'EASY RIDER'.....53 YEARS LATER, MORE QUEASY AND SLEAZY THAN EASY.....

 Easy Rider (1969)    The revolution that went on in filmmaking during the 60's and into the 70's still amazes and delights us.......even if some of the most celebrated movies of those eras don't hold up anymore, now seeming clumsy and painfully dated. 

         While many of these groundbreaking movies from the then upcoming new generation of directors remain classics ("Chinatown", "The Godfather 1 & 2") 'Easy Rider', we're sorry to say, looks like what it always was......a shapeless, chaotic mess. 

          That didn't matter......because the movie hit the zeitgeist like a perfectly aimed guided missile, With unerring accuracy, it caught the mood, anger and rebellion of  Baby Boomers repulsed and furious at America's great love affair with violence, in the suppression of protest and assassination at home and in the ruinous, pointless, self-perpetuating Vietnam war.  

           And frightening to observe, the deeply divided America the film depicts, riddled with ingrained racism, brutality and hatred, really hasn't changed much and still resonates today. But  now the toxic divisions are no longer strictly between generations, but between those who still believe in democracy and those eager to embrace authoritarian fascism and surrender their hearts and minds to a mad cult leader. 

            We've no trouble at all believing the many incredible background stories about the film's production......how it was more or less improvised on the spot by its creators, Peter Fonda, director Dennis Hopper and writer Terry Southern. The trio remained at each other's throats throughout  the 'make it up as we go along'  shooting.

           The film made instant icons out of Fonda and Hopper's outlaw bikers Wyatt and Billy.....zippin' down scenic southwest highways on their impressive choppers as they head toward Mardi Gras at New Orleans. And at the time, (we know this, 'cause we were there) little moral judgement was ever made on their status as cocaine dealers newly flush with cash they'd scored  off a major drug kingpin (played by the late rock impresario and convicted murderer Phil Spector).

              After their wandering encounters in 'off the grid' communes, Wyatt and Billy come across the movie's other monumental plus......the young Jack Nicholson as the laconic, disaffected George Hanson, a wastrel lawyer using booze to soothe his weary disgust at an America gone wrong.  Shortly after he, Wyatt and Billy barely survive a memorably ugly visit to a diner filled with rednecks, the film wastes no time martyring him.

               Then it's finally off to New Orleans where the movie makes a film-school pretentious stab at displaying its idea of an LDS binge. A blurry montage has our boys trippin' through one of the city's above ground cemeteries with a couple of Big Easy whores (the fast rising 70's star Karen Black and choreographer Toni Basil, later famed for the 'Mickey' video)

                By the time Fonda turns to Hopper and mutters, "We blew it", we're not sure that refers to his realization that they're no less compromised and immoral than the society they've rejected or that they've simply run out of story to improvise. 

                 "Easy Rider"s famously abrupt violent conclusion (which always sticks with people who remember nothing else about it) benefited from being both stunning and inevitable at the same time.......and it defined the way that many 1970's films would climax - in soul-sucking nihilism.

                 The film's overwhelming box-office success with young audience also poleaxed executives at the crumbling studios. As bloated, expensive and old fashioned movies tanked, the Hollywood suits desperately sought to court the young crowds who flocked to the movie. And take it from us, the so-called 'youth' movies that began to roll off the assembly line and into theaters in 1970 were horrendous to behold......and quickly forgotten. 

                    As a permanent snapshot of its time, we'd rate 'Rider' at least 3 stars,(***) since it's a vital time capsule and essential viewing in the history of cinema. But as an actual movie itself,  it never amounted to anything more than an amateurish 1 & 1/2 stars. (* 1/2).  If you care about movies, see it once.....that's more than enough....... 

            

              

            

'A WALK TO REMEMBER'......HAPPY 20TH TO 2002'S WELL REMEMBERED TEARJERKER

 A Walk To Remember (2002)   20 years before singer-actress Mandy Moore reduced the nation to tears playing the Alzheimer afflicted family matriarch of TV's "This Is Us", she similarly broke everyone's will to live by playing a dying teen leukemia victim in this adaptation of Nicholas Sparks novel. 

             The film updated the period setting of the novel into the more immediate here-and-now  of modern day teen angst. North Carolina rebels-without-a-clue, led by the too-cool-for-school Landon Carter (Shane West) cruelly mock their gentle, sweet schoolmate Jamie Sullivan (Moore),the daughter of the town's pastor (Peter Coyote). 

              Landon's punishments for a hazing gone wrong force him into unwilling contact with Jamie, including tutoring middle-schoolers and appearing as her unlikely romantic co-star in their high school musical.  Wouldn't you know it.......the sardonic, sarcastic bad boy begins to transform into a caring, decent upstanding guy, smitten by Jamie's inherent goodness and her unwavering Christian faith. And when Landon's heartless friends pull a heinous prank on her it serves to drive him literally into her arms.  

              Since this tale derives from Nicolas Sparks, you'll know that tragedy's right around the corner for these chaste but adoring young lovers.......when Jamie finally reveals her terminal diagnosis to Landon, it only strengthens and deepens his fierce devotion to her. (At this point, viewers couldn't help but reach for vast amounts of tissues to get them through the last third of the movie......

              To his everlasting credit, choreographer turned director Adam Shankman ("Hairspray") keeps this story moving along at top speed with short, briskly edited scenes that make their points with immediacy, be it comedic, dramatic or romantic. And in the casting of  his star-crossed duo, he benefited from a couple whose enduring chemistry made the film irresistible to audiences seeking a good cry. 

             As we still remember being dragged to see this film by the then teenage BD (Beloved Daughter), we can vouch for the fact that once viewers watched Shane West's sneering delinquent soften and humanize in the presence of the angelic, near ethereal Mandy Moore, the tears flowed freely.

             And since BD still watches "A Walk To Remember" repeatedly, as we're sure her own eventual daughters and granddaughters will, how could we rate it anything less than 4 stars (****).  For this type of tearjerker, it's truly one of the most watchable and entertaining examples of the genre we've ever encountered.

               

'THE EVIL EYE' ('THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH').....YOU HAD ME AT GIALLO.....(WHICH IT'S NOT, REALLY)

 The Evil Eye (a.k.a The Girl Who Knew Too Much) 1963,,,,,,We're well aware that dedicated horror film buffs and historians judge this black-and-white Mario Bava film as the kick-off point for the 'Giallo' genre........we respectfully disagree.

            We found very little in this strange little bi-polar murder mystery that anyone could trace to Giallos, those lurid, full-color sex-and-gore drenched slashfests that flourished in Euro-trash filmmaking throughout the 1970's........(the more likely jump-start that really put the genre on the map was Dario Argento's pivotal 1970 "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" - check out our post of 5/8/17)

             That's not to say 'The Evil Eye' isn't worth watching.  In fact, the purely brilliant cinematics of Bava combined with the movie's  nutso schizophrenic mood swings make it a 'must watch' for all horror buffs. Rather than the blood soaked death fetishes of  Giallo', this seems closer in spirit to Alfred Hitchcock's mixture of murder and mirth, though far clumsier in execution.........

                And yes, along its twisted path , you can spot some Giallo-style tropes and tidbits that later became staples of the genre. 

                The biggest plus here - the film's luscious, adorable ingenue Leticia Roman, playing an American girl visiting Rome to attend to an ailing elderly relative.  Bava takes full advantage of Roman's most startling feature, her huge expressive eyes that manage to out-bulge those of Barbara Steele...(Italy's reigning horror diva and star of Bava's groundbreaking 'Black Sunday')

                  It doesn't take long for the plot to supply Roman with plenty of excuses to pop those peepers wide open in fright, starting with her witnessing  a woman stabbed to death on Rome's famous landmark, the Spanish Steps........

                 But did the murder really happen? Or did she imagine it while already hysterical and upset from a violent mugging on the steps?  And who's that mysterious patched-jacket guy whom she's unaware is stalking her? (And happens to look like the same guy she saw looming over the murdered woman.....)

                 Roman attempts to unravel the mystery with the help of an American doctor (John Saxon)....and the clues and red herrings lead them on the trail of a serial killer whose unsolved crimes stretch back decades. 

                 If you're thinking this ought to provide Mario Bava with sufficient material to create some of his best trademark creepy staging and editing you're correct. And the director's expert use of the dark monochrome photography gives these sequences some extra sense of dread.

                 Then, when you least expect it, the movie takes wild 360 turns into either goofy slapstick comedy or bubbly, frothy 'Roman Holiday' romcom territory......we kid you not.

                 The jarring detours into laughs include Roman being ogled by a portrait of a dead relative......whose ghost then invisibly pinches her ass. Later she attempts to intruder-proof the house she's staying in by building a literal spider's web of twine around every room....(which kind of mimics the laser beam alarms we'd see in future heist capers).  And while edging toward a climactic reveal of the serial killer, she and Saxon take time out to perform a sprightly, gag laden romcom montage tour of Rome's most familiar postcard sights.....a la Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepbuern in you-know-what.

                  We've no way of knowing if all these crazy shifts in tone were due to the film having no less than six screenwriters (including Bava) or its most probable heavy re-editing by the post production team of American International, the shlockmeisters who released the film in the U. S.  

                 We do know that the back-and-forth between the obvious jokes and the scares somehow made for a strangely entertaining experience........and the film's final and most inventive visual gag would make even Hitchcock chuckle a bit.

                 For all those various reasons, the stunning Leticia Roman, the unnerving suspense scenes whipped up by master Bava and even the screwy tries at screwball comedy, we'll leniently award  3 stars (***).......but regardless of what you read elsewhere, this one may be many things, but it's most assuredly not the dawn of 'Giallo'

                   

                 

'YOUNG CASSIDY'.....IN THE IRISH "TROUBLES", A REBEL COMMANDS THE STAGE...(OF THE THEATER)

 Young Cassidy (1965)   We've never thought of this film as a perennial favorite of ours......but then we just realized that we always end up watching it year after year......wherever and whenever we find it......

              Good God......we just now viewed it again and as imperfect as it is, we still love every damn minute of it.   Maybe it's time to jump on to Amazon to buy the DVD or Blu-Ray......

               Originally begun by master director John Ford, 90 per cent of it ended up in the hands of director (and master cinematographer) Jack Cardiff.....(Ford fell ill two weeks into shooting).

               The film's a robust, rambunctious, heart-on-its-Irish-sleeve biography of famed playwright-author Sean O' Casey, though fictionalized and heavily romanticized In its colorful collection of events and incidents in early 20th century Ireland, O' Casey's been re-named as John Cassidy and perfectly played with rough-and-tumble physicality by Rod Taylor, then at the very height of his career as a versatile leading man.  

              (The under-appreciated Taylor could do everything from action-packed Westerns to Doris Day comedies....and a few years after 'Young Cassidy', Jack Cardiff would direct him in one of his best known roles, as the super tough mercenary of "Dark Of The Sun")

              As Taylor's Cassidy struggles as a day laborer in the grinding poverty-stricken Dublin streets, he burns what little midnight oil he and his family have left, scribbling away books, essays and plays.  He briefly joins the Irish rebels planning for war on the occupying British, but grows impatient and disillusioned with their ragtag amateur incompetence......

              And sure enough, the 'Rising' as it was called, gets crushed in a spectacularly brutal sequence that features the rebels cut down by machine gun fire and hapless civilians blown up in the streets. Cassidy survives the chaos, with even a little time to dally with a effervescent prostitute. (Julie Christie, right on the verge of international stardom in "Darling" and "Doctor Zhivago")

              After the tragic deaths of his mother and sister, the film's second half concentrates on Cassidy's ascendance as a controversial fledgling playwright for the legendary Abbey Theater, where he's mentored and encouraged by no less than W.B. Yeats (Michael Redgrave). 

              As his plays stun and outrage  Dublin audiences with their unflinching look at Irish society, Cassidy romances the great love of his life, a shy, adorable bookshop clerk wonderfully played by yet another actress on the cusp of superstardom, Maggie Smith. 

              The film's episodic structure and uneven pacing ultimately dilute some its dramatic power, but Jack Cardiff's quick, muscular direction gives it plenty of forward momentum, right up to its somewhat abrupt ending.....(we were so taken with the cast and story, we honestly wouldn't have minded if it kept going for another hour or so....) 

              As for John Ford's brief contributions before he had to bow out of the film, the only sequence we could spot as genuinely Ford-ian is a fast, funny riotous bar brawl scene featuring veteran, classically trained Irish actors T.P. Mackenna and Jack McGowran as Rod Taylor's brothers. 

               While not a complete success as a film, "Young Cassidy" contains enough memorable moments and great actors to make it a BQ yearly favorite......come to think of it, it most definitely rates 4 stars with us (****)......(now pardon us while we shop for our own copy......) 

'THE FOUNTAINHEAD'.....AYN RAND'S EDIFICE WRECKS......

 The Fountainhead (1949)     Throughout the years, we've encountered any number of movies undeservedly described as "one of a kind"......

              Here's one, that beyond a reasonable doubt, richly earns that categorization......

              Whatever's left of our mind boggles at the thought of explaining the beliefs of the novelist, philosopher and would-be screenwriter Ayn Rand......(or as their popularly known, "objectivism").

               Something along the lines of  'the individual's freedom and ideas outweigh any mass group working together for what's collectively known as The Greater Good'......in other words....every man for himself,...... live free or die hard and the with hell whatever the go-along get-along crowd thinks. Individual reason is everything and mass movements, like organized religion, communism, socialism and other authoritarian dogma are just opiates for the masses.......

               Well.....more or less. We think....maybe.

               In an unheard move for Warner Brothers (or Hollywood itself, for that matter), Rand, whose woeful attempts at movie scripts never saw the light of a projector, adapted her own bestselling novel for the screen.  

                "The Fountainhead", a long, verbose espousal of  Rand's Objectivism thinly disguised as a novel, centered around Howard Roarke, a brilliant, uncompromising architect.  Roarke, whose ultra-modern designs mimic those of Frank Lloyd Wright ,supposedly outrages the powers-that-be and general public with his stubborn individualism, creativity and his refusal to bend to mass opinion. 

              (The  producers reached out to Wright to design the Roarke buildings shown in the film but balked at the legendary architect's $250,000 fee.....)

                 And in case you didn't get the ideas in play here, Rand's screenplay unaltered and untampered with, turns all of the film's  dialogue into her precise, instructive  philosophic rants on objectivism.

                If this sounds like a somewhat bizarre technique for 1949 Hollywood studio product, you've got to see it in action to believe it.

                 Though set in New York City, the film sounds like it's taking place on another planet, where the inhabitants  address each other only in stilted, grammatically correct platitudes......(much like outer space aliens in cheesy 1950's science fiction movies). So there's nothing in the film that sounds even close to normal human speech. )

                  Gary Cooper, that monotone, man-of-few-words icon, was Rand's personal choice to play the staunchly iconoclastic Roarke. And Cooper makes a valiant attempt to plow through all of Rand's declarative paragraphs as best he can, as does Patricia Neal as the heiress who adores him.....

                 (We did our best not to groan and snicker at the one and only scene where Rand's relentless speechifying takes a brief rest.......in which Neal falls deliriously in love as the sight of Cooper wielding a power drill, stroking its barrel he rams in into solid rock.......it's as close as this movie comes to being....uh....cinematic....)

                  And by all means, let's hear it for the usually stoic Cooper. In the film's looniest scene, he's put on trial for blowing up a construction site where his designs were altered by lesser architects.  Acting as his own attorney, Cooper, in what must to must have amounted to 30 pages of Rand's impossible dialogue, delivers an endless speech outlining the principles of the author's objectivism to his jury.  (Cooper revealed later that he never really understood any of it......)

                   Lucky for him, the jury's a philosophical bunch, ignoring the judge's instructions to render a verdict strictly based on the actual criminal offense.......which leads to a true Hollywood ending, with Neal ascending to the top of Cooper's latest creation......a phallus-like skyscraper where he's waiting at the very tip.......still rigid and unbowed. 

                   Truly a sight to behold and listen to, "The Fountainhead", as offbeat as it is, deserves at least one viewing by any dedicated movie buff.......and then feel free to argue out its politics with whoever watches it with you and won't stop speaking to you if you disagree with each other 3 stars (***).

'A FLICKER IN THE DARK'.....WHEN IT'S CREEPY TIME DOWN SOUTH......

A Flicker In The Dark by Stacy Willingham (2021)     Hot damn!  We've got a whole new load of psychological thrillers to crack open and we can't wait to dive in to all the murders and twists, hoping they'll keep us up into the wee hours.......so we can post the reviews for you as fast as we can......

            Here's the first, which only took us a few days to zip through.....so you know it's a goodie......

            The set up's familiar.......a character's tortured, tragic and horrifying past comes roaring back into the present to torment her. And it's Deja Vu all over again as freshly killed murder victims start popping up.

             Baton Rouge Psychologist-therapist Chloe Davis survived a childhood where her father was tried and convicted for the abduction and strangulation deaths of six teen girls. Not long after that, her mother's attempted suicide-by-hanging left the already crushed woman as a brain damaged invalid. 

             Chloe's tried to stay close to her overprotective older brother Cooper, who harbors deep, suspicious reservations about his little sister's  one year whirlwind romance with Daniel, a travelling pharma salesman.

              But Chloe's head over heels for Daniel and their wedding date is imminent, much to Cooper's displeasure.

              And then a couple of teen girls go missing and later found strangled, including one of Chloe's own young patients........whose body is left in the alley behind her office. The killer's also stolen a few personal jewelry trinkets off his victims.......the exact kind of items that years ago,  12 year old Chloe discovered among her father's belongings, which sealed his conviction and lifelong incarceration.  

              As evidence mounts that points to one individual in particular, Chloe enlists the aid of the investigative journalist digging into her past to embark on a perilous hunt for the serial killing copycat.....whoever that may or may not be.

               Here's where we follow our strict policy of stopping any further plot description......because if you're as familiar as we are with novels like this, you know for damn sure that multiple twists and surprises will start detonating in quick succession........and pull the rug out from any guesses you might have formulated about who's who and what's goin; on....... 

                First time novelist Stacy Willingham comes out of gate with a real page turner here.......so if you can never get enough up-all-night thrillers (like BQ), you'll want plop this one on your bedside reading table ASAP.....4 stars (****)

'THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI'......THE SENSELESS, STYLISH WELLES-IAN NOIR......

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)    This riotous collision between the tempestuously brilliant Orson Welles and Columbia Picture's mogul-monster Harry Cohn was bound to happen.......since, at the time of its production, Welles was married to Columbia's reigning sex goddess (and major meal ticket), Rita Hayworth.......

               Needing cash in a hurry to rescue one of his stage productions, Welles tapped the ever irascible Cohn for the cash by promising to turn a second rate, obscure mystery novel into a big box-office vehicle for Hayworth......

                And the result?  A visually dazzling film noir with the expected eye-popping Welles cinematics.........and an utterly incomprehensible plot as dense and demented as  the 1946 "The Big Sleep" (which even its own author Raymond Chandler could never figure out).

                Not that anyone would pay attention to the story mechanics here, since the the principle attractions were Rita Hayworth and Welles singularly unique gifts for propulsive camerawork and editing.

                Sporting a lilting Irish brogue, Welles plays an itinerant sailor-vagabond who falls hard for femme fatale Hayworth, the wealthy wife of a crippled, lethally sardonic defense attorney (Everett Sloane).

                Infatuated beyond his control Welles accepts a crew position on Hayworth and Sloane's luxurious yacht, where he's suckered into an impossibly nutty fake murder scam by Sloane's sneering law firm partner (Glenn Anders, overacting to the max with a perpetual mad gleam in his eyes)

                Anyone with even a glancing familiarity with noir knows this isn't going to end well for anybody, especially Welles. Real dead bodies, including the slimy law partner,  soon ensue and Welles finds himself on trial for murder......and defended by, of all people, Sloane. 

                 The hysterical, overwrought murder trial borders on parody, equaling, if not surpassing, the ridiculous melodramatics of Jeanne Crain's trial in 1945's "Leave Her To Heaven".  And we certainly wouldn't spoil the fun of explaining how Welles manages to engineer a daring escape from the courtroom, only to reach a gaudy showdown with Hayworth and Sloane, both armed.......in a funhouse hall of mirrors.

                   That final spectacular funhouse Hall Of Mirrors sequence, a true noir-ish stroke of genius, forever gave "The Lady From Shanghai" its moment of cinema immortality. (and maybe the only thing that even hardcore movie buffs still remember about it.....) 

                     But apart from the loony storyline, we savored all the vivid, striking images that set Welles apart from other directors. When Sloane, stages an all day and night picnic and feast along the Acapulco coastline, Welles makes it a gorgeous sight to behold. 

                    Implausible and outlandish from beginning to end, leave it to Orson Welles to craft it into a movie that no cinema buff should ever dare miss.....and one hell of a lot of fun to watch. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)  

               

'DON'T LOOK UP'.....A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES FACE THE END OF THE WORLD......

 Don't Look Up (2021)    We'd have to go back to Stanley Kubrick's immortal 1964 "Dr. Strangelove" as a point of comparison to this one........depicting a world populated with so many imbeciles and egotistical knaves that the utter destruction of Earth at their incompetent hands seems well deserved and inevitable......

                Like "Strangelove" you can laugh your ass off all the way through it, as you gasp at how accurately it depicts the lunacy and ignorance that's torn through today's modern society like an out of control, metastasizing cancer. 

                Try to imagine those two dueling 'giant comet hits the earth' movies from 1998, "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" if they were re-done as feature length Saturday Night Live skits.......but with far more simmering anger underneath the blunt satire and gags........

                Writer director Adam McKay, creator of the brutal eviscerations of Dick Cheney ("Vice") and Wall Street economy destroyers ("The Big Short") takes no prisoners here.  Aided and abetted by top-of-the-line film superstars and a Marvel-sized budget, he sprays acid-tipped satirical bullets like concentrated machine gun fire. Scientists, politicians, celebrities, social influencers, journalists, multi-media figures all go down hard under McKay's withering, relentless assault.

                A few of the targets may finally finish up with some measure of humanity and dignity.......but in a world this filled to the brim with chicanery and foolishness, nobody's getting out alive......

                A young astronomy PhD (Jennifer Lawrence) and her mentor-professor (Leonardo DiCaprio) do their very damndest to warn the world about a comet hurtling on a collision path with Earth......a chunk of rock whose direct hit on the planet will insure an extinction level event. 

               But given our current divisive ruptures of sanity on every strata of society, the exasperated duo's dire news is greeted at every turn with ignorance, apathy, derision and denial. 

                Humanity's basic instinct for self-preservation barely crosses the minds of almost everyone they encounter........including the duplicitous poll-obsessed U.S. President and her equally idiot son (Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill, whose characters act like a mad, mad blend of Trump and all his larva put together,)

                Also popping up in this myriad of of morons......morning talk-show twits (Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry), a singing celeb bobblehead (Ariana Grande), a General who who dupes White House visitors by charging them for free snacks (Paul Guilfoyle) and most importantly to the plot, a high-tech, Steve Jobs-like titan, (Mark Rylance) whose helium-voiced 'Mr. Rogers' persona masks his true greedy malevolence. 

                 Our only real quibbles with "Don't Look Up" would come from its sheer length and repetition.......McKay hammers away at all the subjects of his considerable wrath for well over 2 hours.......and after the 90 minute mark (about the running time of 'Dr. Strangelove') you may feel that he's more than made his point......over and over again. 

                  We laughed and cringed in equal measures all the way through it, so for us, the film accomplished  its ambitious goals and then some......and held up a huge funhouse mirror to the way we live now.  (When you watch its mobs of deniers refusing to gaze skyward at the doom racing toward them, you can't help comparing them to our very real anti-vaxxers, who can't wait to clog up hospitals to die of Covid..)

                  BQ says mark it as a essential viewing for this year.....4 stars (****). (And as in any Marvel epic, make sure to stay to very tail end of the credits for one last blast of well aimed snark.....)

                  And by all means, look up.

'THE LOST DAUGHTER'.....NOT DESTINED TO BECOME A MOTHER'S DAY FAVORITE......

The Lost Daughter (2021)     Let's start out by saying something positive about this other Netflix entry in the annual, exhausting culture-vulture awards season sweepstakes..........

           Here goes......unlike "The Power Of The Dog", (a roofie masquerading as a film), this one kept us attentive and alert through its entirety. Can't say we enjoyed it all that much since its subject matter is fundamentally sad and depressing. 

            But the actors, direction and story had us riveted to it in a way that the phony-baloney, ultra pretentious 'Power Of The Dog' could never hope to achieve.

            And the film has a good shot as replacing "Mommie Dearest" as the all time worst movie to watch on Mother's Day........

            Many many films, both classics and lesser efforts have centered around the characters of women unable, unworthy or unwilling to assume the joys ,sorrows, burdens and heavy responsibilities of motherhood. Yet for one reason or another, or simply cruel fate, they end of raising children anyway......much to the misery and discontent of the unhappy moms and their kids. 

           Actress-director Maggie Gyllenhaal's film takes a unnerving, unblinking examination at two such women, generations apart.  Their unlikely collision on a sundrenched vacation island near Greece turns the movie into something of a low boil suspense tale, taking its time to reveal all its secrets.

            Leda, (Olivia Coleman), a divorced academic with two grown estranged daughters takes a solitary vacation to the island, entrancing Lyle (Ed Harris) the resort's expatiate American handyman.  But she fixates on Nina (Dakota Johnson) a toddler's young mom who's newly arrived as part of loud, boisterous and vaguely threatening American clan. 

             Initially running afoul of that bunch and their most dominating member (Dagmara Dominczyk), Leda finds a way to ingratiate herself back into their good graces by locating Nina's wandering lost tyke......a mere ploy to befriend Nina.

              But to what purpose, really? And  what in the world is Leda up to by secretly hiding and obsessing over the toddler's beloved lost doll? 

              Leda's doll-knapping, a truly unsettling, almost Hitchcockian move, sets off a series of painful flashbacks that display the younger Leda (Jessie Buckley) as an ambitious rising star in academia.....and saddled with the two children she has little interest or patience in raising. 

             Maggie Gyllenhaal hasn't acquired much directorial style, but she's brutal in honing in on all of the events and incidents in Leda's backstory that no doubt led to her current estrangement from her adult daughters. And in Nina, who seems uncomfortable as a new mom and trapped in that obnoxious clan,  Leda mistakenly thinks she's found a kindred spirit.  

             As we'd expected, nothing ends well here for anybody but the film really doesn't traffic in huge dramatic crescendos.......it settles for a quiet disturbing, incisive view of dysfunctional lives, of roads not taken and the roads taken and then regretted in tortured memories.  

            While some might find it maddening, we loved the film's final ambiguous moments, designed to generate debate and discussion.......like some of the celebrated arthouse films of the 1970's.

             Not as easy watch for sure.......but we did stay interested. And for this type of movie that we usually hate on sight, (panting for awards like a hungry puppy begging for treats), that's  high praise indeed. 

            Superbly acted and crafted, "The Lost Daughter" surprised us by being definitely worth our time.......3 stars (***).

             

              

'ETERNALS'.....THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE MARVEL MULTIVERSE......

 Eternals (2021)     After we dutifully plowed through "WandaVision" and "Loki" on Disney Plus, our eyes began to roll upward at the thought of figuring out the ever expanding Marvel Multiverse Crazy Train......and now we're past the point of caring one way or the other.....

           No wonder the MCU Multiverse has now become prime joke fodder for "Saturday Night Live".....

           Yet again we dutifully sat through all near-unwatchable 156 minutes of "Eternals"......a film that seemed inevitable - the result of what happens when a wildly overrated, overpraised film festival sweetheart gets her hands on a 200 million budget and hundreds of CGI artists at her disposal.

            The result?  Just what you'd expect.  Endless, pointless scenes of actors exchanging pseudo indie-film blah-blah-blah interrupted by the usual Marvel rock 'em-sock'em bash-ups of actors hurling each other into the air with frickin' laser beams coming out of their various body parts.......

            If nothing else, it's ambitious in its conception, throwing together chunks of world history, anthropology, archeology, theology and God only know how many other ologies......

              If you combine all  this accumulated crap together, it starts to sound like the gibberish espoused by Tom Cruise and his fellow Scientology zombies......

              In no way, shape or form would we attempt to describe the plot details of this mess. Other than it involves a bunch of god-like immortals who serve at the pleasure of some overpowering, deep-voiced deity named.....Afterlife or Aftershave or Aftermath or whatever.......who the hell cares.....

             These worthies include an Alpha Male stud who shoots frickin' laser beams out of his eyes, a Bollywood star, a deaf girl, a gay black guy and a kid goddess who looks like, for who knows what reason, a pre-teen girl. (And she's as pissed about being stuck in forever childhood as Kirsten Dunst's never aging moppet bloodsucker in "Interview With A Vampire").

              Oh... and we almost forget.... also in the gang -  Angelina Jolie, who wanders through the movie as if she forget she was in it too.......

              Anyway, after millions of eons in his service, the Eternals decide they're not down anymore with Afterburn's  master plan which ends with an apocalyptic wipe-out for each planet they've been assigned to nurture and protect from CGI beasties called Deviants.  Which is good news for planet Earth, we guess.....since we've got enough problems with our deviants in the priesthood.......

              Then the film, to nobody's surprise, pulls a third act twist which will naturally lead to an Eternal (and we mean that literally too)  civil war rock 'em-sock 'em CGI Thunderdome, chock full 'o frickin' laser beams and other assorted glowy weapons.......followed by the expected post-credit teasers designed to leave the Marvel True Believers salivating at the thought of 'Eternals 2'.......(heavy sigh......)

              And that's where we'll leave this endurance test of a movie.......to the Marvel Mavens who'll no doubt spend hours analyzing its intricacies. 

              As for us and anyone else who still fondly remembers the simple pleasures of the original "Spiderman" trilogy and the first "Iron Man", stay far far away from this one......Zero stars (0).

              

                

'RED EYE'....BQ & RACHEL MCADAMS SURVIVE A BRIEF MISERABLE TIME TOGETHER.......

 Red Eye (2005)   Sorry we missed posting yesterday, due to a vicious attack by a 24 hour flu virus that pummeled us mercilessly for a day and night......

          In the midst of our ongoing misery we chose what we thought would be the easiest kind of film to endure while battling overwhelming fatigue, a killer sore throat and a tummy gone sour.....(and no, it wasn't you-know-what, since we're triple-vaxxed....)

          At a super-swift 80 minutes (we're subtracting 5 minutes for the ultra slow end credit crawl, 'Red Eye' proved perfect viewing for when you're falling in and out of Nyquil-induced bouts of dozing......we barely had to pay any real attention to it and yet we didn't miss a thing.

          The film's a rare excursion into high-concept suspense for horror impresario Wes Craven.....although he does get to turn the last third of it into a plucky-babe-versus-maniac duel that's as unnerving and violent as anything in his "Scream" trilogy.

          Plucky Babe here is Rachel McAdams, as a harried hotel manager flying back work in Miami. But tough luck for her, the meet-cute charmer (Cillian Murphy) who chatted her up at the airport and who's now her seatmate is a ruthless terrorist mercenary.   And he's orchestrated a simple, diabolical plot to make her an unwilling facilitator in blowing up a Homeland Security Director and his entire family while they're staying at her hotel. 

            While in flight, if McAdams doesn't call the hotel and have the Homeland guy's reservation changed to the room targeted for a missile launch, her dad (Brian Cox) will die at the hands of minion that Murphy's already stationed outside his house.  What's a plucky babe to do?

           Actually,  way more than we'd imagined, considering that McAdams and Murphy are jammed together in coach seats on the plane. Though challenged by the confined setting, Craven and his screenwriter Carl Ellsworth come up with enough inventive stuff to dial up the suspense and even throw in bursts of violence. 

            (We didn't even mind the low-comedy joke of naming Murphy villain 'Jack Rippner').

            High concept thrillers must always make good on their promises and the final section of the film, when the plane lands, duly lurches into a pre-ordanined, breathless action-packed hunt and chase scenario. And then, to nobody's surprise, moves on to Wes Craven territory.......with Murphy, his false mask of civility ripped off to reveal himself as a gasping, maniacal fiend, goes after McAdams with a big knife. 

             As sick as we were while viewing this, we could detect one humorous oddity ......the slightly built, clear blue-eyed Murphy may excel at the seductive patter, but he still looks like a good swift wind could blow him over.  But then maybe that's why, in the frenzied, final  mano a mano he engages with McAdams, they appear more than evenly matched. 

            High concept thrillers don't much traffic in believability, but we couldn't have cared less, especially yesterday, one of the sickest of sick days we've ever experienced. Though we watched 'Red Eye' with red blurry eyes, it did a nice job of making a terrible time go faster......3 stars (***).

'THIS LITTLE FAMILY'......A RAPE VICTIM DISINTEGRATES BEFORE YOUR EYES.....

 This Little Family by Ines Bayard  (2020)     We're not sure 'recommend' is a word we'd use in reviewing this brief, grim and depressing thriller.......

             And we're not sure it falls into the category of 'thriller' either.......unless you consider yourself thrilled to watch a slow but steady autopsy.......

              The book follows, step by excruciating step, the physical and psychological  destruction of a a young, upscale Parisian woman who's just survived a horrifically brutal rape. 

              After suffering through an attack by her company's CEO, bank investment counselor Marie tries to piece back together her shattered body and life.......to no avail. 

              Her husband Laurent, a rising star divorce attorney, remains oblivious to Marie's inner torment of anger, shame and fear.........and not realizing what's happened to her, he celebrates the news of her sudden impending pregnancy. 

               Marie, filled with dread and loathing that her unborn child comes courtesy of her rapist, keeps the assault secret from Laurent, her immediate family and her in-laws......

                 But it isn't long before the cracks in her false  facade of normalcy begin to crumble and once her baby son's born, Marie can hardly hide that she despises the very sight of the infant......

               Essentially, the book becomes a dark, dark tour through the damaged, irrevocably broken recesses of Marie's mind.......and the ending to this story (already pre-ordained in its first chapter) contains one last twist to add to the accumulated misery.

               The author's primal shriek against male patriarchy is cold, exact and unforgiving......you can refer to "This Little Family" as a sort of thriller, but what it really gives you is a deep dive into its lead character's personal hell.  

                We don't know if it qualifies as an 'entertaining' read.....we can only promise it'll stay with you for days......3 stars (***)

'YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW'.....A YOUNG COPPOLA'S COMING-OF-AGE.....

You're A Big Boy Now (1966)    27 year old Francis Ford Coppola was already entrenched in Hollywood as a contract screenwriter for mega-producer Ray Stark......

               In a typically bold, ballsy Coppola move, he bought the exclusive rights to an obscure little novel as a ploy to insure he'd be the one to direct his screenplay adaptation of it. 

               And a studio fell for it, hence "You're A Big Boy Now", a frantic coming-of-age farce that also served as a coming-of-age for Coppola as a fledgling filmmaker. 

               Heavily influenced by director Richard Lester's frenetic cinematics of "A Hard Day's Night" and "The Knack....and How To Get It", the film presents a gallery of supposedly funny caricatures swirling around  a virginal 19 year old New York City naif  (Peter Kastner) trying to find his place in the world.....and true love. 

                 Big problem here - this movie only accentuates Coppola's weakest abilities as its writer-director. Comic writing is not in his skill set and he shows no talent for the kind of spontaneous visual slapstick that Richard Lester made into his signature style. 

                So the movie never really takes flight, it plays like desperate skit by an overacting, unfunny improv group. 

                But it does include one hell of a quality cast.......Rip Torn and Geraldine Page as Kastner's blustering and addled parents, Julie Harris as his high strung landlord and two remarkable talents as the opposing girls in his life.

                Here's where Coppola did favor the film with a stroke of casting brilliance.  For the manic-pixie-dreamgirl/borderline psycho, he chose the normally sweet shy Elizabeth Hartman (who so poignantly played the abused blind girl opposite Sidney Poitier in "A Patch Of Blue").  And the role of Kastner's lovely apple-pie true love went to Karen Black, whom you'd normally think of as more suited for manic-pixie craziness........

               And with the exuberance of a young filmmaker, Coppola takes his cast and crew all over the New York City of the mid-1960's, making this one of the last films that would photograph the city so attractively......(it wouldn't be long before subsequent films shot in NYC would depict it as  violent, crime-ridden hell on earth.....)

                The film does move along, mostly due to Coppola's imitating Lester's choppy editing and the actors here are always interesting to watch.......but overall it's a limp example of the kind of "hip" filmmaking that directors embraced in pursuit of a younger movie audience.   Best for Coppola completists but for everyone else, hardly worth the time......1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2).

MONDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP - THE JANUARY DEATH PARADE WON'T STOP, THE INVISIBLE GOLDEN GLOBES, THE SEARCH FOR TED CRUZ'S SPINE....

            Even without this non-stop onslaught of death, calamity, idiocy, miserable weather and random disaster, we still would hate January anway......because it's effin' January.......

             Nobody's kidding when they refer to this time of year as the dead of winter.......

             And speaking of deaths, the cruel perpetual obituaries never stop coming.....

eter Bogdanovich.(at age 82).....the film director, film critic and film historian lived an up' 'n downs life as wild as any star-crossed Hollywood actor. From the flavor-of-the-month director of "The Last Picture Show", "Paper Moon" and "What's Up Doc" to the reviled, shunned and ridiculed auteur of "Daisy Miller", "At Last Love" and "Nickelodeon"........with other films that fell somewhere in between those critical extremes, like "Saint Jack", "Mask" and "They All Laughed".  (not to mention his longtime friendship and creative collaboration with Orson Welles......a turbulent, fascinating life, for sure.

Sidney Poitier (at age 94)  The legendary groundbreaker, cinema's very first black superstar who for decades carried the enormous weight of that mantle all by himself, blazing the trail for all who followed. If if that wasn't enough, he was also the most kind hearted, gentlemanly soul who ever drew breath, still managing to become an icon in a field littered with rampant egotism and unbridled greed. A true giant has left us.

Bob Saget (at age 65)   A comedian equally beloved by his fellow comics and the wide variety of audiences he entertained........we don't know of any other comic actor whose separate personas could leave disparate demographics in helpless laughter.  For families who gathered together round the television, he was the rapid fire silly host of "America's Funniest Videos" and the gentle dad of "Full House'......for the stand-up comedy crowds, his blistering, insanely ribald X-rated routines could leave them in gasping, giggling hysteria. (It's as if he could adeptly function as both Lenny Bruce and Bob Hope all at the same time, depending on which crowd sat in front of him......in that regard, a true original....)

Dwayne Hickman (at age 87)    How well Baby Boomers know and love him from the 1959-1963 TV show "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis".....playing the eternal lovesick high schooler Dobie, forever perplexed by his futile Quixote-like pursuit of the unattainable golden girl Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld) Hickman's sweet nerd-ish middle class crew-cut boy and his show functioned as a finale item for a 1950's time capsule.....the last gasp of a more innocent age. (It's fitting the show ended a few months before JFK's assassination, ushering in more turbulent, violent, chaotic era.)  And fitting that as the 60's progressed, Tuesday Weld continued to play variations of Thalia Menninger, with other actors playing the unlucky fools doomed in their quest for her affections....

                That's more than enough death for the first two weeks of the year, so let's move on to even more madness.......

If a Golden Globe award fell in the forest where nobody could hear it, would it make a sound?  The disgraced notoriously corrupt and, banned-from-TV awards show happened out of sight, except for a flurry of tweets. Pardon us, but we feel all empty inside.......because, steaming pile of dung that it was, we loved us some Globes.   We miss watching drunken, shmoozing celebrities approach the podium and indulge in orgies of shameless, preening self-congratulation........with the exciting promise of more than one of them saying something stupid, embarrassing and buzzed about the next morning. The Globes were always a joke, a clown-car collection of Hollywood bottom-feeders who'd hand out any award to the highest bidder........but sadly, in this new era of wokeness, they could no longer be tolerated, which meant farewell to their annual shit-show on network television........sigh. Bye bye Globies.......each year, we'll guzzle a cocktail in remembrance.......

Ted Cruz grovels before Tucker Carlson  on national television......we're beginning to think that no political cartoon caricature of Cruz can do justice to the incredible, spineless spectacle of the real Cruz.......this simpering, whimpering toady, this worm-like minion who licks Trump's ass, even after Trump called his wife ugly and his father possibly responsible for JFK's assassination.  Maybe the Oxford English Dictionary should use Cruz's photo as an illustration of the word, 'invertebrate'......