VLeung Reviews

The Richest Girl in the World (1934)

Fun... with a little sex.

[24 August 2011]

I came to this film because I'd just seen its musical remake, The French Line, a campy colour affair with Jane Russell, 'presented by' Howard Hughes. The French Line isn't unwatchable, although one may want to peep through one's fingers during the cowgirl dance number, but it is outstandingly dated in terms of male-female relations. Jane Russell's richest-girl-in-the-world is warned from the start that she will put men off with her rootin' tootin' tomboyish get-up & behaviour, but it's her money and power that will really convince them she's wearing the pants.

I am mad about Joel McCrea and I like Hopkins a lot. I wanted to see what the original was like. And of course, because it's the 30s there's no such issue. Men and women can be knockabout pals, Joel McCrea is enchanted when Hopkins thrashes him at billiards, they get drunk together, fall asleep smoochily together and the happy ending is wonderfully engineered: you relax your modern PC concerns even though the penultimate scene features McCrea picking her up (protesting wildly) and (off-camera) locking her in his car. It squeaked into cinemas pre-Hays, too, so the last couple of scenes in particular are pretty racy and very funny. The two leads play beautifully together and Fay Wray is always good.

The Enchanted Castle (1979)

Eerie series that stuck in my memory

[9/10 · 19 March 2008]

I was six or seven when I watched this, but still have extraordinarily strong images from it stuck in my mind - girls trapped inside a stone dinosaur, for instance. A haunting, magical children's programme, I would love to see it now.

I wonder, since I have to fill more lines for my review to be accepted, if it was also the source of one of the most disturbing images from my childhood - a town meeting from which all the attendees emerged as faceless men with sacks instead of heads.

I wonder if anyone else remembers this series, and wish the BBC would treat some of its old children's series the way they do their Jane Austen back catalogue, and release them in DVD box sets.

Camp (2003)

Not camp!

[30 September 2004]

Very entertaining, often funny, and incredibly

well acted. But entirely uncamp. There's

no knowing irony, no Clueless confidence

• when the kids insult each other,

their lines are as rubbish as

normal kids' witticisms. I thought

it was pretty great and reveled in

its lack of sophistication or typical 00s

bored-detachment. These kids are also

amazingly talented, and look refreshingly,

charmingly real.

Sweet Sixteen (I) (2002)

Wonderful

[26 August 2004]

Another user has commented that Loach is much better than Leigh. I agree, and it's not just because Loach uses authentic working class actors, rather than squealing middle class actors who think the working classes are merely *loud*. It's because he shows the beautiful and happy moments of their lives, so that they feel good. When we first see the caravan he has bought, it's as magical as Hansel & Gretel's sugar-plum house, and the idea that it's a manky little caravan is for that second unthinkable, we see it through his eyes. The Magic Flute moment is the same, it's utterly gorgeous, a small oasis of calm and beauty in a terribly sad and hopeless world. Leigh's squalid caricatures never enjoy their lives, Loach's heartbreakingly real character studies take us through emotions that celebrate and lament the similarities between all people.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Fantastic! A darling of a film.

[5 August 2004]

I wasn't expecting anything more than formulaic girl fluff, and maybe it wasn't *much* deeper than that, but 13 Going On 30 is perfectly done girl fluff. It's laugh-out-loud funny, the clothes are stunning, gape-at stunning, the plot is well-paced and consistently satisfying, and there are enough surprises and breaks from the expected - I like the way Jenna has chosen to be a really unpleasant person, but has still succeeded, and that her nastiness is based on her insecurity, so she can change, and her success is based on her nastiness, so why would she want to change, but her success is fragile and tawdry.

What's best about it, though, is the two leads. Garner, who I didn't know, or like the look of, before I saw this movie, is gorgeous. She's fresh and funny and clever and bursting with enthusiasm and realness, exactly like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, before she went thin and bad. Ruffalo is charmingly worse at communicating as an adult than he was as a smart, chatty kid. I absolutely loved them both.

Oh, and every music scene was *perfectly* chosen. I won't spoil the party dance, which was ace, but the Billy Joel that went with the scene where Jenna sees her parents was just bang on. I cried heaps. This is a really fab film.

Jeannie (1941)

Sweet-natured little romantic comedy

[12 February 2002]

Quaint, veddy British (with requisite dodgy Scottish accents) romance. Michael Redgrave may be one of the most attractive male film actors of all: his performances are soft and safe, even pudgy of character, but at the same time he's always pursuing the girl, and he's always amusing and amused, charming and bloody nice. He's as exquisite in this as he was in The Lady Vanishes, but this is a much lesser film. It's worth seeing for him, and for the ending, which goes the way you'd want it to go.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1941)

This is really good.

[3 January 2002]

No really. I was expecting it to be watchable but tepid. In fact, it's funny and charming and surprising. The scene in which Cindy Lou 'performs' in front of the New York crowd for the first time could be said to have influenced the scene in Pal Joey where Kim Novak agrees to strip for Sinatra. It has a lot of jokes that have been stolen by later movies, and the whole cast is terrific.

The story is about the search for an unknown Scarlett O'Hara-ish authentic southern belle to replace a leading diva in a musical. Cindy Lou arranges for Lloyd Lloyd, the producer, to see her perform before he gets to the real auditions. Everyone else who works for the show loves her, but Lloyd Lloyd has promised the famous diva that the role will still be hers after the farce of the auditioning. She has to win him round too. I also screwed up my VCR timer and didn't get the last 2 minutes. I can hardly wait until it's on again.

Infinity (1996)

Pleasant enough

[2 December 2001]

Cute and well meaning, if not exactly riveting. It should be given extra marks for trying very very hard not to be schmaltzy, even though it still is. British viewers may be reminded throughout of Frank Spencer - the modulation of Matthew Broderick's 'jewish' accent has distinctly ooh Bettyish notes.

I Love You, I Love You Not (1996)

Good grief, this is a very bad film

[14 October 2001]

It's also slow, dull, and unrewarding. Jude Law plays the boy Danes falls in love with - but we have no idea WHY she falls in love with him. He's the creepiest f*** since Anthony Perkins in Psycho, and is constantly telling her to say things to him. 'SAY IT!', he insists, the way dreamy boys really are not wont to do.

Oh, and the five-head king Dawson Leary shows up as an evil anti-semitic posh boy. I couldn't even find enough energy to be amused by the over-the-top clichéd crap they made him say.

Possibly because it makes me wince to imagine the director will have been at the side yelling: 'SAY IT!!!!'

The Parole Officer (2001)

This is a great film

[10/10 · 6 August 2001]

I reviewed this film when it came out and was a bit harder on it than I'm going to be today, as I just rewatched it last night. It's fantastic. It's funny, sweet, the love story is just right, Steve Coogan's character is romantically convincing while being properly nerdy and awkward. The joke-telling remains consistent even when the story gets more exciting - many jokes laugh out loud funny. . Lena Headey is a sexy, beautiful love interest, and the girl who plays Kirsty, the kid, is adorable, so much so that I spent the first third wishing she was in it more. It's feel-good from beginning to end. I love it. One of my favourite comedies.

Mrs. Winterbourne (1996)

Surprisingly good

[4 August 2001]

This may only be good if you're expecting it to be very terrible. I

was. The beginning wasn't promising. But as soon as Ricki Lake

gets on the train, this movie starts to get watchable, and as soon

as she moves in with the Winterbournes, it starts to get honestly

funny.

Brendan Fraser is really a great actor, isn't he? He's too good

looking to be as talented as he is. Some fairly hackneyed scenes

in this film are made compelling and realistic because Fraser's so

good.

But there are lots of genuine laugh out loud moments in this

sweet, gentle comedy. If the end is too long, too complicated and

too stupid, by that time you'll like it too much to care.

Jazz (2001)

WOW!

[25 June 2001]

This series is wonderful. I would never have called myself a jazz fan, or expected to be interested in this, but it's been completely unmissable. Each episode is gorgeous to watch, wonderful to listen to, and teaches you stuff, too. I love it! I

Is It Legal? (1995–1998)

Another fabulous Simon Nye comedy

[21 April 2001]

I thought the show would be worse without Dick, the wonderfully smug and posh senior partner, but Is It Legal was great right to the end. I like the way Nye isn't afraid to make class jokes, which are pretty rude, but perfectly charming. Every character was a weird twist on an apparent stereotype, so they were all weird and funny and vulnerable and more complicated than they first appeared. But at the same time, the scripts were excellent, with genuinely great one-liners. This is some of the best comedy ever made.

Robin and Marian (1976)

Robin Hood for grown ups.

[10/10 · 5 April 2001]

Dick Lester's direction is so light and amusing that it's easy to

overlook how talented he is, both as a director of actors and a film

maker. Some of the Lester trademarks look a little dated now - the

mumbling of extras, used most widely in the fabulous Musketeers

films, isn't as funny as it used to be, but it was funny when he did it,

so it's hardly his fault. <br> Although there's always a wonderful lightness in this film, the

themes it handles - and handles very well - are serious and

mature. The nature of the friendship between men, and how it

takes second place to pride, or principle, is explored in the scenes

between Connery and Robert Shaw, which are among the finest

scenes in cinema history. I first saw this film when I was about 12,

and didn't like it at all. When I was 20 I saw it again and this time I

understood it. I like films that you only get when you're old enough.

Audrey Hepburn is unusually non-annoying - in most of her

pictures I hate her child-like enthusiastic bounciness. She's wise

and measured and dignified and rather lovely, even if her hair is

terrible. Nicol Williamson is always pretty annoying, and he is in

this movie. I also usually hate Connery, but I can live with him in

this. <br> The film's just wonderful. Really, it's full of actors I can't stand, but

it's wonderful. It's about men, and I haven't seen a better film about

men. It's constantly surprising, always intelligent, and beautifully

understated. Can we have an official Dick Lester re-evaluation

please? It's about time. He's so much better than so many of the

directors we're supposed to take seriously.

Woman Chases Man (1937)

Wanted to like it... didn't.

[30 January 2001]

I'm not sure why this film doesn't work. It has everything I love about screwball comedies in it, and the wonderful Joel McCrea is gorgeous.

Where does it go wrong? I'm not quite as knocked out by Preston Sturges as the rest of the world because I think he's too prone to pointlessly noisy madcap chase scenes, and more often that not his endings suck a lot, but Preston Sturges' screwballs really work (apart from the chases and the endings) and this film doesn't. The difference, then, must be script. Sturges' scripts are superb, glittering things, that you just want to eat with a spoon, and Woman Chases Man is a fairly charming film with a lifeless script.

Carry on Cowboy (1965)

One of the best Carry On films

[5 January 2001]

This is virtually a straight copy of those Bob Hope Westerns like Paleface and something or other Jesse James. Weedy bloke becomes sheriff after case of mistaken identity. With Carry On films, though, there's the Jim Dale rule, which is that the movies Jim Dale stars in are usually sweet, with a bit of a plot, and the ones he doesn't tend to be pre-peak or just terrible, like At Your Convenience or the camply awful Girls, both of which remain fascinating social documents but are genuinely bad films.

Cowboy isn't a good film, of course, but it is likeable. There's a great song. Sid James isn't the romantic lead, so you can breathe a sigh of relief and just sit back and enjoy it. Watch without irony - it's not cool to pretend there's another level to this pretty bad but genuinely charming little British film.

Throw Momma from the Train (1987)

A great comedy

[10/10 · 9 December 2000]

Throw Momma hasn't dated at all, it's as funny now as when it was released. A genuinely eccentric comedy, that doesn't try too hard to be liked and is all the better for it, full of memorable laugh out loud lines. Even small characters are well written and beautifully played, like Billy Crystal's best friend's girlfriend, and a lovely cameo from Rob Reiner as Crystal's agent. A little bit insane and a lot funny.

Salt and Pepper (1968)

Not even as much fun as you hope it will be

[22 November 2000]

I thought this would be worth watching: 60s caper movie with Rat Packers fallen on unhip times, trying to juggle their increasing fogeyness with the galloping modernity of the late 60s. I thought at least there'd be some unintentional ironic fun to be had in comparing their view of 60s London with Austin Powers, and that they'd both be similarly and amusingly inauthentic. But the fun stuff isn't there. There are too many scenes of Pete and Sammy in cheap hotel room/dressing room/cellar/police station shots, when Sammy Davis sings, it's not the knockout like Sweet Charity's Rhythm of Life that you're hoping for, and the copy of Crosby/Hope's Road series is never pulled off because neither of these blokes is a good enough comedian and the script is terrible anyway. It's like watching your dad trying to be funny.

Also, there aren't enough pretty girls in pretty 60s dresses. For a better version of this sort of thing, you'd be better off watching the Man from UNCLE movies. Robert Vaughan is a little bit of an old git in them, but he's self-mocking and sexy, Ilya Kuryakin is genuinely dishy, and they have proper party scenes with proper pretty frocks and just enough plot to pay attention to. This movie, not funny, not pretty, and more than a little embarrassing, isn't even good enough to laugh at.

The Lady Vanishes (1979)

Cybill shines. Elliot doesn't.

[10/10 · 2 July 2000]

First, this shouldn't be compared to the Hitchcock film. They're not the same kind of film, and comparisons are pointless. Both movies are good, in different ways.

Second, I love Elliot Gould, usually, but in this film he's not good. His normal playful, easy charm is replaced by too much frowny mugging for the camera.

But Cybill's fabulous. My main criticism is that this is a girl's movie, but Cybill wears the same gown throughout. And she looks gorgeous in it, but if you're going to make a girl film, for goodness' sake, let the girl change her clothes once a week. And she doesn't. But her performance is terrific - she throws herself into the part with enthusiasm and lack of embarrassment, even when she has to do fairly embarrassing things. She's tough and tomboyish and beautiful, really starry. And because of this, the film's just fine. It's a shame the normally sexy Elliot Gould's performance is kind of flat, because he can do so much better. Worth seeing. .

A Chorus Line (1985)

Grows on you

[22 May 2000]

The first time I saw A Chorus Line I thought it was just dreadful. It seemed

stiff and artificial, the whole line-up with everyone getting to do a number felt contrived, the scenes with Cassie were embarrassing and laughable.

Second time I saw it, I thought the same, but I thought I'd enjoy it in a 'laugh ironically' way, while getting more into the tunes that were now familiar.

Anyway, whenever A Chorus Line was on, I watched it, mostly because I

kept thinking - I can't remember if I hated it, let's give it another go. And every time I watched it, I just liked it more. And suddenly, there came a point when I was thinking, gee, great! A Chorus Line, I really LIKE that. And so I

do. I really like it. I even bought the video, because it was cheap, and one

morning I woke up really in the mood to hear God I hope I get it.

Interestingly, I REALLY started enjoying the film after seeing the artistically superior All That Jazz. I know it's not based on Bob Fosse, but seeing it

after seeing what sort of a man Bob Fosse was made it seem more realistic,

a little less silly. The whole, stand up and talk about yourself at a dance

audition thing felt more feasible.

Cast is great, actually. I especially liked Connie Wong, and am annoyed she

didn't get a number.

The Talk of the Town (1942)

One of Cary Grant's best movies

[22 May 2000]

As one other reviewer noted, it is astonishing that this film is not as well known as comedies like Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. Cary Grant is much sexier in this movie than in either of those. In films like My Favourite Wife, and Mr Blandings,Grant perfected a certain amusing effeminacy that softens his square handsomeness, but in The Talk of the Town his masculinity is undiluted, and slightly surprising, and it suits him just as well. He's terribly attractive, more so even than in his great romantic movies, like Notorious. Ronald Colman is also excellent, with a soft voice and wry, steady manner. Jean Arthur is, as always, a delight. Smart, sexy, and surprisingly modern. The plot, academic lawyer is forced to rethink his principles to defend a fugitive who becomes his friend, is nicely paced and exciting, but the love story is what grips. It's essentially a menage a trois - Jean Arthur falls for Grant and Ronald Colman simultaneously, as both present an appealing side of masculinity. Grant is impulsive, passionate, flirty. Colman is serious, clever, considerate and idealistic. They're both in love with her. Before I saw the picture, an introductory film explained that 2 different endings were filmed, in which Arthur got to get each of the men. I don't know if this is true, but it certainly added to the suspense of the film, knowing that it could go either way. The Talk of the Town is a truly terrific film, not to be confused with Grant's much duller People Will Talk. Fans of Grant will not be disappointed.

Batfink: This Is Your Life (1967 TV Short)

When catchphrases were funny

[17 May 2000]

Ian, (the other reviewer) you forgot 'I'll use my supersonic sonar radar to detect him!' Batfink was deliberately cheap and tacky, and a heck of a lot cooler than the 60s cartoon shows that thought they were so hip. Like the piss-poor Jetsons. . .

Shooting the Past (1999– )

Mesmerising drama

[12 September 1999]

Local Heroish premise - photography museum set to close when big

shot American businessmen buy it, and staff band together to

show big shot American businessman how important the photographs

are. This series is actually more special than that suggests,

using the eerie resonance of real-life historical photographs

(some famous, and some obscure) to complement the cleverly-written drama. It's compelling and beautifully acted,

and if the last episode is ever so slightly disappointing,

that's only because of the powerful suspense built up in the

other episodes. As simple as it is thoughtful, Shooting The Past

is a rare pleasure.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Improves with age.

[10/10 · 28 August 1999]

I was born in 1972, which makes me pretty much exactly the right age for John Hughes movies. When Pretty In Pink came out, I remember being disappointed. Compared to the brave, emotional Breakfast Club, or the just plain larky Ferris Bueller, or even the slightly grittier Some Kind of Wonderful (which was just another version of PIP), Pretty seemed a bit gooey and twee and happy and weedy. And her dress, even at the time, was absolutely hideous and looked better even before she cut it up - something I never thought she had any right to do.

But anyway, the years have not been completely kind to all the Brat Pack Hughes teen films. The intensity of the Breakfast Club, while still adorable, does look a little foolish and over-earnest. Ferris's japes and glib richness seem a little smug, and his waistcoat is silly looking. Weird Science is just awful, isn't it? But when you watch the new bunch of teen movies that ape Hughes' best - like She's All That, or even Ten Things I Hate - they seem a little toothless and artificial compared to Pretty in Pink. They're overflowing with cute performances and quickish wit, and nice one-liners, and carefully planned soundtracks... but they don't seem to have the heart that this movie has. And it has a genuine edge to it - the girls who bully Andie, and the dependably nasty James Spader turn all help to give Pretty a hardness that makes its romance seem all the more real. Over a decade later, this is shaping up to be one of Hughes' true classics.

The dress still looks AWful

The Haunting (1963)

So, SO scary

[15 August 1999]

Look, I'm usually a pretty hard person, and although I don't like watching horror movies on my own, if I'm with other people I never jump, never flinch, never hide behind a cushion, and laugh at people who do.

Except with The Haunting. I saw it with some friends and I was terrified. And I couldn't sleep afterwards. Probably the most frightening movie I've ever seen.

With great Mary Quant clothes!