loui-in-stlouis Reviews

The Babysitter's Seduction (1996 TV Movie)

anyone else think the heroine's friend is hot?

[31 December 2006]

Arian Waring Ash looks pretty fantastic in this flick. It's sort of beneath Keri Russell to do this movie, but at least the director seems to understand that if Keri is looking good, it's not a waste of anyone's time. And indeed, she is looking good here. I'm not even a Keri Russell fan. I found the comment about the dog doing the best acting amusing, but it's not true. Keri's acting is good. Even Keri's kid brother turns in a respectable performance, and he has what, ten lines? If you didn't like Phylicia/Mrs. Cosby's performance, you might ask yourself why so much of her energy and style here is duplicated by Khandi/Ms. Talk Radio six years later in CSI Miami. It's actually too bad that there isn't a longer theater-cut of this thing, because it does capture Ms. Russell in what must be her peak bloom, and that's not at all a bad thing. Shame shame shame on casting directors for failing to see this as an audition for the sidekick, Arian Ash, and not turning her into a big star. But who knows? maybe she was beaten out by Love Hewitt for all the subsequent roles, and that's not a bad thing either. This movie probably got pitched as a "let's take all that sexual energy from the Yale babysitter in Mystic Pizza and take it to its logical conclusion" and hey, that's a pretty good idea. At least i don't feel as dirty at the end as I do whenever I see Blame It On Rio. Incidentally, Demi Moore was the sidekick in that one, and someone DID see that and turn her into a star.

Fantastic Four (I) (2005)

cast jessica alba then make her invisible? r u kidding?

[3/10 · 8 October 2006]

i applaud anyone who puts jessica alba on screen. at least the film captures her walking toward us in several scenes. the movie would have been better if it simply videotaped her walking for an hour. what kind of director decides to photograph her in poor light, limit her time on screen, and make her invisible? the only thing we could figure is that it was in her contract that she be invisible during the romance scenes, specifically so she could get out of the on-screen kisses with her co-star: they of no good chemistry. her alleged brother (do these two look like siblings?) is also trying to save this shipwreck, but the result is inevitable: the writing and dialogue make you cringe and make you wonder what age group was being targeted. we were thinking 12-year old boys. FF2 could work as a sequel, but i just hope that some casting director sees jessica alba walking and puts her in a movie where we can just watch her walk. (maybe it is time to rent honey again.) we really wanted to know who made this movie so we could avoid them in the future. amazingly, i really liked mr. and mrs. smith, and i think that THAT director knew what to do with angelina jolie's beauty. if i were the production company, i would get the mr. and mrs. smith director to teach the FF2 director how to light his star and how to luxuriate over her.

The Replacement Killers (1998)

papa sorvino is right to be proud

[13 June 2005]

i think this movie rocks -- it is the best place to watch Mira Sorvino be entertaining and hot.

i just bought the DVD in a bargain bin and i can't stop watching it. OK it's a bit of a TV movie script. but it's a year ahead of the matrix, and i dare you to watch it without making production comparisons. in fact, i can't watch the matrix any more. so much for movies with great scripts.

so much of the goodness of this movie relies on Mira Sorvino's screen presence that it plays a bit like a bit music video -- it's just plain fun to see her on screen. Chow Yun Fat is good, and this American Chinese boy (me) likes seeing a hybrid movie like this... well, it's fun to see the Chinese guy wear nice suits and kick some a$$ too. i can't watch any of the crappy hong kong stuff that the other users seem to think is superior to this. i can see how HK martial arts lovers wouldn't like this -- it's a very different, very American movie. personally, i'd rather see more clones of this movie than more jackie chan.

hey, did i mention Mira Sorvino is hot? i even like the relationship chemistry that develops here -- sort of like the David Carradine character wandering the desert in the Kung Fu TV shows -- he never even gets to kiss the pretty girl who falls for his decency, but the mutual respect is better that way. more movies need to take this route.

i'm not a Mira watcher -- i've only seen her aphrodite and some awful film school $hit i'm sure she wishes she never made, and her happy day on the Oscar alumni stage. as a Harvard guy, i'm not sure i want to see her in romy and michelle. this was simply a great role for a very underutilized actress at the right time in her life during the era of east-west action fusion. if i were producing movies, i'd kick myself for not watching this movie sooner and taking advantage of Mira Sorvino in her prime. it's not too late -- check our her recent IMDb pics. papa sorvino was right -- his daughter is great, and anyone who says otherwise should get a cap in his knee. this movie is the proof.

Lost and Delirious (2001)

teenage lesbian sex so beautiful you'd be aroused if you weren't so busy crying

[15 June 2002]

This is a movie to celebrate: it simmers with emotional nakedness. We have here one of the beautiful stories about first love and the pain of unfair separation. All other teenage love stories are crushed by comparison. Susan Swan's novel is so flattered by Léa Pool's direction that one begins to believe that this director could take anyone's high school diary to the screen with award-winning results. Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, and Mischa Barton can start clipping their performances for highlight reels -- they are excellent by any standard, and they are consistently good from beginning to end. Jessica Paré is delectably in bloom, as required by the script, and from Mischa Barton we require only the deepest sensitivity ever found in a wide-eyed 14-year old actress. An Oscar for Piper! I have never heard Shakespeare recited with so much power, even as the movie departs from storytelling and descends (or rises?) into a visual representation of Paulie's emotional state.

Here is where the movie crosses from simple sweetness to vignettes of Pauline in rage. It's where a lot of viewers get lost, for if you are unable to connect to Paulie emotionally at this point, you will not appreciate the movie. Like a poem, the path is barred to those who will not think with the heart. I try to read a lot of teenage girls' poetry in high school literary magazines because when you chance upon a good one, it absolves all of the bad poetic sins of others, and even validates the form. You simply can't find the same emotions in polished literary magazines, so you must wade through the almost-beautiful teenage love poems until you find a really good one. The same is true here. It's bare emotion, and it's going to stand or fall on Ms. Perabo's openness to Paulie's raw feelings, and on our openness to both. The movie remains set among tea parties on long greens at the edge of an arboretum in diffuse light; Derek Jarman's Edward II was a similar exploration of this emotional state, but Mr. Jarman had available a black dungeon, point light, and a bleeding carcass to set the angry mood. Mr. Jarman's film was mature cinematic art, with all its pretense and self-awareness. Ms. Pool's film is visually naive by comparison: the serendipity of an honest page in a girl's diary where someone wept while she wrote. I believe the latter can be a finer art.

One last observation. The huge list of Montreal-French contributors to the movie must have had something to do with its success. While this Canadian movie has a distinct North American look, it aspires to the subtlety of a French contemplation on life. On the one hand, if the cast had paired a young Isabelle Adjani and Emanuelle Béart under the direction of a Claude Sautet, would anyone have questioned the splendidness of emotional candor? On the other hand, if a purely French crew had made the film, could it have been as politically brazen, bravely inevitable, and downright unambiguous at the end? One can even imagine Paulie as a Native American orphan, her bird-spirit so central to the film's symbols and characterization. Here is a lovely film, a beautiful film, and perhaps for French-Canadian cinema, even a landmark film. Recommended.

Dying to Dance (2001 TV Movie)

the ends justify the means

[15 August 2001]

the last review says that a dancer wouldn't like this movie. well, i am a dancer, and i did like it.

the last reviewer also said that the weight problem in dance is exaggerated. maybe. i know mostly modern, afro, folk, and jazz dancers who are very healthy. ballerinas, i think, are generally not so well. my college girlfriend could have played alyssa, and she was eating disordered. the best ballerina i have ever seen (and i have been around dance at the highest levels for twenty years) once told me that her ballet school had "unhealthy" attitudes toward weight. she also said that her parents had made her go to counseling. shame on me, but i hadn't put two and two together until i saw this movie. kimberly mccullough looked just like her, too.

it's quite obvious that this movie was produced primarily to do some social engineering. if it happens to entertain some non-dancers, or contain imagery that is appealing to sensitive people, that's fine. but that's not the point. this movie has a very specific target population. i felt that the director did a good job including just the kind of dance scenes that would be irresistible to ballerinas. in fact, the final dance performance, which nearly made me barf with its excessive classicism, is just the kind of fluff that i can see ballerinas gluing their eyes to.

every ballerina i know would have a negative reaction to the message in the movie, and would try to find some kind of artistic fault, or enumerate the personal flaws of kimberly mccullough's character. maybe her dance wasn't to-die-for, or maybe her pretty dancemagazine face wasn't perfectly properly framed by her trendy chop cut. every ballerina i know would dismiss the weight-compulsion theme as overblown, unnecessary, or unrealistic. every ballerina i know would try to defend ballet, saying it's not ballet's problem. that, my little dears, is exactly the problem.

so it's the pinnacle of 90's manipulative, message-laden tv-melodrama? respect and congratulations are owed everyone involved in this film. it's a tear jerker that doesn't play fair because in this battle for little girls' hearts, all's fair in love and war, and the ends justify the means.

The Seduction (1982)

an important transitional film for women's privacy rights; an effective public service announcement to lonely men verging on stupidity

[24 June 2000]

for anyone who might tend toward romantic obsession, here's your cure. do yourself (or a friend) a favor and (get him to) watch this film. fifteen minutes into the film, you just want to punch andrew stevens in the mouth. the problem is that the harasser never seems to know what a jerk and a fool he is being. here's the message, written in big red letters. too bad more men don't see themselves this way until it's too late. of course, derek (mr. stevens' character) becomes a very bad person by the time he gets his due. if only derek could see himself in this movie, maybe then he wouldn't have taken that first step. sure, not all crushes are actually stalkings. and there is the risk that the truly disturbed stalkers won't understand that this movie is supposed to help them not to do it. the movie may just make a lot of people paranoid. still, it as an effective counterpoint to the CINEMA PARADISO-style treatment of unrequited love, and too much of that sort of fantasy romance in cinema just exacerbates this social problem.

it's not so much a thriller as a public service announcement. amazingly, farrah fawcett is in BURNING BED just two years later. one has to think that blossom kahn had more to do with this film than the credits reveal.

it's obvious why morgan fairchild took the script. ms. fairchild was never the bimbo that people accused her of being. (i have a friend who was at a bio lab at harvard when she phoned to discuss primate genetics for several hours! no kidding!) the kind of power that julia roberts uses today to deliver ERIN BROCKOVITCH was enjoyed by ms. fairchild in 1982, and she seems to have used it here. ms. fairchild even gives up her body with shocking compliance (with dozens of nude scenes, and almost constant appearance on screen) in order to keep the drooling men in their seats until the lesson is complete. as easy as it is thus to applaud ms. fairchild, mr. stevens deserves greater praise. not many leading men would have taken such a role in 1982, and mr. stevens is the perfectly detestable pretty-boy delusional peter-pan smarm. the boys will watch this film for ms. fairchild, and they will learn to leave the girls alone because of mr. stevens.

Never Ever (1996)

francophilia! it's almost better than a travel film to paris.

[15 June 2000]

watch this for sandrine bonnaire, who is marvelous as usual.

the problem is that it is written by, directed by, and starring charles finch. mr. finch is a capable actor, an onanistic director, and a putrid screenwriter. he at least has surrounded himself with great people and he lets them do their thing. the visuals vie with ms. bonnaire for best-reason-to-watch the movie. at least the movie is set in paris and nice, and there is a beautiful new alfa spider to watch and hear.

jane march is striking on-screen, but disappointing. her character is not a happy one, but even less happy is her physical deterioration. if this is a deliberate attempt to contrast with ms. bonnaire, it works. but those who adored ms. march in l'amant (THE LOVER) will be puzzled by her appearance here. to make matters worse, her lines are muffled and one of her important scenes reduces the film to vulgarity. the director's laudable attention to detail and lavish use of time still do not excuse the debasement of what is otherwise a visually beautiful film that contemplates beautiful moments.

in fact, there is only one other ugliness in the film. it is mr. finch's overuse of his own face, which, while agreeable enough, does not withstand the scrutiny. few people can write, direct, and act in the same production. this is one of the better efforts at the triple play, but it is also further evidence that it should not even be attempted.

james fox gives a wooden treatment of a wooden character, and jean rochefort likewise achieves likeability in a can't-miss role. again, this is the result of a director who can bring nothing new to the script. it should also be mentioned that the script is as empty and predictable as mr. finch's interpretation of his character. it is a valid script and a valid interpretation; but both are devoid of complexity and surprise.

beyond ms. bonnaire and the luscious latinate visual indulgences of this film, there is one more happy surprise. large parts of the dialogue take place in french with no subtitles! it is effective, and the francophiles will love it. for this, for his cast, and even for his audacity, i do applaud mr. finch.

A Few Good Men (1992)

watch this again and be amazed. one day, this could be the great american film.

[15 June 2000]

i watched this again because i wanted a 13-yr old kid in my charge to understand that heroism is about making the right decisions in precious moments, that there are certain inviolable limits to the subordination of individual responsibility, and that his country, our country, is a great nation founded on great principles. i was not disappointed.

i have always regarded mr. reiner and mr. sorkin's masterpiece as a better allegorical comment on the nazi question (how could this happen? who was to blame? how can we stop it from happening again?) than any directly philosophical drama. it addresses the relations of man to country and of man to man in a purely american way, complete with conservative litany, judicial review, and the possibility of honor in private life. this movie may very well grow to replace john wayne westerns and wwII movies as peak american patriotic cinema.

i should say that i do not enjoy mr. nicholson or mr. cruise in any of their other works (not a single one), and i often have trouble with ms. moore's artistic sense and mr. bacon's depth of characterization. mr. guest and mr. sutherland have never been favorites. in this movie, no doubt thanks to mr. reiner, i would not hesitate to give each actor a standing ovation.

as good and as celebrated as mr. nicholson and mr. cruise are in this movie, the crucial work is from the supporting cast: ms. moore's dewing eyes -- what more can society give to the hero when he risks it all for what is right? mr. sutherland's annoyance at having to undergo moral examination and his confused self-righteous anger as lt. kendrick, "did you give the order?", "no I did not," -- see how he looks away? mr. bodison's sympathetic treatment of lance corporal dawson, whose thoughts and feelings are so clearly announced with barely a word, who desperately wants to resolve the conflict between being a good marine and being a good man -- he represents us in this script of course.

would this movie work if even one of the interlude shots of an american monument were removed?

The Lover (1992)

prize work by duras, mr. annaud, and crew. crushingly poignant.

[15 June 2000]

the most beautiful lolita story possible, with cinematography that makes even the mekong romantic, and music that spills tears. jane march, one quarter chinese. marguerite duras, herself a french schoolgirl in vietnam in adolescence. the title and characters' names do not even divulge who was the lover of whom.

here is the most obvious reason why the french regale the late marguerite duras, whom they now regard as this century's victor hugo. the oafs on this side of the pond will never understand it, but that is their loss. this movie is a litmus test for artistic sensitivity. feminazis, racists, and prudes need not apply.

Deceptions (1990 TV Movie)

better than you expect -- nicolette sheridan can act!

[15 June 2000]

this movie quickly declares itself as a did-she or didn't-she detective mystery. i am not so sure about the plot, but it is worth contemplating and it has its distinctive moments (which is not easy when there are so many similar plots out there). the movie has that shot-in-l.a. look that makes it seem cheap even if the visuals are well conceived. director reuben preuss shows obvious talent. the real surprise is that nicolette sheridan can act. she is cast as "a walking wet dream" and even if you are not immediately captivated by her luscious looks, she quickly wins the viewer's affections with an intelligent portrayal of her character. there is one scene, in a hotel room, where ms. sheridan shows great strength, and one wonders whether BEVERLY HILLS NINJA is a fair place for such a capable actress to be plying her trade. robert davi also turns in a strong performance. harry hamlin is not my idea of a leading man. but he does not grate, and he wins for his role sufficient sympathy to keep the movie going, even if the script calls for an inhuman number of emotional twists from his character. the actor's guild should put a limit on the number of turnabouts that the writers can demand of a character. if you want to claim that this movie doesn't hold a candle to BASIC INSTINCT, ask yourself what this very capable crew might have done with a bigger budget, darker sets, and a little more time to work out the story line.

Deadly Illusion (1987)

ouch! ok, for billy dee and vanity fans. morgan hot and cold. what a wreck!

[31 May 2000]

watch the first half of this movie and invent your own second half. it had so much promise.

mr. williams and ms. fairchild get it going with what seems to be an actual passion for their pairing and proximity. and why not? mr. colt 45 and ms. seduction were the hot and bother of their decade, and even if it would be a few more years before ms. sciorra and mr. snipes mixed it up in JUNGLE FEVER, the dams were ready to break. vanity fans will also not be disappointed. if you are souring from the aftertaste of lando calrissian in RETURN OF THE JEDI, this is good tonic. the best visuals of the movie are when mr. williams plants his lower body and delivers a punch. other action stars should study this, but alas, not everyone can move with the authoritative and accessible grace of billy dee.

ms. fairchild's fans will not like ms. fairchild in liza minelli hair, but she has her moments on screen and returns to familiar coiffure and stature soon enough. her moments make good excerpts, like cuttings from a magazine. ms. vanity, in contrast, flows more happily with the film's main stream.

the deadly illusion in this case is the illusion that mr. cohen had an ending to the film when he pitched the beginning. and no, neither this title nor its alternate title has anything to do with the story.

Rush Hour (1998)

what's the fuss about? it's a passable 2-hour escape, but no more.

[30 May 2000]

i don't see what all the fuss is about. jackie chan is visually stunning in motion, of course. chris tucker's 48 HOURS-eddie-murphy-imitation is just ok. it manages to innovate through a perplexing mix of ungainliness and NBA-style physical resolve and coordination. the kid, julia hsu, has the best scene. but when all is said and done, the stereotyped support characters, the vapidity of the plot, and the contrived forcing of each action sequence make you want to scratch your head. i'll happily watch mr. chan again, ms. hsu, and even mr. tucker. but rent the movie again? no sir.

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

one of the great films and one of the great musical scores. do NOT overlook oliver stone's intellectual themes.

[30 May 2000]

i am so upset that this movie's dvd release is in mono; perhaps some studio exec will read this review and remedy this crime!

mr. poledouris produced a soundtrack masterpiece. the waltz that accompanies the burglary of the mountain stronghold is itself one of our culture's enduring legacies. sandahl bergman in that scene not only puts celebrated feisty contemporaries like sigourney weaver's ripley and carrie fisher's leia to shame, but also shames many a modern dancer for the elegance of her movement. james earl jones's work here may still be praised even as his darth vader is mocked, then forgotten. nadiuska is unforgettable.

but do not overlook the contribution of oliver stone to the script. this is an entirely deliberate, fully conceived, politically astute morality play. it raises the question of how dogma can be contested, how political power in the hands of demagogues can be stemmed. stone's answer is pure violence, but violence born of indomitable will and unharnessable ability. it pits the uebermann, the gloriously rugged individual, against the mediocrity of the masses. one imagines nietzsche crying with joy at the spectre of mr. schwarzenegger's righteous barbarism, carried out in de laurentiis-style cinematography, to redeem the soul of a wayward princess, with the discipline of sword master yamzaki, for the love of ms. bergman's valeria...

Lolita (1997)

so good, it raises questions about the novel

[27 May 2000]

mr. lyne, mr. irons, and especially ms. swain are just super. the result is a film that raises serious questions about the merit of the novel. i have read nabokov critically very recently, with annotations and author's comments, and have concluded that neither the story nor the prose warrants the elevated position in american literature that the book seems to enjoy. mr. lyne's movie reveals the over-appraisal of the book precisely because it is so good. it is marvelous cinematic work, and its glaring weakness is the relative pointlessness of its plot. yes, it is a tragic study of humbert etc. etc. but after all of this attention, doesn't it seem that mr. lyne's and mr. irons's time and skill could have been better spent on a less fatuous bit of schlock?

Point of Seduction: Body Chemistry III (1994 Video)

shari shattuck is catalyst in otherwise inert chemistry

[27 May 2000]

shari shattuck saves this movie by stripping and grinding, and i mean that in the most serious way. basically, the film wants to be a slick, tantalizing adult short story, like a RED SHOE DIARY ditty. and there's nothing wrong with that, esp. since its package is fairly informative about its contents. it promises steam, so it had better deliver. but lead-man andrew stevens and director jim wynorski appear to have conceived of this film with more than a slight nod to the most perfunctory aspects of the adult xxx genre. yawn! torpid characters, low-budget camera-work. since we know ms. fairchild is not going to do it, if ms. shattuck had also abstained from nudity, the movie would have fizzled like so much middle age without viagra. what is remarkable, though, is how it sizzled! ms. shattuck seems intent on giving BODY HEAT and BASIC INSTINCT some decent competition. despite the script's thin excuses which telegraph the sex scenes, the movie delivers as promised. the rest of the cast owes ms. shattuck for this one.

The Plague (1992)

effective transcription of the novel. this movie should be a mandatory part of the high school curriculum.

[27 May 2000]

imperfect only because mr. hurt takes his traum-welt sleepwalking characterization too far, and mr. puenzo drops the emotional anvil one time too many, this is nevertheless the most artistic political commentary i have seen. i compare it to CLOSETLAND. camus set the novel in his home of algiers, and mr. puenzo reprises with the buenos aires location that is his home. like post-war camus, mr. puenzo has much to say about his country's recently fallen dictatorship. camus would certainly have approved. the timing, in the face of the literal plague of aids, adds to the momentousness of this film.

sandrine bonnaire, robert duvall, and jean-marc barr are essential to the movie, and the sheer pulchritude of buenos aires shows, even though the city is cast as hapless, plague-stricken oran. it is the tragedy of argentina that makes it a perfect oran. and it is the beauty of its capital federal that makes it a perfect setting for camus' triumph of humanity over inhumanity.

the movie is complex, with explicit visual reference to the holocaust, and even a fair treatment of the complicity of the medical doctor (whose responsibility? remember, camus was above all an existentialist author). but the movie is not about a public health disaster, or oran, or the insanity and subsequent tragedy of civil resignation in germany's 1930's. oran could be anywhere at any time, and mr. puenzo has understood camus well on this point.

Mob Boss (1990 Video)

one of morgan fairchild's happier roles. it's revenge-of-the-nerds meets the mob.

[26 May 2000]

problem: what to do with morgan fairchild besides putting her in a tight dress?

answer: she is the perfect trophy girlfriend for a mob boss.

amazingly, this movie is never boring. it may be entirely daffy, but that is its aim and it hits the mark. this is ms. fairchild's happiest outing, and a smart role for eddie deezen, who brings his best REVENGE OF THE NERDS II and turns it up a notch. everyone in fact is well cast, and this is why the movie holds together so well.

for those who seek lunacy but don't want slapstick, or who simply want to see morgan fairchild without cringing.