In New York City, someone is ritualistically murdering the men who are placing rhyming personal ads in a tabloid newspaper. Assigned to the case is Frank Keller (Al Pacino), an alcoholic burn-out whose wife just left him for another cop. Keller and his partner (John Goodman) decide to go undercover. Frank places a rhyming personal ad of his own and then goes to a restaurant to see who shows up. When Helen Cruger (Ellen Barkin) answers the ad, it leads to a relationship between Frank and Helen. Frank is falling for Helen but what if she’s the murderer?
Sea of Love is a superior thriller, even though it doesn’t really work as a mystery. As soon as you see a certain person’s name in the cast list, you’re going to guess who the killer is because that person is always the killer. Sea of Love isn’t really about the mystery, though. It’s about people looking something that’s missing from their lives and realizing that the world is passing them by. The movie works because of the performances of Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin, cast as two lonely middle-aged people who are desperately looking for some sort of connection. Helen and Frank are both in their 40s and wondering if their current situation is really as good as it’s going to get. The film uses Frank’s fear that Helen could be the killer as a metaphor for the fear that anyone feels when they are first starting to open up to someone. Both Pacino and Barkin give emotionally raw and poignant performances. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Al Pacino look as miserable as he did for the majority of Sea of Love. This was Pacino’s first film role after the disaster of Revolution and the movie’s box office success was revived Pacino’s career and convinced him to give movies a try again.
Director Harold Becker captures the feel of New York at its grittiest and least welcoming and Richard Price’s script is full of priceless dialogue. This is one of the rare films in which everyone has something intelligent or meaningful to say. Featuring a strong supporting cast and career-best performances from Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino, Sea of Love is much more than just another cop film.
Graham Marshall (Michael Caine) has spent years toiling away as an executive at an advertising firm and being nagged by his wife (Swoosie Kurtz), who claims that Graham doesn’t have enough of a killer instinct to get ahead. When Graham is passed over for a promotion that he felt was promised to him, Graham starts to reconsider everything that he once believed. While Graham is waiting for the train to take him home, he is approached by an obnoxious panhandler who always asks him for money. That night, instead of ignoring the panhandler, Graham shoves him in front of the train. When no one notices that Graham has murdered the panhandler, Graham decides to get revenge on everyone who he blames for the sorry state of his life.
With each murder, Graham rises higher in the company and he feels better about his life. But each murder brings to Graham a new set of complications that he has to clean up. Lt. Laker (Will Patton) thinks that Graham is responsible for all of the deaths that have recently occurred but he doesn’t have the evidence to charge him. His murder spree brings him a chance of romantic redemption with Stella (Elizabeth McGovern) but soon, even she suspects that Graham might actually be a killer. Luckily for him, Graham learns that he can get away with his crimes because the system is set up to protect men like him.
A Shock To The System is a pitch-black comedy that benefits from the casting of Michael Caine in the lead role. Caine is one of the few actors who can make a resentful and bitter sociopath likable and he does that in A Shock To The System. Graham starts out beaten down by the world and being passed over for younger executives like Bob Benham (Peter Reigert) but, by the end of the film, he’s become as ruthless a killer as Jack Carter. Just as in Get Carter, A Shock To The System features Michael Caine making evil very compelling.
Earlier tonight, on TCM, I watched the 1968 science fiction film, Countdown.
Who will be the first man to walk on the moon? Will it be Chiz (Robert Duvall), who is a colonel in the Air Force and who has been training for years and who really should get the chance just because he has a really cool name like Chiz? Or will it be Chiz’s best friend, Lee (James Caan)? Lee may not have Chiz’s experience but he’s a scientist and selecting him would allow NASA to portray the mission of being one of peace as opposed to one of war. Add to that, Lee has a full head of hair and he looks like a young James Caan, who was an undeniably handsome man back in his younger days! I mean, seriously — who would you rather have as the face of the space program: Tom Hagen or Sonny Corleone?
Of course, it might not really matter who NASA picks because the Russians are determined to get to the moon as well. And you know what that means! If the Russians land on the moon first, they’ll turn it into a Socialist utopia and that’ll mean ugly architecture, bread lines, and a three-month wait for toilet paper. The stakes have never been higher!
Countdown was made and released at the height of the space race, at a time when Americans really did feel that they were competing with the Russians to be the first to reach the moon. (Of course later, it would be learned that the Russian space program actually managed to kill far more cosmonauts than it successfully sent into orbit.) It came out a year before Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong became the first Earthling since Stanley Kubrick to ever step on the lunar surface. As such, it’s interesting to see how Countdown imagines the experience of exploring the moon. I won’t spoil who reaches the moon first but I will say that he moves remarkably quickly and with great ease for someone in a gravity-free environment.
Countdown is a good example of what I like to call a “time capsule” film. Seen today, it’s kinda slow and a bit predictable. For all the time that is spent on getting the astronauts ready to go into space, very little time is actually spent in orbit. This is a very Earth-bound film. And yet, if you’re a history nerd like me, it’s hard not to be a little bit fascinated by a movie like this. In everything, from its fashions to its dialogue to its cultural outlook, this is very much a document of its time. It may be a while until we have the technology necessary to travel through time. Until then, watching a film like this might be as close as I’ll ever get to experiencing what the straight, non-Hippie crowd was doing in 1968.
If you’re a student of film history, Countdown is significant for being one of the first films to be directed by Robert Altman. To be honest, if not for his name in the opening credits, you would probably never guess that Countdown was directed by one of America’s most influential and iconic directors. Altman specialized in making film that were almost defiantly iconaclastic and there’s very little of that to be found in Countdown. Admittedly, there are a few scenes that make use of overlapping dialogue and there’s a party scene that’s definitely Altmanesque. However, the only reason I really noticed that party scene is because I was specifically looking for evidence of Altman’s style. For the most part, the most identifiably Altmanesque element of Countdown is the casting of Michael Murphy in a small role.
The film is dominated by Robert Duvall and James Caan and, especially if you’re a fan of The Godfather, it’s undeniably fun to see these two acting opposite each other in something other than an epic gangster film. (Duvall and Caan also acted together in The Rain People and The Killer Elite and were reportedly great friends off-camera as well.) Duvall is especially good in Countdown, playing Chiz as a man torn between an innate sense of loyalty and his own competitive nature. The scenes between Duvall and Caan have a charge to them that occasionally bring some much-needed life to this film.
In the end, Countdown is a fairly forgettable film but it’s worth seeing as a piece of history.
Earlier, in honor of Labor Day, I reviewed one of the most anti-labor union films ever made, the 1954 Oscar winner On The Waterfront. In the interest of fairness, it only seems right to now take a look at one of the most pro-union films ever made, the 1979 best picture nominee Norma Rae.
Norma Rae takes place in one of those small Southern towns that is defined by just one industry. In this case, almost everyone in town works for minimum wage at the local textile mill. Conditions are terrible, with the employees working long and brutal shifts in a hot and poorly ventilated factory. The overwhelming roar of the machines have left the majority of the workers deaf to reality, both figuratively and literally. The mill is run by the usual collection of slow-talking, tie-wearing rednecks who always seem to show up in movies like this.
One day, a union organizer from New York shows up in town. Brash and cocky, Ruben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman) is determined to unionize the mill but, at first, he struggles. Nobody wants to risk their job by being seen with him and his Yankee manners rub many of the townspeople the wrong way.
Eventually, Ruben does find one ally. Norma Rae (Sally Field) has worked at the mill her entire life. She’s tough and determined but she’s also regularly shunned because of her past. A widow who has three children (“She’s had a child out of wedlock!” a judgmental union organizer tells Ruben in a near panic), Norma channels her frustration into drinking too much and having an affair with a married (and abusive) salesman.
Two things happen that give Norma Rae a new purpose in life. First off, she meets and marries the well-meaning but chauvinistic Sonny (Beau Bridges). Secondly, she helps Ruben in his efforts to unionize the plant, even at the risk of going to jail and losing her job. With the mill’s management spreading untrue rumors about Norma’s relationship with Ruben, her dedication to the union soon starts to threaten her marriage to Sonny.
I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about Norma Rae. In many ways, Ruben is an annoying character. He’s so brash and so smugly out-of-place that I actually found it difficult to consider any of the points that he was making. I suppose that was partly intentional. Ruben can’t accomplish anything until he gets Norma Rae on his side. But, at the same time, there was something very condescending about Ruben as a character. Much like the villainous rednecks in charge of the mill, Ruben felt like a stock character. He was Super Yankee, bravely venturing below the Mason-Dixon Line to bring the truth to all of us stupid Southerners. Whenever Ruben smirked and started to complain about how dumb everyone else was, I was reminded of why I never wanted much to do with the whole Occupy Movement.
As well, Norma Rae is one of those films that technically takes place in the South but it’s the South of the Northern imagination. The accents were inconsistent and the dialogue often tried way too hard to sound “authentic.” Ultimately, Norma Rae lacked the artistry necessary to disguise its more heavy-handed moments.
And yet, I still liked Norma Rae. It had nothing to do with the film’s political message and everything to do with the character of Norma Rae. Sally Field gives such a good performance as Norma, making her both strong and vulnerable. The film’s best moments are the ones where Norma stands up for herself and does what she feels is right, despite the opposition from the mill’s management, Sonny, and her father (Pat Hingle). Towards the end of the film, there’s a simply incredible scene where Norma finally tells her children about her past and, at that moment, Norma Rae reveals itself to be a great and heartfelt tribute to the strength and resilience of women everywhere. At that moment, Norma’s strength reminded me of the greatest woman that I’ve ever known, my mom. It made me appreciate the struggles that my mom went through as she raised four strong-willed daughters on her own, while working crappy jobs and dealing with a society that is always threatened by and cruelly judges a woman who refuses to settle. Personally, I think Norma could have done better than Sonny and that Ruben should have been called out for constantly talking to down to her but what’s important, in the end, is that Norma never stopped standing up for what she believed. By the end of the film, Norma is standing in for every woman who has ever been underestimated or judged or told that her opinions didn’t matter. Norma is standing up for all of us.
Sally Field won an Oscar for her role in Norma Rae. Off the top of my head, I have no idea who she defeated for the award. (Yes, I know that I could just look it up on wikipedia but that’s not the point.) But, regardless of her competition, it’s an honor that she definitely deserved.
“Oh we must be doin’ somethin right to last 200 years…”
— Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) in Nashville (1975)
The 1975 Best Picture nominee Nashville is the epitome of an ensemble film. It follows 24 characters as they spend five days wandering around Nashville, Tennessee. Some of them are country music superstars, some of them are groupies, some of them are singers looking for a first break, and at least one of them is an assassin. The one thing that they all have in common is that they’re lost in America. Released barely a year after the resignation of Richard Nixon and at a time when Americans were still struggling to come to terms with the turmoil of the 60s, Nashville is a film that asks whether or not America’s best days are behind it and seems to be saying that they may very well be. (That’s a question that’s still being asked today in 2015.) It’s appropriate, therefore, that Nashville both takes place in and is named after a city that everyone associates with perhaps the most stereotypically American genre of music that there is.
Nashville follows 24 characters, some of whom are more interesting than others. For five days, these characters wander around town, occasionally noticing each other but far more often failing to make any sort of connection.
Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) is a veteran star, a somewhat comical character who sings vapid songs about home and family and who smiles for the public while privately revealing himself to be petty and vain. His son, Bud (Dave Peel), is a Harvard graduate who acts as his father’s business manager. Oddly enough, Haven is an unlikable character until the end of the film when he suddenly reveals himself to be one of the few characters strong enough to keep Nashville for descending into chaos. Meanwhile, Bud seems to be a nice and modest guy until he takes part in humiliating another character.
Haven’s lover is Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley), who owns a nightclub and spends most of the film drinking. Much like Haven, she starts out as a vaguely comical character until she finally gets a chance to reveal her true self. In Pearl’s case, it comes when she delivers a bitter monologue about volunteering for Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
Haven’s lawyer is Delbert Reece (Ned Beatty), an obsequies good old boy who is married to gospel singer Linnea (Lily Tomlin). They have two deaf children. Linnea has learned sign language. Delbert has not. Over the course of the film, both Delbert and Linnea will be tempted to cheat. Only one of them actually will.
And then there’s Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley), a mentally unstable singer who has come to Nashville with her manipulative husband/manager, Barnett (Allen Garfield). Almost every character in the film wants something from Barbara Jean. A mostly silent Vietnam veteran named Kelly (Scott Glenn) claims that his mother knows Barbara Jean. A nerdy guy named Kenny (David Hayward) comes to Nashville just to see her perform.
Both Kelly and Kenny end up getting to know Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn), a rare Nashville resident who doesn’t seem to care about music. However, Mr. Green’s spacey niece, L.A. Joan (Shelly Duvall), is obsessed with having sex with as many musicians as possible.
Among those being targeted by L.A. Joan is Tom Frank (Keith Carradine), one-third of the folk trio Bill, Mary, and Tom. Unknown to Bill (Allan F. Nicholls), Tom is sleeping with Bill’s wife, Mary (Cristina Raines). Unknown to Mary, Tom is sleeping with almost every other woman in Nashville as well. When Tom takes to the stage at Pearl’s nightclub and sings a song called I’m Easy, the audience is full of women who think that he’s specifically singing to them.
Another one of Tom’s songs, the appropriately titled “It Don’t Worry Me,” is frequently sung by Albuquerque (Barbara Harris), who spend the entire film trying to get discovered while hiding out from her much older husband, Star (Bert Remsen).
Another aspiring star is Sulleen Grey (Gwen Welles), who is a tone deaf waitress who suffers the film’s greatest humiliation when she agrees to perform at a political fund raiser without understanding that she’s expected to strip while singing. Trying to look after Sulleen is Wade (Robert DoQui), who has just been released from prison.
And then there’s the loners, the characters who tend to pop up almost randomly. Norman (David Arkin) is a limo driver who, like everyone else in Nashville, wants to be a star. The hilariously bitchy Connie White (Karen Black) and the bland Tommy Brown (Timothy Brown) already are stars. (The character of Tommy Brown is one of Nashville’s oddities. He’s listed, in the credits, as being a major character but he only appears in a few scenes and never really gets a storyline of his own.) There’s the Tricycle Man (Jeff Goldblum), a silent magician who mysteriously appears and disappears throughout the film.
And, finally, there’s Opal (Geraldine Chaplin), an apparently crazed woman who is wandering around Nashville and pretending to be a reporter for the BBC. (It’s never specifically stated that Opal is a fake but it’s fairly obvious that she is.) How you feel about the character of Opal will probably determine how you feel about Nashville as a whole. If you find Opal to be a heavy-handed caricature, you’ll probably feel the same way about the rest of the film. If you find the character of Opal to be genuinely amusing with her increasingly pretentious musings, you’ll probably enjoy Nashville.
There is one more very important character in Nashville. He’s the character who literally holds the film together. He’s also the reason why I’m including Nashville in this series of reviews about political films. That character is named Hal Phillip Walker and, though he’s never actually seen in the film, he’s still the driving force behind most of what happens. Walker is a third-party presidential candidate, a man who seems to be universally admired despite the fact that his campaign appears to just be a collection of vapid platitudes. Walker’s campaign manager, John Triplette (Michael Murphy), comes to Nashville and sets up the Walker For President rally. That’s where Nashville reaches its violent and not-all-together optimistic climax.
Reportedly, Nashville is a favorite film of Paul Thomas Anderson’s and you can see the influence of Nashville in many of Anderson’s films, from the large ensemble to the moments of bizarre humor to the refusal to pass judgement on any of the characters to the inevitable violence that ends the film. Also, much like Anderson’s films, Nashville seems to be a film that was specifically made to divide audiences. You’re either going to think that Nashville is a brilliantly satirical piece of Americana or you’re going to think it’s a self-indulgent and self-important mess.
As for me, I think it’s great and I think that, after you watch it, you should track down and read Jan Stuart’s The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman’s Masterpiece. It’s the perfect companion for a great film.
In New York City, someone is ritualistically murdering the men who are placing rhyming personal ads in a tabloid newspaper. Assigned to the case is Frank Keller (Al Pacino), an alcoholic burn-out whose wife just left him for another cop. Keller and his partner (John Goodman) decide to go undercover. Frank places a rhyming personal ad of his own and then goes to a restaurant to see who shows up. When Helen Cruger (Ellen Barkin) answers the ad, it leads to a relationship between Frank and Helen. Frank is falling for Helen but what if she’s the murderer?
Through the Shattered Lens 