Change Your Image
meberts
Reviews
Good Boy! (2003)
Judge it for what it is
This movie is a little better than OK. It's wholesome entertainment that makes the not-terribly-original point that people and dogs have a special bond. And maybe it says a little about the alienation some children feel when growing up in a two-career suburban family.
The boy at the center of the film, Owen, is pleasant without stealing the show from the talking dogs. The girl who befriends him is equally pleasant and also not a show-stealer. The two boys who torment our hero and the dogs are sort of standard issue neighborhood bullies. Owen's dad is a stereotypical clueless father.
Owen's mom, however, is an interesting character. I think she's being played as an essentially decent woman who is too caught up in her real estate wheelings and dealings to notice that her son is lonely and a little depressed. However, to me she comes off as really creepy: a rootless, valueless suburban capital gains huckster who would sell the family home (and her son's happiness) in an instant it there was a buck to be made in it.
So why is this movie a little better than average? Well, the dogs are fun. The voice-over work is nicely-cast (old trooper Carl Reiner is especially good), the dogs get some funny lines, and some good computer work makes the dogs look pretty convincing at mouthing their lines.
I decided to write this because I'm annoyed with the review this movie got in the L.A. Times. It's their right to pan any movie, of course, but it bugs me when a reviewer dismissively puts down a movie like this because it's no Citizen Kane, or even Citizen Canine. Well, gee, it's a talking dog movie. It's not supposed to be deep.
Touch of Evil (1958)
In Defense of Mike Vargas
I don't have a problem with Charlton Heston playing the Mexican detective Mike Vargas in "Touch of Evil." That's because Welles has created an alternative universe that IS A LOT LIKE our own, but still not quite where we live (sort of like "The Simpsons").
In this alternate universe-Noirville or Wellesonia or whatever you want to call it-weird stuff happens: everyone drives a convertible, beautiful women have absolutely no regard for their personal safety and Mexican cops come to you by way of Des Moines.
So sit back and enjoy the show. There's a lot to enjoy, especially in the re-edited version.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Jessica Fletcher's Evil Twin?
If anyone ever puts together an Evil Women on Film list, Angela Lansbury's character in this film has to be near the top of it. In my mind's eye I somehow see Lansbury's Mrs. John Isselin pitted against Ruth Gordon's Maude (from Harold and Maude) in the ultimate battle of good versus evil.
And if anyone ever puts together a Paranoid Film Festival, this film has got to be in it. Actually, it would be fun to see The Manchurian Candidate run side-by-side with the most paranoid stuff of the Cold War era from the other side (it would be a chilling hoot to know what the Soviets or the Chinese or the North Koreans thought during their most delusional moments).
Dancing Pirate (1936)
A Forgotten L.A. Movie
The Dancing Pirate is worth watching for a several reasons: the over-the-top early Technicolor hues, the spectacular finale featuring the Royal Cansino Dancers (including a young Rita Hayworth) and a very small appearance at the beginning of the movie by Pat Ryan, later to be Pat Nixon. But more than these things, I like The Dancing Pirate as a forgotten movie about Los Angeles. The movie depicts a Boston dance teacher kidnapped by pirates who escapes into the sleepy Alta California village of La Paloma.
This is an obvious adaptation of the real-life story of Joseph Chapman. Chapman, originally from Boston, deserted Hippolyte de Bouchard's piratical coastal raiding party to become the first yanqui resident of Los Angeles in 1818. Chapman, like the character in the movie, became a solid citizen of the little pueblo. Unlike the character in the movie, there's no historical evidence that Chapman could dance, however.