Gideon58's Reviews

Wild in the Country
Just as he did in Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, Elvis Presley displayed some serious acting chops in 1961's Wild in the Country, a sweet and sensitive adult melodrama that was not typical Elvis fare, thanks to a surprisingly adult screenplay that provided several surprises along the way.

Elvis played Glenn, a hot headed ex-con trying to start his life over, but an attempt at a new life becomes complicated by three very different women: His childhood sweetheart Betty Lee (Millie Perkins) who still loves Glenn, but her family hates him; Noreen (Tuesday Weld) is a wild young widow with a son and Glenn's boss' daughter; Irene Sperry (Hope Lange) is a social worker assigned to help Glenn with his rehabilitation, trapped in a dead end affair with a married man, who discovers Glenn has a talent for writing.

Clifford Odets (Golden Boy) has put together an adult story that went some surprising places for a 1961 film. The Peyton Place atmosphere established is the perfect canvas for this story about a young man finding himself involved with more than one woman. I haven't seen all of his movies, but this is the first Elvis film I've seen where it's implied that his character actually had sex with one of the characters. Anyone familiar with Elvis' resume knows that he was always surrounded by pretty girls, but the subject of sex isn't broached at all. This role was probably a bold career move for Elvis and is also probably why it was one of his less popular films.

Odets and director Phillip Dunne make it clear that they were interested in showcasing Elvis' talent as an actor. Other than a lovely title tune that Presley sings over the opening credits, he only sings three songs in the film, none of which lasted longer than a minute or so and, frankly, the songs added nothing to the film, but 20th Century Fox was probably concerned that if Elvis didn't sing at all, no one would want to see the movie.

In addition to one of Elvis' strongest performances, he is provided two leading ladies who create separate but equally strong chemistry with Presley. Lange is enchanting as the lonely Irene and Tuesday Weld's sex kitten Noreen is one of her most entertaining performances. John Ireland also scores as Irene's scummy married lover. Elvis is finally given a grown up role in a grown up movie that gets a little syrupy in spots, but, once again Elvis proves that in the right role, he was more than golden vocal chords and swiveling hips.

Everything Everywhere All at Once
For my money, the most over-hyped film of 2022, Everything, Everywhere All at Once is an elaborate and technically dazzling fantasy/black comedy that is rich with imagination, but said imagination controls the narrative turning the story pretentious, overly complex, and of course, overlong.

Evelyn is a hard-working but miserable owner of a laundromat who is in the midst of divorcing her loving husband, Waymond and is having trouble accepting the fact that her daughter, Joy, is a lesbian. Evelyn is also frustrated being the primary caregiver for her elderly father and is being audited by the IRS and is in serious danger of losing her business. As she, Waymond, and Grandpa sit down at the IRS with a hard-nosed auditor named Deirdre Beaubeirdre, Evelyn is confronted by a version of her husband from a different universe who offers to take Evelyn on a journey of the roads that she never chose that might have led to a different life for her.

Co-directors and co-screenwriters Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) have concocted what begins as a very simple character study of a troubled woman that balloons into a gargantuan and nonsensical fantasy that borrows elements from several other films, but covers them up with so much cinema pyrotechnics that sometimes they are hard to detect. The story that is initially offered, a look at what other ways Evelyn's life could have gone, eventually gets buried in a lot of artsy symbolism and blazing special effects that eventually come off as reasons why Evelyn's life is the way it is now, rather than what her life could have been.

Kwan and Scheinert deliver a textbook on just about every movie making technique the viewer can imagine, including borrowing plot elements from other movies. While watching, at least half a dozen movies flashed through my mind, including Back to the Future, The Terminator, Ratatouille, and A Christmas Carol, but each visit to an alternate life goes on way too long. Characters introduced in early parts of the film are reintroduced throughout the rest of the film for no discernable. The most aggravating part of the story is there is a point during the final third of the film where Evelyn appears to accept who her daughter is and, for some reason, it just makes a daughter even more angry, initiating a deadly battle with her that is one of the main reasons that the film is about 45 minutes longer than it needs to be.

The film has been generating serious Oscar buzz already and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the spectacular production values, with special nods to editing and visual effects, which are both Oscar worthy. Michelle Yeoh deserves her first Oscar nomination as well for her rich and charismatic performance in the starring role, that keeps the viewer invested in spite of all the razzle dazzle surrounding her. Ke Huy Quan, who is best known for playing Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, is a bit annoying as Waymond but I loved Stephanie Hsu as Evelyn's daughter and Jamie Lee Curtis could snag her first nomination as well for her hilarious performance as Deirdre. And though it's a long shot, I could even see a supporting nomination for screen veteran James Hong as Grandpa Gong Gong. There's imagination to spare here, but it eventually overpowers everything else you need to make a great movie.

The Defiant Ones (1958)
After my recent viewing of the Sidney Poitier documentary, I knew had to finally sit down and watch 1958's The Defiant Ones, an epic yet intimate adventure of friendship and racism that is so emotionally charged that this reviewer was completely riveted to the screen, quite an achievement for a film that is almost 65 years old.

Poitier plays Noah Cullen and Tony Curtis plays "Joker" Jackson, a pair of prisoners, one black and one white, literally shackled together, who are in the midst of being transported to another prison when the truck has an accident and they are able to escape, finding them on the run for their freedom, though they are still shackled together.

Stanley Kramer (Judgement at Nuremburg) gets most of the credit for the success of this multi-faceted story that not only tells the story of two people bound together by their situation and being kept separate because of their race. There are portions of the story where both of our protagonists seem to have advantage over the other and initially take advantage of that, but these two guys never abandon each other. On the other side of the story we have a world weary sheriff (Theodore Bikel) and prison personnel trailing our heroes with dogs and whose attitude about the mission seems a little more laid back than it should be.

The screenplay by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith finds our protagonists in a few very sticky situations here, including a hair raising attempt to get out of a muddy hole filling with rain, a run in with a group of angry farmers who want to lynch the pair. An even more complicated encounter with a young widow (Cara Williams) who wants to run off with Joker and doesn't give a damn what happens to Noah. The racial element of the story has a freshness to it because the Noah character never allows himself to be ridiculed or walked over because of the color of his skin.

This intense and riveting drama received nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture, lead actor nominations for both Curtis and Poitier, supporting nominations for Bikel (the first time I've seen him playing an American) and Williams, and a directing nod for Kramer. The screenplay and cinematography did win Oscars. Poitier is mesmerizing as always and Curtis has rarely been better and Kramer's direction certainly trumps that year's winner, Vincente Minnelli for Gigi. Another classic that more than lived up to its reputation. Remade for TV in 1986 with Carl Weathers and Robert Urich as Noah and Joker.

Confess, Fletch
Even Jon Hamm's considerable onscreen charisma can't save 2022's Confess, Fletch, a confusing and lackluster attempt to revive the character played by Chevy Chase way back in 1985, with the primary culprit seeming to be a screenplay telling two stories that take WAY too long to come together.

After a whirlwind romance in Rome with a glamorous heiress named Angela Di Grassi, IM Fletcher returns to the Boston townhouse where he's staying, that's owned by an Owen Tasserly and finds a murdered woman in the living room upon his return. While Fletch attempts to convince a pair of police detectives that he didn't kill this woman, he is surprised by the arrival of Angela and the news that her father has been kidnapped and all the kidnappers want in exchange for his return is a very rare Picasso.

The idea of reviving one of Chevy Chase's best movie characters is not a bad idea;, unfortunately, director and co-screenwriter Greg Mottola don't spend a lot of time redesigning the Fletch character to fit the talents of Jon Hamm. We have the same light-hearted smart-ass quality that 1985 Fletch had, but there really is nothing else in the screenplay or in Hamm's portrayal here that hearkens back to Chase's character, except for the fact that every 10 minutes of the running time, Hamm's Fletch reminds us and everyone else in the movie that he used to be an investigative reporter. One of the most interesting aspects of the 1985 character was his propensity for disguises that is completely left out in this film.

Mottola seems to try and dazzle us with a terribly busy screenplay that requires complete attention that never really pays off. It took me 20 minutes to figure who's apartment Fletch was staying in at the beginning of the film and by the end of the film, it made no sense why he was staying there, despite a pair of long winded speeches by the villain and by the cops explaining exactly what happened here. Sadly, by the time these explanations finally rolled across the screen, I was just struggling to keep my eyes open.

Hamm works very hard to make us like this new Fletch (Hamm is also billed as the film's producer), but the story is fighting him every step of the way. I did enjoy Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as Angela's sex-starved stepmother and a charming newcomer named Ayden Mayeri as a rookie detective named Griz, but unless you're obsessed with Jon Hamm, I'd give this one a hard pass.

Shallow Hal
Peter and Bobby Ferrelly, the creative force behind films like There's Something About Mary and Me Myself and Irene actually fare a little better with a 2001 oddity called Shallow Hal, which is not nearly as bad as its reputation. The underlying theme of the movie is important and doesn't get buried behind a lot of the bathroom humor we're accustomed to from the Ferrellys.

The film stars Jack Black as the title character, a so-called ladies man who was trained from boyhood that women should be judged purely from physical appearance. One day, Hal gets stuck in an elevator with spiritual guru Tony Robbins, who, shocked by Hal's attitudes regarding women, actually puts some kind of spell on Hal that only allows him to see the inner beauty of a woman.

Hal then meets a sweet, but overweight woman named Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), but Hal doesn't see the extra pounds, just a really beautiful girl, who also happens to be his boss' daughter. When Hal refuses to believe that Rosemary is really fat, his BFF Mauricio (Jason Alexander), goes to Robbins to take his hex off Hal.

The screenplay by the Ferrellys and Sean Moynihan has a lovely theme simmering underneath a story centered around a central character who is kind of a jerk. Hal does eventually learn the lesson that he's supposed to but it takes way too long. Didn't initially understand the gimmick of never seeing fat Rosemary in full face until the final act of the comedy, but that gimmick does pay off eventually. There was an added pleasant surprise when it's revealed that Hal's new way of looking at Rosemary didn't just apply to Rosemary.

The story is pleasant and absent a lot of the smarmy humor the Ferrelly brothers usually provide and Jack Black offers one of his most charming and intelligent performances in the title role, that actually made this film worth watching. Paltrow is a little one-note as Rosemary but Alexander was funny, as was Joe Viterrelli, who stole every scene he had in Analyze This as Paltrow's father (actually doing an Irish accent). It's no classic, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I really liked Shallow Hal! I thought the script was surprisingly warm and funny. I especially like the scene with Hal visiting the children's ward at the hospital and seeing them as just happy kids. Jack Black was great, I wish he had landed in more films like this. And of course I think Gywneth Paltrow is way cute in that movie poster.

Dear Zoe
Despite some solid performances at its heart, the 2022 indie Dear Zoe is a soapy melodrama that moves at a snail's pace and features a central character who is often hard to like.

Tess is a sensitive and passionate 16 year old who, along with her mother, stepfather, and little sister, have just suffered through the death of Tess' other baby sister on 9/11. Unable to focus on a proper grieving process, Tess runs away from home and finds some solace with her biological father and the pot-smoking kid who lives next door.

The screenplay, based on a novel by Phillip Beard, attempts some sophistication by fashioning Tess' unnecessary narration in the form of a letter to her dead sister, a gimmick which is quickly forgotten. The exposition surrounding Zoe's death occurring on 9/11, but having nothing to do with 9/11, spreads an air of pretentiousness around the proceedings that they don't really deserve because we don't really learn how Zoe died until the final ten minutes of the film and what we learned was so not worth the wait.

This reviewer also found it difficult latching onto a likability for this Tess character. First, we see her blaming herself for Zoe's death, but taking it out on her mother and stepfather. She runs away to her real Dad, who is the answer to her prayers until he stops letting her lay around the house and do whatever she wants. Her likability quotient hit the bottom for me when she started nagging her father about getting a job. Sometimes it's cute in a parent/child relationship when the child tries to be the parent, but it wasn't here.

Director Gren Wells offers some stylish directorial flourishes but they don't stop the film from seeming four hours long. Sadie Sink works very hard in the role of Tess and I also liked Jessica Capshaw (Arizona on Grey's Anatomy)as her mother and Justin Bartha (The Hangover) as her stepfather. But the real scene stealer here was Theo Rossi as Tess' bio dad, who almost made this film watching by himself. A nice attempt at a real movie experience that was ultimately kind of empty.

The Dark Corner
Five years before she finally found fame as Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball was given the best role of her spotty film career and knocked it out of the park. The Dark Corner is a stylish and intricately plotted film noir that keeps the viewer invested with a solid story and a performance by Lucille Ball that commands the screen like nothing she had done.

The 1946 drama is about a private detective named Brad Galt (Mark Stevens), with a shady past which catches up with him in the form of a hired killer (William Bendix) and a lawyer named Anthony Jardine (Kurt Kreuger) who Brad went to jail for. Brad not only finds someone trying to kill him but frame him for Jardine's murder as well. We watch Brad struggle to get out from under the danger he's put in with a lot of help from his loyal secretary named Kathleen (guess who?}.

The deliciously intricate screenplay by the writers of Laura, Caged, and All Through the Night is an atmospheric and plausible noir out of tiny cinematic puzzle pieces that eventually fall into place...a place from which there seems to be no escape for our hero, Brad, but the fiercely loyal Kathleen is having none of that.

And that's what really makes this film work, the character of Kathleen and the actress who portrays her. As the film opens, we learn Kathleen has only been working for Brad a few weeks, but she is clearly in love with the man. Even as bodies and evidence begin pile up around him, Kathleen stands by her man and is completely fearless about what might be coming their way. Kathleen does make a couple of dumb moves along the way, but always with the best of intentions. It's clear that no matter what was going to happen to Brad during this story that Kathleen was going to be right beside him when it did. Lucille Ball brings a gutsy sexuality to Kathleen that lights up the screen and creates a kinetic chemistry with Mark Stevens that cannot be ignored.

Director Henry Hathaway (Niagara) provides a dark yet inviting canvas on which this story methodically unfolds. Stevens, who was so good in The Snake Pit, brings a real John Garfield quality to Brad. Clifton Webb brings his accustomed polish to his wealthy art gallery owner and Bendix steals every scene he's in, but this is Lucy's film and she totally owns this movie, earning the top billing unworthy of the character's place in the story. Lucy and al of Hollywood thought this film was going to ignite a real spark in Lucy's career and it should have, but sadly didn't. Of course, in less than a decade, she would be the queen of television comedy, but she proved she could command a movie screen here.

I just watched The Dark Corner a couple weeks ago. I liked the movie OK, but didn't care for Lucille Ball's acting. She's so much better at comedy.

Wow, really? I loved her in this, I think she made the movie.

The Long, Long Trailer is my favorite movie of hers.

I loved The Long Long Trailer too. I also think Lucy never looked more beautiful onscreen than she did in The Long Long Trailer.

Yes she did look beautiful in that movie. If you liked her in the noir-drama The Dark Corner you might like her in another noir-drama Lured (1947)

A Christmas Story Christmas
This recent trend of making sequels to 30 year old movies (Bill and Ted Face the Music, Top Gun Maverick, Confess Fletch) has produced some pretty lackluster results thus far so my trepidation regarding a sequel to the 1983 classic A Christmas Story was understandable, but 2022's A Christmas Story Christmas pretty much knocked it out of the park, a deliciously witty sequel to a classic that provided its own entertainment instead of just rehashing the first movie.

A grown up Peter Billingsley slips comfortably back into the role of Ralphie Parker, the little boy who more than anything wanted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Ralph is now living in Chicago with his wife, Sandy and his kids, Mark and Julie. Ralph is pursuing his passion of becoming a writer and has written a book that has been turned down by 15 of the 16 publishers he sent it to. As Christmas approaches, Ralph learns of the passing of his father (brilliantly played by the late Darren McGavin in the original film) and decides to bring his family back to the small town where he grew up to spend Christmas with his mom (Julie Hagerty, replacing Melinda Dillon who played mom in the original).

Upon his return home, Ralph begins to experience a Murphy's Law Christmas, where everything that can go wrong does. He has to find a real tree to replace the artificial tree he finds in the attic, nursing his family back to health when Sandy sprains her ankle, Mark breaks his arm, and he almost blinds Julie with a snowball, replacing a defective radiator on his car, struggling to write his father's obituary, and going into complete meltdown when all of the Christmas presents he bought for the family get stolen.

Director Clay Kaytis (The Angry Birds Movie) and screenwriters Jean Shepherd, Billingsley and Nick Schenk show nothing but pure love for the original movie and bring the original canvas beautifully to life but provide us with a fresh, multi-layered story that doesn't just rehash everything that happened in the original film, but evokes memories of the classic without overpowering the story presented here. Like the original film, the story is broken down into individual vignettes that don't all deal directly with Christmas, but do bring us back to Ralphie's childhood documented in 1983. We are delighted as Ralph is reunited with childhood buddies Flick and Schwartz, as well as a memorable reunion with his former bully Scott Farkas and Ralph's little brother Randy. We even are reunited with the next door neighbors', the Bumpases' angry pack of dogs, who antagonized Dad in the original movie. We do get brief flashbacks and reminders of the first movie but nothing is duplicated from the first movie. LOVED when Ralph was looking for the decorations in the attic and found the bunny suit he wore in the original.

This movie provided laugh out loud entertainment for most of the running time. Loved the narration, even if some of it reminded me of Chris Rock's narration on his sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. Particularly loved Julie's grilling of the department store Santa, Ralph's gift shopping adventure while Mom and his wife sipped martinis, the snowball fight where Julie almost loses her eye, Ralph's mission to replace the shattered Christmas star, and everything that happened at "the Ramp."

It was nice to see so many actors from the original movie reprise their roles. Billingsley is endlessly charming as the grown up Ralph and I'm glad they had the sense to kill off Dad, instead of trying to replace Darrin McGavin, who was perfection in the original. I was a little disappointed that Melinda Dillon didn't return as Mom, but Julie Hagerty was an absolute delight in the role. I also liked that the Mom character was softened a bit. It was nice seeing her drinking wine and cheating at scrabble. Scott Schwartz and JD Robb were terrific as Flick and Schwartz, and the way the incident at "the Ramp" collated with the tongue on the telephone pole incident was clever and I'm glad they didn't try to recreate that scene...been there done that. I had serious reservations about this project when I first heard about it, but my fears have been put to rest and I can safely say if you loved the first movie like I do, you'll like this one too.

Mickey One
Before they triumphed with Bonnie and Clyde, star Warren Beatty and director Arthur Penn teamed up for a moody and abstract character study called Mickey One about a man trying to run from his past and finding it pretty much impossible.

The 1965 drama stars Beatty as the title character, a nightclub comedian who is so into the mob for a serious gambling debt that they attempt to murder him. After barely escaping with his life, he decides the only way to continue breathing is to fake his death, assume the identity of a homeless person and go on the run. Ironically, as he is settling into his new anonymous life, he is offered a chance to resume his stage career with the help of a mysterious nightclub owner.

Screenwriter Alan Surgal provides a story that provides little backstory and logic defying leaps in story structure as well as relationships for the central character that come out of nowhere . We're not exactly sure how much money Mickey owes these guys, but they have scared the bejesus out of him to the point that the guy trusts absolutely no one. For some reason, he does place a semblance of trust in a creepy agent named George and a pretty girl named Jenny, but he doesn't offer either of them the truth as he believes it. The story also makes some odd detours into fantasy where the viewer isn't really sure if they're true fantasies, causing mild confusion at times.

The holes in the screenplay notwithstanding, this central character will keep the viewer invested. This guy redefines the word paranoia, believing everyone walking the streets of Chicago is after him and the finale, where suddenly Mickey finds that his invisible enemy is not so invisible, is a master class in direction by Penn.

The atmosphere that Penn creates through stunning black and white cinematography, editing, and a camera that looks into the soul of the title character is simultaneously riveting and chilling. Warren Beatty, in only his fifth feature film appearance, gives a gutsy performance of fire and ice that definitely previews the actor he would become. Kudos as well to Hurd Hatfield (The Picture of Dorian Grey), Alexandra Stewart, and Jeff Corey who make the most of their screentime as well. The story veers in some odd directions at times, but Penn and Beatty make it worth a look.

Spirited
Yes, the holiday season is upon us, but the last thing we need from Hollywood is yet another interpretation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but for some reason there are moviemakers out there who still think they can bring something special to this classic story, but it's pretty much all been done, evidenced by 2022's Spirited an overly cute and slightly confusing musical re-imagining of the Dickens classic that features some spectacular production values, a melodic score from the composers of La La Land, and a willing cast, but its attempt at being a different version of a story we've seen a million times is kind of exhausting and seemed about seven hours long.

Will Ferrell plays Present, the Ghost of Christmas Present, who has been assigned to haunt Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), a ruthless media mogul who handles business competition by digging up or creating scandals about them. The latest task he has assigned to his assistant, Kimberly (Oscar winner Octavia Spencer) has her wanting to quit until she somehow is able to see Present, who implores her help in changing Clint and falls for her in the process. Meanwhile, Clint's complete fighting of this process leads him to helping Present deal with his past, leading to a some what surprising reveal.

Director and co-screenwriter Sean Anders (Daddy's Home) gets an A for effort for the care and imagination he puts into this story, but he really lets it get away from him. We know we're in trouble when Clint comes on to the Ghost of Christmas Past and Present has to take over, but we're confused when Clint unexpectedly turns the tables and Present decides it's time to examine his past, leading to the "big reveal" as to who Present was when he human. Subplots about Clint's dying sister, his niece, who is trying to win a school election, and a supposed romance between Present and Kimberly get shuffled around to the point of distraction. The romance between Present and Kimberly doesn't work at all. Not since Richard Gere kissed Jodie Foster in Somersby have I seen a screen kiss as awkward as the one between Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer.

The songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are pleasant enough, with special shout outs to Spencer's "The View From Here", Reynolds "Bringin Back Christmas", and Ferrell's "Unredeemable". There's also a spectacular production number that features Ferrell and Reynolds tap dancing called "Good Afternoon" that stops the show, but brings the film to a halt as well. On the plus side, the stars are all doing their own singing.

Anders was given a big budget for this film and it's all up there on the screen, with shout outs to production design, art direction, editing, and visual effects. Ferrell is more subdued than usual but still does what he's supposed to while allowing Reynolds' slick performance as Clint to really shine, but there's so much going on here, it's just tiring and I wanted the movie to end about 45 minutes before it did.

Family Business (1989)
A nearly forgotten gem from the resume of one of my favorite directors, Sidney Lumet, Family Business is a 1989 comedy-drama about three generations of a crime family that sags a little in the middle because the least interesting part of the story is the crime.

This is the story of the McMullen family which unfolds with young Adam McMullen (Matthew Broderick) borrowing money from his father, Vito (Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman) so that he bail his grandfather, Jessie (the late Sean Connery) out of jail. Adam worships his granddad even though Vito resents their closeness. Vito is naturally concerned when Adam comes to his granddad with a robbery idea that could net them over a million and agrees to participate as a way of protecting Adam.

The screenplay by Vincent Patrick (The Pope of Greenwich Village) is rich with the Brooklyn New York atmosphere that Lumet knows how to mount better than almost any director. Lumet also takes a little time with exposition than most stories do, but in this case, it definitely works to the film's advantage. Before the first act is over, we learn of the tension between Vito and Adam and why Adam blames Vito but Vito blames Jessie. We learn that Jessie thinks his son is stick in the mud for giving up a life of crime to run a meat packing plant. Vito hasn't forgotten where he came from, which comes shining through in a brief scene where he thinks an employee (Luis Guzman) is ripping him off.

Incredibly, the film really gets hard to stay with when the actually crime is committed, but it bounces back for an extremely effective finale where we learn of the consequences of the McMullen boys' actions and how it changes their already damaged relationships forever. Lumet and Patrick are also to be applauded for not wrapping the story up into a neat little boy where the McMullen boys ride off into the sunset together.

Lumet's atmospheric direction serves the story perfectly, as it always does, and gets the accustomed splendid performances from his hand-picked cast. Broderick offers his accustomed charm and Hoffman's method acting initially seems ill-suited for this character, but it eventually works, but Connery is the show here, stealing every scene he's in. Lumet's directorial polish and the lead performances help the viewer overlook the minor problems.

The Estate (2022)
The 2022 black comedy The Estate does a serious retread over some well worn cinematic territory and, sadly, doesn't do it very well.

Macey (Toni Collette) and Savanna (Anna Faris) are sisters who run a diner that is about be foreclosed upon and decide the only way to save their business is to travel to the palatial home of their dying Aunt Hilda (Kathleen Turner) and suck up for the inheritance. Unfortunately, they have been beat to the punch as their arrival finds their bitchy cousin Beatrice, her wimpy husband, and sleazeball cousin Dick are already there, lips firmly attached to Aunt Hilda's butt.

Director and screenwriter Dean Craig seems to have some sort of obsession with funerals and dysfunctional families because he is also the force behind the dreadful 2010 comedy Death at a Funeral. which featured a mostly black cast. He's gone from blacks to white trash as most of the characters in this movie will probably bring to mind either much superior films like Knives Out, Greedy, and The Honey Pot, but what it actually brings to mind is a an extended episode of Jerry Springer's talk show.

The initially ass kissing goes all the familiar places we expect, but the film takes a tasteless turn near the halfway point where we learn that Aunt Hilda's bucket list includes a final sex romp and this is where the movie really starts to lose us, especially when Beatrice forces her husband to offer himself to Aunt Hilda.

It was sad watching a talented actress like Toni Collette debase herself by appearing in such nonsense. I'd like to think that a different actress was originally cast as Macey and had to drop out, making a Collette a fill in. Anna Faris did similar slapstick on Mom and the Scary Movie franchise and Rosemarie Dewitt does bring the bitchy to Beatrice, but the few laughs this film provided actually came from David Duchovny as smarmy Cousin Dick. It wasn't the worst comedy ever, but Toni Collette deserves better than this.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
After my recent viewing of The Girl Can't Help it, I knew my next stop on the Jayne Mansfield movie express had to be Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, a sparkling 1957 satire on the advertising agency that is still deliciously entertaining thanks to a razor sharp screenplay and wonderful performances from the stars.

The comedy stars the late Tony Randall, in his second feature film appearance, as Rockwell P Hunter, an advertising copywriter who has an idea to save the company he works for from losing their biggest client, Stay Put Lipstick. Rockwell decides that if they can get glamorous movie star Rita Marlowe (Mansfield) to endorse their product, all their problems will be solved. Ms. Marlowe is having problems of her own, though. It seems her boyfriend, Bobo (Mickey Hargitay) has been cheating on her. Rockwell does get to pitch Ms. Marlowe, who agrees to endorse the lipstick if Rockwell pretends to be her new boyfriend. Hunter agrees to the charade, even if it turns his life upside down and alienates him from his longtime girlfriend, Jenny (Betsy Drake).

This comedy is blessed with a surprisingly intelligent and contemporary screenplay by the director Frank Tashlin that not only is an accurate peak at the business of show business in the 1950's but is one of the earliest films that never lets the viewer forget that they're watching a movie, tampering with the 4th wall, even during the opening credits, which I won't spoil by elaborating. Once we're assured that we are watching a movie, we think we're going to get a straight movie until about 35 minutes before the end of the movie, where we get another surprise that this reviewer didn't see coming at all before gliding to its smooth conclusion. I was also impressed with Tashlin's window dressing of the movie, which included movie posters and billboards of other movies where the titles of other Jayne Mansifleld movies were used instead of fictional movie titles

Admittedly, I was a little disappointed with The Girl Can't Help It, but I thought Jayne Mansfield gave a much more entertaining performance in this film. She gets stronger assistance from her director and the script, playing a role more suited to her talent that still allowed Ms Mansfield to take advantage of her obvious physical assets, and Rita Marlowe is about more than that. As entertaining as Mansfield is here, Tony Randall is the movie's real star, giving such a crackerjack performance of complex physical comedy and flawed human emotion that we can't help but love the guy and want everything he wants for himself. Can't believe this was only his second film.

Drake is a little one-note as Jenny, but Henry Jones and John Williams were a lot of fun as Rock's bosses, as was Joan Blondell as Rita's assistant. Mickey Hargitay, who played Bobo, was married to Mansfield at the time and they had a daughter, Mariska, who now plays Capt Olivia Benson on Law and Order SVU. It's been reputed that Benson's character has a picture if Mariska's mother on her desk, but I've never seen it. And if you look closely, you will notice a pretty secretary named Miss Carstairs in a pair of scenes in this movie, played by a young Barbara Eden. This was sparkling and delightful entertainment from opening to closing credits, and a big improvement over The Girl Can't Help It.

Till
The first serious contender for a 2022 Best Picture Oscar nomination, Till is an emotionally charged, fact-based docudrama of racism, grief, and justice mounted with an uncanny melange of power and sensitivity taking this reviewer through a gamut of emotions not felt from a single motion picture experience in a long time.

The story begins in 1955 Chicago where Mamie Till, a single working mother with a 14 year old son named Emmett, whom she affectionally refers to as Bobo, is apprehensive about letting Bobo go on a vacation to visit some cousins in Mississippi. Mamie warns Bobo to be respectful of everyone he meets down there, especially white people because any action on his part can be misinterpreted. After about a week in Mississippi, Emmett is brutally lynched and Mamie's anger about what happened to Emmett makes her a reluctant symbol for the Civil Rights Movement, but Mamie's only real concern is finding justice for her son.

Still collecting my thoughts about this emotionally draining motion picture experience that had me mesmerized from opening to closing credits. Director and co-screenwriter Chinonye Chukwu is worthy of double nominations for her incredible work in turning these horrible real life events into a viable motion picture experience. Chukwu takes her time in letting this story unfold, but not too much time so that interest never wanes. Particularly impressive was the care put into the introduction of this Emmett Till character to the viewer. We meet a charming, sensitive, hard-working child who adores his family and life in general. Emmett is portrayed as understanding what racism is, but doesn't really take it seriously as he should have.

Equal care went into the crafting of the Mamie character as well. This is a woman of not just great strength, but of great intelligence, something we don't expect to see from a black female movie character in the 1950's. Her decision to publish pictures of Emmett's body after it is returned to Chicago was inspired as was her decision to have his casket be open for his funeral. I loved the way Mamie managed to keep herself together during the funeral, but she completely lost it when the box containing her son's body was taken off the boat from Mississippi...one of movie's most powerful scenes, which definitely found me fighting tears.

Don't want to spoil the final act where the two men who grabbed Emmitt and took him to his final fate are put on trial. Though this part of the film became a little melodramatic, it is forgiven because of what happened, which aroused pure anger. As angry as it made me, it was nothing unrealistic and that's why it was so maddening.

Chukwu employed first rate production values in bringing this epic the screen. Cinematography, production design, art direction, and costumes are all worthy of Oscar nominatiions. Danielle Deadwyler is also a lock for a Best Actress nomination for her powerhouse performance as Mamie Till Bradley. This dazzling performance brought to mind some of the finest work of Cicely Tyson and Viola Davis. She also nails that thing Viola Davis does where she fills her eyes with water without allowing a tear to fall. Deadwyler's performance coud have carried this film all by itself. Sean Patrick Thomas and Frankie Faison are solid as Mamie's boyfriend and father, respectively and Jalyn Hall is a charmer as young Bobo. And over 30 years after winning her first Oscar for Ghost, Whoopi Goldberg could earn her third nomination for her quietly powerful performance as Mami's mother. Everything works here and leaves a definite lump in the throat while doing it.