Circus 

    The circus is a wonderful setting for a movie. And there are lots of good ones out there. When I was a kid the circus was still under the “big top”, a giant tent. It somehow lost something when it moved indoors. Anyway, here are my circus picks.

One of the best books I’ve ever read about anything is Water For Elephants.  And the 2011 movie is, okay, not as good. Robert Pattinson is Jacob, a hard luck veterinarian student whose parents are killed in a car crash. He jumps on a circus train and when his vet background is discovered, he is hired by the Benzini Brothers to care for the animals. The circus is owned by the villainous August (Christopher Waitz, of course). August is married to Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) who he controls and abuses. Jacob and Marlena grow closer and closer and share a love for Rosie, an elephant mistreated by August. 

I’m going way way back for my first circus movie. At The Circus (1928) is a Chaplin silent. As his signature character The Little Tramp he is hired by the circus, has a series of misadventures that somehow make him the hit, falls in love with the bareback rider but loses her to Rex, the tightrope walker. The Tramp is beset by a troop of escaped monkeys, one of Chaplin’s best, and hardest, scenes. No computer tricks in 1928!

Hugh Jackman carries the water for the musical The Greatest Showman (2011). It also contains Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and some fairly lackluster songs. It’s a musical biography of P.T. Barnum. I’m only including it here to point out the earlier Broadway musical Barnum, which is better in every imaginable way. Jim Dale is a wonder as the title character.  If you get a chance to see the play, take it! 

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) isn’t that, but it’s pretty good. It won the Best Picture Oscar and is a lot of fun. James Stewart, Betty Hutton, Charlton Heston, Cornell Wilde, Gloria Grahme and Dorothy Lamour are the actors and most of them learned their circus parts quite well. It also features the actual circus animals, clowns and performers. There is an overbearing board of directors who want to shorten the show’s run. There’s a subplot involving Stewart as Buttons the Clown, a wanted man hiding behind his clown make-up. And there’s lots of great circus stuff!

Trapeze (1956) stars Burt Lancaster as the aging circus aerialist Mike Ribble. Tony Curtis is the up and coming trapeze artist who wants Mike to teach him the triple somersault. Gina Lolabrigida is the hot sexpot Lola who nearly derails the whole thing by cosying up to the young star. The most remarkable thing about this film is that Lancaster did most of his own stunts. Shades of Tom Cruise!

The Marx Brothers entry At The Circus (1939) is minor league Marx. All of these films are fine for all audiences. 

 

                                                                      Tennis

    I don’t watch tennis any more. The Williams sisters are gone and the men all seem to need to buy a vowel. But tennis makes for good movies and I’ve selected the ones I like best. 

My very favorite is Battle of the Sexes (2017). In the 70's the prizes for women tennis pros were roughly 1/8 of those for men. Some of the best female players pulled out of the professional league and started their own. Bobby Riggs, a journeyman professional and all-around braggart, kept trying to get Billy Jean King to play him. She finally agreed . Emma Stone plays King and Steve Carrell plays Riggs in this fairly accurate retelling of the story. King trains hard; Riggs relaxes. There is lots of hype before the match, which is nationally televised. King prevails to loud cheers. This match actually changed the landscape for women’s tennis. After this came the Williamses, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf and a host of others. The 2013 film with the same name is a documentary, closer to the truth but not nearly as much fun. 

King Richard (2021) is the biopic of the Williams family’s rise to tennis greatness. Will Smith is quite good as the father of the talented girls. An expert promoter and adequate coach, he pushes Venus and Serena beyond the limits of childhood and into champion status. He carefully guides their careers and is superb at picking the best way forward for his kids. He secures the best coaches and sponsors and both girls become adept professionals. 

Borg vs. McEnroe (2017) is the true story of a legendary tennis rivalry. Swede Bjorn Borg (Sverirr Gudnason) is the three-time Wimbledon winner. A famously introspective introvert, he is never rattled on the court and is quietly the best player in the world. Enter the abrasive, bratty John McEnroe (Shia LaBoeuf) unafraid of any encounter and determined to be the best. His battles with umpires stoke his fame, and his trademark shout of “seriously” on calls he questions become his mantra.  The two meet in the Wimbledon finals in 1980 in a wonderfully exciting match between two opposites. 

Subject To Review (2019) is a 37-minute short produced by ESPN that outlines the history and usage of Hawkeye, a device that reviews calls in tennis matches. It is a fascinating look at how often line calls are missed in professional tennis and fans and players are now used to the device being utilized. Most other sports also use this technology. Baseball has toyed with having it called balls and strikes, but still relies on human observation.

One of my all-time favorite athletes, and people, is Arthur Ashe. Citizen Ashe (2021) is an excellent documentary detailing his rise to tennis greatness and his influence as a civil rights activist. He was usually the only Black player in tournaments and stoically braved catcalls and prejudice, both overt and stealthily applied. He is revered by tennis fans of all stripes now, but it wasn’t always that way. He earned his way to fame and acceptance. 

All of these movies are fine for all ages.

                                                                          Golf

    Golf is a great big deal around here. Shoot, the US Open is played right here in North Carolina. But no, I don’t play golf. And no, I don’t watch it. Since Tiger broke bad it just doesn’t interest me. However, there are at least 50 movies about golf. Or in which golf figures in a major way. About 40 of them aren’t much good. And most of the good ones are comedies. Go figure. Anyway, here are my picks as the best golf movies.

At the top of my list is the enchanting, hilarious The Phantom of the Open (2021). Mark Rylance has a ball portraying Maurice Flitcraft, an absolutely clueless crane operator. He finds an entry blank for the British Open and fills it out. It asks the level of your golf game and he lists “professional”. He gets admitted and fires a blazing 121. He has never actually played a round before! Sally Hawkins is good as his equally clueless wife. The powers that be in golfdom are horrified. The British public is in love with this zany guy. It is, as the say, based on a true story.

Perhaps the most famous golf movie is Caddyshack (1980), a riotous comedy. Chevy Chase plays Ty Webb, son of the golf course owner. Rodney Dangerfield is Al Czervik nouveau riche developer and owner of the adjoining property. Bill Murray is Carl Spackler, dim-witted greens keeper. And unknown (still) Michael O’Keefe is Danny Noonan, a caddy trying to earn enough money to go to college. And- the funniest gopher in the movies. There is an expensive tournament between the two sides, with a reluctant Danny being roped in to play. His final putt, which will win the bet, hangs on the lip of the hole. Spackler sets off a dynamite charge in an effort to get rid of the gopher. It might shake enough to make the putt drop. 

If you’re an Adam Sandler fan (really, you are?) you might like Happy Gilmore (1996). Strangely enough, many people did. He portrays a failed hockey player whose slap shot translates into miraculously long drives. There is, of course, a tournament which he must win to save his grandmother’s house. Hey, I didn’t write the screenplay.

The Tin Cup (1996) is a better comedy. Kevin Costner is very good as erratic golfer Roy MacAvoy, who tends to spoil his best rounds by showing off too much. His romantic attachment to Molly Griswold (Rene Russo) is the heart of this film. Don Johnson plays Roy’s golfing rival David Simms and Cheech Martin has an excellent spot as Roy’s best buddy Romeo Posar. There is the inevitable golf tournament which Roy needs to win to make the PGA tour, and not incidentally, Molly’s love. 

   The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) is the only film in this column that isn’t a comedy. It is a biopic about how a gifted amateur, Francis Ouimet, won the US Open in 1913. Ably played by the underrated Shia LaBeouf, it is pretty close to historical accuracy. Francis was a former caddy from a poor family at a time when only rich guys could play golf. The final round of the tournament provides the title match.

All of these films are okay for all ages. 

                                                               Dabney Coleman

    He was one of the best ever at being the guy you loved to hate. Dabney Coleman left us at 92 but he also left us with well over 200 movie and TV appearances. He was the consummate character actor and filled each role with just the right amount of believability. His most memorable niche was as the terrible boss, and his most famous role was in:

9 to 5 (1980) in which he played Franklin Parks, Jr. the hateful, overbearing boss of Doralee (Dolly Parton), Violet (Lily Tomlin) and Judy (Jane Fonda). Coleman loved this kind of part, and audiences loved to hate him. He winds up hanging by his ankles from the ceiling thanks to his no-longer-cowed employees. He so richly deserved this! When I saw this in the theater back then, there was cheering when the women got the best of him. 

Tootsie (1974) requires quite a leap of faith, which most audiences were happy to make. Dustin Hoffman stars in the title role as a male actor (Michael Dorsey) who can’t seem to catch a break and get a part. He hears of an opening for a female on a soap opera. He dons female attire, adjust his voice and everything else, and lands the part. He fools most of the people around him, including the show’s sexist, hateful director Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman). There are lots of funny scenes as Hoffman makes his way through the minefield of convincing everyone he is a she. 

In War Games (1983) Dabney Coleman as John McKittrick almost destroys the world as a NORAD engineer. He comes up with the absolutely fool idea that NORAD should not use a human to launch a nuclear attack, but rather use a computer. What could go wrong, right? Matthew Broderick plays a teenage computer genius who hacks into the NORAD system and thinks it is a computer game. Okay, this is Hollywood, so you know that world does not end. But it’s lots fun seeing how we’re saved!

Coleman doesn’t have a major part in North Dallas Forty (1979). He portrays Emmett Hunter, an executive of the North Dallas Bulls, a professional football team. He is also a brother of the team’s owner. I’m putting this film in this article because of Coleman’s acting job in a fairly small role. We’re supposed to figure out whether he is gay or not and he does a very creditable job of subtly playing the role. So was he? The film is pretty black and white about greedy, shabby executives and naive but honest players. 

Coleman’s role in On Golden Pond (1981) is fairly minor. The film mostly deals with the principles in a long marriage revisiting a favored vacation spot. Icons Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn are the couple, and Jane Fonda plays their daughter. She visits them with her fiancé Bill, ably played by Dabney Coleman. He shows just what a good character actor does and what he adds to a movie. He handles a dust-up with his future father-in-law (Henry Fonda) with aplomb, but never over acts.

All of the movies in this article are out there somewhere. All are for adults.

                                                        French Mysteries column

    The French are really good at twisty, attention-holding mysteries. Here are Mr. Movie’s pick of the best ones.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) was nominated by the American academy for a Best Picture Oscar. Of course it didn’t win, but it is a beauty. A well-known university professor is found dead in the snow near his chalet in the Alps. Suspicion immediately falls on his novelist wife. She insists she is innocent and that her husband must have committed suicide or had a terrible accident. The forensics people think they have the wife cold. Their young son, who discovered the body, changes his story of what he saw. The wife goes on trial for manslaughter. 

Love Crime (2011) features Kristin Scott Thomas as the Boss From Hell of poor Isabelle Guerin, who she enjoys humiliating, especially in front of others. She will find this was a huge mistake, as Guerin exacts especially final revenge. This excellent French film has two delicious jaw-dropping twists!

Tell No One (2006) is a French film based on an American crime novel by Michael Connelly. If you get hold of this one, fasten your seat belt! Except for Kristin Scott Thomas (here she is again!) the cast and crew are all French. It utilizes the familiar Connelly plot device about a person supposedly dead who turns up with a squiggly explanation, but in time to help the hero out of a tight spot. Outlining the multiple twists and turns would give too much away. So I won’t.   

Frantic (1988) stars Harrison Ford as Richard Walker,  an American physician attending a conference in Paris when his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley) is abducted from their hotel room while he is in the shower. This nightmare just gets worse as he speaks almost no French, and receives very little help from the police. Nor is the American embassy much help. The ending is one you will not see coming. This nail-biter was directed by Roman Polanski, who still can’t set foot in the United States because there’s still a warrant out for him. 

Elle (2016) belongs entirely to the gifted Isabelle Huppert. She plays Michelle Leblanc, owner and developer of a video game company. It’s sort of hard to pull for this character, a domineering boss and serial sex partner, but maybe that’s the idea. She is a rape victim who seems to just shrug the incident off, but don’t be so sure. 

I will mention The Crimson Rivers (2000), a grisly murder mystery set in the Alps. It enjoined a brief flare-up in Art Houses back when it was released. But it is butchered (read edited) so badly that even the actors no longer understand it. I do NOT recommend it!

All of the movies in this article are available somewhere. You just have to look. And yes, if you find them you’re going to have to use subtitles unless you’re fluent in French. Oh, and all of these are strictly for adults.