Gideon58's Reviews

I liked Out of the Furnace more than you, but it should have been better with that cast.

Haven't seen Rampart yet. It looks like something I should.

The Social Network
After three previous attempts, I was finally able to connect with 2010 Best Picture nominee The Social Network, a ferocious docudrama that sizzled from start to finish thanks to a merciless screenplay and a proven cinematic storyteller in the director's chair.

This film opens at Harvard University in 2003 where we are introduced to a brilliant computer geek named Mark Zuckerberg who is approached by a couple of snotty Harvard jocks to assist them in producing an internet dating sight for the college, an idea that Zuckerberg allegedly "stole" and turned into something that would eventually be known as Facebook. Aided by his best friend Eduardo Saverin, who was actually the money man behind Mark, who Mark would allegedly squeeze out of the company. The story unfolds as we learn that the jocks from Harvard and Eduardo are simultaneously suing Zuckerberg.

The real star of this film is the Oscar winning screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, the television writer who created NBC's The West Wing, that is unapologetic in its depiction of this internet enigma, who is portrayed here as a smug and arrogant ass who was apparently busy at the computer when the sensitivity chips were passed out. The opening scene of him on a blind date humiliating a girl and then going to his blog and posting that she's a bitch was possibly the most unflattering introduction of a movie character I have ever seen and I think it was probably the primary reason I turned this film off after about fifteen minutes during the first three times I attempted to watch it. I'm still not sure what kept me tuned in this time, but there's no denying that Sorkin's screenplay takes no prisoners and has no interest in whether or not the viewer can keep up with all the techno babble involved in the mounting of the story. Nor was Sorkin interested in whether or not we like Zuckerberg because from what is presented here, there wasn't much to like. It was also unsettling how humorless this Zuckerberg is...we're halfway through the film before we see him crack a smile and his self-righteous and cavalier attitude about being sued was, at times, shocking.

Sorkin's screenplay gets a respectful treatment from director David Fincher, the director of Se7en and Fight Club whose flashy and stylish camera work was a joy to be hold...I loved watching the camera doing simple things like moving through opening doors and making us wonder what was going to be on the other side not to mention the way his directorial eye makes being a computer geek the only way to live. In Fincher's capable hands, an often ugly and disturbing story becomes riveting.

Fincher must also be applauded for the performances he gets from Jesse Eisenberg, whose Oscar-nominated performance as Zuckerberg is fire and ice. Andrew Garfield is sincere and strong as Eduardo and Justin Timberlake lights up the screen with his ultra slick Sean Parker, the owner of a music internet empire who buys his way into Facebook and helps to push Eduardo out. The film also won Oscars for Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall's razor sharp film editing and the superb music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A brilliant piece of film making that tells a true story and still provides first class entertainment. Can't believe it took me four attempts to connect to this masterpiece, but I am so glad I gave it one more try.

You'll Never Get Rich
Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth make quite the glamorous pair in the 1941 musical comedy You'll Never Get Rich, but there just wasn't enough of them together to make this musical as good as it should have been.

This Columbia Studios musical centers around a philandering Broadway producer named Martin Cortland (Robert Benchley) who has a penchant for the pretty girls in his shows. His current obsession is the glamorous Sheila Winthrop (Rita Hayworth) who is engaged to a guy named Tom (John Hubbard) and is in denial about the feelings she has for the show's choreographer, Robert (Astaire). When Cortland has to explain to his wife (Frieda Inescort) about an expensive necklace that he bought for Sheila, he covers by explaining that he bought the necklace for Robert to give to Sheila and asks Robert and Sheila to meet him and his wife for dinner and pretend they're in love. Robert and Sheila begin to admit having feelings for each other but then Robert gets drafted.

The reason I mentioned that this film was from Columbia is because I don't want anyone to confuse this film with MGM, who were the reigning king of movie musicals at the time. You have often heard me talk about the MGM "gloss" that is associated with their work and you can definitely see the difference between an MGM musical and musicals made at other studios. Columbia was able to get talent in front of the camera...they got Astaire for this and got Gene Kelly for Cover Girl, but beyond that, the studio didn't seem to put a lot of effort into musicals. This was a big budget musical that screamed to be filmed in color not in black and white. Watching Rita Hayworth in black and white should have been illegal...no one graced technicolor better than Rita Hayworth as those who have seen Cover Girl can attest.

On the plus side, the film does feature a handful of fun songs including "Boogie Barcorolle", a production number featuring elaborate Robert Alton choreography and "Shootin the Works for Uncle Sam", a mammoth production number that takes place at Grand Central Station when the chorus girls from the show all show up at the train station to see Astaire off when he gets drafted. One of those things you see in a musical that you never see in real life but you forgive because it's a musical. It is 1941 and there was a war going on and the movies never let us forget it, so we accept it when an entire Broadway show is seamlessly transported to an army base, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a military base on the planet big enough to accommodate the scenery for this show, which concluded with 50 dancers tap dancing atop a giant tank.

Astaire and Hayworth dance beautifully together I just wish there had been a little more of them onscreen dancing together. If the truth be told, Benchley steals the show as the womanizing Cortland, but that's not really much of a feat. Astaire is always worth watching but this one was a disappointment.

I quite liked the movie. It's not perfect in all regards, and the ending is a little rushed, but Astaire was very funny and he had good chemistry with Rita Hayworth. I'd even say for the limitations Astaire's character has to go through (being stuck in the army and all), he still got a decent amount of screentime with Hayworth. The scene where Astaire keeps bothering his other mates in the middle of the night got a huge laugh out of me.

The Last Married Couple in America
Some good actors are wasted in a tired and predictable romantic comedy called The Last Married Couple in America.

The 1980 comedy stars George Segal and the late Natalie Wood as Jeff and Mari Thompson, a long married couple who have existed safely in their circle of married friends for a long time until these other marriages start falling apart, making Jeff and Mari doubt the validity of their own marriage.

John Herman Shaner's screenplay plays like a very long episode of a TV sitcom packed with all the expected scenes we would expect from such a well worn premise. We see the Thompsons actually think they're something wrong with them because they want to stay married and end up leaving the fate of their marriage to fashion. And of course, we have the people on the sidelines who have been waiting for Jeff and Mari to break up so they can make their moves on them.

The main reason I wanted to see this film was because it was one of the final feature films made by Wood. There's no denying that she has rarely looked more beautiful onscreen and Wood always had a gift for light comedy, but even she looks a little embarrassed to be involved in this debacle.

Gilbert Cates' direction is sluggish and causes the film to move at a snail's pace, but Segal and Wood do work well together and they get effective support from Bob Dishy, Richard Benjamin, Valerie Harper, Dom DeLuise, Marilyn Sokol, and Allan Arbus, but this is a comedy that just doesn't provide the laughs it should have.

Hail Caesar!
Joel and Ethan Cohen continue to spit in the face of conventional cinematic storytelling with an odd and quirky black comedy from 2016 called Hail Caesar that economically weaves several Hollywood backstories into one bold message and does it with so much panache that you don't see it coming.

The setting is a movie studio in the 1950's called Capital Pictures Studios where we meet an extremely busy studio executive named Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) who is trying to put out several on and off set fires that won't stop flaming. They include the kidnapping of the studio's number one leading man Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) who is starring in the religious epic that is also the title of this movie; a fictionalized Esther Williams named DeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johanssen) who's afraid her career might be over because she has discovered she's pregnant and is not married; a fresh scrubbed movie cowboy (Alden Ehrenreich) who has been removed from his latest horse opera and has been made the lead in a Noel Coward drawing room comedy, much to the chagrin of the film's director (Ralph Fiennes); and on top of everything else, Eddie has been offered a chance to escape the Hollywood rat race via a job offer from Lockheed Airlines.

What I loved most about this movie is that I thought I knew what I was getting into as the credits rolled but this movie went nowhere I expected it to, offering several stories that eventually address what was really controlling Hollywood in the 1950's...the Communist witch hunt that evoked the Hollywood Blacklisting and how it affected everything that was happening in Hollywood. Clues are dropped along the way but the underlying theme of the Cohens' story doesn't really become clear until the final third of the film, but the clues provided through the individual mini-dramas presented provide entertainment that does distract viewer impatience regarding what's really going on here.

I have to admit I was initially confused when introduced to this central character, Eddie Mannix because Eddie Mannix was the name of the character played by Bob Hoskins in Hollywoodland, who according to that film, was a real studio executive, but I'm pretty sure the Eddie Mannix in this movie is a fictional character. I loved this character, he was smart as a whip, never at a loss for words, and knew how to handle every problem thrown at him.

As always, the Cohen Brothers have spared no expense in recreating 1950's Hollywood down to the most minute detail...there's a scene where Eddie's wife is observed holding a can of Hills Brothers coffee that was authentically 50's. The screenplay featured dialogue that had a real 50's feel to it, not peppered with a lot of adult language that panders to the 18-34 demographic. Cinematography, editing, set design, sound, and costumes were nothing short of superb, aiding greatly in some of the gorgeous cinematic pictures that the Cohens take here.

A lot of Cohen Brothers rep company regulars make up the outstanding cast, along with some newbies, like Josh Brolin, who seems to be channeling Clark Gable in his level-headed studio head. I loved the fact that they never made clear exactly what his position at the studio was. There's one shot of him entering his office and you see words painted on the door but the camera zooms by so fast you can't read it and I don't think that was an accident. Alden Ehrenreich, who bored me to death in Rules Don't Apply was absolutely charming as Hobie, the young movie cowboy, and Clooney really seemed to be enjoying himself as Baird Whitlock. I also have to give a shout out to Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, who had me on the floor in a clever dual role as twin sister gossip columnists. Channing Tatum also impresses as an actor playing an actor in a musical and gets to sing and dance. Like all of the Cohens work, this is not for every taste, but I loved this freaking movie.

Shopgirl
Steve Martin scores as the star and screenwriter of a 2005 melodrama called Shopgirl that actually evokes the cinematic memories its title implies.

Mirabelle (Claire Danes) is a salesgirl at the LA branch of Saks Fifth Avenue who begins seeing a goofy, penniless artist who lives in her building named Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman). After a couple of awkward dates, Jeremy impulsively decides to go on the road with a rock band at the same time Mirabelle meets a wealthy businessman named Ray Porter (Martin) who begins an affair with Mirabelle.

Martin actually adapted this screenplay from his own novella that hearkens back to the melodramas from the 30's and 40's that Joan Crawford and Ginger Rogers were famous for...the hard-working career girl who longs for romance and would give up the career in a split second if the right man came along. Every time the camera glimpses Mirabelle behind her counter at Saks, you can see that selling gloves is the last thing on her mind and she thinks and we hope she may have found what she's looking for in Ray Porter.

Martin's problematic screenplay does paint Mirabelle as a bit of a dim bulb where Ray is concerned...it is clear to us that Ray is not looking for anything permanent and aggravating when he tells his shrink that he has made this clear to Mirabelle when it's so obvious that he hasn't. Martin takes the traditional movie triangle and gives it some tweaks that work and some that don't. It was weird the way the Jeremy character was almost taken out of the story completely so that Mirabelle could be led on by Ray to the eventual heartbreak we see coming. One third of the romantic triangle was offscreen for a good chunk of the story. On the other hand, I also found Mirabelle suddenly finding Jeremy relationship material after he puts on a white suit a little hard to take. Martin's script does try to make Ray sympathetic, but that's nearly impossible...every time he's on the road to being decent, he says just the wrong thing at the wrong time. I do like that writer Martin allowed Martin's character to be so seriously flawed;

Director Anand Tucker brings some style to the story with some really interesting camera work that creates some really lovely cinematic pictures. Martin's performance as Ray is slick yet beautifully understated, unlike anything he has ever done. Danes is a lovely leading lady and Schwartzman's goofy charm here is quite endearing and a lot more fun than his normally arrogant screen persona. I also loved Barrington Pheloung's gorgeous music. There are twists and turns in the story that aggravate and sometimes make you want to strangle Martin's character, but it's a pretty compelling journey for the most part.

Strait-Jacket
Despite some problems with story structure and manic direction, a campy, 1964 "thriller" called Strait-Jacket is worth checking out for the flamboyant performance of Joan Crawford in the starring role.

Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a woman who has just spent twenty years in an insane asylum after murdering her husband and his mistress with an ax. She has come to the large farm where her daughter, Carol (Diane Baker) , who witnessed the double murder as a child, now lives. Lucy and Carol attempt to reconnect and put the past behind them, until, suddenly ax murders start occurring again.

This film was my first exposure to William Castle as a director. He did produce Rosemary's Baby but it was directed by Roman Polanski. Castle seems to have wanted to present a legitimate thriller; unfortunately, with the aid of an obnoxious music score, spoon feeds us Robert Bloch's overly melodramatic screenplay for the entire running time, providing a few "boos" here and there but never any sense of mystery regarding what's going on here. I figured out what was going on here about fifteen minutes in and that wouldn't have bothered me so much if Castle had put a little more detail in the motivations of the characters that would have made the viewer enjoy what was going on, despite a foregone conclusion. Castle's direction should have been a little more on character presentation than just trying to scare the audience. There were several scenes here that I think were intended to shock but just produced unintentional giggles from this reviewer.

Despite these problems, I have to admit that Crawford's larger than life performance kept me invested in the proceedings. There were few actresses who could play "teetering on the brink of sanity" better than Crawford which was a help and hindrance to this story. It might have been nice if it wasn't so immediately apparent that Lucy might have been released from the hospital prematurely. Diane Baker has some solid moments as Carol, but she clearly needed a little more attention from Castle.

The film has some problems with logistics and continuity...there are some moments in the final act where characters are appearing in one location and all of a sudden in another that aren't realistic at all. This might be a tiny nitpick, but for a movie that depicts multiple ax murders, there is not a speck of blood on display here. Despite its problems, Crawford kept me watching and her performance alone earned this rating.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Mike Meyers and the gang return for another round of colorful, psychedelic 60's hi-jinks in 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, another bawdy spy spoof that is actually funnier than the original.

Mike Meyers returns as the super groovy 1960's secret agent trying to adjust to live if the 1990's. Austin learns at the beginning of this sequel that his new bride, Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) was really a robot. He is assigned new partner in the very shapely form of one Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) who have to travel back to the year 1969, two years after Austin was frozen in the first film, to protect him from Dr. Evil (Meyers) who has also returned to 1969 because he thinks the secret to defeating Powers is by stealing his mojo.

Director Jay Roach and Meyers have mounted another loving valentine to James Bond, which opens with a very authentic-sounding Bond-style theme song launching into some beautifully edited opening credits which feature a naked Austin Powers cleverly covered up.
We even get an affectionate wink at the first Bond film Dr. No. This sequel also introduces a couple of terrific new characters who give Austin a run for his money. There's an immensely overweight spy who works for Dr. Evil called Fat Bastard (also Meyers) and a clone of Dr. Evil who is only 1/8 of Evil's height whom he affectionately names Mini-Me (the late Verne Troyer), who finds himself in a serious case of sibling rivalry with Dr. Evil's bratty son, Scott (Seth Green).

Like the first film. this movie provides non-stop laughs from opening credits to closing remaining completely relevant to the first film without rehashing and absolutely fearless about never allowing us to forget we are watching a movie...there are various forms of breaking the 4th wall here, including moments where characters talk directly to the camera and little dance breakaways that will remind those, who are old enough to remember, of the NBC series Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and their party scenes with bikini -clad girls with painted torsos.

There was one odd bit of casting continuity that gnawed at me initially. Robert Wagner reprises his role as # 2 here in the scenes that take place in 1999, but when the character is introduced in 1969, he is played by Rob Lowe, which was kind of clever because the resemblance between Wagner and Lowe is startling, but why do that with the # 2 character and not with the rest of the cast? But I digress, this movie still had me laughing out loud and Heather Graham seemed to be more in tuned to what's happening here than Elizabeth Hurley did. Troyer was a revelation in a role that didn't allow him to speak and Seth Green still had me on the floor as Scott Evil. His appearance with his dad on The Jerry Springer Show also had me on the floor. Will Ferrell reprises his cameo from the first film and there are other cameos by Rebecca Romjin, Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Woody Harrelson, and Jennifer Coolidge. Really didn't think this film could be as funny as the first one, but it was funnier. Followed by Austin Powers: Goldmember.

Glad you watched this. Like you said it was all about Crawford. I loved the part where she tries to seduce her daughter's boyfriend, ha!

The very next film Crawford made is worth seeing to, though he has a smaller part. It's I Saw What You Did (1965) by Director William Castle.

Skyjacked
The success of 1970 Best Picture nominee Airport was the genesis of a new movie genre known as the Disaster film. The film also produced three sequels and countless imitations and rip-offs. One of the weaker rip-offs was a 1972 mess called Skyjacked.

This generic offering provided the usual disaster movie stereotypes cramped aboard a Boeing 707 originally bound for Minneapolis that eventually ends up being hijacked to Moscow by a deranged military man.

Stanley R. Greenberg's cliche-filled screenplay doesn't get a lot of help from John Guillermin's manic direction and headache-inducing camerawork. Guillermin's one storytelling trick to let us know what the character is feeling is with the use of extreme closeups of the character's nostrils that are supposed to let us know how terrified these people are. Unfortunately, Guillermin doesn't really take the time to let his cast members know exactly what they are supposed to be projecting at anytime. Not only that, but there are several moments where the camera is focused on a certain actor and the actor seems surprised like they didn't know the camera was coming their way.

There is one very convenient piece of plotting where the hijacker originally has the plane land in Anchorage before heading to Alaska. The onscreen explanation is that the hijacker wants to give them a chance to refuel but the real reason for the first stop seems to be to get all of the extras off the plane so that the demented hijacker only has to deal with the characters who are actually billed onscreen for the climactic journey to the USSR.

Charlton Heston, who was EVERYWHERE in the early 1970's gives another stone-faced performance as the macho pilot and Yvette Mimieux plays the head stewardess (it was the 70's, it was still OK to say "stewardess" instead of "flight attendant") with whom he was once involved, a backstory revealed in silly flashbacks scenes. James Brolin's maniacal. over-the-top histrionics as Jerome K. Weber, soldier turned hijacker are beyond annoying. Guillermin does show some promise here, which he would prove with his next project, The Towering Inferno, but this one is a silly and overwrought melodrama that drowns in its own pretentiousness.

Money from Home
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis attempt the Guys and Dolls route with their tenth film together, Money from Home.

Martin plays a professional gambler named Honeytalk Nelson who owes a large gambling debt to a gangster named Jumbo Schneider (Sheldon Leonard) who agrees to forgive the debt if Honeytalk will arrange for a horse to be fixed for an upcoming race so that the horse Jumbo wants to win can do so. Honeytalk turns to his animal-loving cousin, Virgil (guess who?) for help in fixing a horse named My Sheba so that she will lose a big race. They travel to Maryland where Honeytalk instantly falls in love with My Sheba's owner, Phyllis (Marjie Millar).

En route to Maryland, our heroes meet Bertie Searles (Richard Haydn) the disc jockey hired to ride My Sheba who seems to like drinking better than riding. This leads to Virgil pretending to be Bertie and finding his own romance with a pretty veterinarian (Pat Crowley).

This 1953 comedy is actually based on a story by Damon Runyan, the creator of Guys and Dolls and begins with an authentic Runyan feel to the story and characters. All of the gangsters we are introduced to in the opening scenes have these colorful names just as they did in the Frank Loesser musical. We actually meet characters with names like Short Boy and the Seldom Seen Kid. The opening narration even mentions a restaurant called Mindy's, which is also referenced in Guys and Dolls. Unfortunately, once the story moves out of the city and to Maryland, everything just dissolves into typical Martin/Lewis hijinks, which is not necessarily bad thing, but it would have been nice if the Runyan sensibility established in the opening scenes had pervaded the entire film.

Don't get me wrong, Lewis and Martin do provide laughs like they always do, but we have seen this kind of stuff in so many other movies of theirs that this one is sometimes tough going. I did enjoy a scene where an ant farm gets loose at a fancy cocktail party and it was a lot of fun watching Lewis interact with various animals and the scene where Lewis lip syncs to Martin's singing also had me on the floor, but most of the movie had an air of "been there done that."

This film also featured another staple of Martin/Lewis movies: a leading lady whose career ended after her appearance with the boys. Marji Millar, who reminded me a little bit of Rosemary Clooney, was quite charming and sadly never heard of again. Crowley was enchanting as always and Haydn had some funny moments as the hard drinking jockey as well. Sheldon Leonard, Robert Strauss, and Jack Kruschen made the most of their Runyan stereotypes. The climactic horse race where Lewis falls off his horse four times was also a bit much. Martin and Lewis have definitely done better work.

Wag the Dog
Director Barry Levinson and a solid all-star cast knock it out of the park with 1997's Wag the Dog, a deliciously disturbing black comedy that brings Washington DC and Hollywood together to weave a tale around the art of spin doctoring and making a merciless comment about the gullibility of the American people.

The President is seeking re-election and eleven days before the election, it is revealed that the President has been accused of sexual misconduct and DC politico fixer Conrad Brean is brought in to find a way to bury this scandal until the election. Brean decides the only way to do this is to make America believe that the President has declared war with Albania through elaborate photo ops and sound bytes. Brean flies to Hollywood and convince Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to take on the monumental task of creating the illusion of a war through the aid of Hollywood smoke and mirrors.

Motss' plans to pull of this ultimate illusion include hiring a young actress to appear in fake news footage as an Albanian citizen trying to escape an attack after the death of her family and using a heavily medicated convict to play a returning prisoner of war. Unfortunately, plans begin to unravel when the CIA enters the picture and know exactly what's going on.

Hilary Heinken's Oscar-worthy screenplay, based on the book "American Hero" by Larry Beinhart treads some really dangerous territory here that, at times, makes the viewer question everything they have ever seen on the evening news. The scene where they create the footage with the Albanian girl is frightening in its simplicity and complete effectiveness, creating the illusion of a girl running through a worn torn country with little more than a sound and lighting board.

Then there's the practical aspects of what's going on here...what Motss and Brean are doing here costs more than a couple of dollars and despite the worried White House staffer, played by Anne Heche, seemingly always aware of the bottom line, you can't help but wonder what all this costs and exactly where the money was coming from.

I also found it deeply disturbing how the President seemed to be down on everything these people are doing to keep him in the White House, legitimized in a way by Levinson's choice to have us never see the President's face, which didn't make a lot of what he went along with here any less greasy. On the other hand, I loved watching Stanley Motss' passion about this project, which he decides is going to be his greatest work ever and it is probably was.

Levinson's direction is detail-oriented as always and his cast is nothing short of superb. Dustin Hoffman received his seventh Oscar nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor for his slightly nutty Stanley Motss and Robert De Niro is effectively understated as Brean. I have rarely enjoyed Heche onscreen more and Denis Leary, Woody Harrelson, Craig T. Nelson, and William H. Macy standout in the supporting cast. Film editing and music also deserve a shout out but this film is really a testament to the genius that is Barry Levinson, a film experience that will have you laughing but wondering if you should be.

Julia
A Best Picture nominee in a very special year for film, 1977's Julia is an exquisitely mounted and deliberately paced docudrama that tells a true story of a lifelong friendship eventually destroyed by their individual life choices and the advent of the Anti-Nazi movement.

This film recounts the relationship between famed playwright Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes, The Children's Hour) and her spirit animal, Julia. Julia lived a life of wealth and privilege with her rich grandparents, a life that she shared with Lillian on the weekends. Julia has always taken her lifestyle for granted, but an off-the-cuff remark made by her grandfather sparked a fire in Julia that made her dedicate her life to the down and out and the downtrodden, a cause that found her a front and center soldier during the anti-Nazi movement, a movement in which Julia eventually involves Lillian, asking her to smuggle monetary funds for the force.

Alvin Sargent's Oscar-winning screenplay beautifully documents this very special friendship and its deliberate but inevitable deconstruction. We are introduced to a pair of teenage girls who, on the surface, appear as nothing could tear them apart. Sadly, Lillian's focus on her writing career and Julia's political convictions do just that. I have to admit I wondered if Lillian and Julia's friendship was the inspiration for the Karen and Martha characters in The Children's Hour. There are subtle lesbian undertones in the presentation of these two characters, but nothing is said outright and this can only be credited to director Fred Zinnermann.

Zinnermann, who won four Best Directing Oscars, including one for 1953's Best Picture, From Here to Eternity, and one for 1966's Best Picture A Man for All Seasons received a ninth and final Best Director nomination for his work here, creating this alternately delicate and dangerous look at a very special friendship during a very troubled period in history. We've seen a lot of films over the years documenting the ugliness of war but few have avoided actual battlefield scenes and still drove home the ugliness of what was going the way this one does.

Jane Fonda was robbed of an Oscar for her fiery performance as Hellman, a richly crafted and theatrical performance that never strays from realism. Vanessa Redgrave did win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the title role, a luminous performance that finds a lot of its power from the political conviction inside the actress. Jason Robards won a second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his flashy Dashiell Hammett, the writer whose on again off again relationship with Hellman provides this sad story with some welcome levity. Loved Hammett's contribution to this story because he always kept Lillian grounded and always told her what she needed to hear instead of what she wanted to hear. Zinnermann's deliberate pacing does make for a slow spot here and there, but this is still a rich cinematic testament to the power of friendship.

Billy Rose's Jumbo
The concept of the circus as an entertainment form is practically forgotten which might make the appeal of Billy Rose's Jumbo quite limited in this age of CG entertainment, but this splashy and elaborate 1962 musical, despite its dated appeal and some other problems, is still passable entertainment.

Set at the turn of the century, the film's setting is the Wonder Circus, the traveling big top named after its in name only owner, Pop Wonder (Jimmy Durante), though the organization is really run by his energetic daughter, Kitty (Doris Day), who is also one of the main attractions. Pop has a serious gambling problem that has put the circus in debt up to their tightropes, but the Wonders think they've found a saviour in a young drifter named Sam Rawlins (Stephen Boyd) who seems to be helping to get the circus back on its feet, but is, in reality, the son of a rival circus owner (Dean Jagger) who wants to take over the circus so that he can take possession of the show's # 1 asset: an 8000 pound elephant named Jumbo.

I was about five minutes into this film when I realized I thought how circuses don't really exist too much anymore and younger filmgoers will probably be confused and somewhat bored with the concept upon which this film is based, but this film stirred up a lot of childhood memories for me...I remember going to the circus on several occasions as a child, taking in the sights and especially the smells of the circus. Even though the place smelled like animal excrement, the clowns and the trapeze artists quickly made you forget the smell and take in the magic that only a circus could provide.

I've always wondered why the studio felt the need to proceed the title of this movie with Billy Rose's name since he really had nothing to do with the making of this film. He did produce the 1935 musical that was the basis for this movie. Despite the circus setting, when you strip away all the glamorous trappings, what you have left is your typical musical comedy with the typical misunderstandings and mustache twirling villains that we get in a musical. If I had one complaint about Sidney Sheldon's screenplay, I wish that the reveal of who Sam really was hadn't come as quickly as it does. I did like the fact that, in a refreshing change for a Doris Day movie, it is Doris' character who does the chasing instead of being chased.

Of course, this cast makes up for a lot of the problems with this story. Doris Day is enchanting as always as Kitty and Day's husband, Marty Melcher, who is billed as one of the producers of this film, makes sure his wife is lovingly costumed and photographed and that no one forgets who the star of this film is. Jimmy Durante steals every scene he is in as Pop Wonder as does Martha Raye as Lulu, the fortune teller who loves Pop but can't get a wedding ring out of him. Sadly, the casting of Stephen Boyd is a real problem here, his wooden performance really drags down the proceedings. The best part of his performance is his singing, which is dubbed by Jimmy Joyce. I kept picturing Gene Kelly in this role and how special this film could have been with Kelly playing Sam.

The lovely Rodgers and Hart score includes "The Circus is on its Way", "Over and Over Again", "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", "Why Can't I", "Little Girl Blue" and the lavish finale "Sawdust, Spangles, and Dreams". Doris' solo "This Can't Be Love" was actually written for another Rodgers and Hart show called The Boys From Syracuse. The film features spectacular settings and costumes but I wish the editing had been a little sharper to cover up the fact that the stars weren't doing any of their stunts. Die hard musical fans will find limited pleasures here.

Well said. I liked all of the cast... I thought Stephen Boyd was lack luster too. Gene Kelly would have took the picture up a couple of notches, good idea on casting him.

I didn't really like the movie, but I do like movies about circuses which like you said are just about a thing of the past.

Have you seen The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), I liked that a whole let better. It had: better circus stunts being performed for real, much more behind the scenes of a circus and how it works, and better written characters too.

I haven't seen The Greatest Show on Earth in about 20 years, but it's definitely time for a re-watch. There is a school of thought that it is the worst movie to ever win the Best Picture Oscar.

I gave it a I can think of lots of other Best Picture Oscar Winners that are less deserving. There's a circus stunt where the elephant rest it's foot on the face of a circus performer. I re-watched that seen several times, it's frightening as it's actually Gloria Grahame herself doing the stunt live. It's not cut, it's not a fake elephant foot, she really did the stunt. I read that most of the stunts were performed by the actors. It's amazing that way.

Yeah, it was glaringly obvious in Jumbo that none of the actors did any of the stunts.

Chappaquiddick
The authenticity of docudramas is a pretty hard thing to gauge so I often find myself judging such films on entertainment value alone. On that level, the 2017's Chappaquiddick totally works because it aroused such anger in me that I found myself yelling back at the screen, a sure sign that a movie is working for me.

On July 17, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy was vacationing in Chappaquidick, a small resort community near Martha's Vineyard, when he got in a car with a former of secretary of his brother Bobby named Mary Jo Kopechne, lost control of the vehicle and drove it off a bridge. Kennedy somehow escaped from the vehicle without a scratch but Mary Jo was trapped in the vehicle and drowned, an incident that became one of the ugliest political scandals in American history.

I was only 11 years old when all of this happened so I don't remember a lot of what happened. As this uncompromising drama unfolded before me, I couldn't help but wonder how director John Curran and screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan were able to bring this story to the screen without interference from the Kennedy family because this film paints Ted Kennedy as a reprehensible piece of slime who got a slap on a wrist for allowing a girl to drown and then trying to cover it up. The screenplay provides no protection for Kennedy who, according to this film, told his two closest friends, Gargan and Markham, and his invalid father, Joseph Kennedy Sr. what happened before reporting the incident to the police. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in stupid moves that Kennedy makes in the name of protecting his very entitled ass. He even had the gaul to wear a neck brace to Mary Jo's funeral to evoke sympathy...seriously? The screenplay does attempt to infuse some sympathy into Kennedy here by implying that Daddy issues were at the genesis of a lot of his behavior, but the sympathy boat has sailed long before these scenes occur.

John Curran's direction has a very voyeuristic feel to it...just about everything we see Kennedy doing in the first third of the story feels like it is being presented through a hidden camera. Kennedy is seen more than once speaking on a phone in a dark corner and whispering to whoever he's talking to, legitimizing the viewer's anger about what this guy is doing. Another solid directorial touch is that every now and then during the story, we get a shot of that bridge, in the dark, with the wheels of the vehicle still slightly above the surface of the water. There is an absolutely startling moment about thirty minutes into the film where we actually get a shot of Mary Jo still in the vehicle, alive, trying to figure out how to get out...shocking and heartbreaking. This was the saddest part of this story, the way this girl, Mary Jo, become forgotten, an afterthought.

The film is extremely well-acted with actors who are right for the roles. Curran seemed unconcerned with star power. Jason Clarke is superb as the title character, fully invested in this guy's slime factor and Ed Helms gives the performance of his career as Gargan, who seems to be the only person in this story interested in doing what is right from beginning to end. A shout out as well to John Fiore as the Chappaquiddick Chief of Police. This movie stirred up a lot of anger in me but had me completely riveted to the screen.