The Writer's Poke

In Snow White, the evil stepmom/queen puts her daughter to sleep. In Sleeping Beauty (1959), Maleficent attempts to kill Aurora, but the three fairy godmothers step in and change the spell from death to sleep. It's no wonder I end up getting the two films confused, because in some ways, they use the same plot. Snow White is a cute movie, but like Sleeping Beauty, it leaves a lot left unexplained. Like, where is everyone? We have two kingdoms represented, and all we ever see is the Queen, the daughter, the Woodsman, and the Prince. Where are all the people? For that matter, what happened to the King? What happened to the first Queen? I understand that a lot will be left unexplained, but sometimes in Disney movies, the plot is an afterthought. They spend 10 minutes focused on Snow White cleaning the "dollhouse" the Dwarfs live in, but nothing on backstory, nothing on the PTSD that Snow White might be experiencing being forced to run for her life. Did she not know the Queen ...

The messaging of movies. It's not always something you think about, but sometimes it's easy to see when you watch older films. In this one, both the boyfriend and the father give the message: The way for women to be happy is to marry, have kids, and take care of the house. That's it. That's the secret to being content and to being truly happy. There are no alternatives. As the title suggests, the focus is on the girl, Jean (Elizabeth Taylor). She has a boyfriend who loves her and wants to marry her, Vance (Gig Court). He's rich and she's rich. They want for nothing, and yet, even though she loves him, she's worried about settling down. She wants to see what else life has to offer. That's funny to me. She's going to have servants, and she will have the money to do whatever she wants. That's never addressed in the film. There's nothing that marriage will limit her from experiencing, except other men. Does she want to sow her wild oats? It's...

Everyone likes Sam Elliott. He's the old guy with the voice and the mustache. But name three films he's been in. I can -- Tombstone, The Big Lebowski, and Frogs. Can you name a fourth? Ebert rated this movie 3.5/4 stars, but in his review, he acknowledged that this is the kind of film that will receive no buzz and will come and go without anyone noticing. Why? I'm not sure. If you like the New Mexico desert, you're going to like this film. Maybe that's a pretty obscure, select group of folks. I love the New Mexico desert, and when I see the Rio Grande, I think, cool... I know where that is. Is it a problem with the pacing? Maybe, because modern-day audiences are going to find it slow going. Most of the characters are quiet, and we aren't always sure what they're thinking, or how they ended up like they are... that's true to life, though, right? On the other hand, when I was watching the movie, the thought went through my head that this is one of those mo...

Alan Alda has written and directed a few films in his career, and this one might be the best known. Since I listen to his podcast and he had a rerun of the Carol Burnett episode recently, the film entered my radar, and I thought I'd give it a watch. During the podcast, Burnett mentioned that she tweaked her part to make it feel more "real" from a woman's perspective. I was looking for the scene, and I guess it was the one where Jack (Alda) calls Kate (Burnett) "perfect." That's surprising, though, because that's exactly what Jack would call Kate. Kate doesn't want to be called perfect, though, because that's burdensome and in some ways dehumanizes her. Basically, the film follows three friend couples through one year -- four seasons -- of their friendship. To work a little better, I think maybe instead of four back-to-back seasons, the movie should have followed them through four figurative seasons -- from friendship's beginning through t...

Written and directed by Noam Baumbach, and Wes Anderson is one of the producers. It's a filet of a film. Somehow this is the third time I've watch this film. I find it hilariously funny, and painful, and annoying, and elegant. The older son, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) -- aka "Chicken" is a poppa's boy and lets his mom know it. He sings and plays Pink Floyd on guitar at a school talent show and tells everyone he wrote the song. Frank (Owen Kline) -- aka "Pickle," wow. The divorce messes him up, and what he does in the film (you'll know when you see it) will never leave your brain. The father, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) -- are there really English professors like him? I fear there are -- or might have been. The mother, Joan (Lauren Linney), does she have more going for her? Better writer? Why does she end up dating jocks, including Ivan (William Baldwin), Frank's tennis coach? Neither boy takes the divorce well, but omg Frank. He's drinking beer, look...

Billy Bob Thorton isn't especially known for being a director, but he did direct this one, his first directorial assignment after Sling Blade (1996). I was interested to see if anything stood out that suggested his fingerprint. Overall, I'd say not. I did notice a few close-ups on eyes, but most of the scenes and shots looked pretty standard -- not that standard is bad. The early shots of the Texas and Mexico desert were well done. The film itself logs in at just under 2 hours. Some reviewers indicated that the pacing was too slow; others note that Thorton's original cut was 4 hours long. So which is it? Is the pacing too slow? Or does the film need more time to work? I tend to think that the pacing was fine, and that yes, more time was probably needed -- to better develop all aspects of the story -- The friendship relationship, the conflict of losing John's (Matt Damon) family farm, the relationship between John and Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), and so on. When John and h...

Movies like this come and go and are easy to miss. Shainee Gabel is a director with one feature credit to her name, basically, and this is it. She hasn't made another movie since, and there's nothing about her really, to discover in a quick Google search. Where did she go, and what happened to her? And as one reviewer asked, how was she ablet to recruit Scarlett Johansson and John Travolta to spend three weeks in New Orleans one August staring in this one? That reviewer indicated that it was "the script" that drew them to these roles, and maybe that's the case. And then I start to feel bad for Travolta, because other than Pulp Fiction and maybe a very short list of two or three other films, he's not exactly known for appearing in films with good films -- either as rated by critics or viewers. Johansson, on the other hand, has typically been better at picking films with "good scripts," but she's also done her fair share of Marvel movies -- some go...