zoeinusa

Please forgive me- I am about to commit a travesty! What-one can criticize "The Pianist"?! One sure can. I came, I saw, I criticized. Okay, so it has Adrien Brody in it. Not a big fan. Number two, I was surprised little attention was brought to the fact that while he and his family were marched out to the ghetto, and were wailing that they had only 20 zlotny and a few suitcases-not enough to buy a potato-and what were they going to eat the rest of their lives and had no hope of supporting themselves-and have then entered there "new" digs in the ghetto-in the next view of said digs it is completely and genteely furnished as if my grandmother's pad after 50 years of collections from around the world. How did that happen? Scenes of Nazi horror will be paraded to the viewer scene after self-conscious scene-and the extras will be paraded as well as if they had been placed on a giant lazy susan. Too bad such a lovely story based on fact had been so poorly directed.

"Fear of Flying: Turbulence II" does not pretend to be anything it is not. It is simply a formula airline-that-must-be-brought-down-by-passenger-taking-direction-from-the-ground-whilst-sitting-in-pilots-seat-where-said-pilot-is (insert one):dead/predisposed/poisoned etc.

This runs along the lines of the great 70's era tragedy films like Airport '77, Towering Inferno and the like. "Fear" has plotted this along that very formula, so much so that the inevitable hero of the movies son races out onto the tarmac as the inevitable plane is safely guided to the ground at the climactic ending with music crescendoing and you knew this would happen all along. So what? I cannot deny I was truly entertained. The dialogue was humorous-intentional at times- and I did find myself and colleagues arguing about who the actual terrorists were on the flight through out the film-is it him? No, it's gotta be him! Of all the critically acclaimed movies I have seen, this one is not by far, but it is fondly remembered. Kill an hour and a half or so with this.