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Andersonde7
Reviews
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
This is what a movie experience should be
This movie has class, elegance, and excellence written all over it. It has three sharply drawn characters in the detective (Berenger), his wife (Bracco) and the murder witness (Rogers). The detective's conflict between his familiar and safe family life and the stylish world of the beautiful (and available) murder witness is heart rending, and one feels for all three characters in the story. But the detective's son turns out to be the key to the ultimate resolution of the conflict, foreshadowed early on when the detective and his wife are yelling at each other "did you hear what I said?" and a little voice from another room shouts out "did you hear what I said?". An irresistible movie, it seems to get better with each viewing.
The Gladiator (1938)
Little big man on campus
This was one of my favorite movies as a child when it showed on TV in the 1950s. It displays the old-fashioned values that made The Greatest Generation (as well as the comic book Superman). Joe E Brown plays his usual character, a good-hearted nobody who rises to greatness when the occasion demands. The McGuffin (i.e. plot device) is a serum injected into him by a college professor who takes pity on his apparent ineptness. The serum gives him great physical prowess that he dare not reveal in public. But his relationship with the girl friend of the Big Man on Campus, who strings him along as a joke until she finally comprehends the inner strength behind his humility, is what makes the movie special. The film is best watched, not as a cinematic version of a previously published novel, but for what it is, a lighthearted tale with a strong sense of decency.
Just Me and You (1978)
"Do I look fat to you?"
A guy needs to make a car trip from New York to Los Angeles in four days, and advertises in the paper for someone to share the driving. A very talkative but attractive young woman answers the ad, and convinces him to take her along. The movie consists of the comedic interactions on their trip that gradually transform their relationship from one in which he is immediately sorry he brought her along, to the inevitable realization that they are in love, not with those they presumably drove across America to see, but with each other.
The two main characters complemented each other perfectly - he the level headed guy, she the dizzy dame he finally falls for. The dialogue, written by Louise Lasser, was fall-down funny. A certain ability to suspend reality is necessary to get into the spirit of the movie, but for those who can, it is a trip you will remember for a long time.