Movie Review - High Strung: Free Dance (2018)

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AKA: Free Dance; High Strung 2

It's hard to make music in the keyboard equivalent of a Ford Fiesta when you've got a Ferrari in your sights, as deli delivery boy Charlie (Harry Jarvis) discovers at the beginning of High Strung: Free Dance. Dropping bread off at an elderly woman's stately home, he comes face-to-face with a gorgeous grand piano and dares to play the keys beckoning to him in the dimly lit study. And once Charlie gives into temptation, his skills make quite an impression on the reclusive owner who first complains that her previous bread order was dry before telling him that next time, he should play something by Schubert.

A delightful opener to an otherwise forgettable movie that's as bland as the rolls at Charlie's deli, Free Dance uses the same building blocks of a "let's put on a show" set love story between a burgeoning dancer and musician that served as the backbone of the pleasant 2016 original. Proof that like a xerox machine, if — as they say in Multiplicity — you make a copy of a copy, the result isn't nearly as sharp, while the first High Strung picture was constructed from bits and pieces of dance movies of decades gone by, this one feels as though it's just going through the motions to try to duplicate its success.

Yet while High Strung's new musician Charlie is an entertaining new character, the same cannot be said for the rest of the people who populate Free Dance. Unfortunately, this includes our dancer and female lead Barlow (played by Juliet Doherty), whose direct worth seems to be derived from whichever guy is standing nearest to her — whether that's bossy choreographer Zander (Thomas Doherty) or Charlie — and neither of whom address her with any real conviction.

From getting cast and kissed by Zander within the same thirty seconds — and with all the sizzle of a toothpaste commercial — to having cliched fights with her mom (Jane Seymour), screenwriters Janeen and Michael Damian (who also directed) can't be bothered to give her or anyone else onscreen anything resembling a personality. And with time, this also applies to Charlie who, despite starting strong, seems to fade into the background as Free Dance continues.

Recommended only to dance movie obsessives and even then with the caveat not to expect too much, with the wooden dialogue only accentuating the film's amateur performances, Free Dance wisely breaks the tedium with dynamic music and jaw-dropping dance choreography that routinely bursts onto the screen so suddenly that it feels as though we must've accidentally changed the channel.

Serving up various styles of modern dance with creativity and verve, in the end, I can't help but wish that Free Dance had been a been not a dull showmance but a That's Entertainment! like showcase of back-to-back free dance. While ultimately a Ford Fiesta — as Charlie might put it — thanks to the impressive work of choreographer Andreea Dumitrescu and the talented dancers on the screen, it's evident that there's enough talent behind the films that someday the High Strung franchise might just deliver its viewers a Ferrari.

Related Review: High Strung (2016)

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review – CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion

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From the saintly, asexual disabled women who get rewarded with a medical cure by the end of the movie (as in City Lights) to the vengeful, recently disabled, villainous men who want to take their anger out on the world (like Dennis Hopper's cop turned bus bomber in Speed), disability stereotypes have become ingrained in our culture throughout film history.

And while that doesn't of course prevent any of the films mentioned from being classics in their own right, when these and other stereotypes – whether coded or more overt – are returned to again and again on the big or small screen, the idea that they're true gets reinforced in people's minds, even if the viewer isn't fully aware of it.

A subject close to my heart, not only as a disabled woman but also as a film major who intended to make it my thesis in graduate school, in this eye-opening documentary (which should be mandatory viewing for those pursuing a degree in Media Studies), director Jenni Gold gives a fascinating overview of the subject of disability onscreen.

Chronicling the evolution of disabled character driven storytelling over roughly 120 years of cinema (and later, television), we discover how much has changed as well as how much remains the same. Additionally, Gold looks at the role that representation plays in legislation as – with the increase of more positive and diverse portrayals post-Vietnam – the Americans With Disabilities Act was finally signed into law by President Bush in 1990.

Reminiscent of a terrific small screen documentary that wouldn't be out of place on TCM, given not only its subject matter but also its slightly retro approach, CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion is hosted and narrated by one of the film's producers, Jane Seymour and features interviews with a number of famous faces such as Geena Davis, Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, and William H. Macy.

Boasting a fascinating selection of film clips and some great analysis by Martin F. Norden, the author of a book I'd highly recommend on the subject (The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies), the Emmy winning Gold covers a lot of ground, especially in CinemAbility's powerful look at pre-World War II cinema.

From Thomas Edison's The Fake Beggar (which Eddie Murphy paid homage to in Trading Places) and Tod Browning's ouevre from his campy Lon Chaney collaborations to Freaks as well as the complex Golden Rule coded metaphorical morality of Frankenstein up through The Wizard of Oz, there's a lot to process.

And much like the strides made in portrayals post Vietnam, we received what is perhaps our earliest fully three-dimensional disabled character in the form of a WWII vet (played by real WWII vet Harold Russell) in director William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives.

Receiving both an honorary Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans" as well as a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the role, Russell's earnest portrayal in the film (which is not without some controversy given Wyler's decision to limit Russell's offscreen independence onscreen) helped usher in decades of new disabled characters on screens both big and small.

From The Miracle Worker to Wait Until Dark at the movies as well as Miss Susan and Ironside on television, viewers were finally starting to see characters whose disabilities were just one aspect of who they were vs. their sole definition in the '50s and '60s.

And although Russell's Oscar success might've also inadvertently led to the ongoing debate surrounding disabled characters being especially attractive for able-bodied actors to play due to their awards bait potential (considering how many bring home Oscars in films from Coming Home to Ray), it still remains that exceptionally rare instance when a disabled actor was cast in a disabled part.

However, there is a heartbreaking follow-up to the universal acclaim for Russell when Marlee Matlin's well-deserved Academy Award win for her powerful turn in Children of a Lesser God was dismissed in the press in 1987 as “a sympathy vote.” Adding insult to injury, when she worked hard to speak the names of the Best Actor nominees the following year while presenting the award to its ultimate winner Michael Douglas, she was accused of betraying the deaf community.

While the sympathy vote write-off is perhaps indicative of a gender double standard, this isn't explored in the film, which already has so much to cover given the complexity, intertextuality, and intersectionality of its subject that it could've led to a multi-part Ken Burns style documentary series.

And with so much on its mind from not only the depiction of disabled characters on film and TV as well as by disabled performers – before delving into the need for more opportunities behind the scenes as well as working in civil rights issues and comparisons to the strides made by African-Americans and the LGBTQ community – the otherwise outstanding doc begins to lose focus.

Jumping around in topic and tone in its last half hour, CinemAbility's talking heads discuss various aspects of on and offscreen portrayals and their reactions to everything from Million Dollar Baby to the depiction of disability based humor.

Needless to say, this doesn't flow very well and while it's all very interesting, the meandering final section of the documentary isn't nearly as solid as the stellar, film school worthy tour of disability onscreen in the first half of the twentieth century which opened Gold's work.

Ambitious, necessary, and long overdue in our cultural conversation, in the end, having too much to say is always preferable to too little. However, because of the limited format of a feature length film (as opposed to say, a five part series on issues such as: stereotypes and depictions, genre approaches, approaching role as an actor, TV vs film, and inclusion in the industry), I think Gold's subject is better served with more analysis and cinematic examples than occasionally repetitive opinions from the interviewees.

Yet, despite that, by covering so much territory, it's bound to not only inspire vital post-film discussion but also cause viewers – both disabled and able-bodied alike – to consider some of their favorite films in a new light.

A crucial jumping off point to greater study, CinemAbility is a fast-moving, funny, and frequently surprising documentary that illustrates in both its examples and interviews, how much our culture benefits when we see people from all different walks of life represented onscreen, including those that might not walk but don't have to be psychopaths, helpless, or superheroes to be fascinating in their own right.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: Little Italy (2018)

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Grumpy Old Men, Miss Congeniality, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days director Donald Petrie returns to the setting that helped launch his successful career in 1988's Mystic Pizza with the Toronto based Little Italy.

Yet whereas Mystic was more of a coming-of-age dramedy with a pizzeria backdrop, given his new film's sunshine bright high key lighting and the nostalgic sounds of Perry Como's "Papa Loves Mambo" adding bounce to an upbeat opening voice-over by stars Emma Roberts and Hayden Christensen, there's no denying what genre Little Italy is right from the start.

A romantic comedy spin on Romeo and Juliet, the film takes place in and around rival pizza restaurants in Toronto's Little Italy. If Italy sounds familiar to you, it might be because not only has Shakespeare's tragedy been updated as a comedy many times before but the exact same premise has also made its way to the screen multiple times, including director Andy Wolk's 2005 New Jersey set cable romcom Pizza My Heart, from scripters Juliet and Keith Giglio, to name just one example.

A veritable big screen sitcom, Little Italy borrows heavily from the romantic comedy heyday of the 1990s and early 2000s, and especially the box office juggernaut My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Similarly constructed with a lightweight fast-paced multi-character driven storyline – only this time where the B-plot romance darn near upstages the A-story – while Italy is ultimately average, it's sure to amuse those looking for a mindless Saturday night diversion.

Returning to Toronto after five years spent abroad at culinary school and working under Jane Seymour's "Gordon Ramsay but prettier and scarier" Chef Corrine, Nikki Angioli (Emma Roberts) discovers things don't change much in Little Italy, where her father Sal (Adam Ferrara) runs a pizzeria restaurant right next door to his former friend and business partner, Vince (Gary Basaraba).

Only there to change her visa from student to worker when a dream professional opportunity opens up in London, after Nikki runs into her childhood best friend, Leo Campo (Hayden Christensen), things start to get complicated and not just because he's Vince's son.

Sharing her passion for cooking organically and eager to update the menu at his headstrong father's place (which he knows will never happen), Leo and Nikki find themselves falling back into the familiar rhythm of friends with potential where it seems they're always just one moment away from amore.

Meanwhile while the two younger characters flirt with the idea of flirting, their respective grandparents – including Leo's grandpa Carlo (Danny Aiello) and Nikki's “Nonna” Franca (My Big Fat Greek Wedding MVP, Andrea Martin) – have already crossed that bridge.

Hiding away in the confessional at the local church before they're found out and subsequently driven to a nearby Starbucks in shame, Aiello and Martin steal focus from the rest of the talented cast including Alyssa Milano as Nikki's mom and Andrew Phung as Luigi, the gay, Asian owner of a local bar who feels far more at home living life as an Italian.

Having a ball as the conflicted lovers, while Roberts and Christensen do their best to elevate what is essentially a spicier version of a by-the-numbers, made for Hallmark Channel romantic comedy, one can't help think that the film might've been far more original if they'd been the B-plot to Aiello and Martin's A-storyline.

Unsure of its audience, the film takes things a bit too far with some of its more risqué humor including one just plain uncomfortable sequence where in a series of escalating pranks, Sal swaps out Vince's oregano for pot and its characters turn ridiculously horny and later in a poorly conceived weekly insult battle, the two fathers begin commenting on their children's looks and sexual prowess.

Never quite paying off on the ongoing feud between their parents and essentially relegating them to the background until the inevitable moment where the film's two love stories take center stage, Mambo Italiano screenwriter Steve Galluccio and Vinay Virmani's script is full of so many ideas and characters that you get the feeling they were trying to please every possible audience member.

Needless to say, it's no Mystic Pizza or Greek Wedding. Still while the recipe doesn't come together nearly as well as one of the film's many delicious looking pizzas that are sure to make your mouth water, under the buoyant direction of Petrie who knows comedy well enough to reassemble the ingredients alongside his energetic cast, Little Italy bounces back from its many missteps just enough to entertain you for its 102 minute running time.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: High Strung (2016)

Having arrived in New York to pursue their passions, a brooding British violinist and beautiful ballet student learn to face the music and dance over the course of this pleasant if admittedly predictable Fame meets Once style musical romance.

Named Ruby after a Balanchine ballet and seemingly destined for a life on the stage, in High Strung, Keenan Kampa’s first year Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts student struggles to dance with her heart instead of her head – similar to the way that Nicholas Galitzine’s busking violinist Johnnie does while composing by ear with the world as his muse.

 

Nonetheless believing that "dancers dancer no matter what," once the two cross paths in the midst of a robbery that finds Johnnie’s beloved grandfather’s violin stolen, Ruby is more determined than ever before to follow her heart and make things right.

After some early push-and-pull which is vividly brought to life in a terrific tango sequence that gives the film a much-needed shot of adrenaline, Ruby joins forces with the initially reluctant musician to compete for a prize that could pave the way to both of their dreams.

 

While fans of the well-tread genre know precisely where the film and its characters are headed, fortunately for director Michael Damien (who penned High Strung alongside wife Janeen Damian), few audiences are as loyal or forgiving of flaws as song and dance movie devotee, as this fan can personally attest.

Hindered by blandly written characters and (everything but the dance numbers) by-the-numbers dance picture predictability, although the film’s otherwise talented leads don’t exactly set the screen ablaze with their less than fiery chemistry, the affable cast never fails to give it their all.

 

Shining its brightest when High Strung’s musical performances take Center Stage, the high in energy yet low in originality movie manages to distract us from the inevitably triumphant conclusion with Viorel Sergovici’s lush cinematography, Nathan Lanier’s stellar score, and Dave Scott’s innovative choreography.

Having graduated to features after helming a series of memorable TV movies and direct-to-disc hits (including a few terrific Flicka sequels), High Strung marks an admirably ambitious undertaking by director Michael Damian.

A refreshingly clean spin on Dirty Dancing-like material safe for the High School Musical or Teen Beach Movie set, while perhaps it’s only mildly successful in its own right, High Strung will undoubtedly to appeal to genre lovers eager to Step Up for another opportunity to Save the Last Dance.

Related Review - High Strung: Free Dance (2019)

   

Text ©2016, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Austenland (2013)

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It’s rare when a movie critiques itself but when Best in Show alumni Jennifer Coolidge states that she thinks that “being creative is a waste of time and money,” she might just have well have broken through the cinematic fourth wall, stepped out of character as another rich, dimwitted but friendly American and addressed the audience to describe exactly what is wrong with Austenland overall.

A complete missed opportunity to do for Jane Austen what Love Actually did for romantic comedies, writer/director Jerusha Hess’s abysmal adaptation of the novel by Shannon Hale (which was likewise co-written for the screen by Hale) never seems to figure out precisely what tone they’re aiming for, let alone the point they’re trying to make.

Despite a cleverly conceived idea that centers around a tourist destination for Jane Austen aficionados (think: Comic Con - Elizabeth Bennet style), where bibliophiles can spend an immersive week in the English countryside of Austen’s novels, Austenland is never able to match that creativity in its tale of our uninspired heroine Jane Hayes (played by the otherwise affable Keri Russell).

So dedicated to the world of Austen that she’s created a room wholly devoted to it (complete with decidedly unliterary wall art that boldly states that Mr. Darcy Rocks), when we meet Jane she’s frustrated by the way that love on paper never seems to live up to the real thing.

At a dead-end in all aspects of her life, while we understand why Hayes would enjoy this sort of Anglophile adult summer camp, we have absolutely no clue why she would assume that a vacation to Jane Land would be the answer to all of her problems.

Needless to say, while she’s purported to be an intelligent bookworm, we can’t imagine a grown woman with an above average IQ voluntarily trading in her life savings for a week of faux-romance with one of the hired actors. (It’s not exactly The Bachelor: The Austen Edition.)

And therein lies one of the biggest dilemmas of the movie as Hess and Hale never can figure out whether they’d like us to relate to and laugh with Jane or be mystified by and laugh at our misguided lead.

Missing the same sort of opportunities embraced by contemporary Austen adaptations from You’ve Got Mail to Bridget Jones’s Diary to Clueless to walk that fine line in tone and do more than just touch on a few plot points here and there, after Jane arrives in Austenland she grows disillusioned with the resort almost instantly.

Spending her time doing seemingly out-of-character things from playing “Hot in Here” on the piano to ignoring the types of seminars and activities that she seemed perfect for in the film’s introduction to the character, Jane opts to bow out of a large amount of the festivities she paid so much money to enjoy.

Reverting to a teenage summer romance, she chooses to dance to ‘80s music and make out with the stable hand (played by Flight of the Conchords's Bret McKenzie) vs. the faux Darcy-like aristocrats the actors around her are portraying.

Essentially suffering from a flip-flopping characterization, acts one and two of Austenland could also be called A Tale of Two Janes as we’re never exactly sure what Russell’s going to do next and why.

Unfortunately, it begins to completely fall apart midway through the second act when the guests and staff collaborate on a romantic play that does nothing more than eat up screen time and make you that much more grateful that Russell has TV's stellar The Americans to fall back on.

However, just when we think all hope is lost, the film nearly manages to redeem itself… once, that is our heroine manages to wise up and get the hell away from Austenland in a surprisingly terrific third act.

Serving up a vastly superior final twenty-minute coda to the nails-on-the-blackboard like cacophony that was the first hour, while it’s hard to imagine that many viewers would still be voluntarily watching at that point thanks to the convenience of the eject button on this recent DVD release, for those that are, Austenland manages to reward your patience.

In fact, the ending is so good that it makes me wonder how great the film could’ve been if all the gimmickry had been tossed out and Hess and Hale had spent less time trying to entertain and (in the manner of Austen) more time devoting itself to embracing the real life of a smart single woman who wants to heighten and make the best of reality, not simply run away from it.

For maybe if they would’ve done that they wouldn’t have lost so much money since the lack of creativity and character pride onscreen translated straight to box office prejudice offscreen by not giving the large global fan base of Austen devotees with high hopes a heroine and film worthy of the name Jane Austen(land).

     

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD: John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1981 Miniseries) -- 3-Disc Set

You know your film is obscure when even Oprah Winfrey can't get her hands on it. Following its triumphant success when ABC's incredibly faithful adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden hit the airwaves to critical acclaim and awards (garnering Jane Seymour a Golden Globe and a second statue as the Best Miniseries) in 1981, oddly enough Eden was somehow locked in the same vault that seems to kidnap one of my socks every time I do the laundry.

In a revealing new interview with Jane Seymour who cherished the opportunity to play the wickedly self-obsessed and manipulative Cathy-- the actress who has also called the part "the best role" in her career that's included on Acorn Media's brand new three-disc set, confesses that when Oprah Winfrey chose the novel for her newest book club launch in 2003, neither the talk show host nor the Steinbeck Estate knew where to track it down.

Whereas Elia Kazan's version of the book that Steinbeck referred to as his "quintessential novel," compressed the narrative and dealt with only the last third of the book-- this miniseries quickly introduces us to the oldest generation of the Trask family as they journey to post-Civil War Connecticut. Perhaps foreshadowing the biblical disasters that follow-- shortly upon their arrival the matriarch of the Trask family drowns herself and we're soon presented with the initial example of recurring Cain and Abel motif that is woven throughout the book as we first encounter the initial pair of opposite brothers Adam and Charles (Timothy Bottoms, Bruce Boxleitner).

Although they had their differences growing up as half-brothers, eventually the two became unexpectedly wealthy following a suspiciously giant inheritance from their deceased government worker father. Running a farm side by side-- they seem to mostly have gotten over their petty ways but this changes abruptly when the seductive manipulator Cathy (Jane Seymour) shows up at their doorstep. Since the film had been inter-cutting Cathy's tale in with that of the brothers-- we know exactly that although she arrives badly beaten and close to death-- the type of destruction a woman like Cathy can cause and while she doesn't fool the cynical Charles, Adam proves incredibly naive as he nurses the beauty back to health.

Their predictable coupling sets in motion a chain of events that produces the unlikely twins, Aron and Cal (Hart Bochner, Sam Bottoms) who seem doomed to repeat the sins of their father (if that is they know which dad is theirs). And this is exacerbated even more when Seymour's Cathy shoots her adoring husband Adam to escape the dull fate of being a farmer's wife upon their relocation to California. Wishing for the city life, Cathy abandons her newborns and trades careers from mother to madam at a nearby whorehouse she names after her new alter-ego Kate.

Keeping Cathy/Kate's existence a secret from his sons-- the rebellious Cal and saintly Aron-- Adam grows to favor the son who looks more like his mother yet morally recalls his father, leaving Cal to feel as though he were an outsider. And predictably, soon enough, he begins acting out when he learns the truth about his birth mother.

Although it has been a good ten to fifteen years since I read Steinbeck's gorgeous tome-- after the first hour which admittedly does take awhile to get viewers accustomed to the dark, foreboding cinematography of the piece-- the novel came rushing back to me and I cherished the filmmakers' devotion to the source material. One of the great American novels that borrows heavily from the stories of the bible for putting new twists on the idea of Adam and Eve, the "serpent" and the apple, Cain and Abel-- one of the best decisions made for this adaptation was to keep the supporting players evident in the novel present throughout the series as they greatly enrich the work as a whole.

This is especially apparent in the small but vital roles played by Anne Baxter as Cathy's mentor madam, a wonderful stereotype busting performance by Soon-Tek Oh as Lee, Adam's Chinese housekeeper who essentially serves as a second parent to the boys. Furthermore, he's the most important reminder to them that there is always a choice in one's actions and one doesn't necessarily have to do something evil because one feels as though it's inherited through their bloodline.

Of course, the major revelation for the miniseries is in Jane Seymour's tour-de-force as the beguiling villain who can go from sweet to sinister in six seconds flat. Hands down, the best performance Seymour has ever given and one that made filmmakers who'd judged the beauty for once playing a Bond girl think twice-- Seymour's mesmerizing transformation and bravery in playing such a horrific "she-serpent" as Acorn describes her, ensures you'll never look at Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman in quite the same way again.

While obviously, her Cathy-- much like "Curley's wife" in Of Mice and Men is yet another female character in the Steinbeck oeuvre that illustrates his misogynistic tendency to create sinful, lusty females out to ruin men to their death does make feminists take pause. However, the interview provided on the DVD makes one see her character in a whole other light as Seymour explains the way she immediately latched onto and understood Cathy.

And she's still able to retain that "Cathy expression" to scare her husband. It's this cue she jokes that was the only direction she was given on-set to go into her "bad Cathy look" and Seymour, who admits that much like Anthony Hopkins, she agrees that "there's just nothing like a great evil role," is so shockingly good that in real life she found herself being doused with holy water at a wedding by a woman who was convinced she was possessed by Satan.

Although Seymour is easily the grandest scene-stealer in the film which still looks marvelous in its multimillion dollar Salinas, California shoot, there are times when she's nearly upstaged by a terrific ensemble that also features Lloyd Bridges in a memorable, small but vital role.

Moreover, literary lovers will adore all of the different allusions and double-meanings of the film as they tie into recurring motifs and plays on biblical stories right down to the names as the "A" names indicate goodness and the "C" names warn there's trouble ahead so that it makes a perfect companion piece to the book in uncovering subtext.

Intriguingly, Seymour-- who first saw the original Kazan version at the home of Steven Spielberg with whom she met while discussing Raiders of the Lost Ark-- ends up sharing the last portion of the film with the woman who won Spielberg's Indy role-- Karen Allen. The polar opposite of Kate-- Allen's Abraham inspired character Abra is a sweet and good-natured young woman but once you realize not only the name in which she's saddled but also that she's both female and involved with Steinbeck's oeuvre, it foreshadows nonetheless the fact that eventually one of the sons will have to be sacrificed.

While of course, Adam's omission of the truth about Aron and Cal's mother is definitely to blame and the tale pins the guilt on numerous parties-- over and over again from the first drowning to the final moments, Steinbeck's attitude towards the ladies and most notably his monstrous Cathy (with nary a trace of humanity) is less than forgiving in respect to the males.

Obviously, the book is so compelling since it is such a morality tale and one has to look past modern interpretations of the psychological subtext going on in this one as well as Of Mice and Men (with regards to both women and disabled individuals) that can cloud our judgment on what a tremendously compelling feat that it is after all. And in Eden's case, it's one that plays even better when given the deluxe made-for-television cinematic treatment, now that fortunately it's been discovered by-- not Oprah-- but our friends at Acorn Media.