Gideon58's Reviews

Opening Night (1977)
The extraordinary John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands once again knock it out of the park with 1977's Opening Night, an edgy and emotionally charged psychological drama that plays out on a show business canvas that doesn't answer all the questions it raises but keeps the viewer riveted to the screen for most of its running time.

The setting is New Haven, Connecticut, during the out of town tryouts for a new play called THE SECOND WOMAN starring acclaimed actress Myrtle Gordon (Rowlands). One night after a performance, Myrtle is confronted by what appears to be an unbalanced fan named Nancy Stein (Laura Johnson). After getting away from Laura and being rushed into a limo headed for her hotel, Laura is run over by a car and killed. Myrtle feels so guilt-ridden about what happened to Laura that she can no longer think about the play and finds herself having an actual breakdown.

Director and screenwriter Cassavetes has crafted one of his most squirm-worthy works here because the events that transpire during the running constantly challenge the boundaries of realism without going into actual fantasy and having us wonder exactly what kind of story Cassavetes is trying to tell here. The story is steeped completely in realism up to the point of Laura's death...the scenes of Laura clinging to her obsession of Myrtle as she meets her for the first time are stomach churning and we understand Myrtle's initial guilt. We're confused though when Myrtle uses Laura's death as an excuse to step away from her responsibility to this play. It's through other characters' reactions like the director (Ben Gazzara), her leading man (Cassavetes) and the playwright (Joan Blondell) that we see Myrtle has abandoned the script and is walking onstage saying whatever she wants and under the influence of alcohol.

Of course, everyone in Myrtle's orbit thinks they know exactly what's going on with Myrtle and offer their help, but a shocking mid-story reveal lets us know that they were all wrong about what's happening, yet we see Myrtle descend even further into this alcohol-soaked breakdown, from which there seems to be no escape, but Myrtle still seems determined to do this play and forsake the actual script, doing whatever she wants onstage. The final 30 minutes of the film, which feature Cassavetes and Rowlands onstage doing the play, even though we can't tell if they're sticking to the script or not, are mesmerizing.

Cassavetes' direction is as unhinged as his performance and Rowlands offers one of her funniest and most explosive performances as Myrtle. Ben Gazzara offers his accustomed onscreen steel as the director and Joan Blondell's icy playwright won her Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Fans of Cassavetes and Rowlands will be in heaven.

On the Count of Three
Jerrod Carmichael, star of the short-lived sitcom, The Carmichael Show, impresses as the star and director of 2021's On the Count of Three, an edgy and intense black comedy that feature story elements from films like 'night mother, The End, and The Bucket List, but arouse the kind of emotions aroused by Jim Cummings films like Thunder Road and The Beta Test.

Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) have been friends since childhood, but as they are reunited at the beginning of this film, they are both suicidal. They decide they want to die together, but decide to get their affairs together and take care of unfinished business before they do.

Suicide has never been one of my favorite movie subjects, but the screenplay by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, which won the screenwriting award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, has a tongue-in-cheek undercoating that make the first two thirds of the film pretty easy to digest, but we know things are going to get more intense during the final third, beautiful symbolized by a change in the story's physical setting...the sun begins to set and it begins to snow. The scene at the gun range and the scene where Val reunited with his father beautifully represent both sides of this storytelling spectrum.

LOVE the way the characters are first introduced to us which I don't want to ruin by describing here. The story ends up playing like separate little vignettes which one has to pinch oneself to remember that the whole film takes place in a matter of eight or ten hours. There are the expected scrapes with the law along the way, but even none of them play the way you expect them to. The scene in the convenience store with the clerk just coming on duty had me on the floor.

In addition to his often breezy direction, Jerrod Carmichael delivers a rich performance as Val and Christopher Abbott is deliciously unhinged as Kevin. Mention should also be made of cameos by Henry Winkler and an actor I usually can't stand, JB Smoove, as Val's father. By the time this movie was over, my heart was in my shoes.

The In-Laws (1979)
The comic chemistry created by Peter Falk and Alan Arkin is at the center of 1979's the In-Laws, an often logic defying comic adventure that occasionally colors outside the lines of realism, but provides pretty solid laughs from opening to closing credits.

Alan Arkin plays Sheldon Kornpett, a dentist who is looking forward to meeting Vince Ricardo (Falk), the father of the guy his daughter is marrying on Sunday. By the end of their first dinner together, Sheldon is convinced Vince is nuts but before he can forbid his daughter to never marry into this family, Vince implicates Sheldon and his family in a theft from the US Mint, which eventually finds Sheldon and Vince on the run in Honduras.

The screenplay by Andrew Bergman (Honeymoon in Vegas)is fast-paced and jam-packed with fun one-liners, giving the dialogue a real Neil Simon quality. Vince's story is revealed to us methodically in order to gain sympathy for the character and by the time we have the whole story, even Sheldon is starting to change his mind about the guy and making us want the story to wrap perhaps a little quicker than it does.

Director Arthur Hiller (The Out of Towners (1970), Silver Streak)) is no stranger to action comedy and puts a great deal of detail into some of the best comic car chases I've seen in a minute. My favorite was the one where Vince repeatedly jumps a highway median and doing a U-turn, followed quickly by the bad guys. There's also an early scene of Sheldon being chased around a cab by a gun man who's a really bad shot that had me on the floor.

But more than anything, it is the work of Falk and Arkin that keeps this one on sizzle. Falk has the flashier role and doesn't make a false move during the film, but it's very easy to overlook Arkin's work here...it's much more subtle as we watch the Sheldon character try to keep his head while going through a meltdown. Watch him during the final firing squad scene...the character has clearly checked out. Richard Libertini steals every scene he has as a Mexican General who thinks he's Senor Wences. Nancy Dussault and Arlene Golonka were also fun as the guys' wives. The film was remade in 2003 with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks in the Falk and Arkin roles, respectively, but they didn't have the chemistry that Falk and Arkin have.

Senior Year (2022)
Despite appearances in the Pitch Perfect franchise, the film version of Cats, and the distaff remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels called The Hustle, Rebel Wilson remains an acquired taste to this reviewer and the lackluster and predictable comedy Senior Year has done nothing to alter my opinion about the severely overrated actress.

In this 2022 film, a 17 year old girl named Stephanie who is the head cheerleader at her school is seriously injured during a cheer routine and falls into a coma. Stephanie wakes up almost 20 years later and even though she is now 37 years old, her brain is still the brain of a 17 year old girl and she is determined to complete the senior year she slept through, which includes becoming prom queen and stealing the boyfriend of her best friend, Tiffany.

Even though the screenplay for this film is credited to Andrew Knaur, Arthur Pielli, and Brandon Scott Jones, this story rips off just about any teen comedy from the 80's and 90's that you can think of and doesn't do a very good job of it. The premise and backstory are efficiently mounted, but after Stephanie awakens from her coma, the film's pacing becomes deadly, making the movie seem about seven hours long.

The other main problem was the twitchy and undisciplined performance by Rebel Wilson in the starring role that comes off like Jerry Lewis on crack. Wilson has never been so annoying onscreen, making it hard to sympathize with the character. Being unable to sympathize with the Stephanie character made the rest of the movie pretty intolerable.

Ironically, I really enjoyed Angourie Rice as the pre-coma Stephanie, but pretty much wanted to check out after Wilson took over the role. Limited laughs were provided along the way by Chris Parnell as Stephanie's dad, Justin Hartley as her prom king, and Joshua Calley as Yaz and there are a couple of well-choreographed dance numbers, but getting through this one was work.

I'd planned on seeing this again. I was in my early to mid 30's when I took in all of Cassavetes' films,..10 years later I am thinking they would be a bit better for me. Nice review, as always!

Tremors (1990)
The recent passing of Fred Ward motivated my first viewing of Tremors since its original theatrical release. This rollicking re-thinking of the monster movies of the 1950's still provides the edge-of-your-seat thrills that it did over 30 years ago.

Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Ward) are handymen on their way out of a tiny southwestern desert town called Perfection when they realize the town is being literally swallowed up by a trio of large, worm-like creatures who burrow from underground and are taking out the densely populated town of Perfection one by one. With the aid of a pretty seismologist (Finn Carter), Val and Earl find themselves very reluctant heroes.

Director Ron Underwood (City Slickers, Hearts and Souls, White Men Can't Jump) has to take primary credit for the success of this contemporary thriller for the way he allows the story to build from an unassuming beginning to a fever pitch that finds a group of nine or ten people on top of a rock in the middle of the desert trying to figure out how they're going to survive.

The screenplay by Underwood, SS Wilson, and Brent Maddock combines a tongue in cheek sensibility with a sometimes logic-defying blueprint for our heroes to get themselves out of this mess. We're about halfway through the film when our heroes have figured out that the creatures cannot penetrate rock, cannot get to the top of buildings, and something I didn't notice during my first watch, that they can't see. A clever comic touch is also added with the reveal that these monsters also really stink.

Underwood's camerawork is nothing short of superb throughout, with a strong assist from film editor O Nicholas Brown. Love the shots from the creatures' point of view burrowing from underground, used sparingly to incredible effect, just like the tracking shots above ground from the monsters' point of view. The doctor's wife getting buried in her station wagon and the battle with the gun nuts Burt and Heather were among the most memorable of several heart-stopping scenes.

I think this is the film that officially made Fred Ward a movie star and deservedly so...the very first shot of him in the film is fantastic...what a face. And even though it has nothing to do with the movie per se, Kevin Bacon has rarely been sexier onscreen, and I have to give a shout out to Michel Gross as Burt, a role light years away from Steven Keaton. This film also features an impressive film debut of future country music superstore Reba McIntire as Heather. The film is 32 years old, but I sure couldn't tell. Followed by three sequels, a 2003 remake, and a television series.

The Bad Guys
2022's The Bad Guys is a splashy and fast-paced animated feature from Dreamworks that drifts into Disney Pixar territory with middling results, but does provide pretty consistent entertainment.

The title characters are a group of career criminals led by Wolf (voiced by Oscar winner Sam Rockwell), who calls the shots for Snake (voiced by Marc Maron), Shark (voiced by Craig Robinson), Tarantula (voiced by Awkwafina), and Pirahna (voiced by Anthony Ramos). The gang's plant to steal an important award is thwarted by Governor Foxington (voiced Zazie Beetz), who instead of having the guys arrested, gives them a chance to redeem themselves by going to rehab in an effort to become good, but even that good, but even that doesn't go as planned.

The story is further complicated by Wolf's plan for another job, which gets hopelessly mangled up in his conscience when he discovers something within himself that really wants to become good, causing him to betray his friends, but bringing him a lot closer to the Governor, who has a secret or two of her own.

The screenplay by Etan Cohen (Holmes & Watson) is based on a series of books by Aaron Blabey, which might explain the overly complex story that plays like a Disney Pixar feature. The film starts off very cleverly, coming off like an animated homage to the Ocean's 11 franchise as they try to steal the Golden Dragon, but the story really slows down when Wolf has crisis of conscience and during the final third, we get way too many plot twists to keep straight, but we love the characters so much at this point that we try to latch onto what we can and hope that it all comes together at one point.

The story also looks into the natural order of animals in history and literature when Wolf pontificates about how wolves are always the bad guys in fairy tales and that explains why he is who he is today. Animals and their natural enemies are also challenged in the possible romance between Wolf and Governor Foxington. The story never lets us forget it's 2022 either. There is an adorable scene of Wolf saving a kitten from a tree that Wolf wants to downplay, but Professor Marmelade immediately pulls out his phone to show Wolf how many likes his good deed is getting.

The film features terrific voice work, with standout work from Rockwell, Awkefina, Ramos, Beetz, Alex Borstein as Police Chief Misty Loggins, and especially Marc Maron as Snake. The plot gets a little busier than it needs too, but there is fun to be had here.

This is It
For those out there who have no problem discriminating between a celebrity's career and his private life, the 2009 documentary This is It, a look at the behind scenes preparations for Michael Jackson's final concert tour, released four months after his death, provides a fascinating look at the artist for those who can still be objective about the artist.

Before continuing, it should be noted that this review is coming from someone who believed that Michael Jackson was a pedophile and only got away with what he did because he paid off the families of those two boys whose lives he forever altered (see my review of Leaving Netherland). But this documentary is not about his personal life, it is about the end of his professional one and that's what I will be talking about here.

About a year before his death, Michael Jackson announced that he was beginning rehearsals for what would be his final concert tour, premiering in London. This documentary opens as rehearsals begin with quick interviews with dancers auditioning and passionately explaining to the camera why it is their dream to be a backup dancer for Michael Jackson. The film then switches to the Staples Center in Los Angeles as Michael begins rehearsing various numbers while the scene of the dancers auditioning for him resemble the opening of the 1979 film All That Jazz.

We get an interesting look at Michael filming his "Smooth Criminal" video and how he had re-thought it for this tour, ditto with "The Way You Make Me Feel". We see that Michael has put a lot of thought into the songs he wanted to include in this tour, but he also didn't want to just rehash the original recordings. I was also impressed with a glimpse at dance class for his dancers, where they were actually rehearsing Michael's famous crotch grab. The most fascinating aspect of this documentary, however, was the backstage look at Michael Jackson, singer, dancer, and musician.

The most fascinating aspect of watching Michael rehearse and was easily the most interesting part of this documentary, was the way he knew he was rehearsing and never did anything full out. I loved that we saw Michael "marking" a lot off his vocals, but when he was onstage he never stopped moving. He knew when his voice was tired but he always knew exactly what he wanted vocally. There's a great moment where he tells his musical director that he has to let a certain musical phrase "simmer." He is always extremely respectful of director Kenny Ortega, his musical director, his vocal director, and his dancers. There is one moment where he is having issues with an audio piece in his ear, but he explains his displeasure with the equipment minus any kind of diva behavior or disrespect...the consummate show business professional.

In the opening scenes of this documentary, Michael is observed in press appearances publicizing this tour, that "this was it" and would be the last and greatest thing he would ever do. After watching this documentary, I am convinced that if he had lived and this tour would have happened, Michael could have charged $5000 a ticket and would have sold out the entire tour.

Good Mourning
Fans of the HBO series Entourage might have a head start with a 2022 comedy called Good Mourning, a pointless, tasteless, and over the top showbiz comedy that is so busy trying to be hip and cool that it forgets to be funny.

This film is a day in the life of London Clash, movie and television star who stars in the #1 rated television show. which just aired its series finale to dismal reviews. London is also freaking about his meeting for the starring role in a new Batman movie. London is further distracted by a strange text from his Oscar-winning actress girlfriend, Apple, which he thinks is her way of breaking up with him. Throughout all of this, London gets plenty of good and bad advice from his posse, Dylan, Angel, Leo, and Fat Joe.

Machine Gun Kelly, who played Tommy Lee in the Motley Crew movie The Dirt, served as star, director, and co-screenwriter for this all over the place story whose basic premise does resemble Entourage, but in this movie, London's posse are a bunch of freaking idiots who pretend to have London's back but only when it's beneficial to them and whenever London really needs them, they go screaming into the night. The only real friendship and moral barometer in London's life is his former roommate, a beautiful lesbian named Kennedy (Megan Fox).

The movie starts out okay...the backstory where London introduces all the characters is cleverly written, but by the time we meet London's agent, Maxine, who doesn't know how to close her legs when she's seated and when we see the guys break three vases of Apple's family's ashes and their stupid solution to the problem, I was tempted to check out.

There's a pretty big budget behind this movie, but it doesn't disguise the overwhelming mediocrity of the material. As for the performances, Kelly does display some acting talent even if the role isn't worthy of it. The biggest laughs in the movie come from Fox, Whitney Cummings as Maxine, and Pete Davidson as Barry, a parking valet who wants more than anything to be part of London's crew. There are also a couple of funny cameos by Danny Trejo and Dennis Rodman, and Snoop Dogg provides the voice of a joint. But I think the appeal of this lies in your admiration of Machine Gun Kelly.

Half Baked (1998)
Comedy icon Dave Chappelle out himself on the map as the star and co-screenwriter of a silly stoner comedy called Half Baked which pretty much coasts on the charm and wit of Chappelle, though it has developed a bit of a cult status.

This 1998 comedy stars Chappelle, Guillermo Diaz, and Jim Breuer as a trio of stoner buddies who steal marijuana from a hospital and start selling it in order to get the fourth member of their posse (Harland Williams) out of jail. Their mission is complicated by a pretty girl named Mary Jane (Rachel True) who Chappelle falls for her hard, even though she hates drugs and a rival drug dealer (the late Clarence Williams III) who thinks our heroes are cutting in on his territory.

Chappelle co-wrote the screenplay with Neil Brennan, who was a former writer on SNL and on Chappelle's variety show. The beginning of the movie is funniest where the characters are introduced to us through Chappelle's very funny narration. There are sporadic laughs as we see the guys getting high on their own supply and see this particular strain of marijuana give its consumers the ability to float mid-air. Scenes of a lot of potheads smoking are blended with scenes of Harland Williams' character in jail trying to protect his virgin ass with the help of a fellow inmate (Tommy Chong).

There are funny moments spread throughout the movie, but the romance with Mary Jane always slows things down because we never buy the fact that she thinks Chappelle's Thurgood doesn't smoke and it takes way too long for her to catch on.

Truthfully, it's the charm and wit of Chappelle that keeps this thing relatively watchable. Diaz and Clarence Williams III make the most of their screentime and there are fun cameos from Willie Nelson, Bob Saget, Tracy Morgan, Snoop Dogg, and Jon Stewart. It's nothing special, but Chappelle fans will enjoy it.

Encanto
The Oscar winner for Outstanding Animated Feature of 2021, Disney's Encanto an elaborate and splashy musical fantasy that takes a bit too long to get where it's going but is solid entertainment thanks to a lovely story and a bouncy musical score by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

As the story begins, Abuela Alma is sharing her Columbian family legacy with her granddaughter, Mirabel. The widowed mother of three, Abuela, was gifted with a magic candle that not only provided her with a magical home for her babies, but provided most of her family members with magical powers like superhuman strength, the ability to control the weather, and the ability to talk to animals. We learn immediately that teenage Mirabel doesn't have a power, but she waits patiently as her family continually reassures her that her power will be revealed in time, but Mirabel's patience has grown thin and she begins a search for what her power might be; unfortunately, as her search for the truth leads her to the truth, her family members begin losing their powers and their magical home begins to self-destruct.

The screenplay by Charisse Castro Smith, who wrote the remake of The House on Haunted Hill and Jared Brush, who wrote Zootopia starts off beautifully with an enchanting and clever story that makes startling leaps from fantasy to reality almost from the beginning, but by the halfway point of the story, it starts to come into focus what's going on here, but there's just a bit too much leisure in getting there, though we have a lot to distract us.

The primary distraction is this lovable central character Mirabel, another fiercely independent Disney heroine in the tradition of Belle, Mulan and Pochantas, but more rooted in her family than these other Disney heroines. This young girl is extremely proud of her family, which is beautifully displayed in the opening number "The Family Madrigal", and even though something deep inside her tells her that the family is hiding something from her, she never wavers in her loyalty for her family. We know that, if it came down to it, Madrigal would choose her family over having magic powers, and that's OK.

The other distraction is the positively kinetic score by Broadway wunderkind Lin-Minuel Miranda (In the Heights; Hamilton) that had my toes tapping throughout the movie. In addition to the previously mentioned "The Family Madrigal". I also loved Louisa's fantasy number, "Surface Pressure", which featured Louisa with a chorus of dancing donkeys, Mirabel's "Waiting on a Miracle", and best of all, "We Don't Talk to Bruno", a vocally intricate number that involves more than half a dozen characters that reminded me of "It's Your Fault" from Into the Woods.

The movie is gorgeous to look at, bathed in dreamy pastels, and moves at a nice enough pace that we almost don't notice that it's a shade longer than it needs to be. The voice work is solid with standout work from Stephanie Beatriz as Mirabel, María Cecilia Botero as Abuela, and especially John Leguizamo as Bruno. Disney really knocked it out of the park here.

The Sterile Cuckoo
Under the sensitive directorial guidance of Alan J Pakula (All the President's Men), Liza Minnelli made audiences and critics sit up and take notice with her utterly charming performance in a warm comedy drama from 1969 called The Sterile Cuckoo, which was only Minnelli's third appearance on the big screen. The first doesn't count because she was a baby in the arms of mother, Judy Garland, in In the Good Old Summertime.

Minnelli plays Pookie Adams, a kooky and hypersensitive young woman leaving home for college who runs into a shy young man named Jerry Payne (Wendell Burton) on the bus on the way to school and pretty much bullies the young man into a relationship that moves just a little too quickly for Jerry.

Minnelli is the whole show here and she is totally up for the challenge, with a strong assist from Pakula. Pakula tries to fool us during the opening credits by having Pookie and her father sitting at the bus stop, not talking to each other or even looking at each other. Once she boards that bus and lies to a nun to get the seat next to Jerry, she pretty much doesn't shut up for the rest of the movie.

Alvin Sargent, who won Oscars for writing Ordinary People and Julia, has provided a smooth screenplay that doesn't play all of its cards too quickly and some not at all. It becomes pretty clear about 25 minutes into the film that this Pookie Adams has some serious issues that are buried in her backstory, of which we are provided precious little. We get our first hint that something is not as it should be during the first scene after Jerry and Pookie have sex, where she flips out because Jerry has made plans for Xmas vacation that don't include her. Speaking of the sex scene, my only laugh out loud moment in the film came when Jerry is getting ready to take off Pookie's clothes and decides he needs to wash his hands first.

The problems with this movie can be forgiven thanks to Liza Minnelli's charismatic performance as Pookie Adams, which earned her her first Oscar nomination for Lead Actress, losing the award to Maggie Smith for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. If the truth be told, there is a scene in the final third of the film where Pookie is on the phone begging Jerry to let her spend the holidays with him at school that I think single-handedly earned the actress the nomination. This scene is alone worth the price of admission. Baby-faced Wendell Burton actually holds his own with Minnelli, in what turned out to be the most significant role of his career. Minnelli definitely makes this one worth a look.

The Valet (2022)
Though it does provide sporadic laughs, the 2022 comedy The Valet suffers from an overstuffed screenplay that makes it longer than it needs to be and a B-list cast of actors playing roles that should be played by A-list stars.

This remake of a 2006 French film is about Antonio, the recently separated father of a teenage son who works as a parking valet at a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant who is hired by a glamorous movie star named Olivia Allen, to pretend to be her boyfriend in order to keep the media from finding out that she's having an affair with a very married millionaire.

The primary culprit here is an overly complex screenplay, based on a Francis Verber film, that just tries to cover too much territory featuring way too many characters for the viewer to ultimately care about. In addition to the four above mentioned principal characters. we also have Antonio's soon-to-be-ex-wife, who clearly still has feelings for him. We have Antonio's huge family, which includes his three brothers, a sister, and a sexually uninhibited mother who has remarried a sweet-natured Asian man, who has moved his entire brood into the house as well. We also have a pair of private investigators who have been hired on opposites sides of this deception, not to mention the fact that the millionaire is trying to keep his wife from stealing his company. It's just exhausting trying to keep up with everything thrown at us here. There are dozens and dozens of characters who cross the screen during the running time and very few of them are worthy of the screentime and/or backstory they deserve.

It doesn't help that the film is cast almost exclusively with unknowns. Even though he had a major role in this year's Best Picture winner,Coda, Eugenio Derbez works hard in the starring role, but is just a little over his head here. Samara Weaving, niece of actor Hugo Weaving, gives a one note performance as Olivia, a role that was screaming for a Michelle Williams or an Olivia Wilde. Max Greenfield, probably the biggest name in the cast, gives it the old college try in a role that seemed tailored for Bradley Cooper. With an A-list cast and a more economic screenplay, there's a really great movie buried under here somewhere.

Hook
Though director Steven Spielberg deserves an "A" for effort, his elegantly mounted revisiting to James M Barrie world called Hook fails to provided the entertainment it should due to a screenplay that tries to cover too much territory, making the film seem seven hours long.

The late Robin Williams plays Peter Manning a workaholic attorney and father of two, who is really the adult Peter Pan, though he has no memory of it. He is also married to Moira, who is the granddaughter of the real Wendy. Peter returns from a celebration of his famous grandmother-in-law to find his children missing. Wendy reacquaints him with his legacy and informs him that his children have been kidnapped by Captain Hook (Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman) because he wants revenge on Peter. With the aid of Tinker Bell, Peter returns to Neverland to get his children.

The film really suffers from a complex screenplay that moves across the film a little too leisurely. In addition to the original James M Barrie novel, the screenplay also borrows elements from other classics like The Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Carol, and Mary Poppins that have the film touching not only on the concept of never growing up on the inside, but seizing the day, and never neglecting your family, which contributes to this film feel like it goes on forever.

Spielberg and company take too much time establishing backstory about adult Peter. When they finally finish that and Tink takes him to Neverland, he finds way more to contend with than Captain Hook. It's really frustrating when he reunites with the Lost Boys and, instead of providing Peter assistance, initially provide conflict making Peter's mission nearly impossible. Nearly forty-five minutes of screen time is wasted with Peter fighting with the Lost Boys when it could have been used more economically fighting Captain Hook, a terrific movie villain who really gets kind of short shrift here. Nothing onscreen justifies the film's two hour and twenty-one minute running time.

Needless to say, with a Spielberg at the helm, production values are splendid, with special nods to art direction/set direction, cinematography, and John Williams' lush music. Hoffman surprisingly underplays to maximum effect as Hook, but Williams is miscast and Oscar winner Julia Roberts is kind of annoying as Tinker Bell. Also loved Maggie Smith as adult Wendy. Hardcore Spielberg and Hoffman fans might want to give it a go.

Look at this telling Freudian slip! Rooting for the villain!

EDIT: And I also agree with your thoughts, BTW. Even as a very easy-to-please child I was very aware that the movie was too long.

Thanks for pointing that out...will be fixing it immediately.

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes
Like the assassination of JFK, most people feel that we know everything about the death of Marilyn Monroe and that we will never know exactly what happened, but for those who still mine for information on the death of this cinematic icon, a few unknown pearls are revealed in a 2022 Netflix documentary called The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes.

Director Emma Cooper has put a lot of love and respect into this look into the life and death of Monroe through the eyes of a writer named Anthony Summers, who also wrote the 1986 HBO movie Norma Jean and Marilyn. Summers is observed putting together a look at Marilyn's life through a series of audio tapes featuring interviews with Marilyn and several people who had different roles in her life, including a psychiatrist and his family, private detectives, white house staffers, and FBI agents all offering their thoughts on who Marilyn was and what happened to her. However, hiring actors to play some of these people talking on the phone with Summers really didn't work for this reviewer.

What's initially amusing about these tapes is that almost everyone who talks about Marilyn here seems to feel like they knew Marilyn better than anyone. They also all seemed to feel like they were the only ones who had "the whole story" on what happened to Marilyn. And needless to say, it was heartbreaking listening to Marilyn talk about her life and career in her own voice.

And just when we think we're not going to learn anything new, we have to wait until the final 15 minutes of the film to learn some tidbits about what happened on August 8, 1962 that before this documentary, have never been revealed before. And it is the final 15 minutes of this documentary that hardcore Marilyn devotees, like myself, will revel in.

love! valour! compassion!
Fans of The Boys in the Band might have a head start with 1997's love! valour! compassion, the emotionally-charged film adaptation of an off-Broadway play that might take some inspiration from the Mart Crowley classic, but definitely takes on added layers due to its contemporary setting, and remains quite watchable due to sensitive direction and some surprisingly solid performances.

The setting is the upstate New York Victorian home of Gregory (Stephen Bogardus), an aging dancer and choreographer and his blind lover, Bobby (Justin Kirk), who have a group of friends spend three summer holiday weekends with them. The guest list includes John (John Glover), an angry musician and his much younger new lover, Ramon (Randy Becker); Arthur (John Benjamin Hickey) and Perry )Stephen Spinella) a couple who have been in a committed relationship for 14 years; Buzz (Jason Alexander) is passionate about Broadway musicals and is in denial about the fact that he has AIDS. We also meet John's twin brother, James (also Glover), who is also AIDS-stricken and dismayed by the hatred from his twin brother.

The film is an adaptation of a play Terrance McNally (Frankie and Johnny, The Ritz) that never really escapes its theatrical origins but that's OK, because this piece is rich with extremely theatrical characters and themes. It also gives the going-on here the intimate atmosphere they deserve. The whole story feels like a beautifully mounted home movie about people we want to get to know. Perhaps it was unfair to start with a comparison to The Boys in the Band because, outside the fact that all of the characters are gay, this story is quite different from Mart Crowley's play.

Unlike The Boys in the Band, this story takes place at the height of the AIDS epidemic and not to touch on it would be wrong. In this movie, we get a look at one thing the AIDS epidemic did to the gay community. It fueled not only a lot of hate, but a lot of self-loathing in the community. The Perry character is terrified of the disease to the point that he is drowning in a self-loathing that makes him hate everything about being gay...except Arthur. The part of this story that really spoke to me is when Ramon found himself immediately attracted to Bobby. It was so interesting watching a love story between a man used to using his looks to getting what he wants but finding them useless now and a sensitive man loved by one man but drawn to another he can't see.

McNally's screenplay is to be applauded for its unabashed presentation of gay stereotypes that always ring true. I loved the fact that a lot of Buzz' dialogue was lyrics from Broadway musicals that most non-musical lovers won't even recognize. I loved the intimacy between the characters even though some were played by gay actors and some weren't. The actors are completely invested here and director Joe Mantello (The Normal Heart has to take a lot of credit for that. It should be mentioned that there is some tasteful frontal nudity, so be warned for those offended by that sort of thing.

Mantello has pulled some spectacular performances from his cast, especially Alexander, who will surprise all those George Costanza fans out there, Kirk, Hickey, and especially Glover, who quite amazingly creates two completely gay characters who are twin brothers. I'm not going to lie, this is not for all tastes, but if you enjoyed Mantello's 2020 remake The Boys in the Band, you'll enjoy this too.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
It's not what it appears to be on the surface, but Nicolas Cage's ability to poke fun at his own onscreen persona makes 2022's The Unbearable weight of Massive Talent a unique screen experience that not only holds appeal for fans of the star but for true film buffs as well.

The film opens with a young foreign couple watching Con-Air and being fascinated by its star when some thugs burst into their home and kidnap the girl. The film then moves to Hollywood where we meet the Oscar winner, in desperate straits about his career and hoping to get the starring role in a very important movie. Shortly after learning that he didn't get the role, he receives an invitation from a super fan named Javi to entertain at a party. Upon his arrival in South America, Cage strikes up a friendship with Javi just as he's informed by the CIA that Javi is a wanted arms dealer and it is Javi's bosses who kidnapped his daughter.

Director and co-screenwriter Tom Gormican is to be applauded for a richly complex screenplay that is not so complex that it confuses the viewer. First of all, it is important to know that the Nicolas Cage at the center of this story is a fictionalized version of the actor. Yes, his career is heavily referenced, but the personal life of the actor is fictionalized, probably the only way to get the actor to agree to do the film. The film does reference some of his most famous movies though. In addition to Con-Air, the screenplay does provide knowing winks to The Rock, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Face/Off among others. There is also a brilliant homage to his Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

What I didn't see coming and what became the emotional center of the film is the relationship that develops between Cage and Javi. Javi's obsession with Cage comes off as sincere but never dangerous. Loved that every time Cage and Javi got in a tight spot, Javi would reference something from one of Cage's movies to get them out of it. LOVED when Javi showed Cage his museum of Cage movie trivia, including a giant wax figure of Castor Troy, pointing his golden weapons. We even get a couple of appearances from Cage's conscience, also played by Cage and billed as Nic, who provides advice and strength for our hero. I wouldn't have minded twenty more minutes of screentime if it had been devoted to Nicolas and Nic. I also liked the way Cage allowed the story to remind us that he's a little too old to do the kind of action roles he used to do.

Gormicon was afforded a huge budget for the film and it's all up there on the screen. Cage appears to be having a ball here and he is perfectly complimented by the utterly charming Pedro Pascal as Javi, absolutely lighting up the screen. Cinematography and music are the final touches on this surprisingly solid comic fantasy that doesn't promise what it originally seems to, but provides some surprising answers that are well worth waiting for.

House of Strangers
Before winning four Oscars for writing and directing A Letter To Three Wives and All About Eve, Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed and wrote a richly entertaining Shakespearean-styled family drama called House of Strangers thanks to Mankiewicz' skill and a some sterling lead performances.

As the film opens we see Max Monetti (Richard Conte) being released from prison after seven years and going to the bank being run by his three brothers. Max rebuffs his brothers' offers to make peace and says he plans revenge on all of them and his father, one Gino Monetti (Edward G. Robinson). The film then flashes back to Max and his brothers working their tails off to impress daddy Gino, who really doesn't have any feelings for any of them except Max. Max also finds himself in an on and off love affair with a flashy socialite named Irene (Susan Hayward) despite the fact that he's engaged.

Mario Puzo has to have been influenced by this film when he wrote The Godfather because the influence is definitely felt here. Four brothers struggling to get attention from a patriarch that they never really get here. There's a great scene at the beginning of the film where we see crowds of people gathering in front of Gino's desk, begging for financial favors the same way folks seek favors from Don Vito Corleone at the beginning of The Godfather during Connie's wedding. Was also impressed with the silence of Gino's wife, for the majority of the film, living up to the quiet Italian matriarch she was supposed to be.

Edward G Robinson offers one of his most dazzling performances as Gino and Richard Conte gives the strongest performance I've ever seen from him as Max and the chemistry that he and Susan Hayward create onscreen is positively electric. A classy and intense melodrama from the golden age of cinema. The final scene is a knockout.