Change Your Image
carolinecuny
Reviews
It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
It's Always Fair Weather
I did not enjoy this movie. While the plot was simple enough, it was extremely boring and predictable. And it being a musical just dragged it out that much longer, although I suppose they did that just so they could show off their 3 screen technology in the most flashy way possible. The thing that annoyed me the most about this movie was the woman, Jackie. For the first half of the movie she is an independent woman who doesn't fall for and of Ted's dumb moves or tricks. Then all of the sudden, simply because he corrects a Shakespeare quote that she throws in her faces, she is infatuated with him. What is the point of making her self-sufficient in the first place? Just so she can be tamed by Ted? That is my biggest pet peeve about a movie, when a character acts one way in the beginning, and then, for no legitimate reason, changes to the complete opposite of what they were in the beginning. In fact all of the main characters in this movie go through this. They are all seemingly content with their lives, and then when they meet up with their old friends they suddenly have a change of heart and decide their lives aren't as good as they thought. And while maybe their lives could have used a little improvement, you don't change that drastically in one day. Their was just very little depth to these characters and I couldn't make myself care about anything they did. Maybe the reason it was a musical was because they couldn't find a way to expand on their shallow characters so they had to use the songs to fill time, or it would have been a very short (which may have made it better) film.
True Heart Susie (1919)
True Heart Susie
I enjoyed True Heart Susie. Despite some slightly outdated points of view, like the fact that Susie just waits around for a man and gives everything she has to be with him, and the fact that Bettina is scandalous for dancing, all in all it was a pretty sweet story. It was sad how William would never kiss Susie, although he had no problem kissing her Aunt. I also found it peculiar that the only way William could end it with Bettina was that she had to die. Even though he suspected her of foul play and was starting to discover that he really loved Susie, to end it with her would have been scandalous. Now days in a movie, he would probably discover her in the act of cheating and divorce her. One of the most interesting things about this movie to me was the title cards. I didn't realize this until after the movie was over and we were discussing it in class the next day but an explanation for the title cards being the way they were was that they were describing the characters from their own perspectives. So when it calls Susie plain, that is because that is how Susie sees herself. Another example of this was when the title describes Bettina as "a little unfaithful." During the movie I was a little confused by this, because the whole movie had been portraying Bettina as an evil harlot, and then all of the sudden she is just "a little unfaithful." The explanation that the title card is her image of herself makes a lot more sense. An other part of the movie that I found funny, was the cooking scene when Bettina overcooks the meat that looks disgusting, and Susie makes the amazing meal. That is the beginning of when William begins to develop feelings for Susie.