Gideon58's Reviews

The Mating Game (1959)
Veteran character actor Paul Douglas made his final feature film appearance in a warm and engaging romantic comedy from 1959 called The Mating Game.

Douglas plays Pop Larkin, a sweet-natured farmer with a wife and five kids who has run his farm and supported his family as a trader, trading whatever he has ever needed instead of paying cash for anything and, therefore, has never paid any taxes or even filed a return. The IRS sends a prickly young agent named Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall) to the Larkin farm to investigate. Things get complicated when the Larkins get Charlton drunk and he starts falling for Pop's prettiest eldest daughter (Debbie Reynolds).

Based on a novel called The Darling Buds of May, the beauty of William Roberts screenplay lies in its simplicity centered around very universal themes, particularly the differences between big city and country living. The script also works thanks to one of the most likable family units in a movie I have seen in a long time. The Larkins are a tightly knit clan who would do anything for each other and though it's sometimes hard to believe their naivete regarding the trouble they're in with the IRS, their unassuming "seduction" of the Lorenzo character has no malice behind it and we keep hoping it's going to work. I also loved the subtle inferences of a very healthy sex life between Pop Larkin and his beloved Ma (Una Merkel).

The real surprise here is the crisp and undeniably funny performance by Tony Randall in the leading role. An actor usually relegated to supporting roles, Randall was given the chance to anchor a story and he knocks it out of the park. Randall somehow effortlessly manages to combine urbane sophistication with his uncanny knack for physical comedy, creating a loopy and charming leading man who is hard to resist. Randall's drunk scene and his fight scene with a couple of Reynolds' country bumpkin boyfriends are definitely comic highlights.

Randall gets first rate assistance from Douglas, who is terrific in his final film appearance and works very nicely with Reynolds, providing the story with a bubbly and energetic leading lady. Fred Clark brings another of his mustache-twirling comic villains to the screen and Phillip Ober and Charles Lane make the most of their screentime as well. The film is shot in gorgeous MGM technicolor and the finale is a dandy. Oh, and that is Debbie singing the title song.

The Interview
The creative forces behind Superbad take on some very sticky subject matter in 2014's The Interview, the controversial, big budget comic extravaganza that caused such a firestorm that the country of North Korea actually tried to stop the film from being released.

James Franco plays Dave Skylark, the slightly dim and arrogant host of a celebrity tabloid talk show called "Skylark Tonight" who learns that North Korean dictator Kim-Jong-un is a big fan of his show, which motivates Dave's producer, Aaron Rappaport (Seth Rogen) to contact the man and see if he would agree to do the show. Aaron flies to North Korean and learns that President Kim will do the interview. Dave and Aaron are thrown though when the CIA shows up at Aaron's apartment, having learned about the interview, and request that while they are doing the interview, they murder President Kim through a poisonous strip they will place on Dave's hand that will poison the dictator when they shake hands.

Things get even more complicated when, upon their arrival, Dave and President Kim bond, becoming instant BFF's, who enjoy margaritas and Katy Perry. Aaron also starts falling for one of President Kim's top aides who, in reality, can't stand Kim and agrees to help Dave and Aaron in their mission.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have come a long way since Superbad and have to be applauded for their creation of a story that they had to know would piss a lot of people off. After all, this is a work of comic fiction based on a real life political leader that comes right out and says that the guy is starving and destroying his people, and is pretty much insane. Rogen and Goldberg make it clear that this film is a work of fiction, but one can definitely see how this film might have raised the dander of the North Korean people. The film makes North Koreans look just as stupid as it makes President Kim look insane.

One thing I really liked about the story was the character of Dave Skylark. He comes off as a sort of comic re-working of Kimberly Wells, the character Jane Fonda played in The China Syndrome, a fluff reporter who longs to be taken seriously as a journalist and I got the same feeling from Dave Skylark, even if he might not be as passionate about it as Wells was, but he doesn't shy away from the opportunity when it drops into his lap and I liked that. Dave also had a delightful man-child quality to his personality that injected a lot of fun in to this story. I loved the day he spent with President Kim when they first arrive, where they bond over Katy Perry and blow up a forest area in Kim's tank.

Rogen and Goldberg's estimated $44,000,000 budget is all over the screen, documented by incredible North Korean and China location photography, some unforgettable set pieces, art direction, and some superb film editing. Rogen is very funny as the producer who reluctantly agrees to this career-changing interview and Randall Park is just brilliant in this comic re-working of President Kim, but it is James Franco's deliciously over-the-top performance as the slightly nutty Dave Skylark that really energizes this movie and actually finds Franco lip locking with both Rogen and Park. The cameos at the beginning of the film by Eminem and Rob Lowe are also funny, but all the controversy this film caused upon its initial release seems kind of silly now. Lighten up, North Korea...it's a movie.

"They hate us cause they ain't us" Dave Skylark ("The Interview")

I love this movie. You're right about Kim/ Dave bonding, it probably is the best part of this great movie.

A Shot in the Dark
Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers wasted no time in following up the smashing success of The Pink Panther with an even funnier sequel called A Shot in the Dark, which has earned a reputation over the years as the funniest film in the Pink Panther franchise and deservedly so.

This 1964 laugh riot finds Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) assigned to investigate the murder of the driver of wealthy Benjamin Ballon (Oscar winner George Sanders) and the primary suspect appears to be Ballon's buxom and beautiful maid, Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommar), but Clouseau refuses to accept Maria as being guilty, which not only gets him in a lot of trouble with his boss, Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), but has a hand in an additional seven deaths that happen in the course of the investigation.

A film that features eight murder victims hardly seems to be material for a film comedy, but Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty have concocted this outrageously over-the-top black comedy, which is actually based on a play by Harry Kurnitz, who was clearly influenced by writers like Noel Coward in coming up with this bizarre murder mystery that really isn't that mysterious. Director and co-writer Edwards stages a brilliant staging of the murder at the opening of the film, before the opening credits, that already clue in on the audience that we are not being told everything...during the opening, we observe several people going in and out of various doors on the Ballon estate and we see four people go into the same room before the shots ring out, so we know there are at least two more people who know something but are saying nothing.

It's not the story that makes this movie so funny, it is the brilliant collaboration between Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers, whose uncanny ability to concoct hysterical physical comedy out of practically nothing at times that makes this movie works. You know you're in for some major laughs when Ballon suggests that he and Clouseau engage in a game of billiards and hands Clouseau a curved pool cue, not to mention later when he asks him to return a pool cue to the rack. Watch Sellers' face when he is questioning Maria in his office and every time she grabs him, a piece of his suit comes off in her hand. Their misadventure in a nudist colony provides major chuckles as well. I also loved the running bit of Clouseau donning different disguises to follow Maria after having her released from jail and getting arrested repeatedly for occupations that require a license. And that scene where Clouseau and his assistant (Graham Stark) are trying to synchronize their watches had me on the floor.

Edwards and Blatty have also come up with the perfect comic foil for Clouseau in Dreyfus. Love the look on his face when he first learns that Clouseau has been assigned to the case and how frustrated he gets when he learns that Ballon doesn't want Clouseau taken off the case. It's so funny how working with Clouseau has turned Dreyfus into a basket case who can't eat or sleep, has a problem with self-mutilation, an eye that won't stop twitching at the mention of Clouseau's name, and is deep in therapy.

Peter Sellers proves to be the master physical comedian here, bringing a goofy dignity to this character, while barely allowing a smile to cross his face during the entire running time. Lom and Sanders underplay beautifully and Sanders must be applauded for keeping a straight face with Sellers, but the lion's credit for why this works has to go to director Blake Edwards, whose undeniable skill at slapstick comedy gets a full work out here. So if you're a fan of his later work like 10 and Victoria/Victoria, you might want to give this classic a look.

Aladdin (2019)
After being thoroughly entertained by their live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, I was looking forward to seeing what Disney Studios would do with their live action remake of their 1992 instant classic Aladdin, a lavish and fast-paced musical fantasy where everything works except for the one thing that made the 1992 animated film so special.

Aladdin is a streetwise Arabian hustler and thief who meets and is immediately attracted to the beautiful Princess Jasmine, who is doing the Roman Holiday bit away from the castle and pretending to be her handmaiden Dalia. The Sultan, Jasmine's father, is being pressured by his second in command, the ruthless Jafar, to give up his throne and decides to take a shortcut to the throne by sending Aladdin to a magical cave filled with treasures to retrieve a very special lamp for him. Before he can get the lamp to Jafar, Aladdin rubs the lamp and out pops a big blue genie who has been in the lamp for about 10,000 years and offers Aladdin three wishes.

Director and co-screenwriter Guy Ritchie might seem an unusual choice to helm this gargantuan undertaking but he and co-screenwriter John August do an admirable job of establishing exposition without taking up too much running time while simultaneously flashing out certain characters and their motivations that were somewhat glossed over in the 1992 animated film. Jafar is a far more three dimensional character than he was in the first film. We actually understand the resentments behind his behavior. As expected, we also get a more enlightened heroine in Princess Jasmine...initially she appears to be bored and somewhat trapped in her princess clothes, but she is eventually revealed to be interested in taking over as Sultan, which provides a layer of strength to the character that I found most refreshing.

What just didn't work for me here is the character of the genie, so brilliantly brought to life by Disney animators and the late great Robin Williams in 1992. This consistently entertaining character whose unending morphing not only involved the story at hand but current pop culture as well, just doesn't work here. Even a crack visual effect team is never able to produce the kind of wonder and magic that the genie had in 1992 and I'm afraid that had way too much to do with the fact that this character worked the way it did because of the late Robin Williams' voicing of the character, which was one of a kind magic. Will Smith's genie is all over the place here...he's part streetwise thug, part gay fashion designer, part Yente the matchmaker, and we never really believe any of it.

What does work here is Guy Ritchie's meticulous direction which keeps the story moving and doesn't allow too many lulls in the action. His camera work is innovative and imaginative with especially effective use of the steady cam and some amusing fast-action shooting during "One Jump Head", Aladdin's opening number. I also enjoyed "Prince Ali", the lavish production number featuring some terrific choreography by Jamal Sims and the Princess' two versions of "Speechless", especially the reprise that is staged as sort of an inner monologue in Jasmine's mind. Also loved Aladdin and Jasmine's magic carpet ride to the Oscar winning "A Whole New World." Loved Aladdin's monkey sidekick, Abu, who I wasn't sure if he was real or CGI and I think that was the intention. Iago's transformation from Jafar's comic relief to a winged monster in the climax was genuinely terrifying.

Mena Massoud gives a real movie star performance in the title role and creates mad chemistry with Naomi Scott's Jasmine. Marwan Kenzari's quietly underplayed Jafar was a master acting class and I also loved former SNL player Nasim Pedrad as Dalia, but even with all the technical help he receives, Will Smith prevents this film from being what it should have been.

Ask Any Girl
Sparkling performances by the stars notwithstanding, the 1959 romantic comedy Ask Any Girl has not held up well due to some outdated plotting and some questionable casting, not to mention a little too much resemblance to other better films of the period.

The comedy stars Shirley MacLaine as Meg Wheeler, a virginal career girl who has managed to fend off the advances of a lecherous playboy (Rod Taylor) long enough to get herself a job at a cigarette company run by Miles Doughton (David Niven) and his younger brother Evan (Gig Young). Meg finds herself enamored with the marriage shy Evan but can't get a commitment out of him, so she goes to Miles for assistance in getting Evan to put a ring on it. Miles decides to help Meg by stealing Evan's little black book and trying to model Meg into a little bit of all the girls in the book.

George Wells' screenplay is terribly dated, offering some silly statistics about male female relationships and what would basically be considered sexual harassment today. There is a lot of talk among Meg and the other female characters in the story about enjoying being working women, but admitting that they are only doing it in order to land a husband, a common disease among female movie characters in the 1950's that is just a little too hard to take in 2019. The Meg Wheeler character reminded me a lot of Jan Morrow, the character Doris Day played in Pillow Talk the same year and the Doughton brothers reminded me a lot of the Larrabee brothers, played Humphrey Bogart and William Holden five years earlier in Sabrina.

Actually, it is the Doughton brothers who provided one of my biggest aggravations with this film. I just never bought David Niven and Gig Young as brothers, and not just because Niven is British and Young is not, there was just no familial feelings resonating between the two actors to make them believable as brothers. Both are talented actors and are fully committed to what they're doing, especially Young in his accustomed slick, lady-killer turn, but I never believed the relationship between the two, which made investing in the proceedings difficult.

MacLaine is utterly enchanting going the Doris Day route, though and works well with Young. Rod Taylor was also surprisingly funny as were Jim Backus, Elisabeth Fraser, and sexpot Claire Kelly in supporting roles, but the whole concept of the film is just a little too dated to be viable entertainment in 2019.

Sound like my kind of movie! I've not heard of it, but I will add it to my watch list.

It is your kind of movie, Citizen, you'll probably like it a little more than I did.

Hobson's Choice
Meticulous direction by the legendary David Lean and some superb performances make 1954's Hobson's Choice appointment movie viewing, a warm and engaging comedy-drama centered on family values and the real power of the woman behind the man.

Oscar winner Charles Laughton plays Henry Hobson, the owner of a boot-making business and the father of three daughters. Eldest daughter Maggie (Brenda de Banzie) really runs the business and Willie Massop (Oscar winner John Mills) is the gifted shoemaker who actually makes the boots. Henry plans on marrying off his younger daughters, Alice and Vicky, until he learns that he is expected to provide dowries (referred to here as "settlements") for them. In Henry's mind, Maggie is a spinster who will never marry and will run the business for him until the day she dies. Maggie, on the other hand, has other ideas and spinsterhood is the last thing on her mind.

Oscar winner Lean is known for mounting spectacular epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai, but has also shown an affinity for intimate human drams like Brief Encounter and Pygmalion and it is his quieter work that I have always preferred, including this engaging family comedy served by an extraordinary cast who who are fully committed to the vision of director and co-screenwriter Lean.

The most engaging and entertaining aspect of this cinematic journey is, of course, the magical relationship between Maggie and Willie, completely manipulated by Maggie from the start...a strong, determined woman who has decided that she will be married no matter what her father thinks. It's a little unsettling watching Maggie's initial manipulation of Willie, but we learn that being manipulated is exactly what Willie the doormat needed and watching the kind of man that Maggie molds Willie into is just a joy to watch. Willie is even involved with another woman at the beginning and the scene where Maggie puts an end to it had me on the floor. It's hard to believe the Willie and the beginning of the movie and the one at the end are the same character.

And what can be said about the extraordinary performance Lean pulls from Charles Laughton? This actor was never known for subtlety in his acting but this performance entertains and rivets from opening to closing scene and was there ever any actor who nailed a drunk scene the way Laughton did? That scene in the dark jumping in the mud puddles was really funny. Brenda de Banzie is extraordinary as Maggie, commanding the screen in a perfect melange of strength and warmth and John Mills is a revelation as the seemingly hapless Willie. A richly entertaining comedy-drama that works because of the talent behind the camera as well as the talent in front.

Cape Fear (1991)
Martin Scorsese followed up his masterpiece Goodfellas with a blistering and bloody remake of Cape Fear which is best remembered for the bone-chilling, Oscar-nominated performance from Robert De Niro in the lead.

This remake of the 1962 classic finds De Niro playing Max Cady, a man who has just been released from prison after 14 years and goes straight to the lawyer who defended him, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) who he feels dropped the ball and is responsible for him losing 14 years of his life, and begins blatantly stalking the man, his wife (Jessica Lange), and his 16-year old daughter (Juliette Lewis).

The screenplay has been adapted by the 1962 screenplay by James R. Webb, which was based on a novel by John B.McDonald, which eventually turns out to be a biting indictment on the contemporary justice system, which often seems to be just as protective of criminals, maybe a little too protective, as it is of the victims. The progression of this story aggravates as we watch the very dangerous Max Cady bring nothing but terror to the Bowden family and the more he does, the more the law seems to protect him instead of the Bowdens. There's a point in the story where we actually see Max take Sam Bowden to court so that he can have a restraining order put out on him so that Sam has to stay away from him!

On the other hand, the story is consistently intriguing primarily because the character of Max Cady is no moron. When we are first introduced to the character, Scorsese pans the wall and bookshelf in his jail cell, packed with all kinds of white supremacist posters and many books while we see the heavily-tattooed Cady doing pull-ups. We know this guy has not spent the last 14 year doing pull-ups. He feels that education is not only perhaps a way to a better way of life for himself, but also as his most important tool in exacting the revenge he has obviously been planning on Sam Bowden ever since he got locked up. I love his flawless use of legalese on the boat while he's throwing Sam around like a rag doll.

But the real story here is De Niro, in an absolutely chilling performance that earned him a sixth Oscar nominaton. De Niro has played a lot of creepy characters over the years, but I don't think he has ever made my skin crawl the way he does here. He and Scorsese continue to be an unbeatable writer/director combo, artists whose intuitive understanding of each other is unparalleled.

De Niro gets a strong antagonist in Nick Nolte, who is rock solid as Bowden, bringing a real meat to the character that's not really in the screenplay. Ironically, Nolte was also an Oscar nominee that year, but for a different film. Juliette Lewis also received a supporting actress nomination for her performance as Notle's daughter. Jessica Lange's work in this film has always been overlooked and underrated, but she's great here, especially in that scene on the boat where she's trying to keep Max from raping her daughter. Scorsese also casts three actors from the '62 film, Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, and Martin Balsam in supporting roles, but this is De Niro's show and for fans of the actor, this is appointment viewing.

The Princess and the Frog
Disney Animation scores with a 2009 animated musical called The Princess and the Frog which features colorful characters, animal and human, and a terrific musical score by a movie music legend.

In this re-thinking of the classic fairy tale The Frog Prince, the setting is New Orleans where the viewer is introduced to Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), a hard-working waitress who is very close to having saved enough money to open up her own restaurant, a dream she shared with her late father. We also meet Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) who has arrived in town and after an encounter with a voodoo magician named Dr. Facilier (voiced by Keith David), has been turned into a frog and can only be returned to human with a kiss from a princess and convinced that Tiana is a princess, talks her into kissing him, which instead of returning Naveen to human, turns Tiana into a frog while Dr. Facilier is able to turn Naveen's manservant Lawrence (voiced by Peter Bartlett) into Naveen who finds himself being chased by Tiana's man-hungry BFF Charlotte (voiced by Jennifer Cody).

Other pertinent players who become part of Tiana and Naveen's complicated journey to a happy ending include a trumpet playing alligator named Louis (voiced by Michael Leon-Wooley), a firefly named Ray (voiced by Jim Cummings), an old blind lady (voiced by Jenifer Lewis) and Charlotte's father (voiced by John Goodman), the King of this year's Mardi Gras, whose conclusion is also the timetable for Tiana and Naveen to be returned to human.

The creative forces behind the animated Aladdin, Ron Clements and John Musker, have concocted another overly complex story out of a very simple fairy tale, which attempts to be very hip by setting the story in New Orleans and making several of the central characters African American. Unfortunately, the way these characters and the city of New Orleans are portrayed broadcast loudly to the viewer that Clements and Musker are the whitest guys on the planet who apparently know little or nothing about New Orleans, but what happens on this vanilla canvas they establish is so entertaining that we are able to forgive the slightly whitewashed settings and characterizations.

Once again, Disney has brought us another fiercely independent female heroine to get behind. It's nice that nothing else is really important to Tiana than realizing her dream with her father, that is, until she meets Naveen. I have complained in several past reviews about films that spent too much time on exposition and I am pleased to say that this film spends just the right amount of time, especially the scene with young Tiana and her parents (voiced by Terrence Howard and Oprah Winfrey).

One of the biggest selling points of this film was the toe-tapping score by Oscar winner Randy Newman that will have you humming and toe tapping right through the closing credits. I especially enjoyed "Gonna Take You There", "Ma Belle Evangeline", "When we're Human", "Down in New Orleans", and the exuberant, Oscar-nominated "Almost There".

The voice cast is wonderful with Rose making an enchanting lady with solid support from David, Campos, Lewis, and Cody. Keith David is especially impressive revealing a musical talent I had never seen from him, another Disney specialty, allowing actors not known for being musicians to show off their musical talent. Another winner from Disney.

Pickup on South Street
The Hollywood Blacklisting was having a serious impact on Hollywood, not only on the artists bringing material to the screen, but the material itself. A prime example of this change in material was a tidy little noir-ish thriller from 1953 called Pickup on South Street that tells a compelling story in an economic manner and features a superb, Oscar-nominted performance from, arguably, Hollywood's greatest character actress.

This dandy little nail-biter stars Richard Widmark as Skip McCoy, a two-bit pickpocket who has only been out of jail for a week when he lifts the wallet out of a purse belonging to a tough-as-nails-hooker named Candy, who is instructed by her boyfriend to come home immediately when he learns the the wallet is gone. Neither Skip nor Candy are aware that the wallet contained a piece of secret microfilm that is connected to a communist plot and that Candy's boyfriend is secretly communist. Candy and the police are able to locate the microfilm with the assistance of a hardened police informant named Mo Williams (Thelma Ritter), but Candy's boyfriend wants that microfilm back and has no qualms about going through Candy and Mo to do it.

Samuel Fuller, probably best categorized as a "B" movie director, created his masterpiece, mounting an atmospheric crime drama in the city that never sleeps, where the city of Manhattan almost becomes another character in the story. This is the earliest film I can recall that so effectively establishes that midnight to dawn atmosphere that was so prevalent in crime dramas of the 1970's and 80's. It's given an added air of distinction by making the main antagonist a communist, something that probably never would have found its way to the screen if the film had been made five years before it was, but the Hollywood witch hunt was on the front burner in 1953 and many filmmakers felt the need to comment on what was going on through their work.

Fuller gives the film a real Hitchcock kind of opening that absolutely demands viewer attention. When we see Candy on the subway, the camera shows us several men watching her and we're really not sure why. An immediate sense of danger was established for the Candy character that draws the viewer in immediately. Someone who tunes in after the opening credits would have been hard pressed to tell which one of these guys was going to be a problem for Candy...at least until Widmark enters the picture.

Widmark brings a sexy and dangerous quality to Skip McCoy and Jean Peters is seriously cast against type as Candy and works very hard at being believable in the role. As expected, the acting honors go to the incomparable Thelma Ritter, who earned the 4th of her six career Best Supporting Actress nominations for the pitiful Mo Williams. Her final scene in the film is a total heartbreaker. This film works because of the best work of the respective careers of Samuel Fuller and Thelma Ritter.

Charade
Stanley Donen ventures into Hitchcock territory with 1963's Charade, a sophisticated and undeniably stylish melange of mystery, romance, and suspense that consistently entertains thanks to skillful direction and a superb cast.

The irrepressible Audrey Hepburn is at her most beguiling playing Regina Lampert, a woman who finds herself pursued by a group of men who are after a large amount of money that Mrs. Lampert's recently murdered husband stole. Mrs. Lampert finds herself drawn to one of the men, who calls himself Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), but she's not even sure she can trust him.

Peter Stone, who won an Oscar for writing another Cary Grant classic (Father Goose), also wrote this overly complex mystery that unfolds slowly and actually gives the viewer a little time to figure out what's going on instead of moving at a breakneck speed that doesn't allow the viewer time to think. I will admit that I figured out what was going on here about thirty minutes in, but that's where the story starts taking a back seat to the direction.

Donen's eye with the camera is imaginative and inventive here, not only utilizing stunning European location photography, but some terrific set pieces and planting just enough red herrings for the viewer that we're never 100% sure about what's going to happen, except for the fact that the slightly dim Mrs. Lampert is underestimating the danger she's in and might be just a little too trusting of this Peter Joshua and that her heart might be taking over for her common sense.

Certain scenes were definite standouts for me that effortlessly combined suspense and grins. Loved Mr. Lampert's funeral where we see three guys show up and, in their own way, want to make absolutely sure that Lampert is dead. Loved the fight with Grant and George Kennedy on that very tall rooftop and the final showdown in the music hall, which reminded me of the finale of The Man Who Knew Too Much was a winner.

It should go without saying that the best thing about this film is the chemistry between Grant and Hepburn, which is off the charts. Once again, the magical Hepburn is able to create viable onscreen chemistry with an actor much older than she was. Walter Matthau and James Coburn offer solid support, and Henry Mancini's music was memorable, but it's the stars and the director that really put the sparkle in this one.

Frozen River
A powerhouse performance from Melissa Leo that earned her first Oscar nomination anchors a 2008 indie gem called Frozen River, a gripping and emotional drama revolving around family values, racism, sacrifice, and second chances.

Leo plays Ray Eddy, a single mother of two boys, whose part-time job is not enough to pay for the new double trailer she and the boys were planning to live in until the boys' father ran off with their money. Ray meets another single mother named Lila (Misty Upham) who is Indian and resides on a reservation that Ray is able to drive to via the crossing of a frozen solid river. Even though Lila is a mother, her mother-in-law has custody of the child. After getting off to a very shaky start, the two women begin making money by smuggling illegal aliens over the nearby border in their car.

Director and writer Courtney Hunt has crafted a compelling drama which really felt really personal to Hunt. The movie felt fact-based but I was unable to confirm this. This is an intimate and prickly story that starts off in a very unconventional manner and this reviewer did not see the relationship that evolves between the two women coming at all, or what they end up doing.

I've seen a lot of films that deal with racism, but this was a different look at the issue that was actually refreshing. We not only see the difficulties that Lila experiences because she's a native American, but we also see her simplistic view of how simple Ray's life is because she's white. More than once in the film, we see Ray hesitate about something that Lila suggests and Lila informs her that no one is going to stop her because she's white.

The story takes some unexpected detours, but it does sustain interest for its running time. Leo commands the screen earning her first lead actress Oscar nomination and her performance alone is worth the time, though Misty Upham definitely holds her own as the tragic Lila. Upham's promising career would come to a halt a mere six years later with her brutal murder. Mention should also be made of Charlie McDermott, playing Ray's teenage son. You might remember McDermott as Patricia Heaton's eldest son on the ABC sitcom The Middle. A film with strong female power in front of and behind the camera.

Cabin in the Sky
Remember those old cartoons where the main character is trying to do what's right and he has a little angel and a little devil on each shoulder advising him what to do? This kept flashing through my head as I watched the MGM musical Cabin the Sky, a groundbreaking film from 1943 that featured an all African-American cast, not exactly standard cinematic fare in the 1940's.

This is the story of a womanizing gambler named Little Joe Jackson, who gets shot during one of his gambling sprees and as he lies on his deathbed, Lucifer's son and his crew arrive ready to take Joe to hell where he belongs. However, Joe's wife, Petunia, prays so sincerely to have Joe's life spared that "The General", God's second in command, also shows up and gives Joe six months to change his ways and make things right with Petunia. Lucifer Jr. is not giving up on Joe's soul and decides to tempt him with a winning sweepstakes ticket and a smoking temptress named Georgia Brown. And despite all that Joe is put through here, it is fun watching Petunia never give up on the man she loves but not allowing him to get away with anything either.

MGM took a calculated risk bringing this Broadway musical to the screen at a time where blacks in the movies were limited to playing chauffeurs and maids, The film is based on a musical that premiered on Broadway in 1941 and ran for an unimpressive 156 performances, which is not surprising. What was surprising is that MGM and director Vincente Minnelli saw the genesis of a winning movie musical here.

Yes, the possible hesitance of the studio is up there on the screen, evidenced in the limited budget, which included filming in black and white, but the budget does nothing to cover up the energy, exuberance, and humor that jumps off the screen at the viewer and envelops them in the fun of this musical fantasy. It was no accident that the composers of The Wizard of Oz were responsible for a lot of the music here. I loved that actors were used in multiple roles just as the leads were in The Wizard of Oz.

Harold Arlen, EY Harburg, Duke Ellington, and Vernon Duke are among the contributors to the score, including the title tune ""Taking a Chance on Love", "Life is Full of Consequence", "Honey in the Honeycomb" and the Oscar-nominated "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe."

Ethel Waters is allowed to reprise her Broadway role as Petunia Jackson and lights up the screen in the process. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson is a laugh riot replacing Dooley Wilson as Joe and Lena Horne is a smoking hot Georgia Brown. There's also a brief appearance by Louie Armstrong as one of Lucifer's crew, billed as "The Trumpeter." With Vincente Minnelli and an uncredited Busby Berkeley behind the camera, this is an energetic musical romp for those looking for something a little different.

The Big Short
Adam McKay, who received dual Oscar nominations last year for directing and co-writing Vice, actually won an Oscar for co-writing the original screenplay for an ambitious and overblown docudrama called The Big Short, a pretentious and confusing look at the mortgage housing crisis of 2005, that eventually drowns in its own pretension and its consistent work at trying to be innovative film making.

The film attempts to construct a look at this major American financial disaster through three separate stories that eventually attempt a cohesion into a single story . We are first introduced to Dr. Michael Burry, a slightly nutty ex-physician who gave up medicine to become a hedge fund manager who works in a half empty office in shorts and bare feet. A banker named Jared Vennett, who also serves as the film's narrator, gets wind of Burry's mortgage scams and attempts to cash in on it,as does Mark Baum, an idealistic Morgan and Stanley executive whose business dealings have been severely affected by the recent suicide of his brother.

McKay is to be applauded for attempting to bring this very important story to the screen, I just wish that he and co-screenwriter Charles Randolph had constructed the screenplay with more of a straight face, because, on its own, what happens here was very difficult to understand and I have to confess that I had a very difficult time following everything that was going on here, and I think a lot of my problems with comprehension had to do with this Oscar winning screenplay, which never apologizes for its meandering confusion but tries to make up for it by interrupting the story with analogies that McKay and Randolph think will help the viewer understand more clearly what's going on. There's one point early on the story where a possibly confusing phrase is used and McKay decides that having it explained to us by Margot Robbie sitting in a bathtub sipping champagne will clarify it for us.

McKay's direction is far superior to the writing here, using what appears to be interesting forms of symbolism to help us understand the players involved here. I don't think it was a coincidence that Burry, Vennett, and Baum were all outfitted in really bad hairpieces, somehow symbolizing either their phony veneers or their stupidity at thinking they might be fooling someone. McKay also makes sure everything moves at a lightning pace, with a strong assist from film editor Hank Corwin, allowing the viewer no time to figure out what was going on or figure out what the analogies explaining what was going on meant. I did like the care McKay out into the finale, showing us that a lot of the people who did wrong in the course of the story got what was coming to them.

McKay assembled some solid actors to pull this story together. Ryan Gosling was electric as Vennett and Steve Carell made an explosive Mark Baum. Something about Christian Bale's performance just made me squirm though...I felt like he was playing the character as if he were high. There was also a very interesting turn by a seriously deglammed Brad Pitt as a former mortgage investor trying to keep his involvement in this mess very hush hush. This was a real hit and miss effort for me which would have been a lot more effective with a more straightforward screenplay.

Now You See Him, Now You Don't
Dexter Riley and the gang from fictional Medfield college return for another round of college hijinks in the 1972 Disney comedy Now You See Me Now You Don't, which is pretty much a retread of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with just enough tweaks to the story to fool the undiscriminating 12 year old.

This time around, Dexter Riley (Kurt Rusell), with the aid of the same bolt of lightning that made him a computer brain in the first film, has come up with a liquid formula that makes anything it touches invisible and reverses itself with water. Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) hopes that the formula will win the school a $50,000 science prize so that he can pay off the school's mortgage, which is now owned by gangster AJ Arno (Ceasar Romero), who plans on tearing the college down and turning it into a gambling empire.

Screenwriter Joseph McEveety's lazy screenplay doesn't put a lot of effort in making a distinct film from the first Dexter Riley comedy. As a matter of fact, this film is presented in some sort of alternate Disney universe where the first film didn't exist. AJ Arno is seen being released from jail at the beginning of this film and running straight into Dexter Riley and they act like they have never met before. On the other hand, the kids still have Dean Higgins' office bugged and even though he learns that it's bugged in this movie, he never finds the listening device.

The whole idea of a liquid that makes you invisible but reverses by contact with water seemed kind of silly. What's the point of making yourself invisible if all someone has to do is throw a bucket of water on you to make you visible again? It seems to me that a formula for invisibility wouldn't have any real value unless the effects were more permanent and not as easily reversed, but millions of 12 year olds (myself included) didn't care about all that and, flocked to the theaters. And even for 1972, the special effects for making things look invisible were kind of cheesy. Can't believe the same movie studio that created all that cinema magic 8 years earlier in Mary Poppins, couldn't come up with more believable looking effects in this comedy.

Russell still makes the quintessential 70's teen hero in Dexter Riley and Romero and Flynn are a lot of fun as AJ Arno and Dean Higgins, respectively. It was interesting that Richard Bakalyan reprised his role as Arno's stooge from the first film. His name in the first film was Chili but in this film, he became Cookie, not to mention young Ed Begley Jr, who was a student from another school in the first film, is featured here as a Medfield student. Other familiar faces pop up along the way, including the late Mike Evans, who found time while he was playing Lionel on All in the Family, to play one of Dexter's buddies here. I just wish everyone involved here had put a little more effort into making this film distinctly different from The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.

Dumbo (2019)
Tim Burton lends his imaginative directorial eye to Disney's lavish, live action remake of Dumbo, that gives the 1941 animated story a darker and more straightforward story, but with Tim Burton in the director's chair,"darker", should come as no surprise.

In this version of the story, Dumbo is a baby elephant who is born with grossly over-sized ears which eventually reveal the ability for the elephant to fly, providing financial success for a struggling circus run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito), even though Dumbo is not happy about being separated from his mother. Just as Medici's circus begins to achieve success, they are bought out by a much bigger circus called Dreamland, run by a megalomaniac named V A Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who, of course, is only really interested in Dumbo and not the rest of the circus performers.

Having never seen the original film, some quick research revealed that Dumbo is encouraged to be everything he can be by a mouse named Timothy, but that part of the story has been altered. In this film, Dumbo is trained and encouraged by a one-armed war veteran and former trick rider named Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) who has returned from the war faced with the prospect of raising his two children alone, but put in charge of training Dumbo not only reinvigorates his own life, but his relationship with his two kids.

Like he did with Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton has again done the impossible and mounted a story that, on the surface, seemed un-filmable. With the aid of a slightly long winded screenplay by Ehren Kruger (Arlington Road), Burton has taken what was a children's story and blown it up to adult size, filled with colorful yet believable characters and providing just enough exposition for those who loved the '41 film to except the adjustment and for those of us who didn't, enjoy meeting the first elephant who was at the center of a Disney animated film.

Burton is commended for the care and intricate detail involved in the presentation of this completely enchanting central character, This Dumbo, who I think is partially CGI enhanced, has the most beautifully expressive eyes I have ever seen on an animal character in a movie I wish I had seen in this movie when I had done my list of favorite non-human movie characters. We understand Dumbo and every emotion he's feeling, especially his disappointment at being separated from his mother. There's a heartbreaking moment where Dumbo is in the middle of his flying routine for a full house and he hears a car pull up. Mistaking the noise for his mother, he abandons the act and flies straight to the noise and the look on his face when he realized it wasn't Mama, was one of a few lump-in-the-throat moments in the movie for me. And the final scene actually had me fighting tears.

It was nice to see Burton reunite with his Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton, who provides a deliciously entertaining comic villain for the piece and Eva Green was an exotic leading lady, the trapeze artist and Vandevere's mistress. Burton's production values are nothing short of spectacular...cinematography, art direction, film editing, costumes, and yes, Danny Elfman provides the heart-pumping music. Disney and Burton land a solid bullseye here.

Missing
Atmospheric direction, an uncompromising, Oscar-winning screenplay, and a pair of breathtaking performances by the leads anchor a devastating 1982 docudrama called Missing that tells a disturbing story against an equally disturbing canvas that aggravates in the circles the story travels and kept this viewer's stomach tied in knots.

This story takes place during the military coup d'edat that took place in Chile in 1973 and how a young American journalist named Charlie Horman and his wife, Beth have found themselves in the middle of this revolution and how Charlie's investigation to what exactly might be the cause of this revolution that is leaving an unprecedented body count in its wake, might have led to Charlie's disappearance. Beth initiates a search for her husband but things don't really start happening until Charlie's father, Ed, flies from New York to Chile and connects with his daughter-in-law to find out exactly happened to his son.
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The monster share of the success of this film must go to the legendary Costa-Gavras, who has not only co-wrote an effective recreation of real events that is equally as aggravating for the viewer as it is for Ed and Beth, who as they delve deeper into their search for Charlie, can't get a straight answer from anyone about what happened. I did find it interesting that for almost the entire running time, the theory that Charlie might be dead is never mentioned by anyone on either side of the investigation.

Costa-Gavras' direction is just as compelling as his screenplay. Not since The Killing Fields, have I seen a more disturbing and unsettling use of human carnage as a storytelling tool depicting the ugliness of what is going on here. There are bodies everywhere here and it seems so odd watching characters in the story step over bodies everywhere without a thought of it. The scene where Ed and Beth are brought to a large warehouse basement filled with dead bodies looking for Charlie is something that will be burned in my memory forever. And that scene in the football stadium filled with political refugees just stopped me cold. Another effective tool in establishing the atmosphere was the sound of gunshots punctuating just about every scene in the movie, sometimes deeply in the background, but no less chilling. A military truck providing gun fire while puling up right next to Ed and Beth's cab in one scene was another dramatic highlight of this disturbing story.

Jack Lemmon received his 8th and final Oscar nomination for his stunning performance as Ed Horman and he is beautifully complimented by Sissy Spacek, who received her thir nomination. I loved that the relationship between Ed and Beth was not at all what I was expecting. There is a viable tension between Ed and Beth from the first time they share the screen that brings a complexity to their mission that we really don't see coming. In the first scene, Ed implies that Beth is somehow responsible for what happened to Charlie which galvanizes the viewer to this story, wondering where it could go from here. This a bold and adult cinematic experience that foreshadows but never provides answers while riveting the viewer to the screen, demanding the same answers being sought onscreen.

The Out-of-Towners (1999)
Even the previously proven chemistry between the stars can't salvage the 1999 remake of The Out-of-Towners that works a little too hard at trying to bring something new to an old Neil Simon comedy.

The film first came to the screen in 1970, a discarded act from Simon's play Plaza Suite that starred Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as a long-married couple from Ohio who fly to New York for Lemmon's job interview and having everything that can possibly go wrong for them go wrong for them. In this version, the couple is played by Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn and except for the names of the characters, the basic premise is the same this time.

Hawn and Martin first shared the screen seven years earlier in a somewhat entertaining comedy called Housesitter that went a long way on the chemistry between the actors, but even their chemistry can't save this dumb remake that starts off OK and just gets dumber and dumber with each scene. The main culprit being a screenplay by Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality) that completely disrespects and disregards Simon's unparalleled skill with comic dialogue and decides to substitute it with a lot of silly and unmotivated slapstick comedy. Lawrence has also decided to modernize the story by having Martin and Hawn's marriage suffer from empty nest syndrome and Martin being fired from his last job without telling his wife. These changes only made it more easy to notice that a 90 minute movie seemed twice that long. The 1970 film actually moved at a nice clip, but the pacing of this film is deadly.

Scenes of Goldie seducing a hotel guest for the key to his room, Martin climbing the sign outside of the hotel, trying to get his wife out of a ladies room in order to catch a train, and the pair having sex on the grounds outside of Tavern on the Green even seemed to be embarrassing to the stars. By the time we are subjected to Martin hallucinating in Central Park, we just want all this dumb stuff to stop. The only real laughs here come from John Cleese playing the snooty hotel concierge.

Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn are long proven commodities who work very hard at making this viable entertainment and they almost succeed, but Cleese easily steals their thunder. Cynthia Nixon has a cute cameo as a sex maniac and Goldie's real-life son, Oliver Hudson, does make a cameo at the beginning of the film as her onscreen son, but this one really tries viewer patience. What a shame.