Movie review - "Looking for Kitty" (2004) **

 After a swing at being a movie star, Ed Burns went back to basics and made another lower budgeted film playing a private detective who looks after the ex of David Krumholz. It's not a bad premise for the movie but there are no twists and turns. It's mostly Krumholz and Burns trudging around New York and talking. 

Krumholz is a boor - attached to his vows, a dull person, all too easy to see why his wife left. Burns isn't that interesting - he has charm, cranks aout the rich, his wife is dead... Both Krumholz and Burns help each other come out of their shells, I guess, but not to a great degree. Certainly not an itneresting one.

They don't find Kitty to the last few minutes. It's not that compelling. When Burns ask her why she left, he already knows.

Burns has some nice by play with Connie Britton as his neighbor and it would've been a better movie had she hired him to track down her husband or something and it had played as a romance. As a bromance it's not that exciting.

Movie review - "The Carey Treatment" (1972) **

 Blake Edwards whined that MGM cut this movie around and I'm sure Jim Aubrey and co did even though it co stars Aubrey's daughter but it's still long even at 100 minutes taking all this time to get going.

The strength of the novel was its fast pace and technical detail, both which aren't conveyed. The faults of the novel - its tropes - do survive. Like the book there's not enough compulsion for James Coburn to investigate - I think they should've made Jennifer O'Neill (who's pretty but whose part is pointless) be the doctor who got arrested and Coburn investigates it to free her because he loves her.

There's some effective bits and it's not a bad story. Coburn is a swinger and groovy but though he spouts the dialogue isn't entirely convincing as a dogged pathologist. Actually O'Nell would've been better in his role because as a woman she might have a reason to defend an abortionist. You know, Raquel Welch would've suited this.

Thereis a scene where Michael Blodgett gives James Coburn a massage that is very homoerotic. Blodgett is an effective villain and there are neat turns from people like John Hillerman.

But it doesn't have Edwards' patented style and gloss. Variety was right it feels like a TV movie. I think the only point to making these sort of films by the 70s was if you made it glossy and had stars in them.

Book review - "The Late Child" by Larry McMurtry (warning: spoilers)

 Sequel to The Desert Rose gets off to a great, if dark, start  with Harmony discovering her daughter Pepper has died, and Harmoney's boyfriend taking off. But after that McMurtry doesn't have any place to go - he bring in Harmony's sisters who chat away (one is a sex addict which does provide some comedy) and Harmony has a young child a cute kid and they wind up in New York and meet some uninteresting characters - some Arabs, a prostitute, her pimp, a dog. There's a plot where the dog falls off the Statue of Liberty and lives and the son and dog become celebrities, and the daughter died of AIDS from straight sex, and then they all go back to Oklahoma and the New York characters leave and Harmony's other family comes in, mum and dad and it's all mum's fault because she's a bitch. It goes on and on.

I liked Harmony because of her resilience but this felt like a lazy book, McMurtry pushing out five pages a day and not revising it. I was relieved when it ended.

Movie review - "In Like Flint" (1967) **

 Fox were so happy with Our Man Flint that got work started on a sequel before it came out - it did well, was a hit, and so the second one came. It did okay, less well, but Coburn refused to make a third. I think he should have because those two films were really the only ones he starred in that were hits.

This had great photography and that classic Jerry Goldsmith score and some pretty women. J Lee Cobb is in drag. The story isn't bad - clones and women wanting to take over the world. The sexual politics are dodgy AF with Coburn laughing at women wanting to throw over the patriarchy then leading them to fight off the men. I liked the women kicking some arse but it has the vibes of a film made by people going through a divorce.

This has more Matt Helm vibes.

Movie review - "No Looking Back" (1998) **

 Ed Burns ran out of things to say with this movie, which takes what would've been a subplot for his first two movies and drags it out over a feature - Lauren Holly is engaged to Jon Bon Jovi and ex Ed Burns turns up. We find out early on that she was pregnant and he paid for an abortion. That's about it. Oh Holly can't have kids - that's the third act twist.

The windswept locations are beautiful, the cast is pretty, there's some nice Springsteen songs. There's a lot of working class acting in this - lotta smoking, lotta drinking beers. Every scene some actor seems to spark up or drink a beer - after a while it gets to be a joke.

Holly doesn't quite fit in the world which is the point I guess. The movie's a bit of a love letter to her. I'm not sure she's got It (she was an It girl at the time with Jim Carey and all that). In her defence Burns can't dramatise her issues. But you sense Cameron Diaz or Jennifer Aniston who'd been Burns' last film would've nailed in it.

Jennifer Esposito does fit in. She has a great moment where she makes a move on Bon Jovi. More scenes to the suport characters would've been better. Bon Jovi gets a great scene where she cries. Blythe Danner is in it. Her scenes aren't bad. Connie Britton.

Possibilities are hinted at but not really explored - Burns' character being dodgy (I do like that Burns doesn't play him for sympathy).

Movie review - "Newlyweds" (2011) ***1/2

 A delight - Ed Burns' best movie in a long time. Simple, understated, subtle. Unplotty but there is a strong story - a couple on their second marriages for both (Burns, Caitlin Fitzgerald) deal with another couple(her sister is married to his mate) and his hot mess of a sister (Kerry Bishe).

Very Woody Allen with foursomes chatting in diners, and talking to camera. Some old creaky Burns lines about men and women and sex and I feel Fitzgerald's sister could've done with another scene or beat to show vulnerability (no knock on the actor who is good, she's just a little too much of a villain). 

But generally this is wonderful -a mature work, it pops along (talking to camera helps), the subplot about Fitzgerald's ex works well, the tension of the rules of a family member at home works excellently. Fitzgerald and Bishe are outstanding and Burns rises to match them - actually all the acting is strong.