biduncan67's reviews

Take a mini-vacation to another Jurassic World movie. It's a good time with dinosaur silliness. Scarlett Johansson does a good job of playing a sexy lady mercenary. Mahershala Ali makes a good sea captain, running a taut ship with bravery and compassion.

It's not as good as the first "Jurassic Park" movie, which was a landmark achievement. It's better than "Skull Island." Scarlett is a more likeable action heroine than Brie Larson.

Rupert Friend excels as the cowardly villain. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays the part of a brave father. Jonathan Bailey has the right sense of wonder, as the scientist.

Once again, the Tyrannosaurus Rex brings the best scares.

Brilliant production values and a dream supporting cast cannot save this movie. It's a hokey adaptation of an exciting novel, with the wrong leading lady and leading man. Liam Neeson looked more like the disfigured hero of the book and his sister-in-law Joely Richardson would have been ideal as the heroine. Both are in the supporting cast.

The cornball premise of the movie is that our heroine becomes an espionage expert from watching B-movies. That was not the case in the book. She had a great depth of knowledge about the rise of Fascism.

This movie deserves a remake, with a script that sticks much closer to climax of the book. These days, that might entail a miniseries for streaming. As for the leading lady, Scarlett Johannson would be ideal.

A grand production, clever dialogue, and great casting cannot overcome a boring script. The screenplay didn't present a leading character we could care about. Mank comes across as yet another spoiled artiste, who got everything he wanted and was still mad about it.

The movie came across as disjointed, pretentious, and self-congratulatory.

The last two seasons of "Foyle's War" were well produced and well written. They were not titled correctly. This is more like a spin-off that they should have called "Foyle's Cold War."

We lose Sgt. Milner and the funny desk sergeant, Brookie. The indestructible Samantha Stewart married Adam Wainwright, played by a different actor in this series. The show was at its best with Foyle as a regional police detective, coping with an understaffed constabulary during wartime. It had a sense of immediacy, danger, and suspense. We never knew when they might barely survive an air raid, or lose a loved one in combat. They had reason to fear a German invasion from Normandy to Hastings. Precedent existed.

Foyle didn't have the same chemistry with the MI-5 spy network that he did with the villagers and cops in Hastings.

Bob Hope's movie career reached its paramount (!) heights in the 1940s. Mystery-comedies like "My Favorite Brunette" were actually funnier than Road movies with Bing.

"My Favorite Brunette" parodies hard boiled detective novels and film noir, hilariously. Our would-be hero explains of private investigation:"All it took was brains, courage, and a gun--and I had a gun." He's a baby photographer wants to be a tough sleuth like his neighbor, played by Alan Ladd. Dorothy Lamour slinks in with a mystery, and hilarity ensues.

Bob is a rank amateur, outwitted by Peter Lorre's gang at every step. Quotable dialogue, slick villains, ridiculous escapes, and a jokes that work in the context of the story make this an ideal comedy.

The narrator of Louis L'Amour's novel, "The Broken Gun" is a rugged novelist adventurer, a great deal like the author himself. The only character who comes from the book accurately is the evil ranch foreman, Reese, played by Forrest Tucker. Apparently, from the novel's dedication, Louis L'Amour visualized Alan Ladd as Dan, the hero. The William Bendix character would have been the lawman, Riley.

Bob Hope sought to recapture the magic of his vastly superior mystery-comedies, "The Cat and the Canary" and "Ghost Breakers" with Paulette Goddard; "My Favorite Blonde" with Madeleine Carroll; "My Favorite Brunette" with Dorothy L'Amour; and "My Favorite Spy" with Hedy Lamarr. "Cancel My Reservation" suffers from dated gags just meant to get a quick laugh, rather than to move the story ahead.

Paul Bogart directed this picture, in a nominal sense; but Bob was the executive producer. Any credit or blame goes to our star, who was otherwise a great entertainer.

The best scene is a skit within the movie, when Bob visualizes his lynching, attended gleefully by Bing Crosby (of course), Johnny Carson, John Wayne, and the latest hot TV star, Flip Wilson. Johnny observes, "He'll do anything to win an Oscar."

The screenwriter of this movie was Arthur Marx, son of Groucho. Arthur and Bob must have had a major falling out, since the writer penned a vicious unauthorized biography of his former boss. Other writers remained loyal to their former benefactor, such as Larry Gelbart, Sherwood Schwartz, and Melville Shavelson.

Seven inmates escape from a German concentration camp in 1936. The Nazis round them up, one-by-one, and hang their bodies from crosses erected on the grounds. Only George Heisler evades the dragnet.

He seeks refuge in his hometown of Mainz, in a terrifying journey. He watches a comrade commit suicide, and suffers betrayal by his former girlfriend. Meanwhile, German resistance volunteers try desperately to find George.

Halfway through the film, he decides to look up an old friend. Hume Cronyn completely steals the show as the armaments worker, Paul Roeder. As soon as he joyfully calls out George's name, the entire mood of the film changes from relentless terror to suspenseful optimism.

This is an unusual Hollywood movie for 1944. Most films of the era portrayed Germans as irredeemably evil. "The Seventh Cross" differentiates between Nazis and German anti-Nazis. It shows how ordinary people, like Paul Roeder, can rise to the occasion during a moral crisis.

George Heisler is right when he says, "There are no better men than Paul Roeder."