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Reviews
Flash of Genius (2008)
flash of Hollywoodization
Though this is passed off as a true story, the details are so changed from reality that the only real thing left are the "blinking eye" wiper blades and the names of the characters and car companies. Dennis Kearnes was a far more unlikable, obsessed, and dramatic person than this movie lets on. Most glaringly fictitious is his David against Goliath legal fight against the big bad corporation, where he is portrayed as representing himself all alone (with the legal clerking of his kids). It isn't true. He WAS represented by lawyers in his suit against Ford Motor Company. Google his REAL life and you will find a colorful nut case, who could have made a great biographical figure. But he couldn't make a sympathetic figure. So Hollywood sweetened him up, taking away the drama and conflict to make him a hero for the plot. Just like you know when you see a movie about the Titanic, that the ship will sink in the end, there is no suspense to the court trial (last third of the movie). There would have been no movie if he lost the case.
Hanging on a Star (1978)
Worst film I ever endured
Bad directing, bad lighting, bad acting. Heck, even the music was bad, and this was a film about a rock band that you were supposed to be rooting for.
At my house, when we say a film was a real stinker, we compare it to Hanging on a Star.
So far, no matter how bad a movie was, nothing has dethroned this example in the last 30 years. Lane Caudell's mother would love it.
Like vanity book publishing, and vanity records, this film came off as pure vanity. Portraying Lane as star in a movie didn't make him one because both the film and Lane were lame.