Gideon58's Reviews

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The Pick-Up Artist.... that's an '80s movie that seems to have played a great game of Hide and Seek with me. I've never found it, didn't really know it existed.



BURNT

Despite some impressive production values and a slick leading performance from Bradley Cooper, the 2015 film Burnt misses for me, due to the screenplay which utilizes a well-worn backstory for the central character to justify the present story but doesn't let the backstory serve the present as it should.

Cooper plays Adam Jones, a gourmet chef who spent several years in Paris as the premiere chef in one of Paris' most famous eateries but destroyed his career with drugs, alcohol, and abusive behavior. Clean and sober for a couple of years, Jones arrives in London on the doorstep of a former employer whose son, Tony (Daniel Bruhl) now runs the restaurant and demands that Tony hire him as the head chef. Jones is hired on the condition that he submit to drug and alcohol testing on a weekly basis and has to deal with all the expected problems involved in starting life over, including some wreckage from his past that has reared its ugly head, a rival chef (Matthew Rhys) who has not forgotten anything, a former co-worker (Omar Sy) who hasn't forgotten Adam's long ago betrayal and establishing a proper working relationship with a sous chef (Sienna Miller) who Adam arranges to have fired from her present job so that she is forced to work for him.

Steven Knight's screenplay, sadly has the same problem that I have found with a lot of similar movie characters. Once again, we have been presented with a movie character who destroyed their life through drugs and alcohol. have magically recovered and never work any kind of program to keep their sobriety in fact, they don't even talk about it. When it is suggested by the doctor who does his drug testing (Emma Thompson) that he join a group she moderates for alcoholics and addicts, Tony's reply is that he "doesn't do groups." I am so over movie characters who are allegedly alcoholics and drug addicts who just stop and that's that...arresting alcoholism and drug addiction is a daily process that goes on for the rest of the addict's life and I hate the way Hollywood has always made light of this. Even though Adam has stopped drinking and drugging he is still a self-absorbed prick and if he actually worked a program, that could change.

I'm not asking for a lot here. I think a movie about a recovering alcoholic and drug addict working a program and all we see is the character going to meetings and working with his sponsor would be pretty boring. I would just like to see some kind of onscreen acknowledgement by the writer through the character that staying sober is a lifelong process. Just once, I would like to see a scene in a movie where an alcoholic is asked to join a friend somewhere or do something and the character replies that he can't, he has to go to a meeting...that's all. We do see consequences of Adam not working a program but the screenplay doesn't bother to inform us that it happens because Adam is not working a program.

Bradley Cooper works very hard at keeping a very unlikable character likable and creates a viable onscreen chemistry with Sienna Miller, who also starred with him in American Sniper. Daniel Bruhl and Matthew Rhys offer solid support and the production values are first rate, with some outstanding location filming and some great editing, but the film is more miss than hit because of the message it should be delivering and doesn't.



SHOOT THE MOON

Alan Parker is a director whose resume defies pattern in any way, shape, or form. This is a director who has tackled prison drama (Midnight Express), musicals (Evita, Fame), and docudrama (Mississippi Burning, but even when he takes on what appears to be a simple domestic drama about the end of a marriage like 1982's Shoot the Moon, he takes a seemingly well-worn movie territory and takes it to a new level, charged with human emotion and unabashed about a story that shouldn't, but does, take sides.

This is the story of George and Faith Dunlop (Albert Finney, Diane Keaton) a writer and his wife whose marriage is coming to an end after 15 years and 4 daughters. The story makes no qualms about whether or not this marriage is over, but it does constantly challenge the viewer as we watch both parties try to move on and watch the children try to adjust to what has happened, especially the eldest daughter (the late Dana Hill) who has decided that there is enough blame for her mother and father to share and that she and her sisters are the innocent victims.

Parker and screenwriter Bo Goldman, who won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest have mounted a story that fascinates and occasionally shocks but is rich with unpredictability. From the opening scene, Parker and Goldman make it clear that George and Faith are not happy and the fact that we're about to see a story about a marriage about to end is not disguised or sugar-coated in anyway. What is so unusual about this story is that even though we see George and Faith both move on and even though it is clear this marriage is over, it is also clear that these two people still love each other...we don't know exactly what happened, but we know this marriage is a thing of the past, despite the love that's still there, which is what makes this story so sad.

The sadness is further complicated by the story clearly making George the villain of the piece, thinking he has the right to move on but not allowing Faith the same luxury, not to mention refusing to accept the fact that his daughters won't accept his moving on and won't be the well-behaved little soldiers that he never realized were such a chore for Faith to raise by herself.

Parker's direction is uncompromising and pulls a pair of powerhouse performances from Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as the Dunlops, a couple whose marriage died years ago but their love never did. Finney, in particular, makes the most out of a character who makes a lot of unattractive moves here but never shies away from the ugliness of George's behavior. The scenes where he tries to deliver a birthday present for his eldest daughter and a very public argument he has in a restaurant with Faith are undeniably powerful and the finale pulls no punches either. This is the story of a family imploding that offers no real solutions, as if there are any.



BAD LIEUTENANT

A frighteningly unhinged performance by Harvey Keitel in the title role is the best thing about a 1992 film called Bad Lieutenant a repellent, disturbing, and downright ugly character study wrapped around a gritty police drama that provides nothing in the way of positive characters or a story with point, logic, or legitimacy and never apologizes for it either.

The title character (whose name is never actually revealed) is an NYPD officer who, through none of his own actions, is still actually employed by the NYPD. This guy is a serious alcoholic and drug addict who uses his position as a police officer to get the best drugs, prostitutes and is observed taking advantage of teenage girls by abusing his badge. He is also addicted to gambling on baseball games and owes a major debt to a loan shark which he keeps putting off by doubling down on the previous bet. This guy has no issues with the way he lives and doesn't feel the need to explain it to anyone, including his wife and two sons.

This unflattering character study suddenly becomes a crime drama when our "hero" is assigned to a case when a nun is brutally raped by two young crackheads. Being a devout Catholic, the Lieutenant is deeply affected by this crime which he is not only determined to solve, despite the fact that the victim has already forgiven her attackers. but finds himself facing his own demons and re-thinking the way he has been living.

Director and co-screenwriter Abel Ferrera has mounted a story centered around a character who really doesn't have a single redeeming quality but makes him absolutely riveting...no matter what disgusting things this guy does, and this guy does do some disgusting things, you can't take your eyes off of him, as much as you might want to. The alleged epiphany he seems to experience seems illogical, considering what we have been exposed to up to that point but nothing else in the film is really based on anything resembling reality. There's no way a real life police officer could be living the way this guy does and still have his badge and gun...I think this might be one reason the character is not given a name...to protect the innocent...namely the NYPD.

As unpleasant and disturbing as this story, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen because of the powerhouse performance from Keitel in the starring role, a role that is an actor's dream and nightmare but Keitel commits to it and makes this film worth sitting through. Hardcore Keitel fans will probably give this rating an extra half bag of popcorn. And, yes, this is the film that features full frontal Harvey.



The Last of Robin Hood

Erroll Flynn was a great movie star and his Hollywood legacy deserves better than the 2014 film The Last of Robin Hood, a look at the movie legend at the end of his career that employs every tired cliche we've ever seen in a Hollywood biopic and just makes this great movie star look like a pathetic pedophile.

The film recounts Flynn near the end of his career, circa 1958, when the matinee idol met and began an affair with a fifteen year old starlet named Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning), much to the consternation of Beverly's smothering stage mother, Florence (Susan Sarandon) whose outward disdain at Flynn's pursuit of her daughter is really just a cover for Florence's vicarious enjoyment of the Hollywood good life and what she can get out of it through pretty much pimping out her daughter whose only talent apparently was her skill in bed.

I am so over these Hollywood biopics that showcase great stars at the end of their careers. I don't understand why we have to be subjected to the loneliness and misery that most of their lives became. Why can't we have a movie that shows the star on the rise and at the height of the fame that justifies the making of a biopic?

Co-writers and co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's screenplay is crammed with so many Hollywood cliches that it's hard to tell how much of this really happened and when we're rounding the final third of the film, we really start not to care. Dakota Fanning's lifeless performance as Beverly was nothing to write home about, though Kevin Kline made a terrific Erroll Flynn, but the acting honors here definitely go to Sarandon, who walks away with this movie with her flashy and complex interpretation of yet another screen variation of Mama Rose in Gypsy, a character you're laughing at in one scene and wanting to slap across the face the next. Walking away with this movie was no great feat though, because this film was a chore to get through that had me looking at my watch and the movie was only 90 minutes long!



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I think a big part of the problem with The Last of Robin Hood is that the movie is more about the teenage girl than about Errol Flynn. I though it made him look like a womanizer, but maybe your word "pedophile" might be better.

Other than the few movies that I've seen him in, I don't know much about Errol Flynn's personal life, but this movie is certainly not the way people should remember him.
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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.



Errol Flynn was no pedophile. The actress Beverly Aadland, lied about her age telling him she was a legal adult, a lie which her mother help make possible so as to promote her daughter's career. If anything her mother was a pimp.

Oliva DeHaviland life long friend of Errol has only the kindest things to say about him. He was not a womanizer, that would suggest he used and abused women. Women liked him and literally threw themselves at him, after all it takes two to tango. He's one of my favorite actors. I've seen him in a lot of films, and he always has great screen presences.



The Last Robin Hood sounds awful. I didn't read your Bad Lieutenant review because I still haven't seen it and even though I've seen the remake I don't want any more spoilers.



I didn't read your Bad Lieutenant review because I still haven't seen it and even though I've seen the remake I don't want any more spoilers.
I didn't know Bad Lieutenant has been remade.



Errol Flynn was no pedophile. The actress Beverly Aadland, lied about her age telling him she was a legal adult, a lie which her mother help make possible so as to promote her daughter's career. If anything her mother was a pimp.
I know Flynn was no pedophile and I mentioned in my review that Beverly's mother was basically pimping her out.



I know Flynn was no pedophile and I mentioned in my review that Beverly's mother was basically pimping her out.
I know you didn't say that. I was just making a general statement in support of Errol Flynn. Errol was just one cool guy and that movie can give false impressions of him. I did like Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn.



KISS KISS BANG BANG

Film noir fans will be in heaven with an overly clever 2005 homage to the genre with the memorable title Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, that despite a convoluted and confusing storyline, is riveting and endlessly entertaining thanks to a trio of terrific performances in the starring roles.

This film introduces us to its star and narrator, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a two bit thief who is mistaken for an actor auditioning for a movie who ends up in Hollywood at a party where he is reunited with a childhood sweetheart (Michelle Monoghan) and is taken under the wing of a gay private investigator (Val Kilmer) who get Harry involved in a murder mystery that defies description.

I love what director and co-screenwriter Shane Black's is trying to do here...he appears to be doing for the film noir genre what Wes Craven did for slasher movies with his Scream francise. Black is breaking all the rules here...he starts the film off with a noir-ish type narration, brilliantly performed by Downey Jr. that almost immediately breaks the 4th wall and makes no qualms about the fact that we're watching a movie, which I guess gives him the license to present a story that moves at such a lightening pace, contains so many red herrings, and makes so little sense that it is absolutely impossible to catch everything that is going on here...this was actually my third watch of this film and I'm still not convinced I caught everything, but I was so utterly entertained by the actors and the relationships they created onscreen I really didn't care and still don't.

It's the actors that give this film its enormous re-watch appeal, not the hard-to-take-it-all-in story...Robert Downey Jr., already a proven commodity where the ability to carry a film is concerned, does so again effortlessly here, with a grand assist from Val Kilmer, who seems to be having a ball putting his own spin on a gay movie character and Michelle Monoghan, conjuring up memories of Carole Lombard with her slick and sexy work here. If the screenplay weren't so overly complex and working so hard to be smarter than the actors, this movie could have been something really amazing, but, as it is, still worth watching...more than once.



HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL

Douglas Sirk, who had a patent on 1950's melodrama with films like All that Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession, and Written on the Wind tried something more on the light side with a 1952 comedy called Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, a nostalgic and colorful family comedy that, despite some dated elements, does deliver a still pertinent message about how money can change people and not necessarily for the better.

Charles Coburn, who had won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar eight years prior for The More the Merrier plays Samuel Fulton, a wealthy old gentleman who has no family to leave his estate to and decides that the money should go to the family of his long ago love to whom he proposed but was turned down because he was poor. Before delivering the windfall to the Blaisdell family, Fulton decides to move into their home as a border, calling himself John Smith, in order to determine if they are worthy of his money. Fulton finds himself growing very fond of the two Blaisdell daughters, Millie (Piper Laurie) and Roberta (Gigi Perreau), encouraging Millie's budding romance with a young soda jerk named Dan (Rock Hudson), but is not too thrilled with the family matriarch Harriet (Lynn Bari) who, upon receipt of the $100,000 inheritance, insists the family move into a mansion, that Millie dump Dan for a rich snob named Carl (Skip Homier) and informs "Mr. Smith" that he needs to make other living arrangements ASAP.

Joseph Hoffman's screenplay provides some unintentional chuckles as you watch the film in 2016, primarily because the prices have definitely changed...$100,000 certainly doesn't go as far now as it did then and, if the truth be told, $100,000 really wouldn't go as far as it does here during the roaring 20's, but it's forgiven because the message that is delivered here is a positive one, a classic cinematic message that money doesn't necessarily buy happiness.

Douglas Sirk seems a little out of his element here and so do some of his cast...Laurie and Hudson play this whole thing with very straight faces, but they do manage a spark of chemistry and we do want to see them find their way back to each other. On the other hand, Coburn and Bari know exactly what's going on here and deliver on target comic performances that make this colorful comedy worth checking out. Don't blink and you'll catch a brief appearance by future film icon James Dean.



THE BIG WEDDING

Star power is the main selling point of 2013's The Big Weddinga predictable but watchable comedy with a cast that makes the film seem a lot better than it really is.

Don (Robert De Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) were married and raised Jared (Topher Grace), his sister Lyla (Katherine Heigl), and adopted son Alejandro (Ben Barnes) but their marriage ended when Don slept with Ellie's best friend, Bebe (Susan Sarandon). Don and Bebe are together now even though Don refuses to marry her. Alejandro has announced his engagement to Missy (Amanda Seyfried), but reveals to Don and Ellie that his biological mother (Patricia Rae) is coming to the wedding but is too traditional to accept divorced in-laws so Don and Ellie reluctantly agree to pretend to be married and Bebe agrees to get out of the way, but of course, we know there's no way that's happening.

Jared is a 29 year old doctor who is a virgin and finds himself attracted to Alejandro's sister (Ana Aroyo) while Lyla, who has been having trouble getting pregnant finally becomes pregnant but doesn't want the baby daddy (Kyle Bornheimer) to know.

The film is actually a remake of a French film called Mon frere se marie, but it actually just plays like an extended episode of a sitcom with really big stars playing the parts. Fortunately, director and co-screenwriter Justin Zackham is aware that he's working with great actors who know what they're doing and doesn't get in their way too much.

As expected, De Niro, Keaton, and Sarandon rise above the mediocrity of the material and Barnes also registers as Alejandro as does Topher Grace as Jared. Only Katherine Heigl misses the boat, playing her accustomed unlikable character, but there are definitely worse ways to spend ninety minutes.



AFFLICTION

1997 was a pretty important year in film which found a lot of strong movies crumbling under the shadow of Titanic and LA Confidential and one such film was Affliction, a gripping character study effectively melded with an intriguing murder mystery that rivets the viewer to the screen, thanks primarily to some powerhouse performances.

Nick Nolte was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor for his explosive performance as Wade Whitehouse, the alcoholic sheriff of a sleepy New England town who is simultaneously trying to maintain a relationship with his daughter, remain civil with his ex-wife (Mary Beth Hurt), and keep the current lady in his life (Sissy Spacek) happy. He is also placed smack dab in the middle of a mysterious hunting accident involving his good friend and co-worker Jack (Jim True) and trying to resolve unaddressed issues with his abusive, alcoholic father (James Coburn).

This film draws us in from the opening frames, perfectly projecting small town sensibilities, rich in atmosphere and that sense of a town where everyone knows everyone. Director and co-screenwriter Paul Schrader has built a beautifully complex but human lead character in Wade, a man struggling to overcome his personal demons and not always succeeding and often doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons...our heart goes out to Wade as he struggles to make his daughter happy and remain a viable part of her life and every time he fails, we understand when he tries to blame his ex-wife.

We also understand the demons of Wade's past which are introduced early on in the story via childhood flashbacks where it is clear that Wade's father has left permanent scars on Wade and his brother, Rolfe (Willem Dafoe)that may or may not be irreparable but it is also clear that Wade will never be the man he should be until he deals with them in one way or another. We watch as Wade's avoidance of these issues and his growing obsession that friend Jack is guilty of murder are somehow going to be the root of his downfall.

This film offers no easy answers, but we keep watching because we want to find some, thanks primarily to Nick Nolte's extraordinary performance that evokes constant attention and unabashed sympathy. The late James Coburn, one of our industry's most underrated actors, was finally given the role of a lifetime and killed it, winning the Oscar for Outstanding Supporting Actor. Coburn's uncompromising performance playing this completely unsympathetic character is a one-man acting class.

Admittedly, the film doesn't offer a lot in the way of surprises in terms of story, and having Willem Dafoe's character serve as narrator doesn't really make sense because he is such a peripheral character, but what it does offer is some riveting direction and a group of actors working at the top of their game.



I didn't really care for the narration in Affliction, but the movie was great, and I think this was Nick Nolte's best performance.
No argument about the narration, it seemed kind of unnecessary and they DEFINITELY had the wrong character doing it...Dafoe's character was so peripheral it just seemed weird that he would be telling us the story.



A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Writer-director Dito Montiel seems to have been given creative control in bringing his life to the screen with 2006's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, a coming of age drama that, despite an unfocused screenplay that meanders to an effective conclusion, manages to remain watchable due to Montiel's unforeseen talent as a director and a solid, hand-picked cast.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Montiel as an adult, a writer residing in LA who has just finished what apparently is his autobiography who gets a phone call from his mother (Dianne Wiest), asking him to come home because his father (Chazz Palminteri) is dying and refuses to go to the hospital.

The film then flashes back to Dito's teen years in Astoria, Queens, where Dito (now played by Shia LaBouef) is dealing with teenage growing pains, his three best friends, including Antonio (Channing Tatum) and an exchange student from Scotland named Mike (Martin Compston) and the tentative relationship he has a with a girl named Laurie (Melonie Diaz).

Montiel offers a standard tale of teen angst where we see Dito and his friends dealing with sex, gang violence, drugs, and other things we would associate with growing up in Astoria Queens in the 1980's, but what this story does finally boil down to is the extremely strained relationship between Dito and his father. Sadly, a lot of this strain seems stemmed from Dad seeming to care more about Antonio than his own son, not to mention his inability to listen to his son or tell him every once in awhile that he loves him, with poor Mom caught in the middle as reluctant but always present referee.

The movie does seem to come off as a ninety minute therapy session for the writer and director, who somehow possessed the juice to finance this (though the budget was definitely limited) journey into an unknown writer's childhood resentments and pain, which we really shouldn't care about, but he manages to make us care, thanks to some memorable set pieces and a cast that is completely invested in the project.

Shia LaBoeuf gives a star-making performance as young Dito, as does Channing Tatum as the explosive and unpredictable Antonio. Palminteri and Wiest are solid, as always, and mention should be made of Anthony DeSando as gay dog walker who young Dito works for and, of course, Robert Downey Jr., who makes the most of his limited screen time as the adult Dito. The film offers sporadic entertainment but I think Dito might have found one on one therapy a little less expensive.