AlanaFu

Why this film is not on Bluray or even DVD I'll never know, it deserves to be on the top of every feminist film list, and is bound to blow the minds and empower many young audiences today.

This movie is not only under the big umbrella of a "can't-go-wrong Barbara Stanwyck movie", it also turns into an Ava Gardner movie to a Cyd Charisse movie then to a Van Heflin movie. Each actor giving powerful, charming, unforgettable performances. It's a perfect capture of romance and its many heartaches: addiction, unrequited love, wrong timing... It yields lessons of bravery, grace, patience, and the most ancient wisdom pervading all our favourite 40s movies: keep your chin up.

Not much of a movie, more of a 90 minute instagram story of Terence Stamp: lots of nature, doing extreme exciting stuff like hanging out of a helicopter(years before the invention of GoPro), sleeping on volcanoes, laying face down on a (toxic?!?!) sulfur mine, being a QWEEN, some relationship stats & amazing psych rock music. Far out concept of generating energy from the audience, the movie itself doesn't have much substance. 6 stars for Terence's dedication. This movie needs a remake, get on board Jodorowsky!

It reminds me of Jagged Edge (1985) (which I recommend), the story itself is kinda interesting, but if only this film was directed by Brian De Palma or Paul Thomas Anderson! The storytelling wasn't enough to keep me engaged. Though since I love Derek Jacobi and Robin Williams, I kept watching hoping to catch a few more glimpses of them. In the end the acting overall was mediocre, the climax scene was so melodramatic that I actually found it funny, the film ended without addressing a few important issues... Good cast wasted!

William Hurt looked efforlessly sad as usual(though I haven't seen him actually shed a tear?!). Even though he's perfect for the arrogant/closed-off/melancholy doctor role, the movie has its problems: could pick up its pace quite a bit, some arc development isn't quite clear, and the acting and overall storytelling is too contrived. It just left me thinking what if Robin Williams played this role and made it more of a comedy? Hmmm...

Love the idea of glamor hollywood tribute and cell mate contrast. The opening shot is gorgeous and got me really excited. I love William Hurt but I wasn't really impressed with his performance, not exactly what I'd call "Oscar worthy". Or at least not as good as Philip Seymour Hoffman in Flawless. The story is pretty thin and just not enough to hold 2 hours of screentime up.

This film is where you realize you are in love with William Hurt. Same quirky vibe as The Big Chill but sadder, great subtle dialogues, some scenes are less cohesive but overall pretty good. That is until the last 30 mins where it feels like they couldn't figure out how to end the film and just attched a corny rom-com ending to it.

Stylish, ambitious, dealing with very important issues, quirky humor, very much reminding me of indie family comedies like The Funeral (1984) . However the quality of this film feels inconsistent and clunky. There are quite a few good acting moments though mostly tacky, the dialogues were too theatrical and over sentimental. (I'm really excited for Awkwafina! Can't wait to see her tackle some good dramedy roles!) I wish I had seen more "Billi and Nai nai do stuff together" and connecting like the exercise scene, and way less preaching & discussing. (a very good example it reminded me is The Way Home 2002). But my friends and I did cry and laugh and sung together at the end, and there are not nearly enough movies out there about grandparents, so thank you Lulu Wang!

A sweet, groundbreaking documentary.The first band to ever perform in China, Wham! was welcomed into the country as music missionaries from the west. This is a must see for all Wham!/George Micheal fans and pop music historians.

A little backstory: Born and raised in China myself in the 90s, I have no knowledge of Wham! until I was well into my 20s, quote from my Canadian friend "You don't know who Wham! is?!" However I have heard "Last Christmas" over and again in Chinese shopping malls and cafes. When George Micheal passed, the Chinese headline titled "the guy who wrote Last Christmas died".Not a particular fan of Wham! myself, I came across this film while searching for Lindsay Anderson films. I was surprised to read in the trivia that Wham! was the first western band to have played in China. Thus I did some research on my Chinese search engine, and found that the Chinese audience were positively "shocked and stunned" upon seeing Wham!'s performance, having little or no idea about western music. Wham! had blown their minds and literally brought pop music into China. They were the inspiration for a new generation of musicians that will completely transform Chinese pop culture.

It wasn't Wham!'s idea to come to China, nor was director Anderson interested in Wham! or China. However I find it interesting that Anderson, who made anti-capitalism films, filming in a communist country. Also knowing his latent homosexuality, as well as George Micheal's infamous one, this film seems really rather homoerotic.

Even though it's always fun to see two cultures meet, this one is especially hilarious(more so since I'm native Chinese I guess), the reaction of Chinese audience is gold. There's also this one scene where Wham! makes a speech about how their act shares similarities with the Chinese opera, then the translator followed:" ...the similarity is 'lively' and 'colorful'!"

We see the 22 year old George and Andrew, wearing Red Army caps and colorful shirts, walking among the curious blue-green-gray Chinese(a gloomy palette we've had for decades, only just making the transformation to bright colors since the 80's)making an adorable contrast. These shy and giggly chaps, dancing and twirling with an energy so great, not knowing how much they've influenced a whole country, how important their name is to Chinese pop music history, nor that homosexuality was still listed as a mental illness in China at the time, or whatever hardship is ahead of them. They were just smiling, so carefree and innocent, forever lively and colorful on film.

One vote for Durante,who did a few numbers along with the famous piano bit; one vote for Marsha Hunt, delightful as always, since she doesn't has that many movies I'm happy just to see her; one vote for June Allyson, who gave a solid sentimental performance. Not a musical as I expected, the plot is way too simple/dull for a two hour movie, and told too straightfowardly leaving no room for imagination for the audience or cinema language. Thus, the movie has these long, boring scene of conversations and you see the same ideas played out over and again. June Allyson is such a dynamic actress yet cast here as a boring character with practically no personality, she did mostly crying, which was well done, just not enough coming from Allyson. Durante's cute of course on his own, but had no chemistry with other main characters. The movie is all over the place. Supposedly the idea is to celebrate women in music during war times, however it is not addressed in the movie. And as strong and smart as these women are, in times of trouble the most they were asked to do was pray??? Also I'm not sure what role the little girl plays, she doesn't really do much except just "being there". I'm guessing she's the symbol of a religious guardian angel? Faith? She's not the Pollyanna to teach us to look on the bright side of life, she just goes to church like a sweet little girl. In all I would not recommend this movie.

I stumbled upon this movie on Christmas, after the opening tune of "The twelve days of Christmas" I thought it was a Christmas movie so I kept watching. Although they played the tune throughout the whole movie, it has nothing to do with Christmas what so ever. The movie itself is just as random as it's soundtrack, there's no chemistry or dynamics between the two characters, Garson seems too old for the role and Wilding seems too young. I like caper movies but this one is a real let down. Having no well-thought-out crimes or heart gripping romances, the only thing I found interesting was the costume designs and hair styles. It's pretty bland in general.

Some of the scenes are beautifully shot, as far as a children's/cat movie goes, this one is pretty interesting with a fun plot and great supporting child actors. (The main role "Mary" however is one of the most annoying child I've seen anywhere, a total spoiled brat.)

The movie itself raises many questions and left many of them unanswered. There's this child Mary who has an obsession over her cat, obviously because she lost her mother at a young age and never got enough attention from her Dad. Unable to accept the death of her cat, like the death of her mom, this psychopathic kid decided to "kill" her dad as well. Meanwhile Mary's dad failed to bring his daughter to her sense or her health. Then there's the Witch, who has shut herself from civilization, probably after her parents' tragic death, and lives on faith and only makes friends with animals.

The cat Thomasina, who when science failed to rescue her was brought back to life on a strictly homeopathic/spiritual term. And who eventually brought these three dysfunctional beings together to make one big "happy" family. What these humans have struggle to understand and resolve was all smeared away in one go by this "magical" cat. However she's not magical at all, unlike many heroes like Peter Pan, who actually teaches children/adults lessons, enlightens them and make them realize their own faults and doings, Thomasina is far from educational or inspirational. She teaches no lesson and offers no wisdom.

And this is exactly where Thomasina failed. For no matter how much a movie is about an animal, it's always a magnifier of humanity, a reflection of human wisdom/spirituality, a wake-up call for the humans. In this particular movie, none of the humans were "waken up", in the end they still sit around the table living what seems to be a wonderful life unconsciously, they are perhaps less conscious than the cat, less human even. For the cat has "chosen" the family, "chosen" to come back, leaving the family helpless without her. And a real master would know this, the greatest lesson to give, is to enable his students to help themselves.

There are good war comedies, and this is not one of them. This is a very ambitious film, touching a lot of subjects:war, crime, love, comedy, humanity etc, however not proficient at any of them. And since some of these are very sensitive subjects, if you want people to laugh at them, you gotta make the "punchlines" extra strong. And this film just failed to do that. Some scenes stand out in terms of "comedy", Cary Grant was specially cute in a few of them. Although I like how natural the lines are(sometimes I even wonder if they were just improvising?), the pace of the movie is way too slow and too long. Neither the theme or scenes are cohesive, most of them are pretty awkward actually, is it a matter of laugh or grief? You just don't know what to feel about them. If you are a big fan of Cary Grant then I guess you would enjoy this movie, not very exciting for a Rogers' fan tho.

It's about art and the love for art, but not artistically shot as other Russell films. On a scale from 1 to 10( Lisztomania being 10, the maximum Russell), this one is probably a 3. The two main characters has an unique and interesting relationship, but not amicable since they are both loud, rude and crazy. They are annoying and not very enjoyable to watch. For someone who lives in NYC, they do remind me of the frantic hipsters I see on the streets everyday... On a scale from 1 to 10( Women in Love being 10, the maximum enjoyable, for me anyways), this one is likely a 3 also. However after some research I found out that both of them have mental illness(No way!). I wish I knew that before so maybe I would have enjoyed the movie more? The lines are very good, values too(10 outta 10), if you love art you are bond to adore this movie, one way or another.

There are two story lines in this film: A, the birth of a play; B, the love story between an actress(Bea) and a playwright(Stanley). I suppose B is the main line since the film is called Forever Female. But then Stanley struggle so much with the play, and Sally took up so many scenes(while the love line between Philip and Bea was relatively neglected), it seems A would be the main line? But then the story ended with Philip and Bea getting married again, so that means B is the main line?

But it's not really important as which story to follow as how well the characters are developed thru the story. All the characters in this film are wonderfully colorful:

Sally, a young actress with a lot of drive and passion, is one of the most annoying characters I've seen in movies. She has all the confidence/arrogance in the world god knows where she gets it. Then she changed to a complete different person in the course of 2 months? Less than that? And Stanley, a refreshing farmer turned playwright, a very strong character in the beginning of the film, fell in love with Sally for whatever reason, and didn't realized it until he saw her transformation, lost his character towards the end of the film. Both of the characters and their relationship seem impractical and irrational to me. (William Holden does fall for strange women doesn't he? Network 1976?)

On the other hand, Bea the amazing actress with a heart of gold and her ever so supportive husband Philip, are very likable people. Bea literally made Sally a star, even tho nobody mentioned it or thank her for it. She's sensual, understanding, a character made of blood and flesh(like the scene at the airport). Philip is always her guardian angel. It's corny that they got back together in the end, nevertheless their relationship is admirable.

In all, the film is packed with interesting refreshing details(strawberries, celery..) and some wonderful lines, the story is a bit disappointing, and definitely not enough Ginger Rogers (way too much Pat Crowley, whose acting could be improved largely too).

Love the pranks the twins played on each other, Hayley Mills gave a lovely musical performance towards the end, and it's also amusing to see her throwing a tantrum.

So much for the "trap", the "parent" part though, is pretty horrible. Their dad seems to be the worst dad on earth, probably the worst man too. How can any man not fall in love with MAUREEN O HARA the first time he sees her(after 13 years)?? She has to actually get out of her way to trick them to break their engagement?? And for a man who abandoned her and separated her from her child years ago (I assumed), let her kid be slapped by a stranger and did nothing about it, not to mention he's barely handsome and has no personality what so ever at all. That's just ridiculous. She should have been still mad at him, and he had too crawl on his knees to win her back. Actually she and the kids deserve better.

I cannot believe I saw this movie on the list of Hayley Mills' best films! It's so awful! Yes there is adventure, there is romance, there is mystery, and none of them is well done. The adventure is so clumsy, and the excitement of it is often interrupted by the annoying romantic moments. For the first hour nobody knows what the heck is going on, and the big mystery seems more like child play. Feels like the plot was written by a ten year old. This movie is also so unnecessarily long, two thirds of the scenes can be edited out and it wouldn't affect the plot at all!

Also... why would a(any) girl have trouble coming up with an excuse for blood stains on a cloth???

The first hour of this movie is frightfully boring, up till the big ending there really isn't much to see.

Now I was expecting a lot since Dick Van Dyke was in it, but honestly NONE of his great comic talents were showcased in this movie! No slapstick or funny face or anything, it's like watching Donald O'Connor playing a John Garfield role! What's the point of having Dick Van Dyke?? Fred Macmurray would have been plenty for this role. Dick does look smashing in a tux but that's about it.

I was also excited because he's partnering with the lovely Barbara Feldon, however their romance makes no sense to me, neither was there any funny scenes between them.

Even though it has a great premise, as a comedy it is barely funny at all, and it's also too long. As for organized crime it's not really clever enough, more "hanky panky" than "Grand Budapest". I could picture a way better version of this story, starring Cary Grant probably..

BEAUTIFULLY shot. Great musical performances. Witty and humorous lines, Oscar Levant got some pretty good one-liners. Joan Crawfords was gorgeous as ever! Even though her eyebrows were a little too thick (I find her eyebrows perfect in A Woman's Face).

However the story doesn't really hold up, nor does the characters. Especially the mother? probably the worst mother on earth. Gina? Her role is very ineffective. Helen? I felt this role was too weak for Crawford, also very unreasonable. The acting was also stiff and contrived. John Garfield as a violinist wasn't convincing to me (maybe he's too deadpan?), and there's no chemistry between him and Crawford.

All women in this movie are pretty and stupid (all they seem to do is falling in love with the wrong men). All men are handsome and stupid (and bastards except for Mr.Rice). As a melodrama, it tries to be very dramatic, perhaps too dramatic. The result is blunt, predictably corny and unconvincing.

As a New Yorker myself, the first 17mins of Caroline's first day reminds me of my days working as a secretary in Manhattan. The crowded elevator, the intimidating boss, I thought this movie is about three hard-working girls going after their careers in NYC while balancing their love lives(sounds right, right? Because New York offers "the best of everything"). Unfortunately the "career" part in this movie never really took off, and the "love lives" turn out a complete mess.

Just to name a few ridiculous moments: after a year and being promoted to Editor, Caroline still lives in half a living room? Immediately after she was dumped and had a miscarriage, April starts a relationship with her doctor?? Not to mention how they became friends with their bosses within just a few days at their new job. And did Gregg die or what??? Actually, I couldn't care less, I'm a New Yorker.

That said, there are some beautiful artistic shots, and the costumes are pretty nice too.

As the movie started I didn't think I'd make it through the whole thing: disturbing images, religion, 17th century. Nothing I'm particularly interested in (I downloaded the movie to watch Vanessa Redgrave, and oh she should have won 20 awards for this movie! So should Oliver Reed!!). Turns out it's an epic, powerful, and in some degrees heart-warming dramatic masterpiece. As a classic Ken Russell movie, it's packed with "fun":orgies, dances, dark humors. The lines are witty, the characters are vivid, the emotions are fiery. To my surprise it is also very relatable: it's about how the system deceives and tortures the people, it's about a man who stands for the truth. The executor scene brought tears to my eyes, and I had to take a few deep breathes afterwards to cool down. Ken Russell once proved that he does not only make "music video" movies, he's truly great story teller, and oh what a story!

As a big fan of James L Brooks and the many TV shows and movies he has created, I hated this movie. It is like he stuffed the "The Mary Tyler Moore show" into a simmering pot: the intimidating, annoying, OCD producer "Mary"(I really like Holly Hunter but hated her in this movie); "Murray" the sensitive, affectionate, humorous colleague who's trying to get promoted; an actually professional and charming tho still style over substance anchorman "Ted Baxter", and even a "Sue Ann" with a big closet. (More precisely, the last 3 seasons of MTM, when the show sort of turned into "The newsroom show" itself. ) A great deal of the plot resembles the TV show: "Murray" falls in love with "Mary", "Mary" gets a big promotion, and the dramatic ending too (not to spoil too much)! He added some this and that, spiced everything up, gave "Mary" a little more character, put in some more romance etc. After that, he puts on the "head" and "tail", and that's it.

Let MTM aside and speaking the movie itself, the opening "childhood" scenes seems unnecessary and irrelevant, (Although the opening does do a great job at arising my interest in the movie, it's cute and sort of a joke on the people that work in news) none of the characters reflected any of the scenes later in the movie. The ending is corny and doesn't really add anything to the movie or whatever it is that it's trying to express.

The rest, the plot, is complicated and confusing: At first I thought this was a movie about the "newsroom", the news staff family and the excitement of broadcasting news. Which makes sense because the name is "Broadcast News". And indicating from the opening scene, the three characters are identified by their professions, instead of "future girl in love" "future best friend of girl""future man the girl's in love with". Then, I thought this is a love story: he loves her, but she loves him, and he loves somebody else...then, I thought it's really about friendship: she's been in love with the wrong man the whole time, maybe she will go to the one who really loves her...I thought I'd found out in the end, but the ending doesn't explain or define anything.

It's none and maybe all of them, and it doesn't do any of them well. There's no clear plot, just random events happening and emotions flying around. In all it's flavorful but hard to swallow.

I wasn't inspired nor touched perhaps a little stimulated by the intensity of the news room, which I expected but not getting nearly enough. And comedy? Yes there were one-liners and a mild slapstick scene, but then I might as well just watch the MTM.

This is truly a great Christmas themed episode, it's got everything a Christmas episode needs: all(and only) six of the main characters, a delicious Christmas dinner for everyone at the table(a almost murder-mystery-solving setting), three classic Christmas songs that's perfect for each situation, and most importantly, a happy jolly ending. All while maintaining a strong, clear plot, filled with emotions. And as always, there are enough bits and one- liners(and funny hats) to keep us entertained.

Here's the story/emotion line:#

It started out rather slow: a bit of tension occurred, while Murray wrote "around the world and around the corner" but Ted wanted it the other way around, which greatly upsets Murray. *As a comedian myself, it's easy to understand why Murray's so upset over such small matter. "news from around the world",is the normal, also the premise; "around the corner", indicating Ted picks up news off the streets, is the punchline. It's Murray's little joke. And the premise and punchline can not switch place or it wouldn't be a joke.

(PS: It was then followed by a scene in which Murray walks into Mary when she's wearing a bath towel. Later in S07E11, there's a similar but much stronger scene where Lou walks to Mary when she's still in the tub.)

The tension then builds up: Murray's mad at Mary's indecision, Lou's mad at Mary's inability, Mary's mad at her coworkers in having doubts in her, everyone's mad at Ted, and Ted's mad at Murray for starting the whole thing...The whole WJM family is mad at each other! (which has never happened before or after!)

Just when the tension's at it's peak, it was forced into a complete contradicting jolly mood at the Christmas table.

The tensions were reflected and enhanced when they started singing the Christmas carol "12 days of Christmas". I also found funny that Murray gets the line "A Partridge in a Pear Tree", which is kind of an echo of "around the world and around the corner".

Then the tension broke out and fell into silence, timely followed by Georgette's classic "Silent Night".

At last the tension faded away, with Ted pointing out "how can they be so lousy on Christmas of all days". They realized it is actually "the season to be jolly", bursting into another classic "Deck the hall".#

Once again it's great writing, great set up, great built-up, great insertion of songs, and great Christmas spirit!