'DECEIVED'.....A MOLDY GOLDIE OLDIE FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF PSYCHO THRILLERS......

 Deceived (1991)

     We've previously spoken of our lingering affection for the psychological thrillers that enjoyed their heyday throughout the 1990's.

       Many of them laboriously stuck to the template set by "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (Innocent family terrorized by someone posing as normal, but really nutso....nanny from hell, cop from hell, neighbor from hell, doctor from hell, etc, etc.)

       Others fell into that heavy breathing, hot 'n bothered erotic psychosis pioneered by 'Basic Instinct' (and beaten into the ground by hundreds of direct-to-video cheap knockoffs.)

       But there were others that chose to forge their own paths to rev up the chills 'n thrills.....some good, some not so good.....some godawful.

       'Deceived' fell into the area between 'not so good and godawful.....

       Commanding attention immediately is the unique casting of normally bubby, effervescent Goldie Hawn as a woman distressed and threatened.  Hawn goes out of her way to prove she's got the serious dramatic chops to perform this role, but her studied low key grimness doesn't make her or the film very interesting to watch. 

        Neither does the skimpy script, filled with plot holes and senseless unbelievable incidents and behavior. 

         No great spoilers or outrageous twists to reveal here either. A simple premise......Goldie discovers her meet cute husband (John Heard) is literally nothing and no one that he appears to be. Over the course of the film, she discovers he's an identity shifting, sociopathic thief and murderer, stealing names and ending lives with equal fervor. Basically, he's a less charismatic version of Patricia Highsmith's iconic slime, Tom Ripley.

        The film does work up a measure of oncoming dread as the increasingly alarmed Hawn peels off Heard's many deceptions like layers off a rotted onion. 

        But then this all leads, as we feared it would, to Hawn and Heard's final extended mano-e-Goldie showdown. Of course it takes place in a large abandoned building, the usual psycho-thriller funhouse loaded up with locked fire door exits, corridors that go nowhere and lots of hidden corners for Heard to pop out of and go booga-booga.

       Pardon us while we suppress a deep yawn. 

       The pivotal moment is dumb as is, come to think of it, all of Heard's machinations and motives. Screenwriters Mary Agnes Donoghue and Bruce Joel Rubin either had whole chunks of their script cut out or maybe wrote it that way not giving a damn if it made any sense to an audience. 

        We'll at lease credit director Damian Harris (son of Richard) with giving individual scenes the appropriate aura of unease and danger and even at low gear, Hawn can't help but make you protectively fear for her. 

        But overall the film's a raggedy, hard to swallow mess and not among our favorites in the 90's thriller line-up. 

        Huge fans of Hawn may want to check it out. Everyone else can easily skip it.  1& 1/2 stars (*1/2)

         

'MICHAEL'.....FOR THOSE WHO SEPARATE THE ART FROM THE ARTIST.......

 Michael (2026)

      We're surprised as anybody else to end up reviewing this. 

        Honestly we had no intention of bothering to see this film, even for the purpose of covering it for  this blog. We were content to forget all about the strange, weird and sordid life of pop star Michael Jackson. 

         And we were already well aware that the film covered only the glory years of his young career, with beautifully rendered recreations of the concerts and an uncanny rendition of Jackson by one of his nephews, Jaafar Jackson.

          Then last week, it became available to BQ through a free streaming sampling of movies on STARZ.

          So we watched it. Entertained? Sure thing... for the good stuff we just mentioned. Yes, the concert sequences rocked (taking up the bulk of the film's running time) and we doubt any actor could have duplicated Michael Jackson with such precision and fierce dedication as his nephew accomplished. Let's put it this way.....he's far better than AI, 'cause you know he's real......

        The rest of it?  Actually kind of antiquated in its construction. Director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan assemble the film much like a glowing 1940's movie biography. It's filled with the innocent naif Michael rising to the top as he confounds corporate execs and delights thousands with his electrified singing and dancing. There's "....and then he wrote.." montages and scenes of Michael articulating his gentle, benevolent dreams of spreading joy, love and peace to the world.  The filmmaking, in its worship of its subject, resembles how old Hollywood handled biographies of famous beloved celebrities. 

        But there is a wild card running loose through the film.....Coleman Domingo's terrifying, nightmare inducing portrayal of the infamous, abusive Jackson patriarch, Joe. Physically and verbally intimidating, Joe's scarier than any of the zombies in Jackson's "Thriller" video or even Inde Navarrette in "Obsession". Like a quaking young Michael, you flinch right alongside him when Joe gets in his son's face, enraged at the boy's effort to forge his own separate career. 

        Coleman's Joe, who's like a pop music Bond villain, clearly functions as the engine that keeps the film going somewhere other than just showing you a Vegas-style variety show. (And the film only ends when he's finally and publicly thwarted by the son whose gifts he chose to exploit rather than cherish.)

The one amusing moment we remember......an almost unrecognizable Mike Myers as CBS music executive Walter Yetnikoff, ripping into MTV for not considering to play Jackson's videos. (Gen Xers may watch this scene muttering...."What? Did MTV play actual music way back then?"

           Now let's get down to the problematic question.....is it okay for fans of Jackson's iconic music and performances to enjoy this movie purely for its ability to accurately reproduce them?

          Of course it is and in no way do we begrudge anyone who spent a couple hours with this film, clapping, dancing and toe-tapping along.  Much in the same way that Roman Polanski's vile sexual assault of a child doesn't stop us from sometimes re-watching "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby".  They still remain superb films and Jackson's  music still remains as catchy and beloved as ever. 

        Yes, the art can be separated from the artist but then the millions of moviegoers who made "Michael" a huge box office hit already proved that. 

         But let's keep in mind that doesn't improve our overall opinion of Jackson and Polanski as human beings.  Which is why "Michael" ends its storytelling well before Jackson's slide into freakish behavior, ruinous surgeries and and charges of pedophilia. 

        As far as the artistry of its filmmaking (but not the barely there script), "Michael" earns at least 3 stars (***).  But for those coming to it solely for the music and Jaafar Jackson's remarkable work, well then it's a 4 star feast. (****).  For those who under no circumstance will divorce the art from the artist.....you shouldn't have even wasted time reading this review.

'ODE TO BILLIE JOE'......DOOMED YOUNG LOVE, DEEPLY SOUTHERN FRIED.....

 Ode to Billie Joe (1976)

         Max Baer Jr. spent almost a decade playing lovable cornpone hunk Jethro Bodine in TV's "The Beverly Hillbillies", which ran on CBS form 1962 to 1971.

          So who in the world would ever guess that  a few years after 'Hillbillies' ended, Baer would briefly emerge as a writer-director auteur of the Deep South.

          As both writer and star, Baer struck nationwide boxoffice gold with his modest but powerful melodrama "Macon County Line", which riveted us city slickers just as much as the drive-in movie crowd below the Mason-Dixon line. (A film we promise to review in the near future.)

       Suddenly a hot Hollywood property, Baer went on to write and direct the family drama "The Wild McCullochs" and then secured his biggest assignment ever...... guiding Warner Brothers' film version of country singer Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode to Billie Joe', her rambling, catchy, wildly popular story-song.

       Gentry's epic length song, dripping with country flavor and attitude, recounted the sad, star-crossed love of two hormone engulfed teens, Billie Joe McCallister and Bobby Lee Hartley. Back in '53 on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi, their romance went tragically awry when Billie Joe, for some unknown reason (in the song, anyway) threw himself off the Tallahatchie Bridge. 

       'Ode', much like Baer's 'Macon County Line' captured everyone's attention, both North and South....... and it fell to Baer and screenwriter Herman Raucher ("Summer of '42", "Sweet November") to not only bring the song to cinematic life, but tell what really destroyed the lives of these drawlin' cutie pies in the throes of their first love.

        Presumably with Baer and Gentry's approval, Raucher came up with his own startling and dramatic gut-punching revelation......and considering the era and place the film is set in, a bold, way ahead of its time plot twist to deploy. 

        This film couldn't have found a director more appreciative and understanding of the material. Baer, if nothing else, knew in his casting and cinematography how to properly evoke  the South of the 1950's. Devoid of any slick gloss, the film looks and sounds as weathered and lived in as the pickup trucks that roll across the wooden slats of the Tallahatchie. 

         And he couldn't have found two more empathetic actors for his leads. Robby Benson's Billie Joe, a sensitive outlier among the beer swillin' good ole boys comes a courtin'  Glynnis O'Connor's Bobbie Lee with the amusing deliberate manner of a silver-tongued Southern gentleman. (Herman Raucher supplies his two young lovers with pseudo ornate mock Tennessee Williams dialogue that's jarring at first to listen to at first but then becomes sort of entertaining. 

         O' Connor, capable of appearing both beautiful and plain within the same camera shot, perfectly embodies Bobby Lee's sexual longings within a protective loving family......one whose father sees her only as still a little girl. While Benson might have the most showy role here (considering the traumatic event he endures), it's O' Connor, functioning as the narrator, who breaks your heart as the romance she wished for comes apart before her eyes. 

       (As for the film's whammer explanation of Billie Joe's demise, we'll not uncover the film's jumbo spoiler......but we will say that Raucher, Baer and the cast handle it with just the right amount of low key depth and a sense of inevitable sadness.) 

       Max Baer directed only one more film ("Hometown USA"), but with the cult 'Macon County Line' and the successful crowd-pleasing 'Billie Joe' he made the most of his brief time amid the chaotic, creative landscape of 1970's filmmaking and the exciting, emerging talents that emerged out of it. 

        Maybe it might appear too corny, obvious and overwrought for today's more jaded audiences, but we still appreciate the care and skill that went into this film.  3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)         

'THE END OF OAK STREET'.....THE FINE ART OF SPIELBERG IMITATION......

 The End of Oak Street (2026)

     Dinos running rampant in 1980's suburbia?

     You bet Jurassic they are......

      Let's put our hands together (at least for a few seconds) for writer-director David Robert Mitchell.   He took on the harder-than-it-looks task of crafting a genuine imitation Spielberg movie from Spielberg's own 1980's Golden Age...(of "E.T.", "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and his producer status on "Poltergeist", "The Goonies" and "Gremlins".)

       Not really an easy task to pull off, combining the master director's magical mixture of comedy, fantasy, action, heart-tugging moments and cheer-inducing finales. 

       Back in 2011, writer-director J.J.Abrams took a fairly good crack at it in "Super 8", about suburban kid filmmakers encountering as escaped alien monster on the loose. Lots of fun, loaded up with Spielbergian vibes to the max.  And Abrams is still back at it, functioning here as 'Oak Street's executive producer. 

         And you'd be sorely mistaken if you think crafting a Spielberg homage is easy......this year, with the severely disappointing "Disclosure Day", even Spielberg himself couldn't quite nail making a traditional Spielbergian, aliens-on-the-loose rip-off of his own classic films.

         Again, we're back in sunny, happy suburbia, where Alice and Greg Platt (Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor) enjoy a block party-carnival with their teen and tween kids Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery).

          Trouble in paradise, though........Having lost his job, Greg's reduced to delivering pizzas. Alice secretly pounds away at a novel about a woman aching to walk out of her marriage. Hmmm....this does not bode well....

        Know what else doesn't bode well?  The neighborhood warped into bordering a prehistoric jungle, with all manner of CGI'd dinosaurs running across the manicured lawns to stalk and munch on the neighbors like an all-you-can-eat buffet. 

        Wooo hooo! From this point on, the film puts pedal to the metal as Hathaway, McGregor and the kids desperately fight for their survival amid all the stompin', chompin' reptiles.  

        Crowd pleasing, showstopping scenes abound.....you'll cringe and wince as the family argues about their next move, unaware that a charging, hungry T-Rex currently lopes across the lawn right behind them. And let's hear it for that monstrous white snake, oozing its way through all three floors of the family's house, which they somehow manage to ignore (like the T-Rex) until they're almost snake-snacks. 

      Writer-director Mitchell puts on a true popcorn gobbling, soda slurping good time here. So good, in fact, you'll end more than willing to swallow the goofball scientific explanation for the dinos return and the extra feel good ending that could only happen in the Magic Surburbs of Spielgergia.

      And it's ironically sad, in a way, that composer Michael Giacchino slathers the film with a loud, propulsive rip-roarin' imitation John Williams score.....a feat that maestro Williams himself  could barely accomplish, finding little to inspire him when composing for his long time collaborator's muddled "Disclosure Day". 

       But as for "Oak Street", for a pure, shamelessly entertaining thrill ride (and one that doesn't burden itself with a bloated running time like some other current blockbusters) this deliriously dino-mighty treat spreads out a fine end-summer movie picnic. (Keep the lid on the mayonnaise jar when the T Rex is around......)

        4 stars (****).

 

'THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR'.......THE ELEGANCE OF CLASSIC CINEMA.......

 The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

      'Elegance' is a word we've rarely applied to any film we've reviewed over the years.....maybe to some of the Hitchcock thrillers like "Vertigo" and "North By Northwest" and a few others. 

         You can call it elegance, call it class or something similar.....what we mean is the application of precision, restraint and craft. Add those things to a film, along with artistic inspiration and you've got yourself a classic that will stand the test of time. 

          Watching "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" again after who knows how many other previous viewings. we're still awed by its sheer state of perfection.....in its acting, production design, sumptuous music score, script and direction. 79 years later, it still casts an emotional spell over us.....(but only if you surrender fully to the story and the world it creates....) 

        We're back to the kinder, gentler turn of the 20th century in England, where determined widow Lucy Muir, (Gene Tierney) declares her independence from her shrewish, controlling in-laws. With her young daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and housekeeper Martha (Edna Best), Lucy boldly rents a seaside cottage, even though it's haunted by the spirit of the roguish, boisterous sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison).

         The reserved but inwardly fearless Mrs. Muir and the brusque, imposing Gregg make an impossibly odd but strangely lovable match that to the subdued melancholy of both, can never be consummated. As their friendship and affection for each other grow over the years, Capt. Gregg chooses to vanish from Mrs. Muir's life, knowing he must let her experience the adventure of living in the real world and finding genuine corporeal romance.

        But Lucy's only attempt at giving her heart away ends in such crushing hurt and betrayal that she remains an unmarried recluse for the rest of her life, waiting in hope to be reunited with the dashing Captain Gregg.  (The rotten heartbreaking cad by the way, is well played by George Sanders, who'd come specialize in such roles.....)

          You can scoff all you like at that plot description but the film presents this paranormal romance with full believability and commitment.  Gene Tierney  and Rex Harrison's pure and chaste love has wit, charm and a star-crossed aura of inevitable destiny surrounding it. Their story exists in its own self-contained snow globe universe.... and in the midst this mad cruel age we now live in, it's a soothing balm to revisit Mrs. Muir and Capt. Gregg every so often. 

       The combination of Tierney's exquisite porcelain beauty and Harrison's suave sexuality make them a one-of-a-kind coupling.....they never so much as touch, but you won't have any trouble feeling the longing and desire between them.

        And let's now mention another of the film 's primary MVPs.....legendary composer Bernard Herrmann, who drapes the entire film with one of his richest, most achingly romantic scores ever....a score that even the famously cantankerous, irascible Herrmann thought of as his best work. 

         Which brings us back to that description of ....elegance. You can hear it in Philip Dunne's literate screenplay (taken from a novel by Josephine Leslie) and see it in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's expert, sure handed direction in bringing the best out of his cast. 

         That, BQ visitors, is what make classic cinema and makes us give this film nothing less than the 5 stars (*****) it deserves. 

         (And you can get when it hits its 80th anniversary next year, we'll be watching it yet again.)

'HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK'.....IN SEARCH OF LAUGHS.....WHICH THEY NEVER FIND....

 Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976)

       Yet another film that falls into the category of "Who ever thought this was a good idea?"

        A lavishly budgeted, overproduced comedy, it recreates the teeming streets, theaters and vaudeville nightclubs of 1890's New York. And all of it photographed (as usual for period films made in the 1970's) in that muted, brownish desaturated color that signified 'a long, long time ago'. 

        And packed with the biggest superstars of the 70's....James Caan, Elliot Gould, Michael Caine and Diane Keaton. With direction handled by top A-list director Mark Rydell ("The Reivers", "The Cowboys", "Cinderella Liberty")

          Only one huuuge problem here.....especially for a comedy.....

          There's not a single minute of its 111 minute running time that's funny. Or even remotely amusing. In fact, it's damn painful to watch. All that money, time and talent thrown at the screen.....for nothing at all. 

         You'd need the Hubbell telescope to detect any humor in the script concocted by John Byrum and Robert Kaufman. With no trace of fun in sight, director Rydell concentrated on the decor and overall atmosphere, while allowing Caan and Gould to carry on like a dire blend of Abbott and Costello, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges.  They're excruciating to watch in action, dripping in flop sweat and desperation. 

        The boys play Harry and Walter, terrible vaudevillians and petty thieves who find themselves locked up in prison along with suave, aristocratic gentleman safecracker Adam Worth (Caine, the only cast member who survives with his dignity intact.) Worth despises the bumbling duo, who accidentally set fire to the thief's luxurious, furnished prison cell. (Apparently, Worth's charm and reputation makes him beloved among the prison staff.)

     Back in the big city, our dumb duo conspire to thwart Worth's next bank heist by robbing the bank ahead of him........with the aid of fiery progressive pamphleteer Lissa Chestnut (Keaton, in a waste-of-time role for her). This ridiculous caper involves the boys crashing a performance of an absurd musical, upending it with their own improvised, massively unfunny clowning, like a hellish remake of "A Night At The Opera". (At one point in this tortuous sequence, Gould dons blackface. Enough said.)

         The only diversion anyone might take out of this trainwreck comes from the film's enormous roster of familiar faces in the supporting cast.....Charles Durning, Burt Young, Lesley Ann Warren, Jack Guilford, Bert Remsen, Ted Cassidy and many more.

         Catastrophic from beginning to end, "Harry and Walter....", to absolutely nobody's surprise, flopped the instant it hit theaters, with the cast and filmmakers quickly disowning it. We wouldn't even recommend this film for fans of the actors involved.....for them, it might prove too  heartbreaking to sit through. 

         Unfit on any and every level. Zero stars (0). Avoid it whenever it rears its ugly head....

           

         

        

'THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2'.....20 YEARS LATER, PAINFULLY OUT OF FASHION.....

 The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)

        Begs the question.....who wanted this?  

    Anybody?  Anybody?  Bueller?  Bueller?

     Our best guess as to who really wanted to see the 'Prada' gang 20 years later......about the same amount of people craving a live action 'Moana'......

     Since they went ahead and made the film anyway, our natural expectations would assume that 'Prada 2' would at least strive to equal the first in its sharp, witty view of a fashionista Queen and those who fall into her orbit. 

     Nope. Nothing like that in sight. And those returning to watch the film's leading quartet of actors delivering more bitchy nasty fun will leave sorely disappointed. 

       This time around, director David Frankel and his screenwriters conceive something more like a serious drama......how the upheavals in journalism and pop culture turned the world upside down for reporter Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) and High Priestess of fashion publishing Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep).

         Their lives and fate collide again as Andy's downsized out of a job and Miranda's awash in a PR nightmare caused by her mag's flattering article on a fashion line just revealed to use child labor. 

         Streep's character is mostly de-fanged of her wicked verbal venom, so don't look for much fun in that department. The first film's snappy sarcastic sidekicks, played by Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt are allowed a few zingers here and there......but nothing to make this film worth watching. 

        The plot complications involve all manner of greedy corporate buccaneering with multiple takeovers attempted on Miranda's 'Runway' magazine and website.  Since the rest of us currently struggle with how to pay for gas and groceries, pardon us if we couldn't work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for watching the fate of millionaires hang in the balance.......

         For those who might derive some mild pleasures from watching Streep, Hathaway, Tucci and Blunt perform the same roles again, well then, here they are again....(all of them look like they're hardly aged.)

         But film itself is a dreary waste of time and leaves you wondering why they went to all the trouble to make it. We'd like to think it wasn't done purely as a rapacious cash grab......

          We'd like to think that, anyway. 

          1 & 1/2 stars...(*1/2)