Change Your Image
tergenev
Reviews
The Razor's Edge (1984)
Razor's Edge vs. Eat, Pray, Love
This film is at least structurally similar to the recent film 'Eat, Pray, Love' with Julia Roberts. They both focus on an individual who sort of runs away from their life, travels, and attempts to find more meaning in their lives.
Personally, the source material gives A Razor's Edge an unfair advantage. But listening to my own criticisms of Eat, Pray, love, I had to think back to one of my own personal favorite films, the Bill Murray version of The Razor's Edge. Some have argued that the Maugham novel was far better than the film, but I disagree. I've read the Maugham novel. I saw the movie. I prefer the film, though I liked them both a great deal.
The themes of the novel are there in the film, but the movie chooses to focus on the themes through Larry's story rather than through Uncle Elliot's. The novel focuses most of the time telling Elliot Templeton's life, with this strange bird Larry floating in and out of the scene from time to time. They are both characters on journeys seeking meaning. They both find what they need to find at the end, and it isn't what they set out to find in the beginning.
The reason I love this story, no matter which way it's told, is that it fundamentally understands reality in a way that the current rendition ('Eat, Pray, Love') does not. Life is not always going to be pretty, and certainly not just because you have some sort of higher 'mission' to find true meaning in your life. The bad people in A Razor's Edge end up being so much more reprehensible than those in Eat, Pray, Love, and yet you end up hating the lead character in the latter film oh so much more for being so banal. (Isabel is one of the truly evil creatures in literature. Liz is just a thinly veiled version of the author, who naturally can't see that she's vile.) The themes of the two stories? The Razor's Edge, both versions, is truly a student of existential philosophy, "The only meaning, the only reward, in life is the experience you have in living it." Eat, Pray, Love, on the other hand, is a child of excess whose only message seems to be, "It doesn't matter who you hurt along the way as long as you feel good in the end." There is a certain self-indulgence required in this sort of 'journey of self-discovery' tale. But no one can really say that Larry didn't pay for going on his journey. Maybe it's just as self-indulgent that he did so, but I ended up truly liking and admiring Larry at the end of his journey. Liz, and I cannot really waffle on this primordial instinct, most totally deserves the destined place she has reserved in the 3rd circle of Hell (Gluttony), with an occasional weekend spent in the 7.3.3 circle of Hell (Violence against Art).
Jesse Stone: Thin Ice (2009)
A Different Direction for Jesse
This is clearly written as the first of two or three stories. It continues several of Robert Parker's characters very well, while seriously taking a couple along different paths. Most notably, Jesse's character has gotten more serious, and more challenged by life. There was always the sense in Selleck's portrayal of a wounded soul . . .much more so than in the books about Jesse Stone.
Overall, I liked this movie a great deal. I liked the expansion of William Devane's Dr. Hix character ("Dix" in the novels) and Suitcase Simpson's continuing confusion from his previous coma is still amusing, and occasionally disconcerting. But, although I liked the character of Rose, she is no replacement for Molly. Molly and Jesse's banter from the earlier movies is sorely missed. It added the levity needed as a counterweight to the heavier story lines.
I did like those story lines. The shooting of Healey at the beginning of the show starts the story with a bang, and Jesse's dogged determination to track down whoever is responsible is completely in character, even if it does hurt him professionally. The other story line, about the mother looking for her lost child, seemed at the beginning to be entirely predictable, but then it was not. Camryn Manheim, as the mother, is amazingly good here.
And may I just say that I love the music in these last couple movies. The music has gotten much stronger. Piano-based with a feel of Ravel or Satie, the soundtrack composer was listed during the credits, but I didn't catch the name. I might consider buying this soundtrack.
I liked the ending, but it is clearly leading to the next movie. I can only hope that "Jesse Stone: No Remorse" finishes up a couple of these story lines. I'd like to hear what's happening with Molly. And although I think they tied up the story of the lost child fairly well, the plot with Geno Fish, and the shooter of Detective Healey, seems to have much more to play out in the next movie. And of course, we need to find out what happens next with the police chief of Paradise.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
It sure leaves an impression
Dense, intelligent, exhausting, mythic, and awe-inspiring. I fear it will take several viewings to get the genuine impact of this film, but my initial reaction is that this will be added to the collective unconscious of humanity. It will probably last. In the way that many of the classics have. I suspect I will be watching this thing and its sequels on brain-memory chip, or whatever the heck storage technology we have 50 years from now. And remembering how I felt back in December of 2001 when I first stumbled out of the theater.
Ever After (1998)
Not that anyone will read Comment #170
OK. Liked it. Agree with most reviewers above: surprisingly good, Barrymore can hold your attention, accent is slightly distracting but I've come to believe not incorrect . . just odd at times. (Shouldn't they be speaking with French accents if they didn't want to do subtitles?)
But . . . I want to comment about two or three things that I don't think anybody has mentioned yet: 1) The best acting in the movie was done by 3 supporting actors. Megan Dodds as Marguerite De Ghent (really subtly well done), Patrick Godfrey as DaVinci (loved him as Mr Eagar in A Room With a View, "Wasn't Rome where we saw the yellow dog?") and Judy Parfitt as the Queen. All of these were fabulous in the little bits of screen time they were given. Personally, I would _love_ to see Ms Dodds in a starring vehicle. Considering that she was probably hired simply to work a visual joke toward the end of the film makes it most astonishing how fabulously she handles her part. That's the second item I wanted to mention, the joke. It involves a painting only briefly shown toward the beginning of the film. The payoff comes near the end, when the step mother and her two daughters are at the door, speaking with King's herald. (a fabulously acted scene by the three women BTW) When Marguerite(Dodds) closes the door, _notice_ how she looks in the door frame. All that's missing is the blue-tinted landscape in the background. What's the next shot? You got it. A blue-tinted landscape. Check it out. Tell me I'm wrong.
The one quibble I have with this fun picture, if the King and Queen had been a little more hardened, as would be required of any monarch in the social Darwinism of 16th century Europe, the drama would have been much heightened, because their threats would have been so much more serious. A minor complaint. Fairy Tales aren't supposed to be too scary.
It's Like, You Know... (1999)
The writing gets better and better . . .
Having just caught a midseason episode of "It's like, you know . . .", a show I was probably predestined to like a great deal, and not just because they use an ellipsis in the title, I am continually amazed at the level of writing available on this half-hour gem. Very fast-paced and idea-filled, the scripts depend on none of the typical crutches of sitcom writing such as stupid misunderstandings and slapstick arguments. Instead, you hear hilarious discussions of . . . well . . . just about everything. And it's all done without that sense of solipsistic meanness so apparent in Seinfeld. Plus the show has a character named Shrug. Great writing and a character named Shrug. How much greater can it get? What is so good about the writing, you might ask. It builds throughout each episode, usually reaching a very nice and very funny climax at the end. The characters seem to be genuinely intelligent and creative people. The subplots are as interesting, or more interesting than, the main storyline of each show. And the choice of plots is as diverse and interesting as real life can be, without all of those stupid puns and slapstick misunderstandings usually written into most sitcoms. I very much hope it manages to find an audience.