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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

William Friedkin

*spoilers*

I'm going to mirror what JJ said in his review on several points.

1...At the start of the film I was like, 'OK, this is all right I guess, in an 80s type way'. The movie felt pretty much pot boiler to me, like a 2 hour movie version of Starsky and Hutch. Run of the mill type stuff. But then the movie gains speed with the abduction and accidental killing of a diamond smuggler who was actually an undercover FBI agent. That put a whole new spin on the pair of gung ho secret service crime fighters, and took the story to a higher level.

2...Kudos for a fresh and brave resolve to the lead secret service agent and his final resolution which felt very real. Something about the scene just felt right and satisfying.

3...I enjoyed the cinematography that showed us a good deal of the L.A. city scape and showed us portions of L.A. that usually aren't filmed in movies. It was awesome for me to see the San Pedro waterfront and portions of the port as I just spent the last six months binge watching The Love Boat and each episode starts with the 'Love Boat' sailing out of San Pedro with the Vincent Thomas bridge and the huge oil refineries in the background. So it was very cool to see more of those scenes here.

4...The chase scene. I'm not a big car chase scene type of guy but I have to say I was impressed with the huge scope of the chase down the actual streets and freeway of L.A area. I had to stop and remind myself that this was done for real and not CG. It's so easy to take these dangerous stunts in older movies in stride. But these stunts took some serious planning and were dangerous, like that semi with it's trailer skidding out of control...Now that's an OMG moment!

For all those good points, I have to say the acting was really flat. Except for DeFoe who was rock solid. I don't know who cast this movie but those actors had no business playing leads (except DeFoe). The story premise as I mentioned was good but the actual script and dialogue was uninspired which leads me think Friedkin made a good director but not such a great writer. I haven't seen many of his films but I did see Sorcerer (1977) which Cricket nominated in an HoF and that movie had characters who came alive and atmosphere and world building that one could literally feel. I didn't get that from To Live in Die in L.A.





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I didn't really care for this. Sounds silly but it spent too much time in the bedroom and not enough time surveying the sisters relationship. Also, I find it hard to believe any girl would be crazy to do things like this with her sister and earshot away. And my god we're those parents awful. The movie was filmed quite well though. Not only did the ending come out of nowhere but I also didn't find it particularly all that great as I think even that limited what the film was trying to do. Another one to just say not my cup of tea to.




I watched To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) today. Directed by William Friedkin, this crime drama action film stars William Petersen and Willem Dafoe. To Live and Die in L.A. is very much an 80s film and feels like an 80s film. Depending on your perspective, that could be good or bad. The 80s are my least favourite decade for film and I'm not usually a big fan of police action thriller type of movies.

With that in mind, I didn't really enjoy this. I can understand why others might dig it, if they love the 80s and are fans of police thrillers. The story didn't really interest me. I wasn't engaged and couldn't really care about the characters. The film dragged on for me and felt longer than it was.

That being said, there were a few things I liked. Dafoe's performance is pretty good. He brings some energy to the role and seems to be having fun with it and it works for him. Cinematography was effective. The film has a sweaty, sleazy look that works well. The music fit with the style and tone of the film and complemented it. There were a couple decent action sequences that were fairly well directed.

Overall, this is more of a miss for me, but I can get why others might be more on its wavelength and vibe with it.



I rewatched Ship of Fools (1965) on dvd. (I got it as part of the Stanley Kramer box set.) Directed by 9 time Oscar nominee Stanley Kramer, the film has a strong ensemble, including Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, George Segal, Michael Dunn, and José Greco, amongst others. It takes place in the 1930s aboard a ship with a diverse group of passengers. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two.

When I first saw the film years ago, I was somewhat underwhelmed. This time, I appreciated the film a little more. The actors did a fine job and I felt the ensemble worked well together. Some parts were that interesting, but there were enough good moments to offset that and make it worthwhile. The cinematography and art direction were well done and the film looks good. I do think the film is probably at least 20 minutes too long and there were some parts here and there that could have been cut. I've seen 7 films directed by Kramer and I would rank this one 6th.



I've seen 7 of his films too. How do you rate the one's you've seen?
My ratings:

The Defiant Ones (1958)

On the Beach (1959)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

Ship of Fools (1965)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)



My ratings:

The Defiant Ones (1958)

On the Beach (1959)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

Ship of Fools (1965)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) of all those would be my top rated. I liked On the Beach better than you. But mostly I'd be along the same lines.



I watched Ida last night for the second time and I'm still totally impressed! I'm impressed with the compositions with their usage of negative space to impart aloneness. I'm equally impressed with the director's restraint in his story telling. He never forces an event or action onto his, not directly, Instead he allows us to discover for ourselves what Ida discovers. This show don't force attribute is at it's most gentle reveal during the grave discovery scene. We see a local man digging a deep grave site with the two women sitting in somberness. Then Wanda removes her scarf and places it over her lap. For a second I wondered why? Then she wraps her scarf around something round and stands up with reverences. I respect the director for not throwing emotional shocking scenes directly into our face. Ida is a rare movie, somehow I doubt many movies like this are being made today.

Below is my old review of Ida which I still stand by.



Ida (2013)
Director : Pawel Pawlikowski.
Very enjoyable film. I had wanted to see Ida for a long time and I was not disappointed. It's so exceptionally well made that I don't know where to begin?

Let's start with the black and white photography...I love b&w, and the choice to use it here was perfect. Without color, our eyes & our minds go then to the shape and form of what we are looking at...And talk about amazing compositions! I loved how the camera shots were framed with the subject often very low in the frame, with a vast space of emptiness over their heads. Which shows us how small Ida is compared to the world outside of her convent, a world she knows nothing about. Through black and white cinematography we see the shape and form of a bleak communist Poland, circa 1962.

Equally I was impressed with the subdued minimalist style of story telling. Very simply done and very effective. I thought Ida was an interesting story and it held my attention.



The trick is not minding
From Kramer I’ve seen:

Guess Who’s Coning to Dinner (4/4)
The Defiant Ones (3.5/4)
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World (2/4)
Inherit the Wind (3.5/4)
Decent films, decent director, but far from among my favorites.
The Domino Principle and Bless the Beasts and Children are available on Tubi, so I’ll probably get to those soon.



Re: Kramer, here is what I've seen, with links to my reviews on LB...

High Noon (1952), producer -

On the Beach (1959), producer & director -

Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), producer -
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I forgot the opening line.


Valley of the Dolls - 1967

Directed by Mark Robson

Written by Helen Deutsch & Dorothy Kingsley
Based on the novel "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann

Starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate & Susan Hayward

I tried to be as open-minded as I could be, realising that Valley of the Dolls was considered "camp" but being somewhat ignorant as to how it was looked at by critics on it's release late in 1967. All the way through it all I could think was "This is very epitome of trash" - and "trash" is a word that kept cropping up in every corner of the Valley of the Dolls world I peeked in at after watching it. This is a film that was adapted from an already trashy novel, and then sanitized to the point where any fun that might have existed amongst the rubbish was washed away. This is a film that even author Jacqueline Susann considered excrement after seeing it at it's premiere on the Princess Italia cruise to celebrate the ship's maiden journey. It has a soap opera feel to it, and is far too dull for me to get terribly invested in. It's going to be hard to talk about the film, because it's just so empty, facile, shallow and terribly scripted. 20th Century Fox put just enough money into it to give it the veneer of respectable studio competence it needed to trade on the book's Best Seller status, and as such the film was a runaway success.

The story is based around three women whose careers in the entertainment industry rise and fall, tied together by friendship and acquaintance. Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) leaves her family home to travel to New York and become a legal secretary for a theatrical agency, and there is discovered and recruited by a cosmetics firm to be a promotional model. Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) wins a role in a Broadway show, but her song is cut when she threatens to outshine star Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward) - she ends up singing on television, getting discovered, and becoming a music and film star. Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) doesn't have musical or acting talent, but trades on her well-proportioned and built body in Hollywood. When her husband falls ill, she starts featuring in soft-core pornography to help pay the bills. All three ladies find themselves fighting addiction at certain times, with alcohol and prescription medicine both helping them perform to the demanding standards they must, but ultimately destroying them. In the world of the film, the pills they pop are known colloquially as "dolls".

Melodrama is the order of the day, and we get plenty with nervous breakdowns, fighting, tantrums, people making drunken "scenes", stumbling, bumbling, Vegas-like showtunes, insults, bickering, affairs, trysts, hospital visits, pill popping, backstabbing, scandal, parties, drama-filled opening nights, suicides and rejected marriage proposals. It's the stuff of day-time television, and it is carried off with everyone speaking lines that others have gleefully put in print in books about bad movies. Valley of the Dolls has serious feminist credentials, but completely wastes them with such an insipid adaptation - and before seeing it I thought I'd perhaps love it. But I didn't. I was bored, and felt insulted. I know some people have embraced all of the melodrama and campiness, and absolutely love Valley of the Dolls, but I tried and just couldn't. It either nearly put me to sleep, had me rolling my eyes or otherwise got under my skin because I love what cinema can do and films like this undermine it's integrity. They're the most cynical of products, and usually end up earning money and perpetuating themselves.

It won't take me long at all to talk about what I liked about the film. The theme song, written by André and Dory Previn and sung by Dionne Warwick, is actually quite good, and the score by John Williams was good enough to be nominated for an Oscar. That just happened to be the first of 59 Oscar nominations for the venerated film composer. It seems strange that "Valley of the Dolls" would have been uttered at some stage of the 1968 Awards, but it happened. Williams would lose to Alfred Newman and Ken Darby for their work on Camelot, which did well that year in the technical categories. André and Dory Previn also provided some other quite decent songs, although they lose some of the kudos due to them with "I'll Plant My Own Tree", which was originally meant to be sung by Judy Garland when she'd signed on as part of the Valley of the Dolls cast. Instead, Susan Hayward was stuck lip-synching to Margaret Whiting. When all added up, I think Valley of the Dolls doesn't sound too bad considering what it is.

I don't want to keep on harping on things that I found unpleasant (although we're pretty much stuck with that subject now that I've finished discussing the music of Valley of the Dolls) but one other factor was Jacqueline Susann's attempt to turn "dolls" into slang for pills - we hear over and over again characters (especially Neely) talk about "dolls". It twists the dialogue in a way that makes everything seem even more artificial, when the exact opposite is needed. "Dolls" never took off as a colloquialism for pills like Susann hoped it would. I have to admit that there are some memorable lines (for all the wrong reasons.) "Boobies, boobies, boobies! Nuthin' but boobies! Who needs 'em? I did great without 'em" Then there are the spontaneous outbursts, and the way the story leaps from breakdowns to addictions to recoveries in a kind of hodge-podge manner, without any real sense that a considered story is being told. I simply couldn't embrace it, although I can kind of understand why some people can. Perhaps if this was a bad horror film, or a bad science fiction film, I'd be having more fun - but for me this was movie hell.

Now, for Fox this was a big movie, and they spared no expense with an Oscar-winning cinematographer, William H. Daniels (he won for 1948 film The Naked City), a 4-time Oscar-nominated editor, Dorothy Spencer, an Oscar-nominated production designer, Philip M. Jefferies and art direction from 7-time Oscar winner Richard Day, and 3-time Oscar winner Jack Martin Smith. The set decoration was performed by 6-time Oscar winner Walter M. Scott and Oscar winner Raphael Bretton. Most important was the costume designer, who was Travilla, an Oscar winner for Adventures of Don Juan, with three other nominations to his name. This was serious studio professionalism in as much as having everything look right for a big 1967 feature film. It might be in service to something really trashy, but if cinema-goers didn't mind that, and fancied themselves some cleaned-up Jacqueline Susann at the movies, their eyes and ears weren't going to discern much difference from other studio features they'd see that year.

Perhaps one day I'll approach Valley of the Dolls again, armed with my initial experience of it, and ready to treat it as silly fun. Approaching it in a serious manner however, I have to express my thoughts about it thus - this movie is terrible, principally because of an awful screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and Helen Deutsch, thoughtless direction by Mark Robson, and mystifyingly bad acting by most of it's cast. A substandard story, told in an unacceptable manner. The music isn't too bad, and the film doesn't have many technical faults, but it's one of the campiest, trashiest and most disordered films I've ever seen from a major studio. I had to fight boredom, and I felt insulted, but I do admit to a few chuckles when I look back on some of the strange dialogue the characters speak, and some of the things people have had to say about the film over the years. Perhaps something of a baptism of fire for someone fairly ignorant about the cultural phenomenon that was Valley of the Dolls. It's unusual and somehow compelling montages, and it's hysterical, bipolar-like shifts in energy. From now on whenever an actress bares a breast in a film, I'm very likely to shout "Boobies, boobies, boobies! Who needs 'em? Valley of the Dolls did great without 'em!"

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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Ida (2013) -


I didn't enjoy this film as much as I hoped to, but it's still pretty decent. I think a lot of my indifference towards it was that there wasn't enough to keep me on board with it. I've read some reviews which point out how Kulesza and Trzebuchowska show subtle changes as more insight about Ida's past is revealed, but while I don't doubt this is the case, acting usually doesn't matter a whole lot to me. I've said this in the past, but I'm generally not one who pays attention to acting, and it wasn't until the few minutes before
WARNING: spoilers below
Wanda's suicide
where I began to feel something towards the acting. Of course, there are all kinds of tools a film can utilize other than acting to represent characters being shaped and changed, but aside from the final act, I didn't think there was a whole lot to this. So much time is spent on slowly revealing Ida's background and it wasn't until Ida and Wanda parted ways when their characters grew more interesting. Though yeah, the final act is pretty memorable, specifically due to Ida's arc. Even though I would've preferred it taking up more of the film, it's a compelling depiction of attempting to start a new life and being haunted by your past. The black and white cinematography is also lovely to look at since it contains multiple well-framed shots. In spite of enjoying the final act a good bit, however, I'd say this film was decent and I don't imagine it will stick with me. Interestingly enough, My Summer of Love, the other film I've seen from Pawlikowski, gave me a similar reaction of not being on board with it until the final act. I'm curious now if this will be a pattern for his films.

Next Up: Lawrence of Arabia




Valley of the Dolls (Mark Robson 1967)

'Dolls' a 1960s slang term for Dolophine, which was a prescription drug brand name for methadone.

I just flat out love this movie...but my reasons for loving it just changed dramatically with last night's viewing. The first time I seen Valley of the Dolls I thought it was colorful and interesting with a melodramatic, glossy soap feeling and I love movies like that. The second time I watched it I had a two disc deluxe DVD with hours of extra special features. I was smitten with the movie's unintentional camp, but done oh so seriously. Sparkle Neely, Sparkle was my mantra. But last night I had an ephinany, I seen Valley of the Dolls as a far sadder tale than I had ever felt before...A wreckage of broken lives and wasted dreams all wrapped in a fleeting moment of time during the turbulent 60s.

Valley of the Dolls hit me hard on an emotional level and most films never do that. Even in looking for images for this review some of the screen shots just made me feel melancholy. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and think about things that once were and now lost. Or maybe what makes the emotional impact harder for me was knowing the real story behind some of the actresses lives. Or maybe it's that haunting song by Dionne Warwick. Whatever the reason I took the film and it's subject matter more seriously than I had ever done before.

I think we all know about the sad and senseless killing of Sharon Tate and her unborn baby. Sharon Tate who played Jennifer North might not be the greatest actress but she had this vulnerability that came across the screen and I'm sure that came from deep inside Sharon Tate herself. It was palatable in how everyone around her from show business types to her own mother used her attractive body to earn bucks from her. Her mom badgers her over the phone, hitting her up for another $50. You can just feel Jennifer's heart breaking...And break it does when she's diagnose with breast cancer and is facing a mastectomy. That last scene of her laying on the bed was especially hard to watch as it felt like Sharon Tate saying goodbye to us...Sharon Tate had a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Valley of the Dolls.



Unknown to anyone at the time Patty Duke suffered from manic depression bipolarism. According to Patty Duke her guardians that raised her during her teen years, while she starred in the Patty Duke Show gave her “happy pills” – Thorazine, Stelazine, and Percodan. Even as an adult and before filming of Valley of the Dolls Patty had overdosed several times on pills. Neely O'Hara might seem like a caricature to some but the inner turmoil in Patty Duke would make Neely far too believable. That picture of Patty was taken on the set of Valley of the Dolls by a reporter who caught her in a deep funk...it speaks volumes.

Much of what seems outlandish in the movie is based on factual events. Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward) is based on Broadway legend Ethel Merman. At the start of the movie Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) has relocated to New York City and her first job is to get Helen Lawson to sign a contract for her boss. Backstage at rehearsals she witnesses a young talent, Neely O'Hara belting out a tune and then hears Helen Lawson demand that Neely be removed from her Broadway show because she doesn't want to be upstage by the young star. This causes a producer to take Neely to Hollywood where she becomes a star.
Ethel Merman actually ordered a musical number cut during previews of the show "Panama Hattie" before it opened on Broadway. The singer of that number was Betty Hutton, who was creating quite a sensation with her performance of the song. Just like in the movie, the producer of the show took Hutton to Hollywood and made her a star to make up for her treatment in the show.
Judy Garland was original cast to play Helen Lawson but on the first day of shooting was too boozed up and was replaced with Susan Hayward. How's that for art imitating life.

I know some people will watch Valley of the Dolls and think of it as fluff due to some of the scene chewing and colorful tag lines...but for me it's a real and very sad story of abuse, in the entertainment industry. Not the best acted movie or best written movie in this HoF but for me it's the most moving story.




Candyman (1992)
Clive Barker + Hollywood = Myth
I was a follower of the Hellraiser mythos but I had never seen Candyman. I think I saw a clip and didn’t like the acting. It’s quite good in its creation of a mythic figure but the movie itself has a problem and I put this squarely on the director’s shoulders. The scenes of conversation between multiple characters always land flat. I don’t think a lot of care was taken in filming them. I think there was a lot of, “ok, that’s good enough.” I am glad I’ve seen it now. I am definitely going to see the Jordan Peele reboot. It definitely needs to be seen through African American eyes as well.
Fat Girl (2001)
I didn’t like this movie. I think that is because this is a message movie. It is, in the end, an allegory. This is why as many have noted the relationship between the sisters isn’t fully explored. The fat girl in Fat Girl is the symbol of how women see themselves through internalized misogyny. Ignored, ugly, unlovable, constantly jealous and in competition with other women, their sisters. Nowhere is the nature of the film as a message movie more blatant than in its brutal ending. The fat girl sees her mother and sister brutally murdered and she is then raped by the murderer. While she is being raped, she does not have a look of fear or revulsion, in fact she embraces him. Later when speaking to the cops she doesn’t even claim it as rape. The brutality, the murder and the rape are in the eyes of the filmmaker nothing more than the business of life as usual in patriarchal culture.