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Robin's Wish
The 2018 documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind was a thoughtful and detailed overlook at the life and amazing career of Robin Williams, but a 2020 documentary called Robin's Wish takes a much different tack as it basically looks at the final year in the actor's life, the pain and real reasons for his suicide in 2014, and the many misconceptions of same, from some refreshing sources.

As expected, the film begins with archival news footage reporting Williams' death to the world, but instead of then reverting to his childhood and getting a birth to death chronicle of the actor, we are returned to the final year of the actor's life, where we are treated to a tragic look at the depression and pain the actor was going through, which eventually manifested itself in the final diagnosis of his death, a disease called Lewy Body Dementia, which was originally misdiagnosed as Parkinson's Disease.

In a refreshing change of pace for a celebrity documentary, a good portion of the people interviewed for this film were simply Robin's neighbors from the Bay area of San Francisco, where it is made clear that Robin was not interested in the Hollywood scene and the concept of celebrity. He just wanted to be a neighbor and that's exactly the way his neighbors talk about him.

The sections of the film with Robin's widow, Susan, were a different story. As painful as talking about this might have been, there are only two moments in the film where she briefly loses her composure. Loved the way director Tylor Norwood had the camera follow Susan through the Williams house as if the camera is Williams' ghost.

In addition to Susan Schneider Williams and his neighbors, commentary is also provided by comic legend Mort Sahl and director Shawn Levy, who worked with Williams on the Night of the Museum franchise and whose recall of the beginning of the end for Williams during the filming of the third movie, is still a pretty fresh wound for him. Also enjoyed the shots of Williams' initial work on Aladdin opposite original drawings of the character. An intimate and moving look at the final days of a show business legend unlike we will ever see again.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
As much as I want to watch both of the Robin Williams documentaries, I still find it hard to watch anything about him and his life. His death was one of the most shocking celebrity deaths, and possibly the most heartbreaking one in recent years.
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I can understand how you feel GBG, but I was equally shocked by news of his passing, especially that it was by suicide and watching these documentaries have helped me to cope with what the man was going through and why he chose to end his own life. Robin's Wish really helped me with some closure about what happened.



A Patch of Blue
Powerhouse performances by the three leads are the main attraction of A Patch of Blue, an emotionally charged 1965 drama of family dysfunction, abuse, and bigotry that had this reviewer riveted to the screen with his stomach in knots.

Salina is a sensitive, uneducated blind girl who lives in a cramped tenement with her alcoholic and abusive mother, Rose-Ann and her equally alcoholic and abusive grandfather. Salina's only respite from the virtual prison where she is lives is visits to the local park where one day she meets Gordon, an intelligent black office clerk who begins to help Salina learn survival techniques in the sighted world, but eventually becomes determined to help Salina escape her miserable life while in the process, Salina finds herself falling in love with Gordon.

Director and screenwriter Guy Green has crafted an engaging tale of a young girl who's been trapped in this dysfunctional existence for so long that she doesn't know how dysfunctional it is. Green's screenplay reveals most of Salina's backstory through her meeting with Gordon, including how she lost her eyesight, which reveals why Salina has been kept in darkness ever since, rarely leaving her house and not knowing how to go grocery shopping or even how to use a phone.

Salina's plight tugs at the viewer's heartstrings immediately and we want to see her escape from the life that she's been living and we are offered hope through her meeting with Gordon. Conflict is revealed for Gordon when he and Salina share their first kiss and Salina says she loves him. Gordon never says he loves her. though there are feelings there. but there is something in his past that has him keeping an emotional distance, hinted at in scenes with his brother, but never fully revealed.

The film takes a simple but effective tac in showing the viewer how difficult being sightless is in two very powerful scenes. One is when Salina's in the park at night and a sudden thunderstorm stirs up, striking more terror in her than we have seen up to that point. We also see it later when her grandfather refuses to take her to the park and she tries to get there by herself, where she is informed she has no "right" to be alone. Things look grim for Salina when Rose-Ann sees Mark and Salina for the first time, but, in a refreshing change of pace, the bigotry angle of the storyline doesn't beat the viewer over the head. The scene where she does finally strike back at her mother does induce cheers and hope.

Elizabeth Hartman gives a luminous performance as Salina, a performance that completely endears the character to the viewer and earned her an Oscar nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress. Shelley Winters won her second Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her ferocious performance as Rose-Ann and Wallace Ford also scores as Salina's grandfather. And Sidney Poitier offers one of his warmest and most engaging performances as Gordon. A sensitive, angry, and hopeful tale of loneliness and friendship that hits all the right notes.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I can understand how you feel GBG, but I was equally shocked by news of his passing, especially that it was by suicide and watching these documentaries have helped me to cope with what the man was going through and why he chose to end his own life. Robin's Wish really helped me with some closure about what happened.

Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll try watching Robin's Wish when I have a chance.



The United States vs Billie Holiday
Despite a spectacular performance from the leading lady, the 2021 Hulu production The United States vs Billie Holiday falters due to a confusing screenplay and melodramatic direction that causes the film to move at a snail's pace.

This film opens in 1947 where we find Billie Holiday on the cusp of true stardom, but her star is out of reach partly because of her heroine addiction and partly because of a song she recorded called "Strange Fruit" which the federal government is actually trying to figure out how to stop her from performing because of its subject matter. A federal agent named Jimmy Fletcher is sent undercover to bust Billie for drugs so that her cabaret license can be revoked and she can be rendered incapable of performing "Strange Fruit", but Fletcher's job becomes complicated when he enters into a toxic affair with the singer.

Holiday's life first came to the screen in 1972 as Lady Sings the Blues which was the film debut of Diana Ross and earned her an Oscar nomination. Suzan-Lori Parks' screenplay for this film, based on a book called "Chasing the scream" pretty much begins where the 1972 film left off, with Holiday losing her cabaret license and her first arrest which landed her in jail for a year. According to this film, after her release from jail, she somehow gets booked at Carnegie Hall and actually continues her affair with Fletcher, even though she knows he's a fed. This film on the surface seems more authentic because Louis McKay, the great love of Billie's life in the 1972 film, doesn't appear until the final third of this film and this federal agent doesn't appear in the '72 film at all. The placing of the full performance of "Strange Fruit" is rather odd as well....right in the middle of the film instead of the beginning or the end.

The screenplay aggravates as not only Billie continues her affair with this fed but his bosses don't pull him off the case for compromising the assignment either. This agent's true feelings about Billie are impossible to gauge here and Billie's continued attraction to the man makes her look like an idiot. About halfway through the film, there's a confusing flashback sequence to Billie's childhood where she is accompanied by Fletcher that didn't make any sense either. It doesn't help that Lee Daniels, who directed Precious, directs with a pretentious leaden hand that has this film move way too slowly and a lot longer than it needed to be.

Andra Day is absolutely superb as Holiday, a dazzling movie star turn that earned her a Golden Globe. Day does her own singing and stops the show with "Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do" and "Strange Fruit". Travonte Rhodes works hard in the complex role of Jimmy Fletcher and Garret Hedlund is terrific as his boss. And if Billie's sax player looks familiar, that's a grown up Tyler James Williams who had the starring role on the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. It's melodramatic and overlong, but Andra Day's performance makes it worth watching.



Creed 2
It seems to attempt the bring the Rocky saga full circle, but Creed 2 suffers from too many lapses into melodrama and trying to cover way too much territory.

This 2018 sequel to the 2015 hit finds Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) six matches since the first film and now the Heavyweight Champion. He has proposed to girlfriend Biance (Tessa Thompson) and they are expecting a baby. Adonis is then challenged to step into the ring with Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the boxer who killed Adonis' father.

The lure of avenging his father's death is irresistible to Adonis, even to the point of ignoring the advice of trainer Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to take the match. Rocky responds by refusing to train our hero, who finds Viktor a little more than he can handle. Though Viktor is the victor, he is disqualified for hitting Adonis when he was already down, but this defeat not only destroys Adonis physically, but beats all of the fighter's spirit out of him as well.

The primary problem with this film is that it suffers from "Sequel-itis"...that dreaded cinematic disease afflicted upon sequels to make them bigger and better and more of everything that was provided in the first film; unfortunately, they rarely succeed and this film is no exception. This film tries to give balance to a story that touches on the personal professional life of Adonis Creed, but the son and grandson of Rocky that he has lost contact with, the possibility that his daughter might have inherited a hearing problem, and even how the fight in 1985 destroyed Ivan Drago, his family, and his life.

Actually, I really didn't mind the look at the Dragos...it was a very effective nod to a 33 year old movie to actually address the consequences of Drago losing that match and how he lost everything because of it, including his wife (Brigitte Nielsen). The look at the Dragos revealed a connection to the present in that, just as I felt in the 1985 film, Viktor's involvement in revenging his father's loss all those years ago did not seem to be his idea and we get the feeling that his heart is not in what he's doing. The tensions in the Drago family rung so true and I have to say that the years have been very kind to Dolph Lundgren and Brigitte Nielsen.

There were other story elements here that I found troubling as well. On one hand, I didn't like the fact that Rocky refused to train Adonis for the first fight and sat in that empty bar yelling at poor Adonis on the TV. On the other hand, I was also bothered that Adonis triumphs with Rocky in his corner. I was very troubled by the implication that Adonis only won the second fight because he had Rocky in his corner. Not sure if this was co-screenwriter Ryan Coogler's intention, but if it was, I didn't like it. Director Steven B. Caple should have kept a closer eye on his editors...there were several shots of the opponents landing shots in slow motion that were cut too quickly without revealing their actual impact.

On the positive side, the training sequences were first rate, especially the second one, though I do miss Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" as a background. Ludwig Goranson's music was overbearing and a little creepy. Jordan and Stallone created some powerful moments and Phylicia Rachad made the most of her screen time as Adonis' mother, I just wish the whole thing had been trimmed down and reigned in a bit.
Hey, sorry for bringing this up after several years but I just saw the film last month and I was reading reviews here on it. I agree with pretty much your whole review, particularly what you say about how effective the development of Ivan Drago. It's the kind of thing that you think there's no way they will make it work, and yet they did.

However, I just wanted to bounce something off regarding the bolded sentence. Even though I understand your point (Adonis loses without Rocky, wins with Rocky), I do think that the script and the direction make an effort to show us that he lost because he wasn't in the right frame of mind. He wasn't following the game plan that Little Duke had set out for the fight, which he tells Adonis after the first round, and that's what almost cost him the fight. By the second fight, yes, Rocky is back, but we're also supposed to understand that Adonis has come around as far as trying to live up to expectations and his feelings towards his father's legacy and whatnot. I mean, I know the implication that he "wins with Rocky" is there, obviously, but I felt that the film managed to give us enough extra information to say that winning/losing was ultimately on Adonis.
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Never apologize for bringing up a review I didn't write yesterday. A few months ago, I got a response to the very first review I wrote on this site. It's actually very flattering that people are reading reviews I wrote years ago.



Broadway Melody of 1938
MGM's Broadway Melody of 1938 is best remembered for a memorable musical number performed by Judy Garland, but the movie does have a few other things going for it.

The 1937 musical stars George Murphy and Buddy Ebsen as a pair of former vaudeville hoofers who are now into training horses and meet a pretty young dancer (Eleanor Powell) who is trying to buy a horse with the help of these guys while simultaneously being pegged by a Broadway producer (Robert Taylor) for his new musical, but his backer doesn't want an unknown as the star of the show. Our heroine moves into a theatrical boarding house run by a former vaudevillian (Sophie Tucker) who is trying get her teenage daughter (Garland) on Broadway as well.

Jack McGowan's screenplay is a little more complex than it needs to be. The whole story involving the ownership of this horse is confusing and really slows things down. Once we think we're past the horse storyline, things pick up as Murphy, Taylor, and Powell make an interesting romantic triangle and Ebsen offers perfect comic relief. Not to mention the presence of the legendary Sophie Tucker (who for those who don't know, is the inspiration behind Bette Midler's famous "Soph" character), who commands the screen whenever she's on, stopping the show with her powerhouse rendition of "Some of these Days."

This film is best remembered for Garland's performance of "(Dear Mr. Gable)You Made Me Love You", which was added to the film after Garland actually sang the song at a birthday party MGM threw for Clark Gable. But we also have some terrific dancing from Powell, Murphy, and Ebsen. The trio's opening number "Follow in My Footsteps" features superior tap skills from all three dancers and Powell and Murphy's duet to "Yours and Mine" rivals Astaire/Rogers. Murphy's dance skills are particularly surprising and almost makes one wonder why he gave up movies for the US Senate.

Roy Del Ruth's direction is energetic enough that the viewer can forgive the slow spots, but if the truth be known, the dance skills of Murphy, Ebsen, and the extraordinary Eleanor Powell, plus the vocal magic of Judy Garland are alone worth the price of admission.



I Care a Lot
Stylish direction, a disturbing story, and a solid ensemble cast come together to make 2020's I Care a Lot bold and riveting entertainment. What starts out as an indictment on the system of elder care and assisted living in our country, methodically turns into a very dangerous cat and mouse game where it's very difficult to cheer for the cat or the mouse. Will try to review without spoilers

Marla Grayson is a con artist of the highest order. She targets elderly and well off senior citizens, has herself appointed as their guardians, commits them to an elder care facility, and then bilks them out of everything they own. Her comfortable and profitable hustle is threatened when she gets appointed guardian to a woman named Jennifer Peterson, who it turns out was definitely the wrong person to target.

Director and screenwriter J Blakeson knocks it out of the park here with a story that starts off with an almost docudrama feel, as we witness Marla Grayson in action with a hustle that she is extremely good at and has made her a very comfortable living. We can't help but be impressed by a woman whose simple on the surface con has worked so well that she has judges, police, and an entire assisted care facility in her pocket, though the details of how she was able to do this aren't really addressed. Her power is methodically established so that the viewer instantly feels this woman has to be stopped. She is established as the cat in this game, but when the mouse enters the story and seems to have more power than she does, viewer allegiance tend to waver. By the halfway point of the story, we don't really want to see either win leading to an ending that initially angers but will have the viewer cheering as the credits roll. It should be obvious that this film requires complete attention, but said attention is paid off in spades.

Blakeson's direction is undeniably imaginative, employing some unique camerawork and terrific utilization of slow motion, advancing the story at times without the use of dialogue. There's a wonderful shot of a safe deposit box being opened and the camera is underneath the box which was unlike anything I've ever seen. Blakeson gets huge assists from film editor Mark Eckersly, art director Michael C. Stone, and cinematographer Doug Emmett. Big bouquet to Marc Canham's creepy music as well.

Blakeson's hand-picked cast delivers the goods, headed by Rosamond Pike as Marla, a fire and ice performance that won her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy, though I found little comedic about this film. Peter Dinklage does a bone-chilling turn as the mouse in this story, proving once again to be an actor incapable of giving a bad performance. Enjoyed Eliza Gonzalez as Marla's assistant/girlfriend, Chris Messina as a slick lawyer, Damian Young as one of Marla's winged monkeys at the hospital, Nicholas Logan as Dinklage's henchman and Oscar winner Dianne Wiest as Jennifer Peterson. A crisp and cold crime drama that had this reviewer on the edge of his chair for the entire running time.



Come Back Little Sheba (1952)
Guided by the sensitive directorial hand of Daniel Mann, Shirley Booth beautifully reprises her Tony Award winning stage role in the film version of William Inge's Come Back Little Sheba, a somber and often deeply moving tale of regret, loss, romance, and addiction that stirs strong emotions and might ignite the tear ducts.

Doc Delaney (Oscar winner Burt Lancaster) is a chiropractor who has been sober for a year. He is married to a slovenly and terribly lonely woman named Lola (Booth) who divides her time between watching every move Doc makes and trying to get someone, anyone, to have a five minute conversation and still mourning the loss of her little dog, Sheba, who ran away from home months ago. Doc is sincere yet realistic about staying sober, but feels endless pressure from Lola about it. Doc and Lola's vacuum of a marriage is disrupted by the arrival of Marie (Terry Moore), a pretty young college student who has profound but different effects on both Doc and Lola.

Inge's play premiered in February of 1950 and closed in July the same year, but the unimpressive Broadway run did not deter Hollywood from seeing the film potential in this often powerhouse drama. Ketti Frings' solid adaptation of Inge's play almost exclusively provides backstory regarding Doc and Lola's marriage through present events. Without flashbacks or long Tennessee Williams-type monologues. we learn that Doc only married Lola because she was pregnant but she lost the baby, which destroyed Lola and has kept Doc trapped in a loveless marriage where his only solace could be found in alcohol. Even in their very first scene together, thanks to Mann, we can see almost immediately that this is not a happy marriage.

The most riveting part of this story is the character of Lola, who reminded me of a more serious version of Edith Bunker. This woman is drowning in loneliness and seems to have accepted her plight. When she's certain everything is OK with Doc, she immediately looks for someone to share her loneliness with or gets in their business. There's a heartbreaking scene where she invites the mailman in the house just to have someone to talk to and innocently starts rambling about Doc's history with alcohol and the mailman's discomfort with this is crystal clear.

The messages sent regarding alcoholism are solid for the most part. We learn in the opening scenes that Doc keeps a bottle of scotch in the kitchen cabinet as a reminder of how dangerous it is to him, but this reviewer found that message troublesome. With only a year sober, most alcoholics are still pretty shaky and really shouldn't have alcohol so accessible.

I've seen a good chunk of Daniel Mann's work as a director and this film definitely ranks among his finest work. Shirley Booth's emotionally charged Lola ignites this film in one of the most impressive film debuts in cinema history that won her the Oscar for Best Actress. Terry Moore's slightly trampy Marie also earned her a nomination for Supporting Actress. Burt Lancaster works very hard in the role of Doc, but of the truth be told, I kept picturing Brando in the role. Still, a sad and touching film that riveted this reviewer, thanks mostly to the extraordinary performance from Shirley Booth. The film was remade for television in 1977 with Joanne Woodward as Lola, Laurence Olivier as Doc, and Carrie Fisher as Marie.



Robin's Wish
The 2018 documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind was a thoughtful and detailed overlook at the life and amazing career of Robin Williams, but a 2020 documentary called Robin's Wish takes a much different tack as it basically looks at the final year in the actor's life, the pain and real reasons for his suicide in 2014, and the many misconceptions of same, from some refreshing sources.

As expected, the film begins with archival news footage reporting Williams' death to the world, but instead of then reverting to his childhood and getting a birth to death chronicle of the actor, we are returned to the final year of the actor's life, where we are treated to a tragic look at the depression and pain the actor was going through, which eventually manifested itself in the final diagnosis of his death, a disease called Lewy Body Dementia, which was originally misdiagnosed as Parkinson's Disease.

In a refreshing change of pace for a celebrity documentary, a good portion of the people interviewed for this film were simply Robin's neighbors from the Bay area of San Francisco, where it is made clear that Robin was not interested in the Hollywood scene and the concept of celebrity. He just wanted to be a neighbor and that's exactly the way his neighbors talk about him.

The sections of the film with Robin's widow, Susan, were a different story. As painful as talking about this might have been, there are only two moments in the film where she briefly loses her composure. Loved the way director Tylor Norwood had the camera follow Susan through the Williams house as if the camera is Williams' ghost.

In addition to Susan Schneider Williams and his neighbors, commentary is also provided by comic legend Mort Sahl and director Shawn Levy, who worked with Williams on the Night of the Museum franchise and whose recall of the beginning of the end for Williams during the filming of the third movie, is still a pretty fresh wound for him. Also enjoyed the shots of Williams' initial work on Aladdin opposite original drawings of the character. An intimate and moving look at the final days of a show business legend unlike we will ever see again.
ahhhh i missed him he was my favorite childhood actor



Judas and the Black Messiah
Shaka King scored as the director and co-screenwriter of 2021's Judas and the Black Messiah, an ambitious and uncompromising docudrama chronicling a very personal and very ugly war between the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country and the organization that they considered their biggest threat and decided must be destroyed.

The Judas of the title is Bill O'Neal, a car thief who in order to get out from under some very serious jail time, agrees to infiltrate the the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers, which is being head by Fred Hampton, the Messiah of the title, initiating not only a war between the bureau and the panthers, but a war for Bill O'Neal's soul.

Shaka King has taken on another racially charged period in American History that is probably going to anger a lot of people in this time of the death of George Floyd. but King has chosen to tell this story with a lot less pretension and a little more balance than someone like Spike Lee might have. If Spike Lee had chosen to bring this story to the screen, there would be no difficulty in separating the black hats and the white hats in this story. King's interpretation of this story finds a lot of the hats drawn in serious shades of charcoal gray.

According to this screenplay, the FBI's vendetta against the Panthers came right from the top, as we see J. Edgar Hoover himself declaring that Hampton must be destroyed. The degree of the FBI's culpability in what's going on here is put in question every time FBI agent Roy Mitchell meets with Bill O'Neal. Just when we think we know exactly what's going on with the FBI, see Hoover meet with Mitchell and warning him that things aren't moving quickly enough. Hoover seems to legitimize what he's doing here by claiming that the Black Panthers are just as dangerous as the KKK, but when we see the Panthers actually drop in on a Klan meeting, we're not so sure.

The real heart of this true story is the conflicted battle within Bill O'Neal. He initially seems to get into this assignment to save his own neck and then it seems like he's falling under the spell of the charismatic Hampton, but then he reports to Mitchell and we're not so sure where his head is. It's a little hard to accept O'Neal's very quick rise in Hampton's ranks as it is to accept Hampton's mellowing after a jail stint and learning that his young radical girlfriend is carrying his baby. O'Neal's squirm-worthy dilemma reminded me of Leonardo DiCaprio's situation in The Departed.

Though sometimes it's hard to catch some of the dialogue, the tension and intentions of what was going on was always clear. Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting for his dazzling performance as Hampton, even though the role is clearly a lead. Kaluuya is matched beautifully by Lakeith Stanford as O'Neal and Jesse Plemmons turns in the performance of his career as Agent Mitchell. Kudos to the hair and makeup people for making Martin Sheen unrecognizable as J. Edgar Hoover. Like The Trial of the Chicago 7, a riveting recreation of a disturbing piece of history that will anger right through the written epilogue.



That's Entertainment III
Eighteen years after That's Entertainment Part 2, MGM once again dug into their endless cache of musical treasures in order to bring us 1994's That's Entertainment III, which not only provides glorious musical highlights from MGM's greatest films, but backstage secrets and several long-buried treasures that were left on the editing room floor.

As in the first two films, former MGM superstars are utilized as narrators introducing the varied musical segments (sadly, all of these stars are no longer with us), but the structuring of the narration is a little looser than it was the previous films, allowing the clips to move from one era of filmmaking to another and to move the focus of the stars featured in a more fluid manner.

We get a wonderful clip of MGM's first big dancing star, Eleanor Powell perform a number from Lady Be Good, which is shown in split screen format to show the special camera and rotating stage that were used to shoot the number. The split screen also allows us to see Joan Crawford perform "Two Faced Woman" in Torch Song and the same song performed by Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon, which was cut from the latter film, even though the audio track for both numbers was performed by a studio singer named India Adams.

We thought we had seen everything we could from Astaire, Kelly, and Garland in the first two films, but new gems were dug up here including "Drum Crazy" from Easter Parade, the "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" ballet from Words and Music, and a couple of real surprises from Garland...an elaborate production number called "March of the Doagies" that was cut from The Harvey Girls, and the fabulous "Mr. Monotany", which was cut from Easter Parade, featuring Garland in the same cut off tuxedo she wore when she performed "Get Happy" in Summer Stock.

There's even a bittersweet look at how one MGM star had to deal with racism as the legendary Lena Horne shares her early days at MGM as a specialty performer that the studio really didn't know what to do with until a battle began for Horne to play the role of Julie in MGM's 1951 remake of Showboat, a battle Horne eventually lost as the role went to Ava Gardner and her bitterness about it is attempted to be shielded here.

This movie was such a pleasant surprise because I really didn't think there was anywhere else MGM could go with this franchise, but I was wrong.



Sylvie's Love
2020's Sylvie's Love is an exquisitely mounted story of star-crossed romance that would have worked a lot better if the film had focused more on the white hot chemistry between the stars and less on the cliched, soap opera plotting that keeps the stars apart and makes the film a lot longer than it needs to be.

The film opens in 1950's Harlem where we meet a jazz saxophonist named Robert who takes a day job in a music store in order to get close to a dreamy-eyed girl named Sylvie who is working there until she gets married. Despite Sylvie being engaged, a romance that they both fight develops until they are pulled apart by Sylvie's marriage and the jazz quintet that Robert plays in getting a gig in Paris.

Director and screenwriter Eugene Ashe gets an "A" for effort here with the establishment of this lovely relationship between Sylvie and Robert that we are behind from jump. We know that Robert being in Paris and Sylvie getting married can't keep these two apart forever, but around the halfway point of the movie, it sure seems that way, as a bunch of contrived soap opera-ish plot contrivances keep Robert nd Sylvie apart for so long that it really tests viewer patience, not to mention some very manipulative moves on Sylvie's parts that don't help. Star-crossed lovers being kept apart are nothing new (The Way We Were, New York New York, La La Land), but the conclusions of those romances are more direct than the one here.

Ashe's screenplay is also populated with too many unnecessary characters who are painted in obvious shades of black and white. It would have been nice if the characters surrounding the principals were a little more three-dimensional.

Despite the problems with the story, the film does feature spectacular production values, including Oscar-worthy art direction/set direction, costumes (check out the gloves Sylvie's wearing in the first nightclub scene), and a song score to die for. Tessa Thompson, who played Michael B. Jordan's love interest in Creed, makes the viewer forgive some of her character's bad moves with her enchanting performance. Former Oakland Raider turned actor Nnamdi Asomugha is sex on legs as Robert and if the film had concentrated more on the actors' chemistry, this would have been a direct bullseye.



Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable
The recent firestorm of controversy surrounding the toxic work atmosphere on her talk show was a motivating factor in my viewing the Netflix special Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable, a 2018 comedy concert by the talk show diva that was her first return to the standup mike in 15 years.

The overall theme of the show and her motivation for wanting to return to the mike was an interesting one, especially considering what happened just a few years later. Ellen seems to want to prove to her fans that she's still the same woman she was 15 years ago, but a lot of what she does here comes off as pandering and apologizing for not being the same person she was when she first got her talk show.

Beginning the show once again whining about the way she was treated when she lost her sitcom and came out did not endear me to the comic at all, despite the fact that I have always found her to be a very funny woman. Her attempt to humorously show how she hasn't changed by joking about the glamorous way she lives today had the opposite effect for this reviewer.

It was almost the halfway point of the show where Ellen's comedy was actually about something I could actually relate to because it was something that happened to myself a couple of years ago. She does a routine about dining in a restaurant and being served by a waiter who didn't write her order down, simply memorizing it and the combination of marvel and discomfort it caused for her, followed by a roll on the floor funny impression of a waiter taking orders by memory was probably the funniest moment in the show for me.
One thing that this concert brought back for me about DeGeneres the standup that I had forgotten about was her superb skill at physical comedy. Her bit about the things people do when they are trying on a new pair of sneakers was hysterical. I was also amused and impressed by her confession that a lot of the appeal of her talk show came from the fact that she gave away a lot stuff. There are laughs here, but if Ellen's mission here was to prove that she's still relatable to her fans, I'm not really sure if she accomplished that.



Coming2America
Eddie Murphy has clearly put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and money into Coming2America, the overblown and long-winded sequel to his 1988 smash that just depends a little too much on the legacy of the first film to stand on its own legs. It should also be mentioned that this review is coming from someone who thought the first film was severely overrated.

This 2021 debacle opens with King Akeem and his Queen Lisa (Shari Headley), happily married with three daughters, but anticipating the death of Akeem's father (James Earl Jones), who informs Akeem that the heir to his throne must be male and quicker than you can say "plot contrivance", Akeem is informed that he has a son living in Queens, where Akeem traveled in the first movie and met Lisa, and returns to Queens to locate his son, Levelle (Jermaine Fowler) and takes him and his mother (Leslie Jones) back to Zamunda in order to groom Levelle to be heir to the throne.

Akeem also is dealing with General Izzi (Wesley Snipes), the leader of a neighboring country who is the brother of the princess Akeem had barking and hopping on one foot, who now wants Akeem's son to marry his daughter. Akeem must also deal with his eldest daughter (KiKi Layne), who has been training to rule Zamunda since she was a child and is not happy about her birthright being stolen from an illegitimate heir.

After his lovely performance in 2016's Mr. Church, I was hoping Eddie Murphy would seriously try and reinvent himself but instead he really missed the boat with this overblown return to one of his biggest hits, which, incredibly took six writers and Murphy to come up with. In order to make this story work, re-writing of certain events in the first film had to be re-imagined, always a red flag where a sequel is concerned. There's even a moment where a pair of characters actually discuss the validity of sequels that never needed to be made in the first place.

This reviewer would have liked to have seen Akeem having a little more difficulty getting Levelle back to Zamunda. Had a hard time believing this kid just accepted what Akeem tells him and hops on the gold jet with James Earl Jones' image painted on it. Once they return to Queens, most of the characters we met in the first film are paraded in front of us, but they have little or nothing to do with this story. There was a sweetness to Akeem's personality that is completely absent from this film and the relationship between Semmi (Arsenio) and Levelle's uncle (Tracy Morgan) is a serious waste of screen time. So are some seriously overlong musical and dance sequences featuring En Vogue, Salt and Pepa, and Gladys Knight that just felt like so much filler. Even the barbershop scenes and the surprise appearance of Sexual Chocolate fell flat.

The millions poured into production values are really easy to overlook here except for one...the costumes, which are garish and ugly to the point of distraction. Eddie Murphy is phoning it in as Akeem, but Jermaine Fowler brings a lot of charm to Levelle. Fowler is really fighting the screenplay though and Craig Brewer's lackluster direction makes the whole thing move at a snails' pace. A big waste of money for Murphy and time for the viewer. Murphy deserves better than this.