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Trouble in Paradise (1932)
A Terrific Sophisticated Comedy With a Terrific Sophisticated Cast!
To heap more phrase on this film seems somewhat superfluous in light of the previous viewer comments...but I just can't resist! I saw this film for the first time this past May, thanks to TCM. I have not been able to stop watching it since. It's such a pleasure to see a film where the special effects do not become the entire reason for its existence. The dialogue is snappy and fast, like a back-and-forth tennis volley, with a bite and a sharpness sadly lacking in today's movies. The cast is superb. Kay Francis is typical Kay Francis, with an understated sadness about her. Miriam Hopkins is terrific, both sharp and "perky" (usually I hate that word, but it does describe her here!). And Herbert Marshall is simply superb...both suave and enjoyable. The essence of a great cast, to me, has always been an ability by the actors to make you really believe that they are who they are playing - a task which everyone here accomplishes! Again, it's just such a pleasure to see a film that doesn't insult one's intelligence, that doesn't play only for the suburban teenager or the lowest common denominator moviewatcher. A test for me has always been whether I leave a film wishing there was more. Well, two minutes after seeing "Trouble," I found myself wishing that there had been a sequel, showing Gaston's and Lily's adventures on, say, an early 1930's transatlantic crossing. Oh well. I hope that the forthcoming DVD version does justice to this great comedy. If you like movies, intelligent movies, with a slyness, please see this film. And the last scene of "Trouble in Paradise" has become one of my very favorite endings in cinema!!
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
A Terrific Sophisticated Comedy With a Terrific Sophisticated Cast!
To heap more phrase on this film seems somewhat superfluous in light of the previous viewer comments...but I just can't resist! I saw this film for the first time this past May, thanks to TCM. I have not been able to stop watching it since. It's such a pleasure to see a film where the special effects do not become the entire reason for its existence. The dialogue is snappy and fast, like a back-and-forth tennis volley, with a bite and a sharpness sadly lacking in today's movies. The cast is superb. Kay Francis is typical Kay Francis, with an understated sadness about her. Miriam Hopkins is terrific, both sharp and "perky" (usually I hate that word, but it does describe her here!). And Herbert Marshall is simply superb...both suave and enjoyable. The essence of a great cast, to me, has always been an ability by the actors to make you really believe that they are who they are playing - a task which everyone here accomplishes! Again, it's just such a pleasure to see a film that doesn't insult one's intelligence, that doesn't play only for the suburban teenager or the lowest common denominator moviewatcher. A test for me has always been whether I leave a film wishing there was more. Well, two minutes after seeing "Trouble," I found myself wishing that there had been a sequel, showing Gaston's and Lily's adventures on, say, an early 1930's transatlantic crossing. Oh well. I hope that the forthcoming DVD version does justice to this great comedy. If you like movies, intelligent movies, with a slyness, please see this film. And the last scene of "Trouble in Paradise" has become one of my very favorite endings in cinema!!
Julius Caesar (1953)
Taut, intelligent, definitive movie rendition of this particular Shakespeare play.
It is very easy, in this day and age of seemingly rote-like movie renditions of the works of Jane Austin, Henry James, and, of course, the Bard, to produce a film that just goes through the motions - without anything much to say, no interesting "spin" on the subject matter, and with dull, pretty-boy and girl ham-handed actors, speaking their lines, or some other catch, like state of the art FX, or some other gimmick (like the infamous "Nude Macbeth" version of the play that was filmed back in 1969) being the offering.
To my mind, however, this particular rendition of Shakespeare's Juliuys Casear is THE defintive one ever filmed. Frankly, I just read the comments by "Signet" posted on March 20th - and I don't really know what on earth he is talking about. "Dull?" If he has on his mind Bruce Willis and the Die Hard films (as by his own comments it is clear that he does), well, yes than anything that does not have to do with rocket ships, or blazing machine guns, or steriod-laden super heroes rescuing scantily clad well-endowed women might seem "dull." But frankly, Signet, such being your defintion of what is exciting and interesting, I really don't know why you would even bother checking this film out, or any work of Shakespeare, for that matter, in the first place!
This JC film plays out like a taut, well-placed political thriller - showing the machinations of scheming politicians, of their egos and jealousies, and a quite simply SUPERB Mark Antony funeral oration scene. Now, to me, brando has never seemed to be the most subtle of actors in his performances, but the way he plays it here is perfect! He shows the absolute mastery of reverse psychology, of how sharp demagogues from him to Hitler are able to sway the masses to do their bidding. It is simply an amaziug scene, to my mind one of the very best scenes ever put on film.
The acting, from Mason to Geilgood to O'Brien is first-rate throughout.
Again, if you are looking for a classic (and to me, definitive version of this particular Shakesplay), watch and tape/buy this film. And if you're more interested in WWF-style rock 'em sock 'em action, lpease don't.
And if you are in the later thrill-seeking camp, just don't watch a Shakespeare film, and then post your juvenile comments to this web site. It merely serves to embarrass you. Becuase you obviously just don't "get" the Bard. And you never will.
For All Time (2000)
A wonderfully evocative time travel movie!
This is just simply a wonderfully done, quiet, well acted time travel tale. The overall plot is based on portions of a classic "Twilight Zone" episode, though this film stretches that earlier TV episode out, and takes it to a slightly different direction. Mark Harmon does a fine job as the time traveller, frustrated with the pace and direction of 21st century American life, and Mary McDonnell gives an excellent, understated, but very moving performance as the 1896 widow with whom he falls in love. Again, if you are at all interested in time travel films, and are not looking for one of those computer generated special-effects fests that seem to be produced so often nowadays, but just a quiet, evocative, time travel tale with interesting characters, see this film. It is terrific, and haunting!
Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)
Interested in the subject? The movie "Day one" is far better!!!
This is an interesting, although ultimately unsatisfactory, film. First of all, the casting is wrong in "Fat man & Little Boy" - particularly when compared to that of the TV-movie "Day One." In "Fat Man," Paul Newman is just not the right "type" to play Gen. Leslie Groves - the man who also built the Pentagon. He's wrong physically. In "Day One," Groves is played by the excellent Brian Dennehy - who, quite frankly, is just bigger, more of a "bear" of a man - which is excatly what Groves was! Also, while Dwight Schultz gives a decent performance in "Fat Man" as Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, in "Day One" he is portrayed by the actor David Sraithourn, who much more closer resembles him, and gives a truer, more "cerebral" depiction of the ascetic Doctor. To me, "Day One's" Dennehy and Sraithourn WERE Gen Groves and Dr. Oppenheimer, whereas with "Fat Man" it is much more apparent that we're witnessing film "performances."
Another problem is that "Fat Man" just does not seem to know what type of movie it wants to be - is it a docu-drama, a wartime romance, a WWII action flik, or what? It is just too disjointed, or perhaps ambituous, for its own good. "Day One" on the other hand is a much more gripping, straightforward, clean re-telling of a fascinating story from history.
So, in summation, "Fat Man" is not a terrible film. But if you want an accurate, less movie-cliched, depiction of the Manhattan Project, with great acting, without a trite romance thrown in, and also with a more fleshed-out analysis of the political maneuvering and battles that went into the decision to actually drop the bomb, see "Day One." You will not be disappointed!!!