Gideon58's Reviews

The Leisure Seeker
2017's The Leisure Seeker is a lovely cinematic postcard that becomes something out of the ordinary thanks to the beautiful performances by the stars that give standard material more substance than it deserves.

Donald Sutherland and Oscar winner Helen Mirren command the screen as John and Ella Spencer, an elderly couple who have snuck out of their house and packed up a giant Winnebago called The Leisure Seeker for a road trip to the Florida Keys so that John can fulfill a life long dream to see the home of Ernest Hemingway. Unfortunately, John is suffering from severe memory loss and Ella has health issues of her own and their son, Will thinks his parents are no longer able to take care of themselves. Will was apparently planning to place his parents in a home and they were aware of his plan because they got away just before Will arrives at their house.

The viewer is put through an emotional journey as it is clear that John's condition is serious enough that there are moments where he doesn't even remember who Ella is and we begin to wonder if Will's concerns about his parents are legitimate. But then we watch Ella, his devoted wife who still appears to have it together and is doing her best to keep John together. There's a sweet scene where John and Ella are watching family slides and Ella is discreetly quizzing John on who the people in the slides are and giving him the appropriate clues to help him remember. It's also clear that Ella is in some denial about what is happening to John...even though the viewer sees it immediately, we don't hear Ella actually verbalize John's condition until halfway through the film.

The story is comprised of individual vignettes in this very special road trip that run the gamut. The expected encounter with the police occurs, as well as an encounter with a pair of thugs who attempt to rob the Spencers and there was one that I really didn't see coming at all where John, in a state of confusion, admits to having an affair with their neighbor back home (Dana Ivey). This revelation causes Ella to act out in a way that we don't see coming, but we see through everything that happens in this movie is that these two people would be lost without each other and would rather live out their days alone as opposed to the confines of a nursing home.

Paolo Virzìs' direction is a little too deliberate, making the film feel a little longer than it should be, but the consummate professionalism of the amazing Donald Sutherland and the breathtaking Helen Mirren, who effectively adjusts her British accent to a southern drawl, makes this occasionally labored journey worth the ride. It goes without saying that fans of the 1981 film On Golden Pond will have a head start here.

I Want To Live! (1958)
After four previous nominations, Susan Hayward finally nabbed the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress for her powerful performance in the 1958 docudrama I Want to Live!, an overheated chronicle of Barbara Graham, a woman convicted of murder who is sentenced to death via the gas chamber. Despite an air of stylized melodramatics to the film, it still packs quite a wallop.

Barbara Graham was a prostitute who always hung out with the wrong people and agreed to aid Emmett Perkins and Jack Santos in the robbery of an elderly widow, which goes wrong, resulting in the woman's death. When Perkins and Santos are caught, they are convinced that Barbara ratted them out and in attempt to save their own necks, they implicate Barbara in the murder and despite very vocal protestations of her innocence, Graham is sentenced to die in the gas chamber. A reporter named Ed Montgomery whose writing about her led to her initial arrest ends up stepping up to help her when he learns that she's going to be executed.

Robert Wise, who won Oscars for directing the film versions of two musicals, West Side Story and The Sound of Music, received a richly deserved nomination for his work here, mounting a compelling story that may have been altered to evoke sympathy for the heroine, but the atmosphere Wise creates here is often bone-chilling as he takes us inside the soul of this woman who in the completely unenviable position of knowing exactly when she's going to die.

Screenwriters Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz do an admirable job of crafting this story for the screen, though they never make a solid commitment regarding Graham's guilt, leaving it up to the viewer. The way the story comes across here, Santos and Perkins lied about Barbara in an effort to save their own asses, but research does reveal that there was strong evidence pointing to her guilt, but the screenplay never really commits the way it should.

Wise really scores in the second half of the film when Graham is transferred to San Quentin to await the final hours of her life. Her complete defiance of rules at this point is completely understandable and a lot of fun to watch. It was unsettling watching the juxtaposition of Barbara sitting in her cell with scenes of the prison staff preparing the gas chamber for the fateful day. I loved when she was being strapped in and an officer told her to hold her breath and count to ten then hold her breath because it's easier that way, to which she replied "How would you know?"

1958 was a rough year in the Best Actress category...Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame, Liz Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Shirley MacLaine in Some Came Running, but I think they got this one right...Hayward is incredible here in what was definitely the best performance of her career and it's nice to see the Academy actually recognize that once in a while. Simon Oakland also hit all the right notes as Ed Montgomery. Oakland would work with Wise again in West Side Story. There's also an early film appearance from John Marley as a priest and Johnny Mandel also scores with his jazzy music, which beautifully frames this often chilling story. As a docudrama, it doesn't fully commit, but as uncompromising movie storytelling, it still works. The film was remade for TV in 1983 with Lindsay Wagner playing Barbara Graham.

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
The screenplay is overly complex, but the 1997 comedy Romy and Michele's High School Reunion remains watchable thanks to some stylish direction and a pair of charismatic lead performances.

Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) have been best friends since high school and ten years later, they are living together in LA where Romy is a receptionist at a car dealer and Michele is unemployed. Romy learns from another high school friend (Janeane Garafolo) that their ten year reunion is coming up. Romy and Michele are excited about the reunion but decide that their lives in LA suck so they decide to tell everyone that they got rich by inventing post-its.

The premise of this film is great and I think, in the hands of someone like John Hughes, this might have worked really well, but Robin Schiff's screenplay, based on her own play, is kind of all over the place and takes way to long to get where it's going. It takes too long for the girls to get on the road to Tuscon and upon arrival, the story takes a couple of huge unnecessary detours that aggravate and confuse the viewer. There's a flashforward that looks at the characters 70 years later that's just a waste of screentime.

What does work here is Schiff's on target examination at the high school class wars and the stereotypes that we come to expect from such a story. We have the popular snotty bitch, the geeky nerd who returns to the reunion the richest and most successful guy there, and the potty-mouthed smart-ass who pretends to hate everyone but just wants to be popular. The two central characters are also completely engaging and we really don't understand why the story actually tears them apart at the halfway point, even though we know it's temporary. I love their argument about which one is the "Mary" and which one is the "Rhoda."

Sorvino and Kudrow make a wonderful screen team and I'm actually surprised that these characters haven't been revisited in a sequel. Also loved Alan Cumming as the geeky Sandy Frink and Garafolo as the bitter Heather Mooney. The screenplay is a little fuzzy, but the cast and direction make this one worth a look.

I love Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, thought I've only seen it once years ago. I'll have to watch it again now.

Executive Suite
A proven director behind the camera, a compelling story of office politics, and an impressive all-star cast are the primary selling points of a sizzling 1954 melodrama called Executive Suite that completely engaged this reviewer with constant surprises along the way and an ending that will induce cheers.

The canvas for the story is a large manufacturing company called The Treadway Corporation and we learn that Avery Bullard, the president of the company, has sent a telegram calling a meeting of the board of directors for 6:00 pm. After sending the telegram, Bullard is en route to catch the 5:49 train into New York and unexpectedly drops dead. A drama unfolds as Bullard never made any clear cut arrangements for a replacement so a power play is initiated, starting with Bullard's # 2 man, Loren Shaw (Fredric March) who thinks his appointment to the position will be a shoo-in, but that is hardly the case.

The board members and other primary players in this drama include Don Walling (William Holden), an engineer with the company who really doesn't have experience at the executive level; George Casswell (Louis Calhern) a snake whose only concern after hearing about Bullard's death is getting his hands on as much company stock as he can; Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), whose made it his mission to make sure than anyone but Shaw take over the company; Julia Treadway (Barbara Stanwyck) the major stockholder in the company who inherited the stock from her late father; and Josiah Dudley (Paul Douglas), a salesman with the firm who is too distracted by his failing marriage and his mistress (Shelley Winters) to focus on what's going at Treadway. And let's not forget Erica (Nina Foch), Bullard's private secretary and Don's wife, Mary (June Allyson).

Director Robert Wise shows a real penchant for developing solid melodrama based on a character whose death actually opens the story. I love that Casswell is the only character who learns of the death right after it happens and his first call is to his broker to buy up Treadway stock. It was interesting that the rest of the characters don't learn about Bullard's death until about 40 minutes in the film and that's where the fun starts. It's made clear immediately that no one wants Shaw running the company and we don't have to wait forever to find out why...Shaw's machinations to get the presidency begin almost immediately, but what makes watching him work so much fun is the subtlety he employs in what he's doing. He claims that every move he makes is for the good of the company but every move he makes is toward furthering his own agenda. Fredric March's casting in this role was inspired, a beautifully underplayed performance that makes the viewer want to strangle the guy.

Holden is splendid as the hothead who knows Shaw is wrong for the company and steps up when he needs to and I also loved Calhern in his accustomed slick turn as the guy only concerned about lining his own pockets and is not above kissing Shaw's entitled ass to do it. Stanwyck makes the most out of what is a glorified cameo and Douglas evokes serious pathos in his Dudley. Mention should also be made of the superb performance by Nina Foch as the secretary protecting her boss' legacy and Shelley Winters finally playing a character who wasn't a doormat. Robert Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman, who would triumph a decade later with The Sound of Music, produce a winner here, with the aid of a powerhouse cast, all working at the top of their game.

Teachers
It scores in terms of intentions, but the 1984 comedy-drama Teachers just tries to cover a little too much territory with an air of pretension that negates some strong direction and the work of a really interesting ensemble cast.

This episodic story takes place at a fictional high school that is the setting for several interwoven stories, the primary one being that this school is being sued by the parents of a student who was graduated from the school without being able to read and write. The lawsuit is quietly tearing the school apart and a teacher named Alex Jurel (Nick Nolte) is caught in the middle. Alex is the requisite "cool" teacher that the students love but the faculty and administration consider him to be a loose cannon and could be detrimental in their handling of this lawsuit.

In addition to the lawsuit, we are also introduced to a troubled student (Ralph Macchio), whose limited reading skills indicate there might be some merit to this lawsuit; a student (Laura Dern) who gets pregnant because she's having sex with a faculty member, a nerdy teacher (Allen Garfield) who is harassed by the students and might be more of a threat to the lawsuit than Jurel; a student psycho who steals cars and has a gun in his locker (Crispin Glover); and a mental patient (Richard Mulligan) who's been working as a substitute teacher in the school for weeks without anyone's knowledge.

On the surface, W R McKinney's screenplay is a loving valentine to teachers and the important work they do and they are worthy of the attention they are given here, but this film has the same problem that plagued the Oliver Stone football movie Any Given Sunday...the film just tries to cover too much territory to really make the impact that it should. The idea of a school being sued for graduating an illiterate student would have made a great movie all by itself and could have made a much stronger statement than showing all these other stories that take away from the first story presented, especially the story about the mental patient, which, for my money, was just ridicules what teachers do and makes the educational system we have in place look pretty stupid. The idea that a mental patient could get away with teaching in a high school as long as this one does is rnot as funny as it's presented here. This film would have worked a lot better if it had just concentrated on the lawsuit.

I also had issues with the character of Lisa Hammond, the lawyer handling the case in charge of taking depositions at the school. One, I think the validity of what she was doing was compromised when she started seeing Alex Jurel socially and two, I couldn't buy that she was supposed to be former student of Jurel's...either Nolte or Williams were too young for their roles to make that work.

Director Arthur Hiller does show some panache, stirring appropriate emotions from the characters and for the viewers and there are some really good performances,. headed by Nolte, who brings a lot of meat to this troubled Alex Jurel. Judd Hirsch is excellent as the vice-principal and Alex's pal, as are Lee Grant as the superintendent, William Schallert as the bubble-headed principal, and Dern as the promiscuous student. I also have to commend Crispin Glover's almost frightening performance that was almost a little too real for comfort. The film is not what it should be, but it's worth a look.

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
Four years after they triumphed with the screen version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams, Richard Brooks, and Paul Newman reunited to bring another Williams stage sizzler, Sweet Bird of Youth to the screen.

Newman and Geraldine Page were actually allowed to reprise the roles they created on Broadway for this 1962 screen translation. Newman plays Chance Wayne, a hustler and womanizer who has spent years in Hollywood struggling to become famous, but is now returning to his hometown, St. Cloud, Florida, to reunite with the girl of his dreams, Heavenly Finley. His plans are complicated by an alcoholic actress named Alexandra Del Lago (Page) who is passed out in Chance's backseat and by Boss Findlay (Ed Begley)a smarmy politician who has most of the town in his hip pocket and doesn't want Chance anywhere near his daughter, Heavenly.

Williams' play premiered on Broadway in 1959 and ran for less than 400 performances, but the story didn't take long making it to the big screen, despite rather steamy material for 1962 movie audiences. I've never seen the piece onstage, but if history with Williams is any indication, the screen version is centered around some pretty adult staff and was probably watered down for 1962 consumption. This Chance Wayne character is no boy scout...this guy has spent years in Hollywood using his body to get wealthy women to finance his career and makes no bones about it. We aren't shocked when it is revealed that he has pretty much kidnapped Ms. Del Lago after a drunken escapade and plans to blackmail her into jump starting his career. It's also made clear that Chance is still in love with the virginal Heavenly Finley and always will be and is determined to win her back. The audience finds themselves scratching their collective heads trying to figure out how he's going to do both.

Director Richard Brooks, as he did with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has created another steamy southern atmosphere where we see character morals wilt under the same sun that has most of the characters sweat. We see a central character that we sympathize with even though we really shouldn't though we don't understand a lot of the contempt that he has returned to. It's never really made clear why the Finley clan hates Chance so much, other than what he put Heavenly through, but Heavenly brought a lot of that pain on herself. And in the tradition of Big Daddy Pollitt, Williams has created another totally reprehensible villain in Boss Finley, a smarmy snake who does the majority of his dirt with a great big smile on his face. And in a nice change for Tennessee Williams, most of the characters in this twisted story get what's coming to them.

The film received seven Oscar nominations, with Ed Begley winning Best Supporting Actor for his theatrical turn as Boss Finley. Geraldine Page received a richly deserved nomination for her dazzling turn as Alexandra Del Lago, a tragic heroine in the best tradition of Blanche Dubois that did win her a Golden Globe. and Shirley Knight's surprisingly rich performance as Heavenly earning her a supporting actress nomination.

Newman was somehow overlooked by the Academy for his powerhouse performance playing a somewhat reprehensible character that we can't help but love because he's being played by Paul Newman. Rip Torn, who would marry Page shortly after this film was released, also impresses as Boss Finley's son and # 1 stooge. Madeline Sherwood, who was also in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof can also be glanced in a flashy performance here as Boss' mistress, a character nothing like the one she played in Cat. Another solid adaptation of a Tennessee Williams work that was remade for TV in 1987 with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon playing Page and Newman's roles.

Oliver!
The 1968 musical version of the Broadway musical Oliver! won six Oscars, including Best Picture of the year, but for the life of me, I don't know why. This spectacle is an overblown, overlong, and depressing movie that is a total bummer and seemed about seventeen hours long.

As stated in the opening credits, "Freely adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens", this is the story of a nine year old English orphan who gets thrown out of an orphanage for asking for a second bowl of gruel. He is sold to a mortician who turns him into a slave but he manages to escape and manages to get to London where he falls in with a rag tag group of child pickpockets, led by the enigmatic Fagin, who promises to take care of Oliver, until Fagin and his partner in crime, Bill Sykes, feel that Oliver might have compromised their business and decide they must disrupt Oliver's newfound happiness when he is adopted by the Magistrate (Oscar winner Hugh Griffith).

It should be noted that this review is coming from someone who never read Dickens' book and perhaps that might have a lot to do with this reviewer's confusion about exactly what was going on here. As presented here, I found the relationship between Fagin and Bill Sykes rather confusing, it was difficult to determine who worked for who. I also didn't understand after Oliver went to court and kept his mouth shut, why Fagin and Sykes still felt they needed to get Oliver back. I didn't understand why Nancy (Shani wallis) was so attracted to the emotionally and physically abusive Sykes, making her rendition of the best song in the score, "As Long As He Needs Me", kind of stupid.

After over thirty years in the business as a director, Sir Carol Reed won his first Oscar for Best Director and I guess in terms of size and spectacle, his work deserves recognition, though personally I think the other four Best Picture nominees that year were all all superior films. The film spends way too much time on exposition and the musical numbers are interminable. And a couple of them, "Who Will Buy?", and "Reviewing the Situation" brought the film to a dead halt and a film of this length really needs to keep moving.

Lionel Bart's score is a mixed bag that did produce a couple songs that have become pop standards, In addition to the aforementioned numbers, there was "Consider Yourself", "Where is Love?" ,"It's a Fine Life", "You've Got to Pick a Pocket Or Two", "Food Glorious Food", and "I'd Do Anything". It should be noted that this one of three films in history to win an Oscar for choreography...Gene Kelly for An American in Paris, Jerome Robbins for West Side Story, and Onna White for this film, though I think her choreography for the film version of The Music Man trumps her work here.

I liked that Reed chose actors who were appropriate for the roles and didn't seem concerned as to whether or not they could sing. Ron Moody received an Oscar nomination for his flashy Fagin and Oliver Reed was quite menacing as the evil Bill Sykes, one of the most off-putting characters I have ever seen in a musical. Harry Secombe was impressive as Mr. Bumble and his rendition of "Boy for Sale" was impressive. Mark Lester was adorable in the title role (Lester's singing was dubbed by Kath Green), but for me, the best performance in this movie came from a 12-year old kid named Jack Wild playing the Artful Dodger, a performance so slick and charming that it earned Wild an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The production values are top rate, but the unpleasantness of the story really weighs this one down.

JFK
Possibly the finest docudrama ever made and definitely director Oliver Stone's masterpiece, 1991's JFK is a meticulously crafted look at one man's pursuit of the truth regarding the conspiracy surrounding the death of our 35th president. As I try to do with fact-based dramas, I will do my best to stay off any political soapboxes and discuss this film as a piece of entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.

Director and co-screenwriter Oliver Stone has done something here that had never really been done before to such startling effect. He has compiled an unprecedented amount of archival news footage regarding the presidency and the assassination and seamlessly edited into the story of Jim Garrison, the Louisiana district attorney whose own investigation into the assassination is closed down by the federal government. Three years later, Garrison cannot let it go and re-assembles his team to continue his investigation into the death of JFK and, more importantly, that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone and was part of a cover up that might have led all the way to the White House.

The crux of this investigation seems to involve a wealthy businessman named Clayton Shaw who, according to this film, was spotted by more than one witness in the area of the shooting that day and how Shaw wound up as the only person ever actually brought to trial for conspiring to murder the president, even if he was acquitted.

Oliver Stone has taken on a mammoth assignment here and has made his personal agenda clear regarding what is presented. He employs a lot of stylish techniques to bring this story to the screen without the dryness that some of it implies. That famous footage of the assassination that we've all seen a million times is utilized throughout here, but not in the way assumed. Stone cuts up the footage and only uses bits and pieces of it near the beginning of the film but always stops at the moment the first shot rings out, then recreating the reactions all around to what is happening, starting with all the birds flying from the top of the building from where the shots allegedly came, a striking image. The footage isn't used in complete form until Shaw's trial, and even now, after all these years, it's still very difficult to watch and Stone knows that too and makes it clear for the viewer.

The continuity between the drama that Stone has directed and the archival footage is often shocking and Stone is to be commended for the unending research and logistics that had to be compiled in presenting these stories. I thought I had seen everything there was to see about this event in terms of archival footage but I was wrong. This film actually features some shocking images of JFK on the operating table after being shot with Jackie pacing in the background...I've never seen anything so horrifying, I thought the footage of the shooting was hard to watch.

As can be imagined, all the detail involved in giving a balanced and accurate account of Jim Garrison's investigation, that this film is going to be long and yes, it does run a little longer than it needs to, but I can't see taking anything out of here regarding the investigation. If anything, the footage depicting the effect the investigation was having on Jim's family could have been trimmed a bit...we've seen these scenes in a million different movies and Stone really didn't bring anything new to them and they definitely provided the film's slow spots.

Stone is also to be commended for utilizing mad star power here that never overpowers the story he's trying tell. Kevin Costner is strong and sincere as Jim Garrison, the one man crusade to prove that the Warren Commission Report was crap. Costner imbues a dry humor to the character that is so enjoyable, especially in his summing up to the jury regarding the theory of "the magic bullet", maybe his strongest scene in the film, just brilliant.

Tommy Lee Jones is brilliant as Clay Shaw...this is the performance that should have won him the Oscar, not The Fugitive...Jones chews the scenery when it's appropriate and underplays when it's appropriate. Sissy Spacek makes the most of her thankless role as Liz Garrison and I also enjoyed Michael Rooker, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Grubbs, Wayne Knight, and Jay O. Saunders as Garrison's investigative teams. Other star turns offered along the way include John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Donald Sutherland, Lolita Davidovich, Walter Matthau, Joe Pesci, and Edward Asner. Special mention to Kevin Bacon as the gay hustler who outs Clay Shaw and Gary Oldman, appropriately creepy as Lee Harvey Oswald, but this film is a tribute to the sometime off-center genius that is Oliver Stone.

The Flamingo Kid
Some good actors are wasted in a really forgettable comedy called The Flamingo Kid, which seems to be director Garry Marshall's variation on Caddyshack, but doesn't work nearly as well.

The 1984 comedy stars Matt Dillon as Jeffrey Willis, a kid who is supposed to work in an office for the summer but instead gets a job at the El Flamingo, the local beach club, where Jeffrey finds his head turned by wealthy fat cat Phil Brody (Richard Crenna) who is the club's gin rummy champion.

Marshall and his brother Neal collaborated on this simplistic and predictable screenplay that offers no surprises and goes everywhere you expect it to, but the cast so engaging that sometimes you don't notice it. There was serious Oscar-buzz for Richard Crenna's charismatic performance here and Marshall good luck charm hector Elizondo is rock solid as Jeffrey's father, the humble plumber who refuses to let his son be stolen from him by the fat cat. Sadly, the obligatory romance with Carla (Janet Jones) is a real snore and every time she and Dillon share the screen the film comes to a complete halt.

The film does have some real continuity issues...according to the screen, the film takes place in 1963, but most of the music in the background is from the 50's and the settings and costumes are all very 70's and 80's. There's nothing definitive about this movie that says "the 60's" other than a single crawl at the bottom of the screen and sometimes the mixing of the very decades gets very distracting.

Still, this role was a real departure for Dillon, unlike anything he had ever done before. Dillon has never been so sweet and unassuming onscreen before, playing a character completely devoid of ego and full of heart. Fisher Stevens also makes the most of his screen time as Jeffrey's buddy and Jessica Walter is splendid as Crenna's wife, who spends half the movie trying to remember Jeffrey's name. Penny Marshall's daughter Tracy plays Polly and Garry Marshall's son, Scott, appears in the opening scene playing stickball. but as an overall positive film experience, it either just doesn't hit the mark or it just hasn't aged very well.

Rachel, Rachel
The late Paul Newman made an impressive directorial debut guiding wife Joanne Woodward to her second Oscar nomination in a quietly moving character study called Rachel, Rachel that will provide entertainment for viewers who like this kind of cinematic journey.

The 1968 film stars Woodward as Rachel Cameron, a 35-year old spinster schoolteacher who lives in the small town of Japonica, Conn. with her mother. They live above a funeral parlor that was once run by Rachel's deceased father, but the new owner has allowed them to continue living upstairs. Rachel has never really gotten over the death of her father and has a lot of conflicted feelings about her mother, that have caused her to cut off all forms of socialization. On the other hand, she also uses caring for her mother as an excuse to get out of a lot of social engagements. Things start to look up for Rachel when Nick Kazlik, a childhood friend, returns to town and won't take no for an answer as he pursues a romance with Rachel.

Newman proves to have a very inventive camera eye here and obviously has no problem communicating what he wanted from Woodward. Rachel's true feelings about her mother and just about everything else were cleverly manifested through visual fantasy featuring Newman and Woodward's daughter, Nell Potts as child Rachel and actual inner dialogue from Rachel beautifully performed by Woodward. We get much more insight into Rachel through these directorial methods than we do in Rachel's outer actions. I loved Rachel's inner dialogue when she's laying in bed after her first time having sex with Nick and she's pleading with God to help Nick to forgive her for being so bad in bed.

The relationship between Rachel and Nick also rings completely true, even if it is only kicked into gear when Rachel's co-worker, Calla (Estelle Parsons, fresh off her Oscar for Bonnie and Clyde) makes a pass at her. I loved the awakening that Nick caused in Rachel...there's this great moment where he wants to spend the weekend with her and she can't talk because her mother's sitting there or when the phone rings and Rachel is in the shower and practically kills herself to get out of the shower and yank the phone out of her mother's hand. The resolution of the relationship was a little fuzzy, but while it was happening, this was one of the loveliest romances I have ever seen in a movie.

Newman, with grand assists from screenwriter Stewart Stern and film editor Dede Allen, create a beautiful and believable look at a character who we love at the beginning but worry for and are surprised by the growth of the character as the final credits roll. Woodward, as always, is riveting in the title role and, in another year, might have won a second Oscar for this performance. James Olson is a warm and engaging romantic interest and Kate Harrington brings just the right irritant factor to Rachel's mother, where you don't want to strangle her, but you do just want her to shut up once in a while. Newman, Woodward, and Potts would next collaborate on The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, but their work here is just as effective.

Us
Jordan Peele won an Oscar for his screenplay for the surprise hit of 2017 Get Out and it is that aspect of his next project that pretty much does it in. Peele got a little full of himself with 2019's Us, a pretentious and overblown horror tale whose primary problem is a screenplay that is beyond comprehension.

The film opens in 1986 with a little girl named Adelaide who disappears in a carnival fun house which apparently had severe mental effects on her as she was returned to her parents. The movie than flashes forward to the present where we meet an adult Adelaide, her husband Gabe, her daughter Zora and her son Jason who are on the way to their summer home. Not long after their arrival, Adelaide and her family confront a family in their front yard who eventually make their way into the house and as they take off their masks, the family is revealed to be an exact doppelganger of Adelaide and her family, except that they are wearing red suits, their faces are disfigured, and they have superhuman strength.

The story is somewhat compelling up to this point even though we're not sure what this has to do with the opening scene from 1986 but we figure they'll get around with it. After the doppelgangers seem to get bored toying with this family, the story suddenly moves next door to the neighbors where it is discovered that they are being terrorized by a doppelganger family as well and this is where Peele lost me....he has us completely engulfed in the problems of this one family and then all of a sudden there is a second family and they only seem to be interested in Adelaide? Seriously?

Unlike Get Out, Peele's direction is definitely superior to his screenplay here, delivering some small scale "boos" and even a couple of laugh out loud moments that are, frankly, a relief, but the story is just too confusing to remain fully invested in. Even when the story makes its way full circle back to 1986 and we think all of this is going to be explained, it's not, and the actual final scene leaves a lot more questions than answers.

Thanks to the success of Get Out, Peele was afforded a large budget here but it's all for naught. The film is well-acted, with a charismatic performance from Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide, unfortunately, the messy and confusing story really weighs this one down. A severe case of sophmore-itis for Jordan Peele.

Meet Me in Las Vegas
The Joe Pasternak unit at MGM brought musical audiences something a little different in 1956 called Meet Me in Las Vegas that provides the accustomed MGM gloss and some serious star power to a rather limp story and almost succeeds in producing the kind of entertainment in we expected from MGM.

This splashy musical comedy stars Dan Dailey as Chuck Rodwell, a rancher who comes to Las Vegas once a year to gamble and believes that holding the hand of a woman increases his luck every time he places a bet. He thinks he may have found the luck he's looking for when he holds the hand of Maria Courvier (Cyd Charisse), a snooty ballerina who has been booked for a two-week gig at the Sands. Chuck is able to convince Maria that the luck is legitimate and they start making some serious money but all the hand holding leads to some more romantic feelings between the two and that's when things begin to get complicated for the couple.

Admittedly, this musical takes a minute to get going, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to. Dan Dailey is endlessly charming in one of the most likable characters he has ever portrayed and Dailey has definitely portrayed his share of likable characters. I was impressed with the way Dailey's Chuck Rodwell treated all the ladies he held hands with in this movie...he was gracious and honest and never disrespected any of the ladies or led them on thinking that the hand holding meant more than it did. And let's face it, the snooty ballerina is nothing new for Charisse, but this one does a pleasant and believable meltdown that made her a lot more fun to watch than a lot of Charisse's characters.

The other way director Roy Rowland scored was surrounding his lead characters with a lot of stars, some doing nothing more than glorified cameos, but it added a nice mystery to the fun as every time a scene changed you never knew who was going to pop up. Jim Backus plays the manager of the Sands, Paul Henreid played Maria's manager, Agnes Moorhead appeared as Chuck's mother, Lilli Darvas played Maria's maid, and Cara Williams was a lot of fun as an old flame of Chuck's who tries to cash in on his newfound luck. There are solid musical guest star turns from Lena Horne and the iconic Frankie Laine and a small role for future Oscar winner George Chakiris, and if you don't blink, you might even catch a tiny cameo from O'l Blue Eyes as a gambler who gets to cash in on Chuck and Maria's luck.

Musical highlights include "The Gal with the Yaller Shoes", a production number at Chuck's ranch which showcases the dance skills of the stars, Horne's "If You Can Dream", Williams' "I Refuse to Rock and Roll", and Charisse's elaborate "Frankie and Johnny Ballet". Both Hermes Pan and Eugene Loring contributed to the choreography and the songs are by Sammy Cahn, Johnny Green, and Nicholas Brodzky and even with all this talent in front of and behind the camera, the movie never quite becomes what it should, but die hard musical fanatics will find something to latch onto here.

Richard Pryor: Live In Concert
The late Richard Pryor made a lot of contributions to the history of comedy during his too short time with us, but one that a lot of people forget about is that Pryor invented the comedy concert film. Yes, Pryor was the first comic to walk onto a stage to do stand-up and have a camera film the whole thing, then release it as a theatrical feature. Pryor invented a new kind of screen entertainment with the release of 1979's Richard Pryor: Live in Concert.

This concert was filmed live from the Terrace Theater in Long Beach California and apparently featured Patti LaBelle as his opening act as she is given a large print onscreen credit for it as well as an onstage credit by Pryor himself, which concludes with a very funny impression of LaBelle's sax player. It's so obvious as this film begins that this was definitely something new. Comedians who do concert films now put a lot of thought into making the opening before they go onstage interesting...no such effort put forth here. The film opens with Pryor and then spouse Jennifer arriving at the venue in a limo walking through the back of the theater to an elevator that they board, no music, no talking, they don't speak to anyone. Look at this opening and look at the opening of some of Kevin h
Hart's specials.

Director Jeff Margolis, who went on to an impressive career directing award shows like the Oscars and the Emmys, doesn't employ a lot of cinematic trickery here. He points the camera at Pryor and lets the man explode with the expected racist and sexual tirades, as well as a funny bit about the death of Pryor's two pet monkeys and a reaction from the dog next door. His routines about having a heart attack and being arrested were also on the money. That was one thing I noticed here was that Pryor did a lot of bits that involved talking animals where he offers his personal interpretation of the way animals are looking at him and it totally works.

As this was a new form of entertainment, there were a lot of problems with this initial concert effort that other directors learned how to deal with over the years. The primary problem was a really obnoxious audience, about a third of which were still trying to find their seats when the show began. Then there was this guy right in front of the stage taking flash photographs of the star. Pryor even asks him to stop and he refuses and has to tell the guy to sit down. Every time he would finish a bit, audience members would just start yelling things at him, but Pryor handles it like a pro.

And I hate to bring it up, but about 15 minutes into the concert, Pryor develops these HUGE pit stains on his bright red shirt that you can't help but notice and no matter hard I tried to focus on his comedy, my eyes just kept coming back to those pit stains. But like I said, this was something new and there is technology now that can cover up things like this, but it didn't seem to bother the audience who when they weren't yelling at the guy, were pretty much doubled over in laughter. RIP, Mr. Pryor.

Lies and Alibis
A clever movie premise is weighed down by an overly complex screenplay and a miscast leading man in a 2006 inde called Lies and Alibis that starts off promisingly but eventually collapses from taking itself too seriously.

Ray Elliott is a former con man who now runs a company that is in the business of providing alibis for adulterous spouses through well-placed phone calls at the appropriate times and making sure someone is present where the spouse is supposed to be. Robert Hatch, a longtime client of Elliott's, asks him to help his son cheat on fiancee but things go bad when the son murders his mistress during rough sex.

I think screenwriter Noah Hawley has come up with a very clever premise for a black comedy. The idea of an entire corporation built around the idea of helping adulterers do what they do without being caught is damned clever...I loved the opening scene of Ray actually going into the hotel of cheating lovers and informing them that the photographer in the parking lot is working for the woman's husband. The idea of profiting off of people's infidelity is so twisted, made even more twisted by the fact that Ray seems to be making a very comfortable living from what he's doing.

Unfortunately, the story gets overly complicated after that as we earn that a sophisticated hit man already has his eye on Ray due to events in his past and Robert Hatch is expecting Ray to take the fall for his son as he continues his own adulterous ways and it's all seen through the eyes of Ray's new employee, a tall and willowy blonde named Lola whose moral barometer regarding what Ray's company is doing fades away a little too quickly. Then there's the boyfriend of the murdered girl, who wants revenge on Ray because part of the ruse with Jr. was that Ray and Jr. switch identities.

Co-directors Matt Checkowski and Kurt Matilla employ some directorial style to this twisted story, but there's so many superfluous characters employed in what's going on, that we stop caring long before the credits roll. Steve Coogan was also a little too straight-faced as Ray, something for which the directors have to take partial blame, but the actor was kind of bland...as I watched, I kept picturing Ryan Gosling or Brad Pitt in the role. I did enjoy Sam Elliott as the hitman pretentiously named "The Mormon", James Brolin and James Marsden as Robert and Wendell Hatch, and John Leguizamo as the avenging boyfriend, but the whole thing just gets too manic for the viewer to stay invested.

Storm Warning (1951)
An uncompromising look at the power of the KKK and two solid leading lady performances make the 1951 drama Storm Warning much more than the rip-off of another famous film of the same year that it appears to be on the surface.

Ginger Rogers stars as Marsha Mitchell, a fashion model traveling by bus to a job but decides to make a quick stop at a southern town called Rock Point so that she can visit her pregnant sister, Lucy (Doris Day) and Lucy's husband, Hank (Steve Cochran), who Marsha has never met. Not long after her arrival in Rock Point, Marsha actually witnesses klan members beating and shooting a man. Two of the men make the mistake of taking off their masks, not knowing that Marsha has seen them. Marsha reunites with her sister and is shocked to learn that one of the faces she saw standing over the murdered man was Lucy's slimy husband.

Daniel Fuchs and Richard Brooks have crafted a well-rounded and meaty story that, on the surface looks like a rip-off of A Streetcar Named Desire, the film version of which was released the same year. We have the woman, her pregnant sister, and the sister's husband who makes no qualms about an immediate attraction to his sister-in-law, but unlike Blanche DuBois, the attraction is not mutual...after what she witnessed, Marsha feels nothing but contempt for her brother-in-law, but in an attempt to protect her blissfully happy sister, Marsha agrees not to identify the guy to the DA, played with sincerity by Ronald Reagan. And this is the first of several mistakes that Marsha makes and immediately regrets.

Director Stuart Heisler not only creates an evocative small town atmosphere that has a dark intensity to it, but pulls a couple of very strong performances from his two leading ladies. Ginger Rogers offers one of the strongest performances of her career as the strong but conflicted Marsha and Doris Day proves to be an actress of substance in her first really serious role. Unfortunately, Cochran is laughably bad as Hank and keeps this film from being the really important film it should have been, but the story and the leading ladies still make this one worth watching.

Bob Fosse: Steam Heat
It's another one of those freaky coincidences that right after completing the 2019 FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon that I ran into a 1990 documentary called Fosse: Steam heat, which lovingly documents the amazing career of the legendary dancer, director, and choreographer.

Originally broadcast on the PBS series Great Performances, this amazingly detailed look at the life of this show business icon begins with a look at his childhood where (there is a lot of footage of Fosse himself as part of the narration) Fosse explained that dancing was an attention-getter he used in the house since the rest of his brothers were athletes. He talks about his first job dancing in a burlesque house, which is the first of several times in the documentary that Bob's real life is juxtaposed with corresponding scenes from his 1979 thinly disguised autobiography All That Jazz.

The documentary contains tons of footage of the man dancing with his first wife Mary Ann Niles and in movies like The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, Give a Girl a Break, and of course, that incredible challenge dance in My Sister Eileen with Tommy Rall that Gwen Verdon tells us was created because Bob wanted to show that he could compete on the same level, dance-wise, with a ballet dancer.

As the film reaches a new plateau in Fosse's life or career, we are treated to footage from a memorial service for Fosse, where several of his best friends, mostly writers, spoke about him in the most loving and humorous terms. Commentary is provided from Paddy Chayefsky, Peter Stone, Steve Tesich, Herb Gardner, and, of course, Neil Simon.

We are also treated to a lot of commentary from the legendary Gwen Verdon who provides a lot of insight into Fosse's insecurities as a dancer and a choreographer and how they affected his work. Bob's womanizing, which eventually led to the downfall of his marriage, is discreetly sidestepped here as Verdon only spoke about her husband in the most glowing terms. We are also treated to rare footage of Verdon performing in Sweet Charity as well as on the set of the movie of Charity and All That Jazz. We also get to see the first commercial for a Broadway show ever made, created by Fosse to increase ticket sales for Pippin, the show that won him two Tonys and ran on Broadway for six years. We also get a glimpse at the last movie he directed Star 80 and his last Broadway musical Big Deal. If you enjoyed the Fosse/Verdon miniseries, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy this too.

Dark Victory (1939)
A breathtaking, Oscar-nominated performance by Bette Davis anchors the ultimate 30's tearjerker, Dark Victory, a compelling melodrama that should have the viewer reaching for the kleenex during the final act.

Davis plays Judith Traherne, a wealthy and self-absorbed socialite who has been in denial about the headaches and blurred vision that have been plaguing her for months. Her family doctor persuades a specialist named Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent) to examine Judith and after getting second, third, and fourth opinions, determines that Judith has a brain tumor. He operates and doesn't tell his patient that the tumor will eventually reappear and kill her within a year. He decides to keep the truth from her, but that becomes very complicated when he and Judith fall in love with each other.

This story first found life on Broadway as a play written by George Emerson Brewer Jr. with Tallulah Bankhead playing Judith Traherne. Casey Robinson's screenplay has been lovingly adapted for the screen to fit the talents of Warner Brothers biggest star. Watching this, it's hard to believe that anyone but Bette Davis had ever played this role. A couple of years later, Davis would bring another role originated on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead to the screen when she would play Regina Giddens in the film version of The Little Foxes.

Loved the was this story unfolds and the myriad of emotions that the central character goes through. Love the scene of Judith prattling on about her glamorous life to Dr. Steele while he is actually examining her. The fatalistic decision of the doctor and Judith's secretary, Ann (Geraldine Fitzgerald) to keep Judith in the dark was foiled thank God. it would have been insane if Judith didn't know of her condition until it hit her. There's one point where poor Judith thinks Ann is trying to steal the doctor from her. Love that scene in the restaurant where she confronts Frederick and Ann and finally shouts, "I'll have a large dose of prognosis negative!." And the last fifteen minutes of this film are absolutely heartbreaking.

Davis' performance here is nothing short of incredible. Not counting a write-in nomination for Of Human Bondage, Davis had received two previous nominations and won both Oscars and yet, this performance easily trumps her work in Dangerous and Jezebel. Of the performances I've seen, her work in All About Eve is the only performance better than this one. George Brent is his usual wooden self and with another leading man this film could have been something really incredible. Fitzgerald is lovely as the devoted Ann and there is surprising supporting turn from Humphrey Bogart as a sensitive stable man (though his Irish brogue is a little inconsistent). Future POTUS Ronald Reagan can even be glimpsed in a small role, but Davis is the whole show here and this one is a must for fans of the actress. The film was remade in 1963 as Stolen Hours with Susan Hayward and became a two-part miniseries with the original title in 1976 with Elizabeth Montgomery, but those versions don't have Bette Davis.

Clockers
Spike Lee had one of his stronger offerings with 1995's Clockers an uncompromising and visually arresting look at mid-level drug dealers working a Brooklyn project that, despite a rambling and sometimes confusing screenplay, holds the attention of the viewer thanks to some stylish film technique and some first-rate performances.

The night manager at a fast food joint is murdered and three suspects immediately come into focus: Rodney (Delroy Lindo) is the local drug kingpin who wanted the guy dead and implied that his number one "clocker" (hustler), Strike (Mekhi Phifer), take care of it for him. We observe a meeting at a bar between Strike and his older brother, Victor (Isaiah Washington) and as the crowd gathers around the crime scene, we see Strike in the front row and learn that Victor has confessed to the crime, claiming that it was self defense. There is also a 12 year old whose hero worship of Strike gets him a little too involved in the drama at the projects.

Lee and co-screenwriter Richard Price have crafted another elaborately detailed and self-indulgent screenplay that is so confusing that the story was well into the third act before it was actually made clear who committed this murder and I'm not sure if. even then, I was convinced. As per usual with Spike Lee, he has surrounded his primary story with so many peripheral subplots and characters that the main story often gets lost in the shuffle. The story does take an effective look at the canvas for the story...its presentation of drug dealing in the projects is on the money...I loved a scene not long after the film's opening where we observe someone trying to purchase drugs and Lee's camera moves back and forth between four or five runners signaling each other regarding the transaction and even though the signals go back and forth a couple of times, the customer receives his drugs in about a minute and a half.

There are some troubling mixed messages being conveyed in this story. The primary one is that dealing drugs is all right but using is not. There's a ridiculous scene where the 12 year old is watching Strike cut up and bag cocaine and Strike tells the kid if he ever catches him with drugs that he will shoot him. Police officers are not exactly painted in flattering shades here either...the scene where the cops first arrive at the murder scene and are examining the body with this very cavalier and joking manner was not very amusing to me, but it felt very real.

Lee gets some impressive performances from his cast, especially Harvey Keitel as the primary cop on the case, Lindo, Phifer, Washington, and John Turturro as Keitel's partner. Keith David also scores as a cop who lives in the project as does Regina Taylor as the mother of the young boy and Sticky Fingaz as a member of Strike's crew.

Honorable mention to Sam Pollard's editing and this film also features the least annoying music score I've heard in a Spike movie and we are only subjected to Lee's "floating cam" for a few seconds. With a little more coherent screenplay, this film could have been something really spectacular.

Tone Bell: Can't Cancel This
Tone Bell has probably appeared in more cancelled television sitcoms in the last three years than any actor working in Hollywood right now, so it's no surprise that he recently returned to his stand-up roots in a 2019 concert called Tone Bell: Can't Cancel This that does provide laughs but there is an air about Bell's comedy that is rather off-putting.

Filmed live from Dallas and originally broadcast on SHOWTIME, Bell gets off to a slow start talking about being geographically-challenged, having no idea where Alaska is. Once he gets past this routine, there is a general theme that pervades pretty much the rest of the concert and it is a somewhat subtle air of arrogance that hangs over the rest of his material.

He mentions the fact that he is originally from Georgia and when an audience member barks in recognition, he abruptly tells the audience member to shut up and let him tell the jokes. He then begins talking about the modicum of success he has had in the business which has not afforded him unlimited wealth, but has managed to get him out of debt, leading to a very amusing routine about paying off the balance on his student loans that climaxes beautifully with his one on one conversation with an operator named Patrick.

Bell offers some very funny observations about his parents, his father in particular, that had the audience in stitches which leads to a joke about what he has told his parents regarding the reason they aren't grandparents yet. He spends a good deal of time building to the punchline for this joke, but the punchline was not worthy of the buildup. The story about trying to get a packet of jelly at Dunkin Donuts almost made up for it.

Tone also is guilty of one my biggest pet peeves regarding stand-up...he spends a lot of time onstage laughing at himself, but he did regain a few points when the routine turned to his former homophobia and how conflicted he was when he was in a gay bar and nobody actually hit on him. This is something that I've always felt a lot of straight men are guilty of and I thought it was really cool that he was honest about it. Which also led back to arrogant remarks about being too pretty for jail. His final piece about being pulled over by a cop got WAY too serious for a guy who has starred in half a dozen cancelled sitcoms. Bell provides laughs and has some talent with the microphone, but he needs to put his ego in check a little bit.