Paris high-risk blog

“Amsterdamned,” the modish Dutch thriller, is moderately much the movie equivalent of lint. Written and directed by Dick Maas (who composed the get laid as well), the imagine is about a serial killer who emerges every dusk from the brackish waters of the Amsterdam canals to murder whoever happens to wrangle in his path. The hit man, who is equipped with elaborate scuba gear, is a breed of underwater Darth Vader, and instead of most of the haze all that we conscious about him is that he’s a heavy breather. And it’s all we want to know.

Most of the movie is taken up with the investigation of the killings by a womanizing cop (Huub Stapel) assigned to ferret out this monster before news of his exploits begins to hurt the tourist trade. This translates into a great number of scenes at headquarters during which the evidence is discussed in something less than fascinating detail and we learn such excellent facts as the exact number of divers in Amsterdam. Dish this info out to your friends and hear them ooh and aah!

What “Amsterdamned” most resembles is a second-rate television cop thriller from the mid-’70s. The story is hopelessly stale; even the hairstyles seem time-warped. Supposedly, the film was something of a sensation in Holland, which perhaps says more about the cultural life of the Netherlands than about the movie. The notoriety, I would imagine, is due to some of the director’s more garish touches, like the murder of an attractive, scantily swimsuited young woman in a tiny inflatable boat. There’s also a rather shocking scene in which a glass-topped tour boat filled with boy scouts rams into the body of a murdered prostitute that has been suspended by the killer upside down from a bridge. For this we have to import?

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“Amsterdamned” is rated R and contains graphic violence.

When I like a video maker, I usually escape reviews of their films. I like Takashi Miike, so he falls into that category, but I couldn't avoid noticing the buzz around his 2004 all unequalled creation

Izo

. The beyond word was beautiful cool and audiences seemed to be downright confounded. When it made the rounds at festivals, it proved to be too violent and exploitative for the arthouse crowd and too offhand and surreal throughout the horror/fantasy buffs.

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Could it be possible that the man known for his bizarro cinema like

Happiness of the Katakuri's, Fudoh, Dead or Alive: Final, Gozu

, and

Visitor Q

had one-upped himself? Well, he certainly comes close.

Samurai Izo Okada (Kazuya Nakayama) is instructed by his revolutionary leaning lord, Hanpeida, to go on a killing spree. Izo does as he is told and is captured and crucified for his actions. But Izo's spirit will not rest and he becomes a conundrum within the fabric of the universe. Separated from all sense of space and time, Izo wanders across the world and the beyond, cutting a path of destruction, intent on destroying… well, everything, any man, god, spirit, or entity that enters his path.

That is basically it. Izo is a sort of Terminator-Billy Pilgrim, a being of pure destruction with a grudge against all that exists who is dislodged in time and space. He falls into an Edo era setting where a group of SWAT-geared soldiers machine gun him. A band of samurai soldiers chase him through the neon streets of modern Tokyo. He comes across imps disguised as insurance salesman, abbots, a voluptuous mother Earth figure, 60's era youth gangs, ex-lovers, other wandering swordsman spirits, zombie WW2 soldiers, a fragment of his own soul, businessmen, families, yakuza, and a sort of council of the universe made up of a Chairman, Aristocrat, Scholar, Financier, and a General. No one is spared. As Izo degenerates with each killing, he is reduced to a more demonic state.

Izo

is repetitious. Pretty much, the film is made up of Izo dropping into some time and place and hacking away at whoever's there, meanwhile the god-like counsel sits and frets over what they are going to do with this unstoppable irrationality running around, and every, now and then, Japanese folk legend Kazuki Tomokawa sings a number that adds an emotional exclamation point to a scene. The repetition seems to be the point- violent actions just have the same result, no matter the time, the place, or person, destruction is ultimately fruitless. This is punctuated by a scene where Izo has all but run out of people to fight and cut down, reduced to a slobbering, monosyllabic demon, literally running like a hamster inside a huge infinity symbol floating on some celestial plane of existence. At two hours and eight minutes, it does feel overlong, and one justified complaint is that the film could be easily sheered of a couple of scenes and be twenty minutes shorter.

One of the oft quoted labels I kept seeing associated with the film was that it is pretentious. Okay that is fair, but not really in the most negative connotations of the term. It is showy, what with its epic length, all star cameos, and splashy direction, but it is also very straightforward and clearly is not aiming at any severe high mindedness. I guess audiences were confused because of the non-narrative structure, lack of a fleshed out character thread, and how it was clearly patterned to be as an esoteric mindfuck. The philosophy is actually pretty simple, so I guess maybe the typical cinema audience thought it was a head-scratcher because it lacked a traditional cinematic three act, here's your hero milieui.

Basically, Takashi Miike has delivered a film that is a sort of cross between a Terou Iishi bloody horror action exploitation and Alejandro Jodorowsky surreal epic. With scriptwriter/co-collaborator Shigenori Takechi (the two previously worked together on

Agitator, Graveyard of Honor, Deadly Outlaw Rekka

, and

Yakuza Demon

), Miike indulges his more experimental side, which seems to be his current career projection, balancing his output between pure commercial fare and more "out there" work.

Like the film or not, Miike and the producers made this project go from a direct to video film to an all star, festival contender. The cameos are a who's who of Japanese film, Kaori Momoi, Ryhuei Matsuda, Tsurataro Kataoka, Yuya Uchida, Hiroyuki Nagato, Hiroyuki Matsukata, Mickey Curtis, Ken Ogata, and the Beat man himself, Takeshi Kitano. And, just for good measure, you've also got beloved athletic beast and K-1 freakshow Bob Sapp.

I think the film definitely has its faults, the primary one being its length. Miike is one of cinemas most twisted and often violent filmmakers, but

Izo

is basically an anti-violence film. Not surprising, actually, since Miike has also delivered some very gentle films and making violent films doesn't mean you condone violence. I found much to like. There are many jaw droppingly stylized scenes that will stick with you. There is a great bit where Izo tumbles into a wedding, filmed upside down, and then careens into a middle school where a chorus of schoolgirls confront him. In a forest, a genuinely gentle moment occurs when Izo's soul-fragment, Saya, cradles and exhausted Izo, carefully picking nits out of his hair. And, I had a good laugh at some Miike-ish humor: when Izo confronts the council, the scared academic figure nervously offers Izo an honorary degree of Doctor of Interfering with Everything in the Universe. And, I even thought the Kazuki Tomokawa numbers were pretty cool.

The DVD



: Media Blasters

Picture



: Anamorphic Widescreen. Good image. Overall resolution is quite good and there don't appear to be any technical stumbles. Since the feature gets to utilize the disc space and the audio channels very simple, compression is kept to a minimum. The film is a bit grainy in some parts, a stylistic choice. Colors are strong. Contrast is in good shape. Miike is in full play mode here, delivering scenes made to look like worn out 60's samurai films as well as acutely composed shots of pure beauty. Sharpness is crisp.

Sound



: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, English or Japanese language tracks. Optional English subtitles. Well, some disappointment that there isn't a full-bodied surround presentation. The Stereo track is relatively strong and the soundtrack bristles with sharp fx and meaty, centered dialogue. Very nice subs, a good translation with no grammatical errors.

Extras



: A second disc of extras includes: "Making Of" Featurette (19:32).? "Secrets of

Izo

" Featurette (60:25).? Theatrical Premiere footage (11:13)? Takashi Miike Trailer Reel (includes

Izo

trailers).? Production Still Gallery.? More Media Blaster's release trailers.

I strongly suggest diving into the "Secrets of

Izo

" before the "Making of" featurette. "Secrets" contains a lot of informative stuff, particularly Miike delving into the intent behind the film, as well as a lot of technical behind the scenes bits. Also curious is how many of the actors repeatedly say they signed on without fully understanding the script, yet they wanted to be involved because of Miike and the producers passion behind the project. The "Making of" is a little more basic and promo oriented, actors paying lip service to the film, and cute little text pop-ups on the behind the scenes stuff. Finally, the Premiere footage has a line-up of he key actors and Miike briefly talking about the film, making wise cracks, abd dishing out some praise before the film is screened.

Conclusion



: A hack-and-slash art film. This is the kind of flick that I think will potentially bore and probably baffle most moviegoers. Hell, even though I like it, it is the kind of film that I could rewatch five years from now and have a totally opposite reaction. So, suffice to say, viewer beware. Most folks will want to give it a rental. But, for lovers of the odd and peculiar, and Miike, if it sounds appealing, give it a shot. This is a solid DVD, nice image and sound, and the extras add some insight and manage to help smooth out an oddball flick.

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

One of the more overrated films of modern ‘hip’ times is this British
director John Schlesinger’s urban buddy drama. It tells the story of two
losers and their bitter disappointments, deferred dreams, and unlikely
friendship. It came at the end of the revolutionary Swinging Sixties, at
a time when the sexual mores were changing quicker than a hooker at Times
Square turning tricks. It was adapted by Waldo Salt from the blunt pulp
novel by James Leo Herlihy.  To win its audience over into thinking
it gets the mod scene turning ugly, it relies solely on the shock of an
implied blow job in a movie theater by a sympathetically portrayed male
hustler reluctantly doing it with a male customer. This should supposedly
get the viewer’s thinking process flowing about how sordid it sometimes
is being hip. Despite its attempt at reality, everything seems phony. 

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a big likable hick who leaves his dishwasher’s
job in his home state of Texas for New York City looking to hustle rich,
lonely women, whom he imagines need his services because the gentlemen
back east are all ‘faggots.’ Joe is a handsomely dressed-up cowboy, who
is more than a bit naive and dumb. He mentions, “I ain’t a fer-real cowboy,
but I am one hell of a stud!” Instead of hustling, he gets hustled himself
by women and then by a slimy, limping inept scam artist Ratso Rizzo (Dustin
Hoffman). When Joe stumbles in the Big Apple, he has no choice but to team
up with small-time hustler Ratso and bunk down in his squalid abandoned
tenement retreat. Ratso, who is in failing health, dreams of sunny Florida
as paradise and plans to make enough money hustling his stud to fulfill
his dreams. We learn about Joe mainly through awkward flashbacks that tell
us about his early life in Texas. In truth, there’s little to know or care
about his character that adds value to the story.

The film satires the flashy NYC nightlife scene of pill popping and
the chic hallucinogenic “Village” Warhol-like party scene, but never has
enough balls to own up to the homosexuality of its characters or the misogyny
of its story. All it seems to do is glamorize poverty and make its unpleasant
anti-heroes plunge into desperation seem like a trip into exploitation
to either coverup its shoddy story or for mere comic effect. The emotional
travails of the leads had about as much affect as the gooey ending in Love
Story.

Midnight Cowboy was a big box-office hit and also an artistic one,
winning Oscars for Best Picture (the first for an X-rated film), Best Director,
and one for a former victim of the blacklist Waldo Salt’s screenplay. In
those changing times, many must have gotten confused by what they were
seeing on the screen, but to look at that film now at a much later date
is to see that much of its glitter has faded. 

“Waterland” makes a valiant attempt to forge a coherent moving picture from a highly hinterland, winding novel. Screenwriter Peter Prince and director Stephen Gyllenhaal siphon emotional essences from Graham Swift’s 1982 waterside saga, then pour them into a wobbly craft.

The adaptation doesn’t quite hold. But in this flashback narrative, set in England’s beautiful eastern wetlands, there are many passages of filmic — and geographic — beauty. The movie is also peopled with memorable, new British faces, including Grant Warnock, Lena Headey and David Morrissey. Leading the older faces is Jeremy Irons, who more than holds his own as the central character.

History teacher Irons finds himself at the rumpled end of his 20-year career in an American high school. The Englishman is also at crisis point with emotionally unreeling wife Sinead Cusack. When bratty student Ethan Hawke challenges Irons to justify the existence of his subject, Irons’s past comes to bear. In an attempt to inform and entertain his class, the teacher launches into his own, troubled history.

Irons’s yarn, dating back to before World War I, tells of the Fens, a marshy area reclaimed from the sea that even today, he says, is “not quite solid.” His life there has been one of disparate ups and downs, from romantic bliss to tragic loss. He curls the hair of his American students with frank descriptions of sexual dabblings on trains with his girlfriend. Irons awes them with stories about his retarded dredger-brother Morrissey, and Morrissey’s obsession with eels. And, in a ridiculous, pseudo-Fellini move, Irons literally takes his students back through time on a surrealistic field trip to his mother’s home.

“Stay together, don’t get lost and no smoking in the house,” says Irons, as the class gingerly enters this building of yore.

You’re not sure whether to appreciate the film for its literary ambitions or take it to task for the same. “Waterland” feels like a collection of highlights, some memorable, some ordinary. As the younger Irons and Cusack, Warnock and Headey evoke a tender sense of sexual wonder as they meet at all available trysting spots, from trains to windmills. But after a traumatic event, they sow the seeds for banal, post-Freudian discontent in America.

With the benefit of Irons’s presence, “Waterland” creates the sense of a man haunted by his past. But it doesn’t steer the character-forming course satisfactorily. The fusion of past and present — from Fens to classroom to Irons’s American home with Cusack — is confused and meandering; it loses its flimsy thread very quickly.

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At best, you’re left with an incomplete mosaic of impressions. In a “Mr. Chips”-like speech directed at Hawke, Irons explains himself as one created by his “disease of the fens,” a love for homegrown stories about goblins, sprites, the mad woman of the marsh and tales of “sadness and despair.” You simply have to take his word for it.

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Though Sergei Eisenstein’s (”The Battleship Potemkin”-1925/”Alexander
Nevsky”-1938) history lesson about the 16th-century despot Ivan Grozny
— Ivan the Terrible — is essentially a bogus one, the historical melodramatic
biopic is wonderful to behold visually and for its camp (the stagy acting
and bold expressions give way to comedy rather than drama). It’s a work
of great detail, compositions, and visual spectacle that foregoes for the
most part Eisenstein’s principles of Montage that made him internationally
famous. Eisenstein made many sketches for every scene and when the cameras
rolled he brought those visions to fruition in the filming. It was filmed
during the middle of the war from 1943 to 1944 and was released in 1945,
at the Alma Ata studios in Central Asia, which came under attack by the
Nazi war planes. It was meant to be a trilogy but only two parts were completed,
as Eisenstein died at 50 before he could begin work on the third part.
Stalin approved the first part but objected to the second part (the way
the monster was portrayed bore too close a resemblance) and it wasn’t released
until 1958, ten years after Eisenstein’s death. 

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The first part deals with the charismatic hammy Nikolai Cherkassov
playing Ivan IV (1530-1584), archduke of Moscow, coming to power by crowning
himself Tsar at the age of 16 in an effort to unite a weakened and divided
country and reclaim territory held by foreigners. He’s faced with foreign
enemies such as the Tartars, Livonians, and Germans, and faced with internal
strife from the Boyars, a princely family that objected to his despotic
rule as being unprecedented. He further angers the nobles when he goes
against tradition and marries a Russian girl, Anastasia Romanovna (Lyudmila
Tselikovskaya), instead of the usual foreign princess.

There are spectacular black-and-white scenes of the pomp and ceremony
and underlying court intrigue in his coronation, and the passion felt in
his baroque wedding to Anastasia. What follows is his long but successful
campaign against the Tartars in Kazan that is waged by his ally Prince
Kurbsky (Mikhail Nazvanov), whereby the Tsar gets all the credit. Later
the Tsar becomes ill and seems to be dying, but mysteriously recovers and
initiates a campaign against his enemies. The Boyars are singled out for
persecution, as they are suspected of being the conspirators who poisoned
his wife; they are led by his insiduous aunt Euphrosinia (Serafima Birman),
who refuses his order to swear allegiance to his one-year-old son. His
aunt, also, schemes with the warrior prince Kurbsky to betray the Tsar
and back her feeble-minded son Vladimir in his bid to be king. The Tsar
underestimates his enemies and instead of eliminating them continues his
policies to rid Russia of foreigners by waging war in the Baltic with Prince
Kurbsky leading his forces and in the Crimea with a so-called nobody nobleman
Basmanov (Amvrosi Buchma) leading his troops. They both lose in battles
taking place off camera; their loses are blamed on the interference from
the Boyars. To live for another day, the Tsar goes on a self-imposed exile
in Alexandrov, vowing he will return with the petition of the Muscovites
(playing politics that he will get the common-man behind him) and bring
glory and greatness to his rule by eliminating all those who oppose him.
The Tsar plans to regain complete control of Russia by confiscating the
wealth of the aristocratic Boyars and by merging the proletariat into a
loyal and fierce army, receiving supplies from a secret deal he made with
England to adequately arm his fighting forces. 

MALIGNANT FRIDAY
(director:
Arthur Lubin; screenwriters: Curt Siodmak/Eric Taylor; cinematographer:
Woody Bredell; editor: Phil Cahn; delegate: Boris Karloff (Dr. Ernest Sovac),
Stanley Ridges (Prof. George Kingsley/Red Cannon), Bela Lugosi (Marnay),
Anne Gwynee (Jean Sovac), Anne Nagel (Sunny), Virginia Brissac (Margaret
Kingsley); Runtime: 70; Common; 1940)


"The results are a cross-bred bag,
but there's enough entertainment to be gotten from this B-film to make
it a filling watch."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A horror/crime melodrama told in flashback from when Dr. Ernest Sovac
(Karloff), in the opening scene, is going to the electric chair and gives
a friendly reporter witnessing the execution his diary of the events leading
up to the murder he committed.

This film was supposed to star Bela Lugosi in that part and Karloff
was to be the genial English college professor who is transformed into
a notorious gangster after a car accident destroys his brain and he gets
a brain transplant operation by his close doctor friend at Newcastle University.
But Lugosi couldn't pull it off being a surgeon and ends up in a minor
part as the gangster Marnay. A part he also did not distinguish himself
in. The one who steals this film is the British actor Stanley Ridges, who
will play a dual role of the small-town university professor George Kingsley
and the big-city gangster Red Cannon.

The action perks up when the popular Kingsley teaches his last class
and has mixed feelings about transferring to a larger university, already
missing the students he loves to teach. While crossing the street, he gets
caught in the middle of a gang shoot-out and gets run over. The gangster
Red Cannon sustains paralyzing spinal injuries and is taken to the same
hospital as Kingsley. The prognosis for Kingsley is that he will not recover.
Sovac decides to save his friend's life by transplanting part of Cannon's
brain into Kingsley, as Cannon begs the doctor to operate on him and correct
his spinal injury. The operation proves fatal for Red but successful for
Kingsley, except for mood changes as the gentle professor begins having
fits of surliness. In his convalescence, there are times he is not himself.
Sovac also discovers that Cannon hid away $500,000, which he wants to get
his hands on and use that money to build a medical research facility.

Sovac thereby decides to take the professor to New York, using the
excuse that this will help his recovery. But what he is really after, is
to rattle his mind so he thinks like Red and leads him to the hidden money.
Sovac hypnotizes Kingsley into taking on the character of Red Cannon, but
it turns deadly as he starts getting revenge on the gang that was after
him and he also kills a few detectives who question him.

Warning: spoilers in the next three paragraphs.

In New York the two stay in the same hotel room that Red stayed at
and when the professor has flashes that he's Red, he changes facial expressions
and becomes mean like Red. The prof kills off two gang members, Devore
and Kane, and meets his songbird girlfriend Sunny (Nagel) in the nightclub
where she works, remembering everything about her habits and her apartment.
Sunny is freaked out by the whole thing and is no longer attracted to him,
as he thinks and acts like Red but looks like this nerdy professor-type.

Sunny makes a deal with Marnay and his other henchman Miller to let
them follow him to the park where he hid the money; but, he outwits them
and strangles Miller and follows Marnay back to Sunny's apartment, where
he kills both of them.

During this period Kingsley's wife (Brissac) and Sovac's daughter
(Gwynee), worried about his health, come to take the professor back to
Newcastle. The film concludes as Sovac realizes that the experiment went
south, as Kingsley reverts back to being Red while in Newcastle and attacks
Sovac's daughter. Sovac then shoots him and is sentenced to death, which
is the part where the film began.

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"Black Friday" was fast-paced, had a good cast and an interesting
story. It could have probably been more interesting if the story wasn't
so convoluted. It's a thriller that could have used a few more thrills,
suffering mostly from the flat way it was directed. The results are a mixed
bag, but there's enough entertainment to be gotten from this B-film to
make it a satisfying watch.

REVIEWED ON 11/26/2000     GRADE: C+

Mayhap the first Hollywood movie to design a fairy tale of sorts thither globalization, the film conjures a mythic Brit multinational instead of the usual imperial domain, asa basically high caloric magical kingdom.

Possibly the chief Hollywood big to design a fairy rumour of sorts around globalization, Charlie And

The Chocolate Mill conjures a mythic Brit multinational as an alternative of the usual queenly realm, as
a basically high caloric magical kingdom. But this especially Tim Burton fantasy empire is
presided over by Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka, who is less conventional ruler than sorcerer and
impish court jester.

With a kind of villain-made-me-do-it pestilential charm, Burton stuns but not in a million years disappoints for a
pint-sized, while subverting the kid movie style with a vengeance. Depp as confection magnate

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Wonka plays put on fancy dress-up right down to the gloves, as an unevolved, childhood-fixated Michael
Jackson. But the fulsome shake up supernova glam is more a disguise, concealing an enigmatic character recipe
concoction that is equal parts Pied Piper, the Wizard of Oz, and a kid-allergic W.C. Fields, a
contumelious chocolate freak for whom children are a bad after-encounter.
As the legendary inventor of impossible pronounced dreams, Wonka is rumored to have created
chocolate that refuses to melt, sweets that sucking doesn't diminish, and on a less eatable note,
cotton sweets that is sheered off the rumps of pink sheep. Because Wonka feared the theft of his
by stealth sweets formulas, he fired all the workers and made them destitute. After all the priest of
young Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore, who simply recently bonded with Depp in Neverland) finds
produce on a toothpaste works assembly song, is laid off, and then is later rehired to working order the
machines that replaced him.
At the same often, Wonka has imported an obviously more malleable midget Brazilian clan to
serve him in the factory, in what puissance oddly be termed a case of 'in-sourcing.' A single actor,
The sea Roy, incredibly portrays this tint of alike thousands, all digitalized conniving clones and
drones, as warmly as taking time out to do Smack, the early Beatles, 'Doris in administration,' and the
film's invisible narrator.
Shaking things up even further are the kids who show up from around the smashing, with winning
tickets awarding them a trip to Wonka's factory, a prize that most of them pass on later sorely regret.
There is undoubtedly a variety of dubious honors awaiting each of them, for mostly American-bred or
social elite bad character traits liking self-indulgence, selfishness, aggressive competitiveness and
unchecked consumerism. Rhyme kid hooked on video game severity, for instance, can't help
himself from beating up the factory candy.
Combine to all of the above a movie that is such a visually hallucinatory entrance, that you can't help but
wonder what's in the pipe that Burton may have been smoking. His master crafting of fantastical
angles and alternative, weirdly dreamlike perspectives manages giddy and hilarious at the done
at intervals. Charlie And The Chocolate Works is 'the' summer movie to in flagrante delicto and amaze, guilty
pleasures and all. RATING: FOUR.
JUBILANT ENDINGS
Whether in full scale rebellion against Hollywood formula, or at best in search of more original ideas
to distinguish from a legion of fairly alike big budget movies free there, a count of neutral
filmmakers have been in unaccommodating moods lately. So the layer championship for Don Roos' romantic comedy
Happy Endings, alerting as it does to that climactic old-fashioned poison when it comes to making
movies, should be enchanted as anything but that.
While Hollywood has tended to move backwards in time lately, with an fondness fitted prequels and
repetitious reversals, brash indie directors have been embracing illogical narratives. In
movies parallel to Heights and at present Ecstatic Endings, these directors seem determined to subvert the
repeatedly pre-established and schematic narratives of mainstream movies, by replicating in with any luck
imaginative hip ways, the means in which life evolves in all its chaotic messiness on a every day or
to hourly infrastructure. Of course the result may be just that, minimally controlled chaos.
With its primarily episodic affect and more of an in-the-twinkling interactive rather than broad
dramatic pace - obviously in no uncharitable part influenced by TV soaps and reality shows - Happy
Endings required the charisma of its actors just to keep it afloat. Lisa Kudrow is pretty much that
central force as Mamie, a woman traumatized as a teen by giving beginning to her stepbrother's kid
and being forced to put it up in the direction of adoption. Mamie now works in an abortion clinic, where her
enthusiasm for the job under the circumstances is ambivalent, to say the least.
In the meantime, her stepbrother Charley has grown up to be gay, and his lover Gil has donated
his sperm to a lesbian couple who want to have a child. But they've undisputed not to wear and tear his sperm.
Or have they? Then there's the matter of Gil's secret lover, who may or may not be the minister of
gold digger Jude's (Maggie Gyllenhaal) baby. Unless the dad-to-be is his own father (Tom
Arnold). And guesswork whose abortion clinic Jude ends up visiting. Not that Mamie isn't having her
own bad era. A crazed stalker filmmaker insists she superstar in his documentary, if she wants to learn
the whereabouts of the baby she gave up pro adoption.
Any longer while all of this may strike one more than a petite silly on the page, Roos does sooner a be wearing a plan. And a
hardly ever fanciful magic to spread over this flighty romance on the run. Or at least reasonably to make use of that
hackneyed notion of the happy ending, and fashion something fresh and unfledged.