Michael's Movie Grade: B+
An excellent documentary on Betty White and a touching tribute to someone we all love.
This movie is equal parts a documentary on Betty White and a loving tribute to her. There is much time spent with the people who worked with her gushing over how amazing she was. In many documentaries this would seem like too much, but in a movie about Betty White this feels well deserved. After all is there a single one of us who owns a TV set and doesn't love her. The documentary aspect of this film is excellent but tantalizingly brief. Not including a bonus TV episode at the end, this movie only runs about 70 minutes. For such a long career this is too brief a runtime to give comedy buffs (like me) all the information they want to know. However, this film fits a surprising amount of information into this brief runtime and provides an excellent overview of her career and a good look at who she was as a person. And even if it is too brief there is no doubt, I was riveted every second. The movie also includes some clips from her amazing TV career. Betty was one of the funniest women to every grace the TV screen and these clips do an incredible job of showing this. Little scenes from Life with Elizibeth, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland got huge laughs from the audience in the movie theater with me. These are golden comedy moments that will still be funny 100 years from now. As an animal lover myself (and someone who strongly believes in animal rights), I also absolutely loved that this film highlighted all that Betty has done for animals. She has done as much for animals as she has done for comedy and it is just another thing, I love about her.
After the documentary was over there was a bonus TV episode of Date with the Angels. This was something I had mixed feelings about. On one hand it is something that most people haven't seen and gives a good historical look into the early part of Betty's career. On the other hand, this is easily one of the weakest TV shows she had starred in. Plainly put it was not funny at all. Hearing the silence from the audience after the majority of the jokes, I couldn't help but think how loud and infectious the laughter would have been if a Mary Tyler Moore or Golden Girls episode would have played. Still, I admit the history buff in me found it a fascinating watch.
All in all, this is a very well-done documentary and I imagine Betty would have approved.
No comments:
Post a Comment