Gideon58's Reviews

Dicks: The Musical
The Parent Trap meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a vulgar, tasteless, and unfunny 2023 musical called Dicks: The Musical that was, hands down, the worst film I saw in 2023, and just might be the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

A pair of gay cabaret performers named Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson have conceived this ridiculous musical comedy about a pair of rival businessman who learn that they are identical twins who were separated at birth by their now divorced parents, so they decide to pull a Hayley Mills on them in order reunite them as a family, and ,in the process, fall in love with each other.

Yes, that synopsis is pretty accurate and I'm not sure what these two guys were thinking when they came up with this, but this movie just appears to be a drug-influenced hallucination thrown up on the screen as a musical that just baffles, confuses, and repulses the viewer from the opening credits . Even before the credits roll we get a disclaimer on the screen explaining that this film was written by two gay men who are playing two straight men and that this is, indeed, "brave." I don't know why these guys thought that this piece might have appeal for anyone outside of an off-off Broadway cabaret in the village. Once we meet the boys' father played by Broadway legend Nathan Lane, a gay man who lives with two tiny alien creatures he keeps in a cage and feeds them bits of ham, I was ready to check out, but morbid curiosity somehow kept me watching, despite the fact that I don't think I laughed once during the entire 90-minute running time.

Don't get me wrong, Sharp and Jackson do possess some talent as singers and songwriters and it is their musicianship that is the one redeeming quality of this movie. The songs are quite engaging with "I'll always be on Top", "No One Understands", "Mimosas with Daddy", "Desperate for your Love" and "Out Alpha the Alpha” being the highlights. The musical numbers are well-sung and choreographed, but frankly, whenever the singing and dancing stopped, so did any possible appeal this movie had. The story is rich with every gay stereotype you can think of and the song lyrics consist mostly of gay sexual double entendres.

My jaw dropped when the credits revealed that this film was directed by Larry Charles, who helped Larry David create Seinfeld and I have to wonder what motivated him to do this because this movie redefines hot mess and I found myself embarrassed for Charles, Sharp, Jackson, Lane, Megan Mullaly who played the boys' mom, Megan Thee Stallion as the boys' boss, and SNL's Bowen Yang as God (don't ask). Have no idea how I managed to stay awake for the whole 90 minutes, but I did and I totally regret it. Even the bloopers attached at the end of the film weren't funny.

For Pete's Sake
Even the considerable screen charisma of Barbra Streisand can't save 1974's For Pete's Sake, a silly slapstick comedy that probably only got made because Streisand is in the starring role.

Fresh off her Oscar-nominated performance in the smash The Way We Were and in a very unflattering wig, Streisand plays Henrietta Robbins, a housewife struggling with the high cost of living while trying to help support her cab driver/college student husband, Pete (Michael Sarrazin). When Pete gets insider information regarding an investment in commodities that will cost him $3000. Without Pete's knowledge, Henrietta gets the money from a loan shark and, needless to say, this is only the beginning of Henrietta's troubles.

Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin, who won Oscars for writing the 1959 Doris Day comedy Pillow Talk, are the culprits behind this lame and predictable comedy that takes way too long to get where it's going. Almost 15 minutes of screentime is spent on Henrietta being lectured by grocery store clerks, bank clerks, and insurance adjusters reading her the riot act for buying pot roast. Then after meeting Pete's older brother and sister-in- law, we finally get to the meat of the story, which consists of Henrietta's multiple screwups at earning the money back (including prostitution) while the interest on her original loan keeps increasing.

Streisand is given a character who is likable and sympathetic, a lot of which comes after her encounter with her bitchy sister-in-law, played by Estelle Parsons, but once Henrietta can't pay back the loan on time, the character becomes dumb as a box of rocks and finds herself in one stupid situation after another, including a chase down a Manhattan street riding a bull. It goes without saying that in order for the story to work, Pete is no Einstein either.

Director Peter Yates (Bullitt) provides rather pedestrian direction to this dumb story that barely sustains interest for its running time. A lot of familiar faces turn up along the way in supporting roles and glorified cameos including William Redfield, Richard Ward, Louis Zorich, Joseph Maher, Anne Ramsey and Vincent Schiavelli. The legendary Molly Picon also garners laughs as a little old lady madam named Mrs. Cherry. There are selective laughs for hardcore Streisand fans only.

The Iron Claw
Despite a screenplay that could have used a little tightening, 2023's The Iron Claw is an emotionally manipulative look at a sports dynasty that, at times, made my blood boil, thanks to a tragic story and some terrific performances.

This movie is an up close and personal look at the legendary Von Erich family who were the cornerstone of the original professional wrestling company called World Class Wrestling where after his own retirement, Fritz Von Erich pretty much bullied his four sons into professional wrestling, including one who was really an Olympic athlete, grounded because of the Moscow boycott and the other, who really wanted to be a musician. Kevin Von Erich reveals that his family was believed to be cursed, but what Kevin believed to be a curse, might have just been the machinations of his father.

Director and screenwriter Sean Durkin (Martha Macy May Marlen) has put a great deal of care in bringing the story of the Von Erich family to the screen without too much melodramatics for us to wade through. The establishment of the family dynamic is carefully crafted to set up the villain of the piece during a scene where the family is sharing a meal and Fritz emphatically lists for his boys who his favorites are, from most favorite to least favorite, without batting an eye. I've never seen a movie dad do that before. This scene made me hate the guy for pretty much the remainder of the movie. No matter what tragedy or negativity overcame this family. Fritz refuses to be accountable for any of it. We see Kevin choke his father near the end of the movie and I cheered the same way I did when Jack Nicholson choked Louise Fletcher at the climax of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I also found myself disliking two major characters in the story that I don't think I was supposed to dislike. One was Pam, the love interest for Kevin who pretty much bullied the man into a relationship with her. She didn't try to come between Kevin and his brothers, but as bad things start happening to the family, she just didn't seem to care outside of how it affected her. The other was the matriarch of the family, who it was hard to watch just stand silently in the background and watch her husband emotionally abuse these boys. There are multiple scenes in this movie that aroused such anger in me.

Durkin assembles a top-notch cast to pull this often squirm-worthy story off. Even though he looks like he's on steroids, Zac Efron still manages to provide a solid performance as Kevin Von Erich and Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) is equally intense as Kerry. Stanley Simons made his Michael Von Erich worth watching, but it's Holt McCallany's richly internalized performance as the demanding Fritz Von Erich that really keeps this movie on boil. It's a little longer than it needed to be, but the cast still makes it worth watching.

The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers
A convoluted romantic triangle is at the center of a noir-ish melodrama from 1946 called The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers that is best known today as the official film debut of a young actor named Kirk Douglas.

Martha Ivers, Sam Masterson, and Walter O'Neil were childhood friends who were all privy to a terrible secret that could easily send any of them to prison. As the film flashes to their adult lives we see that Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) is now the town's wealthiest woman and is unhappily married to Walter (Douglas), who is now the town's wimpy, alcoholic DA. As their misery is established we see Sam (Van Heflin) return to town and immediately pursued by a sultry blonde fresh out of jail named Toni (the throaty-voiced Lizabeth Scott) and you have all the ingredients for classic 40'snoir.

The screenplay starts off quite effectively, quickly establishing the hate/hate relationship between a pre-teen Martha and her wealthy aunt (Dame Judith Anderson) but once the three central characters are taken into adulthood, the screenplay becomes very murky in terms of what is going on between the three of then. Martha and Walter look so miserable and it's never made clear what got them together and why they are still together. As for Walter, he is equally tight-lipped why he's returning to Iverstown and gets the same treatment from the needy Toni, who clings to Sam like a vine from the moment he pulls into town. Ironically, the film received its only Oscar nomination for Best Original Story.

The connection of the plot points and the characters here takes a lot longer than it should, It was especially frustrating watching Toni because her character seems to be getting in the way of the initial story set up. Not to mention, as drawn as Toni initially seems to be drawn to Sam, her devotion to him does have a price. We also get two different stories regarding what happened to Sam when he grew up, but the actors are so good in their roles that we just kind of roll with it.

Kirk Douglas steps up in his film debut, playing a character we really want to have sympathy for but Douglas and the screenplay make that difficult. Heflin and Scott definitely establish chemistry, but it is the icy performance by Stanwyck, that rivals her work in Double Indemnity that really makes this movie worth investing in. Lewis Milestone's direction is solid and I loved Miklos Roza's music too.

The Zone of Interest
2023's The Zone of Interest is a crisp and compelling Holocaust drama that looks at the horror from a provocative point of view, even if it does start to lose steam around the halfway point.

Aufschwitz is the setting for this chilling drama, but instead of brining us inside the walls of the concentration camp to witness the horror up close and personal, we are brought inside an elegant residence next to the camp where we learn that Aufschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss resides with his wife, Hedwig, his two sons, and a dog named Diller. We are shocked as we learn that Hoss has provided an elegant home for his wife and family, where the horrors of the concentration camp are just over a brick wall and electric fencing.

Jonathan Glazer, the director of Sexy Beast, is the director and screenwriter for this drama, work for which he has earned two Oscar nominations. Glazer has taken a chilling piece of history and given us a unique perspective as we watch the cameras pan beautifully manicured lawns and well taken care of gardens cared for with pride by the Hoss family. We see the kids playing in the yard and Hedwig having coffee and gossiping with her friends, while just a few feet away, we not only see windows of the camp peeking into their yard, but the horrified screams from what is happening on the other side of that brick wall.

This is such an uncomfortable experience because we're never really sure exactly how much Rudolf's wife and children know about what's going on next door and I'm pretty sure that was Glazer's intent. And just when we've settled into a semblance of comfort about what we're witnessing, we learn that Hoss is being transferred and Hedwig doesn't want to go. It's upon arrival at his new post where the movie begins to lose focus, where scenes go on much longer than they need to leading nowhere, but bouncing back for a haunting finale.

Glazer's Oscar-nominations are richly deserved, but in the year of Oppenheimer, I don't see him winning, He definitely deserves the nods though for his spectacular attention to the visual feast this film is as well as the performances he gets from Christian Friedel as Rudolf and Sandra Huller (Best Actress nominee this year for Anatomy of a Fall) as Hedwig, but this is just not Academy friendly subject matter, riveting as it might be.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
Danny Kaye had one of the best hits of his career with a ;lavishly produced comic fantasy from 1947 called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty that provides solid entertainment for hardcore Kaye fans, even if the film does suffer from overly complex plotting and overlength, despite an impressive pedigree.

The title character is a nerdy proofreader at a publishing company who is getting ready to get married but his tendency as a daydreamer is getting him in constant trouble at work, with his fiancee Gertrude, and his clingy overbearing mother. Walter's daydreaming and real life seem to become one when he meets a beautiful girl on a train who gets him involved in a secret conspiracy that involves a black book, a dangerous criminal called The Boot, and witnessing a murder.

The screenplay by Ken Englund and Everett Freeman is actually based on a story by legendary writer and cartoonist James Thurber, a story that provides an uneven blend of comic fantasy and film noir that never quite comes together because the fantasy elements of the story are so much more entertaining than the noir sections of the film that come off more like Grade Z Hitchcock that never quite connect the way Walter's fantasy world does because the Thurber's expertise in fantasy makes the rest of the film rather labored and keeps the movie at a too leisurely pace that made the film much longer than it needed to be.

What does work here is the wonderfully gifted Kaye and the complete commitment he provides to the demanding physical comedy and precise comic timing provided to pull this role off. The only real laugh out loud sequences in this film come from these fantasy scenes that are elaborately mounted by director Norman Z McLeod, who also directed Kaye in The Kid From Brooklyn. I especially liked the wild west fantasy, the French hat designer, and the riverboat gambler fantasies. Two of the sequences are musical, with songs written by Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine, that allow Kaye to show his gift for patter songs that was also so beautifully utilized in The Court Jester.

Kaye completely commits to this larger than life comedy with an exuberant and sweet-natured performance that helps to keep the viewer invested in the sometimes awkward proceedings. Virginia Mayo is lovely in one of the five films she made with Kaye as the girl on the train and movie icon Boris Karloff is an impressive comic villain. Oscar winner Fay Bainter is lovely as Walter's mother, as is Ann Rutherford, who was given a little time off from the Andy Hardy movies to play Walter's fiancee. The film has some slow spots, but Kaye still makes this movie worth watching. The film was remade in 2013 with Ben Stiller.

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling
Having binged The Larry Sanders Show a couple of months ago, this reviewer was naturally drawn to a 2018 HBO documentary called The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, a funny and often genuinely moving look at the beloved comedian that offered a lot of new information about the comic, including the demons that were in his head that he did an admirable job of keeping private.

Judd Apatow is the creative force behind this movie begins with a look at Shandling's childhood, where it was revealed that Shandling had an older brother who died when Garry was 10 years old. For some reason, Garry's parents decided that to protect Garry from the pain, that he was initially not told about what happened and was not allowed to attend his brother's funeral, a critical misstep in Garry's childhood that destroyed his relationship with his mother and stayed with Garry for the rest of his life, affecting the rest of his life. A life that is presented to the viewer via a hand-written journal that Shandling kept for most his life, random thoughts that he scribbled down as they occurred to him, effectively revealing a lot of Shandling's internal struggles.

There are a couple of messages about the comedian that come through loud and clear in this documentary. First of all, despite the impressive career he carved out for himself as a stand up and actor, Garry was first and foremost a writer and this was his true passion. This is first documented in a story about Garry's first meeting with the legendary George Carlin after sending Carlin some material he wrote. We are offered a look at Shandling's first appearance on The Tonight Show, as well as the first time he was asked to guest host the show for Johnny, where he appeared happier than I have ever seen him. Shandling is seen writing, constantly writing and re-writing and never really being satisfied. It's also revealed that dozens and dozens of writers were hired and fired during the run of The Larry Sanders Show.

The other message about the comedian that comes through regarding Shandling is that he was a serious commitment-phobe and I'm not just talking about relationships, but his career as well. He didn't like to commit to any job for any serious length of time. He was thrilled when he signed a contact to be a permanent guest host of The Tonight Show, but when he got It's Garry Shandling's Show, he got out of his contact with Johnny, certain he could not handle both jobs. We also get an up close and personal look at the long and complicated relationship with his manager, Brad Grey, which climaxed with Shandling suing the guy for a hundred million dollars. Grey is now a high level executive at Paramount Studios, who was a producer of the 2005 Best Picture winner The Departed and was also an executive producer on The Sopranos. We are also introduced to Linda Doucet, the actress who was Shandling's longtime girlfriend and played Darlene on Larry Sanders. When their relationship ended, so did Doucet's role on the show.

Shandling's inner circle who provide commentary for this film is impressive. Was especially impressed with his relationship with Jerry Seinfeld. I've never seen anyone make Seinfeld laugh the way Shandling did. We also get commentary from Jim Carrey, Bob Saget, Kevin Nealon, Dave Coulier, Sarah Silverman, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Linda Doucet, Jeffrey Tambor, Sasha Baron Cohen, Peter berg, and Alan Zweibel. For fans of the comic, appointment viewing.

7 Days in Hell
In the tradition of great mockumentaries like This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping comes 7 Days in Hell, a crude, raunchy, and ridiculously over the top live action short comedy that had me laughing out loud for its entire economic 42 minutes.

This 2015 mockumentary follows two professional tennis players named Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) and Charles Poole (Kit Harrington), who are embroiled in a match at Wimbledon which has lasted a record-shattering seven days. While the match reaches a temporary intermission, we are led through the wacky backstory that led to these two pros spending seven days at Wimbledon.

Screenwriter Murray Miller, who used to write for animated shows like American Dad! and King of the Hill and director Jake Szymanski, who worked with Samberg on Brooklyn Nine Nine work in perfect tandem giving a legitimate look to this silly story about a professional rivalry that features Aaron having sex on the court, Charles' unnatural relationship with his mother (Mary Steenburgen), a visit to a Swedish prison and the Queen threatening Charles with bodily harm if he didn't win this match.

If you're looking for political correctness in comedy, give this film a hard pass, as the film spends most of its brief time trying to offend the audience through things like male and female frontal nudity and the curse-laden voicemails left to Charles by the Queen.

Szymanski and Miller score by realizing that this would have been a little too much for a feature length film, but as a 42-minue comedy action short, it pretty much work. Andy Samberg is hilarious, as always, as Williams and there is also standout work from Howie Mandel as the Duke of Kent, Fred Armisen as Edward Puddington,Will Forte as Sandy Pickard, and June Squibb as the Queen. Michael Sheen also has a very funny cameo as a sports show host with the hots for Charles. John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Serena Williams, David Copperfield, and Jim Lampley also appear as themselves. The movie works very hard to shock and offend, but it also works very hard at generating laughter and, for this reviewer, it did.

The Beekeeper
Jason Statham is the star and executive producer of 20224's The Beekeeper, a big budget actioner that provides what action fans are looking for, despite some flimsy writing that takes its sweet time pointing out who the good guys and the bad guys are.

Statham plays Adam Clay, man who takes vengeance on a company that just scammed a woman out of her life savings, motivating her to suicide. His burning this company to the ground leads to an investigation that reveals him to actually be an operative for an international organization called The Beekeepers.

Kurt Rimmer, who wrote the screenplays for the remakes of Total Recall and Point Break, provides a story that starts off very promisingly as we watch a woman, beautifully played by Tony Winner Phylicia Rashad, lose her entire life savings with one keystroke on her computer. This scene terrified this reviewer, motivating me to never wanting to reply to another text or email for the rest of my life and was pleased when Statham's character, who is actually introduced in the story removing bees from her property, made sure the people who did this to this woman, paid, but as the story revealed a double meaning to the term beekeeper that is never really explained, but employing empty analogies that are never explained.

An extra layer is added to the story when an FBI agent is brought onto the case, who turns out to be Rashad's daughter, comes into the story initially seeking Clay's help in avenging what happened to her mother but for the rest of the film, is seeking Clay's help one scene and hunting him down the next. Somehow the FBI's investigation leads to the POTUS (Jemma Redgrave), her spoiled son (Josh Hutcheson), and a sociopath (Oscar winner Jeremy Irons) manipulating both of them, but by the time the story works its way to here, I was working too hard to really care. I just couldn't stop thinking about poor Phylicia Rashad losing all her money in the opening scene and didn't care about anything after that. That scene haunted me.

Director David Ayer (Suicide Squad shows solid experience in the mounting of an action sequence, providing exactly what action fans want. Statham's action hero durability makes it easy to overlook his lack of acting skills, but Irons, Hutcherson, and Redgrave deliver the goods, and needless to say, Rashad is just heartbreaking in her few moments on the screen. It holds attention, but it's nothing special though it does set up a sequel.

Spinout (1966)
Elvis Presley seems to be phoning it in with his lackluster performance in 1966's Spinout, a silly, by-the-numbers Elvis musical that is pretty hard to distinguish from half a dozen other Elvis musicals.

Elvis plays Mike McCoy, the lead singer in a rock and roll band who finds himself being romantically pursued by three different women: Cynthia Foxhugh (Shelley Fabares) is the spoiled daughter of a millionaire (Carl Betz) who wants Mike to drive a car he's sponsoring in a big race; Diana St. Clair (Diane McBain) is a famous writer who is writing a book about the perfect man and wants to use Mike as her prototype; Les (Deborah Walley) is the drummer in Mike's band who hasn't quite found her inner girl, but sees red whenever another woman looks at Mike.

Nothing special here, just another tired vehicle for Elvis where no matter what the story is, it allows him to sing a song every ten minutes of the running time. And if the truth be told, Elvis seems to be tired of it too, he really just doesn't seem invested in this story of three different women literally competing with every tool in their personal arsenals to get this guy's attention. Just like classic films like Tom, Dick, and Harry, we have three very different women competing for this guy's attention and don't even care that the man has expressed interest in them, despite the fact that there are other male characters on the canvas who have expressed interest in the women, but they not only are only interested in Mike, but won't settle for anything less than marriage.

It's past the halfway point of the film by the time Les attracts the attention of a cop (Will Hutchins) and Cynthia's father is attracted to Diana, and Cynthia's father's toadie (Warren Berlinger) as options for the leading ladies and they still only have eyes for Mike and we just don't care anymore.

The score provided for Elvis by Sid Wayne and Dolores Fuller doesn't sound any different from the other movies Elvis made during his film career. The songs include "Adam and Evil", "Stop Look and Listen", "Never Say Yes". "Beach Shack", and "Smorgasboard", which features a young actress named Dodie Marshall, who would appear as Elvis' leading lady in his film Easy Come Easy Go. It was fun seeing Betz and Fabares playing father and daughter, who played father and daughter on The Donna Reed Show and Will Hutchins, who played the cop, also starred with Presley and Fabares in Clambake, And can anybody deny how adorable Deborah Walley is? It should also be mentioned that this is the only scripted Elvis film I've seen that breaks the fourth wall, not that it makes it anymore special.

Elvis also breaks the fourth wall in G.I. Blues which I just watched last Saturday. I'm currently watching all of Elvis' movies in order. I've seen five so far: Jailhouse Rock and King Creole are probably his best films, I enjoyed them. Love Me Tender was OK and Loving You (1957) was fun but G.I. Blues had one weak script, and bored me at times and I like Elvis too...At least it co starred a young Juliet Prowse who does do a couple of dance routines.

I think King Creole was his best film and I agree that GI Blues was one of his worst, despite the presence of Juliet Prowse. I really liked Loving You...my first exposure to Lizabeth Scott.

Yes, Lizabeth Scott was really good in Loving You and she's become a favorite of mine.

Poor Things
From the director of The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite comes 2023's Poor Things, a loopy and visually opulent cinematic nightmare that so imaginatively seizes viewer imagination that the film has earned 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Will try to review without spoilers.

We are introduced to a disfigured mad scientist named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) who rescued a young woman named Bella (Emma Stone) after she jumped off a bridge by performing an unprecedented surgery on her that makes her appear non-human with her inability to speak in proper sentences and her often animal or machine-like behavior. Baxter asks a student of his named Max (Remy Joussef) to help him refine Bella and eventually persuades him to marry Bella and have the couple live with him forever. However, these plans change when Bella is abducted by a sexually deviant lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), initiating a disturbing and confusing journey of self-discovery that promises surprises with each scene.

Tony McNamara's Oscar-nominated screenplay, based on a novel by Alasdair Gray, initially comes off as a re-imagining of the Frankenstein legend, but once Wedderburn abducts Bella, the story starts going in directions we don't see going on. Bella's cinematic journey takes on a sexual component that improves Bella's English as well the ability to possible run her own life. We're surprised when Bella disappears that Baxter doesn't really make any attempt to get Bella back nor does Bella make any attempt to escape, even though she does remember that she's engaged to marry Max, even if it has been pushed to the back of her mind. The story constantly moves in unexpected directions, even a return to the mad scientist and Max that also travels in directions that we don't expect.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos has provided an absolutely breathtaking look for this film. The film often looks like a live action painting, with a particular shout out to those shots of Bella and Wedderburn on that cruise ship. Production, art, and set design are given equal care and the film also features the creepiest music score I have heard since Wait Until Dark. Would love to see Holly Wadding's costumes and hair and makeup honored as well.

Would be very surprising if Emma Stone doesn't win her second Oscar in less than a decade for her mesmerizing performance as Bella. Stone is genuinely frightening as she effortlessly disappears inside this complex character. Mark Ruffalo has also received a supporting actor nomination for his sicko Wedderburn and Dafoe makes every moment he has onscreen count as well. This was a bumpy cinematic ride that often shocks and repels and probably improves with re-watch.

Rocky V
Easily the weakest film in this iconic franchise, Rocky V starts off promisingly reintroducing us to these characters with acceptable story, but the film eventually drowns in a lot of melodramatic soap opera and a few really terrible performances.

As this 1990 film opens, we learn that Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) has suffered serious brain damage from his bout with Ivan Drago and has lost his money and home thanks to an unscrupulous accountant. As Rocky, wife Adrian (Talia Shire), Paulie (the late Burt Young), and his son, Rocky Jr (the late Sage Stallone) return to Philly, Rocky gets a chance for redemption when a young unknown boxer named Tommy Gunn (Tommy Morrison) approaches the Italian Stallion to train him.

Even though John G Avildsen, who directed the first 1976 Oscar winning film, returns to the director's chair , the film really suffers thanks to Stallone's screenplay, which gets mired in too much soap opera stuff like Rocky ignoring his son while training Tommy and a sleazy Don King-like promoter who decides to use Tommy as a way of getting to Rocky because Rocky refused to fight another fighter the guy was trying to get a title match for. The scenes of Rocky Jr are a waste of screentime and Tommy's manipulation by Don King makes him look like an idiot, taking all the legitimacy out of his original approach to Rocky. And just when you think the movie can't get sillier, the expected showdown between Rocky and Tommy doesn't take place in a ring, but outside in a dirty alley, punctuated with Rocky experiencing flashbacks of his fight with Drago. By this time, I was trying to keep a straight face.

Stallone manages to keep our hero likable, but for the first time in the franchise, Talia Shire begins to grate on the nerves as Adrian. The film also features terrible performances from Morrison, Sage Stallone, and especially Richard Gant as the crooked promoter. I thought Rocky Balboa was bad, but this film made that one look like a masterpiece.

Waitress: The Musical
Sara Bareilles stars in and wrote the musical score for 2023's Waitress: The Musical, a film version of the edgy and unconventional Broadway musical that Bareilles wrote back in 2016.

This is a filmed performance of Bareilles' musical just like Disney filmed Hamilton a couple of years ago that features the actress playing the lead role, which she did not on Broadway. Bareilles plays Jenna, a waitress in a small diner, where she bakes all of the pies for the restaurant and gives them special names. The musical opens with Jenna's co-workers, Dawn and Becky learning that Jenna is pregnant by her physically and emotionally abusive husband. Apprehensive about being pregnant with a man she wants nothing more to do with, Jenna goes to see her gynecologist but learns that he has been replaced by the charming Dr. Pommeter. Jenna and Dr. Pommeter are immediately attracted to each other and make no qualms about it, even though Jenna is pregnant with her husband's baby and Dr. Pommeter is also married.

Sara Bareilles is a very talented actress and singer who has appeared in films like She's Out of My League and Battles of the Sexes, as well as playing Mary Magdalene to John Legend's Jesus in NBC's mounting of Jesus Christ Superstar. Bareilles wrote the music and lyrics for this musical that premiered on Broadway on April 24, 2016 and ran for over 1500 performances until COVID-19 shut down the production. Actor Nick Cordero, who originated the role of Jenna's husband, Earl, contacted the virus and passed away on July 5, 2020. He is replaced in this production by Joe Tippett, who became engaged to Bareilles in November 2023.

I can't lie, my eyebrows were a little raised when I realized that pregnancy and domestic abuse were part of the storyline. Back in 1984, there was a Broadway musical called Baby about three women who become pregnant, but that musical featured three happily married couples. Jenna is miserable in the prison that Earl is keeping her in and is hoping that a baking contest that has a $20,000 prize will get her out of her misery. And despite the fact that this is a musical, I did not hold my breath waiting for the proverbial happy ending that we expect from a musical. The ending is not happy, but it is hopeful.

Bareilles' score is brassy and melodic. The musical highlights for me were "The Negative" performed by Jenna, Becky, and Dawn, a chorus number called "Club Knocked Up", a duet for Jenna and Pommeter called "Bad Idea" and a production number called "Never Ever Getting Rid of Me", performed by an actor named Christopher Fitzgerald that stopped the show. Also loved "The Contraction Ballet". Charity Dawson (Becky) also stops the show with "I Didn't Plan". Leading man Drew Gehling has one of the most gorgeous lyric tenor voices I have ever heard which combines so smoothly with his gangly Jim Carrey body and uncanny comic timing. The show also features Hollywood veteran Dakin Matthews in a supporting role that even allows him to sing. He's no Sinatra but he made his solo work. An offbeat piece of musical comedy that took me by surprise.

Blackboard Jungle
Long before To Sir with Love, there was 1955's Blackboard Jungle a daring, if slightly melodramatic, look at juvenile delinquency that is best known for bringing several future stars together to tell this hard to swallow story that almost becomes credible thanks to powerhouse performances.

Glenn Ford stars as Richard Dadier, a new teacher at a turbulent inner city school who thinks he can make a difference in the lives of these kids, while caring for his pregnant wife (Anne Francis). Unfortunately, Dadier makes the mistake of looking the other way when the kids start acting out, initiating a hopeless battle for ever getting any respect from these kids.

Director and screenwriter Richard Brooks received his first Oscar nomination for his bold, if at times, hard to believe screenplay that creates unbearable tension almost immediately between Dadier and these hoodlums, but Dadier makes a big mistake when these guys begin to lash out and Dadier chooses to say nothing instead of turning these guys in. Of course, not suffering any consequences for their behavior only causes it to escalate and Dadier doesn't seem to understand why. We actually see a student try to rape a teacher and watch students jump Dadier and a fellow faculty member, beating them to a bloody pulp and the kids show up the next day ready to run the school and Dadier actually appears confused. The battle for control of the hoods between West (Vic Morrow) and Miller (Sidney Poitier) does ring true though.

The deficits in Brooks' screenplay are more than made up with the direction. Brooks keeps this story at a high level of tension throughout, despite some often contrived story twists and turns, not to mention missed opportunities. At the beginning of the film we learn that Dadier's wife's pregnancy is her second, having miscarried the first. We then see the wife being warned by the landlady that she shouldn't be walking around in snow and walking up snow-covered footsteps at the school, but the baby is born complication-free. But we're supposed to believe that the wife had a difficult birth because of a threatening letter the students sent her. Where did a student get a teacher's address?

Despite the problems with the story, Brooks does get some solid performances from a cast of once and future stars. Ford brings a quiet intensity to Dadier and Poitier impresses in his second film appearance as Miller. Veteran Louis Calhern and future Tony and Emmy award winner Richard Kiley make the most of their screen time as Dadier's fellow faculty, as does a very young Vic Morrow, bringing a real Brando quality to West and you will also catch a young bespectacled Jamie Farr in his film debut, where he has one line and if you don't bink, you might recognize future writer/actor/director Paul Mazursky as one of the hoodlums. The screenplay goes some odd places, but the acting and direction make it worth a look. The opening credits also introduce a song you might have heard of called "Rock Around the Clock."

The Family Plan
Despite a charming performance from Mark Wahlberg in the starring role, 2023's The Family Plan is a long and lumbering story that starts off promisingly, but starts to run out of gas around the halfway point before providing a surprising twist for the finale.

Wahlberg plays Dan Morgan, a man living a quiet existence in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three kids. Morgan seems perfectly content in his existence until his past catches up to him in the local supermarket with his youngest son strapped to his chest. Dan busily makes plans to relocate and then gathers his family, informing them that they are going on vacation in Las Vegas. It seems that Dan used to be a government assassin and has been hiding from someone in suburbia for decades

David Coggeshal's screenplay takes a little bit too much time establishing the Morgans as the perfect family, especially the part where the kids think that they hate him. We've already been provided a clue as to what's going on when we get two separate scenes revealing that Dan doesn't like to be photographed. The showdown in the supermarket was beautifully staged and photograph with an extra layer of tension provided because Dan's baby was still strapped to his chest, Of course, Dan doesn't have the nerve to tell his family what's really going on, so to expand running time we have to watch daughter Nina whine about her cheating boyfriend and son Kyle blame Dad for making him stop gaming, though Kyle's gaming skills do conveniently come into play later. I also didn't buy that high speed chase that Dan's family conveniently slept through.

Simon Cellan Jones' direction does reveal a skill with the action sequence, though the pacing of the film is deadly. Wahlberg is sincere as Dan and Michelle Monaghan is usual charming self as his wife. This film also provided a welcome return to the screen for Maggie Q, who I haven't seen onscreen in a minute. Still, the longest two hours of my life.

She's Out of My League
A charming performance by the very talented Jay Baruchel and a screenplay with a few surprise make a 2010 comedy called She's Out of My League a little better than it really is.

Baruchel plays Kirk, a nerdy airline security officer who finds himself in a dream relationship with a beautiful former lawyer turned party planner named Molly (Alice Eve). Howver, Kirk's lack of self-esteem and outside interference from his and her family and friends eventually begin to eat away at the relationship.

Screenwriters Sean Anders and John Morris, who would later collaborate on Instant Family and Spirited have concocted a story that initially seems to be a retread of a lot of 80's teen comedies that found the nerdy guy somehow finding romance with a girl that we all know there is no way he would have a chance with in real life. At about the halfway point of the story, we are ready to write everything off as horny male fantasy and then during the scene where they are about to have sex for the first time, all the issues that the viewer is having difficulty swallowing are addressed onscreen and what was waning interest in what was going on begins to gain cinematic legs, leading to an outrageous variation of the "rushing to the airport" scene that was a staple of 80's rom-coms that has the viewer re-invested in the story again.

Baruchel gives us a completely likable character in Kirk, a guy who knows exactly who he is and has resigned himself to being alone for the rest of his life. Of course, there are the accustomed roadblocks for Kirk and Molly, especially the exes who decide that they want them back. Love the scene where Molly's ex interrupts her first date with Kirk and the scene where Kirk's ex agrees to take him back because she thinks Molly has broken up with him. Neither of these scenes play out the way we expect them to.

Director Jim Field Smith keeps things bouncy and exuberant and works really well with his cast. TJ Miller, who I LOVED in Office Christmas Party is a total scene stealer as Kirk's BFF, as is Krysten Ritter as Molly's BFF and Lyndsey Sloane as Kirk's ex brings new meaning to the term "psycho hose beast." It's no When Harry Met Sally, but it was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Scrambled
Leah McKendrick is the director, screenwriter, and star of a disturbing and often unpleasant biopic disguised as a 2023 black comedy called Scrambled that does provide the occasional giggle but is hard to engage in due to a central character this reviewer found difficult to invest in.

McKendrick plays Nellie, a 34 year old single gal who broke up with her soulmate, Shawn, a year ago because he wanted kids and she didn't. Nellie has now moved back in with her parents and feels spinsterhood knocking on her door and even though she sure she's still not ready to have children, she has decided that she wants to have her eggs frozen, a process that motivates her to look at her past and the mistakes she has made with men.

It's obvious early on that McKendrick is documenting her own experience with freezing eggs, a cinematic subject new to this reviewer. Unfortunately, the first two thirds of the film are spent putting Nellie's promiscuous lifestyle and her horrible choices in men under a microscope. McKendrick's odyssey of self-discovery initially seems to be blaming everyone else for the emptiness of her life, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is not the case as she arranges actual reunions with men from her past and some are still wearing scars from their time with Nellie and she isn't feeling a lot of remorse about it either.

A look at inside Nellie's family reveals that they aren't exactly the Bradys. The relationship between Nellie and her brother is toxic but doesn't stop her from asking him for the money for the procedure and her father can't even wrap his head around the fact that Nellie broke up with Shawn, much less that she is lazy and useless and will never change. Then if that wasn't enough, we are then subject to Nellie deciding that she has to see Shawn and his new pregnant girlfriend. Maybe other viewers will feel differently, but I never felt the sympathy for Nellie that I was supposed to. Maybe that's also because I wasn't convinced that she would make a great mother.

McKendrick does show some skill as an actress and screenwriter, but her direction is suited to make sure that the rest of the cast stays out of her way and it works on that level, though Clancy Brown, June Diane Raphael, Adam Rodriguez, Andrew Santino, Brett Dier, and SNL's Ego Nwodim do make the most of their screentime, but I had a hard time staying with this one, and the fact that it felt four hours long didn't help.