Gideon58's Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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
And Gene Siskel's review of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, Link

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

Gideon's review of Green Book


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

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.

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

Hey, 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 Written on the Wind Designing Woman Peyton Place

Do you know of any more?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.