Gideon58's Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Thank you, Christine.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

OK, it's French red tape instead of American red tape, but it doesn't change my opinion about this movie.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.