advixen Reviews

Word World (2007–2011)

as someone who grew up on 70s kid TV: I LOVE THIS SHOW!

[24 August 2011]

...and I'm 40 yrs old! I really like to watch with my nieces and nephew, because they're learning to read (2 have been learning and 1 isn't ready yet). From a learning perspective, it helps because the kids have been shown the spelling out and *creation* of a word, so when we're practicing their reading, I can get them to spell & sound out much easier when I remind them of that visual from Word World.

Aesthetically, I like the imagination in the creators. Every new word they build, I wonder what the final product will look like, and am always surprised. My fave has to be dog's HOUSE.... you ever notice that the open windows in the O sorta make the HOUSE into DOGHOUSE?

I also really like the song that Ant & Pig sing in the playground about how 2 friends can say "I like you" just by playing together in the playground.. so true, so simple! And since they can't use the seesaw well, and ant can't reach the swing, they build a slide.

I loved the vintage Electric Company, and this is one of the only shows I've seen that honors that phonics method of showing words being built (remember "sl....ide.... slide; bl....ind....blind; k... ind... kind")

While many kids' shows teach important values in their stories, or teach words, I love that WordWorld teaches within the context of their clever stories and songs. Well worth every kid and grownup watching, as well as its awards!

Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith (2009 TV Movie)

an actual Smithie says "so-so"

[2/10 · 27 September 2009]

Having gone to Smith, I wasn't impressed with the movie.

They couldn't have found a location even *remotely* New England? Smith is a gorgeous, extraordinarily photogenic, community of learning for women; it's not across the globe, the standard California university buildings are NOT a stand-in. Someone should have put their foot down instead of going for a realism.

The love triangle story was an INSULT to the women who attend these colleges! This is not high school, where the girls cat fight over the dreamy poetry teacher! As we Smithies say, Smith is not a girls' school without men, it's a WOMENS COLLEGE WITHOUT BOYS. While I praise the older women for not giving up on love, the screenwriter showed no finesse or originality in tapping out this drivel.

The movie gets a 2 for bringing to light the very real and admirable Ada Comstock Scholars program at Smith College that draws "non-traditional age" students to the campus. And, as a matter of fact, these students may integrate as much or as little as she chooses, so a 20 year old roommate could happen.

Only watch this movie if you're a Cybill Shepherd fan, or want to be inspired by the groundbreaking Ada Comstock Scholars program offered at Smith College

Primal Fear (1996)

The birth of a star and the resurrection of another

[8 May 2004]

It's not often that viewers get a chance to watch a star being born - that a talented unknown actor's performance that is so spectacular it leads to the A-list in one role is rare: Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise to name a recent few. But Edward Norton's turn as the "defendant/victim" in Primal Fear is one of those "Wow" moments that leaves the audience salivating for his next performance. In this feature debut, Norton outdistances his role, as does Richard Gere, in a resurrection no less impressive than Norton's star-making turn. Heretofore, Gere has specialized in assorted intelligent professional cad roles. Here, he gets a chance to inhabit one that not only wears his dubious character on his sleeve, but wears it, drives it, drinks it... revels in it. Yeah, sure somewhere there's a heart of gold, but like his client, the layers on top serve him better, and the heart of gold is tarnished. Gere is at his peak, comfortably, cheerfully inhabiting the role.

Laura Linney deserves extra credit for often being the ice-queen foil which propels the two male characters' development; her own character is rather one- dimensional, but she herself squeezes as much dazzle as she can from it. Even though everyone else obviously falls for whatever Gere's Vail purrs into their ears, it's merely enough time for Linney's Janet to get a drag on her ubiquitous cigarette; another step in what will (hopefully) someday be film's love affair with her. Wasted, sadly, are fine character actors like John Mahoney, Steven Bauer, Maura Tierney & Andre Braugher who could have lit up the screen had they not been handed scripts with generic character stereotypes.

See it to watch the ascension of Norton and Gere.

Dynamite (1929)

Historical/Hysterical

[8 April 2004]

One of the best of the early de Mille works - given that most of those films featured the same stable of actors. You get to see the last glimpses of that Golden Age before the stock market crash led to the Depression (when a relay comprised of women rolling themselves along a track inside giant hoops passed for racing excitement, probably since horse racing, like alcohol, had been banned in the US at that time) Stunning costumes and Art Deco details (lucite and sequins and pincurls, oh my!) provide welcome diversion from the inconceivable plot - although the two female leads and their society set planning one's divorce so the other can marry the ex-husband is racy!

Of interest especially is the fact that you can recognize the stage training of many of the actors brought to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and how wooden previously silent actors can be when given voice. Also interesting is the characters' flagrant flouting of Prohibition, which still had 4 years left - after all, this was "pre-Code" Hollywood when there wasn't a censor to be found!

Most significant is the sound. The scene which annoys modern viewers is the chaos in the jailhouse wedding scene. However, this is one of the first instances of layered sound: the hammering of the gallows over the prisoner's singing over the wedding vows was a first for a medium that had gone talkie only a year & a half earlier.

So watch it for the details, not the drama