George Shotzbarger

Perhaps because I was a career prosecutor, the noirish courtroom drama ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959), directed by Otto Preminger, has always been a favorite of mine. So when I saw that Ambler Theater would be screening Preminger's earlier murder mystery, LAURA (1944), this afternoon, I opted to watch that 📽️ rather than GOOD WILL HUNTING, which I had already seen. It turns out that I made the correct call, for I enjoyed every minute of LAURA. Others even consider it Preminger's best movie, although that might be a stretch considering his entire body of work. But who am I to nitpick or disagree❓ So I awarded it the full 5 ⭐s, an uncharacteristic grade of "A" from me. The plot twists within LAURA were many, of course; perhaps a few were overly contrived. Yet the edge of my chair was where I sat throughout its run-time. 'Twas altogether a great time at the cinema today❗

After watching LEE in a nearly empty theater, I felt terribly disappointed by this 📽️, so I gave it only 3 ⭐s -- basically a letter grade of "C" ... Why❓ Well, it spent 2 hours of my time to teach me this hoary wisdom: "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it." Which I (a senior citizen) already know quite well. And which was the price in subsequent sadness paid by Lee Miller for insisting to see war so up close & personal. But other cinematic motifs plain wore me out. My own parents were smokers & drinkers, so I'm not naïve about those habits or addictions. But any good film should contain more "character development" in it than heroine observes bad stuff, snaps a photograph, lights up a cigarette, gulps a swig of booze; she witnesses more bad things, takes another picture, then 🚬🥃 / 🚬🥃 / 🚬🥃 ad nauseum. Could that thematic message have been delivered in fewer than 30 scenes❓ I daresay yes. War upsets the psyche. Pain is real. Death remains a harsh tragedy. And people want to numb those experiences away. That's what this movie was about. 🆗, point noted already❗ On the plus side, the bathroom scene showed some gallows humor in the protagonist, a welcome respite from her otherwise dreary mood, plus the denouement carried appropriate & dramatically rendered nuances of achievement yet regret. Those upticks helped raise this maudlin muddle to a middling effort, but no higher.

Proper pace happens to remain an essential component of any better-than-mediocre 📽️. Some movies languish lazily into a somnolent lull, while others dart around at breakneck speed like rodents with raptors perched or gliding overhead. SATURDAY NIGHT fits into the latter category: it's frantic, feisty, frenetic, fleet afoot & (yes) fabulously funny at times. I semi-enjoyed it, with my score of 3 ⭐s standing for a subjective letter grade of B-/C+. Why not higher, one might inquire❓ Well, there is just TOO much happening within the real-⏱️ span of 90 minutes. Regrettably, I've seen panic attacks & even nervous breakdowns. This film contains a surfeit of both, which eventually became bothersome. And all that smoking, snorting & spritzing -- plus those insanely tight close-ups ... Talk about in-your-face comedy❗ Then add those heavy-handed floor-building sequences, which might well hold some thematic value, but they sure hit me like the proverbial ton of 🧱. What I did enjoy most were watching the few brief skit rehearsals themselves & comparing the characters on screen to their counterparts I could readily recall from SNL back in my youth. Such was no leisurely stroll down memory lane, however; it was a herky-jerk chicken-dance of a scramble from 🕙 through 🕦 on a weekend 🌃 during the Stoned Age.

Frankly, I don't like flunking any 📽️ with a few good scenes, which explains the 2 ⭐s I gave here. They are equivalent to a letter grade of "D" ... And the sole reason this grandiose, narcissistic & surreal mess of a melted banana split didn't fail outright was the early recitation by Adam Driver of Hamlet's soliloquy. Other than his all-over-the-landscape portrayal of Catilina, no other character (except perhaps Mayor Cicero) proved worthy of his or her screen time. And as for 🕰️, ironically a major theme within this preachathon, the movie was too l-o-n-g by at least 30 minutes. Apparently, the same Hindenburg-sized ego impelling Francis Ford Coppola to script, produce & direct this "drama" prevented him from cutting any scene once he shot it. That's not genius. It's cinematic flatulence slightly misted with rose attar. Bottom line: I paid a discounted $7.50 for my 🎫, but at least 6 of those dollars went straight to hell in a handbasket.

I watched a matinee screening of this 📽️ in a nearly empty theater. And by the time I saw its twisted ending, I pretty much knew why almost all the seats were vacant. In fact, my own title for the movie would be THINK TWICE -- before you spend good 💸 at the cinema on such a confusing & convoluted effort from novice director Zoë Kravitz. Which explains why I scored it 3 ⭐s or "C" (for fair/mediocre). Parts of this eerie movie were very good; others were simply terrible. It dragged too slowly; then it jumped 4 gears to speed along in helter-skelter mayhem❗ The characters, literally & figuratively, wandered all over the landscape. Some got their just deserts while others randomly did not. It was, all told, an inconsistent film, too ambitious by at least half for its level of execution.

Since I'm a cinephile like Kevin Smith (& probably a cineholic as well), I naturally gravitated to a matinee screening of this 📽️. It was very entertaining; some *parts* of it were, anyway. So this mixed-results stroll down memory lane mediocred its way to 3 ⭐s on my personal report card -- basically a "C" grade. THE 4:30 MOVIE passed, but could've done much better. One problem arose from the film's primary focus upon 3 teenaged Jersey Boys (plus an equally immature theater owner) to propel the action. Another was how short-scripted the females were, even though virtually all of them excelled in their bit roles. By this point in his career, the director needed to recall such awkward times less & reflect upon the truly significant events of his youth. In other words, the characters didn't have to remain caricatures. They required additional "character" development -- especially his own as the protagonist.

I've watched this 📽️ a few times now. It just doesn't "age" as well as ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, for example, which rewards every viewing. Although its plot moves in accelerated fashion due to all the coincidental encounters of the main characters, & the acting performances are generally superb, the historical narration might be deemed hysterical instead. And many of the cinematic "tricks" -- like Manhattan melting down after the stock market crash of 1929 -- seem way too heavy-handed, especially from an otherwise deft director like Raoul Walsh. I'd recommend that anyone who hasn't yet seen THE ROARING TWENTIES do so, but perhaps only once.