ASSASSINS!
Assassination is a true horror in real life, and yet there are many excellent movies on that subject. Some of these are based on actual incidents; some are entirely fictitious.
The granddaddy of assassination films has to be All The King’s Men (1949). Broderick Crawford is just right as Willie Stark , a character obviously (but somewhat loosely) based on Louisiana governor Huey Long. He is gunned down by a jealous husband, ably portrayed by North Carolinian Sheppherd Strudwick. For my money, this version is superior to the 2005 film with Sean Penn.
Ben Kingsley is mesmerizing as the saintly Gandhi (1982). He was the leader of the drive for independence by India, and a model for non-violent protests. The man who brought the mighty British Empire to its knees without firing a shot is dispatched by a murderer with an extremely vague purpose.
Clint Eastwood is at his absolute peak in the white-knuckler In The Line Of Fire (1973), as a Secret Service agent suffering guilt pangs over JFK’s assassination. In this film he is engaged in a battle of wits with a crazy but wily villain who wants to kill the current president. John Malkovich is perfect as the would-be assassin.
Some of the best assassination films are based on failed attempts. One of the very best is The Day Of The Jackal (1973), fictionally based on an attempt on France’s Charles DeGaulle. And since we know he didn’t get shot, the end shouldn’t be a surprise. And yet, this is a very suspenseful film, with Edward Fox as the assassin.
On the same shelf is the equally supercharged The Eagle Has Landed (1977), based on a fictional attempt on the life of Winston Churchill. Based on Ken Follett’s excellent novel, which it follows assiduously, it is so well done that you find yourself almost pulling for the German soldiers out to get the prime minister!
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) features Brad Pitt as the leader of a squad of assassins out to do in the entire Nazi high command, Hitler included. Christoph Waltz is outstanding as the smarmiest, and smartest, German around. It was nominated for eight Oscars, but the only winner was Mr. Waltz for Best Supporting Actor.
John Travolta is a movie sound technician unconvinced that a politician’s death was not murder in Blow-Out (1981), when he accidentally records the sound of the fatal car crash. His insistence on that result leads to his own life being endangered.
Some other good assassination flicks include Oliver Stone’s quite fictional JFK (1991), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2005).
All of the films in this column are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for mature audiences.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
DOCTORS
Doctors figure prominently in all our lives- often they’re the first and last person we see!- and Hollywood has done a good job with their various phases.
The Cider House Rules (1999) garnered an Oscar for Michael Caine as the zonked-on-ether physician who directs a combination home for orphans and illegal abortion clinic. John Irving also won an Oscar for the screenplay from his own novel. The superior cast includes Charlize Theron, Cathy Baker, Kieran Culkin, Jane Alexander and Toby Maguire. This doctor’s humanity shines through in a quirky but somewhat wonderful story.
The always-likeable Michael J. Fox is the physician on his way to LA to make a ton of money as a plastic surgeon when he crashes his car in the middle of nowhere (South Carolina) and has to do community service as a primary care physician, in Doc Hollywood (1991). Don’t wonder if he decides to stay among the simple folk and be of use instead of rich- look at the movie’s title!
Paul Muni shines as The Last Angry Man (1959), a retiring Brooklyn physician and local icon whose life is to be portrayed in a TV show. David Wayne, Betsy Palmer, Godfrey Cambridge and Billy Dee Williams are along to bolster a story that veers close to over-sentimentality but narrowly escapes. What is he angry about? See for yourself!
William Hurt is perfectly cast as an arrogant and gifted surgeon in The Doctor (1991). His beside manner is non-existent, and he tells his residents to, “Get in and get the hell out”, when operating. Then he develops throat cancer and suddenly finds himself on the patient end of things. Elizabeth Perkins excels as a fellow patient and Christine Lahti is very good as his wife. His gradual awakening and yes-humiliation- should be instructive to everyone who has ever been a doctor, or a patient.
The ground floor of all this deification of and richly rewarding of doctors is represented effectively in The Citadel (1938) with Robert Donat as the physician determined to make money and contacts, forsaking his ethics, friends and family along the way. Perhaps still a cautionary tale, it is a far cry from the good old country doc in his model T of that era.
M*A*S*H (1990) was a tremendous box office and critical success. The movie is much darker than the hit TV series. With Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye, Elliott Gould as Trapper John, Robert Duvall as Colonel Blake and Sally Kellerman as Hot Lips O’Houlihan this film is a complete pleasure. The doctors and nurses in this military hospital in Korea work very hard to save lives and limbs, and there has to be a little humor or everyone would go nuts!
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for grown-ups.
###
Doctors figure prominently in all our lives- often they’re the first and last person we see!- and Hollywood has done a good job with their various phases.
The Cider House Rules (1999) garnered an Oscar for Michael Caine as the zonked-on-ether physician who directs a combination home for orphans and illegal abortion clinic. John Irving also won an Oscar for the screenplay from his own novel. The superior cast includes Charlize Theron, Cathy Baker, Kieran Culkin, Jane Alexander and Toby Maguire. This doctor’s humanity shines through in a quirky but somewhat wonderful story.
The always-likeable Michael J. Fox is the physician on his way to LA to make a ton of money as a plastic surgeon when he crashes his car in the middle of nowhere (South Carolina) and has to do community service as a primary care physician, in Doc Hollywood (1991). Don’t wonder if he decides to stay among the simple folk and be of use instead of rich- look at the movie’s title!
Paul Muni shines as The Last Angry Man (1959), a retiring Brooklyn physician and local icon whose life is to be portrayed in a TV show. David Wayne, Betsy Palmer, Godfrey Cambridge and Billy Dee Williams are along to bolster a story that veers close to over-sentimentality but narrowly escapes. What is he angry about? See for yourself!
William Hurt is perfectly cast as an arrogant and gifted surgeon in The Doctor (1991). His beside manner is non-existent, and he tells his residents to, “Get in and get the hell out”, when operating. Then he develops throat cancer and suddenly finds himself on the patient end of things. Elizabeth Perkins excels as a fellow patient and Christine Lahti is very good as his wife. His gradual awakening and yes-humiliation- should be instructive to everyone who has ever been a doctor, or a patient.
The ground floor of all this deification of and richly rewarding of doctors is represented effectively in The Citadel (1938) with Robert Donat as the physician determined to make money and contacts, forsaking his ethics, friends and family along the way. Perhaps still a cautionary tale, it is a far cry from the good old country doc in his model T of that era.
M*A*S*H (1990) was a tremendous box office and critical success. The movie is much darker than the hit TV series. With Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye, Elliott Gould as Trapper John, Robert Duvall as Colonel Blake and Sally Kellerman as Hot Lips O’Houlihan this film is a complete pleasure. The doctors and nurses in this military hospital in Korea work very hard to save lives and limbs, and there has to be a little humor or everyone would go nuts!
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for grown-ups.
###
Sunday, May 15, 2016
2015 SLEEPERS
Part 5 (!)
Could Mr. Movie possibly have another batch of 2015 sleepers up his sleeve? Yep. Here are five more. I hope you will find one you like. And after this round I promise to leave 2015 and move on to other topics!
Bobby Fisher went from being the best chess player in the world and an American hero to weirdest guy in the room. Pawn Sacrifice is the story of his rise and fall and ex-Spiderman Toby Maguire does quite a good job in playing him. Peter Sarsgaard plays Bobby’s Russian nemesis, Boris Spassky. They meet to play for the world championship and though he plays brilliantly, Bobby gets progressively crazier. If the movie is a little over the top, well, so was Mr. Fisher. After the matches he completely fell apart and became a recluse.
Depending on your age, you might remember CBS anchorman Dan Rather. Truth is the story of his downfall. Robert Redford is just fine as Mr. Rather and Cate Blanchett is his boss, Mary Mapes. Their news crew puts out a story alleging that George W. Bush, seeking re-election to the presidency, received preferential treatment from the Texas Air National Guard. The story is based on documents received from questionable sources. It turns out they could not possibly have been originated at the date alleged, and Mapes and Rather are toast.
If Helen Mirren has ever given a bad performance I have yet to see it. She pretty well carries Woman In Gold, the true story of Austrian emigre Maria Altman. She is an elderly American who fled the Nazis. The Germans looted art works by the hundreds, including a portrait of Ms. Altman’s aunt which had hung in her Vienna home. She discovers it is now hanging in an Austrian museum and sets out to get it back. She employs Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of her friends and a very green attorney. I disagree with many critics that Ryan Reynolds is over his head as the lawyer. I thought he was just fine.
Z For Zachariah requires an enormous leap of faith, but if you can make it you will enjoy this strange Icelandic sci-fi film. Margot Robie is a farm girl who has somehow survived a nuclear holocaust in a valley that is still safe. Chewetel Ejiofor, clad in a radiation suit, stumbles into her life. He is a skilled engineer and their ingenuity for living in the valley is highly entertaining. Then a third person, played by Chris Pine, happens into the mix. No further revelations from me !
If you like quirky titles, you just can’t top The One-Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared. And this delightful fantasy delivers all the fun you hoped for. The retirement home, which he loathes, is planning a party for Allan Karlson’s 100th birthday. He wants no part of it, climbs out a window and disappears. A drug dealer asks him to hold a suitcase for him while he visits the facilities. A little absent-minded, Allan gets on his bus with the suitcase and is pursued by nasty thugs and the police. In the meantime, he has various hilarious adventures involving the drug money, and an elephant. All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for grown-ups.
Part 5 (!)
Could Mr. Movie possibly have another batch of 2015 sleepers up his sleeve? Yep. Here are five more. I hope you will find one you like. And after this round I promise to leave 2015 and move on to other topics!
Bobby Fisher went from being the best chess player in the world and an American hero to weirdest guy in the room. Pawn Sacrifice is the story of his rise and fall and ex-Spiderman Toby Maguire does quite a good job in playing him. Peter Sarsgaard plays Bobby’s Russian nemesis, Boris Spassky. They meet to play for the world championship and though he plays brilliantly, Bobby gets progressively crazier. If the movie is a little over the top, well, so was Mr. Fisher. After the matches he completely fell apart and became a recluse.
Depending on your age, you might remember CBS anchorman Dan Rather. Truth is the story of his downfall. Robert Redford is just fine as Mr. Rather and Cate Blanchett is his boss, Mary Mapes. Their news crew puts out a story alleging that George W. Bush, seeking re-election to the presidency, received preferential treatment from the Texas Air National Guard. The story is based on documents received from questionable sources. It turns out they could not possibly have been originated at the date alleged, and Mapes and Rather are toast.
If Helen Mirren has ever given a bad performance I have yet to see it. She pretty well carries Woman In Gold, the true story of Austrian emigre Maria Altman. She is an elderly American who fled the Nazis. The Germans looted art works by the hundreds, including a portrait of Ms. Altman’s aunt which had hung in her Vienna home. She discovers it is now hanging in an Austrian museum and sets out to get it back. She employs Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of her friends and a very green attorney. I disagree with many critics that Ryan Reynolds is over his head as the lawyer. I thought he was just fine.
Z For Zachariah requires an enormous leap of faith, but if you can make it you will enjoy this strange Icelandic sci-fi film. Margot Robie is a farm girl who has somehow survived a nuclear holocaust in a valley that is still safe. Chewetel Ejiofor, clad in a radiation suit, stumbles into her life. He is a skilled engineer and their ingenuity for living in the valley is highly entertaining. Then a third person, played by Chris Pine, happens into the mix. No further revelations from me !
If you like quirky titles, you just can’t top The One-Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared. And this delightful fantasy delivers all the fun you hoped for. The retirement home, which he loathes, is planning a party for Allan Karlson’s 100th birthday. He wants no part of it, climbs out a window and disappears. A drug dealer asks him to hold a suitcase for him while he visits the facilities. A little absent-minded, Allan gets on his bus with the suitcase and is pursued by nasty thugs and the police. In the meantime, he has various hilarious adventures involving the drug money, and an elephant. All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for grown-ups.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
COUNTRY COMES TO HOLLYWOOD
There have been lots of country singers in lots of movies. Most are pretty awful. They’re like a paraphrase of the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the little curl: When they are good they are very, very good, but when they are bad they are horrid.
Almost all of them are decent actors; they just don’t show up in good movies very often. Jerry Reed (11 movies), Mel Tillis (2), Roger Miller (2), Marty Robbins (3), Waylon Jennings (3), Faron Young (2), Merle Haggard (2), Johnny Cash (9), Kenny Rogers (10), Reba McEntire (4) and Randy Travis (11) have never been in a movie you would want to watch, even at gunpoint.
But the exceptions are big ones. Dwight Yoakam almost steals Billy Bob Thornton’s quirky Sling Blade (1996) as a hateful, abusive bully. Mr. Yoakam also shines in the noirish Red Rock West (1993) with Nicholas Cage as a drifter mistaken for a hit man and Dennis Hopper as the real thing.
While Dolly Parton isn’t going to be mistaken for Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon (for more reasons than two!), she can be quite affecting and sweet. 9 To 5 (1980) is terrific fun, with Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin pitching in as erstwhile kidnappers of their dreadful boss (Dabney Coleman). Ms. Parton is just right as the gossipy small-town beauty shop owner in Steel Magnolias (1989), an excellent chick flick with Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine and Daryl Hannah as the other chicks.
Kris Kristofferson is now viewed more as an actor than as the country singer he once was. He has made a couple of dozen loserss, but he was in the excellent Lone Star (1995) with Chris Cooper as the sheriff of a small Texas town with a dark secret. Mr. Kristofferson is fine as a comedic pro football player in the easy-going Semi-Tough (1977), and as the good-guy love interest in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1974).
Poor Glen Campbell, who seems like such a sweet guy, is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. His movie career is littered with forgettable dogs- except he had quite a good turn as LaBoeuf (Rooster Cogburn’s companion) in the first True Grit (1969). That’s the one for which John Wayne got his Oscar. By the way, the second one, with Jeff Bridges, is also good.
Perhaps the most surprising entrant in this category is Willie Nelson, the best actor in the bunch. Mr. Nelson is a superb outlaw in Barbarosa (1982), an amusing character in the hilarious Wag The Dog (1997), and he carries the underrated Honeysuckle Rose (1980) which is about, of all things, a country singer!
And no, the beautiful Ashley Judd is not a country singer, though her mother and sister certainly are.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are suitable for 12 and up.
There have been lots of country singers in lots of movies. Most are pretty awful. They’re like a paraphrase of the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the little curl: When they are good they are very, very good, but when they are bad they are horrid.
Almost all of them are decent actors; they just don’t show up in good movies very often. Jerry Reed (11 movies), Mel Tillis (2), Roger Miller (2), Marty Robbins (3), Waylon Jennings (3), Faron Young (2), Merle Haggard (2), Johnny Cash (9), Kenny Rogers (10), Reba McEntire (4) and Randy Travis (11) have never been in a movie you would want to watch, even at gunpoint.
But the exceptions are big ones. Dwight Yoakam almost steals Billy Bob Thornton’s quirky Sling Blade (1996) as a hateful, abusive bully. Mr. Yoakam also shines in the noirish Red Rock West (1993) with Nicholas Cage as a drifter mistaken for a hit man and Dennis Hopper as the real thing.
While Dolly Parton isn’t going to be mistaken for Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon (for more reasons than two!), she can be quite affecting and sweet. 9 To 5 (1980) is terrific fun, with Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin pitching in as erstwhile kidnappers of their dreadful boss (Dabney Coleman). Ms. Parton is just right as the gossipy small-town beauty shop owner in Steel Magnolias (1989), an excellent chick flick with Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine and Daryl Hannah as the other chicks.
Kris Kristofferson is now viewed more as an actor than as the country singer he once was. He has made a couple of dozen loserss, but he was in the excellent Lone Star (1995) with Chris Cooper as the sheriff of a small Texas town with a dark secret. Mr. Kristofferson is fine as a comedic pro football player in the easy-going Semi-Tough (1977), and as the good-guy love interest in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1974).
Poor Glen Campbell, who seems like such a sweet guy, is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. His movie career is littered with forgettable dogs- except he had quite a good turn as LaBoeuf (Rooster Cogburn’s companion) in the first True Grit (1969). That’s the one for which John Wayne got his Oscar. By the way, the second one, with Jeff Bridges, is also good.
Perhaps the most surprising entrant in this category is Willie Nelson, the best actor in the bunch. Mr. Nelson is a superb outlaw in Barbarosa (1982), an amusing character in the hilarious Wag The Dog (1997), and he carries the underrated Honeysuckle Rose (1980) which is about, of all things, a country singer!
And no, the beautiful Ashley Judd is not a country singer, though her mother and sister certainly are.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are suitable for 12 and up.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
2015 SLEEPERS
Part 4
Here’s yet another bunch of flicks from last year that didn’t get noticed much but were pretty good. Yes, I will eventually run out of these. But not yet...
Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan in a heart-breaking story of English women determined to obtain the right to vote. She really gives up everything for the cause, and her character is based on a real person. Helena Bonham Carter plays the leader of the movement. She has to hide out to avoid the police. Brendan Gleeson is a cop sympathetic to the women but bound to uphold the existing law. The British were even harder on these women than other countries, and the movie spares no blame.
Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem is an Israeli film about a very unhappy wife trying to get a divorce under the strict Judaic system. “Gett” is the Hebrew word for a divorce document. Viviane and her husband have been separated for years and she wants to get on with her life. He wants her to return to the union and refuses to let her go. Under their system, he can do this. The most telling thing about the system is the attitude of the judges, who seem absolutely clueless. I will reveal there’s a semi-happy ending after all the angst.
71 references the year of the action. A small group of British soldiers is on patrol in one of the most dangerous parts of Northern Ireland. Through mistakes and wrong assumptions, one of them gets left behind to fend for himself through the long Irish night. IRA thugs are aware he is nearby and set out to get him. He is helped by a few, hindered by more and is running for his life for almost the entire movie. It’s a real nail-biter. To find out if he survives you’ll have to see for yourself.
Learning To Drive features two of my all-time favorite actors: Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) and Ben Kingsley (Ghandi). She is a high-strung New York City book editor. When her husband leaves her for another woman, she realizes she must learn to drive if she wants to visit her daughter in Vermont. She hires Mr. Kingsley who plays the role of an American Sikh. The culture clash is both humorous and touching, as each gradually learns about and warms to the other. These two actors could carry anything and they make this small, pleasant movie very enjoyable.
Five Flights Up also stars two actors who are consummate pros. Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton are a couple who have been married many years. Their nice apartment is up five flights of stairs. There is no elevator and they’re getting up in years. The plot, such as it is, deals with their search for a new place, their care for their aged dog, and their relationship with their daughter. Just a nice time at the movies!
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for adults.
Part 4
Here’s yet another bunch of flicks from last year that didn’t get noticed much but were pretty good. Yes, I will eventually run out of these. But not yet...
Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan in a heart-breaking story of English women determined to obtain the right to vote. She really gives up everything for the cause, and her character is based on a real person. Helena Bonham Carter plays the leader of the movement. She has to hide out to avoid the police. Brendan Gleeson is a cop sympathetic to the women but bound to uphold the existing law. The British were even harder on these women than other countries, and the movie spares no blame.
Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem is an Israeli film about a very unhappy wife trying to get a divorce under the strict Judaic system. “Gett” is the Hebrew word for a divorce document. Viviane and her husband have been separated for years and she wants to get on with her life. He wants her to return to the union and refuses to let her go. Under their system, he can do this. The most telling thing about the system is the attitude of the judges, who seem absolutely clueless. I will reveal there’s a semi-happy ending after all the angst.
71 references the year of the action. A small group of British soldiers is on patrol in one of the most dangerous parts of Northern Ireland. Through mistakes and wrong assumptions, one of them gets left behind to fend for himself through the long Irish night. IRA thugs are aware he is nearby and set out to get him. He is helped by a few, hindered by more and is running for his life for almost the entire movie. It’s a real nail-biter. To find out if he survives you’ll have to see for yourself.
Learning To Drive features two of my all-time favorite actors: Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) and Ben Kingsley (Ghandi). She is a high-strung New York City book editor. When her husband leaves her for another woman, she realizes she must learn to drive if she wants to visit her daughter in Vermont. She hires Mr. Kingsley who plays the role of an American Sikh. The culture clash is both humorous and touching, as each gradually learns about and warms to the other. These two actors could carry anything and they make this small, pleasant movie very enjoyable.
Five Flights Up also stars two actors who are consummate pros. Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton are a couple who have been married many years. Their nice apartment is up five flights of stairs. There is no elevator and they’re getting up in years. The plot, such as it is, deals with their search for a new place, their care for their aged dog, and their relationship with their daughter. Just a nice time at the movies!
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are for adults.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)