2019 SLEEPERS
Part 3
Time for another dose of really good movies from last year that mostly sailed
under the radar.
If, like me, you are a sucker for David and Goliath stories, then you will surely like Dark Waters. Mark Ruffalo appears as Rob Billot, a corporate defense lawyer who stumbles upon a very dire situation caused by one of the country’s great companies. The people in Parkersburg, WV, and their animals, are affected by the pollution of the water table and a nearby river. DuPont is the town’s major employer and really the only game in town. A farmer starts Billot on the way to discovering the truth by showing him the mysterious disease and death of his cattle. Billot digs and digs and discovers that DuPont has been killing these people for years. Tim Robbins is good as his doubtful, but basically supportive boss, and Anne Hathaway is fine as his wife.
In 1980 Communist China, in a completely misguided effort to control population growth, enacted a policy of limiting couples to having only one child. Violators were severely punished. The main result was that most people wanted sons, not daughters. The number of female babies killed is an unredeemable scandal. Another result was a dearth of marriageable women for many years. The policy finally ended in 2015. One Child Nation is an eye-opening film about this draconian policy. Strangely enough, it is banned in China!
Julianne Moore is the whole show in Gloria Bell and that’s a good thing. Gloria works in a stodgy office by day but by night she dances and has a great time. Unexpectedly, a romance blossoms in her life and she is ecstatic. John Turturo is the love interest. The ending will please most everybody.
Motherless Brooklyn is the strange title of a pretty good movie. Edward Norton is the producer, director and star. He plays private detective Lionel Essrog, a crackerjack detective who has Tourette’s syndrome. Norton plays this perfectly, including all the twitches and incoherent explosive statements. The plot is complicated, and Norton’s performance is actually the high point, but the story is not hard to follow.
Main criticism- a little long at 144 minutes, the downside of a rookie director.
Arctic should probably be watched in July or August. Overgard (Mads Mikleson) survives a plane crash near the north pole and tries to survive until rescue can come. A helicopter sees him and tries to land but crashes, killing the pilot and badly injuring the female co-pilot. Overgard tries to care for her and decides they must go for help across the forbidding arctic landscape. The ending is equivocal.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults, though mature kids might go for the first one.
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
Medical breakthroughs are often fascinating and Hollywood has brought many of them to the screen. We all hope to have one about the cure of coronavirus before too much longer! For today, I’ll stick with what we have.
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) is a very good one, detailing Pasteur’s swimming upstream against the medical establishment with his radical ideas that germs invisible to the naked eye can kill you. Paul Muni won an Oscar for his excellent portrayal of the French genius.
Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) features a sterling performance by Edward G. Robinson and a splendid screenplay by John Huston in the story of the man who developed a cure for venereal disease. Ruth Gordon, Donald Crisp and Otto Kruger add nice touches to this fine film.
Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon are parents at the end of their ropes in Lorenzo’s Oil (1992). Their son is afflicted with an incurable degenerative disease and they refuse to give up trying. Peter Ustinov helps as a sympathetic doctor, while most of the medical community wants to throw in the towel. The child’s suffering is hard to take, and the ending is somewhat equivocal, but this film is a testament to the human spirit.
Greer Garson is outstanding as Madame Curie (1943), whose discovery of radium led to x-rays and other medical marvels. Walter Pigeon is, as always, fine as her husband. The movie does not tell you that their exposure to all that radiation killed them both, but hey, this is Hollywood!
Cliff Robertson, usually a plodding journeyman at best, broke out with a career performance in Charly (1968). He won an Oscar for playing a mentally retarded man brought to brilliance by a miracle drug. But as is also true in the next film, the cure turned out to be very short-lived.
Awakenings (1990) is a similar story with Robin Williams as the doctor and Robert DeNiro as a patient. Again the miracle turns to dust all too soon.
These films underscore how far we have come and how far we have to go in understanding the human body. There doesn’t seem to be a film about these wonderful medical breakthroughs: AIDs medications, Ebola vaccines, flu shots, artificial hearts, organ transplants, and the polio vaccine. Fertile ground for more movies!
All of the movies in this column are available on DVD. All are suitable for children 10 and up.
MAX VON SYDOW
Legendary Swedish actor Max Von Sydow lived into his 90th year. He left an incredible filmography on both sides of the Atlantic.
A fellow Swedish legend is director Ingmar Bergman, who used Von Sydow in almost every one of his iconic, if difficult, films in the 1950's and 60's. Since I find those famous films beyond my poor abilities to summarize, I’m simply going to list them and urge the serious cinephiles among you to check out one or two.
The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957) ,The Magician (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through A Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963). There’s a famous scene in Wild Strawberries that haunts me to this day.
Von Sydow’s American movies are a little less dense but no less memorable. The best movies about immigrants in American actually aren’t American at all, they’re Swedish. Max plays hard-luck but bitterly determined Minnesota farmer Karl Oskar in The Immigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972). These two fine films are probably as close as anyone got to portraying the immigrants who tried to farm in the American midwest.. Another Swedish superstar, Liv Ulman, is on board as the wife of Karl Oskar and mother of their eight children.
Von Sydow was still exhibiting major acting chops as late as 2018 when he appeared as Russian general Vladimir Petrenko in the splendid and moving Command.
An internal explosion disables a Russian sub. With only hours to live, the crew waits for rescue. The British navy has the equipment and know-how to go get them, but the Russian hierarchy vacillates, worried that this would be an admission of Russian failure.
Von Sydow is Dr. Nahering in the cliffhanger Shutter Island, about the residents of a prison for the criminally insane and their care-takers. Max is in some seriously famous company in this cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson all appear in this Martin Scorcese vehicle. I cannot in good conscience divulge any more of the plot, because it has an ending that many have debated. The book is better.
In the thriller Three Days Of the Condor (1975) Von Sydow plays the villainous Joubert, an assassin and all-around bad guy. The film begins with CIA operative Robert Redford having one of the worst days at the office ever and also features Cliff Robertson and Faye Dunaway. Remindful of the Bourne movies, Redford’s character is suspected of turpitude and has to go on the run.
Not many actors would have chutzpah to play Jesus Christ, but Max Von Sydow took on the role in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and did a creditable job in a so-so religious potboiler.
Max Von Sydow can also be seen as one of the physicians in Awakenings (1990), the film about a failed treatment for Parkinson’s disease. And he is The Renter in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) .
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults.
TONY RANDALL
Tony Randall died recently at 84. He was handsome, urbane and witty, and he left quite a legacy of stage, screen and TV work. He worked tirelessly for UNICEF for many years, and he was still working on Broadway a few months before his death. Most people probably remember Mr. Randall as fussy neat-freak Felix Unger in the brilliant sitcom, The Odd Couple (1970-75). Jack Lemmon played Felix in the movie. Those with longer memories (or more birthdays) may remember Mr. Randall as the wise-cracking friend of Rock Hudson in all those extremely mild sex comedies of the late 50's and early 60's.
In the overlooked Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) Mr. Randall is the main guy, playing an ad man with questionable methods trying to convince a rather dim starlet (Jayne Mansfield) to endorse a lipstick. This movie pokes fun at lots of sacred cows of the 50's and still holds up pretty well.
Tony Randall was second banana to bigger names in a host of light comedies, some of which are very good. Pillow Talk (1959) is still enjoyably funny, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson unknowingly sharing a party line, and Mr. Randall along for the ride.
Yves Montand is the eccentric billionaire trying to stop a show making fun of him in Let’s Make Love (1960). He then meets the show’s star (Marilyn Monroe) which changes everything. He hires various luminaries to teach him how to woo her, and Mr. Randall is the wise-cracking comic relief.
Rock Hudson and Doris Day are back as advertising executive rivals in Lover Come Back (1961). Tony Randall leads the back-up players in this amusing film. In Send Me No Flowers (1963) Rock Hudson is a hypochondriac convinced the end is near. He wants his buddy, Mr. Randall, to find a suitable second husband for his soon-to-be widow, Doris Day. Hijinks, of course, ensue.
Tony Randall is the leading man in The Mating Game (1959), playing an (of course!) uptight tax agent who falls completely for farm girl Debbie Reynolds. Paul Douglas has a nice turn as Debbie’s fractious father.
Warning: I watched The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) so you won’t have to. Tony Randall plays some 40 characters, all badly, in a mishmash fantasy western that is simply awful.
All of the films in this column are available on DVD. All are suitable for 10 and up, except Dr. Lao, which isn’t suitable for anybody.
