The doctors’ wives in the 1971 Doctors’ Wives, directed by George Schaefer, are neglected, disgraceful, betrayed, noble. Seemingly a Valley of the Dolls wannabe (!), the film is a vulgar nonentity. It is a soap opera, by which I mean it is shallow and phony while appearing to be serious. The acting ranges from smoothly successful (John Colicos) to unsubtle (Rachel Roberts) to dull (Marian McCargo).
Author: EarlD Page 46 of 315
Sharon and Will and Dean (three characters on Chicago Med), Joe and Stella and Violet (on Chicago Fire) had better hotfoot it to another city. Brandon Johnson, a strong liberal, has just won Chicago’s mayoral race. I don’t think you’ll remain safe on city streets, Violet.
Many children of immigrants, illegal and legal, are currently living in poverty in the U.S. Will this change in the future? One suspects that state and federal bureaucracies will end up as overwhelmed as the Border Patrol is, if they aren’t already.
Cover of The Sugarland Express
Is The Sugarland Express (1974) a stupid movie, or is it just that the people in it are stupid? Well, a ton of human stupidity obtains, but when it comes down to brass tacks, it’s The Sugarland Express that’s stupid. The lower class woman played by Goldie Hawn is nothing but a cretin about whom we care very little if at all. It’s an underwritten role and Hawn, withal, fails to make her sympathetic.
Steven Spielberg has a full supply of moviemaking talent, but his film, though based on a true story, has no good reason to exist. At least Duel and the finally unsatisfactory Jaws are entertaining. Sugarland can be entertaining too, but is so trivial the entertainment value seems as though it’s always on the periphery.
2010’s The Housemaid is a remake (of sorts?) of a 1960 film. I’ve never seen it but certainly might like it since I liked the remake (directed by Im Sang-soo). In it, Eun-yi Li is a new housemaid for a rich Korean family. Seduced by Hoon, the man of the house, Eun-yi is the Karen McDougal to Hoon’s Donald Trump. Once this is discovered, Hoon’s wife and mother-in-law become bloodthirsty. Eun-yi is in truth wronged and turns vengeful.
The film is smartly, brilliantly directed and edited. Eun-yi standing at a small distance from an older female employee, a fire burning in a lengthy fireplace in the background, suggests the housemaid’s hope for a camaraderie with the woman that does not yet exist. The acting is top-notch, especially that of Jeon-Do Yeon, with her flawless nuance and kind feeling, in the title role. She’s required to be sexy too, and although her breasts may be small, they are shot in a way that renders them utterly lovely.
The climax and denouement of The Housemaid are pretty weird. The only thing I can submit about the denouement is that perhaps it is meant to show that the movie’s rich folks are more or less content in their decadence.
(In Korean with English subtitles)
Without being pro-illegal immigration, Stephen Frears‘s Dirty Pretty Things (2002) focuses on a London man who severely exploits African and Muslim immigrants. It is hard to say why, but the film simply does not succeed. Well, I can say this much: there is no chemistry between Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou. Not for a second did I believe Tautou, playing a foreign hotel maid, was in love with Ejiofor.
As well, it would be better had the exploiter (Sergi Lopez) not been a caricature. But beyond this, the picture is still off base. It seems hollow. I don’t think it should have been made.