Reviews

It is amazing to me how movies this pointless acquire the financing to get made. No plot, no script, no character development, no story, no sense.

This exhibited no talent, no forethought, no reason to look for further efforts from this director. But somehow I feel the snobbery of the art house clique will applaud this type of non-movie and go to illogical lengths to promote more of films that cannot be understood by normal, educated, movie aficionados.

As James Hilton, the author of Lost Horizon once lamented, "A story, please...just give me a story!"

If ever two hours of celluloid screamed Mr. Hilton's plea, it was this...or Them!

Sub-standard acting, absurd plot, obviously improvised script, and totally unlikeable characters. The budget minus the gross figures explain why the combination of DeNiro and Scorsese isn't failsafe.

First two seasons kept my interest, but the third season "make-over" took the series off the tracks. The cast turnover was disastrous, with replacements basically lacking any personality at all. The new team was so flat, I found myself not caring what happened to the "stars" of the series. And several loose ends were left dangling from season two. The plots were also insipid in the third season. Inevitably cancelled.

An 84-minute rip-off, combining elements of:

1. 2001—A Space Odyssey. 2. Solaris. 3. Slaughterhouse Five.

Just proclaiming a film allegorical doesn't make it so. Some good special effects in "Love" though. And computer-generated wizardry seems to be more important today than a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

As art-form film, this is also (somewhat) ripping-off 1968's "The Swimmer."

That film at least had some top-notch talent, although it fell short of the John Cheever story from which it was taken.

In the tradition of Dirty Dancing and Mystique Pizza, Greetings From The Shore is an entertaining, well made, and well acted little film. If you thought Sleepless in Seattle or An Affair to Remember were just corny love stories, you might still enjoy this story because of the added drama of the high stakes poker game, and the baffling contingent of foreign heavies that populate the seaside landscape. Jen is a truly sympathetic character, just as Flip is the stereotypical guy that you love to hate. Whether you watch it for the intrigue or the romance (both of which are worthwhile endeavors), as you watch it, keep in mind that it is based on true life experiences of the screenwriter.

I can't be offended by the truth, and the truth is, GIs called the enemy in the South Pacific "Japs," "Slant-eyes," and a lot worse. If that offends anyone, then why watch a film that you know is about a bloody WWII battle, where passions were running high? After the Marine shoots the Japanese sniper out of the tree, would it have been less offensive if he would have said, "Well, I just dispatched another one of the Asian enemy." Really! I can just imagine what someone would say in the heat of battle. It'd be a hell of a lot more descriptive than "Slant-eye."

As for the nameless reviewer who criticized the scene wherein the GI did not get mail, I can tell you first hand, that there were fewer sights more pathetic than the guys standing there after mailcall without a single letter in their hand. It was hard to watch. We all felt for those guys. You knew what they were going through, yet you couldn't do a damn thing to help them. I know how I felt when days went by without a letter from home--from ANYONE. Being in combat in a foreign land must have made it exponentially worse. I would bet that the reviewer who made that criticism never spent one day in his country's service.

This one is the kind of series that made early TV the first rate entertainment is was (but seldom is today). Naked City was also the fertile ground wherein the show "Route 66" was also born. One of the early episodes--"Four Sweet Corners"--was about two young guys who teamed up to go against a neighborhood gang. Those two (played by Bobby Morris and George Maharis) would be the catalyst for the Route 66 series, except Bobby Morris died unexpectedly, so Martin Milner starred opposite Maharis in Route 66.

Actress Lois Nettleton, one of the guest stars on Naked City, explained why the show was so well done, saying that it, "..focused on the atmosphere and reality of the people involved in the story. It was more personal." She is right. They just don't put this kind of effort into dramatic shows today. The star of this show was actually the streets New York City. You can't beat that kind of casting.

For a good take on the series, I recommend Jim Rosin's book, "Naked City, The Television Series." Then get some DVDs of the show and see why it was ahead of its time.

I've seen this film criticized with the statement, "If you can get past the moralizing..." That misses the point. Moralizing is in the conscience of the beholder, as it were. This is a decent film with a standard murder mystery, but with a distinct twist that surfaces midway through. The resolution leaves the viewer wondering, "What would I have done in this position?" And I have to believe that's exactly what the filmmaker intended. To that end, and to the end of entertaining the audience, the film succeeds. I also like the way that the violence is never on stage, but just off camera. We know what has just happened; it's just not served up in front of us, then rubbed in our faces, as it would be today with contemporary blood and gore dressing. Besides, the violence is not the point. The point is the protagonist's moral dilemma, which is cleverly, albeit disturbingly, resolved.

If you look closely at this picture, you'll see where Zucker and Abrahams got the inspiration for their "Naked Gun" and "Police Squad" series. It's all there--the corny dialogue, the shoe shine informant, the driving scenes inside the car, the lab boys...

Hollywood has never really been good at portraying real-life police. They do, after all, deal in fiction, don't they?

They do the same thing with war movies...always trying to make a point, instead of telling a simple story.

Anyway, Scene of the Crime is an attempt at real-life police work, but, as do all police movies, this one falls woefully short. But at least it's has some interest as an early whodunit-police-procedural.