Julia Roberts Top Ten

 1) Satsifaction (1988) - not good movie but she was a star already

2) Mystic Pizza (1988)

3) Pretty Woman (1989)

4) Erin Brockovich (2000)

5) My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

6) Notting Hill (1999)

7) Pret a Porter (1994)

8) Closer (2004)

9) Gaslit (2022)

10) Homecoming (2018)

Book review - "Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood" by Edward Zwick

 Entertaining book. Some good goss - Matthew Broderick being a pain on Glory (his mother whinged about the script), developing Legends of the Fall, Julia Roberts being a pain in Shakespeare in Love, advising Sydney Pollack against Julia Ormond on Sabrina.

Skips past his 21st century career very quickly - I would've liked more on say Pawn Sacrifice. His relationship with Pollack is particularly interesting. Like a lot of genuine liberals he can't seem to spot his own blind spots (eg unable to understand why Muslims might be upset with The Siege - it's because there are no heroic Muslims, Ed). Also while he like many in Hollywood is keen to push his own log cabin narrative, shortly after arriving he was besties with major players and at 27 was story editor on Family.

Look, I'm being mean, he's obviously talented and has had a terrific career and made lots of interesting films and TV.

Movie review - "Ticket to Paradise" (2022) **1/2

 I enjoyed this but I saw it on a plane which is maybe the best way. But it's got funny lines, pretty scenery, treats Bali culture with respect (even if it was shot in Australia) and most of all the high wattage star power of Julia Roberts and George Clooney, both getting on but both still have It.

Frustrating things abound - why not give Billie Lourd a subplot? Why not have a woman chase Clooney? Kaitlyn Dever, a brilliant actor, never seems in to her finace. 

But a fun time. And I did like the reason why they broke up i.e. their dream house burnt down. That's a traumatic event. It gave hope that maybe they could make it work again - as opposed to some insolvable inherent problem.

Book review - "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing" by Matthew Perry

 The extracts made play of the juicy stuff - making out with Gwyneth Paltrow, dating Julia Roberts, losing virginity to Tricia Fisher. Lizzy Kaplan is not named but referred to. There's some stuff on Friends. Mostly he goes on about his addictions. Perry is a lot like Chandler only without network notes to make him likable. The lack of commitment, the snark (there are two separate cracks about Keanu), the never being happy.

He says it's all his fault but always mentions factors to blame - his parents divorced, dad moved, mum was  busy, he felt different from his sisters. He likes to whine - never got the good movies, never got the Emmies, never became a proper movie star. He prays for Bruce Willis every day - does he actually visit him.

Perry doesn't seem to like anything - acting, fame, writing. He's got no passion. He's clearly got a brain and is smart. Interesting he was discovered in a way like Lana Turner, at Cafe 101 talking to girls - a passing Bill Richert saw him, wrote a note which led to Jimmie Reardon. It's a fascinating book. He doesn't mind portraying himself as a dipshit. It reads like he's going to star using again too.

All the things Perry could've done with his fame and money. He's not really doing anything with them.

Movie review - "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996) **1/2

 This is an end of an era film for Woody Allen in a way. The last time he really experimented with form, doing a musical. (He used to try to mix up the form every few movies - meta rom com, sci fi, Fellini-esque, pseudo documentary - but after this basically stopped taking visual risks).  It's a lively piece with some fun numbers and tunes.

It was also the first time he had some spectacularly awful casting - Julia Roberts and Woody are an utterly mismatched pair. I love Julia Roberts, her acting is lovely but she's totally not suited to being with Woody; it started a depressingly long trend where he was teamed with much younger actors and where that age difference wasn't the point of the story. The flipside of that is that this has some really nice casting - Drew Barrymore's role was something of a turning point for her, she'd normally played vixens as a grown up but the "good girl" type she plays here would be a lot more lucrative for her; Natasha Lyonne had her first lead role with this; it's early parts too for Natalie Portman, Billy Crudup and Edward Norton. Goldie Hawn plays the Mia Farrow role. Tim Roth is hilarious as an ex con.

The musical conceit has the actual actors singing - like what Peter Bogdanovich tried to do with At Long Last Love. Like that this is a shaggy dog story among the rich - Allen's feels like it should have been set in the 30s, with its (mostly) super rich protagonists living a la la lifestyle, but was set in the present in day, presumably for cost. 

It ambles along. There's some funny jokes. The last half hour is  a drag because the key subplots have resolved (Barrymore is back with Norton, Roberts has dumped Allen) and the climactic number is between Allen and Hawn (who we've hardly spent time with). It was having a good time until then.

Some scenes make me a little awkward, I admit, considering the allegations against Allen: Natalie Portman running around on the beach in a swimsuit when she was very young; super young Lyonne being sexually precocious at 17 (I think - though is she meant to be older than Drew Barrymore?) and telling her father she wants to get marriage.

Book review - "A Long time ago in a cutting room far away" by Paul Hirsch

 Entertaining editor memoir. Close up accounts of collaborating with famed directors like Brian De Palma, John Hughes and George Lucas and composers like Bernard Herrman. There's also depictions of working with Charles Shyer (nice but could never make up his mind), Duncan Jones, Herbert Ross (a great experience for Hirsch), Brad Bird.

Hirsch seems to be upfront and honest - I'm sure it's biased in his favour and those criticised will go "that's not how it happened" but he has great credits. He made a lot of genuine contributions to cinema history - persuading de Palma to hire Hermann, the credits and 'Let's Hear It For the Boy' sequences of Footloose, 'Twist and Shout' for Ferris Bueller. He tried to be a director for a bit but not too hard.

This is full of fun stories: having to cut out the bad actor who played Jabba in Star Wars, dealing with temperamental yet brilliant Herman, offending Brian de Palma on Mission to Mars, the moods of John Hughes, the indecision of Charles Shyer on the money pit of I Love Trouble, extracting the juice out of John Hughes movies, what went wrong on Pluto Nash (apparently the original script was funny), James Cameron sledging him on the day Titanic overtook Star Wars at the box office.

Occasionally gets a bit nerdy with talks of splicing and dubs and stuff but consistently interesting. Composers - get to know editors and be nice! They can wreck you with the wrong temp track/edit.

TV review - "Homecoming" (2018) ***

Entertaining thriller, with enjoyable Hitchcock touches (the music, focusing) and Julia Roberts always brings it - actually all the acting is good. The story is solid, it's just rather mercilessly strung out even at 30 minute eps. This should have been a feature.

Movie review - "Pret a Porter" (1994) **

Much publicised at the time during production - you had Robert Altman making like his 27th comeback after the success of The Player and Short Cuts, an all star cast including some genuine stars (Julia Roberts) and icons (Sophia Loren), the setting in the world of fashion, which in the early 90s was huge (in a time where there weren't many female stars, the supermodels filled the tabloid void), including many cameos of famous designers, artists and models.

But it's not a very good movie. I wish Altman had gotten a top writer to do the script instead of getting his own grubby hands on it. There are some bright lines, and one or two memorable moments but too much of it seems crap - literally there's a painfully unfunny recurring gag about people stepping on dog crap, plus plot lines and moments cribbed from Nashville (a Greek Chorus reporter, a womanising star who has three women panting over him), MASH (Sally Kellerman humiliated while nude).

Some good moments: I liked the vignette of Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins holed up in a hotel room, having an affair which she over-invests in, and reporting the news by copying from the TV; there are some funny scenes, such as two adulterous couples cheating at the same time and the same location, and the reveal of Danny Aiello in a dress; there is plenty of colour and movement, including music and clothes, and the finale of the all naked models is a good way to wrap it up.

But so much of it is tired: the dog crap gag, Marcello Mastroianni running around and hamming it up in sunglasses, that smug pregnant model walking around (she pays off at the end by walking naked but it's not much of a pay off).

There's also so little drama: we think Sophia Loren's husband was murdered (which would have given the film some weight) but it turns out he just choked to death; Mastroianni goes to seduce Loren but can't go through with it; Aiello is a cross dresser and Lily Taylor takes photos of him and he's upset and.... that's it; Rupert Everett has an affair and gets busted and that's it; Lauren Bacall does nothing.I think Nashville is over-rated but at least it has some heavier stuff going on - Keenan Wynn's wife dying, the assignation, Ronnee Blakely having a breakdown.

An indulgent movie, mainly for completist fans of the director and it's cast, and/or 90s fashion.

Book review - "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography" by Mitchell Zuckoff (2009)

Patrick McGilligan wrote a wonderful biography of Altman but this is awesome too - an oral biography seems to suit the director because he was so keen to make his film sets and life one big party. Zuckoff has the benefit of working on this shortly after Altman's death, so people's memories are fresh but they can be honest because he's dead.

Altman had an incredible life - Kansas City upbringing, party boy youth, genuinely impressive war service as a bomber in the Pacific, early Hollywood dalliance ending unsatisfactorily, making corporates and industrials in Kansas City, becoming a genuinely great TV director (including Fabian's best performance, "A Lion Walks Among Us"), blowing many opportunities with his personality but always getting a second (then third, fourth and so on) chance due to his talent, breaking into features and becoming a legend with MASH.

Few directors' careers had more ebbs and flows than Altman's but he always managed to survive - if he would drop his budget, try new genres, move to Broadway and cable. Actors love for him meant he actually bounced back in the 1990s - he seemed to thrive in the world of independent cinema. A tiring man to fall in love with but he eventually found the perfect wife. Not a great father either - but what a legacy.

This is a terrific book.

Book review - "Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon - Arnon Milchan" by Meir Dolman and Joseph Gelman (2011)

Arnon Milchan's name is well known to film fans as producer or executive producer on a large number of successful films; buffs got to know him well in the 80s and 90s as a financier and supporter of maverick directors: he helped fund Once Upon a Time in America, almost financed The Big Brass Ring for Orson Welles (something not addressed in this book, interestingly), supported Terry Gilliam in the Brazil battle.

His cinematic CV is very impressive: Fight Club, Gone Girl, Pretty Woman. Obviously as smart as a whip I had heard he was independently wealthy but didn't realise he was a billionaire. More than that he was a spy for Israel, using his business contacts to secure Israeli weapons, including the bomb.

Milchan wasn't a born and bred filmmaker - he is Israeli born (not a refugee, though descended from some), who inherited his father's fertilizer company. He expanded it and used it as a launching pad for other operations, which included helping provide weapons for Israel. It was a patriotic act for him but he also took a commission, and diversified into a bunch of other businesses and activities - including helping provide weapons for apartheid era South Africa.

In the 1970s he got involved in financing films, via Elliott Kastner, the producer who is connected with a lot of people at the early stage of their careers, and became successful at that too.

Not surprisingly, he was a successful womaniser, with various mistresses (usually Swedish) stashed in various parts of the world

This is a sympathetic biography, though I couldn't help feeling a sense of unease with Milchan helping Israel stock up on warheads and supporting the Afrikaaners. I also wished there was more on the movies - the authors seemed more interested in Israeli politics. Still, I learned a hell of a lot and it is a fascinating story.

Movie review - "August: Osage County" (2013) **1/2 (warning:spoilers)

Its wonderful to see an all star adaptation of a Broadway hit and I'm sure this was a very satisfying night out at the theatre, with plenty of juicy roles and conflict and family drama and secrets coming out. On screen however it just comes across as a lot of actors yelling at each other, clearly wanting to speak in Southern accents.

There's a decent secret (a couple in love are actually brother and sister) but it's not that massive because the couple already think they're cousins. Meryl Streep gives a barnstorming performance as does Julia Roberts. There are two British actors pretending to be Americans, effectively enough, but none of them are as good as Chris Cooper - I know actors like to think they can play anything but in a heavy drama like this I think anything that chips away at the reality, even if only a little bit, hurt it.

It was just so much of it felt familiar - the sister who kept going from man to man, the dodgy boyfriend, the husband having an affair, the secret affair, the father figure, etc etc. It's not dopey comic book stuff so I suppose we should be grateful.

Script review – “Notting Hill” by Richard Curtis

This was a bigger ht that Four Weddings and a Funeral but it’s no way near as good, and is full of flaws – the characters of the friends are too underdeveloped, the romance between Spike and Honey comes out of nowhere, ditto the stuff about the wheelchair girl not being able to have a baby (apparently there was more friends stuff in the original draft but it was cut out), Spike is funny but a complete caricature, Anna isn’t a character at all, just a pretty smile. But it has an engaging charm and a wonderful wish fulfilment idea – stalkers around the world must love this film. (Sweet natured stalkers that is – the more serious ones are likely to be into Taxi Driver.) It’s also not afraid to go dark – William Thacker has been battered about my life (divorce, dud business), as have his friends: infertile, crippled due to an accident, struggling with work, in bad relationships, etc. Very simple and incredibly cast dependent but very sweet too.

TV review – “Law and Order – Season 9” (1998-99) ***1/2

The first two hot female ADAs have been liberal feminists, so for variety the third one is a pro-life, right winger (Angie Harmon), who even makes Jack McCoy recoil. It’s a good idea and helps spice things up; Harmon is very good looking, but she’s annoying. Her character is far too arrogant – she hasn’t earnt the right to be that cocky, especially as she can’t really act. Also the more we get to know the character, the less likeable she becomes: pro-life, woman-hater, Canada-basher, affirmative action-basher; during an affirmative action episode she once comments “I’d like to think I got where I did on my own merits”… - Harmon, you got you were because you’re hot.

A lot of the stories have a family theme: incestuous con artists, fathers who kill babies, desperate childless couples, fathers who abduct children. There’s an un-enjoyable episode where the DA’s office (and Harmon) try to bully Canadians – Harmon can’t believe they oppose the death penalty (“Great Britain and Canada have nothing to tell us about human rights”). But its followed by a strong episode about a hate crime, which centers around the inflammatory speeches of white supremacists – this has special resonance in the wake of the Sarah Palin assassination controversy. (This ep is dedicated to some DA called Charlie Rose, who “made the world a safer place”.) Then to show how balanced they are there’s an ep on how affirmative action drives a black to murder.

The quality of episodes in this series are solid rather than sensational – there’s few eps where you go “wow, that was amazing”, like I used to in the earlier seasons. I did enjoy seeing Julia Roberts as a femme fetale who flirts with her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt; she’s a good actor, and gives a strong performance (I’m not just saying that because she’s a star either because she’s presented in Law and Order style). And there’s a terrific double-part finale, about the Russian mafia – like other Russian mafia eps the death toll is large and it contains some really shocking moments; it also has Benjamin Bratt’s touching farewell.

Movie review – “Valentine’s Day” (2010) **

Dreadful, overlong rom com which managed to be a massive hit by virtue of it’s mega cast and title. An ensemble piece set in LA about people known to those who work in the film industry: assistants, TV producers, mail room attendants, florists, kids, their teachers, army officers you sat next to on a plane once. The stars come off well enough – Jennifer Garner and Ashton Kutcher are particularly likeable. Eric Dane's performance made me think he was a real life football star trying acting – I didn’t realise he was an actual actor. Taylor Swift gives the sort of performance where she’s obviously been given too much encouragement and praise off screen – some criticism might have helped (the two teen romance stories are heavily pro-virgin). Lots of pretty clothes and shots of the male cast with their shirts off – everyone seems to go to the same personal trainer.

Movie review – “My Best Friend’s Wedding” (1998) ***

Example of a great “save” ending – you’ve got a romantic comedy about Julia Roberts determined to wreck Dermot Mulroney’s wedding to Cameron Diaz. In a standard rom com Diaz would be a bitch and Mulroney would come to his senses but Diaz is sweet and lovely (although a dangerous driver – something which is meant to be charming – would it be funny once she puts someone in the paraplegic ward? – but I digress). Which makes things dramatically fresher but how do we get a happy ending? By making Julia grow and sending her off into the sunset with her gay best friend, Rupert Everett – the perhaps the best exponent of what very quickly became a rom com cliché in the 90s. Everett is the best thing about the film – he infuses the action with tremendous energy during his appearance mid way through and it’s a shame they couldn’t have figured out a way to keep him around during the second half.

Movie review – “Duplicity” (2009) *** (warning: spoilers)

Very smart and very clever, terrific star roles, an interesting “world” (industrial espionage), lots of twists and turns, solid support cast… but something about it doesn’t quite work. Clive Owen, who is a great star in brooding parts, is never quite 100% effective in a part seemingly written for George Clooney or Cary Grant, and there’s something distracting about Julia Roberts’ lips (not in a good way). Also the final twist – which I genuinely didn’t pick, because it breaks narrative rules – makes you feel a little flat and let down at the end emotionally.

Book review – “Red Carpets and Banana Skins” by Rupert Everett

Shakespeare in Love is a wonderful movie but it’s never really believable that Joe Fiennes is a writer – he plays Shakespeare like an actor, all hot pants and running around like an idiot. However Rupert Everett’s Marlowe in the same movie did seem like a real writer – watchful, disdainful, smart. But it still comes as a surprise that Everett’s memoirs would be so well written – not that an actor can’t be a brilliant writer (Simon Callow leaps to mind) but Everett’s not been known for his writings til now.

It’s a marvellous book, written in a style consistent with Everett’s on screen persona: lush, educated, decadent, witty, brilliant. (Everett complains that his homosexuality saw him not cast in About a Boy, but he would have been wrong in that part – the lead in About a Boy is essentially a hopeless person, and Everett is too strong, too confident to convey hopelessness).

He luxuriates in words, as he seems to have done in life: affairs with Ian McKellan, but also Paula Yates (his portrait of Yates and Bob Geldorf is a classic), Susan Sarandon and Beatrice Dalle; he also has spent lots of time in Miami and Europe rather than London, has had an erratic but long career. He really should have been in better movies, had at least Jude Law’s career (maybe he was too metrosexual too soon) but he still did pretty well; anyway as he himself admits he was a prat. Great writer, though.

Movie review – “Charlie Wilson’s War” (2007) ***1/2

A fascinating episode of history, particularly in light of recent events, makes for an entertaining movie which is frustratingly never as good as if could have been. Tom Hanks is a fine actor and you can’t really fault his performance – but he’s just plain miscast. The role of Charlie Wilson is a gift, a womanizing hawkish good old boy who was nonetheless pro choice and ERA – a natural for, say, Tommy Lee Jones or John Travolta or someone like that. Tom Hanks simply struggles to convey amiable hedonism, and it makes the film frustrating. The other debit is Mike Nichol’s direction – it’s clean and precise, etc, but it felt as though it needed more energy: the camera to move around, or more music, or snappier editing or something.

Aaron Sorkin isn’t always the easiest writer to direct and his excellent script really isn’t given the treatment it deserves. Fine work from Julia Roberts and (especially) Philip Seymour Hoffman; Amy Adams is fun, too, as Hanks’ assistant (Sorkin loves writing scenes between men and their female secretaries) and Emily Blunt very sexy in a small role.

Movie review - "Closer" (2005) ***

Patrick Marber's play obviously would have worked wonderfully on stage, because it retains a fair bit of power on screen. Mike Nichols is traditionally one of the most respectful adapters of plays to the screen, and this does work on a level. Where is falls down, I think, lies in two things: (a) the intimacy that works well on stage, with the people actually there, doesn't impact as well on screen, which depends more on visuals and story (b) the casting - Clive Owen is brilliant and blows everyone away, Jude Law tries hard and gives a fine performance but it would have been better had someone been cast who was brilliant - ditto Ports and Julia Roberts, and the film really struggles having not one but two Americans who just happen to be in the story.

Book review - "Kate Remembered" by A Scott Berg

Berg is one of those imposingly excellent biographers who takes eight years to write a book and researchers them methodically, writes well and has best sellers. This bio is a little different because it is more of a personal memoir, though it does encapsulate Hepburn's career. Berg was a fan of the actor who became her friend - he seems to have been pleasant company and a good listener; also his writing of a book on Goldwyn meant Hepburn could find out about what her contemporaries were up to. Berg is keen to put Hepburn centre stage, so much so it means he is often a shadowy figure all the time. For instance, I couldn't help wondering where he had all this money and spare time for visits to an old movie star, even if she was a friend. (His books sold well I am guessing. He is also gay although he only mentions his life partner in passing) Berg no doubt figured that it was Hepburn the reader was interested in so kept himself aside - he was probably right, I just wish he'd brought himself forward a bit more.

That mentioned, the book is worth reading. Berg is a skillful writer and Hepburn a worthy topic. I particularly enjoyed her comments and observations about show biz: Howard Hughes, Spencer Tracy (Berg puts forward his own theories on the actor's alcoholism), Glenn Close (she doesn't like her - due to her feet! - maybe also because Close plays Hepburn-like parts), Harrison Ford (big fan - she liked manly men), Julia Roberts (thought she was the first genuine female star in ages - which she was), Melanie Griffith (she liked her but thought she was too lethargic to make it as a star - which when you think about it is a brilliantly astute observation), Larry Olivier (admired him but didn't like him - blamed him for forcing Vivien Leigh to do theatre instead of movies), Jeremy Irons, Michael Jackson (hilarious vignette of him visiting Kate and Tom Stoppard popping in).

The book isn't all looking back - Warren Beatty enlisted Berg to persuade Kate to do a cameo in Love Affair (an entertaining section of the book with Beatty coming off as a bit of a pompous idiot though also an intelligent man capable of great charm), and Berg chronicling Kate's last few years which she declined but never really went bonkers. It isn't all about Kate either - Irene Selznick becomes a major character; she was a big mate of Kate's, also of Berg's, but when Berg knew her there was a bit of a Selznick-Hepburn feud. (When you think about it Irene Selznick was a bit of a gay icon, too, what with being bitter about men and producing Tennessee Williams and Arthur Laurents). Illuminating and moving.