" The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as the Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient. And as the philosophy of the orient expresses it, life is not important. "
— General William Westmoreland, Hearts and Minds

MRQE Top Critic

Operation Condor

Jackie Chan meets Indiana Jones —Andrea Birgers (review...)

Chan borrows from Raiders

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The Crucible tells an interesting tale about one of the most shameful events in (pre-)America’s history: the Salem witch hunt. The Crucible was written at the time of the McCarthy commie witch hunt and in that light it is an interesting comparison.

However, I found myself asking “why now?” Why, at this moment in history, did Miller et al. decide to produce The Crucible? I can’t think of an interesting modern parallel. The story is well told and the movie is well made, but the plot is a little transparent, a little heavy handed. The movie feels like something between a morality play and a propaganda piece; I felt as if I should be drawing an important lesson from the movie. But the lesson to be learned — the lesson hammered at constantly throughout the movie — is a lesson that America, for now, seems to have learned. In the early fifties, this movie could have had the impact it seeks and deserves, but on the first day of 1997, this movie is not just to be preaching to the choir, it preaches against a sin that hasn’t crossed their minds in decades.

So in spite of The Crucible being a well-executed movie about an interesting subject, I do not fully recommend it.