Everyone Says I Love You Movie Review

Woody Allen’s career has been a lengthy string of annual hits or misses. Part of what makes him so compelling a filmmaker is how he dives right in and commits himself even to the ones that aren’t so great, just to keep himself working and putting out new material every year. His movies have a way of changing over time – for me at least – so that The Purple Rose of Cairo seemed a lesser effort, a whimsical throwaway, when I was twenty, but when I revisited it at about thirty-one, there was greatness I had missed. Sometimes it goes the other way, as with Everyone Says I Love You, which I liked a lot more seventeen years ago than I did the other day.

Flirting with Disaster Movie Review

One of the most criminally undervalued comedies of the 90s was written and directed by a man was an Oscar nominee this year for the critically acclaimed The Fighter. But back in 1996 he made a modest comedy, his follow-up to the indie hit Spanking the Monkey. Sporting a great cast and some fantastic comedy writing (combining situational comedy with great one-liners), Flirting with Disaster deserves a lot more notice than it has gotten over the years.

The Object of My Affection Movie Review

First published in The Connecticut College Voice on 24 April 1998.

Republished here with some editorial adjustments that don't affect content.

One’s first thoughts on a movie about a girl who falls in love with a gay man might be, “Another bland romantic comedy,” or “A trite revision of Chasing Amy.” Coming from a person who hasn’t seen a decent new movie in about a month, The Object of My Affection was a pleasant surprise.

The movie centers on Nina (Jennifer Aniston), a social worker in Brooklyn, and George (Paul Rudd), a 1st grade school teacher. They meet at a cocktail party being held by Nina’s stepsister. George and Nina immediately form a bond laughing at the rest of the guests who engage in name dropping as if it were a competition. In a somewhat unbelievably fast pace, Nina invites George to be her new roommate and they very quickly discover they are nearly soul mates for each other. All gets complicated when Nina finds out she is pregnant by her boyfriend Vince (John Pankow). She asks George to be the live-in dad as opposed to Vince. This is when the true grit of the movie comes out: the exploration into relationships. Can it survive without sex? Is a wonderful friendship enough to make it last?

25 Years Ago This Month: May 1986

Anyone remember a movie called Sweet Liberty? It's about a guy who writes a book on the American Revolution, sells the film rights and then the film crew comes to town to make the movie and throws his life into upheaval. It was directed by and stars Alan Alda. Also with Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer. It was also Lillian Gish's second to last movie. I have vague recollections of catching bits of it on cable TV when I was a kid and skipping right past it. Well, it opened 25 years ago this month.

There were several more memorable films opening that month, so it's no surprise that in the lead-up to the summer box office bonanza, Sweet Liberty only pulled $14 million.

After all, Top Gun went on to be the top grossing film of the year, raking in a whopping $177 million (Hey! That was a lot of money back then). This film really needs no introduction, right? Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer and Rick Rossovich playing beach volleyball shirtless? Ring a bell? Cruise and Kelly McGillis enjoying passion with soft blue backlighting to the tune of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away."