Reviews

Cirroc Lofton's line (you know the one) still takes my breath away.

All by itself "DS9" always showed more progressiveness and more social conscience than the other "Trek"'s combined.

The story is a fanciful conceit, and a breather from the season's arc, but it still stands as "Trek"'s best address of racial issues, and also serves as a reminder that it's a little depressing that "DS9" is the least popular "Trek" in terms of syndication value and DVD sales.

If you don't know the show, this one is a good, arc-independent introduction. And if you do know the show, you will always remember falling off your chair when Cirroc Lofton said "that line."

This episode never places highly in fan polls, but it's one of the best.

Who would have thought an untrained "Brassiere Model" would have it in her to steal a film from Marilyn Monroe?

All you do through this film is watch Russell, and grin at her gumption. (Yeah, I said it.)

Even in the famous "gay" number, that number only works because Russell is in on the joke, and plays along.

Also: Howard Hawks is often referred to as misogynistic, based on the majority of male protagonists in his films.

That needs to be nipped in the bud:

This is the man who discovered Marilyn Monroe in "Monkey Business," and then starred her in this film. This is the man responsible for Lauren Bacall's famous screen debut in "To Have and Have Not." This is the man who directed the buddy movie that brought Louise Brooks to G. W. Pabst's attention while he was casting "Pandora's Box." This is the man who defined Katherine Hepburn's screen image when he directed her in "Bringing Up Baby." This is the man who directed "His Girl Friday," as strong an argument as I can imagine, posited in 1940, that women are the equal of any man stupid enough to cross them.

To this day, it boggles my mind that the man who shaped, oh, I don't know how many of the 20th century cinema's female icons, could be considered misogynistic.

But all of that aside: Jane Russell rocks this move.

Which is not an altogether bad thing. The 'burbs deserve a roasting as badly these days as a different kind of suburb warranted satirizing 55 years ago.

It's flawed, and it's a hell of a lot of fun, and we may never know about the body in the chest, but it's got a cross-demographic appeal that scripted television hasn't pulled off in years.

What I find baffling is this lazy journalism (or maybe pseudo-journalism) wherein we are repeatedly told we are watching the new "PASSIONS,'" the new "DYNASTY," the new whatever.

There's no need to legitimize your enthusiasm for something by comparing it to programs past.

It's been a long time since a scripted, evening show actually had people talking. And the very fact that people aren't even sure why they're talking, is probably the best part.

I'm sitting here watching it on PVR and I can't really believe the slapdash nature of the whole thing, but there is one comment I really must make: Alice Krige is a phenomenal actress.

She seems so vivid and ephemeral a talent, that, really, the only time she can knock it out of the ballpark is when she has sufficient makeup and costumes to allow her to, in essence, channel herself.

She looks nothing like Joan Collins, but she is a riot, "doing" Joan Collins. And the last time she registered on the pop culture radar was her unsurpassable performance as the Borg Queen in "Star Trek: First Contact." (Backing up my earlier point.)

This is not a very good movie, and even I, twenty years later, can tell you how badly wrong they got the blocking of the first season finale (a fact, about which the knowledge of, I'm not altogether proud) but Krige OWNS this stupid thing.

I can't even begin to add to the analyses and criticisms that have preceded me, but the one (actually, two) thing(s) about SIDEWAYS that just did it for me were:

As a BIG wine drinker from way back, they got all of the details absolutely right. Kistler, Cheval Blanc, the tiresome popularity of forward-fruit Merlots these days.

But that's a minor point.

My original point was:

Every single time Miles checked his messages, every single time Miles called his agent: There was a knife going through my stomach. I'm a writer, and I know exactly how that feels, and I know exactly how it feels to keep telling yourself that no news is good news, even when you know it's already been far too long.

And that awful scene when he wandered outside, as far from earshot as possible, to hear his agent's news: Impossible to fabricate. Someone (or maybe many people) involved in the production have been through that.

I would argue SIDEWAYS as a primer in every good reason not to go into writing.

Having said that, every bit of it, especially Virginia Madsen's phone call at the end, validated everything I've been doing with my life for the last several years.

I'm sorry, and I apologise to the previous poster, but criticising Kim Stanley is unacceptable.

Where do I start?

The first time I saw this, TWENTY YEARS AGO, back when I was, like, GOING ON TWENTY, Kim Stanley's performance in that horrible scene when she finds out that Big Daddy's cancer is terminal brought tears to my eyes. And then she won an Emmy. Against actors that people had actually heard of.

I only bring this up because that great documentary that's making the rounds ("The Golden Age of Broadway") quotes about half a dozen or more highly respected stage veterans who all sing Kim Stanley's praises.

Kim Stanley acted without affect: That could occasionally appear slight. What it was was that she was so busy giving it up that she forgot to show you where and how she was acting.

And, again, show me a better Big Momma, like, ever...

For years now, I have been able to rely on a twisted programmer at local station CFTO for the perfect antidote to a Christmas overdose to show up, right on schedule, Christmas night, or, at worst, Boxing Day Night.

This movie probably isn't as funny if you aren't already full up to your eyeballs with stockings and chestnuts and carols, but on Christmas night, this movie will have you in stitches.

The lengthy set-piece when the family finally sits down to Judy Davis' traditional Scandinavian Christmas feast has me laughing out loud every time I see it. Think: Long Day's Journey Into Night on coke. Seriously. (But in a funny way.)

Plus: Any movie that contains the line "I just punched out Santa Claus. Don't f**k with me," or words to that effect is a movie with it's heart in such a very wrong place that you just have to love it.

Who would have thought? Cukor, never having worked in colour before AND never having worked in widescreen before did the best piece of work of his career here. 'The Man That Got Away' is always considered one of the best musical numbers to come out of old Hollywood: but wait until you've seen it in widescreen. It's not even the same number, and you get why people who've seen this film in theatres revere the number. Some of the compositions (especially during the opening set piece) aren't just Cukor's best work, they rival anyone's from that era. Let me reitierate: see it in widescreen or trust those of us who have. This musical/ melodrama/tragedy set the bar so high that 50 years later people remember this film but not the musical that got a best picture nomination that year, OR, the performance that won Best Actress that year.

Well, first of all, was no one going to say anything about the gauze? WOW!

The gauze on the lens throughout this thing puts every old Joan Rivers "We shot that through linoleum" joke to shame.

And "If He Walked Into My Life": Holy Crap! What was once, in another incarnation, Angela Lansbury's legendary show stopper here reduces Christian Saints to derisive giggles. It isn't simply that the number gets away from Ball: she doesn't even give it a good chase.

And then, there's the gauze.

Plus, you know, a gay man with a chip on his shoulder about his mother or God- knows-what (Paul Zindel) adapting a story written by a gay man who didn't have a chip on his shoulder about his mother or anything else (Patrick Dennis.) Mr. Dennis' Mame is a joy; Mr. Zindel's Mame should be put down for society's good.

And then, there's the gauze.

Which doesn't mean that "Mame" isn't a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon when it's raining and the video store is all the way over _there_.

I'm just saying...

As a former acquaintance of the perpetrators of this fraud on the art of comedy I should recuse myself but I just can't.

This film is a sad and sorry attempt by two people who should know better to pass off almost all of their former stand-up shtick as sly and knowing comedy.

This movie is about as much fun as spending two more hours at a dinner party with people who think they are brilliant wits and who can't stop laughing at their own jokes after all of the liquor has run out.

Having read Lillian Roth's memoir I have to defend the film's depiction of her downfall. It may be redundant and it may go on too long but so did Roth's downward spiral.

That having been said: apart from "Sing You Sinners" Mann never musters that much energy again.

Van Fleet had her one good year in Hollywood beginning with this film and ending with an Oscar for "East of Eden."

Van Fleet and Hayward's big confrontation is very affecting.

On the other hand, if you watch this movie more than once you will find yourself irresistibly compelled to hit Margo and Eddie Albert over their respective heads with a shovel.

And, seriously, as Pauline Kael once pointed out (based on my only glimpse of the real Roth in repeated viewings of "Animal Crackers") the girl playing the young Roth gets it more right than Susan Hayward in a month of Sundays.

However: all of that not withstanding, it's still a very watchable example of Old Hollywood's "Suffering Heroine" thing.