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Dark Shadows (2012)
"DisapPOINTed!" - Otto
One of the reasons that "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "Young Frankenstein" are perfect horror comedies is because they each have a consistent tone. "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" plays as both a standard Abbott & Costello comedy and a standard Universal horror film. Bud & Lou play for laughs and the monsters play it straight. The only exception is when Frankenstein's Monster recoils in horror when seeing Costello for the first time. "Young Frankenstein" examines all the clichés of old "Frankenstein" movies, but the characters are always deadly serious.
On the other hand, I've been listening to a lot of old time radio comedy shows featuring horror stars like Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Some are really good ("Bob Hope", "Abbott & Costello"), but most of them ("Dinah Shore", "Command Performance") are painful, because they are written by hacks with no love for the genre, who trot out the same references and puns every time. They'd be unbearable if it wasn't for the gravitas brought by the stars – Peter Lorre, in particular, could make any line funny.
"Dark Shadows" plays as if a team of writers from the "Dinah Shore Show" were assigned to write a straight horror movie and couldn't resist the impulse to Get a Few Boffos! This could have been *such* a good movie, and it's just crap. It just has no idea what kind of film it wants to be, and the mix it tries for just doesn't mix. Barnabas Collins emerges from his coffin after 196 years and he's *really thirsty*, killing eleven construction workers luckless enough to have dug up his grave. Then he does a lame gag with a McDonald's sign. He brushes his teeth while looking into a mirror which doesn't reflect him. He sleeps hanging upside down like a bat.
There are some chilling moments, as when Barnabas sadly announces to a group of hippies with whom he has been pleasantly (if inanely) conversing, that he will now have to kill all of them. Which he does. It wants to be a straight horror film. It wants to be a fish-out-of-water comedy. And it has NO clue how to put the two together.
Burton also steals the brilliant sex-so-hot-it-trashes-the-bedroom scene from "The Tall Guy", where Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson hilariously wrecked an entire room – without the benefit of harnesses and stunt people. It's not funny here.
Johnny Depp does what he can with the material. For this picture, rather than channeling Michael Jackson, he's 100% doing Richard Burton as a vampire.
Eva Green is really good as Angelique, though unlike Lara Parker, her eyes are not her most prominent features.
Jackie Earle Haley is good as Willie Loomis, totally played for laughs rather than as John Karlen's angsty, guilt-ridden dweeb.
I love Helena Bonham Carter in most things, and here she's a redhead, so you're not going to catch me saying she's being anything less than magnificent. I started to visualize Grayson Hall (the original Dr. Hoffman) going as far with Jonathan Frid as Bonham Carter goes with Depp, but my inner eyeballs started burning.
Everybody else was OK. Eh.
Original series stars Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker and David Selby appear in the ball sequence – for four seconds.
I'm a huge fan of the original series. I had high hopes because Tim Burton and Johnny Depp kept loudly proclaiming that THEY were fans of the original series. As a straight vampire film with great characters and solid acting, this is a bust. As an episode of "The Birds-Eye Open House with Dinah Shore", it's serviceable. Not a bomb, but incredibly disappointing and not worth seeing.
Dark and Stormy Night (2009)
I Just Want My Thoity-Five Cents.
Okay... "Dark and Stormy Night" is my new favorite movie. It's written and directed by Larry Blamire ("Lost Skeleton of Cadavra", "Trail of the Screaming Forehead") and it's a satire of Old Dark House horror movies. This movie is ten times funnier than "Murder By Death". I loved the movie version of "Clue" (sue me). This is better. I can't even begin to count the strange quotes you're going to be getting from me. The dialogue is rapid-fire and brilliantly off-the-wall. There is a love of and dexterity with language and a dearth of fart jokes.
It has the goddess Jennifer Blaire (Animala in "Lost Skeleton") as wise-cracking reporter Billy Tuesday. As far as I'm concerned, she's right up there with the goddess Jane Lynch.
This also has the goddess Fay Masterson (Betty in "Lost Skeleton") as a British ingénue so helpless she can't sit in a chair on her own and the amazing goddess Susan McConnell (Lattis in "Lost Skeleton") as a mad Scotswoman with the greatest heavily-accented vituperation this side of John Cleese as the French guard in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
If you like the Christopher Guest style of ensemble casting, you're going to love this movie. Andrew Parks (Kro-Bar in "Lost Skeleton") is the standard issue tuxedoed British fop. His mom, Betty Garrett (from "Laverne & Shirley") pops in and out of the story with her gorilla (Bob Burns. If you've ever seen a gorilla in a 1960s sitcom, it was Bob Burns.) Jim Beaver (Ellsworth on "Deadwood") is great as the deceased millionaire's safari guide ("Some of the toughest four days I've ever spent.") Actually, there isn't anybody in this movie who couldn't be singled out – which of course is what you're shooting for with an ensemble.
I completely love Larry Blamire. In a Non-Threatening, Manly American sort of way, I mean. I watched the film again with the commentary track on. His frame of reference is so like mine, it's frightening. Who else bases a character on William Demarest in "All Through the Night" (a Bogart comedy that flopped because it was marketed as an action film)?
This is a movie for anyone who ever wished the "Carol Burnett Show" had hired the writers from "Your Show of Shows".
Quotes:
"I'd LIKE a ducky."
"Hi everybody my name's Ray Vestinhaus – a stranger – and my car just happened to break down just outside, can I stay for the reading of the will? (BEAT) Oop."
"I am Dr. von Vandervon. Dr. Van von Vandervon."
"Let the puppy go!" – "Come to Nana!" "Let the puppy GO!" – "Come to NANA!" "LET THE PUPPY GO!" – "COME TO NANA!"
"Let us leave this room of death and mounted heads who once were friends."
Once Upon a Mattress (2005)
It's a Question of Stack-Up
For me, any review of "Once Upon a Mattress" is a matter of how it stacks up to previous versions. "Mattress" was the second musical I ever saw performed on stage when I was a kid. In my twenties, I played Sextimus. I saw the 1972 version on TV (and recently acquired a copy; it doesn't age well) and found the 1964 TV version on eBay -- that is the best version, with an unexpected song and dance routine from Elliott Gould, who is light on his feet and sounds like an American Anthony Newley.
This new version, to use my wife's assessment, is too Disneyfied. It's just OK when it could have been fabulous. It's polite when it should be raucous. Too many gags are blown because they toned down the delivery for film. Also, the secondary parts have been reduced to almost nothing. The Jester's role is so slivered that I wonder why he's in the film.
Tracey Ullman: Very good as Winnifred, but held back. Her British accent in the part is fine, since it establishes her as a foreigner in the kingdom. And she IS supposed to come from a marshland swamp in a northern kingdom.
Dennis O'Hare: Good acting as Dauntless, sloppy diction when singing.
Carol Burnett: Here's the main problem -- she's excellent (especially with the new song written for this version), but restrained. Aggravain is written to be bombastic and overpowering.
Tom Smothers: Very good as the King, but again, this is a part that has been played by Buster Keaton. It was written as basically being a medieval Harpo Marx. All of the girl-chasing has been excised. He's very mellow and charming, but mellow doesn't do it for me with this part. He was fine for "Man to Man Talk". Smothers was as wonderful as he was allowed to be by the director.
Matthew Morrison: Again, a cartoon part played too realistically. But Morrison was very good, and sang very well.
Zooey Deschanel: I liked her. Her voice was beautiful (her diction was sloppy.) She acted rings around Bernadette Peters in the 1972 version. But the problem with a more down-to-earth Lady Larken is that what attracts Dauntless to Winnifred is the fact that WINNIFRED is the very first down-to-earth girl he's ever met.
Michael Boatman: As the Jester - probably a good actor, but who knows from this? The part was cut to a point where he was a glorified extra.
Edward Hibbert: Disneyfied in a politically correct way -- instead of obviously being the Queen's lover-on-the-side, here the Wizard is an old drag queen -- LITERALLY, when he's playing the Nightingale.
The director blew the end of the curse. It's a standard comedy Rule of Three: Jester: Look... the Queen can't talk! King: (struggling) I... (court is breathless) King: (struggling harder) I... (court is breathless) King: (smiling) I can! (court cheers!) Here, the director had Tom Smothers IN THE BACKGROUND saying (very quietly), "I... I can talk. I can talk." Completely killed the bit.
The pantomime with Winnifred trying to get to sleep was rushed into, then screwed up with bad camera cuts.
"The Spanish Panic" is a choreographer's Mount Everest. This choreographer fell off the mountain halfway up.
Much of the material holds up (when the director has the faith to let the cast deliver it properly) and the songs are still charming.
The nice thing will be if kids like it enough to seek out other, better movies of musicals, or to audition for this one when their local theater does it, just because they remember liking this one.
The Mummy's Hand (1940)
A Problem with PROnunCEEation
Kinda mediocre.
In the opening exposition scene, two people pronounce the Mummy's name as KAR-is, Kar-IS and Kar-EES. Can't make up their minds.
Similarly, Professor Andoheb has the Mummy kill Dr. PET-ree and Babe rushes in with Steve to find that Dr. PEET-ree is dead. They really needed to get on the same page with this stuff.
Takes a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time to get where it's going and isn't worth the journey when it gets there. For a Universal programmer, it's just OK. Nothing special. I can see why Lon Chaney (who took over for Tom Tyler after this film) preferred playing the Wolf Man.
The Fantasticks (2000)
"Teller doesn't talk!" - David Patrick Kelly in "Penn & Teller Get Killed"
Let's get the usual remarks out of the way:
1. I saw "The Fantasticks" on Sullivan Street. 2. I've played Hucklebee. 3. I love the show.
The movie was OK. Not special; but OK. This will seem egotistical, but it's not: John Corona & I were SO much better than Joel Grey and Brad Sullivan, and that's on a community theatre level. It's not that we were brilliant, but Brad Sullivan was so completely god-awful that Joel Grey (who at least is competent) was completely sandbagged. Why in the name of David Merrick would you cast someone in a major musical part who can't carry a tune in a bucket? I lamented that "Plant a Radish" was cut from the movie until I saw it as a DVD extra. "Oh. That's why they cut it. The singing sucks."
The young lovers were OK. Jonathon Morris acted wonderfully as El Gallo, danced well... and his singing was OK but breathy. None of the power associated with the role.
The best ones in the movie were Barnard Hughes as Henry & Teller as Mortimer... so of course their parts were heavily trimmed, prompting the heading on this review. Apparently when Francis Ford Coppola was editing the movie, he was shocked and aghast at Teller speaking. Teller is now silent in the film.
Some of the changes from play to film are clever, and there is some beautiful photography. But in a musical, without the voices you're sunk.
Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Yes, I'm awake now...
Beautifully filmed piece of boring crap.
If they had eliminated 30 or 40 of the close-ups of Colin Firth or Scarlett Johansson looking soulful and filled with angst, the film would have been shorter by half an hour.
That's really all I have to say, but I'm told I need ten more lines. So please skip the rest of this. We saw two movies today. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "Something's Gotta Give." "Something's Gotta Give" was wonderful. This was not. It had wonderful art direction, but that doesn't make up for the 17th Century Sominex soap opera we had to endure.
The Human Stain (2003)
This is a terrific film.
I wasn't going to add a comment here, but I found myself breezing through the other comments, with the constant "poor story structure" crap. Try "complex story structure" or "unusual story structure." They can't ALL be "The Incredible Hulk", folks. As for the complaint that the movie goes on for fifteen minutes after a climactic event: the film ends when the story does. The story isn't ended by the car incident.
I haven't read the book, so I took the film on its own terms. It's a film for intelligent adults with an attention span. The acting is great. Hopkins plays a character who is tragic in the classical sense: a potentially great man with a fatal flaw (and his is a whopper). Kidman is absolutely believable, Anna Deveare Smith is heart-breaking as Silk's mother, Gary Sinise is spot-on and Ed Harris is spooky (ectoplasmically speaking, not as racial vilification.)
Mad Monster Party? (1967)
Bleh. (SPOILER)
I saw this at a kiddie matinee in 1967. It's all right -- I was a kiddie then... and I remember that it was kind of ok most of the way through. Karloff was popular.
My main memory is of the ending. At the conclusion, when Felix and Francesca both turn out to have been built by Dr. Frankenstein and Felix consoles Francesca with "No one's perfect... (click) perfect (click) perfect..." as they sail miserably off into the sunset, no one in that particular audience appreciated it as a parody (ripoff, actually) of "Some Like It Hot", which none of us had seen at that point, being more interested at that age in Abbott & Costello than Marilyn Monroe.
This ROAR went up of "WHAT!? That's STUPID!!!" and we went disgustedly out to be driven home by our parents. The movie was nothing special, but inoffensive, right up until the end. The ending tipped it over into being designated as a bomb.
Johnny English (2003)
Now we know what Don Knotts could have done with a bigger budget.
I love Blackadder II, III, IV, etc.
I love Mr. Bean (though slightly less than Blackadder)
I'm not as fond of the first Black Adder, where Atkinson's Edmund Plantagenet is a bumbling nebbish. This movie is an extension of the nebbish persona.
I would have loved a scathing, witty movie (Blackadder) or a brilliant slapstick film (Bean). "Johnny English" is a Don Knotts movie. I loved Don Knotts movies when I was eight; I was hoping for something better (and funnier) from Rowan Atkinson.
Call Her Savage (1932)
Cool!
Any film that contains:
1. Clara Bow and Thelma Todd in a catfight
2. Clara Bow in a tight silk shirt where it's obvious that (A) she's not wearing a bra and (B) the set was cold that morning is an instant classic, no matter how meandering the rest of the film is.
Also, after seeing the film, I'm at a loss as to why Clara Bow didn't succeed in talkies. She's a wonderful actress, even when the material veers back and forth between sub-par and bizarre.
Pinocchio (2002)
Wow, they really hate Benigni, don't they?
My wife and I saw this film yesterday because (A) we loved "Life is Beautiful" and (B) one review said that Benigni was "all too faithful" to the original book. Well; THERE'S a sin...
It's not a classic. But it's also not the bomb that the critics have been gleefully ranting about. It's beautifully shot, the dubbing is ONLY intrusive if you've never seen a dubbed film before (and if you haven't, get over it) and the screenplay follows the book pretty closely, so if you're a parent who actually encourages his/her children to read and they've read "Pinocchio", they're going to be able to follow it.
The voice for Pinocchio is obnoxious, but everyone else is ok, and it was pleasantly startling to hear John Cleese as the Cricket.
I think the main problems for the critics were (A) their hatred of Benigni for his onstage behavior when he won the Academy Award and (B) this is a film that has the Flagrant Bad Taste to have a non-American point of view for a children's film.
This is a decent kid's film. The small audience (thanks to the critics) we saw it with included children who applauded at the end.
Chicago (2002)
The Best
My wife & I saw "Chicago" last night. I was worried about how they might screw it up. I've seen the show several times (including on Broadway), and have played Amos twice. It's my favorite musical, right after "Assassins." I was extremely ready for disappointment. As a matter of fact, let's get the complaints out of the way:
1. (not serious) In every other incarnation of this material, Roxie is a redhead, not a blonde.
2. (not serious) They made Roxie more "sympathetic", though not as much as the Ginger Rogers version, where she turned out to be innocent.
3. (serious) For its limited release, Miramax booked this into a theater in Oak Brook, Illinois that is an armpit with floodlights. Don't they care that the people from whom they are soliciting Word-of-Mouth publicity are seeing their musical in MONO? And it was the only theatre showing the film within 30 miles of us. We HAD to see it there.
That's it; three complaints. Otherwise, I have to report that (in my opinion) "Chicago" is the best film version of a Broadway musical EVER.
They've solved the problem of how to make an extremely vaudevillian script work on film, they've kept 80% of the songs and they didn't "reinvent" it. One of my best friends and I get into arguments about reinvention, which he is in favor of. For me, reinventing means that the director makes the material serve him instead of having him serve the material. It basically says, "I'm so much more clever than the people who created this; I need to Help Them Out a Little." You know the type of thing: "We're doing 'Oklahoma!' and setting it in Taiwan, because it's never been done that way and it'll say SO much about the universal appeal of the material!" I hate reinvention.
What Rob Marshall (director) and Bill Condon (writer) do with "Chicago" is not reinvention. They interpret the material for the new medium... brilliantly.
Renee Zellwegger is fabulous as Roxie. Catherine Zeta Jones is perfect as Velma. Richard Gere is really good as Billy Flynn, which is not something I usually say about him. Queen Latifah is just right as Mama and John C. Reilly REQUIRES an Academy Award as Amos. After he finished "Mr. Cellophane," I heard several women in the audience let out a massively pitying "OOOhhhhh!" The musical numbers are filmed brilliantly and in a way that makes sense with the plot. And there's a cameo by Chita Rivera, the original Velma on Broadway.
For those who know the earlier versions, there are visual gags kept from the 1942 Ginger Rogers film "Roxie Hart," as well as lines of dialogue reinstated from the original 1926 Maurine Dallas Watkins play.
If you like musicals, SEE THIS. Speaking of which: I'm very puzzled by the number of reviewers here who say, "Well, it's just a MUSICAL; I HATE musicals." Why exactly did they go see it in the first place? I love musicals and this is one of the best I've seen.
Hotel Anchovy (1934)
Crackers
I happened to catch this between Marx Brothers movies. I was pleased, since I had never gotten around to seeing the Ritz Brothers and had heard they were very funny.
Unfortunately, their push push PUSH style fell flat. As my wife said, "I've seen Ritz CRACKERS that were funnier than them."
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
Very Well Done
This is a terrific movie. Four comments.
1. It's interesting going to Rotten Tomatoes.com and reading the critical consensus, especially the ones who say, "Well, it's all right, but it's no 'Wizard of Oz'." Since "The Wizard of Oz" got exactly the same mix of Good, Bad and Eh reviews and went on to become a classic, I think we know what the critics can do with their "Eh"s.
2. The three kids are great, with my favoritism leaning toward Rupert Grint (Ron); he had the best comic timing. A bit of Harry's personality shading was missing. He looked noble a lot.
3. Being an elderly (43) fan of the books (Rowling is a fabulous writer and a hot redhead), I had an acid test ready for the film: would it make me teary-eyed in the same place the book did? (It has to do with Neville at the very end, so I won't say what it is here.) The movie passed.
4. Only regrets: not enough build-up for Malfoy as Harry's nemesis; it would have been nice to see more of the adults, especially John Cleese; and they REALLY need to stop showing the trailer for "E.T." with Drew Barrymore before the film, since it just lends to speculation that in ten years the currently adorable Emma Watson (Hermione) will be tattooed and flashing David Letterman.
Anyway, they did a really great job with this film. For the most part, what was cut from the book needed to be cut. I'll be waiting in line for the next one.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
Funniest Movie of the Millennium
1. The opening was great. Loved Jay's mom.
2. Going from the hitchhiker to the nun and talking at cross-purposes (as it were), was classic farce construction.
3. Aside from the fact that Kevin Smith is a genius, what raises Jay and Silent Bob to the level of classic comedy teams is that, as performers, Mewes & Smith love what they're doing and they love being there. The energy and skill is at a high level.
4. My childhood hankering for Scooby-Doo's Velma returned when it became apparent that she looks better in her underwear than Daphne. I know, I know... "FORGET her, Craig, she's a fictional lesbian!"
5. Aside from energy and intelligence, the movie has heart. And multiple cameos. Mark Hamill is great. **SPOILER** You just know that having a light saber fight in Adam West's Batcave is Kevin Smith's dream come true.
This is the funniest movie to come along this millennium. And there was massive applause for the payoff when Jay asks Silent Bob for information about a truck they are chasing. Hysterically funny movie.
Did I mention it's funny?
The Colgate Comedy Hour: Anything Goes (1954)
Good Points & Bad Points
Bad Points:
1. Truncated script, impossible to follow. 2. Merman and Sinatra are HIGHLY uncomfortable sharing the stage. Sinatra is trying to act with Merman, but she puts up this wall you can almost see. When they kiss, she is so obviously NOT kissing him back that you feel sorry for the poor shmoe. A matinee idol and he can't get *Ethel Merman* to kiss him believably? 3. Merman is past her physical prime and shouldn't be in tight sexy outfits. However, she blows the roof off with "Blow Gabriel Blow," so who cares about the dress?
Good Points: 1. The Cole Porter music is beautifully delivered. 2. Bert Lahr. Still in his prime. 3. Sinatra and Merman working with Lahr. They can't stand each other on stage, but put either of them with Lahr and they come alive. Merman in particular seems overjoyed to be singing "Friendship" with Lahr, which they introduced fifteen years earlier in "DuBarry Was a Lady." Twenty years drops off of her for this one number.
This is very definitely worth seeing at least once, just for Sinatra singing Cole Porter music live, and to see Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman in the kind of Broadway show for which they became famous.
ALSO: Lahr tries to break Merman up onstage. As Reno, she is supposed to marry a Lord Oakleigh. Merman played Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun" eight years earlier. Lahr says, "He just wanted to make sure that you became Annie Oak... uh Lady Oakleigh." She doesn't break.
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Yes, we get the joke...
One of the problems that "Second City TV" had after its first couple of seasons was that it mistook observation for automatic humor. They would nail an imitation of Joey Heatherton or Sammy Davis, Jr., but that was it. You were supposed to think, "Yes, SCTV, these people are silly and you certainly have hit THAT nail on the head!" But they never actually gave the characters anything funny to do. The fact that the people parodied were exposed as being shallow and annoying didn't make the sketches any less shallow and annoying.
"Mars Attacks" is like that. The idea was to make a really cheesy, third-rate sci-fi movie, just like in the Good Ol' Fifties, only to spend $20,000,000,000 making it. Great. It worked. They made a cheesy, third-rate sci-fi movie. But you get the idea that Burton wants to be praised for his Hip, Cutting Edge Cheesy Third-Rate Sci-Fi Movie.
There's no actual plot line here. But since it's a Tim Burton film, that is a redundant statement. Burton is great at individual, quirky, interesting scenes, but he can't tell a story to save his life.
Nicholson has a good moment when the President meets the aliens. It's obviously written that the President is so dense, he thinks he can talk his way out of trouble and save the world. Nicholson adds the feeling that inside the idiot is a decent man struggling to get out, and who knows that he is probably going to be killed but is willing to do his best.
That's about it for this movie... well, that and seeing Sarah Jessica Parker in her underwear.
Avoid at all costs.
Moon Over Broadway (1997)
This is More Like "Macbeth"
If we go by this film, the theatre world could take the gold medal in backstabbing.
I saw "Moon Over Buffalo" on Broadway. Throughout the first act, you wondered whether the play was really funny, or if it was that Philip Bosco & Carol Burnett were so good. The second act, you just screamed all the way through. I mention Bosco first because, although not apparent here, he had the lead role in the show, with a great deal of slapstick. He and Burnett were both wonderful, but Bosco was not overshadowed by Burnett. It was a very funny show.
The snobbery on display here is fascinating. The director disparages Burnett behind her back for being a tv actress. I guess the Broadway shows she did in the late 50's-early 60's don't count.
And I really felt sorry for Ken Ludwig, the playwright, who is treated as if he were a black cat continually crossing the path of everyone connected with the show. His "Lend Me A Tenor" is a brilliant farce, and "Moon Over Buffalo" is only slightly below that in quality. He really gets a shaft up his ass here, with no justification. His lead character in "Lend Me A Tenor" is feckless, likable, nervous and ultimately talented. Watching him here, it is obvious that he based the character on himself.
But, as in his plays, Ludwig gets the last laugh. At the end of this film, a list scrolls by of all the productions of "Moon Over Buffalo" around the world. Everyone has moved on to other projects, but Ludwig is still making money off of this. Good.
The Pledge (2001)
Beware - Major Spoilers Throughout
The ending of this movie stinks. It is the equivalent of telling a child a very suspenseful tale of a prince and a dragon. You build up skillfully to a climactic battle, and as the prince is raising his sword, you say, "But the dragon suddenly had a brain aneurysm and died, leaving the prince looking like a fool who lived unhappily ever after. Hey... sh*t happens, you know?"
Before the sneers and mutterings of "philistine" begin, let me say that I know what the screenwriters and the director were going for -- Greek tragedy: a good man, a Hero is brought to ruin by a fatal flaw in his character. The problem is that here, as in all storytelling, a tragic ending must also be a satisfying one for the audience. No matter how sad the hero's fall/demise, no matter what plot twists occur, one has to be able to say, "Well, that's tragic, but it had to happen. It was inevitable." It's a storytelling tightrope, from which the screenwriters and director fell from great heights, crashed and burned.
In trying to throw a curve, they threw a spitball; they cheated. A deus ex machina ("Machine of the Gods") is a phony dramatic contrivance where the Gods step in at the end of a story and make everything right again. The hero is off the hook. What happened to the serial killer here was worse than a deus ex machina. He is killed by coincidence. That's just cheating.
I would like to suggest what would have been a truly tragic ending. Make Jerry Black a lonelier man. One whose two failed marriages have left him without hope of having a family. Then he meets Lori and Chrissy. His unexpected love for them grows to *almost* the size of his obsession with catching the killer. Give him a true choice between love & obsession and let him pick the wrong one. Then let him catch the goddamned killer. And after he does, this Hero, having fulfilled his task, turns for love and adoration to Lori, who lets him have the same speech she does now and whisks herself and her daughter out of his life. Black then fully realizes what his heroic choice has cost him, and ends up lonely, embittered and perhaps mad.
That would have been a satisfying ending, because the way things play now, here's what the audience is thinking, "He deserves to catch the killer. He does not deserve to have this family after endangering Chrissy so horribly."
The ending of "The Pledge" is badly, terribly wrong, as it trashes what up until then was one of the finest suspense films I've ever seen and one of Jack Nicholson's greatest performances.
Love's Labour's Lost (2000)
Three Miles Below Disappointing
My love for Branagh's Shakespeare films crashed into a large concrete wall with this piece of drek.
The original play is junk, which doesn't give high hopes for the Shakespearean half of the film. With the exception of Branagh, Nathan Lane and some of the older cast members, nobody has a handle on dealing with the language. Handle? Nobody even has a potholder. Alicia Silverstone is especially unfortunate, so it must have been comforting for her that her match in the movie, Alessandro Nivola, is just as bad.
As for the musical half, if you're serious about making a musical, the casting emphasis has to be on people who are dynamite singers and dancers. As my wife commented, "It looks like somebody saw 'Everyone Says I Love You' and said, 'I can do that! With Shakespeare!'" Watching non-singers sing and non-dancers dance is cute for the first three seconds.
The true test came when we started playing Mystery Science Theater 3000 with the movie, commenting on every goofy, inept thing that came along. We were *so* lucky that this horrible movie vanished from theaters before we paid money to see it. We're still thinking of throwing a rock through Blockbuster's window for carrying it.
Have I mentioned that "Love's Labour's Lost" is really bad?
Bedazzled (2000)
Americanized. *sigh*
The main problem with this version of "Bedazzled" is that it wants to be loved. The Peter Cook/Dudley Moore original had a cynical bite that is completely missing here. It was also concerned not just with the schlemiel's wishes, but with what makes the Devil tick. Why does he do what he does? What's his relationship with God? Unfortunately, that movie's viewpoint that God is generally far more callous and satanic than Satan is not even hinted at here.
That being said, this version does what it wants to do very well. Elizabeth Hurley is hot and Brendan Fraser again proves to be a likable and versatile actor. He also convinced me: you can believe Dudley Moore as an unnoticed little shnook. But Brendan Fraser??? Well, he does it.
This is a good (safe) American version of an acerbic British classic. It is well worth seeing (at matineé prices.) I just hope this means that the original will become available on DVD now. *That* one is a keeper.
Striptease (1996)
Not Without My G-String!
The summary line above came from my wife after seeing Andrew Bergman take a really funny book by Carl Hiaasen and turn it into a "Sincere Sally Field Gutsy Mom Works As A Stripper Even Though It Means Shame And Disgust Because It's For Her *Daughter*!!!" movie.
Ving Rhames and Burt Reynolds deliver deft, wonderful performances that are completely sunk by Demi Moore's Jawline Of Grim Determination. The book pointed out that the ones degraded by stripping are actually the men, who turn into drooling, brainless fools, while the women have the control and collect the money. The movie has to add a scene where the daughter sees the mother dancing (oh horrors!) and the mother has to explain her Sordid Living to the Innocent Babe.
Also, in the book, Erin is a top dancer who doesn't have the biggest boobs in the room, but who gets the best tips because she actually knows how to dance. So who do they get to play her? Bebe Neuwirth? Noooo. Demi Moore. All tits and no dancing talent.
Demi Moore was apparently determined to keep this movie from being seen as a comedy. The worst thing to say about this movie is that she succeeded completely.
A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
Remember When Sex Was Fun?
This is a wonderful late-sixties sex comedy. Walter Matthau and Robert Morse are perfectly cast, Inger Stevens is heart-breakingly beautiful and the Technical Advisors are well chosen. Other users keep citing the Joey Bishop scene, but my favorite is the Phil Silvers/Louis Nye scene, which is absolutely top notch and shows what direction "The Phil Silvers Show" might have taken in the sixties if Bilko was allowed to have sex. Unlike the Phil Silvers/Don Knotts scene in "Mad, etc. World," this was a perfectly cast scene that *didn't* fall flat.
And my two nominees for Hot Babes of the sixties are here: Sue Ane Langdon and Jackie Joseph, before they played hookers in "The Cheyenne Social Club."
Small Time Crooks (2000)
Matinee Material
When friends ask me what I thought of "Small Time Crooks," I give it a Matinee Rating. Meaning, go see it, but not at full price.
It's a fun little movie with a lot of really funny bits. It's interesting that a performer who has expressed his dislike for "The Honeymooners" would write himself a part that is basically Ralph Kramden (with a criminal streak) grafted on to the Woody Allen nebbish character. Don't believe me? Check out the last line of the film.
Tracey Ullman has to pull the Serious part of the plot, which leaves room for one of the best comedy teams to come along in a long while... Woody Allen and Elaine May. His best scenes in the movie involve playing off of May. She is the comedy goddess she's always been. I hope they do another movie together where they're teamed all the way through instead of for the last third of the movie.
All the acting is fine, and there is some really excellent material. It's all held back a bit by the plot. But it's a fun movie and certainly a better choice than something like "Road Trip."
The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966)
Mel Tolkin, How Could You?
I saw this on AMC last night, introduced by Nancy Sinatra, whose years of experience have not yet rendered her able to read believably from a cue card.
It actually looked like it might be interesting, since it was written by Mel Tolkin, head writer for "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" (two of the most intelligently written comedy shows of the fifties) and who was later head writer for "All in the Family."
This movie stinks. Brilliant comic actors like Lou Jacobi, Sig Rumann and John Williams are wasted. The plot limps along like a snail with gout. Allen and Rossi, who I remember liking very much on the Ed Sullivan show, do the best they can with underwritten characters. The aforementioned Nancy Sinatra attempts an accent (I believe French, but it's hard to tell.) Her dress gets ripped off, which is the high point of the movie.
I stuck with it until the end because I began to have a morbid fascination with the film: Can It Get Even Unfunnier As It Goes On? The answer is yes, and an hour and a half of my life is irretrievably gone.
You could watch this movie three or four times, and be rolling on the floor... if someone set you on fire and you were trying to extinguish it. Which would actually be preferable to concentrating on this film.