Change Your Image
chiefwhitebronco
Reviews
Perfect (1985)
If You Blink, You'll Miss the Good Part...
The good part taking place at the beginning, where Vinnie Barbarino is sitting at a table in a restaurant with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine. Carly Simon, who looks fabulous as always, walks in and says to Barbarino, "I read that piece of Scheisse you wrote," and heaves a Bloody Mary (in a wine glass) at Vinnie, getting the goop all over him and the surrounding scenery. (The word Carly actually used is prohibited by IMDb's Dirty Word Filter.)
For this, Carly deserves an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and Travolta deserved to be cast with talking babies and dogs, the latter of which actually happened. By the way, this scene, along with the one that preceded it, where Travolta was writing obits for the Jersey Journal in Jersey City, have zero relevance to the rest of the story, which is about the astounding revelation that gyms, um, health clubs, are good pickup spots, especially the massage tables. There's also some blather about journalistic ethics.
BTW, Carly's a lefty. She's holding the glass in her right hand (leave it to me to pick up on such details). Too bad she's not ambidextrous so she could have thrown another drink at Wenner for keeping her out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is just another building in Cleveland until she's enshrined in it.
I recommend that after you watch the Carly Simon cameo, you turn off the DVD player and go back to watching Jerry Springer or Jersey Shore, both of which are far more entertaining than this turkey.
Bubble Boy (2001)
"The Wizard of Oz" meets "Rat Race"
The politically correct have lambasted "Bubble Boy" for making fun of those unfortunate enough to be immuno-deficient (read: People with AIDS). In reality, the lead character is an engaging, if incredibly naive kid, and one far more sympathetic to the "Bubble Boy" in Seinfeld, who was a nasty SOB. Moreover, the humor goes after everyone, not just one or two ethnicities and creeds, so its offensiveness is tolerable, and occasionally, as when it roasts cults, right on the money. For those who are bothered by midget jokes, and Jewish jokes, Christian jokes, and (literally) sacred cow jokes, I have two words: Lighten up!
That's not the real problem with "Bubble Boy." Nor is it his anal-retentive, over-protective mother, well-played by Swoosie Kurtz. The problem with this flick is that it's over-the-topness interferes with the story, so what you have are a series of episodes, some hilarious, others big groaners, which are not cohesive enough to allow the story to build to its proper climax. It's great to be outrageous, but the outrageousness should contribute to story development.
Nevertheless, it's funny, and for the most part, I found it far more enjoyable than most other movies of its type, such as the overrated "Road Trip."
One point: During the latter part of his journey, our Bubble Boy finds himself smack in central Illinois, looking at a range of snowcapped mountains towards the horizon. In Illinois? Duhh.
Above average for its genre.
The Empty Mirror (1996)
Devastating
There are many ways to portray Hitler. One is to trivialize him by making him funny ("The Producers," "The Great Dictator"). Another is simply to pronounce him "evil, and that's all you need to know about him." Those who do the latter are doing a great disservice to themselves, because in order to prevent another Hitler, another Third Reich, we must allow ourselves to get inside the head of this megalomaniac who, along with killing 6 million Jews (well, 5.7 million according to the movie Hitler) and 5.5 million "people of Christian origin," turned the most civilized country in Europe into a nation of barbarism, then into a ruin.
"The Empty Mirror" parallels the Third Reich in that it shows Hitler, dictating his memoirs in Hell, gradually disintegrating both emotionally and physically as he confronts the enormity of his horrific actions.
Yes, this movie would be considered politically incorrect by some for not portraying Hitler as a two-dimensional monster, all fire and brimstone, but showing that he had actual human emotions, had fallen in love with a facade of his own (and Dr. Goebbels) creation, and learning that once the facade was demolished, what lived behind it was a puny, cowardly man.
Acting was terrific on all counts. Rodway, although physically far more imposing than the Fuhrer, did an excellent job as his character alternated between lucidity and madness. Joel Grey was a splendid Dr. Josef Goebbels, a sarcastic smart-ass who was perhaps the world's first spin doctor. The Eva Braun character was both sweet and pathetic as Hitler's airheaded mistress, then wife, who wanted nothing more than attention from him. But most frightening were the little blond Deutsche Kinder who were mesmerized by Onkel Adolf, in the same way that 70 million Germans were during the 12 years of the Thousand Year Reich.
In one of the more revealing moments of the film, Hitler belittles Stalin, saying the latter will be simply a blip on the radar screen of life (I'm paraphrasing). He, of course, was right. Stalin may have killed more, and the KGB certainly matched the Gestapo in cruelty, but Russia was and is a nation where human life is cheap. Germany was not and is not, except for those 12 years.
While this isn't easy viewing, and requires some knowledge of history, it should be required viewing in high school Modern European History courses, along with "Schindler's List" and "Judgment at Nuremberg." If we understand Hitler, and how he was able to mesmerize 70 million otherwise highly intelligent people, then history will be far less likely to repeat itself.