens under sunny skies with no hardships, dirty fingernails, nor storm clouds on the horizon. Apparently the makers of the movie chose non-"ethnic" extras so the audience wouldn't immediately think of American Indians, Jews, Palestinians, ethnic Albanians. To me, however this oppressed group comes across more like affluent and tan Californians in a gated community who want to preserve their way of life from the people who didn't make it in before the gate closed. While ST:Next Generation has always been awfully tidy and utopian, this ends up being too much like a yuppie Celestine fantasy for me to empathize with these people.
Finally, a couple of sticky points. Is it realistic to have a group of people who have rejected all machines, yet have warp capability and can work on an android's positronic brain? Wouldn't there be tools for android-fixing and something to practice the tools on? Wouldn't there also be a space ship somewhere? If they had let the ship get rusty they wouldn't still have warp capability, if they kept it running they'd have at least on very complex machine. Also, considering that there is just one town of 600 people who only travel on foot and have no interest in starting new little towns, couldn't they let the Federation folks set up a few quiet hospital/spas on the other side of the planet?
A Christmas Story (1983)
I am not a humbug, but...
First let me say that I'm a fan of Christmas movies. I collect them as well as Christmas sit-com episodes so that I can indulge in sentimental viewing to get me in the mood for the hot cider and chestnut season. I saw A Christmas Story without high expectations, so I don't think I was expecting some masterpiece. I just don't get it. My childhood was similar enough to Ralphie's, but I just don't can't get wrapped up with the story. A movie like this wants the audience to sit back and relax on a sentimental journey through nostalgic memories, but I get distracted by details I wish I could ignore. I realize the parents personalities and actions are exaggerated in Ralphie's eyes, but both Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon strike a false note in their acting, and while Ralphie looks like he lives in the 40s (or 50s), the parents look like they're living in 1983. I know I shouldn't get down on the producers for the limitations of a low budget movie, but how much more effort or money would it have taken to find period clothing for the parents and and do something with the mother's hair that resembled the styles of the time instead of an early 80s Stevie Nicks perm? This all sounds petty, especially since the movie does have its heart in the right place, but I just can't sit back and lose myself in this movie.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Read the book
I remember seeing this movie when I was in high school and thinking that for an old movie it was wonderful, funny, and wistful (and in retrospect, I saw it not too many years after it was made). I remember being quite a fan of Audrey Hepburn and many of her movies (Charade, etc.) that were often shown on TV in the early 70's.
Years passed. I came across the short story by Capote and read it. I was amazed, the story is rich with atmosphere and complex characterization. Holly Golightly is a real three-dimensional person, a tough bohemian in the Village who is just barely holding on to life. The narrator is an enigmatic writer who is fascinated by her, maybe he loves her, but clearly not in a standard heterosexual kind of way. A short while later I saw that the movie was on TV and I really looked forward to seeing it again. Not only was it a sentimental favorite of mine and it would give me a chance to relive a tiny part of my youth, but it might be fun seeing the movie as retro time capsule of thirty years past. This was before Audrey Hepburn had died, and the movie had become a slightly forgotten comedy of the pre-Kennedy/60s era. It was a well regarded classic that got pushed aside to make room for the endless stream of contemporary romantic comedies.
So, I saw it. I have to admit that all of the magic I remembered was invisible to me. The names were familiar and some of the circumstances were the same, but how they got that movie out of that short story, I'll never know. In the story, Holly is a survivor living in a grimy neighborhood with the social outcasts of the time. In the movie, Audrey's Holly seems to be some New York sophisticate who's really a scared little girl underneath, forever posing in little cocktail dresses and chatting to businessmen until she gets rescued by the dashing writer/gigolo upstairs. It's almost like Rob and Laura Petrie's life before they got married. I understand the pressure in Hollywood to force a love story into every script, but here the love story overwhelms the original intent, the study of Holly's life and character. There is little that is sentimental in short story, but the movie is a gilt treasure chest of preciousness. Aside from the story there is the acting too. I have often lectured people on the importance of judging the acting in an older movie not by contemporary standards and trends, but by the acting at the time the movie was made. Well, as much as I wanted to like Audrey, her acting had me squirming in my seat. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are positively naturalistic compared to her. I've since seen a few of Audrey Hepburn's movies again and I've had to re-examine my fondness for her. She's quite good at projecting a well-bred vulnerable appeal, but some movie roles would benefit from something more.
Alien from L.A. (1988)
I like it!!!
OK, it's not a great movie, but it's fun. I enjoy it more than many big budget scifi blockbusters I've seen. It's major fault is that it's not what you'd expect from a movie starring a swimsuit model. It's definitely more of a grrrl adventure than a swimsuit issue. It's slow paced, moody, and artsy rather than action-packed and sexy with cool F/X. There's an other-worldly oddness that works pretty well, some nice sets and costumes and some pretty good art direction for such a low budget movie. There's quite a bit of dry and campy humor, most of it played straight-faced with few obvious laughs. As far as acting goes, while she's not in danger of taking work away from Meryl Streep, Kathy Ireland does a decent job compared to other non-actors who have been given feature roles (and even some real-actors in feature roles). And no, that isn't her normal speaking voice. Linda Kerridge, while annoying as Auntie Pearl, does a decent job of not being recognizable as the character Freki. Something else to keep in mind---this movie is a farce and a satire of Voyage To The Center of the Earth, the Mad Max movies and their many clones, as well as all of those cheesy scifi flics of the 80's (and The Wizard of Oz). Alien From L. A. also strikes me as a not quite successful tribute to another girl scifi adventure ---Barbarella, with all its psychedelic 60's sets, costumes, and characters (and lesbian villainess), but without the sex. Alien From L.A. is one of my guilty pleasure movies, I watch it every couple years even though I know it's not great. It definitely has a limited appeal, but if this does appeal to you, you might give it a try, you know you've seen worse movies than this.
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986)
the best and darkest television has to offer
This is some of the best story-telling and acting ever to be seen on the small screen(or the big screen for that matter). A drama with a lot of dark and dry humor. We identify with Ruth, the main character, so thoroughly that we cheer her on as she devises her retribution against her betraying husband and his perfect mistress. But as we watch Ruth take control of her life and we relish her complicated revenge, we become more and more disturbed by the extreme methods she uses. I don't remember when I've encountered another character who was so completely compelling and repelling at the same time. The movie is somewhat slow to start and slow paced, but every minute of this 6 hour mini-series is worth watching. Those of us who were prepared with a vcr are very lucky in that this will not be broadcast very often, nor is it a likely candidate to be released on video.