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Reviews
9-1-1: Capsized (2024)
Pure Camp
What began with promise in the first of the three season opening episodes quickly dissolved into pure ridiculousness and with that slo-mo Athena run into the arms of Bobby at the end of episode three hilarious camp. One might argue that with the move to ABC the show has changed completely. Imagine the Los Angeles fire department commandeering a helicopter to the tip of Baja California. Not exactly possible. Then it manages to locate the overturned luxury cruise ship. After doing so it manages to land on the hull moments before the featured passengers appear. Prior to all of this, the thousand or so other passengers, who are not featured in the screenplay, managed to get into open air lifeboats that haven't been used on modern cruise ships since the days of the Titanic. But why go on? Two stars is being generous for this hour of camp.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Torture
I am not a fan of this type of film. However, I did enjoy the previous installments, especially the one with Cate Blanchett as the connivingly evil sister (or was she)? Chris Hemsworth is always worth looking at. In addition, with the computer enhancement of his biceps and triceps one can not get enough of the eye candy
Unfortunately, the screenplay was so banal, so ridiculous trying to stay interested was a sacrifice I was unwilling to make. So even though I was able to view this turkey on the big screen in a real theater, I extricated myself from my free admission seat without any hesitation and was happy to return to the real world.
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
Pure Entertainment
Seventy years ago when television was in its infancy and the screen size was under 21 inches and the picture was in black and white and the reception wasn't the best if your television wasn't connected to a rooftop antenna, where did you go if you wanted a CinemaScope experience in lush, rich colors along with singing, dancing, fabulous production numbers and a cast of brilliant performers including the one and only Marilyn Monroe?
You went to the nearest movie theater near your home to see the 20th Century Fox hit, There's No Business Like Show Business.
Unfortunately, far too many younger film reviewers have no clue as to what life was like then and what young and old in those years found entertaining.
This is a wonderful film the likes of which Hollywood does not make any more. And in 2023 we are all losers as a result.
House of Gucci (2021)
Yes, She Is Italian!
Who better than an Italian, Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, to play Patrizia Reggiani, the enticing, social climbing, determined daughter of a small transportation company family in quest of a wealthy husband.
Although there have been numerous critics here of her acting and of her accent--which is absolutely perfect, coming from this Italian reviewer--Miss Gaga's casting was genius on the part of Ridley Scott and his creative team. An Oscar nomination is likely.
Much of the film was shot in Italy in the middle of the Covid lockdowns. Having just returned from Milan, I was thrilled to see a small portion of the magnificent Cathedral utilized for Patrizia and Maurizio's wedding, along with the equally beautiful adjacent shopping and dining arcade in the Piazza del Duomo.
While the film's length is a major problem--judicious editing was definitely in order--much what is on screen is stunning to the eye...the Italian exteriors, the Manhattan exteriors, and the beautiful people that inhabit the world of design and fashion.
Jeremy Irons plays the aristocratic Rodolfo Gucci flawlessly, Al Pacino does his usual Al Pacino as Rodolfo's brother Aldo, the controlling half of the Gucci family business. Adam Driver, who doesn't look very Italian, grows into the part of the heir apparent after Rudolfo's death.
The big surprise is the totally unrecognizable Jared Leto as Paolo, the son of Pacino's Aldo. Viewed as a loser, he is at times both funny and sad, and ultimately a broken shell of a man. Also somewhat in disguise was Salma Hayek as a television fortune teller who Patrizia grows increasingly dependent upon for marriage advice.
I did not find this film to be a comedy in any sense of the word. True there were funny lines and comical scenes, but in reality, House of Gucci was a tragedy. The end of a family dynasty, the corporate takeover and the resulting mass marketing of the major fashion and jewelry names.
In the Heights (2021)
Totally Forgettable
Having endured this boring, tedious excuse for a musical on stage is it any wonder, regardless of the casting furor, why anyone hoping for a couple of hours of intelligent entertainment would waste their time with this chaotic mess.
Hollywood (2020)
Fantasyland
If you don't love this Hollywood fantasy you don't love glamorous period costumes, sparkling dialogue and gorgeous male bodies. Imagine post WW Two Hollywood where a woman green lighted a sure to be controversial picture, a colored man was credited for writing the screenplay, a colored woman was cast in the lead role (it's 1948, hence the use of the word colored in the film), the director is Asian and they all win Academy Awards to boot!
It's all a happy, wishful hoot with everyone from a very gay Rock Hudson, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Hedda Hopper and many more Hollywood icons making appearances.
Seven episodes were not enough. Let's hope for seven or seventy more.
Take me to Dreamland anytime.
Gisaengchung (2019)
Best Picture of the Year. Really??
Since many critics and the Academy are swooning over this Korean film, I was compelled to go to the theater, pay my admission and be ready to read English titles for over two hours. I kept an open mind and found the first third of the two plus hours to be interesting. Mind you, none of the characters were especially likeable--the lower class basement dwellers or the upper class snowflakes living in the architectural digest modern mansion.The lower class family were the true parasites, smelly low class leeches looking for and finding every possible way to become what they weren't--classy.
After the son, the daughter, the father and then the mother managed to become tutor, analyst, driver and cook, the plot thickened and to me went off the rails. A hidden bomb shelter, a husband living in that tomb for four years, a biblical rain storm miraculously not causing anyone of the submerged characters (with hundreds of electrical wires floating overhead) to be instantly electrocuted, cell phones to continue to work after being equally submerged. Not at all believable. And then........
The skies cleared and a gala lawn party was planned at the modern mansion. Here's where I could see Jordon Peele becoming royally pissed. Wasn't all the crazy knife wielding and weird stuff done in Get Out? Yes, it was! So the Academy voters had to make amends for not giving Peele the Best Picture Oscar. Instead they gave it to this two plus hour Korean gab fest.
I left the theater feeling absolutely empty. Not moved, not caring, but wondering just why did the performers all have three names?
Avoid if you haven't already given your valuable time.
Two for the Seesaw (1962)
A Village Romance
Just had the opportunity to watch Two For The Seesaw in wide screen once again. on TCM. It was my second viewing, the first being in 1962 when it opened in NYC as one of the first Premiere Showcase releases. I would guess most if not all IMBD readers and reviewers would even know what that means. So since I am of a certain age, let me explain.
Prior to Premiere Showcase, first run films opened usually at a Broadway theater for its initial run. It then spread to local theater chains, either those in Loew's or RKO control for a wider release. With the Showcase innovation, studios began the wide release pattern on open which has grown even wider today.
I was all of 15 in 1962, and it is difficult now to understand how at such an early age I was able to sit and watch a film, which as many reviewers have stated, is basically a stage play put on film. But times were different then. Teens like myself were accustomed to seeing "adult" films and thinking nothing of it. I'll admit, some of the themes went right over my head, but when you were a big fan of Shirley MacLaine, having already seen her in The Apartment, Some Came Running, Ask Any Girl, and maybe The Children's Hour, one didn't think twice.
As for Two For The Seesaw, I commend it for its intelligent writing, art direction, cinematography, music score, directing and most of all the acting of both Mitchum and MacLaine. Always interesting. and even more so today looking back at what was then a time and place I was a part of. Unfortunately, the studios are unwilling to make character driven films today. Instead we get one overblown, overdone CGI cartoon after another.
Mad City (1997)
Wow! Released in 1997 but still relevant in 2014.
Mad City was released in 1997, and even with two major stars above the title, did not fare well at the U.S. box office. Here it is the last month of 2014 and wow, does Mad City seem all the more relevant today. The film exposes the manipulation and deceit that takes place by the so-called news organizations, and what seemed shockingly outrageous and exaggerated in 1997 is no match for the biased, opinionated news reporting that is fed today to the unsuspecting public. John Travolta gives one of his best performances as a recently fired museum security guard. Dustin Hoffman is equally compelling as a rogue former network correspondent. Alan Alda is the ruthless network anchor who will do anything to take ownership of a breaking story. It's all about ego for those in front of the camera, and eyeballs and ratings for the suits at the major networks. Definitely worth watching even if it's just for the performances of Travolta and Hoffman.
Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
True Love and Loyalty
Sometimes the less said the better.
Hachi: A Dog's Tale is simply a beautiful film for everyone and anyone who has a heart and believes in true love. Watching my own Aussie grow old over the last ten years, I couldn't help but well-up with emotion watching the final scenes of Hachi.
What's most special about this film is that the story is based on the real life Hachiko who lived in Japan in the 1920s. Here the story is fictionalized by having Richard Gere play a college music professor living in the town of Bedridge, circa 1995. Arriving home at the train station one evening he meets a stray Akita puppy and, unable to get anyone to care for him, takes him home. His wife, effectively played by Joan Allen, is initially reluctant to take in a pet, but after seeing how much joy he brings to her husband, gives in, and the love story between man and dog begins to unfold.
Make every effort to see this wonderful, heartfelt film on cable or by renting a DVD, if available.
Life as We Know It (2010)
Maybe You Have To Enjoy Cleaning Baby Poop
If you're craving something sickeningly sweet, something cloying and annoying, maybe this is the film for you. Here we have another ridiculously unbelievable rom-com written by a pair of writers who have obviously spent too much time in la-la land where they spend days, months, maybe years thinking up this drivel.
Let's start off with the upper-upper middle class couple (Hayes MacArthur and Cristina Hendricks) with the adorable, but not so cute, daughter who just happen to live in a big house (which we find out later apparently has no mortgage) with a designer kitchen just on the outskirts of downtown Atlanta. Said couple perish in an accident twenty minutes in...plot point one...and their will leaves the paid-for house to at-odds godparents Holly (Heigl) and Eric (Duhamel). They fight, they make up, they clean poop that apparently smells very, very ugly, they fight, they make-up, they do all the things Hollywood writers think are cute but are actually so clichéd you want to scream at the screen. Add some icky music and songs throughout, suspend all believability, and it's life as Hollywood knows it.
Katherine Heigl proves in this film that she should have stayed on TV, because she is not a movie star. Maybe it's the material, but didn't we see her do this shtick before? Josh Duhamel is believable in spite of the material he's given to work with. Maybe it's baby guilt that keeps him around, because Heigl plays such a convincing shrew he'd have to be a masochist to do otherwise. Loved the Thanksgiving meal Heigl created prior to her final spat with Duhamel. It ends with her walking out of the kitchen perfectly coiffed and dressed in heels, no less, with this designer, golden brown turkey on a platter. Utterly unrealistic, and as phony as just about everything in this turkey of a film.
Later, after still another moment of introspection, Miss Heigl finally sees the light, and our leads get together once again.
Only in Hollywood. Why would anyone living a real life even care about these imaginary characters and their superficial lives?
Eden Lake (2008)
Sick and Disgusting
Eden Lake. How ironic. This film makes the classic John Boorman Deliverance look like a Disney G-rated fantasy. What kind of mind would write such a disgusting, sadistic tale? Who would finance this sick trash?
Set somewhere in the English countryside where the bucolic scenery hides the most hideous kind of rotten youth (apparently, the bad apples don't fall far from the tree), a young couple plan an idyllic vacation hiking and camping under the stars. "Stop, turn around" warns the GPS. No such luck for this naive duo, or unfortunately, for the rest of us. Nothing but revolting events follow. If you enjoy watching a Neanderthal ringleader and what appears to be his sour-mouthed sister bully a group of other early teens and pre-teens into hunting, torturing, and then setting ablaze two adults, followed by doing the same to an innocent youngster, then go ahead and enjoy yourself.
I assume it's the assorted parents and friends of the evil-doers seen cavorting under a giant LET'S PARTY back-yard blow up for the finale. Totally ridiculous, but hey, don't mess with trailer trash whose English is so cockneyfied after a while you don't even want to know what they're saying. Did anyone ever consider subtitles? That might have been a nice touch. Didn't notice any blacks in the tribal adults even though one of the more viciously evil of the gang was black. Guess the writer/director was aiming for diversity in selecting his band of toughs.
Near the end, prior to the final murder, this time at the hands of the equally moronic parents of the above-mentioned bully, one holds a fleeting hope that good might ultimately triumph after all this gore has gone down. Guess not. This film is sick and depraved to the final fade out.
Can only hope this tripe went straight to video and was a financial disaster. Sorry to say, I was suckered in on a premium channel. I stayed with it, thinking there would be some satisfaction in the final act. Instead, I got sucker-punched once again.
Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
Worth Watching
I first saw this film when I was eight years old during its initial theatrical release at Loew's Kings in Brooklyn. After all these years, let me admit, it was the title I most remember, and of course, those scenes in the fog.
When I spotted it playing on TCM in the middle of the afternoon, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to relive my childhood experience and see it again. First off, I was surprised to see it in color, as I distinctly remembered it in black and white. So much for my vivid memory.
Footsteps was well made, and it was a joy to see the beautiful Jean Simmons at the start of her career, along with the very young and handsome Stewart Granger. I thought it was Stephen Boyd in the role of David, and had to login to IMDb to see if I were right. Turned out to be Bill Travers, who I don't remember seeing much of in later films.
The ninety minutes go by quickly and entertainingly. The courtroom scene was interesting. Done to even greater effect in Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution, which I actually saw a few years later at the same theater. The only thing missing was the powdered wigs on the barristers.
All and all, worth the watch if you are lucky enough to get the opportunity.
Death in Love (2008)
Weird and Wacko
For whatever reason I stuck with this dismal excuse of a film by Boaz Yakim until the bitter orgasmic end.
Set sometime in the early nineties from what appeared to be news of the basement bombing at the World Trade Center, we meet the protagonist who for the better part of twenty minutes is either nude, with a nude, masturbating or engaging in rough sex. Considering the fact this film was rated R, you could easily describe the goings on as mildly pornographic.
Basically, the story is about a mother, Jacqueline Bisset, a Holocaust survivor thanks to her connection as a girl to a Nazi doctor into human experiments, which are shown in gory detail, her husband and two sons, Josh Lucas and Lukas Haas. The mother is still lusting for the Nazi doctor, her husband is a wimp, her forty year old son is into raunchy sex, and her youngest at thirty-five hasn't had a date since he was in high school.
The story jumps back and forth from war past to fifties past to the present. The performances are over the top, with lots of reaction close-ups from each of the major characters, many times either crying or screaming.
Mother has a number of liaisons who all turn up dead after her meetings with them courtesy of her doctor friend. Near the end of the film, she leaves her husband alone in their apartment prior to her climatic meeting with her Nazi crush. She deliberately leaves the apartment door ajar and we see the evil doc enter the building. Later her youngest shows up with his smashed hand and no one is at home. We never find out what happened to her husband, but suffice it to say, she probably will be attending another funeral prior to living happily ever after with you know who.
Death in Love is one very strangely weird film.