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Post by amyghost on May 23, 2020 11:11:56 GMT
I still can't find it in me to work up much enthusiasm for DDaLI, but Robin Hood has aged better than expected. Not one of Mel's best efforts, but it has enough chuckles to make the investment in viewing time worth it. I agree on Life Stinks; I wasn't crazy about it the first time out, but the film has kind of grown on me in later watchings. I can see, though, why hardcore Brooks fans rejected it at the time of its release. Brooks held a mirror up to our faces with Stinks and I guess it would have put off those wanting an over the top farce\parody that wasn’t going push our sentimental or even denial buttons. Its subject matter is confronting and of course the revulsion projected towards those loser yuccky homeless wasn’t funny. I have been watching several TV movies lately from the 70’s and 80’s on you tube. I came across one of the best ones I had seen, No Place Like Home, with Jeff Daniels and Christine Lahti. It was directed by Lee Grant and was about a homeless family. It resonated deeply and was acted and presented as top notch as these little TV movies could be, within their runtime and censorship restrictions. They had their own little genre and have a unique feel that is so steeped in the era in which they were made, that they are also charming. Now we just get sledgehammered with millennial harshness. I couldn't have said that better. Seventies television certainly touted its share of mindlessness, but at its best it could present a mirror to life with humor and humanity that didn't exclude the fact that there's a grim side to it all. Now, it's nothing but grimness, with no wit, just millenial 'irony' which consists of little more than snark without the insight that makes true irony and humor possible. I'm bored to death with the posturings of that harshness, just one more reason I find myself turning back to the products of that Seventies decade more frequently these days.
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