Tag Archives: Gary Sandy

Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Nominee: The Insider (dir by Michael Mann)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1999 Best Picture Nominee, The Insider, the American media takes a beating.

Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman.  Bergman is a veteran newsman who, for several years, has been employed as a producer at 60 Minutes.  He is a strong believer in the importance of the free press and he’s proud to be associated with both 60 Minutes and CBS News.  He’s one of the few people who can manage the famously prickly correspondent, Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer).  When we first see Bergman, he and Wallace are in the Middle East and arranging a tense interview with the head of Hezbollah.  It’s easy to see that Bergman is someone who will go anywhere and take any risk to get a story.  It’s also apparent that Bergman thinks that the people that he works with feel the same way.

That all changes when Bergman meets Jeffery Wigand (Russell Crowe), a recently fired tobacco company executive who initially agrees to serve as a consultant for one of Bergman’s story but who leaves Bergman intrigued when he reveals that, due to a strict confidentiality agreement, he’s not allowed to discuss anything about his time as an executive.  As the tobacco companies are currently being sued by ambitious state attorney generals like Mississippi’s Mike Moore (who plays himself in the film), Bergman suspects that Wigand knows something that the companies don’t want revealed.

And, of course, Bergman is right.  Wigand was fired for specifically objecting to his company’s effort to make cigarettes more addictive, something that the tobacco industry had long claimed it wasn’t doing.  Wigand’s pride was hurt when he was fired but he knows that breaking the confidentiality agreement will mean losing his severance package and also possibly losing his marriage to Liane (Diane Venora) as well.  However, Wigand is angered by the heavy-handed techniques that his former employer uses to try to intimidate him.  He suspects that he’s being followed and he can’t even work out his frustrations by hitting a few golf balls without someone watching him.  When Wigand starts to get threats and even receives a bullet in the mail, he decides to both testify in court and give an interview to Wallace and 60 Minutes.

The only problem is that CBS, after being pressured by their lawyers and facing the risk of taking a financial loss in an upcoming sell, decides not to run the interview.  Bergman is outraged and assumes that both Mike Wallace and veteran 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall) will support him.  Instead, both Wallace and Hewitt side with CBS.  Left out in the cold is Jeffrey Wigand, who has sacrificed almost everything and now finds himself being attacked as merely a disgruntled employee.

Directed by Michael Mann and based on a true story, The Insider is what is usually described as being “a movie for adults.”  Instead of dealing with car chases and super villains and huge action set pieces, The Insider is a film about ethics and what happens when a major media outlet like CBS News fails to live up to those ethics.  (No one is surprised when the tobacco company tries to intimidate and silence Wigand but the film makes clear that people — or at least people in the 90s — expected and hoped for more from the American press.)  Wigand puts his trust in Bergman and 60 Minutes largely because he believed Bergman’s promise that he would be allowed to tell his story.  It’s a promise that Bergman made in good faith but, in the end, everyone from the CBS executives to the tobacco companies is more interested in protecting their own financial future than actually telling the truth.  Wigand loses his family and his comfortable lifestyle and Bergman loses his faith in the network of Edward R. Murrow.  It’s not a particularly happy film but it is a well-made and thought-provoking one.

Pacino and Crowe both give excellent performances in the two lead roles.  Pacino, because he spends most of the film outraged, has the flashier role while Crowe plays Wigand as a rather mild-mannered man who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a national news story.  (Crowe’s performance here is one of his best, precisely because it really is the opposite of what most people expect from him.)  Crowe does not play Wigand as being a crusader but instead, as an ordinary guy who at times resents being put in the position of a whistleblower.  (Director Mann does not shy away from showing how Bergman manipulates, the reluctant Wigand into finally testifying, even if Bergman’s motives were ultimately not malicious.)  That said, the strongest performance comes from Christopher Plummer, who at first seems to be playing Mike Wallace as being the epitome of the pompous television newsman but who eventually reveals the truth underneath Wallace’s sometimes fearsome exterior.

The Insider was nominated for Best Picture.  Somehow, it lost to American Beauty.

Film Review: The Great Smokey Roadblock (dir by John Leone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1977, The Great Smokey Roadblock tells the story of Elegant John Howard (Henry Fonda).

Elegant is not really his first name.  It’s a nickname, one to let us know that, in the world of independent truckers, John Howard was one of the good guys.  He never crashed his rig.  He never overcharged for a job.  He always arrived on time and in good shape.  John Howard was a good man but then he turned 60 and he got sick.  He spent months in the hospital, unable to work.  His truck was repossessed.  The movie starts with John sneaking out of his hospital room, stealing back his truck, and hitting the road in search of one final job.  Though John says he just wants to make enough money to get his truck back, the truth is that John is terminally ill.  If he’s going to die, he wants to die doing what he loves.  Of course, dying while driving could lead to some trouble for anyone else who happens to be on the road at the time but still, you have to respect John’s determination.  He’s a true American, independent to his core.

(My Dad occasionally made a living driving a truck so perhaps that’s why I’m partial to films like this one.)

John picks up a hitchhiker, a religious young man named Beebo Crozier (Robert Englund).  John picks Beebo up because Beebo was walking through the desert in a suit.  Beebo claims that he’s walking to Florida but John tells him that he can’t do that.  John will drive Beebo to Florida.  Of course, John also expects Beebo to pay for the gas that his truck uses because it’s not like John has any money.  At first, Beebo accuses John of cheating him.  (Henry Fonda cheating someone!?  Perish the thought!)  Soon, however, John has become Beebo’s mentor.

Everyone respects John but no one wants to hire him.  The only offer that John gets is from sleazy Charlie Le Pere (Gary Sandy), who has an agenda of his own.  Finally, John visits his old friend, Penelope (Eileen Brennan).  Penelope is a madam whose brothel has just been closed down.  John agrees to transport Penelope and her girls (including Susan Sarandon) to a new location on the East Coast.  Penelope offers to help John pay the bills.  Elegant John’s a pimp now!  (I was about to say that this seemed like an odd turn-of-events for Henry Fonda but then I remembered that he starred in The Cheyenne Social Club with Jimmy Stewart.)

There’s not really much of a plot to The Great Smokey Roadblock.  John, Beebo, Penelope, and the girls travel from one location to another.  They get thrown in jail by a notoriously corrupt deputy named Harley Davidson (Dub Taylor).  After they escape, they become minor celebrities.  Two counterculture journalists (played by Austin Pendleton and John Byner) show up and help them broadcast their story and the film comes to a halt while Pendleton and Byner exchange what sounds like improvised dialogue.  The police attempt to set up a roadblock to stop Elegant John and his Six Mystery Women.  I guess that’s the Great Smokey Roadblock of the title.

It’s a weird movie, in that the humor is extremely broad and often crude but Henry Fonda is playing a man who is not only terminally ill but who actually looks like he’s terminally ill.  (Henry Fonda himself was reportedly very ill during the filming of The Great Smokey Roadblock.)  As such, it’s a rather melancholy comedy, one in which every joke seems like it might be the last one that Elegant John will ever hear.  In the 70s, not even a trucker comedy could have a happy ending and, as such, The Great Smokey Roadblock feels like a drive-in film for the existential set.  The film’s plot doesn’t really add up to much and is full of plot holes that serve as evidence of a troubled production.  That said, there’s something rather charming about seeing a pre-Nightmare On Elm Street Robert Englund playing a gentle guy who ends up as Henry Fonda’s protegee.  Fonda and Englund play off each other well and their scenes together are the best thing about The Great Smokey Roadblock.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.21 “Crack-Up”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Ponch rides with Getraer!

Episode 1.21 “Crack-Up”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on March 9th, 1978)

After causing an accident that lands Officer Baker in the hospital, street racer and tow truck drive Niles (Joey Aresco) has a psychotic break and decides that he wants to put as many police officers in the hospital as possible.  He starts driving recklessly in his tow truck, all the better to get the attention of highway patrol officers.  Soon, Officer Grossman has joined Baker in the hospital.

Meanwhile, with his partner laid up, Ponch faces his greatest nightmare.  His temporary partner is none other than Sgt. Getraer!  Getraer tells Ponch that he expects Ponch to do everything by the book.  He expects Ponch to follow orders and observe official procedure.  Ponch, however, is more concerned with saving lives and getting results than following the book.  Ponch is a rebel!

And that’s fine, except for the fact that there’s never been anything about Erik Estrada’s performance that has ever made Ponch seem like he’s actually the rebel who everyone claims he is.  Estrada plays Ponch as someone who is quick to smile and quick to brag on himself and quick to get annoyed if a motorist doesn’t pull over for him.  In short, Estrada has always been convincing when he plays Ponch as being a jackass but far less convincing when it comes to convincing us that Ponch is a cop who deliberately breaks the rules for the greater good.

While Getraer and Ponch get on each other’s nerves, Baker lies in bed and insists that he’s ready to get back on his bike.  Wanda (Phyllis Diller), who is visiting her husband in the hospital, frequently stops by to tell jokes.  When I saw this episode was going to be co-starring Phyllis Diller, I cringed because CHiPs seems like the type of show that would screw something like that up.  But actually, Diller gives a really good performance as Wanda and her scenes were the best in the episode.  She told a lot of jokes but, as she admitted to Baker, she was only joking to distract herself from worrying about her husband.

In the end, things work out.  Baker gets back on his bike.  Getraer and Ponch come to respect each other.  And, eventually, Niles the mad mechanic is captured.  To be honest, it’s kind of weird that it took so long to capture Niles.  After Baker was injured, Niles called the police to say that someone has stolen his car an hour or so before.  He also got another mechanic, Ray (Gary Sandy), to lie and provide him with an alibi.  But then, Niles went driving around in his tow truck and that’s what he was driving when he injured Grossman.  So, really, a smart cop would have said, “Hey, that stolen car belonged to a tow truck driver and now, another office has been injured by someone driving a tow truck!  Maybe we should go talk to that guy again….”

This episode was better than I was expecting, largely due to Phyllis Diller and the comedic interplay between Officers Grossman and Baker.  As always, the California scenery was the real star of the show and the state looked lovely.

Horror Film Review: Troll (dir by John Carl Buechler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 film, Troll, opens with Harry Potter moving into a San Francisco townhouse.

Okay, it’s not that Harry Potter.  Troll was produced long before the first Harry Potter book was even published so it’s fair to assume that it’s just a coincidence that this film — about trolls, magic, and faeries — just happens to feature not just one but two characters named Harry Potter.  Harry Potter, Sr. (Michael Moriarty) is a typical, dorky father figure.  Indeed, he’s such a conventional figure that it’s a bit hard to understand why the always neurotic Michael Moriarty was cast in the role.  Harry’s son is named Harry Potter, Jr. (Noah Hathaway).  Harry, Jr. is a teenager who is shocked by how bratty his little sister, Wendy (Jenny Beck), becomes after the family moves into their new apartment.

Why is Wendy acting like such a brat?  It’s because Wendy has been kidnapped by Torok the Troll (Phil Fondacaro), a grotesque creature who not only abducts Wendy but also steals her appearance so that he can safely move around the world of the humans.  Torok, himself, was once a powerful wizard but, centuries ago, he and an army of faeries tried to destroy all the humans in the world.  Their plan didn’t work and, as punishment, Torok was turned into a troll.

But now, somehow, Torok is free and he’s taking over the apartment building.  One by one, he tracks down each tenant and casts a spell which turns them into a mythological creature, like a gnome or a wood nymph.  All of the apartments turns into lushly overgrown forests.  Among those tenants that get transformed are Sonny Bono and a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  I have a feeling that, when Sonny later ran for Congress, he did not include his appearance in Troll in any of his campaign literature.  As for Louis-Dreyfus, she was reportedly angered once when a talk show host (I think it was Jay Leno) showed footage from this film while interviewing her.  It’s not so much that Julia Louis-Dreyfus isn’t a convincing wood nymph as much as it’s the fact that she’s Julie Louis-Dreyfus and it’s just difficult to imagine her appearing in such a stupid role.  This, of course, was her first film and everyone has to start somewhere.

Anyway, realizing that he has to rescue his little sister, Harry Potter, Jr. gets some help from the local witch, Eunice St. Clair (Joan Lockhart).  Eunice gives Harry a magic spear to take with him in his quest.  It’s not really that much of quest, however.  Troll is a low-budget film that was produced by Albert Band so this is not the film to watch if you’re expecting some sort of elaborate fantasy epic.

One positive thing that I will say for Troll is that some of the troll makeup is effective.  The plot maks absolutely zero sense but Director John Carl Buechler specialized in creating memorable monsters on a budget and he manages to do that with Troll.  And, despite all of the people getting turned into monsters, Troll is a largely good-natured film.  It’s not a deliberately cruel or even gory film.  It’s a dumb little horror/fantasy film that features Sonny Bono turning into a plant and Julie Louis-Dreyfus turning into a wood nymph.  It’s dumb but it’s mild and generally inoffensive.

Finally, I should also note that it is in no way connected to Troll 2.  Troll 2, after all, is about goblins.