Gideon58's Reviews

Sounds like you disliked Walt Before Mickey even more than I did. It really showed that the first time director needed a bit more practice before he took on a film like this one.

Yeah, this one was a real snooze.

There's a third Walt Disney bio-pic called As Dreamers Do (2014)
I've never seen it and it doesn't sound promising with a low 3.5 IMDB rating.

MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

Another challenging screenplay from Woody Allen that tackles several prickly subjects, including the validity of prayer and existence of God, is just part of a lavish 2014 comedy called Magic in the Moonlight that disguises a degree of pretension with some expensive production values, stunning attention to period detail, and some on-target performances.

It's the Roaring 20's where we are introduced to a famous magician named Stanley, played by Colin Firth, who also loves to expose phony spiritualists. He is tapped by a fellow magician named Howard (Simon McBurney) to expose a phony psychic named Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), who is in the process of bilking the wealthy Catledge family out of millions, through her manipulation of the matriarch Grace Catledge (Jacki Weaver) and heir apparent Brice (Hamish Linklater) who thinks he's in love with Sophie. Stanley's plan to expose Sophie for the phony that she is gets sticky when he actually finds himself falling for the woman himself.

The Woodmeister offers another smart story that's not afraid to take a stand on several different issues, but unlike most of Allen's work, doesn't provide a lot of surprises, which doesn't make the story any less entertaining. What I loved is that the validity of Sophie's powers is made apparent early on during a telling scene with Grace and Sophie's mother (Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden), so who Sophie is becomes a non-issue pretty quickly, the fun here, like in the classic musical The Music Man, is will Stanley expose Sophie before he falls for her the way Marian the Librarian falls for Harold Hill before she plans to expose him.

Allen has poured a lot of money into this film, utilizing gorgeous location photography, exquisite settings and costumes, and, as always, Woody's flawless ear for music is once again utilized to maximum effect. Woody has pulled top-notch performances from his cast as well. Colin Firth beautifully underplays as Stanley, a perfect counterpart to Stone's bouncy effervescence as Sophie. There are also a pair of superb supporting performances from Weaver as Grace and Eileen Atkins as Stanley's aunt and moral barometer. Once again, Woody Allen has taken his usual loopy characters and set them in a more glamorous setting, but it doesn't deter from the loopy at all.

TYLER PERRY'S I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF
Tyler Perry's heavy-handed direction and his self-indulgent screenplay filled with stereotyped characters make the 2009 adaptation of his own play, I Can Do Bad All By Myself pretty heavy going, despite a solid performance from the leading lady.

The film opens with Tyler's annoying alter ego Madea and her husband, Joe (also Perry) beating on a trio of children who have broken into their home. The children lead Madea to April (Taraji P. Henson), the children's aunt, a boozy free spirit who works at a 2nd rate nightclub and is involved with an insensitive creep (Brian White) who April thinks she loves because he helps pay her bills. It is revealed that the children are stealing because their grandmother, April's mother, is MIA and that their mother, April's sister, died from a drug overdose. April's admitted selfishness and inability at motherhood are put to the test while a sexy and classy handyman (Adam Rodriguez) quietly shows her what a relationship with a real man is like.

As always, despite a story that has nothing to do with Madea, Perry's screenplay finds a way to connect the rest of this story to his tired-with-nothing-new-to-bring-to-the-table character Madea and having her pop up throughout the story, taking a potentially compelling story out of the realm of reality that has been established and bringing us back to the nonsense of Madea World, where the only purpose of children seems to be threatening them with physical violence, a staple of the Madea character that has grown quite tiresome over a series of movies. Madea's take on the Bible is supposed to be funny, but just makes the character look even more stupid, if that's possible. This story could have been effectively mounted without the appearances of Madea and Joe at all, which is just the tip of the iceberg of the things that are wrong with this movie.

Perry's screenplay is rich with stereotyped characters that are so predictable that you can practically recite their dialogue along with him...White's jerk who thinks he's the man because he pays the bills as well as April's niece, Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson), a character who should evoke sympathy, but she is so focused on taking care of her brothers that she is inappropriately nasty to April, Madea, and anyone else in the story that tries to help her. Not to mention the addition of meaningless characters on the canvas that are conveniently cast with some of Tyler Perry's music idols (Gladys Knight, Mary J. Blige, Marvin Winans), offering the chance to pad the screen time with superfluous musical numbers, that despite their being well-performed, just bring the film to a dead halt. And why cast an intelligent and sexy ethnic actor like Adam Rodriguez and dumb down his character by having him employ a thick Puerto Rican accent?

What the film does have going for it is a real movie star turn by Taraji P. Henson as April, a reluctant surrogate mother who finds her selfish existence put on hold by the appearance of three kids whose blood denies her first instinct...ignoring them. White is an eye-opener, cast against type and Wilson works hard at keeping Jennifer likable, but the film is ultimately unrewarding due to the self-indulgence of this overrated writer and director.

Yep. Tyler Perry has a net worth of $400 million dollars for doing this. Tell me again why we should just ignore this and focus all of our anger on Donald Trump?

Funny how Madea wants to kill all the children, but she'll stop the world for any miserable, pathetic black woman with man troubles. She's in the wrong movie franchise. She needs to be in Nightmare on Elm Street.

FRED CLAUS

For those old enough to remember, there was a folk singing duo back in the 1960's called The Smother Brothers, who actually had their own controversial variety series on CBS. One of the standing bits between older brother Tom and younger brother Dick was Tom always reminding Dick that "Mom always liked you best." The Smothers Brothers kept flashing through my mind while watching a lavish 2007 comedy called Fred Claus, which addresses sibling rivalry as well as challenging aspects of the Santa Claus legend in an amusing and believable fashion.

The film opens with the birth of Nick, who it is revealed is the largest baby ever and we then learn that Nick has an older brother named Fred who finds himself competing for the love of his mother (Kathy Bates), but cannot compete with Nick whose generous spirit helps to turn him into Santa Claus. The film then flashes forward to present day Chicago where Fred (Vince Vaughn) is desperate to start his own OTB business and escape from constant reminders of Christmas and his more famous brother. Fred gets in some trouble and contacts younger brother, Santa AKA St. Nick (Paul Giamatti) to borrow $50,000 which Nick agrees to on the condition that Fred come to the North Pole and help with the Christmas operation. The story is further complicated by the arrival at the North Pole of an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) who has been sent to the North Pole by "the Board" who are not happy with North Pole operations and are threatening to close down the pole for good.

This film features a solid screenplay by Dan Fogelman and Jessie Nelson that, despite everything that's going on here, never forgets the central story here...the sibling rivalry between Fred and Nick, which is firmly established in the opening scenes where Fred's resentment of his little brother never changes the love Nick has for Fred, despite Fred's horrible treatment of him. As you can imagine, living in Santa Claus's shadow can be daunting and near the end of the second act, it all comes to head in a showdown between the adult brothers, in the form of a very funny snowball fight.

I also love the way the story takes these brothers' story as well as the aspects of the Santa legend and addresses them in a somewhat realistic manner. There is a brilliant sequence, which I didn't see coming at all, where Fred is observed attending a Siblings Anonymous meeting to deal with his issues, a meeting also attended by Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton, and Stephen Baldwin. When Fred finally has to step up for his brother, the film also cleverly addresses the practicality of entering homes through the chimney and having to consume all the cookies and milk left for Santa in fear of offending the children who left them.

Vince Vaughn is totally winning in the title role, a character who is drawn in shades of gray but never becomes unlikable and Paul Giamatti makes a perfect Santa Claus. Miranda Richardson scores as Mrs. Claus as does John Michael Higgins as a very insecure elf. Kevin Spacey also effectively underplays a classic mustache-twirling villain. A lot of money went into this film...it's lavishly mounted with superb art direction/set direction. The North Pole is beautifully created here, though I have to wonder that the North Pole would have an establishment that serves alcohol, but it's a tiny quibble that did not keep me from becoming completely enveloped in this smooth and funny holiday journey.

IN THE BEDROOM
Director and screenwriter Todd Field takes us on an ugly, emotionally charged journey in 2001's In the Bedroom, an unapologetic drama about the grieving process and the often twisted justice system that never goes exactly where you expect it to go, but provides an unsettling, yet satisfying conclusion that definitely requires viewer patience.

Set in a small New England fishing community, Dr. Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkenson) and his wife, Ruth (Sissy Spacek) are not exactly on the same page regarding their son, Frank (Nick Stahl). Home from his freshman year in college, Frank has found himself involved in a sexual relationship with an older woman (Marisa Tomei) with two small children who is still legally married to her abusive and violent husband (William Mapother). Matt seems to have decided to let his son live his own life, but Ruth is quietly doing everything she can to get Frank to end this relationship, which has trouble written all over it. The trouble finally comes in a terrible tragedy which puts the Fowlers and the viewer through an unusual grieving process.

Field has really struck gold here because this story of the grief process, as well as the justice system, doesn't go where we expect it to, skipping over parts of the process that we are normally privy to in such a story and builds an effective tension as we watch a wall go up between the Fowlers because neither of them have found a proper outlet for their grief. We never see Ruth's reaction to the news of what happened to her son, but we do see her trying to move on and how futile it is and it becomes clear that something's got to give with the Fowlers, who are becoming a shell of what they used to be. It is near the end of the second act, that two separate and personal encounters Ruth has that finally motivate Ruth to express the anger she has been suppressing and Matt to take the action he has been considering ever since learning that the man responsible for his son's death might only be charged with manslaughter.

This movie builds unbearable tension because we know that the Fowlers have not expressed their grief and won't find peace until they do. Field makes us wait for this expression and the wait is worth it, resulting in a powerful family drama that received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture of the Year. Sissy Spacek's Ruth won her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination and Tom Wilkenson's powerhouse turn as Matt earned him a nomination as well. Marisa Tomei also was nominated for a surprisingly complex performance as the woman at the center of this storm. Field's direction and some striking editing by Frank Reynolds also deserve mention as the final touches in this unusual and uncomfortable film experience.

SCROOGED
Arguably the most famous and most filmed Christmas story in cinema, gets a big budget, contemporary re-thinking with 1988's Scrooged, a lavish spectacle that totally works thanks to the imaginative direction, flawless production values, and the comic genius that is Bill Murray.

In this dual-layered rendering of the Charles Dickens classic, Murray plays Frank Cross, a selfish and cynical high-powered television executive who is in the process of mounting a live production of SCROOGE on his network starring Buddy Hackett as Scrooge and narrated by John Houseman. The countdown to this production finds Frank under a lot of pressure that results in his unjust firing of a member of his executive team (Bobcat Goldthwait) and using and abusing his faithful administrative assistant (Alfre Woodard). He even finds time to neglect the love of his life (Karen Allen) before he is visited by his former business partner (John Forsythe), who informs him he is about to be visited by three ghosts.

Director Richard Donner is no stranger to action and spectacle, the man behind 1978's Superman: The Motion Picture and the original Lethal Weapon and he really knocks it out of the park, creating a lavish fairy tale mounted on a modern canvas, utilizing a very clever screenplay by Mitch Grazer and Michael Donoghue that actually gives us two versions of the same story that never actually meet in the world of this story. I was thoroughly amused by the fact that Cross was producing this elaborate version of SCROOGE on his network and never really made the connection between that production and what was happening to him. For some reason, we believe that the connection is never made thanks to the writing and, of course, to a perfect leading man.

Just as he was with Ghostbusters, Bill Murray was a perfect flippant counterpart to some eye-popping production values that made you believe everything that goes on here. Murray so completely invests in the negative aspects of this character that we don't really care about a lot of the initial rotten that he does and we accept the very slow burn of Cross' acceptance of what he's going through here. I love that after each ghostly encounter, he just brushes it off as drunken hallucinations and does not see the connection to Buddy Hackett and John Houseman at all.

Donner has populated this story with an impressive all-star cast, in lead and bit roles who all serve the story, with standout work from Woodard, an actress who always brings more to her work than the screenplay gives her, Robert Mitchum as Cross' boss and John Glover, an offbeat casting choice as a work rival of Cross' who appears to be after his job. Allen is a charming leading lady who had a nice chemistry with Murray. Carol Kane was a little hard to take as the Ghost of Christmas Present and I really didn't get all the physical violence between her and Cross. I did love Michael J. Pollard, Anne Ramsey, and Bert Remsen as three homeless people who think Cross is Richard Burton.

As mentioned, the film has extraordinary production values, with particular nods to film editing, art direction, visual effects, sound editing, and especially makeup. A dazzling holiday spectacle that totally works thanks to Richard Donner and Bill Murray.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
An unusual love story anchored by a couple of genuine movie star performances makes the 2014 drama The Fault in our Stars a stylish and life-affirming cinematic journey worth taking.

This is the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a teenager with a special form of lung cancer that forces her to carry an oxygen tank with her wherever she goes, though she doesn't go to too many places due to a depression she has sunk into that has her pretty much confined to her home reading the same book over and over again. Shoved into a cancer support group by her mother, Hazel catches the eye of Augustus Waters, who lost part of his leg a year before the story begins, to his own form of cancer. Augustus carefully broaches a relationship with Hazel by reading the book of which she is so enamored, which eventually leads to the pair making a trip to Amsterdam to meet the author.

Neither your average love story nor your average disease of the week movie, screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have constructed a story that is a little self-indulgent and has the occasional slow spot, but offers some pointed observations about living with a terminal disease, some of which that aren't usually dressed in a story of this ilk, primarily that the person suffering from said disease can get pretty much anything they want from their caregivers and they are keenly aware of this, even if they don't always take advantage of it. As we all know, the process of death is allegedly divided into five parts: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Our protagonists are definitely in different stages of this process. Hazel is still experiencing anger but is primarily in the depression stage while Augustus appears to be in acceptance of what is happening to him.

The different places where these two young people are is made clear from jump: Hazel wants to talk about what she's going through and Augustus wants to talk about anything but...it was refreshing that even from the first second he lays eyes on Hazel, Augustus doesn't see the oxygen tank or the tubing she must always wear in order to breathe. I love that even though Augustus is smitten from the beginning, he doesn't work too hard at getting this girl to lighten up but is unable to conceal his true feelings at the same time.

Don't get it twisted though...as obvious as the direction of this story travels, there are a couple of uncomfortable and unexpected detours that we don't see coming, especially Hazel's long-awaited face to face meeting with her literary idol, that provided an added layer of tension to this already complex story.

As mentioned, there are a couple slow spots, but director Josh Boone holds our attention through the performances of the leads. Shailene Woodley, so memorable as George Clooney's daughter in The Descendents is luminous as Hazel, a character who is an uncanny blend of china doll fragility and lion-like ferociousness. Ansel Elgort is equally charismatic as Augustus and mention should also be made of Laura Dern, who plays Hazel's mother. Dern is becoming one of those actresses who I'm beginning to think is incapable of giving a bad performance. Which reminds me, I also found it refreshing that Hazel and Augustus' parents were completely behind their relationship, which I guess should have been expected, because these parents wanted whatever their children wanted. And let's not forget a showy turn from Willem Dafoe as the author of Hazel's favorite book. A lovely film experience that offers hope and grins.

REGARDING HENRY

Harrison Ford has put together an impressive resume since the mid 1970's. appearing in several of the biggest box office hits of all time, but I have to confess that my favorite Harrison Ford performance is in a nearly forgotten gem from 1991 called Regarding Henry, a moving drama of hope and second chances that Ford makes worth watching, despite some really ugly detours in the screenplay.

Ford plays Henry Turner, a brilliant workaholic attorney who has it all: a prestigious position in a Manhattan firm, a beautiful wife and daughter, and lives in a gorgeous penthouse that he never sees. Henry's life is changed forever when he leaves the penthouse one night to buy a pack cigarettes. He walks into a corner store in the process of being robbed and, when he refuses to give up his wallet, gets shot in the head.

Henry miraculously survives the shooting, but the bullet penetrated a particular part of his brain that pretty much controlled most of his basic functions. When Henry finally wakes up, he is unable to speak or walk and can remember nothing about his life before the shooting, including wife Sarah and daughter Rachel. Henry is transferred to a rehabilitation center where he begins to get back his abilities to function as a human and it is decided that it is time for him to return home. This is where things start to get really complicated for Henry and the movie begins to go off course.

The late Mike Nichols, who guided Ford's performance as Jack Trainer in Working Girl three years earlier, is again in the director's chair here and proves that he was one of the best actors' directors ever and definitely draws a performance of depth and sensitivity out of him here, unlike anything we had seen from Ford prior to this. The scenes of Henry's rehab process are meticulously directed, carefully documenting each landmark in his recovery process: the first time he walks and talks, thanks primarily to a terrific physical therapist, but we feel for Henry when he is terrified at the thought of leaving the rehab center and going home with a wife and daughter he doesn't remember. But what makes Henry's process so fascinating is the unpredictability of the return of certain memories...I love that the first thing he remembers about the penthouse is the gray carpeting and that memory gives him the courage to go home.

Unfortunately, even though Henry is aware of it, most of the people in his life are not aware that he is not the person he was before the shooting and that he never will be again and, because of this, Henry is thrust into a lot of squirm-worthy situations that he is just not ready for, especially returning to his position at the law firm, which we instantly see is a mistake, though a contrived plot twist revolving around a case he won before the shooting is supposed to legitimize this, but it really doesn't.

Despite the troubling final third of this movie, Harrison Ford, under the skillful direction of Mike Nichols, makes this film a very smooth experience that produced grins and had me fighting tears as well. Annette Bening impresses in one of her earliest performances as Henry's devoted wife, Sarah and the late Bill Nunn does a star-making turn as Henry's physical therapist. Mikki Allen is also a revelation as Henry's daughter, Rachel...the scene where she teaches him to read and their scene in the library are a joy. The story takes some very bumpy detours, but Ford and Nichols deliver the goods.

ANYTHING GOES (1956)
Paramount Studios decided to go the MGM route with a splashy musical confection called Anything Goes, an original story that borrows parts of the score from another musical in order to frame a new story with an engaging cast.

This movie has nothing to do with the 1936 musical that starred Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney, though this film does borrow her leading man from that film. Bing Crosby stars in this musical as Bill Benson, a veteran musical comedy performer who has been pegged to star in a new musical with a young and energetic television star named Ted Adams (Donald O'Connor). After the expected old/young generation tension evaporates, Bill and Ted decide to vacation in Europe for the eight weeks before they are scheduled to begin rehearsals for their new show, even though a leading lady has not been signed yet. Bill jets to London, where he meets a talented performer named Patsy Blair (Mitzi Gaynor) who is working in London because her father's gambling debts have made it impossible for her to return to the states. Dazzled by Bill, she agrees to return to the states to do the show. Meanwhile, Ted goes to Paris and is enchanted by a prima ballerina named Gaby Duval (ZiZi Jeanmaire) and immediately signs her to be the leading lady in the new show.

Bill, Patsy, Ted, and Gaby all return to the states on an oceanliner and initial misunderstanding between Bill and Ted gets even stickier when Bill begins falling in love with Gaby and Ted fights feelings he's developing for Patsy.

This is the kind of musical that MGM used to make in their sleep during the 1950's and I actually had to check the opening credits twice to make sure this was not an MGM film because this film has the gloss that you would associate with some of MGM's strongest productions...this one rates up there with stuff like Easter Parade, Summer Stock, and On the Town, though, despite the presence of Donald O'Connor, it's no Singin in the Rain either.

It's a little odd that they chose to use several Cole Porter songs from his classic stage musical and re-think them for this musical, along with a couple of original songs by Jimmy Van Husen, including an oddity called "With an old fashioned turban and a crystal ball", but the musical numbers work for the most part.

Crosby is fine, though it's hard to distinguish this performance from any of a dozen other performances he gave. Gaynor is a charming and effervescent leading lady, but Jeanmaire is really out of her element here...a marvelous dancer, but a dreadful actress who was painful to watch when she wasn't dancing. If the character had to be French, why didn't they cast Leslie Caron? She would have been perfect in this role. But what this film really has going for it is a real old fashion movie star turn from Donald O'Connor as Ted. O'Connor first worked with Crosby in the 1938 film Sing You Sinners, when O'Connor was still a child, but he's all grown up here and proves that he had the chops to handle the leading man status that alluded him for most of his career. He was suave. sophisticated, and, as always, very funny and reason enough to watch this movie.

Musical highlights, featuring energetic and imaginative choreography by Nick Castle, include the title tune, a huge production number featuring Gaynor, Gaynor and O'Connor's classy pas de deux to "De-Lovely", the four-way duet of "You're the Top" performed by the 4 stars in side by side staterooms, and Crosby and O'Connor's opening number "You Gotta Give the People Hoke." Jeanmaire does headline an elaborate dream ballet choreographed by her husband, Roland Petit, but it really has nothing to do with the story at hand and just slows the movie down, but for the most part, a smooth musical outing that holds up well after almost 70 years.

MOTHER
The recent passing of Debbie Reynolds prompted a re-watch of the 1996 comedy Mother, a surprisingly warm and funny story directed, co-written by and starring Albert Brooks that has a much more caustic and edgy screenplay than I remember and even though the reference raises eyebrows well into the film, this movie is actually, more than anything, a love story.

Brooks plays John Henderson, a blocked writer fresh into his second divorce, who thinks his career and female issues have something to do with his troublesome relationship with his mother (Reynolds) and the only way to work out the problems in his current life is to re-explore his past by moving back in with his mother for awhile.

Referring to it as "the experiment", we watch John turn his old bedroom into the room where he spent his high school years and basically regress back to his teenage years, driving his mother crazy. Mother loves John and wants to do whatever she can do to aid in "the experiment" even though she doesn't fully understand it because, truthfully, John doesn't completely understand it himself. It is further complicated by the fact that it is affecting Mother's relationship with John's little brother, Jeff (Rob Morrow), and Mother's secret boyfriend (Peter White).

Brooks and co-screenwriter Monica McGowan Johnson have constructed a believable story whose nucleus is a totally believable mother and son relationship, that any grown man who has spent any time as an adult with his mother can relate to. The laughs provided here are grounded in reality, as well as the very real sibling rivalry presented between John and Jeff. The comedy is deceptive because it appears what John is doing here is just an excuse to hide from life and give up on everything, but the pleasant surprise here is that what he wants to do ends up actually working.

Brooks has mounted a lovely story about a mother and son reconnecting that really is a love story, even though that inference raises eyebrows at one point in the story, but that is what happens here and the story is a pleasure to watch. Brooks and movie icon Reynolds are magical together and Rob Morrow is solid as the insecure Jeff. Love this movie and I miss you, Debbie.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Popularity, peer pressure, romance, and all other facets of a movie genre that came to fruition as the teen angst film during the 1980's get a New Millenium coat of paint in a quirky and offbeat comedy drama from 2012 called The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which establishes its credentials by making the character that Molly Ringwald had a patent on in the 80's a guy.

Writer and director Stephen Chbosky has crafted what I suspect is an autobiographical tale of a high school freshman named Charlie, who we meet on his first day of high school, terrified for a lot more reasons than we initially suspect, who does eventually find himself part of a very special inner circle of upper classmen, who are sympathetic upon reveal of some of Charlie's backstory, but eventually, realistic and painful peer pressure does irreparable damage to this circle, including Charlie having to walk away from Sam, an effervescent senior whom Charlie is falling for, while helping Sam's stepbrother, Patrick, who is openly gay and struggling with an affair with a closeted football player.

Chbosky hits a bulls eye here with a story of teen angst that doesn't play all its cards in the opening twenty minutes. Charlie's initial terror at beginning high school has its roots in something that is not revealed right away and patience is required and rewarded, revealing a multi-layered tale of teen angst that definitely takes stories like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink to another level. Chbosky's screenplay is rich and sophisticated, almost a little too sophisticated for the characters involved, but never too sophisticated for the viewer, who understand a lot of the feelings on display and also understand when we're not being told everything.

There is also a refreshing circle of characters introduced here...it was nice to see a character like Patrick, an out and proud gay teen who makes no bones about his sexuality but we accept when we learn he is the midst of an affair with some one who is still in the closet, which makes it a little easier to accept Patrick because we know he's in for some pain he might not deserve. We love Charlie's initial acceptance into this inner circle, even if he has to eat marijuana brownies to achieve it, and we naturally wonder if it will last when the brownies are gone and the seniors graduate.

Chbosky nails the contemporary teen angst drama here and gets help from a first rate production team, with a special nod to his cinematography and film editing teams. Logan Lerman lights up the screen as young Charlie, the tortured teen at the center of this drama and Emma Waston buries the English accent she utilized in the Harry Potter franchise, but the real movie star performance here comes from Ezra Miller as the charismatic and funny Patrick. Mention should also be made of Paul Rudd as Charlie's favorite teacher and Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh as his parents. The story is fresh and doesn't always go where it's expected and Chbosky has cast his film with actors that fit the characters, abandoning the temptation to have us star-gazing, allowing his compelling and original story to take center stage.

SUNSET BOULEVARD
Billy Wilder hit a direct bullseye as the director and co-screenwriter of 1950's Sunset Boulevard, an atmospheric drama that is an effective look at the destruction left in the wake of an old Hollywood when a new Hollywood took over, more specifically, a Hollywood that learned how to talk.

This is the story of a down on his luck screenwriter named Joe Gillis who finds himself the accidental guest of a faded silent film queen named Norma Desmond, who lives in a decaying Hollywood mansion with her faithful manservant, Max and a pet monkey, whose funeral is interrupted by Joe's arrival. Joe is unnerved by this star, teetering on the edge of sanity, who has not accepted the end of her career just because of the arrival of sound ("We didn't need dialogue...we had faces then!"). Norma reveals to Joe that she has written her next film (she hates the word comeback), the story of Salome and offers to move Joe into her mansion and pay him to shape the thousands of pages she has scribbled into a viable screenplay. Meanwhile, a young studio script reader named Betty Schaefer has seen some of Joe's work and wants to write a screenplay with him and it is Joe's attempts to live as part of old Hollywood and new Hollywood that is the nucleus of this drama that became an instant film classic.

Gloria Swanson returned to feature films for the first time in nine years to play Norma Desmond, a larger than life character, trapped in a past she doesn't know she's trapped in, trying to survive in the present by pretending it doesn't exist. From the moment we meet Norma, it is clear that this woman has not left this mansion in years for any kind of socialization...it's sad watching her on "movie night" where Max puts on one of her old movies and doesn't even notice that Joe is not as mesmerized by her old movies as she is, her only real form of entertainment, outside of a semi-regular game of bridge with Anna Q. Nilsson, Buster Keaton, and H B Warner, whom Joe refers to as "The Waxworks". This performance earned Swanson a Best Actress nomination.

William Holden's rich performance in the complex role of Joe Gillis is the fuel that pumps this story and is endlessly entertaining, earning him a Best Actor nomination and Erich Von Stroheim is just heartbreaking as Norma's beloved Max, the adoring fan/servant who shields his lady from all that is evil in Hollywood, a performance so quietly effective he earned a supporting actor nomination as well. Wilder's screenplay with Charles Brackett and D M Marshman is extremely smart and actually did win an Oscar. Wilder also received a nomination for his direction, as did Franz Waxman for his gorgeous music. Nancy Olson also charms as Betty Schaefer. A one-of-a-kind look at Hollywood with an ending that is a heartbreaker. Later turned into a stage musical.

Excellent movie! I enjoyed your review of it. Did you know that original:

Montgomery Clift would have been fantastic in this movie, but if he had done it, he might not have been available for A Place in the Sun...it's one of those fates of cinema history created from odd circumstances...like Julie Andrews not getting the role of Eliza Dolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady...if she had done it, she would not have been able to do Mary Poppins and I'm not sure I would like to live in a world without Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins.

I've heard of Libby Holman but can't think of a single movie she was in...I'm checking her IMDB page now...OK, I just checked her IMDB page and she only has two film credits listed...one was in 1931 and one was 1947 and I have never heard of either film. Guess I'm confusing her with someone else.

That's an excellent point! I'm very glad Julie Andrews did Mary Poppins and Monty Clift did A Place in the Sun

CAFE SOCIETY
Woody Allen scores a direct bullseye with 2016's Cafe Society, an expensively mounted, multi-layered, story of romance and mob violence that tells interlacing stories that really shouldn't interlace and makes a couple of squirm-worthy detours, including some on target jabs at the place Woody hates more than anywhere in the world...Hollywood.

The film introduces us to Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), a wide-eyed Jewish youth bored working in his father's jewelry store who moves to Hollywood to work for his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a high-powered Hollywood agent. He becomes involved in a romantic triangle with Phil's assistant, who is having an affair with a married man. When that romance goes south, Bobby moves back to New York and begins working at a nightclub run by his brother, Ben, who is a gangster, even though his family is in denial about it, but aren't above using it to their advantage when need be.

The Woodmeister has once again sucked me in with a story rich with characters who are not what they appear on the surface and there were one or two points in this story where my jaw literally dropped, as I didn't see a lot of the detours that this movie takes coming at all. I have to admit to initially being thrown when the movie didn't end when the Hollywood triangle ended, but when Bobby returns to New York, we do see a growth in this character who learned a painful lesson in Hollywood and learned that its glamour doesn't cover up a lot of the same lousy human behavior he left in New York. And just when we see Bobby settling into a new life, including a new romance, his Hollywood past catches up to him and the story veers off into another ugly direction that we don't expect, but it was classic Woody Allen.

As it should be, Woody's intricate screenplay is the star here and Woody the director serves it well, peppering the story with something we're unaccustomed to seeing in Woody's work...some in your face violence that must be expected with any story rich with mob sensibility as this one is, made more alluring by the fact that the story takes place in the 1930's, when being a gangster was totally cool.

Woody once again has a hand-picked cast that is pretty much perfection...Eisenberg lights up the screen as young Bobby and makes the complicated transitions this character makes completely believable and Carell manages to infuse some likability into what is on the surface a totally hissable character. Though I haven't seen a lot of her work, Kristen Stewart also impressed as the apex of the Hollywood triangle and I LOVED Corey Stoll (so memorable as Ernest Hemingway in Allen's Midnight in Paris) as Bobby's brother Ben.

As per usual, Woody has employed exquisite production values to his story, including authentic recreations of 1930's Manhattan and Hollywood, with stunning cinematography and costumes. This is a cinematic journey that doesn't go anywhere you think it's going to go but the pursuit of the mystery is such a pleasure.