Category Archives: Film Review

Review: Kate & Leopold (dir. by James Mangold)

Posted on by Arleigh

“What has happened to the world? You have every convenience and comfort, yet no time for integrity.” — Leopold

Kate & Leopold is one of those romantic comedies that sneaks up on you with its old-school charm, even if it doesn’t always stick the landing. Released in 2001, it catches Hugh Jackman right after his breakout as Wolverine in the first X-Men film, during that early stretch of hits leading toward epics like The Fountain, giving him a chance to shine in pure rom-com mode before the superhero world fully claimed him. It’s a time-travel tale starring Jackman as a 19th-century duke and Meg Ryan as a modern-day exec, and while it’s predictable in spots, it delivers some genuinely sweet moments amid the silliness, boosted by his fresh, pre-typecast appeal.

The setup is pure fantasy fodder. Leopold, the third Duke of Albany, lives in 1876 New York, tinkering with an elevator prototype that accidentally rips a hole in time. His descendant Stuart, a bumbling scientist played by Liev Schreiber, drags him to the present day. Leopold lands in modern Manhattan, bewildered by cars, skyscrapers, and people who don’t stand when a lady enters the room. Enter Kate McKay, Meg Ryan in full quirky career-woman mode, who’s too busy chasing a promotion to notice the fish-out-of-water nobleman crashing at her place. Her roommate Charlie, a slacker pianist, thinks Leopold’s a method actor at first, leading to some fun roommate hijinks.

What works best is Hugh Jackman’s effortless charisma as Leopold. He nails the role with wide-eyed wonder and impeccable manners, riding a horse through Central Park to chase a mugger, whipping up gourmet meals from sparse ingredients, and delivering lines about life’s simple pleasures—like how food must taste good to nourish the soul—with total sincerity. It’s disarming. Leopold isn’t just a pretty face; he’s a walking critique of 21st-century rudeness. When he calls out advertisers for peddling tasteless margarine or marvels at how folks wolf down burgers without savoring them, you can’t help but chuckle. His old-world chivalry clashes hilariously with New York’s hustle, like when he stands every time Kate leaves the table, leaving her exasperated but secretly charmed.

Meg Ryan holds up her end too, bringing that familiar rom-com energy she perfected in the ’90s. Kate’s a high-powered market researcher obsessed with a big pitch for some farmer’s butter spread—ironic, given Leopold’s later meltdown on set. She’s jaded from a recent breakup with Stuart, prioritizing work over everything, but Leopold slowly cracks her shell. Their first real connection comes over a picnic where he waltzes her around a rooftop to a hired violinist, and yeah, it’s corny, but Jackman sells it. Ryan’s got great chemistry with him; you buy their spark even when the script strains. Liev Schreiber steals scenes as Stuart, evolving from jealous ex to unlikely matchmaker, while Breckin Meyer adds comic relief as Charlie, who learns to woo his crush by channeling Leopold’s authenticity.

The fish-out-of-water gags land most of the laughs. Leopold navigating subways, elevators (his invention, after all), and TV commercials feels fresh enough, especially since the movie leans into his culture shock without overdoing slapstick. There’s a memorable bit where he tours modern New York, gaping at the Brooklyn Bridge and declaring it a marvel, only to learn it’s named after his investment. Director James Mangold keeps things light, blending screwball elements with a touch of Somewhere in Time nostalgia. The score swells romantically, and the production design pops—Leopold’s Victorian tux against neon signs is a nice visual contrast. Early 2000s rom-coms loved these fish-out-of-water tales—like The Holiday or Two Weeks Notice—but this one stands out for its sincere take on manners as a cure for modern cynicism.

But let’s be honest: Kate & Leopold has flaws that keep it from greatness. The time-travel rules are fuzzy at best. Leopold has to return to 1876 or the timeline implodes—elevators stop working, chaos ensues—but it’s hand-waved with vague portal talk. Stuart’s asylum stint feels mean-spirited, and the third act rushes into melodrama. Some supporting bits drag, like the endless ad pitch subplot, and the pacing dips mid-film when everyone’s just hanging out. The plot’s contrived overall, with that bridge-jump climax feeling abrupt, but the earnest vibe carries through.

Still, the romance earns its payoff. Kate and Leopold aren’t insta-lovers; they bicker over integrity versus ambition, with Leopold pushing her to taste life fully and Kate grounding his idealism. Their Central Park chase and final ball scene in 1876 deliver genuine swoon factor. It’s not subversive—Kate ditches her career for corsets, after all—but it celebrates courtesy and heart in a cynical world. Compared to edgier rom-coms like When Harry Met Sally, this one’s softer, more fairy tale than reality check. Ryan’s quirky energy bounces off Jackman’s poise, creating sparks that feel earned, even if the career sacrifice lands a bit dated now.

For a 2001 release, it holds up surprisingly well. No cell phones dominate every scene, letting face-to-face charm shine. Jackman’s glow makes Leopold believable as a duke who’d invent the elevator, and Ryan reminds us why she was America’s sweetheart. It’s PG-13 for mild language and innuendo—nothing racy, safe for date night or family viewing. Critics were mixed; some praised the manners humor but called the plot preposterous, which nails it. Watch it today, and it’s a charming time capsule, as out-of-step as Leopold in a subway.

Review: Send Help (dir. by Sam Raimi)

Posted on by Arleigh

“We’re not in the office anymore, Bradley.” — Linda Liddle

Sam Raimi’s Send Help is a nasty, funny, and surprisingly romantic little pressure cooker that strands two archetypes—the mousy doormat and the smug rich kid—on a desert island and then slowly turns the screws until the film’s “eat the rich” satire curdles into genuine horror. It is neither the triumphant, all‑timer comeback some fans might crave nor a lazy retread, but a confident mid‑budget horror‑comedy from a director who still knows exactly how to make an audience wince and cackle in the same breath.

Raimi and writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift build Send Help on a simple but potent premise: Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), a meek corporate strategist and survival‑show obsessive, has been promised a promotion by her former boss, only for the new CEO—his son Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien)—to hand the job to his frat‑bro buddy Donovan and try to shuffle Linda into a dead‑end role. He finds her embarrassing and even comments on her smell; she swallows the humiliation until a company plane trip to a business summit ends in a violent crash, leaving Linda and Bradley as the only known survivors on a remote island in the Gulf of Thailand. Out here, Linda’s years of reality‑TV survival fandom and wilderness prepper skills suddenly matter, while Bradley’s only proven talents—golf, networking, and cruelty—are exposed as useless.

The first act, set in the office and on the doomed flight, plays as Raimi’s version of workplace horror, pitched somewhere between Drag Me to Hell’s moral fable and a nastier episode of The Office. McAdams leans into Linda’s awkwardness without turning her into a caricature, sketching a woman who has internalized decades of minor humiliations and found solace in parasocial survival fantasies. O’Brien, meanwhile, riffs on the archetype of the tech‑adjacent finance bro, weaponizing charm into something brittle and mean so that every “joke” lands like a micro‑aggression. Raimi shoots these early scenes with brisk, unfussy energy, reserving his more flamboyant camera moves for moments when Linda’s resentment starts to spike; the tonal hint is clear that the island will be where his signature style truly erupts.

Once the plane goes down, Send Help shifts into a survival thriller that gradually becomes a duel, and this is where the film finds its most compelling rhythm. Linda wakes up, builds a shelter, secures water, and—crucially—chooses to help the injured Bradley despite every reason not to, only to be met with the same entitled barking as in the office. She abandons him for days to bake in the sun and dehydrate, only to return at the brink and ration out water on her terms, turning what could have been a straightforward revenge fantasy into a looping series of power reversals. Raimi milks the island setting for physical comedy—failed fire‑starting, slapstick injuries, disgusting food gags—before undercutting the laughs with sudden spikes of cruelty and violence that remind you someone could easily die out here.

Raimi’s direction is where Send Help most clearly announces itself as his homecoming to horror. Even without demons or supernatural curses, he brings back the aggressive visual language: lunging crash zooms, canted angles that seem to tilt with Linda’s shifting moral compass, and kinetic tracking shots that whip around the camp as arguments turn into physical scuffles. The gore is heightened but not constant—geysers of blood appear at key turning points, functioning as exclamation marks on the escalating class war rather than wall‑to‑wall splatter. You can still feel the Three Stooges in the staging; even the nastiest beats often end on a punchline built around bodily fluids, improvised weapons, or the absurd indignity of almost dying because you slipped on a fish.

Tonally, the film walks a provocative tightrope between screwball rom‑com and survival horror, and your mileage will depend on how much whiplash you are willing to embrace. There are scenes that play almost like a twisted date movie—Linda cooking up makeshift dinners, trying to build a semblance of “home,” Bradley begrudgingly softening—only for the dynamic to swerve back into emotional manipulation or outright brutality. The film clearly flirts with the tradition of 1930s battle‑of‑the‑sexes comedies, but here the gender and class politics are sharper, and the potential for lethal violence never disappears. For some viewers, this constant oscillation will feel thrillingly unstable; for others, it may make the film’s ultimate stance on these characters’ relationship and culpability feel muddier than intended.

Narratively, Send Help borrows its class‑flipped survival template from the kind of satirical, wealth‑skewering stories where workers suddenly control the only skills that matter. The formerly “lowly” employee—in this case Linda rather than a bathroom janitor or ship’s cleaner—suddenly dictates the terms of existence, upending the old hierarchy once the corporate infrastructure is gone. Where broader ensemble satires linger on systemic critique, Raimi narrows the focus to a two‑hander and uses genre excess to explore how vengeance, desire, and survival blur together when the rules are erased. This narrower scope sometimes makes the class commentary feel schematic—you can spot each new reversal coming like a story beat in a screenwriting manual—but it also gives McAdams and O’Brien ample room to shade their roles.

Performance‑wise, McAdams is the film’s anchor and secret weapon. She charts Linda’s evolution from shy, apologetic office drone to ruthless island operator without losing sight of the character’s essential decency, so that her darker choices land as both cathartic and unsettling. O’Brien has the flashier arc in some ways, modulating Bradley from cartoonish jerk to scared, dependent man‑child and, eventually, something more morally ambiguous as he learns how to play the island power game himself. Their chemistry thrives on friction; the film is at its best when it lets them volley insults, bargains, and threats in long, increasingly twisted negotiations over food, shelter, and the possibility of rescue.

Where Send Help falters is largely in its final stretch, where Raimi has to decide just how far he’s willing to push the “eat the rich” fantasy and what that means for Linda’s soul. Without spoiling specifics, the climax leans into brutal spectacle and a last‑minute moral turn that some may read as a cop‑out and others as a necessary corrective to pure revenge porn. The thematic through‑line—that capitalism warps everyone it touches and that power corrupts even the formerly powerless—is coherent enough, but a few late plot contrivances and cameo‑style appearances from supporting players feel more functional than organic.

Ultimately, Send Help plays like a spiritual cousin to Drag Me to Hell: a small, mean moral tale about how a single workplace injustice can metastasize into something monstrous once the trappings of civilization fall away. It may not reinvent survival horror or class satire, and viewers hoping for the wild supernatural invention of Evil Dead II or the operatic sweep of Spider‑Man 2 might find it comparatively contained. But as a brisk, roughly 100‑minute showcase for Raimi’s enduring flair, anchored by a terrific McAdams performance and a gleefully ugly sense of humor, it is a welcome return to the genre that made his name—and a reminder that sometimes the scariest demons are just your coworkers, stripped of HR and given a machete.

Film Review: The Eagle Has Landed (dir by John Sturges)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1976 film, The Eagle Has Landed, takes place during World War II.

The year is 1943 and, with the war turning against Germany, Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence, in a chilling turn) orders Colonel Max Radl (Robert Duvall) to come up with a plan to kidnap Winston Churchill.  When Radl learns that Churchill is scheduled to visit a small, coastal British village, he recruits a cynical member of the IRA, Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), to travel to the village and make contact with a Nazi sleeper agent, Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh).  While Devlin sets up the operation in Britain and falls in love with Molly Prior (Jenny Agutter), Radl recruits disillusioned Colonel Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) to lead the mission to kidnap Churchill.

At first the village is welcoming to Steiner and his men, who are disguised as being Polish paratroopers.  However, it doesn’t take long for the plan to fall apart.  Soon, Steiner and his men are holding the villagers hostage in a church while battling a group of American soldiers led by the incompetent Colonel Clarence Pitts (Larry Hagman) and Captain Harry Clark (Treat Williams).  Meanwhile, in Germany, Radl learns that Hitler did not actually authorize the mission to kidnap Churchill and that he has been set up as the scapegoat in case the mission fails.

The Eagle Has Landed can seem like a bit of an odd film.  For a film that was released in the same year as Network, All The President’s Men, and Taxi Driver, The Eagle Has Landed feels rather old-fashioned and almost quaint in its storytelling.  This was the final film to be directed by John Sturges, a director who started his career in the 1940s and whose best-known films included The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.  Sturges’s direction is efficient but not at all flashy.  (It’s a film that feel like its very much a product of the mid-60s as opposed to the mid-70s.)  The story plays out at a deliberate pace, one that leaves no doubt that the film was based on a novel.  In fact, it sometimes feels as if the film itself should have chapter headings.  The film holds your interest but it’s hard not to feel that a film that should have been an epic action film has instead been turned into something far less ambitious.

Sturges works with an ensemble cast, with no one member of the cast really dominating over the other.  (I guess if the film has a main character, it would be Donald Sutherland’s Liam Devlin but, for all the time that’s devoted to him, he actually doesn’t do that much once the action starts.)  The cast is full of good actors, though a few of them are miscast.  Neither Michael Caine nor Robert Duvall make much of attempt to sound German.  As a member of the IRA, Donald Sutherland sounds as Canadian as ever.  Fortunately, Caine, Duvall, and Sutherland are all strong-enough actors that they can make an impression even with somewhat distracting accents.  Treat Williams is a bit bland as the heroic American but Larry Hagman generates a few chuckles as Williams’s amazingly dumb commanding officer.  The important thing is that ensemble is strong enough to hold the viewer’s attention.

The Eagle Has Landed is an old-fashioned but still entertaining film.  The actors are fun to watch, the action scenes are fairly exciting, and it ends with a clever twist, one that was apparently historically accurate.  It’s a well-done historical melodrama, even if it’s never quite as epic as it aspires to be.

I Watched Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss (1993, Dir. by Christian I. Nyby II)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

On the set of a popular soap opera, actor Mark Stanton (Sean Kanan) dies after he films a kiss with co-star Kris Buckner (Genie Francis).  Kris is accused of intentionally poisoning Mark to get back at him for trying to force her off the show but Kris says she’s innocent.  Fortunately, Kris is the goddaughter of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr).

This movie was the last time that Raymond Burr played Perry Mason and it actually aired a few weeks after his death.  There are scenes that are hard to watch because it is clear that Burr was not doing well during filming.  He rarely stands and when he does, he still leans against the table for support.  He’s still great when he’s asking questions and making objections but physically, it’s obvious that he was struggling.  He still lights whenever he’s talking to Della, though.  The best scenes in the movie are just Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale being Perry and Della.  Their affection for each other shines through in every scene.  The mystery is routine but the guest cast is full of daytime drama royalty like Stuart Damon, Linda Dano, and Genie Francis.

As I said when I started reviewing these movies at the start of the month, my Aunt Kate loved watching these movies.  I know she watched them when they first aired and later, when they started re-airing them on Hallmark or MeTV, she loved rewatching them even though she already knew who the murderer was going to be.  I would watch with her sometimes.  We agreed that Perry and Della were in love and that Paul Drake, Jr. was Della’s son, even if he didn’t know it.

Rewatching all of the movies this month, what struck me is that most of them are still a lot of fun.  Sure, there’s a few clunkers.  But the majority of the 27 Perry Mason films are still entertaining to watch.  Raymond Burr as Perry Mason and Barbara Hale as Della Street?  Nobody did it better.

 

Review: Sneakers (dir. by Phil Alden Robinson)

Posted on by Arleigh

“The world isn’t run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It’s run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It’s all just electrons.” — Cosmo

Sneakers is one of those early-’90s studio thrillers that feels oddly cozy for a movie about global surveillance and information control. It plays like a hangout movie that just happens to revolve around a world-breaking black box, and whether that balance works for you will pretty much decide how much you click with it.

Set in San Francisco, Sneakers follows Martin Bishop (Robert Redford), a one-time radical hacker now leading a boutique team that gets paid to break into banks and corporations to test their security. When a pair of supposed NSA agents lean on him about a skeleton in his past, they strong-arm him into stealing a mysterious “black box” from a mathematician, which turns out to be a codebreaker capable of cracking pretty much any system on Earth. From there, the crew gets pulled into a bigger conspiracy involving shady figures and high stakes, with Martin confronting echoes from his activist days.

The first thing that jumps out about Sneakers is the cast, which is frankly stacked even by modern standards. Redford brings an easy, weathered charm to Bishop; there’s a low-key joke baked into the movie that this legendary leading man is now playing a guy who looks like he spends more time worrying about his back pain than saving the world, and it works. He’s surrounded by a motley crew: Sidney Poitier’s ex-CIA operative Crease, Dan Aykroyd’s conspiracy-addled tech nut Mother, David Strathairn’s blind audio savant Whistler, and River Phoenix’s eager young hacker Carl. Mary McDonnell rounds things out as Liz, Martin’s ex, who gets roped back into his orbit and ends up doing some of the film’s most memorable social-engineering work.

What makes this lineup click—and really shine—is how effortlessly the ensemble works together, especially with Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier anchoring it as the team’s leaders. Redford’s Bishop is the steady, pragmatic brain, always one step ahead but grounded by his regrets, while Poitier’s Crease brings that sharp-edged authority from his CIA days, barking orders with a mix of gruffness and loyalty that keeps everyone in line. Their dynamic is electric: you get these moments where Bishop’s quiet scheming bounces off Crease’s no-nonsense intensity, like when they’re coordinating a break-in and trading barbs mid-scheme, and it sells the years of trust they’ve built. It elevates the whole group, giving the younger or quirkier members—Mother’s wild theories, Whistler’s uncanny ears, Carl’s fresh energy—a solid foundation to riff off, turning what could be chaos into a tight, believable unit. Phil Alden Robinson directs the film almost like an ensemble comedy interrupted by bursts of espionage, so the banter and the little grace notes between jobs end up being as memorable as the heists themselves. There’s a looseness to the way the team bickers, teases, and riffs on each other that sells the idea they’ve been doing this for years, long before the plot kicked in. You feel that especially in scenes where they’re all huddled around some piece of tech or puzzling out a clue; the script allows them to overlap, crack side jokes, and be fallible instead of treating them like slick super-spies who never misstep.

Tonally, the movie walks an interesting line. On one hand, this is very much a tech thriller about the power of information, with the ominous “Setec Astronomy” anagram (“too many secrets”) tying it all together. On the other, this is a film where an extended sequence revolves around tricking a socially awkward engineer on a date so they can steal his voice patterns and credentials, and the whole thing plays like a romantic caper more than anything. Robinson leans hard into suspense in key stretches—most notably toward the end, where tension builds through clever set pieces involving motion sensors, improvised skills, and closing threats—but even then the movie never loses its sense of mischief.

That playfulness can be both a strength and a limitation. The upside is obvious: Sneakers is fun. It’s easy to watch, easy to rewatch, and it rarely drowns you in jargon for the sake of sounding smart. Instead, it abstracts the tech into clear stakes—this box breaks codes, this system controls money and power—so you always understand the “why” behind every scheme even if you don’t follow every “how.” The downside is that, for a movie nominally about the terrifying implications of a universal decryption key, it doesn’t dig as deeply into the horror of that idea as it could. It gestures at themes of privacy, state overreach, and the weaponization of data, but it’s more interested in using those ideas as a playground than as something to rigorously interrogate.

Viewed from 2026, the tech is obviously dated—landlines, old terminals, magnetic cards—but that almost works in the film’s favor now. There’s a retro-futurist charm to seeing characters talk about “ones and zeroes” and the power of information as if they’re whispering forbidden knowledge, when today that conversation is basically the nightly news. At the time, the film was praised for being ahead of the curve on the idea that whoever controls data controls everything, and you can still feel that prescience. The irony is that what was once cutting-edge has softened into a kind of warm nostalgia, which might be why the movie has quietly settled into cult-favorite status rather than staying in the mainstream conversation.

On a craft level, the movie is sturdy across the board. John Lindley’s cinematography keeps things bright and clean rather than shadow-saturated, which reinforces that lighter tone; San Francisco looks lived-in and slightly mundane, not like a glossy cyber-noir playground. James Horner’s score is a big asset: a jazz-inflected, airy sound that gives scenes a sense of cool rather than danger, which again nudges things toward caper more than hard thriller. It’s the kind of soundtrack that sneaks into your head and quietly sets the mood without demanding too much attention, and a lot of fans single it out as one of his more underappreciated efforts.

If there’s a major weak spot, it’s probably in how the film handles its big ideas and antagonists. The central conflict draws on ideological clashes from the characters’ pasts, but it mostly serves as a charismatic foil rather than a fully fleshed-out debate. The story doesn’t push too hard on challenging cautious pragmatism versus radical change, or probe deeply into who benefits from the status quo. For a tale built on “too many secrets,” the moral landing feels predictable rather than revelatory.

The film also shows its age in how it uses certain characters, especially Liz and Carl. McDonnell gets moments to shine—her date with Werner Brandes is a highlight—but Liz is often pushed to the side once the plot machinery gets going, which is a shame given the sparks between her and Redford. River Phoenix’s Carl is similarly underused; he’s the young blood in a team of older pros, and you can see hints of a more emotionally grounded arc there, but the film keeps him mostly in comic-relief mode. It doesn’t derail the movie, but it does contribute to the sense that Sneakers is more interested in being a breezy ensemble hang than in fully developing everyone it introduces.

Still, it’s hard to deny the movie’s overall charm. The central heist beats are cleanly staged, the reversals are satisfying without being overcomplicated, and the script gives almost every member of the team at least one clutch contribution so it feels like a true group effort. The later stretches cleverly tie together the tech setup and character dynamics, ending on a light coda that underscores the film’s affection for its quirky crew over global intrigue.

As for how it holds up, Sneakers isn’t an untouchable classic, but it’s a very easy film to recommend if you have any affection for ’90s thrillers, ensemble casts, or tech-adjacent stories that don’t drown you in circuitry diagrams. Some of its politics feel glib, some of its gadgets are charmingly antique, and its big questions about Information Age ethics are more backdrop than deep dive. But the film’s mix of laid-back humor, light suspense, and grounded, slightly rumpled characters gives it a distinct flavor that a lot of modern, hyper-slick hacker movies lack.

If you go in wanting a serious, hard-edged exploration of cyber-warfare and state power, Sneakers will probably feel like it’s only skimming the surface. If you’re in the mood for a smart, lightly twisty caper that lets you spend two hours with a killer cast tossing around clever dialogue amid escalating capers, it’s still a very satisfying watch.

Brad reviews THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN (1966), starring Don Knotts.

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I love Don Knotts. I’m one of those people who have watched every episode of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW (1960-1968) multiple times. And while it’s true that there are good episodes in the last three seasons, the series was at its best when Sheriff Andy Taylor and his sidekick Barney Fife were serving the townsfolk of Mayberry, North Carolina during the first five seasons. In Barney Fife, Don Knotts created one of the best characters in television history, earning five Emmy Awards in the process. When Don Knotts left the series at the height of its popularity, the first movie he made was THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN!  

In THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, Knotts plays Luther Heggs, a meek typesetter at a small-town newspaper in Rachel, Kansas, who dreams of being a serious reporter but is treated like a joke by nearly everyone around him. When the town prepares for the 20-year anniversary of an unsolved murder at the supposedly haunted Simmons Mansion, Luther unexpectedly gets a chance to prove himself. He volunteers to spend the night alone in the mansion to see if it really is haunted. As you might expect, Luther is scared out of his mind as he hears banging on the walls, discovers secret passageways, and observes blood-stained organs playing themselves. The night culminates with Luther seeing a portrait of poor Mrs. Simmons with gardening shears piercing her throat! By surviving the night, and then telling the truth about what he experienced, Luther just may uncover a real crime being committed behind all of this “supernatural” activity!

Since Don Knotts left THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW to pursue a movie career, I’m glad to report that his decision to star in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN was a really good choice. His performance is a masterpiece of physical comedy. Sure, Knotts trembles, shakes and delivers his lines in his awkward, nervous way for a lot of laughs, but he also provides a vulnerability that really makes you root for him. Knotts knew how to play lovable losers in a way that shows a quiet decency. He may actually be scared, and he may seem like a real pushover, but he also finds the courage to do the right thing even when it’s not easy. This was true for Barney Fife, and it’s also true for Luther Heggs in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN.

Aside from Don Knotts, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN has a solid supporting cast! Joan Staley is very beautiful as Luther’s love interest, Alma. Staley was a Playboy Playmate in 1958, so I can definitely see why Luther is in love. I like the fact that her Alma is more than just a pretty face. Rather, she’s one of the few people who sees Luther as more than a joke, which makes her even more appealing. Meanwhile, Luther’s newsroom boss (Dick Sargent) and office rival (Skip Homeier) never miss an opportunity to be condescending. The director Alan Rafkin directed 27 episodes of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, so he definitely knows how to get the best comedy out of Knotts and the rest of his cast. He also keeps the tone light, with the haunted house set pieces playing out like gentle, kid-friendly chills rather than anything truly scary. The blood-stained organ / garden shears sequence in the mansion is especially effective, with Don Knotts perfectly walking the line between raging fear and slapstick comedy. Signaling that there was a big audience for Don Knotts in the movies, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN proved to be a box office hit, taking the number one spot during its first week of release, and grossing about eight times its budget!  

Ultimately, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN endures because it understands the special qualities of its star. Don Knotts is funny, and he’s also human. He may be scared out of his mind, but he also has decency and an ability to find courage when he must. In that way, it’s a comfort movie, a should-be Halloween staple, and finally, a reminder that sometimes the bravest person in the room is the one who can’t quit shaking.  

Film Review: Fort Apache, The Bronx (dir by Daniel Petrie)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Fort Apache, The Bronx.

Shot on location, the 1981 film of the same name takes place in one of the toughest police precincts in New York City.  The film opens with a prostitute (Pam Grier) walking up to a police car in the middle of the night and promptly gunning down the two cops inside.  (The scene emphasis on the blood splattering in the squad car makes it all the more disturbing and frightening.)  As soon as the cops are dead, people come out of the shadows and immediately start going through their pockets, collecting everything that they can.

Why were the cops killed?  There is no real motive, beyond Grier’s prostitute being high on drugs and enjoying the kill.  Indeed, we know from the start that Grier is the killer but the cops investigating the case continually ignore her, despite the fact that she’s always wandering around in the background.  (Grier is perfectly frightening in the nearly silent role.)  The new captain of the precinct, a by-the-book type named Dennis Connolly (Ed Asner), assumes that the killing must have been an organized assassination and he is soon ordering his cops to arrest and interrogate almost anyone that they see.  If someone jaywalks, Connolly wants them in the back of a squad car so that they can be interrogated.  He offers to give the men two weeks of extra vacation time for every lead that they find.  When veteran detective John Joseph Vincent Murphy III (Paul Newman) says that the reward is going to do more damage than good, Connolly dismisses his concerns.  Connolly is convinced that he knows how to run the precinct.  He views the people who live in the Bronx as being enemies who have to be tamed and controlled.  Murphy, who comes from a long line of cops, believes in working with the community as opposed to going strictly by the book.

It’s an episodic film, following Murphy and his partner, Corelli (Ken Wahl), as they try to keep the peace in a neighborhood full of empty lots, abandoned buildings, and horrific poverty.  (The film is all the more effective for having actually been shot on location.  Looking at the scenery in which everyone is living and working, it’s easy to understand why tempers get so easily frayed.)  Corelli is ambitious.  Murphy is cynical.  When Murphy meets a nurse (Rachel Ticotin), it seems like love at first sight.  They’re both survivors of the toughest city in America.  But the nurse has a secret of her own.  There’s a lot of stories that are told in Fort Apache, The Bronx but few of them have a happy ending.

It’s an effective film, though the structure is occasionally a bit too loose and the generic “cop music” on the soundtrack sometimes makes it seem as if the viewer is watching a cop show on one of the nostalgia channels.  The film works because it allows the Bronx itself to be as important a character as the cops played by Newman, Asner, and Wahl.  There’s a grittiness to the film that overcomes even the occasional melodramatic moment.  In the end, the film suggests that, while cops come and go, the precinct will always remain the same.  Killing two drug dealers just allows two more to move in.  Reporting on a bad cop, like the one played in the film by Danny Aiello, will only lead to the ostracization of a good cop.  To the film’s credit, neither Newman nor Asner are portrayed as being totally correct or totally wrong in their different approaches to police work.  Newman is correct about Asner’s heavy-handed tactics creating mistrust and resentment in the community.  Asner, however, has a point when he says that a cop killer cannot be allowed to go unpunished.

Paul Newman gives a great performance as Murphy, a role that a lesser actor would have turned into a cliche.  Murphy is the latest in a long line of cops and he’s on the verge of abandoning the family business.  Newman does a good job of portraying not only Murphy’s burnout but also how his affair with the nurse briefly inspires him to believe that he still might actually be able to make a difference in the world.  The film ends on an ambiguous note, one that leaves you with the impression that Murphy couldn’t stop being a cop if he tried.  The job may be burning him out but it’s still the only thing he knows.

Fort Apache, The Bronx is not an easy movie to find.  Though it did well at the box office (and reportedly inspired shows like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue), the film was also controversial because of the way the Bronx was portrayed.  While it’s not currently streaming or even available to rent on any of the major sites, I did find a good, age-restricted upload on YouTube.  Look for it before someone takes it down.

Film Review: Winning (dir by James Goldstone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1969’s Winning, Paul Newman plays a race car driver.

That’s certainly not a surprise.  Newman was very much a fan of racing and owned a few race cars himself.  In Winning, he looks totally comfortable and believable behind the wheel.  There’s not a moment that you look at Paul Newman and think to yourself that he couldn’t be exactly who he’s playing, a very successful and very ambitious race car driver.  At its best, the film is a visual love letter to the sport of racing and the thrill of driving fast.  When Newman is on that track, Winning is an exciting film.

Unfortunately, Winning doesn’t spend nearly enough time on the track.  Instead, we spend way too much time examining the bad marriage of Frank (Paul Newman) and Elora Capua (Joanne Woodward).  Frank meets Eulora at a car rental place, where she’s working behind the counter.  After a whirlwind romance, they get married and Frank becomes a stepfather to Elora’s annoyingly sensitive son, Charley (Richard Thomas).  (The film doesn’t necessarily mean for Charley to be annoying but he most definitely is.)  Still, Frank remains obsessed with winning.  He remains so obsessed with winning that Elora has an affair with Lou Erding (Robert Wagner), another race car driver.  With his marriage in shambles, Frank throws himself into preparing for the Indianapolis 500.

Winning is very much a film of the late 60s.  There’s really not much of a story so the film tries to get by on frequent jump cuts, intentionally skewed camera angles, and frequent montages.  It’s one of those American films that desperately wants to be mistaken for the type of movies that were coming out of Europe at the time.  I tried to count all of the jump cuts during the first few minutes of the film and I quickly gave up.  While there’s nothing wrong with a good jump cut, the frequent cuts in Winning feel more like an affectation than anything else.  Basically, someone in production said, “The kids like jump cuts so toss them in whether they’re necessary or not.”  The film’s attempt to be arty only further serve to remind us that there’s very little actually going on.

Paul Newman had charisma to burn and, in Winning, he looks like he’s enjoying himself whenever he’s behind the wheel.  The marriage of Newman and Woodward was one of Hollywood’s great love stories but that doesn’t come across in the marriage for Frank and Elora.  A lot of that is because there’s really not much that can be said about who Elora.  She’s a blank.  Paul Newman had the screen presence and the cool confidence to get away with playing an underwritten character.  Woodward, however, can’t overcome the shallow script.  (Though Robert Wagner was nowhere near as good an actor as either Newman or Woodward, he has the right look for the role and his stiff line delivery actually works well for the character.  For whatever reason, Wagner often seemed to do his best work in Paul Newman films.)

Really, I shouldn’t be surprised that Winning turned out to be stylish but empty.  The film was directed by James Goldstone, who also directed the painfully portentous Sidney Poitier-as-Jesus film, Brother John.  Eventually, Goldstone straightened up and gave us enjoyably bad films like Rollercoaster and When Time Ran Out.  Newman is in When Time Ran Out as well.  Just as with Winning, he’s the best thing in the movie.  That’s one of the benefits of being one of the great actors.  Even when they’re appearing in a less-than-impressive film, you just can’t stop watching them.

 

Film Review: Hud (dir by Martin Ritt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1963’s Hud, Paul Newman plays a monster named Hud.

Hud Bannon is the son of rancher Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas).  Hud lives in a small Texas town, where he’s known for his pink Cadillac, his heavy-drinking, and his womanizing.  When we first meet him, he’s leaving the home of a married woman and narrowly escaping the rage of her husband.  Throughout the film, he mentions that he’s heading into town to meet “Mrs.” So-and-So.  Hud’s father fears that Hud might be incapable of caring about anyone but himself.  Hud’s nephew, Lonnie (Brandon deWilde), at first looks up to Hud but, over the course of the film, he comes to see his uncle for who he truly is.  Though Hud is quick to defend Homer from others, he himself views Homer with contempt and even plots to have the old man declared incompetent so that he can take over the ranch.  His flirtation with the family housekeeper, Alma (Patricia Neal), soon crosses the line into something much more dangerous.  Hud is charming and handsome in the way that only a 30-something Paul Newman could be.  But he’s also a complete monster.

In Hud, Newman gave one of his best performances and director Martin Ritt and cinematographer James Wong Howe captured some haunting images of the most barren parts of the Texas panhandle.  Howe’s black-and-white imagery not only captures the harsh landscape but also the harsh outlook of the people who live there.  Hud’s ruthless personality as is much a product of the demands of the land as his own narcissism.  The characters in Hud live in a land that doesn’t allow sentimentality.  It’s a land that’s allowed Hud to become the monster that he is.

At least, that’s the way that Paul Newman saw Hud.  That was also the way that the film’s director, Martin Ritt, viewed Hud.  They viewed him as being about as villainous and unlikable as a character could be but, to Newman’s surprise, audiences actually walked out of the film embracing the character and making excuses for him.  Newman was shocked to learn that teenagers were putting posters of him as Hud on their walls.

Why did viewers embrace Hud?

Some of it is due to the fact that Brandon deWilde gives a remarkably bland performance as Lonny.  We first see Hud through Lonny’s eyes and we are meant to share Lonny’s growing disillusionment with his uncle.  But Lonny comes across as being such an empty-headed character that it’s hard to really get emotionally invested in his coming-of-age.  When Hud eventually dismisses Lonny and his concerns, Lonny really can’t defend himself because there’s not much going on inside of Lonny.  On the other hand, Paul Newman gives such a charismatic performance as Hud that we find ourselves continually making excuses for his bad behavior.  When he talks about how he was raised and his difficult relationship with his father, we have sympathy for him even though we know we shouldn’t.  The viewer makes excuses for Hud because that’s what we tend to do when it comes to charismatic bad boys who don’t follow the rules.

Indeed, Hud is proof of the power of charisma and screen presence.  As a character, Hud does some truly terrible things and yet, because he’s Paul Newman, we want to forgive him.  We want to try to figure out why someone who is so handsome and so charismatic would also be so angry.  Lonny may be the “good” character but Hud is the one who we want to get to know.  When Lonny flips through a paperback to read the sex scenes, he comes across as being creepy.  When a drunk Hud flirts with a woman who he has just met, we ask ourselves what we would do if Hud ever tried that with us.  The truth is that we all know what we would do.  That’s what makes Hud both a dangerous and an intriguing character.

In the end, Hud is an excellent film that features Paul Newman at his best and which uses the downfall of Homer’s ranch as a metaphor for a changing American society.  Though Hud was  not nominated for Best Picture, it was nominated for almost everything else.  Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal won acting Oscars.  James Wong Howe’s cinematography was also honored.  Paul Newman was nominated and perhaps would have won if not for the fact that Sidney Poitier was nominated for playing the exact opposite of Hud in Lilies of the Field.  Hud was meant to be a picture about Lonny discovering his uncle was a monster.  Instead, the film became about Hud’s refusal to compromise.  It turns out that people like good-looking rebels who do what they want.

Even if viewers missed the point, Hud was one of the best films of the early 60s and Paul Newman’s powerful performance continues to intrigue.