Word: seidelman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Directed by Susan Seidelman Screenplay by Mark R. Burns and Barry Strugatz...
COOKIE Directed by Susan Seidelman; Screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen...
...plus an extra segment on videocassette releases), one of the pair will introduce clips, describe the plot and give a capsule review. Then comes an ad-lib passage in which the other offers his comments or rebuttal. The cross talk often gets testy. After the two disagreed about Susan Seidelman's comedy Making Mr. Right, Ebert concluded defiantly, "I enjoyed myself from beginning to end." Replied Siskel: "You usually do enjoy yourself; it's the film I didn't like." Or here is Ebert trying to convince Siskel that Alan Parker's thriller Angel Heart is not too slow moving...
...wait. Seidelman has had the wit to cast that uncannily resourceful actor John Malkovich as both Jeff Peters, the mad -- well, anyway, crabby -- scientist who created Ulysses, and the mechanical marvel himself. The former is a ferocious misanthrope, misogynist and klutz; the latter is, naturally and logically, everything his master cannot hope to be. He moves, for example, not with the herky-jerky nervousness of his creator or a too cute movie robot. Instead, Malkovich invests him with a preternatural smoothness. His character is equally subtle. It may be based on the wise-child conventions on which the typical...
...makes the rest of the film problematic. On one hand, it grants the picture a distinction it would not otherwise enjoy. On the other hand, it is a continual reminder of just how routine the rest of the movie is. In effect, his performance, together with Seidelman's former success, creates an expectation of sustained comic brilliance that this genre piece cannot finally deliver. Still, Malkovich is something to see. And the engaging Ulysses is a character who may prove difficult to forget...