The Pelican Brief (1993)

Film: The Pelican Brief (1993)

Stars: Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, John Heard, Tony Goldwyn, Stanley Tucci, Hume Cronyn, John Lithgow

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Julia Roberts: click here to learn more about Ms. Roberts (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

In the wake of her double Oscar nominations, and the unprecedented box office success of Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts embarked on a two-pronged road as a movie star.  From 1991-93, Roberts headlined four films (Sleeping with the Enemy, Hook, Dying Young, and today's picture, The Pelican Brief) that had two things in common.  The first was that they were all hits-Roberts, whose acting price was skyrocketing, was the last of a breed of movie stars who could get audiences to go into theaters for genres as diverse as thrillers, romantic dramas, and family-friendly fantasy pictures based on her name alone.  Pretty much everything she touched turned to gold, to the point where there's a scene in The Player (in which she makes a small cameo) where during a casting meeting everyone just keeps pitching Julia Roberts for all of their movies, the only actress that anyone cares about at the moment).  But in a moment of caution for Roberts that she should've heeded (it might have saved her some hurt), none of these movies were well-received by critics.  Unlike Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, she received no Oscar nominations for these pictures, and critics disliked the films.  This would set up a moment (which we'll discuss next week) where the public would prove that all stars can only ascend so high before they are taken down.  But first, let's talk The Pelican Brief.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Pelican Brief, based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham, is about two people associated with two dead Supreme Court justices (both assassinated in plain sight early on in the picture): Darby Shaw (Roberts), a young law student having an affair with her well-regarded professor Thomas Callahan (Shepard), and Gray Grantham (Washington) a reporter who clerked for one of the justices (Cronyn).  Shaw, through her own ingenuity (and luck) comes up with a theory as to why the two justices were killed, nicknamed the "pelican brief" about how an oil magnate killed the two justices so that his friend the president could appoint two justices willing to disregard the endangered species act, thus allowing him drilling rights in waters that are protected due to them being the habitat of an endangered breed of brown pelican.  As it turns out this is right, and after Callahan is killed in a car explosion that was meant to kill both of them, Darby reaches out to Gray (weirdly, Washington & Roberts do not appear onscreen together until over an hour into this picture), she goes on the run, trying to help Gray prove that her theory is right as everyone around her starts to die.

In the 1990's to early 2000's, John Grisham novels were insanely hot properties for Hollywood.  It wasn't just Denzel Washington & Julia Roberts getting in on the action.  Some of the biggest stars of the era (Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, Sandra Bullock, Gene Hackman, Matt Damon, John Cusack, & Tim Allen) all appeared in movies adapted from his work, and pretty much every book release was an event in a way that, quite frankly, adult dramatic novels simply don't have anymore in an era where most literary bestsellers are adults reading books meant for teenagers.  So this was a story that many people already knew going into it, which is good as The Pelican Brief is kind of nonsense.  The movie is at once deeply telegraphed and contains very little logic.  It's clear early on in the picture that there are very few twists (every time there's new information, it's 100% accurate, no misdirects), and everyone dies in roughly the order you'd expect.

The one thing that's good about this is Roberts & Washington.  There's a lot that's been said about their pairing onscreen, with Washington famously refusing to kiss Roberts onscreen (Roberts has said in subsequent interviews that she thought a kiss made sense), because he thought it would upset his fanbase (the core of which, according to Washington, was Black women)...something that's been largely the case in the years since (think about how rarely Denzel Washington, People's "Sexiest Man Alive" at one point, has done love scenes compared with contemporaries like Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson).  This makes the film about platonic friends (though it hosted a lot of think pieces at the time about how the studio was trying to avoid an interracial kiss that likely would've taken place if the lead had been Cruise or Gibson), ones who flirt a bit but largely avoid romantic entanglements, which is a nice change-of-pace for a movie that initially has its beautiful young lead sleeping with her professor as if it's acceptable.  Their movie star charisma is rolling off of the screen-him suave & savvy, her steely & glowing, enough so that you might be convinced this is a good movie when it's just them...but anytime it cuts away you learn the truth.

Tombstone (1993)

Film: Tombstone (1993)

Stars: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Jason Priestley, Dana Delany

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Sam Elliott: click here to learn more about Mr. Elliott (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Sam Elliott's career, honestly, could've just continued in the same mold it had throughout the 1980's for the rest of his time in Hollywood.  In the 1990's, he continued to take small (but steady) parts in more westerns & war pictures, including our film today, one of the more profitable traditional westerns of the 1990's.  But in 2015, Elliott started to have something of a resurgence.  He had a terrific supporting role in the film Grandma opposite Lily Tomlin (for my money, this was the role that should've won him an Oscar nomination), and got cast in The Ranch opposite Ashton Kutcher & Danny Masterson on Netflix (at the time this would've been a big deal given Kutcher's recent success on Two and a Half Men...now the call list feels like it should come with a subpoena).  He got a lead role in The Hero, playing a faded cowboy star, and then came the moment that it seemed like would never come: Elliott's part in A Star is Born.  In the film, he plays the much older brother of Bradley Cooper's lead, and Elliott informed not only his own performance, but that of Cooper (who was clearly imitating the actor's distinctive gravely voice).  The film, at the age of 74, won Elliott his first Academy Award nomination.  Asked for comment at the time, Elliott said "it's about fucking time."

(Spoilers Ahead) We've already reviewed and discussed at length A Star is Born, so we're going to go back to the 1990's when it wasn't clear this was something that was in Elliott's future, and review the film Tombstone.  In 1993-94, two films (this and Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp) were released basically with the same premise, focusing on the lives of Wyatt Earp (Russell) & his brothers Virgil (Elliott) and Morgan (Paxton).  The movie covers a lot of ground, including the Gunfight at the OK Corral, which would make the Earp Brothers true legends, and the ensuing revenge that took place after that would injure Virgil and result in Morgan's death.  Along the way, they are joined by Doc Holliday (Kilmer), and Josephine Marcus (Delany), the former their compatriot who is dying pretty much the entire film, and the latter the romantic partner of Wyatt Earp throughout most of his life.

If you're wondering why I'm writing that plot summary like a history lesson rather than our "deconstruct the plot" approach we usually do, it's because Tombstone is not a good movie, and has very little actual connection to these characters.  The film feels so formulaic as to be reading a history book (albeit one with a lot of fallacies about what actually happened, as forgotten brother Warren Earp is lifted entirely out of this narrative despite being there for key parts of this story in real life).  Russell, Elliott, & Paxton don't have much connection to one another as brothers-there's little camaraderie, with Elliott in particular badly miscast as a stoic figure (Elliott's at his best when he's playing something of a rascal, not a stern disciplinarian).  Even Golden Age western star Charlton Heston shows up for a "why's he here?" cameo with little fanfare.

The one saving grace of the movie is Val Kilmer, who is not as good of an actor as the other three men in most films, but here steals the entire movie wholesale.  His Doc Holliday, with an affected accent & covered in sweaty makeup, is delicious.  He flirts with everyone, he clearly is competent even while his body shuts down, and you spend the entire film rooting for him even though you he's not going to make it.  At the time, there was some Oscar buzz for Kilmer for this role, and while 1993 is hardly a year to complain about the Academy's lineup (one of the finest Supporting Actor sets that AMPAS ever assembled), watching this you definitely wish Kilmer had been able to get some accolades.  At least after this he got to be Batman.

And with that, we're going to end our month devoted to Sam Elliott, an actor who still works in film & television with such regularity there will hopefully be more shootouts & galloping in his future.  Next month, we're going to ride this season into the sunset, with our final Hollywood cowboy, a man who saw acting as a second career...a second career that brought about the final chapter of the Golden Age western.

OVP: Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Film: Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Stars: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Ross Malinger, Rosie O'Donnell, Rob Reiner
Director: Nora Ephron
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Original Screenplay and Original Song ("A Wink and a Smile"))
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Continuing on the path of films I have seen before and caught on Saturday night, we'll get to another film that I loved WAY more than the Academy.  You'll notice that 5/5 star rating up-top, and I will fully admit that this may be a bit overboard.  I could have gone with 4/5 stars, but I didn't for a couple of reasons that we'll expound upon below that are a bit more unbiased, but there's one reason that is not scientific or completely sounded in filmic logic-I love this movie.  This is my feel-good film.  Whenever I am feeling sad about a break-up or a bad date or a rough week at work, I will whip out Sleepless in Seattle and will just find myself totally immersed in the movie.  It's to the point where I have routines with it, like a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show (there's a part of the movie where I have to have all of the lights out and am under an afghan and will silent sing Nat King Cole to no one in particular).  It's my comfort movie, so if you think this particular review is uncharacteristic, keep that in mind.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is extremely well-known, but for those of you who haven't come across this particular slice of pop culture quite yet, it's about a man from Seattle named Sam (Hanks) who has recently lost his wife to cancer, and is now raising their young son Jonah (Malinger) by himself.  Jonah, on Christmas Eve, decides to call into a radio show and ask for advice on how to deal with his father's anguish.  He is overheard across the country by a woman named Annie (Ryan) in Baltimore who becomes enamored with this man she's never met.  In a time before Facebook and Skype, she decides to track him down, becoming more and more in love with him until they finally meet in the film's final scene.

The movie borrows heavily from another of my personal favorites An Affair to Remember (in keeping with this reviewing films that I watch again that have been Oscar-nominated, it's a pretty safe assumption that this particular nugget will be on the blog within the year).  The movie follows two lovers kept apart by geography, though in the case of this particular film, they only meet in the final scene of the movie.  This actually makes the film rather unique in the annals of romantic comedies.  Ephron, who wrote and directed the film, has to trust that we the audience have pieced together that these two are perfect for each other.  We don't have any actual proof on the screen that these people have chemistry or even are romantically-matched except for what we see evidenced on paper.  Ephron has fun comparing Ryan both to Hanks' character and to his late wife, including a memorable bit with an apple.

The film is aided by a very sound set of supporting cast members who never steal away from the film, but instead continually aid in what is happening onscreen, keeping the focus squarely on Jonah, Annie, and Sam.  Rosie O'Donnell is immensely quotable as Becky-in the years before her wildly successful talk show and her controversial era on The View she was a sound comedic side player in a number of films, and is completely believable as Ryan's best friend.  The same can be said for Rob Reiner as Hanks' pal, who was a longtime friend and collaborator of Ephron's, but in this case stayed in front of the camera instead of beside her behind it.

The film's best assets, though, are the leading players.  Ryan and Hanks had intense chemistry in their three outings together, but this may have been their biggest challenge because they didn't get to rely on that chemistry, and instead have to largely project something you don't often see in a romantic comedy: loneliness.  Sleepless is unique in that way-frequently in romantic comedies we're petrified to show that single people, especially single people in their thirties, can encounter incredibly lonely situations.  Both Annie and Sam have friends, family, and in Annie's case, a fiance who adores her, and yet they're exceedingly lonely, knowing that they may be about to settle for an underwhelming life just so they aren't alone at the finish line.  You see the way that, say, Ryan's mood changes into almost a repeated speech whenever she has to discuss her fiance Walter (one of the great recurring themes is the unspoken resentment that Becky, the best friend who clearly cannot insult the future-husband, rolls her eyes every time that Annie is clearly lying about her feelings for Walter).  Annie's trying to convince herself in these scenes more than anything else.  The same can be said for Hanks when he's finding that his new girlfriend Victoria will never be the love of his life like his ex-wife, but realizes that he may have to settle so his son can have a mom.  These are topics that wouldn't normally be explored in a romance, where you're more focused on the two falling in love and overcoming some obstacle, but here the distance and their not knowing each other is the obstacle, giving us a chance to know them as individuals in a way few films have ever done, and as a result we get a more fully-realized picture of the two characters prior to the actual movie.

Those are my thoughts on what in my opinion is the best romantic comedy of the past thirty years-what are yours?  Do you clamor for Sleepless in the same way I do, and if not, what's your go-to feel-good film?  Is there any appetite out there for another go-around with Hanks/Ryan, or did that ship sail when Nora Ephron passed away?  And where does this film rank in your personal Oscar lists for writing and songs of 1993?  Share in the comments!