Review of Mamma Roma (1962) by Jerome W — 05 Mar 2005

Well, I'm finally back after spending a week in LA on business. My main impression was that the city doesn't live up to its own hype. It seemed dirty and too impersonal to me. The city blocks in the downtown area where I was staying were humongous and didn't seem intended for a lot of walking, the subway, where evidently you buy tickets and ride through the honor system, was creepy and West Hollywood, the one area that I got to explore, just looked small with a lot of houses and shops just thrown together with no rhyme or reason. Okay, I didn't do a lot of exploring becuase I was sick all week but still Philadelphia, New Orleans and San Francisco all came off with a lot more personality and humanity than LA.

I seem to be one of the few people who think that "Million Dollar Baby" deserved its Oscars. Scorsese? Hey, let them give him his "lifetime achievement" Oscar for a [i]good[/i] film, OK? Haven't seen many movies. I did like "Runaway Jury" for its classy Gene Hackman performance and "The Big Knife" may have been melodramatic, but it was still effective, especially Rod Steiger's volcanic scenery chewing as the evil stuido boss. I did see more "Law And Order" episodes while I was gone than I ever want to in one week again. I saw the premiere of the new "Trial By Jury" show and it was as weird as the goofiest L&O shows of the past three years. The story was about a dead actress but the script made several references that equated actresses with whores. Alternative defense theories were mentioned but never pursued and strangest of all, the "he's guilty" kicker was when the jury learned that the defendant had three dogs put to sleep. Incredibly the show's creator, Dick Wolf, wrote this. Boy, does he have strange ideas!