09.27.06
Posted in Main, Movie Reviews at 7:33 pm by lee1990
Plot: Super Sappy
Acting: Ultra hammy
Humor: None.
Effects: Outstanding.
My first thought after finishing with this movie was : I feel sticky. I thought that so much sap had oozed from the screen that I would need turpentine to extract myself from my seat. Just like Pearl Harbor, Hollywood has taken a perfectly good and potentially patriotic war epic and turning it into a 100 cliche pileup chick flick.
The acting is so flat and the characters so 2 dimensional (the villian is literally a black tri-wing German fighter with a falcon on the side) that I thought their images would fall off the screen from boredom. Remove the romantic slock and you would have a movie 1/2 as long and 2 times as good. It might have also left some room for small things like character development.
The one reason to see this movie on the big screen and not wait for DVD is the spectacular dogfighting scenes. The movie realistically captures the brutality of aerial combat when your plane is made of highly flammable canvas and wood, and you have no parachute. At one point in the movie, the instructor says to his eager young volunteers that if the plane catches fire, they can:
1. Ride it to the ground in a ball of flames.
2. Jump and fall several thousand feet.
3. Take the quick and painless way out. Whereupon, he hands each of them a pistol.
All together, for a movie about the Great War, this one was a Great Disappointment.
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09.21.06
Posted in Main at 12:18 pm by Holder
He said: The administration “who call on us to defend democracy and freedom abroad, demand that we kill democracy and freedom at home by forcing four-fifths of our people into war against their will.” And, the foreign policy of the administration in three years had “succeeded in making the world our enemy.” Statements by the Democratic party of 2006? No.
These statements were made by Charles Lindbergh and D. Worth Clark, Dem Senator of Idaho in August 1941 at a rally where there were 10,000 in attendance.
Clark also said that we would only earn the comtempt of England in the end.
[All of this as quoted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on 10 Aug, 1941]
They just didn’t seem to care if Europe and Britain fell to the Nazis. They believed in “America First”. To stay out of that war at any cost was what they wanted.
We are at war with radical Islamists who are today’s Nazis. No, they aren’t soldiers from one country that we can locate on a map. What difference does that make? They are just as deadly and they have to be defeated. What will it take for some people to understand this? Was 11 September 2001 not enough?
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09.17.06
Posted in Main, Movie Reviews at 7:55 pm by lee1990
This movie shares a lot in common with Schindlers List. Both are difficult to the point of physical pain to watch, but necessary reminders of the great evils that the world has faced and still faces. After all, both Islam and Nazism suffer from the cancer of anti-Semitism. In the case of Nazism, it was fatal, and it may well prove to be so for Islam.
As to United 93, the movie has no tiresome documentary cliches, such as flashbacks. It is done with the real time intensity of 24, with the added impact that the story is not a work of fiction. The pace is fast as the action moves from the air traffic control centers in New York, Boston, and Cleveland, as well as NORAD. The final 5 minutes, showing the passenger revolt, are the single most intense scenes I have ever seen in any movie. Several people in the theater I went to were openly weeping by the end credits.
Those who would label this propaganda in a derisive way are fools. They are also stating the obvious. The movie is propaganda. Propaganda need not be based on lies or even distorted truths. The purpose of propaganda is mobilization of a people under threat. That threat is not always an illusion created by the propaganda, and that is certainly not the case here. We all saw it firsthand as it unfolded. We are at war, and we must be reminded of the ruthless cruelty of the enemies we have fought (Schinder’s List) and the enemies we fight now (United 93).
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Posted in Main, Movie Reviews at 7:40 pm by lee1990
Humor: Excellent
Acting: Fair
Visual Effects: Good
Plot: Good
A good evening’s entertainment. The general jist is a three way race to find the Dead Man’s Chest. The racers are:
Davey Jones: A former sea Captain who now commands the Flying Dutchman. He is also part squid. (Calamari anyone?)
Captain Jack Sparrow: Seeks the chest because any who possess it can control Davey Jones. There’s also the small matter of Jack owing his soul to Mr. Jones. (Neither a borrower nor a lender be, Jack).
Captain Jack’s sidekick: (Played by Orlando Bloom). He needs the chest to rescue his wife from the evil Governor, who wants the chest for his own ends.
The plot can keep your interest, and the makeup effects for Jones and his crew are very convincing. The only disappointment was the final scene between the kraken and Capt. Jack. The optical composite was so primitive it looked like Jack was standing in front of a large sceen like they did in the old days. A letdown given how well done the visuals in the rest of the movie are.
All together, worth the price of admission.
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09.15.06
Posted in Main at 9:24 pm by Holder
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09.11.06
Posted in Main at 11:06 pm by Holder
Memorial Day
by Edgar A. Guest
The finest tribute we can pay
Unto our hero dead to-day,
Is not a rose wreath, white and red,
In memory of the blood they shed;
It is to stand beside each mound,
Each couch of consecrated ground,
And pledge ourselves as warriors true
Unto the work they died to do.
Into God’s valleys where they lie
At rest, beneath the open sky,
Triumphant now o’er every foe,
As living tributes let us go.
No wreath of rose or immortelles
Or spoken word or tolling bells
Will do to-day, unless we give
Our pledge that liberty shall live.
Our hearts must be the roses red
We place above our hero dead;
To-day beside their graves we must
Renew allegiance to their trust;
Must bare our heads and humbly say
We hold the Flag as dear as they,
And stand, as once they stood, to die
To keep the Stars and Stripes on high.
The finest tribute we can pay
Unto our hero dead to-day
Is not of speech or roses red,
But living, throbbing hearts instead,
That shall renew the pledge they sealed
With death upon the battlefield:
That freedom’s flag shall bear no stain
And free men wear no tyrant’s chain.
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Posted in Main at 10:21 am by Holder
Remembering first those who died; then second, remembering that terrorism is aimed at all of us. They haven’t quit, so we must remember.
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09.09.06
Posted in Main at 6:52 pm by Holder
It was a fair day in the county…..a day for the county fair. This was a real county fair, in the middle of a farming area. The roosters were crowing in all their glory. The Flemish Giant rabbits were amazingly large and beautiful. The work horses gave their all pulling way over 9000 pounds while we were watching that event. There were all the usual foods, games, and rides. The little one in the family was unafraid on the kiddie rides. We didn’t buy the Lerch’s donuts this year….trying to be good. But we did have a dessert with lunch in the Grange Hall where we could get a real actual meal. We visited the buildings and tents with organizations handing out pamphlets. I stopped at the Union table and was told that there is a list in existence of products made in the USA…..somewhere out there. We stopped at the Vietnam Vets table, too, to say hello, look at the map, and welcome the man home. Had a bit of a conversation about who was stationed where… in that country… back then. It was a good day with family.
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09.08.06
Posted in Main at 10:53 am by Holder
Jonathan Schroeder was a police officer shot in Cleveland last week. He is being buried in Pennsylvania today. After his shooting, a relative of mine was at a house sale in a nearby suburb. On the lawn were numerous anti-Bush signs. The homeowner was speaking with another person there. She was finding fault with the police. She was making it sound like the police were all to blame, having no right to be there in the middle of the night serving a warrant for this criminal’s arrest. Some on the left in our society have lost all common sense. Officer Schroeder was not the criminal . He was doing his duty and helping to protect the people of Cleveland from a dangerous man. Why do some on the left have so much sympathy for the wrong doers in our society. And we wonder why Cleveland is the poorest city in the nation with schools that rated a grade of “0″ recently. Cleveland is a city where it seems that the attitude of the Democrats, who are in the majority there, causes a disregard for authority and the lowering of expectations for their children.
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09.07.06
Posted in Movie Reviews at 11:15 pm by Holder
Was this movie Flight 93 worth seeing? Definitely. Some criticized it as being too like a documentary. It was more like watching what was going on that day, not really a documentary. It was not, thankfully, a cheesy disaster movie like we are used to having shown on television. Those who seem to have a faded memory of what happened on September 11 need this movie. Those who don’t think we are at war need to see this movie.
Susie
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