Gideon58's Reviews

Some Kind of Hero
Richard Pryor plays it relatively straight in a 1982 comedy called Some Kind Hero, which actually takes on a serious topic but the writers can't seem to decide whether or not they really want to make a serious movie.

Pryor plays Eddie, a war veteran who was a POW for five years and upon his return, learns that his girlfriend (Lynne Moody) has left him for another man and sold his business and that the military is being VERY slow regarding the veteran benefits that he is owed so he decides that he has no other option but a life of crime, complicated by his beginning of a relationship with the traditional hooker with a heart of gold.

James Kirkwood Jr. and Robert Boris have adapted a screenplay from Kirkwood's novel that really wants to delve into some serious issues but just skirts around them. The way a lot of Vietnam veterans were treated by the government upon their return to the States could have been the genesis for an important and more serious movie and the intent is clear, but the execution never quite matches the intent, as a lot of legitimate issues are given short shrift and/or contrived and convenient answers that just don't wash.

I was intrigued by the idea of casting Richard Pryor against type, because this film was made during a part of his career where Pryor was making a lot of crappy movies and something off the grid was in order for him, but this confusing story that can't decide whether it's going to be a clever social satire or a serious indictment on how difficult life was for returning war veterans never really makes a commitment either way and if it's supposed to be a combination of both it just didn't work.

Pryor appears to be just as confused as the viewer here...he has some funny moments in the opening scenes when Eddie is still a prisoner of war, but once the story moves to the States, Pryor just looks embarrassed and confused and has absolutely NO chemistry with Margot Kidder, who fails to convince as a hooker. Ray Sharkey and Ronny Cox make the most of thankless roles, but this movie is just messy and dull. The best thing about this movie is its running time...mercifully short.

Love Finds Andy Hardy
The energetic performance by Mickey Rooney as Carvel's most popular teenager is at the center of 1938's Love Finds Andy Hardy, the third film in the series which actually introduced a couple of future movie superstars.

In 1937, MGM released A Family Affair, a film set in the fictional hamlet of Carvel that centered around a teenager named Andy Hardy (Rooney), his father Judge Hardy (Lionel Barrymore), his mother, Emily (Spring Byington), his older sister Marian (Cecilia Parker) and his girlfriend, Polly (Ann Rutherford). The film was so popular that it became a series of sixteen films all starring Rooney, but Lewis Stone and Fay Holden took over the roles of his parents.

In this film, Andy's mom has to leave town to tend to Andy's sick grandmother and Polly has been invited to spend Christmas with her Grandmother, even though Andy has just put a $12 down payment on a used car so that he can take Polly to the Christmas Eve dance in style. He still owes eight dollars on the car, so he tells his best friend Beezy that he will keep an eye on his girlfriend, Cynthia while he's away for the bargain price of eight dollars. Andy's plans with Cynthia are complicated by Betsy Booth, the sweet girl who has just moved in next door and falls in love with Andy instantly, but Betsy isn't a glamour girl like Cynthia so he doesn't even notice that the girl is nuts about him.

The story perfectly captures teenage life in the 1930's, or what I would imagine it would have been (do you know of anywhere today you could buy a used car for $20?). Andy is obsessed with having the perfect car and the perfect girl and everything else a teenager would want, which leads to some self-absorbed behavior, most of which sweet Betsy Booth is the victim of. There are different way to look at what's going on here...in one way, Andy seems very cruel and insensitive to Betsy at times and on another hand, Betsy's pursuit of Andy borders on stalking, but it does work out for her.

The Andy Hardy franchise was used as a springboard for a lot of young starlets at MGM and two of them got their start in this film. Even as a teenager, Lana Turner was very alluring as the pushy and flighty Cynthia and one of MGM's biggest and best creations, Judy Garland got her start playing the slightly manipulative Betsy Booth. MGM had trouble finding appropriate roles for Garland because she was a little girl with that great big grown up voice but the character of Betsy does work for Garland and she makes the most of it, especially her three opportunities to sing. The quietly effective underplaying of Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy is also worth mentioning.

And you can see why Mickey Rooney got this whole franchise centered around him...this guy was a non-stop bundle of energy and was during the 1930's what Justin Timberlake is now...the obsession of young girls everywhere and MGM took full advantage of it. If you want to see Rooney at the height of his popularity and Garland before The Wizard of Oz made her a star, you might want to give this one a look. Garland also appeared in two other Andy Hardy movies, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and Life Begins for Andy Hardy as well as a series of backstage musicals with Rooney that made them a box office sensation during the 1940's.

Brigsby Bear
Strikingly original, 2017's Brigsby Bear is a loopy and sad social satire that takes elements from other classic films and crafts them into an engaging and often moving story that found me riveted to the screen and fighting tears.

Many years ago Ted and April Mitchum kidnapped a child named James Pope and kept him shielded from the world in an underground bunker. As a simultaneous form of entertainment and education, Ted and April produced an elaborate television series called "Brigsby Bear" which was James' only exposure to anything outside of the bunker, a Star Trek-type adventure series starring a magical bear that entranced James for years.

Twenty five years later, Ted and April are arrested for kidnapping James and he is returned to his real family who are trying their best to help James re-adjust to the real world, but the only thing that interests James is Brigsby and his obsession leads him to a decision to make a movie, continuing where the series left off, attempting to bring a logical conclusion to the series that James can live with.

This one takes a minute to get going, but I LOVED this freaking movie. The screenplay by the star, SNL regular Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello is so intelligent because its crafting of the central character of James comes through James' dialogue and the way he speaks. Having been raised away from traditional society, James has issues with grammar and syntax that are so completely believable that you can't help but be simultaneously tickled and saddened. The screenplay also effectively addresses James' confusion about Ted and April and his real parents. He refers to Ted and April throughout the film as his "first parents" and takes a long time to warm up to his real parents and his hostile sister.

What happens and what we definitely don't see coming is when his sister's boyfriend, Spencer, posts some of the "Brigsby" episodes on the internet and they become a smash on social media, something akin to people's fascination with current programming like Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games. James even gets a police detective (Greg Kinnear), who used to have acting aspirations, to take part in his movie.

This story takes the viewer through a myriad of emotions as we get behind James and his mission and his inability to disconnect with the past. What Ted and April did was terrible and we want to see James connect with his real family, but his fear about that rings true and makes this journey a sad, yet hopeful one. Director Dave McCary, who has been a writer on SNL since 2013, creates a sheltered and protected world for James that is hard to crack but every time we see that shell crack even a little bit, we cheer. Kyle Mooney is revelation in the starring role and I also loved Mark Hamill and Matt Ross as his two dads. And if you don't blink, you might catch a cameo from Andy Samberg. It's not for all tastes, but I'm pretty sure fans of the current SNL regime will have a head start here.

Soylent Green
The 1973 futuristic thriller Soylent Green looks a lot less like science fiction now than it did in 1973 and still provides some solid entertainment value despite an ending that we definitely see coming.

This film is set in the future, during a period where the world has been ravaged by the greenhouse effect, overpopulation, and dwindling food supplies. Only the extremely wealthy can afford to eat actual meat and a jar of strawberries cost $150. Most of the population is being fed courtesy of the Soylent Corporation, a food processing company that manufactures food substances from plankton in the oceans.

Charlton Heston plays a police detective named Thorn who is assigned to the case when the CEO of Soylent Industries (Joseph Cotten) is brutally murdered. While trying to get to the bottom of the murder, Thorn becomes involved with the CEO's "furniture" (Leigh Taylor Young) and learns that the CEO found out a deadly secret about the company and confessed about to a priest, a confession so important to be kept confidential that the priest ends up being murdered as well.

Director Richard Fleischer, whose resume includes such varied projects as 1967's Doctor Dolittle, Tora, Tora, Tora, and Fantastic Voyage really scored here with a dark and atmospheric crime drama that crafts a dark and disturbing future that might not be as far away as we might think. We see Thorn have to climb over dozens of people to get down the stairs of his apartment building. We also see him deliver some books to his friend and assistant Sol (Edward G. Robinson) for research dated 2015-2019. There's a lovely scene where Heston and Robinson sit down for the simple joys of beef, vegetables, strawberries, and scotch. Loved the look on Thorn's face when he is offered a hot shower and air conditioning.

Despite an overly melodramatic screenplay, Fleischer's atmospheric direction makes what happens here feel very real. Heston offers one of his best performances as the cynical police detective who is ignorant to life in the 20th century and Edward G. Robinson was robbed of a supporting actor nomination for his wise and winning Sol, who still remembers a world where people ate meat every day. The film features first rate production values and the minimal music score is quite effective, especially in Sol's "going home" sequence.

Sorry for Your Loss
2018's Sorry for Your Loss is a loopy indie sleeper that provides pretty consistent laughs for its running time , thanks to a razor sharp screenplay demands attention, despite some unnecessary lapses into slapstick.

Ken is a marketing executive who is the father of a six month old baby, who hasn't been named yet and has turned his mother, Ken's wife, into a raving lunatic. Ken receives word that his father, Andy, has died and learns at the funeral that he stands to inherit $200,000 from his dad if he can fulfill Dad's dying wish: To have his ashes spread across the field of a Canadian football stadium. And he only has 48 hours to do it.

Director and screenwriter Collin Friesen really scores here with a deft and intelligent screenplay that shows a real insight into the art of black comedy with an almost Woody Allen sensibility to the dialogue. This is another one of those films where the true central character is dead at the beginning of the film. Friesen's screenplay immediately establishes that Andy was seriously flawed, but had a heart, while also establishing that he might not have been the greatest father to Ken. Andy's funeral pretty much had me on the floor...the service took place at a country club lounge where everyone in attendance is drinking. A PowerPoint presentation with a bizarre set of photos of Andy were hysterical but didn't provide a full picture of who Andy was.

We understand from the moment Ken hears about his father's death that the relationship between Ken and Andy was strained to say the least. It's fun watching Ken piecing together who his father really was and that's part of the fun of this story. Every time we think we've gotten a precise picture of the kind of guy Andy was, we find out we're wrong. There's a terrific scene where Ken and Jeff, the executor of Andy's estate, visit a strip bar and one of the dancers is absolutely devastated when she hears about Andy's death and reveals a side of Andy Ken never imagined. The scenes that concentrate specifically on Ken's mission were a little slapsticky for my tastes, but they are redeemed by a warm ending that's actually a little touching.

Justin Bartha, who was the groom in The Hangover, gives a star-making performance as Ken, charming and controlled. There are also a trio of solid supporting performances from Lolita Davidovich as Jeff's mother, Bruce Greenwood as Jeff, and, Darrin Rose as Cam, Jeff's wheelchair bound BFF from childhood. Loved Shawn Pierce's quirky music too. If you're looking for something a little different in black comedy, this might be worth a look.

Darling Lili
Despite some impressive production values, Blake Edwards' attempt to craft a more sophisticated image for wife Julie Andrews with an overblown epic called Darling Lili didn't work for this reviewer, thanks primarily to a convoluted screenplay and a serious lack of chemistry between the stars.

The 1970 drama with music stars Andrews as Lili Smith, a British music hall entertainer during WWI, who is actually a German spy, but her loyalties are questioned because she is half British and half German, being born Lili Schmidt. Her latest assignment provided by Colonel Von Ruger (Jeremy Kemp) who assists under the guise of being her uncle but is actually her lover, is to get as much information as she can about a new military operation from an American pilot named William Larrabee (Rock Hudson)

The screenplay by Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty is apparently supposed to be a takeoff on legendary female spy Mata Hari, but herein I think lies the problem. Instead of doing a straight-up biopic of the legendary spy, Edwards has decided to develop a story based on Mata Hari, almost in the form of a spoof or satire, but this spoof is told with a terribly straight face and in overly elaborate detail which really tries the viewer's patience. We are told at the beginning of the story what a professional Lili is, but this woman allows her emotions to completely cloud what she's supposed to be doing, making Lili look like a really bad spy.

The intentions of Blake Edwards are very clear here...after triumphing with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Edwards wanted to show the world that his wife possessed the versatility to do different kinds of movies other than family-oriented musicals and with a better structured story and more consistent direction, this could have been the vehicle to do it, but this film is all over the place...deadly serious at one point, and unintentional laughs the next...the aerial sequences look like they're out of a Warner Brothers cartoon and scenes of Intelligence officers scaling and falling off rooftops in the rain were just too silly to be taken seriously.

But the biggest problem with this film is that Julie Andrews and leading man Rock Hudson have absolutely no chemistry. Stories during the production of this film claim that Andrews and Hudson didn't get along at all and it definitely shows on the screen...their love scenes come off as forced and unconvincing. There's even a scene of the two in a shower that I'm sure was intended to titillate, but was laughable when it should have been sexy. And don't get me started on Andrews' music hall number that later gets reprised as a striptease.

Edwards seems to have had a monster budget here because no expense was spared on this epic. Art direction and costumes are spectacular, as is Henry Mancini's music, including the Oscar-nominated song he wrote with Johnny Mercer called "Whistling Away the Dark", which is reprised like five times throughout the film. I guess Edwards realized it is one of the few things in the film that really worked. In 1990, Edwards was requested by TNT to re-edit the film and released a newly edited version that was 22 minutes shorter, but overlength was just the tip of the iceberg here.

A Stolen Life
A dazzling performance by Bette Davis in a dual role anchors a deliciously entertaining melodrama from 1946 called A Stolen Life, that provides Davis at her most alluring and a nicely textured story that, especially during the second half, provides one surprise after another that really make the viewer work for that happy ending we want so bad.

Set in Nantucket Island, Davis plays Kate and Patricia Bosworth, twin sisters who both instantly fall in love with a lighthouse inspector named Bill (Glenn Ford) and even though Bill meets Kate first, he ends up marrying Patricia. Many years later when the sisters are reunited, Patricia drowns in a boating accident and Kate decides to assume her identity in order to win back Bill, but assuming Patricia's identity provides a whole new set of troubles that neither Kate nor the viewer sees coming.

I freaking LOVED this movie, starting with the spectacular work of Bette Davis in the starring roles, creating two very different characters in Kate and Patricia, the requisite good and evil twins, though both characters are painted in serious shades of gray. The story discreetly sets up a backstory for the sisters without actually presenting it to the viewer. The telling first moment where Bill meets the sisters at the same time after taking Patricia out for lunch, a date he made with Kate, sizzles with tension because it's so obvious that this is not the first time that Kate and Patricia have scrapped over a man. Though, for some reason, Kate has always taken the high road and accepted her sister's behavior with a grain of salt.

The story is thrown a clever complication when Kate meets Karnock (Dane Clark), a struggling artist with a serious chip on his shoulder, who has never met Patricia but finds himself inexplicably drawn to Kate, who keeps him at arm's length as long as she can. Love the scene where Karnock confesses his feeling about Kate to Kate but he thinks he's talking to Patricia.

There are some terrific directorial touches offered along the way by Curtis Bernhardt...I love when Patrica throws her wedding bouquet directly to Kate and Kate jumps out of the way...Bette plays both characters with the right amount of bitchiness that Bernhardt surely offered an assist. Or watch Bette in the scene where Kate wakes up after the accident and realizes everyone thinks she's Patricia...watching Kate's brain process what's going in an absolute joy, clearly a collaboration of actress and director.

Davis pulls out all the acting stops here doing Oscar-worthy work in this ultimate acting exercise. Glenn Ford is a charismatic leading man who holds his own against Davis. Davis and Ford would reunite onscreen 15 years later in A Pocketful of Miracles. Clark is a lot of fun as Karnock, as is Charlie Ruggles as sympathetic Cousin Freddy, who is team Kate and there's a cute cameo in the beginning of the film by Walter Brennan. Max Steiner's lush musical score is also a big plus. Fans of Davis and the genre will be in heaven here. Davis would again play twin sisters 18 years later in 1964's Dead Ringer, but this movie is so much better.

Designing Woman
With Vincente Minnelli in the director's chair overseeing an Oscar-winning screenplay, the 1957 romantic comedy Designing Woman overcomes some minor problems to provide
consistent entertainment and an occasional laughs for most of the running time.

The film stars Gregory Peck as Mike Hagen, a sportswriter who meets a sophisticated fashion designer named Marilla Brown (Lauren Bacall) and after a whirlwind romance, they impulsively decide to marry. Marriage quickly reveals that Mike and Marilla are from two different worlds: Mike hangs out with boxers, other reporters, and has gotten some heat for stories he's been writing on a gangster who's been accused of fixing sporting events. Marilla's circle of friends include writers, actors, and artists. Of course, the collision of their two worlds is the crux of the comedy here. There's also an ex-girlfriend of Mike's (Dolores Gray) who has been cast in a show that Marilla is being courted to design the costumes for.

On the surface, this film appears to be a re-thinking of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn classic Woman of the Year which is why I find George Wells' Oscar win for Original Screenplay a little strange. It's a clever updating on the original story that features an original opening that features the characters introducing themselves directly to the viewer and most of them participating in the narration that frames the story which, though predictable, does provide enough appropriate conflict for the couple to endure that we believe but we also believe that these two people's love for each other will conquer all.

There are a couple of casting issues as well...Gregory Peck was a very talented actor, but romantic comedy was not his thing and that becomes glaringly apparent here. He works very hard at being funny in this movie and that's the problem...anytime an actor has to work this hard to produce laughs, they usually don't come. Mickey Shaughnessy also grates on the nerves as Maxie, a pug-nosed boxer who becomes Mike's bodyguard.

On the other hand, Lauren Bacall is absolute perfection as Marilla Brown and makes the viewer instantly forgive anything else that's wrong with this movie. Bacall lights up the screen and is a big reason this movie is as engaging as it is. Dolores Gray is a lot of fun as Mike's ex and if you pay attention, you'll catch Chuck Connors, Madge Blake, Richard Deacon, Edward Platt, and Jesse White in small roles. Choreographer Jack Cole also makes a rare onscreen appearance as the director of Gray's show. A witty and winning romantic comedy that works thanks to the professionalism of Lauren Bacall and Vincente Minnelli.

I've seen Designing Women before and liked it! Generally I like those types of movies from the late 50s. A similar film is The Cobweb have you seen that? I think you'd like it.

I have not seen The Cobweb...isn't Gloria Grahame in that? I'll have to check it out.

That's weird, as they had a fling at the time .

Mother! (2017)
As the director of The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky has proven to be an artist of limitless style and imagination, but his imagination was in serious overdrive with a 2017 oddity called Mother!, a loopy psychological thriller that is mostly nonsensical and an ending that is a serious cop-out.

A writer (Jarvier Bardem) and his physically and emotionally fragile wife (Jennifer Lawrence) live in a large mansion in a secluded wooded area. They are cut off from traditional human existence until the appearance of a dying man (Ed Harris) who claims to be a fan of the writer and is invited to spend the night in the house. The next day the man's wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up on our couple's doorstep along with their two sons, who begin an explosive confrontation that doesn't end well. In less than a blink of an eye, everyone who knows this family shows up at the house, making themselves more than at home. The wife is perplexed and aggravated about all these strangers being in her house, but it seems to have a profoundly positive effect on the writer.

They do manage to get this family out of their house long enough for the writer to get his wife pregnant. His wife's pregnancy inspires the writer to create something that makes him a contemporary Messiah that has thousands of people arriving at the house wanting a piece of him, his home, and his baby.

Like Donnie Darko and Hereditary, I have to file this movie under films that I just didn't understand. The second half of the film appears to be a contemporary re-thinking of Rosemary's Baby, and that's fine, but if that was the film's intention, then the first half with the dying man and his dysfunctional family made no sense. The point of all of these strangers invading their house and treating the wife like she was the unwelcome guest was awkward and squirm-worthy. There was this running routine of the wife having to tell people not to sit on a sink because it had not been properly braced that led to the expected destruction of said sink, but Aronofsky's attention to this plot point made it seem a lot more important than it actually was.

Aronofsky's direction is the best thing about this film...it's explosive and unpredictable and ferocious with a graduate course in the art of the hand-held camera, I just wish his screenplay had been a little more cohesive and brought certain plot points together a little more efficiently. There are scenes in the first act of the wife in the basement and the bathroom dealing with things like bleeding walls and tiny human fetuses that took too long to take their place in the story and the "and-then-I-woke-up" ending was a huge letdown.

Oscar winners Jarvier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence work very hard at making their roles credible, with Bardem particularly explosive and even though I didn't understand the character, I loved the icy bitch that Pfeiffer brought to the story, but this story was just a little too messy to completely invest in.

Offscreen chemistry doesn't always translate onscreen.

Apparently so .

Showtime
The idea of teaming Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy onscreen was a good one, it's just too bad they couldn't have found a better vehicle for the stars than 2002's Showtime, an elaborate action/comedy that could have used a little more comedy and a little less action.

DeNiro plays Mitch Preston, a veteran LAPD detective who is all about his work and at the end of the day, he goes home and does pottery. While in the middle of a case, he is annoyed by a TV cameraman who refuses to leave the scene so he shoots his camera in a million pieces. The TV station threatens to sue the LAPD until an ambitious TV producer (Rene Russo) sees footage of Mitch and thinks he would be perfect for a reality TV show and they will drop the charges against the LAPD if Mitch agrees to appear..

Murphy plays Trey Sellars, a uniformed cop not nearly as serious about police work as he is about his real passion, which is acting. Unfortunately, Trey's acting is a little over the top and he hasn't gotten his break yet. The TV producer decides that Mitch, completely ignorant regarding acting and show business, needs a partner to bring balance to the show. So guess who sets up an elaborate fake crime in front of the producer so that he can get the job?

This film appears to be a valentine to cop buddy movies of the 80's like 48 HRS and Lethal Weapon, but the screenplay is crafted with a little straight a face. There are some nice jabs at the world of reality television and to the TV show Cops in particular, but somewhere along the line the writers lose sight of the fact that the film is supposed to be more satirical. The movie opens with a scene of Murphy being chewed out by a superior by going rogue on his latest case and it's soon revealed that this scene is actually Murphy's character auditioning for a TV show. There's a very funny set of scenes featuring William Shatner playing himself, teaching Mitch and Trey the fine arts of TV hood jumping and cocaine tasting. If the rest of the movie was in a similar vein to these scenes, this film would have been a total winner.

Director Tom Dey, whose most significant directorial credit was the Matthew McConaughey comedy Failure to Launch] does show an affinity for mounting a proper action sequence...there are enough car chases, crashes, and explosions for three movies here, but not enough of the stars being funny. DeNiro proved he could be funny om films like Meet the Parents and Analyze This, but his character here is a real downer, making it hard for him to get laughs. Murphy is funny though and Russo is a lot of fun as the manipulative TV producer, but the confusing tone of the screenplay really keeps this one from being what it should have been, though DeNiro and Murphy are always worth watching.

Good Neighbor Sam
Hollywood's favorite everyman, Jack Lemmon, offers a terrific performance that anchors a sparkling adult comedy from 1964 called Good Neighbor Sam that holds up surprisingly well for a 54 year old movie.

Lemmon stars as Sam Bissell, an advertising executive who lives with his wife, Min (Dorothy Provine) and his two daughters. He has recently acquired an important client named Mr. Nurdlinger (Edward G. Robinson) who agrees with Sam's idea for his account featuring ordinary people in the ads. Min is reunited with her best friend, Janet (Romy Schneider), recently divorced and living in Europe. Janet learns that her grandfather has died and has left a $15 million dollar bequest on the condition that she is happily married. Janet has no desire to return to hubby in order to collect the money, but when caught with Sam by relatives, she introduces Sam as her husband and Sam and Min agree to the charade.

Further complications arise when a couple of Janet's cousins, who are contesting the will, hire a private investigator to watch Janet's house to prove she and Sam are not all they say, not to mention the return of Janet's ex-husband, Howard, who wants to reconcile with her. Oh, and Janet has agreed to give Sam and Min a million dollars if they pull this thing off.

The screenplay by James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum is saucy and sophisticated, rich with clever adult touches and perfectly suited to Lemmon's talent. The story gets a little overly complicated at times and therefore the film is a little longer than it needs to be, but interest never wanes and laughs are provided throughout, with a strong assist from director David Swift, who also directed Lemmon in Under the Yum Yum Tree.

The film features some impressive art direction/set direction and DeVol's musical perfectly captures the spirit of the comedy. Lemmon offers one of his stronger comic turns and works well with both his leading ladies. Schneider, in particular, is a revelation here, offering an intelligent and effervescent performance as Janet that gets and keeps us behind the character and her mission. Provine makes the most of what was probably the meatiest role of her career and Robinson was class personified, as usual. Mike Connors was also very amusing as Janet's ex, Howard. The supporting cast was peppered with familiar faces from the 60's including Edward Andrews, Robert Q. Lewis, Louis Nye, Neil Hamilton, Charles Lane, and Anne Symour. If you don't blink you might also catch glimpses of Bernie Kopell, Aneta Corseau, and little Kym Karath, a year before she played Gretl in The Sound of Music. A slightly racy but always engaging comic yarn that starts to run out of steam, but provides solid entertainment.

Yes she is and as a brunette. Originally The Cobweb would've been James Dean's 4th major starring role.

The Story of Us
Despite a murky screenplay, the 1999 comedy-drama The Story of Us is still imminently watchable thanks to the slick yet sensitive direction of Rob Reiner and the exuberant performances from Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead roles.

Willis and Pfeiffer play Ben and Kate, who have been married for 15 years but the marriage is on life support as the film opens, despite the fact that Ben and Kate are doing whatever they can to keep their children Josh and Erin blissfully unaware of their strained marriage while doing what they can to repair whatever went wrong. The film centers around Ben and Kate dropping Josh and Erin off at summer camp for a month and in that month, try to figure out the best way to break it to the kids what's really going on.

This cinematic deconstruction of a marriage crafted by screenwriters Alan Zweibel (who also makes a cameo in the film) and Jessie Nelson is told out of sequence and we're never quite sure where each scene took place in the story of this marriage. We are initially assisted by mockumentary interviews with the lead characters and some narration which do lead us to a scene closest to the beginning of their marriage, where we are told that Katie has just been hired to work where Ben does, but this is the only scene where we know exactly where in the relationship took place.

I kept looking for a scene that would explain precisely what went wrong in this marriage but this reveal never happens and I think I realized why. The underlying them of this story seems to be that the end of a marriage is not always because of a specific event...sometimes marriages quiet and methodically die for no specific reason, life priorities alter and shift and the participants in a marriage just stop seeing each other the way they did at the beginning. I loved that their number one priority was telling the children properly and the scenes documenting the couple's three attempts at counseling.

Willis and Pfeiffer create a vivid and explosive chemistry onscreen that never feels forced or affected, with standout work from Willis. The director and Rita Wilson also score as their best friends as does Tim Matheson as the family dentist who tries to initiate a relationship with Kate once he learns of her separation. Paul Reiser also appears unbilled as Ben's boss, but it's Reiner, Willis, and Pfeiffer that give this one sizzle.

Shaun of the Dead
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright knock it out of the park with 2004's Shaun of the Dead, a deft and imaginative black comedy that seamlessly blends roll-on-the-floor comedy with stomach churning violence, riveting the viewer with a story that galvanizes the viewer and never allows said viewer to forget he's watching a movie either.

The setting is contemporary London where we meet Shaun (Pegg), a working class geek who seems to be stuck in a dead end job at an appliance store, has a stepfather who he hates and a girlfriend who recently dumped him. While being given silly advice from his slovenly roommate, Shaun begins to wallow in self-pity and is so discouraged about the state of his life that it take him a minute to realize that there is a Zombie Apocalypse going on in his neighborhood.

Director and co-screenwriter Edgar Wright have created a loving valentine to films like Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead which pitted regular humans against creatures risen from the dead, but Wright and Pegg have cleverly constructed their screenplay with their collective tongues firmly planted in their cheeks that create a real conflict for the viewer. On one hand, the humor that pervades the proceedings is telling us not to take what we're seeing too seriously, but the blood-curdling violence that's also present that makes it hard to do that, creating a cinematic roller coaster ride that keeps the viewers on their toes at all times. Needless to say, the best part of this story is watching this put upon schlub named Shaun step up and become the unexpected but more than welcome hero of the story.

The dry humor and silliness is well-balanced by some spectacular special effects. Loved when Simon and roommate Ed are watching the news and the anchorman is warning them of everything they shouldn't do if confronting a zombie and we have just watched them do all of these things. I was also thrilled watching that lady zombie impaled on that steel bar and then magically lift herself off of it. The look on Shaun and Ed's faces after seeing this provided a chuckle the viewer doesn't really have time for. The scene where the group of survivors are practicing how to imitate zombies in order to escape also had me on the floor.

Wright's direction is in your face and endlessly stylish and he gets a solid assist from his film editor Chris Dickens and his special effects team, who both do Oscar-worthy work here. Pegg lights up the screen as Shaun and gets solid support from Nick Frost as the smarmy Ed. A shout out to the quirky music as well. An unexpected shot of black humor that engaged me immediately and entertained beyond expectation.

Seeing as you liked Shaun of the Dead, be sure to check out Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013).