UNJUSTLY ACCUSED
There have been many excellent movies about defendants who were unjustly accused and convicted. In 2012 the peerless Ken Burns weighed in with his take on The Central Park Five. A horrific rape and assault of a female jogger in New York’s Central Park captured the attention of a nation. Five young men in the wrong place at the wrong time are brought in and grilled. Believing they will be allowed to go home if they tell the cops what they want to hear, several confess. Their trials are swift and merciless and they are sentenced to long prison terms. Then, years later, a convicted rapist admits that in fact he was the culprit. This is a fascinating story, made more so by the fact that the prosecutors still maintain their belief in the guilt of these young men in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
You don’t have to go far to find a similar case. The Trials Of Darryl Hunt (2006) is about a wrongly accused North Carolina man who spent 19 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A young reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal was brutally raped and murdered leaving her workplace. Hunt was convicted on shaky eyewitness testimony placing him near the scene. DNA evidence exonerated Hunt. Another person, linked to the crime by his own DNA, confessed.
The Thin Blue Line (1988) is directed by esteemed documentarian Errol Morris (Gates Of Heaven, Mr. Death, A Brief History Of Time). A policeman is murdered in a drive-by shooting, and a juvenile implicates Randall Dale Adams as the killer. Morris carefully re-enacts the crime from various angles and pretty much proves that Adams is innocent. A year later Adams was exonerated and released.
Jessica Sanders’ After Innocence (2005) covers not one but seven defendants who were sentenced to prison and later exonerated by DNA evidence. While not as intensive as the films about a single case, Sanders’ method is very convincing and very troubling. This film won several awards and is a real eye-opener.
Conviction (2010) is not a documentary, but is based on a true story. Hillary Swank plays Betty Ann Waters, a high school dropout who put herself through law school so she could take up the case of her brother Kenny, serving a life sentence for murder.
West Of Memphis (2012) represents the conclusion of a bunch of films about the same incident. HBO shot three films about the West Memphis Three who were jailed on extremely shaky evidence and slipshod police work. Those are all titled Paradise Lost and were released in 1996, 2000 and 2012. They are just fine but perhaps more than most of you will want to know about this incident. West Of Memphis tells the story quite well in about two hours.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for mature audiences.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Sunday, June 18, 2017
GLENNE HEADLY
Glenne Headly died recently at the too-young age of 62 in her home in Santa Monica, California. While many show biz types blather on and on about family, Ms. Headly walked the walk. After becoming a mom, she continued to work, but only in productions close to her home or during school breaks. Her impressive film resume’ is bunched into the 80's and 90's. After that period most of her work was in TV and on the stage.
Glenne Headly’s break-out role came in 1988. She landed the juicy part of Janet Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and she definitely made the most of it. Steve Martin and Michael Caine are sleazy con men fleecing innocent rich people on the Riviera. Their attempt to con Janet is turned on its head by her cleverness. She manages to seem both clueless and intelligent in a difficult part that makes the movie a good one. She came up with the surprise ending that director Frank Oz readily put into his film. Oz credited Ms. Headly with the idea and praised her intelligence and savvy.
The 1990's had a bunch of movies based on comic strips, some good, some not so good. One of the best was Dick Tracy (1990) with Warren Beatty as the square-jawed gung ho detective and Glenne Headly as Tess Trueheart, his girlfriend. Today’s audiences may find this film a bit simple-minded, but the colors are garish and wonderful and the acting spot-on. Do you remember that this strip gave us the famous two-way wrist radios? Everyone now has an even better one! And Tracy’s enemies were famously unique: Flattop, Pruneface, The Mole, Measles, etc.
Ordinary Magic (1993) features newcomer Ryan Reynolds as a young man raised in India by a very idealistic and activist father. When the father dies, the young man is sent to live with an aunt, played by Glenne Headly, in Canada. When she is faced with an unfair eviction, her nephew motivates the community against this wrongful situation. The cruel landlord is played by, of all people, Paul Anka! Those of you under 60 may not remember him as a popular singer.
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) stars Richard Dreyfuss as a talented musician and composer who accepts a high school teaching position in order to spend more time with his young wife, Iris, played by Glenne Headly, and his infant son. The bureaucrats are after him from day one, contending that music education is not important and a frill to be cut from an already strained budget. They finally get the music budget cut and Mr. Holland is on his way out. But on his last day at the school something wonderful happens, crafted by his wife and son and many former students. There’s not a dry eye in the house!
After this part, Ms. Headly voiced Zootie the chimpanzee in the gleeful Babe: Pig In The City (1998) and that’s the last of the good stuff, movie-wise.
Glenne Headly can be glimpsed as Joan, a minor part in Eleni (1985) and as Olive in Saul Bellow’s Seize The Day (1986).
All of the films in this article are suitable for all ages, factoring in the boredom quotient for littlies.
Glenne Headly died recently at the too-young age of 62 in her home in Santa Monica, California. While many show biz types blather on and on about family, Ms. Headly walked the walk. After becoming a mom, she continued to work, but only in productions close to her home or during school breaks. Her impressive film resume’ is bunched into the 80's and 90's. After that period most of her work was in TV and on the stage.
Glenne Headly’s break-out role came in 1988. She landed the juicy part of Janet Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and she definitely made the most of it. Steve Martin and Michael Caine are sleazy con men fleecing innocent rich people on the Riviera. Their attempt to con Janet is turned on its head by her cleverness. She manages to seem both clueless and intelligent in a difficult part that makes the movie a good one. She came up with the surprise ending that director Frank Oz readily put into his film. Oz credited Ms. Headly with the idea and praised her intelligence and savvy.
The 1990's had a bunch of movies based on comic strips, some good, some not so good. One of the best was Dick Tracy (1990) with Warren Beatty as the square-jawed gung ho detective and Glenne Headly as Tess Trueheart, his girlfriend. Today’s audiences may find this film a bit simple-minded, but the colors are garish and wonderful and the acting spot-on. Do you remember that this strip gave us the famous two-way wrist radios? Everyone now has an even better one! And Tracy’s enemies were famously unique: Flattop, Pruneface, The Mole, Measles, etc.
Ordinary Magic (1993) features newcomer Ryan Reynolds as a young man raised in India by a very idealistic and activist father. When the father dies, the young man is sent to live with an aunt, played by Glenne Headly, in Canada. When she is faced with an unfair eviction, her nephew motivates the community against this wrongful situation. The cruel landlord is played by, of all people, Paul Anka! Those of you under 60 may not remember him as a popular singer.
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) stars Richard Dreyfuss as a talented musician and composer who accepts a high school teaching position in order to spend more time with his young wife, Iris, played by Glenne Headly, and his infant son. The bureaucrats are after him from day one, contending that music education is not important and a frill to be cut from an already strained budget. They finally get the music budget cut and Mr. Holland is on his way out. But on his last day at the school something wonderful happens, crafted by his wife and son and many former students. There’s not a dry eye in the house!
After this part, Ms. Headly voiced Zootie the chimpanzee in the gleeful Babe: Pig In The City (1998) and that’s the last of the good stuff, movie-wise.
Glenne Headly can be glimpsed as Joan, a minor part in Eleni (1985) and as Olive in Saul Bellow’s Seize The Day (1986).
All of the films in this article are suitable for all ages, factoring in the boredom quotient for littlies.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
INSPIRED BY THE BARD
Here’s an interesting bunch of films that are loosely (some of them tightly) based on Shakespeare’s plays.
Anyone who has the slightest interest in Shakespeare will be intrigued by Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard (1996). It features selected scenes from Richard III (played by Pacino), with Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, Aidan Quinn and Kevin Spacey. It also features these actors discussing their roles, background on the play itself, and some insightful points from scholars, as well as actors who have trod the boards in Shakespeare plays.
Rosencranz And Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) is loosely based on the lives of two fairly minor characters in Hamlet. Unaware that their fates are sealed by their parts in the play, they blindly stumble around trying to deviate from those roles. Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss star in this comical absurdist film scripted by the talented Tom Stoppard. Though perhaps an acquired taste, this film rewards attentive viewers with solid entertainment.
For a hundred years after Shakespeare’s plays were written and first performed, women were by law banned from acting on stage. This meant that every part, male and female, was played by men. In Stage Beauty (2004), Billy Crudup is an actor famous for portraying women. Claire Danes wants to act, so gets started by playing a woman in a minor league play. This attracts so much attention that King Charles II is persuaded to change the ban around 1650. How this is accomplished will not be revealed here.
A Double Life (1947) is 70 years old, but holds up well. Ronald Coleman is a Shakespearean actor best known for his portrayal of Othello. He becomes more and more unable to separate his stage life from real life, with increasingly tragic results. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin penned this excellent screenplay, and they contend that actors getting too much into their characters is a fairly common problem.
Leonard Bernstein traded warring families for warring New York gangs for the marvelous West Side Story (1961). It’s Romeo and Juliet with music and dancing, and its charm is still evident after more than 50 years.
King Lear’s terrible daughters (well, two out of three) are the basis for several good films. Japanese master Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) is a colorful take. And A Thousand Acres (1997) is based on Jane Smiley’s novel of family troubles on an Iowa farm.
Here are two movies based on The Tempest. 1948's Yellow Sky with Gregory Peck as an outlaw seems a bit of a stretch to me. But in1956 came Forbidden Planet with Walter Pigeon, Anne Francis and one of the first screen robots. This one is really close to the Shakespeare plot.
The crown jewel of this group of films is the marvelous Shakespeare In Love (1998). It is an almost completely fictional account of the life of William Shakespeare at the time he was writing Romeo and Juliet. The Bard is played winningly by Ralph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow is his Juliet-like love interest. This movie won a truckload of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (the iconic Judy Dench). It is also a barrel of fun!
All of the films in this column are available on DVD.
Here’s an interesting bunch of films that are loosely (some of them tightly) based on Shakespeare’s plays.
Anyone who has the slightest interest in Shakespeare will be intrigued by Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard (1996). It features selected scenes from Richard III (played by Pacino), with Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, Aidan Quinn and Kevin Spacey. It also features these actors discussing their roles, background on the play itself, and some insightful points from scholars, as well as actors who have trod the boards in Shakespeare plays.
Rosencranz And Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) is loosely based on the lives of two fairly minor characters in Hamlet. Unaware that their fates are sealed by their parts in the play, they blindly stumble around trying to deviate from those roles. Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss star in this comical absurdist film scripted by the talented Tom Stoppard. Though perhaps an acquired taste, this film rewards attentive viewers with solid entertainment.
For a hundred years after Shakespeare’s plays were written and first performed, women were by law banned from acting on stage. This meant that every part, male and female, was played by men. In Stage Beauty (2004), Billy Crudup is an actor famous for portraying women. Claire Danes wants to act, so gets started by playing a woman in a minor league play. This attracts so much attention that King Charles II is persuaded to change the ban around 1650. How this is accomplished will not be revealed here.
A Double Life (1947) is 70 years old, but holds up well. Ronald Coleman is a Shakespearean actor best known for his portrayal of Othello. He becomes more and more unable to separate his stage life from real life, with increasingly tragic results. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin penned this excellent screenplay, and they contend that actors getting too much into their characters is a fairly common problem.
Leonard Bernstein traded warring families for warring New York gangs for the marvelous West Side Story (1961). It’s Romeo and Juliet with music and dancing, and its charm is still evident after more than 50 years.
King Lear’s terrible daughters (well, two out of three) are the basis for several good films. Japanese master Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) is a colorful take. And A Thousand Acres (1997) is based on Jane Smiley’s novel of family troubles on an Iowa farm.
Here are two movies based on The Tempest. 1948's Yellow Sky with Gregory Peck as an outlaw seems a bit of a stretch to me. But in1956 came Forbidden Planet with Walter Pigeon, Anne Francis and one of the first screen robots. This one is really close to the Shakespeare plot.
The crown jewel of this group of films is the marvelous Shakespeare In Love (1998). It is an almost completely fictional account of the life of William Shakespeare at the time he was writing Romeo and Juliet. The Bard is played winningly by Ralph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow is his Juliet-like love interest. This movie won a truckload of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (the iconic Judy Dench). It is also a barrel of fun!
All of the films in this column are available on DVD.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
2016 SLEEPERS
Part 6
Is Mr. Movie about to run out of good 2016 sleepers? Actually, yes, and here are the last five.
The story of Ray Kroc and MacDonalds’ rise to international fame and fortune is well told in The Founder. And the perfectly cast Michael Keaton brings Kroc to life. He starts out as a traveling salesman for milkshake machines. He stumbles on MacDonalds’ hamburgers in a small California town. These guys have maximized cooking and delivery into an art form. They are artistes and he is a money-grubbing entrepreneur. Clashes are inevitable. Getting there is all the fun. Guess who wins.
Whether you like Barack Obama or not, most everybody (even Trump!) likes Michelle. And Southside With You is a very sweet and possibly mostly true biopic about their meeting and subsequent romance. You see flashes of brilliance in both the main characters and nicely rewarding back stories of their lives. How did an unknown lawyer working for pennies for a non-profit rise to the presidency? This movie gives us some idea. Using little-known actors add to the authenticity.
The Infiltrator features Brian Cranston of Breaking Bad fame as Robert Mazur, an undercover agent who merely managed to take down cartel leader Pablo Escobar and the banks that laundered his profits. This is, as they say, based on a true story and there are some white knuckle moments along the way for the main character. This film is based on Mazur’s book and I’m frankly astonished the guy is still alive.
We’ve liked Sally Field way before she famously told us we did at the Oscars. She is the clueless ugly duckling in Hello, My Name Is Doris. Doris has lived with her mother her whole life, and now lives alone in the family home. She becomes infatuated with a much younger fellow employee and goes after him hammer and tongs. This bittersweet film careens between feeling sorry for her and laughing at and with her, and it is a part not every actor could carry off. But Ms. Field does so with charm and moxie.
The title alone would tell you that Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is a Tim Burton film. In darkest Wales Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) runs a home for strange children that nobody else wants. The home was seemingly destroyed by a Luftwaffe raid in 1943, but it turns out there are survivors who continue to live through a portal in time. I know it sounds weird, and it is, but what did we expect? It’s also quite a lot of fun.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults.
Part 6
Is Mr. Movie about to run out of good 2016 sleepers? Actually, yes, and here are the last five.
The story of Ray Kroc and MacDonalds’ rise to international fame and fortune is well told in The Founder. And the perfectly cast Michael Keaton brings Kroc to life. He starts out as a traveling salesman for milkshake machines. He stumbles on MacDonalds’ hamburgers in a small California town. These guys have maximized cooking and delivery into an art form. They are artistes and he is a money-grubbing entrepreneur. Clashes are inevitable. Getting there is all the fun. Guess who wins.
Whether you like Barack Obama or not, most everybody (even Trump!) likes Michelle. And Southside With You is a very sweet and possibly mostly true biopic about their meeting and subsequent romance. You see flashes of brilliance in both the main characters and nicely rewarding back stories of their lives. How did an unknown lawyer working for pennies for a non-profit rise to the presidency? This movie gives us some idea. Using little-known actors add to the authenticity.
The Infiltrator features Brian Cranston of Breaking Bad fame as Robert Mazur, an undercover agent who merely managed to take down cartel leader Pablo Escobar and the banks that laundered his profits. This is, as they say, based on a true story and there are some white knuckle moments along the way for the main character. This film is based on Mazur’s book and I’m frankly astonished the guy is still alive.
We’ve liked Sally Field way before she famously told us we did at the Oscars. She is the clueless ugly duckling in Hello, My Name Is Doris. Doris has lived with her mother her whole life, and now lives alone in the family home. She becomes infatuated with a much younger fellow employee and goes after him hammer and tongs. This bittersweet film careens between feeling sorry for her and laughing at and with her, and it is a part not every actor could carry off. But Ms. Field does so with charm and moxie.
The title alone would tell you that Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is a Tim Burton film. In darkest Wales Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) runs a home for strange children that nobody else wants. The home was seemingly destroyed by a Luftwaffe raid in 1943, but it turns out there are survivors who continue to live through a portal in time. I know it sounds weird, and it is, but what did we expect? It’s also quite a lot of fun.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults.
Sunday, May 28, 2017
COURTROOMS
Hollywood loves courtroom stories, (1) because the sets are cheap and (2) because Americans must love them too- after all there’s a whole cable channel devoted to nothing else. Picking the best courtroom movies is hard (but fun!)
Inherit The Wind (1960), with Spencer Tracy as the great Clarence Darrow and Frederic March as the great William Jennings Bryan, is a wonder. Schoolteacher John Scopes is on trial for teaching evolution. The dialogue is brilliantly sharp. This is an issue we’re still fighting about, and this great film sets the stage well.
Witness For The Prosecution (1957), directed by the legendary Billy Wilder from an Agatha Christie play, features Charles Laughton as a barrister defending Tyrone Power for murder. Marlene Dietrich, John Williams and Elsa Lanchester complete a stellar cast. This taut London courtroom thriller twists and turns deliciously, with a surprise that will knock your socks and shoes off!
My Cousin Vinny (1992) certainly is not a great movie, but certainly is a great deal of fun. Joe Pesci is one of the worst (and assuredly the worst-dressed!) lawyers in North America. He heads for the Deep South with girlfriend (and Oscar winner) Marisa Tomei in tow to defend his nephew and a friend in Judge Fred Gwynn’s court. The culture clash couldn’t be louder, or funnier.
One of Tom Hanks’ Oscar-winning roles is as a lawyer released from his top-notch job because he is HIV positive, in Philadelphia (1993). Denzel Washington is excellent as an ambulance chasing shyster, but the only lawyer who will take Mr. Hanks’ case when he decides to sue over his firing.
In 1959, Anatomy of a Murder was a huge financial and critical success, and it holds up well today. Long (160 minutes) but worth it, it stars James Stewart as the sly, folksy defense lawyer. An impossibly young Ben Gazzarra is the defendant, Lee Remick his wife, and Joseph Welch (yes, the real lawyer from the Army-McCarthy hearings) is the judge. Also on board are Arthur O’Connell, Eve Arden, Orson Bean, and George C. Scott. This film features a defense that was quite controversial at the time (no, I’m not going to tell you; you’ll have to see for yourself).
One of my best 2016 sleepers was the under appreciated Denial. American author Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) has her lecture on the Holocaust loudly interrupted by a very combative David Irving (Timothy Spall). He then sues her in an English court for libel, as she has publicly called him a Holocaust denier. In England the burden of proof in a libel case is on the one who published the statement, not the other way around. Much of the film takes place in the courtroom, but there is plenty of outside footage, including a harrowing trip to Auschwitz. Tom Wilkinson has a fine role as Lipstadt’s British lawyer. Spall is hateful and splendid.
Other courtroom films worth a look include The Caine Mutiny (1954), To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), Compulsion (1959) and A Few Good Men (1992). All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.
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Hollywood loves courtroom stories, (1) because the sets are cheap and (2) because Americans must love them too- after all there’s a whole cable channel devoted to nothing else. Picking the best courtroom movies is hard (but fun!)
Inherit The Wind (1960), with Spencer Tracy as the great Clarence Darrow and Frederic March as the great William Jennings Bryan, is a wonder. Schoolteacher John Scopes is on trial for teaching evolution. The dialogue is brilliantly sharp. This is an issue we’re still fighting about, and this great film sets the stage well.
Witness For The Prosecution (1957), directed by the legendary Billy Wilder from an Agatha Christie play, features Charles Laughton as a barrister defending Tyrone Power for murder. Marlene Dietrich, John Williams and Elsa Lanchester complete a stellar cast. This taut London courtroom thriller twists and turns deliciously, with a surprise that will knock your socks and shoes off!
My Cousin Vinny (1992) certainly is not a great movie, but certainly is a great deal of fun. Joe Pesci is one of the worst (and assuredly the worst-dressed!) lawyers in North America. He heads for the Deep South with girlfriend (and Oscar winner) Marisa Tomei in tow to defend his nephew and a friend in Judge Fred Gwynn’s court. The culture clash couldn’t be louder, or funnier.
One of Tom Hanks’ Oscar-winning roles is as a lawyer released from his top-notch job because he is HIV positive, in Philadelphia (1993). Denzel Washington is excellent as an ambulance chasing shyster, but the only lawyer who will take Mr. Hanks’ case when he decides to sue over his firing.
In 1959, Anatomy of a Murder was a huge financial and critical success, and it holds up well today. Long (160 minutes) but worth it, it stars James Stewart as the sly, folksy defense lawyer. An impossibly young Ben Gazzarra is the defendant, Lee Remick his wife, and Joseph Welch (yes, the real lawyer from the Army-McCarthy hearings) is the judge. Also on board are Arthur O’Connell, Eve Arden, Orson Bean, and George C. Scott. This film features a defense that was quite controversial at the time (no, I’m not going to tell you; you’ll have to see for yourself).
One of my best 2016 sleepers was the under appreciated Denial. American author Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) has her lecture on the Holocaust loudly interrupted by a very combative David Irving (Timothy Spall). He then sues her in an English court for libel, as she has publicly called him a Holocaust denier. In England the burden of proof in a libel case is on the one who published the statement, not the other way around. Much of the film takes place in the courtroom, but there is plenty of outside footage, including a harrowing trip to Auschwitz. Tom Wilkinson has a fine role as Lipstadt’s British lawyer. Spall is hateful and splendid.
Other courtroom films worth a look include The Caine Mutiny (1954), To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), Compulsion (1959) and A Few Good Men (1992). All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.
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Sunday, May 21, 2017
BEST OF THE BARD
As best as I can tell, there are about 250 movies of Shakespeare’s plays. Here’s one man’s vote for the very best.
Much Ado About Nothing (1993) is about the most fun of any Shakespearian movie. It was produced and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars along with his then-wife Emma Thompson. Also along for the ride are Denzel Washington, Keanu Reaves, Robert Sean Leonard and Kate Beckinsale (her first part!). The plot is a wonderful mish-mash of mistaken identities, mistaken partnering, and much hilarity. You could not do better for an introduction to the Bard than this film. And it so happens that 20 years later (2013) we had a new version, spiffed up and modern, but pretty good. But featuring actors even I never heard of!
There are at least a dozen adaptations of Hamlet. But my money is on the splendid 1948 version with the iconic Lawrence Olivier as the prince torn by indecision over revenge and love. This British film has a fine ensemble cast you’ve never heard of and cuts about two hours off the usual running time. But-well- there is Olivier and no one does Hamlet better. And, there is an Oscar for Best Movie to boot!
There are a double handful of movies featuring the star-struck and doomed teen-age lovers, Romeo And Juliet. It seems to me that many casting directors don’t pay attention to the fact that these were really young people (Juliet was 14), and so my vote goes to the 1968 Franco Zefferelli version staring unknowns Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting. (The film didn’t seem to be a launching pad for either of these kids.) It drips with romance as it should and there’s not a dry eye in the house at the end.
There are two great versions of the martial favorite Henry V. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 version is very good. But I have to vote for the 1946 version with the redoubtable Lawrence Olivier. This play has great lines and when Henry urges on the British at Agincourt, you are ready to take up arms against the villainous French!
My final Shakespearian vote goes to the brilliant 1995 version of Richard III. Ian McKellan has the title role and is wonderfully villainous. This version is set at the time of World War II and if McKellan reminds you of another dictator with a funny moustache, that’s as it should be. A glorious supporting cast includes Annette Bening, Robert Downey Junior, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Since Elizabethan-era English can be difficult to follow, may I suggest using the wonderful subtitle feature when viewing the Bard’s best. I don’t think I could understand the dialog very well without this.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. Much Ado is suitable for all ages; the rest are for grown-ups.
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As best as I can tell, there are about 250 movies of Shakespeare’s plays. Here’s one man’s vote for the very best.
Much Ado About Nothing (1993) is about the most fun of any Shakespearian movie. It was produced and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars along with his then-wife Emma Thompson. Also along for the ride are Denzel Washington, Keanu Reaves, Robert Sean Leonard and Kate Beckinsale (her first part!). The plot is a wonderful mish-mash of mistaken identities, mistaken partnering, and much hilarity. You could not do better for an introduction to the Bard than this film. And it so happens that 20 years later (2013) we had a new version, spiffed up and modern, but pretty good. But featuring actors even I never heard of!
There are at least a dozen adaptations of Hamlet. But my money is on the splendid 1948 version with the iconic Lawrence Olivier as the prince torn by indecision over revenge and love. This British film has a fine ensemble cast you’ve never heard of and cuts about two hours off the usual running time. But-well- there is Olivier and no one does Hamlet better. And, there is an Oscar for Best Movie to boot!
There are a double handful of movies featuring the star-struck and doomed teen-age lovers, Romeo And Juliet. It seems to me that many casting directors don’t pay attention to the fact that these were really young people (Juliet was 14), and so my vote goes to the 1968 Franco Zefferelli version staring unknowns Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting. (The film didn’t seem to be a launching pad for either of these kids.) It drips with romance as it should and there’s not a dry eye in the house at the end.
There are two great versions of the martial favorite Henry V. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 version is very good. But I have to vote for the 1946 version with the redoubtable Lawrence Olivier. This play has great lines and when Henry urges on the British at Agincourt, you are ready to take up arms against the villainous French!
My final Shakespearian vote goes to the brilliant 1995 version of Richard III. Ian McKellan has the title role and is wonderfully villainous. This version is set at the time of World War II and if McKellan reminds you of another dictator with a funny moustache, that’s as it should be. A glorious supporting cast includes Annette Bening, Robert Downey Junior, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Since Elizabethan-era English can be difficult to follow, may I suggest using the wonderful subtitle feature when viewing the Bard’s best. I don’t think I could understand the dialog very well without this.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. Much Ado is suitable for all ages; the rest are for grown-ups.
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Sunday, May 14, 2017
2016 Sleepers
Part 5
Good grief, a friend muttered. Can you possibly have any more good 2016 sleepers? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do.
I’m not usually a Jim Jarmusch fan. I have struggled through several of his films, awarding them anywhere from 3 to 6 (out of 10). But I just really liked Paterson. Adam Driver is a city bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. Every day he walks to work, gets on his bus, does his route and goes home. Then he walks his wife’s bulldog and stops at the local bar for a beer. But he is always listening to conversations around him, and he takes notes and writes poems. They are pretty bad. Once in a while he hits a really nice line, but usually not. Something happens to his poetry and I won’t spoil that plot device, and the very cool finish. Certainly not for everyone, Paterson is a true sleeper.
Gleason is a documentary that is frankly hard to take. It reminded me of an old ad for a children’s hospital: “Don’t look if you can’t stand the sight of courage.” Steve Gleason was a celebrated defensive back for the New Orleans Saints. A few years after retirement, he developed ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease), becoming one of many former football players afflicted with problems of the brain. This film takes us from the onset of the problem all the way through to the end. Gleason’s courage is heart-warming, but also gut-wrenching.
Hunt For The Wilder-People is billed as a New Zealand adventure comedy-drama. I could not have said it any better. Left an orphan, Ricky goes to live with foster mother Bella and her taciturn husband Hec. Bella dies, and the child welfare people want Ricky back. Neither he nor Hec are keen on this, so they take to the woods and for most of the movie hide out from the authorities and meet interesting people. Aussie Sam Neill is good as Hec and newcomer Julian Dennison is just fine as Ricky.
Japan’s Studio Ghibli, home of the marvelous anime films, produced the splendid The Red Turtle, a gentle fairy tale about people marooned on an island. The red turtle morphs into a beautiful girl. She and the guy conceive a son, who wants to set off and see the world. After a terrible storm destroys the island’s forest, the lad eventually sails away. The man and woman grow old together and there’s a heart-catching ending.
Julieta is Spanish Grand Master Pedro Almodovar’s 20th film and he is in fine fettle here. The film is based on three chapter’s of Alice Munro’s book, Runaway. The wonderful Ariana Ugarte shines as the title character. She may or may not have indirectly caused the death of her husband (you decide). In any event, this causes her daughter’s complete estrangement. Julieta spends the movie trying to re-establish contact with the daughter, only to be repulsed at every turn. There is a semi-happy Almodovar ending that sort of leaves you guessing.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.
Part 5
Good grief, a friend muttered. Can you possibly have any more good 2016 sleepers? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do.
I’m not usually a Jim Jarmusch fan. I have struggled through several of his films, awarding them anywhere from 3 to 6 (out of 10). But I just really liked Paterson. Adam Driver is a city bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. Every day he walks to work, gets on his bus, does his route and goes home. Then he walks his wife’s bulldog and stops at the local bar for a beer. But he is always listening to conversations around him, and he takes notes and writes poems. They are pretty bad. Once in a while he hits a really nice line, but usually not. Something happens to his poetry and I won’t spoil that plot device, and the very cool finish. Certainly not for everyone, Paterson is a true sleeper.
Gleason is a documentary that is frankly hard to take. It reminded me of an old ad for a children’s hospital: “Don’t look if you can’t stand the sight of courage.” Steve Gleason was a celebrated defensive back for the New Orleans Saints. A few years after retirement, he developed ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease), becoming one of many former football players afflicted with problems of the brain. This film takes us from the onset of the problem all the way through to the end. Gleason’s courage is heart-warming, but also gut-wrenching.
Hunt For The Wilder-People is billed as a New Zealand adventure comedy-drama. I could not have said it any better. Left an orphan, Ricky goes to live with foster mother Bella and her taciturn husband Hec. Bella dies, and the child welfare people want Ricky back. Neither he nor Hec are keen on this, so they take to the woods and for most of the movie hide out from the authorities and meet interesting people. Aussie Sam Neill is good as Hec and newcomer Julian Dennison is just fine as Ricky.
Japan’s Studio Ghibli, home of the marvelous anime films, produced the splendid The Red Turtle, a gentle fairy tale about people marooned on an island. The red turtle morphs into a beautiful girl. She and the guy conceive a son, who wants to set off and see the world. After a terrible storm destroys the island’s forest, the lad eventually sails away. The man and woman grow old together and there’s a heart-catching ending.
Julieta is Spanish Grand Master Pedro Almodovar’s 20th film and he is in fine fettle here. The film is based on three chapter’s of Alice Munro’s book, Runaway. The wonderful Ariana Ugarte shines as the title character. She may or may not have indirectly caused the death of her husband (you decide). In any event, this causes her daughter’s complete estrangement. Julieta spends the movie trying to re-establish contact with the daughter, only to be repulsed at every turn. There is a semi-happy Almodovar ending that sort of leaves you guessing.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.
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