Category Archives: Reviews

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Wednesday, October 10, 2018

BOOK REVIEW: Hocus Pocus & the All-New Sequel by A.W. Jantha By Goth Girl Reads

Posted Oct 10, 2018 7:10 am by Mister D

Goth Girl Reads
BOOK REVIEW: Hocus Pocus & the All-New Sequel by A.W. Jantha
By Goth Girl Reads
October 8, 2018

Hocus Pocus & the All-New Sequel

Let’s get one thing straight; I wasn’t expecting to LOVE this book, (as I’m sure anyone who’s a huge Halloween and/or Hocus Pocus fan would); I figured it would be extremely corny and completely unnecessary, but at least slightly entertaining, which is why I read it. This book was both surprisingly better, but also overtly cringy at some parts. In the end, they all balanced out and came down to a basic (imo) rating of two stars.

The book begins as an almost exact, word-for-word copy of the movie; in fact, the actual ‘sequel’ of the story doesn’t begin until page 203! After reading about fifty pages, I got bored and skipped ahead to this; I love Hocus Pocus, but I’m not about to read a two-hundred page copy of the movie when I would much rather watch Bette Midler being fantastic on-screen. It’s pretty apparent that ‘A.W. Jantha’ is some sort of ghost-writer pen name for at least 2-3 different authors who collaborated on this book. Read More

Posted in Books, Reviews | 2 Comments


 

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

VanCity Buzz: Bette Midler brings the razzle dazzle to Rogers Arena (PHOTOS, REVIEW)

Posted Jun 3, 2015 12:06 pm by Mister D

VanCity Buzz
Bette Midler brings the razzle dazzle to Rogers Arena (PHOTOS, REVIEW)
BY ROB FELLER
8:00 AM PDT, WED JUNE 03, 2015

Image: Rob Feller / Vancity Buzz

Image: Rob Feller / Vancity Buzz

After a 10-year break from the road, Bette Midler decided the showgirl must go on and brought her Divine Intervention Tour to Vancouver on Tuesday night. The diva played to a packed house of fans young and old (okay, mostly old), performing songs from her latest disc It’s The Girls! as well as the big hits from her impressive back catalogue.

Let’s get this out of the way: Midler is just as divine as ever, and there is truly no one else like her. To the surprise of no one she sounded great, she looked fantastic and she’s still as bawdy as ever. Her show is an amazing spectacle full of glitz, glamour, cool set pieces and a 12-piece band, but it’s virtually impossible to take your eyes off of Midler for even a second. She had the Vancouver crowd in the palm of her hand after just a few notes, and had them in stitches after introducing herself as the real “pearl of the Orient”. Read More

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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Movie Scene Outrageous Fortune Review

Posted Oct 29, 2014 9:10 am by Mister D

The Movie Scene

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Worst enemies become best friends, yes “Outrageous Fortune” is a buddy movie, but a buddy movie which when it was released in the 80s had a USP. That USP was that the buddies were two women, which may not sound such a huge USP but most buddy movies prior to “Outrageous Fortune” had always been about two men. But whilst it had this slightly different angle “Outrageous Fortune” is actually a very straightforward buddy movie with two women who don’t get on, hitting the road together where they have to help each other out whilst avoiding bad guys and solving a mystery. And to be honest it is a shame as for the first 20 minutes “Outrageous Fortune” is fun especially with Bette Midler and Shelley Long working well together as opposites who don’t get on but after that it becomes routine and at times a little dull Read More

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Sunday, October 26, 2014

BetteBack January 30, 1987: Outrageous Fortune Washington Post Review

Posted Oct 26, 2014 9:10 am by Mister D

By Rita Kempley
Washington Post Staff Writer
January 30, 1987

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“Outrageous Fortune” marks a motion picture milestone — for the first time in action adventuring, the lead breaks a fingernail. It stops her for a moment, like a flesh wound, but she goes on to scrabble up the mesa in time to get her man.

While other heroines tag along with Indiana and Croc, “Fortune” smiles on the precedent-setting teamwork of comediennes Bette Midler and Shelley Long, the first female buddies ever to match wits with the CIA and the KGB and the no-good lout who done ’em wrong. They make a colossally madcap mismatch — natural adversaries who become best pals as they pursue their two-timing lover (Peter Coyote) from Manhattan to New Mexico. High-speed hijinks in high heels ensue. Read More

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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

BetteBack DECEMBER 31, 1986: Outrageous Fortune Variety Review

Posted Oct 22, 2014 9:10 am by Mister D

Variety Staff
DECEMBER 31, 1986 | 11:00PM PT

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Outrageous Fortune is well crafted, old-fashioned entertainment that takes some conventional elements, shines them up and repackages them as something new and contemporary. It’s a traditional male buddy film that has substituted women and the main plot device is that the two heroines are sleeping with the same man. Bette Midler and Shelley Long collide even before their affections do in an acting class given by the eminent Russian director Stanislov Korenowski (Robert Prosky). Long is a wealthy, spoiled dilettante while Midler last starred in Ninja Vixens. When the audience learns they’re sharing the same man (Peter Coyote) before they do, it’s a delicious moment complete with one image-shattering sight gag. Read More

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Saturday, August 23, 2014

BetteBack June 27, 1986: Roger Ebert Reviews Ruthless People

Posted Aug 23, 2014 8:08 am by Mister D

Roger Ebert
June 27, 1986

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It is so hard to play a lovable villain, and Danny DeVito does it so easily. His eyes narrow, his voice deepens, and he speaks with great earnestness and sincerity about his selfish schemes and vile designs.

“Ruthless People” opens as DeVito is having lunch with his mistress, and we can see that this is a man filled with passion. In this case, the passion is hatred for his wife and for all that she stands for, and for all that her rich father stands for, and even for all that her poodle stands for. Read More

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Friday, August 22, 2014

BetteBack June 27, 1986: New York Times Reviews Ruthless People

Posted Aug 22, 2014 7:08 am by Mister D

New York Times
Ruthless People (1986)
FILM: ‘RUTHLESS PEOPLE,’ A COMEDY
By VINCENT CANBY
Published: June 27, 1986

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THE most irresistible thing about the characters in ”Ruthless People,” a conspicuously overconsuming, Beverly Hills update of O. Henry’s classic ”Ransom of Red Chief,” is that they all try with such earnestness to live up to their ruthless reputations.

However, they’re not only doggedly mean, deceitful and potentially murderous, they’re also inefficient, fainthearted and totally transparent. Yet they work without respite. If they devoted the same energies to the selling of cookies for the Girl Scouts of America, the G.S.A. could become the World Bank. Read More

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Thursday, August 21, 2014

BetteBack June 1986: Bette Is Superb In Ruthless People

Posted Aug 21, 2014 8:08 am by Mister D

Radio Times
Ruthless People
June 1986

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Airplane! partners Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker teamed up again for this fun comedy about a pair of bumbling kidnappers – Helen Slater and Judge Reinhold – who snatch wealthy Bette Midler and discover that her husband Danny DeVito doesn’t want her back. The movie twists and turns as a whole host of other people get involved (including Anita Morris as DeVito’s mistress and a young Bill Pullman as her mentally challenged lover). DeVito and Midler are superb in their roles as the greedy philanderer and his screaming, overbearing other half. Read More

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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

BetteBack June 27, 1986: Bette Midler Is Priceless In Ruthless People

Posted Aug 20, 2014 8:08 am by Mister D

Philadelphia Inquirer
Film: Raunchy Fun In A Farce On Greed
By Desmond Ryan, Inquirer Movie Critic
POSTED: June 27, 1986

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The heiress has just learned from her kidnappers that her husband refuses to pay the ransom, even though they keep desperately reducing the figure. As the truth dawns upon her, Bette Midler takes on an expression that can only be described as sleazy hauteur, and bellows, “Marked down!”

Barbara Stone (Midler), the victim of this K mart kidnapping, is loud and obnoxious. And so is just about everyone else in Ruthless People, a movie that believes all human impulses originate below the belt and one that has a merry time proving it. When a comedy is as foul-mouthed and raunchy as Ruthless People, it helps if it’s also funny. And for most of its frenzied going, Ruthless People is a diverting and very shrewdly cast farce about bottomless greed. Read More

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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

BetteBack June 27, 1986: LA Times Reviews Ruthless People

Posted Aug 19, 2014 7:08 am by Mister D

LA Times
Movie Review : Going Full Bore In ‘Ruthless’
June 27, 1986|MICHAEL WILMINGTON

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Comedy can intoxicate you, put you in a soft, rollicking mood. But it can also draw blood.

That’s what the people behind “Ruthless People” (citywide) are after. It’s pitched in the half-cynical vein of the comic muckraker. It tries to make sport of human vice, greed and corruption, some of the best comic subjects. The characters here aren’t just bad; most of them are truly vile–human slime. And the film makers chew them up (especially two nefarious bonbons played by Danny DeVito and Bette Midler) with the toothsome glee of jolly cannibals. Read More

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