The 1979 movie The Black Hole got three stars on my cable TV On Demand information page. Notwithstanding the fact that Maximilian Schell is a brilliant actor (albeit in some other movie) and Yvette Mimieux brought tears to my eyes as the intrepid adventurer searching for her long lost father (oh I forgot, I was chopping onions while watching) this movie warrants no more than one star. And the one star is given solely based on the performance of Roddy McDowell playing Roddy McDowell dressed in a cheesy robot costume.
I don’t know why I bother reading the descriptive blurbs on the scroll. Recently I saw a blurb about a movie called Napoleon. Being a history buff I am quite keen on Napoleon movies so I read the descriptive copy. The word “puppy” stopped me in my tracks. I realize that there must have been plenty of puppies running around Napoleon’s various palaces but none to my knowledge were sufficiently special to merit an entire movie. So I did not watch. I abandoned blurb reading and entered the male domain of channel surfing with the remote. I was quite aggravated to click on the Napoleon movie to find out it actually was about Napoleon and not about a dog. I watched long enough to see that they had cast a tall slim actor in the leading role. I can suspend disbelief as much as the next gal but there is no way I can accept Sun Ming Ming in the role of the Petit Emperor — Jackie Chan maybe but not Mr. Ming Ming.
The copywriters who write the cable movie summaries sometimes get it right. I watched a poignant and interesting film called The Band based on the blurb “when the tour bus of an Egyptian traveling band breaks down in a remote Israeli town its members are put up for the night in various households.” You have to admit, with copy like that there is no way you are not going to make popcorn and glue yourself to the TV. I was happily surprised to see a really first rate performance.
That same night I watched Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. I did not need to read the blurb. I am ashamed to admit I had never seen Sabrina before but knew, of course, that it was a classic. I am normally a fidgety movie watcher and can usually only sit still for half an hour at the most. For both The Band and Sabrina I was riveted. Even those Sabrina was lovely to watch and comfortably predictable, I enjoyed The Band. The characters were not beautiful for sophisticated, the setting was scorched of any trees or grass, and the relationships were painful to watch unfold — and yet I could not get the movie out of my mind. The copywriter gave it three stars too.
