Shining Through

Rating:
Summary: If only there were a "zero stars" rating. Utter tripe.
Review: This film is a complete waste of celluloid. The target audience is, apparently, frustrated female secretaries who wish that romance and adventure would drop into their laps. Sadly, however, the film fails utterly in believability, unless you're an 8-year-old insomniac on prozac.

The acting is painful. Mike Douglas has done better, but given the childlike simplicity of the dialogue, plot, good-guys-vs-bad-guys theme, empty romance based on nothing more than a weak adrenalin rush... well, you can see where I'm going with this.

You'll get more bang and excitement out of a wet, spent firecracker than you will from this film-- unless you put it on a hearth and toast marshmallows over its charred remains. Don't forget to throw champagne glasses into the fireplace, for that extra touch of romance and a touch of shards-of-glass-as-critical-film-review.

In the words of some professional film critics:

“If the fate of the free world were being threatened by goose-stepping Nazis, who would you send to the rescue? In Shining Through they send Melanie Griffith. What, you mean Betty Boop wasn’t available?” â€"Hal Hinson

“[Melanie Griffith] sounds like a 7-year-old reciting poetry for the delight of grown-ups. It’s enough to make you want to turn her in to the Nazis.” â€"Desson Howe

I had the misfortune to catch this film on broadcast TV. Even at the price of the electrons passing through my household current, I felt I was paying too much for this film. Spend your time & money elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Little-known film shines...
Review: This film is a heartfelt yet fast-paced story of two American spies who fall in love amidst the dangers of doing their jobs deep in the heart of Germany during World War II. Michael Douglas plays Ed Leland, a hard-edged and patriotic military spy who unwittingly falls in love with Linda Voss (played with the warm mix of charm, innocence and thrill by Melanie Griffith), a Brooklyn girl of Jewish descent who wants to do her part using her perfect German speaking abilities to work as a cook and try to discover the location of a bomb being built by the German army. Both lovers get more than they bargained for when Linda ends up in the home of a high-ranking German official and risks her life trying to discover the location of her Jewish relatives hiding in Berlin. An outstanding supporting cast that includes Joely Richardson, Liam Neeson and Sir John Giulgud makes this film a must-see, especially if you are a sucker for World War II nostaligia and "I'll Be Seeing You." Believable or not, this film is a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: One of my all-time favorites, at last on DVD in widescreen
Review: This has always been one of my favorite films. Apparently it's supposed to be a guilty pleasure. I can't imagine why though. It's not a deep or socially important work of art, but it doesn't pretend to be. It's just a glorious, old-fashioned piece of entertainment, gorgeously shot on location in Germany, with one of the best scores the late Michael Kamen ever wrote.

Alright, so Melanie Griffith convinces Michael Douglas to send her as a spy into Nazi Germany because of her phenomenal streudel baking skills. It's that kind of movie. Either you let yourself be swept away by the storytelling, or it's just not for you.

The big news, however, is that this great movie is finally on DVD in the US. And it's in widescreen, a vital piece of information that was left off the listing here. I was really afraid I'd walk into Tower today and see a Pan and Scan atrocity and have to leave it there unbought. Worry not, the film is presented here as it was in theaters in 1992.

The makers of this DVD have also kindly left the original burned-in subtitles for the sequences in German, instead of replacing them with those ugly player generated ones you see so often. I always liked the font the filmmakers chose, so this was a pleasant surprise.

It would have been nice to have a director's commentary, or some of the approximately half an hour that was removed from the version that was shot. However for under $10 what we get (two trailers) is fine.

It took long enough, with the US just about the last country on earth to get "Shining Through" on DVD, but it's here at last, and looking as good as I could have possibly have hoped.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies of all time!
Review: This is my favorite movie, my sister's favorite movie, my mom's favorite movie. My husband loves it too. It's not just a chick flick. I'll never forget the first time we saw it. We were sitting on the edge of seats the whole time. It has one of the best romances of all time. I can't say enough good things about it.