A weak Country Strong

The new film about an alcoholic, struggling-against-demons country western singer, COUNTRY STRONG compares unfavorably with last years similar CRAZY HEART. Jeff Bridges won his Oscar for that film, and although I didn't really like the plotting and unbelievability of many scenes, at least Bridges performance had some authenticity and rawness to it. In COUNTRY STRONG Gweneth Paltrow is just getting out of rehab (apparently several weeks early--red flag warning!) and put back on the road by her manager husband. He is smitten with a new young "country Barbie doll" and wants her to be the warm up for his headliner wife. His wife has been having a fling with a young male singer and wants him to be the warm up. Guess what? They both are hired, and very typical complications ensue. And unfortunately, there's nary a spark of feeling and tension between any of the characters. Although the songs and singers are not bad, the music brings whatever dramatic tension that is being developed to a complete stop. Besides that, Paltrow doesn't have any rolling-around-on-the-bathroom-floor-in-her-own-vomit scenes, like Bridges had, to really get the audience rooting for her. (!?) I couldn't wait for this one to be over. GRADE-------D+

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In my last blog, I forgot to write about a DVD seen on Christmas Day evening with some relatives called LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), one of my favorite Christmas themed films, because it is set during the month of December leading up to Christmas and features carols, Christmas parties, school pageants, a crass, pop Christmas song played many times on the soundtrack, shopping and stores in decoration in London and other cheerful and symbolic events of the season. It's a multi-storied, multi-charactered film, with pleasing and occasionally amusing performances by Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightly, Billy Bob Thornton, and many, many others. Because it covers so many stories and characters, it can be a bit uneven, but it is entertaining and the 2 hour 15minutes goes down very easily. GRADE-----B+

Based on a novel by James Jones (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), the Vincente Minnelli film SOME CAME RUNNING (1958) features Frank Sinatra as a disillusioned writer just out of the service who ends up back in the hypocritical small Indiana town that he grew up in. His family is trying to maintain their upper middle class standing, and don't want him around. He hooks up with a gambler (Dean Martin) and a luckless floozy (Shirley McLaine in a fearless, memorable breakout role for which she was Oscar nominated) and falls for one of the upper class women he would normally be distainful of. It's definitely, and ultimately 50's melodrama, but the tone was so uneven--a weird mix of comedy, satire, drama, romance????--that it put me off. (I thought PEYTON PLACE which I wrote about last February did it a lot better.) And the ending, filmed in a completely chaotic, boldly colorful, jazzy style completely different from the rest of the restrained proceedings, didn't make much logical or emotional sense. Interesting, but in my mind, unsuccessful. GRADE-------C+