Change Your Image
Jacin Harter
Reviews
Last Orders (2001)
A Pint to Friendship!
Funerals/memorial services are probably the last place you want to be after a friend's died. The places you hung out at together seem better monuments than a cemetery or a headstone. And maybe that's where the spirit really rests.
LAST ORDERS is a soft-spoken and beautifully poignant film about the drive to scatter the ashes of a departed friend. Detours to pubs, a war memorial, and the field where he and his wife met stirr the memories of the son and three friends left to carry on. Enduring friendship, fidelity, laughter, and support become the themes of their lives together.
And whereas, in an americain film, this could all turn into a sappy series of flashbacks - Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Micheal Caine, and Ray Winstone perform with all the subtle grace of traditional British cinema.
LAST ORDERS is well worth seeing for anyone.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
A brilliant movie classic.
Tracy Lord is one of the Philadelphia elite, the cool queen of high society, recently devorced to playboy C. K. Dexter Haven, and soon to marry the rich industrialist George Kittredge. It's the day before the wedding and the everything is running smoothly. That is, untill Dexter shows up with two reporters from a gossip magazine, one being attractive Macaulay Connor. As plots begin to twist, snobbery and elitism are challenged, and romance leaves everyone beguiled. The wedding hour approaches - who will Tracy marry, and is she really such a cold hearted queen after all?
Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart are a charming and witty menage a trois giving first class performances. The script is based on the play HIGH SOCIETY, Donald Ogden Stewart. It is a seemless and intelligent story, similar to Shakespeare's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. A brilliant movie classic.
Xanadu (1980)
if you love those typical 80s movies, you're sure to find something to like about XANADU
XANADU (1980)(PG)
If Mattel's BARBIE MOVIE MAKER PLAYSET ever came to life and produced a movie musical, this would've been it (1981 Razzie Award Nominee - Worst Picture). XANADU is 96min of uncarbonated soda-pop fluff and love story clichées. But if you love those typical 80s movies, you're sure to find something to like about XANADU.
PLOT: Olivia Newton-John is a mythological muse who comes to Earth to inspire a disillusioned young artist to build a roller rink disco; eventually they fall in love. A rather base plot, but hey!, it's a musical. As the main character, "Sonny", Michael Beck has all the dramatic intensity of a Ken doll, but he's only half as cute. Along the way he meets Gene Kelly, "Danny McGuire', a charming and sweet ol' guy who used to head a big band club in N.Y. and now dreams of getting back into the scene.
Though it's not incredibly enthralling, XANADU does have its good parts. It's full of extravagant and weird 80s fashion and all the Swing retro-wear that was cool in the mid 90s. Costume designer Marilyn Vance (FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH) didn't miss a stitch; leg warmers, tights, roller skates, heavy eye make-up, bright colours; big hats, flapper dresses, tuxes, and tails. The dance segments are tight and energetic - most of them. - and great for a big screen musical (choreographer Kenny Ortega - DIRTY DANCING). However the music doesn't have at all the same punch. It tries to balance the movie between the then new 80s scene and flashbacks to the 40s, mixing soft-core pop-rock/disco and big band music. But the songs are completely flat and certainly not catchy enough to remember.
It's a cute little musical, and not the most horrible movie ever. My little sister's ballet class liked it.