Category Archives: Comedy/Drama

Educating Rita (1983)

Posted on November 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trying to better herself.

Rita (Julie Walters) is a young working-class woman who finds her job as a hairstylist and marriage to Denny (Malcolm Douglas) to be unrewarding. Denny wants her to have a child, but she fears that will just tie her down more. In an attempt to ‘better herself’ she decides to enroll in Britian’s open university where she takes a course in English literature.  Frank (Michael Caine) is a disillusioned college professor who lost the zeal for his job years earlier and has now taken to the bottle. Rita wants him to be her tutor, but Frank initially resists only to eventually agree. Despite their contrasting personalities the two ultimately form a bond and Frank uses Rita’s passion for learning to reignite his own dormant desires that allows him to breakout of his loveless relationship.  However, Rita too begins to see things differently when her roommate/friend tries to commit suicide and she realizes that things aren’t always greener on the other side of the fence.

The film is based on the play of the same name by Willy Russell that premiered in London in 1980 and also starred Walters in the title role. Unlike the movie the play had only two characters and everything took place inside the tutor’s office.

The story’s theme does have an inspiring quality, which is what galvanized the critics to it, but the main character and her transition is a bit hard to believe. On the surface she’s quite likable and well played by the star, but her ambition seems awfully extreme. It would’ve helped had we seen the moment when she first got the idea to go back to school versus having it just briefly be discussed. Wanting to learn a trade in order to make more money and move out of one’s humble surroundings is both commendable and understandable but becoming well versed on the plays of Henrik Ibsen isn’t really going to do that. To pay the bills she’s still going to be stuck working as a hairdresser, which was supposedly the boring routine she wanted to get out of. Expanding one’s literary knowledge may allow her to have lofty conversations among elites at posh parties, but as a whole she’d still be in her same predicament financially.

The Pygmalion-inspired theme was unnecessary. Without sounding snotty I couldn’t buy into the idea that this working-class woman with a limited education could learn to fully appreciate the great literary works or would even want to. The story acts like all that is needed is a great deal of enthusiasm and you can do accomplish anything, but history is full of people who jump into lofty goals with the best of intentions and still fail. Realistically I think this type of person would’ve eventually gotten overwhelmed and realized she was in over-her-head. To solve this the character should’ve been modified to being someone who was middleclass with a literally background, but who had to drop out because her parents died forcing her to go to work at the factory in order to make ends meet, but still longed to get back into what she really enjoyed and thus hired a tutor to help her, which would’ve been for the discerning viewer easier to swallow.

Rita’s ultimate transition is more off-putting than inspiring. I didn’t like her change in hair color where she goes from blonde to brunette, which makes her seem like a different person instead of someone who’s evolved. There needed to be more challenges and roadblocks. A brief spat with her husband, in which he throws her books into a fire, blows over too quickly and she’s able to grasp the complex material, even able to write in depth term papers with a relative ease that didn’t come off as wholly believable. Having her get a bad grade in a course and using this to reassess her goals would’ve allowed in a broader angle and not have been so fanciful, which the film starts to become.

Caine plays his part wonderfully and he certainly is much more into this role than he was in Blame it on Rio, which he did the same year. However, his character’s motives were difficult to understand. I thought this would’ve been the classic case, which can occur with a lot of academics in higher education, where the students aren’t into learning and are apathetic, which frustrates the professors, and this then turns them to alcohol. Here though that didn’t seem to be the case making him come off more like he was just tuning out on his own accord and thus making him less relatable. I also felt he should’ve been fired much sooner as the young adults attending his classes knew that he was drunk, even verbally said as much, so he likely would’ve been reported, and for him to then on top of this get a second chance when he fell over inebriated during a speech, seemed rather implausible.

I did enjoy the scenes involving Frank’s girlfriend Julia (Jeananne Crowley) and her relationship with a married man named Brian (Michael Williams) and how every time Frank comes into the room, and they are there Brian pretends, as a ‘cover’, that he is speaking to someone on the phone. These scenes, which becomes a running-joke, were amusing, but near the end Frank informs Brian that the phone was disconnected and thus revealing that he was in on their charade. This though doesn’t jive because with the old fashioned rotary phone, such as the ones shown here, there would always be a dial tone when one put the receiver to their ear, except of course if the service had been cut and thus Brian would’ve already known that it had been disconnected when he didn’t hear the tone and no need then for Frank to explain it.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 3, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays

Tagged , , , ,

Rich Kids (1979)

Posted on July 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

richkids

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dealing with divorcing parents.

Franny (Trini Alvarado) is a 12-year-old who’s learning that her two parents (Jon Lithgow, Kathryn Walker) are getting a divorce. She is unhappy about this and thus turns to her friend Jamie (Jeremy Levy) whose parents also went through a divorce a couple of years earlier. He gives her guidance and tips on how to deal with it. She turns to him as a confidant and begins spending time with him at his place even overnights. Her parents are under the impression that Jamie’s father (Terry Kiser) is keeping a watchful eye on them, but in reality he’s over at his new girlfriend’s pad and not paying the least bit of attention to what the kids are doing who then get into all sorts of mischief including alcohol. Once Franny’s parents do catch-on and head over there along with Jamie’s mother and her new husband (Roberta Maxwell, Paul Dooley) they fear it may be too late especially after Franny’s mother finds the book ‘The Joy of Sex’ that her daughter had hidden away and been reading.

On the surface this film, which was produced by Robert Altman, should’ve been a winner and on the technical end it does everything right.  The color schemes and docu-drama approach gives it a vivid day-in-the-life vibe and captures growing up on the Upper West Side neighborhood quite well to the extent that you feel like you’ve visited the area yourself once the film is over. The acting, particularly Alvarado in her film debut, is terrific though kudos must also go to Lithgow and Walker whose portrayal of fraught parents trying to shield their child from life’s ugly realities while also still attempting to be upfront and honest with her is well done. Director Robert M. Young shows a good eye for detail and keeps things visually interesting particularly when they go to Jamie’s dad’s place and interact with the exotic pets he has and make goofy faces with his bedroom full of wall mirrors on every side, which I felt was the movie’s highlight.

Story-wise there are a few profound moments and everything that occurs rings true, but in the process it’s not particularly riveting either. I sat through the whole thing expecting at some point to be grabbed in and it just never occurred. Part of the issue is that it takes too much of a minimalistic approach. So much effort is put in to keeping it realistic that nothing every stands-out. It’s like one of those 70’s after school specials that gets stretched out to 2-hours length, but could’ve easily said what it wanted to in only half that time. It’s all pleasantly done, but ultimately rather meh.

I didn’t like the sex difference of the two kids as it made me cringe all the way through fearing that even at age 12 things might start to get a little kinky like they’d play a game of ‘doctor’, or get drunk, which they kind of do, and dare each other to take their clothes off. It seemed at that age children still like playing with members of their own sex and are quite clicky about it and don’t really begin to reach out to the other side until maybe 14 or 15, so it would’ve been more believable if Jaimie had been a girl instead of a boy.

The title is a bit confusing as these really aren’t wealthy families sure they aren’t poor, but there’s nothing about their lifestyles or home life that isn’t of the middle-class variety making it misleading to have the word ‘rich’ in there. The promotional poster is awful too as the drawings don’t look anything like the real stars and depicts the two leads like they’re dorky looking, which they really aren’t. It also gives one the impression this might be an animated feature, which it certainly isn’t. Actual picks of the two stars would’ve been better especially since Alvarado has such expressive blue eyes, photogenic face, and wonderfully natural smile that one shouldn’t pass-up the opportunity to have her sweat face plastered on the promotional materials whenever possible.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 17, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert M. Young

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

Tagged , , , , ,

Paradise Alley (1978)

Posted on June 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

paradise

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Promoting brother as wrestler.

Cosmo (Sylvester Stallone) is a local street hustler in Hell’s Kitchen who will attempt just about anything to make a buck even pretending to be a homeless person begging for money. Eventually he gets the idea of turning his younger brother Victor (Lee Canalito) into a wrestler and then promoting his bouts inside the ring with others. Victor, who’s strong and well built, initially resists, but he eventually grows tired of his job hauling ice blocks and decides to give in. Cosmo’s other brother Lenny (Armand Assante), a war veteran who walks with a limp, is not keen to the idea either, but through prodding comes onboard as Victor’s manager. Things start out well, but the despite winning the contests Victor’s body takes quite a toll and Cosmo ultimately believes it’s time to give up on it, but Lenny, who begins to enjoy the money he’s making as manager, refuses to let up and pushes Victor into more and more dangerous matchups, which Cosmo’s worries may be putting Victor at too much risk.

The script was written by Stallone that was initially started as a novel. He wrote this before Rocky, but couldn’t get anyone interested in financing it though he was at least able to get it optioned. He then had an acting audition with two producers, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, while he didn’t get the part he did mention, as he was walking out, about this script. The two men were interested in looking it over, but the other producer who Stallone had optioned it to refused to give it up, so Sly instead wrote Rocky, which he then handed over to Chartoff and Winkler, which was green-lit. Then when that became a runaway success the producers agreed to finance this one even allowing Stallone to not only star, but also direct.

Unfortunately the result here is a mish-mash with things being off-kilter right from the start. The absurd race that Stallone has with another man, done over the opening credits, where the two jump from one tall city building to another seemed hard to believe. At some point one or both are going to miss hitting the other side and fall most likely to their death, which does happen eventually, but the guy is lucky enough to conveniently hang onto an outdoor clothes line though with no explanation for how he got down from that and Stallone, supposedly his friend, just laughs at him dangling there and struts away. Stallone also sings the opening song, which is dreadful.

Things really don’t improve much from there. There are a few nice camera angles and provocative close-ups here and there, but the scenes meander to the point there doesn’t seem to be any momentum, or story. The tone shifts precariously from gritty realism to romanticized idealism. The characters aren’t consistent either. Stallone is the one that initially involved in pushing his reluctant brother into the ring while Assante is very cautious and then for some inexplicable reason this gets reversed with Stallone warning of the danger while Assante becomes overly driven. However, for it to make sense there needs to be an explanation for this big change between the two and none is given making their mutual character archs poorly fleshed-out.

Stallone is certainly engaging though his likability gets tested especially with the segment where he ties up a live monkey, even puts a gag in its mouth, and then dangles it from the ceiling. Anne Archer is fun and virtually almost unrecognizable sporting a red hairdo while playing a sassy Italian love interest. Kevin Conway is highly amusing as the heavy who talks tough when surrounded by his henchmen, but proves wimpy when all alone and his climatic pants pulldown is a hoot. Noted real-life wrestler Terry Funk is quite memorable as the muscled bully and the arm wrestling match-up between he and Victor where the mounting sweat glistens off his body as he struggles to keep his arm from hitting the table is one of the movie’s highlights.

The climactic wrestling match done inside a building with a very leaky roof where the action is done in slow-motion with water splashing all over does have its moments though it eventually becomes redundant. While there’s flashes of occasional brilliance it never fully comes together. A tighter script and more consistent tone were sorely needed and Victor, who’s the only likable guy of the bunch, required more of a multi-dimensional context. The fact that he could beat-up anyone and do it in such a humble way while never having to pay the ultimate price either physically or mentally just isn’t believable.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 22, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Sports Movies

Tagged , , , , , ,

Second Thoughts (1983)

Posted on June 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

second thoughts

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lawyer considers an abortion.

Amy (Lucie Arnaz) is in a relationship with Will (Craig Wasson) a former political activist who found out trying to change the world was too difficult, so now he settles for just being a street musician, who at times gets in minor skirmishes with the law and needs Amy’s assistance as she’s also a lawyer. Amy then also gets ‘hired’ by her ex-husband John (Ken Howard) to represent him in his divorce from his second wife that’s really a ploy to try and get back together with her. Will and John know each other when Will applies for a loan from a bank that John manages though neither of them know about either of their relationships with Amy. Then Amy gets pregnant and considers an abortion. John is fine with her decision and even agrees to drive to the hospital while Will sneaks into the facility and kidnaps her in an attempt at preventing it from happening.

This was the second movie directed by famed producer Lawrence Turman whose first foray behind-the-camera was 12 years earlier with Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, which was panned by most critics though I found it interesting. This one got savaged as well and for the most part rightly so. The main issue is the disjointed tone that starts out as a drama with a TV-Movie of the week theme and then by the second act slides over into becoming an offbeat comedy. The unimaginative title and misleading movie poster, which makes it seem like two horny adults frolicking around, which it isn’t, was more than enough to confuse potential audiences and keep them away and thus lead it into being a financial disaster at the box office with a very limited release before falling off into complete obscurity.

To its benefit it does have some unique moments. The segment where Will puts a dead fish into the bank’s safety deposit box as revenge for them not giving him a loan and then stinking up the place to the point that they bring in a whole bunch of cats in order to sniff out where the odor was coming from is commendable. I also enjoyed Lucie’s attempt to escape from the isolated cabin that she’s in, where she’s handcuffed to a bed, by trying to drag the entire bed frame down the stairs, which could’ve been played-up more. I also got a kick out of the scene where John’s ex-wife, played by Ann Schedeen, threatens his beloved potted plants, even holding one ‘at gunpoint’ unless he agrees to pay for her cosmetic surgery.

Unfortunately Lucie Arnaz’s performance kills it. She had the option of either doing this one, or Poltergeist, and decided on doing this because she felt it lent her greater dramatic work, but in the end she should’ve gone with the other one as that has obtained a cult following while this one is completely forgotten. Her character is too much of a composite of the modern career woman. There’s nothing unique, or interesting about her and thus you never get emotionally invested in her journey and if anything find the times she is on the screen to being the film’s most boring moments.

Wasson has been lambasted on this blog before with the other movies he’s been in and his appearance here proves no exception. He’s supposed to be playing an American Indian, but doesn’t look the part at all and somebody with an actual Native American ancestry should’ve been given the role. The songs that he sings, many of which have a ragtime quality, I found to be just as annoying as his acting and his character isn’t likable. The way he holds this woman against her will until she agrees to have ‘his baby’ I found genuinely creepy. Now of course if one is on the Pro-Life side of the fence maybe they’d consider what he does to be ‘heroic’, but while having a civil debate on the issue and him voicing his concerns on why he feels she shouldn’t terminate the pregnancy is fine, but then confining someone to a small room against their will is where I feel he takes things too far and is no longer just this benign guy with good intentions.

The film’s ultimate message becomes a murky as its tone. Initially I thought with the casual way that the abortion option gets discussed that this was a typical liberal minded film with a pro-choice sentiment, then by the third act this all seems to get reversed especially with the female doctor character played by Peggy McCay. She has performed abortions before, but now is reluctant to do it on Arnaz while using the excuse that she no longer ‘feels comfortable’ with it, which seemed to be the filmmaker’s attempt to insinuate that abortion doctors know what they’re doing is ‘wrong’ and ultimately start to feel guilty about it afterwards.

There’s another doctor played by Arthur Rosenberg, who has no qualms performing abortions, but is also portrayed as being incredible callous and obnoxious. At first I thought this was just done for misguided comedy, but eventually it seemed that this was the filmmaker’s way of trying to show how doctors that do this type of procedure without an regrets are ‘bad and crass’ people inside and his constantly rude demeanor was just a way of ‘exposing’ this.

In either case both sides will get alienated by it. A pro-lifer won’t want to sit around watching a movie that at the beginning seems to be taking a different viewpoint  just to wait until the very end when it then seems to finally come around to their position. Pro- choice people will dislike the movie for the exact opposite reason and therefore you have to wonder what type of viewer this movie was meant to attract as I can’t think of anyone that would like it.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: February 6, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lawrence Turman

Studio: Associated Film Distribution

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Obscure Movies

Tagged , , , , , ,

If You Could See What I Hear (1982)

Posted on May 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

ifyou

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blind man finds love.

Tom (Marc Singer) is a young man attending college who also happens to be blind due to being a premature baby and put into an incubator that had too much oxygen. He meets up with Sly (R.H. Thompson) and the two become fast friends and eventual roommates. Both go on the prowl for women with Tom having the better luck as he soon gets into a relationship with a black woman named Heather (Shari Belafonte) though when he proposes marriage she bails. He then has flings with many other women that he meets at a bar where he works at, but when he meets Patti (Sarah Torgov) he begins to fall in-love despite their differences as she’s a staunch catholic while he’s an atheist.

The story is based on the early life of Tom Sullivan who became a famous songwriter and singer during the 70’s, he even sang the National Anthem at Superbowl X, as well as gust starring in several popular TV-shows of that era though today probably not that many people would know who he is. Marc Singer, best known for having starred in The Beastmaster as well as the 80’s TV-miniseries ‘V’, is also a casualty of that period and not real well known outside of those who lived through the decade. Why Singer was even cast I’m not sure as Sullivan clearly had acting experience and I would’ve thought he could’ve played himself and it might’ve been a better movie had he done it.

Story-wise it comes-off as comical vignettes spliced together and hardly seems believable, or at the very least highly exaggerated. Sullivan is given too much of a bigger-than-life vibe as where ever he goes everyone immediately gravitates to him and he becomes the life-of-the-party.  When he does seem to get into trouble he’s able to easily get out of it in circumstances that others wouldn’t. For instance he gets stopped by the police for driving a car without a license or vision, something that would get anyone else a ticket, fine, and arrest especially when his car does end up causing damage, but here the cops just shake their heads in a bemusement and walk away. He also jumps off a boat in the middle of a deep lake without a life jacket and unable to spot the life line that gets thrown to him and yet miraculously he gets out of this pickle just fine too. He’s even able to play golf against opponents with vision and beat them at their own game even catching them when they try to cheat. It’s like the guy can never lose.

The romantic/sex angle gets handled in an equally glossy way. He has a Fonzi-like quality with hot women clinging to him like he’s a magnet. Bimbo blondes and other babes prance in an out of his rented bedroom on an almost nightly basis to the point I was stunned when one of them refuses to go up to his room. This is only because she was ‘catholic’, but then after awhile she ends up doing it with him anyways with the brief delay being caused by her ‘morality’. It’s like his handicap is never a factor and in some ways almost an asset.  Some may argue this is a good thing as it shows a blind person can still live a normal life, but I don’t think there’s anything ‘normal’ here as even a good-looking sighted man isn’t able to score as frequently and consistently as this guy.

Spoiler Alert!

I have nothing against cute. Sometimes a cutesy moment or two in a movie is a good thing and can help bring in a lighthearted mood, but when it gets done constantly throughout it becomes like eating an entire carton of ice cream, which may be good for awhile, but will eventually make you puke. Even when it does finally get serious, which doesn’t occur until 90-minutes in, when he tries to save a young girl whose fallen into a backyard pool, it gets botched. Supposedly this is based on Sullivan’s true-life incident where he saved his own daughter from drowning, but I have a strong feeling the logistics were changed from the real one as here we see the girl floating lifelessly for several minutes making it look like her lungs were filled with water and beyond saving.

Of course there will always be those that may like it. There’s one commenter on IMDb who states she used to watch this over and over back in 1983 when it was on HBO and really loved it though if she went back to it now she might I suspect see it in a more critical way. Siskel and Ebert, who could never agree on anything, both voted it the worst movie of 1982.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: April 23, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Eric Till

Studio: Citadel Films

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Obscure Movies, Romance

Tagged , , , ,

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Posted on December 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

crimes1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Threatening to tell wife.

Judah (Martin Landau) is an eye doctor whose mistress of several years, Dolores (Anjelica Huston), is threatening to tell his wife (Claire Bloom) about their affair. Judah tries to persuade her not to, but she insists on going through with it unless he gets a divorce, which he refuses to do. Feeling he has no other option he hires his brother (Jerry Orbach) to do a hit on her in order to get her off of his hands. Once the job is done Judah then becomes wracked with guilt and though he had been a non-believer for many years begins to rekindle the fear of the wrath of God for what he’s done. Meanwhile Cliff (Woody Allen) is a struggling documentary filmmaker who gets a job filming a movie of a obnoxious comedian (Alan Alda) who’s highly narcissistic and difficult to deal with.

The film is unusual in that it has two correlating stories that go on at the same time with very little that links them. The only connecting thread is a Rabbi, played by Sam Waterston, who is friends with both Alda and Landau, as well as Cliff and Judah getting together briefly at a party to have a discussion near the end. Otherwise it’s like two separate movies with one being semi-funny while the other is made to be more like a searing drama and character study. While it’s engaging most of the way I felt the segment dealing with the egotistical celebrity wasn’t interesting or comical enough to be worth having especially since Alda didn’t seem able to convey an obnoxious jerk in a way that was amusing. The film also goes off on several tangents including Cliff counseling his sister about a date she had where a man tied her up and defecated on her that didn’t have anything to do with the main story and just taking up runtime for no reason. There’s also segments that I did find intriguing like the mysterious phone calls Judah gets late at night where the caller immediately hangs up when Judah answers that I felt should’ve been explored more.

A good way to have solved this and would also have tied-in Allen’s character better would’ve had him filming a documentary on Judah who could’ve been portrayed as this heroic eye doctor who saved the vision of underprivileged kids, or even gone to Africa for awhile to help heal the vision of the kids there and thus his efforts were considered a suitable material for a film. Alda’s character could’ve been cut out totally and not missed. Judah could’ve still be conniving behind-the-scenes about how to get rid of the other woman and thus the irony of him being lionized in front of the camera, but a complete jerk behind it would’ve been even more accentuated and interesting.

As it is the moments with Landau are still quite strong. His career during the 80’s had nearly tanked with him having to accept co-starring roles in low budget horrors just to keep busy only to finally get his name revitalized with his role in Tucker: A Man and His Dreams in 1987 that lead to an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor and helped him get better quality work including this one. Here his expressive blue eyes come into play particularly after the dirty deed gets done and he begins having reoccurring visions of himself as a boy going to synagogue and quarreling with his moral depravity, which is effective.

This is also the rare movie where Allen plays someone who is actually likable. Normally his incessant whining and misguided belief that he’s more sexually attractive than he is and can bed any hot women I’ve found annoying, but here he’s more of a ignored chump who’s still struggling to make a name for himself and this makes him endearing. Instead of aggressively coming onto women in tacky ways he instead shyly courts Mia Farrow who plays a sort-of nerdette here and their scenes together are cute.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending in which Allen and Landau meet briefly and he tells Allen about this ‘great’ movie idea in which a husband finds away to kill off his mistress, which is essentially what he’s really done, and feels no guilt afterwards doesn’t really work. For one thing it’s hard to believe that he’d wake-up one day, as he describes, and no longer feel any remorse and could just go on normally as he had felt so guilty about it earlier that you’d think it would’ve left some sort of lasting affect. The viewer should’ve also seen this realization play-out visually through the story versus having him just describe it.

I realize Allen’s whole point was to show that the universe doesn’t dispense justice and sometimes people really can get away with murder and can go on living happy lives unlike in the movies where it’s expected that the bad guy should suffer some consequence. Yet realistically I actually think Landau would’ve been caught, or at least been more of a suspect than he is. He was already questioned by the police earlier due to all the phone calls he had with the victim and I don’t think his flimsy excuse would’ve sufficed. Since he had been to her apartment many times including even on the night of the murder that most likely one of the other tenants would’ve spotted him coming and going and all the police would’ve had to do was show his picture around for him to be easily fingered by someone else living in the building. Thus watching Landau confidently leave his discussion with Allen thinking he could go on happily with his life only to have a detective there with handcuffs would’ve been funnier and in a lot ways ultimately more believable.

The film’s promotional poster, as seen above, doesn’t get the mood of the scene right. If you look at the poster it seems like Landau is the despondent one who’s suffering from inner turmoil while Woody is nonchalant, but if you watch the movie it’s Landau that is at complete ease while Woody is in turmoil over Mia getting married to Alda, so the poster is essentially misleading.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 12, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Woody Allen

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Tribute (1980)

Posted on December 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

tribute

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father reconciling with son.

Scottie (Jack Lemmon) has been working in show business for decades and has built up many friends and fans, but finds it all come crashing down when, at the mere of age of 55, he gets diagnosed with leukemia. His greatest regret is not having a close relationship with his now grown son Jud (Robby Benson). He wants to reconcile, but not make it obvious that’s it’s because he’s about to die. When Jud comes over for a surprise visit with his mother (Lee Remick), whom Scottie has long since divorced, he tries to mend things and become the father he never had, but the hurt runs deep and Jud proves to be resistant to everything Scottie tries making him feel even more hopeless and forcing him to come to terms with his personal faults and inadequacies.

The film is based on the stageplay of the same name, which also starred Lemmon, and got sold into a $1 million movie deal before the stage version ever hit Broadway. On the surface it’s deemed a drama, but the script by Bernard Slade, who also penned the play, comes off more like a desperate comedy akin in tone to Same Time Next Year, which is Slade’s most famous work that had a strong dramedy vibe to it. This works on that same level as it attempts to lighten the poignant moments with comical bits, but it fails miserable.

Had some of it managed to actually been funny I might not have complained, but it amounts to cringe instead. The most eye-popping moment is watching Lemmon in a chicken costume run around his place going ‘balk-balk’ and even lay a giant egg on the sofa, which I felt was a career low point. What’s even dumber is his wooing of a young woman, played by Kim Cattrall, who’s also a patient at the hospital. He gets into her room by pretending to be a doctor and then gropes her breasts in a feeble attempt to check her heart rate. A normal woman of today, and even one back then, should respond with outrage for him copping-a-feel by disguising himself into being someone he isn’t, but in this stupid movie she’s instead ‘charmed’ by his antics and it’s enough to get her to go to bed with him later.

What’s worse and even more outlandish is that Scottie then sets her up with his son to have them conveniently ‘bump into each other’ in public and then begin going out. Yet how many sons are going to be cool with Dad sleeping with their girl first? Of course Scottie never tells him that he’s already ‘tested her out’, but it does end up showing inadvertently what a conniving jerk the old guy is and what the film considers to be nothing more than an amusing comic side-story really hurts the likability of the character if you think about it.

The acting is good. Lemmon is expectedly strong and so is Remick as his wife though her part is limited. I liked seeing Benson, who usually got stuck with immature parts due to his young, geeky features, play the mature and sensible, level-headed adult of which he does perfectly. Colleen Dewhurst has some strong moments as the caring nurse and Cattrall, despite the annoying nature of her dippy character, is pleasing enough. Yet the ultimate scene-stealer goes to Gale Garnett famous for the mid-60’s folk song ‘We’ll Sing in the Sunshine’, who plays a hooker and in one segment goes topless (looks great), but it’s a bit jarring when you realize it’s the same person who sang such a sweet-natured tune, tough in some ways you could say it’s also a testament that her creative talents are quite broad.

The third act, where they have this major tribute for Scotty has a touching potential, but gets overdone by filling-up an entire auditorium with all of his ‘close friends’, which even for a social butterfly seemed a bit exaggerated. The scene where the hooker gets a restaurant packed with all of her male clients who have ever slept with her has an amusing quality though again equally hard to believe that all of these men would be cool with everybody knowing that they’ve bedded a prostitute. I’ll give props though to the segment showing Scotty getting treatment in the hospital, which gets shown exclusively through still photos, which I found visually innovative.

Unfortunately everything else falls into second-rate melodramatics. It doesn’t even have the decency to tells us whether Scotty dies or not. When an entire movie deals with a character’s ultimate demise I think it should eventually get answered instead of leaving it open. It makes the whole terminal illness thing seem like a tease done to emotionally manipulate the viewer than an actual reality that it supposedly is.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1980

Runtime: 2 Hours 1 Minute

Rated PG

Director: Bob Clark

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies from Canada, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

Tagged , , , , ,

First Monday in October (1981)

Posted on November 23, 2023 | 2 comments

firstoctober

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The first lady justice.

While Daniel Snow (Walter Matthau), an associate justice on the Supreme Court who leans heavily left on most issues, is on vacation in Alaska, he gets word that the staunch conservative judge has passed away. The President then decides to nominate a woman to the court by the name of Ruth Loomis (Jill Clayburgh). Unfortunately Daniel is not happy about this as she’s as conservative as the man she replaced. Once the nomination is confirmed the two are immediately at odds over such things as pornographic movies and corporations that pollute the environment. While they bicker and debate constantly they do end up becoming friends, which comes in handy when Ruth realizes that her late husband was involved in some unscrupulous matters and she considers resigning from her position though Daniel tries desperately to talk her out of it.

The film is based on the 1978 play of the same name written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, who also wrote the screenplay. Initially the play, which first starred Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas received such terrible reviews that it soon closed and was revamped with Henry Fonda and Jane Alexander, was considered a novelty as up to that time no woman had ever served on the nation’s highest court. That all changed when Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’ Connor in July of 1981 forcing this film, in an effort to appear timely, to move up its release date to August, but the timing didn’t work and the movie was overall panned by both the critics and public.

The only interesting aspect is watching it from today’s perspective where the Supreme Court has now become a toxic and divisive issue when back in the early 80’s that was not the case. When the Girl Scouts of America posted on Twitter commemorating Amy Coney Barret getting nominated and approaching it as an achievement for women it got a lot of pushback from those unhappy with her due to her conservative leanings. Yet in this movie the fact that the character is staunchly conservative is not considered a problem and feminists and other women are seen during the senate hearings proudly cheer her on and considering her nomination a landmark.

In some ways having the political drama that the modern day court holds today might’ve made the story more interesting as the thing is so genteel that it’s enough to put most people to sleep. The script would’ve had more intrigue had their been a bad guy, maybe like the producer of the porn movies who gets talked about, but never seen, or even the elusive head of a mysterious corporation whose case the court is set to hear, that should’ve been added in to create genuine conflict, which is otherwise sorely missing.

I did like the scene where the judges get together inside a viewing room to watch the porno flick ‘The Naked Nymphomaniac’, but Matthau’s character should’ve been present during this and it’s less funny without him. Their subsequent arguments about whether X-rated movies should be allowed under the First Amendment seems quite dated as this issue had already been considered settled law and by the 80’s most video stores were offering adult films for rental and cable movie channels were showing porn late at night making the plot here woefully out of touch with the times.

Matthau and Clayburgh are great actors, but their performances here prove to be dull and lifeless. Having some sort of romance enter into the picture, it gets briefly alluded to when Matthau admits to having a certain attraction to Jill, but immediately dropped, might’ve given it a spicy angle, but just portraying them as friends with different viewpoints isn’t enough to keep it captivating. There’s  not too much that’s funny either. There’s a couple of semi-humorous lines here and there, but nothing that will make anyone break out into uproarious laughter. Matthau’s inability to eat his lunch using chopsticks while in a Chinese restaurant might amuse some slightly, but overall it’s a dull, empty ride. Very surprising that this thing received an R-rating. The only objectionable part is when they watch a porn flick, but nothing much in the way of nudity or sex is shown.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 21, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ronald Neame

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity

Tagged , , , ,

Hollywood Vice Squad (1986)

Posted on September 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

hollywood2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trying to stop prostitution.

Based supposedly on actual police cases the film consists of three different scenarios that get interwoven throughout. The main one deals with a distraught mother (Trish Van Devere) who comes from the Midwest to Hollywood in search of her teen daughter (Robin Wright) who’s run away. Police Captain Jensen (Ronny Cox) informs her that her child may have slipped into prostitution, which she refuses to believe. The other two stories deals with a small town racketeer (Julius Harris) who runs a shady hustle out of his home and finds himself being harassed by both the cops and the mob. The third segment focuses on two bickering cops (Evan C. Kim, Joey Travolta) who try to stop various prostitution situations from occurring by implementing stings, which mostly prove to be inept.

The project is a misguided attempt to take Vice Squad, which was written by the same screenwriter that did this one, Kenneth Peters, and turn it into a comedy, or at least throw in humorous elements in between the action. While I was no fan of the first one, as I found the topic in general to be uninteresting, it at least gave off a gritty feel, but this thing can’t even do that. The humor is sporadic and while some of the car stunts are okay everything else is a bore and the film offers no new insight into what is otherwise a very tired and cliche subject.

Frank Gorshin was only one of two things that I liked. Gorshin of course is best known as an impressionist and for his Emmy Award winning performance as the Riddler on the ‘Batman’ TV-show from the 60’s, but he’s also done a lot of acting roles outside of that, which were quite compelling. This one required a lot of sliminess, which he’s more than able to provide with some of it ad-libbed that makes it all the better. He even during a couple of segments offers his trademark, spontaneous Riddler laugh, which is great. The only problem with his presence is that supposedly the police are unable to find him in order to bring him in for questioning in regards to the mother’s missing teen daughter, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since he works and lives out of a giant, gaudy mansion that most anyone should’ve been able to easily spot.

I also really enjoyed Carrie Fisher who ended up satirizing her experiences filming this in her novel and screenplay Postcards from the Edge. She had just gotten out of drug rehab when she was offered the part, but studios were reluctant to give her work and director Penelope Spheeris really had to go to bat for her, but the effort was worth it. She plays the only character that’s likable and she should’ve been given the lead and had the whole thing revolve around her exclusively. With that said though the case that she’s on, trying to put a halt to a porn production that’s supposedly employing a minor, doesn’t totally work as the kid they’re trying to save has a boyish face, but a body that made it seemed he was most likely over 18 and I was fully expecting the cops, who raid the production without a search warrant, to learn this lesson the hard way, but we’re never shown any finality to it, so the viewer doesn’t know. Also the scene where she sneaks into the sleazy producer’s garage and gazes at adult magazine covers that he has stored in a box, which features no nudity and simply depicts models wearing generic leather bondage outfits and she grimaces like she’s looking at something ‘extreme’ seemed rather silly.

The storyline dealing with Van Devere’s quest for find her daughter are unintentionally laughable. What baffled me was the way she would walk through these really trashy areas filled with dangerous looking people and appear completely content and at ease. If she’s from a sheltered small town then seeing these seedy areas should make her quite shocked and frightened and these are the reactions we should be seeing on her face. Also, she’s a good-looking milf and I was surprised some of the creepy men didn’t attempt to accost her as she ambled by them. The casting of Robin Wright as her runaway daughter, in her film debut, is problematic too as she looks to be over 20 and for shock value you really need to cast someone who’s 16 or 17 and looking it in order to create that true loss of innocence image.

I’ve always been curious why people who get into the vice squad work feel it’s worth it. The characters in the film even admit that these hookers and pimps will be right back out on the streets the next day even if they manage to make a few arrests, so why keep on spending so much time and effort if it’s really not making a difference? Have one of the police agents ponder this would’ve given the story an extra dimension that it needed.

It seemed to be almost cruel that they would stop a goofy old man, amusingly played by Marvin Kaplan, from having sex with a streetwalker who was willing. Clearly this was the only way the old guy was going to find any action, so if he’s going to pay and the sex worker, who is of age of course, is willing to perform then why not consider it a basic capitalist business transaction and be done with it? Spending so much effort trying to stop things like this when so many worse things are going on in is what makes the whole thing come-off as petty and trivial.

If anything the storyline involving Fisher’s attempts at putting a halt to what appeared to be a child porn racket should’ve been the central plot. This is something most if not all viewers could get behind and it’s a shame that it gets watered down here and then lumped in with other stuff, which isn’t compelling at all.

hollywood1

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 28, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Studio: Cinema Group

Available: DVD, Tubi, Plex, Amazon Video

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies with Nudity

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

That’s Life! (1986)

Posted on March 25, 2023 | 1 comment

thats1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife frets over biopsy.

Gillian (Julie Andrews) is a singer who detects a lesion in her throat and goes to the doctors to have a biopsy done to see if it’s cancerous. The results of it won’t be ready until Monday forcing her to have to worry about it over the weekend. In an effort not to ruin things for the rest of her family she doesn’t tell them about it and puts on a facade like everything is fine. Meanwhile the other family members have their own problems. Harvey (Jack Lemmon), her husband, is depressed about turning 60, and not excited about the impending birthday celebration, or even being reminded of it. Her oldest daughter Megan (Jennifer Edwards) is going through the stresses of being pregnant while her younger daughter Kate (Emma Walton) fears that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

This was writer/director Blake Edwards first attempt at drama since the Days of Wine and Roses, which had also starred Lemmon. It was independently produced and thus requiring both the cast and crew to agree to work below scale, which caused controversy with the cinematographer’s union and created picketing at theaters in Hollywood when the movie was first released. The story was inspired by real-life events and problems that Edwards and his wife Julie were going through at the time as well as things that were happening with their grown children and the whole thing was shot on-location at the family home in Malibu.

Lemmon, the movie’s promotional poster is a play-on the one for Save the Tiger, the movie he won the Oscar for as Best Actor, is the only fun thing about it. His constant bitching about everything is amusing without being forced and his presence helps give it some needed energy and it’s great seeing him do a few scenes with his real-life son Chris Lemmon, this was the only project they did together unless you count Airport ’77 though they never shared any scenes in that one, who also plays his actor son here. The only drawback is that he completely overshadows Andrews to the point that you start to forget about her even though technically she’s the protagonist that we’re supposed to be the most concerned about.

While the movie is meant to analyze the day-to-day realities of the human condition it does throw in some ‘comical’ side-stories that are really lame and end up dragging the whole film down. The first is Harvey’s relationship with Janice (Cynthia Sikes) a woman who has hired Harvey, who works as an architect, to design her dream house though her demands are constantly changing and many times unrealistic. Had this segment stopped there then it would’ve been insightful and humorous as many clients can make unreasonable requests, but since it’s ‘their money’ the person working for them feels the need not to speak up and go along with the crazy demands for fear they’ll lose out on the deal, which happens more than you think. However, the scene also has her coming on to him sexually, which made no sense. Harvey was significantly older than her, looking more like he was 70, with no guarantee that he could perform, which he ultimately can’t, so unless she had some sort of grandpa complex why would this highly attractive young woman, who could easily find a good-looking guy her age, even think about getting it on with this old duffer that virtually any other woman her age would consider ‘gross’?

The second ‘comical’ scenario is equally stupid as it features Lemmon’s actual wife Felicia Farr playing a psychic who has a sexual encounter with him at her place of business all for the measly price of $20 for a ‘reading’, but how often does this type of thing occur. I mean I’ve gone to a psychic a few times in my life, but it never turned hot-n-heavy; am I just missing out? She later has sex with one of Harvey’s friends making it seem like sex was all that she was into, but how long could she realistically retain the psychic facade before it all came crashing down and she was known simply as being the cheap neighborhood hooker? Why does she even bother with the phony psychic act at all? Why not just become a high-paid escort where she could be making a hell of a lot more money.

The third side-story deals with Harvey finding that the priest, played by Robert Loggia, whom he is confessing his infidelities to is actually his former college roommate that he hasn’t seen in decades, which again is pushing long odds not very likely to happen. The old friend angle doesn’t add much and actually would’ve been funnier had the priest remained someone he didn’t know and Harvey could feel that his confessions were completely confidential only to then get called up to the pulpit during a church service, like he does here, to read a Bible passage about infidelity, and thus getting the shock of his life that this supposedly benign man of the cloth may be on to him and his divulged sins not so safely protected.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s wrap-up has all the problems getting neatly resolved, which gives it a sitcom quality. I was okay with Andrews learning that the lesion was not cancerous, but some of the other dramatic tangents that the family members went through should’ve not all worked out so nicely, because in real-life, which this film is attempting to be, things don’t always have happy endings. In fact this is what works against it as it’s too sterile for its own good. Nothing stands out making it a shallow, flat drama without much depth. Much like Gillian’s lesion it ultimately becomes benign.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 10, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Blake Edwards

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, VHS

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Obscure Movies

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,