Gideon58's Reviews

Spider-Man Across the Spider Verse
Miles Morales and his multi-universal mentors return for a second round of cosmic comic book adventures in 2023's Spider-Man Across the Spider Verse, the continuing adventures from the 2018 Oscar-winning Best Animated Feature winner, which has an overstuffed screenplay, but whose technical artistry and attention to the legacy of this character cannot be denied.

This film actually opens in a universe where Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) is actually Spider Woman and is working very hard to conceal her alter ego from her father, Lt. George Stacy (voiced by Shea Wigham) but must forsake her dad when she is needed in the universe where Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) has begun to accept his new spider skin, but his family is not so quick to do, not to mention villains from other universes who won't allow Miles to ease into the legacy of his new life the way he wants.

The bloated screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callahan is the primary culprit in this film's succumbing to the dread "sequel-itis", the attempt to make that second film by making everything bigger, better, and more complex in order to draw in a bigger audience and more box office receipts, but it doesn't really work here because there was enough going on in the first film that we just didn't need more complications to the legacy of Miles Morales.

What does work is the technical artistry, the detail applied to character history and respect for the Spiderman character's history in other movies. The animation is slick and frantic, providing a truly futuristic look to the story. The return to the relationship between Miles and his father (voiced by Bryan Tyree Henry) had a very realistic vein to it. Miles has now reached the manly age of 15 and his reaction to his father grounding him was very realistic and very funny. The relationship between Miles and his mother (voiced by Luna Lauren Velez) reminded me of the relationship between the Peter and his Aunt May in the Sam Raimi movies...there's a real sense here that his mom knows Miles is doing something special and important but chooses not to discuss it. The famous upside down kiss from the first Raimi film even gets a knowing wink here.

As the 2018 film did, this film sports spectacular production values and the voice work of Moore, Jake Johnson as Peter Parker, Oscar Isaac as Miguel O'Hara, Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya as Hobie Brown, and especially Jason Scwartzmann as the Spot is on the money. And as expected, this film very quietly and very effectively sets up a third film.

Dolores Claiborne
Five years after winning an Oscar for playing a Stephen King character in the film version of Misery, Kathy Bates takes on another more complex Stephen King character in 1995's Dolores Claiborne, an overheated and long-winded psychological mystery of abuse and vengeance that despite manic and undisciplined direction, remains watchable thanks to the performances by the two leads.

Jennifer Jason Leigh takes on the role of Selena St. George, a magazine writer who lives in Manhattan, who puts her life and career on hold when she receives word that her mother (guess who) is suspected in the death of her employer and travels to the small seaside community in Maine where her mother lives. Our confusion as to Selena's initially calm exterior as she travels to Maine becomes a little clearer when it is revealed that, many years ago, Dolores was suspected in the death of her abusive husband and Selena's father.

Tony Gilroy's adaptation of King's novel is long-winded and is often exhausting to keep up with as the story switches from the present to the past with such a lightning pace at times that it's often hard for the viewer to keep track where we are. We understand the necessity to visit the past as it is vital for understanding why Dolores the way she is and why she is suspected of murdering this woman, despite what is really circumstantial evidence. This Dolores character is actually a lot more complex than Annie Wilkes. Annie was just straight up cray cray, but Dolores is a woman whose mind, body, and soul has been worn to the nub by her extremely abusive husband and has spent decades keeping as much of it a secret as she was able to, which has resulted in her being treated like another King heroine, Carrie White.

Director Taylor Hackford has lent his accustomed heavy hand to bringing this story to fruition, though it really didn't need a lot of assistance from him. We're almost halfway through the film before Hackford allows to see any sympathy in the character of Dolores, through revealing her backstory with her husband and the possibility that she might be innocent of this crime of which she is suspected. Selena's feeling about her mother also seem to change from scene to scene but that climactic scene where Selena finally steps up for her mother is just glorious.

Hackford was fortunate to have two of the best actresses in the business center stage. Bates is a ferocious and full-bodied title character and Jennifer Jason Leigh brings another of her patented hot mess characters to the story, taking the story more out of the horror genre and more into psychological drama. Christopher Plummer and David Straithairn were over the top as Detective Mackey and Dolores' husband, but I LOVED Judy Parfitt as Vera Donovan. As always with Hackford films, it lacks pace and is longer than it needs to be, but Bates and Leigh are always worth watching.

Broadway Rising
The 2022 documentary Broadway Rising is an, at times, quite moving and at other times, almost snore inducing look the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on the Broadway industry that was quite fascinating for about two thirds of the movie, but when the movie goes off its intended subject, so does viewer attention span.

Broadway is an institution that has been a mainstay of Manhattan tourism for close to 100 years and has only shut down twice: Once was right after the 9/11 attacks and the second time was on March 13, 2020 when the dangers of Covid-19 made it impossible for Broadway to operate and a $15,000,000,000 a year industry came to a complete stop for 18 months.

Loved the way this film started as we learned that the panic on Broadway began when an usher at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the stage door manager at the Broadhurst Theater where Little Jagged Pill was running, both started experiencing symptons of the virus. The story of the stage manager was particularly moving as we learned that the disease not only caused him to lose one of his feet, but the feeling that he may have passed the virus to his mother and may have hastened her death, but will never know for sure.

Admittedly, I expected to hear a lot more commentary from Broadway legends about what was going on but as the film progressed, I realized that this was not what this movie was about. Though it was a little sad hearing from three time Tony Award winner Patti Lupone that when she heard about Broadway shutting down, she actually had a nervous breakdown.

This documentary was the people we don't normally think about when we think about Broadway. This movie is about a dancer named Adam Perry who has been dancing for 20 years and was dancing in the chorus of Frozen when he contracted the virus. He is no longer dancing and works as a florist. This is about a pit musician for the show Waitress who was reduced to doing You Tube videos in her basement. It is also about an actress named Ginna Mason who spent a year playing Glinda in Wicked and because of the Pandemic, finally had time to have a baby. It was also about an actor named Nick Cordero who was appearing in Waitress and a playwright you might have heard of named Terrence McNally, who both lost their lives to the virus.

The movie goes off its intended subject at about the 2/3 point, talking about LBGTQ rights and the death of George Floyd, but it does wrap nicely as we watch Broadway opening up again, including 4 costume designers and a dry cleaners whose over 100 employees were working again. We also heard about the producer of Six selling $2,000,000 worth of tickets thirty minutes after Broadway reopened, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what he lost during the shutdown. For hard-core theater lovers, there is stuff to embrace here, but it did feel about six hours long.

Indiscreet (1958)
Twelve years after they lit up movie screens together in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman were reunited for a completely different romantic comedy called Indiscreet, which is not nearly as good as Notorious, but the chemistry between Grant and Bergman is still there.

The 1958 comedy finds Bergman playing Anna Kalman, a rich and famous actress who has everything in the world she could possibly want...except a man. Through her brother-in-law, Anna meets Phillip Adams (Grant), a wealthy banker with whom she falls in love instantly and begins an affair with him, even though he is married.

The absence of Hitchcock is definitely felt here, but the film still has a pretty decent pedigree. Based on a play called Kind Sir, the screenplay is by Norman Krasna, whose credits include White Christmas, Let's Make Love, and Sunday in New York, providing us a crisp and witty battle of the sexes that doesn't provide a lot of belly laughs, but had this reviewer grinning throughout as the back and forth between these two characters absolutely meant for each other is vital enough to keep us interested in what's happening. Loved the idea that Anna wasn't going to be denied her happiness just because the man was married and her bungled attempt at revenge during the finale provided the film its only real laugh out loud moments.

Grant and Bergman are privileged to have Stanley Donen in the director's chair for this one. One of the kings of classic romantic comedy whose directorial credits include Singin in the Rain, Two for the Road, Funny Face, and Charade, doesn't mess too much with the undeniable Grant/Bergman chemistry, but uses it and the body language between the actors to tell so much more of the story than actual dialogue. Love when they're returning from their first date at the ballet and they're not saying anything but can't take their eyes off each other or the first morning where they have breakfast with each other. And pay attention to that split screen bedroom scene,, a year before Pillow Talk. What Donen does here is very subtle but it keeps what is really another photographed stage play viable screen entertainment.

The film features lovely art direction/set direction, music, and some gorgeous costumes for Bergman. The supporting cast serve the story, especially Phyllis Calvert as anna's sister, Cecil Parker as her husband, and David Kossoff as Carl. It's no Notorious, but Grant/Bergman fans will not be disappointed.

Scream VI
The franchise that just refuses to die goes another round as Ghostface returns in Scream VI, another relentlessly bloody tale based on a 30 year legacy that still manages to blend suspense, the immediate "boo" and that tongue in cheek lambasting of the rules of horror movies that has made this franchise endure.

The 2023 film re-introduces us to the Carpenter sisters, Samantha and Tara, who, after surviving last year's ordeal in Woodsboro have decided to start life over again in Manhattan, of all places, where Tara is trying to forget what happened last year by starting college and Samantha is deep in therapy, but when the news of two more Ghostface murders reach the Carpenter sisters, the realize it's not over.
[IMG]https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/ghostface-scream-6-1674137400.jpg?crop=0.641xw:0.961xh;0.255xw,0.0234xh&resize=1200:*[/IMG]
Loved the opening of the film, completely faithful to the franchise, as another beautiful woman is lured to her death by Ghostface, but this time it's a college professor who is teaching a film class about slasher movies, which was a bit hard to swallow, but it was excuse enough for the brutal murder that kicks off the whole show. And once again, breaking the rules of the slasher genre, this wasn't even the real Ghostface in this scene.

The story takes a little too much time getting the Carpenter sisters on the same page but once that happens and another character explains to us what a franchise is, we only have to wait for one more thing...the appearance of one or more legacy characters to remind Samantha and Tara that they have to take what's going on. Not only do we get the return of Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), but Kirby Reed (Hayden Pennetiere) from Scream IV and Samantha's dad, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) from the original 1996 film.

One of the original screenwriters, Kevin Williamson, has returned for this installment and his understanding of the original Scream concept is all over this...the underlying theme of explaining the slasher movie rules to the audience right before breaking them. Everything we have come to expect from this franchise happens here, but not always in the order we think, therein lies the fun of the franchise.

There are suspense, shock, and surprise throughout, even though one plot twist takes way too long to be revealed and explained. Loved when one character learns of the twist and says, "Oh God, did I miss the monologue." The sequence on the ladder between two apartment buildings and the attack on Gale Weathers had this reviewer on the edge of his chair. Loved the scene on the subway too. Just like the previous film, the screenplay could have used some tightening, but fans of the franchise will find what they're looking for here.

Michael Clayton
A 2007 Oscar nominee for Best Picture, Michael Clayton is a complex and claustrophobic legal thriller centered around someone whose personal and professional lives begin to bleed onto each other beyond his control and the identification of the source of these cinematic wounds requires undivided attention from the viewer.

George Clooney earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his slick performance as the title character, a legal "fixer" who specializes in finding remedies for cases that might require a dance around normal legal avenues. Michael is brought on board when another lawyer from the firm is believed to have had a nervous breakdown after going off his meds, in an effort to get him off a class action suit, where the guilt of a chemical company is a certainty.

Director and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who is the creative force behind the Jason Bourne trilogy, has crafted an edgy and frightening state of the art thriller that doesn't answer all of the questions that it poses, but the ones that it doesn't answer become irrelevant pretty quickly. Gilroy gives the title character an added richness by providing him with a backstory that finds him teetering on the personal edge as well. In addition to his professional problems, Michael also has heavy gambling debts and the bar that he bought is about to go under. Fifteen minutes into the running time, an attempt is made on Michael's life that telegraphs the danger he's in, but does not telegraph where the danger is coming from.

This is another of those thrillers where it's difficult to tell the black hats from the white hats but it's clear no one in this story is safe. Around the halfway point of the film, it has been established that no one in this story has any secrets...everyone involved is being followed or their homes and offices are bugged. Yes, there is a character whose doom is inevitable from his first appearance, but his elimination does move the story into a higher gear. The way Michael's life is on the edge of imploding reminded me of Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems and we wonder how close to the cliff Gilroy is going to take us.

Gilroy provides handsome production values to the story, including some exemplary camerawork that, at times, tells the story by itself. In addition to the Best Picture nomination and Clooney's Lead Actor nomination, Tom Wilkenson's severely damaged Arthur Edens earned him a Supporting Actor nomination and Tilda Winton's morally bankrupt Karen Crowder won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack also impresses as Michael's boss. The movie is hard to follow here and there, but the final payoff is well worth it.

BlackBerry
Take the ABC reality series Shark Tank, mix it with the Michael Keaton biopic The Founder and throw in just a dash of The Wolf of Wall Street, and you have 2023's BlackBerry, a slick and funny look at the creative forces behind the first smartphone and how the attempted theft of their idea eventually led to their downfall.

This film begins in 1996 Ontario where we meet a pair of techno-geeks named Doug and Mike, who with their small team of fellow geeks have started their own corporation called Rise in Motion, who are now at work at an invention that will place a computer, Wi-Fi and the internet inside a phone, a device that eventually becomes known as a Blackberry. Their first attempt to sell their idea is an epic fail, but a recently fired employee named Jim from that pitch sees the potential of the product and does his best to wrest control away from Doug and Mike.

A relatively unknown filmmaker named Matt Johnson served as director, co-screenwriter, and plays the role of Doug claims this film is a fictionalization of actual events, which is a troubling way to go into this. It's just hard to accept fictionalization when names like Verizon, Google, and Microsoft are being thrown around, not to mention the subject is something anyone with any kind of tech savvy is familiar with. I can see if changing names to protect the innocent was the only way to get the film made, but it's not like the real people the film is based on aren't going to recognize what happens here and go after Johnson if they want to.

I especially loved the initial introduction of the characters of Mike and Doug, two guys who put their friendship and the integrity of the company above everything. Loved that Mike seemed to be the real brain of the organization while Doug was the mouthpiece, though that does change before the story ends. It was a little sad when people were being brought in to make Rise in Motion more of well-oiled machine, the employees are upset when new work policies might eliminate movie night. Jim's manipulation of Doug and Mike put me in mind of Ray Kroc's manipulation of the McDonald Brother's in The Founder and just like in that film, Jim does get off a little easier than he should have.

Johnson makes the most of his indie budget, but he does display some real talent with a camera and his performance as Doug brings a lot of comic relief to the proceedings, but it is an Oscar-worthy performance by Jay Baruchel as Mike and a thunderous performance by Glenn Howerton that really keep this thing on sizzle.

Faces
Strictly for hardcore fans of John Cassavetes, his 1968 film Faces offers little or nothing in the form of a legitimate cinematic experience, but what it does offer is some superb performances and a post graduate course in the art of filmmaking technique that found this viewer occasionally confused but never bored.

Though calling it a story is stretching that noun beyond credibility, we are introduced to Richard Frost (the late John Marley), a movie studio executive who is married to the terribly unhappy Maria (Lynn Carlin). But after a drunken evening with pal Freddie (Fred Draper) and good time gal Jeannie Rapp (Gena Rowlands), comes home and announces to Maria that he wants a divorce, which sends Maria into a toxic affair with a self-absorbed stud named Chet (Seymour Cassel).

Don't be fooled by the bare-bones plot synopsis because, in the grand tradition of John Cassavetes and more so than any of his other work that I've seen, this film does not follow any sort of conventional journey in presenting a story. Instead of a screenplay what we have here is five or six one act plays strung together on film that have bare bone connections to each other and all go on at least fifteen minutes longer than necessary. As each one-act meanders to its sudden conclusion, the viewer is just minutes from turning the movie off or falling asleep when Cassavetes releases from one story and allows advancement to another.

What Cassavetes does offer us to relish in is a spectacular look at film technique, particularly the most spectacular use of the tracking shot and the hand held camera have I ever seen. His camera gets so inside the characters that it's intrusive, intrusive to the point that what we're seeing doesn't seem fictional. It doesn't feel like a documentary, it feels like a home movie, five very private home movies that are meant for the consumption of the characters only. The emotionally and verbally abusive treatment of the characters to each other, especially Richard Frost, one of the most smarmy and despicable characters I've ever seen, put me in mind of the Woody Allen film Interiors. Not sure if it was intentional and if so what the intention was, but this reviewer was fascinated by how much screentime these characters spent singing, despite the fact that none of these actors could sing or had anything to sing about. My favorite one act found one of the characters trying to commit suicide.

I have rarely enjoyed John Marley more in what is probably the most unlikable character he has ever played and Gena Rowland offers her accustomed sparkling performance as Jeannie. Lynn Carlin makes an unprecedented film debut as the severely broken Maria, a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Seymour Cassel also earned a supporting actor nomination for his sex-on-legs work as Chet. yes, I said it and I'm totally blown away that Cassel was ever this young and sexy, a performance that put me in mind of Brando's Stanley Kowalski. And if they don't blink, Bold and the Beautiful fans might recognize ex-Sally Spectra, the late Darlene Conley in a supporting role. an unorthodox movie experience to say the least, but Cassavetes fans will be in heaven.

Wildflower
Wildflower is a quirky and often squirm-worthy look at a special young woman and her very special family that is actually based on a real family featured in a 2020 documentary of the same name.

As the film opens, we are introduced to Bea, the vivacious high school student around whom the story is based, as she has entering a hospital in Las Vegas and has slipped into a coma. As her severely dysfunctional family arrives at her bedside, Bea steps out of her body and serves as the narrator for the story of her life as the daughter of mentally challenged parents that led to her extremely unconventional lifestyle that has forced Bea to put her own dreams and aspirations on the back burner.

Director and co-screenwriter Matt Smukler impresses as he mounts a fact-based story on a somewhat fictional canvas that is so infectious that watching the film definitely motivated this reviewer to want to check out the documentary upon which this film was based. Loved the opening flashbacks that established the relationship between Bea's parents, a sweet-natured romance that may or may not have been allowed to blossom into an actual marriage. One of the best examples of onscreen exposition I've seen in awhile. My jaw dropped when Bea's grandmother suggested that her mother be sterilized before she has a chance to become pregnant.

Despite its fact-based origins, this film did bring a lot of other fictional films to mind, Lady Bird, in particular, which provided a similar relationship between parents and children, not to mention this is another one of those stories where the child has to be the caretaker and the parents are not necessarily aware of that. It was startling and a little heartbreaking the way Derek and Sharon, Bea's parents, always lost it whenever they heard the word "retarded", especially in the scene where Bea uses the word.

Smukler brings a certain sensitivity to the edginess of the proceedings as well as an underlying layer of humor that kept this reviewer smiling throughout. Kiernan Shipka turns in a star-making performance as Bea and gets sterling support from Reid Scott, Alexandra Daddario, Jean Smart, Brad Garrett as well intentioned family members, Samantha Hyde as Bea's mother and an absolutely heartbreaking performance from Dash Mihok as Bea's father. It takes a little too long to get where it's going, but this bumpy journey was worth the investment.

McLintock!
I can count the number of John Wayne movies I've seen on one hand, but one that I was introduced as a kid was 1963's McLintock!, a raucous and light-hearted western comedy that almost comes off as a satire of the kind of films out of which Wayne carved his career.

Wayne plays GW McLintock, a wealthy cattle baron who owns half the town where he lives and has always been the official peacekeeper between the cowboys, the farmers, and the Indians. McLintock rules the territory with a fair but iron fist and is fearless with the exception of one person. Katherine McLintock, GW's wife who walked out on him two years ago and is returning to town because their daughter, Rebecca is coming him from college for a visit and Katherine Wants Rebecca to return to Washington DC with her instead of living with her father.

We are also introduced to Devlin Warren, a young ranch hand who GW fires and finds himself fighting an attraction to Rebecca and Devlin's mother, who GW has hired as his new cook and finds herself immediately squaring off with Katherine, who senses an attraction between her husband and Mrs. Warren and is having none of it.

Screenwriter James Edward Grant has crafted an old fashioned comic soap opera on a sprawling western canvas that might try to cover a little too much territory. McLintock's position as town caretaker is established early on in the film and the constant return to this part of the story gets a little tiresome, resulting in a fight next to a mudhole and the Indians interrupting the town's 4th of July celebration, scenes which go on way longer than necessary.

The film totally works though when it concentrates on the sexual tension between GW and Katherine, who hates to be called Kate and the similar tension between Rebecca and Devlin, despite Rebecca's insistence that she only has eyes for the wimpy Matt Douglas Jr., and the scene where Mrs. Warren stands up to Katherine is a joy. And you can't top that Taming of the Shrew-inspired finale.

Andrew V McLagen, who also directed Wayne in The Hellfighters provides breezy direction that could have been reined in a little keeping the film from being as long as it is. Wayne and his favorite leading lady, Maureen O'Hara, light up the screen like they always did as GW and Katherine and Stefanie Powers makes an impressive film debut as Rebecca as does Wayne's son, Patrick as Devlin, the first of nine films that he would make with his father. Yvonne DeCarlo is terrific as Mrs. Warren and Jerry Van Dyke makes the most of his role as Matt Douglas, as do other screen veterans like Chill Wills, Jack Kruschen, Strother Martin, Edgar Buchanan and Bruce Cabot. It's not considered top-tier John Wayne, but I like it and it still made me laugh 60 years after its release.

Mafia Mamma
Toni Collette is one of my favorite actresses and it is her performance in the starring role that sustains interest in 2023's Mafia Mamma, an over the top and often unfunny movie featuring an all over the place screenplay that never really pinpoints exactly what this movie is supposed to be.

Collette plays Kristen. an advertising executive who has just lost her job, is separated from her cheating husband and smothering her college bound son, who travels to Italy when her grandfather dies and ends up inheriting her grandfather's position as a mafia crime boss.

Three writers were actually involved in the construction of this often hard to swallow story that is not sure if it's supposed to be a Mel Brooks-type satire of mob movies, a female empowerment/character study, or the Eat Pray Love romance that the central character claims she is looking for. We never really buy Kristen's initial naivete about who her grandfather was , despite the running joke that she has never seen The Godfather. This part of the movie felt like a satire. But then all the male characters start screwing Kristen over and turning her into this reluctant symbol of female empowerment who at the beginning of the movie was worried that her son had enough trail mix for his road trip to college. Throw in her attempt to take her grandfather's attempt to take her grandfather's business legit through a new wine and we're just not sure what the intent is here.

The film does take a little too much time setting up what a crap storm Kristen's life is before she gets to Italy, but that is forgivable. It's the fact that once she arrives in Italy and is introduced to her new family, it takes her what seems like forever to catch onto what she's gotten herself into. This silliness is only made tolerable by the presence of one of the best actresses in the business in the title role. Collette is a little more affected than usual here, but she's still a stronger screen presence than 90% of the actresses out there who can makes us believe just about everything her character is feeling.

Collette gets strong support from Monica Bellucci as Bianca and especially Eduardo Scarpetta as the heavily tattooed Frabizio, this story's version of Sonny Corleone. Lovely Italian scenery is an asset, but the whole thing is just hard to believe and goes on way too long, despite the presence of Collette. No surprise that Collette is also billed as the film's producer.

Baby Doll (1956)
Five years after they collaborated on the original film version of A Streetcar Named Desire,playwright Tennessee Williams and director Elia Kazan reunited for Williams' first work written directly for the screen, a sizzling psycho-sexual melodrama called Baby Doll.

Carroll Baker steams up the screen in the title role in this 1956 film, playing an emotionally immature but sexually uninhibited 19 year old child bride, who has refused to consummate her marriage to the much older Archie (Karl Malden) until her 20th birthday, which is making Archie crazy as well as the town laughing stock because everyone in town knows what's going on. Things get even more complicated when a wealthy business owner named Silva Vaccaro (Eli Wallach) accuses Archie of burning his business to the ground and has no qualms about going through Archie's nubile young bride to get restitution.

From the second Kenyon Hopkins' jazzy score begins backing up the opening credits, we know we're in for another sexually charged story from the always unconventional Tennessee Williams, who was especially enamored with stories about romances between characters who had a vast difference in their ages. We also know exactly what's going on when it's established that this married couple are in separate bedrooms and Archie is observed drilling a hole in the wall so he can watch his child bride, who actually sleeps in a crib, sucking her thumb. That first shot of Baby Doll in that crib sucking her thumb is one of the most erotic images I've ever seen so I'm pretty sure it was quite shock to 1956 movie audiences.

But it's not just this opening shot of her in a crib, it is the Baby Doll character that keeps this movie explosive and rife with a sexual tension I haven't seen in awhile. This Baby Doll knows that she is a sexual dynamo and even though she doesn't want anyone touching her, she loves it when all eyes are on her. Love when Archie is waiting for her to go with him to the doctor and she's standing on the porch giving onlookers a chance to admire her. But that's nothing compared to what happens when she encounters Vaccaro and seems more than willing to offer him everything she's been denying her husband for months.

The film received four Oscar nominations. Carroll Baker, in her third feature film appearance, was nominated Best Actress, Eli Wallach's thunderous performance earned him a Supporting Actor nomination and I have found myself saying this about every Eli Wallach performance I've seen, but I've never enjoyed him more. Mildred Dunnock received a Supporting Actress nomination for her crazy Aunt/Housekeeper and Williams' received n Original Screenplay nomination. If you loved A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, you'll love this too.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume's runaway bestseller finally comes to the screen and turned out to be a pleasant surprise. 2023's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is a funny and charming look at the pre-teen years that hasn't been examined so accurately since Eighth Grade. It should be noted that this review is coming from someone who didn't read Blume's book.

Margaret Simon is an 11 year old girl who is moving from Manhattan to a New Jersey suburb because of her father's job. This move has come at a crucial juncture in Margaret's life that sends her a journey of self-discovery that covers everything from her confusion about religion (Mom is Christian and Dad is Jewish) to the anticipation/terror regarding female puberty.

Prior to watching this movie, my only exposure to the book was when it was revealed on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace that the main characters bonded over it in college, so I really had no idea what to expect. The 2018 Bo Burnham film Eighth Grade kept flashing through my head as the film unfolded because it so reminded me how much is going on with a child's mind and body at this age and being in the sixth grade sucked just as much as the 8th grade did.

There was a lot that I could relate to in this film, even as a male. The confusion regarding religion was something I definitely went through, even if it might have been for different reasons than Margaret. Loved the joy expressed by Margaret's grandmother, beautifully played by Oscar winner Kathy Bates, when Margaret asks if she can attend Temple for the first time and the dinner party with the whole family where Margaret's grandparents vie for her soul crackled with the appropriate tension. And I don't know why, but I also understood the priority that Margaret and her new friends put on getting their period and Margaret's panic when everyone was getting theirs before her. Liked that part of this plotline was the tall, over developed girl who looked years older than sixth grade. Wish a little more screentime could have been devoted to Margaret's sweet first romance with an adorable kid named Moose, but a minor quibble.

Director and co-screenwriter Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen) establishes a 1970's canvas without pounding us over the head with it. I liked the way the music always stayed in the background and never overpowered what was going on screen. Abby Ryster Forston lights up the screen as young Margaret and Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie are charming as her parents. Elle Graham and Aidan Wojtak-Hissong are also fun as Nancy and Moose, respectively, but frankly, Bates just about steals this movie, which wasn't an easy feat because, to my surprise, just about everything here worked.

Bananas (1971)
For those of you not old enough to remember a time where Woody Allen's personal life wasn't making headlines nor was he making movies about getting away with murder and don't don't remember a time when all Woody wanted to do was make moviegoers laugh, you might want to check out a 1971 comedy called Bananas.

Woody plays Fielding Mellish, a nerdy products tester who finds himself immediately attracted to a political activist named Nancy (Louise Lasser) who is concerned about the war torn country of San Marcos, in disarray since the assassination of their president. Shortly after they begin dating, Nancy breaks up with Fielding for no specific reason, which motivates Fielding to travel to San Marcos, where he is initially considered a serious threat but eventually ends up being elected president of the country!

Needless to say, if you're the kind of moviegoer who likes their comedy based in some sort of realism, you've obviously come to the wrong movie. Actually, the opening scenes establishing who Fielding is are kind of realistic and very funny at the same time. The scene on the subway (which features an early appearance by unknown actor named Sylvester Stallone) and the scene where Nancy dumps Fielding are hysterically funny and delightfully human. However, once Fielding arrives in San Marcos, all reality falls to the wayside and Woody goes strictly for laughs, whether or not they are believable or require any thought on the audience's part. The scenes of Mellish being trained to be a soldier and where he goes into a diner and orders take out for 1000 soldiers are too funny.

And for you youngsters reading this, let's talk a little about Louise Lasser. Before there was Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton, the first cinematic muse of Woody's life was a nasal-voiced actress named Louise Lasser, who had her fifteen minutes about six years later as the star of a sitcom that became a cult classic called Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. She has the same kind of goofy chemistry with Woody that Keaton and Farrow did and we totally believe their cockeyed romance.

Woody does give the film an air of authenticity filming in New York and Puerto Rico and employs some first rate camera work, including some terrific tracking shots. The music by Marvin Hamlisch, who four years later scored big composing the music for the Broadway musical A Chorus Line, is a big plus too. Some familiar faces pop up in the supporting cast including Howard Cosell, Charlotte Rae, Rene Enriquez, and Roger Grimsby, but it's Woody's propensity for physical comedy and his sharp writing that are the real stars here.

Sympathy for the Devil
Fans of the 1984 cult classic The Hitcher might have a head start with 2023's Sympathy for the Devil, an overheated psychological thriller that does feature some stylish directorial flourishes and strong performances from the leads, but suffers due to a convoluted story that takes way too long to reveal exactly what's going on.

The setting is contemporary Las Vegas where we meet a man named David (billed as "The Driver) who has just pulled into a hospital parking lot in order to be with his wife who is giving birth to his second child. Before he can get out of the car, a stranger (billed as "The Passenger") gets in the back seat and forces David at gunpoint to drive him to neighboring Boulder City, but this is a ruse leading to an elaborate game of cat and mouse that leaves a whole bunch of dead bodies in its wake.

Screenwriter Luke Paradise is the main culprit here, constructing a story that comes together way too slowly and pretty much evoked one emotion from this reviewer and that was anger. We're pretty sure this poor guy David hasn't got a prayer when the passenger mentions Boulder City about a third of the way into the film and it is never mentioned again. The passenger keeps asking the driver all these questions that it's obvious no matter what the driver says. he's going to be wrong.

Then I thought about the title of the movie and thought that the Passenger might be some human form of the devil, like Daryl Van Horn in The Witches of Eastwick and that he wanted the driver's soul for some reason, but if that were the case, there would have been no need for the senseless murder of so many innocent people. That's the other thing I hated about this movie...I don't mind when movie characters die, especially if they have it coming, but most of the deaths in this movie were of innocent bystanders.

Director Yuval Adler does display real flair with a camera, with a special affinity for slow motion that helps a little bit with viewer anger and impatience but not enough. Nicolas Cage offers an over-the-top actor's studio type performance as the passenger that seemed to be a cross between his characters in Face/Off and Vampire's Kiss, but Joel Kinnaman is terrific as the driver but both actors are working with a really dumb story.

Roustabout
Even with a movie legend as one of his leading ladies, Elvis Presley's 1964 musical Roustabout is nothing to write home about.

Elvis plays Charlie Rogers, a hot-tempered, motorcycle-riding nightclub singer who loses his job after getting into a fight. He almost immediately finds another job singing for a traveling carnival, run by Maggie (Barbara Stanwyck) and her alcoholic manager John (Leif Ericksen). Despite the fact that John hates Charlie from the minute he meets him, that doesn't stop Charlie from falling for John's pretty daughter, Cathy (Joan Freeman).

I guess the novelty here was supposed to be the pairing of movie icon Stanwyck with Elvis. Stanwyck probably needed the work at the time and everyone was jumping on the Elvis bandwagon at the time. Unfortunately, the pairing did not generate the heat that people were hoping for. Stanwyck does put some effort into making Maggie likable, but she and the Pelvis really had no chemistry. The only female Elvis generates any chemistry with in this movie is the always watchable Sue Ane Langdon, who plays a phony fortune teller, but she and Elvis only have about five minutes of screentime together. And though his character rides a motorcycle, Elvis looks terrified every time he gets on the thing and in the long shots, you can tell it's a stunt double on the bike.

Elvis does get to sing some nice songs including "Poison Ivy League", "Wheels on y Heels", "One Track Heart", "It's a Wonderful World", "One Track Heart", and the jazzy "Little Egypt". They are pleasant enough diversions, but there's no "Hound Dog" or "Can't Help Falling in Love" here.

Director John Rich, who later made a name for himself directing a lot of the CBS sitcom All in the Family, provides little imagination in the mounting of the story, but familiar faces do pop up in small roles, including Pat Buttram, Jane Dulo, Kent McCord, Teri Garr, Jack Alebertson, and in her official film debut, a young actress by the name of Raquel Welch. For hardcore Elvis fans only.

Still: A Michael J Fox Movie
Hands down, the best movie I've seen this year thus far, 2023's Still: A Michael J Fox Movie is a riveting and heartbreaking look at the five time Emmy winning actor and the effect that Parkinson's Disease has had on his life. This movie not only works because of the devastating subject matter, but to the imaginative presentation of this man's extraordinary life.

Like last year's Val Kilmer documentary Val, this film is not an easy watch. The images of Alex P Keaton and Marty McFly are a distant memory because this is just not the guy we grew up with. It's not just the trembling hands anymore...Fox is having trouble walking now and finds himself walking into walls and even broke his hand so severely that he had to have pins put in it. There's a scene of he and director Davis Guggenheim are leaving his home and he is recognized by a fan and right after they finishing talking, he looses his footing and falls flat on his face.

Guggenheim has done an extraordinary thing here. He has not only documented where this disease has taken Michael J Fox today, but he has managed to provided a thorough look at his childhood and his career, but not using the typical documentary methodology. He not only uses actors to play Michael and various other people in recreations of parts of his life, but he has also managed to incorporate clips from several of Michael's films into the narrative of the film. Guggenheim manages to include clips from Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Casualties of War, Mars Attacks!, Bright Lights Big City, For Love or Money, and The Secret of My Success in telling Michael's story, not just showing off his resume.

Of course, a solid part of the film is spent talking about Fox's wife of almost 30 years, Tracy Pollan and how this has impacted her life. I loved when he reveals that when he first told Tracy about his diagnosis, her reply was "In sickness and in health, remember." His guilt about working all the time while Tracy was taking care of his children was apparent and will never go away, as was the relief when he began working on Spin City, which allowed him to be home more. Of course, it was during Spin City that he first began experiencing his first hand tremors. The most heartbreaking moment in the film for me was when Fox confessed that he felt that this disease is some sort of cosmic payback for all the success he has had. BTW, did you know that Fox auditioned for the role of Conrad Jarrod in the movie Ordinary People? He said he was terrible and that Robert Redford was flossing his teeth the entire time.

We don't get a lot of interviews with a lot of other people about Michael, but we do get a look at Tracy and his family, as well as a look at his regular visits with doctors and physical therapists. This disease has taken its toll on Michael. He has a visible bag under his left eye where we watch a makeup artist try to conceal to no avail. I'm just speechless, this movie broke my heart. The movie has been nominated for seven Emmys.

Inside Llewyn Davis
Joel and Ethan Cohen almost bring it all the way home with a musical character study from 2013 called Inside Llewyn Davis that heaps a lot on its central character, but it's still a pretty compelling journey.

The title character (beautifully played by Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer trying to eek out a living in Greenwich Village during the 1960's who is trying to revive a career that turned its back on him many years ago. He had a partner with whom he recorded a pretty successful album, but since his partner's passing, Llewyn's career as a singer is circling the drain and he's thinking about a return to the Merchant Marines.

The Coens' screenplay is rich with 1960's atmosphere and it is unapologetic in showing exactly what folk music was during this time. The music had its fans, but there was no real money in this particular musical genre. Think about it, other than Peter, Paul, and Mary, there were no real folk music superstars and this movie drives that point home. Llewyn's career is so catch as catch can right now, that he literally doesn't have an address and spends the majority of his time between the rare gig sleeping on friends' couches. As for the one album Llewyn made with his partner, there is a scene in the movie where Llewyn encounters a warehouse full of copies that were never sold.

We already understand that Llewyn has hard time keeping his singing career viable and we feel for him, but the screenplay continually offers tiny glimmers of hope for the guy and taking them away from just as quickly. A major vignette in the story involves Llewyn getting a job in Chicago that would involve him sharing gas and expenses with an aging musician/junkie, gloriously played by John Goodman and his mysterious friend/driver, Johnny (Garrett Hedlund), whom I was pretty sure we were going to learn had murdered someone, went all kinds of places I didn't see coming.

Certain things did keep me riveted to this sad and funny movie...it's gorgeously photographed and an economic screenplay that didn't feel the need every moment of Llewyn's past before the story unfolded, especially his relationship with a nasty ex (Carey Mulligan), who might be carrying his baby and how his partner died. The songs are pleasant enough, especially "Fare Thee well", "The Ballad of Queen Jane", and "Hang Me, "OH Hang Me". It should also be mentioned that Isaac is doing his own singing and has a terrific voice. Fans of the Cohens will be right at home here.

Showing Up
Despite the accustomed splendid performance by five time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams in the starring role, 2022's Showing Up is a flat and pretentious character study that might require toothpicks for the eyelids.

Williams plays Lizzy, a sculptor and premature spinster who is freaking out because she has a show in a week and nobody seems to care. Primarily conflicts in Lizzy's life currently are trying to keep the peace between her divorced parents, keeping track of her mentally-challenged brother and her contentious relationship with Jo, a fellow (or rival) artist and Lizzy's landlord.

Can't express my disappointment with this film because it was directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt, who directed Williams in one of my favorite movies of hers, Wendy and Lucy, so I don't know what went wrong here. Lizzy and Wendy are both social outsiders and are trying to survive all alone in the world, but what goes on with Lizzy in this movie just wasn't terribly interesting.

Lizzy sculpts miniature figures, mostly female, an abstract variation on Barbie if you will. Both Reichardt and Williams work very hard at showing the audience how demanding and delicate the art of sculpting is, and as much as we want to, we just don't care. There's one scene, between 5 and 10 minutes in length, where we see the arm fall of one of Lizzy's sculptures and we watch her re-attach it, that put me to sleep.

The relationship between Lizzy and Jo is probably the most interesting part of the movie because there is so much tension in this relationship that the audience senses immediately. Apparently, Lizzy has no hot water in her apartment for weeks and Jo hasn't been able to squeeze it into her schedule. Jo does find time to bring an injured pigeon to nurse back to health and as soon she gets home, asks Lizzy to watch the bird for her. Lizzy looks at Jo like she's just been asked to cut off her right arm.

Reichardt's direction is rather pedestrian and other than Williams, the supporting performances are nothing special. It should be noted that her dad is played by Judd Hirsch, who would work with Williams again on their next film The Fablemans, but believe me, this is no The Fablemans. Hong Chau, nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for The Whale is a lot of fun as Jo.

The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Following their triumph together in Best Picture nominee Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton again knocked it out of the park with their lusty and sumptuous version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew that has so much going for it, but what we go away with is the white hot chemistry between these two great stars.

For the uninitiated regarding one of the Bard's most celebrated works, in ancient Padua, a wealthy student named Lucentio arrives in order to romance Bianca, the fair young daughter of Baptista, who will not allow Bianca to marry until his older daughter, the shrewish hellcat named Katherine, marries first. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of takers despite the dowry being offered by Baptista. Lucentio and Hortensio, another guy who's nuts about Bianca approach Petruchio, a fortune hunter from Verona, to woo and wed Katherine.

I had to grin when during the credits we learned that screenwriters were Paul Dehn and Susso D'Amico "with acknowledgements to William Shakespeare", which was pretty funny since most of the dialogue is taken word for word from Shakespeare's work, even though there are some alterations in the story, they do work to the film's advantage. The original story spends a little more time with Bianca and her numerous suitors than this film did, I guess the change was made because they wanted the film to be more focused on the Burtons...very smart move.

It was a smart move because the off-the-wall, burn-a-hole-in-the-screen chemistry between Taylor and Burton that makes this movie sizzle. It may have been a different kind of chemistry, but Tracy and Hepburn might have been the only couple who challenged these two for making their movies appointment viewing just because they were in them. They're not all masterpieces but the eleven films that the Burtons made together should be watched, re-watched, studied, and revered.

This film takes a little too much time setting up the story, but once Taylor's Kate and Burton's Petruchio meet, almost 40 minutes into the film, it goes into the entertainment stratosphere. From probably my favorite movie wedding scene ever, to Petruchio's starving of his bride on her wedding night, to the journey there which finds Kate wading through mud in her wedding dress, this movie provides absolutely delicious entertainment throughout. I've seen other versions of this story and there's one thing about this story I have never understood and hoped I would find an answer here: We know that Petruchio is doing this for the dowry but why does Katherine agree? To help Bianca? She hates Bianca, but as I often do, I let it go in favor of the big picture, and what a great picture it is, even if it isn't exactly a study in political correctness or a shining endorsement for the Me Too movement, so be warned.

Even though they might be a tad too old for the roles, Taylor and Burton create another onscreen couple as entertaining as George and Martha. Burton is especially dazzling and Taylor works hard at covering up the fact that the role is a little immature for her. Michael York impresses in his third feature film appearance as Lucentio and Michael Hordern is a lot of fun as Baptista. Natasha Pyne was a little vanilla as Bianca, but since her role was reduced I guess it didn't matter much more. Franco Zeffirelli's direction is perfection. The IMDB reveals that Zeffirelli said making this movie was the most fun he had in his life and it shows. The film was remade as a ballet in 2016 and in 1948 it was turned into a Broadway musical called Kiss Me Kate, which came to the screen as an MGM musical in 1953. It was also remade again in 1999 with teenage leads and called Ten Things I Hate About You, but I'd stick to the original on this one.