Reviews

But the big new is: The Pink Panther finally opened here in Bangkok. All 5 of us went to see it Sunday. There were demonstrations downtown so we went to a theater complex north, towards the airport. All 5 fit into a mini taxi. The trip cost $2 including tip.

We were there for the one o'clock showing. The audience numbered about 80 in a theater that seated 500. That was the most people at a movie I had attended here. A Thai told me long ago that the people here don't spend much for recreation. It seems he was right.

After a salute to King and country, the movie began (with Thai sub-titles).

First the bad parts. The pathos interlude was just awful. Pathos might work for some comedies (but rarely), it does not work in a Clouseau movie.

Clouseau was too smart by half or more. It kind of worked here but it tarnishes his image for future movies. Note to movie maker: Think dumb.

The result of this is that these movie makers broke the Clouseau mold and Clouseau, as we knew him, is finished, done, over. There will never be another true Clouseau movie.

Now for the good parts. It was an excellent movie on its own. I and my whole family enjoyed it. Steve Martin's accent was excellent. Even my non-English-speaking family, along with the rest of the audience, laughed at his attempts to speak English. (I was concerned about that after his atrocious effort at a New York accent in My Blue Heaven. Even Steven Seagal did a better New York accent in one of his pictures.) The gags were many and very good. I am not a laugh out loud person but I did so here. I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone by listing the funniest parts. For me, that is a worse spoiler than divulging the ending.

The clue or lead that solved the case was exquisite. It came from a throw-away gag earlier and caught me completely by surprise. To surprise me in a movie plot is nearly impossible, but here they did the impossible. That one alone was worth the price of admission. I still laugh thinking about it.

According to *Rotten Tomatoes* , 4 out of 5 reviewers hated this movie. That delights me. It says more about reviewers than it does about the movie. As I have said before, reviewers are a humorless lot. Most of them should say, "I am a humorless effete, I must recuse myself from reviewing this film." Here is an example from this film: Clouseau goes into a booth he has been assured is soundproof to get off a series of farts. Unfortunately the mike is on and his efforts are broadcast into a studio for all to hear. The Thai audience (and I) thought this was hilarious. The effete reviewer would have to pretend to be offended by this "fart humor." But it was funny! This bit will be laughed at all over the world, except in pre-release showings for reviewers where the critics would stare at each other in disbelief and bring perfumed hankies from their sleeves to their noses.

I am delighted that this film has taken in more than 80 million dollars in the US. It may mean a new series of Pink Panther movies.

Let me sum up by saying, "More, more, more."

I was shocked when the Academy Award Show mentioned that both Tony Franciosa and Sandra Dee died during the year. They co-starred in one of my favorite movies, A Man Could Get Killed.

How the hell could they be dead? They seemed like kids to me. I guess you live long enough most people start to seem like kids. But these were special to me. They gave me pleasure with their performances in an excellent movie.

Franciosa especially. I became a fan of his for life. He played a native street hustler/smuggler in Lisbon. His accent sounded believable to me. But then Sandra Dee came along.

Wait a minute.

Let's start at the beginning.

James Garner and Melina Mercouri starred in this comedy/action-adventure. (According to an English website Robert Coote starred. Tell them to take their cooties and go home.) Garner plays an American businessman who is mistaken by everybody for a super-secret British agent on the trail of smuggled diamonds. When Coote, supposedly his liaison at the British Embassy meets him at the Lisbon airport, the car intended for him is blown up. No matter how much Garner protests, all of which are accepted as cover for his actual mission, he is then transported into a world of scheming, dangerous, underworld characters.

First among these is the fabulous Melina Mercouri playing the amorous, amoral, ungrieving widow of a recently killed gangster. It is great fun for us to see how much fun she has in this role. She flirts with Garner at the funeral of her husband.

Tony Franciosa, totally charming in his guise as a Portuguese hustler, attaches himself to Garner. Sandra Dee, the archetypical Southern California beach girl appears and exposes Franciosa. They had been connected in America. But Franciosa's exposition is that he is an American hustler, not Portuguese. Not much change there.

The four of them are then off on a life or death quest to find the smuggled diamonds. It is a fun trip. Garner, straight and proper, is continuously agitated by Mercouri's delightful lack of morals.

In one memorable scene, the bad guys tell the two of them to strip so they can be searched. While Garner tries to defend her honor, Mercouri eagerly begins to comply. She begins by removing her false eyelashes.

This is a fun romp with charismatic stars and great chemistry between them. Much of the fine background music throughout became the ballad, "Strangers in the Night." See it if you get a chance.

And say goodbye to Sandra Dee and Tony Franciosa.

It has always bothered me that King Rat is so underrated. On one list of top the thousand films in history, it gets no mention. I think it's because George Segal's character, Corporal King wasn't a totally likable person. He is not the standard Hollywood hero. But he is a hero of mine. Were I in that prison camp, I guarantee you, I would have been Corporal King's best friend. One thing I learned in life was how to survive, and everyone around Corporal King survived. The movie misses a very important point that was in James Clavell's novel on which it is based. In case the war turned bad for the Japanese and they started taking revenge on the prisoners, King had planned an escape route. Not just for himself, for everyone close to him. Put that in the film and you've got a major American hero. The movie is totally cliché free. One never knows where it is going or how it is going to end. Winning the war, you see, will not guarantee the safety of the prisoners. How it ends is perfectly logical in retrospect, but difficult to predict. It is a near perfect motion picture.

"Pretty Woman" was a movie with the most screwed up morals and message in Hollywood history and that covers a lot of history and movies. It was based on a myth and a fairy tale.

The Myth: "The whore with the heart of gold." Right.

Those are around.

No doubt about it.

But what are the chances of finding one? A gillion to one? A gazillion to one? No. That's rude. But the chances are slim. And then, after you think you've found her, she has to fit into your life style. That is, unless you decide to try to fit into her life style. One way or another, there have to changes as in every coming together of two lives with two separate loads of baggage.

Why do women in porn often marry men in porn? If they marry at all.

The answer is obvious. No one else could cope with the baggage.

Two people "enduring" each other for a period of time is tough enough when both are pure as gold. A tainted past is something that will always be there.

The Fairy Tale: Cinderella of course.

That is probably the best fairy tale ever written because it encompasses the dream of so many women from childhood on.

But the image of a millionaire prince snatching them our of their trailer park is ludicrous unless he happens to be constantly drunk, such as the Dudley Moore character in "Arthur".

Don't get me wrong. The movie had totally screwed up morals and messages, but it was great movie-making. It is not the job of movies to enrich and enlighten the audience. It is the job of movies to entertain and make money.

And that is what "Pretty Woman" did.

First the best parts. There were some excellent action scenes. But I have seen similar stuff on the Discovery channel. The look of old New York and the tramp steamer was good. I did like the tramp steamer. The captain of the ship, Thomas Kretschmann, stole every scene he was in.

Then the rest.

There was a strange confrontation near the beginning. Jack Black plays an amoral, sometimes immoral, movie director. He is broker than broke. He is in a meeting with his backers pleading for additional financing for his movie. They have been watching footage Black has shot of jungle and natives, intended to be incorporated in the movie.

One of the backers asks why the film couldn't be sexier. Why couldn't there be some exposed breasts on the natives? Black gives him a severe, moralistic dressing down. This rant was so out of character, so hurtful to what he was striving for, that it jarred me. It bothered me so much that I watched subsequent exchanges between the two, looking for hard feelings being carried forward. There were none. It was if that confrontation never happened.

I'll come back to that. Meanwhile… Naomi Watts played the heroine. She was nice, attractive, a decent actress, and totally Hollywood average. She was no better and no worse than 100 others that could have played the role. (Except for her juggling.) Director Peter Jackson goes out of his way to de-sex her and yet bring more intensity and attraction between her and the ape.

That doesn't work on two levels.

First he has her dressed in the flimsiest of costumes and then flattens her little mounds of breasts as much as he can. Right. Don't let any nipple show through. That might cause people to come see your dumb movie. A few million dollars go out the window right there. Fay Wray was a lot sexier.

Here is a flash for Peter Jackson: You are in the business of show.

He must think he is in the business of no-show.

Then I got an insight about that early confrontation I mentioned. That scene was patched in. Someone saw an early cut of this film and made the same criticism I make here. Where's the sex? So Jackson reassembled his actors and shot that scene to chew out that guy who made the comments. How stupid. How arrogant.

Because it is Jackson who is wrong. He did not understand the material. King Kong is supposed to be a sexy story. Everyone, throughout history knows that. Show me a picture of a great ape and a damsel in which the girl is not displayed in a sexy way.

And then Peter Jackson came along.

Peter Jackson goes for sensitivity and attraction.

Okay, the intensity of the attraction on the part of the girl works for part of the audience. Our two littlest girls and one older girl were in tears. But I don't think it will work for guys. I'm a sensitive guy. I weep at checker games. But this didn't move me.

So what was the problem? Peter Jackson fell for the Hollywood theory: More is better. If one pigeon crap on a hat is funny, then ten pigeon craps on hats will be ten times funnier.

It doesn't work that way.

In the original King Kong there was a kind of reluctant attraction on the part of the heroine. There was a mixture of abhorrence and fascination and finally sympathy.

This chick, in Peter Jackson's movie, was going after that hairy ape full bore. She wanted that thing. Only in my dreams do women come at me like that.

So what does the hairy ape do? He wanted to watch the sunset with her. He indicated how it warmed his heart.

This was a gay King Kong.

This was Queen Kong.

This was not a guy's movie.