Reviews

First, the positives. I actually enjoyed the "young Crain" family portions of the show, living in the house and gradually realizing ghosts were all around them. None of this was particularly unique or original, though. We've all seen the same basic plot in "Poltergeist", various "Amityville Horror" flicks, and "Burnt Offerings (a really good house-renovates-itself-from-the-blood-of-its-victims), among countless other haunted house thrillers.

I also enjoyed the nods given to the original "The Haunting" movie, from character names being recycled, a cameo by actor Russ Tamblyn, and some actual dialogue from the original getting reused here.

The problem for me was the adult Crain children, which made up the majority of this series. Right around Episode 2, I realized that I couldn't stand any of these 5 grown children. They all have their "issues" from their (short) time living in the house and, in true soap opera style, never missed an opportunity to monologue their problems to the audience and their siblings.

Each of them seem like miserable, unhappy human beings. Would I ever want to befriend any of these sad-sacks? No! In fact, if any of these characters worked in a real job in the real world, they'd be ostracized by their co-workers as abrasive, angry, overly-dramatic trouble-makers and would soon be fired. The way they treated each other in their frequent meetings/encounters was shocking. These people seem to hate each other! The angry outbursts, the constant cursing out, the settling of old scores; it was painful to sit through.

It seemed weird to me that I could never identify any 2 adult kids who were particularly close to each other. In any family with lots of kids, some aren't going to get along all that well, but there are always pairs who are especially close. I didn't see any evidence of that here; it was all a constant battle with each character siding with and then turning on each other during every single encounter. (They kept claiming that Luke and Nell were close, since they were twins, but I didn't really see that. Nell seemed like she was "the best kid" in that she didn't seem to actively hate any of her siblings; she just didn't particularly like any of them.)

Also, I understand that, when living in a haunted house, the ghosts have some type of supernatural power over their victims. Even if those victims run to the nearest town, the ghosts may still be able to exert some influence over them. Here, though, the ghosts are given super-powers to attack their victims. These ghosts are so powerful, they can travel across the entire continent to terrorize the Crain children. At one point, a ghost reaches from Boston to LA to straight-up murder a side character!

At one point, I started to wonder if even the ghosts themselves would start to go, "You know, maybe we're over-reacting a bit here, guys. These kids lived here with us for a month, decades ago. Maybe it's time we find some new victims to pick on. They've had enough."

Finally, the ending.... What was the message here? It seemed like the evil old house was actually a good place, where you could bring your loved ones to die so they could be reunited with their families forever? I thought the house was "feasting" on the innocent. Then, love conquered all and happy couples are reunited, and mothers can spend eternity with their dead babies? What????

Have you ever watched a preview trailer and felt like you'd just watched the entire movie in 2 minutes? That's exactly the problem with "The Intern". If you saw the 2 minute trailer at theatres (or even the 30 second TV commercial), you've seen the entire film.

Robert DeNiro is a retired widower ("Ben") who gets a job working as an elder intern for Anne Hathaway's hyper-busy internet start-up company founder/CEO ("Jules"). They eventually bond. Ben gets along with all the young guys and gals at the company. Ben ingratiates himself with Jules' family. He imparts wisdom and friendship. The End.

It's an interesting premise, but there's no real story here. There's no beginning, middle, or end to the story. It just starts, runs for about an hour and a half, and then just ends.

There's an almost-interesting subplot about Jules being asked to hire a new, more seasoned CEO to be her boss by the venture capital company that funds her company. None of the VC investors are shown on-screen. There's a list of 10 potential CEOs, but Jules only interviews 3 of them (all off-camera). Nothing really happens with this subplot.

There's another subplot with Jules' husband that was only a surprise if you've never seen any movie before. That subplot gets tied up easily, too.

This is a first rate cast, and I've enjoyed some of director Nancy Meyers' previous work, but this movie is just under-cooked and kind of meanders until the final credits finally appear.

Okay, a train racing around and around the world, carrying the last survivors of a frozen world... sure, why not? I like movies with crazy premises, as long as that premise serves a purpose. This one does, and I liked it a lot. In the end, it doesn't matter if they're on a train, or on The Love Boat, or on a starship heading through the Delta Quadrant at warp factor 9; what's important is the story of the people on board.

I found these characters' stories fascinating. The 1st class passengers, the people who realized Mr. Wilfred was right about the end of the world, get the best place on the train. The steerage passengers were panicked people who came on board at the last minute, packed into a tight space like sardines. In that situation, over a long period of time, it's not surprising that a 2 tier system of haves and have-nots would quickly develop.

Movies like "Snowpiercer" are supposed to make the viewer think. I spent a lot of time during the movie wondering what would have happened if those steerage passengers had been made part of the overall community, and a democratic system of government had taken over. Would that have stopped a lot of the bloodshed? Would it have endangered the entire train (especially early on) due to instability and uncertainty? How about if one of the earlier revolutions had succeeded? Would the steerage passengers, newly in control, have treated the 1st class passengers any better than they had been treated? What if there was a second train using the same tracks? Would one train eventually catch up to the other? What if, what if, what if? These possibilities, and others, made the movie even better for me as I watched.

Chris Evans surprised me with a very good performance in "Captain America The Winter Soldier" earlier this year, but his role here is even better. He has a monologue near the end that was absolutely heartbreaking, and he delivered it incredibly well. It also tied up several story threads that had been mentioned earlier in the movie in a very satisfying (and logical) way.

The battle for freedom, for control, for life is a universal theme in stories, and "Snowpiercer" is an excellent example of this. I'm not going to quibble about plot holes or technology, simply because the human story this movie tells is so interesting and exciting. I highly recommend spending an afternoon watching this one.

This movie is trying to be all things to all viewers, and it fails at each of them. There's plenty of story here, but the mixture of comedy and drama is so uneven and just plain weird, that the movie is completely unsatisfying.

There's a pretty good service comedy buried somewhere in there, but its never given a chance to fully come out and build up a head of steam. There's also an interesting character study of a troubled young guy (Andy Griffith) and his attempts to grow up in the military during WW2 (he even gets to use his Matlock skills at one point). There's also the basic story line from "An Officer and a Gentleman" in here, with Andy dealing with women just interested in marrying a military man for his pay and benefits. Unfortunately, each of these potentially interesting stories are tossed together, so that you never know from one scene to the next, which story is about to have its turn.

Andy and Walter Matthau played a great antagonistic relationship in "Face in the Crowd". Here, they're playing comedic pals, and they seem to work less well together. A drunk scene, in particular, looks like the worst dinner-theatre acting I've seen in some time.

I must admit that I expected to hate this movie, as I'm not a fan of most of the actors featured here. However, they did a really good job with the story, as it moved along nicely and had some decent twists and turns, never getting boring or static. My favorite part was when the Rapture first happened and the world went crazy. Seth and Jay are stumbling through the streets that are in full-scale panic, confusion, and destruction. They get back to Franco's house and absolutely nothing has changed at the party and no one has disappeared; they don't even realize anything has happened! LOL My problem with the film were the "jokes". I was prepared for the 1000's of uses of the "F" word throughout (lazy writing/ad-libbing), but the drug jokes got old fast.

Also, how many D**k jokes can a group of adults make in a 2 hour movie without it starting to get really weird? Answer, much fewer than were made in this film. If I was 11 years old, this movie would have seemed hilarious. At 15, it would have been really funny. As an adult, it got tedious.

Usually, when grown men talk about sex, they do so in reference to women, conquests, desires, lies, etc. These guys talked almost exclusively about their own equipment and what they do with it; nothing else. Again, something you commonly find among 11 year olds.

Your enjoyment of "Made For Each Other" is entirely dependent on your appreciation for Jimmy Stewart. If you're a big fan of his, you should find this movie mildly entertaining. If, however, you find Jimmy Stewart vastly overrated as an actor, like I do, then you're in for a painful slog.

All of Stewart's quirks, gimmicks, affectations, and stammers are fully on view here. In this movie, he plays a wimpy lawyer who lets everyone and everything in his life overwhelm him. That would be fine if the movie gave us any kind of story to attach to the character he plays. It doesn't. There's a co-worker at the law firm where Stewart works who seems to be the film's villain early on. They're competing for a firm partnership, so it seems like we might get some heated office politics. We don't. Stewart had been dating the boss' daughter before meeting his wife, so it seems like we might get some interesting romantic rivalry sparks in the movie. We don't. Stewart's boss (Charles Coburn) pushes Stewart around, possibly because Stewart ditched his daughter, so we might get some "boss vs. employee" friction. We don't. Stewart's new wife and his mom rub each other the wrong way, so we might get some interesting family in-fighting. We don't. In fact, not much really happens in this movie at all.

After about an hour of listlessness, Stewart and Lombard decide to get a divorce. At this point, I thought, "Well, maybe their baby will get sick and die and that'll end this dreary movie." Shazam! The next scene, that very thing started to happen! All of a sudden Stewart is sobbing on the phone, demanding help from his boss, praying for help, all in the most melodramatic way possible. Some random pilot decides to fly from Salt Lake City to New York during a raging blizzard (in an open air bi-plane!!!) in order to save the day. Why couldn't the movie be about THAT guy?

Stewart's character is such a mama's boy that its hard to root for him at all. I could never see what Lombard's character saw in him in the first place. Charles Coburn's character started off as really irritating, with the old "hard-of-hearing" schtick that seems to be prevalent in so many old movies. He really takes control of the situation (and the movie) by becoming a man of action once the baby gets sick. His role became the most interesting part of the movie at that point.

If you want to see Jimmy Stewart at his best (in 1939), stick with "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".