Movie Review Paulina

Paulina (2015) 

Directed by Santiago Mitre

Written by Santiago Mitre 

Starring Delores Fonzi 

Release Date June 15th, 2015 

Director Santiago Mitre’s Paulina is a sharp and uncompromising story about a sharp and uncompromising character. The Paulina at the center of Paulina is portrayed by actress Dolores Fonzi whose inscrutable face and dispassionate voice crafts a performance that some will find off-putting but that I found to be endlessly fascinating, more so than the weighty issues the film employs Paulina to scrutinize.

Paulina is a success in her field in the Argentine judiciary, on her way toward becoming a lawyer, possibly someday a judge, when she informs her father (Oscar Martinez) that she is giving up her position and her education to teach at a rural school. Paulina’s decision is a fateful one as moving to the rural province outside the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires will not come easily. The scene of Paulina informing her father of her decision is one of incredible power that also happens to be the very first scene of the film.

In one unbroken take, that mostly sticks with Paulina’s enigmatic face as she moves through her father’s home, father and daughter debate the pros and cons, snipe at each other willfully and debate the politics of the region, all in the span of a 5 to 10-minute take. It’s a scene remarkable in its audacity as much as in its scripting. The dialogue is as fiery and passionate even as Paulina herself is self-possessed. Paulina argues her point with fervent words while her face rarely indicates the meaning of the words.

From there Paulina travels to a small village where she is hoping to teach politics to youths who’ve never been exposed to the inner-workings of government and aren’t particularly interested. On Paulina’s first day her entire class walks out after she makes an error while attempting to engage them. The students walk out again the second day when she fails to engage them with a game. Paulina’s struggles with the students are absorbing and yet dizzying. While most of Paulina is subtitled, the dialogue of the students is not transcribed and those who don’t speak the language have only Paulina for context, furthering the intended disconnect between the audience and Paulina while similarly forcing us to identify with her.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Roxanne

Roxanne (1987) 

Directed by Fred Schepisi

Written by Steve Martin 

Starring Steve Martin, Darryl Hannah, Shelley Duvall, Rick Rossovich, Fred Willard 

Release Date June 19th, 1987

Why don’t I love “Roxanne” anymore? The Steve Martin-Darryl Hannah comedy is turning 30 years old this week and will be featured on this week’s I Hate Critics movie review podcast which is being dedicated to the work of Steve Martin, featuring a Steve Martin Top 5 and “The Jerk” as this week’s I Hate Critics Undisputed Classic. So, of course, I watched “Roxanne” and the film left me only mildly amused at best, deeply disappointed at worst.

This confused me because my memory of the film, from being a 10 year old Steve Martin fan, was a non-stop laugh riot. I had a very similar experience when this week I also revisited Martin’s 1980 standup comedy special “In Honor of Steve.” Though my inner 10 year old found delight in Martin’s arrow through the head wackiness and the adult in me could recognize what might be a transgressive sort of anti-comedy peaking around the edges of otherwise earnest prat-falling, I could not find a place between the child and the adult that genuinely enjoyed Martin’s work.

Don’t misunderstand; it’s not that I am arguing Steve Martin isn’t funny, or not in many ways a comic genius, it’s an issue of taste. The adult in me doesn’t find Martin’s antics funny anymore and far too many moments of Roxanne, the extraneous scenes of Martin pulling a random physical gag, the plot friendly but awfully staged gymnastics that his C.B Bales is capable of for the purpose of god knows what, they’re unnecessary and distracting and rarely very funny.

There are multiple examples of these extraneous scenes with only a tenuous connection to the plot of “Roxanne” but let’s look at the very first scene of the film. Let me preface this by saying that I understand the fight scene that begins “Roxanne” is intended to demonstrate that C.D Bales is sensitive about the size of his exceptionally lengthy nose. I also am aware that the film is very loosely based on the play “Cyrano De Bergerac” which also begins with a sword fight. That said, the scene plays awkwardly and doesn’t really shine a positive light on the character of C.D Bales, especially as our introduction to the character.

Read my full review at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Transformers Rise of the Beasts

Transformers Rise of the Beasts (2023) 

Directed by Stephen Caple Jr. 

Written by Joby Harold, Daniel Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber 

Starring Anthony Ramos, Dominque Fishback, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen 

Release Date June 9th, 2023 

Published June 9th, 2023 

I'm going to make a strange comparison but here, but hear me out: Transformers is basically, The Little Mermaid market tested for boys. That's not to say that either is gender exclusive, rather merely that the market testing will tend to find the chaotic silliness of Transformers has more appeal among young boys than it does among young girls. Young girls meanwhile, prefer the colorful magic and music of The Little Mermaid to the clattering cacophony of chaos that makes up the Transformers franchise. 

It helps both films that the intended audiences for each film have not reached their full intellectual development. I'm of the belief that anyone who has reached mental maturity really doesn't enjoy the Transformers movie but rather, are tolerant of its existence. As long as their are children who delight over the silliness of Robots who turn into cars, there will always be an audience for the Transformers. Whether that is a good or bad thing is wholly subjective. 

Transformers Rise of the Beasts tells the story of creatures called Maximals. They have a key to a portal between universes and their home world is destroyed by a giant planet eating robot that wants the portal key in order to reach other planets to eat. Naturally, the Maximals bring their super dangerous portal key to Earth where, millions of years later, the planet eating robot guy sends his minions to retrieve the portal key and kill anything that gets in their way. 

The portal key is discovered on Earth by a museum intern with big dreams of being an archaeologist. Dominique Fishback plays the wide-eyed and curious intern, Elena, who will prove pivotal to protecting the Earth from the robot invaders. The evil robots have a name of some sort but my brain refused to retain that. Elena will soon be partnered with would be criminal and former good guy soldier, Noah (Anthony Ramos). Noah has somehow become partnered with the Transformers and is searching for the portal key on behalf of Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). 

If you haven't lost interest yet, good for you. I checked out around the time I heard the name 'Maximals.' I understand that some of you may have a nostalgic connection to the robot-animal hybrid. I'm told that the Maximals had their own cartoon show that was popular at one time. That's great, I don't relate to that at all. I played with Transformers as a kid and I think there were  animal Transformers when I was into the toys, but I don't really remember. I stopped caring about Transformers years ago. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Three of Hearts

Three of Hearts (1993) 

Directed by Yurek Bogayevicz 

Writtten by Adam Greenman, Mitch Glazer 

Starring Kelly Lynch, Billy Baldwin, Sherilyn Fenn, Joe Pantoliano 

Release Date April 30th, 1993 

Published June 8th, 2023 

Going into rewatching 1993's Three of Hearts for the new Everyone's a Critic 1993 podcast, I was concerned how a movie about a lesbian trying to gaslight her ex-girlfriend into coming back to her, via a straight, male, sex-worker, might not have aged well three decades later. I need not have worried. Three of Hearts would have to develop a pulse to be offensive. This non-entity of a rom-com is dimwitted, lazy and ill-conceived. Yes, based on the premise, it's a little offensive as well but not memorably or interestingly so. 

Three of Hearts stars Kelly Lynch as heartbroken Dr. Connie Czapski. Lynch's conception of a lesbian is wearing a leather jacket and a doo-rag. That's about as offensive the movie gets, even its stereotypes are lazy. Connie is heartbroken because her college professor girlfriend, Ellen (Sherilyn Fenn) has dumped her and may not, in fact, be gay at all. She says she doesn't regret her relationship with Connie per se, but she confesses to not being the conception of gay that Connie envisions for her. Whatever that means. 

In an effort to win Ellen back, Connie comes up with a bizarre plan. Needing a date to a wedding where she's playing the role of closeted lesbian, she hires a sex worker to be her date. Billy Baldwin co-stars as the sex worker, Joe Casella. Joe's primary business is sleeping with lonely older women, often married women tired of their boring old husbands or wealthy widows living high off of their insurance settlements. Keeping Joe in touch with new clients is his pal, and pimp, Mickey (Joe Pantoliano). 

The date goes well, Joe charms Connie's family and while he can't get Connie into bed, she's still gay, she does like Joe and it inspires a scheme. She will hire Joe, and give him a place to live, if he seduces and destroys her ex-girlfriend. Connie's assumption is that if Ellen gets her heart broken by a handsome guy, she will come running back to her. The plan, of course, backfires. Joe begins to fall in love with Ellen and Connie... well, she disappears for a while as the movie shoehorns a mob story into the plot. 

Joe has, apparently, been seeing the wife of a gangster while said gangster was in prison. The gangster is out of prison now and looking to take revenge on the man who was sleeping with his wife. For a while, Mickey is able to keep the heat off of Joe but when Joe tells Mickey he wants to get out of being a gigolo, Mickey lets the mobster have Joe and Joe is nearly beaten to death, saved only by Connie's quick thinking after she's randomly brought into this plot in the third act. 

Three of Hearts was infamous at the time of its release after co-star Sherilyn Fenn began speaking out about mistreatment on the set. Fenn claimed that director Yurek Bogayevicz was openly angry with her for not wanting to strip down for the part. Fenn was already going to be quite nude in another 1993 release, Boxing Helena and had been topless in a forgettable horror movie called Meridian: Kiss of the Beast and she was worried about being typecast for sexy roles. Her reticence to take off her clothes boiled over on the set and may have contributed to several rewrites of the script during production. 

Beyond that, Three of Hearts is a desperately mundane and oddly crafted rom-com-drama. The movie is never funny but it doesn't have the weight to be dramatic. It just sort of lays there and enacts a plot that never comes to life. As with many movies of the time period, no one seems concerned about the actual ugliness of the plot at hand. A woman attempts to destroy her girlfriend emotionally and trick her to coming back to her. There is a dark streak of homophobia at play there and, in general, it's just an ugly plot all around. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Classic Movie Review Sliver

Sliver (1993) 

Directed by Phillip Noyce 

Written by Joe Esterhas

Starring Sharon Stone, Billy Baldwin, Tom Berenger

Release Date May 21st, 1993 

Published June 8th, 2023 

Why is the movie Sliver called Sliver? I believe it's the name of the building where the movie is set but that is such a tossed off mention that I am genuinely uncertain. I can extrapolate that it is a loose metaphor for the films central relationship between Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin. By that I mean, he is someone who can painfully get under her skin, like a sliver. Get it? That's not explicit in the text of Sliver, but it's the best that I have been able to come up with. I spent a lot of time thinking about the title, Sliver, while watching the movie Sliver, because thinking about the title was more entertaining. 

Sliver is a softcore thriller with the pretense of being a high minded drama. Director Phillip Noyce and writer Joe Esterhas seem to think they have something to say about voyeurism and sexuality but it is clear where their prurient interests truly lie. They want to watch very attractive people have sex and they've made a movie to cover for their fetish. This was not an uncommon thing among male filmmakers at the time. In fact, movie covering for my fetish could be its very own sub-genre of 1990s cinema. 

Sliver stars Sharon Stone as Carly Norris, a rich book editor living in New York City. She jumps at the chance to move into a new apartment despite the apartment having a haunting past. A woman, who looks a lot like Carly, may or may not have been murdered in this very apartment by having been thrown off of the balcony. Oh well, look at all that natural light. New York real estate, am I right. If New Yorkers rejected every apartment where a murder occurred, there'd be few places to live. 

Carly moves in and it is zero minutes before creeps are breathing down her neck. First up is a famous author of 'erotic' thrillers, Jack Landsford (Tom Berenger). He's a former cop who uses his cases as inspiration for his creepy fantasies. So, he's a fan insert for Noyce and Esterhas. Perhaps its a case of Berenger being the stand in for who they really are while the other love interest, Billy Baldwin, is the fantasy of who the writer and director wish they were, a handsome and smooth talking ladies man who's still a major creep at heart. 

The central portion of Sliver is devoted to figuring out who killed that woman who lived in Carly's apartment. But that doesn't actually matter in the end. There are two major crimes happening and no one in Sliver is free from being implicated, aside from the beautiful, innocent, naive character played by Sharon Stone. You can see the flaws inherent in that right? Sharon Stone's talent is not necessarily playing either innocent or naive. That's no shade to Stone, she's just way too elegant and intelligent for the movie and character she's trapped within. 

The murder is just a red herring, a hook to draw you toward what is far more interesting and fetishistic for the writer and director, voyeurism. Billy Baldwin's creep character, Zeke Hawkins, is a secret billionaire who owns the building in which he, Carly and Berenger's creep writer lives. Zeke has installed cameras everywhere in the building, every apartment, every room, especially in the bathrooms. He spends his days sitting in his command center penthouse watching everyone all the time. 

Find my full length review at Filthy.Media 

Classic Movie Review Boiling Point

Boiling Point (1993) 

Directed by James B. Harris 

Written by James B. Harris 

Starring Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, Viggo Mortensen 

Release Date April 16th, 1993

Published June 8th, 1993 

Sometimes the making of a movie is far more interesting than the movie being made. That is unquestionably true of the 1993 crime drama, Boiling Point. The film began life as an independent film character study of a pair of seedy criminals, one striving for a better life, the other a hothead determined to destroy them both. A small part of that story was about the cop searching for both of these criminals as tension reaches a boiling point and they collide in a tragic series of events. 

That's what Boiling Point was meant to be with Dennis Hopper playing a seasoned criminal low life with dreams of getting out alive and making a life for himself. Viggo Mortensen played the doomed hotheaded young criminal whose attraction to violence would be the downfall of both men. Wesley Snipes was to be the cop looking to arrest the two for killing a fellow cop in the midst of a robbery gone terribly, horribly wrong. 

Then, something happened. As the film was being completed, Wesley Snipes became one of the hottest stars in Hollywood. Seeing that they had a chance to turn this cheap independent thriller into a box office bonanza on the back of one of the hottest stars in Hollywood, producers and studio execs demanded rewrites and reshoots to beef up Snipes role from a relatively minor supporting role to a presence they could promote in marketing the film. 

This is all very obvious in the final Frankenstein's monster of a movie that is Boiling Point. Most scenes featuring Wesley Snipes have him interacting with people other than Hopper and Mortensen. Most of Mortensen's performance, including most of the depth of the character, has been excised to make room for more scenes featuring Wesley Snipes. Snipes's reshot scenes are clumsily sewn into the movie and rarely add any depth to the main story which still centers on Hopper's criminal trying and failing to be a better person. 

Rather than the wild-eyed monster that Hopper would play in other villainous roles, his character in Boiling Point is a pathetic, fast-talking sadsack. He's a man who is desperate to escape his circumstances and when he sees a potential payday that could be the key to his happy ever after, he risks everything to get there. It's clear that there was an important subplot involving Hopper and Valerie Perrine who plays his ex-wife. Wanting to win her back, despite a history that includes violent abuse, is a big motivation for Hopper's character. But, as the movie shoved in more about Snipes, we got less of Perrine. 

There are numerous examples of how executives cut up and rejiggered Boiling Point to capitalize on Wesley Snipes. The most glaring example is how Snipes rarely shares a scene with any of the rest of the cast, including Hopper and Mortensen. The only tangible link between Snipes and the rest of the movie comes from a reshot subplot in which Snipes' cop and a sex worker played by Lolita Davidovich, have an affair while she acts as a street informant for Snipes. She's also seeing Hopper's character as a client, but this somehow never becomes important to the plot. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Benny & Joon

Benny & Joon (1993) 

Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik 

Written by Barry Berman 

Starring Aiden Quinn, Johnny Depp, Mary Stuart Masterson, Julianne Moore 

Release Date April 23rd, 1993 

Published June 7th, 1993 

When Johnny Depp took on the role of looney romantic hero Sam in Benny & Joon he'd been engaged in a desperate effort to abandon the Teen Beat, leading man personas that Hollywood was attempting to impose upon him. Having become a teen idol on the teen cop show 21 Jumpstreet, Depp found the Hollywood spotlight for too overwhelming and limiting to his talent. Thus he set out to take roles that would defy expectations and reshape his career the way he wanted it. 

This upending of expectations started in 1990 when Depp starred in the wild and wonderful John Waters indie flick, Crybaby. No one in Hollywood wanted one of the biggest heartthrobs in the world to work with John Waters and that's likely part of what drove Depp directly into the embrace of Waters and his wild 50s aesthete and outre humor. That same year, he defied expectations in the mainstream as well with an entirely unglamorous, but slightly more commercial friendly film, Edward Scissorhands. 

Depp took that role specifically because he got to wear a lot of makeup and prosthetics and Hollywood marketers could not market the film based on his looks. This defiance of expectations continued as Depp took 1992 off and rejected high profile roles in blockbuster features. When he did decide to work again, he chose yet another defiantly odd and unconventional role. Despite still being one of the most sought after leading men in Hollywood, Depp accepted a supporting role in Benny & Joon while turning down the leading man role in the eventual blockbuster, Indecent Proposal. 

The gamble paid off as Depp delivers some of his most charming and dynamic work in the role of Sam, even as he's not the leading man. Sam is a wildly unconventional bohemian film lover whose persona is based on silent film heroes such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Depp takes this idea of a character and fills out the character with a mostly silent, terrifically physical performance. It's a role that threatens to be a little too twee, but Depp brings depth to the character by making the most of the few lines of dialogue the character has. 

The Benny & Joon of the title are brother and sister, Benny played by Aiden Quinn, and Joon, played by Mary Stuart Masterson. Benny is the responsible older brother who owns a business and cares for his sister and her unspecified medical condition. Joon is an artist who is prone to manic episodes, depression, and jumble of other mental health afflictions that seem to indicate that she suffers from either Schizophrenia or is merely on the autism spectrum. It's a bit nebulous but the film is delicate about Joon's condition which helps keep it from being overly problematic. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media