From Sarah: "Midway" vs. "Pearl Harbor" a Battle of Battles.

Hello Epic War Film Fans!

Over the weekend I finally got to sit down and watch 2019's summer epic (epic fail?), "Midway."  I'm a big fan of war movies in general, but especially World War films, so I ignored (as I generally do) reviews and  box office numbers and watched the film to form my own opinion.  

While watching the movie (and I'll get to some of the finer points in a moment) I could not help but think about another film, "Pearl Harbor," and how that was another big budget war film that's been much maligned over the years.

Neither movie is a complete waste of your time.  What's funny is the biggest issue for both films is time. One is far too long, one is far too short.

But here's what I'm thinking:

Pearl Harbor (2001)   IMDB Metacritic score: 44  Viewer score: 6.2

"Pearl Harbor" is an epic film following two best friends from their rough childhood right up to the edge of World War II.  The two friends fall for the same woman and face a personal battle of their own.  Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale lead a wildly attractive cast of fictional characters through this romantic story, ultimately set against the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The run time on this film is over 3 hours and, while I'm not against long movies, this one is far too long.  The movie suffers from a major identity crisis, which is why it's so long.  Either it's a romantic movie or it's a war movie. I'm sorry, but you can't do justice to either subject if you try to meld them.  There's so much character development, they almost forget to add the Pearl Harbor part into Pearl Harbor. Had the bombing of Pearl been the climax...then maybe, even with all of it's ridiculous fictional action, the movie might be better respected. But then, for reasons I can't fathom...possibly because director Michael Bay suddenly remembered he was directing a war picture, the entire tone of the film changes to epic war with Doolittle's Raid.  But then the action grinds to a halt and we're back to romance...love triangles...pregnancies...ugh.  

Basically, don't call this a World War II movie and then give me two hours of a fictionalized romantic drama with a handful of moments of glorious action.  Trim the film in one direction or the other.  (I should note, that all of my criticisms for this film are exactly the elements I praise in the film "Titanic."  So what's the difference?  Well, Kate Winselt and Leo DiCapprio are super talented actors.  Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, and Josh Hartnett are....not.  And I will die on that hill.)

So, the movie is too long, it doesn't focus enough on the titular topic, and it gets mired in too much focus on fiction. And also the actors are just...terrible.

Then we have:

Midway (2019)  IMDB Metracritic score: 47  Viewer score: 6.7

"Midway" is a war epic covering events in the Pacific from the end of diplomatic relations with Japan to the bombing of Pearl to Doolittle's Raid and finally ending with the unlikely victory over tiny Midway Island.  Patrick Wilson and Dennis Quaid lead a huge cast of less-than-household named actors. Not only is there no love triangle...the very lovely Mandy Moore (who would have done a far better job on "Pearl Harbor" than Kate Becknisale) has virtually the only female uttered lines in all 2 hours and 38 minutes of the movie...and for as little screen time as she gets, I'm mildly shocked her entire role didn't end up on the cutting room floor.

"Midway" is a very earnest film.  You can feel director Roland Emmerich sweating as he yells, "That's now how it really went!" into a megaphone over and over.   And, as Hollywood goes, this movie goes a long way to getting the big picture stuff right.  (There's a laundry list of goofs on IMDB if you're interested.)  That's not the problem with "Midway." The problem with "Midway," as I see it, is twofold:

1)  It needs more time.  

To cover that much American/World history, not in calendar time, but in pure volume of activity, and to do it right, "Midway" should have been a miniseries.  There's so much there and in under 3 hours of run time, something must suffer. Unfortunately for the viewer, because so many big battles are crammed into a short time, you lose the feel of the intensity of time build up. Much of the tension simply isn't there because the plot points hop from Pearl to Doolittle to Midway, and you barely understand that there's time or prep or anything in between. In short, much of "Midway" feels like one very long....very long....dog fight.

2)  Sure, the characters are real...they still have to be developed.

When doing a war picture with many moving parts, it is wise to remember that everyone's going to be dressed the same so you need to give the viewer some kind of cue as to who is talking.  Also, moviemakers, you cannot assume that anyone knows who people in history are. The sad fact is that so much history is NOT being taught anymore.  We're too busy learning how to send naked pictures of ourselves to each other by phone...and then be incensed when those pictures wind up on the internet, that we don't learn any history.  So, yes, Admiral Nimitz was a giant in World War II.  You still need to develop that character for your viewer so that the viewer doesn't just think of him as "the guy Woody Harrelson played."  And again, this takes time.  Now, smaller parts need less time to develop which is why the only character I felt an emotional connection to was played by Nick Jonas (yes, that Nick Jonas).  His character...Bruno Gaido...gets about six minutes of screen time and yet he's given enough dialogue and he does enough that his little bitty part shines beyond anything anyone else did in the film.  (Well, except for Brennan Brown, who plays the code breaker Rochfort...but he's described as wearing fuzzy slippers and the first time we see him, he's got a bathroom on over his uniform...you don't forget a thing like that.  Which is my point...when everyone looks the same, you have to somehow make them stand apart from each other.)

Yes, the characters were all based on real people, which means they had to do the stuff the real people did.  Which limits a writer and director.  You can't just have them first guns at zeros flying over head because it looks cool  (ahem, Pearl Harbor) and you can't just have them flying the planes sideways because it looks cool (again, ahem) when you are trying to make a film based on actual events, you have to depict those actual events.    Quite possibly the best example of how to do this would be 1993's "Gettysburg" which takes the time and uses a number of different techniques to differentiate the characters and keep the story from becoming far too muddled. And that was a three battle movie as well.

All of this, all of the issues that plagued "Midway" and kept it from being a magnificent piece of filmmaking are easily fixed...just give the film makers more time. Not more money...more time. The same cast would have THRIVED in a limited series, or hey, make it a four hour film, so what?  

So which one is a better picture of these two?

If you want flash and dazzle sub par acting, and questionable historical content, but lots of big names and flashy romance and soft filters "Pearl Harbor" is your film.   If you want something in touch with what really happened, even if you have to watch it a couple times to figure out who is who, "Midway" is the one for you.

"Midway" is on my permanent shelf.  "Pearl  Harbor" is going back to the DVD resale shop.

From Sarah: A "Horrifying" Weekend!

Hello all!

One this past Memorial Day weekend, I took some time (because my arthritis in my feet forced me on the couch, not that I made much of a fight...) to step outside my comfort zone and watch some horror films from different eras.  Digging deep in a couple cases into what my Amazon Prime membership had to offer, I saw a few things that caught my eye enough to watch from start to finish.  Here's what I found:

Fall of the House of Usher (1948)

I'm a HUGE Edgar Allen Poe fan and I am well acquainted with the Vincent Price version of this particular story. I was not, however, aware (because I'm only now just digging into the deepest recesses of old films, thanks to my many streaming service subscriptions) that there were other, earlier film adaptations of Poe's story about familial insanity.

If you keep IMDB.com handy while watching movies, (which I do) you'll find that the trivia for this particular version is telling. No actor other than Gwen Watford (for whom this was a film debut) made another movie after this one.  Let's think about that.  NO ONE ELSE MADE ANOTHER MOVIE after this one.  Was this going to be the finest work of film EVER? Did the actors finish this one and say, "I simply cannot do any better than this...this is the height of art."

Ummmm, no.

I'm not going to say the film was bad. And I do give them points for having the nerve to attempt to convey that Daddy Usher was into some pretty heavy bondage and sadism in his personal life. That's pretty out there, given the times. However, I have to mention that much of the dialogue was tossed in post production (ponder that) and that film opens...not on a dying mansion, but in a reading room of an exclusive upper crust men's club where dusty old white guys are sitting around talking about books and one of them decides to grab a copy of Poe's completed works and read from it to prove Poe's work is superior to any others.

Well, Poe's work is superior, but this film is not.  Unless you are really into films with zero production value, maybe leave this one alone.

Asylum (1972)

If you've read any of my reviews, you know I believe there is a film DEAD ZONE between 1969 and 1980 where the vast majority of films made are simply unwatchable either because the editing or filming technique is bad or the acting is just awful.

"Asylum" has many great pieces. The opening music is great, the set up for the plot is really, really good. A young psychiatrist goes to a mental asylum to interview for a job. As part of the interview he must meet each of the patients and, after completing his interviews, tell the doctor in charge which of the patients was the now insane head doctor of the asylum, If he gets it right he gets the job.

GREAT set up.  What follows are four separate stories from each of the patients...and this is where the film falls apart. Not in the stories themselves, but in the quality of the filming. Seriously...this was done in 1972. Granted, it's a British film, and their sense of horror/special effects is different, and I'm they weren't working with Hollywood money.  Still, there are moments, especially in the first story, where the effects are so beyond ridiculous, you wind up laughing at the campiness.

That said, with everything "Asylum" had going against it from the outset, I stuck with it and find some moments of real entertainment and an over all sense of time well spent at the end.  This is a very, very, very British film, and the ending is indicative of the bigger problems I find in films in the dead zone.  But, overall, this is a worthy 88 minutes.

Dr. Sleep (2019)

When this movie was first announced both my daughter and I were excited for it. She is a hard core horror film fan, and I love Stephen King's genius novel about a writer completely losing his crap in an empty hotel.  Unlike most of the movie going public, I do not worship at the alter of Stanley Kubrick, so I prefer the 1997 mini series adaptation of the book to the 1980 classic film. All that said, We were excited to see this movie.

Which we watched yesterday.

Friends, I'll be honest. I haven't read the book. But I have read the trivia comments and this film, Dr. Sleep, is a sequel to the Kubrick film...not necessarily the book. And, being a sequel to the film, means, director/screenwriter Mike Flannigan took up some of the film techniques used in the 1980 classic.  Unfortunately, he used the bad elements instead of the good ones.

The movie is too long by about 45 minutes and if you ask my daughter or me, we can tell you exactly what to cut.  We did not need the long intro to the bad characters or the reminder footage using a fake Danny and fake Wendy. Basically, the first half hour is not needed, it's confusing, and, if you've seen the Kubrick film, (and why are you watching Dr. Sleep if you haven't?) then you don't need the bits with fake Danny.  The first half hour drags the film down.  Ewan McGregor and young Kyleigh Curran play well off of each other and Rebecca Ferguson is plausible as a villain.  Once we get to the meat of the plot, the movie starts rolling along nicely, but then Flannigan remembers he's writing a sequel, so once again we get dragged along in a direction that is not necessary and wind up with an ending that is befuddling at best.  This film could have been great, there are many great pieces to it. But it feels way too much like the pieces from two puzzles shuffled together in one box.

If you're a hardcore horror fan, there are some thrills and chills, but really, this is too much of a first draft mess to really bother.

From Sarah: "Love Affair" or "An Affair to Remember," a classic movie battle.

Hello everyone!

With COVID-19 limiting just about everyone's entertainment options, I have, it should surprise no one, delved deeply into the lower layers of my streaming services' offerings.  Which is how I ran across the Irene  Dunne/Charles Boyer 1939 movie: Love Affair.

"Love Affair," as some of you may know, is the ORIGINAL film version of "An Affair to Remember," which popped up, with the same director, in 1957 starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.  (And it was the second version made ultra famous in the Nora Ephron masterpiece (Sleepless in Seattle.")

I'm like almost everyone else, I'm sure. I've see "Affair to Remember" several times. And yes, I've cried.

But the 1939 Dunne/Boyer version?  Ummmm, nope, never seen it.

Until this weekend.

So, side by side, how do these two movies compare?  Which one is better?

First of all, the movies have the same director. Which means the pacing, the angles, the basic overall aesthetic is the same. The same. Basically, it's the same movie with different faces.

Except it isn't.

Watching these two movies is the best (and possibly only) chance we movie lovers have to say, "well, if this actor had that part, the movie would have been better," and really get to see if that works. All things being equal, who's better: Boyer or Grant?  Dunne or Kerr?

Because Boyer is French, like really French, he might be a little tiny bit hampered for American audiences with his accent.  And, let's face it, he's not as good looking as Cary Grant. But for those of us who know Cary Grant's work as a comedic actor, it's a little challenging to take him seriously in that final scene.  Which, by the way, Boyer SLAYS.

So...the male lead...complete toss up.

Which brings us to the ladies.  Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr.  Both are lovely, snarky, and hold up well against their male counterparts. Here's the one difference:  Deborah Kerr didn't sing the songs her character sings in the movie. Irene Dunne did.  BUT...I really didn't love Irene Dunne's singing (I'm not a fan of soprano solos...it's a personal thing.) so that sort of evens out.

Which means...the female lead...toss up.

Since both movies are the same scene for scene and the director is the same, I really found only one other element in the movies I could compare, and it's a tough one:  The orphan choir.

Really, Sarah?  You're judging singing orphans?

Yep, I am.

And the winner is...An Affair to Remember.  Why?  Because their orphan choir sounds like kids.  As opposed to Love Affair which literally has a trio of grammar school girls singing like they're all 20 year old Broadway stars.  And the choir of kids toward the end also sounds pretty much like a college group.  I mean, you're going to try and sell me the idea that those rag tag kindergartners can sing base?  Really?

That said, movie lovers, comedy lovers, romance lovers, you cannot go wrong with either film. I'm not saying you're going to have the same reaction Rosie O'Donnell and Meg Ryan had in "Sleepless in Seattle."  But if you've got a rainy day on your hands and you need something charming and sweet to watch...either of these movie will fit the bill.