"Scent of a Woman" (1992)

I have decided to occasionally post reviews of some award winning or nominated movies I watch on DVD.  For my first review this year, Al Pacino and Chris O'Donnell star in the Academy Award nominated movie "Scent of a Woman".  This film came out in theaters on December 23rd, 1992.  "Scent of a Woman" was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, this is the story of a blind former army colonel who wants to h
ave one last weekend in New York before he takes his own life.  Al Pacino won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as retired Colonel Frank Slade.  Frank is blind and hires Chris O'Donnell's character of Charlie to act as his escort around the big city one last time.  Of course, nothing is ever that simple as Charlie is informed of Frank's final weekend plan shortly after arrival in NYC.  Pacino gives a great performance as the angry, bitter and belligerent Frank, while O'Donnell just does his best not to get bowled over by Pacino's performance.  Every other performer on screen is only around for a few minutes, no long enough to actually build much of a character, but Gabrielle Anwar, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bradley Whitford and James Rebhorn make do with what they have.

As much as I liked this film, I do understand why it did not win Best Picture or Best Director.  In this case, the 2 go hand in hand.  I don't think the film's director, Martin Brest, did enough to win the Director award.  There was one wonderfully filmed scene of a tango dance, but other than that nothing about the directorial style sticks out to me.  It is quite possible that this film was nominated for Best Picture on the strength of Pacino's performance alone, but I would also like to credit the nominated screenplay as well.  I thought the dialogue was really well done and popped off the screen at times.  I also found the score to be somewhat distracting at times, perhaps trying too hard to convey the emotions that the director wanted to convey.

Overall, I give "Scent of a Woman" 4 out of 5 stars.  I was entertained throughout.  It could have been a little shorter though, weighing in at over 2 hours and 30 minutes long.  Pacino's performance alone was worth it, but the dialogue kept me interested in what was happening onscreen as well.  I would recommend this film, but would tell the viewer to remember the long viewing time before sitting down to watch it.

It's been a while

Hey there,

I think the last time I posted anything here was on the last day of my trip to Japan.  Well, I suppose it's time to dust off the old blog and post a little more.  I have 2 important things happening these days.  The first thing is smaller (but still awesome!) than the first so I'll get that out of the way.  2 weeks from today I am flying to Seattle to meet up with my great friends Matt & Rachael along with their 2 kids, Ben & Josh.  We will all be boarding the Carnival "Miracle" and taking a cruise to Alaska.  I've always wanted to take a cruise and Alaska sounds like a beautiful place to visit.  While on this cruise, I plan on taking a helicopter to see a glacier and also getting a chance to ride a dogsled!  I will do my best to write down what happens daily.

Now I come to the real reason I wanted to post something on this blog.  I have recently taken the very first step towards something I have wanted to do for years now - become a father.  I signed up with the IAC (Independent Adoption Center) here in Los Angeles and am taking the beginning steps towards adopting a newborn boy or girl.  I spent the first few months of 2013 studying the various ways of becoming a single father before finally making my decision in late April.  I am going to be doing what is called an "open adoption".  This is where the birthparents stay in the life of the adoptee and adoptive parents.  This is done for the benefit of the child, so that they might have answers to any possible questions they may have while growing up.  It also means that the birthparents choose who will be adopting their child.  I do understand that being a single male means I might not be picked as fast as a couple might, and I am OK with that.  It has been and will continue to be my opinion that the child I get is the child I am meant to have.
On my birthday I officially signed up with the agency and 2 weeks after that I had my very own Home Study house visit.  It went smoothly and the only issue was not having poisons locked up in my garage. I went out that day and bought supplies to correct that issue, so I will have no problems passing the inspection on the second visit.  I hope to have all my paperwork in before I leave for the cruise, so I can focus on step 2 once I return - the "dear birthparent" letter. As there are not a lot of single men who sign up for adoption, there are not a lot of statistics out there to let me know how long this will take.   I anticipate the possibility of not adopting a child until late 2014 or even sometime in 2015.  I just have to be patient and see what happens.

This does not meant that I am not still watching and reviewing movies in the meantime.  Just this past weekend I finally saw "The Maltese Falcon" for the very first time.  This weekend I will see a movie in the theaters and write a full fledged review of it.  It will either be "Hangover 3", "Now You See Me" or the smaller film "Much Ado About Nothing".