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Reviews
The Woman (2011)
Gratuitous. Needless. Uncalled for.
Without any doubt whatsoever, this film is, in my estimation, not worth the merit of one minute's viewing. If this kind of debauchery, gratuitous violence is popular it today's culture it can only be a red flag of warning. Nothing about this film deserves attention. All this said with the realization that there is a gigantic following of the horror genre which, again, in my estimation, this does not belong. If there were a genre for garbage, give this film a ten. Now I've been informed that this review requires a minimum of ten lines, which is far more than are in me. Again, the film contains misogynist brutality; a father who abuses his wife, his children and the stay girl who he chains in a cold cellar treating her as his possession. The movie belongs in the trash!
Secretariat (2010)
This movie missed the point by seven furlongs...
Secretariat, a son of Bold Ruler and the winner of the Triple Crown ran more than just a few fabulous races. Too bad none of that action was captured in this film. Moreover, what the film places before our eyes has very little to do with the horse and almost all to do with the accessories (people) who surrounded Secretariat. The film makes Lucien Lauren appear as a buffoon, which is hardly the case at all. A diminutive man with grace and aplomb. The film never names Woody Stephens by name but implicitly indicts him for his many failures as a trainer, which is ironic given his place in the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame. I think what put Woody on the outside was his ruining of the filly Cicada's Pride, which, too, is not mentioned. Roger Lauren gets hardly a mention and that is as it should be since he was given the job as trainer of Meadow Stable only to give it up to take over Ogden Phipp's Wheatly Stable, which Eddie Neloy retired from. That was the move that placed Lucien Lauren in the driver's seat of history as the new trainer of Meadow Stable and not all that buffoonery that the motion picture falsely portrayed. Ron Turcote, a fellow Canadian (the Lauren's are Canadian), rode a lot for Lucien, as well Roger, though his place on Secretariat's back is hardly noted. If you compare this movie to Seabiscuit this movie gets a minus rating while Seabiscuit a ten. A travesty given the subject matter!
Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers (2011)
A long wait for not much...
Thirty-five minutes of this film went by me without my awareness of the name of one character. The scenes appeared discursively, as though the director felt some obligation to them without any real belonging. A captain parachutes onto the lawn of his girlfriend's home and the home looked like a suburban development Tudor and hardly anything ever labored over in England. The cutting back and forth to R4s about to take off for France and this girl idly walking in her yard contemplating what may befall her boyfriend just seemed, at least to me, gratuitous and without any real merit. Forty minutes into the film and not one shot fired. A lot of painted faces shot at close up ostensibly to give an up close and personal look at those who were about to defy the odds but not much else. The movie seemed more of a work of some film student than the hard work of an independent studio. Must give this movie a fail grade of 3.0.
Essential Killing (2010)
Those who expect something may be seriously disappointed.
From beginning to end this movie did not only disappoint, but it tested the boundaries of credulity, as well. From the escape to the submersion in freezing water to the encounter with a mother nursing her child at the side of a winter road, this movie offered nothing in the way of an identifiable narrative worthy of viewing. The music was cacophonous and distracted from the impossible peregrination of this poor lost soul. The scenery was beautiful. The theme of escape proved to be what drew me into this movie but in the end proved so incredulous as to warrant only my disgust. It is hard for me to see how this movie, with its sparse narrative of escape, could have and did make it off the cutting room floor. I personally found this movie worthy of nothing more than a two rating.