Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

THE MORNING AFTER (1986)

Jane Fonda initiated this L.A. murder mystery project, but it was SoCal outsider Sidney Lumet who gave it its distinctive (and paradoxical) sunshiny film noir atmosphere, all blue skies & pastel facades.* Too bad no one could bother about the script!* Fonda, awfully good here (Lumet & co-star Jeff Bridges loosening up that steel spine she’d been using as a cudgel), a one-time actress who drank her way out of the biz, wakes up in a strange bed next to a bloody corpse she doesn’t know. Remembering nothing of the night before, she spends the rest of the film on the lam, telephoning estranged husband Raul Julia for advice & support while being helped (or is it stalked?) by ex-cop/social dropout Jeff Bridges. The plot tangles are well handled by Lumet, considering their lack of logic, but neither Bridges' wary manner, nor Lumet’s gentle shock cuts can make sense of Bridges' involvement. Maybe if he was in on the plot and out to frame Fonda, we’d see some motivation for his Good Samaritan/guardian angel act, like a reverse on the two-faced characterization he’d just put over in last year’s JAGGED EDGE/’85. Faults & all, with a wondrous cast, pace & a unique vibe, this still comes across as class entertainment.

DOUBLE-BILL: Bridges at his glam peak ‘84 - ‘89: AGAINST ALL ODDS; STARMAN; JAGGED EDGE; 8 MILLION WAYS TO DIE; TUCKER; FABULOUS BAKER BOYS; even dressed down as here.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Kudos to Lumet cinematographer Andrzei Bartkowiak: 12 films in 12 years starting in 1981.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Half of Lumet’s pics feel rushed into production with undercooked scripts.

No comments: