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deejayQ
Reviews
Rock of Ages (2012)
Way more enjoyable & funnier than I expected
First, I gotta thank "chicagopoetry" for an earlier review (7/1), calling this film "An absolute delight" and "nothing short of brilliant." Spot on: either you get this film or you don't, period. Go read that review-- after you read mine! ...
My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie! We went in with moderated expectations and found it tremendously funny and well-acted, especially by the veterans in the cast. Tom Cruise's overly-medicated, egotistical, dark-eyed head case rocker was a complete surprise. From our very first glimpse of his, uh, lower torso being revealed underneath a pile of writhing female bodies, you know this guy's gonna be fun to watch. Alec Baldwin was perfectly cast as an old-soul performance bar owner with Russell Brand as his show emcee and business partner; they make such a nice couple. Malin Ackerman underplays her Rolling Stone reporter role until she gets to be alone with Cruise's rocker, with wild and comic results. And Paul Giamatti nails the slimy-slick manager and gets off some of the better lines: "I can't wait to read the article!" But the scene stealer is Catherine Zeta-Jones playing it way over the top, channeling Tipper Gore through a "Chicago" style bombast.
Sure, the plot was a little thin and predictable. And I can see how some feel like the two youngest cast members were the weakest players. But all the subplots woven equally into the musical fabric took just the right twists and turns to aim them toward the "inevitable" conclusion.
And what music! I never cared for much of the puffed-hair, glammed-up, coliseum- sized anthem rock from the '80s, even after doing six years of album rock radio deejaying in the '70s. But seeing characters in the situations of the lyrics adds greater appreciation for any song. Isn't that what musicals are all about?
This is a great summertime diversion for adult audiences and lovers of '80s style anthem rock, looking for a bit of nostalgia but even more-- looking for laughs. Ignore the naysayers! "Rock of Ages" is a solid 7 out of 10.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
"Prizzi's Honor" meets "The War of The Roses," with a hearty dash of "True Lies" and a splash of Pierce Brosnan's "007."
Beware Possible Spoilers.
"Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is a great summer popcorn movie. Sexy, top-line actors play out a battle- of-the-sexes-themed black comedy where both sexes just happen to be spies/hit men for shady quasi-governmental intelligence agencies, all the while keeping these identities secret from their suburban neighborsand each other! There are scenes of high-tech surveillance, blazing "Matrix" style gunfire, hair-raising aerial escapes high over New York City, a novel twist on the average car chase and long glimpses of boring domestic bliss like dragging the lawnmower back into the shed during a rainstorm. In other words, a little something for everyone.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play John and Jane Smith, a guardedly happy suburban couple submitting themselves to marriage counseling in the opening scene. After a few years of marriage they're not sure if the fire has gone out between them. So they voluntarily begin to explore their relationship, beginning with how they met
And where the fun begins.
Borrowing from "True Lies" but multiplying on its premise, the couple are both secret agents trying to lead public lives as happy suburbanites, eager to be home for dinner every night precisely at seven. They live in a home pulled from the pages of Architectural Digest as decorated by 007's gadget-master Q. In a nod to "Prizzi's Honor," The Smiths discover they must each "take out" their spouse. This sets the tone for the rest of the action. A battle of the sexes begins but never gets anywhere near as nasty as in "The War of The Roses," even as the love birds are trying quite hard to kill each other. Along the way, they discover that, perhaps, their mate isn't the enemy after all. But who is?
Pitt and Jolie's chemistry on-screen finally shows us the source of all those tabloid rumors about them. But ignoring the controversy, this movie wouldn't work without the clear and clearly volatile spark between Brad and Angelina. They laugh and love and trade needles and barbs in a rapid clip worthy of Tracy and Hepburn. The script is tight and laced with great jabs thanks to screenwriter Simon Kinberg; and the pacing is kept spy-caper perfect by director Doug Limon. Funny and packed with macho action by both stars, it's derivative of past genre flicks with enough twists and updating to feel modern and new and quite more than satisfying. A good night out, and sure to become one of the summer's critical, box office and most importantly audience pleasers. Four bags of buttered and a Coke.
Good Neighbor Sam (1964)
"Sophisticated Slapstick"
"Good Neighbor Sam" (1964) 131 minutes (2:11) comedy starring Jack Lemmon *(Possible Spoilers)*
Recently ordered the VHS from Amazon and watched it for the first time since I was ...uh, much younger. Still "cute" and amusing in a 1964 kind of way. Has some great moments, but also could be tightened up considerably by today's standards. A wide variety of sound stage, backlot and real city streets were used in the filming, so the production values are very "stagey" in some scenes. Yet it feels like the director tried to break it up with different camera angles in several scenes of the same location. An awful lot of "rear projection" shots for traffic scenes, though; and yet-- a series of comedic vignettes throughout the movie actually call attention to the "R.P." as if on purpose! Some of the action scenes are exaggerated through the use of accelerated camera speed. Such shots may remind you of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
Story and plot? Actually, quite good for it's day. I'd call it "sophisticated slapstick." Sure there are a few holes in the plot, but it's a comedy, not a biblical epic! I'd say for 1964 this was probably very, very good. (And, hey! Martinis are "in" all over again in 2003! ;-)
Jack Lemmon plays a bored ad man, a lowly creative type in the - literal - bowels of the ad agency building where he works. The fates intervene to place him, quite suddenly, in the limelight as the new head of the agency's most important new account. But merry mix-ups ensue to confuse Lemmon's co-workers and his home life -- where he
becomes forced to assume the identity of his new French neighbor's husband! There's much more to it than that, of course, and once the plot drivers are set up, the story plays out in what today might seem a predictable fashion but what was probably fairly original in 1964.
I enjoyed the attempts at injecting reality into the mix by getting out of the sound stage. Watch for scenes showing stylized bits of life behind the scenes at a big-city ad agency with important accounts; cars whizzing through the streets of a pre-"Bullitt" San Francisco; and the prototypical display of "California Suburbia" for Sam's own neighborhood. (Everyone seems to drive brand new cars there -- easy to pick out if you know your 1963-64 model cars. Although here I may be showing my age. ;-) It is an odd sort of feeling, in fact, to note some of the detail in the sets, set dressings and the wardrobe and fashions: if this were a "period" film shot today, I'd say they did their homework very well. But it was contemporary, "present day" story telling in 1964! Watch as well for "product placement." There's a surprising amount for way back in '64. Some of it is integral to the story; much is not.
And it is simply amazing how many faces you will recognize... a veritable who's who of b-line and character actors like Louis Nye, Robert Q. Lewis and even Mike Connors-- ol' "Mannix" himself! Plus, the venerable Edward G. Robinson plays way against his usual type in his role as the important new ad agency client everyone sucks up to. But this is Lemmon's star vehicle, and he's in tip-top form here. It's "Ensign Pulver" AFTER the war! Overall, this is one of those movies about which the old folks say, "they just don't make 'em like that any more!"
-DJQ 5/16/03