Artists
Friday night’s movie fix, courtesy of Netflix by mail, was surprising, maybe because I’d had low expectations. Confess, Fletch (2022) is a fast moving, fast talking farce concerning stolen art, kidnapping and murder, almost everyone lying. Jon Hamm stars as the wise-cracking ex-investigative reporter trying to solve the mystery. He is fine, but I really enjoyed the work of four females in the cast: Lorenza Izzo as an Italian heiress, Ayden Mayeri as an inexperienced detective, Annie Mumolo as a wacky neighbor and especially Marcia Gay Harden, who seemed to be having a blast as a contessa, Italian accent and all. Also first rate is Roy Wood Jr. as the detective. Also in the cast, Robert Picardo as the count, and John Slattery and Kyle MacLachlan, the latter whom I didn’t even recognize now that he’s a senior citizen. The action is set briefly in Rome, largely in Boston. The violence is minimal, profanity not overdone. Although director Greg Mottola, born on Long Island, has 17 titles under his name at IMDb, I was unfamilar with his work. He co-wrote the screenplay with Zev Borow, who created Human Target, a TV series I really enjoyed that lasted only one season, 25 episodes. Fletch is the character created by the late novelist Gregory McDonald. 15,000+ users at IMDb have rated Confess, Fletch, forging to a consensus of 6.5 on a scale of ten. I’ll go with seven. It flopped at the box office, returning less than a million on a budget estimated at $20 million, a gap that will not be made up in the secondary markets. I enjoyed it a lot more than most of the flicks I’ve seen lately, even though a lot of the humor was spun too fast for me at this stage of my life. Although it is not quite screwball comedy, it’s close. Running time is only 1:38, another plus. Here are Harden and Hamm in character, photo from Google Images:
A little about the cast members with whom I was unfamiliar. Born in Alabama in 1978, Roy Wood Jr. has primarily been a comedian, contributing to Conan, ESPN’s SportsNation, Comedy Central’s @Midnight, and The Daily Show. His screen work has largely been in TV. He’s a dad of one… Born in Oakland in 1990, of Iranian descent, Ayden Mayeri is in the midst of a solid career, 54 titles under her name at IMDb. Here are Wood and Mayeri in character, the latter’s beauty absent in the part. Photo from GI:
Born in Chile in 1989, her dad Italian, Lorenza Izzo began as a model. Among her 28 credits, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)… Born in California in 1973, Annie Mumolo is on an impressive run. Not only has she logged 60 credits as an actress, she has written the screenplays for Joy (2015), starring Jennifer Lawrence, the blockbuster Bridesmaids (2011), for which she received an Oscar nomination, and three other films. She is in Barbie (2023). She is a mom of two. Here are Mumolo and Izzo:
The humidity returned today, but it wasn’t oppressive, especially once the shade moved into place at the floating book shop. My thanks to the MTA employee, a bookseller himself, who donated about 20 books across a wide spectrum; and to the gentleman who owns 2000 albums, who bought a Bob Morrison LP; and to the Latina who purchased Medicine: The Definitive Illustrated History (DK Definitive Visual Histories), The Secret Sayings of Jesus: A Modern Translation of the Gospel of Thomas with Commentary by Robert M. Grant, David Noel Freedman, et al., and three other spiritual paperbacks; and to the elderly woman who selected Dark Summer by Iris Johansen and Witch and Wizard by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet; and to Bill Brown, author of Words and Music: A History of Lou Reed’s Music and other fine titles, who selected Angels, a beautiful postcard collection.
I didn’t recall anything about Bob Morrison. Born in Biloxi in 1942, to quote Wiki, edited by yours truly, his most successful compositions are the 1979 Grammy-winning Kenny Rogers song You Decorated My Life, which hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the Grammy-nominated Lookin’ for Love, the theme song for the 1980 film, Urban Cowboy, recorded by Johnny Lee, which hit #5. Morrison was ASCAP’s “Country Songwriter of the Year” in 1978, 1980, 1981 and 1982 and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. Kudos.
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts
Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza
