Gideon58's Reviews

The Man from Toronto
The director of The Hitman's Bodyguard and the writer of The Wedding Ringer are among the creative forces behind 2022's The Man from Toronto, a big budget action comedy that has a serious dosage of star power but is saddled down by an overstuffed screenplay with too many endings.

Woody Harrelson plays the title character, a deadly assassin and torture master whose being sent to an AirbnB for his next assignment. Also headed to the Airbnb is a gym employee and perpetual screw-up named Teddy Jackson (Kevin Hart) who is taking his wife there for some R&R. Teddy arrives before the assassin and gets mistaken for him. Even though it comes to light that Teddy is not The Man From Toronto, the only way to get out of this is to help government agents nab the guy by continuing to pretend to be the Man from Toronto.

The screenplay is kind of a clever idea taking the mistaken identity comedy to a different level where instead of having two separate scenarios where the two people being mixed up are in separate situations, they must work together to extricate themselves from this very dangerous situation. In this case, they have to work together and a totally unbelievable friendship actually occurs as these two guys actually learn their individual backstories and use that to bond with each other, which comes off as forced.

The story is action-packed and defies logic at every turn but the characters do somehow manage to endear themselves to us so that we care what happens to them. Harrelson is particularly impressive losing himself in a character who is so dark and damaged that he doesn't crack a smile until 40 minutes into the running time. Don't really buy the way Teddy's wife is kept completely in the dark about what's going on for the entire running time either. Credibility is also hindered by too many endings that make an hour and 50 minute movie seem twice that long.

Harrelson and Hart work hard at making their roles credible and Pierson Fode is terrific as the Man From Miami as is Ellen Barkin as Harrelson's handler. Impressive production values help, but it's just too much that goes on for too long.

Rounders
The 1998 drama Rounders is probably the grittiest and most realistic look at gambling that I have seen on the big screen. Most films on this subject tend to whitewash, but not this one.

Mike (Matt Damon) is a former professional gambler who lost everything in one hand and is now trying to start his life over again, working his way through law school and a relationship with a pretty law student (Gretchen Mol). Mike is working hard at keeping his addiction/passion in check until his former partner, Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of jail and in no time at all, gets Mike in so much trouble that he is assuming Worm's varied debts, including some to Russian gangsters.

The anchor of this film is the intelligent and uncompromising screenplay by David Levien and Brian Koppleman (Runaway Jury) that breaks down the nuts and bolts of poker playing in a way that doesn't pander to the viewer who doesn't know anything about poker, mostly through Damon's narration, which is rich with a lot of card-playing lingo that will mean little to people who don't play poker, but what it does mean comes out not only in the action happening during the narration but in the passion in Mike's voice as he explains to us what drove him.

This film is a laid bare look at gambling as an addiction and the consequences of same. There is a terrific little scene that nails the addiction where we catch Mike watching poker on television. We are shocked when he picks up the remote control and rewinds the game, revealing that he is watching a game he has seen several times and keeps watching over and over again. As for consequences, this couldn't be made any clearer when Mike's loyalty to Worm motivates him to vouch for Worm for a $15,000 debt which he must assume when Worm disappears.

John Dahl's direction is lovingly detailed and mounts the story in a realistic manner that builds to a fever pitch that makes the viewer never want to sit down at a poker table again. The Mark Wahlberg version of The Gambler allows that character to get off too easy, but the Mike character does a complete 360 by the time the credits roll and we're still not sure if he's done.

Damon's performance as Mike is nicely understated, complimenting Norton's razzle dazzle performance as Worm. John Malkovich is, as always, a master scene stealer as Johnny KGB. Michael Rispoli, John Turturro, and Martin Landau also make the most of their screentime. Other familiar faces pop up along the way like Lenny Clarke, Joshua Motel, Michael Lombard, Tom Aldridge, Famke Janssen, Beeson Carroll, and David Zayas, but it is the compelling story, thoughtfully mounted by the director that makes this work.

2021's Down with the King is a drama that may or may not be a sequel to another film that has an intriguing premise; unfortunately, it never really goes anywhere and takes its sweet time doing it.

The drama is centered on a famous rapper named Money Mercury Maxwell, who decides to take some time away from the business and travels to a remote logging community in rural Massachusetts, where he hopes to come up with material for a new album. Money hooks up with a local farmer named Bob and begins a relationship with a dreamer who works in a hardware store. As the film slowly progresses, it appears that Money likes this small town and is thinking about walking away from the music business permanently, but real life finds its way to the country and reminds Money that he can't afford to walk away from the business.

This is a confusing film that never makes clear its genre or intent. The film initially comes off as sort of a cinema verite documentary about a real life rapper, but then we learn that this farmer Bob who becomes his BFF was the star of a 2015 drama called Bob and the Trees, about a farmer who like golf, weed, and gangsta rap. This, of course, had me immediately wondering if the reason this film had me confused and bored was because I hadn't seen Bob and the Trees.

Even though the best parts of this film revolved around Money's relationship with this good natured farmer named Bob, it didn't arouse my curiosity about seeing Bob and the Trees nor did it make this film very interesting. Scenes of money butchering cattle, looking for skunks, and playing with live cattle were just not that interesting and when the story takes a dark turn during the final act, sucking all the sympathy out of Money's character, I really wanted to check out, though I had been checking my watch long before that.

There's an interesting movie in here somewhere, but this rambling and pointless film never really engaged me. Freddie Gibbs does display some charm as Money and Bob Tarasak is one of the most likable characters I've seen on screen in a minute, but this film is basically kind of dull and pointless.

The Lady From Shanghai
Six years after making cinematic history with Citizen Kane, Orson Welles redefined the film noir with 1947's The Lady From Shanghai, a steamy tale of romance, blackmail, and murder presented with endless style and imagination that keeps the viewer guessing as to exactly what's going on for the majority of the running time

Welles plays Mike O'Hara, a sailor who meets an icy beauty named Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) one night in Central Park. Despite her being married, the attraction is swift and immediate and the two can't stay away from each other. It's not long before Elsa's husband, Arthur (Everett Sloane), a wealthy attorney, offers Mike a job on his boat enroute to the Mexico and the West Indies, deciding it's best to keep his enemy close. Mike's inability to stay away from Elsa eventually gets him involved in a complex tail of blackmail and murder that he cannot extricate himself from.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding the origins of getting this film made. It's interesting that it eventually ended up at RKO Studios, a studio that would actually go out of business a decade later. The screenplay, based on a novel by Sherwood King, is credited to Welles and even though he directed the film as well, Welles receives no onscreen credit for directing it. Not sure what the story is behind that, but anyone who's seen Citizen Kane can see Welles' directorial style all over this, with just a slight Hitchcock influence.

If the viewer strips away all the cinematic window dressing here, the film comes down to a love triangle, but a very toxic one from which no good can come. The attraction between Mike and Elsa burns a hole through the screen, but we know they're doomed because every time they try to be alone, someone is watching them. And it's not just Arthur, there are others invested in keeping these two apart, including Arthur's business partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders), who has his own agenda in keeping Mike and Elsa apart. The hopelessness of Mike and Elsa's romance reminded me of John Garfield and Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The courtroom scene was unlike any classic courtroom scene I've witnessed and that finale in the funhouse climaxing in the house of mirrors is just genius.

In addition to his stylish direction, Welles offers an intense and electric performance as Mike. Welles seems to want to de-glam Rita Hayworth for her role as Elsa, which includes hiding her famous red mane with a blonde wig, but fails miserably. This sex-on-legs performance rivals her work in Gilda. Sloane and Anders also make every moment they have onscreen count. A crisp and claustrophobic melodrama that is appointment viewing for classic movie fans.

Fire Island
Despite its obvious limited appeal, the 2022 comedy Fire Island does manage to provide entertainment thanks to relationships that develop during the story and some star-making performances that make the film worth investing in.

A group of close-knit gay friends, led by a charismatic male nurse named Noah (Joel Kim Booster, who also wrote the screenplay), who make their annual pilgrimage to the legendary gay vacation spot where they encounter another close-knit group of friends, led by Will (Conrad Ricamora), a wealthy, but lonely attorney, who seems a little uncomfortable inside his gay skin.

Booster scores with an intelligent, daring, and humorous story that actually finds its roots in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice and won't find a lot of appeal for heterosexual filmgoers because the story makes no apologies for its unabashed look at homosexual culture. But if the viewer can look past that, the relationship between BFFs Noah and Howie (SNL's Bowen Lang), Howie's tentative romance with Charlie (James Scully) and the will they or won't they, fight it til the end of the movie relationship between Noah and Will, which ends up being the real anchor of the movie. There are characters like Keegan (Tomas Matos) and Margaret Cho's Erin that are over the top, but their screentime is limited enough not to intrude.

Director Andrew Ahn provides sparkling and breezy direction, including brief forays into graphic sex and nudity that fit the story. The biggest attraction here though are the star-making performances by Booster, who lights up the screen as Noah, Yang, as Howie, the guy who can't escape his inner ugly duckling, a character I could totally relate to, and Ricamora as Will, a guy who learns to get past his self-loathing in order to accept a relationship developing right in front of his face. This movie is not for everyone, but this reviewer found a lot to like here.

Yeah, I really enjoyed this one. I thought it was a fun updating/adaptation of the novel and, like you said, the performances at the center of it are very strong.

I liked the scene with the My Cousin Vinny reenactment and as a fan of Peppermint, I also enjoyed her little cameo.

The Marisa Tomei impression had me on the floor.

Same, which was a perfect counterpoint to the love interest's totally baffled face.

Chocolat
With a lot of credit going to the director of What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Cider House Rules, the 2000 film Chocolat is an enchanting and lyrical cinematic fable that fuels viewer imagination and fills our hearts thanks to a story that allows viewer input into what's going on and a sparkling cast that serves the director's vision.

The setting is a remote village in the French countryside during the 1950's as the audience is introduced to Vianne (Oscar winner Juliette Binoche), a vivacious young woman who arrives in the village with her young daughter in order to open up her own chocolate shop. Not long after her business opens, we witness Vianne's chocolate creations revive the sex life of a middle-aged couple, bring her landlady (Oscar winner Judi Dench) together with her grandson, who her daughter (Carrie-Ann Moss) has been keeping away from her and save a woman (Lena Olin) from her abusive marriage to a creepy bar owner (Peter Stormare). Meanwhile, the town's mayor (Alfred Molina) thinks Vianne's chocolate is evil and imbued with some sort of evil spirit and does everything he can to shut her business down.

Robert Nelson Jacob's screenplay, based on a novel by Joanne Harris, is given an other worldly atmosphere from the opening scene, where a brisk wind is seen blowing through the village from the heavens, seeming to imply that some sort of spell is being set on the village before Vianne's arrival. The rest of the exposition is fun as we watch Vianne setting up her shop, which is right across the street from the church. Director Lasse Hallstrom shows Vianne and her daughter putting a lot of work in preparing their business for opening without showing exactly what the business is and piquing villager curiosity. We don't know until we get a loving shot of a huge spoon stirring a large vat of chocolate, followed shortly by Vianne pulling up the curtain on her front display window, crammed with all kinds of chocolate creations that dazzle the eye and would put Willie Wonka to shame.

Jacobs' screenplay also scores in the way it shows the different changes that some of the characters go through. No one in this story is the same person at the end of the movie that they were at the beginning. The story of the mayor trying to fix the abusive bar owner is compelling and fools us with its initial simplicity, a perfect counterpart to the growth of the the wife who blossoms when she starts to work for Vianne. We never really understand the mayor's resentment of the chocolate shop. He treats Vianne like she just opened a whorehouse but even the mayor goes through a remarkable transformation that we don't see coming at all.

The film's rich production values serve the director's vision, resulting in a cinematic marvel that received five Oscar nominations, including a Lead Actress nomination for Binoche and a Supporting Actress nomination for Dench, Johnny Depp's sex-on-legs performance as Roux and Stormare's barkeeper dazzle as well, but if the truth be known, the acting honors here go to Albert Molina's powerhouse work as the mayor that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance from movie legend Leslie Caron. A unique film experience that doesn't spell everything out and allows the viewer to make their own decision as to exactly what's going on.

Beauty
The screenwriter of Queenie and Slim makes a big swing and a miss with 2022's Beauty, a pretentious and confusion show business soap opera that has a large component of the story missing, not to mention leaden direction and performances that make the film seem four hours long.

Set during the 1980s, the title character is a young and beautiful black singer who is on the precipice of signing a very lucrative recording contract, but is confused by the guidance she is getting from the people in her life and their personal agendas. Her mother thinks she's not ready for a career in show business and her father just sees her as a meal ticket. She seems to be getting the right kind of guidance from her girlfriend, Jasmine and her manager, Colonizer, but she seems to be getting mixed messages from them too.

Screenwriter Lena Waithe, who, in addition to Queenie and Slim, won an Emmy for writing a comedy series called Master of None has come up with a really lackluster story here, centered around a not very interesting central character who is dumb as box of rocks and a bunch of characters, mostly family, who seem to be sending her mixed messages throughout the story. Beauty's mom seems to be a black version of Rose Hovick...a former performer herself who never made it and seems to be jealous of the stardom that may be coming Beauty's way. Her father seems to be a variation on Joe Jackson...all he's thinking about is the money he can make off of Beauty. Watch his response when he tells Beauty to sign the contract and she says she wants a lawyer to look at it first.

The story confusingly jumps between the past, present, and future until she actually signs the contract and then the story is missing an essential component that makes it hard to invest in Beauty's story. What were Laithe and director Andrew Dosunmu thinking mounting a story about a singer and not having her sing a single note in the entire movie? We get shots of her in the studio playing with her headphones and her lips moving but we never hear Beauty sing. There are almost fifteen minutes of screentime devoted to musical influences in Beauty's life like Ella Fitzgerald and Donna Summer, but we never hear the central character sing a note. There are also more than one scene where the camera follows Beauty and other characters having conservations but the scenes are done without audio and it really made this reviewer feel like we were missing something.

Dosunmo does display some talent with a camera, but the pace of the movie is deadening, I didn't think this movie was ever going to end. Gracie Lee Bradley's lifeless performance in the title role didn't help either. Sharon Stone was fine as Colonizer, but the real acting honors in this movie go to Giancarlo Esposito who does a bone-chilling, Oscar-worthy turn as Beauty's father, but his work is not enough to recommend this film.

Thief
Long before scoring with films like Heat and Collateral, Michael Mann made a truly impressive feature length film debut as the executive producer, screenwriter, and director of 1981's Thief an edgy and stylishly mounted crime drama that is anchored by, arguably, the greatest performance of the late James Caan.

Caan plays Frank, a professional jewel thief at a professional and personal crossroads in his life. Frank has just finished what he hopes to be his last job because his new girlfriend doesn't know what he does. While Frank is trying to get a real commitment out of the new lady in his life, he is also offered one more job that offers him anything his heart desires, except for the opportunity to live his own life.

Michael Mann displays endless skill and imagination in cinematic storytelling in his careful and detailed mounting of a compelling story that actually starts in the middle of the central character's life. The lovingly photographed opening scene of Frank cracking a safe shows that Frank is very skilled at what he does and when he tells the person he's working for minutes later that he wants his cut to go into the bank also shows that this a guy who wants to change his life. We're impressed that he implies that he wants to change for the new woman in his life, but the scene where he gets her to commit by telling her the truth about his life turns out to be nothing that we expect. Even though the girl is Frank's motivation, I found the character to be one of the film's weaker elements. It was hard to buy that this woman was aa dumb as a box of rocks as she was presented.

Mann is a proven commodity with the action sequence, but my two favorite scenes in the film have nothing to do with guns or car chases. There is a scene where Frank is trying to be hones with his girl about his life in Sing Sing and the scene where they go to an adoption agency and are refused a child, causing Frank to snap. These scenes give this dangerous story an element of humanity and they work because of the combined work of Mann and James Caan.

I wanted to watch something in honor of Caan's passing that I hadn't seen and my first impulse was to watch The Gambler, but decided to watch this instead and I am so glad I did. I've seen a healthy chunk of Caan's work, but his explosive performance here is the strongest work I've seen from Caan, including The Godfather. Robert Prosky (in his film debut) and James Belushi make the most of their supporting roles and Tuesday Weld works hard at making her thankless role believable. Mann has employed first rate production values to this film, especially the eerie midnight-to-dawn cinematography, editing, and sound. It's Michael Mann's undeniable skill behind the camera and Caan's underrated skill in front that make this sizzling entertainment.

Hustle (2022)
Rocky meets The Blind Side in a 2022 Netflix production called Hustle, a warm and emotionally charged sports-oriented story that found this reviewer either grinning ear to ear or fighting tears for the majority of the running time.

Adam Sandler stars as Stan Sugarman, a talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who travels to Spain and discovers a beast on a street basketball court named Bo Cruz, who despite his talent on the court, is struggling in a minimum wage job to support his mother and young daughter. Stan thinks Bo has what it takes to be an NBA superstar, which he also thinks will lead Stan to his dream job as a coach. Stan manages to get Bo on a plane to Philadelphia but the road to the NBA turns out to be a lot more complicated than Stan imagined.

Yes, the story has an air of predictability but we eventually overlook this, thanks to the effective documentary feel director Jeremiah Zagar gives to the proceedings and the lovely relationship that develops between Stan and Bo, that did remind me a lot of Leigh Ann Tuohy and Michael Oher in The Blind Side, but Zagar and Sandler give it just enough of a tweaking that we almost don't see it.

The relationship between the two central characters is really the anchor that keeps this film so engaging. From their first meeting on a bus where Bo thinks Stan is coming onto him, to Stan educating Bo about room service, to Stan making Bo a part of his family until he can make the NBA a reality, to the heartbreaking moment where Bo thinks Stan has been using him , and best of all, some awesome training sequences that definitely bring to mind the Rocky training sequences, but Rocky is acknowledged onscreen so it's OK.

Netflix poured some money into this one, which includes some gorgeous round the world location photography and some superb editing during the basketball scenes and the training sequences. Adam Sandler confirms that his blistering performance in Uncut Gems was no fluke and that he knows how to command a movie screen playing an actual adult, who is very flawed, but very likable. A young basketball player named Juancho Hernangomez lights up the screen in his spectacular film debut as Bo. A performance that only seems to be made richer because of his lack of experience and his apparent trust in Zagar and Sandler, who allow the young man to shine onscreen and he does. Ben Foster as the team owner, Queen Latifah as Stan's wife, and a pro basketball player named Anthony Edwards as a rival player who tries to get under Bo's skin, make the most of their screentime, but Sandler and Hernangomez walk off with this one. If I had a minor quibble, I wish a little more imagination had been put into the title, but other than that, this is a winner.

Morning Glory (1933)
Katherine Hepburn won the first of her four Oscars for Outstanding Lead Actress for her performance in a dated melodrama called Morning Glory that hasn't aged very well, except for Hepburn's performance.

Hepburn commands the screen in this 1933 RKO film playing Eva Lovelace, a small town girt who changed her name and came to New York looking for stardom on the Broadway stage. So far, she hasn't had any luck, but she is very careful to not let anyone know that. In her opening scene in a producer's office, she makes sure that everyone present knows that she is fielding several offers and will only accept roles that she feels a connection to. Her over the top selling of herself does attract the attention of a producer named Louis Easton, a slick playwright named Joseph Sheridan and a British actor whose career is on the decline named Robert Harley Hedges. We then watch Eva run roughshod over these three men trying to gauge how they can help her and what it's going to cost her.

The film is an adaptation of a play by Zoe Adkins, that pretentiously opens with Eva walking through a theater lobby, lovingly gazing at paintings on the wall of the lobby of great actors like Ethel Barrymore and Sarah Bernhardt, which I think is supposed to convey Eva's sincerity about her love of the theater. However, as the story progresses, Eva appears more interested in the perks of acting than in the art of acting itself. It was a little unsettling that before the halfway point of this film, that I didn't believe a word that came out of Eva Lovelace's mouth. Unfortunately, the screenplay's simplistic views about Broadway are silly now, especially theories trotted out that comedy is degrading and certain implications regarding the casting couch.

This role is an actress' dream and Hepburn makes the most of it. The high point of the film was the party scene at Easton's house where Eva takes center stage because the rest of the party guests think she's drunk. However, if you watch the scene carefully, it's hard to tell whether or not Eva is drunk or if she's pretending to be drunk and that's because Hepburn is so damned good in the scene. Hepburn is so charismatic in this role that it's hard to believe this was only her third movie and yes, I can see why she won the Oscar. And for the record, whenever Hepburn is not onscreen, the film screeches to a halt.

Veteran character actor Adolph Menjou is superb as Louis Easton. He would work again with Hepburn in Stage Door and State of the Union. Douglas Fairbanks Jr brings an oily charm to Joseph Sheridan and C Aubrey Smith is a charmer as Hedges, but this is the movie that put Hepburn on the Hollywood map and deservedly so. The film was remade in 1958 as Stagestruck with Susan Strasberg inheriting Hepburn's role.

I've never seen Morning Glory. I haven't seen that many of Hepburn's movies. I should work on watching more of them.

Hepburn's resume is very strong...the only person who has won four acting Oscars...if you're interested in looking at her career, I could offer some recommendations. I know you've seen A Lion in Winter, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Modern Way
2022's The Modern Way is an overheated British import that looks at the linking of two British subcultures in a story that purports to be exciting and dangerous, but just lets most of the characters involved get off way too easy.

Danni is a young woman who escapes from her junkie mom and stepfather by hanging out with a trio of dangerous skinheads led by the psychotic Mason. One night Danni gets Frankie, a young Mod, in serious trouble when she has her skinhead allies steal a cache of drugs from his Vespa, which, naturally gets Frankie in some very serious trouble. What the skinheads do with the drugs get Danni in as much trouble as Frankie and it turns out that an old family friend of Danni's named Terry, is the only person who can help Dannie and Frankie out of their respective messes.

This story pretends to be a gritty look at British subcultures, like the Greasers and the Socs in The Outsiders, but most of the characters involved in this story are too stupid to live and make it hard to stay invested in a story that takes way too long to kick in gear. More importantly, the Frankie and Danni characters create their own respective danger where they actually got off a lot easier than they should. Frankie is an idiot for leaving the drugs in his Vespa and even a bigger idiot for going to the dealers, explaining what happened and promising to pay them back, and expecting everything to be all right. And Dannie is no Rhodes scholar leading those skinheads to a cache of drugs and finding them sanctuary with her junkie stepfather, who naturally welcomes them with open arms.

The screenplay by star Jake Henderson and director Giuseppe Monticciolo is just too simplistic in its alleged examination of British gang culture. Actually we just get two sets of really dumb kids who get themselves in a lot of trouble and somehow, this Terry guy is the only answer for Frankie and Danni and Terry no genius either. He thinks throwing money at the problem is the solution and seems genuinely surprised when that's not the end.

Jake Henderson, in a really bad hair piece, is kind of one note as Terry, but I really liked Ashley Hodgson as Frankie and Jack Parr as the completely unhinged Mason, but this one was a chore getting through, and it was under 90 minutes long!

Olympia (2018)
The late Oscar winning actress Olympia Dukakis is the subject of one of the best celebrity documentaries I have ever seen. 2018's Olympia is a boldly delicious look at the life and career of this iconic actress where I learned more about the subject than I could have imagined and found myself entertained and drawn into the center of her fascinating life and all of the people she touched.

This arresting cinema verite focused on an entertainment legend does not go the traditional birth to date route of a lot of documentaries. After fifteen minutes of jumping around to pertinent times in her life and career, the title of the documentary quietly appears at the bottom of the screen and we are taken to the present where we meet the subject and her husband, Louis Zorich (who died seven months after the release of this film), at home with her personal assistant.

Director and co-screenwriter Harry Mavromichalis immediately establishes for the reviewer the tireless and rebellious spirit of this artist, who was definitely more interested in the art than in the accolades. The opening moments of the film are actually a little unsettling as we watch the actress, sans makeup, wandering around a hotel suite trying to figure out how she could get out of going to some event where she was expected. The cameraman/interviewer gets her to confirm that she's not interested in the glitz and the accolades of being an actress. It was refreshing though to hear her actually admit that she was grateful for her 1987 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Moonstruck.

This documentary does reveal that, long before Moonstruck, Dukakis was a driving force in theater. The year I started high school, Dukakis had her own theater company called The Whole Theater and was playing Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night. She had done theater all over the country and was a renowned acting teacher. An actor named Rocco Sisto was one of her students and he shares the joys of being her student. And loved the fact that during all of this, loving Louis Zorich was right at her side.

Theater was always Dukakis' first love and that comes shining through here. Loved the shots of her rehearsing a production of The Tempest playing Prospero, a role that Shakespeare wrote as a male. Her social conscience is also revealed as Dukakis is observed as the grand marshall in the San Francisco Gay Pride parade and appearing in the PBS production of Tales of the City. Commentary is provided by Zorich and her two sons, Laura Linney, Whoopi Goldberg, Lainie Kazan, and Austin Pendleton among others. A glorious look at a show business legend, who herself passed away a little over a year ago.

The Black Phone
Fans of the 2009 drama The Lovely Bones will have a head start with 2021's The Black Phone, a claustrophobic crime thriller that, despite some logic defying plot twists, had this reviewer on the edge of his seat and holding his breath for the majority of the running time.

Based on a short story by Joe Hill, the setting is Denver in the late 70's where a 13 year old boy named Finney is kidnapped by someone simply known as The Grabber. It comes to light that Finney is the Grabber's 5th victim and that the previous four victims are believed to be dead. The Grabber throws Finney in a dingy basement with nothing but a mattress and a disconnected phone on the wall. It's not long before the disconnected phone begins to ring and Finney finds himself communicating with the previous victims who want to help Finney get out. Meanwhile, Finney's little sister, Gwen, is receiving clues to what happened to Finney through her dreams.

Director and co-screenwriter Scott Derrickson helped Hill fashion his story into a viable screenplay that meticulously sets up backstory where we meet the previous victims, who are all revealed to have a level of acquaintance with Finney so that we know that the Grabber is coming his way. Backstory is also provided through Finney and Gwen's troubled relationship with their alcoholic abusive father, who blames the kids' mother's crazy dreams for her eventual suicide, which he equates to Gwen's dreams, which contain details that the police never released.

Most of the logic defying is centered around the grabber. Every time he grabs a kid, he grabs them by twisting a bunch of black balloons around their neck and then leaving the balloons at the scene? Why leave the balloons at the scene? We're given no motivation behind why the Grabber picks the kids he does or his motivation other than murder. Shortly after he takes Finney, a sexual component is hinted at but quickly hinted at but dropped just as quickly. We never learn why this nutcase kidnaps and kills these children. Then there's this phone...we know the phone is not connected and we know Finney is not really talking to the previous victims, but we're confused as to how and why this is happening and why the Grabber is so incensed when he first catches Finney on the phone.

However, as in The Lovely Bones, it becomes clear that the first four victims are not happy about the way they died and they don't want to see the same thing happen to Finney. Fortunately, these kids are given a little more power than Soirse Ronan's character in The Lovely Bones, giving Finney more control over his fate.

Derrickson mounts this story on a dark canvas, enhanced by what is obviously a limited budget, and shows a definite skill with the camera. He gets some first rate performances from Mason Thames as Finney, Madeline McGraw as Gwen, Jeremy Davies as their dad, and especially Ethan Hawke, in an ultra-creepy performance as The Grabber. A sharp thriller that delivers the goods as long as you don't think about it too much.

I think that the implication is that he gets sexual satisfaction out of hurting/killing the kids. I actually appreciate that the movie just gave enough hints of this that you understand the dynamic of it without being to oblique or too explicit. I didn't need any more of the kid being groped or anything. Especially because you know that

I mean, just that shot of him has enough demented charge that you get plenty of ideas about what's up.

I agree that the performances really give this one a boost. I gave it the same rating.

Love Me Tender
By the mid 1950's Elvis Presley was the biggest recording star on the planet and Hollywood knew they had to have a piece of it, so Elvis Presley made an inauspicious film debut in a 1956 film called Love Me Tender that, without Elvis' film debut as a selling point, probably wouldn't have made a blip on the Hollywood radar.

It's the end of the Civil War and we meet a group of confederate soldiers led by one Vance Reno (Richard Egan) robbing a Union payroll and preparing to return home. Vance is eager to return home to his family and the woman he loves named Cathy (Debra Paget). Vance is thrown for a loop when, upon returning home, Vance learns that Cathy is married to his younger brother Clint (guess who?).

As much as Hollywood bigwigs might have considered Elvis a cash cow, this film proved they had their reservations about him and weren't willing to sink everything into his film debut. Twentieth Century Fox shot this film on a budget of a mere million dollars in black and white with passable production values and mostly B movie actors surrounding Elvis in his first film. Elvis is billed third onscreen as "And Introducing...".

The screenplay is a little simplistic, taking a little too much time with exposition, but providing the meat of the film when Vance returns home and we learn, not only has Cathy married Clint, but she is still in love with Vance, even though Clint comes off dumb as a box of rocks for not seeing the feelings between Cathy and his brother.

Elvis does hold his own in his film debut and there is one thing about this film that was a detriment to a lot of his later work. Elvis doesn't sing a song every ten minutes during the running time to keep people from noticing that he wasn't Laurence Olivier. Elvis only sings four songs in this film...the staging of the title tune was a little odd, not the standard love scene I expected.

Richard Egan has the toothiest grin I've seen since Don Ameche but he doesn't get to show it much here. Debra Paget is one-note leading lady, as usual, though '56 was a good year for her...she also appeared in The Ten Commandments and if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance near the beginning of the film from the 2nd Darrin on Bewitched, Dick Sargent. The film is no classic and if Elvis hadn't been in it, I don't think anyone would have seen it.