Reviews
The Last Fling (1987)
better than a TV movie usually deserves to be - love is sleepless, even if "rust never sleeps"
i saw this film a few years ago almost by accident; don't usually watch Lifetime but, John Ritter in a movie is quite rare. it was so good that it reminded me of mystical love stories like Somewhere In Time (Reeve/Seymour) or Timestalkers (lauren hutton). there was no time travel, alas, but the love element reminded me of Sleepless in Seattle & French Connection (& of course the great "RomCom" talent Nora Ephron's inspiration, An Affair To Remember (Kerr/Grant)). Tried to get it on media but only found it @ a VHS specialty shop.
When i started this film up 2nite, remembering how exciting the chase at the end of Sleepless & Affair were &, yes, especially the Graduate, i was at first disappointed. After all, how can a divorce attorney be a romantic lead, even the eternal Mover, Jack Tripper? There was some romantic thing where Drew Barrymore "divorces" her parents including Love Story's Ryan O'Neal & a True Pro, Shelley Long, yet somehow that worked, so.... the LA Raiders (?!) seemed kind of dated, like the Nawleans 'Aints in a Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry flick
oh yeah Drew Brees is just taking the S'aints to the SuperBowl, so maybe the film will be better than the beginning, or so i am hoping
. well, maybe Jack T Ripper & Miss Sellecca can't carry
. WAIT a minute! Was that that Old Black Magic, "chemistry" i know, so well, that i just saw again like the very 1st time?? Oh, right, so THAT's what Hollywood does so well, i remember
.! Well, as i am remembering the zoo "chance" meeting (Miss Right w/ Mr. "Close Enough" ?) & the later hitchhiking w/ migrant workers in Mexico (i lived in Cuernavaca as a child), i KNOW this vehicle will again prove 2 B one of the Great RomanticComedies, so i am now checking the reviews here, & ... Mike & the Mechanics? Mr Singh, THANK YOU !! My own "miss wright" married a guy named Michael John, & i had forgotten them until one day twenty years ago when my new roomie had the tube on (i hardly ever had a TV) & something called Airwolf w/ J-M Vincent came on, the theme being "Can U Hear Me?" by Mike & the Mechs - (meta) logically connected with a CIA boss called "Archangel". i bought the 45 rpm; that was the first single 4 me in over 14 years. Now it's iTunes & Zune. In fact, i always think of that lost love; that's why i am rehashing "RomComs" like this even now. Anyway, do NOT miss this if U get a chance - it's amazing how much smallScreen pros like JRit transcend the material like Ms Amy above said, making a much better love story than the one famously titled that, one much loved by my (Boomer) generation. Thank u all 4 your reviews; they make this film even more a pleasure! U might also try "Forever Young" (mGibson/cFisher) if u really like this stuff
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ain't just Dustin & Ryan be talking' bout my -- generation still truckin Si Valley "RomCom Dummy" {:-P
Six: The Mark Unleashed (2004)
Verrrry Interesting Indie, ja!
having seen this on Trinity B'cast Network, i was prepared for a semi-Biblical treatment, something on the order of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, à la Michael (the Martian) Valentine or perhaps RAH's epic 666. (Mr Rbt Anson Heinlein was a semi-religious Jew from Santa Cruz, CA, who penned some of the greatest SciFi ever; high praise from me, since he wrote the first SF i age 8 ever read, 1949's Red Planet & even better, 1955's Tunnel in the Sky - Though stimulated by the trigger of the USSR's ICBM launch into space of "life" - a sled dog named Laika aboard Sputnik2 then, BOTH are still AOK ! :-). Great art & Literature, like this film, are timeless !
Although i must confess the title of 666 has discouraged its reading, SIX as a title did not. Six is considered the number of man symbolically à la Ben Casey/astronomy/pseudoscience, since he is created compositely on the sixth day, a trinary being being created/possessed of a triune spirit B4 Paradise -- lost
less action than Term II's End of Days, better plot than The Prophecy, more ironic than Sheen in The Believers, it is a substantial, worthy treatment of a subject we all need to know something about. btw Rocky I is very Prez Campaign '08-istic, but SIX is trans - political. It is a bit preachy but since when is Hollywood not? All the Baldwins can act, but Stephen B makes a statement here & in his own right. Sober but sophisticatedly slick, SIX reminds me 2 set & keep 1's eyes on the ball/the Prize.
Though there are always nits to pick, my only reservation re SIX is,
*** WhoInOle is the Socratic character (i believe he goes by the handle of "the prophet" -- saw it some time ago), that sort of drifts in & out nebulously throughout the film, supposed to be? (note: some recent news made me wonder enough 2 revisit the video *** but of course being Indie my best buy's not Best Buy -- Guaranteed! 2 try 2 special order it. Best big box on the SF e-Bay!)
Speculation abounds about such fare but Christopher Walken's Gabriel @ least totes a Selmer trumpet around in the fabuloso fiction, The Prophecy. The only gloss i know of resembling SIX's Wanderer & the Hitchhiker's profered rest/lullaby is "the wandering Jew" who figures as a different character type depending on context, e.g. the Ferengi in STNG or the twisted craven Golem of LOTR. In SIX, the man is just sort of spooky. Is he a friend of the enduring Prophet of old (EPOO, not la époux), or some angelic type like the anti - Gabriel of Walken's searcher-announcer. If it's the former and you know it, hip us all & please don't blow it!
Wouldn't you rather hear "LGRTRrrumblllle !" from famed presenter Michael Buffer, than some old dude with a sickle?
This Year's Blonde (1980)
a breakout portrayal
this tv-movie could be a modern first - run major release, even tho it's 21 years old. Connie Forslund is a veteran bit part player who portrays arguably the greatest "bit part" player of all time. What Cosmic irony there was in Monroe's last serious role, "the Misfits"! Her talents as an actress were well known before she married arthur miller; yet, the hollywood image of "blonde bimbo" for many a year stuck to almost any curvaceous woman to visit hollywood, regardless of talent or potential, especially one who was as audacious in posing & yet as empathic and eager to please as norma jean baker. Very interesting, even sensitive, how Forslund/Monroe gives her real name - she pronounces it like it were a resumé...
if you haven't yet grasped her inner bio, this is a good place to start. This sympathetic portrayal is sublime in showing the combination of intelligence, wit, honesty, & vulnerability in a young woman, who GAVE far more than she ever GOT. It cuts through the usual pinup mentality, of both the art of the woman, and anyone who would appreciate the Artist (Lloyd Bridges as her agent/protector is excellent at showing us how) - and the person she was. With the subsequent roles of Mr Bridges up against his earlier ones (i think he was in over 160 pictures, High Noon undoubtedly being his finest) & his recent passing, this revealing biopic is even more touching, if not also illuminating, regarding not only the players, but also the gritty business they must play at. One begging question... did Ms Forslund play herself out of any other roles? She is so good in this i believe, that i wonder if she hasn't also been touched by the "curse of the y-chromosome" (vis - á - vis the male stupor-inducing/casting couch syndrome), because this extremely talented actress, like MM, hasn't scored anymore major parts since this stage of her career - to the theater-going public's loss, and perhaps great sadness....