Gideon58's Reviews

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I am so glad that Gideon watched and liked Source Code. I had recommended it to him. I've been hoping I'd see this review.



IRRATIONAL MAN

Woody Allen once again treads some familiar but cringe-worthy territory with 2015's Irrational Man, a ballsy and manipulative drama that looks at moral choices and self-preservation through the eyes of characters painted in varied shades of gray.

Joaquim Phoenix stars as Abe Lucas, an alcoholic and womanizing college professor who is disenchanted with his life and work, including a book he's trying to write. The man is living in a vacuum and keeping most earthlings at arm's length yet still catches the eye of a student named Jill (Emma Stone) and Rita (Parker Posey), a married faculty member who are both fascinated with Abe for different reasons, despite the fact that they're both involved with other men. One day, Abe and Jill are in a diner and overhear a conversation in the next booth that motivates Abe to commit an unspeakable act.

Surprisingly, this act completely revives Abe's interest in everything in his life...he loves teaching now, his writer's block has disappeared and he now eats a three course breakfast every morning instead of his accustomed cup of coffee. Abe feels that what he did is justified because it is helping people he doesn't even know but when what Abe did starts coming to light, he goes into full self-preservation mode, while never apologizing or rationalizing his actions.

Once again, the Woodmeister has mounted another manipulative story rich with likable characters doing unlikable things and vice versa. The central character is not the only one who comes out of this thing unscathed either. Jill spends a good portion of her screentime throwing herself at this guy, despite the fact that he discourages it but expects him to change overnight when he doesn't turn out to be exactly the person she placed on a pedestal. Rita is no prize either...once she starts putting together what Abe has done, she goes to Jill and it's often hard to tell whether her motives are justice or jealousy.

Like other Allen works like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point, these characters are painted in serious shades of gray and no one makes all the right moves, especially the character of Abe, who Phoenix somehow manages to infuse with a dash of likability and keeps him riveting. Stone works hard at keeping Jill likable and as always with Woody's movies, the music is flawless, but again, as always with Woody's films, the story is the thing and is not a pretty one but it is told appropriately.



LIGHT IT UP

Light it Up is a contrived and predictable teen drama from 1999 that hasn't held up very well over the years. This film suffers from a cliched screenplay, overripe performances, and a bit too much concentration on flash over substance.

The story opens on a very cold winter day at a run down high school in Queens where the kids don't have enough books and they have class wearing their down jackets because there's no room in the school budget to fix one broken window. A completely unnecessary confrontation between a couple of students and a school rent-a-cop results in six students locking down the school with the rent-a-cop as hostage, who has been shot in the leg.

This so-called hostage drama aggravates almost immediately because it tries to create suspense where there is none. One student doesn't want to go home and we're supposed to wonder why. Another student gets involved in the situation only because he doesn't want to get beat up by some bad guys waiting for him and another who'd rather be involved in this mess than go home and tell her father she's pregnant. Craig Bolitin's screenplay attempts to build some kind of suspense where these teens and their issues are concerned but fails dismally because they are all telegraphed prior to reveal.

The drama has further problems thanks to problematic peripheral characters...the hostage should be a sympathetic character and he's not at all...the conflict between the hostage negotiator and the head of the SWAT team also grows tiresome very quickly. Not to mention the kids lackadaisical attitude about what they are doing. When confronted with demands, they initially don't know what to say and when they finally come up with them, they're silly for the most part, silly enough that the negotiator should have worked with them more than she did. Sometimes I'm troubled with films that make teenagers look like saints and anyone over the age of 30 look like idiots and this is one of those films.

The performances are little over the top for my tastes, though a young Rosario Dawson does display the beginning of a genuine talent in front of the camera but Vanessa Williams is just ridiculous as the hostage negotiator and Oscar winner Forrest Whitaker is equally annoying as the hostage. Fans of hip hop icon Usher might be able to tolerate and it is kind of funny watching Judd Nelson, who played the proverbial bad boy teen in The Breakfast Club playing the popular teacher, but I just found the whole thing just a little to hard to swallow.



THE OTHER WOMAN

The Other Woman is a 2014 comedy that does offer a relatively original premise but gets bogged down in predictability, right down to the expected happy ending, but does provide some laughs along the way.

Carly (Cameron Diaz) discovers that the man she' seeing (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is married and after accidentally meeting his wife (Leslie Mann) ends up actually bonding with her through the discovery of another woman (Kate Upton) the rat is seeing which has the ladies working together to get this man's blood.

Melissa Stack's screenplay definitely has flashes of originality as we don't see a lot of comedies about infidelity where the victims bond, I mean we saw Goldie, Bette, and Diane get revenge on their guys in The First Wives Club, but they all had separate guys. These three women find out they're being screwed by the same guy and don't stand for it. Granted, their initial payback seems kind of childish, but the ladies do get down to business even if they take a little too long to do it.

Director Nick Cassavetes hasn't had a lot of experience with comedies and could have used a little help reining in his stars, particularly Leslie Mann, who really grates on the nerves initially but didn't allow that to deter my enjoyment of what was going on. Diaz was surprisingly controlled and Upton actually appeared to have a brain in her head at times. It ain't Lysistrata, but there's fun to be had here.



THE LAST DETAIL

An imaginative and often uncompromising screenplay and some charismatic lead performances are the primary ingredients of an underrated gem from 1973 called The Last Detail, that takes a sometimes jaded look at how life in the military can affect people individually while never crossing that line between the military and the rest of civilization.

Based on a novel by Darryl Ponicscan, this is the story of two officers from Naval Shore patrol named Buddusky and Mulhall ("Mule" to his friends) who have been assigned to escort a young prisoner named Lawrence Meadows to a naval prison in Portsmouth, where he is to serve an eight year sentence. Technically, the assignment only requires two days but Buddusky and Mule have been given five. Buddusky, believing Meadows is getting a raw deal, decides to utilize this road trip to give him a real last hurrah before he gets locked up.

Robert Towne's Oscar nominated screenplay is the driving force behind this salty adult adventure that puts three complete strangers in very close proximity to each other with nothing in common but their being sailors and how a methodical but believable bond develops between the men even though Buddusky and Mule's differing views regarding their mission keep them apart to a point. There are other gray areas here...it's never really clear how Meadows feels about what he did, but there seems to be a guilt there that makes it seem silly when Buddusky and Mule worry about him trying to escape after one dismal attempt on a crowded train. I also like the way the screenplay hints at backstory for the characters that isn't really addressed, but we keep hoping that they will be. Early on, we learn that Buddusky has been referred to as "Badass" for most of his life and you know he is the way he handles himself, but you always are curious as how he got that way.

Director Hal Ashby has mounted a riveting episodic drama that employs some elaborate location filming but mostly works because of the three powerhouse performances in the leads. Jack Nicholson lights up the screen with his blistering Buddusky, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination and Randy Quaid has never been better as young Meadows, a performance which earned him a supporting actor nomination. Otis Young manages to hold his own as Mule, never allowing these actors to blow him off the screen. There are several future stars-to-be in the supporting cast, including a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo by original SNL cast member Gilda Radner, two years before SNL's premiere, but it is Nicholson and Quaid's interpretation of this layered screenplay that makes this cinematic road trip sizzle.



THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

Vincente Minnelli had a penchant for mounting colorful and splashy musicals, but also had a magic touch in the area of melodrama, evidenced by 1952's The Bad and the Beautiful, a sometimes soapy but still watchable look inside Hollywood that actually won five Oscars.

Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, a Hollywood wanna-be with daddy issues whose ruthless rise to the top left a lot of bodies in his wake. His story is told in flashback through the eyes of a director (Barry Sullivan), an actress (Lana Turner) and a screenwriter (Dick Powell) who are forced to relive their story for us when a studio head (Walter Pidgeon) calls them to the studio to inform them that Shields is calling from Paris and wants to work with the three of them again.

As a matter of fact, that is probably my favorite moment in the entire film, the reactions and looks on the faces of these three characters as the thought of working with this man again flashes over their faces and for this I have to credit Minnelli. We are given an immediate look at the central character and the damage he did to these people and how they haven't forgotten and never will.

Charles Schnee's screenplay doesn't quite hold up as well as Minnelli's direction...it makes the road to Hollywood stardom a little simplistic and except for Shields, it makes the rest of the characters involved look like morons but it also aids in our eventual contempt for the central character, even if a lot of his behavior is telegraphed.

As mentioned before, this was a somewhat surprising choice of material for Minnelli, who had an uncanny eye for cinematic color and art direction, which had me scratching my head as to why Minnelli would choose the shoot this film in black and white. I have nothing against black and white films, but a film set in Hollywood about Hollywood seemed to scream for color and why one of the best Hollywood eyes for movie color chose to abandon it here was a mystery.

Minnelli manages to get first rate performances from most of his cast, including an Oscar winning performance from Gloria Grahame as Powell's ambitious and trampy wife, but couldn't get behind Turner's lifeless performance as Georgia at all. This film could have been really incredible with someone who could act playing Georgia, but fans of 40's and 50's melodrama will be in heaven here.



An oldie but a goodie, nice review...Good to see you do some older films. I've seen The Bad and the Beautiful, liked it too, I agree with your thoughts.

...a somewhat surprising choice of material for Minnelli, who had an uncanny eye for cinematic color and art direction, which had me scratching my head as to why Minnelli would choose the shoot this film in black and white.
You got that right, I have no idea why? But I bet it wasn't his choice to shoot B&W.
This film could have been really incredible with someone who could act playing Georgia, but fans of 40's and 50's melodrama will be in heaven here.
Agreed, I'm not a fan of Lana Turner. She has the looks, but so did thousand's of other starlets. She can't act, but she looks good.



An oldie but a goodie, nice review...Good to see you do some older films. I've seen The Bad and the Beautiful, liked it too, I agree with your thoughts.

You got that right, I have no idea why? But I bet it wasn't his choice to shoot B&W.
Agreed, I'm not a fan of Lana Turner. She has the looks, but so did thousand's of other starlets. She can't act, but she looks good.
I have a feeling it wasn't Minnelli's choice to shoot in black and white either. Just out of curiosity, Citizen, who would YOU have cast as Georgia? It's the one serious flaw in the film and I wonder who you would see in the role.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
My take: A large section of the film is about how Douglas seems to be doing the Val Lewton horror style and that only makes sense in B&W. His attempt to make a serious Award-worthy drama also makes more sense in monochrome. The film did win Oscars for Cinematography, Art Direction and Costumes, albeit in B&W. Aside from An American in Paris, Minnelli's three previous films - Madame Bovary, Father of the Bride and Father's Little Dividend - were all B&W, and Bovary may be even more lush than this one. Lana Turner is just fine in her slightly-veiled portrayal of John Barrymore's daughter.
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...Just out of curiosity, Citizen, who would YOU have cast as Georgia? It's the one serious flaw in the film and I wonder who you would see in the role.
At the time The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) was shot I like to see Susan Hayward in the role.



I like Hayward for the role, because she's full of 'spit and fire' and seems capable of being cold heartened and devious. I like her a lot. What would your choice have been?



I like Hayward for the role, because she's full of 'spit and fire' and seems capable of being cold heartened and devious. I like her a lot. What would your choice have been?
I'm good with Susan Hayward...can't really think of anyone off the top of my head, but if someone comes to mind I'll get back to you.



CARNAL KNOWLEDGE

A sometimes shockingly adult screenplay and razor sharp direction help keep the instant classic Carnal Knowledge riveting entertainment 45 years after its release. In the manner of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, this film raised eyebrows with its unabashed language regarding sex and its constant challenge of sexual mores from the 1950's to the 1970's.

The film opens in the late 1940's where we meet Amherst College roommates Jonathan and Sandy, who both find themselves attracted to a pretty coed from Smith named Susan, despite the fact that Jonathan and Sandy have radically different views about women and different ideas about what they want. Eventually Susan and Sandy do marry while Jonathan spends 20 years chasing anything in a skirt and avoiding commitment of any kind, eventually finding himself trapped in a dead end relationship with a struggling actress.

It's not so much the story that makes this film so special, but it's surprisingly frank (for 1971) way of talking about sex onscreen, which had been hinted at in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, but it is taken to a whole new level in this film...Jonathan and Sandy have no confusion about what they want from a woman, have no shame about it, and don't try to change each other, but this frank talk doesn't get in the way of a story that takes no prisoners and offers surprises until a climactic moment which really doesn't pay off the way it should but we're so exhausted with shock and surprise at this point that it is easy to forgive.

Mike Nichols, 4 years after winning an Oscar for The Graduate, proves once again that he is an actor's director and gets some first rate performances, especially Jack Nicholson, explosively controlled as Jonathan, a star making turn from Art Garfunkel as Sandy, and Ann-Margret in a flashy, Oscar-nominated performance as the self-destructive actress. Not a great date movie, but as a part of cinematic history, it's a must.