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Reviews
The Island (2021)
Well worth watching
Brilliant animation and music. Storyline not easy to follow but never boring. Among the subjects it touches on are immigration, death by drowning, various forms of love, cruelty, and loneliness. The link to the original Robinson Crusoe is very slight.
Hollywood (2020)
Sentimental fantasy
Nice production values but just another sentimental fantasy soap with all the themes of the moment that will be forgotten tomorrow. With the exception of Tallulah Bankhead, the minor characters supposed to be themselves such as Noel Coward and Vivien Leigh are miscast.
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)
Doesn't quite jell
I am personally not very taken by the whimsy of Dr. Seuss but this film should have been much better than it is. The players (with the exception of Hans Conreid) seem ill at ease and not quite certain where they are. The music by Frederick Hollander (who wrote for many memorable films starting with 'The Blue Angel") is good and the lyrics ingenious. But the staging seems a bit amateur and unsure of itself. It should have been much more over the top, like Busby Berkeley. I am not surprised Dr. Seuss was himself disappointed. The film has attained something of a cult status with time and there are some amusingly kitsch sequences but overall it is a wee bit of a bore.