ScreenwriterVA Reviews

The Brave One (1956)

Highlights the disgusting sport of bullfighting

[5/10 · 20 November 2017]

How can anyone enjoy the finale of this picture? They cleaned it up for the movie, otherwise the bulls would be staggering from loss of blood, and the bulls would be covered in blood. And all those thousands of people cheering the bullfighters on was repulsive.

Hopefully this dated picture will not be replicated, on screen or in real life. There is no honor or glory in being a bullfighter.

Dark Passage (1947)

Bad, bad, bad

[1/10 · 9 September 2017]

One of the worst noir movies I've ever seen. Annoying beginning SPOILER where you can't see Bogie's face for what seems like hours. Stupid plot, stupid plot developments, stupid stupid stupid. The only saving grace was Bacall in her prime, and Agnes Moorehead as vamp!. Don't waste your time.

Prisoners (2013)

A real dud

[3/10 · 31 August 2017]

Where do I start? A mishmash of a plot, a waste of some really talented actors. I had to read the spoilers here to figure out what had happened. E.G. SPOILER - I thought the guy with the snakes was the woman's missing husband. She didn't look that old, just had old people's clothes and a bad hairdo. Aha! According to IMDb, she was only 5 years older than Viola Davis. SPOILER #2 - obviously JG was going to find HJ after he heard the whistle, but really? An ending like that? And all the slloooowww quiet talking of JG and HJ. And an unrealistic wife taking pills instead of looking for her kid. Full of clichés and bad dialogue. Big disappointment.

King Charles III (2017 TV Movie)

Unwatchable

[1/10 · 14 May 2017]

This could have been an interesting premise, but the stultifying pseudo- Shakespearean dialogue is just plain awful. At first I thought the author was taking lines from Shakespeare's plays and fitting them into the plot. Then, I realized it wasn't.

I'm a fan of Shakespeare, but this was just plain bad. I had to turn it off.

Beauty and the Beast (I) (2017)

Main characters just too creepy

[7/10 · 2 April 2017]

As a huge fan of the original Disney animated pic, there were several issues I had with this live action remake. Namely, the Beast and Lumiere. The Beast's horns made him look like the devil, as well as nothing like the original Beast in the animated movie. Why change that? It gave me the creeps. Also, making him two-legged only, instead of sometimes four-legged like in the original movie was distracting. As for Lumiere, there was nothing charming about his face at all. That too was creepy, the kind of thing that scares you in your dreams.

Thirdly, where was the delightful song, "Only Human Again," by the original team of Ashman and Mencken, that made it to the stage production? That would have been much better than the forgettable tunes by Mencken and Rice.

And lastly, why mess with Beauty's original gorgeous yellow dress? The one Emma Watson wore was nice; it just wasn't Beauty's.

So, I would not take little children to this movie. Let them enjoy the original animated feature or the stage production. No bad dreams there.