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Reviews
Mercury Rising (1998)
Dispelling the Bruce Willis myth
I have heard many comments about this film from people who either didn't listen to the dialogue or didn't understand the dialogue. The comment, that "Mercury Rising is a terribly unbelievable story about a nine year old boy who cracks a secret government code. . ." is most likely from a viewer who has never seen a pictorialgram or stereogram picture in which hidden words or an image, if you know how to look, leaps out at you.
The film is full of suspense and drama with a good measure of tension. Miko Hughes, who plays the autistic boy should get an academy award for his performance. He is real and your heart goes out to him as would for a real life boy in similar circumstances. I am not a true blue Bruce Willis fan but his performances in this film and The Sixth Sense show the kind of profound acting of which he is capable.
Based upon the acting of Miko Hughes and of Bruce Willis I gave this film a TEN! Go see it or rent the video without any preconceived notions and you will find it as entertaining as I did.
Meteor (1979)
You've got to be kidding!
I'm not sure why or how I managed to sit through the entire movie. It was Thanksgiving 2000, Saturday night with a lot of work to do, and instead I watched this. I believe it was the actor lineup that got to me. "Hey, with all these great actors the movie couldn't be that bad. Right?"
Ummmm, well, I've seen a lot worse. The "special effects" were wonderful. I found myself saying to the TV, things like, "Oh, come on! You've got to be kidding," as they showed to the ground crew, a close-up from space of the launching of missiles in orbit. I looked for the usual IMDB list of goofs but there were none listed. I understand why. The movie was just one, long, goof.
However it was entertaining enough to watch in light of today's films and technology. And I didn't have to get back to the job at hand, completing the sequencing of a new CD album.
And when they ask me Monday if the album is ready to roll I can truthfully state that something very important came up: Or down?
Ha-ha-ha!
Solo (1996)
Not even good enough to rate as a 'B' film.
I had the dubious opportunity to view this movie on TV. It's the perfect example of how to take a terrible script and turn it into one of the worst films ever made. Not only is the acting bad and the effects terrible, the movie has more logical holes than ten pounds of imported swiss cheese.
I would highly recommend this film as an example of how NOT to make a movie and what director not to use in one of yours.
I turned off the TV during the last ten hideous minutes of the show. Calling it "pathetic" is a gross understatement.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
I didn't know quite what to expect.
It seemed everybody I knew urged me to see this movie. I don't go to horror movies because there is usually no plot, just gore. Not this baby! It was an incredibly acted, magnificently written psychological drama that caused me much introspection as I watched and after I left the theater. My friends said once I had seen it I would want to see it again. I NEVER see a movie twice. But this is a must for Sixth Sense. Go see it! And if you're intimidated by the rating, look it up in this database to understand why a movie with no sex, or violence or harsh language could be rated this way. Go! - Why are you still here?
Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
It's merely the second best children's film ever made!
George Miller's Babe is one of the greatest children's films ever made, one of my favorite films ever, and an astonishing Christian parable. The innocence and wonder of Babe, the sheep herding pig, who learns that The Boss not only allows death, but at times, even kills, and yet still loves his animals was so richly rendered that when I heard that they were making a equel, I groaned. What possibly could be added to perfection? Typical Hollywood, I grumbled; make a sequel when none is necessary.
Trying to milk a franchise for all it's worth. And then I began reading about Babe, Pig in the City, and I was even more disenchanted. Put Babe in a City? Remove my favorite film character of the last ten years from the bucolic Eden of Hoggett farm? No no, a thousand times no.
Well, this weekend, I saw Babe: Pig in the City. And I loved it. It's not as good at the original Babe--but nothing could be. It's narratively confused, and it's pretty dark. It's a very strange film. But the heart of the story--the innocence of Babe overcoming evil in the world, and the possibility of a redemptive vision in the midst of a world full of death--is at least as beautifully rendered as in the original Babe. This is very simply an extraordinary film.
The film has a few moments of such lyrical loveliness that they took my breath away. Babe looks out a window from the animal-friendly hotel room he and Esme Hoggett (the stupendous Magda Szubanski, an actress who proves, if anyone ever doubted, how breathtakingly lovely a stout woman can be) have found to stay in, and sees a Manhattan-esque skyline, with the Hollywood sign to the left, the Eiffel Tower in the background, the Sydney opera house in the middle, and in the harbor, the Statue of Liberty. All rendered in the sepia colors of a sunset. It's just an amazing shot--funny and heart-breaking at the same time.
The film is dark in places. Babe inadvertently angers a bull terrier watchdog, who chases him through the streets in the most terrifying chase scene I've seen for awhile. Babe falls into a canal (the City also has canals, a la Venice or Stockholm), and nearly drowns. The terrier goes after him, and dangles from his chain, likewise drowning. And Babe sees this ferocious dog dangling, nearly dead. And goes back in the water and rescues his mortal enemy. It's an amazing scene of forgiveness and charity, and afterwards, the terrier becomes Babe's ally and friend--even forcing all the other animals to pay obeisance to our non-plussed pig hero.
The best scenes in the film take place in this bizarre, Dickensian animal hotel, and Miller creates a whole universe of amazing animal characters, from a Tabernacle Choir of singing cats (who nonetheless take a feline interest in Babe's small chorus of singing mice), a family of monkeys, a world-weary, deeply tragic Orangutan, and a little Jack Russell terrier named Flealick who has somehow lost the use of his hind legs, but scoots around handily in a little cart, drawn by his front legs.
Flealick is, in fact, the center of one of the greatest moments in this film. In an utterly terrifying scene (too dark for children? My five-year old didn't think so), jackbooted animal control officers invade the hotel and capture most of the inhabitants. Flealick, driven mad by fear and anger bites at a piece of fabric protruding from a car door, and is swept away, his cart battered. He crashes, and lies there--he looks dead.
And then, suddenly, soundlessly, Miller shows Flealick in dog heaven, cavorting, healed, in a field, snapping at some butterflies. And then Babe calls to him, and he comes back to life, shakes himself, and the plot continues. It was simply breathtaking, the loveliest moment I can recall from any children's film, and it redeems the ugliness of the scene that had just preceded it. When has life after death ever been so simply, so beautifully rendered?
The film has its excesses. The ending, with Mrs. Hoggett bungee cording through the air like a member of Cirque du Soleil, while wearing inflatable clown pants like a huge bouncy ball was preposterous. I loved it for its preposterousness, and found it funny and charming and amazing and pretty and silly all at the same time, but it ends up tying up way more plot points than make any logical sense. The throwaway images Miller infuses nearly every frame with--two nuns walking, giggling down a street, the silhouettes of animals crossing a building while children in a hospital watch, amazed--are so dazzling that you are tempted to forget that the film's story doesn't really make sense. Best of all, Miller doesn't explain the life out of some of his best material. The animals are all in the lab--Babe breaks in to rescue them--time is of the essence. And the Orangutan (who has worked in a circus and is used to wearing clothing), with quiet dignity, asks if they could all wait a moment for him to get dressed. And so they all wait, naked of course, and the Orangutan puts on his clothes. And then they escape. Okay, it doesn't make much sense, but dang, it's terrific stuff.
Okay, I loved it. You may not. You've probably read criticism of this film that has persuaded you not to go see it. I say, ignore them. Babe was one of the finest children's films ever made. I'd say that Babe is also one of the ten greatest films ever in any category. Babe: Pig in the City isn't quite up to the standard of its predecessor. It's merely the second best children's film ever, and one of the great pieces of Christian filmmaking I know.
Thanks to Eric Samuelsen.