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ctbehr
Reviews
On the Town (1949)
Nothing Close to the Broadway Show
Comden, Green and Bernstein wrote one of the truly great Broadway musicals in the original show. The movie version is a very weak imitation In which most of the songs have been rewritten it deleted altogether. I have no idea what possessed the producers to make so many poorly executed changes but it makes the movie virtually unwatchable for me. I have played in the pit orchestra and performed in local amateur productions of On the Town which were much more enjoyable than this movie. I do give it great credit for on location filming in New York. Sinatra's singing and most of the cast dancing are very good. Otherwise it's a big thumbs down.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Crummy Book and Crummy Movie
I'm baffled by the popularity of Dan Browns success with Davinci Code. Terribly written, badly researched and totally unbelievable story. This movie doubles down on everything wrong with the book and adds in bad acting, bad editing and bad screenwriting. The only reason I watched was to see some of the locations used in the film and how they compared to the real thing.
Around the World in 80 Days (2021)
Poorly Recorded
I'm okay with the acting and plot. The filming and scenery are spectacular. My complaint is the the sound quality. When David Tennant reads his lines in an outdoor scene, he is difficult to understand because the background music is needlessly loud and the added sound effects muddy everyone.
It's difficult to believe the producers allowed this to happen. Studio filmed scenes are mostly fine but the inconsistency makes it tiresome to watch.
And the music is pretty awful, too.
Lost on Everest (2020)
Great photography but way too long
The photography is remarkable. The talent and determination of the climbers and crew was also admirable. But it's about 15 minutes too long. We got the message very quickly that we are watching an heroic search for a dead explorer. So don't keep hammering that into us every few minutes.
It's also redundant to keep telling us what difficulties the crew had to endure. It sounds like a rationalization to make us feel better about what turned out to be just a massive ego trip.