Twice In A Lifetime (1985, dir by Bud Yorkin)

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Today, for obvious and tragic reasons, people everywhere have been thinking about their favorite Gene Hackman performances. Hackman was an actor who always brought his all, even when he was appearing in a lesser film. I think you could ask five different people for their five favorite Hackman performances and they would all give five different answers. His performance as Lex Luthor in Superman and Superman II has always been one of my favorites. Others will undoubtedly cite his award-winning performance as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection or his great work as Norman Dale in Hoosiers or his work in classic neo-noirs like The Conversation and Night Moves. Let’s not forget his most unexpectedly great turn, as the blind man in Young Frankenstein. Hackman gave so many great performances that some of them were for films that are not even remembered today.

Twice In A Lifetime is one of those forgotten films but I think it features one of Hackman’s best performances. He plays Harry Mackenzie, a steelworker who is married to Kate (Ellen Burstyn, made up to look frumpy) and who has two daughters (Amy Madigan and Ally Sheedy). Harry is the type of everyman that Hackman excelled at playing. He’s a hard worker, a good family man, and a good friend. What no one, not even Harry realizes, is that he’s also having a midlife crisis. On his 50th birthday, he goes out to the neighborhood bar with his buddies and falls for the new barmaid, Audrey (Ann-Margaret). Harry ends up leaving his wife for Audrey, pursuing the spark that his marriage no longer gives him. The movie follows Harry and Kate and their daughters as they adjust to their new lives and they plan for the younger daughter’s wedding.

Twice In A Lifetime was one of many 80s films that dealt with divorce and it has the same flaws that afflicted many of them. These films, which were often made by middle-aged directors who had just gone through their own divorces, rarely played fair when it came to depicting why the marriage failed. Twice In A Lifetime stacks the odds in Harry’s favor just by suggesting that Ann-Margaret would end up working at a bar frequented by steelworkers. Harry has to choose between his plain and boring wife and Ann-Margaret. That’s going to be a difficult choice! The twist that Harry’s decision was ultimately the right thing for Kate doesn’t feel earned.

But damn if Gene Hackman isn’t great in this film. Even though he was one of the most recognizable actors in the movie, Hackman is totally believable as both a steelworker and a man who worries that he’s destroyed his family. It’s not just one moment or scene that makes this a great performance. It’s the entire performance as a whole, with Hackman portraying all of Harry’s conflicted emotions both before and after leaving his family. Hackman gives a performance that is more honest than the film’s script or direction. The movie believes Harry did the right thing but Hackman shows us that Harry himself isn’t so sure. Hackman captures the middle-aged malaise of a man wondering if his life is as good as it gets. When the movie works, it is almost totally due to the emotional authenticity of Hackman’s performance. Twice in a Lifetime may be a forgotten film but it’s also proof of how great an actor Gene Hackman really was. There will never be another one like him.

Billy Bob Thornton in A SIMPLE PLAN (1998) – The great performances!

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Sam Raimi directed A SIMPLE PLAN, a movie about two brothers and a friend who find a crashed plane on a nature reserve that just happens to have a bag of cash containing $4.4 million. What starts out as the potential answer to all of their problems turns out the biggest problem they’ll ever have to deal with.

Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton & Brent Briscoe play the guys who find the money and come up with a plan to keep it. As you can imagine, it all goes to hell, with one thing leading to another thing that leads to another thing, and none of it good. The performances in this film are uniformly excellent, with Thornton as the standout. He completely disappears into his character and received an Oscar nomination for his work. It’s a great film, but it’s not exactly a fun film as we watch these characters’ lives turn into a slowly unfolding bus wreck. I watched it recently for the first time since I saw it in the theaters in 1998. Although I highly recommend it, I’m probably good for another couple of decades.

This scene with Paxton and Thornton is pretty sad and a pretty strong indicator of why money ultimately can never bring true happiness.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Elizabeth Taylor Edition

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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!

Today is the birthday of one of the greatest films stars ever, Elizabeth Taylor! And you know what that means. It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Elizabeth Taylor Films

A Place in the Sun (1951, dir by George Stevens, DP: William C. Mellor)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Jack Hildyard)

Cleopatra (1963, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Leon Shamroy )

Boom! (1968, dir by Joseph Losey, DP: Douglas Slocombe)

Gene Hackman Has Passed Away

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Gene Hackman has passed away. He was 95 and reportedly found dead in his Santa Fe home, along with his wife and dog. That’s what the authorities are saying. They also say there’s no sign of foul play. I’m sure there will be a lot of online speculation about what that all means. That’s the way of the world nowadays and it’s a shame.

Gene Hackman was one of the greats. He went into acting after a stint in the Marines and, according to most accounts and his own interviews, he never lost that grit and that expectation of professionalism from everyone he worked with. A former roommate of Robert Duvall’s, a close friend of Dustin Hoffman’s (from the days when they were both unknown stage actors), Hackman went from doing episodic television to becoming one of our best film actors. He was hardly a traditional leading man but his talent was undeniable. His Popeye Doyle was the classic eccentric cop. His Lex Luthor was a great comedic villain while his performance as Little Bill Daggett in Unforgiven proved to be the perfect portrayal of the authoritarian impulse. Interestingly enough, he was reportedly set to make his directorial debut with The Silence of the Lambs but he withdrew from the project, saying he didn’t like the violence. (Reports vary on whether he would have also played Lecter or Jack Crawford.) Hackman was a liberal but of the old-fashioned, blue collar variety. He once said starring in The French Connection changed his whole view of policing. It takes courage to admit to having changed your mind on anything. It’s not something that a lot of celebs have the guts to do anymore.

I’ve always respected that Hackman retired under his own terms. Faced with spending the latter part of his career appearing in movies like Welcome to Mooseport, he said, “I’m done.” Someone would have to be the once great star who humiliated himself by taking the lead role in Dirty Grandpa but it wasn’t going to be Gene Hackman.

Gene Hackman, RIP. He had a great career and gave us many great performances and that’s all we can really ask of an actor.

Boothill Brigade (1937, directed by Sam Newfield)

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Rancher Jeff Reynolds (Frank LaRue) used to be one of the good guys on the frontier but he’s recently changed. He fired all of his loyal ranch hands and instead hired a motely crew of outlaws. He’s buying up land and evicting the squatters who have been living there. About the only good thing he does is hire Lon Cardigan (Johnny Mack Brown) to be his new herd boss. Lon is engaged to Reynolds’s daughter, Bobbie (Claire Rochelle). With the help of Bobbie and comic relief cook Calico Haynes (Horace Murphy), Lon tries to figure out why Reynolds is now doing the bidding of the evil John Porter (Ed Cassidy).

The title is the most exciting thing about this movie, which is one of those old B-movies that puts the “creak” in creaky. There’s surprisingly little gunplay but there is a lot of horse riding. For a film that runs less than an hour, a surprising amount of it is just shots of people riding from one location to another. The horses’ hooves sound impressive on the soundtrack but it’s not exactly exciting. As always, Johnny Mack Brown is a convincing cowboy. It’s a good thing he looks like he knows what he’s doing when he’s riding a horse! The plot was standard B-western fluff. Johnny Mack Brown appeared in a ton of westerns and almost all of them seemed to feature the same range war. There are better Johnny Mack Brown movies out there. This one is for completists only.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special James Wan Edition

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we wish a happy birthday to one of the directors who brought the horror genre back to box office life in the aughts and 2010s, James Wan! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 James Wan Films

Insidious (2011, dir by James Wan, DP: John Leonetti))

The Conjuring (2013, dir by James Wan, DP: John Leonetti)

Aquaman (2018, dir by James Wan, DP: Don Burgess)

Malignant (2021, dir by James Wan, DP: Michael Burgess)

Scenes I Love: Reggie Bannister in Phantasm

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I read yesterday that Reggie Bannister, one of the most beloved horror character actors out there, isn’t doing too well. He has gone into hospice care. Those words — “hospice care” — will always bring a tear to my eye. My Dad went into hospice care last year and died a month later, which I was told was longer than most people survive in hospice. Being the naive idiot that I was, I have to admit that, up until the end, I was still expecting my Dad to make a full recovery and just magically get out of bed. Sadly, that’s just not the way these things work. Hospice is end-of-life care and any medical professional who doesn’t make that clear while recommending it is doing a disservice to not only their patients but also their families.

Reggie Bannister is best-known for his appearances in the work of Don Coscarelli. He’s one of those actors who just makes you smile whenever he appears on screen. Anyone who has watched Phantasm loves Reggie, with his ice cream truck and his guitar and his whole laid back vibe. Today’s scene that I love is a simple but wonderfully human moment from 1978’s Phantasm, featuring Bill Thornbury and the great Reggie Bannister.

Return of the Lash (1947, directed by Ray Taylor)

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

There’s another range war brewing on the frontier. Big Jim Kirby (George Chesebro) knows there’s plans for a new railroad so he wants to steal the land from the ranchers so he can make a fortune off a selling it. Kirby calls in everyone’s mortgage, knowing they’ll never be able to pay. Rancher Tom Grant (Buster Slaven) reaches out to Cheyenne Davis (Lash LaRue, a look alike for Humphrey Bogart)) and Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) for help. Cheyenne raises the money but then he makes the mistake of trusting Fuzzy to deliver it. Fuzzy takes a knock to the noggin and now, he’s got amnesia. Where’s the money?

This is a standard B-western and you know the drill. Big Jim’s henchmen don’t want that money to get paid. Cheyenne is on the side of the angels. Fuzzy provides comic relief. Lash LaRue appeared in several B-westerns. He never became as big a star as some of his contemporaries but he did have a gimmick that made him memorable. Most westerns stars used guns. LaRue had a bullwhip. When LaRue was first offered the role of Cheyenne, he lied and said he could crack a whip. After he struggled to teach himself, tiny production company PRC hired a professional trainer. That was a huge expense for a poverty row studio but it paid off because LaRue became proficient with the whip and he had a surprisingly long career. He was born Alfred LaRue. The studio came up with the Lash nickname. Many western stars, like Johnny Mack Brown, played characters who shared their name. Lash almost always played Cheyenne Davis.

Lash LaRue’s movies were cheap and never that memorable. In this one, Lash barely appears and most of the action is carried out by Al St. John as Fuzzy. But Lash LaRue did play an important part in Hollywood history when he briefly came out of retirement to teach Harrison Ford how to crack a whip for a little film called Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Scenes That I Love: “No, Mr. Bond….” from Goldfinger

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seeing as how today would have been Gert Frobe’s birthday, it seems only appropriate that today’s scene of the day should be one of the best moments from the original Bond franchise. In 1964’s Goldfinger, Frobe sets the standard by which all other Bond villains would be judged.