Dan1863Sickles

Positively the worst movie ever made about a public librarian. Goofy characters, ghastly story, cold and manipulative women, moronic men, sex without any kind of excitement. PALMETTO and WILD THINGS came out in the Nineties, and at the time people said those movies were bad rip-offs of classic film noir.

But those two movies were DOUBLE INDEMNITY compared to this mess.

I like Diane Kruger. She was brilliant in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. She was lovely in TROY. Why on earth would she ever agree to this? Her character is so lifeless, boring, empty, and at the same time needy and cruel. Was this some lost clause in the Treaty of Versaille?

ARTICLE 15: Once every 50 years a stunning German actress must come to American and be humiliated by a no-name director and make a movie where she is stupid and evil and does all the stupid things people laugh at Germans for doing. Except for eating sauerkraut and drinking beer!

So there's this nice blonde English lady, and she's short of money. So she somehow gets her family to move to Italy and they open a hotel. The idea is that the scenery is so beautiful and the ocean is so amazing that rich people will flock from all over the world to stay at the Hotel Portofino.

But the nice Mrs. Ainsworth has problems. Lots of problems! Her husband Cecil is a cad, a weakling, and a selfish beast. If Bella Ainsworth had any sense she'd kill him. Cecil keeps pulling low-grade scams that always backfire. Every time he ends up groveling at the feet of the real players, and begging his saintly wife for one more chance.

Mrs. A also has a son, Lucien, (she calls him "Looch," which is as stupid as it sounds.) He's gorgeous, and girls love him, but he's not too bright. He looks to be about sixteen, if that, but we keep hearing he was a hero in the Great War -- ten years ago! His best friend is a dark-skinned doctor from India who is hopelessly gay and secretly worships the ground he walks on.

All these nice people are being menaced by Italian fascists, and there's a dirty police inspector who's blackmailing Mrs. Ainsworth's husband about something. And there's a trashy American slut who's supposed to be some kind of singer, or dance, or something. And there are loads of shots of the beautiful ocean and the scenery and the food.

Are you captivated yet? Because I was kicking and screaming at this point, begging for it to stop. This show makes BOARDWALK EMPIRE look like great art. And it makes BREAKING BAD look like Shakespearean tragedy.

Hotel Portofino is just like the Hotel California that the Eagles sang about long, long ago. Mrs. A has lots of pretty, pretty boys, she calls Looch. And in the master's chambers, they gather for the feast. They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.