Word: hollywoodized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...business, even to so stratospheric a level as The Tramp's, and there comes an evening of the Long Knives. For Chaplin, night came early and stayed late. He became embroiled in a series of affairs. He married and divorced two teen-agers and earned a reputation as Hollywood's outstanding satyr. His dalliances shocked the nation and nearly ruined his career. But Chaplin always managed to rescue himself with new apologies and fresh performances...
Like all the Brooks-Wilder-Feldman efforts, this one is about old movies. Wilder plays Rudy Valentine, a shnook from Milwaukee who goes West when a film company announces a search for a new star to compete with Valentino. Once the hero hits Hollywood, predictable gags ensue at an alarming rate. There are the usual send-ups of silent movies and film-company yes men, not to mention the now obligatory asides about Valentino's ambiguous sexuality. Rather than recapture the high spirits of Brooks' Silent Movie, this movie more often looks like an overbudgeted tribute...
...director, Wilder fares somewhat better. The film looks handsome, and its few reflective scenes express an idiosyncratic affection for the mythos of American movies. The shots of Hollywood sound stages and Beverly Hills vistas have a Fellini-esque quality, as does a dreamy sequence in which the film's two Rudys spend an unlikely afternoon together. Better yet, The World's Greatest Lover ends with a rush of feeling for both movies and people that is surprisingly touching. While the climax has nothing to do with the film that precedes it, one can at least hope that...
...nondescript orange and brown, the carpet is forgettable green, and the Spanish style furniture looks as if it had been borrowed from a Holiday Inn. A psychiatrist would have a hard start, in short, if he tried to analyze John Travolta from the way he has decorated his West Hollywood apartment...
...first-rate and John Travolta is a revelation. At once mean-looking and pretty, he conveys the kind of threatening sexuality that floors an audience. His dancing is electric, his comic timing acute. In the timeless manner of movie sex symbols, his carnal presence can make even a safe Hollywood package seem like dangerous goods. - Frank Rich