Word: film
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...lighthearted screenplay and subtle direction can bring a major piece of fiction--Southern fiction--to the screen. Rarely have great pieces of literature been successfully translated into cinematic terms, but Huston and screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald '71 have captured the difficult, often oblique essence of O'Connor's work on film...
...blessing and the mystery of Wise Blood is that it deftly avoids any established category. It is weird. Huston paces his film like a front porch tale-teller sliding through the story with a quiet drawl but leaps out of his rocker to flare with hellfire often enough to keep us nervous, wide-eyed and fascinated...
Both girls deserve a better vehicle than Little Darlings. The film has an amusing premise: the two heroines race to see who can lose her virginity first. But Director Ronald F. Maxwell, who has done superior TV work (PBS's Verna: U.S.O. Girl), settles for slogging his way through a threadbare script. Writers Kimi Peck and Dalene Young do not know how to sustain their story beyond the initial exposition, and they are not much better at writing characters. The two teenagers' love interests (Armand Assante and Matt Dillon) are such bland hunks that the stars must play...
...film's tone is confused and predictable: lame slapstick gags (including the inevitable food fight), sentimental bromides about love, and deadly serious (if inexplicit) sex scenes are thrown together without transitions. Even the heroines' slowly developing friendship is sketchily written; it seems to happen offscreen. While McNichol and O'Neal always command attention, the drama they create has less to do with Little Darlings than with the intriguing vicissitudes of show business careers...
Director Becker sometimes permits Wambaugh's penchant for psychological overexplanation and realistic background to jostle aside the film's essentially comic spirit. Most of the time, though, characters and situations are permitted to develop their own odd and ultimately catchy rhythms. There is no slickness to the movie. Prentiss is sharp without being abrasive, sweet without being sticky. Foxworth offers a daringly understated performance. He attracts attention and then affection through the kind of patience and politesse that one rarely encounters these days in actors playing lead roles. His work alone would make The Black Marble worth seeing...