NANNY McPHEE (2005)

* * *

D: Kirk Jones: (Emma Thomson, Colin Firth, Kellie McDonald, Imelda Staunton, Derek Jacoby, and Angela Lansbury)

PG for mild thematic elements, some rude humor and brief language.
97 m. US/UK/France

Tagline: You'll learn to love her. Warts and all.

Very charming fairy tale fantasy about a widower with seven rambunctuous children and a mysterious, magical nanny who comes into their lives. Strong elements of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Edward Scissorhands, yet completely original. A whimsical, gentle comedy and veddy, veddy British.

MY NAME IS BRUCE (2007)

* 1/2

D: Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell, Ted Campbell, Taylor Sharpe, Grace Thorsen

PG13, 86m, USA

Tagline: Fearless! Unstoppable! Ready For His Close-Up!

Silly but fun little goofball of a film starring/directed by Bruce Campbell, king of the B movies. Campbell plays himself as a jerky has-been actor who finds himself in a crummy small town called Goldlick. The locals mistake him for Ash (the hero of the Evil Dead movies) and expect him to save their town from a monster who's eliminating them one by one. Starts out strong and kind of peters out. Special effects are okay, not great, and the monster is not scary at all - the costume could have come straight out of K-Mart. For die-hard Campbell fans only - lots of in-jokes and a few cameos from the old Evil Dead movies.

PATTERNS (1956)

1/2 star

PG-13, bw-83m, USA D. Fielder Cook. Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley, Beatrice Straight.

Tagline: Ruthless Men And Ambitious Women... Clawing For Control Of A Billion Dollar Empire!!!

That overwrought tagline should have been a warning.

I bought this because my mother requested it. Normally I love nostalgic films and have a good collection of all genres and seen and enjoyed movies from silents to contemporary. I love the old Twilight Zone episodes in the series created by Rod Serling, who also wrote the screenplay. There have been no negative reviews of this film anywhere - so I thought, sure, why not?

There are fierce defenders of this film, as I soon found out after posting my review on Amazon. Boy, did I hit a nerve (unintentionally). This film sure has its defenders. You'd have thought I suggested that newborn puppies would be a nice snack. Nevertheless, I found it incredibly boring and strident. Not only was I bored to the eyeballs, but I felt like I was being screamed at by my own boss. I have a problem with confrontations - absolutely hate 'em, even in fiction - though they are necessary to liven up the plot.

The characters were either All-Good or All-Bad - no nuances or shades of grey. The dialogue struck me as propaganda, not real conversation. The characters didn't talk, they either lectured or screamed at each other. The ending was ridiculous - I wanted to throw my popcorn and scream, "No WAY!"

The film quality was grainy and ugly to look at -- granted, it's an old movie, but it didn't age well at all. If it was such a great film, it should have been re-mastered and released to the public properly. It looked like a grainy old home movie. If you want to see an insightful, perfectly acted and realistic movie about business and office politics in the 50s and 60s (though Patterns was set in the mid-50s), see Mad Men on AMC. It hits the historical and emotional points perfectly, and just about anyone who went to work in the early 60s will attest to the authenticity of the show. Mom recognized several scenerios in Mad Men that she experienced as a young working woman in the 60s. Even The Best of Everything (a flawed film about an office in the 60s) was better than this dirge. I admire Rod Serling, but this was NOT his best work at all. Save your money and your time. I wanted both back afterward.