shark-43

THE FALL is a magical film - it is visually stunning but the story of a injured stuntman of silent films laying in a hospital bed befriends a little girl with a broken arm - sounds simple - but it isn't - so much happens in this film - it almost reminded me of The Wizard of Oz - being taken away into an imaginative, colorful amazing fantasy world. Plus The Fall has an amazing lead performance from Lee Pace - Pace is a terrific actor, so good in the AMC series Halt & Catch Fire, and he delivers the goods here - plus he is working off an amazing child actor Catinca Untaru, who truly gives one of the greatest child film performances of all time. She is real and sweet and funny and sad. I haven't liked any of his other films, but Tarsem delivers an engrossing, moving wonderful film here.

THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS was based on a big bestselling novel & the film delivers all the soap opera melodrama a late 50's flick can deliver - old Philly money not wanting their brood to fraternize with the "lower classes", alcoholism, closeted homosexuality, blackmail, murder, hot dames, mean truck drivers PLUS a young Paul Newman! Newman actually is quite good as an idealistic lawyer & it was great to see Robert Vaughn (The Man From U*N*C*L*E) deliver a terrific performance as a troubled rich drunk kid - in fact Vaughn got his one & only Oscar nomination for this movie (Best Supporting Actor). And the rest of the cast is marvelous, the adorable Barbara Rush, Brian Keith, John Williams, Billie Burke, Richard Deacon, Otto Kruger, Alexis Smith, etc. Very entertaining.

A really good cast is wasted in this empty movie - all flash, no substance. Maybe love IS blind but Ethan Coen should stop writing with his wife, Tricia Cooke. She is a talented film editor but this script is a mess - a few good scenes here & there, well shot but no, the story really goes nowhere - a drive in movie that runs out of gas early on. Very disappointing.