Friday, March 6, 2020

"The Invisible Man" and The Week in Reviews

[I review "The Invisible Man" as well as DVDs "Frankie" and "Dr. Sleep."  The Book of the Week is "The Self-Care Solution: A Year of Becoming Happier, Healthier, and Fitter -- One Month at a Time" by Jennifer Ashton, M.D.  I also bring you-up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project" with "The Kingdom."]



The Invisible Man


Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) manages to escape her abusive boyfriend and when she discovers that he has committed suicide, she thinks she is finally free.  But is she?

I feel like I have been attending a Blumhouse film festival, Blumhouse being the number one producer of horror films right now.  Last week, I reviewed their remake of "Fantasy Island" and now this one.  I didn't like "Fantasy Island" and had this feeling that Blumhouse was basically B-movie schlock, but after seeing this, I realize there is Blumhouse and then there is BLUMHOUSE!  Yes, there is still the B-movie Blumhouse, but I guess there is also the premiere Blumhouse, too, because this film was really good.  More of a thriller than a horror film, it ticked all of the boxes of an exciting movie experience.  Great screenplay by Leigh Whannell. Not a loose end in sight.  Tick.  Wonderful acting. Tick. Satisfying ending. Tick. Tense, tense, tense thanks to Whannell, who also directed. Tick, tick and tick.

When we first meet Cecilia it's the early morning hours, and she is lying in bed wide awake, her boyfriend, Adrian's (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) arm across her side, an early indication that perhaps Adrian is a bit of a control freak.  But she doesn't lie there long.  She is getting ready to make her escape, and she does in a harrowing opening fifteen-minute sequence that will get your heart pumping and it doesn't stop building from there.

Cecilia is picked up by her sister, Emily (Harriet Dyer), and finds a safe house because she is terrified that Adrian will find her.  You see, Adrian was an abusive boyfriend.  Cecilia is staying with her friend, James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter, Sydney (Storm Reid), but Cecilia is a nervous wreck, so nervous that she can't even make herself go out to the mailbox.  So when her sister arrives and tells her that Adrian has committed suicide, Cecilia is relieved to say the least.  And not only is he dead but he has made her the beneficiary of millions of dollars.  Time to celebrate!

But...

Then strange things start occuring, things that lead Cecilia to not only believe that Adrian might not really be dead but that he has been able to make himself invisible and is now tormenting her and turning her life into a nightmare. But how do you get people to believe it's not you punching young Sydney or writing nasy emails to your sister, that it's really your dead boyfriend who has somehow come back to life and is now invisible? Is Cecilia really being tormented by her now invisible boyfriend or is she going insane? 

Inspired by the 1897 book by H.G. Wells, you might want to compare this film to that or the 1933 film, but this is no rehash of either of those.  This is the terrifying story of an abused woman who is not believed, certainly a metaphor for today.

Though the other actors are fine, this film is practically a one-woman show for Moss and nobody does beleagered women and scary, tense escapes like Elisabeth Moss. If you have seen her in "A Handmaid's Tale," you know what I mean.  But she is a wonderful actress in general, keeping what could have turned into a horror soap opera into a thrilling and scary ride.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a thrilling thriller.



***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***
(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!


On DVD



Frankie (2019)


Frankie (Isabelle Huppert), an ex-actress, is dying and her family gathers in a village in Portugal to say goodbye.

I have had a long history with Isabelle Huppert.  I had an early affinity for foreign films.  We had an "art" theatre in our town and you had to be 18 to go see all of those foreign films because, heaven forbid, we can't have our teenagers seeing some nudity in those French films, now can we?  But we got ourselves in and then would show off the next day at school, talking about the film, feeling very sophisticated.  So my love for foreign films continued. I first saw Huppert in 1974 in "Going Places," and I have been a big fan ever since, and she has had a long and celebrated international acting career.  Sadly, this film doesn't do her justice.

Frankie is a former film star but has maintained the haughty presence of one who is still popular. She has summoned her family to the Portuguese village of Sintra for a family reunion, but it's also to say goodbye because she has cancer and his going to die.  Her husband, Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), is there as well and he is already suffering at the thought of losing his wife. There is also Frankie's ex-husband, Michel (Pascal Greggory), with a male companion (you heard me) followed by Ilene (Marisa Tomei), Frankie's hair dresser and confidant and her significant other, Gary (Greg Kinnear), and Frankie's son, Paul (Jeremie Renier) who looks like a character from "Trainspotting."  He is having trouble settling down.  There is also Frankie's step-daughter, Sylvia (Vinette Robinson), her husband, Ian (Ariyon Bakare), and their daughter Maya (Sennia Nanua), who is not getting along with her mother. To complicate matters even more, Sylvia plans to leave Ian.

Written by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias and directed by Sachs, the premise is similar to "The Farewell," - the family has been summoned for a reunion but also to say goodbye, though in this case Frankie knows she is going to die. There is also an Eric Rohmer meets Woody Allen feel, too, but this film is neither as affecting as "The Farewell," nor as deep as Rohmer's films (I say deep because I never really understood them) nor as funny as Allen's. It's all very slow moving, with all kinds of walking and talking with absolutely nothing happening. It is an absolutely gorgeous film to look at because of the lovely Portuguese village and the surrounding vistas, forests and beaches, but if I wanted a travelogue I would have watched a travelogue where I didn't have to listen to all of these boring characters talk about nothing, which is sad because these are all wonderful actors. They deserved better.

Rosy the Reviewer says...A big cast of characters and a lot of walking and talking that doesn't add up to anything. Zzzzzz



Dr. Sleep (2019)


A sequel to "The Shining," as in what happened to young Danny, Jack and Wendy Torrance's son, the kid with "The Shining?"

Well, when you have "the shining," as in psychic abilities, I guess you turn into an alcoholic and have a bunch of psychic vampires chasing you down!

In this sequel, we have the adult Danny (Ewen McGregor) with all kinds of issues from the past, not the least which is that old, naked lady in the shower, but now he also has to contend with another kid with "the shining," young Abra (Kyliegh Curran), and a new problem, some psychic vampires called the True Knot, led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), who feed off of the "steam" of little kids who have "the shining," as in they kill those little kids and suck up the steam from their tortured and then dead bodies. If you have a problem with children being tortured, this probably isn't for you.  There is one particular scene that is very hard to watch.  The "ew factor" is huge.

So we have poor Danny who has already lived through a murderous Dad and alcoholism, trying to control his "shining" abilities and using them for good, working in a hospice, helping people go over to the other side, hence his nickname and the title of this film.  But all of that is interrupted when Abra is able to psychically communicate with Danny and he realizes he now has to protect her.  

It's all very Stephen King and looks very much like the original film except that the Overlook Hotel appears to have new carpet. Many of the tropes from the first film were in evidence, though it probably would help the enjoyment of this one to go back and watch the first one again. It's all very moody and stylish, and the vampire gang is a new twist, but the film, adapted from Stephen King's own sequel and also merged with the first film and directed by Mike Flanagan is VERY LONG! That's what happens, I guess, when you try to merge the first film (which King supposedly did not like) with King's book sequel and then add some changes of your own. 

Now here is a little film lesson.

How can you tell when a movie is going to be very long?

First, watch out for a film marked "Director's Cut." For some reason, the DVD you get from Netflix is a Director's Cut.  You know what that means, right?  LONG!!!  "Director's Cut" is actually an ironic name for the film the director really wanted to release.  It's ironic because it means THERE ARE NO CUTS.  If director's could have their way, no one would cut one moment of their precious films and all films would be over three hours.  Well, this one was three hours. 

The second way you can tell that a movie is going to be very long is when it is broken up into chapters.  This one had SIX!  I knew "Director's Cut" was bad, but as soon as the film began and I saw "Chapter One," I said out loud, "Oh, geez."

The film used a whole hour to just set us up with Danny's current situation.  That could have been cut down to fifteen minutes.  And then at the end there is a vampire fight, with each vampire getting a very long, extended and disintegrating death scene. Could have done away with all of that. Kill them already and be done with it. So those would be Rosy the Reviewer's cuts.

But thank god for the remote. When you have a three hour movie and you are watching it at home, there is a tendency to fast forward through the boring bits.  Even when I am in the movie theatre, I can't tell you how many times my hands get twitchy and I reach for an imaginary remote when I am bored ("Fantasy Island" was a perfect example)!

That's not to say this film did not have some redeeming qualities. It did. Despite the length, it was actually good. Those True Knot nutters were interesting - Ferguson is always good and a stand-out in this - and Ewen McGregor can do no wrong in my book, except maybe singing in "Moulin Rouge."  For some reason, when he sang he looked just like a Muppet.

Young Kyliegh is an engaging young actress.  With a character name like Abra, I was surprised her last name wasn't Cadabra. I know, I'm terrible. I mean, she did have magical abilities.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a perfectly good Stephen King film but it was 60 minutes too long. Try to avoid the "Director's Cut" version if you can.





***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***


40 to go!

Have YOU seen this classic film?



The Kingdom (1994)
(Original Title: Riget)


Some supernatural goings on at a Danish hospital called The Kingdom.

There is an arrogant Swedish neurosurgeon, Dr. Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Jaregard), who has been demoted to working in Denmark after plagiarizing some medical papers, and he is not happy about it.  It seems Swedes don't like Danes very much. There is also Mrs. Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes), an old woman who keeps checking herself into the hospital so she can make contact with the spirit world; all kinds of sexual shenanigans amongst the doctors and other hospital staff; a little girl ghost in the elevator shaft; a demonic dog; and two kids with Down Syndrome who are the hospital dishwashers and appear to be a sort of Greek chorus talking about what is going on upstairs.  All of that adds up to not much in my opinion.  The best part of it all was creator/director Lars von Trier coming in at the end of each part and saying some strange stuff about good and evil.

Why it's a Must See: "The Kingdom's spare, but escalating, supernatural manifestations, are genuinely eerie, sometimes magical...with the mock-documentary aesthetic of irony-laden 1990's soap."
---"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"

Hospitals are great places to film horror films because hospitals hold so many horrors that we humans sometimes have to go through. I get that part. Stephen King based the 13-episode TV miniseries "Kingdom Hospital" on this Danish TV show that was later cobbled together into this two part film.  That and the fact that writer/director Lars von Trier created and co-directed this series with Morton Arnfred early in his career before his successes with "Dogville" and "Melancholia" are the only reasons I can come up with as to why this was included in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book.

Rosy the Reviewer says...an incomprehensible mishmash that I certainly did not need to see before I died.
(In Danish with English subtitles)




***The Book of the Week***



The Self-Care Solution: A Year of Becoming Happier, Healthier, and Fitter -- One Month at a Time by Jennifer Ashton, M.D. (2019)


Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC's Chief Medical Correspondent, outlines a year long plan to improve our emotional and physical health.

Ashton confesses that, like the rest of us, she usually makes New Year's resolutions but for 2018 she decided to try something different, to implement a plan where she was not just the researcher but also the subject.  She was going to try something new every month for the year, something that would improve her health and well-being, and then see how that made her feel.  She thought she could certainly make something work for a month.  And this book is the culmination of that year.  She shares the results and how we can make it work for us.

Each month poses a new challenge:

January - No booze 
(since January is already over...)

February - Doing push-ups and planks 
If you don't have time to go to the gym, you can certainly spend a few minutes doing some push-ups and planks and why push ups and planks?  Push ups have been hailed as the world's greatest and most perfect exercise.  Why? Because push-ups work nearly every muscle in your body. And she says everyone can do them, even if it's just pushing off the wall or from your knees. Likewise, planks use important muscles and especially work the abdominal muscles for a strong core, something that helps with back problems.  She also adds tips for making this work: do them first thing in the morning; add music; and do them with a partner!

I wasn't exactly sure how to do a plank so here it is!


(and in case you just gave a sigh of relief, thinking that's all she expects exercise-wise, you would be wrong.  April is all about cardio)! 

March - Meditation
She credits meditating with everything from helping you sleep to staving off depression to lowering your blood pressure to losing weight to making you smarter.  Not sure about all of that, but I know it has helped me.  I wrote about it in one of my early blog posts - "A Little Meditation on a Little Meditation by an Unlikely Meditator.

April - Cardio
You've heard the new saying that sitting on the couch is the new smoking, right?  Well, Ashton reminds us of that and guilt trips you into getting your butt in gear.  But the good news is a little is better than nothing. Even 20 minutes of brisk walking will help you with sleep issues, fat, blood pressure, cholesterol, you name it.  Exercise is the wonder drug.

May - Less meat, more plants
When you read her reasons why we should eat less meat and more veggies, you won't want to see a piece of meat again!

June - Hydration (that's water to you and me)
Did you know that three-quarters of all Americans are chronically dehydrated?  And now here is ANOTHER thing that's as bad as smoking!  So start sucking down that water!

July - More steps
I already shoot for 10,000 steps a day and probably get that half the time.  She wants me to DOUBLE my steps?

August - Mindful tech (as in turn off your phone)!
Now this I agree with! Ashton promises that if you get off your phone you will sleep better, have more time for friends and family, your leisure time will turn from fun to phenomenal and you will be less anxious, stressed, lonely and depressed. She also warns that your smart phone will make you stupid and look older, it sabotages your sleep and social life, is wrecking your posture, eyesight, and dexterity AND it can even kill you!  Click!

September - Less sugar
Does this mean I have to throw away those boxes of See's I have in the fridge? Oh, c'mon, as bad as smoking, too?

October - Stretching
She's into foam rollers.

November - Sleep
"Just one night of poor sleep can affect your mood and energy levels."  
I must be doing something right.  I have no problems sleeping. 

"Sleep can make you happier and sexier."  
I'm heading off to bed now!

December - Laughter
It would help if someone would make a comedy that was actually funny! But this is all about finding joy.

Sound doable?  Or just too much?  Ashton ends each chapter with how to make each monthly challenge work, and she ends the book with tips on how to turn these changes into lifelong habits.

All good ideas and when broken up into monthly challenges, I think they are doable and it's always good to have a plan when you want to make changes.

Rosy the Reviewer says...we all want to be better people, right?  Well, here is a plan!


Thanks for reading!



See you next Friday


for 



"The Way Back"


and



The Week in Reviews
(What To See and What To Avoid)

as well as

the latest on

"My 1001 Movies I Must See

Before I Die Project"








If you enjoyed this post, feel free to click on the share buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, email it to your friends and LIKE me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer 






Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.

Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database).



Go to IMDB.com, find the movie you are interested in.  Scroll down below the synopsis and the listings for the director, writer and main stars to where it says "Reviews" and click on "Critics" - If I have reviewed that film, you will find Rosy the Reviewer alphabetically on the list.



Friday, February 28, 2020

"Fantasy Island" and The Week in Reviews

[I review "Fantasy Island" as well as DVDs "They Shall Not Grow Old" and "Strange But True."  The Book of the Week is "The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness" by Susan Cahalan.  I also bring you up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project" with "Hill 24 Doesn't Answer."]



Fantasy Island


A horror remake of that iconic 1970's TV show. 

Or shall I say, an attempt at a horror remake. 

Baby Boomers will remember "Fantasy Island," the TV show where aging movie stars on their way down and young unknown actors on their way up would arrive on Fantasy Island to have their fantasies fulfilled by the suave Mr. Rourke played by the ever suave Ricardo Montalban and his little pal, Tattoo, played by Herve Villechaize. It was an entertaining and popular anthology TV series that ran from 1977 to 1984, so making a horror version of the show could have been a good idea.  However, in this film written by Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach and Jeff Wadlow and directed by Wadlow, there is neither horror nor a good idea and the only things recognizable from the iconic TV show are Mr. Rourke and "The plane, the plane!" - and even those reminders don't save this thing.  And I use the word "iconic" loosely.  It was a popular TV show, but certainly not one that was trying to make you think.  However, it deserved better than this.  

Blumhouse Productions founded by Jason Blum has become the powerhouse of low-budget horror films producing such films as "Happy Death Day," "Paranormal Activity," "Insidious" and more, films aimed at millennials, so a reboot of "Fantasy Island" won't mean much to them nor will they have anything to compare this to, but for those of us who remember the TV show, this is a big "Huh?"

Anyway, the film is a sort of origin story that attempts to explain how Mr. Rourke ended up stuck on Fantasy Island, forced to make fantasies come true for a bunch of bozos.

This crop of bozos consists of businesswoman Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q), who has many regrets in life and wants a do-over; former policeman Patrick Sullivan (Austin Stowell); step-brothers J.D. (Ryan Hansen) and Brax Weaver (Jimmy O. Yang); and Melanie Cole (Lucy Hale), who has come to the island to fulfill a fantasy of getting revenge on Sloane Madison (Portia Doubleday), a high school classmate who had tortured her back in the day.  Mr. Rourke (Michael Pena) is welcoming and accomodating but warns his guests that, though they will get the fantasy they desire, fantasies have a way of taking on lives of their own, and once the fantasy begins, they must each see their fantasies to their natural conclusions. Huge red flag! If Mr. Rourke had said that to me I would have been on the next plane outta there!

Anyway, Gwen regrets not accepting her ex-boyfriend, Allen's (Robbie Jones) proposal, therefore missing out on marriage and a family, so Rourke recreates that moment when Alan was going to propose so Gwen can say yes and get a do-over.  Patrick wants to enlist in a war in honor of his hero Dad who was killed; the Weaver brothers want to "have it all," a massive rave party in a huge mansion with beautiful girls and partying; and Melanie gets her wish to take revenge on Sloane, the girl who bullied her in high school.

But...

As Mr. Rourke warned, once the dream fantasies begin they cannot be stopped and these fantasy dreams become living nightmares with the ultimate fantasy for the guests turning into how to get off the frigging island.  But the biggest nightmare is for the audience, a convoluted plot that attempts to relate all of these characters together.  What started out as a fun concept just went all to hell.

As you may have noticed from past reviews, I have eclectic taste when it comes to movies.  I also try to review a broad spectrum of films that will appeal to a wide range of viewers. I truly went to see this with an open mind, thinking it could be fun, but I was wrong.  It was dreadful and Ricardo Montalban is probably spinning in his grave.  I like Michael Pena but he's no Ricardo Montalban.  And I don't even want to get into the issue of Tattoo.

Rosy the Reviewer says...there was a reason why I was the only one in the movie theatre.  Even if you liked the TV version of "Fantasy Island" and you like horror, you can skip this. It will disappoint you. Let our fantasies of the original "Fantasy Island" rest in peace.



***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***
(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!


On DVD




They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)


A documentary about British soldiers in WW I.

Director Peter Jackson (yes, THAT Peter Jackson) has put together a moving documentary about World War I that emphasizes the human side of war.  Using never-before-seen British archival footage and stills that have been masterfully restored, enhanced and colorized with a narration from the British soldiers themselves, Jackson takes us into the everyday lives of soldiers fighting the Great War.  Most who served were young men, some as young as 15, who volunteered to fight with no idea what they were getting into.  I mean, there had been no World War before.  They thought they would go over to Germany, sort out Jerry (the slang expression for German soldiers), and the whole thing would be done and dusted.

Well, they were wrong.

WW I was one of the bloodiest and deadliest of all wars, particularly so for Britain.  Almost a million British soldiers (and that's just the Brits) died. Compare that to the 100,000 Americans who died there. So this film, commissioned by the British War Museum and the BBC, commemmorates the centennial of the end of that horrendous and bloody war.

This is a nice companion piece to last year's highly regarded film, "1917." One can't help but compare the two.  Both feature the British experience in WW I and both capture the horrors of the trenches and the hell that is war, but this film is real. Those dead bodies and the blood, all real. The editing of this film was masterful.  It created a story using just still images, posters, cartoons and archival footage, and the film was just as intense as any dramatic film could be. Seeing the footage and pictures of these young men brings home the whole horrors of war and just what declaring war means.  We are sending our young men off to the slaughter.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a must see for anyone interested in history, especially WW I.



Strange But True (2019)


A young woman shows up at the home of her deceased boyfriend's family and tells them she is pregnant with his child.  Here's the problem ...he's been dead for five years.

The film begins with a young man on crutches fearfully running through the woods, and then we are flashed back to two days earlier when a young woman shows up at that young man's door... pregnant.  The young man is Philip Chase (Nick Robinson, the young heartthrob who has made a splash starring in "Everything, Everything" and "Love, Simon") and he lives with his parents, Charlene (Amy Ryan) and Richard (Greg Kinnear).  The girl is Melissa Moody (Margaret Qualley), their deceased son, Ronnie's, ex-girlfriend and she has come to tell them that she is pregnant with Ronnie's child. However, Ronnie was killed in a tragic accident five years earlier, so how is is possible that Melissa is pregnant with Ronnie's child? Whose baby is this? There are all kinds of red herrings thrown out there. Was there frozen sperm involved, sperm collected after Ronnie died (ew)? Has Philip been engaging in an affair with Melissa? What do Melissa's adoptive parents, Bill (Brian Cox) and Gail (Blythe Danner), have to do with all of this? 

Adapted from John Searles' novel by Eric Garcia and directed by Rowan Athale, what started out as an engaging and intriguing premise turned into a mess, but the title is apt. Though I have no idea what the title actually means, the film is indeed strange.  It's all very strange with a very icky twist and an ending that went on too long.  What started out as an interesting concept fell apart in an attempt to come up with a plausible ending - and it wasn't even very plausible.

Charlene is played by Amy Ryan who has a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination under her belt for "Gone Baby Gone," but she is probably not an actress who is familiar to many movie goers despite her long resume.  She is a wonderful actress, but I am not happy about the fact that she plays a bitter, mean and unpleasant...LIBRARIAN!  

Rant begins. 

How often do we librarians get to see ourselves in films as anything but the unpleasanst stereotype? Never! We are either old ladies with glasses hanging on a chain and our hair in a bun shushing people or, conversely, the mousy repressed librarian who is just waiting to be liberated by a man so she can take off her glasses and become a sex fantasy.  Why can't we portray librarians as beautiful, sexy, funny kind women who also give good customer service?  I guess I should be glad that here is a character who is a real woman with some drama in her life beyond overdue books and making sure people are quiet in the library, but her character is so unpleasant that it's not helping the profession one bit.  But I will give her a bit of a break.  She is still grieving over the death of her son so I guess good customer service is not her big priority. 

Rant ends.

In addition to Ryan, it's a star-studded cast with Margaret Qualley as the stand out. She is Andie MacDowell's daughter, a young actress whose screen quality is already masterful. She is everywhere these days.  She made a big splash as one of Manson's girls in "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood," she played Ann Reinking in the "Fosse/Verdon" mini-series and has four other films under her belt just in the last year.  She is a wonderful actress and, I hate to say this, (sorry, Andie), she is proving to already be as good an actress, if not better, than her mother, and I hate to say that because I love Andie and have a personal relationship with her (not really, I just fan-girled all over her at a Cher concert)!



But, sadly, the star power and good acting aside, the film devolved from an interesting premise into a big mess. With such a roster of wonderful actors, how could this film go so terribly wrong?

Rosy the Reviewer says...anyway, I get the "strange" part of this film, but the "true" part?  Didn't get that, so didn't get the title and didn't get this film. And you probably won't either.




***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***


41 to go!

Have YOU seen this classic film?





Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955)


Four soldiers try to defend a strategic hill position during the 1948 Israeli war of Independence.

Four volunteer soldiers - James Finnegan (Edward Mulhare), a British policeman in love with a beautiful Israeli woman, Allan Goodman (Michael Wager), an American tourist caught up in the conflict, David Airam (Arik Lavie) and Esther Hadassi (Margalit Oved), a young Yemeni Jewish girl - try to defend a strategic hill overlooking the road to Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab- Israeli War.  During a series of flashbacks we see how they met and ended up there.

This was the first feature film produced in Israel and it is clearly propaganda for the new state of Israel.  The production values are not good, the writing and acting is overdramatic and the story lumbers at times, but it has its moments, if you like the old B-movies of the 40's and 50's.

Why it's a Must See: "Despite the obvious propaganda, [director Thorold] Dickinson's film is a small-scale masterpiece, an intriguing examination of motivation and heroism in the midst of deadly ideological struggle."
---"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you can get over the blatant propaganda, there is a story here, so if you like the old B-movies of the 40's and 50's, you might like this one.




***The Book of the Week***



The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness by Susan Cahalan (2019)


In the 1970's, as part of a study, eight healthy people pretended to be mentally ill in order to be admitted into mental hospitals and what they reported back shook up the psychiatric world.

Author Cahalan became ill as a young woman.  She was diagnosed with schizophrenia only to find out later that she had a neurological disorder brought on by an immune disease, a "great pretender" disease, that mimicked mental illness.  Had her physicians not been persistant in accurately diagnosing her, she might very well have ended up in a mental hospital.  She wrote about this part of her life in her memoir, "Brain on Fire" and is still haunted by the fact that she might have ended up in a psych ward.

So when she heard about psychologist and Stanford professor David Rosenhan's 1973 article "On Being Sane in Insane Places," she had a natural interest.  The article was the result of a study of eight people who went undercover and pretended to have mental illness in order to be admitted into a mental hospital to see what was really taking place there.  Rosenhan actually wanted to see whether or not mental health professionals accurately diagnosed mental illness, and whether they could tell the difference between people who were mentally ill and those who were not.  Turns out, according to Rosenhan, they couldn't.

All of the pseudo-patients were diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and were admitted into mental hospitals where  the "patients" had to prove their sanity to get out. They supposedly reported back that they were hastily diagnosed and mistreated while in the hospital. The article caused a huge furor in the psychiatric world, led to many mental hospitals being closed, and fed fuel to the anti-psychiatry movement which was so prevalent in the 1970's.

So Cahalan was highly interested in this study because of what had happened to her.  She couldn't bear to think others might be misdiagnosed and forced to languish in a mental hospital when they were not mentally ill.  So Cahalan turned sleuth and was able to find Rosenhan's notes and to track down two of the pseudo-patients.  However, what she discovered did not quite jibe with Rosenhan's study.  One patient said he was well-treated while in the hospital so Rosenhan excluded him from the study.  As Cahalan dug deeper and could never find the other members of the study, she found other flaws in the study and went so far as to conclude that perhaps the other pseudo-patients didn't really exist and Rosenhan had written his article to fit what he believed was happening in the psychiatric community.

Was that true?  What really happened to those "great pretender" patients and just how much of what Rosenhan concluded was true?  Was Rosenhan "The Great Pretender?"

Cahalan acknowledges that the world of psychiatry is not the same as medicine.

"Despite...advancements...the field lags behind the rest of medicine.  Most of our major innovations -- better drugs, improved therapies -- were in play around the time we first walked on the moon...There are not, as of this writing, any consistent objective measures that can render a definitive psychiatric diagnosis -- no blood tests to diagnose depression or brain scans to confirm schizophrenia.  Psychiatrists instead rely on observed symptoms combined with patient histories and interviews with family and friends to make a diagnosis.  Their organ of study of the 'mind, the seat of personality, identity, and selfhood, so it should not be surprising that the study of it is more imprenetrable than understanding, say, the biology of skin cancer or the mechanics of heart disease."

But despite that, and the fact that Cahalan concludes that Rosenhan's study was flawed, she doesn't give the psychological community a pass. Things in that world are not much better today. Cahalan believes that if Rosenhan had stuck to the facts, the study would have led to a more measured approach today. We may not be stockpiling the mentally ill in ill-equiped mental hospitals, but we have criminalized mental illness, placing people in jail cells instead.

Cahalan is a good writer and an excellent researcher.  She intersperses historical information along with her own personal story to created a compelling, suspenseful read.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a fascinating look inside the world of mental health, then and now. 





Thanks for reading!


See you next Friday



for 


"The Invisible Man"



and







The Week in Reviews
(What To See and What To Avoid)

as well as

the latest on

"My 1001 Movies I Must See

Before I Die Project"









If you enjoyed this post, feel free to click on the share buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, email it to your friends and LIKE me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer 






Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.

Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database).



Go to IMDB.com, find the movie you are interested in.  Scroll down below the synopsis and the listings for the director, writer and main stars to where it says "Reviews" and click on "Critics" - If I have reviewed that film, you will find Rosy the Reviewer alphabetically on the list.