Category: Nominees – 1980s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Left Foot – 1989

I’ll start this off by saying that this was an amazing movie that told a phenomenal story.  Daniel Day Lewis was incredible in the role that won him his first of three Oscars for Best Actor.  He plays Christy Brown, an Irish artist and author.  The film is based on Brown’s autobiography, and was directed by Jim Sheridan.

The story is wonderful and inspirational, telling of how Christy was born with cerebral palsy, grew up learning to deal with his disability, and became an accomplished painter and writer.  What I liked about the movie is that it was never negative.  It was always positive.  He did not have the ability to speak or communicate with anybody until he was 10 years old, so everybody assumed that his mind was just as crippled as his body.  Unfortunately, his mother Bridget, played by Brenda Fricker, and his father Paddy, played by Ray McAnally, treat him as if he is severely retarded.

But through sheer force of will, the young boy uses the only part of his body over which he has control, his left foot, to let his family know that he is just as smart as anybody.  He learns to communicate, giving himself a chance at a somewhat normal life.  But not only does he learn to write by holding a piece of chalk between his toes, he discovers that he has incredible talent as a painter.  And if you don’t know, his paintings were incredibly good for any artist, but knowing the artist’s disability, knowing that he did it all using only his left foot, I was just speechless.

Doctor Eileen Cole, played by Fiona Shaw, takes him on as a patient, teaching him how to function normally in society, and greatly improving his language skills.  When she discovers his artistry, she uses her connections to get him his own exhibition in a gallery.  He falls in love with her, but is devastated when he learns that she is engaged to another man.  He works out his pain by writing his autobiography, which becomes an inspiration for others who share his debilitating disease.  And that’s the basic plot.

Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance was nothing short of genius.  The physical demands of the role must have been bafflingly difficult to embody.  But his focus, his relentless realism, and his incredible skills as an actor, made his Oscar win inevitable.  He was truly amazing.  Fricker also took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and again, it was well-deserved.

But what I came away from the film thinking about was how positive the movie was.  It could so easily have been dramatized as a sob story about a man who had to deal with more than just his disability.  He could have been portrayed as a man who had to struggle with his parents’ scorn, or his siblings’ derision.  He could have had neighbors who were afraid of him or other kids who made fun of him.  But no.  I loved that he was shown as growing up in a very loving home with people who cared for him.  The neighborhood community all watched out for him and he actually had a very good childhood, in spite of the cerebral palsy.

And speaking of Christy’s childhood, I would be remiss if I did not mention the incredible performance of child actor Hugh O’Conor, who played young Christy.  The boy’s performance was every bit as good as Lewis’s.  He was phenomenal in his own right and deserves to be recognized.  Not only was he a good actor, he really looked a lot like Daniel Day-Lewis, enhancing the film’s believability.

But the positive nature of the movie was really highlighted by the bookended narrative.  The movie actually starts out as the adult Christy is waiting in a private room at a charity event that is lauding him as the guest of honor.  Watching over him is a pretty young nurse named Mary Carr, played by Ruth McCabe.  As the two wait for Christy’s moment to appear, Mary begins to read his book.  The main body of the film then shows his life as she reads it.

The film is sparsely punctuated with returns to the room, reminding us that we are watching a flashback of sorts.  And then the movie’s final sequence follows Christy’s attempt to get Mary to break a date to stay with him.  By then, we know that he has been hurt by female rejection on more than one occasion.  We are afraid that it is going to happen again.  But Mary, having read his book and gotten to know him a little, agrees to break her date.

And I loved the final scene in which Mary and Christy leave the charity together.  When it becomes clear that the two have a connection, a little bit of text appears on the screen, letting us know that they married in 1972.  The movie ended there, and I was happy.  But my research revealed a sadder ending.  Apparently, the movie, and Christy and Mary’s relationship, was very fictional.  According to Christy’s siblings, Mary was an abusive alcoholic wife who regularly beat Christy, and was habitually unfaithful to him with both men and women.  But I can see why they left all that out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Field of Dreams – 1989

This was a strange movie.  On the one hand, I got it.  It was a fantasy set in modern times in which a bunch of benign ghosts help a man to reconcile his unresolved issues with his dead father.  But on the other hand, I found it personally dull because I have never been a baseball fan.  The biggest problem I had with the film stems from this.  The film takes the stance that there is nothing more purely wholesome and American than the game of baseball.  Therefore, it is a given absolute that everybody loves the sport.  If you are a true red-blooded American, then of course, you love baseball.

Wrong.  I have nothing against the game, and I fully admit that it has been a huge staple of American culture.  But that culture has many staples that can be enjoyed, and I have never been remotely interested in baseball.  I do not have fond memories of playing baseball as a child, and I certainly don’t feel like I ever missed out on anything because I didn’t play catch with my father.

But the movie wasn’t about me.  It was about someone who did embody those interests and issues.  Kevin Costner played Ray Kinsella, a farmer who had once rebelled against the wishes of his father, bad-mouthed his father’s baseball hero, and left home, never to talk to him again.  Now, as he is working in his corn field, Ray hears a disembodied voice utter the famous phrase, “If you build it, he will come.”  Then he has a vision of a baseball field in the middle of his field of crops.  He tells his wife Annie, played by Amy Madigan, who supports his crazy idea.  Ray uses his family’s life savings to build the sports field, complete with electric floodlights for night games, but he brings himself to the brink of financial ruin.  Still, Annie continues to support him.  Ray cannot pay his bills and the bank threatens to foreclose on his mortgage, at which point Annie begins to doubt her husband’s visions.

But then a lone ball player shows up on the field.  Ray recognizes him as Shoeless Joe Jackson, wonderfully played by Ray Liotta.  Now here is what I found interesting about the plot.  When Ray goes out to meet Joe, it is revealed that Joe is aware that he is a ghost.  Apparently, when Joe had been alive, he and 8 other players had been banned from playing baseball because of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.  But Jackson had been wronged because he had been innocent.  Eventually, all 8 of the players begin having practice games on Ray’s field.  Anyway, the disembodied voice returns, leading Ray on a journey across the country to find two men, one of them living, and the other dead.  James Earl Jones plays Terrance Mann, an activist author and poet who, after attempting to rebuff Ray, begins to hear the voice.  Together, the two find the ghost of another baseball player with unresolved issues, Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, played by Burt Lancaster in his final film performance, though his younger ghost self was played by Frank Whaley.

To make a long story short, the fantasy continues until Ray finally meets the ghost of the one ball-player he really needed to meet.  After Terrance is invited to leave his earthly existence to join the rest of the ghosts in heaven, Shoeless Joe points out a lone ball player removing his catcher’s gear.  It, of course, turns out to be Ray’s own father, played by Dwier Brown, but as a young man, as he had been before Ray had been born.  Ray calls him Dad, establishing that they are both aware of who the other person is, and they play catch.  This somehow forms a bond and resolves all Ray’s Daddy issues.  Oh, and for some completely unexplained reason, hundreds of cars arrive, ready to pay money to watch baseball on his field, thus providing the money for Ray to pay his bills and keep the farm.

I think that what bothered me about the film is that fantasy, and I’ll also say science fiction, generally only works if ground rules are established and followed.  If they are not, then the viewer is only left with unanswered questions.  For example, the film never explained where the voice came from.  It never explained why only certain people were able to see the ball players while others were not.  I have to ask why Ray’s daughter Karin, played by Gaby Hoffman, and Terrance inexplicably became prophets who were able to convince Ray not to sell his farm to Annie’s brother, Mark, played by Timothy Busfield.   And nobody seemed the least bit bothered by Karin’s near death experience.  Magical things just seemed to happen to suit the story without much rhyme or reason.  It is almost like a child making up a story, saying, “This happened, and this happened, and this happened.”  But why did they happen?  Without some kind of an answer, the story comes across as pretty weak, and dare I say, childish.

And I have to make mention of the movie’s final shot, the one showing the hundreds of cars lined up to watch baseball.  They needed to rethink this one.  Shoeless Joe and the ghost baseball players had left, saying that they would be back the next day.  The only two people left on the field are Ray and the ghost of his father playing catch. Suddenly, all those hundreds of people are shown arriving in the middle of the night.  It would have made more sense for them to arrive the next day when the players had returned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead Poets Society – 1989

This was a very good movie on multiple levels.  When one thinks of the film, the first name that might come up is Robin Williams, and he certainly played a pivotal role.  But the movie really had an ensemble cast.  It could almost be argued that either Ethan Hawk or Robert Sean Leonard played the lead.  The movie dealt with some very serious issues like the concept of living your life to the fullest, not conforming to the norms of society, being a free thinker in order to “suck the marrow of life.”  It also dealt with the incredible pressures that are forced upon young men to excel in school, or in other words, to live up to the unreasonable expectations of their parents.

On another level, the film might almost be called a coming of age movie.  It follows the spiritual enlightenment of a group of young boys attending the prestigious Welton Academy, an all-male prep boarding school in Vermont.  The school firmly believes in tradition, discipline, and hard work.  In all honesty, it is a school with wonderful core values.  But the film’s main drama comes not from the teachers, but the parents who cruelly treat their sons like possessions instead of human beings.

Robert Sean Leonard plays Neil Perry, a student at Welton who is a fine and upstanding boy, and a dutiful son with a thirst for knowledge.  He, like any normal young man, longs for independence, a privilege he enjoys whenever his father is not around.  But there’s the problem.  His father, played by Kurtwood Smith, is an overbearing disciplinarian who has absolute control over his son.  He has his boy’s entire scholastic life planned out for him.  He tells him what classes and what extracurricular activities he will take.

Never once does Mr. Perry take into account what Neil, himself, actually wants.  He is so strict that he belittles and threatens Neil in front of his friends, using guilt to force him to submit to his every command.  “I’m only trying to give you all the opportunities I never had,” or “You know how much this means to your mother.”  Even though Neil gets straight As he callously tells Neil to quit working on the school paper, something Neil enjoys because he has decided that it is a distraction from Neil’s other studies.  I focus on this subplot only because it was the most difficult one for me to watch, so much did I hate the character of Mr. Perry.

But the main plot involves Robin Williams playing Mr. Keating, an English teacher who, through his own passion for poetry, inspires the students to latch on to the phrase “carpe diem” or seize the day.  Neil and his fellow students begin to act out with independence, each with varying degrees of success.  Ethan Hawke plays painfully shy Todd Anderson, who has the soul of a poet, and though it is hard to tell, I think the entire movie was really told from his perspective.

Also in the Dead Poets Society, a club made up of the boys in Mr. Keating’s class, is Knox Overstreet, played by Josh Charles, who is inspired to pursue the girl he falls in love with, Chris Noel, played by Alexandra Powers.  Gale Hansen plays Charlie Dalton, the wild one in the Society, who is inspired to rebel by publishing an unauthorized article in the school newspaper, suggesting that girls be allowed to attend the school.  For this he is rewarded with physical punishment, administered by the school’s headmaster, Gale Nolan, played by Norman Lloyd.

The story is powerful and, yes, at the risk of overusing the word, inspiring.  But it is also very hard to watch.  The film has two climaxes.  The first is when Neil, who has finally had enough of living under the cruel and uncaring boot heel of his father, commits suicide.  The second, is when Mr. Keating, who is blamed for the suicide, is fired, and the boys of the Dead Poet’s Society, stand up on their desks, and acknowledge that they do not believe he is responsible.  Headmaster Nolan wants him to leave in shame, but because of the students, he is able to leave with a certain amount of dignity and pride.

William’s performance was wonderfully restrained.  True, most of what the actor is known for is his wild and off-the-wall comedy, but he never fails to turn in incredibly powerful dramatic performances like 1982’s The World According to Garp, and 1997’s Good Will Hunting.  He was an incredibly intense actor, whether he was playing comedy or drama.  But the boys all gave good performances as well, not just Leonard and Hawke.

And lastly, I have to mention the film’s beautiful cinematography and its score.  While neither was nominated for any awards, the filming locations, the late 50s period aesthetics, and the wonderful soundtrack by Maurice Jarre all combined to make the movie fantastic, a feast for both the eyes and the ears.  Even though I wasn’t born until 1973, nor was I ever a part of an elite scholastic society, I almost felt nostalgic for a place like Welton Academy in 1959.  Or maybe it was just my own experiences of being a young man, full of potential.  Either way it was very effective film-making.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born on the Fourth of July – 1989

This was a better movie than I was expecting.  I didn’t really have any idea of what the film was about, except that it was probably going to have something to do with patriotism.  In this, I was both right and wrong.  The film was the second movie in what has unofficially been called director Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War Trilogy.  First, there was 1986’s Platoon, then Born on the Fourth of July, and lastly, 1993’s Heaven & Earth.

The movie is based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic, a Vietnam War veteran who started life as a boy who believed in patriotism and serving his country as a soldier.  He believed in the absolute authority of the United States government, believing everything he was told concerning the rightness of the war in Vietnam and the threat of communism changing his beloved way of life.  But his experiences in Vietnam change him into a man who questions his superiors, not understanding why he is made to do what he considers to be abhorrent, like murdering women and babies, and yet is not listened to when he tries to confess to killing a fellow American soldier by mistake.

Then, he is severely wounded, paralyzed from the waist down, and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  Not only does he have to deal with the memory of the horrors of the War and the reality of his handicap, but he has to deal with the prevailing attitudes of his friends and family who had not fought in the war.  When he returns home, he is not rejected, though he is certainly not welcomed.  To so many people, the war just didn’t make sense.  Nobody knew why we were involved, why so many American boys had to fight and die for a cause that had nothing to do with them.

So he drinks, he becomes angry, and he starts to fight back against the lies that he had been told before joining the Marines.  He fights back against people who attack him for being part of the war.  He eventually fights back against his own depression and self-destructive behavior.  In particular, the scene in which he comes home and begins throwing out accusations at his parents, drunkenly blaming them and the government for ruining his life, was the moment that really defined the character’s transformation from naiveté to maturity.

The movie stars Tom Cruise in a role that seemed to cement his career as a Hollywood super-star.  His efforts earned him his first Academy Award nomination, which he did not win.  But it also gained him a reputation as an accomplished and serious dramatic actor.  He did a good job, and really went out of his way to do the part justice.  The real Ron Kovic was on the filming set for most of the shooting, giving Tom pointers and advice on how to play certain scenes.  In fact, Kovic also worked very closely with his friend Oliver Stone to write the script in the first place.

The bulk of the film was really about Ron’s struggle to survive, both physically and emotionally, in the wake of his injuries.  Cruise had to learn to be proficient in using a wheelchair.  He worked with the makeup artist to give him a look that very closely resembled the real Ron Kovic.  Cruise really turned in a powerful performance.  He was very committed to the part.  But I think that it is par for the course for Cruise.  Sure, Tom cruise has been in the news and has a reputation for being a little crazy at times, but there is no denying that he is a pretty good actor.  You always believe his performances, and this movie was no exception.

There were also some other pretty competent performances in the film.  Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava played Ron’s parents Eli and Patricia.  His high-school sweetheart Donna, was played by Kyra Sedgwick.  His best childhood friend and fellow Vietnam veteran Timmy, was played by Frank Whaley.  And another familiar name, Willem Dafoe, played Charlie, another paralyzed war veteran he meets when he runs from his problems to Mexico.

The film reminded me, somewhat, of the 1978 Best Picture nominee, Coming Home.  It had some similar themes that dealt with the treatment of Vietnam War veterans after their return home, though each film looked at the issue from a different perspective.  It was a good movie that was worth watching.  The script was good, the acting was good, and the drama was good.  Well done, Tom and Oliver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working Girl – 1988

Um… OK.  This was a dumb movie.  The plot could have been passably cute, but it just wasn’t.  The casting was fine, except for the lead.  The plot was predictable, and awfully unrealistic, but they tried to pass it all off as serious.  And it had a great song that ran throughout the movie: “Let the River Run” by Carley Simon.  It starred Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver.  But unfortunately, Griffith can’t act.  She was terrible.  I’m not sure if I can cover all the ways she ruined the film.  But I’ll try.

Griffith plays Tess McGill, a secretary who is supposed to be very intelligent, but nobody ever sees it because they are too focused on her physical beauty.  She gets a job working for Katharine Parker, played by Weaver.  When Katharine breaks her leg skiing, Tess takes over her job.  In an effort to get credit for her own merger idea that Katharine stole, she successfully passes herself off as having Katharine’s job.  She begins business dealings with the other company, working with Jack Trainer, played by Ford.  The merger begins to happen and Jack and Tess end up in bed together.  Katherine learns of Tess’s deceptions and exposes her as a fraud.  Jack takes Tess’s side and threatens to leave the deal if she is not included.  Jack’s boss likes Tess’s gumption so much that he fires Katharine and gives Tess a high-power job with her own office.  The end.

There were so many things about the plot that were unrealistic and, consequently, unbelievable.  If they had just made the film a true farce, it might have been acceptable.  But the movie’s main theme is female self-empowerment.  It is supposed to be about a woman who has been getting the short end of every stick, and how, through strength of will and intelligence, she takes control of her own life, gets the validation and recognition she deserves, and becomes a stronger woman.

But Melanie Griffith ruined it.  She was the film’s main protagonist, and I didn’t buy her performance for a second.  Now, I’ll admit that there were certain scenes in which she did look very pretty.  But then she began to speak.  She had a soft voice that didn’t have an ounce of authority or confidence in it.  She delivered her lines slowly and deliberately, almost like she was reading them from a book and was just learning to read.  Even when she said something that was supposed to show how smart the character was, she just didn’t sound intelligent.  Instead, she sounded like a teenage air-head bimbo who is trying way too hard to sound brainy.

And she often had a vacant look in her eyes, making her look like she didn’t really understand what she was saying, like she had memorized the dialogue, but had no clue what it meant.  And there were far too many scenes showing Griffith in her underwear or just naked.  If you are trying to get the audience to focus on her brains and personality, stop showing them her boobs.

But I have to place just as much blame on the ridiculous script.  There were so many things that were a serious law-suit or even criminal proceedings just waiting to happen.  For example, early in the film, Kevin Spacey has a little cameo in which he plays Bob Speck, an executive that invites Tess on a business outing with him, luring her into his limo with promises of a promotion or better job.  She is trying to talk business, while Bob is snorting cocaine.  Then he offers to play a training video for her and starts playing a porn video.  OK, that is a serious law suit right there!  I know it was the 1980s, but even back then, that kind of sexual harassment would at best get Bob fired, at worst, get him slapped with criminal charges.

And the whole plot of the movie, in which Tess lies, steals, and cheats her way into the merger deal is preposterous.  Once her many lies are exposed, the deal would fall through, pending a criminal investigation into Tess and the business practices of the company she works for.  As Tess’s boss, Katharine would also probably be investigated.  Tess would not be rewarded for her dishonesty and her grossly questionable ethics.  No, she would be fired, plain and simple.

But though their characters were caricatures, Weaver and Ford did good enough jobs with their own parts.  I don’t blame them as much as I blame Mike Nichols and Kevin Wade, the film’s director and script writer.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t blame the 80s, too!  The gigantic 80s hairstyles worn by Griffith and her friend Cynthia, played by Joan Cusack, were like clown wigs.  Very distracting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mississippi Burning – 1988

This was an interesting film that kept my attention and was entertaining, but as I read about its history, I have to look at it under a slightly different light.  It was still good, but I have to take it with a grain of salt.  It was supposed to be based on true events, but when it was released, it was heavily criticized by people who had lived through the events as being mostly untrue.  Not only was the movie accused of being racist because it portrayed black people only as scared victims, it told the story from a completely white point of view, using the Civil Rights Movement as a vehicle to make the film’s white protagonists the heroes.

In the very first scene, we see several police officers chase down and murder three young men, two white and one black, in cold blood.  The main body of the film followed two white FBI agents, Alan Ward, played by Willem Dafoe, and Rupert Anderson, played by Gene Hackman, as they travel to the fictional town of Jessup County, Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of the three Civil Rights Activists.

And the movie was pretty consistent in its use of bad stereotypes.  As I already mentioned, all the black people were portrayed as cowed and frightened victims who would rather stay silent than fight back about the inhuman injustices being perpetrated against them.  All the white folks who were Mississippi natives were racists who thought of all black people as dirty animals.  They hated all colored people with a passion.  And those who were involved with the KKK were portrayed as not simply evil, but stupid, because they were all unashamedly vocal about their hatred of anyone who was not white.

According to the film, the two FBI agents go to Jessup County and start asking questions.  They meet with heavy resistance and uncooperation from the local authorities, and silence from the colored residents.  Agent Ward tries to question a black man in public, and the local KKK members beat him up, though he refused to talk.  After that, Ward calls in more agents.  Then, when an anonymous tip leads them to the missing activists’ car, an army of agents is called in.

Ward and Anderson each have different styles of investigating.  Ward is by the book, and Anderson is more personal and passionate.  Ward goes straight to questions while Anderson talks to a person to make them more at ease before hinting at his questions.  And when the violence begins and quickly escalates to lynching and more murder, Anderson fights back with violence and intimidation tactics.  And eventually, things get so bad that Ward agrees to try things Anderson’s way to solve the case.

Anderson also befriends the wife of one of the guilty officers, Mrs. Pell, played by Francis McDormand.  He puts her off her guard and cleverly seduces her until she rats out her racist husband, Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell, played by Brad Dourif.  In retaliation, the deputy beats his wife badly enough to put her in the hospital.

But in the end, Anderson’s violent and underhanded tactics get the bad guys to start fighting each other, and in the process, expose themselves for the murderers they are.  The black people meekly grieve for their losses and sing a spiritual to lament their persecution.  Really… not very realistic.  Black people were angry and many of them fought back, some meeting violence with violence, murder for murder.  It was a dangerous place and time in history.

True, some of the performances were praised.  Both Defoe and Hackman can rarely be faulted as actors, but McDormand’s performance was also wonderful.  And I was also impressed with Dourif and some of his fellow KKK members and extreme racists, Gailard Satrain, R. Lee Ermey, Michael Rooker, and Stephen Tobolowsky.  And lest I forget, I have to mention a good performance from another actor I know, Kevin Dunn, as agent Ward’s chief assistant, Agent Bird.  Strangely enough, there were no notable black characters in this whitewashed film. So don’t go into the movie expecting a true historical depiction of either the Civil Rights movement, or an account of the real events that took place in Neshoba County, Mississippi in 1964.  Just know that it a fictionalized account of real events that are only loosely based on reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dangerous Liaisons – 1988

This was a wonderful example of a period drama.  It is a vicious story about people who use sex as manipulation in order to achieve cruel goals like revenge, personal conquests, and wanton, careless destruction, all taking place in Paris, in 1781.  Glenn Close and John Malkovich are the clear villains, who, through their love of cruelty and vanity, destroy not only their own lives, but the lives of three other innocent people.

Close plays Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil, a woman who takes pleasure hurting other people and ruining their lives, yet always keeping the appearance of innocence.  Her friend Vicomte de Valmont, played by Malkovich, is a vain and charming gigolo who is always looking for his next sexual conquest.  The harder the challenge, the greater his pleasure.

The Marquise wants revenge against her former lover who spurned her, so she tries to hire Valmont to seduce and deflower his bride to be, Cecile de Volanges, played by a very young Uma Thurman.  Valmont refuses on the grounds that Cecile is too easy a target.  There is no challenge.  Valmont has his sights set on a very pious, and very married, Madame Marie de Tourvel, played by Michelle Pfeiffer.  After Valmont’s refusal, the Marquise strikes a bargain with him.  If he is able to win his prize, and obtain written proof of his conquest, he can have one night of passion with her, a trophy he has never been able to obtain, yet has long sought.

Still wanting Cecile to be spoiled before being married, the Marquise brings in a young music teacher to do the job.  A young Keanu Reeves, playing Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny, is brought in, yet he fails miserably to bed Cecile.  The webs of deception and manipulation are too twisted and complex to go into, but they are many and varied, and ostensibly mean-spirited.

Suffice to say, Valmont eventually makes Madame Tourvel fall in love with him, but actually fall in love with her at the same time.  But in order to win the Marquise, he spurns her.  When the Marquise refuses him because he never got written proof that he bedded Madame Tourvel, he becomes incensed.  Madame Tourvel dies from grief and shame, Danceny kills Valmont in a duel because of his sexual involvement with Cecile, and the Marquise’s depravities are made public, for which she is vehemently shunned by society.

The casting was all perfect with the exception of Keanu Reeves.  I’m sorry, but he was never a good actor, a fact which has become painfully obvious to the world in recent years.  Sure, he has had a very successful career, but only because he is smart enough to choose roles like Neo in the Matrix franchise, because he is not required to do much acting.  In Dangerous Liaisons, he seemed very out of place, especially when put next to such great actors as Close, Malkovich, and Pfeiffer.

The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and it won 3.  For me, the most obvious win was James Acheson for Best Costume Design.  The costumes were incredible, especially those worn by the Marquise.  The attention to detail was obsessive and spectacular.  Even the hair styles, from what I have read, were period-specific and gorgeous.  The beautiful and bright brocade fabrics, the opulent adornments, and the marvelous jewelry, all made for an incredibly realistic and captivating look for the film.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the music.  The score, written by George Fenton, was heavily influenced by baroque and classical styles.  Fenton wrote plenty of original music for the film, but the score also featured music composed by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, and Gluck, though it is interesting to note that none of these composers were French.  A standout piece of music was the countertenor Paulo Abel Do Nascimento’s performance of Ombra mai fu, by Handel.  Just wonderful!

This was a very good movie.  It was engaging, easy to follow, and yet complex, with an intensity that is inherent in the twisted plot.  The characters were well-written and believable, and the verbose dialogue was spot-on.  All in all a great movie.  It lost the Best Picture Oscar to Rain Man, but I don’t know.  It must have been a close race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Accidental Tourist – 1988

This movie was a strange one.  It was depressing as all get out, with characters that were difficult to like or identify with.  The film is listed as a comedy/drama, but I really beg to differ.  There was no comedy in it at all.  This was pure drama, or maybe romantic drama, though even the romance itself was heavily dramatic.  The biggest thing that stood out to me was the solemn and melancholy score by legendary composer John Williams, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.  It really set the tone for the entire film, ensuring that it was sad and depressing.

The biggest problem with the movie was that nearly every character is emotionally crippled.  Some of them are so severely emotionally stunted that they can barely function in society.  The worst of the lot is the lead character played by William Hurt, Macon Leary.  He is an author who writes boring travel guides for businessmen who hate to travel.  He hates his job.

He is depressed and is either disdainful or possibly terrified of most human interaction.  He only feels comfortable in the presence of his wife Sarah, played by Kathleen Turner, or his three siblings, Porter, Charles, and Rose, played by David Ogden Stiers, Ed Begely Jr., and Amy Wright.  He can barely tolerate his publisher Julian, played by Bill Pullman.

Within the first few minutes of the movie, two horrifying plot points are revealed.  First, Macon and Sarah’s child had been murdered during an armed robbery.  Second, Sarah has decided to leave Macon.  She believes that he was incapable of consoling her through her grief and depression over the incident.  Actually, she was right, but only because he was too lost in his own grief to help her.

Macon grows even more depressed and moves back into the house in which he grew up to be with his brothers and sister.  As he must travel for his job, he has to board his dog.  Geena Davis is a single woman named Muriel Pritchett, who works at the pet boarding business.  When the two meet, Muriel begins to persistently pursue Macon.  She helps him through his depression, despite her own troubles.  She was an interesting character who always seemed to be making an effort to stay positive, despite her own troubles.  Not only was she a poor, single mother, but her son was weak and allergic to nearly everything.  Davis won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the roll.

Eventually Macon begins to open up to her and through her persistence, he falls in love with her.  But he is so emotionally damaged that he has incredible difficulty acknowledging his feelings in any meaningful way.  But Muriel eventually gets him to promise that he will not leave her.  But when his sister Rose, socially crippled and emotionally timid as she is, marries the chronically lonely Julian, he runs into Sarah at the wedding.  He leaves Muriel to try to patch things up with his wife.  But eventually he realizes that he does not love Sarah.  He loves Muriel.

Now, I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t like the movie.  It was a good movie.  Just don’t expect a comedy.  It was deep drama, and nothing more.  And as for that, the film’s biggest source of tension was not the love triangle between Sarah, Macon, and Muriel.  It was Macon’s inability to get over his son’s death.  Most of his real emotional problems stemmed from that.  The somber film score, the depressing screenplay, and William Hurt’s deadpan and restrained performance combined to create scenes that were actually difficult to watch.

I kept thinking that Macon would have benefited from seeing a therapist, except that would have required him to endure social interaction.  Still, I was reminded of the 1980 Best Picture winner, Ordinary People, in which Judd Hirsch played a psychologist who helped Timothy Hutton get over the death of his brother in a powerful and cathartic therapy session.  I wanted to see Macon have a catharsis.

But in the end, his healing only began when he realized that he wanted to be with Muriel because she had been the one to help him through his own pain.  It was a subtle change, but I recognized the significance of the movie’s final shot.  As Macon is riding away in a cab, he sees Muriel trying to hail a taxi.  He tells his driver to stop for her.  When their eyes meet, she smiles at him.  He smiles back, and it is the only time in the entire film where we see Macon happily smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moonstruck – 1987

I’d seen this movie before, but had forgotten how good a film it was.  It was a romantic comedy, which normally puts me on my guard.  The romance was quick, easy, and yet not forced.  The comedy, while mild, was easy and organic, and even had a few moments that made me chuckle out loud.  But it was the sweet and clever script that really caught my attention.

The movie starred Cher and Nicholas Cage in the leads.  I like Cher, but when it comes to Cage, I have to fight against my biases.  I’ve never been a huge fan of the actor.  It’s his face.  He has a face that always looked to me like he is about to fall asleep.  His features are so droopy.  His normal, relaxed expression leaves his mouth hanging open, and his eyes drooping, as if with exhaustion.  To me, he always seems incredibly sleepy, phenomenally stoned, or just moronically empty-headed.  But I know this isn’t his fault.  It is just the way his features are, and has no bearing on his skills as an actor.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t buy Nicholas Cage as the romantic lead.  I guess that the movie was trying to imply that Cher’s character was so physically attracted to him that she forgot all about her brand new fiancée to jump into bed with a droopy-faced man who could barely speak without shouting in anger.  Ah well.  Suspension of disbelief, right?

So Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a young widow living in Brooklyn Heights.  She believes her first marriage was cursed with bad luck.  So she accepts, though she does not love him, the proposal of Johnny Cammareri, a man who must go to his dying mother in Sicily.  Upon Johnny’s request, Loretta contacts his brother Ronny with whom he has been estranged for the last 5 years, played by Cage, to invite him to the wedding.  Upon meeting the tortured Ronny, tortured because of the loss of one of his hands, which in turn had led to his abandonment by his then fiancée, Loretta falls in love with him, though she tries to deny her feelings.

The romance that follows is swift and not very well fleshed out, though it was certainly sweet.  But aside from their star-crossed relationship, it is revealed that Loretta’s father, Cosmo, played by Vincent Gardenia, is cheating on her mother Rose, played by Olympia Dukakis.  Rose knows of Cosmo’s infidelity, which is paralleled by Loretta’s infidelity from her engagement.

But all is made right in the end.  Rose confronts Cosmo and makes him promise to stop seeing his mistress.  And upon Johnny’s return from Sicily, he announces that because his mother did not die, he cannot marry Loretta, clearing the way for her to marry Ronny instead.  And it was that cleverly written script that really made the movie enjoyable.  That, and Cher.

Really, Cher stole the show.  She was bright and funny.  She looked fantastic and brought an energy to the film that was fun and infectious.  Deservedly so, she took home the Oscar for Best Actress.  Dukakis, who also did a fantastic job, won the award for Best Supporting Actress.  And as a side-note, John Patrick Shanley took home the award for Best Original Screenplay.  Not a bad haul for a romantic comedy.

And I have to spend a moment explaining why the script deserved such attention.  It was a neat and tidy little story.  It had a period of set-up, a little development, a clear conflict, the crisis of consequences, and a clever, but believable ending, an ending that said several things.  First, never give up on love because it is never too late to find it.  Second, true love is stronger than safety and comfort.  And third, magic still exists in the world.

And that magic came in the form of Cosmo’s moon.  As a plot device, Loretta’s uncle Raymond Cappomaggi, played by Louis Guss, describes a dream he’d once had where a large and bright moon, a romantic moon, had stood over Cosmo when he had been courting Rose, demonstrating his love for her.  That same moon hung over Ronny as he courted Loretta, inspiring their love.  It was a cute and very romantic way to explain their remarkably insistent love for each other.  Quite simply, it made me smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope and Glory – 1987

This movie was pretty average.  As a drama, it wasn’t overly dramatic.  As a comedy, it wasn’t overly funny.  And it had such potential to be both.  It was actually a coming of age film set against the backdrop of World War II, a subject that is incredibly dramatic and intense, and not at all humorous.  But I think the screenwriter dropped the ball.  The film looked at the war through the eyes of a child who didn’t really understand it.  It white-washed the horrors of the war.  Sure, a few bad things happened, but they were few and far between, and seemed to have very little effect on the main character.

Child actor Sebastian Rice-Edwards played Billy Rohan, a young boy living in a suburb of London.  He lives with his mother Grace, played by Sarah Miles, his father Clive, played by David Hayman, his older sister Dawn, played by Sammi Davis, and his little sister Sue, played by Geraldine Muir.  The family is happy, living their quiet lives, until the war begins.  Grace cannot bear to be parted from her children, and does not send them out of the country.  But then the air raid sirens begin to blare.  Soon after that, the bombs start falling.  Clive enlists to fight in the war and leaves.

But here is where the drama of the story fell flat.  No bombs destroy their house.  Nobody dies.  Nobody is even wounded.  Clive comes home for Christmas and informs his family that he has been deemed too old for combat duty.  He is given the job of a clerk.  Dawn starts dating a soldier and gets pregnant.  But the father of her child does not die.  He goes AWOL and returns to marry her.  Grace must deal with caring for her family without her husband, but she manages just fine.  Sure, half the neighborhood is a pile of rubble, and a neighbor’s mother is killed, but nothing really bad happens to Billy.

Even when their house is burned down, it isn’t because of an air raid.  It is a common fire that might have happened even if there was no war.  And even then, they have a safe place to go.  They move in with Grace’s cantankerous father George, played by Ian Bannen.  He lives in a beautiful house in the country.  They no longer have to deal with any of the dangers of the war.  Dawn has a safe place to give birth to her child.  Everybody is safe and happy, despite going through one of the darkest events in our planet’s history.

How much more dramatic might the film have been if Clive had been killed in action?  Or worse yet, what if Grace had been killed in an air raid, and the children, now orphaned, had nowhere to go.  What kind of perspective would Billy have had on the war then?  The slow pace of the film might have meant something.  The drama might have been gripping.  Or if they wanted the film to be a comedy, what kind of dark or absurdist humor might have been contrived against the real terrors of war and tragedy?

No, the film was just average, and barely interesting.  There was nothing special or unique about the plot.  The sets and costumes were appropriate, but again, nothing out of the ordinary.  So I have to ask, why was the movie nominated for Best Picture of the year?  And that’s the problem.  I don’t have an answer.  As I mentioned, the pace was slow.  The story, which had the potential to be intense, was just bland.

But there was one aspect of the film that was somewhat interesting.  Film critic Pauline Kale said it nicely when she wrote, “The war frees the Rohans from the dismal monotony of their pinched white-collar lives… The war has its horrors, but it also destroys much of what the genteel poor like Grace Rohan, have barely been able to acknowledge they wanted destroyed.”  In other words, the Rohans weren’t really happy with their lives after all.  And from the young Billy’s perspective, the war made a boring existence interesting.

And maybe that was the point of the movie.  Maybe it wasn’t trying to be dramatic.  It was trying to be quietly profound.  Maybe I was just expecting too much drama from a coming of age film that wasn’t really trying to be powerful or dramatic.  But then, I still come back to the question.  Why was such a quaint and subtle movie nominated for Best Picture?  I don’t know.