Change Your Image
screenplayhouse
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Rawhide: The Vasquez Woman (1965)
The Final Straw
I have to say I was born in the East and nobody talked of Westerns. They were disappearing off our airwaves in the 70s. So I had no idea Clint Eastwood got his 'desert' legs here.
I was so impressed with the first episode of this show my wifey and I went on a journey. Got the box set and watched one episode a week. We started doing that over 4 years ago.
We've watched the cast evolve over the years. Typically the wrong people were taken away and their replacements ill advised. The show did that most rare thing of correcting one of its worst mistakes... but it would prove too little, too late.
By Season 8 our lead Eric Fleming is gone. A daring move. Like MASH without Hawkeye. The thing is this show had Clint Eastwood, and as such, had a chance of making a go of it. But problems soon ensue.
The key problem is Rowdy was always a bit of a gentle rebel. His character wasn't suited to lead this crew. And so, inexplicably, they don't make Rowdy evolve. A show desperately needs a lead -- and they acted as if that wasn't no Clint's job. It's jawdroppingly weird. Resulting in a wagon with almost no wheels.
The producers added a ton of new faces -- which might have been interesting -- had they focused on them. But instead they were mostly props and the main focus was on newbie 'Jed Colby' played listlessly by John Ireland.
It's hard to describe what's wrong him apart from everything. Too old. Not believable as the second in command. Dull as dishwater. Not good looking, which in a show known for its two lead hunks is off-key.
In this episode Ireland is given the reigns of the show. To demonstrate why he's been cast into RAWHIDE. The result? Nyquil. Nothing worked because on top of all these shortcomings we can throw in weak acting.
It's not all Ireland's fault. Rowdy is phoning it in. So are the writers and directors. When Wishbone becomes dull it's time to pull the plug. Regrettably this season never should have happened. Yes it's THAT bad.
Death on the Nile (1978)
What a shocking MESS
When I was a young teen and HBO was new -- this film played on it all the time. They were desperate to fill afternoon hours with PG product. It's taken me 40 years to see this and, well... before I begin... I was an avid reader back at that time and decided to give Agatha Christie a try. It was a dull dry book that I had to drop and frankly I felt the same way about this movie.
1. I was excited to see Ustinov in a lead. I've immensely enjoyed his old man from LOGAN'S RUN my entire life. Agatha gave Peter not much of a character or dialog to play with. One relentless joke about his not being French.
2. Three people were murdered in this story. One was doing a great job with his part, one couldn't act all unless you consider low cut dresses acting, and the third gave new meaning to local theater over-acting. God awful.
3. The mystery, of course, is key. And it came together pretty well. But if you think about the 'animal' Pierot found in his room there is absolutely no way to explain how it got there. It had to be commissioned from off the boat -- but the boat was anchored at the time. And how Pierot was saved was absurd. That snake should have been cut entirely from the story and seemed to be added by a screenwriter not paying attention.
4. Poor Bette Davis. She deserved someone writing her dialogue worthy of her presence.
5. Olivia Hussy would have made Linnet far more compelling. Or Jenny Agutter. Or half the actresses in Hollywood.
6. The pacing was embarrassing. I'm okay with slower gentler movies from this period -- but at times the camera literally died with nothing in the lens.
Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
The Strangest Dang Movie I finally managed to see
Suppose a computer studied hit movies just before 1978. Took the best ideas and GENERATED a movie? That's what this is... with very mixed results.
Four years earlier a scrappy little baseball film called THE BAD NEWS BEARS made much $$$ off of some foul mouthed characters. This film borrowed that idea. I was 14 when this film came out and her mouth was legendary among us boys. Now she sounds like anybody leaving a comment anywhere on YouTube.
Two years before this film and one year after were Rocky 1 and 2. So there was potentially BIG money in someone throwing a lot of fists. Why not Clint?
Another such calculate idea was buckets of country music. Wedged hard into this story that had little to do with country music. Why was it there?
Why not? I mean "dem Bee Gees fellas" made a fortune off a disco soundtrack and so why not try to make half that money off this soundtrack?
Another person making fortunes around this time was Burt Reynolds driving real fast with a girl by his side. And so we get that here too.
And because everyone loves a Disney movie with charming an animals why not throw in an orangutan?
This film should be an absolute fiasco -- and with it's middle-aged Neo Nazi bikers how can't it be a fiasco -- BUT STILL -- oddly the dang thing gets better the longer you watch it.
Feminists and animal rights types are going to have a good time with this film, but then this film is only 41 years old... twice the age of most who'd whine.
I can't really recommend it unless you're already a committed Clint Eastwood fan. What I will recommend is buying the entire RAWHIDE series and watching it. Most people my age and younger are seriously missing out.
Light in the Piazza (1962)
A lost Light in Cinema
I'm 55 years old. I was - 2 when this was released. There's now a poster of this film in my living room. The other poster is the followup film by this director, A PATCH OF BLUE.
Once upon a time there were movies you could take a young girl to see. A grandmother. Your mother. These films were of an unnamed genre. Afternoon melodramas with heart of gold? Something like that.
Every person on this site reviewing this film harshly doesn't 'get' this. This is not meant to make you fee like a superhero or someone from Mission Impossible. This is a story about the human condition.
Believe it or not -- LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA is about a mother who has to let go of her daughter who has hopelessly fallen in love. If that sounds boring to you -- you need to find who broke your heart and where they disposed of the pieces.
I'm not going to go through the plot because that's the stuff of spoilers. I'm also not going to list the litany of politically incorrect choices made in 1962 because, believe it or not fellow overly IMDB reviewer, the filmmakers had no interest in pleasing 2019 viewers.
Yes, this movie has some Italian stereotypes in them, but since I'm Italian I can tell you they were rather close to the truth. I never cringed once. (Don't get me started on the cringing I did during the Godfather movies.)
What makes this film wonderful are the four leads. They carry the entire piece... to the point of making Italy and Florence a mere background. Yvette and George are frankly more beautiful than Italy itself.
The story is a terrific soft fantasy... an exaggeration of what every mother might go through with any daughter... but magnified to melo-romantic heights. It's not an accident this movie became a stage musical. The story is as sweet as it is solid.
See LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA if you want to remember what the world was like before Trump and climate change. No, seriously.
PICKY STUFF
1. In the middle of the story is something this screenwriter calls 'the circus comes to town'. It's like having an intermission in the movie. In this story there's a big parade. During the parade, where flirting is happening in two generations, a canon goes off and (possibly) kills a person in the parade. One of our cast knows him and runs off to see if he can assist.
You have to ask yourself WTF is this moment doing in this otherwise sort of Disney melodrama? My theory is that the answer lives inside the question. To make this kind of fantasy melodrama feel more real -- they brought a little 'reality' into the story. As a way of making us 'believe' the story.
At the end of the movie, the final scene, out of frickin' NOWHERE Mom asks Italian Dad, "Hey, whatever happened to that guy that got shot by the canon."
There aren't the words to explain how out of place this question is, in the tonal sense. It's as if she was at a funeral asking for a meatball recipe.
She does so completely at the wrong time, both because it's the climactic scene and the tone is way WAAAAAAY off. The Dad says, "He died."
My question, as a writer, is why was this brought up here? I'm pretty good at reading into symbolism but this one mystifies. All I can go on, which is pretty lame if accurate, is strange things... just happen sometimes. Which is what IS happening in this last shot... sort of.. but not really.
2. You can watch this film a dozen times but miss a critical moment at the end. In this same scene. Clara reaches down at one point and appears to pick up either a piece of confetti or a flower pedal. She puts it in her mouth and eats it.
It sort of destroys the intent of this scene while hearing the Dad say, "He died". There's so much going on my wife and I never noticed what happens next.
Fabrizio bends down, picks something up to, and puts it in his mouth. What's going on here is that a few seconds back a boy is being shown throwing popcorn. Clara saw it and wanted a piece. Fabrizio, charmed as always by her innocence, mimics her behavior... a good sign for doting Mom.
The problem is the filmmakers failed to make it clear what Clara was doing, and with the distracting 'dead canon man' dialog this CRITICAL ARTISTIC MOMENT is lost... and why I took one star off the piece.
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
GREAT MOVIE BUT MANY HERE MISSED THE RELIGIOUS SUBTEXT
I'm an agnostic. Not a religious type. But I'm pretty sure this movie is a parable of some sort. The journey of a sinner being reborn.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT FORWARD
We meet a sinner. Jack Nicholson. He has a friend who's part loon and part trouble. A bimbo girlfriend with a heart of gold. Two bimbos on the side in heat. He drinks, shows up to work drunk, mistreats strangers and friends like. No real friends, family, or direction in his life. Apart from drilling girls and drilling oil.
Frustrated with his life he SUDDENLY is in Los Angeles meeting up with someone who's either his sister or Mom. I state it this way because I feel it was intentionally vague. This woman is a little looney herself but she has a big heart and can play the piano.
This juxtaposition of oil rigs and perfectly tuned pianos comes absolutely out of nowhere, which means this a meandering mess of a movie, or it serves a bigger purpose and is actually perfectly crafted. I vote the latter.
But stay with me.
Jack is told to visit his Dad who's had a stroke. His Dad lives on an island, has a big white beard, and is basically cast to appear like Santa Claus. Or God.
God living on an island is important. It puts his 'almighty' Father in a different place. Full of nature, green, and beauty. Instead of sand and oil rigs.
It's a place Jack hates. A house (of God) that makes the sinner's skin crawl. One key reason is that his family and relations in the house all play music. The way their Dad did before his stroke. Music, here, is analogous to 'grace'.
Jack came from this house and knows how to play the piano. But he gave it all up years ago. That is: being shown the way to make the world more pure and beautiful he chose instead to be a sinner and make it more ugly and... wait for it...
... dirty. If you've seen this film you know the term 'dirty' holds a great deal of meaning. On his way to his Dad's house he picks up a stranded woman who won't shut her annoying mouth about dirt and filth. She hilariously promises not to even want to talk about such things but actually won't shut her angry mouth about it.
I fell for this red herring at first. That her place in the story was comic relief. Think about the entire story again and you realize she's the 'wise man in the cave'. Speaking on behalf of the author. Hidden right in plain sight.
Back in the 'house of God' Jack meets a better woman than his typical bimbo. She's all about (God's grace) 'music'. He plays her a tune, she's moved, he isn't. Because he is a dirty filthy sinner.
(I'm not judging him. I'm saying the story is. Everyone in that house... as cartoonish as they appear... are not dirty or filthy. Except maybe that nurse dude.)
So when the end of this story happens... and you're not on this page yet... the ending will make no sense to you. However, if you believe Jack has come to realize he is dirty and filthy and needs to be reborn to a better life --
-- you get what I'm seeing in this film. And, again, I'm no religious type. But this is the only way I can coherently explain this incoherent looking piece.
By the way: if you left BREAKING THE WAVES confused as hell, you missed a similar trick there. That story is NOT about a simple minded girl. It's about someone returning to Earth and would we recognize him if he was standing right in front of us as... a simple minded girl.
Cheers. I hope this helped someone.