Ten Again

Here is what I have watched on DVD since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system explained previously in this blog. Those watched via Netflix instant view, now include “Streamed” after the numeric rating.

Watching a series on DVD can use up a lot of Netflix mailings, but since my mail queue is so small, I am going to add more series disks from my library list to that queue. The library list is still not being used for actual borrowing. It is tempting to add lots of items to the instant view queue, but not that easy to find the time to watch them.

Lark Rise to Candleford – 2008.  (3.5) I caught some current episodes of this third year BBC series about life in small town England during the late 19th century and was captivated. We have now watched the first two seasons on DVD. Good writing inspired by memoirs, fine acting by an excellent cast and expected production values and direction make this another British winner. The episodes written by the series creator, which are my favorites, revolve around the ensemble cast,whereas episodes from other writers usually involve guest actors in one time roles.

Facing Ali – 2009.  (3.3)   As a contemporary of Muhammad Ali, I followed his boxing career and also paid close attention to his political statements, particularly his opposition to the war in Vietnam. This story has been told in film in many ways, but this documentary found a new approach, using interviews with ten men who fought Ali and who were changed by the experience. Ali was not interviewed, but was shown via restored archival footage. The interviewees were chosen because their fights with Ali also had a transformative affect on him. Some of these men have held up better than others, but they, like Ali, have all paid a health price because of their combat in the ring.

The Most Dangerous Man in America – 2009.  (3.3)  Streamed. When Daniel Ellsberg stole incriminating documents from his employer, the Rand Corporation, an analytic contractor for the Defense Department, I had long been opposed to the War in Vietnam and was not surprised by the fraud and deceit our government had engaged in to fool the American public into supporting that shameful venture, so I never followed very closely the story of the man and how his action played out. This documentary filled in that information, showing who Ellsberg was back then and the man he has been since then. As for the story, the audio recordings of the reaction of the profane Richard Nixon are fascinating, and the professional courage of the many newspapers who published the Pentagon Papers in the face of government litigation is encouraging. Young Idaho Democrat Senator Frank Church also showed heroism in submitting the Papers into the Congressional Record. An interesting tale, well presented, but not quite good enough for four stars. 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – 1958.  (3.2)  Writing a movie script from a stage play is a lot easier than writing one from a novel. However, the constraints of stage sets can make such movies feel static, and the dialogue is so continuous that such a film cannot help but be very talkative. This movie of the Tennessee Williams Pulitzer prize winner had young Paul Newman and young but more experienced Elizabeth Taylor, with Burl Ives in his most noted role, and a good supporting cast, all of whom performed quite effectively. The movie holds its age well and kept my attention. The only distraction was the technically poor editing, with many adjoining shots not matching across the cuts. That may have been due to fewer takes of shots with Liz, after her husband Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash early in filming, leaving the editor Ferris Webster, a three time Academy Award nominee and editor of many Clint Eastwood films, with less footage for matching.

9/11: Press for Truth – 2006  (3.1)  Streamed.  I remember watching the group of 9/11 surviving family members who pushed for an independent commission to investigate, and the commission being appointed and doing its job and the bi-partisan co-chairs being celebrated for their accomplishments, but I cannot remember much of anything about what the commission found. This documentary tries to explain the push for the commission, the resistance by the Bush administration and the poor job done by the commission and the media, with one exception. The exception was a History Commons website which continuously monitored all sources and maintained the best time line of what happened. Footage of the inept George Bush and the evil Dick Cheney renewed disgust, and the pain and resolve of the widows were touching, but the documentary would have been better if it just covered the most interesting points of what the time line reveals.

The Dwelling Place – 1994. (2.9) Another Catherine Cookson based melodrama from the BBC, this time about a poor orphaned teenager in the 1830s raising her younger siblings and being pursued by two men from different classes, this film managed to produce some sympathetic emotion for the plight of the girl and her siblings but did not rise beyond that.

Laila’s Birthday – 2008. (2.8)  Streamed. In this fairly short Arabic language, we spend Laila’s birthday following her father as he drives a taxi around Palestine, interacting in a frustrating way with a variety of passengers, officials and other people. Part of his frustration is due to the fact he was a judge who returned to Palestine, after ten years away, to help in the administration of  the legal system, but because of a foul up he is not able do what he intended, and must drive a taxi instead. The film is like a tour of Palestine, which does give a feel for the confusion and chaos, midst a thin plot line with no character development.

The Matchmaker – 1997. (2.8) A US Senator struggling for re-election sends his aide, Janeane Garofalo to find some small village kin in Ireland for some family values photo ops. She experiences culture shock and a frustrating search, all of which could have made a much better movie, but this script failed to capitalize on the opportunities. The scenic locales and quirky village residents make it passable.

Taking Woodstock – 2009.  (2.4)  Ang Lee has directed some fine films, but this is not one of them. The main problem here is the script, which jumps all over the place in this telling of how the son of floundering motel owners in upstate New York became a link in the process of bringing the iconic Festival into reality. The film makers said the Woodstock story is too big to tell directly, so they tried to do it by having us experience it through this young man, who ultimately never even made it to the show. I suggest viewers not bother to make it to this film.

Revolutionary Road – 2008.  (2.2)  Based on a 1961 novel about a disenchanted suburban Connecticut couple in the 1950s, this story took almost 50 years to make it to the screen. I have not read the novel, but I have read about it in the film reviews and I expect it was a hard book to make into a movie. But even so, this script was a shambles, as if someone was trying to cook something by using some of the ingredients from the recipe, improperly measured and cooked the wrong temperature. The young screenwriter is credited as writing only one other film, which also seems to have been not good. The acting and direction were immaterial to me, since the script was so bad that after giving it a chance for the first 15 minutes, I could see that it was making no sense and generating no interest. But because John from Phoenix liked it, I watched it all the way through, which only confirmed my initial impression. In fairness, the book apparently is about a couple who seem not to have a sense of themselves, so perhaps the movie captured some of that confusion, but it sure did not make for good cinema.