Don't Bother
[See “Eastwoodian Aftermaths,” The American Spectator, February, 2007 under “Articles”]
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The original was pretty dire, but the re-make is unspeakably awful
Hélas! The good-humored detachment and optimism that François Truffaut brought to the French cinema seems to have died with him. Barring the rare exception, like last year’s Un Air de Famille by Cédric Klappisch, each new French film that manages to get itself released in this country seems to try to outdo the last in…
The Slums of Beverly Hills, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins is another meditation on family, this time the highly dysfunctional, motherless Abramowitz family in Southern California in 1976. The patriarch, Murray Abramowitz (Alan Arkin) is a sometime car salesman but mainly unemployed drifter who moves his family around from one cheap apartment or motel…
There is a moment in What’s the Worst that Could Happen? where the movie almost seems to live up to the promise of its title. This comes when Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito), a nasty and insufferable billionaire, attempts to justify to his wife, Lutetia (Nora Dunn) his behavior in getting involved in an increasingly destructive…
Another unsuccessful attempt at the movie that tried to identify Death with Fate and got tangled up in its own metaphysics. But several accidental demises are very cool.
Hav Plenty by Christopher Cherot is a young man’s film about love and success in the black middle class and as such, I suppose, is to be applauded merely for existing. At least it is a welcome break from those tiresome boyz in the hood and other forms of playing up to black stereotypes. But…
