response 1 of 161:

Jun 26 14:55 UTC 1994

I just say THE LION KING, Disney's new smash hit.  It was brilliant!  So much
better than Aladdin (in my opinion)!!!  Some great stuff for kids and adults,
plus some wonderful messages about life, strength, family, etc!   Go see it!!
(The soundtrack is awesome too!)   * * * * * from me!
(I didn't even take my daughter with us to see it!)

response 3 of 161:

Jun 26 16:31 UTC 1994

LION KING is very good, good enough to make you wish it was better.  Sadly,
it shows signs of having been assembled by a committee.  I think the music
is very typical, it opens with some fine scenes of african animals crossing
the veldt, backed with some absolutely wonderful Ladysmith Black Mambazo
style vocals.  I thought, "Wow, they've decided to draw upon one of the
most vibrant and beautiful traditions in modern music...african sound for
an african film."  But then the african chorus disappears into the
background and a standard smaltzy disney vocal takes over, without a hint
of the african style touching it.  Apparantly the african vocals were
added in to Elton John's score later, by the arranger, and it sounds like
that.  (For comparision, see Paul Simon's _Graceland_ score where the
african and western sounds are much more smoothly integrated.)

The same kind of problem runs though the whole film.  There is an  
ecological message, talking about the inter-relatedness of all life, but it
is mixed together with the old myth of the ecology reflecting the state of
the king in a sort of magical way.  These are not easily reconcilable
messages.  The animals are sometimes presented in a very naturalistic way,
and sometimes completely anthropomorphized.  The whole thing is a rather
uneasy mix.

Generally all of the subsidiary characters (notably the meerkat, the warthog,
and the babboon) are brilliantly done and thoroughly hilarious.  I guess
the sets of people in charge of writing and drawing them were small enough
to keep the committee syndrom under control.  The lions (with the partial
exception of the villian) are more boring.

response 5 of 161:

Jun 26 16:58 UTC 1994

Agree with your evaluations of "Mikey and Nicky" (note spelling) and
"Down by Law".  The title of the former is a play on the name of
director Mike Nichols, who was Elaine May's partner in their standup
comedy days.

response 7 of 161:

Jun 26 17:51 UTC 1994

I recently saw UN COEUR EN HIVER (A Heart in Winter) and INDOCHINE on
video.  The first is described on the cover as "A Super Hot French Movie"
and the latter a "a senusual story of unbridled passion."  It appears to
be a marketing law that all French films must now be marketed as sex
films.  Though both films are very definately stories about love, neither
is particularly hot.  I thought they were both fine, wrenching films, each
in very different ways.

UN COEUR EN HIVER is about love affair (of sorts) between an expert violin
repairman and his boss's wife, a concert violinist.  But the repairman is
unwilling or unable to follow through on his love, hence the "heart in
winter."

INDOCHINE centers on a French woman who runs a rubber plantation in
colonial Vietnam, her adopted Vietnamese daughter, and a French naval
officer, who loves each in turn.  This is a classic love triangle in that
each of the three principles genuinely oves the other two, but the
colonial exploitation and the ensuing communist revolution is more than
a background for the love story.  The cast is not just caught up in events,
but becomes a mythological embodiment of the revolution.  It's a heck of
a fine film, and leaves one thnking that Vietnam is not only one of the
most traumatized nations of the world, but among the most beautiful.

Neither of these are in any sense "fun" films, but INDOCHINE especially is
very good.

response 9 of 161:

Jun 27 00:39 UTC 1994

WOLF - the latest Jack Nicholson movie, is worth sitting still for a couple of
hours.  And the six bucks, of course. It was a lot more fun than I thought it
would be.  The wily and mischievous spirit of the deep woods comes to a big
city publishing editor.  Just in time too, since his life was beginning to
collapse in a stale, lifeless heap.  Has delightful touches of old-fashioned
pre-electronic Hollywood hokum, including glue-on dog-fur and mechanical
wolves.  If your mood is leaning toward the fun side of no more mister
nice-guy, you might find WOLF an amusing way to beat the heat.  Michelle
Pfeiffer does a turn as the late-model love interest, Christopher Plummer is
the gentlemanly but ominous presence of the almighty bottom-line, and James
Spader nearly steals the end of the show as the evil wolf-weasel.  

response 11 of 161:

Jun 27 17:13 UTC 1994

NEW: 

THE FLINTSTONES.  My son saw it on Friday and gave it a B+.  

THE LION KING.  Aaron and Lauren weren't nearly as thrilled with 
it as they were with Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid.  
They were almost (dare I say it?) bored.  They give it a C.  

WOLF.  Celeste saw it on Friday while Aaron was watching The 
Flintstones.  She gives it a B+.  


ON TAPE: 

ACE VENTURA.  The adults didn't watch it, having been warned, but 
the kids (ages 8 and 10) gave it a solid A.  Who am I to argue?

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE.  More faithful to the novel than I'd been 
led to believe, but fatally miscast.  Also, filled with odd and 
annoying visual mannerisms.  C.  

CARLITO'S WAY.  Good Puerto Rican thugs vs. bad Puerto Rican 
thugs.  I was hoping someone would drop a big bomb on all of 
them.  D-.  

COOL RUNNING.  The kids watched this one three times in two days.  
They just *loved* it.  A+ from them.  B from me and Celeste.  

ETHAN FROME.  Smaller scale than Age of Innocence, but a much, 
much better movie.  Liam Neeson excellent in the title role.  A.  

FALLING DOWN.  For your theme, take the scene in Five Easy Pieces 
where Jack Nicholson (as a flaming asshole many people, quite 
rightly, take as their spokesperson) gives that poor waitress 
such a hard time.  Do a dozen variations on it, with the Jack 
Nicholson character armed and dangerous.  Call it a movie.  
Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall are quite good, considering.  
B for them, D over all.  

THE PIANO.  The little girl is adorable and rates an A all by 
herself, but making her perform in this movie is a form of child 
abuse.  C-.  

POETIC JUSTICE.  Atmospheric but dull.  C.  

response 13 of 161:

Jun 27 22:28 UTC 1994

When it comes to judging movies, Delizia and I seem to be at
somewhat opposite poles.  I thought "Carlito's Way" was an
interesting character study and very good moviemaking and
would give it a B+.  "The Piano" I'd give a B+ as well.  THe
other stuff on the "on tape" list I haven't seen, but maybe I'll
give "Ethan Frome" a look.

response 15 of 161:

Jun 28 14:23 UTC 1994

Re THE AGE OF INNOCENCE again (sorry to ramble on about it, but I 
really hated to see all that money spent for such a mediocre 
result): 

The miscasting I'm complaining about mainly has to do with the 
two female leads.  If you've seen the movie, you might remember a 
scene where May Welland wins an archery competition.  That scene 
typifies what's wrong with the movie.  

As played by Winona Rider, May Welland is a shy violet whose 
demeanor suggests childlike apologetic smiling and shrugging.  
You expect to see a man standing by her elbow, helping her with 
her bow and arrows.  But in the novel, May Welland is a big 
athletic blonde who wins the competition because she's a terrific 
competitor.  Winona Rider's May Welland seems to win by a lucky 
accident.  And when one of the male onlookers comments acidly, 
"That's the only bull's-eye *she'll* ever hit," instead of 
chuckling over what is actually the world's first Dumb Blonde 
joke, even the smartest moviegoer will think only that, gee, poor 
May is supposed to be both stupid *and* wimpy.  

Michelle Pfeiffer's Ellen Olenska is a little bit better, but she 
still isn't the dark, worldly, creature Edith Wharton made her.  
She's too much the Cat Woman - the big bankable Hollywood star 
gamely doing whatever her agent tells her to do.  

These casting contradictions infect the entire movie - all the 
relationships, every plot twist.  Nothing quite makes sense.  The 
only motive (apart from duty) you can think of for Newland Archer 
(Daniel Day Lewis) staying with May Welland, for example, is 
pity: he feels as sorry for her as we do.  But in the novel, May 
Welland was a babe-and-a-half, the Belle of New York, desired by 
every man who saw her, and Newland Archer was the lucky devil 
who got her.  Everyone envied him.  That's what makes his illicit 
attraction to the dark little outcast Ellen Olenska so 
paradoxical and so fascinating.  She appeals to something in his 
soul.  All of that got lost in the movie.  

response 17 of 161:

Jun 28 16:00 UTC 1994

Thanks for the explaniations, md.  I, too, thought the movie to
be only mediocre (I jokingly called it "The Age of Boredom").  Now,
I know why it turned out the way it did.

response 19 of 161:

Jun 28 19:01 UTC 1994

Until I read Michael's description of AGE OF INNOCENCE, I'd forgotten I'd
seen it.  I guess I'll let that stand as my review.

I enjoyed SPEED for as long as it was on the screen.  In retrospect it has
all sorts of problems, but for a film like that, who cares?  What really
interested me about it was the preview for it.  That's a real piece of
work.  It quick cuts between all sorts of bits of scenes and dialogue
from all over the film in completely mixed up order, with dialogue from the
start of the film super-imposed on images from the end of the film.  But
the preview seems to fit together at least as coherently as the movie did.
It shows you many of the climactic scenes from the film, but changes the
context of each so much that it hardly gives anything away.  It's a neat
trick, snipping bits out of a film to make a different one.  So I strongly
recommend that you view the preview for SPEED while SPEED is still fresh in
your memory.

response 21 of 161:

Jun 28 22:09 UTC 1994

I agree that Return of Jafar is terrible in comparison to Aladdin.... If only
they had kept Robin Williams as the Genie!   The only movie I have seen in
recent weeks is "The Paper"  which is a grand movie, definitely worth
seeing.... though my date hated it because I paid more attention to the movie
than to him. *grin*  And, he really was a cute guy!

response 23 of 161:

Jun 29 14:55 UTC 1994

The only thing I like about "The Lion King" is the Elton John song.