Gideon58's Reviews

Rob Marshall, who directed the Oscar winning Best Picture of 2002, Chicago, scored another direct bullseye with Into the Woods, the dazzling and lushly entertaining film version of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical where different characters from fairy tales collide and what can happen when fairy tale characters walk into other fairy tales...sometimes you don't always get the requisite happy ending.

A baker and his wife learn from a witch that a curse was placed on them, rendering them childless. The witch says she can reverse the curse if the couple bring her Jack and the Beanstalk's cow, Cinderella's slipper, Little Red Riding Hood's Cape, and a lock of Rapunzel's hair, embarking the couple on a journey of danger and magic like nothing you've seen before.

Marshall's clear mission in preserving the integrity of the Broadway piece in its translation to the screen is evidenced in every frame. He was wise enough to get James Lapine to fashion the screenplay, who wrote the original Broadway libretto, a sometimes hard to follow story that requires the viewer's complete attention but that is classic Sondheim...Sondheim's work has always been a little troubling for some BECAUSE it requires complete attention. I also loved Marshall's recurring images of woods and the leaves throughout...I loved when the Witch disappears in a whirlpool of leaves instead of smoke.

Marshall has assembled a first rate cast to bring these vivid and imaginative characters to life, led by the extraordinary Meryl Streep, chewing up the scenery as the Witch, a role originated on Broadway by Bernadette Peters. Streep conveys not only the witch's evil agendas, but brings an underlying level of pathos and loneliness to the character that just don't allow you to hate her. Streep stops the show with her renditions of "Stay with Me", "Children will Listen", and especially "Last Midnight". Streep's performance earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress, but one could debate as to whether the role is lead or supporting. Emily Blunt is lovely as the Baker's wife (her "Moments in the Woods" is delightful) and James Corden is sweet as the Baker. Anna Kendrick makes a nice Cinderella and I loved Tracy Ullmann as Jack's mother. Chris Pine is a little much as Cinderella's Prince, but Johnny Depp's stylish, pedophile like cameo as the Wolf, was fabulous.

First rate art direction/set direction, lush cinematography, and Oscar-worthy costumes and makeup (check out the wolf's hands) are the final touches on this musical winner that has me convinced that when it's time to transfer a musical to the big screen, no one but Rob Marshall should direct.

Arguably the masters of black comedy. Joel and Ethan Cohen had middling success with Burn After Reading, a 2008 film that sustains interest despite a hard-to-believe story and some offbeat casting choices.

The memoirs of a disgraced CIA agent (John Malkovich) accidentally wind up in the hands of a pair of dim-witted gym employees (Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand) who think this might be their way to easy street, but not so much.

The Cohens' screenplay is outrageous but there is some very funny dialogue and the situations that occur are so outrageous you can't help but be curious, which is documented by the periodic updates of the story by two FBI agents (David Rashe, JK Simmons) whose reactions to what is going on almost makes what's going on worth caring about.

There is some odd casting here and only some of it is successful...McDormand is miscast as an insecure and lonely woman that Sandra Bullock could play in her sleep, as is George Clooney as the emasculated federal agent she's involved with, but truthfully, Pitt steals the show as the gym employee who finds blackmail is not as easy he thought. The Cohens have definitely done better work, but the story sustains interest and the cast is game.

Lenny Bruce's sadly tragic career as an underground comic sensation was all the more tragic because the things that made him infamous would be considered pretty much harmless today but back in the 50's and 60's the things that Bruce said and did were considered obscene and eventually destroyed his career and life.

Director Bob Fosse mounted an intense docudrama in 1974 called Lenny, an uncompromising and voyeuristic look at Lenny Bruce and the personal demons that were the groundwork for a controversial comic career that influenced many great comedic minds that followed even though some of them don't realize it.

The film (photographed in period appropriate black and white) traces Lenny's humble beginnings as a struggling Catskills comic whose early comic influences Lenny found stifling and allowed his personal demons to invade his material to the point where he was talking about the things that nightclub comics in the 60's weren't supposed to be talking about and how he felt his only real defense in court was to do his act in court, which, of course, was not happening.

Dustin Hoffman received his third Oscar nomination for the raw nerve of a performance he delivers as Lenny Bruce, a kinetic and mesmerizing performance that nails the mad genius that was Bruce. Valerie Perrine was also nominated for her Honey Harlowe, the drug-addicted stripper he eventually marries and Jan Miner also scores as Lenny's devoted mother. When it comes down to it, it is Hoffman's powerhouse performance and Fosse's evocative direction that makes this movie the very special experience it is.

The Oscar winning Best Picture of 2014, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), is a dark and slightly pretentious drama that begins as one of the most realistic looks at show business but eventually vacillates between the stark realism that we are initially subjected to in favor of overstated psychological fantasy that flies in the face of the wonderfully realistic look at an actor teetering on the brink and the parallels with the actor playing the role.

Michael Keaton turns in the performance of his career as Riggan Thompson, a movie star who made a career out of playing a costumed superhero, but somewhere along the line his career went south and is now preparing to make his debut on Broadway. As the last two previews occur, we learn that Riggan has invested everything he owns into financing this play, one of his co-stars has quit and is about to be replaced by an arrogant New York method actor who thinks he has to actually drink liquor in order to play drunk onstage or has to actually have sex onstage with his actress/girlfriend instead of simulating sex.

Director/screenwriter Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has constructed a unique and vivid look at the New York theater scene with a screenplay peppered with clever if sometimes obvious dialogue that covers things like the extremely fragile egos of actors and how most of them are pretty unhappy, screwed up people and the things that actors often sacrifice for their careers. However, the screenplay veers off course during the third act when Riggan's inner voices are given a visualization that is initially kind of hard to swallow after the stark realism of what we have been privy to before. It also touches upon public view of movie stars and actors' serious contempt of critics.

I have to wonder if Keaton was robbed of the Best Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance in the comeback of the decade. I can't say for sure not having seen The Theory of Everything yet, but I found Keaton mesmerizing in this once of a lifetime role and. as previously mentioned, the parallels between Thompson and Keaton just added to the power of the performance. Mention should also be made of Edward Norton, as Mike, the arrogant method actor and in the performance of her career, Emma Stone as Riggan's daughter, an angry drug addict who still resents her father for neglecting her when he was still a movie star.

The third act of the film gets a little unfocused, but the film does feature some inventive camerawork (the art of the hand-held camera has rarely been utilized to greater effect) and I loved the musical score, which was almost all percussion, something I have rarely seen but really worked for me, as did most of the film, which I hope will be the renaissance of Michael Keaton's career, a career that went south for some reason and I will never understand why.

Don't let the fact that it won three Oscars fool you, 2014's Whiplash is an overblown examination of the singular obsession that drives musicians and the nonsensical battle of wills between a young drummer and a tyrannical jazz band conductor.

Set at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory of Music, the story concerns Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), a 19-year old drummer who is initially thrilled at the chance to be the drummer for Fletcher (J K Simmons), an abusive and power mad musical genius who has been known for going a little too far to get what he wants from his band.

Basically, what we have here is Fame meets An Officer and a Gentleman as, despite the music school setting, the relationship between Andrew and Fletcher definitely had me flashing back to Richard Gere and Louis Gossett Jr. in the 1982 classic, the back and forth battle for the mutual respect, the abuse of power in earning said respect and the eventual understanding where the other is coming from.

Writer/director Damian Chazelle could have told a moving and realistic story about what musicians go through but has decided instead to substitute a realistic story about what drives musicians with a surface story rich with cinematic pyrotechnics...the film is rich with dazzling camerawork and editing(the editing did win an Oscar), but its a little short on some important technicalities regarding musicians.

The primary one concerns J K Simmons' performance as Fletcher, that won him the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Simmons' performance is theatrically bold and demands attention but should have been problematic for any real musician watching the performance. I read music, play piano and trombone and have a musical theater degree and anyone with similar training would have noticed right away that it would have been nice if Chazelle had actually hired someone to teach Simmons how to conduct. Every time he raised his hand to conduct and counted off incorrectly, it took me out of the performance, not to mention the fact that Fletcher's obsession about tempos made no sense because we really never knew what the man is looking for.

Teller works very hard to make Andrew believable, even investing in the ridiculous cliche of "playing till your knuckles bleed." In 40 years, I have never seen a drummer's hands bleed and could not take these scenes seriously. There's just too much done here in the name of bold theatricality instead of a reality-based look at musicianship.

Steve Martin's physical comedy prowess and Carl Reiner's proven ability to write and mount credible comedy combined to make one of the top box office smashes of 1984 and one of the most underrated comedies ever, a minor classic called All of Me, which still provides laughs almost 40 years later.

Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) is a dying millionairess who has more money that God but not the time to spend it, so she has decided, upon her death, to have her soul transferred into the body of her stableman's daughter, Terry (Victoria Tennant) so that she can continue to live, but something happens during the actual transference and Edwina's soul instead enters the body of Roger Cobb (Martin), the unhappy lawyer who has been hired to get Edwina's legal affairs in order. We then watch Roger's life become extremely complicated as Edwina now has complete control of the right side of Roger's body and becomes fascinated with the abilities afforded by a healthy human body, something she has never experienced.

Reiner and Martin struck comic gold here as we not only watch Martin garner major laughs in a physically tricky and demanding role, but create a character who is actually intelligent and relatable and the not-too-quick development of a relationship with the woman inhabiting his body who he didn't like before this all happened, all complicated by the fact that Terry is only doing this to get her hands on Edwina's money and fights her attraction to Roger to keep her eye on the prize.

Martin's performance is comic gold and there was actual Oscar buzz surrounding his performance at the time, though he didn't get a nomination, I think he should have and he's matched perfectly by Tomlin as an initially unlikable character who is softened after her death and there is a viable chemistry between Martin and Tennant that developed into a real life romance and eventual marriage.

A warm and richly entertaining comedy that provides major belly laughs but, more importantly, will have you smiling throughout.

It's been a few years since I watched All of Me, but I still remember laughing throughout the movie. I think it's one of Steve Martin's funniest movies, and the whole cast is terrific.

Stylish direction, an intriguing if slightly predictable story, some offbeat casting, and one of cinema's most memorable musical themes were the primary selling points for the 1944 classic Laura.

Dana Andrews stars as Mark McPherson, a police detective who has been hired to investigate the murder of a beautiful socialite named Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) and as the pieces of her life and the mystery behind her murder start to come to light, the detective actually finds himself developing romantic feelings for a woman he has never met. It also becomes clear that something is not right about this crime as there are way too many suspects, the primary ones being Laura's benefactor, radio columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and her rather shady fiancee, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price).

Jay Dratler's screenplay, based on a novel by Vera Caspary tries to be overly intricate and has a couple of plot holes that you could drive a truck through, but it is well served by director Otto Preminger, who competently mounts the kind of melodrama at which Michael Curtiz, Vincente Minnelli, or George Cukor might have excelled.

The performances are first rate for the most part...Gene Tierney's ethereal beauty was a perfect face for the title role and Dana Andrews made the most of the best role of his career as a detective who finds personal passion driving his work. And for those who only know his work as a horror movie icon, Vincent Price is an eye-opener as Laura's sleazy fiancee who has a quick answer for everything and is nothing like the guy he appears to be on the surface. Judith Anderson also scores as Laura's friend, who is really in love with Price and wants to steal him from Laura. And what can be said about David Raskin's love theme that hasn't been said? The film also features some impressive set direction...Laura's apartment is beautiful and so is that gorgeous portrait of Tierney hanging over the fireplace. It's a little dated and predictable but still wonderfully entertaining.

Couldn't understand your rating for Whiplash when I saw it in the Rate Last Movie Thread. Now I do.

You are one of those "musician people" who complain about how unrealistic it is and how it just doesn't come close to what "real music" is. Give me a break.

This film is a tour de force in cinema, a technical wonder and an intense simple story of the road to success. It doesn't try to be much more than that, it doesn't try to be musically accurate. I thought Teller was great, don't understand how you kind of blame problems on him that aren't his fault.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I cannot help the fact that I am a trained musician and that my training affected the way I looked at this film. I don't understand why people on these forums always insist on technical accuracy and "sticking to the facts" where some films (biopics in particular) are concerned, but for other films, they can let the same things slide. And I don't blame Teller for anything...any problems I had with this film are the responsibility of the writer and director Damian Chazelle.

It's just annoying me a bit, since almost all the negative comments about this film, which I have stumbled upon, have been from people who present themselves as genuine musicians and is therefore unable to enjoy such a "poor" representation of it, whether the music or the teaching or whatever they feel is "unrealistic".

I could understand if this was in fact a biopic or a film explicitly based on a true story, but it's not. It can tell its story exactly how it wants to. I understand if certain elements may take you out of the film, but throwing a lot of critique at a film for not being what it isn't trying to be seems odd.

Would you go into a Fast & Furious film and criticize the car stunts because they wouldn't be possible in terms of science and various laws of physics? Would you watch any given horror film, or even a Tarantino film, and comment on how the blood is totally unrealistic because you may be a doctor or whatever and therefore has the right and the right knowledge to criticize such things? I could go on like that... a survival expert criticizing survival films, an animal expert criticizing movies like Planet of the Apes and King Kong. It's stupid.

Yes it's my opinion, but I just don't see how a work of fiction has to be a work of fact just because you are a so-called expert on these facts. The director has freedom to create whatever he wants and that's the power of cinema in all its glory.

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It's really not hard to understand. When making a biographical film, about a real subject, facts should be accurate. When making a fictional film, about made up subjects, the facts don't really matter. I have to take MMs side on this. I think it's absurd that you praise things that actual matter in a movie (editing, cinematography, acting), criticize things that don't effect the quality at all (JK Simmons raising his hand the worng way), and come to the conclusion that it isn't a good movie. The only people I've seen say bad things about Whiplash are real musicians, and not once have I heard one of them give a cinematic fault, just that it was unrealistic. It wasn't trying to be hyper realistic, in the same way that something like Nightcrawler took a lot of leeway with how the TV world worked. For the purpose of making a good story, not everything can be 100% accurate, and that's okay.

I'm not going to criticize car stunts in a Fast & Furious movie because I know nothing about car stunts...I know about music so when I see things that I have studied represented inaccurately onscreen, they are going to take me out of the movie. It would have taken maybe an extra week or two in the production schedule for Chazelle to hire someone to teach Simmons how to conduct and count off correctly...it's not rocket science and it's a shame that Chazelle was not concerned enough with the integrity of his piece that it wasn't important enough to him to make sure his central character looks like he knows what's he's doing. I stand by my opinion of this film and I will allow you to stand by yours, so we are going to have to agree to disagree about this.

The only people I've seen say bad things about Whiplash are real musicians,



Shouldn't that tell you something?

They're not movie critics?

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It tells me that this movie probably deserved every award it got because nobody can find a flaw with the filmmaking. People are criticizing the unrealistic elements, the constant gay slurs by Simmons, and that the characters were unlikable, but Chazelle would answer all of those with "That was the point." As a detailed biographical look into how to become a drummer, it fails, and that's not a bad thing because it never tries to succeed.

Paul Thomas Anderson constructed his largest and most complex canvas with Magnolia, a scorching 1999 drama that takes an on-target look at forgiveness, redemption, and letting go of the past through the eyes of two families with dying matriarchs.

Anderson has mounted a story where storyline threads have paper thin connections but viewer patience will provide pleasant surprises for those who pay attention. We are introduced to Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying man whose only connection to reality is his male nurse (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who keeps his younger bride (Julianne Moore) apprised of his condition while she agonizes in guilt over her treatment of him.

Phillip Baker Hall is a game show host whose condition concerns his wife (Melinda Dillon), but his junkie daughter (Melora Hardin) not so much. We also see a secondary thread here between one of the game show contestants (Jeremy Blackman) who cracks under the pressure and a former game show quiz kid (William H. Macy) who can't put the past in its correct perspective.

We also meet JT Mackey (Tom Cruise), a charismatic motivational speaker who has become a celebrity through his beyond sexist treatment of women and the reveal of his patriarchal connection that has made JT the man he is.

Thomas has created a riveting story that strains credibility near the end, but, as always, we are drawn by the amazing performances Anderson always manages to draw from his rep company, especially Moore, Hoffman, and especially Cruise, in the film that should have earned him his first Oscar. Cruise has never commanded the screen the way he did here.

A triumph for Anderson and a challenge for the viewer looking for something different.

Well there is a movie we can agree to agree on.

From the creative mind of Alan Parker comes a 1976 musical satire called Bugsy Malone, a strikingly original idea that didn't quite match up in the actual execution of said idea.

Parker wrote and directed this clever lampooning of the gangster movie genre which follows the escalating mob war between two warring fractions who are both after ownership of the latest weapon on the street. The novel idea that Parker has employed here is that all of the characters are played by children. I'm pretty sure there isn't an actor in this movie who was over the age of 17 at the time, but the characters are still adults and written as adults and that might be part of the problem with the film.

Parker has written a mob story with a relatively straight face and is asking children to execute the story, children who may not be familiar with the kind of movie they are lampooning and that comes through in their playing of some of the scenes here, written for humor by Parker but sometimes not clearly understood by Parker's very talented but very young cast. It might have been a good idea for Parker to have his cast sit through some classic films like Scarface, White Heat, and The Roaring 20's so that these children might have had a better understanding of what they were doing here.

Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of cast members who understand exactly what's going on here, particularly Jodie Foster as the femme fatale Tallulah and John Cassisi as Fat Sam...they seem to have a handle on what's going on here, which can't be said for the entire cast.

There are some technical and logistical problems here as well...Parker chose to do some dubbing of the voices during the performance of Paul Williams' serviceable but less than remarkable musical score; unfortunately, the singing voices don't always match the actors' speaking voices which I found a little distracting, but not enough to completely take me out of the proceedings.

A very young Scott Baio handles the title role competently enough, though I might have cast someone a little older but he manages to hold the viewer's attention along with the previously mentioned Foster and Cassisi. Parker has also paid close attention to period detail in terms of settings and costumes and how can you not love machine guns that shoot whipped cream.

I originally watched this mainly for Reba McEntire. (I've been a fan of her music for as long as I can remember, and I loved her on Broadway in "Annie Get Your Gun".) I thought she was terrific in this version of "South Pacific", but I agree with you that Brian Stokes Mitchell and Lillias White really stole the show.