Seldom have my expectations for a movie been set so high by its trailer than in the case of The Stepford Wives. I thought the trailer's montage--done in a slick advertising style--of classy men's accessories, concluding with a shot of a smiling Nicole Kidman, was absolutely brilliant. For the record, none of the footage from the trailer--and none of its brilliance--appear in the film.
I liked the opening titles of
The Stepford Wives an awful lot, which got my hopes up. But once the movie started, it went downhill fast. Miss Bette Midler and Mr. Roger Bart nearly steal the movie, but even if they succeeded, the dregs of it all really aren't worth stealing. Mr. Matthew Broderick just sits there like so much fish. Nicole Kidman, never one of my favorite actresses, does nothing to change my mind. And there's a surprise ending that's no surprise at all. And the score, by Mr. David Arnold, is horrid.
On a lighter note, f sharp:
The President's Analyst, which we watched on deeveedee this fine evening, is one heckuva good movie. It stars Mr. James Coburn, the epitome of 1960's cool. It's a bit dated, since the setting is the cold war, and the drugged-out hippies in the movie don't help matters much, but the movie is quite often hilarious. (And there's a cool inside joke: in the first scene of the movie, Mr. Godfrey Cambridge is sporting a t-shirt that reads
Dizzy Gillespie for President, just after you see the credit line "Music by Lalo Schifrin". And Mr. Schifrin's first professional gigs were courtesy of Dizzy Gillespie.) Cambridge and Severn Darden, as rival spies playing a game of oneupsmanship, are very fine indeeed. Both of the thick TV/video reference books I have give the movie four stars. I wouldn't go
that far, but I think it's terrific.
The picture on the deeveedee seems a bit too dark at times (I'm sure the nimrod sites will praise its' "solid blacks"), but otherwise just fine. There are no extras to speak of. But for ten bucks or less, how the heck can I complain?
