popshrink Reviews

Is It Always Right to Be Right? (1970)

Eight Astonishing Minutes 36 Years Later

[10/10 · 5 April 2006]

Saw "Right?" in Hollywood in 1970 with my bride a few weeks before she became my bride. We never forgot "Right?" - accidentally catching it once again during the early 1990s.

I second the eloquence of the reviewer before me who mourned the short's unavailability in 2002. I am more fortunately located than Tuscon, AZ for tracking down "Right?" and will do my best. Writing as a Certified Mediator "Right?" is a treasure. A too-obvious "prop" for those who do what I do for a living. It is entertaining and much more. That "Right?" is obscure and NOT basic to disputes - large and small - is barely less astonishing.

Among the very few "musts" for everyone.

Rory O'Shea Was Here (2004)

Wonder how much Brenda Fricker lifted this from 'good' to 'great?'

[10/10 · 29 March 2006]

Fricker won Best Supporting Actress as Daniel Day-Lewis' mom in "My Left Foot." Here, she plays - and splendidly - the opposing role: The well-meaning, unimaginative, "protectress" of the halt and lame. Heaven knows how much Fricker's earlier experience in an equally moving, larger budget, movie must have helped the other actors. What I DO know is Fricker's performance was "On the nose" for this type Administrator. How? I'm a shrink, born with CP, but have used a power-wheelchair only since 2002. As such, I'm far luckier than the "disabled persons" in the cast -let alone people anywhere. Sadly, too few disabled people get the opportunities I've gotten. This despite improved social views, legal protections and a generation of terrific people entering rehabilitative professions. Fears die hard - and doing things "the way it's always been done" is much too easy. Fricker did not play a villain. She played an Administrator too afraid to let go and too unimaginative to face her fears.

Brilliant movie!

Fat City (1972)

"Just when you get started, your life makes a beeline for the drain."

[10/10 · 2 February 2005]

How in the world did I miss Fat City's greatness all these years? Ignore the rhetorical question. I read the Leonard Gardner novel when it was published and vastly enjoyed its subdued magic. If I saw the movie, it went past me as an Grad Intern pulling all nighters, and then zoning out during movies in first-run theaters. My friends knew "Great Movies" didn't they? I wasn't gonna stay in and miss out.

Last night, I saw Fat City with "new eyes" - or for the first time! The cast was like a Repertory Theatre cast: All spoke like people speak. Even the local LA boxing legends of my youth. It's far too understated to be compared to "Raging Bull" and proves there was never a recognizable entity like a "John Huston-style" movie.

Astonishing.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Too long??????

[24 May 2004]

Maybe my attention-span is longer than "Polanski_Lover's" and the London-based reviewer who suggested "Trainspotting" as the better use of time. Fine - I cop to public school education and state university degrees. Then Guv Dutch Reagan's advisors advised: "COMMONISTIC!" (sic). Public education went south. Along with the national attention-span. Mrs. Thatcher's fine PM-ship may have done in the UK's attention-span, too. Who knows.

That "Once Upon A Time" is in the Top 250 suggests others MAY have my crypto-geezer crankiness. A FAR better alternative is others can appreciate crime drame deeper and longer than "Baretta" or "Charlie's Angels." Nothing against Cockatoos or T and A, mind y'all. And I have NOTHING against Panama Red or Treefrog Beer, BTW.

Thanks so much.

The Secret Agent (1996)

The more things change...and all that

[9/10 · 12 March 2003]

I would have chosen "Never more timely" for a title had the woman in NYC not taken it first. Robin Williams' fanatic could be any number of "players in this morning's "eve of war" headlines: The "End Times" druids who currently have the ear of America's Chosen-By-God president comes to mind. Or Osama bin Laden's Shi'ite zealots.

Conrad's literary genius is his ability to portray horror with the narrator's understatement and ambivalence. Bob Hoskins' film accomplishes this horrific understatement. Phillip Glass' (ordinarily no personal musical favorite) score gives the entire creepiness a magnificent auditory bas-relief. I wish I had voted it a "10" instead of merely "9." Superb.

The General (1998)

An Irish Tony Soprano

[10/10 · 5 March 2003]

Well, some differences: Martin drives a four-cylinder "mini" instead of a gas-guzzler Ford SUV. Carmela's ready to defenestrate philandering Tony whereas Martin's such a good husband/father that his wife willingly lets Martin sleep with the woman he fantasizes over - and isn't jealous.

Martin, true criminal mastermind, isn't above collecting welfare. He wears clothes Michael Moore might wear. Tony's always checking the mirror and would "sleep with the fishes" before he'd take welfare. Martin has better taste, though. Would Tony rip off a Vermeer? Doubt it.("Rubens. He's the tit man.") The General is smart, funny, brutal and great as any "Soprano" episode.

Aside from needing "closed captioning" in order to keep up with machine-gun-like Dublin dialect, it's one terrific movie.

Sick (1997)

I knew Bob Flanagan - not well and not this part of him

[7/10 · 10 May 2002]

though I was generally aware of his "performance masochism." I met Bob as a very bright, gifted poet during the early 1970s. I was in my 30s and finishing my post-doc psych internship at the MH Clinic serving Watts and South Central LA. Bob's Cystic Fibrosis was unremarkable to me insofar as my cerebral palsy was, presumably, unremarkable to him. Writing was Bob's fulltime gig. I had hopes of "quitting my daytime gig" - head-shrinking - when/if my own writing ever supported my family. Bob and I were cordial, never close. I admired and, occasionally, envied Bob.

I forced myself to see the movie. It works. Masochism discomforts me in the extreme - yet Bob remains clear, kind articulate as ever. His 'dominitrix' comes across similarly. The truly chilling moments of "Sick" are Bob Flanagan's mother during her brief moments on camera.

Rest well, Bob.

Outsiders (1977)

More important than when it was first made

[9/10 · 16 March 2002]

Ok - Ceddo starts slow and I'm as impatient as the next guy - even if that was then, this is 25-yrs after. No matter.

In a second recent viewing, the RC Missionaries were just as fanatatical, greedy and stupid as I'd recalled. The Muslims were as fanatic, greedy and eager to turn a buck (dinar?) by selling off any Senegalese who disn't - WHAM! - adopt Islam. Buyers were slave-trading Portuguese RCs who hadn't been quite dumb enough to be slaughtered earlier in the flick by the invading Osama-style Muslims.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates of Harvard may have missed "Ceddo" - but Skip appears to get the point. Maybe. My three kids - Herself and li'l Kobe and MJ - me harder sells. But they're at "that age." Fine: they think I'm at "that age," too. Again, no matter.

See it!

Bagdad Cafe (1987)

A "Shining-Time Station" for Adults

[10/10 · 30 December 2001]

This is, perhaps, the film I'd choose if I were marooned on some island. No - it's not "Kane" or "Potemkin." It's not "important," "profound," "unforgettable or any such Face-the-front!-No-talking!-Shut-up! momentousness. "Bagdad" (not quite a sensible story) is a plausibly implausible film about love, friendship and joy found in an unlikely place among unlikely people - all of whom we can recognize.

There's no Disney-like roll-over-and-lick-your-hand cutesiness. No showdowns, no happy or sad ending. It simply satisfies each moment it's before you. Then it's gone and I felt great. See it again the next year; it's astonishing again. I felt great again. What more can one ask of any film?