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Are There ANY Strong Gay-Themed Films Besides "Brokeback Mountain"?
Reviews
Seberg (2019)
Not an easy watch, though the topic is (sadly) still relevant and the overall results thought-provoking...
After befriending Hakim Jamal, a leader in the Black Power movement of the late-1960s, on a flight to Los Angeles, film actress Jean Seberg alternately wants to donate to his cause and seduce him. Jamal is already under surveillance by the FBI, and soon they're bugging Seberg as well, under J. Edgar Hoover's illegal COINTELPRO program which sought to disrupt and discredit everyone on their hit list. Fascinating chapter of US history in which dirty players within the government, ferreting out racial instigators, played a big hand in ruining people's lives. Seberg was driven to the brink of despair, with bursts of aggravated paranoia and a suicide attempt which ended the life of her baby (whom Newsweek had reported would be black--she wasn't). "Seberg", directed by Benedict Andrews and written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, is polished and efficient and appropriately unpleasant to watch--and I couldn't wait for it to be over. The writers aren't interested in Seberg's films or her celebrity lifestyle, and that's as it should be. The duo stick primarily to Jean's philanthropic ambitions to bring unity to this country (which is convincingly played without much soapbox grandstanding). The film looks fairly accurate in its depiction of early-'70s Los Angeles (although I don't believe the real Jean Seberg was still sporting her pixie cut from "Breathless" as late as 1970 or 1971). Kristen Stewart takes a while to warm up, but she's sufficient in the lead; Anthony Mackie is terrific as Hakim Jamal; Yvan Attal perfect as Jean's estranged husband, writer Romain Gary; and Jack O'Connell solid as Jack Solomon, apparently the only decent Fed in a group of bloodhounds intent on destroying the star. Jed Kurzel's moody score is excellent and the film is compact at 102mns. **1/2 from ****
Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
"A bark is born!"
Spoof of '20s Hollywood has German Shepherd escaping extermination at the shelter and befriending a starving actress. Later, after elaborately saving her from a casting couch encounter, the dog attracts the attention of the studio chief who's impressed with the canine's prowess (played by Art Carney, the mogul does everything but shout "Get me that dog!", which probably would have been funnier than anything else Carney gets to say). Director/co-producer Michael Winner had shown flashes of humor in previous endeavors, but slapstick seems out of his reach (Winner is one of these directors who thinks destruction equals hilarity). Despite good production values, the movie is rather sloppily patched together, with potential highlights (such as Madeline Kahn and Teri Garr as roommates) going unrealized. An amazing array of Old Hollywood talent shows up in supporting roles (from Johnny Weissmuller and Aldo Ray to Ethel Merman and Joan Blondell), but most of the picture is given over to Bruce Dern as an amateur screenwriter, and crazy-eyed Dern is about as funny as Winner. As for the dog...he's no Rin Tin Tin, but he doesn't steal any scenes from Kahn, either. *1/2 from ****
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Sweetly unassuming, like our heroine
Young princess, the target of envy and malice from her evil stepmother, runs for her life after the queen orders her death, taking refuge in a cottage owned by seven messy little men. The cornerstone of Walt Disney's empire, the first full-length animated feature in Technicolor (though not the first full-length animated feature--that honor would go to Argentina's "Peludopolis" from director Quirino Cristiani in 1931, following the director's now-lost "El Apóstol" from 1917). Pre-World War II sweetness enchanted audiences of all nationalities, though it creaks a bit today. Mute dwarf Dopey gets most of the big laughs, while the best song numbers are "Whistle While You Work" and "The Silly Song". The original Academy ratio of 1.37:1 has proven problematic in re-releases, as the presentation is box-shaped. One Oscar nomination: for Best Music Score. The following year, Walt Disney received an Honorary Oscar (plus seven statuettes) for his "significant screen innovation." A bit of trivia: Disney did win an Oscar the same year "Snow White" was eligible--but for the animated short subject, "The Old Mill". *** from ****
Showman (1963)
Show business wheeling and dealing...but not particularly revealing
60mn short on film producer Joseph E. Levine by documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles. Wheeling and dealing at his offices on the East Coast, Levine--short and round at 200lbs with black-rimmed glasses--was a publicity man who rose from the likes of 'presenting' "Hercules" (the surprise hit of 1958) to being producer or executive producer on such acclaimed pictures as "Contempt", "The Graduate", "The Lion in Winter" and "Carnal Knowledge". Here, we find Levine and his staff discussing movie openings, US and Italian box-office, distribution rights...and Sophia Loren, with whom he celebrated after her performance in "Two Women", distributed in the US by Levine's Embassy Pictures, won her the Best Actress Oscar. Cinéma vérité portrait isn't particularly revealing or enlightening about show biz, but cinephiles will enjoy eavesdropping on these conversations. Levine appears to have been revered by insiders--"The man with the golden touch is the man with the golden heart!"--however, his stomach ulcers probably told a different story. **1/2 from ****
Melanie (1982)
It sounds more interesting than it plays...
Glynnis O'Connor plays an illiterate woman from a small town in Arkansas who dotes on her young son and is nervous about her estranged soldier-husband coming home after two years in the service. After one night, he tells his wife in bed, "I've changed"--and in the morning, he's gone and her son is as well. Modest (to say the least) Canadian-made drama distributed in the US by Embassy Pictures tries tackling a few different topics--illiteracy, bumpkin life vs. The big city, parental alienation--none too successfully. O'Connor, however, still has the charm she showed 10 years prior when she was a budding newcomer, and the solid supporting cast includes a menacing Don Johnson, Paul Sorvino and musician Burton Cummings. *1/2 from ****
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)
A movie to recoil from...
Seymour Cassel plays a New York City parking attendant, jumpy and chatty with a ponytail and a handlebar mustache, who relocates on a whim to Los Angeles and meets Gena Rowlands, a lonely woman who works in a museum and dates an abusive married man. For viewers uninterested in plot exposition or character exposition or any kind of backstory, writer-director John Cassavetes may be the filmmaker for them: he's all about verbal interaction without giving the audience anything substantial to go on. Dialogue exchanges--combative, combustible, defensive-- ramble on in search of Truth, but everyone on the screen is so crazy that Cassavetes' truth begins to sound like absurd poetry. Opening with an ugly scene in a diner (featuring loud lunatic Timothy Carey spouting off and harassing the waitress), Cassavetes apparently can't get enough, staging a similar scene 45mns later with Val Avery screaming without provocation at blind date Rowlands in a coffee shop. Cassavetes never met a subtlety that he liked. "Minnie and Moskowitz" is no meet-cute; it follows no set formula and it is utterly unconventional--admirable qualities, to be sure--but there's no bright side to anything of this. *1/2 from ****
Disclaimer (2024)
Breathless, brainless melodrama...though stunning to look at!
Grieving middle-aged British housewife, having lost her son tragically while he was alone on vacation in Italy (he drowned while rescuing a child adrift at sea), develops photos from her son's camera which reveal an affair with an older woman. She is given hint that the naked mystery lady is the married mother of the little boy whose life was saved, and she's infuriated that this woman disappeared after the tragedy--and thereby holds her responsible for the death of her son. UK-US co-production, a seven-episode mini-series from Apple TV+ was written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón from Renee Knight's novel. It has a lot of talent behind it but also an impossible plot (one character doing a recap dryly remarks, "a remarkable one"). Cuarón's small group of main characters (mostly despicable people) attempt to sort out the story's many implausibilities and gaps of logic, but this only serves to make "Disclaimer" about as breathlessly silly as a TV soap. Of course, there are two sides to every story--and a batch of photographs don't tell the whole truth--so there's a conflict of misunderstandings between the characters which stretches this tale out to a full seven episodes (I felt there were two too many). Cate Blanchett (also one of the executive producers), Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lesley Manville, and a handful of odious 20-somethings make up the cast, but I couldn't find one person here who was worth all the striding up and down (and fainting and racing around London in buses and taxis). The acting is naturally very good, although there's a moment in the final installment wherein Blanchett has had her tea drugged while she's delivering a monologue that leaves the actress virtually rudderless. The cinematography from Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki is stunning, especially in the rescue sequence with the boy (though Cuarón's inane storytelling nearly spoils it, with a rescue party helping to bring in the child but leaving the first guy out to haplessly swim and shout for help in the choppy waters). The sexuality is very frank but the seduction left me squirming, and I never believed anyone could write a 'factual' book based on several photos, one which is then published 20 years later and is so close to the truth that it ruins everyone's lives. 'Remarkable', indeed! ** from ****
Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969)
Camp is best served accidentally...
When filmmakers go full-throttle with outrageous melodramatics, the actors on-screen run the risk of looking foolish and desperately with-it. That's what happens here to young actress Holly Near cast in the unplayable part of an overweight, virginal, suicidal daughter of a Hollywood actress (with a dubious past) and wealthy homosexual father who falls in with rock 'n roll revolutionaries. Near, who eventually got to do some fine work on '70s television, is exposed by writer-director Robert Thom, whose previous screenplay credits include "Wild in the Streets" and "The Legend of Lylah Clare", both from 1968. Thom possessed quite a flair for the hypnotically ludicrous, the decadently deranged, but he treats Near (who has great sympathetic qualities) like a punchline for the ultimate fat-girl joke. Playing her mother, Jennifer Jones (cruelly photographed despite the occasional soft focus) appears to be in on the gag and hopefully had a good time (she only made one other movie, 1974's "The Towering Inferno"). The rock music predates "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"--and Thom's dialogue is nearly as loopy as Roger Ebert's from that film--but "Angel" doesn't have Ebert's or Russ Meyer's pointed sense of self-mocking. This one is more like a soap opera on a fake high and a false bummer. NO STARS from ****
Anything Else (2003)
Middling Woody Allen comedy
60-year-old gag writer for standup comics in New York City mentors a kid in his twenties who's in analysis after his marriage broke-up and his new girlfriend, an actress, is proving to be quite a handful. Well-made but nearly laughless effort might have been more successful with funnier actors. Jason Biggs (often breaking the fourth wall) tries to be loose and nimble; he talks fast and stammers well (like Allen), but his spirit is sodden. Christina Ricci is a sharp-eyed, no-nonsense actress with a natural edge to her personality--but she's not funny, either. These two are stuck in the Movie Relationship Blues, and it's up to the grown-ups (Allen, Stockard Channing and, to a lesser degree, Danny DeVito) to give the picture a goose. Allen has become overly-fond of name-dropping in his scripts, but for what purpose? In the first 20mns, we hear the names of comedians, authors, jazz singers and movie personalities dropped "casually" in conversation (though each one sticks out as an artifice: "You like Billie Holiday? She's my favorite too!"). "Anything Else" isn't a Woody turkey--it has the filmmaker's customary urban/neurotic fussiness that crackles on occasion--but the laugh lines fall flat coming out of the mouths of these big city babes. *1/2 from ****
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Some good zingers in Allen misfire...
Has-been Hollywood director gets a comeback opportunity thanks to his ex-wife, but learns he's suffering from psychosomatic blindness--something he hopes to hide while directing his movie. One-joke comedy from writer-director-star Woody Allen's junk-drawer, although even his misfires usually have two or three good laughs in them. A very bright cast--including Téa Leoni, George Hamilton, Treat Williams, Debra Messing, Bob Dorian, Mark Rydell and Tiffani Thiessen--adds some much-needed sparkle. Cinematography from Wedigo von Schultzendorff too burnished and 'prestigious' for a fluffball farce. ** from ****
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Misbegotten
Nazi youth in World War II-era Germany, mentored by the spirit of a chummy Adolf Hitler, is a disaster at training camp, and so returns home to live with his mother and discovers she's hiding a Jewish girl under their very roof. Boisterously disrespectful black comedy is generally unfunny despite a solid cast and an audacious vision--all in the service of a premise that simply doesn't play. Writer-director Taika Waititi, adapting Christine Leunens' novel "Caging Skies", also co-stars as buddy Adolf, and it's hard to imagine which of his jobs here is the more misbegotten. Intending his film to be an over-the-top anti-hate satire, one must credit the work as original--but some will laugh or others won't. Six Oscar nominations with one win: Waititi for Best Adapted Screenplay. Two Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture-Musical or Comedy. Six BAFTA nominations, winning for Best Adapted Screenplay. Taika Waititi was also a DGA nominee for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, a WGA nominee for Adapted Screenplay, and a Grammy nominee as producer of the compilation soundtrack. *1/2 from ****
The Quiet Earth (1985)
"I've been condemned to live..."
A government project initiated by the US titled Flashlight--energy transmissions sent through a grid around the Earth--has malfunctioned, creating a rip in space-time that has eliminated all life from the planet except for an executive at the New Zealand headquarters. He wakes up that morning following a suicide attempt only to find empty streets and stores, a plane crash, and the radiated corpse of a co-worker. After a period of complete solitude, he begins to lose his sanity--but two other survivors eventually turn up: a woman and another man. Bruno Lawrence holds the screen alone for a solid 30mns and does it exceptionally well (he was the absolute right actor for this role); however, there must be a movie rule that dictates there cannot be merely a single character in a feature-length film, and so the others are introduced rather disappointingly (the woman, played by Alison Routledge, is clipped and dryly efficient--carrying a purse!--hardly the type of a woman who must have thought for a two-week span she was the only living human on Earth). Very well-made, well-shot by James Bartle, and with terrific sound, but at some point the movie stops being fun and becomes "an exercise". Lawrence also co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Baer and Sam Pillsbury, from Craig Harrison's novel. The film swept the New Zealand Film Awards, winning in all eight categories including Best Film, Best Actor for Lawrence, and Best Supporting Actor for Pete Smith. ** from ****
The Whale (2022)
Pure theatre
Director Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his play, has been made with great care, lots of fiery and tender emotions, and a plaintive heart--yet it is mostly staffed with the kind of spouting-off characters I can do without. Brendan Fraser is quite wonderful portraying Charlie, an English professor in Idaho--obese and housebound--who instructs his students online, his webcam "broken". Charlie's meals consist of takeout food and candy bars, while his caregiver (the sister of his lover, who has committed suicide) indulges his eating habits while also berating him for not seeking medical help. This woman, played by Hong Chau, is ostensibly here to order the other characters around, to get mad at our sad sack protagonist (but always with love and understanding) and to cry freely because she feels he'll be dead from congestive heart failure in a week. Others on the stage (because this material is very stagey) include Charlie's ex-wife and teenage daughter--whom Charlie left for the love of his life, another man--and a young male missionary who feels he was brought to Charlie's front door by God's will to save him. Hunter's material doesn't allow for a life outside Charlie's apartment, and so we unavoidably have characters making big, dramatic entrances and exits. Charlie is an achingly sensitive character--even the outrageous things he does such as going on a food binge and throwing it all up doesn't detract from his sweet, gentle nature. When Fraser's big eyes and smeary mouth register the abuse heaped upon him by his willful daughter, he's never less than marvelous. However, these impossible family members and that worrisome kid with the Bible are little more than writer's pretentions--even the caregiver is bad news (she preaches and teaches). True, we must be filled in on who everyone is and what their connection is to Charlie, but they keep returning to the scene with the same lofty rhetoric. "The Whale", its title referring to a (secret) writer's simple-but-direct thesis on Melville's "Moby Dick", isn't honest, exactly--it's pure theatre. Hunter introduces elements such as the bedroom of the deceased boyfriend (kept 'just as he left it') and a bird who relies on Charlie to feed it, but he doesn't take them anywhere (they're not even sentimentalized). There are moments of beauty and anguish here, but not enough to bring this twisted family portrait together. ** from ****
My Massive Cock (2022)
Not especially enlightening or titillating--if that's what they were going for...
British lads with large members air their grievances in being exploited/disrespected/fetishized for their endowments. With the average size of a man's penis being around 5", the group of mostly heterosexual men gathered here seem to have a communal chip on their shoulders much larger than that. There's the lonely guy who can't get a woman to love him for the person he is (he inquires about a penis reduction from a urologist); there's a muscular, tattooed ex-plumber who is using his size for hook-ups and to make extra money; one man takes a cast of his member and shows the model off to his lady friends (they giggle), while another man with a full package is tired of his mates joking about him in the changing room. For balance (I guess), a few women are interviewed for their thoughts: some enjoy a large penis and some don't, some are intimated by a massive erection and at least one woman actively seeks them out (using her flexible boyfriend of seven years to complete a threesome). Not-shy UK documentary special with a Polish distributor is narrated by "Love Actually" actress Julia Davis, who has a dry smirk in her voice. It isn't especially enlightening, nor is it titillating--if that's what they were going for. Mostly, these men seem unhappy. Their romantic failures appear to be directly linked to the phallus but, as one woman says, "A big penis is one thing, but you've got to know how to swing it." *1/2 from ****
Lost Souls (2000)
Winona Ryder Meets the Antichrist (and no, it's not Beetlejuice)...
Critically-drubbed, commercially-ignored thriller opened the same day as the re-release of "The Exorcist" and promptly vanished (after being held on the shelf for over a year). I'm hard-pressed to summarize the film's plot, as it made no sense to me while watching the movie and seems even more illogical now. Winona Ryder has a sketchily-defined character, that of a troubled young woman in New York City who lost her parents early and went into a downward spiral. She's now a teacher who assists in exorcisms on her time off, receiving a message in code from a possessed asylum patient that spells out a name--the name of a 32-year-old man who, on his 33rd birthday, will become the Antichrist--Satan's "transformation". Luckily for Ryder, the unsuspecting guy is right there in the city, and he doesn't believe a word of any of this when the girl confronts him (would you?). The man in question is Ben Chaplin, playing a writer of non-fiction crime; he has a beautifully-sculpted face (though one without much modulation) and takes to the camera quite handsomely, so naturally when Ryder infiltrates his office at night, she gets herself dolled-up and does her makeup! This has to be one of the silliest devil thrillers ever, with two exorcisms (mostly from behind closed doors), neither of which turns out well. At the end, when Chaplin realizes the only way to escape his fate as Satan's disciple is to be killed, he hands Ryder a gun and they wait while a digital clock ticks down to his birth-time--and when we get to the big moment, there's a hilarious pause before the clock reads 666! Hopefully, everyone had a good time and was well-paid. Viewers might enjoy laughing through this one, which is admittedly never dull. *1/2 from ****
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968)
Satisfactory comedy vehicle for Don Knotts...
Remake of Bob Hope's "The Paleface" from 1948 stars Don Knotts as a graduated dental student in 1870 Philadelphia who travels West, becoming involved with sexy Barbara Rhodes, a stagecoach robber (she says to him, "I have a terrrrible toothache!" to which Knotts unsteadily replies, "Is it in your mouth?"). Not-bad star-vehicle has that dreary, cut-rate Universal look but also some witty writing and funny sight gags, a lively Vic Mizzy score and an adept comedy cast including Carl Ballantine, Pat Morita, Herbert Voland, Ruth McDevitt, and Leonard Stone and Naomi Stevens (both uncredited). **1/2 from ****
The Devil's Daughter (1973)
Another off-the-rails performance by Shelley Winters...
Possibly conceived by writer Colin Higgins after a "Rosemary's Baby" binge, this surprisingly engrossing movie-of-the-week from director Jeannot Szwarc still manages to be a tasty occult offering. After her estranged mother is found dead, 21-year-old Belinda J. Montgomery meets her mother's childhood best friend at the funeral who takes the sweet orphan into her home. Montgomery sparkles with youthful ignorance, and doesn't even take notice of the Satanic painting in Shelley Winters' living room on her first visit (when she finally does see it, she's not even curious enough to ask questions about its origin). Higgins delights in throwing every conceivable trick from the devil's manual into his script: black cats, recurring nightmares, an insignia ring that portends evil, Satanic honchos who look like mobster bodyguards, a mute chauffeur who tries to warn the girl, and a kindly priest who says "I don't listen to any of the gossip." A terrific cast backs up the ladies: Jonathan Frid, Robert Foxworth, Martha Scott, Joseph Cotten, Abe Vigoda, Diane Ladd. It's not Polanski, but it is creepy and has been made with a modicum of style. **1/2 from ****
Some Velvet Morning (2013)
"This isn't going to end well. Didn't you read 'Lolita'?"
Two-character ex-lovers' drama, one which appears to be about an unhappily married attorney finally leaving his wife and going back to the mistress he broke up with four years prior, lifts its title from the Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazlewood song of 1967 (though it isn't played or even referenced). Writer-director Neil LaBute doesn't write dialogue, he writes arguments. There's a plot twist, of course (there'd better be one), but not before Stanley Tucci and Alice Eve moan and groan over each other for close to 84mns. Tucci and the London-born, heavily-accented Eve don't make music with their voices--and they don't match up right visually, either: she's boxy and disheveled and she overwhelms him. LaBute hopes to hold our attention by adding a few near-altercations and some specific lines of sexuality (which, when coming from the classy, urbane Tucci, do nothing but make us uncomfortable). The direction isn't static, but it does little more than move us from room to room in Eve's ridiculously high townhouse (with much clomping about up and down the stairs). Meanwhile, the the verbal jousting is so angry and resentful, we can't perceive any former passion in this relationship. But do any of these criticisms matter when the final scene trivializes all that came before it? Is LaBute laughing at us? After sitting through "Some Velvet Morning", many viewers might wish to have a joust with LaBute themselves. *1/2 from ****
Separate Tables (1958)
Handsome, chatty drawing-room drama with accent on character...
Set at the ornately-designed Hotel Beauregard in England, David Niven's easily-flustered Major Pollock is mooned over by a spinster (Deborah Kerr) while failing to hide a scandalous part of his past; meanwhile, glamorous Anne (Rita Hayworth) crosses paths again with volatile ex-husband John (Burt Lancaster), who is engaged to Miss Cooper (Wendy Hiller), the hotel's manager. Adapting two of his one-act plays, co-screenwriter Terence Rattigan offers dryly clever chit-chat and grand theatrical opportunities for the masterful acting ensemble. It remains, however, a stage bound experience without the electricity of a live performance. Niven won his only Oscar for this performance; Hiller also received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. **1/2 from ****
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
For the most part, junk...
Harrison Ford is back as Indiana Jones, this time up against time fissures and with a "former" Nazi as his chief rival for two-halves of a mechanism built by mathematician Archimedes. "Fast-paced" would be an understatement; this thing is designed like a theme park ride (though it still didn't keep the kids in their seats--most of them were out in the theater lobby on their phones after the opening half-hour). Director and co-writer James Mangold (of all people) used to be a great actors' director, but it's only when he (finally) slows down the pace do we have time to engage with the characters. Is "Dial of Destiny" junk? For the most part, yes (and, in regards to the villain's initial fate, it also feels like a cheat). But it is nice to see Ford back in action, and there's a great chase involving a horse--CGI-infused, of course. One SAG nomination: for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble (!). ** from ****
You & I (2014)
The mysteries of male-to-male attraction...
Confusing homosexual feelings consume an otherwise straight young man on a jaunt through northeastern Germany with his gay best friend. The two men are buddies, nothing more, but when they pick up a male hitchhiker and an attraction forms between the gay friend and the stranger, the heterosexual feels an emotional conflict. Unassuming German drama with lots of photogenic scenes of muscular young bodies at play in the fields and in the water. A minor piece of work, not particularly moving or interesting until near the end, but certainly well-acted by the trio and handsomely-made. One serious quibble: the grating, generic rock tunes on the soundtrack. *1/2 from ****
White Nights (1985)
Nyet!
He won't dance, don't ask him... Probably the worst film to ever to earn an Oscar (for the substandard Lionel Ritchie song "Say You Say Me"), this Taylor Hackford-directed drama buddies up tap dancer Gregory Hines with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov amidst wives, ex-lovers and the KGB! Hines is an American who defected to the USSR in protest against the treatment of blacks during the Vietnam War; Baryshnikov is a celebrated Russian dancer who defected to the US. After Mikhail's plane bound for Tokyo is forced down in Siberia, Hines is pressured by the Kremlin to get the ballet star back on-stage with the Kirov Academy of Ballet. The dancing rehearsals are fun, but the ridiculous plot leaves one in a state of apoplexy. Sloppily (or, rather, lazily) put together, the picture is weighed down with sniveling, smirking villains and a "You're free! You're free!" finale that defies explanation. * from ****
Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval (2024)
Final stand-up comedy special from Ellen is a love letter...to herself and, ostensibly, to her own 'perseverance' in the face of adversity
Two years after leaving her chummy afternoon chat show, which ran on TV for 19 seasons, Ellen pretty much disappeared following reports that not only wasn't she the nice lady we all thought she was but that the workplace environment at "Ellen" was toxic. Live on-stage at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, DeGeneres tiptoes around the topic after a brief prologue where she appears to reflect on her career (but not verbally--it's just Ellen looking wistful and maybe vulnerable while headlines pass before us). After a few silly stories about her car and the joy of living with chickens, Ellen attempts to address her fall from grace in a humorous way (the adoring audience enjoys it). But, by belittling the accusations and shrugging off her detractors with sarcasm, Ellen comes off as tense and bitter. Looking more and more like Glenn Close with elfin ears, DeGeneres doesn't smile anymore: her down-turned mouth makes a smile into a hard-set grimace, while her eyes pop open as if she were caught stealing. Her patter can be amusing (Ellen hasn't lost her touch with a story or her rueful delivery); however, when she morphs into defense mode, the shield that comes up is unshakeable and a little frightening. Admitting she's demanding and impatient, Ellen ends with, "But I'm a strong woman"--and the audience gives her a 1mn standing ovation. Reportedly paid an exorbitant sum by Netflix, the victim stance DeGeneres perpetuates here doesn't hold much value for us. She says she "played tag" with her employees, dropped fake snakes from the ceiling during a meeting, played pranks--but does that make her a mean person? Ellen never intended to become "a boss", and she didn't feel like one despite her face and name being "the brand" ("That's like Ronald McDonald being CEO at McDonald's"). Yet one would think she would have more to say about "being kicked out of show business" than telling us, "I loved doing that show. It felt like family." Ellen wants our approval--and she gets it from this crowd--but she's apparently through with performing and wants to retreat home to her chickens. Happy trails.
Little Bites (2024)
Nothing wrong with the acting or production, but the script seems half-finished
Single mother shoos her kid away with grandma so she can deal with the bloodthirsty demon/vampire living in her downstairs storage room. Minor, independently-produced horror outing was something of a family affair: writer-director Spider One is also married to the lead, Krsy Fox, who doubled as the film's editor; both were producers on the film, along with executive producers Cher and her son, Chaz Bono, who has a supporting role. There's nothing at all wrong with the acting--which is quite solid--and the production doesn't feel slapdash; however, Spider One's script doesn't go in for a backstory, leaving itself open to unanswered questions and gaps of logic. This guy just wants to get to the finale, which has a comical twist--though, again, it doesn't make much sense. *1/2 from ****
The Buttercup Chain (1970)
Flashy and frisky
The son and daughter of twin sisters, born at the same time in the same hospital, grow up to become best friends; they help each other find romantic partners--however, they are the ones who share the intense relationship. Intriguing little drama from the UK, adapted from the novel by Janice Elliott and released in the US in 1971, examines the intricate feelings between couples rather shrewdly, though it has a very light, frisky beginning (the cousins pick up a Swedish boat rower, who is instantly smitten with the girl and does cartwheels for her in the nude!). Hywel Bennett, in a panama hat and neckerchiefs, continues to be an actor ill-suited to non-hysterical drama (his eyes say Crazy), but the rest of the cast--Jane Asher, Leigh Taylor-Young, Sven-Bertil Taube, and Clive Revill as an unloved millionaire--are quite good. Production and editing both flashy, while director Robert Ellis Miller (a nominee at Cannes for the Palme d'Or) keeps a brisk pace. **1/2 from ****