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DVD The Door in the Floor
Jeff Bridges demonstrates once again that he is one of the finest actors in film. Ted Cole (Bridges, Seabiscuit, The Big Lebowski), a successful writer/illustrator of children's books, invites a young student named Eddie (Jon Foster) to be his assistant for a summer. Eddie doesn't realize he's being drawn into the middle of a dissolving marriage until Ted's wife Marion (Kim Basinger, L. A. Confidential) invites him into an affair--which Ted both condones and resents. Slowly, Eddie comes to understand the secrets that are tearing the marriage apart. Bridges never shows off; everything he does seems simple, natural, almost unavoidable, but it's also utterly watchable. Whether you like the movie will depend on whether you like John Irving (The Door in the Floor is based on part of his novel A Widow for One Year), but Bridges's performance is undeniable. Also featuring Mimi Rogers (The Rapture). --Bret Fetzer
Why would an actress like Mimi Rogers take such a small, unattractive role in this film and be so naked? Does she need money that bad? Her breasts are super saggy and her pubic hair is unattractively shaved so it seems to reach up to her navel in one line. Why in the world would anyone submit themselves to this on film?
Tom Cruise's first wife has always been a mystery, with her strange, twisted mouth. When she was younger, she got away with it, but it is just sad now.
Then there's a scene where Jeff Bridges has to be nude in a scene with a female child. That must have been tricky to film.
Button-sized review from my Archives
A children's tale is the figure that this movies tries to match. A violent and morbid tale, full of treason and hypocrisy. And for what purpose? It is a funny film in its own way, but after is finished we only receive a strange feeling that weirdness and intellect are empty qualities that doesn't make life better. I don't find much to be happy here, and I'm sorry about that because the movie in itself is a pleasant experience (when is playing).
Oh mother!
I've seen the film and haven't read the book. I am not a John Irving fan. So I'll regard the movie as if the novel "A Widow For One Year" never existed.
I'm not a fan of Kim Basinger either or any of the cast. So I really can't have a benchmark for her acting vein in this movie other than my sincere observation.
I thought the movie was well acted. What bothers me to sleep--even as I write--are the missing frames that would have exposed Basinger's light more sensibly and believably convincing, and possibly mended the bewildering nuances that were built around her character into one fluid landscape, from being the despondent mother of two lost sons to being the reluctant mother to a less-wanted "new child" and in the end diminished to being the nymphomaniac mother who enjoys sex with her husband's teenage assistant who, not by any chance, looks like the dead son, and perhaps redeemed the movie altogether or, at least, justified the surreal transitions.
I suppose I know clinical depression a lot better than Basinger or Tod Williams does. I've been there and Marion obviously had it worse. I didn't lose a child or gain an unwanted one or barely survive a car crash. In any event, it's definitely not about having an occasional family day on the beach or finding some time carnally corrupting an innocent bystander in the chaos--in the mold of a willing teenage boy--forty times over.
Four extremely beautiful people do extremely horrible things to one another in Closer, Mike Nichols' pungent adaptation of Patrick Marber's play that easily marks the Oscar-winning director's best work in years. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who specializes in portraits of strangers; Dan (Jude Law) is an obituary writer struggling to become a novelist; Alice (Natalie Portman) is an American stripper freshly arrived in London after a bad relationship; and Larry (Clive Owen) is a dermatologist who finds love under the most unlikely of circumstances. When their paths cross it's a dizzying supernova of emotions, as Nichols and Marber adroitly construct various scenes out of their lives that pair them again and again in various permutations of passion, heartbreak, anger,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mike Nichols DVD Release Date: Released the 29 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With Sideways, Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Storytelling) has become an unlikely but engaging romantic lead. Struggling novelist and wine connoisseur Miles (Giamatti) takes his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church, Wings) on a wine-tasting tour of California vineyards for a kind of extended bachelor party. Almost immediately, Jack's insatiable need to sow some wild oats before his marriage leads them into double-dates with a rambunctious wine pourer (Sandra Oh, Under the Tuscan Sun) and a recently divorced waitress (Virginia Madsen, The Hot Spot)--and Miles discovers a little hope that he hasn't let himself feel in a long time. Sideways is a modest but finely tuned film; with gentle compassion, it explores the failures, struggles, and... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Alexander Payne DVD Release Date: Released the 05 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Collateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that's just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It's from Michael Mann, after all, and the director's stellar track record with crime thrillers (Thief, Manhunter, and especially Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles, during which he will execute five people in a 10-hour spree. While Stuart Beattie's screenplay deftly combines intimate character study with raw bursts of action (in keeping with Mann's directorial trademark), Foxx does the best work... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tom Cruise - Jamie Foxx - Jada Pinkett Smith - Mark Ruffalo Director(s): Michael Mann DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Jamie Foxx's uncannily accurate performance isn't the only good thing about Ray. Riding high on a wave of Oscar buzz, Foxx proved himself worthy of all the hype by portraying blind R&B legend Ray Charles in a warts-and-all performance that Charles approved shortly before his death in June 2004. Despite a few dramatic embellishments of actual incidents (such as the suggestion that the accidental drowning of Charles's younger brother caused all the inner demons that Charles would battle into adulthood), the film does a remarkable job of summarizing Charles's strengths as a musical innovator and his weaknesses as a philandering heroin addict who recorded some of his best songs while flying high as a kite. Foxx seems to be channeling Charles himself, and as he did with the life of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jamie Foxx - Kerry Washington - Regina King Director(s): Taylor Hackford DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leonardo DiCaprio - Cate Blanchett - Kate Beckinsale Director(s): Martin Scorsese DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction...