Music Video of the Day: Night Fever by Bee Gees (1978, dir by ????)

Posted on January 5, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seeing as how I’ve spent the first few days of 2022 sharing music videos for danceable hits of the 70s, you had to know that I was eventually going to get to this one. The name of the song is Night Fever and not, as is often incorrectly assumed, Saturday Night Fever. Saturday Night Fever was the movie for which this song was recorded. Night Fever indicates that the fever can hit any night, not just on a Saturday.

This video was apparently shot in 1978 but the Bee Gees didn’t release it until 2004. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps all of the seedy motels gave the wrong impression about what the band was singing about. Or maybe they just decided that John Travolta in that white suit was a better visual representation for what the Bee Gees were all about. I will note that the same year this video was produced, the Bee Gees appeared in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band so, obviously, they weren’t too concerned with looking slightly silly.

The video was shot in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Supposedly, most of these motels have since been torn down. That’s a shame as I think every resort town needs to have at least one strong row of seedy motels. When my family lived in Colorado, we lived just a block away from some of the seediest motels known to man and whenever we would go back to visit our cousins in Colorado, I would always make it a point to see if the motels were still there. They were. They probably still are. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Colorado.

Anyway, it’s a good song. If it doesn’t make you want to dance, I don’t know what to say. You may just not be a dancer. But it’s never too late to learn!

Enjoy!

Novel Review: The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If I may be allowed to open with a cliché: “You’ve seen the movie, now read the book!”

I ordered a copy of and read Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, The Power of the Dog, before the release of Jane Campion’s film adaptation. Hence, when I watched Campion’s film, I already knew about the Burbank Brothers, Bronco Henry, Rose, and Peter Gordon. Neither the film’s big twist nor the diabolically clever ending were quite as much of a shock to me as they apparently were for others, though both were still undeniably effective in both the book and the movie. Campion’s film sticks close to the plot of the book and visually, it captures Thomas Savage’s simple but effective prose.

In case you’ve yet to see the film or read the book, The Power of the Dog takes place in Montana in the 1920s. Phil and George Burbank are brothers. Ever since their parents retired, Phil and George have owned and managed the family ranch. The gentle and kind-natured George has spent almost his entire life allowing himself to be led around by Phil. Phil, meanwhile, has fully embraced the identity of being a tough cowboy and all of the myths that go along with it. He rarely bathes. He makes it a point to castrate all of the cattle personally. He seldom wears gloves, believing the all work should be done bare-handed. He’s dismissive of anyone who he believes has shown any sign of weakness. He’s a bully and a sadist but he’s also an Ivy League graduate who takes pride in his ability to quote Ovid in the original Latin. Phil is brutally dismissive of almost everyone. He only seems to truly care about his brother and the memory of his mentor, the mysterious Bronco Henry. When George meets and marries a widow named Rose, Phil can’t handle it. George is breaking free of Phil’s influence and Phil seeks revenge against Rose, psychologically tormenting her and driving her to drink. When Rose’s son, Peter, arrives at the ranch, Phil initially dismisses Peter as being weak. But, to Rose’s horror, Phil soon starts to take an interest in Peter….

Author Thomas Savage was born in Montana and grew up on his stepfather’s ranch. Savage later said that, much like Peter, he always felt like a misfit on the ranch. His stepfather was a man who was much like Phil Burbank while Savage felt a lot like Peter Gordon. Despite never feeling like he belonged, Savage was still able to use his early experiences as a ranch hand as the inspiration for his first published short stories. Savage went on to write several western novels, many of which dealt with dysfunctional ranch families. Though well-reviewed, The Power of the Dog was not a best seller when it was originally published and even the positive reviews often seemed to wilfully miss the subtext behind Phil’s homophobia and his devotion to the memory of Bronco Henry. In 1967, The Power of the Dog was ahead of its time.

Hopefully, with the release of Campion’s adaptation, the original novel will be read by an entirely new audience. As I mentioned earlier, Campion remains faithful to the book’s plot but there are a few elements in the original novel that will add to one’s understanding of the film. For instance, the book goes into more detail about the history and the culture of the town and it also goes into more details about the ranch’s dealings with the local Native tribes. Whereas both the film and the book present Phil as being a wilfully malicious agent of chaos, the book makes clear that Phil is also a creation of the culture in which he was raised. The book makes clear that, for all of his overt macho energy, Phil still feels like an outsider among even the ranch hands who worship him and that adds an element to his relationship with Peter that is only suggested at in the film.

Perhaps most importantly, the book devotes a chapter to the life of Rose’s first husband and the circumstances that led to his suicide. Rose’s first husband is a doctor who comes to Montana to try to help people but who is slowly destroyed by the town’s apathy. We learn of the argument that led to his suicide and, again, it adds an entirely new element to Phil and Peter’s relationship.

So, if you’ve seen the movie, read the book. Or read the book and then see the movie. They’re both excellent deconstructions of the mythology of the American west.

Film Review: East of the Mountains (dir by SJ Chiro)

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, a good film just sneaks up on you.

That was certainly the case with me and East of the Mountains, an independent film which came out last September. I have to admit that the film completely slipped past me when it was initially released. In fact, I didn’t even know that the film existed until it was nominated for Best Motion Picture Drama by the Satellite Awards in December. I wasn’t alone in that. I remember when the Satellite nominations were announced, there were a lot of people who looked at the list of nominees and, upon seeing an unfamiliar title mixed in with West Side Story, The Power of the Dog, and Don’t Look Up, said, “East of what?”

Because I’m always on the lookout for an overlooked gem, I rented East of the Mountains on Prime. I watched it yesterday. My initial reaction was that it was a well-made film, featuring both pretty scenery and an excellent lead performance from veteran actor Tom Skerritt. (Skerritt is also credited as being an executive producer on the film.) I appreciated that, in a time when so many film feels as if they’re at least ten minutes too long, East of the Mountains was a remarkably short film. It only needed 79 minutes to tell its simple but effective story and it didn’t waste a single one of them. At the time, I also thought that the film’s direction was perhaps a bit too low-key for the film to really work. I thought it was a good film but I also thought it was one that I would probably forget about in a day or two.

Instead, the opposite has happened. East of the Mountains has stuck with me. Even as I sit here typing, I can still picture the film’s final few scenes in my head. That’s the type of film that East of the Mountains is. It’s a film that sneaks up on its audience, capturing their attention so subtly that it’s not until several hours later that they realize that they’re still thinking about the film.

Based on a novel by David Guterson, East of the Mountains is a character study. Tom Skerritt plays Ben Givens. Ben is a retired doctor and a veteran of the Korean War. He lives in Seattle. His wife has passed away. He’s estranged from his brother. His daughter is busy with a family of her own. Ben’s only companion is his dog, Rex. When he tells his daughter (played by Mira Sorvino) that he’s planning on going bird hunting for the weekend, she’s concerned. She knows that her father has been depressed. She also knows that Ben has recently been diagnosed with cancer. Ben assures her that he just wants to see his “old stomping grounds” one last time but his daughter worries that Ben may be planning on never coming back.

She’s not wrong. Since we’ve already seen Ben pressing the barrel of a rifle against his forehead, we know that she has every reason to be concerned about his plans. Ben is considering ending it all, east of the mountains where he grew up, fell in love, and experienced his happiest moment. However, from the minute that Ben sets off on what he plans to be his final hunting trip, fate seems to be determined to keep him alive. After his SUV breaks down, he’s given a ride by a mountain climbing couple and their love reminds Ben of when he first met the woman who he would eventually marry. After a run-in with a half-crazed mountain man, Ben loses his prized rifle, the one that was given to him by his father and which Ben planned to use to end his own life. After an unexpected dog fights leads to Ben taking Rex to the local animal hospital, he meets a young veterinarian who can tell that Ben needs someone to talk to.

The plot is rather simple but Tom Skerritt’s performance brings the story a certain depth that it might not otherwise possess. It would be easy to sentimentalize a character like Ben or to portray him as being flawless. Instead, Skerritt plays Ben as someone who is genuinely well-meaning and naturally kid but who also can occasionally be a bit self-absorbed. Watching Ben, one can understand why his brother is estranged from him, which makes their eventual, if rather prickly reunion all the more poignant. (Ben’s brother is well-played by an actor named Wally Dalton. He and Skerritt play off of each other with such skill that it’s hard to believe that they actually aren’t brothers.) The viewer hopes that Ben will find what he needs to find in order to achieve some sort of peace for himself, even if Ben himself doesn’t always seem to be quite sure what that possibly mythical thing would be.

Skerritt’s performance here is comparable to Robert Redford’s turn in All Is Lost, with the main difference being that Ben is far more lost than even Reford’s unnamed sailor. However, much like the sailor in All is Lost, it’s impossible to look away from Ben’s journey. It’s also tempting to compare Skerritt’s performance to Rchard Farnsworth’s Oscar-nominated turn in David Lynch’s The Straight Story. (Indeed, the scene between Skerritt and Dalton is comparable to the final scene between Farnsworth and Harry Dean Stanton.) Much like Farnsworth in Lynch’s film, Tom Skerritt may move slowly but the viewer is always aware of his mind working.

East of the Mountains may sound like a depressing or heavy-handed film but actually it’s not. If anything, it’s life-affirming. The audience is right alongside Ben, learning with him that the world is not as terrible a place as he had convinced himself it was. In the end, the viewer cares about Ben and worries about what his ultimate fate will be. The film’s ending sneaks up on you and it stays with you afterwards.

There is one scene involving a dog fight that is difficult to watch but otherwise, East of the Mountains is a simple but poignant film that deserves more attention than it’s received.

Music Video of the Day: You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate (1975, dir by ????)

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, remember this song from the soundtrack of every single film that’s ever been made about the 70s?

You Sexy Thing is one of those songs that pretty much just epitomizes an era. I’ve heard it used in so many films that I like that I can’t help but smile whenever I hear the song, even though I find real-life catcallers to be totally creepy. Of course, the song itself is not actually about catcalling, no matter how much one might be tempted to go with that interpretation. Instead, singer Errol Brown wrote the song about his wife and how she made him feel. Supposedly, this was the first “happy” song that he ever wrote.

As I mentioned earlier, You Sexy Thing has become a soundtrack mainstay. During The Dundees episode of The Office, Michael played “You Sexy Thing” after announcing that Ryan the Temp had won “Hottest in the Office.” (I agree, by the way. BJ Novak’s adorable. Timothy Olyphant is adorable as well but there’s still no way Danny Cordray should have taken hottest in the office away from Ryan Howard.) It’s also appeared in films like Boogie Nights, Reservoir Dogs, Legally Blonde, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, and Duke Marvin’s All 70s Dance Party. Admittedly, the Duke Marvin film was never actually released but it’s still a classic to those of us who have seen it.

This video was shot for the UK’s Top of the Pops.

Enjoy and believe in miracles!

Scenes That I Love: The Ending of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(SPOILERS BELOW)

The final moments of Sergio Leone’s epic 1984 gangster film, Once Upon A Time in America, are filed with questions and mysteries.

In 1968, who did Noodles (played by Robert De Niro) see standing outside of Max’s mansion? When the garbage truck pulled up, did the mysterious man get in the truck or was he thrown in by some unseen force?

Why, in 1968, did Noodles see a car from the 1920s, one that was full of people who appeared to be celebrating the end of prohibition? Was the car really there, in 1968, or was it an element of Noodles’s past as a gangster suddenly popping into his mind?

When we then see a young Noodles in an opium den, are we flashing back to the 1920s? Is Noodles remembering the past or is it possible that we’ve been in the 20s the whole time and all of the scenes set in 1968 were actually only a drug-induced dream?

Why, with men looking to kill him and all of his friends apparently dead, does Noodles suddenly smile at the end of the film? Is that sudden smile a result of the drugs or is there something else going on?

Once Upon A Time In America was Sergio Leone’s final film. It’s one that he spent decades trying to get made and, once it was finally produced, it was butchered and re-edited by a studio hacks who demanded that the film tell its story in a linear style. Leone was reportedly heart-broken by how his film was treated. Some have speculated that his disappointment may have even contributed to the heart attack that eventually killed him. It was only after Leone passed that his version of Once Upon A Time In America became widely available in the U.S. This enigmatic epic continues to spark debate. One thing that can’t be denied is that it’s a brilliant film.

As today is Leone’s birthday, it only seems appropriate to share a scene that I love, the ending of Once Upon A Time In America.

Miniseries Review: The Last Don II (dir by Graeme Clifford)

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Clericuzio saga continues and it’s sillier than ever!

The Clericuzios were the Mob family who were first introduced in a Mario Puzo novel called The Last Don. In 1997, CBS turned The Last Don in a three-part miniseries. The ratings were good enough that, in 1999, the network gave the world a two-episode sequel, The Last Don II. The Last Don II was created without the input of Mario Puzo (who died shortly before the miniseries aired) but director Graeme Clifford returned, as did a few members of the cast.

For example, Danny Aiello briefly returns as the honorable but aging Don Domenico Clericuzio, talking about life in the old country and demanding to know why some of his children have yet to marry. Under his leadership, the Clericuzios are almost totally legit and they’ve even become powerful in Hollywood. Claudia De Lena (Michelle Burke) is in charge of the family’s film studio and has recently become engaged to a film star named Dirk Von Schelburg (Andrew Jackson, trying to do an Arnie impersonation but coming across more like Jean-Claude Van Damme). Still, despite the fact that the Clericuzios are (slowly) abandoning organized crime, they haven’t completely cut their ties. They still have enemies. And when Don Clericuzio dies after dancing at his final birthday party, those enemies are set to strike.

Who can run the Clericuzio family? Only one of the Don’s son was actively involved in the underworld aspect of the organization and he’s promptly (and, to be honest, hilariously) crushed when someone drops a shipping crate on him. Another Clericuzio son is gunned down at his legitimate business, proving that someone is trying to take out the entire family, regardless of whether they’re a part of the family business or not. Georgio Clericuzio (David Marciano) goes to Paris and tires to convince Claudia’s brother, Cross (Jason Gedrick), to return from exile to take things over. Cross refuses because he’s happily married to the most famous actress in the world, the improbably named Athena Aquataine (Mo Kelso, replacing Daryl Hannah in the role). However, Athena is subsequently blown up by a bomb that was meant for Cross and that’s all it takes to bring Cross back to America.

Now that Cross is in charge, he sets about to discover who, among the other Families, is targeting the Clericuzios. Helping him out with this is Billy D’Angelo (James Wilder), who we are told is the the most important of the Clericuzios capos, despite the fact that he was neither seen nor mentioned in the previous Last Don. It seems pretty obvious from the start that Billy is not to be trusted. Everyone who has ever seen The Godfather will automatically look at Billy and say, “There’s your rat.” But Cross is a remarkably naïve crime lord. He’s apparently the only guy in the Mafia who has never seen a Mafia movie.

Of course, there’s more going on than just Cross trying to figure out who is targeting the Clericuzio family. His unstable aunt, Rose Marie (Kirstie Alley), wants revenge for the murder of her son Dante but, fortunately, she’s distracted by an affair with the family’s priest (Jason Isaacs, of all people). Disgraced former studio exec Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl) is plotting against Claudia. And finally, Cross is falling in love with his stepdaughter’s nanny (Patsy Kensit) despite the fact that it’s kind of obvious that the nanny is actually an undercover FBI agent. Remember what I said about Cross being impossibly naïve?

The Last Don was a fairly silly miniseries. The Last Don 2 is even sillier but, for that every reason, it’s also a bit more entertaining. If the first Last Don was held together by the rivalry between Cross and Dante, the sequel is held together by a nonstop flow of melodrama, overheated dialogue, and thoroughly unsubtle acting. It’s as if the director looked at every over-the-top scene and said, “It’s okay but can we turn things up just a little bit more?” As such, tt’s not enough for Danny Aiello to merely make a cameo before his character dies. Instead, he has to deliver cryptic words of wisdom about family and and honor and he has to do one final, Zorbaesque dance of joy before his heart gives out. Meanwhile, Kirstie Alley really throws herself into playing the insane Rose Marie and whether she’s seducing a priest or hoarsely yelling that she doesn’t know how to ice skate, her performance is always more than strange enough to be watchable. Jason Isaacs, meanwhile, furrows his brow desperately as he tries to resist temptation. Patsy Kensit is the world’s worst FBI agent while Kim Coates shows up as one of her colleagues. Conrad Dunn returns as Lia, the Sicilian assassin with the world’s silliest mustache. Even the presence of Robert Wuhl is less of a problem in the sequel. With everyone chewing up every piece of scenery that they can get their hands on, it somehow makes sense that Robert Wuhl would show up and start yelling, “DON’T LAUGH AT ME!” Somehow, it even seems appropriate that Joe Mantegna receives a “special appearance” credit, even though his character pretty much only appears in the archival footage used during the opening credits. The Last Don II is just that type of miniseries.

Jason Gedrick and James Wilder are both good actors and they both do what they can with the roles of Cross and Billy. Unfortunately, both of them were seriously miscast in The Last Don 2. Neither one of them is the least bit Italian and Wilder was a bit too young to be convincing as the most feared capo in the family. Compared to the classic gangster films that inspired them, both The Last Don and its sequel feels more like gangster cosplay than an actual portrait of life as a member of the Cosa Nostra. Like the first Last Don, The Last Don II suffers from a lack of authenticity but it’s just ludicrous enough to be fun.

What Could Have Been: The Godfather Part III

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If only Tom Hagen had returned….

Recently, when asked about The Godfather Part III‘s somewhat lackluster reputation, director Francis Ford Coppola said that the biggest mistake that Paramount made was refusing to meet Robert Duvall’s salary demands. While Duvall wasn’t demanding to be paid as much as Al Pacino, he still felt that their salaries should be “comparable.” Paramount, who had already gone through a lot of protracted negotiations to get Coppola, Pacino, and Diane Keaton to agree to do the film, disagreed. Originally, Coppola had planned for Duvall’s Tom Hagen to be a major part of Godfather Part III. When Duvall refused to return, the film had to be reimagined.

Coppola’s right. There’s a lot that I do like about The Godfather Part III but it’s undoubtedly a flawed film. (It’s a good gangster film but it never feels like a worthy follow-up to the films that came before it.) And one of the major problems with the film is that Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone doesn’t have anyone with whom he can really confide. Kay (Diane Keaton) holds him at arm’s length for most of the film. Connie (Talia Shire) is too busy scheming and plotting on her own. The rest of the family — Mary (Sofia Coppola), Vincent (Andy Garcia), and Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) — are too young to truly understand the sins of the past. If Tom Hagen had been in the film, Michael would have had someone to whom he could relate. He would have had an equal. Hagen’s absence is felt far more than Paramount expected it would be. They should have paid Duvall his five million.

(For his part, Duvall has defended his salary demands by saying that the only reason anyone was making Godfather Part III was for the money so why shouldn’t he get paid? And again, Duvall has a point….)

Salud, you bastards.

Of course, for a long time, it seemed like The Godfather Part III would never be made. After The Godfather Part II swept the 1974 Academy Awards and proved wrong everyone who felt that it would fail, Paramount wanted a sequel. The only problem was that Coppola and Pacino both said they wouldn’t return. And, after Coppola disappeared into the jungle for several years and reportedly went mad directing Apocalypse Now, Paramount wasn’t quite sure that they wanted him to return either.

As unthinkable as it may seem now, it was originally quite probable that The Godfather Part III would have featured neither Pacino nor Coppola. Between 1975 and 1988, several different scripts and treatments were written for a possible Part III. Many of them opened with Michael either dying or already dead and his son, Anthony, taking over the family business. Several of the scripts imagined Sonny’s son, Santino, waging war against Anthony and Tom Hagen (yep, Tom again) being forced to take a side. In the 70s, many of the scripts featured the Mafia working with the CIA to take out Castro and there were more than few that suggested the Corleones were responsible for the Kennedy assassinations. As the 70s gave way to the 80s, the scripts started to deal with the Corleones getting involved in the drug trade and going to war with the South American drug cartels. Think of it as The Godfather vs. Scarface, which would have actually been an intereting concept if they could have gotten Al Pacino to return as both Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. These scripts all reflected the concerns of the time in which they were written but, reportedly, none of them felt like a Godfather movie. The idea that The Godfather was meant to be the story of a family as much as a story about organized crime was frequently missed by those who tried to stop into the shoes of Coppola and Puzo.

Over the years, with Coppola saying that he wouldn’t return under any circumstances, Paramount considered a lot of different directors as a successor. Among those who were considered over the years: Martin Scorsese, Costa-Gavras, James Bridges, Robert Benton, Michael Mann, Philip Kaufman, Alan Pakula, Warren Beatty, Sidney Lumet, Lewis Carlino, and Michael Cimino. (Scorsese seems like the obvious choice out of that list but, personally, I would love to see what Michael Mann would have done with the Corleones.) Sylvester Stallone was also apparently interested in both directing and playing the role of Anthony Corleone. (John Travolta, whom Stallone directed in Staying Alive, was another frequently mentioned Anthony.) It probably came closer to happening than most people are willing to admit.

Still, it wasn’t until 1989 that The Godfather Part III finally went into production and, as Duvall said, it was all for the money. Paramount needed money. Pacino needed money. Coppola, after a string of flops and several financial setbacks, definitely needed the money. Coppola wanted to present the film as being an “epilogue” as opposed to a direct sequel. Paramount was probably correct when they argued that people don’t pay money to watch epilogues. They pay money for sequels.

The eventual script, by Coppola and Mario Puzo, focused on the forbidden relationship between Sonny’s illegitimate son, Vincent, and Michael’s daughter, Mary. As written, Mary was supposed to be 23 years old and savvy about the ways of the Corleone family. Vincent, meanwhile, was a 31 year-old, out-of-control street criminal who, under Michael’s tutelage, became a refined gangster over the course of the film. We all know that Vincent was eventually played by Andy Garcia while 18 year-old Sofia Coppola was cast, at the last minute, as Mary. For all the criticism that Francis Ford Coppola took for casting his inexperienced daughter in a role that she was too young for, just imagine the critical reaction if Coppola had followed Paramount’s wishes and cast Madonna.

Yes, Madonna was Paramount’s suggestion for Mary and Coppola was interested enough to film a screen test with her. Acting opposite of Madonna was Robert De Niro, who was interested in playing Vincent! Though De Niro was in his 40s, he argued that he could still pass for 31 and, having played Vito in Part II, De Niro was intrigued with the idea of playing his own grandson. However, the screen tests did not convince anyone. Both Madonna and De Niro were determined to be too old for the roles. De Niro went on to do Goodfellas and The Awakening instead.

The first choice for Vincent was reportedly Alec Baldwin but, for reasons unknown, Baldwin turned down the role. (Baldwin was also an early possibility for Henry Hill in Goodfellas.) Matt Dillon, Vincent Spano, Kevin Anderson, and Luke Perry all tested for the role. Val Kilmer, Nicolas Cage, Charlie Sheen, and Billy Zane were all considered at one point or another. The studio pushed Coppola to pick Tom Cruise. In the end, Coppola went with Andy Garcia. Garcia received his only Oscar nomination for playing Vincent and his performance is one of the highlights of the film. Still, Nicolas Cage as Vincent is a fascinating idea.

With Madonna out of the running, Coppola offered the role of Mary to Julia Roberts but Roberts was committed to Pretty Woman. A television actress named Rebecca Schaeffer was also highly considered but she was shot and killed by an obsessed fan on the same night that she received the script. Bridget Fonda, Linda Fiorentino, Laura San Giacomo, Annabella Sciorra, and Trini Alvarado were all considered but, in the end, Winona Ryder was selected for the role. Ryder flew out to Rome to do the film and there’s some debate as to what happened next. Ryder has said that she arrived in Italy exhausted after having done two previous films back-to-back. Other reports have said that Ryder had a nervous breakdown in Rome. Either way, her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp, requested that she leave the film and return to the States and Ryder did just that.

Reportedly, after Ryder left the film, the role was again offered to Julia Roberts and Roberts again turned it down to focus on Pretty Woman. At the time, Sofia Coppola happened to be visiting her father in Rome. Sofia had done a little modeling and had appeared in a few of her father’s films, always in small roles. She had also co-written her father’s segment of New York Stories. Francis announced that Sofia would be playing Mary and, with the studio desperate for The Godfather Part III to be ready in time for a Christmas release in 1990, Paramount had little choice but to go along. The role was rewritten for Sofia. Mary became a far more innocent and naïve character, sometimes to the point of implausibility. Sofia, who is one of my favorite directors, has taken a lot of criticism for her performance over the years. Personally, I think she was pushed into a no-win situation. She was an inexperienced actress, stuck with a hastily rewritten character and all the worst lines. Plus, making out with Andy Garcia while her Dad watched from a few feet away had to be awkward. On the plus side, Sofia’s hair was very pretty in Godfather Part III.

As for the rest of the cast, Joe Spinell was originally meant to return as Willi Cicci but Spinnel died before filming began. Cicci’s character was transformed into Joey Zasa, New York’s best-dressed gangster. Dennis Farina, Mickey Rourke, and John Turturro were all considered for Zasa. The role went to Joe Mantegna, who had a lot of fun with the part. I’ve always felt one of Part III’s biggest mistakes was killing of Joey Zasa too early in the film. None of the film’s other villain quite have Zasa’s style.

Virginia Madsen and Diane Lane wee both considered for the role of Grace Hamilton, the photojournalist who has a memorable one night stand with Vincent. After it was decided that she wouldn’t play Mary, Madonna was also briefly considered. In the end, the role went to another potential Mary, Bridget Fonda.

For Archbishop Gilday, the corrupt Vatican banker, many international stars were considered. Presumably, Gilday’s nationality would have changed depending on who got the role. Vittorio Gassman, Phillipe Noiret, Gian Maria Volonte, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni, and Albert Finney were all possibilities before the role went to Donal Donnelly.

Many of those who were considered for the Archbishop were also considered for the role of Pope John Paul I. Vittorio Gassman, Yves Montand, and Michel Piccoli were all considered. The role went to Raf Vallone, who was also considered for the role of Don Vito in the first Godfather.

Finally, there was Don Altobello. Altobello was the latest former Corleone ally to try to betray Michael. Frank Sinatra, whose offense at being used as the model for Johnny Fontane in Part One was legendary, was reportedly interested in the role. Timothy Carey, who was considered for both Luca Brasi and Hyman Roth in Parts One and Two, was a possibility until he suffered a stroke. In the end, Coppola went with Eli Wallach.

As for Tom Hagen, he was gone. He was written out of the film and described as having died off-screen. However, Coppola brought in a replacement lawyer. B.J. Harrison was played by George Hamilton. Unfortunately, Harrison was never as close to Michael as Hagen had been. It’s a shame because Godfather Part III definitely could have used a bit more George Hamilton.

Godfather Part III was released in December of 1990. It did well at the box office. It received a number of Oscar nominations. As a film, The Godfather Part III is heavily flawed but, when it works, it really does work. It may not live up to the standard set by the first two Godfathers but then again, what does? I recently watched Coppola’s re-edit of Part Three, the Godfather Coda. It actually is an improvement. There aren’t any added scenes but the new version does considerably tighten up the film’s pace. The opera at the end no longer drags on forever. Godfather Part III may not be great but it’s not terrible, either. It’s better than it’s reputation.

Still, it’s hard not to wonder what could have been. If only Tom Hagen had come back….

Book Review: Monster: Living Off The Big Screen by John Gregory Dunne

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1997, Monster is a memoir about working in Hollywood. It follows eight years in the life of John Gregory Dunne (who wrote the book) and his wife, Joan Didion. While Dunne (who passed in 2003) and Didion (who passed away a few weeks ago) were best-known as essayists and novelists, they also had a hand in writing a number of films. As such, it shouldn’t be surprising that, along with being a portrait of Hollywood, Monster is also the story of the making of one particular film.

That said, Monster is not the story of the making of a great film.

It’s also not the story of the making of a terrible film.

Instead, it’s the story of the making of a thoroughly mediocre and forgettable film. The film in question is Up Close and Personal, which still pops up on HBO occasionally. Up Close and Personal tells the story of a self-righteous news producer — a gentleman with the laughable name of of Warren Justice — who finds and grooms an aspiring reporter named Tally (Michelle Pfeiffer). While Warren (played by Robert Redford) teaches her how to work the camera and deliver the news, they fall in love. Then Tally’s career skyrockets, Warren’s career goes downhill, and eventually Warren ends up dying. Boo hoo.

Monster tells the story of how Dunne and Didion were originally hired to adapt a biography of Jessica Savitch, a real-life anchorwoman who eventually got hooked on cocaine, who was physically abused by her mentor, and who eventually ended up dying in a car crash. Realizing that real life might be too depressing to generate a hit film, the executives at Disney instead decided that they wanted Dunne and Didion to turn Savitch’s Hellish life story into a sentimental romance. The drug abuse was dropped. Savitch’s death was abandoned. Her abusive boyfriend was transformed into the saintly character of — snicker — Warren Justice.

(Dunne actually devotes a good deal of space to explaining why they named the character Warren Justice. Warren was a good “everyman” name and Dunne was apparently under the belief that Justice was a common surname in the South because he knew someone from Florida whose last name was Justice. The logic is understandable, if flawed. I’ve lived in the South almost my entire life and I’ve never met anyone named Justice. Still, writers of Dunne and Didion’s caliber should have known better than to try to get away with such an easily mocked name.)

For eight years, Dunne and Didion write and rewrite Up Close and Personal and, along the way, a large number of Hollywood figures are attached to the film. Ultimately, it’s directed by a fellow named Jon Avent, who were told has a strong ego. Actually, the entire book is full of people who have strong egos. Scott Rudin, for example, is in the book, demanding that that Dunne and Didion focus on appealing to as wide an audience as possible. “It’s about two movie stars,” Rudin explains when Dunne worries that the film doesn’t actually have anything to say.

While Up Close and Personal is going through the pains of production, Dunne and Didion work on a number of other studio films, few of which come to production and none of which sound like they would have been particularly good had they been produced. Ultimatum is a thriller about a terrorist plot. Dunne and Didion correctly realize that the title needs to be changed to something less generic but their proposed replacement, Ploot, sounds like the title for a film about a flatulent goblin. A bit more intriguing is their attempt to write a serious movie about aliens for the infamous producer Don Simpson. Simpson comes across as being savvy but unfocused, which is actually a pretty good description of just about everyone in the book. The Hollywood of Monster is a town and an industry controlled by former outsiders who are determined to reinvent themselves as tough guys.

And Dunne did a pretty good job of capturing the town. The book is written with a dry wit and, as acidic as many of the passages are, Dunne doesn’t let himself off the hook. He’s as open about his role in the making of a thoroughly forgettable film as he is about everyone else’s role. There’s little concern for art or higher truth to be found in Dunne’s Hollywood. Instead, the entire town is a monster.

It’s a good book and a memorable portrait of the American film industry in the 1990s.

Film Review: Monster (dir by Patty Jenkins)

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Aileen Wurnos was often described as being America’s first female serial killer.

Wurnos was born in 1956, in Rochester, Michigan. From the start, her life was a mess. Her father was both a diagnosed schizophernic and a sex offender who was incarcerated when Aileen was born and who hung himself in his jail cell when Aileen was 13. (Aileen reportedly never met him.) Aileeen’s mother abandoned her children when Aileen was four, leaving Aileen and her younger brother to be raised by their alcoholic grandparents. Aileen later said that she was regularly beaten by both grandparents and sexually abused by her grandfather. Aileen also said that she spent her youth dreaming of being famous and being loved, like Marilyn Monroe.

By the time she was eleven, Aileen was already having sex in return for food, cigarettes, and drugs. She was pregnant at 14, which she later said was the result of being raped by a friend of her grandfather’s. She gave up her son for adoption and dropped out of school when she was 15, the same year that her grandmother died of live failure. Kicked out of the house shortly afterwards, Aileen survived through sex work and lived a semi-nomadic existence. While other people her age were starting high school and looking forward to the future, Aileen was living in the woods and going for days without food.

By 1976, she had hitchhiked her way down to Florida and her life briefly seemed to turn around when she met and married a wealthy 69 year-old man named Lewis Fell. Fell was president of a yacht club and prominent enough that his marriage to Aileen was announced in the society pages. That marriage didn’t last, however. Aileen was arrested and served with a restraining order for reportedly beating Fell in much the same way that she later said her grandfather beat her. They were divorced within weeks and, for the next 13 years, Aileen’s life consisted of one arrest after another. She returned to sex work, hitchhiking on the highways. With her looks fading due to her lifestyle, Aileen resorted to carrying around a picture of her adopted sister’s children, showing it to potential customers and telling them that she needed money so that she could go to Miami and be with them, in an attempt to play on her customer’s sympathy. Wurnos was repeatedly raped and beaten by the men who picked her up. By the time she came to fame, she was suffering from PTSD and, in her own words, hated the world and men especially.

Wurnos shot and killed at least seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990. At her trial, she claimed that every shooting was self-defense. She said that she had been raped and nearly killed by her first victim, who had previously be arrested for rape. She went on to say that all of her subsequent victims had been planning on raping but sh shot them first. Once she was on death row and waiting to be executed, she changed her story several times and said that only the first of the shootings was in self-defense and that the rest were simple robberies. The men, she explained, picked her up. She took their money and then she shot them because she didn’t want them reporting her to the police. Of course, she then later told documentarian Nick Broomfield that all of the killings actually were self-defense but that she changed her story because she hated Death Row and she was eager to die. There were a lot of stories when it came to Wurnos and determining what was true was often difficult.

That said, while Wurnos was undoubtedly a female serial killer, I doubt that she was our first. It depends on what you consider a serial killer to be, with some FBI profilers claiming that Wurnos was unique in that she eventually grew to enjoy killing and that she set out each night looking for someone to kill. That said, throughout history, there have been stories about women who married and murdered multiple men, the infamous black widows. Between 1884 and 1908, Belle Gunness murdered at least 14 people in Illinois and Minnesota. Working with her boyfriend, Martha Beck murdered an estimated 20 people in the late 40s. If so inclined, one could go all the way back to ancient Rome and read about the poisoner Lucasta, whose victims reportedly included at least one emperor.

So, no, Aileen Wurnos was not the first female serial killer but she was the first one to come to prominence after the term was coined. She was the first well-known female serial killer of the post-Ted Bundy era. And because she also committed her crimes at the dawn of the 24-hour media cycle, she achieved a level of fame that was denied to Gunness, Beck, and even Lucasta. Aileen held press conferences as she waited for her execution date. She made the news by alternatively praising and cursing the people who had arrested her and sent her to Death Row. She yelled at judges and threatened reporters. She was, for lack of a better term, good television. She became an icon to some, a sex worker who turned the tables on the potential killers who picked her up. She was also the subject of two documentaries from Nick Broomfield.

That was how I first found out about her. 2003’s Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer used to air on HBO frequently. The film followed the final days of Wurnos’s life and featured an interview with her in which she went from being surprisingly lucid and articulate to being frighteningly unhinged. While a sympathetic Broomfield tried to get her to discuss the circumstances that led to her committing the murders, Wurnos ranted about how the prison was using “sonic pressure” to control her mind. In 2002, when Wurnos was executed, her last words were to compare herself to the “mother ship” from Independence Day and to promise that she would return. With her wild eyes, rotting teeth, and unpredictable anger, Wurnos was frightening but, at the same time, there were brief moments of clarity where Wurnos seemed to understand the gravity of both what she had done and her current situation.

The same year that Broomfield released his documentary and a year after Wurnos was executed, a film called Monster was released. The feature directorial debut of Petty Jenkins, Monster starred Charlize Theron as Aileen Wurnos. Theron, who also signed on as a co-producer, would win her first Oscar for her performance as Wurnos and, indeed, when the film was first released, the majority of the attention centered on how the glamorous Theron transformed herself into the not-so glamorous Aileen Wurnos. Theron famously gained weight and wore prosthetic teeth in order to resemble Wurnos but, as anyone who has seen Broomfield’s documentaries can tell you, she also captured Wurnos’s odd speech patterns and her jittery physical movements. Theron perfectly recreated Wurnos’s trademark wide smile, which somehow managed to be both vulnerable and menacing at the same time. Theron deserved the praise that she got for her performance and she certainly deserved to win that Oscar. And yet, so much attention was paid to Theron’s performance and her physical transformation, that the overall film itself was a bit overshadowed. Along with being one of the saddest films ever made, Monster is a portrait of life on the fringes and of existence in the shadows of conventional American society.

The film opens with Wurnos siting underneath a highway overpass and staring down at a loaded gun, debating whether or not she should just end it all. Occasionally, she provides narration, discussing how she eventually came to find herself homeless and struggling to survive. Her narration frequently switches from being insightful and darkly comedic to being angry and bitter, often in the same sentence. Deciding not to kill herself, she instead goes to a gay bar when she meets another outsider, Selby Wall (Christina Ricci). Selby awkwardly flirts, telling Aileen that she’s the most beautiful woman in the bar. Aileen replies that she’s “not into women.” (Of course, she also lies and claims that she’s only in the bar because her truck broke down and she’s just waiting for a ride.) Yet, before long, Selby and Aileen are in love.

Selby was a heavily fictionalized version of Aileen’s real girlfriend, who didn’t want to have anything to do with Monster and who requested that her real name not be used in the film. In the film’s reimagining of the story, Selby has been exiled to Florida from Ohio, rejected by her religious father. Selby lives with her homophobic aunt but yearns for escape. That’s what Aileen provides for her and, to an extent, Selby provides the same thing to Aileen. There’s an unexpected sweetness to the early scenes between Aileen and Selby, albeit a sweetness that it continually undercut by the fact that we know we’re watching a movie about a serial killer. We watch as they go roller skating together and as they share their first kiss afterwards. We watch as they run off together and as they get their first place together and yet, at the same time, we also watch as Selby pressures Aileen to continue “hooking” so that Aileen will have enough money to support the two of them. As played by Ricci, Selby is a character about whom many viewers will have mixed feelings. When she first appears, it’s hard not to have sympathy for her. She seems to be a naïve outsider. But, as the film continues, she sometimes reveals herself to be just as manipulative as Aileen. Selby may claim to be shocked when she discovers that Aileen has been killing and robbing the men who pick her up but, just like Aileen, we don’t quite buy it. Selby knew what was going on, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it to herself.

In the film, Aileen’s first murder is presented as having been committed in self-defense. The man is a rapist and a sadist and was clearly planning to kill Aileen once he was done with her. Again, as portrayed in both the film and Wurnos’s version of events, he unquestionably got what he deserved. With one notable exception, Aileen’s subsequent murders are presented a bit more ambiguously. The majority of the men that Aileen meets are threatening, even if she shoots most of them before they get a chance to try anything. One can understand why some felt that the film was a bit too sympathetic to Aileen while, at the same time, also acknowledging that the men who would pick up a hitchhiker and expect sex in return are not exactly going to be the greatest group of guys.

Only Aileen’s final victim is presented as being a sympathetic figure. Played by the great Scott Wilson, he picks up Aileen just to get her out of the rain, refuses her offer of sex, and says that he and his wife would be willing to help her get to wherever she needs to go. He picks Aileen up for her own safety but, when Aileen tries to get out of the car, he sees her gun and Aileen kills him to keep him quiet. It’s a powerful scene, brilliantly acted by both Theron and Wilson and it’s hard to watch. (It’s also debatable whether or not it actually happened, which is the danger when it comes to making a movie about someone like Aileen Wurnos.) It’s this scene that shows how far Wurnos has gone. “You don’t need to do this,” he tells her and Wurnos knows that he’s right but, by this point, she’s beyond going back.

The only other truly and unconditionally kind character in the film is Thomas (Bruce Dern), a former biker who allows Aileen to keep her things in his storage locker and who is perhaps the only character to really care about Aileen as a human being. (Even Selby mostly views Aileen as a way to escape her current life.) Thomas is a Vietnam vet, one who suffers from PTSD and who, as a result, understands Aileen’s anger and mood swings. Dern doesn’t get a lot of screen time but he’s a welcome presence whenever he shows up. In the end, though, Aileen knows that even Thomas’s kindness can’t save her from what’s going to happen.

As I said before, it’s a sad film. It’s always watchable because Theron, Ricci, and Dern all give such good performances but it’s still a film that’ll leave you shaken. It’s a trip to the fringes, the corners of existence where there are no exits beyond death. Those who have criticized the film for taking Wurnos at her word do have a point but, at the same time, Theron is often as frightening as she is sympathetic. The viewer may understand why Wurnos does what she does but they still would not want Wurnos anywhere near them. I imagine that, for every viewer who sympathizes with Wurnos, an equal number will breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that Wurnos was subsequently executed by the state of Florida. Myself, I’ve always been against the death penalty, regardless of who is sitting on death row or what their motives may have been. At the same time, I can understand why others support it. It’s a frightening world and the death penalty allows people to feel that there are consequences for committing the worst of crimes.

Monster was a critical and, somewhat surprisingly, a commercial hit. Theron won an Oscar and proved herself to be a serious actress. (One doubts Theron would have ever played Furiosa if she hadn’t first played Aileen Wurnos.) Though Patty Jenkins were struggle to get several other projects going, it wasn’t until 2017 that she would make a second film. That film, of course, would be Wonder Woman, a film that was as joyous as Monster was dark.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #219: Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style (dir by Don Barnhart)

Posted on January 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday evening, I watched the 1992 made-for-TV movie, Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style!

Why Was I Watching It?

Eh. It was on Netflix. I was thinking about all of the fun that I had when I visited Hawaii. I had just posted my review of Dustin Diamond’s Behind The Bell and I was feeling a little guilty about some of the things I wrote about him. I saw the film was available to watch and I thought, “Why not?”

What Was It About?

The Saved By The Bell gang is spending their summer vacation in Hawaii! Kelly’s grandfather (played by “special guest star” Dean Jones) owns a hotel but …. uh-oh! It looks like the hotel is going to go out of business unless Zack and the gang can fool a bunch of principals (led by their principal, Mr. Belding) to check in.

Along with trying to save the hotel, each member of the Gang gets an adventure of their own!

Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) falls for a single mother (Rena Sofer), who has a rich boyfriend who owns a limo. Zack thinks the guy is shallow and is unimpressed with his wealth. Zack Morris, class warrior? Whatever.

Kelly (Tiffani-Amber Theissen) falls for her grandfather’s lawyer, not knowing that he’s actually working for the rival hotel.

Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) and Slater (Mario Lopez) try to spend the entire vacation without fighting.

Lisa (Lark Voorhies) makes a bet that Jessie and Slater can’t spend the entire vacation without fighting.

And Screech (Dustin Diamond) is mistaken for a deity by a Polynesian tribe.

Wait, what?

What Did Not Work?

It’s Saved By The Bell …. without a laugh track!

Unfortunately, Saved By The Bell was one of those shows that really needed a laugh track because, without the sound of an audience being ordered to laugh, it becomes next to impossible to ignore just how lame most of the jokes are. Though the cast of Saved By The Bell featured a few talented actors, every single one of them still delivers their Hawaiian Style lines as if they’re waiting for the laughter that never comes. As a result, every “laugh line” is followed by an awkward pause.

As for the show’s plot …. well, let’s put it like this. Traditionally, I start out these posts by discussing what worked before then discussing what didn’t. However, so little works with Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style that I felt like it was best to get all of the negative stuff out of the way early. While Saved By The Bell always required a healthy suspension of disbelief, Hawaiian Style abuses the privilege. Saved By The Bell Hawaiian Style asks us to believe the following:

Kelly would be allowed to travel all the way to Hawaii without her parents.
She would be allowed to take along all of her friends, who would also be traveling without parents.
Screech would somehow be invited, despite the fact that no one in the group seems to like him.
Somehow, their high school principal would also turn up in Hawaii at the exact same time.
A single mother would dump her rich boyfriend for a high school junior.
Screech would be mistaken for a Hawaiian God.

Of course, I guess some would say that we should be happy that the Gang was around to save the day but it’s hard not to notice that all of Zack’s schemes are dependent upon some terrible lie. As well, I have to wonder if it was really worth all the trouble to save Kelly’s grandfather’s hotel. I mean, maybe the guy just wasn’t a very good businessman. I would probably be annoyed if I was on vacation in Hawaii with my friends and I was told that I would be spending the entire time working because some guy who was 50 years older than me couldn’t figure out how to balance the books.

This movie apparently aired on primetime television. I wonder how viewers who didn’t know about Saved By The Bell felt when they came across it.

What Worked?

As bad as it was, it was also Saved By The Bell and, as a result, it did have some nostalgic appeal to it. After the movie aired, Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style was sold into syndication as four regular episodes of Saved By The Bell and I can still remember seeing them on whatever channel Saved By The Bell was airing on at the time and thinking to myself, “What the Hell?”

The film was shot on location so, needless to say, the scenery was lovely. Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley had a few fun moments as Slater and Jessie tried to go the entire trip without fighting. There were small pleasures to be found. Very small.

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

When I was seventeen, I spent the summer in Hawaii with my mom and my sisters. It was a lot of fun. Though I don’t swim, I still had a lot of fun laying out on the beach. Hawaii is one of the most incredibly beautiful places that I’ve ever seen. I would sneak out at the hotel at night and then marvel at the scenery during the day. It was one of my favorite summers. Of course, I also didn’t have to spend my vacation helping a bad businessman save his resort. That helped.

Lessons Learned

Apparently, I’ll watch anything.