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Wyatt Earp, a review by Rogmeister

Wyatt Earp
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan
Music by James Newton Howard

Interestingly, this movie and another movie about Wyatt Earp called Tombstone both hit the big screen within a year or so of each other...maybe they both came out the same year...I'm not real sure.  But becasue they were released so quickly together, many people compared them together which may be an unfortunate thing.  I've yet to see the other film so I won't do that.  Unlike Tombstone, which I assume concentrates on one part of Wyatt Earp's career, this film (which was originally planned to be a TV mini-series and later turned into a feature film when director Kasdan came aboard.  Perhaps the span was too great for one film...it certainly is a long one, beginning when WSyatt was a teenager and ending a bit after the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (with a tacked-on finale with Wyatt in his later years following the Alaskan Gold Rush.  This film stars Kevin Costner as Wyatt with a terrific performance by Dennis Quaid as Doc Holiday who lost a lot of weight t play the ill doctor who was suffering from tuberculosis.  There's a lot of familiar names in this film from Isabella Rosselini (as Big-Nose Kate) to Tom Skerritt.  It's got some great photography and a great score and I can't complain about the direction.  But I do think the film is a bit long and includes perhaps too much.  Among the extras, in fact, are even more scenes that didn't make the final cut...here they call them "lifted" rather than deleted scenes for some reason.  There are also some other extras including a documentary and TV special.  My one gripe about the DVD is they divide the movie over 2 discs...at one point you have to take Disc 1 out and put in Disc 2 to continue watching the film.  But while I do think the film includes too wide a sweep, I must say I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would since I had read a few not-so-great reviews of this film.  This isn't the best Wyatt Earp film around but I did enjoy it.

(From Roger's Ongoing Westerns Marathon on December 20th, 2009)

The Proud Valley, a review by Antares

The Proud Valley (1940) 83/100 - I only had the Paul Robeson Criterion Collection set from the library for a week and was only going to watch The Emperor Jones. But on the same disc as that film, was a documentary about Robeson and his career and life. They kept showing clips from this film and after finishing the film that I wanted to see, I decided to give that film a shot too. And I'm glad I did, because it was much better than The Emperor Jones. Robeson plays a merchant seaman named David Goliath, stranded in Wales, looking for work. Passing through a small coal mining town, he overhears a choir practicing for a festival to be held in a few days. The choir consists of coal miners who always seem to come up short in winning the festival's grand prize for best choir, because of a weakness in the baritone section. Out on the street, David starts to sing an old gospel tune and the choir, quietly joins in. When the song finishes, they rush to window to see who it is with that magnificently beautiful baritone voice. The miners ask David to join their choir and one man, Dick Parry, promises to help him find a job in the mines. On the day of the festival, a tragedy occurs in the mine and the festival is postponed for a month. A month later, the choir, minus those killed in the tragedy appear at the festival. And rather than compete, the choir, with David as the lead vocalist, sing an old gospel spiritual which has to be one of the most beautifully sorrowful hymns I've ever heard. The rest of the film deals with the aftermath of the accident, and the hopes of the town to get the mining company to reopen the mine. Another tragedy will take place as one miner will sacrifice himself for the communal good of the town.

This film was released the same year as John Ford's How Green Was My Valley and deals with the same issues as that film does. And while Ford's film won the Oscar that year, this film is pretty much unknown by most film lovers. It's a much shorter film than Ford's, and aside from a bit of wooden or over the top acting by the British actors, it's every bit as engaging and entertaining. It's a film that could never have been made in Hollywood, because Robeson would never have been put on an equal footing with the white actors. It must have been refreshing for Robeson to make films outside of the United States where he was respected for his talent and looked upon as a talented equal. I highly recommend this film solely for Robeson's performance and even with the shortcomings I mentioned.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on February 23rd, 2013)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by Achim

11. Self Made Man
Cameron never sleeps, so what does she do at night? Chase a T-888 that?s been lost in time.

My comments:
This episode concentrates entirely on Cameron investigating the past. We get a little of John and nothing of anyone else. Cameron has apparently paid regularly visits to the local library, where she bribed the night watch (with donuts) to let her in. She uses her time there to find someone in the past and looks for the connection to the future.

I mostly enjoys crime films where the story slowly unravels to eventually reveal the big picture and on occasion give as a moment. No exception here. There is quite a bit witty dialog (two of Cameron's bon mots made me laugh out loud) and the detective work runs along at a steady pace. But here's the rub, which happens often with this kind of stories: the "timing" is off. By that I mean that the entire investigation (plus Cameron's "problem solving at the end) happens in one single night. Going through records, finding film clips, having conversations, connecting the dots (no pun intended) and all they need is a couple of hours...? Fail (this is where I deduct one notch in the rating). Another problem is that I felt lots of lag, where I thought the story could speed up a bit and move along; luckily those are moments never lasted very long.

John's story is merely a side note and shows him getting closer to Riley. I did not like this section at all and him suddenly bursting put and almost beating the crap out of a guy who is already down felt out of place to me.



(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 11th, 2010)