Gideon58's Reviews

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Dr. Dolittle (1998)
After his successful re-thinking of the Jerry Lewis classic The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy decided to re-think another classic movie character with lesser success. His 1998 reboot of Dr. Dolittle was a barely funny remake of the 1967 musical that starred Rex Harrison, was nominated for the 1967 Best Picture Oscar, and almost put 20th Century Fox out of business.

Based on the Hugh Loftin stories, the 1967 musical was about a turn of the century London doctor who discovers an ability to communicate animals and decides he would rather treat them as opposed to treating human beings. In this new version, we meet John Dolittle as a child and observe him communicating with an animal and being told by his father that he is never to speak to animals again. The story then switches to 1998 San Francisco where Dr. John is now married with two daughters and is now a partner in a profitable medical practice when animals begin confronting him directly demanding treatment.

Murphy, director Betty Thomas, and screenwriter Nat Mauldin decided they had to go a different way with the story in order to make it more accessible to 1998 audiences, the younger ones in particular. In the 1967 musical, Rex Harrison is observed talking to animals while they communicate the way we expect animals to (with the exception of his parrot Polynesia). In this non-musical version, the animals are given celebrity voices so that the viewer is privy to both sides of Dr. Dolittle's conversations with the animals.

I will admit that a lot of the fun in this movie comes from trying to figure out who some of the famous voices are, but the problem is that the dialogue the animals are given is often juvenile, tasteless, and downright crude and once the celebrity voice has been identified, we just don't care what the animals are actually saying. The scene where the animals just barge into Dr. Dolittle's townhouse and make themselves at home was kind of stupid.

With celebrity voices coming out of animals, Eddie Murphy is relegated to the position of straight man, a position that Murphy has never really been in before making it really hard to get behind the character. I did like the fact that this John Dolittle did realize that there was something wrong with him talking to and treating animals and knew that it would endanger his cozy existence which is something the Rex Harrison version of the character never acknowledged.

Murphy, Oliver Platt, Richard Schiff, and Peter Boyle work hard at not being blown off the screen here, but the talking animals really steal the show here, such as it is, with standout work from Norm McDonald as a dog named Lucky, Chris Rock as a guinea pig named Rodney, Phil Proctor as an alcoholic monkey, Garry Shandling and Julie Kavner as an old pair of married piegons, and Albert Brooks as a very sick tiger named Jacob. Once the novelty of the celebrity animal voices wears off, this one is pretty rough going, but it might keep very young children amused.



Venom (2018)
One of the most unusual Marvel Comic anti-heroes is brought vividly to life in 2018's Venom, a slam-bang entry from the director of Zombieland that rivets the viewer to the screen and entertains, as long as you don't think about it too much.

The story begins with the crash landing of a space vehicle in Eastern Malaysia which contains an astronaut that has some kind of alien entity latched onto him. The entity leaves the astronaut and then latches onto an EMT driver who eventually transports the entity to San Francisco where it somehow falls into the possession of a contemporary mad scientist named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), but it escapes and finally seems to find a host that it likes in the form of a recently fired investigative reporter named Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) who humiliated Drake on television sex months earlier and may finally get back at Drake, with an assist from his new pal, the alien entity that pops in and out of his life and ruins the new romance of his lawyer ex-girlfriend (Michelle Williams).

Just like he did with Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer provides us with so much cinematic razzle dazzle that those dangling plot points that pop up during the story start to become irrelevant. It becomes irrelevant what Carlton Drake's intent was in keeping this entity for himself. It becomes irrelevant why this entity chose Eddie as its final home; It becomes irrelevant when a second entity is seen arriving at the San Francisco airport in the form of a little girl. But when this second entity attaches itself to Carlton Drake, we understand that a finals showdown is being setup even though it's not clear why one entity would be sent to destroy the first one, instead of offering assistance.

The fun in this story came in watching the initial effects that this entity had on the life of Eddie Brock. It was so funny watching him being unable to stop eating and I mean eating absolutely anything. The scene in the restaurant where the only place Eddie can find comfort is in the lobster tank is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. It's so obvious that Eddie is trying to put a name to what's going on with him but is finding that completely impossible. I also loved the idea of giving the entity an actual voice that talks to Eddie, though it's never made clear exactly what this entity wanted or whether or not this Venom was supposed to be a hero or not, but the finale does clear that up to an extent as it is implied that Eddie and the entity are going to attempt to live with each other.

Fleisher oversees some first rate production values in making this story fly. I was especially impressed with film editing, sound mixing, sound editing, and visual effects. Tom Hardy is quite engaging in this demanding starring role and Ahmed, so memorable a few years ago in Nightcrawler chews just the right amount of scenery as a modern day Dr. Frankenstein, but it is Fleischer's explosive direction that keeps this one moving so efficiently that we let go of the plot holes without even realizing we're doing it.



Harry and Tonto
Art Carney's Oscar-winning performance is the centerpiece of 1974's Harry and Tonto, a slightly pretentious and lumbering character study that hasn't aged well and seemed like it would never end.

After spending almost 30 years toiling in television and becoming an official TV star playing Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, Art Carney got his first significant film role playing Harry Combs, an intelligent and well-read senior citizen who loves to sing, though he really doesn't know the words to any of the songs he loves to sing. Harry's best friend is an aging cat named Tonto and their lives are forever altered when Harry is forced out of his apartment, which springboards a cross country adventure for an old man and his cat unlike anything you've ever seen.

Director and co-screenwriter Paul Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) has crafted a somewhat interesting if long-winded look at a character who is mildly amusing but just didn't remain compelling enough to keep this reviewer invested for almost two hours. It became tiresome pretty quickly how Harry allowed this cat to complicate his life so much. I don't have anything against cats, but if I had nowhere to go, had a bus ticket to my daughter's house and my cat had to pee, I would not demand that the bus driver stop the bus and when the bus driver says it's time to go, I would have gotten back on that bus and when I get to my daughter's house, buy another cat.

Some of these scenes from the life of Harry and Tonto were most interesting than others. I did enjoy when a 16 year old hitchhiker (Melanie Mayron) talked Harry into reuniting with a childhood sweetheart (Geraldine Fitzgerald) who really didn't remember Harry. This was a lovely scene and I wish the rest of the film had been on the level with this scene.

Mazursky's direction is overly-detailed and Art Carney does turn in a wonderful performance as Harry, but was he really better than Pacino in Godfather II, Hoffman in Lenny, Nicholson in Chinatown, and Finney in Murder on the Orient Express? Absolutely not...this was definitely one of those "Lifetime Achievement/Body of Work" Oscars meant to recognize a career and not necessarily that performance. I think the Academy wanted to honor Carney because they didn't know how much longer Carney would be around and wanted to honor him. There are a pair of effective supporting turns by Larry Hagman and Ellen Burstyn as Carney's children (Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar that year for another film), but this is Carney's film and as a matter of film history, it's worth a look, but it's really nothing special and I definitely kept checking my watch.



Guest Wife
Some really wonderful performances and a clever story make a 1945 screwball comedy called Guest Wife well worth the time.

Chris Price (Dick Foran) and his wife, Mary (Claudette Colbert) are getting ready to leave for a second honeymoon in New York but are delayed by the arrival of Chris' best friend, Joe Parker (Don Ameche), a war correspondent who has just returned from India. He is on his way to New York as well to see his boss, who wants to meet the wife that Joe claims he married in India. Joe then has to confess that he sent his boss a picture of Mary and claimed that she was his wife. Chris persuades Mary to pose as Joe's wife for five minutes for Joe's boss.

Unfortunately, things get very complicated when Joe and Mary arrive at the office because Joe's boss (Charles Dingle) has planned an entire day of events for Mr. & Mrs. Parker that will force them to stay together a lot longer than five minutes. Things get more tangled up when Chris' employers see a picture of Mr. & Mrs. Parker in the paper and think Chris is having an affair with a married woman, not to mention, Susy (Wilma Francis), Joe's old girlfriend who thinks she wants to get back together with him until she learns that he got married in India.

Director Sam Wood is no stranger to screwball comedy having directed the Marx Brothers classic A Night at the Opera and he provides a loose yet focused hand over this silly story that isn't quite as predictable as the story might appear on the surface. Ameche and Colbert are reunited six years after playing opposite each other in 1939's Midnight and because of that, the viewer tends to assume that their characters will be together at the end of this film, but watching this film from the beginning makes it's clear that there's no way this can be.

The opening scenes of Chris and Mary preparing for their trip are amusing and put the viewer behind them as a couple from the beginning, but we have to wonder how the story can reunite Colbert with Ameche again and them not end up together. We know where this story is going, but the performances by the trio of stars, especially Colbert, make it worth the time...Colbert proves not only to be adept at physical comedy but queen of the subtle aside as well. It is her rich performance that keeps things humming. Mary's situation seems impossible but somehow we know that Mary is the one that's going to get herself out of it, even if her method of doing so is a little roundabout. Colbert and Ameche are just as charming here as they were in Midnight and with the help of Foran, make this comedy worth the investment.



Jezebel
The year before Vivien Leigh brought the scheming and manipulative Southern Belle Scarlett O'Hara to the screen, Bette Davis brought another scheming and manipulative Southern Belle to the screen named Julie Marsden in an equally epic soap opera called Jezebel that won Davis her second Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress.

It is 1850's New Orleans where we meet Julie Marsden, a flighty and wealthy Southern socialite who really doesn't care about what's going on between Yankee abolitionists and southern bankers or the yellow fever epidemic that is making its way down south. Julie has never lacked for male attention, including the dashing Buck Cantrell (George Brent) and a handsome banker named Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda). Pres is considering marriage to Julie until she embarrasses him at a prominent social event by wearing a bright red dress to a ball where women are supposed to wear white. Pres manages to embarrass Julie right back but it eventually spells the end of their relationship and as they part, Julie and her Aunt Belle (Fay Bainter) are forced to move because of the epidemic and Julie has become a social hermit until reunited with Pres, but is shocked when Pres shows up with a pretty young wife named Amy (Margaret Lindsay).

William Wyler, who would later direct Davis in The Letter and The Little Foxes, not to mention win three Best Director Oscars, has already begun to show his affinity for cinematic storytelling with this intimate tale told on a grand scale. He also displays as very special understanding of the extraordinary actress cast in the title role and what she is capable of. It's obvious that Wyler had a very specific vision about Julie Marsden and that Davis understood said vision, doing exactly as the director has instructed. Davis was known for independent spirit as an actress but it's clear that Davis is under Wyler's thumb and feels safe there, where she was able to produce a performance of such delicacy and focus that it won her a richly deserved Oscar.

Wyler is to be applauded for bringing a story like this to the screen at a time when the only thing that anyone was talking about in Hollywood was the upcoming screen version of Gone with the Wind, a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to Jezebel. For those who are paying attention, this story takes place almost a decade before the civil war, but instead of the war, we have the yellow fever epidemic as backdrop for the story, which ends up serving as a platform for the central character of Julie to change in a way that Scarlett O'Hara never really does. It should be noted that Davis was very interested in playing Scarlett O'Hara but took herself out of the competition when she heard Erroll Flynn was being considered for Rhett Butler.

Henry Fonda proved to be one of Davis' strongest leading men though George Brent was just as dull as ever. Bainter won the Best Supporting Actress for her sympathetic Aunt Belle, a surprisingly rich performance that people sometimes tend to overlook...watch her in that scene where she meets Amy for the first time and panics when she realizes Julie has met Amy before Belle could warn her. Bainter gave the performance of her career and the Academy actually noticed. Bouquets to Robert A. Haas's art direction, Orry-Kelly's costumes, and Max Steiner's lush music as well, but the film is really the triumph of the gifted William Wyler and the incomparable Bette Davis.



Holmes and Watson (2018)
Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly reunite onscreen for the first time in a decade for Holmes and Watson, a lavishly mounted 2018 comic re-thinking of the Arthur Conan Doyle characters that provides pretty consistent laughs but doesn't quite come together as a satisfying film experience.

As we meet Holmes (Will Ferrell) and Watson (Reilly), they have just completed work on a case that secured the freedom of Professor Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes). They are then visited by Queen Victoria who commissions them to protect her when she receives a death threat from Moriarty. Since our boys our acquainted with Moriarty, the Queen feels they are the only ones who can protect her from him.

Director and screenwriter Etan Cohen, who was one of the screenwriters on Tropic Thunder has mounted an elaborate comic valentine to the literary and cinema icons that shows respect for the iconic characters but also manages to create a story around them that effectively mines laughs from the literary legends that consistently bend the 4th wall without breaking it. Cohen's screenplay also cleverly reveals more than a passing resemblance between this Holmes and Watson and Ricky and Cal in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, one of Ferrell and Reilly's first collaborations. This Watson has always felt unappreciated and lost in Homes' shadow and as they begin this case, Watson asks for a new title of "co-detective."

Cohen must also be applauded for the first rate production values employed here that greatly aid in the authenticity of what we're seeing, which makes the lampooning of what we're seeing even funnier. The film features stunning cinematography, film editing, costumes, and the music even includes a totally unexpected musical number during the final act that is a complete winner. Sadly, the story takes us to an odd place in the final act and we have to wait a little too long for it to iron out, but it's a pretty clever wrap that makes up for the occasional slow spot.

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Ferrell and Reilly did Step Brothers because their work here appears as if they had been working with no one but each other for that entire decade. I especially loved the scene where they meet Queen Victoria for the first time and the scene where they think they've accidentally killed her. It's obvious Cohen gave his stars a little space here and we get comic gold. Fiennes made a great Moriarty and I loved Pam Ferris as the stone-faced Queen Victoria. And if you pay attention, you'll also catch cameos from Hugh Laurie and Billy Zane. If you liked Talladega Nights, you'll like this too.



Addams Family Values
That rarest of cinematic animals...a sequel that stands up proudly to its predecessor, 1993's Addams Family Values hits a home run thanks to an intelligent and funny screenplay, atmospheric direction, superb production values, and a pair of knock out performances by actresses who bring more to their roles through their performances than the screenplay really allows.

As this sequel to the 1991 film opens, Gomez (the late Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) have just given birth to a baby boy named Pubert. They hire a nanny named Debbie Jelinski (Joan Cusack) to care for the baby since Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) and Wednesday (Christina Ricci) keep trying to murder him. It's soon revealed that Debbie is a venomous black widow who has killed multiple husbands for their money and has now set her cap on Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyld). When Wednesday starts catching onto what Debbie doing, Debbie manipulates Gomez and Morticia into sending Pugsley and Wednesday to summer camp to keep them out of her hair.

Screenwriter Paul Ruydnik really scores with a screenplay that stays true to the characters established in the first film but gives them a perfect blending of two very different stories that allow the characters to be fleshed out even further than they were in the first film. The demented Uncle Fester is a perfect target for black widow Debbie, even if it might take him a little longer than it should have for him to catch on to her. This story is perfectly balanced with the fish out of water story of Pugsley and Wednesday taken out of the gothic world of their family and placed in the middle of an endlessly cheery summer camp where even the demented Wednesday actually finds romance.

This comedy is jam packed with one outrageous scene after another that provide consistent laughs throughout. The numerous attempts by Pugsley and Wednesday to murder their baby brother and the delicious comic tango by Gomez and Morticia made even more hysterical thanks to some first rate visual effects are just a few of the highlights. And of course Debbie's futile attempts to take out Uncle Fester defy logic and produce huge giggles.

As mentioned, the production values are a great asset in pulling of this bizarre comic tale as they were in the first film. What were used as tools of exposition in the first film become atmospheric servants of the story being presented. Jim Miller and Arthur Schmidt's film editing and the Oscar-nominated art direction/set direction by William J. Durell Jr. and Marvin March are huge assets, all under the under the watchful eye of director Sonnenfield, a former film editor, and you can definitely see the influence his work as an editor has had on his direction.

Despite all of this, the best thing about this movie are the performances by Joan Cusack as Debbie and Christina Ricci as Wednesday. Cusack is comic gold here, creating a classic comic villainess that you can't help but revel in. She has two separate scenes where she is privately rehearsing how to be a grieving widow and her final explanation to the family regarding why she turned out the way she is had me on the floor. Sonnenfield also recognized the laughs that Christina Ricci's Wednesday got in the first film and capitalized on them as well. Ricci steals every scene she's in here, causing major havoc at the summer camp. Though one of her funniest moments is after time in the "Harmony Hut", she tries to smile for the first time. Peter MacNichol and Christine Baranski also garner laughs as the eternally cheery camp counselors, but what makes this film work is the work of Cusack, Ricci, and the razor sharp directorial eye of Barry Sonnenfield.



Searching
We live in a world that is all about technology and its power to control and manipulate lives. The power of the internet and how it can destroy lives, protect criminals, keep secrets, and help those in crisis is brilliantly examined in a riveting and original 2018 drama called Searching that may have seriously considering deleting or at least re-thinking your browser history.

This dazzling independent sleeper stars John Cho as David Kim, a loving husband and father who lost is wife to cancer three years ago. David and his daughter, Margot, have worked through their grief and are learning to be a family again until one night Margot calls David to tell him that she is going to be at a friend's house all night studying for an exam in AP Bio. Thirty-six hours pass and Margot still hasn't come home. After speaking to a sympathetic police detective (Debra Messing), David decides to begin his own investigation into what happened to his daughter by meticulously reviewing his recent texts with her and, more importantly, breaking into her laptop.

Director and co-screenwriter Aneesh Chaganty has created a truly unique screen entertainment here, not so much in the story itself but in the way that he chooses to tell this rather ordinary missing person mystery. Chaganty has mounted a story about the often limitless power of today's technology and tells the story through that technology itself. For the majority of its running time, the movie screen is pretty much a computer screen that the viewer is looking at and watch David maneuvering his way through his daughter's laptop to find clues about her. There's a lot of screentime where all we see is the computer screen and the cursor moving in and out of search engines and opening up all the files on his daughter's laptop to find the names of some of her friends. Those who are computer illiterate might be simultaneously educated and confused as we watch David navigate his daughter's laptop. I love the sequence where he gets into Margot's e-mail by clicking onto the "Forgot your password?" link and having it allow David to create a new password so he can open Margot's e-mail.

A very human story almost gets enveloped by all the technology on display here. There's a ten minute scene near the beginning of the movie where David and Margot are skyping with each other (referred to here as "face time") that beautifully establishes the relationship between this struggling father and daughter who have clearly been through hell and back dealing with the mother's death and it's such an effective springboard for the viewer to become completely engrossed when Margot does go missing. I love the way this story is told through the technology in the story and not the technology of the filmmaker. There's this brilliant scene where David is trying to get information out of his brother and he installs cameras in the house and the whole scene is photographed through those cameras...or when he attacks a friend of Margo's at a movie theater and we are privy to it as a video on You Tube.

Chaganty creates a sizzling tension here that had me completely riveted to the screen throughout and when it was over I was literally shaking, mainly because every time I thought I knew what was going on, I wasn't even close. John Cho, who I've always felt is one of the industry's most underrated actors, does a powerhouse turn as David and Messing is equally compelling as Detective Rosemary Vick. This was a one-of-a-kind motion picture drama that left me limp and trembling. Aneesh Chaganty is a director to watch.



Sparkle (1976)
Long before Dreamgirls, there was the 1976's Sparkle, a sporadically entertaining musical melodrama that could have used a lot more music and a lot less melodrama.

Its Harlem in 1958 where we meet three sisters named Delores, Sparkle, and Sister, who with the help of an aspiring songwriter named Stix, form a singing group and become a sensation all over Harlem until various outside influences tear the group apart, which actually allows Sparkle and Stix to strike out on their own so that Sparkle can become the breakout star that Stix has always told her that she was.

This film was one of the first screenwriting assignments for future director Joel Schumacher, who provides us with a pretty effective look into show business in the 50's and its connections to organized crime, a topic that would later be showcased in films like The Cotton Club and Jersey Boys, even if the story is a little simplistic and makes the success of an unknown trio of female singers look a lot easier than it would be. Schumacher has also provided the character of Stix with a lot more juice than a real life version of the character would have. Stix shouldn't have been able to pull off half the stuff he did here and, if the truth be told, he probably shouldn't have come out of this story alive.

What totally works in this movie is whenever anyone steps onstage and steps in front of microphone. Whether it's the talented amateurs at an uptown talent show, a drug addicted SIster wailing the blues in a tiny nightclub, or sweet Sparkle belting out "Precious Lord Take My Hand" at a funeral, it's the musical sequences in this film that make it worth watching.

The majority of the songs for the film were written by Curtis Mayfield, most famous for songs like "Superfly" and "Freddy's Dead" and it is Mayfield's music that really keeps this film watchable. For me, the highlights were "Jump", "Hooked on you", "Look into Your Heart". "Something He Can Feel", and "Give Up", which was written by Van McCoy, the one-hit wonder who brought us "The Hustle".

Director Sam O'Steen does pull some strong performances from some of his cast. Phillip Michael Thomas is charismatic here as Stix and I'm pretty sure this performance probably had something to do with his later casting in Miami Voice and Mary Alice is lovely as the girts' mother, but it is Lonette McKee who walks off with the acting and vocal honors here, doing Oscar-worthy work as the tragic Sister, a performance that haunts the rest of the film and frankly, when her role comes to an end at the end of the second act, the film becomes a lot less interesting, but I did stay tuned until the closing credits. A pretty effective look at being black in the 1950's considering most of the people behind the camera were white. Remade in 2012.



Good Time
A flashy starring performance by Robert Pattinson not withstanding, 2017's Good Time is an overbaked action thriller that, after a promising start, loses all its momentum thanks to a confusing screenplay that's all over the place and some really unappealing characters.

Pattinson plays Constantine "Connie" Nikas, a criminal who has just robbed a bank with his mentally challenged brother Nick (co-director Benny Safdie), but Nick ends up in jail shortly after the robbery. Connie makes it his mission to get is brother out of jail but before her can, Nick gets in a fight in prison that gets him hospitalized. Connie goes to the hospital and sneaks into a hospital room being guarded by a uniformed officer and finds someone in the room handcuffed to the bed with bandages covering his face. Unfortunately, after getting out of the hospital, Connie realizes that he's kidnapped the wrong guy. Instead of his brother, he has snuck a psycho parolee named Ray (Buddy Duress) out of the hospital.

It's at this point where Safdie, along with his brother Josh go way off track because, for reasons that still have me scratching my head, instead of just letting the guy go and going back to the hospital to find his brother, Connie for some reason thinks he's linked to Ray and that letting the guy go would jeopardize himself and Nick. Connie actually takes a still unconscious Ray to the home of a stranger with a 16 year old granddaughter who Connie has sex with when a newscast comes on TV with a picture of him. Nice huh?

Yeah, there are really not nice or terribly bright people caught in a really messy situation that they just keep making worse with every move they make. I was also bothered by the fact that Connie didn't seem too concerned about his brother after he realized he had the wrong guy. It's not until the beginning of the third act that we see Connie calling the hospital to get an update on his brother's condition and when finally do see Nick again, it's like nothing we have been subjected ever happened, at least not in Ray's eyes.

The brothers Safdie definitely show definite promise as filmmakers. Their resume consists of a lot of shorts and documentaries, but they do display a flair with the camera here. It should also be noted that Benny Safdie, in addition to co-director and co-writing this film, also edited it, which I think is his strongest contribution to this film. Robert Pattinson is a real eye opener in the starring role. This was my first Robert Pattinson movie and, I won't lie, it was his performance that kept me invested in this mess. Buddy Duress also impresses as that nutburger Ray and Jennifer Jason Leigh is wasted in a glorified cameo, but unless you're a Pattinson fan or a fan of the Safdies, I'd give this one a pass.



Kitten with a Whip
From the "So Bad it's Funny" school of film making comes a 1964 curio entitled Kitten with a Whip, an outrageously overwrought melodrama that provides consistent unintentional laughs throughout. I haven't laughed so hard at a movie I wasn't supposed to laugh at since Valley of the Dolls.

This allegedly hip and sexy potboiler stars John Forsythe as David Stratton, a man preparing to run for political office whose wife and daughter are out of town for a few days. One morning after attending a fundraiser for his campaign, David discovers a young woman named Jody, played by Ann-Margret, asleep in his daughter's bed. Jody explains that she snuck in an open window after getting away from her mother's boyfriend who tried to rape her. David goes out and buys some clothes for the girl and gives her money to get a bus back home. While having lunch with his best friend Grant, David sees Jody's face pop up on the bar TV where it is revealed that she really just escaped from a juvenile detention center where she stabbed a prison matron. David returns home and finds Jody back at his house, coming out of the shower with freshly died hair.

David wants to call the police, but Jody threatens to tell the police and his wife that he raped her, so he reluctantly agrees to let her hang out for awhile. While Grant and his wife come by with a welcome home bouquet for David's wife, Jody calls some friends and invites them over for a party that goes horribly wrong and climaxes with the four of them forcing David to drive them to Mexico.

Dated dialogue and plot elements notwithstanding, I can't believe that even way back in 1964 that moviegoers were supposed to take this hot mess of a movie seriously. And I have to admit that a lot of the humor in this movie comes from Ann-Margret's outrageously over the top performance in the title role, a title I didn't understand until I started watching the movie because this is exactly what Jody was. Jody's manipulative sex kitten act was fascinating in the way that she was able to completely keep the David character in her venomous grip...using sex, threats, and tears to equal and maximum effect and changing her weapons from minute to minute, she made this character riveting and fall on the floor funny. I've always been amused by this thing that Ann-Margret did in a lot her early work, particularly in Bye Bye Birdie where she would purse her lips in an attempt to be sexy and her lip pursing is in serious overdrive here.

The story actually had me invested while it was centered around David and Jody and David trying to hide Jody from his regular life, but they began to lose me when she called her three friends to come over, the story just got dumber and dumber after that. Jody's relationship with these people was never made clear nor was her purpose for calling them. Never understood why she felt she needed reinforcements because she already had David right where she wanted him, but without them, they never would have gotten on the road to Mexico. Screenwriter Douglas, primarily a television writer, was not too subtle in his foreshadowing either...his over-lengthy scene of David shaving in with a straight razor the morning he meets Jody was like hitting the viewer with a rock...gee, do you think we're going to see this razor later?

The black and white photography and the annoying music actually enhanced the camp quality of the piece. Forsythe's David is a little strait-laced, but Peter Brown was kind of funny as one of Jody's fancy-talking thug buddies. It's not great cinema, but Ann-Margret fans will be in heaven.



Albert Nobbs
Glenn Close's Oscar-nominated performance is the centerpiece of a sad and exquisitely mounted character study from 2012 called Albert Nobbs that suffers due to a fuzzy screenplay and a finale that left a bad taste in my mouth.

It is 19th century London where we are introduced to the title character, a middle-aged man working as a waiter at a very exclusive hotel called the Morrision, run by the stingy and bitchy Mrs. Baker. Albert is hard-working and meticulously saves his money because he is planning on owning his own business someday. Mrs. Baker hires a man named Hubert Page to do some painting at the hotel,a job that will require an overnight stay. Mrs. Baker informs Albert that Mr. Page will be staying with him for the night, much to Albert's apparent panic and discomfort with the idea. Hubert discovers the reason Albert didn't want him to stay with him is because he is a she. Albert is a woman but has been living as a man most of his life. With Hubert's encouragement and a reveal of his own, Albert decides that self-preservation of the life he has established is his only option.

Based on a novella by George Moore, this is, at its core, a challenging story as it is set during the 1800's and I wondered if the novella is a little less fuzzy on certain plot points that made it difficult to completely engage in the story. There is a point in the film where Albert tells Hubert his story (beautifully performed by Close) and we have a better grip on why Albert lives the way he does. Unfortunately, the screenplay never really makes clear whether Albert is an actual lesbian or if he has chosen to live as a man and lead a life without love or sex. My original thought was that Albert felt he could make more money working as a man, but that subject never addressed. If Albert is all about preservation of his lifestyle, why begin a relationship with the lusty and slightly promiscuous Helen (Mia Wasikowska) who is already in a sexual relationship with another employee named Joe (Aaron Johnson)? Albert proposes to Helen without ever laying a hand on her and announces that they're going to run his business together. And what was she planning to tell Helen on their wedding night?

Glenn Close's layered and quietly nuanced performance makes up for a lot of the story problems. It's the small moments of detail in the performance that were the most entertaining for this reviewer...I loved watching Albert count his money and then later figure out how courting Helen was going to affect his finances or the one scene where Albert puts on a dress and walks on the beach, which brings me to another incredible performance in this film. Janet McTeer, who I have to admit completely pulled the wool over my eyes with her performance, that earned McTeer a supporting actress nomination.

The ending didn't work for me though...I was not happy about Albert's fate which smacked of convenience nor the way Mrs. Baker profited from it. Pauline Collins was also superb as Mrs. Baker, a truly hissable villainness. The film also featured exquisite art direction, cinematography, and costumes, and despite an ending that was a real downer, the always watchable Glenn Close made the journey worth my time.



Let's Make it Legal
Despite a predictable screenplay that played like an extended episode of a sitcom, the 1951 comedy Let's Make it Legal actually provides a generous amount of chuckles thanks to some sparkling performances and some funny situations.

Miriam Halsworth (Claudette Colbert) lives with her lazy, self-absorbed daughter, Barbara (Barbara Bates), Barbara's husband, Jerry (Robert Wagner) and Barbara's baby girl. Miriam's marriage to Hugh (Macdonald Carey) is over and their divorce is becoming legal at midnight. Barbara has never gotten over her parents' split and is constantly plotting to get them back together but on the day that the divorce is to become final, Victor MacFarland (Zachary Scott), breezes back into town. He is now wealthy and on the verge of an important
political appointment. He is an old friend of Hugh's and was once in love with Marian, and upon their reunion, decides he wants to make Marian his, no matter how Hugh feels about it.

I.A.L. DIamond, Billy Wilder's longtime writing partner, was among the writers involved in penning this witty and effervescent story that has a couple of surprising layers that the viewer doesn't initially see coming. I loved the idea of Barbara being this spoiled child who wants her parents back together so that her grandma can continue being the real caretaker of Barbara's child as well, as son-in-law Jerry who, even though he works for Hugh, is team Victor all the way when Victor gets in the picture. There's a well-written and acted scene where Victor and Hugh are reunited in front of Jerry and Hugh is trying to hide the fact that he and Miriam are divorced and Jerry just blurts out the information with a big smile on this face.

However, as she always did, Claudette Colbert dominates the proceeding with a winning and vivacious comic performance, giving us such a likable character that we can't help but get caught up in her dilemma, even though we're pretty sure of how it's going to end up. Macdonald Carey works extremely well with Colbert and shows a surprising affinity for the one liner that might come as a surprise to those who only remember the late actor as Dr. Tom Horton on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives.

One of the biggest surprises here was the breezy and endlessly charming performance from Robert Wagner as Jerry, the guy who loved his mother-in-law but had no illusions about his wife, as well as being the moral sounding board for most of the characters in the movie. Bates was a little stone-faced in her role, but it seemed to work for the character and Marilyn Monroe is wasted in a thankless supporting role as an aspiring model/actress with the hots for Hugh. If you're planning to watch this for Marilyn, you will be disappointed. And if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance by comic vet Kathleen Freeman as reporter, but it is the performance by Colbert, Carey, and Wagner that make this one worth checking out.



Seven Seconds
The accidental death of a 15 year old boy is the springboard for a compelling and ugly 2018 Netflix mini-series called Seven Seconds which attempts to thoughtfully touch on several subjects but, more than anything, takes the concept of justice being blind and mangles it beyond recognition.

This 10 1/2 hour mini-series takes place in Jersey City, New Jersey where one night on an icy stretch of road, an off-duty police detective named Peter Jablonski, hits a 15 year old boy on a bicycle named Brenton Butler, who is thrown from the bike into a ditch, critically injured. Three of Jablonski's fellow officers, led by a Detective Mike D'angelo, happen upon the scene and convince Jablonski to go home and act like nothing happened while they take care of it. D'Angelo and the others cover up what they can and Brenton is left in the ditch for 12 hours before he is found and transported to the hospital, where he does die from his injuries.

KJ Harper is the ADA assigned to prosecute the case. She is very good at what she does; however, she is also an alcoholic with a sometimes violent temper who years ago had an affair with her boss. A police detective named Joe "Fish" Rinaldi, who is in the middle of an ugly divorce and possibly losing custody of is daughter. KJ and Fish do have a witness who saw D'Angelo's crew at the scene, a fifteen year old heroine addict named Nadine whose story changes every five minutes and refuses to stay wherever Fish attempts to stash her in order to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Brenton's parents are going through a living hell, not only because they're finding out how they didn't know their son, but Mrs. Butler actually ran not Jablonski visiting Brenton in his hospital and can't get anyone to believe her.

Veena Sud, who was also the creative force behind the 2011 Netflix series The Killing has crafted mammoth tale of death, remorse, guilt, bigotry, and grief that completely envelops the viewer initially. The viewer demands justice for Brenton Butler, but Sud's story puts one obstacle after another in front of this pursuit of justice that three or four episodes into the story, we begin to realize that the kind of justice that this crime demands is never going to happen. It's aggravating watching the only person passionate about justice in this case is an alcoholic who the second she leaves the courtroom goes home to an apartment that looks like a tornado hit it and goes straight to the fridge full of booze. The only witness to the incident redefines the phrase "not a credible witness" and the three cops backing up Jablonski are seasoned dirty cops who have worked together for years, like Vince's squad on the FX series The Shield, who know how to protect the thin blue line and have no remorse for any of their actions.

This mini-series really had me riveted for the first seven episodes, which concluded with the four cops being arrested, but this is where it lost me as the story turned seriously melodramatic and any pretense at justice just seemed impossible, I don't understand the point of mounting this elaborate story that requires a serious time commitment from the viewer and then not provide them with the kind of payoff we deserve. I hated that this boy never got the justice he deserved and it was made worse by the story that continued to tear apart the boy's character, which seemed irrelevant to me, not to mention that what happens to their son methodically destroys his parents' marriage, one of the saddest aspects of this story. The Butlers pain becomes so secondary as the story progresses and I get the feeling that the character of Mrs. Butler only got the screen time she did was because Oscar winner Regina King was playing her.

Several directors and writers were involved in the mounting of this story and they are to be applauded for the stark realism they bring to this story. One episode was directed by the late Jonathan Demme. I like that Sud and her creative team let the strength of their story carry this and didn't try to cover up its inadequacies with star power. Regina King won her third Emmy for her powerful and heartbreaking work as Mrs. Butler and Russell Hornsby, so memorable in The Hate You Give is equally brilliant as Mr. Butler. I was also impressed with David Lyons as D'Angelo, Beau Knapp as Jablonski, and Gretchen Mol as the attorney for the dirty cops, but the standout acting here was provided by Michael Mosley as Fish Rinaldi, a performance that was alternatively humorous and explosive, always commanding attention. Kudos to cinematography, editing, and music as well, but the final three episodes' descent into mawkish melodrama just left a bad taste in the mouth.



Muscle Beach Party
Frankie and Annette return for another round of beach and surfing in the dreadful Muscle Beach Party, the 1964 hot mess of a sequel that definitely would have made my list of worst sequels if I had seen it at the time.

In this pointless sequel to the 1963 film Beach Party (not that that movie had much of a point either), Frankie and Didi trek to the beach for Easter vacation and find the beach has been taken over by a group of bodybuilders, who are coached by a loud mouth named Jack Fanny (Don Rickles). There's also a wealthy Contessa named Julie (Luciana Paluzzi) who invades the beach along with her "manager" SZ (Buddy Hackett), who initially sets her sights on a bodybuilder named Flex Martin (Peter Lupus) but then sets her sights on Frankie, promising to make him a singing star.

First of all...Contessa Julie? What kind of Contessa is named Julie? And second, what kind of Contessa has a manager? Was this supposed to be some sort of 60's version of a pimp? And why would a wealthy Contessa with her own plane and boat loads of her money set her sights on a penniless teenager like Frankie? I actually laughed out loud when Frankie told her that he had the sun and the surf and that's all he needed.

Most sequels suffer due to the writer or director trying to make something bigger and better than the first film but this film seems to be afflicted with the opposite problem. There's not enough of anything here and a lot of what goes on here just fills like a struggle to stretch this feature to ninety minutes. Ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back.

There was a small continuity issue that nagged at me as well. One of the main problems with this film was the absence of the primary antagonist from the first film, the motorcycle gang from the first film led by Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck). There were two girls in Von Zipper's gang and they were both featured here as part of the bodybuilding gang. Were we not supposed to notice that?

Despite the success of the first film that prompted this sequel, this film appears to have been made on a budget of about $50. The look of the film is cheap and grainy and the musical numbers sounded like they were recorded in some kind of tunnel. This film does offer a musical number by a very young Steve Wonder, billed as "Little Steve Wonder", which is probably the film's high point. Peter Lupus who played bodybuilder Flex Martin, would have his 15 minutes when he would join the cast of the CBS series Mission: Impossible a couple of years later. Incredibly, the chemistry between Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello still registers and Rickles and Hackett do provided sporadic chuckles, but this movie is a mess that should have spelled the end of the Beach Party franchise but, sadly, it did not.



The Mule (2018)
Clint Eastwood returns to the big screen for the first time in a decade as producer, director, and star of a riveting, fact-based drama entitled The Mule that is one of those stories that is so incredible that it has to be true.

In his first film since 2008's Gran Torino, Eastwood plays Earl Stone, a 90 year old horticulturist with a myriad of financial problems who has spent most of his life disappointing his family, who in a desperate attempt to escape the financial quicksand engulfing him, accepts a job as a drug mule for an important Mexican drug cartel before actually knowing what he is doing. Once he sees the initial financial rewards, he is unable to stop and just like joining the mob, quickly is in so deep that he is unable to escape. Not long after things start working out for Earl, it is revealed that the DEA is on to the cartel and is going to get to them trough Earl.

Earl Stone is based on a real person named Leo Sharp who passed away two years before this film was released. Certain story elements, including how the offer of the job came to Sharp, were altered, which was most likely the only way Eastwood was allowed to get the film made. Eastwood discovered Sharp's story in an article in the New York Times magazine, which screenwriters Sam Dolnick and Nick Schenk were able to craft into a story that had just enough altering of the facts to protect people involved in the story who might not want the notoriety that being part of this story might have provided.

Dolnick and Schenk's screenplay cleverly establishes the kind of person Earl Stone with a dash of originality as our initial introduction to the character is through some bitter conflict with family members at the weddings of his daughter and granddaughter, where the bitterness of his ex-wife, played by Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, is efficiently laid out for the viewer and provides understanding why the lure of some quick cash through being a driver was so appealing.

I was impressed with the way Earl's fate is laid out for us through the requirements of his job which are explicitly laid out during his first run, He is given a cell phone that he is told to answer whenever it rings and is told that he is never to divert from his assigned routes or make any side trips. Confirmation as to how much Earl knows what he's doing comes when he returns from the first run and is surprised when one of the bosses destroys the phone immediately and gives him another one.

As always, Eastwood's direction is focused and intense creating, at times, some nail-biting suspense. There is a harrowing scene where he is checking his cargo and is approached by a cop with a coke-sniffing dog that literally had me holding my breath.

Eastwood's attention to production values is on the money, as always, and he still somehow manages to give a charismatic, movie-star performance in the starring role. Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena make great DEA agents and the scene where Eastwood and Cooper meet in a diner before knowing who each other is, was a winner. I don't know how Cooper had time to do this and A Star is Born in the same year, but the guy must be exhausted. Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Robert LaSardo, and Lobo Sebastian offer strong supporting contributions as well. Alison Eastwood, who has appeared in several of her father's films, even manages to impress here as Earl's bitter daughter. More than anything, this film is documentation of the artistry of Clint Eastwood, as an actor and director.



Jailhouse Rock
Research reveals that most listing of the top 10 highest grossing Elvis Presley movies, 1957's Jailhouse Rock clocks in at #2, but for the life of me, I'm not sure why.

Presley's swivel-hipped, nostril flaring appeal was prominently on display in this unintentionally humorous tale where the Pelvis plays Vince Everett, a guy who goes to jail for manslaughter after accidentally killing a guy in a bar fight. While in jail, he performs in a prison talent show and his cellmate, Hunk(Mickey Shaughnessy) convinces him that he might have the talent to make it as a singer and suggests that they go into the music business together after Hunk gets out.

Vince gets out and is disillusioned when the first record he makes is stolen by another artist so with the help of a pretty trust fund baby by the name of Peggy (Judy Tyler), he decides to start his own record label. The label is an instant success and gives Vince a Texas-sized ego that finds him trampling all over the people who helped him on his road to success.

Like my recent viewing of Kitten with a Whip, this film had me rolling on the floor with its cliched dialogue, plotting, and its very simplistic view of show business, making becoming a recording star look pretty simple. If only becoming a star was as simple as it was in this movie.

But Elvis was the biggest star on the planet in 1957 and nobody really cared about all of that. He sings a couple of his biggest hits in this film, including "Treat Me Right" and honestly, the staging of the title tune for a television show totally rocks and makes sitting through the rest of the film worth it. It should be noted that the choreography for this number was done by Elvis himself, helping to make the number the best thing about the film.

Judy Tyler's performance as Peggy is a little overripe but Shaughnessy is very good and there's also an early appearance by future Disney icon Dean Jones as a radio DJ, but this is Elvis' show and his fans won't be disappointed.



Still of the Night
The 1982 psychological thriller Still of the Night suffers from overly detailed exposition and a couple of unnecessary red herrings, but is watchable due to the professionalism in front of and behind the camera and a spectacular finale.

The late Roy Scheider plays Dr. Sam Rice, a recently divorced psychiatrist who learns that a patient he's been treating for two years (Josef Sommer) has just been murdered. Shortly afterwards he finds himself face to face with the man's mistress, Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) who approaches him on the pretense of having Dr. Rice return the victim's watch to his wife and freaks out when the police call wanting to speak to him while she is there. Of course, evidence begins to mount that Brooke might have murdered the man, but Roy is conflicted because as much as he wants to get to the bottom of what happened to his patient, he finds himself fighting an attraction to Brooke.

Robert Benton, fresh off winning two Oscars for Kramer VS Kramer, brings a lot of style and a definite Hitchcock influence to this seemingly obvious story that provides a fair amount of suspense. I was initially confused by the opening scene of an unidentified man walking down a dark Manhattan street trying to open the door to several parked cars until the victim falls out of one. Who this man was and why he was looking for the body was never really addressed. After keeping the police at arm's lengths, I did love the scenes of Dr. Rice reading his past sessions with the victim while they were acted out in flashback, with extremely effective work from Sommer, that is a great aid in keeping the victim a viable character in the story. The scene at the auction reminded me of the music hall finale of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Loved Benton's camera work here too...the camera moves slowly and deliberately, providing a layer of suspense to the story, even though sometimes it's a little too slow and a little too deliberate, because the first 30-45 minutes of this story move at a snail's pace, which is not a good thing when the movie is only 90 minutes long, but we are rewarded in the fact that what we think is coming does not come at all and the finale is absolutely spectacular, though we are really made to work for it.

Benton also had the wisdom to cast his Kramer VS Kramer leading lady in the starring role, recalling the icy blondes like Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren that Hitchcock made so popular. Scheider effectively underplays the Cary Grant role and mention should also be made of Joe Grifasi as the very persistent police detective. It takes a minute to get going, but Streep, Scheider, and Benton make it a relatively smooth and suspenseful ride.



Father's Little Dividend
Director Vincente Minnelli and Spencer Tracy reunited after their success with Father of the Bride with another engaging look at Stanley T Banks and his family called Father's Little Dividend which was just as delightful as the original film.

This 1951 comedy finds Kay and Buckley Dunstan (Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor) expecting their first child and grandpa-to-be Stanley not being happy about it. The blessed event brings about most of the complications one would expect from the premise. Discussion of upgrading the Dunstans' living arrangements, choosing a name, Buckley's frustration with trying to keep up with Kay's mood swings, and Stanley feeling that now that he's going to be a grandfather, his life is pretty much over.

Albert Goodrich and Frances Hackett's screenplay is fresh and fun and takes some unexpected steps in its journey. I love the way the story opens with Stanley feeling like a teenager and being very frisky with wife, Ellie (Joan Bennett). Speaking of Ellie, I was also very pleased to see the sequel beefed up the role of Ellie, putting her more in the forefront than she was in the original film. I loved the way Ellie immediately planned to have the baby move in with them without even consulting Stanley and how dejected she felt when she learned Buckley's dad was planning to build a new house for the newlyweds. Ellie's joy at becoming a grandmother was very infectious and Joan Bennett welcomed the challenge of a more pertinent role in the sequel.

Don't get it twisted, Spencer Tracy never allows his leading lady to blow him off the screen, definitely garnering his share of laughs. I loved his initial reaction to the news of Kay's pregnancy while everyone else was jumping with joy. His child-like tantrums when the baby cried every time he came near him were also a lot of fun. Tracy even gets laughs during his narration and just as they were in the first film, some of the sweetest moments in the movie came whenever Stanley got to spend anytime alone with his daughter Kay. Kay always took the fight out of Stanley, having him easily wrapped around her finger. Loved the scene where he told her about the day he and Ellie brought Kay home from the hospital for the first time.

Vincente Minnelli's sparkling direction is a big asset, proving that he knew not to tamper too much with a winning formula. Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke were adorable as Buckley's parents and even Don Taylor has relaxed into the role of Buckley, making a very believable struggling newlywed and father-to-be. It was definitely a sequel that can stand proudly next to its predecessor.



Lars and the Real Girl
An Oscar-worthy performance by Ryan Gosling is the heart of a 2007 indie called Lars and the Real Girl, an offbeat comedy that manages to manipulate viewer emotions while defying logic at every turn.

Gosling plays Lars Lindstrom, a sweet and simple-minded social hermit who does whatever he can to avoid any kind of social interaction. He always wears three or four shirts because he can't stand someone touching his skin. He lives in the garage behind the house where his brother Gus and his pregnant sister-in-law live, even though the house is half Lars'. Karen tirelessly works at trying to get Lars out of the house and to be social while Gus has pretty much decided to let his brother be. One evening he agrees to have dinner with Gus and Karen and asks if he can bring a guest. Gus and Karen are shocked to learn that Lars' date is an anatomically correct doll that Lars purchased from the internet.

They are further thrown when Lars offers an elaborate backstory about the doll, who he has named Bianca. Gus finds the website and learns that each doll for sale has a separate backstory. Gus and Karen are concerned though when Lars asks if Bianca can stay in their guest room. They make an appointment for Lars to see a sympathetic doctor named Dagmar, who agrees to treat Lars through the ruse of treating Bianca. And the irony of it all is that there is a co-worker of Lars' named Margo who's nuts about him but Lars doesn't know she's alive.

Nancy Oliver's Oscar-nominated screenplay is to be applauded for its imagination. The initial scenes of Gus and Karen having dinner with Lars and Bianca are very funny. Couldn't help but giggle when Lars kept cutting up Bianca's food but eating it himself. It was easy to accept what was going on when it was just Lars and his family, but we are thrown when the entire town agrees to the charade of pretending that Bianca is real. He takes her everywhere (even though she's confined to a wheelchair), the girls at the beauty parlor take her into their circle and she even gets elected to the school board and it is at this point in the story where credibility becomes an issue.

We see Lars arrive home and take Bianca out of the box...are we supposed to believe that he really thinks Bianca's real? Is it possible there are no mental health issues with Lars and that he's just using Bianca as another shield to socialization? Was it a coincidence that right after Lars tells Margo that he can't cheat on Bianca that she suddenly becomes very sick? The way Lars was able to manipulate an entire population with this doll was just a little convenient and hard to believe at times. It was also hard watching what Bianca was doing to Gus and Karen. Gus has clearly been carrying guilt about Lars for years and the whole Bianca thing seems to exacerbate it.

Despite all of this, I still found myself invested in the proceedings because of the characters and the actors who inhabit them. Ironically, Ryan Gosling was nominated this year for another film (Half Nelson) but I think this performance is far superior. Paul Schneider really scores as the tortured Gus and I have never enjoyed Emily Mortimer onscreen more as Karen. And of course, one of my favorite scene-stealers, the amazing Patricia Clarkson, makes her screentime as Dr. Dagmar shine. The film also features some lovely photography and music, but the imaginative screenplay and the on-target performances are the reason this one engages the viewer.