Problem: This review is like what?

Review:They probably could have skipped some of the beginning - I'm not sure why this starts out in the Asian part of Turkey. If it was because starting in the Mediterranean, they could have gotten closer starting in modern day Lebanon.

One the cameras and crews get to the Bakhtyari tribe, it's the beginning of an amazing 48 day journey. 50,000 people with about 250,000 goats, camels, cattle, and horses make this amazing trek across what seems to be a very fast moving Karun River. They use rafts that are kept afloat by inflating goat skins - you can see where the head and legs were removed. The other "bank" of the river was very steep - I'm guessing about a 60 degree rise.

Just watching that was incredible, but there was much more to come. To get to the pastures, they also had to cross a major mountain that had about 4 feet of snow, if not more. Being able to climb this mountain was pretty amazing in and of itself, but they (and all of the animals) climbed this mountain barefoot! Yes, barefoot.

The one drawback to this documentary were some of the inter-titles with poor attempts at humor.

If you want to see a documentary from the silent era, or the incredible challenges that this tribe not only face, but conquer. This is just an incredible document of a little known group of people facing all kinds of challenges.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:The unlikely duo of Zero Mostel and Harry Belafonte team up to give us some interesting performances and subject matter in The Angel Levine. It's one interesting twist on the themes from It's A Wonderful Life.

Zero is married to Ida Kaminsky and the two of them belong to a special class of elderly Jewish poor in New York. Mostel used to be a tailor and proud of his trade, but his back and arthritis have prevented him from working. Kaminsky is mostly bedridden. He's reduced to applying for welfare. In desperation like Jimmy Stewart, he cries out to God for some help.

Now maybe if he had gotten someone like Henry Travers things might have worked out differently, but even Stewart had trouble accepting Travers. But Travers had one thing going for him, he was over 100 years off this mortal coil and all his ties to earthly things were gone. God sent Mostel something quite different, the recently deceased Harry Belafonte who should have at least been given some basic training for angels before being given an assignment.

Belafonte hasn't accepted he's moved on from life, he's still got a lot of issues. He also has a wife, Gloria Foster, who doesn't know he's passed on, hit by a car right at the beginning of the film. You put his issues and Mostel's issues and you've got a good conflict, starting with the fact that Mostel can't believe in a black Jew named Levine.

This was the farewell performance for Polish/Jewish actress Ida Kaminsky who got a nomination for Best Actress in The Shop on Main Street a few years back. The other prominent role here is that of Irish actor Milo O'Shea playing a nice Jewish doctor. Remembering O'Shea's brogue from The Verdict, I was really surprised to see and hear him carry off the part of the doctor.

The Angel Levine raises some interesting and disturbing questions about faith and race in this society. It's brought to you by a stellar cast and of course created by acclaimed writer Bernard Malamud. Make sure to catch it when broadcast.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:At first glance this gives the impression that it is going to be a laughable blaxploitation flick, and it does contain moments where it veers in that direction. However, the basic story idea is much stronger than might be expected, and is a respectable effort at portraying racial issues in the World War II era Army. The recognizable cast is hit and miss, with Glynn Turman, Richard Pryor and the underused Billy Dee Williams faring best. Stephen Boyd, however, stops just short of twirling his bushy mustache in an overindulgent star turn.

The obviously low budget leads to inconsistency in the production values. The locations are great, the effects and action are weak. Imagine if "Saving Private Ryan" had consisted of half the platoon getting killed exactly the same way Vin Diesel's Caparzo had (except we do get to see the shot because they effects can't handle it), then Hanks, Damon and Burns drove around in a jeep and shot five Germans for the climax. Yet, the denouement, with the heroic soldiers receiving no respect for their accomplishment because they are black, and Boyd's racist Captain being effected by this, is compelling, as are the sequences of of Turman's character writing in a journal of his imagined exploits if the soldiers were allowed to fight instead of digging latrines.

In short, "Black Brigade/Carter's Army" doesn't quite succeed. But it's a respectable failure, not a bad joke. It could be remade as a very good film, and, as it stands, is an interesting effort.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:Considered by almost all the critics to be the best of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, I have no argument with that, although there are a couple of others I thought just as entertaining. One thing: it's the longest of the series that I've seen at 105 minutes. I've only seen six of them but this was longer than I'm used to and with the drawn-out action finale I thought the whole thing was a bit too long.

Nonetheless, it is a good mixture of action, suspense and romance. The only things missing are color and stereo sound. The primitive special-effects don't bother me, as that was all that they had back in the 1930s.

Among some, this film is most noted for one thing: skin! "Jane" never wore anything this skimpy after this film as the Hays' Code was instituted by the time the next Tarzan film was made. Her outfit showed what a great figure Maureen O'Sullivan possessed. The nude underwater scene, however, was not her - by a longshot. The woman under the water didn't have a good figure at all, whoever it was.

There is plenty of action in here. Up to the finale, it was not overdone, either. The ending went on for 15 minutes, though, and was so intense that it was almost too much to watch.

Still, this movie offers about everything - except "Boy" (their adopted son) - you'd want to see in a Tarzan film, even O'Sullivan doing her Tarzan yell about a dozen times. With her pair of "lungs," that was no problem.
+++++++++
A:
positive