gpswenson Reviews

Sabor tropical (2009)

Film Within a Film

[7/10 · 19 March 2024]

The premise of the film is young, cocky Californian has been hired to shoot footage of the Carnival in Panama. He makes arrangements ahead of time to hook up with a woman he has met online but discovers he has been catfished after he arrives.

The blending of the story of what is happening in the Californian's life and the "documentary" he is being paid to film are woven together so completely that many people get sucked into believing it is just an odd travelogue. I was part of a film programming team that viewed this film as a prospective festival entry but most of the team felt this way. The style of the film is that masterful.

I do wonder if cutting back on the Carnival footage might have allowed the dramatic story to be clearer. You are really watching two films: One about the filmmaker and the other what the filmmaker is capturing.

Leitch is most of the film, and his portrayal of the confused, selfish California yuppy is multi-dimensional in that you see his swaggering and how that masks his insecurities and inner pain. The expression on his face in the final scene is haunting.

Man-Trap (1961)

Stella Stevens is Fantastic!

[8/10 · 6 October 2022]

The film begins in a hokey, low-budget manner, mostly to establish the debt David Janssen owes to Jeffrey Hunter for saving his life. Later, they do have some good dramatic scenes together, but it is Stella Stevens that breathes life into everything. She is seductive, cruel, ranting, crazed, and clearly bored out of her mind with her war hero husband (Hunter). The swinging couples that travel like a pack of boozed-up interlopers, completely insensitive to the strain in the young couple's marriage are a fascinating glimpse into one of the social strains of instant neighborhoods in suburbia. Times were changing in 1961 and these moments reveal the chasm between Hunter's and Stevens' definition of married life.

The domestic scenes and the crime/noir scenes don't really go together and I wish that the Stevens character had been included in the planning of the heist, the escape, or some other way that tied the suffocating marriage to the recklessness of Hunter. Maybe something that played up how Hunter was seduced by Janssen, Stevens, and even his secretary might have made that two halves of this story more cohesive.

Night Passage (1957)

Great Cast

[6/10 · 6 August 2022]

I'm not sure why this was titled "Night Passage" as none of the action seems to happen at night. James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Elaine Stewart, Brandon deWilde, and Dianne Foster were my biggest reasons for watching this, but. Olive Carey (wife of actor Harry Carey) is especially memorable in the part of Mrs. Vittles.

Would love to have seen this one on the big screen.

The Front Runner (2018)

A Smart Film

[7/10 · 2 November 2018]

In an age where politics is so fiercely polarized it was refreshing to see a film about politics that opens windows and allows the viewer to consider a number of possible conclusions. I'm glad Reitman didn't try to preach with this film or paint anyone as a villain. Even the opinions I had already settled into over the years about Hart's relationship with Rice and the role of the press were softened and reconsidered after seeing this. I like that The Front Runner made me look at this time in history from the eyes of so many people I hadn't originally considered were affected by this event. Reitman manages to keep the mood suspenseful without pushing us into hoping for any particular outcome and I think that's pretty artful. This is a film I could enjoy more than once and that I might draw different conclusions from each time I saw it depending on which character spoke to me the most that day. There's a lot going on and all of it is interesting.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Betrayed Bride (1964) Season 8, Episode 5

Ooh la la! Zee French Accents, Zay Steenk!

[4/10 · 6 January 2016]

I love this series, but this was a real dog of an episode. From the butler referring to the dead man as "the decedent" to two French people arguing (privately) in English .... while supposedly being secretly taped for "evidence." And Lord the caricatures of "The French" and the scenes of various cast members sitting in a "French café"

Even Perry's famous revelation of the real murderer falls flat, 'cos there's no evidence supporting his deduction. Usually, the recap tells us how Perry knew something everyone else didn't, but that's missing this time around. Also, there's very little of Della Street in this episode. Matter of fact, hardly any Della in any of these first episodes of Season Eight. I hope she'll have more lines in the episodes to follow.

Crazy (II) (2008)

Needs sharper editing, script

[4/10 · 2 January 2012]

Waylon Payne is a pleasure to see in action, and believable as an esteemed guitarist of the period, but the role that is written is not the life of Hank Garland. There are discrepancies in the chronology of the music, and who was where on what night and what year that are just not forgivable in a bio-pic. A fictional period piece can play with facts like that, but not when you're telling someone's life story. Also (and here's the *SPOILER*) unless there is irrefutable proof that Hank Garland's wife was getting banged doggie-style in front of a bunch of record executives, that kind of vulgarity should NEVER have been a part of this film. For lands sakes, their kids are still living, and - even if it were true - it really brings this film into the toilet to be so graphic about infidelity. It would be plenty to say she cheated. There are a million and one ways to even let the viewer know she made some kind of performance out of it (if she really did) but showing it this way and the subsequent inference that she was in cahoots with people who tried to kill her husband goes WAY outside the bounds of "creative license." There was never any suggestion (in real life) that Garland's car accident was anything but an accident in the news. If the film wants to entertain a possibility of criminal activity, they sure as heck should not drag Mrs. Garland into it.

I enjoyed the music, but the Elvis scenes are pretty cut-and-paste with an Elvis imitator that verges on parody. The instrumentals are uniformly fantastic, while the vocals are not true to their time period, employing a style of singing and playing that reeks of 2004, but is still good music - Just not 1955-1962 music. Set design is pretty, but a little too obvious in a showroom kind of way in all but the last scenes. The rooms don't feel lived in as much as displayed. The exterior shots were well done, except for a lack of other-than-classic, mint condition vintage cars, and the costuming captured the period well. The story itself - even to succeed as a fictional account - needs much sharper editing. There's a real drag to some of the scenes and a morose tone that plays like a funeral dirge. The scenes with the band members and a couple that Payne carries mostly on his own give this some life, but there are some fragmented story lines of characters we get to know enough to wonder about, but that are never resolved, yet a complete lack of reference to anything happening in the rest of the world (and these were some pretty tumultuous years).

I wanted to like this film. I'm a fan of both Waylon Payne and Hank Garland, and I think they both deserved better writing.

Lord, Save Us from Your Followers (2008 Video)

Concilliatory

[3/10 · 25 March 2011]

There is nothing revelatory about this film, but the Christian sales pitch mixed in with some pretty innocuous quotes from religious zealots and activists known primarily for their extremely divisive rhetoric undermines any credibility. To spend so much time glorifying Rick Warren and stating over and over how much money he supposedly doesn't have without mentioning that he raised millions of dollars to destroy the marriages of gay people in California - dividing their homes, and shunning them as unworthy and beneath the contempt of the state - without mentioning how many of the 400 AIDS orphans in Africa also shown might have been saved by that kind of investment is to miss one of the greatest arguments against organized religion and the fundamentalist hate campaigns.

There are not-so-subtle musical interludes encouraging everyone to love "in spite of what you do" with a clear message that these pious Christians are the better-thans who are to be admired if they overcome their true inclination to spit in the face of some lowly sinner. The film-maker is shown "confessing" the sins of the church at a gay pride rally, but he is not the least bit apologetic about the legislation the fundamentalists pass to destroy the lives of those who aren't on his team. His use of that important and symbolic gathering as a recruiting ground for an admitted "love the sinner, hate the sin" brand of Christianity was disrespectful.

Non-Christians aren't trying to enforce legislation to force others to adhere to someone else's lifestyle choice. Non-Christians are minding their own business. This isn't a case of "we have both been wrong." There is nothing wrong with live and let live. I am a Christian, and I am glad for the work some Christians (and I) do to ease suffering and be inclusive and respectful. These deeds are important to show on film, but presenting them without showing the work done by charitable people who do not have a religious affiliation is suggesting you cannot be charitable unless you are a Christian.