'Scent of a Woman' review, Jan. 8, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

In the course of living, we inevitably encounter people who are so persistently obnoxious that we go to great lengths to avoid them. Al Pacino plays just such a jerk in “Scent of a Woman.” But we’re supposed to pay good money to spend more than two hours with him. 

It’s the same sort of bizarre miscalculation director-star Billy Crystal made with last year’s “Mr. Saturday Night,” which also was a movie about a jerk. 

There are some people you just don’t want to spend a couple of hours with. As cinematic torture goes, there are worse movies to punish yourself with (“Toys,” for example). Still, “Scent of a Woman” is not the only other movie in the marketplace.

Pacino plays Frank Slade, a former military man whose loud, boorish behavior worked fine for him while he was on LBJ’s White House staff a quarter century ago – LBJ, after all, was probably worse than Slade in the crude department. But somewhere along the line Frank’s career derailed, and he wound up playing hot potato with live hand grenades to relieve boredom, or prove his mettle, or whatever. The stunt blinded him, and he’s been living on a disability pension ever since. 

Bottom line: Frank’s life, as he views it, isn’t much fun anymore. He’s been living with his niece, her husband and their two kids – and hating every moment. Now’s his chance to make a break for it: They’re leaving home for the weekend and have hired a teenager, Charlie (Chris O'Donnell), to look after him. 

Unbeknownst to everyone, Frank’s been stashing his pension checks away, saving for a big trip to New York City. He hauls Charlie along, of course, and once in the city they eat the best food, drink the best liquor and Frank spends time with the best call girl. 

Inevitably, the two males wind up teaching each other about life over the course of their eventful weekend. 

Regrettably, the one major plot twist that’s supposed to take us by surprise is shockingly easy to anticipate – a flub that further deflates the movie. (I won’t reveal it, but rest assured that if you see the film you’ll catch on early.) After that, all that’s left is to watch Pacino slam dunk all the other actors who venture into the frame alongside him. 

The man can act ... with a vengeance. There, hasn’t been this much acting going on in a movie since Dustin Hoffman wore a skirt in “Tootsie.” It’s a shameless play for Oscar consideration, a big bold “Look, Ma, I still have what it takes!” message for a Hollywood currently obsessed with younger talent.

The thing that makes you cringe is the knowledge that, yes, Pacino has talent to spare; he really is the genuine article, one of our best actors. It’s precisely his ability to remain truthful to the character of Frank Slade that does the movie in: Frank is so easy to dislike that we stop caring precisely when we should be caring the most. Frank’s a goon.

"Chaplin" review from Jan. 8, 1993

 

‘Chaplin’ offers little new 

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff 

The equivalent of a Reader's Digest Condensed Version of Charles Chaplin's life opens in movie theaters today under the title “Chaplin.” It’s adequate, but by no means revealing – or, for that matter, perceptive. 

After all, Chaplin’s career – as an actor first, and director-star later on – was marked by a series of ground-breaking, hilarious films. He was consistently good at what he did.

And while “Chaplin” gives us an inkling of the filmmaker’s obsessional perfectionism, it seems more preoccupied with detailing his many affairs with underage and/or overwrought females. Director Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi”) displays an eerie fascination with the breasts of his actresses; as a result, you walk away from “Chaplin” thinking the filmmaker may have been a genius, yes, but he was also a leering, dirty old man. 

Chaplin is played by Robert Downey, Jr. (“Less Than Zero”), who displays an impressive talent for physical mimicry. Furthermore, he captures –insofar as the shallow script allows – the frustration, self-doubt and ego that made Chaplin the man he was. 

Born and raised in England, Chaplin was a child of poverty whose mother (Geraldine Chaplin, who plays her own grandmother here) was mentally ill. Chaplin began on the vaudeville stage, and was summoned to Hollywood by comedy director Mack Sennett. He was a natural, and before too many years had passed, was running his own studio and making his own movies – the most popular comedian in the world.

But Chaplin's personal life was a disaster, as friends like Douglas Fairbanks (Kevin Kline) were wont to point out. Chaplin only seemed to settle down late in life, when his physical decline slowed his randy impulses. 

Aside from Downey’s marvelous performance, there are a few surprises. For instance, did you know that Chaplin hid away in a Salt Lake City hotel to edit “The Kid,” so as to avoid having the movie seized in a bitter divorce battle? Or that he apparently saw his first movie in Butte, Mont.? Or that he insulted J. Edgar Hoover at a dinner party years before Hoover headed the FBI, and that apparently Hoover’s vendetta against Chaplin – which eventually resulted in the filmmaker's exile in Switzerland – arose from that incident?

Attenborough also manages to restore some luster to Fairbanks’ reputation by way of Chaplin’s continual praises. And the judicious use of clips from actual Chaplin films serves to validate the film’s reason for being: Charlie Chaplin was the best at what he did, despite the shambles of his personal life.

“Pasadena press tour no vacation for critic Don Porter,” July 30, 1995

The pool at the Ritz.

This is an editor's column written by the Standard's Managing Editor Ron Thornburg. He used to write one each week or two to help readers peer behind the curtain at the S-E.

By Ron Thornburg
Managing Editor
 
After attending the Summer Press Tour of the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif., Don Porter returned to the office last week to some not so subtle kidding:

"How was your vacation, Don?" "Bet you spent it by the pool, didn't you?"

Some vacation.

For two weeks, Don started his days around 6 a.m. by viewing pilots of the programs that the major networks plan to air as part of the fall television season. Then he and the approximately 160 members of the critics association attended four, 45-minute press conferences.

'Life of movie critic isn't always boffo,' Sept. 15, 1989

"The Critic"

"Outtakes" movie column

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner

"You must enjoy the trash of so many movies you can't recognize wholesome entertainment when you see it. ... I don't place much value on your reviews."

That letter arrived after I panned a relentlessly bad film aimed at family audiences called "On Our Own." These kinds of letters come in the mail every so often. The other kind, the ones in which people say they appreciate what you write, pass my way about as often as Halley's comet. It comes with the territory, I suppose. When you write opinions in a business concerned primarily with facts, you're bound to take lumps.

Misconceptions abound concerning the business of journalism -- a broad enough word, I think, to cover movie criticism. No matter what, people will always believe reporters are biased, left-wing Commie sympathizers. They also assume we'll go for the sensational over the mundane at every opportunity.

Kim Basinger, 1987 ("Nadine")

I junketed to San Francisco during the summer of 1987 to interview Kim Basinger, Jeff Bridges and Robert Benton for the action-comedy "Nadine." Here's the resulting story from the Basinger interview.

Aug. 7, 1987
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
SAN FRANCISCO -- An occupational hazard of a career in journalism is that most reporters are called upon to complete extremely boring and mundane tasks on a regular basis.

Interviewing Kim Basinger, however, isn't one of them.

It's not that the actress happens to be astonishingly beautiful, although she is. Instead, it has more to do with her surprising candor and humorous approach to virtually every topic of conversation. When she's asked a question, she answers. And that, folks, is a rarity in the motion picture business.

Basinger was in San Francisco recently to promote her new film, "Nadine," which was directed by Robert Benton ("Kramer vs. Kramer," "Places in the Heart") and co-stars Jeff Bridges ("Jagged Edge"). "Nadine" is a departure for Basinger, since she's the undisputed star of the film. In past movies -- "The Natural," "Never Say Never Again," "The Man Who Loved Women," "9 1/2 Weeks" and "Blind Date" -- she played doormat roles that took a back seat to male leads.

Joe Mantegna, March 1989

In March 1989, word came that an independent film would be filming at various Ogden locations over a few weeks. I’m not sure how it works now, but two decades ago, a guy like me – film critic for a small daily newspaper – would have to work the phones in an attempt to convince a publicist somewhere that they should let me on the set to interview one or more people associated with the production.

I was especially keen to get an interview for this film, “Wait Until Spring, Bandini” – based on the John Fante novel – since its male lead was Joe Mantegna, one of my favorite actors. I got the interview – actually, a two-parter – and the first time I sat down with him was near midnight in his trailer next to a little-used train trestle in West Ogden. He was gracious and funny and we spent a couple of hours talking and hanging around the set to watch that evening’s scene be filmed.
A couple of weeks later, I spent the morning on Ogden’s Historic 25th Street watching another scene, this one with Mantegna and Burt Young (“Rocky”). Mantegna had me sitting in the director’s chair next to his while the crew attempted to make a 70-degree day look like a mid-winter scene, including shoveling snow all over the street and sidewalks. It was a fun day, with lots of conversation about his long collaboration with playwright/filmmaker David Mamet, among other things.

Welcome to The Occasional Critic

For 11 years -- 1985-96 -- I was the film and TV writer/critic for the Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah. I wrote a LOT of movie reviews, columns and interviews/profiles of filmmakers during that time.

My children were too young at the time to 1) be interested in what Dad did for a living, so I've decided to risk 2) they still won't be interested. My plan is to collect some of what I did over the years, at random, so they can see what the old man did to put food on the table -- something precious few people are still able to do in daily journalism as it exists today.

Also, since I left journalism in 2008, I wrote a monthly movie review for The Ogden Independent for about a year -- an alternative newspaper founded and edited by my old pal Steve Conlin. I've dropped a few of those reviews in here, too.

Who knows, maybe I'll discover fairly quickly I'm not interested in reading these things either. For the time being, I'm committed to clogging up space on the 'Net.