RIP, George Wendt: Guilty By Suspicion (1991, directed by Irwin Winkler)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

George Wendt passed away in his sleep earlier today. He was 76 years old.

If you’re old enough to have watched Cheers when it originally aired or to have caught it in reruns, George Wendt will always be Norm Peterson, the beer-drinking accountant who spent all of his time at the show’s titular bar. One of the show’s trademarks was that, whenever he entered the bar, everyone greeted him by shouting, “Norm!” “How’s the world treating you?” a bartender would ask. “It’s a dog eat world and I’m wearing milkbone underwear,” Norm once replied.

(One of my favorite joke from the series was when Norm went into a steakhouse and everyone inside was heard to yell, “Norm!” as the door closed behind him.)

If we’re going to be really honest, Norm was probably a high-functioning alcoholic and terrible husband. (Wife Vera was often-mentioned but never seen.) Wendt was so likable in the role and was so good at delivering those one-liners that it didn’t matter. Watching the show, you never wondered why Norm was in the bar. You were just glad he was.

George Wendt was also an accomplished stage actor. (I saw him on stage when he was co-starring with Richard Thomas in 12 Angry Men.) He appeared in several movies, usually playing the comedic sidekick or the hero’s best friend. His film roles often didn’t ask him to do much other than be likable but one exception was his performance in 1991’s Guilty By Suspicion.

Guilty By Suspicion is a film about the McCarthy era, starring Robert De Niro as film director David Merrill, who is threatened with being blacklisted unless he names four of his colleagues as being communists. George Wendt plays screenwriter Bunny Baxter, a childhood friend of David’s who attended a few communist rallies when he was younger, failed to mention it to the FBI, and who is now being investigated as a subversive. The studio argues that David should name Baxter because his name is already out there. When David refuses, he finds himself blacklisted and unable to make a living. Bunny Baxter, meanwhile, is offered a similar deal. Baxter can save his own career but only if he names David as a communist. Unlike David, Baxter considers betraying his friend because it’s the only way that he can ever hope to work again. “Your dead anyway,” Baxter says to David.

Guilty By Suspicion suffers from Irwin Winkler’s plodding direction but De Niro gives a good performance, as does Martin Scorsese who is cast as a director based on Joseph Losey. The film is full of actors who would later become better-known, like Chris Cooper, Tom Sizemore, and Annette Bening. Wendt, however, gives the film’s best performance as the screenwriter who is torn between protecting his career and maintaining his integrity. The scene where he asks permission to name Merrill as a communist is powerful and it shows how good an actor George Wendt could be. Bunny Baxter is asking his best friend to allow himself to be stabbed in the back. Baxter is that desperate. That he’s played by George Wendt, an actor who was everyone’s favorite likable barfly in the 80s, makes the scene all the more powerful.

George Wendt, RIP. Thanks for the memories.

Film Review: Top Gun (dir by Tony Scott)

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, where to even begin with Top Gun?

First released in 1986, Top Gun is a film that pretty much epitomizes a certain style of filmmaking. Before I wrote this review, I did a little research and I actually read some of the reviews that were published when Top Gun first came out. Though it may be a considered a classic today, critics in 1986 didn’t care much for it. The most common complaint was that the story was trite and predictable. The film’s reliance on style over substance led to many critics complaining that the film was basically just a two-hour music video. Some of the more left-wing critics complained that Top Gun was essentially just an expensive commercial for the military industrial complex. Director Oliver Stone, who released the antiwar Platoon the same year as Top Gun, said in an interview with People magazine that the message of Top Gun was, “If I start a war, I’ll get a girlfriend.”

Oliver Stone was not necessarily wrong about that. The film, as we all know, stars Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a cocky young Navy flyer who attends the TOPGUN Academy, where he competes with Iceman (Val Kilmer) for the title of Top Gun and where he also spends a lot of time joking around with everyone’s favorite (and most obviously doomed) character, Goose (Anthony Edwards). Maverick does get a girlfriend, Charlie (Kelly McGillis), but only after he’s had plenty of chances to show both how reckless and how skilled he can be while flying in a fighter plane. Though the majority of the film is taken up with scenes of training and volleyball, the end of the film does give Maverick a chance to prove himself in combat when he and Iceman end up fighting a group of ill-defined enemies for ill-defined reasons. It may not be an official war but it’s close enough.

That said, I think Oliver Stone was wrong about one key thing. Maverick doesn’t get a girlfriend because he started a war. He gets a girlfriend because he won a war. Top Gun is all about winning. Maverick and Iceman are two of the most absurdly competitive characters in film history and, as I watched the film last weekend, it was really hard not to laugh at just how much Cruise and Kilmer got into playing those two roles. Iceman and Maverick can’t even greet each other without it becoming a competition over who gave the best “hello.” By the time the two of them are facing each other in a totally savage beach volleyball match, it’s hard to look at either one of them without laughing. And yet, regardless of how over-the-top it may be, you can’t help but get caught up in their rivalry. Cruise and Kilmer are both at their most charismatic in Top Gun and watching the two of them when they were both young and fighting to steal each and every scene, it doesn’t matter that both of them would later become somewhat controversial for their off-screen personalities. What matters, when you watch Top Gun, is that they’re both obviously stars.

“I’ve got the need for speed,” Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards say as they walk away from their plane. The same thing could be said about the entire movie. Top Gun doesn’t waste any time getting to the good stuff. We know that Maverick is cocky and has father issues because he’s played by Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise always plays cocky characters who have father issues. We know that Iceman is arrogant because he’s played by Val Kilmer. We know that Goose is goofy because his nickname is Goose and he’s married to Meg Ryan. The film doesn’t waste much time on exploring why its characters are the way they are. Instead, it just accepts them for being the paper-thin characters that they are. The film understands that the the most important thing is to get them into their jets and sends them into the sky. Does it matter that it’s sometimes confusing to keep track of who is chasing who? Not at all. The planes are sleek and loud. The men flying them are sexy and dangerous. The music never stops and the sun never goes down unless the film needs a soulful shot of Maverick deep in thought. We’ve all got the need for speed.

In so many ways, Top Gun is a silly film but, to its credit, it also doesn’t make any apologies for being silly. Instead, Top Gun embraces its hyperkinetic and flashy style. That’s why critics lambasted it in 1986 and that’s why we all love it in 2020. And if the pilots of Top Gun do start a war — well, it happens. I mean, it’s Maverick and Iceman! How can you hold it against them? When you watch them fly those planes, you know that even if they start World War III, it’ll be worth it. If the world’s going to end, Maverick’s the one we want to end it.

Guilty Pleasure No. 36: The Legend of Billie Jean (dir by Matthew Robbins)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Two weeks ago, while I was sick in bed, I watched The Legend of Billie Jean, a deeply silly movie from 1985.

Okay, get this. Billie Jean (Helen Slater) and her younger brother, Binx (an incredibly young Christian Slater), live in Corpus Christi, Texas. Binx has always wanted to go to Vermont. That right there should tell you just how silly this movie is. Not only does it feature a character named Binx but it also features Texans wanting to go to Vermont. I’m a native Texan who loves to travel but I can tell you right now that the last place I would ever want to go would be Vermont. In fact, down here, we tend to assume that Vermont’s just a place that was made up by the media. Bernie Sanders? He’s just an actor. Seriously, there’s no way that Vermont actually exists.

Anyway, after Binx throws a milkshake in the face of local bully, Hubie Pyatt (Barry Tubb), Hubie steals Binx’s scooter. (If you’re stuck with a name like Hubie Pyatt, it seems kinda predestined that you’re going to grow up to be a bully.) After getting nowhere with the police, Billie Jean returns home to discover that Binx has been beaten up and his scooter has been dismantled. Billie Jean goes to Hubie’s father (Richard Bradford) to demand some money to get the scooter fixed. Mr. Pyatt responds by attempting to assault Billie Jean, which leads to Binx shooting Mr. Pyatt in the shoulder.

So now, Billie Jean and Binx are on the run.

Joining them in their flight are two idiot friends (Martha Gehman and Yeardley Smith) and Lloyd (Keith Gordon), the son of the local district attorney. Because this is a movie, Billie Jean quickly becomes a media superstar. Everyone wants to meet Billie Jean. Everyone wants to help Billie Jean. A sympathetic police detective (Peter Coyote) is determined to capture Billie Jean without violence but that might be difficult with the media constantly getting in the way.

While hiding out in a motel, Billie Jean turns on the TV and watches the classic 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. (I have to say that I’ve stayed in a few motels around Corpus Christi and never once did I turn on the TV and just happen to come across a classic silent movie.) Moved by Renee Falconetti’s performance in the lead role, Billie Jean decides to cut her hair really, really short (though not as short as Falconetti’s). I guess Billie Jean is supposed to be a 1980s version of Joan of Arc, which really doesn’t make any sense. I mean, Joan of Arc heard the voice of God and led the French to victory over the British. Billie Jean is just trying to get some money to get her brother’s scooter fixed and pay for a trip to the imaginary state of Vermont.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pyatt has recovered from his wounds and is now selling Billie Jean merchandise in his store. The detective mentions how weird that is but Mr. Pyatt is just out to make some money. Can you blame him? The entire country is obsessed with Billie Jean!

As you might have guessed, The Legend of Billie Jean is incredibly silly but likable. Despite having an inconsistent Texas accent, Helen Slater does a good job in the lead role of Billie Jean and it’s interesting to actually see Christian Slater before he developed the sarcastic style that, for better or worse, has come to define pretty much all of his performances. Never for a second do you believe that Billie Jean would actually become a media superstar. (Nor do you ever believe that she’s the type who would have the patience to watch a silent movie.) I mean, when you get right down to it, it’s a pretty dumb movie. But, when you’re sick in bed, The Legend of Billie Jean is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time.