mmagliaro Reviews

Underground (2016–2017)

Acting, dialog, scenery, plot great. Music - horrible

[8/10 · 10 November 2017]

What a superb series. I have watched other movies, TV shows, and documentaries about the slave era of the US, but this one outshines the others in some critical ways. Both sides, the slaves and the slave owners, are portrayed as very flawed, often fighting among themselves for what they want. An escaping band of slaves isn't artificially shown to be "just a bunch of black folks running for freedom". No. Instead of such simplistic 1-dimensional impressions, they are shown to be sometimes desperate, sometimes loving, sometimes greedy. They are bound together by a common goal, but that doesn't necessarily mean they even like each other and that is a magnificent and realistic attribute to portray. Similarly, the slave owners and slave catchers are not just simply "bad guys". They are shown to be flawed, sometimes doubting what they are doing, often clashing with each other over how much evil they are willing to dish out just to show that they are "the boss".

The actors are all top-notch, even though, honestly, I had never heard of a single one of them before watching this series.

My only big quibble with the series is the background music. It appears like an out-of-place overly-loud bomb going off on top of all the dramatic scenes, calling way too much attention to itself instead of underscoring the action. In an instant, we are transported from the 1850s south to the sound of an angry urban ghetto. I suppose the developers of the show thought they were drawing parallels between 19th century slavery and 21st century racism, or maybe they thought they could appeal to younger viewers. But either way, the sound track just doesn't work. It's so bad we have to turn the sound down during all the loud sequences and essentially wait to "get back to the story". So instead of the dramatic action scenes being great climaxes, they end up being interruptions.

I am really sorry to see that this series wasn't picked up for a 3rd season by WGN. The producer is trying to find another sponsor. I hope they find one. This is great television that is worth continuing.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Cheap sets, bad acting, but better than average

[6/10 · 12 February 2016]

Okay, so this movie has all the hallmarks of "B" scifi from the 1960s and 1950s. Cheap sets, bad acting, utterly laughable dialog ("I'll handle the brain area").

In spite of all these things, the movie is underpinned by a great story line, no matter how poorly executed. So just like the classic 1960s Star Trek TV series (also plagued by cheap sets and bad acting), remember... STORY FIRST.

And that saves it.

The moral conundrum of when it is okay to tamper, experiment or try to save human life. The inner struggle that a doctor or surgeon must wrestle with between only doing what *should* be done to save people, vs veering over the line and trying to "improve" or "reconstruct" them. The clash between trying everything possible to save a person's life vs deciding that it is in their best interests to let them die (Is it ever? Can they make that decision if they are dying?)

I'm the first to admit that I enjoy this film largely for its laughability, its sleazy dialog and background music, the tawdry story line of a surgeon trying to save his fiancée's head by not just saving her, but trying to "trade up" and graft her head onto a stripper's body. But unlike a lot of other schlocky horror/scifi movies, this one has a nugget of something better.

Interstellar (2014)

Too long, too inconsistent, dialog too vague

[3/10 · 4 October 2015]

I really wanted to like this movie. After seeing it, I came away thinking, "It could have been great."

But alas, there are just too many basic things wrong with it.

1. It is somewhat too long for the amount of story. At nearly 3 hours, there are simply too many sections of it that drag on without enough progress in the story. Cutting about 1/2 hour out would have picked up the pace and made it much better

2. Too many scientific inconsistencies. They take off from Earth in a conventional rocket with separating stages needed to escape Earth's gravity, yet there are scenes when they miraculously jet away from massive planets many times Earth's size (with gravity at least comparable to Earth's) in smaller portable vessels.

The worst example of this is the reveal that the father actually sent the "Stay" message back through time to his daughter, completely overlooking the age-old time paradox that if someone from the future were to communicate to the past and were to alter it in any way, it would change their very presence in the future.

3. Too many scenes rush through explanatory dialog quickly and with poor sound fidelity so that it's easy to miss key phrases or explanations. That happens often in the transmissions from home.

4. There's too much jumping around between parallel plots with rapid cut scenes so it makes the story awkward to follow. For example: When they lost touch with Romilly and then find him again, 23 years of his life have gone by. They had discussed the plan earlier, so that the viewer understood that time would slow down for the ones who left the ship. They return to the ship and he has aged. That's all good and consistent (although I pick a bone with the fact that he could have gone to sleep for much of that time and not aged as much... after all, they all knew that this would happen).

But later, in the scene where Mann has busted Coop's helmet and he's dying from the ammonia atmosphere, and Brand is madly flying to save him, we have this great action with him fighting on the planet with Mann, his helmet gets cracked, he calls Brand, she is flying to save him. Back and forth it goes... her flying, shouting, "faster faster faster!", Coop gasping for air, Mann walking off being the villain who can't even look at Coop as he is dying... and then...

we have scenes of Romilly figuring out that Mann's data, which he is extracting from the robot, isn't "right"...

... and then Brand saves Coop, and then the ship with Romilly in it blows up...

What the ???

Yes, you can figure it out, but it is very clumsy, and in fact, cutting back to Romilly tinkering with the robot while Brand is saving Coop just kills the tension and drama of that sequence. I kept feeling like cutting back to him was just plain getting in the way.

There's too much of this: little bits intercut while something else is going on. I know they are trying to portray the passing of events at different speeds and the action on simultaneous worlds, but this above-mentioned scene is just one example of places where they take this too far and do it unnecessarily.

4. Finally, they play fast and loose with important-sounding Einsteinian explanations of gravity, time, matter, and black holes, neatly explaining physical and universal phenomena that simply aren't true.

Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013)

No plot, no questions answered. Poor excuse for an "art" film

[2/10 · 26 March 2015]

Honestly, I've seen plenty of offbeat art films where there is no concrete plot and the movie is really about the angst and emotions of the characters. But even then, I expect something to happen. I expect to see some character development, some questions answered, some conclusions.

This film offers none of those. It is 90 minutes of some kids rambling around after the mysterious death of one of their friends. We never know what they think, how they feel, or how the events affect them. We never know what to think of their parents, or the dead boy's father.

I'm sorry, there is just no plot, no story, not even a thread of one, to hold this thing together. Count how many times one of the characters answers a question, "I don't know" in this film. Every question is answered this way, so you can't form any opinions about any of the characters.

I'll leave you with one final thought. The way the scenes cut from one to the next, with no connective tissue between them, they could be shown in almost any order and it wouldn't make any difference.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Bare light on the worst of human amorality. Genius, and heart-wrenching

[9/10 · 11 May 2011]

You've read the synopsis. Slippery salesmen in a real estate office use every half-truth, bait-and-switch, and outright lie at their disposal to dupe hapless customers into buying worthless real estate.

Each character in the sales office, Pacino, Arkin, Lemmon, Spacey, all show us unbelievable lack of morality, each in a different way: Pacino with the impunity of Satan, Arkin with the desperation of Willie Loman, Lemmon with the glad-handed deceit of a used car salesman, and Spacey with the cold-blooded self-preservation of a rattlesnake.

I don't see this story as one about the "plight of the working man." These working men are not likable, respectable, or hard-working. They are willing to trade lies for income. They are willing to destroy and hoodwink unsuspecting and even mentally ill customers out of their money just to make a commission. No, this is no sad story about working men down on their luck. These men made a career out of selling junk and stealing peoples' life savings.

The acting is spectacular from everyone. You can see, indirectly from their remarks, gestures (and of course, story-telling) that they KNOW what they are. For some of them (like Pacino), they don't care. For others, like Arkin or Lemmon, they've somehow convinced themselves that it's okay, that the sale is all that matters.

The language is harsh at times, but always completely believable and appropriate. I deeply respect the work of all these actors, and to put them together in one film created magic. They never "compete" with each other on screen. Rather, they augment each other. Arkin plays wonderful scenes crying on the shoulder of Lemmon. Lemmon plays great boastful scenes, crowing like a rooster about what he once was to Pacino, who kowtows to him, while you can see that he doesn't really care or believe him and is only thinking about who he can fleece next.

It's bitter, it's human, it's believable, and it is a GREAT film.

Pieces of April (2003)

Explore a Free-spirited daughter trying to make amends with her traditional family at Thanksgiving

[9/10 · 11 May 2009]

If ever there was a movie about acceptance, dysfunctional families, and putting people and feelings first, this is it. Katie Holmes is FABULOUS as a daughter who lives in somewhat of a hovel of an apartment in the city. Her family is en route by car to spend Thanksgiving at her apartment. Initially, it appears that they (her mom, dad, brother, etc) are the white-bread average stable American family, and April is the one who just can't get her life together. The movie flips back and forth between April and her family. We see scenes of her trying to learn to cook, overcome a broken stove, sociopathic building neighbors, poverty, and a host of other ills to pull off Thanksgiving dinner. These are interspersed with scenes of the family on their long car drive en route to April's apartment. The film does a masterful job of making a whole story just out of revealing and exploring the personalities of April and her family. We gradually come to understand that April is a perfectly charming, sincere young woman who loves people and tries her best. It is her family who are the losers who really have no life. They reveal themselves as, in one way or another, lazy, unaffectionate, preoccupied with getting high, self-loathing, judgmental, prejudiced, hateful people.

It's hard to believe that it's Katie Holmes, but it is. She was TERRIFIC in this.

Garden State (2004)

Genius - Could watch it 50 times

[9/10 · 5 November 2007]

The complicated personalities play out beautifully in this film. I love the scene where Braff's friend steals a set of knives off the shelf in the store so he can return them for a "refund."

But honestly, the real star of the movie is Natalie Portman. How lucky can they get to pick her for this part. She is the perfect balance of innocent, savvy, emotional, cute, "one of the guys"...

There are a few coarse moments in the movie, like the hotel where people peep through the walls at people having sex. Frankly, that whole scene could have easily been left out. It adds nothing to the movie and is just kind of, well, crude.

But overall, a really great movie.