A Movie A Day #34: Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009, directed by Mike Tollin)

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

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A part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series, Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? tells the story of the United States Football League. The USFL was not the first American football league to try to take on the NFL but, arguably, it was one of the most successful. Playing a spring/summer schedule, the USFL lasted for three seasons, from 1983 to 1985. During that time, the USFL introduced many rules that would later be adopted by the NFL, including the two-point conversion and the coach’s challenge. Several future NFL superstars, like Herschel Walker and Steve Young, got their start in the USFL.

So, why is the USFL nearly forgotten today? This documentary largely lays the blame at the feet of none other than Donald Trump. Long before he was President or even a reality TV star, Trump wanted to own a football team. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to buy an NFL team, Trump purchased the USFL’s New Jersey Generals. Trump not only decided that the USFL needed to switch to a fall schedule and compete directly with the NFL but, under his direction, the USFL also filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. Ironically, the USFL won that lawsuit but were only awarded $3.75 in damages. With the league’s financial resources depleted by the lawsuit, the USFL suspended the 1986 season and never came back.

For all the legitimate criticism that can be directed towards ESPN, the 30 for 30 documentaries have been consistently excellent. While Small Potatoes features plenty of exciting game footage and interviews with former USFL players, it’s not surprising that the most interesting thing about it is listening to Trump revealingly discuss his time as a USFL team owner with the same mix of self-aggrandizement and defensive posturing that he uses to discuss the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Unlike the majority of the players and former owners interviewed in Small Potatoes (including Burt Reynolds, who was one of the owners of the Tampa Bay Bandits), Trump still appears to take it personally that he was never taken seriously as the owner of a football team.

I did not know anything about the USFL before I watched Small Potatoes. My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer. The story of the USFL was too interesting to be confined to just one hour.

A Movie A Day #33: Two-Minute Warning (1976, directed by Larry Peerce)

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

For the longest time, I thought that Two-Minute Warning was a movie about a gang of art thieves who attempt to pull off a heist by hiring a sniper to shoot at empty seats at the Super Bowl. As planned by a master criminal known as The Professor (Rossano Brazzi), the sniper will cause a riot and the police will be too busy trying to restore order to notice the robbery being committed at an art gallery that happens to be right next to the stadium.

I believed that because that was the version of Two-Minute Warning that would sometimes show up on television. Whenever I saw the movie, I always through it was a strange plan, one that had too many obvious flaws for any halfway competent criminal mastermind to ignore them. What if the sniper was captured before he got a chance to start shooting? What if a riot didn’t break out? The sniper spent the movie aiming at empty seats but, considering how many people were in the stadium, it was likely that he would accidentally shoot someone. Were the paintings really worth the risk of a murder charge?

Even stranger was that Two-Minute Warning was not only a heist film but it was also a 1970s disaster film. Spread out throughout the stadium were familiar character actors like Jack Klugman, John Cassevetes, David Janssen, Martin Balsam, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon, and Beau Bridges. It seemed strange that, once the shots were fired and Brazzi’s men broke into the gallery, all of those familiar faces vanished. When it comes to disaster movies, it is an ironclad rule that at least one B-list celebrity has to die. It seemed strange that Two-Minute Warning, with all those characters, would feature a sniper shooting at only empty seats. For that matter, why would there be empty seats at the Super Bowl?

That wasn’t the strangest thing about Two-Minute Warning, though. The strangest thing was that Charlton Heston was in the film, playing a police captain. In most of his scenes, he had dark hair. But, in the scenes in which he talked about the art gallery, Heston’s hair was suddenly light brown.

Recently, I watched Two-Minute Warning on DVD and I was shocked to discover that the movie on the DVD had very little in common with the movie that I had seen on TV. For instance, the television version started with the crooks discussing their plan to rob the gallery. The DVD version opened with the sniper shooting at a couple in the park. In the DVD version, there was no art heist. The sniper had no motive and no personality. He was just a random nut who opened fire on the Super Bowl. And, in the DVD version, he did not shoot at empty seats. Several of the characters who survived in the version that I saw on TV did not survive in the version that I saw on DVD.

What happened?

The theatrical version of Two-Minute Warning was exactly what I saw on the DVD. A nameless sniper opens fire and kills several people at the Super Bowl. In 1978, when NBC purchased the television broadcast rights for Two-Minute Warning, they worried that it was too violent and too disturbing. There was concern that, if the film was broadcast as it originally was, people would actually think there was a risk of some nut with a gun opening fire at a crowded event. (In 1978, that was apparently considered to be implausible.) So, 40 minutes of new footage was shot. Charlton Heston even returned to film three new scenes, which explains his changing hair color. The new version of Two-Minute Warning not only gave the sniper a motive (albeit one that did not make much sense) but it also took out all of the violent death scenes.

Having seen both versions of Two-Minute Warning, neither one is very good, though the theatrical version is at least more suspenseful than the television version. (It turns out that it was better to give the sniper no motive than to saddle him with a completely implausible one.) But, even in the theatrical version, the potential victims are too one-dimensional to really care about. Ultimately, the most interesting thing about Two-Minute Warning is that, at one time, an art heist was considered more plausible than a mass shooting.

A Movie A Day #32: Number One (1969, directed by Tom Gries)

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

number-one Quarterback Cat Catlan (Charlton Heston) used to be one of the greats. For fifteen years, he has been a professional football player. He probably should have retired after he led the New Orleans Saints to their first championship but, instead, the stubborn Cat kept playing. Now, he is 40 years old and struggling to keep up with the younger players. His coach (John Randolph) says that Cat has another two or three years left in him but the team doctor (G.D. Spradlin who, ten years later, played a coach in North Dallas Forty) says that one more strong hit could not only end Cat’s career but possibly his life as well. Two of former Cat’s former teammates (Bruce Dern and Bobby Troup) offer to help Cat find a job off the field but Cat tells them the same thing that he tells his long-suffering wife (Jessica Walter). He just has to win one more championship.

Number One is unique for being one of the first movies to ever take a look at the dark side of professional football. At 40, Cat is facing an uncertain future. His years of being a star have left him unprepared to deal with life in the real world. He has no real friends and a wife who no longer needs him. This would seem like a perfect role for Heston, who always excelled at playing misanthropes. Heston is convincing when he’s arguing with his wife or refusing to sign an autograph but, surprisingly, he is thoroughly unconvincing whenever he’s on the field. For all of his grunting and all the lines delivered through gritted teeth, Heston is simply not believable as a professional athlete, even one who is past his prime. (When he played the 40 year-old Cat, Heston was 46 and looked like he was 56.) Whenever Cat throws a football, he’s played by Heston in close-ups and very obviously replaced by real-life Saints quarterback Billy Kilmer for the long shots. A football film is only as good and convincing as the football action and, on that front, Number One leaves much to be desired.

The 1969 press photo displays Heston's throwing technique.

This 1969 press photo displays Heston’s throwing technique.

Two final notes: For the scene in which Cat is tackled by three Dallas Cowboys (all played by actual players), Heston requested that the players actually tackle him. Heston ended up with three broken ribs.

Finally, Number One was made the cooperation of the New Orleans Saints and features several players in the cast. When Number One was filmed, the Saints were still a relatively new expansion team. Cat is described as having already led the Saints to a championship but it would actually be another 40 years before the Saints would finally make their first trip to the Super Bowl.

A Movie A Day #31: Overnight (2003, directed by Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith)

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

overnight The year is 1997 and Troy Duffy is on top of the world. The Boston-bred Troy is a bartender and bouncer who has just sold his first script to Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. Weinstein is not only going to give him fifteen million dollars to make The Boondock Saints but he is also going to help Troy buy his own bar. Troy’s band, The Brood, is on the verge of signing a contract with Maverick Records. Stars like Mark Wahlberg and Ewan McGregor are eager to meet with him, though Duffy offends McGregor with his outspoken support of the death penalty. Miramax suggests that Duffy should cast Sylvester Stallone, Keanu Reeves and Ethan Hawke in his movie. Duffy calls Keanu a “fucking punk.”

The year is 1998 and Troy Duffy is no longer on the top of the world. He’s in his apartment, chain-smoking, drinking, and cursing Harvey Weinstein. Duffy has managed to offend everyone at Miramax and The Boondock Saints has been put into turn around. When Duffy finally does find someone willing to produce his film, he has to settle for a budget this is half of what Weinstein was originally willing to provide. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the legendary Doobie Brother himself, is producing The Brood’s first album but he thinks that Troy’s brother, Taylor, is the band’s breakout star. The other members of the Brood are growing tired of Troy’s ego.

The year is 2000. The Boondock Saints goes unsold at Cannes. When it finally does get a release, it only plays in five theaters and is pulled after a week. Though the film finds success on video, the contract that Troy signed prevents him from making any money off of it. The Brood’s debut CD sells less than 700 copies. Consumed by paranoia, Troy drives away all of his family and friends. When he’s invited to speak at a film class at Boston University, he ends up verbally assaulting even those who compliment him. Convinced that he’s being targeted, Troy goes into semi-hiding.

It’s a familiar story, one that has happened to many aspiring filmmakers. What made Troy Duffy unique was that he invited two of his friends, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, to film him while it happened. Duffy was hoping the end result would be a portrait of a genius at the start of his career but, instead, the documentary became a portrait of a talented man destroyed by a combination of ego and paranoia.

Overnight is usually described as being a cautionary tale but, as opposed to the filmmakers at the center of documentaries like American Movie and Hearts of Darkness, Troy Duffy comes across like he was probably an asshole even before he was discovered by Harvey Weinstein. As a result, Troy Duffy is never a sympathetic figure but it’s still interesting to see how crazy things got. If you’re a fan of either Boondock Saints or its sequel, Overnight is required viewing.

A Movie A Day #30: Prince of the City (1981, directed by Sidney Lumet)

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

220px-prince_of_the_city_folded In 1970s New York City, Danny Ciello (Treat Williams) is a self-described “prince of the city.” A narcotics detective, Ciello is the youngest member of the Special Investigations Unit. Because of their constant success, the SIU is given wide latitude by their superiors at the police department. The SIU puts mobsters and drug dealers behind bars. They get results. If they sometimes cut corners or skim a little money for themselves, who cares?

It turns out that a lot of people care. When a federal prosecutor, Rick Cappalino (Norman Parker), first approaches Ciello and asks him if he knows anything about police corruption, Ciello refuses to speak to him. As Ciello puts it, “I sleep with my wife but I live with my partners.” But Ciello already has doubts. His drug addict brother calls him out on his hypocrisy. Ciello spends one harrowing night with one of his informants, a pathetic addict who Ciello keeps supplied with heroin in return for information. Ciello finally agrees to help the investigation but with one condition: he will not testify against anyone in the SIU. Before accepting Ciello’s help, Cappalino asks him one question. Has Ciello ever done anything illegal while a cop? Ciello says that he has only broken the law three times and each time, it was a minor infraction.

For the next two years, Ciello wears a wire nearly every day and helps to build cases against other cops, some of which are more corrupt than others. It turns out that being an informant is not as easy as it looks. Along with getting burned by malfunctioning wires and having to deal with incompetent backup, Ciello struggles with his own guilt. When Cappalino is assigned to another case, Ciello finds himself working with two prosecutors (Bob Balaban and James Tolkan) who are less sympathetic to him and his desire to protect the SIU. When evidence comes to light that Ciello may have lied about the extent of his own corruption, Ciello may become the investigation’s newest target.

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Prince of the City is one of the best of Sidney Lumet’s many films but it is not as well-known as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico, The Verdict, or even The Wiz. Why is it such an underrated film? As good as it is, Prince of the City is not always an easy movie to watch. It’s nearly three hours long and almost every minute is spent with Danny Ciello, who is not always likable and often seems to be on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Treat Williams gives an intense and powerful performance but he is such a raw nerve that sometimes it is a relief when Lumet cuts away to Jerry Orbach (as one of Ciello’s partners) telling off a district attorney or to a meeting where a group of prosecutors debate where a group of prosecutors debate whether or not to charge Ciello with perjury.

Prince of the City may be about the police but there’s very little of the typical cop movie clichés. The most exciting scenes in the movie are the ones, like that scene with all the prosecutors arguing, where the characters debate what “corruption” actually means. Throughout Prince of the City, Lumet contrasts the moral ambiguity of otherwise effective cops with the self-righteous certitude of the federal prosecutors. Unlike Lumet’s other films about police corruption (Serpico, Q&A), Prince of the City doesn’t come down firmly on either side.

(Though the names have been changed, Prince of the City was based on a true story. Ciello’s biggest ally among the investigators, Rick Cappalino, was based on a young federal prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani.)

Prince of the City is dominated by Treat Williams but the entire cast is full of great New York character actors. It would not surprise me if Jerry Orbach’s performance here was in the back of someone’s mind when he was cast as Law & Order‘s Lenny Briscoe. Keep an eye out for familiar actors like Lance Henriksen, Lane Smith, Lee Richardson, Carmine Caridi, and Cynthia Nixon, all appearing in small roles.

Prince of the City is a very long movie but it needs to be. Much as David Simon would later do with The Wire, Lumet uses this police story as a way to present a sprawling portrait of New York City. In fact, if Prince of the City were made today, it probably would be a David Simon-penned miniseries for HBO.

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A Movie A Day #29: Boss of Bosses (2001, directed by Dwight H. Little)

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

boss Who was the boss of bosses? According to this movie, he was Paul Castellano. A cousin-by-marriage to the notorious crime boss Carlo Gambino, Castellano grew up in New York City and first became a made man in the 1930s. After four decades of loyal service, Castellano succeeded Carlo as the boss of the Gambino Crime Family. As portrayed in this movie, Castellano attempted to keep the Gambinos out of the drug trade and tried to steer both his biological and his crime family into legitimate businesses. However, not everyone appreciated Castellano’s vision of the future and, in 1985, he was assassinated on the orders of his eventual successor, John Gotti.

Considering that this biopic was made for TNT and was directed by Dwight H. Little (who was best known for directing films like Halloween 4 and Free Willy 2), it’s probably not surprising that not a single mob cliché goes unturned in Boss of Bosses. At first, I had a hard time accepting Chazz Palminteri as Castellano because Palminteri sounded exactly like Joe Mantegna voicing Fat Tony on The Simpsons. Once I got over the vocal similarities, I saw that Palminteri was actually giving a very good, noncartoonish performance as Castellano but the film itself never convinces us that Castellano was anything more than a forgettable placeholder between the reigns of the legendary Gambino and the flamboyant Gotti.

Boss of Bosses, which is also known as Godfather of New York, is currently available on YouTube.

A Movie A Day #28: Scandal (1989, directed by Michael Caton-Jones)

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

scandal-poster London. 1961. Doctor Stephen Ward (played by John Hurt) is an artist and an osteopath. He counts among his patients some of the most distinguished men and women in British society, including the Minister of War, John Profumo (Ian McKellen). After meeting two young dancers, Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley) and Mandy Rice-Davies (Bridget Fonda), Stephen becomes their mentor, the Henry Higgins to their Eliza Doolittle.

Under Stephen’s watchful eye, both Christine and Mandy are soon having affairs with some of the most powerful members of Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government. Christine becomes the mistress of both Profumo and KGB agent, Yevgeny Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), along with maintaining off-and-on relationships with drug dealer Johnny Edgecombe (played by singer Roland Gift) and musician Lucky Gordon (Leon Herbert).

When a disagreement leads to Johnny slashing Lucky’s face and then getting arrested for firing a gun at Stephen’s flat, the public learns the details of Christine’s affair with Profumo. With the scandal rocking the British government, Stephen is a convenient scapegoat and soon finds himself on trial, charged with making a living off of “immoral earnings.”

Based on the real life scandal that led to the eventual fall of Harold Macmillan’s government, Scandal is remarkably faithful to the facts of the Profumo Affair, even if it did leave out some of the more interesting allegations. (For instance, no mention is made of an alleged encounter between Mandy Rice-Davies and President Kennedy.) Though it may seem tame by today’s standards, when Scandal was first released in 1989, it was considered to be something of a scandal itself and it initially got an X rating when it was released in the United States. (The scandal over Scandal is one of the things that led to the MPAA adopting the NC-17 rating to distinguish between films for adults and “adult” films. Of course, it didn’t work as a potential NC-17 still carries the same stigma as the X rating did.)

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Scandal holds up well as both a recreation of London on the verge of the sexual revolution and a look at contrast between private and public mores. Both Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda are excellent in the roles of Christine and Mandy. Fonda gets to deliver the most famous line of the whole Profumo Affair when Mandy is told that Lord Astor has denied having had an affair with her. “He would, wouldn’t he?” she says. After I watched Scandal last night, I did some checking and I discovered that Bridget Fonda has not made a film since 2002. She is missed.

Not surprisingly, Scandal‘s best performance comes from John Hurt, who plays Stephen Ward as a naive and well-meaning social butterfly who ultimately gets in over his head and pays a steep price for trusting that his friends would remain his friends. Scandal is just one of many movies that proves what a great talent was lost when the world lost John Hurt.

RIP.

SCANDAL, John Hurt, 1989

A Movie A Day #27: Tribes (1970, directed by Joseph Sargent)

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Adrian (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a free-spirited hippie who has just been drafted into the Marine Corps. As soon as he arrives at the boot camp, his long hair get shaved off and he immediately starts to get under the skin of Sgt. DePayster (Earl Holliman). While Adrian scored higher than anyone else in the platoon on his aptitude tests, he is also a pacifist who refuses to shoot a gun and teaches all of the other draftees how to meditate. DePayster wants to put Adrian in the Motivational Platoon, a disciplinary unit where Adrian probably would not survive. Trying to protect Adrian while also trying to turn him into a killing machine is his drill instructor, Sgt. Drake (Darren McGavin).

Tribes has never been released on DVD/Blu-ray but it can be watched on YouTube. Not surprisingly, for a movie that was made for television in 1970, there are some parts of the film that have not aged well. I doubt a real drill instructor, even one who secretly draws pictures and admires Adrian’s rebellious spirit, would have put up with Private Adrian for as long as Drake does in this movie. Again because of its television origins, the language has been cleaned up. You won’t mistake this one for Full Metal Jacket. On the plus side, Earl Holliman gives a good performances as the hardass sergeant and Jan-Michael Vincent shows why he was expected to be such a big star before he ended up becoming one of Hollywood’s greatest cautionary tales. Best of all is Darren McGavin, who is even better as the tough but fair Sgt. Drake than he was in his two best known roles, the father in A Christmas Story and reporter Carl Kolchak.

Tribes was a huge rating success when it aired, leading to it getting a limited theatrical release. In Europe, it was retitled The Soldier Who Declared Peace.

Wanted! For doing his thing!

A Movie A Day #26: The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991, directed by Sidney J. Furie)

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

After a toxic chemical spill, Beverly Hills is evacuated. While its citizens wait in a hotel, their mansions and valuables are guarded by the police and agents of the EPA. Or so they think. It turns out that the chemical spill was faked and that both the police and the government agents are in on it. While the town’s deserted, they’re going to rob everyone blind. The scheme’s mastermind is Bat Masterson (Robert Davi), the owner of L.A. Rams. What Masterson doesn’t realize is that one citizen of Beverly Hills stayed behind, his own quarterback, Boomer Hayes (Ken Wahl). Teaming up with Ed Kelvin (Matt Frewer), the last honest cop in town, Boomer sets out to protect Beverly Hills.

It’s just a dumb as it sounds. In fact, of the many Die Hard ripoffs that came out in the late 80s and the early 90s, The Taking of Beverly Hills is probably the dumbest, which also makes it one of the most entertaining. Boomer, who has an impressive mullet, can only speak in football analogies, constantly assuring Ed that it’s only the first down and that they can turn things around after halftime. When Boomer gets serious, he says, “It’s time to play offense.” One of the stranger things about The Taking of Beverly Hills is that, unlike working class hero John McClane, Boomer is not an outsider. He’s in Beverly Hills because he’s rich. The Taking of Beverly Hills is basically about one rich guy trying to keep another rich guy from robbing a bunch of other rich people. It’s Die Hard if Hart Bochner had been the hero instead of Bruce Willis.

Keep an eye out for Lee Ving, lead singer of Fear, playing one of the corrupt cops and an uncredited Pamela Anderson cast as a cheerleader. And keep your ears open for songs like Epic by Faith No More because their presence on the soundtrack (and the associated rights issue) is the reason was this stupidly entertaining movie will probably never get a DVD/Blu-ray release in the United States.

It has been released in Germany, where it was retitled Boomer after the lead character.

A Movie A Day #25: Next of Kin (1989, directed by John Irvin)

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Truman Gates (Patrick Swayze) may have been raised in Appalachia but, now that he lives in Chicago, he’s left the old ways behind. He has a job working as a cop and his wife (Helen Hunt) is pregnant with their first child. When Truman’s younger brother, Gerald (Bill Paxton), shows up in town and asks for Truman’s help, Truman gets him a job as a truck driver. But, on his first night on the job, Gerald’s truck is hijacked by a Sicilian mobster named Joey Rosellini (Adam Baldwin) and Gerald is killed. Truman’s older brother, Briar (Liam Neeson), soon comes to Chicago and declares a blood feud on the mob.

Of the many action films that Patrick Swayze made between Dirty Dancing and Ghost, Roadhouse may be the best known but Next of Kin is the best. Next of Kin spends as much examining the family dynamics of Rosellini’s family as it does with Truman’s, suggesting that there is not much of a difference between the two groups. There’s even a scene where Joey’s uncle (played by Andreas Katsulas) tells Joey that the Sicily was the Appalachia of Italty. Next of Kin also has a better supporting cast than most of the films that Swayze made during this period. Along with Paxton and Neeson, the hillbillies are represented by actors like Ted Levine and Michael J. Pollard while Ben Stiller has an early role as Joey’s cousin. Patrick Swayze gives one of his better performances as Truman but the entire movie is stolen by Liam Neeson, who is a surprisingly believable hillbilly.