Reviews

Just saw this on DVD. Unbelievably bad, and what a wasted opportunity. Visually it's gorgeous, but the script should have been burned--continuity problems, pacing problems, credibility problems, laughably bad dialog, no characters you care about in the least, it's hard to imagine that a great novelist like William Kennedy and Mario Puzo and Coppola himself were all writers on it and it turned out this bad (maybe that was the problem--too many cooks). What's particularly tragic, in no particular order, is not only the waste of the visuals, but an unbelievable cast (more depth in a cast than 95% of the films I've ever seen), though the leads, except Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne, are weak (Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, Loretta McKee, et al were all to see better days--and James Remar is just scene-chewing bizarre as Dutch Schultz), and a really compelling real-life story, setting, and cast of real-life characters. I guess it's worth watching for the spectacle of seeing a film with that much going for it still go horribly wrong, but it's a pretty agonizing experience. I've heard this one has become more appreciated over time--that doesn't bode well for the evolution of the human race. Me, I watched it, and it was easy to see how this one caused Coppola to go bankrupt.

Saw this film last night in Chicago, and more should see it before it disappears from the theaters (not many people there last night--looks like there's been no pub for the film). Anyway, it's a real insider's perspective on our energy situation and the really nasty scenarios we're headed into if we don't get our act together. But it's not a sermon--it's quite entertaining. Both Christian Slater and Selma Blair (a revelation) are great in it as a principal and an idealistic associate at a white-shoes Wall Street mergers & acquisition firm who are supposed to do due diligence on a merger between a major US oil company and a Russian one against the backdrop of an all-out Middle East oil war and $6.00/hour gas prices. Robert Loggia is perfect as the CEO of the US firm, Kevin Tighe is very convincing as the head of the white-shoes M&A firm, and Colm Feore is terrific as the proverbial corporate snake-in-the-grass out to sabotage Slater's deal.

One of the first multimedia products was developed around this film, which I worked on, so I've probably seen it about 100 times. In the course of creating the disc around it, I had to read a lot of the actual history as well as watching interviews with the real people (except Rosalind, unfortunately, but we did talk to her very fierce and wonderful biographer, who vigorously attacks some of the scenes in the movie on the disc). On the whole, I found it remarkably accurate as these things go (except with respect to some aspects of Franklin's story and character), very rich, very well-acted, well-paced, but I can see (I guess?) how today's 9th grader (the most recent review) might find it terrible and boring, though that's sad...I found this site while looking for a DVD of it--I wish someone would make one...