Gideon58's Reviews

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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I've been looking forward to seeing Spielberg's version of West Side Story since the first time I read about it, so I'm glad to hear how good it is. Unfortunately it will probably be a while before I get a chance to see it.
Make sure you see it in an actual theater...online can't do it justice.

I have no plans to go to the theater as long as there's still a pandemic going on, so it will probably be years before I go back to the theater.

I'll just have to take my chances watching it on the small screen eventually.
__________________
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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.



Being the Ricardos
After his triumph last year with The Trial of the Chicago 7, which I thought was the best film of 2020, I would like to report that Aaron Sorkin's latest project, 2021's Being the Ricardos, an up close and personal look at classic Hollywood royalty, was as good, not to say that it isn't worth a look.

This film starts out as a look into the production of the television series I Love Lucy and its stars, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who made it the most successful television comedy in history. The story begins at the table read (where the cast sits down and reads the script for the first time) for episode 4 of season two of the show, titled "Fred and Ethel Fight". It is during the production of this episode where we find Lucy fighting multiple battles with the sponsors about problems with the script, while she has also been called to testify to the Committee on Un-American Activities after being accused of being a communist.

This one week in the life of Lucy and Desi was rife with enough material for a really great movie, but Sorkin tries to cover a bit too much territory here, going back to the stars' first meeting on the set of Too Many Girls, through Lucy's less-than-stellar career as a B movie queen, through her multiple battles to simultaneously re-ignite her career and save her marriage by making Desi believe he was in charge of I Love Lucy, which only came to fruition because Lucy told CBS she wouldn't do it without Desi.

The movie gets less interesting as it moves away from season 2 episode 4, but a lot of stuff about Lucy's extraordinary career are given screentime here. Lucy's frustration with her movie career, her never-ending paranoia about Desi's infidelity, the antagonism between Vivian Vance and Williams Frawley, and Lucy's constant battle to make Desi look like the boss on the set of I Love Lucy, though nothing could have been further from the truth. Loved all the scenes of Lucy trying to get the opening scene of the episode done the way she wanted and her and Desi's battle to get Lucy's pregnancy written into the show.

Sorkin put a lot of care and research into this production, I just wish he had concentrated a little more on this specific week as it is setup because it becomes obvious pretty quickly that everything that happens in this movie did not happen during the shooting of episode 4, season 2.

As for the performances, Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Jarvier Bardem work extremely hard in the starring roles, but I never see Lucy and Desi onscreen, I always know I'm watching Kidman and Jarvier, who bring no humor to the performances, not that this film is a comedy, but a movie about Lucy and Desi should provide some laughs. The only real laughs come from Oscar winner JK Simmons as William Frawley, who deserves an Oscar nomination. Tony Hale's performance as Jess Oppenheimer is Oscar-worthy as well, but these performances don't cover up the fact that Sorkin's screenplay is a little overstuffed and makes this docudrama a little labored.



Miranda and screenwriter Steven Levinson (Dear Evan Hansen, Fosse/Verdon) have decided to use the score to flash out characters, advance story, or as in the case of the number "Therapy", musically reinterpret a scene without music.
Funny you mention Levinson, I just started watching Fosse/Verdon yesterday and am LOVING it.

I agree totally with your review. I mean, I am a medium theater/stage-musical fan, but I was totally taken with this film. The imaginative and audacious visuals are just so engaging.

Andrew Garfield had not really been on my radar previously. (I mean, I knew he played Spiderman and was a big name actor, but that was about the extent of it). He so impressed me here.



Funny you mention Levinson, I just started watching Fosse/Verdon yesterday and am LOVING it.

I agree totally with your review. I mean, I am a medium theater/stage-musical fan, but I was totally taken with this film. The imaginative and audacious visuals are just so engaging.

Andrew Garfield had not really been on my radar previously. (I mean, I knew he played Spiderman and was a big name actor, but that was about the extent of it). He so impressed me here.
OMG, I am in the middle of re-watching Fosse/Verdon right now...we must be spiritual animals or something, LOL!



The Snake Pit
One of Hollywood's earliest looks at mental illness,The Snake Pit is a dark and uncompromising look at one woman's journey to complete mental destruction that is so compelling it received six Oscar nominations, including one for the Best Picture of 1948.

Fresh off her first Oscar win for To Each His Own, Olivia de Havilland was pegged for the complex role of Virginia Cunningham, a writer who has a nervous breakdown after her brief courtship and marriage to Robert Cunningham (Mark Stevens). Virginia has no memory of what led to her breakdown or being committed. As she enters the land of assorted fruits and nuts, she finds the only person she can trust is Dr. Kik (Leo Genn) even though his initial treatment regiment includes shock therapy. Eventually, Virginia improves to the point where she is assigned a private room and we think there is hope for her.

The Oscar nominated screenplay, based on a novel by Mary Jane Ward, is slightly confusing because when we meet Virginia, she has already been committed and her only connection to reality is the voices in her head, leaving the viewer in the dark about what happened. We are further frustrated when near about the halfway point, it seems that Dr. Kik knows what's wrong, but wants Virginia to figure it out for herself. The saddest part of Virginia's plight is how the hospital's administration want her out because of overcrowding, but Virginia knows she's where she's supposed to be and is not interested in getting out at all.

That was the most interesting aspect of the story. The fact that more than one opportunity arises for Virginia to leave the hospital but she doesn't want to. Eventually, her illness, as suspected, is connected to a childhood trauma and the reveal of that trauma was a bit of a letdown, but believable.

Director Anatole Litvak (Sorry Wrong Number) mounts a creepy and atmospheric melodrama that rivets the viewer to the screen and yearning for Virginia's return to reality. Litvak shows some real flair with the camera...loved that shot of de Havilland in the middle of the open ward that rises and expands upward while Virginia describes exactly where she is...the snake pit.

Olivia de Havilland loses herself in a brilliantly unhinged performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Ironically, de Havilland would win a second Oscar for her next film The Heiress. Stevens and Genn made the most of their screen time and if you don't blink, you'll catch the future Mrs. Howell, Natalie Schafer, in a cameo as well as Betsy Blair, who seven year later would star with Ernest Borgnine in Marty as a dangerous mental patient. It's a little over the top at times, but still a sad and frightening film from which I could not look away.



OMG, I am in the middle of re-watching Fosse/Verdon right now...we must be spiritual animals or something, LOL!
Hee!

I'll come in here and demand opinions when I'm done! So far I am loving both lead performances. I also really like the absolutely bonkers way it jumps around in time. Michelle Williams is such an amazing actress. I just fall in love with her all over again every time I see her in something new.



You know Michelle Williams won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Fosse/Verdon
I didn't (because I'm kind of tuned out of awards these days) but I believe it and from what I've seen so far it's totally earned.



Don't Look Up
Adam McKay, the creative force behind a film I liked called Vice and a film I hated called The Big Short scores a bullseye with a ferocious black comedy called Don't Look Up, a smoldering indictment on the effects of politics and social media on our very existence, buoyed by a sparkling all star cast, including five Oscar winners.

This 2021 epic stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy an astronomer who, with the assistance of a PHD candidate named Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers that a giant comet is hurdling toward the earth, will land in about six months, and will destroy the planet. Randall and Kate fly to Washington to report their discovery to the President (Meryl Streep) but she doesn't want to cause a panic until her scientific team has a chance to look into it. Randall and Kate then go to the media and are pretty much laughed in the face by the New York Herald and a talk show called The Daily Rip. As the reaction to their news tears Randall and Kate apart, a cyber billionaire (Mark Rylance) steps forward and announces that the comet can be beneficial to the planet if it is broken up before it lands, but his plan is really predicated on a secret about the comet that could further line his pockets.

Adam McKay has created an emotional roller coaster here that began in an almost farcical manner, producing nervous laughs as McKay's screenplay starts off seriously tongue in cheek but grows more serious as the story progresses. The scene where Randall and Kate first appear on the Daily Rip had my stomach tied in knots because the co-hosts, beautifully played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry, didn't have a clue how serious this was and their reaction to Kate's meltdown made my heart sink. And when I thought I had seen enough, we see Randall return to the show for further devastation, in what was probably my favorite scene in the film, brilliantly directed by McKay and brilliantly acted by DiCaprio.

The saddest part of the story is what this horror does to Randall and Kate's relationship as Randall is initially embraced by social media and Kate becomes a social media pariah. As I began to mourn the end of their very special relationship at the final third of the film, their relationship and everything else changes as Randall and Kate first notice the comet in the air simultaneously, but from different locations, a moment that ignited this reviewer's tear ducts.

This film was frightening and had my stomach in knots for most of the running time, not because it really happened, but because it could happen and there was nothing unrealistic here, as horrific as it was. McKay's direction is sharp and imaginative and he works wonders with an incredible cast. DiCaprio has rarely been better and Lawrence's Kate leaps off the screen into the viewer's soul. Also loved Blanchett as the flighty talk show host, Jonah Hill as the President's Chief of Staff, Timothee Chalamet as a fanboy/gamer drawn to Kate, Mark Rylance as the goofy billionaire, and the accustomed crisp and humorous turn from Streep as the POTUS. An edgy black comedy that takes no prisoners and left this reviewer limp.



The Affairs of Dobie Gillis
MGM puts some effort into a pointless musical comedy called The Affairs of Dobie Gillis which features some past and future stars in front of the camera in an economical but dumb story that is almost made watchable by some terrific musical sequences but not enough music or the MGM gloss to make this viable entertainment.

The 1953 film stars Bobby Van as the title character, a college student who thinks the only reason to go to college is to meet girls. Upon arrival, he meets Pansy Hammer (Debbie Reynolds), who thinks the only reason to go to college is to study. Despite their opposite views regarding college, they are drawn to each other, thanks to some shoving from Dobie's best pal, Charlie (Bob Fosse), and strong objections from Pansy's father (Hanley Stafford).

Not sure what was really going on here, but for the studio that was the king of musicals in the 1950's, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of care or effort put into this film in terms of production values or story. Max Schulman's screenplay has all the substance of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical, which are usually beefed up by strong musical numbers but even the musical sequences are few and far between. We have to wait until the halfway point of the film before the first musical number, a jazzy dance number featuring Fosse, at the top of his form, dancing with the other leads in a number I'm pretty sure he choreographed. A duet between Reynolds and Van turns out to be "All I Do is Dream of You", which Reynolds performed the previous year in Singin in the Rain. Van's dance solo to "I'm Through with Love" had a very Gene Kelly quality to it. Two or three numbers like that one, or a challenge dance with Van like the one Fosse did with Tommy Rall in My Sister Eileen would have helped.

Some familiar faces pop up in the supporting cast including Lurene Tuttle as Pansys' mother, Hans Conreid as a snooty English professor, and the eternally grouchy Charles Lane as a chemistry professor, but this one just seems to suffer because of severe budget restrictions from keeping it what it should have been. The film was later turned into a TV series called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis with Dwayne Hickman playing Dobie.



The Affairs of Dobie Gillis
The film was later turned into a TV series called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis wit Dwayne Hickman playing Dobie.
What interested me about the film besides being a proto type for the TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis...was the hair style of Debbie Reynolds. Which looked nothing like an early 1950s hair style, but looked very much like the upsweeped & off the ears bi-level hair style for women in the mid 1980s. I swear I knew a girl in the mid 80s who had the exact same hairstyle too. I just thought that was interesting.



Belfast
Director and screenwriter Kenneth Branagh scores with 2021's Belfast, an ambitious and gut-wrenching look at war primarily through the eyes of a child that provides genuine originality through sterling production values that provide often some arresting visuals, and a handful of remarkable performances.

The movie opens in 1969 Belfast, Northern Ireland during the frightening religious conflict there between the Protestants and the Catholics and has had a profound effect on the family of a young boy named Buddy. whose parents and grandparents are doing everything they can to shield the boy and his older brother from the horrors of what is going on. Sadly, Buddy's parents have done such a good job of protecting Buddy from what's going on, that he is resistant when his parents suggest they must leave Belfast for their own safety. Not to mention that Buddy has begun to develop a crush on a girl at school, who, is, of course, Catholic while Buddy is Protestant.

Branagh's screenplay establishes battle lines in a place where the lines are often hard to understand. I was a kid myself when all this was going on and there was a time that I remember Belfast being mentioned on the news on a daily basis. The war in Belfast was particularly frustrating because this was another conflict fought in the name of God, a troubling but realistic foundation for a lot of our world's history of war.

Loved Branagh's visual conception of the story. The story opens with a colorful postcard of present day Belfast then flashes back to 1969 where the majority of the story is told in black and white. It's then established that this family's only escape from the horrors of the war are through trips to the cinema and to the theater. When the family goes to the cinema to see Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC and when they go to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the clips of these movies are in color. There's also a lovely scene where Buddy and his grandmother go to see a stage version of A Christmas Carol, where the audience is in black and white, but the show onstage is in color. There's a lovely shot of Grandma in the audience watching the show in black and white and the reflection of the show onstage in her glasses is in color...just amazing.

Branagh has mounted a story that doesn't offer a lot of contrived and pat answers to this senseless war, but it offers enough of a balance between realism and hope that we remain invested in what's going on. Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dorman are impressively conflicted as Buddy's parents and an unrecognizable Judi Dench offers an Oscar-worthy turn as Buddy's grandmother, but it is young Jude Hill who commands the screen and carries the film as young Buddy, a performance that should earn him an Oscar nomination. Must also mention Branagh;s choice of a song score for this story, which frames the story perfectly and completely defies description. A winner.



Who's Got the Action?
The story is clever and the cast is solid for the most part, but the 1962 comedy Who's Got the Action is a labored and sluggish comedy that doesn't provide the laughs it should.

The film stars Dean Martin as Steve Flood, a lawyer addicted to betting on the horses who has been hiding his sickness from his beautiful Melanie (Lana Turner), with help from his law partner Clint Morgan (Eddie Albert), who has been harboring a secret crush on Melanie for years. Melanie was convinced that Steve has been cheating on her, but is relieved to learn from Clint that her husband has been gambling. Melanie asks Clint to get Steve to abandon his bookie and start using Melanie as his new bookie without him knowing it's Melanie. Unfortunately, after taking on Melanie as his new bookie sight unseen, Steve hits a winning streak that motivates other clients of his original bookie to go to Melanie, including two municipal court judges.

The basic premise of Jack Rose's screenplay is a good one, but something really gets lost in its transfer to the screen. I think the primary problem with the story is that the Melanie character is not the brightest bulb in the row and that she really had no idea what she was getting into when she decided to become a fake bookie. It appears that it never occurred to her that Steve would actually win any of his bets and that's where the story begins to fall apart. Between Steve and the judges bets, Melanie finds herself in debt to the head of a gambling syndicate (Walter Matthau) and trying to pay off her debts, finds herself having to sell off everything she owns to pay her debts.

One of the main problems here is the miscasting of the role of Melanie. The role really requires someone possessed of some comic timing and Lana Turner has never really been known for comedy and despite her absolutely drop dead gorgeous Edith Head wardrobe, just looks out of place in this kind of slapstick comedy. Circa 1962, I would have preferred to see someone like Natalie Wood or Janet Leigh in this role.

The sluggish direction by Daniel Mann doesn't help. Again, we have a someone who is accustomed to drama (Come Back Little Sheba, The Rose Tattoo) in the director's chair and it really shows. The running tine was a little over 90 minutes, but I swear I had a birthday while watching this movie.

The rest of the cast is solid though...Dean Martin brings his usual breeziness to the role of Steve and Eddie Albert was terrific as Clint, bringing substance to the role that wasn't in the screenplay. And it goes without saying that Walter Matthau stole every scene he was in as the syndicate head. Loved Paul Ford and John McGiver as the judges and Nita Talbot as a nightclub singer named Saturday Knight. Ned Glass and Jack Albertson can also be spotted in small roles, and that's Albert's real-life wife, Margo playing the Floods' housekeeper, Roza, but this one definitely lost something in its translation from page to screen. Even spectacular production values didn't disguise what a turkey this was.



C'mon C'mon
From the creative force behind the 2010 film Beginners, 2021's C'mon C'mon is an intimate, edgy, and delicately crafted look at a severely broken family that's combination of complexity and artistry requires complete attention from the review and said attention is rewarded.

The film stars Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny, a radio journalist who travels across the country conducting interviews with children regarding the state of the world. A year after the death of his mother, Johnny travels to Los Angeles to see his sister, Viv (Gaby Hoffman) and upon his arrival, Viv asks Johnny if he would take care of his nephew, Jesse, so that Viv can track down her missing, mentally ill husband. Johnny stays in LA for a couple of weeks but work commitments demand his return to New York and he has no choice but to take Jesse with him.

Director and screenwriter Mike Mills gives us a lot to absorb here, but he does it with such panache that we can't help but be up to the challenge. He has constructed a strong and riveting story with this family, but he manages to blend in random interviews with the children. These interviews take up a smidge too much screentime but they are fascinating in their appearance to be unscripted. Watching these interviews did make it hard to pinpoint exactly when this film takes place. The only clue Mills provides is that it's post Hurricane Katrina, but there is no mention of covid or is anyone wearing masks. If it were in the present and children were being asked about the state of the world, covid should have come up at some point. Eventually, when it takes place became irrelevant.

When the story is focused on the family, it totally hits a bullseye...Mills provides backstory through carefully crafted flashbacks, with and without dialogue, that assemble a lot of the family dynamic for the viewer. Among things these flashbacks reveal is that Johnny and Viv fought a lot about the care of their mother and when Jesse's dad became sick, Viv tried to shield Jesse from as much of it as possible. Loved the multiple moments of Johnny and Viv reading the L Frank Baum novel The Wizard of Oz and the initial tentative bonding of Johnny and Jesse, which was one step forward, two steps back for the most of the running time.

Another thing I loved about this story is that the Jesse character is not bathed in this angelic victim light. In order to shield him from the pain from what was happening, Viv has spoiled this kid rotten and puts up with a lot of crap from this kid, without informing Johnny of any of it before they leave for New York. There are too separate scenes of Jesse disappearing on Johnny that are initially terrifying, but they actually play out two different ways, which was impressive. This kid loved to scare the hell out of his uncle, which this reviewer found troublesome, but his uncle's tolerance of his behavior was forgiven because the kid is his nephew.

Mills' directorial eye is so stylish here...shot in stunning black and white, Mills provides some gorgeous postcards of LA and New York and when it's time to focus in on the family, the camera work is so deliberately intrusive...every time the camera moves in on the family, the camera is either coming slowly around a corner or excusing itself as it tries to leave the room without being noticed. Joaquin Phoenix's gutsy performance as Johnny reminded me of his performance in Her, an effective blend of sensitivity and strength. Gaby Hoffman gives the performance of her career as the hot mess Viv, this character just broke my heart and Hoffman had a lot to do with that. Young Woody Norman commands the screen as little Jesse, never shying away from the negative aspects of the character. Already being impressed with this performance, I was blown away when I learned via the IMDB that Norman is British and employs a perfect American accent for this movie. Despite a tad of overindulgence, this film is pretty special.



Faithful
My recent viewing of the Paul Mazursky dramedy Blume in Love prompted a look at another forgotten gem from the Mazursky library...a scorching black comedy called Faithful that keeps the viewer in the dark to exactly what's going on here.

Cher stars as Maggie, a pampered and wealthy housewife who is also in a deep depression because her husband, Jack (Ryan O'Neal) is cheating on her. As Maggie completes a suicide note and prepares to swallow a bottle of pills, a hitman named Tony (Chazz Palminteri) breaks in her house, ties her to a chair on wheels, and tells her that he has been hired by her husband to kill her but to rape her first to make it look more unplanned. Tony has been instructed for the phone to ring twice and stop as the moment to carry out the plan while Jack establishes his alibi far far away.

The screenplay is actually based on a a play written by Palminteri, who also wrote the play that became A Bronx Story. The story is a little on the talky side, revealing its stage origins, but he has created a couple flawed and fascinating characters in Maggie and Tony. Tony is particularly broken, revealing to be under a therapist's care, who he actually has on the phone sessions with while committing the crime, which we don't see coming. A second phone signal is established for the shrink, which creates unbearable tension every time the phone rings. The shrink is brilliantly played by the director. I also love when Tony is pushing Maggie around in the chair on wheels.

The film doesn't take too much time with exposition, though one seemingly unimportant moment during Jack and Maggie's reception does come into play. I love the transition that the Maggie character goes through, initially indifferent at the thought of dying, but eventually deciding to fight back in a couple of ways, one way that sets up an undeniable sexual tension between Maggie and Tony. As the film careens towards its sizzling finale, we begin getting several different versions of exactly what's going on here, kind of like the film Deathtrap, where we're never sure of what's really happening and, if the truth be told, I'm still not 100% sure of what happened here.

Mazursky has employed dazzling production values here to make it one of the most attractive photographed stage plays I've ever seen. Cher and Palminteri light up the screen and even O'Neal is effectively cast against type. And if you don't blink you'll catch a glimpse of Oscar winner Allyson Janney. A forgotten gem from the resume of Paul Mazursky.



Thanks! for sharing these reviews
If you're looking for a move based on a true story watch. 12 Years Of Slave
I watched it yesterday, it literally made me cry.



The Power of the Dog
A Golden Globe nominee for Best Motion Picture Drama of 2021, The Power of the Dog is a dark and sweeping psychological epic rife with such raw intensity and sexual tension that it dares the viewer to creep into some shocking areas of human nature and then allowing the viewer to decide if they want to make that plunge or not.

The setting is 1925 Montana where we meet Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbact). an iron-fisted rancher who has been running his ranch for years with his brother, George (Jesse Plemmons), though he has always made clear to George who the boss is. During a respite while taking cattle to market, Phil, George, and their men stop at the Red Mill restaurant, which is run by a charming widow named Rose (Kirsten Dunst), who has a sensitive young artist son named Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Phil and his men ridicule and harass the widow and her son to the point where George feels he has to apologize to Rose. The men return to their ranch but George goes back to the Red Mill, returning to the family ranch a few days later announcing he has married Rose, a move that changes the course of all the people involved forever.

Jane Campion, who won an Oscar for writing the 1994 film The Piano has crafted a story of ethereal beauty and sexual depravity that keeps the viewer wondering exactly what's going on from one scene to the next because nothing is overt or in our face. Its approach to exposition is slow and deliberate making the movie taking a little too much time get going, but once it does, we find ourselves fascinated as we find ourselves drawn to the enigmatic Phil Burbank, a charismatic figure whose authority over his crew resembles Jesus and his disciples. We also see a man with some serious demons eating him up inside through bizarre behavior when he is alone. We are perplexed as Rose marries a man she doesn't really love but jumps out of her chair whenever Phil is 100 feet from her. There's a great scene of her alone playing the piano while outside Phil is duplicating the tune on a guitar, that came off like a twisted version of the "Duellin Banjos" scene in Deliverance.

Campion has mounted an absolutely gorgeous film here, where the stunning exteriors quietly hide the sickness within the story. Campion's camera brings story as close to the ugliness as it can without completely exposing it. Campion allows the viewer to make certain decisions about the story, that make viewer imagination go to some really dark places. There is a lot of unpleasantness on display including some shocking cruelty to animals, so if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, be forewarned.

I must admit this was my first real exposure to Benedict Cumberbatch, outside his part of the large ensemble cast of August: Osage County, and if this performance is any indication of the man's talent, will definitely be checking out more of his work. I can't recall performance in a while that was so simultaneously bone-chilling and sexy. Plemmons is warm and likable as George and I've never enjoyed Dunst more onscreen, in a complex role. Production values are spectacular with shout-outs to cinematography, music, and especially sound...loved the sound of Phil's boots clomping across the floor. Fans of There Will be Blood will have a head start here.



Pagan Love Song
MGM struck out with 1950's Pagan Love Song, a snore-inducing musical that bored me to death, despite some gorgeous scenery and two of MGM's biggest stars in the leads.

Howard Keel and his lush baritone arrive in Tahiti as Hap Endicott, a schoolteacher from Ohio who arrives in Tahiti to inherit a plantation. Upon arrival he is instantly drawn to Mimi (Esther Wiliams), an attractive half-white, half native girl who is getting ready to leave Tahiti for America, decides it would be fun to stay in Tahiti and toy with Hap by pretending to barely speak English.

This movie, based upon a novel called "Tahiti Windfall", offers very little for the viewer to hang to here, outside some beautiful island scenery, Howard Keel singing shirtless, and Esther cavorting in the water surrounded by handsome native boys, there's just not enough any of this. Esther's first real choreographed encounter with the water doesn't happen until almost halfway through the movie, as does her first kiss with Keel. There's a whole lot of screentime spent watching the natives fall allover themselves to make sure the Big Kahuna
white master Keel is made comfortable. Keel even spends five minutes chasing a pig around the island.

There are a few musical highlights, but nothing special. There's one number called "Singin in the Sun" that is staged exactly like Judy Garland's "Happy Harvest' in Summer Stock.
Keel and Williams generate some chemistry and there is a brief appearance by a young Rita Moreno, playing one of those stereotyped island girls she talked about in her documentary. One of MGM's most dismal entries, for hardcore fans of the stars only.



The Lost Daughter
Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a sincere debut behind the camera with The Lost Daughter, a delicately crafted character study about a woman forced to look at a past that she has been working very hard to forget.

The 2021 Netflix offering stars Oscar winner Olivia Colman as Leda, a college professor on vacation in a small coastal town in Greece. After a couple of days, her solace is interrupted by a large family gathering at the beach for a birthday celebration. Leda witness a minor crisis within the family that is quickly averted, but it eventually forces Leda to face some serious demons from her own past.

Gyllenhaal collaborated on the screenplay with an Elena Ferrante, who research revealed to be a pseudonym for the real author of the novel is based on, which says a couple of things to this reviewer. One, that the novelist had issues with the finished product and two, there are autobiographical elements to the story. As it has become fashion in cinema today. the film opens with the end and then flashes back, which I think was a detriment here. The leisurely introduction of Lena as a vacationer would have kept the viewer in suspense a lot longer than it does. Between her meeting with the lonely innkeeper (another terrific performance by the underrated Ed Harris) and her reaction to the family's intruding on her quiet vacation, her reluctance to answer questions from strangers, we begin to wonder if we're ever going to learn exactly what happened.

Instead, we are given access to Leda's past, played simultaneously with another actress playing the younger Leda. Surprises we really don't see coming are revealed during the reveal of Leda's story including a troublesome relationship with her daughters and a passionate affair that destroyed her marriage, which makes the pain we see bottled up inside Leda when we first meet her a lot more understandable.

Gyllenhaal's direction is easy and deliberate, allowing the story to unfold more slowly than described. We're almost halfway into the film before young Leda is revealed. The collaborative effort between Gyllenhaal and Colman to insure that we don't learn what Gyllenhaal wants us to learn until she wants us to. There are a couple of scenes, like the scene in the movie theater, that provide fire to the proceedings, but do nothing to advance story, making the film longer than it needs to be.

The story doesn't provide the closure we hope for with Leda, including some unforeseen consequences. Gyllenhaal has provided impressive spectacular production values for an indie production including the gorgeous Greek on location photography. As she always does, Olivia Colman provides an exquisitely moving performance as Leda. Bouquets as well to Jessie Buckley and the charismatic Peter Skarsgaard as Leda's young lover. It's not a home run, but an impressive first-time-out-of-the box for Maggie Gyllenhaal.