cinescot Reviews

As Good as It Gets (1997)

Yes It Is Good & Betters!

[10/10 · 17 March 2000]

Well, SCOTTMCON finally got around to seeing this one .. and he's a perennial Jack Nicholson, and a romantic.

It is very worth your time; and very worth a Golden Globe Award or Oscar for Best Actor, Best Actress & Best Film..

This warm Brooklyn based comdey takes a close look at three human beings interlinked by their circumstances ... Jack Nichoson .. the writer ... Helen Hunt .. the waitress at his favorite restaurant (West Side) and Greg Kinnear as a painting disciple of Paul Cadmus living next door to Nicholson ... and recovering from a beating/mugging .. and worried at losing his home & studio.

Nicholson plays the New York literate & cycnic to the hilt. His life is so shaped, so arranged that he becomes deranged at displacements Like his favorite waitress' day off..

Helen is his favorite waitress .. he is at ease with her; he falls in love with her ; she thinks he's a little crazy but "worth an investment?"

These people meet and share their lives in this fine human comedy bringng Hunt her Oscar and her transit from TV & stage to the cinema.

It is a Nicholson "tour de froce" .. and New York City and her people never looked tougher, kinder, friendlier, nor more real.

Cuba Gooding Jr "cleans up" with a fine supporting role as a foil for Nicholson. All acceptbale New York manners apply ... and Nicholson behaves as if he's re-learning them. Hunt is a sympathy attraction as a table-waitning working mother whose looks, and sick son attracts the pennies and sympathy of Nicholson.

Never selling herself short .. she asks her mother: "Why can't I have a normal boyfriend like everyone else? Someone who doesn't worry me about going beserk or losing control of himself?"

"That's what everyone wnts!" says Mom ...'They don't exist!"

Roll and relax with this one .. and see if "macho" writer can spark and prompt people back to life and refine himself into love.

Hat's off to the Baltimore weekend scene as Helen Hunt's character declares "My drink's folliowng me!" ..a comedic mannered interlude leftoevr from the days when a man or woman on the make didn't take her drink from the bar to avert "hustling".

Hunt doesn't hustle. ..she just holds out .. the prize is human calculus!

Give it Romance ... *****/5 & *****/5 overall

Notting Hill (1999)

Romance & Portobello (without the mushrooms)

[9/10 · 16 March 2000]

Though from my title, they could have been featured, Julia Roberts & Hugh Grant team for a fun summer romance as the British and Americans do it, when they meet in London ... and want each other .. from star-off aloof & curiosity to seduction & entanglement .. this film follows its expected form .. pairing Roberts as an American actress doing a London area movie .. who walks in to the TRAVEL book shop of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill in London's Portobelllo Road ... Yes the place with the "flea market" beyond Paddington Station in the West End. Having been away from London for over a decade, I'd forgotten the scenery west of the Park; and the Manhattan - Washington DC - La mix of London;'s peoples... (Though the film could have had more races ... as reality ... it captured the mixed flavor like Chelsea of London's gentry and middle class immigrants.

Grant and Roberts are well matched ... he very reserved and "square" British yet joining with the eclectic of his "group house living?" and its neighborhood "Notting Hill". She is well almost like the Julia Roberts fan club .. trying to be a "private living person as a celebrity...". Literate, with the Anglo-American charm of Charing Cross Road .... but like a move from Manhattan to Brooklyn or the Bronx ... She sips and sits ... likes and becomes involved with a non-actor on an actresses's holiday with a private person .. privacy attempted .. and the flow of romance. [Even a scene with Alec Balwin cameoing as her established surprise visit Hollywood beau]

For a two hour film this is like a good dinner without formality and many courses. Good characters, good acting ... and, MS Roberts? .. Anything auto-biographical in the screenplay? (Yes the nudity of the screen is a brief scene and there is a "tongue and cheek" Roberts nude scene (you'll see a thigh & a rib) .. But a good film about the movies treat its own with care and well ... and in this one ..well I'd place Heidi Lamarr and James Mason as a good combination to compare these.

Enjoy the scene ... and fall in love. Romance ****/5 and film ****/5

The Fifth Element (1997)

Outstanding Science Fiction Fantasy

[9/10 · 25 February 1999]

Busson does his usual excellent and new work with a wonderful cast, theme; fine music of the Arabic world placed in a futuristic context [influence of the French Islamac immigration and his own].

Effective special effects and an imaginative wardrobe of Gaultier fashions of the future.

Willis a fine starring role ... and the future is saved for ore of Leeloo?

Noble House (1988)

One of Clavell's best and so's this TV made Epic's pace!

[25 February 1999]

Originally a mini-series, this fine adaptation of Clavell's continuing saga of the Noble House advanced into nearly modern Hong Kong (1963); spins the viewer through a complex week of high stakes dealing and corporate merger with all at stake in the legendary capitalist city.

Espionage; stock swindles or manipulating; drug smuggling; beautiful homes and women; and the cool Tai-Pan ... caring for his pockest and ... well the Hong Kong that his ancestry helped start!

Faithful to the book, but another 3 hours would be needed to get all the detail!

The Adventurers (1970)

A fine film of the cyclic revolution in Latin America

[23 February 1999]

This film is under appreciated and rather than a mess, is a profundly complex comment on the cycle of revolution in a quest for legalism and constitutionalism.

The character Dax Xenos mirrors the life of the revolutionary son and sometime exile Octavio Paz of Mexico; though the late Snr Paz became a man of letters; rather than a temporary gigolo to gain money for a business and to restore the values of his father to his homeland!

The Professionals (1966)

Simply one of the best westerns ever made!

[10/10 · 23 February 1999]

Few films ever merge and capture the spirit of American idealism and the West's ruggedness; in this tale of romance; adventure; and daring in a "Pancho Villa" turn of century Mexico with the best of American empathy "simpatico".

An outstanding cast (two still living) makes it one outstanding picture!

Boy on a Dolphin (1957)

A near-perfect blend of adventure, beauty & romance and scenery!

[10/10 · 23 February 1999]

In one of my earliest cinematic film memories; this big screen epic captured me and my imagination with the theme of marine achaeology; the beauty of the sea; and the romance of Sophia Loren & Allan Ladd.

Some of the finest early location color shotting produced by Hollywood; and a desire to re-see it thwarts what would be a fine re-make opportunity!

Gilda (1946)

One of Rita Hayworth's best roles with Glenn Ford!

[10/10 · 23 February 1999]

First seen by this writer, late night, it captures the romance of Latin America in the 40's ... and explains why "Rita Hayworth" was one of the most sought after, beautiful women of her time.

Worth a remake ... place it in modern Caracas; get a good cast and cast Glenn Ford in a cameo as the just retired President Calderas of Venezuela.

Placed in Buenos Aires ... Ford is the nice guy, who has to get Rita Hayworth back ... folowing her and her music back to South America.

Clipper planes & Latin music and much romance & good male roles.

Temptress Moon (1996)

An outstanding film of China in the early Republican period.

[10/10 · 18 February 1999]

Few film makers capture this history of China from a Chinese production company, unless it is a propaganda piece. Excellent acting by the beautiful and fabulous Gong-Li and Leslie Cheung.

Gong Li as Ruyi, falls into the rare, but possible, role of head of the Pang Family, a somewhat traditional family in Shanghai, China; after her older brother falls into opium addiction and her father dies.

As a family head, she is almost in the status of a ruling house, and requires a marriage; confidential advisors; and love. By reason of her birth, she is also sheltered froom the world.

Still banned, at this writing, from circulation in China; this beautiful story photographed in a nearby Shanghai location; with actual ancestral hall and mansion with garden; transcends the dynasty (as it begins in 1911-12) through two decades of the new Republic. Cheung is a Capo or Dai-Lo of a Shanghai Triad after growing up in the Pang household. Gong-Li lives with the duty a death has given her, after "elders approval" and must cope with her childhood friend & cousin as a lover and trusted adviser; while being courted by the returned from Shanghai Cheung; with whom she falls in love.

Shanghai Triad (1995)

A wonderful film of Chinese triads in the early Republic, with all the dynamic.

[10/10 · 18 February 1999]

Gong-Li and film making partner Zhang Yimou have another fine hit; in a series that is beautiful filmmaking as well as one the government would find disapproving of the reality of triads.

She plays a "moll" , also a singing star triggering more than an ample reward for the conniving under bosses who would try to topple the boss.

Stunningly photographed and acted, maybe near the Hang Zhou coast (or a rare unfilled canal in Shanghai?) ... with his beautiful concubine, and the narrative device of a young male orphan as fellow observer; the Boss hits the mattresses due to an attempted murder from within; and retires to an island to discern the traitor giving orders to kill anyone who arrives or leaves the island without his permission.

Then the Boss waits, and Gong-Li idles no longer singing in the cabaret; and the "smoke out" begins.

Excellent poignant drama sensitively photographed.

As in all her films, and the directors, the people as bystanders and victims of any corruption is a subtle attended theme!

Curse of the Demon (1957)

My favorite scene occurs when Dr Karswell realizes he has been passed the encryption!

[30 October 1998]

Few films better realize the sublime turn of fate in the medium. Dana Andrews classic maintenance of his charcter's mental balance and poise against this vindictive occultist returns his reward viv-a-vis the demonic Dr Karswell. Karswell's weakening as Andrews readies a means to pass the "hexing" curse is wonderful suspense.

A remake of this ... would credit it whether done as sequel or inspiration!