It is a very rare movie that I can enjoy – and recognize as being good – but have to walk away from because it is simply too annoying.
I made it about halfway through Richard Brooks’ kitchen sink “woman’s picture” drama based on Paddy Chayefsky’s teleplay and adapted by Gore Vidal. I mean – Bette Davis’ Bronx Irish fishwife nagging was true enough to make me want to shut her up with the money Ernest Borgnine and I have been saving for that hack license.
For those fascinated with the evaporating “ethnic whites” of New York City, I recommend this movie. For everyone else, please, put your fingers in your ears unless you like nails on chalkboards.
Perhaps I’m being a little over generous with the grade, but I applaud any “genre” fare that tries this hard to dress its age-old story in new clothes.
While the overall beats of this movie can be predicted before you even take your seat, it is a fun ride that makes its way to its inevitable conclusion via some strange routes.
While the plot points are as predictable as a Silver Age comic book, the top notch performances and specificity of the environment make this movie about drug dealin’ Jews well worth your time.
Any movie with a reference to a “Tickle Me Golem” is something you want to know about.
Oy. This one is really stinkin’ bad. Trip gets stuck on a shuttle pod with a princess played by a truly horrendous Padma Lakshmi. Let’s move on.
A bit of luck for Enterprise is that whenever an episode seems as though it was done a bunch of times previously, you can argue back that “this is first!”
So TNG’s The Next Phase or even TOS’ The Tholian Web be damned – Hoshi is trapped in the “in-between” and we have to deal with it.
Or do we? Cause it’s all a dream.
1/2
Another fun one, albeit one we’ve “seen before,” where all but T’Pol goes batty due to. . .I dunno. . .some sort of radiation.
Fun to see how each character manifests their obsessions, especially Dr. Phlox. The nice bit of fan service, of course, is the creation of the “Reed Alert,” but this asks us to believe no one ever remembered the source material of Dr. Strangelove.
1/2
This is a fun one, exploring the way a culture can be contaminated – and discussing the ethics of what would later be called the Prime Directive up the ying-yang.
The action is good, too, though I can’t help think they kinda phoned it in with the MacGuffin. Basically, Malcom Reed lost his cell phone. Kinda lame.
There are a few reasons I don’t particularly care for this episode, but I think it is its gross retconning of Vulcan behavior that bugs me the most.
I don’t even want to talk about it.
I adore Agnes Jaoui’s first two films, The Taste of Others and Look At Me, past the point of all rationality. Nevertheless, even I, a devotee, must admit this movie is a little limp. But, still, tres drole, but much of that is due to the remarkable performance by Jean-Pierre Bacri.
Bacri’s screen persona is completely unique. He is cocksure, handsome (in a French kinda way) and a complete oaf. He is wonderful beyond words in Jaoui’s other films and here again. Alas, he can’t hold the entire picture together, so some of this lags. Still, a definite recommend, especially if you need respite from summer blockbusters.
I hate to say this, but seeing this a second time, and then discussing it, makes me think that I was a wee bit generous with my earlier review.
I can’t tell if this movie is simply great or absolutely fantastic. Either way, if you haven’t seen it, you must. It’s amazing how a movie about a lone outlaw can trick you into rooting for camaraderie.
Also: there are a lot of good gags!
Despite the fact that the story devolves into complete stupidity, I found the bulk of the movie to be really crack, suspenseful filmmaking. There’s a reason why most horror movies just disappear after a month and people still talk about this one.
Enterprise does a Seven Samurai, but not with the best results.
Not a whole heck of this makes sense, though it is fun to watch Klingons again. T’Pol offering hand-to-hand guerilla fighting technique (Suus Mahna) isn’t too shabby, either.
I recognize that, for its time, this was a shocking and new type of subject matter – but the pop psychology on display in Spellbound is just too annoying to stomach.
Plus, the egregious sexism (again, I recognize the date) is rough.
Still, there are moments of great tension and some wonderful visual moments – and not just the Dali stuff. I call this a “good” movie, but not the classic it is cracked up to be – and, certainly, not in my top shelf of Hitchcock.
Nobody knows how to serve up garbage like this like Ridley Scott.
An absolutely gorgeous picture, really, with some of the finest production design and cinematography I’ve ever seen. . . with some of the most ponderous dialogue, wretched acting and baffling story development (if you can call it that) to go along with it.
I actually started this (very long) movie over again, because I was convinced that surely I was missing something.
It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace to epic filmmaking. It has the technical gloss of a Lawrence of Arabia, but makes about as much sense as, oh, Marvel’s “Iron Man vs. Dr. Doom.” And that’s saying something.
Did you know Tony Stark had a housekeeper named Mrs. Fruitbagel?
This collection features Stark and Dr. Doom fighting now, fighting in Arthurian times and fighting in a London two-hundred years hence.
It is all kinds of awful, but uniquely so in a way you can’t put down.
Dr. Doom is a very amusing character, by the way. While I find myself more and more interested in DC over Marvel, I still plan to read John Byrne’s full Fantastic Four Visionaries series. More than one person has told me it changed their life.
