dugan49

The best thing about this film is the dreariness of the lives, which seems true to the time. And the photography, music, and battle scenes are excellent. But overall , outside of the fighting, little to recommend this. Heston's is a one note character, and Richard Boone, apparently his right hand man, barely speaks 20 words in the whole film.

The main plot, which concerns the war lord claiming the right to have sex with a village bride on her wedding night, is distasteful, and to make it worse is most likely historically inaccurate.

Rosemary Forsythe, a starlet at the time, is a real beauty.

Final verdict -- impressively made film, but crude, cruel and pretty boring.

I havent been in combat in Afghanistan, or anywhere, so I will just review this as a movie and less for historical accuracy.

I felt a lot of similarity between this movie and Blackhawk Down. In both movies you see the professionalism and brotherhood of the American soldiers. In both movies the US troops are pinned down and under siege.

We see both a sense of desperation and also quite a bit individual heroism . In both movies you feel like you are in the center of the action.

I am surprised The Outpost wasnt talked about more in the general public and that it didnt get more buzz.

Definitely one of the better war movies in the past 10 or 20 years.

The good part - seeing Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman singing and dancing in a full blown movie musical. It doesn't happen every day. Both of them are decent singers and it's nice to see them get this opportunity to strut their stuff.

The bad part- the anti bigotry plot drowns in overkill as insult after insult is directed at the flyover - country hicks who want to keep two high school lesbians from having a prom. The message is a good one but this movie beats it to death and demonstrates yet again why people from a place like Indiana could vote for Trump.

The film, directed by the creator of the TV series Glee, follows the same path of almost non stop energy and music and bright colors and movement. Whether or not you think it works will probably depend on how much you appreciate the base concept of the polot.

While I was watching this movie I was reminded of 70's and 80's tv shows like Hart To Hart and McMillan and Wife. There is a very easy going vibe about Legal Eagles which is both it's good point and it's bad point. Redford and Winger have pretty good chemistry in a lower level Tracy-Hepburn sort of way , which is to say they are somewhere in between those two great stars and Rock Hudson and Susan St James in the McMillan and Wife television series.

Legal Eagles plot is strictly made for tv fare too. There is nothing here we havent seen before in Matlock or Murder She Wrote in terms of plot. So what's good about Legal Eagles ? Robert Redford is a legitimate movie star and he is fine in this movie. And I've always loved Debra Winger , and I wish she would have made more films.

Darryl Hannah plays an oddball artist suspected of murder and she was an interesting counterpoint to the two pretty straitlaced main characters.

Legal Eagles is a satisfactory "date night" type comedy romance with a little thriller thrown in, but nothing more.

Parasite has it all. Direction, acting , screenplay and camerawork are all award level.

This film is not boring, and the first hour is about as fascinating and attention grabbing as a movie can be. The second hour is not quite as successful as the first, in my opinion, but is still high level entertainment.

The key to Parasite is the script, which is tasked with leading the viewer through a myriad of pinpoint plot developments that always seem to be teetering on a razors edge. I feel safe to say this is one of the best screenplays of the 21st century.

If I had to summarize Parasite it would be , "never a dull moment".

When you stand back and look at it objectively, this movie has a lot of problems. Kevin Costner gives what is probably the worst performance of his career as Robin Hood, and besides that most of the dialogue by all the characters except Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham is mediocre at best. And the movie is long with some sluggish and unnecessary scenes.

BUT, I have to say that despite all that , this is still an enjoyable way to kill two and a half hours. Alan Rickman was great when he had a role that would allow him to over act, and he does it with great abandon as the fanatical and , well, mentally ill, evil sheriff. His performance is simply what moves this film from the thumbs down into the thumbs up category . Also on the plus side id the depiction of the merry men (and woman) of Sherwood forest who get more development in the story than is usually seen in Robin Hood flicks.

Morgan Freeman is underused as Robin Hood's Moorish sidekick.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is effective as the Maid Marian.

Cake will end all doubts about Jennifer Aniston's abilities as an actress. NO ONE could have given a better performance in this role, as a chronic pain patient who also deals with chronic and overwhelming grief and regret. Not Meryl Streep, not Kate Winslet, not Jennifer Lawrence, no one could have better found the heart and soul of this melancholy woman. Devoid of a shred of makeup for the entire length of the film, Aniston never smiles or laughs. Her heart is broken and she uses pills and liquor to deaden her ability to fully confront her loss. Beneath the dead exterior the audience senses what life and spirit must have once been there in this woman, and that may be the greatest tribute to the performance.

Sadly, the film as a whole doesn't match the lead performance. Although all the other actors are fine, or better, the script is too one note, and the sub plots, such as they are , don't help. Until the final few minutes, this is a relentlessly sad movie. Unless that is the type of film that appeals to you usually, you may want to look elsewhere.

Then there is Aniston. She is so good , I would give this film a marginal thumbs up.

Unbroken opens with an extended sequence of a bombing run by a US B-17 crew against Japanese targets in the Pacific, and the subsequent attack on the bomber by a squad of Japanese Zero fighters. This aerial combat sequence is one of the most harrowing of it's kind I have ever seen. You actually feel like you are in that plane experiencing that terror and exhilaration first hand. This segment cannot be over praised, it is that good. Another sequence in a bomber, where the plane experiences massive engine failure and crashes into the sea with the crew all on board is also very well done. The flashback segments on Zamperini's running career are also fine, the extended sequence depicting three airmen's time on a life raft floating in the middle of the Pacific ocean is well done. So far it's all good.

Then we get to the meat of the film, the prisoner of war scenes, and the film becomes a ponderous slog through torture and brutal beatings of the main character by an effeminate and sadistic Japanese captor. This is essentially the entire second half of the film, and it becomes monotonous and numbing.

The photography, sound , and music in this film were all award-caliber, and Jolie shows great promise as a mainstream director.

Woody Allen knows how to dig at the self absorbed well to do, and the neurotic and psychologically troubled, and Blue Jasmine does this very well, as we follow the fish out of water Jasmine, a troubled NYC socialite who moves into the working class household of her sister in San Francisco , and tries to rebuild the shattered life left to her when her financial criminal husband hangs himself in prison. Jasmine is made poor by government retribution , and struggles to rebuild her life while drinking too much and popping pills.

The film adeptly balances Jasmine's previous life as an upper class New Yorker and her travails trying to adjust to lower class life in San Francisco, due to the great performance by Cate Blanchett . Sally Hawkings is also great as her sister, a sweet woman with two kids who is trying to get by and find a good man.

BUT, and a big but, the film fails to convincingly portray the working class characters in the story. Woody Allen has no feel for it.

No Time For Sergeants is not a movie that comes to mind initially when one thinks of the great classic comedies, but it probably should.

There is a 20 minute or so stretch, as Andy Griffith's country bumpkin character creates confusion, panic and frustration among an air crew and assorted Air Force generals and commanders when he takes control of a bomber flight's radio, that is flat out hilarious. The film, that has been funny enough to that point, takes off into rarefied comedic air and soars through the next few scenes as one of the funniest films of the 1950's.

Griffith is perfect as the Forrest Gump like Will Stockdale, who frustrates and exasperates everyone he comes in contact with in the military with the exception of his buddy Ben, played by Nick Adams.

Funny movie which deserves more notice than it normally has received down through the years.

Cat Ballou is not a riotous comedy, nor a deft and biting satire. It is however an ingratiatingly cute send up of western movies and "dime" novels. Jane Fonda stars as the erstwhile prim and proper schoolmarm who leads a "gang" of robbers as she takes revenge for the killing of her father by the local land baron. Lee Marvin won a Best Actor Oscar in 1965 for his dual role as a steely assassin and a drunken gunfighting legend.

Cat Ballou is best experienced without high hopes. It is a small film , not particularly clever, and without the saving comedy graces of slapstick or broad farce to push it along. Yet it is eminently likable, mainly because of the very appealing cast. Fonda is great at projecting innocence then determination, Marvin is excellent hamming it up in his dual role, and Michael Callan and Dwayne Hickman are winningly amiable as con-men/rustlers who join the Cat Ballou gang and provide the love interest.

This is a movie that is better than it should have been given it's ordinary script and obvious premise.

The Great Race has been described as live action cartoon, and that is when it's comedy is at it's most appealing. In the opening minutes Prof fate and Max (Lemmon and Falk)endure cartoonish falls, crashes and explosions, and the comparison to old WB cartoons is apt. Then we get into the plot , and as soon as the racers hit the American west, machinations of the characters take over and the slapstick falters. By the time the story reaches the mythical kingdom of Potsdorf (or something), the plot is dragging the film down badly. It mostly limps home from there.

The thing that makes the film watchable is the spectacle, faux early 20th century costuming, stunt work and attention to detail, all of which are outstanding. This is one of the better looking comedies you will ever see, with bright colors everywhere and confident and elaborate staging.

It almost doesn't matter that it's not really very funny.

Jimmy Stewart had the physical mannerisms of an easily exasperated person, but playing this sort of endlessly befuddled parent didn't suit the measured intelligence that Stewart brought to his characters in the latter half of his career in feature films. The result is a forced comedy about a family vacation at the beach, with whiny kids, finicky appliances and nubile younger neighbors. Maureen O' Hara is along for the ride as the dutiful mom trying to force feed her family a happy shared experience.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is a comedy that isn't very funny. Somehow this film got 3 Golden Globe nominations, 1962 must have been a weak year for comedies.

The last 15 minutes of Duck Soup, inside Groucho's command headquarters during the war with Sylvania, are the funniest 15 minutes in film history. Non stop verbal, physical and visual gags, puns and insults, and almost all of them hit the mark , and play well 80 years later.

Aide to Groucho, who is shooting out the window - " But sir, you are shooting your own men.

Groucho hands the aide a bill - "here's five dollars , keep it under your hat."

Grouch takes the five dollars back and says "better yet, I'll keep it under my hat."

Duck Soup is the best Marx Brothers film because it is the most cynical and anarchic of them all. Some of the jokes are dated beyond help, and make cultural references that today's generation simply will not understand or appreciate, but those last 15 minutes are enough in itself to make this one of the all time great comedies.

The rap on SNF today is that it is dated. The music, the dance moves, the clothes, and this supposedly detracts from the film. Personally I don't get this, every film that is about a specific place and time ends up 'dated'. Some even start out that way. If a movie was made today in 2012, about the disco scene from the mid 70's, wouldn't they use similar music, dance moves and fashions as SNF does? The 'dated' complaint is senseless, in my opinion.

Saturday Night Fever begins with a lot of visceral energy as we learn about Tony Manero and his obsession with disco dancing and hanging with his lower class Italian crew. There is a vibrancy to the film that jumps off the screen. As the thin plot unwinds, some of the energy unwinds with it.

There is a raw appeal to the street milieu that carries us through some of the more pedestrian scenes and conversations, but as expected, it is when the music is playing and the feet are moving that Saturday Night Fever comes alive.

Robert Duvall will eventually go down as one of the all time great movie cowboys, even though he starred in only three westerns, and appeared in support in a handful of others.

The three that he starred include the greatest western film of all time, Lonesome Dove, and two excellent examples of the genre, Open Range and Broken Trail. Broken Trail isn't quite up to Open Range, but it's close.

Duvall and Thomas Haydn Church drive 500 hundred horses across the upper northwest, accompanied by another cowhand, 5 young Chinese women , a elderly Chinese man, and a bedraggled and dis spirited prostitute. How they come to the company of these other characters is the meat and potatoes of the movie, and it is kept interesting by a simple but catchy script that is in Duvall and Church's wheelhouse as actors. Both men won Emmy awards for their outstanding performances.

This isn't really an action movie, but there is enough of it over the course of three hours to satisfy that niche, and a matter of fact portrayal of the brutality of the lawless frontier life that makes one appreciate the accomplishments of these unique people.

Every movie that John Wayne was in was a 'John Wayne' movie, so it's not surprising that he should be the star of a film in which he has a co- starring part. "Chisum" tells the story , sort of, of the Lincoln County war in old west New Mexico. Billy The Kid is bound to avenge the murder of his friend and boss John Tunstall, and the Duke is on the edge of the story as the commanding presence of decent authority, as opposed to the corrupt town leaders and sheriff who supported the murder.

To the film's credit, it's not boring, there's always something going on, and there is a fair amount of late 60's style 'cowboy' action, but "Chisum" is not a standout western either. The acting , for the most part, is pretty bad, and , like I said, the Duke isn't in it very much.

This was a lull period in his career, and this movie is rightfully thought of as one of Wayne's lesser efforts.

Not as good as Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down, but better than most other war movies of the past 25 years, We Were Soldiers is a no nonsense retelling of the first large scale engagement in Viet Nam between American troops and North Vietnamese regulars, in 1965. Mel Gibson stars as Colonel Hal Moore, who leads the famed U.S. 7th Cavalry , now air mobile, into a 'test' battle in the central highlands of Nam to judge the effectiveness of new combat tactics derived through use of helicopter transport of troops directly into a hostile ( hot lz) landing zone.

Immediately upon landing, Moore's battalion is attacked by hundreds of NVA, regular soldiers of North Viet Nam who are based in the nearby hills. The attacking force soon balloons to thousands, and the Americans are outnumbered and surrounded. The movie then very diligently and dutifully portrays the hectic and brutal three day battle.

The best thing about this movie is it's point of view, which shows the regard a commander has for his troops and his dedication to his duty and mission. Gibson is outstanding in portraying a decent yet disciplined leader who must maintain control and cohesion in the midst of chaos and incredible violence. Sam Elliot also stands out as the unit's Sergeant major, an old timer made of guts and granite.

It's not a perfect movie and the violence , while overwhelming at times, is not as well done as in the two films I mentioned at the top. Still it has it's moments. A lot of them as a matter of fact. The main pleasure I took from this film was in watching military men of honor do their thing on a field of battle while I was sitting in a comfortable chair in a safe place.

What could have been a sharp satire on 60's sexual attitudes runs basically lame throughout, the script simply comes up short. The basic mistaken identity plot device fails to provide laughs and it is so much the base of the film's story that it's failure prevents the whole from going anywhere.

However, all is not lost. There is a saving grace, and that is the presence of the then 25 year old Natalie Wood, playing the sexologist Helen Gurley Brown.

Wood, in this film is staggeringly pretty. She had, at that age, a natural girl next door beauty that has rarely if ever been rivaled in film history. Seeing this film and Wood again recently for the first time in decades was a revelation. About her, not the mediocre film.

I wasn't sure what to make of this at first since I had never heard of the movie before I saw it on Turner recently, but almost right off the bat this earnest war/romance drama shows it's mettle.

William Holden is a GI on a short leave in Naples during the Allied advance up Italy. He meets WAC Nancy Olson , and after a short resistance on her part they fall in love , more or less at first sight. I liked the dialog between the two of them during this 'courtship' , it is well written and though Holden plays the wisecracker he so often did in his roles, it seems natural in these scenes.

The rest of the film tracks their time in Italy, together and apart, as Holden returns to the front and faces the need to prove his courage and cool under fire.

The thing that made this movie stand out is the treatment of a war time in service romance that is neither played for laughs or pathos. It is slightly melodramatic at times, but appropriately so for the material.

One of the better films of this type I have seen.

What this movie really needed was Bob Hope. This is the kind of hectic farce, complete with mistaken identities and dead bodies, that Hope specialized in during this time period. Ball is fine as a working girl caught up in murder schemes and crazy plots, but Eddie Albert just is no substitute for the wise cracking male presence that this type of farce needs. Ball and Hope would have been a riot.

Another thing is that the slapstick wears out it's welcome before the end, as it becomes increasingly sillier. All in all, not a bad example of mid 20th century American farce, but not a standout either. Lucille Ball went on to be much funnier in a TV series, as did Eddie Albert on a lesser level.