Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

Actors I Love

There are certain actors that I have learned to trust, over the years, to make interesting movies. Notice how I didn't say "good"? Some of the movies are not good. Sad, but true. However, these actors are always interesting to watch, even when the movies stink.

Here's my short list:
Steve Martin
Russell Crowe
Denzel Washington
Jody Foster

Probably my all-time favorite Steve Martin movie is Bowfinger . Why? Well, Bobby Bowfinger is a pathological liar, and let's just say he reminds me of an old boyfriend of mine. The movie skewers Hollyweird so thoroughly, and is so funny, I defy anyone with a brain cell not to laugh. Having worked a teeny bit in indie films, I can tell you those sorts of things happen there ALL the time - pilfering cameras, trying to look cool, getting footage that is only accidentally good. So true.

Russell Crowe I first got interested in when he made the film Viruosity. Here's the tagline: A virtual-reality serial killer manages to escape into the real world." I remember seeing the film and liking it, but I don't remember details, to be honest. I will need to order that from Netflix. It also stars Denzel, another wonderful actor to watch.

Now, unlike millions, I do NOT find Russell Crowe sexy. He looks like a movie actor version of Barney Rubble.He SHOULD have been in The Flintstones movie! Really! However, he has an indefinable magic that makes his characters appealing. I liked A Beautiful Mind - he embodied brilliance and hillbilly-ness together in one deeply warped package. Terrific movie - until I read the book and realized the movie was 85% fiction.But Whatever..

Denzel, OTOH, is brilliant and sexy. I would watch him read the phone book.I well remember seeing him a zillion years ago on TV, in The Wilma Rudolph Story, and thinking, He lights up the screen. I also watched every episode ever made of St. Elsewhere - back in the days when I watched TV.

I have the film American Gangster downstairs but haven't watched it yet. I will see it this weekend and write a review.

Jody Foster has been a favorite ever since she was a kid and I saw her in Freaky Friday - the original. I have seen all her movies since. One of her best - which few people saw - was a film called Stealing Home. It mixed a baseball metaphor with a slightly mentally ill young woman who is still a loving person. I could relate on many levels. That's one you should rent.

I liked her recently in Flight Plan, a thriller. However, I wish I could sit her down and say Honey, you need to gain about 10 lbs. When one gets older, one learns a sad truth: fat fills out wrinkles. I am 45. People are always amazed by that. Of course, I am way TOO fat, and I'd trade fat for a few wrinkles at this point, but there has to be a balance. A little fat on one's body, when you're over 40, looks better than the size 2 starvation-thin look. Jody needs to look a bit softer.

I asked some of my friends to send me their lists of folks they will watch in any movie. I got ONE response! Jeez. Nobody shares my passion for movies! This is from my friend John, who has been a close friend since 9th grade. Of course, his list is all female:

Angelina Jolie

Charlize Theron

Ashley Judd

Jodie Foster

I will periodicly update this list, because I have a nagging feeling there are actors I have left out.

Eastern Promises

I have to say, I was disappointed in "Eastern Promises." I had looked forward to seeing it.

We started watching this movie night before last and then stopped. When we stopped, my 16 year old daughter was outraged, wanting to keep on watching until the end. "I like this movie! I don't usually like the movies you get about Russians!" she protested. [Nevertheless, bedtime is between 9 and 9:30. Unlike her little brother, she gets the added bonus of me not fussing at her if she wants to stay up and read a while.]

Last night when the movie ended, however. I must confess I was irritated. More on that in a minute.

First, the title is annoying. "Eastern Promises"? Sounds like a geography textbook. Has nothing to do with London [where the fiml is set] or Russia.

Second, I was expecting a clever thriller, which is what a couple of reviews led me to believe that it was. Well, I guess if you're a moron it's suspenseful, but I was not wondering about anything, by the end. I was more fascinated by how the 3 main guys playing Russian mafia were doing with their Russian accents, since they were American, French, and German. In my view, Viggo Mortenson [the American] did the best job. The French guy "looked" more Russian, as my daughter said. I agreed. Viggo got the accent right, though. And there were a couple of scenes where he had a fair amount of dialogue, and it sounded utterly natural.

Naomi Watts played the young British midwife who delivered a baby of a young girl who had been kidnapped by the main mafia don. She was excellent, as always. She embues characters with a lot of depth, even when the roles are rather sketchily written. She was the best thing about the idiotic recent remake of King Kong, for instance. This part, however, didn't give her enough to do.

There were aggravating inconsistencies in the story. The Russians in the film are supposed to be trafficking in young Russian girls and using them as prostitutes against their will. How exactly all that worked was never clear. That's a fascinating part of the story. Instead of exploring it more, we got long scenes of sex and gore, like Viggo's character cutting the fingers off a corpse, or fighting thugs in a bath-house, naked. There's even one scene of him having rather realistic looking sex with one of the prostitutes. [I covered my son's eyes up for that one, and turned down the sound.] There was a lot of discussion of tattoos. I didn't really see the necessity for so much of that.

Maybe because I had just finished watching "Reds," my expectations were too high. This film didn't have the character development, the discussions about ideas, the cultural depth. I didn't realize until I was looking online earlier that it was directed by David Cronenberg, who directed The Fly. I liked that movie when it came out, years ago, but it was not serious.

Mother was irritated with me for letting the kids watch the movie. [She walked through the room at one point and bellowed "Why do you let them watch this stuff!" during the naked fight scene.] I probably wouldn't have let Michael watch if I had realized quote how graphic the sex and violence were going to be. However, the sad fact is that my kids are far less innocent than most kids their age. Orphanages are tough places. My son lived on the streets for a while before he got sent to the orphanage. So they have seen a lot. There's not much sheltering I can do. I don't allow horror movies in my house; I have to draw the line there.

I also have a pretty jaded, cynical view of Russian mafia. The violence and disregard for human life happen there [like everywhere] and Russians can seem menacing and brutal. However, in this film it almost felt like they were exploiting that cultural bias. I can hear the pitch now: "It's like The Godfather, but with the RUSSIAN mafia!"

I think it's very possible that someone less familiar with Russia and Russians might find this a fascinating movie. If you're also not real familiar with The Godfather trilogy, you might really like it. If you are, in fact, a moron, it will likely shock the socks off you.

I just didn't care for it much at all.

Reds

There have only been a few movies in my life that changed me. Reds is one of those films.

I remember seeing it in 1982 and the images staying in my head for days. Sondheim's score, the impeccable photography, the incredible period costume and prop details. It all formed its own cinematic little world.

When I got my first VCR, Reds was one of the first movies I bought, at a time when I wasn't making any money, and it was a sacrifice to buy the two tape set. I had to see it again.

For those of you who may not remember it, Reds is the story of Jack Reed, the American man who witnessed the Russian Revolution in 1918 and wrote the book Ten Days That Shook the World. He is the only American buried in the Kremlin. His wife was Louise Bryant, also a writer. They both touted communism, free love, votes for women, the labor union movement, etc.

In a world where movies have increasingly become more idiotic, Reds is a film about grownup ideas, not about blowing things up. It introduces so many ideas at once, that you have to think about them a long time afterwards, and come to your own conclusions.

I remember telling my father I had seen the movie, and he was aghast. "It's about communists, right?!" he sputtered. "Well, yes, but it's not PRO communist. It shows how the system was flawed, right from the beginning, and squelching personal freedoms was a terrible consequence of communism." He looked at me, still rather horrified that I was seeing such a subversive film.

I loaned my precious VCR copy of Reds to a friend a few years ago and he has never returned it. I should've listened to my grandmother who told me Never loan ANYTHING to Anybody! [She came from a fmaily of 12!] Now that the film is finally out on DVD, the 25th anniversary edition, I will be buying it one of these days.

When I got ready to show the film to my children yesterday, I spent some time talking to them, my 16 year old daughter, especially. My son, at 11, had a hard time watching it and following all the dialogue. [Of course, he has been home from Kazakhstan less than a year and his English is still a work in progress.] Alesia seemed able to grasp some of the points I was making, particularly in regard to Russia.

In the film, there are "witnesses" - elderly people who actually knew Jack Reed and Louise Bryant. Their interviews break up the film. I remember when I first saw it, I found the interruptions annoying. Now that I am older, I see how fascinating it is to mix the "truth" and the fiction. I put truth in quotes because so many of their stories differ, sometimes comically so.

Reds is a film of ideas and passions. I highly recommend it. If you want to read a more polished review, look here .