Review of Crazy Eights (2006) by Shantel D — 01 Jul 2008

[b]Shrooms [/b]was the big surprise of Friday the 13th. It was really good. The cover box looked terrible, the description - a group of kids go to Ireland just to eat Mushrooms and then don't know whether or not they are hallucinating ghosts - sounded pretty lame. But the effects were very creepy. The acting believable. And the story, especially the ghost part, was quite good up until the twist ending. And even that didn't ruin it. Very nice surprise.

[b]Crazy Eights [/b]was not such a good time. Frankly, I was bored. Old friends reunite when one of their group dies and then they end up following a map which leads to the corpse of a child. Then weird stuff happens. Ghosties and flashbacks. Confusion and no clear "good guy" for whom to root. I can't recommend it.

[b]Suddenly, Last Summer [/b]is based on a Tennessee Williams ("Night of the Iguana") play, so it's emotionally disturbing. Katharine Hepburn ("Love Affair") is trying to have a lobotomy performed on her niece, Elizabeth Taylor ("The Flintstones"), because the niece made some disturbing comments about the circumstances surrounding the death of Hepburn's son. Montgomery Clift ("The Defector") is the brain surgeon caught in between these women's monologues on relationships and human behavior. Very good.

[b]The Shop Around the Corner[/b] is a sweet little romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart ("The Magic of Lassie") and Margaret Sullavan ("No Sad Songs for Me"), who love each other through anonymous letters, but can't stand each other in person. The banter is good, and there are some excellent comedic moments. I really enjoyed it.

[b]Anatomy of a Murder[/b] started a bit slow for me. But once it got into the courtroom, I got really involved. Jimmy Stewart ("The Magic of Lassie") stars as a small town attorney defending a man who killed the man who raped his wife. There's some comedic moments between Stewart and his assistants, but mostly this is a tense back and forth between lawyers and witnesses. Director Otto Preminger ("The Human Factor") doesn't really go into the right and wrong, but just let's us think about the evidence and what the jury's decision means. Very good.