Surprisingly funny gender-switch film in which a magical Indian idol swaps the identities of a bickering husband and wife (John Hubbard and Carole Landis) when their latest argument ends with them agreeing on one thing: each would rather live the life of the other. Starts out as an ordinary comedy, wisely taking its time getting to the transference so as to set up a host of later jokes and situations. None of which, let it be known, are introspective: the comedy here is strictly confined to the reversal of traditional gender roles. Its one mistake is having the characters retain their original voices, but the movie is so good-natured that this is a minor quibble. With an excellent supporting cast including Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor, Joyce Compton, Donald Meek, and Yolande Donlan, the latter playing the couple's scorching French maid. Based on the book by Thorne Smith.
+++1/2
Surprisingly funny gender-switch film in which a magical Indian idol swaps the identities of a bickering husband and wife (John Hubbard and Carole Landis) when their latest argument ends with them agreeing on one thing: each would rather live the life of the other. Starts out as an ordinary comedy, wisely taking its time getting to the transference so as to set up a host of later jokes and situations. None of which, let it be known, are introspective: the comedy here is strictly confined to the reversal of traditional gender roles. Its one mistake is having the characters retain their original voices, but the movie is so good-natured that this is a minor quibble. With an excellent supporting cast including Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor, Joyce Compton, Donald Meek, and Yolande Donlan, the latter playing the couple's scorching French maid. Based on the book by Thorne Smith.
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+++ Entertaining gonzo Western comedy with Cleavon Little set up to fail by a corrupt politician as the first black sheriff of a small frontier town. Funny, for the most part, with a few memorably hilarious moments, such as when a black railroad gang makes their white overseers look positively childish as they trade work songs. Of course, as is to be expected in any broad comedy, the movie has its share of unappealing dead spots as well. Little, however, is personable throughout. With an ending that might have inspired the final moments of the following year's Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also with Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, and others. +++ NFL quarterback (Warren Beatty) gets second chance in the body of another man after he is mistakenly whisked to the afterlife before his time. He also falls in love. Like a rom-com for guys: sweet, pleasing, but uncommitted to either storyline. Still, not a bad choice for date night. With Julie Christie, Buck Henry, James Mason, Charles Grodin, and Dyan Cannon. No relation, despite the heavenly connection, with the 1943 film of the same name. This is instead a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan. +++1/2 After death, a casanova reflects on his life with women with the man downstairs. Sparkling first half -- as, in flashback, the boy learns that girls like presents, the teenager that French maids can be pleasant, and the man (Don Ameche) that women, even when they're looking for a book called How to Make Your Husband Happy, can still be swept off their feet -- is followed by less energetic second, but overall a very funny film with a clever ending. Gene Tierney plays the woman. Based on a play called Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. ++ Beep beep, Ritchie. Teetering on the brink of comic excess, Fletch, the 1985 film to which this is the follow-up, kept its balance only by relying on the steadying influence of the serious mystery at its core. That mystery came from Gregory Mcdonald, author of the Fletch books, the first of which served as the basis for the movie. Fletch Lives, written by Leon Capetanos, is based not on any of Mcconald's eight literary sequels, but rather on a fundamental misreading of the success of the original. So here Ritchie and Capetanos give us a decidedly dull mystery and smother it with a lot of dumb and unfunny humor in a movie that takes nothing seriously (an early joke has to do with a dead woman in Fletch's bed; hilarious). For what it's worth, this one finds Fletch in Louisiana, uncovering a plot to separate him from his inheritance -- his late aunt's dilapidated mansion -- with suspects like the local police and the ministry of a neighboring televangelist, played by R. Lee Ermey. Chevy Chase seems to recognize the futility of it all, playing Fletch as even more aloof than in the first film. Also with Hal Holbrook, Julianne Phillips, and Cleavon Little. "[T]he ultimate comedy of condescension, a movie with a hero whose every other line of dialogue is a snide wisecrack directed at a fool." - Chris Willman, The Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1989 "Mr. Chase is such an agreeably low-pressure comedian that a movie has to be very inept to be as irritating as 'Fletch Lives.'" - Vincent Canby, The New York Times, March 17, 1989 *** Entertaining fluff, but nothing more. One year after the events of Finding Nemo, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) searches for her parents, from whom she was separated as a child. The magic is gone, of course, and with it the vastness of the ocean: most of the action in this film takes place in and around California's Marine Life Institute. The humor, too, is more repetitive, with endless variations on Dory's short-term memory loss. But most significantly, the film lacks the gravitas of Nemo, as we discover that a quest to find one's self-sufficient parents is much less compelling than one to find a missing child, even when the journey is really one of self-discovery. Pleasant enough, though, on its own terms. *** Comedy starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, with 19-year-old Shirley Temple playing 17-year-old Susan Turner. This is a pleasant movie about a sophisticated artist (Grant) who is essentially blackmailed into dating Susan as a way of quashing her crush on him. Meanwhile, the artist and Susan's older sister (Loy) fall in love. The script, which has a number of funny lines, won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Refreshingly old-fashioned, by today's standards, from a time when it was okay to treat kids like...kids. *** James Garner leads charismatic cast including Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, and Bruce Dern in this light western comedy about a drifter committed to bringing law and order to a small gold rush town. Pleasant and memorably funny. A must for fans of Garner's Maverick television series, in which he plays much the same brains-over-brawn character. Followed by the unrelated variation Support Your Local Gunfighter, starring Garner and many of the same supporting actors. **** Set in 1962, with gorgeous cars, a great soundtrack, and spot-on performances, Lucas' second film tells the story of one very long night in the lives of four teenage boys, two of whom, having recently graduated, must face the prospect of leaving their small California town for college. Entertaining, funny film that captures the spirit, naivete, and budding awareness of boys on the cusp of manhood. Stars Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, and Charles Martin Smith. With Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, and Harrison Ford in a small role. Suzanne Somers is glimpsed as a teenage dream in a white T-Bird. Also with Wolfman Jack, as the voice of a generation. *** Rapist (Yaphet Kotto) exacerbates the marital problems of a middle-aged couple (Andrew Duggan, Joyce Van Patten) with bizarre results. Written, produced, and directed by Cohen a couple of years before he served the same roles for his more famous horror film It's Alive. This one is a low-budget absurdist comedy rooted in the cultural upheaval of the late sixties/early seventies, with Cohen taking shots at the middle class, racial equality, and consumerism, among other things. Comes off as almost hypnotically bad until you realize how funny it is. Cohen's first film as director. |
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