Reviews

I'm sorry I didn't re-read the book right before seeing this, but at least I've read the entire six books so far (and seen all the previous movies), so I have a fairly good knowledge of the plot. If I didn't, I would have found this movie completely incomprehensible. It's a series of scenes out of the book, and some of them are quite amusing, but they are simply strung together without any real connecting thread.

For a movie titled "Order of the Phoenix," I would personally have liked to have seen a little more of the Order. I didn't even find it very clear from the movie whether Minerva McGonagall was a member of the Order, and I'd have liked to have seen a stronger development of the relationship between Harry and Sirius, although the good performance by Gary Oldman (of whom I'm not otherwise all that big a fan) does help compensate for any weakness in the script.

Realistically, I may be being a little too harsh, considering that the book is over 800 pages and some condensation had to be made, but some things seem to have been left in because they were cute (like the Weasley twins' magic performance during the O.W.L.S.) even though they weren't essential to the main story and wasted time that could have been better spent developing the central elements of the story.

If you see this theatrically, try to see it in an IMAX theater, which is an interesting experience, but otherwise you might want to wait for the DVD release. But most of all, know the story in advance, or you'll really have trouble following this movie. It just doesn't equal its four predecessor movies for a coherent storyline.

Like a lot of "political" movies (including another of Henry Fonda's, "Advise and Consent"), this one just hasn't aged well. It has a roman-a-clef aspect to it, with Fonda playing the "Adlai Stevenson indecisive type" and Cliff Robertson as the "Richard Nixon cut-throat type" and it's very much a period piece.

I might have ranked it lower, but I give it a 5/10 for a really good (but all too short) performance by Ann Sothern as "Sue Ellen Gamadge," a National Committeewoman and charmingly conniving back-room wheeler-dealer. It's not one of Ann's great performances (she's got too little screen time), but she shows that talent of hers for adding a comic touch to a dramatic character without destroying the drama, as she did most famously in "The Whales of August."

All of the performances in "The Best Man" are decent, but this certainly isn't one of Henry Fonda's great movies. Still, it's worth watching at least by any fan of Ann Sothern who really wants to see an example of the breadth of her acting talent.

I'm rating this a FIVE, but I'd probably rate it a good deal lower (probably more like a TWO) if I weren't such a fan of Jennifer Burns. It's certainly not one of the greatest movies of all time, but it's definitely a lot better than hard-core sci-fi (and especially Asimov) fans give it credit for. For myself personally, I'm very definitely not a fan of sci-fi films and got this one only because of Jennifer, whom I really got a kick out of in the "Josh Kirby: Time Warrior" series. I'm also not at all a fan of sci-fi short stories, only of full-length novels, and I haven't read "Nightfall" or any other Asimov story though I have read all of his novels.

"Nightfall" is one of the most popular sci-fi short stories of all time (and probably the most popular), so it's to be expected that Asimov fans would be disappointed in this low-budget production which does have many of the faults that its critics point out. On the other hand, if you're like me and you've never read the short story then you'll probably find this movie reasonably enjoyable, especially for Jennifer Burns. Just recognize that you're probably not seeing a faithful adaptation of the short story, any more than Roland Joffe's 1995 production of "The Scarlet Letter" was at all a faithful adaptation of Hawthorne's novel. As a huge admirer of Hawthorne, I abhor what Joffe did to him, so I can understand why Asimov fans might detest this adaptation of their favorite sci-fi story, but I still recognize that Demi Moore turned in a really nice performance in "The Scarlet Letter" and I think Jennifer Burns did likewise in "Nightfall."

I assume that fans of Asimov's story should take heed of criticism of this movie by fellow Asimov fans, but I really found Jennifer Burns quite enjoyable in her role as the saucy and headstrong Illyra, so I'm giving it a FIVE for her performance while recognizing that I'd probably rate it a good deal lower if it were some actress I didn't at all care about (or if I were a super-fan of Asimov's story). But dang it, it's unfortunate that Jennifer's career seems to have foundered on these kind of Corman productions and that she hasn't had a shot at some better properties.

I'm really writing in generalities on this one, because any detailed discussion would almost certainly require a SPOILER, which I'm deliberately avoiding.

But I'll give this one an overall 7, with probably an 8 for Demi herself. I definitely wouldn't put this on a level with "Passion of Mind" (2000), but "Passion" is simply one of my all-time favorites and Craig Rosenberg is no Alain Berliner. Still, it's a pretty decent story and substantially better than "The Juror" (where Demi turned in an Oscar-worthy performance in a second rate movie).

Supposedly one reason that this movie was released direct-to-DVD for the US market was a concern that US audiences would have trouble with the Scottish accents. Personally, I'm hard of hearing and definitely do have trouble with accents in general, but in this case I found the dialog fairly easy to follow. This was fortunate, however, because the DVD includes Spanish subtitling but no English subtitles! Haven't the producers (distributors?) ever heard of captioning??? Also, Demi's character is "Rachel Carlson" but the case identifies her as "Rachel Carson" (the "L" omitted in the last name). In other words, the whole DVD production is a little bit cheesy, with no "extras" included (other than trailers). I bought the DVD because I'm someone who used to dislike Demi intensely until "Passion of Mind" turned me into a super-fan, but the odds are that you probably won't do a lot of "repeat viewing" of this movie unless you really want to study Demi's performance, because once you know the ending the story itself might fall a little flat on a second viewing.

But then, you probably wouldn't be watching "Half Light" in the first place if you weren't interested in Demi.

If you go to MiL expecting "Cat Ballou" or even "Nine to Five" you'll be disappointed, but I thought it considerably funnier than Jane's last "comeback" comedy, "Fun with Dick and Jane" (1977). It also helps (though it isn't essential) if you've read or better yet listened to Jane's narration of "My Life So Far," because a lot of the humor is found in Jane's own self-parody. (Viola's use of alcohol, for example, should be seen in light of Jane's embracing total abstinence.)

I don't want to say too much here for fear of "spoilers" where the humor and one-liners are concerned, but in very general terms I'll say that the movie gets off to a great start with Jane (Viola) in her last days as a talk-show host but then goes down-hill for a while until Jane and J-Lo take up cudgels as live-in room-mates, when it really perks up as Viola goes into passive-aggressive mode and Jane really gets the self-parody going.

Jane, who's hardly ever guilty of hamminess, is a little hammy in MiL, but she's playing a character who's a ham, some hamminess is appropriate in a comedy anyway, and a lot of Jane's purpose in all this is self-mockery, including any "new age guru" image that some might be (I think unfairly) inclined to peg onto her spirituality. When MiL degenerates into slapstick, it does go overboard, but some of the bondage humor in "Nine to Five" went overboard too, so let's not be too harsh on this point. If it weren't for the sometimes excessive slapstick, though, I'd probably give the movie itself a solid 5. I'd probably give just about anyone else an 8 or 9 for this performance, but comparing Jane to herself I'll give her a solid 7. Viola Fields is no Cat Ballou or even a Judy Bernly, but it's still a good solid comic performance.

As Jane puts it in "My Life So Far," she's "earned every wrinkle," and she isn't afraid to show them in MiL. One well done feature is the change in Viola's hairstyles and cosmetic appearance as the action progresses. And also, keep an eye on Jane's eyes. She's still got that cute little trick of eye-crossing that she used to such great effect when the noose went around Cat's neck and when Judy got reefer-high in "Nine to Five."

This film (along with "Cat Ballou") particularly demonstrates Jane Fonda's greatness as an actress. It does so because she lets herself be "out-acted" by all three of her co-stars.

Jon Voigt as the paraplegic veteran disillusioned by The War and Bruce Dern as the returning officer insanely and ravingly committed to everything military both make the most of their opportunities to display their different forms of craziness. And even Penelope Milford gets to put on her own display of craziness when she dances on the kitchen tabletop in front of the two guys she and Jane brought back to their apartment from a barroom pick-up.

Jane doesn't get to put in this kind of emotionally wrought performance, because her character is really pretty sane and normal, at least compared to Voigt's and Dern's. And if she had tried to ham it up, to match her co-stars' crazed performances, she would have wrecked this movie. As a relatively young actress, in "Cat Ballou," she had to play her character straight while all of her co-stars got to ham it up for laughs, and as a mature actress in "Coming Home" she has to play her character in a relatively subdued fashion while her three co-stars get to ham it up for emotional drama.

Sometimes the "star" has to take a back seat to co-stars, and "Coming Home" is proof that Jane Fonda's no prima donna who would place her own interests above the film's success. Despite the Oscar, I don't see this as one of Jane's most memorable performances, but that's because for the success of the film she necessarily had to allow herself to be "out-acted" by her three co-stars, all of whom were Oscar-nominated with Jon Voigt also winning for Best Actor.

I'd also add that it's a real shame Maggie Smith ("California Suite") beat Penelope Milford for Best Supporting Actress. Bless Maggie Smith as a very great actress, but Penelope Milford's performance here was astonishing.

I do have one major complaint that's so great that I really dislike this movie for that reason alone. That non-stop background music made it darn near impossible for me to catch a lot of the dialog!

This version of "The Scarlet Letter" is no more faithful to Hawthorne's novel than most of the others, but in its own way it's utterly magnificent.

Hawthorne's gloomy? Well, Wenders makes Hawthorne look positively cheerful! The film begins with Pearl about seven years old, and Hester is summoned to stand on the scaffold in what seems to have been some kind of annual ritual for the town elders and clerics to demand that she reveal the child's name. It's positively sadistic. At least Hawthorne only subjected Hester to one such public humiliation.

But it's Senta Berger's performance that makes this film such an absolute stand-out. She generally appears heavily wrapped up in clothing, and here's where the desolate Portuguese coast comes in so nicely, justifying such heavy clothing as protection against the wind and the cold. But it also comes across as if Hester is trying to wrap herself so heavily to suppress her own womanly sexuality. It's much like survivors of abuse, who often "overdress" in a form of psychological protection, almost as a kind of armor. And make no mistake, Hester is clearly a victim of abuse, condemned for her sexual expression and now reacting to that condemnation with such heavy self-defense against any emotional contact with those who have shunned her.

What this "cover-up" of her sexuality does is make it all the more impressive when Hester uncovers her hair and lets it flow down her back in the "forest scene" with Dimmesdale. For at least a few moments, this woman is finally finding some freedom, and it's especially impressive with that combination of gentleness and extraordinary beauty that Senta Berger manages to project as she "lets her hair down."

There's so many wonders to this film, especially with this wondrous performance by Senta Berger. I can understand that someone might dislike the constant background music. If I knew German and were trying to follow the dialog, I'd probably find it distracting. But since I'm simply following the subtitles, I actually found this constant background music a reinforcement to the extreme claustrophobic pressure on Hester's person-hood throughout this movie.

Yelena Samarina (whom Wenders apparently wanted for the role of Hester but was refused by his financial backers) is fascinating as "Mistress Hibbins," playing the role non-traditionally as the governor's daughter.

And Hans Christian Blech is also a fascinating Chillingworth, but his is not the traditional demonic portrayal of the betrayed husband. Instead, he's the "rational" investigator, the kind of "scientific detective" who would tear wings off a butterfly to see how the creature will react. All in all, he's actually even more evil than Hawthorne's portrayal, evil in a coldly and unemotionally "scientific" kind of way.

The one flaw in this movie is Lou Castel as Dimmesdale, who I actually think is the most difficult of all characters to cast in any of the film versions. The problem with Dimmesdale is that he can't be a "hunka hunka" (like Gary Oldman in the 1995 version with Demi Moore) or you wonder why he doesn't just take charge of the situation and set everything to rights. On the other hand, he can't be such a wimp that you start wondering whatever it was that Hester saw in this poor slob in the first place. Well, Lou Castel certainly doesn't err on the "hunka hunka" side, but I for one do wonder what any woman would see in the Dimmesdale that he portrayed!

I'm biased. I adore Meg Foster and think her performance in the 1979 TV-miniseries is the greatest portrayal of Hester imaginable. Unfortunately, the 1979 miniseries, though literally faithful to Hawthorne's novel, was flawed by its length which resulted in a loss of intensity. The Wenders version, on the other hand, is painfully and claustrophobic-ally intense, and Senta Berger's performance is one that draws the viewer literally into inhabiting Hester's own person and viewing all of Salem through her eyes.

You'll find VHS tapes of this on eBay. The video isn't as sharp and crisp as I might like, but since it hasn't been reissued in a better version, be happy for what you can find and snap it up as soon as you can. This film is an absolute glory.

This is definitely one of Jane Fonda's greatest performances, in fact probably her greatest. Her portrayal of a black-out drunk is equaled, in the annals of alcoholic characters, only by Myron McCormick and his co-stars in the Jason Robards "Iceman Cometh," and it surpasses even Jack Lemmon's in "Days of Wine and Roses." Unfortunately, the script isn't up to the level of either of those two masterpieces, but still and all it's decent.

What's interesting is that as a younger women Jane had her problems with eating disorders and cigarettes, and possibly also with overuse of stimulants, but she never had any kind of drinking problem of which I'm aware, which is what makes her research into her character of Alex Sternbergen all the more impressive. The Oscars for which she's been an "also ran" are greater performances than most actresses' Oscar wins, and "The Morning After" isn't any exception. In combination of script and of Jane's acting performance, it doesn't equal "The Dollmaker" or "Agnes of God," but her performance probably outshines even those as Gertie Nevels and Martha Livingston.

Personally, this really isn't my kind of movie, but I got hold of it on VHS because of Meg Foster. And am I ever glad I did.

This isn't really an "adventure/action" picture. It's more like high camp. If it reminds me of anything, it would be "Barbarella." True, Meg Foster's a little older here than Jane Fonda was in "Barbarella," and true, she's one of the "baddies," but still . . .

Even if you don't particularly go for these kind of "comic strip" movies, you've got to see this one for Meg Foster's performance as Evil-Lyn. Yeah, she's one of the "baddies" but still she comes off kind of likeable, sort of like she's been victimized herself by Skeletor in some way or another. In fact, I think that's how she described her character of Evil-Lyn in some interview she gave.

As a side note, James Tolkan is hilariously perfect as Detective Lubic. I love that scene where he's feeling perfectly demolished in the middle of all these space invaders and says something like, "Gee, I think may be I need some back-up!"