Pryderi

This isn't the first time that Giles Panton has played the Wrong Boyfriend on Hallmark. Fortunately he has had better roles elsewhere. And he's pretty good in that role. Maybe someday he'll get to be the lead.

I'm with the crowd that didn't like Erin Krakow's hair.

Aside from those things it works well enough. Not the best Hallmark movie, not the worst. It accomplishes what it set out to do.

This show isn't a straight-up revival of Saved By The Bell. It's better, with more subtle humor and deeper story telling. It's both more self-aware and more socially aware than the original.

It's been getting review-bombed by people who wanted the revival to echo the obliviousness to privilege that was a central part of the original show. The new one is very much of its time, telling stories about privilege, economic inequality, gender roles, and more, and that has displeased a part of the potential audience. If you're that viewer who doesn't want to see those new stories on the screen, by all means stay away, but don't discourage people who will welcome the new show's messages from watching.

The story is nothing special and the chemistry between the leads is weak. But the locations are beautiful, rescuing what would otherwise be a well below-average Hallmark movie.

One elephant in the closet is never mentioned, the shortness of winter days in Iceland. If it's supposed to be January (it's winter but the actual month is never mentioned) in southern Iceland (where all the locations are), there would only be 4.5 hours of daylight at the beginning of the month and 7 at the end. (The days would be even shorter in northern Iceland.) They spend far too much time doing daytime activities outdoors for the time of year.

So it's not a straight up period piece, especially the use of modern music. Baz Luhrmann does it all the time, and mostly people don't complain. Except the ones that do. If you're one of those people, you'll probably find the music off-putting.

I'll reemphasize, as other reviewers have pointed out, that you have the choice not to listen to the English dub. I prefer to watch most foreign language productions in the original language with subtitles, and that's how I have been watching this one. Netflix remembers those settings so once you set your preferences they will stick for the entire series, whether you watch all at once or one episode at a time. I did check out the dub for part of one episode; interestingly, the text in the subtitles and the dub are not identical, though the differences were in phrasing rather than substance. I know enough Spanish to be able to tell that the subtitles are reasonably accurate, though as always some nuances get lost in translation.

Aside from that it reads a lot like a telenovela to me, except with accents from Spain instead of Latin America and fancier production values. Everybody talks at warp speed, there are tangled relationships between the characters, there are many many instances of people lurking in the shadows and overhearing conversations or seeing things that the people doing them expected to be private, and the acting tends to be over the top rather than understated. It's a hell of a lot of fun for what it is; if you like that sort of thing and come in with the right expectations you won't be disappointed.

The first season of Catwalk (syndicated) was a lot of fun. I liked the tangled relationships between the characters; it felt like things in a performing band might have really been like. And Catwalk was the debut of the fabulous Neve Campbell, who later became much better known for Party of Five and the Scream movies.

Alas, the second season (shown on MTV, I believe) messed it up badly. The two most appealing characters on the show, Daisy (Campbell) and Atlas (Christopher Lee Clements) were gone. Instead, it was built around the depressing, whiny Jesse (Paul Popowich). The sound of the band changed as well. Instead of the rap-influenced hip-hop of the first season, Catwalk was now more of a straight-up guitar-rock band (no surprise, with their rapper, Atlas, off the show), and not a very good one.

Midnight Temptations is a nearly plot-free excuse for erotic photography. Wendy Hamilton (a Playboy Playmate) and other actors and actresses, most of whom have no other credited screen appearances, appear in erotic interludes; lots of sexual activity is shown. The film is stylishly photographed with no full-frontal nudity and no penetration shown. Casey Mitchell is notable as a police detective who is involved with her partner, Anthony Flacco.

Fans of Wendy Hamilton from her Playboy work will probably enjoy this. Others may wish to look elsewhere.

Coming Soon is a sweet, though not perfect, coming of age story about teenage girls. Despite the difficulties that the director has had getting distribution, there isn't much shocking about the content of the film - only about the concept of young women who actually care about sexual satisfaction. And the ultimate message - that having sex in the context of a loving relationship is key to satisfaction - is even less of a surprise.

The original VHS version of Coming Soon - the one you're likely to find for rent in video stores - is the R-rated cut of the film. The DVD is the unrated version - the version that was shown at film festivals, and which the MPAA gave an NC-17 rating - and also includes director's commentary that reveals where the cuts were made.

I think that young women, and men, will enjoy this film, and get useful messages from it as well.

The late Craig Russell is the star of Outrageous! It was a cult favorite here in the Boston area, playing for weeks at the late lamented Orson Welles Cinema. I had a bright red T-shirt with the movie logo on the front that I treasured for years.

First and foremost, the film is a document of his brilliant performances; he not only got the look and mannerisms of his subjects down cold, he also spoke and sung all the voices himself!

The plot, such as it is, is a tale about his attempts to become a successful performer, and about his schizophrenic friend and how he and she support and heal each other. It's not bad, but the performances are the heart and soul of the film.

Outrageous! was long out of print; happily for the world, it's available again. Get it while you can.

As one would expect, X-Men delivers on visual spectacle. There are lots of good effects, things being blown up and broken, and so forth.

What one wouldn't expect from an action and effects-driven summer film is the performances. Two veteran actors, Patrick Steward (as Professor Xavier) and Ian McKellen (as Magneto) provide depth to their roles as antagonists on the mutant issue. Newcomer (to the American screen, anyway) Hugh Jackman is a sensitive and effective Wolverine, and Anna Paquin holds up her part as Rogue nicely.

The film also provides some depth to the issue of mutants and their place in society. Three sides are presented (Xavier, Magneto, and Sen. Robert Kelly), and the film doesn't treat it as a black and white good-vs-evil situation. Instead, we see that there is good and bad in all their positions.

Highly recommended. I'm looking forward to future installments in the story, and hoping that they continue to develop the characters and the depth of the story.

Erin Brokovich is all about two characters: the title character, played by Julia Roberts, and Ed Masry, played by Albert Finney. Brokovich is a bold and flashy woman; given all the buzz, everyone reading this has surely already heard about her wardrobe. Masry is a talented but world-weary lawyer in a small law firm.

Roberts and Finney are both in fine form here, making the characters sympathetic and believable. The supporting cast is not as strong - none of the other characters in the film seem entirely filled-out - but that's a minor quibble.

There is a bit of a tone of moral righteousness here. After all, it is the story of a nobody going up against Big Business, not to mention the obstacles facing a single mother in the working world. But it's not overdone, and the film succeeds in getting you to root for the underdog, an always popular pastime.

Maggie, the woman at the center of the story, lives in Vancouver and works at a gay and lesbian bookstore. The story begins with her meeting Kim as she is passing through Vancouver. A romance quickly develops, complete with some rather hot, though discreetly photographed, love scenes. Things get more complicated when Maggie's newly-divorced mother, Lila, decides to come to town, bringing along Maggie's younger brother as well.

There's a lot of good stuff going on here. Maggie and Kim are fun to watch together; they don't always get along, but it's clear that there's a strong core of affection there. Maggie's family gradually gets introduced to her lifestyle; their personal growth as they are confronted with people and situations outside their past experiences is a real strength.

The main weakness of Better Than Chocolate is that it sometimes tries to do too much. With all the characters and their interactions, plus a subplot involving the bookstore, things get muddled at times.

The bisexual woman is a mix of good and bad. The bad: she plays to the stereotype of bisexuals as sexually aggressive omnivores. The good: the film doesn't believe that this is a bad thing!

There are two things going on in Let's Talk About Sex. One part of the story is the making of a videotape that is to be the pilot of a cable TV program - a talk show where women talk about sex. This aspect of the film works well - it really does capture the feel of things (though the answers given are remarkably forthright; I suspect that you'd have to do a LOT of editing to get anything like that in real life), and the answers are entertaining and sometimes insightful.

The other aspect of the story is a look at the love lives of the three principal characters - the one making the film, and the two friends that she lives with. This part of the film doesn't work nearly as well; the characters just didn't involve me.

Let's Talk About Sex could have been an even better film if it had been done as a straight-up mockumentary. But there's enough good stuff here to make it worth a look.

Like the summary says, the story is about two guys who are all dressed up (well, down, but appropriately for a club) with no place to go. The good part is that Trick handles that pretty well; the film finds humor in their plight, and they have some good conversations along the way.

The bad part is that it feels too much like a plot gimmick that the filmmakers chose just to make a gay male love story that would be acceptable to mainstream audiences - one where the men never actually do anything. It's not just that they don't have anywhere to go for sex; there is a remarkable lack of physical affection between men in this film. The only people you ever actually see doing much of anything are a heterosexual couple (the roommate of one of the main characters and his girlfriend).

The sad fact is that the filmmakers were probably right in their assessment of the audience. Trick probably wouldn't have been even the modest box-office success that it was if there had actually been sex scenes in it, even the non-explicit dreamily-shot kind usually found in movies.

Veronica, single and uninvolved, meets two men at the same concert at the same club. It would be hard for them to be more different: Abel, who she meets on the crowded dance floor, is dark, sensitive, and a bit shy; Zed, the drummer of the band, is bleached blond and very outspoken. She is torn, and can't make up her mind which of them to see. So she goes out with both of them.

The rest of the film follows her life for the next year, and how she handles her complex situation - which becomes even more complicated when another man, Ernest, comes into the picture. Unusually for a film (especially one made in the US), it resists the temptation of taking an easy path out of her situation.

It's not perfect. It looks at some of the problems that can arise from multiple relationships, but she has too easy a time resolving them; it takes a lot longer in real life. But at least it acknowledges that the problems exist, and that it is possible to find answers.

Robert Downey, Jr. is in love with two women. Two very interesting, very beautiful, and very different women. They find out about each other (don't worry, I haven't given anything away - this happens in the first five minutes). So what now?

What happens is that they spend a very intense day discussing things. We get an intense look at his troubled personality, and a lesser glimpse of the women he loves. There's a lot of tension in this film, but it's worth the effort to get through.

I will add though, that in my opinion, you should stop the film after the end of the main scene. (It will be obvious where the right moment is.) The last five minutes feel tacked on, and try to artificially impose a resolution to a situation that shouldn't have been resolved by the film. The main body raises a lot of questions, and the ending tries to answer them unsuccessfully - better to just end it with the questions on your mind.

You've Got Mail can be looked at on two levels. As a love story, it's successful enough, though not terribly original. We've seen Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan doing this before; they work well together, and it's fun to see them at it again.

On the other hand, the other story going on - the conflict between the small corner bookstore and the big chain - gets in the way of the obligatory happy ending.

Now suppose the roles had been reversed; would anybody perceive this as being a happy ending, and the movie containing this story as a fun romantic comedy - or would all the attention be focused on the business battle?

The implied message here is that love is more important to women than their career. In the end, You've Got Mail is unsatisfying, because the love story is overrun by the sexism of its conclusions.