After reading so much about this movie recently here, I decided to see it (as I'm also trying to see all oscar nominated acting performances since 1970).
My expectations were very low. In fact it's not a great film but not as bas ad I was expecting. The screenplay is rather dull and tremendously dated. Glenda Jackson is good as always. George Segal is very annoying.
Dated, but still powerful film of inter-racial couple being sued for custody of the wife's child by her former husband. Terrific performances by Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton as the couple, Richard Mulligan as the former husband, Harry Bellaver as the judge and Robert Earl Jones and legendary Broadway star Vinnette Carroll as Hamilton's parents.
Someone should write a sequel for Barrie, the only player still alive. Felicity Huffman could play her now grown daughter.
Romantic comedy with several bright spots, most of them involving Hugh Grant as the new British Prime Minister and Emma Thompson as his sister with the husband (Alan Rickman) with the roving eye. The vignettes involving Liam Neesom as a new widower take on a renewed poignancy as the scenes with his now motherless son (Thomas Sangster) foreshadow his own future.
Also with Bill Nighy, Laura Linney, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Chiwitel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln, Rowan Atkinson, Billy Bob Thornton as a Clintonesque U.S. President and many more.
High rating for a film that could have essentially been fifteen minutes. This is my first Swanberg and I'm interested in how he does things. He is a profoundly minor individual who captures the "truth" of his situation in lieu of any kind of real insight. There is an interesting film to be had in post-relationship trysts but this isn't it. It has nothing to say outside of obviously being inspired by real events. He deserves some kind of praise for eliciting very natural performances from his cast and for getting this girl to fuck on-screen...and also for the sex appearing effortlessly intertwined into the narrative as well. It's not forced at all. Kate Winterich's persona is one not too-often seen on film and it warrants a better film.
Ultimately though, Swanberg's method of persuasion is far more major than his film. This movie is a vignette and not a terribly elegant one at that. It starts with fucking and ends with getting fucked, the story will doubtlessly go on and that's all Swanberg wants to do. I admire that it got made in this capacity but it's a shame that Swanberg didn't push for a stronger narrative. It's essentially a first act.
I'm to watch LOL and Hannah Takes the Stairs within a few days.
The Candidate (Michael Ritchie) - 6.5/10
Ritchie directs like a campaign. It damns the surfaces but I see little else there in this film. Treatise: politics are superficial. This is a film "about", not about. It offers no hope, and today no real insight, although for the times I'd imagine it was pretty astonishing. Part of me admires the lack of artifice and its simplicity, its sharpness, its boldness. Yet for all its sharpness and boldness, I find that entertaining and not insanely illuminating. That they derive an entire narrative from Redford's soul in crisis only to result in a minor and very amusing breakdown is fairly commendable in that it takes so long for him to turn around. The final words: "What do we do now?" A thesis of amusing hopelessness to which the film offers little illumination...which is the point.
Certainly fun and I want to know if Peter Boyle was touted for a nomination at all, but easy prophecy.
--Reza wrote:Glenn Close was certainly on a roll then......she was everywhere....on tv, the big screen and Broadway....winning or getting nominated for Emmys, Tonys and Oscars.
Close really was hot back then, wasn't she? Didn't she get nominated in support three years in a row? It's hard to imagine the reasoning behind her not having an Oscar yet. Although, to be thorough, the years in which she was nominated were either led by a clear, almost indominable frontrunner (Linda Hunt, Peggy Ashcroft) or a consolation winner (Lange). Dangerous Liasions might've been her best shot.
I was just watching the latest episode of Damages last night and I think it's really some of her best work. The tightrope she has to walk playing Patty Hewes is rather remarkable. She manages to be both vulnerable and vicious, sometimes alternately in the blink of an an eye.
Yes I would have preferred Close winning over Jodie Foster in 1988. If I remember correctly it was a surprise win for Foster (Jacqueline Bisset, amongst others, was shown in closeup and looked quite surprised) even though amongst the precursors she won only the NBR award and the Golden Globe (in a whacky three way tie with Shirley MacLaine and Sigourney Weaver).
I agree Close is superb in Damages. I still have my hopes up high that someday she might win an Oscar in the lead category......is that pesky film version of Sunset Blvd ever going to see the light of day???
--mlrg wrote:How Robert Loggia was nominated for this is a mistery. He just wonders around cursing everything.
Robert Loggia's nomination was recognition for his long career as one of Hollywood's most dependable character since the fifties (Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Garment Jungle).
Eighties audiences sat up and took notice of him as Richard Gere's father in An Officer and a Gentleman and two years later in support of Al Pacino in Scarface. He also had another major role in 1985 in Prizzi's Honor. He was considered due.
But what was that hilarious piece of dialogue he says to Close?
--mlrg wrote:How Robert Loggia was nominated for this is a mistery. He just wonders around cursing everything.
Robert Loggia's nomination was recognition for his long career as one of Hollywood's most dependable character actors in high profile roles since the fifties (Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Garment Jungle).
Eighties audiences sat up and took notice of him as Richard Gere's father in An Officer and a Gentleman and two years later in support of Al Pacino in Scarface. He also had another major role in 1985 in Prizzi's Honor. He was considered due.
--Reza wrote:Glenn Close was certainly on a roll then......she was everywhere....on tv, the big screen and Broadway....winning or getting nominated for Emmys, Tonys and Oscars.
Close really was hot back then, wasn't she? Didn't she get nominated in support three years in a row? It's hard to imagine the reasoning behind her not having an Oscar yet. Although, to be thorough, the years in which she was nominated were either led by a clear, almost indominable frontrunner (Linda Hunt, Peggy Ashcroft) or a consolation winner (Lange). Dangerous Liasions might've been her best shot.
I was just watching the latest episode of Damages last night and I think it's really some of her best work. The tightrope she has to walk playing Patty Hewes is rather remarkable. She manages to be both vulnerable and vicious, sometimes alternately in the blink of an eye.
Marcia Gay Harden has also really been exceptional this season as well as Claire Maddox. William Hurt, I've been less impressed with. I can't wait until we get to the finale.
I wouldn't call Jagged Edge "pure 80's trash". There are much worse films from that decade. It is a fun, not-that-great little thriller, but not a deplorable slag heap. I don't remember Robert Loggia in it, either, quite honestly. Did he have something to do with a typewriter at one point in the film? I certainly remember him in "The Sopranos" though...
Edited By Big Magilla on 1241619517
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
--mlrg wrote:Jagged Edge (1985) - Richard Marquand
2/10
Pure 1980's trash with a terrible direction and lousy acting apart from a dreadful screenplay by Joe Eszterhas. How Robert Loggia was nominated for this is a mistery. He just wonders around cursing everything. This might also contain John Barry's worst film score. A really terrible film.
Yes totally trashy but a guilty pleasure.
I recall something very funny that Loggia says to Close when he first meets her.....forget what it was though!! I think he was nominated for just that scene.
It was also nice to see on screen after a long time Ryan O' Neal's ex wife, Leigh Taylor-Young. Glenn Close was certainly on a roll then......she was everywhere....on tv, the big screen and Broadway....winning or getting nominated for Emmys, Tonys and Oscars.
Pure 1980's trash with a terrible direction and lousy acting apart from a dreadful screenplay by Joe Eszterhas. How Robert Loggia was nominated for this is a mistery. He just wonders around cursing everything. This might also contain John Barry's worst film score. A really terrible film.
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008) Chris Waitt 4/10
Blindness (2008) Fernando Meirelles 7/10
Let the Right One In (2008) Tomas Alfredson 7/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
