Reviews

Growing up, I knew Airplane! was funny, but there's an extra appreciation once you've seen the original. Frankly, given the now-dated plot and look and feel of Airport, watching it as "that movie that Airplane! is making fun of" is probably the best way to see it. Dean Martin is laughable as a pilot, though his scenes with Jacqueline Bisset are actually touching (his sensitivity with beautiful women being his strong point). Helen Hayes steals (and saves) the movie with her performance as Ada Quonsett. I really just couldn't care about most of the other characters, except in how they related to Ada. In my mind, Maureen Stapleton comes off worst, wandering, weeping, stumbling and shrieking through scenes.

Most strange of all is the moral of the story: in the end, the men (well, Burt and Dean, anyway) all make off with women other than their wives. Is the idea that it takes some great trauma to make you realize who's most important in your life?!

The sins of the father shall be visited upon his children, and upon his children's children. Katharine Hepburn plays a woman who was a bright, curious child whose father stymied that curiosity because she was "just a girl". Later in life, Hepburn's illegitimate daughter, whom she raises as her niece, is a bright, curious child, whose curiosity Hepburn stymies whenever said curiosity would reveal her illegitimacy. There's wonderful hypocrisy at work in Hepburn's character, but the film absolutely fails in addressing the issue. Very disappointing.

Also infuriating is the handling of the character of the father, who is strict and regimented at the beginning of the film and is reduced to being a near-weeping milksop, comforted by and comforting his loving daughter, near the end. Where was he during the raising of his granddaughter? Were I Hepburn, I wouldn't let him near her, but if that's the case, how did they become reconciled by the end? It makes no sense.

I give extra consideration to any film that gives work to Old English Sheepdogs, but this mildly amusing picture that follows the madcap life of Hollywood bombshell Lola Burns and her posse (including her drunk of a father, her bum of a brother and shark of a manager, not to mention the sheepdogs!) doesn't quite cut it. The machinations of her manager mirror those of the editor from Front Page, but Lola simply doesn't have the wits to be able to fight back -- her entire life experience is controlled, fake! and I find it melancholy rather than funny, given what we know about how the studios destroyed the lives of stars like Judy Garland. The Truman Show better balances the humor with some "serious" reflection on the plight of the character whose life is is under a microscope.

In a screwball comedy, the dialogue should be sharp, witty, and come fast and furious.

"Nothing Sacred" has a few flashes of true humor delivered by Carole Lombard, but is an otherwise plodding, dull, and pedestrian comedy.

This film is incredibly historically inaccurate, merging and changing personalities and events to force the entirety of this fascinating life into a measly 2-hour Hollywood schlockbuster.

The performances are stiff and unconvincing; I blame the script, direction, and style of (melo-)dramatic acting preferred in the 50's -- Burton, in particular, is considerably better in his movies a decade later.

I have just read the book and then watched the film, which was perhaps a mistake. The book is wonderful, with well-drawn characters and an interesting storyline (though perhaps a little too wildly anti-Church).

The film contains some wonderful actors and interesting visuals, but the screenplay contains capricious changes to the storyline and characters; in many cases characters' attitudes and actions are so altered as to be nearly unrecognizable.

I don't expect the film to slavishly follow the book, but I expect any changes to either improve upon the story, better enable the story to be told via film, or at worst do no harm. Few of the alterations made to Chocolat meet these criteria.