Gideon58's Reviews

The Horizontal Lieutenant
A minor classic that didn't come close to living up to its reputation, the 1962 comedy The Horizontal Lieutenant features solid chemistry between its leads, unfortunately they don't spend enough time onscreen together to keep this viable entertainment.

Jim Hutton plays Sec. Lt. Merle Wye, a military intelligence officer who dreams of being a military spy, but is stuck at a military base in Hawaii, away from anything resembling combat or espionage. One day, he is hit in the head with a baseball and sent to the GI hospital where he is reunited with Molly Blue (Paula Prentiss), a nurse with whom he has a past that he attempts to revive, but this mission is put on hold when he is transferred to a remote army outpost where he has been assigned to find a Japanese leader who is hiding out in the mountains and stealing food and other supplies from the locals.

I guess the primary culprit here is the screenplay by Oscar winner George Wells and Gordon Cotler that does a very good job of setting up the romance of Merle and Molly during the first twenty minutes of the film and then removes Molly for the next forty minutes, where we are then plunged into Merle's lackluster mission that recalls a lame episode of the old ABC sitcom McHale's Navy, featuring racial stereotypes, silly slapstick and characters that are dumbed down to serve the not-so-interesting story that, even at an economic 90 minutes, still seems overly long.

I've wanted to see this film for a long time because I have been impressed by the chemistry between Jim Hutton and Paula Prentiss, who made five films together, three of which I have now seen. Unfortunately, this story keeps the characters apart for too much of the story and interest definitely begins to wane. Hutton and Prentiss make every moment they have onscreen together count, unfortunately the film just doesn't have enough of said moments.

Director Richard Thorpe. whose most famous directorial work was probably the Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock, doesn't bring anything special to the proceedings. Thorpe worked pretty steadily during the 50's and 60's, but mostly because he was adept at bringing films in under budget, not necessarily displaying any flair or imagination as a director. Future comic legends Jack Carter, Jim Backus and Marty Ingels can be glimpsed in supporting roles, as well as Oscar winner Miyoshi Umeki, fresh off her triumph in the screen version of Flower Drum Song and Yuki Shimoda, who was probably best known for playing Ito, Mame's manservant in the film version of Auntie Mame, but for the most part, this one was a disappointment.

Knox Goes Away
Michael Keaton impresses as the producer, director and star of Knox Goes Away, a 2024 drama of crime and family dysfunction that makes up for the mostly unimaginative screenplay with some terrific performances, some from unexpected sources.

Keaton plays John Knox, a hit man who has just been diagnosed with an Alzheimers-like disease, except for the fact that the disease progresses a lot quicker than Alzheimer's. His doctor tells him he only has weeks before he'll have trouble remembering the simplest things and the most important people in his life. He goes on a job with his partner that goes horribly wrong and while still reeling from that, he gets an unexpected visit from his estranged son, who is looking for dad's assistance with his own ugly situation.

One thing I did like about Gregory Poirier's screenplay is the way Knox deals with his diagnosis. Most stories on this subject we see people defy their doctor, thinking that the doctor has to be wrong and that they can somehow outsmart the disease, but not Knox. This is the first movie character I've seen in a long time who does everything his doctor tells him. Though he only confides in one person about his condition, which is typical of stories like this. I loved when Knox asks the doctor what the treatment plan is and the doctor tells him there is no treatment for and Knox turns white as a ghost.

I also enjoyed that initially, it appeared that Knox would walk through fire to help his son and we see him doing what appears on the surface to be all the correc t things to help someone who is in the kind of trouble that his son is in, but slowly it's revealed that Knox is throwing his son under the bus and we don't understand why, but it is explained in the 11th hour to this reviewer's satisfaction.

I was also fascinated by the initial scenes of Knox covering up his son's crime. He knew exactly what to do, even though he would occasionally have difficulty with some of the steps involved . Loved when he drove to the scene of the crime and noticed that he was spotted on the security camera. He's then observed choking out the guard and erasing the tape with his entrance, though he did have some difficulty remembering the entire procedure. Alo loved what he did with the whiskey tumbler with his son's DNA on it.

Keaton the director gets a superb performance out of actor Keaton that reminded me a lot of his performance in My Life. Oscar winner Al Pacino steals every scene he is in as Knox's boss and there were two surprisingly good performances from James Marsden, who I don't think has ever been better as Knox's son and Suzy Nakamura, an actress usually cast in comic roles, displaying a heretofore unseen flair for the dramatic as the lead detective on the Knox cases. There's also a very classy cameo by Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as Knox's ex-wife It's not quite a home run, but Keaton displays some real talent as a director. It should also be mentioned that I LOVE the title of the film and once you watch it, you'll see why.

I haven't seen Knox Goes Away yet, but I read an article about it a few days ago that said it was one of Michael Keaton's best movies, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

__________________
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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

I liked it, but I'm one of those people who thinks Michael Keaton can do no wrong onscreen.

17 Again
Zac Efron and his baby blues are put to the ultimate test in a silly 2009 comedy called 17 Again that features a confusing story where the time travel comedies, the body switch comedies, and the teen comedies of the 1980's all collide causing a traffic accident of a comedy that is hard to take seriously.

Mike O'Donnell (the late Matthew Perry) is a 37 year old executive who is divorced with two kids. We also learn that 17 year old Mike (Efron) was the star of his high school basketball team, but his basketball dreams were derailed when he learned that he got his girlfriend, Scarlet pregnant and agreed to marry her. Adult Mike has just lost a big promotion at work and decides to cheer himself up by visiting his old high school. While perusing the basketball trophy case, Mike runs into a mysterious janitor (Brian Doyle Murray) who instantly sees what Mike is going through and asks him if he would like a chance to do things over again, knowing what he knows now. Later Mike observes the janitor preparing to jump off a bridge and falls in after him, throwing Mike into some sort of time warp where Mike becomes 17 again, but he remains in the present and ends up going to high school with his teenage son and daughter.

There's a good movie in here somewhere, but you really have to dig for it, because the premise requires a lot of prep for the viewer that, frankly, gets exhausting. At first, it seems like we're going to get a story about adult Mike deciding that his family is the most important thing in the world to him and that he will do anything to get them back. Then the story flips and now Mike seems to be blaming the fact that Scarlet trapped him into marriage via pregnancy and that this ruined his life and now is curious about the road not taken. This revelation takes away a lot of the character's appeal and before the story has actually gained any traction, we already aren't liking this Mike guy too much.

The fact that Mike becomes 17 again but stays in the present instead of going back to the time when he was actually 17 again, overcomplicates the plot, because the reason he wanted to go back to being 17, is literally shoved to the backburner because he spends most of his time looking out for his kids. His son is being bullied and his daughter is dating the creepiest guy in school. And, of course, once he gets his daughter away from the creep, she decides she wants Mike, which leads to more predictable complications. The subplot of adult Mike's best friend (Thomas Lennon) trying to romance the school principal (Melora Hardin) does nothing but pad the running time.

Zac attempts sincerity here, but even he seems a little embarrassed of the things this story puts him through. Leslie Mann is fine as adult Scarlet though and I did like Michelle Trachtenberg as Mike's daughter, but this movie was exhausting.

Hit Man
Hunky Glen Powell continues his mission to be the next Ryan Gosling with 2023's Hit Man, a fact-based black comedy that attempts to mangle a well-worn cinematic concept to pieces but does provide some entertainment, despite some hard to ignore plot holes, with a big assist from the director of Boyhood and Dazed and Confused.

Powell plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans college professor who moonlights with the police department as part of a sting operation where a cop poses as a hit man, meets people looking for the services, makes them admit what they want verbally, and then arresting the person trying to hire the hit man. Gary gets thrust into the position from tech support and finds he has a real knack for it, until a beautiful young woman named Madison married to an abusive creep seek out his services and he allows his attraction to the woman to interfere with his job.

The sketchy screenplay for this film was actually written by director Linklater and star Powell, who have concocted a central character, despite being based on a real person, makes a very unrealistic transition from nerd to super cop that was really hard to believe. This movie also attempts to perpetrate the theory that there is no such thing as hit man and that what we have been seeing in the movies for the last century is pure fiction. If there is no such thing as a hit man, then all the legitimacy is taken out of movies like Prizzi's Honor and Mr & Mrs Smith (2005) and we are now supposed to wonder what was really going on in those movies. Not to mention that the sting operation on display here just screams entrapment to this reviewer.

It also didn't make sense that Gary wasn't fired from his position after he decided to let Madison off the hook. It was also very strange that Jasper, the nutburger that Gary replaced, was able to figure out everything that was going on between Gary and Madison, but none of Gary's other co-workers had a clue what was going on. And were we supposed to believe that no eyebrows were raised when Gary would meet a potential sting in a diner and they would sit back to back in a restaurant and talk to each other?

Fortunately, Glen Powell has such a charming screen presence that I was able to put a lot of this on the back burner and just accept what was going on. Linklater's direction could have used a little more pacing, the movie moves at a snail's pace, but Powell' charm makes a lot of the problems with this movie tolerable.

I liked Hit Man more than you. I'm glad the movie kept things light and shun away from clichéd road blocks for main character and psychological turmoil related. I don't hope comedies to be realistic so I don't mind plot holes or hard to believe situations. I'd rather these are brushed aside in the name of fun.

One From the Heart
Fans of the 1977 Martin Scorsese film New York New York will have a head start with 1981's One From the Heart, an eye-popping and lavishly produced romantic drama done in the style of an old fashioned movie musical that found Oscar winning director Francis Ford Coppola stepping out of his comfort zone as a director and screenwriter.

This is the story of Franny (Teri Garr) and Hank (the late Frederic Forrest) who have lived together in Las Vegas for five years, and on the eve oif their fifth anniversary have a huge fight because she wants to go out and he wants to stay home, resulting in them coming to the conclusion that their relationship has been a big mistake and decide to seek new romantic partners. Franny meets a waiter and aspiring nightclub singer (the late Raul Julia) while Hank finds himself drawn to an exotic circus performer (Natassia Kinski).

Coppola really pulled out the stops here in an attempt to bring movie audiences something they had never seen before. Most movies in their approach to onscreen storytelling basically use the screenplay and the actors to tell the story and the rest of the technical aspects behind filmmaking are in support of that, but Coppola frees his directorial imagination enough to allow the camera and the music to tell the story, sometimes alongside the actors and other times, they actually take center stage away from the actors and directly participate in telling the story while the actors take supporting positions.

There are moments in the film where the Oscar-nominated song score, beautifully performed by Crystal Gale and Tom Waits, actually steps in and takes over where the actors leave off, providing perfect musical interpretation the characters' emotions at the moment. There are moments where the characters are apart and they are visualized for us as looking directly at each other. As a matter of fact, there is one remarkable moment, where Hank and Franny are with their new lovers but Hank actually seems to speak to Franny through the celluloid universe and she seems to answer him, which seems to be the impetus for these two to find their way back to each other, though it's not a given.

The film is staged and photographed like a musical, but there are only three scenes in the film that I would consider musical numbers. There's an intimate tango in a jazzy nightclub with Julia and Garr, which allowed Garr to utilize her long dormant dance skills that segues into huge production number on the streets of Vegas and a number that starts with Forerst standing in front of a large marquee of a female that morphs into a giant Kinski face leadng to ballet type number where Kinski actually conjures images of a young Leslie Caron.

Coppola's direction is sweeping and imaginative, much more effective than his other dip into the musical genre The Cotton Club and the performances are pretty much on the money. With the possible exception of Tootsie, I don't think I have ever enjoyed Teri Garr onscreen more, giving a rich and vivacious performance that lights up the screen and displays her talents with comedy and drama. This move also proved to me that Garr is one of those rare actors who has chemistry with anyone she works with. Frederic Forrest brings the same bruised vulnerability that he brought to Huston Dyer in The Rose and Raul Julia is sex on legs as Ray. The music earned the film its only Oscar nomination, but I think the production design and the art direction/set direction are Oscar worthy as well. And there are shots every now and then that are like live action paintings...that shot of Garr walking down the street with her back to the camera on the golden, rain-spattered road is just jaw-dropping. It's not for everyone, but if you're looking for something a little different...

Marlon Wayans: Good Grief
Marlon Wayans manages to mine some major laughs from what might appear to be very depressing sources in his 2024 concert Marlon Wayans: Good Grief.

Shot from the legendary Apollo Theater, we watch Wayans stroll onstage, dressed in his accustomed black, and are a little bit surprised when the comic begins waxing philosophical about what a precious journey life and how we should never take it for granted. Wayans then reveals that he lost his father a couple of months ago. We also learn that his mother passed three years ago and this is the launching pad for a lot of funny stuff about Marlon growing up as the baby of the ten children that Holland and Elvira Wayans brought into the world. I have to admit that I got caught up in a lot of Wayans' feelings here because I lost my mother last year.

Wayans makes it clear that it was his mother that brought the joy and love into the household and that he is the man he is because of her. He had some nice words for his dad too, though there are lingering issues...he never got over the fact that his father never once wished him happy birthday. But this didn't prevent Marlon from taking care of his parents in their golden years, including a every comic description of what it's like to change an adult diaper. Was also impressed that Wayans mentioned how growing up with his parents was so much different than it was for the rest of the kids , because by the time they had him, they were tired.

Wayans stumbled into some dark and dangerous territory when he decided to broach the subject of celebrity deaths and why God chooses to take some celebrities and not others. I have to admit to being tickled when he mentioned being baffled by the fact that Magic Johnson is still with us after being diagnosed with AIDS thirty years ago..."What kind of AIDS does he have? Financial Aids?"

Loved his closing of the set with a lovely tribute to his mother, which found Marlon getting a little emotional and I have to admit for just a second I wondered if this was genuine emotion or if Wayans was acting, but as it continued I concluded it to be genuine and a lovely ending to an edgy, but solid evening of comedy.

The Shrike
Jose Ferrer has some success with The Shrike, the 1955 film version of the somewhat dated Broadway play that he directed regarding a marriage destroyed by career conflicts and possible mental illness that is only partially successful due to an attempt by the leading lady to step out her acting comfort zone that doesn't quite work.

Ferrer plays Jim Downs, a Broadway theater director, who is emotionally manipulated by his shrewish wife, Ann (June Allyson), who not only uses Jim to advance her own career, but starts interfering with his directing until a miscarriage brings about even more shrewish behavior which eventually drives Jim out the door into the arms of another woman, and then into a mental institution after a suicide attempt.

The film is based on a Broadway show, also starring and directed by Ferrer, that premiered in January of 1952 and closed in May and the film never really escapes its theatrical origins. I suspected that major changes were demanded by the studio to get this made into a movie, including script revisions, because we are never really told exactly what led Downs to his suicide attempt, not to mention we don't see Jim do any work to get better, but somehow manages to lie his way out of there, like a prisoner meeting with the parole board, but it's obvious he is exactly where he belongs. Ferrer really shines in this scene, the best one in the film.

I've heard about this film for years and have wanted to see it forever because I had always heard what a departure the role of Ann Downs was for the sugary sweet June Allyson and it definitely was, but Allyson never really convinces as a manipulative shrew. While watching the film, I kept picturing actresses like Susan Hayward, Anne Baxter, Ava Gardner, or even Judy Garland in the role. This would have been a real departure for Garland as well, but I think she might have been up to it, even if it might have hit a little close to home for her. The title of the film always intrigued me as well, because I had never heard the word or knew what it meant so before watching the film, I googled the word and that's exactly what Ann Downs is, but I love the way it's defined in the movie.

Ferrer does an acceptable job mounting his Broadway success, though I definitely have the feeling he had to sacrifice a lot to get this made, including a budget that might have allowed for more expensive production values. Apparently, Allyson was determined to change her image with this role, but it never really worked for me. Veteran comic Herbie Faye appears briefly as a hospital inmate as does Edward Platt, best known as "the Chief" on Get Smart, as Jim's brother. This could have really been something with a bigger budget and a leading lady up to the assignment.

Daddio
An absolutely glorious performance by two time Oscar winner Sean Penn makes 2024's Daddio worth a look. Will try to review without spoilers.

Clark (Penn) is a cabbie who picks up fare Girlie (Dakota Johnson) at JFK and while taking her to her destination in midtown Manhattan, not only manages to learn about her trip and where she is headed, but pulls the story out of her about the very unhealthy relationship she is involved in which has been hinted at through her texting.

Director and screenwriter Christy Hall, who only has three other screenwriting credits on the IMDB, takes on a nearly impossible mission here....making credible entertainment out of a story which only has two characters sharing the screen and she does succeed for the most part. On the surface, the story is a little far-fetched because it's hard to believe that this woman would spill her guts to a stranger and it is just as hard to believe that Clark figures out a lot of what is going on in Girlie's life after spending a few minutes in a cab with a young woman he's never met. Sometimes Hall's writing gets a little theatrical and starts to float above the viewer's head, but the extreme liability of the characters allows us to forgive for the most part.

Hall's direction is clearly superior to her writing and tells just about every part of the story that the characters don't. From the moment we see Girlie walking out of the airport and finding her cab, we know there is a lot on this girl's mind. The camerawork inside the cab is superb as it switches from the two characters looking directly at each other and through the mirrors in the cab. Loved the presentation of the texting too. Sometimes we just see Girlie texting on the phone and other times the texts appear on the screen. Loved the way Hall made the importance of the text bubble that shows the person on the opposite side of the call is replying to the previous text.

The story isn't exactly a testament to credibility, but it's easy to overlook a lot of what's wrong with this movie thanks to an extraordinary performance by Sean Penn as Clark that never fails to rivet the viewer. Dakota Johnson works very hard at projecting Girlie's situation, but there are several moments throughout the movie where Johnson is really not sure what she's supposed to be playing, but Hall and Penn provide enough compensation to keep us believing for the most part.

Somebody Up There Likes Me
After his critically lambasted film debut in The Silver Chalice, Paul Newman made up for it in spades with his second feature length film appearance...playing boxer Rocky Graziano in the 1956 biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me, which is not only a solid piece of filmmaking in itself, but its influence on some films of the future can certainly be glanced here.

This is the old fashioned kind of biopic that begins with Rocky as a child being bullied by his father and smothered by his mother, moves to years as a street criminal and rebellious army private who goes AWOL and it is during this time, first began nurturing a serious career in boxing.

The screenplay by six time Oscar nominee Ernest Lehman is based on a book written by Graziano and Rowland Barber does probably provide the facts but I suspect a lot of what happens in this movie is amped up for dramatic purposes. We are halfway through the film before Rocky actually begins to fight, but it doesn't make the first half of the film any less entertaining, as it does provide some insight into the anger that allegedly made Graziano such a great fighter. This whole angry, rebellious, fly-by-the seat of his pants guy we meet in the first half of the film reminds me of a future Paul Newman character, Cool Hand Luke. I'm also pretty sure that Rocky's romance with Norma (Pier Angeli) inspired Rocky Balboa's romance with Adrian in Rocky.

Whatever might be wrong with this movie though is very easy to forgive because of the explosive performance by young Paul Newman in the starring role. Newman was so embarrassed about The Silver Chalice that he actually put out full page ads apologizing for it, but his apology came much more effectively with this performance. Newman appears in practically every frame of this movie and makes it worth watching all by himself. It is just mind blowing that this was only his second feature film.

Director Robert Wise, who five year later would work with Lehman again on the '61 version of West Side Story provides sensitive, if slightly lethargic direction to the piece, making it seem longer than it really is. Everett Sloane is terrific as Rocky's manager Irving, as are Harold J Stone and Eileen Heckart as Rocky's parents. There's also a brief appearance from a young Sal Mineo as one of Rocky's thieving buddies, but this is Newman's movie where he already starts showing signs of the acting powerhouse he would become.

Faye
HBO takes a rich and provocative look at Oscar-winning icon Faye Dunaway in a 2024 documentary called Faye.

The film offers a very spontaneous beginning as we see Faye pestering the director to get started, deciding upon which angle she wanted to be photographed, and how she needed a glass of water instead of a bottle. Eventually the legendary diva does settle down seated next to her son Liam, who shares a collection of photographs that he would hand to her one by one and she would tell us exactly what was going on in each photograph.

We learn about her childhood with an alcoholic father and a driven mother. Dunaway makes no bones about it that it was her mother who was responsible for all of her drive and ambition and that she wouldn't be the woman she is without her mother.

The film really kicks into gear when Dunaway talks about working with Elia Kazan at the Lincoln Center Theater Company, where her work there led to Hollywood calling. It's revealed that from the beginning of her movie career that Dunaway took her career very seriously and a lot of people who HBO talks to who have worked with Dunaway do say that she is very difficult to work with. Apparently, there were a lot of difficulties with Roman Polanski on the set of Chinatown and a very funny story is shared by the first assistant director of the film about the restaurant scene with Nicholson and why Evelyn Mulray is wearing a hat in that scene. It was interesting that Dunaway was a little surprised that she is considered difficult to work with, but she didn't deny it either.

Loved that photograph taken by husband Terry the morning after the Oscars. Was also impressed to learn that her son Liam was adopted and how fiercely protective she was of the whole adoption process and how it came to be, the polar opposite of Crawford adopting Christina in Mommie Dearest.

Speaking of which, a large portion of the film is devoted to Dunaway's performance in this iconic film and how it ended up separating her career into pre and post Mommie periods. Liked Dunaway's reply about feeling a kinship to Crawford and I have to agree with Pauline Kael's assessment of the film. The film has its problems, but Dunaway's performance is extraordinary. This documentary is for people who know everything about Dunaway and those who know nothing but want to learn.

Alvin and the Chipmunks
The creator of Spongebob Square Pants decided that a live action re-imagining of the 1960's cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks would be a good idea. I imagine a pretty good idea on paper whose execution to the screen definitely has its problems, but there are scattered laughs.

The 2007 film stars Jason Lee as Dave Seville, an advertising executive who really wants to be a songwriter, who discovers three chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have snuck into his home and right before he is about to throw them out of his house, discovers that they can sing and eventually gets them signed to Jett Records, but the evil owner of Jett Records sees serious dollar signs with the chipmunks and steals them away from Dave so that he can make them stars and line his own pockets.

To be honest, I was in grade school when the original cartoon premiered on CBS and don't remember a lot about it. All I remember is that Dave was always trying to make records with the chipmunk trio and Alvin was always screwing things up. The whole thing of Alvin being the troublemaker is pretty much absent here and the chipmunks act as a unit. It actually took three screenwriters to come up with this silly and slightly saccharine story that comes off like a standard musical biopic featuring most of the scenes that we see in a biopic…the rise to fame sequence, the fame going to the stars' heads, and the eventual burn out. The only thing we don't get is the scenes where the star gets hooked on alcohol and drugs, but I guess watching chipmunks snorting cocaine wouldn't really work, though there is a scene where they get recharged at a recording session with coffee topped with whipped cream and shots of chocolate. I was also amused when during their original audition for Jett Records, they can't sing in front of the manager out of fear that reminded me of the classic Warner Brothers cartoon One Froggy Evening.

Director Tim Hill, creator of Spongebob, was afforded a big budget for this and, not accidentally, managed to sprinkle Spongebob clips throughout the film, though they had nothing to do with the story at hand. Lee is pretty much phoning it in here, he just looks embarrassed to be involved in this, but David Cross (Arrested Development) steals every scene he's in as Ian, the evil president of Jett Records. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney provide the voices of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, respectively, though you really can't tell because the voices are pitched so high they sound exactly the same. It's not Merchant and Ivory, but there are laughs here and there.

Thelma
Oscar nominee June Squibb (Nebraska), who's been stealing scenes in supporting roles for a couple of decades now, finally takes center stage in 2024's Thelma, a delightful black comedy about ageism that goes a couple of dark places, but for the most part, provides first rate entertainment that provides plenty of laugh out loud laughs and might have the viewer fighting the occasional tear.

Thelma is a 93 year old woman who was victim of a phone scam that robbed her of $10,000. Embarrassed to admit what happened to her loving grandson, Danny, Thelma finds the address where she sent the money, goes to a nursing home where her friend Ben lives. Despite Ben being five hours away from playing Daddy Warbucks in the nursing home production of Annie, he and Thelma board Ben's scooter and take a road trip to get Thelma's money back.

Director and screenwriter Josh Margolin has actually crafted a very topical story here in this world of 24/.7 internet scams we live in today. Of course, this is made all the more heartbreaking because watching these scam artists prey on the elderly is disgusting. Remember in The Beekeeper when Phylicia Rashad lost every penny she had with one keystroke? Mixed emotions are produced as we love to see the gutsy Thelam determined to get her money back.

I alslo found myself completely entranced by the relationship between Thelma and her grandson, Danny. The movie opens so sweetly with Danny very patiently navigating his grandmother through how to work on a computer. It was lovely seeing a teenage who cared so much about a grandparent and loved the scene whn Danny flips out because Grandma has disappeared and he feels completely responsible. There is also one terrifying and heartbreaking moment near the halfway point of the film where she and Ben have a fight and while wondering around in the darkness, Thelma falls and can't get up.

June Squibb is nothing short of enchanting here, proving that she can command a movie screen at the tender age of 95. Ben is delightfully played by the late Richard Roundtree, in his final film role. Fred Hechinger, who played Steve Zahn's son on the HBO series The White Lotus, lights up the screen as young Danny and his parents are brought to life by Clark Gregg and the long absent from the screen Parker Posey, who is still the scene stealer she always was. There's also wonderful appearance by the always Malcolm McDowell in a small role, but this is Squibb's show and she never makes you regret it.

Cookie's Fortune
Despite a problematic screenplay, the 1999 black comedy Cookie's Fortune does provide entertainment value thanks to a terrific ensemble cast and a five time Oscar nominee in the director's chair.

The setting is a fictional Mississippi town called Holly Springs, one of those sleepy southern towns where everybody knows everybody or is related to everybody. Camille Dixon is busy directing the church's Easter production of Salome and goes over to her Aunt Cookie's house to borrow her fruit bowl and discovers that Cookie has shot herself in the head. Feeling that suicide is inappropriate, Camille decides to cover the suicide by making the crime scene look like an intruder came into Cookie's house and murdered her. Of course, the town is turned upside down by this ruse with unexpected consequences, including the arrest of Cookie's best friend and caretaker, Willis.

Though it's more structured than most of his work, director Robert Altman does provide a lot of the style he has given us over the years that make the film pretty identifiable as classic Altman. Altman has always had an affinity for setting up multiple stories in a single movie and each story is rich with colorful and offbeat characters and here the viewer is given the job of figuring out how all of these characters are going to come together in one story. Unfortunately, the stories here are filled with a lot of unnecessary exposition, making the film about 45 minutes longer than it needs to be.

The screenplay by Anne Rapp, who made her screenwriting debut here after many years in Hollywood as a script supervisor on films like The Firm, Wyatt Earp, Marvin's Room, and That Thing You do. Rapp does show some talent as a writer, but there are just too many holes in this story that it's hard to just let slide. The most important of which include that a true and proper examination of Cookie's body would have eventually revealed that she shot herself and that during a real criminal investigation, there is no way in hell Camille and her sister, Cora would have been allowed to wander in and out of Cookie's house while they ransacked the place of everything they wanted that Aunt Cookie had. On the positive side, Camille does get what's coming to her.

Altman creates an appropriate small town southern atmosphere and gets superb performances from a fantastic ensemble cast including Glenn Close as Camille, Charles S Dutton as Willis, Julianne Moore as Cora, as well as Liv Tyler, Ned Beatty, Courtney B Vance, Donald Moffat, and Chris O' Donnell. Cookie is delightfully played by the legendary Patricia Neal, who would only make two more film appearances before her passing. A kind of bizarre final scene, also a staple of Altman's, doesn't disrupt too much but it could have come a lot sooner than it did.

Fly Me to the Moon
Capricorn One meets Wag the Dog with just a dash of Mad Men in a lavish 2024 epic called Fly Me to the Moon that puts a twist on a historical event that may or may not have really happened.

It's the summer of 1969 and NASA is gearing up for Apollo 11, it's first manned mission to the man. Unfortunately, there is a feeling spreading across the country that America is spending too much money on the space program so in an attempt to justify the spending, a man named Moe Berkus, who claims to work for the White House, sends an ambitious marketing executive named Kelly Jones to Florida to snap up the image of NASA by mounting a lavish campaign connecting all kinds of items to NASA and the Apolo11 in order to glamorize the mission. Kelly turns NASA upside down, especially Cole Davis the launch director and just when she has made NASA an advertising dream, Berkus returns and lets Kelly know that this mission is really about beating the Russians on TV and tells her she must set up a fake moon landing in case anything goes wrong with the real one.

The screenplay is written in the style of an actual docudrama, but this reviewer just found it a little hard to believe that a lot of the stuff that happens in this movie really happened. For example, upon her arrival, Kelly wants to do interviews with Cole and some of his staff, a request which Cole vehemently refuses. Kelly then goes out and hires actors to play Cole and his staff and does interviews with them. The legal implications of such actions isn't even addressed. And when it's time to direct the fake moon landing, instead of going out and getting a first rate director like they did in Wag the Dog, they hire a gay television commercial director for the job.

On the positive side, director Greg Berlanti, who directed a film I loved last year called Red, White, and Royal Blue has been affroded a huge budget for this film and uses it pretty effectively. The film features first rate cinematography, productioni design, and editing. The casting of Scarlett Johansson as Kelly and Channing Tatum as Cole Davis give the film a genuine touch of romance that is not jammed down our throats. We see the chemistry right away, even though they don't kiss until halfway through the film and, of course, just when it's about to come to about to come to fruition, an 11:00 plot twist pulls them apart and has us wondering if we have just been completely faked out.

There are a few familiar faces in the supporting cast, including Woody Harrelson, who provides the majority of the laughs here as Moe Berkus. Also enjoyed Jim Rash as the hypersensitive director Lance Vesperine, Ray Romano as Henry Smalls, and Anna Garcia as Kelly's assistant, Ruby. Johansson also managed to snag a cameo appearance for hubby Colin Jost as a US Senator. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but there is entertainment value here as long as you don't think about it too much. And I'm not sure why, but I was a little surprised that Sinatra's version of the title tune didn't make it onto the soundtrack.

Popeye (1980)
Have wanted to watch something recently to honor the passing of Shelley Duvall and finally settled on one of her earlier works which featured one of my favorite directors behind the camera, which is hard to believe considering the finished product. I, am, of course, talking about the 1980 musical disaster Popeye.

It's heartbreaking the iconic Robert Altman was in the director's chair for this live action rendering of the 1930's Max Fleicher cartoons. Robin Williams, pretty much the hottest actor on the planet at the time, was awarded the unenviable task of bringing the title character to life life during the opening scene where Popeye is observed arriving by boat in a small coastal town called Sweethaven, after spending years on the water searching for his long lost father. Popeye drops anchor in Sweethaven and moves into a boarding house run by Mrs. Oyl and finds himself immediately attracted to Mrs. Oyl's daughter, Olive (Duvall) who pretends to be uninterested in anything but her upcoming marriage to Bluto, who keeps the citizens of Sweethaven under control at the behest of someone referred to but never seen known as the Commodore.

Robert Altman does as much as he can with Jules Feiffer's skimpy screenplay but it's difficult to blame Feiffer because, if the truth be told, those Max Fleicher cartoons weren't exactly brimming with storyline possibilities. These cartoons were everywhere when I was a kid, and what I remember of them was variations on a single theme...Popeye and Bluto battling for the hand of fair Olive Oyl and Bluto beating the crap out of Popeye until he would find super strength from consuming the can of spinach that he always had in his pocket.

A movie almost two hours has to have a lot more than two guys pulling a girl's arms apart, so Feiffer and Altman created the mythical land of Sweethaven and populated it with a lot of eccentric and supposedly colorful characters who were never seen in the cartoons, outside of Popeye's hamburger-loving friend, Wimpy, the abandoned baby that Popeye raised as his own named Sweetpea, and Popeye's father, Poopdeck Pappy. Altman and Feiffer do bring a lot of new characters to the canvas, but they aren't terribly interesting and just pad the running time.

The relationship between the three central characters is also presented in a haphazard fashion. We're never sure exactly where Olive Oyl's heart is. She seems determined to become Mrs. Bluto at the beginning of the film and though confused by her feelings for Popeye, still spends a lot of screentime defending Bluto, though she does seem to be coming to Popeye's side when they take Sweetpea home and she decides that they are going to raise the baby together, no matter what Popeye says.

The monotony of the story is further heightened by the fact that Altman made this a musical with one of the most bizarre and unlistenable musical scores created for a movie by Harry Nillson. The agonizing score includes classics like "Everyday is Food" and "I am What I am", though I have to admit I did enjoy a bizarre solo by Olive Oyl called "He Needs Me."

The late Robin Williams works very hard in the title role, but he works so hard at authenticating Popeye's unusual way of speaking that it's difficult to understand what he's saying during a lot of the film. Paul Dooley made a charming Wimpy though and Ray Walston was a terrific Poopdeck Pappy, but, for my money. it was Duvall's performance as Olive Oyl that made this movie worth watching. Rarely have I seen such a perfect marriage of character and actress, but whenever Duvall isn't onscreen, this one is pretty hard to take. Definitely the nadir of Robert Altman's distinguished career.

Inside Out 2
The basic premise of Inside Out 2, the sequel to the smash 2015 hit is a good one, but, in the final execution, the story just tries to cover a little to much territory and, like most Disney Pixar work, takes a little too long to come to a foregone conclusion and puts the central character through a wringer she really doesn't deserve.

In this film, Riley ( now voiced by Kensington Tallman) is now 13 years old and is experiencing the beginnings of puberty, which brings new emotions to the internal counsel which up to this point had been led by Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira) and Anger (Lewis Black) who are confused by the new emotions trying to take over Riley, led by Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) and her group of new emotions battling for Wiley's conscience.

Was really looking forward to this because word was it did not suffer from "Sequel-itis" and was just as good as the first one. The overly complex screenplay spends a lot more time with Riley than it does with the emotions, allegedly to show how her getting older makes her emotions more complicated, but in an attempt to show how the old and new emotions affecting Riley, basically what we see is them basically just ripping this girl apart as she works tirelessly to make the hockey team and get in with "the cool kids."

I like the way the screenplay gives physicality to Riley's psyche. I have to admit to being tickled when Anxiety and her crew managed to trap Joy and her crew in a glass bottle and they were briefly referred to as "suppressed emotions." The stream of consciousness where Joy and her crew sailed on a piece of deep dish pizza was a lot of fun as well. What bothered me about the story was the fact that Joy and her crew felt they had to engage in a battle with Anxiety and her emotions for Riley's soul. It never occurs to any of these emotions that they need to all work together for Riley's well being rather against each other. This is what bothered me about the movie...I found what the emotions were putting Riley through was very upsetting.

Yes, there's the accustomed razzle dazzle that one expects from Disney Pixar, but any great movie begins with what's on paper, and what was on paper here was just a little too confusing for this reviewer's taste. The movie looks great and there is great voice work from Poehler, Black, Hale, White, and Hawke, but the overheated story weighs it down a bit.

Beau James
Bob Hope was the punch line king who was probably responsible for the invention of the rimshot, but every now and then he was offered the chance to prove that he actually had some acting ability. The last example I saw of this was The Seven Little Foys, but he got another chance when he played Governor Jimmy Walker in the 1957 biopic Beau James.

This is the story of former songwriter Jimmy Walker whose genuine affection for New York City became the platform for him to run for Mayor of the city, a position he served from 1926 to 1932. According to this film, Walker agrees to run after a lot of arm twisting and wins by a landslide, but seems to enjoy the perks of being the mayor a lot more than he is interested in doing the work involved. His life is further complicated by the fact that he is in love with a singer named Betty Compton, despite the fact that he is still married to the icy Allie, who refuses to give him a divorce

Director and co-screenwriter Melville Shavelson, who helmed several of Hope's movies, including The Seven Little Foys, has given Hope a decent showcase for his acting abilities, but if you're really looking for the real story of Jimmy Walker, I seriously doubt this is the place to find it. The whole thing feels whitewashed and watered down. I've seen enough biopics in my day to know when I'm not getting the facts and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting them here. The movie keeps talking about how corrupt Walker was, but during a climactic trial where his administration is being put on trial for various misdeeds. Walker never takes the stand in defense of himself or anyone else. And I have a hard time believing that the Betty/Allie story was as crucial to Walker's downfall as this movie purports not to mention the disgusting way Walker's staff treats Betty. There's actually a scene where the staff talk about putting Betty on a boat to Havana, Cuba!

Shavelson pads the running time with several musical sequences that do nothing more than that. Compton's character is an aspiring Broadway actress who is given musical sequences, despite the fact that Vera Miles, the actress portraying Betty, is dubbed by Imogene Lynn. They should have hired someone who could sing for the part of the singer because the rest of her performance was kind of one note and she had no chemistry with Hope. During the final third of the film, Jimmy Durante is brought in to sing three numbers, one with Hope that do nothing but bring the film to a halt.

What does make the film worth watching is a terrific performance by Bob Hope as Jimmy Walker that stands up proudly next to his work in The Seven Little Foys and Alexis Smith is sophisticated elegance as the bitchy Allie Walker, as is Paul Douglas as Jimmy's #1 aide. If you're looking for the story of Jimmy Walker, I don't think this is it, but if you're looking for Bob Hope in a refreshing change of pace, this is it. I should also mention that I may have missed it somewhere along the line, but I don't remember learning who -the title character is.