'OUR VERY OWN'.....A YOUNG ADULT HEART-WRINGER, DECADES BEFORE THE DAWN OF YA......

Our Very Own (1950)   Though we pride ourselves on our cinema smarts, we freely admit to never having heard of this film until we came across it a few days ago.......

              Produced independently by the Samuel Goldwyn company, it was a homespun, heartfelt slice of early 50's Americana, engineered to evoke sighs and tears from its audience. 

               Its focus on a teenage girl as the dramatic centerpiece took us by surprise, since Hollywood didn't start actively identifying and courting teens as a demographic group until later in the decade.......(and it wasn't even the big studios who did that anyway, cultivating the teen audience fell into the hands of the fast-buck shlockmeisters at American International.)

               'Our Very Own' populated with the brightest young stars of the post-war era ,plays like a pre-cursor of all the Young Adult books, films and TV streaming series that currently inundate today's pop culture landscape.

               There's multiple ironies we spotted in the film's extended opening sequence, which deals with the excitement and hubbub at the house of a lovable upper middle class family.......generated by the arrival and installation of one of those amazing, new-fangled television sets! 

               The first irony - the kind of extended Americana family depicted here would soon decrease their movie theater attendance to stay at home at watch the tube........

                Everyone joins in the fun......the chirpy, chatty kid sister (9 year old Natalie Wood) who torments the weary installer technician,  the warm, calm, wise mom and dad (Jane Wyatt, Donald Cook) and the the squabbling teen sisters, (Ann Blythe, Joan Evans).

               Blythe, the eldest deeply resents Evans the middle sister, when she catches her actively flirting with her very own serious boyfriend (Farley Granger) who's up on the roof putting in the TV antenna.

               We smiled to ourselves at the presentation of this large, bustling typical American family since such a family became a staple of television situation comedies that stretch from the 1950's to today. (And Jane Wyatt, the mom here, would go on to play her same role in the prime example of such shows, "Father Knows Best")

               After the big event of the TV arrival, the film moves on to its true main event.......the upheaval in Blythe's perfect teen life when the capricious, jealous Evans blurts out a truth she stumbled upon - that Blythe was adopted into the family as a baby.

               With her well ordered, Norman Rockwell painting world turned upside down, poor Blythe turns distraught at the momentous news, despite all of her family's fervent reassurances that she's always been as beloved and cherished as a blood relative. 

               Her identity crisis leads her seek out her biological birth mother (Ann Dvorak), a weary, wan woman living a shabby lower middle class life with a loutish husband snapping orders at her to bring him beer for his poker game.  (Blythe being the result of a careless fling unbeknownst to Dvorak's husband.....or as she puts it, "Just one of those things")

                Blythe's meeting with Dvorak (in the middle of the husband's crowded poker bash proves disastrously awkward and embarrassing for both women, leaving Blythe even more unsettled and adrift.

                Yes, it's the kind of teen angst that now fuels thousands of Young Adult books and movies, but fear not, folks......this all transpires at the start of the fabulous 50's. So you know that all will end well, 'cause everybody in the movie is simply too damn cute 'n cuddly for anything otherwise.

               Blythe comes to realize that no matter where or who she comes from, her family's (and Farley Granger's) love is unconditional......which leads to a joyful hugs 'n kisses reunion at her high school graduation ceremony.

                Dated, corny, obvious and predictable?  Sure. But we found it a comforting sentimental journey to a past that maybe never existed outside of Hollywood sound stage, but was fun to stop in and visit.....like a store filled with Christmas snow globes.  3 stars (***)

 

'MOTHER MAY I'....ONCE AGAIN, A PERFECT FAMILY UNDONE BY THE PAST

 Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson (2021)    Let us now return to the land of the domestic thriller, where a wealthy family stocked full of perfect parents and adorable kids is ripped asunder by a revenge-fueled psychotic nursing a serious grudge from years gone by.......

             The pitfalls of thrillers like this happen when the author indulges in too much psychological blah-blah-blah internal thoughts and monologues. 

              Some authors know how to successfully balance the thrills, chills, and twists with the woe-is-me, pearl-clutching, handwringing of the victimized characters.

              Other authors fall down the rabbit hole of their characters endless, anxious musings and never crawl out again. The result slows their books down to an almost dead stop and encourages thriller readers to flip through the pages to get to the good stuff.

                Joshilyn Jackson comes dangerously close to this rabbit-hole territory, which tends to make you aware that her key player, Bree Cabbat makes a whole lot dumb, foolhardy decisions.

                Bree's got the standard thriller perfect family unit. Rich handsome lawyer husband, two cute teen and pre-teen daughters, and a brand new bouncing baby boy. 

               Enter a decrepit, witch-like crone who kidnaps the baby boy while the lawyer hubby's out of town. The cancer-stricken crone, with a heavy revenge agenda, demands Bree attend a posh party held by the husband's law firm......and secretly drug one of her husband's friends who's a fellow partner in the firm. 

               But drug him with what?  And why?

               Of course, we'll say no more, since all manner of nasty twists and turns ensue, all of it related to a terrible event from the husband's past. 

                As you might imagine, much angst and emotional agony permeate the story, which has the higher aspirations of becoming a profound examination of family bonds.....or lack thereof.

                Overall, we bound it a decent read, with a shocking last act surprise that brings everything to a blood-soaked full circle. And to Jackson's credit, she knows when to stop the internal yakkity-yak and move the story along. 3 stars (***).

'YOU LOVE ME'.....OUR FAVORITE PSYCHO FINDS LOVE ON A HALLMARK ISLAND.....

 You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes (2021).....continues, for the third time, the romantic and sometimes lethal misadventures of Joe Goldberg, the author's undefeatable sociopath-stalker-murderer.

              As in the two previous books, "You" and "Hidden Bodies" (both turned into miniseries), former New York bookseller Joe falls obsessively in love, which never bodes well for either the designated object of his affection or anyone in her circle who would dare thwart him. 

             The subversive delight of these books comes from the people who see through Joe's masquerade as a normal empathetic human. They themselves are invariably insufferable, obnoxious, self-absorbed entitled jerks, so when Joe's forced to take them off the playing board, one by one, you find yourself rooting for him.

              Sooner or later (usually sooner), these assorted creeps who stand between Joe and his latest dreamgirl end up kidnapped and/or murdered and somehow Joe escapes a world of complications, troubles, and most importantly capture and imprisonment. 

             Not that it ever seems to do him any good in the long run.......

             Caroline Kepnes, knowing she's got a goldmine in Joe, returns to all the beats and tropes she established in the first two books. (You can consider Joe as a more up-to-date version of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley)

               After his disastrous love-stalking of Beck in "You" and Love Quinn in "Hidden Bodies", Joe tries moving to a sleepy little picture-postcard island off the Northwest Pacific coast, because it reminds him of 'Ceder Cove' in the Hallmark Channel series.

              He instantly falls head-over-heels for Mary Kay DiMarco, the town librarian, but like his previous obsessions, she come fully equipped with a host of obstacles in his path......a teen daughter, a raging feminist best friend, a has-been rock musician husband and his motivational guru brother, and a repulsive crossfit-crazy neighbor.

                Even worse, Joe finds himself blackmailed and shadowed by a Private Eye would-be screenwriter hired by Love Quinn's family to keep him on a short leash.....and keep him from piling up any more bodies.

                 What a foolish thought.  And here's where Kepnes cleverly tampers with the formula set down in her previous entries. Joe desperately wants to mimic sane behavior as best he can and keep his hands unbloodied.  And Kepnes finds a way accommodate him and yet still rack up the usual high body count.   Not without great cost, though, as Joe endures so much physical punishment and reversals of fortune, he seems more like Job than Joe. 

                After three such books, you'll either find Joe's tribulations repetitive and tiresome or you won't be able to wait to get your hands on a fourth book. 

                 You can count us among the latter. Kepnes keeps the proceedings fast, darkly funny and laced with some of the most juicy, poisonous wit you'll ever read. 

                  What can we say......we love us some Joe. 4 stars (****).

              

 

'WONDER WOMAN 1984'.....BLUNDER MOVIE 2020

 Wonder Woman 1984   This one took us by surprise......

             .......at how completely awful it was, a disaster in virtually every single component.......acting, directing, screenplay.......even the special effects looked tiresome.

                     At 150 minutes, it goes through long, long stretches where nothing of any interest happens. When the action set pieces finally do pop up, they're like alarm clocks going off in the middle of your sleep. 

                      But not to worry, once they're done, you can go right back to snoozing. 

                       Here's the point where we're supposed to describe the plot........and just the thought of it sends us into deep yawns. 

                       It's basically a bloated reboot of the classic short story "The Monkey's Paw"......a mysterious statuette enables its owners to wish for anything they want. And before you can say, "be careful what you wish for", the whole world's in serious trouble from wishes gone awry.

                      That's because the wish-whatchamacallit falls into the hands to two unlikely characters - a blowhard, desperate corporate con-man with a collapsing oil lease scam (Pedro Pascal) and a mousy, socially awkward museum archeologist (Kristen Wiig) befriended by our one and only Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).

                      Over the course of this dreary slog, Pascal's turned into a lunatic Midas with a God complex and Wiig's transformed herself into some kind jungle cat supervillain.....(by the end of the film, she's costumed like a refugee from the "Cats" mega-trainwreck movie. 

                      With all the wish fulfillment going on here, Gadot's WW ends up with a resurrected version of her deceased World War 2 boy-toy, once again played by Chris Pine..

                       All of this nonsense takes forever to play out and since it comes from the usually gloom-and-doom DC comics universe, there's none of the sprightly, snarky pop culture humor you'd find in the Marvel superhero romps. 

                      It just plods on and on, which gives a viewer plenty to time to notice everything that's gone wrong in the movie, particularly the miscast Wiig's strenuous efforts to make her villain a slightly more nasty variation of one of her many repetitive "Saturday Night Live" characters..  

                      By the time this movie ground to a halt, we were left wondering how Warner Brothers ever approved this script and okayed the gobs of money it took to make it.

                      We can only feel great sympathy and sorrow for the movie theater companies who pinned their fragile hopes on this mess, hoping it would attract some brave hardy souls to don their masks and buy a ticket to sit down and watch it on a big screen.  

                       Those who did quickly found out it wasn't worth watching on any size screen,  A double whammy for the theaters, who'd also harbored high expectations for "Tenet".......which turned out to be a indigestible, convoluted mass of gibberish. 

                       You'll find no wonder in this new 'Wonder Woman'....only blunders. Zero stars (0). 

OSCARS 2021....TRAINWRECK AT THE TRAIN STATION

 The Academy Awards (2021)    The producers of this year's event (including film director Steve Soderbergh) wanted something bigger and better than the Zoom Meeting awards shows we've suffered  through since the beginning of the year.......

               Somehow, (and this is still unclear to us), the plan involved making the Oscar ceremony look and move like a movie itself.......

                Yeah, right.  

               Well they did broadcast it in the 2:35 widescreen movie theatre ratio. So, okay.....it sort of resembled a movie, visually.......

                 .......a really, really, long boring movie, filled with long winded speeches and some overwhelmingly stupid re-arrangements of the Academy Awards format......one of which turned the show's penultimate moment into a flat-footed, disaster of a finale that rivaled the infamous "Moonlight"/"La La Land" mixup by Warren Beatty.......

                   Enough overview griping......let's move on to random thoughts........

                   No jokes, no songs......we're betting most viewers didn't realize the Best Song nominee performances had already been kicked over to the pre-show. No host makin' with the jokes either, unless you could amuse yourselves with the idea of  convicted murderer Derek Chauvin preferring anal rape in prison rather than face the wrath of Regina King.......

                    No clips..... since millions of people opted not to stream the depressing line-up of downers that constituted this year's films, maybe some peeks at 'em might've helped.  Yes?  Said the producers...."Uh uh......whaddya think this is? A show about movies?"

                    "West Side Story" and "In The Heights" trailers.......holy shit, real movies that someone besides the filmmakers' immediate families would want to see......watching these trailers was like having two bottles of frosty iced tea dangled in front of us while we crawled through the deserts of 'Nomadland'.......

                     Harrison Ford.....like everyone else, we dearly love Indiana Cranky-Pants, but if he's really going to play Indy at age 80, he'd better dig up that eternal life Holy Grail cup and fill it with Red Bull and uppers. His opening remarks were instructive for anyone still wondering why there's 4 or 5 different cuts of "Blade Runner".

                       The winners' speeches....memo to all of them from us. Say "thank you" and SHUT THE **** UP!!!!

                        The Death Parade.......a stroke of true imbecilic genius here. We didn't think it was possible to find a whole new way to make the "In Memoriam" segment even more offensive and disrespectful than any previous year. That's a damn high bar to jump over. But never underestimate the malignancy behind this segment....they did it! Der Bingo!  And all they had to do was scroll through the list faster than the closing credits of a Marvel film being shown on TBS.

                        Union Station.....a good reason for all of us to get vaccinated. If we don't stop this pandemic, next year's awards will probably be held under an L.A. freeway underpass....or maybe at that last remaining Blockbuster store up in Oregon or wherever.....

                        Frances McDormand......is it just us or is that Crazy Aunt Fanny behavior starting to wear a little thin.....

                       Glenn Close.......not for one single solitary second do we believe that whole "Da Butt" bit was spontaneous. But it was still funny as hell and even if Oscar passed over her for the 8th time, her dance wins her the award for Good Sport Of The Year, and furnishing the only true entertaining moment in the entire horrendous 3 hours and 17 minutes.

                        The Best Actor finale disaster.....we've never seen an awards show wrap-up that so deliberately flaunted its stupidity. The producers rolled the dice here, betting that Chadwick Boseman's posthumous win was a sure thing, guaranteeing them a bittersweet but uplifting fade-out.  What they got was a no-show by the actual winner Anthony Hopkins.......which only guaranteed them the most blah, undramatic and nothing-to-see-here finish in Oscar history.  Nice effin' job, guys. 

                       And as every local news reporter says.....there you have it. See you all in the popcorn line at "West Side Story", "In The Heights" and "No Time To Die"......

                   

'SHADOW IN THE CLOUD'.....CHLOE'S EXTRAORDINARY SLAYLIST....

Shadow In The Cloud (2020)   In case there's any misunderstanding about this review.....

               We intend to award it a fairly high rating. 

                 Which you may scratch your heads about, considering we're about to tell you how incredibly bonkers, batshit crazy, insane, ridiculous, and off-the-wall, unintentionally hilarious this movie is.

                  All true. No getting around it. This movie needs a straight-jacket and placement in a rubber room with padded walls.  Or you might think you do when you view it.......

                  Yes......we had the best time ever watching it. It put a perpetual smile on our face, while it made us drop our jaw. at the sheer shameless audacity of it all.

                  That explains why this post will conclude with a high rating. Happy to clear that up.

                 First thing that made us sigh and smile at the same time - it's one of those movies financed and co-produced by close to a half a dozen independent companies. It takes forever for all their logos to unspool.

                   Which made us start to wonder if any of these outfits had the slightest idea of what kind of movie they were putting up the cash for.

                  Second thing we loved, - a fake but very accurate imitation of a cartoon World War 2 aviation training film. It warns air force personnel to pay attention to how they're operating and maintaining the aircraft so they don't have to blame their mechanical errors on "gremlins"   As in actual nasty little green gremlins.

                    Yes folks, that's a big effin' clue as to where this film is going, but  that's all we'll say at this point. Let the funhouse fun commence......

                    It's World War 2 in New Zealand, and  Chloe Grace Moretz is s mysterious Women's Auxiliary Air Force officer who's an unlikely unwanted passenger confounding the wisecracking crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress.  She carries with her a top secret box, not to be touched or opened.

                   Ooooo.......what's in the box?  Wouldn't we like to know.........

                    Forced to sit in the gun turret built into the bottom of the plane, Moretz  turns the first third of the movie into a literal one woman show as the camera stays on her and her alone. 

                     While stuck in this claustrophobic prison, she fends off the anger, outrage and foul sexual innuendo hurled at her by the crew on the intercom sets.

                     And then all hell breaks loose from multiple sources.......from Japanese Zero fighters blasting away at the plane to ....uh......we dare not say. 

                     In the midst of all this bloody chaos, the film springs its most outrageous plot twist.....as if the filmmakers sat down and pondered, "What would be the most beyond-all-belief, lunatic thing we could make happen next?"

                     We're happy to report......that's exactly what they do. And how we love them for it. If you're going to make a movie this crazy, you might as well go for the gusto. Woo-hoo!

                      Somewhere along the line, we lost count of how many different genres and tropes the filmmakers threw into the mix here. This movie plays like it came out of a pitch meeting where all the participants were dead drunk or stoned and cocaine'd out of their minds. Possibly all three.

                     First and foremost, above all the lunacy, stands the movie's ultimate MVP.....Chloe Grace Moretz. 

                     We've always been a CGM fan and this movie more than proves why. This gifted young actress, who never gives less than 200 per cent of herself in a roll, becomes the unstoppable force-of-nature this movie requires. 

                      We adore the way she plows ahead, oblivious to the monumental silliness of what she's doing and gives it everything she's got.  Considering the idiocy of what the film puts her through, her total commitment to this utter nonsense is beyond impressive. 

                        There's no doubt in our mind that one day Moretz will finally get put into films worthy of her formidable talent ......and starts enjoying the recognition she deserves. 

                        As for those who put "Shadow In The Cloud" together - especially director and co-writer Roseanne Liang.....we salute you. For letting your freak flag fly high, you gave us one of the most crazily entertaining, fruitcake movies we've seen this year.

                        Here it comes, as advertised......4 stars (****).  We don't care who disputes this rating. We damn well loved it. Long may this freak flag wave.......

'THE GIRL IN CELL 49B'....THE DEFINITION OF 'PAGE TURNER'

 The Girl In Cell 49B by Dorian Box (2021)     We bumped the film we planned to post about today because we couldn't wait to tell you about this book.....

              We lost count of how many "page turning' thrillers we've read that left us wading through pages and pages of repetitive internal monologues and pointless descriptions of nothing that mattered to the plot.

               Now, at last, here's a page-turner and really made us tear through the pages and finish the book in one sitting. 

                 In other words, a thriller that really thrills.....a breathless ride that keeps you up all night, 'cause you just can't stop reading until you know what happens next.

                  We came across this one only a week or so ago and the description made us dive into it, even though we hadn't yet read the book that it's a follow-up to, "The Hiding Girl".  We went ahead anyway, since "The Girl In Cell 49B" works perfectly fine as a stand-alone story. 

                 But we promise you as soon as you finish this, you'll want to go out and immediately buy a copy of the first book.....which is what we did. 

                  Who could resist the harrowing adventures of teenager Emily Calby, who at age 16 has already endured enough horror, tragedy, violence and cruelty to last several lifetimes.

                  At age 12, she became the sole survivor of a murderous home invasion that ended with the slaughter of her mother and little sister. Forced to go on the run and live 'off the grid' Emily found a shady mentor-protector who's trained her to fiercely defend herself.

                   So you know already she's an indomitable force to be reckoned with......and no one to try to victimize. Not that doesn't stop a world of troubles from catching up with her.

                  After she's forced to kill a pedophile rapist in self-defense, Emily's arrested for first degree murder and sent to juvenile prison to await trial.

                  The forces arrayed against her seem insurmountable. Emily struggles to cope and survive with the everyday brutal life in lockup while using the prison's little law library to help her prepare a defense.  And she'll need a good one.......since the hateful, vindictive prosecutor in not above engaging in unlawful misconduct to assure a conviction. 

                  Author Dorian Box kept us pinned to the pages for hours on end......the book's pacing in super swift and Emily Calby is a character who breaks you heart and makes you want to sit up and cheer for her very step of the way. 

                  Reading about her suspenseful navigation through all the dangers that afflict her took us into the wee hours of the morning.......and we can't even remember the last book we read that exerted that kind of grip on us.  This damn book moves.

                   We could no on and on like this, but let's wrap it up and make it plain and simple. For one of the fastest thrill rides you'll read all year, you NEED to get this book. A most definite 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.  Grab it soon.

                   

'THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME'.....OH HOW WE LONG FOR 1939

 The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1939)   We will now establish ourselves as the 10 millionth film blogger to pine for Hollywood's glory year of 1939.....the year that brought us "Gone With The Wind", "The Wizard Of Oz", "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, "Stagecoach", "Gunga Din", "Drums Along The Mohawk" and the film we're posting about today. 

                 You need only to contemplate this Sunday's upcoming Oscars ceremony to realize how far American filmmaking has come.....and how far it's fallen as a mass entertainment art form. 

                  In one of the world's great ironies, all of this year's nominees were all easily accessible to a pandemic stricken populace by way of streaming sites.

                   The irony being that none of these films were designed for enjoyment, applause and popcorn munchin' by movie theater crowds.  They were mostly fashioned for film festival culture vultures, with more than few of them unfit for human consumption.

                 Enough about them....for now. Let's set the time machine back to 82 years ago, when the studio system excelled in making creatively ambitious epic films to thrill, delight and grip an American and worldwide audience of millions.

                 And "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame" has it all......it breaks your heart, scares you, drops your jaw in shock and awe and even makes you laugh a few times. 

                 Start with Charles Laughton's now legendary performance as Quasimodo, which still stands as one of the most indelible portrayals of a tortured wretched soul in torment........a chunk of genius work that has inspired generations of actors to pursue their craft to the highest levels. 

                  Then there's the movie itself.......put together with loving attention to every detail. The stunning glass mattes of the cathedral and propulsive editing by Robert Wise, who'd go to an esteemed directorial career of his own. ("West Side Story", "The Sound Of Music", "The Haunting")

                   We still can't get over the sight of a young, dashing Edmond 'O Brian, who'd later carve out a long career as angry authority figures and cranky old coots. (We barely recognized him when we saw him in "The Wild Bunch")

                  The rest of the cast was equally golden......the ravishing Maureen 'O Hara as Esmerelda, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the cold hearted yet sexually obsessed Frollo and Thomas Mitchell as the wily King Of Thieves, doing this film the same year he went into "Gone With The Wind".

                 We could spend who knows how many hours pointing out all the wonderful vivid moments and scenes in this film. We won't...... because everyone should see and savor this film for themselves. It's the pinnacle of what the still young Hollywood studio system could achieve with all the craftsmen and artists it had at its command.

                 But before we close out this post, as a movie music aficionado, we couldn't end without mentioning Alfred Newman's magnificent symphonic score, filled with grand choral work and all the expected emotional power to accompany the classic story on display.

                  An easy one rate, a bell-ringing (you should pardon the expression) 5 stars (*****), an all time FIND OF FINDS. 

                  Ah well......time to return to 2021.....(sigh).......

'COCKTAIL'.....THE CRUISE TO NOWERE......

 Cocktail (1988)     Even if it stands as the most flimsy and easily disposable of the 1980's Tom Cruise vehicles, this movie serves as a near perfect summing up of 80's Hollywood and Cruise's rise to stardom.

                It reeks of the kind of movies that came oozing out of studio pitch meetings......

               After the triumph of the various mighty Spielberg  and Lucas blockbusters, 80's cinema became all about making us feel good, no matter what the genre.....comedy, action, sci-fi .drama.....

                 Out the door and into oblivion went all the challenging, quirky little dramas with unhappy or unsettled climaxes that defined 1970's filmmaking.

                  In came movies like this one, where our lovable, sometimes impulsive Tom Terrific becomes a flashy, dazzlingly proficient bartender, whipping up  screwdrivers and Margaritas faster then he broke the speed of sound in "Top Gun". 

                   And we love him for it. Especially when he woos a sweet, hot babe (Elizabeth Shue), loses her and then wins her back.  By the time the movie reaches its last few minutes, Tom's got his own bar, the adoration of all his customers and Elizabeth Shue sporting a pregnant belly swollen with his spawn-to-be.

                    That's the 80's in a nutshell for you, folks.....where every studio film was guaranteed to make you leave with a contented smile...

                     To be fair to movie audiences of that era, "Cocktail" wasn't swallowed whole by the crowds......it took a fair amount of ridicule at the time of its release, falling in between the far more heavyweight and substantial Cruise films "The Color Of Money" and "Rain Man".  (and racking up a few of those derisive 'Razzie' nominations)

                    More intuitive moviegoers and critics saw right through it......a slapped together cash grab designed to keep the Cruise 'brand' in the public eye.......as if Cruise was saying to his fans, "...hey as long as I flash my toothy smile, smooch the girl and win the day, you'll watch me in anything!"

                    Which they did. And the Cruise moviemaking machine rolled on through the 90's and into the new millennium.........not even slowed down when we all found out about his creepy, sinister love affair with the equally creepy sinister cult of Scientology. 

                   It's no surprise then, that he reigns now, as he did back in the "Cocktail" days not as an actor, but as a reliable brand, a bankable commodity. There's not much difference between 'Cocktail' and the 'Mission Impossible' stunt circuses, except for the 300 million dollar budgets involved.......they're all still machine-tooled crowd pleasers, the parts assembled on a conveyer belt. 

                   We'll more than generously award 2 stars (**) for the simple reason that if you're planning a nostalgic 1980's movie night, you couldn't pick a better addition to it than this one. For both Cruise lovers and Cruise mockers, this one's got all the feels........belly up the bar.

'COHEN AND TATE'.....HOT TEMPERED HIT-GUYS MEET THEIR MATCH......

 Cohen And Tate (1988)......came from writer-director Eric Red, who caught everyone's attention with simple, primal and brutal thrillers like "Near Dark", "The Hitcher"  and "Body Parts"....

               What you got with Red was a stripped down, fast, furious and nasty little rollercoaster ride.....

                But don't get your hopes up for any snappy, pop culture-infused dialogue, a la Tarantino. Red had no talent in that area, but he could sure spin a yarn that kept you glued to your seat. 

                Taking his cue from the template set down by O'Henry in the short story, "The Ransom Of Red Chief" it's that well worn tale of kidnappers undone by their wily hostage. 

                 Cohen (Roy Scheider), a world weary hitman takes on the task of wiping out a family under witness protection and spiriting away their young son (Harley Cross) for questioning by the gang bosses.

                   (Why the kingpins in charge would have the slightest interest in keeping this kid alive is something we're not supposed to think about..)

                  Unfortunately for Cohen, he's been forced to take along Tate (Adam Baldwin) as a  partner-in-massacre, a young, psychotic hothead with a short fuse and the attention span of the bugs that splatter on their car windshield.  Cohen deeply loathes him, which will energize the remainder of the film.

                  After shotgunning the witness protected parents (a grisly, horrific scene), our squabbling assassins hit the highway for a long night's road trip with their terrified 10 year old hostage in the back seat.

                   As scared as he is, the wily tyke, in ways both obvious and sly, takes full advantage of the toxic dynamic between the two killers, playing them off against each other.   Does more violence erupt?  Need you ask?

                   And that's the whole movie for you right there, coming in at a lean mean 86 minutes with not a wasted moment or line of dialogue in it. 

                    Our only real quibble here is the use of Harley Cross, a not especially talented generic kind of  child actor, with little or no range.  The film forces you take it on faith that he's as clever as the plot twists make him out to be.......there's nothing in Cross's performance that would lead you to believe it for real. 

                   No matter. The pleasures here come from watching Scheider, with this thousand-mile face and smooth voice play the exhausted, impatient gunman. Baldwin, who specialized in hulking, threatening characters does the bundle-of-nerve-endings bit so well, his final scene in the film seems......uh.... inevitable and well in keeping with the proceedings.

                    For anyone who likes their thrillers swift, raw and blood soaked, a spin down the down the road with 'Cohen And Tate'  should rev your engine. 3 stars (***) 

                   

                  

                  

'KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT'....A MALE FIRST LADY DEFENDS THE PATRIACHY

 Kisses For My President (1964)........seems wildly ahead of its time for 1964......a comedy about the first woman President Of The United States?  Say whaaaaaaa?

              Here's  a surprise.....in some of its plot points, its remarkably prescient in its treatment of national and international politics. 

              What's no surprise at all......ultimately it stays firmly grounded in the culture and attitudes of 1964.......and in its final few minutes, the movie reminds us of that with a double whammy sledgehammer of a twist.

               But first things first. 40 million determined women voters defy male domination and put Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) into the White House as the first woman POTUS.

               Unlike the grifters in the Trump family, Leslie's husband Thad (Fred MacMurray) sells his electronics company and tries adjusting to life as the first 'First Man'.....cue all the expected awkwardness.

                 The problem of course, is that he's never once referred to as The First Man....and thinks of himself only as an emasculated male First Lady. He bristles at the thought of sleeping alone in the First Lady's quarters, which appears still decorated for Martha Washington.   

                  And his attempts to get frisky with the Polly the Prez are invariably interrupted by multiple phone calls.....on multiple phones. 

                 MacMurray, honing his comedic skills as the fumbling, bumbling all-American boob, has to work extra hard for laughs, since the script contains only a bare minimum of the kind of witty lines a movie like this so desperately needed.

                 (We won't even bother discussing the dreary tiresome subplot of MacMurray tempted with a job offer by a predatory diva (Arlene Dahl) hoping to slap his name on her cosmetics line. Double yawn.....)

                  Meanwhile, Bergen, beautiful and impeccably styled, defends herself and the country from enemies both foreign and domestic.   She deftly copes with a banana republic dictator (Eli Wallach, game to ham it up, but like MacMurray, laboring with a mirthless script)

                   On the the domestic side, Bergen spars with a corrupt Mitch McConnell-type senator (that horn-rimmed glasses gasbag Edward Andrews) who threatens to shut down her administration agenda unless she props up Wallach's loot-the-treasury regime with U.S. aid.  Andrews oily wheeler-dealer  warns her that Wallach, if taken off the U.S. tit, will go running to the Russian commies for cash and support. 

                  Now that stuff certainly still rings true, with the U.S. forever suffering the consequences of bolstering corrupt Third World strongmen to keep Russia at bay.  But then the movie takes its own dumbly conceived flight of fancy......Wallach does go to the commies with his hand out, but the film has the Russian ambassador (the jolly John Banner of "Hogan's Heroes") kicking him out......

                  Yeah right......only in liberal Hollywood's dreams would the USSR pass up a chance to control a South American country. 

                 On the supposedly funny side of things, MacMurray's many mishaps include a disastrous stab at conducting a taped TV White House tour after swilling down some booze, sedatives and uppers. Also thrown into the mix is the First Daughter (Ahna Capri) hangin' out with a delinquent hot-rodder named 'Sneaker' and MacMurray and Bergen's 10 year old son turned into an obnoxious bully, intimidating his classmates and teachers with his Secret Service contingent.

                One particular repulsive moment stuck in our head........MacMurray, relating an anecdote about a typical meet-and-greet photo op with a girl scout troop, mocks a little girl's lisp for a cheap  laugh.  Yes, it comes off as nauseating as it sounds.

                And now let us arrive at that lollopalooza of a finale........(At this point, we should announce a jumbo SPOILER ALERT.....YOU BETTER BELIEVE WE'RE GONNA BLOW THE STUPID ENDING OF THIS MOVIE.....OKAY?  )

                After navigating and surviving all these political and would-be comic pitfalls, Bergen suddenly faints away.....and declared pregnant....(no doubt from when she and MacMurray flung pillows across the bank of White House phones before gettin' busy....)

                Bergen immediately calls a press conference.....and prepare yourselves....... resigns the Presidency, deciding she can't run the country while growing a human inside her. 

                And in a mighty triumph of the Patriarchy, MacMurray, while ushering her and kids out of the White House for the last time, refers to her as 'mother' and cracks, "It took 40 million women to get you in here and only one man to get you out....."

                 .......bringing the movie crashing right back down into 1964.

                Now there's an ending guaranteed to make everybody today either throw up, roll their eyes, groan audibly or start hurling things at the flatscreen.  Possibly all those things at once.  

                 Well, maybe not everybody.   Mike Pence might love it.

                  For all rational, 2021 sane human beings,(and we hardcore film buffs) the movie settles for being a 1 star (*) product of its times. Approach with extreme caution.

                  

'ALL MY LIFE' & 'OUR FRIEND'......THE TRUE LIFE DEATH PARADE

                

  Movies like the ones we'll cover today take their share of ridicule and scorn from critics.....even though they base their stories on "real events" and real people......

                  The hatred and derision aimed at this these films comes from a suspicion that their motives are less than pure. These films may claim to inspire us and touch us deeply with their heavy cloaka  of moral uplift and celebration of 'the human condition'......

                    ........but then you always sense their primary goal is nothing more than to reduce you to a weeping mess and shamelessly tug on your heartstrings like an improvising jazz bass player.

                     They don't call 'em tearjerkers for nothin'...........

                     Cause in such a film, somebody's gonna end up pushing up daisies ....way, way before their time.

                      And because the movie sets up these future corpses as sweet, funny, loving, adorable people, you'll get put through the wringer watching them die a slow, painful, cancer-ridden death.

                      So clutch your tissue boxes close to your laps as BQ takes a look at these stories of the cutest, nicest folks to steal your hearts......until they start dropping dead.

All My Life (2020)    One thing we do like about most 'dying young' movies  - we don't have to spend a lot of time describing their plots.  

                        A cute young couple, Jenn and Sol (Jessica Rothe, Harry Shum Jr.) meet cute and marry. Sol contracts liver cancer. Sol dies. 

                         Contrary to what you may think, we've no intention of mocking this film. It strictly adheres to the 'dying young' playbook and doesn't embarrass itself with any mawkishly overdone tear-wringing. 

                         And honestly, we're hard pressed to remember anything either outstanding or annoying about the movie.  It never rises above or below the expected standards of its genre. It just is.........

                          If you're susceptible to such heart-tuggers, then you can consider this required viewing. For everyone else, there's nothing you haven't seen before and nothing particularly memorable. 2 stars (**

Our Friend (2019)  is a far more expansive, ambitious and dramatically wrenching true story of a terminal cancer victim, her husband, their young daughters and their selfless best friend who becomes something of caregiver-babysitter to the entire suffering family.

                     As vivacious, warm hearted Nicole (Dakota Johnson) deteriorates from her illness, her ever brooding globe trotting journalist spouse Matt (Casey Affleck) can hardly cope. Their best friend Dane (Jason Segal), a feckless, humorous slacker who stumbled into a retail management career, gives up his own personal life (both dead end job and girlfriend) to join the family as a kind of unofficial live-in relative and invaluable helper.

                     To its great credit, the film is less interested in making you cry than it is in presenting a realistic excruciating depiction of how cancer tears and shreds its way through the fabric of a family. And unlike other 'dying young' movies, it's a far more accurate picture of the effects of enduring a slow-motion tragedy, on both the victim and those around her.

                     That dedication to realism proves also to be the film's undoing.  Stretched into two very long hours, "Our Friend" sabotages itself with a lack of pacing and a terrible editing structure that randomly bounces the film around different timelines.

                     It positively revels in scenes where all the characters, under tremendous physical and emotional stress, behave badly with each other, but these moments get inserted in the movie with no dramatic shape or urgency that would give them more impact.

                     Other reviewers pondered the riddle of Segal's Dane.....as in 'what kind of person sacrifices himself and his life so nobly in service to this family?'   We never had that big a problem figuring out Dane, who saw rescuing his friends as a higher calling than the limited, directionless existence he'd fallen into.

                     We can't recommend this one all that highly. As good as the performances are, it's weary to sit through and we couldn't contain a sense of relief when it finally ended. And audiences who'd flock to glossy grief-porn like "All My Life" would find it tiresome, too troubling for comfort and shouldn't go anywhere near it.......

                      Much to admire here, but we're still wondering if it was worth watching. 2 stars (**).

   

'THE HEIRESS'....A PAUPER ROMEO FOLLOWS THE MONEY...

The Heiress (1949)    The celebrated and multiple award winning director William Wyler was possibly the worst and best director of actors. 

              Incapable of telling his actors how he wanted a scene played or what kind of performance he was looking for, Wyler simply made them do another take......over and over and over again, until they did one to his satisfaction.  Even if it meant 99 takes or more......

              Wyler's technique drove actors to untold levels of exasperation, exhaustion and pure rage........that is, until they picked up their "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" Academy Awards. 

              No other director led so many stars to Oscar gold than the relentless Wyler......and sure enough, "The Heiress", an adaptation of the Henry James novel 'Washington Square', snagged a Best Actress for Olivia de Havilland. 

               She plays Catherine, the plain, lonely and socially awkward daughter of an imperious, aristocratic mid-19th century physician (Ralph Richardson).  Throughout the film, Richardson's cold, unloving Dr. Austin Sloper never misses an opportunity to belittle and degrade his hapless daughter for the crime of not being as beautiful and vivacious as her mother, his late wife.                 

               de Havilland makes use of her huge expressive eyes as this abuse is heaped upon her.....and she makes you ache for her at every cruel moment she endures.

               But Wyler's real stroke of genius was the casting of the young, ultra-sensitive method actor Montgomery Clift as de Havilland's would-be suitor, Morris Townsend.

                Clift, playing a penniless dandy who (supposedly) has fallen head over heels in love with Catherine, excels so deftly at passionate earnestness that an audience could believe his sincerity without question.......and maybe only wonder just a little if he was only after Catherine's vast inheritance.

               Other actors lacking Clift's lighter-than-air touch might have gone one way or the other with this role.  It's a tribute to his subtle work here that he'll keep you wondering about his true intentions right up until the film's final shot. 

                You'll find nothing flashy in the filmmaking here......Wyler was never that kind of director. But his non-stop tyranny over his actors propelled them to create their greatest work.

                And "The Heiress", also gifted with a rich, omnipresent Aaron Copland score, stands as the epitome of Wyler's cinematic artistry. 4 stars (****). 

                 

'HUD'....AMERICA LOVES A LONE STAR LOUSE

 Hud (1963).......could be considered slightly ahead of the curve, arriving months before assassinations, race riots and Vietnam forever upended America and its culture. 

                    The safe, stolid, stalwart values of the 1950's  (and its cinematic heroes) had crumbled away.......it was now  the era of the heel, the ruthless son-of-a-bitch willing to trample on antiquated morality in pursuit of what he craved - money, power and sex unfettered by emotion or humanity.

                     To quote 'Harper',  another Paul Newman film that came out three years after "Hud"......'only cream and bastards rise...."  (Though Newman's Harper may have deployed the same snark and jaundiced view of the world as Hud, he follows his own righteous code of a knight errant private eye....see our post on 5/17/18.) 

                      If you swallow the film's backstory, Newman and director Martin Ritt were astounded that Newman's character Hud Bannon, an unrepentant amoral philanderer and all around jerk became a beloved anti-hero to moviegoers......especially the younger ones

                       Not surprising to us at all. For two hours, this terrible Texas turd has the best lines and the best time. And Newman, sensing he's got one of the meatiest roles of his career, tears into it like a starving man devouring a freshly grilled steak. 

                      No wonder we got a kick out of watching him.......he made bad look soooo good.

                      The three people people bobbing along in Hud's wake gave him plenty to play off of. There's his elderly, morally upright father played with resigned sadness and wounded dignity by Melvyn Douglas. (When Douglas slowly drawls, "You're an unprincipled man, Hud", that's probably  the nicest thing he can say about his son, with whom he shares the burden of past wrenching family tragedy.)

                       Then there's Hud's young, green nephew Lonnie (Brandon DeWilde) who half admires his wayward uncle's hellraising ways,,,,, and their world weary housekeeper-cook Alma (Patricia Neal, winning the best actress Oscar for what's essentially a supporting role.)   Alma's survived a lifetime of hurt at the hands of pricks like Hud, but that doesn't stop him from lusting after her. 

                       And even after Hud's utter moral bankruptcy leaves him alone, does he even give a rat's ass?

                        Hell no......and that's why the movie's poster hung in thousands of college dorms around the country. 

                        It made no difference what a raging asshole Hud was.  He was as cool as James Dean, as cool as Steve McQueen jumping the fences on his motorcycle. 

                        He brought something new to alienated heroes......seeing the world with a cruel, unforgiving eye......its corruption, greed, cruelty and betrayals of love.

                        But boy oh boy, did Paul Newman make this guy a hoot to watch. 4 stars (***)  An absolute must-see for all movie buffs.

                       

                         

'GRAND PRIX'.....VROOM WITH A VIEW......

 Grand Prix (1966)     Director John Frankenheimer's 3 hour Cinerama, Formula One race car spectacle came after he'd made a series of brilliant dramas and thrillers.....'Seven Days In May', 'The Train', 'The Manchurian Candidate, 'Birdman Of Alcatraz' and the defiantly weird, creepy "Seconds" with Rock Hudson.

          All of those previous films, featured the young director's unerring camera placement and editing used to highlight superb, award-worthy performances from his actors.

           With 'Grand Prix', Frankenheimer fully embraced the latest technologies of filmmaking.......but kicked his actors to the curb.  Unlike his other films, here the actors and the characters they play were reduced to nothing but cardboard game pieces, randomly moved around to fit the skimpy storyline. 

           In that regard, you can consider it a precursor to the 'disaster' cycle of films kicked off by Irwin Allen's "The Poseidon Adventure".....populated with slumming, bored stars picking up a fast paycheck for doing hardly anything at all. 

            "Grand Prix", which blandly follows the lives and fates of four drivers on the race car circuit more than delivered the kind of wham-bams that today's IMAX monstrosities promise us.....loud noisy soundtrack, dizzying visuals and every so often, a fireball to blow shit up.

            Filmed in Ultra Panavision and thrown on to a curved, wrap-around Cinerama screen, the audience gets lengthy drivers -eye views of cars zipping around curves at 180 miles per hour. And at times, well known visualist and main title maestro Saul Bass divides the screen up into multiple pieces........(a technique the some film directors fell in love with for about a year and a half - as in Norman Jewison's "The Thomas Crown Affair" and Richard Fleischer's "The Boston Strangler")

            And the actors? The story?   Worthless time-fillers in between the vroom-vrooms. James Garner, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford and Antonio Sabato (playing the drivers) walk through their roles as if they already know how uninteresting they are.....to both themselves and the audience. 

             Frankenheimer takes great pains to show us the actors actually driving the cars......but you wonder why he bothered, In most of the shots, they've got goggles and face coverings on

             And we can only shake our head at the sight of the monumental world cinema icon Toshiro Mifune embarrassingly dubbed in by Paul Frees, who made his voicing of Asian actors sound like his cartoon character Boris Badenov from "Rocky And Bulwinkle".

              For those who love the sight of sight of fast cars threatening to go hurling into oblivion (which they sometimes do in this film, big surprise), then they might find "Grand Prix" an orgiastic delight.....as long as they remember to fast forward through all the soapy, dreary dramatics. 

              For everyone else, despite all its ambitious heft and length, it's a minor work in John Frankenheimer's filmography. 2 vroom-vrooms (**)