Adventureland (2009) Film Review - Kennywood Park location

Plot Summary - Coming of age romantic comedy set in Pittsburgh, the summer of 1987. About James (Jesse Eisenberg), just graduated from college and - a virgin, it is announced - who is forced to get his first summer job when his father gets transferred (and has less money). No experience, the only job he can get is as a carny operating games at local amusement park Adventureland. James meets several new friends working there that summer including fellow game operator, attractive Em (Kristen Stewart). He quickly becomes lovestruck over Em, but Em seems torn between him and married, a bit older park maintenance guy who she is busy sleeping with in his mom's basement (or sometimes in the back of his car!). Romance blossoms between James and Em, but James has a fling of his own when a sexy park dancer/ride operator comes onto him. Will this be the summer that James loses his virginity? and will he end up with a new love?

Review - This film came as a bit of a surprise - very good, with well done blossoming romance and fun setting, on-location filming done almost entirely in the old-fashioned amusement park (filmed at Kennywood Park, West Mifflin, near Pittsburgh, PA - yeah, I'd like to go there one day!). The two leads take their parts to heart and do a really good job here - especially Jesse Eisenberg, who brings a real vulnerability to the role, the expressions on his face really do make him look like a young man falling in love. The eighties period setting was done well, enhanced by a great soundtrack of eighties music (loved hearing one of my old, personal faves from the day "Don't Change" by INXS in the closing credits). Lots of other favorite songs too. Comedy elements are added by stars like "Freaks and Geeks" Martin Starr, as a geeky games worker, and Bill Hader, as the park manager. Great film. Rating - 9 to 9.5/10 stars

The Secret Life of Bees (2008) Film Review - Dakota Fanning

Plot Summary - Coming-of-age tale set in South Carolina, where racial tensions abound in the summer of 1964. With an abusive, unloving father and a deceased mother, fourteen-year old Lily (Dakota Fanning) takes off with her caregiver (Jennifer Hudson) where soon the two of them are taken under the wing and guidance of three loving black sisters named after seasons who run a successful bee farm, producing honey under a "Black Madonna" label. Living in the honey house, Lily is soon having flirtations with a young black man, learning about bees, and finding out the truth about her mother - and herself.

Review - A very entertaining, moving film enhanced by top-notch performances, nicely filmed period setting and pretty on-location scenery. Dakota Fanning gives a well done, sensitive performance - as does Queen Latifah as the oldest sister August, who guides young Lily as they work the honey farm. I really enjoyed this film a lot! Rating - 9.5/10 stars

Gidget (1959) Film Review - Sandra Dee

Watched this yesterday afternoon on Turner Classic Movies.

Plot Summary - "Although she's not king-size, her finger is ring-size". Meet Francie (Sandra Dee) - she's petite, she's blonde, she's a tomboy, she's ultra cute, and as her gal pal tells us "let's face it, like most of us, she's pushing seventeen" (hehe) - but Francie finds she no longer fits in with her trio of curvaceous friends when they all go on a beach "man hunt" (well, that hideous baggy swimsuit she's wearing doesn't exactly help). After being left at the beach by the girls (who are off to another beach after being declared "jail bait"), she goes snorkeling and gets rescued via surfboard. Francie's hooked and begs Daddy that night to give her the needed cash to buy herself her own board, a "guarantee for a summer of sheer happiness" says she. Soon on her own water-logged used board and learning to surf, she's dubbed "Gidget" (girl/midget - well, not exactly politically correct) by the boys at the beach, and finds herself falling for handsome college guy/surfer Moondoggie (James Darren) who keeps acting (sort of) like he doesn't want to "get involved". After getting tangled in some kelp underwater during her beach "initiation" into the gang of guys, Gidget gets herself pampered and sung to by Moondoggie in leader Kahuna's beach shack. "The Big Kahuna" (Cliff Robertson) is a thirty-something surf bum who lives on the beach and surfs wearing tattered Hawaiian straw hat while smoking a cigar (yeah, you heard right). Gidget comes up with a plan of attack to get herself invited to a big beach Luau (aka "orgy"), hook hard-to-read Moondoggie, and hopefully get herself "the absolute ultimate", that is, Moondoggie's fraternity pin.

Review - Okay, this film is loads of fun fifties-style and one of my all-time favorites (love those old 60s beach movies, this one is pretty much the original). Sandra Dee is absolutely charming, bubbly and adorable in this, I just love her. The film includes several good songs including the Gidget theme song, plus "Cinderella" performed by a blond boy beach band, and in my one of my favorite scenes in the film, Moondoggie romantically sings "The Next Best Thing to Love" to Gidget. I have seen this film many, many times over the years and I never tire of it. Filmed in Cinemascope - man, do I dig this movie! Rating - 10/10 stars

Beautiful Ohio (2006) Film Review - William Hurt

Plot Summary - Indie film set in Cleveland, Ohio circa 1973. A coming-of-age story focusing on a family - mom, dad, and two teenage brothers who are dubbed "geniuses" - the main character is the youngest brother William, sensitive pianist and sculptor. The main genius is the older brother, Clive, currently competing in the rounds of the Ohio math championships, which takes place over the course of the film. Clive is long-haired and broody, he speaks a secret language only known to him and his pal Elliot. Clive has a girlfriend, Sandra, escaped from a bad home life and secretly living in the basement of their house. William finds out about Sandra, crushes on her (reciprocated) and keeps the secret from his parents. The dad (William Hurt) sells insurance and seems to be having a fling with the attractive neighbor lady - mom likes to cook and host dinners for the neighbor lady and husband. Mom (Rita Wilson) is into poetry and Chopin, Dad is experimental, plays rock records to mom's displeasure, and joins his son and friend smoking a bong. Just your typical family, honest!

Review - This is a touching, sensitively done film - very entertaining and well done, the family seemed like a real one. Nice vintage 70s music used in some background scenes, though the film is quiet as a whole. The character of William, the centerpiece of the film, is well played by the actor Brett Davern, his first film? Nice on-location photography in, mostly cold, Ohio (the family has their own mini hockey ice rink made in the yard). I really liked this. Rating - 9/10 stars

The World of Henry Orient (1964) Film Review

Plot Summary - Terrific coming-of-age tale which follows the friendship between two mischievous, dreamy fourteen-year old outsiders who meet at an exclusive girl's school then get mixed up in a rich fantasy world of their own as they run about the streets of Manhattan. Blonde, short pig-tailed "Gil" and mop-topped "Val" (normally seen in a long fur coat) find a mutual bond in braces and a hatred for the same teachers. Gil lives with her divorced mom and mom's (implied - or am I reading too much into this?!) female partner Boothy in a New York brownstone - Val, marked "unmanageable" by the schools she's been kicked out of, is left home alone and lonely by her wealthy, jet-setter parents (Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley) who are rarely in town. The girls decide to meet in Central Park and go "Adventuring", living in a pretend world as they imagine they are someone else (beautiful, white nurses running away from bandits, to be exact), then go for a carefree romp through the park and the city streets as they jump over fire hydrants and small children shouting "Splitzing". While in the park they happen upon a man kissing a woman on a rock - the next day, they run across him again with the same woman. A short time later the girls are taken to a concert where this man happens to be the star attraction - an avant-garde pianist named Henry Orient (Peter Sellers). Val is in love! The two girls decide to make a blood pact devoted to the "study of Henry Orient", then proceed to stalk this guy around town as they talk to each other using the "mysterious language of the Orient" while sporting Chinese bamboo hats. Love-struck Val keeps a secret Henry Orient scrapbook full of clippings, magazine articles, and fake love notes from him. Henry Orient, in reality, is a womanizer who uses a fake European accent and seems to only chase about after married women and lure them to his "lair", that is, his red, white, and black apartment. He tells his latest, she of the frosted eyeshadow (Paula Prentiss), that he's going to set her poem to music (oh brother) but she runs off when she becomes concerned that the two teens are young detectives hired by her husband - heh! When Val's parents come home around the holidays, her rather bitchy mom causes trouble for the girls when she reads the scrapbook and phones Henry Orient!

Review - This film is a wonderful gem that I love, it's one of my favorites. The film has some comedy elements (as when Orient gives his radical concert), but it is also nostalgic and touching. The two actresses who play Val and Gil (Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth) are so great in this, they bring such a realness and enthusiastic charm to these characters - they really seem like two real teenage friends: swoony, bubble-gum chewing, getting into jams together. These two are the kind of girls I would have liked to have as friends when I was that age (and I admit I did like getting up to mischief and pranks in my junior high years, just as these two do). The film is rich in on-location scenes of New York City in the sixties, lots of street scenes and shots of a beautiful winter and summer Central Park. The direction is sometimes almost whimsical, as when the girls romp the streets near the beginning of the film and the camera romps with them - slo mo, then fast motion, upside-down and sideways - the Splitzing scene is my favorite scene in the film. The film is highlighted by a great music score done by Elmer Bernstein, with one tune in particular that runs through the film and still runs through my head as I write this - love! A few segments of the music are actually reminiscent of Bernstein's music done in "To Kill a Mockingbird". I can see how, perhaps, this film would not be for everyone - perhaps it may even fall into the category of "chick flick" as the story is totally focused from the perspective of the two girls. But for me - love it! Rating - 10/10 stars

Anne of Green Gables (1934) Film Review

Plot Summary - The story of the young orphan girl, Anne with an E (played by Anne Shirley), who comes to live on Prince Edward Island with no-nonsense spinster Marilla Cuthbert and kindly, quiet Matthew Cuthbert, middle-aged sister and brother who run a farm. Anne is a talkative dreamer who wears her hated red hair in long braids, loves places where there's "scope for the imagination", prays to be "beautiful when she grows-up", and longs for a dress with puffed sleeves. Always on the lookout for a kindred spirit - Anne soon has a new "bosom friend" in neighbor girl Diana Barry, and starts school where she gets off on the wrong foot the very first day by breaking her slate over the head of cocky, handsome student Gilbert Blythe who calls her "carrots", her red hair forever her torment. Anne holds a grudge towards Gilbert, but he gives her the snub too when he won't speak to her on an evening community hayride. Turns out Marilla's been in a feud with the Blythes for years over a broken romance for her brother Matthew (altered from the book, in which she had a romance with Gilbert's father years before), so even as Anne and Gilbert start a little romance as several years go by, Marilla tries to keep them apart.

Review - This film is based on the classic novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery, a story I know quite well from both the book and the 1980s Canadian miniseries. The first part of the film actually follows the original book fairly closely (with a lot of dialogue taken straight from the book) and is quite good. The second half of the film tends to stray away from the book, with some scenes out of order from the original, other scenes completely altered or added in, characters changed around. Still, the film does seem to follow the original feeling and intent of the story, for the most part. Pretty young actress Anne Shirley, who was originally actress Dawn O'Day but changed her name permanently to Anne Shirley, the character's name in this film - brings a whole lot of charm to this role which really adds to the enjoyment of the film. I'm not completely keen on the choice of actor (Tom Brown) for Gilbert Blythe - he doesn't seem right to me, he comes across as a sort of shallow goofball. The characters from the novel of Rachel Lynde and Mrs. Barry are combined into one character in this film, named Rachel Barry (hehe). Diana is a blonde here - no "jet-black tresses". Anne is supposed to be fourteen when she arrives to live with the Cuthberts, in the novel she is eleven. Some of the well known scenes that take place in the novel are completely eliminated - no tea party on current-wine, no Anne walks the roof, no Miss Stacy, no Anne dyes her hair green - but things must be taken out, I suppose, to fit into a less than ninety minute film (couldn't they have made it longer?!). And never a mention of Avonlea! This film is a decent early version of this story, but doesn't begin to match the absolutely terrific, lovely 1985 TV miniseries version, and it's sequel "Anne of Avonlea" starring Megan Follows. Rating - 8/10 stars

Pretty in Pink (1986) Film Review

Plot Summary - John Hughes high school brat pack movie. Andrew McCarthy plays rich, preppy guy Blane who loves a girl from the "wrong side of the tracks", Andie (Molly Ringwald). Andie wears cool, pink, retro-look outfits she puts together herself from home-sewn clothes and thrift store finds, she works in a record store, and has a best guy pal named Duckie (Jon Cryer), a quirky school outsider who is madly in love with her. Blane hangs out with the rich jerks of the school including a real piece-of-work named Steff (James Spader) who wears a white linen suit to high school (he's meant to look rich and cool, I suppose) and this Steff apparently spends a whole lot of time with his blow dryer making his blond feathered hair look oh so perfect - he's also hot for Andie himself (but has been turned down by her for the whole four years of high school). So when Blane asks Andie out, his jerk pal tries to keep them apart by telling Blane she's a loser. Now - why in movies do people always seem to listen to their creep friends when deciding on who to date? Anyway, Blane and Andie must now work through all the problems presented by their "chums" and try to make this work (will he take her to the prom or won't he?).

Review - Well, this is another one of those high school John Hughes movies from the 80s that I love - it's one of those guilty pleasure films that I just keep watching again and again. Eighties nostalgia, the clothes, the music, the brat pack, gorgeous Andrew McCarthy - that's what it's all about. Okay, a few things I wonder about: first, when Blane and Andie have their first date - why do they only seem able to find something to do together that involves being with one or the other's group of friends resulting in one or the other getting snubbed. Blane's in the money - couldn't he take her out to dinner just the two of them, maybe a movie, or how about bowling? Now, here's another thing - Andie is made fun of at school by the "richies" for her unusual clothing style, but when I saw this film when it was brand new (and me at 25 years old at the height of my "always had to have the newest, trendiest clothes" days) I didn't think that made much sense because it is Andie's outfits in this that are very hip and trend-setting for the time, she has a real sense of style (except for the rather unattractive prom dress she puts together). Must mention, there are a number of females in this that sport that hideous permed hairdo that so many women were wearing when this was filmed - ugh, never did that to my hair. And by the way, I must also mention, did anyone ever *actually* wear the sort of "Miami Vice" style suit that James Spader wears in this to high school?! Anyway, this is a very fun film, very well acted by all - James Spader is particularly good and suitably smarmy in his part, Annie Potts is great as Andie's co-worker/gal pal from the record store, an eccentric thirty-something who's normally sporting a punk look. There's plenty of chemistry between the two leads, the romance featured in this is definitely swoon-worthy. There's also a really good soundtrack of New Wave songs throughout the film - I bought the record album at the time, which I still have. The title tune "Pretty in Pink" was and still is one of my fave New Wave songs from the 80s. Rating - 9/10 stars

The Curiosity of Chance (2006) Review

Plot Summary - Offbeat coming-of-age comedy set "somewhere in Europe, some time in the 80s", about teenage Chance, a quick-witted gay transfer student who is being raised by his strictish military dad who goes around in army fatigues and calls his son "cadet". Chance establishes his eccentric persona right off the bat by going to high school his first day in top hat and cane (and the next day with a pirate patch over one eye). He makes friends with a weird guy who constantly carries around a briefcase (clutched to his chest) with "secret" contents and a really sarcastic black girl with a bad sort of chip on her shoulder. He makes enemies with a hulk-like school jock who constantly harasses him for being gay. Then there's Levi - Chance's hunky next-door neighbor and schoolmate (the actor reminded me of Jake Gyllenhaal). Chance develops a crush on Levi, but Levi's jock pals won't let him stay friends with Chance for long. And meanwhile - - Chance and his friends go to a nightclub where a drag show performs - Chance befriends the performers backstage and decides to perform in drag at next week's amateur night. And soon Levi finally stands up against his jerk friends to form a band with Chance, with intentions to compete in an upcoming high school student "Battle of the Bands".

Review - Well, I thought this film was pretty good - I see it as sort of a cross between "Rock and Roll High School" and the John Waters version of "Hairspray", but with a gay theme. It's really quite campy, the setting in Europe (filmed on location in Belgium) makes for some rather bizarre stuff because the whole high school scene seems like a really typical American high school except that many of the actors are putting on a variety of fake European accents. The 80s clothing and hairstyles done for this is fairly realistic - yes, I myself used to often sport a long side ponytail back in those days (I never went for the leg warmers though another hairstyle I often wore then involved a big Madonna style bow tied on top my head). By the way, this film has a really good 80s soundtrack of mainly New Wave songs including several old faves of mine I haven't heard in a long, long time (nostalgia!) - just hearing that Devo song played during the opening credits made me want to get up and dance and get out my old Devo records and play them once again (yes indeed, I certainly do have my entire 70s/80s vinyl collection). I thought this indie film was a quirky, fun watch - very entertaining. Rating - 8/10 stars