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Reviews
Flightplan (2005)
Disappointing
Any movie with Jodie Foster is well worth watching and this is no exception. But the plot, which borrows a clue from one of Hitchcock's earlier and best thrillers, follows the current vogue of confusing the audience. I'm not just talking red herrings. I'm talking "What on earth is happening?" Perhaps this is a good thing, as the part that CAN be followed is a little hackneyed. Still, it is well done and the movie almost pulls it off, despite some far-fetched scenarios.
But I was thoroughly disappointed to have the plane make an unscheduled landing in Canada where all the police action is carried out by the FBI. What happened to the stalwart RCMP? There were a few officers standing around rather haplessly in what looked like Mountie uniforms. Since I have not, thank goodness, been in exactly that situation myself, I don't know if that would be the expected procedure, but I seriously doubt it and was surprised Foster would be a film that would make such a goof. They could have had the plane diverted to another American landing field if they were determined to have U.S. law officers get the kudos.
Submerged (2005)
Submerged
We are usually Steve Seagal fans but as time goes by, we find the plots get murkier and murkier and harder to follow. The director was over-enamored with jerky forwards; this device can be used to effect but not if done too often.
Most disturbing, however, was that early on I could no longer suspend my disbelief when the action takes place in Uruguay and they showed Mayan ruins (the Mayans lived in Central America and Uruguay is northeast of Argentina). Shortly thereafter one of Seagal's crew sits down to drive a submarine and notes in dismay that the instructions are in Spanish. Hello? The instructions are in Italian.
Also, even though most of the inter-acting protagonists were Americans, Spanish is the language spoken in Uruguay. I think I detected about two words in Spanish; it did not lend to the over-all authenticity.
Identity (2003)
Convoluted film
This movie started out with promise but it did not play fair to the viewer. Maybe it chose to be one of those plots that leave the audience puzzled, but it is not my cup of tea. And just because the state of the art means we can have loud
sounds and sound effects doesn't mean these have to occur in every frame! Less is more--therefore, a less confusing plot line would have been more
enjoyable. The judge review scenario at the end was not convincing, but I can't say why here without being a spoiler.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
A joyful film
This movie is life as it should be. Never mind that it is an exaggeration. A movie is a poem, life blown up hugely on the screen and yet paradoxically boiled down to its essence. In this case, any truly nasty overtones are glossed over because love conquers all.
At first it bothered me that Nia Vardalos's character "Toula" made such a sudden transformation. It seemed as though she shuffles frumpily around the Greek family restaurant in a state of apathy for the first 30 years of her life until one day she meets "Ian," the non-Greek schoolteacher who laughs, actually laughs, at her joke. All of a sudden she gets up the energy to pursue a computer course, during which time she metamorphoses awfully quickly into an attractive butterfly. But the point is that Ian and her new classmates see her as an individual, not as a small cog in the mighty machine of the Greek community she belongs to.
It seems a little hard to believe that Toula's father could be quite so old-fashioned in modern-day Chicago. But running a restaurant must consume his entire life and he hasn't had a chance to evolve beyond it. When he does think of other things it involves the panacea that he perceives Windex to be plus the fact that virtually all words in English have their roots in the Greek language.
The Windex is a good metaphor in this case, as Ian the bridegroom is clearly embracing his bride's Greek culture and the Greek family/father-in-law. And so when both bride and groom get a zit on the morning of their wedding day, Toula covers hers with makeup. Ian's clears up rapidly because he has sprayed it with
Windex.
A young man as sophisticated, in the best sense of the word, must get at least some of his attitudes from his upper-crust Anglo family, so, again, his parents seem somewhat exaggeratedly two-dimensional and stiff. (Fiona Reid is a wonderful actress and I would say her talents are wasted, but she plays the role of Ian's mother--as a well-meaning society matron of narrow parameters--to perfection, so she is putting her skills to good, if limited, use.)
The film is not flawless but it is funny, genuinely funny. When Ian walks into the travel agency where she is working, Toula's flustered attempt to rise and get some brochures is cut short by the fact that she is still attached to the telephone head set, which brings her down ignominously. It is a more original variation of the classic young-boy-ogles-blonde-and-crashes-into-the-wall trick. Audiences love these because they identify with them. Who hasn't been embarrassed while trying to look cool around an attractive member of the opposite sex?
When the wedding guests get up to dance the Greek dance, to the Greek tune, with the Greek family, that's the moment when everyone wants to be there at that wedding. And wishes, if only for a moment, to be Greek.
Even if this is an unabashedly feel-good movie, I wanted it to go on and on.
John Q (2002)
A morality tale
This film is an archetypal morality tale. The bad guys and the good guys are two-dimensional. The plot devolves from a young child urgently requiring a new heart, while the hospital and insurance authorities are heartless. Hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) gives a Cruela DeVil-lanous performance. The heart surgeon (James Woods) must have ice sludging through his veins.
Denzel Washington (John Q. Archibald) is, good, so good it is hard to believe he could really snap to such a degree. Conversely, could those mavens of Mammon truly have such--pardon the expression--change of heart at story's end?
The Archibalds are slowly losing their shirts, but even so, their lifestyle would look good to most Third World denizens. Indeed, however, events belie the apparent apple-pie order of their universe. In this Garden of Eden, there is a serpent called the HMO, and the hero has been poisoned by its fangs. The contrast between the gleaming hospital and its shabby, profit-oriented medical ethos is glaring.
There is even a Greek chorus: onlookers outside the hospital cheer and boo as events dictate. But suspense remains high, and although we know we have been manipulated, it is in such a good cause that by movie's end we feel vindicated. We even feel like applauding. If only real life could be like that. Therein lies the value of the tale.
Unchained (1955)
A memorable film
The plot details are a little hazy to me, because I saw this movie in my early teens. But I do recall that I was tremendously moved by it and have always looked for it on small screen. So far, I have not seen it, but that doesn't mean it was not available.
At the time I saw the film, I was so impressed with the thought of a relatively low security, more humane prison. I was very young and it was the first time I saw anything that made me think of convicts as human beings.
Even though I do like the music, ironically at the time I thought it had unsatisfying lyrics (Unchained Melody, that is).
I don't think a film impressed me so much again until I saw Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. These films illustrate much more powerfully than any documentary what the human spirit can conquer.