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douglasjgall
Reviews
Liebestraum (1991)
Don't you have something better to do with your time?
A movie this muddled doesn't deserve much of a review. The plot, such as it is: an architect comes to a dying city to visit his dying mother. He tries to save a dying building (where people somewhat mysteriously really died many years ago in flagrante delecto) and is dying to have sex with his buddy's wife and solve the previously referred to mystery.
This is some type of film noir I suppose, and supposedly an erotic thriller, but although it has some dirty bad language it isn't very erotic and it certainly isn't thrilling. None of the plots is particularily believable, and the question of whether they are going to tie together in the end is, yeh, but it requires such suspension of belief that the whole thing seems quite ridiculous. But don't worry, you will have lost all interest in this movie long before that. There is a "twist" at the end, which you don't see coming (until about 5 minutes before) because it doesn't make logical sense. This was tough going. Nicolas Cage was in Leaving Las Vegas by the same director, and my advice is leave Las Vegas or any other city where this movie is playing. Whoever in Hollywood approved this movie should be force to sit through it. Any other potential viewer, however, should not.
L.A. Story (1991)
Silliness, Satire and Love in La La Land
Why hasn't Steve Martin, as gifted a comedian as anyone in the last thirty odd years (and one of the few who is very good at playing both smart and dumb) made a lot of "great" movies? I don't know, but it usually seems that while his movies are good, they are seldom as good as he is. (Something he himself has occassionally acknowledged.) He seems to be aiming quite high in this one, and as star and writer is clearly responsible for most of its success. In this movie Martin is facing a mid-life crisis, as a "wacky weatherman" in a city where the weather is always the same. He falls in and out of love, all the while satirizing life in the City of Angeles. This is a very funny, well constructed movie. Martin is, mostly, playing smart here. There are some scenes where he just acts silly (some work, some don't), but almost all the "smart" comedy works. This is reminescent of the movies Woody Allen made in the early 1970s, like Love and Death or Manhattan. The cast is great -- this movie really assisted Sarah Jessica Parker's career, and she does a great job as an airhead. Many well known actors appear in brief cameos (e.g., Woody Harrison) and are quite funny too. Only Victoria Tenant, Martin's then wife (now former) seems a bit out of place. (But there is no explaining love, is there?) Ultimately, although it lacks the grand overriding serious message of a Manhattan, at least Martin is swinging for the fences. And if when the dust clears he is only standing on third, that's pretty darn good, and watching him get there is a wonderfully funny experience.