Change Your Image
jrizzo40
Reviews
Forte (2020)
Great film!
Loved it - so well written and directed. Down to each detail - funny while also being authentic. If Hollywood had made this it would have felt false and predictable. But, even though you know where it's headed - you're not so sure it's gonna get there.
Loved the kiss at the end. Only a woman could have directed that.
And Mehla Bedia is a find! Such a naturally funny and winning actress - fell in love with her at first sight.
Because I Said So (2007)
Oh My GOD - this was awful.
I LOVE Diane Keaton - Baby Boom is one of my favorite movies of all time. Something's Gotta Give is so great, I've seen it twice. That's what I thought I was plunking down my $10.50 for when I went to see this horror of a film.
I don't know who to blame more, the writers (Karen Leigh Hopkins & Jessie Nelson) or the director, Michael Lehmann. The actors are pretty blameless here in that they have proved themselves in other films and are basically following the vision of the director and saying the words of the writers. The script is repetitious and all over the place. Mom says the same thing over and over again in many scenes, as do the daughters.
I only laughed twice in the entire film. Which is crazy considering that I am usually a hyena at these movies. One laugh was at ONE of her physical comedy moves (which I usually love) and I can't even remember where the other laugh came from.
First of all, it is filled with illogic. People do and say things that make no sense. There is even a scene in which Mandy pushes Diane Keaton out her back door, which just happens to be wide open. Who leaves a back door WIDE OPEN? I can understand unlocked if you are in a ridiculously safe neighborhood - but, huh??? She takes so long to answer the door any self-respecting guy (or girl) would have gone home, cooked dinner for himself and eaten it during that time span.
I LOVE sex talk, I write about sex talk, my films are sexy, but what the hell was the deal with these women just bursting out in "orgasm chat" any old time? And with your damn mother? I don't think so. Even if she was hip. Which Diane Keaton was not supposed to be in this film.
And speaking of sex ... that's the kind of sex you see on AdultFriendFinders? People making out, professionally lit & shot?
Um, the dresses? Didn't they have a costume designer? We all know D has her own campy style, but someone should have stopped her. Those dresses just look plain bad on her. She's a great looking woman with a slim, fashion-friendly body and yet, she looked like a fool in those crinoline-crazed shirtwaists that spun out so wide she looked like a whirling dervish. She would have been better off in a tux.
And then she forces that ugly polka dot dress on her daughter. And, it turns out, the guy LOVES polka dots. What kinda guy loves polka dots? Is it a fetish or something?
The hyperactive kid is obnoxious as hell and there's the one scene where he tells the stupid bus driver joke to Diane, who listens very carefully and plays along as he tells the same joke over and over. Then, moments later, when the daughter arrives he yells out something like, "I like her. She's the only one who listens to my jokes!"
Oh, and the tasteless scene with the senior citizens in front of whom the musician boyfriend chooses to spout the obligatory "you complete me" speech. In the middle of it, one senior lady says "Can you hurry up, I have to go to the bathroom." Um, why doesn't she just go to the bathroom?
And the two senior ladies playing tonsil hockey was unfortunate and out of place. The gag comes out of left field and makes that whole thing seem totally gross, which is a disservice to all the older lesbian couples in the world. The audience just groaned. Not something you hope to hear in the middle of a love scene.
And this was really weird, at some point she picks up a photo of herself holding her daughter as a baby. That's the SAME PHOTO used so importantly in The Family Stone (another Keaton film that's REALLY good). What's up with that? Are they that cheap?
But the worse crime of all is the director Lehmann's handling of Keaton's performance. She is a wonderful dramatic and comedic actress, but this was like putting her into overdrive. It was like somebody doing an overdone impression of Diane Keaton in a satirical comedy sketch. It's a damn shame to take an actor's natural comedic talents and force her to imitate herself.
I felt similarly of Meg Ryan (who was amazing in Jane Campion's "In the Cut") in her last couple of films with Nora Ephron. These directors fall in love with these actor's eccentricities (as we all do) and instead of letting them just happen, which makes it so charming, they direct the actors into doing these charming things, bigger and bigger, more and more until they lose their charm completely.
Diane, please go back to Nancy Meyers who wrote and directed Baby Boom & Something's Gotta Give. She's got your number and the comedic chops to pull it all off.
Do yourself a favor, don't go see this movie. Why? Because I said so.
Searching for Debra Winger (2002)
A film about passion.
I just finished watching "Searching for Debra Winger" and found it inspiring, refreshingly frank and not whiny in the least! I loved Arquette's unpretentious approach both as director and narrator, felt it moved along at a lively pace and provided a long missing discussion on what it means to be female and an artist. Yes, it dealt with the lack of roles for older women ... yes, it dealt with Hollywood's disinterest in the lives of women ... yes, it dealt with the industry's obsession with an actress's f**k-ability quotient ... because these are the very basic realities of the film business as it stands today. To avoid them would have been bad documentary film-making.
What I was most struck with, though, was the exploration of the passion these women have for their art form and what fuels them, how they integrate it with their home lives and the choices they have made in order to keep their creative juices stoked.
For those who felt it focused on famous actresses and didn't represent the rest of the female population ... DUH. That was the point of the documentary. That was the subject matter of this particular film. If you want to see a film about how the average single moms of the world juggle their work with their lives ... then watch a different documentary.
For me, I thought it was well-made, informative and on target. And while it was unique to women in this particular field, I'm not a famous actress and yet, I still found ways to relate to many of the issues brought to light.
Bravo, Rosanna. And the women who were brave enough to speak their mind in an industry that likes their women young, beautiful and silent.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Brokeback Mountain was a great film ... it moved me and turned me on - and I'm a woman!
The performances were wonderful and authentic, Ang Lee's direction was spare and economical storytelling - just a short moment yields so much info about the people and what happens as time passes. I think the women were finely drawn and their lot in life, being married to men whose hearts were elsewhere, became etched into who they became.
I totally disagree with any criticism about it being slow in the beginning or that their life-long love affair seemed unfounded. I felt that by taking the time to show how these two men got under each other's skin and, in a way, complimented the other as a person was absolutely necessary to justify their falling in love & lust. I totally believed the depth of their bond to each other and was extremely moved at the turn of events in their life.
While Heath Ledger was magnificent as the closed-off, sad cowboy, it turns out that it is Jake's transformation through the years that stays with me, even days afterward. Both men do a fine job in challenging roles as well as all the supporting actors.
I do agree, also, that it will be a hallmark film in that it has redefined man on man love in film as well as expanded the range of the myth of the cowboy in American cinema. I know I will never forget it and it will become part of my image-memory whenever I hear the term cowboy again.
And I think this is a good thing. Anytime we can expand the stereotype of any form and explore humanity is, as Martha says, "a good thing." I think Brokeback Mountain did more for Kinsey's belief that sexuality is on a continuum and that everyone falls somewhere on that line of being entirely heterosexual and entirely homosexual. Both of these men were bi-sexual as they had sexual relationships with the women in their lives, but I felt that had Ennis never met Jack, he would never has discovered this aspect of himself, whereas Jack seemed experienced to a degree and more adventurous in all things sexual.
Enjoy it!