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Review of A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT (1949) (Blu-ray)

October 9, 2022

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, Family, Fantasy, G rated, Musical, Romance Leave a comment

Grade:  C+/B-
Fantasy musical comedy romance
Not rated (would be G)

Disney didn’t invent family movies. As early as the 1930s, studios were adapting literary classics by Stevenson, Verne, Kipling, Dickens, and Twain with the intent that they might appeal to whole families. Disney’s philosophy was to make films for children that adults could also enjoy; those early family films were made for adults, but with content that might also keep children entertained. So many of these films were pleasant entertainment, which is to say a kind of middle-of-the-road offering meant to please a lot of people a little.

When The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther reviewed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(1949), he called it “that good time to be had by all.” Like many costumed adventures the studio system produced, this Twain adaptation featured a fantasy common to children (being transported to another time and place) and musical numbers that were a staple back then. While the adults were enjoying the romance and music, children were engaged by the escapist adventure and comedy, with everyone appreciating crooner Bing Crosby (The Bells of St. Mary’s, Going My Way, Holiday Inn) as Hank Martin, an easy-going blacksmith/mechanic from 1912 who awakens from a bonk on the head to find himself in medieval England, where he falls for King Arthur’s niece (Rhonda Fleming), becomes a knight, and has to out-wizard Merlin (Murvyn Vye) in order to survive.    

But that was then, and this is now. Despite the engaging premise, A Connecticut Yankee doesn’t have quite the same crackling energy and spitfire gags as Bob Hope’s costumed pirate romp The Princess and the Pirate (1944), nor does it have the intricacy of plot and memorable scenes that still make Danny Kaye’s The Court Jester (1955) a great film. Both of those costumed adventures are stronger than A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which may have been more restrained because director Tay Garnett had a better track record with dramas and war movies than he did musicals or comedies. In fact, his last comedy prior to this one was seven years earlier: the bomb My Favorite Spy, with Kay Kyser. Everything in A Connecticut Yankee seems as mellow as Crosby’s character, when a more accomplished comedic director might have varied the pacing and contrasted Crosby’s mellowness with more madcap situations or manic characters.

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Review of SO PROUDLY WE HAIL (1943) (Blu-ray)

August 20, 2022

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Romance, War Leave a comment

Grade:  B/B-
Drama
Not rated (would be PG-13)

Studs Terkel won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two, a title he said was suggested by an army correspondent. “The Good War” was a phrase “frequently voiced by men of his and my generation” because it was the last war fought that was not divisive or controversial, Terkel said. Americans rallied behind the flag after Pearl Harbor, and when everyone is in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, there’s a sense of shared purpose and commitment. That leads to a feeling of solidarity, of shared joys or sorrows that nonetheless bind people into a greater family or community stronger than the individuals themselves. There really is strength in numbers, and patriotism at its workable best is a group activity dependent upon full (or nearly full) participation, not an individual attitude—and certainly not competing attitudes.

All of which is to say, aside from the aesthetics of film, there’s value in watching an old black-and-white patriotic war movie because it can remind us of what patriotism really involves.

Colbert tends to Lake

So Proudly We Hail (1943) is an interesting case in point. Most of America’s World War Two movies were about the front-line heroism of fighting men, designed to keep the recruits coming and the people on the home front encouraged, still feeling the commitment and still willing to accept the sacrifices of wartime patriotism. When So Proudly We Hail was first released, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film’s  “shattering impression of the tragedy of Bataan” and producer-director Mark Sandrich’s reenacted battle-action scenes, but complained that “we behold the horror of Bataan through a transparency, through the studiously disheveled glamour of the Misses [Claudette] Colbert, [Paulette] Goddard and [Veronica] Lake.”

To a degree, that’s unfair, because the formula behind every patriotic war movie pulled against the film’s intended realism. I think Sandrich (who would direct Holiday Inn the following year) does a decent job of focusing not only on the professional aspects of military nurses serving in Bataan and Corregidor, but also on their love lives. So Proudly We Hail was billed as the “First great love story of our girls at the fighting front,” and Sandrich does a commendable job of adding romantic involvements to the standard war movie.

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Review of AGAINST ALL FLAGS (Blu-ray)

August 1, 2020

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Adventure-Romance
Not rated (would be PG)

Hollywood made a lot of Westerns in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, but they also made a fair number of pirate movies. Against All Flags (1952) wasn’t one of the absolute best, but it gave audiences a rare pairing of Errol Flynn and Maureen O’Hara—both of whom had starred in swashbucklers before.

For Flynn, who first played a pirate in Captain Blood (1935) opposite Olivia de Havilland, his best swordplay was behind him. In Against All Flags he’s less jumpy, calmer, mellowed a bit with age, and no doubt slightly slowed by his bad-boy partying lifestyle. Yet, in this film that only makes him interestingly more human and less of a cardboard Hollywood leading man. For O’Hara, who had appeared in Spanish Main costumers with Tyrone Power and John Payne, The Black Swan remains her slightly superior pirate pic, but she’s at her feistiest in Against All Flags.

Here are my Top 10 pirate movies, so you can appreciate where I’m coming from:

  1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)—A
  2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)—A
  3. Captain Blood (1935)—A
  4. The Sea Hawk (1940)—A-
  5. The Crimson Pirate (1952)—A-
  6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)—B+
  7. The Princess and the Pirate (1944)—B+
  8. Treasure Island (1950)—B
  9. The Black Swan (1942)—B
  10. Against All Flags (1952)—B-

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Review of THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR (DVD)

September 19, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: C
Entire family: No
2019, 100 min., Color
Romance
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive content and language
Warner Bros. / MGM
Aspect ratio: 16×9 letterboxed widescreen (enhanced)
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer
Amazon link

My teenage daughter (the target audience) said The Sun Is Also a Star reminded her of Everything, Everything (2017), which was based on a novel by Nicola Yoon. She wasn’t a fan of that film, nor this one, which is also based on a novel by Yoon—though as a fan of Riverdale she did like seeing Charles Melton (Reggie) as the male lead.

In this teen novel-turned-film, Melton plays Daniel Jae Ho Bae, the “number one son” in a Korean family—which, we’re told, means he has no choice as to what he will do with his life. His parents want him to go to Dartmouth and become a doctor, rather than work in the family business, which, inexplicably, is running a black hair care store. So of course Daniel, who is at odds with his brother, ends up meeting and falling for a black girl who also happens to be an immigrant. He’s on his way to an important interview to secure a recommendation so that he can get into Dartmouth, and she’s on her way to the Immigration office to try to fight the deportation order that would have her family return to Jamaica the very next day.

What Daniel really wants to be is a poet, but from what we hear he’d better stick to hair care or med school. It’s the poet in him that makes him a romantic of gigantic proportions, so when he talks about “deus ex machina” that day and later sees it written on the jacket of this young woman at the train station, he pursues her until she agrees to give him the one day he needs to convince her that love is real—even by scientific principles. Natasha (Yara Shahidi, Blackish) wants to become an astronomer, and their story is told from her point of view, which means we get these pretentious sounding monologues and scientific drawings onscreen, accompanied by her voiceover. More

Review of EVERY DAY (Blu-ray)

July 15, 2018

James Plath, Family Home Theater Drama, Fantasy, PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Entire family: No
2018, 97 min., Color
Teen drama-fantasy-romance
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for thematic content, language, teen drinking, and suggestive material
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: B+
Trailer
Amazon link

Every Day is a strange film. Angourie Rice (who was Ryan Gosling’s daughter in The Nice Guys) plays an average teenager in the Greater Baltimore area whose life is upended when she meets and becomes attracted to another teen whose looks change on a daily basis. And we’re not just talking about capricious makeovers.

That other teen somehow (why is never fully explained) wakes up in a different teen body every single day. “A,” as she comes to know them, can be a 16-year-old girl one day and a 16-year-old boy the next—black, white, Asian, gay or straight. A has no control over what body they awake in, but for the day that A is inside that body and inhabits that person’s life, A has tried to abide by one rule: do nothing that would alter that person’s life for good or for bad. That’s something A finds harder to do once they meet and fall for Rhiannon (Rice). A’s brain, A’s emotions, A’s memory bank, A’s spirit enters a person’s body and then lives that person’s life for a day. Throughout the film we see A do this with 15 different individuals who have zero to some vague memory of that day (whatever memory A decides to leave behind, though his standard M.O. has been to leave no memories). And both Rhiannon’s and A’s lives become more complicated when they develop feelings for one another.

I told you it was strange. But it’s also unique and oddly compelling. You want to see how this star-crossed romance could possibly end. More

Review of THE SISSI COLLECTION (Blu-ray)

November 12, 2017

James Plath, Family Home Theater Biopic, Drama, Entire Family, Foreign (subtitles), G rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: B/B+
1955-57, 318 min. (3 films), Color
Drama, romance, biopic
Film Movement
Not rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 widescreen or 1.33:1
Featured audio: DTS 2.0 Mono
Bonus features: B+
Includes: 4 Blu-ray discs and 1 DVD
Amazon link

Biopics were big in the ’40s and ‘50s. Whether it was Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, Greer Garson as Marie Curie, James Cagney as George M. Cohen, James Stewart as Charles Lindberg, Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Andersen, or any number of others, audiences enjoyed watching their Hollywood heroes playing real-life ones.

In Europe, though, one biopic towered regally over all the rest: the phenomenally popular Sissi trilogy from director Ernst Marischka, starring Romy Schneider. In Sissi (1955), Sissi: The Young Empress (1956), and Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), Schneider played Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, who went on to marry Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria. As the Empress, “Sissi” reigned alongside him from 1854-1898, and significantly helped unite Austria and Hungary.

By today’s standards, all of the postwar biopics seem sanitized and romanticized, and Sissi is no exception. The “fateful years” don’t involve a guillotine or even a significant loss of any kind, because movies from this era either stopped short of showing a historical figure’s real tragic fate or softened it by depicting it off-camera. The real Empress Elisabeth was assassinated at age 60, but this cheery blend of history, comedy, and romance only covers Sissi’s late teenage years growing up in Bavaria through her forties as Empress trying to balance the demands of government with her own needs and desires. Even that last phrase, as I write it, seems more sensational than this film or biopics from the era, which were intended as entertainments for the whole family.

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Review of EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING (Blu-ray combo)

August 12, 2017

James Plath, Family Home Theater Drama, PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: C+
Entire family: No
2017, 96 min., Color
Romantic drama
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief sensuality
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer
Amazon link

The Fault in Our Stars (2014) was such a huge hit that you knew other sick teen romantic dramas would follow, even if you were unaware of what books were out there to inspire the screenplays. And sure enough, along comes Everything, Everything (2017), starring Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) and Nick Robinson (The Kings of Summer).

If there’s a teen in your family, they’ve no doubt seen trailers or heard of it. But they may not know about the one big difference between the two “sick teen” romantic dramas: The Fault in Our Stars aims high, for an adult audience as well as teens, with believable dialogue and situations and an edginess that comes from a healthy cynicism that comes from a realistic optimism in a hopelessly pessimistic situation. It’s a little like Hemingway for teens, where grace under pressure and how well you face tragedy becomes more important than the outcome. It’s about finding consolation in an impossible situation.

Everything, Everything is the flip side of that—a film that doesn’t just look for a silver lining, but manufactures one. It’s made for the people who wept during The Fault in Our Stars thinking, Why? Why couldn’t there have been just a slightly happier outcome?

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EQUALS (Blu-ray)

August 28, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

EqualscoverGrade: C
Entire family: No
2016, 101 min., Color
Lionsgate
Rated PG-13 for thematic content, sensuality, partial nudity and disturbing images
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C+
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult in a dystopian romantic drama? Sounds like a surefire hit with teens, doesn’t it? Especially when it’s all about emotions, as Equals is.

Sometime in the far future—far enough to where everyone wears white uniforms and the buildings and residential cubicles are all as sanitized as can be—human emotions and illnesses have been all but eliminated. People go about their sanitized jobs like futuristic zombies or contented cows, until a new disease pops up: SOS (Switched on Syndrome), the stages of which ultimately lead to the afflicted being “put down” in a humane and painless way, though an ubiquitous videoboard and voiceover reassures them that “a cure is coming soon.”

Equalsscreen2When Silas (Hoult) is affected, he goes through treatments. He also suspects that co-worker Nia (Stewart) is suffering from SOS but hiding her symptoms. The main symptom, of course, is that they can feel emotions and therefore notice each other, then feel for each other. A romance grows . . . though unfortunately, not fast enough for most teens.

Therein lies the chief problem. How do you convey a sterile and emotionless environment and a futuristic existence bereft of real meaning without subjecting viewers to stark repetitive images and what feels like real-time boredom? Thirty minutes into Equals our dystopian-novel-loving teen was ready to pull the plug, and I can’t say as I blame her. It’s slow going. What’s worse, though, is that if you’ve seen The Giver, or even Gattaca, you’re already have a slight sense of deja vu. The concept isn’t new or original, and that places a burden on Equalsscreen1director Drake Doremus and his cast to make their version of dystopian disappointment memorable or distinctive it in some way. And I’m not sure that happens.

Doremus seems to wrestle with the sense of inevitability that’s embedded in the film’s plot, determined to shine the spotlight on these ill-fated lovers when what’s more interesting, frankly, are the other patients who have formed both a support group and underground movement to deal with not just SOS but their newfound “knowledge” of emotions that feels a little like the problem Adam and Eve faced after tasting of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Is Equals stylish? Yes. Is it cold and sterile? Yes. Is it satisfying to watch? Honestly, no . . . though things really pick up in the third act when SOS patients played by Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver both literally and figuratively try to come to the rescue. By then, though, many viewers—young ones especially—might feel a little too zombified themselves to care.

Language: None
Sex: No nudity, but clothing removed and implied coupling
Violence: Nothing much—a body appears to have been the result of a “jumper,” and other references to suicide are made
Adult situations: Other than a frighteningly sterile vision of the future? Nothing much
Takeaway: There had to be a way to tell this story without focusing so much on the mind-numbing sterility of this future world and more on the capacity of the human spirit to rise above such things

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (Blu-ray)

June 10, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

PrideandPrejudiceandZombiescoverGrade: B-/C+
Entire family: No
2016, 107 min., Color
Sony Pictures
Rated PG-13 for zombie violence, action and brief suggestive content
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: B+
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

While watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, our college freshman groused that you can’t introduce the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and then not do much with it. “D for dumb” was the grade he said he’d give the film. Our teenage daughter, who’s more the target audience, said she thought it was a B but admitted it wasn’t as good as she had hoped. My wife, a big Jane Austen fan, agreed. She liked that, minus the zombie sequences, the historical drama stayed fairly close to the book, but she didn’t think this particular Darcy (Sam Riley) charismatic enough to sell the romantic angle. As for me, I found myself less impressed by this variation on a theme than I was by the Bollywood version, Bride & Prejudice.

If Pride and Prejudice and Zombies disappoints—and my family wasn’t alone, given that only 42 percent of Rotten Tomatometer critics liked the film—let me suggest one main reason why. It’s a romance and it’s an action-horror film, and sometimes one genre gets in the way of the other. The concept works against itself.

PrideandPrejudiceandZombiesscreen1Though the zombie premise is woven into the plot, the actual insertion of zombie scenes can sometimes feel inorganic or heavy-handed. Hearing myself say that I have to chuckle: of course when you insert battles with zombies they’re going to be jarringly head-snapping (sometimes quite literally). But it does take away from any romantic simmer, and the dramatic, romantic interludes are just enough to make people squirm and wish for more zombie action. I think my daughter nailed it when she said the characters and the historical treatment were good, but the writers could have done more with the plot and included more action. As much as she loves romance, she’s a fan of shows like Supernatural, and the action-violence in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is both tame and minimal by comparison. Disappointing, in other words.

The novel by Seth Grahame-Smith was a parody, but the comic elements seem diminished in this film adaptation from director Burr Steers. In it, Darcy is like a 19th-century version of Homeland Security. In the opening scene, he visits a rich family to expose a rumored, recently infected zombie that, if unchecked, might start another mass outbreak. Meanwhile, Mr. Bennet (the incomparable Charles Dance) sends his daughters to China to learn martial arts and better defend themselves against those pesky zombies, who seem to have no social graces—turning horseback rides and elegant balls into tests of survival.

PrideandPrejudiceandZombiesscreen2You’ll probably need to watch this film several times to grasp an appreciation of the IZS (Integrated Zombie Structure), which includes a trip to the In-Between zone outside of walled London in which zombies feed on pig brains and are somehow kept from going completely savage. Ala Austen there are proposals and good and bad manners. The handsome Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth) is here, of course, as is Parson Collins (Matt Smith), himself a suitor who indeed “settles” after being turned down by his first choice. And a soldier named Mr. Wickham (Jack Huston) turns up with a story about Mr. Darcy that he’s reluctant (but dying) to tell. And in this version, Darcy’s aunt, Lady Catherine, is a famous zombie killer who wears an eye patch and seems resistant to any idea of a brokered peace with zombies that haven’t gone savage. Got that?

As the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, Lily James (Cinderella) charms not only all the suitors but teenage girls who will recognize in her that rare combination of natural behavior and poise. Without her, this film would languish a lot more in the IZS.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies took in a worldwide gross of just $16 million against a reported $28 million production budget, despite plenty of advertising and social media buzz. It could be that Austen fans expect romance to be at the core of this classic, no matter what the permutation, and zombies ate away a little too much of that chest-heaving unrequited love.

Language: n/a
Sex: Apart from heaving bosoms (a Victorian trope), there’s one instance where a man and woman tear at each other’s clothes
Violence: A woman’s head is shot off, heads explode, a man’s hand is slashed off, people are stabbed, and there’s plenty of other zombie violence
Adult situations: Lots of pus and decomposing flesh and lots of wine-drinking, once to intoxication
Takeaway: Could have been funnier, could have been more romantic, and could have had more zombie action to satisfy those with a craving . . . .

A ROYAL NIGHT OUT (DVD)

May 3, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Comedy, PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

RoyalNightOutcoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
2015, 97 min., Color
20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 for some sexual content and brief drug elements
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features: C
Trailer
Amazon link

Here are four words you have to keep in mind when watching A Royal Night Out: “Inspired by True Events.” In Hollywood, that means a wholesale revision of the facts, if not a pure fiction. So this 2015 historical comedy-romance-adventure is truthful when it says it’s only inspired by the story of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret being allowed to venture incognito outside the gates of Buckingham Palace on V.E. Day to listen to their father’s speech from the other side of the fence. Twentieth Century Fox quite accurately describes it as “a fanciful tale about two real-life princesses who long to feel normal on the most extraordinary night of their lives.” While critics have taken this WWII-era film to task for its blatant historical inaccuracies and eyebrow-raising plot, I feel compelled to say, Relax. This isn’t The King’s Speech. It’s Adventures in Babysitting meets Roman Holiday.

RoyalNightOutscreen1The action takes place on a single night in which all of London is euphorically celebrating Hitler’s demise and the end of the war in Europe. After the king (Rupert Everett) countermand’s the queen (Emily Watson) and gives his daughters permission to leave the palace on the condition that they report back to him what the “real” people have to say about him and his speech, the sensible Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and her wild younger sister Margaret (Bel Powley) leave the gates with two military chaperones. They think they’re headed for a night on the town, but at the king’s orders the escorts drop them off at a stuffy hotel ballroom celebration with England’s upper-crust old fogies the only ones in attendance. But, tempted by women and liquor, the chaperones decide to leave their post at the closed door and watch from afar.

Of course Margaret manages to slip out first, and then Elizabeth, with the latter’s entire night spent trying to track down and take care of her wild but naive sister, who drinks her way across London with a group of naval officers that has no idea she’s the princess. To catch up with her RoyalNightOutscreen2Elizabeth boards a bus and, having no money for fare, is about to be tossed off when a young R.A.F. bomber seated next to her offers to pay. From that point on, he becomes her reluctant, unwilling, and finally devoted accomplice as the two of them continue their pursuit of Margaret . . . and of course draw closer to each other in the process.

A Royal Night Out is fast-paced fun if, like the princesses, you allow yourself to get swept up in the manic euphoria of one of history’s biggest celebrations. Director Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane, Brideshead Revisited) and his set and costume designers do a fine job of selling the period atmosphere, and the cast is perfectly charming. It’s the kind of film that princess-crazy daughters would love, if their own kings and queens would let them watch. Be aware, though, that there’s celebratory drinking, drunkenness, some brawling, hookers, opium dens, and overly aggressive military men.

Language: Surprisingly little, and when it’s used it’s British
Sex: One topless woman with pasties is shown the background, a man sleeps between two women, and another man, though fully clothed, is in a coital position
Violence: Several fistfights
Adult situations: A den of iniquity, hookers, and lecherous behavior
Takeaways: Surprisingly fun. Hollywood loves to project the longing that royalty has for a “normal” life, but I’d bet it’s nothing compared to the longing that “normal” people have for leading a life of leisure and luxury. Just sayin’.

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