Gideon58's Reviews

Foxes
Two time Oscar winner Jodie Foster works very hard at keeping an overripe coming of age nelodrama called Foxes watchable and she almost succeeds.

Foster plays one of a quartet of high school girlfriends who are trying to grow up too fast, thanks to neglectful parents and peer pressure. The story, such as it is, finds the girls waking up in the same bed every morning after an evening of drinking, drugs, and unprotected sex, swearing they'e never going to do it again and going right back out there the next night.

Writer Gerald Ayers (The Last Detail) and director Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) seem to work very hard at making the way these girls live look glamorous and sexy, but, in an almost mechanical fashion, we watch most of the girls suffer pretty serious consequences for their behavior and Jeannie, Foster's character, has appoionted herself the leader of the group and takes it upon herself to try and get her girlfriends out of trouble, but never does anything to get the girls to stop their behavior.

One girl, Deirdre, meets a bag boy at a grocery store and is all over him at a concert a few hours later, while the virginal Madge, is later on in the story revealed to be involved with a man (Randy Quaid) old enough to be her father. As for Jeannie, her rock star father is divorced from her neurotic mother and she still has some deep-rooted fantasies about them reconcilng when it's obviouos this is never going to happen, thouogh Jeannie seems to think she has all the answers for her BFFs problems. Of course as the film progresses, so do the severity of their circumstances and though there are meant to shock the viewer, they never really do.

Despite overheated direction from Lyne, Foster is completely winning in the starring role and Sally Kellerman's flashy performance as her mother is also a lot of fun. Foster is also reunited with her Bugsy Malone co-star Scott Baio as a horny teen who is dying to lose his virginity with one of these girls and doesn't seem to care which one. Foster, Kellerman, and Baio seemed to keep their careers going after this, but the three actresses who played Jeannie's girlfriends disappeared from Hollywood after this film. And if you don't blink, you will notice the third film appearance of future Oscar winner Laura Dern, but this film is strictly for Jodie Foster fans.

Goodrich
Despite the accustomed splendid performance from Michael Keaton in the starring role, a 2024 character study called Goodrich never quite works as it should due to a confusing screenplay that offers backstory but doesn't really explain a lot of what's going on in this guy's present.

Keaton plays Andy Goodrich, a gallery owner who gets a call from his wife, Naomi in the middle of the night stating that she has checked into rehab and is leaving him. Naomi begs Andy to take care of their kids, Billie and Moze, and finds himself leaning a lot on Grace (Mila Kunis), his grown, pregnant daughter from his first marriage,

The creative force behind this film is a relative inexperienced director and writer named Hallie Meyers-Sheyer, who has provided us with a really likable central character involved in some squirm-worthy situations and making some squirm-worthy decisions. Even though I understand the impulse, I was troubled with Andy lying to his twins regarding their mother being in rehab, the way they found out was a little hard to swallow. He also keeps expecting Grace to drop whatever she's doing tp help him with Billie and Moze. We're not surprised when it's revealed that Grace is harboring resentment with her father because she never saw him as a kid. I love the scene where she is babysitting Billie and Moze and she doesn't have a clue what to say to them, but works very hard not to let her resentment toward her father to spill over to her step siblings.

The first half of the film is spent thoroughly establishing the fact that Andy doesn't have a clue what's going on with his children because he's always at the gallery. It's assumed that his business must be going gangbusters, but it's not. He has accrued some major debt and employees are quitting on him right and left. That's what was confusing about this movie. We understand that he was a neglectful dad, so why didn't all that neglect manifest an amazing career? His attempts to mend fences with Grace and his accidental friendship with a gay single dad were pretty much a waste of screentime.

Michael Keaton is always watchable and this movie is no exception and really liked the way he worked with Mila Kunis. Kevin Pollak and Michael Urie also make the most of their screentime as a co-worker of Andy's and the gay single dad he meets at Billie and Moze's school. There's also a lovely cameo by Andie McDowell as Grace's mother. McDowell reunites with Keaton for the first time since Multiplicity. If you're a Keaton fan, it's definitely worth checking out.

Barefoot in the Park (1981)
For those whose only exposure to the piece was the 1967 film version, you might want to check out HBO's 1981 production of one of Neil Simon's most famous plays, Barefoot in the Park.

For the uninitiated, this is the story of newlyweds Paul and Corrie Bratter, who have just moved into a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village after a memorable six- day honeymoon at the Plaza Hotel. As we watch Paul and Corrie deal with their furniture arriving late, Corrie' ditzy mother and their eccentric upstairs neighbor, Victor Velasco, we watch Paul and Corrie
decide that they are two very different kind of people who should never have gotten married.

Filmed live at the Moore Theater in Seattle, Richard Thomas and Bess Armstrong are absolutely enchanting taking over the roles originated by Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley on Broadway and then by Redford and Jane Fonda in the 1967 film version. The 1967 film version was always on my list of films that I felt should never be remade, but technically this isn't a remake, it is a filmed production of the original play in front of a live audience and what we get here is Neil Simon's original play the way it was intended...as a live theater experience that still provides consist laugh out loud for three acts. The production runs a hair over two hours, but I didn't feel the length a bit.

Director Harvey Medlinsky, whose experience has been primarily in television, shows a real flair for stage directing, providing colorful and entertaining version of this story that stands up proudly to the 967 fiim. Richard Thomas plays it a little broader than Redford did, but he still erases all memories of John Boy Walton with his take on stuffed shirt Paul and Bess Armstrong is enchanting as the free-spirited Corrie, bringing her own warmth and sexy to the role of Corrie. Jamie Cromwell is very funny as phone installer Harry Pepper and though he might be a little old for the role, Hans Conried is an acceptable Victor Velasco, but if the truth be told, the fabulous Barbara Barrie steals the show as Corrie's mother, Ethel Banks. A wonderful evening of theater reduced beautifully for the small screen.

I've seen this version of "Barefoot in the Park" several times, and it's a pretty good version, but there's one line in it that I hate the way it's said.

When Corrie says "Six days does not a week make", I hate the way Paul replies "What does that mean?". Not the actual words, but the way he says it.

Other than that, I enjoyed this version.

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The Substance
A practically unknown filmmaker named Coralie Fargeat is the director and writer of what just might be the most talked about film of 2024, an edgy, repellant, and logic-defying blend of psychological thriller and black comedy called The Substance that borrows from other films and leaves dangling plot points and unanswered questions, but had me riveted to the screen and just might earn its star her very first Oscar nomination.

The film stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkler, a celebrity whose career is circling the drain. In a desperate attempt to save her job on the exercise show that she hosts, she decides to order an elaborate black market drug that she has to pick up at a secret location and is delivered refills of the elaborate concoction every couple of weeks. It's not long before this complex medication seems too make Elisabeth pass out in her bathroom and we see a younger version of herself come out of her back, stitch Elisabeth's back together and take over her life under the identity of Sue, going back every other week to replenish herself with the substance, which she can only retrieve through the use of Elisabeth' body.

There's no denying that Fargeat's story found a whole bunch of movies flashing through my head like Death Becomes Her, Looker, The Skin I Live In and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, but the elements from these and other films definitely blend into something unique, even if it's not an always credible story, it's never a boring one.

Fargeat's screenplay seems to waffle regarding committing to the theory that Elisabeth and Sue are the same person, even if they have to depend on each other to replenish and continue, even though Elisabeth's attempts to regain control of her life become more futile as the story progresses. And despite what is happening to her, Elisabeth is given the option of bringing what is happening to her to a halt and she doesn't want to do that, she just wants Sue reined in a bit and we're not sure why. The expected battle between Elisabeth and Sue does fuel a bloody finale, which defies logic but never fails to keep the viewer completely engrossed, even though it does go on longer than it should.

Moore turns in a spectacular performance that has been generating Oscar buzz for a genre that rarely gets recognition from the Academy, but the fact that Moore has never received a nomination could work in her favor and I wouldn't be shocked if she got a nomination. Margaret Qualley as Sue is a lot better than she was in when she played Ann Reinking in the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon. Dennis Quaid is fun as Elisabeth's boss and the film features first rate film editing, sound, and sound editing. We haven't seen anything like this, even if it takes a little too long to get where it goes.

The Preacher's Wife
1996's The Preacher's Wife is a syrupy and overly sentimental Christmas melodrama with music that suffers from a cliched and over stuffed screenplay (from another source) and lifeless direction, despite chemistry between the stars.

This remake of the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife stars Courtney B Vance as Rev. Henry Biggs, the minister at a financially strapped black church that has him so busy that he has been seriously neglecting his beautiful wife, Julia (the late Whitney Houston) and their young son. The water heater in the church is about to blow up and a wealthy real estate mogul (the late Gregory Hines) wants to buy the church so he can tear it down and rebuild. One night at the end of his rope, Henry looks up to God and asks for help, and, seconds later, an angel named Dudley (Denzel Washington) literally drops out of the sky and lands in a snowbank next to Henry's son. He tells Henry that he has been sent there to help him, but, of course, Dudley finds himself more than distracted by his immediate attraction to Julia.

First of all I have never seen The Bishop's Wife, which starred Cary Grant as the Angel, David Niven as the Preacher, and Loretta Young as the wife, but I have a feeling that the story worked better then because of its suspected simplicity. This story suffers almost immediately because Dudley the Angel informs Rev Henry that he is there to help him save his church, but he forgets all about that once he meets Julia and starts sending her all kind of mixed messages because he has now decided he is going to save the Biggs marriage. There are also a couple of silly subplots like Rev Henry trying to help a troubled teen on his way to jail, the Biggs' son upset because his friend Hakeem can't live with him anymore and Dudley playing the Ghost of Christmas Present to Hines' Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Of course, with Whitney Huston playing Julia, we expect some glorious musical moments, but don't get as many as we expect, though her rendition of "I Believe in You and Me" had my eyes filled with water. The scene where she performs this song also features Lionel Ritchie, in a thankless role as an old friend of Julia's and he doesn't get to sing either. The film seems to be leading somewhere that it never really gets.

Penny Marshall's static direction doesn't hep, but the chemistry between Denzel and Whitney is solid and Courtney B Vance makes the most of his role as Rev Biggs. Jenifer Lewis also plays a variation on at least half a dozen other characters she has played as Whitney's mother. Considering the talent involved in front f behind the camera, a bit of a disappointment.

Saturday Night (2024)
With the 50th season of Saturday Night Live underway, it was no surprise that we would get some sort of big screen salute to the iconic television show; unfortunately, director and screenwriter Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)) only has partial success with 2024's Saturday Night, which starts off promisingly but eventually dissolves into a disturbing mish mash of SNL history and an endless parade of celebrity impressions, not all of which work.

The films opens about 90 minutes before the premiere episode of SNL on October 11, 1975, where we see producer Lorne Michaels running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to put out the expected multiple fires that were probably going on at the time, like incomplete sets, an unhappy cast member who refuses to sign his contract, standards and practices wanting to rewrite the whole show, and Michaels' inability to explain to NBC hotshots exactly what this show was supposed to be.

Reitman has the same problem with this film that Aaron Sorkin had with Being The Ricardos a few years ago. That film was supposed to be a look at the filming of season 2, ep 4 of I Love Lucy, but it ended up being about Lucy's romance with Desi and her entire B movie career. Here, this film was supposed to be an up close and personal look at the premiere episode of SNL, but what we get is bits and pieces of SNL's long and dirty history wrapped up in this look at the show's premiere and anyone old enough to do the math, can figure out pretty quickly what's going on here. In the first fifteen minutes of the film, we Dan Aykroyd introduce himself to a girl on the set as Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute, a character who would not appear on the show for another four years. We also see prop people trying to figure how to make Aykroyd bleed for the skit where he played Julia Child, which was not part of the premiere episode either.

Not only is history just thrown into a big pot and stirred around, there are characters and events that happen in this movie that I'm not sure ever existed or occurred. According to Reitman and Gil Kenan's screenplay, Michaels had overbooked the show and promised standup bits to Billy Crystal and Valeri Bromfield, that were cut the last minute.

As for the performances, loved Gabriel LaBelle (The Fablemans) as Lorne Michaels and Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza) as Dick Ebersol, who took over the show when Michaels quit the first time, but, according to this film, was at Michaels' side on opening night. Loved Corey Michael Smith as Chevy Chase and was very impressed by Nicholas Braun, who played Greg on HBO's Succession, very impressive in two different roles, Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. Reitman definitely gets an A for effort, but this one should have just concentrated on October 11, 1975 and not try to give us the entire history of SNL.

Wicked
The long awaited screen version of the Broadway musical, 2024's Wicked is a technically dazzling, if slightly overlong look at the relationship between The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch of the North, before The Wizard of Oz took place, features a somewhat confusing story, but the superb musical numbers and some terrific performances distract effectively. It should be noted that this review is coming from someone who never saw the Broadway musical. It should also be mentioned that I saw ths in an actual theater.

The film opens with a formal declaration of the death of the wicked witch (cause of death is reported as being doused by a bucket of water by a little girl). Glinda is quickly dispatched to Munckinland to make the formal announcement of the witch's death, but during her announcement, a Munchkin wants her to confirm or deny a rumor that she and the wicked witch were once friends. Glinda decides to be honest and the story of how Glinda and the wicked witch (whose real name is Elphaba) met, through elaborate flashback.

The Broadway musical upon which this movie is based opened on October 30, 2003 and is still running on Broadway today, having done over 8000 performances (though there was a break during the pandemic), so a movie version was just a matter of time. As much as I enjoyed this film, the basic concept of the story is just a little muddled to me. Exploring whether Elepheba was born evil or whether evil was thrust upon her is never really answered here. As a matter of fact. I didn't see Elpheba make an evil move throughout this story. Her fish out of water story is very easy to empathize with because she had always been treated like an outsider because she has green skin, something for which no explanation was offered but it made her childhood a living hell, even worse than her wheelchair-bound sister, Nessarose.

Elpheba accompanies Nessarose to Shizz College where she first meets the pampered Princess Glinda, who treats her like dirt until Elpheba somehow begins charming everyone at the school, especially Madame Morrible (Oscar winner Michele Yeoh) and suddenly, Glinda finds herself having to work for what she wants, and somehow their initial antagonism does blossom into friendship.

As we watch the story progress, Elpheba is clearly the story's heroine, which seems to basically re-write the history of The Wizard of Oz, because we don't see anything evil about Elpheba and even though she and Glinda go their separate ways at the end, they part as friends. Though director Jon M Chu (In the Heights) never lets us forget the source of the story either. There's a lovely moment near the beginning of the film where the camera is towering over the yellow brick road and in the corner of the screen, we see a tiny image of Dorothy and her friends on the road. If you blink, you'll miss it.

The problems with the story are effectively camouflaged by some dazzling musical numbers and some superb performances, I was particularly blown away by the opening number "No One Mourns the Wicked", Glinda's "Popular", Elpheba's "Defying Grafity" (the best female driven musical finale since Streisand belted out "My Man in Funny Gir) and my personal favorite "What is this Feeling?". Cynthia Erivo delivers a beautifully modulated performance as Elpheba that works in tandem with her monster pipes and Ariana Grande is richly funny and entertaining as Glinda. Shout-outs as well to Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, SNL's Bowen Yang in a thankless role as a college student, and Peter Dinklage as the voice of the horse Professor Dillamond. This movie runs almost three hours I can't imagine what's left for part two, but part one was pretty damn strong.

Memories of Me
Despite the presence of Billy Crystal and the late Alan King in the starring roles, the 1988 comedy-drama Memories of Me suffers from cliched writing and lethargic direction that makes the film seem four hours long.

Crystal plays Abbie, a workaholic surgeon who actually has a heart attack in the middle of performing surgery on someone else. The incident frightens him more than he will admit, but with a little nudging from his girlfriend (JoBeth Williams)), decides to fly to LA in an attempt to patch things up with his estranged father (King), a failed actor who is still working in Hollywood as an extra.

Crystal's screenplay with Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) seems to be the primary problem here. First of all, because the basic story is about an estranged father and son, which had to be foreign territory for Crystal who, if anyone who saw Crystal's comedy concert 700 Sundays know, had an amazing relationship with his father and was devastated by his death. Number two, King's character is a show business veteran who tells a lot of stories about old Hollywood and makes references to a lot of Hollywood stars that the 1988 movie demographic never heard of and could not relate to.
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The story also features all those cliched scenes that you expect in such a film like Abbie's initial denial about what happens to himself and then having to admit his feelings to his girlfriend. The scene where father and son finally reunite starts off promisingly and then predictably morphs into a fight that has everyone in the restaurant turning their heads. There's even a beyond ridiculous scene where father and son are driving through an LA tunnel, pull the car over, and decide they are going to have a fist fight. We also get a bucket list scene that is also kind silly and pointless.

Henry Winkler made a less than impressive feature length film debut as a director here. The film's lack of pacing can only be blamed on him and probably had a lot to do with the film feeling four hours long. Crystal, King, and Williams work very hard to keep their roles viable and there is a cameo by Sean Connery, who was working on a neighboring set doing The Presidio during production of this film. For hardcore Crystal fans only, who would bounce back very nicely the next year with a little something called When Harry Met Sally.

Juror No.2
Despite some absolutely superb performances, Clint Eastwood's latest film Juror No 2 is an overheated courtroom melodrama that suffers from some cliched writing and a lot of hard to ignore questionable handling of courtroom and law procedures that distracted me from the primary story.

The 2024 film stars Nicholas Hoult (The Favourite; The Gentleman; The Menu) as Justin Kemp, a recovering alcoholic with a pregnant wife, who finds himself selected as a juror for a high profile murder trial, even though he tried to get out of it. As the trial begins and witnesses begin taking the stand, we see Justin having flashbacks that reveal he was at the bar where the murder victim was seen having an explosive argument with her abusive boyfriend and was dead hours later. Justin then flashes back to driving home and hitting what he thought was a deer. When Justin was unable to find the deer, it occurs to him that he might have run over this girl and not the abusive boyfriend who is facing life in prison for the crime.

OK, I don't even know where to start with all the ridiculous places the screenplay by Jonathan A. Abrams takes us. First, the case is being prosecuted by a tough as nails prosecutor (Toni Collette) who is running for DA and has based her case on the fact that the defendant has an extensive criminal record and that the autopsy report concluded that the victim was struck by a blunt object. Now let's talk about that autopsy report...wouldn't a competently done autopsy report be able to be a little more specific than a blunt object? Are we supposed to believe that a thorough medical exam of a corpse couldn't determine whether or not this girl was hit on the head with a shovel or was run over by a car?

Then there's the jury room. Of course we get the expected Twelve Angry Men opening where most of the jurors have already convicted this man without even a discussion. Then one of the jurors (Oscar winner JK Simmons), who is a former cop, has a gut feeling that the guy is innocent and decides to conduct his own investigation, outside of the courtroom, with Justin's help, that reveals that the girl was a hit by a car and Justin's car is determined to be the possible vehicle. But when the judge (Amy Aquino) finds out about this independent investigation, she kicks the former cop off the jury and keeps Justin? Seriously?

The screenplay offered so little respect for actual law and courtroom procedures that I actually found myself laughing out loud in places, but I have to hand it to Eastwood for the performances he gets out of his cast, who somehow manage to get through this with straight faces. Hoult adds another impressive performance to his resume and Collette is always worth watching as are Chris Messina as the defense attorney, Cedric Yarbrough as a very angry juror and a thankless cameo by Keifer Sutherland as Justin's AA sponsor, who also happens to be a lawyer. Eastwood's work here is sincere, but you can drive a truck through the plot holes here.

I Ought to be in Pictures
Considering the talent in front of and behind the camera, the 1982 film version of the Neil Simon comedy I Ought to be in Pictures, somewhat funny and cliched comedy that suffers from a really annoying central character.

Libby Tucker (Dinah Manoff) is a 19 year old girl from Brooklyn who talks to her dead grandmother all the time and has decided that she's leaving Brooklyn to go to California to look up her father, Herb (Walter Matthau), a screenwriter who can't find work and has some monster gambling debts, a situation that is beginning to create a gulf between him and his girlfriend, Steffy (Ann-Margret), a hairdresser at 20th century fox and single mother.

The stage version of the Neil Simon comedy opened on Broadway in 1980, running an unimpressive 324 performances, so I'm not sure what the rush was bringing the movie to the screen. Manoff is allowed to recreate the role she created onstage that actually earned her a Tony Award. I utilize the word "actually" because it's been awhile I've witnessed a movie character who grates on the nerves the way Libby does here. Even with Simon's golden word processor and director Hebert Ross, who were so effective five years earlier with The Goodbye Girl, really needed to rein in Manoff here. Don't get me wrong, I loved Manoff as Marty in the film version of Grease and as the broken Karen in Ordinary People, but she works my last nerve. She spends most of the movie screaming her lines at the top of her lungs in a very broad Brooklyn accent, but around the halfway point of the film where she has bullied her way into father's life, there is a scene of her rehearsing The Belle of Amhearst, the accent is gone.

And it's not just the technical aspects of Manoff's performance, but it's Simon's establishment of who this character is. Her talking to her dead grandparents for the first ten minutes of the running time is creepy. Not to mention when she does finally hook up with her father, she overwhelms the man and is not happy with the way it goes because, frankly, no matter how hard the guy tries to connect with Libby, she's not happy with the way it's going. She thinks she knows everything and she's really hard to like. Herb doesn't handle the situation perfectly, but I've seen a lot of movie fathers way more rotten than Herb. The fact that she wants to talk to a man she hasn't seen since she was three about sex was ridiculous.

On the other hand, Walter Matthau gives his accustomed expert comic turn as Herb but the real surprise here is Ann-Margret, turning in one of her most thoughtful and intelligent performances as Steffy, Herb's girlfriend who get a lot further with Libby than Herb does. I expected better from Ross and Simon, but fans of Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret do keep the viewer awake.

The Sugarland Express
His first assignment in the director's chair was directing the legendary Joan Crawford in the pilot for an NBC anthology series called Night Gallery. He really put himself on the map when he directed a now classic ABC movie of the week called Duel which lead to his feature length directing debut, a sweeping and emotionally charged fact-based adventure called The Sugarland Express which, even back in 1974, showed Oscar winning director Steven Spielberg's skill at cinematic storytelling.

This is the story of a woman named Lou-Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn), who has just been released from a Texas jail after eight months and has decided to reunite her family. With a little assistance, she manages to bust her husband, Clovis (William Atherton) out of jail and convinces him to drive to a neighboring town called Sugarland, where their son, who has now the foster son of an elderly couple, nd get him back. At the beginning of their journey, they are confronted by a state trooper named Maxwell Slide (Michael Sacks), who they manage to get his weapon and take as hostage, initiating a gargantuan yet methodic chase across Texas, headed by a principled but determined police Captain (Ben Johnson), who wants to resolve this situation with as little bloodshed as possible.

The screenplay by Spielberg, Matthew Robbins, and Hal Barwood reminds me a lot of the screenplay for Ron Howard's Apollo 13 in that the story is presented from all possible points of view. We understand Lou-Jean's desire to reunite her family and Clovis' initial reluctance. We understand Slide's cooperation with his captors, not just in terms of his won safety, but their safety as well and we actually understand the bonding that begins to happen between Slide and the Poplins. We understand the police Captain pretending to have sympathy for the Poplins merely as an instrument to get the Poplins' sympathy in order to protect his frightened trooper. Best of all, we have Mr. and Mrs. Looby, the baby's foster parents, who have no intention of handing this baby over to the Poplins.

The parade of police cars traveling slowly behind the Poplins was expected, but the film really comes alive whenever the Poplins needed to stop for anything, whether it be food, another vehicle, or for Lou-Jean to go to the bathroom. That scene where they drive a port a poppy into the middle of a field so that Lou-Jean can relieve herself provides Hitchcock-calibre suspense and that scene where three rednecks stumble onto the Poplins and decide to take them out themselves was awesome.

The performances are first rate down the line. Goldie Hawn shocked audiences with a powerhouse performance that was done the final season of Laugh In went off the air. Far superior to her Oscar-winning performance in Cactus Flower and despite the long and distinguished career he would have after this, I don't think William Atherton has ever been better than he is here. Michael Sacks is terrific as Slide and I've always thought it was odd that I never saw him in another movie. But it's Spielberg's cinematic eye that is the real star here.

Dope Sick Love
HBO Documentaries knock it out of the park with an ugly and unflinching look at the power of addiction and where it can take a person in a 2005 documentary called Dope Sick Love that, more precisely than anything I have seen actually documented, shows what an addict's "bottom" is..

This claustrophobic, frightening, and heartbreaking film follows two couples. Matt and Tracy and Michelle and Sebastian, in cinema verite style, as they drag the streets of Manhattan doing whatever they have to do in order to feed their addictions to crack and heroine. Tracy is first observed at Western Union office picking up money that she asked her father for and Michelle is observed trying to pick the lock on an apartment building entrance door so that she and Sebastian can sit on the steps or get in the elevator and get high.

We observe Matt prostituting himself with men in order to make drug money and we see Michelle employ multiple hustles in order to make money other than prostitution, most notable getting into cars with men and then pretend to be a cop by flashing fake badges at them. There's also a scam regarding store receipts dug out of trash cans that really shouldn't work but it does.

The most amazing thing about this documentary is the logistics that had to be involved in following these two couples all over Manhattan getting high. In my wildest imagination, I cannot figure out how movie cameras were able to follow these two couples into vestibules, stairwells, abandoned buildings and actually film them getting high. How this film was made without the stars or the crew members getting arrested is a total mystery. I couldn't believe the clerk who fell for the receipt scam wasn't the least bit suspicious about these people coming into their store being followed by cameras. it should also be mentioned that this film is rich with actual drug use from the two couples and I would recommend addicts think twice before watching this film, because it could be what addicts call a "trigger."

The pathetic factor increases with every scene, especially when Michelle decides she has had enough and wants to go to rehab. She calls Belleview but can't get a bed until the morning, so what do she and Sebastian do until the morning? Somehow Matt and Tracy end up moving into an apartment by the film's conclusion. I don't know how that happened, but they are seen joyously moving into their new apartment, still smoking crack. Research revealed that Michelle might have OD'd seven years after this film was made, but these are rumors. This is a harrowing and squirm worthy film experience unlike anything I have ever seen.

Dear Santa
From the creative forces behind Dumber and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, and Me, Myself, and Irene comes Dear Santa, a 2024 comic fantasy that suffers from a ridiculous screenplay and perhaps the dumbest central character in cinema history.

The film is about a chubby twelve year old named Liam, who has learning disabilities, socialization problems and parents who are fighting all the time who writes a letter to Santa but misspells the word Santa and after he mails the letter in a pretend mailbox and before you know it, Satan (Jack Black) appears in Liam's bedroom and even though he can't prove to Liam that he's not Santa, he ignores Liam's letter and, instead decides to grant him three wishes.

The Ferrelly Brothers have a pretty solid record making slightly raunchy comedies that always bring the funny, but there's just a lot of stupid stuff going on here that I found hard to believe. First of all, this kid misspelled "Santa" on his envelope? Who misspells "Santa"? I don't care how dyslexic a person is, I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to spell Santa. I also didn't understand why, when asked to prove to Liam that he's not Santa, he makes himself look like what we all think Santa looks like. And i wasn't crazy about the fact that Satan appeared in the bedroom of a twelve year old boy with the mission of taking away his soul.

The story takes a little too long with exposition, we pretty much understand Liam about five minutes in, except for the fact that he's a twelve year old and still writing Santa. It's also about 30 minutes into the film before Liam actually realizes that Satan is not Santa and for some reason, feels trapped into making three wishes. I also didn't understand why Satan needed to put a spell on Post Malone making him worship Liam. I have to admit though, as dumb as Liam appears to be here, it's kind of hard not to like him.

With all that said, Jack Black is terrific in the title role and does bring the funny and Robert Timothy Smith is a total charmer as Liam, but the laughs are a little too scattered to provide consistent laughs, but hardcore Black fans might want to give it a look.

You obviously don't know anyone who is dyslexic. I know several people who have Dyslexia, and they have trouble with many simple words. One person even had trouble writing his own name when he was a kid, and his name only has three letters.

"Santa" may be an easy word for most people, but it's very possible for someone with Dyslexia to mistakenly spell it as "Satan".

That might be so, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the problems with this movie

A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg impresses as the director, screenwriter, and star of 2024's A Real Pain, an edgy and often emotional look at a broken relationship attempting to heal against an unusual and haunting backdrop.

David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) are cousins who have been brought together for the first time in six months by the death of their grandmother. Grandma left them money for the specific purpose of traveling to Poland, her birthplace, as part of a tour group honoring the Jews who survived the holocaust and those who didn't, a tour which includes a visit to an actual concentration camp.

A co-production of the United States and Poland and what felt like a real passion project for Eisenberg, there's a lot of care and sensitivity utilized in the crafting of this story, almost to the point of over complexity but at the heart of this story is a compelling and completely believable family tension that bubbles beneath from the beginning of the film that takes longer to come to the surface than it should have, but we still want to know what exactly is going on with these cousins who are clearly avoiding something from their past or trying to forget it but just can't.

While we wait to find out exactly what is going between David and Benji, we are treated tp a glorious postcard dedicated to a rare setting for a film. Pretty sure this was my first exposure to a film shot entirely on location in Poland, but it actually made for an attractive and historical backdrop for this story. Even though Benji found it annoying, the constant information provided by the tour guide (Will Sharpe) was fascinating and I found a genuine chill coming over me as the tour group entered an actual deserted concentration camp.

Once the family secrets begin to unfold between Benji and David, I found myself wishing that Eisenberg gotten to it a little sooner because there was such an air of familiarity to it. Looking at it from David's POV, I think everyone has a Benji in their life...someone they love and hate and worry about and envy and want to punch in the mouth.

The performances by Eisenberg and Culkin light up the screen. Culkin won a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for his flashy Benji but Eisenberg's quietly angry David is equally as effective. He nails that scene at about the halfway point where he finally breaks down about Benji. It takes a little longer to get where it's going and the ambiguity of the ending is a bit of a heartbreaker, but this is compelling entertainment.

Nightbitch
I thought I had seen everything that cinema had to offer after watching The Substance, but found out I was wrong as I still collect my thoughts regarding another 2024 oddity called Nightbitch whose inexplicable 180 turn from black comedy to science fiction is almost legitimized by a performance from the leading lady that could earn her a seventh Oscar nomination.

Amy Adams commands the screen as a woman who has gone into a complete meltdown since the birth of her son. Post partum depression is a masterpiece of understatement regarding what this woman is going through. She absolutely adores her son and wants to be the best mother she can possibly be, but she resents the sacrifices she has had to make in order to become a mother. She resents she had to give up her job, she resents the inability to lose the baby weight, she resents the 24 hour demands that motherhood requires, and probably most of all, the lack of support she is getting from her husband. Frighteningly, the emotional turmoil that this woman is going though has manifested a physical transformation within her that is literally turning her into something that is not human.

Director and screenwriter Marielle Heller, who directed Melissa McCarthy to an Oscar nomination in Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Tom Hanks to a nomination in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, has crafted a story that starts off as what could be a thoughtful and detailed look ag the effects of post partum depression, a subject that hasn't been addressed a lot in mainstream cinema. Unfortunately, like a 2018 film called Sorry to Bother You, the film starts off as a near brilliant black comedy and then takes a dramatic turn into what can only be referred to as science fiction as no other explanation is offered to this reviewer's satisfaction.

We get subtle hints to what is going on through this mother's inner dialogue which, despite being from her gut, is not always heard by the other characters in her orbit. We see childhood flashbacks that don't really offer any clues to what's going on either. We do get to see the first actual transformation, which reminded me of David Naughton's first transformation in An American Werewolf in London, but it's only temporary as we see her return to human just as quickly with no explanation, not to mention her attracting all of the animals in the neighborhood, who are not only drawn to her but seem to have appointed her their grand poobah. We're at a loss though when she starts raising her son like an animal and we're not sure whether he's transforming too or just accepting what's going on.

Despite the bizarre story, we stay invested because Amy Adams delivers an absolutely dazzling performance in the starring role that could work her way to an Oscar nomination the same way The Substance might for Demi Moore, though this film is not nearly as good as The Substance, we remain invested because Adams demands it of us.