Horror Film Review: All The Kind Strangers (dir by Burt Kennedy)

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1974 made-for-television movie opens with photojournalist Jimmy Wheeler (Stacy Keach) driving down an isolated country road. He’s driving across America, heading towards California. However, when he sees a young child walking on the side of the road and struggling to carry two bags of groceries, Jimmy pulls over and offers the child a ride.

That’s a big mistake. As Jimmy soon discovers, the child lives on an isolated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. He resides with his six brothers and sisters. The family is led by Peter (John Savage), the oldest sibling. Jimmy discover that there’s only one other adult on the farm. The children refer to her as being their mom and Carol Ann (Samantha Eggar) certainly does seem to be busy, cooking dinner and keeping the house clean. It’s only when the children leave the kitchen that Carol Ann finally tells Jimmy the truth. She’s not related to the children. Instead, she is someone who made the same mistake that Jimmy did. She gave one of the kids a ride home and she’s never been allowed to leave.

It turns out that the children’s parents died a few years ago but, because the family lives so far away from town, no one has ever noticed. Peter has been in charge of the family but he’s reaching the point where he no longer wants to spend his entire life on the farm. He wants to experience Mardi Gras and then visit California. So, Peter has been sending out the children to tempt random adults to come to the house, where Peter auditions them to see if they would be good parents. Peter has decided that Carol Ann can be the mother. Now, he just needs to find someone to serve as the father.

Jimmy seems like a good candidates, except for the fact that he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in the middle of nowhere and raising a bunch of odd children. Unfortunately, Jimmy soon discovers that it won’t be easy to escape. The farm is guarded by a pack of dogs and Peter has a way of taking care of all the kind strangers who fail their audition….

Even though it’s only 75 minutes long, All The Kind Strangers is a bit of a slow film and often, it seems like it can’t decide whether it wants to be a straight horror film or a family melodrama. Add to that, one of the kids is played Robby Benson, who showed up in a lot of 70s films, always playing awkward teenagers. Benson gives such a bizarrely over the top performance that it’s hard to take him or any situation in which he’s involved seriously. (Benson also sings the film’s easy listening theme song.) That said, the film still manages to create and maintain an effectively creepy atmosphere and Stacy Keach, Samantha Eggar, and John Savage all give good performances. The fact that the kids aren’t evil as much as they’re incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions actually serves to make them even creepier than the typical demented children who appear in films like this.

All The Kind Strangers has its moments, even if it doesn’t make a huge impression.

Retro Television Review: The Death of Richie (dir by Paul Wendkos)

Posted on September 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1977’s The Death of Richie. It can be viewed on YouTube!

It’s not a spoiler to tell you that this film ends with the death of a teenager named Richie. It’s right there in the title. We start the film knowing that Richie is going to die. The only question is how it’s going to happen and who, if anyone, is going to be held responsible for it.

Played by Robby Benson, Richie Werner is a sensitive teenager living in the suburbs. He’s painfully shy and he deals with that shyness by taking the drugs that are supplied to him by friends like Brick (Charles Fleischer) and Peanuts (Clint Howard, yes that Clint Howard). His parents, George (Ben Gazzara) and Carol (Eileen Brennan), knows that Richie is struggling with both drugs and school. However, neither one of them have a clue as to how to help him. Carol spends most of the film silently hoping that things will somehow just magically get better. Meanwhile, George can’t understand his son and, even worse, he makes no attempt to understand him. George holds back his feelings and he’s obviously uncomfortable with his emotional son. George is the type who retreats to his basement when he needs to get away from the world and yet, he can’t understand why his son needs a similar sanctuary. When he discovers that Richie has set up a mini-bedroom in his closet, George destroys it.

Throughout the film, Richie tries to get his life straightened out. He gets a job working at a restaurant but he quits after his friends laugh at his dorky uniform. He tries to date a girl named Sheila (Cindy Eilbacher) but is heartbroken when he discovers that she’s going out with someone else. When Richie tries to talk his dad, George refuses to listen. When George tries to talk to Richie, Richie tells him to get out of his room. Finally, after Richie crashes his car one last time, it leads to an act of shocking violence. After all, the film is called The Death of Richie.

It’s also based on a true story, though there’s some debate over whether or not the film gets the story correct. In real life, Richie’s named was George Richard “Richie” Diener and he lived in Long Island. (The film appears to take place in a generic California suburb.) Richie’s death inspired a magazine article and book, both of which inspired this film. While I was doing research for this review, I came across a website about Richie’s death, one that argued that both the film and the book were too sympathetic to George’s version of what happened the day that Richie died. The site has comments from many of the people who knew Richie and I recommend it to anyone who watches this film and want to know the other side of the story.

As for the film itself, it’s well-directed, intense, and, at times, rather heart-breaking. As portrayed in the film, Richie is so desperate for some sort of approval that your heart just goes out to him. Robby Benson is one of those actors who you come across in a lot of 70s films. I’ve always found his performances to be a bit inconsistent and that’s certainly the case here. He’s good when he’s allowed a quiet moment or two but there are other times when he gets so shrill that it takes you out of the reality of the film. Ben Gazarra does a good job playing George as someone who loves his family but who is incapable of understanding his son’s pain. Gazarra adds just a hint of ambiguity to his anger toward Richie. Is he upset because Richie keeps getting trouble or has he reached the point where he’s just looking for an excuse to get Richie out of the family’s life? According to the comments that I read at the blog mentioned above, both the film and the subsequent book based solely their portrayal of the last minutes of Richie’s life on George’s account. Many people felt that there was more to what happened.

The film is a bit quick to blame all of Richie’s problems on the drugs. While the drugs probably didn’t help, there are times when the film seems to suggesting that Richie would have been a happy, go-lucky kid if he had never taken that first Seconal. Watching the film today, it’s obvious that there was a lot more going on with Richie than just weed and pills and it’s also obvious that calling the cops having them search his room while he watched was not the solution either. Richie needed someone to talk to and, in the film at least, that was apparently the one thing that he could not get. As the song says, things get a little easier once you understand.

What Could Have Been: The Godfather, Part II

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Years ago, I wrote a post called What Could Have Been: The Godfather, in which I discussed all of the actors and the directors who were considered for The Godfather.

It remains one of the most widely viewed posts that we’ve ever had on this site. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. People love The Godfather and they love playing What If? Would The Godfather still have been a classic if it had been directed by Otto Preminger with George C. Scott, Michael Parks, Burt Reynolds, and Robert Vaughn in the lead roles? Hmmm …. probably not. But, in theory, it could have happened. All of them were considered at one point or another.

However, in the end, it was Francis Ford Coppola who directed The Godfather and it was Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Cann, and Robert Duvall who brought the Corleone family to life. The Godfather, as everyone knows, was a huge hit and it went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the year. As the film ended with the future of the Corleone family still up in the air, there was obviously room for a sequel.

When Paramount Pictures first approached Coppola about writing and directing a sequel, he turned them down. He said he was done with The Godfather and didn’t see any way that he could improve on the story. It’s debatable whether or not Coppola truly felt like this or if he was just holding out for more money. It is known that Coppola did suggest to Paramount a possible director for Part II and that director’s name was Martin Scorsese.

What would Martin Scorsese’s The Godfather Part II have looked like? It’s an intriguing thought. At the time, Scorsese was best-known for Mean Streets and it’s probable that Scorsese’s film would have been a bit messier and grittier than Coppola’s version. If Coppola made films about the upper echelons of the Mafia, Scorsese’s interest would probably have been with the soldiers carrying out Michael’s orders. While Scorsese has certainly proven that he can handle a huge productions today, he was considerably younger and much more inexperienced in the early 70s. To be honest, it’s easy to imagine Scorsese’s Godfather Part II being critically and commercially rejected because it would have been so different from Coppola’s. A failure of that magnitude would have set back Scorsese’s career and perhaps even led to him returning to Roger Corman’s production company. As such, it’s for probably for the best that Coppola did eventually agree to shoot the sequel, on the condition that Coppola be given creative control and Paramount exec Robert Evans not be allowed on the set. While Coppola was busy with Godfather Part II, Scorsese was proving his versatility with Alice Doesn’t Live Her Anymore.

After Coppola was signed to direct, the next best question was whether or not Marlon Brando would return to play the role of Vito Corleone. The film’s flashback structure would ensure that Vito would remain an important character, despite his death in the first film. Coppola reportedly considered offering Brando the chance to play the younger version of Vito but he changed his mind after he saw Robert De Niro in Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Still, it was felt that Brando might be willing to show up in a cameo during the film’s final flashback, in which Michael tells his family that he’s enlisted in the army. Frustrated by Brando’s refusal to commit to doing the cameo, Coppola told him to show up on the day of shooting if he wanted to do the film. When Brando didn’t show, the Don’s lines were instead rewritten and given to Tom Hagen. It’s hard not to feel that this worked to the film’s advantage. A last-minute appearance by Brando would have thrown off the film’s delicate balance and probably would have devalued De Niro’s own performance as the younger version of the character.

Brando wasn’t the only member of the original cast who was hesitant about returning. Al Pacino held out for more money, which makes sense since he was literally the only cast member who could not, in some way, be replaced. Richard Castellano, who played Clemenza in the first film, however learned that he that hard way that he was not quite as indispensable as Al Pacino. In Part II, Clemenza was originally meant to have a large role in both the flashbacks and the present-day scenes. However, when Castellano demanded more money and the right to rewrite his own lines, the older Clemenza was written out the film and replaced by the character of Frankie Petangeli (played by Michael V. Gazzo).

It’s impossible to find fault with Gazzo’s performance but it’s still hard not to regret that Castellano didn’t return. Imagine how even more poignant the film’s final moments would have been if it had been the previously loyal Clemenza who nearly betrayed Michael as opposed to Frankie? Indeed, even after the part was rewritten, many of Frankie’s lines deliberately harken back to things that Clemenza said and did during the first film. Because Clemenza is a very prominent character during the film’s flashbacks, his absence in the “modern” scenes is all the more obvious.

When the role of Young Clemenza was cast, it was still believed that Richard Castellano would be appearing in that film. One of the main reasons that Bruno Kirby was selected for the role of Young Clemenza was because Kirby had previously played Castellano’s son in a television show. Also considered for the role was Joe Pesci, who was working as a singer and a comedian at the time. (His partner in his comedy act was Frank Vincnet.) If Pesci had been cast, he would not only have made his film debut in The Godfather Part II but the film also would have been his first pairing with Robert De Niro. (Interestingly enough, Frank Sivero — who played Pesci and De Niro’s henchman, Frankie Carbone, in Goodfellas, also had a small role in Godfather Part II, playing Vito’s friend, Genco.)

As for the film’s other new major character, there were several interesting names mentioned for the role of gangster Hyman Roth. Director Sam Fuller read for the role and Coppola also considered Elia Kazan. Perhaps the most intriguing name mentioned as a possible Roth was that of James Cagney. (Cagney, however, made it clear that he was content to remain retired.) In the end, the role was offered to Al Pacino’s former acting teacher, Lee Strasberg. Like Gazzo, Strasberg made his film debut in The Godfather Part II and, like Gazzo, he received his only Oscar nomination as a result.

The legendary character actor Timothy Carey (who was courted to play Luca Brasi in the first film) met with Coppola to discuss playing Don Fanucci, the gangster who is assassinated by Vito. A favorite of Stanley Kubrick’s, Carey reportedly lost the role when he pulled out a gun in the middle of the meeting.

Originally, the film was supposed to end in the mid-60s, with a now teenage Anthony Corleone telling Michael that he wanted nothing to do with him because he knew that Michael had Fredo murdered. (That famous scene of Michael bowing his head was originally supposed to be in response to Anthony walking out on him as opposed to the sound of Fredo being shot.) Cast in the role of teenage Anthony was actor Robby Benson so perhaps it’s for the best that the scene was ultimately not included in the film.

Some of the smaller roles in Part II were played by actors who were considered for larger roles in the first film. The young Tessio was played by John Aprea, who was also considered for the role of Michael. Peter Donat, who played the lead Senate counsel in Part II, was considered for the role of Tom Hagen. The rather tall Carmine Caridi, who played Camine Rosato in Part II, was originally cast as Sonny until it was discovered that he towered over everyone else in the cast. And, of course, Robert De Niro famously read for the role of Sonny and was cast in the small role of Paule Gatto before he left The Godfather to replace Al Pacino in The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. (Of course, the whole reason that Pacino left The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight was so he could play the role of Michael in The Godfather. In the end, it all worked out for the best.)

Finally, former teen idol Troy Donahue played Connie Corleone’s second husband, Merle Johnson. Merle Johnson was Troy Donahue’s real name.

Personally, I think The Godfather Part II is one of the few films that can be described as perfect. Still, it’s always fun to play what if.

Film Review: The End (1978, directed by Burt Reynolds)

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

What if you were dying and no one cared?

That is the theme of The End, which is probably the darkest film that Burt Reynolds ever starred in, let alone directed. Burt plays Sonny Lawson, a shallow real estate developer who is told that he has a fatal blood disease and that, over the next six months, he is going to die a slow and painful death. After seeking and failing to find comfort with both religion and sex, Sonny decides to kill himself. The only problem is that every time he tries, he fails. He can’t even successfully end things. When he meets an mental patient named Marlon Borunki (Dom DeLuise), he hires the man to murder him. Marlon is determined to get the job done, even if Sonny himself later changes his mind.

Yes, it’s a comedy.

The script for The End was written by Jerry Belson in 1971. Though Belson also worked on the scripts for Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Always, he was best-known for his work on sitcoms. (Belson was an early collaborator of Garry Marshall’s.) The End was originally written with Woody Allen in mind but when Allen passed on it to concentrate on directing his own movies about death, the script spent five years in limbo. Reynolds later said that, when he eventually came across The End, he knew he had to do it because it was the only script that reflected “my strange sense of comedy.” United Artists was uncertain whether there was much box office potential in a film about a self-centered man dying and they required Reynolds to first make the commercially successful Hooper before they would produce The End.

The End was made for 3 million dollars and it went on to gross 40 million. That the film was a box office success is a testament to the late 70s starpower of Burt Reynolds because it’s hard to think of any other mainstream comedy that goes as much out of its way to alienate the audience as The End does. While watching The End for the first time, most viewers will probably expect two things to happen. First off, Sonny will learn to appreciate life and be a better person. Secondly, it will turn out that his fatal diagnosis was incorrect. Instead, neither of those happen. Sonny is going to die no matter what and he never becomes a better person. What’s more is that he never even shows any real interest in becoming a better person. The film’s signature scene comes when Sonny prays to God and offers to give up all of his money if he survives, just to immediately start backtracking on the amount. It’s funny but it’s also a sign that if you’re looking for traditional Hollywood sentiment, you’re not going to find it here.

Burt not only stared in The End but he also directed it and, as was usually the case whenever he directed a film, the cast is a mix of friends and Hollywood veterans. Sally Field plays Sonny’s flakey, hippie girlfriend while Robby Benson is cast as a young priest who fails to provide Sonny with any spiritual comfort. Joanne Woodward plays his estranged wife and Kristy McNichol plays his daughter. Myrna Loy and Pat O’Brien play his parents. Norman Fell, Carl Reiner, and Strother Martin play various doctors. The movie is stolen by Dom DeLuise, playing the only person who seems to care that Sonny’s dying, if just because it offers him an excuse to kill Sonny before the disease does. DeLuise was a brilliant comedic actor whose talents were often underused in films. The End sets DeLuise free and he gives a totally uninhibited performance.

Despite DeLuise’s performance, The End doesn’t always work as well as it seems like it should. Though Reynolds always said that this film perfectly captured his sense of humor, his direction often seems to be struggling to strike the right balance between comedy and tragedy and, until DeLuise shows up, the movie frequently drags. As a character, the only interesting thing about Sonny is that he’s being played by Burt Reynolds. That is both the film’s main flaw and the film’s biggest strength. Sonny may not be interesting but, because we’re not used to seeing Burt cast as such a self-loathing, self-pitying character, it is interesting to watch a major star so thoroughly reveal all of his fears and insecurities.

If you’re a Burt Reynolds fan, The End is an interesting film, despite all of its flaws. Burt often described this as being one of his favorite and most personal films. It’s a side of Burt Reynolds that few of his other films had the courage to show.

Cinemax Friday: City Limits (1984, directed by Aaron Lipstadt)

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Fifteen years into the future, a plague has wiped out almost everyone legally old enough to drink and it has instead left behind a post-apocalyptic hellscape dominated by teenagers. Tired of living in the boring desert, Lee (John Stockwell) hops on his motorcycle, puts on a skull mask, and drives to a nearby city. He hopes to join the Clippers, one of the two gangs that is fighting for control of the city. However, the Clippers aren’t as easy to join as Lee thought they would be. As well, an evil corporation (led by Robby Benson of all people) is manipulating the two gangs as a part of a plan to take over the city and also the world.

City Limits is one of those films that would probably be totally forgotten if it hadn’t been featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a good episode but, unfortunately, it’s also led to City Limits getting a reputation for worse than it actually is.

City Limits is a dumb, low-budget movie that was made to capitalize on the success of films like Mad Max. The plot is impossible to follow, too many scenes are shot in the middle of the night, and Robby Benson is somehow even less intimidating as the villain as you would expect him to be. (All of Benson’s scenes take place in the same bare office and feature him sitting at a desk. It probably took a day at most for Benson to do all of his scenes.) Even with all that in mind, though, City Limits is a fun movie, especially if you can turn off your mind, just relax, and not worry about trying to make it all make sense. John Stockwell is a likably goofy hero and, Benson aside, the film has got a surprisingly good supporting cast, including Rae Dawn Chong, Kim Cattrall, Tony Plana, Darrell Larson, and even Kane Hodder in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him type of role. James Earl Jones wears a big fur coat and blows people up. He also narrates the film, which automatically elevates everything that happens. Some of the action scenes are exciting. Fans of people shouting insults while riding motorcycles will find a lot to enjoy in City Limits. And, finally, there are a few genuinely funny moments. I loved that the gangs borrowed all of their plans for old comic books.

City Limits is stupid but entertaining, whether you’re watching it on your own or with Joel and the Bots.

Cleaning Out The DVR: One On One (dir by Lamont Johnson)

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, I come across things on my DVR that I not only have no memory of recording but which I also cannot, for the life of me, figure out why I decided to record it in the first place. I recorded the 1977 film One On One off of TCM on January 17th and I’m not really sure why.

It’s not that One On One is a terrible movie or anything like that. It’s an extremely predictable film and it’s got one of those soundtracks that is extremely 70s but not cool disco-style 70s. No, instead this film is full of the type of soft rock music that your grandmother listens to while driving to the local CVS Pharmacy. (The majority of the songs are performed by a group called Seals and Croft and are painfully undanceable.) But, even with that in mind, it’s not really a bad movie. If I’m confused about why I recorded it, it’s because One on One is a movie about basketball, which is a sport that holds absolutely zero interest for me.

(My main issue with basketball has to do with the sound of all of those squeaky shoes on the court.)

But, before going any further, let’s watch a commercial:

One on One tells the story of Henry Steele (Robby Benson), a high school basketball star. Henry is from Colorado, which this film seems to suggest is the equivalent of coming from Siberia. When Moreland Smith (G.D. Spradlin). the renowned coach of Western University’s basketball team, offers Henry a full athletic scholarship, Henry negotiates a pretty good deal for himself. Not only is his education going to be paid for but he also wins a guarantee that he’ll never be cut from the team and that his father will get a car. All Henry has to do is keep his grades up but that shouldn’t be a problem. Sure, Henry appears to be an idiot but the athletic department will set him up with a tutor and, as long as the coach is happy with him, it’s not like Henry’s actually going to have to go to class.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Henry picks up a hitchhiker (a very young Melanie Griffith) who promptly robs him of all of his money. Once he arrives at the university, he discovers that Coach Smith is not going to be the surrogate father figure that he was expecting. Instead, Coach Smith is a rather cold and ruthless taskmaster, whose main concern is winning. When Henry, who is by far the shortest player on the team, struggles, Smith tells Henry that he needs to renounce his scholarship and return home. When Henry refuses to do so, Smith becomes obsessed with trying to break him.

As Henry’s roommate, Tom (Cory Faucher), points out, Henry’s head is not in the game. Instead, Henry can’t stop thinking about his tutor, Janet (Annette O’Toole). At first, Janet assumes that Henry is just a dumb jock, largely because Henry’s a jock and he spends the first half of the movie acting really, really dumb. Then, out of nowhere, Henry reveals that he’s not only read Moby Dick but he can quote passages from memory. In fact, Henry even understands that Ahab was — wait for it — obsessed! Oh my God, Janet realizes, Henry’s literate! In fact, Janet exclaims that Henry is the first person she’s met who has actually read Moby Dick! (Really?) Janet and Henry fall in love but, unfortunately, Janet is already dating her psychology professor.

(The professor has got a beard that looks like it reeks of stale weed and he says stuff like, “Have you seen my sandals?,” so we know better than to take him seriously when he compares the popularity of college athletics to the rise of fascism. When Henry accuses him of being a hippie, the professor just smirks and says something condescending. Stupid hippie.)

Will Janet and Henry fall in love? Will Janet dump her unattractive and unappealing boyfriend so she can date Henry? Will Henry manage to pass his classes? Will Henry ever get a chance to prove himself on the court? Will … oh, why even ask these questions? You already know what’s going to happen in this movie. There’s really not a single unexpected moment to be found in One on One. Everything about the film, from the coach’s ruthlessness to Henry’s transformation from idiot to savvy player, feels pre-ordained. It’s a predictable movie but, at the same time, it’s a likable movie. At the start of the film, Benson overplays Henry’s stupidity and O’Toole overplays Janet’s brittleness but, at the film progresses, both performers seem to relax and, by the time the end credits role, they’re actually a fairly likable couple. Benson even gets a killer final line, one that I imagine made audiences in 1977 applaud.

That said, the film is pretty much stolen by G.D. Spradlin. Spradlin was a former Oklahoma oilman who reinvented himself as a politician and then as a character actor. Best known for playing Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather, Part II, Spradlin had a flair for bringing casually corrupt authority figures to life. In One on One, Spradlin turns Coach Smith into a Mephistophelean figure, offering Henry success at the cost of his soul. Coach Smith is arrogant, oily, casually racist, and an all-around jerk but, at the same time, it is also obvious that he knows how to lead a team to victory. The great thing about Spradlin’s performance is to be found in not just how menacing he is but in how charismatic he is. You never doubt that Coach Smith is both a lousy human being and an absolutely brilliant coach. If nothing else, he’s good at his job.

As I said at the start of this review, I am not really sure why I recorded One on One but it turned out to be better than I was expecting. It is a flawed and uneven film but worth watching for Spradlin’s intriguingly villainous turn.

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.

Film Review: Ode to Billy Joe (dir by Max Baer, Jr.)

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why, on June 3rd, did Billie Joe McAllister jump off of the Tallahatchie Bridge in Mississippi?

That was the question that was asked in Ode to Billie Joe, a 1967 country song by Bobbie Gentry. In the song, the details were deliberately left inconclusive. Why did Billie Joe commit suicide? No one knows. All they know is that he was a good worker at the sawmill and, the weekend before jumping, he was seen standing on the bridge with a teenage girl and apparently, they dropped something down into the river below. The song suggests that the girl and the narrator are one in the same but even that is left somewhat vague.

Ode to Billie Joe was a hit when it was first released, largely because it’s story could be interpreted in so many different ways. Why did Billie Joe kill himself? Maybe it was because he didn’t want to be drafted. Maybe it was because he and his girlfriend had killed their baby and tossed it off the bridge. Maybe it was because he was hooked on Dexedrine and his doctor wasn’t available to renew his prescription. It could be any reason that you wanted it to be.

However, in 1976, when Ode to Billie Joe was turned into a movie, ambiguity would not do. As opposed to the song, Ode To Billy Joe had to answer the question as to why Billy Joe jumped into that river. In the movie, 18 year-old Billy Joe (Robby Benson) works at the sawmill and spends his time courting 15 year-old Bobbie Lee Hartley (Glynnis O’Connor). Bobbie Lee’s father (Sandy McPeak) says that she’s too young to have a “gentleman caller,” even though Bobbie Lee insists that she’s “15 going on 34 … B cup!” Bobbie Lee warns Billy Joe that her father is liable to shoot his ears off but Billy Joe insists that he doesn’t need ears because he’s in love with her. That’s kind of a sweet sentiment, even though I don’t think Billy Joe would look that good without ears.

(Whenever I complain about how Southerners in the movies always seem to have two first names, my sister Erin replies, “Yeah, that’s really annoying, Lisa Marie.” So, I won’t make a big deal about it this time…)

One night, Billy Joe and his friends go out and Billy Joe ends up getting drunk. He disappears for several days and when he shows up again, something has definitely changed. After unsuccessfully trying to make love to Bobbie Lee, Billy Joe tells her what happened that night he got drunk. Billy Joe had sex with a man, something that he has been raised to view as being the ultimate sin. When Billy Joe is later pulled out of the river, the entire town wonders why he jumped off the bridge and how Bobbie Lee was involved…

Ode to Billy Joe, which aired last Tuesday on TCM, is a better-than-average film, one that I was surprised to have never come across in the past. That doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect movie. Robby Benson, in the role of Billy Joe, gives an absolutely terrible performance. You can tell that Benson was trying really hard to do a good job but, often, he goes totally overboard, making scenes that should be poignant feel melodramatic. Though it probably has more to do with when the film was made than anything else, the film is also vague about Billy Joe’s sexuality. Is Billy Joe in denial about his identity? Is he deeply closeted or was he in such a drunken stupor that he was taken advantage of? Ode to Billy Joe does not seem to be sure. By committing suicide, Billy Joe joins the ranks of gay movie characters who would rather die than accept their sexuality. Obviously, he had to jump off that bridge because that’s what the song said he did but there’s a part of me that wishes the movie had featured someone commenting that they never actually found Billy Joe’s body and then the final scene could have taken place 16 years later, with Bobbie Lee living as a hippie in San Francisco and just happening to spot Billy Joe walking down the street, hand-in-hand with his boyfriend.

Here’s what does work about the movie. Glynnis O’Connor gives a great and empathetic performance as Bobbie Lee. The scenes with her father and her mother (played by Joan Hotchkis) have a very poignant and wonderful realness to them. Though I’ll always be a city girl at heart (well, okay — a suburb girl), I spent some time in the country when I was growing up. And while I was never quite as isolated as Bobbie Lee (who lives in a house with no electricity or plumbing) and the film took place in the past, I could still relate to many of Bobbie Lee’s experiences. The film may have been made in 1976 and set in 1952 but life in the country hasn’t changed that much.

For instance, there’s this great scene where Bobbie Lee’s father is trying to drive across the bridge. The only problem is that there’s a bunch of drunk shitkickers on the bridge, sitting in their pickup truck and blocking his way. It’s a very tense scene, one that I found difficult to watch because, when I was growing up in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and South Texas, I saw the exact same thing happen more times than I care to admit. In the country, no one backs down. Scenes like that elevated Ode To Billy Joe to being something more than just another movie based on a song.

Finally, there’s a beautiful scene towards the end of the film, between Bobbie Lee and a character played by an actor named James Best. I won’t spoil the scene but it’s a master class in great acting. (Best also played one of the sadistic villains in Rolling Thunder, another good 70s film about life and death in the country.)

Though I wasn’t expecting much from it, Ode to Billy Joe was a pleasant surprise. It’s not perfect but it’s still worth watching.

Back to School Part II #6: Jeremy (dir by Arthur Barron)

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finally finished working out my thoughts concerning A Clockwork Orange, I continued my back to school reviews by watching a 1973 teen romance called Jeremy. I have to admit that it was kind of a shock going from Stanley Kubrick’s confrontational masterpiece to this rather gentle and sweet-natured film about two nice kids who fall in love. But that’s one of the things that I love about reviewing movies. You get to see all sorts of things.

As for Jeremy — it’s a film that tells a familiar story but it doesn’t quite go in the direction that you’re expecting. 15 year-old Jeremy (played by Robby Benson, who was apparently the Justin Bieber of his day) is a 15 year-old student at a private high school in New York City. He’s a brilliant but painfully shy student. He’s very serious about learning the cello, even though his teacher (Leonardo Cimino) tells him that he’s good but he’ll probably never be great. He’s also really into horse racing, though he never bets himself. Instead, he just likes to pick the winner and is content with the knowledge that he was right. Jeremy is largely ignored by his parents and has only one friend but he seems to be okay with his largely solitary life.

That is, of course, until he spots Susan (Glynnis O’Connor) practicing ballet in a classroom. Jeremy is instantly attracted to her and it’s obvious that she likes him as well but, because of his pathological shyness, Jeremy cannot bring himself to ask her out. (In fact, he even forgets to ask her name the first time that they meet.) It’s not until Susan compliments him on his cello playing that Jeremy is able to work up the courage to ask her out. It’s not that Jeremy is arrogant or stand-offish or any of the other stuff that people regularly say about shy people. It’s just that talking about his cello gives Jeremy the courage to be himself. It’s rather sweet, actually.

Jeremy and Susan go out for three weeks and, in a tastefully handled scene, even end up making love for the first time. However, Susan’s father has been transferred to another city and Susan is about to move away. Even when Susan and Jeremy say that they’re in love, all of the adults ignore them.

At this point, I was expecting Susan and Jeremy to enter into a suicide pact but it didn’t happen. That’s not the type of film that Jeremy is. Jeremy is a very sweet but ultimately realistic film about first love and first heartbreak.

As for the two lead performers, they apparently dated for a while after making Jeremy and they both display a very real chemistry in the film. Admittedly, there’s a few scenes where Benson goes a little bit overboard but, watching him, I could tell why he was a teen idol in the 70s. There’s not a threatening or dangerous thing about him and when he’s insecure or sad, you just want give him a big hug. Glynnis O’Connor brings a bit of an edge to Susan (there always seems to be a poignant sadness right under the surface when it comes to Susan) and it contrasts nicely with Benson’s performance.

In the end, it may not add up too much but it’s heartfelt and nicely done and I’m glad that I watched it.