Movie review - "Breakfast of Champions" (1999) *

 Bruce Willis took a lot of risks at his peak, one of the reasons he became so successful - for every Pulp Fiction and Sixth Sense there would be something like this. I haven't read the novel. It's untypica of the output of Alan Rudolph - more fast paced.

I couldn't follow what was going on. I didn't care. People like this movie. I found it confusing. Couldn't care about its take on American society.

Amazing cast - Albert Finney, Omar Epps, Barbara Hershey, Lukas Haas, Shawnee Smith, Will Patton, etc. 

Movie review - "Afterglow" (1997) **

 Nick Nolte and Julie Christie are a couple having issues - he's a handyman who cheats on her. He hooks up with Lara Flynn Boyle, horny and underserviced by husband Jonny Lee Miller who hooks up with Christie.

The female ingenues were often the strength of Rudolph movies eg Lori Singer in Trouble in Mind, Linda Fiorentino in The Moderns and that's the case here - Boyle is lively and energetic. Christie is excellement. Miller and Nolte are fine. 

You know what my issue was with this film? I didn't like the characters. I didn't care if anyone stayed married or had kids. Boyle's character was such a simpleton, Miller seemed so unengaged his his marriage, fuck Nolte for rejecting his daughter. I think because children were involved their antics got to me. 

I just didn't care. 

Movie review - "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) **1/2

 Another Alan Rudolph film that doesn't quite get there. It looks nice, has fun moment and it's entertaining to see all these figures. But the central relationship doesn't land - Jennifer Jason Leigh's Parker and Campbell Scott's Robert Benchley. For whatever reason in these scenes both feel like actors rather than real people. The relationship between Parker and Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) seems more real. Maybe because Broderick has more energy. Or because something happens - they shag, she gets pregnant - as opposed to just pining.

Leigh is at times affective, at other times the drawl overpowers the movie and drags it down. Gwyneth Paltrow is fun as a shallow starlet.  Nice to see Jennifer Beal, Andrew McCarthy, Stanley Tucci, etc. 

I wish Woody Allen did a version of this story. 

Movie review - "Love at Large" (1990) **1/2

 After half an hour I was ready to write this off but then Elizabeth Perkins starts interacting with private eye Tom Berenger - she's another private investigator - and the film lights up. It never quite gets there - Rudolph keeps setting his films in la la land when they should just be based on some sort of reality. But he allows actors the chance to shine - Ann Archer has fun as a femme fetale and Perkins is lively so is Berenger and Kate Capshaw. 

Movie review -"They Shoot Horses Don't They?" (1969) ****

 They were right to sack James Poe - this needed a proper director. The Hunger Games ripped this off down to the fake marriage. Jane Fonda is superb as the broken yet defiant competitor. Gig Young also magnificent- haunted, doomed, ruthless, not without sympathy.

Susannah York goes mad, Red Buttons dies of a heart attack, Bonnie Bedelia is pregnant, Bruce Dern is her husband. Michael Sarrazin looks on, worried - he's not in Fonda's league but he has a great look. 

It's a film about self destruction. The movie warns us up front. Amazing direction. Pefect production design. I love the sea side setting and use of waves in background. 

A triumph for ABC Pictures. 

Movie review - "The Moderns" (1988) **1/2

 I wanted to like this more than I did - setting of Paris in the 20s, cameos from Hemingway and Stein, art, Keith Carradine as an artist offered to do forgery. It's effective and Linda Fiorentino is magnificently sexy, John Lone is fun. Genevieve Bujold is under used again - do better Alan!

The film is two hours. It's ambling. Needed more sex and laughs and satire. There's a boxing match and other scenes. Too much time was spent on development. I wish it had been made in teh late 70s as planned.

Movie review - "Trouble in Mind" (1985) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph's success with Choose Me made it a little easier for him to raise finance for his next movie, this neo-noir about a man out of prison (Kris Kristofferson) whose paths cross with a couple (Keith Carradine, Lori Singer).

This is two movies really - a more serious noir, with Kristofferson kicking ass and falling for Singer, and gangsters - and a campier way out one with Carradine having wacky hair and Divine playing a gangster (quite well). The tone isn't quite right it feels inconsistent.

Singer is lovely, Carradine has a ball, Kristofferson isn't bad, Genevieve Bujold feels a little under utilised. The movie doesn't quite work tonally but I enjoyed the love story with Singer and Kristofferson and the violent bits do keep things going.