hannahma57 Reviews

One Million Years B.C. (1966)

DUMB

[2/10 · 12 June 2023]

We thought this was a stupid movie when it first came out, and time has not been any kinder. From the start, where large dinos (that had been extinct for 65 million years) were wandering around the rocky desert where there was absolutely nothing to eat, followed by good sized tribes of homo sapiens (who wouldn't evolve for another 750,000 years) wandering around a rocky desert were there was absolutely nothing to eat, except herbivorous goats who survived in a rocky desert where there were absolutely no plants to eat.... the whole things was so irritating, including the lame and clumsy animations by Harryhausen, the cave paintings copied from those of 17,0000 years ago, the volcano shooting out obvious gasoline flames.... as for the fur bikinis, "Raquel Welch and a big ho hum, she's not the sex I'm opposite from."

The Wild Bunch (1969)

it's racist and sexist, too

[2/10 · 17 April 2023]

Among the many things wrong with this Western, that probably stands out more as the years go by, is that most of the action takes place in a Mexico that probably never existed. According to this flick, all the women in Mexican villages are young and lovely, no plain or fat ones, except for one mama and one crone. Actual Mexican women were closely kept before (and after) marriage, but in this flick, they are all tramps, who laughingly go with any smelly bandit for money, or just for fun. All relationships with women are doomed because they are usually promiscious tramps, and so on.

The violence is realistic, with actual blood; that was new then, and it's not a bad idea to show that actual gunfiights resut in holes in your body out of which all your blood runs as you lie dying. You don't artistically grab your chest and fall down tidily.

Ugh.

Ghosts of Mars (2001)

UGH

[1/10 · 26 August 2018]

I walked out of this gobbler after about 30 minutes. The violence was just too disgusting.

Tunes of Glory (1960)

kilty dancing

[15 August 2018]

Saw this as a kid, and though I didn't retain much memory of the strife between the officers, I was quite impressed that in this regiment, dancing practice was compulsory.

Helen of Troy (1956)

get out your Homer, kids

[4/10 · 1 May 2018]

Another sword 'n sandals epic from the 50s, that I'd never heard of till Turner Classic Movies. Agree with everyone's sneers at the wooden blondies in the starring roles and gay ignorance of the immortal story of Homer's. What I dislike the most was the rotten parody of Hector's farewell to Andromache, the most moving passage in the whole epic. The baby son (about a year old in Homer, around five in the movie) is frightened by "the fierce plume that nodded from (Hector's) helmet." A real prince of five would have no fear of helmets: ( Alexander killed his first man when he was twelve), nor would his father say anything like "may he never need one." Homer has Hector laugh and dandle the baby saying, "may he be a great hero, a better man than his father." They also leave out the parting comment of wise Andromache "as far the host, place them by the fig tree, where the wall is weakest." There actually is such a weak spot in the excavated walls of Bronze Age Troy.

Goin' Down the Road (1970)

not bad for the times

[5/10 · 14 April 2018]

When my husband watched this with me, he looked at Pete's weary face and remarked, "that's a real Maritime mug." I myself was touched by the character of Joey at the record shop, listening spellbound to Eric Satie's "Gymnopedie."

They Live by Night (1948)

nice music

[5/10 · 19 March 2018]

A brief episode, when the young couple on the run visit a roadhouse, features an African-American band and the terrific singer Marie Bryant performing "It's Your Red Wagon". Unusual bit of Southern jazz singng for a 1950s all-white movie. Perhaps it was deliberately meant as a sign that the pair are "slumming", but the script has them enjoying a posh night on the town... the kind of entertainment that was seldom available to working class types like them. It was touching to think of black entertainers, presumably still in Mississipi, being happier and more fortunate than the white characters.

Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (1951)

lame even for its time

[3/10 · 30 November 2017]

I agree with the other reviewers that the good production values of Fifties musicals made these formula pictures tolerable; the dancing, the dated but okay singing, the cross-eyed beauty of Virginia Mayo, whom I had heard of only as a mediocre actress in B pictures. Unfortunately, this is such a compendium of tiresome stereotypes that I just couldn't stand it. Three women (always referred to as girls, of course). portrayed as whores who are looking to trade their favours for money, i.e rich husbands whose only attraction is money, end up falling for the male leads who don't all have money. A German immigrant with hideously fractured English. Wallace Ford chewing the rug, floors, walls and ceiling as a rootin' tootin' cowpoke (real Texans would puke). A straight arrow Bostonian, humourless and rigid, seduced by a blonde. One of the things I like best about feminism is that I live in a culture where women can build careers and self-worth all by themselves, and selling yourself to a man for money is no longer considered lotsa fun.

The Lively Set (1964)

awful

[30 November 2017]

I saw this bow-wow at a drive-in when I was about 15. I thought then that Pamela Tiffin was the worst actress I had ever seen. The male reviewers are all bewitched by her looks, but I've seen granite boulders that were more interesting actors. James Darren was a pretty face who wasn't much of an actor, but he did manage to do better than his co-stars-- a dim starlet and a car.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Facts distorted for the sake of movie making

[5/10 · 17 November 2017]

As others have pointed out, Nash did not have any visual hallucinations; so the entire business with the imaginary people he kept "seeing" was made up by screenwriters. I've known a lot of schizophrenics in my years as a physician, and none of them had visual hallucinations- such visions are very rare. Almost all of them had paranoid delusions of conspiracies against them, and almost all heard voices, which is what Nash experienced. Usually the voices are condemnatory and frightening. It's hard to show that visually, so the screenwriters make up completely bogus "symptoms" that are a false depiction of what schizophrenics actually suffer. No sense arguing back and forth about whether the movie's depiction of Nash's ordeal is believable. It isn't what actually happened to him.

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

sentimental slop

[5/10 · 16 February 2017]

As already noted, excellent production values, Technicolor, a creditable performance by Rock Hudson as compared to the rug-chewing of the Jane Wyman. Points off for the dumb-ass plot and heavenly choirs jabbing their elbows into your consciousness in case you weren't weeping correctly at the sloshy parts.

What I hated the most (I'm a doctor) were the most unbelievable aspects of the so-called plot: surgeons are not really all self-sacrificing saints; there is no such thing as a "resuscitator", the McGuffin on which the whole movie hangs; subdural hematomas don't make you blind; there aren't any intracranial "fibromas" that can suddenly throw you into a coma, are diagnosable with a ten-second bedside visit without any imaging, and are amenable to surgery that restores your sight; and even in the 1950's people didn't spend a month in hospital with pneumonia. It's like all those TV medical dramas: I keep wanting to throw things at the screen and yell "Bullshit!" Lloyd Douglas, the author of the book this gobbler was based on, was an MD. I assume he didn't have script approval.

Boys Town (1938)

rug-chewing mellerdrama

[2/10 · 4 February 2017]

One point for Spencer Tracy doing what he can with a bum script. But Mickey Rooney's toweringly awful ham performance sinks the movie. Even in the thirties people must have been exchanging uncomfortable glances or staring up at the ceiling during Rooney's multiple scenes of yelling, outrageously bogus sobbing, defiant bullying and generally chewing the rug. Bar none, the worst acting ever to hit the screen.

It would be nice to have a real movie about Boys Town with some other adults besides Flanagan in it, some details about the misery of street kids in those days, and perhaps a word or two about the total lack of any Girls Town back in the day, though the fate of female street kids has always been grim.

Shenandoah (1965)

a mass of clichés

[4/10 · 29 January 2017]

I remember seeing this film when it came out, seated next to my father. The scene came along when the son lies wounded and a black Union soldier is about to bayonet him -- when suddenly they realize! He's a former slave of the white family! The faithful old-- oops, I mean young-- retainer spares his massa's life, etc etc. As he stands poised over the fallen kid with his bayonet and his eyes light up, my father muttered, "The Long Arm of Coincidence."

A reviewer at the time felt no deeply religious guy of the time would address his late wife by staring at her tombstone. He would consider her to be up in heaven.

Other than that, a predictable script full of dirty-faced but brave Confederates and clean but alien Yankees.

Svengali (1931)

spiced ham

[5/10 · 2 January 2017]

I'd always wanted to see this famous story, and the much-praised John Barrymore. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past all the outrageously bogus fake beards on everybody, plus the preposterous fake nose Svengali sports, the imitation Yiddish accent, the crude caricatures of the expostulating Italians and so on. Kinda wrecks it for us moderns who are used to decent production . Remember when Spencer Tracy refused to grow a stubble beard for"The Old Man and the Sea?" The director protested that hero was at sea without shaving for a week and had to grow a beard. Tracy said, "I'll ACT the beard." If only Barrymore had made the same choice.

The Blue Bird (1976)

a gold turkey

[4/10 · 17 January 2016]

I confess I haven't seen this flick but it got a Gold Turkey Award from the National Lampoon's terrific book of the same name, calling this movie one of the worst ever made. S.J.Perelman once dismissed a silent version of The Admirable Crichton with the phrase, "I won't bother with the plot, which was paltry, or the acting, which was aboriginal" and the Lampoon was pretty similar. They quoted Cicely Tyson as complaining that Russian cinematographer didn't know how to light black actors, so her face simply disappeared into the shadows. They concluded that Maeterlinck's famous tale was unfilmable and that all the movie versions were awful. I look forward to seeing this gobbler someday.

Firefox (1982)

Ken Colley rocks

[2 May 2007]

If you liked Admiral Piett, you'll love British actor Kenneth Colley as Colonel Kontarsky, the hardheaded KGB officer. Given a limited role as a heavy, he does some actual acting, coming off as a delightful sinister toughie who al....most catches the spy.

I don't agree with the reviewer who accuses the KGB characters of enjoying their torture of suspects. They have a job to do and they do it. They aren't sadists, they just don't care about the suffering they cause. Kontarsky is a career officer who can't stand it when his underlings don't produce. The one junior officer who obviously knows what he's doing irritates him because Kontarsky's helplessness is shown up.

Getting back to Colley, he does okay with the silly-ass Russian accent he is forced to use (God forbid we should have to read any subtitles) and, as ever, looks good in tall black boots, yum yum.

Eastwood, in my opinion, simply walks through the role in his usual way.

Tumbleweed (1953)

childhood crush revisited

[23 July 2004]

I'm pretty sure this is the movie I saw when I was six years old,with my three sisters that caused my baby heart to go pittypat for Audie Murphy. For years the four of us argued about who would grow up first and marry him. I recall an interesting bondage scene where he has been tied up by the Indians; an old woman takes pity on him and releases him. Why I didn't get warped for life by my keen interest in this, I don't know. All of us eventually grew taller than Murphy and outgrew the crushes too. Murphy's movies are surprisingly suitable for children. He was a fine natural actor and I notice he generally takes a high moral tone. Notice how often there is a message of racial tolerance, with Indians being portrayed as rounded characters with genuine grievances, oppressed by an uncaring or racist white government.