Month: July 2022

Lying in hospital near Los Angeles due to an injury on a film set, stunt man Lee Pace regales fellow patient Catinca Untaru with a fantasy tale in exchange for her procuring him more pain medications. It’s a gorgeous film throughout, effortlessly weaving the real life scenes with the story telling, in director Tarsem Singh’s unique style. I’ve adored Lee Pace since seeing him in the incredible Wonderfalls and while he’s fantastic here in roles that require quite a bit of subtlety and complexity, he’s often upstaged by the adorable innocence of young Catinca.   

Christina Aguilera moves from Iowa to Los Angeles looking for something more and finds it in a burlesque club run by Cher. I can’t imagine this is anyone’s idea of a good movie. Each scene feels like it was made by a cliché generator and the various plots only held together by the most nebulous of threads. Christina with all her singing talent is not made for acting let alone as a lead. The dance sequences aren’t bad and some of the songs are catchy, though at least three of them essentially share the same title as the film. At least Alan Cumming and Stanley Tucci seem to be aware exactly what type of movie they’re in and they play it to perfection. 

Based on his play of the same title, Ossie Davis stars as the title character, a preacher who returns with his fiancé Ruby Dee to the plantation where he grew up to secure the inheritance his family was promised. I had a hard time placing when the story was supposed to be set. The politics as discussed felt more contemporary to the time it was made, but Visually and thematically seemed from a much earlier time. Regardless, it’s sharply written and quite humorous with great, committed performances, including from Sorrell Booke, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge, and Alan Alda in his film debut.

With German operatives on her tail, secret agent Madeleine Carroll surreptitiously enlists the help of vaudeville performer Bob Hope to transport classified plans out of New York City. A riff on the type of films Hitchcock made during this era, it’s not as funny as I would have expected but not without its delights especially in its quick paced jaunt across the country using planes, trains, and automobiles. Hope’s penguin companion steals every scene he’s in as does Carl Switzer in his one scene as an unruly child. 

Asked to help the cops with a series of gruesome murders, paralyzed former criminologist Denzel Washington teams up with rookie patrol officer Angelina Jolie to solve the crimes. It’s always equal parts amusing and interesting watching people work within the limits of obsolete technology. The partner pairing, brutal crimes, and central mystery are all intriguingly laid out in the film, but ruined somewhat by an unexpected ending and a forced romantic angle, neither of which make a lot of sense to the story. Even laying immobile in a hospital bed, Denzel acts his pants off.