Gideon58's Reviews

Blink Twice
Zoe Kravitz makes a surprisingly strong impression as the director and co-screenwriter of a cringy and confusing 2024 psychological thriller called Blink Twice that requires undivided viewer attention and takes its sweet time getting there, and when it finally gets there and you think you've figured out exactly what's going on, we get a twist we definitely don't see coming.

A cocktail waitress named Frida and her best friend and co-worker, Jess, meet a tech billionaire named Slater King at a fundraiser, where we learn King has recently returned to the reins of his company after a leave of absence due to something that got him in a lot of trouble but no details are provided. After the fundraiser, Slater and his circle of friends are headed to a dream vacation on an island Slater just bought and he impulsively invites Frida and Jess to join him and his friends. The vacation seems like a dream come true until Jess confides to Frida that she thinks there's something very strange going down on this island, and, not long after that, Jess disappears.

Kravitz and co-screenwriter ET Feigenbaum, who worked together on the 2020 TV series High Fidelity have crafted a story that is initially very confusing. If the truth be told, this reviewer didn't figure out what was exactly going on until 16 minutes before the end, and even then, I was only partially right. The story establishes mystery almost immediately when no details are offered about Slater's leave of absence from his company are offered. We are further confused when this circle of friends who Frida and Jess on this vacation, don't know each other and are only connected through Slater. And most confusing of all, is a running bit about everyone on the island needing to borrow Jess' lighter in order to smoke blunts...why would a group of almost a dozen potheads not have a lighter among them?

The story further confuses as we watch the relationship that Slater has with each of these people in his circle has nothing to do with any of the other relationships, even though they don't seem to know that. They all seem to be vying from King's attention and none of them really get it as he focus seems to be primarily on Frida and, for most of the running time, we're never sure why, but just when it comes into a focus, we're thrown twist during the violent and bloody battle that commences between Slater and his entourage.

Kravitz makes maximum use of her $20,000,000 budget, providing a beautifully photographed nightmare that does rivet viewer attention. The cast is really interesting too...I don't think Channing Tatum has ever been better as Slater King and Naomi Acki, who played the title role a couple of years ago in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is an effective damsel in distress and manages actual chemistry with Tatum. Also enjoyed Christian Slater, Alia Shawkat, Simon Rex, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, and Levon Hawke, the son of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. Kravitz, doesn't knock it out of the park, but she definitely proves to be a filmmaker to watch.

Superman III
Richard Lester was in the director's chair for one of the best sequels ever made, Superman II, and it's hard to believe that he was also in charge of the disastrous Superman III, but the fault is not entirely his.

This 1983 textbook example of going to the well once too often finds Clark (Christopher Reeve) traveling to Smallville for his high school reunion, where he hooks up with his high school sweetheart Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole), who is now a single mom. The rest of the film revolves around an eccentric billionaire named Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) who uses a wimpy computer operator who works for him (Richard Pryor) to realize his own evil plans, which include controlling the weather and eventually, the world.

As stated, Lester cannot be blamed entirely for this hot mess of a movie because we know it is not the movie that Lester probably intended, mostly because of Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the first two films. Kidder demanded more money that the studio was willing to pay, so a drastic re-thinking of the screenplay was necessary, which found Kidder's role reduced to two brief appearances at the front of the movie and at the back, but what they came up with for the middle just didn't work for this reviewer.

Things look bleak from the opening credits that resemble something out of a Keystone Cops or Three Stooges comedy rather than the legacy created by the first two films. The whole reunion of Clark Kent and Lana Lang was a total snooze, Reeve and O'Toole had no chemistry. As for the rest of the film, Lester and the screenwriters seem to be trying to revive the spirit of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor with this Ross Webster character but Vaughn never really captures the spirit of what going on here and neither does Pryor, who has never been less funny, in an odd character whose loyalty seems to change from scene to scene, not to mention a lot of the manufactured drama which springs from Pryor's character. As the film opens, Pryor's Gus Gorman has been unemployed for three years and now a billionaire maniac is completely dependent on this guy to help him take over the world.

The winner of biggest waste of screentime though has to be when Gorman somehow manages to drug Superman and he and his alter ego Clark Kent split into separate entities leading to a one on one battle in a junkyard that causes unintentional giggles and adds about twenty minutes to the running time. There are a few laughs provided by Annie Ross as Webster's sister and Pamela Stephenson as his girlfriend, but the viewer has to wade through a lot of crap to get to them. And as bad as this movie was, somehow a fourth one actually got made.

Wolfs
Oscar winners George Clooney and Brad Pitt are the producers and stars of a pretty solid piece of entertainment called Wolfs that is an often intoxicating combination of action, crime thriller, film noir, and black comedy that, despite a pretty serious story, had this reviewer laughing and smiling throoughout.

The 2024 film opens with Margaret (Amy Ryan), who we soon learn is a district attorney, is on the phone with a man (George Clooney) who is a fixer. For those unfamiliar with the term, fixer, think of Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction or Olivia Pope on the ABC series Scandal. Margaret thinks she can exhale when the man ariives to take care of business, but she is then totlally thrown when a second fixer (Brad Pitt) arrives on the scene to take care of business. The business is an 18 year old kid who Margaret planned to have sex with but now is dead. Margaret then receives a phone call from Pam, the manager of the hotel, who informs Margaret that she sent the second fixer to make sure the first one does what he's supposed to.

Of course, immediate distrust is established between Margaret's man and Pam's man that gets further mucked up by two major complications: One, the boy is discovered to be in possession of two bricks of heroine, which Pam orders the men to find out who it belongs to and return it to them, and number, two, the dead boy is not dead after all.

Clooney and Pitt have put their pet project into the capable hands of director and screenwriter Jon Watts, whose credits include Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Jeff Bridges limited TV series The Old Man who establishes unbearable tension almost immediately with the appearance of the second fixer and I actually found myself amused when Margraet takes a phone call and excuses herself to answer it and then returns to the men with the phone on speaker, where Pam explains what's going on, an explanation that obviously has holes that even Pam isn't even aware. I also found it kind of a classy storyline move that we never meet Pam.

The humor comes into the story when the distrust between the two men is given further clarification by revealing that the men are completely paranoid about each other learning exactly how they do their jobs, so they try to do them together, but separately, which naturally is going to work for so long. They are forced to work together when they find out the boy is alive and temporaily escapes and the boy's explanation of his involvment in this story absolutely had me on the floor. Loved the guys chasing the boy through the city streets, who is only clad in jockey shorts and socks. I also loved the reverence to the story by the characters being billed non specifically with names like "Margaret's Man", "The Kid", "Chinatown Lookout", and "Coughing Woman."

Watts takes a bit longer than necessary to get to the climax, or so we think, because the climax doesn't really come until the final scene. With Clooney and Pitt's pursestrings behind him, Watts has been afforded a huge budget for this story and it is well utilized, with expensive production values, with standout music, sound, and sound editing. Clooney and Pitt, as expected, a well-oiled machine and there is a star making performance from Timothee Chalamat-lookalike Austin Abrams as the boy, who is actually billed as "The Kid". Clooney, Pitt, and Watts have come up with a winner here.

Eyes of Laura Mars
Technically, it would probably be considered a psychological thriller, but there's just too much dumb stuff that happens in 1978's Eyes of Laura Mars to take what's going on here seriously.

Fresh off her Oscar-winning performance in Network, Faye Dunaway inhabits the tile character, a world famous fashion photographer who is reputed for unsubtle images of sex and violence in her work, who one day during a photo shoot, sees a murder being committed through the lens of her camera , a murder that actually happens minutes later. This is only Laura's first vision and after people she actually knows start dropping, it is assumed that Laura is next.

John Carpenter (not the Halloween director), leading man Tommy Lee Jones, and David Zelag Goodman, the author of Straw Dogs collaborated on this convoluted screenplay that actually starts off quite promisingly. The idea of a woman seeing murder through her camera lens was a good one, but she only sees the first one that way. The rest of story just finds murders randomly flashing in front of her We are also provided red herrings like a psycho ex-husband and allegedly coincidental work of Laura's that just happens to resemble actual crime photos. Laura also makes some pretty stupid moves throughout this story. After the first murder she sees through her camera lens, Laura drops everything and runs to the scene of the crime and tells them she saw it happen. There’s no logical reason she would do that and why would we see everyone involved in the fashion shoot, at the police station in the next scene preparing to be questioned. Also wasn't surprised that Jones' character, seemed to lose focus of the case after sleeping with Laura.

Believe it or not, even before the first murder occurs, a suspect came immediately in focus for this reviewer but I was wrong. Sadly, the journey to the 11:00 twist is way too long. Faye Dunaway is too strong strong a presence for the damsel in distress route, but Tommy Lee Jones is terrific as officer John...I had forgotten that back in the day, Tommy Lee Jones was undeniably sexy. Rene Auberjunois and Brad Dourif score in supporting roles and that is producer Jon Peters' then girlfriend, Barbra Streisand, singing the love theme "Prisoner."

Easy To Love
MGM bigwigs put a lot of work, money, and imagination into turning Esther Williams into a star, despite the fact that she really didn't sing or dance, but one of their strongest efforts was deliciously entertaining water-themed romp called Easy to Love.

The story begins in Miami where Esther is playing Julie Hallerton, the star of an Aquatics Show (duh) who also works part-time as a model, who is engaged to her hunky co-star, Hank (John Bromfield) and is tired of her slave-driving boss, Ray Lloyd (Van Johnson) working her to the bone and tells him she's going to quit the show and marry Hank. In order to distract her, Ray offers to take Julie on a trip to New York, where she meets a slick nightclub singer named Barry Gordon (Tony Martin}, who fall in love at first sight with our heroine.

This movie was such a pleasant surprise because it wasn’t just barrage of water ballets, which we had come to expect from Williams, but this was an actual musical comedy with song, dance, clowning and romance. The story reminded me a bit of films like The Philadelphia story or Tom, Dick, and Harry, where we find the leading lady actually has feeling for three different men and we have to wait to the very end of the movie to find out who she really loved.

Williams really gets a chance to show off her comedic chops in this film between changing bathing suits. Julie's behavior in New York borders on tramp-ish, but we never stop liking her and are not surprised when all three guys stay in the battle until the final scene. Williams also got an unexpected opportunity to clown in a bonkers water ballet which feature Esther in full clown makeup, playing catch with a real seal and romping through the water with a mechanical alligator. This was foreign, but very welcome territory for Williams. Martin is no Olivier, but his singing voice is dreamy and director Charles Walters (Easter Parade, Summer Stock) takes full advantage of that giving Martin Six solos in the film with "Didja Ever" "Coquette", and "That's What aa Rainy Day is For. There's also a brief appearance from Martin's future wife, the legendary Cyd Charisse.

MGM spared no expense here, the MGM gloss is all over this one, including the best water ballet finale I've ever seen in an Esther movie, which, if you couldn't tell, was staged by Busby Berkley. Van Johnson works really well with Esther and, if you don't blink, you'll also catch appearances by Carroll Baker, Sandra Gould. and Benny Rubin. All you Esther Williams fans out there, this is appointment viewing.

Will & Harper
Hands down the best film of 2024 that I've seen is Will and Harper, a sweet, funny, cringy and heartwarming look at a movie star helping a friend navigate a new and sometimes frightening fork in his life journey that provides a lot of questions for the movie star.💫

This extraordinary cinematic journey is bought to us by Will Ferrell, Ferrell is the movie star in this scenario and the friend is Andrew Steele, a former writer for SNL who wrote some of Ferrell's most memorable sketches. Apparently, while Ferrell was filming Spirited with Ryan Reynolds, Ferrell received an email from Steele, coming out to him that he has transitioned into a woman and has changed his first name to Harper, after Harper Lee. The friends hook up and Harper wants to revisit people and places he knew as a boy and a man, so he and Will pack their bags, throw them in a jeep for a cross country road trip.

Will, Harper, and Tina Fey collaborated on the script and intimate and sensitive direction is provided by Josh Greenbaum, who also directed Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar that provides an intimacy to the story, which is difficult to do when you're trying to do a very personal story but a movie star is involved. It's so much fun that no matter where Harper and Will go, we always see people in the background. and sometimes in the foreground, who recognize Will immediately but never get in the way of the project at hand. There is only one moment in the film where Will and Harper confront a commoner and the person doesn't recognize Ferrell.

Through the farewell breakfast with Harper's daughters, the farewell luncheon with former SNL cast members Fey, Seth Meyers, and Tim Meadows, through the drive through, the film is peppered with Will asking all of the questions he has wanted to ask Harper ever since learning the news and the honesty from both of them in terms of questions and answers is surprisingly candid. There is one heart stopping scene where Harper wants to enter a redneck bar he used to hang at. asking Will to wait outside for a minute and we see Will genuinely worried for Harper's safety and there's a later scene where Will feels he has dropped the ball regarding Harper’s safety.

I don't know why it surprised me, but even though she was dressed like a woman, Harper never attempts to walk or talk like a woman. I feel bad that this was a surprise to me. This film was a joy from start to finish. In addition to the above referenced, there are also appearances by Kristin Wiig, who they ask to write a theme song for their trip, Will Forte, Colin Jost, Molly Shannon, and Lorne Michaels. A very special movie experience.

Capote
An extraordinary performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman that earned him an Oscar for Best Actor is the heart of the 2005 biopic Capote, which is not a biopic in the true sense of the genre, but is an often cringeworthy look at Capote's passion about his most famous work.

This is, of course the story of the world famous author who learns of an entire family being murdered in Kansas and decides he wants to write an article about for the New Yorker, but upon learning what happened and the relationship he develops with Perry Smith, one of the men sentenced to Death Row for the crime, decides instead of writing a magazine article that he wants to write a non-fiction novel about the crime that eventually became known as "In Cold Blood."

Dan Futterman, who played Robin Williams' son in The Birdcage is actually the co-screenwriter on this film, which is not the birth to death chronicle the title implies, but a look at a particular period in Capote's life. In fact, the only period of Capote's life that filmmakers seem to think we care about. In Cold Blood is not the only thing Capote wrote. Breakfast at Tiffany's is actually referenced here and Capote is even observed talking to people at a cocktail party about Marilyn Monroe, who was his choice to play Holly Golightly. That part of Capote's career would have been interesting to look at.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great film that doesn't just spurt out a lot of facts, but allows the viewer to come to their own conclusions about what happens here. We watch Capote and good pal Harper Lee begin a legitimate investigation into the murders but everything seems to change once Capote lays eyes on Perry Smith, As the film progresses, everything else becomes background as the film whittles down to the relationship between Capote and Smith. Capote seems almost obsessed with Smith, but it's never really made clear why because Capote doesn't really care that Smith is guilty, but spearheads an appeal for the man. We're never really sure if Capote believes that Perry Smith is being wronged or if he is falling in love with the man, but at one point, Harper Lee asks Capote if he's in love with Perry and his answer is very telling.

I was surprised as the film began to boil down to the relationship between Capote and Smith, that Smith is not portrayed as ignorant thug. The Perry Smith in this film is intelligent and sensitive, but also fully aware of who he is. On the other hand, it was a little odd that whether or not Smith was aware that Capote was attracted to him is never even broached. As a ,matter of fact, any evidence of homophobia is whitewashed hear, which was not the case the following year in Infamous, where Toby Jones played Capote.

Director Bennett Miller (Moneyball) has mounted an absolutely gorgeous film filled painting-like imagery. Phillip Seymour Hoffman completely disappears inside Capote and his Oscar was well deserved and mention must also be made of Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, Clifton Collins Jr as Perry Smith, and Oscar winner Chris Cooper as Alvin Dewey. Appointment viewing for Hoffman's performance alone.

In This Our Life
Some spectacular performances and uncompromising direction make a slightly cringy 1942 melodrama called IN This Our Life more than worth the time of fans of the genre.

The film stars two time Oscar winners Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters named Stanley and Roy Timberlake, respectively, heiresses to a tobacco company co-owned by their father and uncle. The family is preparing for Stanley's upcoming wedding to Craig (George Brent) while Roy is trying to deal with the end of her marriage to Peter (Dennis Morgan). The sisters' Uncle William (Oscar winner Charles Coburn} gives Stanley a check to help finance her wedding and not long after that, Stanley and Peter run off together. And while healing their wounds, Roy and Craig start developing feelings for each other. Unfortunately, while this is happening, a couple of tragedies begin to derail Stanley's life.

Howard Koch's screenplay, based on a novel by Ellen Glasgow, features everything classic soap opera fans want, but there are some creepy undercurrents to the story that give this story a little more edginess than we get from the average 1940's melodrama. The first thing that quietly emerges is the almost incestuous relationship between Stanley and her Uncle William. It reminded me a bit of Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Even though it isn't overt, it is clear that Uncle William would do anything for Stanley and that she is aware of it and not above using it to her advantage. It is kind of odd that we can this, but Roy is the only character onscreen who sees it.

It's the performances of Davis and de Havilland that really make this one sizzle. In a dynamic that sort of resembles the Hudson sisters in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, we see a toxic relationship between two sisters who have lived with it for so long that they try and pretend it doesn't exist. Davis' ferocious scenery chewing is sometimes frightening to watch here and de Havilland beautifully underplays without ever letting Davis blow her off the screen. de Havilland's Roy is so subservient at the beginning of the film but by the end, has no desire to protect her sister, who becomes downright evil as she goes into pure self-preservation mode.

Research revealed that Davis was miserable during the making of this film. She hated the script and did not get along with director John Huston, having him replaced by Raoul Walsh, though Huston is credited as the sole director onscreen, but Huston and Walsh successfully created one of the creepiest melodramas of the 1940's. Davis and de Havilland are both Oscar-worthy as Stanley and Roy and Charles Coburn is appropriately greasy as Uncle William. Shout-outs to Frank Craven as the girls' father, Billie Burke as their bed-ridden mother, and Lee Patrick as Stanley's girlfriend. Mention should also be made of Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel as the Timberlake maid and a young actor named Ernest Anderson as company clerk Perry and McDaniel's son. Anderson was discovered personally by Davis and made sure he got this part. Another nearly forgotten gem on Davis' resume that will not disappoint her fans.

Lonely Planet
Despite a lovely performance from Oscar winner Laura Dern, 2024's Lonely Planet, is a picturesque, but beyond dull romantic drama that doesn't work because of lack of chemistry between the stars and a story that takes WAY too long to get where we know it's going about 15 minutes into the film.

The setting is a writers' retreat in Morocco where we meet Katherine Lowe (Dern), a renowned writer who is in the process of ending of a 14-year old relationship and is experiencing writer's block who comes to the retreat for the solitude she thinks will help her complete her book. She accidently meets Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth), a high powered businessman who has come to the retreat to support his girlfriend, Lily (Diana Silvers) who is flush in the success of her very first novel and we see how Owen gets Katherine to look up from her computer and drift into an affair.

Director and writer Susannah Grant, who wrote the screenplay for Erin Brockovich, has mounted a story on an absolutely gorgeous canvas. The Moroccan setting is appealing but the film spends way too much time depending on scenery to entice the viewer. It reminded me a bit of the Katharine Hepburn drama Summertime that spent way too much time just creating a cinematic postcard that becomes tiresome after twenty minutes and when you have a movie with a running time of 1 hour and twenty-eight, minutes, we really don't need to spend so much time on atmosphere.

The first meeting between Katherine and Owen is a little contrived, but I liked the way the way Owen and Lily do begin to drift away. Lily's unintentional pushing Owen away is quite realistic as she spends more and more time with these pretentious and boring writers who are all in love with the sounds of their own voices . The scene where it climaxes at a party game where participants have to guess literary items and Lily ridicules Owen for not knowing who the character is might be my favorite scene in the film. Oddly, it's still another 30 minutes before Katherine and Owen begin to get physical and after all the waiting we've been doing, this too gets stalled, not to mention a really stupid 11:00 twist that appears to pull Katherine and Owen apart permanently.

Laura Dern works very hard at keeping the film watchable, even with the economic running time, has a hard time doing so, a lot of it having to do with the fact that she and serious eye candy Liam Hemsworth have absolutely no chemistry. As long as we wait for something to happen between these two, when it finally does, it's just not as interesting as we hoped it might be. For hardcore Dern fans only.

Springtime in the Rockies
The queen of 20th Century Fox musicals, Betty Grable, had one of her best vehicles with a splashy 1942 piece of musical fluff called Springtime in the Rockies.

Grable plays a musical comedy star who is tired of her womanizing boyufriend and dance partner Dan Christy (John Payne). Vicky decides to end things with Dan and reunite with her former dance partner, Victor Prince (Ceasar Romero). Vicky and Victor get a job at a resort in the Canadian Rockies while Dan discovers that his career is going to go down the drain without Vicky. After a drunken stupor, Dan wakes up in the same resort where Vicky and Victor are performing, accompanied by a bartender (Edward Everett Horton) who claims Dan hired him as his valet and a spitfire named osita urphy (Carmen Miranda) who claims Dan hired her as his secretary.

It actually took three screenwriters to come up with this featherweight musical that not only serves as an effective showcase for Grable, but also allowed Fox to showcase a lot of up and coming talent, particularly Miranda, whose broken English, electric hips, and musical prowess allow her to steal every scene she's in. Miranda also stops the show with her rendition of "Chatanooga Choo Choo", which she performs in Portuguese. Of course, it goes without saying that any musical with Grable, Harry James and his orchestra won't be far behind, who are allowed to take up a healthy amount of screentime, including a dreaming rendition of "You Made Me Love You."

Other musical highlights include Grable and Payne's duet "Run Little Raindrop Run" and big band singer Helen Forrest's take on "I Had the Craziest Dream." A couple of surprises are provided on the dance floor as Romero impresses being very light on his feet with his dance numbers with Grable and a cute comic dance performed by a tipsy Charlotte Greenwood who goes the Eve Arden/Mary Wickes route as Vicky's best friend.

Fox poured a lot of money into this film, rich with lavish and settings and costumes, lovingly supervised by director Irving Cummings. who also directed Gable in Down Argentine Way. And if you look closely, you will notice an uncredited appearance from a young Jackie Gleason as a character called The Commissioner. Appointment viewing for Grable fans.

Brothers (2024)
Peter Dinklage has proven to be an actor who is always worth watching and the proof of this cinematic pudding is in a silly and confusing road trip comedy called Brothers where I experienced the occasional laugh despite myself and most of them were because of Dinklage.

Dinklage and Josh Brolin play Jady and Moke Monger, respectively, twin brothers who were raised to be criminals by their mother, Cath, who spent most of her life playing Bonnie and Clyde with the boys' stepfather, Glen. A high speed chase after Cath and Glen stole some expensive emeralds ended in Glen's death and Cath leaving the country. Many years later, Jady is in jail and is offered an early parole by a sleazy corrections officer and his retired judge father if he can retrieve those emeralds. Unfortunately, it is revealed during the opening scenes that the emeralds were swallowed by Glen before he died and are still in his stomach, buried under ground, which we learn later is now a golf course.

The screenplay by Etan Cohen and Macon Blair is rich with a lot of very unpleasant characters who happen to be family. It's been awhile since I've seen family members throwing each other under varied buses in the name of greed and self preservation. It's a little maddening watching poor Moke trying to start a new life with a new job and a pregnant wife and Jady just not giving a damn. Further tension is created as Moke's love for his twin motivates him to help his mother despite a lot of buried resentment regarding their mother and who do you think their next is a reunion with?

I did like the fact that the love between these brothers gets strained but never disappears through the closing credits. The relationship between this corrections officer and his dad is a lot more squirmy-worthy, but being the villains, that was okay. There was a storyline detour involving Jady's prison pen pal (Marisa Tomei) and her pet orangutan that just seemed to pad the running time. I liked he fact that the story only addressed Jady being a little person once. The finale in a deserted mall, was extremely confusing and requires a score card to keep track of what's going on.

Director Max Barbakow, who directed a movie I really liked called Palm Springs could have applied a little more discipline to the story, letting a lot of scenes go a lot longer than necessary. On the other hand, this was the longest movie under 90 minutes long that I have ever seen. Brolin works hard as Moke and we get two ridiculously over the top performances from Glenn Close and Oscar winner Brendon Fraser as Cath and the corrections officer. This film also marks the final feature film appearance of M Emmett Walsh as the slimy judge. I also wish a little more imagination had been put into the title. But if you're a hardcore Peter Dinklage fan like myself, this film is worth a look.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1995)
The four lead performances make the 1995 TV version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire worth a look.

This is the story of a mentally fragile southern belle named Blance DuBois who travels to New Orleans to visit her sister and finds her self in a battle of wills and sexual tension with her brutish brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski.

In 1992, a revival of Williams' play came to Broadway with Jessica Lange playing Blanche, Alec Baldwin playing Stanley, Timothy Carhart playing Mitch, and Amy Madigan playing Blance's sister Stella. CBS decided to bring this revival to television three years later but only Lange snd Baldwin reprise their Broadway roles. For this television version, John Goodman was cast as Mitch and Diane Lane was awarded the role of Stella.

Williams play first hit the Broadway stage in 1947 with Jessica Tandy playing Blanche and Marlon Brando creating the most famous role of his career as Stanley Kowalski. The Broadway show came to the screen in 1951 practically intact except for Vivien Leigh playing Blanche and it was remade for television in 1984 with Ann-Margret playing Blanche and the late Treat Willaims playing Stanley.

Stanley Kowalski is one of those roles that has become associated with a single actor, like The King in The King and I or Harold Hill in The Music Man and any actor who attempts the role is ripe for comparison. Baldwin works very hard to bring his own charisma to the role of Stanley without imitating Brando. He does bring the sexy that Brando brought to the role, but not the brutality, though he comes pretty close during Stanley's final confrantation with Blance. Lange is no stranger to playing mentally unbalanced characters, but her Blanche is more suited for the stage than the televison screen. I wish director Glenn Jordan had reined her in a bit. But it doesn't change the fact that when she's onscreen, you can't take your eyes off of her. John Goodman brings the same sensitivity to Mitch that Karl Malden did. Diane Lane is absolutely supernb as Stella, bringing a strength and sense of sexuality I have never seen in other intepretations of the role.

This television poduction suffers a bit from Jordan's sluggish direction that makes the movie a lot longer than it needs to be, though there are certain chartacter interactions that are less subtle than other versions of the play. The sexual tension between Stanley and Blanche leaps off the screen here...Stanley seems to sense where Blance is coming from here more quickly than previous versions. It should also be mentioned that when the movie first came to the screen in '51, studio executives insisted that the ending be changed and have Stella leave Stanley to legitimize what he did to Blanche, which diluted the power of the ending. The original ending was restored for the Ann-Margret version and it is utilized here as well. Lange, Baldwin, Goodman, and Lane were all nominated for Emmys and Lange won a Golden Globe. If you've never seen the previous versions, this one is worth a look.

21 Jump Street
The surprising chemistry between Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill actually makes 21 Jump Street, 2012 satire of the crime drama that ran on Fox from 1987-1991, worth a look. This review is coming from someone who did not watch the television series.

In this film, Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are introduced as guys who went to high school together where Jenko was the most popular guy in school and Schmidt spent the entire four years being the butt of everyone's jokes. Flash forward a few years and we find that both guys have enrolled in the police academy where Schmidt is the star and Jenko only graduates because of Schmidt's help. The guys are then assigned to a special force called 21 Jump Street because of their youthful appearance to take down a high school drug dealer and his supplier.

Hill was one of three screenwriters on this slightly complux but always engaging comedy that, for some reason, this reviewer senses didn't have a lot to do with the television series, but was used as a basic canvas for an idea of Hill's, who, at the time, had the juice to get a passion project greenlighted. Be forewarned that if you're looking for a movie that has any connection to anything resembling realism, you've come to the wrong movie.

Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are not looking for anything but straight-up laughs, with the possible exception of the relationship between Schmidt and Jenko. I liked the fact that Schmidt was miserable in high school but with this second crack at high school, he finds himself shining and Jenko is the one struggling and even finding himself a little bit jealous of Schmidt. The scene where Hill auditions for the school's production of Peter Pan with his rendition of "I've Gotta Crow" had me on the floor as did the pair's final rendition of the Miranda Rights.

Hill and Tatum create terrific chemistry and get solid support from Dave Franco, Oscar winner Brie Larson, Rob Riggles, and Ice Cube steals every scene he's in as the boys' boss. And it goes without saying, like most films of this ilk, there are cameo appearances from the stars of the original television series. This film was a lot more fun than I expected.

Reagan
Despite a solid performance by Dennis Quaid in the title role, the 2024 biopic Reagan is an overblown and overlong look at our nation's 40th President that takes a little too long deciding what kind of biopic it wants to be, jumping back and forth in time and presenting Reagan as just this side of a saint.

The film is a childhood to adult look at Reagan, though it doesn't start with his birth. The film actually begins at the assassination attempt where Jim Brady took a bullet to the head and bounces around a little before settling into Reagan's childhood, a brief look at his acting career and his time as President of the Screen Actor's Guild, his first meeting with Nancy Davis, and into his presidency, concentrating on his passion regarding communism and his willingness to start a war that he really didn't want to start.

The screenplay requires a pogo stick to keep up with, especially during the first half hour or so. The film starts with the assassination attempt and then bounces back and forth through pertinent events in Regan's life for about 15 minutes before settling back into his childhood. His marriage to Jane Wyman is briefly touched on where it's implied that his interest in politics destroyed their marriage. Ten minute later, he meets Nancy Davis and their supersonic romance leads to a forever marriage. There is a definite bias in this story, Reagan is painted as somewhere between a saint and a god here and it's a little hard to swallow sometimes. And why was the entire film narrated by a Russian spy named Viktor Petrovich (well played by Oscar winner Jon Voight))?

Director Sean McNamara, whose IMDB page revealed a lot of stuff I've never heard, takes an Oliver Stone/JFK tac at approaching this story, providing a blend of archival footage along with live actors that lends some authenticity to some scenes, but his seemingly deep-rooted respect for the subject results in sluggish direction that gives the film way too leisurely pacing about a lot of stuff that he and the screenwriters seem to think provide entertainment value but this reviewer, not so much. A good chunk of screentime could have been trimmed eliminating the story of Dana, a war protestor who supposedly slept on Reagan's lawn one night and it is later revealed that Reagan hired him as a speechwriter. The guy shows up for his first day of work at the White House wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

McNamara must have some juice in Hollywood because he was afforded a huge budget for this film that was effectively spent, especially the breathtaking cinematography. Quaid is superb here, just about disappearing into Reagan and making this film a lot better than it really is. Penelope Ann Miller's Nancy Reagan was a little sugary for my tastes but loved the brief turn by Mena Suvari as a very bitchy Jane Wyman. Also enjoyed Mark Moses as Judge Clark, Xander Berkley as George Schultz, Dan Lauria as Tip O'Neil, Lesley-Ann Downe as Margaret Thatcher, and especially Robert Davi as Leonid Brezhnev. A tighter screenplay would have definitely helped here, there was no reason for this movie to be this long.

40 Carats
With the director of Butterflies Are Free and the screenwriter of Cabaret as one of the writers, we should have gotten something a lot funnier than the 1973 rom-com 40 Carats, whose actual problem is the miscasting of the leading lady.

This is the story of a 40 year old real estate agent who, while vacationing in Greece and with a lot of coaxing, spends an incredible night in Greece with a 22 year old man named Peter Latham (the late Edward Albert). Ann enjoys her evening with Peter and decides it's history as she returns to life in New York, not long after which, Peter shows up on her doorstep and begins dating her 17-year old daughter, Trina (Deborah Raffin).

Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the screenplay for Cabaret. was actually one of three screenwriters who it took to come up with this totally predictable comedy that offers no surprises and asks us to accept a lot. Every time Ann and Peter run into each other, they stare at each other way too hard and stutter and stammer and we're supposed to pretend that the rest of the characters in the movies don't notice it. Of course, we also have Ann's rakish ex-husband (Gene Kelly) and a Texas millionaire (Billy Green Brush) to make Ann and Peter re-think what's going on between them, but all they do is pad the running the time.

The real problem with this film is casting acting goddess Liv Ullmann in the role of Ann Stanley. This was a big mistake and I know why. Circa 1973, Liv Ullmann was the hardest working actress in Hollywood earning Oscar nominations for The Immigrants and Face to Face, as well as Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a Marriage, making her the flavor of the 1970's, seemingly incapable of giving a bad performance. Unfortunately, this movie is a romantic comedy, a genre that was completely foreign territory for Ullman and that is evident from the opening scene. Ullman doesn't display anything that even resembles comic timing and half of the time it seems she's not even getting the joke. With the Ann Stanley character being in practically every scene, the film invariably bogs down in the cinematic mud.

Milton Katselas' wooden direction doesn't help either. Albert is appropriately pretty as Peter and Kelly steals every scene he's in (no great feat), but this was pretty uninspired movie making.

40 Carats has been on my watchlist for a while because of Gene Kelly, but I just haven't found the time to watch it yet. It sounds like it might not be worth making the time to watch it any time soon.

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Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
A deep dive into the unprecedented life and career of two time Oscar winner Elizabeth Taylor has been provided in a delicately crafted documentary by HBO called Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes that might not completely deliver on its premise, but is does provide surprises for newcomers to the life of the actress and surprises for hardcore Taylor fans.

Apparently after almost a dozen years after her death, a series of tape recorded interviews with a writer named Richard Beryman, allegedly conducted circa 1964 were discovered and brought to the screen with linking footage displaying a tape recorder being turned on and off and pairs of hands smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey. The 2024 documentary finds Beryman asking Taylor everything that he can possibly think of about the iconic superstar and getting some brutally honest answers for almost everything he throws at Taylor.

The most intriguing thing about this documentary is that we are getting the answers to the questions from the lady herself. That voice cannot be duplicated and it was fascinating listening to her talk about her life while tons of archival footage flooded the screen, a lot more that I had never seen than expected. A couple of things come through about the actress almost immediately. First, the fact that this actress has lived her entire life in front of cameras and microphones since she was a teenager and that she always hated being thought of as a "sex symbol." Though she also admits that she wasn't pushed into the business by her parents, she wanted to do this.

She made it clear that she wasn't happy with the beginning of her career and was very unhappy with the direction of her career until she made A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift, who became one of her best friends during this period, along with a couple of other secretly gay actors, Rock Hudson and Roddy McDowell. She also shares some very special memories of James Dean during the filming of Giant . Also loved hearing that everyone in her life tried to talk her out of doing Suddenly Last Summer which earned her a third Oscar nomination and her misery during the making of BUtterfield 8, which won Taylor her first Oscar.

Needless, to say most of her marriages were discussed in detail, though she was clearly uncomfortable talking about her first marriage to Nicky Hilton. On the other hand, her thoughts about her marriage to Eddie Fisher provided some surprises and needless to say, talking about Mike Todd's death wasn't easy.

Once we got past her backstage dirt regarding Cleopatra, the interviews with Beryman ceased and archival footage was offered up to and through her second marriage to Richard Burton. Archival commentary is provided by Burton, Debbie Reynolds, George Hamilton, and Roddy McDowell, but hearing about her life and career from her own lips was worth the price of admission alone.

Walking Tall (2004)
despite a charismatic performance from Dwayne Johnson in the starring role, 2004's Walking Tall is a contrived and predictable crime drama where the story and characters are drawn strictly in black and white, offering no surprises and making the movie seem a lot longer than it is really is.

This film is, of course, a re-imagining of the 1973 classic about a real life sheriff named Buford Pusser that made a movie star out of the late Joe Don Baker. In this film, Johnson plays Chris Vaughn, a vet who has returned home to the small milling community where he grew up and finds the mill is closed and that the town's primary source of income is a casino owned by a former schoolmate named Jay Hamilton, who not only employs half the community at his casino, but apparently has the police department in his pocket as well. A couple of violent encounters motivate Chris to clean up the drug dealing and police corruption in his town.

It actually took three writers to come up with the corny screenplay for this movie that is so predictable he viewer can practically recite the dialogue along with the characters. The story makes no attempt to provide some mystery regarding who the white hats are and the black hats. Everything is in dull primary colors here...the Chris Vaughn character is painted as just this side of sainthood and Jay Hamilton's control over this town is pretty much established in the first ten minutes of the movie.

There are a couple of viable action sequences here, one motivated by Chris' baby brother overdosing on drugs that sends him on a violent rampage at the casino where he single-handedly takes out six casino employees. He is then sent to jail, goes to court, and is declared not guilty and is then elected sheriff...seriously? Even the alleged love story with an ex who now works as a stripper for Hamilton falls flat.

Director Kevin Bray, did have the sense to cast The Rock in the starring role, who almost provides enough distraction to the viewer to keep them from noticing how simple and silly this movie. Neil McDonough is effectively slick as Jay Hamilton and Johnny Knoxville steals every scene he's in as Chris' BFF and eventual deputy. For hardcore Rock fans only. And they had the nerve to dedicate the film to Buford Pusser.