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Reviews
Valley of the Dolls (1967)
not much campy fun, just boring
POSSIBLY CONTAINS SPOILERS!:
This movie really is horrible. People had told me that it was high camp and so bad that is fun to laugh at it but it's truly not even that. It is just boring. I read the book before I saw the movie so I would understand it better. It didn't help much, it just made me annoyed when the plot had things happening in the wrong order and at random. The events of the movie just feel tedious and have no connection with anything else in the film. So, the three women meet once and we, the viewers are stuck after that following around three women who aren't particularly interesting and seeing their problems which seem unrealistic and stupid. Jennifer whoops! accidentally marries a brain damaged guy and now she's stuck doing 'french' films to pay his bills even though he was a singer and a star before and probably had money not to mention his sister who could help. Then she has an illness and decides to handle it in a matter that seems selfish, vain and dumb. Then there's Ann who's relationship is given altogether (cut away the segments from other Neely and Jennifer's stories) about only 40 minutes worth focusing on. There's hardly any conflict and is played out stupidly. Neely O'Hara gets much of the screen time. Patty Duke gets a lot of criticism for this movie but her performance was the only thing that keep me awake. She's also the only part of the movie that is campy and fun. The rest of it is just boring actors trying doing bad acting and trying to be unconvingly dramatic and torn. Some of the scenes are a little amusing like Ann being a model (the movie stops so Ann wear tons of makeup in front of a bright background and wear ugly wigs) and when Neely is trying to work out (Neely pops pills, does sit ups in front of bright orange background while cheerful happy music plays) but it won't make you laugh out loud or anything. After you watch it, you probably won't remember much about it except how funny Patty Duke was and that she's the only reason to see it. It is very unrealistic dull movie that doesn't make much sense. After you watch it, you probably also think "What was that?" and "why did I waste 2 hours of my life seeing this?" I know I did.
The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story (2004)
badly written, made too quickly
I watched this on TV a couple of months of ago and then recently after the trial was over, I watched it again because a friend of mine had a tape of it. First of all, Dean Cain tries to do a good job playing Scott Peterson and even sounds a little like him. It's sort of creepy but I kind of get the impression that Dean watched a lot of Scott's interviews and listened to him over and over again, trying to imiate him. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The movie is poorly written. It came out way too soon before too many facts were out and it's also way too favorable to Scott Peterson. It's not too often that the film casts a shadow of guilt on him. It does try to make the cops involved in the case look bad. The movie tries to convince us that they are more concerned with framing Scott than actually finding Laci Peterson. It also makes Laci's family and friends look bad. They are seen as people who turn on Scott very quickly, because of his selling of Laci's car and his affair with Amber Frey. The attempt to recreate times that Laci's family and Amber went to the press are also bad and look poorly staged. Since the conversations between Scott and Amber weren't public at the time, the writers tried to write out dialogue on what they thought Peterson might have said on his cell phone to Amber. Those scenes are pretty short,lol. There's also a fictional (guessing) couple who are supposed to be friends of Laci's and Scott's who fight over whether or not Scott did it. Typical idiot writers portray it as though it's the hysterical women (Laci's two friends) who think Scott is guilty and the cops who are after Scott. I'm really so sure that the cops and her female friends were really anxious to see Laci's husband on trial for murder instead of the who did this. I'm sure justice meant nothing to them and they were fine with the idea of the killer of the friend being on the loose as long as Laci's husband (whom they probably had to their houses dozens of times and who they knew thought they knew pretty well) getting sent to jail. That is beyond stupid. It was most likely difficult for them even beginning to think that Scott did it but they could no longer no ignore Scott's behavior or the evidence pointing to the fact that Scott most likely did it. The annoying part in the movie that I'm sure never happened in real life was everybody going around hollering "How'that going to look when you do that?" "It's going to look bad if you do this, Scott". Everybody was probably too upset about Laci to worrying about how things were looking, unless of course you've got something to hide. Why would friends advise Scott on how to behave unless they suspected he was guilty and want to help him look innocent? One of the earlier scenes where they are talking about giving a press conference and Dean goes, "The press has a victim, now they need a villain." That was really poor writing. The press conferences were about trying to get people to give tips about finding Laci, not about looking a villain, lol. Basically, this movie might have been interesting before all the facts and everything was out but now, it just makes you roll your eyes at it.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
not really a good look at Dorothy parker but still a pretty good film
In a lot of ways, this movie isn't really about Dorothy Parker. It might as well have been about a fictional poetry writer from 1920's who later went on to work on writing in magazines and writing reviews and later still, writing scripts in Hollywood with her husband. When I first saw this movie, I believe this was how she was but after reading a biography on her and reading some of her poetry, I got a totally different feeling about her and it changed my feelings for this movie too. I can still enjoy it, but don't take this as reality. Nowhere in reality has it ever been mentioned that Dorothy had feelings for Robert Benchley besides friendship. In real life, her true love was Alan Campbell (who is poorly played in this movie has a feminine type) who she married twice and they were going to have a baby together but she had a miscarriage. She was also with him when he died and worked on many Hollywood film scripts with him. Still, to spite the exaggerated lust for Benchley, I can't help but admire the way Campbell Scott played him. He really held the film together and was the life of the party and the real true friend to all those there and very dryly amusing, sort a big brother type at the round table. He actually manages to steal the film from Jennifer Leigh who slurs her words and sits around uttering her words sourly and so bitterly, I'm sure that if the real Dorothy Parker had behaved that way, she would hardly be remembered for her great wit and dark poetry. Jennifer plays her way too depressed and way too sad. It's awful to watch. It's also watch her love affair with that guy who played ferris bueller (not sure who is being here) and the guy who plays her first husband doesn't do much better. At the round table, Dorothy is seeing laughing a little but mostly listening. I thought she was famous for her quips and people were always listening to her??? what! This movie got it all wrong and can be depressing especially when Benchley vanishes from her life for no apparent reason. I think one of their last scenes together is her helping him get a whore. Again? WHAT! Why would she do that, first of all, benchley is married and secondly, isn't she supposed to have feelings for him? Anyway, it's hard to enjoy this movie with all wrong. The real Dorothy Parker died nearly forgotten in a hotel room, alone, obese, forgetful, sad with only one friend who bothered to look after her. At the end of this movie, Jennifer Jason Leigh emerges tiny and petite wearing a bun and clutching a dog, still slurring her words as though Dorothy parker was a big drunk and giving bitter lectures in her ripe old age. That just wasn't so. Besides, Dorothy wasn't bitter, she just liked to shock people and say unexpected things and did mostly for laughs. I don't think anyone who made this movie did any research. It doesn't even mention the time she had her miscarriage (it does mention her abortion though) or the time she had the house in the country with Alan Campbell or how she believed in equal rights or how her ashes were forgotten and finally what actually became of them and how she mentioned in her will that she left her money to help blacks and one of her friends protested and came off as looking racist. there was lot to dorothy parker, more than her suicide attempts or her times at the round table. it might have been interesting had the movie been more about dorothy and had a better actress playing her, not one who was in love with representing her as a just someone who suffered from depression.