Playing Catch-Up: Autumn in New York, Griffin & Phoenix, Harry & Son, The Life of David Gale

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, this year I am making a sincere effort to review every film that I see. I know I say that every year but this time, I really mean it.

So, in an effort to catch up, here are four quick reviews of some of the movies that I watched over the past few weeks!

Autumn in New York
Released: 2000
Directed by Joan Chen
Starring Richard Gere, Winona Ryder, Anthony LaPaglia, Elaine Stritch, Vera Farmiga, Sherry Stringfield, Jill Hennessy, J.K. Simmons, Sam Trammell, Mary Beth Hurt

Richard Gere is Will, a fabulously wealthy New Yorker, who has had many girlfriends but who has never been able to find the one. He owns a restaurant and appears on the cover of New York Magazine. He loves food because, according to him, “Food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes.”

Winona Ryder is Charlotte, a hat designer who is always happy and cheerful and full of life. She’s the type who dresses up like Emily Dickinson for Christmas and recites poetry to children, though you get the feeling that, if they ever somehow met in real life, Emily would probably get annoyed with Charlotte fairly quickly. Actually, Charlotte might soon get to meet Emily because she has one of those rare diseases that kills you in a year while still allowing you to look healthy and beautiful.

One night, Will and Charlotte meet and, together, they solve crimes!

No, actually, they fall in love. This is one of those films where a young woman teaches an old man how to live again but then promptly dies so it’s not like he actually has to make a huge commitment or anything. The film does, at least, acknowledge that Will is a lot older than Charlotte but it still doesn’t make it any less weird that Charlotte would want to spend her last year on Earth dealing with a self-centered, emotionally remote man who is old enough to be her father. (To be honest, when it was revealed that Charlotte was the daughter of a woman who Will had previously dated, I was briefly worried that Autumn in New York was going to take an even stranger turn….)

On the positive side, the films features some pretty shots of New York and there is actually a pretty nice subplot, in which Will tries to connect with the daughter (Vera Farmiga) that he never knew he had. Maybe if Farmiga and Ryder had switched roles, Autumn in New York would have worked out better.

Griffin & Phoenix
Released: 2006
Directed by Ed Stone
Starring Dermot Mulroney, Amanda Peet, Blair Brown, and Sarah Paulson

His name is Henry Griffin (Dermot Mulroney).

Her name is Sarah Phoenix (Amanda Peet).

Because they both have highly symbolic last names, we know that they’re meant to be together.

They both have cancer. They’ve both been given a year to live. Of course, they don’t realize that when they first meet and fall in love. In fact, when Phoenix comes across several books that Griffin has purchased about dealing with being terminally ill, she assumes that Griffin bought them to try to fool her into falling in love with him. Once they realize that they only have a year to be together, Griffin and Phoenix set out to make every moment count…

It’s a sweet-natured and unabashedly sentimental movie but, unfortunately, Dermot Mulroney and Amanda Peet have little romantic chemistry and the film is never quite as successful at inspiring tears as it should be. When Mulroney finally allows himself to get mad and deals with his anger by vandalizing a bunch of cars, it’s not a cathartic moment. Instead, you just find yourself wondering how Mulroney could so easily get away with destroying a stranger’s windshield in broad daylight.

Harry & Son
Released: 1986
Directed by Paul Newman
Starring Paul Newman, Robby Benson, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, Judith Ivey, Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman, Katherine Borowitz, Maury Chaykin, Joanne Woodward

Morgan Freeman makes an early film appearance in Harry & Son, though his role is a tiny one. He plays a factory foreman named Siemanowski who, in quick order, gets angry with and then fires a new employee named Howard Keach (Robby Benson). Howard is the son in Harry & Son and he’s such an annoying character that you’re happy when Freeman shows up and starts yelling at the little twit. As I said, Freeman’s role is a small one. Freeman’s only on screen for a few minutes. But, in that time, he calls Howard an idiot and it’s hard not to feel that he has a point.

Of course, the problem is that we’re not supposed to view Howard as being an idiot. Instead, we’re supposed to be on Howard’s side. Howard has ambitions to be the next Ernest Hemingway. However, his blue-collar father, Harry (Paul Newman, who also directed), demands that Howard get a job. Maybe, like us, he realizes how silly Howard looks whenever he gets hunched over his typewriter. (Robby Benson tries to pull off these “deep thought” facial expressions that simply have to be seen to be believed.) There’s actually two problems with Howard. First off, we never believe that he could possibly come up with anything worth reading. Secondly, it’s impossible to believe that Paul Newman could ever be the father of such an annoying little creep.

Harry, of course, has problems of his own. He’s just lost his construction job. He’s having to deal with the fact that he’s getting older. Fortunately, his son introduces him to a nymphomaniac (Judith Ivey). Eventually, it all ends with moments of triumph and tragedy, as these things often do.

As always, Newman is believable as a blue-collar guy who believes in hard work and cold beer. The film actually gets off to a good start, with Newman using a wrecking ball to take down an old building. But then Robby Benson shows up, hunched over that typewriter, and the film just becomes unbearable. At least Morgan Freeman’s around to yell at the annoying little jerk.

The Life of David Gale
Released: 2003
Directed by Alan Parker
Starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Rhona Mitra, Leon Rippy, Matt Craven, Jim Beaver, Melissa McCarthy

For the record, while I won’t shed any tears whenever Dzhokahr Tsarnaev is finally executed, I’m against the death penalty. I think that once we accept the idea that the state has the right to execute people, it becomes a lot easier to accept the idea that the state has the right to do a lot of other things. Plus, there’s always the danger of innocent people being sent to die. The Life of David Gale also claims to be against the death penalty but it’s so obnoxious and self-righteous that I doubt it changed anyone’s mind.

David Gale (Kevin Spacey) used to the head of the philosophy department at the University of Texas. He used to be a nationally renowned activist against the death penalty. But then he was arrested for and convicted of the murder of another activist, Constance Harraway (Laura Linney) and now David Gale is sitting on death row himself. With his execution approaching, journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) is convinced that Gale was framed and she finds herself racing against time to prevent Texas from executing an innocent man…

There’s a lot of things wrong with The Life of David Gale. First off, it was made during the Bush administration, so the whole film is basically just a hate letter to the state of Texas. Never have I heard so many inauthentic accents in one film. Secondly, only in a truly bad movie, can someone have a name like Bitsey Bloom. Third, the whole film ends with this big twist that makes absolutely no sense and which nearly inspired me to throw a shoe at the TV.

Of course, the main problem with the film is that we’re asked to sympathize with a character played by Kevin Spacey. Even before Kevin Spacey was revealed to be a sleazy perv, he was never a particularly sympathetic or really even that versatile of an actor. (Both American Beauty and House of Cards tried to disguise this fact by surrounding him with cartoonish caricatures.) Spacey’s so snarky and condescending as Gale that, even if he is innocent of murder, it’s hard not to feel that maybe David Gale should be executed for crimes against likability.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Hemingway’s Adventures Of A Young Man (dir by Martin Ritt)

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of cleaning out her DVR! It’s going to take a while. She recorded this 1962 literary adaptation off of FXM on January 30th!)

Hemingway’s Adventures Of A Young Man is one of those films that you just know was made specifically to win Oscars. It’s a big prestige production, complete with a historical setting, an epic scope and big, all-star cast. That most of those stars appear in relatively small roles was undoubtedly meant to evidence of the film’s importance.

“Look!” the film seems to shout at times, “This is such an important film that even Paul Newman was willing to stop by for a day’s work!”

The film is based on ten short stories by Ernest Hemingway and, loosely, A Farewell to Arms. The stories all dealt with the early life of Nick Adams, who was a literary stand-in for Hemingway. Since the Nick Adams stories were autobiographical (and, for that matter, so was A Farewell to Arms), the film can also be viewed as biopic. Richard Beymer (who, a year earlier, had starred in West Side Story and who is currently playing Ben Horne on Twin Peaks) may be playing Nick Adams but the film leaves little doubt that he was actually meant to be playing Ernest Hemingway.

The film opens with Nick hunting with his father, Dr. Harold Adams (Arthur Kennedy). He is present when his father travels to an Indian camp and helps to deliver a baby. He respects his father but Nick wants to see the world and the film follows him as he explores America, working odd jobs and meeting colorful characters along the way. Paul Newman shows up as a punch-drunk boxer and proceeds to overact to such an extent that he reminded me of Eric Roberts appearing in a Lifetime film. Nick meets rich men, poor men, and everything in between. He works as a journalist. He works as a porter. Eventually, when World War I breaks out, Nick enlists in the Italian army and the film turns into the 100th adaptation of A Farewell to Arms.

And really, I think it would have been an enjoyable film if it had been directed by someone like Otto Preminger, George Stevens, or maybe even Elia Kazan. These are directors who would have embraced both the pulpy potential of the Nick Adams stories and the soapy melodrama of the war scenes. A showman like Preminger would have had no fear of going totally and completely over the top and that’s the approach that this material needed. Instead, Hemingway’s Adventures Of A Young Man was directed, in a painfully earnest style, by Martin Ritt. Ritt tries to imitate Hemingway’s famously understated style with his understated direction but, cinematically, it’s just not very interesting. Ritt portrays everything very seriously and very literally and, in the end, his direction is more than a little dull.

Sadly, the same can be said for Richard Beymer’s performance in the lead role. Beymer comes across as being the nice guy who everyone says you should marry because he’ll be able to get a good and stable job and he’ll probably never go to jail. Two months ago, when I watched and reviewed Twin Peaks, I really loved Beymer’s performance as Ben Horne. He just seemed to be having so much fun being bad. Unfortunately, in Hemingway’s Adventures Of A Young Man, he never seemed to be having any fun at all. No wonder he temporarily put his film career on hold so that he could fully devote himself to working as a civil rights activist.

In the end, this is a movie that’s a lot more fun to look at than to actually watch. Visually, the film is frequently quite pretty in an early 1960s prestige movie so sort of way. And there are some good performances. Eli Wallach, Ricardo Montalban, Susan Strasberg, Arthur Kennedy — there’s a whole host of performers doing memorable supporting work. Unfortunately, even with all that in mind, this well-intentioned film largely falls flat.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: The Silver Chalice (dir by Victor Saville)

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you ever needed proof that everyone has to start somewhere, look no further than the 1954 biblical epic, The Silver Chalice.

The Silver Chalice features the film debut of Paul Newman, who later proved himself to be a legitimately great actor. It’s true that, unlike a lot of actors, Newman made his debut in a starring role. He never had to humiliate himself with any one-line roles or walk-on bits. No, Paul got to humiliate himself with a starring role.

Paul Newman was 29 years old when he played Basil, a former slave turned sculptor. Not only did Newman bear a disconcerting resemblance to Ben Savage (of Boy Meets World fame) but he gave a performance that was so bad that it’s kind of a shock that he ever worked again. Basil is a passionate artist, one who survived being betrayed by his adopted family and slavery. Newman comes across like a nice, young man from Iowa. Usually, Newman looks miserable but occasionally, he flashes a somewhat weak smile. When Basil gets mad, Newman speaks in a squeaky voice. When Basil is feeling reverent, Newman furrows his brow like a hungover Russell Brand staring straight into the sun.

“But me and Topanga are soul mates…”

Then again, I’m not sure that any actor could have given a good performance as Basil. The Silver Chalice has a terrible script, one that was written by Lesser Samuels. (I’ll avoid the obvious joke about whether or not The Silver Chalice would have been better if written by Greater Samuels.) Apparently, before Newman was cast, the producers pursued James Dean for the role. I’m sure we all would have enjoyed seeing Dean slouch his way through the film but I doubt that even he could have done much with The Silver Chalice.

The Silver Chalice is based on a novel, which perhaps explains why there’s so many characters and so many unnecessary subplots. Basil follows a path that will be familiar to anyone who has seen a 1950s biblical epic. He’s a young Greek who is adopted into a noble Roman family. When his kindly stepfather dies, Basil’s stepsiblings sell him into slavery. It’s not an easy life but Basil is a talented sculptor so Joseph of Arimathea commissions him to make a silver chalice for the Holy Grail. Basil goes from poor to rich to poor again to rich again to ultimately saved by grace. He even gets to do the same walking towards Heaven thing that Richard Burton did at the end of The Robe.

Meanwhile, Simon Magus (Jack Palance) is wowing the citizenry with his magic tricks and claiming to be the risen Messiah. Simon’s assistant just happens to be Helena, who knew Basil when he was younger. Young Helena is played by dark-haired Natalie Wood. Grown-up Helena is played by blonde Virgina Mayo. They were both good actresses but there’s seriously no way that Natalie Wood would have ever grown up to be Virginia Mayo.

Jack Palance pretty much steals the movie, mostly because he gets to wear the silliest costumes:

Poor Paul Newman has to settle for a tunic and a miniskirt, while Jack Palance gets to wear this:

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the story of Simon Magus. He tried to show off by flying over the Roman Forum so St. Peter said a prayer and Simon promptly plunged to his death. Take that, you Gnostic!

Another interesting thing about The Silver Chalice is that the sets are very deliberately fake. I don’t mean that they look cheap. I mean, much as in the style of German Expressionism, the sets are specifically designed to remind you that you’re watching a movie.

For instance, look at the wall behind Palance:

Look at this pleasure palace:

Look at Rome at night:

The sets are extremely dream-like and yet everything else about the film is extremely slow and conventional. One wonders if director Victor Saville was trying to make an art film, though there’s nothing else in his long filmography that would suggest that Saville was anything other than a workmanlike director. In fact, most biblical epics of the time took a lot of pride in looking as expensive and “accurate” as possible. Major studios in the 1950s were not known for artistic experimentation, especially when it came to Biblical epics. It’s hard to know what to make of The Silver Chalice‘s artistic flourishes, which is why it’s easier to just focus on what a terrible performance Paul Newman gives.

That’s certainly what Paul did! In 1966, when The Silver Chalice finally premiered on TV, Newman took out a newspaper ad in which he apologized for his performance and then asked people not watch. Apparently, he also used to show the movie during parties on the condition that his guests mock the film while watching it.

I don’t really blame him. It’s an amazingly dull film and Newman looks absolutely miserable in nearly every other scene. However, because it did star Paul Newman, The Silver Chalice will always have a life on TCM.

Speaking of TCM, they last broadcast this film on February 24th as part of their 31 Days of Oscar. (It was nominated for both its sets and its score.) That is when I recorded it. And, after watching it yesterday, I was more than happy to erase it.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #15: Quintet (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Wednesday, November 30th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

The 1979 post-apocalyptic film Quintet aired on FXM on November 15th. I recorded it because this film is often cited as being one of director Robert Altman’s worst but I’ve also read some very passionate defenses of Quintet. Since I’ve enjoyed several of Altman’s films (Nashville, Gosford Park, Short Cuts, The Company, The Player, The Long Goodbye, and many more), I wanted to experience Quintet for myself.

I mean, seriously — a postapocalyptic sci-fi film from Robert Altman!? That would have to be at least interesting, right?

Anyway, I watched Quintet and to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what the Hell was going on for most of the film. Things made a bit more sense after I did a little bit of research and I discovered that Quintet was 1) inspired by a fragment of a dream that Altman had and 2) went into production despite not having a completed script.

Quintet opens with a breath-taking shot of a frozen landscape. There’s been a new ice age. The entire Earth is frozen. There’s only a few hundred humans left and their number is rapidly dwindling. Some, like Essex (Paul Newman) and Vivia (Brigitte Fossey) spend their days hiking across the tundra and hunting seals. Others — like practically everyone else in the entire freaking film — spend their times in ramshackle villages, pursuing what little pleasure they can find while waiting to die.

In this new frozen world, the most popular activity — outside of getting drunk — is playing a board game called Quintet. I have no idea how Quintet is played, though the film is full of scenes of people playing it. From what we do see, it really doesn’t look like that fun of a game but I guess you can’t be picky when you’re waiting to freeze to death. I mean, honestly, if the world’s ending, I’d rather play a board game than charades.

Anyway, in one of the frozen towns, a group of people are having a Quintet tournament, with the rule being that, once you’re eliminated in the board game, you are also killed in real life. (And again, this is where it would have been helpful for the film to take just a few minutes to clarify just how exactly Quintet is played.) One of the Quintet players is killed by a bomb, which unfortunately blows up Viva as well. Seeking revenge (or, at least, I’m guessing that was his motivation because Paul Newman didn’t exactly give the most communicative performance of his career in Quintet), Essex assumes a fake identity and enters the tournament.

Soon, he’s running around the frozen landscape, killing people. He knows that the final player standing will receive a prize of some sort but he doesn’t know what the prize is. How deep! Or something.

Dammit, I really wanted to defend Quintet. I really did. Whenever I see a movie that has gotten almost universally negative reviews, my natural instinct is to try to find something good about it. And I will say this: visually, Quintet is fascinating. A lot of care was put into creating this frozen world and it’s interesting to note how every location is decorated by elaborate ice sculptors. The ice may be destroying civilization but it can’t squelch humanity’s natural creativity.

Unfortunately, Quintet may be well-designed but it’s also a painfully slow film. Just because the film takes place on a glacier, that doesn’t mean that it needs to move like one. The slow pace is not helped by the fact that many of the characters have a tendency to suddenly start delivering these faux profound philosophical monologues, the majority of which are about as deep as the typical Tumblr post.

Quintet stars Paul Newman, who was both an iconic movie star and a legitimately great actor. He spends most of Quintet alternating between looking confused and looking stoic. That said, it’s always interesting to watch an actor like Paul Newman slog his way through an artistic misfire like WUSA or Quintet. Let’s give Paul Newman some credit: he delivered his lines with a straight face. Just as Essex knew he was trapped on a glacier, Paul Newman understood that was trapped in Quintet. Both did what they had to do to survive.

Robert Altman was a great director but Quintet is not a great film.

It happens.

Rebel Rebel: Paul Newman in COOL HAND LUKE (Warner Brothers 1967)

Posted on February 23, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

The Sixties was the decade of the rebellious anti-hero. The times they were a-changin’ and movies reflected the anti-establishment mood with BONNIE & CLYDE, EASY RIDER, and COOL HAND LUKE. Paul Newman starred as white-trash outsider Luke Jackson, but it was his co-star George Kennedy who took home the Oscar for his role as Dragline, the king of the cons who first despises then idolizes Luke.

War vet Luke gets busted for “malicious destruction of municipal property while drunk”, and sent to a prison farm in Florida. The non-conformist Luke butts heads with both the “bosses” (prison guards aka authority) and Dragline, a near illiterate convict who runs the yard. Dragline and Luke decide to settle their differences in a Saturday boxing match. The hulking Dragline beats the shit out of Luke, but the smaller man keeps getting up for more. Dragline finally walks away, and Luke earns both his and…

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Lisa Reviews an Oscar Winner: The Sting (dir by George Roy Hill)

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, as a part of their 31 Days of Oscar, TCM aired The Sting, the film that the Academy selected as being the best of 1973. I just finished watching it and what can I say? Based on what I’ve seen of the competition (and there were a lot of great films released in 1973), I would not necessarily have picked The Sting for best picture. However, the movie is still fantastic fun.

The Sting reunited the director (George Roy Hill) and the stars (Robert Redford and Paul Newman) of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and told yet another story of likable criminals living in the past. However, whereas Butch Cassidy largely satirized the conventions of the traditional Hollywood western, The Sting is feels like a loving homage to the films of 1930s, a combination of a gritty, low-budget gangster film and a big budget musical extravaganza. The musical comparison may sound strange at first, especially considering that nobody in The Sting randomly breaks out into song. However, the musical score (which is famously dominated by Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer) is ultimately as much of a character as the roles played by Redford, Newman, and Robert Shaw. And, for that matter, the film’s “let-pull-off-a-con” plot feels like an illegal version of “let’s-put-on-a-show.”

The film takes place in the 1936 of the cultural imagination, a world dominated by flashy criminals and snappy dialogue. When con artists Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) inadvertently steal money from a gangster named Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), Lonnegan has Luther murdered. Fleeing for his life, Hooker goes to Chicago where he teams up with Luther’s former partner, veteran con man Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). Gondorff used to be one of the great con artists but he is now living in self-imposed obscurity, spending most of his time drinking and trying to avoid the FBI. Hooker wants to get revenge on Lonnegan by pulling an elaborate con on him. When Gondorff asks Hooker why, Hooker explains that he can either con Lonnegan or he can kill him and he doesn’t know enough about killing.

The rest of the film deals with Hooker and Gondorff’s plan to con Lonnegan out of a half million dollars. It’s all very elaborate and complicated and a bit confusing if you don’t pay close enough attention and if you’re ADHD like me. But it’s also a lot of fun and terrifically entertaining and that’s the important thing. The Sting is one of those films that shows just how much you can accomplish through the smart use of movie star charisma. Redford and Newman have such great chemistry and are so much fun to watch that it really doesn’t matter whether or not you always understand what they’re actually doing.

It also helps that, in the great 70s tradition, they’re taking down stuffy establishment types. Lonnegan may be a gangster but he’s also a highly respected and very wealthy gangster. When Newman interrupts a poker game, Lonnegan glares at him and tells him that he’ll have to put on a tie before he’s allowed to play. Lonnegan may operate outside the law but, in many ways, he is the establishment and who doesn’t enjoy seeing the establishment taken down a notch?

As entertaining as The Sting may be and as influential as it undoubtedly is (Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean films may be a lot more pretentious — which makes sense considering that Soderbergh is one of the most pretentious directors in film history — but they all owe a clear debt to The Sting), it still feels like an unlikely best picture winner. Consider, for instance, that The Sting not only defeated American Graffiti and The Exorcist but Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers as well. On top of that, when you consider some of the films that were released in 1973 and not nominated — Mean Streets, Badlands, The Candy Snatchers, Day of the Jackal, Don’t Look Now, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Long Goodbye — it’s debatable whether The Sting should have been nominated at all. That’s not a criticism of The Sting as much as it’s an acknowledgement that 1973 was a very good year in film.

So, maybe The Sting didn’t deserve its Oscar. But it’s still a wonderfully entertaining film. And just try to get that music out of your head!

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #36: WUSA (dir by Stuart Rosenberg)

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently saw the 1970 film WUSA on Movies TV. After I watched it, I looked Joanne Woodward up on Wikipedia specifically to see where she was born. I was surprised to discover that she was born and raised in Georgia and that she attended college in Louisiana.

Why was I so shocked? Because WUSA was set in New Orleans and it featured Joanne Woodward speaking in one of the most worst Southern accents that I had ever heard. A little over an hour into the film, Woodward’s character says, “What’s all the rhubarb?” And while “What’s all the rhu…” sounds properly Southern, the “…barb” was pronounced with the type of harshly unpleasant overemphasis on “ar” that has given away many Northern actors trying to sound Southern. Hence, I was shocked to discover that Joanne Woodward actually was Southern.

That said, her pronunciation of the word rhubarb pretty much summed up every problem that I had with WUSA. Actually, the real problem was that she said “rhubarb” in the first place. It came across as being the type of thing that a Northerner who has never actually been down South would think was regularly uttered down here. And I will admit that WUSA was made 16 years before I was born and so, it’s entirely possible that maybe — way back then — people down South regularly did use the word rhubarb. But, for some reason, I doubt it. I know plenty of old Southern people and I’ve never heard a single one of them say anything about rhubarb.

As for WUSA, it’s a long and slow film. A drifter named Reinhardt (Paul Newman) drifts into New Orleans and, with the help of an old friend who is now pretending to be a priest (Laurence Harvey), Reinhardt gets a job as an announcer at a right-wing radio station. He reads extremist editorials that he doesn’t agree with and whenever anyone challenges him, he explains that he’s just doing his job and nothing matters anyway.

Reinhardt also gets himself an apartment and spends most of his time smoking weed with long-haired musician types, the exact same people that WUSA regularly denounces as being a threat to the American way. Living in the same complex is Geraldine (Joanne Woodward), a former prostitute who has a scar on her face and who says stuff like, “What’s all the rhubarb?” She falls in love with Reinhardt but finds it difficult to ignore what he does for a living.

Meanwhile, Geraldine has another admirer. Rainey (Anthony Perkins) is an idealistic and neurotic social worker who is regularly frustrated by his efforts to do good in the world. Reinhardt makes fun of him. The local crime boss (Moses Gunn) manipulates him. And WUSA infuriates him. When Rainey realizes that WUSA is a part of a plot to elect an extremist governor, Rainey dresses up like a priest and starts carrying around a rifle.

Meanwhile, Reinhardt has been assigned to serve as emcee at a huge patriotic rally. With Geraldine watching from the audience and Rainey wandering around the rafters with his rifle, Reinhardt is finally forced to take a stand about the people that he works for.

Or maybe he isn’t.

To be honest, WUSA is such a mess of a film that, even after the end credits roll, it’s difficult to figure out whether Reinhardt took a stand or not.

Anyway, WUSA is not a lost masterpiece and I really wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The film’s too long, there’s too many scenes of characters repeating the same thing over and over again, and neither Newman nor Woodward are particularly memorable. (You know a movie is boring when even Paul Newman seems like a dullard.) On the plus side, Anthony Perkins gives such a good performance that I didn’t once think about the Psycho shower scene while watching him.

As boring as WUSA is, I have to admit that I’m a little bit surprised that it hasn’t been rediscovered. Considering that it’s about a right-wing radio station, I’m surprised that there haven’t been hundreds of pretentious think pieces trying to make the connection between WUSA and Fox News. But, honestly, even if those think pieces were out there, it probably wouldn’t do much for WUSA‘s repuation. According to the film’s Wikipedia page, Paul Newman called it, “the most significant film I’ve ever made and the best.” Paul Newman’s opinion aside, WUSA is pretty dire.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #31: Rachel, Rachel (dir by Paul Newman)

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently saw the 1968 best picture nominee Rachel, Rachel on TCM and I have to say that, at first, I was rather underwhelmed by it. Don’t get me wrong. I thought it was well-acted. I thought it managed to capture a lot of details of small town life. I thought that, for a film made in 1968, it was surprisingly mature and nonjudgmental when it came to exploring feminine sexuality. I was even more surprised to see a nearly 50 year-old movie that actually featured a sympathetic portrayal of a lesbian. Just consider that the homophobic The Sweet Ride was released at the same time and you can see just how unusually progressive Rachel, Rachel was as far as this was concerned.

And yet, when I first watched Rachel, Rachel, it was difficult for me to connect with it. And I really wasn’t sure why. I mean, it is true that Rachel, Rachel is one of those films that moves at a very deliberate post but, trust me, I’ve seen and enjoyed many films that were a helluva lot slower than Rachel, Rachel. But, for whatever reason, it took me two viewings to really appreciate Rachel, Rachel as a surprisingly sensitive character study.

The film is about Rachel (Joanne Woodward), a 35 year-old virgin who lives with her mother in a small Connecticut town. Since the death of her stern and overbearing father, Rachel has lived with her mother. She’s a withdrawn and meek woman who has frequent fantasies that veer between unrealistic happiness and nightmarish morbidity. Her best friend, another unmarried teacher named Calla (Estelle Parsons), invites Rachel to a revival meeting and, for the first time in her life, Rachel actually allows herself to be openly passionate. After the meeting, Calla suddenly kisses her. Shocked, Rachel temporarily ends their friendship.

Even before the revival meeting, Rachel has run into Nick (James Olsen), a friend from high school who is in town to visit his family. After getting kissed by Calla, Rachel ends up turning to Nick and losing her virginity to him. Rachel believes that she’s in love with Nick and is soon fantasizing about their future children. However, it’s obvious to everyone (except for Rachel) that Nick doesn’t quite feel the same way…

When I first saw Rachel, Rachel, I had a hard time relating to the character of Rachel. I watched and, as much as I tried to be sympathetic, I still found myself wondering how anyone could possibly still be a virgin at the age of 35. I mean, I understand that times were different and all but seriously! I guess back then, people actually were serious about the whole “no sex before marriage” thing. (That probably explains why people used to get married when they were 17.) The film is full of largely silent flashbacks to Rachel’s youth and we see that she was raised in an emotionally repressed environment. She was raised to wait for the right man to come along and, when he didn’t, Rachel eventually found herself as a 35 year-old virgin.

And, without getting too TMI here, let’s just say that I couldn’t relate to Rachel’s situation.

But, when I watched the film for a second time, I discovered that even if I don’t know what it’s like to be a 35 year-old virgin, a lot of Rachel’s experiences were, in their way, universal. Consider the scene at the start of the film where Rachel fantasizes that everyone in town is staring at her as she walks down the sidewalk, all because her slip is showing. Who hasn’t, at some point in their life, felt like everyone was staring at her and judging? And, for that matter, who hasn’t had a Nick in their life?

Interestingly enough, Rachel, Rachel was the directorial debut of the iconic actor Paul Newman. One thing that I’ve noticed about films directed by actors (especially first films) is that the actor-turned-director often seems to feel that he has to prove himself by indulging in as much showy cinematic technique as possible. (And if you don’t understand what I mean, check out George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.) And, as much as I hate to admit it because I’ve never read one negative word about Paul Newman, I have to admit that Newman’s direction was one of the reasons why, at first, I found myself feeling detached from the film.

While Newman tells most of Rachel’s story in an admirably straight-forward way, he also included just a few too many arty flashbacks and fantasies. Some of the fantasies — like the one at the start of the film that I mentioned two paragraphs ago — are handled well but others are distracting and they remind the viewer that they’re watching a film. And Rachel, Rachel is a film that works best when it’s naturalistic. Whenever it gets too self-consciously cinematic, it takes the viewer a few minutes to get sucked back into Rachel’s story.

But, and this is the important thing, Paul Newman also gets some great work out of his actors. Judging from some other films in which I’ve seen him, James Olson was not a particularly good actor but he was great in Rachel, Rachel. Estelle Parsons has been an overdramatic presence in a few films and a lot of tv shows but she’s great in Rachel, Rachel. And then there’s Joanne Woodward, who was great in a lot of films, including Rachel, Rachel. Newman and Woodward were married when they made Rachel, Rachel and were still married when Newman died 40 years later. Newman reportedly directed Rachel, Rachel because he wanted Woodward to have a great role. Woodward is on-screen throughout the entire film and Newman’s love for her is obvious in every frame.

Rachel, Rachel is a flawed and imperfect film but it’s still worth catching the next time that it shows up on TCM.

Lisa Watches An Oscar Nominee: The Verdict (dir by Sidney Lumet)

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Speaking of the good, old-fashioned star power of Paul Newman, The Hustler and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were not the only films to receive an oscar nomination as the result of his charisma. There’s also The Verdict, a 1982 best picture nominee that would probably be forgotten if not for Paul Newman’s performance. However, since Paul Newman did play the lead role in The Verdict and he did give an amazing lead performance, The Verdict was nominated for best picture and, 33 years later, it ended up on TCM where I just watched it.

That’s the power of good acting.

Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin, a Boston-based attorney. At one time, Frank was a lawyer at an elite firm. But he has since fallen on hard times. Now, he’s the type of attorney who crashes funerals and hands out his card. He spends his spare time at his favorite bar, playing pinball and telling long jokes while stumbling about in a drunken haze. In many ways, Frank represents everything that people hate about personal injury attorneys but, since he’s played by Paul Newman, you know that he’s going to turn out to be a good guy.

Frank only has one friend left in the world, his former mentor Mickey (Jack Warden). Looking to help Frank out, Mickey sends Frank a medical malpractice suit. A woman at a Catholic Hospital was given an anesthetic during child birth that has led to her now being brain dead. Both the woman’s family and the Archdiocese are looking for a settlement. The family needs the money to pay for her medical care. The Archdiocese just wants the case to go away. All Frank has to do is accept whatever settlement deal is offered…

However, something has changed for Frank. He’s visited the comatose woman and, looking at her trapped in a vegetative state, he’s decided that the hospital needs to be held responsible for its mistake. He rejects the settlement and takes the case to court, looking for both justice for the victim and redemption for himself.

That’s easier said than done, of course. The Archdiocese has hired Ed Concannon (James Mason, perfectly cast), one of the best and most powerful attorneys in Boston. Ed has a huge legal team working on the case. Frank has Mickey. As well, the Judge (Milo O’Shea) makes little effort to hide his contempt for Frank.

Probably the only bright spot in Frank’s life is that he’s met a woman. Laura (Charlotte Rampling) meets him in a bar and soon, they’re lovers and Frank is confiding in her about the case. What he doesn’t suspect is that Laura herself is a spy, hired by Concannon.

It looks like all is lost but then Frank discovers that there is one nurse (Lindsay Crouse) who might be willing to tell the truth about what happened at the hospital…

In many ways, The Verdict is a predictable film. From the minute we first meet him, we know that Frank is going to be redeemed. From the minutes that we hear about the case, we know who we’re supposed to root for and who we’re supposed to hiss. Just about every courtroom cliché is present, right down to a surprise witness or two…

But no matter! The Verdict may be predictable but it works. As he proved with 12 Angry Men, Director Sidney Lumet knew how to make legal deliberations compelling and the entire film is full of small but memorable details that elevate it above its simplistic storyline. As a director, Lumet gets good performances from his cast and, as a result, this is a film where the hero is flawed and the antagonists aren’t necessarily evil. Even the Bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston (who, in most films, would have been a cardboard villain) is given a scene where he’s allowed to show some humanity.

And, of course, Paul Newman is great in the role of Frank. When we first meet Frank, he looks and sounds terrible. Indeed, it’s strange to see Paul Newman playing a character who is essentially such a loser. (Even Eddie Felson in The Hustler had an appealing swagger about him.) It’s during the scenes where Frank considers the woman in a coma that Newman starts to reveal that there’s more to Frank than what’s on the rough surface. By the end of the film, Frank may be a hero but Newman doesn’t play him as such. He’s still has that alcoholic rasp in his voice and his eyes still betray hints of insecurity and a fear that, at any minute, he’s going to screw up and mess everything up. It’s a great performance, one for which Newman received a nomination for best actor.

Speaking of star power, Bruce Willis also shows up in The Verdict. He’s an extra who appears as an observer in the courtroom. He’s sitting a few rows behind Paul Newman. (He’s also sitting beside Tobin Bell, the Jigsaw Killer from the Saw films). It’s probably easiest to spot Willis towards the end of the film, when the verdict is read. Bruce breaks out into a huge grin and almost looks like he’s about to start clapping. Bruce only gets about 10 second of screen time but he acts the Hell out of them!

Thanks to Paul Newman, The Verdict is a memorable and entertaining film. Be sure to watch it the next time it shows up on TCM.

Lisa Watches An Oscar Nominee: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dir by George Roy Hill)

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Should I start this post by ticking everyone off or should I start out by reviewing the 1969 best picture nominee Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid?

Let’s do the review first. I recently watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when it aired as a part of TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar. This was actually my third time to see the film on TCM. And, as I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the third time, I was shocked to discover how much I had forgotten about the film.

Don’t get me wrong. I remembered that it was a western and that it starred Paul Newman and Robert Redford as real-life outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I remembered that it opened and ended with sepia-toned sequences that suggested that Butch and Sundance represented the last gasp of the old west. I remembered that Butch won a fight by kicking a man in the balls. I also remembered that they robbed the same train twice and, the second time, they accidentally used too much dynamite. I remembered that, for some reason, Butch spent a lot of time riding around on a bicycle. I remembered that Butch and Sundance ended up getting chased by a mysterious posse. I remembered that Sundance could not swim. And I remembered that the film eventually ended on a tragic note in South America…

And I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “It sounds like you remembered the whole movie, Lisa!”

No, actually I did not. The thing with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is that the scenes that work are so memorable that it’s easy to forget that there’s also a lot of scenes that aren’t as memorable. These are the scenes where the film drags and you’re thankful that Paul Newman and Robert Redford were cast as Butch and Sundance, because their charisma helps you overlook a lot of scenes that are either too heavy-handed or which drag on for too long. You’re especially thankful for Newman, who plays every scene with a twinkle in his wonderful blue eyes and who is such a lively presence that it makes up for the fact that Redford’s performance occasionally crosses over from being stoic to wooden. It can be argued that there’s no logical reason for a western to feature an outlaw riding around on a bicycle while Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head plays on the soundtrack but Paul Newman’s so much fun to watch that you can forgive the film.

Newman and Redford both have so much chemistry that they’re always a joy to watch. And really, that’s the whole appeal of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the chance to watch two iconic actors have fun playing opposite each other. Even though Katharine Ross appears as their shared romantic interest, the film’s love story is ultimately between Butch and Sundance (and, by extension, Newman and Redford). You can find countless reviews that will give all the credit for the film’s appeal to William Goldman’s screenplay. (You can also find countless self-satisfied essays by William Goldman where he does the exact same thing.) But, honestly, the film’s screenplay is nothing special. This film works because of good, old-fashioned star power.

Now, for the part that’ll probably tick everyone off (heh heh), I think that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is actually a pretty good pick for a future remake. All you have to do is pick the right actors for Butch and Sundance. I’m thinking Chris Pratt as Butch and Chris Evans as Sundance…

Oh, c’mon! It’ll be great!