Tonight’s #MondayActionMovie will be Bulletproof (1987), a movie that I know nothing about, other than it stars Gary Busey and Henry Silva and it’s about a stolen tank! The movie starts at 8:00 eastern and the event takes place on Mastodon, the social network that time forgot.
I was hesitant about joining Mastodon because I’m hesitant about every social network. Back in the day, I deleted MySpace after two weeks. I have never joined Facebook. It took Lisa five years to convince me to get on twitter. I really only joined Mastodon to support Monday Action Movie but I’m glad I did because it is a nice, low-pressure social network. I haven’t joined Bluesky and I’m not going to.
Back to Bulletproof, it’s on YouTube. If you’re on Mastodon, join in using the #MondayActionMovie. I’ll be there. Lisa should be there. It’s fun, I promise!
When you talk about movies that feature great landscapes, you have to include Interstellar and the scene where Matthew McConaughey and his kids chase a drone through a cornfield. The cornfield was real, Nolan actually planted corn to create it. The cinematography, in this scene and throughout the entire film, is amazing. When I saw this scene in the theater, it took my breath away.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
As a photographer, I love movie that feature shots of beautiful landscape. Here are four of my favorites!
Just when I thought I was through with Clint Eastwood, they pull me back in!
Actually, Clint Eastwood may have directed Invictus but that’s not why I’m writing about it today. I’m writing about it because today is Morgan Freeman’s 88th birthday. Everyone knows Morgan Freeman, of course, He’s the man with the amazing voice. If you ever want to hear someone narrate your life, you want that narrator to Morgan Freeman. Freeman is also one of our greatest actors and, for my money, Invictus is his best and more important performance.
Morgan Freeman plays the role of Nelson Mandela in Invictus. Taking place in 1994 and 1995, Invictus centers around the early days of the former political prisoner’s presidency of South Africa and how he used the 1995 Rugy World Cup to bring the tension-filled country together. While Afrikaner Francois Pinneaur (Matt Damon) unexpectedly leads South Africa to the finals of the World Cup, Mandela tries to guide South Africa into the post-Apartheid era.
Playing a role like Nelson Mandela would have to intimidate even the most confident of actors but Freeman gives a warm, humorous, and believable performance of a man who became a living icon. Freeman captures both Mandela’s humanity and his canny political instincts and he never allow the performance to become a caricature. Freeman projects the wisdom that comes from a lifetime of refusing to be broken or defeated, despite the best efforts of both the Apartheid regime and the activists who think that, as president, Mandela is too much of a moderate and too quick to forgive. Freeman (and Matt Damon) give performances that help the film get over a few spots where it falls into the typical clichés of the sports genre. Invictus is a good tribute to both Mandela and the way competition can bring people together.
One final note: Invictus was filmed on location in South Africa. When Matt Damon’s character is shown the cell were Mandela spent 27 years of his life, Eastwood shows us the actual cell and it’s a reminder of the strength of Mandela that he not only survived but that he went on to lead his country.
For Marilyn Monroe’s birthday, I’m going to share a scene from one of her earlier films, 1952’s Don’t Bother To Knock. In this film, Marilyn plays an unstable woman who is staying at a hotel. Her cousin (played by Elisha Cook, Jr.) gets her job as a babysitter but is shocked to find out that Marilyn has been trying on her employer’s clothes. After getting admonished by her cousin and pretending to be sorry, she proceeds to then summon another gust (played by Richard Widmark) over to her room.
It’s a simple scene but it’s wonderfully played by Monroe. This was one of her first truly dramatic roles and she does a good job with it.
From Don’t Bother To Knock, here is a scene that I love:
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Marilyn Monroe would have been 99 years old today. Sixty years after her mysterious death, Marilyn Monroe continues to intrigue film lovers and conspiracy theorists alike. Her legacy is such that, ever since her death, directors have been trying to recreate her life with biopics and actresses have been trying to recapture Marilyn’s magic.
It’s not easy to for them to do because Marilyn Monroe was an original and not someone whose talent and charisma can be easily duplicated. Needless to say, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Marilyn Monroe Films
All About Eve (1950, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Milton R. Krassner)
Niagara (1953, dir by Henry Hathaway, DP: Joseph MacDonald)
Some Like It Hot (1959, dir by Billy Wilder, DP: Charles Lang)
The Misfits (1961, dir by John Huston, DP: Russell Metty)
In 1996, a security guard named Richard Jewell should have been proclaimed a hero. He spotted an abandoned backpack in Centennial Park during the Atlanta Summer Olympics. Thinking that it could be a bomb, Jewell, insisting the proper security protocols be followed even though there was a concert going on, moved as many people as he could away from the backpack before it exploded. Two people died as a result of the explosion and 111 were injured. The number would have been much more catastrophic if not for Jewell’s actions.
Jewell saved lives but he soon found himself the number one suspect. Overweight, a little bit nerdy, Southern accented and possessing a spotty work history, Richard Jewell did not fit the popular conception of a hero. After the FBI leaked that Jewell was their number one suspect, the press literally reported as if Jewell’s arrest was imminent. I’m old enough to remember the way that, for a month, the nightly news seemed like the counting the days until Jewell was charged. Jewell, however, was never arrested and eventually, he sued several media outlets for libel. After anti-abortion fanatic Eric Rudolph emerged as the number one suspect in the bombing, the three FBI agents who attempted to railroad Jewell were disciplined. One was suspended for five days without pay, which seems a light punishment for ruining a man’s life.
Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell was about the persecution of the title character, with Paul Walter Hauser playing Jewell, Kathy Bates playing his mother, Jon Hamm playing the arrogant FBI agent, Olivia Wilde playing the unethical journalist who first reported that Jewell was a suspect, and Sam Rockwell playing Jewell’s attorney. When Richard Jewell was released in 2019, there was a lot of debate about the way it presented both the media and the FBI. This was during the first Trump presidency and many critics felt that it was not the right time for a film about an irresponsible reporter and a corrupt FBI agent. But Eastwood’s film isn’t about the reporter or the FBI. Instead, like many of his films, it’s about a loner who does the right thing, refuses to compromise, and suffers for it. If the FBI and the media didn’t want to be presented as being villains in a movie about Richard Jewell, they should have thought twice before announcing to the the world that they thought he was a murderer.
Because of the controversy, Richard Jewell is one of Eastwood’s unfairly overlooked films. Along with directing in his usual straightforward manner, Eastwood gets a great performance out of Paul Walter Hauser and reminds us that not every hero looks like the Man With No Name. Even more importantly, Eastwood pays tribute to a man who deserved better than he was given by the world. Richard Jewell died 12 years before the film that was named after him was released. A lot of people wanted to sweep what happened to Richard Jewell under the rug. Eastwood, in one of the best of his later films, refused to let that happen.
I love the idea that a pitcher has a mental connection with his catcher. I love the stories of the minor leaguers who get their chance in the majors and who stun the world by coming out of nowhere to hit a home run on their first at bat. I love all the stories about which batters corked their bats and which pitchers could still manage to get away with throwing a spitball. I love baseball because watching it is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon but at the same time, the game is unpredictable. Just one hit can change the momentum of an entire game and, until that final out, the game could be won by anyone. I especially have a place in my heart for the legendary baseball scouts, the grouchy old men who would drive out to the middle of nowhere to watch a game and search for the next great homerun hitter.
That’s one reason why I hated Moneyball. I thought Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, and Jonah Hill all did a good job and I loved Brent Jennings’s performance as Ron Washington but I hated the idea that the scouts and their instincts weren’t necessary because everything could just be determined by sabermetrics. The idea that an algorithm could tell you everything you needed to know about how to put a team together felt like a crime against everything that makes baseball special and it deeply offended me as a fan. Moneyball may feature a baseball team but it’s a movie about business, not the game.
That’s why I’m thankful for TroubleWithTheCurve.
Clint Eastwood stars as Gus Lobel, one of those plain-spoken, no-BS scouts that I love so much. All of the team owners might be into sabermetrics but Gus knows that the best way to scout a player is to actually hit the road and see him play. For Gus, scouting is all about instincts and his own gut feeling. Gus is everything that I love about baseball. He’s knows the game, he knows the players, and he doesn’t need an algorithm to tell him whether or not someone should be on the field.
The movie is about Gus scouting a player who has trouble hitting the curve. That’s something that Gus notices but the algorithm overlooks. Accompanying Gus is his daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), who is proud to have grown up surrounded by plain-spoken, unpretentious baseball scouts like her father and who doesn’t understand why Gus never took her on the road when she was younger. Mickey falls for a younger scout named Johnny (Justin Timberlake), their love based on their shared knowledge of baseball. I liked Mickey and Johnny as a couple and I appreciated the scenes where Mickey and Gus worked on their strained relationship but the best thing about this movie is that Gus gets to prove that he knows more about baseball than all the young whipper-snappers who think they understand the game.
TroubleWithTheCurve is a tribute to everything that baseball is truly about. It’s a movie that loves the game as much as I do. Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams are a perfect father/daughter duo. Who needs an algorithm when you’ve got Clint and Amy?
The Bridges of Madison County starts with a mystery. A sister and her brother try to find out why their mother requested that she be cremated and her ashes scattered from a bridge rather than be buried next to her late husband. Going through their mother’s things, they learn about four-day affair that she had with a photographer who was just passing through town and taking pictures of covered bridges.
Meryl Streep plays their mother, an Italian war bride named Francesca. Clint Eastwood plays the photographer, Robert Kincaid. The movie shows how Francesca, trapped in a loveless marriage, rediscovered her passion for life and love during her four-day affair with Robert. Robert rediscovered his love for photography. (I like to take pictures so I was happy for him.) With her family due home after a trip to the Iowa State Fair, Francesca had to decide whether to abandon them to pursue her affair with Robert. Since this is the first that her children have ever heard about the affair, it’s easy to guess what she decided to do.
My aunt loved this film and I like it too. It’s the most tasteful film about a woman being tempted to abandon her family that I’ve ever seen. It’s a film about adultery that the entire family can enjoy! The film looks beautiful and Meryl and Clint … wow! Let’s just say that they seemed to be really into each other. The two leads give such heartfelt performances that every moment felt authentic and by the end of the movie, I very much wanted to see Francesca’s ashes dumped over the side of that bridge. Whenever anyone says that Clint Eastwood could only play cops and cowboys, tell them to watch Bridges of Madison County.
In 1984’s CityHeat, Clint Eastwood plays Lt. Speer, a tough and taciturn policeman who carries a big gun, throws a mean punch, and only speaks when he absolutely has to.
Burt Reynolds plays Mike Murphy, a private investigator who has a mustache, a wealthy girlfriend (Madeleine Kahn), and a habit of turning everything into a joke.
Together, they solve crimes!
I’m not being sarcastic here. The two of them actually do team up to solve a crime, despite having a not quite friendly relationship. (Speer has never forgiven Murphy for quitting the force and Murphy has never forgiven Speer for being better at everything than Murphy is.) That said, I would be hard-pressed to give you the exact details of the crime. CityHeat has a plot that can be difficult to follow, not because it’s complicated but because the film itself is so poorly paced and edited that the viewer’s mind tends to wander. The main impression that I came away with is that Speer and Murphy like to beat people up. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that. Eastwood is legendary tough guy. Most people who watch an Eastwood film do so because they’re looking forward to him putting the bad guys in their place, whether it’s with a gun, his fists, or a devastating one-liner. Reynolds also played a lot of tough characters, though they tended to be more verbose than Eastwood’s.
That said, the violence in CityHeat really does get repetitive. There’s only so many times you can watch Clint punching Burt while various extras get gunned down in the background before it starts to feel a little bit boring. The fact that the film tries to sell itself as a comedy while gleefully mowing down the majority of the supporting cast doesn’t help. Eastwood snarls like a pro and Reynolds flashes his devil-may-care smile but, meanwhile, Richard Roundtree is getting tossed out a window, Irene Cara is getting hit by a car, and both Kahn and Jane Alexander are being taken hostage. Tonally, the film is all over the place. Director Richard Benjamin was a last-minute replacement for Blake Edwards and he directs without any sort of clear vision of just what exactly this film is supposed to be.
On the plus side, CityHeat takes place in Kansas City in 1933 and the production design and the majority of the costumes are gorgeous. (Unfortunately, the film itself is often so underlit that you may have to strain your eyes to really appreciate it.) And the film also features two fine character actors, Rip Torn and Tony Lo Bianco, are the main villains. For that matter, Robert Davi shows up as a low-level gangster and he brings an actual sense of menace to his character. There are some good things about CityHeat but overall, the film is just too messy and the script is a bit too glib for its own good.
Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood had apparently been friends since the early days of their careers. This was the only film that they made together. Interestingly enough, Reynolds gets the majority of the screentime. Eastwood may be top-billed but his role really is a supporting one. Unfortunately, Reynolds seems to be kind of bored with the whole thing. As for Clint, he snarls with the best of them but the film really doesn’t give him much to do.
A disappointing film, CityHeat. Watching a film like this, it’s easy to see why Eastwood ended up directing himself in the majority of his films.
Through the Shattered Lens 