It’s hard to find good GLBT movies without some guidance as to what’s worth it and what’s dreck. As such, I often go with average ratings at sites like Netflix and IMDB. “2 Girls in Love” is a movie that has overall average ratings (which is still better than some of the 2 star ones other films have) so that’s why I picked it to try.

Randy Dean (Laurel Holloman) is a tomboy who works part time at her aunt’s gas station and day dreams through school – which she hates. One day bookish, popular Evie Roy (Nicole Ari Parker) stops there and the two girls meet. Soon they’re beginning to explore their growing feelings for each other but lots of issues – their sexuality, their difference in social standing at school and their families – still stand in their way. Will they persevere in spite of all that?

This is an early film for both lead actresses and it shows. It’s also an early, indie, low budget film for the director and it shows. Sometimes this works to the advantage of the film. The story is about two teenagers finding and exploring love and I’m sure we can all remember how awkward that was. The shyness and nervousness both girls show might be acting but I think it’s a combo of that plus themselves. However that’s what they’re supposed to show and they do in a believable manner. During other scenes though, they tend to either over or under act leading to frenetic moments and stiff, dragging ones.

Writer/Director Maria Maggenti has said that she based the character of Evie on herself and the relationships of the film on those of her first one. As such most of the movie works well in the progression of the love story. But towards the end, the relationship and the fall out from it are already covered so… then what? We’re given a frantic dash to the finish that’s something out of a “madcap” 60s film where the entire cast has to go spontaneously crazy and all race around before winding up together in an ending that just sort of peters out.

What I do like about Maggenti’s directing are some short cuts and make do’s that she used in order to save money. There aren’t a lot of secondary characters so the film focuses more on the relationship between the girls. She also does some interesting stationary shots such as when calm Evie has dinner at Randy’s house and the usual chaotic environment is shown by a focus on wide eyed Evie with the other characters – all talking at the same time – quickly passing back and forth before her and in and out of the shot. If you watch with the director’s commentary, Maggenti is open about all the things that worked and all the goofs and wished for do-overs of a first time film maker.

As for the secondary characters – some work better for me than others. There are three interchangeable friends Evie has whose main function is to work as the social cost and consequence she has to pay for her relationship with Randy. Randy’s lesbian aunt, the aunt’s lover and former lover – both of whom have very similar hair which the director said is something she’s noticed about her own relationships – charge through scenes but aren’t really given that much to do individually. Evie’s uptight mother has a marvelous hysteria scene after she discovers what Evie’s been up to and with whom.

And then there’s Randy’s GBF played by then drag queen Nelson Rodriquez who died shortly after from AIDS. I liked that he was flamboyant but not limited to talking about clothes and interior design. Instead he chides Randy about her math studies and has a funny turn in the above mentioned final chaos of the movie. My favorite, though, is gas station worker Regina who is played by Dale Dickey – Patty the day time hooker on “My Name is Earl.” God I love this actress.

Since it’s basically a YA story, I like that it ends more HFN than HEA. It’s got some sweet moments and a few funny ones. It works as not only as a GLBT film – about both coming out and being out – but also touches on YA themes – about young love and the pressures of social classes. For me the film is good but not great. I’d love to see what it would have been like with a little more money and some more experience under the director’s belt. C+

~Jayne

No related posts.

We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Men in Black.

I thought I’d throw another bromance onto the review heap. Not that Agent J and Dr. Laurel Weaver’s flirting isn’t enjoyable but the real strength of this film is how well Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith play off each other as their characters attempt to save the Earth.

Agent Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) has been helping to save the planet and monitor the aliens who live here for close to 35 years. When his partner reluctantly decides it’s time to retire, Kay and his boss Zed (Rip Torn) begin to test and audition replacements. James Edwards (Will Smith), an NYPD officer, caught Kay’s eye when he unknowingly ran down a cephalapoid while trying to make an arrest. Impressed with Edwards’ stamina and smarts, Kay lures him to the (hilarious) testing where Edwards proves he has what it takes as he thinks outside the box and make correct split second decisions. When he accepts, Edwards becomes J, the newest agent of the MIB.

And just in time as something has the alien population running scared and fleeing the planet. Turning to a major source of their intel, the tabloids, Kay and J interview a woman (Siobhan Fallon) who claims an alien stoled her husband Edgar’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) skin. Kay quickly realizes that a Bug has landed and is running loose in NYC. Heading to the morgue, they discover the M.E. Dr. Laurel Weaver (Linda Fiorentino) has two alien bodies there but the mystery of what the Bug in the Edgar suit wants only deepens. It takes a trip to interrogate Frank the pug to reveal what Kay and J have to find before the Bug does because if they can’t stop him, the Arquillians are going to kill us all.

I love MIB. MIB II not so much and I’m bracing myself for the third installment due out this Spring in the hope that it will rise to the level of this one. But the original movie is hard to top. From the opening credits of a dragonfly flitting through the Universe before ending up as splat on a windshield it’s a pretty much a wild, nonstop ride. There is a bit of boring exposition as Kay fills J in on the history of the MIB and knowledge of aliens on this planet but most of the rest of the running time isn’t wasted. Considering how much the plot was changed as it went along, the final result ends up fairly cohesive. It’s also a beautiful film to look at – the outside NYC scenes show off the beauty of the city while the inside sets are all 1960s space age curves.

The relationship of Kay and J carries the film. Smith and Jones have fabulous chemistry. They totally play off each other with Jones’ straight faced delivery complimenting Smith’s wisecracking facade. But J and Kay aren’t just Super Men with major firepower shown saving the world in a rain of special effects. They’re human. They get busted up, J cares about the effect of Kay’s memory messer-upper on the people who get flashed and he wants the cover stories which replace those peoples’ memories to be nice and – in the case of Edgar’s wife – empowering. Kay regrets the loss of his most recent partner and still loves the woman he had to leave behind all those years ago when he became an agent. You can see the weight of all his memories on his face. Yet, despite the need for them to toil in obscurity, there are the occasional nice moments such as when J helps deliver a bouncing, newborn baby….squid.

Rip Torn as Zed conveys gravitas in the face of the imminent destruction of the planet yet can still slide in a few zingers about the years of government training of the other candidates and how the MIB aren’t hosting an intergalactic kegger. Linda Fiorentino is lovely to look at and her character catches onto the situation quickly. I was delighted when she manages to not only save herself but also provides the final blast needed to rid the world of the Bug. One of my favorite tertiary characters is Beatrice the beaten down wife of Edgar. Fallon manages to make me laugh out loud without saying a word just from the expressions on her face.

But it’s Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance as the Bug which rulz. I can’t imagine how much work he had to put into pulling off the look and mannerisms of having a giant cockroach stuffed into his skin. The loping gait, the awkward way he poses his arms as he sits in the Zap-Em truck, the smash and grab techniques at the jewelry store and sidewalk post-card seller’s stand – even the way he talks…he makes me believe he’s something otherworldly. It’s also hilarious to watch how frustrated and pissed the Bug gets the longer he’s stuck in New York. Even Edgar’s cows don’t give him any respect.

The special effects still hold up fairly well with lots of exploding blue goo and Bug slime everywhere. I still think “the little guy in the big guy’s head” looks a little cheesy but the final sequences with the Bug are good. The “ingrate” worms who loaf around all day at the MIB headquarters are funny and the pug in a “I ♥ NY” T-shirt is cute. One of my favorite funny scenes is the way J discovers exactly what happens when he pushes the red button in the Ford P.O.S. as he and Kay are headed to Queens through the tunnel to the music of Elvis Presley.

The movie is supposed to be fun and breezy light entertainment and succeeds as such. Director Sonnenfeld keeps the story focused and the pace fast as it zips to a conclusion. The commentary tract is also interesting to listen to as he and Jones discuss what went into making the movie and seemingly have a good time remembering the whole process. Are we just an intergalactic Aggie in an alien game of marbles? Who knows? But no one better give me a flashie thing as I’d probably forget to put on my Ray Bans and would end up zapping myself to mental oblivion.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. GUEST FRIDAY FILM REVIEW: Starman
2. Friday Film Review: Galaxy Quest
3. Friday Film Review: Everyone Says I Love You

Genre: Historical black comedy

Grade: B

I’ve been meaning to watch and review this one for ages but got the boost I needed when I saw it’s being shown today on TCM. Used to be it was impossible to find this one on DVD but recently both a region 1 and region 2 version have been released. The full movie can also be watched at IMDB and on youtube. With the recent use of Victorian England as a popular historical romance era, “The Wrong Box” can slide in right between your reading schedule.

Seventy-some years earlier, the parents and guardians of twenty young, upperclass English boys entered them in a tontine. The idea is that for each boy, the sum of 1,000 pounds is entered into a “pot” – to be appropriately managed financially – and that the last surviving member gets the whole ball of wax. With the death of the third to the last man, two elderly brothers, Masterman (John Mills) and Joseph (Ralph Richardson) Finsbury, are now the only living ones left. They’ve been estranged for years but both are eagerly taken care of by their respective heirs with the hope that their man will outlive the other and thus get the (current value) 111,000 pounds.

Masterman appears to be fading at last and a telegraph is sent to Joseph summoning him to London. Accompanied by his two greedy nephews Morris (Peter Cook) and John (Dudley Moore), Joseph takes the train but a horrible crash, a badly mangled body and Joseph’s propensity to wander around and get caught up spewing facts to complete strangers leaves the nephews certain that he’s dead. Now what do they do? If they can conceal Joseph’s death until after Masterman kicks off and then stage their uncle’s “death,” they can claim all that lovely money. But Masterman isn’t ready to hand in his notice quite yet plus Joseph has managed to make it to London leading to fast and furious hijinks as everyone tries to conceal everything just long enough to win the prize.

The – slightly bizarre – opening credits give a hint of the pace to follow. This isn’t a frantic screwball comedy but rather a slower, more stately black comedy that takes a little while to begin building up the pace to the humor. The plot has to be explained, the main characters introduced and the stage set before the macabre fun can kick in. There are misunderstandings, misidentified people, misidentified bodies, a hearse chase through London (these final chase scenes seem to have been so popular with 1960s directors), a final confrontation/explanation at a cemetery and of course the switched – wrong – boxes. And a piano.

Before the main action begins, there’s an amusing sequence which shows the deaths of some of the boys/men – now stop being shocked, this is a black comedy – and believe me, some of them could easily have competed in Monty Python’s “Upperclass Twit of the Year Award.” Even Queen Victoria acts a touch twitish while attempting to knight one of them. At various times throughout the film, amusing cue cards, like those from silent movies, will appear on screen. And be sure to read the order of the cast at the end.

The film is packed with some of the best talent in Britain. Richardson plays a man obsessed with trivia who successively bores anyone unfortunate to encounter him while Mills is his cranky, cantankerous brother who attempts to kill Joseph at least 7 different ways during the short scene of them together. I didn’t mention in the plot but Michael Caine is Masterman’s grandson Michael, who has been selling off all their possessions for years in order to keep a roof over their heads, while Nanette Newman plays Julia, the supposed niece of Joseph. Those two sweet, charming ninnies fall quickly in love-at-almost-first-sight complete with a hilarious scene of them set off into spasms of swooning slo-mo emotion by the mere sight of her ankle and his bare elbow. They were Victorians, remember? Their joy is complete when they discover that their children won’t be idiots, due to the fact that they’re not really related, and that they share being orphans, his parents were killed in a balloon ascension while her missionary parents were eaten by their Bible class.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are fabulous together as the two nephews who’ve slaved away at keeping Uncle Joseph well all these years and who, By God!, aren’t going to lose that money now. Cook’s caddish Morris is the true brains of the two while Moore’s randy John never met a chambermaid, or housekeeper, he didn’t like.

But the two actors I found I absolutely adored here are Wilfred Lawson as Peacock, the venerable and doddering butler of the Masterman Finsbury household and Peter Sellers as Dr. Pratt. For the entire film, you’re convinced that Peacock is only a few vertical degrees from falling over or just about to kick the bucket himself yet he doggedly persists in answering the door, announcing visitors, fetching the tea, packing crates of valuables to hock at Sotheby’s and whatever else the Finsburys need of him. It’s literally old family loyalty in action to the end. Both of Sellers’ scenes are played with Cook and you can almost see Cook fighting not to laugh at how funny Dr. Pratt’s lines are. Pay close attention as Sellers mumbles a touch to give Pratt the absent mindedness needed and watch for how he uses a thermometer and a kitten. Be assured though that none of the tens of moggies crowding his decrepit quarters are harmed in the making of this film.

I was amazed that in spite of all the switches, near misses, misunderstandings and skullduggery, the plot is easy to follow and I never once got lost trying to remember who’s stuffed into what. The Victorian settings and decor are suitably overcrowded and dark and there’s a nod to one of the manias of the era in the form of Morris’ egg collection. And of course the whole movie is a love letter to the Victorian fascination with death. The dialogue is subtle and the zingers are understated so listen carefully to catch them all. This is a quiet little gem that sneaks up on you and I’m glad I finally pulled it out from my “recorded off TCM” stack, dusted it off and gave it a spin.

~Jayne

No related posts.

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Grade: B

“Changing fortunes await wealthy but dejected industrialist Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) when he meets a spirited chatterbox named Geet (Kareena Kapoor) on a train in this breezy romantic comedy from Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali. Nursing a broken heart, Aditya ends up traveling with the impulsive Geet, who’s on her way to elope with her secret beau. But fate has other plans, and soon Geet and Aditya are thrust together again … perhaps for keeps.”

Since I started watching Bollywood/Kollywood films, I’ve discovered that I don’t like nearly all of them. Sometimes it’s the actors (I can’t stand Rani Muhkerjee) or the plots that veer from frantic fun to drama in the second half (Om Shanti Om) and I’ve sadly returned quite a few to Netflix after hoping they’d work for me as reviews. This time, I determined I’d just watch this one and not get my hopes up at all. And happily, that seemed to be just the ticket as I ended up enjoying it a lot.

Kareena Kapoor is perfect as breezy Geet who can talk a mile a minute and usually has a cheery smile on her face. Her motto in life is live it to the fullest and only regret what you haven’t tried. She works on the Law of Attraction and thinks that what you want to happen to you will happen to you if you want it badly enough. She’s also spontaneous and fun and gets Aditya to join in even when he initially might balk such as when she decides this is the perfect time to jump off a dock into a shallow river. After all, you never know if such a chance will come again. Geet is a character you the viewer just have to relax and go with.

Shahid Kapoor makes Aditya a likable and sympathetic guy. I never once sat back and thought “Oh, cry me a river, poor little rich boy.” He does get irritated at Geet at times but quickly realizes she’s opened up a whole new side of his personality and made him a better person. During the first half of the film, it’s like watching a parched plant soak up water and come to life again. It’s also obvious that he’s starting to care for her and only leaves her (at about the halfway mark) because he wants her to be happy with the man she’s said she wants to marry.

The film depends on some misunderstandings to keep the plot going as Geet hasn’t told her family about the first man she wants to marry for fear they won’t approve and the family must believe there is a relationship between the Geet and Aditya during the final third of the film in order to keep throwing those two together until they finally acknowledge the fact that they’re perfect for each other. However, since similar things are so common in romance novels, this didn’t bother me too much.

The film is fairly fast paced and intensely colorful in that wonderful way of Indian films. There aren’t that many musical numbers but I found myself liking the ones that are there. They’re fun to watch, the lyrics are good and the beats had me bouncing along and trying a few dance steps much to the amusement of my kitties. Some Bollywood film dances are starting to look more like pole tryouts at the local strip club but with the (slight) exception of the final number, that’s avoided here.

“Jab We Met” has the flavor of Hollywood screwball comedies – watch for the wild taxi ride Aditya takes Geet on in order to try and get her back to her train – rounded out with a touch of “she makes him a better man” depth. The 155 minute length seems to zip by and for much of it, I had an almost permanent smile on my face. Looks like I still need some help refining what I like in Bollywood/Kollywood films but this one is a winner for me.

~Jayne

No related posts.

This is a movie I wanted to love, yearned to love, and hoped to love. Unfortunately, I didn’t. First, some background. Back around 2003, a friend of mine who lived in Berkshire at the time, told me about a wonderful bookstore she found in London called Persephone Books. After checking out their website, I asked my friend to get a few books for me, one of which was “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.” I first read it in 2004 and adored it. When I heard a movie was to be done of it, I was excited. However, when I first saw it, something just wasn’t right and reluctantly I graded it a C. Recently I thought about it again and decided to give it another try hoping that going into it with slightly lowered expectations might allow me to enjoy it for what it is. Second time around and I still feel the same but now I think I understand better what went wrong for me.

Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a near middle aged spinster who has just been – unfairly she thinks – fired from yet another governess position. When she goes to the employment agency to try for another post, she’s told in no uncertain terms that she’s not fit for anything they have and to please go away. She overhears about a position at the LaFosse household and, in desperation, steals the card and presents herself there as having just been sent from the agency. What she finds is that she is not dealing with children but rather a ditzy wannabe starlet whose life is a mess. Delysia LaFosse (Amy Adams) is juggling three men (Mark Strong, Lee Pace, Tom Payne) in her life while she tries to land the lead in a West End musical which she thinks will launch her Hollywood career. Miss Pettigrew quickly steps in and begins to arrange Delysia and the people in her life who include Edythe (Shirley Henderson) and her fiance Joe (Ciaran Hinds). But when she thinks Delysia is throwing away true love for a chance at fame, Miss Pettigrew offers some sage advice which just might end up giving her a shot at a HEA she never saw coming.

Watching “Miss Pettigrew” for a second time it finally dawned on me that neither of the lead actresses work for me until more than halfway into the movie. Usually accents aren’t a deal breaker for me but Frances McDormand’s English accent always sounded off. I couldn’t stop thinking “This is McDormand using a fake accent.” I loved how she sounded in “Fargo” but here it seemed like she needed a few more lessons with her accent coach. She’s also supposed to be swept into a fairy tale going from almost living on the streets to the heady lifestyle of the Bright Young Things in late 1930s London – all in one day. But McDormand makes Pettigrew too clunky, too much a stick in the mud and I can always tell she’s acting. I never get carried away in the fantasy because for the most part, she doesn’t.

As for Adams, I love her in “Enchanted,” liked her a lot in “Leap Year” and “Sunshine Cleaning” but here she’s too frantic. Trying too hard to be screwball and not quite pulling it off. Her performance in the first half of the film felt forced instead of effortless. I could see her acting too. The role needed a Carole Lombard or a Marilyn Monroe. I’m not sure if another director could have gotten the delicate balance out of Adams that the part needs but I didn’t feel the madcap.

For both of them, their performances didn’t click for me until the second half when the film shifts to a more serious note. It’s when Miss Pettigrew tells of her lost love who died in the trenches of WWI in France and Delysia confesses how scared she is of making the wrong choices and loosing what little she really has that I felt anything for their characters. But then this also pretty much puts the kibosh on the fairy tale feel the film should be maintaining until the end.

There are elements of the film and actors who do work for me. The costumes are fabulous, especially Delysia’s French silk knickers. The sets are lovely Art Deco and the London locations are fab. The music is well chosen and used. I also love the cars. Shirley Henderson is great as the brittle and vindictive Edythe. Mark Strong, who I would love to see in more sympathetic roles, does his usual slightly sleazy gangster. I can see his character becoming a black marketeer in the war to come. Ciaran Hinds is lovely as the designer of ladies lingerie who recognizes in Miss Pettigrew a kindred soul. It was their scenes together that sparkled for me.

This film needs to float by like a soap bubble. It needs to sparkle and draw viewers into a magical world where a down on her luck spinster really can come alive and truly “live for a day.” Instead, it felt creaky and lumbering to me. My feelings after seeing it a second time matched those I had after the first viewing – oh, what it could have been. Regardless of how you feel about the movie, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read the book. It really is delightful.

~Jayne

I’m going to include buy links for the book.

AmazonBNSonyKobo HQN ARE

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Emma (BBC)
2. REVIEW: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
3. Friday Film Review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Grade: B+

Witty, sophisticated, and elegant – this falls under the category of “they don’t make them like this anymore.” The pairing of Hepburn and Grant isn’t my favorite – he does look a little long in the tooth for her – but … damn, he’s Cary Grant and he always looks good.

Regina Lampbert (Audrey Hepburn) comes home to Paris from a holiday in the French Alps with the intention of divorcing her husband, Charles Lampert. Only when she arrives at their apartment, she discovers that it’s completely empty and her husband is gone. I mean really gone as she is told by police Detective Grandpierre (one of my favorite French actors, Jacques Marin) who informs her that her husband has been murdered while trying to leave the country for South America. Before Charles left, he auctioned the contents of their apartment but nothing worth the $250,000 (modern estimate $10,000,000) he got is found on his body or among the few possessions he had with him. When Grandpierre questions Reggie about Charles, it becomes obvious how little she knew about him, his life before she met him or who might want to kill him.

Later that evening Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), a man Reggie met and briefly flirted with at the resort, comes to the deserted apartment to offer his condolences. At Charles’s funeral, three strangers Tex, Scobie and Gideon (James Coburn, George Kennedy, Ned Glass) appear and all take the time to confirm that Charles really is dead. Another stranger hands Reggie a letter from a Mr. Bartholemew (Walter Matthau) of the American Embassy who, when she meets with him, tells her that he’s with the CIA, the three men at the funeral are after money they think Charles stole from them and, now that they think Reggie has it, she’s in danger of being killed as well. Reggie is more than willing to hand over the money but the problem is – she has no idea where the money might be.

To take her mind off the danger, Peter takes her out to dinner – where she’s threatened by two of the men – and then home where the third one shows up. Reggie thinks Peter is on her side but as events occur, and everyone seems to be double crossing each other, she begins to wonder. Can she dodge the killers and find the money before she ends up dead too?

From the opening sequences, the film gives a feel for what you’re going to get: suspense, a mild (for today) level of violence that’s more implied than actually shown, beautiful scenery and lots of playful, rapid fire banter between stars Grant and Hepburn. It’s also got a fantastic Henry Mancini musical score and slightly groovy 1960′s intro titles. Givenchy keeps Hepburn stylishly garbed (she even makes mittens look chic) but poor Grant barely makes it through the movie with one intact suit due to fights, games in the shower and ice cream cone mishaps.

And oh, the locations. The French Alps provide the intro but then it’s off to Paris where it looks just as I think it should. Slightly rainy, gorgeous old buildings, Notre Dame, the Palais-Royal Gardens, Les Halles and what looks like a French hotel with loads more charm than a Holiday Inn off an Interstate, even if you do have to use a creaky old elevator in it. I also wonder what an apartment the size of what is supposed to be the Lampert’s would run you these days.

The script is wonderful and turns the usual leading man/woman dynamic on its head as Reggie is the predator in their relationship while Peter attempts to fend off her advances. He doesn’t put too much effort into it as its obvious he’s starting to fall for her but the change from the original script – which Grant had turned down because he thought it made him look like a skeevy, old perv – not only salvages this pairing but makes it sparkle. There is one thing that’s always bothered me slightly and that is that at the end of the film, when Reggie’s learned the value of questioning everyone’s identity, she’s so easily distracted from it by the mere mention of a marriage license. Still these two have such lovely bantering dialog throughout the film – sophisticated and without bathroom humor. Why is this out of style or so hard to do these days?

Along with the romance, there’s a nice balance of comedy and tension that carries through the movie. The humor is more deadpan and low key rather than slapstick and more evident in some places than others but it’s pretty much in every scene. When Reggie and her French friend Sylvie discuss Reggie’s decision to divorce Charles because she doesn’t love him, Sylvie argues that’s not a good reason and Reggie counters that just because she left the US to escape American Provincial doesn’t mean she’s ready for French Traditional. Then there’s the darling scene where Peter steps fully clothed into the shower in Reggie’s hotel room and delights her with his comic antics and comments on his drip dry suit and waterproof watch. But director Stanley Donen knows when to switch on the suspense and danger such as when Tex terrorizes Reggie with nothing more menacing than a book of matches, Peter is leaping from balcony to balcony high above the streets of Paris or fighting Scobie on top of the American Express building or when Reggie attempts to evade the villains in the French Metro, the Colonnade and the Theatre du Palais-Royal. In that final sequence, even the footsteps ratchet up the suspense.

Despite how much I adore it, I have to say that there are plot holes and issues. I can’t recall if it’s explained how Peter knows the three men after Reggie or how Charles managed to elude them for so many years. Reggie’s phone conversations with Tex, Gideon and Scobie are surprisingly civilized and I don’t care what Mr. Bartholomew says, there is no way I’d stay in the same hotel with three men I knew were willing to kill me or leave my hotel key with the somnolent desk clerk when I went out. And though the manner in which Charles concealed the money is plausible and inventive, the way in which it’s stored would decrease the value in the real world. Still, the film sweeps me along as I’m watching it and most of these things don’t come to mind until after it’s over.

“Charade” is smart, elegant and doesn’t play down to the lowest mentality. It deftly juggles several genres from comedy to thriller to romance. I’m not much into parlor games but even I’d enjoy playing “pass the orange while not using your hands” with Grant and delight in being dressed by a master of French fashion design. If you haven’t ever seen it, avoid reading sites such as the Wikipedia article or some of the plot synopses at IMDB as they give away some of the twists and turns that help make “Charade” so much fun to watch.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: How to Steal a Million
2. Friday Film Review: Everyone Says I Love You
3. Friday Film Review: Princes et Princesses

Last year after I had reviewed a series of Cinderella movies, a friend recommended that I try this French fairy tale called Donkey Skin – or Peau D’ane. I was game and rented it from Netflix. Talk about beautiful European WTFery. Holy heck. This one is oozing with it. But it’s also a charming tale which originally served a purpose as do most fairy tales. In this case, it’s don’t marry your daddy.

Catherine Deneuve stars as a Princess whose father (Jean Marais) seeks her hand in marriage after promising his dying wife (also played by Deneuve but with red hair) only to wed a woman more beautiful than she. Listening to her godmother, the Fairy of Lilacs (Delphine Seyrig) the frightened Princess first makes a series of impossible demands as a condition to her consent: a dress the color of good weather (look carefully for the fluffy white clouds that pass over it), then another the color of the moon, a third as bright as the sun and finally, after all those were met, the skin of her father’s prize donkey which excretes gems. When all these are met, her godmother advises her to flee while wearing the skin of the donkey as a disguise. At a farm in a neighboring country, she finds work as a scullery maid. A Prince (Jacques Perrin) passes by and spies her at home wearing one of her beautiful dresses and an unlikely romance is born. But can the Prince get his parents the Red King and Queen to agree to his marriage to a woman wearing such a smelly and disgusting hide?

Okay so the moral of the story is going to set off alarm bells – don’t marry your parents. But then…that’s the whole friggen point of fairy tales, to serve as a warning to growing children about what is and is most definitely not acceptable to do. Children probably won’t be as freaked out about it as their parents are and in fact, in the extras of the Koch Lorber DVD is a featurette about how French children view the fairy tale and this film. One thing I do really like about this film is that the Princess is proactive. She doesn’t just sit around the castle fending off Papa. Instead she seeks help, acts on the Fairy’s advice and is ready to make a play for her Prince when the moment is right.

The costumes! Totally fairy tale book vivid color, pseudo Renaissance except for the Lilac Fairy who sports peekaboo negligee style duds. The music by Michele Legrand is catchy to listen. Even if you don’t understand French it’s obvious that it rhymes nicely and I found myself tapping my toes and head bobbing along with it. Whoever did the subtitles even got them to rhyme too. Listen for a jaunty little number of the servants and working folk conjecturing about who this mysterious woman in a donkey skin is and a happy little tune the Princess sings as she bakes a gateau while she’s wearing her sun bright dress. Now if I tried that, I’d get flour and eggs all over it.

The scenery and sets are fabulous – the King’s large white cat throne, Princess’s garden bedroom, the stereotypical wretched woodcutter-style hut in the woods that Peau d’an lives in: It’s all straight out of a fairy tale book. But real castles and chateaux, the Chateau de Chambord and the Chateau du Plessis-Bouree, are also used.

Some of the make-up takes a little time to get used to – in the Princess’s kingdom it’s kind of like oompa-loompas plus their regular sized cousins and then there are the red horses in the Prince’s country….Oh, and the talking, seeing rose. If I read that in the story, it wouldn’t phase me but actually seeing a rose with a pair of lips is surreal. After that, seeing a blue and gold macaw in Renaissance Europe is nothing. The old woman who spits toads is cool. I feel sorry for the poor donkey though. What did he ever do but shit gold and gems and he gets axed. Don’t freak at the anachronistic arrival of the Lilac Fairy at the ending. It actually makes sense if you listen closely to the early descriptions of her talents.

Beautiful Catherine Deneuve and handsome (though very young looking) Jacques Perrin plus Jean Marias are a good start if you’re looking for reasons to watch this movie. Everything else is a great bonus though. It’s almost like a hallucinogenic trip but without the need for messy drugs. Come for the WTF but stay for the opulent beauty.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Slipper and the Rose
2. Friday Film Review: Ella Enchanted
3. Friday Film Review: Princes et Princesses

Judy: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Howard: That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.

Lots of people have tried to make screwball comedies in the decades after its 30/40s heydays but very few have actually succeeded. Usually, IMO, because they try too hard and what results is a film that seems to be saying, “Look at me! I’m a screwball comedy. No, really, I am. See. See how screwballish and funny I am!! I’m funny!!” Only all too often, it isn’t. Here is one that gets it. It is filled with homages to the greats but, in its own right, it gets it right.

Milquetoast Professor Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal) and his managing fiancee Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn) have arrived in San Francisco to attend a banquet in honor of the finalists for the Larrabee Foundation Musicology Grant. At the same time, a government agent carrying Top Secret papers, a wealthy older woman carrying a fortune in jewels (Mabel Albertson) and Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand), a young woman who’s made a career in attending colleges but who is now living by her wits, arrive and all end up at the same hotel. The catch is that they’re all carrying exactly the same plaid overnight cases which of course get switched over the next two days after a covert agent and a thieving hotel house detective enter the mix. Bedroom hopping leads to a shoot out at a party which continues during a crazy cross city, multi car chase which culminates in an uproarious courtroom finale before the cases are restored to their rightful owners and love triumphs.

Director Peter Bogdanovich juggles everything with a deft hand and an eye for the payoff for all the gags that are set up over the course of the film. In the commentary, he says he and the screenwriters kept a strict eye on which case should be where as well as who should be in which room when. After a while I gave up trying to keep it straight but in the end, it all works out. This is a film to be viewed many times – once to see what happens, twice to watch the principals and a third time to watch all the background stuff and anticipate all the coming events. Oh and be sure to listen for all the muzak versions of Cole Porter songs that serve as most of the musical soundtrack.

“The point is…. The point is…. Oh God, I’ve forgotten the point.” Ryan O’Neal is cute as the clueless, deadpan Howard Bannister with his igneous rocks. When I first saw this film as a teenager, I will admit that the jokes about Howard’s “rocks” went straight over my head. I also missed all the visual references to Cary Grant’s style but then at that point I hadn’t watched many of his films. But I still thought the film was hilarious then which goes to show that even if you don’t get a lot of the in jokes, it’s still a great film. “You are the last straw that breaks my camel’s back. You are the plague. You bring havoc and chaos to everyone but why to me? Why me?” Barbra Streisand is great in comedies and sparkles here as a woman who is supposed to be obnoxious yet charming at the same time. She and O’Neal do a fabulous job not only with their rapid fire, overlaid dialog and one liners but with the visual comedy of the film as well.

“Who is that dangerously unbalanced woman?” Madeline Kahn makes her screen debut and what an entrance it was. All she has to do is talk and it’s funny. But with that gadawful wig and truly unfortunate wardrobe she’s priceless. Austin Pendleton, with his great hair, and Kenneth Mars, with his obnoxious hair flipping, are not to be missed. The two improvised their introductary scene hand holding “dance” through the Larrabee banquet while Mars made up the language he huffs off to in the final scene. Points if you can tell me which TV shows the hotel manager, Mrs Von Hoskens – in her leopard print hotpants, and the crooked house detective were in without resorting to the IMDB. And can you spot Randy Quaid? The best tertiary character, though, who’s actually only in one scene, is Liam Dunn as the cranky judge who watches the human debris which floats by in his courtroom and gets to try and unravel the whole mess after the chase through the streets, and down the stairs, of San Francisco complete with the “plate glass window” and the “man on a ladder” gags and ending with an out of control Chinese dragon. Don’t ask.

It’s fast, it’s frenetic, it’s endlessly funny and even after 40 years doesn’t seem dated. I don’t think there’s an actor here who doesn’t do a wonderful job. Have fun playing “spot the reference” while the intricately choreographed scenes and dialog whiz by.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Rage of Paris
2. Friday Film Review: Princes et Princesses
3. Friday Film Review: Foul Play

I decided to check out this 30 year oldie goldie because today the sequel to the 3D 2010 remake is being released. I haven’t seen that one so I’m not going to compare them but despite the fact that the 1981 version is old school and one of the last hurrahs to stop motion animation, it’s worth checking out if only to see the inventive creatures Ray Harryhousen created.

Basically, the plot is the myth of Perseus (Harry Hamlin) saving Andromeda (Judi Bowker) and having a bunch of adventures – finding Pegasus, fighting Calibos, seeking the Stygian Witches, killing Medusa, killing giant scorpions and defeating the Kraken – along the way as he is alternately helped and hindered by the Gods of Olympus. It’s not the straight myth – what the hell is a Kraken? – but it’s entertaining.

Great cinema this is not. There are scores of great British thespians here but honestly, most of the time they just stand around on Mt. Olympus and look as excited as a bunch of English people queuing for the daily bus to work and pondering what to have for dinner. A few times Thetis (Maggie Smith) gets her panties in a wad over her wretched son who’s basically partied too hard and then gone out on killing sprees thus leading Zeus (Laurence Olivier) to turn him into a satyr but why isn’t Athena (Susan Fleetwood) weaving or Aphrodite (Ursula Andress with only one line in the whole movie) scolding her naughty cherubs for not holding her mirror while she checks out her hairstyle. Hephestus is about the only one shown doing anything as he makes the mechanical owl. When Poseidon (Jack Gwillim) lets loose the Kraken, he’s about as excited as a man letting his dog out in the back yard for its nightly constitutional. With the talent gathered here I expected more. Oh, bonus points if anyone can spot Flora Robson during the course of the action.

Perseus isn’t much better as Hamlin looks pretty but heaven help him if he ever had to think his way out of a paper bag. Perseus really isn’t that bright. Someone at IMDB has done a wonderful job of describing this with a post titled “Why Perseus Was Such A F#*k Up! ! ” Hamlin’s delivery of his lines is also rather flat though he does pose nicely just before he delivers his killing sword thrusts. Thank goodness he meets up with Ammon (Burgess Meredith) who is the real brains of the operation. Hopefully Andromeda, who displays a nice amount of gumption in wanting to go along for some of the adventure before the boys sneak off in the dead of night, has more brains than her foolish, vain mother Cassiopeia (Sian Phillips looking very nice and regal-ish). Did anyone else notice the more than slightly m/m moment when Perseus was mourning the death (and he lead all his men to death, btw) of Thallo (Tim Piggot-Smith)? Just curious….

How does this movie garner a B- rating from me with all the above nitpicking? Simple, the costumes are great, the scenery is pretty darn good and the wonderful Ray Harryhousen delivers some cool creatures. Let’s just run down the list – Bubo the deus ex machina owl, despite having an awful name, is as cute as R2D2 and does half the work of defeating the Witches and the Kraken. Pegasus actually looks good on his own and during the flying scenes – though Hamlin doesn’t work up much enthusiasm while aboard him. Calibos (who is a combo of real actor Neil McCarthy and Harryhousen) is suitably creepy and sullen as he whines to momma Thetis about how he’s been done wrong – and then goes out and does more wrong, himself. Medusa slithers and her snake writhe in one of the tensest scenes of the film placed in the – nicely decorated – dark caverns of the Underworld, her two headed guardian dog looks fairly convincing as it battles Perseus’s men, Charon as a skeleton harkens back to an earlier movie, and the large scorpions are as icky as they oughta be. There’s also a nicely done tidal wave inundation of Argos early in the movie. I was bummed that the Kraken doesn’t have much screen time – for all the build up to his appearance he could have been given more opportunity to menace but I guess the film was running long by then.

Despite creaking along and being 31 years old, “Clash of the Titans” does have its own pre CGI charm. The actors are at least nice to look at though I wish one of two of them had chosen to chew some scenery. Those who have seen both will have to tell me if the new one is better or even just worth seeing. Anyway, this is a good “kick back with a bowl of popcorn” flick for a rainy afternoon.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Mummy
2. Friday Film Review: Plunkett and Macleane
3. Friday Film Review: Romancing the Stone

Our recent post with the luscious Asian mantitty reminded me that I’ve wanted to review this one for ages. Okay, prepare your brickbats now because this time I’m sure that a lot of you are going to disagree with my grade for this one. It’s beautiful, the costumes are lovely, the scenery is gorgeous but there’s just something missing here for me.

Mei (Ziyi Zhang) is an exotic, beautiful blind dancer, associated with a dangerous revolutionary gang known as The House of Flying Daggers. Ordered to find and kill the group’s leader, two officers, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Lao (Andy Lau), of the dying, decadent Tang Dynasty, hatch a plot to arrest Mei after which Jin will “help” her escape hoping she will then lead them to the gang. Mei finds herself both threatened by – and attracted – to the flirtatious Jin as they battle against the Tang soldiers. For his part, Jin begins to have feelings for this woman he must ultimately betray. But Mei isn’t the only one hiding her true self as a third person begins to figure into the equation. Their hearts and loyalties battle each other, amid warriors in the treetops and dazzling combat on the ground. But as Mei tells one of the men, if we meet again, one of us will die.

Almost every review or comment I’ve read about “House of Flying Daggers” mentions how beautiful it is. And it is. Great care and time were spent on making it that way. The costumes were researched and are supposed to be Tang period perfect – the styles as well as the colors as seen especially in the Peony Pavilion scenes. The two dresses worn by Zhang in the brothel are simply stunning. The Dagger personnel look like living bamboo canes in their green robes and handmade bamboo hats. The courtesans of the Peony Pavilion are brightly dressed and flirtatious. The soldiers look sharp and dangerous in their dark green uniforms.

Oh, and let’s not forget the outside stuff. A more menacing bamboo grove could not be found for the amazing acrobatic combat that takes place there. The birch forest is stunning in its autumn array of gold and orange leaves. The ultimately fortuitous snowfall provides a perfect place for the final fight which deviates from the usual balletic, martial arts grace and instead becomes a slugfest, mano-a-mano test of brute strength.

Not only are all these elements lovely to look at but the fight scenes are beautiful as well being carefully choreographed and filmed. Though it does seem to me that there’s less wire work in this than in CT,HD – or maybe it’s just not quite as obvious. Zhang dances in the classical Chinese “sleeve” style – though I’m sure it has a specific title that I haven’t looked into yet. The echo dance is more martial arts than classic style dancing and in the fight scene that follows, Mei is like Ginger Rogers dancing the same moves with Fred Astaire but in heels in that Mei has to do everything Lao does but she also has to do it with long sleeves. Soldiers seemingly race across tree tops and scamper up and down the bamboo. The horseback fight between four men and Mei looks to be as frightening as Zhang says it was to film. And both she and Lao throw their daggers like heat seeking boomerang missiles. I also love the horseback “flower picking” shots. I do love a man who brings me flowers.

But despite all this visual wealth, for most of the film I find myself feeling somewhat at a distance from these characters and their emotions. Perhaps this is my lack of knowledge of Chinese culture. Maybe it’s that I find it hard to warm up to Ziyi Zhang. I did find that a second viewing helped me pick up on subtle details and really made a difference in how I felt about (the superb) Andy Lau’s performance. Still, when all is said and done and I’ve drooled over Kaneshiro a bit more (Here, Takeshi, let me help you take that jacket off for the love scene), I don’t find this film as emotionally engaging as other Chinese films I’ve seen and added to my movie collection. There is, however, a lot to be said for the yummy eye candy factor of the actors.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Wo de fu qin mu qin (The Road Home)
2. Friday Film Review: Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
3. Friday Film Review : Le Pacte des Loups

“Never give up, never surrender!”

There’s been a lot of talking about fanfic lately and Sunita had the brainstorm for me to review “Galaxy Quest.” I hadn’t watched it in a couple of months so it was youtube to the rescue again. It all came back to me courtesy of 11 episodes and I recalled just how much fun it is. Gotta get my own copy now.

Seventeen years after it ended, the actors who portrayed the crew of the NSEA Protector in the TV show “Galaxy Quest” eke out a living by appearing at Cons and big box store promotions where they sign autographs, complain about their lack of acting careers and bitch about the egomaniac Jason (Tim Allen) who portrayed the captain and grabbed the best lines, the best babes and always managed to lose his shirt during the episode. At the latest gig, Jason mugs as usual until he overhears some people mocking him and followers of the show. Disheartened, he initially blows off some geek fans who want to talk technical details, as well as a group of weirdly smiling people who he thinks are dressed as aliens.

Only they aren’t just dressed as aliens….they are aliens. Thermians from another galaxy who are seeking the help of Commander Peter Quincy Taggert and his crew, they’ve learned all about them from transmissions of “historical documents.” Now they need “Taggert” as well as Gwen DeMarco/Tawny Madison (Sigourney Weaver), Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus (Alan Rickman), Fred Kwan/Tech St. Chen (Tony Shalhoub), Tommy Webber/Laredo (Daryl Mitchell) and Guy Fleegman/Crew member number six (Sam Rockwell) to help save them from the evil General Sarris (Robin Sachs) who threatens to destroy them. Can Jason convince the others that this isn’t a gag? Will they be able to replicate on board the real ship what they used to fake each week on the show? Is there a way for the dedicated fans to help Jason and Gwen through the chompers alive? And what is the mysterious Omega 13 device?

Guy Fleegman: “Did you guys ever watch the show?”

I don’t seek out fanfic – no slurs being cast, I just don’t have time with all the books on hand I need to read – so I’m probably not the best judge of whether this is fanfic, homage, spoof, or a mix…you tell me. I do know that it’s funny as hell, inventive and manages to nail not only the actors in various SF shows but also the characters they play. Using Sunita’s words, personally I think that there are changes “sufficient to make the jump from derivative to transformative.” It might use SF shows as a starting place but it quickly goes beyond that and leaps into new territory. Yes, it pokes fun at the characters, the settings and the scripts of various shows and films but it doesn’t just rely on a series of tired gags to make the movie. It’s a damned good action picture in its own right.

Alexander Dane: “There were five curtain calls. I was an actor once, damn it. Now look at me. Look at me! I won’t go out there and say that stupid line one more time.”

Casting for the movie is spot on. This is an ensemble piece, a buddy picture that requires a certain “type” in order to portray all the various stock characters – the bombastic captain, the female relegated to a meaningless job whose main purpose is to show some cleavage, the Shakespearean actor reduced to wearing foam rubber “alien” makeup, the “was then” child actor who is typecast in his role and the unnamed actor who’s cast in the “red shirt” role that ensures he’s always killed off in that episode. I especially like Tony Shalhoub as Kwan, the laid back “engineer” who’s the first to embrace where he is and what his show character is supposed to be doing. And the Thermians! Oh, I love them. They’re so cute I want to hug them hard enough that their eyes pop. Okay maybe not when they’re au natural but when they’re transformed, they’re darling. Enrico Colantoni deserves special props as Mathasar.

Jason Nesmith: “This is great. Usually it’s just cardboard walls in a garage.”

The special effects are actually fairly good. The aliens on the ships look convincing, the gizmos with lights don’t look like a Light Bright display, plus the Rock Monster and Pig-Lizard are fabulous. And even if the effects are not quite to the blockbuster level, well, the whole set up is that the Thermian ship is based on what they saw of the old TV show.

Brandon Wheeger: I just wanted to tell you that I thought a lot about what you said.
Jason Nesmith: It’s okay, now listen…
Brandon Wheeger: But I want you to know that I’m not a complete brain case, okay? I understand completely that it’s just a TV show. I know there’s no beryllium sphere…
Jason Nesmith: Hold it.
Brandon Wheeger: no digital conveyor, no ship…
Jason Nesmith: Stop for a second, stop. It’s all real.
Brandon Wheeger: Oh my God, I knew it. I knew it! I knew it!

And you gotta love how carefully the movie treats the hard core SF fans – the ones who dress up, quote entire passages of dialog, have mapped out all the duct work of the inner bowels of the ship and love to get together and dissect the minutia of the show. While real show/movie fans will get more of the references and inside jokes, “Galaxy Quest” is also enjoyable for the Average Joe. The pace is fast, the dialog is thoughtful and clever and the actors’ comedic timing is almost always perfect and there’s even a romance! But it’s also got heart and is emotionally moving – something which Mel Brooks once said is needed to lift a movie above and beyond being merely a spoof.

This is a great fun, feel good, all together now experience. It’s also a love letter to the genre that’s well aware of the cliches and in fact embraces them. It may start out with the conventions of the past 45 years but quickly moves past them and becomes its own story, as I rediscovered when I watched it again.

Fred Kwan: “Come on. Group hug.”

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Shaun of the Dead
2. Friday Film Review: While You Were Sleeping
3. Friday Film Review: Run Fatboy Run

I know that a lot of people are probably going to disagree with my grade of average for a Doris Day/Cary Grant movie but honesty wins out and IMO, this movie ain’t that great. Day and Grant obviously made other great movies but their pairing here just sinks like a rock. I liked other aspects of the film enough to finish it and do this review but the romance never worked for me.

Cathy Timberlake (Doris Day) and Philip Shayne (Cary Grant) are two New Yorkers on their way to work one morning. Or at least he’s on his way to work and she’s on her way to the unemployment office to pick up her check from smarmy Everett Beasley (John Astin) when his car splashes water on her. Cathy is disgusted that he doesn’t stop but unknown to her he did have his driver circle around the block only to discover that she’d disappeared. Later that morning, he spies her entering an Automat – where she gripes to her room mate Connie (Audrey Meadows) – about what happened. Philip sends his well paid economic professor flunky Roger (Gig Young) with money and an apology to Cathy. When he discovers how mad she is, he hauls her across the street to confront Shayne since he too feels he’s being used and abused – though whenever he complains, Philip responds by increasing his salary and perks to the point where he sells out again.

To Roger’s horror, the moment Cathy sets eyes on Philip she turns into a puddle of mush, completely jettisoning her principles in the face of instalove – and it’s love since this is a early 60s movie and virginal Day wasn’t allowed to truly lust. Cathy babbles to Philip, manages to state the obvious when he asks for her opinion and – somehow – grabs his attention and interest to the point where he wines and dines her before heading to a Yankees baseball game. At the end of the evening, he’s smitten and offers her a trip around the world but – gasp! – no wedding ring to go with it. Torn, Cathy mulls it over, keeping Connie awake all night, before – in a dazzling display of reverse logic – she accepts. She knows full well what she’s agreed to and that she’s going as a mistress.

Philip pays for a new wardrobe, buys out an entire airlines flight down to Bermuda for Cathy and meets her there where she’s overcome by an attack of Virginitis. Hey, she’s Doris Day and was not brought up that way. God no, she can’t possibly get in that bed with him! What will these complete strangers, who can tell even though she has gloves on that she doesn’t have a wedding ring, think?! Off she goes to NYC to whine some more to her roommate about what happened. Then changes her mind and informs Philip she’s on her way back and waiting for him. Then gets drunk as a skunk before he arrives and passes out on him. They all head back to NYC where she waffles about until near the end of the movie when Roger and Connie persuade her she’s in love with Philip and he with her. In a last desperate bid to win a wedding ring, Cathy pulls a stunt to bring Philip running. Will he go after the bait even if it involves a rundown taxi, a chicken delivery truck and a trip to New Jersey?

1/2 of this movie works for me and 1/2 doesn’t. Unfortunately the 1/2 that doesn’t is the romance. Sweet baby Jesus, what on earth does Philip ever see in Cathy? I just don’t get it. Once she lays eyes on him, all her backbone oozes out leaving her a vapid, breathless nincompoop. I would have been looking for something to club her with so I could stick her in a closet. But instead Philip somehow falls in love with her – mainly because the script tells him to, I think. The chemistry here is awful. When they’re onscreen together, Day seems to be phoning in her standard romcom performance while Grant has the look of a man wondering how on Earth his agent ever persuaded him to take this job. But, God love him, he soldiers on.

The 1/2 of the film I like is Grant on his own or with Gig Young. Now these parts are funny and the two of them have a better relationship than anyone else in this mess. True Young doesn’t do neurotic as well as Tony Randall but his character’s psychological waffling about selling out for the obscene salary Shayne cheerfully hikes whenever Roger almost gets up the nerve to leave is funny. His conversations with his analyst – and the mistaken ideas the analyst gets about what is going on – are also a hoot. While Grant may look pained whenever he’s interacting with Day’s character, it doesn’t stop him from casually tossing out great one liners and still being Mr. Smooth. His part of the final chase sequence gave me the biggest laugh from the whole movie, especially the bit of him looking out the rear window of the chicken truck as it pulls off.

Even the wardrobe of this film, something I generally love in 50s/early 60s films, lets me down. I don’t know who dressed Day but for the most part, the clothes are uniformly blah. As is the “supposed to be drooled over” sequence where they all get modeled for her – it was endless and boring. The movie is filled with chipper era music though.

Sadly this movie could have been much better and I spent the whole time I was watching it thinking that. Another actress in the role would have done wonders. Day is just too old to pull off the breathless ingenue and the way the studio forced her to play nothing but goody-two-shoes, sugar sweet wholesomeness doesn’t work here. It painfully doesn’t work as there are two scenes of Grant with a more worldly wise woman that I liked better than all of Day’s part. If I ever watch it again, I’ll concentrate on Grant and Young while ruthlessly using the FF button whenever Day appears on screen.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Sunday in New York
2. Friday Film Review: Holiday
3. Friday Film Review: Arsenic and Old Lace

The plot is nothing new or exciting. Maggie Johnson (Pickford) is a stock clerk at a five and dime store where she meets new fellow clerk Joe Grant (Charles Rogers) and takes him under her wing. Only he’s actually the owner’s son, there to prove himself before his engagement to a society girl hand picked by his parents. But he and Maggie, of course, fall for each other. What will happen when the rich Merrill family finds out about poor Maggie?

Maggie is so the romance heroine martyr. Her mother spends her days attending funerals – doesn’t matter whose – while her henpecked father waits around at home. Meanwhile wild sister Liz is going out with “sporty” men and getting into all kinds of trouble. Maggie seems to be the only one who works – all day – then she comes home to make dinner and clean up the family messes.

The other girls at the store might joke with Maggie about her interest in Joe but he’s just as interested back as we see in two charming scenes when he rides home with her in the back of a truck before meeting her family in an especially raucous mood. Then later they eat lunch in a packing crate, laughing together and annoying an older supervisor before even he is won over by their obvious love for each other.

But Pickford never lets us feel sorry for Maggie. She loves her family and only stays out one night when Joe talks her into going with him for dinner – to his family’s house when they’re out. She’s horrified at the thought while Joe mimes and winks his plans to the butler behind her back. What follows is a funny scene of Maggie flustering the footman and quietly telling Joe that the service is excellent even if the food is poor.

Then the Merrill’s arrive home and before she flees into the rainy night Maggie finds out just how much Joe has lied to her. As she wanders the streets and dreams of what might have been, Joe frantically searches for her. Only to find her talking the night court Judge out of jailing her sister who’s been arrested. Joe declares his love but Daddy Merrill has to make a final play at getting rid of Maggie before true love prevails.

This is the only scene which I thought Pickford played too broadly but the following reconciliation with Joe was worth it. For the rest of the movie, the actors mainly underplay it and there’s a lack of the overwrought facial expressions and exaggerated acting which I associate with silent films. Here the physical comedy is fantastic and usually had me in stitches. There’s not a lot of dialogue but the actors are so good that it’s not needed to follow what’s going on and being said. I also like that there are a few sound effects and the background music is played by a full orchestra instead of only a piano.

It’s also clear that the film was made before the Hays Code as seen in a funny early scene when an overloaded Maggie is attempting to bring out more stock in the store and accidentally drops a pair of ladies underwear. An unknowing female customer walks onto them then looks down and is horrified at the thought that she’s dropped her drawers in public. During the final reconciliation scene, Maggie initially turns him down saying, “It’s my family, Joe…they need me more than you do.” Her father overhears at which point he finally grows a pair, stands up and yells, “Like hell we do!” before he takes charge and kicks his lazy family in the collective ass. Color me shocked when he said that! But it’s funny as …well, hell.

The movie is only 87 minutes long but it’s one I didn’t want to end. It’s filled with humor, creativeness and wit. Pickford and Rogers, who would later marry, have wonderful screen chemistry and are backed by a great cast. If you’ve never tried a Pickford movie or a silent one, here’s a great place to start.

~Jayne

Amazon

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Lars and the Real Girl
2. GAY WRITES FRIDAY FILM REVIEW: Better Than Chocolate
3. Friday Film Review: Away We Go

Our reviewer John is the one who urged me to see this film. A weepy with a wardrobe for the principal star that is to die for. Though I’m not a fan of melodrama, especially the grand 1950s ones, the clothes aspect drew me in, shallow creature that I am. Considering that I thought the movie was nothing but overwrought angst, I was surprised to find that I like it as much as I do. I doubt I’ll ever become a true devotee but there is much more here than might initially meet the eye.

Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) and her daughter Susie meet Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) and her daughter Sarah Jane in 1948. Both Lora and Annie are single mothers struggling to survive in NYC. Annie is seeking employment in a place that will allow her to keep her daughter with her and despite Lora being unable to pay her much, black Annie and her much lighter skinned daughter move in with pale blonde Lora and her equally blonde daughter. Lora is an aspiring actress and we see her dejected, returning from days of hounding casting agents. Meanwhile Annie works her fingers off and comforts her daughter who bitterly resents not being the white girl she can “pass” for. Steve Archer (John Gavin), a photographer who met them all the day they all met each other, begins to date Lora who finally gets her big break when she impresses a NY playwright with her insight into his latest creation. The film is filled with these improbable moments which simply must be accepted. Soon Lora is the new, rising star of the NYC theater world, though she casts Steve aside in her quest for fame.

Flash ahead ten years and all the women now live in a lavish country house paid for by Lora’s wealth. Annie is still happy to “do” for Lora, Susie (Sandra Dee), who longs for her mother’s attention, is off at boarding school while her mother continues to single mindedly pursue her career, and Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) increasingly hates who she is and how her skin color limits her future prospects in life. Steve moves in and out of their lives which are shown to be darker than initially they would appear. Annie is heartbroken when Sarah Jane rejects her and denies who she is in order to pass for white, Susie is still hurt by her mother’s lack of attention to her and Lora continues to swan through life being a star. It takes a “full box of tissues” tragedy to bring the women together again and the movie to a close.

If, like me, you aren’t a fan of gushy melodrama, there are other things to see in this film. Producer Ross Hunter wanted his usual “women’s” picture filled with beautiful people, wearing beautiful things and living in beautiful places – a glossy soap opera with sets deserving of a full color spread in Ladies Home Journal. Director Douglas Sirk gave him that but also made the kind of picture he wanted to make which was a critique of a Ross Hunter film plus a biting look at stardom and, more importantly, race in America. This version of the story differs significantly from the book upon which it’s based as well as the 1934 film of the same name. Here the white woman is seeking fame as an actress rather than success as a business woman while the black woman is content to remain a servant. Not having seen the earlier film nor read the book, I can’t say how the character of Susie differs but here, Annie and Sarah Jane provide the storyline which interested me most. And believe me, at times it’s hard to watch.

IoL is gorgeous to look at with lush colors for the clothes and carefully color coordinated backgrounds that emphasize or de emphasize certain aspects of the film. The house is lovely though Sirk’s camera angles and the shadows make it seem as if it’s closing in on the characters as the film progresses. Lana Turner’s wardrobe is amazing but in a deliberately OTT way. She dresses and struts like a Movie Star – as she herself had been taught by the studio in real life. The bling is also stunning. Lora could signal her location to overhead search planes if she were ever stuck on a desert island. Sandra Dee is given a perky, teenage wardrobe plus a pink, froo froo bedroom – all of which emphasizes how privileged, yet juvenile, her life is. In contrast Moore is almost always dressed plainly in navy, gray or black. Her dresses might get better as time goes on but she always dresses like a servant. Sarah Jane, though only a year or two older than Susie is years ahead of her in the more adult clothes she has and the way her room is decorated which suits the problems she faces, many of which she brings on herself.

While the beauty of Lora and Susie’s lives might catch the eye at first, I soon found myself far more interested in Annie and Sarah Jane. Lora emotes and overacts, Susie is so sugary sweet and bubbly she makes my teeth hurt but they can both whine and be totally self absorbed in their troubles which in the end are seen for the superficial issues they are. This side of the film does serve as Sirk’s commentary on ambition and Hollywood. While part of me cheered Lora’s determination to succeed and her refusal to give into Steve’s demands that she give up her ambitions as an actress, some of me cringed at the cold, bitchiness she displays and her willingness to give up or put on the back burner almost every relationship in her life for it. Lana Turner is lovely to look at but for most of the film, she looks as if she’s acting. It’s a very staged performance but it still works since the character of Lora is an actress as well. Dee is the epitome of the Grease song “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.” I’m not sure if she was like this in real life or just forced into that role for the public but in all the movies I’ve seen her in, she plays the same – cute, bouncy and perky. Could she have played better roles had Hollywood been willing to put her in them?

In contrast, what comes between Annie and Sarah Jane is real, painful and not something easy to put aside. This isn’t the first Hollywood film to feature racial issues but since it was made in 1959 it served to show something of what had gone on for years and also emphasized the racial tensions sweeping the nation. Some of the stunts Sarah Jane pulls do prove the saying “more sharper than a serpent’s tooth.” Is SJ annoying? Yes. Does she have a reason for what she thinks and how she acts? Maybe yes. She’s seen her mother work as a domestic, seen that other blacks are limited in what they can do, where they can go, how society views them. She’s also seen – first hand – the opportunities Lora has and that Susie will have. She tells her mother that she’s tired of “living in the back” and doesn’t want to be limited to chauffeurs, cooks and other servants as potential husbands. She’s seen the black butler at the house. She doesn’t want her children limited and scorned. Is that reason to hurt and reject her mother? No but SJ is up against the ingrained racism of the time that was only just then being changed – little by little though. Susan Kohner, herself a mixed race child though of Mexican/European Jewish parents, does a fantastic job here. All the anger, the bitterness, the envy and, yes, the love for her mother is there in Kohner’s acting. Though I do wonder why a light skinned black woman wasn’t cast in the role as had been done in 1934. Still Kohner deserves her nomination that year for Best Supporting Actress.

Juanita Moore got the opportunity to play a large role, something few, if any, black women got a chance at then. She also deserved the Oscar nomination she shared with Kohner (though neither woman won). Still a lot of the lines she’s given make me cringe. She volunteers to do Lora’s laundry because she “likes taking care of pretty things.” She’s always there with a pat, down home truism to ease the white characters’ worries. It’s she who basically supports their little family during the lean times by cleaning their apartment steps and taking in laundry in addition to keeping the apartment they live in. Then once the money begins to roll in, she still keeps the lovely home they move to even though she puts aside money for SJ and for a lavish funeral for herself. But it’s in the scenes where she tries to soothe her child’s hurt feelings and get SJ to accept who she is rather than lie that get me. The heartbreak on Annie’s face when she realizes just how far SJ will go to achieve her goals, breaks my heart as well. Moore might have to play the saint but she does it with dignity and quiet grace. And when she gets her lavish funeral, she goes out like the Saint she is. I maintained dry eyes for most of the film but Mahalia Jackson’s powerful singing had me reaching for a hankie.

Oh, the men in the movie? Steve is basically a handsome Ken doll for most of the film – nice to look at but asexual to the point where we might be forgiven for wondering if he’s anatomically correct. Robert Alda – Alan’s father – is the slightly sleazy agent. But since this is a women’s picture and focuses on them, the lack of strong men is actually not a problem.

This movie makes me think. I’m not so much into weepy melodrama but I do like the thinking part and there’s a lot here to muse on. What should we pay for success, are material things worth it and most importantly, what possible difference should our skin tone or eye color/shape or any other physical features make in our opportunities in life? Watch it for the flash, listen to what should be called the Lush Lux Orchestra with their soaring violins, but think about the deeper message Sirk is trying to convey. B

~Jayne

If you want to watch it right now, someone has loaded it in 13 parts to youtube.

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: My Best Friend’s Wedding
2. Friday Film Review: Blazing Saddles
3. Friday Film Review: The Reluctant Debutante

Easy Rawlins: A man once told me that you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not?

I hesitated a bit about reviewing this movie for the sole reason that it has no romance in it for the lead character – not even a bromance as the friend of the hero is a bit more on the psychotic side than anything. But it’s so well done, lovely to look at and evocative of the age that I can’t resist. I watched it recently and then immediately watched it again with the director’s commentary – something I’d recommend in order to catch small nuances of the time and characters. The mystery might not be that hard to figure out but the journey to solving it worth the trip.

Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) is a black man in 1948 Los Angeles who’s just lost his factory job and has mortgage payments to make. As he’s reading the want ads in a bar owned by a friend from back home in Houston, that man introduces Easy to a possible source of quick money. DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) says he works for a man named Todd Carter – who just recently dropped out of the mayoral race – who is looking to find his estranged fiancee Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) and who will pay well for information as to her whereabouts. The $100 (remember this is 1948 and that’s a shitload of money) proves too much of a temptation to a man behind on his mortgage despite the fact that Easy has a decidedly uneasy feeling about all this.

He begins to inquire in the hidden bars and night spots where he meets up with another friend from home and that man’s girlfriend who drops hints that she knows something about Daphne. Easy yields to another temptation and has a one night stand with the woman Coretta (Lisa Nicole Carsen), leaving early the next morning with a bit of information he then passes on to Albright that evening. Arriving home, he’s confronted by detectives from the LAPD who question him – while beating him up – about the murder of Coretta. Eventually released from custody, Easy is picked up and questioned – yet again – on his way home, this time by the other man running for mayor who claims to be concerned about the murder of Coretta, who worked for him.

By this point, it’s dawning on me and Easy that all these important people must want Daphne pretty badly for some nefarious reason and not just to kiss and make up. When the woman herself appears and contacts Easy, the mystery and danger only deepen as still another body is found. After a tense confrontation proves to Easy that he can’t trust anyone and that he’d better start moving fast or be set up for murders he didn’t commit, he calls in reinforcements from Houston in the person of Mouse (Don Cheadle) who’s the fastest draw in Texas but also one of the most unbalanced. With Mouse watching his back, can Easy dig to the bottom of this nasty brew of blackmail, death and worse?

I haven’t read the book this film is based on but I understand that some major changes were made. Since I didn’t know any better while initially watching it, those didn’t bother me and once explained they make sense in the context of condensing a book into the confined time frame of a movie. There are places where the film drags a touch but to have eliminated certain scenes would have removed some of the evocative atmosphere of the age. There are definite moments of light vs dark as Easy moves from his normal environment of a bright, two bedroom bungalow in a neighborhood filled with children, pets and black families just trying to get their slice of the post war American pie and into the dark world of crime and corruption. But then his character is being shown transitioning from a 9-5 factory worker only concerned with his lawn to that of a man who’s gone through a cesspool, lived to tell the story, and who has made the decision to see where his new skills could lead him.

His P.I. persona has to develop and we, the viewers, need a window into the world he has to move through – where racism is rampant, the LAPD is to be feared and black people don’t go to certain areas of the city or certain parts of buildings. Merely replying to the random conversational overtures of a white woman can quickly land Easy into a ton of trouble and driving through a white neighborhood, with a white woman in his car could lead to disaster. Yet there are other sides to his life as seen in the homey scenes of him planting trees and tending to his landscaping, talking to his neighbors and dealing with a strange older man obsessed with chopping down trees. Washington effortlessly conveys all this and his performance is one of the chief reasons to see the film. Another is Don Cheadle who is riveting to watch as the childhood friend from Houston who shoots first – with a smile on his face – and doesn’t even think to ask questions later. There is one chilling line he utters which reminds me of the various fables of the scorpion and the frog or the snake and the woman. Easy knew Mouse’s nature and thus shouldn’t be surprised at something Mouse did. Cheadle makes me believe in this man who is cheerfully amoral as he’s willing to threaten people, shoot them and even kill them without a second thought – all in the name of friendship for Easy.

As I said, the mystery begins to reveal itself fairly early on and I guessed a lot of what is the driving force behind these powerful men who have money to throw around, henchmen on hire, power to gain and yet who are in certain ways as hampered as Easy by the times and social mores. Beals is a nice mixture of naivete and sultriness while Sizemore provides an almost casual, thoughtless menace. The other actors are well cast and good in their roles but many of them have little screen time in which to develop those. The real strength of the film is in the fabulous sets, music, costumes and cars. In the way it takes the viewer into another world and time. It is violent, it is disturbing with its blatant racism but it also manages to end on an optimistic note as Easy and we see that friends and a place to call home are just fine.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Brown Sugar
2. Friday Film Review: Something New
3. REVIEW: Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas

“He rode a blazing saddle, he wore a shining star.
His job to offer battle to bad men near and far.
He conquered fear and he conquered hate.
He turned dark night into day.
He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way.”

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a bromance so here goes with one of the funniest movies from Mel Brooks. Not only is it an homage/spoof of the great Western classics but it’s also a social commentary on race relations of the time. A comedy with layers. The first time I saw it was in its 1975 summer re release in theaters and, to be honest, most of it went right over my head. I still thought it was funny then but with age and movie watching experience, I can understand a bit better what Mel Brooks was trying to do with it.

Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), the crooked Assistant to the crooked Territorial Governor William Lepetomane (Mel Brooks), wants some land to sell to the railroad. The only problem is it’s currently owned by the citizens of the peaceful town of Rock Ridge (all with the last name of Johnson). He schemes to send his hired thug Taggert (Slim Pickens) and his band on a No 6 – where they go tearing into town awhooping and ahollering and ashooting everything. When this fails to send the townsfolk fleeing, he maneuvers the Gov into appointing a black sheriff, Bart (Cleavon Little), to replace the one Taggert and the boys shot. But along with his deputy, Jim the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), Bart settles into town and begins to slowly win the town over. Undeterred, Lamarr then sends Mongo – who is more of a what rather than a who – against the town but Bart soon tames Mongo thus earning his devotion. Well if the Beast didn’t work, maybe Beauty in the form of Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) will be able to bring Bart to his knees. Bart, however, turns the tables on Lili after a night of hot lovin’. But Hedley is supremely greedy and keeps trying. Can the townspeople pull together, overcome their prejudices, give Bart the 24 hours he asks for to devise a brilliant plan to save the town – after all, they’d give it to Randolph Scott – and prevail?

The poster for the movie has the line “Never give a saga an even break” and this one doesn’t. Is it vulgar? Does it offend most ethnic/social/whatever groups? “You bet your ass!” The film gleefully skewers a lot about the Western genre – the cavalry escapes but little else. The references to bits and pieces of famous westerns come thick and fast but the film is still funny even if you don’t catch all this. It’s also chock full of anachronisms including Cole Porter songs, Count Basie and his Orchestra, Boris the medieval executioner, Hedy Lamarr jokes, mentions of Academy Award nominations, German storm troopers and a tollbooth with flashing electrical lights. It was un PC before PC even existed. It goes for shameless laughs and usually succeeds including more than once when the actors break the “fourth wall” to address the audience directly plus the ending which shows that the whole thing is just a movie. The not-to-be-missed campfire scene is movie making history.

Blazing Saddles is also a powerful commentary on race. Sort of like the original Star Trek of a few years prior, it uses a different setting – in this case the historic west of a hundred years ago instead of the far distant SF future – to shine a spotlight on current social situations. I think most people will already know that there are offensive racial slurs used in the film but they are words which would have been commonly used in the historic time period and I think Brooks deliberately employs them to make a point. Plus, it’s the white characters – the common clay of the new west, you know … morons – who are portrayed as racist while every other POC – including the Indians/NA – isn’t. Could the film be remade today? I have my doubts.

But beyond all this, the film is LOL funny. Bart is the dazzling urbanite in the sophisticated Gucci ensemble. Jim has “probably killed more men than Cecille B DeMille.” Hedley Lamarr uses his tongue “prettier than a $20 whore.” Mongo is “only pawn in game of life.” Lili the “Teutonic Titwillow” flatly announces that “everything below the waist is kaput.” Honestly I’ve never gotten tired of rewatching the entire film and probably never will. It’s that great. Sure the plot is off the rails – so to speak – from almost the beginning and the ending certainly takes it beyond even that. But the writing is brilliant, the casting is fabulous and it’s totally quotable. And those elements are what helps make a movie for me.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Hot Fuzz
2. Friday Film Review: Something New
3. Friday Film Review: Tremors

My recent review of The Crimson Pirate made me curious about TFATA. It had been years since I saw either film and I remember not liking this one *quite* as much as TCP. I found that I still liked TCP but what about TFATA? Would it stand up to a rewatch? The answer is I still feel the same about it. It’s good but not quite as good for a couple of reasons. Still, it’s a decent rainy day/Saturday afternoon flick.

Medieval Lombardy is being squashed under the thumb of Germany and the main one doing the squashing now is Ulrich, the Count of Hesse (Frank Allenby) who’s just recently come back along with his lovely niece Lady Anne (Virginia Mayo) and his mistress. Now this would be bad enough but the mistress is the wife of Dardo (Burt Lancaster) who apparently prefers to live in the great outdoors doing manly things such as shooting arrows at stuff with his son Rudi. Maybe she objected to his bathing habits. Anyway, she left them and since then all women are whores! (An attitude that, as a romance reader, just shocks me< /sarcasm>)

Dardo and Rudi (Gordon Gebert) arrive in town and are fulsomely greeted by one and all because Dardo is such a manly guy who the guys are all buds with and whom the women all love and fawn over. (He doesn’t respect women but obviously they’re okay to love up on). Learning Hesse is in town, Dardo finds he can’t resist figuratively spitting in his eye. Hesse might be an ass but he’s not an idiot and gives orders to capture Rudi. Oopsie. Dardo tries to spring the boy but only gets shot for his troubles. Seething, he swears revenge. Since his actions have branded him an outlaw, he’s forced to flee along with half the male population – including a very irritating minstrel – and take to the hills where they set up Ye Outlaw Camp doing standard outlaw stuff and probably enjoying not having to answer to their womenfolk.

Poor Rudi is now stuck in the castle wearing nice clothes and learning to dance on orders from his momma. But he’s also a young boy so guess who he’d rather be with and what he’d rather be doing. The things the dancing master mutters under his breath are funny, though. Lady Anne has taken to riding through the hills in a fetching hunting costume leading to scenes where she and Dardo strike sparks which of course means they’re falling in love. Trying again to get his son, Dardo sneaks into the castle yet – like the first time – can’t accomplish it. But this time he snags Lady Anne who hisses like a cat as he hauls her off.

More scenes follow of Dardo and Anne feeling that push/pull of love and both hating it/loving it. No, no he won’t fall for a woman because all women are whores – remember? And he’s a lowly peasant so she can’t really be falling in love with him, can she? Will Dardo get his revenge and his son back? Will the Count pay for luring Dardo’s whore wife away to a world of pretty dresses and sparkly things? Is there a possible future for a peasant and a Lady? And will there be enough swashbuckly stuff to make everybody happy?

I have to give major props for the location of Northern Italy. Lombardy! I don’t recall seeing that much in movies from the 1950s. And it’s bursting with glorious Technicolor plus there’s a rousing score by Max Steiner. I wondered if the wretched oppression of the peasants was a hark back to the Nazis of WWII or the Cold War Soviets. Dardo is like a discount version of Warner Brother’s Robin Hood complete with a deer over his shoulders but with the added bonus of marriage problems and a son with a truly atrocious bowl haircut.

Hesse is a standard arrogant villain with a sneer played nicely by Allenby. I did wonder why the climactic fight between he and Burt is done in shadows. As Anne, Virginia Mayo looks as beautiful as she ever has and gets to show some leg and some gumption. The soldiers in the castle have some truly strange costumes though. Don’t know who came up with those.

Burt heats up the screen with another movie in which he gets to wear tight pantaloons. Those alone are worth watching the movie. Like in TCP, he’s joined by Nick Cravat – as Piccolo. Together they get to do a lot of acrobatic fighting, ducking and dodging. It’s done with plenty of flare but doesn’t seem to accomplish a whole lot besides giving them opportunities to swirl around bars, whip around lighted torches and swing from chandeliers. Still the whole thing just keeps flowing and is fun to watch. The finale is cool complete with a William Tell theme going on.

After finishing the film, I thought about it a while to try and pin down why I’ve never liked it as much as TCP. In Pirate, Burt is more a lighthearted character who turns on that million watt smile a lot and is basically out for himself and a little fun while here there’s the overlay of politics that darkens the tone. Then there’s the whore wife plus the hero’s responsibilities for his son that act as mood dampeners. And the romance doesn’t work as well either. True it has much more screen time but I find it totally unbelievable that an aristocrat is going to stay with a peasant regardless of the ending clinch. Best not to think past THE END.

Comparing these films some more, I wonder if you won’t end up liking the first one you see more given the large number of similarities in Lancaster and Cravat’s actions and portrayal. I just kept getting the “I’ve seen all this before” feeling with the fights and their relationship. But be that as it may, it’s a killer popcorn movie and given the dearth of swashbucklers then and now, it’s worth a looksee.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Crimson Pirate
2. Friday Film Review: The Sea Hawk
3. Friday Film Review: The Spanish Main

Starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen
Genre: Science Fiction/Romance Grade: B+

Jeff Bridges’ star turn in CRAZY HEART got me thinking about all his other movies I’d enjoyed. From my memory banks, I pulled a favorite I had seen but once, STARMAN. Would it be as sweet a romance on second viewing? But first, I had to find a copy and as luck is, well, fortunate sometimes, a VHS tape for a dollar landed on the library’s used book sale table. Happy, lucky, me.

Karen Allen’s star may have been ascendant in 1984 after her turn in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK 3 years previous, but according to the bio on imdb.com, she has repeatedly preferred the stage and smaller roles. Therefore, except for STARMAN, she slipped off my radar. Jeff Bridges never did slip off my radar, but then maybe that’s just me. The third actor of note in this production is Charles Martin Smith, someone else I’ve found interesting since he played Farley Mowat in NEVER CRY WOLF.

1984 was the middle of the space movies. STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, TRON, all the STAR TREKs… why not make another space show?

Jenny Hayden (Allen) sits half-dressed in her Wisconsin living room at night, smoking and drinking red wine, watching home movies of her late husband (Bridges as Scott) mugging for the camera. She’s lonely and miserable. Bridges, meanwhile, is an alien coming to Earth to check out if we meant it when we launched Voyager 2 in August of 1977 with the invitation to “come and see us sometime.” Or words to that effect.

His spacecraft trail is picked up by NORAD, fighters are scrambled, and Mark Shermin (Smith) of SETI is called.

While the government boys are getting their act together and Jenny Hayden is sleeping it off, our hero is watching the home movie and flipping through the pages of the photo album. He clones himself into Jenny’s husband, Scott, growing from baby to man before our horrified eyes.

She awakens, is terrified not only that there’s a man in the house, but that he looks like Scott. Realizing that he’s way off course, our new Scott needs her to help him get to Meteor Crater in Arizona where the mother ship will pick him up in three days’ time. Our ticking clock is set because if he’s late, he will die. Jenny isn’t hot on this idea—can you spell kidnap?—but off they go. The government, portrayed as usual as hard-hearted experimenters, and good guy Shermin are on their trail.

We quickly find out that the little magic marbles in the new Scott’s possession are capable of many things. He discourages a would-be rescuer by turning a big wrench into a hot poker and bringing a doe, strapped to the hood of the hunter’s car, back to life. (This does not go over well with said hunter.)

Jenny’s curiosity about him grows, even as he shows her that she will not be leaving him, no matter her kidnap scribble on a bathroom mirror. There are the usual language confusions, delivered in classic Bridges’ deadpan style: “Take it easy”; “up yours”. She teaches him to read the map in case something should happen to her because she is still planning on escaping. But seeing him be beaten by the hunter and his buddies changes her mind and now she rescues him.

The police almost catch up with them at a Holiday Inn, Jenny is hit by a police bullet, there’s an explosion at a roadblock and he walks out of the fire carrying her.

By now, we’re at Grand Junction, CO, where they’ve hitched a ride in a mobile home. He has two marbles left, uses one to revive her from the bullet wound, then gets a ride, leaving her at a truck stop. Of course, she finds a ride to follow. There’s another road block, another explosion, and they’re hitching a ride in the back of a truck. Rain, wet clothes, boxcar, wet clothes off, they make love. He “gives her a baby”, although she’s told him she can’t have children. He tells her the child will be the human Scott’s child but will know all that Starman knows and be a teacher.

They’re so happy with each other on the train that they overshoot their mark and land in Las Vegas. Nothing for him to jigger a slot machine and with their new found wealth, they buy a Cadillac and take off again.

Are you exhausted yet?

There’s an eventual meeting with Shermin at a coffee stop where Starman tells him that we’ve been visited before and that we are a “strange species,” at our very best when things are worst. But he’s slowing down and dying. Shermin helps them escape and they arrive—finally—at Meteor Crater. There’s all the usual chase staples that we’ve come to expect from this genre—helicopters, the mother ship, the red beam, the final kiss and “I love you”, and the hand-off of the last marble which the baby will know what to do with.

And Jenny Hayden is alone once more.

I love old and older movies for many things, but chiefly the glimpses back into the way it was. There are no cell phones. They read a MAP to get to Arizona. The Amoco gas station is full service. Remember that? Amoco? Full service?

So how did STARMAN hold up for me? As a piece of science fiction, not as well as I had hoped. CGI has spoiled us all. As a romance, I think it did better. Two strangers, trapped in a car, a road trip, the slow growth of trust and then love. Call me sentimental, but I’ll give it a B+.

STARMAN is available on DVD in several iterations and for instant streaming by Amazon Prime members. Or, you could get lucky and find an original VHS tape for a dollar at your local library’s used book sale.
From Kay Sisk

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Outlander
2. Friday Film Review: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
3. Friday Film Review: I Know Where I’m Going!

Definitely, Maybe is another film Netflix kept urging on me and I kept resisting. The star ranking was only slightly above an average of 3 and the description didn’t grab me. I like a HEA in a movie that looks to have romance in it and with this one I just wasn’t sure I’d get it. But finally, in an effort to review more recent movies after a spell of 1930s/40s era ones, I heaved a sigh and clicked “add to queue” then “move to top.” And while the movie doesn’t exactly give a HEA ending, it does deliver a HFN with optimism for the future that is enough for me to be happy.

“Interested in knowing how her divorcing parents met, young Maya (Abigail Breslin) listens as her dad, Will (Ryan Reynolds), recounts his romantic past with three different and special women — Emily (Elizabeth Banks) , April (Isla Fisher) and Summer (Rachel Weisz)– leaving Maya to guess which one is her mom.”

So, maybe you can see what I mean about the blurb not exactly promising hearts and flowers. The leading man is getting divorced from the mother of his daughter and giving her a flashback on his romance with her mother which has obviously gone sour. Sounds like a winner, yeah? But as Reynolds said about the script and several commenters at Netflix seconded, this it a movie which I had no idea how it was going to go or where it would end until it did. I had my suspicions, some of which were right and others of which were wrong, but honestly I wasn’t sure who would wind up being the woman Will married or how the film would still end up being called a romance. But trust me, it more or less does.

This is definitely a film with a plot which would not have worked more than 3 decades earlier than now. The tone is more modern with divorce being something that happens even to the best of relationships and – this was a nice surprise – there really isn’t a bad guy or woman in it. No one ends up being a screaming bitch or cheating bastard as no one ends up the one “at fault” for ending the marriage or for the end of the many relationships in the story. For most of them, it’s a matter of two people not being at the same place – emotionally or relationshiply – at the same time. One breakup is caused by Will’s then girlfriend doing her journalistic job and digging up the truth about a candidate for whom Will is working but I end up respecting her for sticking to her principles. Will actually manages to maintain good relations with all three women which, as I mentioned earlier, is such a treat. But what I actually like best of all is his relationship with his daughter. While he’s telling her the story late in the evening, he promises to finish it the next day and tell her what the happy ending is. When that moment comes, I got a touch teary and smiled at how much he loves his little girl.

I also like that the movie takes place over the course of 16 years which gives a lot of time to follow the changes in the characters’ lives. It’s nice to see Will and the other women mature and evolve. When Will makes his final move, I have the feeling that this time, the people involved are both on the same page at the same time and that the relationship truly will work out. And that it has his daughter’s blessing. I do agree that it is a touch unrealistic to believe that Maya wouldn’t be able to guess her mother’s identity for as long as the story telling takes place but then Will does announce as he starts that he’s going to change names and details and during the film I was caught up enough in it not to notice this til the end.

Breslin is cute without being obnoxious, Reynolds has great chemistry with Banks, Fisher and Weisz, the City of New York shines and it manages to be a romantic comedy/drama that I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen next. The relationships seemed realistic and there weren’t those rom-com, chick-flick OTT hoops to be jumped through to keep things going. “Definitely, Maybe” turns out to be a movie I might not have watched except for Netflix but one I’m glad that I did.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Mummy
2. Friday Film Review: The Proposal
3. Friday Film Review: Sunday in New York

“Far out.”

Yes, I remember this movie when it was first shown on HBO. I know that dates me but, what the hell. It’s kind of a comedy crossed with a thriller crossed with a view of life back in 1978 when people said “shake your booty” and actually meant it.

Shy divorced librarian Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) unwittingly becomes involved in an assassination conspiracy when she picks up an undercover cop on the run who passes her information but is killed before he can tell her he’s done it or what it means. Before she knows it a whole assortment of killers are after her even though she initially can’t get her landlord Mr. Hennessey (Burgess Meredith) or the cute but bumbling police lieutenant Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase) and his partner Fergie (Brian Dennehy) to believe her. But things keep happening to her and slowly the pieces begin to fall into place revealing a plot to kill the Pope while he’s visiting San Francisco. Can Tony and Gloria make it across town in time to bring the curtain down and stop the nefarious scheme?

Foul Play is supremely silly but such fun. It shows the end of the swinging 70s when disco was king, most everyone smoked, the threat of AIDS was unknown so going home with someone from a singles bar was fine and picking up hitchhickers then going to movies with them was okay. Some of the more serious parts of Tony trying to solve the case seem stilted and fall flat but when Chase and Hawn are onscreen, they’re adorable together. They’re also backed by a good cast and halfway decent script with plenty of nods to Hitchcock.

Goldie Hawn is her usual bubbly blonde, seeming airhead self but somehow she manages to evade, escape or disable most of the villains even though they are little more than cartoons for the most part. There is a hilarious scene where she’s fleeing down a fire escape and trying to catch the attention of two older ladies playing dirty scrabble – watch to see what word is spelled and then misspelled as it’s added onto. This is a time when Chevy Chase was actually funny and still sorta cute though he still resorts to his usual clumsy shtick throughout the film. He and Dennehy have a great scene with a “who’s on first” style attempt to unravel the wild story Gloria is telling them about the second disappearing dead body she’s run across in two nights. Marilyn Sokol plays Gloria’s fellow librarian friend who is packing and ready to deck anyone who messes with Stella “unless Stella wants to be messed.” I have to agree, after reading a comment at IMDB, that “messed” was not the original word planned in that sentence. Refer back to the scrabble reference.

But the best secondary character of the entire film, hell almost the best character period, is Stanley Tibbets played by Dudley Moore. Stanley’s got a “Beaver Trap” apartment complete with a quadraphonic sound system, swing out Murphy bed, mirrored ceiling, blow up dolls, projector, a full bar and binoculars. After looking at his closet full of gadgets, a stunned Gloria comments “I never knew the diversity!” God love him, poor Stanley keeps getting caught up in Gloria’s perils when all he’s trying to do is get laid. The city of San Francisco should also get acknowledged as it looks gorgeous and provides the streets for the final wild cross town ride that almost ends the movie.

It’s definitely dated, totally un-PC, can be quite violent at times but it still makes me laugh even after more than 30 years. Remember it’s basically a light hearted romp so don’t take it too seriously. Just have fun with it.

~Jayne

Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: Everyone Says I Love You
2. Friday Film Review: The Rage of Paris
3. Friday Film Review: Away We Go