Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . observes Edward G. Robinson as film director "Maurice Kruger," a clear stand-in for Alfred Hitchcock, who was at the pinnacle of his notoriety when TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN was released in 1962. Like "Hitch," Kruger operates under the thumb of his script supervisor\wife, Carla. Like Hitch, Kruger cannot keep his paws off his leading ladies, much to Carla's chagrin. As was the case with Alma Reville (Mrs. Hitch), Carla treats all the words of Kruger's scripts as if they're engraved on a stone tablet just carried down from Mt. Sinai. She does her best to destroy anyone who would dare change a syllable, or otherwise threaten the "Great Man's" Legacy. (Like Hitch, Kruger films no "cover shots," so producers cannot redo his scenes, either.) Though this Docudrama is marred by a surreal one-vehicle "car chase" toward the end (Kirk Douglas and Cyd Charisse seem to be in a sports car twirling in mid-air at the end of a cable), it did a public service for young actresses and models everywhere by blowing the whistle on Mr. Hitchcock's tyrannical philandering tendencies.

edwagreen Imagine a film with Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, George Hamilton, Cyd Charisse and Claire Trevor being miserable. It's hard to believe but it's true.The best scenes are when we see clips of Douglas's 1952 "The Bad and the Beautiful." That was a picture.This garbage deals with Douglas as an actor getting over suicide and being brought to Rome to work for director Robinson. There he meets his ex-wife Carlotta, played in a whore-like manner by Ms. Charisse. She is way out of her league in this one but her days of dancing with Fred Astaire were long gone.Interesting to see the teaming of Robinson and Trevor, this time as man and wife. They made such a great duo 14 years before in Trevor's Oscar-winning gem "Key Largo." As was the case with the latter, Trevor is once again a drunkard but with no reason as she had in 'Largo.'The picture is a rip-off of "The Sun Also Rises" as it deals with emotionally unbalanced people. At age 22, George Hamilton, as an actor, is already over the hill.Douglas wants to reenact his hitting of a wall this time in Rome as he had done in L.A. during his drunken suicide attempt. He and the others really hit the wall by making this awful film.

Neil Doyle Next to TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL looks like an all-around masterpiece of subtle drama. Both take a cynical look at the behind-the-scenes backstabbing in Hollywood.The story gets off to a slow start and then continues to move at a snail's pace, especially through the early scenes where we're introduced to characters like EDWARD G. ROBINSON and his shrewish wife CLAIRE TREVOR. Robinson seems to be playing a thinly disguised version of Darryl F. Zanuck and Trevor seems to think she has to overdo the tirades in scene after scene so she can win another supporting Oscar like the one she snared for KEY LARGO. The school of overacting seems to be rampant here.Irwin Shaw was obviously cynical about his own treatment by the Hollywood studios and has concocted a melodrama that is even more bitter about studio politics than THE BIG KNIFE or THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.It's strange that Vincente Minnelli would be the director chosen to bring this story to life, but suffice it to say that it's not one of his best directorial achievements. KIRK DOUGLAS does a decent job in the central role but most of the performances are absurdly over-the-top in a film wherein the script itself is the main problem.Sorry, can't work up any enthusiasm for this one.

gaby01575 What the heck were they thinking? Oh, I get it: Take the success of "La Dolce Vita", infuse it w/ the elements of a behind-the-scenes look into the tawdry goings on of a troubled Hollywood production and transplant it back to Rome (Say, "Cinecitta", boys and girls!). And for good measure, have a director w/ an Italian sounding name take responsibility for it.Trashy camp only begins to describe the little seen(and therefore intriguing to self-confessed cinephiles--we have TCM to thank) "Two Weeks In Another Town"(1962), but what a gloriously colorful bit of camp it is. Director Vincente Minnelli is an acknowledged master of color and---I don't know what else. The dialog has to be heard to be believed("Don't swallow all those pills! The doctor will have to come up and pump your stomach. You know how much that sickens me!"). Everybody spits, dribbles and sweats acid in this movie. Need it be said that everyone overacts? It's a wonder anything at all was left of the scenery after they chewed it up! And having pretty boy George Hamilton play a knife-wielding bad boy is a bit much, no? One exception is the young Daliah Lavi who left the bad acting to the two other women principals (Cyd Charisse and Claire Trevor)and just let her natural charms show through. She's even more fetching here because she looks to have more meat on her bones than in her subsequent roles( The Detainer in the OTHER Casino Royale).Kirk Douglas as the main character who gets to do the thankless job of saving a movie in trouble after its director(Edward G. Robinson) suffers a heart attack tries to do the same thing w/ this movie and barely succeeds. A plus, though, is that he tools around in(and gets to trash) a cool-looking Maserati convertible. Watching that car alone is worth it. As for the rest of the movie, it's like bad tabloid reportage. We know it's trash, but we can't keep our eyes off it!