Cool and the Crazy (1994 Showtime) is a slice of life film set in the late 50's. The got the period right in costume, set decoration, makeup and attitudes, but I can't figure out why they bothered. Two couples marry right out of High School. Two years later, they each have a baby, a husband that spends too much time at work and comes home tired, and a wife sick of being at home and ignored. Roslyn (Alicia Silverstone) is beginning to realize how unhappy she is, but has no idea what to do about it. Her best friend, Joanne (Jennifer Blank) has the problem already solved. She is having an affair with a "bad boy," and eventually convinces Roslyn to go out with her.

Rosyln's hubby (Jared Leto) is suspicious, and, at the same time, is tempted by a Venice Beach beatnik (Christine Harnos) who works with him. Eventually, Roslyn is caught by hubby, and both couples separate. Hubby finally does Harnos, where we see her breasts. The soundtrack alternates between believable 50's R & B, and a cool Jazz score anytime Harnos is on screen. The boyfriends are what was then called Juvenile Delinquents. The didn't work, were married, spent hours a day running their combs through there greased DA hair and generally did anything they thought they could get away with. These three types of people did indeed inhabit the late 50s.

On the other hand, who cares? We are long past the get married and raise a family, wife stays home and makes babies era, so this has no currency, and is not especially interesting. The wort part, however, was the acting. Silverstone had a bad habit of screeching unintelligibly, Leto played every scene angry, and bad boy Joey (Matthew Flint) chews the scenery in his way over the top performance. IMDB readers have this at 3.2 of 10, and rightly so. This is a D. They got the atmosphere right, but forgot to tell an interesting story.

Caught (1996)

The first fifteen minutes of this film give the impression that Caught will be a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, updated to the present day and relocated in North Jersey.

A young homeless man wanders into an urban fish market to escape a police dragnet. The owner of the shop and his wife (Edward Olmos and Maria Alonso) end up taking the man into their lives. The owner brings the drifter into the business, and the drifter responds so enthusiastically and gratefully that the owner soon begins thinking of him as a son. They even give the man the bedroom once occupied by their biological son, who is in L.A. trying to break into showbiz. The wife has something else in mind, however. Her attitude toward the handsome stranger is decidedly unmaternal. She wants him. She's still young and sexy. Her husband is older, has lost his sex drive, and always smells of fish.

Then a developer comes along and offers a million dollars for the fish store.

I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. I was thinking the same thing. This movie does not end up in James M Cain territory. The triangle between the three protagonists is not simply a set-up for a twisty noir thriller. The wife and the drifter do not plan to kill the husband while simultaneously planning to double-cross each other. Nothing even similar to that. It ends up closer to Tennessee Williams, with a hint of Sophocles thrown in as well. There are no murder plans or scams of any type. All three of them are good people, and behave like real people, not like movie characters. In fact, it is not a thriller at all, but a tragedy. The young stranger does eventually succumb to temptation and starts an affair with the wife. He really desires her, yes, but he also cares for her, and she for him. But he regrets the relationship greatly, because the owner has become a surrogate father for him in every way, and they too love each other.

Through the first half of the movie, the film is actually quite joyous. The wife is sexually satisfied. The owner has a surrogate son who brings him pleasure and is a great help at work. The old boy is so happy that he even gets some sex drive back. The wife still loves her husband, and seems to respond with fair enthusiasm when he gets back in the game. All three characters seem happier than they were before, and they are ecstatic when the developer makes them a great offer for their property. They agree to sell their store, and the owner plans to retire to Florida and run some fishing boats, with the assistance of his live-in first mate.

The problem is that the first mate knows this can't go on forever. He genuinely loves both of them and wonders what to do. He should have just walked away and let them live their lives, and maybe he would actually have done that if the wandering showbiz son hadn't shown up on their doorstep with his young wife and infant son. The real son quickly becomes jealous of the surrogate son living in his old bedroom. The real son is also able to size up the dynamic of the stranger's relationship with his mother, and is equally jealous because the stranger has achieved a bond with his father, although the real father and son are virtually strangers. The owner and his wife remain dependent on the stranger. The biological son's wife and baby become dependent on the stranger for reasons which must remain unrevealed here. The stranger knows that the situation must end in ugliness, but he doesn't feel that he can leave.

Like the fish he handles every day, he is "caught".

This movie is surprisingly intelligent and authentic. For 75% of the film, it takes a situation that Hollywood would normally mishandle, and deals with it the way real people would try to deal with being caught in the same trap.

If I have any criticism of the film, it is that the biological son was just too evil and scheming. He was acting the part of Iago, catching everyone's ear, telling people the truths they would least like to hear, and making up lies when the truth proved insufficiently inflammatory. The author wrote this part without complexity. This man is a druggie, a liar, a thief, a wife-beater, a bad performer who is constantly performing, a man with insufficient respect for his father and Oedipal lust for his mother. Reinforcing the one-dimensional nature of the character, the actor chose to play this part very broadly, adhering closely to the Iago formula, making him so vile and slimy that he makes one's skin crawl.

Frankly, I would rather have seen the original three characters play out their lives without the son's interference. I really liked the way the tension was building between them, and I wanted to see it resolved the way it would have been resolved with three good and genuine people, people who care about one another, placed in a difficult situation.

I guess it isn't much of a criticism to say what I was hoping for, but I liked the naturalism and compassion that the script was developing, and I thought that the too-too-evil son spoiled that dynamic and turned the film too much toward larger-than-life Shakespearian tragedy. I didn't want it larger than life. I was happy when it was exactly the same size as life.

I still liked the film, but I might have loved it if it had stayed true to its beginning.

6.4 at IMDb, three stars from Ebert, also three from Berardinelli.

• Maria Alonso (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Casablanca (1942)

I wrote so much about Casablanca, and took so many screen shots, that I shunted it all off on a separate page, with thumbnails. There is a terrific new 2-disc set. There is even some previously undiscovered deleted footage. Read about everything and see everything here.

Updates:

• Updated volumes: Isabel Adjani, Jennifer Aniston, Maria Alonso

 

OTHER CRAP:

• HOLLYWOOD hunk Colin Farrell has confessed he has a 2 inch willy. Actually, I'm quite sure he was kidding, but the Sun is not known for their brilliant powers of perception.
• Kobe Bryant Loses Nutella Clocolate Endorsement Deal: Luckily, he will still have a chocolate deal. I hear Hershey is looking for a spokesman for their new Highway bar.
• Ya gotta love California. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown warns that if Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is recalled, Democrats may retaliate by launching yet another recall of the replacement. (Exactly what Bill Maher predicted facetiously! Life imitates art. Maher said "why not, it works for Italy?")
• Records reveal celebs who pack heat in N.Y.: Find out which stars are strapped.
• Jay Leno to become a Metrosexual, get a makeover from 'Queer Eye' guys. Clint Eastwood is next, mark my word. Then Wilford Brimley.
• Clive Barnes reviews Melanie Griffith in Chicago - A ROXIE WITH MOXIE. He ... um ... well ... wasn't impressed. Check it out.
• Boxoffice Magazine [GIGLI Film Review] - three and a half stars!. It is possible that the article is a put-on, but I thnk it is serious. Strangely, it compares Gigli to My Dinner Wth Andre. Yeah, maybe it's a lot like Babette's Feast and Alexsander Nevsky as well.
• Jon Stewart's satirical barbs draw viewers, Emmy notice: Stewart says: "I do believe we need to go to a 24-hour fake news channel". He then went on to say that he meant ANOTHER one besides Fox.
• Need a birthday gift for that special someone in your life? How about Hitler's penis?
• Kevin Smith says his Jersey Girl project will not be affected by the fact that every human on earth hates J-Lo and Affleck
• The Pentagon releases more "Could-Be Saddam" Photos. Interestingly, they all look like famous liberals.
• Kim Cattrall Dating Bruce Willis.
• Movies Banned in Finland: Hilarious list includes: "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Arsenic and Old Lace"
• Cameron's topless win, round one: "TOPLESS photographs of actress Cameron Diaz will not be exposed to the public for the time being."

Other crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

PIRATE COUNTDOWN:

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Women of Valor (1986)
This is a fact-based made-for-tv movie about a group of US Army nurses who are captured and imprisoned by Imperial Japanese troops during the invasion of the Philippines. A similar story was told a decade later in the movie Paradise Road. Despite this being a drama it still has a few exploitation women-in-prison elements to pull in the male viewers. Kristy McNicol plays a tomboy who doesn't wear a brassiere and the nurses led by Susan Sarandon while in the middle of being pursued by the japs strip down to their underwear and go swimming. The movie is PG-rated so there is no nudity but Susan Sarandon and Kristy McNicol do have a catfight.

• Skinny dip: wet underwear.
• Susan Sarandon: wet underwear, pokies.
• Kristy McNichol: bra-less pokies.
• Alberta Watson: wet underwear.
• Valerie Mahaffey: wet underwear, pg-rated strip-tease.
• Suzanne Lederer: wet underwear.

The DVD was one of earlier releases in that medium and is long out of print.

• Cynthia Nixon, topless (1, 2)

• Kim Cattrall, topless of course and gettin' it on in a swing. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• Kristin Davis, arm over bare breasts, a see-thru nipple sighting and of course her now famous topless scene. (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Sarah Jessica Parker, plenty of wonderbra cleavage, pokies and a scene with her soaking wet.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

• Assorted unknowns going topless and full frontal. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Diaz photo update
I don't buy for a minute her claim that the release form is a forgery. Judge seals photos of Cameron Diaz in case against photographer

HUSTLERS FOR GOVERNOR
Well, They SAID Character Didn't Matter - The ranks of California gubernatorial candidates just keeps growing. "Hustler" publisher Larry Flynt has taken out papers: he says Californians wouldn't mind having a "smut peddler" for governor, and he promises to pay off the $38 billion deficit by expanding slot machine gambling.