notpyrkfonos

Using contemporary photos and film footage combined with reenactments and commentary from noted historians, this program explores Roosevelt's life in depth with an emphasis on the factors that led to his attitudes and decisions.

The first episode starts with his sickly childhood and his father's conviction that Teddy could triumph over any affliction or impediment through zealous effort (a lesson that resonated with Teddy his entire life). It then explores his pampered formative years and Teddy's life changing nighttime visit to the slums that changed his perspective on the unfairness and lack of equity between the rich and poor in America. The episode follows his rise in Republican politics and his battles to change the party from a tool of the wealthy into a force for reform. The first episode ends with the Republican elitists seeking to sideline him by making him Vice-president, a job with no power and little influence. That move majorly backfires when President McKinley is assassinated in 1901 catapulting Roosevelt to the American Presidency.

The second episode follows T. R. through his "Trust Busting" square deal Presidency, the details of the start of the U. S. construction of the Panama canal, Teddy's long regretted decision not to run for a third term, his influence through The World War, and his death at the age of 60.

This was a well rounded, thoughtful and even handed look at a man who swam against the political currents and won the love and respect of the American public. The production doesn't shy away from presenting him as a bit of a nut and an egomaniac, but it also portrays him as a man who got things done through sheer force of will.

My only quibble with the series is that the producers chose to divide it into only two episodes instead of 5 one hour shows. I'm not sure the average viewer wants to invest two an a half hours per episode.

THE FATHER OF HER CHILD is well worth watching. Not only to see a young Gibson Gowland eight years before his starring role in Von Stroheim's GREED, but because it was ahead of it's time in mixing bits of comedy into a conventional love triangle melodramatic plot.

It is a drama, not a slapstick comedy by any means, but self aware humor permeates the entire film. Eph the good for nothing husband, and the slow burning Farmer Grey are broadly drawn characters played mostly for laughs. Even the dramatic, emotional conclusion is punctuated by Farmer Grey farcically kicking the portrait of his former son-in-law to pieces.

This film is newly available on YouTube with a first class piano score by David Drazin. If you like the silent movies of this period, you should really check out this strange little gem.

I couldn't agree less with the host of hostile reviewers here!

I watched CATS for the first time today. I'd never seen the musical, and I'd only heard snatches of the poems as references in other works of fiction. I had low expectations (given the harsh reviews), but I found the movie charming. The CGI didn't bother me any more than AVATAR did (which is to say not at all).

Most of the criticism leveled here is really aimed not at the movie, but at the 1981 play and the T. S. Eliot poems. Of course the plot construction of CATS is not normal... The poems are the reason that each scene introduces a different archetypal cat (each one is a different poem about cat personalities), and why there are no character arcs, and only a bare bones overlying narrative structure (that's how the play organized the poems into a "story").

It's true some of the numbers ran too long and outstayed their welcome (notably Jelical Cats) but condemning a film simply because it's structure is not like every other movie is truly narrow minded, and leaves no room for variety in artistic expression.

Some of the savage criticism I've read here remind me of the many uncomprehending, brutal reviews 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY got when it premiered.

HRH.