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.
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.
Episode 9 begins with Shane (David Carradine) riding his horse up to a family looking over some dead cattle. It seems their water source has become poisoned and the patriarch of the family, Tom Gary (Robert Duvall), blames Rufe Ryker (Bert Freed). He believes that Ryker is trying to force him off of his land. After Shane heads off to get the family some fresh water, Gary grabs his shotgun and heads to Sam Grafton’s bar looking for Ryker and some payback. When Shane finds out that Gary is going after Ryker, he and Tom Starett (Tom Tully) take off to try to stop a killing. They get there just in time to stop Gary. Ryker tells them that he had nothing to do with the water becoming poisoned, that it’s just a drought and the area is subject to getting alkaline in the water. That’s what actually killed his cattle.
Three weeks later, Shane, Tom, Marian (Jill Ireland), and Joey (Christopher Shea) are sitting around the table talking about the Garys. Nobody has seen them for a few weeks, so Marian decides she’s going to go visit Ada Gary (Phyllis Love) to check on the family. Ada tells Marian that her husband has become completely obsessed with the idea that Ryker is trying to steal his land and that he spends every night outside with his shotgun. The next day, Ryker rides up and tells Shane that Tom Gary took a shot at him as he was riding his horse along the trail. Moments later, the Gary’s little girl runs up to the ranch and tells Shane and Tom that her pa has shot her mom. When they get to the Gary ranch, Ada is shot but she’s still alive. She tells them that her husband believes everyone, including her, is out to get him, and that he has headed off into the hills with guns and supplies. Shane and Ryker head off to get him, with Ryker wanting him dead…
Episode 9 starts off like a normal episode. It’s very normal for a sodbuster to be into it with Ryker at this point. But after watching the first eight episodes, we believe Ryker when he says he didn’t poison the water supply. We know that’s not his style. As the episode progresses, we begin to learn more about Tom Gary. We hear from his kids and his wife about how scary he is when he’s angry. His kids even tell Joey about their special hiding place outside of the house that they go to when their dad gets mad. We find out that they’ve spent many nights outside hiding from their dad because it’s not as scary as being in the house with him. This is when we realize the episode is going in a completely different direction. Tom Gary isn’t a victim of Ryker and his desire to own all of the land in the valley. The truth is that Tom Gary is abusive and clearly suffering from a mental illness, and the valley is not the place for a man with a violent mental illness. Can you imagine what living hell it must be for his wife and his kids? To be honest, I haven’t ever thought of what it must have been like for those suffering from mental illness, and for those who loved them, back in the old west. And this is from a guy whose wife works with the mentally ill week in and week out. Tom Gary has no help, and his family has no way out. Robert Duvall gives a good performance as Tom Gary, and we definitely see him as a man who has lost control of his faculties and is no longer capable of living in normal society. The writers even go so far as showing Shane as the person who wants to bring him in alive, and Ryker as the person who thinks it will be better for everyone, especially Ada Gary, if he’s dead and she doesn’t have to deal with him any longer.
Overall, Episode 9 is not an easy episode to watch, and it doesn’t provide any easy answers, which is honestly how it should be. I wasn’t expecting the show to go in this direction, even if just for one episode. This episode makes you uncomfortable and makes you think of things you don’t really want to think of, and I’m guessing that’s probably the point. I give the show credit for that, but I’m also hoping episode 10 will get back to more familiar territory.
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, 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)
Arkansas’s own Johnny Cash would have been 93 years old today so it seems appropriate that his voice should also be featured in our song of the day. Here is Folsom Prison Blues, a song that Johnny actually sang while performing at the prison for people who very may have shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Really, that’s what makes Johnny Cash such an American icon. On the one hand, he was a religious country boy who wrote songs about his spiritual troubles and his everlasting faith. On the other, he could make you cheer at the idea of shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die.
That’s talent.
I hear the train a comin’ It’s rolling round the bend And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Antone
When I was just a baby my mama told me “Son, always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns” But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry
I bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car They’re probably drinkin’ coffee and smoking big cigars Well I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free But those people keep a movin’ And that’s what tortures me
Well if they freed me from this prison If that railroad train was mine I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away
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.
The Best Picture Winner at the Oscars usually is a film that either soared above the rest or had enough power in it’s story that you couldn’t help but be moved. James Cameron’s Titanic may not have had the tightest story in the world (I still argue that L.A. Confidential was worthy enough), but it was impressive for the time. We all know The Shawshank Redemption could have easily won Best Picture, but Forrest Gump did so some amazing things that year as well. I love All That Jazz, but can understand how Kramer vs. Kramer scooped Best Picture. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once may have been a strange winner, but it was moving enough (at least for me, anyway) to enjoy it and feel it was deserving. Then, of course, you get Crash, which still makes me scratch my head to this day.
Netflix’s Emilia Perez was a surprise hit at the Golden Globes. It’s also managed to pick up 13 Academy Award Nominations. As we’re covering the Oscar Nominated films, I decided to give it a run and went in blind. The most I knew about the film was Zoe Zaldana sang and danced, and that it was a something of a musical. It’s a mixed bag, though. On the one hand, you have great performances from Zaldana (who I’ve enjoyed since Drumline) and Karla Sofia Gascon, along with a solid tale. On the other hand, the musical elements of it are awkward. I think of all the songs featured, there may have been 2 or three that struck a chord for me (“Lady” – I loved how the Doctor and Rita share a counterpoint verse and “Papa”, left me misty eyed). I really felt like this could be a stronger film if they took the music out of it, but I also have to wonder if the decision to make this a musical was director Jacques Audiard’s way of dipping a hard to swallow pill for some – a sex change – in chocolate to make it taste better. If that’s the case, they should have hired better musicians, really. The music wasn’t helping, despite how well everyone’s participation was.
Rita (Zaldana) is a lawyer in Mexico, unhappy with a system that forces her to defend people who are clearly breaking the law (if not slightly bending it). She is kidnapped and introduced to an extremely wealthy cartel boss named Manitas (Gascon), who has undergone the hormone prerequisites for gender transition surgery. Manitas hires Rita to find a doctor who will perform the surgery, while at the same time, secures a safe place and new life for Manitas’ wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building) and their two children. Rita’s reluctant at first, but does the due diligence, securing a doctor and brushing up on medical terms. She meets the goals and is paid incredibly well for it.
Moving ahead roughly 4 to 5 years later, Rita finds herself in familiar circles when she meets Emilia Perez. After some introductions, Emilia has another job for Rita – to help reunite Emilia with her children. This seems easy at first, with Perez’s near limitless funds, but some complications arise in the form of Jessi’s new boyfriend, Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez, Bright). Can Emilia find a way to live her new life while still holding on to elements of the past? How far will Rita go to keep things running smoothly?
Historically, transexual characters in cinema isn’t anything new. We’ve had Chris Sarandon’s Leon in 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon, Hillary Swank in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, Jaye Davidson in 1992’s The Crying Game. Emilia Perez is a bit different in having a transgender actor play a transgender character. Was it any more effective to cast the film this way? I’d argue that it was. In some ways, it’s like watching Joel Grey’s Chiun in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins or Peter Sellers’ Sidney Wang in 1976’s Murder by Death. Were their performances bad? I don’t think so. Could someone Mongolian or Chinese have done a better job? Possibly, but Hollywood just didn’t cast that way back then. Between Manitas’ darkness and Emilia’s kindness (and the moments in between that showcase that darkness when Emilia gets angry), Karla Sofía Gascon gives a great performance. Her chances of winning an Oscar may be damaged by some recently discovered tweets that show her going on a racially fueled tirade. Had that not happened, there’s a chance she could’ve plucked the Oscar right out of Demi Moore’s, Mickey Madison’s or maybe even Cynthia Erivo’s hands.
Zaldana is equally as good here, putting both her dancing and singing chops to work. It’s a very different role, compared to what she’s done in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar films. Again, while the music isn’t particularly great or memorable, she does her best with what she’d given and her character moves through a number of emotional states. I think the only person who might have made an impact (for me, anyway) was Selena Gomez. She was okay, but I’ve seen her do better in Only Murders in the Building. The role of Jessi is also different from other ones she’s played, but it felt awkward. Not terrible, just a bit different. I could see a few actresses easily handling that role.
From a filming standpoint, there’s a lot of nice lighting effects, particularly when the film moves into the various dance numbers. Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume makes some cool magic in various scenes. If Emilia Pérez does win a number of awards, it’ll be for the acting and the production. While I don’t really see myself running back to it, it’s worth a watch at least for the Awards curiosity.
Through the Shattered Lens 