Gideon58's Reviews

Notoroious (1946)
Alfred Hitchcock scores a bullseye with 1946's Notorious, a sizzling spy thriller that never lets its story of international espionage get in the way of the white hot chemistry between the stars.

Three time Oscar winner Ingrid Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, a flighty and self absorbed party girl whose father has recently been convicted of being a Nazi spy, whose jumbled emotions about what happened to her father has her drowning her sorrows in booze and men. Cary Grant plays Devlin, a government agent who asks Alicia to participate in a mission to gather information on some scientists in Rio de Janeiro. Alicia's life is forever complicated and put in danger when one of these men, one Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains) falls in love with her and proposes marriage, though Alicia's heart belongs to Devlin, who fights his feelings for Alicia as hard as he can.

Ben Hecht's Oscar nominated screenplay is a perfect combination of spy thriller and romantic melodrama as a story that initially seems to be about spy hunting eventually wittles down to an intense romantic triangle that found this viewer more emotionally invested in the story than in the beginning. There are few things more appealing to film lovers than star-crossed lovers being kept apart for the majority of the running time and that's exactly what happens here. The attraction between Devlin and Alicia is swift and immediate but as the story progresses, we see them being pulled further and further apart until all we want is to see them in each other's arms where they belong.

Hitchcock's camera also becomes an instrumental storytelling device here as the camera guides the viewer in what they should be paying attention to and away from what isn't as important as we might think it is. There are scenes with actors reciting dialogue while the camera is following keychains and coffee cups, guiding us to what we should really be paying attention. I also loved the scene where Devlin and Alicia are looking for something in the wine cellar alternate with shots of a tray of champagne bottles dwindling away, possibly causing the butler, Joseph, to go down to the wine cellar to get more and when he and Sebastian do, what happens isn't even close to what we expect.

But what makes this film worth investing in is the incredible chemistry between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman which burns a hole in the screen. Every moment they spend onscreen together is so electric that we can't stand seeing them torn apart as the story progresses. The complexity of the Alexander character is also intriguing. He initially come off as the dangerously obsessed husband of Alicia initially arousing fear for Alicia, but is eventually revealed to be under the thumb of his mother, who really seems to wear the pants in the house, giving the Alexander character a pathetic quality, which evokes an element of sympathy into the character we really don't see coming.

Ingrid Bergman was robbed of a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her luminous performance as Alicia that lights up the screen. This character is smart and funny and lonely and vulnerable and Bergman captures all of it. I haven't seen a lot of Bergman's work, but of what I have seen, this is my favorite performance of hers. Cary Grant scores in one of his most cold-blooded characterizations. This guy buries his emotions and is all about his work, a character that is kind of foreign territory for Grant but he makes it work. Claude Rains earned one of his four Best Supporting Actor nominations for his richly intense Alexander Sebastian. Kudos as well to Louis Calhern as a fellow agent of Devlin's, Leopoldine Konstantin as Sebastian's mother, and Alexis Minotis as Joseph, the creepy butler. A classic that more than lived up to its reputation and probably one of Hitchcock's most underrated works.

Spoiler Alert
One thing I didn't see onscreen in 2022 was a good old fashioned love story, but I finally got one. In the grand tradition of films like the 1970 classic Love Story comes a love story with a contemporary twist called Spoiler Alert, a funny and often moving romantic comedy/drama that provides everything a moviegoer would expect from a love story...except for the fact that the lovers are gay men.

This is the story of Michael Ausiello, a former fatty and writer for TV Guide obsessed with Smurfs and the TV show Felicity who meets and falls in love with Kit Cowan, an effervescent and commitment shy artist and ad executive who has never come out to his parents. Michael and Kit meet at a bar, initiating a slow burn relationship that lasts 13 years until they separate after failed attempts at counseling while learning almost immediately afterwards that Kit has contracted a terminal disease. This story is intermingled with Michael's personal vision of the 80's sitcom that he thought his life really was.

The real Michael Ausiello wrote the book upon which this movie was based titled Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, which was adapted into a screenplay by David Marshall Grant (who makes a cameo in the film as the guys' therapist) and Dan Savage that presents this love story on an unimaginative canvas, but dresses it up by quirking up the story in unexpected and layered ways that the viewer doesn't see coming. It was annoying when Kit's "hag", Nina, seemed to resent Michael's presence in Kit's life, but that became irrelevant quickly. Loved the look on Kit's face when he saw Michael's apartment for the first time. Especially loved when Michael bawked at his first attempt at sex with Kit because of body issues he has about being a former fatty, something I could really relate to. Loved when Michael threw the hissy fit in the hospital about a special bed for Kit and told him, "It worked for Shirley MacLaine."

Director Michael Showalter (Hello My Name is Doris), has mounted this story with warmth and sensitivity, providing just enough humor to keep the story from becoming bathed in tragedy like Terms of Endearment. I also liked the fact that Kit was allowed to die of something besides AIDS, which gave the story appeal and avoided a lot of the preachiness and melodrama that AIDS would have brought to the film. Also loved the 11th hour twist that came during the last ten minutes, which I didn't see coming at all, but considering the title of the movie, I should have.

Jim Parsons, who impressed last year in the remake of The Boys in the Band offers a compelling and vividly human performance that works in perfect tandem with Ben Aldridge's sparkling performance as Kit. They are offered terrific support from Sally Field and Bill Irwin as Kit's parents and Showalter's sensitive directorial touch help to make this first major love story of 2022 something really special. So for those of you who are wondering what happened to the old fashion movie love story, look no further.

Man, I know it's bias, but Big Bang Theory ick really keeps me from wanting to watch him in anything else. Unfair, I know.

And Notorious is so good.

I have never watched a single episode of The Big Bang Theory but I still loved this movie.

I've only seen a few clips (and a YouTube essay about its weird misogyny) and it's enough to put me off of basically everyone from the cast.

Again, probably not fair.

I've seen every single episode of "The Big Bang Theory" multiple times. It's one of my all-time favorite shows.

That's what made me go looking for the movie Spoiler Alert, as soon as I heard that Jim Parsons was starring in it. I loved this movie, but it's hard to see Jim Parsons in anything else without thinking of him as Sheldon Cooper.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

The Ice Storm
Nuanced direction and some superb performances from an excellent ensemble cast make 1997's The Ice Storm, a moody and prickly story of suburban dysfunction and the changing sexual mores of the 1970 worth watching.

The setting is 1973 New Canan, Connecticut, a small suburban town where we meet several different characters who are connected in various ways as several secrets about these people quietly simmer to the surface: Ben Hood (Oscar winner Kevin Kline) and his wife, Elena (Joan Allen) seem to be accepting the death of their marriage, which manifests itself in Ben's affair with neighbor Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver), who is not only married to Jim (Jamey Sheridan), but cheating on Ben with young Neil Conrad (Glenn Fitzgerald). Ben and Elena's young daughter, Wendy (Christina Ricci) is experimenting sexually with the Carvers' son, Mike (Elijah Wood) and his brother, Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd),while Ben and Elena's son, Paul (Tobey Maguire) finds himself in a compromising situation with the girl of his dreams (Katie Holmes). And let's not forget what happens when the adults in the story attend a "key party."

The screenplay by James Schamus, based on a novel by Rick Moody, is a fascinating look at an era in our society when all kinds of exploration was going on regarding sex and its seamless boundaries, which were brought back to strict rules, thanks primarily to the advent of the AIDS crisis. This was a time when sex was in a time of flux, where classic interpretations of sexuality were re-opened for interpretation and not everyone was ready for it. Admittedly, we don't get any backstory about where the Hoods marriage went south, but it turns out to be irrelevant. There's also a scene early on where Elena is observed shoplifting some cosmetic in a pharmacy that I thought would be addressed later on in the film, but it never was.

Director Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility; Brokeback Mountain) brings the same delicate detail to this story that he did those other films. Love the photography of the ice cycles clinging to everything in New Canaan, starting to melt, but fighting it every step of the way. The symbolic chill over New Canan is just as effective as the natural hazards that this chilling weather can cause. There's a scene where Mike is jumping on an icy diving board that leads to an emptied swimming pool that made my heart go straight into my shoes. The scene where the storm stopped the train on which Paul was traveling home for Thanksgiving also provided an unexpected chill. Paul's confrontation with his girl and best friend was also a highlight, and the sexual tension created during the key party was quite impressive. Also loved the tools Lee used to set the film...television sets in the movie are observed tuned into shows like The Time Tunnell and Room 222.

Lee also manages to get first rate performances from his cast right down the line. Loved Kevin Kline as the stuffy and self-centered Ben, while Joan Allen was heartbreaking as the severely broken Elena. Christina Ricci impresses as the sexually curious Wendy, but the scene stealer here was 3 time Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver as sexual pariah Janey. Weaver makes the most of limited screentime here with a blistering performance that dominates the film. Every time the story leaves Janey, we can't wait for her to come back. Frederick Elmes' gorgeous cinematography and Mychael Danna's moody music are the finishing touches on this suburban drama, for which fans of films like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road will have a heard start.

I really need to watch The Ice Storm again. I watched it as a teenager and just wasn't on the wavelength of the story it was telling.

Fall
Despite a promising action/thriller premise, 2022's Fall eventually dissolves into a puddle of unnecessary soap opera plot twists, hard to swallow roadblocks to rescue for the principals, and a way too convenient conclusion.

Becky is a rock climber and adrenaline junkie who lost her husband, Dan in a rock climbing accident almost a year ago. Still paralyzed with grief, Becky does allow her fellow adrenaline junkie/BFF Hunter to talk her into climbing a 2000 feet tall radio tower so that she can spread her husband's ashes from the top of the tower. Unfortunately, the ladder outside the tower that they climbed to get up is destroyed and the two women find themselves stranded atop the tower with no way to get down.

Director and co-screenwriter Scott Mann has come up with an intriguing idea here that starts off quite effectively, but the more the viewer actually thinks about what's happening here, the less sense it makes. Primarily, why would Becky agree to do this after watching her husband die falling off a mountain? After Becky and Hunter were atop the tower, nobody noticed her abandoned vehicle at the bottom of the tower before a couple jerks stole it? And this is just the tip of the nonsensical plot points that rolled around in my head as the story progressed.

On the other side of the cinematic coin, the dilemma that these girls were in is very effectively mounted. Films like 127 Hours and Cliffhanger, flashed through my mind as I found myself physically affected by what I was watching. As a person who has suffered from a deathly fear of heights since I was a child, I found this movie initially very hard to watch. Mann does a superior job of keeping us in touch with how high in the air and how isolated Becky and Hunter are. I was so distracted by my fear of being so high in the air, it took me a little longer than viewers without a fear of heights to see how the film got progressively dumber and dumber.

For an independent feature, most of the production values are first rate, especially the cinematography, though I did find the music a little overwrought, almost to the point of distraction. Grace Caroline Currey and Reese Witherspoon-look-a-like Virginia Gardner sink their teeth into the physically demanding roles of Becky and Hunter, respectively and Jeffrey Dean Morgan is terrific as Becky's father, but this film never legitimizes its premise. {Rating]3.5[/rating]

Mr Blandings Builds his Dream House
Cary Grant and Myrna Loy reunited after The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer for another deliciously entertaining comedy called Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, a sophisticated and witty comic romp that provides first rate entertainment.

The 1948 film stars Grant as Jim Blandings, an advertising executive who lives in a cramped New York apartment with his wife, Muriel (Loy) and his two daughters. Against the advice of his pal, lawyer Bill Cole (Melvyn Douglas), Blandings impulsively decides to leave the city and buy a run down old house in Connecticut and rebuild it from the ground up. In addition to the nonstop headache and expense of building a house, Jim is also dealing with an advertising deadline that his job depends on and the nagging obsession that Muriel might be having an affair with Bill.

This film shines thanks to an intelligent and imaginative screenplay, adapted from a novel by Eric Hodgins, by screenwriting veterans Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, whose credits include White Christmas, Knock on Wood, and The Court Jester. The story is rich with colorful dialogue as well as physical comedy that blend perfectly to serve a story that, on the surface, seems kind of uninteresting, but provides pretty consistent laughs for the entire running time.

The Bill Cole character also serves as our host and narrator for the story, a narration that initially seems unnecessary. Bill is the first character we meet and he speaks directly to the camera, but his narration does make some interesting forays into the story. LOVED the scene where Jim and his family first arrive at the house and Jim gets into an argument with a worker varnishing the floor. but Bill's voice is substituted for the dialogue. Also loved the scene where Jim, Muriel, and Bill get locked in a closet still under construction and Loy is absolutely enchanting when she is describing the colors she wants to a contractor.

The film is shot in exquisite black and white and I loved Leigh Harline's music as well. Grant and Loy are absolute perfection together as the Blandings, proving the chemistry they generated in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer was no fluke. Douglas steals every scene he's in, channeling Ralph Bellamy as Bill. Kudos as well to Reginald Denny as the architect Mr. Simms. Hume Cronyn-look-a-like Ian Wolfe as the real estate agent, and Louise Beavers as the family maid Gussie. Another classic from the golden age of cinema that still provides solid entertainment. The film was re-imagined in 1986 as The Money Pit starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
Guillermo Del Toro, who won two Oscars for producing and directing 2017's Oscar winner for Best Picture, The Shape of Water, has triumphed again with an exquisite re-imagining of a classic children story that was brought to the big screen by Disney Studios in 1940, but 2022's Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, is an animated masterpiece much darker and more realistic in its tone, but mounted with such imagination but still respecting the original story that it is probably a lock for the Outstanding Feature Length Animated Film Oscar and, if the truth be told, a Best Picture Oscar nomination is not out of the realm of possibility.

Originally based on a book by Carlo Collodi, this is the story of Gepetto, an old Italian woodcarver who lost his son Carlo in a tragic accident and, in honor of him, decides to carve a male puppet in honor of Carlo but, still in a drunken stupor over Carlo's death, Gepetto is unable to finish the puppet and passes out. While Gepetto sleeps it off, a spell is put on the puppet making him a real son for Gepetto and naming him Pinocchio. Pinocchio is also awarded a guardian angel in the form of a cricket named Sebastian, who fancies himself a writer. As Gepetto puts the finishing touches on Pinocchio, he comes vividly to life as an educational sponge who wants to know the answers to everything, but defies Gepetto when, instead of going to school, he finds himself lured into show business by the evil owner of a carnival named Count Volpe.

Del Toro has poured buckets of money, imagination, and state of the art production values into this production, guaranteeing that we don't just get a rehash of the 1940 Disney film. I liked that his screenplay with Patrick McHale began with backstory showing Gepetto's relationship with Carlo, which wasn't mentioned in the 1940 film. It reminded me of the introduction of Carl and his wife at the beginning of Up...just enough to establish the relationship but not going on too long.

Loved when Pinocchio first comes to life and questions Gepetto regarding the definition of every single word Gepetto uses. Pinocchio's waffling between complete defiance of everything and complete desire to please Gepetto and why he couldn't do both rang totally true. This led to one troubling part of the story. After Pinocchio gets harassed at Gepetto's church (a heartbreaking scene, BTW, that reminded me of something out of The Elephant Man). Gepetto angrily refers to Pinocchio as a burden and magically, this is the only word that Pinocchio seems to magically be aware of the definition. But this is a small quibble in a film where there is so much more right than there is wrong.

Most impressive was the richly gothic look of this movie, which I wasn't expecting at all. The animation in this film is dark and crisp and all of the characters look as if they from crafted from bone china until they actually start to move. Loved that in this film, Pinocchio actually looks like he's made out of wood. Gepetto's hair and beard appear like they are part of his face for a good chunk of the film and then in one remarkable, blink and you'll miss it moment, we see his hair being blown by the wind. Loved the way Pinocchio's nose grew when he would tell a lie...again, not what I expected. Also loved that Sebastian Cricket actually looked like an insect, not the cute little green bug singing "When You Wish Upon a Star." A bouquet to everyone associated with the sound on this movie, because simple sounds like a cup & saucer being shoved across a table or a gun being picked up that I actually noticed how authentic they sounded. And I swear my heart stopped at the beginning of the third act when we first see the whale rise from the sea.

Despite Del Toro's astounding work here in bringing something new to a classic story, I have to wonder who the intended demographic for this movie was. Count Volpe's physical and emotional abuse of Pinocchio and his war training to battle Mussolini are not things I would want my child to see, but I guess I could see parents and children watching this together. As a piece of filmmaking, this is remarkable work from Del Toro and a flawless voice cast including Ewan MacGregor as Sebastian Cricket, Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, David Bradley as Gepetto and especially Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as Count Volpe. A one of a kind motion picture experience that arouses just about every emotion one can imagine during its running time, but well worth the journey.

Harold and Maude
The 1971 film Harold and Maude is a cult classic and I'm really not sure why because it took most of the running time for this reviewer to warm up to a story that made absolutely no sense, despite atmospheric direction and charismatic performances from the stars.

This black comedy centers around a relationship between two people that would probably never happen IRL. Harold is a young man from a wealthy family who is obsessed with death. He loves to attend funerals of strangers, drives a hearse, and stages elaborate fake suicides in front of blind dates that his mother arranges. At one of these funerals, he meets Maude, a 79 year old woman who embraces life and loves to steal cars and drive them, despite the fact that she hasn't had a driver's license for 45 years.

The screenplay for this bizarre story was the screenwriting debut of Colin Higgins, who would later write Silver Streak, Foul Play, and 9 to 5 ) that throws realism out the window and attempts to shock and amuse the viewer, but doesn't completely achieve either goal. About twenty minutes in, we realize that Harold needs to be institutionalized (even though he is pulling the wool over the eyes of a psychiatrist) and Maude needs to be in jail just for her antics on the highway. The scene where the pair manage to elude a motorcycle cop (Tom Skerritt, billed in the credits as M. Borman for some reason) is ridiculous, but is probably the only scene in the movie that produced out loud laughs.

Director Hal Ashby (The Last Detail, Coming Home)mounts this nonsensical story on a very inviting canvas. The film features first rate production values that almost become dwarfed by a story about a love affair that would never happen in real life. This film initially bored and confused me because, at first glance, neither of these central characters should be out and about doing whatever they're doing. Most people would kill to live the life that Harold has and he has nothing but contempt for it. At one point his mother tries to replace his hearse with a Ferrari and five minutes later, he is driving the hearse again. Maude steals a car at one point so she can uproot a tree growing in a business area and re-plant it in a forest. It wasn't until the final third of the film that I really understood what Higgins and Ashby were doing here and that's way too late to get what's going on in a 90 minute movie. A couple of twists near the end don't really register the way they should have.

Ruth Gordon, fresh off her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for Rosemary's Baby is a joy as Maude and Bud Cort completely invests in the defective Harold. Also loved Vivian Pickles as Harold's mother and Charles Styner as Harold's one-armed uncle, but I still don't understand the cult status this film has earned.

I really like Harold and Maude. Ultimately it's a film about how we react to the life and time we are given. And once you have the full scope of it, it's an incredibly rewarding film to rewatch.

Disenchanted
Doesn't the phrase "And they lived happily ever after" imply the end of a story? Apparently not, because Disney Studios have dusted off their surprise 2007 hit Enchanted and brought us Disenchanted an overblown and unnecessary sequel to Enchanted that instead of providing us with a viable new story, pretty much just rehashes the first film and doesn't even do that effectively.

Amy Adams returns to inhabit one of her most popular roles as Princess Giselle, the animated princess from Andulasia who finds her Prince Charming in a sexy lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey) who has a young daughter named Morgan. For some reason, Robert and Giselle who in addition to raising Morgan together now have a baby of their own named Sophia. have decided to give up living in Manhattan and move to a small suburb called Monroeville, which the now sullen teenage Morgan is not at all happy about. Shortly after their arrival in Monroeville, Giselle innocently makes a wish that Monroeville was more like Andulasia and as the wish comes true, Monroeville begins morphing into Andulasia and poor Giselle finds herself turning into her worst nightmare: a wicked stepmother which begins to seriously damage her relationship with Morgan and husband Robert fighting dragons and trying to protect the town from the evil Malvina (Maya Rudolph).

The Disney gloss, very similar to the MGM gloss that helped make their musicals in the 40's and 50's so special, does very little to disguise how unnecessary this sequel is. In the first film, Giselle found her prince in Robert, stealing him effortlessly from Robert's snooty fiancee, Nancy (Idina Menzel), who did eventually find happiness with Prince Edward (James Marsden). As a matter of fact, the first ten minutes of this film tells us exactly what happened in the first film, never a good sign for a sequel. We then see Giselle working very hard to keep her new family together with the help of a magic scroll (delightfully voiced by Alan Tudyk) while poor Robert finds himself doing everything that he hated doing in the first film.

For some reason, Pip, Giselle's adorable pet from the first film is turned into an overweight cat and Malvina is given a pair of flying monkeys named Ruby (Jayma Mays) and Rosaleen (Yvette Nicole Brown) to do her bidding. And despite everything that happened in the first film, Morgan is conveniently calling Giselle Mother at the beginning of the story in order to validate Giselle's transformation into a wicked stepmother.

The most enjoyable aspect of this film is Adams' terrific performance as Giselle, where we see the poor thing terrified as she sees the wicked stepmother persona try to overtake her normally sunshine ad sugar personality that enchanted everyone in the first film. The screenplay cleverly allows Giselle's transformation to occur slowly, sometimes in the fork of just a couple of words that slip out of Giselle's mouth without her realizing it and unable to control.

The main problem here is the main problem with most sequels: Sequel-itis, that idiotic filmmaking concept that in order to make a sequel, it has to be bigger, longer and provide twice as much as the first film did and it kills this film to the point of complete exhaustion, where this reviewer found himself actually nodding off a couple of times ad having to rewind to catch what I missed.

As with the first film, there is a serviceable music score by Alan Mencken (The Little Mermaid) and Stephen Schwartz (Godspell) that serves the story but it's nothing special. Did enjoy a spectacular duet with Adams and Rudolph called "Badder" that brought the house down.

Production values are serious including stunning set designs and costumes. Adams works very hard keeping Giselle sweet and lovable, but Dempsey is phoning it in as Robert. If the truth be told, he looks embarrassed to be involved in this debacle. Marsden and Medina' roles as Edward and Nancy have been reduced to glorified cameos and Rudolph's cartoon character villain wasn't anywhere as near as fun as Susan Sarandon in 2007. For hardcore fans of Adams only.

I kind of enjoyed Harold and Maude's outlandishness. The whole movie bases itself on the ridiculousness all being TECHNICLLY plausible, and that's what makes it wild, and that's what makes it funny.

Bummer about Disenchanted. I enjoyed the first film, but did not have a good feeling about the trailer for the sequel.

I hated Harold and Maude myself, but my reason was I took an instant and strong disliking to Harold. Now I really liked Maude, go figure!

For me, there's capturing realism, and then there's mocking it through plausibility. Both are legit art forms. Plus, Harold was a bit like Catherine from Catherine Called Birdy, one of my favorite novels.

This is disappointing.
I loved the first movie, and I was looking forward to Disenchanted.

I loved the first one too