Rain

I sat in the plaza with my Amazon Fire and used it to watch “Rain,” a movie about a German shepherd trained and sent to go out to the Vietnam War.  A little girl named Amy gives up her dog to help out the soldiers fighting the war.  Susan Dey, the only person with a real name in the cast, play’s Amy’s mother.  Susan is about fifty years old at this point, and there is some age in her face around the eyes.  The mother doesn’t have many scenes, and she doesn’t say much at all.  It’s not a big part of the movie, which spends a lot of time in Vietnam.  I kept thinking that the actors and the setting just looked too clean to be convincing.  Did anyone even break out into a sweat during the filming?  They must have spent some money for this production, as they used helicopters, though not as many as we saw in “Apocalypse Now.”  There were moments when I question the accuracy of the film.  The scene in which Pvt. Holland thought went on his one-man rescue mission was hard to believe.  Would anyone go to such lengths to save the dog?  Holland loses his weapon, so I wondered if he was going to get chewed up when he returned.  “Rain” was an average film.  The acting wasn’t too sharp, and even the dogs looked like they didn’t want to be in the movie.  The movie didn’t really discuss the Vietnam War, and I preferred it that way.  The movie was average in quality.  It did have a few moving movies, of the people being separated from their dogs.  There is a bit of an awkward romance going on, as Pvt. Holland had to have some kind of love interest.  There have been many movies about dogs that have been made, so this one is not essential viewing.  It was rather sad that this was one of the last appearances for Susan Dey.  All she got to do in this movie was support her daughter and thank the private.  I returned home and watched the Partridge Family episode “To Play or Not to Play,” with Laurie refusing to cross a picket line.  The college student workers seemed like they were bad workers, easily distracted and not getting much done.  The owner was abrasive.  Keith had a mysterious cut on his left cheek, which was not explained.  Did it have to do with the plot, or did it happen in real life?  The featured songs were “There’s No Doubt in My Mind” and “Umbrella Man.”  The story apparently took place over the course of only a few hours.  Shirley wasted half an hour of it pacing around thinking.