Gideon58's Reviews

[Gideon58]

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The Boys in the Band was the ground breaking 1970 film, based on Mart Crowley's play that was probably the first mainstream theatrical film in which most of the characters are homosexual. Despite some extremely dated elements, this film was important in that it did not present all gay characters as flouncing fairies, though that stereotype is definitely represented here. What this film does do is present homosexuals in all shapes, sizes, colors, and degrees of masculinity.
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The film takes place during a birthday party thrown by Michael (Kenneth Nelson) for his friend Harold (Leonard Frey) with a short guest list which includes Michael's best friend Donald (Frederick Combs), a former trick with whom Michael eventually became BFF's. Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) and Larry (Keith Prentice) are in a committed relationship, though Hank seems a little more committed than Larry. Cliff Gorman is hysterically funny as the flouncing fairy Emory and Rueben Greene plays his gal pal Bernard, the only non-caucasian party guest.
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Things get sticky when an old friend of Michael's from college named Alan (Peter White) shows up unexpectedly, who may or may not be gay and may or may not know about Michael and may or may not be attracted to Hank. Michael also initiates a vicious party game that turns really ugly and brings some long bubbling resentments to the surface.
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William Friedkin's masterful and in-your-face direction is a big plus here and the performances are uniformaly first-rate down the line. Sadly, several of the actors in this film, who were gay in real life, are no longer with us, a sort of underlying message that the film still seems to send today. I also liked the fact that this film, like 1982's Making Love, addressed the fact that being married has nothing to do with sexual orientation. We learn that Hank was married and left his wife to be with Larry and Alan's confusion about it is kind of aggravating.

If you have an open mind and looking for something a little different that has a significant spot in cinematic history, check this one out. 3.5

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Under the category of silly and pointless comes the 2009 comedy Bride Wars, a film that provides sporadic laughs here and there, but strains credibility at just about every turn.
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Kate Hudson plays Liv and Anne Hathaway plays Emma, childhood BFF's who have both dreamed of having their weddings at the Plaza in June ever since they were kids. We then see Liv and Emma both receive marriage proposals almost simultaneously and then make a beeline to renowned wedding planner Marian St. Clair (Candice Bergen) who initially arranges separate weddings for both gals at the Plaza in June, but a clerical error finds Liv and Emma's weddings scheduled on the same day, which ignites a war between the two brides-to-be that gets WAY out of control.
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Clearly the inspiration for Bridezillas, there's so much that goes on here in the name of comedy that I had a hard time buying. I understand that a woman's wedding is the most important day of her life, but I would think if a woman's wedding is scheduled the same day as her BFF that, at some point, one of these women would either change the date or the venue or their wedding so that this very special day can still be their own. Is the venue and date SO important that you would destroy your best friend's day as well as your own just to have your own way?
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My confusion about this is addressed in the film through the two grooms-to-be (Chris Pratt, Steve Howey), who really don't understand what the fuss is about and don't get why being married at the Plaza in June is such a deal breaker. I also don't understand why the guys put up with the shenanigans that go on as long as they do.
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Gary Winick's direction is a little on the manic side and the screenplay by Greg DePaul and Casey Wilson (Wilson makes a cameo appearance as the bride-to-be who has stolen the date our heroines need for separate weddings) is kind of all over the place, but one thing this film does convey despite the over-the-top goings-on, is that these two women really are BFF's who would walk through fire for each other and it's interesting to see them trying to destroy each other one minute and feeling mad guilt about it the next, but does it make up for the rest of the silliness that happens here? 2.5

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Steve Carell's Jack Lemmon-esque everyman quality has never been utilized to greater advantage than in the 2007 comedy Dan in Real Life, a warm family comedy that provides smiles, giggles, roll on the floor laughter, and a possible lump in the throat.
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Carell is just wonderful as Dan Burns, a widower with three daughters who, shortly after arriving at his parents' mountain cabin for a family reunion/weekend, is enchanted by a woman (Juliette Binoche) he talks to for ten minutes in a bookstore. Dan is on cloud nine until he learns the woman is dating his brother, Mitch (Dane Cook).

Director and co-writer Peter Hedges establishes the kind of guy Dan is from the opening scene where we see him still sleeping on his side of the bed and taking excellent care of his girls. Sympathy is immediately evoked for Dan as he fights his attraction to the woman, but can't. The story takes an odd turn when Dan's parents arrange a blind date for him and Mitch's girlfriend is clearly jealous.
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Hedges' direction is spirited and Carell is backed by a wonderful supporting cast led by John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest as Dan's parents...two very classy people whose love for their son keeps them from coming right out and letting him know when he's screwing up. Dane Cook, who I usually can't stand, is almost likable as Mitch. Leo Norbert Butz has some funny moments as Dan's other brother, as does Emily Blunt as Dan's blind date. Also loved Brittany Robertson as Dan's middle daughter, Cara.

The film's primary faux pas is the casting of Oscar winner Juliette Binoche as the object of Dan's affections. Light comedy is just not Binoche's long suit and her performance is just as annoying as her character becomes when she sees Dan with another woman. Not to mention the fact that the onscreen chemistry between Carell and Binoche was nonexistent.
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Lovely cinematography and a lilting song score by Sondre Lerche help, but it is the casting of Binoche that keeps this film from being the very special film that it almost is. 3.5

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Dr. Dolittle is the 1967 musical dud that almost put 20th Century Fox out of business for good while simultaneously receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of 1967.
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Based on stories by Hugh Lofton, this is the story of John Dolittle, an anti-social doctor whose disdain for humans and love for animals motivates him to stop treating humans and only treat animals. He then discovers he has the ability to actually communicate with animals, an ability which ends up getting him arrested and on trial for his sanity.
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Rex Harrison, fresh off his Oscar win for My Fair Lady comes off a little stiff in the title role. I learned later that Harrison was never comfortable with animals and hated every minute of making this film and some of that tension is evident in his performance. Anthony Newley plays his over eager sidekick Matthew, Samantha Eggar is lovely as the obligatory love interest, and Richard Attenborough nails a cameo as a circus owner named Mr. Blossom.
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The lackluster musical score by Newley and Leslie Bricusse (who also wrote the screenplay) includes "My Friend the Doctor", "Beautiful Things", "When I Look in Your Eyes", "At the Crossroads", "After Today" "Never Seen Anything Like it" (delightfully performed by Attenborough) and the Oscar winner for Best Song of 1967, "Talk to the Animals."
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The film is overlong and interest wanes long before the final fadeout, but small children might find some fun here. The film was re-imagined almost four decades later as a vehicle for Eddie Murphy. 2

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Will Ferrell and John O'Reilly reunite for Step Brothers, a silly and over-the-top 2008 comedy that asks the viewer to accept a lot, but if you can, finding major belly laughs here shouldn't be a problem.
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Ferrell plays Brennan, a 40-something unemployed bum still living with his widowed mother (Mary Steenburgen). O'Reilly plays Dale, a 40-something unemployed bum who lives with his widowed father (Richard Jenkins). Brennan's mom and Dale's dad meet, fall in love, and decide to get married forcing Brennan and Dale into a familial relationship neither wants that we watch morph into a friendship and eventual business partnership.
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First of all, you have to wonder why Brennan and Dale's parents are still allowing their 40 year old sons to live with them. You also have to wonder why the parents tolerate the guys' childish behavior or why they didn't tell the boys to hit the road the second they decided to marry. I'm pretty sure there isn't a parent on the planet who would continue to support a 40 year old unemployed child, but if you can just let all of this flow over you, there is fun to be had here.
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Ferrell and O'Reilly prove that the chemistry they created in Talledega Nights was no fluke and it is kind of funny watching the relationship change...the beginning is especially funny when they are forced to share a bedroom and begin snarking at each other in the dark, trying to make each other feel like the intruder. Even when their parents give them 30 days to get a job, they actually job hunt together, evidenced in a couple of very funny scenes, especially one that features a cameo by Seth Rogen.
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Adam McKay's direction is loose and having worked with the actors before, seems to know when to let them go and when to rein them in. The presence of Steenburgen and Jenkins actually give the piece a touch of class that I'm not sure it really deserves. Adam Scott is also very funny as Brennan's snotty younger brother, as is Kathryn Hahn as his wife, who starts lusting after Dale after he punches her husband in the face.

The comic gold in the onscreen chemistry between Will Ferrell and John O'Reilly is reason enough to breeze through the over-the-top silliness of Step Brothers. 3.5

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2009's Julie and Julia is a lovely and lavishly produced comedy-drama, which is a near perfect melding of two separate true stories that are more similar than they appear to be on the surface.
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The film opens in 1940's Paris with renowned chef Julia Child and her husband Paul moving to France and showing a discontent Julia enrolling in Le Cordon Bleu in a class of all men and then devoting her life to an elaborate cookbook of french cooking.
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The film then shifts to Queens, New York in 2002 where we meet Julie Powell, a government employee who is a great cook and kind of obsessed with Julia Child and has decided to give herself 1 year to cook every dish in Julia's book and blog about it. The film then alternates between the two stories whose connection seems paper-thin but becomes more clear as the film progresses.
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Meryl Streep adds another remarkable performance to her gallery of memorable characters in her vivid and full-bodied performance as Julia Child and anyone who has ever seen Child on TV cannot argue the fact that Streep nails this character...every nuance of Julia's physical being beautifully realized by a master craftsman. Amy Adams somehow manages to make Julie Powell likable enough that we actually stay awake during Julie's story.
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Stanley Tucci is quietly brilliant as Paul Child, Julia's neglected but never taken for granted husband, and Chris Messina is fun as Julie's husband Eric. I also loved Linda Emond as Julia's writing partner and a brief but flashy turn by Jane Lynch as Julia's sister.

The film boasts impressive production design and Nora Ephron's direction is solid, though her screenplay loses points for revealing that Julia Child hated Julie's blog, but the film is still a must-see, if for nothing else, for the gift that keeps on giving, Meryl Streep. BTW, the voice of Julie's mother on the phone is supplied by Mary Kay Place. 3.5

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One of my favorite cinematic games of cat and mouse was 1993's The Fugitive an expensive and well-mounted re-thinking of the classic 60's television series that made a star out of an actor named David Janssen.

The film stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, a brilliant physician who walks into his home one night and confronts a one-armed man who has just finished murdering his wife (Sela Ward). The man somehow escapes and Kimble is arrested, convicted of the crime, and sent to prison. Later, Kimble is on a bus being transferred to another facility that gets in a very bad accident and Kimble manages to escape. Enter FBI detective Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) and his crew who begin the manhunt of the century and the ultimate cat and mouse game commences.
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This film is riveting primarily because we know that Kimble is innocent even if none of the other characters in the movie do and, because of that, we are on his side from the beginning and want to see him triumph despite everything stacked against him. Even during an initial confrontation with Gerard, Kimble tries to plead his innocence and Gerard tells him he doesn't care. Unfortunately, we are also able to see Gerard's side of things and understand that the man is just doing his job and doesn't know that Kimble is innocent and it's the viewers anticipation of something giving way in this cat and mouse game that keeps us tuned in. It's also fun watching the near misses in this chase...how many times Kimble and Gerard are close enough for physical contact, yet Kimble somehow manages to slip away.
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Ford turns in one of his strongest performances as Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones won a supporting actor Oscar for his Gerard (though personally, I think Jones has done better work). Julianne Moore scores in a brief role as a doctor who Kimble assists and Ward is lovely as Mrs. Kimble, it's really hard watching her get killed. Joe Pantoliano is also a lot of fun as Gerard's second in command. Jeroen Krabbe also scores in an unsympathetic role as a doctor who had a key role in Kimble's frame-up.

An action/adventure classic that entertains from beginning to end. A winner. 4.5

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Holiday Inn is the 1942 musical classic most notable for introducing arguably the greatest Christmas song ever written.
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The story is simple: Jim (Bing Crosby) and Ted (Fred Astaire) are a song and dance team that are coming to an end because Jim has decided to leave the act and decides to buy a run down old hotel in Vermont that will only be open on holidays. Jim meets Linda (Marjorie Reynolds), an aspiring performer who agrees to work at Jim's inn until one night, a drunken Ted arrives at the inn and dances with Linda, but is unable to find her the next day because he never saw her face, setting up the classic musical comedy triangle as Jim goes to some pretty outrageous lengths to keep Ted and Linda apart.
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Crosby and Astaire are wonderful together and were reunited a couple of years later in Blue Skies. Walter Abel also steals every scene he is in playing Danny, Ted's manager who tries to help him find Linda. Abel is roll on the floor funny in this movie, turning in a nearly forgotten performance that deserves attention.

Unfortunately, Marjorie Reynolds is a rather bland leading lady, but maybe they didn't want the role of LInda upstaging Crosby and Astaire but I couldn't help thinking what this film might have been like if Kathryn Grayson or Vera-Ellen or Cyd Charisse, or even Judy Garland had played Linda.
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The lackluster score is nothing to write home about, with the exception of one song: this is the film in which Crosby introduced a little ditty called "White Christmas", which would win the Oscar for Best Song.

Not a classic in the sense of Singin in the Rain or The Band Wagon, but Crosby and Astaire are always worth watching. 3.5

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The 1979 film Being There is an emotionally manipulative, but undeniably moving character study, though that term might be underestimating everything that happens here, that is worth seeing primarily for Hal Ashby's finest work as a director and the extraordinary performance by Peter Sellers in the lead role.

Sellers received an Oscar nomination for his performance as Chance, a gardener at a large estate outside of Washington DC, who has never left the estate and his only knowledge of the outside world is limited to what he's seen on television. Chance is outwardly accepting but inside panicking when the old man who owns the estate dies and Chance is unceremoniously asked to leave with nothing but the clothes on his back. Fortune intervenes when Chance is hit by a limo that contains one Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), who takes him home where he becomes good friends with Eve's husband, billionaire industrialist Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), who is fascinated by Chance's gardening analogies and applies them to political and business decisions that eventually have Chance meeting the President of the US (Jack Warden).
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Based on a novel by Jerzy Koszinski, this movie presents an undeniably unique lead character who provokes equal doses of smiles and tears. There is an absolutely heartbreaking moment in the film where Chance is confronted by a group of teenage thugs on a crowded DC street and when he feels he's being threatened, he pulls out a remote control and brandishes it like a weapon...the move provokes laughs onscreen and it did in the theater when I saw the film for the first time, but I just found it terribly sad. On the other hand, I loved the way Chance's simple views on life, stated in terms of gardening, are taken to a point where Chance actually finds himself the toast of DC society and believed to be the President's #1 political advisor at one point...or is he more than that?
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Sellers receives solid support from Melvyn Douglas, who won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Benjamin Rand. Warden makes a great president and Richard Dysart is also effective as Rand's doctor. MacLaine is smooth and understated as Eve, despite an eye-opening scene where Eve attempts to seduce Chance.
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But it's still Sellers' remarkable performance that makes this film worth seeing more than anything. This movie would have made such a beautiful finale to Sellers' distinguished career; however, for some reason, he chose to make one more movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, which would be the final film he made before his death.

A lovely and haunting film with a thought-provoking finale that will stop you in your tracks. 4

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It's not often that a film surpasses my expectations, but Hustle and Flow, an intense and sad urban drama with music that had me riveted from beginning to end, did exactly that.

After years of toiling away in mostly supporting roles, Terrence Howard was finally given the chance to carry a film in a lead role and it pays off in spades in this 2005 film in which he plays DJay, a 2nd rate Memphis pimp and drug dealer whose passion to be a rapper is reignited when he sees the success of an alleged childhood friend, who now calls himself Skinny Black (Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges) and Djay is hoping Skinny Black will be instrumental in getting him out of this dead end life in which he feels trapped.
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Unfortunately, DJay has people in his life, primarily the ladies who work for him, who have pinned their entire existence on DJay, start to feel a little left in the dust as DJay seriously begins to pursue his dream with the help of a buddy, played by Anthony Anderson and a mixing genius played by DJ Qualls.

Howard's powerhouse performance carries a lot of weight and his supporting cast is solid. Taraji P. Hensen and Taryn Manning also register as the two main women in DJay's life, one of whom is carrying his child.
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This film is richly entertaining, but if I had one complaint, I just wish the executive producers had put a little more trust in the vehicle and put a little more money into production values...the film has a grainy and rather cheap look, like it was made in the 70's. Writer and director Craig Brewer's vehicle deserves a little more care to production than it received. Howard and Ludacris, who both appeared in Crash, probably made this before Crash, and maybe if it had been made after, it might have gotten the budget it deserved. BTW, the song "It's Hard out here for a Pimp", actually won the Oscar for Best Song of 2005.
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The film appears to have been made on the cheap, but Howard and company definitely make it worth watching. 7.5/10

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Baby Boy is a 2001 film that purports to be a gritty urban drama, but fails to convince, thanks to inferior writing, an unappealing lead character and a less-than-stellar performance from the actor in the lead.

The film stars male model turned actor Tyrese Gibson as Jody, an unemployed player who has two babies with two different women, yet still lives with his mother (AJ Johnson). The film focuses primarily on Jody's feeble attempts to earn a living while working to keep current girlfriend Yvette (Taraji P. Hensen) under his thumb. Further complications arise when Mom begins dating a new guy (Ving Rhames) who seems to be taking over Jody's position as man of the house and Yvette's ex, Rodney (Snoop Dogg), gets out of jail and tries to resume his life with Yvette.
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Director-writer John Singleton, who put himself on the map a decade earlier with Boyz in the Hood really dropped the ball this time. This film suffers from a sexist and unappealing leading man who treats women like dirt and still wants to run his mother's house, even though he does absolutely nothing to contribute to the upkeep of the household. The guy has two children out of wedlock and is still living at his mother's house? Seriously? It's ridiculous that Jody is so focused on his mother's new boyfriend that he doesn't even notice how much danger Yvette is in when Rodney moves back into her apartment after a fight with Jody. The main character is kind of an idiot, which really makes it hard to invest in any of what's going on.
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The camera loves Gibson but he is no actor and his acting career did a slow fade after this one and deservedly so. Rhames and Hensen give strong performances, but their work is not enough to sustain interest in the film. If you have a hard-on for Tyrese Gibson, it's worth a look, otherwise...4.5/10

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Will Smith is an actor who has pretty much made a career out of playing himself, but has proven that with the right material, he can deliver the goods and he does in The Pursuit of Happyness, a 2006 fact-based drama about a salesman named Chris Gardner whose sales are so bad that he's pretty much lost everything, except for his young son, whose care becomes his number one priority as Chris confronts unemployment and homelessness, but finds a long road back thanks to an internship program he enters on how to be a stockbroker.
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Smith had the role of his career here and made the most of it and the idea of casting his real-life son Jaden as his son was a master stroke because the onscreen chemistry between this real-life father and son was something magical that I haven't seen in a long time. I think playing this role opposite his real life son brought a richness to Smith's performance that might not have been there with some other child actor. Watch Smith when he and his boy get locked out of their hotel room or when he's telling his son a story to keep him distracted. The look on Smith's face when he has to block a public bathroom door where he and his son are forced to sleep for a night is heartbreaking.
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Yes, the screenplay is a little pat and asks us to accept a lot. I found it a little hard to believe that Chris' wife (Thandie Newton) would let go of her son as easily as she does here and I learned later after I had seen the film that the real Gardner did receive a minor stipend during his internship and didn't do the whole thing penniless.

But I digress. The performances by Will Smith and his son make this emotionally manipulative drama a winner and I'm pretty sure the finale will leave a definite lump in the throat. 8/10

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An electrifying, if slightly over-the-top performance by Al Pacino made the 1983 epic Scarfacea permanent part of my video collection and a film with enormous re-watch appeal.
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Director Brian De Palma spared no expense mounting this remake of the 1931 film with Paul Muni playing the legendary gangster. Of course, for the 1980's, obvious updating had to be done since Muni's crimes revolved around bootleg liquor. This time, the booty is cocaine.
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Pacino plays Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant who rises from a dishwasher to New York's # 1 drug lord, who, according to this film, made so much money selling cocaine that the banks he was dealing with were no longer able to launder it and he didn't have enough time to spend it.

Oliver Stone's screenplay takes its time unfolding Tony's story before us. We get to see how his handling of a major drug deal, during which his cousin was brutally murdered, led him to being the right hand man of Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), a cocky drug lord who gets so big for his britches that Tony not only ends up taking him out, but also steals his mistress (Michelle Pfeiffer) from him and marries her. Despite his marriage to Pfeiffer, we also learn that Tony has what appears to be a rather unnatural connection to his sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio), manifested in an overprotective mode where he won't allow another man near her.

De Palma tells this story on a huge canvas and spared no expense in giving this story authenticity with lush location filming in Mexico and Manhattan, among other locations. His direction is intense and does not shy away from some brutal violence and adult language like we hadn't seen on the screen in quite awhile. I have to remind myself sometimes that the film was NOT directed by Martin Scorcese.
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Pacino is mesmerizing throughout, though some found the performance over the top. I especially loved the "good night to the bad guy" scene in the restaurant and the scene where he's in the car following the limo with the bomb attached to it. Steven Bauer had the best role of his career as Manny, Tony's second in command who looked like he had it all until he is drawn to forbidden fruit. F. Murray Abraham, Paul Shenar, and Haris Yulin also register in supporting roles, but it's definitely Pacino's show and with the aid of De Palma and Stone, he runs with it. 7/10

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Shirts/Skins was a clever and offbeat 1973 ABC Movie of the Week about six businessmen who meet regularly for a basketball game who decide one week that they are going to have a contest. Each team is given a basketball to hide somewhere in the city and the first team to find the opposing team's basketball is the winner, but this is one contest that gets WAY out of hand.
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Bill Bixby, Doug McClure, Rene Auberjunois, Robert Walden, Leonard Frey, Loretta Swit, and Ron Glass give winning performances that serve the story well, a story that veers off into several different directions that you really don't see coming.

This one might be hard to find, but if you can dig it up somewhere, check it out. 8/10

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The 1975 film Mahogany was Berry Gordy's attempt to have lightening strike twice by reuniting the stars of Lady Sings the Blues; however, it was an epic fail for me.

The film stars Diana Ross as Tracy Chambers, a design student from Chicago who goes from department store employee to international fashion model to the manager of her own fashion design firm, thanks to an eccentric photographer (Anthony Perkins) and a European millionaire (Jean Pierre Aumont).
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Billy Dee Williams plays Brian, a political activist in Chicago who has absolutely nothing in common with Tracy but finds himself drawn to her anyway and we're supposed to be upset because we don't understand why these two can't make it work.
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This film produces unintentional giggles throughout because Berry Gordy is no director and Ross does not have the acting chops to make a story like this work without a real director to guide her. Williams comes off a little better but he is fighting the screenplay all the way. Perkins actually gives the best performance in the film, which isn't saying much. The film's haunting love theme did produce a # 1 hit record for Ross though.
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For hard-core Diana Ross fans only. 4/10

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The 2004 film The Door in the Floor is a loopy and ultimately moving drama that takes the viewer on a muddled and complex cinematic journey but for the open-minded and patient, it is well worth it.
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The story is deceptively simple: Eddie (Jon Foster) is a prep school student and aspiring writer who accepts a summer job as an apprentice to Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges), a children's book writer and artist and almost immediately drifts into an affair with Ted's emotionally fragile wife, Marian (Kim Basinger) and the effects (or lack thereof) the affair has on the already crumbling Cole marriage as well as their young daughter Ruth (Elle Fanning). It becomes clear that the primary factor in the destruction of the Coles as a married couple was a horrific car accident in which their two older sons both died, an event that clearly had a lasting effect on Marian, from which she has never really recovered, not to mention her husband's alcoholism and his penchant for painting female nudes.
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Director and screenwriter Tod Williams has mounted a story that is kind of all over the place but its unpredictability is part of what sustains interest. I found it odd that when Eddie's affair with Marian is revealed when Ruth actually walks in on them, that the affair didn't end and Ted simply decided to use it as a weapon in his plan to gain sole custody of Ruth. There also seem to be some mental health issues with Marian that aren't really addressed but Ted is willing to use them to get what he wants. It blew me away that even with Ruth and Ted knowing about it, Eddie and Marian continued to sleep together...not exactly a Noel Coward drawing room comedy here.
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The endlessly complex screenplay is executed by a first rate cast, especially Bridges, who gives a rich and delightfully unhinged performance as the alcoholic writer of children's fiction who wears nightshirts and panama hats, and tells his daughter bedtime stories in the nude. Bridges pulls out all the stops here, which is probably his only performance that rivals his work in Fearless. I don't think Basinger has ever been better, lovely and fragile as the tattered Marian. Her work here is far superior to her Oscar-winning turn in LA Confidential and Foster absolutely holds his own opposite these two as the pawn in a dangerous marital competition.

Williams' direction, some lovely cinematography, and a smooth musical score are icing on the cake in this moving drama that will challenge the viewer and demand at least one re-visit. 8/10

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a campy and outrageous 1975 musical that originally died at the box office but somewhere along the line found new life as a midnight movie house phenomenon.
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This is the story of a nerdy engaged couple named Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon), whose car breaks down one rainy night in front of a creepy castle that turns out to be the home of a kinky scientist named Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry).
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To say anymore would ruin this film for the half dozen people who have never seen it, but suffice it to say that this is one of the most unique and memorable movie experiences you will ever have.

The musical score was written by Richard O'Brien, who appears in the film as Frank-N-Furter's manservant, Riff Raff. Songs include "Science Fiction Double Feature", "Dammit Janet", "Sweet Transvestite", "There's a Light". "The Time Warp", "Toucha Toucha Me", and "A Wild and Untamed Thing."
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Curry gives a star-making performance as the kinky scientist and Bostwick and Sarandon are very funny as Brad and Janet. Kudos as well to Patricia Quinn as Majenta the Maid and Little Nell as a groupie named Columbia.
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As mentioned, this film originally died at the box office, but found new life when vintage movie houses started showing the movie at midnight and it has now become a social phenomenon. Every Friday and Saturday night, people all over the country, dress up like the characters, dance in front of the movie screen, yell lines at the screen, and bring props. During the wedding scene, everyone in the theater throws rice and during a rainstorm scene, everyone pulls out umbrellas and water pistols. This is the movie that went from obscurity to a Friday night at midnight social event that now has the film considered a classic. If you can find a theater that is showing it at midnight, it's the only way to experience this. 7/10

[christine]

Nice write ups. I'm enjoying reading them :)

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Despite a charismatic cast and some funny situations, the 2008 comedy Four Christmases is definitely a case of parts being better than the whole.

The film stars Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as Brad and Kate, an unmarried couple in a committed relationship, who tell elaborate lies to their families every Christmas to avoid spending the holiday with them; however, this year, en route to Fiji, they are busted on national television and because both of them are children of divorce, they are forced to spend Christmas at four separate households.
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Matt Allen and Caleb Wilson's screenplay does cover some familiar territory that we can all relate to, like Brad being beaten on by his brothers the second he walks into his dad's house or Kate's family revealing to Brad, through a family photo album, that Kate is a former fattie, but there is a lot of over the top slapstick that just doesn't ring true, especially Kate's battle with a group of 10 year olds in a bouncy house.
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On the positive side, the casting of Brad and Kate's parents is pretty much perfection. Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek are very funny as Brad's parents. Mary Steenburgen is classy, as always, as Kate's God-fearing mom and Jon Voight is lovely as her dad, who reveals that he's known about Kate's Christmas lies for years. Also loved Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw as Brad's neanderthal brothers and Kristen Chenoweth as Kate's older sister.
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For me, the best thing about this film and its definite anchor is the relationship/chemistry created by Vaughn and Witherspoon...I totally bought these two as a couple and never doubted for a second that, no matter what they go through here, these two people really love each other and this made some of the problems with the film a little easier to deal with. Despite some silly slapstick that comes off forced, the cast really makes this one worth a look. BTW, the actor playing the ticket agent near the beginning of the film is a grown up Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story. 6/10

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Julia Roberts was finally given an Oscar-bait role and actually won an Oscar for Best Actress for 2000's Erin Brockovich, a fact-based drama that struck a chord with audiences because it presented a classic Everyman-VS-Big Bad Corporate America battle led by an unlikely heroine.

Roberts plays Erin, a divorced mother of three, who bullies her way into a job at a second rate law firm run by one Ed Masry(Albert Finney) and then stumbles onto a case that Masry initially let slip through the cracks regarding a California power supply company who has caused the poisoning of a small town's water supply, resulting in serious illness for several residents as well as farm animals, resulting in what turns out to be a huge class action suit. Once Masry realizes the case has some merit, he tries to wrestle it away from Erin; unfortunately, the citizens of the town in question don't like Ed or law firms and only want to deal with Erin, who has come to genuinely care about the people and what they're going through.
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Roberts lights up the screen here and her Oscar win wasn't a shock, but was she better than Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream? Finney is solid, as always, as Masry and Aaron Eckhart registers as Erin's on again off again romantic interest. There are also some effective supporting performances from Peter Coyote, Veanne Cox and especially Marg Helgenberger as a young mother who may have gotten cancer from the poisoned water.
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Evocative direction by Steven Soderbergh and an effective screenplay by Suhsannah Grant also help to make this film worth watching. BTW, the real Erin Brockovich makes a cameo near the beginning of the film playing a waitress. 7.5/10

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Ziegfeld Follies was a lavish 1945 MGM spectacle designed for the studio to show off their biggest and brightest stars and in 1945, MGM had, as they publicly proclaimed "more stars than the heavens."
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This musical revue is fashioned as a fantasy that opens with the late Florenz Ziegfeld, smoothly played by William Powell, imagining what it would be like to produce an all-star revue. This brief set-up leads to a dream spectacular, hosted by Fred Astaire introducing a production number called "Here's to the Ladies" which features Lucille Ball as a lion tamer and MGM chorus girls dressed as lions. Astaire also appears in a ballet with Lucille Bremer called "Limehouse Blues" and in "The Babbit and the Bromide", a song and dance number which was the first and only time Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly actually danced together onscreen (I don't count their introductory number in That's Entertainment 2). The only opportunity to watch Astaire and Kelly dance together is worth the price of admission alone.
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The film also features appearances by Red Skelton, Kathryn Grayson, Fanny Brice, Lena Horne (who offers a torrid rendition of "Love"), Victor Moore, Edward Arnold, and James Melton. Esther Williams also appears in a lavish water ballet and Judy Garland is striking in a production number called "The Great Lady Has An Interview."
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MGM made a lot of films like this but this was one of the first and one of the best. 7.5/10

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Gosford Park is an expensively-mounted, if slightly talky, murder mystery surrounded by a look at the British social class system of the 1930's. I have to remind myself that this film was directed by Robert Altman because it is unlike anything he has ever done.
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For anyone who was a fan of the 60's PBS series UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, the initial set-up of this movie should be quite familiar. Set at an English country estate during a shooting weekend, we are simultaneously introduced to the guests for the weekend, which includes some titled aristocrats and some Hollywood personalities and the service staff for the mansion and what happens when the lines between upstairs and downstairs begin to blur. We are introduced to the lord of the manor, William McCordle, a man who has made as many enemies as he has friends over the years, and some of those enemies actually have a part in his care and maintenance. The story shifts effortlessly from upstairs to downstairs as we become privy to secrets, lies, and agendas, many of them connected to McCordle. Needless to say, not too many of the guests or staff are surprised when the man is discovered poisoned AND stabbed.
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Robert Altman has mounted a story unlike anything he has ever done before...there is a structured story here and the normal improvisatory style prevalent in a lot of Altman's work is not present, there is his uncanny ability to weave multiple storylines and characters effectively as well as creating a dark and voyeuristic atmosphere to the proceedings that makes the viewer feel like an unwelcome guest at a very private party. Jullian Fellowes' Oscar-winning screenplay is a bit on the talky side, but with these starched and buttoned-up British characters, that is to be expected.
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Altman has assembled a first rate cast here that includes standout work from Michael Gambon (as McCordle), Kristen Scott Thomas, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Emily Watson, Clive Owen, Jeremy Northam, Bob Balaban, and towering above them all in Oscar-nominated performances, Helen Mirren and the divine Maggie Smith. Only Ryan Philippe misses the boat as an American actor posing as a Scottish valet whose sexual shenanigans are a major part of the story.

The film is beautifully shot with impressive art direction, set direction, costumes, and music. For those who normally are turned off by Altman's directorial style, you might want to give this one a look. 8/10

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Some impressive production values and some believable action sequences might make the 1996 film Independence Day worth checking out, despite some odd casting choices and a screenplay that can't stand a lot of scrutiny.
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The story is actually pretty straightforward: an alien invasion causes massive force fields to blanket every major city on earth, causing worldwide panic and evacuation and piquing the curiosity of one scientist (Jeff Goldblum) and utilizing an ambitious military pilot (Will Smith) and how their unlikely teaming leads to the downfall of the nasty aliens.
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Director and co-writer Roland Emmerich has asked us to accept a lot here, the primary thing that gnaws at me every time I watch this movie is that we never actually SEE the enemy here. There is one scene in the desert where Smith confronts one of the aliens but there is another two and a half hours of alleged alien attacks where we don't see what is doing the attacking.

There are some odd casting choices as well...Will Smith clearly is playing a role that was intended for someone else, evidenced in his character's name. Bill Pullman as the President of the United States? Bill Pullman? Seriously? Randy Quaid as a crop duster who believes he was sexually abused by aliens? Judd Hirsch as Goldblum's father? Loved Goldblum though and there's some other effective turns from Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, Viveca A. Fox, Margaret Colin, and Brent Spiner.

The visual effects are OK and it's too long, but it's a decent popcorn movie as long as you don't think about it too much. 6/0

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Couples Retreat is an alleged romantic comedy that proves it takes more to make a good movie than pretty pictures.
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This tiresome 2009 comedy stars Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell as Jason and Cynthia Smith, a couple on the verge of divorce, who want to go to a couples retreat on a tropical island as a last ditch effort to save their marriage, but they can't afford the cost of the trip by themselves and talk three other couples into joining them, conning them into thinking they are just getting fun and sun, and reluctant about the couples therapy that they are going to have to go through as part of this vacation package.
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Vince Vaughn and Malin Ackerman play Dave and Ronnie, a couple who do love each other but their work is forcing them to drift apart. Joey and Cynthia (Jon Favreau and Kristen Davis) were brought together by an unplanned pregnancy before they really got to know each other. Faizon Love is featured as Shane, Jason's freshly divorced friend who brings along his new 20-year old girlfriend (Kali Hawk), who Shane is having trouble keeping satisfied.
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We are forced to witness some couples therapy silliness led by a creepy marriage guru (Jean Reno) featuring some overly talking therapy sessions (each couple has a different therapist for some reason) and infighting among the couples that results in some ridiculous slapstick situations, including applied adultery that just comes off as childish and a whole lot of "been there done that" sensibility that pervades the proceedings.
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The movie was filmed on location in Bora Bora and is beautiful to look at, unfortunately, lush location photography does little to disguise the emptiness of what we're being asked to witness. Jason Bateman's performance is solid and almost makes the film worth sitting through, but not quite. 4/10

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The king of popcorn movies, Harrison Ford, had one of his biggest hits with the 1997 actioner Air Force One. Ford plays President of the United States James Marshall, who right after giving a speech about how the US will no longer negotiate with terrorists, finds Air Force One hijacked by a group of terrorists who want their leader released from prison, whose imprisonment Marshall had a major part in. The terrorists threaten to kill one passenger on the plane (and the passengers include the first lady and his daughter) every hour until their leader is released.
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The movie is slightly predictable but still immensely watchable thanks to Harrison's enormous onscreen charisma, that is so powerful that we know even though the president is immediately pushed into the escape pod to avoid his being in danger, we just KNOW that there's no way THIS president is going to leave his wife and daughter on that plane. Ford utilizes his uncanny ability here to infuse this character with equal doses of heroism and human vulnerability. Ford's Marshall projects enormous guilt when he's hiding below the plane strategizing and actually has to listen to one of his staff members get murdered.
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Ford is solid here and gets equally solid support from Gary Oldman, bone-chilling as the lead terrorist, Glenn Close as the Vice President and Dean Stockwell as the Secretary of Defense. Wendy Crewson is effective as the first lady and William H. Macy and Xander Berkley also register in supporting roles.
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You know how it's going to end, but the ride is a pleasure so just sit on the edge of your chair and have a ball. 7/10

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Martin Lawrence had one of his biggest hits with the 2000 comedy Big Momma's House, a fairly entertaining comedy that gets a lot of mileage out its star's personal charisma.
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Lawrence plays Malcolm Turner, an FBI agent whose obsession to nab a dangerous criminal (Terrence Howard) provides one lead, his former girlfriend, Sherry (Nia Long), the mother of a young boy. When Malcolm learns that Sherry and her son have left home in the middle of the night, he tails them to her grandmother's house. When grandma is suddenly called out of town, Malcolm takes the opportunity to impersonate Grandma in order to get closer to Sherry. Needless to say, Malcolm begins to develop feelings for Sherry which, of course, compromises Malcolm's case.
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As with Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, the fun in the story is watching Malcolm play Big Momma and trying to conceal his attraction to someone who is supposed to be his granddaughter. Not to mention the too simple way people accept that Malcolm is Big Momma, even though plenty of evidence is presented to the contrary and the way everything comes to a head when the real Big Momma returns to town is a lot of fun.
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Lawrence works extremely hard here and is given solid support from Nia Long as Sherry and Paul Giamatti as John, Malcolm's partner. The screenplay is serviceable to the story even if it doesn't stand much scrutiny, but Lawrence's performance is entertaining enough to get you through the rough spots. Followed by a sequel. 7/10

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The Exorcist was the 1973 instant classic that broke box office records, broke all the rules about the horror/terror genre, angered religious leaders all over the world, made theatergoers physically sick, generated some innovative techniques in the art of visual effects, and IMO, was robbed of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1973.
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The film is based on a novel by William Peter Blatty from which Blatty fashioned the screenplay and was directed by William Friedkin, fresh off his Oscar-winning work on The French Connection.
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This is the story of an actress named Chris MacNeill (Ellen Burstyn) who has recently moved to Georgetown with her daughter Regan (Linda Blair) in order to make a movie. Seemingly out of nowhere, Regan begins exhibiting bizarre behavior which Chris finds out that doctors and a barrage of tests cannot properly explain. Chris is dumbfounded when it is finally suggested to her that Regan is the victim of demonic possession and the only way to help her is an exorcism, a religious ceremony that hasn't been performed in decades. Enter Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller), the priest who is going through a crisis of conscience due to the death of his mother, which the demon inside Regan seems to know about and uses it against Karras to fight being driven from Regan's body.
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This film terrified film audiences all over the world, even though most of the scares in this film are more repellent than actually scary. Friedkin and Blatty do know how to tell a compelling cinematic story that unfolds slowly without playing all its cards right away. It starts with noises in the attic and then Regan's urinating on the floor in front of Chris' party guests as clues that things are not as they should be, but doesn't really foreshadow what's going on either.
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Ellen Burstyn was robbed of the Oscar for Best Actress for her bewildered and angry Chris MacNeill and playwright Jason Miller made an impressive acting debut as Karras, a performance that earned him a supporting Actor nomination. Linda Blair became a movie star and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her Regan, a performance that a lot of people thought was cosmetically constructed through makeup and special effects and that might be why she didn't win. Max Von Sydow is properly creepy as Father Merrin, the priest who helps Karras with the exorcism and Lee J. Cobb is fun as Lieutenant Kinderman, the detective who becomes involved with the story when the director of Chris' film (Jack MacGowran, who actually died during production) is actually murdered by the demon inside of Regan. The voice of the demon is provided by Oscar winner Mercedes Macambridge.
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This is a once-in-a lifetime cinematic experience that has to be seen to believed. It spawned many clones and imitations but this is the granddaddy of them all. Followed by two sequels. 9/10
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ABC/Disney mounted an elaborate and entertaining remake of the 1977 Broadway musical Annie for television in 1999 which, for my money, was vastly superior to the theatrical version released back in 1982. This version was directed by Rob Marshall, whose next directorial assignment was a little thing called Chicago. Marshall knows what a musical should look like and having him at the helm as director and choreographer made a big difference in making the piece work, as opposed to the 1982 version which was directed by John Huston, a competent director but clueless where musicals are concerned.
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For those who don't know, this is the story of a little girl named Annie living in an orphanage during the depression, run by a cruel and sadistic witch named Miss Hannigan, who is chosen to spend a week in the mansion of a billionaire named Oliver Warbucks, a publicity stunt arranged by Warbucks' secretary Grace Farrell. We then watch as a relationship develops between the lonely philanthropist and the little girl and how Miss Hannigan sees Annie's good fortune as a ticket to Easy Street (which is, BTW, the name of one of the show's best songs).
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Kathy Bates is deliciously evil as Miss Hannigan. I found Bates' interpretation of the character much richer than Carol Burnett's take on the role in 1982. Burnett played Miss Hannigan as a drunk, but Bates brought the greed and viciousness back to the role that Dorothy Loudon introduced to the character back on Broadway in '77. Bates also surprised as a competent vocalist. Her version of my favorite song in the score, "Little Girls" is just superb.
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I have to admit that I found Victor Garber a little bland as Daddy Warbucks. I actually preferred Albert Finney in the '82 version , though Garber's solo, "Something was Missing" was lovely. Alicia Morton is competent as the title character and Audra McDonald brings a substance to the role of Grace that has been missing in previous versions of the show. Alan Cumming and Kristen Chenoweth are brilliant as Rooster and Lily, Miss Hannigan's brother and his girlfriend, who are Hannigan's cohorts in extorting money from Warbucks through Annie. Cumming, Chenoweth, and Bates bring down the house with "Easy Street".
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Other songs in the Charles Strouse/Martin Charnin score include "Maybe", "It's a Hard Knocks Life","I think I'm gonna like it here", "You're Never Fully Dressed without a Smile", and, of course, "Tomorrow". During the production number, "NYC", there is actually a cameo appearance by Andrea McArdle, who originated the role of Annie in the original 1977 Broadway production.
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For me, this is a much richer version of this musical, that takes the show back to the basics, remaining faithful to the original piece while benefiting from strong direction and choreography from Rob Marshall and some on-target casting. 8/10

[Daniel M]

Love The Exorcist, good review :up:

[Gideon58]

Love The Exorcist, good review :up:
Thank you, Daniel.

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After his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain and before his posthumous Oscar win for The Dark Knight, the late Heath Ledger turned in another award-worthy performance in Candy, a searing and intense 2006 drama that was the most harrowing look at the horror of drug addiction since Requiem for a Dream.
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This is the story of Dan (Ledger), a talented poet who is doing nothing with his gift and Candy (Abbie Cornish), a struggling artist who has also put her talent on the back burner due to her relationship with Dan and their addiction to heroine and how it has completely dominated their lives. All of the questions related to addiction are addressed here in an in-your-face manner that is quite disturbing. Not only do we get to see Candy prostitute herself in order to support t heir habit, but we also see Candy challenge Dan to do the same. It's aggravating as we watch the hypocritical Dan get high with money that Candy earned on her back but he's unwilling to do the same.
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There is one surprisingly clever vignette where Dan happens upon a wallet on the front seat of a car and when it contains no cash, goes through an extremely elaborate ruse in order to extract the information he needs from the owner in order to use the credit cards that were in the wallet. As clever as Dan is here, it is also a little pathetic because you find yourself wishing that he could be this resourceful doing something positive or productive.
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What is so riveting about Dan and Candy's story is that we can tell from the beginning of the film that their relationship is doomed, but it doesn't keep the viewer from becoming completely enveloped in their story. We watch as they actually marry (the camera smartly pans the guests during the vows and the various reactions are telling) and watch the intensely mixed emotions from Candy's parents when Candy announces that she is pregnant. Her father's reaction to the new is just gut-wrenching. It's sad watching how Candy's parents can see that Candy's relationship with Dan is beginning to destroy their lives, but hold their tongues so long that when they finally confront the truth, it's too late.
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The most telling and most pathetic aspect of Dan and Candy's story is their constant talk about changing their lives and their half-hearted attempts to stop using so that they can. The scenes of Dan and Candy trying to quit cold-turkey, documented in days, is not an easy watch, but a realistic depiction of the physical effects of heroine and how the body craves it like medicine. Director Neil Armfield does not shy away from these scenes and the camerawork from above their bed is extremely effective.

Ledger delivers a brilliant and intensely unhinged performance as Dan, which includes a credible British accent. Ledger pulls out all the stops here, making Dan a dangerous combination of smart and sexy and pathetic. Abbie Cornish is blistering and explosive as Candy, the addict who wants to blame Dan and anything else she can think of for what she's going through, in deep denial about the depth of her own addiction. Geoffrey Rush does a small but flashy turn as Dan and Candy's friend/dealer/enabler, whose willingness to help Dan and Candy feed their addiction seems to be stemmed in his sexual attraction to Dan.

This is a bold and uncompromising look at drug addiction that pulls no punches and offers no easy answers, but is riveting entertainment for those who are game, thanks to evocative direction and brilliant performances from the stars. 8.5/10

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Die Hard was the instant classic that became one of the biggest box office smashes of 1988 made an instant movie star out of Bruce Willis, and is arguably the best popcorn movie ever made.
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This slam-bang actioner stars Bruce Willis as John McClane, an officer with the NYPD who flies to Los Angeles to see his ex-wife (Bonnie Bedelia) and arranges to meet with her at her company's Christmas party, which is taking place in a high rise at Nakatomi Plaza. While McClane is in a private office changing his clothes for the party, a group of terrorists, led by one Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), burst into the party and take everyone hostage. Since the terrorists are initially unaware of McClane's presence, McClane takes it upon himself to save his ex and the rest of the party guests, in his bare feet and armed with one pistol.
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Jeb Stuart's screenplay, based on a novel by Roderick Thorp, does the same thing for action films that Poltergiest did for the horror genre. The story is rooted in realism but presented with tongue tucked in cheek. Despite the seriousness and danger going on here, there is a sense of humor to what's going on here. McClane's initially breezy, laid-back, smart-ass attitude about this situation is such a breath of fresh air and director John McTiernan pulls a performance out of his star that is deliciously funny and believably human at the same time, allowing the viewer to actually accept his Superman actions.
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Bruce Willis found the role of his career here and seems to be having a ball here. Alan Rickman ushered in a whole new sophisticated and intelligent villain in his interpretation of Hans Gruber who, despite his apparent sophistication and style, is still a viable blend of evil, danger, and insanity. Kudos as well to Reginald ValJohnson, who plays an LA police officer who becomes aware of McClane's presence and though he is not in the building, becomes McClane's contact and accomplice in his mission. Mention should also be made of Alexander Godenov as one of Gruber's henchmen, who goes into overdrive when McClane kills his brother.
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Yes, it's over the top and hard to believe at times, but it's one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Followed by 4 sequels (so far). 9/10

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The Sting was the feel-good hit film of 1973 that won the Oscar for Best Picture of the year and documented that the chemistry Paul Newman and Robert Redford created in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wasn't a fluke.
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Set in Chicago in the 1930's, Redford plays Johnny Hooker, a second rate con man who finds out that a criminal banker named Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) was indirectly responsible for the death of his long time partner. Determined to avenge his partner's death, Hooker enlists the aid of veteran con man Henry Gondorff (Newman), who has his own issues with Lonnegan and, together, they set up an elaborate con, a "sting" if you will, to get Lonnegan where he lives...in his wallet.
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One of the strongest aspects of this film is the Oscar winning screenplay by David S. Ward, who has chosen to let this story unfold very slowly and with serious attention to details in story execution. This is one of those stories that if you miss five minutes of the movie, you won't have a clue what's going on, so have that pause button poised if you're interrupted. I have always felt that this was the sign of a really great screenplay, that every single detail presented onscreen is germain to the story.

George Roy Hill's meticulous direction and the chemistry between Redford and Newman are the other things that make this film work. Hill has mounted an elaborate story here with striking attention to period detail and to serving the story. Newman and Redford are a well-oiled machine here. Redford actually received his only Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his work here, which I think was also in recognition of his other big performance the same year in The Way We Were. There is also a first rate supporting cast including Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, Harold Gould, Dana Elcar, and Dimitra Arliss.
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Hill won his only Best Director Oscar for his work here, Edith Head won her fourth and final Oscar for her costumes, and Marvin Hamlisch's musical scoring also won, based on the music of ragtime icon Scott Joplin and believe me, after seeing this movie, you will be humming "The Entertainer". A wonderful film, to be sure, but was it really better than The Exorcist? 8/10
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Romantic Comedy was a 1983 comedy that is about as predictable and generic as its title and the stars definitely deserve better.
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The film stars Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen as Jason and Phoebe, a pair of writers who start writing together and become a very successful writing team while fighting an attraction to each other, despite the fact that they're married to other people.

I don't know what even moved me to review this film because this was one of my most forgettable experiences at the movies. Arthur Hiller's pedestrian direction does no justice to Bernard Slade's screenplay, based on his own play. It's amazing that a playwright actually came up with such a dull movie about playwrights.
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The fact that Moore and Steenburgen have little or no chemistry with each other or with Janet Eiber and Ron Leibman, who play their respective spouses, who are both in deep denial about the fact that their married to people who are not really in love with them.

I'm trying to think of something positive to say in a way of recommending this film, but I'm drawing a blank. Only hardcore Moore and Steenburgen fans should even bother. 3/10

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Judd Apatow's position as producer probably had a lot to do with Forgetting Sarah Marshall being greenlighted, a fairly entertaining romantic comedy which provides fairly consistent giggles for most of its running time.
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Jason Segel, who also wrote the screenplay, plays Peter Brettner, a musician who has just broken up with his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall(Kristen Bell), a television star, who is now involved with a rock musician (Russell Brand). In an attempt to forget about Sarah, Peter vacations in Hawaii, and in true romantic comedy fashion, Sarah and her new guy are vacationing there as well. We then watch poor Peter running into Sarah wherever he goes while taking the attention of an attractive hotel desk clerk (Mila Kunis) for granted.
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Segel presents a very flawed and believable character in Peter, who is painted as this tortured sad sack while Sarah is painted as this cold-hearted bitch, which is not surprising since Segel did write the screenplay and if you're OK with that, you will probably be OK with everything that goes on here, even if it goes on a little too long, which is something I've come to expect from the Judd Apatow rep company.
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Segel and Kunis make a nice couple and Russell Brand is very funny as Aldous Snow, the arrogant but not as dumb as he looks rock star. Segal has provided some funny moments along the way for Jonah Hill as a waiter obsessed with Brand, Bill Hader as Peter's stepbrother, Kristen Wiig as a yoga instructor and especially Paul Rudd as a perpetually stoned surfing instructor.
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There are definitely some slow moments here and there, but Segel and company will hold your attention for most of the running time. 7/10

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Sissy Spacek's Oscar winning performance is the centerpiece of 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter, an entertaining and apparently factually accurate film biography of country music superstar Loretta Lynn, who loved Spacek's performance and publicly endorsed the film.
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The film covers Loretta Webb's humble beginnings as the sheltered and terribly shy daughter of a domineering coal miner in Butcher Holler, Kentucky and her marriage to Doolittle Lynn at the age of 13. According to the film, Loretta's singing was initially a tool Loretta used to keep her children quiet, but it was Doolittle who recognized a genuine gift in Loretta and pushed her to pursue to it, starting with a car trip from which Loretta awakens to see their car sitting in front of the Grand Ol' Opry.
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The movie has all the scenes you expect to see in a film like this, but it is Spacek's sincerely and vividly real performance that makes this movie so special. I love the scene when Loretta is being interviewed on the radio and innocently starts talking about her sex life with Doolittle. it's such a funny and completely believable moment that Spacek totally nails. Tommy Lee Jones matches Spacek scene for scene as Doo, the devoted husband and father who supported his wife's talent completely and didn't seem to mind being Mr. Loretta Lynn, whether or not this is true, only the real Doolittle knows and I have never read any of his thoughts about this film. There are also effective supporting performances from country singer Levon Helm as Loretta's insensitive father and Beverly D'Angelo as Patsy Cline, who, according to this film, was Loretta's mentor and one of her best friends. Oddly enough, in the Jessica Lange biography of Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams, Loretta Lynn isn't even mentioned.
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Still, the film is grand entertainment where Spacek commands the screen (even though I still think that Oscar should have gone to Mary Tyler Moore, but I think I'm the only one) and any biopic that has the stamp of approval from its subject, has to be worth seeing. 8/10
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The film is about three friends who have serious issues with their bosses. Nick (Jason Bateman) is a sales executive who was promised a promotion by his boss (Kevin Spacey) who ends up giving the job to himself. Charlie Day plays Dale, an engaged dental assistant whose boss, Dr. Julia (Jennifer Aniston), sexually harasses him by spraying water on his crotch and calling him into her office wearing nothing but panties and a lab coat. Former SNL regular Jason Sudekis plays Kurt, an accountant with a chemical company who had a great boss (Donald Sutherland), but he dies and his slimeball, cokehead son (Colin Farrell) takes over, who makes Kurt fire employees and makes it appear to be Kurt's idea. I found it really funny that Nick and Kurt don't think what Dale is going through is so bad.
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The guys put their heads together and decide that their bosses need to be eliminated and they hire an alleged hit man (Jamie Foxx), who advises them that they should eliminate each other's bosses, a la Strangers on a Train, but need to gather dirt on the alleged victims first. This leads to an inspired series of twists and turns that we never see coming, not to mention an extra ending or two that unnecessarily pad the running time.
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Michael Markowitz and John Francis' screenplay is smart and funny and even gives credit to the films it borrows from and it is well served by Seth Gordon's stylish direction. Jason Bateman continues to be one of cinema's favorite tight-asses and Day's over-the-top histrionics fit his character very well. Spacey and Farrell have rarely been funnier and I have never enjoyed Jennifer Aniston onscreen as much as I did in this movie. Sudekis also scores as the guy whose inability keep his pants zipped almost ruins their plans.
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It's a rarity when a movie surpasses my expectations, but I have rarely found a movie surpassing my expectations before that actually borrowed so much from other films. A very smart comedy that lets us in on the joke. 8/10

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One of my favorite films of 1984 was a spectacular combination of action and romance called Romancing the Stone.
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Kathleen Turner lights up the screen as Joan Wilder, a best-selling writer of romance novels who can churn out romantic adventures on her word processor with ease but then goes home to her sparse apartment and her cat. Joan's life is thrown into a tailspin when she gets a phone call from her sister (Mary Ellen Trainor) who claims that she has been kidnapped and that the kidnappers want a treasure map that Joan received in the mail. Without hesitation, Joan gets on a plane to Cartegena, Columbia in order to help her sister and finds herself in way too deep as she hasn't a clue on how to help her sister until she encounters Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), a cocky and sexy adventurer who seems to be a real life reincarnation of a hero from one of Joan's novels.
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Another first-rate offering from the directorial hand of Robert Zemeckis, this film is a seamless combination of action, romance, and character study as we not only watch Joan and Jack risk life and limb to save her sister and find the treasure, but we also get to watch the evolution of the Joan Wilder character...the transformation of Joan from mousy spinster novelist to confident and passionate woman open to romance is a joy to watch and is what makes this film so special.
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Kathleen Turner is absolutely brilliant as Joan Wilder, a performance that I think was far more Oscar-worthy than her Oscar-nominated performance in Peggy Sue Got Married and the onscreen chemistry she creates with Michael Douglas is so rich that Turner and Douglas made two more films together, along with co-star Danny De Vito as a greedy interloper who is also after the booty.

It is the chemistry of the stars, some stunning location photography, and Zemeckis' proven directorial hand that make this film such a pleasure, with enormous re-watch appeal. 8/10

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was the third installment in the very popular franchise about the Griswold family that is not quite up to the standard of the first film, but a HUGE improvement over the 2nd film, National Lampoon's European Vacation.

Written by John Hughes, this film takes a little different tack than the previous films as we find the Griswolds actually at home preparing for Christmas and the arrival of Clark and Ellen's parents, Clark's quest to find the perfect Christmas tree and his anticipation of a huge Christmas bonus at work.
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The film is a very clever take on all the crazy things that people have to put up with at Christmas and Clark Griswold turns out to be just as entertaining at home as he is behind the wheel of the family truckster.
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Chase and Beverly D'Angelo have settled nicely into their roles as the Griswolds and Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis tackle the roles of Rusty and Audrey this time around. I've always been tickled about the fact that Rusty and Audrey have been played by different actors in every VACATION film. John Randolph, Diane Ladd, EG Marshall, and Doris Roberts are wonderful as Clark and Ellen's parents and I also loved Julia Louis Dreyfuss and Nicholas Guest as the Griswold's obnoxious neighbors.
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A surprisingly entertaining family comedy anchored by Hughes' clever yet realistic screenplay and Chevy Chase's breezy lead performance as one of cinema's favorite everyman. 7.5/10

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2011's Bad Teacher is a smarmy and juvenile comedy that offends at every turn, primarily due to the most unlikable lead character I have seen in a movie since Eddie Murphy played Rasputia in Norbit. And unlike Rasputia, this really unlikable character is wrapped inside a smoking hot package.
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Cameron Diaz, looking absolutely amazing, plays Elizabeth Halsey, an incompetent, self-absorbed, hedonistic, insensitive teacher who quits her job when she thinks she's landed a rich husband. After her last day at school, she returns home and her fiancee unceremoniously dumps her, so she decides to return to teaching, where her class consists of showing the class a new movie every day. She then decides that the only way to nab a new sugar daddy is with a boob job and does whatever she needs to do to get the money she needs for the surgery.
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Elizabeth's single-minded mission is complicated by her attraction to a cute nerdy new faculty member(Justin Timberlake) who, for some reason, is clueless to the kind of person Elizabeth really is and a gym teacher (Jason Segel), who sees through all of Elizabeth's BS but is attracted to her nonetheless, but can't get her attention because he's not rich.
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This movie provides almost immediate aggravation because it is hard to believe that any public school system would look blindly past the kind of behavior displayed by Elizabeth in this movie...she curses at students, she smokes pot in the school parking lot, and does lap dances on top of cars during a student car wash. Even when Elizabeth decides to change her ways and be a real teacher, it's for all the wrong reasons...she learns that there's a $5700 bonus for the teacher whose class makes the highest scores on a certain test and she even takes shortcuts to make that happen.
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I can't recall the last time a movie just plain pissed me off. I don't know what would motivate Cameron Diaz to appear in a piece of crap like this. After seeing In her Shoes, I thought Diaz displayed the potential to be an actress of substance given the right material but she doesn't appear to be interested in being a serious actress or must have REALLY needed the money. I didn't even buy Justin Timberlake's sexy nerd thing, though his performance of a song in a nightclub was kind of funny. Lucy Punch and Phyllis White are just annoying as two of Elizabeth's co-workers. One of them she hates and the other she uses for her own convenience. Only Jason Segel manages to rise above the muck as the charming gym teacher who never gives up on Elizabeth, even though you really have to wonder why because she treats him just as dreadfully as she treats everyone else in the movie.
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This movie is recommended for hard-core Diaz fans only who don't care how low they see their cinematic muse stoop and she stoops pretty low here. 2.5/10

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The Celluloid Closet is an incisive, thought-provoking, and sometimes fascinating look at the history of homosexuality in cinema, which starts with silent films and moves all the way through to a look at a supposedly groundbreaking 1982 film called Making Love,
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Based on a book by Vito Russo and narrated by Lily Tomlin, this documentary looks at the evolution of homosexual characters in cinema and, more specifically, the way they have been presented in order to be acceptable for public consumption. Gay characters were initially no more than comic relief, "the sissy" as they were referred to here and then they became certifiable villains, like the lovers in Rope or the muscular prison matron played by Hope Emerson in Caged, or even the creepy Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. Apparently, in the 30's and 40's, it was acceptable to present gay characters onscreen as long as the movie didn't come right out and say that the character was gay, like Peter Lorre's character in The Maltese Falcon.
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The documentary takes an interesting look at some scenes and characters that aren't necessarily gay, but contain strong gay subtext, project strong homoerotic overtones, and could make you look at the movies in a completely different light. This portion of the documentary looks at, among others, the relationship between Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur and Doris Day's possible attraction to Allyn McLerie in Calamity Jane.
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The film features commentary by gay writers like Arthur Laurents, who wrote Gypsy, Susie Bright, Jan Oxenberg, Harvey Fierstein, Quentin Crisp, and Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the screenplay for the 1972 film Cabaret, which featured a love triangle with two bisexual men. Nicholas Ray also comments about the Sal Mineo character in Rebel Without a Cause. And though he was a renowned heterosexual, Tony Curtis is also interviewed about an extremely homoerotic scene he did with Laurence Olivier in Sparctacus, a scene which is now deleted from some prints of the film.
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This is a fascinating documentary that could change the way you look at a lot of movies that you thought had nothing to do with homosexuality and reveals that gay is definitely in the eye of the beholder. 7.5/10

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I have not heard of this documentary, but it does sound interesting.

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1956's Giant is a sprawling epic based on a novel by Edna Ferber, that touches upon subjects like race relations, big business, social class, and traditional male/female roles that was a Best Picture of 1956 nominee, won George Stevens his second Oscar for Best Director, and was probably a partial inspiration for the CBS television series Dallas.
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The engrossing story basically revolves around three characters: Rock Hudson plays Jordan "Bick" Benedict, a wealthy Texas cattle baron who has definite views on marriage, children, and race but ends up finding them all challenged during the course of this story. Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor) is a Washington DC socialite who marries Benedict after a two day romance, but refuses to be the obedient seen-but-not-heard wife that Benedict expected. James Dean had the final role of his too-brief career as Jett Rink, Benedict's former ranch hand whose inheritance of a small parcel of land from Bick's sister ends up leading to Rink striking oil and becoming a millionaire, a business rival for Benedict and a continued thorn in his personal life with his attraction to Leslie and his eventual relationship with Bick and Leslie's daughter.
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Director Stevens has mounted a wonderfully entertaining story here that actually validates its over 3-hour length, which I didn't feel at all. Rock Hudson gives the performance of his career as Benedict, which resulted in his first and only Best Actor Oscar nomination. Dean was also nominated for Best Actor for his riveting performance as Jett Rink. Pay special attention to the scene where he is alone with Leslie at his new house and serves her tea or his drunken tirade near the film's climax where he drunkenly delivers a scheduled speech to an empty banquet room. For those new to cinema history, Dean's role in the film was cut short due to the actor's death in a car accident during production of the film on September 30, 1955. Elizabeth Taylor offers one of her strongest performances as Leslie, the strong-willed woman who loves her man but refuses to sit silently in a corner...love the scene where Bick tries to get her to leave while he and his men friends discuss politics and Leslie has no intention of being summarily dismissed like a 10 year old. Taylor commands the screen like she hadn't prior to this and looks absolutely breathtaking doing it.
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The story actually spans some 25-30 years and all three leads are very convincing as their characters age. It's fun watching Bick and Leslie go from fussing newlyweds to parents concerned about their teenage children, played by newcomers Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker. Love the way the story comes full circle when Bick and Leslie's daughter actually starts dating Jett Rink.
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Mercedes Macambridge was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her brief but effective turn as Bick's, sister, Luz. She is too funny near the beginning of the film when Bick and Leslie first return to the ranch and she shows Bick which room he'll be in and which room Leslie will be in. Her combination of shock and disgust at the thought of them sleeping in the same room, as well as her insecurity about Leslie taking over her role at the ranch is fun to watch.

Chill Wills, Jane Withers, Earl Holliman, Paul Fix, Rod Taylor, and Judith Evelyn offer solid support and there is a brief cameo by Dean's co-star in Rebel Without a Cause, Sal Mineo. Some lush cinematography and a gorgeous musical score are the finishing touches of this classic from the 50's that turns out to still be pretty solid entertainment. 7.5/10

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2001's Rock Star is a glossy, yet cliche-ridden drama with music where the dominating theme seems to be "Rock-N-Roll is the devil."
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Mark Wahlberg plays Chris, a copier repairman by day, who still lives with his parents and spends the rest of his life obsessing over a band called Steel Dragon. He is even the lead singer of a Steel Dragon cover band, which is managed by his girlfriend, Emily (Jennifer Aniston). Chris' obsession with reproducing exact duplicates of Steel Dragon recordings actually ends up getting him fired from his own band, while at the same time, Steel Dragon's lead singer leaves the band, and the band, having anonymously received a tape of Chris, fly him and his girlfriend Emily to LA where he ends up actually being hired as the new lead singer of Steel Dragon.
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This movie features every single show business movie cliche that you have ever seen and does it in an annoying manner, thanks primarily to a lame screenplay by John Stockwell. There is one corny scene after another here, from the two Steel Dragon cover bands rumbling in a stadium parking lot to Chris' nerves getting the best of him during his Steel Dragon audition until girlfriend Emily lip-syncs "I love you" and he miraculously nails the audition. This film produces a lot of giggles; however, hardly any of them were intentional.
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Wahlberg's performance in the lead role is purely a matter of taste and I think a major appeal of the performance lies in Chris' singing, which is not done by Wahlberg. He does look great in tight leather pants though. There are couple of interesting performances by Dominick West as the leader and songwriter of Steel Dragon and Timothy Spall as Steel Dragon's manager, but Aniston's role is thankless.
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If the thought of Wahlberg's ass wrapped in black leather pants gets you hot, this is the film for you. Otherwise, be afraid...be very afraid. 5/10

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The Man Who Came to Dinner is the 1942 film version of the classic Kaufman and Hart play that, despite some offbeat casting choices, still delivers some clever comic situations via a cast at the top of their game.
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Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Wooley) is an acid-tongued critic and writer visiting the home of an Ohio family named the Stanleys who slips on some ice outside of their home and breaks his hip. The Stanleys invite Whiteside to stay in their home until he recovers and during his stay, he turns the family's life upside down and gets so involved in uprooting the Stanleys' personal lives, that even when he recovers from his injury, forces the doctor to keep quiet so that he can continue to interfere with the Stanley family and break up the budding romance between his loyal secretary and a local reporter.
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Monty Woolley, reprising his Broadway role, appears to be having a ball here as the cantankerous troublemaker who is accustomed to having his own way and is not going to let being a guest in someone else's home stop that. Critics were divided regarding Bette Davis' performance as Whiteside's secretary, Maggie Cutler. Some thought she was miscast and others thought it was just a bad performance...the character is definitely one of the most subdued characters Davis has ever played and it was rather unsettling seeing Davis underplay to Ann Sheridan, who chews up the scenery as Lorraine Sheldon, the glamorous actress and old friend of "Sherry's", who becomes an accomplice in Whiteside's machinations of the Stanley family. Billie Burke is very funny as Mrs. Stanley, as is Jimmy Duranto as Banjo, an old friend of Whiteside's who was clearly inspired by Harpo Marx and Mary Wickes as Nurse Preen, the dour nurse assigned to take care Whiteside.
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One of the strongest film adaptations of Broadway play released during the 1940's thanks to William Keighley's energetic direction and a rock solid cast. 7.5/10

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This quietly moving film chronicles the final years of film director James Whale, who directed the 1941 version of the musical Show Boat, but really carved a niche in cinema history as the director of the original 1931 film Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein. Whale is depicted here as a desperately lonely homosexual male who, with his career at an end, has nothing left in his life but his homoerotic fantasies and his deep longing for male companionship. Whale sees hope for this relationship in the form of a hunky groundskeeper named Clayton Boone who has been hired to do his landscaping and the lengths that Whale goes to to get this clearly heterosexual male to fall in love with him.
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It's the sadness and desperate lengths that Whale goes to in this film just for the sake of male companionship that stayed with me long after the credits roll. The opening scene of Whale giving an interview with a reporter and promising to answer the reporter's questions in exchange for the young reporter removing an article of clothing is just so pathetic and difficult to watch. Whale's agenda is further complicated by the presence of his fiercely loyal housekeeper, Hannah, who is aware of her employer's sexual machinations and though she is loyal to him also feels the need to warn any young man who enters Whale's home what they might be getting themselves into. Watching Whale's fascination with Boone, Hannah trying to put a stop to it and the even more disturbing aspect of what happens here...Boone actually questioning his own sexuality is what makes this more than the typical biopic.

Sir Ian McKellan, who is gay in real life, gives a breathtaking performance as Whale that earned him a richly deserved Oscar nomination and Lynn Redgrave was robbed of Best Supporting Actress for her Hannah, a dour and serious-minded woman torn by loyalty to her employer and her personal disgust at Whale's sexual proclivities. Brendon Fraser was given the role of his career as the object of Whale's lust and makes the most of it, perfectly conveying Boone's flattery at Whale's attention and his confusion regarding exactly what it means.
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Director and writer Bill Condon (his screenplay won an Oscar) has fashioned a grandly entertaining but melancholy cinematic journey for those who are game and if you are, you will be rewarded with an intimate look at a tragic Hollywood figure whose somewhat selfish agendas ignited his final downfall. 8.5/10

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ROCK OF AGES
Rock of Ages is a slick and glossy film adaptation of a Broadway musical that has to be one of the worst films of 2012 and one of the worst musicals ever made.
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I should preface this review by stating that I did not see the show on Broadway and other than the fact that someone wanted to mount a musical wrapped around classic rock and roll tunes, I just didn't get the point of this movie. This splashy and expensive movie musical has all the substance of Babes in Arms or Beach Blanket Bingo.
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Adam Shankman, who scored a direct bullseye with the 2007 musical Hairspray really missed the boat here. The film stars former DANCING WITH THE STARS pro Julianne Hough as Sherry, a girl fresh off the bus from Oklahoma to glittery Los Angeles where she hopes to become a singer and meets Drew (Diego Boneta)a bar back at a club called The Bourbon Room and in the best tradition of Mickey/Judy and Frankie/Annette they meet, fall for each other, have a misunderstanding, break up and make up, all backed by some classic rock and roll songs and some new ones that make the classics seem even better than they are. The mash-ups of original songs with rock classics is only partially successful but that is only the beginning of this film's problems.
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Shankman has hired too many actors who can't sing, singers who can't act, dancers who can't sing, singers who can't dance, and dancers who can't act. The vocal soundtrack sounds like it was recorded by the cast of GLEE and even the cast members who can sing come off as being dubbed. I think this film was supposed to make Julianne Hough a star and she just returned to DANCING WITH THE STARS, so what does that tell you?
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There are a couple of things that worked here to my great surprise...Tom Cruise's performance as burnt out rock star Stacee Jaxx was surprisingly effective, even if someone else was singing for him. Catherine Zeta-Jones does a fabulous scene-stealing turn as the Mayor's wife, who wants to shut down the Bourbon Room and has a past with Jaxx. Zeta-Jones' take on "Hit Me with your Best Shot" was one of my favorite musical moments in the film. Paul Giamatti scores as a fast-talking agent and Alec Baldwin was OK as the manager of the Bourbon Room. Russell Brand is given all the funniest lines in the movie, but he still comes off as completely annoying and the love duet between Baldwin and Brand is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever seen in a movie. Mary J. Blige makes an inauspicious film debut as the owner of a strip club who inexplicably takes pity on poor Sherry and makes her the star of her club in about 20 minutes.
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I will say that Shankman does know what a musical should look like and he does provide some imaginative choreography for the musical sequences, but no matter what kind of movie it is, it all starts with the word and the screenplay here is a mess and I think might be at the bottom of why this movie just doesn't work...everything that happens in this movie is stupid and pointless and tying it all together with classic rock songs doesn't disguise that fact. And can we please pass a law that movie makers are no longer allowed to film love scenes on the Hollywood sign? 2

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THE MIRACLE WORKER
The Miracle Worker is the well-acted 1962 screen version of the William Gibson play documenting the real-life relationship with the legendary Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan.
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Helen Keller was born blind, deaf, and dumb to her guilt-ridden parents (Victor Jory, Inga Swenson) whose guilt about Helen's condition has pretty much forced them, Mrs. Keller in particular, to let Helen live and do she pleases, provide no structure in her life and basically allow her to live as a wild animal. Captain Keller does have enough of this at some point and decides that they need to hire a tutor for Helen and contacts a school for the blind for assistance with this process. Needless to say, Keller is not pleased when the school assigns Annie Sullivan to the job since Sullivan is visually impaired as well, but Annie looks at this as an asset and thus begins one of the greatest student/teacher relationships ever portrayed on film where the teacher seems to learn as much as the student does.
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Reprising their Broadway roles, Anne Bancroft won the Oscar for Best Actress for her bold and ambitious Annie Sullivan and Patty Duke blindsided Angela Lansbury by becoming the youngest Oscar winner at the time for Best Supporting Actress for her frighteningly unhinged portrayal of Helen, the vulnerable and scared child living in the darkness afraid to come to the light that Annie is leading her too.
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The highlight of the movie is what is known as the "fight for authority scene", that takes place at the Keller dining table where Annie dismisses the rest of the family and single-handedly decides to teach Helen how to eat a meal properly since her parents had always allowed her to eat off of everyone else's plates and off the floor. The scene is long and demanding and done without one word of dialogue, but it is superbly performed by Bancroft and Duke and effectively sets up the beginning of a tentative trust between these two. It is after this that Annie realizes the only way she can get to Helen is to take her away from the family and be alone with her so that Helen must depend on her for everything and that's when the real learning begins.
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Bancroft and Duke's spectacular chemistry, created with the obvious aid of director Arthur Penn, makes this film sizzle and worth the watch. The movie was remade in 1980 with Duke playing Annie Sullivan, a performance that won Duke an Emmy. 4

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DRIVING MISS DAISY
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Driving Miss Daisy is a warm and often moving comedy/drama about a 25 year old friendship between two people who never should have been friends that provides such warm fuzzy feelings, the film won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1989.
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Set in Georgia during the 1950's and 60's, this is the story of Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) a wealthy Jewish widow whose son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd), has determined that his mother is a danger to herself and others behind the wheel of a car so he hires a chaffeur named Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) to drive her around, which she initially resists with rampant hostility but time and circumstances change their relationship from employer/employee to actual friends, which is quite a testament considering it all happens during such a racially turbulent period in American history.
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Director Bruce Beresford and screenwriter Alfred Uhry have beautifully expanded Uhry's two-character Broadway play, which pretty much takes place inside Daisy's car. Here, we get to see how the characters are brought together and the first real connection...when Hoke inches up on Daisy trying to get her to get in the car so he can take her to Piggly Wiggly, we know this is the beginning of a very slow, very uphill battle for Hoke. The look on Hoke's face when Daisy is safe in the back seat of the car will make you smile, as will the look on Daisy's face in another scene when Hoke leaves her alone in the locked car so he can relieve himself. The film is not big on belly laughs, but you will be smiling throughout.
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Jessica Tandy won the 1989 Best Actress Oscar for her rich performance as Daisy, a character whose outward hostility and bitterness toward Hoke, her son, and everyone else really seems to stem from a deathly fear of aging. Tandy effortlessly makes you want to slap the character and hold her in your arms at the same time. Freeman is brilliant in his Oscar-nominated turn as Hoke as well...Freeman creates a character of unassuming intelligence, even if he is illiterate, and a quiet pride that even though he takes a lot from Daisy, never allows her to disrespect him. Freeman is also brilliant in a scene with Aykroyd where he discreetly finagles a raise out of the guy. Aykroyd received a supporting actor nomination for his understated turn as Boolie and Patti Lupone and Esther Rolle have their moments as Boolie's snooty wife and Daisy's housekeeper, respectively. Despite the Oscar love that this film received, there was none for director Bruce Beresford, who didn't even receive a nomination.
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The film is beautiful to look at, with stunning art direction and cinematography and Hans Zimmer's music is just glorious. A very special motion picture experience and one of the best translations of a play to the silver screen. 4.5

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Uncompromising direction, some powerhouse performances, and a riveting story make 2008's The Wrestler worth seeing. This gritty and no-holds-barred look at the world of professional wrestling makes a couple of detours that didn't work for me, but redeemed itself for a relatively effective finale to one of the saddest films I have ever seen.

Mickey Roarke turns in a gut-wrenching and heartbreaking performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a professional wrestler, whose best days are definitely decades behind him, a self-described "broken down old piece of meat", whose body is deteriorating before his eyes, and has a reality check when he has a heart attack and bypass surgery and refuses to accept medical advice that he give up wrestling.
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Director Darren Aronofsky brilliantly mounts the story of a wrestler past his prime and the constant and sometimes grueling maintenance involved in continuing a career that is no longer a reality. We see a wrestler here who once battled at Madison Square Garden and is now wrestling in school gymnasiums and VFW halls. We watch the pre-match rituals, which consist primarily of bandaging the body together and choreographing what's going to happen with the opponents, including the secret to the fake blood we see in the matches.

We also see the Ram wrestle with the "R" word (Retirement) and try to reconnect with his daughter who wants nothing to do with him and the stripper who he thinks he is establishing a relationship with.
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Roarke is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking in a performance of a lifetime that won him a Golden Globe and got him an Oscar nomination. A lot of the power of this performance I think lies in the way The Ram's career sort of mirrors Roarke's which took a serious fall before bouncing back. Marisa Tomei is very effective in the unsympathetic role of a stripper who claims to be doing it to support her two children and it is clear from the minute you see her with the Ram that she wants to end the relationship and Evan Rachel Wood is very intense as Randy's unforgiving daughter.
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The story works until Randy has his meltdown at the deli counter because a customer recognizes him from his glory days...it was just too predictable, you could see it coming and he was doing so well, it was just too easy for him to freak out and did not have to be the impetus for him to get back in the ring. I also didn't buy the stripper walking out on her job to stop Randy from going into the ring for his final match and then walking out on him when she couldn't stop him. She should have known she couldn't have stopped him so why go there anyway?
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Despite these minor detours, this is a compelling story that works, thanks to Aronofsky's solid direction. I read a review on the IMDB that complained about the hand-held camera, but I liked it, it made the story feel more personal. More than anything, this movie broke my heart. 4

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SPACE JAM
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Space Jam is a wacky and over the top blend of real life and animation that has enough childlike fantasy with the just right touches of adult humor to make it suitable viewing for the entire family.
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The 1996 fantasy stars NBA legend Michael Jordan as himself, who has just retired from basketball and is beginning a career in baseball who, while golfing, gets mysteriously sucked down a hole on the golf course and finds himself in the land of Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes. Apparently, the Tunes have been challenged to a basketball game by a bizarre group of aliens led by the evil Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito). In order to help them win the game, it is revealed that the aliens have stolen the basketball talent of five NBA players, including Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley, in order to help them defeat the tunes so the Tunes decide to steal Jordan for help.
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This movie throws logic and realism out the window in favor of entertainment and it pays off in spades and gets a surprising boost from Michael Jordan, who is very charming in his first acting role and seems quite comfortable in front of a camera, outside of commercials. His interaction with the Looney Tunes is completely believable and Jordan seems fully committed to this silly and improbable story.
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All the Warner Brothers cartoon characters we've loved for decades are on display here, whether in lead or bit parts (though the voice of Mel Blanc is sadly missed). There is one hysterical sequence in which Bugs and Daffy Duck are forced to return to the real world to retrieve Jordan's lucky shorts that he wore in every championship game and they actually run into Jordan's children, who don't even question the fact that animated characters are in their house and make sure Bugs and Daffy get what they came for. The movie even provides a love interest for Bugs, a sexy bunny named Lola.
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Mention should also be made of Bill Murray, also playing himself, who also somehow ends up on the Looney Tunes team. It's an energetic and spirited 90 minutes that will enchant children and keep adults awake as well. 3.5
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I love movies that poke fun at the business of show business so I was instantly attracted to Mistress, a well-acted but unfocused comedy whose intriguing premise doesn't really deliver the reward the story initially promises.
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Written and directed by veteran actor Barry Primus, the film stars Robert Wuhl as Marvin Landisman, a struggling writer and director who currently works as the director of instructional videos who gets a call from a second rate producer named Jack Roth (Martin Landau) who informs Marvin that he read a screenplay Marvin wrote years ago and that he wants to get it on the silver screen with Marvin as director, but they have to work together to finance the film. Roth arranges meetings with three different money men who have expressed interest in financing the film, but they all have one condition behind their money: Each of them wants their mistress to have a major role in the film.
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Primus' story casts a pretty unflattering light on the inside machinations toward bringing Hollywood projects to fruition as it is revealed that two of the three potential investors didn't even read the screenplay and the third wants to make major changes and the reveal that the guys were willing to back this film, without knowing anything about it, for no other reason than to make the women in their lives happy, is kind of disturbing. I was really bothered by the idea of so much pimping being behind what we see on the big screen.

Eli Wallach plays the not-so-bright potential investor whose only concern is that his girl, played by Madonna look-alike Tuesday Knight, has the lead female role in the film, and really doesn't care about the fact that she can't act. Danny Aiello plays the deep-pocketed big shot with PTSD issues who wants a role for his girlfriend (Jean Smart) even if he's not thrilled with the idea that the main character in the film commits suicide. Robert De Niro plays the film-savvy backer who is not only inflexible about his girl, Beverly (Sheryl Lee Ralph) being in the movie, but that all of his changes to the screenplay be implemented. This web gets even more tangled when it is revealed that Beverly is also sleeping with Aiello's character and is not thrilled with Marvin as a director, even though Beverly appears to be the only one of the three mistresses who can actually act.
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This story is most likely based on Primus' journey to get this film mounted and his personal bias comes through in his mean-spirited screenplay that casts Marvin as this Hollywood innocent being manipulated by these slimy Hollywood rats, but I seriously doubt if it's as black and white as Primus paints it here.
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On the positive side, the cast is first rate, with standout work from De Niro and Landau. Landau is particularly effective as a Hollywood has-been whose every move and breath belie the fact that this guy has been screwed over multiple times by Hollywood bigwigs but hasn't given up on his dream yet. I also have to give a shout-out to Jean Smart, quite moving as the woman who is more interested in her man than being a movie star. Laurie Metcalf is also good in her scenes with Wuhl as his wife, who has her own agendas, but their scene together seemed to have very little to do with what goes on in the rest of the movie.

An interesting, if not altogether successful peek at inside Hollywood that true film buffs might find interesting. There are cameo appearances by Christopher Walken and Ernest Borgnine. 3

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Disney Studios had a major triumph with 1991's Beauty and the Beast, an utterly enchanting and richly entertaining take on the classic fairy tale that made history by being the first animated film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture.
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This film has it all...humor, romance, giggles, adventure, music, and even scares. The classic story is mounted like a Broadway musical with a flawed but sympathetic hero, a charming heroine, a laugh-inducing villain, and some scene stealing supporting characters that serve the story instead of overpowering it.
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I think one of the reasons this film was so successful was because of its heroine...despite her being a fairy tale character, Belle is a contemporary woman...she has a heart and brain and loves to read. When the arrogant Gaston insists on marrying her, she cleverly slithers out of the engagement by telling Gaston she's not good enough for him. Even once she agrees to stay with the Beast, she never lets him manipulate her yet when he saves her life, she does what she feels is right and returns to his home to nurse his wounds. The Beast is adorable in that scene, BTW, when he keeps screaming about how it hurts and she tells him to be still. This version has also taken an alternate tack with the character of the beast, who is not painted as a cardboard villain...he is presented as a spoiled child here who is bitter about the curse that was placed on him. This is also one of the few animated films that produces actual scares...the scene of Belle being attacked by the wolves is genuinely frightening as is the final showdown between Gaston and the Beast.
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The voice work in this film is on the money...Paige O'Hara makes a lovely Belle and her singing is exquisite. I still find it hard to believe that Robby Benson is voicing the beast because he sounds NOTHING like the Robby Benson I grew up with. Also loved an unrecognizable David Ogden Stiers as Cogsworth the Clock, Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, a teapot and especially the late Jerry Orbach as Lumiere, a candlestick, who helps to make the production number "Be Our Guest" so special, a number that conjures images of MGM and some of Busby Berkley's greatest choreography.

The song score by Alan Mencken and Howard Ashman is lush, melodic and serves the story perfectly. The title tune, flawlessly performed by Angela Lansbury, actually won the Oscar for Best Song of 1991.
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I know it's an overused phrase, but this is truly entertainment for the entire family that ushered in a new and more sophisticated approach to animation as entertainment. 9/10

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Russell Brand serves as Executive Producer and star of Arthur, the 2011 remake of the 1981 classic that garnered the late Dudley Moore an Oscar nomination. This is the story of a rich, drunken playboy named Arthur Bach, who stands to inherit millions if he marries a woman he hates, but falls in love with someone else instead. Brand's rethinking of the film is only partially successful and does not produce the belly laughs the original did, but smiles and fun can be found along the way (especially if you've never seen the original film).
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Brand works hard in the title role, nailing Arthur's childishness, but missing his intelligence.I always thought the anchor of the original film was the relationship between Arthur and his manservant/best friend Hobson. Brand brings a new layer to the relationship by making Hobson a woman, flawlessly played by Helen Mirren. In the original, it was clear that John Gielgud's Hobson, though frowning on Arthur's behavior, still cared about him. In this version, Hobson just seems to think of Arthur as her job. Another gender change here is that Arthur is ordered by his mother to marry Susan, instead of his father, which makes the character seem even more pathetic. The powers to be also erred in the casting of virtual unknown Greta Gerwig as the object of Arthur's affections. Gerwig's performance is lifeless and makes you wonder what Arthur sees in her because, in one of the film's few improvements over the original, Jennifer Garner is having a ball as Susan Johnson, Arthur's fiancee who knows Arthur hates her, but doesn't give a damn. Nick Nolte is properly menacing as Susan's father and Luiz Guzman has a couple of funny moments as Arthur's chauffeur Bitterman.
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Peter Baynham's screenplay is respectful to Steve Gordon's original story, lifting a lot of actual dialogue from the original film. I liked Arthur and Naomi's date in an empty Grand Central Station, but ending the film with Arthur actually going to AA and getting sober seemed a little contrived to me. One of the points of the original film is that Linda loved Arthur just the way he was, she never asks him to stop drinking and I just didn't buy this Arthur deciding for himself to get sober, but the film is an interesting watch if you love Russell Brand and if you've never seen the original film. 2
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One of the 1982's biggest hits was Poltergeist, a supernatural thriller that brought something to the genre that hadn't really been seen before...a sense of humor.
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The film was directed by Tobe Hooper, though a lot of people associate the film with Steven Spielberg, who was a producer and co-wrote the screenplay. This is the story of the Freeling family, who have just moved into a new California home, built by the company that Steve Freeling works for who are thrown when a series of strange events start occurring in the house, climaxed by younger daughter's Carol Anne's personal encounter with "the TV people" when she actually gets sucked into the television set and disappears.
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Even though Tobe Hooper is credited as director, Spielberg's directorial hand is all over this, especially in the depiction of the Freeling family as an ordinary family involved in some extraordinary circumstance and reacting to it in a natural way, reactions that sometimes come off as humorous. We laugh at the duel of the remote controls, we laugh at Diane's joyous reaction to Carol Anne sliding across the kitchen floor for her daddy, we laugh when Steve and Diane almost get caught by their daughter smoking pot. These are the kinds of moments we don't associate with a horror film, but they are believable and acceptable.
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On the other hand, another thing this film does so effortlessly is tap into those childhood nightmares that we experience but are afraid to talk to anyone about...the scary clown doll across the room that keeps staring at us...the big ugly tree outside the house that looks like it's going to attack, the big hole in the backyard that Mommy and Daddy told us to stay away from. Hooper and Spielberg slowly allow these nightmares to unfold before us without completely giving them away, even providing a couple of false starts to lull us into a false sense of security, the kind that gives us just enough time to stop holding are breath right when we should start.
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Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are wonderful as the Freelings. Williams has rarely been better, as Diane seems to take what has happened to her daughter very personally and seems to take responsibility for what has happened to Carol Ann. I love the moment when Diane is on the stairs and she feels Carol Anne's spirit pass through her and it is so real she can smell Carol Anne...easily one of my favorite moments in the film. Beatrice Straight is effective as the head of the paranormal investigative team and Zelda Rubinstein is a lot of fun as Tangina, the spiritualist brought in to "clean" the house.
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Hollywood legend has it that this film is cursed, evidenced by, among other things, the fact that Dominique Dunne, who played older daughter Dana and Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne, are no longer with us. Of course, Beatrice Straight and music composer Jerry Goldsmith are no longer with us either, but it does add a slight air of creepiness to the proceedings as you watch.

Hooper, Spielberg, a crack special effects team, and yes Jerry Goldsmith's music all help to make this instant classic worth checking out. 4

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BULLETS OVER BROADWAY
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Woody Allen scored another comedic bullseye with 1994's Bullets over Broadway, another delicious comic romp from the Woodmeister that takes the accustomed loopy characters that we are accustomed to from Woody and puts them in a more structured story and a period setting.
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Set in Manhattan during the 1920's, the film follows a playwright named David Shayne (John Cusack), who is having trouble getting his latest work on Broadway until his agent (Jack Warden) informs he has found a backer for the show, a dim-witted mafioso (Joe Vitrelli) who has agreed to finance the show as long as his girlfriend, Olive (Jennifer Tilly) gets a role in the show. Things get complicated when the don sends a bodyguard named Cheech (Chazz Palminteri) to keep an eye on Olive, but he ends up making life for our hero even more complicated when he starts making suggestions regarding the play and they make it better.
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This is another example of classic Woody, where Woody brings his own personality to the leading role and Cusack does an admirable job of channeling Woody (only Kenneth Branaugh did it better in Celebrity). Dianne Wiest won her second Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her over-the-top, but totally hilarious turn as Helen Sinclair, a melodramatic Broadway diva who pretends to be in love with Shayne in order to improve her role in the play. Palminteri and Tilly both deliver star-making performances that earned them both Oscar nominations as well. Jim Broadbent has some very funny moments as a hammy actor in the play who has a problem with overeating and Tracy Ullmann is funny as another cast member who is driving Helen crazy with her dog.
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Woody's screenplay with Douglas McGrath provides all the fun twists and turns we expect from Woody and his sharp direction and flawless ear for music are also assets to a grandly entertaining comedy that Woody's fans will eat up. 4

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Quentin Tarentino again displays his propensity for cinematic storytelling with Django Unchained, an engrossing and bloody epic that establishes new credentials for Tarentino in the fact that he utilizes a period setting and the fact that he actually tells his story mostly in sequential order, but manages to keep the viewer riveted to the screen completely to an extremely satisfying conclusion.
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Set in pre-Civil War Texas, the story follows a dentist turned bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who purchases a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx), ensuring his freedom in exchange for his help in getting to his former employers, who are Schultz' latest bounty. This leads to a partnership where Schultz trains Django in the art of bounty hunting and eventually agrees to help Django retrieve his wife(Kerry Washington), who is still the slave of a wealthy plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is obsessed with Mandingo slaves, slaves who are purchased in order to fight each other to the death purely for the white man's entertainment.
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In addition to the unaccustomed period setting for Tarantino, this film even took a politically sensitive subject like slavery and put a twist on it by providing an insightful look into the difference between the slave and the black man who wasn't a slave. It was rather unsettling to see Django not really interested in helping the slaves he encounters and the resentment that the slaves seem to have for a black man who is actually free which, sadly, rang true. And even though the film does have a period setting, it does provide the accustomed losers, wannabes, and scumbags that we expect from a Tarantino movie.
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As always, Tarantino's casting is on the money, led by Waltz, who won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his charismatic and strikingly original King Schultz, Foxx's quiet intensity as the title character and DiCaprio, who has rarely been better in a very unsympathetic role. Mention should also be made of Samuel L. Jackson, who scores as DiCaprio's house man, a character you like one minute and hate the next. All of the actors somehow tap into the tongue in cheek aspect of Tarantino's Oscar winning screenplay in a way that keep the viewer riveted to the screen and not feeling the film's near three-hour length at all.
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Tarantino's direction is just as compelling as his screenplay. His eye for cinematic carnage is startling...there is some inventive camera work here that includes a unique use of slow motion and the art of the zoom. His offbeat song score simultaneously conjures images of Sergio Leone and Tupac Shakur.
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Tarantino fans should eat this up and for those who are not, you might want to consider this slightly more traditional story, told with the accustomed Tarentino cinematic pinache, that is right up there with Scorcese. 8.5/10

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Woody Allen again struck gold with 1984's Broadway Danny Rose, an off-beat comic romp that earns its credentials through atmospheric period detail, Woody's infallible ear for comedic dialogue, and a couple of extremely memorable characters, brought to life from unexpected sources.
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Woody stars as Danny Rose, a 3rd rate theatrical agent, whose clientele includes a one-legged tap dancer and a one-armed juggler. Our story focuses on one of Danny's most pathetic clients, a lounge lizard named Lou Canova, memorably portrayed by Nick Apollo Forte, who had one semi-hit record back in the 50's and whose career has been pretty much nonexistent ever since, but for some reason, Danny really believes in this guy and vice versa. Danny somehow manages to land a legitimate gig for Lou, which is complicated by the fact that he wants his mistress, a spitfire by the name of Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow) to come to the show. Danny's meeting with Tina turns ugly when the mobster with whom Tina is really involved, thinks Danny is involved with Tina, which gets Danny and Tina in some very hot water.
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Woody's fast-paced direction is a big plus here, with a bit more physical comedy than you usual get from a Woody film....a great little scene where a couple of thugs try to force Danny into a car had me on the floor. Woody's black and white photography greatly enhances the 1960's period feel as do cameo appearances from Milton Berle, Sandy Baron, Corbett Monica and Will Jordan. But the real stand-out element of this comedy is the performances of Mia Farrow and Nick Apollo Forte. Farrow is a revelation here, creating a character unlike anything she has ever done before...a loud and fiercely independent woman covering up the vulnerable child inside. Forte found the one and only role of a lifetime here as Lou Canova...this is one of the saddest characters I have ever experienced in a movie...in complete denial about his nowhere career and his lack of talent and still convinced that he's a babe magnet. There's a scene where he appears on The Joe Franklin Show and you would think he's on David Letterman the way he gushes to Franklin about his show and his so-called career. Forte's sad but affecting portrayal should have earned him an Oscar nomination, though Woody's screenplay and directing did earn nods, as the film did for Best Picture.
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A bit of a departure from the usual Woody fare, but his fans will not be disappointed. 8/10

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Burlesque is a flashy and expensive 2010 musical that has a lot going for it except one essential ingredient...any semblance of originality.
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Director and screenwriter Steve Antin's story borrows from a lot of musicals in the past, primarily, the 1972 classic Cabaret, though nods to Sweet Charity, All that Jazz,Chicago, and Moulin Rouge can also be gleaned in this film which seemed to have one objective: to make a movie star out of singer Christina Aguilera, who Antin clearly has a hard-on for.
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Aguilera plays Ali, yet another small town girl fresh off the bus arriving in Los Angeles in order to be a singing star, but finds herself attracted to a burlesque club, owned by a former dancer (Cher) and her ex-husband (Peter Gallagher). After being briefly schooled on the difference between a burlesque club and a strip club and being a refused a job there, Ali picks up a tray and starts waiting on tables anyway and thirty minutes later is the star of the club with the whole show being built around her. She has also gotten the attention of Marcus (Eric Dane), a millionaire who is trying to buy the club to turn it into a skyscraper and Jack (Cam Gigandet), a bartender with pretty eyes who is engaged and wants to be a songwriter.
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This movie is so corny and predictable that I could practically recite the dialogue along with the actors, despite some very flashy and well-staged production numbers, which conjured visions of Fosse and Rob Marshall. Another thing that bothered me is that a movie takes place in a burlesque house would be displaying a little more skin. For a movie set in a burlesque house, there is precious little skin on display here. It also seemed like this club was displaying very expensive and elaborate sets and costumes for a club that is supposed to be in so much financial trouble.
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Antin's story forces the rest of the cast pretty much into Aguilera's shadow here. Her singing is first-rate, but her character is kind of a smart-ass and Aguilera doesn't really pull that off. Cher makes the most of what is a supporting role, even though she receives top billing. She is very effective in her two musical numbers though. Stanley Tucci is solid, as always, in a role which is pretty much a carbon copy of his role in The Devil Wears Prada. Dane and Gigandet are attractive leading men, but are fighting a cliched script. Kristen Bell fails to convince as the bitchy, alcoholic stripper whom Ali replaces (I kept picturing Zoe Saldana in this role). Alan Cumming, Julianne Hough, Glynn Turman, David Walton, and James Brolin are wasted in thankless roles.
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If you love Christina Aguilera, you will be in heaven here, but all others should be warned that when the action of the movie leaves the stage of the club, the movie screeches to a dead halt and unfortunately, the story left the stage a little too much for my tastes. 5/10

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Evocative direction by George Lucas, a soundtrack to die for, and some first rate performances combined to make 1973's American Graffti an instant classic that received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and was the primary inspiration for the ABC series Happy Days.
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The film takes place on one fateful night following a high school graduation in 1962 where we meet Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), who is leaving for college the next morning but gets involved in a dangerous initiation with a gang and becomes obsessed with a blonde in a convertible (Suzanne Somers). Ron Howard and Cindy Williams play Steve and Laurie, the couple who were just crowned prom king and queen but have now decided they want to see other people...or do they? Charlie Martin Smith plays Toad, Steve's best friend, who accidentally ends up on a date with Debbie (Candy Clark), the alleged town tramp. John Milne, clearly an inspiration for Fonzie on Happy Days finds his evening of cruising and drag racing sidetracked by an obnoxious pre-teen (Mackenzie Phillips).
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Lucas' screenplay with Gloria Katz seamlessly weaves these multiple stories together in an entertaining manner and makes it hard to believe that the whole film takes place in one night.

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The performances are first rate...this movie put Dreyfuss on the map and Candy Clark received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but I think the film's easily stolen by Charlie Martin Smith as Toad, a performance of impeccable comic timing. The film is also famous for introducing several future stars like Somers, Harrison Ford, Bo Hopkins, and Debralee Scott. The soundtrack was also one of the best selling movie soundtracks of all time. If you've never seen this one, you're in for a treat. 8.5/10
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[Daniel M]

I watched American Graffiti just before I sent in my Seventies list, and I'm very happy that I did. A great film, full of style and a fantastic soundtrack that makes me want to be there at the time, cruising around in a cool car. I would agree with pretty much everything you've said with the performances too, and I'd probably give it the same rating :)

Edit: Just noticed your Django Unchained review as well, which I would also say is spot on. As a huge Tarantino fan myself, I enjoyed it immensely and have seen it quite a few times already since its release, really well written review too, I enjoyed reading it.

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I watched American Graffiti just before I sent in my Seventies list, and I'm very happy that I did. A great film, full of style and a fantastic soundtrack that makes me want to be there at the time, cruising around in a cool car. I would agree with pretty much everything you've said with the performances too, and I'd probably give it the same rating :)

Edit: Just noticed your Django Unchained review as well, which I would also say is spot on. As a huge Tarantino fan myself, I enjoyed it immensely and have seen it quite a few times already since its release, really well written review too, I enjoyed reading it.
Thank you Daniel, glad you enjoyed my reviews and yes, I was immensely impressed by Django Unchained.

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Director Peter Weir's cinematic resume has a dominating theme regarding the frailty of the human condition and he has never nailed that theme more effectively than in 1993's FEARLESS, a gripping and emotionally draining drama for the adult filmgoer who is looking for something different that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
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This one of a kind cinematic experience stars Jeff Bridges as Max Klein, an architect who is permanently affected after surviving a horrific plane crash, where he lost his best friend and business partner. We watch as Max finds he can no longer connect with his own family and can only find a connection with a fellow survivor, a young woman named Carla, who lost her baby in the crash. This reveal is just the beginning of a multi-layered story that will engross, anger, frighten, and surprise.
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As the story unfolds, we learn that not only did Max survive, but he was somewhat of a hero, leading several people to safety including a young boy, who now wants to forsake his family and be with Max. We now see that Max is now speaking and behaving without filters and that he also feels he has cheated death and is omnipotent, a feeling he desperately is hoping Carla can relate to, even if he has to force her to. We also see a therapy group for survivors of the crash, some of whom want to thank Max, but Max wants nothing to do with it. There is a heartbreaking encounter here between Carla and a stewardess who was on the plane. On another level, Max can't escape a sleazy attorney who is trying to convince Max to manipulate events of the crash in order to score a larger settlement for his business partner's widow. Throughout all of this, we also get to see glimpses of the crash that provide insight into Max's current psyche.
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Raphael Yglesias' screenplay is based on his novel and seamlessly weaves these three stories together, anchored by the struggle for Max to connect with this young mother, a relationship that is mistaken as romantic by their respective spouses, but it really has nothing to do with romance. It is a little unsettling watching Max trying to force Carla to feel the way he does as well as watching Max and Carla trying to hold onto families they no longer feel connected too.

Peter Weir's direction is sensitive and detail-oriented and he has pulled first rate performances from his stars. Jeff Bridges delivers the gut-wrenching, Oscar-worthy performance of his career as Max, a man who can no longer connect with his old life and seems to have no problem with it. Isabella Rosellini has never been better as his wife, who is clueless as to how to save her marriage and Rosie Perez did receive a supporting actress nomination for her Carla, a woman whose complete devastation over her son's death has her suicidal until Max pulls her from the brink. Tom Hulce also scores as the greasy attorney trying to capitalize on Max's pain, as does John Turturro as the shrink running the therapy group and Benecio Del Toro as Carla's husband.
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This a completely unique motion picture experience that will have you riveted from the beginning and will bring you to one of the most powerful climaxes to a movie I have ever seen. An amazing film for the serious film-goer. 9/10

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With the recent passing of the legendary Lauren Bacall, I felt the urge to review one of my guilty pleasures...a slightly over the top potboiler from 1981 called The Fan.
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Bacall plays an actress named Sally Ross, who is preparing to star in her first Broadway musical when she starts receiving creepy fan mail from one Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn), which she dismisses until strange things start happening to the important people in her life, thanks to Douglas, who is methodically clearing a path for him to get to Sally because he's a psychopath and is obsessed with her.
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Priscilla Chapman and Bob Randall's screenplay, based on Randall's novel is not exactly stemmed in originality and does attempt to tell the story with some semblance of leisure, providing little clues into Douglas' personality early on. There is a very telling scene where Douglas gets a visit from his sister, part of a family he has completely blown off and the sister's treatment of Douglas during this scene makes it clear that this is guy is not the picture of mental health. Kaiulani Lee, playing Douglas' sister, is excellent in this brief but effective scene.
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James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, and Hector Elizondo try to make something out of their roles as Bacall's boyfriend, assistant, and the police detective assigned to the case.

It's not a great film, but it has a great star and with Bacall, Stapleton, and Garner no longer with us, the film takes on a little more of an iconic status than it really deserves. 5.5/10

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2009's The Proposal is an alleged romantic comedy that, despite an extremely likable cast, asks us to swallow a whole lot of story details that I was just incapable of swallowing.
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The film stars Sandra Bullock as a no-nonsense businesswoman named Margaret Tate, who tricks her personal assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into marrying her in order to avoid being deported to Canada.
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God, I don't even know where to start...Canada? Does immigration really keep this kind of tabs on Canadian citizens? Does immigration really have that kind of time on their hands? Second, Margaret should be showing gratitude to Andrew for this sacrifice he is making but instead continues to treat him like an underling, which is why I truly enjoyed one moment where Andrew actually makes Margaret get on her knees in the middle of Manhattan and propose to him properly. I think we can all relate to someday wanting to be holding all the cards with our boss and making said boss do something really degrading.
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The story than moves to Alaska, where Andrew was born and raised, where it is revealed that Andrew is from a wealthy family who owns half the town, which should have prompted a change in Margaret's attitude, but it does not. Margaret and Andrew are completely unconvincing as an engaged couple in love and it is obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain who watches them and their reluctance to kiss at their engagement party should have been a dead giveaway but we're supposed to believe that no one, not Andrew's mother (Mary Steenburgen), father (Craig T. Nelson), grandmother (Betty White) or ex-girlfriend (Malin Akerman) are even the least bit suspicious. And then we're supposed to believe that the immigration agent (Denis O'Hare), who interviewed the couple in New York, would fly all the way to Alaska to inform them the jig is up?
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Bullock works very hard to make Margaret likable but is fighting the script all the way, including some really pointless scenes with Andrew's family dog that just pad the running time. Steenburgen is lovely, as always, and Nelson is quite sharp as Andrew's dad, with whom Andrew has a lot of unresolved issues. Betty White's purported scene-stealing turn as grandma was just kind of tiresome to me, but she got great reviews when the film was first released, so I guess it's a matter of taste. I think the scene of her and Bullock dancing in the woods was stupid.
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There is some beautiful Alaskan scenery, but there just isn't enough going on in the foreground to really care. Clearly, a lot of money went into this film and there is a lot of talent involved, but it really doesn't pay off. 4.5/10

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The 1999 comedy EDtv could be considered a bastard stepchild to The Truman Show, but this film just skims the surface of what Jim Carrey's classic did.
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The film stars Matthew McConaughey as Ed Pekurny, an ordinary Joe who is chosen by a television producer (Ellen DeGeneres) as the subject of a 24-hour television show. Unlike The Truman Show, Ed is completely aware of what is going on and is even being paid handsomely for this complete intrusion into his life, but did not count on the endless complications involved in a 24-hour spotlight on his life, which includes resentment from his brother (Woody Harrelson), who is really pissed that Ed was chosen for the show and he wasn't and his budding romance with Shari (Jenna Elfman).
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The screenplay by Emile Gaudreault and Sylvie Bouchard services the story and director Ron Howard has pulled some solid performances from his hand-picked cast. McConaughey lights up the screen in the title role and Harrelson is a lot of fun as his brother. Sally Kirkland and Martin Landau also score as Ed's mother and stepfather and there is a lovely cameo by Dennis Hopper as Ed's long lost father, who crawls out of the shadows to cash in on his son's newfound fame and fortune.
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Ron Howard has mounted an entertaining story that is serviced by a winning cast, but when it's all said and done, it just seems like much to do about nothing. 6/10

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Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the men behind Dumb and Dumber, a film whose appeal escaped me, had much better luck IMO with Me, Myself, & Irene, a raunchy action comedy that offers some of the same kind of smarmy comic elements that Dumb and Dumber did, but with a more structured story and a main character who generates laughs but is steeped in a little more reality than the boys from the other film.
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The 2000 film stars Jim Carrey as Charley Baileygates, a sweet-natured trooper with the Rhode Island state police who has always been somewhat of a doormat in his personal life. He is currently raising three grown sons (who are all black) that his wife had with another man (Tony Cox) before running off with him. After years of being walked over by everyone in his life, we learn that somewhere along the way Charlie has developed dissociative identity disorder, a condition that, when provoked, not unlike the Incredible Hulk, Charley morphs into an alternate personality named Hank Evans, who is smart, sexist, rude, crude, and has superhuman strength. Charley is aware of Hank, but is in denial about his existence but can no longer be when Hank becomes a major part of Charlie's assignment to travel with a woman (Renee Zelwegger) who the police are trying to protect from her criminal ex-boyfriend.
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As expected with a film from the Farrelly brothers, the film is generously peppered with more than its share of crude bathroom humor and cheap, easy laughs, but this time the screenplay by Peter Farrelly and Mike Cerrone provides a solid anchor for the humor not to mention a pair of principal characters who are human but still funny.
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I think Jim Carrey's peformance in this film has always been severely underrated...his creation of two completely separate characters in Charlie and Hank is remarkable but always believable. Zelwegger is a good match for Carrey and never lets him overpower her onscreen. Robert Forster, Chris Cooper, and Richard Jenkins register in supporting roles and I LOVED Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownlee, and Jerod Mixon as Charley's three sons.
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If you've never seen it, I highly recommend this fast-paced action comedy that takes a minute to get going, but once it does, strap yourself in and let the Brothers Farrelly and Jim Carrey take care of the rest. 8/10

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A truly underrated gem and one of the most pleasant surprises from 2010 was a breezy action comedy called Date Night, a film whose title doesn't even begin to cover what goes on here. I don't know why this film died at the box office, because I found it richly entertaining, thanks primarily to a clever story and a winning cast, led by two comic geniuses at the top of their form.
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Steve Carell and Tina Fey knock it out of the park as Phil and Claire Foster, a professional New Jersey couple whose date night in Manhattan turns into a nightmare when, after stealing another couple's dinner reservations, find themselves at the mercy of a couple of dirty cops who are after a flash drive the real couple has and putting the Fosters in some serious danger.
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This film has so much going for it, beginning with a funny and detail-oriented screenplay by Josh Klausner that seems to be moving in the direction of a domestic comedy about a forever married couple trying to spice up their marriage and takes a complete 180, mushrooming into a full blown comic adventure that we just don't see coming, expertly directed by Shawn Levy.
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One thing about Levy's direction that works here is that he knows when he's working with quality actors. He clearly knows how to let them go when need be and he clearly knows when to rein them in and he seems to have found just the right balance of what to do with his stars here. Steve Carell and Tina Fey are absolutely magical together in this film and create one of the most believable married couples I have seen in a movie in a long time. They completely convey the sense of a couple who complete each other's sentences and know every move the other is going to make before they make it. I love the way the story references things in the Fosters' marriage as tools to help them out of their situation, but I also love the wonderfully human failings they present as a couple too, especially Phil's reaction to meeting one of Claire's former clients (Mark Wahlberg), who ends up being instrumental in helping the Fosters, and not only being jealous of Claire's girly flirty behavior around him, but his own distraction which he actually admits to being a bit of his own sexual attraction to the guy. I love that both Phil and Claire admit to same sex attraction at different points in the story, such a breath of fresh air for a movie couple. If the truth be told, this is the first character that Tina Fey has played in a movie who I actually believed was heterosexual.
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There is a first rate supporting cast as well, some big stars who, for some reason, took relatively small roles in this film, probably just for the opportunity to work with Fey and Carell. James Franco and Mila Kunis are very funny as the couple whose dinner reservation the Fosters stole, William Fichtner is appropriately slimy as the DA and Ray Liotta does a brief but classy turn as a mafioso. Common and Jimmi Simpson were also impressive as the dirty cops. Taraji P. Henson is IMO miscast as a police detective, but it's the only misstep casting wise.

This comic adventure is filled with outrageous and over-the-top action sequences (the car and the cab attached to each other that won't come apart was a bit much) and some lapses in logic, like all of the shooting that the dirty cops do that no one in the city of Manhattan seems to hear or react to, I found myself just letting these things flow over me and going with it, because Carell and Fey made it all worth it. It's a bumpy ride and it takes a few minutes to get going, but hang in there, it's worth it. And make sure you stay tuned through the closing credits. 7/10

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2006's A Prairie Home Companion is a surprisingly intimate backstage look at the world's most celebrated radio program that most likely will earn its footnote in cinema history as the final film directed by the legendary Robert Altman.
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Altman has mounted a somewhat interesting story, based on a screenplay by the host and creator of the Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor. A Prairie Home Companion is the longest running live radio show in history that presents a live variety show over the radio every Saturday night, somewhat in the tradition of the Grand Ol' Opry, where a live audience is entertained by various musical acts. Altman uses the show as a backdrop to present his accustomed varied characters in multiple storylines and connects them together by the thin story thread of a possible ghost being present in the theater and how the backstage death of a longtime performer might be connected to this spirit.
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Altman has gathered an impressive all-star cast headed by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as a gospel-singing sister act, who are thrown by the appearance of Streep's long lost daughter (Lindsay Lohan), who seems to have show business aspirations of her own. John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson are quite entertaining as a pair of singing cowboys as is Kevin Kline as Guy Noir, the possible spectre in question. Maya Rudolpn, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones, Tim Russell, and Marylouise Burke also register in supporting roles. Garson Keillor does appear as himself, hosting the show.
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Initially, this could be viewed as Altman's attempt to recapture the spirit of his masterpiece Nashville, and if that was Altman's intent, it does not succeed, but I don't think that was his intent. I believe Altman wanted to mount a valentine to an aspect of show business that is pretty much a dinosaur and his desire to respect fans of A Prairie Home Companion. It's a little slow and talky, but there are some effective musical highlights and as the final work of a celebrated director, it is definitely worth a look. 3

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Rob Reiner had a major directorial triumph in 1987 with The Princess Bride, a lavish and entertaining version of a classic fairy tale that will entertain children with its action and adventure, but has an intelligence that will appeal to adults as well, not to mention an impressive, hand-picked cast that are all working at the top of their game.
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Reiner cleverly frames the story around the gimmick of a grandfather (Peter Falk) telling his grandson (Fred Savage) a bedtime story, which the child initially resists but finds himself getting completely sucked in.
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The story centers around a beautiful maiden named Buttercup (Robin Wright) and a manservant named Westley (Cary Elwes) who worked on her family farm and for whom she feigned disdain even though the two have been in love with each other from the moment they laid eyes on each other. Our hero and heroine are separated and she finds herself engaged to an evil prince (Chris Sarandon) and Westley makes it his personal mission to rescue his ladylove, with the aid of an adventurer named Ingo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) and his sidekick Fezzik (Andre the Giant).
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As a viewer of this story, I found myself initially wary of this fairy tale the same way the grandson in the movie is, but this grand adventure sucked me in too...this movie has it all...evil princes, sorcerers, swordplay, quicksand, enchanted forests, and an absolutely charming romance at the center of it all.

Cary Elwes found the role of his career as Westley, the most durable hero I have seen onscreen in years and definitely one of the most romantic and Robin Wright is enchanting as the title character. Christopher Guest is surprisingly bone-chilling as the villainous Count Tyrone (can't believe this is the same guy who played Nigel in This is Spinal Tap) and Patinkin is charismatic as Montoya. Billy Crystal and Carol Cane are very funny as an old wizard and his nagging wife as are Wallace Shawn and Peter Cook as other characters encountered along the way.
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A treat for the young and the young at heart that was a triumph for director Rob Reiner and everyone else involved. 8.5/10

[The Gunslinger45]

The Princess Bride is an absolute delight! I too had no idea what I was getting into when described the movie, but after the movie I thought it was great.

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Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has always worked off the cinematic beaten path and never more so than with 2002's Punch Drunk Love, a one of a kind movie experience that is part crime drama, part character study, part romance, and part absurdist nightmare, taking the viewer on a bizarre and sometimes confusing journey and never apologizing for it.
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This is the story of one Barry Egan, the owner of a small novelty sales business who is terribly lonely, socially inept, and prone to explosive fits of violence when provoked, partially from living under the shadow of seven sisters and partially from his inability to accept that life doesn't always happen as he might like. The movie brings us into the middle of Barry's world as we find him making a call to a phone sex line that goes horribly wrong and purchasing a huge amount of pudding cups in order to take advantage of a promotional deal that will afford him a lot of frequent flyer miles even though the man has never been on a plane in his life. And in the middle of all of this, Barry finds himself drawn to a co-worker of one of his sisters, who finds herself equally drawn to him.
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This film fascinates primarily due to its severely damaged central character, who reminded me a lot of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, a man so lost in his own personal demons to the point where he can't escape them nor can he share them with anyone and is trapped in an existence that's emptiness seems to manifest itself in explosive fits of verbal and physical violence, but when pushed to a certain point, Barry does finally push back. Barry is so damaged that I did find myself wondering what this woman sees in him, but maybe she sees the need this man has to be taken care of and wants to be the one to do it. The film's creepily voyeuristic feel is another reason I found myself riveted to what was going on...because it felt like I wasn't supposed to.
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Anderson took a calculated risk in the casting of Adam Sandler as Barry, but that risk paid off in spades, as Sandler turned in the finest performance of his career, proving that with strong writing and a skilled director to guide him, Sandler could produce more than the demented man-child which defined his career prior to this. Just like after seeing Will Ferrell in Stranger than Fiction, I challenge anyone who has hated Sandler's work prior to this film to give this film a look...Sandler's performance is full of power and pathos and will make you forget a lot of the silly films he has done in the past. Emily Watson creates an odd but workable chemistry with Sandler as the new woman in his life and Phillip Seymour Hoffman also scores as the sleazy mattress store owner who runs the crooked phone sex line that blackmails Barry. I also loved Mary Lynn Rajskub as Barry's sister and Watson's friend.
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Anderson's direction is in your face and includes some striking camera work that aids greatly in the film's voyeuristic feel and some strikingly original choices in terms of music that help to make this a truly original movie experience. 8.5/10

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Casino is Martin Scorsese's lavish stepbrother to his 1990 masterpiece Goodfellas, which presents the same money, greed, sex, murder, corruption, and power, except this time, the backdrop is the city in the desert, Las Vegas, and all the secrets buried in that desert.
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This epic story basically revolves around three primary characters: Robert De Niro plays Ace Rothstein, a professional gambler whose knowledge of casinos and gambling provides him with an offer to run a new casino called The Tangiers, despite the fact that Ace doesn't have a gaming license, which forces Ace to maneuver very carefully through the day to day operations of the casino, including the hiring of people who he doesn't want working for him, comping services to those who have the power to oust him, and the distancing of past acquaintances whose reputation could damage the casino, the primary one being Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), an obnoxious former buddy of Ace's who upon learning of Ace's good fortune, heads to Vegas in pursuit of his share of the pie.
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The apex of this triangle is Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a professional hustler/prostitute/cokehead who catches Ace's eye, but is smart enough to make sure his marriage proposal is more of a business merger since she is not in love with the man and knows from jump that the relationship is not going to work, especially since she is still emotionally attached to her ex, Lester (James Woods).
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These are the main players on Scorsese's glittery and bloody canvas that, unsurprisingly, reveals that the mob pretty much controls everything that happens in Las Vegas and those who have a problem with that end up not living to tell about it.
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Scorsese reunites with Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi to create an intelligent and riveting story that includes larger-than-life characters and in-your-face violence.
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De Niro and Pesci command the screen, as usual, creating a combative tension that's more interesting here than in Goodfellas because the friendship between the characters is painted in various shades of gray where deception and betrayal are the norm. Sharon Stone's explosive performance as Ginger actually earned the actress her only Oscar nomination to date for Outstanding Lead Actress. I especially loved when Ace throws her out of the house and she later actually tries to drive a car into the house. I also love Ginger getting high with Lester in front of her daughter and panicking when Ace calls because he wants his daughter back. Ginger is a smart, entertaining, and unpredictable character and Stone nails her.
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The large and effective supporting cast includes Don Rickles, Kevin Pollak, LQ Jones, Alan King, Frank Vincent, and a surprisingly effective turn from an unexpected source, Dick Smothers, as a US Senator who takes advantage of Ace's generosity but stabs him in the back later. The director's mother, as always, has a brief cameo and the director himself can be glimpsed briefly as a worker in the Tangiers counting room.

Basically, if you loved Goodfellas, you'll love this too. 4

[The Gunslinger45]

It is De Niro, Pesci, and Scorsese. Kinda hard to mess up.

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Director Ron Howard had one of his biggest hits with a 1985 comedy-drama called Cocoon.
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This enchanting science fiction fantasy begins with three senior citizens (Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn) who like to sneak out of the facility where they live and go swimming at a pool that is now closed to the public. One day, they arrive at the pool to find what appears to be large rocks laying at the bottom of the pool and though thrown by these new additions to the pool, go swimming anyway and find that these rocks possess some kind of youth serum that makes them feel 15 years old again. Wanting to share the wealth, they bring the women in their lives (Gwen Verdon, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy) to the pool so that they can feel the same way and ignore the feelings of another friend (Jack Gilford) who thinks there is something strange about these rocks and wants nothing to do with the pool.
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We then learn that the rocks are actually cocoons dropped in the pool by aliens who enlist the aid of a boating tour guide (Steve Guttenberg) to help them retrieve their cocoons and return to their planet and upon discovering the old folks cavorting in the pool, offer to take them to their planet, where they are promised they will live forever.
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Howard has mounted an engrossing and viable cinematic fantasy that entertains due to some contemporary science fiction elements, blended with some solid performances from a hand-picked cast of veterans, some of whom hadn't been onscreen in years, who create warm and believable characters that we immediately care for. Needless to say, viewers over the age of 40 will more easily tap into the fear of aging that is addressed here, but in a non-threatening way.
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Howard pulls first-rate performances from this impressive cast...Don Ameche actually won the 1985 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (though I think the award was mostly based on sentiment), but the entire cast works on the same level and the fact that a lot of the actors onscreen here are no longer with us does bring an added richness to the experience.
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The film has a solid screenplay, great actors, and some decent special effects, but for me, this film is a testament to the underrated directing skills of Ron Howard. Followed by a sequel. 3.5

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1993's The Crush is another one of my guilty pleasures...a not-so-great movie that, for me, has great re-watch appeal.

The story is not terribly original...Cary Elwes stars as a journalist named Nick who moves into the garage apartment of a family and finds himself receiving an uncomfortable amount of attention from the family's 14 year old daughter, Adrienne (Alicia Silverstone), who actually offers herself to him sexually. Naturally, Nick turns her down but Adrienne refuses to take no for an answer and pulls every dirty little trick she can think of to get Nick, including setting him up to look like he's the one doing the chasing and arranging an "accident" for the woman Adrienne believes is involved with Nick.
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Needless to say, the screenplay has its problems...it takes Nick WAY too long to figure out what is going on with this girl...it's like Nick's brain is removed every time he is around Adrienne. And when he finally does start taking what is going on seriously, he does one dumb thing after another, most notably, telling Adrienne's father what is going on, like he thought that her father would believe such nonsense about his 14 year old daughter.
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The real entertainment value in this film actually comes from Alicia Silverstone's spot-on performance as the teenage Lolita...with the aid of writer and director Alan Shapiro, Silverstone creates a character that is simultaneously dangerous and sexy, almost making the "ick" factor of what she's doing tolerable. Maybe the fact that Nick is such an idiot might have something to do with it, but I find myself behind Adrienne and wanting her to succeed in her mission. Silverstone is a revelation here, showing us that the bubbleheaded princess from Clueless was just the surface of what the actress is capable of (even though this was made before Clueless).

The film definitely has its problems, most notably an unfocused screenplay and a really dumb leading man, but Silverstone makes the ride a pleasure. 3

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The question of whether or not men and women can just be friends has been addressed in films before, most notably in When Harry Met Sally and the answer has generally been no, but the 2010 comedy The Switch addresses the issue and adds a very complicated layer to it that gives the film a spark of originality that is refreshing.
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The film stars Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston as Wally and Kassie, best friends for 13 years who find tension raised in their relationship when Kassie decides that she wants to have a baby via artificial insemination. She chooses a live donor in the form of a sweet-natured stud named Roland (Patrick Wilson) and actually throws a party on the night the insemination is to take place. Wally arrives at the party, gets drunk and accidentally comes upon Roland's sperm in the bathroom and accidentally spills it down the sink. With no other option, Wally substitutes his own sperm for Roland's without telling anyone. Unfortunately, Wally was so drunk that he doesn't remember what he did.
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Kassie decides that she doesn't want to raise a child in Manhattan and moves away, but returns seven years later, re-establishing her friendship with Wally and making him a major part of son Sebastian's life. Eventually, clues, coincidences, and a memory flash bring Wally to the conclusion that he is really Sebastian's father and is at a loss at how to be more than "Uncle Wally" to the boy, while Kassie starts getting more involved with her believed baby daddy Roland, who is starting to fall for Kassie as well.

This is a clever romantic comedy that presents some very messy situations and will produce some very mixed emotions in the viewer. It is so sweet watching Wally form a bond with his son, but aggravating because he doesn't initially know it's his son and after he realizes the truth, it just makes you want to cry. Throw in the fact that Kassie is drifting into a relationship with Roland, which also ignites Wally's true feelings about his BFF. Allen Loeb's screenplay based on a short story called Baster is smart and balanced in a way that we see how Wally's drunken actions made everyone involved a victim especially Roland, maybe the biggest victim in this whole ugly mess.
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Jason Bateman is nothing short of superb as Wally, who after years of supporting roles, proves that he is a leading man and has the ability to command the screen and carry the emotional weight of a film. His rich performance will warm your heart from his drunken actions in the bathroom to his love and care of Sebastian when it is revealed that the boy has contracted head lice. Jennifer Aniston works very hard at infusing Kassie with some sympathy despite the fact that story works against that most of the way. She does nail the climactic scene where Kassie learns the truth about her son, though. Patrick Wilson charms as Roland and really makes you care about this guy, even though, on paper, he is the villain of the piece. He absolutely broke my heart in the brief scene with Bateman where Roland admits to Wally that Sebastian hates him. Jeff Goldblum is fun as Wally's boss and Thomas Robinson is absolutely adorable as little Sebastian.
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A warm and intelligent romantic comedy that despite a predictable ending, takes an offbeat and pleasurable journey to get there. 3.5

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If you're looking for some raunchy and mindless fun, you really don't have to look much further than 2008's Role Models.
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The film stars Paul Rudd as Danny and Seann William Scott as Wheeler, two guys who have been working to promote an energy drink that sells for six bucks a pop, who get into some serious trouble and wind up doing community service for a fictionalized version of Big Brothers/Big Sisters called Sturdy Wings.
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Danny is assigned a painfully shy teenager named Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who likes to participate in recreations of medevil sword battles while Wheeler is assigned a wise-ass pre-teen named Ronnie, who is obsessed with boobs. Of course, our heros screw up their assignments, but even facing jail time, Danny and Wheeler both find themselves caring more about their "littles" than they care to admit.
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The screenplay, to which both Rudd and Ken Marino, who also appears in the film as Augie's stepfather, contributed to, has its share of raunchiness without being really dirty and tells an entertaining story without becoming preachy. Rudd and Scott work well together and Jane Lynch is very funny as the head of Sturdy Wings and Elizabeth Banks makes a lovely romantic interest. Nothing earth-shattering here, but it will keep you awake and there are definitely laughs along the way. 2.5

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Solid direction and a bone-chilling lead performance are the primary selling points of the 1996 thriller FEAR.

Mark Wahlberg plays David, a high school student who falls for a virginal blonde named Nicole (Reese Witherspoon), but what Nicole thinks is love and affection is really obsession as David turns out to be a dangerous psychopath who puts Nicole and her entire family in danger.
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What this film lacks in originality it makes up for in the startling star turn by Mark Wahlberg in the leading role...it's been quite a while since a lead character in a contemporary film scared the bejesus out of me the way Wahlberg's David did. This was a character with no conscience and no boundaries, but with an undeniable appeal, evidenced in a very erotic scene between Wahlberg and Witherspoon on a ferris wheel. This viewer was torn by the sexy and dangerous sides of this character and that's what made him so fascinating to watch.
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Witherspoon was an appropriate damsel in distress, though it would have been nice to have seen her catch on to David a little sooner than she did. William Petersen and Amy Brenneman make a strong impression as Witherspoon's father and stepmother and Alyssa Milano plays her best friend, who is one of the first to see how dangerous David really is, but her warning to Nicole falls on deaf ears.
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It's no classic, but the underrated and almost forgotten performance by Mark Wahlberg makes this worth a look. 7/10

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127 Hours is a riveting, fact-based story of survival that takes films like Into the Wild and Cast Away to another level. During this film, I actually found myself talking to the central character, turning my eyes from the screen, and holding my breath. I was initially wary of watching this movie because it was directed and co-written by Danny Boyle, the man behind Slumdog Millionaire,a film that I turned off after 30 minutes out of boredom, but this movie was an emotionally gripping experience that continues to haunt as I write this.
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This 2010 film is the story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), an amateur rock climber in Colorado, who falls down a very deep canyon and finds himself trapped by a large boulder and unable to move. The film is a detailed chronicle of Aron's attempts to escape and to hold onto his sanity while doing it.
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The film depicts Ralston as a very level-headed guy whose initial approach to his situation is smart and practical. We watch as he inventories his supplies in order to see what he has that can help. I found myself yelling at Aron every time he drank from his water bottle because I was afraid he would down it in one shot. I held my breath as I watched him try to physically move the boulder to no avail and I found myself turning away from the screen when he found there was only one option available to him in order to extricate himself from this situation. I also found myself fighting tears as he began to document what was happening to him on his video camera, including heartfelt apologies to his family for everything in his past for which he had regret.
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Franco's tour-de-force performance in this extremely demanding role earned him an Oscar nomination, as did the screenplay by Boyle and Simon Beaufoy and the remarkable editing by Jon Harris. There is a moment right after Aron is trapped where the camera pans back to show how deeply he is trapped and removed from civilization that is burned in my memory. This film is visually arresting despite the selected moments throughout that are just too difficult to watch.
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A once in a lifetime cinematic experience that despite minimum re-watch appeal, should be experienced and will stay with your already manipulated emotions well into the closing credits. 8/10

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One of my favorite guilty pleasures from the 1970's is a little something called Semi-Tough.
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This sexy and exuberant 1977 comedy, based on a novel by Dan Jenkins, is the story of Billy Clyde Puckett (Burt Reynolds) and Shake Tiller (Kris Kristofferson), two professional football players and best friends who live with Barbara Jane Bookman (Jill Clayburgh), the daughter of the owner of the team (Robert Preston). The friendship between the three is threatened when Shake admits to having romantic feelings for Barbara Jane and she thinks she is developing feelings for him, but the budding romance is complicated by Shake's belief in a self-help training seminar based on EST (if you weren't around in the 70's and have never heard of EST, you should google it) referred to here as The Beat, operated by a slick and charismatic cult leader (Bert Convy) and by Billy Clyde, who Barbara Jane now finds herself fighting feelings for.
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This sexy romantic triangle was the basis of one of 1977's biggest box office hits, that might seem a little dated now with the whole Beat storyline, but the chemistry created by Reynolds and Clayburgh is off the charts here and probably had a lot to do with their onscreen reunion two years later in Starting Over and I don't think Kristofferson has ever been so likable onscreen. Preston generates major laughs as the team owner, BIg Ed Bookman and Convy is surprisingly greasy in an offbeat casting choice that paid off. Roger E. Mosley, Joe Kapp, Carl Weathers, and Ron SIlver provide some fun as other members of the team and the legendary Lotte Lenya has a memorable cameo as an eccentric physical therapist who tries to work her magic on Billy Clyde.
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Michael Ritchie's breezy direction and a clever screenplay, despite some dated elements, help to make this entertaining romp worth checking out. 7/10

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David O. Russell, who had a directorial and writing triumph with Silver Linings Playbook was less successful with the 2010 fact-based drama The Fighter, a film that, despite some spectacular performances, suffers in a story that only worked about halfway for me, but if the story is based on facts, the director and screenwriters can't really be faulted for that, but it made for a muddled story that I had a hard time swallowing.
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Set in a rowdy Irish neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1993, this is the story of Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a second rate boxer whose career has never really gone anywhere because he is being managed by his domineering mother (Melissa Leo) and being trained by his brother, Dickie (Christian Bale), a loser whose best days are behind him. Dickie pretends to be all about Mickey's career, but he has turned into a complete loser and drug addict who is so lost in his own pathetic existence that he has actually agreed to be filmed by HBO for a documentary about crack addiction.
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Mickey and Dickie's lives fork when Dickie gets arrested and Mickey receives the opportunity for legitimate training and a shot at a real boxing career, but the opportunity has a huge string attached....neither Dickie or his mother can be involved at all. Meanwhile, Dickie has an epiphany when he sees his son watching himself on the documentary and eventually makes his way back into Mickey's life.
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This story had me until Dickie's epiphany and when Mickey admits that his first post-Dickie victory was due to something Mickey learned from his brother. Dickie is just too much of a loser to buy the complete turnaround he does here and I personally would have liked to have seen Mickey's success come from his new trainers and his own talent and Dickie not have anything to do with it. The screenplay also loses points for its ignorance about crack addiction. The scenes of Dickie going through withdrawal in prison were perfect for a heroine addict but the screenwriters clearly have never smoked crack.
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The performances are first rate though...Wahlberg is strong and sincere as Mickey and never lets his spectacular supporting cast overpower him. Christian Bale's brassy and unhinged performance as Dickie won him an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Melissa Leo's solid performance as the guys' mother also won her an Oscar and Golden Globe. Also have to give a shout out to Amy Adams, who is an eye-opener as a streetwise barmaid who Mickey falls for and to Jack McGee as Mickey's stepfather.
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Despite some first rate acting and a rocking song score, the film just didn't work for me because of a story that does an unconvincing 180, as does the character of Dickie. 5.5/10

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1958's Marjorie Morningstar is one of those glossy soap operas that was a staple of Hollywood in the 1950's featuring an enchanting actress on the cusp of super stardom in a story that seems perfectly suited to her.
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Based on a novel by Herman Wouk, the story is basically another Hollywood staple of the 1950's: the romantic triangle. The apex of the triangle is an 18 year old aspiring actress named Marjorie Morganstern (Natalie Wood) who gets a summer job at a summer camp as a drama coach and becomes involved with Noel Airman (Gene Kelly), the arrogant second rate director of a summer theater across the lake who has been writing a Broadway show for three years and his assistant Wally Wronkin (Martin Milner), a struggling playwright. Wally is immediately smitten with Marjorie, who only has eyes for Noel, but Noel is not nearly as serious about Marjorie as she is about him.
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We watch as years pass and fortunes and circumstances turn Noel into a has-been and Wally a successful Broadway playwright who has never forgotten Marjorie, who is still struggling to become an actress but can't really focus on anything but Noel, who she actually tells her mother she is going to marry and though Noel loves Marjorie, he has absolutely no desire to marry her and it is upon this simple conflict that the drama unwinds.

Every young actress in Hollywood circa 1956 wanted the lead role in this film because the book was such a sensational bestseller, The role finally went to Natalie Wood, fresh off her success in Rebel Without a Cause, who works very hard at creating a movie heroine who evokes empathy as well as sympathy...we're supposed to want to be in Marjorie's shoes, a woman torn between two charismatic men, one she wants and one who wants her. There is a point in the story where Marjorie is given the opportunity to use Wally's feelings for her to advance her career and she doesn't do it.

Gene Kelly is surprisingly effective playing a flawed character who is rather sad but never uninteresting. Though Kelly is seen briefly singing and dancing, this is a non-musical character who is often not a very nice person but Kelly is completely invested in the character. Martin Milner had what was probably the best role of his sporadic movie career as Wally. Milner is funny and charming as the nice guy finishing last and you will find yourself wanting him to win the girl. There are a couple of sterling supporting turns from Carolyn Jones as Marjorie's gal pal Marsha, Ed Wynn as Marjorie's lovable uncle, and especially Claire Trevor as her snooty mother.
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Irving Rapper's sensitive direction, Max Steiner's divine music, Wood's stunning wardrobe, and some lovely cinematography are the finishing touches to a slightly talky, but still watchable gem from the 50's that merits attention from true classic cinema purists. 7.5/10

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Clint Eastwood took a calculated career risk that paid off in spades, not to mention providing the actor a welcome change of pace with a 1978 comedy called Every Which Way But Loose.
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This raucous and off-beat comedy stars Eastwood as Philo Beddoe, a truck driver who likes to make money on the side by participating in bare knuckle fist fights, where bets are collected by his brother Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) and enforced by Clyde, a large lovable orangutan that Philo won in a bet, who doesn't know his own strength. Philo and Orville also have their hands full dealing with their mother (Ruth Gordon), a feisty old timer who is obsessed with getting her driver's license despite the fact that she has no business being behind the wheel of a car. Throw in a possible romance with a commitment-shy aspiring country singer named Lynn Halsey-Taylor (Sondra Locke) and you have all the ingredients for a winning comedy romp that provides big laughs and an occasional warm and fuzzy feeling.
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It was so nice to see Eastwood lighten up for a change and he really seems to be enjoying himself here. The relationship between Philo and Clyde is real and palatable and every time they share a kiss, your heart will melt. Ruth Gordon is hysterically funny as Ma and makes every moment she has onscreen count. The chemistry between Eastwood and Locke is solid and was re-visited in several other films and also resulted in a long, real-life romance. The very hummable theme song is sung by Glen Campbell.

One of the best "Put-your-brain-in-check-and-enjoy' movies ever made. Followed by a sequel called Any Which Way You Can. 8/10
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1957's Funny Face is a splashy and entertaining movie musical that has the bubble and effervescence of a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne.

The movie stars Fred Astaire as Dick Avery, a fashion photographer who during a photo shoot at Greenwich Village bookstore, decides to turn the beautiful but serious minded clerk at the store (Audrey Hepburn) into a fashion model.
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This deceptively simple plotline provides the jumping off point for an entertaining and romantic musical romp that recalls the great musicals of MGM, despite the fact that this one was released by Paramount.
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Leonard Gershe's screenplay is surprisingly meaty for a musical and the fact that two of the main characters are based on real-life figures. Astaire's character is supposedly based on photographer Richard Avedon and Diana Vreeland, former editor of Harper's Bizarre and Vogue, is the supposed inspiration for Kay Thompson's character.

Despite this film coming rather late in Astaire's career, he is at the height of his charm here and as light on his feet as ever. One of his standout numbers framed around a song called "Let's Kiss and Makeup" finds Astaire partnering an umbrella and a raincoat and, as usual, he makes his partners look good.
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Audrey Hepburn is absolutely enchanting as Jo Stockton, the allegedly mousy bookstore clerk who gets turned into a glamorous runway model. Though not known as a musical comedy performer, Hepburn had some ballet training in her background and though not a great dancer, she does hold her own with Astaire. Hepburn was no Judy Garland either, but she is such a charismatic actress that I buy anything that she is trying to sell, including her ability to sing.

The brilliant Kay Thompson steals every scene she is in as Maggie Prescott, the acid-tongued editor of Quality Magazine. This performance is so spot-on entertaining that it should have earned Thompson a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Thompson is so much fun in this movie that the movie becomes just a little less interesting whenever she is not onscreen.
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Stanley Donen's stylish direction is a big plus here as is the memorable score offered by George and Ira Gershwin, including "How Long Has this Been Going On?","Think Pink", "Bonjour Paree", "He Loves and She Loves", "On how to be Lovely", and, of course, the title tune.

The film also includes exquisite Paris locations, second only to An American in Paris, some inventive choreography, first rate art direction and set direction, and of course, breathtaking costumes by Edith Head. If you're a musical fan, this one's a must...they don't make 'em like this anymore. 8.5/10

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2010's The Green Hornet is a spectacular comic adventure that earns some big points in terms of originality but loses some in terms of logic and continuity, which result in a lot of "yeah, OK" moments.

In this adaptation of the comic book hero written by star Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Britt Reid (Rogen) is the spoiled son of a publishing magnate who teams up with one of his father's employees, a guy named Kato (Jay Chou), to battle a hyper-sensitive drug dealer (Christoph Waltz) and a slimy district attorney (David Harbour).
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I remember being shocked when I heard about this film going into production and heard that Rogen would be playing the lead, but my fears were almost immediately legitimized because this film took a completely original tack with the whole hero/sidekick concept by making it crystal clear that Kato is the brawn and the power behind the duo and that Britt is just a figurehead with a lot of money to back up his plans and an attractive assistant (Cameron Diaz) to tell him what a superhero should be doing.
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Rogen, who has never looked better, puts a very human face on this alleged superhero and despite the fact that he is sort of a jerk and refuses to admit that without Kato he would be nothing, he somehow manages to keep this guy likable despite his horrible treatment of Kato. Jay Chou is a revelation as Kato and the two of them actually provide the film's highlight which was another dose of originality I found most appealing: a knock down drag out fight between Britt and Kato, where Kato's only Achilles heel is revealed.
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Christoph Waltz brings his very special acting techniques to the role of Chudnofsky and Diaz is an attractive leading lady. I liked the fact that even though Britt and Kato are both attracted to Diaz, that the script didn't go the obvious route and have the girl get romantic with either of them...very refreshing for a film of this ilk. Kudos to Tom Wilkenson for his brief but classy turn as Britt's father and to James Franco for a very funny cameo as a smart-ass drug dealer.
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This film features some state of the art special effects...its lousy with technical gadgetry, including a hero's vehicle that rivals Tim Burton's batmobile, some impressive art direction/set direction, and a tongue in cheek screenplay that the stars serve effectively. I don't know why this film died at the box office, but I found it a lot of fun. 7/10

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The 1982 film Partners is a crime drama with comedic elements that attempts to be politically correct and tolerant but for the most part comes off preachy and predictable, though it does have a few merits.
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Ryan O'Neal plays Benson, a police detective assigned to the murder of a homosexual and is assigned to go undercover with a new partner, Kerwin (John Hurt), an officer who works in the records and identification department and closeted homosexual, as a gay couple in order to infiltrate the gay community to find the killer.

On the surface, this film seems to come off as an excuse to have O'Neal parade around in tank tops and very tight jeans and there is a message conveyed in the screenplay that the police don't care about a murder victim if said victim is homosexual, but what makes this film worth a look is the character of Kerwin and John Hurt's rich performance in the role.

There is a lot more going on with this character than all his years in the closet, most likely as a method of holding onto his job. The character is terribly sad because he has spent so many years in the closet that it's almost as if he's forgotten what it means to be a gay man. He is deeply offended when he learns that the only reason he has been chosen for this assignment is because he's gay and even seems shocked that his superiors even knew he was gay. He accepts the assignment when he is given no choice, but finds instant challenges involved...we are floored when a suspect in the case asks Kerwin to dance and he tells Benson he refuses to dance with a man. On the other hand, we feel for the man when he quietly begins developing feelings for Benson, which don't come all the way to the surface until Benson becomes sexually involved with a photographer (Robyn Douglass). Hurt makes some subtle but effective acting choices in this deceptively complex role and evokes tremendous sympathy for Kerwin.

On the flip side, we do get to see some tolerance develop from the conveniently homophobic Benson as well. There is a wonderful moment where Kerwin sends him to the store and Benson kisses him on the cheek goodbye without even realizing he does it. The look on Benson's face when he realizes what he has done is priceless.
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The story itself isn't exactly steeped in reality and the film is awash in gay stereotypes but John Hurt's quietly brilliant performance as Kerwin does make this film worth a look. 6.5/10

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Christian Bale's electrifying performance as one of movie's most unique characters is the centerpiece of American Psycho, a chilling psychological drama that, despite a truly despicable leading character, has enormous re-watch appeal.
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Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a wall street investment banker, obsessed with having the best of everything...the best career, the best apartment, even the best business card, whose ambitious yuppie exterior covers another personality who is a sexist, sadistic, and arrogant sociopath whose obsession with his own desires and needs often requires the manipulation and often the elimination of those who find themselves caught in his web.
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This film was directed and written by a woman, Mary Harron, a fact I have to constantly remind myself of because the central character is such a sexist pig who treats women like crap and does not apologize for it. The odd thing is that despite the despicable way that Bateman treats women, the women in this story find themselves drawn to the man and no matter how horribly he treats them, they always seem to come back for at least seconds and it's that second time that is usually the beginning of the end.
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Bale turns in the performance of a lifetime as Bateman, a character who alternately fascinates and terrifies. How Bale was denied an Oscar nomination will forever remain a mystery to me. Bale completely invests in the horrible things that Bateman does and loses himself in this character, a trait which has come to be associated with Bale, one of cinema's best chameleons. The sight of a naked Bale running down an apartment hallway chasing a prostitute with a chainsaw is something that I will never forget. The supporting cast includes Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Jared Leto, and Matt Ross as business associates, Reese Witherspoon as Bateman's bitchy and clinging fiancee, and Willem Dafoe as a detective assigned to the case when one of Bateman's associates turns up "missing." Chloe Sevigny also evokes sympathy as Bateman's assistant, who has a crush on her boss but is clueless as to exactly what kind of man he is.
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There's nothing fun about this movie and it startles at every turn, but Bale achieves the impossible by making a character who should be completely repellent absolutely riveting. Now that I've finished this review, I have to return some videos. 8/10

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In what appears to be an attempt by writer/director Judd Apatow to display some range as a filmmaker, Funny People is a severely overlong and rambling comedy-drama that seems to be actually three or four different movies rolled into one and trying to tell all these stories at once results in a sporadically entertaining but ultimately tiresome journey for the viewer.
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One story involves a veteran comedy star named George Simmons(Adam Sandler) who learns he has a terminal disease who hires a struggling stand-up comedian named Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) to write jokes for him and assist him in getting his affairs in order.
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Another story is about Ira Wright, a struggling stand-up comedian (Rogen) and the complicated relationship with his two roommates, one, Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman) is the self-absorbed star of a TV sitcom and the other, Leo (Jonah Hill) a stand-up comedian who is much more successful than Ira is.
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There is also the story of Ira and Mark vying for the attention of a female stand-up comedian, played by Aubrey Plaza.

Then there's the story of George's ex-fiancee, Laura (Leslie Mann) who has re-entered his life and attempts to reboot their relationship, despite the fact that she is married to another man (Eric Bana) and is the mother of 2 daughters.
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Anyone of these stories could have made a compelling movie by itself, but Apatow's attempt to meld all of these stories into one film just doesn't work and I found myself looking at my watch frequently.
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The stand-up scenes work well and are quite amusing (even though Apatow's obsession with penis jokes grows really old really quickly)...the director seems to have given Sandler and Rogen free rein here, but when the movie moves off stage, it is very heavy going. The film initially appears to be an attempt to show what screwed-up and generally unhappy people stand-up comedians are, similar to the 1988 Tom Hanks film Punchline, but this film veers off into so many different directions that interest wanes quickly. Sandler works very hard in the starring role and keeps George, a funny flawed guy who speaks without filter, interesting and Apatow has written a juicy role for wife Leslie Mann, who is almost convincing. He even cast their real-life daughters as her daughters, but Schwartzman's character is really annoying and Bana is just miscast. Several stand-ups are also wasted in pointless cameo appearances.

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A bold attempt at something completely different for Judd Apatow, but a big misfire nevertheless. 4/10

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Evocative direction, first-rate performances, and a fact-based story that is just as tragic as it is heartbreaking are the primary ingredients of At Close Range, a chilling and atmospheric 1986 drama that gives new meaning to the term "family ties."
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The film stars Sean Penn, splendid as always, as Brad Whitewood Jr., a young man who finds himself developing a relationship with his absentee father (Christopher Walken), a career criminal recently released from prison yet not rehabilitated. Despite warnings from his mother (Millie Perkins), Brad finds himself drawn to his dad and his crime family, as does Brad's younger brother, Tommy (Christopher Penn). Brad Sr. wastes no time in resuming his criminal life and despite half-hearted efforts to push them away, finds Brad Jr. and Tommy attracted to his life and wanting to be a part of it, but it turns out to be at a terrible price.
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I found this drama wreaking havoc with my emotions and confusing me about where, as a viewer of the story, my loyalties should fall. On one hand, it is clear from jump that Brad Sr. is bad news and that Brad Jr. and Tommy need to stay as far away from him as possible. On the other hand, despite his lack of presence during their childhood, both Brad and Tommy seem to want to form a relationship with their dad, despite the apparent danger and I can understand the guys wanting to get to know their dad, but you can see early on that these boys trying to connect with their father is a mistake.
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Christopher Walken is positively bone-chilling as Brad Sr. Everything this character said and did in the film made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Tracey Walter and Candy Clark are effective as Brad Sr's right hand man and his girlfriend, respectively and Christopher Penn is appropriately sad and vulnerable as Tommy and as far as I know, this is the only time real-life siblings Sean and Christopher ever worked together. Eileen Ryan, Sean and Christopher's real-life mother, also appears in the film as their grandmother.
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James Foley's solid direction, an uncompromising screenplay, and a haunting musical score also register here...Madonna, Penn's wife at the time, had a number one single with the film's love theme, "Live to Tell." For Penn and Walken fans, this is a must. 8 /10

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The on-target performances and surprising chemistry of the stars makes up for the "been there done that" aspect of the story in 2010's Due Date, a well-worn comic premise that earns its credentials through a pair of sharp starring performances.
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Todd Phillips, the man behind The Hangover, directed this broad episodic comedy that stars Robert Downey Jr. as Peter, a tightly-wound architect trying to get home in time for the birth of his child, who gets thrown off a plane, thanks to a neurotic, pot-smoking nutcase (Zach Galifianakis) and then ends up on a cross-country road trip with the guy in order to get home.
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This film borrows from a lot of movies in the past, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, in particular, but what sets this film apart is the performances from the stars. Robert Downey Jr. delivers a perfectly executed comic straight man as Peter, the regular guy caught up in extraordinary circumstances and Galifianakis is his usually nutty self, offering a character who provides big laughs, even if there are nervous ones at times. Galifianakis has patented that unique comic character who has you rolling on the floor and wanting to beat the crap out of him at the same time.
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What is so fun about the actors' work together is that even though his character is technically the straight man, Robert Downey Jr. garners just as many laughs as Galifianakis thanks to some uncanny comic timing and the ability to keep everything his character does routed in reality. As funny as Galifianakis is, it is Downey Jr. who makes this movie so funny. There is also a funny cameo from Jamie Foxx as an old friend of Downey Jr's who he suspects had an affair with his wife (Michelle Monaghan).
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As in The Hangover, there are some over-the-top adventures including a Mexican jail break that has to be seen to be believed, but it is the masterful comic timing of Robert Downey Jr. that make this movie the pleasure it was to watch. BTW, the director does make a cameo appearance in the film as a tenant of the drug dealer played by Juliette Lewis. 7.5/10

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An exuberant lead performance from Debbie Reynolds is the primary selling point of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, the 1964 film version of Meredith Wilson's 1960 Broadway musical that won a Tony for its star, Tammy Grimes.
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This musical is the fact-based story of one Molly Tobin (Reynolds), a backwoods tomboy from Leadville, Colorado who longs to be rich and the cream of Denver society one day. Molly meets a coal miner named Leadville Johnny Brown (Harve Presnell), who Molly won't give the time of day because he's poor, so he goes out and makes a fortune, they marry and move to Denver, where Molly learns that money does not guarantee social acceptance.
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This elaborate and well-mounted musical has at its heart an extremely likable lead character who always has you on her side, though I think the Molly Brown portrayed by Kathy Bates in Titanic was probably closer in real personality to the real life Molly than Reynolds' Molly is, but this is a musical, so I'm OK with that. Reynolds gives the strongest performance of her career here that earned the actress her only Oscar nomination. Harve Presnell is impressive repeating his Broadway role as Johnny Brown and works extremely well with Reynolds.
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Unfortunately, Meredith Wilson's original score has been butchered, but we still have "I Ain't Down Yet", "Belly Up to the Bar Boys", "Colorado My Home", and a song written especially for the movie called "He's My Friend."
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Ed Begley, Jack Kruschen, and Hermione Baddeley score in supporting roles, with a special nod to Audrey Christie as Mrs. McGraw, the bitchy Denver matron who leads the boycotting of the Browns into Denver society.
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The film is a little long, but it is an entertaining film that sustains interest pretty well to the end. BTW, after you see this movie and you see the mansion in Denver that Molly and Johnny build for themselves, take a little field trip to Denver and get a gander at the real Molly Brown house, which is an actual landmark in Denver...talk about dramatic license at its zenith. 6/10

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Robert Altman's atmospheric direction, a simple story, and a couple of 100-megawatt starring performances make 1971's McCabe and Mrs. Miller worth a look.

Warren Beatty lights up the screen as John McCabe, a professional gambler with a dangerous reputation, who arrives in a small western town called Presbyterian Church in order to start a whorehouse, with little more than three girls and three tents for handling their business. McCabe knows there is money in prostitution but knows little else about the business and how to operate it properly.
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Enter Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), a streetwise and experienced madam from Seattle who arrives in Presbyterian Church, with her own girls in tow, and forms an unlikely partnership with McCabe when she is able to show McCabe there is more to prostitution than girls and tents. The partnership is threatened when representatives from a large corporation arrive in town and want to buy McCabe out.

Based on the novel "McCabe" by Edmund Naughton, this is the anti-western, for those of us who aren't really into westerns and easily Robert Altman's most economic work, clocking in under an hour and a half, but still providing a compelling story with larger-than-life characters, a little more structured than what we Altman fans have come to expect from him, but that structure and a story that even pushes buttons regarding small business vs corporate America in a way that is appealing. The pervading theme of business is business is never abandoned as even when the title characters do eventually share a bed, we cheer as McCabe pays for Mrs. Miller's services before anything happens.
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Beatty and Christie's chemistry is off the chart and Christie received an Oscar nomination for Lead Actress. Several Altman rep company players can be glimpsed in small roles like Michael Murphy, Shelley Duvall, and Keith Carradine. There is some striking cinematography and some lovely music as well. Even for Altman fans, this is something off the beaten path, but well worth the investment. 8/10

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American Gangster is a rambling and expensive fact-based epic which finds Denzel Washington and director Ridley Scott going the De Niro/Scorsese route without nearly the success achieved by the latter.
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This 2007 film is the story of Frank Lucas, a drug kingpin who decides that in order to get the premium product (in this case, heroine), that he must travel to the far east himself to procure what he needs with the help of a personal connection there (Roger Guenveur Smith). As the personal touch begins to payoff in his profits, Frank moves his family in to assist in the business while a police detective named Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), works to get the product off the streets and find out who's behind it.
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The film seems to purport a cat and mouse game between Lucas and Roberts, but the problematic screenplay takes forever to get there. Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the screenplays for Goodfellas and Casino served as one of this film's producers but he might have served this film better working on the screenplay which has plot holes you can drive a truck through, unnecessary subplots, and a conclusion that left a bad taste in my mouth.
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I'm not even sure where to begin here...I had a hard time believing that Frank's family, including his God-fearing mother (beautifully played by Ruby Dee in an Oscar-nominated performance) had no idea where Frank's millions came from and had no idea what his business involved...the shock on his brothers' faces when Frank takes out an enemy on the street in broad daylight was a little hard to take. I also found myself groaning when in the middle of his investigation of Lucas, we see Roberts receive notification that he has passed his bar exam, at which time we know not only will Roberts be arresting Lucas but will be prosecuting him as well. The screenplay attempts to show the effects of Roberts' job on his personal life by showcasing his divorce and custody battle for his child. I guess it's supposed to evoke sympathy for Roberts, but he's already the good guy and the whole subplot just seemed superfluous, though Carla Gugino is effective as his wife, but it just seems to slow the film down. There are also large parts of Roberts' investigation that seem to get glossed over...one minute he's performing surveillance on street drug runners and the next he's confronting Lucas at church telling him he's going down. How Richie gets from the street to Lucas isn't made clear.
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I also was troubled by what happens between Lucas and Richie at the end of the film. I was troubled by the fact that Lucas was allegedly sentenced to 70 years and only served 15 because he turned in 150 cops he had in his pocket. Then to add insult to injury, we learn that when Lucas finally goes to trial, Roberts defends him? Seriously? I'm sorry, but any credibility the film had went out at the window at this point and the way that Frank and Richie appeared to be almost friendly by the end of the film was just disturbing to me.
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Washington commands the screen as Frank Lucas, but I never really bought an overweight Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts. Chiwetel Eijeifor also registers as one of Frank's brothers, as does Josh Brolin as one of the cops in Frank's pocket, but the faults definitely outweigh the virtues on this one. For hardcore Washington fans only who think their boy can do no wrong. 5.5./10

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Woody Allen won his 3rd Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Midnight in Paris, a sparkling and intelligent 2011 romantic fantasy set in the city of lights, a city that Woody loves almost as much as Manhattan and that he would set this clever romantic fantasy in Paris is a true testament to Woody's love of the city.

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The film stars Owen Wilson as Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter working on his first novel, who takes a trip to Paris with his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams) and his future in-laws. One night while Inez goes out dancing with friends, Gil goes for a walk and is picked up by a car of party goers and finds that he has been transported to his favorite place and time...Paris in the 1920's where he meets Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter, Paul Gaugin, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Salvadore Dali among others. The next day, Gil tries to take Inez, but he finds out he took her too early as the cab to the past only comes at midnight.

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Woody doesn't venture into fantasy too much, but it usually works when he does, like The Purple Rose of Cairo and he really knocks it out of the park here, putting very human faces on historical figures and making them believable characters steeped in realism. I especially love Woody's take on Hemingway, who is painted here as a raging alcoholic who is extremely insecure about his own work and has no interest in the work of other writers. I love when Gil asks Hemingway to read his novel and he says no but he will have his good friend Gertrude Stein look at it. Kathy Bates is marvelous, as always, as Stein. One of my favorite moments revolves around Gil seeing one of Picasso's works right after he finishes it and then hearing his smart-ass best friend (Michael Sheen) talk about the piece in a museum the next day.

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Wilson is charming as Gil and has a surprisingly strong chemistry with Marion Cotillard as Adriana, a woman who had affairs with both Picasso and Hemingway and is now falling for Gil. There's a beautifully surreal moment in the film when Gil buys a book that was apparently written by Adriana back in the 20's and finds his name mentioned. Corey Stroll is brilliant as Hemingway and Adrian Brody is fun as Salvadore Dali. Mention should also be made of Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy as Inez' parents.

A delicious romantic fantasy that hits all the right notes and a must for Allen purists with some stunning Paris location photography that helps to make the whole package irresistible. 8.5/10

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For me, a successful sequel should begin exactly where the first film left off and remind you of everything that happened in the first film during the first five minutes. The story for the sequel should have a direct connection to the first film without rehashing it and the antagonist has to be infinitely more interesting than the antagonist in the first and most important of all, it should be BETTER than the first film, otherwise, producing it is pointless. Director Christopher Nolan has accomplished all of this with The Dark Knight Rises, his gripping and explosive 2012 sequel to The Dark Knight, whose eye-popping production values are as effective as its riveting story and characters, including the most terrifying movie villain I have witnessed in decades.
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The story begins with Gotham City still mourning the death of Harvey Dent and the citizens' unjustified belief that Batman is responsible. It is revealed that Dent's death has affected the Caped Crusader as well, having hung up his uniform for a long time and Bruce Wayne being reduced to a crippled recluse who is in the process of losing his empire and his home.
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What appears to be a simple encounter with the Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and a kidnapped Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) over a necklace balloons into an encounter with Bane (Tom Hardy), a bone-chilling villain with a body like Hulk Hogan and a voice like Sean Connery who is able to destroy a football stadium, bury the entire Gotham City police force underground and releases the entire Gotham City prison population in order to dispense their own brand of justice.
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Nolan has created the best comic book movie ever here, a non-stop roller coaster ride that doesn't allow the viewer a minute to breathe. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan's complex screenplay is well-served by the production team and cast. Christian Bale brings a wonderful vulnerability to his Batman/Bruce Wayne characterization that keeps this superhero refreshingly human and Tom Hardy is just dazzling as Bane, the most appealing yet terrifying villain I have ever seen. Oldman brings his accustomed quite power to Gordon as do Morgan Freeman as Fox and the wonderful Michael Caine as Alfred. Marian Cotillard is an attractive and intelligent leading lady as a Wayne Enterprises board member with a secret or two. If I had one complaint, I just couldn't get on board with Hathaway as Catwoman, she just comes off as a little girl playing dress up with the grown-ups and not quite fitting in, but a minor misstep.
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If anyone wants to write a book or a blog on how to create a successful sequel, this film should be the number one reference point. Quite simply, a triumph. 9.5/10

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Race relations is hardly a fresh topic for the movies, but a previously untapped phenomena which was manifested from racial tension is disturbingly, thoughtfully, and entertainingly addressed in a 2011 comedy-drama called The Help.

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This story focuses primarily on two maids: Aibileen (Viola Davis) is a strong and serious minded woman who adores the little girl she takes care of, despite the fact that Aibileen feels her mother (Ahna O'Reilly) really has no business having children, even though she is pregnant with her second. Minny (Octavia Spencer) is a mother trapped in a physically abusive marriage who is fired by a bitchy socialite named Hilly Holbrook (Dallas Bryce Howard) because she thinks Minny used the inside bathroom instead of the outside one for coloreds but then finds herself hired by a big-hearted newlywed named Celia (Jessica Chastain) who has been ostracized by the ladies of the town due to an assumed reputation.
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Director and screenwriter Tate Taylor really hits a bullseye here as he constructs a balanced story that looks at the issue at hand from all angles. On one hand, we have the Hilly Holbrooks of the world treating the Minnys like dirt for no other reason that because of the color of their skin. On the other hand, we have Celia, who seems blind to the whole bigotry thing. All she wants from Minny is a perfect house and perfect meals in order to please her husband without him knowing that Minny is doing all the work, but there is a twist here where Celia knows she would be lost without Minny and it's almost hard to tell who is the employer and who is the maid.
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Yes, the screenplay, based on a novel by Kathryn Stockett, is a little preachy and a little long-winded, but this quietly powerful indictment on the treatment of maids works because it not only shines the expected unflattering light on white folks in the 60's but shines a sad light on the way most of these women just quietly accepted their destinies as maids and how thinking about any other kind of life was just unheard of. There is a very sad moment when one of the maids Skeeter interviews reveals that after her first employer died, she left the maid to her daughter in her will, like she was a piece of property. The saddest part of this reveal was that the woman didn't seem terribly surprised to learn that she was considered a possession.
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And just when you think you couldn't be more moved by the plight of these women, the book actually gets published and, not surprisingly, most of the female employers recognize themselves and some of the repercussions from this are a lot of fun to watch.

Tate has assembled a first-rate cast who deliver the goods...Viola Davis is vividly unaffected as Aibileen, a performance that earned her a Lead Actress nomination. Octavia Spencer won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fiery performance as Minny and Jessica Chastain was also nominated for her warm and vulnerable Celia and I would have been fine with Chastain winning over Spencer, she is just as good. Mention should also be made of Bryce Dallas Howard, who is a revelation as the nasty Hilly and Allison Janney as Skeeter's mother. Mention should also be made of a pair of classy bits contributed by Sissy Spacek and Cicely Tyson.
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Gorgeous cinematography, effective 1960's settings and costumes (though I wonder about Stone's hair being appropriately period), and some lovely music are the frosting on this strikingly original piece of cinematic cake. 8.5/10

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Paul Thomas Anderson's evocative and in-your-face direction and multi-layered story, along with some charismatic performances by a dazzling all-star cast add up to make Boogie Nights, an engrossing and entertaining drama that was one of the biggest box-office hits of 1997.

Commencing in the year 1977, the film initially presents us the story of a 17-year old busboy at a California nightclub named Eddie (Mark Wahlberg) who is approached by an adult filmmaker named Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) to join his stable of performers. Due to Jack's coaching and Eddie's obvious physical "asset", Eddie becomes the toast of the porn industry under a new name, Dirk Diggler, but this story is really only the springboard of a broader story that casts a specific but jaundiced eye on the hedonistic, "me-gimme-mine" period known as the 1980's...a time when sex was safe and drugs were cool, and we were all going to be young forever.
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The story focuses on particular members of Jack's stable including Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), an aging porn queen, Jack's mistress, and the symbolic mother of all the young studs who work for Horner, who is so accustomed to her lot in life it's hard to tell whether or not she is actually happy, though her attraction to Dirk seems to be real...or is it? Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) is Jack's main stud who is immediately intimidated by Dirk who he feels is trying to take his place and he deals with it by kissing Dirk's ass without letting Dirk on to what he's doing. Rollergirl (Heather Graham) is a porn actress and prostitute who wants something more out of life but doesn't know how to get it. Buck (Don Cheadle) is an actor whose career is going nowhere due to his obsession with country and western music and wardrobe. William H. Macy plays Little Bill, Jack's assistant director, whose porno star wife has no qualms about public and private sex with other men directly in front of her husband and then there's Scotty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a grip on Jack's crew who has fallen madly in love with Dirk.
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After seeing Jack and his people climb to the top of the porn industry, we then see what happens with changing times and changing desires from the public in entertainment. We watch as porn goes deeply into the closet and Dirk is no longer the flavor of the month and is clueless what to do with his life. We watch as Jack learns that film is out and that videotape is the wave of the future and that his survival in the business depends on climbing aboard that bandwagon. We watch as Buck attempts to start his own legitimate business but finds his porno past throwing up roadblocks and we watch Amber and Rollergirl stuck in the limbo of a dying industry from which the only escape seems to be cocaine.

Anderson presents a balanced story on an intimate canvas that effectively showcases how changing times affect our lifestyles in positive and negative ways. Wahlberg is fresh and sincere as Dirk and Burt Reynolds' charismatic turn as Jack Horner earned him his first Oscar nomination. Moore also received a richly deserved supporting actress nomination and IMO she should have won. The film also features a musical soundtrack of some of the best music of the 1980's. A unique cinematic journey for the discriminating adult filmgoer. 8.5/10

[Daniel M]

Boogie Nights is one of my very favourite films, same with McCabe & Mrs. Miller, so I am glad you liked those two. Also a fan of American Psycho and Midnight in Paris :)

Agree that Julianne Moore should have been rewarded for her performance, one of the greatest I have seen as a truly flawed character who tries so hard to be a normal mother but is consumed by a lifestyle she can't get away from.

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A little Pauly Shore goes a long way, but I have to admit that the 1993 comedy Son-in-Law is a guilty pleasure of mine.

The film stars Carla Gugino as a girl who grew up on a farm who, during her first semester of college, asks the campus party animal (guess who?) to pose as her fiancee and come home with her for Thanksgiving in order to end her relationship with a local boy, but the guy immediately rubs her dad the wrong way while he quietly starts falling for her in the process.
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Though a little on the predictable side, the film does have a few things going for it, including an effervescent performance from Gugino as the farm girl who comes out of her shell thanks to Shore, developing a new independent spirit that her parents (Lane Smith, Cindy Pickett) aren't crazy about. There's also a solid performance from Smith as the dad who has decided that if this guy is going to be his son-in-law, he has to learn how to run a farm, which leads to the expected slapstick situations revolved around slopping pigs and driving a tractor.
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Again, your enjoyment of this film is definitely dependent on your tolerance of Shore, but I found his annoyance factor on the lower side of the scale here and loved Gugino and Smith. 6/10

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Denzel Washington's 100 mega-watt movie star performance playing a truly despicable character is the centerpiece of 2001's Training Day, an intense combination of police drama and character study that, despite the unflattering light it sheds on the police and some intensely squirm-worthy situations, will rivet you to the screen.

The film takes place on the first day of work on a new job for a narcotics officer named Jake Hoyt, played by Ethan Hawke, who is excited to begin training with a veteran officer named Alonzo Harris (Washington) who puts Hoyt in one compromising position after another from the moment they begin working together, including forcing the guy to smoke pot on the job, leaving him alone in the home of some dangerous drug dealers, and setting him up as the fall guy for a murder that Alonzo commits in order to get his hands on a large stash of cash.
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Dirty cops are nothing new to the movies, but Harris really redefines the term to the point of stretching credibility. Harris' manipulation of Hoyt seems almost like second nature to Harris, like it's something he's done a million times before and it is hard to believe that a cop THIS dirty has gone completely unpunished for as long as Harris has. He also has a small entourage of officers who are completely loyal to him and it makes you wonder what he might have done to them or what kind of dirt he has on them to keep them in his pocket. It's also unsettling when it is revealed that Harris not only has police in his pockets, but entire neighborhoods, one of which houses his girlfriend (Eve Mendes) and his infant son,. who he has no qualms about putting in danger to save his own neck.
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Washington completely invests in this complicated and unlikable character and was rewarded with his second Oscar for his efforts. Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, even though his role is really a lead. Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Nick Chinlund also score in supporting roles. Antoine Fuqua's intense direction is also a big plus. There's a whole lot of unpleasant stuff that goes on here and I still find it hard to believe at times that the entire movie takes place in one day. 7.5/10

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After my recent re-visit of Boogie Nights, I was motivated to check out a film with some similar themes, but not nearly as good. 54 is a glossy but substance-challenged look at the world's most famous nightclub, Studio 54 in Manhattan, where the regular folk mingled with the rich and famous and featured the best party favors in the world...endless champagne, cocaine for the asking, and sexual fantasies fulfilled from the balcony to the basement...all orchestrated by a mad genius named Steve Rubell.
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Written and directed by Mark Christopher, this film looks at the club through the eyes of a 19-year old gas station attendant named Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe), who catches Rubell's eye outside the club one night and we watch as Shane's body moves him from party guest to busboy to the ultimate job at Studio 54, bartender, a job where, at the time, the world was your oyster and you could get anything you wanted. The film follows Shane's bumpy journey for his piece of the 54 pie.
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But the far more interesting story presented here is the story of Steve Rubell (Mike Meyers), a smart and manipulative businessman who seemed to base his hiring practices on his physical attraction to his potential employees, as all busboys and bartenders worked shirtless, and whose manipulation of his famous "list" and his completely unpredictable nightly selection process of guests for the evening made this list the list that everyone wanted to get on and made Studio 54 the place where everyone wanted to be and where everyone wanted to spend their money, which would lead to Rubell's eventual downfall via the IRS.

Christopher's cliche-ridden screenplay asks us to accept a lot, like the fact that Shane seems oblivious to the fact that Rubell only hired him because he looks good without a shirt or that Shane's best friend/co-worker Greg (Breckin Meyer) doesn't see what's going on between his wife (Salma Hayek), a disco queen wannabe and Shane or why he continues working at 54 when he knows the only way to promotion is sex with the boss. These three characters unfortunately provide the bulk of the film and none them appear to have a brain in their head.
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What this film does have is a quietly brilliant performance by Mike Meyers as Steve Rubell, a richly complex and fascinating character who makes this film worth sitting through. Writer/director Christopher would have done better to focus more of this film on the club and on Rubell because those parts of the film work. When the story leaves the club and Rubell, the film becomes very hard to take. No argument that Ryan Phillippe does look great in various states of undress, but there's something about the performance that doesn't ring true. Breckin Meyer fares a little better but not much and Salma Hayek is just annoying (though she looks amazing). Neve Campbell is also wasted a soap star with whom Shane is obsessed.

This film was probably a really good idea on paper, but something was definitely lost in the execution. The film does have an expensive gloss and some great 80's disco music but that doesn't mask the fact that the film is really so much to do about nothing. 5/10

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Even though he showed promise as an actor of substance in his first major role in A Time to Kill, a phrase I never imagined passing my lips was "Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey", but the phrase has become a reality thanks to the actor's powerhouse performance in a disturbing yet riveting drama called Dallas Buyers Club.

This is a fact-based story revolving around an alcoholic, cocaine-sniffing, womanizing, homophobic electrician named Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) who is floored when he learns he has contracted AIDS and has been informed he has 30 days to live. Refusing to accept this diagnosis, Woodroof travels to Mexico and finds a drug that helps to sustain his life and then decides to purchase as much of the drug as he can and return to his hometown of Dallas and start a business selling the drug to other AIDS victims, through the ruse of a club membership where the monthly dues pay for all the medication needed.

Directed Jean-Marc Vallee presents us with an ugly and mean-spirited story that was not an easy watch, not just because of the sensitive subject matter, but also because the central character is totally unlikable and evokes no sympathy. I found nothing to root for in the character of Ron Woodroof, with the possible exception of the relationship that develops between him and a transvestite named Rayon (Jared Leto), another AIDS victim who becomes Woodroof's unlikely partner in this morally questionable business venture.

Matthew McConaughey delivers the performance of a lifetime that won him a richly deserved Oscar. The physical transformation that McConaughey underwent to make this character believable is astounding, the actor is practically unrecognizable and doesn't even begin to resemble the actor that PEOPLE magazine once voted the Sexiest Man Alive. The actor sheds any pretense of glamour or ego to provide a fascinating yet repugnant central character who I could never quite like, and I'm not sure as to whether or not that was the intention.

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Jared Leto, who now tops my list as cinema's greatest chameleon, won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his effervescent yet heartbreaking Rayon, a character who evokes immediate sympathy and confusion as you wonder how he puts up with Woodroof. Leto gives a performance as a transgendered individual that is right up there with Felicity Huffman in Transamerica and Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game, an absolutely fascinating performance where you almost forget you're watching an actor playing a character.

Mention should also be made of Jennifer Garner and Denis O'Hare as doctors whose loyalties become divided due to their encounters with Woodroof, Michael O'Neill as a customs agent, and Steve Zahn as a cop and friend of Woodroof's.

The film also boasts an uncompromising screenplay by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack and outstanding film editing by the director and Martin Pensa, but it is the Oscar winning work from McConaughey and Leto that make this film appointment movie-viewing. 9/10

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Some effective bi-coastal scenery, a riveting story steeped in realism, some offbeat casting choices, and an extremely flawed but nevertheless fascinating central character are the primary ingredients of a very black comedy from the word processor and directorial eye of Woody Allen called Blue Jasmine.

This 2013 film stars Cate Blanchett as Jasmine French, the former pampered, trophy wife of a crooked New York businessman (Alec Baldwin) who cheated on her with numerous women and ended up committing suicide in jail, who finds herself starting over by moving to San Francisco and moving in with her unsophisticated sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and her two sons until she can get on her feet again. She has decided to study interior decorating online but has to take a computer class in order to do it, but to pay the bills, she hesitantly accepts a job as a dental receptionist. This is just the beginning of another loopy and unconventional story from the mind of Woody Allen that takes all of the unaccustomed twists and turns we expect from Woody.
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I found this film almost instantly wreaking havoc with my emotions primarily because the character of Jasmine is just not that likable. She is spoiled and self-absorbed and thinks she's better than everyone else and is an ingrate to the people who are now trying to help her, especially Ginger. She becomes less appealing as the story reveals that she was aware of her husband's shady business dealings and turned a blind eye to them, even when the money of people she cared about was involved, including Ginger. There's a point in the story where Jasmine meets the possible man of her dreams (Peter Sarsgaard), but we know the relationship is doomed because everything Jasmine tells the man about herself is a lie and in a wonderful karmic justice, her lies do catch up to her.

Despite my issues with Jasmine, I still found her fascinating to watch due to a crisp and charismatic performance from Blacnhett which won her a second Academy Award. Blanchett works very hard at making an unlikable character at least watchable and she succeeds for the most part. Alec Baldwin, who has gotten playing slimy characters down to a science, proves why he is so good at it here, a character who only appears in flashbacks and Sally Hawkins creates a vivid and heartbreaking character in Ginger, a better sister than Jasmine deserves. Kudos to Allen for digging up Andrew Dice Clay to play Ginger's first husband, who has always seen Jasmine for exactly who she is. Bobby Cannavale also scores as Ginger's second boyfriend as does Alden Ehrenreich as Jasmine's stepson. Sarsgaard is all kinds of sexy as the man who almost falls for Jasmine's lies.
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As always, Woody has backed his story with some wonderful music and despite a somewhat ambiguous ending that didn't leave our heroine smelling like a rose, it did not deter from my enjoyment of the film because, frankly, our heroine did not deserve to come out smelling like a rose. 7.5/10

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The 2010 comedy Grown Ups took me back to a time when Frank Sinatra and his rat pack would make glossy but pointless movies like Ocean's Eleven and Robin and the Seven Hoods because they were bored and because they had the juice to get a movie made without studio backing.

Here, the Rat Pack is replaced by the Adam Sandler rep company, under the breezy directorial eye of Dennis Dugan. The story, such as it is, follows five guys who were on the same basketball team when they were 12 years old who have reunited for the funeral of their coach (Brian Doyle Murray).
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Sandler plays Lenny, a Hollywood agent married to a fashion designer (Salma Hayek) with two pampered sons who are all about video games. Kevin James plays Larry, an unemployed family man married who is torn by the fact that his wife (Maria Bello) is still breast-feeding his 4 year old son. Chris Rock is a stay-at-home husband who is emasculated by his working pregnant wife (Maya Rudolph) and a nasty mother-in-law (Ebony Jo-Ann). David Spade is an obnoxious bachelor obsessed with sex and Rob Schneider is a message therapist/health nut married to a much older woman (Joyce Van Patten).

The episodic comedy goes to a lot of expected and unexpected places like Lenny tricking his wife into staying for the event instead of going to fashion week in Milan or Spade lusting after Schneider's two nubile grown daughters, but sporadic laughs can be found, even if the whole thing goes on a little too long.
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Sandler and Fred Wolf also wrote the screenplay, which definitely could have used some tightening and the film has about two too many endings, but the ensemble cast works really well together and really seem to be enjoying themselves. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have never enjoyed Rob Schneider onscreen more than I did in this film. Joyce Van Patten makes the most her of screentime as well. Mention should also be made of Colin Quinn and Steve Buscemi as childhood enemies of the guys who demand a rematch on the basketball court. No classic, but Dugan, Sandler, and company manage to mine more than their share of laughs from the paper-thin story. 5.5/10

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Reese Witherspoon's ability to carry a film on her personal charisma is put to the ultimate test in a 2002 comedy called Sweet Home Alabama.

Witherspoon's Melanie is a sophisticated New Yorker with an exciting career who has just become engaged to the son (Patrick Dempsey) of the mayor of New York (Candice Bergen) who learns that she is still married to her first husband, Jake (Josh Lucas) and has to travel to her hometown down south in order to get his signature on divorce papers.

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C.J. Cox's screenplay is a little confusing as it doesn't seem to know whether or not we should be sympathetic to our heroine's plight. On one side, we see Melanie's ex Jake do everything to put Melanie off by refusing to sign the papers initially. On the other hand, we see Melanie returning home to a life and family and friends that she seems to be ashamed of, placing her in a very unflattering light. Family is family and geography and a job change don't change that and Melanie's attitude regarding same puts the character under a very unflattering light and suddenly I didn't find myself feeling bad for her when Jake refused to just give her what she wanted and let her go.
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Despite Melanie's leanings toward selfishness and arrogance, Witherspoon does manage to infuse some semblance of likability into the character. Josh Lucas is very sexy as Jake and Patrick Dempsey is appropriately anal as Melanie's straight-laced fiancee. Jean Smart scores as Jake's mother as do Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place as Melanie's parents. Andy Tennant's somewhat pedestrian direction is forgivable thanks to an extremely likable cast. 3

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After winning the 1975 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Sunshine Boys, George Burns was Hollywood's "it" guy and was making movie after movie and one of the best of this brief resurgence of Burns' movie career was a little something called Oh God!.

The 1977 comic fantasy starred singer John Denver, in his first movie role, as Jerry Landers, the assistant manager of a supermarket whose life is changed forever when God appears to him in the form of a little old man with thick glasses, a windbreaker and a golf cap. God explains to Jerry that the world seems to be under the impression that he's dead and he has picked Jerry to convince the world that God is still alive and kicking. Unfortunately, the mission that God sends Jerry on puts him in some embarrassing and hard-to-explain situations that find Jerry struggling to hold onto his family and his freedom, as his sanity has now been brought into question.
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With comedy icon Carl Reiner in the directorial chair, laughs are furnished throughout, but my issues are primarily with Larry Gelbart's screenplay...I don't like the way God kept putting Jerry in these weird and unexplainable situations and not having Jerry's back when he needed it. Yes, the comedy here doesn't work unless Jerry is the only one who can see and hear God, but for God to watch Jerry's life pretty much get destroyed in his name was a little troublesome to me.
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Burns is charming though and Denver brings a nice everyman quality to the role of Jerry. Teri Garr is also fun as Jerry's wife. It's no classic but there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes and the fact that the leads are no longer with us brings an added richness to what's going on. The film also inspired two sequels. 3

[Swan]

Hey Gideon. You sure write a lot of reviews. Can you do one for me? Review the movie Satantango.

*Gideon begins watching 7 hour long Satantango*

*He forgets to get up and do anything*

*The movie kills him*

You're dead!

[Gideon58]

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Paul Mazursky's evocative direction, his uncompromising screenplay and a dazzling Oscar-nominated performance from Jill Clayburgh make the 1978 comedy drama An Unmarried Woman appointment viewing. The story is definitely nothing new, but what is new here is an unconventional leading female character whose reactions to what she is going through actually appear to be vivid and sincere at the same time.
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Clayburgh shines as Erica, the pampered and wealthy wife of an important businessman named Martin (Michael Murphy) for 16 years who is completely thrown when he announces that he is leaving Erica for a much younger woman. What is unique here is that Mazursky's direction and screenplay seems to try to evoke sympathy for Martin by having him deliver the news through a barrage of tears and apologies, which makes what he's doing come off even more slimy than it is.

We then watch Erica trying to adjust to single life as well as being the kind of mother her daughter (Lisa Lucas) requires. The evolution of the Erica character is a joy to watch because this is a woman who has been taken care of all her life and lived her life as a Manhattan socialite in a vacuum who after getting the proverbial wind knocked out of her, learns to accept that there is life after Martin and that said life doesn't necessarily involve another man.
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Clayburgh knocks it out of the park here, creating a full-bodied character who is alternately unpredictable and endlessly entertaining, evoking sympathy from the viewer but never pity. Clayburgh was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress and was robbed IMO. Michael Murphy is very effective in an extremely unlikable role as are Cliff Gorman and Alan Bates as the new men in Erica's life. Lisa Lucas is a revelation as Erica's daughter, Patti, and Linda Smith, Carole Bishop, and Pat Quinn are also fun as Erica's drinking buddies, but this is Clayburgh and Mazursky's show and they run with it. 4

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Tom Hanks is one of those actors who can make even the most lame film watchable and never was this more evident than with the 1989 comedy Turner and Hooch.
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Hanks plays Scott Turner, a police detective and neat freak who finds himself "adopting" a huge, slobbering dog named Hooch who belonged to a murder victim and was the only witness to the murder so Turner takes the dog into his home hoping at some point that the dog, named Hooch, might lead Turner to the murderer.

I remember first seeing this film and thinking it was a little weird that this detective thought this dog could actually solve this murder, but there is a wonderful scene where Hooch does actually see the murderer and loses it. The chase that ensues is first rate entertainment as are the scenes of Turner bringing Hooch into his house and how Hooch systematically begins to destroy Turner's house and how his efforts to "dog-proof" his house prove to be futile.
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Another major selling point to this film is this dog...Hooch is absolutely awesome and from what I understand, several dogs were utilized to make this film, but what appears onscreen is the most lovable and fun dog I have seen in years. Everyone should have their own Hooch. I saw an interview once with Tom Hanks once where he claimed that, even though the film was not one of his bigger hits, he learned more about the art of acting and movie making when he did this movie, which definitely piqued my curiosity about seeing it.

Roger Spottiswoode's direction is a little on the pedestrian side, but Reginald Veljohnson is fun as Turner's partner and Craig T. Nelson is an effective villain. Mare Winningham is wasted as a veterinarian who begins a tentative relationship with Turner, but Hanks and this amazing dog make this film worth a look. 2.5

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Woman of the Year was a sparkling 1942 comedy that introduced what was, arguably, cinema's greatest onscreen couple...Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

The film follows the romance and eventual marriage between a society columnist named Tess Harding and a sportswriter named Sam Craig but it is not the story that's the issue here. The issue is the chemistry between two characters who on the surface should have absolutely nothing in common. The scene where Sam takes Tess to a baseball game and tries to instruct her regarding the game is a classic in itself.
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Fay Bainter and Reginald Owen register in supporting roles and George Stevens' spirited direction is another plus, but it is the magic created by Tracy and Hepburn that is so special that the couple appeared in eight more films over the next three decades. This little piece of cinematic history is definitely worth checking out. The film was re-imagined in 1957 as Designing Woman and was turned into a Broadway musical decades later with Lauren Bacall in the starring role in both. 3.5

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Selena was the lavish and slightly pretentious 1977 musical biography of the Texas-born Tejano singer who was approaching success as a crossover artist when she was brutally murdered by her fan club president.

Jennifer Lopez had her first significant screen role as Selena Quintanilla, the Texas-born singer, who apparently had an untapped musical gift that was discovered by her father (Edward James Olmos), who pretty much shoved a microphone into his little girl's hand when his own band, The Dinos, were no longer able to find work. Selena's father reminded me a lot of Mama Rose in the musical Gypsy...the man clearly had a passion for music and longed for a career that never happened and is now trying to live out said career vicariously through his children. We watch as dad forces Selana's brother to learn guitar and her sister to play drums to back up Selena as lead singer.
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The film details Selena's meteroic rise the top, despite her father's efforts to keep her his little girl and to embrace her Tejano heritage...two things that Selena and her father fought about constantly. Selena's fame is such that the hiring of a fan club president becomes necessary, which, sadly ends up being the beginning of the end for Selena.

The film has expensive visual trappings and Selena's life is laid before us in loving detail...perhaps a little too much detail as the film is overlong, but the film does feature the perfect marriage of actress and character in Jennifer Lopez in the title role. Unfortunately, this was the only time this has happened with Lopez, who, for my money, hasn't really made a decent movie since. Edward James Olmos is effective as Selena's father, as are Jacob Vargas as Selena's brother, Abie and Jon Seda as Chris, a guitarist in the band who eventually becomes Selena's husband.
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Director/writer Gregory Nava's love for the title character is apparent in the mounting of this story, even if it paints Selena as this side of Mother Theresa and as naive young waif being manipulated by the music world, but it does provide an intimate look at a talented singer, just on the cusp of superstardom, who was taken from us much too soon. 3

[christine]

Given you lots of rep there Gideon for the lovely range of films you have there :)

[Gideon58]

Given you lots of rep there Gideon for the lovely range of films you have there :)
Thank you, Christine.

[Gideon58]

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A larger-than-life performance by Joan Crawford is the primary selling point of 1953's Torch Song, a glossy, but substance-challenged melodrama with music that is also bookmarked in cinematic history as Crawford's first film in technicolor.
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Crawford chews up the scenery here as Jenny Stewart, a bitchy Broadway diva who finds herself in immediate conflict with Tye Graham (Michael Wilding), the blind pianist who has been hired for her latest show and because this is the first person who inexplicably is not intimidated by Jenny, she finds herself developing feelings for him, which she tries to deny and is shocked to learn that he doesn't feel the same way about her.

Crawford can play this type of role in her sleep and her performance here is a lot of fun and Michael Wilding had what is arguably the best role of his sporadic career as her reluctant love interest. Mention should also be made of a lovely supporting turn by Marjorie Rambeau as Jenny's mother.
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Crawford's singing is dubbed by India Adams and one of the song tracks utilized in the film, "New Sun in the Sky", was also used for Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon. Decades later, the two numbers were shown side by side in That's Entertainment III.

An underrated gem from MGM studios that Crawford fans will eat up. The film was even spoofed by Carol Burnett on her variety show. 6/10

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A classic in every sense of the word, His Girl Friday was a zany and fast-paced 1940 comedy that sparkles thanks to Howard Hawks' energetic direction and three great movie stars at the top of their form.
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Cary Grant lights up the screen as Walter Burns, a newspaper editor who is in denial about his feelings regarding his ex, Hildy (Rosalind Russell) quitting her job as his star reporter and becoming engaged to a milquetoast (Ralph Bellamy) and in an effort to get her to reconsider, assigns her to the story of the century, the execution of a criminal who might be innocent of the crime he was accused of.

This is the second of 4 adaptations of The Front Page and is probably the best, thanks to Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer's witty screenplay and the stars lightening-quick delivery of the razor-sharp dialogue, Grant and Russell are marvelous together and I don't think Ralph Bellamy was ever seen to better advantage onscreen up to this point.
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Don't miss this classic that entertains from start to finish. Remade in 1974 as The Front Page with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and again in 1988 as Siwtching Channels with Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner. 8/10

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An over-the-top but still watchable performance from Christian Bale does make the 2005 drama Harsh Times worth a look.

Bale plays Jim Davis, a pot-smoking loser who has applied to the LAPD police academy but is offered a job overseas working as a drug enforcement officer. He decides to celebrate his new job by taking a road trip to Mexico with his friends, Mike (Freddy Rodriguez) and Toussant (Chake Foreman), where things go from bad to worse.
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Writer/director David Ayer has mounted a pointless and unappealing story with characters who evoke neither sympathy nor empathy. Jim and Mike are really kind of pathetic characters who it's really hard to care about. Jim spends a lot of screentime trying to figure out how to pass a drug test after smoking pot and Mike has friends calling his house, pretending to be potential employers in order to fool his wife (Eva Longoria) into thinking he's out looking for a job instead of hanging out with Jim getting high.
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Rodriguez and Longoria are wasted in what are pretty much thankless roles. This movie has a very straight-to-video feel to it and there are definitely better ways to spend two hours, but Christian Bale's performance does make it worth a look. 2.5

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Clint Eastwood had a major triumph as actor and director with 2008's Gran Torino, an intense and compelling urban drama and character study that flawlessly blends believable characters with humor and pathos.

Nick Schenk and Dave Johannson's screenplay centers on Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) a retired military veteran and virtual hermit who lives in a dangerous urban neighborhood and actually growls at strangers approaching his property who finds himself developing a relationship with an Asian youth who tried to steal his prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino and his sister, who he saved from being sexually assaulted. Unfortunately, Walt's relationship with these two teens gets him in the middle of a serious conflict with a very dangerous Asian gang.
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The story is not a pleasant one, but what makes this film so fascinating is the character that director/actor Eastwood has created in Walt Kowalski, a sort of contemporary Archie Bunker who has spent years trying to live in this world by himself but finds himself re-entering the human race via the relationship with these two kids and their entire family. The scene where he goes to dinner at their house and has to deal with a house full of Asians who don't speak English is so funny.
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Eastwood has blended sharp humor with in-your-face violence so effectively here that you can't help but be drawn in. Eastwood also delivers a performance that should have earned him an Oscar nomination. A startling and fascinating character study with an unsettling but understandable denoument. 4

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Despite a somewhat original comedic premise and a pair of effective lead performances, the 2013 comedy Identity Thief provides sporadic laughs but doesn't sustain interest until the closing credits.

The film stars Jason Bateman as Sandy Patterson, a financial accountant who lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife (Amanda Peet), two daughters and a third on the way, who, while stopping to get gas at a convenience store, finds out that all his credit cards have been maxed out and eventually learns that his identity has been stolen by a woman named Diana (Melissa McCarthy) in Winter Park, Florida. In order to retrieve his identity and his job, Sandy decides to travel to Florida and bring Diana back to Denver himself, leading to a road trip that becomes very complicated due to Diana's criminal past, resulting in three bounty hunters who want Diana more than Sandy does.
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Bateman once again utilizes his gift for playing tight-ass characters and McCarthy, as expected is very funny, but this film suffers due to Craig Mazin's overly complex screenplay that results in a film that is about 45 minutes longer than it needs to be. The road trip adventures that Sandy and Diana experience are nothing new and I just didn't buy the evolution of Sandy and Diana's relationship, considering the fact that Diana pretty much destroyed Sandy's life, which made the third act of the film pretty hard to endure.
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Some first rate actors are featured in supporting roles including Robert Patrick, Jon Favreau, Morris Chestnut, John Cho, and a very funny cameo by Eric Stonestreet as a rich cowboy who lusts after Diana in a bar and Peet is wasted as Sandy's wife, but this movie goes on way too long and the ending just left a bad taste in my mouth. Director Seth Gordon had much better luck with Horrible Bosses. 2

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Lily Tomlin's ability to carry a film by herself was put to the ultimate test with 1981's The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Tomlin's comic reworking of the 1957 classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, written by Tomlin's lover/collaborator Jane Wagner, based on the novel by Richard Matheson.

Tomlin plays Pat Kramer, a housewife and mother who finds herself actually shrinking due to her exposure to various chemicals around her home and how her family deals with the phenomena.
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Wagner's screenplay is a little on the preachy side, shoving a message regarding ecology and the danger of chemicals down our throats ad nauseum, but the comic surface of the film almost makes the message tolerable.

Tomlin is fun as Pat and also appears as two characters she played on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Judith Beasley, who appears here as Pat's nosy neighbor and, of course, Ernestine the Telephone Operator. Charles Grodin is charming as Pat's husband and Henry Gibson and Elizabeth Wilson are effective as the villains of the piece.
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Joel Schumacher's direction is a little on the pedestrian side but Tomlin's onscreen charisma and some inventive art direction and special effects do make the film worth checking out. 3

[Gideon58]

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Despite the presence of Tom Hanks in the lead role and Steven Spielberg in the director's chair, the 2004 comedy-drama The Terminal provided more aggravation for me than what I believe were the intended emotions the film was intended to produce.

Hanks plays Vikctor Navorski, an Eastern European immigrant who flies to New York to start a new life, but upon his arrival at JFK airport, learns that because of issues with his immigration status, he is not allowed to step foot on American soil. He decides to return to his country but learns he can't do that either because war has broken out in the country. Vikctor is finally made to understand that he has no choice but to remain inside JFK airport, where he actually has to take up residence and survive.
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This story is meant to tug at heartstrings and it does initially because Vikctor speaks and understands very little English and sympathy is immediately evoked because of this, but aggravation begins as we watch Vikctor get little or no sympathy from the other characters in the movie, particularly the airport's immigration official, Frank Dixon, beautifully played by Stanley Tucci, who finds himself torn because he can offer no help to the man; however, Vikctor's presence in the airport is becoming a stumbling block in Frank getting a major promotion. Meanwhile, we watch poor Vikctor figure out his own personal hustles in order to eat and sleeping on airport chairs at night, getting different degrees of help from three airport employees (Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Barry Shabaka Henley) and being attracted to a flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who though, sympathetic to his plight, really does nothing to help him.

I just found this whole story really difficult to swallow. I cannot believe that American bureaucracy and red tape would put a harmless man in such a position and do absolutely nothing to help him. Not only do they nothing to help him, but they keep throwing up obstacles to actually impede his survival. This movie made me ashamed to be an American.
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Spielberg, master cinematic storyteller that he is, has put his eloquent directorial touch on this very unpleasant story and Hanks is surprisingly convincing as a non-American. Tucci somehow manages to imbuse a semblance of likability into his character but Zeta-Jones' role is thankless.

Despite impressive production values and a cinematic pedigree that cannot be ignored, the only emotions evoked from this film were anger and aggravation. 2.5

[gbgoodies]

Despite the presence of Tom Hanks in the lead role and Steven Spielberg in the director's chair, the 2004 comedy-drama The Terminal provided more aggravation for me than what I believe were the intended emotions the film was intended to produce.

. . .

I just found this whole story really difficult to swallow. I cannot believe that American bureaucracy and red tape would put a harmless man in such a position and do absolutely nothing to help him. Not only do they nothing to help him, but they keep throwing up obstacles to actually impeded his survival. This movie made me ashamed to be an American.



I realize that this movie is hard to believe, but it's partially inspired by the 17-year-stay of Mehran Karimi Nasseri in the Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Terminal I, Paris, France from 1988 to 2006. So it's not "American bureaucracy and red tape", it's French bureaucracy and red tape.

In September 2003, The New York Times noted that Steven Spielberg had bought the rights to his life story as the basis for The Terminal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

[Gideon58]

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Writer/director Cameron Crowe knocked it out of the park with 2000's Almost Famous, a biting and effervescent comedy-drama that takes a lot of the subject matter so humorously addressed by Rob Reiner in This is Spinal Tap and looks at it in a more realistic yet equally entertaining manner.

Based on a real life experience of Crowe's, this is the story of a 15 year old aspiring writer named William Miller who is given the opportunity to write a story for ROLLING STONE magazine about his favorite rock band called Stillwater and ends up actually going on tour with the band, despite their complete distrust of the press. We watch as William tries to get to the genesis of what makes his favorite band tick while simultaneously becoming caught up in a convoluted love triangle with the band's lead guitarist, Russell Hammond and a fun-loving groupie who calls herself Penny Lane.
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This film is a quietly accurate examination of the world of rock and roll, the business behind the business, the fragile egos of the artists involved and the media's sometimes ruthless manipulation of the people involved for the sake of selling newspapers and magazines. We also get to see the public's take on the world of rock and roll through the eyes of William's over-possessive mother, who thinks Stillwater has kidnapped her son.

Newcomer Patrick Fugit lights up the screen as young William and Billy Crudup hits all the right notes as the sincere but troubled Russell Hammond, who seems to be in crisis about Stillwater and his commitment to the group. Goldie Hawn's daughter, Kate Hudson, made an impressive film debut as Penny Lane and Frances McDormand is wonderful as William's mother who spends the film freaking everyone out in her quest to get her son to come home. Hudson and McDormand both received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
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Jason Lee also scores as Stillwater's hypersensitive lead singer, as do Zooey Deschanel as William's older sister, Fairuza Balk as another groupie and Noah Taylor as the band's new manager. Standout scenes include a memorable bus ride accompanied by Elton John and a scene on a plane carrying the band which they think is going to crash and all the band members start confessing secrets they planned to carry to their graves. I also loved the scene where the band discovers they are going to be on the cover of ROLLING STONE.

An incisive and entertaining look at the world of rock and roll with tremendous re-watch appeal. A winner. 8.5/10

[Gideon58]

I realize that this movie is hard to believe, but it's partially inspired by the 17-year-stay of Mehran Karimi Nasseri in the Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Terminal I, Paris, France from 1988 to 2006. So it's not "American bureaucracy and red tape", it's French bureaucracy and red tape.

In September 2003, The New York Times noted that Steven Spielberg had bought the rights to his life story as the basis for The Terminal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri
OK, it's French red tape instead of American red tape, but it doesn't change my opinion about this movie.

[Gideon58]

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Adam Sandler provides a more mature variation on his angry man-child character and succeeds for the most part in a comic fantasy from 2006 called Click, which actually borrows from classics like A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life in a story that does provide laughs despite some gaps in logic and continuity.

Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic architect and family man who goes to Bed, Bath, and Beyond one night to buy a universal remote control and upon arrival, enters a door marked "The Beyond" where he encounters Morty (Christopher Walken), who gives Michael a remote that is literally a universal remote that allows Michael to control everything in his universe with the same functions that appear on a remote, such as fast forward, rewind, pause, and skip.
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Initially, Michael enjoys the perk of such a tool like fast forwarding through boring family dinners and silencing her wife's big mouth BFF (Jennifer Coolidge) but things become complicated when the remote starts to act automatically after Michael fast forwards through a year of his life when he learns that his slimy, skirt-chasing boss (David Hasselhoff) took a year to promote him to partner after landing a major client but then the remote fast forwards Michael through the end of his marriage, his father's death, and his son's wedding.

The film has a few points in logic that we just must accept. I was troubled by the fact that some of the functions of the remote were really functions that would appear on a DVD and not a remote, such as commentaries and a "Making of" feature, which actually brought Michael back to the night he was conceived, but if you can look past this, there is a lot of fun to be had here.
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Sandler's character is very likable and he gives a charming performance and works well with Kate Beckinsale as his wife, Donna. Walken offers another of his loopy characterizations and Hasselhoff is surprisingly sleazy as Michael's boss. Sean Astin also appears as his son's former swimming coach who ends up remarrying Donna in the future and Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner are wonderful as Michael's parents. The scene where Michael goes back to the last time he saw his father before he died is very touching.

Yes, the ending is a bit of a cop-out, but the journey to it is a very entertaining one thanks to Frank Coraci's sharp direction, some imaginative visual effects and one of Adam Sandler's most charming performances. 8/10

[Gideon58]

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Back in 1974, MGM studios decided to capitalize on their past as the creator of the greatest movie musicals ever made with a sparkling compilation package called That's Entertainment!, a title borrowed from a song featured in the 1953 musical The Band Wagon.

The film features a brief history of MGM studios and then graces us with dozens of the greatest musical numbers ever featured. These scenes are introduced with eleven hosts, ten of which had careers at MGM and one whose mother was an MGM legend and made her film debut as a toddler in one of her mother's films.
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The various segments in the film are hosted by Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Peter Lawford, Donald O' Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, and Liza Minnelli. Sadly, only two of these stars are still with us.
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Astaire introduces clips of Kelly's work and vice versa. James Stewart offers brief MGM history and introduces a clip of himself actually singing in Born to Dance. Donald O' Connor hosts a tribute to Esther Williams and Taylor, Lawford, SInatra, Crosby, Reynolds, and Rooney introduce clips of themselves and, of course, Liza Minnelli introduces a well-selected group of musical numbers performed by her mother, the iconic Judy Garland.

For the nostalgia buff in all of us and lovers of movie musicals, this is a must. Followed by two sequels. 3.5

[gbgoodies]

I'm not a fan of Adam Sandler, but your review made Click sound like a fun movie. I never thought I would say this about an Adam Sandler movie, but I might give this movie a try one night.

[Gideon58]

I'm not a fan of Adam Sandler, but your review made Click sound like a fun movie. I never thought I would say this about an Adam Sandler movie, but I might give this movie a try one night.
If the truth be told, I was surprised that I liked Click as much as I did...and I like Adam Sandler.

[Gideon58]

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1982's Airplane II: The Sequel is an amusing follow-up to the 1980 classic that, though funny, is not as consistent as the first film and I think it has a lot to due with the fact that the Zucker brothers, the creators of the first film, had nothing to do with this one.

Writer/director Ken Finkelman has mounted a similar story, set in the future aboard a computer-operated space shuttle that is making its maiden voyage to the sun, while our hero, Ted Striker (Robert Hays) is on trial for his sanity after what happened in the first film. Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) is now the computer technician for the space flight and is engaged to marry Simon (Chad Everett), the pilot for the shuttle. As expected, circumstances once again find Striker at the controls of the space shuttle as the shuttle's computer goes haywire , not to mention the presence of a psycho(Sonny Bono) on board with a bomb.
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Finkelman's film does provide laughs but they are not original at all....everything he does here storywise is either lifted from the first film or from other films, giving the proceedings a pervading "been there done that" atmosphere, but I cannot deny that there are laughs here.
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The chemistry between Hays and Hagerty is still strong and Everett's stone-faced personna perfectly suits his character. Peter Graves returns again as Captain Oveur, as does Lloyd Bridges as Steve McCroskey. Show biz veterans like Raymond Burr, Rip Torn, John Dehner, and William Shatner also score in supporting roles. The film is funny, but is only a pale imitation of the first film. 2.5

[Gideon58]

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2013's Saving Mr. Banks is, for the most part, a deliciously entertaing fact-based story that blends a showbusiness backstage story with a biography that works for the most part, even though the thread connecting the two stories might have been revealed a little sooner into the story.

This film is a look at the mounting of the 1964 classic Mary Poppins and the battle of wills Walt Disney went through with the author of the books from which the character was taken, P L Travers, in order to secure the rights to the character in order to make the film, something he promised his daughters he would do. The film beautifully chronicles Disney's tireless efforts to make the film that he wants to make and how it is in complete and direct conflict with Travers' vision of the character.
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For those who are fans of Mary Poppins, this film will alternately fascinate and aggravate as we watch Mrs. Travers fight every single thing that Disney and his production team want to do to bring the character to the screen while simultaneously delivering flashbacks to Travers' childhood, which slowly reveal why Travers has so many issues with Disney's vision for the film.

This film works very hard at connecting these two interesting stories which could have both made separate movies and frankly, I found the portion of the movie that focuses on Disney and Travers and their battles over the movie more interesting than the flashbacks to Travers' childhood, but the flashbooks do provide insight into why Travers was so unhappy with what Disney wanted to do with the film.
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Mary Poppins is my favorite movie of all time so I knew I was going to be on board with whatever I learned here, but I did find it odd that everything Travers is seen initially objecting to did end up on the screen. I do love the scene where she is introduced to the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite", which was the beginning of Travers acceptance of the film because it spoke to the root of her problem with the screenplay.
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Tom Hanks brings a lovely warmth to the role of Walt Disney that reveals his complete understanding of the man, but it is the crisp and articulate performance by Emma Thompson as the tightly wound P L Travers that really makes this film work...we don't understand why Travers is so inflexible regarding the story, despite the fact that it is revealed in the opening scene that she is broke and really needs the money selling the rights would provide for her. Thompson is brilliant as we watch Travers bristle over "Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious" or her complete inflexibility regarding the penguins being animated in the "Jolly Holiday" scene, but Thompson really shines in the scene where Travers is watching the completed film at the premiere and how she completely nails the conflicted emotions Travers feels as she really wants to hate what she's watching but really can't deny that the audience around her is loving what they are seeing. And from what I have read, Travers did not like the film as much as she is depicted liking it here, but for this movie, I can forgive that.

Mention should also be made of a lovely performance by Colin Farrell as Travers' father in the flashback scenes, as well as solid work from Bradley Whitford as Poppins screenwriter Don DiGradi, BJ Novak and Jason Schwartzman as the Sherman brothers, who wrote the music for the film, and Paul Giamatti as Travers' driver, "the only American she likes."
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John Lee Hancock's detailed direction and the carefully structured screenplay are the finishing touches to this very special movie and if you're a Mary Poppins fan like me, this movie is appointment viewing. 4

[The Gunslinger45]

Glad you liked the movie. I know you love Mary Poppins so I was hoping when you finally saw it you would like it.

[Gideon58]

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Cary Grant's effortless screen charisma was the primary selling point of a 1964 comedy called Father Goose.
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Grant lights up the screen as Walter, a beachcomber who lives on an isolated south seas island who has been recruited by the military to spot enemy aircraft during World War II, where he is allowed to pretty much live like a hermit and drink to his heart's content who finds his quiet existence disrupted by the arrival of a teacher (Leslie Caron) and seven young girls who have become shipwrecked on the same island as Walter.
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Peter Stone's screenplay, which seems to have been tailored to Grant's comic sensibilities, actually won an Academy Award, but it's not just the screenplay that works here, but the offbeat choice of character for Grant as well. Grant was always known as being suave, urbane, and sophisticated onscreen, but Grant took a calculated risk here playing a character the polar opposite of his traditional onscreen image...Walter is unshaven, slovenly, crude, self-absorbed, and a bit of a sexist and having such a character interacting with a straight-laced teacher and a group of young girls produced comic gold.
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Grant offers one his best performances here and his chemistry with Caron is surprisingly solid, considering the vast difference in their ages. I guess it isn't an issue here because the relationship between the two characters is more combative than romantic and Caron somehow manages to hold her own against a cinematic legend who, even though he would make his final film appearance three years later, proved that he still had the chops to carry a movie by himself, but he gets help here from an offbeat character, an unusual story, and breezy direction from Ralph Nelson. 4

[Daniel M]

Good reviews as per usual Gideon. Airplane! is one of my favourite comedies, I have seen it many times this year after only first watching it late last year, I believe, I'm yet to see the sequel and you review reminds why I'm not in a rush, I'll probably find it enjoyable and get round to it one day though. Saving Mr. Banks is one of the more well known films that I didn't see last year, but it also looks like something I would enjoy. I'm a big fan of Cary Grant from what I have seen, so I should really get around to seeing more of his films too.

[Gideon58]

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A compelling, if slightly overly complex story, polished and professional direction by John Schlesinger, and a pair of brilliant lead performances combine to make the 1976 film Marathon Man an absolute must-see.
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The film stars Dustin Hoffman as Babe, a highly intelligent graduate student who finds himself embroiled in the middle of an international conspiracy involving a cache of diamonds and a former Nazi war criminal named Szell (Laurence Olivier).
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William Goldman's screenplay, based on his own novel, is a bit on the complex side, but the complexity can almost be forgiven because the story unfolds so slowly. We are initially confused as we watch Babe begin a new graduate course and then watch a public argument on a busy street between two men screaming at each other in German which climaxes with one of their vehicles exploding. We are confused as we watch Babe's brother, Doc (Roy Scheider), fend off a murder attempt in a hotel room before showing up on Babe's doorstep. But we then realize that Doc has put Babe in danger by coming to visit him and has gotten Babe involved in a very dangerous international conspiracy where Babe is put in serious danger only because he's related to Doc.
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Schlesinger has crafted a story that develops slowly, but keeps us interested until we realize exactly what's going on and how much undeserved danger Babe is in. The film is most famous for a torture scene which involves Szell's former occupation as a dentist, but this film provides other nightmarish elements as well, including an absolutely terrifying scene where Babe's apartment is broken into and he is almost drowned in his own bathtub.

This was one of the most underrated and compelling films of 1976 with a solid performance by Hoffman and an Oscar-nominated turn from Olivier that should make the hair on the back of your neck stand-up. A winner. 8.5/10

[Gideon58]

Glad you liked the movie. I know you love Mary Poppins so I was hoping when you finally saw it you would like it.
I did...loved it...I thought Emma Thompson was brilliant and should have received an Oscar nomination.

[Gideon58]

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Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows is a 1968 sequel to the 1966 classic The Trouble with Angels, but lightening definitely did not strike twice here.

Rosalind Russell reprises her role as the Mother Superior who heads up St. Francis Academy, a convent school for teenage girls. In this film, the Reverend Mother finds herself at odds with a new nun at the Academy named Sister George, exuberantly played by Stella Stevens, whose radical ideas about education and everything else excites her young charges but works Reverend Mother's nerves into a frazzle. The conflict between old and new reach a fever pitch when Reverend Mother and Sister George take several of the girls on a cross-country bus trip.
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The film attempts to recapture the spirit of the first film, but the conflict that Russell and Stevens' characters create here just aren't as interesting as the conflict between Russell and Hayley Mills in the first film. The adventures presented here include the bus breaking down and an encounter with a movie star (Robert Taylor) filming on location.
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Russell and Stevens work very hard to sustain interest here and Binnie Barnes and Mary Wickes also recreate their roles from the first film and provide sporadic laughs. Van Johnson appears as a priest and one of the St. Francis girls is played by a very young Susan Saint James.
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It's a pleasant time-filler, nothing more, but Hayley Mills is sorely missed. 2.5

[The Gunslinger45]

I did...loved it...I thought Emma Thompson was brilliant and should have received an Oscar nomination.

Oh she got shorted big time by the Academy.

[Gideon58]

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Smooth direction and the powerful onscreen charisma generated by its two stars makes 2007's The Bucket List a better film than it deserves to be.
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The film stars Oscar winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as Edward and Carter, respectively, two terminally ill men who meet in the hospital and actually leave the hospital in order to do all those things that are on Carter's bucket list, a list of everything that Carter wants to do before he dies.
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The story then follows these two polar opposites as they decide to, among other things, jump out of an airplane, visit the pyramids, and drive high-powered race cars, but the story is so not the thing here...the thing here is the 1000-megawatt performances by Nicholson and Freeman which electrify the screen, under the skillful direction of Rob Reiner, who offers detailed direction where it is needed and allows these actors to do what they do best when it is not...command the screen and carrying a rather pedestrian story to a more entertaining level than Justin Zackham's screenplay offers. There are moments throughout, mostly involving Nicholson, that I suspect were not scripted and Reiner and Freeman just got out of the master's way.
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Nicholson and Freeman are magical here, providing a perfect balance of laughter, tears, and pathos. There is one particularly moving scene near the film's climax where Edward and Carter share a big laugh and we see Carter cross "Laugh till I cry" off his list. I was deeply moved by the fact that this man had lived his entire life without laughing until he cried.
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Mention should be made of an extremely effective supporting performance from Beverly Todd as Carter's devoted wife, who accuses Edward of stealing her husband and wants her husband to face his illness in a more realistic manner. Todd's character has a lot of unsympathetic moments in the film, but Todd invests completely in the character and makes the viewer understand her.
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The film is beautifully photographed and Reiner's directorial hand is solid, but it is the spectacular teaming of these two acting legends that make this film solid entertainment. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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For those who wonder why Katherine Heigl's so-called movie career was such a bust might want to check out a tiresome 2009 comedy called The Ugly Truth.

The title of the film is the title of a cable access show that takes the male outlook at relationships, hosted by a sexist and obnoxious guy named Mike (Gerard Butler) who has been hired to beef up the ratings of a Sacramento morning talk show and finds himself going head to head with the show's tightly-wound producer (Heigl).
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It was way too many so-called romantic comedies like this one that killed Heigl's film career. Filmmakers seem to have wanted Heigl to be sort of a contemporary Doris Day who men lust after but have to work REALLY hard at melting her icy exterior. Unfortunately, unlike Doris Day, Heigl's movie characters are usually bitchy and unlikable and you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out what the leading man sees in her in the first place and this film is no exception.
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Nicole Eastman and Karen McCullah's screenplay is overly cute and director Robert Luketic tries to disguise this by having all the characters speak 100 MPH so that the viewer doesn't really notice how lame the story really is. Gerard Butler appears to be having a ball here, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great performance and his chemistry with Heigl is non-existent. There are a pair of funny supporting performances by John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines as the co-hosts of the show, who are also married offscreen, but unless you live for Butler or Heigl, I'd give this one a pass. 2

[Gideon58]

Jim Carrey's comic charisma almost makes 2003's Bruce Almighty sitting through...almost. But if you're a hardcore Carrey fan, your tolerance of this film could be a little higher.
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Carrey plays Bruce Nolan, a TV anchorman who feels that everything in his life is turning to crap, triggered by the loss of a promotion to an obnoxious co-worker (Steve Carell), who starts being very vocal about the way God is ruining his life and that everything that has gone wrong in his life is because God is too busy to pay attention to him, which results in God (Morgan Freeman) appearing to Bruce and offering Bruce the challenge of running the world by transferring all of his powers to Bruce.
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Despite solid direction from Tom Shadyac, who also directed Carrey in Liar,Liar and Carrey's ability to make the most lame material funny, this film is about as predictable as they come, which includes Bruce's initial selfish use of the power he's been given, the abuse of the people in his life he cares about, and his eventual epiphany about how hard God's job really is.
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Carrey generates sporadic laughs, as does Steve Carrell as Evan Baxter, Carrey's obnoxious colleague and Nora Dunn as Carrey's boss, but Jennifer Aniston's role as Bruce's girlfriend, Grace, is thankless. The best thing about this movie is the classy presence of Morgan Freeman in the role of God. His performance alone makes this movie worth sitting through. The movie was followed up by Evan Almighty. 2.5

[Gideon58]

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Despite charismatic leads and some funny situations, the 2003 comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days doesn't really sustain its paper-thin premise for the film's entire running time.

The film stars Kate Hudson as Andie Anderson, a magazine writer who has been assigned to write the title article for her magazine and has chosen one Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey) as the objective of demonstrating her article. Unknown to Anderson, Barry has bet co-workers that he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days.
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This film, based on a pair of books by Michele Alexander and Jeanne Long, just doesn't possess the substance to actually admit to being inspired by two different books. I can't believe that it took 2 books to come up with an uninspired comedy that comes off as a tired retread of the Doris Day Rock Hudson comedies of the 60's.
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Donald Petrie's direction is a little on the pedestrian side, but the leads are attractive and there are effective supporting bits offered along the way by Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Klein, Adam Goldberg, Kathryn Hahn, and Celia Weston, but I guess your appreciation of the film depends on how much you love Hudson and McConaughey, whose obvious onscreen chemistry just wasn't enough to make this film work. 2.5

[Gideon58]

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After the surprising success of the first film, MGM studios decided to mine for more gold with That's Entertainment Part II, the 1976 compilation package that offers more of the best of MGM studios when they had "more stars that the heavens" and this time, they chose to include non-musical clips
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The film is hosted by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, who are seen in the opening scene dancing together for the first time since the 1946 film Ziegfeld Follies as they introduce some more classic moments from the MGM library.
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The musical sequences feature Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Kathryn Grayson, Eleanor Powell, Frank Sinatra, Jeanette McDonald, Leslie Caron, Louis Armstrong and Ann Miller in films like Girl Crazy, An American in Paris, Words and Music and Kiss Me Kate. Even Doris Day, who was not an MGM contract player, is featured performing "Ten Cents a Dance" from Love Me or Love Me, an MGM musical for which Day was loaned to MGM.
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Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, William Powell, the Marx Brothers and John Barrymore are featured in non-musical sequences. Some stars like Joan Crawford, and Robert Taylor are seen in musical and non-musical sequences.
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The film doesn't sustain interest the way the first one did, but it is still a respectful and entertaining valentine in an era gone by in Hollywood that we will never see again. 3

[Gideon58]

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Fans of comic satires like Airplane! and Naked Gun should find themselves right at home with a 1996 comedy called High School High.
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The film stars Jon Lovitz as Richard Clark, a teacher at a well-known private school run by his father, who, in order to get out from under his father's thumb, decides to take a job teaching at Marian Barry High School, a tough inner-city high school where most of the students are barely literate. The simple story finds Clark working to raise the GPA's of his students in order to win a citywide school contest while pursuing romance with an attractive co-worker (Tia Carerre).
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This film takes pot-shots at films like The Blackboard Jungle and Dangerous Minds, but does it in an outrageous way, but that is to be expected from a film like this. As a matter of fact, David Zuker, one of the geniuses behind Airplane! was one of the contributors to the screenplay here.
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As expected, the gags come fast and furious and Lovitz plays his role with just enough of a straight face that makes most of the silliness going on around him funnier than it should be (though Lovitz is no Robert Hays). There are some fun supporting turns from Louise Fletcher as the hard-nosed school principal, Mekhi Pfifer as a troubled student, and Guillermo Diaz as a gang leader, but it is the lightning-swift tempo of the comic gags that keeps this one relatively entertaining for most of its ride. 3

[Gideon58]

Never has the absurdity of war been so bitingly and accurately skewered as it was in the 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove: Or How Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. a scorching black comedy that sheds a very unflattering but unfortunately probably spot-on look not only at war, but the mental capacities of the people who have their hands on the button.
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Director Stanley Kubrick has created his masterpiece here, chronicling what happens when a clearly insane military general who triggers an attack on the Soviet Union that could lead to nuclear holocaust and how the President of the US and his advisers try to deal with the repercussions.
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Released during the infancy of the Vietnam War, this film probably ruffled a lot of feathers in Washington, though I don't know for sure, since I was only six year old at the time, but the film can now be cherished for the scathingly brilliant satire that it is.
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Kubrick's masterful direction is only surpassed by the brilliantly tongue-in-cheek screenplay by Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George, that was clearly robbed of an Oscar. As for casting, it's perfection...Peter Sellers' powerhouse performance where he effortlessly brings three different characters to life is a joy to behold. Sellers, too, was robbed of an Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actor. My personal favorite of his three characters was President Muffley, who is given the best line in the movie and whose first phone conversation with the President of the USSR (Dimitri) to explain what's going on had me on the floor. Sellers has never made me laugh so hard, and I've seen most of the Pink Panther movies. Kubrick pulled the performance of his career out of Sterling Hayden as the insane general as was George C. Scott's bigoted military leader who is possibly as crazy as Hayden's character. Scott is brash and funny and was Oscar-worthy as well.
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Kubrick's attention to detail in bringing this epic story to life works on every level. The black and white photography only adds to the realism and there is impressive art direction and inventive camerawork, but it is the Oscar worthy work by Kubrick, Sellers, Scott, Southern, and George that make this one sizzle and earn it the well-deserved reputation of a classic. 5

[The Gunslinger45]

Excellent review! Love Dr Strangelove!

[Gideon58]

Excellent review! Love Dr Strangelove!
Thank you Gunslinger, it's been on my watchlist for a LONG time and I finally saw it today and loved every minute of it...a classic that lived up to its reputation and surpassed it...Peter Sellers was a genius.

[The Gunslinger45]

Thank you Gunslinger, it's been on my watchlist for a LONG time and I finally saw it today and loved every minute of it...a classic that lived up to its reputation and surpassed...Peter Sellers was a genius.

Damn straight! He was the President, Dr Strangelove, AND RAF Group Captain Mandrake! He was supposed to be Major Kong but an injury prevented it and they got Slim Pickens.

[Gideon58]

Damn straight! He was the President, Dr Strangelove, AND RAF Group Captain Mandrake! He was supposed to be Major Kong but an injury prevented it and they got Slim Pickens.
I'm kind of glad that he didn't play Kong too,that might have been a bit much...loved Slim Pickens though and Sellers nailed everything he did...loved when Mandrake was trying to call the White House collect too...I could not stop laughing.

[The Gunslinger45]

Oh I think Slim was PERFECT! There is a reason that man riding the nuke is my profile banner! Kubrick was a genius and his casting was SUPERB! Then cinematography was excellent, the satire stinging and funny, and the dialogue was flawless! My only complaint is that as a comedy it is not a laugh riot from beginning to end. But then again this deals in such a serious subject matter that it does need to be set up in a straight manner. So the complaint itself is pointless.

[Gideon58]

Oh I think Slim was PERFECT! There is a reason that man riding the nuke is my profile banner! Kubrick was a genius and his casting was SUPERB! Then cinematography was excellent, the satire stinging and funny, and the dialogue was flawless! My only complaint is that as a comedy it is not a laugh riot from beginning to end. But then again this deals in such a serious subject matter that it does need to be set up in a straight manner. So the complaint itself is pointless.
Totally agree with you regarding the screenplay...of all the Oscars the film was robbed of, the screenplay was the greatest injustice. I went to the 1965 Academy Awards IMDB page to see what film won the Oscar for adapted screenplay that year...this film lost the screenplay Oscar to Becket!!! Becket? Seriously? Don't get me wrong, Becket was a great film, but the screenplay didn't touch this one.

[The Gunslinger45]

Have not seen Beckett, but I have never heard of it either SO I AM STILL OUTRAGED!

[Gideon58]

Have not seen Beckett, but I have never heard of it either SO I AM STILL OUTRAGED!
I have seen Becket and believe me, the screenplay did not deserve the Oscar over Dr. Strangelove.

[Gideon58]

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Ghostbusters II is the surprisingly effective 1989 sequel to the 1984 box office smash which actually meets most of my criteria for a good sequel (see my review of The Dark Knight Rises) despite a few unexplained plotholes that gnawed at me throughout, but did not interfere with the entertainment the film undeniably provides.
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I love that the film addresses the fact that even though our boys were heroes at the end of the first film, the realities of the damage they did to Manhattan are dealt with. The damage they did to the city resulted in several lawsuits and the eventual disbanding of the ghostbusters. However, the boys are forced to rally when a 15th century demon named Vigo has targeted Dana Barrett's baby.
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Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have constructed a viable screenplay which borrows a lot from the first film, but doesn't really rehash and, with the help of Bill Murray's loopy charm as Peter Venkman, make the film feel like a vacation to your hometown where you're catching up with old friends.

Sigourney Weaver is again an intelligent damsel in distress and Rick Moranis and Annie Potts provide some giggles as they reprise their roles as Louis and Janine. Also enjoyed David Margulies' return as the mayor, Kurt Fuller as his slimey assistant, and Harris Yulin as a judge with a very short fuse.
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Though the film provides laughs and the same first rate special effects the first film did, I found it hard to get behind the film because the whole idea of a baby in danger was very unsettling for me and made it hard to fully commit to what happens here. And even though it might be considered nitpicking, I couldn't get past the fact that the Ghostbusters vehicle had the logo for the second film painted on the side and the film does have more endings than necessary, but it is a fairly entertaining ride and as far as sequels go, I've seen a lot worse. I've heard rumblings that plans are in the work to revive this franchise, but without the late Harold Ramis, that would just be wrong. 3

[The Gunslinger45]

I still enjoyed Ghostbusters II, but I do not revisit it as much as I do the first one. Very well put.

[Gideon58]

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Cowboys & Aliens is an outrageous and unprecedented melding of the western and science fiction genres that has all the ingredients for a first rate popcorn movie except for one thing...a story that makes sense.
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The 2011 film opens with us encountering Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a cowboy who wakes up in an 1873 Arizona desert with no memory of who he is, a serious wound on his side, and a futuristic looking weapon attached to one of his wrists. Jake travels to a nearby western hamlet called Absolution where it is revealed he is a wanted man on multiple charges. En route to facing a federal Marshall, the town is attacked by a group of alien space ships that snatch up several citizens in the town, but Jake is somehow able to fend them off with his wrist weapon. Jake then teams up with a group of Absolution citizens, led by a military colonel/cattle baron (Harrison Ford), whose son (Paul Dano) was abducted by the aliens. Throw into the mix a mysterious prostitute (Olivia Wilde) who claims a vague connection to Jake and her own agenda regarding these bizarre events.
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The story also involves a woman from Jake's past whose death he feels responsible for and a large cache of gold and a large gang of criminal cowboys who apparently were led by Jake who are torn by Jake's alleged reappearance in their gang, though Jake seems to have no recall of his association with them.
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If this sounds confusing, it's because it is...this story is a valiant attempt at trying something off the cinematic beaten path, but there is WAY too much left unexplained. We're never sure if Jake is really from the 1870's west or from the future, where the gold came from and if it is real gold as we see it morph into an explosive device that blows a roof off a building or why a group of futuristic space aliens want control of an 1870's western town. I kept watching and waiting for that one scene or moment in the film that would pull everything together for me, but that moment never came, not even after the bloody and terrifying final act where the wild west and outer space have their final showdown.
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As confusing as I found the story to be, I kept watching. I found this film absolutely riveting and could not take my eyes off the screen. Steven Spielberg and Jon Favreau served as executive producers of this film and Favreau also took on the mammoth directorial responsibility involved in the mounting of such an elaborate story, though Spielberg's touch is all over this...this is the kind of fantasy/adventure that Spielberg likes to produce and I'm sure he had Favreau's ear throughout production.
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This film is expensively mounted with a great deal of care and detail and the casting works for the most part. Daniel Craig is the most durable action hero since John McClane and Harrison Ford shows he still has the chops to command the screen. Olivia Wilde makes the most of her most substantial screen role and there is also a solid supporting turn from Sam Rockwell as a saloon owner whose wife was also abducted by the aliens. There is some entertainment value to be gleaned from this film, as long as you don't think about it or try to figure it out. 3

[gbgoodies]

That sounds a lot like my thoughts after I saw Cowboys & Aliens. It's a strange story that doesn't seem to have any real direction, but it's interesting enough to watch it to the end of the movie anyway.

[The Gunslinger45]

I found Cowboys vs Aliens to be a huge disappointment. The pace was too slow, I agree the story was too ambiguous, and for such a cool title, the pay off was ultimately lacking for me in the end.

[Gideon58]

Words and Music was a big, splashy and mostly fictionalized biography of composers Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, whose Broadway successes included "The Boys from Syracuse", "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", and "Pal Joey", but was really just one of those lavish music revues that MGM used to mount to show off their stable of stars.
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If you're looking for actual information about the songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart, I suggest you go to the internet. If you want to see an entertaining musical featuring the best of MGM's talent, you needn't look any further than this one.
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The plot follows the first meeting of the pair and a scattered look at their various successes on Broadway and in Hollywood and their romantic lives, particularly Rodgers' failed romance with the lovely Dorothy and Hart's with Peggy O'Neill.
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Tom Drake was his usual bland self as Rodgers and Mickey Rooney's hyper-active Lorenzo Hart is a little on the annoying side, but Janet Leigh is lovely as Dorothy and Betty Garrett is fun as Peggy O'Neill, despite a definite lack of chemistry with Rooney.
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The various musical guest stars include June Allyson performing "Thou Swell" from "Connecticut Yankee", Mel Torme singing "Blue Moon" and Judy Garland singing "Johnny One Note". Garland also performs a duet with Rooney called "I Wish I were in Love Again", which turned out to be the final time Garland and Rooney would perform onscreen together. There is also an elaborate ballet set to "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" featuring Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen.
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A fun time waster for musical lovers and Rooney lovers will be in heaven. 3.5

[Citizen Rules]

Slaughter On Tenth Avenue is my all time favorite dance number. I've watched it many times, it's brilliant and moving. Each movement by the dancers tells a small part of the story.

[Gideon58]

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Evan Almighty is the 2007 sequel to the 2004 Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty, though, technically, I wouldn't consider it a sequel because it really has nothing to do with the first film. This film plucks two characters from the first film and drops them in the middle of a completely different story. The film actually bears more of a resemblance to 1977's Oh God! than the Carrey film.
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This infectious comic romp stars Steve Carell as Evan Baxter, the anchorman from the first film who has just been elected to the US congress, running on a "Change the World" platform. Just as Baxter moves his family to DC and begins working with a shady senior congressman (John Goodman), he is visited by God (Morgan Freeman) who feels Evan's campaign platform makes him the perfect candidate to be a modern day Noah. He commands Evan to build an ark in preparation for a great flood that's coming. Evan feels he has enough on his plate at this time and ignores the heavenly request, but as you can imagine, God is not taking no for an answer and Evan finds strong hints being dropped his way, like a HUGE order of lumber being delivered to his house, God giving him a copy of "Ark Building for Dummies", and a beard that no matter how many times he shaves, it instantly re-appears.
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I found this film way more entertaining than the Jim Carrey film, primarily because Evan's character is more likable than Carrey's, even though, Evan Baxter was an obnoxious creep in the first film. Evan has been refashioned as a perfectly nice guy for this film, evoking more sympathy for the character, though the thought did cross my mind how different this film would have been with the Evan from the first film at the center of it, but it did not deter from my enjoyment of this film.
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Steve Oedekerk's screenplay is clever, though, like Oh God!, I was somewhat troubled by the situations that God puts Evan in without having his back until the climax, which features some first-rate special effects. Carell is charming, as usual, and gets solid support from Goodman, Lauren Graham as his wife, and Wanda Sykes, John Michael Higgins, and Jonah Hill as congressional aides of Evan's. As suspected, Morgan Freeman is class personified as the Almighty, just as he was in the first film.

This is an entertaining comedy that avoids a lot of the preachiness that such a story could invoke and make sure you stay tuned through the closing credits. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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After 35 years as a movie star, Jeff Bridges finally won an Outstanding Lead Actor Oscar for his performance in Crazy Heart, a rather somber and slow-moving drama with music that is pretty much a rehash of better movies of the past, primarily 1983's Tender Mercies.

The film, produced, written, and directed by Scott Cooper and based on a novel by Thomas Cobb, stars Bridges as Bad Blake (one of the worst character names ever, but a minor problem compared to the rest of the movie), an alcoholic country singer whose best days are definitely behind him, who takes way too long to reassess the mess his life and career have become, despite the possibility of a new beginning with an attractive young writer (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with a young son.
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As mentioned, the film bears more than a passing resemblance to Tender Mercies because Mac Sledge, that film's main character, was also a faded country star except that Sledge knows from the beginning of the movie that his music career is a thing of the past, unlike Blake, who is deeply in denial about the fact and because he wants to sustain his career on his own terms, he continually ignores career lifelines that are thrown to him as well as ignoring the circumstances of his lifestyle.

Cooper's cliche-ridden screenplay delivers a lot of negative and unflattering messages and tries to provide easy fixes. I was troubled by Blake ignoring a doctor's warning to stop drinking but after breaking up with Gyllenhaal's character over his own actions, suddenly decides that he wants to get sober. I'm so over alcoholic movie characters who decide to get sober for the wrong reasons...getting sober only works if the alcoholic is doing it for himself and no one else.
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Bridges delivers a solid performance in the lead role, but I think this Oscar was a "Body of Work" Oscar, honoring the actor for his career because he has definitely done better work (Fearless, The Door in the Floor, and The Contender come to mind). Gyllenhaal makes the most of an underwritten role and I personally didn't feel a lot of chemistry with Bridges but Colin Farrell is fine as a current country superstar who tries to help Blake and the Tender Mercies comparison is driven home with a brief appearance from that film's star, Robert Duvall, who also served as one of the producers, which surprised me as I can't believe he didn't see the parallels between this film and his 1983 triumph.

As a big Jeff Bridges fan, I was hugely disappointed by this film that was sadly just a rehash of better films of the past and my rating is based purely on my respect for the film's star. 2.5

[The Gunslinger45]

I myself thought Evan Almighty was okay. Wanda Sykes was hilarious though. Then again she is rarely not funny.

[gbgoodies]

As a country music fan, I was looking forward to the movie Crazy Heart, but while I enjoyed the music, I didn't really care much for the movie itself.

And I was very surprised to find out that Colin Farrell can sing. :)

[Gideon58]

For my money, the best film of 1955 was the lilting and romantic melodrama Picnic, Josh Logan's effective film version of William Inge's classic play that effectively blended small town Americana atmosphere with realistically drawn characters and one of the most sexual non-sexual love stories ever produced on film.
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The film presents several different characters who are all citizens in a small Kansas town as they prepare for the town's labor day picnic and what happens when this event coincides with the arrival of a charismatic drifter named Hal (William Holden) who finds himself drawn to a romantic dreamer named Madge (Kim Novak).
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Josh Logan has beautifully captured small town sensibilities as the backdrop for one of the most sexually charged romances put on film during the 1950's, despite the fact that the characters don't actually have sex. The chemistry created by Holden and Novak burns a hole in the screen and was unlike anything seen on the screen prior to this...their romantic dance to "Moonglow" is a classic within itself. I have never been much of a Novak fan, but she is just hypnotic here.
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The other major story presented concerns Rosemary (Rosalind Russell), a lonely spinster who is putting serious pressure on her boyfriend Howard (Arthur O'Connell) to marry her. Russell nails the loneliness and desperation of this character in a performance that evokes sympathy and should have won her an Oscar.

Betty Field, Cliff Robertson, and Susan Strasberg deserve mention as Madge's mother, Hal's best friend and Madge's sister. A classic in every sense of the word. Remade for cable television in 1986. 4.5

[Gideon58]

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La Bamba is the relatively entertaining 1987 biopic about Ritchie Valens, the rock and roll singer who died at the age of 17 in a plane crash, along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.

The film chronicles Ritchie Valenzuela's humble upbringing as a child of an immigrant farm family, most notably an intense relationship with his older brother, who had always resented Ritchie's position as the prodigal son even before he started getting famous, the somewhat shaky beginning of his musical career, and his romance with one Donna Ludwig, who was the subject of one of Ritchie's biggest hit records.
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Director/screenwriter Luis Valdez has mounted a cliche-ridden biopic that travels all the well-worn roads that movies of this ilk travel and seems to believe that we might not notice because several of the central characters are Latino, but sadly, we do.

Lou DIamond Phillips perfectly embodies young Ritchie and gets solid support from Elizabeth Pena, Rosanna DeSoto, and Joe Pantoliano, but it is Esai Morales' explosive performance as Ritchie's troubled older brother that it is the film's most watchable element.
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It is the scenes between Phillips and Morales that make this film sizzle even though Ritchie is painted as a saint and his brother as the devil incarnate and, needless, to say, the film is sort of anti-climactic since we all know what's going to happen but Phillips is wonderful in that climactic scene where he makes the fatal decision to get on that plane because of how important it is to his career, despite his deathly fear of flying, but thanks to Phillips and Morales, interest is sustained for most of the running time. 3

[Gideon58]

Some delicious, over-the-top scenery chewing by the divine Meryl Streep is the primary reason to check out a bizarre black comedy from 1989 called She-Devil.
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The film stars Roseanne Barr as Ruth, a frumpy and insecure housewife and mother who is crushed to learn that her accountant/husband, Bob (Ed Begley Jr.) has begun to have an affair with a glamorous romance novelist named Mary Fisher (Streep). When Bob finally decides to leave Ruth, she then sets out on an elaborate plan to exact revenge on her scummy husband, beginning with burning their home to the ground and sending her children to live with Bob and Mary.
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This film was made during Roseanne's hiatus from the first season of her classic sitcom and was intended to make a movie star out of her, but failed dismally, primarily due to the fact that the character Roseanne plays here is not as smart or appealing as Roseanne Conner and it's hard to get behind a lot of Ruth's actions in this movie. It's a little hard to believe that a wronged wife would actually destroy her children's home merely as a way of getting back at her husband, which is also hard to buy because the character of Bob is really a jerk and why Ruth cares about his feelings or why Mary finds herself attracted to him are a mystery as well, which for me was the primary problem with this story...the character of Bob was just not worth these two women fighting over.
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Director Susan Seidleman, who scored a bullseye five years earlier with Desperately Seeking Susan really misses here, but she is hampered by a screenplay that is kind of all over the place and some really unlikable characters, especially Barr's Ruth, who is supposed to evoke sympathy from the viewer, but does just the opposite.
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What this film does have going for it is a perfectly executed comedy turn from the fabulous Meryl Streep, who manages to mine every bit of humor out of her character that the screenplay provides. As for the rest of the cast, Ed Begley Jr. is miscast as Bob and some minor laughs are provided along the way by Sylvia Miles as Mary's mother, who loves to tell anyone who will listen what a loser her daughter is and A Martinez as Mary's manservant/boy toy, but this is Streep's show all the way and without her, this film would have been impossible to get through. 2.5

[Gideon58]

Director Ron Howard nailed family dysfunction and the difficulties of parenting with a warm and entertaining 1989 comedy called Parenthood.
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This episodic comedy centers on the Buckman family, led by one Gil Buckman (Steve Martin) and his wife Karen (Mary Steenburgen), who serve as the centerpiece for a dysfunctional family that includes Gil's hard-drinking father (Jason Robards), who took Gil to baseball games as a child and used to leave him alone and pay ushers to watch him. Dianne Wiest plays Gil's divorced sister, Helen, who is the mother of two teenagers, one a horny high-schooler (Martha Plimpton) sleeping with her boyfriend (Keanu Reeves) and the other (Joaquin Phoenix) wants to live with his father.
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Tom Hulce plays the proverbial black sheep brother who has returned home with an illegitimate son and a get rich quick plan. Rick Moranis is effectively cast against type as a stuffed shirt married to Gil's other sister (Harley Kozack) who is raising his toddler like she's a sophomore in college.
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The screenplay by longtime Howard collaborators Lowell Ganz and Babloo Mandel might play like an extended sitcom, but it is a very entertaining one, that provides consistent laughs without sacrificing realism or realistic situations. The screenplay is insightful and clever and well-served by Howard's hand-picked cast, who give uniformly fine performances down the line, with a standout performance from Wiest that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
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Thanks to a smart screenplay, sensitive direction, some offbeat casting, and some fun performances, this is a very special comedy that got by a lot of people but is worth checking out. Later turned into a television series. 4

[Gideon58]

Dinner for Schmucks is a rambling, overlong, and unfunny comedy that is even worse than its title implies.
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This pointless 2010 comedy stars Paul Rudd as Tim, a business executive who is promised a promotion if he brings the right person to a monthly dinner held by his boss, where his employees are instructed to bring the biggest idiot they can find so that they can make fun of the dumbest guest and actually give him a trophy as the evening's biggest idiot. Tim accidentally meets Barry (Steve Carell), a nerd who is into mouse taxidermy and before he actually goes to the dinner, ends up methodically destroying Tim's life, primarily by ruining his relationship with his girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) by bringing a crazed stalker named Darla (Lucy Punch) into his life and messing up an important business dinner with clients from Switzerland.
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Despite my opening remark about this movie, it was the title of the film that initially attracted me to this film but I learned you definitely can't judge a film by its cover. Let's start with a rambling screenplay that's all over the place and tries to cover so much ground that interest cannot be sustained for the film's unbelievably ridiculous running time. The section of the film where Barry ruins Tim's life just goes on way too long and has nothing to do with the original premise of the film. The story going straight from Barry and Tim's meeting straight to the dinner of the title might have been a good idea, but this part of the movie is just as ridiculous as the rest of it, adding a layer of mean-spiritedness to the boredom and stupidity that set in 45 minutes ago.
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Jay Roach's direction is as all over the place as the screenplay and the performances aren't much better. Rudd and Carell are fighting the script all the way and Punch is over the top as Darla as is Jemaine Clement as an eccentric artist who has the hots for Tim's girlfriend. As much as I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, this movie is a mess. Jay Roach had much better luck a decade earlier with Meet the Parents. 1.5

[Sexy Celebrity]

This looks like a great review thread and DAMN there's a lot of reviews here. How come this review thread and Gideon58 seems so .... ignored around here?

[Gideon58]

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, who had a smash hit with Wedding Crashers, reunited for a 2013 misfire called The Internship, an overly long and seriously unfunny comedy that presents a ridiculous premise based on a real internet empire that provides very few laughs the screenplay that steals from several more successful films of the past.
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Wilson and Vaughn play Nick and Billy, respectively, a pair of salesmen who find their jobs have become obsolete due to the computer age, who decide to leap into the new millenium by entering an internship with Google, competing with a large group of techno geeks half their age for a handful of jobs.

This film has a myriad of problems that cannot be justified. I think screenwriters Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern showed major cajones basing a fictional story around the center of the internet empire. I don't believe for a minute that Google has an internship program where applicants wear beanies with propellers, divide into teams and compete in silly competitions like Revenge of the Nerds. I don't believe that Google has a huge restaurant in the lobby of their headquarters and don't charge anything for the food. This screenplay borrows way too elements from other films like Revenge of the Nerds, Mean Girls, and there are actually onscreen references to 1983's Flashdance, which really have nothing to do with what's going on during the film. I found it hard to believe that this is how Google is really run and how Vaughn and company avoided huge lawsuits after the release of this film is a mystery to me.
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Wilson and Vaughn are still a strong team, but they just don't have a story worthy of their talent this time. Wilson is also given a lot of dialogue that just sounds like it's way above his head. Most of the supporting characters are unlikable and just not very interesting and Wilson's underdeveloped romance with a Google executive (Rose Byrne) just doesn't work because her character is just too much of a bitch.
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This is an overlong and unfunny comedy not worth the time and throughout I kept wondering why Google hasn't filed any lawsuits yet. 1.5
,

[Gideon58]

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David O. Russell followed up his brilliant Silver Linings Playbook with a somewhat effective excursion into Scorsese territory called American Hustle, an explosive and elaborately mounted period piece that takes a bitingly accurate look at the hedonistic 1970's and the art of the con, seen primarily through the actions of three characters that is allegedly fact-based. We are told at the beginning of the film that "Some of this actually happened," whatever that means.
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The main players here are Irving Rosenfeld, the owner of a string of dry cleaners who begins a very profitable confidence scheme with Sydney Prosser, a sexy and smart hustler who not only knows how to watch the bottom line, but how to manipulate it in her favor. Irving and Sidney's increasingly cushy existence is stalled by one Richie Di Masso, a smart-ass FBI agent who offers Irving and Sidney immunity in exchange for their help in aiding him to nail some much bigger fish, as well as lining his own pockets.

Other key players on this complex but fascinating canvas include Irving's wife, Roselyn, a not as dumb as she appears housewife and mother, who refuses to be seen and not heard and is not above using Irving's son as leverage against him; Carmine Polito, the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Stoddard Thorsen, Richie's boss, and a phony Arab sheik.
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Russell has undertaken one of his largest stories that is on the surface a look at the greed and hedonism of the 1970's but does whittle its way down to an intense look at mob and political corruption, keeping the involvement of actual mobsters and politicians to a minimum and the complicated triangle formed by the trio of central characters, anchored by a dizzying monitoring of Sydney'as loyalties, which is the apex of the triangle primarily because Sydney really is the smartest character in the movie. Unfortunately, the film does lose a few points in the originality department, as images of Scorsese work like Goodfellas and Casino leap to mind, minus a lot of the in your face violence we get from Scorese.
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The performances are, for the most part, first rate. Christian Bale, cinema's second greatest chameleon behind Jared Leto, undergoes a remarkable physical transformation to bring the slick yet pathetic Rosenfeld to life, though he really just seems to be sort of channeling Robert De Niro. Amy Adams turns in the performance of her career as Sydney, a rich performance that effectively nails the character's intelligence and vulnerability. Bradley Cooper scores with his slick FBI agent too, though I think he was better in Silver Linings Playbook. Jennifer Lawrence offers another explosive performance as Roselyn that rivals her Tiffany in Silver Linings and Jeremy Renner is an eye opener as Mayor Carmine.

As with most of his work, Russell's direction trumps his writing, which, as always tries to encompass a little too much, but most of the film's running time is legitimized. Russell, Bale, Adams, Cooper, and Lawrence were all nominated for Oscars and I think Adams should have won, an actress I once thought of as a one-trick pony who has proven to be anything but. The film also boasts a kick-ass song score of some of the greatest music from the late 70's early 80's. Russell makes a mighty big leap into Scorsese territory here and though not completely successful, has mounted a watchable film that sustains interest for most of its running time. 3.5

[The Gunslinger45]

Plus rep for the reviews. Though I personally could not get into American Hustle. For all the talks and comparisons to Scorsese, I find the comparison a little thin. Now David O Russell is great at getting performances from his actors. Despite not caring for his films his actors are always at their best. Especially Lawrence. So in that regard O Russell is similar to Scorsese, but Scorsese is the far better storyteller. I just could not connect with this flick at all. And sadly, it was a let down after being propped up so high during last years awards season.

[Gideon58]

Plus rep for the reviews. Though I personally could not get into American Hustle. For all the talks and comparisons to Scorsese, I find the comparison a little thin. Now David O Russell is great at getting performances from his actors. Despite not caring for his films his actors are always at their best. Especially Lawrence. So in that regard O Russell is similar to Scorsese, but Scorsese is the far better storyteller. I just could not connect with this flick at all. And sadly, it was a let down after being propped up so high during last years awards season.
I agree with you that Scorsese is the superior storyteller that's why Russell's attempt to tell this kind of story just didn't ring true...Russell just seemed a little out of his league here, but he does get great performances out of his actors...Lawrence was a lot of fun in this movie and I was blown away by Amy Adams.

[Gideon58]

Surviving Christmas is a lame and offensive comedy that suffers from a silly and unbelievable story and a really obnoxious lead character.
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This 2004 comedy stars Ben Affleck as Drew Latham, a young and extremely wealthy businessman who, after being dumped by his fiancee, travels to his hometown where he plans to spend Christmas. He goes to the actual house he grew up in and offers to pay the family currently residing there a stupid amount of money to allow him to move into his old bedroom for Christmas and for this family to actually pretend to be HIS family for the holidays. We watch as Drew butts head with the family patriarch (James Gandolfini), brings Mom (Catherine O'Hara) out of the shell she didn't even realize she was in, and begin a very rocky romance with the daughter (Christina Applegate) home from college who is adamantly against this whole arrangement.
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This film grates on the nerves from jump, primarily because the leading character has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. We see the way he runs his business and the way he throws money at anything that doesn't go his way and you just want to punch the guy in the face. Affleck's performance doesn't help matters, which can best be described as uneven.
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What the film does have going for it is a pair of first rate performances from Gandolfini and O'Hara as Tom and Christine Valco, the couple who agree to this charade despite the effects it has on their holiday season and their marriage. Gandolfini's dry and understated delivery is a perfect compliment to Affleck's scenery chewing and almost makes the proceedings barable...almost. Strictly for hardcore fans of the late James Gandolfini. 2

[gbgoodies]

Sadly, I think 4/10 is too generous for Surviving Christmas.

[Gideon58]

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Love & Other Drugs is a 2010 romantic comedy that combines all the best elements of some contemporary love stories, as well as some classic love stories and takes some effective digs at the medical profession and the commercialism that invades some aspects of same.

Jamie Randall is a charming and gregarious womanizer who can sell a stereo as effectively as he can talk a woman out of her panties, who gets fired from the stereo store and becomes a pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer, on the fast track to leading all other reps in the sales of prozac and zoloft.
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Maggie Murdock is a 26 year old woman who is very bitter about the fact that she has contracted Parkinson's disease at her young age and is afraid to become romantically involved with anyone because she's afraid that her medical condition will scare suitors away or that she will become a burden to them someday.
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It is the accidental meeting of these two very different people that forms the crux of this unconventional but winning romantic comedy that provides laughs, warmth, and the occasional misty moment without ever becoming cliche or maudlin. This is the real anti-romantic comedy that movies like Friends with Benefits profess to be, but weren't.

Jake Gyllenhaal is slick and sexy as Jamie and Anne Hathaway offers one of her most affecting performances as Maggie...I don't think I have ever enjoyed Hathaway onscreen as much as I did here...Hathaway creates a character of strength and vulnerability, who tries and mostly fails to disguise her anger about her medical condition and is convinced she can never have a normal life or a normal relationship. And together, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway create mad onscreen chemistry that was only hinted at five years earlier in Brokeback Mountain.
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Director and co-screenwriter Edward Zwick scores points for presenting a realistic look at Parkinson's Disease and reminding the viewer that it is a condition that can be lived with. Zwick also provided the leads with a solid supporting cast including Oliver Platt as a co-worker of Jamie's; Hank Azaria as a doctor of questionable ethics, and Joshua Gad as Jamie's brother. Mention should also be made of a brief cameo by George Segal and the late Jill Clayburgh as Jamie's parents.

I have to admit I was onboard with this film almost immediately because I happen to think Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the sexiest men on the planet and those who don't might want to take a point off my rating. but there are other rewards to be found here for most fans of romantic comedy. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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Despite a fact-based story that strains credibility, an insightful look at the cinematic phenomena that was Marilyn Monroe makes the 2011 docudrama My Week with Marilyn worth watching.

This film centers on an aspiring English show biz hopeful named Colin Clark who has been hired to be the Third Assistant Director to Sir Laurence Olivier during production of the film The Prince and the Showgirl and how Colin inexplicably becomes the only person that Marilyn trusts on the set of the film, and that includes her acting coach Paula Strasberg, who was a permanent fixture in Marilyn's life during this period.
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Director Simon Curtis has mounted an expensive, fact-based drama that so accurately brings to the screen the mania behind Marilyn and though it provides some mixed messages regarding the woman vs the myth, the messages are convincingly projected here. We always think that there's nothing new to learn about Marilyn at this point and this film doesn't really provide any new insight into the sex symbol, except for the possible fact that like a lot Marilyn's handlers, Marilyn was also aware that Marilyn Monroe was a "product" and that she was somebody else...someone else who whose deep-rooted sadness stemmed from the lack of strong parenting and that the feeling no one really loved her, including current spouse Arthur Miller.
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As expected with any film about Marilyn, the film documents the production schedule delays due to Marilyn's chronic lateness, the constant interference from Paula Strasberg, the inability to remember very simple lines, and best of all, Olivier's conflicted feelings about his leading lady...we see Olivier's aggravation with the actress' work ethic combined with his fascination with the woman who makes him feel young again and has wife Vivien Leigh more than concerned. I love the scene of Olivier sitting alone in a screening room being captivated by dailies of Marilyn. What I did find hard to believe here is that a movie star like Marilyn Monroe would become so completely enamored of a Third Assistant Director that she would forsake everyone else around her, including Olivier, Paula, and Arthur Miller.

The film is well-cast with a nicely understated performance from Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark, a young man who falls under the spell of Marilyn without even realizing it is happening. Kenneth Branaugh is charismatic as Laurence Olivier and mention should also be made of Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh and a lovely turn from Dame Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndyke, a co-star of The Prince and the Showgirl, who becomes Marilyn's onset saviour, but what this film has above everything else is a luminous, Oscar-nominated performance by Michelle Williams as Marilyn, a richly complex performance that nails Marilyn's vulnerability, insecurity, and best of all, her intelligence.
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The film boasts some impressive production values, including first rate cinematography and a lush music score and helps to make this film lovely to look at...along with the incredible Michelle Williams. 4

[christine]

I liked My Week With Marilyn too. Eddie Redmayne is very good as well as Michelle Williams.

As regards Dinner with Schmucks , the film it was based on, the Le Diner Des Cons is hilarious as is the directors Francis Verber's film Le Placard . Give them a go :)

[Gideon58]

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Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is Will Ferrell's 2013 return to the character that made him an official movie star in a sequel that provides nothing in the way of originality, realism, credibility, continuity, but still delivers laughs.

This time around, we find our hero being fired from his network job while wife Veronica (Christina Applegate) is made sole anchor and within a year, is asked to be part of a new media concept called 24-hour news, which prompts Ron to reunite with his news team: Champ Kind (David Koechner), who is now running a chicken-fried bat fast food joint, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) is now a kitten photographer and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) has just risen from the dead (don't ask) and how they eventually rule Global News Network from the 2:00 am to 5:00 am slot.
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As mentioned, the film does deliver laughs but that's primarily because the laughs are laughs that we have been privy to before this movie. Ferrell and Adam McKay's screenplay borrows liberally from the first film, as well as other Ferrell films like Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights. I guess Ferrell and McKay thought they did enough tweaking to the original ideas that we wouldn't notice.
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There are some odd casting choices here, primarily Meagan Good, miscast as the young head of Global Network News and Dylan Baker as the slick GNN executive who recruits Burgundy, but Ferrell, Koechner, Carrell, and Rudd are still a well-oiled machine, though the character of Brick has been reduced to a level of retardation that is hard to swallow and his so-called romance with a female version of himself (Kristen Wiig) is a serious waste of screentime. James Marsden has some funny moments as GNN's lead anchor who has it out for our hero. And cameos by Tina Fey, Sacha Baron Cohen, Liam Neesom, Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Vince Vaughn, Marian Coitillard, and Amy Poehler don't help either. But despite the lack of originality here and the fact that the film really doesn't fit any of my criteria for a good sequel, I found myself laughing in spite of myself. 2.5

[The Gunslinger45]

I actually was never a fan of the Anchorman movie. So I never saw this movie.

[Gideon58]

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Despite a preachy screenplay delivered with sledgehammer-like intensity on a well-worn cinematic subject, 2012's Flight is a riveting and emotionally manipulative drama that effectively showcases the horrors of addiction on a surprising canvas and delivers the goods, thanks to polished direction and a powerhouse lead performance as a very unlikable character.

This uncompromising drama stars Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker (terrible character name), a veteran airline pilot who we meet the morning after an evening of sex, booze, and cocaine with a flight attendant who is glanced snorting a huge line of cocaine and then seen boarding a plane that he is actually scheduled to fly. After navigating the plane through some brief initial turbulence, Whitaker actually has another drink while assuring the 102 passengers aboard that everything is going to be all right. Whitaker then returns to the cockpit and the plane malfunctions and is forced to glide to an emergency crash landing. Thanks to Whitaker's expertise and experience as a pilot, the crash only produces six fatalities, four passengers and two flight attendants and Whitaker is initially proclaimed a hero until the toxicology report reveals that he was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine while flying, which could result in four charges of manslaughter and the rest of his life in prison.
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This film angers almost immediately because it seems like we are supposed to sympathize with Whitaker, but I found that impossible. What is made clear here is the denial, rationalization, and justification that goes through the mind of an alcoholic, but there is no excusing it here because Whitaker's actions resulted in the loss of life. It is further exacerbated by the fact that Whitaker knows he is wrong and and actually tries to cover up what he did. We watch in horror and disgust as Whitaker is released from the hospital, escapes to his family hideaway and spends hours throwing away all of the liquor that he has hidden in the house, a lengthy and effective scene filmed with a hand-held camera that shows the lengths an alcoholic will go to cover up what he's doing. We then watch Whitaker try to save his own ass when he realizes it is on the line by looking for crew members, including the co-pilot who may never walk again because of the crash, to have his back when they are asked to testify against him. Any sympathy the character might have evoked disappears during the scene where he asks the head flight attendant (Tamara Tunie) to lie for him.

Director Robert Zemeckis has mounted a familiar story on a unique canvas that will make the viewer give pause for a myriad of reasons...watching Whitaker's story is properly disturbing as it makes us think twice, not only about drinking and drugging, but about ever boarding a plane again without seeing the pilot's toxicology report that an airline's attorney (Don Cheadle) actually tries to bury in an attempt to save Whitaker's undeserving ass, but even those actions turn out to be pointless and Whitaker eventually must suffer the consequences of his actions, which seems to be the underlying theme of this story, but the really disturbing aspect here is how long it takes for these consequences to surface and the deep denial of Whitaker's addiction.
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Zemeckis directs with a master hand again...the plane crash he presents here is as harrowing as the one he mounted in Cast Away. The shots of the plane completely inverted are dizzying and frightening. Washington completely invests in a completely unsympathetic character and delivers a performance of such power it merited him an Oscar nomination. Cheadle is solid as the attorney as are Bruce Greenwood and John Goodman as professional and personal allies of Whitaker and mention should also be made of Kelly Reilly as Nicole, a pathetic heroine junkie who becomes Whitaker's enabler up to a point. Yes, the message here is delivered with a sledgehammer but it works and the climax doesn't quite ring true considering what we have witnessed prior, but the denoument is somewhat satisfying as we do see Whitaker pay for his actions, though his alleged redemption implied near the ending is a bit much. Still a riveting film experience thanks to a harrowing story and one of our greatest actors delivering the goods. 3.5

[Gideon58]

I actually was never a fan of the Anchorman movie. So I never saw this movie.
Well, if you didn't like the first one, there's no reason to watch this one.

[Gideon58]

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A clever screenplay filled with some imaginative twists and some on-target performances make the 2000 comedy The Whole Nine Yards worth checking out.

The film stars Matthew Perry as Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky, a mild-mannered dentist who lives in Canada with an obnoxious and emasculating wife (Rosanna Arquette) and a sexy and exuberant assistant (Amanda Peet), who finds his life turned upside down when he finds out his new neighbor is actually a former hit man named Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis). Oz' life is further complicated when Jimmy's in-name-only wife (Natasha Henstridge) stumbles into his life as well through her involvement with an enemy of Jimmy's (Kevin Pollak) and it is revealed that Oz' assistant is a Jimmy the Tulip junkie who has followed his career forever and also longs to learn his business.
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This fast-paced and richly entertaining comedy works thanks to a screenplay that offers surprises at every turn...you never know what's going to happen next and you can't wait to find out. The cast is terrific, especially Perry who proves he has the chops to carry the weight of a film and a beautifully understated turn from Bruce Willis as the former hitman who wants to start a new quiet life, but can't thanks to Peet's hero-worship. Peet scores playing one of her most likable characters and the sexual heat generated by Perry and Henstridge is off the charts.
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Jonathan Lynn's breezy direction and a fun music score by Randy Edelman and Gary Gold are the final touches on a goofy and unpredictable comedy that provides consistent laughs. Followed by a sequel called The Whole Ten Yards. 4

[The Gunslinger45]

Flight I thought was very good, and a great live action return for Zemekis.

The Whole Nine Yards is also a very good film. Funny, charming, and some clever writing as you said. Then that goes straight to hell with it's muddled sequel.

[Gideon58]

Flight I thought was very good, and a great live action return for Zemekis.

The Whole Nine Yards is also a very good film. Funny, charming, and some clever writing as you said. Then that goes straight to hell with it's muddled sequel.
Yeah, I hated the sequel too, it was pointless...this was one of those cases where I felt the story was told in the first film and I hate the fact that a sequel was fabricated just because the first film was successful.

[Gideon58]

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Disney/Pixar initiated a new sophisticated form of animation with the 1995 box office smash Toy Story, a richly entertaining and imaginative animated adventure that not only spawned two sequels, but became a merchandising dream.

The film opens in the bedroom of a little boy named Andy who is moving in a couple of days. The central characters are Andy's toys, who are led by a cowboy action figure named Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), who is apparently Andy's favorite toy. Woody and the other toys feel seriously threatened when Andy receives a space action figure called Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) for his birthday. Immediate antagonism materializes between Woody and Buzz when Woody feels he might be replaced in Andy's heart, but Woody and Buzz are forced to bond and actually become friends when they become prisoners of Andy's next door neighbor, Sid, a sadistic little kid who likes to torture toys.
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This deliciously imaginative story works thanks to a brilliant screenplay that brings vivid and believable emotions to toys, effectively showcasing the world from a toy's point of view. The jealousy and resentment between Woody and Buzz rings completely true and is actually the glue that keeps this story moving. Though the story provides consistent laughs, there are a couple of poignant moments as well...watch when Andy stops sleeping with Woody, who gets demoted from Andy's bed to the toy box or watch when Buzz sees a commercial for himself and finally realizes that he is a toy and is not real.

As always with Disney animated films, the voice casting is perfection, with standout work from Hanks, whose work here rivals the voice work of Robin Williams in Aladdin...he makes us love and care for Woody and puts us in his corner from jump. Mention should also be made of Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Jim Varney as the Slinky Dog, Wallace Shawn as a very insecure toy dinosaur, John Ratzenberger as a piggy bank named Ham, and R. Lee Ermey as a toy soldier. Really liked Annie Potts as a Little Bo Peep doll too, though I just couldn't get past my trouble with the fact that a little boy would own a Little Bo Peep doll, but I did not allow this to deter my enjoyment here.
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Randy Newman contributed a couple of nice songs to the film, one of which, "You've Got a Friend", received an Oscar nomination. John Lasseter's direction and his contribution to the Oscar nominated screenplay are the final touches to this entertaining adventure that actually conjured up images of Spielberg work like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, and though the story does have a couple of extra endings, it is a richly entertaining fantasy adventure that had me laughing and smiling throughout the entire running time. 4

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An undeniably powerful motion picture experience, 21 Grams is a blistering and mesmerizing look at the lives of three people whose lives are affected by faith, power, courage, addiction, the consequences of moral choices and above all, the power of guilt.
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This 2003 film centers on three characters: Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) is a mathematician who has had a heart transplant which has affected his decision to have a child with his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) via artificial insemination; Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts) is a suburban housewife and mother of three struggling with cocaine addiction; Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-con trying to start his life over again through his discovery of born again christianity. The story brings these three characters together through a horrible accident, which affects all three people in profoundly different and surprising ways. Reviewing this film without including major spoilers is difficult.
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Director Alejandro Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga have constructed an initially confusing story because in the style of Quentin Tarantino, the story is told out of sequence and the screenplay takes a little too long letting us in on what parts of the story are the past and what parts are the present. But as the story begins to come into focus, we can't help but become completely invested in this tragic story. Another effective storytelling tool is that the accident that is the linchpin of the entire story, is never really seen, just giving the life-altering event even more power. Every scene of the film provides importance information, no superfluous waste of screentime here.

This film had my stomach in knots for most of the running tine, had me on the verge of tears, but most important of all, never allowed me to take my eyes off the screen.
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This gritty and uncompromising drama is anchored by three superb lead performances. Watts and Del Toro both received richly deserved Oscar nominations. Del Toro is especially brilliant, in a performance that easily trumps his Oscar-winning work in Traffic. Penn actually won the Oscar for Lead Actor the same year for Mystic River, but I am now wondering if he should have won for this film instead. Not for every taste, but fans of Tarantino and Robert Altman will have a big head start. 4

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A powerhouse ensemble cast is the primary selling point of the 1961 version of A Raisin in the Sun.
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This is the first film version of the play by Lorraine Hansberry that centers on the Younger clan, a black family living in a cramped Chicago tenement whose lives are about to be altered because of a financial windfall. Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) is the strong, God-fearing matriarch of the family who is patiently awaiting the arrival of a $10,000 insurance check she is receiving because of the death of her husband. Walter Lee Younger (Sidney Poitier) is Lena's son, a chauffeur who wants to change his life by getting his mother to give him the money so that he can invest it in part ownership of a liquor store. Ruth Younger (Ruby Dee) is Walter Lee's level-headed wife and family referee, who has just learned she is pregnant with her second child; Beneatha Younger (Diana Sands), Walter Lee's sister, is a radical-thinking college student, , who wants to be a doctor someday and torn between her comfortable relationship with George (Louis Gossett) and an African student (Ivan Dixon) who is turning Beneatha's head by exposing her to her African heritage.
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This film sizzles primarily due to the conflict created between Lena and Walter Lee from Lena's belief that liquor is just a tool of the devil and Walter Lee's belief that his father would have wanted him to use the money to be more than a chauffeur and be the captain of his own destiny.

As expected, a 1961 film with an all-black cast was filmed on a shoestring budget, but the powerhouse performances make this film appointment viewing. Next to To Sir with Love, this is my favorite Poitier performance...he is intense and riveting despite the fact that Poitier's screen persona is so much more intelligent than the character he is playing and yet he doesn't make a single false or affected move onscreen. McNeil, Dee, and Sands provide solid support to Poitier, who completely dominates this film, but they never allow Poitier to blow them off the screen either. Loved Gossett as Beneatha's tight-ass fiancee too.
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The film works due to a compelling story and a charismatic performance from Poitier that makes this film still watchable after all these years. This film was remade for television twice with Danny Glover and Sean "Puffy" Combs taking over Poitier's role. It was also turned into a Broadway musical during the 1980's called Raisin. 3.5

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Despite some dated plot elements and some performances that are a matter of personal taste, 1956's The Catered Affair is a warm and engaging family drama that, if caught in the right mood, can definitely tug at the heartstrings.
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The story revolves around the Hurley family, who live in a cramped Brooklyn apartment. Daughter Jane (Debbie Reynolds) comes home one day and quietly announces to her parents Tom (Ernest Borgnine) and Agnes (Bette Davis), that she and her fiancee Ralph (Rod Taylor) are getting married in a week. Jane explains to her parents that they want a quiet simple ceremony with no frills and no reception. Tom has no problem with this since he has been saving his money to buy his own cab, but Mama Agnes is another story...Agnes' obsession with saving face because friends and neighbors suspect they can't afford a fancy wedding and Agnes' personal disappointment at her own no-frills wedding has her pressuring Jane into an elaborate wedding with all the trimmings that the family can't afford.
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Gore Vidal's screenplay, based on a play by Paddy Chayefsky, provides believable characters and realistic situations that can arise from the story presented. The issues confronted in this film regarding wedding expenses are just as timely today as they were in 1956, though the prices have definitely changed. The film does come off like a photographed stage play, but a watchable one.
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Ernest Borgnine is strong and sincere as Tom and despite a questionable Brooklyn accent, Bette Davis offers one of her most understated yet effective performances as Agnes...critics were sharply divided regarding her performance at the time of release, but I liked it...Davis keeps scenery chewing to a minimum and creates a character who we don't always sympathize with but we completely understand. Debbie Reynolds' performance as the pressured bride-to-be is surprisingly rich.

Director Richard Brooks creates a warm family atmosphere and pulls some very effective performances from his cast, including a fun turn from Barry Fitzgerald as Agnes' brother Jack. Classic film buffs should eat this one up. 3.5

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Director Garry Marshall proves that he can attract star power as well as Woody Allen can with the cast of the 2010 comedy Valentine's Day, though the finished product proves that it takes more than star power to make an entertaining film.
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This episodic comedy establishes separate storylines with paper-thin connections to each other in this alleged look at the highs and lows of relationships during one particular Valentine's Day in Los Angeles. Among the characters we meet are Liz (Anne Hathaway), a phone sex operator trying to keep her profession from her new boyfriend (Topher Grace); a brief encounter between a lonely sports agent (Jessica Biel) and an aspiring sports reporter (Jamie Foxx) and a teenager (Emma Roberts) who is planning to lose her virginity to her boyfriend before they are separated by college.

The only story that really held my attention was the story of Reed (Ashton Kutcher), the owner of a floral business who has been dumped by his girlfriend (Jessica Alba) right after he proposes but is then forced to confront his true feelings about his BFF (Jennifer Garner) when he learns that her boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey) is married. Love past the age of 30 is also examined in a lovely vignette between an older couple (Shirley MacLaine and Marshall's good luck charm Hector Elizondo) whose marriage is tested when the wife confesses to an affair from many years ago with her husband's business partner.
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There's a lot of stars running around here...Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts, Queen Latifah, Goerge Lopez, Kathy Bates, and Eric Dane, but it's all just comes off as so pointless, much like the holiday that the film is centered on. Katherine Fugate's paper-thin screenplay doesn't have the substance to sustain a film of this length and of such fluffy subject matter. The plot threads connecting the stories are credible, they just take WAY too long to materialize.
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The performances range from uneven to annoying...I never bought Eric Dane as a gay pro football and Hathaway was beyond annoying in her scenes on the phone. Jamie Foxx and Kathy Bates are wasted, but MacLaine and Elizondo do manage to rise above the cotton candy, but even they aren't enough to keep this silliness watchable to the end. 1.5

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Diane English, the creative force behind the sitcom Murphy Brown is the creative force behind The Women, the glossy, but ultimately dated 2008 remake of the 1940 classic film based on a play by Claire Booth Luce, whose novelty was the fact that all of the characters are women, despite the fact that the story centers around the men in their lives.

This is the story of Mary Haines (Meg Ryan), the pampered wife of a wealthy Wall Street investment banker who is symbolically kicked in the stomach when she learns that her husband, Stephen is having an affair with a perfume girl at Saks named Crystal Allen (Eva Mendes). Even though she still loves the man, Mary impulsively throws him out, files for divorce, and tries to move on with her life.
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It's the divorce element of the story that is dated here...in the 1930's, divorce was a complicated and expensive procedure which involved the woman setting up residency in Nevada because back then it took six weeks to finalize a divorce. Nowadays, a divorce can practically be handled by the parties' lawyers in a couple of meetings so a lot of what goes on this story just doesn't make sense in 2008. Writer-director English also attempts to update the story by having Mary become an instant success as a fashion designer after leaving Stephen but it really doesn't help.
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Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford played Mary and Crystal, respectively in the 1940 film and Ryan and Mendes just don't quite measure up. Ryan, in the final film before her face became a science project, seems to be phoning it in and though Mendes captures the bitchiness of the Crystal character, she fails to capture the character's intelligence. Annette Bening does do standout work as Sylvie, Mary's best friend, the first person to learn of the affair from a gossipy manicurist (Debi Mazar). A lot of talented actresses like Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, Cloris Leachman, Joanna Gleason, and Lynn Whitfield are wasted, with Messing coming off particularly annoying as Mary's perpetually pregnant friend Edie and again I have to ask, does Debra Messing have something put in her all contracts that states her character has to be eating all the time? It's played out. There are a couple of classy cameos by Bette Midler as a professional divorcee and Murphy Brown star Candice Bergen as Mary's mother.
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English's screenplay is only a little better than her direction. English's writing works very hard to update a 1930's to the New Millenium with middling success. On the plus side, the film is expensively mounted, beautiful to look at, with some effective use of Manhattan locations and first rate cinematography, but when it all comes down to it, the film doesn't work because of a dated story that doesn't provide enough laughs for a comedy or enough drama for a drama. A sad waste of a lot of talent, in front of and behind the camera. The film was also remade as a musical in 1956 called The Opposite Sex with June Allyson as Mary and Joan Collins as Crystal. 2

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An entertaining performance from Johnny Depp is the primary reason to check out a 2004 psychological thriller called Secret Window.
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Based on a novel by Stephen King, the film stars Depp as Mort Rainey, an alcoholic writer who is still stinging from being separated from his wife (Maria Bello) after discovering her in bed with another man (Timothy Hutton), who is confronted by a creepy guy named John Shooter (John Turturro), who accuses Rainey of plagiarism. Rainey is confused when he notes the similarities between what he wrote and what Shooter wrote, despite Rainey's insistence that he wrote his story first. Rainey initially dismisses Shooter, who is insisting that Rainey "make things right", but things get serious when Shooter's harassment turns into genuine threats.
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Director David Koepp, who also adapted King's novel into the screenplay, has mounted a glossy Hitchcock-type thriller that manages to sustain suspense, despite the fact that the reveal of what is actually going on here is a bit of a letdown.

Though the screenplay doesn't bear too much scrutiny, the film does have nice production values, including impressive art direction/set direction...I love Rainey's mountain cabin, where the majority of the film takes place...it appears spacious and claustrophobic at the same time. But it is Depp's loopy performance as Mort Rainey that really makes this one tick...Depp manages to overcome the classic alcoholic writer character he has been assigned by injecting a delightfully flip quality to Rainey that makes him a lot of fun to watch.
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Secret Window doesn't quite deliver on what it initially promises, but Johnny Depp's performance will keep you watching. 3.5

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1992's A Few Good Men is the blistering drama that puts an additional layer on to the accustomed courtroom drama by placing it in a military setting, producing a drama of such complexity and powerful emotions that it did earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
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Aaron Sorkin, the genius behind the TV drama The West Wing, adapted his own play in this story of a cocky JAG attorney (Tom Cruise) who teams up with the head of JAG internal affairs (Demi Moore) to defend a pair of marines who are being tried for murder. This richly layered story is not just about the work behind defending these two men, who are actually guilty of the crime, but the real question that takes center stage here is the fact that the soldiers claim that they did what they did because they were ordered to do so from a superior officer. We then see said superior officers close ranks and pretty much hang these two soldiers out to dry, while the attorneys learn that these soldiers are pawns in a conspiracy that takes the investigation all the way to the base commander, a Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack NIcholson).
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In addition to the courtroom drama, the film is also a character study revolving around Cruise's character, Daniel Caffee, a relatively inexperienced attorney trying to crawl from under his father's legacy as an attorney and his lack of actual courtroom experience. Caffee is the king of negotiating plea bargains but appears to be at a loss when the prosecuting attorney (Kevin Bacon), an old of friend of Caffee's, and his clients have no interest in a deal and want their day in court.
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Director Rob Reiner has provided a lavishly mounted drama where the high gloss of what we're watching allows us to overlook contradictory elements of the screenplay, primarily that the screenplay makes a big deal out of the fact that Caffee lacks courtroom experience but what happens when Caffee actually enters the courtroom belies that...Caffee rarely makes an incorrect move in getting to the truth, but spends a majority of the story talking about the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing and how he's going to lose.

Reiner, per usual has gotten first rate performances from his hand-picked cast, Cruise is solid and Nicholson is electrifying as Jessup, a performance that earned him a richly deserved Oscar nomination. Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Keifer Sutherland, and JT Walsh also score in supporting roles. It should be noted that in the stage play, the entire cast was male, including the role played by Demi Moore here, a gender change made I'm assuming to make the movie a little more viewer-friendly but I was pleased that Sorkin and Reiner decided to stick to business and not throw in a superfluous romance between Cruise and Moore's characters.
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A compelling story, despite some tiny lapses in logic, and terrific performances combine to make this film appointment viewing. 4

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Ryan Gosling's quietly intense performance in the lead role is the centerpiece of a troubling but watchable 2006 drama called Half Nelson, a film which sends some troubling mixed messages, some inaccurate information, and, considering the subject matter, never provides the payoff that it should.

Gosling plays Dan Dunne, a high school teacher and girls' basketball coach at a Brooklyn high school, who is caught smoking crack in the girls' locker room by one of his students named Dray (Shareeka Epps) and the disturbing directions that this event takes the relationship between the two.

This is a troubling story on several levels and though I kept watching, found myself squirming for most of the film's running time. I was initially bothered by the fact that after after this event, over 30 minutes of screentime pass before Dan and Dray discuss what happened. Prior to this, Dan acts as if nothing happened and Dray doesn't tell anyone, though the scene where she catches Dan, you can see it in her face that her opinion of the man has been seriously altered. She has the power to help the man by reporting what she saw but she doesn't. She actually starts spending more time with him, which is wrong on all kinds of levels and he does nothing to stop it.
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Another problem with a story that is supposedly about addiction is that we never really see Dan suffer any consequences of his actions. Addiction has consequences and Dan pretty much sails through the running time without any serious consequences. The closest things to consequences the character suffers are a fat lip from a girlfriend and the death of his cat, clearly a result of his neglect.

Writer director Ryan Fleck is also not familiar with the effects of smoking crack and snorting cocaine. One of the primary effects of these drugs is paranoia and we see none of this in Dan...he gets high and then likes to get in people's faces instead of the isolation that usually occurs with coke addicts. His complete indifference to Dray delivering drugs to his hotel room was also disturbing, which was the just the surface of Dray's issues, but Dan doesn't really attempt to do the right things to help her.
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The mixed messages and bad behavior glamorized here notwithstanding, Gosling gives a mesmerizing performance that earned him an Oscar nomination and is matched note for note by Epps, who should have received a nomination as well. The shoestring budget on which this indie was clearly shot does add to the realism, but our hero doesn't really change or learn anything and because of this, the film, though watchable, left a bad taste in my mouth. 3

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Star power is the primary reason to check out 2012's The Guilt Trip, a completely predictable comedy that provides scattered laughs but basically is just a nightmare for any adult male over the age of 25.
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Seth Rogen stars as Andy Brewster, the inventor of his own cleaning product who is planning a cross country trip to pitch his product who visits his widowed mother (Barbra Streisand) before he leaves. After his mother shares a story about her first love, Andy looks him up and then makes the fatalistic decision to ask his mother to accompany him on the road trip from hell.
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Dan Fogelman's screenplay is not big on originality as we watch Andy go through all of the truly embarrassing things that overprotective mothers put their sons through to the point where the viewer just starts to squirm. Of course, we have the pivotal moment where Andy begins to understand his mom and mom realizes what she's put her son through but it comes more than halfway through the film and by that time we've pretty much lost interest, making the final third of the film REALLY hard going.

Rogen beautifully underplays the role of Andy, the guy who has been so completely pampered by his mother that he pretty much knows everything she's going to say before she says it but is powerless to stop her. Streisand works hard in the role of Joyce Brewster, the mother from hell who eats peanut M&M's in bed, likes to listen to books on tape, and considers lunch once a week with her best friend Anita therapy.
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The actors do work well together and the respect that they have for each other comes through in their onscreen relationship, but it doesn't aid in sustaining interest in this film for its running time. 2.5

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Solid direction by Rob Reiner and a powerhouse, Oscar-winning performance by Kathy Bates are the primary selling points of a claustrophobic psychological thriller called Misery that, despite some slow moments along the way, provides solid suspense for most of its running time.
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Based on a novel by Stephen King, this is the story of Paul Sheldon (James Caan), a best selling author, who is involved in a car accident during a terrible New England snowstorm who just happens to be rescued by one Annie Wilkes (Bates), a lonely spinster who coincidentally is Sheldon's # 1 fan. She has read every book the man ever wrote, a series of stories centered around a character named Misery. As Annie gleefully nurses her idol back to health, she simultaneously begins reading Sheldon's latest book and freaks out when she learns that Misery dies in his latest tome, a revelation which makes Annie snap and decide that Paul should remain her prisoner until he agrees to write another book, resurrecting Misery or she will kill him.
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Reiner creates an extremely claustrophobic atmosphere here, with the setting being buried in snow, that allows the cat and mouse game between the two central characters to take on a very voyeuristic quality. The viewer squirms as we watch Annie try to keep her secret from the world outside her cabin and Paul's realization that his captor is a psycho and that he is without the use of his legs for the majority of the story also elevates the suspense level as we wonder which will happen first, Annie's revenge or Paul's escape. We also squirm as we watch Paul actually feign genuine affection for Annie in order to distract her long enough to escape.

King and Reiner have crafted a story that actually had this viewer holding his breath at times, especially when Paul is crawling around the floor trying to plan his escape whenever Annie temporarily leaves the house.
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Kathy Bates is nothing short of mesmerizing as Annie Wilkes, a character who provides chills, giggles, and an occasional tear or two. Even though she's clearly a psychopath, there's a sadness that Bates brings to Annie that enriches the three-dimensional quality of the character. People tend to overlook the work of Caan here, but Bates' character would be nothing without Sheldon and Caan makes a viable victim who doesn't lose his brain during his ordeal...watch him in the moments where he pretends to be falling for Annie to throw her off...it's believable that Annie might buy it, but we still know it's an act.

This is a well-crafted thriller that provides consistent suspense for most of its running time. 3.5

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A vividly human story, layered characters and effective lead performances make the 2002 indie The Good Girl worth checking out.

Justine is a married employee of a discount store, bored with her marriage and her life, who makes the fatalistic decision of having an affair with a mentally unstable co-worker who calls himself Holden.
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Screenwriter Mike White presents us characters who are believable and easy to relate to because they are flawed. Justine, in particular, once she realizes the mistake she's made, is all about self-preservation at all costs, including her marriage.
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Jennifer Aniston presents effective layers to the complicated character of Justine and Jake Gyllenhaal is appropriately dark as Holden. John C. Reilly scores as Justine's pot-smoking husband and there is some fun comic relief from Zooey Deschanel as another store employee.

Miguel Arteta's direction is sincere and helps to keep these characters and the layered story interesting until the credits roll. 3.5

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I almost watched The Good Girl when I was working on the Friends Movie Challenge. It made my short list of Jennifer Aniston movies that I was considering, but it got cut at the last minute for The Bounty Hunter with Gerard Butler.

After reading your review, I'm wondering if I chose the wrong movie, so I added it to my watchlist.

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Adam Sandler is no stranger to remaking and/or re-thinking better movies (Mr. Deeds and The Longest Yard immediately spring to mind) and does it again with a 2011 comedy called Just Go With It; however, this time he is only partial successful as his attempt to make the story original fails due to a severely overly-complicated story that weakens the original premise, not to mention some problematic casting.
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This film takes its basic premise from the 1969 comedy Cactus Flower, which starred Walter Matthau and made a star out of Goldie Hawn and won her an Oscar. Sandler plays Danny, a commitment-phobic plastic surgeon who becomes serious about a beautiful teacher (Brooklyn Decker) who thinks Danny is in the middle of a divorce so Danny enlists the aid of his straight-laced assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), who agrees to pose as his soon-to-be ex-wife and have her kids pretend to be theirs in order to pave the way clear for Danny to be with this girl he thinks he loves, but this elaborate ruse, which includes a trip to Hawaii for all the players involved, eventually leads to Danny and Katherine discovering that they have been burying feelings they have had for each other for years.
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This story worked in '69 mainly because the assistant, wonderfully played by Ingrid Bergman, was believable as the straight-laced, plain-Jane assistant harboring the secret crush on her boss, but we never buy Aniston in the plain-Jane role, from the first of two slo-mo entrances director Dennis Dugan mounts for the actress. It's pretty much impossible to accept Aniston as the secretary who takes off her glasses, takes her hair out of a bun and suddenly becomes desirable.
http://lostinreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/just_go_with_it07.jpg
Allen Loeb and Timothy Dowling's screenplay over-complicates the original story by throwing in a nemesis from Katherine's past (Nicole Kidman) who just happens to be in Hawaii the same time as Danny and Katherine with her new fiancee (Dave Matthews), who put added pressure on Katherine to make this charade work, but makes the story that we actually carry about even harder to focus on.

There are a couple of things that do work here: Adam Sandler finally puts his angry man-child character that has worked for him for so many years on the back burner and actually plays an adult, though accepting this guy as a plastic surgeon is a bit of a stretch. The other thing that works here is the chemistry between Sandler and Aniston...I couldn't even believe it as I watched, but I found myself rooting for these two ten minutes into the movie and didn't mind tolerating the journey to their final discovery of each other.
http://movie-hound.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Aniston-and-Sandler.jpg
Unfortunately, with the exception of Dave Matthews, the rest of the cast is beyond annoying...Kidman is wasted, Decker is wooden in the role that made Goldie Hawn a star, and Bailee Madison's performance as Aniston's daughter, an aspiring actress who likes to speak with an English accent, makes you want to punch her in the face. But if you're a Sandler or Aniston fan, the chemistry they generate onscreen works and will make this movie worth sitting through...once. 2.5

[Gideon58]

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Toy Story 2 is the 1999 sequel to the 1995 film that provides some big laughs but some slow stretches thanks to an overly intricate screenplay, which, on the positive side, provides an imaginative backstory for our hero Woody.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/06/30/toystory2460.jpg
This time around, Woody (Tom Hanks) is kidnapped at a garage sale by a nasty toy collector (voiced by Wayne Knight). It's then revealed that Woody was created after the lead character in an old black and white television series with co-stars Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl (voiced by Joan Cusack) and Stinking Pete (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) and that he and their dolls are about to be sold to a museum in Tokyo.

This story would have been enough for a viable sequel but John Lasseter and Pete Docter's screenplay has added a couple of unnecessary subplots revolving around Buzz Lightyear's nemesis in a video game named Zurg and the introduction of a Buzz double who escapes from his box and traps our Buzz in. Tim Allen actually does a viable job creating the two different Buzzes though.
http://hpherald.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/toystory2.jpg
I was also bothered by the fact that Woody remains loyal to Andy after Andy's treatment of him at the beginning of the film. Unfortunately, there is also a backstory thrown in for Jessie that really slows the film down. But the animation is brilliant and some new characters like Jessie, Stinking Pete, and Tour Guide Barbie (voiced by Jodi Benson) are fun and more than make up for the film's minor problems. Make sure you stay tuned through the closing credits. 3.5

[Gideon58]

http://dvdmedia.ign.com/dvd/image/object/142/14263029/vegas'.jpg
What Happens in Vegas is a romantic comedy from 2008 that has charismatic leads and provides sporadic laughs, but suffers from the disease that afflicts most contemporary romantic comedies: rampant predictability.

Jack (Ashton Kutcher) has just been fired from his job and Joy (Cameron Diaz) has just been dumped by her fiancee. They both decide to drown their sorrows in Vegas, where they hook up and after a night of drunken debauchery, wake up married to each other. Shortly after agreeing that it was a mistake and that an annulment is in order, they hit a major jackpot on a slot machine and when they go to court to determine who should get the money, the judge orders that they stay married for six months and have marriage counseling in order to make a legitimate go at the marriage.
http://montrealfilmjournal.com/dat/picb/R0001198.jpg
The story begins interestingly enough...the party leading up to the wedding (which we don't see initially) is fun, but after they leave court, we settle into all the classic scenes that are expected from such a set-up...from the initial squabbling about living arrangements, the revelation that they have something in common, the separate "aha" moments where the protagonists realize they might have feelings for each other and the final long distance journey one lover makes to find the other and because we've seen it all before, the journey linking these scenes together is rather long and tedious.

On the positive side, Kutcher and Diaz do have chemistry and they receive solid support from Rob Corddry and Lake Bell as their BFFs, Treat Williams as Jack's father, Dennis Farina as Joy's boss, and a very funny turn from Dennis Miller as the aforementioned judge.
http://www.popcornreel.com/jpgimg/vegas1.jpg
The film is nothing special, but it's better than a hot poker in the eye. 2.5

[Gideon58]

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HBO spared no expense in bringing Behind the Candelabra to fruition. This lushly mounted TV movie tells, warts and all, the story of the very rocky six year love affair between a dog trainer named Scott Thorson and the flamboyant showman Liberace. This movie scores big not only in production values and on-target performances, but in a story that provides something that is so rare in movies like these: balance.

Richard LaGravenese's screenplay is based on Scott Thorson's book, so it's most likely that the facts presented here are pretty much what happened. What surprised me (pleasantly) is that the screenplay does not present Liberace as this big rich gay ogre who lured this naive young boy into his lair of sexual iniquity, expensive jewelry, and fancy cars. Liberace wanted Scott and dangled a lot of pretty things in front of him but Scott was perfectly aware of what was going on and entered the relationship with his eyes open, despite what anyone might say.

We not only get to see the young hayseed get his head turned by the glamour of Hollywood and the initial constant attention of a show business icon, but we also get an up close and personal look at the icon...aging and terrified about it and actually trying to perpetrate the illusion that he was heterosexual, which the film implies that he did really well, but I just find it so hard to believe that people believed this man was heterosexual. What we also see is an aging gay man whose wandering eye is always looking for the next better built and younger thing as Scott's relationship goes full circle.
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Michael Douglas won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his dazzling interpretation of the legend...this is the 3rd movie made on the subject but no one has ever brought the humanity to Lee that Douglas has. Douglas completely invests in playing a homosexual character without resorting to stereotyped gay behavior or over-the-top lisping. On the other hand, I love during Lee's first meeting with Scott, Douglas looks at him like a steak smothered in onions.
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Matt Damon's Scott Thorson is a fascinating character journey that Damon makes completely believable...Damon has not been this sexy and charismatic onscreen since The Talented Mr. Ripley. It appears that Damon created Scott from the outside in, starting with the clothes, the hair, etc. and created a character we come to care about, even if his naivete is sometimes a little hard to swallow. Watching his descent from small town innocent to dangerously obsessive and jealous drug addict is not pretty and Damon doesn't shy away from it at all. There's also a couple of effective supporting performances from Dan Aykroyd as Lee's agent and Rob Lowe as a slick plastic surgeon who gets Scott hooked on diet pills and talks him into surgery that would make him look more like Lee, an idea of Lee's that I was shocked Scott consented to.

The film also boasts superb production values with absolutely superb work from the makeup team, who made Debbie Reynolds unrecognizable as Liberace's mother and gave Douglas a look in his final bedside scene that actually made me gasp. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time that was a biography and a love story but no clear villain...and I liked that. 4.5

[MovieMeditation]

You review of Toy Story 2 is all wrong. I don't agree with what you are criticizing, neither do I understand how you can say the arguably best and most beloved scene in the film slows the film down!? Jessie's backstory montage is beautiful, sad, touching and very well made...

[Gideon58]

You review of Toy Story 2 is all wrong. I don't agree with what you are criticizing, neither do I understand how you can say the arguably best and most beloved scene in the film slows the film down!? Jessie's backstory montage is beautiful, sad, touching and very well made...
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but we will have to agree to disagree.

[MovieMeditation]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but we will have to agree to disagree.
Me, and a million others, will continue to do so then. :p

I'm just kidding, I'm in your review thread after all, it's enemy territory I shouldn't be stepping on such dangerous routes. :D haha

But glad you liked the movie overall though. :up:

[Sexy Celebrity]

I love BEHIND THE CANDELABRA. Agree with basically all that you said.

[Gideon58]

I love BEHIND THE CANDELABRA. Agree with basically all that you said.
Loved it...one of those rare occasions where I didn't want the movie to end.

[Gideon58]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EMjBof8WQvw/TOs4SZrbVNI/AAAAAAAAADo/hEFQ82_kRgE/s1600/the-sandlot.jpg
If you're looking for something a little different in the way of a sports-oriented film, take a look at The Sandlot, a 1993 slice of Americana that evokes small town sentimentality during the 1950's and provides a realistic journey into pre-teen angst that we can all identify with.

Writer/director Mickey David Evans has constructed a layered story that initially introduces us to Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry), a brainy but awkward 5th grader who desperately wants to be part of a local sandlot baseball team and once the leader of the team (Mike Vitar) takes Scotty under his wing, the story evolves into a more episodic comedy revolving around the team as a whole and their adventures with rival teams, a "dipping" incident an amusement park, and a junkyard dog that would make Cujo run for the hills.
http://www.geekjuicemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/sandlot-8.jpg
Evans really scored here with a warm period atmosphere with loving detail in producing the 1950's and a screenplay that taps into all the pains of being a pre-teen, particularly peer pressure and I'm pretty sure that there is at least one scene in this movie that will have the viewer squirm, maybe in a positive way, maybe in a negative, but childhood memories will definitely be triggered here for anyone watching.
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I also love that Evans didn't overpopulate the cast with a lot of stars, allowing the story to be the star of the film, as it should be. The biggest stars in the film are Denis Leary and Karen Allen as Scotty's parents.

A lovely little sports film for people who really don't like sports. 4

[edarsenal]

took a few days to make it from the very beginning to this point and found some truly wonderful surprises i have loved since childhood make your review list.
A definitively joy-filled stroll through cinema.
Thanks Gideon

[Gideon58]

took a few days to make it from the very beginning to this point and found some truly wonderful surprises i have loved since childhood make your review list.
A definitively joy-filled stroll through cinema.
Thanks Gideon
I am so flattered that you actually took the time to read my entire review thread, I don't think anyone else has done that. Thank you for all the reps and if my thread motivated you to watch something, please let me know when you do, I would love to know what you thought. Again, thank you for reading my reviews, I'm so grateful.

[edarsenal]

i've really come to enjoy a number of folks' reviews here and when i see one I've missed, I go a-meandering.

If I remember, I basically repped ones I've seen and there were so many that i perused, I'd have to go back to see what ones I haven't seen and that caught my attention.
If i do, i will DEFINITELY let ya know and thank you for taking the time to write them

[Gideon58]

i've really come to enjoy a number of folks' reviews here and when i see one I've missed, I go a-meandering.

If I remember, I basically repped ones I've seen and there were so many that i perused, I'd have to go back to see what ones I haven't seen and that caught my attention.
If i do, i will DEFINITELY let ya know and thank you for taking the time to write them
Writing them was fun...thank you for taking the time to read them.

[Cole416]

The Sandlot is such a great movie. Ive seen it close to 15 times, a childhood classic. Nice review!

[Gideon58]

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The Wolf of Wall Street is Martin Scorsese's overblown, outrageously over-the-top, ridiculously overlong fact-based drama that suffers from over-indulgent direction, unappealing characters, plot holes you can drive a truck through and something I expect in a story that is fact-based: some semblance of originality.

This 2013 film chronicles the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), a failed Wall Street stockbroker who after losing his job on Wall Street, moves to a small storefront firm that deals in the sale of penny stocks and is so successful there, he starts his own company where the employees find time to make millions while having sex and snorting cocaine in the bathroom. The man makes so much money that he doesn't know what to do with i t, but eventually spends 22 months in jail for fraud.
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Terence Winter's screenplay, adapted from Belfort's book, is constructed in a haphazard fashion with some unusual choices of story focus. One scene Belfort is seen at his first day at the penny stock firm making his first $2000 commission and minutes later, he is seen making motivational speeches in front of a massive group of employees, including most of the staff of the penny stock firm. The detective (Kyle Chandler) assigned to bring Belfort down is not even seen until almost halfway through the film. Ironically, the screenplay also makes the characters seem a lot more intelligent than they really are. In his first face to face with the detective, Belfort actually tries to bribe the man...seriously?
http://www.thelistlove.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/the-wolf-of-wall-street-penny-stocks.jpg
The film found me flashing back to other more superior films throughout with its scene structure...Casino, Goodfellas, Scarface, and American Gangster all come to mind while viewing here...the same underlying themes regarding money, sex, power and how they trump everything else dominate this film as well, but it all has a "been there done that" quality. One thing the film does effectively is showcase the consequences of Belfort's behavior...I thought the idea of him being arrested while he was filming an infomerical was genius, though, like American Gangster, his sentence reduction because he turned in the rest of his staff just didn't ring true.

Leonardo DiCaprio works very hard in the title role, doing his best to keep a truly despicable character appealing to the viewer. The role is an actor's dream, but the character is such a mess it's hard to invest in the performance. His behavior when his wife (Margot Robbie) finally asks for a divorce was the nail in the coffin for any appeal the character might have. Jonah Hill actually received an Oscar nomination for his performance as Belfort's #2 guy, though I don't know why. There is a stylish supporting turn by Rob Reiner as Belfort's father that I really enjoyed.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2013/10/wolf_a.jpg
If you're just looking for a lot of gratuitous sex and drug use, have your fill here, but if you're looking for a fact-based drama with substance? Be afraid...be very afraid...a huge disappointment from the master Martin Scorsese. 2

[Gideon58]

The Sandlot is such a great movie. Ive seen it close to 15 times, a childhood classic. Nice review!
Thanks Cole, I was doing a favorite sports movie countdown and another poster said I should watch it before completing my list. I did and put it at # 15 on my list.

[Miss Vicky]

The Wolf of Wall Street is a 4.5 for me. Absolutely love it.

Anyway, I'm not sure why you were "looking for a fact based drama" when it was very clear from the previews that movie is a comedy.

[Iroquois]

Shya, a bad comedy.

[Gideon58]

Shya, a bad comedy.
If that movie was supposed to be a comedy then I should lower my rating a point because there was nothing funny about that movie.

[Gideon58]

http://www.scdsoctagon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/RGM.jpg
2008's Rachel Getting Married is a quietly intense drama that looks at the effects of addiction not only on the addict, but how it affects family members and friends as well.

This is the story of Kym (Anne Hathaway), who has been clean for nine months and has been given a pass from rehab to attend her sister Rachel's wedding. What we see upon Kym's return home is a seamless look at Kym trying to find her place back into the family she partied her way out of and a family that wants to welcome her back into the fold yet doesn't want her to be the center of everyone's attention either as wedding preparations reveal some shifting in where the focus should really be.
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This film will definitely tap into feelings for anyone dealing with addiction or with family members dealing with it. It's sad watching Kym return home to a house of strangers and the tension that Kym causes with a wedding toast at the rehearsal that becomes all about her is so thick you can cut it with a knife. There's a horrific scene with Kym where she tries to blame her mother for her past. On the flip side, we learn from Kym's sister Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt) that their father (Bill Erwin) has defended Kym through all her mistakes and putting the rest of his family in second. What's interesting here is that we're unsure as to the degree of truth in this, but we can understand either way. Kym's return home ignites some deep-rooted resentments that Rachel and other family have been burying while Kym has been partying.

Jonathan Demme's direction has an almost voyeuristic feel to it, almost in the form of a documentary chronicling a troubled family planning a wedding but theres so much more going on. Jenny Lumet's rich and surprise-filled screenplay allows Demme's directorial reins to be loosened allowing the story to take center stage, as it should.

Anne Hathaway invests in this sometimes unsympathetic character and makes her ring true and received a Best Actress nomination for her performance. Rosemarie Dewitt also registers as her sister. Bill Erwin is heartbreaking as their dad and I have to give a special shout out to Debra Winger (who looks sensational) as the girls' mother, who apparently was out of the picture during a lot of their formative years.
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This is a well-acted and well-written drama that will tug at a few heartstrings if caught in the right mood. Addicts/alcoholics and their families will have a head start here. 4

[Gideon58]

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Joel and Ethan Cohen have established themselves as filmmakers uninterested in doing the standard cinematic thing, which has resulted in middling results, some critical acclaim, a cult status among buffs, and an Oscar for Best Picture for No Country for Old Men, but their most popular film was a 1998 gem called The Big Lebowski.

This loopy comic adventure stars Jeff Bridges as Jeff Lebowski, who refers to himself as "The Dude" who is visited by some thugs who stick his head in the toilet and pee on his rug threatening him about money owed to a gangster but it is revealed that the money is really owed by someone else named Jeff Lebowski and when The Dude decides to visit the guy to pay for his rug, this is the linchpin for a bizarre comic adventure that defies description.
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The Coen Brothers have constructed a bizarre screenplay centered around a group of characters that are either really unlikable or have no redeeming qualities and a story that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but for some reason we don't care. The Dude drinks white russians and goes shopping in his bathrobe and pays for a quart of milk by check, but that's OK. The Dude's best friends and bowling team buddies are a militant gun nut named Walter (John Goodman) and a nerdy but sweet guy named Donny (Steve Buscemi) who have the best intentions where the dude is concerned but sometimes their actions don't always belie that. The real Lebowski (David Huddleston) is no prize either and neither is his tight-assed assistant (Phillip Seymour Hoffman).
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Thrown into the mix are the real Lebowski's child bride (Tara Reid) and his daughter (Julianne Moore, who seems to be channeling Katharine Hepburn with this performance) who are part of an elaborate kidnapping scheme that the Dude gets involved in.
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Jeff Bridges appears to be having the time of his life playing the Dude, making a completely reprehensible character totally likable and John Goodman is kinetic as his outrageous BFF Walter. Buscemi is actually wasted playing the closest to a regular human being he has ever played but Hoffman garners major laughs as the tightly wound assistant. The film is full of outrageous images, including an outrageous nightmare hallucination framed around a classic 60's tune and Sam Elliott is a perfect narrator. Don't try to figure it out, just sit back and enjoy. 4

[Sexy Celebrity]

Ohhhh, no you didn't just give 8/10 for The Big Lebowski.........

You were doing fine.... I liked Rachel Getting Married and I can understand the low score for The Wolf of Wall Street......

But THIS...... !

[The Gunslinger45]

I approve your rating of The Big Lebowski.

Your Wolf of Wall Street rating however... :furious:

[Gideon58]

I approve your rating of The Big Lebowski.

Your Wolf of Wall Street rating however... :furious:
I know there's a lot of love on these boards for The Wolf of Wall Street...the film even received Oscar nominations, but I just didn't like it and I'm not going to pretend I did to please other posters here.

[Gideon58]

Ohhhh, no you didn't just give 8/10 for The Big Lebowski.........

You were doing fine.... I liked Rachel Getting Married and I can understand the low score for The Wolf of Wall Street......

But THIS...... !
Don't get me wrong...I'm pretty sure The Big Lebowski is an acquired taste and not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it...the fact that Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors probably had a lot to do with it and he seems to be really enjoying himself in this movie, something I don't see in all performances and it can definitely enhance a performance. There were things in the film that didn't make sense and there really isn't a likable character in the whole movie, but they are believable for the most part.

[The Gunslinger45]

I know there's a lot of love on these boards for The Wolf of Wall Street...the film even received Oscar nominations, but I just didn't like it and I'm not going to pretend I did to please other posters here.

Don't mind my over the top reaction to the lack of love for WoWS. :D Love what ya love.

[Gideon58]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Of7DhAjuL._SL1500_.jpg
Tom Hanks served as co-producer, co-screenwriter, director and star of Larry Crowne, a watchable 2011 comedy that could have been something very special about a timely subject, but instead provides quick fixes and easy laughs.
https://pacs.ou.edu/filer/sharing/1496350751/2464/
50-ish Larry Crowne has just lost his job, allegedly because he never went to college, who decides to go to college part-time after being unable to find a job and finds himself almost immediately involved with two very different women: Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is a beautiful and exuberant student who is a member of a motor scooter gang (yes, I meant scooter) and Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts) is Larry's really unhappy speech professor, who seems to be as unhappy with her work as she is with her husband (Bryan Cranston).
http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/2011/07/hanks-crowne.jpg
Hanks and Nia Vardolos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) have constructed a screenplay that makes our star look good, but is just a little unrealistic. Larry arrives in a college setting and is accepted unconditionally almost immediately and, while in college, is offered a part-time job as cook that just happens to work out perfectly with his college schedule. We want things to work out for Larry, but for a 50-ish male without a college degree, bouncing back from losing a long time job just wouldn't be this easy. Similar issues were more realistically addressed in About Schmidt.
https://www.moviedayatthecourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Larry-Crowne.jpg
Hanks still has the power to carry a film and works well with Roberts, though it's hard to get on board with her character, which is kind of all over the place. Hanks makes some offbeat choices in his supporting cast, some of which work and some don't...Bryan Cranston channels Jack Lemmon in his performance as Roberts' porn-surfing husband, but I never really bought Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson as Larry's neighbors and Pam Grier's role as Roberts' co-worker/BBF is thankless. On the other hand, Wilmer Valderrama is a lot of fun as Talia's hot-headed boyfriend and, as expected, there's a cameo from Hanks' real-life wife, Rita Wilson.
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I don't know if it was the fact that Hanks tried doing too much here, but I think the film provides too many easy answers to a timely problem. I can see why the film didn't do well at the box office as it deals with subject matter that is irrelevant to the all-important 18-34 demographic, but it does have star power. 2.5

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c6/The_Goonies.jpg
The creative vision of Steven Spielberg and the proven directorial hand of Richard Donner make the 1985 comic adventure The Goonies seem a lot better than it really is. The film centers on a group of kids' search for a treasure in hopes of saving the foreclosure of two of the boys' home, who find their quest complicated by a trio of comic villains, who also happen to be family.
http://www.collectingcandy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/600full-the-goonies-screenshot.jpg
Spielberg and Donner have taken what is basically a children's bedtime story or campfire ghost story and elevated it to epic proportions, giving the story a grandiosity that I'm not really sure it deserves. Spielberg and Chris Columbus' screenplay is overly intricate, offering perhaps a bit too much detail, resulting in the film's over length and multiple endings which are hard to endure because the story works so hard at making us love these characters that we know there's only way for the story to end and the journey to said ending shouldn't have been as long as it was.
http://www.bam.org/media/3377311/thegoonies-613x463.jpg
Director Richard Donner, a proven master of directing a proper action sequence since 1978's Superman: The Motion Picture mounts action sequences that compensate for the over indulgent story. He gets grand assists in the area of art direction, set direction, and cinematography, which are all first rate, but this is to be expected of any film where Steven Spielberg is present on the set.
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The young cast of future stars is competent, with standout work from Sean Astin and Corey Feldman and I loved Anne Ramsey, Robert Davi, and Joe Pantoliano as the comic version of Ma Barker and her boys. The film is overlong and has slow moments along the way, but Spielberg and Donner's love for the project is on the screen and the film is definitely worth a glance to fantasy and action fans. Spielberg fans will definitely have a head start. 3

[Gideon58]

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Tim Burton's 2010 mounting of Alice in Wonderland is a visually arresting and offbeat re-thinking of Lewis Carroll's classic fairly tale, but more than anything else, a superb technical achievement that combines all the elements of great filmmaking but still comes up short as a great film.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Queen_of_hearts_2010.jpg
Linda Woolverton's screenplay finds our heroine 13 years after her first trip down the rabbit hole. A child of wealth and privilege, a 19-year old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is about to be married when a glimpse of the white rabbit easily distracts her to the point where she ends up falling down the hole again. It is then revealed that Alice's return to Wonderland is no accident...she has been brought back to Wonderland to help end the Red Queen's reign of terror.
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Tim Burton worked very hard at bringing his unique vision to this classic tale and has employed the finest cinematic technicians in the business to bring this tale to such exuberant life. The film is beautiful to look at...it features extraordinary art direction/set direction, and cinematography. The fairy tale characters are brought to life in various forms. some are actors in intricate costumes and makeup and some are computer generated and the scary part is that sometimes it's actually hard to tell which is which. There is so much to look at here and so much to take in that you almost don't notice that what you're watching is basically a rehash of the fairy tale and not a continuation. Alice's constant references to what is happening to her as being a dream don't really help. There are technical achievements here that must be applauded. There's a surreal moment where Alice approaches the Red Queen's castle and she appears to initially be jumping from rock to rock but they aren't rocks, they are human heads, victims of the Red Queen.
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The actual actors in the cast are all first rate, especially Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and there's also a surprisingly effective performance from Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts . There's some great voice work for some Wonderland characters too, especially Stephen Fry as the Chesire Cat, Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar, and Timothy Spall as a dog named Bayard.

Colleen Atwood's superb costumes are the frosting on the cake in this rehash of a classic fairy tale that pretends to be more original than it really is. 3

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In the tradition of Christmas movies like It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Story comes a Christmas movie that is absolutely NOTHING like any of those movies.
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The 1994 comedy The Ref is an outrageously over the top comedy about a cat burglar (Denis Leary) who holds a deeply unhappy married couple named Lloyd and Caroline (Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis) hostage in their home on Christmas Eve, but his plan becomes complicated when his way out of town is delayed and he learns that the rest of the couple's dysfunctional family is enroute to the house as well.
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The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese based on a story by Marie Weiss is rich with razor sharp dialogue that provides major laughs and serves the characters well, despite a few unexplained plot holes, but the best thing about the story is that Leary's character is not just the smartest character in the story, he is an educated guy, who happens to be a cat burglar...I love when he notices an important painting on the wall of the couple's home and gets upset when the wife not only summarily dismisses it, but offers it to him. When we see Lloyd and Caroline's massive dysfunction, it's clear that Leary's character is going to be a major factor in their fence-mending, but we don't see the character's individual intelligence coming at all and it' such a refreshing surprise.
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Director Ted Demme has pulled first rate performances from his cast...Leary beautifully underplays a role that easily could have been a cartoon caricature, but is vividly real and very funny. Spacey and Davis are well-oiled machine and mention should also be made of Glynis Johns, Christina Baranski, Richard Bright, Adam LeFevre, and Raymond J. Berry in supporting roles. The holiday movie for those who hate holiday movies. 4

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Woody Allen takes another excursion into Bergman territory with 1988's Another Woman, a riveting character study that fascinates due to unconventional story presentation and brilliant performances.

Gena Rowlands, in a performance that rivals A Woman Under the Influence, plays Marian, a college professor who has just turned 50 and has taken a sabbatical from her job to write a book, who we learn has spent her entire life shielding emotions and keeping people in her life at arm's length. Marian begins to take stock of her life when, through an acoustical snafu, she is able to listen to a psychiatrist next door and finds herself drawn to the plight of a pregnant patient (Mia Farrow) whose current troubles are revealed to have parallels to Marian's life.
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It is fascinating watching Marian's life revealed out of sequence as we see the influence she has had on people in her life without even realizing it, especially the reveal of a desire to have a child that was never realized. Ironically, the most fully realized relationship Marian seems to have is with a stepdaughter (Martha Plimpton). We watch as Marian's long ago affair with a writer (Gene Hackman) inspired a character in his latest book and as a childhood friend (Sandy Dennis, in an explosive performance) reveals her long buried resentment of Marian. And amidst her judgment of others, we learn that Marian's seemingly solid marriage to Ken (Ian Holm) isn't all it seem to be either.
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Woody has constructed an uncompromising screenplay that is merciless on its heroine with flashes of fantasy and his direction is bold and evocative, producing some scenes of unbearable tension, the arrival of Ken's ex (Betty Buckley) at his engagement party defines awkward. As always with Woody's films, music is a key factor and this time it is comprised mostly of some really beautiful piano music that perfectly frames the story. Woody has crafted an emotional and economical character study that haunts during the closing credits. 4.5

[Miss Vicky]

Big :up: for The Ref. I've always loved that movie and rarely see anybody mention it.

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Big :up: for The Ref. I've always loved that movie and rarely see anybody mention it.
Loved it...a very pleasant surprise, of course, I'm a Judy Davis nut so that helped.

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Disney Pixar created another classic heroine to add to their recent gallery in an unsung 2010 sleeper called Tangled, Disney's animated re-visioning of of Rapunzel.

In this story we learn that Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) was a princess who was given magical powers through her hair via a flower that also allowed an old woman named Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy, who is brilliant) to remain young and attractive, so in order to maintain her beauty, Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, takes her to a tower, and raises her as her own, never allowing her to leave the tower and never cutting her magical hair, which grows 70 feet long. Enter a charming vagabond thief named Flynn Ryder (voiced by Zachary Levi) and we have another Disney fairy tale bathed in a contemporary sensibility that makes the story viable for children of 2010.
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Dan Fogelman's screenplay is overly cute at times, but it provides charming and flawed characters who we feel all the appropriate emotions for...we route for Rapunzel and Flynn from the moment they meet and we want to see Mother Gothel get what's coming to her. The screenplay, as with most Disney animation, provides us with the expected smarter-than-human animal sidekicks, especially an awesome horse named Maximus.

Moore and Levi work well together and their characters onscreen actually resemble them, but it's Donna Murphy who steals the show as Mother Gothel, a classic Disney villainness in the tradition of Cruella DeVille, a perfect combination of evil and arrogance.
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It's not exactly Snow White, but the story is lovingly told with some realistic looking dangers for our heroine and an ending that has us on the edge for a moment but ultimately satisfies. 3

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One of Woody Allen's most ambitious projects was 1997's Deconstructing Harry. a film almost Robert Altman-like in its size and scope, but presenting the accustomed nutso characters we expect from the Woodmeister, brought to life by an impressive all-star cast at the top of their game.
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Woody plays Harry Block, a writer who is being honored by the college that once expelled him, who decides to drive upstate to the ceremony, accompanied by his best friend (Bob Balaban), a hooker (Hazelle Goodman), and his son (Eric Lloyd). This journey is framed with stories from various parts of Harry's life, which are presented in the form of characters from some of Harry's work.
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Woody has crafted one of his most complex screenplays that requires and assumes complete attention from the viewer. On the other hand, Harry is not a terribly sympathetic character, a womanizing egomaniac not worthy of viewer affection. On the other hand, as accustomed with Woody's characters, it is hard to understand what all these women see in Harry in the first place. Allen has always overestimated his power over the opposite sex, justifying it by claiming they are attracted to his work, but the stories never play out that way. As always in Woody's films, I always find myself distracted from the story being told because I just can't buy the fact that these women are attracted to Woody in the first place.
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Suspending disbelief regarding the sexual power of Allen, we have a wonderfully entertaining story with an amazing all-star cast, with standout work from Judy Davis, Demi Moore, Richard Benjamin, Kirstie Alley, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Billy Crystal, Tobey Maguire, and Stanley Tucci. I think a lot of actors involved here took smaller roles than they usually do just for the opportunity to work with Allen, but every actor onscreen here is committed to the sanctity of Woody's word processor, which seems to have priority over everything else here, including a somewhat bizarre denoument that is explained while it is occurring, which was a little unsettling, but with Allen, we tend to forgive. 3.5

[Used Future]

Daddy's out of focus! Daddy's out of focus!

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From the demented mind of Seth MacFarlane comes a 2012 comic fantasy called Ted, a forced and over the top comic romp whose basic premise is suitable but MacFarlane ends up telling the wrong story.
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The film opens with 8 year old John Bennett receiving a Teddy Bear for Xmas and making a wish that the bear could talk so that he and the bear can be BFF's. John's wish does come true, and he and Ted become inseparable and the Xmas miracle makes Ted a minor celebrity culminating in an interview with Johnny Carson. The film then flashes forward to 35 year old John (Mark Wahlberg) working as a car rental agent but still best friends with Ted, a talking Teddy bear who smokes pot, drives John to work, and loves the Sam Jones movie Flash Gordon and we see how John's friendship with Ted is causing major tension with his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis).
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MacFarlane is the whole show here...directing, co-writing, and providing the voice for the title character and I don't think wearing too many hats was the cause of the problem here...multiple hats has never been an issue for MacFarland, I just think he and co-writer Alec Sulkin have chosen to tell the wrong story. The story of John growing up with Ted, John becoming a celebrity because of his childhood wish, how Ted affected John's teen years, and how everything Ted did led to his appearance with Johnny Carson, that's what this film should have been about. Instead, what we have is a world that accepts a Ted with no questions asked and the audience is asked to swallow a whole lot as well and I went with it...until John and Ted actually had a knock down drag out fight in a hotel room and that's when they lost me for good.
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The film also suffers because the character of John Bennett is kind of an idiot and I can't believe I'm typing this, but Mark Wahlberg is too intelligent a screen presence for this character. Mila Kunis is wasted but Joel McHale has a couple of funny moments as Lori's boss. The expected Sam Jones cameo does also occur, as well as ones by Norah Jones (who we're supposed to believe as a notch on Ted's bedpost), Ryan Reynolds, and Tom Skerritt.
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There's a whole lot of dumb stuff going on here and there is an occasional laugh during the journey, but the gaps between those laughs are a little too big. I did like the "Thunder Buddy" Song though. 2

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A screenplay so razor sharp you can cut yourself on it and a powerhouse cast working at the top of their game are the primary selling points of 1995's Get Shorty, a wickedly entertaining black comedy that blends two supposedly different worlds into one story and populates said stories with characters who are intelligent and believable.
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Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, this is the story of Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a Florida-based wiseguy who is sent to Hollywood to collect a debt from a third rate movie producer named Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) and finds his work compromised by the lure of Hollywood wealth and glamour and his desire to get into the movie business himself.

Scott Frank's intricate screenplay takes the world of Florida wiseguys and the world of Hollywood movers and shakers and effectively showcases how similar they really are and how someone with a basic knowledge of both, like our lead character, can keep things working to their advantage.
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Frank has also created a wonderfully entertaining lead character in Chili Palmer. Chili is not a typical movie thumb-breaker...he is smarter than most of the people he works for and effortlessly took work-related events and manipulated them into a workable screenplay that parties like Zimm and an established Hollywood star named Martin Weir (Danny De Vito) have expressed interest in. I also love the fact that Chili's love of film is no accident...he is a buff who knows full chunks of dialogue from Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil and the John Wayne classic Rio Bravo. Watching Chili sitting in a near empty theater watching the Orson Welles classic was the moment i became completely invested in the character and wanted him to have everything he wanted.
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Director Barry Sonnenfeld mounts the script with the respect it deserves and pulls first rate performances from his hand-picked cast. John Travolta is the personification of cool as Chili Palmer and Hackman is completely believable as a Hollywood loser who desperately wants to get back in the game and thinks Chili will be his ticket back to the top. Rene Russo is attractive as Harry's actress/girlfriend who really wants to be a producer. Danny De Vito is suprisingly effective as the obnoxiously arrogant movie star and Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, and James Gandolfini also make an impression as obstacles in Chili's journey to Hollywood acceptance.
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It's hard to explain a lot of what goes on this film without giving it away, but the screenplay, though a little complex at times, is not so complex that you lose interest, but complex enough that you might want to stop the tape every now and then to replay a scene that might have gotten by you. Travolta fans will have a head start because he has rarely been better. Followed by a sequel called Be Cool. 4.5

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Disney Studios had a major triumph in 1994 with an instant classic called The Lion King a visually arresting animated feature with an almost Shakespearean sensibility that tells a layered and interesting story in a way that appeals to audiences of all ages.
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This is the story of Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick) a lion cub being groomed to take over the kingdom of Pride Rock by his father, King Mufasa (James Earl Jones), but finds his life derailed by his Uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), who wants the kingdom for himself.
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The screenplay by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts provides believable human emotions and agendas to animated animal characters that are believable but not beyond the scope of understanding for the intended demographic. We love the rough play between Simba and childhood gal pal Nala where they are unsure of how to express their feelings about each other. We even understand Uncle Scar, who may feel he's being cheated and probably has been living under Mufasa's shadow all his life and is tired of it. Yet, he is clearly the villain of the piece and we want to see him get what he deserves.
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The voice work is perfection with standout work from Jeremy Irons as Scar, who easily walks away with this and any actor who can steal a film from The Voice, James Earl Jones, deserves credit for such. There are a handful of fun songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, one of them, "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" won an Oscar. A delightful cinematic journey with something for the young and the young at heart. 4.5

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We're the Millers is an overlong but somewhat amusing sitcom episode stretched out to feature length film size, but doesn't really have enough material to stretch that far.

The film stars Jason Sudeikis as a small time drug dealer who, in order to clear a debt, agrees to retrieve a large shipment of marijuana from Mexico and in order to appear less conspicuous, persuades a stripper (Jennifer Aniston), a neglected kid in his building (Will Poulter), and an overly sensitive homeless girl (Emma Roberts) to pose as his family on a family holiday south of the border.

Though the film boasts an attractive cast and does provides some laughs, it goes on way too long, evidenced in the fact that the actual event of crossing the border with the drugs occurs about 20 minutes into the film and there's actually another 98 minutes of screentime that is pretty much just padding about the off and on bonding process that eventually melds these four strangers into a somewhat believable family unit, but it takes WAY longer than necessary and it's not all that interesting.
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Screenwriters Bob Fisher and Steve Faber have constructed a somewhat overly cute and sometimes overly edgy screenplay that intends to shock but more than often condescends and Rawson Thurber's direction is kind of pedestrian considering the many twists and turns the story takes.

Sudeikis does show some leading man potential but doesn't have a lot of chemistry with Aniston, who gets ample opportunities to show off her comic timing as well as her physical assets. The film seems to be built around her character, which doesn't necessarily increase its appeal. Will Poulter actually has the lion's share of the film's funniest moments as the fake son including a kissing lesson with Aniston and Roberts that appeared to be a lot of fun.
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The film seems to be sort of a contemporary updating of National Lampoon's Vacation but nowhere near as funny and way too long. 2.5

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Stephen Frears' stylish direction and three charismatic lead performances make the 1990 drama The Grifters worth your attention.
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Based on a novel by Jim Thompson, this almost noir-ish drama takes an insightful and detailed look at the art of the con and at three people whose lives have always been part of it, even if their levels of involvement differ. We are introduced to Lilly (Anjelica Huston), a veteran grifter who currently works for a bookie (Pat Hingle) making bets at racetracks that actually alter the odds. Lilly's son, Roy (John Cusack) is a novice grifter, even though he is in denial about it and has it thrown in his face with his new girlfriend, Myra (Annette Bening), who initially comes off as a rathy ditzy call girl, but turns out to be a veteran con as well.
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Donald E. Westlake's screenplay provides an intimate canvas populated with extremely complicated characters with equally complex relationships and history. There is quite a lot left unsaid regarding the relationship between Lilly and Roy and I believe that's on purpose...there's a whole lot going on between these two that I think the viewer is supposed to determine for themselves. Roy's resentment at Lilly's obvious neglect of him as a child has morphed into his own desire to be a bigger and better grifter than his mother ever was. There seems to be guilt on Lilly's side too, but this is a mother who is tired of apologizing and has decided to do what she knows best...she clearly loves her son to an almost incestuous level that piques her radar when Myra enters his life. Eventually, the competition for Roy's love that develops between these two strong women becomes the linchpin upon which this film works.
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It's also the Oscar-nominated performances by Huston and Bening that really make this film sizzle, though Cusack does hold his own against these two acting powerhouses. Pat Hingle was surprisingly creepy as Lilly's boss and if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance by future Entourage star Jeremy Piven as a young sailor.

Elmer Bernstein's inventive music score and stark cinematography are the icing on the cake in one of the forgotten gems of 1990. 3.5

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Beginners is a lovely and moving comedy-drama from 2010 that tries to encompass quite a bit and actually succeeds for the most part. The film is part character study, part family drama, part documdrama, and part romantic comedy.
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Ewan MacGregor plays Oliver Fields, a sad and internally damaged young man who has been severely affected by his relationship with his parents, a dysfunctional couple who had no clue what they did to their child. Oliver's mother, Georgia, was a self-hating Jew, who treated her son like an adult and his father, Hal, was a closeted homosexual who came out of the closet at age 75 and became lovers with a much younger man for three years before contracting an inoperable cancer. It is these relationships that are revealed simultaneously while Oliver is tentatively pursuing a relationship with a French actress.
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Writer-director Mike Mills really scored a bullseye here, constructing a screenplay that is intricate but never difficult to follow. The story quietly opens with Oliver bringing home his dad's dog, an adorable Jack Terrier named Arthur and we watch the rest of his relationship with his parents unfold in flashback, we see him as a child with his mother and as an adult with his dad at the end of his life, providing layered documentation as to why Oliver is the way he is.
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MacGregor is charming and intense as Oliver, creating a character we immediately care about and sympathize with and Melanie Laurent is an eye opener as Anna, the French actress. Mary Page Keller, an actress who has been off the radar for quite awhile, is very effective as Georgia as is Goran Visnjic as Hal's young lover, but shining above them all, in a performance that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is Christopher Plummer as Hal, the man who finally found the courage to come out of the closet 10 years after his wife's death and lived his final years with a joy that his son Oliver sometimes couldn't understand. Plummer really shines in one scene where Hal explains to Oliver why he married Georgia, even though he knew he was gay.
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Despite some less-than-stellar production values, Mills' sensitive direction and a striking piano score are frosting on the cake, though Plummer's effervescent winning performance is reason enough to check out this indie sleeper alone. 3.5

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I'm always amazed when a film lives up to its reputation, whether good or bad, and the humorless 1984 comedy Rhinestone effortlessly lives up to its reputation as a lame comedy and a low point in the career of its stars.
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Allegedly based on the classic Glen Campbell song "Rhinestone Cowboy", the film stars Dolly Parton, in her third film, as Jake, a singer in a 2nd rate country and western bar run by a wealthy sleazeball (Ron Leibman), who makes a bet with the sleazeball that she can teach an obnoxious Italian cab driver named Nick Martinelli (Sylvester Stallone) one country song and can perform it on the stage of the club without being booed off the stage and is given two weeks to do it.
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The premise is plausible enough, but instead of just taking Nick to a rehearsal studio and teaching him how to sing, Jake decides she has to fly Nick to Tennessee and completely immerse him in country culture and that's where the story strays off course into a lot of offensive stereotypes about being southern and Italian that grow tiring LONG before the closing credits.
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Bob Clark, who directed Porky's, has constructed a comedy that depends on culture stereotypes and sleazy sexual double entendres that actually makes Porky's seem like Shakespeare. The screenplay, actually co-written by Stallone and Phil Alden Robinson, who would be nominated for an Oscar five years later for writing Field of Dreams provides a really annoying character in Nick, whose lack of intelligence doesn't mesh with the overly clever dialogue.
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Sylvester Stallone easily gives the worst performance of his career in a character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Parton somehow manages to maintain her dignity here as does the always reliable Richard Farnsworth playing her father, but as for the rest of this film, it's a pretty much a steaming pile of crap that did not motivate a single laugh. So unless you have nightly wet dreams about either Stallone or Parton (who both look amazing here), I would give this one a pass. 1

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Jason Reitman, the creative force behind one of my favorite sleepers, Thank you for Smoking, scored another bullseye with 2009's Up in the Air, a deliciously surprising character study that brings additional layers to a somewhat traditional genre that give the story a veneer of originality that provides a breath of movie fresh air.
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This breezy story stars Oscar winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a downsizing expert who spends his life living out of a suitcase. He travels all over the country to various large corporations and terminates employees for employers who apparently don't have the guts to do it for themselves. Bingham's cocoon-like existence is threatened when he learns that his company is planning to start terminating people via video-conferencing, making Ryan feel threatened, but is challenged to show the ropes to the young video-conferencing expert (Anna Kendrick) while beginning a relationship with a woman very much like himself named Alex (Vera Farmiga).
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Jason Reitman's direction and his screenplay (co-written with Allan Sherman) are evocative and provide an entertaining story that provides several unexpected plot turns along the way, that though not all pleasant, are steeped in realism and make for a story that the viewer remains interested in.
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George Clooney has never been better as Bingham and Vera Farmiga proves to have solid leading lady potential as Alex. Anna Kendrick gives a crisp performance as the young would be executive who becomes wonderfully human when we learn that her tight-ass exterior has been broken due to her being dumped by her boyfriend. The relationship between the three characters has a refreshing quality to it, primarily that there is no bitchiness between the two women...they understand each other's roles in Ryan's life and accept them. Their initial bonding at a party the three crash is a lot of fun and the tension between them comes from more unexpected places.
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The film received a Best Picture Oscar nomination, as well as dual nominations for Reitman and for the three leads and did win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. I also enjoyed Jason Bateman as Ryan's boss and Amy Morton as his no-nonsense older sister. Lovely cinematography, striking editing, and a lovely song score also help to make this a truly unique cinematic journey worth embarking upon. 4

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Lily Tomlin once described the 1950's as "ten years of foreplay"...a decade of sexual repression and very specific societal roles for men and women and any attempt to stray from these well-established roles was considered sacrilege or insanity. 2008's Revolutionary Road documents a troubled marriage and how their attempts to buck these traditional roles lead to shock from friends and colleagues and do nothing to help their marriage.
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Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives with his wife, April (Kate Winslet) and his two kids in a Connecticut suburb and works in an office doing a job he hates. April has always wanted to be an actress and when that didn't happen, she settled into domesticity but is screaming on the inside. April has come up with an idea to re-energize her marriage and her life...she wants to move to Paris where she is convinced she can get a high-paying secretarial job and Frank can sit home until he decides what he REALLY wants to do, but when this plan doesn't pan out, the Wheeler's marriage goes from bad to worse.
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This movie is terribly sad because the Wheelers are immediately likable and we want them to be happy and we know they're not. The Wheelers are also considered role models in their quiet little home on Revolutionary Road and have grown weary of keeping up appearances because that's what the 1950's were about...keeping up appearances. We don't care how unhappy you are, just as long as you don't show it.
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Justin Haythe's screenplay, adapted from a novel by Richard Yates is uncompromising though a little on the talky side. It's a picture perfect view of life in 1950's and how the Wheelers don't quite fit and director Sam Mendes, who previously explored life in suburbia in American Beauty and won an Oscar for it, nails the tightly wound gossips watching every move the Wheelers make and pretending to be shocked and angry, but in reality, they are also a bit jealous.
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The film is beautifully mounted and perfectly captures the atmosphere and sensibilities of the 1950's and never allows you to forget it...there is a scene where we see Frank board the commuter train in his two-piece suit and fedora, along with two hundred other men wearing the same suit and fedora...just men. And I love all the unabashed drinking and cigarette smoking in this movie. There's an almost surreal moment in the movie where DiCaprio sits down in his cubicle and lights a cigarette...how long ago were you allowed to smoke in your office?
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Reunited a decade after setting movie screens on fire in Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio offers one of his strongest and most likable characters in Frank and Winslet is just extraordinary as April. Winslet did win Best Actress the same year for The Reader, but this performance trumps that one effortlessly. She is just amazing here, no one does smiling on the outside screaming on the inside better than Winslet and this ticking time bomb of a character she creates is fascinating from start to finish. Also loved Kathy Bates as the tightly wound real estate agent trying to hide her shame regarding her mentally fragile son (Michael Shannon, in a deliciously unhinged turn that earned him a supporting actor nomination). The film features exquisite cinematography, excellent art/direction set direction and a lush musical score that help to bring a very specific time to life. 4

[Gideon58]

1968's The Swimmer is an oddly riveting, but somewhat predictable episodic drama that, though mounted on a pretty original canvas, the journey's end is a little disappointing.
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This film is the story of a Connecticut suburbanite named Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) who, after returning home for the summer, has decided to "swim" his way home via the private swimming pools of all his friends and neighbors and as he reaches each pool, bits and pieces of his life are revealed and we learn that his life is not the Norman Rockwell painting that Ned would like us to believe.
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This movie initially fascinates because Ned is initially presented as likable but it doesn't take long to figure out that Ned's life is not as picture perfect as he would like us to believe. I knew things weren't the way Ned tried to make them seem when anyone would ask him how his wife Lucinda and his daughters were, he would brush off the question and his answer was always a little different. Then we see his reaction to encountering an empty pool or his obsession with swimming through a crowded public pool, we know there is something wrong with this man, and his encounter with a former lover named Shirley (Janice Rule, in a flashy performance) wraps up this theory quite neatly. Eleanor Perry's screenplay has a few gaping holes in it, primarily that the reactions of the people Ned encounters during his journey should have been a little more telling than they were, making the film's climax a little more predictable, but also a little more realistic.
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Lancaster completely invests in this bizarre character and manages to infuse him with some likability despite his obvious flaws. The supporting cast of suburbanites is appropriate (including a fun cameo from a very young Joan Rivers) and Frank Perry's compelling direction serves the story well. Despite an overbearing musical score, I found the the film strange and predictable and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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Disney Dreamworks came up with a pretty entertaining diversion in 2004 called Shark Tale, a colorful and funny animated tale that, despite a fantastic all-star voice cast that makes the movie seem better than it is, does suffer from a severe lack of originality.
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Just about everything that happens in this movie was borrowed from classic live action movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarfaceand West Side Story but it is mounted on a somewhat original canvas...an underwater canvas to be specific. An entire Metropolis and syndicated organization has been created in the underwater world revealed as well as a class division between the fish and the sharks and what happens when the two classes collide, which is actually an animated film staple: two creatures who by nature should be enemies but become friends.
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This is the story of a big dreaming hustling fish named Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) who is mistakenly believed to be the responsible for the death of a shark (voiced by Michael Imperioli), who is the son of a shark mob boss (voiced by Robert De Niro) and has a nerdy brother named Lenny (voiced by Jack Black) who doesn't want to be part of the shark mob and doesn't want to eat fish. We then watch Oscar and Lenny both try to take advantage of the shark's death as the media celebrates Oscar as a shark killer and Lenny learns how to be a better shark through his new buddy the fish.
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As mentioned, Michael J.Wilson and Rob Letterman's screenplays borrows from a lot of other movies but a contemporary veneer is applied so that the non-discriminating filmgoer won't really notice how unoriginal it really is.

The voice cast is spectacular though, with standout work from Smith, De Niro, and towering above everybody is Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese, who pretty much steals the film voicing Sykes, a loud-mouthed blowfish whose loyalties keep changing throughout the film.
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Nothing terribly original here, but it will keep the kids amused for 90 minutes. 3

[ursaguy]

I think that the fact that Scorsese was in it makes it an homage to Goodfellas, not a rip off, and I do think that distinction matters when talking about originality. I agree that this is an above average film, but ultimately it suffers from the Dreamworks problem of relying too much on puns for their jokes. I also think that it struggled in not knowing its audience. 99% of the target demographic has never seen Goodfellas, and as a 7 or 8 year old when this came out I recall being more confused than anything by the mafia stuff. Once you can appreciate it, most of the jokes are too childish to be funny. Great voice cast all around. It could have been Kung Fu Panda, but the writers needed to tidy up the script a little more.

[Gideon58]

I love the hit and miss career of Adam Sandler, but he really had a miss with a 2011 comedy called Jack and Jill.
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Sandler plays Jack, an advertising executive who is dreading a Thanksgiving visit from his twin sister, Jill (also Sandler) a loving, well-intentioned, but obnoxious and needy woman who has been a constant embarrassment for Jack his whole life. Jill arrives and refuses to leave until a series of weird circumstances lead to Jack needing his twin to close a big business deal.
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I guess this story, written by Sandler and Steve Koren, was written to display Sandler's versatility as an actor, but it goes to such ridiculous extremes to do so that the movie has some long gaps between laughs, making for a very long movie (and it's only 90 minutes long!). Not to mention the fact that the story incredibly involves Oscar winner Al Pacino, in a silly role in this story, playing himself and actually falling in love with Jill, who looks exactly like John Travolta in Hairspray.
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Sandler works very hard at making his two lead characters likable, but he's bitten off more than he can chew with Jill. I have to wonder how Sandler talked Pacino into this mess and the film features cameos from people like Regis Philbin, Johnny Depp, and David Spade (also playing a woman). Sandler put a lot of work into this movie, but we're just asked to invest in a really ridiculous story that takes us on a journey that's just not that funny. 2

[Gideon58]

Emily Gale is a seven year old girl who died in 1988, the victim of a drunk driver and it is this little girl's death that is the launching off point for 1995's The Crossing Guard, an uncompromising and moving drama that shows how guilt and the need for vengeance can destroy lives.
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We meet Freddy Gale (Jack Nicholson), Emily's father, a jewelry store owner who has a penchant for strip bars and was destroyed by Emily's death, though he has never visited his daughter's grave sight, has vowed to kill the man who has killed his daughter. That man, John Booth (David Morse) has just been released from prison after six years, still wracked with guilt about what he did and trying to start a new life. The difference here is that the eventual showdown between the characters happens early in the film, at which time Freddy gives John three days to get his affairs in order before he kills him.
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Sean Penn's screenplay is thoughtful and edgy, though there are a couple of small quibbles. I couldn't figure out how Freddy found out where John was living and John's relationship with a girl he met at a party (Robin Wright) seems to come from nowhere and happens a little too fast, but Freddy and ex-wife Mary (Anjelica Huston) fight like a couple married for 100 years and I love the ironic naming of Morse's character.
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Penn fares much better as a director and reveals a true cinematic eye with some sweeping camera shots and visual images and has crafted vivid characters who are brilliantly realized by his hand-picked cast. Nicholson's explosive performance in the lead is consistently fascinating and Morse is wonderful as the guilt-ridden drunk driver...no one plays tortured better than Morse and he is given a grand opportunity to do it here. Anjelica Huston has rarely been better as Freddy's ex-wife and there's an eye-opening turn from ex-Three's Company star Priscilla Barnes as an aging stripper who has a thing for Freddy.

I loved this movie because it gives a more balanced account of an oft-told tale. We usually see how the victim's family try to move on or how the offender tries to move on, but this time we see both and we get to see how guilt can stunt growth and how the need for revenge can bring someone to the verge of insanity. And despite a contrived ending, the film never fails to sustain interest. 4.5

[Gideon58]

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The childhood concept of a monster in the closet is turned completely inside out and given a fresh and futuristic veneer in Disney Pixar's Monsters Inc., an overly intricate story that provides an ecological message blended with a fish out of water story but it also touches on classic cinematic messages like labor vs management, and, of course, good vs evil.
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In the futuristic city of Monstropolis is the large corporation known as Monsters, Inc., a plant where nuclear power for the city is gathered by monsters and supplied by the screams of human children. A pair of monsters named Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) lead the corporation is children's scares but find their positions in the firm threatened when a child escapes from her room and develops an attachment to Sully while the child is also being pursued by Sully's nemesis named Randall (voiced by Steve Buscemi) and their boss (voiced by James Coburn).
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As with most Disney Pixar creations, the screenplay by Pete Docter and Silverman is overly intricate, full of illogical plotting that distracts the viewer of the primary story at hand. I couldn't figure out if the child (named "Boo" by Sully) was aware of the power she possesses and I was bothered by the fact that Randall was the only monster with the power of invisibility. I also didn't understand what Randall and the boss wanted to do with the child, who initially is labeled as toxic, but by the third act of the story, the child is like the Holy Grail and everyone wants her though it isn't really made clear why...maybe a re-watch would help, but if the truth be told, it really didn't matter and did not deter from my enjoyment of the fun story and entertaining characters that I met here. This movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much.
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As with all Disney Pixar films, the voice work is first rate with standout work from Goodman and Crystal and I have to give a shout out to sound editing here, which received an Oscar nomination. A lushly mounted children's tale that remains entertaining as long as you don't try to figure out everything you see and just let it flow over you. 3.5