Gideon58's Reviews

VOLUNTEERS
Splash put Tom Hanks on the map and he followed it up with 1985's Volunteers, a film with less substance and definitely had an inferior director, but proved that Tom Hanks had the ability to make obviously mediocre material seem a lot better than it really is.

Set in 1962, Hanks plays Lawrence Bourne III, a cocky Yale graduate desperate to escape a $28,0000 gambling debt by joining the Peace Corps, initially stealing his roommate's identity but when he asks his wealthy daddy (George Plimpton) for help getting out, Daddy makes sure he is officially enlisted. On the plane, Lawrence meets Tom Tuttle (the late John Candy), an architect and Beth (Rita Wilson), a sincerely but tightly wound volunteer and realizes the huge mistake he's made.

Upon arrival in Bangkok, Thailand, Lawrence learns that the corps mission is to build a bridge and it is also revealed that different military and criminal Thailand leaders want the bridge completed way ahead of schedule for various nefarious reasons and our hero finds a way to turn these crminals' agendas to his own advantage while finding time to romance Beth and save her from the clutches of an alleged Peace Corp leader named John (Tim Thomerson), who has a switblade he's named Mike.

Any Tom Hanks comedy is going to provide laughs at some point and this one is no exception but there's something about this film that doesn't really work and I think what bothered me about it is that there was nothing about the film that was period appropriate. The film is allegedly set in 1962 but we only know this because Ken Levine and David Isaac's screenplays announces it. The film's opening credits are shown over some stock archival footage that shows a nice cross section of 1960's pop culture and this is the only thing about the movie that evokes the 1960's.

I have to confess though I was able to sort of let that go because of Hanks' uncanny ability to make me laugh and make me believe anything that he is doing onscreen. And yes, I am pretty sure that if anyone other than Hanks had been playing Lawrence Bourne III, this movie would have bored the crap out of me, but Hanks, like Robert Downey Jr., can make just about anything watchable.

There is some lovely Thailand photography and the musical score is a little overbearing but these elements neither enhance or deter. Hanks, obviously works well with Wilson, who would later become his wife. Thomerson provides some funny moments as rhe psycho, as does Gedde Wanatambe, best known for playing Long Duck Dong in Sixteen Candles, as Lawrence's sidekick who seems a little confused about his sexual orientation. Candy, who co-tarred with Hanks in Splash is given a smart character to play for once but the character gets brainwashed and a lot of the humor the character had drains away, but with Tom Hanks center stage, it's worth a look.

Cool you seen Volunteers. I didn't realize it was set in 1962 until I just read your review...and I seen the movie only a month ago. I just assumed it was the 80s. I mean Rita Wilson has big hair!

It was your review that motivated me to watch it Citizen, because until I reasd your review, it had completely skipped my mind that it was one of the few Tom Hanks movies that I had never seen.

I remember that we talked about it. I just picked up another John Candy movie Cool Running. I bet you've seen that one, I have too, but a long time ago.

I haven't seen it and will wait for your review to decided if I want to...watching Volunteers has motivatd some long over due John Candy re-watches like Uncle Buck, Delirious, and Only the Lonely.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION

My recent look at stage to screen adaptations prompted a re-watch of 1993's Six Degrees of Separation, the stylish and sophisticated screen adaptation of John Guare's hit stage production that premiered at the Lincoln Center Theater. Guare's story is an elaborately layered look at the art of the con, at all levels and from all angles and how some are unaware they are even doing it or of the damage they are leaving in their wake, lining their pockets with little or no thought of repercussion.

Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing star as Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, an upwardly mobile Manhattan couple who make millions through elaborate art deals bathed in shades of gray, who find their lives turned upside by the appearance of a young man at their doorstep named Paul (Will Smith), with a knife wound claiming to be mugged and claiming to go to school with the Kittredges' children and eventually claiming that he is the son of Sidney Poitier.

Paul charms the Kittredges with stories of his father, of the Kittredges' cnildren, and even promises them roles as extras in the film version of the musical Cats, which his father is allegedly slated to direct. Paul even cooks dinner for them and claims to have a flight home to his father's home in the morning so the Kittredges, blinded by his charm, invite him to spend the night and that;s where Paul makes his first true mistake and all of his lies start to unravel before our eyes and before the ears of the Kittredges' inner circle who Flan and Ouisa seem to have no problem sharing what happened and their sharing eventually reveals they are not Paul's only victims and the victims of this con bond to get justice for Paul's betrayal, while sharing the story with anyone who will listen like it's some sort of badge of honor.

John Guare's screenplay, adapted from his own play, is a little on the talky side, but the talk is mostly very smart and very funny and what we see is the cons getting conned and not even realizing it. There is a parallel buetween what Paul is doing to the Kittredges and what they are doing to their art clients, which, of course, the Kittredges don't see. We also see that even the most charming con can lure anyone in as we observe the effect Paul has on Ouisa who, despite Paul's charade, still feels close to him and still wants to help him.

Fred Schepisi, who also directed the Steve Martin comedy, Roxanne, does a beautiful job of expanding this story out of its theatrical confines through the use of some lovely Manhattan location scenery, stunning cinematography, and extraordinary set direction...the Kittredge apartment is absolutely breathtaking and a perfect setting for the majority of the film, but Schepisi keeps the story moving throughout various Manhattan spots by having the Kittredges sharing their story at various social events. The film is also framed in a gorgeous musical soundtrack that serves the proceedings properly.

Guare and Schepisi have mounted a complex look at the art of the con and the toxic effects of materialism that will find the viewer switching alliances throughout the story and have you scratching your head as the credits roll. Will Smith, after five years on a sitcom and a couple of minor comedies, proved to be an actor of substance with his performance as Paul and the incomparable Stockard Channing received her only Oscar nomination for her performance as the crisp and compassionate Ouisa, matched note for note by Sutherland as her husband. Bruce Davison, Mary Beth Hurt, Ian MacKellen, and Anthony Michael Hall, offer solid support and keep your eyes peeled for future star Heather Graham and future director JJ Abrams in small roles. This slick and sophisticated comedy is a textbook on how to bring an unsettling story to the screen and never have it come off as a photographed stage play.

THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS

Evocative direction by the late Paul Newman and a dazzling lead performance from his wife, the extraordinary Joanne Woodward that should have earned her an Oscar nomination, are the primary selling points of 1972's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

This film is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Paul Zindel that is essentially a bold and unapologetic character study that isn't in the least bit flattering, Woodward plays Beatrice Hunsdorfer, a bitter and self-righteous widow disgusted by her dead end existence and unconsciously taking out her unhappiness on her two very different daughters: Ruth (Roberta Wallach) is a bitchy teen in denial about her epilepsy and convinced that everything wrong in her life is her mother's fault, despite her mother's sometime smothering attention. Mathilda (Nell Potts) is a painfully shy grade schooler who, despite her mother's unintentional neglect, is a scholastic genius in the making who may have found her fifteen minutes as a finalist in the school science fair. The title of the film is the title of Mathilda's project.

Oscar winner Alvin Sargent has thoughtfully adapted Zindel's play for the screen, focusing on the highly dysfunctional Beatrice...a woman angry with what life has dealt her...she more than once actually refers to her late husband as a son of a bitch for dying on her. She finds her only release from her unhappiness from reading about other peoples' lives in the personal ads in the paper and her half-hearted dream of opening up a little tea room where she would serve tea and cheesecake. The sanctity of her escape is beautifully documented in a scene where Beatrice learns that Ruth did a skit at school imitating her (a scene brilliantly performed by Wallach, easily her best moment in the film). We see the irony in everything that Beatrice supposedly believes in as we watch her make sure the room that she is planning to rent out to an elderly woman (Judith Lowry) is spotless while the rest of her house is a pigsty.

Once again, as he did with The Glass Menagerie, Newman trusts the quality of the material he's working with and the endless talent of his wife, who has a way of making the most unsympathetic of characters fascinating to watch. I love the first moment we see Beatrice she's in a store trying on different wigs...Woodward instantly shows a woman who wants to be someone else, anyone else. Woodward never loses grip of this character's strength until she is supposed to, during the third act when Beatrice's achilles heel is revealed and how it deeply woulds Mathilda, who has more business hating her mother than Ruth does, but it is clear she doesn;t.

Potts, the real life daughter of Newman and Woodward, is a revelation in the role of Mathilda, putting this girl's inner pain center stage and making us want to put our arms around her and Wallach is also successful in projecting Ruth's conflicted feelings about her mother which, fortunately, do not damage her relationship with her sister, but it is really the powerhouse work from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward that make this film appointment viewing.

A Thousand Clowns

The late Jason Robards was known as one of our greatest character actors who won back-back to supporting actor Oscars in 1977 and 1978 had already proven his leading man abilities when he was allowed to reprise his Broadway role in the 1965 film version of A Thousand Clowns.

Based on the play written by Herb Gardner, this is the story of Murray Burns (Robards), a non conformist former television writer for a childrens' TV program, who refuses to live by the rules...he sticks his nose up at anything normal or conventional, such as employment. He has been unemployed for five months, which is of no concern to him, but is of concern to his nephew/guardian Nick (Barry Gordon, also reprising his Broadway role) and to the child welfare board, who are challenging his fitness as a guardian to Nick, who arrive at Murray's apartment in the form of a pair of social workers, played by William Daniels and Barbara Harris.

Over 50 years since its original release, this movie is still warm and entertaining for a lot of reasons. The sanctity to the original piece of theater that Gardner created is evident in every frame, which I think had a lot to do with the fact that Gardner was allowed to fashion the screenplay from his own play, an entertaining comedy with a Neil Simon quality to the dialogue, that never sacrifices the integrity of the story for cheap unmotivated laughs, but most of all, what this movie has is the charismatic performance by Robards that absolutely lights up the screen. Robards was an enigma in the business who never had the career he deserved because he had the talent of a leading man but, sadly, did not have the looks, relegating him to supporting roles, at which he became the best, but when given the chance to prove that he could carry a movie on his own like he was here, he delivered in spades.

He gets grand assistance from Gordon, with whom he creates an undeniable chemistry and from Barbara Harris, whose loopy performance as Sandra the social worker is an acquired taste, but I loved it. Martin Balsam's slick turn as Murray's brother and agent won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and William Daniels also impresses reprising his Broadway role as Sandra's tight-assed co-worker, already displaying the promise he would eventually deliver as one of our greatest character actors.

The film was made on a shoestring budget and filmed in black and white, most likely because Gardner and director Fred Coe refused to cast movie stars in the movie and wanted to do it with most of their original Broadway cast (Barbara Harris inherited the role originated by Sandy Dennis), but like I always say in cases like these, the lack of production values adds to the power of the piece. There is an underlying respect for the integrity of the piece and minus the lack of frills, that integrity and a wonderfully entertaining story come shining through.

Have to agree with you on the always great Smokey and the Bandit, and the disappointing Volunteers.

ONLY THE LONELY

Writer/director Chris Columbus and the late John Candy, who worked so well together in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, once again knocked it out of the park with an underrated gem from 1991 called Only the Lonely, which works thanks to some imaginative writing and a terrific cast.

Candy plays Danny Muldoon, a lonely Chicago cop who lives with his overbearing, strong-willed, bigoted mother, Rose (Maureen O'Hara) who finds himself torn between his devotion to his mother and an equally lonely mortuary cosmetologist (Ally Sheedy).

Columbus journeys into very familiar cinematic territory here, but it makes it something very special, thanks to some clever writing and some beautifully offbeat casting, especially with Candy, who sheds that goofy slapstick persona for which he was known and gives us a delightfully human and flawed character, steeped in realism and pathos. Danny is immensely likable, nothing new for the characters Candy has often played, but this character is intelligent, caring, nurturing, and, yes, very funny without ever becoming a cartoon character. We love his goofy charm and his need to connect to Sheedy's character but we also understand his guilty fantasies about something happening to his mother due to his neglect of her in favor of his personal happiness.

Columbus really struck gold when he persuaded Maureen O'Hara to step in front of the movie cameras again for the first time since 1971 for her role as Rose Muldoon...O'Hara offers a real movie star turn here as a character who does and says a lot of unflattering things, but never resorts to caricature while always completely investing in some of the unpleasant aspects of Rose's character. The scene where Rose and Danny have dinner with Sheedy's Theresa for the first time is brilliantly performed by O'Hara, garnering laughs while simultaneously making us want to strangle her. Another Hollywood legend, two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, steals every scene he is in as a neighbor of the Muldoons who has been crushing on Rose for years but she has been keeping at arm's length despite the obvious attraction. It was such a joy watching Quinn and O'Hara share the screen together for the first time since 1952's Against All Flags.

The story is not big on originality but the actors make you feel what is going on and take the story where we want to take it. We understand Theresa's resentment of Rose, but we also see the heartache she is headed for when she tries to get Danny to choose between her and his mother and it is no surprise when neither Danny nor Theresa show up at the church for their wedding, but is an expected detour that legitimized everything we had seen prior to this, but we knew it had to happen and we also knew a little patience was going to be required for the requisite happy ending, which, fortunately, didn't take as long as it could have. Chris Columbus has mounted a winning romantic comedy rich with warmth and star power. And Columbus, as always, makes his beloved Chicago look great.

Glad you liked Only The Lonely....I enjoyed reading you review, it's nicely written. I liked the background details you include about Maureen O'Hara's career. Question, I assume you weren't the biggest fan of Ally Sheedy. What did you think of her performance/character.

Have you seen John Candy in JFK? He's plays the role completely serious and is very effective. If memory serves me it was Maureen O'Hara who encouraged Candy to take on more serious roles.

HEARTBURN
With Mike Nichols and Nora Ephron behind the camera and Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in front of it, the 1986 comedy-drama Heartburn comes off as being a lot better than it really is.

Nora Ephron's screenplay, based on her novel, is a fictionalized ;look at Ephron's relationship with Carl Bernstein, the Washington DC columnist who co-authored All the President's Men. In this story, Ephron becomes Rachel Samstat, a food critic who meets Bernstein, who is called Mark Foreman (Jack Nicholson) at a wedding and enters a whirlwind courtship and marriage with the man and as she finds herself settling into domesticity, Mark finds himself unable to control his wandering eye.

The relationship between Rachel and Mark is beautifully foreshadowed during the scene at Mark and Rachel's wedding where Rachel refuses to come out of her bedroom and begin the wedding and friends and family keep coming in the room trying to get Rachel to come out and doing a really terrible job at it, saying everything that Rachel doesn't need to hear, including some well-intentioned warnings from Mark's best friends (Stockard Channing, Richard Masur) about what Rachel is getting into. The other odd thing is that Mark is outside waiting for Rachel to come out and doesn't seem terribly concerned that Rachel doesn't want to come out, instructing the pianist to play "Roll Out the Barrell."

As expected, the pressures of remodeling a DC brownstone and Rachel forsaking her work to have Mark's child, Mark cheats on Rachel and though the relationship will never be the same, Mark and Rachel not only stay together, but Rachel continues to have children with the man and we find ourselves scratching our heads wondering why for a moment or two along the way.

I say we wonder only for a moment because the story is so not the attraction here. What makes this film appointment viewing for me is the extraordinary performances by Nicholson and especially Streep. Streep, in particular, invests in a character who is a hot mess, a walking, talking mass of phobias and jumbled emotions who is so high strung and unpredictable you can't take your eyes off of her. This character is the complete opposite of Streep's normally strong movie persona playing women who are emotionally solid and Rachel is anything but. Nicholson matches her scene for scene and overcomes the character's predictability with the actor's ability to elevate a character above his likability factor and when the two work in tandem...one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Rachel and Mark decide to celebrate the news that they're about to be parents by eating pizza and singing all the songs they can think of with the word "baby" in it....the scene has a lovely unscripted feel to it that is a testament to the magic that these two actors create.

Mike Nichols' direction is detailed where it needs to be and breezy where it needs to be and he has surrounded his stars by a superb supporting cast including Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Milos Foreman, Steven Hill, Maureen Stapleton, Joanna Gleason, Mercedes Ruehl, and, of course, my girl Stockard Channing. There's also a cameo by future Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as a subway thief. The movie is no classic, but Streep and Nicholson make it worth checking out.

THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT

The bold and meticulous directorial eye of Milos Foreman, an uncompromising fact-based screenplay and a dazzling Oscar-nominated performance from Woody Harrelson are the primary selling points for The People Vs Larry Flynt, a brash, unapologetic, and ambitious biographically-styled look at one of pop culture's most controversial figures.

Larry Flynt and his brother Jimmy were eeking out a living as the owner of a string of strip clubs when Larry decided to branch out and take the concept of Playboy magazine a step further...get rid of all the articles and interviews that no one cares about and provide a magazine, clearly for a select clientele, that provided exactly what they were looking for...pornography, in its purest form, without all the other pointless frills provided by publications like Playboy. Larry's instincts that a clientele for such publication existed were on the money and made him piles of it; unfortunately, it made him a lot of enemies too, documented in an actual assassination attempt which left him paralyzed, but not dead. Larry not only found himself at the forefront of the defense of pornography as art but for determining where the line between art and pornography was drawn, as well as a proponent for the First Amendment, which actually found him at one point in the Supreme Court.

Flynt's story was played out in front of us during the hedonistic 1970's so it would have been pretty hard for screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski to embellish or fictionalize without friction from the Flynt empire, so I don't doubt the validity of the story presented here, even though I'm sure there are elements of the story that were embellished for the sake of entertainment, but the screenplay does provide a lot of balance in terms of being realistic in its presentation of Flynt as a "smut peddler' and what he would come to represent for so many. I found the portion of the story where Larry's wife, Althea (Courtney Love) makes a horrific descent into heroine addiction a bit much and detracted from the primary story being told, but there was nothing out of the realm of realism here.

Director Milos Foreman proves to be a master of painting bold cinematic pictures that haunt the viewer...the shots of Larry giving his speech about whether porn or war is more offensive against the giant slide show or the final shots of Larry's decaying mansion near the end of the film remebering Althea, lovingly detailed with a hand-held camera, are images that are hard to erase from the memory. Not to mention his no-holds-barred recreations of Flynt's outrageous courtroom antics, which walk the fine line between funny and cringe-worthy.

And just as he did with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Foreman gets some incredible performances from his cast. Harrelson is nothing short of brilliant and I sometimes wonder if he shouldn't have won that Oscar. Love's inyour face performance is completely unhinged but fascinating. Edward Norton' s razor sharp work as Alan Isaacman, Flynt's attorney might be easy to overlook. Bouquets to Donna Hanover as Ruth Carter Stapleton, Richard Paul as Jerry Falwell, and Harrelson's real-life brother Brett as his brother Jimmy. And yes, that is the real Flynt playing the judge in Flynt's first trial. This film is an unapologetic look at a media emperor who made no apologies about what he believed in and though people throughout his life tried, never became anything that what he was and stayed true to that.

TOOTH FAIRY
Dwayne Johnson's ability to carry a movie was put to its ultimate test with an oddity from 2010 called Tooth Fairy, a somewhat original comedy concept that loses its way due to an overly padded screenplay from writers whom I would expect better.

Johnson plays Derek Thompson, a minor league hockey player whose best days are behind him and is a little bitter about it. Derek almost tells his girlfriend's daughter that there is no such thing as the tooth fairy and is promptly summoned to Tooth Fairy Land, where as punishment for "disseminating disbelief" regarding the tooth fairy, he is assigned tooth fairy duties for two weeks.

This story initially threw me by blowing the whole concept of the tooth fairy being a single creature completely out of the water. According to the screenplay by Lowell Hanz and Babaloo Mandel, the Tooth Fairy is a winged administrator (Julie Andrews) who runs an entire organization where tooth fairies are trained and given assignments all over the world that appear on one of those airport flight boards, telling the fairies where to go and what kind of tooth is coming in. They are also equipped with "tools" like shrinking cream, and amnesia dust to help them complete their missions, supplied by the Tooth Kingdom's own version of James Bond's M, named Jerry (Billy Crystal).

This is all well and good, but instead of keeping Derek in the fairy kingdom, they keep sending him back to his normal life and interrupting it, conveniently complicating his relationship with his girlfriend (Ashley Judd) and her son. Not to mention making an obnoxious new teammate (Ryan Sheckler) pretty impossible to deal with. It seemed to me that for the concept presented to make sense, Derek would have to remain in the kingdom for training, which was pretty non-existent. Not to mention the fact that they kept interrupting Derek to get teeth while thousands of other fairies are sitting in the fairy cafeteria doing nothing.

The film's principle theme about the death of children's belief systems is a nice one, but the writers should have been a little more forthcoming with it and not make the viewer work so hard for it. Director Michael Lembeck has a keen comic eye and he puts a lot of trust in the charm and charisma of his leading man and I have to admit if anyone but Johnson had been playing this role, I probably would have turned it off about 15 minutes in, but Johnson really commits to this hot mess of a movie and almost makes it worth your time.

IRON MAN 3

Director and co-screenwriter Shane Black may have gone to the well once to often with Iron Man 3, the third installment in the series, an overblown, logic-defying, confusing, aggravating actioner that doesn't explain anything, doesn't feel the need to, but does provide a more personal look at Tony Stark and what he's been tinkering with in his basement laboratory.

From what I could glean from the convoluted screenplay, a nerdy techno geek from Tony's past (Guy Pearce), a second rate actor (Ben Kinglsey), and a woman from Tony's past (Rebecca Hall) all have a connection to an international terrorist called The Mandarin, who has Tony so steamed that he actually gives the guy his home address.

I'm not going to lie, the only thing that kept me invested in this film was my undying love for Robert Downey Jr., who still manages to infuses likability and vulnerability into this sometimes unapologetic superhero. I love Tony because he sort of stumbled into being a superhero and instead of struggling with it, he has chosen to embrace it...the only superhero who couldn't be bothered with creating an alter ego...Tony Stark and Iron Man are one and the same and that's it.

The plot here had a lot to do with all of those suits that we've seen Tony playing with in his basement laboratory and in this installment, we actually get to see other characters inhabit the suit, including Tony's bud Col. Rhodes (Don Cheadle) and girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). The sequence where Tony directs the suit onto Pepper's body in order to protect her was pretty awesome.

I was never sure who they were supposed to be from scene to scene, but Pearce and Kingsley both did some effective scenery chewing, the best enemies for Iron Man since Jeff Bridges' Obediah Stain. Even though I didn't have a clue what was going on, I never took my eyes off the screen either.

Iron Man 3 was easily the weakest of the three Iron Man movies. I didn't like that he started getting panic attacks in this movie. It just felt out of character for him.

__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

WHITE PALACE

1990 was not a terrible year in cinema, documented by my recent re-watch of White Palace, an edgy and intelligent adult romance about two people with sexual heat who are in very different stages of grief. Oh, and you have Jason Alexander with hair.

James Spader plays Max, a 27 year old up-and-coming who meets cute with a 43-year old waitress named Nora Baker, who has a Marilyn complex and loves to drink and have sex. And her house is a mess. Of course, there is the classic "The Haves vs Haves Not" sensibilities that help to keep our star-crossed lovers apart.

Director Luis Mandor must be credited for this steamy look at contemporary relationship land, anchored bya near brilliant screenplay by Ted Tally, based on Glenn Savon's novel that is dark and challenging and never forgets that some of cinema's most telling romantic moments are silent.

Remember when Sisan Sarandon was delicious and James Spader was thin and sexy? Susan Sarandon, as always, is illuminated sex on legs as Nora, another one of those great movie characters who not only knows speaks without filter but knows how to it make it hurt. Spader is the personification of urban sophistication that really needs to get laid. There are some deft supporting turns offered by a clearly hand-picked veteran supporting cast...Eileen Brennan as a warm clairvoyant relative of Nora's, Renee Taylor as Max's mother, and Kathy Bates as Max's boss offer great star turns that serve the story, nothing more.

But what this movie has more than anything is smoldering sexual heat between the two lead actors...only Sarandon's work with Kevin Costner in Bull Durham begins to rival this. Bouqets as well to set direction, sound editing and a lush soap-opera score, If you liked When Harry Met Sally...

ROSEMARY'S BABY

My recent viewing of Roman Polanski's masterpiece Chinatown motivated me to actually do something I have been trying to do for about 35 years: I have finally watched Polanski's 1968 classic Rosemary's Baby from opening credits to closing credits, something which I have attempted to do dozens of times over the years and finally did today. It's so awesome when a classic lives up to its reputation and this one did, even some 50 years after its original release, thanks to its director, Roman Polanski.

Based on a novel by Ira Levin, this is the story of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, a young New York couple who move into one of those old gothic looking brownstones and begin refurbishing the place. Guy is a struggling actor and Rosemary's only priority seems to be having a child. Around the same time Rosemary becomes pregnant, the Woodhouses are befriended by an elderly couple named Minnie and Roman Castavet, who take an inordinate interest in Guy and Rosemary, or more specifically, in Rosemary and her pregnancy...Minnie immediately starts making health drinks for Rosemary and arranges a new doctor for her, but it soon becomes apparent to Rosemary that the Castavets have a hidden agenda and just when they are are about to be exposed by Rosemary's old friend Hutch, Hutch conveniently ends up dead.

As a writer and director, Roman Polanski proved himself an artist where cinematic storytelling is concerned. Polanski has enough trust in the material and in the payoff that this story eventually provides that he allows this story to unfold very slowly and this is one of the few times that this really works to maximum effect....we're at least 20 minutes into the film before we even get a hint of what is happening here and it is just a hint, noting more...there are red herrings here and there and there are a few things that happen in the story that I didn't understand, but it didn't stop me from becoming completely enveloped in one of the most compelling, terrifying, and heartbreaking stories I have ever seen. Chills are definitely in order when what is happening here starts to come into focus and we hope that we're wrong because this story is centered around one of the most instantly likable movie heroines I have ever seen. We're concerned for her but, through Polanski's screenplay, we learn that the character's outward appearance of fragility cannot be mistaken for stupidity...this character is sharper than she appears on the surface and even though she may not act on it, she really doesn't miss much. I especially love act two, where Rosemary begins to realize Roman and Minnie are not all they appear and that there's something wrong with those health drinks, as she begins pouring the drinks down the drain and planning parties where the Castavets are not on the guest list.

Polanski's hand-picked cast deliver the goods, starting with Mia Farrow, in the performance that made her a movie star...Farrow's Rosemary is an uncanny combination of china doll fragility and self-preservation beast. Normally, in a story like this, the heroine gives up at some point but Rosemary never does, even though her initial naivete seems a little affected at times, we love this woman from the opening frames and want her to have everything she wants. Polanski made a real offbeat choice in the casting of John Cassavetes as Guy...on paper, Guy seems like he would have been played with someone more movie-star-looking like Warren Beatty or Robert Redford, but his unconventional acting choices make Guy a much more interesting character than he is in the script and somehow manages to keep Guy slightly likable. Ruth Gordon's scene-stealing antics as the annoying and creepy Minnie Castavet won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Mention should also be made of Sidney Blackmer as Roman Castavet, Maurice Evans as Hutch, Ralph Bellamy as Minnie's creepy doctor and a very young Charles Grodin as Rosemary's real doctor. It should be mentioned that this film was made during a time of great personal turmoil for the director and his star...Polanski's relationship with Sharon Tate was about to be ended by her brutal murder and Farrow was nearing the end of her crumbling marriage to Frank Sinatra...Sinatra wanted Mia home barefoot and pregnant and Mia was not having that...she got this movie and her marriage was pretty much over by the time it was released.

But what this film has above everything else is the gothic and chilling atmosphere that director Polanski creates through some imaginative camerawork and striking cinematic pictures that spark such frightening imagery that, like the central character, we find ourselves from time to time wondering if this is really happening or if it's all just a psychotropic nightmare and that , I think, was Polanski's intent.

MARTY

A simple story rich with universal themes, sensitive Oscar-winning direction by Delbert Mann, and an Oscar-winning lead performance by one of our most reliable character actors combine to make Marty, the surprise hit of 1955 that became one of the few "little" movies that actually won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Paddy Chayefsky created the role of Marty Pilletti, a 34 year old butcher in the Bronx who is the eldest of six children and the only who has yet to marry. Constant pressure from BFF Angie (Joe Mantell) and his mother (Esther Minicotti) have Marty thinking about finding someone special, though he has been burned in the past romantically and has him thinking is an obligation that should be his priority, even though he has a dream of buying his own butcher shop.

One night, Marty is shoved to the Starlight Ballroom a local dance hall where he runs into a guy who offers him five bucks to take his homely date off his hands so that he can go after another girl. Marty refuses the money, but befriends the young woman anyway...a lonely schoolteacher named Claire, who is apparently receiving the same kind of pressure from people in her life to get out there. Marty and Claire actually hit it off and spend the rest of the evening together culminating in Claire actually returning to Marty's apartment with him.

Of course, as expected in a story like this, as soon as Marty has finally connected with someone, everyone who has been pressuring him to get out there has a problem with Claire...his buddies don't think she's pretty enough and his mother offers an entire laundry list of things that are wrong with her. Marty also gets a glimpse at the dark side of married life with his long suffering brother and sister-in-law who are having troubles adjusting to becoming new parents.

Chayefsky and Mann have taken a pretty standard and predictable love story and made it something special by taking away all the Hollywood gloss...simple black and white photography, characters that entertain and remind us of ourselves, and lead actors who aren't pretty, but create rich, deliciously human characters you can't help but root for.

Ernest Borgnine, an actor known for playing bad guys, proved his versatility with a character who is lonely and in pain and always tries to do what the next right thing is and was awarded with a richly deserved Oscar and Betsy Blair matches him scene for scene as the painfully shy Claire...I love the first scene of them dancing together and Claire is talking to Marty but is unable to look him directly in the eye. Mann and Chayefsky knew they had something very special here and chose not to tamper with it too much....letting a really wonderful actor make a story so engaging that you don't miss the fancy production values.

Did you know that Betsy Blair almost didn't get the role in Marty because she was blacklisted? She only got the part because her husband, Gene Kelly, threatened to pull out of the movie that he was filming at the time.