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Reviews
Rules Don't Apply (2016)
A worrying rules-don't-apply attitude to the audience
This film of a relationship set against the influence of a disordered billionaire is engaging partly for the reason that it is not obvious exactly where it is going, but ultimately its treatment of the viewer jars.
There are a number of strange moments seemingly designed to confuse the viewer, such as the implication someone is having an abortion... and then the next time we see them with their young child. Or the firing of one person who reappears without explanation in the same role a couple of scenes later. Or when a character has arranged to marry someone, and in the next scene it is announced by a third party they have married a different person. Please... this is a bad habit whether postmodern or not. Stop it.
This film managed to burn through a significant amount of the goodwill it accrued, with a confusing extended whirlwind sequence related to the business tribulations of Mr. Hughes, seemingly delighting in bewildering the viewer. It made me wonder if this mischievousness suspiciously like contempt was part of the reason Mr. Beatty had not made a Hollywood film in so many years.
Perhaps the truth is more simply that the film is a car-crash of editing by someone who shouldn't really be doing it. The ironic fact could have been the film would have done better with a little bit less cutting... or a little bit more! The business backdrop could have been attempted with more conviction or selectively cut whilst still making sense of the film.
It's curious that none of the characters is really complete or without flaws. The girl protagonist is a fish out of water who can write songs but can hardly sing, and is trying to make a career as an actress without being able to act. Hughes is one step away from barking at the moon. And the romantic young suitor is less than charismatic or worldly, who needs to be told that baptists "are afraid of sex because it leads to dancing".
A shame that the film did not manage to carry the viewer all the way through to the end and let them down instead. Hughes' antics making passengers suffer in the DC airliner turned out rather a metaphor for the film itself.
The Lady Vanishes (1979)
Endearing fodder for Cybill fans
If you are a weary critic and insist that a remake of the original be more of the same but better, you will be wasting your time on this because it's played more kooky and comic than a suspenseful thriller.
The movie keeps up a regular stream of witty patter, largely in the dialogue between her and Gould. The English pair of characters who only care about getting home to the cricket are a caricature to be sure, but earn their place. I could not say so much of the abducted Lansbury character, who seems to have graduated from the Dick Van Dyke school of accents. But it hardly matters, because her screen time is barely more than a cameo.
This is very much Cybill's movie. She looks more beautiful than any mortal woman has a right being. Her performance veering between ditzy and wide-eyed confusion, gives ample time for the viewer to luxuriate for scene after scene in her large eyes... and that decidedly flattering dress. Anybody who already formed an infatuation for her from her long-running role in Moonlighting will not be disappointed.
The Time of Their Lives (2017)
The time that people kept looking at their watches
A narcissistic wooden has-been trying to drum up more work in circumstances that could hardly be less appropriate- surprising that Joan would dare this as it invites comparison with her real-life career (!)
The film looks as if it has been filmed on a shoestring and could have been written by just about anybody to be frank- there was precious little wit or warmth about it. If it was meant to be about either character confronting their own demons in an escapist context, it missed the mark in profundity.
Curiously a fellow viewer kept looking at their watch, and every time I saw the time on it I wondered how the film had been filling the time as little seemed to have happened.
The lack of expression in Joan was a concern, confusing me as to whether it was due to senescence, plastic surgery or unabashed laziness. A missed opportunity to be sure, but I can imagine Joan eating a takeaway for less than this cost to make. When the paparazzi aren't watching, obviously.