lancasterray

Most of the other reviews of this film which I read were negative. There is no way to tell the age of those reviewers, but my age is 68. I like this movie, which was touching but not maudlin. It's true to life to me. My wife is still living, and I don't have a big enough retirement savings account to buy a boat and a Cadillac. But we are fortunate enough to have our only child in the same city, and our only grandson (and very likely the only one there will ever be) there also, so we are already ahead of Bill and Carol. But you have to be in old age to appreciate this story. If one of us dies, what will the other do? Would we consider remarriage? How would you find somebody, if you wanted to? If one of our beloved pets dies, what will we do? Do we want to start with another one, even an older one which might die before we do? Do we go to a retirement facility or keep the too-large house? Old age is generally not exciting, even if you have enough money to eat and buy medicine, and it's little things where you find happiness (even if it is TV or golf). This was intentionally a low-key story, which didn't answer any of the questions it raised. We only know tiny tidbits about Carol, but nobody else. Where did Bill come from, other than Dallas? What does Carol's daughter do, and where does she live, and why haven't they seen each other more often? You can draw you own conclusions or just accept this little snippet of Carol's life and move on, as she will, but to what we don't know. It's life, where we come into contact with people but know nothing about them. And nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. If you are lucky enough to have a tomorrow.

Only saw the second half, and not that sorry I missed the first. Brian Keith and James Arness are too old for their parts, as others have pointed out, but TV movies need names to draw viewers. Baldwin did a good job, perhaps a little under-whelming; while Raul Julia seemed to me to be a bit more "intense" than needed. Apparently David Ogden Stiers' character was well-paid by Santa Ana, or had designs on the Mexican Presidency, to stay around and absorb the crap dished out by His Excellancy. (Maybe that was addressed earlier in the film, which I didn't see.) The final battle was weak, and lacked any sort of reality. One of my complaints was the rapidity of fire from the defenders' single-shot weapons. And they couldn't push those rickety ladders off the walls faster than that? Anyway, it's more believable than The Duke's version, but in general only barely worth the time to watch it.