jescci Reviews

Jeune Fille (2013)

Poised and patient telling of an inadvertently mysterious tale

[5/10 · 1 April 2013]

It's hard not to be drawn in by Luba Bocian's sweet sadness as Sophia, a solitary theatrical costume designer, working in, with intended paradox, a very public profession.

Her good looks and soulful countenance work against her, however, making it a tad difficult for the viewer to believe she is as socially and emotionally reticent as the story suggests.

Bocian's wide, searching eyes seem not to be seeking heretofore inexperienced passion and adventure, but to attempt to recapture the same after some mysteriously self-imposed romantic sabbatical. We see a girl more world-weary than unworldly and wonder what life events have transpired to position this otherwise appealing and adept young woman in such a lonely place.

So when a fantasy sequence is introduced, we assume, erroneously, that it is a flashback, answering our questions about her history. Or was this an intentional ambiguity common to the French New-Wave films the director emulates?

Any confusion is cleared up for the most part by the film's climax in a scene that is universally relatable and objectively realistic in its offer of only faint hope.

Sideways (2004)

Delusional Matsturbatory Fantasy

[6/10 · 9 March 2005]

The story is told primarily from the perspective of Miles, a middle-school English teacher and aspiring novelist. It comes across auto-biographical, almost diary-like and as such is self-absorbed and self-pitying. It took me back to a time in my life when I was much younger than the Miles character and shared his misanthropic pleas - to no one in particular - to be noticed, to be seen, to be loved for who I was deep-down. Ugh.

For some reason, incomprehensible to Miles, his ex-wife, women in general for the matter, don't seem to understand him, don't appreciate his gentle soulful, sensitive, romantic spirit. Double ugh. Never mind that he is an aging, out-of-shape, unattractive, depressive failure. Oh no. Those qualities are unimportant. The source of his troubles lie elsewhere, but not within.

And so he seems to feel that these issues need not be addressed. I felt embarrassingly old at 22 or 23 when I learned that they did, that we're responsible for our own lives, that if we're unhappy we need to do something constructive to change, to grow. Miles opts instead to whine and moan, to wave his fists in the air and stomp his feet on the ground like a spoiled child demanding what he wants, insisting that he be loved. He never learned and because of the film's masturbatory tone never does learn that to be loved we must first love ourselves - for the gifts we were fortunate enough to be born with and, perhaps more importantly, for the pride that comes of making a disciplined effort to improve.

The film is a fantasy. And an irresponsible one. It tells us we need only wait, that sooner or later the perfect girl will come along and she will be not only our intellectual equal, sensitive, kind and talented, but sexy and beautiful to boot. She will accept us willingly, eager, passionately - "as is". It's tough to sell a car that way, let alone a philosophy. I for one ain't buying.

I'm reminded of a small French film, The Hairdresser's Husband, which was also a masturbatory fantasy, but made no bones about it. It's tone was playful and silly, it's ending tragic. In that way it was more realistic. We come away sad, but without feeling lied to.

Sideways had plot flaws in addition to thematic ones. I could not see Miles and Jack and friends. They had little or nothing in common. It was left unexplained how Jack's in-laws did not question his rather odd decision to spend the last week before his wedding not with his fiancé making final plans or providing emotional support, but in the company of a male friend trekking across the California wine country. A despicable act of thievery by Miles is left hanging, unexamined, unatoned-for.

All in all a major disappointment especially given the word-of-mouth hype and Oscar buzz.

Babe Ruth (1991 TV Movie)

Suffers from same problems almost all baseball movies do

[5/10 · 31 May 2004]

Actors almost never look like players. They're too small, they don't have the rhythm, the speed, the power, the coordinations that athletes do in their prime. It's almost always embarrassing for the actor to pretend that he does.

Having said that, Lang does a credible job in his portrayal of Ruth. He seems to have some athletic skill and he seems to have studied very carefully Ruth's stance and swing and stride. At those moments, he's as believable as any actor who has played the part.

Where his portrayal suffers is in the scenes off the field. Lang is not as big or bear-like as Ruth. How many men are? He tries to capture Ruth's gregariousness and talented actor that he is, comes close, but not close enough for me.

For the most part the film-makers cast actors small of stature to make Lang's Ruth appear bigger and more imposing. But not in every scene, which a unforgivably dumb as periodically then Lang looks small, the spell is broken and we forget to suspend disbelief.

Another major flaw: Lang's prosthetic nose (Ruth had an odd, fleshy nose) is gray in color and obvious. Also obvious are the shoulder pads beneath his uniform.

We've seen the story before in books and in movies. Little if anything is new here. Just the same, any baseball fan, certainly any Ruth fan will find the film compelling enough to sit thru, but I'm still waiting for someone to tell this legendary figure's story right from beginning to end. It's a problem of casting. It would probably require locating another Babe Ruth. Can't count on someone like that coming along any time soon.

Elvis and the Beauty Queen (1981 TV Movie)

Casting every bit as bad as you think

[4/10 · 14 May 2004]

You may say to yourself, "Don Johnson as Elvis? Can that work? Is it possible? Seems like an terrible choice to me, but perhaps I should have an open mind. Maybe I'll be surprised. Maybe he can pull it off."

NOT!

Don Johnson is not a bad actor. But he is an awful Elvis. He's too short, too weak-voiced, too sharply featured ... well you've already imagined how bad he would be. Add to that a hokey black wig and heavy-handed eye-liner and mascara and it's a big fat embarrassing mess.

The best I can say is that since Johnson's acting is decent and since his impersonation is so far off, after a while you don't even think of him as Elvis anymore. You see him as some other crazed pop star instead. Then, on that level, the movie becomes watchable.

Stephanie Zimbalist is also not ideally cast as the tall, beauty queen, Linda Thompson. But she is attractive in her own right and plays the part with the honesty, elegance and intelligence we've come to expect from all her roles. There may be too much intelligence in her performance. You have to be kind of a dope to stick with a dope abusing dope.

There's nothing new to this story; we've heard it many times before. If you've looking for new info or insight, you won't find it. It's told as a love story - an unrequited one: Linda for Elvis and Elvis for drugs.

The Rose (1979)

One long note in a sad minor key

[4/10 · 8 March 2004]

I like Bette Midler as a musical performer. I can tolerate her when used in the right way as an actress. Some say this was an Oscar worthy performance (believe she was nominated), but I disagree. Not because I didn't like her acting, but because I never knew for sure what she was playing - other than pain. That's not her fault of course, but she can't get credit for it either.

Thought the film was a mess in general. Most shots were too light or too dark or out of focus or otherwise visually unintelligible. There were sloppy edits and there was no story to speak of. The main characters were one dimensional. All Alan Bates did was scream. It was well acted I supposed - tho the camera didn't catch it nearly as well as it could have - I believed he was selfish and greedy, but because I was told, not shown.

Wasn't even that crazy about the concert footage. Midler added a raucousness or squelch to her voice which I suppose was some sort of homage to Janis Joplin but it just made her voice sound less pretty. The band was mediocre - this may or may not have been another homage - to Big Brother And The Holding Company - Joplin's backup band which was often criticized for it's mediocrity - but in any case it was ill-advised.

Midler's accent was inconsistent - wasn't sure it ever sounded Floridian, which is where her character was from. We were given little background about her life other than one brief story about her promiscuity - so we never got a handle on where her intense pain came from. Okay, it was suggested that she was rejected as a youth, lonely as an adult and searching desperately and unwisely to fill holes and find love. Or do we assume all that because of what we know about Janis Joplin? In any case that's a thin plot reed to hang a two hour running time upon. And it nearly snapped for me several times. I gave it the lowest rating I ever give - 4 - if a film is leaning towards a rating any lower than that I turn the set off.

Autumn in New York (2000)

May-December romance heebie jeebies

[4/10 · 4 January 2004]

May-December romance gives me the heebie jeebies under any circumstance, but it was worse here. Geer, nearing 50, plays an aging and yet ageless lothario who newest target is an extremely young Ryder. He's got the same smugness and bravado we've come to know and be nauseated by in films 20 or more years old. His charm here does little to calm our fears that he'll damage yet another innocent soul to satisfy immediate needs.

It's not to happen this time. She's different. She's hip and wise and extra sincere. There's also love involved, but we don't buy it for a minute because there's no chemistry between the characters. They have little if anything in common. Love seems suddenly to appear, without build-up or explanation. When his character is miraculously changed because of it, it seems arbitrary.

There is also a disturbing hint of a father-daughter kind of love between them - the script suggests that Geer was romantically involved with her mother - and that adds to the overall uneasiness we feel witnessing this distasteful affair.

Leave It to Beaver (1997)

Few similarities to the TV show

[4/10 · 3 January 2004]

Big screen treatment of the classic '50's comedy series. It's got size and color and a score and stunts, but little of the charm or innocence or sincerity of the original which is what made it great. The script is distractingly episodic. Over all it is slick enough to hold the attention of a child, but fans of the tv show should stay far away.

Hud (1963)

Unoriginal and over-rated

[7/10 · 9 December 2003]

I know I'm leaning toward giving a movie a so-so review when I'm less interested in the characters and the moment to moment interplay and more interested in watching the story unfold as pieces of a puzzle.

We know almost everything we need to know about the characters within the first 10 or 15 minutes of the film. From there, there is little development, little change, little growth. Just an obligatory playing out of scenes we know must take place given the plot set-up, the character descriptions.

The characters themselves have limited depth. As do the performances. Subtle to the point of being dry and flavorless. While Douglass and Neal are good, they're never challenged as actors. I can't fathom their being selected for Oscars. Newman got better as an actor as years went by – he pointed that out himself once in an interview adding that in his old films he could "see the actor working." So can we.

The movie's theme is standard, even trite, it's message mundane. It's also too derivative of Giant and East Of Eden. It's watchable for it's grittiness, cinematography and pace, but in the end is vastly over-rated.

Author! Author! (1982)

Pacino Warm and Winning as Father

[7/10 · 3 December 2003]

Pacino's characters are always warm, intimate and personal - yes even Michael Corleone - and in this film also sensitive and kind. Here he gets to share those qualities with lucky children whose parents abandon them.

As a father, he's tough when he needs to be, tender and concerned when he's called on to be and just a big kid when he feels impelled and its appropriate. His character here, as in many of his roles is self-centered if not self-obsessed, and that can drive the adults around him bonkers when they need his attention, but he never lets the children down.

His house evolves into a kind of wayward home - a place to where his ex-wives's children return of their own will because it's the only place they feel wanted comfortable and respected. There they matter as human beings.

Pacino is a playwright and apparently a good one, but he seems less concerned with the art of his craft and more concerned with it being lucrative for the benefit of his now extended family. He's shown to be the only responsible adult in the movie and he's barely hanging on to the coat tails of sanity as it is. The children all seem to have more sense than the adults. With Pacino, they take an us against the world approach to their problems. We root for them, of course, because they're much too important to be ignored and they've got the spunk to insist that they be seen and heard.

The household has a summer camp bunk mate feel. The children have distinct and in some way opposing personalities. Each stands out as special and for the most part there is little conflict. That may be a contrivance or it could be a believable happy accident.

Tuesday Weld, Pacino's estranged wife and the mother (with different fathers) of four of the five children, is the embodiment of the enemy. A selfish, uncaring, unloving mother - oh, they're out there - but she probably also represents society on some level especially at the tail end of the me-decade 70's. Perhaps for the sake of ratings there is no direct reference to drugs or promiscuity, but it ain't a far leap to make to explain the history of the characters.

As at least one other reviewer has said, the film probably works a lot better for people who have lived the kind of life portrayed.

The Rainmaker (1982 TV Movie)

Awful Casting Ruins Otherwise Quality Production

[13 July 2003]

I saw this TV production of the classic American play 2 or 3 years after it was made and was struck by one major, inescapable, inexcusable flaw: it contained the single worst piece of casting I had ever seen. Tuesday Weld is simply incapable of playing a spinster. There isn't enough make-up in Hollywood to make that beauty unattractive. The subtle, hidden qualities of feminine beauty that Lizzie is meant to discover slowly as the play progresses are all flagrant and obvious in Weld from the git-go. Her polish and confidence cannot be concealed or denied at any time on any level thus rendering her character unbelievable. Katherine Hepburn had a bony enough face and an odd enough personality to pull it off in the movie version. Weld can't. As a result the plot seemed ludicrous, the theme, the message lost. A sad waste of talent and performances.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)

For Penelope Cruz Fans Only

[6/10 · 10 May 2003]

There is only one reason to watch Captain Corelli's Mandolin: Penelope Cruz.

Though her performances vary little film to film, she has an ethereal beauty and an irresistible vulnerability that make her worth seeing over and over and over again. Her performances lack energy, some may say, but I say that they are subtle and soft, gentle and sensitive and when she does show her passion, it erupts with depth and conviction. We believe her. We have to. She acts from the inside out and so is incapable of telling a lie.

Nicolas Cage is poorly cast as an Italian soldier. His sweet, good-natured Charlie in "I Could Happen To You," didn't quite translate here. John Hurt is a great actor and has a weathered enough face to look the part of Cruz's father, an aging Greek country doctor, but fell just a tad short in his performance too. He's too - I'll say "English" - to pull it off.

Aside from Cruz, Christian Bale was well cast as Mandras, a brave and noble soldier and Cruz' fiancé. His character was a bit macho and I suppose that was one of the reasons Cruz fell for Cage's more sensitive Corelli, but it was never quite believable.

In the Cruz films I've seen ("Vanilla Sky," "All The Pretty Horses" and this one) the directors seem to use her sparingly. She pops in when needed. She's left a bit of a mystery. I never get the sense of who her characters really are. We usually see her only when and as her love interests see her. That's a shame. Because I could never see too much of her.

An American Rhapsody (2001)

Scarlett Johansson's performance is generous and inviting

[8/10 · 5 April 2003]

A rebellious teen of Hungarian decent who spent the first six years of her life with foster parents in her mother country, feels inexplicably impelled to visit Budapest after an especially brutal fight with her mother.

She absorbs the sights and sounds and culture of that old city with the wide, innocent eyes of a child and finds answers to questions she didn't even know she had.

Though it is a bit of a condensed theatrical contrivance, we share her newfound, profound ability to understand her mother, a problem she had struggled with since the first day she arrived in America.

Scarlett Johansson is an actress to watch very carefully. Her performance was gritty and raw in the improvised argument scenes, subtle and moving in scenes with no dialogue where her main action was to react, where we are invited to share her private thoughts.

The film ultimately forces an American audience to examine our own origins or at least where we come from in our hearts.

Stardust Memories (1980)

New light after 20 + years

[7/10 · 4 April 2003]

Intentional ambiguities confuse and frustrate an audience both Mr. Allen and his character have contempt for or whose praise they don't feel worthy of. Personal and introspective to the point of being self-obsessed. Perhaps that kind of thing was fashionable 20 years ago. From today's perspective it's tedious. How can we care about people whose agony over decisions comes from a lack of moral conviction.