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Irish Eye On Hollywood | Irish America

Irish Eye On Hollywood | Irish America
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Paradise movie review & film summary (1991)

The plot machinery creaks in "Paradise," and it grinds exceedingly slow, and finally what it produces is a nice little movie about two children, and a contrived big movie about two adults. The film takes place somewhere down in Delta shrimp-fishing country, where a married couple (Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) are living through unending sadness and anger after the death of their child. Then Griffith's old friend, whose own marriage is breaking up, sends her son to spend the summer down south, and this child, named Willard, acts as the catalyst to bring the grown-ups back together again. The problem with this plot is too much contrivance. Although much time at the top of the movie is devoted to the mother up north, it's obvious she exists primarily in order to have a son who can be dispatched to the side of Griffith and Johnson. The contrivance doesn't stop there. What about the young neighbor girl that Willard meets? She also comes from a broken home; her dad is a heartless roller-skating instructor in a nearby town. At some point here we simply get too many unhappy parents for two small kids to support. Maybe the filmmakers should have taken a step back, looked carefully at their movie, seen that it was really about the two kids, and told the story from their point of view. Of course, then "Paradise" wouldn't have been a tailor-made Griffith and Johnson vehicle, but sometimes you gotta bite the bullet. "Paradise" does have real qualities. Two of them are the kids, played by Elijah Wood and Thora Birch with strong, simple charm. I also admired the performances by Johnson and Griffith - low-key, finding the right notes - but some of their big moments were undermined because they seemed inspired more by the script than by real life. When Johnson first sees the visiting boy, for example, he's curt with him - but in no time at all they're buddies, just because the plot needs that to happen. Another problem with the movie is the way big scenes are set up and telegraphed far in advance. There is, for example, a tall tower not far from where the kids are living. What's it for? To spot forest fires? To see if the shrimp boats are a-comin'? I think it's there for the sole purpose of providing a climactic scene so painfully contrived I couldn't believe it for one moment. "Paradise" was written and directed by Mary Agnes Donoghue, who also wrote "Deceived," with Goldie Hawn. It cannot be denied she has a human touch; some of the quieter, more intimate scenes here work very well. Her problem, I think, is a tendency to put more into one movie than the movie will easily hold. By the end of "Paradise" we have a boy who has come of age, a girl who has made important discoveries about her father, a couple who have learned to accept the death of a child and started to love each other again, a mother up north who has gained some free time to sort out her difficulties, an old maid artist who has learned to smile and accept young people, and, let's see, another mother - the neighbor girl's - whose struggle to raise her daughter on her own must have borne some fruit, although in the melee of happy endings I cannot recollect exactly what the nature of her breakthrough was. The plot strands in this movie are so meticulously choreographed that the characters are like the Blue Angels, all pulling out of their nose dives at once, and flying in formation back into the heavens again.

Thora-birch , Elijah-wood , Goldie-hawn , Mary-agnes-donoghue , Blue-angels ,

Deceived movie review & film summary (1991)

`Deceived" opens with an ancient thriller formula, elevates itself to passages of genuine suspense, and then ends with a climax so absurd that it takes a real effort of memory to recall that parts of the movie were really pretty good. I will not reveal the end of this movie - but practically everybody else who sees it will, because they won't be able to resist laughing at it. The film stars Goldie Hawn as another one of those perennial movie heroines who thinks she is happily married but is actually Living With a Stranger. The movie opens on an odd note, with Hawn in a restaurant to meet a man she doesn't know. John Heard catches her eye. They exchange several meaningful glances - meaningful enough to get her charged with solicitation, if he were a cop. Then he leaves. Wrong guy. Her blind date never does show up, although later Heard himself arrives at her place of business and they finally meet each other officially. What was this opening scene about, really? Did Heard lure her into the restaurant by using a false name? Did he plan to meet her for one purpose and then change his mind and decide she was wife material? Did they actually meet each other by accident? You can choose any one of the above, because it doesn't really matter; like a lot of "Deceived," the opening is a pointless exercise in movie form. The director, Damian Harris, and the writer, Mary Agnes Donoghue, know how to build a scene and how to write the dialogue, but they're not much interested in the eventual implications. If they can involve you in a scene while it's playing, they don't care if you ask questions about it on your way out of the theater. As the plot proceeds, we can more or less anticipate the major developments. Heard and Hawn share an expertise in the antiquities business. They marry and live happily together for five years or so, and have a baby girl (who is absolutely essential, of course, so that she can be threatened, kidnapped, endangered, etc.). Then there is a messy murder, and Hawn begins to suspect her husband is lying to her, and then it turns out his whole life is a lie. It's right about here that the suspense begins to overcome our instinctive skepticism, and we get involved in the story. Hawn goes looking for clues - turns into a regular little Nancy Drew, indeed, as she tracks down obscure addresses and walks down dim hallways in her search for the truth. There are times when the movie is shameless in manipulating us, as in the absolutely obligatory scene where Hawn peeks cautiously into a dark and threatening space and there is a scream and, ho, ho, it's only the cat. Well of course it's only the cat. Any suspense movie with a cat in it will contain this same scene; it provides filmmakers with two free minutes of screen time, when they can put their brains on hold. But we do care, in any event, about Hawn, and there was a stretch of about 30 minutes when the movie was really humming, working in several different ways to involve me, and I was thinking it would redeem its cornball opening and its predictable development. That was before the ending. I know it is more or less required in movies like this that the killer stalk the victim through some kind of deserted warehouse/loft/abandoned structure. I could even sort of forgive that. But the climax of this scene is so beyond belief, so beyond credulity, so badly timed, so awkwardly pulled off, so impossible, it sets some kind of a record. It is said that from time to time Hollywood reshoots the ending of a movie. Here is a textbook example of an ending that needs to be reshot - indeed, cries out for the cutting room floor.

John-heard , Mary-agnes-donoghue , Damian-harris , Did-heard , Nancy-drew ,

Irish Eye On Hollywood | Irish America


Furthermore, an exciting fall is looming on the horizon, particularly with the October release of
Veronica Guerin, the movie starring Cate Blanchett, based on the life and gruesome death of the crusading Dublin journalist after whom the film is named.
There’s also playwright Conor McPherson’s much-anticipated directorial debut
The Actors (produced by Neil Jordan) which stars legendary thespians Michael Caine and Michael Gambon.
Finally, Jim Sheridan’s New York Irish immigrant tale
In America is still slated for a late November release.
But first, let’s get to the hot-weather movies.
Director of
In June, Dublin director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s (

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