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Reviews
Leap Year (2010)
Déjà vu
This is a pretty clear remake of 1945's "I Know Where I'm Going" starring Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey. Produced by The Archers, the British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, it's a well-loved cinema classic. With a few superficial changes (Irish not Scottish, romance becomes romcom), it retains the basic structure and event sequence, although the actual events are different, as are the names and statuses of the characters. I saw no reference to the earlier film in "Leap Year's" credits, but I invite anyone to watch both and see for themselves. Both are quite watchable.
My wife pointed all this out to me during the Leap Year credit roll, and I was shocked that I hadn't caught it myself, it's so up-front.
Moving On: A Walk in My Shoes (2019)
POV of a narcissist. *SPOILER*
While sharing in the general high level of quality of the series for acting, direction, etc., this episode falls short on concept. A young woman, formerly homeless, destitute and abusing drugs, has now begun to emerge from that vulnerable state, helped by a local social services agency, for which she has begun to volunteer.
Despite her practicing thievery while up against it, when she emerges from homelessness she adopts an attitude of new-convert self-righteousness with respect to the employees of the agency, themselves only slightly more secure than herself.
She is embarrassed by her disappointing of a friend to whom she'd made an ill-considered promise. She accepts no blame, instead complaining to her supervisor, and then to theirs, over a small perk taken by a coworker, with an implicit threat to the reputation and viability of the agency, itself run on a shoestring. Her holier than thou attitude threatens to slam shut the door through which she had so recently passed, and to take the food from her former mates' mouths. Functionally, it looks as if she's blackmailing the agency for a coveted paying job - that of her "corrupt" coworker.
Seeing their position, they offer her a slot. Will she accept it and confirm her hypocricy? Will she refuse and display her self-absorbed cluelessness? At this point it hardly matters to the viewer.
The Stand at Paxton County (2020)
What's driving this?
The story has a strong emotional core and point of view, but the objective events shown can tell a different story than the "pinko-elites vs we the people" presented here.
The creepy ending sequence, where a fat cat in a suit expounds to a darkened meeting room that, despite minor setbacks, their ultimate success is inevitable, made me wonder. Who are these guys in that meeting? They're not lefty animal lovers, nor are they corrupt local officials. The fat cat looks and sounds like a cartoon banker or CEO.
Then I noticed that the story is based on events in Stark County, ND (Paxton County is fictitious), which is located on the Bakken oil shale formation!
This scene doesn't change the corrupt predator storyline, but it bumps the level of corruption up to a higher, richer plane.
I wondered how a law like this Title 23 could get passed in a state like North Dakota? Not your leftwing stronghold. The usual answer - big money, with powerful local and national interests - works here. Who would those interests rather have to deal with: Ranching families with generationally successful operations, or failed spreads, desperate for money? Title 23, ruining rancher families, driving them to sell out to the oilmen, while providing a handy left-wing paper villain, is a win-win for powerful petro.
Business in America is done legally, but who writes the laws?