michael-heller

Just imagine you're sitting in a movie theater in 1935 waiting for the feature to come on and suddenly this thing explodes on the screen in Full Color oh my gosh what a mindblower! Yes there were two strip technical color films but they are simply awful to look at muddy dull fake the worst. Yes the whole thing is kind of dopey with all these people dancing and singing with the big band playing, and cameos of famous stars just hanging around and smiling to the camera. I wonder if they got paid anything to do this? Maybe a trip to Catalina Island in the summer with food drinking music was enough. This is spectacular look how it survives now! Sort of like the first time I saw Star Wars in 1977 in Dolby surround that was something.

There are so many pieces that just don't match. Is it the future, then why is everything exactly contemporary including the buildings and cars? The police are dressed exactly the same as NYPD except for some small changes to their caps and badges. Why are some of the photographers using modern cameras and others using speed graphics which were scrapped in the 1950s? Why are some people dress contemporary and others in very fake Roman outfits that look ridiculous? It's like whatever crossed the director's mind he decided to put up it's sort of crazy. Maybe if someone else above Coppola was watching what was going on he could've straightened it out for him. Yes my wife and I talked about it for hours afterwards and read every review but it still does not make sense of what he was trying to do. And there really are no parallels between the history of Catalina, Caesar, and Cicero they're just sort of names extracted and thrown around very bizarre.

What an absolutely wonderful show. Perfectly assembled, great numbers, so full of joy. Sometimes when you watch shows like this the entertainers that appear seem to be going through the motions, just looking for personal publicity. But in this case was absolutely clear how much they appreciated being there it was just so dripping with good cheer. Dick Van Dyke's happiness at being there was just overwhelming. A day later I'm still enjoying it. He has brought so much ,entertainment (even Diagnosis Murder!) to our lives for 60 years. He has outlived all of greats he ever knew, but still manages to have a joyful outlook. Outstanding!