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As Good As It Gets

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Based on the play "Orpheus Descending" by Tennessee Williams directed by Sidney Lumet with an exceptional cast: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton and Victor Jory. I saw it for the first time when I was still in my teens and I had an opaque, sticky memory of the film so when somebody suggested to see it on DVD I knew we were in for an opaque, sticky evening but, as it happens, I was dead wrong. "The Fugitive Kind" is riveting with an opening monologue by Brando that is astonishing. A 1960 Brando when he had still, I imagine. hopes to be the actor, the man he wanted to be. There is an animal innocence in his eyes in his moves. The magnificent Magnani, who learned her lines phonetically because she didn't know English presented Brando with a challenge as an actress and as a woman. I hear it wasn't pretty but the result is a feast for the eyes and the ears. The film may not be perfect but I don't think the original material was either so what we got here is a unique opportunity to see this enormous artists giving their whole. That alone makes it a collectors item.

This film brings together my favorite actors of all time Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani in such outstanding performances. By the way, Joan Woodward cannot fall behind and too performs exceptionally. This film should be taught in every drama school. We should not forget the great original play "Orpheus descending" by Tennessee Williams and the descent directing of Sydney Lumet. So many geniuses bundled together in this great movie!

The Fugitive Kind (1960)This is one of those great movies that slips its way into that big gap between the great Hollywood Golden Age to the great New Hollywood of the late 1960s. An awful lot of films from the period between (1955-65) are weak or even downright bad, big budgets and all. The Hollywood gems in that time are usually a little gut wrenching, and many are based on plays, or push political issues (I'm thinking of "The Apartment" and "The Manchurian Candidate"). The famous directors coming to their own during time include Elia Kazan and Robert Wise, and of course Sidney Lumet, who directed this one.This is all working class, plainspeaking, emotive material. Right from the get-go with leading man Marlon Brando doing a long take as he stands before a judge, we are filled with heart-wrenching stuff, people who want to be something and don't know how, or people with big hearts that are broken or dirty. The cast, beyond Brando, is terrific: Joanne Woodward as a young floozy with a sharp sense of independence, Maureen Stapleton as a simple and faith filled wife of the sheriff, and Anna Magnani, intense and troubled but superior in her own out of place way.There are powerful displays of white narrow-mindedness (call it bigotry, but it is largely aimed at just anyone they don't like) that don't quite fall into clichés, there is love that shouldn't be and that never is, there is old world morality and inbred local gossipy immorality. Things are bound for collision even by twenty minutes in, and there are innuendoes and hidden histories waiting to blossom. Lumet has a knack for the serious, with his 1957 breakthrough film "12 Angry Men" a template for his career. As lively and even crazy as this movie is, it's also probing deeply into human woe and maladjustment (often deliberate). The core of the writing belongs to Tennessee Williams, who of course is all about inner troubles and outward misunderstood or mistaken actions. There is nothing superficial here, not in the acting, the filming, or the scenes (set in the South but filmed near Saratoga Springs, New York). And if the wet, dark nights scenes and interiors with people quarreling and fighting aren't enough to suck you in, the story, about wanting to live, nothing more, is beautiful and important. All four of the main characters are deeply good people, and all flawed in small but debilitating ways. Which should sound familiar. As over the top as it sometimes seems, you'll identify with the position some of the people end up in. Brando is temperamental but patient and with a profound sense of justice. Woodward is a free spirit misunderstood (and punished) by the uptight and hypocritical society around her. The themes are frank for 1960, including an implication of a male so manly and irresistible the women want him (and get him) even when it's completely wrong. And when it's right. The sexuality, partly pumped up by the writing of the openly gay playwright (Williams), is all over Brando's face and in his scenes. And this is his movie.High high drama, but from within. And explosive. Don't miss it.

"The Fugitive Kind" plays like Tennessee Williams' B-side, the second-half of a "Streetcar" double feature... Director Sidney Lumet does a fantastic job tapping into the loneliness, desire, and humanity that were the hallmarks of Williams' writing. And Brando is still smoking from his "Streetcar" heat...Marlon was still in his golden era, and he's the reason to see this movie. His performance here is pure sexual magnetism, as he effortlessly plays a man whose every move oozes eroticism. How much so? At one point in the movie Anna Magnini watches him walk by with a cigarette in his hand and blushes, asking why he's so dirty. At another point, he confesses his gift/curse for being able to "wear women down." Let the levees break...This is the Brando everyone talks about, and every tired cliché is absolutely true: you cannot take your eyes off him. Smoldering, strong, and yet embarrassingly vulnerable- both physically and emotionally. This is the stuff dreams are made of.Joanne Woodward gives a brilliantly naked performance as a beatnik, and she reminded me strongly of Jessica Lange. Anna Magnani is suitably raw, and Victor Jory appropriately evil.The show here is Marlon, and if you don't know why he's considered the best film actor of all time, just take a look at him here.GRADE: B