cowgoesmoo Reviews

A Mouthful of Air (2021)

Whether you like or not depends on you

[5/10 · 31 October 2021]

I saw this with my wife. I liked it. She hated it and wanted to walk out. What I liked were the performances. It's a tough topic and I thought Amanda Seyfried pulled it off well. My wife was focused on the story. She thought it started off depressing and then went downhill. She ordinarily doesn't mind dark subject matter, but she also wants Hollywood endings that end on an "up" note and the birth of a grandchild didn't get her there. I think it also hit home because it touched upon some personal areas for her.

One thing that we both didn't like was the ambiguity over Julie's father. At first, he's only visible in flashback and he's absent. My first thought was that her dad sexually abused her. Later, in a flashback, they show her running up the stairs and her father is just about to beat her so we think "Oh, it must be physical abuse". Then he reappears and shows her how to paint but begins to touch her in what - if left unchecked - would be inappropriate for a father/daughter and we think "Oh, so maybe it was sexual abuse after all." I know that some moviemakers think its artistic to "let the audience interpret" but we both hate that. If they're going to say something, say it - don't just let it hang out there. Then again, maybe that's how its written in the book? Anyway, that bugged us both.

#AnneFrank - Parallel Stories (2019)

Pretty good but with one awkward element

[9/10 · 5 March 2020]

I saw this a couple nights ago and enjoyed it very much. I particularly liked Helen Mirren's dramatic readings from the diary as well as hearing from Anne's contemporaries and their children/grandchildren, which makes you wonder "what if" she had been able to hold on a couple more months. Many pictures were incorporated that I've never seen before. Something that didn't work for me was the "modern girl" with the Twitter handle "KatherineKat". Since Anne was writing to a fictional "Kitty", this seems to be Kitty writing back and presumably was a modern day equivalent of a diary but using social media instead. Whereas Anne could expound in her diary, a tweet was by it's nature quite limited. I found that aspect a little annoying, but I suppose younger audiences might well have enjoyed it.

Echo in the Canyon (2018)

High expectations, big disappointment

[4/10 · 24 July 2019]

I love this genre of music and eagerly awaited its release. I was expecting something along the lines of "20 Feet from Stardom" and "The Wrecking Crew". As the movie unfolded, I became painfully aware that this movie is just a vehicle for Jakob Dylan. If I wanted to hear the Byrds play, let them be the ones to play - not Jakob Dylan and his tribute band. I found myself waiting for his performances to finish so the movie could proceed. They easily could have cut out his performances and devoted the space instead to footage of the original artists - or maybe some love for the ones they left out. Jim Morrison lived next door to The Country Store, for crying out loud, and not a peep about the doors. No Joni Mitchell? On the other hand, they had footage of Jakob Dylan in a studio looking at at picture of Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles and he's saying "...I'm not familiar with them..." I'm giving it 4 stars for the interviews and stock footage.

Lost & Found (II) (2017)

Charming little movie

[8/10 · 10 June 2019]

The first reviewer said he stopped watching after 14 minutes. Too bad he didn't stick with the whole thing to give it a chance. The opening minutes concern Daniel, who takes a job in a train station's Lost and Found department. Various people come in who have lost/found things. What follows thereafter is a series of several shorts with Daniel the one constant theme in all of them. Some events go forwards and backwards in time. Events/objects/people that seemed mundane early on acquire meaning later as the stories unfold. There are many little "Aha!" moments sprinkled throughout. I rather enjoyed it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017 TV Movie)

Should be titled "The Making of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"

[3/10 · 30 August 2017]

I guess I'll add my voice to the others here... As much as I loved the book, I was disappointed by the movie. The book had a balance between the family and the science. This movie emphasized Henrietta's daughter Deborah and how the source material for the book was gathered. There were some flashbacks to Henrietta's life and occasional references to the impact of HeLa cells on modern medicine, but not nearly enough in my opinion. While the book dove into the deep end, the movie just chooses to splash around in the shallow end and fails to focus on Henrietta, which is where the emphasis should really be. It left me feel like I was watching a Lifetime Television movie.

Maybe its because they didn't think they had enough time... This was an HBO Film, so they could easily have done it as a 2 or 3 part series to stretch out and cover more of what the movie missed. As it stands, I would still love to see a documentary that picks up where the movie left off.

Danmarksfilmen (1935)

Great jazz soundtrack too

[10/10 · 22 March 2008]

I was visiting Copenhagen recently and stopped into the Nationalmuseet (National Museum). There was an exhibit with Danmarksfilmen playing on a continuous loop and I was so transfixed that I had to watch it twice. An earlier reviewer mentioned the documentary style of how Denmark saw itself before the Second World War but did not discuss how the whole film is propelled by the soundtrack - some of the best, bouncy jazz from the 1930s I've ever heard. Perhaps that was the fascination for me - the mixture of great jazz set against mostly agricultural scenes of a long-gone Denmark. You wouldn't think it would work but it does. I was disappointed that the museum gift shop did not have either a DVD of the movie or a CD of the soundtrack. The nearby Danish Film Institute had a copy for sale and I regret not buying it because I can't find it in the US.