rationalreviewer Reviews

Twenty Plus Two (1961)

Not a must see movie, even for noir fans, but Agnes was great

[5/10 · 4 December 2023]

Despite a decent cast, you can pass on this film without fearing you have left a significant gap in your personal viewing history unless you are an Agnes Moorehead fan The plot is based on ridiculously improbable coincidences that ruined the film for me. There was an obvious attempt at character development but again plausibility was sometimes a glaring problem. The film's best feature for me was was an accurate depiction of the 1961 ambience and a look at what an early 1960s film noir could have been. That was about the time I stared high school and it depicted a culture of cocktails and capitalist conformity that we rightly rejected. The other plus was a bravura performance by Agnes Moorehead.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the leading female role, Nikki, plated by Dina Merrill is worthy of an Oscar for miscasting. She is decades too old to play a character whose role in the plot is based on her youth. Merill's character appears as a woman of about 29 and in a long flashback at about age 19. She is not even credible as a 29 year old. Another actor who could get viewers to care about the 19 year old "Nikki" could have been a saving grace for the film. Merrill was OK as a woman who has been around the block a few times but not as a late teen on first round the block trip.

David Janssen played his usual character. Unfortunately that role suffered the most from poor development. A couple more more minutes explaining the inconsistencies in his personality could also have saved the movie. They tried to give some idea of what made him who he was, and that was good, but a minute or two more that may have been left on the cutting room floor could have made him sympathetic and believable.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Over-rated intergenerational romance. Shallow story and acting.

[1/10 · 22 May 2011]

This is the most over-rated movie on Amazon, that I have seen. There may be others more deserving of that title but, if there is, I haven't seen both the film and the Amazon rating.

This poor excuse for a film was made only because the director is the daughter of one of the Hollywood elite. She grew up as a rich brat and this film presents the world view of that worthless class.

The story is drivel. I can get into a good love story, or lightweight romance like this, but this one repelled me. I can only suspect that the viewers who rated it highly have psyches so controlled by the fairy tales they were poisoned by as children that they have no grasp of reality. Other one-star reviews explain the lousy-ness of the story fully so I will not repeat them.

The acting is mediocre. Scarlett Johansson has a very limited range as a performer, which could have worked if the role called for looking cute and not saying too much. This roll calls for a sophisticated, well educated, but shallow young woman. Johansson is perfect for the shalllowness, but fails the other two requirements. When I saw her similarly sub-standard acting in Girl With a Pearl Earring, I thought there might be a decent actor inside waiting to get out. Maybe I suspected wrong.

Bill Murray also has a limited range but that is all that was needed for his part. That could have redeemed the movie somewhat but the character is so thoroughly vacuous that he has nothing of value to offer other characters in the film or to the viewers.

The theme of inter-generational romance has been explored in many other films but seldom so badly.

Spenser: Pale Kings and Princes (1994 TV Movie)

Poor acting. Implausible story. The book can't be this bad.

[3/10 · 13 May 2011]

I wanted to stop watching this movie after the first 5 minutes but felt that I had a duty to humanity to view it all so that I could write a review and perhaps save others from wasting an hour and a half. To reward me, since you don't know me, please perform some random act of kindness and dedicate it to old Rationalist. To honor me appropriately and consistent with my effort here, please make that act negative rather than positive. For instance, don't praise a shopkeeper for a lovely display, complain about the lack of a bike rack.

One reason I feel compelled to warn others about this valueless film is that I borrowed it from my local library. The video collection is heavily weighted toward foreign and art-house type films, which I like. The general releases are movies generally considered classics or adaptations of literature with some merit. So, I relied on the judgment of the Pasadena Library acquisition deciders to select this movie. Once again they failed me.

Spenser: Pale Kings is marred by second rate acting to a degree I found distracting. It's not horrible acting, just second rate. Since I was watching the film with consciously critical eyes I discovered something rather special. The acting is remarkably consistently second rate. It's not like the usual situation, in films like other things, where the quality varies. The acting is neither amateurish nor competent, it's just second rate, with a couple exceptions. Alex Carter who plays the state trooper, Lundquist, did capable journeyman level work. Beatriz Pisano who plays Juanita is either a terrible actor or the unfortunate victim of so much psychological damage she is incapable of expressing any sincere human emotion.

The author of the novel upon which this is based may be a good writer, but whoever wrote this script is not. I suspect that the director, and others, share the responsibility for a story that is made up of details that cover the entire range from improbable to implausible. A glaring example is the relationship that Spenser and his girlfriend have with the wife of the police chief. The chief's wife is hostile and antagonistic, as is the chief. After he is killed, she responds to the girlfriend's offer of sympathy and they instantly become friends and confidantes although nothing happened to explain such a remarkable transformation and there were no hints earlier to prepare us. It's jarring that this loyal wife would react this way to the people who are hounding her husband rather than regard them with even greater suspicion. The book must be much better. The viewer would be hard pressed to recognize any human interaction in this movie as one they have seen in real life.

There are some rants in the film about the evil of ethnic stereotyping. That happens in the context of investigating a crime in an old New England mill town with a large number of immigrants from Latin America. The film-makers show how they come out on that issue by portraying all the Hispanic characters as criminals, liars, or whores. Maybe they were trying to cover all bases by appealing to both bigots and decent people.

The one positive comment I was planning to make was that it showed some attractive New England locales, but I was wrong. While researching this review I learned it was shot in Canada. This film has some nice shots of Paris, Ontario in 1993. If you don't want to see that, do something else with 90 minutes of your life.

Beeswax (2009)

I watched it as a vote for Indie filmmaking. I wish I could take back my vote.

[3/10 · 19 December 2010]

An earlier reviewer, Dom-Donald, wrote: "There were no developed characters, there was no plot, no beginning, middle or end. There were no interesting relationships, no questions asked of the audience, no explorations of ideas or emotions. There were no challenging subjects, nothing shocking or controversial. Nothing actually even happened, so there were no events for the characters to even discuss. Even the relationship between the two sisters wasn't explored in any way.

"The movie just started and then a bit later it finished at some random point (the camera ran out of film?) .... I challenge you to watch it, for that is probably the only valid reason for doing so!"

I accepted his challenge. He is right. The movie would have been better had they run out of film earlier. In fact the earlier the film ran out, the better it would have been.

Another reviewer, Mike Mellon, wrote: "I'm having a hard time believing it was actually written instead of made up as the filming progressed. Pass on it, and instead, go eavesdrop on a random stranger's conversation. You will get the same experience."

Mike is on the right track, but is not quite correct. I eavesdropped on some customers at a 99 Cents Store to test his theory. It was not the same experience. My experience at the 99 Cents Store was more entertaining and the strangers on whom I eavesdropped were more interesting.

The characters in Beeswax were dumber than they would have been in real life. The aspiring lawyer could not have gotten through law school without a sharper intellect than his character displays.

Like others who were disappointed in this film, I am not a consumer of mass market culture and I tend to favor the avant garde. So I don't think the people responsible for this film should have their artistic license revoked... just put on probation and be required to attend boredom management training, and make restitution. I think there are a lot of victims who want their 100 minutes back.

The 19th Wife (2010 TV Movie)

Average entertainment condemned by horrible choice of shooting location

[5/10 · 14 September 2010]

This made for TV movie was interesting to watch but is so deeply flawed that I had to down-rate it severely. The first jarring note which remained an annoyance was the fatal choice of filming location. The movie takes place in fictional "Mesadale, Utah" a thinly disguised reference to the state line straddling Polygamist Mormon fundamentalist twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. As anyone who has visited the vast region of the Southwest settled by Mormons can attest, it is arid with few trees. The 19th Wife was shot in Canada and features lush green forested landscape, whereas the real Mesadale/Hildale is brown and desert like.

The forbidding physical environment is an essential factor in Mormon existence. They were able to flourish over such a large area because the land was so harsh and undesirable. They had been driven out of all the nice places and found their refuge in areas other settlers didn't want or weren't willing to fight over. The isolation and clannishness is a key to understanding how such a bizarre and unbelievable belief system could flourish, so setting is vital to the story. A realistic bleak location would have highlighted the bleak, isolated lives of the sect members. Yes I know about the offshoot community in British Columbia, but that's another story.

The acting is the saving grace of this movie. The key players were able to establish and maintain believability and generally succeeded in showing the range of faith from the literal true believers through those who go along but have some reservations to those who reject the nonsense entirely. Chyler Leigh's performance was too much actor and too little character but Matt Czuchry, Patricia Wettig, and most of the others apparently studied their roles and did journeyman work. The glaring exception was the actress who played the teenage runaway working in a coffee shop. She is engaging and charming but blows the role or was misdirected. She could have been a kid from just about any suburb in America but not from an isolated fundamentalist polygamous community especially one who left only a month previous to her appearance in the story.

The final failure was the surprise ending. On reflection it didn't make much sense. The polygamist sect depicted is run as a patriarchy by the "Prophet." Loyalty is rewarded, disobedience is punished, and rivals are eliminated. In that context there was something lacking. I expect the book upon which this movie is based provided enough plot development to make the ending plausible if not inevitable. The movie did not: maybe it was lost on the cutting room floor or they left it up in Canada.

If you are fascinated by the topic, The 19th Wife is an entertaining way to spend a couple hours but I don't think low quality movie making like this should be encouraged.