Gideon58's Reviews

Alpha Dog is a raw and uncompromising documdrama, shockingly based on a true incident, which showcases a group of rich, bored youth with too much time and money on their hands, their outrageous behavior, poor choices, and their shock at coming face to face with the obvious consequences of what they do, even though that's not what this film is about.

Written and directed by Nick Cassavettes, the film chronicles what happens when a rich drug dealing punk, surrounded by his ass-kissing posse of yes-men, impulsively abducts the baby brother of a whacked-out addict who owes him money and the downward spiral this spontaneous and stupid move takes. But that's not what this film is about either...this film is not about kidnapping, or the evil of drugs, or the danger of having too much time or money. As explained in the opening scene, this story is about bad parenting. This story is about what parental neglect can lead to. This story is about what happens when your kids leave the house and you don't ask them where they're going, what they will be doing, who they'll be doing it with, and what time they'll be back. This story is about parents who put their own selfish needs above their children, despite the fact that the number of parents who are part of this story is limited, which is exactly the point.

Cassavettes, who has clearly inherited some of his dad's cinematic eye, treats us to some inventive camera-work and an improvisational directorial style. As a screenwriter, he has mounted a compelling story though dialogue sometimes borders on the cliché.

Emile Hirsh is miscast as Johnny Truelove, the drug dealer at the center of the story. Hirsh works hard at trying to make his character menacing, but never really convinces in the role. The rest of the cast, however, is excellent, including Hip Hop icon Justin Timberlake in his film debut. Special mention should also be made of Ben Foster, as the psycho addict who puts his baby brother in danger, Anton Yelchin as the baby-faced hostage, and Sharon Stone as Yelchin's mother, who has one extraordinary scene near the end of the film. This film is shocking, raw, ugly, mean-spirited, unpleasant...and riveting from start to finish.

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Back to the Future is a roller coaster ride of an adventure that firmly established Robert Zemeckis as a director to be reckoned with and officially made a movie star out of sitcom star Michael J. Fox. Fox replaced Eric Stolz in the role of Marty McFly, a misfit of a teenager whose friendship with a loopy inventor named Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) gets him into quite the pickle. The Doc has actually invented a time machine that transports Marty back to the year 1955, where he meets his parents as teenagers and must unite them romantically in order to exist and return to the year 1985.

This film is expertly mounted thanks to detailed direction and a rock solid screenplay. Fox is energetic as Marty McFly and gets wonderful support from Lloyd as Doc Brown and from Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson as his parents. Kudos as well to Thomas F. Wilson, who scores as a perpetual bully in Marty's life. The movie is full of laughs, scares, and even a touch of genuine warmth here and there. If you've never seen it, treat yourself. Followed by two sequels.

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The 1989 version of Batman was Tim Burton's dark re-thinking of the classic comic book hero. Light years away from the 1966 television series, this film goes to Bruce Wayne's roots as the comic book did and explains why Bruce Wayne became Batman in a way that was never really made clear in the television series.

The film has a dark look and feel to it but it works for the screenplay and for Burton's ultimate vision of this character. Michael Keaton is quite competent in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman and Kim Basinger makes a lovely damsel in distress, but the thing you walk away remembering about this movie is the extraordinary performance by Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier a.k.a. The Joker.

Nicholson commands the screen in one of his most remarkable performances that should have garnered him the Oscar for Best Actor of 1989; however, he was not even nominated. This is a wonderful film (the three that followed paled in comparison,IMO) that is worth seeing, if for no other reason, to marvel at the show-stopping performance of Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

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Crash was a breathtaking and undeniably powerful motion picture that moved some, angered others, and has probably caused more impassioned debate than any film of the last two decades.

This Oscar winner for Best Picture is an unsettling, imaginative, and quietly accurate examination of the very touchy subject of race relations and how, in some very subtle ways, we really haven't made much progress in this area since the 1960's. This film rattled cages everywhere because it shined a light on behaviors in this country that we want to believe don't exist but have really just been quietly shoved in the closet and almost out of sight. This film angered a lot of people because it's unflattering to us and shows a side of us that we would rather believe doesn't exist but I defy anyone who sees this extraordinary film not to find one character or event that they can relate to, have seen something similar occur, or know someone in their own lives who is like a character in this film.

Many have criticized this film for conveying the ugliness of prejudice and bigotry with a sledgehammer but I disagree. Paul Haggis' superb Oscar winning screenplay weaves a tapestry of story and character that never punches you in the face. Instead it haunts your conscious with its powerfully quiet indictment of our own inner demons that we had forgotten about.

This film traces 24 hours in the lives of several disparate characters in downtown Los Angeles where the separate events these people experience shed a different light on this still highly sensitive issue. The cast is uniformly superb...Don Cheadle plays a police detective whose investigation into a dirty cop's death finds him in a position of compromising an investigation through reverse discrimination while dealing with a drug-addicted mother, a hoodlum younger brother and a latino partner/girlfriend (Eva Mendes). Chris "Ludacris" Bridges does a star-making a turn as an intelligent LA thug who loves to blast white Los Angeles for the deplorable way they treat black people while carjacking a political candidate and his wife, played by Brendon Fraser and Sondra Bullock. Bullock is surprisingly effective in a very unsympathetic role. Terrence Howard is brilliant as black TV producer who is humiliated during a traffic stop involving a bigoted cop (Matt Dillon, Best Supporting Actor Nominee)going a little too far with his girlfriend (Thandie Newton) and has him questioning his manhood and taking the law into his own hands when Bridges also tries to carjack him, not to mention a re-connection between Dillon and Newton that provides one of the film's most powerful moments.

Mention should also be made of Ryan Phillippe as a sympathetic cop who finds out he's not as liberal as he thought and Larenz Tate as Bridges' running partner. And don't miss the "Magic Cloak" scene...one of the single most moving scenes in the history of cinema. It's not fun, it's not flattering, and it's not easy to watch, but Crash is an important and beautifully crafted look at an armpit of our society which we would like to think no longer exists.

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Dirty Dancing was the surprise smash hit of 1987 which told the story of an irresistible romance that develops between a nubile teenager and a dance instructor at a Catskills resort when the girl's family arrives at the resort for the summer. This deceptively simple plot provides the backdrop for one of the most innovative and ingratiating musicals to hit the screen in years with dance sequences that redefined movie choreography forever.

Jennifer Grey (daughter of Oscar Winner Joel Grey) turns in a star-making performance as Baby Houseman, the young idealistic teen who finds her head turned one magical summer by the flashy Johnny Castle, played with swiveling-hip sincerity by Patrick Swayze, who made it cool for guys to dance in the movies again. It is the undeniable chemistry between these two relatively unknown actors and some dazzling dance sequences that make this movie worth watching over and over again.

Swayze and Grey are magic together and mention should be made of an outstanding supporting performance from the late Jerry Orbach as Baby's father. The film won the Oscar that year for Best Song "(I've Had)The Time of My Life" which is used in the film's spectacular finale. The film is irresistible and once you've experienced it for the first time, multiple viewings will follow.

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Fatal Attraction was the surprise smash hit of 1987 that filled theaters and terrified men all over the country contemplating adultery.

This instant classic starred Michael Douglas as Dan Gallagher, a lawyer with a great job, a beautiful wife (Anne Archer), and an adorable daughter who risks it all by having a weekend fling with one Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), an associate from work, while his wife and daughter have gone away for the weekend. When Monday morning rolls around, Dan wants to resume his normal life but Alex is having none of that and is soon revealed to be a dangerous psychopath who refuses to let Dan just walk out of her life.

Probably the most talked about movie of 1987, this film tells a compelling story and teaches a lesson without being preachy, basically that actions have consequences and some must just be endured because they have been brought upon ourselves. Despite a somewhat cliché-ridden screenplay, this movie works thanks to vivid direction by Adrian Lyne and first-rate performances. Close is bone-chilling as Alex Forrest and despite the fact that he is an adulterer, Michael Douglas manages to infuse some semblance of sympathy into Dan. Dan made his bed, so to speak, but Douglas still manages to make us care about and fear for Dan. Anne Archer delivers the best performance of her career as Dan's wife, Beth, the real victim in this whole mess.

Close and Archer were both nominated for Oscars, but lost to Cher and Olympia Dukakis for Moonstruck. Close definitely should have won. The film was also nominated for Best Director, Adrian Lyne and Best Picture. Twenty years later, this film remains riveting from start to finish and it amazes me how different this film turned out to be from the producers' original vision. Alex was originally going to played by a sexy young starlet and many actresses were offered the role prior to Close and now I can't imagine anyone as Alex but Close...the performance is perfection.

Brian DePalma was originally slated to direct but bowed out because he felt Michael Douglas was wrong for the role of Dan and would not evoke sympathy from the audience. Co-producer Sherry Lansing said those fears were quashed during the first audience preview of the film during the scene when Dan comes home and messes up his bed to make it look like he had slept in it. Apparently, this scene produced cheers from the crowd and the audience loved Dan from there on. A once-in-a-lifetime motion picture experience that still holds up as riveting entertainment.

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Guys and Dolls is one of the few screen versions of a Broadway musical that I would love to see a remake of as this 1955 version has several problems. Primarily there are some real problems with the casting of the leads...I, too believe Frank Sinatra should have been playing Sky Masterson, not Nathan Detroit and Detroit should have been portrayed by someone more comedic. Nathan does not have to be a great singer, but he does have to be funny and Sinatra was not.

Jean Simmons made a lovely looking Sarah Brown but I would have liked to have had someone dub her singing, or they could have cast someone who could sing the role, like Shirley Jones or Jane Powell. There were also major alterations to the score which were just unnecessary. They cut "A Bushel and a Peck" and replaced it with "Pet Me Poppa". They cut "I've Never Been in Love Before" and replaced it with "A Woman in Love". They cut "My Kind of Day" and "Marry the Man Today" and replaced them with nothing. My guess is that some of these score alterations might have been made in an attempt to eek a Best Original Song nomination out of the Academy.

They even added a song for Sinatra "Adelaide", which was totally lame. Vivian Blaine still stops the show with "Adelaide's Lament" and Stubby Kaye still brings down the house with "Sit Down, You're Rockin the Boat"; however, as someone who has appeared in three different stage productions of the play, this film is not even close to a proper rendition of this story for the big screen and I would love to see it remade.

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Lover, Come Back is a stylish and sophisticated sex comedy that reunited Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall in this story of rival advertising executives (Day, Hudson) who, though they've never met, can't stand each other and are always competing for the same clients which once again sets up a clever mistaken identity scenario that allows Rock to pretend to be someone else in order to woo an unsuspecting Doris.

This is Doris and Rock's best film, IMO...a sparkling romantic comedy with a strong screenplay and once again, Doris again exemplifies the 60's working woman....one of the few actresses during this time in Hollywood consistently playing working women competing in a man's world. Doris and Rock get strong support from Randall, Jack Kruschen, Ann B. Davis, and especially Edie Adams. Doris' "virginity" never had more sex appeal than it did here.

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The stylish direction of Billy Wilder, one of his most innovative screenplays with I.A.L. Diamond, and three intelligent and compelling lead performances propel The Apartment, an intelligent and surprisingly adult comedy-drama that won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1960 as well as twin Oscars for Wilder for his direction and screenplay.

This deft and riveting film stars Jack Lemmon as Chuck "CC" Baxter, a bean-counter in a large corporation, who in an attempt to climb the corporate ladder, has agreed to lend the key to his apartment to several junior executives in order for them to conduct their extra-marital affairs. CC is thrown when the big boss (Fred MacMurray) asks for the key and learns that the object of his lust is an elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) for whom CC harbors a major crush.

Wilder has mounted a story that gnaws at your emotions, due particularly to the performances of the three lead actors, who all deliver the performances of their careers. MacLaine was robbed of the Best Lead Actress Oscar that year because Elizabeth Taylor got sick and almost died, bringing enough sentiment to win her the Oscar for the dreadful Butterifled 8. MacLaine herself was so convinced that Taylor would win she didn't even attend the ceremony. MacMurray, cast surprisingly against type as a heel, knocks it out of the park.

A classic in every sense of the word that was turned into a Broadway musical in 1966 called Promises, Promises and was also the basis for a later Michael J. Fox comedy called For Love or Money. 9/10

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One of the surprise box office smashes of 1990 was Ghost, a contemporary melding of love story and ghost story that touched moviegoers and became an instant classic.

The film starred the late Patrick Swayze as Sam Wheat, a financial planner romantically involved with a sculptress (Demi Moore), who dies from what appeared to be a random mugging. Though Sam is physically dead, his spirit continues to live when he learns that his death was not random and that his girlfriend is still in danger. Ironically, Sam's only ally in his mission to save his girl is a phony psychic (Whoopi Goldberg) who can hear Sam but can't see him.

This film hits all the right notes as we watch a couple deeply in love torn apart forever but their love transcending the bounds of physical death. Ironically, several other actors were approached for the role of Sam Wheat before Swayze reluctantly accepted the role which turned him into THE romantic leading man of the 1990's . Swayze plays Sam with such warmth and charm you can't help but feel for his situation.

Moore is a charming leading lady and Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for her hilarious supporting performance as Oda Mae Brown, the phony psychic. The chemistry between Goldberg and Swayze is surprisingly solid. Mention should also be made of Tony Goldwyn as Sam's slimey best friend.

In addition to Goldberg, Bruce Joel Goldman also won an Oscar for his imaginative screenplay. The film also was nominated for Best Picture of the Year. A classic not to be missed. 8/10

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Gideon,your reviews are very readable and interesting.But I have to disagree about Ghost.It is no classic.Never felt the urge to watch it again.

Interesting to see someone who likes Crash and doesn't think it's utterly crude. I appreciate that you mention that some people (like me) believe that it delivers its message with a sledgehammer.

There are films that hit you in the face with their message. Not Crash. It brutally knocks you down with its overly massive moral-mace (yeah alliteration) and as you lie dying on the ground it kicks you in the face screaming: "RACISM IS BAD!! Got That!?" And then it kicks you again.

As a film it's not entirely bad. Without the missing sensitivity it would be okay to decent. Especially the scene with the TV producer and his wife getting pulled over by the police is very uncomfortable to watch and you can empathise with the couple. That is a very good and intense scene.
But overall it deals so clichéd and superficial with its topic (although there are probably some very banal reasons for a racist attitude).

My only explanation why someone doesn't see the crude approach in this film has always been that the person must be dump , but that can't be the reason as so many people like or even love it (it even got the Oscar, what the...)
Well, I don't know. Must the this subjective opinion everbody's talking about.

You're certainly entitled to your opinions and I'm glad that you read my reviews and will allow me mine.

Putting it Together was another valentine to the musical genius of Stephen Sondheim, the best composer working in the musical theater today. Nobody can craft a tapestry of words the way Sondheim can. This is maybe the 4th or 5th musical revue based on his music but this one is a little different because each performer is assigned a thumbnail character to base the songs on and the characters are supposedly at a cocktail party when the songs are performed.

The cast is sublime, led by the incomparable Carol Burnett, a gifted actress and comedienne that a lot of people forget is an amazing singer and skillful musician. She puts her own stamp on Sondheim classics like "The Ladies who Lunch", "Getting Married Today", and "Every Day a Little Death", which she duets on with Ruthie Henshall. Burnett commands the stage and when she is on, you don't notice anybody else, except maybe George Hearn, the ultimate interpreter of Sondheim, having played SWEENEY TODD and Ben in the concert version of FOLLIES. His rich baritone effectively serves songs like "The Road You Didn't Take" from FOLLIES, "Good Thing Going" from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG and his duet with John Harrowman, "Pretty Women" from SWEENEY TODD. Harrowman scores with a song cut from COMPANY called "Marry Me a Little" and Henshall shines performing two songs from the movie DICK TRACY...the Oscar winning "Sooner or Later" and "More", as well as "LOVELY" from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM.

But the biggest surprise for this reviewer was Bronson Pinchot, who I had no idea was so adept at musical comedy. He serves as narrator/host for the show and opens the show with a funny song from THE FROGS, which instructs the audience on how to behave. He is very funny dueting with Burnett on "Everybody out to have a Maid" from FORUM and brings down the house with "Buddy's Blues" from FOLLIES. And Sondheim's five part arrangement of "Being Alive" from COMPANY is just spectacular.

This show is not for everyone, but if you're a fan of musical theater in general and Sondheim in particular, this show is a must-see event. 8/10

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Malibu was a trashy ,all-star cast, potboiler made-for-TV miniseries, originally shown on ABC in 1983 which told the story of young couple (William Atherton, Susan Dey)from the midwest or somewhere, who, because of his job, move to Malibu, California for one fateful summer and the typical California beach bunnies and bozos they encounter while there.

Ann Jillian played Gail Hessian, an ambitious TV reporter who wants to get an exclusive interview with a wealthy industrialist (James Coburn, in his usual classy turn)and will do anything, including have an affair with the man, to get her story, despite the fact that he's married (Eva Marie Saint). Kim Novak, still doing the overage sex kitten bit, plays the real estate agent who helps Atherton and Dey find their house and has the dirt on everyone in Malibu. George Hamilton is perfectly cast as a suave, well-tanned con artist.

Valerie Perrine plays a wealthy divorcée who has a brief fling with Atherton. Richard Mulligan is heartbreaking as a struggling screenwriter trying to keep his ditzy mistress (Jenilee Harrison) happy while trying to court the attention of a famous producer (Anthony Newley) who he wants to read his latest screenplay. Chad Everett plays a tennis pro who falls for Dey and convinces her that he loves her even though he will never leave his wife (played by the director's wife, Bridget Hanley).

Sun,sand, surf, sex, sin, everything you can ask for in a four hour romp on the beach. Nothing new or special here, but the cast is game and if you put your brain in check for four hours, there is fun and entertainment to be had here. It ain't GONE WITH THE WIND, but it's a lot of fun. 5/10

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Another entry from the demented mind of Christopher Guest was 2000's Best in Show, Guest's deft and amusing inside look at a fictional dog show, the dog's owners, and the backstage machinations at the show itself.

Once again, in his usual mockumentary style, Guest introduces us to all of the owners and gives us insight into their own personal journey leading them and their pet to the Mayflower Dog Show. Guest and Eugene Levy have crafted a screenplay that ignites laughter and warmth in equal doses and keeps us entertained from start to finish.

Guest has gathered his usual rep company and uses them to maximum advantage. Levy and Catherine O'Hara are very funny as Gerry and Cookie Fleck, an allegedly happy married couple, despite Cookie's questionable past with men. Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch are amusing as the owner and trainer of the dog who has won the show the last two years, who are also secretly lovers. Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins are very amusing as a gay couple entering their dog in the pageant. Fred Willard also has several funny moments as a color commentator on the show. Guest himself appears as a small town nut expert entering his hound in the show.

Guest and company seem to be having a ball here and I'm sure you will too. 8/10

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Polished direction by John Schlesinger and a riveting performance from Sean Penn are the main selling points of 1985's The Falcon and the Snowman, a fact-based story about a pair of childhood friends (they were alter boys together), who become involved, thanks partially to one's government job, in political intrigue and being accused of being traitors to the United States.

Timothy Hutton, fresh off his Oscar win for Ordinary People, is solid as Christopher Boyce, an aimless young man, trapped in the shadow of his former FBI agent father (Pat Hingle), who uses the job his father secured for him to actually begin selling government secrets to the Russians and then regretting it once he has gotten in too deep, but it is future Oscar winner Sean Penn's brilliant performance as Daulton Lee, drug dealer and Christopher's partner-in-crime, who is eventually betrayed and thrown under a proverbial bus the primary reason to stay tuned. Penn is basically the whole show here. As always, Penn makes such interesting choices as an actor you cannot help but be fascinated by his unpredictability as an actor.

Solid screenplay and direction and some impressive cinematography are icing on the cake here, but it is Penn's performance as Lee that makes this film sizzle. 7.5/10

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Adam Sandler had one of the biggest hits of his career with 1994's Happy Gilmore. Sandler offers a slightly angrier variation on the demented man-child out of which he has carved an entire career.

Happy's dreams of being a professional hockey player have been crushed but he is revealed to actually have some talent for golf and uses his newfound talent to rescue his ailing grandmother from a nursing home run by a sadistic aide (a very funny Ben Stiller) through his rivalry with a slimy professional golfer named Shooter McGavin (hilariously portrayed by Christopher McDonald).

This film provides consistent laughs throughout, thanks mainly to an effective combative chemistry between Sandler and McDonald, who work surprisingly well together. Carl Weathers has some funny moments as Chubbs, Happy's trainer as do Joe Flaherty as a demented golf fan and the film's director, Dennis Dugan, as a PGA official, but the comic highlight of the film is definitely a knock down drag out fight between Happy and Bob Barker, playing himself, as he and Happy bomb out as partners in a pro/celeb tournament. Hands down, the funniest scene in the film and worth the price of admission alone. 7/10

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One of the more delightful outings from the team of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn was the 1957 comedy Desk Set, smoothly directed by Walter Lang.

This comedy classic stars Hepburn as Bunny Watson, the head of a research department of a television network, who has a brain like a computer and an unrivaled memory, whose cozy work environment with her three co-workers (Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill, Sue Randall) is threatened when an efficiency expert named Richard Sumner (Tracy) arrives at the company and simultaneously has the ladies thinking they are about to be replaced by a computer while broaching a tentative relationship with Bunny, much to the consternation of her boyfriend Mike (Gig Young).

Aided by a deft screenplay by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, Tracy and Hepburn are a well-oiled cinematic machine as always and watching the cat and mouse battle of wills between these two people is an absolute pleasure and they receive rock solid support from Young and Blondell. What I love about the relationship between Tracy and Hepburn in this movie is the slow burn factor...it's not love at first sight and Hepburn's Bunny is fighting it all the way because she feels Tracy's Richard Sumner is a threat to her job, which has her putting up instant barriers.

Though this was the final film Tracy and Hepburn made before Guess Who's Coming to Dinner these two were still as solid a cinematic team as they were when they appeared together for the first time in Woman of the Year. This film is a lot of fun and classic film lovers should eat it up.

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Tom Hanks received his first Oscar nomination for his charismatic performance in Big, a 1988 comic fantasy that became a box office smash and made Hanks an official cinematic superstar.

This is the story of Josh Baskin (David Moscow), a 12-year old kid who goes to a carnival one night and makes a wish on a Zoltar machine to be big. Josh goes home from the carnival dejected because he thinks his wish didn't come true, but the next morning when Josh wakes up, he has become a 35 year old man (Hanks), physically, but he still has the heart, soul, and brain of a 12-year old.

With the aid of Penny Marshall's sharp direction (easily her best work) and a clever screenplay by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, Hanks flawlessly plays a 12-year old kid...it's so much fun watching Josh get excited about things that bore adults and vice versa. I love Josh's reaction to getting his first paycheck and asking for it in singles when he gets it cashed or when he's sitting in a staff meeting at the toy company he works for and all he wants to do is play with the toys. It's also interesting watching Josh try to adjust to being an adult while trying to maintain his friendship with his best friend Billy Kopecki (Jared Rushton), but between his job and his relationship with an attractive co-worker (Elizabeth Perkins), his friendship with Billy does reach an impasse.

Hanks has a strong supporting cast here including Perkins, who had her first major film role here, John Heard as an antagonistic co-worker, Robert Loggia as his boss and Mercedes Ruehl as Josh's mother, who really scores in a lovely little scene where she and Billy share their feelings about missing Josh on his birthday.

A nearly perfect screen comedy that just gets more entertaining everytime you watch it. I mean, can you ever really get tired of Hanks and Loggia playing "Heart and Soul" on that giant keyboard? Later turned into a Broadway musical.

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