Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Restoration (1995) - 7/10 - Robert Downey, Jr. stars as a physician named Merivel during the reign of Charles II after the restoration of the monarchy in England. He gains the king's favor and is granted a large estate where Merivel can entertain and play and just have fun. He falls for one of the king's mistresses and later loses the king's favor and the estate. The movie has great costumes and set design, but moves kind of slow through the first half of the film. It picks up after Merivel ends up working at a home for the insane after losing his estate. Overall, I enjoyed it, though it is a bit uneven. It has a nice supporting cast with Sam Neill, David Thewlis, Polly Walker, Meg Ryan, Ian McKellen and others.

Li'l Abner (1959) - 7.5/10 - This movie was based on the Broadway musical which in turn was based on Al Capp's comic strip. My brother starred as Abner in a local production of the musical so I was already somewhat familiar with the story. Daisy Mae wants to catch Abner on Sadie Hawkins Day so that she can marry him, but the town may need to be evacuated so that the government can use it to test bombs. The people of Dogpatch try to find a way to make their town important enough so that it isn't bombed. There are plenty of songs and dances and I found them to be fun. The musical roots of the film are pretty obvious, especially with the scenery, the costumes and the dialogue, but that seemed to add to the enjoyment for me this time around rather than detracting from it. This film won't be for everybody, but I liked it.

Angels & Insects (1995) - 7.5/10 - William Adamson is a naturalist who returns home to Victorian England after being shipwrecked on the way back from an expedition to the Amazon. William is now dependent on his patron, a wealthy country gentleman, and ends up helping his patron with his project to classify specimens while also helping teach the patron's younger daughters. William finds a kindred spirit in the governess of the children, but is instead attracted to the elder daughter of his patron who is in mourning for her late fiance. He marries the daughter, Eugenia, but finds that the marriage is not quite what he expected. I thought that this was a pretty good period drama. It is slow moving at times and some of the performances are a bit reserved, but I found that appropriate to the characters.

Thanks for the clarification.

Big Magilla wrote:I haven't seen Let Them All Talk, but I do know that the crossing was on the Queen Elizabeth 2, not the Queen Mary which has been moored in Long Beach Harbor (outside Los Angeles) for decades where it serves as a hotel and tourist attraction. The QE2 is now a floating hotel docked in Dubai.

It was the Queen Mary 2 in the movie which has succeeded the QE2 since 2004 and has served as the flagship of the Cunard Line on its Transatlantic crossings. The Queen Mary 2 is the only purpose built passenger ship designed as an ocean liner, as opposed to a cruise ship.

Dianne Wiest’s “Elon Musk” monologue (which, apparently, was completely improvised) is one of the most memorable, quietly devastating moments of film from this year. I have thought about it often since watching the movie.

I haven't seen Let Them All Talk, but I do know that the crossing was on the Queen Elizabeth 2, not the Queen Mary which has been moored in Long Beach Harbor (outside Los Angeles) for decades where it serves as a hotel and tourist attraction. The QE2 is now a floating hotel docked in Dubai.

Il gatto a nove code / The Cat o' Nine Tails (Dario Argento, 1971) 8/10

The middle film in Argento's "Animal Trilogy" (along with "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" and "Four Flies on Grey Velvet"). The title refers to the number of leads the protagonists follow while attempting to solve the murder mystery. Someone breaks into a Medical Institute where scientists are working on a highly classified experiment involving a genetic code that allows an insight into a chromosome that reveals the "criminal tendency" in a person. Although apparently nothing is stolen a scientist claims to know who broke into the place and the reason behind it. When he is killed after falling under a train it raises suspicion in a blind man (Karl Malden) and a reporter (James Franciscus). As the two men join hands to investigate, a series of other murders occur. In Argento's films the screenplay is almost always a mix of violence and macabre humour with the film highlighting scenes depicting each murder with Ennio Moricone's screeching score going into overdrive as it accompanies the dying person's death throes - here a man is pushed to his death with a train slamming into his flayling body, another death is by suffocation with a wire, a woman is strangled and there are assorted scenes of stabbings. Argento's plots are invariably flimsy but resonate strongly through the use of exciting set pieces and the copious amount of blood on view during the violent scenes. His remarkable camera placements also add a lot to the senses highlighting the terror depicted on screen. It is also remarkable how influential his films are as many directors took freely from them. Even Alfred Hitchcock, famous for his sense of the macabre, appears to have taken from this film. During the investigation here the camera keeps cutting to a minor police character who keeps interupting the thought process of the main protagonist as he babbles on about his wife's weird food recipes. Hitchcock used this the following year in his film "Frenzy" where a cop (Alec McCowan) is constantly heard discussing his wife's disgusting food recipes. Although murder had always been a main plot point in all his films this was the first time Hitchcock depicted it with grisly abandon showing a nude strangled woman with a contorted face and tongue hanging out which was a common sight in many Italian gialos and particularly in Argento's films. Also fascinating is the fact that Argento was able to attract a number of actors from Hollywood and Britain to star in his films - not something easy to imagine considering his films often had low budgets with haphazard screenplays. Yet these actors happily accepted roles in these gialos and acted in the kind of film not part of their usual oeuvre.

Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderberg, 2020) 6/10

Soderberg got most of his cast to improvise their dialogue having them shoot scenes in two's and three's as they mouth off their dialogue at each other. While the three leading ladies take to this method with a great deal of ease poor Lucas Hedges mostly flounders. He plays the nephew of Alice (Meryl Streep) a Pulitzer prize winning author who has just won another great prize and whose literary agent (Gemma Chan) convinces her to go to England to receive it in person traveling by sea on the Queen Mary 2. Since she cannot fly she immediately accepts provided the agency allows her to bring along her nephew and her two best friends. The three ladies haven't seen each other in 30 years so both accept the invitation out of curiosity. Roberta (Candice Bergen) is garrulous and penniless selling lingerie to make ends meet and on the lookout to catch a rich old man. She also holds a grudge against her friend thinking one of her philandering characters in a book was based on her which caused her husband to divorce her. Susan (Dianne Wiest) is quietly wistful and tries to bring some semblance of calm between the other two emotionally self-obsessed women. The agent also boards the ship and befriends the young nephew in the hope that through him she can gather information on the writer's new manuscript. Talky, somewhat ponderous film, is shot by Soderberg on the actual crossing of the Queen Mary 2 using natural light and very little equipment. He succeeds for the most part - the three leads are all very good with Bergen in great ascerbic form and Wiest displaying a sense of simmering annoyance under a calm exterior. As with most stories dealing with the reunion of friends there is the obvious moment where in due course past animosities, regrets and hurts eventually surface in due course and explode. Here there is a sense of positive closure as well in all the characters who have appeared on screen.

Freefall (John Irvin, 1994) 5/10

Action packed film is strictly C-grade material although there are enough thrills (hang gliding off spectacular cliffs, car chases, shoot-outs) and soft porn sex (naked bodies contorting in the best Kama Sutra style) to make it worth your while. A wildlife photographer (Pamela Gidley), working for a magazine owned by her fiancé (Jeff Fahey), is sent off on an assignment to Zanzibar (although the scenes are shot at "Angel Falls" in Venezuela) to photograph a rare falcon. She runs into a cocky stuntman (Eric Roberts) who she first sees jumping off a cliff next to a tall waterfall which also later becomes an exotic location for them to have sex. The sex continues into the bedroom where she ends up drugged. Later in London she is harassed by Interpol, helped by her fiancé, has lunch with her lover where they manage to escape a shootout only to get into the thick of a second shootout at a cricket ground where her fiancé is killed and she escapes with her lover. Is he an undercover Interpol agent as he says or a rogue fugitive which the police have labeled him. The potholes in the script come fast and furious in a film that was never released but went straight to video.

Palm Springs (Max Barbakow, 2020) 4/10

A guy (Andy Samberg) and a girl (Cristin Milioti) meet up at a wedding and discover they are stuck in a time loop as they keep living through the same day over and over again. The old "Groundhog Day" concept is regurgitated as the two wreak havoc at the wedding and try and accept the meaningless of life as they know it now. As time goes on the two form a comfortable bond and the plot begins to follow the steps of a regular rom-com as the two make out, fight, find love and try to get out of the loop. Bully for them because, alas, for me the film quickly got tiresome and the twosome started getting on my nerves. Both actors certainly give it a go, are fitfully interesting as individuals but lack chemistry together to make me believe they were made for each other and could live happily ever after. Overrated film.

The Dig (Simon Stone, 2020) 5/10

True story about the discovery of what is considered the greatest treasure ever discovered in the UK - an undisturbed 7th Century Saxon ship buried with a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts (metalwork dress fittings in gold and gems, a ceremonial helmet, a shield and sword, a lyre, and silver plate from the Byzantine Empire) found under large mounds of mud in an old cemetery in Sutton Woo, Suffolk. A retired military officer purchases a mansion and the land surrounding it in 1926. A few years after his death his widow, Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan), who has an interest in archaeology, hires a self-taught Suffolk archaeologist, Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), to excavate the four mounds on the property. His discovery leads the curator of the Ipswich Museum to bring in experts from Cambridge University (Ken Stott, Ben Chaplin, Lily James) who took over the excavation which eventually caused a tussle between the excavators and the Museum as both wanted credit for the discovery. At an inquest it was decided that since the treasure was buried without the intention to recover it, it belonged to the owner of the property on which it had been found. Mrs Pretty donated the finds to the British Museum and in recognition she was awarded the CBE by Winston Churchill which she declined. The story flits between the excavation site and Mrs Pretty who discovers she has a debilitating illness. As a history lesson the film holds interest although it is all very low key with there being nothing very cinematic about a bunch of people digging through sand and mud. Mulligan looks wan and delicately fragile throughout and merely reacts while Fiennes is fine as the gruff excavator looked down upon by the experts.

All Thing's Fair (1995) - 7.5/10 - This Swedish film takes place in Malmö in 1943 and features a 15 year old boy named Stig who has an affair with his new teacher, a 30 something year old woman with a husband who spends much of his time either on the road or drunk (or perhaps both). Stig works part time at a local movie theater and this helps cover up the affair which goes on for some time. Stig's becomes friends with the husband who is aware of the affair, but does nothing to stop it. The relationship has a number of consequences in the end. I thought it was a decent movie, even if the subject matter is a bit risque. The subplot with the neighbor girl who is in love with Stig seemed pretty realistic. I was less convinced by the affair with the teacher.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) - 8/10 - Anthony Quinn stars as Bombolini, a man who is a bit of a clown and loves to drink, but is well loved in town. He is named the mayor of Santa Vittoria soon after Mussolini's regime falls in 1943 in order to deflect anger away from the town council. There is a huge celebration at this time, too. However, bad news soon arrives that the Germans will be occupying their town in a few days with plans to confiscate the town's vast wine stock (over one million bottles) to send back to Germany. Bombolini shows that he is not totally a clown when he comes up with a plan to hide the vast majority of the wine to keep it safe and fool the Germans into thinking they are getting more of the town's wine than they actually are. The movie is a comedy, though with dramatic moments mixed in. Quinn is great as usual in his role as Bombolini, though he is matched by Anna Magnani in her role as Bombolini's strong willed wife. The supporting cast is also pretty good and overall this is a fun movie.

Sunset (1988) - 6/10 - Tom Mix (Bruce Willis) and Wyatt Earp (James Garner) team up to solve a murder mystery in Hollywood in 1929. Earp is brought in as a technical advisor on a movie about his exploits. The movie stars Tom Mix in the lead role, but they soon have more on their hands than just making a movie. This wasn't a particularly good movie and definitely feels fake and somewhat lifeless at times. I didn't think that Mariel Hemingway was very good in this one. Still, I liked the two leads and the movie was watchable even with all of its faults.

Bullhead (2011) - 7/10 - Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a cattle farmer who is addicted to steroids. The police are investigating the murder of a federal officer who was investigating local mafia with ties to the use of growth hormones in livestock. Jacky gets drawn into the investigation through a couple of coincidences and one of his childhood friends who is acting as a police informant. A dark secret from Jacky's childhood plays a role through flashbacks and its continuing influence on Jacky's life. I thought that Schoenaerts was pretty convincing in his role, but the movie seemed a bit uneven at times. I enjoyed it, but it could have been a lot better.

Monsieur Vincent (1947) - 7/10 - This biography of Vincent de Paul is pretty well made and the lead actor does a nice job in the role. However, the seemingly neverending scenes of misery get a bit tiresome after a while. It's not a bad movie and there are a number of interesting parts, especially early in the film, but it just seems to keep hitting the same notes over and over again.

L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo / The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970) 8/10

The success of Argento's first film owes a great deal to Vittorio Storraro's camerawork, Ennio Morricone's memorable score and to it's sound design. An American writer (Tony Musante) in Rome witnesses a vicious attack on a woman (Eva Renzi) inside an art gallery. Trapped between glass doors he sees a man in a trench coat, wearing black gloves struggle with a knife. The woman is stabbed and the man gets away before the police arrive. Since he is a witness to the attempted murder he is detained by the police. A serial killer is on the loose having murdered three other women. As he investigates with the police the killer begins to stalk him and his girlfriend (Suzy Kendall). Stylish horror-thriller has many unsettling moments as Argento places the protagonist in awkward spaces and in dark rooms while shooting scenes in a claustrophic manner putting the audience in the same position as the victim of the attacks. Along the way various eccentric characters are introduced - a gay shop owner, a pimp and an assassin. There are more murders but the film's most nerve wracking sequence has the girlfriend trapped in her locked apartment in darkness with the killer hacking at the door as she crawls around on the floor screaming helplessly. This memorable film set the tone and was followed by several giallos which used the same theme with much more graphic violence along with plots with twists.

Misconduct (Shintaro Shimosawa, 2016) 1/10

Who is Josh Duhamel - the young leading man in this thriller? I had to look him up and his claim to fame has been a stint on a daytime soap, assorted B films and a dip into the awfully noisy "Transformers" franchise. So here he gets bolstered by two huge stars who probably picked up huge paychecks for their trouble and despite their fairly important presence this film got a very limited release followed by getting shunted by the studio to video on demand. The derivative, by-the-numbers plot throws in a number of twists and a familiar steal from the old Alan J. Pakulla / Harrison Ford film "Presumed Innocent". A young lawyer (Josh Duhamel), stuck in an uneasy marriage, manages to get incriminating evidence on a tycoon (Anthony Hopkins) from an old girlfriend who in turn is stuck in a nasty relationship with the rich man. His boss at the firm (Al Pacino) has had a few bones to pick with the tycoon in the past so relishes the courtroom attack on his adversary. When the girl turns up dead in her apartment and her dead body is mysteriously transferred to his house, he has to go on the run chased by a cop (Julia Stiles) and an assassin. After many red herrings and major potholes in the screenplay the plot leads up to a ludicrous moment with Pacino camping it up with a hilarious southern accent which is then followed up with an even more absurd twist. Absolutely vile film is a total waste of time and rightfully ended up on the video for view format.

I See You (Adam Randall, 2019) 7/10

There's a lot going on in this eerie film. A cop (Jon Tenney) is investigating the disappearance of a kid in town with clues that resemble a spate of similar kidnappings and murders that took place 15 years before. His wife (Helen Hunt) had an affair and both he and their son are terse with her. Meanwhile there is something strange going on inside the house as all three sense a strange presence. The record player starts playing by itself as does the tv, cutlery goes missing, a window is smashed, the pet hamster gets loose out of its cage, the cop gets locked inside a cupboard and the son is attacked and tied up and left in the tub. The wife's lover turns up, gets hit on the head by a mug and gets viciously whacked and killed. The couple secretly bury him in the woods thinking their son killed the man in anger. The story takes a strange twist and in a flashback we see two teenagers breaking into the house to "phrog" - move into a stranger's house and secretly photograph them - which explains some of what has gone on before. The screenplay throws in an assortment of genres - horror, thriller, domestic drama, supernatural, police pocedural and murder mystery. Thought provoking film is certainly not formulaic as it maintains suspense throughout with a number of twists and shocking reveals. Also sadly revealing is how much work Helen Hunt has done to her face which has not only aged her badly but left her mouth drooping downwards.

The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006) 7/10

The film that finally won for Scorsese his long-awaited Oscar for his direction (it also won Best Picture) is, in hindsight, not one of his top tier outputs. A remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs" with it's setting transposed to Boston. The film is a cat-and-mouse game between an Irish Mob Boss (Jack Nicholson) and the cops. The vicious killer mentors a young boy from his neighborhood and sees him (Matt Damon) join the police force and secretly makes use of him as his mole. Meanwhile the police Captain (Martin Sheen) and his Sergeant (Mark Wahlberg) secretly get a pre-graduation recruit (Leonardo DiCaprio) to infiltrate the Mob. Both moles keep their handlers well informed until events cause both parties to suspect they have a mole within their ranks. The violence, which has been simmering in fits and starts througout the film, suddenly erupts in glorious fashion when the two moles finally confront each other at the end. This is one of DiCaprio's most memorable performances but many in the supporting cast also shine - Jack Nicholson plays to the gallery as the disheveled crook with a savage streak, Ray Winstone as his close aide, Alec Baldwin as a senior cop, Vera Farmiga as a police psychiatrist who forms a close bond with both moles, as lover to one and doctor to the other, and Mark Wahlberg as the foul-mouthed Sergeant who has a uniquely harsh way of hiring recruits. The film also won Oscars for its screenplay and editing while Wahlberg received a nomination. Entertaining film but not amongst Scorsese's top 10.

Emma (Autumn de Wilde, 2020) 5/10

Beautifully staged adaptation of Jane Austen's story about a selfish meddler who interferes in the love lives of her friends. Anya Taylor-Joy makes an icy Emma and the film does not bring anything fresh to the table. It's a straight forward and very good looking adaptation of the book, but unlike the recent remake of "Little Women", it fails to excite. The film's best performance is by Bill Nighy as Emma's hypochondriacal father who, in just a few scenes, manages to create a very comical character. The film has outstanding sets and costumes.

The Boat is Full (1981) - 8/10 - During WWII, a small group of refugees plus a deserter slip over the border into Switzerland seeking asylum. However, Switzerland's policy was to return most refugees to Germany. Their 'lifeboat' was full and they did not want any more mouths to feed. The owner of a small inn tries to help the group so that they can stay in Switzerland. I thought that the movie was pretty well acted. There is an interesting mix of characters. The movie does have its faults and could have flowed a bit better, but it was still pretty effective.

The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002) - 7/10 - Padre Amaro is newly ordained as a priest and is a favorite of the bishop. He is sent to a small town in Mexico where he soon learns of the corruption and various sins of the church and other priests in the area. A young woman in the town makes advances on him, but will he be able to resist? The movie was very much like a soap opera in some ways, but it was a decent enough film. It was entertaining enough, but somewhat predictable as well.

Reza wrote:The Prom (Ryan Murphy, 2020) 3/10

Joyless adaptation of a rather corny Broadway musical is just as cheesy as "Mamma Mia!", except that at least had familiar songs for many of us of a certain age to relate to. Here the production numbers have neither a razzle nor a dazzle despite the big name cast giving it a brave twirl. Meryl Streep has always been known to have a musical bent which unfortunately throughout her long career Hollywood never saw fit to properly utilize. A song here and a few there in films led to her delightfully belting out the ABBA songs in Mamma Mia! although her character, as written, was not that much. Here she shows some pizzaz â la Shirley MacLaine - donning a short red wig plus a pair of legs that kick high - playing a bitchy, narcissistic, aging Broadway diva, who along with an equally bitchy and narcissistic James Corden receive news at the story's outset that their musical based on Eleanor Roosevelt has just bombed big time with critics laying the entire blame on both the egocentric stars. Wanting to quickly correct their public image both decide to back any cause out there for the sake of publicity. Joining them in this quest is a lifelong chorus girl and wannabee star (Nicole Kidman) and an actor-bartender (Andrew Rannells). The cause they pursue is of a lesbian girl in Indiana whose High School has cancelled the annual Prom because she wanted to take her girlfriend as her date. All hell breaks loose as the crazy actors from New York descend on small-town America to battle it out with a puritan teacher (Kerry Washington) who is dead-set against anybody who is gay. Notwithstanding the preachy liberal message, which here satirizes such films, the film keeps getting worse as it goes along. The "lets-put-on-a-show" plot was already a cliché when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland tread that route back in the 1940s. Here it becomes a loud bloated mess. Streep goes into forced overdrive with her campy mannerisms, Corden's flaming gay character relies on boring stereotypes while Kidman badly fumbles up her Fosse-style solo number. Although the story champions the rights of LGBTQ teens the story kind of squanders that by having the young cast play second fiddle to the over bearing grown-ups. Skip this film.

I wouldn't say it was joyless and I wouldn't say skip it, but otherwise I pretty much agree with your assessment, although I'd give it a solid three stars which on a scale of 1-10 would probably be between 6 and 7. The first hour sails by fairly well, but the second hour drags. I see it capturing a number of Golden Globe - Comedy or Musical nods but nothing from Oscar except maybe hair and makeup and costume design.

Ava (Tate Taylor, 2020) 4/10

A-list talent stuck in B-movie zone done much better with Charlize Theron as the "Atomic Blonde". Although Jessica Chastain also makes a kick-ass assassin and one-woman army in this thriller which appears to be a chip off the "Jason Bourne" franchise. It's all boringly predictable, as Ava (Jessica Chastain), a former teenage delinquent and reformed alcoholic, takes orders from her mentor (John Malkovich) and trots the globe assassinating assorted undesirables for a fancy fee. At home she has a troubled relationship with a sarcastic mother (Geena Davis), an angry sister (Jess Weixler) and the latter's boyfriend (Common, who badly needs acting lessons) with whom she has a past connection and who is upto his eyeballs in debt to a woman (Joan Chen) who owns a gambling den. When a hit which was a set-up goes wrong, another assassin (Colin Farrell) who was trained by her mentor decides she is now a liability and must be terminated. There are sporadic fight sequences as she in turn battles the assassin sent to doff her, goons at the gambling den and lastly with the man who has put a hit on her. There is nothing new here and I left this film wondering where on earth was Joan Chen all these years and why would someone be stupid enough to go around with a name like Common. I mean wtf!!

La tempesta / Tempest (Alberto Lattuada, 1958) 8/10

Epic film covers Russian history by way of Alexander Pushkin's novel "The Captain's Daughter which was a romanticized account of the Rebellion against the rule of Catherine the Great (Viveca Lindfors) by Pugachev (Van Heflin), a disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Army. At the center of the story is a young soldier (Geoffrey Horne), banished by the Empress to a remote outpost, who inadvertently befriends the rebel leader and falls in love with the local commander's daughter (Silvana Mangano). Superb widescreen De Laurentiis production has epic battle scenes (shot by Aldo Tonti) and outstanding costumes and set design. Horne and Mangano make a very good looking pair of lovers although the young actor is the weak link in what otherwise is a superb cast - Heflin, cast against type, is memorable as the rebel leader of the Cossacks, Lindfors is delightfully campy, Mangano with her stunning beauty and Agnes Moorehead as her tart tongued mother. A worthy film with strong direction by Lattuada.

Honest Thief (Mark Williams, 2020) 2/10

Ever since Natasha Richardson died Liam Neeson's face has an underlying sadness in all his movies. And all his movies - he churns out quite a few - seem to resemble each other with very little variation. After meeting a young woman a serial bank robber (Liam Neeson) decides to turn himself into the FBI. The two agents assigned to interview him turn crooked, steal the money and frame him for a murder. On the run with his girlfriend (Kate Walsh) he tries to prove his innocence. Neeson seems to be on auto mode making movie after movie strictly for the money and probably to keep busy. If not, then he is obviously rather stupid for failing to recognise that almost every film script he accepts have plots with ridiculous potholes and all his characters seem to have been wrung from the same cloth. Gunplay, car chases and a death or two are the order of the day which can be fun if not always so repetitious in Neeson's case. This one is pretty much the pits lacking even a feeble attempt to create any plot twist. Boring rubbish.

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (Gero von Boehm, 2020) 7/10

A look at the bad boy of the world of photography - the scandalous, transgressive provocateur Helmut Newton. An original who crossed all boundaries presenting women in every outrageous avatar. Many of his muses - Charlotte Rampling, Grace Jones, Hanna Schygulla, Isabella Rossellini, Claudia Schiffer - have very fond words to say about him recalling their provocative sessions in front of the camera which in today's politically correct climate would never be allowed. Critics said he demeaned women in his photographs while his subjects all say he empowered them to be dominant. An exploration of the naked female body, certainly fetishistic, as Newton creates "porno chic" out of tall amazonian figures. A fascinating look at a man who played strictly by his own rules and left behind thousands of erotic and iconic images.

Sundays and Cybéle (1962) - 8/10 - Pierre was a pilot whose plane was shot down in the Indochina War. He suffers from amnesia, vertigo, and other ailments from his experiences. He spends a number of evenings in the local train station and happens to see a young girl whose father is taking her to a boarding school where he plans to abandon her. Thinking that she might be able to help him with his problems, he goes to the school and is mistaken for her father which the lonely girl does nothing to dispel. While others might look at Pierre thinking he has sinister motives, his motives are nothing of the sort. I thought that this was a good film and you get to know the two main characters fairly well. Their relationship is convincing and both actors do a nice job.

Papa's Delicate Condition - 6.5/10 - Jackie Gleason and Glynis Johns star in this adaptation of silent film star Corinne Griffith's memoir about her childhood in early 1900s Texas. Jack Griffith is a good man, but somewhat eccentric and extravagant when he has been drinking. When he spends the family saving to buy a circus, his wife leaves him to return to her father's home with the children. This isn't a bad movie and is decent enough to watch, but there isn't a lot of substance there either. The best acting job in the film was Linda Bruhl as the 6 year old Corrie Griffith.

Mahogany (1975) - 5.5/10 - Diana Ross stars as Tracy Chambers, a woman from the south side of Chicago who works as a secretary, but dreams of starting her own fashion line. She catches the eye of a fashion photographer and becomes a world famous model, though she finds that life has its drawbacks. Billy Dee Williams is a political activist in Chicago who becomes involved with Tracy, but is very focused on his political activities. I didn't really buy the relationships or the transformation into supermodel/fashion designer. A lot of things seemed kind of sketched out, but didn't seem real to me.

The Burmese Harp (1956) - 9/10 - A group of Japanese soldiers in Burma discover that the war ended several days earlier. They are taken to a camp by the Allies for processing, but one of their members goes missing after being recruited to try and convince another group of soldiers in a mountain bunker to surrender. The soldiers in the camp worry for their friend who has taken up the guise of a Buddhist monk and has been changed by his experiences. The music, cinematography and acting are all excellent and I think that it is an excellent movie as well. Apparently the director remade the film in color the 1980s, but it didn't achieve the same acclaim. I don't see any reason why the movie would have needed a remake. It works well in black and white.

Scent of a Woman (1974) - 8/10 - An army cadet is assigned to travel with and watch over a blind captain as he travels from Turin to Naples. The actors playing the captain and the cadet each did a very nice job. The film seemed to be a bit coarser than the remake, but I haven't seen that film since it was released in 1992 so it is hard to make comparisons. The original is also a very good film which I enjoyed quite a bit. After watching the film, I discovered that the actor who portrayed the cadet died in an accident about a month before the movie was released and was only 17 at the time of his death. He probably would have had a long and successful career otherwise.

The Prom (Ryan Murphy, 2020) 3/10

Joyless adaptation of a rather corny Broadway musical is just as cheesy as "Mamma Mia!", except that at least had familiar songs for many of us of a certain age to relate to. Here the production numbers have neither a razzle nor a dazzle despite the big name cast giving it a brave twirl. Meryl Streep has always been known to have a musical bent which unfortunately throughout her long career Hollywood never saw fit to properly utilize. A song here and a few there in films led to her delightfully belting out the ABBA songs in Mamma Mia! although her character, as written, was not that much. Here she shows some pizzaz â la Shirley MacLaine - donning a short red wig plus a pair of legs that kick high - playing a bitchy, narcissistic, aging Broadway diva, who along with an equally bitchy and narcissistic James Corden receive news at the story's outset that their musical based on Eleanor Roosevelt has just bombed big time with critics laying the entire blame on both the egocentric stars. Wanting to quickly correct their public image both decide to back any cause out there for the sake of publicity. Joining them in this quest is a lifelong chorus girl and wannabee star (Nicole Kidman) and an actor-bartender (Andrew Rannells). The cause they pursue is of a lesbian girl in Indiana whose High School has cancelled the annual Prom because she wanted to take her girlfriend as her date. All hell breaks loose as the crazy actors from New York descend on small-town America to battle it out with a puritan teacher (Kerry Washington) who is dead-set against anybody who is gay. Notwithstanding the preachy liberal message, which here satirizes such films, the film keeps getting worse as it goes along. The "lets-put-on-a-show" plot was already a cliché when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland tread that route back in the 1940s. Here it becomes a loud bloated mess. Streep goes into forced overdrive with her campy mannerisms, Corden's flaming gay character relies on boring stereotypes while Kidman badly fumbles up her Fosse-style solo number. Although the story champions the rights of LGBTQ teens the story kind of squanders that by having the young cast play second fiddle to the over bearing grown-ups. Skip this film.

Ammonite (Francis Lee, 2020) 8/10

The cold and dramatic seaside setting of Lyme Regis was first brought memorably to the screen in the adaptation of John Fowles "The French Lieutenant's Woman". This film is also about a scandalous love affair set in another century and like Lee's previous film, "God's Only Country", it is an elegantly paced poetic mood piece which creates quiet sparks. The story of Mary Anning (Kate Winslet), a brusque and guarded 19th-Century fossil collector, who lives with her old mother (Gemma Jones) making important discoveries on the Devon coast but for which men take all the credit. To make ends meet she sells fossils to rich tourists. A paleontologist arrives wishing to learn from her and she makes an acquaintance with his sad and timid wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) who is later left in her care. Their friendship deepens after the woman's husband leaves as they spend time together on the beach hunting for fossils. In reality the two formed a deep platonic friendship but here Lee gives their relationship an artistic tweak having the two gradually fall into each other's arms which leads to a couple of fairly graphic sex scenes brimming with passion. In the midst of their story we get to glimpse other characters - a local doctor (Fiona Shaw), with whom Mary appears to have shared a history which may have ended badly, and Mary's mother who has her own sad crosses to bear. A lot of the film moves without dialogue with just the sound of the wind and the crashing waves as a backdrop. This slow-burn love story avoids romantic gloss and concentrates instead on how quiet passion transforms both women. Mary becomes less guarded and opens up while Charlotte becomes more confident. Stark somber film is shot with an exquisite attention to detail and is brought to life by the wonderful performances of both Winslet and Ronan who share great chemistry on screen.

The Undoing (Susanne Bier, 2020) 6/10

Old fashioned whodunnit, once the staple of the big screen during the 1980s often starring two major stars embroiled in a murder-mystery ("Jagged Edge", "Suspect", "Against All Odds", "The Big Easy", "The Morning After"), now goes the limited series route on tv. At six hours this is quite a stretch but manages to sustain suspense throughout. The lives of a wealthy and happily married couple in Manhattan - a clinical therapist (Nicole Kidman) and an oncologist (Hugh Grant) - goes for a twirl when the battered dead body of a woman is discovered in an art studio. She had briefly been on a committee at a prestigious school and showed an odd interest in the therapist, who was also attending the meeting - both women's sons are students at the school. When the oncologist suddenly vanishes the police discover that the doctor had been fired from his job at a hospital three months before and he had also been having an affair with the murdered woman. Baffled by all these revelations about her husband, she and her son (Noah Jupe) escape the intense publicity of the high profile murder case and retreat to their beach front home where she runs into her husband who has been hiding there. Although he claims his innocence she calls the cops on him and he is arrested. At the sensational trial that ensues certain other suspects pop up as well - the dead woman's husband who has a feeble alibi, the therapist herself as she was captured by a camera walking near the place where the murder took place, her son who had witnessed his father with his mistress and suspected their affair, and her father (Donald Sutherland) who never liked his son-in-law. Notwithstanding the superb cast - Grant, Jupe and Sutherland are especially memorable - the top production values and each episode ending with a cliffhanger, the film tends to bog down during the trial scenes. Pity this wasn't made as a two-hour film instead.

Tunes of Glory (1960) - 8/10 - Alec Guinness stars as Major Jock Sinclair, the temporary commander of a Scottish Highland Regiment. He is a coarse sort of officer and finds himself in conflict when Colonel Barrow (John Mills) takes over and tries to reinstill discipline. Guinness and Mills are both in top form and the other actors do a nice job in this battle of wills. Susannah York made her film debut as Sinclair's daughter who is having a relationship with one of the pipers.

Obsession (1976) - 6/10 - Cliff Robertson stars as a businessman whose wife and daughter are killed after they are kidnapped and the rescue attempt goes wrong. While in Italy 16 years later, he sees a young woman who looks amazingly like his late wife and he gets to know her and then courts her. The movie moved at way too slow a pace much of the time with the music enhancing it. I guessed a number of the plot twists early on as well. Genevieve Bujold stars as the wife and lookalike.

The Power and the Prize (1956) - 7.5/10 - Robert Taylor plays a business executive named Cliff Barton who is sent to England to negotiate with a company about mining rights and his boss tells him to use shady practices to get a much better deal. While there, he falls in love with a refugee (Elizabeth Müller) working to get jobs for other refugees from central Europe. He falls in love even though he is engaged to the niece of his boss (Burl Ives). Charles Coburn also has a small, but important role as the owner of the company. Cedric Hardwicke and Mary Astor also have small roles. The movie doesn't have a great rating on IMDB, but I thought it was a good drama/romance and I enjoyed it.

The Policeman (1971) - 8.5/10 - Azulai is a patrolman in Jaffa who is so inept that he has been on the job for 20 years and hasn't received a promotion. He is very kindly, but naive, and his superiors are trying to see that his contract isn't renewed, but the criminals want to keep him on the job. I thought it was a very funny movie. Azulai is a likable guy, but definitely exasperates some of the other officers. Shaike Ophir does a great job as Azulai.