Gideon58's Reviews

Tone Bell: Can't Cancel This
Tone Bell has probably appeared in more cancelled television sitcoms in the last three years than any actor working in Hollywood right now, so it's no surprise that he recently returned to his stand-up roots in a 2019 concert called Tone Bell: Can't Cancel This that does provide laughs but there is an air about Bell's comedy that is rather off-putting.

Filmed live from Dallas and originally broadcast on SHOWTIME, Bell gets off to a slow start talking about being geographically-challenged, having no idea where Alaska is. Once he gets past this routine, there is a general theme that pervades pretty much the rest of the concert and it is a somewhat subtle air of arrogance that hangs over the rest of his material.

He mentions the fact that he is originally from Georgia and when an audience member barks in recognition, he abruptly tells the audience member to shut up and let him tell the jokes. He then begins talking about the modicum of success he has had in the business which has not afforded him unlimited wealth, but has managed to get him out of debt, leading to a very amusing routine about paying off the balance on his student loans that climaxes beautifully with his one on one conversation with an operator named Patrick.

Bell offers some very funny observations about his parents, his father in particular, that had the audience in stitches which leads to a joke about what he has told his parents regarding the reason they aren't grandparents yet. He spends a good deal of time building to the punchline for this joke, but the punchline was not worthy of the buildup. The story about trying to get a packet of jelly at Dunkin Donuts almost made up for it.

Tone also is guilty of one my biggest pet peeves regarding stand-up...he spends a lot of time onstage laughing at himself, but he did regain a few points when the routine turned to his former homophobia and how conflicted he was when he was in a gay bar and nobody actually hit on him. This is something that I've always felt a lot of straight men are guilty of and I thought it was really cool that he was honest about it. Which also led back to arrogant remarks about being too pretty for jail. His final piece about being pulled over by a cop got WAY too serious for a guy who has starred in half a dozen cancelled sitcoms. Bell provides laughs and has some talent with the microphone, but he needs to put his ego in check a little bit.

Bottle Rocket
The King of Quirky Cinema, Wes Anderson, actually made his directorial debut with a forgotten little sleeper from 1996 called Bottle Rocket, which provides everything that fans of the director have come to expect from him.

Owen Wilson plays Dignan, a career criminal wanna-be who breaks his best friend, Anthony (Luke Wilson) out of a mental hospital the day he is being released and along with their friend, Bob (Robert Musgrave), a nebbish who is bullied by his older brothers, decide to go on an elaborate crime spree, hopefully leading them to a partnership with Dignan's former employer and criminal mentor, Mr. Henry (James Caan). The trio hit the road to begin their life of crime but become distracted when Anthony falls in love with a motel housekeeper who doesn't speak English and Bob's brother gets arrested because of marijuana that Bob planted in the backyard.

From that brief plot synopsis, it should be pretty obvious that this is Wes Anderson through and through. With the aid of co-screenwriter Owen Wilson, Anderson has crafted a loopy and often silly story about three guys who really want to be criminals, but are REALLY bad it. And of course, Dignan, the presumed leader of the gang and the guy who wants this life way more than the other two, seems to be the most incompetent of the three. Dignan is one of those people who thinks he's an absolute expert on everything and he's really not an expert on anything, but he can't be told this, and even when he is, he doesn't listen and it's upon this silly guy named Dignan that a lot of the comic potential of this story hangs.

We are given a clue into Dignan in the opening scene when we learn he's trying to bust Anthony out of the institution on his discharge day. We also know that we are in for something very special when Anthony agrees to go along with the escape plan instead of just walking out the front door because he doesn't want to hurt Dignan's feelings.

As he would later do with films like The Royal Tannenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson directs with bold strokes creating some arresting visual images with strong assists from cinematographer Robert Yeoman and film editor David Moritz, always standout elements in Anderson's films. The other thing that really works here is the lovely chemistry between brothers Owen and Luke Wilson...it actually took me several scenes before I realized the characters they were playing were not related because the love these two guys project onscreen works like a well-oiled machine, never trying to outshine each other, almost as if their character were one. Fans of Wes Anderson's impressive resume will definitely want to give this is a look.

The Happiest Millionaire
Much of the creative force behind the classic Mary Poppins were reunited for 1967's The Happiest Millionaire, an overblown and endless family musical that, despite some incredible production values and an impressive cast, seemed about seventeen hours long. I think I had a birthday while watching this movie..

It's turn of the century Philadelphia (why are so many musicals set at the turn of the century?) where we meet John Lawless (Tommy Steele), an Irish immigrant who has been sent to the home of a millionaire named Anthony Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray) to be the new family butler. Biddle is a grumpy eccentric who has pet alligators and is on a chocolate cake diet. He is also in complete denial about the fact that his oldest daughter, Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren) is growing up (and sometimes forgets that she's a girl) and is not happy when her Aunt Mary (Gladys Cooper) arranges for Cordelia to go to an exclusive girls school far from Philly, where Cordelia meets the wealthy man of her dreams (John Davidson).

Apparently, this story has some basis in fact because this movie was adapted by AJ Carothers from a play by Kyle Crichton, which was in turn based on a book by one Cordelia Drexel Biddle. Don't get it twisted, just because this might be a fact-based story, does not change the fact that this story is positively snore-inducing, with a running time of almost three hours and it's three hours that move at a snail's pace. Everything is just overdone here...too much talking, too much singing, too much dancing, I guess in an attempt to recapture some Mary Poppins onscreen magic, but it just doesn't work.

The first two thirds of the movie are spent listening to MacMurray's character bellow at everyone else in the story, including his very patient wife (Greer Garson), between some really unremarkable musical numbers. Some life is injected into the final third of the film when we meet Davidson's mother, played with bitchy perfection by the fabulous Geraldine Page, but by this time in the proceedings, we are just struggling to keep our eyes open.

The rather unremarkable score by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, who also wrote the music for Mary Poppins, produced a few highlights, like Steele's "Fortuosity", "What's Wrong with That?" (which loses some of its effectiveness being reprised at least four times), "I'll Always Be Irish", "Are We Dancing", "Let's Have a Drink On it", and an odd love song for Warren and Davidson called "Detroit", but for me, the musical highlight was a crisp duet between Cooper and Page called "There are Those."

The performances are a matter of taste...MacMurray was one-note and a little abrasive to me and had no chemistry with Garson. Lesley Ann Warren does reveal a glimpse of the actress that she would become and the only performer who had comparable onscreen energy to Tommy Steele was Mickey Rooney. Steele is a scene-stealer as the family butler and Hermione Baddeley pretty much duplicates her role in Mary Poppins and needless to say, Page stole every scene she was in. The film features incredible set designs and costumes, but it's all for naught because this one just drags across the screen...three hours of my life I'll never get back.

Leap Year (2010)
The story is somewhat predictable and the journey to the happy ending is a little more labored than it needed to be, but 2010's Leap Year is watchable thanks to a breathtaking setting on foreign soil and wonderful performances from the leads.

Six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars in this romantic comedy as Anna Brady, a woman who has been in a committed relationship with a handsome cardiologist (Adam Scott) and is crushed when she is expecting an engagement ring and gets diamond earrings. When the doctor has to travel to Dublin on business, Anna decides to follow him there because she heard of an Irish legend that if a woman who proposes marriage to a man on Leap Year, February 29th, he must accept the proposal. Anna can't get to Dublin directly due to bad weather and finds herself stranded in a neighboring town called Dingle, where she is offered a ride to Dublin by a sexy innkeeper named Declan (Matthew Goode), which is the beginning of a somewhat overlong "Murphy's law" adventure that sometimes gets silly, but it sure is pretty to look at.

Screenwriters Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont are to be credited for taking a familiar story, which reminded me of classics like It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby and setting it on foreign soil, which gave the proceedings an air of originality that we don't see coming. The exposure to Irish culture and language is initially unnerving as keeping up with a lot of what was being said and done required complete attention. Some of the thick Irish brogues employed by actors distract at times. The story also gets a little slapsticky at times, almost degenerating to Lucy Ricardo level and it just seemed to be a way of padding the running time.

Director Anand Tucker, who directed another romantic comedy I enjoyed called Shopgirl, does display an affinity for the genre and a sharp eye for the way a film should look. The Irish scenery is absolutely gorgeous and Tucker must be credited for creating some stunning cinematic pictures here, with a grand assist from cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel. There was this lovely moment that had to be credited completely to Tucker where Declan thinks Anna has left him by bus and she comes out of a store and realizes, strictly from his body language, that he thinks she's gone. One of my favorite moments in the movie that had nothing to do with dialogue. Also loved Randy Edelman's music.

The performances by the stars also raise the bar on this, on the surface, ordinary love story. It was nice to see Amy Adams lighten up...she's done a lot of serious work in the last decade that has gotten her acclaim but she is just as enchanting here as she has been in her dramatic work. Matthew Goode, a richly talented actor who has been toiling in supporting roles for years has finally been given the chance to be a romantic leading man and he knocks it out of the park...a performance of comic charisma and sexual heat that galvanizes the screen. This movie was a lot better than it really deserved to be, thanks primarily to its stars.

Raising Cain
Despite a tour-de-force performance from the endlessly talented John Lithgow and stylish direction from Brian De Palma, the 1992 psychological thriller Raising Cain remains a confusing and messy story that will just leave the viewer exasperated and exhausted.

Dr. Carter Nix, is a prominent child psychologist who has put his practice on hold in order to stay home and raise his daughter, Amy, which has his wife, Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) concerned thinking that his behavior with his daughter is beginning to border on obsession. She thinks this might have something to do with Carter's troubled relationship with his late father, not to mention her recent affair with the widower of a former patient (Steven Bauer). Jenny's concern turns to genuine horror when it is revealed that Amy and two other children are missing, and two mothers and a babysitter are found murdered.

As always with De Palma, his undeniable style does offer assistance to the viewer in dealing with the screenplay's deficiencies. De Palma's story is not that tricky and this reviewer figured out what was going on about 15 minutes in, but instead of crafting a genuinely intricate story, De Palma over-complicates the story by filling it with flashbacks, flashforwards, and dream sequences but never giving the viewer a clue as to which is which, making for a very aggravating cinematic journey.

On the positive side, De Palma's eye as the ultimate purveyor of erotic thrills is in serious overdrive here...like Dressed to Kill, the movie is beautifully photographed with arresting visual images that stay with the viewer and his skill and adoration of the steady cam once again take center stage here to great effect. We also get the accustomed Carrie-like boo at the end of the film, which is starting to become less effective with each film.

Also on the positive is the post graduate acting course offered by John Lithgow in this multi-character role, a role that not just any actor could pull off. This performance actually rivals and might have even been an inspiration for James McAvoy's performance in Split. Some might find the performance hammy and over the top, but I found it mesmerizing. Lolita Davidovich was also winning, as always, as the confused and tortured Jenny. Pino Donnogio's splendid music also deserves a nod, as it did in all of De Palma's films. A screenplay that tries to be a little too artsy really hurts this one.

Stan & Ollie
No expense was spared in bringing 2018's Stan & Ollie to the screen. This big budget look at the first true Hollywood comedy team is directed with love and respect for its subjects and is brilliantly acted. This review is coming from someone who has never seen a Laurel and Hardy movie, so this review is purely about this film's entertainment value.

The film opens in 1937 Hollywood when Laurel and Hardy were huge stars but were unhappy with their treatment by Hal Roach studios, which eventually ended up getting Stan fired from the studio. Sixteen years later, the team is persuaded to do a theatrical tour of Europe while the final details of a return to the big screen is being ironed out for them. The story provides insight into the team and their relationship against the backdrop of this European tour that starts slowly but gains enough momentum for them to be playing to sold out houses at the Lyceum Theater in London.

Like most people, I've glimpsed at Laurel and Hardy and know a little bit about the kind of movies they made, but this movie, based on a book called "Laurel & Hardy: The British Tours" reveals a lot about the team that I didn't know. According to this film, Stan Laurel was really the creative force behind the team and wrote almost all of the material that they did. He was also the one who made sure that Hollywood and everyone else was treating them correctly, always keeping an eye on the bottom line and what was best for the welfare of Stan and Ollie, the people and not so concerned with Laurel and Hardy. I also didn't know that, in Hollywood circles, Oliver was known as "Babe".

With the aid of Jon S. Baird's beautifully evocative direction, the viewer gets an up close and personal look at a team that truly defined the phrase "well-oiled machine." Conversations between the two regarding their work were often abbreviated but they always understood each other and it is heartbreaking when the resentments that they had been bottling regarding the breakup in 1937 come bubbling to the surface in front of a theater full of people, the films's most dramatic moment. Adding to the beauty of this brilliantly directed scene is the fact that the people in the theater think the whole scene was a comedy routine for their benefit.

I was also impressed with an interesting juxtaposition established in the story when we meet Stan and Oliver's wives, whose relationship bore more than a passing resemblance to the relationship between their husbands. It was so much fun watching the wives blame the other husband for anything that their own husband was upset about, not to mention the fact that both women seemed to be "wearing the pants" in their marriages.

Baird and company have employed handsome production values to this story including some beautiful cinematography, art direction, costumes, and makeup. As for the performances they are nothing short of superb. John C. Reilly, another actor incapable of giving a bad performance, and Steve Coogan, both do Oscar-worthy work bringing the title characters vividly to life. The onscreen relationship that these actors establish is just a joy to watch. They are provided solid support by Shirley Henderson as Mrs. Hardy, Nina Arianda as Mrs. Laurel, and an especially greasy turn by Rufus Jones as the smarmy British promotor who arranges the European tour. This is a lovingly mounted and emotionally haunting look at Hollywood legend that during its final act, actually had me fighting tears.

Blind Date (1987)
With a proven directorial commodity behind the camera and an engaging cast of actors in front of it, the 1987 comedyBlind Date is not nearly as bad as its reputation.

The film stars Bruce Willis, in a pre-Die Hard film appearance, playing Walter Davis, a workaholic who needs a date for an important business dinner and on the recommendation of his brother (the late Phil Hartman), agrees to date one Nadia Gates (Kim Basinger). Walter is warned before the date that under no circumstances is he allowed to let Nadia drink because she completely loses control when she gets drunk. Walter assumes this means that she gets uninhibited in bed so not long after they meet, he starts plying her with champagne. Because of Nadia's drunken escapades, the next morning Walter is unemployed and looking at ten years in jail. The situation is further complicated by the presence of David (John Larroquette), Nadia's psycho ex-boyfriend who is still completely obsessed with her.

Dale Launer, who also wrote the screenplays for My Cousin Vinny and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, gets a lot of mileage out of a pretty flimsy premise, maybe a little further than than he should have. I'm no doctor, but I found it a little hard to believe that a chemical imbalance to alcohol could actually cause all of Nadia's behavior in the first half of the comedy. The scene where she talks Walter's client's longtime spouse into divorcing him would have been hard to attribute to a chemical imbalance, but most of the situations that manifest from this premise are credible, even if they might get a little too steeped in slapstick.

But when a story is rife with slapstick, there were fewer directors I would have liked to have had behind the camera than Blake Edwards, the director of 10, Victoria/Victoria and the entire Pink Panther franchise. There were few directors who knew how to stage outrageous physical/slapstick comedy than Edwards and it is his skill behind the camera that makes a lot of the silliness that goes on here worth sticking around for and laughing at.

Edwards has a cast of pros working for him as well. Bruce Willis gives the role of Walter Davis just the dash of realism that we can believe all the ridiculous situations that he gets in. Basinger works hard to get Nadia's craziness across and she definitely creates chemistry with Willis. Larroquette was very funny as the nutty lawyer who keeps running his car into storefronts and William Daniels also garnered some major laughs as Larroquette's father. This movie also reminded me of how much I miss Phil Hartman. It's no 10 or My Cousin Vinny, but there are laughs to be found here.

The Hustler
Paul Newman received his second Best Actor nomination for his brilliant performance in 1961's The Hustler, a gritty and atmospheric character study that plays out differently than expected, but is compelling entertainment thanks to an enigmatic lead character who is not the same person at the end of the film that he was at the beginning.

This is the story of Fast Eddie Felson, an excellent pool player and compulsive gambler who gets the opportunity to play against Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), who is supposed to be the best pool player in the country. After playing for about 12 hours, Eddie is up by about $11.000 but doesn't want to quit. After over 24 hours of shooting pool, Eddie has lost $18,000, which drives him from the pool halls into the arms of a lonely alcoholic named Sarah (Piper Laurie), though all he can think about is getting is getting another shot at the Fat Man. He sees a possible ticket back through a professional gambler named Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) who sees the potential in Eddie to be a great hustler, on the condition of taking 75% of everything Eddie earns.

Producer, director, and co-screenwriter Robert Rossen crafts a haunting and beautifully tragic character study that makes some deceptive turns in its execution and presentation of this lead character. The title of the film is a little deceptive because Eddie is not a hustler at the beginning of the movie, but he thinks he is. This is proven during one scene where Eddie attempts to hustle a couple of strangers at a pool hall who want nothing to do with him on the pool table because he walks in with his own pool cue under his arm. A true pool hustler is going to play strangers with a house cue. Eddie's other fatal flaw is that he doesn't know when to quit...whether he's winning or losing, he doesn't know when to quit and proves that his ego often writes check that his skill can't cash.

Rossen is also to be credited for his ability to tell large portions of his story without dialogue. I love when Eddie and Fats agree to their first match and everyone present in the pool hall, staff and customers alike, move into position and prepare the room for what is about to happen. Equally impressive was the way Rossen overlapped camera shots during the 24-hour pool game to convey the passage of time without actually showing us every game. The actually pool playing that we are witness too was also impressive. Jackie Gleason was an accomplished pool player IRL and did all of his own shots. After being coached by pool pro Willie Mosconi, Newman performed most of his shots as well.

Robert Pressen's choice to film in black and white was inspired, intensifying the often seedy atmosphere upon which the story plays. Newman loses himself in this character, offering one of his most powerful and passionate performances. Laurie makes the most of a sketchily written role and is so effective her performance earned a supporting actress nomination. George C. Scott is also brilliant, as always, as the slimy Bert Gordon, a performance that earned him a supporting actor nomination as did Gleason's Minnesota Fats. Rossen also received three nominations for his work and the film also won richly deserved Oscars for black and white cinematography and art direction/set direction. A classic that is more than worthy of its reputation.

Richard Pryor: Live on Sunset Strip
On June 9, 1980, Richard Pryor was at his home doing freebase and caused an explosion that literally sit the comedian on fire and had him hospitalized for a long time. Richard Pryor: Live on Sunset Strip was his first return to the microphone following his recovery.

The 1982 concert finds Pryor in rare form, handsomely adorned in a fire engine red tuxedo with a black shirt and gold shoes, and even though we have to wait until the final third of the film for it, he does share in hilarious detail regarding the entire incident, starting with a frank and funny routine about how his addiction started, where Pryor actually has conversations with the paraphernalia he utilized to get high and the progression of a disease that has the addict looking on the floor for anything to smoke when his stash is gone and smoking so much that drug dealers actually refused to sell to him. He also shared about how he was treated in the hospital and how close friend, NFL legend Jim Brown attempted a one man intervention on him. I loved right before he began sharing the whole story he made the whole audience promise not to tell anyone.

Pryor made us wait for this though, starting off with the standard material that we expect from him, there was an initial offering regarding sex and how it was one of the best perks of being in show business, but it then smoothly segued into a discussion of relationships, how to weather them, and how they can break your heart. A lot of comedians talk about sex but not so much about navigating the choppy waters of sustaining a relationship and from someone like Pryor, this was a most refreshing surprise.

The comedian also shares about his trip to Africa, giving voice to a pair of cheetah eyeing a herd of gazelles and something I didn't see coming: he actually takes an audience request. During a short lull in his routine while he was getting a drink of water, an audience member shouts out a request for someone called Mudbone. Most likely a character he has done in previous concerts, Pryor announced that this would be Mudbone's final performance then launched into a 15 minute routine of a very old black man with no teeth pontificating about the mysteries of life that had the audience on the floor. It made me want to go back and find where this character originated. Loved the closing where Pryor thanked his fans for their support during his recovery but also let them know he was aware of the jokes that were going around about him. A wonderfully entertaining 90 minutes from the best stand up comedian ever who was taken from us much too soon.

Gia
A practically unknown actress by the name of Angelina Jolie put herself on the map with a powerhouse performance in an HBO biopic called Gia playing Gia Carangi, the first true supermodel of the 1970's whose drug abuse led to her being one of the first females diagnosed with AIDS and dying from the disease at the tender age of 26.

This lavishly mounted 1998 film follows Gia from her wild years as an out and proud lesbian teen in Philadelphia to her being discovered by New York fashion agent Wilhemena Cooper (Faye Dunaway) and her meteoric rise to the queen of the runways. Sadly, her descent into drug abuse caused an equally meteoric fall from grace. Along the way the film documents Gia's troubled relationship with her mother (Mercedes Ruehl) and her turbulent love affair with a heterosexual makeup artist named Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell).

Director and co-screenwriter Michael Cristofer has crafted a loving and respectful tribute to this tragic creature, almost to the point of putting her on a cinematic pedestal but never whitewashing who Gia was. According to this film, Gia was a tornado who blew through lives and was oblivious regarding the damage she caused. She worked incredibly hard at being different and outrageous and was repelled by anything that smacked of being ordinary. This comes blazing through in her pursuit of Linda, who tells Gia that she has a boyfriend but Gia doesn't care...this was the 1970's, a time when sexual lines were beginning to blur and Gia embraced it. There's a wonderful scene where Gia does meet Linda's boyfriend, who suggests that the three of them party together but Gia is having none of it and shoves him into a wall before leaving.

Cristofer gets a little carried away with presenting Gia's actual words as part of the film's narration. Cristofer borrowed heavily from a journal that Gia kept in preparing his screenplay, but it gets a little distracting at times. One thing I did like regarding the narration: This was not the first biopic that opened with characters in the subject's story being interviewed documentary-style, but this is the first one where it seemed no two people being interviewed had similar thoughts about Gia. I was also impressed with a wonderful directorial touch where Cristofer opens the film with extreme close-ups of Jolie being made up as if right before a photo shoot but we learn at the end of the film that this is not the case.

Cristofer's biggest coup is the absolutely amazing performance he gets from Angelina Jolie, a combination of fire and ice that is so mesmerizing she received a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for her work. This was the start of Jolie's career and now that I've seen this, there is very little she did later in her career that matched her work here, a dazzling performances that should be studied by acting students.

Mercedes Reuhl is brilliant as Gia's mother, effortlessly projecting the character's conflicted feelings about her daughter. Elizabeth Mitchell was also terrific as Linda, creating a chemistry with Jolie I didn't see coming...there is a photo shoot near the beginning of the film that features both actresses in the nude which is one of the most erotic things I have ever seen. Oh, and that is a very young Mila Kunis playing a pre-teen Gia in the opening scenes. Cristofer deserves some credit there too. If you would like to see a truly gifted actress before her career got swallowed up by the media, check out Gia.

The Seven Little Foys
Bob Hope, cast radically against type, anchors a 1955 biopic about Eddie Foy called The Seven Little Foys, a showbiz story beautifully blended with a family drama that was impossible to resist.

Yes, there was a real Eddie Foy and I have no idea how factually accurate this story was, but, according to this film, Foy was a struggling comic who marries a beautiful Italian ballerina and continues to become a star while his wife gives up her career to raise his seven children. The arrangement works for Eddie until the mother passes away from a mysterious illness while he's on the road. When his sister-in-law threatens to take the children away from him, Foy feels he has no option but to bring the kids on the road with him to become a vaudeville act called Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys.

Director and screenwriter Melville Shavelson has mounted a warm and engaging story rich with humor, but not the slapstick that we expect from a Bob Hope movie. Shevelson's screenplay actually earned him an Oscar nomination. His vision of Eddie Foy is likable even if it is a little contradictory at times. The beginning of the film establishes Foy as a confirmed bachelor who has no interest in marriage or family and before the halfway point of the film, he is married and the father of seven. The death of his wife does bring about a credible change in Foy (the scene where he learns of her death is quite moving, he was on the road when it happened). The initial scenes of Foy trying to teach the kids how to sing and dance are very funny and their contempt of show business is understandable, making their complete 180 at the climax of the film a little contrived.

The absolute marvel of this film is an incredible performance by Bob Hope that was unlike anything we had seen him do before. Hope proved for the first time that he was more than a clown with a talent for delivering a great punchline, but comes off as a full-fledged triple threat performer here...whether it is his rendition of the Bert Williams classic "Nobody" or the glorious tap showdown on a banquet table with James Cagney, reprising his role as George M. Cohan, or learning that his children have rejected the Xmas stockings he has provided for them while on the road, Hope easily gives the richest performance of his career in this film, proving what an immensely underrated actor he was.

As mentioned, I don't know how factually accurate this film was, but as far as I know, only one of the seven Foy children continued in the business as an adult. Eddie Foy Jr. managed to carve out a pretty impressive career for himself, including appearances in films like Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Pajama Game, Lucky Me, and Bells are Ringing.

Paramount Studios pulled out all the stops for this one, the production values are first-rate, with particular nods to art direction and cinematography, but more than anything, this film opened my eyes to what an incredible actor Bob Hope was and how, when given this opportunity, proved to be an actor of substance. BTW, Foy's oldest son, Bryan, is played by Billy Gray, who squeezed in this movie during his first hiatus from the sitcom Father Knows Best. I've been wanting to see this film for a long time and it definitely lives up to its reputation.

Afterglow
Two severely damaged marriages that are very similar and very different become hopelessly mangled in 1997's Afterglow, a character driven story of two marriages with a common link that, despite some superb performances, suffers to a screenplay that cops out at several points, especially the ending.

Lucky Mann (Nick Nolte) is a contractor/repairman married to Phyllis (Julie Christie), a former B movie actress who sits at home all day drinking and watching her old movies. They haven't had sex in years. Marianne Byron (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a sexually frustrated housewife who wants a baby. She's married to Jeffrey (Jonny Lee Miller) a workaholic who has no interest in becoming a father and finds himself fighting off the attraction of a co-worker (Jay Underwood).

Lucky is recommended to Marianne when she is looking for a contractor to convert one of the rooms of her apartment into a nursery and it is not long before Lucky and Marianne are having an affair. Meanwhile, Jeffrey goes to a hotel to look for Marianne because he suspects her infidelity, but instead of finding her, he finds Phyllis and begins pursuit of her.

Director and screenwriter Alan Rudolph attempts to paint a broad canvas for this story unlike the work of his mentor Robert Altman and attempts to move this story in several directions and then backs away. It was really interesting that the initial link between the two couples was a child...for the Manns, it was a child who left home many years ago and for the Byrons, It's a child that doesn't exist yet, a child that Marianne wants more than life and Jeffrey doesn't want at all and yet and because of these children, neither couple has been able to connect and have not been intimate for years.

I was initially intrigued by the idea that Jeffrey was having an affair with a man because the character piqued my gaydar almost immediately and it is approached but backed away from a mere thirty minutes into the film, which made the distance between Marianne and Jeffrey make even less sense. As unhappy as the Byrons are, the explosive confrontation that occurs when Jeffrey catches Lucky and Marianne at a bar together is a little unnerving and might even produce unintentional giggles. It would have been nice if Rudolph had painted his story with bolder colors and less gray and the ending is way to ambiguous.

The film is watchable though thanks to the powerhouse performances by Julie Christie, Nick Nolte, and Jonny Lee Miller. Christie's bold and theatrical turn earned her a Best Actress nomination and the chemistry she creates with Nolte is positively kinetic. Not the complete film experience it should be, but Christie and Nolte make it worth a look.

Get On Up
Before Black Panther made him a star, Chadwick Boseman was given the opportunity to play a music industry giant, R&B singer James Brown, "The Godfather of Soul" in a 2014 biopic called Get On Up a pretentious and fatally overlong film that, despite a charismatic performance from the star, turns out to be just another biopic.

This film takes the same path as a million other biopics, starting with Brown's dirt poor childhood with abusive parents to his flying to Vietnam to perform for troops there, getting his first record deal, which involves him selling out the rest of his group, the Famous Flames. and because we're in the 60's. we also get the obligatory glimpses at Brown dealing with racism and trying to be a successful artist in "white show business".

Jez and John-Henry Butterworth have constructed a long-winded and cliche-ridden screenplay that covers so much familiar territory that one could probably just change the names of the principals involved and this could be a biopic on just about any black singer from the 60's. There are obvious parallels with the Jamie Foxx film Ray as the film flashes back and forth between Brown's childhood and his present in the 1960's. Anything you've ever seen in a musical biopic gets touched upon here...the womanizing, the drugs and alcohol, the star turning on the people who have always had his back. There is one ridiculous scene with James' band where he is trying to explain how he wants them to play a certain song and compares all the instruments to drums. His instructions make no sense but the band claim they understand and play it again...James is immensely pleased that he got through to his band members but it doesn't sound any different than the way they played it the first time.

Director Tate Taylor (Winter's Bone, The Help) provides lackluster and unimaginative direction that contributes to the film being about 45 minutes longer than it needs to be. He attempts to inject something special into the proceedings by having Boseman provide some of the narration speaking directly at the camera, but it just comes off as gimmicky and just contributes to the film's air of pretension.

Chadwick Boseman does deliver a real movie star performance in the starring role, clearly having done his homework on the subject...he brilliantly recreates Brown's most famous onstage moves and manages to convince as a vocalist as well. Research revealed that Boseman only does "some" of the singing. Effective support is provided by Nelsan Ellis as Bobby Byrd, Craig Robinson as a saxophone player in Brown's band, Dan Aykroyd as agent Ben Bart and Oscar winner Viola Davis as Brown's mother. There's also a cute cameo from Oscar winner Allison Janney, but ultimately, the director's overindulgent direction and the cliched screenplay do this one in. A worthy subject of a biopic, James Brown deserved better than this overblown mess.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad
Back in 1980, the late Leslie Nielsen redefined his acting career when he played the role of Dr. Rumac in Airplane!. The character was re-imagined as a cop named Frank Drebin a couple of years later for a short-lived comedy series called Police Squad which only ran for six episodes, but gained a cult following and was so popular it initiated a movie franchise that began with The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.

The people behind Airplane and Hot Shots are behind this 1988 comedy which finds Frank Drebin, an LA police detective who arrives on the scene when his partner Nordberg (OJ Simpson) is nearly murdered by a dangerous group of drug smugglers led by the evil Victor Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban). Frank must simultaneously try to bring Ludwig and his gang to justice and provide security for Queen Elizabeth, who is touring the US and will be throwing out the first pitch at a California Angels game. Even with all this, Frank manages to initiate a romance with Ludwig's attractive assistant, Jane (Priscilla Presley).

Screenwriters Jerry Zuker, David Zuker, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft have concocted an off-the-wall and goofy story that is a balanced combination of sight gags as well as some silly dialogue that often requires very close attention in order for the viewer to catch what's going on. As they did with Airplane!, the Zuker Brothers provide sight and dialogue gags at lightning speed so that if one doesn't work, the viewer doesn't have time to whine about it because there's another one coming shorty.

I loved Drebin's exchange with a dock foreman, played by Joe Grifasi, centered around a pair of twenty dollar bills. His scaling of a very tall building constructed from anatomically correct statues was very funny as was Drebin's very public trip to the bathroom during a press conference. His initial counter with the Queen was pretty funny as was Simpson's recoil from being shot during the opening scenes.

The straight-faced performances really aid in making this kind of farce work and Nielsen's stone-face is perfect for the nutty goings-on and George Kennedy, Simpson, Montalban, and Nancy Marchand as the Mayor offer fun support. Must also give a shout out to Jeanette Charles as the Queen. There are cameos along the way from Wierd Al Yankovic, Jim Palmer, Curt Gowdy, John Houseman, Reggie Jackson, Lawrence Tierney, Dick Enberg, and Dick Vitale. From the "Put your brain in check and enjoy" school of filmmaking, this was a lot of fun and am looking forward to checking out the sequels.

Ralph Breaks the Internet
Ralph breaks the Internet is Disney Pixar's colorful and action-packed sequel to Wreck-it-Ralph that is all kinds of fun, even if it does suffer from a slight case of "Sequel-itis."

In this story, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) has inadvertently caused the malfunction and eventual unplugging of Sugar Rush, the video game of which his BFF, Vannelope (voiced by Sarah SIlverman) is the star. Vannelope and the other drivers in Sugar Rush are now homeless, but the video characters are intrigued and frightened when a new plug-in comes into the arcade power surge called "Wi-Fi" and after receiving a brief education on the internet, Ralph decides that he and Vannelope should travel to the internet to a magical land called E-Bay, where the part needed to restore Sugar Rush has been located.

Upon their arrival, Ralph and Vannelope misunderstand the concept of an auction and have to come up with $27,001.00 in order to get the new part. Further internet research by our pals reveal that they can buy a car at a game called Slaughter Race. Unfortunately, their trip to Slaughter Race might separate our friends forever, as the game terrifies Ralph but Vannelope loves it and wants to make it her new video home.

Directors and writers Phil Johnson and Rich Moore are to be applauded for their colorful endlessly concept of the internet, which is a huge futuristic-looking city, like something out of Blade Runner complete with structures labeled things like You Tube and IMDB. The initial set up of the story is a lot of fun, but as we've become accustomed with Disney Pixar, the story becomes overly complex and featuring about three too many endings. The resolution of the story is at the very end of a VERY long tunnel and just when we think we're beginning to see the light, we are thrown one more wrench in the works, which actually degenerates into melodrama, which was completely out of place with the colorful and exciting story we had been exposed to thus far.

Some of the detours are a lot of fun. I loved Shank (voiced by Gal Gadot), the owner of the expensive car our friends want to get who has a hair-raising car race with Vannelope and I was absolutely delighted when the story found Vannelope encountering every Disney animated heroine from the past couple of decades where they teach her how to be a Disney heroine and she teaches them how to chill and dress down, climaxing in a Broadway style musical number that was a lot of fun.

Reilly and Silverman have settled comfortably into their roles as Ralph and Vannelope and Gadot was a lot of fun as Shank. Also enjoyed Alan Tudyk as KnowsMore (the search engine/spacebar), Taraji P. Henson as Yess, the directorr of Buzztube.com, Bil Hader as JP Spamley, and Sean Giambrone as Pop-up. Alfred Molina also gives voice to an evil computer virus called Double Dan. There's also a brief cameo from Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen). Disney Pixar has a pretty solid record with viable sequels and this one works too, though by the final act, I have to admit I was checking my watch.

Tango & Cash
One of my favorite guilty pleasures, 1989's Tango & Cash is a by-the-numbers cop/buddy action comedy that seems better than it is thanks to the surprising chemistry between the stars, who are cast against type.

Sylvester Stallone plays Raymond Tango, a sophisticated cop who wears Armani suits and dabbles in the stock market. Kurt Russell is Gabriel Cash, the long-haired, hard-drinking cop whose apartment looks like a hurricane hit it. Tango and Cash have been a consistent thorn in the side of a ruthless drugs/weapons dealer named Perret (Jack Palance) who's got a large shipment of weapons coming in and decides to handle his thorn by framing them for murder and sending them to jail for 18 months. The antagonism between Ray and Gabe is intensified further when Gabe meets Katherine (Teri Hatcher), Ray's sister, and is immediately attracted to her.

Screenwriter Randy Feldman, who also wrote the Eddie Murphy drama Metro has provided us with a very standard story that employs every cop buddy movie cliche that you can think of in its relatively economic running time. Instead of stroking a cat like most movie bad guys, this guy Perret likes to play with mice. Fortunately, the story doesn't take too much time setting up the differences between the two guys because they are obvious from jump and didn't need to be spoon-fed to us.

Andrei Konchalovsky, who directed the Julie Andrews melodrama Duet for One, proves he has a penchant for mounting solid action sequences, as well as the foresight to cast his stars against type...it was fun seeing Stallone as the urbane sophisticate who manages to stop a a fuel trick of cocaine in the opening scene without mussing his suit. It was just as fun seeing Russelll as the rogue cop who has to wear a bullet-proof vest 24-7 because he keeps getting shot at. And I think this is the only film that offers movie audiences a glance of Kurt Russell in drag.

A lot of money went into this movie, it's too bad it didn't have more experience in the genre behind the camera because this could have been something pretty special if it had more going for it than Stallone and Russell, who really make lemonade out of lemons and film a real guilty pleasure.

The Tunnel of Love
MGM legend Gene Kelly stepped behind the camera as director of 1958's The Tunnel of Love, a sophisticated adult comedy that still provides laughs despite a talky screenplay and some questionable casting.

Isolde Poole (Doris Day) and her husband, Augie (Richard Widmark) have been trying for several years to have a baby to no avail. They receive a visit from a case worker from the Rock-a-Bye Adoption Agency named Miss Novick (Gia Scala) whose initial impression of Augie is not good; but she gives him a second a chance and actually ends up spending the night in a hotel with him. Miss Novick winds up pregnant and Augie, convinced that the baby is his, gives the woman $1000 before she leaves town to have the baby. Then the Rock-a-Bye agency shows up with a baby for the Pooles that bears an uncanny resemblance to Augie.

This movie was based on a Broadway play that opened in 1957 and ran for 417 performances and its origins as a theatrical piece are evident in the fact that the story pretty much takes place in the Poole's home. The idea of a couple being unable to conceive a child was pretty adult stuff for 1958 but this movie doesn't shy away from it, though the theme sinks occasionally amid some overly sophisticated dialogue with hidden meaning that probably was a little too sophisticated for 1980 movie audiences. I did have to chuckle though when halfway through a comedy about a couple trying to conceive a baby it's revealed that they sleep in twin beds.

Kelly does his best to keep this story moving and engaging to the viewer, but the story plays like an extended episode of a sitcom. There is an emptiness to the proceedings and Day's role in particular that is kind of sad to watch. This film was co-produced by Martin Melcher, Doris' husband at the time, who was going through her money like kleenex, forcing Doris to do a lot of movies that she really didn't want to do and her unhappiness with being involved in this project does come through a bit in her performance.

But the casting of Richard Widmark as her husband is the real problem here. I haven't seen an actor work this hard trying to be funny since Gregory Peck in Designing Woman and i'm still not sure if it was a matter of bad acting or being miscast. I suspect the latter because Widmark is a very talented actor but he just seemed out of his element here. I kept picturing Rock Hudson or Dean Martin in this role. On the other hand, Gig Young, in his second film with Day that year (Teacher's Pet was the other), steals every scene he's in as Augie's unhappily married neighbor and best friend and Elisabeth Fraser reprises her Broadway role as his wife. This movie works very hard at being funny and Day and Young are always worth watching, but this one really doesn't work as it should.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
David Spade starred ad co-wrote the screenplay for the 2003 comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, a silly and predictable comedy that provides sporadic laughs leading up to a terrific finale.

Spade plays the title role, who was the star of a TV show called The Glimmer Gang at the tender age of five. He hasn't really worked since and has attempted to revive his career via appearances on things like Celebrity Boxing, but to no avail. Somehow, his agent (Jon Lovitz) gets him an audition for a new movie being directed by Rob Reiner. Reiner rejects him for the role because the role requires an adult. Dickie decides that he doesn't know how to be an adult because he really had no childhood so he pays a suburban family a lot of money to be treated as the family's third child so that he can experience a normal childhood.

Spade's premise is cleverly executed as we meet Dickie with his poker playing buddies, who include Leif Garrett, Barry Williams, Dustin Diamond, Danny Bonaduce, and Corey Feldman and then moves into a totally predictable series of events where where Dickie teaches the son how to discover his inner stud, the daughter how to becoming a great cheerleader, and shows the Mom (Mary McCormack) what a scum her husband (Craig Bierko) is.

Spade had the opportunity to do something really special here. Former child star Paul Peterson started an organization decades ago to protect child actors, but this film is just one silly slapstick scene after another, including Dickie's introduction to a slip-n-slide. The attraction to Mom doesn't really work either because Spade and McCormack have no chemistry whatsoever. The film comes in for a smashing finish with the epilogue documenting how this experience works out for Dickie and make sure to stay tuned through the closing credits, which features a video called "Don't hurt the Child Stars" which features Florence Henderson, Marian Ross, and thirty former child stars, a la "We are the World."

Needless to say, Spade-haters should definitely take a pass on this. McCormack underplays nicely as the Mom and Bierko is quite effective as the greasy dad. Alyssa Milano is also very funny as Dickie's ex-girlfriend who re-enters his life and you might also catch cameos by Doris Roberts, Dick van Patten, Rachel Dratch, Regis Philbin, Jay Leno, Kelly Ripa, and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT reporter Jann Carl. It's not great cinema, but Spade seems to be enjoying himself and star-gazers should enjoy it.

The intervention (2016)
Actress Clea DuVall shows potential as a filmmaker as the producer, director, and writer of the 2016 comedy-drama The Intervention that boasts some interesting performances but has just too much of a "been there done that" quality to the story.

The story follows four couples who fly from various parts of the country to meet at the summer house of one of them because five of these people have determined that one of the couples is terribly unhappy and should divorce, so they have decided to bring the couple to this idyllic vacation spot to perform a "marriage intervention" on the couple that also turns an intervening eye on Annie (Melanie Lynskey), who orchestrated this whole thing but has a serious drinking problem which is also addressed.

DuVall has mounted a tale that, on the surface, ventures into The Big Chill/Return of the Seacacus Seven territory but doesn't do it with the style and efficiency that Lawrence Kasdan did. The story feels more contemporary, evidenced by one of the couples being lesbian, but this reviewer found it very difficult to get behind what is going on. I don't care how miserable a couple's marriage is, it is no one's place to tell a couple that they are unhappy and should divorce. I found this subject matter cringe-worthy, making it hard for me to legitimately address DuVall's talent as a filmmaker.

A kiss between a straight woman and a lesbian kicks off a very funny scene that had me rolling, but the majority of this film had me squirming. DuVall has employed some top-notch production values to her story and there are some really strong performances among this hand-picked ensemble cast. Lynskey is outstanding as the instigator of this whole thing as are Natasha Lyonne as DuVall's lover, Ben Schwartz as a widower who was going through a divorce when his wife died, who has his new girlfriend accompany him on this trip. Vincent Piazza, who impressed me in Jersey Boys as Tommy DeVito, impresses here as well as the exasperated Peter. DuVall gets an "A" for effort here and shows definite promise as a filmmaker.

She's Funny that Way
With a proven commodity in the director's chair, the 2015 screwball comedy She's Funny that Way does take a few minutes to get going, but eventually delivers laughs, thanks to meticulous direction and a terrific ensemble cast.

This is the story of a struggling actress and part-time call girl named Isabella (Imogen Poots) who finds herself involved with a crazy group of theater people who are all part of a new Broadway show called A GRECIAN EVENING. The other primary players in this contemporary drawing room comedy include the play's director Arnold Adamson (Owen Wilson), his wife and the star of the play Delta (Kathryn Hahn), the arrogant leading man, Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), the playwright (Will Forte); his bitchy psychiatrist wife (Jennifer Aniston); a philandering Judge (Austin Pendleton); and Isabella's parents (Richard Lewis, Cybill Shepherd).

About 20 minutes into this movie, I actually said to myself, "this reminds me of that Peter Bognovich movie Noises Off", so imagine my shock when I learned that this film was directed and co-written by Bogdanovich. I was also intrigued to learn that he co-wrote the screenplay with the late Dorothy Stratten's kid sister, Louise. The story also contains elements of Bogdanovich's film with Dorothy, They All Laughed, but the story is a little more focused here...yes, the focus comes in slowly, but once the viewer starts putting together who is who here, this one turned out to be a lot of fun.

Bogdanovich proved way back in 1972 that he knows how to do screwball comedy with his classic What's Up, Doc and there are elements of that film here as well. Bogdanovich's work here is definitely influenced by other films, but their his films, so it's OK.

He's put together a wonderful ensemble cast to pull this caper off with standout work from Wilson, Hahn, Aniston, and Ifans. Poots is a little hard to take at times, that Brooklyn accent was a little much. And if you don't blink, you might catch cameos from Collen Camp, Michael Shannon, Lucy Punch, Tatum O'Neal, Jennifer Esposito, and Quentin Tarantino. Once this one shifts to first gear, laugh-out-loud hilarity is provided right through the closing credits.