Change Your Image
gerrybob44
Reviews
Picking Up the Pieces (2000)
"Never Again!," Woody! (Open Letter)
I truly hope that I am one of last of the braying chorus to say:
"For Heaven's sake, Woody, don't you EVER-EVER do another film (NOT of your own, unique writing, direction etc.)like this absolutely horrendous flick!"...
...totally UNfunny, banal, trite and derivative...not to mention incredibly offensive (the Church, Latinos, "good" v. "bad" people, and on and on... even Texas!).
Hey, I'm NOT begrudging you your (hopefully very high) fee, Woody...after all; this was 2000...but surely I'm correct in believing that for now...and all time to come...you will continue to remain one of America's only true auteur's, n'est-ce pas?!?
So; I can only say to you now, Woody, (io sono Italiano): "FUHGEDDABOUDIT!!"...
...and ONLY continue to "do do that voodoo that you do so well."
Gerry Dubin
The Cardinal (1963)
...hey; she cried....
...having just read all the "Comments" RE: The Cardinal, I am somewhat bemused...all the somewhat inane comments about the film being "unrealistic," in terms of how much of history one man can be part of, pale in light of the (seemingly true) assertions that the story was loosely based on the most "full" life of Cardinal Spellman... ...and, regardless, kindly tell me where an episodic spectacle, such as this, does not require the "willing suspension of dis-belief?!" ("Print the Legend") ...all I do know is that, upon taking a college girlfriend to see the film...with us both being Catholic...the film left me awe-stricken, and Jeri was in inspired tears....
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
"The Best Years of (Their) Lives..."
As a "cusp-pre-baby-boomer"...born in 1944, IN Los Angeles; thereby having the dubious distinction of having been alive while Hitler was still actively involved in his "Last Great Offensive; but also with our President Roosevelt still actively fighting the offensive...this was one of the most important "first films" of my young life. Having the opportunity to see it in "re-release," several years after the 1946 opening (a common studio custom in those years), answered (even to my very young mind)oh-so many questions I had...being surrounded by our returning Vet heroes. Ensconced in all the many of William Wyler's equanimity of subtle "multi-plots"...intentionally NOT "surrounding," "mini" or "sub" plots...in all their "colors and shades of intensity"...did more, than anything else I can recall, to provide to me some semblance of "reason" and "rational explanation" of what had been going on all around me...in REAL life. (My personal experience perchance being a "new" and "different" angle when looking at this classic film.)
Arthur (1981)
A simply superb piece of comedic screen writing.
This is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the finest written...then acted...comedies ever done. The script/resulting film, written by the late Steve Gordon, is so well conceived/executed that it takes several screening to "catch" the myriad of superb comedy. So much so, that many of the film's "one-liners" (e.g., "I'll alert the media," "I mean a SMALL country...Rhode Island could kick the (stuff) out of them," "Isn't fun the best thing to have?!," Where is the rest of this moose," "bet ya never run out of ice your whole life," "Hooker?!?; and I thought I was doing so well..." et cetera) have become part of today's jargon. One of the few flicks that made us laugh out loud...and continues to do so now. What a sad sad shame that writer/director Gordon passed away at such a young age. ("Self fulfilling prophesy" of the driven author; given an overwhelming family history of early death from cardiology problems.) As was the same sad fate of George Gershwin...we'll never know how many more screenplays Mr. Gordon could have provided us to view...and laugh out loud...