Hazelle Goodman | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, we start season 6.

Episode 6.1 “Blood Ties: Part 1”

(Dir by Alan Taylor, originally aired on October 17th, 1997)

It’s a new season of Homicide and, while Pembleton and Bayliss have been off working in the robbery division, some changes have occurred. Sgt. Howard has left Homicide to work in another division. Brodie’s documentary won an Emmy and he’s moved to Los Angeles. Melissa Leo and Max Perlich are no longer a part of the cast.

Instead, we have three new detectives. Gharty and Falsone (ugh!) are now full-time members of the squad. Joining them is Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne), a recent transfer from Seattle. When Pembleton and Bayliss return to Homicide, the first that they see is Ballard and Gharty being given a commendation for solving “the Rico case.” Meanwhile, Falsone is walking around the squad room like he owns the place. Giardello praises the new detectives and basically acts as if Pembelton and Bayliss are useless.

And listen, as much as I dislike Falsone and Jon Seda’s mumbling performance in the role, I do think that Peter Gerety is well-cast as Gharty. And Callie Thorne seems like she’ll do a good job as Ballard, even if this episode does spend a bit too much time trying to convince us that she’s the greatest detective since Frank Pembleton. But, when it comes to Homicide, I want to follow detectives like Munch, Lewis, Pembleton, and Bayliss. I want to watch as Kellerman battles his demons and Giardello battles his superiors. My point is that I don’t care about these new people. I don’t care that Ballard is a hotshot detective. I don’t care that Gharty is a blue-collar guy who is looking to prove himself. I can’t stand Falsone. I don’t want any of these people to be the new lead characters on the show. I want Melissa Leo with her weird accent. What are we even doing here, Homicide?

This episode, however, seemed to be determined to force the new characters on me. For instance, Georgia Mahoney (Hazel Goodman) is in town, looking to get revenge for the death of her brother Luther. She’s got people shooting at Lewis, Kellerman, and Terri Stivers. Needless to see, Lewis and Kellerman get involved in tracking down and arresting not only Georgia but also Junior Bunk (Mekhi Phifer), Luther’s incompetent nephew. However, Falsone gets involved too. This means that we have to sit through an entire scene of Falsone attempting to interrogate Kellerman about the Mahoney shooting and the inconsistencies in the statements given by Lewis, Stivers, and Kellerman.. Hey, Falsone — YOU’RE THE NEW GUY! WE LIKE KELLERMAN! LEAVE HIM ALONE, YOU MUMBLING DOUCHEBAG!

Meanwhile, at a banquet honoring distinguished businessman and civil right activist Felix Wilson (James Earl Jones), a young Haitian woman is found beaten to death in the men’s room. Her name is Melia and she worked for the Wilsons. Now, in this case, Pembleton and Bayliss are the primaries but Ballard and Gharty still come along to provide support and soon, Ballard and Pembleton are arguing about the best way to handle the investigation. Ballard thinks that Pembleton is going easy on Felix Wilson because of Wilson’s standing in the black community. Pembleton thinks that Ballard should remember who the primary investigator is. And myself, I’m wondering why Pembleton and Ballard are having the type of conversations that Pembleton used to have with Bayliss. Whenever Pembleton and Bayliss debate prejudice, it works because we know who Pembleton is and we know how Bayliss is. We don’t know enough about Ballard for her debate with Pembleton to really mean anything.

Apparently, Homicide was nearly cancelled after the end of season 5. When it was renewed, it was done on the condition that had to improve its rating and win its time slot. This episode feature a lot of action. A man on a motorcycle fires at Falsone and Lewis. A sniper hits Kellerman in the arm. The cops stop Georgia’s private plane from taking off and arrest her. Visually, this episode is brightly lit and there’s none of the odd camera angles that dominated the previous few seasons. Comparing this episode to the episodes that came before it creates a tonal whiplash that can only be compared to going from the Steve Carell-led Office to the Ed Helms version. It’s not necessarily bad but it just doesn’t feel right.

This episode ends with Georgia in jail and Pembleton still investigating the death of Melia. Season 6 is off to a start and I’m not really happy about how it’s going so far but we’ll see what happens.

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.

First released in 1995, Heat is one of the most influential and best-known films of the past 30 years. It also received absolutely zero Oscar nominations.

Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that Academy — especially the Academy of the 1990s — didn’t shower the film with nominations. For all of its many strengths, Heat is still a genre piece, an epic three-hour crime film from director Michael Mann. It’s a film about obsessive cops and tightly-wound crooks and it’s based on a made-for-TV movie that Mann directed in the late 80s. While the Academy had given a best picture nomination to The Fugitive just two years before, it still hadn’t fully come around to honoring genre films.

And yet one would think that the film could have at least picked up a nomination for its editing or maybe the sound design that helps to make the film’s signature 8-minute gun battle so unforgettable. (Heat is a film that leaves you feeling as if you’re trapped in the middle of its gunfights, running for cover while the cops and the crooks fire on each other.) The screenplay, featuring the scene where Al Pacino’s intense detective sits down for coffee with Robert De Niro’s career crook, also went unnominated.

Al Pacino was not nominated for playing Vincent Hanna and maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised at that. Pacino yells a lot in this movie. When people talk about Pacino having a reputation for bellowing his lines like a madman, they’re usually thinking about the scene where he confronts a weaselly executive (Hank Azaria) about the affair that he’s having with Charlene (Ashley Judd), the wife of criminal Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer). And yet, I think that Pacino’s performance works in the context of the film and it’s often forgotten that Pacino has quite scenes in Heat as well. Pacino’s intensity provides a contrast to Robert De Niro’s tightly controlled career criminal, Neil McCauley. McCauley has done time in prison and he has no intention of ever going back. But, as he admits during the famous diner scene, being a criminal is the only thing that he knows how to do and it’s also the only thing that he wants to do. (“The action is the juice,” Tom Sizemore says in another scene.) If any two actors deserved a joint Oscar nomination it was Pacino and De Niro. In Heat, they’re the perfect team. Pacino’s flamboyance and De Niro’s tightly-controlled emotions come together to form the heart of the picture.

No one from the film’s supporting cast was nominated either, despite there being a wealth of riches to choose from. Ashley Judd and Val Kilmer come to mind as obvious contenders. Kilmer is amazing in the shoot-out that occurs two hours into the film. Ashley Judd has a killer scene where she helps her husband escape from the police. Beyond Judd and Kilmer, I like the quiet menace of Tom Sizemore’s Michael Cheritto. (Just check out the look he gives to an onlooker who is getting a little bit too curious.) Kevin Gage’s sociopathic Waingro is one of the most loathsome characters to ever show up in a movie. William Fichtner, Jon Voight, Danny Trejo, and Tom Noonan all make a definite impression and add to Michael Mann’s portrait of the Los Angeles underworld. In an early role, Natalie Portman plays Hanna’s neglected stepdaughter and even Amy Brenneman has some good moments as Neil’s unsuspecting girlfriend, the one who Neil claims to be prepared to abandon if he sees “the heat coming.”

I have to mention the performance of Dennis Haysbert as Don Breedan, a man who has just been released from prison and who finds himself working as a cook in a diner. (The owner of the diner is played by Bud Cort.) Haysbert doesn’t have many scenes but he gives a poignant performance as a man struggling not to fall back into his old life of crime and what eventually happens to him still packs an emotional punch. For much of the film’s running time, he’s on the fringes of the story. It’s only by chance that he finds himself suddenly and briefly thrown into the middle of the action.

Heat is the ultimate Michael Mann film, a 3-hour crime epic that is full of amazing action sequences, powerful performances, and a moody atmosphere that leaves the viewer with no doubt that the film is actually about a lot more than just a bunch of crooks and the cops who try to stop them. Hanna and McCauley both live by their own code and are equally obsessed with their work. Their showdown is inevitable and, as directed by Michael Mann, it takes on almost mythological grandeur. The film is a portrait of uncertainty and fear in Los Angeles but it’s also a portrait of two men destined to confront each other. They’re both the best at what they do and, as a result, only one can remain alive at the end of the film.

I rewatched Heat yesterday and I was amazed at how well the film holds up. It’s one of the best-paced three-hour films that I’ve ever seen and that epic gunfight is still powerful and frightening to watch. Like Martin Scorsese’s Casino, it was a 1995 film that deserved more Oscar attention than it received.