Category: Nominees – 1980s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fatal Attraction – 1987

Finally, a good suspense thriller.  I was glad to see the Academy could nominate more than dramas, which seems to be, with a few odd exceptions, the only genre that has been considered for Best Picture in the 80s.  The film was nominated for 6 Oscars, but unfortunately didn’t win a single one, a strange fact for the film that was the year’s biggest money maker.  The main stars, Michael Douglas and Glenn Close both did a fantastic job, as did Anne Archer.

Douglas played Dan Gallagher, a successful lawyer.  He has a beautiful wife named Beth, played by Archer, and a lovely daughter, Ellen, played by child actress, Ellen Hamilton Latzen.  He seems to have the perfect life.  But he foolishly risks it all when he meets Alexandra Forrest, played by Close.  She seems predatory as she seduces Dan into a weekend of sexual depravity.  Dan expects to have his fun, and then casually go back to his domestic paradise

But Dan gets more than he bargained for.  Alex has severe emotional problems and is portrayed as a psychopath.  When Dan attempts to go back to his own life, she hounds him and manipulates him into spending more time with her.  At first, he gives in, but it quickly becomes apparent that Alex has her own ideas.  When he tries to go back to his home, she slits her wrists in an attempt to get him to stay.  She has fallen completely in love with him.

After he helps her past her crisis and leaves, she becomes insanely obsessed with him.  She calls him over and over again.  She begins to harass his wife, and eventually begins stalking him and his family.  Things get completely out of hand, culminating in Alex’s slaughter of Ellen’s pet rabbit.  Dan realizes that he has to confess his affair to his wife, if for no other reason than her own safety.  His marriage is damaged, but the harassment continues.  Alex even goes so far as to kidnap Ellen for an afternoon.  Fortunately she does not harm the little girl.  But when Dan nearly kills her for the stunt, she loses her mind and tries to murder Beth.  She and Dan fight each other for their lives until Beth shoots Alex in the chest, ending the ordeal.

Director Adrian Lyne really did a fantastic job of building the tension slowly without letting his audience get bored.  And the great screenplay, written by James Dearden, was wonderfully executed.  The characters were so well-written and realistic.  Apparently Glenn Close, in preparing for the role, conducted interviews with three different psychologists, asking if an emotionally sick woman was capable of such behavior.  She was assured that under the right circumstances, the answer was definitely yes.

I found it interesting, that when Close was interviewed about her part in the film, she was quoted as saying that she never considered Alex Forrest to be a villain.  She always thought of her as a sick woman that needed help, not a simple psychopath.  Nowhere is this point made more clearly than in the original ending to the film.  After Dan nearly kills Alex for kidnaping his daughter, she tries to stab him with a kitchen knife.  Dan wrests the knife from her grasp and leaves it in her apartment.  In the original ending, Alex commits suicide by cutting her own throat.

Since Dan’s fingerprints are on the knife, he is accused of her murder and arrested.  Fortunately, Beth finds evidence that gets him off the hook.  This ending was more in line with the character, paralleling a running theme in the film, the Puccini opera Madam Butterfly, in which the title character commits suicide when her lover leaves her.  That original ending portrays Alex as mentally ill, and not just evil and homicidal.  But it didn’t play well with test audiences.  They wanted to see her as a villain.  And I have to admit that after seeing both endings, I agree.  Though the suicide was creepier, the fight with Beth and Alex’s death by gunshot was more satisfying.  I wanted to see Alex go down in a violent blaze of glory, not quietly, alone on her bathroom floor.

Either way, I really enjoyed the film.  It was sometimes incredibly uncomfortable to watch, just like a good thriller should be.  The actors, especially Close, did a fantastic job.  The way she delivered lines like, “Well, what am I supposed to do?  You won’t answer my calls, you change your number.  I mean, I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan!”  Perfection!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broadcast News – 1987

This is a smart movie.  It has an interesting script that makes you use your brain, well developed characters, and a satisfying ending.  It is billed as a romantic comedy/drama, all of which is true.  The cast of actors really pulled it all off with skill, making the complex motivations of the characters look natural and easy.

The film had three leads.  Holly Hunter played Jane Craig, a smart, driven, modern, career oriented girl.  She is a news producer that believes in delivering news that matters while following a strict ethical code.  Albert Brooks played Aaron Altman, a brilliant news reporter who has dreams of becoming a TV anchorman, though he has serious self-confidence issues.  And completing the trio is William Hurt, who played Tom Grunick.  He is a charismatic pretty boy who has never been very smart or well-educated.  He has achieved success as a TV news anchor, mostly relying on his natural charm and good looks.  He has dreams of being a serious reporter.

The film’s drama comes out on multiple levels.  Aaron is a reporter who wants to be an anchorman.  Tom is an anchorman who wants to be a reporter.  And Jane is the producer who stands between them.  But then the script goes deeper to a more personal level.  Aaron is in love with Jane.  Jane is in love with Tom.  Tom is in love with himself.  Tom respects Aaron professionally.  Aaron thinks Tom is a moron.  Jane likes Aaron as a friend.  She lusts after Tom, but has real issues with his questionable ethics.

The film goes along exploring these interpersonal relationships, set against the backdrop of the news station as it tries to deliver meaningful news stories to the public.  Tom seems to be on the fast track to success.  Aaron, though smarter than most of his peers, is largely being professionally screwed, being passed over for the more charismatic Tom.  And then there is Jane who works hard for her success in a male dominated profession.  Obviously, I think the best thing about this movie is the motivations of the three leads, so I’d like to take a moment to say what I liked about each of the complex characters.  What made them so well-written?

Let’s look at Jane.  While Holly Hunter did a good job, I think her character was the least interesting of the trio.  They made the point of showing her bursting out into tears at several points during the movie, making the point that she was not in full control of her emotions.  She immediately recognizes that Tom isn’t smart enough to be a credible reporter, but she, like everyone else, eventually falls under his spell, all the while hating herself for doing so.

Aaron’s character was great because though he was smart, he was ultimately defined by his lack of self-confidence, an interesting trait you don’t often see in a lead.  This problem manifests itself in several ways.  For years, he has been carrying a torch for Jane, but because he has no self-confidence, he never acts on it.  He has also wanted to be a TV Anchor, but when he is given the chance, his low self-confidence causes him to mess it up so badly, he will never get another chance.  Aaron’s confusion and frustration at his lack of success, though he knew that he was smarter than his co-workers, was wonderfully portrayed.

But to me, the most interesting of the three was Tom.  And what made him so fascinating was the fact that Tom knew he wasn’t smart.  He knew, and was both frustrated and disappointed in himself that he could deliver the news with a confident smile, but had almost no understanding of what he was reporting.  He was aware that he was coasting by on his looks and charm, but knew of no other way to succeed.  One memorable little scene in which he tried to coach Aaron on how to be an anchorman in front of a camera was so well-written.  He might not be smart about world events or politics, but he knew how to sell a story with confidence, which is what an anchorman must be able to do.

And the great ending was perfectly written.  Jane chooses her desire for Tom over her friendship with Aaron, but turns against Tom when she discovers his complete lack of work ethics.  Tom is promoted to a prominent position in London.  Jane gets a big promotion and stays in Washington DC.  And Aaron accepts a job as a reporter in an obscure news station, far away from them both.  Not exactly a happy ending, but one that made a lot of sense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Room With a View – 1986

This was a movie about stuffy British people being stuffy and British.  Sorry, but that needed to be said.  It starred Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliott, and Daniel Day Lewis.  A pretty impressive cast of actors, to be sure, and they each did a fine job.  But it was the dull script that made the movie so slow and stuffy.

In order to explain the film’s title, I’ll describe the first few minutes of the movie.  Smith plays the character of Charlotte Bartlett, an uptight old spinster who is acting as chaperone to her much younger friend, Lucy Honeychurch, played by Carter.  The beautiful young girl has been brought up in an upper-middle-class family but is much more relaxed in her way of thinking.  The two are traveling in Italy on holiday.  Charlotte complains that the room they rented was supposed to have a view, but does not.  As they go to dine, she complains out loud, and is overheard by Mr. Emerson, played by Elliott, and his brooding young son George, played by Sands.  The two gentlemen offer their room, which has a view, to the ladies.  Forbidden romance blossoms between Lucy and George.

The holiday ends and Lucy returns home to Surry in England.  Upon their return, Lucy becomes engaged to Cecil Vyse, played by Sands.  He is a jerk who treats Lucy as a valuable object that he will soon be able to display on his arm.  Mr. Emerson and his son rent a home in Surry and George tries to re-kindle his romance with Lucy.  She does her best to refuse him, but eventually realizes that she does not love Cecil.  Against all propriety and sense, she realizes that she loves George and the two end up together.  The end.

The plot was fairly predictable and moved too slowly for my tastes.  I never had any question who Lucy would choose to be with in the end.  There was never any real tension or suspense.  The best and most interesting aspect of the film was the sets and costumes.  It was a period piece, and British films have never been wanting in that regard.  Lucy’s dresses were beautiful, but not too fancy.  The stuffy old ladies dressed like stuffy old ladies.  The men dressed properly in their old-fashioned suits.  They all looked perfectly appropriate whether they were in their costumes or completely naked.

What???  Yes, completely naked.  There is a scene that was incredibly gratuitous and random in its use of full frontal male nudity.  At one point, just after George arrives in Surry, he, Lucy’s younger brother Freddy, played by Rupert Graves, and the local Reverend, Mr. Beebe, played by Callow, decide to frolic naked around a pond out in the woods.  They all strip off, and proceed to run around the pond, splash in the water, and hoot and holler like children.  I still can’t figure out what the strangely homo-erotic scene had to do with the rest of the plot.  Of course, the ladies happen to walk by and see the naked reverend, and are scandalized!

But in typical, stuffy, British fashion, there was no power behind the story’s romance or its drama.  Sure, you could say that it was a portrait into a different time in history, a look into the sexually restrictive nature of the upper-middle class of the Edwardian era.  But really, the biggest message that I got out of that is a truth that can be said of any era and any culture:  Young people are more open minded about sex than old people.  I know, I’m over-simplifying the movie’s message, but its kind-of true.

The film looked visually beautiful, despite its lackluster story.  But it wasn’t a bad story.  It was, for me, just a little dull.  And as I think about it, changing the character of Cecil would have made all the difference.  Cecil is never shown in a good light.  Right from the first moment he is on the screen, I could tell that he was a stuffy man who had no passion for youth, no love for Lucy, and no real likeable qualities.  Therefore, the question as to whether Lucy would end up marrying him was effectively pointless.  But if Cecil had been a good man, or if I had ever thought she had any reason to stay with him, then I could have taken a greater interest in what she might do, which way she might turn.  Or maybe if Cecil had been such a bad man that he found some kind of way to force Lucy to marry him, despite her love for George, it might have made for a more dramatic, or even tragic ending.  But no.  What we got was predictable and bland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mission – 1986

This really was a great film.  Not only was the casting and the acting spot on, it had great and lofty dramatic themes, one of the most beautiful scores ever written, action, drama, great pacing, inspirational cinemastography, and wonderful directing.  In 1986, it lost the Best Picture Award to Platoon.  I don’t know.  That was a pretty good movie, too, but I would have voted for The Mission.  Robert De Niro was fantastic, as was Jeremy Irons.  Add a couple of other well-known names like Aiden Quinn and Liam Neeson, and you have a wonderful film.

First of all, whenever anyone mentions this movie, the first thing that comes to my mind is the beautiful and haunting score by Ennio Morricone.  To say that the music is incredible is an understatement.  The film score is nothing short of transcendent.  I cannot listen to it without my eyes misting over and tears threatening to roll down my cheeks.  I felt that way about the music long before I ever saw the movie.  It strongly conveys the dramatic themes that are the whole thrust of the movie.  The lofty and ethereal theme known as Gabriel’s Oboe is absolutely gorgeous.

The film takes place in Paraguay, in 1750s South America and is about two men.  One, Father Gabriel, played by Irons, is a Jesuit Priest who establishes a Mission at the top of Iguazu Falls, and helps the native Guarani tribe by protecting them from Spanish slavers.  The other is Rodrigo Mendoza, a slave trader whose job it is to abduct Guarani natives and sell them into slavery.  But after Rodrigo accidentally murders his own brother, played by Quinn, he is filled with such remorse that he voluntarily locks himself in a prison.

Father Gabriel visits him and convinces him to do penance and regain his life.  Rodrigo travels to the Mission and helps them to build a church.  He becomes a part of the Guarani tribe and decides to devote his life to God and become a Jesuit monk.  The main conflict comes when Spain decides to cede the land on which the Mission, and thus the Guarani tribe, live to Portugal.  The Portuguese want all the natives off their land and they send in soldiers to eliminate the native savages.

Father Gabriel and Rodrigo react to the situation in different ways.  Rodrigo refuses to abandon the natives.  Instead, he breaks his vows of peace and fights back to defend the Guarani people.  He is joined by Father Fielding, played by Neeson.  They both die in the battle.  Believing that meeting violence with violence is a sin, but also not willing to abandon the Guarani people, Father Gabriel stays with the Christian converts as they allow themselves to be slaughtered.

Of course, it is much more complicated than that.  The movie is heartbreaking as it explores the absolute cruelties of mankind.  The heartless genocide carried out by the Portuguese soldiers, is matched only by the Spanish government and the Catholic Church who allowed them to do it.  But the film was also incredibly uplifting as the characters of Father Gabriel and Rodrigo meet their fates, each in their own way, with honor and faith.  There is laudable nobility in a man who is willing to fight and die for a cause he believes in.  But there is also a certain kind of honor and courage in a man who is willing to lay down his life as a martyr.

Also, one of the best parts of the movie is the scenes in which Rodrigo is rising from the pits of self-inflicted despair and self-loathing to honor and redemption.  It was inspiring to watch.  So well-done!  And again, the score perfectly reflected and enhanced the feeling of spiritual redemption and salvation.  In hindsight, it made the ending so much more tragic.

The little bit of research I did said that the film was fairly accurate with only minor discrepancies.  For example, the main plot was factual, though the characters of Father Gabriel and Rodrigo were fictional.  And in light of that, in reality, no priests or monks fought with or were killed with any of the Guarani.  They all left the Missions when ordered to do so by their superiors.  The Guarani fought their own war which lasted over three years.

It was a wonderful film that was beautifully done.  It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, but I’m sorry to say, it only took home one Oscar.  It was for Best Cinematography.  None of the actors were nominated, and though Ennio Morricone was nominated for his phenomenal score, he did not win.  Director Roland Joffe was also nominated for Best Director, though he, too, went home empty handed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah and Her Sisters – 1986

I need to start this review by saying that it was a good movie except for one thing.  Woody Allen is insufferable.  For the most part, Allen is a good writer and a good director.  But he is a one-note actor who is so annoying that I just want to reach through the screen and strangle him.  He plays the same character in everything I have ever seen him in, and in 1986, he was still in the habit of putting himself in every one of his films.  Woody Allen’s movies would be great if they didn’t star Woody Allen.  There, I got it out of my system.

Anyway, the rest of the cast was very good, especially Michael Caine and Diane Wiest.  Barbara Hershey and Mia Farrow were also good, as were Max Von Sydow and Julie Kavner.  Farrow played the role of Hannah, while Hershey played her sister Lee, and Wiest played her sister Holly.  Hannah’s husband Elliot, played by Caine, lusts after, and eventually begins an affair with Lee.  Von Sydow plays Lee’s boyfriend, Frederick, who disappears after the illicit affair begins.  Allen, himself, played Mickey, Hannah’s ex-husband who eventually ends up with Holly.

The film actually has very little plot, but is more of a bunch of character studies, delving into the personalities of the ensemble cast.  Typical of Allen’s movies, we hear inner monologues of most of the main cast, giving us a greater sense of their thoughts and feelings.  The plot, itself was very episodic and was made up of little stories that were strung together like pearls.

The main plot follows the affair between Elliot and Lee, going into how it endangers Elliot’s marriage to Hannah.  But the movie also spends significant time, possibly too much time, following Mickey and his neurotic hypochondria.  After all, the movie was supposed to be about Hannah and her Sisters, not Mickey and his search for meaning in his life. Again, we see Woody Allen playing himself.  He tries to show, through his character, how witty and charming he is.  And I have to admit that the writing and the dialogue is more clever than most.  I just don’t buy it coming from the frazzled and overly nervous Allen.

But both Caine and Wiest won the Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress for their efforts.  But an actor or actress will only win those kinds of awards if the script is a good one, and I have to give credit where credit is due.  Woody Allen’s original script was well written and clever.  The dialogue was witty and amusing.  The structure of the film was well thought out and developed.  Allen decided to break the film up into chapters, each with its own title screen.  The story took placed over the course of two years, starting with a Thanksgiving gathering, visiting a second one in the middle, and ending with a third.  The first was set-up for the script’s main plot.  The second covered the over-all conflict.  And finally, the third showed us the resolution.  It was all neat, tidy, and easy to follow.  In other words, there is no denying that Woody Allen is a talented writer.

But if I had to pick a favorite actor out of the cast, it would be Wiest.  Her character, Holly was a former cocaine addict who had so little direction in her life that she was constantly trying new things, new career paths.  But she had so little focus that she rarely remained with a single idea for too long.  We all know someone like that, making her character easy to recognize and identify with.

There were also a number of recognizable faces in the supporting cast that I was pleasantly surprised to see.  Carrie Fisher played April, Holly’s friend or enemy, depending on your point of view.  Then there was Joanna Gleason, Lewis Black, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, J. T. Walsh, John Turturro, Daniel Stern, and Sam Waterston, each playing bit parts with very little screen time.

The research I have done has shown me that many consider Hannah and Her Sisters to be some of Woody Allen’s best work.  But honestly, I‘m not sure.  I’ve never been a huge fan of his movies so I’m not the best person to judge.  The only other Woody Allen Film to be nominated for the Best Picture Award before this was 1977’s Annie Hall, which actually won the coveted honor.  I have since learned that his 2011 film Midnight in Paris was also nominated for Best Picture.  I’ve heard it said that when it comes to Woody Allen films, you either love them or you hate them, but I beg to differ.  I like the scripts.  I just can’t stand Woody Allen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children of a Lesser God – 1986

This movie was pretty much what I expected.  It had a good story, a well-crafted script, good dialogue, some excellent acting, and unfortunately bordered on dull.  It was a romantic drama that went almost exactly where I expected it to go.  The rocky tale of the film’s romance was only interesting because of the deaf vs. hearing angle.  Otherwise, it would have been nothing more than average.   It wasn’t a bad movie.  It was just… predictable.

The two leads, veteran actor William Hurt, and in her film debut, Marlee Matlin, both did a great job.  Hurt played James Leeds, a speech therapist and teacher for deaf and hard of hearing students.  He is starting a new job at a school for the deaf in New England.  Matlin plays Sarah Norman, the deaf janitor.  She used to be a student, and is considered to be an angry, simple-minded girl.

It isn’t explicitly stated, but it seems that when James sees her, it is love at first sight.  He almost immediately starts hitting on her under the guise of wanting to teach her to speak so that she can more easily function in a world full of hearing people.  And while that may have been a true motive, his overt romantic intentions could not be mistaken.  He was a bit sleazy, really.  But Sarah resists his advances, at least for a while.

But James is persistent.  Eventually, he wins her over and they begin dating.  The drama comes when he insists that she learn to speak.  She has an intense fear of speaking, saying that if she cannot do something well, she does not want to do it at all.  It is a valid choice that James should have respected.  In fact, he tried, but could not stop himself from trying to get her to speak.

Well, to make a long story short, the tension over this issue builds until two things happen.  One is that she reveals that she has a history of abuse and rape.  The other is that he has a habit of trying to control her and run her life, so she leaves him.  She reconciles with her estranged mother, Mrs. Norman, played by Piper Laurie, and moves back in with her.  But the lovers eventually realize that they love each other, and get back together.  The end.

Unfortunately, as I sometimes do, I can’t help thinking, “what next?”  After the movie ended, what would happen with the characters?  Sure they realized that they loved each other, but the underlying problem was never resolved.  The relationship is doomed face the same hardships and personality conflicts that ended the relationship the first time.  Sure, James promises not to try to get her to speak any more, but he made and broke that promise more than once, a contributing factor to their breakup.  I’m not confident that he wouldn’t do it again.

So anyway, if the story was predictable, and bordered on dull, what made it so good?  It was Matlin.  She was incredible.  I have always liked her as an actress and here, in her first big screen role, she did not disappoint.  She was amazing.  She only had one spoken line in the entire film, and delivered all her dialogue through sign language.  Not only did she portray stronger emotion than her co-star, she demanded my focus whenever she was on the screen.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  Of course, Hurt did a fine job as well, but for me, she overshadowed him whenever they were on the screen at the same time.

Matlin won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and she really deserved it.  It is interesting to note that at the time, she was only 21 years old, making her the youngest recipient of the award, and the only deaf woman to ever receive it as well.  These little facts make me even more impressed.  Again, I can’t say enough about how great her performance was.

The film also gave an interesting glimpse into the world of the deaf and the hearing impaired.  Not an in-depth look, but enough to hold my interest on an intellectual level.  There were some intimate underwater scenes in which James tried to experience Sarah’s deafness.  And there was significant time devoted to James as he taught his class, giving personalities to some of his students, and showing us some of his teaching methods.  And it really is a world unto itself, a world which hearing people rarely get to see or understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Witness – 1985

This was a very good movie that was a crime drama, a romance, and a thoughtfully handled look inside a culture about which most people know very little.  It starred Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis in the leads and they both did a great job.

At the time this movie was made, Ford was a very popular actor, riding high on his parts in the Star Wars franchise and the Indiana Jones Franchise.  But here he showed a bit of a softer side in the character of John Book.  He is a homicide officer in Philadelphia who is assigned to work on a case in which a police officer has been murdered.  But this was no run-of-the-mill case.  The murder had been committed by crooked cops, and had been witnessed by a young boy named Samuel Lapp, played by Lukas Haas, who happened to be Amish.

His mother, Rachel, played by Kelly McGillis, does her best to protect her son from the outside world, but after the boy identifies the murderer as a police officer who works for a narcotics division, Detective Book forces them to abandon their plans and stay with his sister Elaine, played by Patti LuPone.  The killers attack and shoot John, forcing them to flee into Amish country.

The Amish nurse John back to health, but here is where the real beauty of the script is revealed.  The way the Amish are portrayed is insightful, respectful, and honest.  They are shown to be a peaceful people who are strong in their beliefs and their faith.  Because they keep to themselves, many of us have a number of misconceptions about the Amish which cause us to look down on them as quaint, or backwater, or even primitive.  I have to admit that I was just as guilty of such thinking.

The Wikipedia article about Amish religious beliefs is brief and sums up what the film did such a great job of portraying, and it is worth paraphrasing here:  “Two key concepts for understanding Amish practices are their rejection of pride, arrogance, and haughtiness, and the high value they place on humility, calmness, and composure.  This is better understood to be a reluctance to be forward, to be self-promoting, or to assert oneself.  This anti-individual orientation is the motive for rejecting labor-saving technologies that might make one less dependent on community.  Modern innovations like electricity might spark a competition for status goods, or photographs might cultivate personal vanity.”  The film did a great job of getting this philosophy across.

They also spent some time showing how the Amish view the world around them.  For example, at one point, Rachel says the she is aware that the rest of the world considers them to be quaint.  They come and stare and take pictures, and she comments that it is rude and she doesn’t like it.  And she is right.  It is rude.

John Book is thrust into this world that is completely unlike anything he has ever experienced.  He learns to appreciate the simple lifestyle that the Amish people lead.  To fit in and hide, he begins to dress like them and work with them.  And of course, he falls in love with Rachel.  But then, the film almost seems to forget about Samuel, the witness, concentrating on the love story.  As the viewers, we want them to end up together.  And we begin to wonder which one of them will leave their life behind to be with the other?  And the answer, in the end, was the right one.  Neither.  The star-crossed lovers are bound to part, and once the threat to the witness has been dealt with, they do.  The end was sad, but believable.

I also have to mention the excellent performances by Jan Rubes, playing Rachel’s father, Eli, Danny Glover, playing McFee, the murderer, and Alexander Godunov, playing Daniel, a young Amish man who is jealous of Rachel’s affections for John.  The cast all did a fine job.  I enjoyed the movie, but not so much for the crime drama, but for the honest, and somewhat educational way in which the Amish people were depicted.

The film’s director, Peter Weir, obviously had a lot of respect for them and their way of life.  And through the film, I found that I respect them as well.  I enjoy my modern conveniences, but I do not think any less of them for choosing to live without them.  The film makes it easy to see how happiness can be found in such a life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prizzi’s Honor – 1985

My first thought about Prizzi’s Honor was that Jack Nicholson rarely does comedy.  My second thought was that it reminded me, a little, of the 1988 movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  It had a similar feel.  I have been thinking about the film and trying to decide what genre it falls into.  I’m thinking it is a modern black screwball romantic comedy.  The comedy is definitely there, but it is almost hard to find.  The romance was also present, but it was never allowed to really breathe.  The actors all played their parts seriously, for what it was worth, but the feel, the aesthetics, the pacing, and definitely, the score, all pointed to a light-hearted, though devious, romp.

I liked the complicated plot with its many twists and turns, the characters’ motivations, which drove them to go in directions I never quite expected, and the big-name stars.  But my problem with the film was the direction.  The movie was directed by John Huston, a man known for directing some pretty popular movies like 1941’s The Maltese Falcon , and 1951’s The African Queen.  But I’m just not sure if I liked what he did with this one.

It was how he wanted his actors to play caricatures instead of characters.  For example, the film was based on a mob family headed by Don Corrado Prizzi, played by William Hickey.  He was a walking stereotype with no real personality.  He looked almost cartoonish, again really playing into the mob boss stereotype.  And he wasn’t the only one.  It seemed that every character was created with the stereotype in mind.

The dialogue was sometimes ridiculously hokey with forced phrases like “Yous Guys.”  I kept expecting to hear someone say, “Hey! What’s-a-madda you? I break-a-you face!”  But the trick is that I think it was all deliberate.  Someone had to have told Nicholson to use that over-the-top Brooklyn accent and to keep his upper lip pushed down over his teeth.  Someone had to tell Angelica Houston to pronounce the word “long” like “loo-wong.”   But the fact that it was intentional just made it worse for me.  It was too much and it didn’t work.

True, some of the jokes were mildly amusing in a dark and morbid way, though they were rarely funny.  Most of the comedy was stale and forced.  The romance between Nicholson, playing mafia hit-man Charley Partanna, and Kathleen Turner, who played the part of Irene Walker, an independent hit-woman, was barely recognizable as actual romance.

Charley sees Irene at a wedding and it is love at first site.  Then, when he is told to kill a man who turns out to be Irene’s estranged husband, he ends up wooing her.  After a few hours, Irene falls in love with Charlie and the two of them agree to marry.  A few more days of flying back and forth between New York and LA, the two drive down to Mexico for a shotgun wedding.  The film then follows the two through their rock relationship as they team up for a crime heist.

Matters are complicated even further by Maerose Prizzi, played by Angelica Houston, Charlie’s childhood friend who had always carried a serious torch for him.  But in the end, Charlie and Irene are each hired to kill each other. And the film’s final pay-off is when one of them succeeds.  I’ll say one thing for this movie.  The one aspect of the film that was not a cliché was the plot.  It was devious and intricate, and in itself, was enough to keep my interest.

A few other notable actors who rounded out the cast were John Randolph as Angelo Partanna, Charley’s father, Robert Loggia as Eduardo Prizzi, Don Corrado’s son and right hand man, and Lee Richardson as Dominic Prizzi, the Don’s other son, Maerose’s father.  The movie was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including a Best Actor nomination for Nicholson, A Best Supporting Actor nomination for Hickey, and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Houston, which she won.

I just don’t get it.  I’m not saying it was a bad movie, but I just felt like it wasn’t as good as it could have been.  And the trouble is that I don’t exactly know what I would have done to make it better.  Maybe take out the dry comedy and just make it a dark, or even tragic, romance.  Maybe smarten up the dialogue.  Maybe give the characters realistic personalities and not just stereotypical ones.  Maybe it was clever and innovative for its time, but if that’s the case, it hasn’t aged well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kiss of the Spider Woman – 1985

I am pretty familiar with the musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman.  It has the same basic plot of the movie, but most of the details are different.  The ending was different.  About half the character motivations were different, and the narrative structure was different.  Both the movie and the musical were good in their own ways, but I must say, I prefer the musical.  But this is not a review of the musical.  This is about the movie and its merits.

The plot is pretty basic, and it is a good story which is original and engaging.  It takes place in Brazil during the Brazilian Military Government.  Molina, played by William Hurt, is an effeminate homosexual who is in prison for molesting a minor.  He is paired with a cell-mate who is a member of a leftist revolutionary group.  He is named Valentin, and is played by Raul Julia.  The military police want to use Valentin to root out his fellow revolutionists.

The police promise Molina his parole if he gets Valentin to talk and reveal his contacts.  Molina treats him with kindness, helping him through his recovery from being tortured, and tries to gain his confidence.  But Valentin will not talk.  In a final effort to get the information, Molina tells Valentin that he is getting his parole.  He also reveals that he has fallen in love with him.  In response to Molina’s constant kindnesses, Valentin responds by making love to him, but only with the hope that Molina will deliver a message to the revolutionists when he gets out.  The film ends with Molina attempting to deliver the message, though he is being watched by the police.  A gunfight ensues in which Molina is shot and killed.  Valentin’s torture resumes.  The end.

But then, where does the film’s title come in?  Well, while in prison, the two men pass the time and grow closer as, over time, Molina tells Valentin of a romantic Nazi propaganda film that he loved.  The star of the film is a beautiful woman, named Leni Lamaison, played by Sonia Braga, who happened to be the same actress playing Valentin’s love interest, Marta.  During a time when Valentine is suffering from the effects of a terrible poison, Molina spins the tale of a beautiful woman, also played by Braga, who is trapped in her own spider webs on a tropical Island.  A man is shipwrecked on her island and she nurses him back to health.  The musical did a great job of explaining the Spider Woman, but not the movie.  I felt that in the film, she was a bit of a non-sequitur.  She seemed to show up without a good reason, and once her brief scene was over, she was never seen again.

But Hurt and Julia did a great job.  The two rolls required the actors to delve deeply into their emotional pools and really connect with their characters.  William Hurt got in touch with his feminine side and turned in a performance that was believable and not a gay caricature.  He was perfect for the part, and won the Best Actor award for his efforts.  But Raul Julia was completely able to keep up with the flamboyance of his co-star.  He was tough and strong, masculine, and passionate about his involvement with the revolution.  But he also showed a completely different side when he seduced Molina to get him involved in his cause.

And I think that a part of his character actually did fall in love with Molina, at least a little bit.  No, he didn’t turn gay.   His intimacy with the man had a very specific agenda.  And in the film’s final scene, after he is tortured and given morphine, he sleeps and dreams of being led out of the jail by Marta.  She takes him to the tropical island from Molina’s strange tale.  But instead of encountering the Spider Woman, the two of them get in a row-boat and float away into the sunset.

The director, Hector Babenco, was able to tell two stories at the same time, the story of Molina and Valentin, and the story of the Nazi film with Leni Lamaison.  The narrative cut back and forth between them with ease.  Not only did the two plots take place in different eras, but the propaganda film used a kind of sepia tone filter to further differentiate it from the events of the main plot.  The movie was good enough, but if you like it, I suggest you find a way to see the musical.  For one thing, several of the beautiful actress’s movies are used, the Spider Woman being the only one of her film characters who frightens Molina. And the different ending was a hundred times more powerful, in which the police try to use Valentin’s feelings for Molina to get him to talk, and they assassinate Molina in front of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Color Purple – 1985

I’ve seen this incredible movie before and after watching it for a second time, I am really reminded how absolutely touching and moving the story was.  Director, Steven Spielberg, might be mostly known for his Science Fiction and action/Adventure films like E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, or the Indiana Jones Franchise, or Jaws, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or Jurassic Park.  I, myself, am often guilty of forgetting that he was behind such other fantastic dramas like Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, and War Horse.  The Color Purple may not have had as big a budget as some of these other films, but it was just as dramatic and just as powerful.

The film deals with the plight of a poor, uneducated, unattractive, African American girl named Celie Harris.  As the story begins, 14 year old Celie, beautifully played by Desreta Jackson, and her younger, more attractive sister, Nettie, live in fear of their evil, pedophile father who has a habit of raping Celie, and has actually gotten her pregnant twice.  Then, when she delivered each of her children, he took them away from her and she never saw them again.

Eventually, Celie is given to a man named Albert Johnson, played by Danny Glover, as his wife, though he wants Nettie.  Celie calls him Mister and becomes his slave, keeping his house and raising his children.  Meanwhile, Nettie, fearful of being raped by her father, comes to live with Celie and Albert.  After a while Albert tries to rape Nettie.  When she eludes him by kicking him in the crotch, he throws her out, separating her from her beloved sister, Celie.  Years go by and the adult Celie is played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Mister regularly rapes her, beats her bloody, puts her down, calls her ugly, and yet expects her to be as obedient as a dog.  And all the while, he is in love with a jazz singer named Shug Avery, played by Margaret Avery.  One day he brings a very sick Shug home to take care of her.  He is incapable of doing so, but Celie isn’t.  She nurses Shug back to health and the two women become close friends, close enough that their relationship eventually becomes physically intimate.

I have to take some time to say how phenomenally impressed I was with Goldberg’s performance.  She was truly incredible.  We all know Whoopi for her career as a comedienne, but there was nothing even slightly amusing about her dramatic character.  She was a woman who was almost cripplingly shy, a woman who had been victimized for so long that she hardly knew how be anything but a victim.  She is completely subservient to the men who mistreat her.  Goldberg was so remarkably convincing in her performance.

There were some scenes in the film which stood out to me as being perfectly executed.  The combination of intense acting, a dramatic score, great cinematography, and an emotionally charged script really made me become invested in the story.  For example, when Mister forcibly separates Nettie and Celie and runs Nettie off his property, I was nearly in tears.  Then there was the scene in which, after many years of physical and emotional abuse, Celie fights back against Mister and leaves him, running away with Shug and her new husband.  And then, the tearful climax of the film when Celie is not only reunited with her sister, but with her two lost children, is just spiritually uplifting.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention three other actors who each played their parts perfectly.  Albert’s oldest son, Harpo was played by Willard Pugh.  He eventually finds love with a plump woman with a temper like a hurricane, Sophia, played by Oprah Winfrey.  As a matter of fact, Sophia’s little sub-plot in which she fights back from being beaten by a white man and is thrown in jail for 8 years was heart-wrenching, largely due to Oprah’s great performance.  And finally, Adolph Caesar did a great job as Mister’s sorry excuse for a father.

The entire cast did a great job, making The Color Purple a good movie.  But it was the great direction of Spielberg that elevated the film from good to great.  It is a movie that shows us that no matter how difficult life becomes, hope can always steer us toward happiness.  All it takes from us is patience and endurance.  It is a beautiful message that is beautifully conveyed.