Change Your Image
olliewim
Reviews
Texasville (1990)
Wacky and Charming...Just Like Texas
This is one of my favorite movies, because it brings me smack dab back to my four years of college in Houston. I can understand people who haven't lived in Texas thinking this movie is poor or nonsensical. I'm not even sure what it is about it, that so perfectly captures what I love about Texas and Texans, but I'll try...
First off the Dairy Queen! You have to have at least driven through a big swathe of TX to realize that every small town has a DQ, and its often more of a town nerve center than City Hall. In some places I think it IS the City Hall. That's a delicious inside joke.
Let's see...making a hobby of sitting in the hot tub, drinking vodka and shooting up the dog house. "Our steaks are in the deep freeze...we'd all be so drunk by the time they thawed out, no tellin' who'd get shot!"
Lester getting suicidal, then springing himself from "the quiet room" to go help look for the old man that fell out of the car, when he tried to spit out his tobacco.
Um, four people and a dog driving in a pickup truck. Voluntarily. (OK two of them were the tweeny twins, but still.)
I don't know about all of the sleeping around, but all of the moving around (Karla and kids at Jacy's, Jacy at Karla and Duane's, Mary Lou and Jacy taking road trips with Duane just for the hell of it)...so many of the native Texans I've known are restless to the point of ADD.
And just the wacky, emphatic but heartfelt attitude, Karla more than any of them. As others have noted, Annie Potts darn near steals the entire movie. But I thought the whole cast did well.
Titus (1999)
Wrenching and powerful
I wasn't going to comment on Titus, particularly, but I thought in case someone who wasn't a film theory and/or Shakespeare maven wanted to know about it, I'd leave a somewhat normal review, for this completely abnormal film.
First, I was interested in seeing this because of 1. Anthony Hopkins and 2. I'd read that this play is regularly rated as Shakespeare's worst by contemporary reviewers, but was also by far his most popular play in his own lifetime. I would be interested to know how many of the reviewers who gush over this play, also hold their noses up at modern slasher films (or would fall all over themselves, explaining how Titus is something much more meaningful.) I do agree with those that said (let's see if I can do it in less than 5000 words though) this lacks Shakespeare's more subtle plotting and language in his better known plays, but the raw power and intensity of the story in Titus is also very compelling. And it is quite cool, in AH's final scene, when he starts out as "Remains Of The Day" Sir Anthony at the beginning of the scene (serving dinner no less), and ends the scene as "Hannibal Lecter" Hopkins. Hannibal Lecter on crack, even. Booyah.
Re: Jessica Lange, she's never been to my taste, so me not being impressed is probably just me. And Alan Cumming is always such a delightful freak of nature. I'm more than half convinced he's an alien life form. He very wisely chooses roles that suit an alien freak perfectly.
Charms for the Easy Life (2002)
A Delightful Novel Turned Into a Boring Movie
***Couple of spoilers***
I was very interested in this movie when I saw it was going to be on cable. Charms For the Easy Life is one of my favorite books, and easily one of the funniest novels I've ever read. And when I saw that Gena Rowlands was going to play Charlie Kate, I was even more pleased, since I think she is a terrific actress.
In almost every way, I was disappointed in this film. First and most importantly, the screenplay is beyond stupid. I don't think the writer even GOT most of the jokes in the novel. And the choices of what to leave in and what to take out from the novel, leaves so many unexplained plot turns that if you haven't read the book, I think you would spend most of the movie trying to puzzle it out. E.g., Charlie Kate and Margaret reading The Yearling outside the theatre, and Charlie Kate announcing that "the deer dies." Very funny in the novel, makes absolutely no sense in the movie. To paraphrase Margaret, everything in the world happens in the novel, and practically nothing happens in the movie.
Secondly I though Mimi Rogers was an appalling choice as Sophia. In the novel Sophia is a borderline manic depressive (a beautiful, brilliant and charming manic depressive, though.) Mimi Rogers hasn't got any of that intensity. If only Holly Hunter were taller.
Thirdly although I do love Gena Rowlands, she also is just too SERENE as Charlie Kate. In the novel CK is usually shouting and barking at people. In the movie, the worst Gena does is sort of growl. Although she was definitely held back by her moronic lines. The vanquishing of the "real doctor" was a high point of the novel, here it is turned into something so stooped...again, why would the doctor just suddenly show up at her house in tears, confessing his career-ending mistake? That just doesn't make any sense at all. In the novel CK has to blackmail him, which just shows how fearless she is. And the scene ends with him just asking to mope in her house for a bit, and she tells him "Take all the time you need." I believe that scene ending would get an "F" in a screenplay writing class, which is where I think they must have found the doofus who penned this.
Finally (although this is minor compared to the rest), the guy they chose to play Tom Hawkins...there was absolutely nothing "aw shucks" about Tom in the novel, and in the movie, he comes off as Andy Rooney's dopey (but very handsome) sidekick. And we're supposed to believe he's reading The Magic Mountain?
I did think the girl chosen to play Margaret was perfect, and she did the best she could with the meandering plot and boring characterizations. We just need to get it remade with her as Margaret again, but Shirley McClaine as CK, Holly Hunter as Sophia, and Joaquin Phoenix as Tom. And let's get Kaye Gibbons to adapt her novel herself...she knows where all kicks are.
And if you haven't read Charms for Easy Life, drive right past Blockbuster to the book store and pick it up. This is one of the best books ever. :)