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filmcritics-90397
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Babamiz evleniyor (1965)
19 years old young AJDA PEKKAN (my love) is shining, but the film is not...
A supposed to be comedy, but ending up as an almost nonsense tragedia, this film is not successful in any genres...
I watched this black and white (HD restored) film for my admiration of the Turkish SuperStar pop singer Ajda Pekkan, after learning that she's also made numerious Yesilcam (Yea-shill-chum: Turkish Holywood between 1950s and 1980s) movies back in the early years of her multi decade spanning incredible music carrier. She was a gorgeous 19 years old innocent lady when the film was shot back in 1965.
The scenario is classical: a rich merchant & widow from country origins, accidentally falls in love with a young and ambitious show girl living in Istanbul's depicted night life; eventually losing everything he owned to her and her vicious mother. But then he would recover by the help of his two sons, who had accidentally pushed him into this trap in the first place.
The plot is very basic and does not require much detailed analysis. But one thing does not escape the eye; the shining beauty of the 19 years old Ajda Pekkan in her showgirl scenes; singing happily with her swimsuit costumes, boldy (but unnecessarily imho) displaying her gergous body. Indeed, surprisingly she portays an evil woman role; a very popular (but disliked) character of Yesilcam back in 50s to 80s who has the antagonist role to the innocent young girls. However, this selection of young and innocent Ajda into such a vamp woman position is extremely disgusting and an unacceptable mistake of the casting department...
Logan (2017)
Complete Failure: Should be banned ! (all the new DC-Marvel)
I gave it three stars, one for Hugh Jackman, one for the little girl Dafne and one for the visual effects. This last star actually is the reason why I have left the remaining seven stars out. It's hard to criticise these kind of films.
I have never watched anyone of the X-men series. They are just plain boring to my taste. I just saw some of their trailers etc. I cannot see its direct connection with the previous X-men series but this one (Logan) seems to be their follow up. Indeed it simply draws on the same failure lines of the all modern day DC and/vs Marvel series.
The summary of the film is all about hatret, destruction and killing. There is no story line. No character development. No plot. No text. No meaning. No science, no fiction, no use. All is about a hundred of people being killed by the blades of this mutant and his new mutant daughter. It's all about, when you get angry you will be more powerful than otherwise and you can solve your problems much easily that way!
This films targets the audience of age between 15 and 25 and I guess it is most harmfull to the emotional and logical development of young pupils of those ages when young men seek to habituate the correct behaviour under various situations. Ethical development is extremely sensitive. The film is constantly bombarding the same idea: when you are in trouble, use your blades and power and become a hero !
Of course, these films are not produced for supporting the healthy development of youth. Yet, practically speaking young generations are wathcing these sick films more often than they watch the correct examples. The bombardment is so heavy. For the last 20 years, Hollywood turned into an emotional sucker for young generations. Examples are all in the wrong direction. Decisions are all made illogical and emotional. Hate and evil are the driving forces, killing and destruction is the ultimate solution. This is directly and subconsciously bombarded into the minds of young generations.
Furthermore, there's no science or fiction in them either. The idea of a mutant at first seems scientific (and yes it's about DNA modificaiton of a living organism) yet the concept of mutant is used in the same manner as "a genie in a bottle" ; a fantasy film rather than science-fiction: It's not "twenty thousand leagues under the sea"...
What a waste of effort to produce for them and time to watch for us...
Dead Man Walking (1995)
Very Controversial Subject Matter
The message of this film is problematic to the degree that I find nothing to say about the (good or bad) performances of Susan S. or Sean P. or any other part of it.
All I can say is that, someone kidnaps, rapes and murders and destroys the very lives of two innocent people for no reasons, just on purpose, deliberately, no accident, no self defence, no nothing; just they wanted. And thanksfully the justice (which can fail most when needed) this time does well and finds the guilty guy and gives him what he deserves; a payoff for what he did to his victims: even a very modern half pay, when considering the brutal horror they vandalistically executed on their victims...
The empathy of the nun to the murderer is nothing but her personal mistake; now is this film trying to tell us about this ?
Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)
The director (A.Bergman) is very good but the writer (A.Bergman) is not so...
It's a light-hearted romantic comedy action film. Young boys would probably skip, but I think ladies and mature men will find it interesting because of the love struggle involved.
A.Bergman does a very good job of directing. All the compositions, placements, angles, lights, decorations are technically and artistically satisfying. The cast is well managed and the visual rules of classical story telling are successfully applied. I personally enjoyed watching almost every scene, especially those from the Hawaii island, where the additional presence of young and shining blonde Sarah Jessica Parker makes them seem almost like moments from a breathtaking paradise...
There are problems with the storyline however.
Film opens with one of the most adorable and classy Hollywood ladies, the Italian beauty, Anne Bankroft in her sixties, playing the mother of Jack (Nicolas Cage) and having her last moments in a hostipal room before asking him to promise not to marry any girls, as none could love him like she did; poor boy. The trauma persists for long enough time, however, life goes on and Jack finally finds a sweetheart girl named Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is gorgeous enough to convince him to get married.
Our young and romantic couple, having decided to say "yes" in a few days (asap), arrange a Las Vegas trip for their minimal wedding and check in a nice hotel's charming suite. Incidentally, a retired gambler Tommy (James Caan) vacations there too, and eventually recognises the eye catching young blonde Betsy (who is definetely impossible to be unrecognized), with a love at first sight reaction, and is now desperately looking for her.
At this point, the romantic story enters into an almost erotic phase, as the gambler Tommy wants to take part in the love affair and the audience is looking forward to seeing the result. But this is not well managed and various weaknesses in the characters and conflicts in the plot development, transforms the story from a romantic one to an unconvincing thrill. I don't know, if this was done on purpose or just the result of some mistakes in the text.
The most important problem emerges at the very center and therefore ruins the whole film. The guy who came to Las Vegas to marry his supposedly strongest love, goes to special gambling party, and if this was not enough, loses 64k dollars, and even if this was unconvincing enough, the gambler Tommy in return wants a weekend with his girlfriend Betsy: girl to merry in a few days. And jack says yes to this awkwardedness??? And this is an unforgivable mistake in story telling. Not only it's exremely illogical and unconvincing, but also quite disgusting. No it doesn't work. The audience at this point probably gets out of the romantic comedy part and simply looks for the remaining action adventure, pretending that the girl is actually kidnapped by the gambler Tommy and should be saved by her true love Jack; just a thrill.
Indeed A.Bergman himself admits this mistake from the voice of Betsy, as she angrily yells at Jack about the exremely annoying situation they are forced into by his oxymoron gambling mistake. Yet, Bergman further makes another mistake, at this stage, by the selection of Betsy's dress which explicitly exposes her breasts and cleavage to full degree at their first night meeting with Tommy. So the understandably angry girl, who yelled at her possble husband about the danger and annoyance of meeting a complete stranger, goes to meeting him with her best and most appealing dress... nothing more than a careless mistake.
If the writer (A.Bergman) wanted to maintain the romantic (and slightly erotic) mood of the story, he should have found a more convincing and consistent path of connection between Betsy and the retired gambler Tommy. The gambler Tommy should have used some fair opportunities to introducce himself to Betsy so that any valid attractions could have happened. For example, Betsy and Jack could have some hot arguments due to everyday insignificand problems, and during these hard moments, Betsy could find some escaping attraction (albeit nothing more than an ill fated mistaken illusion) to the gambler Tommy. And the story would then beautifuly continue by the analysis of her confusions and struggles between her true love Jack and the temporary illusion created by Tommy. But this gambling thing completely ruined the mood. Great mistake.
However, other than this huge mistake, the story slightly recovers and their time in Hawaii displays quite interesting moments. Accompanied with the jaw dropping visuals of shining blonde Sarah Jessica Parker, Tommy does his best of argumentation to persuade her to get married to him instead of Jack. But the response he gets from Betsy not only dissapoints him, but also elevates the love feelings and romance of the audience to higher levels. Yet there's again the problem of Betsy being too relaxed on an island with a complete stranger who claims to be in a love with her. Acceptable for an erotic tale but not for the romantic one.
After understanding that his legitimate acts will not be sufficient to turn Betsy into his lover, Tommy decides to use his evil side to trick her with his lies. Unfortunately, he succeeds and innocent Betsy betrays his true love, who in the mean time was doing his best to reach and save her from a life time mistake; actually just to correct the mistake he did in the gambling table. Here again an immature development is presented and Betsy is deciding to marry a complete stranger, a retired and possbly rich gambler, just after three days of meeting. This is definetely a weak story development...
Eventually love wins and Betsy sees the true face of the gambler Tommy. It's not too late and forgiving is the best fate, Jack proves himself and his love by jumping out of the plane, and that probably is the best part of the film, other than Jessica Parker's stunning visuals.
Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)
Perfect screenplay and still beautiful Sally Field.
Sally Field is an exceptional actress. Not because of being so beautiful and cute though, as actually all actresses are already beautiful and cute. It's because she has never portrayed a cliché; even if the role is a strereotype character she always acts in an original and natural way; an expressive style that's unique to her kind. That's why you never get bored watching her in those films; which become novel like literature works. And this film was not an exception.
I don't remember when I last saw a film about a love affair between a young man and an over sixty lady. I think the closest was the "White Palace" by dear Susan Sarandon (another of my beloved ones) though, in there, she was just about her fourties, but in this film, Sally Field is about her sixty something! And there's also the film "Harold and Maude" from 1971, which is mentioned by Cameron Diaz (another of my beloved girls) in her film "there's something about Marry" to be the most romantic love of all times, but honestly I can't agree. I couldn't find much romance in that film. So spanning a fifty years from 70's to this day (2019) the most romantic love affair between a young boy and mature lady remains (imho) to be this very film "Hello, my name is Doris" according to my limited exposure to all existing works.
The strongest part of the film, other than Sally Field, is its screenplay. Written by Laura Terruso and Michael Showalter (imdb), this scenerio bewilderingly develops the platonically romantic (and therefore potentially funny) relationship between a sixty something, cute and shy office lady Doris (Sally Field) Miller and the new and young guy in the block, John (Max Greenfield). With the help of Sally Field's high grade acting and the perfect flawless support given by the remaining cast the film flows smoothly from the first scene to the last, and drags the audience with it, wondering the result of her platonic romance. The text professionally gives convincing details about the course of events. Things do not just fall in to the ground, as seen in less successful examples. Development is mature. Life is not forgotten too! In addition to presenting the main subject of an "impossible" love affair, between the young boy and the old lady, the story also develops important matters about family and friendship, without getting into clichés. The text is thoughtfully written. The comedy is quite abundant too. Especially those "dream" moments of Doris yields possibilites for surprising twists and apparently the writers utilized this opportunity with success. The quality of the comedy is comparable to that of "Bridget Jones's Diary" level, albeit at a quite less number of jokes per minute rate. No No No! Bridget Jones's Diary is full of (funny) cliché; a triumphant example of engineered comedy. Yet there's exactly none in this film. And that's therefore why I think this is a must watch film; for people, for actors & actresses and for writers...
Kiss Me Goodbye (1982)
Very good photography, sweetheart Sally Field, but the film missed the mood.
Ok, I'm eternally in love with Sally Field, so I would watch anything she's involved even if it were an idle photograph of her hanging on the wall, where the story is just subtitled. So don't expect me to write a negative word about her performances.
This film has very beautiful (almost painted) pictures; perfect decorations, well choice of costumes, balanced colors, nice hair styling, good lighting. The director of photography is Donald Peterman, and the art director is John Cartwright. And we should appreciate what they did as their job within the scope of available resources. Put on top of this the fact that those captured motion pictures include her highness, Sally Field, (my eternal love), makes the photography even more a masterpiece, a cultural heritage to be archived in my humble little world...
The soundtrack, especially the opening song, is quite nice too. The romantic mood is immediately delivered by the silky soft yet powerful voice of Dusty Springfield (RIP) and the cheerfully walking Sally fields along the street. This introduction sets the expectations a little higher though, as revealed later...
Her highness, Sally Field, performs her part flawlessly; as always, in the most beautiful, emotional and cutest way possible as she could. Yet I found her ghost husband (James Caan) and her fiancé (Jeff Bridges) to fall a little off the target, even though they spend a great deal of efford (esp. J.Bridges) in giving the mood and feelings. Yet they seem not to be fully inside the story. I found the problem to be about the text; the screenplay.
Acting is a great talent. Some prodigies exhibit this at the age of ten or even earlier; acting can happen at really young ages. But mature screenplay writing can not. At an age of about thirties, screenplay writer, Charli Peters probably did his best to tell us a story about the emotional conflicts of a widow before her new marriage, in a romantic and funny way. But unfortunately fails to convincingly achieve the intentions.
There is a very fundamental problem in the story. The ghost is not properly placed in it. Unlike the typical fantasy (ghost) film, where the ghost performs his or her "unbelievable" miracles to add some spice to the story and also to convince the reader (or the audience) about the fact that this is a fantasy tale, in this film, our ghost do not even move a chair as he does not believe in such tricks. And because of this very unfortunate fact, effectively the ghost is reduced to a sole mental perception (or construction) of the widow Kay (Sally Field) and therefore, it is no more a fantasy film but a pshycological drama...
So the film is not a fantasy movie at all. What about romance? Unfortunately there isn't enough romance in it either. A film with Sally Field raises that expectation to highest grounds, however. A story about a marriage is potentially a romantic one. But the script writer must outline this with properly chosen characters, carefully designed events, and emotionally written dialogues. Yet, our ghost is not as romantic as he was in Patrick Swayze's (RIP) Ghost. Ok this is not meant to be the biggest love story out there, but if there's the Oscar winner Sally Field in it, then one expects a higher level of emotions, love and romance.
And finally what about the comedy? Probably the worst part. As the presence of Sally Field could save some of the lack of romance, unfortunately even she cannot save the lack of comedy here. But to me, that's not much of a problem. Because I would be highly saitsfied if there were enough romance here; where the main story is about the marriage plans of a beautiful lady with a ghost on her mind; a quite heavy dosage of romance is contained in this main plot.
As one can see, the misplacement of the ghost ruined the whole mood of the film...
Knight and Day (2010)
Good Directing, Mediocre Acting, Insufficient Scenario
I decided to watch this film because of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz on the cover. I think the producers also had this, and possibly only this, in their minds, as the rest of the film can hardly attract the interests of the casual intellect.
Expecting a full-blown romantic comedy action(?) from the combination of sexy Cameron Diaz who as always shines beautifully on screen and cool Tom Curise who uses no stunts and runs and jumps and rumbles (fights) as much as he can; I found, instead, a boring and unrealistic rush without a drag force on the viewers. Moreover, rest of the cast also do their (yet unhelpful) best. Effects are fine, visuals are best quality but not spectecular. Stage is professional to the extend available. All actions scenes are engineered to the masters degree. However there is a great problem in this film: it's nonesensical. And this unfortunately broke all the chemistry of the film...
The problem is with the text. There's something wrong with it. It's not well defined. It's not clear. There is no emotion in this film. No excitement, no thrill, not enough fun, no clear jokes, no true love, no fear. It seems not enough effort has been spent on the story line.
First of all, our guy is an unbeatable super hero? Is he really so, or is this part of the joke (comedy I mean)? Really it's not clear. Within all those action (fighting) scenes, he is just beating the next guy no matter what. He displays so much of an immortal super hero character that even Marvel or DC comic heroes dare displaying. Is this part of the intentional comedy nature of the film or just the dissappointing result of the poor character development, is again unclear. Tom C. displays the perfect secret agent in full cliché. No inventions of any kind is invested in him. Just a combination of his previous action stereotype roles. His cool voice stayed down cool, even in the most dramatic scenes just as in the landing of the plane, FBI chasing (he was on the hood of the full-throttle blind driven convertable in the middle of the heavy traffic and still saying "June, please open the door" as polite as he would on a Romantic dinner table). That's either he also felt the unnecessary absurdity of the non-stop action scenes he is froced to from one scene to another or because that was intentional, again unclear to me.
May be this is too much criticism, taking it too serious for a comedy-action genre claiming no serious bits. But no! Today I watched again Austin Powers 1997 and saw what a comedy-action actually looks like, and this film does not.