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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: REVIEW: The Color Purple - Are you kidding?
Message-ID: <1672@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 00:26:23 EST
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1672
Posted: Thu Feb 13 00:26:23 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 05:26:57 EST
References: <456@houem.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ
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I did not like THE COLOR PURPLE as much as Moriarty, but I think he is
closer to my feelings than you are.

 >>The film, The_Color_Purple,
 >>reminds me of a cross between _To_Kill_A_Mockingbird_ and
 >>_Gone_With_the_Wind_ without the Epic Movie touches.  
 >
 >How dare you compare The_Color_Purple with such classics!

And when GONE WITH THE WIND came out there was probably someone
standing there saying "it's no BIRTH OF A NATION."  Why do people think
that nothing modern can be as good as something old?  I have a lower
opinion of GONE WITH THE WIND than most.  None of COLOR PURPLE was as
dull as the post-War parts of GWTW.

 >The problem with this film was that it had too many epic
 >touches.  Especially, the up-in-the-air boom shots that you
 >refer to in the  next paragraph.

Frankly, I didn't notice.

 >>and you have the feeling that you're watching an adaptation of an
 >>old family classics, except old family classics usually don't
 >>discuss prejudice and lesbianism much.
 >
 >This movie didn't discuss lesbianism I'm not sure that it
 >discussed  prejudice either.  
 
Not in words, but I think that the implication that there was a lesbian
ralationship going on.  And as for prejudice, I would say it is closer
to straight out bigotry.  Albert assumed that women were so inferior to
him that he could turn his wife into a slave.  In film you can discuss
without specific words.  You can have wordless sequences that say a
lot.
 
 >I hold firmly to my original
 >conviction that  this film didn't say anything at all.  

I have to disagree on this one.

 >
 >>Very,
 >>very few people can place physical force in a stare or a hand held
 >> forward; but Ceilly, towards the end of the film gives the
 >>impression that Christopher Reeve in his blue-n-red jammies
 >>couldn't do better.
 >
 >Oh was she acting, I couldn't tell?  

I think you are in the minority on this one if you think that she was
not a good actress.  There is one scene in which she had people in the
audience openly weeping.

 >
 >>It gives the film a flavor of Twain or Dickens (the
 >>latter in particular), in that the modern bleakness is not
 >>permeating every frame of the movie.  
 >
 >Comparing this film's effectiveness with that of Twain or
 >Dickens.  I think I am going to be sick!!!!

See my comment on GONE WITH THE WIND.  I frankly find Goldberg's
sincerity more convincing than your compliants here.

 >
 >I hated this film.  I can't believe that it was nominated
 >for an Academy Award.

WITNESS seems a favorite of some.  COLOR PURPLE is much better than
WITNESS.  I know you didn't like TCP, but I think you go a little
overboard in flaming Moriarty.  Just about any film will have a
divergence of reactions, but from my experience you are way off to one
end of the spectrum of opinion I have seen (not that that implies you
are wrong, just alone).  

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper