Gideon58's Reviews

[Gideon58]

Menace II Society
After middling success with films like Dead Presidents and From Hell, a pair of rookie filmmaking brothers named Albert and Allen Hughes hit a real bullseye with a blistering and bloody epic called Menace II Society, an up close examination of life for young African American males in contemporary Watts that is a little larger than life, but paints a pretty accurate picture.
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After a brief introduction to the racial tension that fueled the Watts riots of 1965, the story moves to contemporary Watts looking at life in this gritty urban neighborhood through the eyes of a young man named Caine. Caine is, at his core, a good guy who is hanging with all the wrong people and getting in a lot of trouble but staying on the cusp of serious trouble until he becomes involved in a robbery at a liquor store which resulted in the death of two people. Caine can't convince his running partner O-Dog to forget about the security tape that shows what happened. But things get really sticky when O-Dog starts showing the tape to his friends in the name of entertainment.
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On the other side, Caine finds himself drawn to Ronnie, the single mom girlfriend of another friend of Caine's who is now incarcerated. He is doing best to keep an eye on the girl and her son and trying to take care of them while resisting the mixed signals he's getting from Ronnie regarding her feelings for him and regarding him changing his life.
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The Hughes Brothers have presented a somewhat cliched story here that is definitely based on the very real existence of a lot of young African American males in this country. The image presented here initially attempts to evoke sympathy by showing us that Caine was born into this life. We meet Caine's parents...his father is a drug dealer who murders someone right in front of young Caine and his mother is a heroine addict. The message that this kind of life was in Caine's genes was kind of hard to swallow, since he was eventually raised by very religious grandparents. We then watch Caine and O-Dog, drinking, smoking pot, selling drugs, stealing cars, and then when his grandparents have had enough, he starts crying like a little girl about being kicked out? The sad thing is that as ridiculous as Caine's behavior is, there's nothing presented here that is out of the realm of reality. It might be slightly exaggerated, but very slight.
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The Hughes Brothers not only showing an understanding of the plight of today's African American male, but some real style as filmmakers. I loved the scene of Caine being questioned by a police detective with the camera just circling around them, it made the room they were in appear smaller and smaller with each circle of the camera. The exquisite slow motion photography employed while Caine was cooking cocaine also made an impression.
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Tyrin Turner's performance as Caine is a little uneven but his supporting cast, including Larenz Tate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Clifton Powell, Glenn Plummer, and Samuel L. Jackson (impressive as Caine's dad) is so good you hardly notice it. The Hughes Brothers have crafted a smoking indictment on street life that will stay with you long after the credits roll. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Educating Rita
A pair of dazzling lead performances that both earned Oscar nominations anchor 1983's Educating Rita, a sparkling comedy that is a very different kind of love story...sort of.
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Rita is a 27 year old married hairdresser who wants to complete her basic education so she enrolls in an evening literature course taught by Dr. Frank Bryant, an alcoholic college professor who is married to another faculty member who is cheating on him. Rita has been keeping her husband at arm's length who wants her barefoot and pregnant and when he finds out that she's been on birth control, he dumps her.
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Rita turns out to be an educational sponge, drinking in everything that Dr. Frank has to offer, but profound changes that occur within her with her new found education make it difficult for her to tolerate the kind of person Frank is behind his intellect and teaching skill...an often sloppy drunk who can't commit to anything in his life but that bottle.
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Willy Russell's screenplay displays flashes of brilliance, with its Pygmalion influence that doesn't really morph into the kind of relationship that developed with Henry Higgins and Eliza Dolittle. Even though they are both in denial about it, Higgins and Eliza do fall in love with each other and that's what is expected as this story unfolds, but that doesn't happen at all. Rita is looking to further her education and never implies she wants anything else from Frank. The only thing she requests from Frank is that he never laugh at her. Frank is initially amused by Rita, respects her wishes, treats her with the respect she's not getting from her husband, and requests that she not bother him about his drinking. It's the most romantic platonic relationship I've seen since Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in The King and I.
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There are some minor problems with plot points and characterizations that kept this film from being what it could be. Every time the story shifted to Rita and her life away from Frank, the film came to a screeching halt and I didn't like the way Rita started to turn away from Frank when the daytime students began socializing with her. I also couldn't believe that Frank's drunken escapades didn't get him fired.
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But this film works and it works because of the brilliant performances by the stars. Caine, being directed by Lewis Gilbert, who directed him to his first Oscar nominated performance in Alfie, got him another one here...a powerful and heartbreaking performance that grips the viewer and never escapes realism. The secret of playing a great drunk scene is playing it like you're pretending to be sober and Caine does this beautifully in his first few scenes, way more convincing than his blind staggering later on in the film. Julie Walters, practically unknown at the time, is a brassy and funny Rita, the educational sponge with the cockney accent who longs to be taken more seriously. I love the scene where she is trying to describe something to Frank and carefully picks the word "encapsulated" and realizes that she chose the perfect word to express what she was feeling. Other than a pretentious music score, production values are top-notch, but it is the work of Caine and Walters that keep this one buzzing. 3.5

[Gideon58]

I Am Heath Ledger
The late Heath Ledger was a movie star whose talent, passion, and energy could not be contained and were sometimes a little overwhelming for the star himself, which is the underlying theme of the 2017 documentary I Am Heath Ledger, which allows us to look at the enigmatic star through himself as well as others who thought they knew him.
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I love the way this documentary opens, talking to a musician and very good friend of Ledger's named Ben Harper, who had trouble gathering the words to explain to us that this shouldn't be going on, that we shouldn't be talking about Heath Ledger because he's gone. I know exactly how he feels because I remember when I first heard about his death, I was certain it was a mistake or some kind of sick hoax. This guy was on the cusp of being the biggest movie star on the planet when he was taken from us http://www.theloop.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/i-am-health-ledger-film.jpg
In addition to Harper, the documentary features commentary from Heath's parents, his three sisters, actress Naomi Watts, director Ang Lee, a dialect coach named Gerry Grennell, actor Djimon Hounshou and childhood best friend Trevor Di Carlo. Ledger's ascent to stardom is meticulously documented through these interviews and each interview is capped off with an audio commentary from Ledger himself about whatever has just been documented onscreen for us.
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We learn how after receiving the script for 10 Things I hate About You that the only role in the film that interested him was the role that he got, Patrick Verona. We are treated to rehearsal footage for a large dance sequence from A Knight's Tale, which actually piqued my curiosity about seeing the film. It was also revealed how terrified Ledger became when he got his first glimpse of the poster for A Knight's Tale because as much as Heath wanted stardom, once he attained it, he didn't want it anymore.
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Despite this, he still accepted a role that a lot of actors turned down out of danger of destroying their careers...the role of Ennis Delmar in Brokeback Mountain, which instead of destroying Heath's career, sent him into the stratosphere. I loved his description of Ennis Delmar's voice as a "clenched fist". Of course, this is also where we learn how his romance with co-star Michelle Williams and the birth of their daughter Matilda changed a lot of Ledger's priorities. And the work he went into creating the performance that would win him a posthumous Oscar, the Joker in The Dark Knight is documented by DiCarlo and Ledger himself.
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:Ledger is also revealed here as having a born director's eye, constantly fascinated with the camera and the magic it can create. Clips from two music videos that he directed are showcased here which indicate a meticulous directorial eye and endless imagination. This documentary is a loving homage to a once-in-a-lifetime artist. 3.5

[JoaoRodrigues]

I've watched that documentary a year ago, I honestly though they could do it better, it ended and there was something missing. What I fond very interesting was the camera recordings Heath made about himself, his method to become a better actor, those recordings are brilliant, they could probably do a movie just about them. OK he died, but dying after THAT last performance just brought more mysticism to the life of a mystic man. He couldn't have died better, that's my opinion, because he conquered what I believe is every man final goal, remembrance.

[Gideon58]

My Sister Eileen (1955)
The story has been told in many forms, but one of the lesser-known but still entertaining renditions came with Columbia's 1955 musical My Sister Eileen, which is a musical remake of a 1942 film that with a better score and some different casting could have been something really terrific, like the Broadway musical that would later be based on the same material.
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This is the story of the Sherwood sisters, who have just arrived in Greenwich Village fresh off a bus from Ohio. Ruth (Betty Garrett) is the older, cynical, wisecracking sister who wants to be a writer who feels like she lives in the shadow of her pretty baby sister, Eileen (Janet Leigh), who has set her sights on becoming an actress. On their first day of pavement pounding, Ruth meets a suave publisher (Jack Lemmon) who thinks most of Ruth's work is drivel except for the story she wrote about Eileen. Instantly attracted to the guy, Ruth tries to convince the guy that she and Eileen are one and the same.
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The title character finds herself being pursued by a sweet and shy soda jerk named Frank Lippincott (Bob Fosse) and a slick talking reporter named Chick Clark (Tommy Rall) who both try to assist Eileen in getting her show business career started as a way of getting things started. The girls also have to deal with a slightly greasy landlord (Kurt Kaznar) and an unemployed football hero (Dick York).
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Director Richard Quine actually collaborated on the screenplay with Blake Edwards, which is based on a play that is based on a book by Ruth McKinney, the real life inspiration for Ruth Sherwood. The story originally came to screen in 1942 with Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair playing Ruth and Eileen, respectively. The play become a musical in 1953 with Russell and Edie Adams in the starring roles. For some reason, Columbia chose to re-think this story and employ a completely different but inferior score.
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There's some odd casting choices here...Jack Lemmon's role as the slightly smarmy publisher seemed tailor-written for Dean Martin, I could practically hear his voice coming out of Lemmon's mouth during his big solo, "It's Bigger Than You and Me" Bob Fosse (who also choreographed the film) and Rall are terrific dancers, as a matter of fact they perform a challenge dance that is the film's highlight, but their performances are a little soft and as cute as Janet Leigh is, there had be someone more musically inclined who could have made this role sparkle the way it should have.
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The songs by Jule Styne and Leo Robin are unremarkable and vastly inferior to the songs in the '53 musical. The score includes "As soon as they Look at Eileen", "I'm Great", "There's Nothin Like Love", and a dance number called "Give me a Band and My Baby" featuring Garrett, Fosse, Rall, and Leigh and some clever choreography by Fosse that hints at the genius he would later become creating dance on film.
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Garrett is a lot of fun as Ruth though and manages to create a semblance of chemistry with the clearly miscast Lemmon, but Leigh makes a rather bland Eileen, though she does look breathtaking. Richard Quine's zingy direction does keep things moving nicely, but the score and some of the casting really hurt this one. 3

[Gideon58]

Nick Nolte: No Exit
The fascinating life and career of Nick Nolte is uniquely and brilliantly documented in a fabulous documentary from 2008 called Nick Nolte: No Exit which closely examines this loose cannon of an actor in a way that I have never seen before in a celebrity documentary that found this reviewer riveted from opening to closing credits.
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Finding something different to bring to a celebrity documentary is not an easy feat but director Tom Thurman has happened on a most unique way of approaching this enigmatic subject. The documentary is mounted in the form of an interview with Nolte, but Nolte is playing the role of the reporter as well as himself. They appear to be skyping each other as the reporter Nolte is seated in front of a computer and is posing questions to actor Nolte who apparently is supposed to be in a different location. Actor Nolte is also seated in front of a computer but while he's talking pictures from his past and screenshots from his movies apear on his screen in tandem with the questions he's being asked. The reporter Nolte is dressed in a cream colored suit and a matching fedora. The actor Nolte is dressed in what appears to be blue-striped flannel pajamas.
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This was such a cool concept for this kind of documentary because it provided just about all the information you think you would have liked to have known about the actor, but it allows Nolte artistic control in terms of what is being talked about, but not in the way you think...there are a lot of things here that are addressed that are either succinctly explained, like the infamous mug shot, or the actor tells us straight out that he doesn't want to talk about it...like his arrest for selling counterfeit government documents, which was written into the backstory of his character in Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
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Despite this unique approach in getting the story, we also get the expected commentary from people who have worked with the actor like Ben Stiller, Jacqueline Bisset, Powers Boothe, Barbara Hershey, James Gammon, Roseanna Arquette, directors Paul Mazursky and Alan Rudolph, writer FX Feeney and co-founder of Orion Pictures, Mike Medavoy. There is a refreshing underlying theme to their commentary that helped to give this look at the actor validity, I loved the answer supplied by each commentator when each was asked what they thought the inside of Nolte's brain looked like.
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We get a nicely selected glance at the actor's career, mostly through Nolte's eyes and some screenshots, though no actual film clips were employed. I was surprised to learn that most of 48 HRS was improvised, that it took a year of pressure from Peter Yates for him to do The Deep and that the only film he wanted to do the second he read the script was Down and Out in Beverly Hills. The stories Paul Mazursky shared about the making of that movie had me on the floor.
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I loved some of the photos of his pre-stardom life. His theater work is briefly touched on and while he's talking about it, there is a still that comes onscreen that looks like him playing Starbiuck in a production of The Rainmaker. Also really enjoyed learning about the relationship he had with Marlon Brando, how uncomfortable he is with comparisons to the acting legend, and that Q & A was Brando's favorite film. This documentary was absolutely amazing and made me want to sit down and watch every movie Nick Nolte ever made (starting with the ones I haven't seen of course). 5

[Gideon58]

Rough Night
2017's Rough Night is an implausible and slightly raunchy comic adventure that borrows inspiration from several films of the past, but blends them into a somewhat original concoction that surprisingly had me laughing for the majority of the running time.
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Scarlett Johansson plays Jess, a senatorial candidate who reconnects with three of her college roommates and a skyping friend from Australia for her bachelorette party weekend in Miami, which goes terribly wrong when the girls accidentally kill a male stripper.
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Director and co-screenwriter Lucia Aniello is clearly acquainted with the 1998 sleeper Very Bad Things which seems to be the primary inspiration for this screwball adventure, but he has added some extra levels to the story that give what we're watching an air of originality. I liked that when Jess' fiancee, Peter, sensed something was wrong that he dropped everything to get to Miami, even if his journey hit a couple of bumps. I also loved the subplot involving the instant animosity between Jess' college BFF Alice and her new BFF Pippa from Australia. I was very pleased by another plot twist that I suspected instantly but it nagged at me until I learned at the end of second act that I was correct...doesn't happen often and it felt really good.
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The film starts off pretty conventionally with the expected raunchy humor that you would suspect from the film's premise, but the death of the stripper takes it to a completely different place and the final act provides of a couple of contrived conveniences that keep our heroines safe, but as a filmgoer we forgive because the story has made us really like these girls and we really don't want to see them get in the serious trouble an accidental death could produce for them.
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The film is beautifully photographed and a shout out should also go to film editor Craig Alpert as well. I have mentioned in previous reviews that I don't think Scarlett Johansson is very funny and this opinion has not changed but she works hard to make this character likable (plus her haircut is adorable) and she gets solid support from Jillian Bell as the perpetually horny Alice and the fabulous Kate McKinnon as Pippa. I also liked Paul W. Downs as Peter and there is a very cute cameo from Demi Moore and Ty Burrell as the married swingers who love next door. I went into this one expecting to hate it, but I can't lie, this movie made me laugh. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Fifth Avenue Girl
Ginger Rogers offers another sparkling and smart performance that anchors a 1939 comedy called Fifth Avenue Girl that touches on a lot of still relevant topics like ageism, capitalism, the plight of the homeless, and the validity of psychoanalysis and may have influenced some future comedy on film as well.
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This is the story of Timothy Borden (Walter Connolly), a wealthy industrialist who is the owner of a large corporation called Amalgamated Pump, who receives a birthday present from his secretary that gets him thinking about how little he come to care about his business and how he feels unloved and neglected by his wife, Martha (Veree Teasdale) and his two children. Walter walks out of the office with his birthday present and takes a walk to Central Park where he meets Mary (Rogers), an unemployed girl who is about to get evicted from her apartment. Walter takes her out for a fancy dinner where he buys champagne for everyone in the restaurant. The next morning, Mary has spent the night at Walter's mansion and Walter and his butler have both awakened with black eyes after Walter's drunken return home that he doesn't remember. Walter feels so invigorated that he asks Mary to move into the mansion with him, where the girl has a profound effect on everyone in the household.
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Allan Scott, who wrote three of the musicals Rogers did with Fred Astaire, provides a witty and sophisticated screenplay that probably raised a few eyebrows during the golden year of movies. The idea of this millionaire taking in an unemployed girl off the streets seems to be pretty bold for the 30's and I'm guessing that if this film were to be made today, the Mary character would be homeless, like Jerry in Down and Out In Beverly Hills, one of several films that this one brought to mind. Watching the way Ginger's Mary manipulated all of Walter's family without really trying to do it was reminiscent of Nick Nolte's manipulation of Richard Dreyfuss' household in 1985.
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The story also works because of the relationship between the characters of Walter Borden and Mary Grey. It's a lot of fun watching the evolution of this relationship, from their first meeting in the park where Walter tries to grasp the concept of unemployment to Mary's final realization that she cannot be a pawn in the game that Walter ends up playing trying to get his family back. Watching Mary's effect on Walter's children reminded me a lot of Sheridan Whiteside's machinations a couple of years later in The Man Who Came to Dinner.
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Rogers, Connolly, and Teasdale offer warm and effervescent performance at the center of this story that keep the viewer engaged. The supporting cast is solid, including Franklin Pangborn's befuddled butler and an early appearance from future scene-stealer Louis Calhern as a psychiatrist. For a comedy made way back in 1939, this one still provides major chuckles. Thanks for the recommendation Citizen. 3.5

[Citizen Rules]

Gideon58 you've been reviewing a lot of movies lately, are you off from work for Christmas break? I've been working around the clock so haven't have time to read most of your reviews, but I will! as soon as the new year comes around.

[Gideon58]

Consenting Adults
1992's Consenting Adults begins as a titillating cinematic peek behind the white picket fences of suburbia, but eventually degenerates into a standard murder mystery that defies logic and doesn't stand a lot of scrutiny.
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Richard and Priscilla (Kevin Kline, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) become fast friends with their new neighbors Eddie and Kay (Kevin Spacey, Rebecca Miller) and the relationship progresses to a point where it is implied that Richard is attracted to Kay and Eddie is attracted to Priscilla. Eddie actually talks Richard into getting up in the middle of night and sneaking into each other's bedrooms, resulting in a tragedy we don't see coming and the struggle for Richard to retain his potentially destroyed existence.
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Matthew Chapman's screenplay starts off quite brilliantly as we see two couples getting a little too close and we see where this is going, but this is where the writing errs in my opinion. I was expecting a different story to be told than the one that was told. A probing psychological drama could have resulted from next door neighbors cheating on their wives and how this one night methodically destroys both marriages, but instead we get a rather conventional story about murder for money that gets ridiculously convoluted. I also wasn't thrilled that the screenplay made the Priscilla and Kay characters look like complete idiots.
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Fortunately, the film does have the stylish Alan J. Pakula behind the camera who, with the aid of a solid cast and some first rate production values, keeps this story watchable with some stark cinematic pictures and some arresting camerawork that actually make the film seem more important than it is and almost allows the viewer to forget plot holes that you can drive a truck through...I was initially disappointed that we never learned exactly what happened behind the closed doors that fateful night of the switch or if either of the ladies were aware of what happened, though I found it hard to believe that these women had sex with men other than their husbands and didn't know it. Of course, this all became irrelevant rather quickly and a scorecard is needed to keep up with everything.
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Pakula's sharp directorial eye is very evident here as is his ability to pull great performances from actors. The two Kevins really deliver here, with standout work from Spacey, who is just dazzling committing to this slightly unhinged character with a gusto that's hard to resist. The film features terrific cinematography and editing. Michael Smalls' music is a little much at times but it serves the story. Sadly, the story is what really hurts this one...I think the story set up by the premise would have been a lot more interesting than the story that was actually told. 2.5

[Gideon58]

Bad Times at the El Royale
Pulp Fiction meets Ten Little Indians in a stylish and bloody 2018 thriller called Bad Times at the El Royale that will have the viewer on the edge of its chair for the majority of its running time before running out of gas with an overlong and over the top finale.
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It is 1969 and we are introduced to the El Royale, a hotel which was actually constructed on the border between California and Nevada. The rooms on the California side actually cost a dollar more than the ones in Nevada and the key chains for the rooms are in the shape of the states. The hotel has a staff of one, a nervous young man named Miles and the film opens with a man checking into a room, hiding a large amount of cash underneath the floorboards of a room and shortly afterwards is murdered.
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Almost a decade later, we watch an aging priest suffering from dementia, a cocky vacuum cleaner salesman, a struggling nightclub singer, and a hippie with a mouth like a sailor check into the hotel on the same day. These virtual strangers not only prove not to be strangers, but none of them are exactly who they say they are, all have huge secrets which they try to protect before it all blows up in their respective faces.
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Director and writer Drew Goddard has experience in television and films, but what comes through mostly here is the Quentin Tarantino influence that comes through in his work...the occasional sacrifice of substance for style and the disjointed form of storytelling that requires undivided attention from the viewer. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino tells his story out of order but that's not exactly what Goddard does here. We get parts of the same story told from different viewpoints and connecting story events like puzzle pieces, which is more akin to what Tarantino did in Jackie Brown. There is also influence of directors like Hitchcock and John Carpenter...Goddard displays an affinity for creating nail-biting suspense as well as the instantaneous "Boo" that makes the viewer jump from their chair. Sadly, Goddard does get a little full of himself with a pretentious and overlong finale which produces questions that shouldn't be produced at this point and definitely tries viewer patience.
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The film is handsomely produced with particular nods to art direction/set direction and some spectacular film editing by Lisa Lassek. The El Royale is the coolest hotel I have seen in a movie since The Overlook in The Shining. There are some terrific performances from Jeff Bridges as the priest, Jon Hamm as the salesman, Cynthia Erivo (who was also in this year's Widows) as the nightclub singer, Lewis Pullman as Miles, and Chris Hemsworth, surprisingly effective as a charismatic cult leader. Until the final 15 minutes or so, spine-tingling entertainment that definitely kept me on my toes. 3.5

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Mary Poppins Returns
Possibly the longest amount of time ever between a film and its sequel, it took 54 years to bring a sequel to the 1964 classic to the screen and 2018's Mary Poppins Returns does have a lot going for it, though it does suffer a bit because the filmmakers can't decide if they're doing a sequel or a remake.
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It is now London during the depression and a grown up Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is a widowed father of three and big sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) has moved in to help out. Michael is a struggling artist and is also a part-time employee at his father's former place of employ, the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, but is now in danger of losing the Banks home unless he and Jane can find the certificates of shares that their father left them, making them stockholders of the bank and keeping the new bank president, Witkins (Colin Firth) from taking their house.
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Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) returns to the house with a little foreshadowing from Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a lamplighter who as a kid was an apprentice to Bert and a prod from Michael's youngest son, Georgie, who magically contacts Mary with the repaired kite from the finale of the first film. Mary decides she is needed to keep the children out of Jane and Michael's way while simultaneously trying to remind Jane and Michael of the childhood memories that they seem to have buried.
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For those who don't know, the 1964 film Mary Poppins is my favorite film of all time so being objective about this film was going to be pretty much impossible and I remember being outraged when I heard there was a sequel in the works and when it actually came to fruition there was no way I was going to see it, but the trailer was extremely well-done and piqued my curiosity.
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Director Rob Marshall and screenwriter David Magee display immense respect to the original film, almost a little too much to the point that this story never really is given the opportunity to stand on its own merits. Pieces of dialogue and of the original Sherman Brothers score are sprinkled generously throughout, not to mention entire scenes that were only altered ever so slightly. Of course, for someone who has never seen the original film, this would be irrelevant and I hate saying this, but you don't have to see the original film to appreciate this one. Despite the fact this film presents Jane and Michael as adults, there are portions of this story that are just thinly disguised versions of the original.
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Marshall and Magee have utilized endless imagination in making this sequel respectful to the first film and accessible to 2018 audiences and they are to be applauded for that. But it was hard to not watch the song with Cousin Topsy (Meryl Streep) and not think of Ed Wynn as Uncle Albert doing "I Love to Laugh".
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The score by Marc Shaiman (Hairspray) serves the story but is rather unmemorable. The songs include "Lovely London Sky", "Can You Imagine That?", "The Place Where Lost Things Go", "The Royal Doulton Music Hall", which was part of this film's "Jolly Holiday" fantasy and my personal favorite "Trip a Little Light Fantastic", this film's version of "step in Time."
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Filling Julie Andrews' shoes had to be a daunting task, but I can't think of anyone else who could have filled said shoes but Emily Blunt. She is charm and sophistication personified onscreen, but I have to say it, is no Julie Andrews. Lin-Manuel Miranda is wonderful as Jack and I loved Whishaw as Michael Banks. The glorified cameos by Meryl Streep and Angela Lansbury were thankless, but Dick Van Dyke was a delight with his brief appearance, billed in the closing credits the same way he was in the original film. I had my issues with this film, but it was better than I thought it was going to be and I'm pretty sure folks who have never seen the 1964 film will probably add half a bag of popcorn onto my rating. 3.5

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The Girl Most Likely
Jane Powell provides her bubbly charm and rich soprano to a 1958 piece of fluff called The Girl Most Likely, a pleasant, if unremarkable musical that has a footnote in history as the last film made at legendary RKO Studios.
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Set in a fictional California coastal town called Balboa Bay, this is the story of Dodie (Powell), a starry-eyed dreamer who works in a bank and still lives with her parents. Dodie dreams of marrying a millionaire, but does accept a proposal from her long time boyfriend, Buzz (Tommy Noonan), a hard-working real estate developer who is ambitious but Dodie doesn't really love him. The day after Buzz proposes, she meets Pete (Cliff Robertson), a charming and attractive boat mechanic who Dodie is crazy about, but Pete is dirt poor and is in no hurry to change that situation. After one date, Pete also proposes to Dodie and she accepts his proposal as well. After accepting that proposal, Dodie meets an actual millionaire named Neil Patterson Jr. (Keith Andres) and after a yacht trip to Mexico, she accepts his proposal too.
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The screenplay Devery Feeman and Paul Jerrico does contain some nice adult touches and offers a surprising amount of humor for a 1950's musical. but God it's really hard to get behind what this Dodie character does and there's no way a story like this would fly in 2018. First of all, what would make a woman think it's appropriate to accept three different marriage proposals? And when it has become clear what she's done, why do these guys actually stick around? I mean there's a scene after Dodie and Neil return from Mexico where see the three guys sitting at Dodie's breakfast table with her parents waiting for her to come downstairs and pick a husband...seriously?
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I guess this was all acceptable because it's Jane Powell playing Dodie and it's just hard to think bad of her, even though a 2018 movie character who does what Dodie does here, would probably be labeled a whore, a gold-diggin whore at that. At the beginning of this movie, this girl wouldn't even think of marrying anyone wasn't rich...being in love with him would be nice, but not a deal breaker. But it's a 1950's musical so we know that eventually this silly girl will come to her senses.
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The musical features a handful of nice songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, who wrote the songs for Meet Me in St. Louis. Highlights include Powell's dreamy solo, "I Don't Know What I Want", a fantasy number with Powell and Noonan called "Keepin Up with the Jonses" and a big production number on the beach called "Travelogue: Where are You From?". The musical numbers feature energetic choreography by former MGM dancer and future Broadway director Gower Champion.
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Powell is adorable and generates nice chemistry with Robertson and Noonan. Kaye Ballard is a scene stealer as Dodie's BFF Marge and Frank Cady and Una Merkel are fun as her parents. It's not exactly Singin in the Rain, but musical fans will be able to glean entertainment here. 3

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This Property is Condemned

Considering all the talent in front of and behind the camera, the 1966 melodrama This Property is Condemned should have been a lot better than it was, but it's still watchable.
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Set during Depression era Mississippi, an official with the railroad named Owen Legate (Robert Redford) is sent there to lay off several railway workers who all happen to reside in a boarding house run by Hazel Starr (Kate Reid) where the primary attraction is Hazel's good time daughter, Alva (Natalie Wood) who is not above doing too much if the price is right and seems to be in constant need for attention for the opposite sex, but getting Owen to glance her way isn't as easy as she is accustomed to.
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As the opening credits reveal, this film was suggested from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams. The opening and closing scenes of Alva's little sister Willie and a young man named Tom are actually the gist of the one-act and it is from Willie's stories about her sister that the story of Alva and Owen came to fruition through a screenplay where one of the contributors was Francis Ford Copolla.
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Director Sidney Pollack shows flashes of genuine directorial flare here, with an affinity for romantic melodrama that would later fully bloom in movies like The Way We Were and we see a similar story here...star-crossed lovers who as much as we want to see them together, we know that the kind of people they are is going to spell doom for the romance. Owen is a buttoned-up but sensitive individual and Alva is a carefree party girl who only cares where the next good time is coming from. Owen actually calls Alva a whore in one scene, a word that I'm sure wan't being bandied about onscreen in 1966.
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Natalie Wood and Robert Redford prove that the chemistry the created the year before in Inside Daisy Clover was no accident. Redford is particularly strong here, watch the scene where he gets beat up and doesn't want Alva to help him, there's some real acting going on here. Kate Reid is superb as the selfish and manipulative Hazel. Future stars Charles Bronson and Robert Blake also register as boarders who only have eyes for Alva. BTW, that's Mary Badham as Willie, who played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird and Jon Provost from Lassie as Tom. Can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something here that doesn't quite work and keeps this film from being what it should have been. 3

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Humoresque
A stylish performance from Joan Crawford that should have earned her an Oscar nomination is the centerpiece of Humoresque, a lushly mounted musical melodrama that tackles some commonplace movie themes, but attaches such a shiny and lavish gloss to them that we almost don't notice.
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The 1946 drama begins by introducing us to a an 11-year old boy named Paul Boray who is gifted with a violin for Christmas and becomes wildly compassionate about it. His compassion begins to pay off as he graduates from something called the National Institute Orchestra and one night plays his violin at a party thrown by a wealthy, married and slightly neurotic socialite named Helen Wright who decides to take Paul under her wing and develop her career. Helen's interest, of course becomes more personal, though she refuses to admit to Paul or anyone else, interest eventually turns to obsession as Helen is unable to reconcile herself to the fact that she is unable to come between Paul and his career, the career she helped to launch.
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I must admit being initially dismayed by the fact that the screenplay by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold spent so much time showing us Paul's childhood. Crawford doesn't even appear until about 35 minutes into the film, but as the story progressed, I understood why it was so important to show us Paul's childhood. Paul's life was all about his music from the moment that he picked up the violin and it's obvious that nothing is going to come between him and his music, even a wealthy, married, slightly neurotic socialite.
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I do love the introduction of the Helen Wright character though...she doesn't even know Paul is there but the minute he starts playing his violin because another guest says he looks like a prizefighter, Helen is mesmerized. I love the way Crawford looks at John Garfield in this scene like he's a hot fudge sundae and it's the beginning of an instantaneous chemistry between the two actors unlike I've seen in quite awhile. The chemistry between Crawford and Garfield is animal and electric, manifesting itself in a sexual tension between the two characters that is almost unbearable. Incredibly, the characters only share one kiss during the entire film.
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This film was also my first introduction to John Garfield, a charismatic young actor who reminded me of guys like Cagney, Brando, and De Niro. He does look like a prizefighter, which he had already done in Body and Soul, and I think that's why he was such a perfectly offbeat casting choice for this role. The scenes of him playing voilin were very convincing. They required two other actors off screen, one doing the bowing and one doing the fingering, while the actual solos were performed by Isaac Stern.
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There weren't a lot of actresses during the 40's who played neurotic better than Crawford and she has a field day here, playing a character who was simultaneously high strung and had ice water in her veins. Fresh off her Oscar winning performance in Mildred Pierce, Crawford is even better here. I also LOVED Oscar Levant, who stole every moment he had onscreen as some welcome comic relief to the proceedings as Garfield's piano playing BFF and any chance to watch Levant hit that keyboard is golden. Also loved Ruth Nelson, superb as Paul's mother, and a very young Robert Blake playing Paul at 11, all under the stylish direction of Jean Negulesco, who came up with a winner here. 4

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Freaky Friday (1976)
A pair of terrific performances by the female leads help keep Disney's 1976 comedy Freaky Friday watchable instead of silly and illogical.
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Annabel Andrews (Jodie Foster) is a tomboyish teenager whose room is a mess and has a crush on the boy across the street. She also is constantly at odds with her tightly wound mother, Ellen (Barbara Harris). One morning after another confrontation with each other, mother and daughter are complaining about how the other one's life is so much easier and simultaneously wish that they could be each other for just one day and, guess what happens?.
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Yes, this is the one that started them all, the body switch comedies that were prevalent in the 80's and 90's....movies like Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son, and more adult versions like The Change-up, films which offered somewhat feasible explanations for the body switch but no such luck here. According to this film, the only reason that the switch occurs is because Ellen and Annabel make the wish at the same time. We can accept that up to the point where they switch back making a similar wish at the same time, but this time, their bodies as well as their souls switch. Why would switching back make their bodies change locations if the original wish didn't do that? I was also troubled by the fact that after the switch, Ellen was constantly seen chewing bubble gum, but before the switch, we never saw Annabel chewing hum.
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Mary Rodgers' somewhat cliched screenplay, which actually uses long begone phrases like "male chauvanist pig", is made viable thanks to the intelligent and vivacious performances by the late Barbara Harris and future Oscar winner Foster, who bring substance to the roles that are not in the screenplay. I especially loved the scenes testing Annabel's parents' marriage...when Ellen flirts with Annabel's across the street crush (Marc McClure) and when Annabel meets her father's curvy new secretary. These actresses almost make you forget everything that's wrong with this movie. Foster's breezy performance actually earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
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Despite a ridiculously over the top finale which seems to feature the same location where they filmed the Thunder Road race in Grease two years later, the film does provide enough laughs to keep you awake. John Astin is fun as Ellen's husband and Annabel's father and several movie and TV veterans pop up along the way, including Dick Van Patten, Patsy Kelly, Alan Oppenheimer, Kaye Ballard, Sorrell Booke, and Marie Windsor. One of Annabel's high school posse is a very young Charlene Tilton and Van Patten's son Jimmy can also be glanced briefly. The film was remade in 2003 with Jamie Lee Curtis replacing Harris and Lindsey Lohan stepping in for Foister. 3

[Citizen Rules]

Glad to see you enjoyed Humoresque, I named my review thread after that movie. I'll have to watch some more Joan Crawford films as soon as I finish Gloria Grahame's filmography.

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Glad to see you enjoyed Humoresque, I named my review thread after that movie. I'll have to watch some more Joan Crawford films as soon as I finish Gloria Grahame's filmography.


Oh Citizen, I LOVED Humoresque...I thought she was better in this than she was in Mildred Pierce.

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Green Book
Racial tension was at its zenith in the 1960's and has been the canvas for some really intriguing cinematic fare, but rarely has a look at this turbulent period in American history been presented on such an original canvas as it is in 2018's Green Book, an atmospheric and thoughtful fact based drama that actually looks at bigotry from an angle that consistently challenges and engages the viewer.
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Two time Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen is a lock for a third nomination playing Tony Lip, an out of work nightclub bouncer in 1962 Brooklyn who gets hired by a classically trained black pianist named Dr. Don Shirley (Oscar winner Mahershala Ali) to be his driver for a concert tour in the deep south.
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On the surface, the premise appears to be a sort of a variation on Driving Miss Daisy, but this story is so much richer, primarily because of the vast differences in the protagonists that was not expected in a story like this. Tony Lip is a Brooklyn goombah whose limited vocabulary includes a lot of "dems" and "dose" and we learn immediately how he feels about black people when we see him throw away two glasses that his wife (Linda Cardellini) served lemonade in to a pair of black repairman. Dr. Shirley is a brilliant accomplished musician who has earned two doctorate degrees, urbane, sophisticated, and initially appears to turn a blind eye to the bigotry that surrounds him. If this movie had actually been made in 1962, no one but Sidney Poitier would have played this part.
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For the uninitiated, the Green Book was a reference guide published during the 1960's that was a guide for hotels and restaurants in the south where black people are welcomed, or as they are usually referred to here, "coloreds." There is one incredible chapter near the film's climax where the doctor arrives for a concert he is scheduled to perform in Birmingham, but he is not allowed to dine in the hotel's dining room. Tony and Dr. Shirley do have two very different encounters with police during the course of the story, which I expected, but the way both encounters played out was completely unexpected.
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I was also impressed by the screenplay's treatment of the two central characters. Tony Lip was laid out before us in the course of a scene or two and we knew absolutely everything there was to know about the guy. Dr. Shirley's character was carefully and methodically revealed with each scene and every time we thought we had learned everything we were supposed to know, something new would come to light. Watching the slow boil of the relationship between these two people was an absolute joy. I loved watching Tony's face the first time he hears Dr. Shirley play or when Tony introduces Dr. Shirley to the joys of Kentucky Fried Chicken...in Kentucky no less!
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I'm still scratching my head in disbelief that this film was directed by Peter Farrelly, one of the creative forces behind films like Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, and Me, Myself and Irene who displays a genuine talent behind the camera for something other than raunchy bathroom humor. Farrelly, with the aid of a crack technical team, beautifully recreates the south in the 1960's with flawless attention to period detail and gets powerhouse performances from Mortensen and Ali, which will probably both earn Oscar nominations. Bouquets should also go to cinematographer Sean Porter and to Kris Bowers, who did all of Ali's incredible piano work. An arresting and unique approach to a familiar cinematic premise that could wreak havoc with the emotions. 4.5

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Mad Money
My upcoming list of favorite Diane Keaton performances motivated my viewing of Mad Money a silly and completely implausible heist caper from 2008 that is somewhat watchable thanks to a likable cast.
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Keaton plays Bridget Cardigan, a pampered housewife who finds out that her husband (Ted Danson) has lost his job and that they are in some serious debt, manages to get a job at the Federal Reserve, the bank where old money is destroyed. Watching all that cash being destroyed on a daily basis motivates Bridget to enlist the aid of two co-workers, Nina (Queen Latifah) and Jackie (Katie Holmes) because they work in different departments and to properly pull this off, none of them can do it alone. After initial success, single mom Nina worries about getting caught and losing her kids, but Bridget and Jackie let greed overtake them and continue to the point of no return and no escape.
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I really liked the way this movie started...during the opening scenes, we are introduced to the characters after they've been arrested. Even though we don't know what these people have done, we have been informed from jump that they did not get away with it, which made the story that unfolded in front of us a lot easier to accept. I don't believe for a minute that anyone, let alone these three women, could steal as much money from the federal government as long as these women did and and get away with it for as long as they did. Remember in Goodfellas when De Niro's Bobby Conway warns his guys not to make any big ticket purchases? Bridget warns Nina and Jackie of the same thing after their initial run and how does Nina
react? She purchases a $62,000 diamond ring and wears it under her rubber glove while cleaning toilets...seriously?
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I was not surprised to see Callie Khouri listed as the director. The Oscar winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise brings a real feminist sensibilities to the proceedings, presenting these three strong female characters at the center of this elaborate plan and we're supposed to just applaud and admire what they're doing because they're women? I was able to go along with what I was watching for the majority of the running time because we had already been informed that the women were arrested and didn't get away with what they tried to do. Then during the finale, we learn that this may not be true and any plausibility the story had went out the window for me.
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What kept me invested in the story, silly as it was, were some terrific performances from Keaton, Danson, Adam Rothenberg as Jackie's dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks husband and Stephen Root as the gals' tightly wound boss at the Federal Reserve. A comedy that provides laughs and actually had me until the final scene. 2.5

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The Old Man and the Gun
He won an Oscar for directing the 1980 film Ordinary People, but has never won an Oscar for acting, receiving only one nomination (The Sting), but Hollywood legend Robert Redford has a shot at that acting Oscar this year with his performance in The Old Man and the Gun, which makes the film seem a lot better than it really is.
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Redford commands the screen in this fact-based 2018 docudrama as Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who has been in and out of jail since the age of 15 and, according to the film, has escaped from 16 different penal institutions, climaxing an escape from San Quentin at the tender age of 70. The film opens in the year 1981 where Tucker and his crew (Tom Waits, Danny Glover) surface in Texas and rob dozens of banks all over the state. Tucker was a charming and amiable man who never stopped smiling while handing teller notes demanding money or in the middle of high speed chases down four lane highways. He finds himself dogged by a small time Texas police detective named John Hunt (Oscar winner Casey Affleck)Tucker complicates his business when he begins a relationship with an effervescent widow named Jewel (Oscar winner Sissy Spacek).
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Director and screenwriter David Lowery puts a lot of care and affection into the mounting of this story. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he is related to Tucker in some way because he works very hard at putting this character on a cinematic pedestal like nothing I've ever seen. It's hard to tell where facts and gloss blur for the sake of entertainment blur because there are way too many close calls in the name of this cat and mouse between Hunt and Tucker to really believe, reminding me a lot of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks in Cat Me If You Can. Hunt arrives at the scene of one of Tucker's crimes and actually finds a hundred dollar bill with a personal message written to him from Tucker. Tucker and Hunt actually end up dining in the same restaurant in one scene and what happened in that scene had me questioning the credibility of everything I had seen up to that point.
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Credibility notwithstanding, it all takes a back seat to the charismatic movie star performance by Robert Redford that keeps this character immensely likable and keeps this movie completely engaging. His matinee idol, pretty boy looks are gone, but that face has such character now...every wrinkle, every line, just giving the actor and the character he's playing the respect and undivided attention they have earned and deserve. Despite the professional cast and handsome production values, I would be lying if I didn't admit that whenever Redford wasn't onscreen, the film screeched to a halt...I didn't care about Hunt's wife (Tika Sumpter) and his kids, but watching him eat, sleep, and breathe Tucker was a lot of fun.
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Sissy Spacek made a lovely leading for Redford and was reminded that both won the Oscars they already have the same year. Casey Affleck is charming as Detective Hunt and Tom Waits made the most of his screen time as well. The film is beautifully photographed and also deserves mention for editing, sound mixing, and an evocative musical score, which included a lyrical folk tune backing a deadly high speed chase, a scene that took my breath away. There's a slow spot here and there, but movie legend Robert Redford makes this one worth your time. 3.5

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Mrs. Soffel
Atmospheric direction and solid performances from the leads make the 1984 epic romance Mrs. Soffel a unique and memorable experience with some Shakespearean influence.
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The story takes place at the turn of the century at a large American prison where Jack and Ed Biddle (Matthew Modine, Mel Gibson) have been imprisoned after being convicted of murder. Because they are young and good looking, they have actually achieved a celebrity status that has the female population camped out in front of the jailhouse on a regular basis, much to the chagrin of prison warden Peter Soffel (Edward Herrmann).
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Enter Kate Soffel (Diane Keaton), the warden's wife and mother of their four children who likes to read to the prisoners and lead them to saving their souls. Kate finds herself attracted to Ed and tries to fight it, but falling under Ed's spell, Kate ends up aiding and abetting Ed and Jack in their escape but finds herself in a position she never dreamed of when Ed refuses to leave Kate and the three begin journey through an unforgiving frozen wasteland.
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Gillian Armstrong, who directed My Brilliant Career and the 1994 version of Little Women cut her directorial teeth on this mammoth love story/adventure that finds a woman at the center of it who is strangling under the rules of her life and longs to be free of it before the opportunity even presents itself. Kate reminded me of Nora in A Doll's House, a woman longing for change and liberation and finding a possible escape that involves the possible sacrifice of everything that she knows and loves, most importantly, her four children. The scene where the children realize they may never see their mother again and one of them hopes that their mother is dead instead of with the Biddles is a heartbreaker.
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There are questions left unanswered but they become a non-issue the second Kate and Ed lay eyes on each other. The attraction is immediate but we're not sure if it's mutual and we can't wait to see if it becomes mutual. Initially, Ed seems to be using Kate, but it's clear that this is not the case during my favorite scene in the film, brilliantly directed and performed by the stars, where Ed and Jack are ready to leave but Ed refuses to leave without Kate. Keaton is particularly brilliant in this scene as she verbally protests at what is being suggested but does nothing to stop him as he scoops her up in his arms and wraps her in fur so she's not cold.
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The prison utilized in the film is the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, though it is never actually mentioned where the film takes place. Armstrong made effective use of an obviously large budget afforded her here, evidenced in art direction/set direction. and costumes, simultaneously eye popping and period appropriate. Diane Keaton gives an Oscar worthy performance in a complex role and Mel Gibson smolders as the defiant Ed. Two years before Lethal Weapon, Gibson documents that he was a star on the rise here. Matthew Modine made an exuberant Jack and the late Edward Herrmann, who I think has played more cheated on husbands than any other actor in the movies, does another one here to maximum effect. Keaton and Gibson fans will love this. 3.5

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Bundle of Joy
It was the mid 1950's and Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher were Hollywood darlings expecting their first child (Carrie Fisher) and RKO Studios decided to cash in on Hollywood's newest marriage by pairing the newlyweds in a forgettable 1956 musical comedy called Bundle of Joy, a musical remake of the 1939 Ginger Rogers comedy Bachelor Mother.
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In this remake, Debbie Reynolds plays Polly Parrish, a department store salesgirl who has just been fired from her job and is mistaken for the mother of an abandoned baby. Fisher plays the heir apparent at the store who arranges for Polly to get her job back so that she can properly take care of her baby. Fisher's Dan Merlin decides to help Polly with expenses and falls for her in the process. Polly also has an obnoxious co-worker (Tommy Noonan) sniffing after her, not to mention Dan's father, the big boss (Adolph Menjou) who is under the impression that the baby is his grandson.
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I don't know how director Norman Taurog managed to do it, but with the aid of screenwriter Norman Krasna and composers Joseph Myrow and Mack Gordon, Taurog has mounted a scene for scene remake of the 1939 comedy, inserted musical numbers, and still managed to come up with a movie that seemed liked it was four hours long, even though it clocks in at barely over 90 minutes. Taurog's direction is lethargic and he's got a real problem with a leading man who can't act. He tries to disguise this by having Fisher sing a song every 15 minutes, but it doesn't disguise the fact that, despite a gorgeous singing voice, Fisher was no actor...I don't think his facial muscles moved at all throughout the running time except to sing. The scene in the nightclub on New Year's Eve was kind of amusing and provided the only substantial laughs in the film for this reviewer.
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The pleasant, if unremarkable musical score included songs like "Worry About Tomorrow Tomorrow", "Lullaby in Blue", "What's So Good About Good Morning", "Some Day Soon", and "I Never Felt this Way Before", competently performed by Reynolds and Fisher, but just seemed to pad the running time.
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Reynolds works very hard in the starring role but is no Ginger Rogers and Menjou provides fun moments. Robert H.Harris is funny as Mr. Hargraves, Menjou's right hand and Una Merkel is wasted in a thankless role as Polly's landlady. Elizabeth Taylor notwithstanding, I wouldn't be surprised if this movie had anything to do with the dissolve of the Fishers' marriage. I must revert to my standard moniker regarding remakes: Stick to the original. 2

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Old Acquaintance
A stylish screenplay and a pair of terrific performances from the leads anchor 1943's Old Acquaintance, a delicious soap opera about friendship and how jealousy and envy can destroy it, rich with enough clever dialogue and delightful twists and turns in the story to keep the viewer invested.
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Bette Davis plays Kit Marlowe, a successful novelist who is returning to her hometown for the first time in years to promote her latest book. On pins and needles about her arrival is Millie Drake, played by Miriam Hopkins, Kit's best friend since childhood, who is now married, expecting her first child, and so jealous of Kit's success she can't see straight. After a shaky reunion, Millie nervously confesses to Kit that she has written a book and wants Kit to read it.
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The story flashes forward as we learn that Millie's book was a smash as were the eight or nine that immediately followed. Millie's writing has brought her the fame and fortune she has always longed for but has alienated her husband, Preston (John Loder) and daughter, Deirdre (Dolores Moran) in the process, who have both gravitated to Kit for the love they aren't getting from Millie. There's also a handsome playboy (Gig Young) who has his eye on Kit as well.
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John Van Druten and Lenore Coffee have collaborated on a layered and thoughtful screenplay, adapted from Van Druten's play, that spans several decades in the friendship of these two women and how envy and jealousy seems to fuel all the mess that happens between these two women who have always loved each other. It's rather entertaining watching Millie throw away her family and when she can't get them back, try to blame Kit for it. It's also interesting watching Kit fight her feelings for Preston because she knows being with him would be wrong, not to mention the complexities involved in being a surrogate mother to Deirdre.
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Bette Davis turns in one of her richest performances here during a time when Davis was being nominated for Best Actress Oscars annually, for some reason her work here was overlooked. This was a textured performance that was on the surface a good girl, which was casting against type for Davis, but when pushed, Kit Marlowe definitely knew how to shove back. Miriam Hopkins had me grinning constantly with her outrageous and slightly pathetic Millie, a woman so flighty and self-absorbed you just have to laugh at her. It is the divine performances by these actresses and the compelling story that make this one work, not to mention Franz Waxman's lush musical score. The film was remade in 1980 as Rich and Famous with Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, which was the final theatrical film directed by the legendary George Cukor. 3.5

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Eddie Murphy: Raw
He had already gone the concert film route with Delirious but Eddie Murphy was actually persuaded to return to the concert stage in 1987 for Raw.
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Now this was after 48 HRS, Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop so basically this was at a time when Eddie Murphy was the biggest movie star on the planet and had back to back projects lined up so going back to the concert stage was a risky move that Paid off for the most part.
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The concert is preceded by a short film depicting the Murphy clan at a Holiday celebration, which features, among others, Samuel L. Jackson, Carol Woods, Tatyana Ali, the director of this film Robert Townsend, and Deon Richmond ("Bud" on The Cosby Show) playing a pre-teen Eddie, telling a dirty joke in front of all of his relatives. Eddie is then observed strutting onstage in a bright purple leather pant suit and engages the audience almost immediately by referencing Delirious by once again making fun of some of the celebrities that he made fun of in the first film...there's no denying that the man is a brilliant impressionist and his take on Mr T really cracks me up...still.
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Eddie then moves into a brilliant routine where he does dead on impressions of two people he did not make fun of in the first film. Eddie's hysterical take on Bill Cosby, on the premise that Cosby called to complain about his language when his late son Ennis saw him live, once again put me on the floor, as well as his impression of Richard Pryor, who he allegedly called right after he got off the phone with Cosby.
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Eddie also offers his views on marriage and pre-nuptial agreements as well as why men should be forgiven for their infidelity, well not forgiven exactly, but Eddie basically wants us to know that men just can't help it. To be honest, Delirious was a lot funnier, but this film still brings the funny and confirms my belief that the Eddie Murphy of today could save his career by starting over and picking up the stand up microphone again. 3.5

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Wall Street
Greed and all of its manifestations have rarely been as effectively explored than in Oliver Stones Wall Street, a pretentious and penetrating examination of greed during the hedonistic 1980's when there was no such thing as "enough money."
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Charlie Sheen plays Bud Fox, a young and ambitious junior stockbroker who is convinced that his shortcut to the top of finance is through a ruthless corporate raider named Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). When Bud is finally able to get a meeting with the financial guru, he offers some stock deals for Gekko which are initially refused. Gekko then makes it clear that if Fox wants to deal with him, he has to "get" him information, not "bring" him information, which translates as inside trading, but Bud's avarice and desire to be Gekko's mentor finds him selling his soul for the man and putting the company where his father has been employed for 24 years, in serious jeopardy.
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Director and co-screenwriter Oliver Stone really put himself on the map with this expensively mounted look at corporate greed that created a new phrase that has since become part of pop culture...:Greed is Good." And greed never looked as good as it does here. During their first meeting when Gekko tells Bud exactly what he wants from him and the word "illegal" comes into the conversation, we know where this is going, but we also know that this Gekko character knows exactly what he's doing and we also know that Gekko will take him under his wing, but the screenplay is a little labored in showing the viewer exactly when Gekko begins to be a true mentor which makes the first act of this film pretty rough going.
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Once Bud moves from the West Side to the East Side, becomes involved with the materialistic Darien (Daryl Hannah) who is also in Gekko's pocket, not to mention being asked to spy on a rival raider (Terrence Stamp)., we know Bud is getting exactly what he wants and we also know that it's also the beginning of the end. Of course, everything that happens to Bud is actually foreshadowed in his relationship with his father...the scene where Gekko meets with Bud's father and other members of is company is terribly intense. It's implied during the denoument that Gekko gets what's coming to him, but after everything we've witnessed, it was a little disappointing to not see him in handcuffs as the credits rolled.
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It takes a little while to get going, but once it does, this one really delivers, with the help of Stone's well-picked cast, led by Michael Douglas, in a dazzling performance as Gordon Gekko that won him the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actor of 1987 and Sheen is solid as the ambitious and sincere Bud. The casting of Sheen's father, Martin, as his father here was inspired and added so much richness to their scenes together, particularly the scene in the hospital. Hal Holbrook, John C. McKInley, James Spader have supporting roles and if you don't blink, you'll catch a cameos from Danny DeVito and the director. Cinematography, set direction, and film editing are all top-notch as is Stewart Copeland's understated music. A must for fans of the director and leading man. 3.5

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The Oath
Ike Barinholtz is a talented and funny actor who you might remember from the TV series The Mindy Project or from films like Blockers, Sisters, and Snatched. What you might not know is that Barinholtz has a political conscience and is not happy about the state of affairs in our great nation. Barinholtz finds a voice for his anger in a 2018 film that he wrote, directed, and stars in called The Oath, a ferocious, disturbing and often vicious black comedy that re-thinks phrases like "Big Brother is watching you" and "America, Love it or Leave it", but its anger eventually drowns its intentions.
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The story is set in a contemporary, alternate universe in the Untied States with a fictional president running the country. The POTUS has issued a simple four-line oath promising undying loyalty to the United States Government, that he asks all United States citizens (and I'm pretty sure this translates as registered voters) to sign. Flashforward a year and we meet Chris Powell (Barinholtz), a politically correct, card-carrying liberal who has a wife (Tiffany Haddish) and a young daughter, who absolutely refuses to sign the oath, It is Thanksgiving week, five days before the deadline to sign the oath and Chris won't budge, despite seeing news reports about people, including actor Seth Rogen, being hauled away in handicuffs because they won't sign the oath, The day after a very tense Thanksgiving with his parents, his brother, his girlfriend, and Chris' sister, where it is revealed they have all signed the oath, the Powells find two government agents at their door who want to "talk" to Chris about rumors that he has been persuading people not to sign the oath and how this encounter goes terribly wrong.
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As I've often said about many films, if the quality of a film was merely based on intentions, this one hits a bullseye, but Barinholtz' viewpoint is a little biased and his story leaves too many questions unanswered to validate everything that happens here. There is a telling scene near the beginning of the film depicting a presidential news conference where the press secretary says that this is a free country and that they can't force anyone to sign the oath, but there will be perks for those who do. The screenplay never makes clear exactly what undying loyalty entails nor does it offer any detail about said perks that come with signing. It's implied that one of them might have to do with heath care because a character later explains that they signed the oath to protect their children.
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Without specifics about these two things, the legitimacy of this story is just hard to engage in. We're told that this a free country and moments later we see a democratic senator being dragged away in handcuffs and government agents showing up at Chris' door the day after Thanksgiving "suggesting" that they "step outside and talk." We understand a lot of Chris' actions after he refuses to step outside, but what happens never should have gone as far as it did since it's revealed that one of the agents has severe mental health issues. The fact that someone with these kind of mental health problems is working for the government is a little convenient for Barinholtz' cinematic voice and doesn't justify the ugliness that follows.
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This film provides nervous and inappropriate laughs and the cinematic rabbit hole that this film travels down is truly disturbing, running roughshod with my emotions, but I never once took my eyes off the screen nor checked my watch. Barinholtz' performance is riveting but I never bought he and Haddish as a couple, a role I suspect she got because she is one of the film's executive producers. There is also a powerhouse performance from Billy Magnussen (Into the Woods, Date Night) as the mentally shredded government agent that demands viewer attention, but this film is just too angry and bitter to completely invest in, though I have to admit I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since the credits rolled about twelve hours ago. 3

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By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Doris Day and Gordon MacRae return for some more romantic hi-jinks in 1953's By the Light of the Silvery Moon, a sequel to On Moonlight Bay that is just as much fun as the first film.
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This piece of cinematic cotton candy once again finds us in turn of the century Millburn where Marjorie Wingfield (Day) has re-discovered her inner boy while waiting for fiancee Bill Sherman (MacRae) to return from the war. Upon Bill's return, he is still has gun-shy about marriage as he was in the first film and tries to use unemployment as an excuse to once again delaying a wedding, which sparks the attention of Chester Finley, a music teacher who had been seeing Marjorie while Bill was away.
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There are also a couple of subplots going on as well: One involves Mr. Wingfield (Leon Ames), who has a business appointment with a glamorous actress and a letter that Marjorie finds and thinks her father is having an affair. The other involves Marjorie's kid brother Wesley (Billy Gray) and a turkey named Gregory.
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There is a touch of "sequel-itis" going on here as screenwriters Robert O'Brien and Irving Elinson try to give us a little more than Bill and Marjorie to engage us in re-visiting these characters. They do give us more but not too much. It seems that filmmakers of today could learn something from films like this one, which did not feel that the sequel had to be a five hour extravaganza in order to interest moviegoers.
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The very tuneful score includes songs like "My Hometown", "Your Eyes Have Told Me So", "Just One Girl", "Ain't we Got Fun", "Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee", a barnyard production number called "King the Chanticleer", and the title tune. It should be noted that the soundtrack for this film and On Moonlight Bay were compiled in a single CD collection in 2001.
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Day and MacRae remain an engaging onscreen couple, whose vocal chemistry is just as enchanting as their romantic chemistry. Leon Ames and Rosemary DeCamp are once again perfection as Day's parents. If you liked On Moonlight Bay, there's no reason you shouldn't enjoy this. 3

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8 Mile
There was a time when Eminem, the first white rapper since Vanilla Ice, was the hottest thing on the planet so it was no surprise when Hollywood came to call, but 2002's 8 Mile is definitely a case of parts being better than the whole.
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The rapper plays Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, an employee at a car factory in urban Detroit who has big dreams of being in the rap game, participating in "battles" whenever he can, but finds as much distraction from his friends as he does from his foes in pursuit of his dream. On the homefront, Rabbit has just moved back home with his mom (Kim Basinger) who is living in a trailer park with a guy that Rabbit went to high school with (Michael Shannon).
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The late Curtis Hanson, who won an Oscar for writing 1997's LA Confidential is in the director's chair for this one, providing some impressive directorial pyrotechnics that make this film seem a lot more important than it really is. Hanson brings a little style to Scott Silver's screenplay, which actually plays like just about any show business biopic that's been made in the past 50 years. The opening scene where we are told that Rabbit is the hottest rapper in town and then steps on stage and chokes just smacks of cliche. I understand they wanted to save something for the rest of the movie, but it would have been a more effective hook to have win the first battle and then lose.
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Silver's screenplay concentrates a little too much on Rabbit's antagonism with these other rappers, personal antagonisms that reach dangerous proportions. Not to mention friends with questionable loyalties around our boy, making it hard for him to know who to trust. The friends who Rabbit trust are true friends and their scenes together do ring true...the scene where they are cruising downtown zapping landmarks with a paint gun was a lot of fun, but if the truth be told, I just would have liked a movie starring the hottest rapper on the planet to have a little more rapping in it. My favorite scene in the movie was actually when Rabbit and his BFF Future (Mekhi Pfifer) are at the trailer park and improvise a rap to "Sweet Home Alabama". And as awesome as Rabbit's final battle was, the finale was a cop-out.
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Hanson's direction is better than the story and the performances are a matter of taste. I can see why this movie did nothing for Eminem's career. Basinger was solid as his mom and I also loved Evan Jones as Cheddar, a member of Rabbit's posse who shoots himself at one point. "Lose Yourself", the song performed by the star over the closing credits, won the Oscar for Best Song of 2002 and is one of the best things about the movie, along with Hanson's direction and a razor sharp film editing team. 3

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Vice (2018)
A breathtaking performance by Christian Bale in the starring role notwithstanding, Vice is a rambling and long-winded docudrama centering on George W. Bush's VP, Dick Cheney that could have used a little less "docu" and a lot more drama.
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Dick Cheney was a strong and unassuming man dedicated to public service and was apparently lured into politics by Donald Rumsfeld, who was apparently instrumental in George W.'s choice of Cheney as a running mate. Even the most unassuming man knows that the Vice President is the most thankless job on the planet but apparently George W. appealed to the former beer-drinking rowdy in Cheney that George could relate to. The film reveals how Cheney, probably more than any other Vice President in history, did whatever he could to make the job less thankless.
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Adam McKay, who won an Oscar for writing another film that lost me (The Big Short) has crafted another confusing screenplay that attempts a couple of different methods of storytelling and is not really sure which one he really wants to employ. The screenplay is an unsettling combination of biographical facts and cinematic analogies that make consistent investment in what's going on difficult. First of all, we are confused by Cheney's story being narrated by someone named Kurt (Jesse Plemons) whose connection to Cheney is revealed WAY too late and introduces us to his interpretation of a lot of Cheney's actions. The whole comparison of setting up the VP's administration to the Parker Brothers board game Risk was genius as was the ordering of military strategy as if they were items on a dinner menu with perfect descriptions of each item choice from a waiter (Alfred Molina in a terrific cameo).
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This movie could have been amazing if McKay had taken a little more of a jaundiced view the way he did with the board game and the restaurant scene; unfortunately, a lot of the story gets bogged down in archival news footage where it was often hard to establish its connection to Cheney's story. A little more emphasis on life at home might have helped too, since the movie makes no bones about the influence that wife Lynne and his daughters had on him.
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As troublesome as I found a lot of what was going on, I was absolutely riveted to the screen for one reason...the amazing performance by Christian Bale as Dick Cheney that just won him a Golden Globe and has him in strong contention for a second Oscar. The physical transformation that Bale went through for this role is incredible and confirms his spot as one of cinema's best chameleons right now. I read that Bale put on 45 pounds and shaved his head and eyebrows in order to be completely unrecognizable in this role, which he completely loses himself in. Not since Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada have I seen an actor command the screen barely speaking above a stage whisper, just stunning work. Oscar winner Sam Rockwell made a fantastic George W. and Amy Adams was solid, as always, as Lynne. Film editing and sound were also big assets, I just wish McKay hadn't let this one get away from him because there are parts of an amazing movie in here, though it's still worth seeing for the incredible performance by Christian Bale, which should be studied by acting students. 3

[Gideon58]

Come Blow Your Horn
A breezy performance by Frank Sinatra is the best thing about a rather tired adaptation of a Neil Simon play called Come Blow Your Horn.
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The 1963 comedy finds Sinatra playing Alan Baker, a carefree and irresponsible bachelor who works for his father but as the story opens, he has missed the last three days of work. Alan's younger brother, Buddy, who also works for dad, shows up on Alan's doorstep, tired of life at home. Alan is thrilled to have little brother exert a little independence until Buddy starts to cramp his lifestyle with the three ladies in his life that he is currently juggling: Peggy is a vivacious bimbo without a brain in her head, Mrs. Eckman is a married temptress, and Connie is the girl who Alan really loves, but is in denial about it. While trying to hold onto is job and his three ladies, Alan finds Buddy taking over his bachelor pad.
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One of Neil Simon's lesser works, it premiered on Broadway in 1961 and actually ran for over 600 performances. I don't know if it's Simon's original story or Norman Lear's adaptation of the screenplay, but this comedy just doesn't provide the rapid, non-stop laughs that we're accustomed to from Neil Simon. If it wasn't actually documented, I never would have known that this came from Simon because it doesn't produce the laughs that The Odd Couple or Barefoot in the Park produce.
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Other than Sinatra, the performances are nothing to write home about either. I guess comedy was foreign territory for him, but Lee J. Cobb's one-note blustering as the angry father really grated on the nerves as did Tony Bill's twitching as Buddy. It's evident here why Bill eventually gave up acting and became an Oscar-winning movie producer and director. Jill St. John is gorgeous but cannot act. The only ones who rise above the muck are Barbara Rush as Connie and Molly Picon as the brothers' mother. Picon has one very funny scene where she is trying to take messages for Alan. There's also a brief appearance by Dan Blocker, who was a star of the # 2 rated television show at the time, Bonanza.
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The film actually received an Oscar nomination for art direction/set direction, which was richly deserved, Alan's apartment is stunning, but this one is really for hardcore Sinatra fans only. 2

[Gideon58]

Dancers
Director Herbert Ross first brought ballet to mainstream movie audiences back in 1977 with The Turning Point, which was a box office smash that earned 11 Oscar nominations. A decade later, Ross brought us another look at the art of ballet called Dancers that was just a hot mess.
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In this 1987 film, the American Ballet Theater is planning to make a movie of the ballet "Giselle" in London with lead dancer Tony (Mikhail Baryshnikov) planning to dance for the final time. Tony finds himself drawn to Lisa (Julie Kent), a young dancer who was a last minute substitute for a dancer who was injured. His attraction to Lisa is complicating his relationship with the dancer doing Giselle (Alessandra Ferri) and his ex, Nadine (Leslie Browne), who has recently had a baby and is getting back into her toe shoes for the first time since becoming a mom.
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God, I don't know where to start here...first of all, I do need to applaud Herbert Ross for his intentions here. An up close and personal look at ballet dancers and what drives them, kind of a ballet version of A Chorus Line is a nice idea, but Sarah Kernochan's screenplay is nothing more than a contrived and boring soap opera en pointe that never really engages the viewer because Kernochan's attempts at sophistication and wit are lost on this cast.
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And I think that's the real problem with this film. Historically, great dancers are notoriously bad actors and this point is driven home with a sledgehammer here. The dancers are actually given the occasionally funny piece of dialogue here but it all falls flat because there is a lot of dialogue provided for the actors that I genuinely believe they don't understand and it's even worse with Baryshnikov because he's not American and I honestly believe there were jokes in the screenplay that he didn't understand what he was saying and Ross has to take the blame for this. Baryshnikov and Browne were both featured in The Turning Point and inexplicably received Oscar nominations for their dreadful performances and I would have thought that Ross would have worked a little harder on their acting and let the dancing take care of itself. The only glint of any acting talent in this cast comes from Ferri when she's dancing Giselle.
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This melodramatic story is just so silly and fails to hold the viewer's attention on so many levels. There's a point in the story where Lisa is so distraught because she realizes Tony really loves Giselle, that she walks out in the middle of a rehearsal and we're supposed to believe that she has left to kill herself...seriously? I understand Ross' desire for mainstream audiences to find a love for ballet and I think he would have done the world of cinema better service if he had just filmed "Giselle" with some actual backstage/rehearsal footage sprinkled throughout instead of this silly soap opera performed by a bunch of self-centered dancers who can't act. 1.5

[Gideon58]

Flashdance
From the "Style over Substance" school of film making comes Flashdance, a sizzling musical drama that was the surprise box office smash of 1983, redefined movie and fashion trends, but most importantly, established Adrian Lyne as a director to watch.
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The story, such as it is, follows Alex (Jennifer Beals), a girl who works as a welder by day and dances in a club at night in downtown Pittsburgh, though she has never had any formal dance training. One night at the club, her day job boss, Nick (Michael Nouri) catches her act and decides he wants to start dating her, which turns out to be a lot more complicated than he expected. Despite her lack of training, Alex also yearns to audition for an elite dance repertory company and keeps coming up with excuses not to.
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Yes, this is my first viewing of this film and as for why I waited this long to watch it, it just seemed like a silly idea for a movie and never really interested me. What did appeal to me and pop off the screen for me as I watched was the undeniably stylish direction by Adrian Lyne, the man who directed Fatal Attraction, Unfaithful, and 91/2 Weeks. Lyne not only has an unerring eye for creating striking cinematic images but there are few directors out there with a better eye for erotic cinematic imagery...the undoing of her bra under the sweatshirt, the removing of her dinner jacket to reveal the front of a tuxedo shirt without the rest of the shirt, and best of all, how does anyone not get hot watching Jennifer Beals eat lobster in this movie? Speaking of sweatshirts, this was also the movie where the off-shoulder, ripped sweatshirt look was born and became the only way for dancers in the 80's to appear in public.
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On the other hand, the swiss cheese screenplay did provide several questions that nagged at me throughout the film. Number one, this woman dreams of being a dancer but has never taken any classes? WHY THE HELL NOT? If you want to be a dancer, you have to take class. And if she's never taken classes or danced professionally, what the hell did she put on that 20 page application for the rep company? And most important of all, Nick couldn't have forgotten how difficult it was to get Alex to go out with him. Why would he think she would be OK with him making a phone call to the arts council on her behalf? And who is Alex to drag her BFF out of a strip club because it's not "real dancing"?
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The film does feature some terrific dancing though, even if Beals isn't doing all of it, to a fantastic song score. Her opening number with the famous water-dunking, filmed almost exclusively in silhouette, is smoking hot. The scene to the tune of "Maniac" was interesting, though I didn't get the appeal of watching Alex's wet and sweaty hair flying all over the place. And the final audition piece danced to the Oscar winning title tune, might have been a lot more effective with a real dancer performing it...I've heard over the years that four different dancers were utilized in this scene and, unfortunately, it's pretty obvious. Mention should also be made of Cynthia Rhodes, who would later heat up the screen with Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, and has an electrifying number here, mounted to the tune of "Man Hunt."
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Jeffrey Hornaday's choreography is razor sharp, far superior to his work in the film version of A Chorus Line. Jennifer Beals is a pretty girl, but so much of her performance comes from other people, it's hard to accurately gauge her as an actress, but when was the last time you saw her in a movie? The prosecution rests. Bouquets to the film editing as well, but more than anything this film is a testament to the dazzling cinematic eye of Adrian Lyne. 3.5

[Gideon58]

White Boy Rick
2018's White Boy Rick is a dark and muddled docudrama that suffers due to a little too much similarity to great crime dramas of the past and a general air of "been there done that" which pervades the proceedings.
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This is the true story of Rick Wershe Jr., the teenage son of a weapons dealer who becomes a major player with a drug ring and an informant for the FBI at the same time, which eventually gets hims sentenced to life imprisonment. We learn during the epilogue that Rick served thirty three years of the sentence and was finally released in 2017.
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The story opens in 1984 Detroit where we observe Rick and his dad purchasing guns at a show and Rick turning around and selling most of them to the biggest drug dealer in town. Ricky finds himself living the high life of a player until the FBI swoop in and inform Rick that if he wants to avoid jail time, he must become an informant. He agrees to do so, but never really stops working for the drug dealers which eventually gets him in a very tangled web from which he is unable to escape.
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Even though Rick's story is real, this film reminded me a lot of fictional crime films that follow a similar path and therein lies the problem. Andy Weiss and Logan Miller's screenplay is supposed to recreate what happened to a real teenager named Rick Wershe, a real life figure and should feel unique, but the only feelings I got here were confusion and slight boredom because I felt like I was seeing something I had seen a million times, though there were some plot points that didn't really make sense. Once the FBI has Rick start making buys for them, they turn around and hand him a $4000 brick of cocaine so that he can make money off it? And when Rick finally does go down, the FBI just throws the guy under the bus.
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The relationship between Rick Jr. and Rick Sr. was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story. It was a little unsettling watch a man coach his teenage son on the art of buying guns and then chastising him 30 minutes later for selling drugs. Though, unlike the FBI, Rick Sr. stands by his son and watching the healing of this relationship made the final act of this film tolerable. The relationship between Rick Jr. and his junkie sister, Dawn also provided some compelling moments.
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Yann Demange's direction is unimaginative but Matthew McConaughey is terrific as Rick Sr. Richie Merrit's performance as Rick Jr. was a little one note and made a lot of this movie rough going. Everything about this movie was sadly mediocre and I was surprised I actually sat through the entire thing. 2.5

[Gideon58]

The Man with Two Brains
Steve Martin and Carl Reiner collaborated for the third time as star and director for 1983's The Man with Two Brains, a zany sci-fi spoof that, after all these years, had me laughing out loud for the majority of its running time.
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Martin plays Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, a world famous brain surgeon who has just perfected a new form of cranial brain surgery that just requires the surgeon to screw off the top of the patient's head. While still grieving over the death of first wife, Rebecca, Michael meets a venomous black widow named Delores Benedict (Kathleen Turner) who he accidentally hits with his car. He saves her life with his surgery and falls in love with her. They eventually get married but Delores refuses to consummate the marriage. Michael has to go to Europe for a convention where his meeting with a fellow surgeon (David Warner) leads to a confrontation with the Elevator Killer and Michael's falling in love with a disembodied brain in a jar.
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Martin, Reiner, and George Gipe have crafted a very funny screenplay that almost has a Mel Brooks sensibility to it, in that it is a spoof of movies like Donavan's Brain, which we learn is Michael's favorite movie and a lot of the jokes that come at a breakneck pace are not always rooted in realism. Two of the biggest laughs in the film come from two separate scenes of Michael carrying his bride over the thresh hold. The scene on the rowboat where Martin takes the brain out for their first date is hysterical...you can't help but chuckle when he puts the hat and the plastic lips on the jar. And believe it or not, the running joke regarding the pronunciation of Michael's last name never gets tired. I also love the cheesy special effects like Michael licking his palms so they stick to the side of the condo or the apartment with the interior of a gothic castle.
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The other thing that makes this movie work is the on-target casting of actors, and not comics, in the principal roles. I don't think a comedienne would have been nearly as effective as Kathleen Turner was, because a comedienne would have been playing the role for laughs and constantly mining for them and it would have distracted from the story. Turner's rich performance works because she plays this role with deadly seriousness and the humor and the hissable qualities in the character come out. It's clear from jump that Turner's character is the villain of the piece, beautifully established in her opening scenes with her dying millionaire first husband (George Furth) and Turner invests in this nasty character and makes her a joy to watch.
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Martin and Turner actually create a viable chemistry onscreen that produces laughs throughout and it was nice to see David Warner lighten up in a role that is sort of a satire of his usual onscreen persona. The reveal of who the Elevator Killer is was hysterical and for those who don't recognize the voice, that is the voice of Oscar winner Sissy Spacek as the voice of the brain Dr. Michael falls in love with. There are flashes of comic brilliance and non-stop laughs in one of Martin's best and nearly forgotten comedies. 4

[Citizen Rules]

The Man with Two Brains
Steve Martin and Carl Reiner collaborated for the third time as star and director for 1983's The Man with Two Brains, a zany sci-fi spoof that, after all these years, had me laughing out loud for the majority of its running time.
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rating_4 Good to see that movie get some appreciation. It never gets talked about. I've only seen it once, and that was first run at the theater, but...I've never forgotten it. Your review has me wanting to revisit it now.

[Gideon58]

Gigi
It won nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for the legendary Vincente Minnelli, but after my first viewing of the 1958 classic Gigi, I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out why.
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Based on a novel by Collette, this is the story of a rich French playboy named Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), bored with his playboy lifestyle and only finds escape in the form of his friendship with a pretty young tomboy named Gigi (Leslie Caron) who is in the midst of being trained to be a Courtesan for a wealthy man by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold), a former paramour of his charming uncle (Maurice Chevalier). When Gaston's relationship with the glamorous Liane (Eva Gabor) falls apart, he jets off to Monte Carlo, where he realizes that his feelings for Gigi are more romantic than he imagined.
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Don't get me wrong...this film is a feast for the eyes and ears, exquisitely mounted with incredible on-location photography in Paris, incredible settings, and drop dead gorgeous costumes, but all of this glamour and tinsel is really disguising what is a rather unsavory story, though it is cleverly camouflaged through Alan Jay Lerner's Oscar winning screenplay, filled with wit and double entendres, but when you strip away all the gloss, what you have here is a story about a young girl being trained to be a prostitute and a playboy who breaks up with a girl who immediately commits suicide and his reaction is to throw one party after another.
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I'm pretty sure a lot of the appeal of this story also lies with the enchanting score by Lerner and Lowe, the team behind My Fair Lady and Camelot. The lilting score includes "Thank heavens for Little Girls", "The Night They Invented Champagne", "The Parisians", "She is Not Thinking of Me", "I Remember it Well", "It's a Bore", "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" and the Oscar winning title tune. It should be noted that, with the exception of Maurice Chevalier, none of the leads do their own singing.
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Some of the Oscars the film won like set design and Cecil Beaton's breathtaking costumes were richly deserved, but Best Picture? Was this really a better film than The Defiant Ones, Auntie Mame or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which were all nominated that year? And this might be a bit of a nitpick, but how are you going to mount this humongous musical, cast Leslie Caron in the title role, and not have her do a single dance step?
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Caron is well cast in the title role and I've never enjoyed Louis Jourdan onscreen more. Needless to say, Maurice Chevalier steals every scene he's in and I must also give a shout out to Isabel Jeans as Aunt Alicia, but I have to believe Vincente Minnelli's Oscar was more of a sentiment/body of work thing, because this film, as competent as it is a technical achievement, did not live up to its reputation. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Instant Family
Despite a somewhat hackneyed plot, the 2018 comedy Instant Family provides pretty consistent laughs and a fair amount of surprises for what appeared to be a standard story on the surface.
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Pete and Ellie Wagner (Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne) are a couple who are trying to fill the void in their lives by renovating and flipping houses. After some serious soul searching, they find themselves enrolled in a foster parenting class and eventually meet a hardened young teenage named Lizzy. Partly fueled by their guilt about the fact that prospective parents don't want to adopt teenagers, Pete and Ellie agree to meet Lizzy but are thrown when they learn she has a brother named Juan and a sister Lita and that they are a package deal. Juan is a klutz who apologizes a lot and Lita doesn't eat anything but potato chips.
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This latest offering from director and co-screenwriter Sean Anders, the man behind the two Daddy's Home movies, deserves credit for opening my eyes to a couple of things I didn't know about the foster care system. I found it a little unsettling that the foster care people actually throw outdoor "fairs" where prospective parents can actually come and "shop" for possible children to adopt. I was also very disturbed by a term I had never heard before called "aging out" which refers to children who are not adopted by the time they're 18 and if this is true, I am disgusted by this.
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Anders actually provides a pretty balanced look at all sides of this story, which is maybe why the movie is a little longer than it really needs to be. I found a scene right after Pete and Ellie take the kids in and are reunited with other prospective parents who were in the class with them who seemed to be waiting for Pete and Ellie to fail a little unsettling. Of course, the expected scene where the kids' birth mom returns and wants her kids back was fraught with a tension that made it one of the best scenes in the film. Anders paints a pretty realistic picture of foster parenting here that turns out be a lot richer than an extended episode of The Brady Bunch.
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Anders seems to enjoy working with Wahlberg and gets a nicely modulated performance from him here and even Byrne is less annoying than usual. I also enjoyed Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro as the parenting class teachers, Julie Hagerty and Michael O'Keefe as Ellie's parents, and the fabulous Margo Martindale as Pete's mother. There's also a cute cameo at the film's climax by Joan Cusack that deserves mention. It's slightly overlong, but there are enough surprises offered along the way to sustain viewer interest. 3.5

[Joel]

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the visuals are arresting and despite an unappealing lead character, this film is a lot of fun and has great re-watch appeal. 7.5/10

I have this on blu ray and just re-watched it. It really does look amazing. Seeing Prince take himself so seriously as a sex machine though - kind of ruins a lot of the experience for me, especially since I've talked with women who actually think he's god's gift to women..I'm not jealous..it's more that I just cannot believe it. It seems absurd. I mean..keep that behind closed doors..that nostril flared sensuality that is bottom framed by a thin moustache. Ewww

I guess what I am trying to say is that Prince is basically parading around like a woman with a total pig mentality..his expressions are that of a self obsessed female model..and his attitude is that of a typical jerk who somehow ruins life for future boyfriends of the abused women who seem to gobble the abuse up with a spoon..all because he wants the best of both worlds and treats ppl like garbage...yeah...kind of a turn off imo

[Gideon58]

Rally Round the Flag Boys
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward made their second film appearance together in a muddled but somewhat entertaining comedy called Rally Round the Flag Boys that suffers due to sluggish direction and an overly indulgent script, but a really terrific cast greatly aids in sustaining interest.
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Set in the fictional suburban town of Putnam Landing, the Newmans play Harry and Grace Bannerman, a couple with two small boys who find their marriage challenged on two different fronts: Harry is spending a lot of time fending off the advances of an amorous neighbor named Angela Hoffa (Joan Collins) while Harry and Grace are placed on opposite sides of a town-wide battle that ensues when the army purchases a large parcel of property in town in order to build a missile base there, but are trying to keep what they're doing a secret.
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Director and co-screenwriter Leo McCarey has an overly complex screenplay that possibly could have made two different movies. There are two separate stories being told here and both were entertaining and somewhat topical, but for some reason McCarey's leaden pacing makes a movie that's a little over 90 minutes seem about twice as long. I will admit I was more engaged in the story of Harry and Grace dealing with man trap Angela than I was with the story of the army secretly trying to take over this suburban community, a plan which accidentally involved poor Harry actually having to join the Navy to get to the bottom of things.
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What did make this film worth watching was watching Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in a welcome change of pace. These were actors unaccustomed to mining for laughs but they are pretty successful because they're not trying too hard...their performances serve the often logic-defying story and laughs are born from there. They get to display a rarely seen gift for physical comedy...Newman's drunken charade with Collins is a lot of fun and the Thanksgiving pageant finale defies description. Collins is alluring and fun without being bitchy for a change and Gale Gordon and Jack Carson provide solid support as military personnel.
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The film also features the first teaming of Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld as a pair of Putnam Landing teenagers. Hickman and Weld would reunite a year later on television on Dobie Gillis and one of the Bannerman's sons is played by Stanley Livingston, who would later play Chip Douglas on My Three Sons. Not a great film, but the Newmans definitely make it worth watching. 3

[Gideon58]

Isn't She Great
The larger than life performance from Bette Midler in the starring role almost makes Isn't She Great, the 2000 biopic of author Jacqueline Susann worth sitting through...almost.
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Susann, the author of Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine, and Once is Not Enough, is profiled in this film as a woman who, more than anything, wanted to be famous and didn't really seem to care about how it happened. The film reveals that Susann was originally an actress but was in denial about the fact that she couldn't act. Enter Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane), a second rate press agent who, inexplicably, believes in Susann and promises to make her famous. After getting her in a commercial and a one day job as a celebrity panelist on a game show, Irving hits on the idea that Jacqueline should become a writer and Valley of the Dolls was born.
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This movie just had my head spinning because it just blew every memory and concept I had about Jacqueline Susann out of the water. I've seen Susann in interviews and her cameo in the film version of Valley of the Dolls and I just don't buy that she was this flamboyant, Auntie Mame, life of the party girl that is depicted here. There were things about her revealed here that I never knew, like the fact that she birth birth to an autistic son who would eventually be institutionalized and that at the same time she was writing Valley of the Dolls, she was also diagnosed with breast cancer, a battle she lost in 1974. It's a shame that 26 years after her death, a more proper tribute to the best selling authoress couldn't be mounted.
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The film version of Valley of the Dolls is # 1 on my favorite guilty pleasures list and I was secretly hoping I could add this film to that list, but that's just not happening. There is one silly scene after another here... are we really supposed to believe that this woman actually made regular jaunts to a tree in Central Park so that she could talk to God? The scene of her first meeting with her editor (David Hyde Pierce) where she kept changing clothes was a ridiculous waste of screentime. I was pleased by the brief scene of Susann and Irving at the premiere of the Valley of the Dolls movie and she turns to Irving and tells him that they ruined her book.
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Bette Midler works very hard to command the screen here, but I never really bought her as Jacqueline Susann, at least the Susann I remember and Nathan Lane just appears to be embarrassed to be involved in this debacle. The only laughs here come from David Hyde Pierce as the tight-assed editor and the incomparable Stockard Channing as Jackie's flamboyant actress BFF. Even Burt Bacherach's music sounded like something out of a 70's sitcom. What a mess. 1.5

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Sex and the Single Girl
Sex and the Single Girl is a silly 1964 comedy that is allegedly based on the best selling book of the title, but seems to borrow more inspiration from comedies of the past, not to mention the fact that it goes on forever.
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The book of the title was written by Dr. Helen Gurley Brown, an actress, writer, and therapist who would go on to be editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and eventually passed away in 2012. In this film, Natalie Wood, plays Brown, whose success with her book has been seriously affected by a scathing article in fictional "Stop" magazine by one of its editors, Bob Weston (Tony Curtis), who has promised his boss a personal interview with Brown, but she refuses. In order to get the interview, Bob pretends to be his emasculated married neighbor Frank (Henry Fonda) in order to get close to Dr. Brown.
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This movie aggravates from jump mainly because we're watching an actress play a real life person based on a book that the person wrote and the story presented here makes movie Dr. Brown look like kind of a moron. Not to mention the fact that the whole pretending to be someone else for romance was done much more effectively five years earlier in a movie called Pillow Talk. As I watched I couldn't help think how there was no way that the real Helen Gurley Brown was presented here and that the makers of this film had to face lawsuits from Brown, not to mention Stanley Shapiro, the screenwriter of Pillow Talk, a screenplay that won an Oscar, but this pale, smarmy copy wasn't going to be winning anything, a silly story of sexual double entendres and mistaken identity that concludes with a ridiculous car chase that's about 15 minutes too long. The story even has Curtis' character referencing one of Curtis' biggest hits, Some Like it Hot.
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Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood are attractive and work hard, but director Richard Quine needed to rein them in a bit as they begin to grate on the nerves about halfway through. The work of Henry Fonda as Frank and Lauren Bacall as his wife, Sylvia somehow manages to rise above the rest of this muck. I'm mostly just scratching my head trying to figure out why the real Helen Gurley Brown allowed this mess to actually get to the screen. 2.5

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Gable and Lombard
The ill-fated love affair between two of the biggest movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood is lovingly documented in 1976's Gable and Lombard, a lavishly mounted look at the love affair between Clark Gable and Carole Lombard that really wasn't as bad as it's reputed to be.
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It's early 1930's Hollywood and Clark Gable has just begun his career while Carole Lombard is the biggest star in Hollywood. According to this screenplay, the stars met cute at a party where Lombard was responsible for wrecking Gable's car, which led to their making a movie together and a mutual attraction which Louis B. Mayer and MGM immediately tried to quash because Gable was still married at the time and Mayer was afraid that the news of a married actor having an affair would destroy both of their careers, though he really seemed more concerned about Gable than Lombard. We then watch the pair do what they have to in order to be together.
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Barry Sandler's screenplay was a little fuzzy about exactly when this affair began. There's an early scene showing Gable having just completed China Seas, which was released in 1935, which means he had already won the Oscar for It Happened One Night but the beginning of this story treats him like he's still a total unknown while Lombard was the queen of Hollywood. But No Man of her Own, the only film the pair made together, was released in 1932. With all these inaccuracies in the timeline, it's really kind of difficult to accept anything that goes on here.
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Despite the issues of historical accuracy, the film does paint a solid portrait of the two stars. Gable is portrayed as a stoic, chauvinistic, and commitment-phobe who referred to women as "dames" and was incapable of saying "I love you." Lombard comes off as a party gal with an incredible sense of humor, but seriously passionate about Gable and really didn't seem to care if it destroyed her career or not. What this film brings to the table is that Gable and Lombard loved each other and didn't really care who knew it, it was MGM that was keeping them apart, fiercely protective of their investment and convinced the public would turn their back on the stars if they knew the truth.
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The love story works, but with all the historical inaccuracies, the film comes off as a rather uneven experience. I did enjoy the scene of Lombard sneaking onto the set of Gone With the Wind dressed as a soldier and the following scene of Gable hiding in the rafters of the set of her movie because he heard she was doing a bathtub scene.
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The film does feature first rate production values, with shout outs to Hal Gausman's set decoration, Edith Head's stunning costumes, and Michel Legrand's lush music. James Brolin works hard, but never convinces as Clark Gable, but Jill Clayburgh is just dazzling as Lombard. Granted, I don't know a lot about Gable and Lombard...I have only seen three Gable movies and I have never seen a Lombard film, so my feelings about Brolin and Clayburgh's performance were based on pure entertainment value, not authenticity. The film is not as bad as it's been documented to be, but the late Jill Clayburgh's performance definitely makes it worth a look. 2.5

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Isn't She Great
Bette Midler as Jacqueline Susann rating_1_5 I got to see this! I've been watching documentaries about Jacqueline Susann in the last week, so this movie would be perfect. Not sure if I can buy Bette Midler as Susann, I'd like to seen a younger Michele Lee play the queen of Valley of the Dolls.

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I've seen interviews with Jacqueline Susann and Bette Midler just didn't seem to fit the role IMO.

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Hereditary
The 2018 thriller Hereditary does provide sporadic "boos" along the way but the story takes way too long to come together, trying this reviewer's patience.
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The film opens with the death of an elderly woman and as we see her daughter, Annie (Toni Collette) delivering her eulogy, we realize this woman had more than her share of secrets. It's not long before the death of Annie's mother sends her family on a terrifying spiral, leading to some frightening reveals regarding Annie's ancestry.
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This thriller reminded me of a 2016 thriller called Hush because, like that film, director and screenwriter Ari Aster seems to be more adept at providing the temporary "boo" than he does at providing a well-rounded story. There were way too many unanswered questions in Hush that led to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Here, most of the questions get answered but it takes way too much time and the viewer has lost interest way before intended.
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A little more attention to technical aspects of the story also hurt the proceedings. There's a car accident where Annie's daughter is decapitated and the way the impact is filmed was completely incorrect and made it a little hard to accept anything else that went on in the story. The story initially appears to suggest that the elderly woman wanted her family to join her in death, but it was so much more than that, but Ari Aster's pacing of the story is just too deliberate to sustain interest and about 2/3 of the way through the film, I found myself checking my watch.
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The one thing the film does have going for it is an absolutely superb performance by Toni Collette that effortlessly anchors the proceedings. This is no surprise since Collette is incapable of giving a bad performance, it's just too bad that she didn't have a vehicle more worthy of her talent here. Alex Wolff also scores as her son, Peter and there are some startling visual effects, but Aster's lackluster direction and swiss cheese screenplay just weigh the whole thing down. 2.5

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Aladdin
Disney struck gold and created a merchandising empire with 1992's Aladdin, a delicious musical adventure that features what is probably the funniest animated character in cinema history.
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Set in the fictional Arabian city of Agrubah, we are introduced to the evil Jafar (voiced by Jonathan Freeman) trying to retrieve a magical lamp from the Cave of Wonders but learns that only certain people are allowed entrance to the cave, which also contains millions in gold and silver, but Jafar only wants the lamp so that he can become the new Sultan. It turns out that one person allowed entrance into the Cave of Wonders is a mischievous street urchin named Aladdin (voiced by Scott Weinger; sung by Brad Kane) who steals food from the marketplace aided by his pet monkey Abu. Aladdin is instantly smitten with Princess Jasmine (voiced by Linda Larken; sung by Lea Solonga) who has run away from the Palace because she is being forced to marry Jafar. Aladdin finds the lamp and while trying to clean it off, releases a magical, maniacal genie who offers the young lad three wishes.
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Disney creative forces have crafted a classic good VS evil story but have given the story a contemporary facelift with the Genie character (brilliantly voiced by the late Robin Williams), a character who because of who he is, is able to defy logic and realism and morph into anything the story requires him to be. It's difficult to tell who is leading who here, whether the writers are leading Williams or Williams is leading the writers, but whatever is going on here has result in the funniest animated character ever created. On my list of favorite voice performances in animated films, Robin Williams' gene was #1. Williams work is so on target here that he was actually awarded a special Golden Globe for this performance.
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As always with Disney films, comic relief is always provided in the form of animals, but even they have to take a backseat to Genie/Williams here. Gilbert Gottfried is terrific as the voice of Iago, Jafar's pet parrot and though they didn't really have any dialogue, I loved Aladdin's monkey turned elephant named Abu and Jasmine's pet tiger Raja. I also loved the magic carpet who provided a romantic ride for Aladdin and Jasmine and got our hero out of a lot of close calls during the course of the story.
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The tuneful musical score by Howard Ashman, Alan Mencken and Tim Rice includes "Arabian Nights", "One Jump Ahead", "To Be Free", "On a Dark Night", Williams' showstopping "Friend Like Me" and the Oscar winning "A Whole New World." Everything works here, but if the truth be told, the only thing you go away from this movie remembering is the incredible Robin Williams, RIP. 4.5

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CB4
Chris Rock was the co-producer and co-screenwriter of 1993's CB4, a sadly unfunny parody of the gangsta rap wars and groups like Run DMC, which pretty much ruled radio airwaves during the 1990's.
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Rock attempts to go the way of This is Spinal Tap in this story of a guy named Albert (Rock) who, along with his friends Euripides (Allen Payne) and Otis (Deezer) decide to form a rap group: Euripides becomes Dead Mike and Otis becomes Stab Master Orson. Unfortunately, Albert makes the mistake of naming himself MC Gusto, a name he stole from a local gangster who wants payback.
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This is subject matter that is rife for parody, but Rock and company only supply sporadic laughs that don't sustain throughout the running time, which is actually a little under 90 minutes. I'm not exactly sure what the problem is here, but the problem with most films starts with the screenplay and that's probably where the problem starts here. This is another one of those comedies that isn't sure if it wants to tell the story with a straight face or treat it more as a Mel Brooks-type spoof. I think the latter was the intention and the film seems to start off that way, but once the film flashes back to to the group getting together, the proceedings become a little antiseptic and lose the edge that the opening scenes create.
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The film opens with a white filmmaker (Chris Elliott) showing the group the rough cut of a documentary that he has done on the group with the filmmaker shadowing MC Gusto in order to get a finish for the film that he needs. The film bills itself as a "rapumentary" but that's not what it is, because the story flashes back and becomes a straight up narrative, with a plot line and characters. CB4 (The CB stands for Cell Block, BTW) are not interviewed the way David, Nigel, and Derek are in Spinal Tap and I think that's where this film suffers. A documentary implies that real-life events are being documented and even documentary spoofs like Spinal Tap have an authenticity that brings you inside the lives of the characters, but that feelings is never accomplished here.
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And as racist as it might sound, the fact that this film was directed by Tamra Davis, a white woman, surely didn't help. Davis directed Adam Sandler in Billy Madison but I don't know what made Rock think she was qualified to handle this project because it just comes off as a look at a black world through Caucasian eyes and things that were supposed to be funny just ended up being stupid. The best thing about the movie are the songs, with "Sweat from my Balls" a standout.
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Rock works very hard at being funny here, but he seems very stifled here, but then again, the film career of Chris Rock has always been a bit of an enigma and movies like this one might be exactly why. Allen Payne, so memorable as G Money in New Jack City is very funny as Euripides as is Eddie Murphy's big brother, Charlie, as Gusto. There are cameos from Ice T, Halle Berry, Easy E, Shaquille O'Neill, and Ice Cube but parts are better than the whole here...pretty small parts. 2

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April in Paris
Sparkling performances by Doris Day and Ray Bolger make the 1952 musical April in Paris worth checking out.
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Ray Bolger plays Winthrop "Sam" Putnam, a government employee who has been put in charge of a Fine Arts Festival in Paris. He was supposed to send an invitation to Ethel Barrymore to attend the festival representing American theater, but the invitation is accidentally sent to a bubbly chorus girl named Ethel "Dynamite" Jackson (Guess who). Putnam flies from DC to New York to inform Ethel of the mistake but upon returning to DC, learns that his boss thinks inviting a chorus girl was a great idea so he returns to New York and has to beg Dynamite to come to Paris.
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As Dynamite and the other Americans sail to Paris on a cruise ship, the government agents do their best to refine Dynamite into a proper representative of the States, but Sam likes her just the way she is. He likes her so much that he and Dynamite get married by the ship's captain, even though Sam is engaged to his boss' daughter (Eve Miller). Then it's revealed that the ship's captain wasn't really the captain and Sam and Dynamite aren't really married.
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Director David Butler has mounted a breezy, if unremarkable little musical comedy that earns its credentials through some offbeat casting, though definite influence from other films can be noted here. A year after the success of An American in Paris, it's not a big surprise that Warners would bring their #1 musical star to the City of Lights, despite the fact that it's glaringly obvious that this movie never left the Warner sound stages. We don't care though because Doris Day is center stage and anytime with Day is well spent and this was when Day was the busiest actress on the Warner lot.
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Warner Brothers and Butler really gambled with their choice of leading man for Doris and it really paid off. Ray Bolger initially seems like an odd choice for this role, but he fully commits to this role and about halfway through the movie, we are loving these two as a couple and want them together. Loved the scene on the ship where the pair kept bouncing back and forth between each other's cabins and, of course, any chance to see Bolger dance is worth your time. Bolger always puts that rubbery form of his to such effective use...he always does this thing while dancing where he always looks like he's about to land flat on his ass but he never does. The tap number called "The State of the State" where he dances with two images of himself dressed as Washington and Lincoln, was definitely a highlight. They also score with the casting of Claude Dauphin as a slick nightclub singer who serves as our host for the story, Warners own variation on Maurice Chevalier.
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Other musical highlights included Day's opening number, "It Must Be Good", the production number in the kitchen of the ship called "I'm Going to Rock the Boat", "I'm Going to Ring the bell tonight", "The Place You Had in My Heart", and that classic title tune. There are definitely better musicals out there, but Day and Bolger make a surprisingly engaging pair and kept me from checking my watch. 3

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Bird Box
The post Apocalyptic drama gets an effective facelift in the 2018 Netflix original Bird Box which, despite solid direction and some strong performances, still falls short of what it should have been.
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The film stars Sandra Bullock as Mallory, a pregnant woman on her way to see her doctor with her sister (Sarah Paulson) when she sees a report on TV about a terror in the USSR that is causing people to kill themselves. While in the hospital, Mallory pieces together that this terror/entity has reached America and while trying to escape, is shocked to watch the entity kill her sister. She manages to find refuge in a house full of strangers (including another pregnant woman) who have found safety indoors and realize they might be trapped inside this house forever.
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The screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on a novel by Josh Malerman, deliberately shields the viewer from quite a lot of what's going on, most specifically, what this entity is and why it affects different people in different ways, confusing the viewer and making it hard to keep their eye on the cinematic prize. It's confusing as to why the people in this house are so reluctant to help people still outside, though this does eventually become clear, even if it takes a little too long to do so. A lot of suspense in the story is also diluted because the story is told in flashback...we know at the beginning of the movie that Mallory and two children are making a blindfolded escape down a river and that they are alone, so we already know that all these other characters we've been introduced to are doomed. It's become so fashionable in film to tell stories in flashback but this was one case where I think it was a detriment.
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There were other plot contrivances and conveniences that I had trouble with. It seemed a little contrived that this entity didn't affect everyone the same way, taking a lot of the logic out of the story. There are also unexplained plot elements introduced way too late in the story for the viewer to accept...was unable to get behind those scenes near the climax where Mallory gets separated from the children and those faux Mallory voices are telling the children it's OK to remove their blindfolds. It was too late in the story to be introducing a layer that thick to the audience.
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On the positive side, Susanne Bier's imaginative and stylish direction is a big plus, aided by some first rate production values, with special nods to cinematography and sound. The cast is first rate too...Bullock has never been better and there is solid support from Trevonte Rhodes and the always watchable John Malkovich. It takes a minute to get going, but this one did have me on the edge of my chair for most of the running time, when I stopped trying to figure it out. 3.5

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The Gazebo
One of the most underrated comedies of the 1950's, The Gazebo is an absolutely delicious black comedy that entertains from opening to closing credits thanks to a sharp screenplay and a wonderful cast.
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The 1959 film stars Glenn Ford as Elliott Nash, a writer and director of a crime TV show whose wife, Nell (Debbie Reynolds) is a Broadway star. Elliott is being blackmailed by a guy who has incriminating photos of his wife and is doing whatever he can to try and meet the blackmailer's demands, even selling his house. After speaking to his police detective BFF Harlow (Carl Reiner), Elliott decides the only way to get out from under this blackmailer's thumb is to murder him and bury him under the new gazebo his wife has just had installed in the backyard.
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To say anymore about what happens here would require major spoiling of the fun that follows. This is a clever comedy way ahead of its time. George Wells' screenplay, based on a stage play by Alex Coppel, is unusually complex for a 50's comedy, complex to the point where complete attention is required in order to stay abreast with what's going on, but not too complex that interest wanes. This movie provides major laughs throughout and, in a refreshing change of pace for films like this, answers almost all of the questions that it asks. There was one small plot point which I couldn't reconcile, but I let it go and decided to relish these offbeat proceedings.
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Equally impressive was the way seemingly needless scenes near the beginning of the film turned out to strengthen plot further into the film. The story establishes the Elliott character as someone incapable of murder early on with a scene where he is in a cab that runs over a peigon, takes it home and nurses it back to health, naming it Herman. There is also five minutes early on devoted to a scene where Elliott complains to Nell about how much he hates the shower curtains that seems pointless at the time but turns out to be anything but.
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George Marshall's intricate direction is a big plus and he gets surprising performances from his stars. Glenn Ford proves to be quite adept at physical comedy in a role that suggested Jack Lemmon. The scenes of him buying the tools for his plan and later sitting in the house waiting for the blackmailer to show up are hysterical. Debbie Reynolds effectively underplays bringing a nice texture to the role of the wife and Carl Reiner provides laughs as does John McGiver as a contractor. The year before this film was released, Ford and Reynolds appeared together in a film called It Started with a Kiss, which I'm now curious about, but I can't believe it's as good as this was. Bouquets all around. 4

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Boy Erased
Joel Edgerton impressed as a director and writer with The Gift and has proved that film was no fluke with his latest feature, 2018's Boy Erased, an emotional roller coaster that it was hard to be objective about due to the very sensitive subject matter, sensitive to me anyway. I will try to review this fact-based drama without mounting any soap boxes and talk about the film strictly for its entertainment value.
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Jared Eamons is the sensitive, gay teenage son of a Baptist minister who gets outed while he is in college and when confronted by his extremely conservative father, claims that he wants to change. After praying over the boy, it is decided that Jared is to be sent to a gay conversion program, ironically titled Love in Action, which is supposed to magically transform Jared into a heterosexual in 12 days.
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Edgerton's screenplay, based on a book by the real Garrad Conley, is uncompromising in its depiction of a program about which there is little documented success but for some reason, a lot of people believe in or are at least willing to believe in. Love in Action has some similarities to Alcoholics Anonymous in that it is a God-based program but takes a disturbing step further stating that homosexuality is a sin from which someone can be deprogrammed.
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The clients in this program are expertly cast, they are all ages, sizes, and colors, a positive message that this movie sends, that there is no such thing as "looking gay." The exercises these clients participate on somewhat on par with what happens in traditional rehab, but the often brutal treatment of clients here is sometimes hard to watch, though I did find the reveal that this program drives a client to suicide a little manipulative and melodramatic. The other thing that rang true for me is that as sincere as they might appear on the exterior, almost none of the clients in the program really wanted to be there.
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Needless to say, personal feelings about homosexuality and the theory as to whether or not it is a choice is the foundation of a lot of what happens here. Strong opinions on this subject either way will definitely affect the way this story will move viewers and it seems like Edgerton is initially taking a very definite stand on the issue, which is revealed in the epilogue to be exactly the opposite of what is initially presented.
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Edgerton's direction is intense and imaginative and works well with his cast. Lucas Hedges, nominated for an Oscar for Manchester by the Sea, offers another Oscar-worthy turn as the tortured Jared and Russell Crowe continues his effortless transition from leading man to character actor as Jared's father. Nicole Kidman makes the most of her underwritten role as the mother and Edgerton himself scores as Victor Sykes, the head of the LIA program. The story isn't pretty, but it's pretty realistically told. 3.5

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Critic's Choice
Bob Hope and Lucille Ball were two of Hollywood's greatest clowns who made several films together but 1963's Critic's Choice was one of their lesser efforts because, as they did in The Facts of Life, play three dimensional characters and aren't looking for the quick laugh, but these talented veterans still provide pretty consistent chuckles here.
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Hope plays Parker Ballantine, a New York theater critic who is this film's John Simon...the one critic that every director and playwright pray they receive a glowing review. He has just written a scathing review of a play starring his ex-wife, Ivy London (Marilyn Maxwell), even though his wife, Angela (Ball) didn't think it was so bad. Though she enjoys a comfortable life as Mrs.Parker Ballantine, Angela is restless and unfulfilled and impulsively decides that she wants to write a play. Parker discourages and belittles her at every turn, but Angela manages to churn out a play and asks Parker to read it and, as expected, he tells her it's terrible and hopes that's the end of it. Unfortunately for Parker a producer manages to get hold of the play, reads it, likes it, and agrees to produce it.
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Parker now finds himself in a moral dilemma because he's unsure as to whether or not he should review the play when it premieres. Angela likes the idea of Parker reviewing it at first but interference from the eccentric director working on Angela's play, Angela's mother (Jessie Royce Landis), and scheming ex-wife Ivy, she's not so sure as the out of town tryouts approach.
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Jack Sher's screenplay is actually based on a play written by Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby) that opened in 1960 with Henry Fonda playing Parker Ballantine. The story has definitely been tailored to suit the stars and Sher does an effective job of opening up the story so that it doesn't look like a photographed stage play. Opening the story up also allowed for more clowning by the stars, Hope in particular. Hope garners major chuckles during the father/son baseball game when his back keeps going out and during his drunken arrival at Angela's opening night. The real surprise here though was Ball, playing it relatively straight as Angela, a role that could have become silly and over the top, but Ball nicely underlays, aided by the smooth and slightly safe direction by Don Weis, and Ball has rarely been so appealing onscreen.
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Weis also does a credible job of creating a New York theater atmosphere, though we never really buy that this film was actually shot in New York. Set direction is top-notch, the Ballantine home is beautiful and I loved Landis as Angela's mother and a very funny Rip Torn as the crazy director. Jim Backus, Jerome Cowan, and John Dehner offer fun bits along the way and, if you don't blink, you might even catch Soupy Sales playing a hotel desk clerk. It's no classic, but fans of the stars will not be disappointed. 3

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Bewitched (2005)
The idea of rebooting the classic sitcom Bewitched was inspired, unfortunately, the final product just didn't work, the primary culprit being an overly complex screenplay that completely disrespects the original series and probably had Elizabeth Montgomery turning over in her grave.
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This 2005 comedy stars Will Ferrell as Jack Wyatt, an obnoxious and self-absorbed actor whose career has stalled thanks to a bad movie and a bad marriage, who has just been cast as Darrin Stephens in a reboot of Bewitched. He meets a pretty girl named Isabel Bigelow, played by Nicole Kidman, falls for her instantly and decides that she would be the perfect Samantha. What Jack doesn't know is that Isabel REALLY is a witch who has recently decided that she wants to live life as a mortal, but is having a hard time of it.
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When I first heard they were doing this movie, I just assumed Jim Carrey would be playing Darrin because of the uncanny resemblance between Carrey and Dick York. I was shocked to hear Will Ferrell had been cast, but when I heard what they were doing with the story, I figured it was acceptable but it's also the main problem with this movie. I don't understand why a competent writer like Nora Ephron would choose to over-complicate this story by having the actors playing actors playing Samantha and Darrin. This whole thing of throwing up an additional 4th wall to the story just didn't work for me, made all the more glaring by the scenes of Isabel and Jack watching clips from the original show.
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The other big problem here is the performances and lack of chemistry with the stars. I will admit that Nicole Kidman would have been my first choice for the role of Samantha but she hasn't annoyed me this much onscreen since the remake of The Stepford Wives. Her inspiration for this Isabel character seems to be Georgette from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And Ferrell's Jack Wyatt just makes you want to shove a bottle of sedatives down his throat. The non-stop frenzy of this character is exhausting. On my list of worst onscreen chemistry, Kidman and Ferrell were #1 and this re-watch confirmed that choice.
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Michael Caine is wasted as Isabel's warlock father, who spends the movie giving her lots of bad advice as is Shirley MacLaine as Iris, the actress playing Endora who has a secret of her own. Steve Carell brightens up the final 10 minutes of this movie as Uncle Arthur, but this movie is just wrong on all kinds of levels, what a shame. 1

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Hans Christian Anderson
Producer Samuel Goldwyn pulled out all the stops for 1952's Hans Christian Anderson, a lavish musical extravaganza that people think is a biography of the famous children's storyteller, but is actually a fairy tale about a famous children's storyteller named Hans Christian Anderson. It also became a career-defining role for Danny Kaye.
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The story begins in a tiny Danish village where Hans Christian Anderson is the village cobbler, but spends more time telling the village children fairy tales than he does fixing shoes. His apprentice Peter spirits him out of town before he is forced to leave and he and Peter embark on a journey to Copenhagen, where Hans comes between a beautiful and self-absorbed ballerina and her demanding choreographer/husband.
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I'd seen bits and pieces of this film as a child, but this was my first beginning to end watch of this completely captivating musical that had me riveted to the screen. Moss Hart's sophisticated screenplay (clearly inspired by The Red Shoes) quietly establishes Hans Christian Anderson as a man who is only able to communicate his true passions through stories that he has written and most of the time these stories are analogies to real events that sometimes Anderson doesn't even see himself. We think we're going to get a two hour film about a guy who does nothing but tell stories to children, but then we are dramatically thrust into an honest to God romantic triangle that we don't see coming at all. It's a little heartbreaking watching Anderson express his love for the ballerina through a story called "The Little Mermaid" and her not having a clue while her husband turns the story into a ballet for the clueless diva.
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Another big plus here is the absolutely superb musical score supplied by Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls) that brings an added richness to the story that's pretty hard to resist. The songs include "Wonderful Copenhagen", "I'm Hans Christian Anderson", "Thumbelina", "Anywhere I Wonder", "The King's New Clothes", "The Ugly Duckling", "No Two People", and my personal favorite, "Inchworm." The film also features three elaborate ballets that allow prima ballerina Jeanmaire to shine, choreographed by her husband Roland Petit, who dances the lead in the "Little Mermaid" ballet. Loved when Hans was locked in the prop room before the premiere of his ballet and had to imagine what we were seeing.
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Production values are first rate here, with special nods to art direction/set direction, sound, and some absolutely breathtaking costumes. Danny Kaye lights up the screen like he never has in the title role and anyone who doesn't fall in love with this Hans Christian Anderson is a heartless monster. I was also impressed by Farley Granger, charismatic as Jeanmaire's husband. Charles Vidor's direction is spirited and focused guiding us through an enchanted cinematic journey that consistently entertained. 4

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Uncle Drew
2018's Uncle Drew is a forgettable look at street basketball that falls flat due to an illogical screenplay, lackluster direction, and some really oddball casting.
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It's contemporary Harlem and Dax (Lil Rel Howery) is a street basketball hustler with his own team of losers who has lost everything trying to earn the entry fee for a basketball tournament when he accidentally runs into the title character (Kyrie Irving) while he's schooling a young punk on the court. Dax asks Uncle Drew to be on his team but he only agrees under the condition that it's his team and that he recruit his old former teammates to play with him. This springboards a road trip for Dax and Uncle Drew to find Drew's old teammates, including one who is pretty much blind and another who's confined to a wheelchair.
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For some reason basketball has never really been a viewer friendly subject for movie comedies. Hoosiers was terrific, but that was a drama. Not too much is very convincing here, especially this central character who is supposed to evoke sympathy because we see him losing control of his life at the beginning of the film, including his girl (Tiffany Haddish) walking out on him, but as we watch his initial confrontation with Uncle Drew we realize why...this character is a self-absorbed jackass who thinks he knows everything about basketball but hasn't stepped on a court for years because many years ago, a crucial shot in a game he was about to win was blocked. It was hard to feel sorry for someone who let one blocked shot keep him off the court permanently.
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Jay Longino's screenplay also forces us to accept some really stupid stuff in regards to this rag tag team of senior citizen hoofers. The last straw for me was when Drew gave Boots (Nate Robinson), the wheelchair-bound player, a pair of his old sneakers that Drew saved for 30 years and all of a sudden, the guy could walk. And the moves that these guys, whose average age was 70, were making on the court completely defied logic, not to mention their choreographed dance number on a nightclub dance floor.
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Lil Rel Howery is allegedly a funny guy, who was actually given his own sitcom this season, but the guy has failed to make me laugh, either here or on TV. Kyrie Irving's performance in the title role was snore-inducing as was basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal as Big Fella. The only real laughs in this movie came from Nick Kroll, the rival hustler who blocked that crucial shot from Dax all those years ago. In a nutshell, this was one hour and 43 minutes of my life I'll never get back. 1.5

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The Favourite
An intimate tale of lust, power, betrayal, and passion told on an impossibly lavish scale, the 2018 epic The Favourite is the period costume drama for people who hate period costume dramas. This is one of those films that breaks all the rules of its genre and never apologizes for it.
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The setting is 18th century England and the country is at war with France. Queen Anne, the current ruler of Greta Britain has fallen ill and her good friend Lady Sarah Marlborough rushes to her side and ends up running the country in Anne's stead. A new skullery maid named Abigail arrives at the castle and endears herself to Sarah who allows Abigail to assist in the Queen's care, a situation that Abigail takes advantage of to the point that a very ugly romantic triangle begins to brew between the three women that not only affects their lives, but all of England as well.
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Once again, this reviewer has found himself privy to an alleged piece of history that was news to him. Nevertheless, this breathtaking period piece was so completely intoxicating that whether or not it was factual became irrelevant pretty quickly. Granted, if it did happen, the cinematic presentation was a lot more uncompromising in the raw quality it brings to a sexually charged story where the bawdy debauchery is only partially disguised by elegant settings and amazing costumes. The Oscar-nominated screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara utilizes a plethora of contemporary adult language that I seriously doubt was part of 17th century language, but it was an advantageous storytelling tool that made this story a lot easier to understand and infinitely more entertaining. It even contained title cards for each chapter of the story like a Woody Allen movie!
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Director Yorgos Lanthimos uses different kinds of symbolism to move story in ways that we almost don't notice. The scenes of Sarah and Abigail skeet shooting seemed to simultaneously recap and foreshadow what was going on in their relationship with the Queen. The extraordinary camerawork which featured a variation on the fish eye lens in several scenes with the Queen served as a perfect metaphor for the prison that the Queen felt her illness was trapping her in.
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It is the Queen's illness and her battle with it that really becomes the heartbeat of this movie as we watch a woman unable to control the ravishment of her body and also unable to control her anger about it. This queen begins as funny and a little sad but as the story progresses, she becomes explosive and unpredictable, but her delight when she realizes that Sarah and Abigail are fighting over her is a joy to watch because it's the only joy the character really experiences in this story. Sadly, her joy envelops her to the point that we know there's no way it can last. It's equally compelling watching the slow burn of the rivalry between Sarah and Abigail, which reaches a level of ugly bitchiness that defies desctiption.
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Director Lanthimos must also be credited for the lavish canvas he mounts this story in, taking a simple romantic triangle and promoting it to epic proportions. The expensive production values include Oscar worthy production design, set direction (the Queen's bedroom is glorious) and I'm pretty sure Sandy Powell will win a fourth Oscar for Outstanding Costume Design.
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Lanthimos' best work though is the rich performances he pulled from his three leading ladies. Olivia Colman has already won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nomination for for her sad and delightfully unhinged Queen Anne, another post graduate acting course to be devoured by connoisseurs of the craft. Oscar winner Rachel Weicz could be a dark horse and win a second statue for her powerhouse Lady Sarah and Emma Stone finally delivers a performance worthy of an Oscar as the manipulative Abigail that earned her a nomination as well. Also loved Nicholas Hoult as Harley and the offbeat musical score which effectively frames the proceedings. A delicious piece of entertainment that entranced this reviewer from beginning to end. 4.5

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Deception (1946)
The stars of the classic melodrama Now Voyager were reunited a few years later for another melodramatic sizzler called Deception that didn't provide the soap opera-ish aura that their previous film did, but did provide an air of tension that made the drama hard to resist, not to mention a trio of strong star performances.
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Bette Davis stars as Christine Radcliffe, a piano teacher who is reunited with her lover, Karel Novak (Paul Henreid), who she thought had died in the war. Christine brings Karel home and convinces him to marry her right away, but their wedding is disrupted by the arrival of Alexander Hollenius (Claude Rains) who makes no bones about making sure that Karel knows that he and Christine had a relationship while Karel was away. It soon becomes clear that, despite the fact that Christine and Karel are now married, Hollenius has no intention of letting Christine go.
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This film was actually based on a play by Louis Verneuil that premiered in Paris during the roaring 20's and went through an additional adaption before John Collier and Joseph Than crafted the rich screenplay for this drama, which features a couple of very complex characters in Christine and Hollenius whose agendas seem to change from scene to scene. If the truth be told, the Karel character is dumb as a box of rocks and his being manipulated by these other two characters wasn't much of a stretch in credibility.
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The character of Christine was particularly interesting because we know almost immediately that she is hiding something from Karel, but we're never quite sure who she's protecting. Is she trying to protect her marriage or is she just trying to protect her own reputation? The Hollenius character makes moves that we don't see coming either...instead of getting directly in Karel's face and fighting Christine, he decides to catch his fly with honey by offering to help Karel advance his career and then going to Christine behind his back and telling Christine that he could pull the rug out from under Karel at anytime. The screenplay is a little fuzzy about how intimate Christine and Hollenius were, but we do know that he furnished the beautiful loft where Christine lives and we also know Hollenius knows something that Christine really wants kept Karel in the dark.
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We kind of suspect where the story is going, because something has to give here and it eventually does and some nail biting tension is provided along the way, all framed by some gorgeous music...we have Karel's beautiful cello concerto (Henreid does not do his own playing), but the music of Shubert, Mozart, and Beethoven, not to mention a sublime dramatic score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold that works beautifully. Davis provides a crisp and charismatic Christine and Rains is hammy but effective as Hollenius. One of the forgotten gems from the Bette Davis resume. 3.5

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Killers (2010)
2010's Killers is an overblown, expensive and completely unbelievable action comedy that only provides selected laughs, enough car crashes and explosions for three movies, and nothing resembling logic.
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Ashton Kutcher plays Spence, a professional hitman who, while on assignment in Nice, France, meets Jen (Katherine Heigl), a high-powered lady executive, recently dumped by her boyfriend and vacationing in Nice with her parents. They fall in love in about 20 minutes, return to the states and get married. Three years later, an attempt on Spence's life leads to the reveal that there is a $20,000,000 contract out on his life.
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Actually, this movie started out rather promisingly...Kutcher was somewhat convincing as a hitman, the whirlwind romance with Heigl's Jen rang true, but once the contract is revealed and the couple have to go on the run, anything resembling logic and realism go out the window as we learn that just about everyone in Spence and Jen's lives have been planted in their lives in order to kill them. It's never really made clear why it takes three years for anyone to make a move on Spence. It's understandable that lulling Spence into a false sense of security was necessary, but why does that take three years?
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This story alternately entertains and aggravates once the danger starts for our couple. The initial scenes of Jen acting girly and terrified when she sees a gun for the first time are kind of annoying. On the other hand, it was kind of fun watching Jen slowly coming to the realization that the danger was genuine and Spence was her only protection. There are multiple moments where Jen wants to walk away and can't or when Spence is in a real jam and she bails him out and you just know that despite all the ridiculous stuff happening, these two are going to be OK, it was just way too hard to believe that everyone in their lives were also contracted killers and they had no idea.
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Director Robert Luketic (The Ugly Truth, Legally Blonde) was apparently given an unlimited budget here and all the money is on the screen. Solid production values including gorgeous French location photography and some first rate film editing as well as stunt coordination and some great fight choreography as well. Kutcher and Heigl work well together and Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara were fun as Heigl's parents, but the outrageous, hard to believe story made it hard to completely invest here. Fans of the 2005 film Mr. and Mrs. Smith will have a head start here. 2.5

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I'll Be Seeing You
Despite some dated story elements, the 1944 melodrama I'll Be Seeing You is still worth a look for the sensitive performances from the leads.
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Ginger Rogers plays Mary Marshall, a woman serving a six year jail term for manslaughter who has been given a ten day furlough to spend Christmas with her family. She meets Sgt. Zachary Morgan (Joseph Cotten) on the train. Morgan is immediately attracted to Mary and pretends that he is getting off the train at Mary's stop so that he can continue seeing her. Zach hides the fact that he has just been released from the hospital and still suffers from PTSD while Mary keeps her life as a prisoner a secret as well.
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The screenplay suffers a bit due to this stigma that is attached to a person being in prison that makes a lot of what happens here hard to take. Not only does Mary keep it a secret, but she begs her Aunt Sarah(Spring Byington) to aid in keeping the secret as well. Upon arrival at the house, Mary has to deal with her teenage cousin, Barbara (Shirley Temple), with whom Mary is sharing a room and Barbara makes sure that none of her belongings touch anything that belongs to Mary. The stigma attached to being in prison in this movie is somewhat akin to the stigma attached to HIV today and it made a lot of what goes on here look kind of silly. The other irony here is that when we learn why Mary is in jail, today it would have been deemed self-defense and she wouldn't have gone to jail at all.
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The film also takes every opportunity it can to remind us that there is a war going on, which is expected, but why do we need the constant reminders throughout the film when the lead character is a solder suffering from PTSD? Despite it's problems, the film is watchable thanks to another enchanting performance from Ginger Rogers as Mary and a charming turn from Joseph Cotten as the tortured Zach. Byington is a delight as Aunt Sarah and Temple steals every scene she's in. It's no classic, but Ginger fans will not be disappointed. 2.5

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Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Melissa McCarthy received her second Oscar nomination for her powerhouse performance in 2018's Can You Ever Forgive Me?, an emotionally charged docudrama/character study with an often unsympathetic leading character that you want to wrap your arms around one scene and smack the hell out of the next.
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The film is adapted from the memoir of an author named Lee Israel. Israel was a writer who first hit the literary scene in the 1970's and 80's writing biographies of Tallulah Bankhead and Dorothy Killgallen, the latter actually making it to the New York Times Bestsellers List. The story begins in 1991 with Israel prepping a biography of Fanny Brice but running into some serious writer's block while quietly going broke, getting ready to be evicted from her apartment, and worried about her sick cat. She stumbles onto the "art" of literary forgery, where she takes actual letters and diaries written by giants like Noel Coward and Killgallen, reproducing them on the same kind of typewriters they used and then selling them to bookstores/collectors, with the aid of her new gay BFF until the law catches up to her.
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This film fascinates from jump primarily due to this unique take on the subject that is never worried about painting her in a flattering light, but she isn't portrayed as a monster either. In the opening scene we see her attending a party where she goes to the coat check and walks out with a coat that doesn't belong to her. Not long after that, we feel her when she takes her sick cat to the vet and they tell her that they can't treat the cat until she pays half of her outstanding balance. She's three months behind in her rent but still demands that the landlord send an exterminator to her apartment. The Lee Israel we meet in this movie is not a very nice person and makes no apologies for it. She is also desperately lonely and does her best to keep all humans at arm's length. There are also seems to be some issues with her sexual orientation that she is wrestling with. There is a lovely scene with a lady bookseller Lee has dinner with that bristles with sexual tension.
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The Lee Israel presented in this movie is also a mass of contradictions throughout the film. She seems to suffer from "broken bird" syndrome, evidenced in her taking in of gay bestie Jack Hock, who is practically destitute when she first meets him and her cat, Jersey, who she later in the film claims is the only creature on earth who likes her. Director Marielle Heller utilizes the camera to maximum effect in showing us all the contradictions in this woman's coarse and unsympathetic behavior.
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Heller's camera has an amazing subject here with an acting powerhouse like Melissa McCarthy, who finally erases all doubts that she is more than mugging and pratfalls. This is an actress of enormous intensity who effectively internalizes this performance and provides a jarring insight into Lee Israel that runs roughshod with the emotions, making the viewer constantly wonder if we're supposed to be liking this woman or not. The courtroom scene where she is given permission to make a statement that should reflect remorse and does anything but has us initially taken aback but not really surprised. McCarthy is perfectly complimented by Richard E. Grant's flamboyant performance as Jack, which earned him a Supporting Actor nomination. McCarthy's real life husband, Ben Falcone, also scores as one of Lee's bookselling victims. Shout out to a classy cameo by Anna Deveare Smith as a connection from Lee's past. Bouquets as well to Anne McCabe's film editing and Nate Heller's music. A bumpy cinematic journey that I implore McCarthy haters to check out. 4

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Kingpin
The Farrelly Brothers have had questionable success with their overindulgent comedies rich with raunchy bathroom humor, but thanks to the performances of Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray, the 1996 comedy Kimgpin seems a lot better than it really is.
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Harrelson plays Roy Munson, a former professional bowler whose career was cut short by an incident where he lost his hand, which involved fellow bowler, Ernie McCracken (Murray).
Many years later, a nearly destitute Roy may have found a way back to the top when he encounters an Amish guy named Ishmael (Quaid) who Roy thinks has the potential to go to the top and the road trip for the two of them that leads to a bowling tournament in Reno Nevada with a $1,000,000 first prize,
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Peter and Bobby Farrelly have always been sort of the Taylor Hackford of movie comedies where I'm concerned. Their approach to cinematic storytelling is overly complex and self-indulgent, resulting in films that are usually about 30 minutes longer than they need to be and this film is no exception. The opening exposition introducing us to Roy and how he lost his hand definitely could have been tightened up, as well as the guys' encounter with the mobster whose girl (Vanessa Angel) runs off with the boys. They could have trimmed down these scenes, possibly freeing up more time for Roy pretending to be Amish in order to get Ishmael to hit the road with him or just beefing up Bill Murray's role.
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Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan's screenplay doesn't contain as much of the kind of bathroom humor that we have come to expect from a Farrelly Brothers movie...there was only one real scene that I would file under "gross", but there is a whole lot of objectifying of women here as well as inferences about sex with farm animals, so if you have a problem with those sorts of things, you might want to give this one a pass. I can't imagine that the Amish were too thrilled at the way they are portrayed here either.
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But what makes this movie worth sitting through is the inspired performances from the three leads. Harrelson creates one of his most tragic comic heroes here and Quaid matches him scene for scene, though I have to admit that while watching, I kept picturing these two switching roles. And, as always, Bill Murray had me on the floor, stealing every single scene he had as the smarmy McCracken. If scene stealing were an actual crime, Murray would be serving a life sentence. A movie that provides fairly consistent laughs thanks to a trio of actors who raise the bar on this one. 3.5

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If Beale Street Could Talk
Director/writer screenwriter Barry Jenkins made Hollywood sit up and take notice when his 2016 film Moonlight won the 2016 Best Picture Oscar. Jenkins has proven that he is not a one-trick-pony, crafting another compelling drama called If Beale Street Could Talk that, like Moonlight, falls short of being the film it was meant to be, but offers rewards for the patient viewer who remembers the rewards our patience with Moonlight reaped.
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Based on a novel by James Baldwin, it's 1970's Harlem where we meet Fonny and Tish. Fonny and Tish have been soulmates since they were children, they even used to bathe together. Fonny is now 22 and Tish is 19. As we meet them, Tish has just learned that she is pregnant with Fonny's child and that Fonny is in jail for rape. The drama layers out as we watch the couple's family simultaneously being torn apart by this bombshell and bonding together as they work together to get Fonny out of jail so that he can be with his family.
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There are some football teams, off the top of my head, like the New Orleans Saints, who have been referred to as "second half teams"...they struggle during the first half and come alive during the second. I'm beginning to feel that Barry Jenkins is a second half director. Both this film and Moonlight start off a little slowly with the story moving at almost a deadening pace where interest begins to wane, and just when you're thinking about giving up or dozing off, Jenkins kicks the story into high gear for a powerhouse finish that leaves the viewer limp. That was how I saw Moonlight and reacted similarly to this often emotionally charged motion picture experience.
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Like most director/screenwriters, I think Jenkins' direction is superior to his writing. He has a flawless ability for establishing a film's atmosphere. I mentioned earlier that the film was set in the 1970's and I know that not because it is printed at the bottom of the screen at some point, but because of Jenkins' attention to period detail...the look of the streets of Harlem in the 70's was on the money and if you don't believe me, check out films like Across 110th Street and tell me Jenkins doesn't nail it. There's also costumes, hair, selected dialogue (can't remember the last time in a movie I heard jail referred to as "the slammer), though sometimes I felt Tish' narration was, at times, overly sophisticated, it perfectly conveys the jumbled emotions of the character.
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Jenkins also has a talent with the unexpected shock in a scene that the viewer never sees coming. There's a brilliant scene early on in the story where Tish' family invites Fonny's family over to the house to tell them about the pregnancy and Fonny's mother starts calling Tish every name in the book and we just know this woman is going to get slapped. The slap comes but it doesn't come from where we think and that's Jenkins directorial eye going into overdrive.
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Jenkins has assembled a perfect cast for this story, not populated with a lot of stars, but actors who serve the characters and the story beautifully. Stephan James and KiKi Layne are lovely as Fonny and Tish and the amazing Regina King may finally get the Oscar she should have gotten for Jerry Maguire with her accustomed powerhouse performance as Tish' mother, who goes above and beyond duty to help her son-in-law. Her performance alone is reason enough enough to check this one out, but there's so much more going on here that, again, proves Barry Jenkins could become one of our greatest cinematic storytellers with a little more seasoning. 3.5

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Three Little Words
MGM was very big on fictionalized film biographies on famous composers which were catered to their large stable of talent and one of the best of this select genre was a 1950 confection called Three Little Words, a surprisingly accurate look at one of Tin Pan Alley's most famous songwriting teams, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, whose names be unfamiliar, but their music is not.
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In this story, Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) is a vaudeville hoofer and songwriter who is doing a very successful act with dancer Jessie Brown (Vera-Ellen), but has a secret passion for magic. Harry Ruby (Red Skelton) is a second rate song plugger who has a secret passion for professional baseball. A knee injury forces Bert to give up dancing which eventually leads to a meeting with Ruby, which results in their first collaboration, "My Sunny Tennessee". A new career as songwriters begins to blossom for the guys, until Bert has a reunion with Jessie, which might derail their new careers as a songwriting team, but Jessie recognizes this and is willing to get out of the guys' way in exchange for becoming Mrs. Bert Kalmar.
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This story is not only a terrific backstage story about a great songwriting team, but an effective look at the power of friendship. These guys face several obstacles during the running time, but always have each other's backs. Bert manages to get Harry away from a flashy redhead who is cheating on him, while Harry convinces a Wall Street broker planning to invest in a terrible play that Bert has written to withdraw because he doesn't want the play to be a flop and Bert be destroyed. Sometimes these guys do the wrong things, but it's always for the right reasons and when the eventual split between the pair that always happens in a story like this, even the women in their lives know that these guys won't ever be happy until they reconcile. I also loved the running routine throughout the film of Harry having the melody for the title song and Bert being unable to come up with lyrics for it until the finale.
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Director Richard Thorpe and screenwriter George Wells have mounted a lavish musical feast here, anchored by Kalmar and Ruby's amazing body of work. Musical highlights include Astaire and Vera-Ellen's opening duet "Where Did You Get That Girl?" with both of them clad in white tie and tails; Gloria De Haven's sultry interpretation of "Who's Sorry Now", "Thinking of You" which features an elegant pas de deux by Astaire and Vera-Ellen in the largest shipboard stateroom ever, and perhaps my favorite, "Nevertheless". Mention should also be made of a superb ballet danced by Astaire and Vera-Ellen called "Mr. & Mrs. Hoofer at Home."
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Fred Astaire and Red Skelton prove to be a most engaging screen team, with Skelton getting a chance to show his future clown skills during the magic and baseball scenes. Vera-Ellen (her singing is dubbed by Anita Ellis) and Arlene Dahl are lovely leading ladies and there's also a delightful appearance from a very young Debbie Reynolds as Helen Kane performing "I Wanna Be Loved by You", with her singing voice dubbed by the real Helen Kane.
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Of course, the MGM gloss is evident in the breathtaking sets and costumes employed here (even though I actually recognized recycled costumes from previous MGM musicals, but I forgive). One of the most deliciously entertaining entries from the studio with "more stars than the heavens" that entertained from opening number to closing number. 4

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700 Sundays
Billy Crystal won a Tony Award in 2005 for 700 Sundays, a simultaneously roll-on-the floor-funny and lump- in-the-throat poignant one-man show that chronicles his life from the age of nine, providing plenty of laughs along the way. The production came to HBO in 2014.
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This show was originally mounted in 2004 at the La Jolla Playhouse before being moved on Broadway to the Broadhurst Theater in December of the same year. The production was revived in 2013 at the Imperial Theater for 54 performances and it was during this run that it was filmed by HBO.
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Not even close to your typical evening of stand up comedy, this production opens with actual home movies, filmed by Crystal's father that the comedian utilizes to introduce us to his family. When I first heard about this show, the first thing that piqued my curiosity was what the title meant, which was totally unexpected, but warm and captivating. The special begins with the comedian talking about his hard-working father who reserved Sundays to be with his family. Losing his father at age 15, Crystal estimates that he spent around 700 Sundays with his dad before he was taken away from him.
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Like any effective biopic, a lot of things were revealed about Crystal that were total news to me. Crystal's father owned a record shop and was a Jazz club emcee on the weekends. His uncle began a record label who was the only one willing to record Billie Holliday's iconic "Strange Fruit." Crystal actually tells a lovely story about Billie Holliday taking him to see his first movie ever, Shane, which featured his City Slickers co-star, the late Jack Palance.
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Crystal offers beautifully detailed characterizations of several members of his family, providing a wonderful face for each relative, which proves why the jazz musicians who he grew up around nicknamed him "Face." His interpretation of his Aunt Sheila was particularly funny and I loved his description of his grandmother as being "so fat she was worth three electoral votes." It's easy to see why Crystal was so tight with the late Robin Williams...they have the same razor sharp minds that move 100 MPH, though Crystal's journey to the laugh is a little more deliberate.
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Crystal produces big laughs during this show, but it is not his priority. The priority is telling his story, warts and tears where appropriate and never apologizes for it. The moment where he recreates learning about his father's death is heartbreaking and just when the fighting tears commences, Billy brings back the funny, magically sensing when it's time to do so. Crystal's writing is a little pretentious at times, but his delivery is so on the money that you almost don't notice. It's not your typical evening of stand up because it's not supposed to be, but if you're ready for a very special look at the life of a very special entertainer who loved his parents and loved to make them laugh, belly up. 4.5

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Niagara
The stylish and atmospheric direction of Henry Hathaway, some gorgeous location photography, and Marilyn Monroe at her steamiest are the primary attractions of 1953's Niagara, a tense thriller that earns originality points by locating it in what was once the #1 honeymoon location on the planet.
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This is the story of two couples at Niagara falls whose marriages are in two very different places: Ray and Polly Cutler are a young couple who are arriving at the falls for their honeymoon but learn that the cabin that they reserved is still being occupied by Rose and George Loomis, a couple who seem to have been married for quite awhile but are not even in the neighborhood of happy. It comes to light that Rose is cheating on George and is plotting to get rid of him and somehow Polly becomes caught right in the middle of what's going on with Mr. & Mrs. Loomis which eventually gets her in a lot of danger.
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The screenplay by Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Richard L. Breen is quite effective in setting up backstory for the Loomises without actually giving them a backstory. We learn things with Rose and George Loomis are not what they should be in their first moment onscreen where George comes in the room, Rose pretends to be asleep, and when George drifts off, she turns and shoots him a look of such ugly contempt that we don't know exactly what's going to happen, but we just know this can't end well.
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Director Henry Hathaway displays an atmospheric directorial eye that fits this dark drama beautifully. There is a lot of shadowy photography that never makes you feel like you're missing something, it just adds to the slow burn of suspense that occurs here. I have to admit while watching this, there was a real Hitchcock sensibility to what Hathaway is doing here and also wondered what this film might have been like with Hitch directing. I always thought Hitchcock and Monroe would have been an interesting director/actor combination and this film would have been a perfect property for them. It's Hathaway's work that allows the viewer to forgive some implausible plot points.
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But above all, this movie has the incredible Marilyn, more beautiful, more alluring, and more toxic than I have ever seen her. This Rose Loomis is one of cinema's most duplicitous movie heroines. With the aid of Hathaway, Monroe creates a character that commands the screen to the point where anytime she's not on screen, the film becomes a lot less interesting. That scene near the beginning in the bright red dress sitting on the steps at the party dreamily singing "Kiss" or that iconic walk to the bell tower in the tight black skirt are images that will be burned in my brain for eternity. Joseph Cotten makes a tragic George Loomis and Jean Peters holds her own as Polly Cutler, but this is Marilyn's movie and she never lets you forget it. 3.5

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The Brave One
Despite an accustomed powerhouse performance from Jodie Foster, the 2007 crime thriller The Brave One suffers due to a somewhat contrived screenplay that is a little too protective of the heroine.
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Foster plays Erica Bain, a radio personality whose life is changed forever when a brutal attack in Central Park puts her in a coma and her fiancee in the morgue. As Erica wakes up and unsuccessfully attempts to resume her normal life, she realizes that the only way to cope with what happened to her is to become a midnight to dawn vigilante because she no longer feels safe and ends up defending others in the city feeling unsafe as well. She befriends a sensitive police detective (Terrence Howard) who is working on another case with which Erica also becomes involved.
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The screenplay by Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor begins promisingly as we watch a woman's life turned completely upside down by one tragic event. Erica's feelings about not feeling safe anymore are authentically presented, but her transformation into vigilante feels a little forced and unrealistic and parts of the transition are a little unsettling...I was particularly disturbed with how easy it was for Erica to purchase a gun on the streets of New York. I have a hard time believing it was that simple and was also bothered by the scene where she asks to come into the station and identify one of her attackers in a police lime-up. She lets him go in the line-up because she wants her own revenge and the detective realizes this and says nothing. Even though we understand Erica and sympathize, it's not realistic that she gets away with everything that she does. The story is just too protective of Erica and it would have been more realistic to see her suffer consequences beyond the death of her fiancee.
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On the positive side, the film features some stylish direction by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) that provides an almost poetic sensibility to some of the uncompromising violence depicted here. Jordan creates some striking images early on when we see shots of Erica and her fiancee being treated in the emergency room are juxtaposed with shots of the last time Erica and her fiancee made love. Jordan's camera eye is in serious overdrive here, creating cinematic pictures that linger with the viewer. The effective way his camera follows Erica around her apartment when she gets home from the hospital and is afraid to leave is also quite compelling. Jordan's camera nails what Erica is feeling, even if it sometimes sacrifices the realities of what she's doing.
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Despite the problematic screenplay, it's easy to forgive because Jodie Foster is so mesmerizing in the central role that it's very easy to forgive the contrivances of the screenplay. Terrence Howard is also extremely effective as one of the most sensitive police detectives I have ever seen in a movie. It's a nicely internalized performance that is a perfect contrast to the flashy dramatics of Foster. Naveen Andrews also made the most of his brief role as Erica's fiancee, as did Mary Steenburgen as Erica's boss. Production values are top-notch, with special nods to Tony Lawson's film editing and Dario Marianelli's music. With a screenplay that concentrated a little more on realism and a little less on melodrama, this could have been something really special. 3

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Roma
Possibly the most overrated film of 2018, Roma is a flawless technical achievement that falls short as a complete and engaging motion picture experience, despite its earning 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Foreign Film and Best Picture of the Year.
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The film chronicles a year in the life of a young maid named Cleo and the family that she cares for in Mexico during the 1970's. Allegedly this story is based on real life events in the life of writer/director/film editor Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity). The story focuses on young Cleo trying to deal with the fact that she has become pregnant by a cocky young soldier while the family that she works for are dealing with the fact that the father has run off to be another woman. Sadly, only the mother knows the truth, the children think their father is away on business.
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Not sure why, but I had a feeling that I was going to be disappointed with this film when I learned that it was distributed by Netflix, a company that seems to be more obsessed with the bottom line than supporting creativity in its most appealing form. Don't get me wrong, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this film is a textbook on how to put a story on film. I will be shocked if it doesn't win the Oscar for cinematography because the film is absolutely gorgeous to look at...black and white photography that enhanced the beauty of what was being presented. Cinematic photographs at every turn that produce vivid cinematic emotion inside the viewer.
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Cuaron also scores in his casting of an unknown in the lead role, which heightened the authenticity of the story. I also loved the actress who played the mother and the nominations both actresses received are deserved. The idea of using a minimal music score is usually something that works in independent films, but this was a rare instance where the lack of music was a detriment to the story not an enhancement.
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The utilization of visual motifs totally works here, this is a director who has an innate sense of the visual onscreen, like Boz Luhrman, who will sometimes let substance fall to the wayside in the name of the visual, but unlike Luhrman, I think Cuaron puts a little too much trust in his material here, because it never really engages the viewer the way it should. A must for filmmaking students, but as a cinematic experience, it definitely falls short. 3.5

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Rent Live (2019)
FOX television strikes again with a live (almost) production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical Rent, mounted by the same people who brought us the TV production of Grease with Julianne Hough and last year's Jesus Christ Superstar with John Legend.
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This musical, actually based on the Puccini opera La Boheme, follows a group of friends navigating carefully through the Bohemian lifestyle of Greenwich Village that touches on subjects like homelessness, AIDS, and drug addiction. The principal characters include Mark, an aspiring documentary filmmaker who also serves as our host and narrator, who lives with Roger, an aspiring musician who contracted AIDS from his deceased girlfriend. Roger finds himself drawn to Mimi, an exotic dancer who lives downstairs who is a heroine addict and also has AIDS. Mark and Roger's best friend, Tom Collins, also an AIDS sufferer, finds himself falling for a free spirited drag queen named Angel who has AIDS as well. And let's not forget Maureen, Mark's ex-girlfriend, a loopy bisexual performance artist who is now in a relationship with a tightly wound lesbian lawyer named Joanne.
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This show has a long and colorful history that climaxed with its premier on Broadway in 1996, where it ran for over 5000 performances and won the Tony for Best Musical. It came to the big screen in a somewhat abbreviated version in 2005 with most of the original cast reprising their roles.
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I love this show and I think its primary attraction is its dazzling score by Jonathan Larson and the success of the piece lies in keeping this breathtaking score center stage at all times, unfortunately the co-director of this production, Michael Grief and Alex Rudzinski really weren't aware of this and just like he did with the TV version of Grease and Superstar, Rudzinski diluted a lot of the power of the piece by filming it in front of a live audience, mostly female, who spent the majority of the production screaming so loud that it was often hard to hear what was going on onstage (apparently filmed in the same theater where they did Superstar last year). The Angel character has one terrific number called "Today for You Tomorrow for Me" that actor James Levya put his heart and soul into but we television viewers were unable to hear one word of the song because of the obnoxious live audience screaming throughout the entire number.
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I wish Rudzinski had put the care into respecting the property here that he did with Jesus Christ Superstar. Here, TPTB seem to be trying to bring something new to the show, but this is a show that really doesn't need any "help", in particular, a live audience that really didn't seem to understand a lot of what was going on. They just seemed to be interested in watching Mark and Roger gyrate in their tight pants and loving on Vanessa Hudgens.
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The actors work very hard in recreating these roles even if the audience doesn't seem to notice. Vanessa Hudgens is spectacular as Maureen, far superior to her performance as Rizzo in Grease as was Tinashe as the flamboyant Mimi. Kudos as well to Brandon Victor Davis as Collins, who was electrifying last year as Judas in Superstar.
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The music was expertly performed and staged with "Light My Candle", "Take Me or Leave Me", "Will I?", "La Vie Boheme", "The Tango Maureen", "Out Tonight", and of course, "Seasons of Love" the highlights. There was a reprise of "Seasons of Love" at the conclusion that featured original cast members that just felt like pandering. Sonya Teyah's striking choreography also deserves a shout out, I just wish the directors had preserved the integrity of the property by filming it without the annoying live audience. It wasn't as good as Superstar, but way better than Grease. 3.5

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Some Kind of Hero
Richard Pryor plays it relatively straight in a 1982 comedy called Some Kind Hero, which actually takes on a serious topic but the writers can't seem to decide whether or not they really want to make a serious movie.
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Pryor plays Eddie, a war veteran who was a POW for five years and upon his return, learns that his girlfriend (Lynne Moody) has left him for another man and sold his business and that the military is being VERY slow regarding the veteran benefits that he is owed so he decides that he has no other option but a life of crime, complicated by his beginning of a relationship with the traditional hooker with a heart of gold.
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James Kirkwood Jr. and Robert Boris have adapted a screenplay from Kirkwood's novel that really wants to delve into some serious issues but just skirts around them. The way a lot of Vietnam veterans were treated by the government upon their return to the States could have been the genesis for an important and more serious movie and the intent is clear, but the execution never quite matches the intent, as a lot of legitimate issues are given short shrift and/or contrived and convenient answers that just don't wash.
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I was intrigued by the idea of casting Richard Pryor against type, because this film was made during a part of his career where Pryor was making a lot of crappy movies and something off the grid was in order for him, but this confusing story that can't decide whether it's going to be a clever social satire or a serious indictment on how difficult life was for returning war veterans never really makes a commitment either way and if it's supposed to be a combination of both it just didn't work.
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Pryor appears to be just as confused as the viewer here...he has some funny moments in the opening scenes when Eddie is still a prisoner of war, but once the story moves to the States, Pryor just looks embarrassed and confused and has absolutely NO chemistry with Margot Kidder, who fails to convince as a hooker. Ray Sharkey and Ronny Cox make the most of thankless roles, but this movie is just messy and dull. The best thing about this movie is its running time...mercifully short. 1.5

[Gideon58]

Love Finds Andy Hardy
The energetic performance by Mickey Rooney as Carvel's most popular teenager is at the center of 1938's Love Finds Andy Hardy, the third film in the series which actually introduced a couple of future movie superstars.
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In 1937, MGM released A Family Affair, a film set in the fictional hamlet of Carvel that centered around a teenager named Andy Hardy (Rooney), his father Judge Hardy (Lionel Barrymore), his mother, Emily (Spring Byington), his older sister Marian (Cecilia Parker) and his girlfriend, Polly (Ann Rutherford). The film was so popular that it became a series of sixteen films all starring Rooney, but Lewis Stone and Fay Holden took over the roles of his parents.
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In this film, Andy's mom has to leave town to tend to Andy's sick grandmother and Polly has been invited to spend Christmas with her Grandmother, even though Andy has just put a $12 down payment on a used car so that he can take Polly to the Christmas Eve dance in style. He still owes eight dollars on the car, so he tells his best friend Beezy that he will keep an eye on his girlfriend, Cynthia while he's away for the bargain price of eight dollars. Andy's plans with Cynthia are complicated by Betsy Booth, the sweet girl who has just moved in next door and falls in love with Andy instantly, but Betsy isn't a glamour girl like Cynthia so he doesn't even notice that the girl is nuts about him.
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The story perfectly captures teenage life in the 1930's, or what I would imagine it would have been (do you know of anywhere today you could buy a used car for $20?). Andy is obsessed with having the perfect car and the perfect girl and everything else a teenager would want, which leads to some self-absorbed behavior, most of which sweet Betsy Booth is the victim of. There are different way to look at what's going on here...in one way, Andy seems very cruel and insensitive to Betsy at times and on another hand, Betsy's pursuit of Andy borders on stalking, but it does work out for her.
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The Andy Hardy franchise was used as a springboard for a lot of young starlets at MGM and two of them got their start in this film. Even as a teenager, Lana Turner was very alluring as the pushy and flighty Cynthia and one of MGM's biggest and best creations, Judy Garland got her start playing the slightly manipulative Betsy Booth. MGM had trouble finding appropriate roles for Garland because she was a little girl with that great big grown up voice but the character of Betsy does work for Garland and she makes the most of it, especially her three opportunities to sing. The quietly effective underplaying of Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy is also worth mentioning.
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And you can see why Mickey Rooney got this whole franchise centered around him...this guy was a non-stop bundle of energy and was during the 1930's what Justin Timberlake is now...the obsession of young girls everywhere and MGM took full advantage of it. If you want to see Rooney at the height of his popularity and Garland before The Wizard of Oz made her a star, you might want to give this one a look. Garland also appeared in two other Andy Hardy movies, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and Life Begins for Andy Hardy as well as a series of backstage musicals with Rooney that made them a box office sensation during the 1940's. 3

[Gideon58]

Brigsby Bear
Strikingly original, 2017's Brigsby Bear is a loopy and sad social satire that takes elements from other classic films and crafts them into an engaging and often moving story that found me riveted to the screen and fighting tears.
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Many years ago Ted and April Mitchum kidnapped a child named James Pope and kept him shielded from the world in an underground bunker. As a simultaneous form of entertainment and education, Ted and April produced an elaborate television series called "Brigsby Bear" which was James' only exposure to anything outside of the bunker, a Star Trek-type adventure series starring a magical bear that entranced James for years.
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Twenty five years later, Ted and April are arrested for kidnapping James and he is returned to his real family who are trying their best to help James re-adjust to the real world, but the only thing that interests James is Brigsby and his obsession leads him to a decision to make a movie, continuing where the series left off, attempting to bring a logical conclusion to the series that James can live with.
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This one takes a minute to get going, but I LOVED this freaking movie. The screenplay by the star, SNL regular Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello is so intelligent because its crafting of the central character of James comes through James' dialogue and the way he speaks. Having been raised away from traditional society, James has issues with grammar and syntax that are so completely believable that you can't help but be simultaneously tickled and saddened. The screenplay also effectively addresses James' confusion about Ted and April and his real parents. He refers to Ted and April throughout the film as his "first parents" and takes a long time to warm up to his real parents and his hostile sister.
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What happens and what we definitely don't see coming is when his sister's boyfriend, Spencer, posts some of the "Brigsby" episodes on the internet and they become a smash on social media, something akin to people's fascination with current programming like Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games. James even gets a police detective (Greg Kinnear), who used to have acting aspirations, to take part in his movie.
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This story takes the viewer through a myriad of emotions as we get behind James and his mission and his inability to disconnect with the past. What Ted and April did was terrible and we want to see James connect with his real family, but his fear about that rings true and makes this journey a sad, yet hopeful one. Director Dave McCary, who has been a writer on SNL since 2013, creates a sheltered and protected world for James that is hard to crack but every time we see that shell crack even a little bit, we cheer. Kyle Mooney is revelation in the starring role and I also loved Mark Hamill and Matt Ross as his two dads. And if you don't blink, you might catch a cameo from Andy Samberg. It's not for all tastes, but I'm pretty sure fans of the current SNL regime will have a head start here. 4

[Gideon58]

Soylent Green
The 1973 futuristic thriller Soylent Green looks a lot less like science fiction now than it did in 1973 and still provides some solid entertainment value despite an ending that we definitely see coming.
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This film is set in the future, during a period where the world has been ravaged by the greenhouse effect, overpopulation, and dwindling food supplies. Only the extremely wealthy can afford to eat actual meat and a jar of strawberries cost $150. Most of the population is being fed courtesy of the Soylent Corporation, a food processing company that manufactures food substances from plankton in the oceans.
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Charlton Heston plays a police detective named Thorn who is assigned to the case when the CEO of Soylent Industries (Joseph Cotten) is brutally murdered. While trying to get to the bottom of the murder, Thorn becomes involved with the CEO's "furniture" (Leigh Taylor Young) and learns that the CEO found out a deadly secret about the company and confessed about to a priest, a confession so important to be kept confidential that the priest ends up being murdered as well.
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Director Richard Fleischer, whose resume includes such varied projects as 1967's Doctor Dolittle, Tora, Tora, Tora, and Fantastic Voyage really scored here with a dark and atmospheric crime drama that crafts a dark and disturbing future that might not be as far away as we might think. We see Thorn have to climb over dozens of people to get down the stairs of his apartment building. We also see him deliver some books to his friend and assistant Sol (Edward G. Robinson) for research dated 2015-2019. There's a lovely scene where Heston and Robinson sit down for the simple joys of beef, vegetables, strawberries, and scotch. Loved the look on Thorn's face when he is offered a hot shower and air conditioning.
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Despite an overly melodramatic screenplay, Fleischer's atmospheric direction makes what happens here feel very real. Heston offers one of his best performances as the cynical police detective who is ignorant to life in the 20th century and Edward G. Robinson was robbed of a supporting actor nomination for his wise and winning Sol, who still remembers a world where people ate meat every day. The film features first rate production values and the minimal music score is quite effective, especially in Sol's "going home" sequence. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Sorry for Your Loss
2018's Sorry for Your Loss is a loopy indie sleeper that provides pretty consistent laughs for its running time , thanks to a razor sharp screenplay demands attention, despite some unnecessary lapses into slapstick.
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Ken is a marketing executive who is the father of a six month old baby, who hasn't been named yet and has turned his mother, Ken's wife, into a raving lunatic. Ken receives word that his father, Andy, has died and learns at the funeral that he stands to inherit $200,000 from his dad if he can fulfill Dad's dying wish: To have his ashes spread across the field of a Canadian football stadium. And he only has 48 hours to do it.
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Director and screenwriter Collin Friesen really scores here with a deft and intelligent screenplay that shows a real insight into the art of black comedy with an almost Woody Allen sensibility to the dialogue. This is another one of those films where the true central character is dead at the beginning of the film. Friesen's screenplay immediately establishes that Andy was seriously flawed, but had a heart, while also establishing that he might not have been the greatest father to Ken. Andy's funeral pretty much had me on the floor...the service took place at a country club lounge where everyone in attendance is drinking. A PowerPoint presentation with a bizarre set of photos of Andy were hysterical but didn't provide a full picture of who Andy was.
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We understand from the moment Ken hears about his father's death that the relationship between Ken and Andy was strained to say the least. It's fun watching Ken piecing together who his father really was and that's part of the fun of this story. Every time we think we've gotten a precise picture of the kind of guy Andy was, we find out we're wrong. There's a terrific scene where Ken and Jeff, the executor of Andy's estate, visit a strip bar and one of the dancers is absolutely devastated when she hears about Andy's death and reveals a side of Andy Ken never imagined. The scenes that concentrate specifically on Ken's mission were a little slapsticky for my tastes, but they are redeemed by a warm ending that's actually a little touching.
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Justin Bartha, who was the groom in The Hangover, gives a star-making performance as Ken, charming and controlled. There are also a trio of solid supporting performances from Lolita Davidovich as Jeff's mother, Bruce Greenwood as Jeff, and, Darrin Rose as Cam, Jeff's wheelchair bound BFF from childhood. Loved Shawn Pierce's quirky music too. If you're looking for something a little different in black comedy, this might be worth a look. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Darling Lili
Despite some impressive production values, Blake Edwards' attempt to craft a more sophisticated image for wife Julie Andrews with an overblown epic called Darling Lili didn't work for this reviewer, thanks primarily to a convoluted screenplay and a serious lack of chemistry between the stars.
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The 1970 drama with music stars Andrews as Lili Smith, a British music hall entertainer during WWI, who is actually a German spy, but her loyalties are questioned because she is half British and half German, being born Lili Schmidt. Her latest assignment provided by Colonel Von Ruger (Jeremy Kemp) who assists under the guise of being her uncle but is actually her lover, is to get as much information as she can about a new military operation from an American pilot named William Larrabee (Rock Hudson)
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The screenplay by Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty is apparently supposed to be a takeoff on legendary female spy Mata Hari, but herein I think lies the problem. Instead of doing a straight-up biopic of the legendary spy, Edwards has decided to develop a story based on Mata Hari, almost in the form of a spoof or satire, but this spoof is told with a terribly straight face and in overly elaborate detail which really tries the viewer's patience. We are told at the beginning of the story what a professional Lili is, but this woman allows her emotions to completely cloud what she's supposed to be doing, making Lili look like a really bad spy.
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The intentions of Blake Edwards are very clear here...after triumphing with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Edwards wanted to show the world that his wife possessed the versatility to do different kinds of movies other than family-oriented musicals and with a better structured story and more consistent direction, this could have been the vehicle to do it, but this film is all over the place...deadly serious at one point, and unintentional laughs the next...the aerial sequences look like they're out of a Warner Brothers cartoon and scenes of Intelligence officers scaling and falling off rooftops in the rain were just too silly to be taken seriously.
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But the biggest problem with this film is that Julie Andrews and leading man Rock Hudson have absolutely no chemistry. Stories during the production of this film claim that Andrews and Hudson didn't get along at all and it definitely shows on the screen...their love scenes come off as forced and unconvincing. There's even a scene of the two in a shower that I'm sure was intended to titillate, but was laughable when it should have been sexy. And don't get me started on Andrews' music hall number that later gets reprised as a striptease.
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Edwards seems to have had a monster budget here because no expense was spared on this epic. Art direction and costumes are spectacular, as is Henry Mancini's music, including the Oscar-nominated song he wrote with Johnny Mercer called "Whistling Away the Dark", which is reprised like five times throughout the film. I guess Edwards realized it is one of the few things in the film that really worked. In 1990, Edwards was requested by TNT to re-edit the film and released a newly edited version that was 22 minutes shorter, but overlength was just the tip of the iceberg here. 2

[Gideon58]

A Stolen Life
A dazzling performance by Bette Davis in a dual role anchors a deliciously entertaining melodrama from 1946 called A Stolen Life, that provides Davis at her most alluring and a nicely textured story that, especially during the second half, provides one surprise after another that really make the viewer work for that happy ending we want so bad.
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Set in Nantucket Island, Davis plays Kate and Patricia Bosworth, twin sisters who both instantly fall in love with a lighthouse inspector named Bill (Glenn Ford) and even though Bill meets Kate first, he ends up marrying Patricia. Many years later when the sisters are reunited, Patricia drowns in a boating accident and Kate decides to assume her identity in order to win back Bill, but assuming Patricia's identity provides a whole new set of troubles that neither Kate nor the viewer sees coming.
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I freaking LOVED this movie, starting with the spectacular work of Bette Davis in the starring roles, creating two very different characters in Kate and Patricia, the requisite good and evil twins, though both characters are painted in serious shades of gray. The story discreetly sets up a backstory for the sisters without actually presenting it to the viewer. The telling first moment where Bill meets the sisters at the same time after taking Patricia out for lunch, a date he made with Kate, sizzles with tension because it's so obvious that this is not the first time that Kate and Patricia have scrapped over a man. Though, for some reason, Kate has always taken the high road and accepted her sister's behavior with a grain of salt.
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The story is thrown a clever complication when Kate meets Karnock (Dane Clark), a struggling artist with a serious chip on his shoulder, who has never met Patricia but finds himself inexplicably drawn to Kate, who keeps him at arm's length as long as she can. Love the scene where Karnock confesses his feeling about Kate to Kate but he thinks he's talking to Patricia.
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There are some terrific directorial touches offered along the way by Curtis Bernhardt...I love when Patrica throws her wedding bouquet directly to Kate and Kate jumps out of the way...Bette plays both characters with the right amount of bitchiness that Bernhardt surely offered an assist. Or watch Bette in the scene where Kate wakes up after the accident and realizes everyone thinks she's Patricia...watching Kate's brain process what's going in an absolute joy, clearly a collaboration of actress and director.
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Davis pulls out all the acting stops here doing Oscar-worthy work in this ultimate acting exercise. Glenn Ford is a charismatic leading man who holds his own against Davis. Davis and Ford would reunite onscreen 15 years later in A Pocketful of Miracles. Clark is a lot of fun as Karnock, as is Charlie Ruggles as sympathetic Cousin Freddy, who is team Kate and there's a cute cameo in the beginning of the film by Walter Brennan. Max Steiner's lush musical score is also a big plus. Fans of Davis and the genre will be in heaven here. Davis would again play twin sisters 18 years later in 1964's Dead Ringer, but this movie is so much better. 4

[Gideon58]

Designing Woman
With Vincente Minnelli in the director's chair overseeing an Oscar-winning screenplay, the 1957 romantic comedy Designing Woman overcomes some minor problems to provide
consistent entertainment and an occasional laughs for most of the running time.
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The film stars Gregory Peck as Mike Hagen, a sportswriter who meets a sophisticated fashion designer named Marilla Brown (Lauren Bacall) and after a whirlwind romance, they impulsively decide to marry. Marriage quickly reveals that Mike and Marilla are from two different worlds: Mike hangs out with boxers, other reporters, and has gotten some heat for stories he's been writing on a gangster who's been accused of fixing sporting events. Marilla's circle of friends include writers, actors, and artists. Of course, the collision of their two worlds is the crux of the comedy here. There's also an ex-girlfriend of Mike's (Dolores Gray) who has been cast in a show that Marilla is being courted to design the costumes for.
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On the surface, this film appears to be a re-thinking of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn classic Woman of the Year which is why I find George Wells' Oscar win for Original Screenplay a little strange. It's a clever updating on the original story that features an original opening that features the characters introducing themselves directly to the viewer and most of them participating in the narration that frames the story which, though predictable, does provide enough appropriate conflict for the couple to endure that we believe but we also believe that these two people's love for each other will conquer all.
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There are a couple of casting issues as well...Gregory Peck was a very talented actor, but romantic comedy was not his thing and that becomes glaringly apparent here. He works very hard at being funny in this movie and that's the problem...anytime an actor has to work this hard to produce laughs, they usually don't come. Mickey Shaughnessy also grates on the nerves as Maxie, a pug-nosed boxer who becomes Mike's bodyguard.
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On the other hand, Lauren Bacall is absolute perfection as Marilla Brown and makes the viewer instantly forgive anything else that's wrong with this movie. Bacall lights up the screen and is a big reason this movie is as engaging as it is. Dolores Gray is a lot of fun as Mike's ex and if you pay attention, you'll catch Chuck Connors, Madge Blake, Richard Deacon, Edward Platt, and Jesse White in small roles. Choreographer Jack Cole also makes a rare onscreen appearance as the director of Gray's show. A witty and winning romantic comedy that works thanks to the professionalism of Lauren Bacall and Vincente Minnelli. 3.5

[Citizen Rules]

I've seen Designing Women before and liked it! Generally I like those types of movies from the late 50s. A similar film is The Cobweb have you seen that? I think you'd like it.

[Gideon58]

I have not seen The Cobweb...isn't Gloria Grahame in that? I'll have to check it out.

[SeeingisBelieving]

Pryor just looks embarrassed and confused and has absolutely NO chemistry with Margot Kidder,

That's weird, as they had a fling at the time :p.

[Gideon58]

Mother! (2017)
As the director of The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky has proven to be an artist of limitless style and imagination, but his imagination was in serious overdrive with a 2017 oddity called Mother!, a loopy psychological thriller that is mostly nonsensical and an ending that is a serious cop-out.
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A writer (Jarvier Bardem) and his physically and emotionally fragile wife (Jennifer Lawrence) live in a large mansion in a secluded wooded area. They are cut off from traditional human existence until the appearance of a dying man (Ed Harris) who claims to be a fan of the writer and is invited to spend the night in the house. The next day the man's wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up on our couple's doorstep along with their two sons, who begin an explosive confrontation that doesn't end well. In less than a blink of an eye, everyone who knows this family shows up at the house, making themselves more than at home. The wife is perplexed and aggravated about all these strangers being in her house, but it seems to have a profoundly positive effect on the writer.
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They do manage to get this family out of their house long enough for the writer to get his wife pregnant. His wife's pregnancy inspires the writer to create something that makes him a contemporary Messiah that has thousands of people arriving at the house wanting a piece of him, his home, and his baby.
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Like Donnie Darko and Hereditary, I have to file this movie under films that I just didn't understand. The second half of the film appears to be a contemporary re-thinking of Rosemary's Baby, and that's fine, but if that was the film's intention, then the first half with the dying man and his dysfunctional family made no sense. The point of all of these strangers invading their house and treating the wife like she was the unwelcome guest was awkward and squirm-worthy. There was this running routine of the wife having to tell people not to sit on a sink because it had not been properly braced that led to the expected destruction of said sink, but Aronofsky's attention to this plot point made it seem a lot more important than it actually was.
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Aronofsky's direction is the best thing about this film...it's explosive and unpredictable and ferocious with a graduate course in the art of the hand-held camera, I just wish his screenplay had been a little more cohesive and brought certain plot points together a little more efficiently. There are scenes in the first act of the wife in the basement and the bathroom dealing with things like bleeding walls and tiny human fetuses that took too long to take their place in the story and the "and-then-I-woke-up" ending was a huge letdown.
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Oscar winners Jarvier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence work very hard at making their roles credible, with Bardem particularly explosive and even though I didn't understand the character, I loved the icy bitch that Pfeiffer brought to the story, but this story was just a little too messy to completely invest in. 2.5

[Gideon58]

That's weird, as they had a fling at the time :p.

Offscreen chemistry doesn't always translate onscreen.

[SeeingisBelieving]

Offscreen chemistry doesn't always translate onscreen.

Apparently so :).

[Gideon58]

Showtime
The idea of teaming Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy onscreen was a good one, it's just too bad they couldn't have found a better vehicle for the stars than 2002's Showtime, an elaborate action/comedy that could have used a little more comedy and a little less action.
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DeNiro plays Mitch Preston, a veteran LAPD detective who is all about his work and at the end of the day, he goes home and does pottery. While in the middle of a case, he is annoyed by a TV cameraman who refuses to leave the scene so he shoots his camera in a million pieces. The TV station threatens to sue the LAPD until an ambitious TV producer (Rene Russo) sees footage of Mitch and thinks he would be perfect for a reality TV show and they will drop the charges against the LAPD if Mitch agrees to appear..
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Murphy plays Trey Sellars, a uniformed cop not nearly as serious about police work as he is about his real passion, which is acting. Unfortunately, Trey's acting is a little over the top and he hasn't gotten his break yet. The TV producer decides that Mitch, completely ignorant regarding acting and show business, needs a partner to bring balance to the show. So guess who sets up an elaborate fake crime in front of the producer so that he can get the job?
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This film appears to be a valentine to cop buddy movies of the 80's like 48 HRS and Lethal Weapon, but the screenplay is crafted with a little straight a face. There are some nice jabs at the world of reality television and to the TV show Cops in particular, but somewhere along the line the writers lose sight of the fact that the film is supposed to be more satirical. The movie opens with a scene of Murphy being chewed out by a superior by going rogue on his latest case and it's soon revealed that this scene is actually Murphy's character auditioning for a TV show. There's a very funny set of scenes featuring William Shatner playing himself, teaching Mitch and Trey the fine arts of TV hood jumping and cocaine tasting. If the rest of the movie was in a similar vein to these scenes, this film would have been a total winner.
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Director Tom Dey, whose most significant directorial credit was the Matthew McConaughey comedy Failure to Launch] does show an affinity for mounting a proper action sequence...there are enough car chases, crashes, and explosions for three movies here, but not enough of the stars being funny. DeNiro proved he could be funny om films like Meet the Parents and Analyze This, but his character here is a real downer, making it hard for him to get laughs. Murphy is funny though and Russo is a lot of fun as the manipulative TV producer, but the confusing tone of the screenplay really keeps this one from being what it should have been, though DeNiro and Murphy are always worth watching. 3

[Gideon58]

Good Neighbor Sam
Hollywood's favorite everyman, Jack Lemmon, offers a terrific performance that anchors a sparkling adult comedy from 1964 called Good Neighbor Sam that holds up surprisingly well for a 54 year old movie.
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Lemmon stars as Sam Bissell, an advertising executive who lives with his wife, Min (Dorothy Provine) and his two daughters. He has recently acquired an important client named Mr. Nurdlinger (Edward G. Robinson) who agrees with Sam's idea for his account featuring ordinary people in the ads. Min is reunited with her best friend, Janet (Romy Schneider), recently divorced and living in Europe. Janet learns that her grandfather has died and has left a $15 million dollar bequest on the condition that she is happily married. Janet has no desire to return to hubby in order to collect the money, but when caught with Sam by relatives, she introduces Sam as her husband and Sam and Min agree to the charade.
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Further complications arise when a couple of Janet's cousins, who are contesting the will, hire a private investigator to watch Janet's house to prove she and Sam are not all they say, not to mention the return of Janet's ex-husband, Howard, who wants to reconcile with her. Oh, and Janet has agreed to give Sam and Min a million dollars if they pull this thing off.
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The screenplay by James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum is saucy and sophisticated, rich with clever adult touches and perfectly suited to Lemmon's talent. The story gets a little overly complicated at times and therefore the film is a little longer than it needs to be, but interest never wanes and laughs are provided throughout, with a strong assist from director David Swift, who also directed Lemmon in Under the Yum Yum Tree.
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The film features some impressive art direction/set direction and DeVol's musical perfectly captures the spirit of the comedy. Lemmon offers one of his stronger comic turns and works well with both his leading ladies. Schneider, in particular, is a revelation here, offering an intelligent and effervescent performance as Janet that gets and keeps us behind the character and her mission. Provine makes the most of what was probably the meatiest role of her career and Robinson was class personified, as usual. Mike Connors was also very amusing as Janet's ex, Howard. The supporting cast was peppered with familiar faces from the 60's including Edward Andrews, Robert Q. Lewis, Louis Nye, Neil Hamilton, Charles Lane, and Anne Symour. If you don't blink you might also catch glimpses of Bernie Kopell, Aneta Corseau, and little Kym Karath, a year before she played Gretl in The Sound of Music. A slightly racy but always engaging comic yarn that starts to run out of steam, but provides solid entertainment. 3.5

[Citizen Rules]

I have not seen The Cobweb...isn't Gloria Grahame in that? I'll have to check it out. Yes she is and as a brunette. Originally The Cobweb would've been James Dean's 4th major starring role.

[Gideon58]

The Story of Us
Despite a murky screenplay, the 1999 comedy-drama The Story of Us is still imminently watchable thanks to the slick yet sensitive direction of Rob Reiner and the exuberant performances from Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead roles.
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Willis and Pfeiffer play Ben and Kate, who have been married for 15 years but the marriage is on life support as the film opens, despite the fact that Ben and Kate are doing whatever they can to keep their children Josh and Erin blissfully unaware of their strained marriage while doing what they can to repair whatever went wrong. The film centers around Ben and Kate dropping Josh and Erin off at summer camp for a month and in that month, try to figure out the best way to break it to the kids what's really going on.
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This cinematic deconstruction of a marriage crafted by screenwriters Alan Zweibel (who also makes a cameo in the film) and Jessie Nelson is told out of sequence and we're never quite sure where each scene took place in the story of this marriage. We are initially assisted by mockumentary interviews with the lead characters and some narration which do lead us to a scene closest to the beginning of their marriage, where we are told that Katie has just been hired to work where Ben does, but this is the only scene where we know exactly where in the relationship took place.
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I kept looking for a scene that would explain precisely what went wrong in this marriage but this reveal never happens and I think I realized why. The underlying them of this story seems to be that the end of a marriage is not always because of a specific event...sometimes marriages quiet and methodically die for no specific reason, life priorities alter and shift and the participants in a marriage just stop seeing each other the way they did at the beginning. I loved that their number one priority was telling the children properly and the scenes documenting the couple's three attempts at counseling.
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Willis and Pfeiffer create a vivid and explosive chemistry onscreen that never feels forced or affected, with standout work from Willis. The director and Rita Wilson also score as their best friends as does Tim Matheson as the family dentist who tries to initiate a relationship with Kate once he learns of her separation. Paul Reiser also appears unbilled as Ben's boss, but it's Reiner, Willis, and Pfeiffer that give this one sizzle. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Shaun of the Dead
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright knock it out of the park with 2004's Shaun of the Dead, a deft and imaginative black comedy that seamlessly blends roll-on-the-floor comedy with stomach churning violence, riveting the viewer with a story that galvanizes the viewer and never allows said viewer to forget he's watching a movie either.
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The setting is contemporary London where we meet Shaun (Pegg), a working class geek who seems to be stuck in a dead end job at an appliance store, has a stepfather who he hates and a girlfriend who recently dumped him. While being given silly advice from his slovenly roommate, Shaun begins to wallow in self-pity and is so discouraged about the state of his life that it take him a minute to realize that there is a Zombie Apocalypse going on in his neighborhood.
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Director and co-screenwriter Edgar Wright have created a loving valentine to films like Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead which pitted regular humans against creatures risen from the dead, but Wright and Pegg have cleverly constructed their screenplay with their collective tongues firmly planted in their cheeks that create a real conflict for the viewer. On one hand, the humor that pervades the proceedings is telling us not to take what we're seeing too seriously, but the blood-curdling violence that's also present that makes it hard to do that, creating a cinematic roller coaster ride that keeps the viewers on their toes at all times. Needless to say, the best part of this story is watching this put upon schlub named Shaun step up and become the unexpected but more than welcome hero of the story.
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The dry humor and silliness is well-balanced by some spectacular special effects. Loved when Simon and roommate Ed are watching the news and the anchorman is warning them of everything they shouldn't do if confronting a zombie and we have just watched them do all of these things. I was also thrilled watching that lady zombie impaled on that steel bar and then magically lift herself off of it. The look on Shaun and Ed's faces after seeing this provided a chuckle the viewer doesn't really have time for. The scene where the group of survivors are practicing how to imitate zombies in order to escape also had me on the floor.
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Wright's direction is in your face and endlessly stylish and he gets a solid assist from his film editor Chris Dickens and his special effects team, who both do Oscar-worthy work here. Pegg lights up the screen as Shaun and gets solid support from Nick Frost as the smarmy Ed. A shout out to the quirky music as well. An unexpected shot of black humor that engaged me immediately and entertained beyond expectation. 4

[Yam12]

Seeing as you liked Shaun of the Dead, be sure to check out Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013).

[Joel]

Hot Fuzz took me a while to really, really appreciate, but it a very lengthy yet brilliant film. In some ways it is better than Shaun of the Dead, which is still one of my favorite films. Great review, Gideon. I'm assuming you just saw this recently for the first time?

[Gideon58]

Yes, watched it yesterday for the first time, people on this site talk about it all the time and I thought I should check it out. When I saw what the film was about, I remembered how much I enjoyed Zombieland and decided to watch.

[Gideon58]

Logan Lucky
Steven Soderbergh, who directed the George Clooney version of Ocean's 11, scores with the similarly-themed heist comedy called Logan Lucky, which features the same overly complex plotting, colorful characters, and stylish camera work of his 2001 film, with just enough tweaks to the story that's it not just a Danny Ocean rehash.
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This 2017 film stars Channing Tatum (who Soderbergh directed in Magic Mike) plays Jimmy Logan, a laborer who gets fired from his job and asks his brother (Adam Driver) and sister (Riley Keough) to help him rob the giant vault at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, the home Nascar racing. Their plan to blow the vault requires the assistance of a famed safe-cracker named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) who is already serving time. Our crew has to break Joe out of prison, blow the vault, and return Joe to prison before anyone notices, not to mention getting Jimmy to his daughter's beauty pageant on time.
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Yes, what Soderbergh gives us here is a sort of rural re-working of Ocean's 11, except for the fact that most of the Logan crew are not professionals, with the exception of Joe Bang, the character who really gave this film the dash of originality that separates Jimmy Logan from Danny Ocean. First of all, who knew that the home of Nascar had a giant vault on the premises? And Danny never had to break a member of his crew out of jail and return him to jail. This was probably the most amusing part of the story, the temporary liberation of Joe Bang, despite the fact that I don't believe this could actually happen. I bought the way Joe was removed from the facility I just had a hard time believing that no one in the prison caught his absence, no matter what distractions were provided, headcounts in prison are too frequent for an absence con to go unnoticed. On the other hand, I didn't like the addition plot complication of having to change the date of their original plan. Then this has always been an element of the Soderbegh movies, the plan being changed or challenged in some way before it's actually executed.
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Soderbergh's camerawork is exemplary here, almost tiring the viewer in having to frequently crane his neck to keep track of what is going on and just like the 2001 film, there is so much going on that it's hard to keep track of everything, but in interest of keeping my eye on the prize, there were holes and plot elements that got by me that would hopefully be caught in a rewatch.
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Soderbergh does some interesting casting here...Channing Tatum is completely de-glammed and almost unrecognizable as Jimmy Logan, a role he effectively underplays in the tradition of George Clooney as Danny Ocean. Adam Driver was a lot of fun as Jimmy's one-armed brother and Daniel Craig absolutely lights up the screen as Joe Bang. Dwight Yoakum also brought the proper greasiness to his role as the prison warden like he did in Sling Blade, a razor sharp casting decision from Soderbergh, like Carl Reiner in 2001. Production values are first rate and the similarities to the first Danny Ocean movie cannot be ignored, but there is fun to be had here. 3.5

[cricket]

I've been letting myself get so far behind that there's too much to comment on. A Star is Born is finally coming to dvd Tuesday.

[Gideon58]

At Eternity's Gate
Willem Dafoe received his fourth Oscar nomination and his first for Outstanding Lead Actor for his performance in 2018's At Eternity's Gate, a slightly pretentious, but handsomely mounted look at the artist Vincent Van Gogh, that takes a pointed look at the demons that tormented the celebrated artist, most importantly, did his talent match his passion.
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The film opens with the artist taking a self-imposed exile to secluded areas in France called Arles and Auvers-Sur-Oise, where the artist seems to remove himself from reality and avoiding human contact if at all possible as he finds the privacy to pursue his passion, but finds his work conflicting with issues of religion and mental illness that find him and many others questioning his sanity. Of course, the film also looks at the relationship with his brother Theo and with fellow artist Paul Gaugin, who were apparently the only people with whom Vincent could communicate.
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Let me start off by saying that I know little or nothing about art, Van Gogh, and have never seen any of the other films about him, the most famous of which is probably the 1956 melodrama Lust for Life that starred Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and won Anthony Quinn an Oscar for his Paul Gaugin. Director and co-screenwriter Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) has crafted a richly textured look at this tortured soul that displays reverence to its subject, but doesn't blindly protect whatever images there are out there about him.
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The first scene between Vincent and his brother Theo, sensitively portrayed by Rupert Friend, suggests an almost incestuous overtone to their relationship. Vincent is ill and when Theo arrives, he climbs into bed with his brother and Vincent says that if he's going to die, he would like it to be in his brother's arms. There's a disturbing scene that starts at the film's opening and is revisited and concluded later where Vincent asks a young woman to pose for him and he gets very physical with her when she has trouble understanding exactly the way he wants her to pose.
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What really seems to be Schnabel's underlying theme in presenting this artist's story is the possibility that as much as Van Gogh loved to paint, he might not have been very good at it. Prior to this film, I never knew that Van Gogh only sold a single painting during his lifetime. He seems to look for approval and validation of his talent through his relationship with Gaugin which he never really gets. It's also revealed that Gaugin was the real reason Van Gogh cut off his ear. I was pleased that Schnabel had the taste to have this happen off screen. Vincent always said he had to paint fast and catch the subject as quickly but Paul said it was more important to check the condition of the surface you're painting on which seemed to be the genesis of their never ending conflict. We also learn that Van Gogh was institutionalized twice and I have never seen this happen in a movie before, but during his second incarceration, he is released early because the staff feel there is nothing they can do to help him.
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The real selling point of this movie is the delicately layered performance by Willem Dafoe that rivets the viewer to the screen and makes this movie seem a lot better than it really is. Few actors play unhinged better than Dafoe and he gets ample opportunity to prove that here, whether terrorizing and being terrorized by a group of school children, or trying to validate his existence to a priest, beautifully played by Mads Mikkelsen, Dafoe quietly and powerfully demands viewer attention and never makes the viewer regret this sometimes, slow, but ultimately rewarding film experience and with someone other than Dafoe in the starring role, I would have taken half a bag of popcorn off this rating, but Dafoe alone raises the bar on this one. 4

[Citizen Rules]

At Eternity's Gate, I have to see that one.

[GulfportDoc]

I haven't yet seen the film. But if anyone were ever born to play Van Gogh, then it would be Dafoe.

You mentioned Lust for Life, which was an impressive film when it came out in 1956, both for it's subject matter, and the stellar performances by Douglas and Quinn.

There is some pretty trustworthy biographical material available concerning Van Gogh. He had a tortured life because he started out nuts, then got worse. But as a painter, he's top 25 stuff.

IMO Julian Schanbel, as a painter, is a second rate artist with a first rate reputation. He's entitled to his opinions about Van Gogh's works. But if you put the two artist's work side by side it would be obvious who the real talent is.

As a film director he may be wonderful. It'll be interesting to see what he's done with this very familiar subject matter.

~Doc

[lenslady]

Have to echo GulfportDoc's opinion on Schnabel. Although I think calling his work second rate is an insult to second rate artists everywhere.

If I may exploit another
comparison , Van Gogh can be compared to a Triple Crown winning thoroughbred.

Schnabel as an artist - is a hamster.

However, he may have found his footing as a director. I remember seeing only one of his films- Basquiat- which was excellent.

[Gideon58]

Born on the Fourth of July
Oliver Stone won his second Best Director Oscar for piloting 1989 Best Picture nominee Born on the 4th of July, an overlong, manipulative, but effective biopic of Vietnam vet Ron Kovic, from his childhood to his wheeling onstage to be a keynote speaker at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.
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Tom Cruise was tapped for the physically and emotionally demanding starring role as Kovic is introduced to us as a child playing war with his buddies, his over-achieving high school years where anything but # 1 was just not an option, his enlistment in the marines and his two tours in Vietnam, from which he returned with injuries (physical and psychological) that, among other things, left him paralyzed and impotent. His strained rehabilitation process in a cramped and ill-equipped veterans hospital and his development into a war activist for all veterans, loudly protesting the treatment of veterans by the country that they felt betrayed them.
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Stone's intentions as a director and co-screenwriter (he also co-wrote the screenplay with the real Kovic) are on the money, but Stone lets his emotions and perhaps his personal collaboration with the film's subject push this film into serious overdrive. I understand the idea of opening the film showing Kovic playing war as a child, but more than thirty minutes of running time is devoted to things like Kovic getting caught by his mom with a playboy magazine under his bed and not getting to go to prom with the girl of his dreams (Kyra Sedgewick, in a thankless role). A lot of this opening exposition really slows down the film.
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The film doesn't really kick into high gear until Kovic arrives at the nasty veterans hospital which also houses rats the size of kittens roaming the floors. These scenes are not an easy watch, a very graphic depiction of the literal pieces that a lot of of our guys returned in and how normal functions like bathing and going to the bathroom are now impossible. These scenes are also wear Kovic's spirit kick back in, as we learn that Ron refused to accept his diagnosis of paralysis initially and was determined to walk out of that hospital. These scenes were, for this reviewer, the real ugliness of the Vietnam war.
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With Kovic himself as screenwriter, it's impossible to doubt the authenticity of what happened here and the film is a very manipulative experience that might force the viewer to take sides, or more importantly, change sides, but I think Stone's over-indulgent direction could have been reined in a bit.
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Tom Cruise's sincere and emotionally charged interpretation of Ron Kovic earned him his very first Oscar nomination. There is also solid work from Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava as Ron's parents, Frank Whaley and Jerry Levine as two of Ron's high school buddies who went separate ways when Vietnam came about, and in his accustomed flashy performance, Willem Dafoe as another wheelchair bound vet that Kovic meets in Mexico. If you don't blink, you might also catch appearances from Tom Berenger, Stephen and Daniel Baldwin, Jason Gedrick and Cruise's real-life brother, William Mapother. The director also makes a cameo as a reporter. In addition to Stone's Oscar and Cruise's nomination, the film received five other nominations, winning for film editing. It's overlong and a little preachy, but the preachiness can be forgiven. Cruise definitely proved he was more than a pretty face here. 3.5

[Gideon58]

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate
When he had the juice to bring what he wanted to the big screen, Martin Lawrence gave us 1996's A Thin Line Between Love Hate, a Lawrence vanity project that is basically Lawrence's lackluster rehashing of the 1987 classic Fatal Attraction.
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Written and directed by the star as well, Lawrence plays Darnell Wright, a nightclub manager who thinks he is an irresistible babe magnet who runs from commitment and those three little words as long as he can. Darnell finds himself becoming serious about two very different women. Mia (Regina King) is a childhood friend who is all grown up now and just returned from a stint in the military. She's always had a thing for Darnell, but knows what kind of guy he is and has protected herself from being really hurt by him. Brandi (Lynn Whitfield) is a wealthy real estate agent who has a beach house in Malibu and is also an extremely dangerous psychopath.
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Though not big on originality, Lawrence has a pretty good idea here that he has tweaked just enough that anyone who has never seen Fatal Attraction might be fooled (even though he actually references the 1987 classic, which I guess in his mind made it an homage), but the real problem here is that screenwriter Lawrence has written a character for the actor Lawrence who is supposed to be the ultimate player and unless the viewer can accept Martin Lawrence as the sexiest man on the planet, the story doesn't really work because everything that happens in the film bounces off that concept.
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I also think Lawrence erred in his revealing the Brandi character...I think it happens a little too quickly. One scene we see her looking at herself in the mirror with shaking hands applying her makeup and minutes later, she is in bed with Darnell confessing that she murdered her ex-husband. Personally, I don't think a true psychopath would be so matter of fact in offering up information like that. We're also supposed to believe that she is this wealthy woman who has built her own real estate business...how has a woman who turns out to be as nuts as this one does not let any of her crazy slip into her business life? The transition from arrogant businesswoman to dangerous psycho just doesn't ring true.
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Lawrence works very hard at making this comic madness palatable entertainment, but this one actually had me fighting toothpicks on the eyelids. Lynn Whitfield is a wonderful actress, but way too intelligent a screen presence for this kind of silliness. Bobby Brown revealed why his movie career never went anywhere after playing Darnell's BFF and business partner. Only Regina King rises above this mess and almost made it worth sitting through. 2

[Gideon58]

Two for the Road
The professionalism in front of and behind the camera makes Two for the Road, an effervescent comedy drama from 1967, a picturesque and joyous travelogue through a troubled marriage that never fails to entertain.
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Albert Finney and the enchanting Audrey Hepburn play Mark and Joanna, an architect and his wife, who are traveling through the south of France after the completion of Mark's latest job, frustrated with traveling and with the tension in their marriage. As they travel, the story flashes back to other road trips in the past, including their first, that provide clues as to why their marriage is not the fairy tale it used to be.
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Frederick Raphael's Oscar-nominated screenplay is another one of those stories that is told out of chronological order before that became so fashionable a few decades later. When we meet Mark and Joanna, the tension between them can be cut with a knife and it is through Raphael's often stinging dialogue not only how Mark and Joanna feel about each other, but more importantly, how they both feel about the institution of marriage and their personal definitions of same. It's possible to track where the story goes via Mark and Joanna's hair and wardrobe.
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Raphael's screenplay discreetly introduces obnoxious traveling companions, an addition of a child to their family, and infidelity as ingredients to the slow death of this marriage. This very special story is told against a gorgeous canvas, starting with the South of France and traveling all through Europe as their troublesome MG begins to become a metaphor for the decay of this marriage. Mark and Joanna rarely speak with any kind of filter and their rather complacent reaction to becoming parents was a standout example of this. In the opening scene, Mark can't even remember his daughter's name and we eventually learn why.
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Director Stanley Donen has mounted an attractive postcard romance that provides a surprise or two along with the entertainment, providing a unique cinematic experience unlike any other. The performances Donen pulls from Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn are nothing short of remarkable and how both actors were snubbed at Oscar time is beyond me, though Hepburn was nominated the same year for a different movie (Wait Until Dark). William Daniels also deserves mention as the perpetually anal Howard Manchester. And no talk of this movie can conclude without mentioning Henry Mancini's lilting and lovely musical score, which frames this adult fairy tale flawlessly. A discriminating film experience for the adult filmgoer. 4

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Love Happens
A compelling story and some strong performances almost salvage 2009's Love Happens, yet another cinematic look at the grieving process that meanders a little too leisurely to a terrific finale.
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The 2009 comedy drama stars Aaron Eckhart as Burke, a widower who lost his wife three years ago and wrote a book about what happened, which turns him into a celebrity self-help guru and a syndicated television star. He travels around the country conducting seminars on the grief process and as the movie opens, he has arrived in Seattle for a seminar and it's obvious that whatever he's supposed to be doing, his heart's not in it and we don't find out why until he meets an attractive florist (Jennifer Aniston) who forces him to be honest about the fact that he has never really completed his own grieving process.
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Director and co-screenwriter Brandon Camp had a really good idea here, but the story takes way too long to get where it's going. This reviewer perceived that Burke was not what he appeared to be as he is shown standing backstage waiting to be introduced by his slimy agent (Dan Fogler)...something's not right with this guy and it's more than simple grief, but the screenplay by Camp and Mike Thompson throws off completely off track with what looks like a romance with Aniston's character, word games hidden behind paintings, watching rock concerts from utility trucks, and a shopping spree at Home Depot as part of the grief seminar. There is initial resentment of Burke who seems to be profiting from the death of his wife but said resentment is addressed when Burke is confronted by his father-in-law (Martin Sheen) about how he has been processing his grief.
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We have to wait well into the final act to find out exactly what's going on with Burke, but it's a pretty labored journey getting there, though the scenes of Burke trying to fulfill his wife's request for her parrot, Rocky, to be released to the wild a lot of fun, most of what else went on between the opening act and the final one was almost snore-inducing. It even gets a little manipulative near the end as well, actually utilizing the slow-motion clap that was featured in every teenage rom-com made during the 1980's.
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Eckhart again proves he's one of the industry's most underrated actors with a performance that is simultaneously slick and moving and he works well with Aniston, who makes the most of a thankless role. Martin Sheen was excellent as Burke's father-in-law and there is some beautifully modulated work from John Carroll Lynch, who you might remember as Frances McDormand's husband in Fargo, as a grieving father about to drop out of the seminar who Burke is able to connect with. There's about one third of a really great movie here and I don't get the title at all. 2.5

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Holiday (1938)
Before The Philadelphia Story, Phillip Barry, Donald Ogden Stewart and director George Cukor collaborated on the 1938 comedy Holiday, the third onscreen teaming of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn that charms with its sophisticated dialogue and effervescent performances from the stars.
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Grant plays Johnny Case, an eccentric playboy who has found himself engaged to an icy socialite named Julia Seton (Doris Nolan), unaware that she's from an extremely wealthy family. Julia and her father (Henry Kolker) are initially charmed by Johnny until he shares his outrageous life plan where he plans to take his retirement, or "holiday" as he calls it, now while he's young instead of working for 20 or 30 years. Julia is horrified but her sister, Linda (Hepburn) is fascinated by Johnny and his life plan, as is Julia and Linda's baby brother, Ned (Lew Ayres).
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The story is based on a play by Phillip Barry that premiered on Broadway in 1928 and ran for over 225 performances. As he would later with The Philadelphia Story, Donald Ogden Stewart, along with Sidney Buchman, adapted this witty adult comedy for the screen, which has a real Noel Coward sensibility to the proceedings...a bunch of people chasing after the wrong people and unaware that they're chasing after the wrong people while the right people are standing right under their noses, or sacrificing their own happiness for other people because it's the right thing to do.
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When we met Grant and Hepburn at the opening of The Philadelphia Story, they were divorced, but their characters are strangers when they meet here and Grant's character is engaged to Hepburn's sister, so we strap ourselves in for what could be a long and complex journey to what we've been promised. It is a pretty complex journey but surprisingly economic and Cukor and company make us wait until the final frame for what we know is coming.
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Cukor gets the expected splendid performances from Grant and Hepburn but works wonders on his supporting cast as well. Lew Ayres is very amusing as the drunken Seton heir (Ayres' resemblance to a young Jack Lemmon in this movie is spooky), as are Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon as Johnny's married buddies whose last name keeps getting mispronounced and Doris Nolan brings an effective level of bitchiness to the snooty Julia, but they and Cukor never forget who the stars are and the work of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant alone makes this ticket worth the price of admission. 4

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Stir Crazy
After their first successful teaming in Silver Streak, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were reunited for the elaborate comic adventure Stir Crazy, an overlong comedy romp that doesn't quite live up to its reputation, primarily due to an overstuffed screenplay, but the stars still make it a worthwhile trip and a sad reminder how much they are missed.
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Wilder and Pryor play Skip Donahue and Harry Monroe, respectively. They are BFF's who have been both fired from their jobs and leave town for a fresh start and end up getting arrested for a crime they didn't commit and end up being sent to a prison work farm where their struggle to survive prison life is interrupted by a prison rodeo run by a pair of crooked wardens who are pocketing all of the profits.
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Screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman's screenplay takes the situations presented in prison work farm movies like Cool Hand Luke and The Longest Yard and turns them on their ear, providing a welcome canvas for the laughs provided by the stars, a lot of which I'm pretty sure are improvised. The canvas provides a perfect framework for Wilder and Pryor to demonstrate the one-of-a-kind chemistry that they shared onscreen and made the minor problems with the film forgivable. We get most of the scenes we expect like the boys being hassled by the warden and his flying monkey, their taming of the prison monster, and the gay inmate who has a crush on one of them, but it's all played strictly for laughs here, though some of the laughs are a little dated in 2019.
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The strongest part of the film is its center, when the guys first arrive at the prison farm and are trying to figure out how to survive. Two guys trying to survive prison life is a palatable enough plot for this movie and director Sidney Poitier makes sure that the laughs provided stay center stage during this part of the movie, but it does lose steam when the guys stop worrying about themselves and start worrying about the crooked wardens and trying to stop what they're doing.
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Poitier doesn't tamper too much with the comic gold that is Wilder and Pryor and they do bring the funny. The supporting cast is peppered with several familiar faces including Barry Corbin (doing his patented redneck warden), Georg Stanford Brown, Jonathan Banks, Nicholas Coster, Joel Brooks, Franklyn Ajaye, and, though they share no scenes together, Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams, whose next acting assignments would be playing the parents in Poltergeist. It takes a minute to get going and it loses steam towards the end, but the middle is more than wroth the ride, though it doesn't quite live up to its reputation. 3.5

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Eighth Grade
For those who don't remember how much it sucked being 14 years old, you might want to check out a quietly brilliant little sleeper called Eighth Grade that nails the 24-hour teenage growing pains that are occurring at that very tender and very pivotal age.
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This 2018 film chronicles the final weeks of eighth grade for a 14 year old girl named Kayla Day. Kayla is slightly overweight, has a face full of pimples, and when she's not hiding from the world in her phone, she is doing a podcast on You Tube where she gives advice on how to be popular. Unfortunately, it is apparent with each video that Kayla makes that the girl never follows her own advice. On one hand, Kayla feels pretty much invisible at school where she struggles for popularity and can't get class stud Aidan to look at her twice, but can't get away from the overprotective eye of her loving single dad. Kayla finds an unexpected turning point in her life when a school shadowing project provides a connection for Kayla with a high school girl named Olivia.
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Director and screenwriter Bo Burnham scores a direct bullseye here that doesn't just accurately survey contemporary teenage growing pains, but also subtly discerns the differences between said growing pains now and say twenty years ago, when school and life in general were vastly different experiences. I have to admit to being taken aback when a couple of different scenes in the film were devoted to students being trained what they should do if they ever hear shooting on the school grounds. This was something that just wasn't part of my school experience, but I understand why it is essential now.
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On the other hand, there were situations presented in Kayla's life that rang completely true. Her attempts to befriend the bitchy and popular Kennedy were so sad and even sadder was when Kennedy's mother insisted that Kayla come to a party that Kennedy was having and had no intention of inviting Kayla. Kayla's dread upon arrival at the party and later calling her father and begging him to get her was just a little too real. And let's talk about dad...can't recall the last time I saw a father trying so hard to be part of his daughter's life and failing so abysmally. I love when he drops her off at the mall to meet Olivia and he stays there to spy on her. Mark Day just might be the hardest working single dad in cinema history, right up there with Eugene Levy in American Pie.
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There was some serious Oscar buzz for newcomer Elsie Fisher, who is an absolute revelation in the starring role. With the aid of director Burnhan, she effortlessly conveys the character's pain and joy...watch the joy in her eyes and her gait when she is on the phone with Olivia, it's heartwarming to watch and Josh Hamilton is terrific as her trying-not-to-smother-her dad, who is there when she needs him. Burnham displays an imaginative eye with the camera and a bouquet to Anna Meredith's off-the-wall music as well. The first movie in a long time that made me glad I'm not a teenager anymore. 4

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Jane Fonda in Five Acts
The one of a kind life and career of the legendary Jane Fonda is documented in Jane Fonda in Five Acts, a slightly pretentious and definitely overlong documentary that spends more time focusing on her activism than her acting career and in what seems to be pandering to the star herself, seems to go on forever.
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Director Susan Lacy obviously had the star at her ear for every minute of this process of producing this HBO documentary because there is not a moment onscreen here that didn't seem to be pre-approved by the star before making it to the final cut because the actress comes out looking like Superwoman here and I don't think that's an accident. Ironically, the first four acts of the five acts in the life of this alleged super woman were named after her father and her three husbands. We're talking about a woman who has been the ultimate symbol of female empowerment for decades and the director titles sections of her life after the men in her life?
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The film does a nice job of profiling the extremely complicated relationship she had with both of her parents. I have to admit I found this part of the documentary very interesting because I have never heard or read anything about Fonda's mother before. I had always seen Henry Fonda photographed with his last wife Shirlee, but had no exposure to his previous marriages. Jane lets us know that she felt emotionally abused and unloved by both of her parents. It's revealed that her mother was what is now known as bipolar and eventually took her own life. It's also revealed that Henry was not exactly the husband or father of the year either...there's a heartbreaking moment in the film where Fonda is looking at a photograph of her entire family and recalls that her father was cheating on her mother at the time and that the family was terribly unhappy when the photograph was taken...one of the documentary's truly moving moments. It's made clear here that everything we saw onscreen between Jane and Henry in On Golden Pond was quite real...she even talks about an unscripted moment she initiated that brought tears to both sets of eyes.
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Sadly, the majority of this documentary is the star droning on and on about how unhappy she was and how no one, including her father and three husbands, ever really understood her. The documentary does focus a little too strongly on her "Hanoi Jane" period and how she regrets a lot of what she was doing then, though she doesn't regret the activist spirit that was imbued inside her by her time as Hanoi Jane, but personally, this is water on the bridge or water that no one cares about anymore, and I would have liked this documentary to have concentrated a little more on her than her incredible film career than her career as an activist. It was interesting to learn that it was her activism that was the impetus for her famous workout tape.
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We did get a few tidbits about her movie career along the way...we learned that she was very drunk when she filmed the nude opening to Barbarella and that she begged Alan J. Pakula to hire someone else for Klute because she just didn't feel she was right for the part.
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It was also a little unsettling watching her talk about her marriages to Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden, and Ted Turner. It was odd that such an independent spirit would marry three such controlling men, though she does refer to Ted Turner as her "favorite ex-husband."
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Commentary is provided along the way by Tom Hayden, Ted Turner, producer Paula Weinstein, Robert Redford, Troy Garity (her son with Hayden), her stepdaughter Nathalie Vadim, and her black adopted daughter Lulu Williams. I thought it was telling that Troy, Nathalie, and Lulu all agreed to appear in this documentary, but Vanessa, her daughter with Roger Vadim, did not. Not that anyone other than Fonda got a lot of screentime anyway, and this screentime went on forever, I didn't think this movie would ever end, but Fonda is a Hollywood legend worthy of the attention, but it just seemed a little over-indulgent to me. 3

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Dead Poets Society
A 1989 Best Picture Nominee, Dead Poets Society is a handsomely mounted tale of passion and hope and not the passion that the idea of romance conjures, but the kind of passion behind the expression "Carpe Diem."
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The late Robin Williams received an Oscar nomination for his performance as John Keaton, a new English teacher at a fancy boys' prep school who has a profound effect on his students through the formation of a very special club and his drive to have his students discover and pursue their individual passion, a drive that has unforeseen consequences on three of his students in particular.
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Tom Schulman's Oscar-winning screenplay is rich with tense situations that are driven by almost lyrical dialogue that allows this story to sparkle, despite an unexpected detour to a very dark place which somehow manages to bounce back for a finale that had this reviewer simultaneously wanting to cheer and fight tears.
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Director Peter Weir, whose resume would eventually be a textbook on the frailty of the human condition with films like Witness, The Truman Show, and Fearless, lends a joyous yet sensitive directorial eye to this often compelling story that offers riches that the viewer sometimes has to dig for, but this is not the first time Weir's work has run roughshod with my emotions.
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Williams delivers one of his most controlled performances that, curiously, commands the screen without overshadowing some strong work from a young Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles, and especially Robert Sean Leonard as Keating's very special students. Mention should also be made of Kurtwood Smith as Leonard's hard-nosed father. The film features first rate production values with John Seale's cinematography and Maurice Jarre's music being standout elements. A very special cinematic journey. 4

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Women in Love
The provocative direction of Ken Russell and some superb performances anchor 1969's Women in Love, Russell's dark and steamy adaptation of DH Lawrence's novel that is a haunting tale of lust, betrayal, and the always blurry lines of sexual orientation that provides arresting visuals and sophisticated erotica, but never really gels as a complete cinematic experience.
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The setting for this very different battle of the sexes is Britain's Industrial Midlands during the 1920's. Gerald Critch (Oliver Reed) and Rupert Berkin (Alan Bates) are best friends who become romantically involved with a pair of sisters: Gundrun (Glenda Jackson) is an artist and Ursula (Jennie Linden) is a schoolteacher. After a long fought relationship with numerous peaks and valleys, Rupert marries Ursula and Gerald commits to Gundrun, despite the fact that Gerald and Rupert continue to fight and deny the feelings they have for each other.
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Russell was probably the only director who had the juice and the guts to bring Lawrence's most famous work to the screen, with a grand assist from Larry Kramer, whose screenplay of the novel earned him an Oscar nomination, despite its occasional ambiguity about what's going on here. We think we are being brought into a simple tale of two best friends in love with two sisters, but our first clue is a lot of sophisticated dialogue about the validity of the concept of love. All four principal characters question the traditional concepts of love and marriage and despite the almost animal attraction between the two couples, eyebrows are raised when, seemingly out of nowhere, Gerald and Rupert have a nude wrestling match in front of a roaring fire.
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The wrestling match is just one of several seriously erotic scenes in this film that spit in the face of traditional love and sexuality. Russell forces complete commitment out of his actors to make this work, which includes full frontal Reed and Bates, and Jackson revealing her breasts during two different scenes (Jackson was pregnant at the time so her breasts were rather "substantial"). There's a psychological element to the erotica that is, at times, a little unsettling. There's one scene where Reed and Jackson are having sex and images of Reed's slightly insane mother keep running through his head. There's a whole lot going on here and Russell and Kramer seem to have something very important to say here. Unfortunately, they wait until the final scene to say it, making a lot of what comes before a little bit confusing.
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Russell gets exceptional performances from his stars. Glenda Jackson won the Outstanding Leading Actress Oscar of 1970, even though the film was released in '69. Her polished performance committing to a somewhat unlikable character is a joy to behold....love that scene of her chasing off the cattle through interpretative dance. Reed is dark and chilling,as always, but truthfully, Alan Bates gives my favorite performance in the film as the tempestuous Rupert, the only character in this movie who says exactly what he feels. Bates' performance here is electric sex, unlike anything I have ever seen. I wish the story had committed the way the actors did. This would have been one of the best films of the 1960's, but the parts are still better than the whole. 3.5

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The Great Muppet Caper
Jim Hensen and company knock it out of the park with their 1981 musical fantasy The Great Muppet Caper, a comic romp that constantly reminds the viewer it's only a movie and had me rolling on the floor from opening to closing credits.
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In another completely unbelievable tell for entertainment's funniest rep company, Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear play investigative reporters and identical twins (don't ask) who decide to go to London when word reaches them from across the pond that Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg) has had a very expensive necklace stolen from her. It turns out that the necklace was really stolen by Lady Holiday's greasy younger brother, Nicky (Charles Grodin) and three of the Lady's models who hate her. They are now planning to steal Lady Holiday's most prized possession: a huge gem known as the Baseball Diamond.
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Accompanied by The Great Gonzo, their staff photographer, Kermit and Fozzy travel to London in the luggage department of a plane where they are thrown off the plane over London while the plane continues to Italy. Kermit goes to Lady Holiday's office and meets her receptionist (Miss Piggy), who pretends to be Lady Holiday and, of course, the romantic sparks fly while Kermit and Fozzy try to get to the bottom of the thefts while Nicky and his girls attempt to frame Miss Piggy for their crimes.
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A writing and performing team since the 1960's Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses have constructed a near brilliant comic story that, in the best tradition of Mel Brooks and the Zucker brothers, consistently breaks the fourth wall, never allowing the viewer to think that anything they are about to see is real. Even during the opening credits, we observe Fozzie, Kermit, and Gonzo in a hot air balloon discussing the opening credits as they flash up on the screen right next to them. When Lady Holiday gregariously offers her life story to Miss Piggy and Piggy asks why, Lady Holiday explains that "it's plot exposition...it has to go somewhere." This story is so smart and slick that it's hard to believe that children were the intended demographic for this movie...how many kids do you know who know what plot exposition is?
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The movie also finds some roots in movie musicals from the 30's and 40's with a lavish production number called "The First Time it Happens" that conjure memories of Busby Berkley and an elaborate water ballet that anyone who has ever seen an Esther Williams movie will love. Joe Raposo's kicky song score also includes "The Happiness Hotel", "Steppin Out with a Star", "Couldn't We Ride", and "Night Life" The elaborate choreography is provided by Anita Mann.
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Diana Rigg is delicious perfection as the theatrical Lady Holiday and Charles Grodin is funny as her brother Nicky, though I thought it was odd that, playing Rigg's brother with an all-English cast, that Grodin doesn't even attempt an accent. As always with Muppet movies, cameos offered along the way include Jack Warden, Robert Morley, John Cleese, Peter Falk, Peter Ustinov, and the film's director, the one and only Jim Henson. A comic adventure based on nothing realistic that had me doubled over with laughter. 4

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What Dreams May Come
Despite overly melodramatic direction, 1998's What Dreams May Come is an imaginative and visually arresting take on some unsavory and squirm-worthy subject matter that takes a dark and emotionally charged journey to a satisfactory, if logic-defying finale.
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Robin Williams plays Chris Nielsen, a doctor, husband, and father of two whose children are killed in an accident. Four years later, Chris also dies in an accident. Chris finds himself transported into a concept of heaven that's like a visual painting that he embraces until he receives word that his wife (Annabella Sciorra) has committed suicide, but she is not coming to heaven, she has gone to hell and Chris makes the fatalistic decision to journey to hell to get his wife back.
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Based on a novel by Richard Matheson, Ronald Bass' screenplay is unapologetic in its in your face confrontation on subjects like death, dying, heaven, hell, eternal life, and most disturbing, the concept of suicide sending someone to hell instead of heaven. An explanation for this radical concept is provided, but it was weak and did not justify this woman going to hell after what she had been through. The story promises Chris that he will be reunited with his children and a journey to hell might lead him back to his wife, but she won't know who he is. Why have him reunite with his kids and deprive him of his wife? Though the scene where Chris finds his wife and tries to get through to her is one of the movie's most powerful moments.
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Director Vincent Ward overpowers some of the ugliness of the story through some extraordinary visuals that actually give the after life appeal. Chris' initial arrival in Heaven is eye popping with colors that look like an artists' palette and the paint takes on three dimensions as the ground Chris walks on appears to be paint. And as breathtaking as Ward's vision of heaven is, his vision of hell reaches the opposite side of the spectrum, bringing a proper darkness and ugliness to hell, without devils and pitchforks and fire...there's an absolutely repellent moment where Chris must navigate through a sea of human heads that defies description. After this hellacious journey, the convenient ending is a bit of a cheat.
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Robin Williams hits all the right notes as the tortured Chris and Cuba Gooding Jr. and Max Von Sydow are also effective as Chris' guides through heaven and hell. And though I have always found her overrated as an actress, I have never enjoyed Sciorra more as the luminous and lost Annie. The film also scores in the areas of production design, cinematography, film editing, and sound. It takes a minute to get going and the ending is a little convenient, but most of this is imaginative and a little creepy. 3.5

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Suddenly
A bone-chilling performance by Frank Sinatra is the centerpiece of an economic little thriller from 1954 called Suddenly, which found Sinatra cast dramatically against type and it actually works.
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The title of the film is actually the name of the town where the film takes place, a sleepy mid- western hamlet that has been put on alert that a train carrying the POTUS is going to be making a stop in town and that rumors of an assassination attempt are in the air. Before the Secret Service can secure the location, three criminals, led by one John Baron (Sinatra) arrive at the Benson home because it provides a perfect view of the train station. Baron and his two partners end up holding former Secret Service Agent "Pop" Benson (James Gleason), his daughter-in-law, Ellen (Nancy Gates), her son Pidge (Kim Charney) and Sheriff Todd (Sterling Hayden) hostage until the train makes its scheduled stop in Suddenly at 5:00 pm. so that they can assassinate the President.
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It's this fascinating John Baron character and the performance by the actor playing him that makes this movie sizzle. Richard Sale's screenplay sets up a rather complex backstory for the character that is slowly peeled away in layers as the clock rounds its way to 5:00 pm. The character becomes instantly antagonistic when his primary method of controlling his hostages is by threatening the little boy. Baron becomes a real enigma though when it's revealed that he's being paid handsomely to do this but has no idea by whom, which makes what he's doing even more deplorable. It's also revealed that Baron is no stranger to Suddenly and even mental health issues are hinted at, though this character appears to have himself together. He even seems to find some delight in his mission.
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Frank Sinatra took a real career risk with this role and he completely invests in this despicable character. This was probably Sinatra's first and only shot at playing a straight out villain and this was apparently not the way his fans wanted to see him because moviegoers stayed away from this film in droves and Sinatra never played a character this evil again, but you know what? He nailed it, delivering a performance of chilling intensity that rivals his work in The Man With the Golden Arm.
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The performances of the rest of the cast are nothing to write home about, even Sterling Hayden is more wooden than usual. I did find the minimal music score effective, but the selling point on this one is Sinatra, who takes a risk that pays off in spades. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
The Marvel Comic movie gods have knocked it out of the park with an eye-popping animated adventure called Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse that turns the Spider-Man legend on its ear without disrespecting it.
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The story opens with us meeting a teenager named Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) who is the son of an over-protective cop (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry), but adores his cool Uncle (voiced by Oscar winner Mahershala Ali) and gets bit by the same radioactive spider that Peter Parker did and finds himself confronting an aging and out of shape Peter (brilliantly voiced by Jake Johnson) and just as he has decided it is up to him to take over the red and blue tights, he also meets 4 other Spider-Mans from alternate universes, including one that looks like a pig from Animaniacs, enlisting their aid in his training and battling criminals like Kingpin and Doc Ock.
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This 2018 Best Animated Feature nominee is a slam-bang adventure that sizzles and moves at breathneck speed, thanks to a seriously tongue in cheek screenplay that produces a new and viable story for this legendary character, doing some borrowing from other Spider-Man movies, but putting just enough spin on characters that we thought we knew so that we're getting a completely original work here. I love when we first meet Peter B. Parker, he is encountering Green Goblin and he refers to him as "Norman" or when one of the alternate universe Spider-Mans turns out to be Gwen Stacy. I also thought it was brilliant making Doc Ock a woman (voiced by Kathryn Hahn).
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Despite all the rehauling of the legend, the story still retains the through line that Peter Parker passes onto Miles: the reluctant hero who didn't ask for this, but steps up when he is forced to. I also loved the experimenting with his powers, comparable to Tobey Maguire in the first Sam Raimi film. I cracked up when they showed him bounding up the apartment building stairs to check out the roof and coming right back down the stairs seconds later.
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The movie is a visual and audio feast and the voice cast is wonderful with standout work from Johnson, Henry, Hahn, and Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir. Dazzling animated fun that will probably be ruined by 27 sequels so enjoy it now while it's still fresh. 4.5

[Gideon58]

World's Greatest Dad
Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is the creative force behind World's Greatest Dad, a prickly and often squirm-worthy black comedy from 2009 and the late Robin Williams is the force in front of it.
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Williams plays Lance Clayton, a sullen, unpublished writer who teaches a poetry class that no one is interested in taking at the same school his 15 year old son, Kyle, attends. Kyle is an obnoxious, sex-obsessed, foul-mouthed jerk who treats his father like dirt. When Kyle suddenly dies under what would be considered very embarrassing circumstances, Lance decides to protect Kyle and himself by hanging Kyle's body in the closet and writing an elaborate suicide note, which somehow hits social media, turning Kyle into a tortured martyr, profoundly affecting the lives of other students who didn't give him the time of day when he was alive. Not to mention promoting Lance to a level of celebrity that he never dreamed of.
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Goldthwait has crafted a sizzling and merciless black comedy here that has a definite Woody Allen sensibility to it...characters who are basically nice people drawn into questionable behavior by circumstance and getting away with it a lot longer than they should. Goldwaithwait's story cleverly spends the first third of the film setting up the Kyle character as the most vile and reprehensible creature on earth so that when he dies, we don't really feel the sympathy that the death of a character should arise, but his father's handling of the death ends up being what imbues sympathy for Kyle.
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We know there are only a handful of ways this can play out. Kyle's only friend, Andrew, seems to know the truth from the beginning and we keep waiting for him to bust Lance and then we see a fellow teacher looking at Kyle's autopsy online and we think this might be Lance's downfall. Goldthwait's story eventually reveals there's only one justifiable way for this play out, though we're not sure until the final reel if it's going to happen.
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Goldwaithwait's direction is striking, with some interesting camera work that create some rich cinematic imagery. Robin William's quietly brilliant performance as Lance should be studied by acting students and he gets solid support from Geoff Pierson as the Principal, Daryl Sabara as Kyle, and Evan Martin as Andrew. There's also a cameo by musician Bruce Hornesby, who contributes to the quirky song score that frames the story, as well as the story itself. This little sleeper caught me by surprise and is a must for Robin Williams fans. 3.5

[TheUsualSuspect]

I think this is a film that a lot of people skipped out on, which is a shame because it's a darkly funny flick that might be harder to watch today with Williams being gone.

[Gideon58]

The Party (2017)
Despite a somewhat pretentious screenplay, a crackerjack ensemble cast and a couple of surprise plot twists make 2017's The Party worth a peek for the discriminating filmgoer.
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It's contemporary London where we meet Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas), a politician who has recently been promoted to the position of London's Prime Minster of Health, who has decided to throw a party to celebrate her new position. The very exclusive guest list includes Janet's dotty husband, Bill (a newly slim Timothy Spall) who likes to blast his stereo and matter of factly announces that he's terminally ill; April (Patricia Clarkson), Janet's smart and cynical BFF and party cruise director; Gottfried (the recently deceased Bruno Ganz) April's current lover and a possible former Nazi; Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer) are a lesbian couple who have just learned that Jinny is going to give birth to triplets; Tom (Cillian Murphy) is a cokehead who is lying about his occupation (though he is observed to be wearing a gun in a shoulder holster) and is in a state about the state of his marriage to Mary Ann.
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Director and screenwriter Sally Potter creates a claustrophobic but effective atmosphere for a very personal drama where secrets about this very unique circle of acquaintances come to light a little too slowly, despite the film's very economic running time. Potter seems a little more interested in snowing the viewer with overly clever and flowery dialogue than with a truly cohesive story and less fuzzy relationships. One thing I did like about the story is that we never actually meet two very important characters in this Edward Albee-esque tale. It's revealed early on that Janet is having an affair but we are only exposed to him through texts between him and Janet. We also never meet the previously mentioned Mary Ann, who actually brings the whole story full circle in the spectacular finale.
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The film is shot exquisitely in black and white with outstanding cinematography from Aleksei Rodionov, which actually heightens the intensity of the proceedings. The performances are uniformly splendid with standout work from the fabulous Patricia Clarkson who, as always, commands the screen whenever she has it. Sally Potter proves to be a filmmaker to watch here who has a real flair for dialogue but needs to work a little more on making "the big picture" a more attractive package. And again, I have to say, that ending is a winner that bumped my rating up half a bag of popcorn. 3.5

[Gideon58]

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
What would you do if you learned you had 90 minutes to live? That is the outrageous premise of an over the top comic romp called The Angriest Man in Brooklyn that definitely has its problems, but remains watchable thanks to an impressive cast at the top of their game and a very satisfying finale.
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The 2014 stars Robin Williams (he only made three more film appearances after this one) as Henry Altman, a contemporary re-thinking of Ebeneezer Scrooge, a guy who hates everybody and everything since the death of one of his sons a couple of years ago. He goes to the hospital for a follow-up after having a cat scan and learns his doctor is not there and a Dr. Sharon Gill (Mila Kunis) is filling in for him. Henry is livid that his doctor is not there and is so insufferably rude to Dr. Gill that she blurts out that he only has 90 minutes to live. After getting advice from strangers about what to do with 90 minutes left, he decides to have sex with his wife (Oscar winner Melissa Leo), reconcile with his estranged son (Hamish Linklater) and have a party with some childhood friends where only one (Richard Kind) shows up.
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This film is actually based on another film called "The 92 Minutes of Dr. Baum" and is actually an intriguing premise for a movie. Everyone has probably thought about what they would do if they knew exactly how much longer they have to live, but screenwriters Daniel Taplitz and Assi Dayan err in making this angry man a little too angry...Henry Altman is kind of a jerk, evidenced in his treatment of a foreign cabbie and his initial meeting with Saron Gill and this movie might have worked a lot better with a character who was really likable. Yes, the man lost a son, which was the impetus of his anger, but it really doesn't help justify Henry's often disgusting behavior during the course of this story. I will admit that the final 15 minutes of this film after Henry learns the truth are very special, and it's a shame that the hour or so before said finale aren't as effective as the final fifteen minutes.
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Director Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams) manages to utilize Manhattan and Brooklyn as effective backdrops for the story, though I wish he had spent a little more time working with his stars. Incredibly, Robin Williams is kind of one-note and Mila Kunis was whiny and annoying as Dr. Sharon. On the flip side, Peter DInklage was superb, as always, as Henry's brother, as was Leo as Henry's wife. I even liked Linklater as Henry's son. The supporting cast serves the story, though James Earl Jones' cameo as a stuttering video camera salesman was just embarrassing. Definitely a case of parts being better than the whole, but the final 15 minutes are beautiful. 3

[Gideon58]

Strike Up the Band
The 1940 film Strike Up the Band was one of the lesser "backstage musicals" that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland did together that suffers from just a little too much of everything...except Judy Garland.
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Mickey plays Jimmy Connors, an energetic drummer for his high school band who wants the band to enter a national contest being promoted by bandleader Paul Whiteman and takes place in Chicago. It would cost $200 for Jimmy to get his band to Chicago so he decides, with the aid of his friend/vocalist, Mary Holden (Garland) to put on a stage melodrama in order to raise the money for the trip.
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Woven into this wisp of a story is the through line that is part of all the musicals that Mickey and Judy made together. Judy's character is madly in love with Mickey's character. but he doesn't think of her as a girlfriend, he just sees her as a great friend and a great singer when needed, but whenever the chips are down for Mickey, Judy is the only one he can really count on.
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There's no denying the chemistry between Mickey and Judy, already a proven commodity since this was their fourth film together, but director Busby Berkeley just went way overboard trying to bring us something bigger and better, the primary piece of evidence being this "melodrama" that the kids do in the middle of the movie to raise money. It's kind of cute and kind of funny, but it goes on forever and makes this film about thirty minutes longer than it needed to be. If Berkeley was under orders to make a movie that ran just a shade under two hours, he could have found way more interesting ways to utilize the time, like maybe a couple more Garland solos, whose role in this film is the most thankless of the roles in her movies with Rooney.
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MGM musical icon Roger Edens provides a couple of great songs for this movie, including "Do the Le Conga" , "Drummer Boy", and "Our Love Affair", which received an Oscar nomination for Best Song. The George and Ira Gershwin title tune and the Conga number were opportunities for Busby Berkeley to do what he did best...crowd as many singers, dancers, and musicians on a soundstage and mount elaborately staged dance numbers that are often eye-popping.
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As always, Rooney is exhausting and Judy seems to compliment him perfectly. I also loved little Larry Nunn as an adorable kid named Willie whose marriage proposal to Judy's character is interrupted by a call from him mother telling him to come home and go to bed. Garland and Rooney are always worth watching, but this one definitely tests viewer patience. 2.5

[Gideon58]

Knight and Day
There is some chemistry between the stars, but it's not enough to sustain interest in a silly and confusing spy spoof called Knight and Day, an overblown action comedy that's just too messy to invest in and seems to go on forever.
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The 2010 film stars Cameron Diaz as June Havens, a garage owner who restores vintage cars. Tom Cruise plays Roy Miller, a disgraced ex-spy who was set-up by colleagues and is now trying to clear his name. June is on her way to her sister's wedding and finds herself on a surprisingly empty plane where the few people who are on board, including the flight staff.[ are there to kill Roy. Of course, June witnesses a little too much and finds herself on the run with Roy and learns that this whole mess is about a high powered battery invented by a teenaged nerd.
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Patrick O'Neill's overly elaborate screenplay is the primary culprit here as the viewer needs a scorecard to keep up with everything that's going on here. In addition to his former employers who set him up, there also appears to be at least two other sets of bad guys chasing the stars. After an opening scene of June running around being girly and scared with a gun in her hand, a running bit is initiated where every time Roy needs June's cooperation, he drugs her and they're in a different country, but expensive location filming does not a great movie make. I will admit there is one sequence that involves the stars on a motorcycle in the middle of the running of the bulls at Pamplona definitely held my attention.
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James Mangold, who directed the terrific Cop Land, as well as Logan and The Wolverine displays a penchant for staging effective action scenes but without a plausible story around them, the scenes don't mean anything and make for a very leaden 1 hour and 49 minutes.
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Tom Cruise, looking a little chunky here, after this and the Mission: Impossible franchise, might be a little too old for this kind of silliness, but he does create chemistry with Diaz, who looks fabulous in a red bikini. There is some standout work in the supporting cast from the always watchable Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, and Paul Dano doing another one of his patented weirdo turns, but this one is just a little too bloated to be completely believable. 2

[Gideon58]

Alice Adams
An enchanting performance from Katherine Hepburn in the title role still makes a 1935 slice of Americana called Alice Adams worth checking out.
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Alice is an intelligent and vivacious small town girl who adores her family, but is a little embarrassed by them and their home because they're not rich. Alice wants to go to a dance but her life is so devoid of male attention that she has to have her brother take her to the dance and have the first dance with her so that all the available men can have a gander at her on the dance floor where she tries to pretend her brother is really a boyfriend. She does attract the attention of the handsome and wealthy Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray). They share a dance and Arthur wants to continue seeing Alice but she makes sure all of their dates take place outside the Adams home.
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Alice's mother (Ann Shoemaker) eventually pressures Alice into inviting Arthur home for dinner which Alice tries to get out of, but has to give in so that she doesn't hurt her mother's feelings. Alice agrees to the dinner, discreetly trying to make her family appear wealthy, even hiring a gum-smacking maid to serve the dinner. As the fateful dinner commences, Alice goes into complete self-sabotage mode, trying to beat Arthur to the punch of dumping her.
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The screenplay, based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, is a combination of effective character study, providing a detailed look at this charming and damaged Alice, a girl who thinks that having money would be the solution to all her problems and that the only reason she hasn't attracted a man before is because her family doesn't have money. The irony of the story, which the viewer is privy to immediately, is that the Arthur character really doesn't care whether or not Alice has money, he likes her just the way she is. There is a superfluous subplot involving a glue formula that Alice's dad has been sitting on for years that could make him rich, but it just takes time away from the part of the story that works...this silly girl Alice and wondering when she's going to realize that her worth is more than her bank account.
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This was Hepburn's first teaming with director George Stevens, who shows real trust in and understanding of the actress, who makes this film so enjoyable that it received a Best Picture nomination and Hepburn received her second Oscar nomination for Best Actress. MacMurray is a charming leading man, Fred Stone is adorable as Alice's father, and Hattie McDaniel, four years before her Oscar-winning performance in Gone with the Wind steals every minute she has onscreen as the maid for a day. Frank Albertson also has some funny moments as Alice's brother. Loved the music that accompanied the story too. Hepburn owns this film and is a great aid in overlooking its dated views on wealth and its effect on social acceptance. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Gifted (2017)
The 2017 comedy-drama purports to be something fresh, but it's really just a rehash of better films of the past, furthered hampered by some muddy writing and some questionable casting.
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Frank Adler is a boat repairman who lives in Florida and has been raising his seven year old niece, Mary, a child prodigy, since her mother committed suicide six years ago. Chris and Mary have been living an idyllic existence with an assist from Frank's landlady, who adores Mary. While Mary's teacher is trying to get Frank to send Mary to a school that will really challenge her, the child's grandmother arrives at Frank's trailer park and announces that she is suing for custody of Mary.
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There's a couple of good ideas going on here, even if they aren't terribly original, but screenwriter Tom Flynn seems to be a little confused about the best story to tell here. The film begins as a story about exploring Mary's amazing IQ and forcing Frank to allow Mary to grow to her full potential. Instead, what we get is a standard custody battle which anyone who has seen the movie Kramer VS Kramer will feel right at home. We even get Mary catching her teacher at the trailer after having sex with Frank.
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There is some odd character development and casting issues that definitely dull the proceedings. I really didn't understand the point of making Frank's mother British when Frank and Mary were obviously American. Once I decided to let that go, I couldn't get past the fact that if they wanted to cast a British actress as the grandmother, they should have cast an A list actress in the role. Lyndsey Duncan attempts to be menacing as the evil grandma, but I kept picturing actresses like Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, or Vanessa Redgrave who would have elevated the drama to a level of sizzle that would have demanded viewer attention.
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Chris Evans is terrific as Frank, keeping his likability factor despite script holes that work against him, Mckenna Grace lit up the screen as Mary, and Octavia's sassy black landlady was just a variation of the role she always plays. This movie tried to be something different, but writing and casting issues eventually weigh it down. 2.5

[lenslady]

Just a note to tell you Gideon58, that after reading your insightful review of (my cherished) A Thousand Clowns, I decided to thoroughly check out your review thread. And OMG you have written 144 pages of reviews!

Well I may not read them all - at least at this time - lol- but I will scroll through a few pages at a time and pick out some favorites. I just read your review of Soylent Green, and agree totally that this vision of our future is not as unlikely or fantastic now, than when its suppositions of a world to come were first set forth. Alas.

Excellent review. Looking forward to reading more of your reviews, present, past & future.

[lenslady]

Isn't that a funny coincidence, but I too recently watched Hans Christian Anderson. And like you, I believe I only saw it in bits and snatches as a child. And that song Inchworm!!!!! - which I vaguely remembered from my childhood - what a stunner. In its short form, this poignant little song touches your heart deeply.

Well, you know where I will be next rainy day: reading your reviews and watching ( or re-watching ) these highly rated films.

[Gideon58]

Thank you for checking out my review thread...hope you find some hidden treasures. If you watch anything that I reviewed, please let me know what you thought.

[Gideon58]

August Rush
Sensitive, imaginative direction and a solid cast helps the 2007 musical melodrama August Rush stay viable despite a meandering story that takes some implausible and ugly detours en route to a seemingly impossible conclusion that should put stupid smile on your face or wiping a tear from your eye...or both.
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Lyla (Keri Russell) is a pregnant concert cellist who has a one night stand with a hyper rock guitarist named Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and are then separated by Lyla's controlling father (William Sadler) who spirits his daughter out of town and upon her giving birth, puts the baby up for adoption without her knowledge.
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Eleven years later, we meet Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore), a musical child prodigy who has one mission in life and one only: to find his birth parents and he is certain that his musical gifts are the way to do it. His entire existence has become about music. he is drawn to all kinds of music, but no matter the joy and excitement his gifts bring to others, his mission of finding his birth parents remains his #1 priority, but his mission is waylaid by a slick con man named Wizard Wallace (Robin Williams) who decides that Evan is a cash cow, changes his name to August Rush and plans to use the child as a way off the New York streets. August won't give up though because he believes his parents will "hear" him through his music.
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James V. Hart and Nick Castle have crafted an emotionally manipulative story about a family that has been unjustly separated trying to find each other again, kept apart by one circumstance after another. The concept of August connecting with his parents through his music is a little hard to swallow but we really really want to because we love Evan/August from the moment we meet him and the circumstances through which he became separated from his mother also demand this family reunion. Loved the way once Lyla found out her baby was alive, she dropped everything and finding Evan became her only reason to live. The connection between Louis and August was often more affecting because they were unaware of their connection. I loved the scene at the beginning of the final act where Louis and August connect in Washington Square Park and are both very confused by it.
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There isn't a lot of realism about the story presented...the idea of three musicians being reconnected through their music is pretty out there but director Kirsten Sheridan does lure us into this story with her imaginative directorial eye that allows our imaginations to consider the possibility that what we're being asked to accept could actually happen.
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Freddie Highmore gives another enchanting performance that rivals his work in Finding Netherland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and gets solid support from an intense Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Robin Williams who effortlessly brings the smarmy as the Wizard. Terrance Howard is effective as a sympathetic social worker, as are Leon Thomas III as a young street musician, Alex O'Loughlin as Louis' brother, and Broadway legend Marian Seldes as the Dean of Julliard. The pacing of the story is a little too leisurely, but the patience is absolutely rewarded. 3.5

[Gideon58]

A Simple Favor
Stylish direction and some eye-opening performances help to make 2018's A Simple Favor, a sizzling black comedy/mystery that, despite a long-winded screenplay takes a minute to get going and sags a little in the center, but comes back for a dazzling finale that will have the viewer glued to the screen.
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Anna Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a widowed, soccer mom who has her own blog for moms and volunteers for everything at her son's school, annoying most of the other mothers to distraction. Stephanie's life changes forever when she meets Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), a busy working mother who has a high profile job with a fashion company, is married to a hunky writer (Henry Golding) and has a son the same age as Stephanie's son who she apparently doesn't really have time for. One day, Emily calls Stephanie stating that she has a work emergency and that she needs Stephanie to pick up her son for her. Stephanie happily obliges but becomes worried when three days pass and she hasn't heard a word from Emily.
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To elaborate further on the plot of this sizzler would be wrong on so many levels, but let me start out by saying that the story that seems to be coming to fruition during the opening scenes is not the story we get at all; another one of those terrific stories that demands complete attention from the viewer which is spectacularly rewarded. Initially, this looks like the story of two very different soccer moms and how one is going to get the other to come out of her shell. Stephanie is all about baking and blogs and her son. Emily is about fashion and bling and the multiple martinis she has every day when she comes home from work. We get small clues that the story is going different places when Emily freaks out when Stephanie innocently takes her picture or when Emily is very insistent about getting Stephanie to admit a major secret in her past. There's also a sense that the husband is not all he appears to be either.
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Director Paul Feig, who was behind the Melissa McCarthy comedy Spy, reveals a true gift for crafting a story that doesn't play all its cards at once but keeps the viewer guessing throughout. Every time we think we're sure about what's going on here, we find out we're wrong and that trying to figure out what's going on is pointless, we just have to stay tuned. And in the process of staying tuned, we are treated to some arresting visuals whih an uncanny use of slow motion, and a sexy song score where none of the songs are sung in English. Yes, there is inspiration from other films here, but Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer give their story just enough tweaking that it earns its own credentials as a work that I already see has great re-watch appeal. I loved the epilogue at the end of the movie implying that the story was true, but research revealed that the story is fictional, based on a novel by Darcey Bell.
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Feig pulls first rate performances from his cast too. Kendrick is crisp and appealing as the tightly wound Stephanie and Henry Golding is sex on legs the same way he was in Crazy Rich Asians. But the real story here is the jaw-dropping performance by Blake Lively as the most lethal ladykiller I've seen since Rosemond Pike in Gone Girl. I had no idea that Lively could command a movie screen the way she does here, this performance even has a dash of Marilyn Monroe in it that was nothing short of riveting and the section of the film where she doesn't appear was a lot less interesting. Feig and company knock it out of the park here. 4

[Citizen Rules]

A Simple Favor...I had no idea that Lively could command a movie screen the way she does here, this performance even has a dash of Marilyn Monroe in it that was nothing short of riveting and the section of the film where she doesn't appear was a lot less interesting...rating_4 Your review makes me want to watch the movie! I knew Blake Lively had that special something, but, she often lands in movies where she can't really show off her talents. It's good to hear she has a good script to work with here. My favorite Blake Lively film is Elvis and Anabelle (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787462/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_21) have you seen that?

[Gideon58]

No, but I was thinking about you when i was watching this I remembered you had a thing for Blake Lively and I was wondering if you had seen this.

[Gideon58]

Moonlight Mile
Some really great acting makes a lumbering 2002 drama called Moonlight Mile worth a look.
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Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) has continued to reside in the home of his future in-laws, Ben and JoJo Floss (Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon) long after the death of his fiancee, their daughter. Joe had made plans to go into business with his future father-in-law before but is now having mixed emotions about doing it, even though Ben is still full steam ahead. Joe is also having trouble dealing with the upcoming trial of the guy who killed his fiancee and doesn't know what to do when he begins a relationship with an attractive postal employee (Ellen Pompeo) as well as details about the relationship with his fiancee that he has been sitting on since before her death.
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Brad Silberling, the director of the Nicolas Cage/Meg Ryan tearjerker City of Angels, has crafted a tale which tries to tackle some prickly subjects, but the story seems to lack any real kind of forward motion. Joe and the Flosses seem to be stuck in this sort of grief cocoon that excuses that Silberling feels justifies them cutting themselves off from their friends and neighbors, but the setting of this story is one of those small towns where everybody knows everybody so cutting themselves off is not an option. It's unsettling watching Joe have to constantly explain to people why he's still living with the Flosses now that his fiancee is gone and I'm pretty sure the viewer is supposed to wonder as well. Yes, Joe and Ben are supposed to go into business together, but they don't have to live together. It seems like Joe being in the house would be a constant reminder of the loss they are all feeling and will probably never be able to reconcile themselves with.
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Silberling works very hard at creating a compelling story here, but his direction is sluggish and makes the movie seem like it's going on for days. What does work here is the superb performances by the three stars that bring something very special to what is really rather ordinary material. Watch the scene where Gyllenhaal explains to Dabney Coleman's wife why he's still "involved" with his fiancee's death or the scene where Hoffman goes into the restaurant where she was killed and is trying to figure out which stool she was sitting on and getting the owners to fix the broken glass. And even though we saw Gyllenhaal's breakdown on the witness stand coming, he managed to galvanize the proceedings, showing a real glint at the powerhouse actor he would become.
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Oscar winner Holly Hunter is wasted as the DA, as is most of the supporting cast, but Hoffman, Sarandon, and Gyllenhaal still raise the bar on this one. 3

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The Best of Times (1986)
Not nearly as bad as its reputation, the 1986 sports comedy The Best of Times provides some silly and raucous fun thanks to the surprising chemistry between the stars, a solid veteran supporting cast, and a deft screenplay from a proven source.
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Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell) and Jack Dundee (Robin Williams) were on the Taft High School football team together but lost the final championship game in 1972 when jack fumbled Reno's incredible pass which resulted in a permanent injury for Reno and Permanent humiliation for Jack.
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Decades later, Jack is still obsessing over his fumble while unhappily married to Elly (Holly Palance) and working for her father (Donald Moffat) who coaches the team Jack lost to back in '72. Reno now works as a mechanic and his wife (Pamela Reed) has moved into a hotel. Jack can't think of anything else and convinces Reno to play that fateful game all over again with the same players.
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The stars get a great assist from Ron Shelton's screenplay, the guy who would later helm sports movies like Bull Durham and White Men Can't Jump, which is tailored to the talents of the stars, Williams in particular, who bring the humor of Shelton's story vividly to life.
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There would have been no point in bringing this story to the screen without the assumed outcome, so Shelton and director Roger Spottiswoode concentrate the story on the hilarious journey getting to the game. The opening narration by Williams about the ball he dropped in '72 goes on a little too long, but once we get past that and the guys' marital troubles, there is fun to be found here. The training sequences featuring the seriously out of shape Taft team trying to get their six packs back were kind of funny.
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Kurt Russell and Robin Williams work very well together, and no, Russell does not get blown off the screen. Russell is beyond adorable in one scene where he actually sings, trying to seduce his wife through a hotel room door. The film also boasts an impressive supporting cast including Carl Ballantine, Tony Plana, M. Emmett Walsh, Margaret Whitton, Kathleen Freeman and the legendary Dub Taylor. And yes, that is a young Kirk Cameron playing Williams' son. It's no Bull Durham, but there is fun to be had here. 3.5

[Gideon58]

The Bonfire of the Vanities
Maligned for years by cinema historians as one of the worst movies ever made, I did find the 1990 film version of Tom Wolfe's best selling novel to be an overwrought and logic defying soap opera pretending to tackle serious subjects but becomes silly due to hyperactive direction, a confusing, swiss cheese screenplay and some overripe performances...oh, and it goes on forever.
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Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) is a married Wall Street hotshot who is having an affair with a ditzy trophy wife named Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) who find themselves in the middle of an embarrassing incident on a dark Brooklyn street one evening with Maria behind the wheel of Sherman's Mercedes, which climaxes with a young black teenager getting hit with the car and slipping into a coma. Eventually, the DA and the police are able to determine that Sherman's car was involved in the incident while he tries to keep Maria's name out of it while she nonchalantly leaves the country.
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Enter Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis), a writer whose career is on the verge of a complete collapse who is offered a renaissance when this story falls in his lap and he decides to write a series of articles about the case that find Peter rising in his own celebrity circle while Sherman's cozy Park Avenue existence begins to completely unravel.
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Let me start of by saying that I have never read the book upon which the film was based and I have a feeling that was a mistake. I'm not sure why, but instincts tell me that the novel Tom Wolfe wrote is nothing like what ended up on the screen here. There is the genesis of a really important movie here, but Michael Cristofer's screenplay and Brian DePalma's direction almost seem to be in the matter of a farce, almost as if they're making light of Wolfe's novel. Nothing that happens in this movie is done with a straight face, everything that happens in this movie comes off as over the top and unintentionally funny, despite the fact that what happens to this Sherman McCoy character is not funny at all.
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Watching the decay of the McCoy character starts of as kind of sad, but starts being unintentionally funny. There is a scene where Sherman realizes the police are closing in on him and after being questioned, goes to the opera with his wife the next night and he is literally sweating bullets and can't sit still like a restless child. The way Hanks plays this scene reminded me of Rodney Dangerfield constantly pulling on his shirt collar and once Sherman gets arrested he literally turns into Forrest Gump, a character Hanks hadn't even played yet. Sherman's brain is literally removed for the rest of the movie.
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I also found Peter Fallow's narration of the story rather condescending and seeming to make fun of the trouble that Sherman was in. I find it hard to believe that this was the intent of Tom Wolfe's novel. This movie seems to make fun of Sherman instead of sympathizing with him. And don't even get me started on the ridiculous courtroom scenes where nothing resembles anything in the neighborhood of realism.
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Even the performances were a bit much...Hanks' performance as Sherman McCoy was pretty much like Forrest Gump on tranquilizers and Melanie Griffith created one of cinema's most annoying and idiotic leading ladies. There are some impressive actors in the supporting cast trying to keep their head above this hot mess, including Saul Rubinek as the whiny Assistant DA, Kim Cattral as Sherman's icy wife, Morgan Freeman as the judge, John Hancock as an Al Sharpton-based minister, and F. Murray Abraham as the DA, but this movie just feels like Brian De Palma is poking fun at Tom Wolfe's book. 1.5

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Frances Ha
My respect for the work of Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) and my respect for Greta Gerwig's film Lady Bird motivated my finally sitting down to watch an odd little character study called Frances Ha, a film that has seems to have developed a sort of cult following, but I'm at a loss as to exactly why.
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Baumbach and Gerwig were the co-screenwriters of this peek into the life of Frances, if you want to call it a life. Frances lives in an apartment with her best friend, Sophie, until Sophie impulsively moves to Japan with her fiancee. She then moves in with a couple of guys (Adam Driver, Michael Zegen) who she wants to have a relationship with but doesn't. She is an apprentice for a dance company because she thinks she's a dancer, but not really. She goes to a dinner party and meets guests there who live in Paris and she decides to fly to Paris for two days, costing her the little bit of savings she has and ends up working as a waitress, which she also hates.
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Baumbach and Gerwig have always worked off the cinematic beaten path but the path completely disappears...there is the idea of a good movie here I think. I understand that this is more of a character story than a plot-driven story, but the constantly dizzying contradictions that comprise Frances' life grow tiresome pretty quickly.
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People who are really good at what they do or really successful at what they do usually have a passion for it and Frances doesn't really have a passion for anything. When people ask Frances what she does for a living (which seems to be her least favorite question to answer), she says she's a dancer, but every time the director of the dance company where she works (Charlotte D'Ambroise) offers her studio time and space for her own work. she makes an excuse as to why she's not interested. When actually offered a job at the company near the end of the film, she actually gets angry.
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Baumbach and Gerwig work very hard, perhaps a little too hard at making Frances quirky and cute. It's funny when she goes to her mailbox and is overjoyed to learn that she's received a tax rebate and asks Driver's character to have dinner with her and when the check comes, she discovers she has no cash on her. We then have to watch her jog 46 blocks to an ATM...that's entertainment? Driver provides the few really entertaining moments the film has and it is beautifully photographed in black and white, but the whole thing just seems pointless. 2

[Gideon58]

Shrink
It initially comes off as another exploration of the theory that most of the movers and shakers of Hollywood are really screwed up people, but 2009's Shrink is an indie sleeper that does broach other subjects, even though the digging is a little shallow. The film does remain watchable though thanks to a really interesting cast.
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Two time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey plays Dr. Henry Carter, a Hollywood shrink to the stars who is dealing with the suicide of his wife by smoking way too much marijuana. While watching Dr. Henry deal with his own demons, we are introduced to some of his patients as well: Jack Holden (Robin Williams) is an alcoholic actor who thinks he's a sex maniac; Kate Amberson (Saffron Burrows) is a sensitive actress who's worried about getting old; Patrick (Dallas Roberts) is a high powered Hollywood agent and germa-phobe whose pregnant assistant (Pell James) really wants to be a producer; A troubled high school student named Jemma (KeKe Palmer) who's been acting out in school since her mother committed suicide; Jeremy (Mark Webber) is a seemingly geeky screenwriter with an agenda; and Shamus (Jack Huston) is a drugged out action star. We also meet Jesus (Jessie Plemmons), Henry's laid back drug dealer.
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Screenwriter Thomas Moffet has constricted a sophisticated Hollywood soap opera that attempts to address some serious subjects like the validity of suicide but barely scratches the surface. What Moffet does right is creating some really interesting characters that the viewer will have no trouble investing in and provides some viable connections between some the characters that we don't see coming. There are a couple of dangling plot participles, specifically the relationship between Jemma and Jeremy which really doesn't make sense and is never really explained, not to mention an apparent connection to Patrick that doesn't make sense either, but I let them go the same way Moffet did.
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It's the acting that kept me interested in this one. It goes without saying that Spacey is incapable of giving a bad performance and Williams made the most of his limited screentime as well. Palmer, Webber, Plemmons, James, and especially Roberts also have their moments in the cinematic sun. Jonas Pate's directorial eye is sharp and seems to have a real talent with actors and provides solid entertainment despite some holes in the story and an occasional dip into melodrama. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Storm Center
It's still a timely topic and probably always will be, but Warner Brothers showed major cajones taking on the subject at the height of the McCarthy blacklisting era and putting their biggest star center stage in a quietly powerful indictment on the often tragic ramifications of censorship from 1956 called Storm Center.
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Bette Davis is splendid as Alicia Hull, a small town librarian who excitedly prepares to meet with members of the city council regarding the children's wing she wants to add onto the library. The board votes in front of Alicia to approve the new children's wing on one condition: They want a book about communism removed from the library. Alicia refuses and then one of the council members, Paul Duncan (Brian Keith) reveals that they have been digging into her past and have discovered her association with more than one organization with communist leanings. They agree to overlook the research if Alicia removes the book. Alicia says that they can remove the book if they want to but if the book goes, so does she. The book goes and Alicia loses her job.
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The story is further complicated by Alicia's longtime friend and city council member Robert Ellerbee (Paul Kelly) who was very close to Alicia's deceased husband who doesn't like what's happening to Alicia, but appears to be powerless to do anything about it. Then there's Martha (Oscar winner Kim Hunter), Alicia's assistant at the library who is also engaged to Paul and Freddie (Kevin Coughlin), the confused kid who adores Mrs. Hull and doesn't understand why she just doesn't hide the book someplace.
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This is a bold and important story being told here and Warner Brothers is to be applauded for bringing this story to the screen in 1956. Director and screenwriter Daniel Taradash delivers an important message that could not be ignored through the eyes of his strong-willed Alicia Hull, whose strength comes through actions and not histrionics. There's a great moment where one of the board members assures her that this is only about this book and Alicia counters that if she backs down this time, that there is bound to be another time. The character of Alicia is also to be applauded because it's not hurtful gossip and wrongful accusations that bother her, but it is disappointing the children that mean more to her than she even realizes.
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This story is told simply and economiclly, shot in black and white with minimal attention to production values, which I'm sure were limited because of the film's subject matter. There were probably some Warners bigwigs who didn't want to throw too much money at Taradash, but as is often the case with films like this, lack of production values enhance the power of the story. The film even addresses book burning in a powerful scene where we see several great works of literature go up in flames...it's a very effective storytelling tool.
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Davis receives solid support from Keith, Hunter, and Kelly, and there's also a brief appearance by the future Mrs. Bing Crosby, Kathryn Grant, but the story's the thing here and Daniel Taradash never forgets the importance of what he's doing here and he doesn't shy away from it. 3.5

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I Feel Pretty
Amy Schumer continues to try and carve out a film career for herself with a 2018 oddity called I Feel Pretty, which suffers from an obvious message delivered with a sledgehammer, but it is a better film that Trainwreck or Snatched.
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Schumer plays Renee Bennett, a pleasingly plump and seriously insecure young woman who works in the bowels of the Chinatown branch of a large cosmetics empire. One day while at the gym working out, Renee falls and hits her head. When she regains consciousness, Renee thinks she is the most beautiful, most sexy, and most self-confident woman on the planet that not only gets her a promotion and in good with her boss (Michelle Williams), but find her getting attention from two very different kind of men.
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Schumer and her co-directors and co-screenwriters, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein have definitely taken a different tack in attacking a universal theme but the logistics of this idea sometimes don't fit within the framework of this story. Renee's newfound self-confidence is a wonderful thing, but its casting a magical spell over her boss who all of a sudden can't make a move without her doesn't really make sense nor does the fact that she doesn't get booed off the stage at a bikini contest. The fact that Renee returns to her old self after a second bump on the head and realizes that the "spell" is over doesn't make sense either. She never knew she was under a spell after the first fall.
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Schumer's fearlessness as a performer is to be admired though...for a woman who looks the way Schumer does and to do some of the things she does in this movie can't help but earn the woman some respect...that bikini contest scene was something that if I was her, I couldn't have done in a million years, but I guess the way the screenplay protected the Renee character during this scene made it a lot easier for her to do. As someone who has battled with weight for most of my life, I understand a lot of the messages that Schumer is trying to deliver here, but delivering those messages with a sledgehammer in one hand and having her character being pursued by two different men in the other, was kind of hard to justify.
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Schumer does have a pretty strong supporting cast behind her for this one...Rory Scovel was a refreshing love interest and Busy Phillips and Aidy Bryant were great as Renee's BFFs and watching a long awaited return to the screen for Lauren Hutton was fun, but it's Michelle Williams who steals the show here, playing a character completely in opposition of her normal screen persona and she seems to be having a ball doing it. The movie definitely has its problems including a corny and predictable ending, but it's Schumer's strongest film effort so far. 2.5

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The Hand that Rocks the Cradle
Five years before creating his masterpiece LA Confidential, Curtis Hanson proved he was a director to be reckoned with when he mounted an effective little psychological thriller called The Hand that Rocks the Cradle that provides some genuine suspense despite some convenient lapses in logic in the screenplay.
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The 1992 drama centers on the widow of a doctor who commits suicide after five women accuse him of sexual harassment. Because of the scandal, his pregnant wife learns that her husband's assets have been frozen and she suffers a miscarriage shortly after. The widow decides to get revenge on the first woman who brought charges against her husband by getting hired as the woman's nanny after she has just given birth to her second child.
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Amanda Silver's screenplay is basically pretty clever because once the crazed Peyton shows up at the Bartel household, we are still left in the dark as to exactly how far she plans to take her revenge. On the other hand, I found myself bothered by the fact that the wife, Claire Bartel, doesn't recognize Peyton before she hires her. She accused her husband of sexual harassment, four other women came forward and the guy committed suicide...wouldn't Claire have laid eyes on Peyton at some point? On the other hand, Claire's best friend Marlene gets one glimpse of the wind chimes and halfway through the film puts everything together in five minutes...and pays the price for it. I also could never figure out how Peyton knew how to rig that greenhouse.
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The story is a good one, but I think it's a little too protective of Peyton. This psychopath should not have been allowed to get away with everything that she did. I was always bothered by the fact that Claire never caught Peyton breastfeeding her baby. Yes, she confesses to it near the end, but it plays like Claire doesn't believe her. This is also where Hanson's skill at creating suspense kicks in...when the mentally challenged handyman catches Peyton breastfeeding, we are holding our breath when she confronts him about it because we have no idea what she's going to do but know that she's capable of anything to protect her secret. I also love that shot of her eating the apple slices with the knife as she watched the greenhouse collapse...seriously creepy.
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Hanson is also to be applauded for the bone-chilling performance he gets from Rebecca De Mornay as the mentally shredded Peyton, pretty much the best performance of her somewhat brief career. De Mornay crafts a seriously damaged character whose unpredictability might be her most powerful cinematic weapon. Annabella Sciorra is a little one-note as the clueless Claire, but loved Julianne Moore as her fiercely protective best friend, Marlene. Though the story is a little hard to swallow, Curtis Hanson and Rebecca De Mornay demand viewer attention. 3.5

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Sunday Bloody Sunday
The 1970's were the advent of a great deal of change in the world of cinema and what was acceptable fare and one of the greatest examples of this new phase of movie making was an eye-opening drama from 1971 called Sunday Bloody Sunday, the story of a very different love triangle that features sizzling performances but suffers due to a meandering screenplay that takes its eye off the original prize.
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Alex Grenville is a divorced career woman and Daniel Hirsh is a Jewish doctor who share the same answering service but that's not all they share. Alex and Daniel are both having affairs with a free-spirited artist named Bob Elkin who feels free of guilt as he floats from one to the other. The twist here is that Alex and Daniel are both aware of the other's existence in Bob's life and would prefer to share the man rather than give him up.
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It should go without saying that a movie about a man having an affair with a man and a woman raised eyebrows in 1971 and who better to helm this daring piece of cinema than the man who won an Oscar for directing the first "X" rated film to win an Oscar? Yes, John Schlesinger, who had just won an Oscar for directing 1969's Best Picture, Midnight Cowboy (Back in 1969, X-rated simply meant that no children were allowed), sat in the director's chair for this bold and titillating story that not only looked at homosexuality and bisexuality but even hinted at incest; unfortunately, Penelope Gilliatt's screenplay is kind of all over the place and doesn't stay where it should be...on this very unconventional love triangle that raises a lot of questions that are never really answered.
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As the story progressed, I felt like I was missing out because we have definitely been brought into this story in the middle. The beginning of this story would have made a much more interesting movie. How did Bob meet Alex and Daniel? Which one did he meet first? When did Alex and Daniel find out about each other? Have Alex and Daniel always known that Bob was also seeing someone of the opposite sex? With the advent of HIV/AIDS, there was no way this story would have happened, but back in 1971 this was pretty groundbreaking stuff. The story loses the focus it should with too much screentime spent on stuff we just don't care about. When the movie focuses on these three people, this movie sparkles, but when it doesn't...
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Schlesinger's paints with bold directorial strokes that earned him his third Best Director nomination. Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson also received Lead Actor and Actress nominations for their blistering work as Daniel and Alex, respectively and Murray Head was quite smoldering as Bob, the object of their mutual affection, but I think the effect of this film would have been a lot more powerful in 1971 than it is today, but as a study of great acting and directing, a curio to be sure. 3.5

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Mamma Mia Here We Go Again
They waited an entire decade to do it and they could have waited a lot longer than that. A poster child for unnecessary sequels, Mamma Mia Here We Go Again does have a few things going for it, but it mostly crumbles under a story that never addresses what it should have and new characters we don't care about and missing ones that we do.
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This 2018 sequel to the 2008 musical turns off the viewer immediately when it is revealed that Donna (Meryl Streep) has died and that daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has had her mother's hotel remodeled and is excitedly preparing for the grand re-opening. The film juxtaposes Sophie's preparations for the opening with a look at her mother's past including her first meeting with the three men who we learned in the first film are all possible fathers of Sophie.
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And this was my primary problem with this movie. The original film was pretty thin material to mount an entire musical around but we managed to accept the rather flimsy story of Donna being reunited with three men from her past and learning which one of the men is Sophie's biological father. We never learned which guy is her real father in the first film, so naturally I assumed that this would be the primary issue addressed in a sequel, but we never learn who Sophie's father really is in this film either.
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My other main issue with this film is that I was barely able to tolerate the first film because of Meryl Streep. Without her, that film would have been a crashing bore, and because this film addresses Donna's past, another actress must inhabit the role of Donna. Lily James is a talented young singer and actress who had previously impressed me in Baby Driver, but she's no Meryl Streep and it's clear she did her homework. She obviously watched the first film more than a few times before she stepped in front of the camera here, but she never captures the spirit of the Donna that Meryl Streep brought us in 2008. I never felt like James and Streep were playing the same character, a point driven home during Streep's glorious cameo near the end of the film that reminded us of how she totally made the first film. James' Donna also comes off as very arrogant and self-absorbed, something I didn't get from Streep's Donna.
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On the positive side, the musical numbers worked for the most part, utilizing the rest of ABBA's music that didn't make it into the first film. The highlights included "When I Kissed the Teacher", "Waterloo", "Why Did it Have to Be Me?", "The Name of the Game", "Andante, Andante", and "Angel Eyes". There were so many musical numbers I really didn't see the purpose of reprising "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia" from the first film. The numbers were well-staged with some inventive choreography, especially "Waterloo."
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Christine Baranski and Julie Walters were still a lot of fun as Donna's BFF's and I must also mention Jessica Keenan Wynn (granddaughter of Keenan Wynn), who played the younger version of Baranski's character, she totally nailed Baranski. But if the truth be told, the best thing about this film, and we sure were forced to wait for it, was the appearance of Cher as Donna's mother, a casting coup that was only legitimized by Streep's absence in the story. Cher gave the finale an added lift it really needed without disturbing her botox and her duet with Andy Garcia "Fernando" stopped the show. This film got the same big budget the first one did, but it all begins with the story and for me, the story was problematic. The world would have kept on rotating on its axis if this film had never been made. 2.5

[Citizen Rules]

I liked the first Mamma Mia pretty well, so far I haven't been real keen on watching the sequel. Sounds like I'm not missing much.

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You're not

[Citizen Rules]

Storm Center


Davis receives solid support from Keith, Hunter, and Kelly, and there's also a brief appearance by the future Mrs. Bing Crosby, Kathryn Grant,

but the story's the thing here and Daniel Taradash never forgets the importance of what he's doing here and he doesn't shy away from it. rating_3_5 Glad you liked Storm Center, it's one of my favorite under seen Bette Davis movies. Like you wrote, the story is the thing here. More so than even Bette Davis, which speaks well of Ms Davis as she kept her role simple, so that she didn't overwhelm the story and so the film wouldn't be another Bette Davis vehicle. That's why Bette Davis is one of the all time great actresses.

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Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain
Whatever personal feelings you or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might have about the man, there is no denying that Kevin Hart is officially a star, a point driven home in the opening of his 2013 concert Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, which finds Kevin providing laughs for 30,000 fans live from Madison Square Garden.
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As usual, Kevin opens the concert with a filmed prologue which finds the star hosting a party for his friends at a hotel and being confronted by selected issues they have with the star. A girl approaches him and asks if it's true that he only dates light-skinned women. A guy approaches him and accuses him of not having any street cred outside of his hometown. He's also asked to confirm the fact that he and his ex hate each other. So Kevin decides to set the record straight about so-called rumors, telling his people to shut down the party and to call Madison Square Garden so he can explain. As this is happening, we are "treated" to footage of Kevin performing in front of sold out audiences in Canada, Norway, and Denmark, which unfortunately smacked of the ego that Hart claims he doesn't have and as always, this prologue went on way too long, almost 20 minutes.
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When Hart finally hits the stage at the Garden, he doesn't really address any of the things that were brought up in the prologue but he talks honestly and funnily about where is life was at this time. At the time this concert was filmed, Kevin was freshly divorced and came right out and admitted that, even though they parted amicably, the marriage ended because he cheated, more specifically, lied about cheating. This leads into a very funny monologue about his cheating and how he involved his best friend Harry in his lies, then veers off in an unexpected direction when he talks about how a man should handle it if he catches his wife in a car with another man.
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Another staple of Hart's concerts is an up close and personal encounter with a wild animal and this concert is no exception. We hear about Kevin meeting an animal he described as half deer, half zebra as well as a wild adventure when he takes his family horseback riding. He also scores talking about his self defense course and his son's Spiderman obsession. He had the audience on the floor talking about a "bum lip", where he talks about the dirty hands of a homeless person flipping his dirty against his lip. I found this kind of offensive, but this audience lost it to the point where Hart did too and he actually had to collect himself before he could go on, a rarity for the comedian.
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Other than slamming on homeless people, Hart really scored here and I have to admit to being genuinely moved at the conclusion of the show where he admitted that playing at the Garden was his dream come true. Kevin Hart is a genuine star who has worked hard for everything he has and there is a balance between his ego and his gratitude that is refreshing. 3.5

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Against All Odds
The steamy chemistry created by the leads keep the 1984 drama Against All Odds watchable despite a screenplay that keeps the leads apart and the director's accustomed self-indulgence.
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This remake of the 1947 film noir Out of the Past stars Jeff Bridges as Terry Brogan, a disgraced pro football player who is hired by a mob kingpin and old acquaintance named Jake Wise, played by James Woods, to locate his former mistress, Jessie (Rachel Ward) who is allegedly hiding somewhere in Mexico, but things get complicated when Terry and Jessie fall instantly in love and try to escape the grip that Jake has on both of them.
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Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote Out of the Past co-wrote this screenplay with Eric Hughes which is filled with the expected colorful mob types that you expect from such a story, even if it is a bit on the predictable side. The problem here is that the story creates a couple that we care about immediately and then keeps them apart for the other two thirds of the story.
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What does work here is the smoldering chemistry created by Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward in the leading roles. Terry and Jessie's sexual attraction cannot be denied and as much as they want each other, they are unable to trust each other which tears them apart almost immediately. The Jessie character reminded me a lot of Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown, a character who I never believed a single word that came out of her mouth which was an on target assessment of this film's Jessie, as she more than once tries to throw Terry under the bus in the name of self-preservation.
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The film does feature some beautiful scenery and Jeff Bridges (who has never looked better) is a flawed and durable hero, the only character in the movie who is exactly what he seems to be. Ward's smokey beauty is a perfect fit for this dark ice queen she's playing but I never really bought Woods as this dangerous mobster. There are some effective supporting turns from Richard Widmark as a smarmy Senator, Saul Rubinek as an equally smarmy lawyer, and Swoosie Kurtz as a ditzy secretary and though the ending is a little muddled and Taylor Hackford's direction makes the film seem a lot longer than it should be, it managed to hold my attention. The film did receive an Oscar nomination for Phil Collins' haunting title song sung over the closing credits. 3

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The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
The 1961 drama The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone probably raised a lot of eyebrows back then for its very adult subject matter for the period and the performances by the leading ladies are spectacular, but it doesn't work as it should due to some very confusing plot twists that just don't make sense.
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Based on a novel by Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh, who a decade earlier had won a second Oscar for playing another Williams heroine in A Streetcar Named Desire, takes on another hot mess Williams character in Karen Stone, a retired actress and widow, who moves to Rome and finds herself befriended by the elegant Countessa Magda, played by the incomparable Lotte Lenya, who introduces Mrs. Stone to a handsome young man named Paolo (Warren Beatty) who immediately insinuates himself into Mrs. Stone's life. It's soon revealed that the Countessa is nothing more than a glorified pimp and that Paolo is one of the men in her stable, who are to bilk wealthy widows and tourists out of their money and split it with Countessa 50/50. Things go sour for the Countessa when Paolo actually starts developing feelings for Mrs. Stone.
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This material is classic Tennessee Williams, a writer who has always had an affinity for the May/December older woman/younger man dynamic and the basic premise is quite intriguing. Back in 1961, Tennessee Williams is probably the only author who would make the hero of any of his work a male prostitute, but that's what Paolo is and curiosity is piqued because the viewer then starts to wonder when Paolo's professional mission and his personal feelings are going to blur and we know they are going to blur because if they didn't, the movie would be over in fifteen minutes.
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Unfortunately, a titillating premise is bogged down by a story that makes some very confusing moves, most of which seem to occur with the Countessa, who should be the smartest character in the movie. I didn't understand why she advised Paolo what to do with Karen when things weren't moving fast enough for her, then warned Karen about it so that she saw it coming. The Countess seemed to be her own her worst enemy in this story. There was also a very odd subplot of Karen being stalked by this stranger that never really resolves itself but remains pertinent to the finale, even though we never learn who this man is or why he's stalking Karen.
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Despite my problems with the story, I remained invested in the story because of the performances by the two female leads. Vivien Leigh is simultaneously fragile and strong in the title role, putting us completely behind this somewhat sad character. Leigh still knew how to command the screen, even though she would only make one more film (Ship of Fools) before her death. Lotte Lenya is dazzling and venomous as the phony Countessa, ranking right up there with another great villain she would create later in To Russia with Love. Beatty fit the role of Paolo physically and I understand his casting in the role, but I found it hard to take him seriously in this role. There's also a brief appearance by Jill St. John in one of her earliest roles. Lovely Italian scenery and Richard Addinsell's lush music help, but the story's the thing, and the story here does a lot of things that just don't make sense. The film was remade in 2003 with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez playing the roles originated by Leigh and Beatty. 3

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Norma Rae
Sally Field won her first Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress for her work in an in your face, fact-based drama from 1979 called Norma Rae. which presents a strong leading character trapped in an impossible situation and never letting it get the best of her.
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The title character is a single mother at a southern textile mill who is immediately entranced by a union organizer named Reuben (Ron Leibman) who comes to town to get a union going at the mill and faces one obstacle after another in getting a union going at the mill, mostly from management. While trying to help Reuben, Norma Rae also finds herself drawn to a sweet, if slightly dim co-worker named Sonny (Beau Bridges) who she ends up marrying, but Norma Rae's head is more into unionizing than it is her marriage.
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Irving Ravetch and Harry Frank Jr's screenplay is actually based on the real life exploits of a woman named Crystal Lee Sutton who worked for JP Stevens and Company and whose complaints about the exhausting work, paltry wages, and minimal benefits eventual got her fired but before she left, she did actually get on top of a table with the union sign, initiating a shut down, a scene which not only is recreated in this movie, but eventually became the movie's movie's most iconic scene. It's easy to see why too, this scene absolutely bristles with tension.
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Watching movies like this one and Silkwood have confused me about unionization and its value. They supposedly are there to protect employees and help to make their lives better but it seems like when the people supporting them need them the most, they're never there. Norma Rae's efforts got her fired and arrested and Karen Silkwood's efforts eventually got her killed and I have to admit I was surprised when the big vote for unionization actually went through.
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The other thing I did like was the unconventional love triangle presented at the center of it. The relationship that develops between Norma and Reuben is tangible and wrought with sexual tension, but never gets physical. On the other hand, Norma's conventional romance with Sonny isn't really based on a grand passion. One of my favorite scenes in the film is the scene where Sonny and Norma get married...they go to a justice of the peace and the kiss after the vows is just a quick peck...this is Ritt's directorial eye working to maximum effect.
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Field did win her first Oscar for the solid performance she gives and proved herself to be an actress of substance, but I'm not sure if she was better than Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome or even Bette Midler in The Rose, but I've definitely seen less deserving Oscar winners. I love that scene where Norma shuts up Sonny by "cooking" and "cleaning" for him. "It Goes Like it Goes", the song sung by Jennifer Warnes over the opening credits, also won an Oscar. Leibman is terrific as Reuben and I'll never understand why this performance never led to a movie career for him. I love the scene when's he's walking through the mill greeting the workers while there to check on the bulletin boards. Bridges gives one of the best performances of his career as Sonny and I also enjoyed Pat Hingle and Barbara Baxley as Norma's parents. This is one is still worth checking out thanks to the acting skills of Sally Field and the directing skills of Martin Ritt. 3.5

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Safe Men
John Hamburg, the writer and director of Along Came Polly is also the creative force behind the 1998 black comedy Safe Men, which is almost salvaged by its very talented cast...almost.
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It's 1970's Providence Rhode Island where a pair of bad lounge singers (Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn) are mistaken for a pair of Providence's most famous safecrackers, who find themselves under the thumb of a local mobster (Michael Lerner) who has the pair breaking into several safes while preparing for his son's bar mitzvah.
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Hamburg has an interesting idea for a black comedy, which I believe was his intention, but his writing is a little safe for a black comedy and not straight forward enough for a traditional comedy. The onscreen narration by Rockwell's character suggests a black comedy, but what the viewer gets is a muddled and confusing crime heist that seems to work very hard at not offending anyone...except for people of the Jewish faith.
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Mark Ruffalo and Josh Pais plauy the real safecrackers and it is never really made clear how a pair of lounge singers get mistaken for them or why they don't do anything about it. There is an alleged romantic triangle between Ruffalo, Rockwell, and the daughter of another crime boss (Harvey Fierstein) who it is revealed has somehow come in possession of pro hockey's Stanley cup, which becomes the final mission for our lounge singing safecrackers.
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I was attracted to this film when I saw who was in it and they almost made it worth watching, but what this film eventually boiled down to was 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Rockwell, Ruffalo, and Zahn are always worth watching and Paul Giamatti garners a few laughs as Lerner's flying monkey, but even they couldn't save this snooze-fest. 2

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Wall-E
Disney Pixar tried something a little different with 2008's Wall-E, another unique cinematic journey from Disney Pixar that has a lot going for it, but I still found myself scratching my head wondering who the intended demographic was for this movie.
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This is a post Apocalyptic drama that takes place in a future that's not as far away as we might like to think. Most of the world's population seems to have been driven away by all the garbage...there is garbage everywhere, so much garbage that buildings are being constructed out of garbage. Most of the survivors of earth are on a spaceship called Axiom and left earth centuries ago. The plan was for earthlings to return to the planet after cleaning robots make the earth livable again.
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This is the story of one of those robot cleaners. Wall-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) spends his days collecting debris and compacting into equal sized squares and then building structures out of them. At night, he watches the film version of Hello Dolly and is fascinated by the concept of holding hands, wanting to have his own hand to hold one day. As expected, romance does come into Wall-E's life one day in the form of a robot named Eve (voiced by Elissa Knight) who is dropped on earth by an alien spaceship. Eventually Wall-E finds himself part of a dangerous space mission that could impact the future of mankind forever.
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Director and co-screenwriter Andrew Stanton is to be commended for coming up with something terribly original here, unfortunately, the execution of the story is a little sluggish and took awhile to engage this adult viewer and I have a hard time believing that this film engaged children at all, but it definitely sends a couple of important messages but I have to wonder if children really cared.
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I will admit that this robot Wall-E is a total sweetheart and I found his fascination with Hello Dolly absolutely adorable. His sweetness is beautifully balanced with his loneliness making an animated character of maximum appeal. The story struck a chord with the Academy who awarded it the Oscar for Outstanding Animated Feature of 2008 as well as nominations for Original Score, Original Song ("Down to Earth"), Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. The film tells a somewhat dark story, despite its endearing central character, but it falls short as a completely satisfying film experience. 3.5

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Unsane
Some imaginative directorial brush strokes from Steven Soderbergh and a scorching performance from his leading lady allowed the 2018 psychological thriller Unsane to tie my stomach in knots despite a couple of plot holes that I could not reconcile.
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Claire Foy, who was robbed of an Oscar nomination for First Man, plays Sawyer Valentini, a woman who has left her hometown of Boston and moved to Pennsylvania in order to escape a stalker. Still feeling shaky from her stalker experience, Claire makes an appointment with a psychiatrist at the Highland Creek Mental Facility just to talk to someone. She signs some paperwork without reading it and finds herself involuntarily committed to the institution for seven days.
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Calls to police prove to be futile and attempts to fight what is happening to her just keep getting Sawyer in more and more danger, despite warnings from a fellow patient (Former SNL regular Jay Pharoah) that she is part of an insurance scam that she can get out of as long as she behaves. And when it turns out that Claire's stalker from Boston (Joshua Leonard) has followed her and gotten himself hired at Highland Creek, no one believes Sawyer when she tries to out him.
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Steven Soderbergh has created a cinematic nightmare here and has done an expert job of putting us in his protagonist's shoes. We feel every bit of pain and fear that Sawyer is going through and we want her to calm down when she starts assaulting anyone who lays a hand on her. Once it becomes clear that there is no escaping for Sawyer, all we can do is wring our hands and wonder how she's ever going to get out of this. Even Sawyer's mother (Amy Irving) is thwarted in every way in trying to help her daughter.
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The screenplay attempts to make us think that Sawyer's stalker is not really at this mental institute now but when it turns out that it has to be him, we have to wonder how someone like this guy actually got hired at a mental facility. The fact that an institution that allegedly claims to do extensive background checks on its staff let this guy slip by them made a lot of this story really hard to swallow.
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What does work here is a bold and ferocious performance by Claire Foy that rivets the viewer to the screen. Jay Pharoah does a star-making turn as Sawyer's only ally inside the facility and Amy Irving is wonderful as Sawyer's mother, as is Juno Temple (so good in Wonder Wheel) as a dangerous fellow patient who consistently baits Sawyer. This story leaves a lot of bodies in the wake and does actually have us doubting either Sawyer's sanity or as to whether any of this happened at all, but Highland Creek does get what's coming to them and that's something. Soderbergh's directorial eye is also a big asset here. 3.5

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Forever Female
A complicated romantic quadrangle among the New York theater set is the basic premise of a sparkling 1953 comedy called Forever Female that still provides entertainment thanks to a sharp screenplay and a professional cast working at the top of their game.
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There are four principle players in this theatrical comedy of manners: Beatrice Page (Ginger Rogers) is a flamboyant and arrogant actress whose latest Broadway flop has her drifting toward a play with a character she is too old for; Stanley Krown (William Holden) is the author of the new play who allows Beatrice to talk him into aging the leading character 10 years; Harry Phillips (Paul Douglas)is a Broadway producer and Beatrice's ex-husband whose fierce devotion to her might have something to do with the $11,000 in back alimony he owes her; Sally Carver (Pat Crowley) is a struggling actress who changes her name every time she loses a job who tries to keep Stanley's leading character her proper age and falls for him in the process.
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This film was surprisingly entertaining thanks to a smart screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Phillip G. Epstein that takes some effective jabs at New York theater while setting up this very unconventional quadrangle that keeps its eventual destination a mystery for the majority of the running time. I loved the opening moments of the film where the camera roams through Sardi's during intermission describing the various personalities hanging out there.
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Director Irving Rapper, who has worked with some of the best actors in the business including Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Erroll Flynn pulls performances from his star quartet that pull this film through its occasional lull and make the audience care about what's going on, or more importantly. how it's all going to turn out.
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Rapper does stellar work with this cast too. Ginger Rogers is fun and vivacious, as always, and the chemistry between her and Paul Douglas is undeniable. Douglas lights up the screen here in one of his most entertaining performances, matching Rogers note for note. The relationship between Rogers and Douglas is really the heart of this story and we really want to see them reunite even though they're fighting it tooth and nail. Holden does grow into his role as the hypersensitive playwright and Crowley is just luminous in the best performance I've ever seen from her as the outwardly confident but inwardly insecure young actress. There's also a brief and funny appearance from future TV Superman, George Reeves. Lovers of classic film comedy and especially fans of Rogers and Douglas will want to check this one out. 3.5

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Cherry 2000
Another far-fetched post-Apocalyptic adventure, 1987's Cherry 2000 does have a lot going for it, including some eye-popping visuals, but falls short as a complete film experience.
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Ironically, it is 2017 and what's left of the United States is living in a world where romance and technology have blurred beyond recognition. Sam Treadwell is a wealthy businessman who has been blissfully happy with an android named Cherry 2000. One night while making love to his beautiful android she short circuits and is no longer able to function despite the fact that Sam still has the personality disc that allows the android to operate. Finding other romantic options unacceptable, Sam decides he must have a Cherry 2000 and hires a sexy renegade tracker named E Johnson to take him to the dangerous Zone 7, where there are many Cherry 2000's but the tyrannical leader, Lester, doesn't have any personality discs to make them operable.
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Yes, 1987's vision of 2017 was a little premature, but I'm sure for screenwriter Michael Almereyda, 2017 seemed like a million years away, but he still provides a viable setting for this story which offers an ordinary guy caught up in some very extraordinary circumstances, especially his connection with a very unconventional heroine and the immediate "will they or won't they" sensibility bubbles to the surface and becomes the underlying theme of the story.
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Director Steve DeJarnett mounts an often visually arresting canvas for this theme to come to fruition. There is an incredible moment where Sam and E land a plane on sand-like surface and we see these statues nearby and, upon closer observation, it comes to light that statues are at the top of a casino in Las Vegas and that the entire city is buried under this sand. This reveal literally took my breath away, as did most of the look of this film, DeJarnett nails the "Mad Max" look of this film with a strong assist from his production team.
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The performances are nothing special, but we really don't care because films like this usually aren't about acting, but maybe the acting is what kept this film from being what it should have been. David Andrews' Sam was a little on the wooden side and Melanie Griffith never really convinces as the bad ass female Indiana Jones, and Oscar winner Ben Johnson was wasted in a thankless role, but I LOVED Tim Thomerson as the maniacal Lester. The movie is great to look at and there's some terrific action sequences, but it never hooks me the way it should have. 2.5

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Coco
Disney Pixar hits another bullseye with 2017's Coco, a colorful and splashy musical animated extravaganza that explores universal themes that we expect from Disney Pixar but breathes new life into said themes by setting the story on foreign soil.
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This musical confection is the story of a little boy named Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez) who comes from a family of shoe makers, but whose true passion is music like his longtime idol Ernesto de la Cruz (voiced by Benjamin Bratt). Miguel is frustrated by the rest of his family's ban on music and plans to sing in a local contest one evening. His grandmother finds out and smashes his guitar to bits. While attempting to "borrow" Ernesto's guitar to use in the contest, Miguel is transported to the Land of the Dead where he meets his deceased relatives who don't believe Miguel when he claims that he is the great great grandson of de la Cruz, but still send him on a journey where even more secrets about his family are revealed.
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Lee Unkrich, the creative force behind the second and third Toy Story movies, as well as Finding Nemo has crafted a story of the importance of family and the importance of pursuing your passion that remains the through line for a sometimes hard to swallow but endlessly imaginative and entertaining story centered on a lovable little boy who is sent on a totally unexpected journey. Yes, this story went NOWHERE I expected it to, though I should have since Miguel mentions in his opening narration how he hears about his ancestors every year on the Day of the Death, which apparently is an actual Mexican holiday of celebration.
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Disney Pixar has always been consistent in the kind of entertainment they provide. As with most of their work, this story is overly complex, the exposition takes a little too long, and there are at least two unnecessary endings, but there are so many colorful and interesting characters to distract us, as well as the dazzling setting provided in the form of the Land of the Dead, which was unlike anything I've ever seen. The film is a feast for the eyes and ears even if it takes a bit too long to get where it's going. That winged jaguar was nothing short of bone-chilling.
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The film won the Oscar for Outstanding Animated Film and the Oscar for Original Song went to Robert Lopex and Kristin Andersen-Lopez for "Remember Me". Other memorable songs in the score included "Juanita", "Un Poco Loco", and "Jalale".
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Another consistency with Disney Pixar is exemplary voice work and this film features standout work from Bratt, Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal as Hector and Alanna Ubach as Mama Imelda. This is a joyous animated journey that demands undivided attention but the rewards for such attention come in spades. 4.5

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Dr. Dolittle (1998)
After his successful re-thinking of the Jerry Lewis classic The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy decided to re-think another classic movie character with lesser success. His 1998 reboot of Dr. Dolittle was a barely funny remake of the 1967 musical that starred Rex Harrison, was nominated for the 1967 Best Picture Oscar, and almost put 20th Century Fox out of business.
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Based on the Hugh Loftin stories, the 1967 musical was about a turn of the century London doctor who discovers an ability to communicate animals and decides he would rather treat them as opposed to treating human beings. In this new version, we meet John Dolittle as a child and observe him communicating with an animal and being told by his father that he is never to speak to animals again. The story then switches to 1998 San Francisco where Dr. John is now married with two daughters and is now a partner in a profitable medical practice when animals begin confronting him directly demanding treatment.
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Murphy, director Betty Thomas, and screenwriter Nat Mauldin decided they had to go a different way with the story in order to make it more accessible to 1998 audiences, the younger ones in particular. In the 1967 musical, Rex Harrison is observed talking to animals while they communicate the way we expect animals to (with the exception of his parrot Polynesia). In this non-musical version, the animals are given celebrity voices so that the viewer is privy to both sides of Dr. Dolittle's conversations with the animals.
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I will admit that a lot of the fun in this movie comes from trying to figure out who some of the famous voices are, but the problem is that the dialogue the animals are given is often juvenile, tasteless, and downright crude and once the celebrity voice has been identified, we just don't care what the animals are actually saying. The scene where the animals just barge into Dr. Dolittle's townhouse and make themselves at home was kind of stupid.
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With celebrity voices coming out of animals, Eddie Murphy is relegated to the position of straight man, a position that Murphy has never really been in before making it really hard to get behind the character. I did like the fact that this John Dolittle did realize that there was something wrong with him talking to and treating animals and knew that it would endanger his cozy existence which is something the Rex Harrison version of the character never acknowledged.
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Murphy, Oliver Platt, Richard Schiff, and Peter Boyle work hard at not being blown off the screen here, but the talking animals really steal the show here, such as it is, with standout work from Norm McDonald as a dog named Lucky, Chris Rock as a guinea pig named Rodney, Phil Proctor as an alcoholic monkey, Garry Shandling and Julie Kavner as an old pair of married piegons, and Albert Brooks as a very sick tiger named Jacob. Once the novelty of the celebrity animal voices wears off, this one is pretty rough going, but it might keep very young children amused. 2

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Venom (2018)
One of the most unusual Marvel Comic anti-heroes is brought vividly to life in 2018's Venom, a slam-bang entry from the director of Zombieland that rivets the viewer to the screen and entertains, as long as you don't think about it too much.
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The story begins with the crash landing of a space vehicle in Eastern Malaysia which contains an astronaut that has some kind of alien entity latched onto him. The entity leaves the astronaut and then latches onto an EMT driver who eventually transports the entity to San Francisco where it somehow falls into the possession of a contemporary mad scientist named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), but it escapes and finally seems to find a host that it likes in the form of a recently fired investigative reporter named Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) who humiliated Drake on television sex months earlier and may finally get back at Drake, with an assist from his new pal, the alien entity that pops in and out of his life and ruins the new romance of his lawyer ex-girlfriend (Michelle Williams).
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Just like he did with Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer provides us with so much cinematic razzle dazzle that those dangling plot points that pop up during the story start to become irrelevant. It becomes irrelevant what Carlton Drake's intent was in keeping this entity for himself. It becomes irrelevant why this entity chose Eddie as its final home; It becomes irrelevant when a second entity is seen arriving at the San Francisco airport in the form of a little girl. But when this second entity attaches itself to Carlton Drake, we understand that a finals showdown is being setup even though it's not clear why one entity would be sent to destroy the first one, instead of offering assistance.
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The fun in this story came in watching the initial effects that this entity had on the life of Eddie Brock. It was so funny watching him being unable to stop eating and I mean eating absolutely anything. The scene in the restaurant where the only place Eddie can find comfort is in the lobster tank is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. It's so obvious that Eddie is trying to put a name to what's going on with him but is finding that completely impossible. I also loved the idea of giving the entity an actual voice that talks to Eddie, though it's never made clear exactly what this entity wanted or whether or not this Venom was supposed to be a hero or not, but the finale does clear that up to an extent as it is implied that Eddie and the entity are going to attempt to live with each other.
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Fleisher oversees some first rate production values in making this story fly. I was especially impressed with film editing, sound mixing, sound editing, and visual effects. Tom Hardy is quite engaging in this demanding starring role and Ahmed, so memorable a few years ago in Nightcrawler chews just the right amount of scenery as a modern day Dr. Frankenstein, but it is Fleischer's explosive direction that keeps this one moving so efficiently that we let go of the plot holes without even realizing we're doing it. 3.5

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Harry and Tonto
Art Carney's Oscar-winning performance is the centerpiece of 1974's Harry and Tonto, a slightly pretentious and lumbering character study that hasn't aged well and seemed like it would never end.
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After spending almost 30 years toiling in television and becoming an official TV star playing Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, Art Carney got his first significant film role playing Harry Combs, an intelligent and well-read senior citizen who loves to sing, though he really doesn't know the words to any of the songs he loves to sing. Harry's best friend is an aging cat named Tonto and their lives are forever altered when Harry is forced out of his apartment, which springboards a cross country adventure for an old man and his cat unlike anything you've ever seen.
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Director and co-screenwriter Paul Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) has crafted a somewhat interesting if long-winded look at a character who is mildly amusing but just didn't remain compelling enough to keep this reviewer invested for almost two hours. It became tiresome pretty quickly how Harry allowed this cat to complicate his life so much. I don't have anything against cats, but if I had nowhere to go, had a bus ticket to my daughter's house and my cat had to pee, I would not demand that the bus driver stop the bus and when the bus driver says it's time to go, I would have gotten back on that bus and when I get to my daughter's house, buy another cat.
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Some of these scenes from the life of Harry and Tonto were most interesting than others. I did enjoy when a 16 year old hitchhiker (Melanie Mayron) talked Harry into reuniting with a childhood sweetheart (Geraldine Fitzgerald) who really didn't remember Harry. This was a lovely scene and I wish the rest of the film had been on the level with this scene.
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Mazursky's direction is overly-detailed and Art Carney does turn in a wonderful performance as Harry, but was he really better than Pacino in Godfather II, Hoffman in Lenny, Nicholson in Chinatown, and Finney in Murder on the Orient Express? Absolutely not...this was definitely one of those "Lifetime Achievement/Body of Work" Oscars meant to recognize a career and not necessarily that performance. I think the Academy wanted to honor Carney because they didn't know how much longer Carney would be around and wanted to honor him. There are a pair of effective supporting turns by Larry Hagman and Ellen Burstyn as Carney's children (Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar that year for another film), but this is Carney's film and as a matter of film history, it's worth a look, but it's really nothing special and I definitely kept checking my watch. 3

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Guest Wife
Some really wonderful performances and a clever story make a 1945 screwball comedy called Guest Wife well worth the time.
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Chris Price (Dick Foran) and his wife, Mary (Claudette Colbert) are getting ready to leave for a second honeymoon in New York but are delayed by the arrival of Chris' best friend, Joe Parker (Don Ameche), a war correspondent who has just returned from India. He is on his way to New York as well to see his boss, who wants to meet the wife that Joe claims he married in India. Joe then has to confess that he sent his boss a picture of Mary and claimed that she was his wife. Chris persuades Mary to pose as Joe's wife for five minutes for Joe's boss.
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Unfortunately, things get very complicated when Joe and Mary arrive at the office because Joe's boss (Charles Dingle) has planned an entire day of events for Mr. & Mrs. Parker that will force them to stay together a lot longer than five minutes. Things get more tangled up when Chris' employers see a picture of Mr. & Mrs. Parker in the paper and think Chris is having an affair with a married woman, not to mention, Susy (Wilma Francis), Joe's old girlfriend who thinks she wants to get back together with him until she learns that he got married in India.
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Director Sam Wood is no stranger to screwball comedy having directed the Marx Brothers classic A Night at the Opera and he provides a loose yet focused hand over this silly story that isn't quite as predictable as the story might appear on the surface. Ameche and Colbert are reunited six years after playing opposite each other in 1939's Midnight and because of that, the viewer tends to assume that their characters will be together at the end of this film, but watching this film from the beginning makes it's clear that there's no way this can be.
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The opening scenes of Chris and Mary preparing for their trip are amusing and put the viewer behind them as a couple from the beginning, but we have to wonder how the story can reunite Colbert with Ameche again and them not end up together. We know where this story is going, but the performances by the trio of stars, especially Colbert, make it worth the time...Colbert proves not only to be adept at physical comedy but queen of the subtle aside as well. It is her rich performance that keeps things humming. Mary's situation seems impossible but somehow we know that Mary is the one that's going to get herself out of it, even if her method of doing so is a little roundabout. Colbert and Ameche are just as charming here as they were in Midnight and with the help of Foran, make this comedy worth the investment. 3.5

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Jezebel
The year before Vivien Leigh brought the scheming and manipulative Southern Belle Scarlett O'Hara to the screen, Bette Davis brought another scheming and manipulative Southern Belle to the screen named Julie Marsden in an equally epic soap opera called Jezebel that won Davis her second Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress.
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It is 1850's New Orleans where we meet Julie Marsden, a flighty and wealthy Southern socialite who really doesn't care about what's going on between Yankee abolitionists and southern bankers or the yellow fever epidemic that is making its way down south. Julie has never lacked for male attention, including the dashing Buck Cantrell (George Brent) and a handsome banker named Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda). Pres is considering marriage to Julie until she embarrasses him at a prominent social event by wearing a bright red dress to a ball where women are supposed to wear white. Pres manages to embarrass Julie right back but it eventually spells the end of their relationship and as they part, Julie and her Aunt Belle (Fay Bainter) are forced to move because of the epidemic and Julie has become a social hermit until reunited with Pres, but is shocked when Pres shows up with a pretty young wife named Amy (Margaret Lindsay).
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William Wyler, who would later direct Davis in The Letter and The Little Foxes, not to mention win three Best Director Oscars, has already begun to show his affinity for cinematic storytelling with this intimate tale told on a grand scale. He also displays as very special understanding of the extraordinary actress cast in the title role and what she is capable of. It's obvious that Wyler had a very specific vision about Julie Marsden and that Davis understood said vision, doing exactly as the director has instructed. Davis was known for independent spirit as an actress but it's clear that Davis is under Wyler's thumb and feels safe there, where she was able to produce a performance of such delicacy and focus that it won her a richly deserved Oscar.
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Wyler is to be applauded for bringing a story like this to the screen at a time when the only thing that anyone was talking about in Hollywood was the upcoming screen version of Gone with the Wind, a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to Jezebel. For those who are paying attention, this story takes place almost a decade before the civil war, but instead of the war, we have the yellow fever epidemic as backdrop for the story, which ends up serving as a platform for the central character of Julie to change in a way that Scarlett O'Hara never really does. It should be noted that Davis was very interested in playing Scarlett O'Hara but took herself out of the competition when she heard Erroll Flynn was being considered for Rhett Butler.
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Henry Fonda proved to be one of Davis' strongest leading men though George Brent was just as dull as ever. Bainter won the Best Supporting Actress for her sympathetic Aunt Belle, a surprisingly rich performance that people sometimes tend to overlook...watch her in that scene where she meets Amy for the first time and panics when she realizes Julie has met Amy before Belle could warn her. Bainter gave the performance of her career and the Academy actually noticed. Bouquets to Robert A. Haas's art direction, Orry-Kelly's costumes, and Max Steiner's lush music as well, but the film is really the triumph of the gifted William Wyler and the incomparable Bette Davis. 3.5

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Holmes and Watson (2018)
Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly reunite onscreen for the first time in a decade for Holmes and Watson, a lavishly mounted 2018 comic re-thinking of the Arthur Conan Doyle characters that provides pretty consistent laughs but doesn't quite come together as a satisfying film experience.
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As we meet Holmes (Will Ferrell) and Watson (Reilly), they have just completed work on a case that secured the freedom of Professor Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes). They are then visited by Queen Victoria who commissions them to protect her when she receives a death threat from Moriarty. Since our boys our acquainted with Moriarty, the Queen feels they are the only ones who can protect her from him.
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Director and screenwriter Etan Cohen, who was one of the screenwriters on Tropic Thunder has mounted an elaborate comic valentine to the literary and cinema icons that shows respect for the iconic characters but also manages to create a story around them that effectively mines laughs from the literary legends that consistently bend the 4th wall without breaking it. Cohen's screenplay also cleverly reveals more than a passing resemblance between this Holmes and Watson and Ricky and Cal in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, one of Ferrell and Reilly's first collaborations. This Watson has always felt unappreciated and lost in Homes' shadow and as they begin this case, Watson asks for a new title of "co-detective."
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Cohen must also be applauded for the first rate production values employed here that greatly aid in the authenticity of what we're seeing, which makes the lampooning of what we're seeing even funnier. The film features stunning cinematography, film editing, costumes, and the music even includes a totally unexpected musical number during the final act that is a complete winner. Sadly, the story takes us to an odd place in the final act and we have to wait a little too long for it to iron out, but it's a pretty clever wrap that makes up for the occasional slow spot.
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It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Ferrell and Reilly did Step Brothers because their work here appears as if they had been working with no one but each other for that entire decade. I especially loved the scene where they meet Queen Victoria for the first time and the scene where they think they've accidentally killed her. It's obvious Cohen gave his stars a little space here and we get comic gold. Fiennes made a great Moriarty and I loved Pam Ferris as the stone-faced Queen Victoria. And if you pay attention, you'll also catch cameos from Hugh Laurie and Billy Zane. If you liked Talladega Nights, you'll like this too. 3.5

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Addams Family Values
That rarest of cinematic animals...a sequel that stands up proudly to its predecessor, 1993's Addams Family Values hits a home run thanks to an intelligent and funny screenplay, atmospheric direction, superb production values, and a pair of knock out performances by actresses who bring more to their roles through their performances than the screenplay really allows.
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As this sequel to the 1991 film opens, Gomez (the late Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) have just given birth to a baby boy named Pubert. They hire a nanny named Debbie Jelinski (Joan Cusack) to care for the baby since Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) and Wednesday (Christina Ricci) keep trying to murder him. It's soon revealed that Debbie is a venomous black widow who has killed multiple husbands for their money and has now set her cap on Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyld). When Wednesday starts catching onto what Debbie doing, Debbie manipulates Gomez and Morticia into sending Pugsley and Wednesday to summer camp to keep them out of her hair.
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Screenwriter Paul Ruydnik really scores with a screenplay that stays true to the characters established in the first film but gives them a perfect blending of two very different stories that allow the characters to be fleshed out even further than they were in the first film. The demented Uncle Fester is a perfect target for black widow Debbie, even if it might take him a little longer than it should have for him to catch on to her. This story is perfectly balanced with the fish out of water story of Pugsley and Wednesday taken out of the gothic world of their family and placed in the middle of an endlessly cheery summer camp where even the demented Wednesday actually finds romance.
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This comedy is jam packed with one outrageous scene after another that provide consistent laughs throughout. The numerous attempts by Pugsley and Wednesday to murder their baby brother and the delicious comic tango by Gomez and Morticia made even more hysterical thanks to some first rate visual effects are just a few of the highlights. And of course Debbie's futile attempts to take out Uncle Fester defy logic and produce huge giggles.
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As mentioned, the production values are a great asset in pulling of this bizarre comic tale as they were in the first film. What were used as tools of exposition in the first film become atmospheric servants of the story being presented. Jim Miller and Arthur Schmidt's film editing and the Oscar-nominated art direction/set direction by William J. Durell Jr. and Marvin March are huge assets, all under the under the watchful eye of director Sonnenfield, a former film editor, and you can definitely see the influence his work as an editor has had on his direction.
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Despite all of this, the best thing about this movie are the performances by Joan Cusack as Debbie and Christina Ricci as Wednesday. Cusack is comic gold here, creating a classic comic villainess that you can't help but revel in. She has two separate scenes where she is privately rehearsing how to be a grieving widow and her final explanation to the family regarding why she turned out the way she is had me on the floor. Sonnenfield also recognized the laughs that Christina Ricci's Wednesday got in the first film and capitalized on them as well. Ricci steals every scene she's in here, causing major havoc at the summer camp. Though one of her funniest moments is after time in the "Harmony Hut", she tries to smile for the first time. Peter MacNichol and Christine Baranski also garner laughs as the eternally cheery camp counselors, but what makes this film work is the work of Cusack, Ricci, and the razor sharp directorial eye of Barry Sonnenfield. 4

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Searching
We live in a world that is all about technology and its power to control and manipulate lives. The power of the internet and how it can destroy lives, protect criminals, keep secrets, and help those in crisis is brilliantly examined in a riveting and original 2018 drama called Searching that may have seriously considering deleting or at least re-thinking your browser history.
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This dazzling independent sleeper stars John Cho as David Kim, a loving husband and father who lost is wife to cancer three years ago. David and his daughter, Margot, have worked through their grief and are learning to be a family again until one night Margot calls David to tell him that she is going to be at a friend's house all night studying for an exam in AP Bio. Thirty-six hours pass and Margot still hasn't come home. After speaking to a sympathetic police detective (Debra Messing), David decides to begin his own investigation into what happened to his daughter by meticulously reviewing his recent texts with her and, more importantly, breaking into her laptop.
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Director and co-screenwriter Aneesh Chaganty has created a truly unique screen entertainment here, not so much in the story itself but in the way that he chooses to tell this rather ordinary missing person mystery. Chaganty has mounted a story about the often limitless power of today's technology and tells the story through that technology itself. For the majority of its running time, the movie screen is pretty much a computer screen that the viewer is looking at and watch David maneuvering his way through his daughter's laptop to find clues about her. There's a lot of screentime where all we see is the computer screen and the cursor moving in and out of search engines and opening up all the files on his daughter's laptop to find the names of some of her friends. Those who are computer illiterate might be simultaneously educated and confused as we watch David navigate his daughter's laptop. I love the sequence where he gets into Margot's e-mail by clicking onto the "Forgot your password?" link and having it allow David to create a new password so he can open Margot's e-mail.
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A very human story almost gets enveloped by all the technology on display here. There's a ten minute scene near the beginning of the movie where David and Margot are skyping with each other (referred to here as "face time") that beautifully establishes the relationship between this struggling father and daughter who have clearly been through hell and back dealing with the mother's death and it's such an effective springboard for the viewer to become completely engrossed when Margot does go missing. I love the way this story is told through the technology in the story and not the technology of the filmmaker. There's this brilliant scene where David is trying to get information out of his brother and he installs cameras in the house and the whole scene is photographed through those cameras...or when he attacks a friend of Margo's at a movie theater and we are privy to it as a video on You Tube.
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Chaganty creates a sizzling tension here that had me completely riveted to the screen throughout and when it was over I was literally shaking, mainly because every time I thought I knew what was going on, I wasn't even close. John Cho, who I've always felt is one of the industry's most underrated actors, does a powerhouse turn as David and Messing is equally compelling as Detective Rosemary Vick. This was a one-of-a-kind motion picture drama that left me limp and trembling. Aneesh Chaganty is a director to watch. 4.5

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Sparkle (1976)
Long before Dreamgirls, there was the 1976's Sparkle, a sporadically entertaining musical melodrama that could have used a lot more music and a lot less melodrama.
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Its Harlem in 1958 where we meet three sisters named Delores, Sparkle, and Sister, who with the help of an aspiring songwriter named Stix, form a singing group and become a sensation all over Harlem until various outside influences tear the group apart, which actually allows Sparkle and Stix to strike out on their own so that Sparkle can become the breakout star that Stix has always told her that she was.
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This film was one of the first screenwriting assignments for future director Joel Schumacher, who provides us with a pretty effective look into show business in the 50's and its connections to organized crime, a topic that would later be showcased in films like The Cotton Club and Jersey Boys, even if the story is a little simplistic and makes the success of an unknown trio of female singers look a lot easier than it would be. Schumacher has also provided the character of Stix with a lot more juice than a real life version of the character would have. Stix shouldn't have been able to pull off half the stuff he did here and, if the truth be told, he probably shouldn't have come out of this story alive.
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What totally works in this movie is whenever anyone steps onstage and steps in front of microphone. Whether it's the talented amateurs at an uptown talent show, a drug addicted SIster wailing the blues in a tiny nightclub, or sweet Sparkle belting out "Precious Lord Take My Hand" at a funeral, it's the musical sequences in this film that make it worth watching.
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The majority of the songs for the film were written by Curtis Mayfield, most famous for songs like "Superfly" and "Freddy's Dead" and it is Mayfield's music that really keeps this film watchable. For me, the highlights were "Jump", "Hooked on you", "Look into Your Heart". "Something He Can Feel", and "Give Up", which was written by Van McCoy, the one-hit wonder who brought us "The Hustle".
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Director Sam O'Steen does pull some strong performances from some of his cast. Phillip Michael Thomas is charismatic here as Stix and I'm pretty sure this performance probably had something to do with his later casting in Miami Voice and Mary Alice is lovely as the girts' mother, but it is Lonette McKee who walks off with the acting and vocal honors here, doing Oscar-worthy work as the tragic Sister, a performance that haunts the rest of the film and frankly, when her role comes to an end at the end of the second act, the film becomes a lot less interesting, but I did stay tuned until the closing credits. A pretty effective look at being black in the 1950's considering most of the people behind the camera were white. Remade in 2012. 3

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Good Time
A flashy starring performance by Robert Pattinson not withstanding, 2017's Good Time is an overbaked action thriller that, after a promising start, loses all its momentum thanks to a confusing screenplay that's all over the place and some really unappealing characters.
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Pattinson plays Constantine "Connie" Nikas, a criminal who has just robbed a bank with his mentally challenged brother Nick (co-director Benny Safdie), but Nick ends up in jail shortly after the robbery. Connie makes it his mission to get is brother out of jail but before her can, Nick gets in a fight in prison that gets him hospitalized. Connie goes to the hospital and sneaks into a hospital room being guarded by a uniformed officer and finds someone in the room handcuffed to the bed with bandages covering his face. Unfortunately, after getting out of the hospital, Connie realizes that he's kidnapped the wrong guy. Instead of his brother, he has snuck a psycho parolee named Ray (Buddy Duress) out of the hospital.
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It's at this point where Safdie, along with his brother Josh go way off track because, for reasons that still have me scratching my head, instead of just letting the guy go and going back to the hospital to find his brother, Connie for some reason thinks he's linked to Ray and that letting the guy go would jeopardize himself and Nick. Connie actually takes a still unconscious Ray to the home of a stranger with a 16 year old granddaughter who Connie has sex with when a newscast comes on TV with a picture of him. Nice huh?
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Yeah, there are really not nice or terribly bright people caught in a really messy situation that they just keep making worse with every move they make. I was also bothered by the fact that Connie didn't seem too concerned about his brother after he realized he had the wrong guy. It's not until the beginning of the third act that we see Connie calling the hospital to get an update on his brother's condition and when finally do see Nick again, it's like nothing we have been subjected ever happened, at least not in Ray's eyes.
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The brothers Safdie definitely show definite promise as filmmakers. Their resume consists of a lot of shorts and documentaries, but they do display a flair with the camera here. It should also be noted that Benny Safdie, in addition to co-director and co-writing this film, also edited it, which I think is his strongest contribution to this film. Robert Pattinson is a real eye opener in the starring role. This was my first Robert Pattinson movie and, I won't lie, it was his performance that kept me invested in this mess. Buddy Duress also impresses as that nutburger Ray and Jennifer Jason Leigh is wasted in a glorified cameo, but unless you're a Pattinson fan or a fan of the Safdies, I'd give this one a pass. 2

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Kitten with a Whip
From the "So Bad it's Funny" school of film making comes a 1964 curio entitled Kitten with a Whip, an outrageously overwrought melodrama that provides consistent unintentional laughs throughout. I haven't laughed so hard at a movie I wasn't supposed to laugh at since Valley of the Dolls.
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This allegedly hip and sexy potboiler stars John Forsythe as David Stratton, a man preparing to run for political office whose wife and daughter are out of town for a few days. One morning after attending a fundraiser for his campaign, David discovers a young woman named Jody, played by Ann-Margret, asleep in his daughter's bed. Jody explains that she snuck in an open window after getting away from her mother's boyfriend who tried to rape her. David goes out and buys some clothes for the girl and gives her money to get a bus back home. While having lunch with his best friend Grant, David sees Jody's face pop up on the bar TV where it is revealed that she really just escaped from a juvenile detention center where she stabbed a prison matron. David returns home and finds Jody back at his house, coming out of the shower with freshly died hair.
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David wants to call the police, but Jody threatens to tell the police and his wife that he raped her, so he reluctantly agrees to let her hang out for awhile. While Grant and his wife come by with a welcome home bouquet for David's wife, Jody calls some friends and invites them over for a party that goes horribly wrong and climaxes with the four of them forcing David to drive them to Mexico.
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Dated dialogue and plot elements notwithstanding, I can't believe that even way back in 1964 that moviegoers were supposed to take this hot mess of a movie seriously. And I have to admit that a lot of the humor in this movie comes from Ann-Margret's outrageously over the top performance in the title role, a title I didn't understand until I started watching the movie because this is exactly what Jody was. Jody's manipulative sex kitten act was fascinating in the way that she was able to completely keep the David character in her venomous grip...using sex, threats, and tears to equal and maximum effect and changing her weapons from minute to minute, she made this character riveting and fall on the floor funny. I've always been amused by this thing that Ann-Margret did in a lot her early work, particularly in Bye Bye Birdie where she would purse her lips in an attempt to be sexy and her lip pursing is in serious overdrive here.
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The story actually had me invested while it was centered around David and Jody and David trying to hide Jody from his regular life, but they began to lose me when she called her three friends to come over, the story just got dumber and dumber after that. Jody's relationship with these people was never made clear nor was her purpose for calling them. Never understood why she felt she needed reinforcements because she already had David right where she wanted him, but without them, they never would have gotten on the road to Mexico. Screenwriter Douglas, primarily a television writer, was not too subtle in his foreshadowing either...his over-lengthy scene of David shaving in with a straight razor the morning he meets Jody was like hitting the viewer with a rock...gee, do you think we're going to see this razor later?
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The black and white photography and the annoying music actually enhanced the camp quality of the piece. Forsythe's David is a little strait-laced, but Peter Brown was kind of funny as one of Jody's fancy-talking thug buddies. It's not great cinema, but Ann-Margret fans will be in heaven. 3

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Albert Nobbs
Glenn Close's Oscar-nominated performance is the centerpiece of a sad and exquisitely mounted character study from 2012 called Albert Nobbs that suffers due to a fuzzy screenplay and a finale that left a bad taste in my mouth.
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It is 19th century London where we are introduced to the title character, a middle-aged man working as a waiter at a very exclusive hotel called the Morrision, run by the stingy and bitchy Mrs. Baker. Albert is hard-working and meticulously saves his money because he is planning on owning his own business someday. Mrs. Baker hires a man named Hubert Page to do some painting at the hotel,a job that will require an overnight stay. Mrs. Baker informs Albert that Mr. Page will be staying with him for the night, much to Albert's apparent panic and discomfort with the idea. Hubert discovers the reason Albert didn't want him to stay with him is because he is a she. Albert is a woman but has been living as a man most of his life. With Hubert's encouragement and a reveal of his own, Albert decides that self-preservation of the life he has established is his only option.
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Based on a novella by George Moore, this is, at its core, a challenging story as it is set during the 1800's and I wondered if the novella is a little less fuzzy on certain plot points that made it difficult to completely engage in the story. There is a point in the film where Albert tells Hubert his story (beautifully performed by Close) and we have a better grip on why Albert lives the way he does. Unfortunately, the screenplay never really makes clear whether Albert is an actual lesbian or if he has chosen to live as a man and lead a life without love or sex. My original thought was that Albert felt he could make more money working as a man, but that subject never addressed. If Albert is all about preservation of his lifestyle, why begin a relationship with the lusty and slightly promiscuous Helen (Mia Wasikowska) who is already in a sexual relationship with another employee named Joe (Aaron Johnson)? Albert proposes to Helen without ever laying a hand on her and announces that they're going to run his business together. And what was she planning to tell Helen on their wedding night?
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Glenn Close's layered and quietly nuanced performance makes up for a lot of the story problems. It's the small moments of detail in the performance that were the most entertaining for this reviewer...I loved watching Albert count his money and then later figure out how courting Helen was going to affect his finances or the one scene where Albert puts on a dress and walks on the beach, which brings me to another incredible performance in this film. Janet McTeer, who I have to admit completely pulled the wool over my eyes with her performance, that earned McTeer a supporting actress nomination.
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The ending didn't work for me though...I was not happy about Albert's fate which smacked of convenience nor the way Mrs. Baker profited from it. Pauline Collins was also superb as Mrs. Baker, a truly hissable villainness. The film also featured exquisite art direction, cinematography, and costumes, and despite an ending that was a real downer, the always watchable Glenn Close made the journey worth my time. 3.5

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Let's Make it Legal
Despite a predictable screenplay that played like an extended episode of a sitcom, the 1951 comedy Let's Make it Legal actually provides a generous amount of chuckles thanks to some sparkling performances and some funny situations.
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Miriam Halsworth (Claudette Colbert) lives with her lazy, self-absorbed daughter, Barbara (Barbara Bates), Barbara's husband, Jerry (Robert Wagner) and Barbara's baby girl. Miriam's marriage to Hugh (Macdonald Carey) is over and their divorce is becoming legal at midnight. Barbara has never gotten over her parents' split and is constantly plotting to get them back together but on the day that the divorce is to become final, Victor MacFarland (Zachary Scott), breezes back into town. He is now wealthy and on the verge of an important political appointment. He is an old friend of Hugh's and was once in love with Marian, and upon their reunion, decides he wants to make Marian his, no matter how Hugh feels about it.
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I.A.L. DIamond, Billy Wilder's longtime writing partner, was among the writers involved in penning this witty and effervescent story that has a couple of surprising layers that the viewer doesn't initially see coming. I loved the idea of Barbara being this spoiled child who wants her parents back together so that her grandma can continue being the real caretaker of Barbara's child as well, as son-in-law Jerry who, even though he works for Hugh, is team Victor all the way when Victor gets in the picture. There's a well-written and acted scene where Victor and Hugh are reunited in front of Jerry and Hugh is trying to hide the fact that he and Miriam are divorced and Jerry just blurts out the information with a big smile on this face.
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However, as she always did, Claudette Colbert dominates the proceeding with a winning and vivacious comic performance, giving us such a likable character that we can't help but get caught up in her dilemma, even though we're pretty sure of how it's going to end up. Macdonald Carey works extremely well with Colbert and shows a surprising affinity for the one liner that might come as a surprise to those who only remember the late actor as Dr. Tom Horton on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives.
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One of the biggest surprises here was the breezy and endlessly charming performance from Robert Wagner as Jerry, the guy who loved his mother-in-law but had no illusions about his wife, as well as being the moral sounding board for most of the characters in the movie. Bates was a little stone-faced in her role, but it seemed to work for the character and Marilyn Monroe is wasted in a thankless supporting role as an aspiring model/actress with the hots for Hugh. If you're planning to watch this for Marilyn, you will be disappointed. And if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance by comic vet Kathleen Freeman as reporter, but it is the performance by Colbert, Carey, and Wagner that make this one worth checking out. 3.5

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Seven Seconds
The accidental death of a 15 year old boy is the springboard for a compelling and ugly 2018 Netflix mini-series called Seven Seconds which attempts to thoughtfully touch on several subjects but, more than anything, takes the concept of justice being blind and mangles it beyond recognition.
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This 10 1/2 hour mini-series takes place in Jersey City, New Jersey where one night on an icy stretch of road, an off-duty police detective named Peter Jablonski, hits a 15 year old boy on a bicycle named Brenton Butler, who is thrown from the bike into a ditch, critically injured. Three of Jablonski's fellow officers, led by a Detective Mike D'angelo, happen upon the scene and convince Jablonski to go home and act like nothing happened while they take care of it. D'Angelo and the others cover up what they can and Brenton is left in the ditch for 12 hours before he is found and transported to the hospital, where he does die from his injuries.
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KJ Harper is the ADA assigned to prosecute the case. She is very good at what she does; however, she is also an alcoholic with a sometimes violent temper who years ago had an affair with her boss. A police detective named Joe "Fish" Rinaldi, who is in the middle of an ugly divorce and possibly losing custody of is daughter. KJ and Fish do have a witness who saw D'Angelo's crew at the scene, a fifteen year old heroine addict named Nadine whose story changes every five minutes and refuses to stay wherever Fish attempts to stash her in order to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Brenton's parents are going through a living hell, not only because they're finding out how they didn't know their son, but Mrs. Butler actually ran not Jablonski visiting Brenton in his hospital and can't get anyone to believe her.
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Veena Sud, who was also the creative force behind the 2011 Netflix series The Killing has crafted mammoth tale of death, remorse, guilt, bigotry, and grief that completely envelops the viewer initially. The viewer demands justice for Brenton Butler, but Sud's story puts one obstacle after another in front of this pursuit of justice that three or four episodes into the story, we begin to realize that the kind of justice that this crime demands is never going to happen. It's aggravating watching the only person passionate about justice in this case is an alcoholic who the second she leaves the courtroom goes home to an apartment that looks like a tornado hit it and goes straight to the fridge full of booze. The only witness to the incident redefines the phrase "not a credible witness" and the three cops backing up Jablonski are seasoned dirty cops who have worked together for years, like Vince's squad on the FX series The Shield, who know how to protect the thin blue line and have no remorse for any of their actions.
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This mini-series really had me riveted for the first seven episodes, which concluded with the four cops being arrested, but this is where it lost me as the story turned seriously melodramatic and any pretense at justice just seemed impossible, I don't understand the point of mounting this elaborate story that requires a serious time commitment from the viewer and then not provide them with the kind of payoff we deserve. I hated that this boy never got the justice he deserved and it was made worse by the story that continued to tear apart the boy's character, which seemed irrelevant to me, not to mention that what happens to their son methodically destroys his parents' marriage, one of the saddest aspects of this story. The Butlers pain becomes so secondary as the story progresses and I get the feeling that the character of Mrs. Butler only got the screen time she did was because Oscar winner Regina King was playing her.
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Several directors and writers were involved in the mounting of this story and they are to be applauded for the stark realism they bring to this story. One episode was directed by the late Jonathan Demme. I like that Sud and her creative team let the strength of their story carry this and didn't try to cover up its inadequacies with star power. Regina King won her third Emmy for her powerful and heartbreaking work as Mrs. Butler and Russell Hornsby, so memorable in The Hate You Give is equally brilliant as Mr. Butler. I was also impressed with David Lyons as D'Angelo, Beau Knapp as Jablonski, and Gretchen Mol as the attorney for the dirty cops, but the standout acting here was provided by Michael Mosley as Fish Rinaldi, a performance that was alternatively humorous and explosive, always commanding attention. Kudos to cinematography, editing, and music as well, but the final three episodes' descent into mawkish melodrama just left a bad taste in the mouth. 3.5

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Muscle Beach Party
Frankie and Annette return for another round of beach and surfing in the dreadful Muscle Beach Party, the 1964 hot mess of a sequel that definitely would have made my list of worst sequels if I had seen it at the time.
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In this pointless sequel to the 1963 film Beach Party (not that that movie had much of a point either), Frankie and Didi trek to the beach for Easter vacation and find the beach has been taken over by a group of bodybuilders, who are coached by a loud mouth named Jack Fanny (Don Rickles). There's also a wealthy Contessa named Julie (Luciana Paluzzi) who invades the beach along with her "manager" SZ (Buddy Hackett), who initially sets her sights on a bodybuilder named Flex Martin (Peter Lupus) but then sets her sights on Frankie, promising to make him a singing star.
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First of all...Contessa Julie? What kind of Contessa is named Julie? And second, what kind of Contessa has a manager? Was this supposed to be some sort of 60's version of a pimp? And why would a wealthy Contessa with her own plane and boat loads of her money set her sights on a penniless teenager like Frankie? I actually laughed out loud when Frankie told her that he had the sun and the surf and that's all he needed.
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Most sequels suffer due to the writer or director trying to make something bigger and better than the first film but this film seems to be afflicted with the opposite problem. There's not enough of anything here and a lot of what goes on here just fills like a struggle to stretch this feature to ninety minutes. Ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back.
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There was a small continuity issue that nagged at me as well. One of the main problems with this film was the absence of the primary antagonist from the first film, the motorcycle gang from the first film led by Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck). There were two girls in Von Zipper's gang and they were both featured here as part of the bodybuilding gang. Were we not supposed to notice that?
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Despite the success of the first film that prompted this sequel, this film appears to have been made on a budget of about $50. The look of the film is cheap and grainy and the musical numbers sounded like they were recorded in some kind of tunnel. This film does offer a musical number by a very young Steve Wonder, billed as "Little Steve Wonder", which is probably the film's high point. Peter Lupus who played bodybuilder Flex Martin, would have his 15 minutes when he would join the cast of the CBS series Mission: Impossible a couple of years later. Incredibly, the chemistry between Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello still registers and Rickles and Hackett do provided sporadic chuckles, but this movie is a mess that should have spelled the end of the Beach Party franchise but, sadly, it did not. 1.5

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The Mule (2018)
Clint Eastwood returns to the big screen for the first time in a decade as producer, director, and star of a riveting, fact-based drama entitled The Mule that is one of those stories that is so incredible that it has to be true.
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In his first film since 2008's Gran Torino, Eastwood plays Earl Stone, a 90 year old horticulturist with a myriad of financial problems who has spent most of his life disappointing his family, who in a desperate attempt to escape the financial quicksand engulfing him, accepts a job as a drug mule for an important Mexican drug cartel before actually knowing what he is doing. Once he sees the initial financial rewards, he is unable to stop and just like joining the mob, quickly is in so deep that he is unable to escape. Not long after things start working out for Earl, it is revealed that the DEA is on to the cartel and is going to get to them trough Earl.
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Earl Stone is based on a real person named Leo Sharp who passed away two years before this film was released. Certain story elements, including how the offer of the job came to Sharp, were altered, which was most likely the only way Eastwood was allowed to get the film made. Eastwood discovered Sharp's story in an article in the New York Times magazine, which screenwriters Sam Dolnick and Nick Schenk were able to craft into a story that had just enough altering of the facts to protect people involved in the story who might not want the notoriety that being part of this story might have provided.
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Dolnick and Schenk's screenplay cleverly establishes the kind of person Earl Stone with a dash of originality as our initial introduction to the character is through some bitter conflict with family members at the weddings of his daughter and granddaughter, where the bitterness of his ex-wife, played by Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, is efficiently laid out for the viewer and provides understanding why the lure of some quick cash through being a driver was so appealing.
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I was impressed with the way Earl's fate is laid out for us through the requirements of his job which are explicitly laid out during his first run, He is given a cell phone that he is told to answer whenever it rings and is told that he is never to divert from his assigned routes or make any side trips. Confirmation as to how much Earl knows what he's doing comes when he returns from the first run and is surprised when one of the bosses destroys the phone immediately and gives him another one.
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As always, Eastwood's direction is focused and intense creating, at times, some nail-biting suspense. There is a harrowing scene where he is checking his cargo and is approached by a cop with a coke-sniffing dog that literally had me holding my breath.
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Eastwood's attention to production values is on the money, as always, and he still somehow manages to give a charismatic, movie-star performance in the starring role. Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena make great DEA agents and the scene where Eastwood and Cooper meet in a diner before knowing who each other is, was a winner. I don't know how Cooper had time to do this and A Star is Born in the same year, but the guy must be exhausted. Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Robert LaSardo, and Lobo Sebastian offer strong supporting contributions as well. Alison Eastwood, who has appeared in several of her father's films, even manages to impress here as Earl's bitter daughter. More than anything, this film is documentation of the artistry of Clint Eastwood, as an actor and director. 4.5

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Jailhouse Rock
Research reveals that most listing of the top 10 highest grossing Elvis Presley movies, 1957's Jailhouse Rock clocks in at #2, but for the life of me, I'm not sure why.
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Presley's swivel-hipped, nostril flaring appeal was prominently on display in this unintentionally humorous tale where the Pelvis plays Vince Everett, a guy who goes to jail for manslaughter after accidentally killing a guy in a bar fight. While in jail, he performs in a prison talent show and his cellmate, Hunk(Mickey Shaughnessy) convinces him that he might have the talent to make it as a singer and suggests that they go into the music business together after Hunk gets out.
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Vince gets out and is disillusioned when the first record he makes is stolen by another artist so with the help of a pretty trust fund baby by the name of Peggy (Judy Tyler), he decides to start his own record label. The label is an instant success and gives Vince a Texas-sized ego that finds him trampling all over the people who helped him on his road to success.
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Like my recent viewing of Kitten with a Whip, this film had me rolling on the floor with its cliched dialogue, plotting, and its very simplistic view of show business, making becoming a recording star look pretty simple. If only becoming a star was as simple as it was in this movie.
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But Elvis was the biggest star on the planet in 1957 and nobody really cared about all of that. He sings a couple of his biggest hits in this film, including "Treat Me Right" and honestly, the staging of the title tune for a television show totally rocks and makes sitting through the rest of the film worth it. It should be noted that the choreography for this number was done by Elvis himself, helping to make the number the best thing about the film.
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Judy Tyler's performance as Peggy is a little overripe but Shaughnessy is very good and there's also an early appearance by future Disney icon Dean Jones as a radio DJ, but this is Elvis' show and his fans won't be disappointed. 2.5

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Still of the Night
The 1982 psychological thriller Still of the Night suffers from overly detailed exposition and a couple of unnecessary red herrings, but is watchable due to the professionalism in front of and behind the camera and a spectacular finale.
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The late Roy Scheider plays Dr. Sam Rice, a recently divorced psychiatrist who learns that a patient he's been treating for two years (Josef Sommer) has just been murdered. Shortly afterwards he finds himself face to face with the man's mistress, Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) who approaches him on the pretense of having Dr. Rice return the victim's watch to his wife and freaks out when the police call wanting to speak to him while she is there. Of course, evidence begins to mount that Brooke might have murdered the man, but Roy is conflicted because as much as he wants to get to the bottom of what happened to his patient, he finds himself fighting an attraction to Brooke.
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Robert Benton, fresh off winning two Oscars for Kramer VS Kramer, brings a lot of style and a definite Hitchcock influence to this seemingly obvious story that provides a fair amount of suspense. I was initially confused by the opening scene of an unidentified man walking down a dark Manhattan street trying to open the door to several parked cars until the victim falls out of one. Who this man was and why he was looking for the body was never really addressed. After keeping the police at arm's lengths, I did love the scenes of Dr. Rice reading his past sessions with the victim while they were acted out in flashback, with extremely effective work from Sommer, that is a great aid in keeping the victim a viable character in the story. The scene at the auction reminded me of the music hall finale of The Man Who Knew Too Much.
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Loved Benton's camera work here too...the camera moves slowly and deliberately, providing a layer of suspense to the story, even though sometimes it's a little too slow and a little too deliberate, because the first 30-45 minutes of this story move at a snail's pace, which is not a good thing when the movie is only 90 minutes long, but we are rewarded in the fact that what we think is coming does not come at all and the finale is absolutely spectacular, though we are really made to work for it.
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Benton also had the wisdom to cast his Kramer VS Kramer leading lady in the starring role, recalling the icy blondes like Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren that Hitchcock made so popular. Scheider effectively underplays the Cary Grant role and mention should also be made of Joe Grifasi as the very persistent police detective. It takes a minute to get going, but Streep, Scheider, and Benton make it a relatively smooth and suspenseful ride. 3.5

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Father's Little Dividend
Director Vincente Minnelli and Spencer Tracy reunited after their success with Father of the Bride with another engaging look at Stanley T Banks and his family called Father's Little Dividend which was just as delightful as the original film.
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This 1951 comedy finds Kay and Buckley Dunstan (Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor) expecting their first child and grandpa-to-be Stanley not being happy about it. The blessed event brings about most of the complications one would expect from the premise. Discussion of upgrading the Dunstans' living arrangements, choosing a name, Buckley's frustration with trying to keep up with Kay's mood swings, and Stanley feeling that now that he's going to be a grandfather, his life is pretty much over.
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Albert Goodrich and Frances Hackett's screenplay is fresh and fun and takes some unexpected steps in its journey. I love the way the story opens with Stanley feeling like a teenager and being very frisky with wife, Ellie (Joan Bennett). Speaking of Ellie, I was also very pleased to see the sequel beefed up the role of Ellie, putting her more in the forefront than she was in the original film. I loved the way Ellie immediately planned to have the baby move in with them without even consulting Stanley and how dejected she felt when she learned Buckley's dad was planning to build a new house for the newlyweds. Ellie's joy at becoming a grandmother was very infectious and Joan Bennett welcomed the challenge of a more pertinent role in the sequel.
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Don't get it twisted, Spencer Tracy never allows his leading lady to blow him off the screen, definitely garnering his share of laughs. I loved his initial reaction to the news of Kay's pregnancy while everyone else was jumping with joy. His child-like tantrums when the baby cried every time he came near him were also a lot of fun. Tracy even gets laughs during his narration and just as they were in the first film, some of the sweetest moments in the movie came whenever Stanley got to spend anytime alone with his daughter Kay. Kay always took the fight out of Stanley, having him easily wrapped around her finger. Loved the scene where he told her about the day he and Ellie brought Kay home from the hospital for the first time.
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Vincente Minnelli's sparkling direction is a big asset, proving that he knew not to tamper too much with a winning formula. Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke were adorable as Buckley's parents and even Don Taylor has relaxed into the role of Buckley, making a very believable struggling newlywed and father-to-be. It was definitely a sequel that can stand proudly next to its predecessor. 3.5

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Lars and the Real Girl
An Oscar-worthy performance by Ryan Gosling is the heart of a 2007 indie called Lars and the Real Girl, an offbeat comedy that manages to manipulate viewer emotions while defying logic at every turn.
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Gosling plays Lars Lindstrom, a sweet and simple-minded social hermit who does whatever he can to avoid any kind of social interaction. He always wears three or four shirts because he can't stand someone touching his skin. He lives in the garage behind the house where his brother Gus and his pregnant sister-in-law live, even though the house is half Lars'. Karen tirelessly works at trying to get Lars out of the house and to be social while Gus has pretty much decided to let his brother be. One evening he agrees to have dinner with Gus and Karen and asks if he can bring a guest. Gus and Karen are shocked to learn that Lars' date is an anatomically correct doll that Lars purchased from the internet.
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They are further thrown when Lars offers an elaborate backstory about the doll, who he has named Bianca. Gus finds the website and learns that each doll for sale has a separate backstory. Gus and Karen are concerned though when Lars asks if Bianca can stay in their guest room. They make an appointment for Lars to see a sympathetic doctor named Dagmar, who agrees to treat Lars through the ruse of treating Bianca. And the irony of it all is that there is a co-worker of Lars' named Margo who's nuts about him but Lars doesn't know she's alive.
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Nancy Oliver's Oscar-nominated screenplay is to be applauded for its imagination. The initial scenes of Gus and Karen having dinner with Lars and Bianca are very funny. Couldn't help but giggle when Lars kept cutting up Bianca's food but eating it himself. It was easy to accept what was going on when it was just Lars and his family, but we are thrown when the entire town agrees to the charade of pretending that Bianca is real. He takes her everywhere (even though she's confined to a wheelchair), the girls at the beauty parlor take her into their circle and she even gets elected to the school board and it is at this point in the story where credibility becomes an issue.
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We see Lars arrive home and take Bianca out of the box...are we supposed to believe that he really thinks Bianca's real? Is it possible there are no mental health issues with Lars and that he's just using Bianca as another shield to socialization? Was it a coincidence that right after Lars tells Margo that he can't cheat on Bianca that she suddenly becomes very sick? The way Lars was able to manipulate an entire population with this doll was just a little convenient and hard to believe at times. It was also hard watching what Bianca was doing to Gus and Karen. Gus has clearly been carrying guilt about Lars for years and the whole Bianca thing seems to exacerbate it.
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Despite all of this, I still found myself invested in the proceedings because of the characters and the actors who inhabit them. Ironically, Ryan Gosling was nominated this year for another film (Half Nelson) but I think this performance is far superior. Paul Schneider really scores as the tortured Gus and I have never enjoyed Emily Mortimer onscreen more as Karen. And of course, one of my favorite scene-stealers, the amazing Patricia Clarkson, makes her screentime as Dr. Dagmar shine. The film also features some lovely photography and music, but the imaginative screenplay and the on-target performances are the reason this one engages the viewer. 3.5

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Which Way is Up?
Richard Pryor works very hard, playing three different roles, to make the 1977 farce Which Way is Up? seem a lot better than it really is.
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Pryor plays Leroy Jones, a California orange picker who ends up accidentally joining a union and being linked to its crooked leader, which motivates him employers to send him out of town. He travels to Los Angeles where he meets a Union activist (Lonette McKee) who falls for him, despite the fact that he's married and makes him promise to never have sex with any other woman.
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Leroy returns to his hometown and is given an important position at a union-owned company where he gets jobs for his old orange picking buddies but his job eventually forces him to betray them. His life is further complicated when he learns his wife (Margaret Avery) is pregnant after an affair with a sleazy married preacher (also Pryor). So he decides to exact revenge on the preacher by having sex with his wife (Marilyn Coleman).
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This comedy is allegedly a re-working of a Lina Wertmuller film called The Seduction of Mimi, who actually co-wrote the screenplay for this film, along with Carl Gottlieb which has effectively been tailored to suit the talents of the star and takes full advantage of them, including the very adult language and situations that we expect from Pryor. In addition to playing Leroy and Preacher Thomas, Pryor also plays Leroy's father and this character just might be Pryor's strongest work in the film. The Leroy Jones character is a sexist jerk but Pryor keeps him likable for the majority of the running time.
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The story is a little complex and hard to follow at times, but Pryor's effortless screen charisma and his knack for physical comedy help keep the viewer invested in the proceedings. McKee is an attractive and intelligent leading lady and Coleman is a riot as the Preacher's wife. Mention should also be made of Morgan Woodward as a very hissable bad guy. Pryor has definitely done better work, but his hardcore fans will definitely find the funny here. 3

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BUtterfield 8
Illogical plotting, cheesy dialogue, and some really bad acting from the leads makes 1960's BUtterfield 8, second only to Valley of the Dolls, one of the funniest movies ever made that wasn't supposed to be funny. Not to mention a performance from its leading lady that is probably the worst performance in cinema history to actually win an Oscar.
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After three previous Oscar-nominated performances, Taylor chews up the scenery beyond recognition as Gloria Wandrous, a glamorous fashion model who finds herself having a torrid affair with a wealthy businessman named Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey), with whom she has spent the last six days, running to her childhood BFF Steve (Eddie Fisher) and complaining to him about the way Liggett has been treating her. Needless to say, the affair with Liggett has Gloria thinking it's all about herself and no thoughts of Liggett's wife (Dina Merrill) or Steve's girlfriend (Susan Oliver).
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This overheated melodrama is based on a John O'Hara, the author of From the Terrace, which came to the screen the same year and has been sloppily adapted to the screen by Charles Schnee and John Michael Hayes, rich with some of the cheesiest dialogue I've ever heard in a movie, that actually provided consistent unintentional laughs for the majority of the running time. I absolutely loved when Weston says to is wife, "I can't continue being a disappointment to you.", to which she replies, "Oh darling, couldn't you try?" and trust and believe, that this was the just the tip of the corny dialogue iceberg. Schnee and Hayes attempt to clean up O'Hara's novel, which was probably a lot steamier and probably shocked 1960 movie audiences utilizing the word "slut", which I'm surprised got past censors at the time.
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There's just one funny scene after another here. I could not stop laughing during a scene in a restaurant where Liggett gets rough with Gloria and grabs her arm and won't let go while Gloria is digging her high heel into his foot at the same time. The final car chase between the two central characters was beyond silly. And why is this sophisticated high fashion model still living with her mother?
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It's important to understand what was going on behind the scenes where the production of this hot mess was concerned. Elizabeth Taylor was heavily campaigning at the time to play Cleopatra at 20th Century Fox and was not thinking about anything else. Unfortunately, she had one more film under her contract at MGM (this one) and MGM would not release her from the contract so the only way Taylor could be available to play Cleopatra was to make BUtterfield 8. Taylor was miserable during the filming and has often referred to this film as "a piece of s**t." After three previous Best Actress nominations, Hollywood wasn't really surprised by her nomination for this film, but no one thought she would actually win until Elizabeth got deathly ill and had to have an emergency tracheotomy a couple of weeks before the Oscars and was literally on her death bed before a magical ecovery. Shirley MacLaine, who was nominated that year (and should have won IMO) for The Apartment, was SO certain that Taylor was going to win, she did not fly in from Japan for the ceremony and asked Taylor to pick up the Oscar for her if she did win. Taylor gratefully accepted an Oscar she knew she didn't deserve proudly displaying her tracheotomy scar.
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All the blame for this film can't be put on Taylor...Daniel Mann's over the top direction and Bronislau Kaper's horrible music were distracting as well. Laurence Harvey's performance as Weston Liggett can best be described as uneven, and Eddie Fisher, who already proved he couldn't act with first wife Debbie Reynolds in Bundle of Joy proved that he hadn't taken any acting lessons in preparation for working with second wife Taylor. Somehow, Dina Merrill and Susan Oliver manage to keep their dignity here and Kay Medford steals a couple of scenes as a hotel manager, but this one's for hardcore Taylor fans only. 2

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Romance on the High Seas
The 1948 musical Romance on the High Seas is an energetic little musical comedy that has a footnote in cinema history as the film debut of the legendary Doris Day and she makes the most of her big break.
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The story revolves around a couple named Michael and Elvira Kent (Don DeFore, Janis Paige) who suspect each other of infidelity and after Michael cancels on the cruise that Elvira has arranged for their third anniversary, decides to set a trap for her husband: Elvira doesn't go on a cruise but hires a band a singer named Georgia Garrett (Day) to go on the cruise under name so that her husband might left his guard down thinking Elvira is away. Meanwhile, Michael still thinks Elvira is cheating on him, so he hires a private eye named Peter Virgil (Jack Carson) to go on the cruise and keep an eye on his wife, and of course, Peter gets one look and falls hard for Georgia but must hide his feelings for who he believes is the very married Mrs. Kent. Oh and don't forget Oscar (Oscar Levant), Georgia's BFF who is also madly in love with her.
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This is classic movie musical comedy at its best. People pretending to be people they're not in order to hide feelings or expose feelings or bad behavior and somehow it all comes out in the wash in a little over 90 minutes. Julius and Phillip Epstein, fresh off bringing Arsenic and Old Lace to the screen, have come up with an amusing story with just enough complications to keep the viewer occupied with musical numbers, numbers that actually seem to come out of the story and don't just seem to be padding running time.
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The best thing about this movie is the energetic and vivacious performance that Doris Day gives in the starring role. Day seems so comfortable and self-assured onscreen one would NEVER know that this was her very first movie. Day understands Georgia Garrett and the predicament she is in and, with the aid of directors Michael Curtiz and Busby Berkeley, puts us behind the girl from start and hoping that everything works out for her. It's obvious after seeing this film why, in a few short years, Day was the busiest actress on the Warner Brothers lot, sometimes making two or three films a year during the 1950's.
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The film features a tuneful score by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn that includes "I'm in Love", "It's You or No One", "The Tourist Trade", "Run, Run, Run" and the incomparable "It's Magic", which received a Best Song Oscar nomination.
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As wonderful as Day is, she always works with her first rate supporting cast and allows them to serve the story as she does. Janis Paige is bold and brassy as the real Mrs. Kent and made the most of her limited screentime. A few years later, Paige would become a Broadway star courtesy of The Pajama Game, which came to the big screen in 1957 with...Doris Day. Jack Carson is quite charming as Peter the detective and that really is him singing on "Run, Rin, Run". Oscar Levant's stone-faced delivery as Oscar garnered big laughs and Don DeFore was fun as Michael Kent. Eric Blore, who provided support in several Astaire/Rogers musicals, also has a funny cameo here as a ship's doctor. Big Bouquet to Milo Anderson, who provided some stunning costumes for Day and Paige. A lot of Hollywood film debuts are pretty unmemorable, but Day scores here and shows why she became the Hollywood icon that she did. 3.5

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Colors
A pair of Oscar-winning acting pros in the starring roles help to keep 1988's Colors, an overblown and bloody epic looking at the effects of gang-related violence Los Angeles, and more importantly, the seemingly futility of the war against it, watchable, despite over-indulgent direction and a cliche-ridden screenplay
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Robert Duvall plays Bob Hodges, an LAPD by the book veteran of the streets who gets a new partner in the form of Danny McGavin (Sean Penn), a hothead rookie not really concerned about "the book", but with cleaning up these ugly streets anyway he can and his rogue methods cause heat on both sides of the fence for him, including more than one gang putting out an actual contract on his life.
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Screenwriter Michael Schiff provides us with an over the top look at LA gang violence that sometimes comes off as a writer who has just seen West Side Story too many times. Schiff's concept of gang sensibility is simultaneously frightening and silly and there are actual moments of unintentional humor sprinkled throughout, which seems really inappropriate considering the subject matter. There was actually one scene where we watch a gang do a drive-by on the funeral of another gang-banger...seriously? These guys' complete nonchalance regarding shooting police officers just seemed a little hard to believe to me, but the written prologue opening the film documenting the actual numbers that make up these gangs has to include one or two guys along the way who don't give a damn about murdering a cop.
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The story about these two police officers learning how to work with each other smacked of cliche as well; however, it was a lot easier to watch because Robert Duvall and Sean Penn are playing the officers. The relationship has the bumps that we expect but these guys are such good actors they make the mundane watchable. There's one terrific scene where McBride tries to apologize to Hodges for his actions and instead of accepting the apology, he offers a story to McBride which is a perfect analogy of their working relationship.
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The late Dennis Hopper was in the director's chair on this one, his fourth film as a director. He displayed the ability to mount viable action, including one spectacular car chase near the beginning of the film that was definitely one of the film's highlights. Also impressed by a faraway camera shot that eventually moves in on one the gangs moving in for a final confrontation, but it's hard to keep track of everything that's going on here and who's with what gang, which was taxing to the viewer and made a two hour movie seem like four. A couple of future stars can be glimpsed in the supporting cast, including Don Cheadle and Damon Wayans, but it was Penn and the incredible Robert Duvall that made this one worth the investment. 3

[Gideon58]

White Men Can't Jump
After his triumph with Bull Durham, writer/director Ron Shelton scored with another sports oriented comedy from 1992 called White Men Can't Jump which features some stylish directorial flourishes, colorful dialogue, and a surprising chemistry between the stars that keep this one on sizzle.
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In Venice, California we meet Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) and his wife, Gloria (Rose Perez) who are temporarily camped in California because they are on the run from some shady people they owe a lot of money. Billy is a basketball hustler and Gloria's lifelong dream is to appear on Jeopardy. Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) is the king of the Venice street ball courts but the rest of his life is on shaky ground. He has a wife and a baby and wifey is pressuring him into buying a house he really can't afford. Circumstances bring Billy and Sidney together as hustlers on the street basketball court but their expected road to riches isn't as smooth as they anticipated.
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Ron Shelton has mounted an incisive and very clever look at the art of the hustle and a lot of the psychological warfare that's behind it. Being an effective hustler is not only about being better than your opponent, but about getting into your opponent's head and figuring out what their achilles heel is so that it can be exploited and Shelton's screenplay nails this. It was especially smart that before we saw Billy and Sidney get into their opponents' heads, we see them get into each other's head and discover weaknesses they can exploit in each other in an attempt to get an upper hand on each other. The scene where Billy takes Sidney home and Sidney comments on how attractive Gloria is was a master move of Sidney getting into Billy's head that he could have used to his advantage, but in a refreshing change of pace, chose not to. Shelton's writing could have used some tightening...a lot of the stuff involving the thugs chasing the Hoyles and Gloria's inevitable appearance on Jeopardy could have been trimmed and kept this moving from being two hours long, but anyone who has seen Tin Cup knows that over-indulgence is a Shelton thing.
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Shelton is one of the few director/writers out there whose direction is just as effective as his writing. Shelton's camera work in documenting these street basketball games is a thing of beauty with the aid of a crackerjack editing team and flawless use of slow motion, gives the athleticism of what is going on here an almost ballet-like sensibility that was truly a pleasure to witness. The reason Shelton's eye with the camera is so effective is that it makes what these actors are doing look SO easy and it's just not. The camera work also pretty much documents that the stars are pretty much doing just about everything we're seeing here, with the possible exception of the five point basket shots near at the beginning of the film.
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Despite Shelton's expertise behind the camera, what really keeps this movie is the magical and totally unexpected chemistry between Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson which lights up the screen and makes it a lot easier to sit still for the entire two hour running time. Rosie Perez is also a lot of fun as the not-as-smart-as-she-thinks-she-is Gloria and it was a lot of fun watching her on Jeopardy. Harrelson and Snipes were so special here that they were reunited three years later in Money Train, but it wasn't anywhere near as slick and smooth as what they create here. With the aid of a first rate writer and director, Harrelson and Snipes make this overlong ride a fun one. 3.5

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The Cobweb
Vincente Minnelli's flair for melodrama and some stylish performances make 1955's The Cobweb worth checking out. This one gives new meaning to the phrase "the inmates are running the asylum."
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This hyperactive soap opera takes place within the walls of an exclusive psychiatric clinic where we learn that the clinic is getting ready to acquire new drapes and that apparently everyone in the clinic wants in on the project, even though the original idea was that it was to be a project for the patients.
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The principal players in this soap include the acting head of the clinic, Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark), who is married to the very neurotic Karen (Gloria Grahame); the widowed art teacher Mrs. Rinehart (Lauren Bacall); a suicidal patient who loves to paint named Stevie (John Kerr); the greasy clinic administrator (Charles Boyer); the tightly wound clinic business manager, Miss Inch (Lillian Gish); and Sue (Susan Strasberg), a phobic young patient who is afraid to leave the grounds of the clinic.
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Screenwriter John Paxton has crafted a classic melodrama on a pretty original canvas. In all my years of watching soap operas, on the big and small screen, I don't think I've ever seen a drama mounted around the concept of new drapes. It was clever hook to the classic soap opera elements that we look for in the genre and watch them quietly bubble to the surface. It's hard to believe that arguments over drapes actually lead the viewer to infidelity, divorce, death, secrets, corporate conflict...all the things that we melodrama lovers clamor for.
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Minnelli has gathered a really interesting group of actors together to pull this story off and they all seem fully committed to the director's vision. The chemistry between Richard Widmark and Lauren Bacall burns a hole through the screen and Charles Boyer's greasy administrator does provide what might be unintended comic relief. Screen legend Lillian Gish is a solid as Miss Inch and there's a wonderful glorified cameo by Oscar Levant as one of the patients. Screen vet Mabel Albertson makes a cameo as does movie icon Fay Wray as Boyer's devoted wife. Towering above them all and making this movie worth the price of admission all by herself is the incomparable Gloria Grahame, who easily walks off with this movie as hot mess Karen McIver, Grahame pulls out all the stops here, presenting a character that is equal doses of fragility and ferociousness that that keeps this movie on sizzle. Even though it's a little longer than it needs to be, Grahame and Minnelli make it worth the ride. 3.5

[Citizen Rules]

The Cobweb

Towering above them all and making this movie worth the price of admission all by herself is the incomparable Gloria Grahame, who easily walks off with this movie as hot mess Karen McIver, Grahame pulls out all the stops here, presenting a character that is equal doses of fragility and ferociousness that that keeps this movie on sizzle. rating_3_5:up: You're my hero! Great review and so glad you enjoyed Gloria's performance. I must have went back and rewatched the scene where she angrily kicks off her shoes in the bedroom...love that scene. She's priceless in this and looked great with dark hair too.

[Gideon58]

I was just about PM you to thank you for the recommendation. The movie was great and, as usual, Gloria stole the show. I really enjoyed it, thanks again.

[Citizen Rules]

Did you know the role of the painter was to be played by James Dean? If he had made that movie, I'm sure The Cobweb would be much more known than it is. BTW have you seen Dean's 3 feature films that he starred in?

[Gideon58]

Did you know the role of the painter was to be played by James Dean? If he had made that movie, I'm sure The Cobweb would be much more known than it is. BTW have you seen Dean's 3 feature films that he starred in?

So funny that you mention that because John Kerr was definitely the film's weakest link and while I was watching I actually said to myself, "James Dean would have been amazing in this part." I have never seen East of Eden.

[Citizen Rules]

So funny that you mention that because John Kerr was definitely the film's weakest link and while I was watching I actually said to myself, "James Dean would have been amazing in this part." I have never seen East of Eden.I think you'd like East of Eden, it's like a sophisticated soap opera style movie. It's my favorite Dean movie, though the other two are great as well.

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Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman, the clearly off-center creative force behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich crafts a confusing and riveting piece of cinema from 2008 called Synedoche, New York that, despite a confusing and long-winded screenplay, rivets the viewer to the screen with colorful characters and vivid performances by a brilliant ensemble cast.
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The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman delivers another of his accustomed brilliantly unhinged performances that we came to expect from him playing Caden Cotard, a theater director obsessed with death and plagued with health issues in Schenectady who has just completed directing a revival of Death of a Salesman where he has cast young actors to play Willy and Linda Loman. It is during the run of this show that Caden receives a large grant to do his own theater piece. Caden invests some of the money into the leasing of a giant warehouse where he plans to produce a play that he's written himself.
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Large portions of the story are told through the various women who float in and out of Caden''s life, whom Caden has carefully kept at arm's length: His ex-wife, Adele (Catherine Keener) is an artist who has been offered a show in Berlin and takes Caden's daughter, Olive with her. Claire (Michelle Williams) is the actress who played Caden's Linda Loman who eventually becomes his second wife; Hazel (Samantha Morton) was Caden's box office manager for Salesman, who has always been love with Caden and has made no secret of it to the clueless director; Madeline Gravis (Hope Davis) is Caden's completely self-absorbed psychiatrist who is also attracted to the man, but not so much that she still has time to convince him that her book is the answer to all his problems, for which she charges him $45.00.
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Charlie Kaufman is definitely an acquired taste, but the fact that he directed this film as well really worked in his favor here, having only written the above mentioned films. This is another one of those stories that demands undivided attention from the viewer, but to be perfectly honest, it's really not going to help because Kaufman's story is long-winded and confusing...the story flashes forward and backward, makes giant leaps from fantasy to reality, and doesn't allow the viewer anytime to figure out what events go where in the story. There were large chunks of this movie that had me scratching my head as we had actors playing younger and older versions of characters, actors playing characters we have already met and actors playing those actors. We never really get a sense of what Caden's new work becomes, except for its enormity. The separate sets of actors playing the same characters reminded me of the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry and if you're a fan of that movie, you will have a head start here, but the only way to keep up with everything going on here is to take notes.
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And as confused as I found myself during large portions of this story, I was never bored, never looked at my watch, and could not take my eyes off the screen. This Caden Cotard character was enigmatic and humorous. This guy appeared to keep everyone in his life at arm's length until they disappeared from his life. Watching the opening scenes with his daughter Olive, his relationship with her seemed so detached, that I didn't think she was his biological child. His emotional abuse of Hazel was exhausting but she gave as good as she got so it sort of worked.
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Kaufman's direction is better than his screenplay, creating some arresting visuals and drawing some superior performances from a clearly hand-picked cast. Hoffman was splendid, as always, and there is also standout work from Keener, Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Keener's bisexual BFF, and especially Morton, in the performance of her career as the larger than life Rachel. Not for all tastes, but there are rewards here for those who seek challenge in their movie viewing. There is a sense that this film becomes more comprehensible with repeated viewings. 3.5

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Blue Skies
Four years after starring together in Holiday Inn, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby were reunited for the colorful and tuneful musical confection Blue Skies, whose other big selling point was its memorable score by Irving Berlin.
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Paramount Pictures went the MGM route in this 1946 piece of cotton candy which stars Astaire as Jed Potter, A Broadway hoofer who is crazy about Mary (Joan Caulfield), one of the chorus girls in his show. Mary is kind to Jed but keeps him at arms length though we're not sure why. Jed then makes the mistake of taking Mary to a nightclub owned by Jed's former vaudeville partner, Johnny Adams (Crosby) who likes to open clubs for a couple of months, sell them, and move somewhere else and open another one. Mary falls in love with Johnny at first sight, leaving Jed in the dust, though life with Johnny isn't exactly what she had hoped.
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I guess Astaire and Crosby proved themselves in Holiday Inn because they were afforded a much bigger budget here (including glorious technicolor) and production values that rival some of MGM's strongest offerings. Take away the gloss and what you have is a standard romantic triangle that is made to look more important than it is but the musical numbers come at such a quick pace that we almost don't notice the way this Mary uses and abuses these two guys through the entire running time. I did like the fact that in Holiday Inn Fred stole the girl from Bing but in this movie, Bing stole the girl from Fred.
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The musical numbers are quite entertaining for the most part. The highlights for me were Astaire and Crosby's duet "A Couple of Song and Dance Men", "All by Myself", a duet with Bing and Joan Caulfield (her singing is dubbed by Betty Russell); "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody", "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song", Bing's dreamy crooning of the title tune and the elaborate finale to the tune of "Heat Wave". Though the musical highlight was definitely Astaire's take on "Puttin on the Ritz", which found Fred tapping in front of a whole chorus of Astaire duplicates that is superbly choreographed by Astaire and Hermes Pan.
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Director Stuart Heisler keeps things moving at a nice pace and makes the leading men look good. Ginger Rogers look-alike Caulfield is lovely, if a rather bland leading lady. Billy De Wolfe is a little annoying though, he is given this 10-minute skit near the end of the second act where he plays a woman visiting a nightclub for the first time that brings the film to a dead halt, but Carmen Miranda wanna-be Olga San Juan holds her own in numbers with both Crosby and Astaire. A colorful and fun musical romp that, despite the occasional slow spot, provides solid musical entertainment. 3.5

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Street Smart
Atmospheric direction and an interesting story that takes an unexpected path make a gritty urban drama from 1987 called Street Smart, not to mention some solid performances.
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The late Christopher Reeve plays Jonathan Fisher, an investigative reporter who pitches the editor at New York Magazine the idea of a story about 24 hours in the life of a pimp. Fisher hits Times Square but can't get any pimps or hookers to talk to him so he fabricates a story and submits it to the editor, who puts it on the cover of the magazine. Almost simultaneously, a pimp named Fast Black has been indicted for murder and Black's attorney is worried because Fisher's story seems to be a perfect mock-up of Black's life. Things get stickier when Fisher's editor wants to meet Black and when the DA pressures Fisher for his notes on the article in order to aid in Black's murder prosecution.
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Screenwriter David Freeman is to be credited for a story that initially comes off as laughable but becomes deadly serious pretty quickly. It's kind of funny that this completely fabricated story about a pimp written by a white reporter could completely fool his editor into thinking that Fisher has some great insight into street life. but instead of trying to move away from it, Jonathan dives in further and actually makes contact with Fast Black, bringing him to an important party at the bequest of his editor, maybe the best scene in the movie. Fisher also involves a hooker named Punchy and puts her, his own girlfriend, and himself in a lot of danger.
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Initially it seems a little patronizing that a white guy could write such a convincing story about the life of a pimp, but it's clear that the writer knew what he was doing when the DA wanted to see the notes that led to the article, Fast Black's attorney wanted to see them, and eventually Fast Black wants the guy to fabricate notes that we know don't exist.
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Director Jerry Schatzberg effectively creates the midnight to dawn atmosphere of Times Square, making the whole movie seem like it takes place at 2:30 in the morning. Reeve is smooth and understated as Fisher and Morgan Freeman's powerhouse turn as Fast Black earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Kathy Baker is also a perfect combination of strength and vulnerability as Punchy. I also have to give a shout out to Andre Gregory, who was very funny as Fisher's gullible editor. An atmospheric urban drama that brings the seamy atmosphere of Times Square vividly to life. 3.5

[Gideon58]

An Actor Prepares
Despite Oscar winner Jeremy Irons inhabiting the starring role, the pompously titled An Actor Prepares from 2018 is a snore inducing road trip comedy that runs slightly over an hour and a half, but seemed like it was four hours long and just has a serious air of "been there done that" wavering over it.
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First of all, let's make it clear that this film has nothing to do with the famous acting text written by Constantin Stanislavski that was part of the curriculum at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. This tiresome nonsense finds Irons playing Atticus Smith, a drinking, drugging, womanizing actor who suffers a heart attack and has to schedule surgery to save his life. However, before the surgery, he has to travel to the East coast for his daughter Annabelle's wedding and it is left up to his son, Adam, a documentary filmmaker, to get his father across the country, clean and sober, so that he can attend the wedding and have surgery immediately after.
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Director and co-screenwriter Steve Clark has crafted a simplistic and silly comedy that borrows ideas and an entire scenes from over a half of dozen much better movies. There's nothing wrong with borrowing stuff from one movie to make another movie, but if you're going to borrow something from another movie, you either have to bring something new to it or acknowledge the fact that you're borrowing it and if you don't do either, instead of watching the new scene, the viewer is immediately transported to the movie that was ripped off and thinks, "Oh yeah, they did it so much better."
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This movie borrows from just about any buddy movie or father and son movie you can think of, including Bullet Proof, Memories of Me, Beginners, The Judge, Dad, and Nothing in Common, but doesn't really do anything to adapt what he borrows from these films to fit the movie being made here with the actors cast here, who weren't in any of the above mentioned films This movie redefines the term predictable and we are privy to every possible scene you would expect from such a well worn premise, from the actor encountering an ex-lover, the son bonding with his dad after being arrested, and every scene is punctuated with a fan recognizing Atticus from one his movies and that gets really old very quickly. And speaking of old, the sight of Irons' wrinkled ass was something I could have gone to grave without seeing.
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Irons is charismatic and tries to keep this one watchable but Jack Huston is cringe worthy as the tightly wound Adam. As expected, with a cross-country trip as the canvas of the story, there is some beautiful photography throughout, but basically this movie was one hour and thirty seven minutes of my life I'll never get back. 1.5

[Gideon58]

The Ambushers
Dean Martin returns for round three as Matt Helm in the 1967 spy spoof The Ambushers, which delivers everything expected from a Matt Helm film but is the still the weakest entry in the franchise, thanks primarily to a confusing story that makes it hard to keep track of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
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Criminal mastermind Jose Ortega has built a laser beam that allowed him to hijack an experimental government flying saucer and upon its capture, he he rapes the pilot, a secret agent named Sheila Summers. Helm is brought onto the case when it is revealed that Sheila has amnesia but remembers Helm from working together on another case. Matt and Sheila are sent to Acapulco, under the guise of being man and wife, in order to retrieve the saucer because Sheila is the only one who knows how to fly the thing.
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Based on a novel by Donald Hamilton, the screenplay is stupid with the accustomed sexual double entendres and dated puns that we have come to expect from the franchise, but he story around them is too hard to follow and not terribly interesting. We get another Helm staple here where he and a beautiful girl have to spend the night together, which prompted one of the film's most outrageous set pieces...a huge, inflatable house hidden in the trunk of a car. And needless to say, that setting a large portion of the action inside a beer factory probably provided laughs for Martin fans at the time, but just seems pointless now.
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The Matt Helm character is introduced in the middle of training female recruits but eventually Matt is reduced to a pair of leading ladies and they are actually the strongest leading ladies I have seen in a Matt Helm adventure. Actually, Janice Rule, one of the best actresses of the 1960's is the best thing about this movie with her slick performance as Sheila Summers and sexy Senta Berger is almost as effective as the evil Francesca. Beverly Adams also shines briefly as Matt's secretary with the James Bond character name, Lovey Kravesit.
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Despite all the female and Mexican scenery, this one is pretty snore-inducing even with flashy turns from Kurt Kaznar and Albert Salmi as bad guys. As for our hero, even Dean Martin appears to be phoning it in and just like Murderers' Row, TPTB make no attempt to disguise the fact that Martin is not doing any of his stunt work. The very 60's theme song is performed by one of the 60's biggest pop duos, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote a lot of music for the Monkees, but this one really had me checking my watch. Janice Rule's performance is the only thing worth investing in here. 2

[Citizen Rules]

I seen The Ambusher's but hardly can remember it...and it hasn't been that long ago. I liked the first one the best. The one with Sharon Tate is pretty good too and one of her few movies where she got a substantial role. Have you seen that one?

[Gideon58]

That's the last one, The Wrecking Crew...haven't seen that one yet.

[Gideon58]

Leaving Neverland
Michael Jackson was a music icon who changed music forever and for decades was the most famous person on the planet. Michael Jackson was also a pedophile. There are devoted fans of the King of Pop who continue to deny this but evidence has surfaced to document this that can no longer be denied. Michael was a sick person who destroyed not only lives of the children he abused, but their families as well. Anyone who has ever gone to a Jackson 5 concert, anyone who has ever danced to one of his records, anyone who watched him play the Scarecrow in the 1978 musical The Wiz, anyone who considers themselves a fan of the late music idol needs to watch a shocking and heartbreaking 2019 documentary called Leaving Neverland which documents how Michael Jackson permanently damaged the lives of two young boys in particular who are now damaged adults.
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This documentary introduces us to two young boys named Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck, who worshiped the King of Pop before they even started going to school. They followed his career and learned how to duplicate every single dance step Michael ever performed. Both eventually attended Jackson concerts and were invited onstage to dance with Jackson. Both were eventually invited to spend time with Michael at the Neverland Ranch and were graciously welcomed there, along with their entire families. While their families were housed in elegant suites on the other side of the estate, Wade and Jimmy would sleep with Michael in his bedroom. But there was a lot more going on in Michael's bedroom than sleep.
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Director Dan Reed carefully and methodically breaks down for us the mental and emotional seduction that Michael Jackson performed on these boys, which eventually led to the boys being sexually abused and not even being aware of it. Reed's camera beautifully illustrates the pain in the eyes of these two guys and how what they went through with Michael Jackson has permanently and irreparably damaged their lives beyond recognition. There are still people out there who continue to proclaim Jackson's innocence, but even they will be unable to deny what this man was and what he did after watching this documentary. An adult Wade and Jimmy describe their sexual encounters with the pop icon in separate interviews and the details of what happened behind closed doors were practically identical, identical to the point that it is impossible not to believe what's being revealed.
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It was sad watching these two guys admit that they both felt they were in love with the man and that they would be together forever. They also both reveal that Michael warned them never to tell anyone and for decades they never did. They denied anything improper to authorities as well as to their own families. They also both admitted to feeling brushed aside by Michael when Macauley Culkin came into his life. This was maybe the most heartbreaking part of this film was watching the effect what happened to this guys had on their families, their mothers in particular. It's initially unsettling when it's revealed that neither of their mothers really knew what was going on, but were devastated when they finally learned the truth, which was after Michael was arrested in 2005 and Wade perjured himself saying nothing ever happened between himself and the King of Pop. It was most telling when the mothers revealed their separate reactions to Michael's death.
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This documentary includes tons of personal footage belonging to these guys, including their dancing onstage with their idol and a lot of archival footage of the news coverage revolving around Michael's legal battles regarding his behavior that Wade and Jimmy were still denying to anyone who would listen. Trying not to get on a soapbox about the subject matter here was not easy and this documentary was not an easy watch, but it's important to remember that this film is not about Michael Jackson, the tragic and misunderstood pop idol, it's about Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck, two young boys whose lives will never be normal or comfortable or complete because of their encounters with the King of Pop. The documentary is a bit of a time commitment, four hours, but it is well worth it and bravo to HBO for having the cajones to broadcast this story, warts and all. Yeah, this one got to me...my stomach's still in knots. 5

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Life Stinks
Rather than taking on history or classic movie genres, Mel Brooks decided to take on a timely and contemporary topic, but his 1991 comedy Life Stinks doesn't really work due to some cliched writing and Brooks' confusion on the way this story should be told.
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Brooks plays Goddard Bolt, a wealthy LA businessman who has just purchased half of a large parcel of land in the city, much of which is rundown and populated by the homeless. The other half of the property is owned by a long time business rival named Vance Crasswell (Jeffrey Tambor) who makes Bolt a bet that if he can survive on the streets for 30 days without money or any kind of assistance, Crasswell will sell his half of the property to Bolt.
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The basic concept of this movie is a decent one, but this is not the kind of movie that we expect from Mel Brooks. Brooks is the undisputed king of satire. He knows how to take a particular movie genre or concept and twist into a cinematic pretzel that always brings the funny. Mel made fun of westerns in Blazing Saddles and monster movies in Young Frankenstein, but I'm not sure that the plight of the homeless is something to be made fun of and that's what I think Mel is trying to do here. In an attempt to be topical, Mel attempts to craft some kind of a satire out of something that he really doesn't know anything about, but this satire is told with a straight face that often borders on the offensive.
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Mel's idea of the homeless is pretty over the top and proves the man's ignorance on the subject. The homeless population is portrayed as insane here and even though there are mental health issues are out there, it is not the only contributing factor to homelessness. There is a scene between Brooks and a homeless guy who thinks he's J. Paul Getty, played by long time Brooks collaborator Rudy DeLuca, that is a complete waste of screen time. There is questionable behavior throughout. When homeless Molly drives a couple of guys away from her spot, they retaliate by setting everything she owns on fire and they just get away with it. Yeah, real funny Mel.
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On the positive side, Brooks still has a strong eye for sight gags and an equally strong ear for funny dialogue. His Goddard Bolt actually reminded me of one of his funniest characters...the king inHistory of the World Part I, especially in the opening scenes. Lesley Ann Warren was an offbeat choice of leading lady as the outrageous Molly and Tambor was a fine comic villain, but this story just wasn't Mel Brooks' cup of tea. His attempt to do something different didn't really work for me. 2

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Fresh
Boaz Yakim made an impressive debut as a director and screenwriter with an inventive urban crime drama wrapped around a character study called Fresh that engages the viewer primarily through a fascinating central character.
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This 1994 sleeper is set amid the violence and racial turbulence of contemporary Brooklyn where we are introduced to a 12 year old kid known in the hood as Fresh. Fresh is a 12 year old drug runner who is actually working for more than one dealer while keeping his guardian and school in the dark as well as trying to figure out how to get his heroine addict sister out from under the thumb of a powerful dealer named Esteban.
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Yakim's screenplay is a little cliched and forces the viewer to accept a lot. The story sets up Fresh to be the smartest character in the story and considering the kind of story that's being told here, that's really stretching credibility. I'm pretty sure that if what happens to Fresh during the duration of this story happened in real life that Fresh would not come out of this story alive. Not only does Fresh come out alive, he leaves several bodies in his wake and not through actual violence, but through his street smarts and ability to manipulate people and situations. The story is full of unabashed violence and the victims both have what's coming to them or are innocent bystanders. We know five minutes after he appears onscreen, that Fresh's BFF Chuckie's big mouth is going to get him killed.
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Yakim shows real style as a director though and his mounting of this story is often imaginative and intense. Those opening shots of the buildings in the Brooklyn neighborhood appearing one at a time are very effective. The schoolyard shooting features some great camerawork that provides a shock when Yakim's camera beautifully disguises who one of the victims is, taking the viewer totally by surprise. Yakim does give us a riveting central character in Fresh...he is smart, instinctive, would do anything for his friends, knows when to stick up for himself and when to shut up. He has learned to bury emotions because he knows they can kill you on the street. The scenes with his deadbeat dad, beautifully played by Samuel L. Jackson, are quite intense.
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Sean Nelson is absolutely amazing, doing Oscar-worthy work in the title role, creating a character, along with the aid of his director, that we consistently care and worry about for the entire running time. Giancarlo Esposito deserves mention as well as the greasy Esteban as does N'Bushe Wright as Fresh's sister, but it is Sean Nelson's remarkable performance and Boaz Yakim's directorial eye that are the real attractions here. 3.5

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Monster (2003)
Charlize Theron won the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress of 2003 for her performance in Monster, the story of prostitute/serial killer Aileen Wournos who eventually ended up spending 12 years on death row before being executed in 2002.
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This dark and mean spirited docudrama begins with Aileen's teenage years, doing anything for attention from the boys with a pretentious narration from Aileen herself about wanting to be the next Marilyn Monroe. After a pregnancy and miscarriage at the age of 13, Aileen turns to straight up prostitution, hitchhiking and having sex with men in their cars. Aileen's life begins to change when she meets a needy young lesbian named Selby who, inexplicably, falls instantly in love with Aileen and a love affair does come to fruition but Aileen only knows one way to support her new girlfriend. Her return to hooking is forever complicated when a john rapes and beats her and she ends up killing him in self-defense.
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Writer-director Patty Jenkins took on unpleasant subject matter centered around a pretty unsympathetic character and outside Aileen's unnecessary narration, it's unclear as to whether or not we are supposed to sympathize with the toxic Aileen because there isn't a lot presented here to be sympathetic with...there's nothing attractive about her, she's crude, brainless and has absolutely no social skills whatsoever. There's a point in the story where Aileen decides to give up hooking and talks about getting a real job and even goes on a couple of interviews and these scenes are simultaneously laughable and pathetic as we watch her curse out a man interviewing her and throwing things about his office,
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The story gets completely overheated when, after the first murder, Aileen decides to return to hooking but eliminates the sex part and just kills the guys, empties their wallets, and steals their vehicles. She pretends to enjoy it to her new girlfriend's face, but the emotional toll it's taking on her becomes a little exhausting for the viewer.
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And if the truth be told, this Selby is no prize either...initially coming off as a sweet and lonely girl, once she has seduced Aileen into being what she wants, she appears to be the one who actually forces Aileen to continue hooking while she lays around a hotel room all day. Jenkins does make sure the viewer realizes that Selby was definitely a component in Aileen's downfall.
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Theron did win an Oscar for her performance as Aileen and she does work very hard to be convincing, but for me, this Oscar was more about the physical transformation or more specifically, the complete deglamming of herself that Theron does for this performance. Theron is unattractive and unrecognizable and is to be applauded for her bravery in appearing onscreen like this, but the performance comes off forced and affected to me. I think her win also had a lot to do with the fact that the Best Actress race that year was a weak one. Christina Ricci was effectively understated as Selby and Lee Tergesen is chilling as Aileen's first victim, but this one's a real downer and the fact that it is based on a real person and real events, doesn't make it any more compelling as entertainment. Patty Jenkins scored better in 2017 with Wonder Woman. 3

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Bryan Callen: Complicated Apes
It doesn't happen a lot, but I find great joy in discovering a whole new dimension to a performer who I have only seen in a particular genre or venue and having my entire concept of that performer permanently blown out of the water. This joy was just experienced with my viewing of Bryan Callen: Complicated Apes, a 2019 comedy concert that not only had me rolling on the floor but thinking about the truth behind each punchline.
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Some of you might not be familiar with Bryan Callen, but might remember his appearances in films like Ride Along and The Hangover, as well as the last five years he has spent playing an overzealous gym teacher named Mr. Mellor on the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs and its spinoff Schooled. Callen has crafted one of network television's most uniquely funny characters in Coach Mellor, but watching Callen return to his standup roots was an introduction to the unbelievably intelligent comic presence that Callen proves to be here.
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This was Callen's third special, filmed before a live audience at Thalia Hall in Chicago where the comedian completely captivated a sold-out audience without a dependence on working "blue", without borrowing material from other comedians, without laughing at himself, and most importantly, providing candor and intelligent observations on contemporary society that it was virtually impossible to argue. I am adding him as the third member of my very exclusive list, behind the late George Carlin and Chris Rock, as a comedian who everything he says is absolutely correct.
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I was particularly impressed with his disdain for the concept of celebrity in today's world and the twisted ways that people use and, more importantly, misuse the power that celebrity allows them. His observation about celebrities adopting minority children had a twist on it that I didn't see coming and had his audience in stitches and cheering. Callen proves to be a staunch feminist, giving all power in his marriage to his wife, whom he lovingly refers to as a "viking' and gives her complete credit for his two children being the socially acceptable human beings that they are. His impression of his daughter explaining the rules of a game she made up had me on the floor.
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Callen impresses as being extremely intelligent, articulate, explosive, and displays a methodical approach to his comedy. He is a polished wordsmith like George Carlin or Jerry Seinfeld, but he never allows his flair with the spoken word to get in the way of a wonderful story. His final story of his encounter on a plane with a woman having a seizure is just glorious...not searching for laughs every five seconds, but gliding to a smooth conclusion that just makes the viewer humbled. A comic romp rife with equal doses of semi-raunchy hijinks and unexpected warmth. What a pleasure. 4.5

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A Bronx Tale
Robert De Niro made an impressive directorial debut with 1993's A Bronx Tale, an atmospheric and ferocious story of life in the mob that on the surface does bear some resemblance to a certain 1990 Martin Scorsese epic, but establishes its own credentials with its own look at a lifestyle that is so often glamorized, but is also revealed here for exactly what it is, warts and all.
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The story opens in the Bronx in 1960 where a 9-year old kid named Calogero, the son of a local bus driver (De Niro), is the sole witness to a murder committed by Calogero's secret hero, Sonny (Chazz Paminteri). The police show up at the boy's house a minute later but the boy refuses to finger Sonny and it is not long before a relationship develops between Sonny and Calogero, who Sonny renames "C" that C's dad is not happy about at all.
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The story flashes forward eight years where a 17 year old C is not working directly for Sonny but is under the man's influence, though he is hanging with all the wrong people. A battle between Sonny and C's father ensues for the boy's soul while C's attraction to a pretty black girl (Taral Hicks) fuels the racial tension in the already intense Bronx neighborhood.
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Chazz Palminteri not only plays Sonny, but also adapted the screenplay for this film, which is actually based on a play that Palminteri wrote, something I have difficulty wrapping my head around because I find it difficult picturing the story presented here on a proscenium stage, but if it was, Palminteri and De Niro do a beautiful job of opening up the story because there is nothing that happens on this screen that even hints at "photographed stage play"...this is cinema, riveting and engaging cinema, filled with tension, laughter, and warmth.
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Yes, there are some similarities to Goodfellas here that cannot be denied...the Chez Bippy bar in this film plays the same role that the cab stand in Goodfellas played and the relationship that develops Sonny and C does resemble the relationship between Henry Hill and Paulie in Goodfellas, but in Scorsese's film, Henry's father is out of the story ten minutes in the film, but in this film, C's father remains center stage, never giving up in his quest to shield his son from the dangers of Sonny's life. Loved the scene where C is invited to go to a big boxing match by both men and because he has better seats, he invites C to sit with him instead of sitting with his father. This scene was one of De Niro's strongest moments in the story.
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Speaking of De Niro, on top of his skillful and imaginative directorial eye, it was great to see him cast against type as the work a day father trying to save his son from a life that scared him instead of the wiseguy we usually see from him. Palminterri lights up the screen as Sonny and Francis Capra and Lillo Brancata were both impressive as the younger and older C, respectively. Bronx in the 1960's is lovingly recreated here, but I swear if I hear Dean Martin's "Ain't it a Kick in the Head" in one more mob movie, I'm going to lose it. A small nitpick regarding a bold and explosive piece of film making. Believe it or not, the piece actually returned to the Broadway stage as a musical in 2016 and, as of this date, still running on Broadway. 4

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X Y & Zee
The 1972 film X Y & Zee is a bizarre and campy melodrama that attempts to be hip and relevant that just come off as unintentionally funny, not to mention plotting and characterizations that would have Noel Coward and Edward Albee turning over in their graves.
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Elizabeth Taylor stars as Zee Blakely, the bitchy, venomous, and badly dressed wife of a wealthy architect named Robert (Michael Caine), who does everything she can to put a stop to Robert's affair with Stella (Susannah York), a widowed boutique owner with two young sons.
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Director Brian Hutton and screenwriter Edna O'Brien attempt to disguise the fact that this basically a 1950's melodrama draped in 1970's sensibilities that never really gels the way it should. This very sophisticated approach to the romantic triangle where everyone is open and above board about it, might have been considered kind of bold in 1972, but it's just kind of laughable here. O'Brien's dialogue tires to hard to be clever and important but ends up as just coming off as pretentious and occasionally dull. Her story attempts a jaw-dropping conclusion; unfortunately, it's so blatantly telegraphed that there's no shock when it's supposed to occur.
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Hutton works very hard at making sure that the viewer doesn't really notice that the actors cast in the leads are really too old for the story and atmosphere that is mounted around them. The production values are gaudy and youthful and offer definite appeal to 1972 movie audiences, but these actors just seem out of place in the atmosphere that Hutton attempts to establish here.
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Elizabeth Taylor is all over the map here in one of her most undisciplined performances that alternately rivets the viewer to the screen and grates on the nerves. Michael Caine is unconvincing as the stud that has these two women fighting for him so passionately. Susannah York somehow manages to maintain her dignity for the majority of the proceedings, effectively underplaying to some serious scenery-chewing from Taylor and Caine. The music is garish and annoying, the sets overly elaborate, and Taylor's costumes were hideous, can't believe she agreed to wear some of the brightly colored shrouds she is forced to wear here. There's a lot of effort going on here in an attempt to provide a viable cinematic experience, but it never really pays off. Even hard core Taylor fans will have difficulty getting through this one. 2

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Legally Blonde
Reese Witherspoon had a box office smash with a 2001 piece of cinematic cotton candy called Legally Blonde that Witherspoon's presence in the starring role helps to provide the piece a little more legitimacy than it really serves.
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Witherspoon is Elle Woods, a prep school sorority sweetie, local beauty queen, and was Miss June on the latest campus calendar. She refers to Cosmopolitan magazine as "the Bible." She has been dating Warner (Matthew Davis), the biggest stud on campus and just waiting for him to propose. On the night she thinks he's going to propose, he instead dumps her because he says he has to concentrate on his future at Harvard Law School. Determined to prove to Warner that she is the right woman for him, Elle actually manages to get accepted to Harvard and follows Warner there.
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Upon arrival, Elle's Malibu Barbie sensibility makes her an outcast with most of the campus and to further complicate things, Elle discovers that Warner already has another girlfriend (Selma Blair), another no-nonsense law student who looks down her nose at Elle while the girl battles snooty professors, sexual harassment, and even manages to get a wealthy trophy wife (Ali Larter) acquitted of murder.
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This is another one of those movies from which entertainment can be gleaned as long as you understand from the start that this film is steeped in fantasy and that hardly anything that happens in this film would ever happen in real life. Karen McCullah's screenplay is the prime culprit here in that the degree of Elle's intelligence seems to change from scene to scene to fit whatever degree of intelligence the character needs at the moment. It's revealed that Elle was a fashion major in prep school and I don't care how hard she studied there's no way a girl like Elle would EVER get accepted into Harvard Law School, or that during her freshman year in law school, she would actually end up in a courtroom for a high profile murder case. If you can accept all of this, I guess this movie can be a lot of fun.
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What did make it worth sitting through was the bubbly and effervescent performance by Witherspoon in the title role that puts you completely in the character's corner from jump. We really want to see Elle get everything she wants, no matter how unbelievable it is and that is due to Witherspoon, who gives this character a depth the screenplay doesn't. Witherspoon is backed by a solid supporting cast including Victor Garber, Luke Wilson, Holland Taylor, and a very young Linda Cardellini. Sadly there is a subplot involving a pathetic manicurist, played by Jennifer Coolidge, whom Elle befriends that just seems to pad the running time.
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There's also a terrific cameo from Raquel Welch that's worth mentioning. This film has all the substance of a John Hughes teen comedy from the 80's but Witherspoon almost makes it seem like more. Six years later, the movie came to Broadway as a musical and ran for over 500 performances. 3

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Fantastic Mr. Fox
The creative forces behind films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Squid and the Whale take a premiere dive into the world of animated cinema for the first time and hit a bullseye with 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox, a deliciously sophisticated animated look at the animal world unlike anything we've seen that absolutely rivals some of the best of Disney Pixar.
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Mr. Fox (voiced by Oscar winner George Clooney) and his wife (voiced by Oscar winner Meryl Streep) have led an exciting life together stealing chickens, but when Mrs. Fox learns of her pregnancy, she demands that her husband settle down and find a safer way of living. The Foxes have a kid named Ash (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) and Mr. Fox has taken a safe job as a newspaper reporter. Mr. Fox is restless though and against the advice of his attorney, Badger (voiced by Bill Murray), decides he wants to pull one more chicken heist at the three biggest factories in the forest Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, accompanied by his best friend, an opossum named Kylie (voiced by Wallace Wolardosky).
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Mr. and Mrs. Fox are also anticipating the arrival of Kristofferson (voiced by Eric Anderson), their nephew who is a star at school, does yoga, and seems to be taking Ash's place in his father's heart, which Ash is having none of.
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This wonderful story is based on a book by Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and has been fashioned into a smart and accessible screenplay by director Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach that provides intelligent animal characters with brains but never talks down to its audience either. I loved the way whenever Mr. Fox encounters other animals in the story, he refers to them by their latin names. And whenever a character wants to use a curse word, they use the word "cuss".
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As with most of Anderson's work, the story requires complete attention and the story does sag a little in the center, but the exposition introducing the characters is a lot of fun and the finale which finds the Fox family on the run and embroiled in a knock down drag out battle with Boggis, Bunce, and Bean is spectacular.
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Clooney and Streep head up a terrific voice cast, that includes standout work from other Anderson rep company members like Murray as the Badger, Owen Wilson as the whack bat coach (don't ask), and Willem Dafoe as a rat who's a security guard for Bean's factory where the alcoholic cider is manufactured. Wes Anderson proves to be a filmmaker for any demographic, even children. 4.5

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Wayne's World
One of the top ten box office champions of 1992, Wayne's World is a roll-on-the-floor funny full-length film comedy based on an SNL skit created by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey that was such a breakout hit on the show that it was decided it had to come to the big screen.
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On SNL, Wayne Campbell (Meyers) and Garth Algar (Carvey) were a pair of teenagers who have a silly cable access TV show they broadcast from the basement of Wayne's parents' house in Aurora, Illinois. In this movie, Wayne and Garth are approached by a slick advertising executive named Benjamin (Rob Lowe) who wants to bring their show to a real network sponsored by a video arcade guru (Brian Doyle Murray), but Wayne and Garth are unable to accept the changes that come to their show when it is no longer their own, but run by a network and a sponsor.
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While trying to save their show, Wayne falls for a rocker babe (Tia Carrere) whose group has been performing at his posse's local hangout and Garth is crushing on a babe (Donna Dixon) from afar because he's too scared to actually speak to her. Wayne is also dealing with an ex (Lara Flynn Boyle), a "psycho hose beast" who refuses to accept the fact that Wayne broke up with her two months ago.
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The skits on SNL never left Wayne's couch or his basement, but there's no way the movie could be 90 minutes on Wayne's couch, so Mike Meyers has written an effectively expanded story that brings Wayne and Garth out of the basement to deal with assorted nutty characters and situations without ever losing the core of these two guys Wayne and Garth, which is what made the skits so funny. It wasn't so much what these guys were doing or not doing as it was the very special "Wayne speak" between the characters and the off the chart chemistry that that Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey create.
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The movie is written with tongue seriously tucked in the cheek and includes the expected breaking of the 4th wall as we are reminded near the beginning of the film that only Wayne and Garth are allowed to talk to the camera. A donut shop owner (Ed O'Neill) attempts to talk to the camera and Wayne puts a stop to that immediately in one of the movie's funniest moments. I also loved a moment later in the film where things are going really bad for Wayne and the camera leaves him in disgust and he chases after the camera begging it to come back. Meyers and director Penelope Spheeris work in perfect tandem here, as well as in the classic salute to "Bohemian Rhapsody."
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This movie still provides non-stop laughs that hold up remarkably well in 2019. Rob Lowe is a surprisingly smooth bad guy and Kurt Fuller is very funny as his stooge. There are also cameos from Alice Cooper and Chris Farley, but this is Mike and Dana's show and they're all the viewer really needs. This movie is just as funny today as it was 27 years ago. Followed by a sequel. 4

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The Misfits
The Misfits is a minor classic from 1961 that has earned its status as a classic for myriad reasons, but its placed in cinema history is cemented primarily due to the fact that the film was the final completed film for movie legends Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.
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Monroe plays Roslyn Tabor, a neurotic young woman who travels to Reno to divorce her husband and is staying with her Isabelle Steers (Thelma Ritter) until her final decree comes through. During the wait she meets an aging cowboy named Gay Langland (Gable) and his BFF Guido (Eli Wallach), who are both instantly attracted to Roslyn, though she is really only interested in Gay. It looks like a star-crossed romance for Gay and Roslyn until another cowboy (Montgomery Clift) joins them on their adventure to round up horses, which repulses Roslyn, who has no tolerance for cruelty to animals.
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Monroe's husband at the time, playwright Arthur Miller, wrote the screenplay for this prickly romantic drama as a valentine to his bride. It's been well-documented over the years that Monroe hated this script and her contempt for the material definitely show in her performance, unfocused and overripe. It's obvious watching Monroe here, and I've never said this about her before, but she really doesn't seem to understand this story or her character.
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Fortunately, director John Huston had the smarts to surround Marilyn with some of the best actors in the business, many of them near the end of their careers, but still holding onto their ability to command a movie screen. The beautiful black and white photography and some sharp film editing are big assets as well.
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It's odd subject matter for a movie and Marilyn is kind of all over the place, but Gable gives a powerhouse performance and Clift is just heartbreaking. Ritter steals every scene she is in, but if the truth be told, Eli Wallach walks off with this movie as the sensitive and rowdy Guido...from the moment he walks through the house he was building for his wife, we totally fall in love with this guy. I don't think Wallach has ever been better. A mixed bag, but all the history surrounding this film, it's a must see for the serious buff. 3

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Martin Lawrence: You So Crazy
Two years after the premiere of his very popular sitcom but before his famous breakdown, Martin Lawrence returned to his comic roots in 1994's Martin Lawrence: You So Crazy that, despite some dated language and subject matter, still provides laughs after 25 years.
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Filmed before a full house at the Majestic Theater in New York, Lawrence starts off this show with the racial material that every black comic has been doing during the last 40 years. There's nothing really original here, but Lawrence's very special delivery gives the material a feeling of originality that really isn't there.
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One thing I noticed that is special about Lawrence is a solid talent for physical comedy that comes through in some unique ways. Something I've never really noticed with any other comics is the way he is establishes different characters through the way they walk. It was so funny watching the way a white person in a movie theater telling on loud black people walk as opposed to the way a black female crack addict walks was really hilarious. Martin puts a different walk to several different characters during this 90 minutes and every walk is just distinctly different enough that we always know exactly who Martin is talking about.
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Lawrence also takes a different tack with another subject for black comics: drugs. I loved his take on the pros and cons of smoking weed. I was particularly impressed by his take of a guy getting stoned and watching The Wizard of Oz and a guy getting stoned with his best friend and being prompted to make a lifelong confession. The expected rants about relationships take on an air of originality as well because we get a look at the ladies point of view through conversations with her girlfriends after the date.
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Yes, the influence of Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy is in his material (Lawrence did a movie with Murphy the same year called Boomerang), but Lawrence puts his own brand on the material and the influence never moves further than homage. 3.5

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Woman's World
A clever story, a wonderful ensemble cast, and some dandy production values add up to make the 1954 melodrama Woman's World worth a look.
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Clifton Webb plays Gifford, the owner of an auto manufacturing empire in New York who needs to hire a new general manager, so he flies three mid-level executives and their wives from different parts the country to Manhattan to inform them that the three men are being considered for the job. Bill Baxter (Cornel Wilde) is from Kansas City and excited about the job and even though she's happy for her husband, wife Katie (June Allyson) doesn't really want to move to New York. Texas native Jerry Talbot (Van Heflin) quietly longs for the job while his wife (Arlene Dahl) throws herself at Gifford in order to get the job for her husband. Philadelphia's Sid Burns (Fred MacMurray) and his wife Liz (Lauren Bacall) are on the verge of divorce but Liz agrees to play happy wife in order to help her husband get this job.
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Jean Negulusco, the director of How to Marry a Millionaire and Black Widow shows a real flair for the melodrama here, not to mention making the most of an all-star cast and giving them all moments to shine. The screenplay by Claude Binyon and Russell Crouse offers sophistication, wit, and most importantly, an air of mystery about how the story is going to turn out. We are informed early on that Gifford's choice for the job has a lot to do with his wife even though we aren't told exactly what he's looking for in a GM's wife until the beginning of the third act and until the moment it happens, I didn't have a clue which guy was going to get this job.
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There's a lot of fun to be had here in terms of characterizations and individual scenes. I loved the idea of June Allyson's Katie being made some kind of klutz who keeps getting into embarrassing situations who somehow becomes BFF's with Bacall's Liz. The scene where Allyson and Bacall go to the retail shopping outlet is so much fun and I loved Allyson having one too many martinis in an early scene and unable to stop the hiccups during a speech of Gifford's. It was also nice watching Sid and Liz reunite at a restaurant where they dated many years ago. The story gives us opportunities, perhaps too many, to get to know these three couples because it seems to take forever to get to what we came for, creating some definite slow spots along the way, making the film seem longer than it is.
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Negulesco does wonders with this great cast though. Bacall is perfection, as always, and Heflin is properly intense as Jerry. Allyson seems to be enjoying herself even though she and Wilde are kind of an odd pairing. Webb is a perfect host for our story and Margalo Gilmore, who played Grace Kelly's mother in High Society, also scores as Gifford's sister, whom Gifford turns to for help in making his decision.
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The film utilizes New York as a perfect backdrop for the story, the city has rarely looked more beautiful than it does here. Loved when they were coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel and faced the sign with arrows pointing "Uptown" and "Downtown." This one was a lot better than I thought it was going to be and the final choice will induce cheers. 3.5

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Little Voice
An extraordinary singer and actress named Jane Horrocks is the main attraction of a singularly unique piece of film making from 1998 called Little Voice that riveted this reviewer to the screen.
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It is a run down suburb of London called North Yorkshire where we meet Little Voice, a young girl who has been living as a virtual hermit since the death of her father. She doesn't talk to anyone, including her slovenly, loud-mouthed, hard-drinking mother (Brenda Blethyn). Her life has been reduced to listening to her father's record collection and her obsession with Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, and Marilyn Monroe. Little Voice's mother is having an on again off again affair with a third rate theatrical agent named Ray Say (Oscar winner Michael Caine) who hears Little Voice singing one day and decides that he can make her a star. What Ray nor anyone else realizes is that Little Voice only sings when ,motivated by the spirit of her father, a spirit that does materialize in the front row when Ray arranges for Little Voice to sing at a club owned by Mr. Boo (Oscar winner Jim Broadbent).
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This gloriously original film experience is based on a play by Jim Cartwright that premiered on Broadway in 1994 and only ran for nine performances, Director and screenwriter Mark Herman had to have a true passion for this piece that barely made a blip on Broadway and, if the truth be honest, the film version didn't do great business either, but do not allow any of that to deter you from experiencing a show business story unlike anything I have ever seen.
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Herman really makes the viewer work for the joy in this story. For the first third of the movie, Little Voice doesn't say two words, but we are privy to her passion for Garland and Bassey and really don't think much of it until we hear the remarkable vocal instrument that belongs to the amazing Jane Horrocks. Horrocks provides uncanny tributes to Garland, Bassey, and Monroe that are not just straight up impressions of these artists but she brings her own vocal style to theirs creating a sound that is nothing short of mesmerizing. Herman makes a a strong directorial choice when Little Voice can't sing her first time onstage until the lights go out. The recurring motif of Little Voice being at her most comfortable performing in the dark is spooky but effective. And her one full performance in front of a full house at Mr. Boo's is dazzling entertainment that we wish we had relished more while it was happening because we assume that we will get to hear more and we don't. I saw Horrocks on You Tube playing Sally Bowles in a revival of Cabaret, but her work there doesn't touch this amazing once-in-a-lifetime performance that must be seen to be believed.
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Michael Caine also does a powerhouse turn as Ray Say that is equally memorable. His breakdown during the film's climax is heartbreaking and I'm pretty sure it's the only time that Caine has sung onscreen. Blethyn is brassy and tragic as Little Voice's mom and Broadbent scores as Mr. Boo, as does Ewan McGregor, in one of his earliest roles as a phone repairman's assistant who falls for Little Voice. As good as the rest of the cast is, it is the extraordinary work by Jane Horrocks that rivets the viewer to the screen and makes this movie blazing entertainment. 4

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Funny Face
Beautiful Parisian scenery, the incomparable music of George Gershwin, a clever screenplay some gorgeous costumes, and wonderful lead performances all help the 1957 musical Funny Face appointment movie viewing for the classic film lover.
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Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) , the editor of Quality Magazine and Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) discover a young woman named Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) during a photo shoot at a Greenwich Village bookstore and offer her a job as a model in Paris. Jo only agrees to take the job as a means to meeting her literary mentor,a Professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair).
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Stanley Donen, the undisputed king of romantic musical comedy, exquisitely mounts this dazzling piece of cinematic fluff that seems more important than it is thanks to the professionalism both in front of and behind the camera. Leonard Gershe's Oscar-nominated screenplay is rich with sophistication and serves the characters effectively, providing a story that the actors are perfectly suited for. The Maggie Prescott character is actually based on fashion editor Diana Vreeland and the Dick Avery character is based on famed fashion photographer Richard Avedon.
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A lot of the fun in this musical was watching the evolution of the relationship between the photographer and his muse. Loved the way Avery would set the scene for Jo before every shot describing exactly what is supposedly happening in her life and how she's supposed to be feeling when the pictures are being taken. Though not surprised, it was lovely watching Jo not being able to take being photographed in a wedding dress so lightly.
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Gershwin's music provides a perfect accompaniment for this story without ever getting in the way of the story. The highlights for me were Thompson's opening number "Think Pink", Hepburn's surprisingly effective "How Long has this been Going On?", a duet for Thompson and Hepburn called "On How to be Lovely", and the Astaire-Hepburn pas-de-deux to "He Loves and She Loves". Hepburn has a beautifully choreographed dance number in a dark Parisian nightclub and Astaire provides his accustomed solo with an inanimate object...this time with a hat, an ambrella, and a cape. Also loved the "Bonjour Paris" number and the duet with Thompson and Astaire called "Clap a Yo Hands." The musical numbers are smartly staged by Astaire and Eugene Loring.
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Hepburn makes a delightful leading lady in a role that was actually offered to Cyd Charisse originally. She's not a great singer, but she knows how to sell a song and even though, once again, she's cast opposite an actor decades older than Hepburn, she and Astaire do make the pairing work for the most part and we're behind the rocky road to their getting together. Of course, it goes without saying that Hepburn was one of the 1950's greatest clothes horses giving Edith Head's stunning costumes a proper easel.
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But the real star of this movie is Kay Thompson. Thompson had a long and distinguished career in Hollywood as a writer, composer, vocal arranger, pianist...she was a close personal friend of Judy Garland, but she only made five appearances on film and this was her most significant film role and she makes the most of it. Thompson is dazzling in this movie, providing perfect support to the leads while simultaneously stealing the movie without anybody onscreen realizing it. It's Thompson's performance here that earned an extra bag of popcorn from this reviewer. 4

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Lost in Translation
Bill Murray earned his only Outstanding Lead Actor Oscar nomination to date for his performance in a quirky sleeper from 2003 called Lost in Translation which combines a character study with a fish out of water story and throws in a "Brief Encounter"-type relationship on top of that, but the final results are definitely a mixed bag.
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Murray plays Bob Lewis, a movie star whose career is on the decline, but has still managed to land a lucrative endorsement deal hawking a brand of whiskey for an advertising firm in Tokyo. While trying to learn how to work with his new employers, a lot of whom don't speak English, Bob finds himself involved with a woman named Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) who has accompanied her photographer/husband (Giovanni Ribisi) to Tokyo on business.
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Sofia Coppola served as director and screenwriter for this odd story, her fist time in the director's chair since The Virgin Suicides, for which she also co-wrote the screenplay. Her first sole venture as a screenwriter actually won her an Oscar for Original Screenplay and I'll be damned if I know why. The screenplay is the most problematic part of this production for me. Coppola is to be applauded for setting the story on foreign soil, but the story is often fuzzy and devoid of focus, never really clarifying what the movie is supposed to be about. The fish out of water elements of the story are the strongest...watching Bob Lewis deal with the Japanese and their sensibilities was a joy to watch, but the relationship with Charlotte is kind of sketchy and never really makes clear how Bob and Charlotte feel about each other. Since both characters are married, a much stronger story would have materialized if these characters actually fell in love, but it's unclear whether or not they do, making it hard to invest in this part of the story.
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Coppola's direction is a lot stronger than her screenplay...her presentation of Tokyo as the setting for this story is absolutely breathtaking. She makes Tokyo seem like the most beautiful city in the world and the only place that anyone with any sense would want to live. The care she employs in making the locale a viable part of the story is comparable to the way that Woody Allen utilizes Manhattan in most of his best work. Her camera makes us care about Bob and Charlotte but also remains aloof in order to make the viewer do a little work...perhaps a little too much work, but I think that goes back to the screenplay. One thing I would have done differently as a director is during the scenes where Bob is on the phone with his wife back home, I would have eliminated the wife's voice on the other line and let Bob tell us what's going on at home with his side of the conversation because Coppola had the actor to pull it off.
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The one thing that totally works here is the dazzling performance by Bill Murray as Lewis. Murray understands this character and makes the viewer understand exactly where this guy's head is regarding his career...he seems to have accepted the fact that movie offers have dried up and seems grateful for this job in Japan and works very hard at making his new employers happy. The scenes of a commercial director showing Bob how to turn his chair with the glass of scotch in his hand are just brilliant and credit for this has to go to both Murray and Coppola. There are a couple of moments where American tourists recognize him and he is completely gracious but there is a sadness behind this character's eyes that the viewer can't help but notice and make us love this guy. As the film progressed, I kept think how interesting a prequel to this film would be showing Bob Lewis at the height of his career because his backstory is hardly mentioned.
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Johansson is decorative as Charlotte, but Anna Faris makes the most of a glorified cameo as an actress in Tokyo promoting her latest movie, but this is Murray's show and his Oscar nomination was richly deserved...Sean Penn was superb in Mystic River, but I don't know...3.5

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Two Weeks in Another Town
A decade after his classic The Bad and the Beautiful, Vincente Minnelli returned to similar territory with another glossy show business soap opera from 1962 called Two Weeks in Another Town that isn't quite up to The Bad and the Beautiful, but entertains, thanks to solid production values,and a fun story rich with colorful characters, played by a willing cast.
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Kirk Douglas reunites with Minnelli playing Jack Andrus, an actor who has been in a mental hospital for three years, who has been offered a two week job in a movie shooting in Rome being directed by his favorite director, Maurice Kruger (Edward G. Robinson), but ends up being in charge of the dubbing of the non-English speaking actors. Jack finds himself drawn to Veronica (Dahlia Lavi), the girlfriend of the movie's unstable leading man (George Hamilton), even though his glamorous ex, Carlotta (Cyd Charisse) has made no qualms about the fact that she wants him back, despite the fact that she is currently the mistress to a billionaire. Other pertinent players in this melodrama are Krugers wife, Clara (Claire Trevor), a grasping and shrieking harpy who thinks her husband is having an affair with his sexy, non-English speaking leading lady (Rosanna Schiaffino); the film's Italian producer (Erich Von Stroheim) and a smart ass Hollywood agent (George Macready).
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Needless to say, this one was a lot of fun. Minnelli reunited with his Bad and the Beautiful screenwriter Charles Schnee to create this outrageous show business story set in the eternal city. Minnelli was also given a bigger budget here, evidenced by actual location filming in Italy in glorious technicolor. Minnelli's eye for color is evident everywhere, always welcome since it was denied for The Bad and the Beautiful that was filmed in black and white. Schnee's screenplay is once again centered around a charismatic Hollywood figure who has to deal with his past in order to realistically construct a future for himself. There is also some very clever dialogue inserted along the way. Loved when Kruger referred to his wife as "my lawful wedded nightmare." Unfortunately, the over the top finale involving Douglas and Charisse is laughable, but was I was completely invested by this time and was able to forgive.
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Minnelli's attention to production values never allows him to neglect his cast...Douglas' Jack Andrus is just as compelling as his Jonathan Shields. I loved the scene of Kirk in a screening room watching himself in The Bad and the Beautiful. Robinson and Trevor, reunited onscreen for the first time since Key Largo, are a lot of fun as the Krugers and Cyd Charisse's scenery chewing, glorified cameo as Carlotte worked for me as well. Only George Hamilton missed the boat for me, in a dreadful performance as the nutty young actor, a role I kept picturing Warren Beatty in. But the good definitely outweighs the bad here, Vincente Minnelli once again documents his propensity for mounting deliciously compelling melodrama. 3.5

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Glass
M. Night Shyamalon has taken on the most ambitious undertaking of his career with 2019's Glass, a dark and shocking film that does something I have never seen before. Shyamalon has actually crafted a sequel based on two different films made 17 years apart that ultimately doesn't work, despite stylish direction and an amazing performance from James McAvoy.
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This film takes place 19 years after the events in the 2000 film Unbreakable where we are re-introduced to that film's main character, David Dunn (Bruce Willis), the man who miraculously survived a devastating train accident and is believed to be a superhero. He is now running a security firm with his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark). David is trying to find out who abducted four teenage girls and learns that the girls were abducted by Kevin (James McAvoy) the psycho from the 2017 film Split who has DID and has 24 different personalities. Their encounter actually lands both of them in a mental hospital where they are united with Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) , the man with the brittle bones from Unbreakable who is in a comatose state. We are then introduced to a Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) who is a psychiatrist who deals specifically with cases of delusions of grandeur and people who think they have super powers and are told that she is here to de-program the three men.
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Shyamalon is to be credited for originality here, creating a sequel from two different films, but the time line for the events really connects for the viewer since the two films were made 17 years apart. The connection between David and Elijah has already been established in the 2000 film and now we are informed that Kevin and his 24 different personalities also believe themselves to be a superhero, being unwillingly led by Kevin's non-human alter, known as "The Beast" and we're also led to believe that the Beast is responsible for where David and Elijah are now and is also the key to their way out. We also see multiple characters communicate with Kevin's several personalities and somehow always seem to know which alter they are talking to, especially the girl who Kevin let go in Split. We learn that the roots of the characters goes back to their childhood, but these reveals come way too late for the viewer to care anymore.
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The scope of Shyamalon's story is just too wide to completely engage the viewer and it's not just the fact that referencing two different films is necessary in order to gauge what is happening here. As often happens with Shyamalon, he just makes the viewer work too hard and provides a story that does rivet the viewer to the screen as long as you don't think about it too much. There's a point where the story starts to come together but then we learn that Paulson's character is working for a much greater power that is never really explained. The film even seems to try to set up a second sequel, but as exhausting as this journey was, the world would continue to rotate if another film never happened.
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As always with Shyamalon, his direction is superior to his writing. Shyamalon creates a bone-chilling atmosphere in this movie with the use of some very imaginative camera work and some extraordinary production values. There's a wonderful moment where we see David's son arguing about saving his nearly drowned father and the camera is shooting the scene from underneath a pool of water. The shots of the long hallways of the institution set an appropriate venue for the story conveying a place out of which there is no escape.

The performances work, with a breathtaking performance from James McAvoy, which is a big factor in keeping the viewer galvanized to the screen. There is a scene where four of Kevin's personalities are having a conversation with each other and the transition from character to character is just seamless. McAvoy should be remembered at Oscar time, providing some consolation for the nomination he should have received for Split. No matter how confusing and over the top this film became, McAvoy's performance is worth the price of admission alone and it is this performance and Shyamalon's direction that earn this film its rating. 3.5

[Tugg]

"Glass" didn't fulfill my high expectations, but none the less it was something different in a good sense in the context of superhero movies. After one viewing I would give it 6 or 7 out of 10. Another viewing is needed to settle it. It's definitely better superhero movie than average I'd say. Overall I rather agree with your take on it. I rather liked Shyamalanian twists.

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"Glass" didn't fulfill my high expectations, but none the less it was something different in a good sense in the context of superhero movies. After one viewing I would give it 6 or 7 out of 10. Another viewing is needed to settle it. It's definitely better superhero movie than average I'd say. Overall I rather agree with your take on it. I rather liked Shyamalanian twists.

I agree that the film definitely requires a re-watch...I'm pretty sure I must have missed something.

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Pardners
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis teamed for the 13th time in a rowdy western comedy called Pardners that just appears to be a variation on a lot of their earlier work, just in a western setting.
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The film is actually a re-thinking of an old Bing Crosby movie called Rhythm on the Range. It's turn of the century New York where we find Dean and Jerry playing Slim Mosley and Wade Kingsley, respectively, the sons of ranching partners in the old west who were killed together right after Wade's mother whisked him away to keep him out of dancer. Wade's mother becomes a millionairess who has arranged a marriage for Wade which he wants nothing to do with. After a brief encounter with Slim who was trying to borrow money from Wade's mother to save his ranch, Wade tracks down Slim at a rodeo and bribes him with a prize bull so that he will take Wade out west to learn how to be a real cowboy. Even though the cowboy lessons don't go as planned, Wade still somehow manages to get himself made sheriff and gets caught in the middle of a range war.
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To the discriminating eye, one Martin/Lewis film really doesn't look much different from another. The basic premise is always pretty much the same: Lewis is the nerd who wants to be cool and looks to Martin to teach him how to be cool and there is nothing new here, except that our boys are wearing spurs and cowboy hats.
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Director Norman Taurog has by this time gotten the art of working with the breezy Martin and the maniacal Lewis down to a science. Taurog appears to give physical comedy king Lewis the basic idea for a bit or scene and then allows Lewis to actually create it in front of the camera because there's no way half of the stuff that Lewis does in these movies could be in a script or come from a director. Lewis could make the most mundane piece of business funny. Whether it's the simple mounting of a horse or even the simple act of rolling a cigarette, Lewis mines every bit of comedy out of the set-ups he is provided.
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And I'm still not sure how he did it, but Martin somehow not only manages to keep a straight face throughout the insanity but never allows Jerry to blow him off the screen either. Of course, Martin is compensated by usually getting the girl, even though most of the actresses cast in these movies are rarely seen again.
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Sammy. Cahn and Jimmy Van Husen provide some great songs including two ballads for Dino, "The Wind, The Wind" and "You n' Me n' the Moon", a solo for Jerry called "Buckskin Beauty" and the title song duet. I also really liked Frank Devol's background music that perfectly accentuated the story, just like the old fashioned western serials.
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The film even features a rare breaking of the 4th wall for the pair at the end of the movie, where they speak directly to the audience, gushing about how much they enjoy making movies for their fans. This was added to quash rumors that the partnership was on the rocks. In reality, the pair would only make one more film together and I also have to give a shout out to the brilliant Agnes Moorhead for making the most of her brief role as Jerry's hard-nosed mother. Not their best work, but there are laughs to be had here. 3

[Citizen Rules]

As much as I like Dean Martin, I don't think I can watch Jerry Lewis in a film. Unless it's The King of Comedy.

[Captain Steel]

As much as I like Dean Martin, I don't think I can watch Jerry Lewis in a film. Unless it's The King of Comedy.

Oh, we've come to an impasse. ;)

Personally, the Martin & Lewis films were okay, but I always preferred Jerry's films after Dean. (Don't get me wrong - I love Deano - one of my favorite crooners and I love his Matt Helm movies!)

Part of it was my childhood - I grew up on Jerry Lewis movies and was hysterical over them as a kid. There were lots of aspects of his real life personality that, when I learned about them, kind of crushed the way I viewed him, but I never lost my admiration for his humanitarian work (with MDA), his comic genius and his film-making innovation.

[Citizen Rules]

Oh, we've come to an impasse. ;)

Personally, the Martin & Lewis films were okay, but I always preferred Jerry's films after Dean. (Don't get me wrong - I love Deano - one of my favorite crooners and I love his Matt Helm movies!)

Part of it was my childhood - I grew up on Jerry Lewis movies and was hysterical over them as a kid. There were lots of aspects of his real life personality that, when I learned about them, kind of crushed the way I viewed him, but I never lost my admiration for his humanitarian work (with MDA), his comic genius and his film-making innovation. Have you seen Kiss Me Stupid? A Billy Wilder film with Dean Martin, Kim Novak and Ray Walston? Martin plays basically himself. It's my favorite Dean Martin film.

[Captain Steel]

Have you seen Kiss Me Stupid? A Billy Wilder film with Dean Martin, Kim Novak and Ray Walston? Martin plays basically himself. It's my favorite Dean Martin film.

Sounds familiar. But it's now on the list! I love Ray Walston (who coocindently plays a great antagonist in the Jerry Lewis movie Who's Minding the Store (1963)).

But I might also be thinking of Bells Are Ringing (1960) (with Deano & Judy Holliday).

I've got a really weird piece of trivia about this movie...
On the TV show Seinfeld, Len Lesser plays Uncle Leo. Leo is known for his enthusiastic "Hellos" and his getting offended when someone doesn't say hello to him.
So, decades earlier in Bells Are Ringing, there's a musical street number all about saying "Hello" to people - and there is Len Lesser as one of the people on the street singing this song about saying "Hello" as he himself is saying "Hello" - early shades of Uncle Leo!

[Gideon58]

Sounds familiar. But it's now on the list! I love Ray Walston (who coocindently plays a great antagonist in the Jerry Lewis movie Who's Minding the Store (1963)).

But I might also be thinking of Bells Are Ringing (1960) (with Deano & Judy Holliday).

I've got a really weird piece of trivia about this movie...
On the TV show Seinfeld, Len Lesser plays Uncle Leo. Leo is known for his enthusiastic "Hellos" and his getting offended when someone doesn't say hello to him.
So, decades earlier in Bells Are Ringing, there's a musical street number all about saying "Hello" to people - and there is Len Lesser as one of the people on the street singing this song about saying "Hello" as he himself is saying "Hello" - early shades of Uncle Leo!

OMG, I can't believe you remembered Len Lesser in Bells are Ringing...I remember him during that song too...love that movie.

[Gideon58]

Penelope (1966)
An effervescent and energetic performance by Natalie Wood keeps the 1966 comedy Penelope watchable despite a badly miscast leading man and some fuzzy direction and writing.
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This is the story of Penelope Elcott, the flighty and pampered wife of a bank president who, on the day that a new branch of her husband's bank opens, walks in dressed as a little old lady and steals $60,000 from the bank. Her husband and the police detective assigned to the case figure out that the little old lady changed in the bathroom and have her on a security tape leaving in a yellow Givenchy suit wearing a red wig with her back to the camera, which turns out to be their only clue in tracking down said robber.
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Meanwhile, Penelope goes straight to her shrink, who has been harboring a major crush on her for three years, confesses what she just did and spills everything that has led to a fascination with kleptomania. Her husband's neglect of her because of his work apparently fueled Penelope's stealing. There's also a pair of foreign con artists who get their hands on the yellow suit and try to blackmail Penelope with it.
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George Wells, who won an Original Screenplay Oscar for 1957's Designing Woman, has provided a clever if overly elaborate story that might be a little over protective of our heroine. It really shouldn't have been so easy for Penelope to do what she does here and this is where Arthur Hiller's direction comes into question. About halfway through the movie, when the detective and Penelope track down the yellow suit, the detective appears to know that Penelope robbed the bank and is just trying to trap her but when Penelope confesses, neither he nor anyone believes her, which I have to fault with Hiller.
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Natalie Wood, draped in glamorous Edith Head costumes, does manage to keep things humming. Though Ian Bannen is miscast as her husband, a role I kept picturing someone like Tony Curtis or James Garner in. Bannen's performance is devoid of anything resembling comic timing and really slows things down. Peter Falk is wonderful as the detective, a role the polar opposite of Lt Columbo...this guy is sharp as a tack until the screenplay and direction start working against him. Dick Shawn steals every scene he's in as Penelope's neurotic shrink and Lou Jacobi and Oscar winner Lila Kedrova also garner laughs as the blackmailing con artists. With a different leading man and more intuitive direction, this could have been something really special. 3

[Captain Steel]

OMG, I can't believe you remembered Len Lesser in Bells are Ringing...I remember him during that song too...love that movie.

I only remember it because when I saw the movie I was like "It's Uncle Leo saying 'Hello!' even back in 1960!"

[Captain Steel]

Penelope (1966)
An effervescent and energetic performance by Natalie Wood keeps the 1966 comedy Penelope watchable despite a badly miscast leading man and some fuzzy direction and writing.
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3

Wow! Saw this movie a while back and it was weird. Starts out as a typical Natalie Wood romantic comedy, but man it twists in some bizarre directions. A very unusual film.

[Gideon58]

Paterson
Jim Jarmusch, the indie film guru behind films like Broken Flowers and Coffee and Cigarettes takes the viewer on another quirky cinematic journey with a 2016 curio called Paterson.
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This film is a seven day chronicle of the life of Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver who coincidentally happens to live in Paterson, New Jersey. Paterson is awakened every day by his silent alarm and kisses his Iranian wife Laura before getting out of bed and walking to the bus station where he devotes a little time to his passion, poetry, before listening to his dispatcher complain about his life. He takes lunch by the Paterson Falls and after work, goes home, has dinner with his wife and attentively listens to her about whatever is currently important in her life. He takes her English bulldog, Marvin out for a walk, stops at a bar for one beer, and takes Marvin home.
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His poetry seems to be the one thing that keeps Paterson sane. He seems to float through the rest of his daily routine in a bit of a vacuum. When his wife is talking, he appears to be paying attention and pretending to be interested, but the guy just seems to be on disconnect and screaming on the inside. When his wife suggests that he make copies of his poetry he changes the subject, but that changes when they come home one night and discover Marvin has chewed up his book of poetry.
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To be perfectly honest, the original reason I was drawn to this film was because I lived in Paterson, New Jersey for eleven years and I can confirm that large portions of the film were actually filmed in Paterson, but what I discovered past the scenery was a rather vague character study revolving around a likable character who seems terribly sad and we're never really given any insight into why.
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Jarmusch displays a real style here as each day of the week passes, we are introduced to different scenes from different portions of Paterson's day. We watch different encounters with different people in the bar where he goes for his beer and listen to different conversations on his bus route which brought up another nitpick: Paterson drives the #23 bus, the same route every day. Wouldn't the same people be on this bus every day? Every scene on the bus features a separate set of people and I kind of found that hard to swallow.
One thing I did like was when Paterson's poetry would scroll across the screen, the audio of Driver was in the rhythm that Paterson was writing. Whether or not that was accidental, it was brilliant.
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Adam Driver has proven to be an actor always worth watching and this movie is no exception, giving life to a sad and slightly pathetic character, a guy who seems to bathe in a private misery that he refuses to share with anyone and Golshifteh Farahani is luminous as his wife, Laura. This is not for all tastes, but fans of the director will definitely find treasure here. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Growing up Brady
Five years after the release of The Brady Bunch Movie, NBC brought us Growing up Brady, a gimmicky and saccharine adaptation of the best selling book written by Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on the classic ABC sitcom.
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After a brief introduction featuring Williams playing himself, the 2000 NBC TV film then chronicles the history of the series from casting to cancellation and how the series forever changed the lives of those involved. The film focuses primarily on two pertinent parts of the Brady story: the on again off again romance between Williams and his co-star, Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia and actor Robert Reed's disdain about the quality of the show's writing and his constant head butting with creator and executive producer Sherwood Schwartz.
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Most of the material presented here has been part of pop culture for decades so it might have been asking too much to learn something new. As a fan of the series and someone who actually read Barry Williams' book, curiosity was aroused as to whether or not I would learn something new about Williams or the show or what the producers of this movie would bring to the story to make it special.
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Curiosity was quickly dashed as this movie appears to have been slapped together in rather haphazard fashion. More care appeared to have been poured into the 1995 movie than in this one and I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that this was a TV movie and the other was a theatrical release. There are certain things that it seems would have been important in mounting this story, especially after the 1995 film, that just didn't seem important, primarily the casting...none of the actors cast even come close to physically resembling the actors they were playing, with the possible exception of Scott Lookinland, son of original Bobby Mike Lookinland, who also appears in the move as a cameraman.
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I'm not sure what was I expecting, but I do know I expected more laughs than this movie provided. The only scene that made me laugh out loud was when a scene between Greg and Marcia took 46 takes because they were coming off as boyfriend/girlfriend not brother/sister. I did enjoy the look into the unscrupulous agent who swooped into the kids' lives after season 3 and tried to turn them into music superstars and though there wasn't much said about Robert Reed's being gay, the movie did make it clear how much Robert Reed adored those six kids and this movie ends with a credit saying it was produced in his memory.
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Adam Brody and a pre-Big Bang Theory Kaley Cuoco try to generate chemistry as Barry and Maureen, but even their makeout scenes are kind of bland. I did enjoy Daniel Hugh-Kelly as Robert Reed and Michael Tucker as Sherwood Scwartz, but the movie was a disappointment, probably because I was putting expectations on it that it couldn't possibly live up to. 2

[Gideon58]

Beautiful Boy
Some powerhouse performances help a 2018 fact-based drama about the horror of addiction called Beautiful Boy keep the viewer engaged in the story despite the accustomed sledgehammer approach to the screenplay, though it's quite effective in showing the effects of the disease on the addict's family.
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The film is based on a pair of books written by Rolling Stone journalist David Sheff and his son Nick regarding Nick's battle with his addiction to crystal meth that lasts many years and nearly tears this father and son apart.
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Director and co-screenwriter Felix van Groeningen has crafted a story that provides equal doses of family warmth and stark realism as we watch a father absolutely clueless about addiction wanting to do whatever he can to help his son and even though the message is a little heavy-handed, this is one of the few films about addiction I have seen that really drives home the point that no one can save an addict but the addict himself. Loved ones can support and point the addict in the right direction, but an addict can only get clean if he wants to get clean.
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There is an air of familiarity to this story and I did like the way the story actually begins in the middle with David on the phone to hospitals because Nick has been missing for two days. David's ignorance and naivete about the disease at the beginning of the movie is a little hard to take, but the journey that David goes on here to educate himself about the disease is easily the most compelling part of the story. At the beginning of the film, he is believing anything his son tells him and halfway through the second act, when his son is visiting and arrives home late without calling, he doesn't argue with his son but demands that he take a drug test then and there. Nick's reaction to this was very telling and vividly real.
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The film doesn't shy away from the addict's side of the story either. Nick's constant talk about having the desire to quit but not being able to was very realistic and the scene where he and his girlfriend break into their dad's house while he's not home was a real heartbreaker. The camera is often merciless here, the shot of Nick from outside of a locked bathroom door where he has possibly overdosed is undeniably powerful.
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It was also interesting watching the way David's current wife and Nick's mother are affected by what's going on with Nick. I loved when Nick was driving away from the house after breaking into Dad's house and we suddenly see his dad's car in the rear view mirror following him, but it's not his dad at the wheel, it's his stepmother, Karen, choking back tears as she tries to catch up to Nick, one of the film's most powerful moments.
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The performances make up for any lapses in the direction and screenplay. Steve Carell's performance as David rivals his Oscar-nominated performance in Foxcatcher and the immensely talented Timothee Chalamet proves that his Oscar-nominated performance in Call Me By Your Name was no accident, this kid has some serious acting chops. Maura Tierney's Karen is quite moving at times, as is Amy Ryan's solid work as Nick's mother. The film's epilogue reveals that Nick has now been clean for 8 years, but it is important to remember that this doesn't necessarily mean anything. This film seems to be aimed at those who love an addict rather than the addict himself and, on that level, it hits a bullseye. 4

[Gideon58]

Better off Dead
Savage Steve Holland is one of the busiest producer/director/writer/animators in the business with a wicked sense of humor and imagination to spare. He made an impressive debut as director and screenwriter of an original comic farce called Better off Dead which also put its young star on the map.
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This brassy comic nightmare stars John Cusack as Lane Holland,a hyper-sensitive high schooler who loves to ski and is madly in love with a girl named Beth (Amanda Wyss), who dumps him as the story opens, but Lane does connect with a foreign exchange student named Monique (Diane Franklin) who lives across the street with a chubby nerd (Dan Schneider) and his domineering mother. Lane is also dealing with his nutty parents (David Ogden Stiers, Kim Darby). Dad is worried about the car Lane bought two years ago and is sitting comatose on the front lawn and Mom is coming up with crazy concoctions in the kitchen, including a dessert that is able to walk off the plate. Oh, and Lane is also being stalked by a psychotic paperboy who is determined to get the two dollars that Lane's family owes him.
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If you're looking for a film comedy steeped in realism, you've come to the wrong place. From Holland's crazed animated opening credits, we know immediately that we are not in for the typical 80's teen comedy. There's a scene where Lane is doodling a picture of Beth that comes to life and ridicules him. During his one-day employment at a fast food employment, Lane makes a hamburger that comes to life and sings rock and roll. Lane's mother is observed cooking something on the stove that seems to resemble disassembled pieces of octopus. I also loved the bit of everyone in town, strangers and television characters included, asking Lane if it was all right for them to date Beth since she dumped him. There's also an Asian sportscaster who follows Lane around who sounds exactly like Howard Cosell.
Savage Steve Holland just throws out the rule book of movie making here and makes no apologies for it.
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This was only the fifth film appearance of John Cusack but you would never know it from the ease and charm with which he commands the screen here. Cusack proved here that he had what it takes to be a movie star. Ogden Stiers and Darby also score as his parents as does a pre-"Booger" Curtis Armstrong as Lane's BFF who wears an Abe Lincoln hat for the entire running time. Vincent Schiavelli plays another popular school teacher just like he did in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and another Fast Times alum, the late Taylor Negron who played the pizza delivery guy in that film, appears briefly here as a wise-cracking mailman. It ain't Merchant/Ivory, but Savage Steve Holland and his crazy rep company definitely bring the funny. 3.5

[Gideon58]

Envy
Considering the talent in front of and behind the camera, the 2004 comedy Envy should have been a better than it is. The basic idea of this movie is a good one, but it degenerates into a lot of silliness making it difficult to stay engaged.
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Tim (Ben Stiller) and Nick (Jack Black) are best friends, and co-workers who commute to work together every day. Nick is always coming up with outrageous get rich quick schemes that Tim usually talks Nick out of. One day Nick decides that he needs to invent an aerosol spray that when you spray it on dog poop, or any kind of poop for that matter, it simply disappears. Tim tells Nick it's a stupid idea, but Nick ends up actually inventing the spray and it turns him into an instant billionaire. He tears down his house and builds a mansion and buys a horse. Though he is in denial about it, Tim is consumed with jealousy regarding Nick's success.
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Complications arrive when environmentalists want to know where the poop goes when it disappears and this seemingly minor issue begins to derail political aspirations for Nick's wife (Amy Poehler). Tim also meets a bum in a bar (Christopher Walken) who Tim confesses everything to and decides to fan the flames of Tim's jealousy via blackmail.
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A story about the toxic effect of jealousy and greed was an intriguing premise upon which to base a movie, but screenwriter Steve Adams lets the idea get away from when. Instead of thoughtfully exploring these subjects through a light comedic eye, he goes off the deep end with silly slapstick comedy and some really ugly character motivations for Tim that really test the character's likability quotient. Once Tim shoots Nick's horse with a bow and arrow and then buries the animal, this movie started to lose me.
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On the positive side, we do have Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson behind the camera who is a competent storyteller more than capable of establishing a proper canvas for a story and then taking it into squirm territory. The whole environmental angle of the story was one I really didn't see coming, but Levinson doesn't shy away from it.
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I also was impressed with the casting of Jack Black as the straight man in the story, a refreshing change of pace for him. He actually puts most of the burden of the comedy on Stiller, who delivers for the most part. I loved Stiller's monologue at the film's climax where he comes clean with Black's character...a long and rambling monologue that Stiller actually nails. Rachel Weisz and Poehler's roles are thankless and Walken's blackmailing bum is a matter of taste. It's a really great premise that gets lost in a lot of silly slapstick but it does wrap nicely. 2

[Gideon58]

The Matchmaker (1958)
Fans of the Broadway musical and movie Hello Dolly! might be interested in checking out 1958's The Matchmaker, which is the primary source of the musical.
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Based on a play by Thornton Wilder, this is the story of an eccentric widow named Dolly Gallagher Levi, who works a professional matchmaker in turn of the century New York. She has been hired by a wealthy Yonkers businessman named Horace Vandergelder to find him a bride, but Dolly has been secretly leading the man in circles because she wants the man for herself. Unfortunately, Vandergelder is planning to propose to a pretty milliner named Irene Malloy, but she is distracted by Vandergelder's clerk, Cornelius Hackl, who sneaks to New York with his co-worker Barnaby Tucker, who fall hard for Irene and her assistant, Minnie Fay.
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John Michael Hayes, who wrote the screenplay for Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much, has done an admirable job of adapting this play for the screen, which premiered on Broadway in 1955 with Ruth Gordon playing Dolly. As someone whose initial exposure to this piece was the 1969 movie starring Barbra Streisand, it was nice to see the role of Dolly played by an actress of appropriate age, but I've learned over the years that most productions of this play and of Hello Dolly!, the role of Dolly is cast with a more mature actress.
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Director Joseph Anthony, who also directed the film version of The Rainmaker, has done an effective job of opening the play up a little but remaining true to the piece. He also made the story more accessible to audiences by breaking the 4th wall and having characters speak directly to the camera, which comes off forced in other films, but really works here. I loved when Cornelius asks if someone in the movie theater has left their seat to get popcorn. Also loved the finale where Dolly asks each character what they believe the moral of the story was.
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Six years after winning an Oscar for Come Back Little Sheba, Shirley Booth is completely enchanting as Dolly, a character light years away from her character in the William Inge drama and Paul Ford is at his blustery best as Horace Vandergelder. Shirley MacLaine made a lovely Irene Malloy and Robert Morse is a total scene stealer, reprising his Broadway role as Barnaby Tucker. I did find Anthony Perkins a little one-note as Cornelius, but I was able to forgive. The film is beautifully photographed in black and white and the ladies are draped in gorgeous Edith Head costumes. A delightful piece of classic theater vividly brought to the screen. 3.5

[TheUsualSuspect]

I HATED Envy with a passion. Made my list of worst movies.

[Gideon58]

Bernard and Doris
HBO triumphed with a lavishly mounted movie called Bernard and Doris that recalls the relationship between tobacco millionairess Doris Duke and her gay butler, Bernard Lafferty, who upon Duke's death, became the executor of her estate. . We are warned before the opening credits roll that some of what we're about to see is based on fact and that some of it is not...whatever that means.
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The 2006 movie opens with the very wealthy Doris Duke (Oscar winner Susan Sarandon) firing her current butler because the cantaloupe he served her was cold. We then observe Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes) arrive on the estate in a run down economy car to interview for the job. Bernard is a former butler to Elizabeth Taylor and Peggy Lee and is also an alcoholic, fresh from six months in rehab. As he begins working for Ms. Duke, the only rule in the house is that he doesn't drink her liquor. This is the beginning of en employee/employer relationship that turns into an unconventional friendship that Duke and Lafferty don't see coming, but the viewer does immediately.
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Show business veteran and Christopher Guest rep company member Bob Balaban deserves the lion's credit for bringing a gloss and dash of originality to a story that isn't terribly original, as anyone who has seen the 1989 Best Picture Driving Miss Daisy can attest, but it's Balaban's technique in telling the story that makes a lot of what goes on here very entertaining and keeps it surprisingly economic. Loved the way Doris Duke's backstory is laid out for the viewer through newspaper clippings that frame the opening credits. Balaban reveals backstory for Bernard without the use of dialogue as well. We don't learn that he's an alcoholic until about fifteen minutes in when he's observed emptying a flask into the bathroom sink and we don't learn that he's gay until he is caught in a private moment at Doris' dressing table trying on her jewelry.
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Hugh Costello's intelligent screenplay effectively crafts a relationship between two very different people who we know are very different, but what I loved here is the fact that the principals at the beginning of the movie are the same people at the end of the movie. Doris never apologizes for being a hard drinking, pill popping, party gal who has affairs with decades younger piano players and Bernard's dedication to his job that he puts way above having any kind of personal job is admirable and also a little sad. I do love that little scene near the beginning of the film where he is talking to the rest of Ms. Duke's staff about how they better fall in line. I also enjoyed the fact that this Doris Duke enjoyed her wealth, never flaunted it or got in people's faces with it.
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HBO and Balaban spared no expense in bringing this elegant story to the screen featuring breathtaking art direction/set direction, lush music, and some stunning costumes. As always, Susan Sarandon offers another polished powerhouse turn as Doris Duke that might initially remind viewers of Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, but Sarandon brings a humanity to this character than Dunaway never brought to Joan Crawford and Feinnes is sophistication personified as the sensitive Bernard. I love the scene near the end of the film with a dying Doris and Bernard discussing Doris' funeral arrangements where he is wearing one of her dresses and a pair of her earrings. Sarandon, Feinnes, and Balaban all received richly deserved Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for their work here. There's also a solid supporting turn from the late James Rebhorn as Duke's lawyer, who becomes a completely hissable villain before the credits roll. A deliciously sophisticated story whose basis in fact probably amps its appeal. 4

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The Upside
The 2017 fact based comedy-drama The Upside is an Americanized remake of a French film that, despite a somewhat predictable story, manages to remain completely captivating thanks to winning performances by the stars.
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This remake of the 2011 film The Intouchables stars Kevin Hart as Dell, an ex-con on parole and divorced dad, who actually gets hired as a caregiver for a widowed, quadriplegic
billionaire named Phillip Lacasse, who is paralyzed from the neck down.
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I've written a lot of reviews about movies that force the viewer to accept a lot of hard to swallow stuff in order to enjoy the film and despite this being a fact-based story, there is one thing the viewer must accept here and that this the basic premise of the entire story. As enjoyable as it was watching it happen, I don't believe that a severely handicapped man with enough money to buy the New York Nets (but not the Yankees), would hire a completely unqualified ex-con, to be his caregiver. We're talking about a person who has to have complete access to your life, has to be able to feed you, carry you from your bed to chair and back again, and has to change your catheter on a regular basis in order for you to urinate. If the viewer is able to accept that a man with more money than God would hire a guy fresh out of jail for this position, then accepting what happens between these two very different people shouldn't be a problem.
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Once Dell has been hired the movie does move down a pretty predictable path...we see the initial conflicts over things Dell doesn't want to do. We learn of the obvious opposing tastes in music and recreation that are going to come up and, of course, it was only a matter of time when Dell it would decide it was time for his new boss to get laid and takes the matter into his own hands, a move that would almost destroy the relationship that had been so delicately built so far, further complicated by Phillip's executive assistant, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman), who fought Dell's hiring from jump and kept him on his toes with her "three strikes" policy.
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What I did enjoy about Jon Hartmere's screenplay is that he does make these principal characters three dimensional people who have an acute sense of humanity and doing what's right. I liked the fact that Dell was not crafted with a complete thug sensibility. He is well paid for this position and it was so refreshing to see him doing the right thing with the money he was making...that is, taking care of his family. His very first paycheck he signs over to his ex-wife and the scene near the end of the film where he buys his ex and son a new house might ignite a tear duct.
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It's the performances by this very special cast that really give this film an air of true originality. Kevin Hart brings equal doses of humor and warmth to his Dell and Bryan Cranston is Oscar-worthy in the very physically demanding role of Phillip Lacasse. Most viewers don't realize how taxing it is on an actor physically to play a quadriplegic. The scene in the restaurant where Phillip gets hot coffee spilled on him is a real eye-opener. Nicole Kidman brings much more to the role of Yvonne than the screenplay provides, Golshifteh Farahani, so memorable as Adam Driver's wife in Paterson is lovely as Phillip's physical therapist, and Tate Donavan deserves mention as a tight-assed neighbor of Phillip's. Handsome production values, including a lush music score by Rob Simonsen are the frosting on the cake in this sometimes moving and consistently funny look at a movie relationship we've seen frequently but rarely rivets us to the screen the way this one does. 3.5

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The Dirt
After the unprecedented success of Bohemian Rhapsody, a barrage of rock and roll biopics are probably on their way to the big screen and the first of them is an overheated look at Motley Crue called The Dirt that shocks, repels, and on some levels, does manage to entertain. To be fair, it should be mentioned that this review comes from someone who knows nothing about Motley Crue except for the fact that Tommy Lee was once married to Heather Locklear.
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This 2019 Netflix musical drama traces the humble beginnings of the group, starting with the troubled childhood of Frank Ferrana Jr, whose abusive childhood would lead him to channel in his anger in music and change his name to Nikki Sixx. Along with eternal child drummer Tommy Lee, aging guitar player Mick Mars, and arrogant sex machine Vince McNeil would become one of rock and roll's biggest influences as well as one of it's most destructive forces.
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Based on a book by Tommy Lee, this in-your-face look at the legendary rock group covers some three decades in the lives of the legendary rockers but seems to concentrate more on the bad times than the good. Framed by an onscreen narration by the entire band that seems to have been written strictly for laughs, the story presented seems to be a direct contradiction of said narration, a lot of which is delivered directly to the camera as in I, Tonya, presenting a lot of scenes of destroying hotel rooms, drunken sex and drug escapades in nightclubs, vomiting on strippers, and even provides a glimpse at the drunk driving incident involving Vince Neil that resulted in someone's death and his conviction of vehicular manslaughter, which got him 30 days in jail.
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The film attempts to provide the group with some redemption for the viewer after this incident as Nikki Sixx initiates an attempt of the group to get sober, which only leads to their eventual destruction, initiated by Neil, who according to this screenplay, believed that the ir ability to produce great music was predicated on their partying. Neil is also presented as a guy who couldn't keep his fly zipped, sexing up any female who glanced his way. This film consistently attempts to shock and repel the viewer and often succeeds. There is a scene set at a hotel swimming pool with the guys and Ozzy Osbourne that I won't go into detail about here, but it literally turned my stomach. Tommy's marriage to Heather Locklear is briefly touched on and according to this movie, the occasion was just another big destructive party.
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Jeff Tremaine's direction is a little on the manic side and there are a couple of solid performances from Machine Gun Kelly as Tommy Lee and Douglas Booth as Nikki Sixx. Tony Cavalero made a terrific Ozzy Osbourne but this film just seems to be trying too hard and just made me want to re-watch Bohemian Rhapsody. 2.5

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Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
Robin Williams' mind was something that some of the greatest talent in Hollywood adored, marveled, and tried to figure out. It was this amazing mind that would find its fruition in a career that would earn Williams three Emmys. seven Golden Globes, and an Oscar. His incredible career is chronicled in a joyous 2018 documentary called Robin Wiliams: Come Inside My Mind that will have you laughing out loud one minute and fighting tears the next. It's also that very rare celebrity documentary where I learned things about the star and his career that I never knew before.
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The documentary features commentary from his loved ones, celebrity co-workers, and Robin himself, starting with his childhood where he was raised by a quiet car salesman father and a mother who loved to make people laugh. We are even treated to a clip of Robin and his mom talking about the entertainment value of whoopee cushions. The film documents his cavity prone years in a prep school, much like the one in Dead Poets Society and his early discovery of improvisation which actually led to his eventual landing at Julliard, where he entered the prestigious school the same year as Christopher Reeve. I didn't know that he and Reeve were roommates at Julliard and we are treated to a home movie of the christening of Robin's son, Zak, which features Reeve who is Zak's godfather.
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The stiffness of Julliard was a little too confining for Williams who eventually leaves, though he does share about the joy he felt one day when he actually made the head of the acting school, John Houseman, laugh, whom he referred to as "Buddha." Scott Marshall, son of the late Garry Marshall shares how it was something he said to his father that led to Williams' history making guest appearance on Happy Days that was spun off into Mork and Mindy. Marshall shared that this was the only episode of Happy Days that received a standing ovation from the live audience watching the taping.
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In addition to the christening of his son, there is a whole lot of vintage film and photographs that I have never seen before, including some footage of a very young Williams doing improv with members of an improv class he was taking straight out of high school. We are also treated to outtakes from Mork and Mindy, Good Morning Vietnam, Patch Adams, and One Hour Photo.
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The documentary does not shy away from Williams' history with drugs and alcohol either. We are reminded that he started snorting cocaine during season two of Mork and Mindy and was partying with John Belushi the night before he died. Williams did get sober eventually and even incorporated his experiences as an alcoholic and addict into his comedy with a bold and funny frankness. I also loved when he is asked who he thought had a quicker mind than his. The answer will definitely surprise you.
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In addition to Williams himself, commentary is offered along the way from his first wife Valerie, his son Zak, his half-brother, Billy Crystal (who shares a couple of messages Williams left on his answering machine), Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Elayne Boosler (who revealed having an affair with the man, news to me), Lewis Black, Mark Romanek, who directed One Hour Photo, Pam Dawber (who got very choked up and was unable to talk about Wiliams' death), and Bobcat Goldthwait, who directed Robin in World''s Greatest Dad, who revealed that in the final scene of that film where Robin jumps in the swimming pool naked, that was all Robin's idea, Goldthwait wanted him to keep his clothes on. A one-of-a-kind documentary on a one of a kind performer that produced tears of laughter and tears of sadness. 5

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It's Love I'm After
The 1937 comedy It's Love I'm After is a somewhat predictable comedy that's still watchable thanks to sparkling performances by the leads.
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Leslie Howard plays Basil Underwood, a charismatic actor who is currently appearing on Broadway in Romeo and Juliet with onstage and offstage amour Joyce Arden (Bette Davis), a flamboyant actress who has been in a steamy love affair with Basil for well over a decade. One night, a glamorous socialite named Marcia West (Olivia de Havilland) attends the show with her fiancee, Henry (Patric Knowles). Marcia falls instantly in love with Basil from her seat in the balcony and runs backstage after the performance to profess her love.
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Joyce is furious even though Basil tries to assure her that Marcia means nothing to him. Basil proposes to Joyce for the 12th time, but in order to clear his conscience, Basil travels to Marcia's family's estate in order to make Marcia fall out of love with him.
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Casey Robinson's screenplay based on a story called "Gentleman After Midnight" is an early rather clever variation on what has come to be a staple of movie plotting...celebrity obsession and the crazy things it can make people do. The witty banter that is slung between Basil and Joyce is also a lot of fun, especially they're under-the-breath remarks that they make to each other during the performance of Romeo and Juliet.
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I also loved the relationship that's established between Basil Underwood and Joyce Arden. It's obvious from the moment we see them whispering onstage to each other during the performance that these two are nuts about each other and couldn't possibly live without each other, but the script never forgets that they're actors first. I love when the curtain comes down on the play and Basil and Joyce argue about which one of them the audience is really applauding for.
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Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland show a real flair for romantic comedy, a relatively new genre for both of them, but for me, the real star of this film is Leslie Howard. My only other exposure to Howard before this was Gone with the Wind and it was so much fun watching him chew the scenery as a vain hammy actor who considers everything a cue for a monologue. I loved when dinner at Marcia's estate motivates Basil to go straight into Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew which was ironic, because Basil and Joyce's relationship definitely had a Petruchio/Katharina air to it. Howard really makes Davis and de Havilland work for the spotlight here in this lovely romantic comedy that still provides laughs over 70 years after it was made. 3.5

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One True Thing
Some stylish directorial touches and three richly complex lead performances are the primary selling points of a heartbreaking contemporary soap opera called One True Thing that with proper attention paid, should put the viewer through a myriad of emotions.
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At the request of her self-absorbed writer/professor/father (William Hurt), an ambitious workaholic writer for New York magazine named Ellen Gulden (Renee Zellweger) takes a leave of absence from her job to become caregiver for her mother, Kate (Meryl Streep), who has been diagnosed with cancer.
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Karen Croner's screenplay is based on a novel by Anna Quindlen, which is a fictionalized account of Quindlen's experience with her own mother when she was diagnosed with and eventually succumbed to ovarian cancer. Croner has effectively framed this tearjerker around a criminal investigation as the film opens with Ellen being questioned by a DA about the circumstances around her mother's death and how Ellen might have had a hand in it.
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The story takes on a couple of squirm-worthy layers, courtesy of Professor George Gulden, Kate's husband and Ellen's father. This character is established immediately as the villain of the piece as he callously asks Ellen to give up her life in New York to care for her mother without even telling Ellen's mother what he has done. His denial about what is happening to Kate allows him to put her care completely in his daughter's hands, despite the fact that Ellen really has no idea what she's doing but her father has given her no choice.
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George Gulden is not the only character here painted in serious mud tones...Ellen initially fights her father tooth and nail, but then protects her mother when she finds out that her father is not the man she thought he was. Kate's denial about what is happening to her has her internal pain matching the external pain of her disease, not to mention her own way of protecting her husband, a man we're really not sure is worth the protection he is afforded here.
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Director Carl Franklin paints some bold imaginative pictures in presenting this story that even, at times, bring a little levity to a grim and intense situation. Love the scene where Ellen tries to prepare a luncheon for her mother's women's group and the camera pans over the the demilitarized zone that she makes of the kitchen where everything, including the recipe cards, are covered in chocolate. Also loved the scene where Ellen asks her Dad to cut back at work in the same room where Mom is sleeping, forcing the argument to be entirely whispered. The moment at Thanksgiving dinner where George finds out his mentor has never heard of his novel is also fraught with appropriate tension.
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The performances are first rate, led by the luminous and mesmerizing work of the extraordinary Streep, a performance that earned her an 11th Oscar nomination, the only nomination the film earned, but Zellweger and especially Hurt make every moment they have onscreen count as well. Hurt is especially riveting, fully investing in a character that the viewer often wants to strangle. As for the criminal investigation into Kate's death, even that provides a reveal that we don't see coming. A genuine tearjerker whose stark realism keeps a cap on the expected soap sud quality of the story. 4

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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
From the "So bad it's funny" school of filmmaking comes the bizarre 1970 curio Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a crude and raunchy tale of sexual debauchery that is allegedly supposed to shed a realistic light on show business in Hollywood, but collapses under a barrage of ridiculous writing and unbelievably bad performances that pretty much destroyed the careers of most of its cast.
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Sex-ploitation master of the 60's and 70's Russ Meyer and the late Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert are the guilty parties responsible for bringing this mess of a story to the screen. This is the story of a female rock band called the Kerry Affair who come to Hollywood accompanied by their wimpy manager, Harris, in order to become stars. They are welcomed to California by lead singer Kerry's Aunt Susan, who also promises Kerry a large inheritance. They perform at a party thrown by a rock producer named Z-,Man Barzell, who takes over as their manager, changes their name to the Carrie Nations, which leaves poor Harris time to fall for a self-absorbed porn star named Ashley.
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This in-name only sequel has absolutely nothing to do with the 1967 film based on Jackie Susann's novel and, if the truth be told, makes that film look like Citizen Kane. I spent the majority of the running time either giggling or scratching my head, wondering what a respected film critic like Roger Ebert was thinking when he penned this outrageously over-the top tale of sexual machinations in Hollywood that features women using their bodies to get what they want, women abusing men, women loving women, men pretending to be women, women pretending to be men, drugs, suicide attempts, and a character who makes a silly transformation into a character who resembles Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show who takes center stage in a bizarre and bloody finale of an already bizarre story that completely defies logic and makes no apologies for it.
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The movie appears to have been made on a budget of about $100 and features an appalling, headache-inducing music score by Stu Phillips that defies description. The acting in this movie is unbelievably bad. Russ Meyer clearly told his cast that real acting consisted of speaking as loudly and quickly as they could. 60's sex goddess Edy Williams attracts some attention as Ashley the porn star, and the only other actors who continued to work after this film were Harrison Page and Charles Napier. Phyllis Davis, who played Aunt Susan, did spend a season as one of the skit players on Love American Style and Dolly Read, who played Kelly, never worked again and eventually married comedian Dick Martin. This movie was clearly intended to shock and titillate the viewer, but it's so dated and silly
and badly acted, that now it just confuses and bored the viewer. This has to be seen to believed. 1.5

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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
From the "So bad it's funny" school of filmmaking comes the bizarre 1970 curio Valley of the Dolls, a crude and raunchy tale of sexual debauchery...rating_2


At least you've made it through BTVOTD, I tried and shut if off after 15 minutes, it's that bad. The ironic thing is Roger Ebert who wrote BTVOTD only three years earlier wrote a scathing review of Valley of the Dolls calling it pornographic:rolleyes: It had to be one of the worst reviews he wrote. I don't think he even had seen the film when he wrote the review.

Roger Ebert's original review of Valley of the Dolls, Link (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/valley-of-the-dolls-1967)
And Gene Siskel's review of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, Link (https://ew.com/article/1993/05/21/beyond-valley-dolls/)

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The Corner (2000)
Charles S. Dutton was the creative force behind The Corner, a gritty and uncompromising fact-based miniseries made for HBO that takes an unflinching look at the war on drugs utilizing a very busy street corner in West Baltimore. This miniseries was also the genesis of the legendary HBO series The Wire.
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Dutton mounts the story in documentary form beginning each episode doing a one on one interview with central characters in the story. The primary focus of the miniseries is on a tattered family unit all on different sides of addiction and how the addiction pulls the family apart. Fran is the mother, a heroine addict who gets tired of the way she's living and decides to get clean, but finds that the real challenge is in staying clean. Her common law husband Gary is also an addict but is in complete denial about the grip the disease has on him and while applauding Fran's efforts to change her life, has no intention of doing the same. Gary and Fran's older son DeAndre is a 16 year old drug dealer who is not so much addicted to drugs but to the lifestyle and to the money, but finds the balancing act of his life challenged when he gets his girlfriend pregnant.
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Director and executive producer Charles S. Dutton is to be applauded for taking such an up close and surprisingly balanced look at drug addiction from a couple of angles that I was surprised to see addressed. Most importantly, the story that Dutton documents shows that most drug addicts don't think they have a problem and have to hit absolute bottom before seeking help. It's also very realistic about the fact that getting clean and staying clean are two very different things. Though addressed indirectly, the story also makes it clear that one of the main things an addict has to do in order to stay clean is to change the people and places in their life. We see more than one character, Fran in particular, trying to get clean but still trying to hang out with people in her life that are still using. But what this miniseries addresses most succinctly is the lure of the corner itself...it's become a lifestyle that DeAndre and his posse are attracted to even though they don't do the drugs, they are addicted to the lifestyle and sometimes, when they are unable to cope with it anymore, it leads them to using, which makes them useless on the corner. And in an unexpected but incredible finale to the proceedings, Dutton conducts an interview with four of the real life counterparts of characters in the movie that were quite moving.
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This landmark HBO miniseries won the 2000 Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Direction of a miniseries for Charles S. Dutton and Outstanding Writing for David Simon and David Mills whose take no prisoners screenplay is a standout element of the production. Khandi Alexander's powerful performance as Fran rivets the viewer to the screen as is the star-making turn by Sean Nelson, so impressive six years earlier in Fresh, as the ticking time bomb that is DeAndre, and TK Carter is just heartbreaking as Gary, the junkie so obsessed with getting high that he can't take five minutes to meet his new grandson. It's no musical comedy, but The Corner was groundbreaking stuff back in 2000 and still packs a wallop today. 4

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Papa Hemingway in Cuba
Striking production values, some interesting writing and a trio of dazzling lead performances highlight the 2015 docudrama Papa Hemingway in Cuba though it eventually gets weighed down in its attempt to cover a little too much territory.
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It's Miami in the 1950's where we meet a reporter for the Miami Globe named Ed Myers, who has always admired the work of Ernest Hemingway, which manifests itself in a glowing valentine that Myers has written to his idol but can't get up the courage to mail it. His co-worker does mail it and Ed is bamboozled when he gets a phone call from his idol stating that he has read the letter ten times and invites Ed to join him in Havana on his fishing boat. This leads to regular meetings with the author and his wife, Mary, while the Cuban revolution is exploding around them and the government has their eye on Hemingway, that also puts Ed in jeopardy.
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The real Ed Myers, whose given name is Denne Bart Petitclerc, adapted his own story into a viable screenplay that utilizes authentic Cuban locations including Hemingway's actual home in Cuba that is now a major Cuban tourist attraction. Myers screenplay is a little simplistic and comparing it to other images of Hemingway that I have been exposed to over the years, the Hemingway presented here seems to be bathed in a somewhat angelic light and not quite the explosively unpredictable alcoholic as he has been presented in the past, the last I recall being Corey Stoll in Midnight in Paris.
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I did love the way the film opened. Ed's first phone call from Hemingway was a joy to watch and I liked that they didn't waste a lot of time with Ed not believing that it was really Hemingway on the phone. It was lovely watching the relationship that develops between Ed and Hemingway on the boat and later at his home, where Ed is graciously welcomed by Hemingway's vivacious bride, Mary, though it did smack of cliche the way the Hemingways kept calling Ed "kid"...that grew tiresome pretty quickly. We do get some insight into Hemingway and how he felt about his work and the celebrity that came with it...that scene in the bar where he is ambushed by autograph seekers is a very telling look inside Hemingway the man.
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The story begins to drift out of focus when we get glimpses of the Hemingway marriage that play like bad Edward Albee, Hemingway's hard to swallow commitment to the Cuban revolution and his connection to Cuban gangsters who actually try to use Ed as a conduit to Hemingway. When the story sticks to Ed and his literary mentor, it works, but when the story moves away from this wonderful relationship developed early on, staying invested becomes difficult.
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The film is handsomely mounted, filmed on location in Havana, utilizing some stunning cinematography and art design. The performances that directed Bob Yari pulls from his three stars really help with the slow spots. Giovanni Ribisi has never been so entertaining onscreen as Ed and Adrian Sparks is a revelation as Hemingway, giving the actor a little more heart and playing him as more than just an abusive drink. Joely Richardson, looking and sounding more like her mother every day, makes a sparkling Mary Hemingway. The movie gets an "A" for effort, but I think the story was stronger when it focused strictly on Ed and Hemingway. 2.5

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Juliet, Naked
Strong performances from the leads make a somewhat labored cinematic journey from 2018 called Juliet, Naked worth investing in. The movie takes a minute to get going, but viewer patience is ultimately rewarded.
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Duncan is obsessed with the music of a rock and roller named Tucker Crowe, who walked away from his career at its height a couple of decades ago. The discovery of an acoustic demo from Duncan's favorite Crowe album, called "Juliet" leads to the reveal that Duncan's girlfriend, Annie has been communicating with Tucker for years via e-mail and when Annie discovers Duncan has been cheating on her, she throws him out and arranges a face to face meeting with Duncan's obsession.
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Based on a novel by Nicky Hornby, the screenplay by Evgenia Peretz and Jim Taylor is long-winded and takes way too much time with exposition. As the film opens, we learn that Duncan has a website dedicated to Tucker and this is used as a platform for Duncan to provide the viewer with a complete recollection of Tucker's career that really isn't necessary. Once this finally concludes, we are then subject to the set-up of Duncan and Annie's relationship, equally unnecessary and it isn't until Tucker and Annie finally meet at the hospital after Tucker suffers a heart attack that the film really kicks into gear.
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Director Jesse Peretz (Our Idiot Brother) scores points for setting the story in England and filling the screen with colorful incidental characters, but there's just a little too much attention paid to atmosphere that the primary story almost gets buried but is saved at the halfway point with that brilliant scene in Tucker's hospital room where he meets Annie for the first time, surrounded by Tucker's huge extended family.
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When all is said and done, it's the three performances by the leads that kept me invested in this one. Rose Byrne, who I usually find annoying, is quite charming as Annie and Chris O'Dowd is a lot of fun as the loopy Duncan, but it was the powerhouse, Oscar-worthy performance by Ethan Hawke as the rocker trying to accept his past and deal with the future that is the best thing about this movie. I haven't enjoyed Hawke onscreen this much since Training Day, a heartbreaking and moving tour de performance that completely commands the screen. I also liked the slightly bittersweet ending that didn't wrap everything up in a neat little bow for the viewer. 3.5

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Rebel Without a Cause
Hailed as an instant classic upon its 1955 release, Rebel Without a Cause is beginning to show its age and is the proven source of every teen movie cliche ever employed onscreen, but is still riveting entertainment because of the three lead performances, the iconic James Dean in particular, in the role for which he would always be identified.
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James Dean began acting in television and did a few bit parts in films, including 1952's Has Anybody Seen My Gal? before he was given a chance with his first leading role in East of Eden, which earned him a lead actor nomination. He followed that performance with this one, playing Jim Stark, a restless and angry teen who has just moved to a new town with his troubled parents (Jim Backus, Ann Doran) and finds himself labeled an outsider at his new school, but eventually finds special alliances in fellow troubled teens Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo).
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Nicholas Ray's contribution to this film as writer and director often gets overlooked in the shadow of three lead performances, but it shouldn't be because this film pretty much introduced a new film genre to moviegoers. This was truly the first "teen angst" movie ever made, giving America's youth an angry and defiant new voice that they hadn't been allowed prior to this film. This was something completely foreign to 1955 filmgoers and it not only struck a chord with them, but filmmakers have been trying to duplicate it ever since.
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The screenplay is rich with daring innovations on classic movie characters that we really hadn't seen before. The twisted marriage of Jim's parents...the weak-willed husband so whipped by his wife that you can serve him on pie. And then there's the tortured and tragic Plato...the hero-worshipping pal to Jim Stark who has found a savior and possibly more in Jim Stark. Yes, it was 1955 and even though they don't come out and say it directly, the character of Plato is homosexual and is in love with Jim. He has a photo of Alan Ladd in his locker. He keeps inviting Jim over to his house to hang out because his parents aren't home. In interviews, Ray stated more than once that if he were writing Plato now, he would come right out and say that Plato is gay. Then there's Judy...the girl who is peer-pressured into hassling Jim even though her heart isn't in it, but quietly finding Jim to be the man she could really connect with.
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The concept of peer pressure has never been so effectively captured on film. When Buzz challenges Jim to a "chickie" fight, out of fear of looking weak in front of the other kids, agrees to the fight without even knowing what it is. I'm pretty sure the game of "chicken" was the inspiration for the "Thunder Road" scene in Grease. The scene in the planetarium also got a proper homage in the Oscar-winning musical La La Land.
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Speaking of Oscars, there was some interesting stuff going on here...Wood was nominated for Supporting Actress and Mineo was nominated for Supporting Actor, but Dean was overlooked for Lead Actor. And even though this was his most famous role, he did receive lead actor nominations for his other two lead roles, East of Eden and Giant. Two nominations for what was basically a three-film career is pretty impressive. Dean is a one man acting class here and it is fascinating watching him here and you can see the Strasberg influence as well as the influence that his talent had on people like Montgomery Clift and Robert De Niro. Wood relentlessly hassled Nicholas Ray to give her the role of Judy. There is a school of thought that she slept with Ray to get the part but there is no documentation of this. However she got the role, Wood made the most of her screentime and Mineo was luminous and heartbreaking as Plato. A very young Dennis Hopper can be glimpsed as a young thug as can Edward Platt as a sensitive police detective. A classic that many have tried to duplicate but few have succeeded. 4

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The Girl Next Door (2004)
The 2004 comedy The Girl Next Door is an intricately plotted updating of the teen comedies of the 80's, with a specific nod to the Tom Cruise classic Risky Business, that provides pretty consistent laughs and a handful of real movie star performances.
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Matthew Kidman is a geeky high school senior who becomes enamored of a beautiful girl named Danielle who moves into the house next door. Just as an unlikely relationship begins to develop between Matthew and Danielle, Matthew's BFF Eli reveals that Danielle is a porn star. It appears that Danielle wants out of the business and things are going fine with she and Matthew until Kelly, Danielle's former film producer, shows up in town and wants her to resume her career.
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This film really got lost in the shuffle somehow and I'm not sure why, I don't see a lot of discussion about it, but the film holds up pretty well for being 15 years old. The story of a high schooler's life spinning out of control because of a beautiful older woman is, as I mentioned, very similar to Risky Business, though in this film the girl is a porn star instead of a straight up prostitute like Rebecca De Mornay's Lana. One difference between that film and this one is that Danielle seems to really want out of the business but I never really got that impression with Lana, but I digress. The story has been tweaked just enough that New Millenium audiences who never saw Risky Business might not catch the similarities.
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The other difference between this film and Risky Business is that Danielle never makes any direct moves to screw up Matthew's life. Their relationship causes problems for Matthew but she doesn't make any direct moves to get Matthew in trouble, like when Lana steals the Faberge egg from Joel's mantle. Danielle's feelings for Matthew appear to be genuine. I love the moment when Matthew asks her to go to prom with him...she seems genuinely moved by the gesture not to mention the fact that Danielle never treats Matthew like a kid.
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Director Luke Greenfield keeps things moving at a nice pace, and even with an extra ending or two, the story does wrap up a little too neatly, but it's still a fun ride. Emile Hirsch lights up the screen as young Matthew and Elisha Cuthbert is sex on legs as Danielle. Chris Maquette and Paul Dano make the most of their roles as Matthew's BFFs, but if the truth be told, this movie is stolen by an insanely talented actor named Timothy Olyphant in a charismatic movie star turn as Kelly, Danielle's disgruntled ex-boss. Olyphant's entrance into the story completely bumps up the energy level of the film taking it to a place we don't see coming. Fans of the teen comedies of the 1980's will surely find entertainment value here. 3.5

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Susan Slept Here
The lackluster chemistry between Dick Powell and Debbie Reynolds is the primary culprit in keeping the 1954 romantic comedy Susan Slept Here what it should have been.
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Powell plays Mark Christopher, a 35 year old Oscar winning screenwriter who has had writer's block ever since winning his Oscar (Mark's Oscar also serves as the story's narrator). As Christmas approaches, a pair of police officers arrive at Mark's door with a 17 year old juvenile delinquent named Susan Landis (Reynolds) who has just been arrested on a couple of minor charges, but one of the cops remembered that Mark wants to write a movie about juvenile delinquents and decide to bring her to him for the purpose of "research."
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Mark asks his secretary Maud (Glenda Farrell) to put Susan up for awhile but pending charges might have Susan in jail over the holidays so Mark Decides to marry Susan in order to keep her out of jail. Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with Mark's assistant Virgil (Alvy Moore) or his bitchy fiancee Isabella (Anne Francis).
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Alex Gottleib crafted the screenplay for this comedy from a play by Steve Fisher and I suspect that this probably played better onstage with actors cast in the lead roles that are believable playing the ages of their characters. Something about the pairing of the leads just didn't work for me. Maybe it's the fact that Powell's character is supposed to be 35 but he looks and acts like he's 60 and Reynolds' character is supposed to be 17 but looks 25 (even though Reynolds was only 20 at the time this movie was made). Now this was not an uncommon practice during the 1950's, casting actors decades older than their leading ladies, but it really doesn't work here. The age difference between the characters is addressed during the final act, but it's too little too late and it's not just that. A story like this requires a genuine chemistry between the actors and as hard as they both work in their roles, I just didn't buy them as a couple. I also didn't understand how marrying Mark was going to keep Susan out of jail.
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RKO poured a lot of money into the production and it shows onscreen. Mark's apartment is beautiful and the film is beautifully photographed. The cast surrounding the leads is also surprisingly solid. Glenda Farrell cracked wise in the best tradition of Thelma Ritter and Alvy Moore brought a real Gig Young quality to his character. Moore would get his 15 minutes a little over a decade later when he would play Hank Kimball on the CBS sitcom Green Acres. Anne Francis was also terrific as the venomous Isabella. And if you don't blink, you should catch cameos by Red Skelton and Ellen Corby. This one gets an "A" for effort, but Powell and Reynolds' less than special chemistry hurt this one. 3

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Kevin Hart: Irresponsible
It was just a matter of time before Netflix and the hottest standup comic on the planet would connect in a 2019 concert called Kevin hart: Irresponsible and as expected, even the usually infallible Hart seems to have been affected by the Netflix curse.
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Playing in the round to a sold out audience in London, Hart does try to bring a little variety to the material expected from him, but there are certain things that we can usually depend on from Hart, most notably an update on his children. His daughter is 13 now, his son is 10, and we were delighted to learn that he recently had another son. Hart starts off by confessing to the crowd that his kids caught him and his wife having sex and offered advice on how to handle, or more specifically, not handle this embarrassing situation. I loved that he was less worried about what his kids that he was about actually talking about it.
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Hart takes an offbeat approach when he starts talking about porn. I've heard comics talk about watching porn before, but this was the first time I've heard someone address the double standard that's involved in porn consumption. Hart makes no apologies for the fact that he has watched porn from time to time but could not wrap his head around the fact that his wife might have watched some.
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One thing I have always admired about Kevin Hart is that he doesn't spend a lot of time onstage laughing at himself, but he spends a lot of time doing just that in this concert. There's actually one point where he is so doubled over with laughter that he seems to be blaming the audience for the inability to compose himself. At one point, he actually stops and tells the audience he's going to get this joke out because it's his favorite joke. Like someone was stopping him.
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I mentioned above that Hart's venue for this concert was in the round and that was another thing that really bothered me. Despite the fact that Hart was playing in the round, he pretty much faced one direction for the entire concert, meaning a large portion of the audience only saw his back for the entire concert. Hart has the juice to arrange for enough cameras that could cover him playing to his entire audience, but then it occurred to me that he possible was just unaccustomed to playing in the round and wasn't aware that a large portion of the audience was just getting his back. Either way, if you're performing in the round, it's important to play to the entire audience and I found this kind of distracting. If I had been in those seats, I would have been upset.
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As I've always said, Kevin Hart is a funny guy but there was something about his material here that seemed a little watered down for general consumption, but I kind of expected this when I realized Netflix was behind this, but fans of the comic will find humor here. Personally, I've found past concerts funnier than this one. 3.5

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Andy Hardy Meets Debutante
Carvel's number one teenage womanizer returns for another round of using and abusing the girls in his life in a rather drab entry in the franchise called Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.
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The 1940 film is the 9th film in the franchise about the perpetually horny small town teenager and his constant troubles with the opposite sex. In this entry, Andy has decided to break things off with steady girl Polly (Ann Rutherford) because he's become obsessed with a glamorous New York debutante named Daphne Fowler and starts bragging to anyone listening that Daphne has a crush on him as well. As staff members of the school newspaper, Polly and Andy's best friend Beezy insist that Andy get a picture of him and Daphne together for the next issue of the paper, which Andy says is impossible because she's in New York and cant get there. Then Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) comes home and announces he has to take a business trip to New York and is taking the whole family with him. Upon arrival, Andy is reunited with another former gal pal, Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) who has never gotten over Andy.
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This is the second of these films that I've seen and, honestly, I chose this one because of Garland, but I'm noticing a lot of patterns already regarding this Andy Hardy character. It seems like a harsh term for a teenager, but Andy really is a womanizer. He seems to chase different women all over Carvel and anywhere else he goes and forgets about his alleged commitment to Polly, who for some reason, seems to forgive him at the end of every film. And don't even get me started about the way he uses poor Betsy Booth. It's the sweetest and healthiest relationship Andy has had and the girl adores him and he just doesn't see it or doesn't care. He only seems interested in the flavor of the month and he also thinks he's the only person on the planet with troubles. At one point in this film, he actually compared his troubles to Job...seriously?
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There was an effective scene here and there...Rooney was quite good in that scene where he's trying to get out of paying his bill at that fancy restaurant and the scene with Mickey and Judy in the hansom cab was just lovely. It's difficult separating Andy from Rooney sometimes because Rooney is so good in the role but the character is such a jerk sometimes.
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But the film is always a little brighter when Mickey and Judy share the screen, and Judy's two solos are of course worth the price of admission. Lewis Stone is, as always, beautifully understated as Judge Hardy. There's a scene where Andy says something to his dad that would have earned a slap upside the head from most Dads, but Judge Hardy just wants to help his troubled son, who doesn't always deserve the help. Maybe I should be watching these films in the order they were made because I'm beginning to ponder the appeal of this kid Andy Hardy.

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King Creole
Elvis Presley had one of his best roles in the 1958 film King Creole, a moody drama with music that was definitely something different for The King, but it works thanks to a superb supporting cast and a professional in the director's chair.
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Set in contemporary New Orleans, this is the story of Danny Fisher, a juvenile delinquent who has failed to graduate from high school twice and has decided that, instead of going back to school, is going to work more hours as a busboy at The Blue Shade, a nightclub owned by Maxie Fields (Walter Matthau) who owns most of Bourbon Street so that he can continue to take care of his unemployed father (Dean Jagger). After hearing Danny sing, he gets an offer to sing professionally at a club called King Creole, owned by Charlie LeGrand (Paul Stewart) where Danny is a big hit. Maxie decides he will do anything to get Danny back at his club, including using his mistress, Ronnie (Carolyn Jones) to seduce Danny back to the The Blue Shade. Danny also finds himself drawn to a waitress in a coffee shop (Delores Hart).
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Based on the novel by Harold Robbins called A Stone for Danny Fisher, screenwriters Herbert Baker and Michael V. Gazzo (future Oscar nominee for The Godfather II) have provided us with sort of a musical Rebel Without a Cause, an angry teen unhappy with the state of his life and looking around the corner for something greater even if he doesn't know what it is. The opening "Crawfish" number that Danny sings as a duet with the female crawfish vendor is perfect introduction to this restless and sad character who longs for something better.
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This film is stylishly directed by Michael Curtiz, who won an Oscar for directing 1942's Best Picture, Casablanca, bringing just the right of amount of melodrama to the proceedings and providing Elvis the kind of guidance he had always needed as a director and it really shows. This is the closest thing I have ever seen to a real performance from Elvis and I dare to say that this is my new favorite Elvis film and I'm pretty sure that having Curtiz behind the camera is one of this film's biggest assets.
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Some of the other musical highlights include "Dixieland Rock", "Hard Headed Woman", "Lover Doll", "As Long as I Have You", "Young Dreams", and he absolutely stops the show with his rendition of "Evil" and this is another place where Curtiz makes all the right movies. No cinematic trickery is involved whenever Elvis opens his mouth to sing, Curtiz just points the camera at him and lets the Pelvis do what he did better than anyone. And I haven't seen all of Elvis' films, but he has never been sexier onscreen.
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Elvis is surrounded by a first rate cast here including Matthau, who is appropriately smarmy as Maxie Fields and Carolyn Jones is spectacular as his unhappy mistress, a role that Jones brings more to than the screenplay provides. Loved Jagger as Elvis' dad too. This film also provides an early appearance for a young Vic Morrow playing a thug under Maxie's thumb. There are also brief appearances by Raymond Bailey, who played Mr. Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies and future Broadway star Lilianne Montevechi, who would win a Tony for Outstanding Featured Actress for the musical Nine. The film has a couple of extra endings that pad the running time, but otherwise a pretty smooth ride. 4

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City of Angels
An Americanized version of a German film, the 1998 romantic melodrama City of Angels is more than watchable thanks to the lovely performances by Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan that allow the viewer to let inconsistencies in the screenplay slide.
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Based on the 1987 Wim Venders film Wings of Desire. it is present day Los Angeles where Cage plays Seth, one of hundreds of angels who are overlooking the city and one of Seth's primary duties is to find people who are getting ready to die and escort them to the afterlife. While waiting for one soul to pass, Seth finds himself entranced by the man's surgeon, Dr. Maggie Rice (Ryan), a slightly arrogant but compassionate surgeon who is not accustomed to losing patients and is very angry about losing this one. Seth appears to Maggie to assure her that the man's death was not her fault and though she is inconsolable, it does not stop Seth from falling in love with her.
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Seth discusses his predicament with fellow angel Cassiel (Andre Braugher) who informs Seth that he has the option to "fall" to earth and become human, allowing him to taste, feel, and be with the woman he loves. Unbeknownst to Seth, there is another patient of Dr. Maggie's named Nathaniel Messenger (Dennis Franz) who it turns out was an angel who went through the falling process, is now human, but being lured back to his heavenly duties.
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Wenders and Peter Handke, who wrote Wings of Desire also wrote the screenplay for this version of their story which provides the viewer with a luminous love story at its core that, unfortunately, doesn't bare much scrutiny because there's a lot of stuff happening at the periphery of the story that are troubling. For instance, there are a lot of scenes with angels sitting on top of very tall buildings, billboards, and unfinished skyscrapers. In one scene, Seth and Mr. Messenger are seen sitting on top of one of these structures. At this point in the story, Messenger is already human, how was he supposed to get Messenger up there? And how did he get Messenger to the morning beach mediation that the angels have every morning? And how was Maggie able to grab Seth's hand and cut him with the knife if he was unable to touch her? And after Seth becomes human, he is observed hitchhiking to Tahoe to stop Maggie's wedding to her uptight boyfriend (Colm Feore)in Tahoe? He doesn't know what a pear tastes like but he knows how to hitchhike? And even at the end of the movie, we see Seth going grocery shopping...he's only been human for about an hour, how is he going to pay for groceries?
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But you know what? Cage and Ryan are so completely enchanting as these characters, that eventually the viewer just lets all these little details slide and enjoy one of the most romantic stories I've ever seen. Cage has rarely appeared so sensitive onscreen and Ryan offers one of her strongest performances as Dr. Maggie. Franz is a lot of fun as Messenger and Andre Braugher makes the most out of a thankless role. Stunning cinematography and gorgeous music are the frosting on this cinematic cake that lovers of films like Ghost will definitely be able to invest in. 3.5

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Mascots
Netflix was able to lure the Christopher Guest rep company back on the big screen for the first time in a decade with a 2016 oddity called Mascots that provides sporadic laughs but is vastly inferior to other work from this company.
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Guest and Jim Piddock have concocted this bizarre look at the world of mascots...you know, those guys in the big headed costumes who make fools out of themselves during athletic events trying to keep the crowd invested in the game. Well, according to this film, the people who play mascots have lives that extend beyond the 4th quarter whistle and this film focuses on the World Mascot Championship and its varied sponsors and participants.
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Mike and Mindy Murray (Zach Woods, Sarah Baker) are married schoolteachers who are also mascots for their school athletic teams who are just getting over Mike's affair with Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), another mascot who won Honorable Mention at the last competition and is attending this year with her sister, Laci (Susan Yeagley). Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) is a legacy mascot who has been passed the torch from his father (Piddock) and Phil Mayhew (Christopher Moynihan), a real estate praiser who lives for being a mascot even if his team doesn't know who he is.
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And I think that might be one of the places where this story erred and could have generated more laughs. Even though it is briefly addressed, it would have been very amusing to see more focus on the fact that when these people step out of their costumes, no one has any clue who they are. It is addressed with the Phil Mayhew character, but it could have been a running bit with each character that could have been very amusing instead of the sometimes lackluster backstories concocted for some of the characters.
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I think Guest is a little off in his casting in this film too. This was his first film since For Your Consideration and he may have been a little rusty, but for some reason, he has a lot of newcomers and unknown faces in major roles and the actors we know and love relegated to the background or gone completely...it's so weird seeing a Chris Guest film without Michael McKean or Harry Shearer or Catherine O'Hara, not to mention seeing people like Bob Balaban and Fred Willard reduced to glorified cameos. I have to admit that Willard's scene with a little person/mascot was roll on the floor funny, but that's one of the few scenes here that was.
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Woods and Baker are funny people, but I never really bought them as a couple and Posey is totally wasted in a thankless role. Jane Lynch and Ed Begley were funny as competition judges. For some reason, Guest decided to make a token appearance as Corky St. Clair, his character from Waiting for Guffman, that was a total waste of screentime. A disappointment from a group of artists who have provided a lot of laughs for me over the years, but I think it's the Netflix curse, once again rearing its ugly head. 2

[lenslady]

Gideon58 have you ever reviewed Green Book? . I didn't see your review when I searched for it. I was surprised that it didn't get higher ratings from some mofos (and that's fine, we all have different tastes ) . - but I really enjoyed that movie. Wondering if you liked it as well.

[Citizen Rules]

@Gideon58 (http://www.movieforums.com/community/member.php?u=79363) have you ever reviewed Green Book? . I didn't see your review when I searched for it. I was surprised that it didn't get higher ratings from some mofos (and that's fine, we all have different tastes ) . - but I really enjoyed that movie. Wondering if you liked it as well. Gideon's review of Green Book (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=1978085#post1978085)


You'll have to read it to see what he thought. I haven't seen it myself.

[lenslady]

Thank you Citizen Rules my always helpful gentleman.

I just read your wonderful review of this wonderful movie Gideon58. I can't add much b/c I kept nodding my head in agreement as I read through all your insightful comments. True, that Tony's character is pretty well known from the get go, and Don Shirley is more slowly unveiled and revealed. The cinematography was realistic and true - to the point where I felt I had stepped back in a time machine and was along in the car with them for the ride. Will also re read this review as it is almost like reseeing this fine film. You know, this is one of the times- that have grown rarer in recent years- where I felt that the film that won the Oscar truly deserved it. Powerhouse acting from the leads who just disappeared into their characters.

The only thing I can add is the mantra that ran through my head as the film evolved, and came to its beautiful resolution.

Music is truly the universal language.

As speaks the heart of the decent, complicated, striving souls of humankind.

[Gideon58]

Thanks for reading my review...and I agree with you, the Best Picture Oscar this year went to the right movie.

[Citizen Rules]

Woman's World...1954 melodrama Woman's World worth a look. rating_3_5Hey, guess what? I just seen Woman's World, I liked it! That's my type of movie. Do you know of any other 1950s melo-dramas like Woman's World? I'd like to watch more of these. I can only think of The Cobweb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047944/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_62) Written on the Wind (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049966/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_58) Designing Woman (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050306/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_57) Peyton Place (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050839/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_18)

Do you know of any more?

[Gideon58]

I knew you would love Women's World, Citizen...as far as similar films are concerned, you should check out another film I reviewed on the same page called Two Weeks in Another Town...I thought about you while I was watching it.

[Gideon58]

The Girl
Fascinating and topical subject matter based on real events and a pair of solid lead performances make the HBO TV movie The Girl worth a look.
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This 2012 TV movie is a chronicle of legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock's # 2 female obsession, Tippi Hedren. Everyone knows Grace Kelly was always Hitch's first obsession but when she walked away from Hollywood, Hitch was at a loss until he had a pretty blonde model named Tippi Hedren flown to Hollywood to screen test for his latest movie, a little something called The Birds. The film chronicles how his obsession with the starlet eventual morphed into sexual harassing the actress, which she rebuffed. According to this film, after Hedren rejected Hitch's sexual advances, he made her life a living hell on the set of The Birds, including his utilizing real birds in the climactic scene instead of the mechanical ones he promised and then doing over 50 takes of the scene. Even after all this, Hedren actually agrees to work with Hitch on the cult classic Marnie.
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It's interesting that HBO chose to make this film the same year the theatrical film Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins was released and it might be one reason this film kind of got lost in the shuffle. Back in 2005, two different films were made about Truman Capote, one called Capote and one called Infamous, the latter barely making a blip on the radar. Ironically, the star of Infamous, Toby Jones, takes on the role of Hitchcock here and knocks it out of the part, a performance of danger and pathos that during many scenes made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I will go as far to say that his performance trumps Anthony Hopkins' in the same role, Jones completely invests in this portrait of the legendary director, crafted by screenwriter Hughes, based on a book by Donald Spoto. According to this screenplay, Hitchcock loved to recite dirty limericks to Hedren, asked her to touch his genitals on the set one day, and after she won a Golden Globe for The Birds, demanded that she be his sexual slave, on-call to him 24/7.
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Sienna Miller, so memorable as Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl, is equally impressive as the enigmatic Hedren, giving the character an intelligence that the screenplay doesn't really provide. We understand Hedren's frustration with what Hitch puts her through, but we don't understand why after everything they went through on The Birds that she would agree to make another film with the man, but watch Miller in the scene where she is listening to Hitch explain the plot of Marnie and how it was something she couldn't resist. Miller really did her homework here, faithfully recreating some of the most memorable Melanie Daniels moments from The Birds.
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This screenplay didn't exactly come to the screen unblemished and unaltered. For some reason, during the scenes revolving around Marnie, Sean Connery's name is never used and the character of Connery is referred to as Jim Brown. This version of the story is also a little fuzzy about Hitchcock's wife, Alma, beautifully played by Imelda Staunton, who comes off as a bit of doormat here who just accepts all of Hitchcock's questionable behavior, nothing like the character Helen Mirren played in Hitchcock, but despite its problems, the performances of Toby Jones and Sienna Miller make this film worth a look. 3

[Gideon58]

The Kid Stays in the Picture
The life and times of legendary actor-turned movie producer Robert Evans, who re-invented Paramount Studios during the 1970's, is the subject of a 2002 documentary called The Kid Stays in the Picture, which was also the title of the subject's 1994 autobiography.
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This documentary is a detailed breakdown of Evans' life and career, told in his own voice, starting with his less than impressive film debut in the 1957 James Cagney film Man of a Thousand Faces, through his buy in to a position at Paramount Studios and how his production power behind Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, and The Godfather turned Paramount into a driving force in Hollywood that had other studios trembling in their boots. He also claims to be the true creative force behind the 1974 classic Chinatown.
Of course, the production of Love Story leads to an intimate look at his brief fairy tale marriage to Ali MacGraw and his part in its ending. We also learn how a bout with cocaine addiction and possible involvement in a murder led to his ousting from Paramount and his eventual return.
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There's no denying that Robert Evans has had a fascinating life and knows a lot of people and there are tons of celebrity names dropped here in the form of photographs and archival footage, but this is a rare celebrity documentary where no one but the subject is interviewed and the one thing that comes glaringly through about Robert Evans is the Texas-sized ego this man has. Evans provides all the stories, all the narration, all the voices...even when he is recreating conversations with people, he attempts to do half-assed imitations of the other people involved that make very clear how bad an actor Robert Evans was and how going into producing was the right move for him.
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It's kind of annoying the way Evans pretty much takes credit for every successful film made from 1968 to 1978. He reminds us that he's the one who brought Roman Polanski in to direct Rosemary's Baby and he's the one who persuaded Ali MacGraw to let him produce Love Story and how he saved The Godfather by calling Francis Ford Coppola into his office and telling him his original cut was too short. The only commentary provided by others is through archival footage...as a matter of fact, a brief bit of footage of Coppola is the only time in the film where we hear someone besides Evans talk about Evans.
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Evans did produce a lot of great movies during the 1970's but he also produced a lot of crap and he manages to subtly gloss over these failures. The only one he takes out and out credit for is The Cotton Club, for which he had no choice because that film had Evans ending up in an ugly court battle with Coppola. The only time this guy displays any semblance of humility is when talks about learning that wife Ali MacGraw was having an affair with Steve McQueen. I was tickled by the way he referred to her as "Snot Nose MacGraw" when he first met her. Robert Evans is a worthy subject for a documentary, but God this guy is full of himself. 3