Ford v Ferrari (dir. by James Mangold)

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Leonard Wilson

fordvferrari poster It’s rare for me to say that I enjoyed a film so much that I didn’t want it to end, but James Mangold’s Ford v. Ferrari hits all the right notes. A fantastic cast, impressive visuals on the races, scenes that flow without any time wasted and sound that begs to be heard on a surround system. It’s no surprise that the film earned Four Oscar Nominations – Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing and Best Picture, all of which are well deserved. If the lineup this year wasn’t so stacked, I’d say that Ford v Ferrari would score quite a bit. It can go any way, but It may end up like The Shawshank Redemption – A great film that could be eclipsed by giants.

Based on a true story, Ford v. Ferrari focuses on the Ford Motor Company in the mid 60’s, down on its luck and looking for a way to stay ahead of the game. Henry Ford II, played by a scene stealing Tracy Letts (August: Osage County), asks his workers to come up with an idea. A young Lee Iacoccoa (Jon Bernthal, The Punisher) feels the best way to do so is to attempt to win the famed 24 hour race at Le Mans in France. The LeMans is dominated by Ferrari, who hand manufactures their machines to be legends in the racing circuit. If Ford could win, it would put them in a better light to consumers, but winning requires more than just a fast car.

Ford enlists the help of Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon, The Martian), along with his brash and skillful driver, Ken Miles (Christian Bale, 3:10 to Yuma), Ken has a few issues getting along with others, but his knowledge of cars is brilliant. Shelby continuously goes to bat for Miles, who isn’t exactly poster boy material in the eyes of Ford. Together, they work on building a competitive vehicle. The poster may suggest the story is about the cars, but at its heart, I felt that Ford v. Ferrari was more about the friendship between Shelby and Miles than anything else. Their mutual love of cars and racing is what ties it all together.

When it comes to the technical points of racing, Ford v Ferrari’s script doesn’t ask you to know much about cars going in. Just about everything you need to about the LeMans and the abilities of the cars is explained through the characters over time. Car gurus may find areas where liberties are taken, but casual watchers should find themselves entertained.

Kudos goes out to the casting for Ford v. Ferrari. Josh Lucas (Poseidon) plays the heavy in the film as a Ford businessman who would love to see Miles out of the spotlight. Caitriona Balfe (Starz’ Outlander) has some good moments with Bale as Miles’ wife, Mollie, though she happens to be the only woman in the film with many lines. Given that the story takes place in the 1960s and its guys building cars, it made sense. Playing Miles son, Peter, Noah Jupe (Honey Boy, A Quiet Place) is that character that helps the audience understand the nuances of racing. I kind of wish Bernthal had more to do here, but he’s cool when he’s on screen and carries his weight easily.

The film belongs to Damon and Bale, though. Damon’s Shelby is full of attitude. He knows what he wants to get done, what needs to happen and just does it. Damon carries this with ease, and it’s easy to forget that the actor is there at times (for me, anyway). Bale does the same, but is on a different level, with his Ken Miles being both focused and a little wild, perhaps even cynical. There’s a great mix of comedy and drama between the two actors.

The sound quality of Ford v. Ferrari is amazing. If you had the chance to see it in the cinema, consider yourself lucky. The rev of the engines are crisp, the shifting the of gears sublime. I’d be somewhat shocked if the film doesn’t walk away with the Sound Mixing / Sound Editing Oscars. From a visual standpoint, the races themselves offer some nice tracking shots, though there may be one or two scenes that particularly stand out.

Mangold and Phedon Papamichael (his Director of Photography for Walk the Line) perform some interesting tricks with the camera. With the races themselves, the cuts are smooth. You have dynamic tracking shots of cars in some cases while others are lit enough to be comfortable. One of my favorite scenes involves a play on shadows that makes it appear like you’re watching a race, complete with the sound of the cars in the background. It’s subtle touches like that make me wonder why it wasn’t nominated for Best Cinematography. I should also note that for a 2:30 minute film, it flies by. I found very few (if any) moments where I felt a scene wasn’t particularly needed to push the narrative along. You can thank Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow) for that screenplay.

I can’t say I have any real problems with Ford v Ferrari. Overall, it’s an entertaining film right from the start that gets you into the story and behind the wheel.

Original Gangstas (1996, directed by Larry Cohen)

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Original Gangstas opens with shots of the deserted streets and burned-out store fronts of Gary, Indiana and narration telling us how a once great American city came to be in such disrepair. The steel plant closed and put much of the city out of work. While the politicians and the police looked the other way, violent street gangs rose up and took over entire neighborhoods. Now, Gary is a shell of its former self. Even the local movie theater has closed down. The narrators tells us that the last movie to play at the theater was Star Wars.

Led by Spyro (Christoper B. Duncan) and Damien (Eddie Bo Smith, Jr.), the Rebels are the most feared and powerful gang in Gary. They rule through violence and intimidation. Talk to the police and your business is liable to get torched and you’re likely to get shot. However, Spyro and Damien have finally gone too far and now, two men who previously escaped from Gary are returning to town to dish out some justice.

John Bookman (Fred Williamson) is a former football player who wants to avenge the shooting of his father. Jake Trevor (Jim Brown) is a boxer who once killed a man in the ring and who wants revenge for the death of his son. When they were young men, John and Jake were the original Rebels and now they’re getting the old gang back together again. With the help of Laurie (Pam Grier), Bubba (Ron O’Neal), and Slick (Richard Roundtree), the original gangstas are going to take back the streets of Gary.

Original Gangstas was released at a time when, largely thanks to the influence of Quentin Tarantino, people were just starting to feel nostalgic for the old blaxploitation movies. The main appeal of the film, not surprisingly, is that it brings together so many of the great blaxploitation stars and sets them loose in what was then the modern era. (Jim Kelly is missed.) When John and Jake talk about how they’re responsible for the Rebels, they could just as easily be talking about how they’re responsible for both all of the independent crime films that came out in the wake of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

Original Gangstas is a tribute to both the Blaxploitation genre and the oversized personalities that made that era so memorable. Neither Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, nor Richard Roundtree were particularly good actors but they all had so much screen presence and such an innate sense of cool that it didn’t matter whether they could convincingly show emotion or not. (Original Gangstas gives all of the big dramatic scenes to Pam Grier, who was not only naturally cool but a damn good actress to boot.) The minute Fred Williamson lights his cigar, he control the entire movie. He and Jim Brown make a good team and Original Gangstas is an entertaining and violent trip down memory lane.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Doctor Zhivago (dir by David Lean)

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Klaus Kinski is the main reason to watch the 1965 film, Doctor Zhivago.

The legendarily difficult and erratic Mr. Kinski shows up about halfway through this 3-and-a-half hour film. He plays a cynical and unstable prisoner on a train. The train is full of passengers who are escaping from Moscow and heading for what they hope will be a better and more stable life in the Ural Mountains. (The film takes place during the Communist revolution and the subsequent purges.) That Kinski taunts everyone on the train is not a surprise. Both Werner Herzog and David Schmoeller (who directed Kinski in Crawlspace) have made documentaries in which they both talked about how difficult it was to work with Kinski and how several film crews apparently came close to murdering Klaus Kinski several times throughout his career.

Instead, what’s surprising about Kinski’s performance is that he’s even there to begin with. Doctor Zhivago is an extremely long and extremely stately film. It’s one of those films where almost every actor gives a somewhat restrained performance. It’s a film where almost every shot is tastefully composed and where the action often slows down to a crawl so that we can better appreciate the scenery. It’s a film that stops for an intermission and which opens with a lengthy musical overture. In short, this is a film of old school craftsmanship and it’s the last place you would expect to find Klaus Kinski luring about.

When he does show up, you’re happy to see him. Even though he’s only onscreen for about five minute, Kinski gives the film a jolt of much-needed energy. After hours of watching indecisive characters talk and talk and talk, Kinski pops up and basically, “Screw this, I hate everything.” And it’s exciting because it’s one of the few time that Doctor Zhivago feels unpredictable. It’s one of the few times that it feels like a living work of art instead of just a very pretty but slightly stuffy composition.

Just from reading all that, you may think that I don’t like Doctor Zhivago but that’s actually not the case. It’s a heavily flawed film and you have to be willing to make a joke or two if you’re going to try to watch the whole thing in just one sitting but it’s still an interesting throwback to a very specific time in film history. Doctor Zhivago was designed to not only be a spectacle but to also convince audiences that 1) TV was worthless and that 2) Hollywood craftsmanship was still preferable to the art films that were coming out of Europe. At a time when television and independent European cinema was viewed as being a real threat to the future of the film industry, Doctor Zhivago was a film that was meant to say, “You can’t get this on your black-and-white TV! You can only get this from Hollywood where, dammit, people still appreciate a good establishing shot and treat the production code with respect!” Even today, some of the spectacle is still impressive. The beautiful shots of the countryside are still often breath-taking. The scenes of two lovers living in an ice filled house are still incredibly lovely to look at. The musical score is still sweepingly romantic and impressive.

It’s the story where the film gets in trouble. Omar Sharif plays Yuri Zhivago, a doctor and a poet who falls in love with Lara (Julie Christie) while Russia descends into chaos. The Czar is overthown. The communists come to power and prove themselves to be just as hypocritical as the Romanovs. The revolutionary Pasha (Tom Courtenay, bearing a distracting resemblance to Roddy McDowall) is in love with Lara and helps to bring about the revolution but is then declared an enemy of the people during the subsequent purges. The craven Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) also wants to possess Lara and he’s so corrupt that he manages to thrive under both the Czar and the communists. Alec Guinness plays Yuri’s half-brother and is the most British Russian imaginable. Doctor Zhivago is based on a Russian novel so there’s a lot of characters running around and they’re all played by a distinguished cast of international thespians. However, none of them are as interesting as the scenery.

As for the two main actors, Omar Sharif and Julie Christie convince you that they’re in love but not much else. Sharif is never convincing as a poet and he feels miscast as a man who spends most of his time thinking. Reportedly, Lean’s first choice for the role was Peter O’Toole and it’s easy to imagine O’Toole in the part. But O’Toole had already done Lawrence of Arabia with Lean and didn’t feel like subjecting himself to another year of Lean’s notoriously prickly direction. So, the role went to O’Toole co-star, Sharif. Julie Christie turned down Thunderball to do both this film and Darling, for which she would subsequently win an Oscar.

(Speaking of the Oscars, Doctor Zhivago was nominated for Best Picture and, though it won five other Oscars, it lost the big prize to The Sound of Music, of all things. 1965 really wasn’t a great year for the Oscars. The only 1965 Best Picture nominee that still feels like it really deserved to be nominated is Darling. Of the other nominees, Ship of Fools is ponderous and A Thousand Clowns is almost unbearably annoying. And The Sound of Music …. well, I prefer the Carrie Underwood version.)

Doctor Zhivago is a big, long, epic film. It’s lovely to look at and it has a few nice scenes mixed in with a bunch of scenes that seem to go on forever. In the conflict between the state and the individual, it comes down firmly on the side of the individual and that’s a good thing. (The communist government attempts to suppress Yuri’s love poems because they celebrate the individual instead of society. And though the government might be able to destroy Yuri’s life, they can’t destroy his spirit. Again, it’s a message that would have worked better with a more thoughtful lead actor but still, it’s a good message.) It’s a flawed film but watch it for the spectacle. Watch it for Klaus Kinski.

Warhead (1977, directed by John O’Connor)

Posted on February 4, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Somehow, a nuclear bomb falls out of an American airplane that happens to flying over the border between Israel and Jordan. Luckily, the bomb doesn’t explode but now it’s just sitting out in the desert where anyone can stumble upon it. CIA operative Tony Stevens (David Janssen) just happens to be on vacation in the Middle East so he’s recruited and sent off to find the bomb before anyone else finds out about it.

At the same time, a group of Israeli soldiers, led by Captain Ben-David (Christopher Stone) and Lt. Liora (Karin Dor), are searching for a group of Palestinian terrorists, led by Malouf (Tuvia Tavi). As soon as Tony finds the bomb, he is captured by Malouf. He is then rescued by Ben-David but now Tony has to deal with two interested parties who want the bomb for themselves.

Warhead is a confusing movie that seems like it is trying to say something about the Middle East and America’s role as an international policeman. Captain Ben-David feels that the Americans are being selfish with their refusal to allow other countries to develop their own nuclear missiles while Tony argues that the world would be plunged into war if everyone had the bomb. (Remember, this film is from the 70s and was made at a time when the U.S. and the Russians were pretty much the only nuclear super powers.) The film ends on a nihilistic note, with almost everyone either dead or disillusioned but why? The acting is so bad and the production is so shoddy that it’s hard to figure out what this movie is trying to say. Is Ben-David right about American arrogance or is Tony right to argue that deterrence is the only way to keep the world safe? The movie doesn’t seem to know. David Janssen was usually the ideal actor to play grizzled tough guys but, in this movie, he was clearly just collecting a paycheck and hopefully enjoying the chance to do some sight-seeing in the Holy Land. The most intriguing character in the movie is a beautiful Israeli sniper played by Joan Freeman but she is killed off early and forgotten.

Warhead premiered on TV but was obviously originally intended for a theatrical release. There’s a very gratuitous rape scene that is so awkwardly edited that it’s easy to see that it was cut down once it became apparent the movie was never going to play in theaters. (The scene could have just as easily been removed from the film without effecting the narrative but I guess the networks wanted to give all of the dads and teenage boys a reason to not change the channel.) According to the information I’ve found online, Warhead was filmed in 1973 but sat on the shelf for four years. Watching the movie, it’s easy to see why.

Under Siege (1986, directed by Roger Young)

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Let’s say that you are the governor of Arkansas and, once again, your state is running out of money and will soon not be able to afford to pay its bills. What do you do?

That was the problem facing Governor Bill Clinton in 1986. His solution was to allow a big Hollywood production to come down to Little Rock and film someone throwing explosive devices at the state capitol. The capitol building at Little Rock looks like a smaller version of the capitol building in Washington D.C. The producers of Under Siege needed to shoot a scene where terrorists attempt to blow up Congress. Even though the state capitol wasn’t actually blown up in the film, the dome did end up with extensive burn marks that were visible for years afterwards. Many people in Arkansas were not amused that they had to allow a film crew to set their capitol on fire just to pay the bills. Still, if Bill Clinton hadn’t agreed to blow up the state capitol building, Arkansas could have gone bankrupt and then he probably would have lost his reelection bid in 1986. If Bill Clinton wasn’t reelected, he never would have been elected to the presidency in 1992, Hillary Clinton would never have been elected to the Senate in 2000 and, in 2016, the Democrats wouldn’t have been stuck with the only possible nominee who could have actually lost to Donald Trump. When you look at it that way, Under Siege is one of the most significant films ever made.

As for the film, it’s a 3-hour, made-for-TV movie about what happens when Islamic extremism hits home. Notorious terrorist Abu Ladeen (Thaao Penghlis) has managed to sneak into the United States and is hiding out in Detroit. He directs a series of attacks on beloved American institutions. Not only is the Capitol Building bombed but a mall is also attacked. While President Maxwell Monroe (Hal Holbrook, who was born to play presidents) tries to keep America from falling apart, his hawkish advisers tell him that now is the time to launch a strike against Iran, despite Iran claiming to have nothing to do with the attacks. Only the director of the FBI, John Garry (Peter Strauss), and the Secretary of Defense, Andrew Simon (Paul Winfield), argue that the president should exercise caution. Garry is convinced that the attacks are the result of homegrown, domestic extremism and not an international conspiracy. Garry is a very hands-on FBI director. He’s the type of FBI director who will chase a terrorist down a street in Washington D.C. Let’s see James Comey do that shit.

Under Siege probably seemed outlandish in 1986 but it seems prophetic today. The film’s depiction of both terrorism and the government’s shady response to it turned out to be accurate. That doesn’t mean that it’s a very good movie. It was co-written by Bob Woodward of Watergate and Washington Post fame, so of course John Garry is righteous beyond belief and the solution to all of America’s problem begin with contacting a newspaper editor and blowing the whistle. America may be under siege but a strongly-worded editorial is here to save the day.

Under Siege used to regularly show up on late night television and the DVD was popular overseas. (In France, it was called Au Revoir, America.) Not surprisingly, after 9-11, it vanished from circulation. If you can find a copy, watch it and ask yourself, “Would I blow up my state capitol just to pay the bills?”

North Dallas Forty (1979, directed by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Pete Gent was a college basketball star at Michigan State University who, in 1964, received a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys. Intrigued by the $500 that the team was offering to any player who attended training camp that summer, Gent accepted. Despite the fact that Gent had never before played football, the Cowboys were impressed with his athleticism and they signed him to the team.

For five seasons, Gent played wide receiver. During that time, he caught a lot of balls, became close friends (or so he claimed) with quarterback Don Meredith, and got under the skin of Coach Tom Landry with his nonconformist attitude. After several injuries kept him off the field during the 1968 season, Gent was traded to the Giants who waived him before the next regular season began.

Out of work and with no other team wanting to sign him, Gent wrote a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about his time with the Cowboys. North Dallas Forty was published in 1973 and it immediately shot up the best seller charts. When the book was published, football players were still regularly portrayed as being wholesome, all-American athletes and the Dallas Cowboys were still known as America’s Team. North Dallas Forty shocked readers with its details about groupies, drugs, racism, and gruesome injuries. The NFL, of course, claimed that Gent was just a disgruntled former player who was looking to get back at the league. When asked about the book (which portrayed him as being a marijuana-loving good old boy), Don Meredith was reported to have said, “If I’d known Gent was as good as he says he was, I would have thrown to him more.”

Meredith had a point, of course. In the book, Pete Gent portrays himself as not only being the smartest man in football but also as having the best hands in the league. Men want to be him. Women want to be with him. And the North Dallas Bulls (which is the book’s version of the Dallas Cowboys) don’t know what they’re losing when they release him for violating the league’s drug policy. Today, when you read it and you’re no longer shocked by all of the drugs and the sex, North Dallas Forty comes across as mostly being a case of very sour grapes.

Luckily, the film version is better.

Nick Notle plays Phil Elliott, a broken-down receiver who wakes up most mornings with a bloody nose and who can barely walk without first popping a hundred pills. Phil is a nonconformist and a rebel. He loves to play the game but he hates how it’s become a business. Mac Davis plays Seth Maxwell, the team’s quarterback and Phil’s best friend. Seth is just as cynical as Phil but he’s better at playing politics. G.D. Spradlin is B.A. Strother, the cold head coach who is a thinly disguised version of the legendary Tom Landry. In the novel, B.A. Strother was portrayed as being a hypocritical dictator. The film’s version is more sympathetic with Strother being portrayed as stern but not cruel. Strother even tells Phil that he “can catch anything.”

Both the film and the book take place over the course of one week leading to a big game against Chicago. In the book, Phil says that he and Seth don’t care about whether or not they win. In the movie, they much do care but, at the same time, they know that they’re being held back by a system that cares more about whether or not they follow the rules than if they win the game. While Phil’s teammates (including Bo Svenson as Joe Bob Priddy and John Mantuszak as O.W. Shaddock) behave like animals, Phil falls in love with Charlotte Caulder (Dayle Haddon), who doesn’t care about football.

Pete Gent was originally hired to write the film’s screenplay but left after several disagreements with producer Frank Yablans. (The screenplay was completed by Yablans, directed Ted Kotcheff, and an uncredited Nancy Dowd.) The movie loosely follows the novel while dropping some of its weaker plot points. As a result, the film version has everything that made the novel memorable but without any of Gent’s lingering bitterness over how his career ended. The novel used football as a metaphor for everything that was going wrong in America in the 60s and 70s but the movie is more of a dark comedy about one man rebelling against the system.

There’s only a few minutes of game footage but North Dallas Forty is still one of the best football movies ever made, mostly because Nick Nolte is absolutely believable as an aging wide receiver. He’s convincing as someone who can still make all the plays even though he’s usually in so much pain that it’s a struggle for him to get out of bed every morning. He’s also convincing as someone who loves the game but who won’t give up his freedom just to play it. This is a definite improvement on the novel, in which Phil seemed to hate football so much that it was hard not to wonder why he was even wasting his time with it. Country-and-western signer Mac Davis is also convincing as Seth Maxwell and fans of great character actors will be happy to see both Charles Durning and Dabney Coleman in small roles.

Whether you’re a football fan or not, North Dallas Forty is a great film. Coming at the tail end of the 70s, it’s a character study as much as its a sports film. It’s also one of the few cinematic adaptations to improve on its source material. As a book, North Dallas Forty may no longer be shocking but the movie will be scoring touchdowns forever.

Any Given Sunday (1999, directed by Oliver Stone)

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

With Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone set out to make the ultimate football movie and he succeeded.

Any Given Sunday is not just the story of aging coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino). It’s also the story of how third-string quarterback Willie Beamon (Jamie Foxx) allows celebrity to go to his head while the injured starter, Cap Rooney (Dennis Quaid), deals with his own mortality and how, at 38, he is now over-the-hill. It’s also about how the team doctors (represented by James Woods and Matthew Modine) are complicit in pushing the players beyond their limits and how the owners (Cameron Diaz) view those players as a commodity to be traded and toyed with. It’s about how the Sharks represent their home city of Miami and how cynical columnists (John C. McGinley plays a character that is obviously meant to be Jim Rome) deliberately set out to inflame the anger of the team’s fans. It’s about how politicians (Clifton Davis plays Miami’s mayor and asks everyone to “give me some love”) use professional sports to further their own corrupt careers while the often immature men who play the game are elevated into role models by the press. It’s a film that compares football players to ancient gladiators while also showing how the game has become big business. In typical Oliver Stone fashion, it tries to take on every aspect of football while also saying something about America as well.

In the role on Tony D, Pacino famously describes football as being “a game of inches” but you wouldn’t always know it from the way that Oliver Stone directs Any Given Sunday. As a director, Stone has never been one to only gain an inch when he could instead grab an entire mile. (Stone is probably the type of Madden player who attempts to have his quarterback go back and throw a hail mary on every single play.) Tony tells his players to be methodical but Stone directs in a fashion that is sloppy, self-indulgent, and always entertaining to watch. One minute, Al Pacino and Jim Brown are talking about how much the game has changed and the next minute, LL Cool J is doing cocaine off of a groupie’s breast while images of turn-of-the-century football players flash on the screen. No sooner has Jamie Foxx delivered an impassioned speech about the lack of black coaches in the league then he’s suddenly starring in his own music video and singing about how “Steamin’ Willie Beamon” leaves all the ladies “creamin’.” (It rhymes, that’s the important thing.) When Tony invites Willie over to his house, scenes of Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur are on TV. Later in the movie, Heston shows up as the Commissioner and says, about Cameron Diaz, “she would eat her young.”

Any Given Sunday is Oliver Stone at both his best and his worst. The script is overwritten and overstuffed with every possible sports cliché but the football scenes are some of the most exciting that have ever been filmed. Only Oliver Stone could get away with both opening the film with a quote from Vince Lombardi and then having a player literally lose an eye during the big game. Stone himself appears in the commentator’s both, saying, “I think he may have hurt his eye,” while the doctor’s in the end zone scoop up the the torn out eyeball and put it into a plastic bag. Only Stone could get away with Jamie Foxx vomiting on the field during every game and then making amazing plays while a combination of rap, heavy metal, and techno roars in the background. Stone regulars like James Woods and John C. McGinely make valuable appearances and while Woods may be playing a villain, he’s the only person in the film willing to call out the coaches, the players, the owners, and the fans at home as being a bunch of hypocrites. Stone’s direction is as hyper-kinetic as always but he still has no fear of stopping the action so that Foxx can see sepia-toned images of football’s past staring at him from the stands. Stone directs like defensive lineman on steroids, barreling his way through every obstacle to take down his target. No matter what, the game goes on.

Any Given Sunday is the ultimate football movie and more fun than the last ten super bowls combined.

Ghosts of Sundance Past #5: Marjorie Prime (dir by Michael Almereyda)

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the year 2050, a woman (Lois Smith) sits in the living room of her beautiful house. Through the windows, we can see that she has a view of an even more beautiful beach. In fact, the beach is nearly too pristine. So is the house. Somehow, everything about the location feels both inviting and fake at the same time. We find ourselves wondering what could possibly be lurking underneath the surface.

The woman is 85 years old. Her name is Marjorie. She’s talking to a very handsome and charming man named Walter (Jon Hamm). As they talk, it becomes obvious that Walter and Marjorie are married. Walter mentions that he proposed to her after they saw the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding. Marjorie doesn’t remember ever seeing a movie by that name and when Walter explains the plot to her, Marjorie simply smiles and nods along. Afterwards, she says that she wishes they had gotten married after seeing Casablanca. She wants a better memory than the one they have.

We can’t help but notice that Walter appears to be quite a bit younger than Marjorie, despite Marjorie saying that Walter was considerably older than her when they first got married. This is because the Walter to whom she is speaking is not the real Walter. The real Walter died years ago. Walter Prime is a hologram, a computer program designed to give Marjorie someone to speak to. Marjorie is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. When she first got Walter Prime, she specifically decided that she wanted to spend her days with the young Walter, as opposed to the old man that he became. Sometimes, she knows that Walter is just a program and other times, she thinks that he’s real.

Living with Marjorie is her daughter, Tess (Geena Davis) and Tess’s husband, Jon (Tim Robbins). Tess finds the hologram of her father to be somewhat creepy and she wonders why her mother treats the hologram better than she treats her own daughter. Jon, on the other hand, feels that the hologram is just what Marjorie needs.

Time passes. Marjorie grows closer to the hologram while Tess grows angrier and angrier over her mother’s condition. When Tess discovers that Marjorie has been reading a bible, she has a meltdown because her mother has apparently forgotten that she was always a militant atheist. Jon tries to keep everyone calm. Is Jon trying to the inevitable better for everyone or is he just trying to distract himself from the pain that’s all around him?

The hologram and Jon have a meeting. The hologram says that, even though Jon and Tess have programmed him to act, think, and talk just like the original Walter, there are still things that he hasn’t been properly programmed for. While filling Walter Prime in on some more of Marjorie and Walter’s past, Jon reveals the family tragedy that has haunted the family for years….

Marjorie Prime is not a particularly happy movie. It takes place over the course of several decades and we follow Marjorie, Jon, Tess, and Walter through a great deal of changes. The only thing the remains consistent is that everyone is eventually left with only half-remembered fragments of their past. Some of those fragments are happy and others are full of regret. Everyone ages except for the holograms but, as becomes apparent in one particularly heart-breaking scene, a hologram is only as good as the person programming it. A hologram can be programmed to superficially act like someone but it can never actually be that person. As much as Jon, Tess, and Marjorie attempt to recreate the past, it can’t be done because the past can never truly be relived.

Marjorie Prime is science fiction without CGI. It’s a film that’s designed to make you think and it succeeds. It would also probably be unbearably depressing if not for the skills of the cast. Lois Smith is heart-breaking and sympathetic as Marjorie while Jon Hamm does a good job of showing why Walter Prime would be so attractive in theory and so frustrating in reality. (Walter Prime can be programmed to act like he cares but he can’t truly do it.) Geena Davis gives an intelligent and thoughtful performance as Tess, capturing both her anger and regret and the film even makes good use of Tim Robbins’s tendency towards to smarminess.

Marjorie Prime, which was acclaimed when it premiered at Sundance in 2017, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Great Expectations (dir by David Lean)

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“My Christian name was Philip Pirrip, which I pronounced Pip….”

SHUT UP, PIP!

Seriously, there’s a lot of good things that can be said about Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations but most readers simply can’t get past the fact that the narrator insists on being called Pip. I don’t necessarily blame them, as Pip might be a good nickname for a child but, by the time you’re 16, you should be demanding that everyone call you Phil. That said, I’ve always liked Great Expectations. Despite the fact that Charles Dickens could be a terribly pedantic writer, the plot of Great Expectations is genuinely interesting and the book is full of interesting characters, the majority of whom don’t demand to be known by their childhood nicknames. Plus, I’ve always related to Estella.

The 1946 film adaptation of Great Expectations was at least the third movie to be made from the novel and it would be followed by many more. (In 1998, there was a modernized version where Pip was wisely renamed Finn.) Still, the 1946 adaptation is the best. As directed by David Lean (and based on a stage version that was put together by none other than Alec Guinness), Great Expectations remains true to the source material while, at the same time, cutting away a lot of extraneous material. As a result, Lean’s film version of the story maintains a clear narrative momentum, which is something that eluded Dickens in his sprawling original.

John Mills plays Pip, an orphan who is being raised by his wicked aunt and her husband, the simple but kind-hearted blacksmith, Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles). One night, Pip helps out an escaped convict named Magwitch (Finlay Currie) and, though Magwitch is eventually recaptured, that one act of kindness will determine the rest of Pip’s life.

Pip is invited to visit the mansion of a recluse named Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) and it’s there that he first meets and falls in love with the beautiful but rather cold-hearted Estella (Jean Simmons and then, after Estella grows up, Valerie Hobson). Of course, what Pip doesn’t realize is that Miss Havisham has specifically raised Estella to destroy the hopes and dreams of every man that she meets.

Eventually, Pip grows up and discovers that he has a mysterious benefactor who feels that Pip should be transformed into a gentlemen so that he might be able to meet the “great expectations” that the benefactor has for him. Pip, of course, assumes that it’s Miss Havisham but even those who haven’t read the book will probably suspect that there’s more to it than just that. Pip moves to London, where he stays with Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness), a pale young man (for that’s how Dickens described him) who teaches Pip that a gentleman does not use his knife as a fork. Herbert was always my favorite character in the book and he’s my favorite character in the film, largely because he’s played by the totally charming Alec Guinness.

Anyway, Pip becomes a bit of a snob but eventually, he discovers the truth about his benefactor and the last few years of his life. It causes him to not only rip down a lot of curtains but also to reconsider what it truly means to be a a gentleman.

It’s all very well-done, largely because David Lean doesn’t allow the fact that he’s making a film out of a great novel get in the way of telling a good story. The film is well-acted by a wonderful cast of British thespians, all of whom manage to make even the most artificial of scenes and lines seem naturalistic and believable. Even though Pip is a bit of a jerk, John Mills manage to turn him into a sympathetic character. (Mills plays Pip as if he himself cannot stand the fact that he’s turned into such a snob.) Both Jean Simmons and Valerie Hobson do a wonderful job of bringing the potentially problematic character of Estella to life and Bernard Miles is wonderfully empathetic in the role of the Joe Gargery. The scene where a nervous Gargery first meets Pip after Pip has become a gentleman is a true example of great acting.

Not surprisingly, Lean also does a great job of bringing 19th century England to life. Watching this film is a bit like stepping into a time machine and going back to the Dickensian era. As filmed by Lean, London is as bright and vibrant as Pip’s childhood home is dark and constraining. When Pip finds Magwitch on the beach, Lean directs the scene as if it were from a film noir. When Pip enters the darkened home of Miss Havisham and meets the beautiful but destructive Estella, the film flirts with becoming a Rebecca-style gothic romance. And when it’s just Pip and Herbert Pocket talking, it becomes a comedy of manners. Not surprisingly, Great Expectations won Oscars for both its art design and its gorgeous black-and-white cinematography.

Great Expectations was also nominated for Best Picture. However, it lost to Gentleman’s Agreement.

A Blast From The Past: Combat America (narrated by Clark Gable)

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the birthday of one of America’s greatest screen legends, the one and only Clark Gable!

Clark Gable was born 119 years ago today and, in honor of the birthday of this cinematic icon, we’re sharing a little blast from the past. When in the past? 1945, to be exact. In Combat America, Gable takes you on a tour through the world of aerial combat during World War II. Gable joined the U.S. Army in 1943, shortly after the death of his wife, Carole Lombard. (Lombard died in a plane crash. She had been traveling across the country, working to build up support for the war effort. Shortly after Lombard’s death, Gable’s co-star from Gone With The Wind, Leslie Howard, was also killed when the Germans shot down a plane in which he was traveling.) Gable trained as an aerial gunner and flew five combat missions in 1943. Reportedly, Gable was ordered to stop flying because it was feared that the American morale at home would never recover if he was shot down.

Combat America was one of Gable’s contributions to the war effort, as well as a tribute to all the men who sacrificed their lives to defeat the Nazis. Gable both narrates and appears on camera.

Incidentally, I know that Clark Gable will always be Rhett Butler to most people but my favorite Gable performance is his Oscar-winning work in It Happened One Night. If I had been Claudette Colbert in that film, the Walls of Jericho would have come down very quickly. Just saying.