Gideon58's Reviews

Steve Martin served as executive producer, screenwriter, and star of LA Story, a jaded and ultra hip look at the very unique counterculture known as Los Angeles and some of its bizarre inhabitants, combined with some whimsical touches of fantasy that don't always jive with the cynicism of the rest of the story, resulting in an ultimately uneven cinematic experience.

Harris Telemacher (Martin) is a "wacky" weatherman who is dealing not only with discontentment from his work but navigating some choppy relationship waters with his current bitchy girlfriend (Marilu Henner), a ditzy clothing store employee (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is going to "Spokesmodel" School, and an English reporter named Sarah (Victoria Tennant) who dresses like a Greenwich Village Bohemian and plays the tuba in her spare time. He also finds himself getting career and relationship advice from a California freeway billboard that communicates with him.

Martin's screenplay is smart, almost too smart in that it touches on a lot of things that are exclusive to large cities like Los Angeles and New York, making it seem like Mr. & Mrs. Middle America were not the intended demographic here. There are a lot of "inside" jokes inserted in the script that might be just a little too inside for Joe Q. Public, but there is enough stuff included that we can all laugh at, like watching the large dinner party where everyone orders coffee, the full service gas station. or the credit check required to get dinner reservations that we find ourselves initially drawn into what's going on.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the character of Sarah is supposed be our guide, the outsider looking in at the crazy world that is LA and it is through her that we are supposed to relate to what's going on, but it becomes hard to sustain because Sarah is just not that interesting a character and it becomes even more complicated when it turns out that Sarah is the one that Harris really wants to be with but as the story progresses we just have to wonder why. Martin and Tennant, who first starred together in All of Me (and eventually married IRL), where they achieved some semblance of chemistry just didn't have it here...Martin wrote the character of Sarah on the assumption that Tennant was in possession of some sort of comic timing or instinct, but she really was not and when the character who is supposed to link us to the rest of the film doesn't really work, it makes it hard to sustain interest in her or her relationship with Harris.

Mick Jackson's direction is intricate and detail-oriented and Martin manages to keep his character likable but the lack of chemistry with Tennant and her lack of comic timing really make large chunks of this film very hard going.

The 1968 film Head was for the Monkees what A Hard Day's Night was for the Beatles. I had to watch this film twice before actually figuring out exactly how to review it.

For those too young to remember any of this, back in the early 1960's, the American music scene was victim to "the British Invasion", an influx of rock and roll music from across the pond, led by an incomparable quartet of musicians named John, Paul, George, and Ringo, who were known as the Beatles and changed the face of American pop music forever. The Beatles fame was so overwhelming that they were actually pegged to star in two different movies based on titles of their songs, A Hard Day's Night and Help!. In order to cash in on the success of the Beatles, a record company held auditions and cast four show business unknowns as a group called The Monkees. Michael Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork had pretty much no show business experience and only Nesmith was a trained musician but with the help of recording studio technicians, first rate songwriters, and record making magic, this quartet became almost as famous as the Beatles, recorded a string of best-selling record albums, including 2 or 3 top 40 singles and even had their own TV series for awhile. Following in the footsteps of the Beatles, a movie was the next logical step for the Monkees and that movie was a cinematic acid trip called Head.

With a screenplay by Bob Rafalson and Jack Nicholson (!) and directed by Rafalson, the movie is a pointless, plotless, and nonsensical musical journey through contemporary culture making pointed comments about the period, most particularly the absurdity of war and of the phony veneer that is Hollywood and how we have been fooled by it all these years but the oh so clever Monkees haven't been and they are so much smarter than any of us ever will be and they have decided to let us in on some of these secrets as well as their own symbolic method of "sticking it to the man."

There is constant breaking of the 4th wall here, including one scene where we get to glimpse the director and if you don't blink, you will also catch a brief glimpse of co-screenwriter Jack Nicholson, but it all seems to be such a big Hollywood inside joke that it's really hard for us to care. There are a bizarre set of cameo appearances throughout, ranging from Annette Funicello to Victor Mature (!) and they all seem just as confused as the viewer probably is.

The Monkees were known for some very melodic pop rock during their hey day, but the music for this film is nothing to write home about...there's a darkness about it that goes against the image the Monkees worked so hard to project and has no connection to anything else going on in the film, but I guess that makes it appropriate since I had a hard time figuring out what Rafelson and the Monkees were trying to say here. The film ran 1 hour and 25 minutes long but it felt like 14 hours. On the other hand, as an object of 1960' filmmaking, a curio to be sure.

another great stroll through some great reviews for several favs and a one or two movies (like rachel getting married) that i've been curious to see and that curiosity grew reading your reviews.
BRAVO

Thank you so much for continuing to read my reviews, it's very flattering.

2013's Grown-Ups 2 is one of those inane movie comedies that so painfully reminds us why sequels have become a poison that is quietly and methodically destroying Hollywood.

Don't get me wrong, the first film was no masterpiece either, a pointless comedy about a Hollywood screenwriter (Adam Sandler) who is reunited with three childhood friends (Chris Rock, David Spade, Kevin James). In the sequel, Sandler has decided to move back to his childhood hometown with his wife (Selma Hayek) and his three kids to give them a normal lifestyle but it turns out that life in hometown is anything but.

God, I don't even know where to begin here...once again, Sandler has gathered all of his Hollywood buddies together for this big inside joke that deals with crazy bus drivers, bullies past and present, emotionally insecure cops, and some really arrogant frat kids who have taken over our heroes' favorite childhood hangout.

Sandler, his fave director Dennis Dugan and co-screenwriter Fred Wolf have mounted an episodic comedy that provides sporadic laughs and makes little sense, filled with wild slapstick moments that almost don't remain in the scope of reality, including an opening scene involving a deer that makes no sense at all.

If, nothing else, Sandler and his buddies do appear to be having a good time here,,,wish I could say the same. One of the worst sequels ever.

The Incredibles is another 2004 gem from the Disney Pixar library that is not only an affectionate valentine to action/adventure films, but family comedies as well and provides solid entertainment once it gets going.

This is the story of Bob Parr (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), who used to be a super hero called Mr. Incredible who has decided to settle down with Helen (voiced by Holly Hunter), who used to be a super heroine called Elasti-girl. He tries an office job and Helen seems happy being a hausfrau but Bob's boredom with regular life leads him back to the Super Hero life which finds Helen following him, along with their two kids, who discover powers of their own.

There is a whole lot going on here with other fun characters on the canvas including an obsessed fan of Mr. Incredible (voiced by Jason Lee) who has a huge chip on his shoulder, a chilly villainness voiced by the late Elizabeth Pena and Bob's best friend (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson), a super hero who seems to have the same powers as the mean princess in Frozen.

Writer director Brad Bird's story is over elaborate and it takes a little while to get going, but once it does, it's a helluva roller coaster ride that never forgets its underlying theme about the importance of family. Love when the family is headed to confront a bad guy and the son whines "Are we there yet?" Disney Pixar has definitely done better work, but this one is definitely worth a look.

A well-worn comedic premise is given another variation in The Heat, an all-too-familiar story that is watchable due to the surprising comic chemistry between the stars.

Sarah Ashburn (Sondra Bullock) is an uptight special agent for the FBI whose best friend is her neighbor's cat. Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) is a foul-mouthed Boston cop who has her entire precinct shaking in their boots. These two polar opposites are, of course, forced to work together to bring down a drug dealer.

Katie Dippold's screenplay is talky and overly complex, taking way too much time to establish the differences between the two lead characters, but their differences are obvious from jump and spoon-feeding this to the viewer was unnecessary.

Bullock and McCarthy work well together and both display a gift for physical comedy that should come to no surprise if you've seen Miss Congeniality or Identity Theft but the story is a little too predictable to take the time it takes to get where it's going on. There are sporadic laughs throughout, with the majority of them coming from the scenes that involve Mullins' family, who find themselves targets of the bad guys.

Paul Feig's direction is alternatively manic and deadening and there are some viable action sequences that help make this film worth checking out, though you might find yourself checking your watch from time to time.

In 1960, a stage musical called The Fantasticks opened at a little theater in Greenwich Village called The Sullivan Street Playhouse and, to this day, is still playing at that theater, making it the longest running theatrical production in history. A film version of this musical seemed like a no brainer, but it actually took 35 years for this classic musical to make it to the screen.

The 1995 film version of this classic musical is the story of Luisa and Matt, two young lovers who actually live next door to each other and are in love, but are unaware that their romance has been orchestrated by Luisa's father Bellamy and Matt's father, Huckaby who have fabricated a feud to cover up the fact that they are arranging Luisa and Matt's marriage by paying a circus troupe to stage an abduction of Luisa by the troupe's charismatic leader El Gallo, where Matt would rescue her and how things go awry when Louisa and Matt actually learn of the elaborate lie that was their courtship.

The musical features songs by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, which were a major selling point of the musical onstage and the score comes to the screen mostly intact, with the exception of one of the show's best songs, "It Depends on What you Pay", which I suspect was considered inappropriate for the film version due to its repeated use of the word "rape" and the show's most famous song, "Try To Remember" is reduced to a throwaway at the end of the film, tiredly performed by Jonathan Morris' El Gallo.

Director Michael Ritchie has gone to a lot of trouble making this stage musical look like a movie but that's the whole problem...this really is a stage musical and that's where it should have stayed, despite some lovely cinematography and solid performances from Jean Louisa Kelly, Joey McIntyre, and Joel Grey as Louisa, Matt, and Louisa's father, the film comes off as kind of empty and pointless because the story is just too thin for a viable movie musical.

Based on the runaway best selling book by E.L. James, 2015's Fifty Shades of Grey is a stylishly expensive and undeniably erotic look at a previously unexplored aspect of sexuality in a mainstream theatrical film. It should be mentioned at this point that this review is coming from someone who did not read the book upon which the film is based.

The film recounts the accidental meeting between a college student named Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and an enigmatic billionaire named Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan)...the attraction/heat between these two is immediate and neither shy from it, but these are two people who are looking for very different things in terms of a relationship. Anastasia is looking to be romanced but it is slowly revealed that Grey doesn't do romance: he is a sexual dominant, who is into rough sex where he dominates women and has the women he becomes involved with sign a lengthy and detailed contract detailing exactly what is expected of them.

This film is alternately titillating and disturbing as it offers no simple answers and provides us with three dimensional characters, perhaps a little too three dimensional for us to accept everything that happens here. It is revealed early on here that Anastasia is a virgin, which makes it hard to believe that the first time Christian shows her his "playroom", she doesn't go screaming into the night, yet we accept Christian's seduction of the girl because despite his sexual proclivities, Christian is a gentleman and always up front about what he wants. His seduction of Anastasia is subtle...there is a moment not long after their first meeting where he sees her bite her lip and tells her he needs to do that. Even Christian's off screen recitation of "the contract" makes it hard to dislike the man because it is perfectly clear, free of a lot of a legalese...we know that Anastasia knows exactly what she's getting into. Further sympathy is developed for Christian when it is revealed that his first sexual experience was six years as a submissive to a woman, making us understand him, even if we don't like him, but we do. Ironically, despite all of the sex scenes here, my favorite scene in the film found our leads fully dressed...the scene where Anastasia goes to Christian's office to renegotiate the contract is brilliantly written and directed.

Kelly Marcel's intricate screenplay does its best to keep the characters true to themselves even though the story may not and director Sam Taylor-Johnson definitely has an eye for what is erotic. The movie is expensively mounted and beautiful to look at, with some outstanding editing as are Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, who spend a great deal of the film in the nude and manage to present characters we care about, even if we're not crazy about what they're doing. An adult love story that sometimes stretches credibility but never allows your eyes to leave the screen.

Hmmmm. Interesting review of Fifty Shades of Grey. That kinda makes me wanna see it now.

Ratatouille is a clever and stylish animated adventure where rats are humans and humans are rats and friendship and family loyalty rule over all, an underlying theme in most Disney Pixar works, that won the Oscar for Outstanding Animated Film of 2007.

This is the story of a rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) with a highly sensitive nose for food and a passion for cooking stemming from his love of a deceased French TV chef named Gusteau (voiced by Brad Garrett). Gusteau's spirit leads Remy to Gusteau's restaurant, where Remy helps the establishment's new garbage man, Linguini (wonderfully voiced by Lou Romano) become the restaurant's new gourmet chef. Remy and Linguini's success is threatened by Gusteau's current head chef, Skinner (voiced by Ian Holm) and a nasty food critic named Anton Ego (flawlessly voiced by the late Peter O'Toole).

Disney Pixar really knocked it out of the park here, creating a world of rats with human sensibilities without forgetting the real place that rats have in human society. The danger that Remy encounters when he enters Gusteau's kitchen for the first time is real and palatable, almost making the viewer a little ashamed to be human. A genuine look at the human world from a rat's point of view that becomes even more engaging when it is established that Remy accepts his position in the world and refuses to completely discount humans and their attitudes toward rats.

Co-writers and directors Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava have constructed a viable world where humans and rats co-exist and have created a visually arresting atmosphere...I can't remember the last time I saw Paris so beautifully recreated in animated form...there is a shot of Remy sitting on a rooftop when he first arrives in Paris and is overlooking the landscape that is just breathtaking.

As always with Disney Pixar, the voice work is on the money with standout work from Oswalt, Romano, and O'Toole and the music is rich with Parisian atmosphere and is always scene-appropriate. A delicious animated adventure that works on all levels.

"Fifty Shades of Grey" wasn't as bad as IMDB rating would suggest.


I watched "Ratatouille" in cinema when it came out and liked it very much, but haven't rewatched it ever since.

The film career of Chris Rock has always been a bit of an enigma. He stole every scene he had with his supporting roles in New Jack City, Nurse Betty, and The Longest Yard, but leading man status has always alluded him. When he had the juice to become a leading man he came up with the 2007 comedy I Think I Love My Wife, for which he was the star, director, and co-screenwriter and usually when an artist wears multiple hats on something like this, the project suffers and this was no exception.

Rock plays Richard Cooper, a married investment banker with two kids, but is bored with his sexless marriage and finds his comfy existence threatened by the return of a friend from the past named Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington), who complicates Richard's life to no end.

Rock's screenplay with Louis CK does have its merits, taking some on target jabs at the institution of marriage and showing how you don't have to actually commit adultery for a relationship to be inappropriate. Nikki just about destroys Richard's life without having sex with him. Her blatant and unapologetic visits to Richard's office in the middle of the day have co-workers' tongues wagging, friends concerned, and superiors fed up. Not to mention the fact that the script makes Richard's wife Brenda (Gina Torres) look like a frosty bitch.

Rock's off screen narration is actually the funniest thing in the movie and Washington is an eye opener as Nikki...Washington is charismatic as the potential homewrecker and she looks absolutely AMAZING here. Steve Buscemi is wasted as Richard's best friend/co-worker and Torres works hard to make Brenda sympathetic though the script is fighting her all the way, but the whole thing has sort of an emptiness to it that is only acceptable because the film runs under 90 minutes.

Director Garry Marshall decided to follow up his glossy, but substance-challenged comedy Valentine's Day with another glossy, but substance-challenged comedy targeted at another holiday New Year's Eve.

Once again, Marshall has gathered an impressive all-star cast to star in multiple storylines centered around one New Year's Eve in Manhattan. We are introduced to a restaurant owner (Katherine Heigl) who is reunited with a singer (Jon Bon Jovi) who dumped her a year ago. The head of the Times Square Alliance (Hillary Swank, in a humorless performance) is freaking out when there is some kind of malfunction with the ball and its scheduled drop. A man in the final stages of cancer (Robert De Niro) wants to see the ball drop for a final time while frazzling the nerves of his nurse (Hallie Berry). Ashton Kutcher plays a comic strip artist who gets trapped in an elevator with one of Bon Jovi's back-up singers (Lea Michele).

My favorite story involved a spinsterish secretary, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who asks a bicycle messenger (Zac Efron) to help her with her New Year's resolutions. The relationship between these two is believable and though what happens between them might be a little hard to swallow, it ties into the general theme of the story.

Other stars involved here include Sarah Jessica Parker, Cary Elwes, Seth Meyer, Sarah Paulson, Til Schweiger (very funny as a dad-to-be trying to win a cash prize for the first New Years Baby), Josh Duhamel, Ludacris, Sofia Vergara, and, of course, Marshall's good luck charm, Hector Elizondo. Marshall's sister, Penny even makes a cameo.

It's a little better than Valentine's Day, but that's not saying much.

Just because the primary setting of the film is the world of male strippers, the 2012 film Magic Mike is still just another tired show business movie that employs just about every tired Hollywood cliche the genre has ever offered. I don't know how many older and better movies flashed through my mind while I was watching this.

Mike (Channing Tatum) is a male stripper who really wants to have his own furniture making business who brings a 19-year old named Adam (Alex Pettyfer) to the club with him one night, and in the best tradition of Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, Adam gets shoved onstage and is an instant success, which, of course goes immediately to his head. Things get even more complicated for our barrel-chested heroes when Mike starts developing feelings for Adam's sister (Cody Horn).

Reid Carolin's cliche-ridden screenplay is positively juvenile (the character of Adam is even actually referred to as "the Kid" for the first third of the film) and I don't know what possessed Oscar winning director Steven Soderbergh to get involved with this mess. Only Matthew McConaughey manages to rise above this muck as the owner of the club. The guys look good and know how to move and if that's your idea of movie entertainment, have your fill, otherwise, if you've seen movies like Gypsy, or Forty Second Street, or Flashdance, you've seen this before.

Rob Marshall followed up his triumph with the Oscar winning Best Picture of 2002, Chicago, with the 2009 film version of the Broadway musical Nine, based on the Broadway show that is loosely based on the Fellini film 8 1/2, a director's cinematic self-examination of his life and career, viewed primarily through the women in his life.

The musical opens in 1965 Italy, where we meet Guido Contini (3 time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis), an arrogant and self-absorbed film director who, after two flops, is getting ready to begin work on his latest film, an epic grandly titled "Italia", but this is all the information Guido is providing about the film, except for the fact that it will star his longtime leading lady/muse, Claudia (Nicole Kidman). It is revealed that there is no script and that Guido doesn't seem terribly concerned about that fact either. The story then moves into a an inside look at Guido through the female influences in his life and Guido's effects on their lives, warts and all. It should be noted that this review is coming from someone who never saw the show onstage.

Director Marshall faced the same problem mounting this musical as he did with Chicago...finding a way to legitimize what is essentially stage piece and making it viable for the screen. The screenplay by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella flows seamlessly between what is in inside look at Italian celebrity and what appear to be fantasy musical sequences which are actually legitimized during the film's climax, even though we accept them as they are occurring because of Marshall's choreographic skills and his keen eye for what a musical number should look like, we are allowed to look past the lack of realism in what is going on and accept that we are actually watching and investing in a musical and all that entails.

Daniel Day-Lewis works very hard to keep the main character likable though he seems a little uncomfortable with his two musical sequences at the beginning and end of the film, but the little moments where the character is so rarely honest with people is where Day-Lewis really makes the character shine. Marian Coitillard is beautiful and charismatic as Guido's wife, a former leading lady of Guido's who is no longer content with the distant place she has taken in Guido's life. Her song "My Husband Makes Movies" is quite moving. Penelope Cruz also scores as Guido's desperate and clingy mistress, a performance that actually earned her an Oscar nomination. Her "A Phone Call from the Vatican" is a real eye-opener. Mention should also be made of cinema legend Sophia Loren, who Marshall talked into returning to the big screen to play Guido's mother and moral compass.

The movie also features some lovely Italian scenery and some stunning Oscar nominated costumes by Colleen Atwood, and I love Marshall's Fosse-influenced choreography, but the film never quite overcomes its obstacle of being a stage piece that should have remained there. Marshall did redeem himself though with Into the Woods, but musical fans will definitely find something to revel in here.

Disney Dreamworks took another animal-eye's view of the world with a 1998 charmer called Antz, which seamlessly blends a story of star-crossed romance with a look at the class system and totalitarian society and the mental manipulation of existing in such a society.

Our hero is an ant named Z (wonderfully voiced by Woody Allen), a worker ant in an ant world where all ants are workers or soldiers and, of course, is unhappy with his existence as a worker until he briefly encounters the crown princess of the colony, Bala (voiced by Sharon Stone) in a bar and in order to see her again, convinces his best friend, soldier ant Weaver (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) to trade places with him in order for him to see his princess again, unaware that the princess has been promised in marriage to the insane General Mandible (brilliantly voiced by Gene Hackman) by her mother the Queen (voiced by Anne Bancroft), but Z and Bala find themselves on the run, a pairing that could upset the whole ant society.

Todd Alcott and Chris Weitz have constructed a smart and witty screenplay that might even be too smart for children. The character of Z has clearly been patterned after the performer who gives him voice and you have to wonder if children can relate to the many neuroses associated with the actor and the character, which are pretty much interchangeable and that's OK. The screenplay imaginatively presents dangers to the ant world via humans that don't even register with us...the scene where Z and Bala encounter a human picnic, which they refer to as "Insectopia" is quite realistic and I couldn't help but snicker when Z was unable to bite through the cellophane on a sandwich.

The film is a rare technical achievement, receiving an Oscar nomination for Special Effect, though I think the sound editing and music are Oscar-worthy as well and the voice cast is extremely effective with standout work from Allen, Hackman, Stallone, Stone, Jennifer Lopez as Z's BFF and Christopher Walken as Mandible's second in command. A wickedly entertaining animated tale for the discriminating adult.

The 2014 version of Annie is the third film version of a Broadway musical that captivated audiences in 1977 but this version is definitive proof that it is time to give this vehicle a reprieve from remakes.

This musical, based on a classic comic strip, follows the relationship between an orphan named Annie and a millionaire named Daddy Warbucks, first came to the screen in 1982 with Albert Finney playing Warbucks and Carol Burnett playing the evil head of the orphanage Miss Hannigan. ABC/Disney and director Rob Marshall (Chicago) remade the musical for television in 1999 with Victor Garber as Warbucks and Kathy Bates as Miss Hannigan. This version attempts to be Annie for the computer age and it just doesn't work because the story is not of the computer age.

This version takes the story from its original setting of the Great Depression and changes it to 2014 Manhattan, which is a nice idea but it doesn't jive with the story that the musical presents for a myriad of reasons, primarily that the story was written about life during the Depression. It also seems dated because orphanages are pretty much a thing of the past, the foster system doesn't work like this anymore making the hooking up of Warbucks and Annie a little contrived in 2014. Political correctness is attempted by making Annie and Warbucks African American and I didn't have a problem with that, but the butchering of the musical score and some serious alterations in the characters don't work at all.

Jamie Foxx plays Will Stacks, the renamed Warbucks and Oscar nominee Quvenzhavene Wallis play Annie now and the relationship that develops onscreen between them is viable for the most part, but of the rest of the movie is not. Cameron Diaz turns in what is probably her worst performance as Miss Hannigan, a performance that is akin to nails on a chalkboard and even worse than Bad Teacher. Rose Byrne is miscast as Stacks' loyal secretary Grace and has no chemistry with Foxx. Even the usually reliable Bobby Cannavale is embarrassing as Stacks' campaign manager a character created just for this movie.

Director and screenwriter Will Gluck made a fatalistic decision in updating the score because so little of it works, only three songs are performed as written by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin in 1977 and the updated versions of some songs, the deletion of others, and the songs written especially for the movie just don't work. All the musical numbers sound canned and the lip-synching is laughably bad. Other than a solid turn from Jamie Foxx as Will Stacks, there's just not much to recommend here and fans of the original 1977 musical? Be afraid...be very afraid.
\

The sensitive direction of Tom Ford, an imaginative screenplay, and an Oscar-nominated performance from Colin Firth in the lead role are the primary selling points of a 2009 drama called A Single Man, a quietly powerful indictment on the effects of grief, how its grip can close us off to the point where we think we have no options, and how there can be options if we open are eyes to them.

Set in November of 1962, we are introduced to George Falconer (Firth), an English college professor who teaches in Los Angeles, who is still stinging from the death of his lover (Matthew Goode) after a year and has decided that, after a farewell dinner with his best friend Charley (Julianne Moore), that he is going to commit suicide, despite attention from a stunning male hustler named Carlos (Jon Kortajarena) and the obvious advances of one of his students named Kenny (Nicholas Hoult).

Ford has constructed a lovely story here, based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, that is a powerful character study about a man who has to hide who he really is because it is the 1960's when such things weren't discussed and deal with the loss of a man he will always love and whose face he sees everywhere. George's grief is further complicated by Charley. who he once was involved with, who has never gotten over him and was certain that his homosexuality was just a "phase" and not a real relationship. Even Kenny admits that he first approaches George because he's worried about him...I love the way Kenny makes his feelings about George clear without ever coming out and actually saying it and I think that's because Kenny doesn't know how to say what he's feeling.

This film is rich with romantic images, the relationship between George and his lover, recalled in flashback , is lovely to watch and Firth realistically brings this tortured character to fruition and Nicholas Hoult, of the pouty lips and big green eyes, is wonderful as Kenny. Julianne Moore is superb, as always, doing a perfect British accent, as the woman thinking that the death of George's lover is her passport back into George's life.

The film is rich with period detail, the art direction/set direction is effective and the lush musical score is on the money. Despite an unsettling climax, still a riveting film experience for the discriminating film goer.

Wired is the 1989 film version of Bob Woodward's book, which looks into the final days of SNL legend John Belushi that works so hard at not being the standard Hollywood biopic that it fails miserably on being what it should be, as well as being so unworthy of its subject.

In the tradition of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, the film opens with Belushi's ghost being introduced to pertinent events in his life by a guardian angel (Ray Sharkey), in the guise of a cab driver and then switches to the discovery of Belushi's body and the investigation that leads to one Cathy Smith, allegedly the last person to see Belushi alive and to put that fatal needle full of heroine into Belushi's arm. Then there's yet another switch of focus when Bob Woodward suddenly becomes involved and decides to get to the bottom of what happened after a discussion with Belushi's widow where he learned that Belushi hated needles and would never use heroine.

The jarring switches in focus are just the tip of the iceberg of what's wrong with this movie. The movie never really never gives us any insight into Belushi and the whole "Drugs is Bad" message is delivered with a sledgehammer, a message that has been delivered much more effectively in at least 50 or 60 movies of the past. There is too much focus on Belushi's death and not enough on his life to make us really care about what's going on. It's also never made clear why someone like Bob Woodward would have such a keen interest in Belushi.

Earl Mac Rauch's screenplay employs every show business and drug cliche imaginable and Larry Peerce's manic direction doesn't help. The film is cheap looking on what appears to be a budget of about $40.00. I've seen Lifetime TV movies that looked better than this.

Michael Chiklis works very hard at being believable as Belushi but the rest of the performances are dull and unconvincing. The usually reliable JT Walsh is wooden as Bob Woodward, as is Gary Groomes as Dan Aykroyd. A real disappointment and here's to hoping someday the subject will be given a film tribute worthy of him. .