2010 - TAMARA DREW, a good comedy from a graphic novel for a change

Gemma Atherton is Tamara Drew a woman returning to her small home town in Dorset, England to settle her mother's estate and generally create havoc with a lot of the men in the village.  

The director is the talented Stephen Frears who is a good storyteller and works very well with actors who in this case were carefully cast.  Frears is a filmmaker who manages to pick interesting projects throughout his career.  He hasn't allowed himself to get locked into one particular genre.  The Hit, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, The Van, The Hi-Lo Country and Tamara Drew  couldn't be more different but Frears manages to bring a lot of skill when it comes to making entertaining movies

Gemma Arerton is a very talented performer who has been attached to some interesting films but her attempts at some large scale Hollywood films like the stupid Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and the unnecessary Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The King's Men have not really been successful.  She appears to have carved out a career in some off beat interesting films.  Arterton comes off on screen as a very likable performer and her character Tamara Drew is not a particularly likable person.

The film was based on a graphic novel aka "comic book."  It was well written by Moira Buffini, the running time is 111 minutes. An entertaining film.

1991 - ENCHANTED APRIL, is really boring

On the never ending search to find films I can share with my wife I found this tiresome bore of a film.  The film's own advertising proclaimed "that if you love A Room With A View you will love Enchanted April."  Well I've seen A Room With A View and I can assure you this film is no A Room With A View.

The story such that it is concerns four women who rent a villa in Italy for a month.  They're all repressed in their lives or under the thumbs of their husbands.  A vacation in Italy for a month is just the thing to turn their lives around.  A month in the Italian countryside is going to solve all their problems never mind the other eleven months of the year.

The story has the usual bunch of British characters that show up in these period pieces.  Everyone acts and talks like they are the most emotionally and unhappily repressed people on the planet.  There's lots of introspection and soul searching as they wander around the villa and they wander around the villa a lot.

The film was photographed in Portofino, Italy so the viewer gets many shots of sunlight glistening off of the lake, spiderwebs artfully photographed and lots and lots of photography of one woman sitting in a garden sunning herself.  Not actually an action packed film. 

Clearly the film was trying to pull off a romantic mood but for a film like this to succeed you really have to know your stuff to put this mood stuff over.  You just can't make a film with four women walking around a villa for an hour and a half and not have something happening.  You need interesting characters, interesting situations and interesting dialog which you won't find in this film.  Enchanted April could barely past the mustard as some dull PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation.

The film was written by Peter Barnes, the running time is an interminable 95 minutes.   

2025 - ETERNITY, another afterlife comedy/romance/fantasy

Apparently in these Hollywood movies about the afterlife you just don't get to go to heaven and enjoy yourself you still are faced with all sorts of decisions about what kind of eternity you are going to enjoy and who you are going to enjoy it with.  This is the dilemma for The Scarlett Witch herself Elizabeth Olsen who has passed on and has to pick who she will spend eternity with her last husband who she was married to for 65 years or her first husband who was the passionate love of her life before he died early.

There's a whole bunch of these afterlife films.  The weird Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come which has a love story/suicide plot line.  Albert Brook's very funny Defending Your Life with Brooks as an advertising executive who ends up in Judgement City.  At time of his death he was screwing around with the CD player in his car instead of paying attention to the road.  

Made in Heaven has Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis as a couple of unborn souls who fall in love and have to find each other when they are on Earth or else they will get yanked back to Heaven.  Made in Heaven was directed by Alan Rudolph so you can be sure it's going to be on the strange side.  

A quick shout out to Powell and Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven a very impressive World War II film made at the peak of their skills.  That should go near the top of the list. 

For my money the best afterlife film is Heaven Can Wait the Ernest Lubitsch film. This is not strictly an afterlife film although it starts in the afterlife.  Don Ameche is a philandering husband who has to relate the story of his life to the Devil before he goes to hell.  This is a terrific film filmed in beautiful 1940's technicolor. 

 Let's get back to Eternity.  Yeah it's okay, the actors are decent the world building of the afterlife is some sort of train station.  That's kind of interesting.  It drags in the middle as we have to wait for Elizabeth Olsen to make her husband decision although it's fairly apparent who she will pick.

Eternity was written by Pat Cunnane and David Freyne, the running time is 114 minutes. 

2026 - VOICEMAILS FOR ISABELLE, rom-com time

Zoey Deutch races around San Francisco like a "manic pixie dream girl" (do they still use that term?) bemoaning that she can't keep a boyfriend.  Never mind the fact that she looks like a movie star with makeup and a wardrobe that would be the envy of any single woman living on an assistant chef's salary.  At one point you want to scream at the television set and tell her to calm down and take some Adderall.

Well let's get the synopsis out of the way.  Zoey is a chef working for a Hitler like master chef.  She has a terminally ill sister who she talks to on the phone all the time.  When the sister passes away, Zoey continues to call her sister's phone and leave voicemails to cope with her grief.  Little does Zoey know that her sister's phone number has now been reassigned to a cute real estate salesman who listens to the voicemails and falls in love with Zoey.  He arranges to meet her and we get the usual falling in love montage between the two of them.  Will the cute guy fess up to Zoey about the voicemails so we can get to a happy ending as quickly as possible?

 

 While viewing this I could hardly believe Zoey Deutch was the same performer who did such a good job playing actor Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague.  Deutch's over the top performance would probably keep any normal guy from ever getting involved with such a disturbed nutcase.

  

The plot owes a lot to You Got Mail and the Ernest Lubitsch film The Shop Around the Corner.  I will give the writer/director Leah McKendrick credit for injecting enough humor and clever moments to make this film watchable.

The running time is 118 minutes.  

2026 - OFFICE ROMANCE, standard rom-com stuff made for streaming

I watched this because why not.  Nobody is going to confuse this with a classic romantic comedy.  In fact nobody is going to confuse this with anything.

 

Jennifer Lopez at 56, still looks great in a two piece swimsuit but probably getting a little old for this stuff, is the head of an airline that is being sued for some reason.  British actor Brett Goldstein remembered for playing Roy Kent in Ted Lasso is the attorney who is representing her company in the lawsuit.  They fall in love, the road to a happy ending is sort of rocky but it will all work out.

 

Some of the jokes are funny most are not.  A few interesting actors show up like Bradley Whitford, Edward James Olmos, Amy Sedaris and Betty Gilpin.  They manage to steal the show from the two leads but that didn't take much.

 

For a "watch with your significant other rom-com" there is a level of raunchy and not particularly funny humor throughout the film.  The photography is pretty.  This film will slide into the abyss of streaming films that show up for a week and are then forgotten.

The film was written by Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly.  The running time is 115 minutes is should have really been shorter.

1958 - INDISCREET, a polished production of a very slight story

This should have been an entertaining romantic comedy.  The leads were Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.  The producer/director was Stanley Donen a man of taste and style.  The writer was Norman Krasna an old pro at this romantic comedy stuff.  The cinematographer was F.A. Young who was usually associated with David Lean's super epics, it looks very pretty in technicolor.  The end result of all this effort is a very mild film with lots and lots of talk.

Bergman plays what else, a world famous actress who enters into an affair with rich banker Cary Grant who is apparently married. The film's contrived plot hangs on the premise that Grant actually isn't married but is pretending to be married to avoid having to get married, well something like that.  

 

This film was made under the Cary Grant, Stanley Donen production company Grandon.  It was the first of their three films which included The Grass is Greener and Charade.  The idea seemed to be to film sophisticated and very glossy entertainments of "the privileged class enjoying their privileges" as they liked to say.

For all the good looking clothes and impressive London locations the film just doesn't really come off with it's dumb premise.  Grant and Bergman make a good looking couple but they don't really have any genuinely witty dialog to work with.  They are supported by English character actors Cecil Parker and Phyllis Calvert who are much better at delivering Krasna's lame dialog and frankly when they are off screen they are really missed.  I guess if you are a fan of classic Hollywood stars like Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman the film is sort of enertaining.

The running time is an overlong 100 minutes.   

1963 - CHARADE, excellent romantic thriller

This is an excellent and very entertaining comedy thriller made by Hollywood professionals at the peak of their abilities.  It starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and who ever had the inspired idea to team them up as a romantic couple should have gotten a big bonus.  Here are two stars who really deliver the goods.  Cary Grant had done enough Hitchcock films so he knew how to balance the comedic and suspense elements in this story.  Audrey Hepburn was no slouch either.  She had also performed in romantic comedies and dramas with great success.  These two performers were very experienced actors when it came to making films and they really knew how to deliver the romantic couple goods.

 

The director Stanley Donen had worked at MGM during it's peak period when they were producing stylish musicals.  Donen along with Gene Kelly had created an impressive body of work with films like On The Town, Singing In The Rain and the underrated It's Always Fair Weather.  On his own he directed Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Funny Face.   As the musical genre wrapped up Donen focused on sophisticated comedies and in this case romantic thrillers.  Charade was one of his best films.

  

A big part of Charade's success is the screenplay by Peter Stone and Marc Behm which balanced the comedy, romance and suspense elements.  The cinematographer Charles Lang was one of Hollywood's top cameraman who had worked with John Sturges, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With this kind of talent Charade could hardly miss.  It was a critical and commercial hit. 

 

The running time is 113 minutes.  

2013 - BEAUTIFUL CREATURES , gothic southern teen love story stuff

We're south of the Mason Dixon line in South Carolina where sensitive teenager Ethan Wate is about to fall in love.  How do we know he's sensitive?  Well he's reading Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut and it's not even on the assigned reading list for his high school English class.  Into his life comes transfer student Lena Duchannes from the far way land of New York City.  Ethan is immediately smitten with her and vice versa.  But Lena has a big secret she is secretly a "caster" (witch) who has magic powers.  When she turns 16 she will either become a good caster or an evil caster.  Can Mason stop Lena from turning into an evil caster?  He will have to fight the powers of darkness to keep this from happening.  I guess that means Mason needs to read more Charles Bukowski novels or something.

 

So what we have here is a variation on the Twilight series except this time it's a girl with supernatural powers instead of a boy.  The viewer has to sit through a lot of mumble jumble about casters, reincarnation, magic spell books and mysterious magic people who secretly co-exist with us mortals.  I am reluctant to say this film reminds me of the old Elizabeth Montgomery TV series Bewitched because that would be wrong.  However it does remind me of the spinoff to Bewitched, Tabatha who was Elizabeth Montgomery's witch daughter. 

 

The cast of this film is the usual bunch of actors in their 20's trying to pass for 15 year old teenagers.  Somehow Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis also got roped into this foolishness and they really should have known better.   The writer/director Richard LaGravenese was the one responsible for this southern gothic young adult fiction nonsense.  He's usually a competent writer but in this case he should have known better.

 

Beautiful Creatures stumbles through it's contrived teenage love story trying to create it's magical world  but in the end the world building is just tiresome and dissatisfying.  Beautiful Creatures is part of a four book series and clearly the intention was to make another Twilight series.  But the movie was an under performer and that put an end to the studio's money making dreams.  My advice would be to dig out your copy of The Wizard of Oz and watch that again.

The running time of this film is 124 long minutes.  

1974 - ZANDY'S BRIDE, a western and a love story (maybe)

In the old west rancher Zandy Allen has decided he wants to marry.  He places an ad in a newspaper and Hannah Lund agrees to be his mail order bride.  It turns out that Zandy is a real misogynist and treats his new bride like a piece of crap as he looks at her like she's a breed mare.  It's battle of the sexes time as Hannah fights to earn respect from Zandy. 

The leads are played by Gene Hackman as Zandy Allen and Hannah Lund played be Liv Ullmann.  However I would have to say that Hackman is playing one of the most repellent characters I have ever seen in film.  Watching this film it's impossible to understand why the Liv Ullmann character would ever stick around to be mentally and physically abused by this guy.

 

The other issue with the film is the storytelling. With the exception of Hackman's larger than life asshole of a character this film is mighty low key storytelling. The director Jan Troell is a Swedish filmmaker trying to blend his  European filmmaker sensibility onto a simple American western.  Troell gets some very mixed results.  I suspect the American  settings might have been a little beyond his ability to get a handle on this Hollywood production.

 

The film was shot on location in the Big Sur area of California so the locations are mighty impressive to look at.  Jan Troell was always a very strong visual director particularly in his Scandinavian films..  The scenery is probably the best thing in this film but most film goers usually don't watch movies for the pretty pictures.  

The film was written by Marc Norman, the running time is 97 minutes. 

2026 - SOLO MIO, okay romantic comedy

Unlikely leading man Kevin James is a school art teacher who proposes to his long time girlfriend.  The plan is for them to get married in Rome.  During the wedding she leaves him at the alter and he is understandingly depressed.  He meets the owner of a coffee shop named Gia who he bonds with.  Do I have to paint a picture about how this plot is going to end up? 

This is a very mildly pleasant rom-com.  The actors are decent, Kevin James has spent years on TV sitcoms so he has his comedy sthick down fairly well.  The actor playing Gia, Nicole Grimaudo is likable even if she does overdo the excitable Italian woman character thing a bit much.

 

Really the best reason to see this film is the on location filming in Rome and the Italian countryside actually the only reason to sort of sit through this thing. This is one of those films that was made for streaming at home, you don't need to have any emotional investment in the story.  All right I'll say it, it's the perfect film to watch with your significant other.

 

The film was barely written by the directors, John Kinnane, Dan Kinnane and Kevin James, the running time is a brisk 96 minutes. 

1993 - SHADOWLANDS, a love story

This film is a love story between celebrated Christian author C.S Lewis and an American poet Joy Davidman a Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity,  She had been corresponding by mail with Lewis for some time and finally traveled to England to meet him.  Much to his surprise he found himself falling into a relationship with her.

The leads were played by Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins and they were played very well.  In fact the entire cast performed at a very high level.  Even the young boy playing Winger's son from a first marriage doesn't have any of those annoying overacting tendencies that a lot of these child performers seem to pick up.

 

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and it's probably the best film he made as a director.  Attenborough had a long career acting with some of the best British directors.  But as a director himself a lot of his pictures were very stodgy and ponderous.  It seemed that Attenborough was only interested in making "important" pictures," so audiences sat throught long dull films like Gandhi, Cry Freedom and Chaplin.  They may have been intended to be of great cinematic significance but they sure were boring. 

 

In Shadowlands he had a good script, good actors and an excellent cinematographer in Roger Pratt.  The end result is a very touching love story which was filmed in the classic film style and worked very well.

The film was well written by William Nicholson, the running time is 131 minutes. 

1963 - LOVE IS A BALL, undemanding romcom

An innocuous time killer for the most part.  Love Is A Ball is the kind of film that the slowly dying movie studios were still pumping out in their foolhardy attempt to compete with television.  The film was filmed on location on the French Riviera so it looks pretty.  It has a good cast and some of the situations are rather humorous at times.

The semi complicated rom com plot goes like this.  Charles Boyer is a person who arranges very rich people to get married to impoverished royalty. He takes a penniless aristocrat in this case Ricardo Montalban and does a Pygmalion thing to him.  The makeover will make him acceptable to a rich American heiress played by Hope Lange.  Lange is playing a sexy party girl, she was an okay actress but the sexy party girl role may have been a little beyond her acting range.  Glenn Ford figures in this story as a championship auto racer who has to teach Ricardo how to be a race driver.  Glenn ends up going undercover as Hope's chauffeur so the director and writers can create a contrived romance between the two of them.

 

The film has an interesting cast besides the above mention actors.  Telly Savalas is Hope's guardian.  Savalas played a lot of "he-man" roles but in this film he's kind of a foppish character. Character actor Ruth McDevitt is Hope's Grandmother or Aunt or something.  I've seen McDevitt in a lot a lot of movies and TV shows, she was always a reliable presence in a movie.  Also showing up is Swedish actress Ulla Jacobsson in her first American film and clearly trying to break into the international film scene.  She's barely in the movie and really doesn't make much of an impression.

 

The director David Swift was kind of an old hand at this fluffy stuff.  He worked for Walt Disney and make a couple of good films, The Parent Trap and a very good version of Pollyanna.  He went on to make Good Neighbor Sam and an excellent film version of the musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  

 

For such a light piece of film junk the production was apparently not a happy one.  Glenn Ford clashed with the director frequently, he was apparently in his 'I'm a movie star" mode.  Ford and Hope Lange were a couple in real life which didn't help matters.  Swift was an unhappy camper during the shoot.

The was written by David Swift, Tom Waldman and Frank Waldman, the running time is 111 minutes.

2011 - WE BOUGHT A ZOO, entertaining thanks to one really good performance

A very slight film from one time wonder boy Cameron Crowe.  No need to rehash this story since it's in the title.  It's generally known that Crowe was a big admirer of Billy Wilder a director who really knew how to blend comedy and drama into his films.  However We Bought A Zoo seems more like a Frank Capra film than a Wilder film and we're talking a Frank Capra film from the 1950's when Capra was in his big time artistic and creative decline.

This film is kind of a mix of comedy, family drama and romance.  It has some good scenes and some good actors but it you are allergic to cute little kids beware because this one has a real scene stealer.  The underrated Scarlett Johnansson is a zoo keeper and potential love interest and Thomas Hayden Church plays the brother of the main protagonist.  He isn't in the film enough but he's very funny

 

What makes this film very watchable is Matt Damon as the widower father looking to restart his life with his family by buying a decrepit zoo.  Damon pulls off the comedy and family drama stuff expertly and manages to sell even the silliest scenes in the film with his sincere performance.  He makes this film worth seeing.

 

An uneven film at best, this is another example of actors coming to the rescue of a less than perfect screenplay.  

The film was written by Cameron Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna.  The running time is an overlong 124 minutes. 

1935 - THE GOOD FAIRY, good 1930's romantic comedy

An early film from William Wyler who was entering his best period as a director.  Margaret Sullivan a rather unconventional actress is an orphan who gets a job at one of those opulent movie theaters which don't exist anymore. She ends up getting involved with three men. A waiter, the theater owner and a morose attorney. 

Wyler was a great director who could work in about any genre and what this film also has going for it is a screenplay by the legendary Preston Sturges.  This film is loaded with his weird characters and goofy situations.

 

If you are a fan of classic Hollywood actors, seeing Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz himself and classy British actor Herbert Marshall act like complete fools makes this film a lot of fun.  Margaret Sullivan didn't do a lot of films but she was an excellent performer and managed to play the naive orphan without looking like an idiot.

 

This is a very well made and still very entertaining comedy from as they used to say "the golden age of Hollywood."  Wyler 's direction is very smooth when it comes to moving the story along and working with actors always his strong points throughout his career. A high recommendation for this one.

The running time is 98 minutes. 

1955 - THE TENDER TRAP, really outdated rom-com

 Frank Sinatra is a New York press agent who dates a bevy of babes, a real lady killer.  Debbie Reynolds is a would be actress who as it turns out is only interested in getting married (her Mrs. degree) and having kids in the suburbs.  Frank falls for Debbie, Debbie falls for Frank but will Frank settle down and become that hubby in the suburbs that Debbie wants?

The film was apparently adapted from a three character play that was staged on a single set.  For the film version the play was "opened up" to include locations around New York City.  However a careful look at the film shows that this movie filmed in CinemaScope was shot on the MGM back lot, not an NYC location anywhere in this film. 

The supporting cast features Celeste Holm as an over the hill spinster. Apparently in this film spinster means she's in her 30's.  David Wayne is Sinatra's old buddy who has run away from his wife in Indianapolis or some god awful Midwestern city.  Wayne wants to become a playboy dude like Frankie.

 

Also showing up in a very small part is "Gavin Elster" the chief bad guy from Vertigo played by the actor Tom Helmore

If the plot of this movie wasn't so asinine it would almost be really offensive instead of just offensive.  The age difference between perky Debbie and Lothario Frank has to be close to a 20 year difference.  In fact Debbie Reynolds kind of comes off as not having all her oars in the water with her marriage obsession.

What's good about this film?  Well the theme song by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen isn't to bad and Sinatra had a big hit with it.

The film was written by ace screenwriter Julius Epstein, the running time is 111 minutes.  

1934 - BRITISH AGENT - confused romance/thriller

Leslie Howard is the very British agent working to undermine the Russian Revolution.  He hopes to bring a more sympathetic government into power that will support the British during World War I.  Kay Johnson is a Russian revolutionary who Howard falls in love with.  Unbeknown to Howard, Johnson is a double agent who will betray Howard in order to advance the cause of the Communist Revolution.

This is one confusing mess of a film.  The screenplay is so convoluted it's impossible to tell if this film is pro Russian Revolution or anti Russian Revolution.

Kay Francis the love interest for Leslie Howard playing the Russian agent is an interesting choice.  She might have been a little miscast. Francis was from Oklahoma and she didn't even attempt a European accent.  Future "Joker" villain Caesar Romero from the original Adam West version of Batman is a diplomat working with Howard.  The rest of the cast is made up of  the usual Warner Brothers stock company.

The film was directed by filmmaker pro Michael Curtiz but even he couldn't do much with this confusing mess of story elements and mismatched actors to make it coherent.

The film was written by Laird Houston Doyle and Roland Pertwee, the running time is a short 81 minutes.

2025 - THE MATERIALISTS - attempt at a realistic rom-com

The Materialists should get brownie points for attempting a new spin on the romantic comedy.  The film has three very good looking and charismatic leads, the New York locations have been carefully chosen and the performances are very good.  However as realistic as the situations are this is kind of a depressing film.

SPOILERS

Dakota Johnson plays a matchmaker working with high end clients who are looking for a significant other to partner up with.  While attending a wedding of one of her clients, she meets a rich handsome businessman played by the current actor flavor of the month actor Pedro Pascal.  Also at the wedding is Johnson's former boyfriend played by Chris "Captain America" Evans who is  just a poor starving caterer.

Will Dakota chose the rich guy or the former boyfriend who she was once in love with and ended the relationship because he was poor?  Since this is still a rom-com even with a more serious spin than usual for this genre, it's fairly easy to guess where this plot is going to go. 

The problem I have with this film is that the lead character played by Dakota Johnson is such a materialistic cold fish of a human being it's hard to believe anyone would want to be involved with her.  Throughout most of the film she is supposedly attracted to the rich guy because of his money but during the last 15-20 minutes of the film she sees the light and comes down on the side of true love with Captain America.

 

I fully recognize that if Dakota Johnson had picked the rich guy who she isn't in love with over the poor guy who she is in love with the film would not be very appealing for an audience.  However since this is such a cynical film maybe picking the rich guy would have been a more realistic ending.  Instead we have a gooey mess of the "love conquerors all" ending the film finally sinks into. 

The film was written by the director Celine Song, the running time is 117 minutes,