In celebration of William Devane’s 86th birthday, I’m sharing a scene from one of my favorite revenge films, ROLLING THUNDER (1977). In my opinion, this is the high water mark in Devane’s 60 year career. And we all need a friend like Tommy Lee Jones’ character here… someone who’s always ready to go at the drop of a hat. Things are about to get violent right after they leave, but the calmness of the two men as they get ready to unleash violent hell on a group of murderous bastards makes this scene a standout.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, Lisa will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.
This week, we have an adaptation of a William Faulkner short story.
Episode #13: Barn Burning
(Dir by Peter Werner, originally aired in 1980)
The year is 1895 and everyone in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi knows that Abner Snopes (Tommy Lee Jones) is no good. The taciturn and bitter Abner is notorious for burning down the barns of those who he feels have mistreated him. When Abner is dragged into the Justice of the Peace’s courtroom (which also happens to be a general store), he’s only acquitted because the judge and the prosecutor realize it would be unfair to force Abner’s young son, Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes (Shawn Whittington), to testify against him. Abner and his family are ordered to move to another town but Abner avoids any legal punishment. Despite that, Abner still accuses Sarty of thinking about betraying him.
This episode follows Sarty as he tries to understand his abusive father, a man who is offended over being told to wash a rug that he intentionally damaged that he plots to burn down another barn. (The owner of the rug is played by Jimmy Faulkner, the grandson of William Faulkner.) Sarty wants his father’s love but it soon becomes clear that Abner is too angry and resentful to love anyone. The story ends with a fire and an ambiguous tragedy, leaving both the fate of Abner and the future of Sarty unclear.
With his shifting viewpoints and his internalized style of narration, William Faulkner is not an easy writer to adapt to the screen. With Barn Burning, director Peter Werner takes a straight-forward approach to Faulkner’s short story. While Werner’s film might lack the nuance that was brought to the tale by Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness style, it does work as a portrait of living with an angry man who is determined to let the world know that he’s not going to be pushed around anymore. Tommy Lee Jones gives a strong, intimidating, and ultimately charismatic performance as Abner, a tyrant who only shows emotion when he feels that he’s been treated disrespectfully. The story takes place in the ruins of the Old South and capture the struggle between the forced gentility of the old aristocracy and the crassness of the future, represented by Abner and his family.
This was a strong episode that truly did justice to William Faulkner’s short story.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today is Harrison Ford’s 83rd birthday. There’s not much I can say about Ford other than my movie going life pretty much started as a 4 year old with the STAR WARS movies. As I was growing up, he was one of the biggest stars on the planet, and his movies were almost always really good. He’s quite simply one of the best.
The South American drug cartels have been getting too aggressive so the American government decides to take them out with Apache helicopters. Missions leaders Tommy Lee Jones and Dale Dye know that these helicopters are the ultimate weapons of death and that things could go terribly wrong if they recruit the wrong pilots.
So, of course, they get Nicholas Cage and Sean Young to fly them.
FireBirds was an attempt to redo TopGun with helicopters. It does actually improve on Top Gun in that it gives the pilots an actual villain to fight. The drug cartels and the German mercenary (Bert Rhine) that they hire are good B-movie villains and an improvement on the faceless and apparently nationless bad guys who showed up at the end of TopGun. What FireBirds cannot improve on are the flying sequences because fighter planes are just more exciting than to watch than helicopters.
The best thing about the movie is that it brought Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones together and their acting styles mesh far better than I think anyone would expect. Sean Young is about as believable as a helicopter pilot as you would expect her to be, which is to say not at all. There’s a reason why Young’s best performance was as a robot.
“I. Am. The. Greatest!” Nicolas Cage says in the movie and he sounds convinced. Fire Birds makes the case that Cage is the greatest when it comes to making something bad watchable. This movie would be thoroughly forgettable if not for his presence and the same can be said about a lot of other movies as well. But, Tommy Lee Jones can lay claim to the “Greatest” title as well. Five years after FireBirds, Tommy Lee Jones would tell Jim Carrey, “I cannot sanction your buffoonery,” and the passage of time has shown that Jones knew what he was talking about. Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones should make more movies together.
One of the funniest scenes in SPACE COWBOYS (2000) takes place when Jay Leno interviews the characters of Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood), Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry O’Neill (Donald Sutherland) and Tank Sullivan (James Garner). The scene I’m referring to involves a question asked of “babe magnet” Jerry O’Neill. Only a few moments of Jay Leno’s material made it into the completed film, but the interview was filmed in front of a real Tonight Show audience. Leno made monologue jokes about Viagra, Matlock (1986), and prostate problems. Leno ad-libbed with the actors like he would in a real interview. I’ve included the additional scenes here!
Here at The Shattered Lens, we’re definitely celebrating Clint Eastwood’s May 31st birthday. As part of that celebration, I decided to revisit his 2000 film, SPACE COWBOYS.
SPACE COWBOYS opens in 1958 on the day that Air Force Test Pilot Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood) and his team of Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry O’Neill (Donald Sutherland), and Tank Sullivan (James Garner) find out that their test program is being shutdown due to the formation of NASA. Their dreams of someday making it to space are crushed, and to make it worse, they were stabbed in the back by their leader Bob Gerson (James Cromwell) and not invited to be part of NASA’s new testing program. Fast forward to the present time, where a Soviet communications satellite seems to be unresponsive and NASA is working with Russian General Vostov (Rade Serbedzija) to figure out how to keep it from crashing back to Earth. The satellite is a relic of the Cold War that somehow ended up with a guidance system on board that’s so old that it was designed by Frank, and the young folks don’t know how to work with it. And to complicate things even further, the guidance system can only be fixed on site, which means in space. So it seems that NASA finally needs Frank after all this time, and he’ll only agree to help if he’s able to bring his old team on board. Their old nemesis Bob, the project’s manager at NASA, reluctantly agrees. We see that he’s still the same bastard he’s always been as he and General Vostov are holding back critical information about the cargo of the satellite. So let the training and preparation for the mission begin!
The premise of SPACE COWBOYS may not be very realistic, but I think it’s one hell of a fun movie, especially during its first half. I really enjoy watching this amazing cast of veteran actors do their thing. Of course they get the cool walk into NASA headquarters wearing sunglasses and leather jackets, while N’ Sync’s “Space Cowboy” plays over the soundtrack. Clint Eastwood plays the character he has perfected over his career, that of the tough, grizzled leader with a dry sense of humor. Tommy Lee Jones is the fearless hotshot who has never been good at following orders, but has the kind of talent that everyone wishes they had. Jones is actually by far the youngest of the primary cast, a full 16 years younger than Eastwood. Donald Sutherland gets some of the best laughs as the ladies man of the team. The scene where he answers Jay Leno’s question about his reputation as a lothario made me laugh out loud! James Garner’s character became a Baptist minister after his days with the Air Force and prays often for the group. He’s good here, but his character is the least memorable. With their mission labeled “The Ripe Stuff” by the media, watching these great older actors go through their training, and deal with their much younger counterparts and the NASA brass, is a joy. I also want to shout out William Devane as the NASA flight director for the mission. He has a couple of really strong scenes.
The legendary cast of this film can’t help but give a seasoned moviegoer like me a warm sense of nostalgia based on their amazing body of work. I remember introducing KELLY’S HEROES to my son when he was a boy. He watched my DVD over and over again. Seeing Eastwood and Sutherland together here brought those memories back. One of my very favorite revenge films is ROLLING THUNDER with William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. Seeing them together here helps me remember just how great they are in that badass classic. Heck, Garner’s character name of “Tank” Sullivan takes me back to one of the very first movies our family rented when we got our VCR in the mid-80’s! Do y’all remember Garner’s film TANK from 1984? I certainly do!
I will admit that once the crew takes off and begins the actual mission, which comprises about the last 45 minutes of the film, the entertainment level goes down a couple of notches for me. The technical aspects of completing the mission are not as interesting to me as the character interplay in the earlier portions of the film. With that said, there are still some exciting moments to be had, including the nailbiter of a landing at the end.
I enjoyed revisiting SPACE COWBOYS after quite a few years. This movie is ultimately a crowd pleaser, and for me, it does its job well. Enjoy the trailer below:
Normally, the trailer for The Burial is not the type of trailer that would really catch my attention but, with all of the recent concerns about Jamie Foxx’s health, it’s a little bit heartwarming to watch just how energetic Foxx is in this trailer. (Of course, The Burial was filmed before Foxx’s recent struggles.) Personally, I think Foxx’s high energy and Tommy Lee Jones’s more subdued (some might say “grouchy”) approach could be an interesting combination.
The Burial is set to be released in theaters on October 6th and on Prime on October 13th.
Mark Roberts (Wesley Snipes), formerly of the Diplomatic Security Service and wanted for murder, escapes when his prison transport aircraft crashes into an Illinois swamp. U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) was on the same flight and quickly assembles his team so that they can track down and capture the fugitive. That’s what Sam Gerard does. He’s the best fugitive hunter around. Complicating matters is that an inexperienced DSS agent named John Royce (Robert Downey, Jr.) has been assigned to the team. Royce says that the men that Mark killed were friends of his and this hunt is personal for him. However, Sam suspects that Mark might not be as guilty as he seems. Considering that the last high-profile fugitive that Sam chased was also innocent, I have to wonder why Sam has any faith in the system at all.
Based on the classic televisions how, The Fugitive was one of the biggest film hits of 1993 and it also became one of the few action films to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of the Year. Even though the film starred Harrison Ford as a doctor wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, it was Tommy Lee Jones who got all the best lines and all the critical attention. Tommy Lee Jones was also the one who received an Oscar for his work on the film. The Fugitive was such a hit that it was pretty much guaranteed that there would be a sequel. Since there were only so many times that Richard Kimble could reasonably be wrongly convicted of murder, it also made sense that future films were focus on Sam Gerard and his team.
U.S. Marshals was the first Fugitive sequel and, as a result of terrible reviews and a lackluster box office performance, it was also the only sequel. I saw U.S. Marshals when it was first released in 1998. I enjoyed it but I was also a teenage boy. Back then, I liked everything as long as it featured a car chase, a gunfight, and a leggy female lead. Last night, I rewatched the film for the first time since it was originally released and I still enjoyed it but I could also understand why U.S. Marshals didn’t lead to a Sam Gerard franchise.
The plane crash was as cool as I remembered. So was the scene where Wesley Snipes escaped from Sam by jumping onto a train. (That scene was featured in all of the commercials.) The scenes of Tommy Lee Jones getting frustrated with incompetent local law enforcement were still entertaining, as were the scenes of him interacting with his team. I even liked the much-criticized cemetery stakeout. There was much about the film to like but the main problem was that Sam Gerard works better as a supporting player than as a leading character.
Harrison Ford really doesn’t get enough credit for the success of The Fugitive. One the main reasons why that film works is because Ford is so likable and sympathetic as Richard Kimble. It’s entertaining to check in on Sam and his team but it’s Ford who makes us care about the story. In U.S. Marshals, Wesley Snipes’s character is never as clearly defined as Kimble. We learn very little about him, other than he tries not to actually hurt anyone while escaping. There’s no emotional stakes to whether Mark is innocent or guilty and no real suspense as Sam goes through the motions of hunting him. Sam may still have a way with words but, in U.S. Marshals, he’s just doing his job. Things do get personal when Sam and his team are betrayed by one of their allies and a member of the team is killed but even then, it doesn’t make sense that the bad guy, who had been pretty careful up until that point, would mess up his plans by impulsively killing someone who hadn’t really witnessed anything that incriminating.
I think U.S. Marshals missed its calling. Sam and his team were entertaining enough that, if they had starred in a weekly television show called U.S. Marshals, it probably would have run for ten seasons. As a movie, though, it can’t escape the long shadow of The Fugitive.
The Air Force wants to build a new air base in Utah but the Whitman family refuses to sell their ranch. Bud Whitman (Tommy Lee Jones) served in Vietnam and he disapproved just as much of forcing Vietnamese villagers to move as he now disapproves of the idea of allowing the government to force American citizens to move. When a judge rules that the Air Force can force the Whitmans to vacate their property under the rule of eminent domain, Bud announces that he still will not be moving. With several of Bud’s old combat buddies showing up to support Bud, the villainous county surveyor, Connie Priest (Terry O’Quinn), prepares to take matters in his own hands.
Tommy Lee Jones vs. Terry O’Quinn? That sounds like it should have the makings of a classic but Stranger On My Land is a largely forgettable made-for-TV movie. A huge part of the problem is that O’Quinn’s character doesn’t have any real motivation beyond just being a prick and that seems like a waste when you consider the number of interesting villains that Terry O’Quinn has played over the years. This is the actor who, in The Stepfather, actually made a multiple murderer seem a little bit likable. Connie Priest seems like a villain that O’Quinn could have done a lot with if only the film’s script hadn’t been so simplistic. Tommy Lee Jones is always well-cast as a modern day western hero but again, the script doesn’t do much with his character. He’s just Tommy Lee Jones yelling at people to get off his property. You could probably go to Tommy Lee Jones’s own ranch and have the exact same experience without having to sit through the rest of this movie. Even Bud’s ethical objections to the Vietnam War feel like something that was just tossed in to assure the people watching at home that he’s not meant to be some sort of gun-toting militiaman. The best performance in the movie comes from Ben Johnson, who is plays Tommy Lee Jones’s father. That’s prefect casting. If Ben Johnson wasn’t actually Tommy Lee Jones’s father, he probably should have been.
The main problem with Stranger On My Land is that it was made for television and it had to operate within the limits of what was acceptable for television in 1988. The entire movie seems to be building up to a fierce battle between Bud and law enforcement but instead, it settles for a personal fight between Bud and Connie. The film’s sudden ending doesn’t feel authentic but it does feel like what you’d expect to find on ABC in the late 80s.
The FBI needs someone to steal a computer disk that can bring down a corrupt Las Vegas corporation so they hire reformed thief Sam Quint (Tommy Lee Jones). Quint manages to steal the disk but he finds himself being pursued by Ringer (Lee Ving), an old acquaintance who now works for the corporation. In order to keep the disk from falling into Ringer’s hands, Quint hides it in the back bumper of an experimental racing car called the Black Moon. The Black Moon, which runs on water and can fly when it reaches its top speed, is being taken to Los Angeles by Earl Windom (Richard Jaeckel) so Quint assumes that he’ll just follow Window to L.A. and then retrieve the disk when no one is watching.
However, as soon as the Black Moon arrives in Los Angeles, it’s stolen by Nina (Linda Hamilton). Nina works for Ed Ryland (Robert Vaughn), an outwardly respectable businessman who secretly runs a syndicate of car thieves. Now, Quint and Nina (who conventiently falls in love with Quint) have to steal the car back from Ryland while staying one step ahead of both Ringer and the FBI.
Black Moon Rising is not a movie that you watch for the plot or for the non-existent romantic chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Hamilton. You don’t even watch it for the white collar villainy of Robert Vaughn, who basically just recycles his performance from Superman III. This is a movie that you watch for the car! The Black Moon is definitely an impressive vehicle. Who wouldn’t want to steal one of these?
In a car chase movie like Black Moon Rising, the most important thing is that the car must be cool. The Black Moon looks like something Mad Max would drive and it can actually fly so, by definition, it’s pretty cool. Unfortunately, Black Moon Rising doesn’t spend as much time with the car as it should. The movie gets bogged down with the scenes of Quint and Nina falling in love and Quint having to deal with his FBI handler (played by Bubba Smith). This is a film that would have benefited from being directed by someone like Hal Needham, who understood that people don’t come to car chase movies for the plot. They come to car chase movies because they want to see people driving fast and cars crashing in spectacular ways. Still, even though the car isn’t onscreen as much as it should be, the car is still cool enough to make Black Moon Rising watchable.
One final note: the screenplay is credited to John Carpenter. Though the imdb claims that this was the first script that Carpenter ever sold and that the film spent ten years in development, Carpenter says that he wrote the script around the same time that he made Escape from New York. He also says that he’s never actually seen the completed film.
Through the Shattered Lens 