GOOD NEW MOVIE: CONCLAVE

Lithgow, Rossellini, Fiennes, Tucci

CONCLAVE (2024). Director: Edward Berger. 

After the Pope passes away, the cardinals gather in Rome and are sequestered so as to begin voting for the new Pope -- the first man to attain the prescribed number of votes, 72, will be the new Pontiff. Front runners include Bellini (Stanley Tucci), who is a liberal who wants to affect serious change to the Church; the conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto); the African Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), whom Bellini fears is even more reactionary than Tedesco; the newcomer Benitez (Carlos Diehz), whom no one was expecting; and Tremblay (John Lithgow of Obsession), who badly wants the job but is suspected of various malfeasances. On this matter Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) may have something to say. Overseeing all of this is Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes of Wrath of the Titans), the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who has no desire to be Pope due to a crisis of faith. But as one scandal after another is unveiled, Lawrence may have no choice. Or does he ...? Meanwhile there are an increasingly serious series of Muslim terrorist attacks. 

Lithgow and Fiennes

Conclave is not without flaws, but it happens to be an altogether admirable picture, with a superb cast, top of the line photography, and tense direction that practically turns the movie into a suspense thriller. That there is all sorts of intrigue going on during the conclave to elect a new pope is certainly not surprising. In fact, those who are expecting a boring picture may be delighted by all the drama and deception. As well, there isn't a performance that doesn't ring true. However, one has to wonder if one simple speech could have so profoundly affected the other cardinals that a certain person is too-easily elected, and making one character intersexual may seem just a trifle precious (but interesting nevertheless). Still, the picture is pretty much a winner all the way.

Verdict: A mostly pleasant surprise. ***1/4. 

FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN

Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange

FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN (8- part 2017 mini-series).

"I can't go into rehab -- I've got the Dean Martin roast!" -- Bette Davis. 

Movie legend Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange of American Horror Story: Asylum) goes to see another movie legend, Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon of The Other Side of Midnight), and offers her the title role in a film version of the novel "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" During filming with director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina of Prick Up Your Ears), long-simmering resentments and rivalries resurface, and while the two women resolve to have a united front against the twin demons of ageism and sexism, jealousies and insecurities only drive them farther apart. It all culminates when Davis gets an Oscar nod and Crawford doesn't ...

The real Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

Well, this incredibly entertaining and absorbing mini-series could have been a campy and horrible mess, but with intelligent writing and some excellent acting it emerges as a very memorable mini-series. (Feud was not available for viewing while Olivia de Havilland sued the production -- she lost -- but it is now back on Amazon Prime: $11.99 to own all eight Standard Definition episodes.) Let's get one thing out of the way. Feud is highly exaggerated and fictionalized, the actual "feud" between the two ladies being very over-stated to say the least. For much of their lives, Davis and Crawford were busy with careers, children and several bad marriages, and probably didn't think about each other all that much. It was the whole Oscar business -- Davis lost while Crawford accepted the coveted statuette on winner Anne Bancroft's behalf -- that undoubtedly started the "feud," and led to unpleasantness on the set of Baby Jane follow-up Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Now, as to the mini-series itself, once you get past the fabrications and dramatic licenses taken, it manages to go beyond its initial premise and explore the struggles of aging women played out against an industry where an old woman is simply considered a 'hag." The feminist angle is explored but never overwhelms the production, nor does it necessarily excuse the ladies' bad behavior, which could often be chalked up to extreme sensitivity on any number of issues. Of the two lead actresses, Lange comes off the best -- the real Crawford was much better-looking than Lange in her nearly grotesque make up, and had much more authority -- but otherwise Lange proves herself a fine actress and gives a commendable performance. Of the two icons, Davis was imitated much more than Crawford, so Sarandon had a dilemma: how to play a real person without coming off like a drag impersonator. Sarandon succeeds in making Davis seem real, but her performance is also a little dull -- for lack of a better word -- in comparison to Lange's. However, both women are good, although neither of them have the kind of intense power, personality or sheer charisma of the real Crawford and Davis. And when they recreate scenes from Baby Jane? neither are as good as the original stars.

Feud benefits from some superb supporting performances: Alfred Molina as Robert Aldrich; Stanley Tucci as Jack Warner; Alison Wright as Aldrich's assistant Pauline Jameson; Molly Price as Aldrich's wife, Harriet; John Rubinstein as George Cukor; and especially Jackie Hoffman as Crawford's maid and companion, "Mamacita," and a scene-stealing Judy Davis [Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows] as Hedda Hopper. On the other hand, Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't remind me of Olivia de Havilland at all (although you would think de Havilland would have been flattered that she was played by a much younger and beautiful actress.) And Kathy Bates makes a rather mediocre Joan Blondell. The sections showing them being interviewed about the feud could easily have been jettisoned.

Dominic Burgess seems to think that because his character, actor Victor Buono, was gay that he should play him more as a stereotype than he was in real life. While Buono is a colorful character, it's strange that Feud completely omits Maidie Norman, the black actress who played the murdered maid Elvira in Baby Jane? and who had a very interesting life -- was it because she was a lifelong Republican? Feud is perhaps more sympathetic to Joan than it is to Bette, and suggests that her daughter Christina's hateful memoirs were not entirely accurate, if at all.

It's interesting that the writers for this series must have done research by poring over bios of the two screen idols -- books such as Fasten Your Seat Belts: The Passionate Life of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography -- but none are given credit, and that even includes an exaggerated tome entitled Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud!

Verdict: Fascinating, amusing, dramatic, even poignant look at old Hollywood and how stars desperately cling to every inch they've gained while at times losing their humanity in the struggle. ***1/2. 

WISEGUY Seasons 2, 3, and 4

Jerry Lewis

WISEGUY Season 2, 3 4. 1988 - 1990.

Wiseguy continued to be a good and watchable series throughout its second season. As already noted, the "Dead Dog Records" arc was not included on the official DVD but was the highlight of the second season if not of the show itself. There were other fine story arcs in season 2, however, such as one in which Jerry Lewis and Ron Silver played father and son in the garment industry who were in conflict with a riveting Stanley Tucci as a gangster. For several of these episodes Anthony Dennison filled in for an injured Ken Wahl, and was fine. There was also a shorter arc with an excellent Fred Dalton Thompson as a politician involved with a white supremacy group. Vinnie's priest brother is murdered, and in a truly unlikely development his mother marries an old retired mafioso well-played by George Petrie (who frequently appeared on The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason). One of the best second season episodes was a stand-alone story in which Frank's wife is dying and he and Vinnie try to figure out how to get the money for an operation for her.Wahl continued to exhibit his star charisma and Jonathan Banks was superb as Frank McPike.

Wiseguy  took a real nose dive in its third season, however. It started off well enough with story arcs in which Vinnie takes his stepfather's place at the table of assorted mafioso -- surely a very strange situation -- and has to contend with assorted rivalries and resentments all the while maintaining his cover. Another story arc in which Vinnie goes to Washington D.C., uncovers all sorts of skulduggery, including a plot to ruin the Japanese economy, and winds up arrested, featured fine performances from Ray Stricklyn and especially Norman Lloyd. Wahl exhibited his versatility by playing Vinnie's father in a stand-alone flashback episode, but another single episode in which an old girlfriend turns out to be a cop and thinks Vinnie is a hood, was left dangling. Instead we got the worst story arc in the series' history, in which Vinnie goes to a small town to investigate a man who seems to hold sway over the citizens like an old time European lord. This man, Volcheck, badly played by Steve Ryan, is obsessed with the film Mr. Sardonicus, which is a hell of a lot more watchable than these truly awful episodes of Wiseguy. The unbelievable story also brought back Roger LoCocco (William Russ) in a completely contrived manner, and had Vinnie freaking out and running off in the middle of an assignment, a development which was even more implausible than the rest of the story arc. The season ended up with Eddie Bracken playing a priest and giving a poor performance that matched the general third-rateness of these episodes. We saw more of Jim Byrnes as Lifeguard, who got a girlfriend.

For the fourth and final season, Vinnie -- or rather Ken Wahl -- ran off for good and left the series. Vinnie Terranova was killed off off-screen, but as his body was not found it may have left the door open for a return which never happened. Instead the new hero of the show was Michael Santana (Steven Bauer) a former prosecutor who winds up working with Frank McPike to take down a powerful man (an excellent Maximilian Shell) who thinks of Michael as a son. These episodes weren't terrible, but it just wasn't the same show. In further changes, both Michael and McPike joined the U.S. Attorney's office when the OCB [Organized Crime Bureau] was dissolved. Yet another change occurred in the final episode which featured a dynamic Billy Dee Williams as a tough high school principal who is asked to run for mayor and wants Santana to help in his campaign. How McPike would have fit in with this, no one knows; the series was canceled and the last three episodes, including the one with Williams, were never telecast. The best fourth season episode, in which Michael's friend Hillary (Cecil Hoffman) tries to bring a company that sells defective plane parts to justice, was also never aired. Bauer, Banks and Hoffman gave very good performances, however, and there was also nice work from Michael Learned as Hillary's mother and Fredric Lehne as lawyer Winston Chambers.

Verdict: Season 2: ***1/2. Season 3: **1/2. Season 4: **1/2.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS (2004). Director: Stephen Hopkins. Based on the biography by Roger Lewis. An Australian film shown on HBO in the U.S.

This biopic skips over most of Sellers' early life and really begins with him winning the British Academy Award. But a bigger problem is that director Hopkins eschews a sensible narrative style and has Sellers [as played by Geoffrey Rush] speaking directly to the audience, or dressing up and playing his wife at one point and his mother at another. This approach doesn't help the movie and certainly doesn't help us understand Peter Sellers. Emily Watson and Charlize Theron play the wives, Ann and Britt [Ekland]; John  Lithgow is Blake Edwards and Stanley Tucci is Stanley Kubrick. Miriam Margoyles does a nice job as Sellers' loving mother, Peg, as does James Bentley as her grandson, Michael. In its attempt to celebrate a great artist yet condemn him as kind of a prick, the movie succeeds in doing neither. Rush is fine, but the movie quickly becomes tedious. Who needs reproductions of Sellers' movies when we can see the real things for ourselves? And Rush was seen to better advantage in The King's Speech, a far better picture than this. Heck, Green Lantern, in which Rush only contributed a voice, is better than this.

Verdict: All you need to know about Sellers is in his movies. **.

BURLESQUE

BURLESQUE (2010). Writer/director: Steve Antin.

"How many times have I held your head over the toilet bowl while you threw up everything but your memories?"

Small town waitress Ali (Christina Aguilera), with the usual show biz dreams, makes her way to L.A. and discovers a club called Burlesque run by Tess (Cher), a world-weary long-time performer. Tess can't pay her bills, and her ex (Peter Gallagher) wants her to sell out to the smarmy developer, Marcus (Eric Dane). Meanwhile Ali is befriended by Jack (Cam Gigaridet), a bartender at the club who helps her get a job there, even as she earns the enmity of jealous Nikki (Kristen Bell), a top-billed performer on the skids. Ali stops waitressing at Burlesque once Tess hears how well she can sing, and she begins a affair with Jack who already has a fiancee -- and, frankly, who the hell cares? Initially colorful and entertaining, Burlesque is so utterly superficial, the characters so one-dimensional, that after awhile it just becomes boring -- a long rock video we've all seen before. Cher sings two dynamic numbers, the title tune and "The Last of Me," while Aguilera, a solid professional, also struts her considerable stuff in more than one number. The eternally un-aging 65-year-old Cher looks fine and acts well, but had she and the film acknowledged her senior citizen status [not that that means she can't look sexy] it might have made for a movie with a little more substance. The other actors, including reliable Stanley Tucci as the club's gay manager, are all fine. When all is said and done, this is really Aguilera's movie, with Cher in a supporting role.

Verdict: Burlesque leaves no show business cliche unturned. **.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006). Director: David Frankel.

A young woman who wants to become a serious journalist inexplicably goes to work for a slick fashion magazine run by the nearly inhuman Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), whose personal assistant she becomes. Priestly emerges as so unpleasant that you can't understand it when the young lady develops any sympathy for her, but Miranda saves her worst loathsomeness for afterward, selling out a supposed friend to save herself. This movie holds the attention in a limited way, but is distinctly minor and not especially funny. Streep isn't bad, Anne Hathaway offers a winning performance as her assistant, and Stanley Tucci plays the stereotypical gay-guy-in-fashion as well as anyone could. [In a sadly hilarious moment, Tucci's character seems to compare fashion designers with the likes of great artists such as Shakespeare or Wagner -- although he doesn't mention those particular names.] A big problem with the picture is that in the first half everyone snickers at Hathaway's un-chic fashion sense, but absolutely nobody notices how good-looking she is, which makes little sense. Since most of the characters are superficial and a bit dumb, this forgettable trifle does little to stimulate the mind or anything else.

Verdict: Instantly disposable. **.