Reviews

It was better than it should have been. It seems like it was first slated as a movie-of-the-week but then an fading MGM figured to score some box office bucks with the gimmick of this being one of their last movies shot on a studio lot. Casting MGM veterans in small parts helped some but, this being a detective movie, Jim Garner has to carry it all the way. Which he does with his usual aplomb.

It's a movie of its time. It's a small-town murder mystery with a back story which might have come from a Playboy or Penthouse fiction piece; the type no major studio would have looked at just three years earlier (it was made in 1972), let alone in MGM's heyday.

Faults aside, this movie has its interesting plot twists ratcheting up what little tension there is, so I was hooked until the end. But a loose-end or two are never answered - where did the fresh water come from? And if it was from the bath tub, was any fluoridation found? What happened to Peter Lawford's girlfriend? In one scene she's waving hello with her generous bust; in the next - a crucial one involving PL's character - there's patently no trace of her nor does anyone ask. Eh?

Hal Holbrook and Katherine Ross form the remainder of the troika of leads; Holbrook as the county vet and Ross as his long-haired, long-legged assistant from New York. In other words, she's really there to become romantically involved with Garner's character (a cinematic must.)

Harry Guardino's county sheriff brings in his boys when things get tricky but to no any real effect except the last scene. Garner's character never feels the case slipping away from him or the noose tightening as with Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in 'The Maltese Falcon.'

June Allyson has a cameo, bringing in yet another plot twist. A better screenwriter and/or director would have put her in more of the picture. Her brief presence lights up the screen far more than the rest of the cast combined - maybe she should have played the detective.

I went to this movie wanting to like it. I left wanting to like it. I still want to like it. It has everything a movie needs to make you like it: stars, drama, tension, production value, yadda, yadda ...

But ... I don't like it. I like what it tries to be, but I don't like it. I kept waiting for the dramatic climax that would justify the whole three hours of jumping back and forth in time. Eric Roth's script tries to be The Godfather movies all rolled into one, with its elements of "family," secrets, trust, betrayal and overall paranoia through the career of an early C.I.A. agent, spiced with elements taken from actual history. Robert De Niro's direction is the classic Sergio Leone technique of leaving everything in, regardless of whether it could have been shortened, told in backstory or even left out altogether.

Since I knew the general course of history of the time covered, and many of the elements of the story, I was able to follow without wanting to "go for popcorn." But that was the only reason. When this runs on cable t.v. I'll channel surf through it.

This was a few edits from greatness, which shows that the scissor is as much a part of movie-making as the camera.

Cute chick (and Marianne Faithfull really was back then) in tight black leather, riding on a motorcycle -- it just has to have some redeeming quality about it, right?

Wrong! This was the sort of snoozer that gave '60s avant-garde European directors a bad name. No story, no plot, no interest, no nothing!

I just saw the stage version with Bernadette Peters because I'd never seen any screen version - unexcellable; a worthy heiress of Ethel Merman. I wish I could say the same for Rosalind Russell.

As I said, I liked the Broadway musical but this production doesn't translate it well to the screen. Merman played (and Peters plays) Rose Hovick at comically over-the-top full-volume, which is the only way to make such an aggravating character likeable. Russell, however, strangely underplays her on the big screen. Perhaps it's her limited singing talent but I blame director Mervyn LeRoy. A director is responsible for what goes on the screen, and so much of what's on the screen doesn't work here.

Natalie Wood shines best as Louise, the plain-Jane "untalented" daughter before her metamorphosis into Gypsy Rose Lee -- where, like Russell, she doesn't shine as much as one would think. Karl Malden is a trouper as Herbie Sommers, the schmo who sticks by Rose longer than anyone who'd call himself a man would. The Sommers role is supposed to be a weakling but I just don't buy Malden in the role. On the other hand, it must have been good rehearsal for playing General Omar Bradley, who was portayed as yet another second banana to yet another raging prima donna in 'Patton (1970)'.

The sets also don't really work. They look exactly what they are - Hollywood stage sets, which here give neither impression of Broadway nor full-fledged Hollywood musical. Contrast this with the sets of 'Guys and Dolls (1955)' where the sets looked like Broadway sets and thus really made the picture.

LeRoy is sensible enough to have the actors do their own singing but neither actor is a singer, a fact which overshadows a musical full of otherwise showstopping tunes. However, too many elements just don't come together - the casting, the sets, the art direction. In short, I blame the director. And the producers.

Jeff Stein's 'TKaA' introduced me to the dysfunctionally co-dependent family that was The Who in their more-than-full-volume, willfully insane glory days of Keith Moon. Their balls-to-the-walls, ear-shattering, finger-slashing, skull-splitting, hammers-of-hell, power-plus-volume blues-based rock & roll put their contemporaries deservedly to shame (Townsend didn't pull punches in his criticism) and set a high bar above all that wreckage which their successors have yet to reach.

It doesn't cover all of The Who's KM-era music (Quadrophenia, Who by Numbers) nor does it dig up the worst/best of the dirt (Daltrey repeatedly KO'ing a whiney Townsend over the years) but it captures as only a fan's we're-not-worthy devotion can the band's intense, sometimes-paranoid craziness as well as their self-knowing, self-mocking intelligence about their craziness -- and their true worth in the annals of rock & roll. Stein deserves a spot in Cleveland right next to them.

This is light-years better than it should have been. Director John Stockwell has reinvented the surf flick for the '00s generation. He wisely lets the Hawaiian waves do most of the acting. I can only hope the Academy offers Oscars for Oceanography.

The plot is bare but bearable: a competitor must overcome her demons to grow up. Exactly what a surfer's demons are you'll just have to go see for yourself. No great talents are taxed by this story but the scenery and the setting make everything look great. Kate Bosworth may well have a future on the screen, especially if she keeps working in sunny climates.

There were so many opportunities to make this pic deserve the buzz it's been getting but it's too depressing to name any more. Hanks makes a good turn as the hit-man but the real light in this fest of darkness is Paul Newman as the local godfather - look for a nod for Best Supporting Actor. Anyone else in that part would have left RtP completely in the dark.

But stellar casting and superb graphic-novel cinematography doesn't make up for:

* the dragging pace of the story, nor

* the barely holding-up structure, nor

* the unleavened dialogue.

It's sad to watch a movie that should have been better than it is. RtP has all the elements of a four-star pic but, in director Sam Mendes' hands, pans out to only three at best.

In A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, (1995) (TV), the eponymous legendary director took us on a proverbial tour of his old neighborhood: the Hollywood movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s which were his school on screen.

He now takes us on a second tour of his early influences, this time of early post-war Italian cinema which he recalls growing up watching on an Italian t.v. station in New York, albeit dubbed into English.

Want to know those influences? Buy it and watch it.

Like with the earlier documentary, this one is an immediate collection standard for everyone from the movie buff to Scorsese's heirs-in-the-making. You may be tempted to watch it through as I tried to one Friday night on a cable broadcast. You'd be better off watching it in segments al la the film school classroom. I know I will.

Charming, funny, wry, guaranteed to make you smile and all the other cliches. And smart.

Nia Vardalos' story of a wallflower blooming both externally and internally, mixed with the self-tweaking romantic humor reminiscent of a younger Woody Allen or Nora Ephron writing "When Harry Met Sally ...", works. That we've seen the big, crazy, aggravating, ethnic family in America in so many other pictures is nothing new; that this time they're Greek, maybe; that its done with more love and less angst (somewhat;-) than has been beaten into our heads before, refreshing.

I found myself wanting to marry the lead character. I pray that her creator grows as a storyteller without losing her charming, self-deprecating wit (Nia, learn from Woody's mistake!)

I call myself an amateur historian and a frustrated writer but this slapdash nonsense makes me look like Shelby Foote, Robert Towne and Mario Puzo rolled into one. This attempt at rewriting history is merely revisionist pantomime.

The hack dialogue sounds like it was lifted from lines found by Google.com and was compiled in a free-for-all chatsite by college freshmen. The producers may as well have cast the wardrobe coathangers to wear the costumes for all the good the lead actors could do with it. With luck none of them will be remembered for this unless, after clocking a BAFTA or an Oscar, some television hack/archaeologist pulls this from the forgotten dust-coated shelf it so richly deserves.

The only interesting casting was with big-name veteran actors in supporting roles. Alan Bates radiates as King George V; he almost outshines Eileen Atkins as Queen Mary. Together they're about the only believable parts in the whole production. Robert Hardy takes a switch by playing FDR for a change instead of his usual turn as Churchill; it would have been interesting to see him play the part in a full-fledge leading role. David Ryall turns in a fine portrayal as Churchill for the half-dozen lines he's allowed; ditto for him.

It makes you respect the actor's life with its hoops, its humiliations and its fickle fortunes.

A superb behind-closed-doors documentary of the Hollywood producer. We get the stories straight from the horses' mouths.

(Insert wisecrack here.)

This should be mandatory viewing for all movie-making classes. I can hardly wait until this is released on video.

All too rarely does a movie match the inspiring book in both spirit and text. The Fellowship of the Ring does so far better than I'd dared hoped. Thank humanity for modern technology! Thank Peter Jackson for his sweat, his time and his heart! Thank J.R.R. Tolkien for setting the bar so high!

The Coen Brothers are in dire need of intervening help; so dire that they don't think they need any. They let their love for the Screen block any critical self-editing. TMWWT is a series of first acts to oldie-but-goodie film-noir ideas strung together in the apparent hopes of making another Euro-style statement on One Modern Man's Predicament. It merely comes across as what they are: ideas that the Coens don't dare let go for fear they will get away from them. A good many pulp-serials prove to be the same way when they're published in one-volume. The Coens have the right ingredients but they cook them wrong. TMWWT is great moviemaking but it's no movie.

This movie seems to have been inspired by a French sex-farce that couldn't get distribution in the still-puritan America of the 1960s.

The emerging Playboy philosophy shows its pipe-smoking spirit in its first act, followed by a second act that wished it could have pushed the boundaries but clearly didn't have the muscle or the nerve, and topped off by a third act where everyone comes together for a last gasp at laughs-by-vaudeville before a happy ending for all.

Still, it gets by, if only on the charm of its cast with Tony Randall deceiving us all with his nerd image (whoddathunk he'd be a Pop at 75?), Jim Garner Jim Garnering his way through and Kim Novak stealing every scene with her feline eyes and her strangely-prescient-Princess-Di do.

Sorry, gang; I'm giving this a thumbs down. This pic has great cinamatography and art direction but that only makes it a video, not a movie.

The director and writer had a few ideas for half a movie but couldn't think of anything else while the bills piled up. The first act was good enough but would have been better if it had made up it's mind where it was going. Too many scenes which promised something proved to be red herrings while others just plain dragged. The last act summed up nothing which went on before; it also introduced character relationships and elements which hadn't been seen earlier. Thus the story arc was a complete wreck. On top of all that, the whole movie runs some 30 to 40 minutes too long. All of which are the classic signs of poor direction and writing. It brings to mind the fiasco that was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

It started out as an off-beat buddy movie and ended as cheesy, pyschodramatic wish-fulfillment shlock on a par with The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) except with a bigger budget and no catchy songs. It calls out, `look at me!' but then says nothing else, hoping a fashionably alienated, post-ironic attitude will make up the difference. It never did and never will.

No superlative can match this show for its fulfillment of the promises that Edward R. Murrow first saw in television before most of the actors on this show were born. The eye for detail in the dramatic and vice versa, the mundanities long ago forgotten are once more on our screens remembered. There is not a role miscast or misplayed, not a shot wasted nor poorly made, nor a line thrown away or overspoken.

Tom Hanks' loving dedication has restored to our memory a time of human greatness that capped the past ages exploration and marked for all time the future ages of exploration to come. He joins his friend Ron Howard as well as Ken Burns in setting the modern standard for excellence in combined history, entertainment and production.