Change Your Image
Glesener
Reviews
Midnight (1934)
Waiting for the Remake
Clever but slow in development. Would love to see David Mamet re-work the script and direct a remake without the Hollywood ending, possibly leaving us hanging as to Edward Weldon's choice and Stella Weldon's fate. Also, the Ethel Saxon character should be more completely and sympathetically developed.
Happy, Texas (1999)
Thesbian Carpetbagging, again
Ordinarily, I really like Illeana Douglas. She was one of the reasons I looked forward to "Happy, Texas". Overall, I liked the film very much. But Douglas' "southern accent" was right out of acting school and a major distractant. If non-southerners must disguise their origins, it can be done. Just as in "The Gingerbread Man" where Kenneth Branagh gave Daryl Hannah a lesson in American accents, so to in this film, Jeremy Northam does a credible portrayl of a Texan although from the UK. But why go to the trouble. In today's highly mobile, cosmopolitan society, "everybody is from somewhere else and talks the same". If a geniune Texan is essential for the role, hire a Texan.
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
Ripoff of "Romy and Michele"
Most reviews pan this movie as a painfully prolonged version of the Saturday Night Live skit but actually the whole premise (right down to synchronous head-bobbing) is an uninspired rip off of the Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow characters from "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion."
Coup de foudre (1983)
Subtitles
Subtitles are unevenly paced, often uncoupled with dialogue, in the version I saw. I had to rewind frequently and sometimes use the pause button to catch everything.
The Gingerbread Man (1998)
Thespian Carpet Baggers, again!
The enjoyment of this movie is diminished by what I call "thespian carpet bagging." Why go on location in the South for authenticity and then import actors with southern drawls out of acting school instead of Georgia? The fact that "southern" is a stock dialect may be why high latitude reviewers tend to overlook or even praise such performances. For the British Branagh, it must be considered a personal triumph. Certainly, he did better than Hannah and Downey but all three distracted from the ambiance as much as a backdrop screen would have as the set for The Sound of Music. Surely there are capable actors from the eastern Sun or Bible Belts. But in this cosmopolitan era in which we live, why is there a need for such stereotyping at all? To genuine southerners, this kind of flawed imitation is not flattery. To some it may even be as offensive as the painted dark faces of the minstrel show are to Afro-Americans. But then again, I wouldn't really know because although I've lived half my life in the south amid diverse manners of speech, I was born and bred a Yankee and, no matter how hard I try, will probably always sound like one, as will Hannah and Downey.