ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR

Blake Lively in ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR Year: 2025 Rating: **

Chalk this up as one of the most unnecessary sequels ever made. The original, Paul Feig's modern-film-noir-comedy-thriller, was a nice little surprise, and worked especially during the first half as single mommy/blogger Anna Kendrick begins an investigation... 

Turning into a kind of girl-crush/lightweight-obsession with older and downright beautiful Blake Lively, providing both intrigue and suspense, and even sensuality, the only drawback being the casting of Lively's husband, who Kendrick cheats with, an actor seeming more suited to a sitcom... 

Blake Lively in ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR

Well he's only briefly joined by the two returning leads on a tropical island paradise... in what's more like the Knives Out sequel setting than a locale providing a logical continuation of the first film's deliberately over-bright suburbs... which director Feig served-up with an equal amount of genuine-suspense and crime-genre-satire... 

Making this new balmy location and the entire film itself a distraction to the fact that nothing really happens, as in, there's no real investigation to pull in Kendrick or the audience this time around. 

Anna Kendrick in ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3 (2023)

There's a point in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3 when, actually set in Greece this time... and right before a stranger's wedding... Nia Vardalos and John Corbett look at each other and realize, they need a vacation... together... away from everyone else...

Which might be the first time two main characters wanted out of their very own motion picture... and that's because they have very little to do with anything other than being parents of a college girl who's failing WHILE being pushed to date a mediocre dimwit college dude: neither interesting enough to be in a movie unless it was SUPPOSED to be about other people... and some of those people are also from the original... a romantic comedy that not only had an actual plot, but some tension and, what needs to happen in this particular comedy genre, an actual problem to resolve... which is completely missing here, and watching this bad sequel of a bad sequel... after a string of dead-end goofy-aunt jokes, cliche stereotypes, and some of the most awkward moments in cinema history... you too will need a vacation, and it's not even your movie. Score: 1/2

OLIVER'S STORY (1978)

Poor Ryan O'Neal couldn't catch a break. Even two films now considered classics didn't make money in the 1970's upon release. His daughter Tatum's BAD NEWS BEARS beat the pants off both Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON and Walter Hill's THE DRIVER...

While the comparably mainstream and now basically forgotten OLIVER'S STORY did even worse... ironic being the sequel to what's considered the first most lucrative pre-JAWS summer blockbuster, LOVE STORY, as Ryan himself had a reason/theory of why it failed: Intellectual thinking man's ingenue Nicola Pagett (resembling cult starlet Pamela Franklin) was supposed to be the girl he winds up with as, early on, they share a blind date, which is more interesting and with far more chemistry than any of O'Neal's scenes with wooden rich girl Candace Bergen, who, being the studio's choice of perfect and pretty, made it so Nicola's third act return was left on the cutting room floor. And while OLIVER'S STORY is not a bad picture... with a particularly clever style of quick-editing so the scene being cut-from seems deliberately unfulfilled (like happens in ROSEMARY'S BABY)... there are relaxing moments within the mahogany-hued classy-to-poor New York City where idealistic rich kid Oliver, a lawyer, fights a slum lord with student employees: yet there's simply no inner peace or contentment for the titular character or his titular story: all he needed was the right girl, who was perfectly whin reach. Rates: ***

Nicola Pagett as Joanna Stone in Oliver's Story

Nicola Pagett as Joanna Stone in Oliver's Story

Nicola Pagett with Ryan O'Neal in Oliver's Story

Ann Risley & Deborah Rush are two bar girls in Oliver's Story

STAYING ALIVE

year: 1983

cast: John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes
bad movie rating: ***1/2

This is not a John Travolta film. It belongs entirely to writer/director Sylvester Stallone, rehashing the Rocky storyline of a dimwitted diamond-in-the-rough Italian fighting to survive... only in this case it's a dancer, not a boxer, and unlike Rocky, it's a bad movie. Travolta fights to make it from his former struggling strutter to lead dancer in what's perhaps the gayest Broadway musical ever created (named "Satan's Alley," inspired by Sly's "Paradise Alley"). Playing the character he made famous in "Saturday Night Fever", our man's in great shape, but look too thin, gaunt, strung-out. He charms his way into the bed of a beautiful Broadway star (Finola Hughes) who turns the tables and plays him... and there's an overabundance of Travolta getting his just-deserts: the player being played, played to the hilt while he's using his pretty, gullible girlfriend (Cynthia Rhodes) who can't help but to love the handsome devil. Her love for him is even more annoying than his lust for the femme fatale. And eventually, of course, like Rocky, our hero ends up champion of a game he never thought he'd had a chance in to begin with. Overall, it's terrible fun. Terrible yet fun. Terrible. Fun. Terribly fun. 

FRENCH CONNECTION II

title: THE FRENCH CONNECTION II year: 1975

cast: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey rating: ***

There's a guilty pleasure watching, for nearly a half an hour, a thinned-down Gene Hackman as New York's iconic tough cop Popeye Doyle being force-fed heroin in a Euro-slum and then kicking it cold turkey, squirming, vomiting, and screaming about Mickey Mantle. We begin in France and this time remain there. Hackman can't get a decent whiskey buzz, finds it impossible interrogating perps, and is without partner/anchor Roy Scheider (although French partner Bernard Freeson, who resembles Vic Morrow, does a great job). The maze-like cat-and-mouse between the ragged good guy Doyle and classy villain Charnier (Fernando Rey) is more blind crippled dog vs lazy lion this time around. Perhaps because Charnier (who speaks English, ruining his mysterious quality) is too comfortable while our hero has nowhere to turn. This grungy sequel, which does merit some excellent handheld camerawork, feels like a visitor game without much of a home team. But at times the claustrophobic journey is somewhat interesting. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be enjoyed, but rather, experienced. And the last frame (five or so seconds) is, I have to admit, much more satisfying than the original's benign cliffhanger.

POLTERGEIST III

title: POLTERGEIST III

year: 1988

cast: Heather O'Rourke

rating: *1/2

Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke) is now living with her rich aunt (her mother's sister) and uncle in a glass-structured skyscraper that harbors not only apartments but offices and an extended shopping mall. She goes to a special school for kids with... problems and is considered a charlatan for having "tricked" people into believing, basically, everything that occurred in the previous films. So we're back to (and remain at) zero as a Julian Beck ("Preacher Kane") lookalike appears now and again while ghostly "doubles" of the lame new cast sneak around any and every interior, providing no chills whatsoever.

ROCKY III

title: ROCKY III

year: 1982

cast: Sylvester Stallone, Taila Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, Mr. T, Hulk Hogan, Tony Burton, Frank Stallone, Stu Nahan

writer/director: Sylvester Stallone

rating: ****

Taking away the dated and often preposterous factors, including an over-the-top battle against Hulk Hogan that makes us believe professional wrestling isn't scripted, and the casting of eighties icon Mr. T as the mega-villain rival Clubber Lange (who's performance isn't bad, but the character is blatantly one-dimensional), this, the third outing in the ROCKY series, is a terrific ride. The first two films were seemingly-realistic studio-driven-indies while this is the big budget mainstream peak of the franchise: for better or worse, it's all here. The opening credit sequence (after two back-to-back montages), as Burt Young's sloppy and desperate (and often comic-relief-providing) "Paulie" wanders the streets in a drunken stupor, we're reminded of the street-savvy original. And during both of Rocky's training sessions... the first where he's not taking things seriously (an inside-satire of the franchise's corporate megalomania) before going up against his formidable opponent - and then, after getting knocked-out and losing his beloved "Mickey", teaming with former rival/new trainer Apollo Creed in urban downtown Los Angeles - there's a genuine base delivering the goods to near-perfection. Just turn off and have fun.

POLTERGEIST II

title: POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE
year: 1986
cast: Craig T. Nelson, Jobeth Williams, Julien Beck, Heather O'Rourke
rating: *1/2

Although a lot more entertaining than EXORCIST II, this first sequel of the haunted house classic suffers the same futile attempt at explaining the origins of the initial ghostly infestation, and with that there's too many cooks: and the soup tastes pretty sour.

Vapid Indian incantations with extremely horrible and overdone special effects, killer tequila worms, a kid's braces becoming monsters, and a lot of really forced, awful dialogue from characters so natural the first time around... Craig T. Nelson in particular is overboard and hammy beyond belief, and beyond. Not to mention a barrage of blasphemous flashbacks to the original, not only reminding the audience of what was a much better film, but what should have remained untouched, unscathed, and unburdened: And the burden's all on Heather O'Rourke's still cute little Carol Anne, who was a victim before and now holds magical answers like some kind of corny fairy tale...

The only good thing is the casting of Julien Beck as "Kane", the old man preacher/wraith donning a black hat and wicked smile, his looks alone providing the only real chills. Before and after him, it's all flash and... you know the rest.

THE EVENING STAR

title: THE EVENING STAR

year: 1996

cast: Shirley MacLaine, Bill Paxton, Natasha Richardson, Juliette Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Marion Ross

rating: **

This movie assumes we're a lot more into the story than the story tries to be a good one. Has the same problem as "Texasville", the sequel to the iconic masterpiece "The Last Picture Show"; this being the sequel to another classic "Terms of Endearment" (all four based on novels written by Larry McMurtrey). Takes a lightweight approach continuing from the original wonderfully tragic story of Shirley Maclaine's character, who lost her daughter, Deborah Winger, to cancer, and now has to deal with the grandkids: all grown up and doing... horribly. The youngest son drives a tow truck, the oldest son is in jail, and the precocious daughter, played by Juliette Lewis (overracting as usual), is a moody suicidal college student with a cheating white trash boyfriend. MacLaine tries her best but there's just no story here. When her endearingly grumpy character insults particular family members it's not very funny because we don't know them enough to understand (or care about) her loathing. And whenever needed, she looks through albums with pictures of the original film, thus paving the way for Jack Nicholson, returning in a cameo, which doesn't help things one bit. He and Shirley have the chemistry of two dead sea slugs as they wander around chatting about life, death, and love: which they didn't have to talk about since they EXPERIENCED these things in "Terms". Bill Paxton adds some silly bumpkin flavor as a councelor who has an affair with MacLaine, doing the best young Jack Nicholson impression he can muster. Natasha Richardson as "Patsy", who was Winger's laidback plain-looking pal in "Terms" (played by another actress), here is a spunky beautiful rich divorcee, providing a somewhat weak foil for MacLaine. And Marion Ross as the faithful maid is probably the best performance of the bunch... at least she has something to do.

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY

years: 1990

cast: Tom Selleck, Nancy Travis,  Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson

rating: ***

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY has our bachelors are now full fledged fathers living with the woman (the British actress who was impregnated by Danson), and the "little lady": the child from the first film now five years old. The sequel is mostly centered on Selleck's character (who's hairdo looks like a toupee-Frisbee) secretly in love with Nancy Travis, the baby's mom... and all the stuff he and Guttenberg (Danson is out of country but joins them eventually) go through to stop her from marrying the wrong guy in England... a conceited director who's phony and not nice to the little lady. The sequel is almost as good as the original in its own way, although things are reversed: the first film is best during the first half, and the second film is best during the second half (in England). Selleck finally wins Nancy Travis and they marry... a good thing because no child should be raised by three men who paint their images in a penthouse lobby.

SON OF THE PINK PANTHER

title: SON OF THE PINK PANTHER

year: 1993

cast: Robert Benigni, Herbert Lom, Robert Davi

director: Blake Edwards

rating: *

Dud Dud Dud Dumb, Dud Dumb, Dud Dumb Dud Dumb Dud Dumb Dud Dumb Dud Duuuuuumb....

BE COOL

title: BE COOL

year: 2005

cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Rock, Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughan

rating: *1/2

For a movie that pokes fun at bad sequels and corporations, this is a bad sequel which is as corporate as can be. John Travolta returns as the ever-cool "Chili Palmer" and, unlike his turn in "Get Shorty" (perhaps his best performance ever), he's simply going through the motions. We get a budding love story with Uma Thurman for all those "Pulp Fiction" fans who wanted to see them hook up, and even a VERY FAMILIAR dance sequence to boot. The plot centers on the music industry as opposed to the movie industry, and there are no decent bad guys (Vince Vaughan as a "wigger" and Harvey Keitel are weak), no decent almost-bad-guys-who-turn-good (Cedric the Entertainer is even weaker), and the someone-is-in-the-house-because-they-purposely-left-the-TV-on, which was great in the original, is overused to the hilt. Attempts of mazy-double-crossings that Elmore Leonard (and Quentin Tarantino for that matter) do so well are all but col de sacs leading to dead ends. But I gotta give credit to The Rock. Although I am not a fan his turn as a gay bodyguard who wants to be an actor is the only decent character.

CONAN THE DESTROYER

year: 1984

cast: Arnold Swarzenegger

director: Richard Fleischer

rating: ***

More of an esamble piece with characters played by Wilt Chamberlain and Grace Jones, but their characters served the plot decently enough, the plot involving a virgin princess (Olivia D'Abo) who must be "delivered" with her virginity intact, and Conan and his "posse" are hired for the delivery and they fight some nasty creatures along the way. Tracey Walter is doing the same kind of role that great-surfer-turned-bad-actor Gerry Lopez did in the original but as comic relief, he's not very funny. Although it doesn't matter. Battles ensue and we're not thrust into a long epic like the first film, and unlike the first there's not just one villain but a lot of them, including Sarah Douglas as an evil queen, a couple of monsters and a metallic snake!

GHOSTBUSTERS 2

title: GHOSTBUSTERS 2

year: 1989

cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver

grade: *1/2

Pointless action and some decent special effects backing up a convoluted storyline about a river of ghostly ooze running in the New York sewers created by an evil dictator in a painting who wants to kidnap a baby so that it can be reborn with his soul. Rick Moranis' character returns, but is subdued, and the new hyperactive dweeb-turned-demon is played by Peter MacNichol, providing one of the most annoying accents - and performances - that I've yet to witness. But the main problem is Bill Murray, who made the original with his glib mannerisms, countered by Akroyd's hyper persistence. Too much is centered on Dan's scientific terminology, and Murray seems bored throughout and herein grounds nothing. And the Ray Parker theme song is an actual song in the movie, which Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson dance to - and sing along with - entertaining a children's party who'd rather watch He-Man. Isn't this called breaking the fourth wall? So, then... a great theme song is not only trashed but replaced by a standard rap/R&B Bobby Brown tune... but then again, since this movie is such a dud... if the shoe fits.