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Reviews
Super Friends (1973)
I, too, got up early every Saturday morning...
...to watch this show. First was Muhammad Ali, then an animated version of Emergency, then Superfriends. Believe it or not, I was glad that the "junior" Aquaman was "Aqualad," for this meant the name "Aquaboy" was still available. I snatched it right up and drew pictures of myself in a costume I designed.
Loved Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog. Just couldn't get into Zan and Jana though...yet something else that was "fixed" even though it wasn't broken.
The Hanging Garden (1997)
Fully logical in my view (spoiler warning--plot discussed)
Death indeed takes many forms, and Thom Fitzgerald presents one of them here in a very dramatic way. William comes home ten years after his, but it was of course not an actual death, rather the termination of a life of obesity, ridicule and insecurity. Fletcher's rejection, and the ensuing small-town gossip, are what finally caused him to flee to the big city and cut off all communication with family and friends. He returns, reborn as a slim, handsome urbanite, who will not be satisfied until that rejection is reversed.
There is a lot of confusion among viewers of this film regarding the corpse that appears to be hanging in the garden. While at least three family members recognize it, it has never physically existed. William has survived the suicide attempt (rather than give in, he is still struggling when the scene ends), and is thus alive ten years later. What hangs from the tree is the broken spirit of a very troubled boy--and the entity that reveals the undercurrent of the plot.
Though in appearance a mature adult, William behaves at Rosemary's wedding as if he were trying to experience the childhood he missed. He is late for the ceremony, is dancing with his grandmother in her attic room while he is supposed to be with the rest of the wedding party, and hides under a table during the reception so he can throw flower petals onto the grass for guests to slip on. The pleasures of youth are abruptly halted when he must take care of his drunken father and then help organize a search for his missing mother. Compounding the difficulties are visions of himself as a young boy, using food to assuage hurt feelings, and of course the hanging `corpse.'
Later, as both of them envision the corpse, Rosemary reveals to William that she opted to hold her wedding in the garden so as to remember her brother as he `left,' rather than as he `came back.' Although she doesn't want to let go of the overweight, `Sweet William,' the adult will have no part of it and sees his chance to put it all to rest when Fletcher comes on to him down on the dock, the site of an earlier affectionate encounter. After confirming that he holds great attraction over his brother-in-law, William fakes an asthma attack (he has no problem running up the hill), and goes to bury the corpse. Having given up on reliving the past in a more pleasant way, he opts for putting it to rest so he can start anew.
Whiskey Mac, like Rosemary, wishes to hold on to the boy he knew ten years ago. It is revealed that he, too, has sensed the corpse when William tells him he has buried it. Devastated, the father tries to exhume it, but the son will not permit him. Of course no physical remains would appear, as none exist, but William doesn't want his father going through the motions of digging up what should be left in place. As George adamantly stated to Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the boy is `dead' and there is no use bringing him up again.
The Story of Us (1999)
Roller Coaster whose ups and downs are easily reconfigured
Many people are cynical as to Michelle Pfeiffer's final, impassioned monologue and its lasting effect, as though this were the end of an amusement park ride. The track record laid down by the film, however, shows that what is done in one scene can be undone in the next. Add to this the dominance of flashbacks which are chronologically out of order and the viewer is not sure what is in the present and what lies in the past (with the exception of the long-haired Bruce Willis--definitely the past!). Pfeiffer's speech may have come at the end, but it could easily have been thrown in the middle, so one should not assume her words will stick! Such is the nature of a long-term relationship, aptly portrayed in this movie.
On a humorous note, one could say the scenes were filmed out of sequence, as are those of all movies--then simply left that way! A rare case where the finished product looks like a rough cut that was accidentally delivered to the distributor!
In an attempt to rise above the enormous body of work concerned with relationships, this film touches on well-used concepts, then moves on--notifying the viewer that THIS time around, all hope may truly be lost: As though wishing to adhere to a script, one of the partners says, "Isn't this the point where we say this is going way too far and just make up?"--nevertheless, the front door slams. This is comparable to "Scream," which was scary because it acknowledged previous devices--e.g., 'dumb blonde runs upstairs when she should be running outside,' 'don't ever say you'll be right back, because you won't'--before moving on to the next murder.
However, three traditional elements remain:
1) Females are more perceptive. Pfeiffer has no trouble understanding her girlfriends' advice, but Willis is unable to decipher Reiner's 'top of the legs' analogy. The daughter is overwhelmed with the realization that her parents' problems have reached the breaking point while her older brother remains blissfully unaware--an indication that when the children mature and find partners, the disparity will live on!
2) The woman is better able to express herself verbally. This is in spite of her husband's being a writer by profession (albeit one who's been having trouble finding the right words to type into his computer) while she merely assembles fragments into crossword puzzles ('RA' was not only the Egyptian sun god but stands for 'regular army'!).
3) Pfeiffer is emotionally more manipulative. The couple plan to tell the kids they have "moved apart," but in reality, she holds the fishing rod, hoping he will keep taking the bait. When he comes over for dinner, he reveals that his "low" that week was being away from her; she replies that her low was finding that a new kitchen appliance failed to work as promised. Also, she continues to upbraid him for speaking intimately with another woman over the phone six months prior while she flirts with another man in her cooking class.
All in all, a good combination of old and new ideas.
Roswell (1999)
Nice allegory of the gay teen predicament...
...and they are even able to do it without mentioning the word "alien," just as many shows with gay characters tap dance around the word "gay." They get the point across with euphemisms like "One of them! He's trouble. Beware!" The outsiders look like everyone else, talk like everyone else, etc., but they are "different," in fact "special," and although the town has fetishized the Roswell legend, upstanding citizens are wary of coming across the real thing. Better that this minority remain invisible, so that the oppressors are free to slander and stigmatize them.
Fortunately, for the time being at least, they are able to conceal their true selves. Even when Maria sees them as "hideous" in a dream, she rallies to their defense and denies their uniqueness when the witch-hunting sheriff attempts to pin her down during an interrogation. What ever happened to don't ask, don't tell?! At least the SECOND part of that statement is being adhered to! And Max shows his strength in the face of cowardly bullies who gang up on him.
If viewers are "tired" of hearing about gay plight and seeing gay characters on television (as if anybody cared that gays have to watch straight people on there day and night), this just may bring them around to a certain level of understanding, without their even realizing it--talk about a hidden force! Came right out of the sky!
Get Real (1999)
Sensory Overload
Are we facing the same frustrations Adrian Leverkuehn did in Thomas Mann's novel Doktor Faustus? Is there no longer such a thing as a NEW IDEA?
If so, we should end television altogether rather than resort to the solution they came up with here: 1) Take four things that spice up a show, making it 'hip' and 'cool,' e.g., a) bumper music, b) the shaky camcorder-feel, c) to-camera/off-camera narration and d) teenage dilemmas. 2) Dump overabundant quantities of these into a mix that contains the most rudimentary plot. 3) Presto! You've baked up the disaster known as 'Get Real'!
Annoying, ceaseless music; nonstop seasick-inducing camera movement; cornball little speeches from the naive, pampered characters; and overblown emotions all add up to a cacophany of the first order. It's not quite loud enough to keep the viewer from noticing the tired, hackneyed plot whose jokes are lifted from other shows, so not even THAT mission is accomplished.
If the fountain of ideas who came up with this show is reading this, please, PLEASE if there's only one thing you learn, let it be that 'bumper music' is called that for a reason...it's BUMPER music! That means you play it when introducing scenes or as a refrain at a scene's end, after a point has been made and/or a lesson learned. This is not a symphony where you keep us on our toes until the final note. It's so exhausting that by show's end I feel like I've just completed a 10K race.
If not this, then kindly realize that a good script is made up of a succession of substantive conversations. It's like lining up pearls on a string. Each one is beautiful in itself, but will also fit perfectly into the necklace. There's not one example of thought-provoking discourse the entire time this show is on. Just a few saucy remarks, a couple of camera whip-arounds, maybe some tears, then fade to black...and, ah yes, a volume hike on the 'bumper music.'
Egadz.
P.S. What's with the kids' blase attitude toward their parents' advertisement of their sex life? It kind of weirds me out that they don't seem to mind knowing about it.
Action (1999)
Eureka! I have found it--
Very much in the spirit of "The Newsroom" (Canadian sitcom, 1996), this is not only the best show of the new Fall lineup, but possibly the best show of the last few decades. I am very critical and would never say such a thing lightly.
Kudos to FOX for, rather than pushing the envelope in the direction of greater sensory stimulation, going the other way--daring to air a show with limited music, few seasick-inducing camera movements, little overt emotion and no laugh track. These four elements, once used to spice up programs, have come to be relied upon exclusively. The nature of the new lineup makes it obvious that even if the viewing public have not yet been dumbed down to the level of monkeys who have lost the ability to detect nuances of character, speech and plot (and whose attention can only be held with bells, whistles and flashing lights), Hollywood certainly believes we have and treats us accordingly.
Thus the more refreshing the arrival of "Action," which bucks the bread-and-circus trend with true sophistication. The persistent AMORALITY of the characters in an era of extremes on either end ("7th Heaven" vs. "Beavis & Butt-Head," for instance) is a relatively new concept. Instead of doing a 180, so to speak, from morality to immorality or vice-versa, the show is able to sustain this 90-degree variation and make it believable.
Fine acting ability along with well-written scripts allows the characters to convey abundant meaning through raised eyebrows, intense looks, sly grins, double-entendre and body language. In fact rarely does anyone break a smile. Thus there is no need to hammer the viewer over the head with laughter, crying, screaming, hollering, or slapstick. There is bad language, but just as violence supported the plot in the film "Die Hard" instead of the other way around (which is customary), the cursing merely supplements the script rather than being its bread-and-butter. And amazingly, the crude frankness of the characters does serious damage to the concept that Hollywood is a plastic town full of phonies who never speak their minds. Indeed, most of the superficiality is to be found in the characters on other shows.
But, tuning in each week is a bittersweet experience because you realize that few shows that reach such a high level (e.g., "Homicide") pull in the numbers, so the next few episodes may be the last. Or, as happened with "The Newsroom," the creative types behind the project may just decide one day that they're tired of this and move on to something else.
Network (1976)
Should be required viewing for all high school students
"Greater than the sum of its parts" fits this film like no other. Besides the macro-elements, which have been discussed heavily in these pages (prediction of a fourth network that would have to resort to sensationalism to survive; i.e., Fox, WB, UPN), many micro-elements are woven into the script. A prime example is when when Bill Holden's wife confronts him about his affair with Faye Dunaway and goes through a range of emotions, cleanly cutting away from one to the next, as though television channels were being switched. At the end she exhorts her husband to "say something," for he is not 'keeping up with the script.' The romance of noble characters like Holden, making a quixotic attempt to keep the course of the river from being changed while tragically oblivious to the fact that they were fully swept into the current long ago and are helplessly being washed out to sea, is devastatingly powerful. Unlike most movies these days, which you forget by the time you get to your car, this one leaves not only a lasting impression, but the sense that only after multiple viewings will you be able to thresh out all that has occurred or been implied, and even then you're not sure if you've caught everything. Contrast this depth with 'Star Wars,' which is about as simple as Dick and Jane and acted extremely poorly. It is a pity that people line up to see 'The Phantom Menace' weeks before it is released but would not do the same for a film as rich as 'Network.' Even this, however, reflects the brilliance of the latter, which points out that in the reality of the latter half of the twentieth century it couldn't be any other way.
Goliath Awaits (1981)
Chilling
I am reaching way back into my memory for this one, for I saw it on T.V. in 1981 and haven't heard anything about it since, except in 1992 when a co-worker and I got on the subject of shipwrecks and somehow we both remembered this movie from our pasts. We were so vague on the details we had both thought it might have been a dream until we corroborated each other's memory!
Brilliant how an "offshoot" society--a microcosm of our own, with all the various social strata--was represented. There was even a sub-sub-society, the "Bow People," who terrorized those in the main part of the ship.
Also, chilling how the ship's brass were "relieved" to find out that Hitler had been defeated--not even realizing that they had established their own police state far below the surface of the ocean!