ROMAN POLANSKI

It is often difficult to separate a person’s talent from his personal life. “Controversial” doesn’t even begin to cover director Roman Polanski., still directing at age 87. . He avoided Nazi concentration camps during World War II by hiding with sympathetic Catholic families. In 1969 his wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in his home by the Charles Manson gang. Then he was convicted of the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl and fled to Europe. He has fought extradition and refused to return to America. 

So, he did not return to the U.S. to accept his Oscar for Best Director for The Pianist (2002). This splendid film stars Adrien Brody as a world-class concert pianist who hides from the Nazis throughout the war. The set pieces of a ravaged Warsaw are amazing, and this memorable film is accomplished with very little dialogue. It is a directorial masterpiece. 

Almost 50 years ago, Mr. Polanski directed Chinatown (1974), with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in one of the best private-eye films every made. This noirish classic holds up really well with many scenes that ring through the years. 

Even further back, Roman Polanski brought us Rosemary’s Baby (1968), a film so scary I still get a chill just writing about it. If you think these modern teen-age slasher flicks are scary, check out this story of gradually increasing doom and hold onto your socks.

Tess (1980) is a superb rendering of Thomas Hardy’s classic Tess of the D’Urbervilles, with Natasha Kinski (later Polanski’s wife) in the title role, a girl trying to claw her way up from poverty to the upper class.  

Carnage (2011) features four fine actors. John C. Reilly, Christopher Waitz, Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet. They are the parents of two boys who got into a playground fight in which one got slightly hurt. The parents meet to sort things out and things go from okay to not. 

The Ghost Writer (2011) stars Ewan MacGregor, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams. It involves a ghost writer hired to write the biography of a famous politician.  It is too incredibly complicated to outline here, but director Polanski keeps it understandable and moving along. 

Some of Mr. Polanski’s other films of note include Knife In The Water (1958, a Polish menage a trois both thrilling and scary), Frantic (1988, with Harrison Ford as an American diplomat whose wife is the victim of an unlikely kidnaping), and Death and the Maiden (1998) with Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver in another directorial gem reproduced from a very claustrophobic play. Alas, Polanski’s most recent effort, An Officer and a Spy (2019) just isn’t very good. 

By the way, there are definitely two sides to the extradition controversy. For a balanced view, check out Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008).

All of the films in this column are available on DVD. All are strictly for grown-ups.

                                 GOOD MOVIES YOU MAY NEVER HAVE HEARD OF

                                                             Part 2

Here’s another batch of really good films that slipped under the radar when they came out.

Philomena (2013) stars the legendary Judi Dench. As an Irish teenager Philomena became pregnant and was sent to a convent for unwed mothers. She had a little boy and they lived together for three years. Then the nuns found an adoptive family, he left with them, and she never saw him again. The movie is about her search for her boy after 40 plus years of separation. Steve Coogan is quite good as a journalist helping her look for her son. Movies don’t get much better than this. 

The Class (2009) is a fine French film about a high school teacher who gets into trouble from an offhand remark he makes during a class .With all the hubub about political correctness, it seems right out of the headlines though it is 12 years old. It manages to balance precisely on the edge between sympathy for the guy and understanding what all the fuss is about. The teacher is played by Francois Begaudeau, a real school teacher who wrote the screenplay. The students are not professional actors, and you feel you are in the classroom with them. It should probably be required viewing for every educator. 

Ruby Sparks (2012) is a wonder. Written by and starring Zoe Kazan, it features Paul Dano as a struggling novelist. He had a big hit with his first book but is now completely blocked from writing another. His therapist (Elliott Gould) says to write a page about someone who likes his dog. The writer has a dream in which he meets Ruby Sparks in the park and she says she likes his dog. So he starts writing about her. Then one day she shows up in his kitchen, possibly as a real person. That’s all I’m going to tell you!

Yet another French entry in this list is the enigmatic and altogether engaging Certified Copy (2011). The marvelous Juliette Binoche meets British unknown William Shimell, who has recently published a book about the difference between originals and copies in the world of art. They agree to meet the next day and go to lunch together in a small Tuscan village. Then the fun starts. Did they really just meet? Or is something else going on here? It is fun to try to figure out, and your guess is as good as any. 

The Square (2010) is from Australia. It is a classic “one bad thing always leads to something worse” movie. A construction company owner tries to hide an affair he is having with the wife of an employee. They hire a thug to burn down her house while they are at a company Christmas party to provide an alibi. Their perfect plan goes horribly wrong, and like the Tar Baby, the more they struggle to right things the worse it gets. 

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD, though some of them may be hard to find. All are for adults. 

                                GOOD MOVIES YOU MAY NEVER HAVE HEARD OF

                                                                    Part 1

This is the first of a projected series of articles featuring really good movies that didn’t get much play or recognition. 

Julianne Moore is always interesting, and is at the top of her game as The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.  She tries to keep things running in a house with too many children and not enough money by entering contests. She is quite good at it, though most of the prizes are small. Older viewers will remember this time in American history when slogan-writing and catchphrase invention could win you big prizes. Woody Harrelson is good as always as the haphazard husband who works a little and drinks a lot. 

I absolutely loved Every Little Step; it was my number 1 movie of 2009. Okay, you have to also love the play A Chorus Line (which I obviously do). This is a sterling documentary about the try-outs for the revival of the play. The stories of the dancers and the triumph and tragedy of the selections are riveting. By the way, the movie of A Chorus Line is not really very good. 

Beezus is the nickname Ramona stuck her older sister with (mispronouncing her real name, Beatrice) in Ramona and Beezus.  Eleven-year-old Joey King is just completely charming as Ramona, a well-intentioned little girl whose every plan goes terribly (and humorously) wrong. Selena Gomez is well-cast as the long-suffering older sister. I was prepared to hate this bit of fluff but wound up really liking it. 

I just love perfect crime movies and Love Crime is a pip. It’s a French film, and most of the actors are French, but Brit Kristin Scott Thomas blends in perfectly as the boss from Hell. She employs Isabelle Guerin and greatly enjoys humiliating and embarrassing the young woman. There is a twist and another twist (my lips are sealed).

Once upon a time there was an obscure American folk singer named Sixto Rodriguez. He was known only in a small area of Detroit. He got a couple of good reviews and made a couple of CDs that flopped. He was a loner, nearly a hermit. Incredibly, his songs became mega-hits in, of all places, South Africa. Searching For Sugar Man is the story of how his fans in South Africa tracked him down and brought him to their country.  He was immediately a huge star, much to the surprise of his few fans back in Detroit and to himself. 

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD but may be hard to find. All except Love Crime are fine for all ages, factoring in boredom quotient for littlies. 

                                                            HOLD THE PHONE

Sometimes I think that not only does everyone have a cell phone, they are all talking on them at the same time. They say lots of young people don’t even bother with land line phones any more (so how will we find them in the phone book?) Well, there haven’t always been mobile phones. I thought it would be fun to look at some very good movies that depend on the plot device of a land line phone. Warning to young people- (to me that’s anyone under 50) you must keep thinking: THERE ARE NO CELL PHONES!

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) is one heckuva thriller written, scored and  directed by not-yet-famous John Carpenter with actors you’ve never heard of. Precinct 13 in Los Angeles is scheduled for closing and has only a skeleton staff. But cops from there kill several members of the Street Thunder gang. The gang vows revenge and launches an all-out attack on the building. They cut the phone lines and the electricity and those inside must fend for themselves as there’s no way to summons help. For want of a phone, okay? There is a 2005 version with Lawrence Fishburne and in that one somehow the cell phones are jammed (?). Anyway, it’s not as good. 

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder (1954) is a cracker jack suspenser with Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Bob Cummings. The plot hangs on a telephone call to pull  Ms. Kelly into the living room where the killer awaits. But things do not go as planned because the phone call is mistimed. The story also depends on a hidden key and who does or doesn’t know where it is. That’s all I’ll tell!

The phone gimmick in The Spiral Staircase (1946) is not that the phone doesn’t work, but that the endangered young woman (Dorothy McGuire) in the creepy old house is unable to speak because she’s been traumatized by the death of her parents. As the killer advances, the suspense builds. For God’s sake, say something!

The Lives of Others (2006) is a German film made well after the wall came down. It chronicles the East German Secret Police’s tapping the phones of a prominent playwright and keeping him under surveillance. He knows they’re doing this and his efforts to avoid their attention is riveting. 

The Telephone (1988) features Whoopi Goldberg who may or may not be making a bunch of prank calls on her land line phone, and the phone company’s efforts to repossess her phone. It’s not that good, but I’m running out of phone movies. 

All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults. 

                                                     CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

                                                                Part 2

With a career that spanned seven decades, Christopher Plummer must have been in some pretty doggie movies, right? Of course. But we’re going for the good stuff, and there is still plenty of it.

The Man Who Would Be King (1975) features future megastars Michael Caine and Sean Connery as British ex-soldiers out for adventure. When they land in the middle of a civil war in an obscure country Connery’s character (Danny Dravot) is shot with an arrow but is unharmed because his bandolier stops it. The natives then think he is a god and he and his buddy have a grand time taking advantage of it. The story was written by Rudyard Kipling, and Mr. Plummer appears as Kipling- both on screen and as narrator. 

12 Monkeys (1995) is a sci-fi thriller starring Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. It involves a virus which is killing everyone in the world. Willis’ character is sent back in time (!) to trace the virus to its source and stop it. Christopher Plummer plays the semi-mad scientist who developed the killer bug.

In the award-winning A Beautiful Mind (2001) Russell Crowe (nominated for Best Actor) is the brilliant but somewhat demented John Nash, a crackerjack mathematician. Christopher Plummer plays Dr. Rosen, a psychiatrist who tries to helpl Nash with mixed results. Ron Howard won an Oscar for directing, Jennifer Connelly won as Nash’s long-suffering wife, and the picture itself copped the Oscar.

The 2002 film of Nicholas Nickleby is pretty good, but nothing will ever equal the 1982 British TV series with Roger Rees as Nicholas. In the 2002 version, Chrisopher Plummer plays the cold-hearted and hateful Ralph Nickleby, who declines to give any meaningful help to orphaned Nicholas and his sister Catherine. He really makes you hate him!

Christopher Plummer appears as Arthur Case, one of the principal manipulators in Inside Man (2006) a banker with a dark secret in his lock box. He helps a big heist of the bank and hopes to protect his box. The elaborate heist investigated by Denzel Washingon (Det. Keith Frazier) does not end well for the robbers or Case.

Mr. Plummer may also be seen with pleasure in supporting roles in Night of the Generals (1967), The Spiral Staircase (1975), and Malcolm X (1992). His last notable appearance was in the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) as Henry Vanger. 

All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults. 

                                            CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

                                                    Part 1

        His career spanned seven decades and he became the oldest person to win an acting Oscar when he was 82. Need a distinguished older man for your movie? Get Christopher Plummer. He died at 91 and one of his films is still in production at this writing. 

The notable part of his movie career began in 1965 when he played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound Of Music. This was a wildly popular film that still has a wide audience today. Mr. Plummer loathed the film and his role in it, considering it populist pap. But it launched his spectacular career. Looking back on it later in his life he mellowed a bit in his attitude. 

Christopher Plummer’s lone Oscar win came in 2010 for the lead role in Beginners. He appears as Hal, a husband and father who came out at the age of 75 and spent quite a few years openly gay. His son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is somewhat flummoxed by all this as he tries to make it as an artist. Mr. Plummer’s performance is just spot on - neither too quiet or too over the top. He is completely believable in a very difficult role. 

Mr. Plummer’s first Oscar nomination was for The Last Station (2009). He lost to Christopher Waitz for Inglorious Basterds. His portrayal of a dying Leo Tolstoy is very good. Helen Mirren appears as his wife, Sophya.  The plot involves a battle between Sophya and Tolstoy admirers. The latter want him to sign a will leaving all his work in the public domain, which will leave his family in penury. Watch and find out what happened!

Christopher Plummer’s last Academy Award nomination came just five years ago when he portrayed billionaire J. Paul Getty in All The Money In The World. This time he lost to Sam Rockwell who won for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2018). Getty almost never gave interviews or appeared in public, but Mr. Plummer makes him appear as most of us would imagine him. When his grandson is kidnaped by organized crime members, Getty refuses to pay the demanded ransom. He says it would only encourage more kidnapings. As time drags on, Getty finally agrees to pay one million of the seventeen million demanded. It is the most he can deduct for taxes! Further complications involve the cutting of the victim’s ears, and the involvement of a former CIA agent and the boy’s mother in a frantic rescue attempt. 

Mr. Plummer has the title role in Oedipus The King (1968), as one of the unluckiest characters in mythology. Although Orson Welles, Lilli Palmer, Cyril Cusak and Donald Sutherland also appear, the movie got mostly unfavorable reviews. Mr. Plummer’s performance was the only bright spot in the opinion of most critics. 

This is the first article about Christopher Plummer’s cinematic career. There will be at least one more. Watch this space!

All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All except The Sound Of Music are for adults. 

                                                            CICELY TYSON

She lived to 96 and worked well into her 90's. She won two Tonys, three Emmys, and a Lifetime Achievement Award Oscar. Entering show business when it was really difficult for African Americans, she nonetheless carefully selected roles that would accommodate her talent and her ambition. We won’t see the likes of Cicely Tyson again. 

Sounder (1952) is the dog of a poor sharecropping family in the South. This fine film gave Cicely Tyson her first big break and an Oscar nomination to boot. She lost to Liza Minnelli for Cabaret. But her exemplary portrayal of Rebecca resonated with casting directors and she was on her way. 

I don’t often use made-for-TV movies in my articles, but three of Cicely Tyson’s best performances are in those, so here goes. She is the whole show in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). Playing  someone twice her age, she is mesmerizing as a woman who has seen it all. The 110-year-old former slave takes her interviewer through her life story, culminating in the civil rights movement and her participation in it. Taken from a novel by Ernest J. Gaines, the film won nine Emmys, including two for Ms. Tyson (Best Actress in a Drama and Actress of the Year).  

Another Gaines book is the basis for A Lesson Before Dying (1999). It is a familiar story about a an innocent Black man in the South convicted of murder and sentenced to death. But with the plot twist that Grant Wiggins (Don Cheadle), Tante Lou (Ms. Tyson) and others try to prepare the condemned man for the end. 

The last made-for-TV film for discussion is The Trip To Bountiful (2014). Cicely Tyson plays Carrie Watts, who lives with her overly protective son and his shrewish wife. She wants desperately to return to Bountiful,  the little town where she grew up.She outsmarts her relatives, befriends a young woman on the bus and gets a sympathetic sheriff to help her on her jaunt. There is an equally good 1985 film with the same title and story, but the people are white in that one. 

Cicely Tyson also had several good roles in theater movies. The best of these is The Help (2011) about a group of maids in a Southern town who agree to be interviewed for a tell-all book by  local girl Skeeter Phelan. Ms. Tyson is Constantine, whose firing by the writer’s mother is the incident that begins Skeeter’s decision to write the book. Viola Davis is also one of the maids and her interesting recipe for chocolate pie is not one you’ll want to try!

Cicely Tyson’s credits also include substantial roles in Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) and Because of Winn-Dixie (also 2005). All of the films in this article are available on DVD. Sounder is fine for mature kids as is The Trip To Bountiful and Because of Winn-Dixie. The rest are really for adults.