Reviewing movies since 1984, online film critic since 1998. Here you will find a film essay or review, interviews, and a focus on certain trends in current Hollywood, and what's eclipsed in favor of something more mainstream.
My 1970's memory of the effervescent Elton John was always tuned to his oversized frame-colored glasses and his flamboyant costumes which were never garish nor were they otherworldly like David Bowie - to me, it meant an artist having a ball and we were invited to the party while he played rock and roll music in his trademark piano with the passion of entertaining the audience. He was the rockin', euphoric clown who could light up any stage with fireworks of giddiness, the guy who could bring down the house because he loved to perform. "Rocketman" may at first glace appear to be the standard biopic of a rock musician yet it has an inner joy and a deeper complexity than the norm, stemming from a man who found a way to battle his demons through his music - it was no easy road.
"The Bitch is Back" is played in an outstanding opening musical number at a rehab center, so you know this will be a spirited, hell-on-sparkling wheels journey. We watch Taron Egerton as Reginald Dwight with a later adopted stage name of Elton John, ready to divulge his past to strangers while wearing a devil costume. Right from the flashy opening number (partially sung by a younger Elton), we are invited to his world of pain and pleasure. Pain stems from a largely absent, scornful father who has no faith in Elton's musical abilities, and an indifferent mother (a stunning performance by Bryce Dallas Howard) who reacts with equal aloofness when Elton reveals his homosexuality. Pleasure is his music and he has an amazing gift of adeptly playing any classical piece on the piano just by listening to someone else play it. He has lyrics that scream his pain and loneliness yet composed with a lyrical liveliness so that it can't depress anyone too severely (unlike one record producer, yep, we have seen that scene before of a producer who sees no potential in the singer yet there is strong support from the band members, friends, etc). Elton is a revelation in the music scene, specifically in his Troubadour debut in Los Angeles where he performs "Crocodile Rock." The scene establishes a hesitation from Elton at first, and then the joy and ecstasy of performance and of the crowd melts away any reluctance. These scenes are electrifying and form the basis of the whole film - even in Elton's darkest hours, an upbeat tempo is subtly invoked because, hey, it is Elton John and he has to live. Music is what he lives by so lively musical numbers every once in a while is to be expected.
The rest of the film follows the expected trajectory of any musical biopic, you know, the singer becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol, and there's a scene where Elton almost drowns in his swimming pool and visions of his past and the young Reginald at the bottom of the pool haunt him. Of course, we get the usual shenanigans of the rock star becoming aloof to the people closest in his life, including his (still) long-time lyricist and friend Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) - a relationship that could've used more depth. As I said, the expected tropes of this genre are clearly defined and no real risks are taken here (unlike say Todd Haynes's audacious "I'm Not There" that featured several different actors playing Bob Dylan accompanied by multiple interpretations). Despite its same-old, same-old narrative, what sets "Rocketman" apart from the norm is its infectious joy stemming once again from Egerton's persuasive performance as the bitchy, emotional Elton who may say goodbye to the yellow brick road yet familial pain still rests on his shoulders. He wants to be loved properly (the tempestuous nature of his sexual relationship with his music manager John Reid is hardly love) and he eventually finds it, postscript. Along with the equally infectious "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Rocketman" is a beam of light that welcomes music as an evolutionary step to being loved, to share in the poetry of attaining that love. Being properly loved is no easy task.
Why this movie was not made a decade ago or longer I'll never know. "Dolemite is My Name" is the perfect comedic role for Eddie Murphy, based on the real-life comedian/filmmaker known as the Godfather of Rap, the late Rudy Ray Moore. This is a delectable match made in heaven and I am glad to say it is one of the best Eddie Murphy movies ever made. We can all now forget "Norbit" and his shortchanged role in "Tower Heist" - Eddie Murphy electrifies the screen and proves once again, with the right script and director, he can knock our socks off.
Set in the 1970's at the height of the blaxploitation era, Rudy Ray Moore (Murphy) wants to make his mark in the world, to showcase his talent beyond just making comedy records with "ghetto expressionism." He works at Dolphin's of Hollywood record store in L.A. and is consistently bothered by a homeless man named Rico who is a street-talking raconteur. Moore also works at a nightclub where his emcee standup barely causes a rift in between singing engagements. One day, Moore is inspired and takes notes while recording Rico's stories. Thus, at the local nightclub, Dolemite is born, a pimp who tells the audience all sorts of profanely (accent on the profane) funny rhymes, the kind you don't want to recite to grandma. Moore was always somewhat racy but this kind of profane humor mirrors Eddie Murphy's own rawer than raw days from 30 years ago.
But the story does not end there - Moore wants to make a Dolemite movie with boobs, action, violence and kung-fu. Rather than the straight "Shaft" movies or the various blaxploitation efforts by cigar-chomping Fred Williamson, he wants to play it for laughs, procuring a local playwright of serious drama to pen the script, Jerry Jones (Keegan-Michael Key). Ray knows zilch about directing and eventually gets D'Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes) to direct - a filmmaker known for having appeared as an elevator operator in "Rosemary's Baby." To say D'Urville is reluctant to take part in an amateur flick is to be polite - he resents being there and hates the script. Clearly, the film is done for laughs to the point that a raucous sex scene breaks down the ceiling in an obvious soundstage, not to mention watching Ray beating up villainous minions with no grace or style whatsoever (Jim Kelly he's not). Everything that could go wrong, should go wrong yet surprisingly it all works out.
"Dolemite is My Name" is delirious fun, wackily written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, both of whom penned the equally hilarious and inventive "Ed Wood" back in 1994. "Dolemite is My Name" would be the perfect double bill on low-budget, non-Hollywood filmmaking with "Ed Wood" - both films feature zanily enthusiastic filmmakers who want to entertain, at any cost. Whereas Ed Wood was a dubious creator who had an insane vision of the world, Ray Moore wants the audience to have a good time, to give them their money's worth. When he watches the premiere of the film with hundreds of spectators, he has the widest grin of self-satisfaction, reciting the dialogue to the crowd with a zeal that is contagious.
With a gallery of colorful supporting performances from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Chris Rock, Da'Vine Joy Randolph (truly a star in the making as a single mother who joins his crew), Craig Robinson and reliable pros like Bob Odenkirk as a film producer and a truly spry Wesley Snipes, "Dolemite is My Name" is purely engaging, foul-mouthed fun with a new spin on the oft-told filmmaking stories we have seen countless times before. If there is one thing I miss, it is those notable moments of truth that Eddie sometimes allows us to peer in. Still, let's not get too critical - Eddie Murphy is infectious, and so is the movie. Funny is his game once again.
What I remembered most about "Brainstorm" when I first saw it back in the 1980's on good old cable were the images of a car's point-of-view as it flew off the main road towards the mountain side. I also recall images of a man having sex with a woman, again from his point-of-view. These images were recorded in 70mm and, on video in the 80's, much of the image size was lost as was the impact. Nowadays, on Blu Ray and DVD, we can get the widescreen version we all richly deserve. Now as for the storytelling basics, "Brainstorm" is often stunning to look at yet dramatically inert and it shortchanges its initial ideas in favor of a rudimentary thriller format.
The idea is remarkable: a sophisticated technological headset allows one to view and record another person's sensations, visually and emotionally. There is something else it can do - it can directly tap into past emotional memories of said individual wearing the headset. The institute behind this amazing discovery has two brainiac scientists, Michael (Christopher Walken) and chain-smoking Lillian (Louise Fletcher). The head of the institute behind this research (Cliff Robertson) has other ideas on how to use this device, for military application of course and quite possibly brainwashing.
"Brainstorm" is shot on two different ratios, so that whenever we enter someone's subconscious via the headset, the film switches from 35mm to 70mm and it is richly detailed and amazing to behold. There is also a terrific montage of when Michael first met his estranged wife (Natalie Wood, sadly her last role and underused) as they talk about inventors like the Wright Brothers, their marriage, their happier times. At first, "Brainstorm" evolves with a sure hand as we discover what other facets lurk beneath such an inventive device - in the wrong hands, it can obviously be used for dastardly purposes. In another instance, without revealing who the character is, it can be used to record someone's death and thus the person viewing such a recording can suffer the same deadly symptoms unless they quickly switch off the controls. This is such an intriguing idea for a movie that unfortunately such mind-blowing concepts are never fully explored. "Brainstorm" decides to become a race-against-time thriller with the scientists against the powers-that-be and all emotional attachment to the characters and to the powerful device and its implications are shoved aside. It is about good scientists vs. a villainous military command - why resort to scenes of archaic robots running amok and computers destroying an institute while the bad guys are unable to enter the facilities?
I liked "Brainstorm" for the most part yet, during its concluding third act, there is a shaky abruptness and a hasty resolution that give us so little to contemplate (though the final scenes that show an almost death-like paralysis of one character is quite emotionally stirring). "Brainstorm" doesn't want to deal with the ethics and morality of such a scientific breakthrough - it assumes that the set up is enough along with some minor thrills. Intriguing to be sure but could have been so much more.
Let's get this out of the way immediately: "The Irishman" is not "GoodFellas" revisited nor is it close to the heart of "Mean Streets" or the excesses of "Casino." "The Irishman" is a different kind of mob film, it has an elegiac tone and a disquieting unease about itself. Whereas the earlier Martin Scorsese mob films focused on the rapturous allure and romantic, thrill-seeking pleasures of being a gangster, this film is more about the business model without any passion or yearning to be in that underworld. It is more stately and shows an even more insidious nature about the mob than Scorsese has shown before.
Based on Charles Brandt's fantastic and hotly debated book "I Heard You Paint Houses," we get the lead character Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a Teamster and meat-packing truck driver and occasional contract killer for the Northeast Pennsylvania mob - he is a Hoffa man at heart. Once Sheeran meets with the calculating mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci, exquisitely restrained), first at a gas station and then at a restaurant, the motions are set in - he is deeply entrenched in the mob and with the Teamsters. Sheeran moves quickly through powerful circles, introduced to hotheaded Jimmy Hoffa (an absolutely mesmerizing Al Pacino) who is naturally the Teamsters president. Hoffa is in a world of trouble with attorney general Robert Kennedy (Jack Huston), and is looking at jail time not to mention insulting a Teamster vice president in NJ and captain of the Genovese family, another hothead named Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano (Stephen Graham). The scenes between Hoffa and Tony Pro have an electrified tension, one accusing the other of racial slurs, lateness for a meeting, and the importance of wearing suits - it is both comical and furiously intense.
"The Irishman" unfolds at a leisurely pace with a series of flashbacks at its center, all told from the point of view of an older, sicker Sheeran at a nursing home. There is no breakneck pacing from the days of "GoodFellas" and no rock and roll soundtrack with the Rolling Stones - it is more sedate yet interest never flags (and we get far less showier soundtrack tunes in the style of Jerry Vale). The slower pacing and the lyrical rhythms may be Scorsese's own way of using Sergio Leone's gangster opus "Once Upon a Time in America" as its framework (both films starred De Niro and Pesci) though I think John Ford's own elegiac "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" could serve as its filmic antecedent - Ford looking back at the Western genre with tangible strokes of sadness and deglamorization could be how Scorsese views his own past revitalizing takes on the mob. Even more saddening is seeing how Sheeran, in his ailing years, picks his own coffin and where he should be buried while trying to reconnect with what's left of his family and failing miserably. He seems like a warm-hearted guy yet he is also a remorseless killer who is estranged from his daughters and never spends a whole lot of time at home. His one daughter, Peggy (played by Lucy Gallina as a young girl and Anna Paquin as an adult), sees a disturbing side to Sheeran, one day privately noticing him packing a gun before claiming he is off to work. Peggy has no real love for Russell either, yet she is all smiles as an adult around the charismatic Hoffa.
After "The Irishman" was over, I still did not get a firm handle on Frank Sheeran and maybe I am not meant to. Sheeran merely follows orders like the WWII soldier he once was, but never seems emotionally involved in anything. He has a look of concern over JFK's death, sensing Hoffa knows more than he is leading on. Sheeran is fiercely devoted to two men in his life, Russell and Hoffa, and one of them will be betrayed. Finally, he is isolated from the rest of the world in a nursing home and deservedly so. De Niro has a coolness, an indifference to the world around him as Sheeran - everything is business as usual under direct orders from the mob. Those of you looking for the sympathetic Henry Hill-type who is changed by his experiences in the mob despite loving the life will not find it in the remote Sheeran (though he is not as remote as the robotic Ace in "Casino"). One chilling scene, in retrospect, has Sheeran reassuring Hoffa everything is fine during a car ride - the tension is felt in every frame without heightening it one bit and we sense a subtle sense of regret from Sheeran. Ultimately "The Irishman" sends a fervent chill to the bone throughout its running time, eerily accompanied by the opening and closing strains of the Satins' song "In the Still of the Night." It removes the glamour and allure of the mob completely and tells us "it is what it is."
At the start of the overcooked though still fitfully fun "Aquaman," Nicole Kidman gets into a roller derby of action dynamics. Say what? You read that right, as Atlanna, the Queen of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, she is found ashore at a lighthouse by its keeper, Thomas Curry (Temuera Derek Morrison). They live together and have a son named Arthur, who has a supersonic ability of communicating with ocean life. Before one looks too deeply at this prologue, Atlantean soldiers find Atlanna and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. The movie lays its eggs and the fish hatch a little too soon but hey, this is modern 2010 superhero moviemaking where moments can't be wasted by too much exposition...or too little.
How soon do the fish eggs hatch you may ask? When we first discover the adult Arthur aka Aquaman (Jason Momoa) not along after that opening, he lifts a hijacked submarine to the surface, engages in more hand-to-hand combat, throws people around like confetti, you get the idea. Everything is maximized to the 1 millionth power and though it is often exuberant to watch, it can be a bit mind-numbing in its excess. After a while, you hope for some measure of intimacy and some quiet place with John Krasinski.
Excess defines "Aquaman" - the movie ricochets from one extravagant, mind-blowing, visually detailed set piece to another. From the confines of a local bar to the rolling sand dunes of the Sahara, to the enormity of the Atlantis underwater world (which includes a giant octopus playing drums prior to a death match), to Sicily where just about every gift shop, restaurant and museum is virtually destroyed during another one of those extended fight sequences, to finally the lighthouse in the opening and closing scenes which looks more high-contrast in its picturesque quality than was probably required.
Simplicity is the not the middle name of Aquaman. He is strong, blustery and has a wink and an arched eyebrow to remind us that Momoa is in on the joke. The film is playfully tongue-in-cheek and has lots of comedic lines thanks to Momoa, my favorite being after Amber Heard's Atlantean princess jumps out of a plane without a parachute: "Redheads!"Speaking of Amber Heard, her flamingly-red-hot hair that might burn a man's hand off is its own character and she stands up well against Momoa. Dolph Lundgren as King of an Atlantean tribe and Willem Dafoe as Aqua's mentor are not terribly memorable yet they are adequate for what is required - I might have switched the roles and had Dafoe as the King and Lundgren as the mentor. Patrick Wilson as Aquaman's brother who has dastardly plans is not terribly convincing.
By the time the film concludes with a CGI underwater battle with an epic "The Lord of the Rings" vibe and Aquaman holding his prized Trident as if it was King Arthur's Excalibur, I got confused by which Kingdom was fighting whom (I am not going to get into specific tribe names but it seems as if there are hundreds). Too many sea creatures battling it out crowds the pleasure and joy from the far less busy action workouts earlier in the film (and that is putting it mildly). Occasionally there is the racist reference to Aquaman being a half-breed (a huge difference from the original comic-book) and it is given some heft by the Atlanteans (after all, can a half-breed rule Atlantis?) Momoa rules the film, though when he is knocking down beers with his dad, I felt more at home than in Atlantis.
You may know Beatrice Boepple as a younger Amanda Krueger from 1989's "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child." She confronts the evil of her wicked bastard son of a hundred maniacs, Freddy Krueger, helping the teen heroine (Lisa Wilcox) find a way of vanquishing the dream killer, at least till the next sequel. Unfortunately, Boepple never did get a chance to do a reprise. You might also recognize Beatrice from small roles in "Shoot to Kill" with Sidney Poitier, "Stakeout" with Richard Dreyfuss and some notable Canadian films where she played either a terrorist or a troubled girl. Still, it may surprise you to discover that Beatrice has also worked with Johnny Depp and a legend in her own right, oh, let's not spoil it here. Keep reading to find out who.
1.) How did you get the last name Boepple? Is it a German name and were one of your parents German?
Beatrice Boepple: My biological father was Paul Boepple, a Swiss choral director from Basil, Switzerland, which is in the Germanic region of Switzerland (as opposed to the French regions). So the surname Boepple is from the Swiss side of my family. However, since you asked, my maternal grandmother was German. Her family name was Schuchardt. She married my grandfather, Dau-Lin Hsu, who was Chinese, so I am a true mixed-breed, in my case, “Euro-Asian”!
2.) Was acting a major, passionate goal for you in life? Tell me about the origins of it, specifically if there were any theatre roles? I ask because the first role listed on IMDB is the 1986 TV series "The Beachcombers?"
BB: Acting was always a passion of mine. I performed in my very first play when I was 5 years old, living in Japan! I could not yet speak any Japanese, so they didn’t give me any lines. I played a lamb in a Nativity play they put on in my Japanese Kindergarten! After that, I always took part in my school plays, even winning the “best actress” trophy in middle school in Canada! When it came time to decide where to go for college, I was torn between Equestrian Schools to find a career working with horses, or an acting school. My local University, University of Victoria in BC Canada, had a great theatre department and was so much more affordable than Equestrian schools, so that is how I made my decision between my two passions. I did quite a lot of live theatre before landing my first paid TV role, which was "The Beachcombers," as you mentioned. I had done a number of commercials and radio dramas before that, but "Beachcombers" was my first TV gig, and I played the guest star in that iconic Canadian TV series. It sure taught me a lot about the power of editing, and the huge difference between stage and film – especially in close-ups!
Beatrice Boepple as Amanda Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child
3.) Getting the role of Amanda Krueger in "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" must have been an exciting role, I mean you are playing the role of the mother of the most iconic 1980's slasher antihero of a very popular horror movie series. Who contacted you about the role, did you audition and were other actresses also up for the role? BB: When I was living in LA, I shared a lovely agent/manager who had a very small clientele consisting of myself, Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen & Renee Estevez. This agent was the one that got me the audition for "NOES 5." She said that Stephen Hopkins was an up and coming director and that it would be a good career move to work with him. I went in to audition in front of Stephen, two of the producers and one of the writers. I have no idea who else was up for the role because they had me read Amanda’s lines, and we discussed the film and the role for quite a bit. I even sang for them, to show the spooky sound I could create and they ended up hiring me on the spot, which is the only time that ever happened in my career! You normally have to wait at least a few days, and come back for numerous call backs before landing a role (unless you are a big A list star, which, clearly I was not!). I have to be honest though… the sheer magnitude of what it meant to play the mother of such an icon of horror never really seeped in till years and years later. 4.) From what I recall, "Nightmare on Elm Street 5" was an extremely rushed production. It could not have been easy for you, especially the bloody birth scene uttering such lines (which you said with great conviction) like "That is no creature of God!"
BB: You are correct in that filming on #5 was extremely rushed! We had multiple sets and scenes being shot at the SAME TIME!! Re-writes were happening on a daily basis, almost hour to hour, and everyone was everywhere at once. But it was a blast! The cast members were so much fun to hang out with, the sets were so amazing to look at, and it was magical seeing how these fantastical scenes would all come together! My bloody birth scene was definitely bloody, to say the least. We had a cat hidden in a blanket that they used to portray baby Freddy when they first pull him out of me and he leaps out of the nun/nurses hands. I wasn’t yet a mother in real life at the time, so had never given birth, but I just recalled times of great physical challenge and pain, and I think it came out fairly realistically. We had a lot of fun filming it, fake blood and all!
Boepple in 1987's Stakeout
5.) Your other movie credits include roles in "Shoot to Kill" with Sidney Poitier and "Stakeout" with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. What were those experiences like, it is not like every actor gets to work with such renown actors like Poitier or playing Estevez's girlfriend?
BB: Getting to work with great actors is one of the highlights of my acting career. Getting to meet Sidney Poitier was wonderful, and I LOVED working with Richard Dreyfuss & Emilio Estevez. Both Richard & Emilio are so down to earth, warm and supportive. I played Emilio’s WIFE (not girlfriend) and we had such a hoot both on and off set. Mickey Rooney was another legend I got to work with (Beatrice played Kelly Haskins, the TV reporter, in "The (New) Adventures of the Black Stallion", season 2, episode #26 called "Ties that Bind" that aired in 1992 starring Rooney) but Katherine Hepburn, I must say, was the one actress I was privileged to work with, whom truly I felt star-struck with on set. But she, too, was so down to earth and lovely to work with. The project that I got to work with her on was a 1988 made-for-TV film titled "Laura Lansing Slept Here" where I played Ms. Hepburn's character's literary agent secretary. My scenes were cut, so I get no credit for that show. I might see if I can find the cut clips, if not long ago thrown away. It would just be amazing to have clips of myself working with Katherine... such a legend!
Yes, it was a true honor to have been able to work with so many great actors, but while the camera was rolling, it would always only be whatever character I was playing, interacting with whatever character they were playing. While the camera rolled, there was no distinction between the famous and the not famous. THAT only showed in the size of our dressing rooms and the extra treats some of us got! LOL!! 6.) I'll be honest, I never heard of the 1989 Canadian flick "Quarantine," (not an easy film to locate) what was that film all about since it is, I gather, your one main lead film role? The 1989 Canadian TV Movie "Matinee" was your sole TV lead role, correct?
Boepple in 1989's Quarantine
Boepple in 1989's Matinee
BB: The 1989 film "Quarantine" is a very low budget Canadian film, not to be confused by a film by the same name that came out in 2008. Taking the summary from IMDb: In a futuristic society being decimated by plague, a fascist movement seizes power and quarantines not only the plague victims, but anyone related to them. A Rebel trying to assassinate a particularly reactionary senator takes a computer programmer hostage, in an attempt to free her father who is a scientist trying to track and eradicate the disease. I play that rebel, and had such a blast getting to play the lead in that film. Unfortunately, the script was pretty weak, and the director & I weren’t on the same page as to how my character should be played. In the end, the way I portrayed her just didn’t really work. Funny though, that I find copies of that film in all sorts of foreign countries, each time with a totally different name. I guess that’s one way they got out of ever paying any of us a penny in residuals! "Matinee," oddly, was not a TV movie but a feature film, yet I see it listed as a made-for-TV movie all the time too. That also was a low budget Canadian film, and we filmed it right after I finished filming "Quarantine." I got to do those two films back to back. What a great year! I actually think it’s not a bad film. The actor who played my dad in it, Richard Davis, plays the Cigarette Smoking Man on the X-Files and the actor who played my boss in that show was Don Davis, who played Captain William Scully on the X-Files and Major General Hammond in "Stargate SG-1." These were both friends of mine, so working together was a real treat for us all!
7.) What role did you play on the TV series "21 Jump Street" considering you were appearing with another Elm Street alum, Johnny Depp? BB: I played the role of Kerri Munroe on Episode 9 of the first season. Kerri was a high school student, who’s class Johnny’s character joins, and he & I end up on the school’s Scholastic team that wins our way all the way to the championships. Though Johnny was very friendly to me, he seemed like a bored trouble maker, and I was frustrated by the pranks he kept playing on set. In hindsight, he must have been frustrated being cast in such a run-of-the-mill teen heart throb role where he didn’t have room to show his true, much richer acting chops, which we all have seen in his wide array of characters he has played ever since! 8.) Are you looking to return to acting in these visual mediums or in any other capacity?
BB: I have thought about returning to acting, in about 3 years or so, when my kids are all off to college. I would love to play a really scary, creepy old lady (or even an old man – the wonders of makeup & wigs! And chest binding, I suppose!). I’m looking forward to an age where I don’t have to worry about being the “pretty young thing”, and can focus 100% on just being GOOD! LOL!
9.) Aside from say a "dream" role such as a full-scale Amanda Krueger movie, what dream role would you have loved to have played in your career?
BB: Well, I am still alive (knock wood!) so we don’t need to keep it in past tense. What dream role would I LOVE to play? A really strong character that gets to really explore a wide range of emotion, and a character that somehow changes/grows within the film. I don’t care so much about the genera of the film; just that it is well written and the characters are multi-dimensional, as we all are! Anyone have a script for me?? 10.) Is it fun going to conventions and meeting fans, possibly 90 percent who know you as Amanda Krueger?
BB: My goodness YES!! I LOVE meeting fans. And Elm Street fans are so devoted and enthusiastic! It is purely the fans that have kept this franchise alive! If not for the fans, 90% of us who were in these films would be long-forgotten. It’s such a blessing to learn that work I’ve done so long ago has had such an impact on so many people, and to know that our work touched people’s lives. I only wish I got invited to more conventions! If any of you want to meet me in person for a chat, a photo, an autograph, get your friends and anyone you know to write to a convention you plan to go to, and do a writing campaign requesting me. THAT is how we get to these conventions. Fans, and/or awesome agents who plug their clients!
An R-rated comedy about marital affairs with the bright, classy movie star Natalie Wood uttering curse words and other obscenities! Yes, indeed. Though Natalie in the 1970's appeared in only a few TV movies and a forgettable dud like "Meteor," she always carried an edge of having lived a bitter , lonely existence. What is sweet about her role as a mother and wife who has a second sexual awakening in "The Last Married Couple in America" is that she sells the role, hook, line and sinker. The movie is hardly revolutionary in concept (it needed more tinkering in the screenplay department) yet it is really Natalie Wood and George Segal who bring the movie the comic energy it needs.
George Segal is Jeff, a successful architect who is happily married to Mari (Natalie Wood), a sculptor who works at home. They have three boys and a pleasant house in Beverly Hills. Jeff and Mari can't help but notice that their friends are divorcing, left and right. Every day, there is news of another divorce and it begins to affect Jeff and Mari (the couples all play football together and after a while, there is nobody left to play with). Jeff considers himself a saint when it comes adultery, yet Mari did have a past affair (nowadays, many of the Me Too movement will scoff at the fact that Jeff mentions that he slapped Mari after learning of the deceit). Before Jeff can discuss the "new morality" and act on it, he is bed hopping with not one but two women (an unrecognizable blonde vixen played by Valerie Harper who is insistent on jumping Jeff's bones, and naturally Priscilla Barnes). Jeff is infected with Gonorrhea ("The Clap?") and once Mari gets wind of his deceit, promptly asks for a separation and goes on her own affair with a younger man.
The film does go off course with the introduction of Dom DeLuise as a (breathe while you read this) porno actor who wants to stage a birthday party with hookers at Jeff's house! Why at Jeff's house when there are kids there I don't know but, then again, I would not be surprised. My parents were a swinging couple and, yes, Moral Majority please note, I was often in another room while activities occurred when I was not much younger than 11.
But enough digressions, "The Last Married Couple in America" is fitfully entertaining though it could've been sharper, deeper without a cop-out ending. Natalie considered it to be an update on one of her best films, "Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice," and I would agree yet that earlier film had a clearer emotional truth to it about sex and naked honesty. This film only parades around such issues without enough emphasis (though Wood has one heartbreaking scene where she complains about her pimple, the kids, her age and how a gas station is replacing a local market. You don't need more proof than that to know Natalie Wood always found a way to pull your heartstrings). Segal and Wood are a believable couple and there are enough crazy situational comic scenes to render the film a slight recommendation. To quote the classic film "Sullivan's Travels," it just needed a little more sex in it.
