Reviews

Doris Day and Cary Grant were my parents favorites as well as mine. To see That Touch Of Mink in 2018 is a bit of a cringing exercise. Two mega stars in their, let's say, mature years, specially Grant, behaving like adolescents it's a bit hard to take. Doris's character shares an apartment with Audrey Meadows - who I believe also needs some professional attention - they sleep in little twin beds. So bizarre to see. But and here is were the Doris Day mystery resides. I believed her unbelievable character, one hundred per cent. Doris Day was 39, Cary Grant 58 but everything I saw in Doris Days was true. That's why, I presume, this is a favorite comedy of the Coen brothers. My niece, who is 15, saw the film with me and her comment was that Cary Grant's and Gig Young's characters should be arrested. Yes, 2018 is not 1962 and films are socio-historical documents.

Maggie Smith was already a major star in her native England and 4 years before she had earned an Oscar nomination in the supporting category for her Desdemona in "Othello" with Laurence Olivier but her Jean Brodie arrived to revolutionize everything, specially her own career. She won an Oscar and her win was considered one of the great upsets in the Academy's history. Watching The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie 48 years after its original release, told me that the Academy got it right then. Her performance is, quite simply, extraordinary. She's not playing a regular human being, no, she's playing a sort of benign monster, full of good intentions but, goodness, she's mad, mad as a hatter and from that point of view, she's truly dangerous. Maggie Smith goes for it, body and soul, Her confrontation of her superior, played magnificently by Celia Johnson, is of such power that I had to rewind immediately and see it again once, twice, three times. Superlative.

How could I possibly have imagined that in this Clint Eastwood film about J Edgar Hoover the driving force is the love Story between Edgar and his life long assistant. That's the only aspect of this sad tale that has any kind of human features. Leonardo Di Caprio who became a hero of mine after "This Boy's Life" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" has shown that it's not enough to work with some of the best living directors but training, classical training is vital in the professional life of an actor. His performance here, for the most part is merely that, a performance. Reciting a laundry list of ex-positional lines is not the shortest cut to our understanding and/or feelings. Damn shame if you ask me. To push this story to the verge of camp is Judi Dench's mother. Somewhere between the mothers in "Psycho" and "Notorious" but not nearly as entertaining. Did Robert Kennedy got the news of his brother's assassination through a call from Hoover? Really? Even if it's true I don't believe it. And that goes for the entire pitiful tale.