Cactus Flower

Posted on February 7, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, characters get tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Suicide attempt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1969
Date Released to DVD:	April 23, 202
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0000633R9

This week’s release of Adam Sandler’s remake of “Cactus Flower” is a good reason to check out the 1969 original with Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, and, in her Oscar-winning screen debut, Goldie Hawn.

It began as a French play, adapted into a smash success on Broadway, and then this movie version, brightly directed by Gene Saks. Matthau plays Julian, a dentist who tells the girls he dates that he is married to avoid any long-term romantic entanglements. But when his much-younger girlfriend Toni (Hawn) attempts suicide he realizes how much he loves her and tells her he wants to get married. She is worried about being a home wrecker and insists on meeting his wife to be sure that she wants a divorce. Rather than tell Toni the truth, Julian persuades his starchy nurse (Bergman) to pretend to be his wife. Various romantic complications are all straightened out by the happy ending.

List: A Tribute to Ronald Reagan

Posted on February 6, 2011 at 8:00 am

As we celebrate the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan this week, most of the focus will be on his years in politics. But it is also a good opportunity to take another look at some of his best performances as an actor as well. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Knute Rockne All American This classic story of one of the all-time great college football coaches features Reagan as George Gipp, the player whose death inspired the team to victory.

2. Bedtime for Bonzo Reagan often joked about this film, but it is actually a very cute comedy about a nature/nurture experiment with a chimp raised as a human. Co-star Diana Lynn shines as the love interest.

3. Kings Row The President’s favorite of his films, this is generally considered to be his best performance. It is the story of a small town with a lot of hidden struggles and ugly secrets. Reagan played a optimistic, caring young man who must face a cruel and tragic loss.

4. Hellcats of the Navy It isn’t much of a movie, but this WWII submarine drama is worth watching for another reason — it’s the only film to co-star the future president and his future wife. Then called Nancy Davis, the First Lady appears as the nurse who decides he is her “Mr. Right.”

5. “The Voice of the Turtle” A solider on leave falls for a girl who has not been lucky in love in this romantic comedy based on a hit Broadway play.

And for those who want to know more about his career after Hollywood:

Black History Month Treat: Lincoln and Douglass

Posted on February 4, 2011 at 3:59 pm

My very favorite series for kids, the Scholastic Storybook Treasures, has a new gem out for Black History Month and President’s Day. It’s a collection of DVDs based on four superb history books for children including Lincoln & Douglass: An American Friendship, adapted from the book by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier, and narrated by Danny Glover. It is the story of an historic friendship between two great American leaders, the President of the United States and the man who was born a slave and came to lead the fight for freedom for all slaves.

The DVD also features “The Pilgrims of Plimoth,” “John, Paul, George, & Ben,” the story of five boys who grew up to become the Founding Fathers of the United States, and “The Journey of the One & Only Declaration of Independence.”

Conviction

Posted on February 1, 2011 at 8:00 am

Sam Rockwell gives one of the best performances of the year as Kenny Waters, a man wrongly convicted of murder for eighteen years until his sister was able to prove that he was innocent and get him released. Betty Ann (Hillary Swank) and Kenny were two of nine children from seven fathers raised in a succession of foster homes. She was a high school dropout and new mother when he went to prison. She went back to school, graduated from college and law school, passed the bar, and with the help of Cardozo Law School’s Innocence Project, was able to prove through DNA evidence that the blood found at the crime scene was not his.

Rockwell is mesmerizing as a man whose kind heart and family loyalty sometimes suffer from his impulsively confrontational behavior. He conveys at every stage the weight of his experience in prison as we see him over the 18-year period. His frustration, longing, despair, his fear of hoping too much mingled with his unquenchable pride in his sister are all heartbreakingly evident. He shows us why he was one of the local police department’s favorite “usual suspects” but he also shows us why someone would spend her life working on his behalf, even after everyone tells her to move on.

Director Tony Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray do a fine job of shaping the material, giving us a sense of the characters’ past experiences, the strength of their connection, and the press of time. The cast includes the reliable support of Minnie Driver as Betty Ann’s law school classmate and loyal friend and Juliette Lewis, outstanding as a recanting witness.

Swank, who co-produced, is sincere and dedicated if not ideal casting for this role. She has gravitated lately to a series of heroic characters, though her best work has been in more damaged or fragile roles. A high school dropout in real life, she is drawn to characters who exemplify education and achievement. But she gives us no sense of school as anything but an obstacle course. Her learning is not tied in any way to expanded understanding; she seems to have no curiosity about the law and no passion for anything but freeing her brother. We see the impact of her single-mindedness on her husband and sons but not how their reactions affect her. The story is one of triumph that cannot help but move us, but as a real-life character who gives everything, Swank does not give us enough.

Alice in Wonderland

Posted on January 31, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	N/A
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	During the psychedelic 1960s, the scene with the caterpiller puffing on a hookah was popularly considered to be a reference to opium or hashish, possibly because the movie, like the book, has such a surreal and dream-like quality, but there is nothing in
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1951

Almost 150 years ago Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson published his wildly imaginative story about Alice’s adventures down a rabbit hole. And now the wildly imaginative director Tim Burton has brought Wonderland to the 3D movie screen. It is less faithful to the original story than many of the previous dozen or so movie versions, but I think Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, would approve of Burton’s bringing his own take to the classic characters.

He brings his own story as well. Carroll’s Alice is a little girl bored by her sister’s dull book, and her journey is episodic and filled with wordplay and references to Victorian society that fill the annotated edition of the book with witty footnotes.

To make the story more cinematic, Burton tells us that all of that has already happened in what young Alice thought was a dream. This is her return visit. Alice is 18 years old and has just been proposed to by a dull but wealthy lord with no chin and bad digestion. As she meets up with the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter, she is not the only one who is confused. Characters seem puzzled and unsure about whether she is the real Alice. The Mad Hatter peers at her perplexedly. She may be Alice, and yet not quite completely the Alice they are looking for. “You were once muchier,” he tells her. “You’ve lost your muchiness.” In Burton’s version, Alice’s adventures are about her finding her “muchiness.” Her visit to Wonderland is a chance for her to understand what she is capable of and how much she will lose if she makes her decisions based on what people expect from her. As in the Carroll story, she is constantly changing size, and Burton shows us that she is really finding her place. She believes she is once again in a dream but increasingly learns that it is one she can control. By the time she faces the Jabberwock, she knows that she is in control — and that her courage and determination can create the opportunity she needs to follow her heart.

Johnny Depp brings a depth, even a poignance to the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter is utterly delicious as the peppery red queen, hilariously furious over her stolen tarts. There’s a thrilling battle, the visuals are dazzling, with references to classic book illustrations by Maxfield Parrish, and the 3D effects will have you feeling as though you are falling down the rabbit hole yourself. The frame story bookending the Wonderland/Underland adventure is tedious and, oddly, less believable than the disappearing cat and frog footmen. But Burton’s re-interpretation of the classic story is filled with muchiness and the result is pretty darn frabjuous.