I am a man who has never tied his own shoes before!

Coming to America

(1988)

I hadn't seen this since the '80s. It's better than I remembered, although with feet more firmly in "romance" than "comedy" the fish-out-of-water jokes play fairly gently. The best scenes on the comedy front are the barbershop riffs performed by Murphy and Murphy; Murphy's Jewish OAP is particularly funny (I seem to recall he got some stick for stereotyping at the time, but there's nothing here that's offensive).

You've also got Arsenio Hall before he went all chat show (and he, like Murphy, has a number of roles). It's funny seeing Eriq Le Salle pre-ER since he was such a humourless bore there, but here he's having a great sleazy time. And Sam Jackson's minor role sees him come on like he's got the Pulp Fiction job 6 years early.

By most accounts Murphy had become a complete tosser by this point in his career, so it's ironic that this is such a restrained, character-led performance. Aside from the vainglorious version of himself he essayed in Bowfinger this is probably his straightest role. It's telling that he dived headfirst into self produced/ written/ starred in vanity-piece Harlem Nights after this (which made half the money, a disaster by Murphy standards), then blindly crashed into a lazy 48 Hrs sequel. When he came back after a 2-year break with Boomerang, it was his best film since the mid-80s (and it's a shame he went from more interesting choices like Boomerang and The Distinguished Gentleman into the easy-yuks family fare of Nutty Professor and Dr Doolittle).

***

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

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I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

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(SPOILERS) There was a time when I’d have made a case for, if not greatness, then Forrest Gump’s unjust dismissal from conversations regarding its merits. To an extent, I still would. Just not nearly so fervently. There’s simply too much going on in the picture to conclude that the manner in which it has generally been received is the end of the story. Tarantino, magnanimous in the face of Oscar defeat, wasn’t entirely wrong when he suggested to Robert Zemeckis that his was a, effectively, subversive movie. Its problem, however, is that it wants to have its cake and eat it.

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(SPOILERS) If nothing else, one has to admire M Night Shyamalan’s willingness to plough ahead regardless with his straight-faced storytelling, taking him into areas that encourage outright rejection or merciless ridicule, with all the concomitant charges of hubris. Reactions to Glass have been mixed at best, but mostly more characteristic of the period he plummeted from his must-see, twist-master pedestal (during the period of The Village and The Happening), which is to say quite scornful. And yet, this is very clearly the story he wanted to tell, so if he undercuts audience expectations and leaves them dissatisfied, it’s most definitely not a result of miscalculation on his part. For my part, while I’d been prepared for a disappointment on the basis of the critical response, I came away very much enjoying the movie, by and large.

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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