Gideon58's Reviews

DIRTY DANCING (2017)
ABC apparently poured mountains of money into their "re-imagining" of Dirty Dancing the 1987 classic that won an Oscar for Best Song ("I've Had the Time of My Life") and made official movie stars out of the late Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, but it was all for naught. I'm pretty sure the term "re-imagining" was used to legitimize this bastardization of the original film that I am scrambling to think of something positive to say regarding the three hours of my life this movie stole from me.

For the uninitiated, this is the story of Frances "Baby" Houseman, a high school senior in the 1960's, who spends the summer at a resort in the Catskills with her parents and older sister and has an ill-fated romance with the resort's sexy dance instructor, Johnny Castle. This film re-invented the art of movie dance, made guys dancing cool again and was the surprise box office smash of 1987.

This film was in the top 20 of my list of films that never should remade, but now that's it done, all I can do is bring to light the myriad problems that came with remounting a film that should have been allowed to languish in our cinematic memory chests as the original treasure it was instead of attempting to bring something "new" to it.

There's so much wrong here that I'm not sure where to start, but let's begin with Jessica Sharzer's screenplay with its obvious feminist leanings. The story attempts to empower the women in the story even though exactly the opposite is true of most of the women in the original film. We are told immediately of Baby's fascination with Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" and are shocked when later on in the film we see Lisa trying to read it. Yes, Lisa, Baby's older sister, the girl who didn't have a brain in her head in the original film. Lisa is actually given a brain and a social conscience in this film, evidenced in her on the surface romance with a black guitar player who teachers her how to play the ukelele (yes, you read that correctly). Marjorie Houseman, Baby's mother, turns out to be struggling to keep her marriage together, when it is revealed that she and Dr. Houseman haven't had sex in a year and Vivian Pressman, the rich divorcee whose lust for Johnny actually drives her to blackmail.

Apologies for the comparisons to the original film, but with any kind of remake, avoiding comparisons is pretty much impossible. For me, what made the original film the special experience it was was the smoking chemistry between Swayze and Grey, and it's just not here. Abigail Breslin is a talented actress who understand the character of Baby and works very hard at being part of a sexy onscreen team but generates absolutely NO chemistry with virtual unknown Colt Prattes whose wooden performance and less than stellar dancing skills, along with Breslin appearing to be approximately 25 pounds overweight, just made it hard to invest in these two as a couple.

The film tries to make up for the lack of chemistry between the stars by beefing up the roles of minor characters that we just don't care about. The whole subplot of the Houseman's dying marriage was just deadening despite sincere work from Debra Messing as Marjorie Houseman, but Bruce Greenwood sucked all the likability out of the role of Baby's father, brilliantly played by the late Jerry Orbach in the original. The role of Vivian was also beefed up, given great appeal thanks to Katey Sagal's terrific performance in the role. Messing and Sagal were even both awarded their own musical sequences in the film, which I suspect were added to get the actresses to agree to appear. Also enjoyed Nicole Scherzinger as Penny, Johnny's dance partner, played by Cynthia Rhodes in the original film. She and Sagal somehow manage to retain their dignity during this mess.

The main problem with this film is that Sharzer and director Wayne Blair have attempted to take a drama with dance sequences and turn it into a movie musical and try to legitimize it all with a hard to believe climax that left me scratching my head. They attempt to turn the piece into a musical by utilizing all the music from the original and having the cast sing the songs, which would have been OK, except all the musical sequences come off sounding canned and phony. On the very small positive side, the film is beautiful to look at with some stunning cinematography, but the choreography is unimaginative and I've seen better dancing on Dancing with the Stars. Other than the performances of Katey Sagal and Nicole Scherzinger, this movie is a hot mess, even worse than FOX's remake of Grease, which I really didn't think could be outdone in terms of bad, but ABC has accomplished just that.

Nothing much I've seen recently except for A Simple Plan, which I loved the second time around, and Rear Window, which I wasn't crazy about the most recent time.

I've never been that interested in Public Enemies despite my love for gangster films, and I will never watch the Dirty Dancing remake despite my love for the original.

ONE HOUR PHOTO
A bone chilling performance by the late Robin Williams is the centerpiece of a riveting psychological thriller from 2002 called One Hour Photo that keeps the viewer riveted yet squirming thanks to a story that provides as many questions as it does answers and is worth the creepy journey despite an ending that was a bit of a letdown.

Williams plays Sy Parrish, an employee in a one hour photo lab who has developed an unhealthy obsession with a regular customer named Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen), her son Jake (Dylan Smith) and Nina's husband, Will (Michael Vartan)who, as the story begins, Sy has never met. It soon becomes apparent that Sy's obsession with this family has crossed all kinds of boundaries as he has actually imagined himself to be part of the family. It is revealed that the Yorkins are not the blissful model family that Sy has created in his mind and certain events cause Sy to snap and do what he has to in order to preserve his self-created family.

Writer/director Mark Romanek has crafted a compelling story that does provide its share of scares but does a much more effective job at creating squirm worthy situations that we know are wrong but this creepy central character is blissfully unaware. Romanek builds this puzzle of a character slowly and deliberately beginning with Nina coming to Sy with film requesting 2 prints of each photo and we see Sy write down 3. It initially seems to stretch credibility when even young Jake confesses to his mother that he thinks Sy is lonely and is worried about him, but the real squirming for the viewer begins at Jake's baseball practice where he hears his name and instead of seeing one of his parents, Sy is sitting in the bleachers all by himself.

Romanek's creation of this central character is fascinating considering the lack of information we are given about him. I love that Romanek attempts to elicit sympthy for the character by having him serve as the story's narrator, looking at every aspect of life through the art of photography. It's obvious there are mental health issues going on with this character though they are never addressed. Nothing else resembling backstory ever really comes to light regarding Sy either...this is the first time in a long time I remember meeting a character at the beginning of a movie and not knowing anymore about him at the end of the movie.

Robin Williams turns in a powerhouse performance that shows surprising understatement in its execution...this character could have easily gone over the top and become laughable but never does. Williams has never lost himself in a character the way he does here.
Nielsen is lovely as Nina and the usually wooden Michael Vartan has never been better as Will. Eriq LaSalle and Gary Cole also make their scenes count as a police detective and Sy's boss, respectively. The hook of Sy wanting to see his final photos after his arrest didn't work for me because the pictures were nothing like I was expecting, but a pretty chilling ride up to the fuzzy conclusion.

KITTY FOYLE
After spending the 1930's appearing in eight musicals with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers yearned to hang up her tap shoes and spread her dramatic wings and actually won an Oscar for Best Actress first time out of the gate for an underrated 1940 gem called Kitty Foyle.

This is Hollywood melodrama at its zenith...what appears to be a conventional love triangle on the surface is an actual valentine to the evolution of women as creatures of independence who didn't necessarily need a man to validate their existence but began to recognize the right guy if he came along.

The film opens with an amusing prologue briefly chronicling women's place in American society and how finding the right man was the number one priority for any women who had her head on straight. The film then switches to contemporary 1940 where we meet the title character, a working girl who is content with what appears to be her lot in life as a single independent woman until two different men from her past reappear.

Wyn (Dennis Morgan) is a an important magazine editor from an extremely wealthy family who hires Kitty to be his secretary but eventually falls for her. However, family pressure from his side force them apart and Kitty eventually meets cute with a handsome doctor (James Craig) who treats Kitty like a queen.

This lush and well-mounted film has all the classic elements of movie melodrama...the star-crossed couple being kept apart because of difference in social class and the woman feeling affection for one man that doesn't match her passion for the other and you know as the story progresses, that one of these poor souls is going to be left out in the cold and it's a shame because Dalton Trumbo's surprisingly adult screenplay presents us with three very likable characters, especially our heroine, a contemporary movie heroine unlike any we had seen up to this point.

Many were surprised when Rogers won the Best Actress Oscar and it is a terrific performance that allows her to run the gamut of emotions, but was it really better than Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story? Morgan and Craig are charming leading men and I also loved Gladys Cooper as Wyn's snobby mother. For fans of the genre, this one is hard to beat.

Hey, talk about a coincidence! I just watched Kitty Foyle two nights ago. I guess great minds think alike I didn't totally love it, I would rate it the same as you. I didn't care for the prologue or Ginger's dark hair. I'm not sure Ginger deserved the Oscar for this. I'd say she won more for the subject matter, than her performance. But yes, she was very good in this and I did enjoy the movie. OK I guess I need to review this one myself.

I didn't care for the dark hair either, but I suspect it was partly as a way of separating herself from the Ginger who had worked with Fred Astaire. I'm actually with you on the prologue too...I understand why they did it, but was it really necessary for us to understand the rest of the story? I don't think so.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO
One of Hollywood's greatest storytellers, Cameron Crowe, the man behind Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous scored again with a 2011 sleeper called We Bought a Zoo, a fact-based comedy-drama that is completely warm and winning thanks to a terrific cast, even if the screenplay could have stood a little tightening.

Matt Damon stars as Benjamin Mee, a former globe-trotting reporter and widowed father of an angry preteen son and an adorable daughter, who finds a perfect new home for his family but is thrown when he learns that the house is part of an actual zoo that has been closed and that living in the house would mean getting the zoo operational again.

Mee initially balks at the idea of running a zoo until he sees his little girl, Rosie, feeding the ducks and quicker than you can say "Doctor Dolittle", Benjamin finds himself completely enveloped in getting this zoo back on its feet, with the help of the pretty and the all-about-the work zookeeper (Scarlett Johansson), goes about learning the realities of mounting such a business which includes developing actual relationships with animals and dealing with the sometimes harsh realities of a zoo animal's shelf life.

Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna have crafted a sometimes edgy and humorous screenplay based on Benjamin Mee's book that might go into a little too much detail in establishing this extremely likable Benjamin Mee, a wonderful father who has clearly put his own grieving process on the back burner in order to take care of his children and hasn't always been successful at it. Rosie is a happy little girl who misses her mom, but is living with her loss. Benjamin's son, Dylan, is another story...this is an angry child who has mistaken his father's grief for anger at him and there are walls between Benjamin and Dylan that we really want to see come down. I was impressed that whenever his kids would ask Benjamin anything about their mother, he never changed or avoided the subject and answered them as honestly as he could. The scene near the end of the film where he tells them about the first time he met their mother is absolutely brilliant.

The other thing I loved about this movie is watching these actors interact with real animals and the actual relationships that Benjamin and the other characters have with the zoo inhabitants. We find ourselves buying the relationship that develops between Benjamin and a dying tiger, the joy Rosie experiences watching a mother peacock experience pregnancy, or one of the workers name Robin (Patrick Fugit) whose entire time onscreen is spent with a small chimpanzee on his shoulder. Benjamin also has an encounter with an escaped grizzly bear that literally had me holding my breath.

Crowe has employed first rate production values here, with special nods to cinematography and editing and as he always does, gets first rate performances from his cast. Matt Damon has rarely been so charismatic onscreen, an edgy performance that actually ignited a tear duct or two from this reviewer and creates a viable chemistry with sexy Johansson, which never gets in the way of the real story being told here. Also loved Angus McFayden as a hard-drinking zoo employee and John Michael Higgins as a tight-assed zoo inspector. The real Benjamin Mee also makes a cameo appearance. It's slightly overlong, but animal lovers and Matt Damon lovers will be in heaven here.

YOU'RE NEXT
The slasher movie gets a relatively fresh coat of paint with an economic thriller from 2011 called You're Next which delivers the gore that fans of the genre expect but provides an unsettling motivation for the carnage.

Paul and Aubrey Davison are a wealthy couple who arrive at their country estate, anxiously anticipating the arrival of their grown children to celebrate their anniversary. Shortly after a tension-filled argument at the dinner table, the family finds themselves under brutal attack and family members are brutally murdered in front of each other but it is when the motivation for these murders comes to light that this story really kicks into gear.

Screenwriter Simon Barrett immediately establishes a credible family dynamic here as it is made clear that the Davisons are not the Bradys...there are deep-rooted resentments that have been buried for a long time and Barrett brings all these resentments bubbling to the surface at that dinner table, a scene that initially provides laughs before the blood and guts that we expect shockingly commence.

This is where director Adam Wingard begins to work with Barrett to establish credibility for what is happening by providing us enough glimpses at the individuals involved to figure out what is going on to an extent without playing all of its cards within minutes. As the reveal of what is going on here becomes clear, it takes more than a minute to figure out exactly how many family members are involved and the elaborate planning that has gone into this heinous plan. Not since Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, have I been privy to a group of characters who are vile and reprehensible and just happen to be family. One of the brothers actually admits to wanting in on the reward at the end of the plan, but didn't want to directly participate in what happens. These are not nice people, but they also made me laugh.

Research revealed that the budget for this film was a mere million dollars and that becomes obvious as the film progresses...no stars, most of the action takes place on one set, but the money was spent wisely, utilizing some solid production values, including some superb editing, sound, and a creepy music score. This is also the first film that I've seen that features a character being murdered by a blender. A sturdy little thriller that delivers scares and an occasional giggle.

ROBERTA
My recent obsession with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers led me to what is probably an unsung hero of their library, their fourth film together, a sparkling musical comedy called Roberta, where just about everything works, including the fact that Fred and Ginger aren't really the leads.

This film version of a play by Jerome Kern follows a pro football player named John Kent (Randolph Scott) who travels to Paris with his buddy Huck (Astaire), a bandleader, where John is reunited with his Aunt Minnie (Helen Westley) who really is the owner of Roberta's, a famed and expensive fashion company that is really run by Minnie's loyal assistant, Stephanie (Irene Dunne). Huck is also reunited with an old flame named Liz (Rogers) who is pretending to be a Russian Countess and one of Roberta's most important clients. When Minnie passes away, John is shocked when he learns that he has been left Roberta's in her will. He insists that Stephanie take over the company, who refuses but does agree to be John's business partner. John and Stephanie fight over the business and over their attraction to each other, which is further complicated by the arrival of John's nasty ex-girlfriend, Sophie (Claire Dodd), who has decided she wants John back.

One of the most pleasant surprises for me in my recent exploration into Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films has been the fact that these films actually have viable storylines, they are not just a group of tap numbers connected by a few lines of dialogue and this film is one of the greatest examples of that...a classic music comedy plotting rich with the misunderstandings and complications that come with the genre. The screenplay is witty and surprisingly adult for 1935, rich with some biting dialogue that is completely motivated by the characters that are presented. Though it is, in its purest sense, a musical comedy, this is a musical comedy that never strays from realism, but stirs the same emotions that a musical comedy should.

I was initially wary about the fact that Astaire and Rogers characters were actually kind of secondary here, but my fears were immediately put to rest thanks to the completely enchanting performance by Irene Dunne as Stephanie. Dunne brings this musical heroine beautifully to life, giving us a character who is passionate about her career and is almost willing to throw away true love in favor of it. I must confess that this was the first Irene Dunne film I have seen and I was completely mesmerized by the actress, who gives a warm and engaging performance and also proves to be quite the vocalist. Randolph Scott is a little on the wooden side but somehow still manages to create a viable chemistry with Dunne and we find ourselves rooting for these two to be together from the moment they meet.

Don't get me wrong, Astaire and Rogers don't exactly fade into the woodwork here. Ginger Rogers is once again given the opportunity to show her comedic chops in a role that allows her to sing, clown, and employ Russian and French accents and she is an absolute joy to watch. I love the scene where Huck is talking about Liz in a very unflattering manner and she can't react because she's still pretending to be the Countess. Rogers was truly one of Hollywood's most underrated screen comedians as well as a terrific dancer.

The musical highlights of the first rate musical score by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach includes "Let's Begin", Dunne's haunting rendition of "Yesterdays", Rogers' comic clowning in "I'll be Hard to Handle", the classic "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", beautifully sung by Dunne, Astaire's brilliant solo to "I Won't Dance" and the Oscar nominated "Lovely to Look At".

Director William A Seiter and RKO spared no expense in bringing this lavish musical to the screen. The film features exquisite art direction/set direction and some of the most breathtaking costumes I had ever seen. Sadly, the costume design Oscar category was not to be for another 13 years, Bernard Newman's work here was absolutely outstanding. Easily one of the more entertaining entries from the screen's greatest song and dance team. Bouquets all around. Remade in 1952 as Lovely to Look at.

AND SO IT GOES
The 2014 comedy And So it Goes is a somewhat predictable romantic comedy that, if nothing else, has some serious star power in front of and behind the camera.

Michael Douglas plays Oren Little, a cantankerous, widowed real estate agent attempting to keep the world at arm's length since the death of his wife. Oren's neighbor, Leah (Diane Keaton) is an overly emotional widow trying to make her dream of being a lounge singer a reality. These two lonely people who have kept their distance despite living next door to each other, are suddenly brought together when Oren becomes guardian to his granddaughter (Sterling Jerins) when her father (Scott Shepherd) is sent to jail. Oren is clueless regarding the concept of grand-parenting but Leah is a natural and it is their mutual love for Sarah that slowly brings these two people together.

Director Rob Reiner (who also does a funny turn as Leah's pianist) goes the Nancy Meyers route here, bringing us a romantic comedy between mature and intelligent people, even though Mark Andrus' writing isn't on par with Meyers, it is forgiven because Reiner had the wisdom to hire a pair of Oscar winning pros to bring these characters vividly to life, despite the lack of originality and focus in story and characterization.

Douglas, in a role that seemed like it was written for Jack Nicholson, is quite charming as a contemporary take on Ebeneezer Scrooge and Keaton can play this kind of role in her sleep, a mature variation on her character in Something's Gotta Give that is a perfect counterpart for Douglas' character. Though it doesn't happen the second they share the screen, the chemistry between these two actors does begin to gell but because the slow burn of this relationship is a little too slow, the story does have its slow spots but Douglas and Keaton are always worth watching and prove it here.

Reiner's breezy direction is just intrusive enough to keep things buzzing along and his onscreen contribution is funny too, wearing a very unflattering toupe that garners laughs every time the camera hits him. Veteran Frances Sternhagen is fun as a co-worker of Oren's and Sterling Jerins is a charmer as Oren's granddaugher, Sarah. The stars make it worth a look. Fans of It's Complicated will have a head start here.

I hadnt heard of that but I loved It's Complicated so will give this a go, and I love Keaton.

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
Martin McDonagh, the creative force behind In Bruges, a movie I turned off about 20 minutes in, knocks it out of the park with a logic defying, cinematic acid trip called Seven Psychopaths, a brutal and ferociously funny psychological crime drama revolving around an alcoholic screenwriter, an out of work actor with anger issues, and a kidnapped Shih Tzu.

This 2012 winner stars Colin Ferrell as Marty, the screenwriter who has in idea for a new screenplay, but all he has is a title, "Seven Psychopaths". His best friend, Billy (Sam Rockwell) can't get a job acting because he likes to get into fights with directors. Billy gets the bright idea to kidnap an adorable Shih Tzu named Bonnie who belongs to a slightly unbalanced mobster named Charlie (Woody Harrelson) whose seemingly unhealthy attachment to this dog is the linchpin for an unmercifully bloody action/adventure that defies explanation and requires complete and undivided attention.

To reveal anymore at this point would be wrong. There is a definite Tarantino influence to the story mounted by McDonagh here, a story that stretches, scratches, bends, twists, pushes, and rails at the fourth wall without ever actually breaking it. This is not just a movie within a movie, this is a movie within a movie that breaks the fourth wall and keeps putting it back together before you can figure out exactly what's going on. This movie breaks a lot of cinematic rules and, needless to say, there is no chronological sense to the story as it is presented which is why complete attention is required. One minute we're watching Marty struggling with his screenplay, the next we're seeing part of his new screenplay play out in front of us and we're not sure if it has really happened or if it's in Marty's mind, or Billy's for that matter, as Billy begs Marty to let him co-write as does Hans (Oscar winner Christopher Walken) an aging con man with a wife dying of cancer. Keeping track of which movie I was in from scene to scene kept my head spinning but never allowed my interest to wane.

This film is rampant with unprecedented cinematic carnage, approaching Tarantino and Scorsese territory, almost to the point of overkill, but what is unsettling about the body count in this film is how the majority of the body count consists of innocent bystanders, people just in the wrong place at the wrong time and oddly, most of these victims were female...I've never really noticed a film like this with so much violence inflicted on female characters. As Marty explains early on to another character regarding same, "It's a hard world for women."

McDonagh gets some terrific performances from his cast. Ferrell is surprisingly reserved in what is essentially a straight man/host/narrator of this bizarre story that unfolds but never fades into the cinematic woodwork. Harrelson is a lot of fun as an off-the-chain mob kingpin and Walken does a real movie-star turn as Hans, but the acting honors, as expected, go to Sam Rockwell, with his deliciously unhinged and totally unpredictable performance as Billy, a character that defies description and never made a single move I expected it to. I don't know who else was nominated that year off the top of my head, but a supporting actor nomination for Rockwell would not have been an outrageous thing. Don't try to figure it out or second guess it, just sit back and enjoy it.

I never really considered it, but I think my wife and I would like We Bought a Zoo. I'm going to put that on the watchlist.

Although I don't necessarily dislike them, I consider You're Next and Seven Psychopaths disappointing.

THE PLAYER
In my recent review of Rear Window, I mentioned that Hitchcock's direction was always the standout element of the film. After watching 1992's The Player, a Best Picture nominee that earned the director one of his five directing nominations, I think this was also true of the legendary Robert Altman, who takes a standard crime story and lays it on top of a slick Hollywood canvas rich with star power, multi-layered star power that you need a scorecard to keep track of.

Based on a novel by Michael Tolkin, this is the story of Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins),a movie studio executive whose primary job duty is listening to writers pitch ideas for movies and the fate of whether or not these pitches actually become movies often rests on Griffin's opinion alone. While juggling multiple pitches and his job being threatened by another executive named Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), Griffin begins receiving threatening postcards from a writer whose pitch he rejected but, of course, Griffin has rejected so many ideas that he has no idea who is making the threats. Griffin does some discreet detective work and decides that the threats have to be coming from a writer named David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio) and decides to confront him. The confrontation goes terribly wrong resulting in David's death and the beginning of Griffin's battle for self-preservation, further complicated by Griffin's attraction to David's girlfriend (Greta Scacchi).

Tolkin was allowed to do his own screenplay adaptation, which I always feel is a plus, presenting a conventional crime story on a glittery Hollywood canvas that is hard to resist. But there are two elements that really make this story work. One is this central character of Griffin Mill, a constant enigma who we're really not sure if we are supposed to sympathize with or not, because if you watch him in the pitch meetings or dealing with David or anybody else in the movie for that matter, this is guy is kind of a dick and it's kind of hard to feel sorry for him when he gets himself in trouble. This lack of sympathy is further documented by the fact that Griffin is never completely honest with anyone about what happened with David Kahane. Usually, when a movie character has remorse about something, they want to confess to somebody but Griffin never really does. Ironically, he tries to confess to David's girlfriend but she doesn't want to hear it.

The other element that leaps off the screen is Altman's directorial eye and his multi-layered use of star power here, never used to this extent before. First we have the characters previously discussed, played by mostly A-list actors. Then we have the actors playing parts in the movies within the movies like Scott Glenn, Lily Tomlin, Julia Roberts, and Bruce Willis. Then we have the stars who appear as themselves as part of the Hollywood canvas, many Altman rep company members including Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Burt Reynolds, Sally Kellerman, Jack Lemmon, Felicia Farr, Nick Nolte, Malcolm McDowell, Steve Allen, Harry Belafonte, Buck Henry, Cher, James Coburn, and Paul Dooley. I thought it such clever writing that Griffin's encounters with Reynolds and McDowell were extremely unpleasant and that neither star had a nice word to say about Griffin. There is a brilliant directorial moment where Griffin leaves Reynolds' table at a restaurant to join another table and the camera quietly floats between both tables so that Altman forces the viewer to listen to what is happening at both tables...classic Altman.

Tim Robbins offers a razor sharp performance as Mill, a performance on par with his work in The Shawshank Redemption. He gets solid support from Fred Ward as the movie studio security head, Cynthia Stevenson as his co-worker/girlfriend. Whoopi Goldberg as a police detective, and Sydney Pollack as a studio lawyer. Altman has employed first rate art direction/set direction...love all the studio offices decorated with classic movie posters, though I was a little disappointed when Griffin was told he had a phone call from Joe Gillis and he didn't know that Joe Gillis was William Holden's character in Sunset Boulevard, any real movie executive would know that name immediately, but it's a little thing in a movie that ruffles feathers, but works.

AT WAR WITH THE ARMY
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis provide sporadic laughs in their 1950 outing At War with the Army that suffers due to a problematic screenplay that doesn't really play to the team's strengths.

Martin plays Sergeant Vic Puccinelli and Lewis plays Pvt. Alvin Corwin, two guys who were allegedly buddies before joining the army but now, being separated by rank, their friendship seems to have suffered with Vic taking advantage of Alvin at every turn, including trying to hang Alvin out to dry for his own problems. Alvin is having trouble becoming the soldier he should be because of a song he wrote that he wants Vic to record and because his wife is expecting a baby.

This is not foreign territory for the team. The underlying theme of friendship being threatened by circumstance or social class was very common with Martin and Lewis comedies, but the problem here is that the screenplay keeps the pair apart for a large chunk of the running time. It's like Vic and Alvin's stories are two separate movies that are unfolding simultaneously and the pair do not share the screen enough here for us to invest in the team as we have before. What made Martin and Lewis so special as a screen team is what they did onscreen together and they just don't have enough time together here.

There are some funny scenes here and there...the scene where Alvin goes into a bar in drag looking for Vic and finding another Sergeant, well played by Mike Kellin, coming on to him, is very funny. There's another scene between Lewis and Kellin where after Kellin exits, Lewis repeats the entire scene doing a perfect imitation of Kellin that worked and Lewis displayed his usual penchant for physical comedy on a military obstacle course. Martin also was allowed to display his skill for mimicry during a musical scene where he does a dead on impression of Bing Crosby, but during the funniest moments in the movie, the stars aren't onscreen together.

Martin and Lewis work hard to make this work with the aid of slightly manic direction by Hal Walker. Polly Bergen and Jean Ruth are fun and decorative leading ladies and Kellin steals every scene he is in. There are some fun songs by Jay Livingston and Mack David including "The Navy's Got the Gravy", "Tonda Wonda Hoy", and "You and Your Beautiful Eyes", but when it all comes out in the wash, you have a comedy starring a great screen team where the writers forgot they were writing for a team.

WHY HIM?
John Hamburg, who wrote the screenplays for Meet the Parents, Along Came Polly, and I Love You Man dusts off some classic movie themes and gives them a new gloss with the aid of a terrific cast in 2016's Why Him?

Bryan Cranston stars as Ned Fleming, the owner of a printing factory in Detroit who reluctantly accepts an invitation from his daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch), a student at Stanford, to spend Xmas with her in order to meet her boyfriend, Laird (James Franco), who turns out to be a Silicon Valley billionaire who lives on a massive estate atop a mountain with live animals roaming the property, art of animals fornicating on his walls, and a dead moose encased in urine in his living room. He is also socially inept and speaks with absolutely no filter but makes it clear to Ned that he plans to propose to Stephanie on Xmas day if he has Ned's blessing.

Hamburg is a proven comedic commodity and there is an original twist to a lot of what is going on here. Making the potential son-in-law a billionaire was probably the one thing that kept me from thinking of a dozen similar comedies from the past, including Meet the Parents and this hook is the primary thing that made me want to stick with the story and see how it plays out.

The other thing that caught my attention was the breezy performance from James Franco as Laird. This is another of those performances that I often speak about where the actor really seems to be enjoying himself, which always brings an added richness to the performance. The character of Laird does a lot of wrong and inappropriate for all the right and appropriate reasons, not to mention the fact that even though he is a billionaire, he is one of the most likable characters I've seen in a movie in quite some time.

As likable as Laird is, I also see the conflict with Ned and how the thought of this guy taking away his little girl (who is 10 years younger than Laird BTW) is something he cannot abide. Needless to say, Laird does charm Ned's wife (Megan Mullally) and his son (Griffin Gluck) and once this happens, you know the meeting of the minds between Ned and Laird is just a matter of time.

Franco is sexy and fun and Cranston is properly anal as Ned. Mullally underplays beautifully and there is also a fun performance from Keegan-Michael Key as Laird's assistant, but Deutch is a little bland as Stephanie. The film also features some beautiful California scenery and Laird's house is amazing. Hamburg, Franco, and Cranston work hard to make this film seem a lot better than it really is.

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!
It doesn't paint its subject in a very flattering light and the screenplay is rampant with cliches and what I suspect are embellishments of fact, but the 1989 musical biopic of rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis called Great Balls of Fire! is worth watching for the charismatic lead performance by its star.

Dennis Quaid lights up the screen as the controversial rock and roller who became a major recording star due to his love for the piano and "n*gger music", which was the inspiration for his first big hit "A Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On". The film follows the typical biopic path we're accustomed to with films like this, but there's a slight "ick" factor in Lewis' story in that the romance that Lewis finds in the film, and there's always a romance or two in films like this, comes in the form of a 13 year old cousin named Myra Brown (Winona Ryder) who Lewis actually marries. Lewis sees nothing wrong with this but his fans feel differently and according to this film, the marriage almost does irreparable damage to his career.

As is the case with most movie biopics, it's hard to know exactly what is fact and what is dramatized for the purpose of entertainment. The screenplay by Jack Baran and Jim McBride, based on a book by the real Myra Brown Lewis, spotlights Lewis as a wild child who never really grew up, loved his music, and like a lot of show business movie subjects, had difficulty keeping his fly zipped. The screenplay also seems to be conflicted regarding the intelligence of its subject...he is told at the beginning of the film that girls prefer guitar players because they like to watch them wiggle, instantly inspiring Jerry Lee's famous piano stunts that often had him throwing his piano bench out of the way. On the other hand, Jerry Lee is also presented as a guy who sees absolutely nothing wrong with marrying a 13 year old girl. He is never seen here justifying or apologizing for it and doesn't feel the need to, even when it threatens to destroy his career. I guess I can understand if Lewis didn't feel the need to justify his actions to anyone, but this film portrays the man as not seeing anything wrong with what he did and it was difficult investing in a story about a grown man who marries a 13 year old girl and sees nothing wrong with it.

As the story unfolded, it also seemed like Jerry Lee's alleged rise to the top was a little too meteoric. One minute he standing outside a black nightclub listening to the "Shakin" song and the next scene he's recording it. Absolutely nothing is revealed regarding the inspiration for the title song, it just seems to come out of nowhere and the film seems to spend a little too much time trying to convince the viewer that Jerry Lee was considered a serious threat to Elvis and I just don't buy that. There's a silly albeit brief scene where Elvis (Michael St. Gerard) actually confronts Jerry Lee before he leaves for his stint in the army, that was just silly and I don't believe for a minute that it ever happened.

What the film does have going for it is a slick and sexy performance by Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis that made this flawed biographical journey worth taking. Winona Ryder was a little overwrought as Myra, but I loved John Doe as Myra's dad and Jerry Lee's cousin, Trey Wilson as Sun Records manager Sam Phillips and a very young Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Swaggart, who was also Lewis' cousin (news to me). As far as being an accurate portrayal of Lewis' life, I do know that Lewis hated Myra's book and this movie. Quaid did do some of the piano work in the film but all the vocals were dubbed by Jerry Lee himself.

I remember being uncomfortable with this movie at the sex scene between Quaid and Rider. Even at age 15 watching it. Something kind of greasy about the cocksure playboy air surrounding Quaid I could never warm up to, even though I do enjoy some of his films.

I thought Quaid was terrific, my issues were with the character.

I've been meaning to watch Great Balls of Fire, I like Dennis Quaid in most of his roles. I've obtained the movie and will be watching it hopefully this weekend. Looks fun!