Reviews by JxSxPx

I find it ironic that the notoriously selective Leonardo DiCaprio within such a short amount of time picked two films with so much in common on the surface level. Both feature men wracked with guilt and emotional scarring that is barely contained below the surface. Both feature men dealing with puzzling memories of dead wives and long-lost children. Both feature men going into our dreams and psychosis to make sense of the outer realm. Inception is the better of the two, and most likely the one that is going to go into essential status, Shutter Island is a terrifically fun locked-in-an-asylum psychological thriller. It’s nowhere near the artistic level of DiCaprio’s and Martin Scorsese’s previous efforts, but it is a fantastic example of genre filmmaking.

From the opening musical notes to the stark, sometimes blinding, cinematography, doom, gloom and ominous to be expressed through characterization, dialogue and actions instead of absurdly loud, ponderous, nauseous action scenes. Leave it to a filmmaker from a previous generation to remember these basics of effective storytelling. And that is probably the thing that I appreciated the most about Shutter Island. It relied on telling a story well instead of getting from plot point A to B with as many explosions as possible. The story itself I found to be fairly predictable, but I didn’t mind. I was enthralled by how well it was done, how good each performance is, how detailed and period specific each costume, set and prop is. A lot of love and care went into this movie, and it shows through in each frame. It might not be a classic, but it’s very solid.

And the more I view the work of Michelle Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio, the more enraptured I become of their talents. Their ranges are impressive and their techniques couldn’t be more different. DiCaprio is the heir-apparent to the Method thrones of such towering figures as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. His ability to convey such complicated emotions, to not care about looking like hell, to sweat, stammer, be unlikable to the audience is astounding. He does whatever is right for the character, and he is always interesting to watch. And Michelle Williams has grown to be a minimalist actress who seems to be emotions rather than convey them. She embodies her characters with an all-encompassing focus and drive that’s daunting to think about attempting. I look forward to her work in My Week With Marilyn because of this tremendous amount of subtle work. If any actress could do proper justice to Monroe’s legacy, it is Williams, despite not looking much like her subject.

I’ve heard and read some reviews which indicate that the largeness of some of the films choices is too much for them. I disagree. We’re in a movie which follows a character with deep psychological trauma, scars upon scars which we cannot see or even imagine. Things have not healed, nor will they ever. I feel like to amp up the drama, atmospherics and claustrophobia to near operatic levels is a smart choice to help put us inside of his head. We’re not dealing with someone who came out of the WWII trenches completely mentally or emotionally intact.

Despite being unfaithful to the letter of the source novel, the 1931 film version of Frankenstein attributed the spirit correctly. In fact, it even took plot elements and the overall spirit of the novel and crafted a sequel which topped the predecessor. (That would be The Bride of Frankenstein, a misnomer, sure, but still one of the most essential films of all-time.) In the 90s, Universal was eager to reinvigorate their long-dead monster movie properties. And why not? With the rise of the Merchant-Ivory literary productions throughout the end of the previous decade, literary adaptations became all the rage. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a visually striking re-imaging of the novel as an AIDS-era parable full of sex, violence, surrealistic imagery pitched at an operatic fervor. It wasn’t a complete masterpiece, but I think it’s the best adaptation of the novel (and it’s one of my favorite films).

All of this laid the groundwork for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It was produced by Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the chosen director was Kenneth Branagh. It had made some flawed but solid Shakespearean adaptation at this time, but this was still an odd choice. And probably the film’s most fatal blow as one thing becomes increasingly clear as each thunderous minute passes: Branagh is so in over-his-head that he decided to pitch everything extremely loudly.

The story is old hat by now, and I won’t bother to repeat it here. But since there have been so many filmic interpretations of the original novel by this point, the material has plenty of room to bring something new, fresh and to stretch it out to explore it from a different side. What did Branagh decide to do? Try to film it with both a very simplistic, realistic approach and to also combine that with an overheated sound and visual palette. The two styles don’t work. I know that I’ve said it before about action-heavy films which leave us with limp characterizations, but this is a textbook example of a stuffy literary adaptation succumbing to the same thing: it is a sound and fury which signifies nothing.

The only character and performance which truly excites the film and gives it a spark of life is Robert De Niro as the creature. Unfortunately, much like in the original novel, Frankenstein follows the creature’s inventor, as he is the titular character. But the main problem with this version of Frankenstein is quite simple: a case of miscasting. In a moment of hubris (snark – I admit) Branagh cast himself as the young, naïve but brilliant scientist who becomes obsessed with removing death from this world at any cost. Branagh is both too old and too in love with himself to see the errors of his choices in both how he plays the role and how the frames things. So while De Niro is giving a tender, fractured and deeply intelligent reading of the creature, Branagh is playing to the cheap seats as manically as possible. De Niro’s character is given quiet moments of introspection and philosophical doubt, and he seeks to soothe his soul, if he has one. In a better film, De Niro’s performance would be spoken of with the same energy as Karloff’s. But his performance is swallowed whole by the sheer ridiculousness of everything.

Take for instance the creature’s troubled birth. Frankenstein’s laboratory looks like something only a team of special effects engineers could properly operate and maintain, but we’ve been asked to believe that he can do it on his own. Through a series of heated up womb-like devices, a giant ovarian sack filled with embryonic fluid and electric eels, and random homoeroticism, the creature is given life. For some reason Frankenstein is shirtless and sweaty, and once he releases the creature from the heated up tomb that birthed it, they wrestle around on the floor in sticky fluids. It sounds ludicrous and it is. The entire film is filmed with situations and set pieces like this. They don’t leave you enthralled in the narrative but leave you asking questions like “Why is he shirtless?” or “Why is this being played so largely? I should be sad but I’m trying not to laugh.”

And, allegedly, during the making of this film Coppola and Branagh came to a disagreement about several things, but one in particular I wish had been taken to heart. Yes, the novel begins and ends with Frankenstein being found in an Artic expedition. But that doesn’t mean that the movie needs to as well. Editing is an important part of the adaptation process, and this version of Frankenstein could have used more. A more discerning eye could see that the prologue and epilogue add nothing that wasn’t already explored during the story proper. They are unnecessary bits which just hammer over our heads the films major themes. But that is a major problem with the film overall. No story point or character decision comes without being signaled as obtusely as possible. It’s overheated melodrama which quickly descends into campy hysteria. There’s nothing sexy, frightening, engaging, disturbing, or anything really about this movie. Not after we’ve been beaten over the head with it so repeatedly.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein isn’t totally inept though. The makeup is wonderful, and Helena Bonham Carter, given little to do but pout for much of the film, nails a scene late in the film. It’s one of the best scenes in the film, and I won’t spoil what happens in it exactly other than it takes the idea of the bride and twists it around into something much darker. But other than these few things, I found this film hard to sit through. To the point where I started to doze off, felt like I was missing nothing major or interesting, and didn’t bother to rewatch what I zoned out on. And if that doesn’t wrap up my intense dislike for this film in a nice little bow, I don’t know what else would.

(For the record, this was my second viewing of the film. I decided to rewatch it after seeing that it was available for streaming and reading a glowing review from one of Roger Ebert’s foreign correspondents.)

I know what you’re thinking: Cher is an Academy Award winner…for acting. On paper, yes, it does sound fairly odd. After all, Cher is mostly known as a camp-driven diva that embraces her inner drag queen and crafts pop music that only she could make work. Nothing about that screams Serious Actress. But that’s the thing about Cher. Just when you think that you’ve got her figured out, she pulls another trick out of her sleeve and you can’t do much but drop your jaw and applaud in amazement. And what an actress Cher is! Sure, she had made a few films before Moonstruck, but this was the film that proved her outstanding performances in Mask and Silkwood were no fluke.

And, yes, Cher proved that she was a Serious Actress by winning an Oscar for this film – a romantic comedy no less! One could possibly count the amount of times that an actress has won an Oscar for a romantic comedy on one hand. It is no easy feat to win one of those buggers in general, but twice as hard for a comedic performance. And her performance is quiet, tender, tough and believable. She deglams, well as much as Cher is willing to deglam, which basically consists of letting her grey hairs grow in, adopting a nasal New Yawk accent and wearing ill-fitting and dowdy clothing. When she first appears we think for a minute “Hey, there’s Cher!” and then she starts to go about her character’s business and opens her mouth to talk. And then we think “I like this Loretta, she’s a pistol.” All of this occurs within the first few minutes of the film. And a pistol she is, armed with a sharp wit and tart tongue, she sees everything as it really is and calls everyone out on their bullshit.

And while the movie may be a sweet romantic comedy at its core, there is much bullshit going on between the characters. Without it, we wouldn’t have any driving force to the plot. But the film doesn’t follow just Loretta; we follow the rest of her family members and their romantic entanglements. Her parents marriage, her father’s affair, her aunt and uncle’s long-standing romance, her fiancé, her romantic relationship with his brother, and her mother’s possible affair.

Each of these romances and near-romances are given as much time as needed to completely tell their story. Sometimes we get an entire story in just one scene. Like a wonderful scene between her aunt and uncle. The moon is full and bright, and her aunt and uncle awake from their sleep. They look at each other with love, tenderness and a yearning that can only be described as true love. In an especially sweet moment her aunt tells her uncle, “You know, in that light, with that expression on your face, you look about 25 years old.” And we sense a full life having been lived together, very happily.

There is even the spark of true love between her parents, yes, even in spite of the affair. Her mother, Olympia Dukakis in a performance that shows us where Loretta gets her tart tongue and ability to see through it all, tells her husband that no matter what he does, he’s going to die just like everybody else. It may seem strange, but it’s her way of telling him that she knows about the affair, she wants him to end it, and there’s no sense of keeping up the charade any longer. He looks at her in such a way that you can read everything in his succinct response: “Thank you, Rose.” Her father is played by Vincent Gardenia, and his performance is just as wonderful as the ones delivered by Dukakis and Cher. Dukakis won the Supporting Actress Oscar while Gardenia was nominated but lost to Sean Connery.

But our main relationship is the love triangle between Cher, Nicolas Cage and Danny Aiello. Cage and Aiello are the estranged brothers that Cher is trying to reunite before she marries Aiello. She wants Cage to come to the wedding since it would mean so much to Aiello and to herself. He refuses, very empathically, and tells her that there is no way in hell that they are going to be reunited anytime soon. The chemistry between Cage and Cher starts to spark right there and by the time they wind up in Cage’s apartment, their relationship has been set ablaze. Their torrid and morally questionable romance is the kind of stuff that poetry, great novels and swoon-worthy love lyrics are made of. The kind of transforming meeting that we believe can only happen in the movies.

She dyes her hair, she dresses up, puts on makeup, she outgrows her self-imposed spinsterhood and mourning-widow behavior (she was previously married, but he died in an auto accident years before this story starts). Their romance is equal parts opera (which he favors) and a kind of earthy, spicy New York-Italian charm that is perfectly summarized by Dean Martin constantly playing over the soundtrack.

The way that all of these characters weave in and out is a wonderful testament to the construction of the screenplay. Each given a satisfactory payoff, great lines and full development as rich and textured characters with histories, dreams and goals to accomplish both within the confines of this story and within their larger lives. It never dips into drama, even when dealing with a dying mother in Italy and her parent’s martial troubles, and always remains an immensely hilarious and charming romance. Not just romantic love, but the love that exists within a familial unit. Nor does it ever dip into false sentimentality, although there is a true sweetness and light about it. Moonstruck came out the same year that I was born. I regret that it took me nearly twenty-four-years to finally watch it. I regret that so few romantic comedies forsake the gentleness of this movie in favor of loud, raunchy humor. That they break their characters down into quirks and not people, that all of the harpies masquerading as career women in them must be broken off from thinking/working adults and into cock-hungry dim bulbs. And that they must start life off as shrill harpies full of neurotic tics and no real intelligence or personality. Not that any female character in a romantic comedy has been as smart, tough, or fully-realized as Loretta for quite some time.

King Kong, the original 1933 film, is one of my favorite movies. It’s a breathless action-adventure film filled with the stuff of dreams and nightmares made fully realized. And it accomplished something that few special effects heavy films can lay claim to: it gave its central creation, a creature that is only a puppet moved one frame at a time, a real soul. There is a naïve sense of wonder, of rollicking adventure delivered at a break-neck speed. The movie barely stops long enough for us to gasp before we’re running into our next monster battle, our next rampage, and our next big thrill. It laid the groundwork for this 2003 remake…which never should have been made.

Yes, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy can lay claim that it created a character out of special effects and gave him a soul, and that character is obviously Gollum, but that doesn’t mean that Kong needed to be reimagined in our digital age. Did Peter Jackson learn nothing from the truly atrocious 70s remake?

It’s plain as day to the modern eye that the original Kong is nothing but a furry puppet, but there is something so charismatic about the animation of that puppet that retains its magical power. Jackson’s Kong is a visual wonder, but I was always aware that I was watching an impressive technological achievement. I can’t pin-point the exact reason for this, but I think it has to do with the design of the creatures. Each one is embellished yet rendered in an ultra-realistic style. We clearly know that a gorilla’s proportions (no matter how out-sized) will never reach the distortions of Kong. We also know that the dinosaurs on Skull Island are all wrong, scientifically speaking. But we see that they’ve been animated to move and be as textured as real as possible. It creates a great distance.

There is also the problem of length. At three hours long, Jackson hasn’t edited anything out of his storyline. Which is unfortunate because somewhere within this bloated monster of a movie is a great one wanting to come out. As it stands, it’s only good by half. Told in three acts at an hour each, some serious revising needed to be done. I don’t need an hour’s worth of explanation about our three main characters. What the first movie economically did in about twenty minutes, this one takes around sixty. And we’re dealing with the same handful of characters for the first two-thirds of the film. And what happens once we get back to New York? We’re never given any closure, updates or information about the fates of our survivors. I’ve just spent two hours with these characters, and you can’t continue on their story? Why introduce characters if you’re not going to satisfactorily conclude their plot line? It’s a lazy writing mistake from a writer-director given carte blanche over a passion project.

Ego is the true enemy of the version of Kong and his one-sided love affair. The sluggish paces of first and last thirds of the film aren’t their only problems. Numerous scenes go nowhere and add nothing to the overall storyline. A scene where Kong takes Anne ice skating is unintentional hilarious when it is supposed to be touching and tender. It is completely and utterly unnecessary.

And fresh off the operatic sword-and-sorcery epicness of Rings, Jackson has mistaken that everything is better with a bigger scale. Kong was a simplistic story. A fairy tale story of a beast that loved a beauty that did not love him back, but filled with thrills and chills. That Anne loves the beast in this version is but a symptom of its problems. The great tragedy of the original King Kong, and it was a tragedy in the end, was that the beast so fiercely protected and sought out Anne while all she wanted to do was run in the other direction and get as far away from him as possible. But who wouldn’t? A giant gorilla has chosen you for its affections. These bells and whistles turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear.

This goes into the visuals as well as the story. Why is so much of this movie a CGI-generated mess? Blue lines are visible around the actors during scenes set during sunset. Characters try valiantly to interact with shrubbery and jungle floral and fauna that are never really there. In Rings and the original Kong these things mesh seamlessly. As wonderful as some of it looks some of it also looks embarrassingly cheap.

Notice that I have said nothing of the actors. Well, it’s hard to create a fully realized performance in a film that puts razzle-dazzle on center stage. And some actors are also just horrendously miscast. Adrien Brody as our romantic action hero? It’s all wrong. Jack Black as our Orson Welles stylized director? Stick to juvenile comedies dear. Colin Hanks and Jamie Bell are wasted in thankless roles. As is Kyle Chandler, but at least he looks like he’s trying to have a good time. Evan Park is given a thankless role as the racist trope of moralizing black man who’s among the first to die. At least in 1933 that kind of stuff was expected. And Naomi Watts tries her best to make the whole thing float and give it some kind of emotion, but she’s just a cog in Jackson’s epic masturbatory film construct. And Andy Serkis’ performance as Kong pales in comparison to his work as Gollum. Kong here is a 99% CGI creation. None of Serkis’ performance shines through, so what was the point of hiring him in the first place?

Jackson should consider scaling back with future films (The Hobbit withstanding), because of this visual and aural stimuli is too much for some stories. Like this one. He had a huge hit with Rings, deservedly so, and he cleaned up at the Oscars for that trilogies grand finale, again, deservedly so. But he just didn’t know when to quit.

Something went wrong with this adaptation of a long un-produced Tennessee Williams script. Could it be the casting? The limp and uninspired direction? The fact that the script was undercooked and needed more rewrites to really be something? It was everything. But there's still a small spark of what could have been buried underneath the southern heat and genteel society parties. It comes in the form of Ellen Burstyn as Miss Addie, a severely disabled woman thanks to a history of opium addiction and a series of strokes. I wanted to know more about her history. Our main heroine, Fisher Willow, seems so small compared to her. Addie has a spark, a verve and nerve that the greatest of Williams' heroines possess, even as they descend into madness, poverty, or both. Burstyn plays the role for everything that it is worth and adds the neurotic, eccentric, wonderfully alive despite the encroaching darkness essence that thrives in the best of Williams.

But Fisher Willow could have had something in her too, if they had found a better actress. Bryce Dallas Howard may have many strengths as an actress, but playing a brittle, neurotic, rebellious, high-strung, vainglorious, tough Southern belle isn't one of them. The original choice for the role, Lindsay Lohan before she descended into the drug-and-alcohol fueled madness that Blanche DuBois knows all about, would have been much better. While Lohan has yet to truly show a remarkable amount of life or talent as an actress, she has something brittle, unhinged and destructive about her. That would have made all the difference.

While never truly awful, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is frequently just limp. Could a few more rounds of rewriting have saved this story? Maybe. Something would have needed to be done about the climatic Halloween party which comprises most of the film's running time. The characters never really mesh together. Think of the way that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof created a claustrophobic family life that had the air practically tasting of secrets. Or the way that The Glass Menagerie played so lucidly with guilt, memories, parent-driven neurosis, and a kind of sick co-dependence between mother and children. The way outsiders broke into those comfortably tense settings and ripped out the vault door for the secrets and lies to come tumbling out, that was what made them so dramatically and artistically solid. The genteel society in this film is nothing but a bunch of stock players. Characters only talk when it's necessary. There's no true weight or feeling to the group that has assembled so. They glare at Willow because they must, but never because we truly believe in the conflict. As a Williams fan, I am glad that I watched it. But by the end I just wanted to watch Streetcar, Suddenly, Last Summer, or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof even more.

Poor Richard Todd and Joan Collins. I don't think that anyone warned them about Bette Davis when she gets into full-on diva mode. In a performance that screams "DRAG QUEEN!," Davis snaps out consonants, shows off a gruff wit, swishes her wrists and chews the scenery. Her Queen Elizabeth is perfectly queenly, but not entirely in the royal sense. Davis probably this knew film was a dud and just wanted to have some fun. And fun is the perfect word to describe her insane performance. Lady-boys in West Hollywood could learn a few tricks from her in this movie. Complete with a scene of pure grotesquery: Davis reveals her bald head towards the end of the film. No one loved to look old, diseased, or grotesque as much as Davis. She had no real interest in beauty, glamor, or being a movie star.

But Davis is really more of a supporting player to Richard Todd and Joan Collins as Sir Walter Raleigh and the lady-in-waiting he falls in love with. Their romance was worthy of a film, since it was illegal and treacherous at the time. But the direction is incompetent, the script is limp, and our two leads sure do look attractive. Collins mistakes cleavage revealing costumes and breathy coos in the Queen's English as acting. The less said about Richard Todd the better. Between Davis' classic entrance and her big reveal is pure filler. If Davis isn't on-screen, The Virgin Queen is a prudent bore.

Ginger Rogers' name usually gets brought up and the name Fred Astaire quickly precedes or follows it. But she made more movies without Astaire than she did with him. And she existed in films before him, nor was she really his first partner. Just his best. Nowadays she's practically known for just her musical career, but in Kitty Foyle she proves that her lone Oscar nomination and win was no fluke. There was always something about her that didn't fit the mold of glamorous divas of the era like it did so effortlessly on, say, Joan Crawford or Greta Garbo. Rogers looked like the chorus girl who made good. Crawford might have played numerous shops girls who took the world by storm, but Rogers actually looked the part.

It's a pity that Kitty Foyle isn't a better movie. It's far too long and needed some serious edits to tighten up the pace, the story, and remove many of the repetitive scenes that bog it down. How many times do I have to see her rich-boy lover come into conflict with her blue collar roots and his white collar background? How many times do I have to see her in the wrap around segments talking to herself in the mirror, debating whether or not she should run off with the dubious rich-boy or the nice-guy doctor? Too damn many.

And that completely unnecessary intro which traces the woman's suffrage movement? Cut it. It's distracting. I get it, women went from "happy" home-makers to working girls during the WWII era. (But they quickly went right back into the kitchen after it was all over, well most of them.) It's bizarre and pure padding. There's also something that leaves a nasty after-taste in the mouth once it is over. Notice how lovingly, brightly the woman is filmed during the first part and how harshly she is by the end? Perhaps the filmmakers are trying to send a not-so-subtle message that all women who dare to do something other than raise kids and take care of their husbands and homes are doomed to spinsterhood and bad lighting? It comes across as anti-feminist. And as a pro-rights, pro-peace, humanist, I find it offensive.

What is refreshing is to see a woman in the main role as the primary motivator in both of her romantic dalliances, her social climbing, and life choices. Rogers is stubborn, street-smart, tough and driven. When her rich-boy's family wants to send her to finishing school, she walks out on him knowing full well that this is but the first of many arguments they are bound of have about their different social levels. And credit must be given for a film made during this era that doesn't shy away from pre-martial sex, pregnancy out-of-wedlock and miscarriages. It's a meaty part, and could have been a classic women's picture if given the right editing.

While this may sound terribly melodramatic, and much of it is, it never really plays out that way. Rogers keeps everything very subdued and quiet in her performance. After her miscarriage, any scenes where she's involved with children during the present day take on a new resonance. She's subtle and disarming in her central role and keeps the movie going as best she can. I wonder what she could have done with a role like Mildred Pierce, if she had only been given the chance.

If Bruce W. Timm couldn't produce something interesting, character-orientated and captivating about Green Lantern, a character with a rich mythology but a difficult one to translate properly, in the usually stellar animated films that DC and Warner Brother's produce...what does this mean for the upcoming live action one? Oi vey.

It's not that First Flight is bad. It's that it seems more interested in creating big, loud, ponderous action sequences than it is in creating characters, a more engaging plot, or giving the viewers a reason to care about anything that happens. Green Lantern's origin is given five minutes of screen time before he is whisked away to outer space. Hal Jordan's response? Like he's been doing for years. Decades even. Huh? That makes no sense. He's a pilot who's gone from mere mortal to intergalactic police squadron within minutes, and he walks around nonchalant and like it's been the norm for his life for about a decade. I call bullshit on that. Where's the joy in discovery? Where's the sense of overwhelming power as a member of the Lantern corps, yet complete insignificance in the universe as a human being? There's plenty of wasted opportunity here for mining into Jordan's character. I had no reason to care about him, or any of the nameless members of the Corps. Some I knew from the comics and animated series, and some were totally foreign to me. We couldn't spend some time getting to know them? The only one we truly get to know is Sinestro. And if you couldn't figure out that he was the bad guy from the name alone, I'd like for you to meet Marvel's Dr. Victor Von Doom.

Another problem is the animation. The combination of hand-drawn animation and computer graphics can be very well. Wonder Woman and both of the Justice League movies attest to that. It's not done well here. The two styles never mesh well, and the differences in shading, color, texture and line quality can be fairly startling at times. It looks cheap. And the same could be said about the hand-drawn animation. Batman/Superman: Apocalypse, while still the worst of the bunch, was beautifully drawn. I'll give it that much, even if I did have problems with the character designs. First Flight has two obvious design elements: if they're not one of the main characters - they get no detail work. If they're a main character - a lot of time, effort and care is put into them. It's distracting. Especially towards the end as we get into large groups of characters fighting.

I expect more from these films. Sure, they started out rough with Superman: Doomsday, but they improved quickly. Sometimes they nail it out of the ballpark, and sometimes they just hover at very good. I'm not asking for greatness every time. But I am asking for more effort, care and artistry to be placed into every facet of the product in each of these films. First Flight is not up to par.

What happened to Siouxsie Sioux? The Viking warrior woman of punk rock. The woman who wore fetish gear with the same shrug and indifference that most people wear jeans and a t-shirt. On her first solo album, Mantaray, she reveals herself to really be an off-kilter pop diva. Huh? If it wasn't for the poor studio musicians and dated arrangements this album might have been really something.

The thunderous intro of "Into a Swan," the first song and the best, would lead the listener into believing that age has not calmed her, and that she is going to prove that she is love child of Nico and Shirley Bassey. The industrial dirge, where the Stooges and Trent Reznor bump uglies, combines beautifully with Siouxsie's one-of-a-kind voice. She frequently sounds like the mad banshee of the band that brought her to fame. Her upper register is gone, but that low growl and ferocity remain. It is an impressive start, but sadly the only true time that everything comes together so perfectly.

The other tracks come very close to matching it, such as "Loveless," but it's the strings-laden ballads that bog down the album. "Heaven and Alchemy" is a great song title with some wince-inducing lyrics. It's too sappy for Siouxsie to truly nail. She might be aiming for confessionals on some of these tracks, but Siouxsie is always at her best when she's dressing herself up in outlandish story lines and characters within her songs.

The energy and fire is there, but the Siouxsie that is present needed a stronger band behind her. She also needed someone to tell her that an overly glossy Next Top Model-esque cover isn't the best choice for your debut album as a solo singer. I find Mantaray mostly frustrating for what it could have been. I blame that opening salvo.

DOWNLOAD: "Into a Swan"

Nothing much truly happens in The Whales of August, but it's a small and touching tribute to some of the last remaining powerhouses of the earliest years in Hollywood's Golden Age. Each of the four stars debuted sometime between the silent era and the early 50s. The story is truly secondary to the audience's ability to step back and look at the stars of The Wind and All About Eve one last time before they gave us one last fade to black in film.

The basic plot is that Gish and Davis play elderly sisters who return to their summer home in Maine, for possibly the last time, and argue over issues big and small. Davis is ready to lie down into a casket and call it a wrap, Gish has energy and a fiery passion to continue on until she finally has to stop. They clash over this. Vincent Price plays a Russian, charming, polite and flirtatious with the two sisters, but always the definition of a gentleman. Gish sees one last chance for love, Davis sees a blowhard who is wasting his time. They clash. Ann Sothern is their life-long friend, who is tart-tongued and boisterous. The sisters clash about her, as they always have. (For me, Sothern is the most entertaining performance in the film.)

The sisters love each other, but they just can't see eye-to-eye like only siblings can. They aren't friends, but they aren't enemies. They've settled into a life of companionship and friendly war. It is duty that keeps Gish around as Davis' caretaker. Their arguments have more to do with personality clashes and wanting to dominate then in anything they're truly upset about. But they still support and love each other.

It's hard not to get nostalgic about these luminous and magical stars while watching Whales of August. Who wouldn't get emotional while watching Gish let her hair down, star longingly at a photo of her dead husband and deliver a sad monologue about how she still loves him and he's no longer around? It's not great or mild surprise that she delivers so beautifully in close-up. As Davis was reported to have said on the set "she invented them." And Davis looks every bit the tough and strong stock that she describes their characters as. She plays a blind woman, but she never wants our empathy or sympathy for being blind. But when she discovers that Gish was quietly and emotionally celebrating her anniversary with her dead husband, she congratulates them and smiles lovingly at her. The smartest thing the director did was turn the camera on and stay out of their way.