rusdavis
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rusdavis's rating
Summer City in itself isn't so great, but it's fully worth watching to see stellar Mel in superb form even in his first professional outing, just like he was a class act in his first outing as director in The Man Without A Face, though 16 years more tremendously developed ('77-'93) in his craft. If you fast forward through most of the parts without Mel you won't miss much. Funny how for a supposedly minor part all the "stars" sought out his special character Scollop as if for validation. Already, even without the title, he was the star in his first appearance, and as selfless as ever. What a tremendous guy!
Owning and loving both the book and the movie, I couldn't agree less with the previous reviewer as to the movie's failure or "cowardice". Mel has done a great service to the book if for no other reason than he saves Justin from dying at the end! Because one can communicate more in a book than in a movie it is usually the case that a movie is inferior, but here this is most definitely *not* the case, despite how moving the book is until the final ten pages when it proceeds to destroy everything and everyone, including Justin and Charles' relationship. After all it is the great Mel Gibson we're dealing with so it should hardly be a surprise his skill in remolding things so skillfully. Though certainly not wanting to forget the skill of the screenplay writer the director has more than a little influence in that direction!
As to previous allegations of Mel being a coward in dealing with the book's subject, such nonsense becomes apparent for what it is if one looks at the hard hitting approach Mel has taken in other masterworks. I'd like to see people insinuate such things to Mel's face and be set straight right away, if Mel even bothered with such drivel. The current "politically correct" homophilia (and the book only hints at homosexuality rather than presenting anything specific) disgusts me as much as homophobia and Mel's too good a man to stoop to such matters, one reason being his devoted fathering of his dear kids Hannah, Edward, Christian, William, Louis, and Milo. Regarding his hard hitting style, "Conspiracy Theory" has gripped me the most along such lines to date. He's always been a powerhouse, even in his subtlety, such as "Tim".
I deeply appreciate Ms. Holland's heartfelt approach to the relationship between Justin & Charles in her book, and read it regularly (except for the last ten pages where all is lost!) but some seem to fail to understand the dynamic there received far greater presentation onscreen. In this case the dynamic of the relationship gripped you from the screen in ways the book couldn't capture. Which would you rather have: a video or a book about your loved ones. Case closed.
Mel accurately adduced that the core of the story is about the trust established between Justin and Charles, and although the movie rather chose (to me unfortunately) to have accusations by the family, authorities, and town against the two, than to so fully deal with the intensity of the relationship between Justin and Charles as in the book, it was an intensity redirected, not lost because Mel's own gratifiying and typically precocious intensity came through. Nick was no small contributor in that regard and I wish I could see them together in something else because they were on the same beautiful wavelength.
The end of Malachi 4 of the Old Testament refers to God turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children's hearts to the fathers in the last times, and as He has used Mel as towering figures regularly in the past, yet also those vulnerable and gentle, such as Tim Melville and Jerry Fletcher, he & Nick are surely part of that prophetic fulfillment in our day. The greatness of a true father's stature can never be conceived of in this world (pun intended), in our present cold and fatherless age, but Mel is a true father himself, not only to his own children, but to us, at least to me, to those of us who love him and it is this profound fatherhood which is and will be the divine source of his enduring legacy of greatness, not some ephemeral superficiality of sexuality or stardom.
As to previous allegations of Mel being a coward in dealing with the book's subject, such nonsense becomes apparent for what it is if one looks at the hard hitting approach Mel has taken in other masterworks. I'd like to see people insinuate such things to Mel's face and be set straight right away, if Mel even bothered with such drivel. The current "politically correct" homophilia (and the book only hints at homosexuality rather than presenting anything specific) disgusts me as much as homophobia and Mel's too good a man to stoop to such matters, one reason being his devoted fathering of his dear kids Hannah, Edward, Christian, William, Louis, and Milo. Regarding his hard hitting style, "Conspiracy Theory" has gripped me the most along such lines to date. He's always been a powerhouse, even in his subtlety, such as "Tim".
I deeply appreciate Ms. Holland's heartfelt approach to the relationship between Justin & Charles in her book, and read it regularly (except for the last ten pages where all is lost!) but some seem to fail to understand the dynamic there received far greater presentation onscreen. In this case the dynamic of the relationship gripped you from the screen in ways the book couldn't capture. Which would you rather have: a video or a book about your loved ones. Case closed.
Mel accurately adduced that the core of the story is about the trust established between Justin and Charles, and although the movie rather chose (to me unfortunately) to have accusations by the family, authorities, and town against the two, than to so fully deal with the intensity of the relationship between Justin and Charles as in the book, it was an intensity redirected, not lost because Mel's own gratifiying and typically precocious intensity came through. Nick was no small contributor in that regard and I wish I could see them together in something else because they were on the same beautiful wavelength.
The end of Malachi 4 of the Old Testament refers to God turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children's hearts to the fathers in the last times, and as He has used Mel as towering figures regularly in the past, yet also those vulnerable and gentle, such as Tim Melville and Jerry Fletcher, he & Nick are surely part of that prophetic fulfillment in our day. The greatness of a true father's stature can never be conceived of in this world (pun intended), in our present cold and fatherless age, but Mel is a true father himself, not only to his own children, but to us, at least to me, to those of us who love him and it is this profound fatherhood which is and will be the divine source of his enduring legacy of greatness, not some ephemeral superficiality of sexuality or stardom.