OVP: Altered States (1980)

Film: Altered States (1980)

Stars: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid

Director: Ken Russell

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Score, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-00's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

Every genre of movie has a pretty wide berth when it comes to its description.  Think of something like "comedy" where everything from the films of the Three Stooges to the polished wit of Noel Coward to the black-hearted works of Yorgos Lanthimos are somehow under the same umbrella.  This is true of horror as well, as we see with Ken Russell's film Altered States.  This is definitely a horror film, fit snuggly into the concept of body horror, and one that was nominated for a pair of Oscars (as we've said, this is pretty rare for horror pictures, particularly when you're talking Best Score).  But it's also quite cerebral, and could easily be a thriller (or, honestly, just a SciFi Drama).  We will consider it, though, for the sake of our conversation this month, a horror film, and a pretty odd one.

(Spoilers Ahead) Ken Russell's films are quite heady so I''m going to give you a high-level look into the plot, but know that I'm missing some things.  We have Eddie Jessup (Hurt), a scientist who is studying schizophrenia but becomes obsessed with the concept of studying other states of consciousness.  The movie leans in on this as he moves into a sensory deprivation tank, and enjoys the secession from reality that it affords.  Years later, he is still obsessed with this concept, despite having domesticated a bit (he's married to his wife Emily, played by Brown, and has two daughters).  His marriage nearly in shambles, he goes to Mexico to study a tribe that has shared hallucinatory states, and is able to join them with a magical mushroom potion, one that he steals & brings home to study in the lab.  Continued time in the tank shows that he is manifesting or reverting to some sort of caveman state of being, one that is potentially killing him, but that he becomes addicted to experiencing so he can understand what is happening beyond himself.  The films ends with him nearly transcending to another plane, but because it's going to come at the cost of Emily, he decides not to do it, and they reunite, their marriage on the mend.

The film is one that I'd find really hard to love, but I also understand & respect those who are into.  It deals with a lot of larger concepts, and I don't think it works.  On some level it's clearly about the Frankenstein myth, with Eddie wanting to create something beyond himself, understanding mankind in a different level.  In doing this, it's noteworthy that he becomes estranged from his wife, who actually has created other life (their two daughters), which is the core of the Frankenstein myth-men are obsessed with this thing that women can do and they cannot.  I don't think, though, that Russell has enough to say about this-he shoots for the wider reachs of the universe, asking questions, but because these questions are unknowable, he can't really find the answers.

The film's two Oscar nominations I was in the middle on, even if the film looks pretty good (the creepy-crawly skin effects on William Hurt are well-done...and also kudos to Russell for making sure to have totally unnecessary male nudity in a genre where we almost always get that for women but not men).  The sound is intriguing, but it's also repetitive, and honestly, this would be much more in the "sound effects" category we'd get soon after this than the mixing I'm accustomed to (they were combined then).  The Score, a rare nomination for John Corigliano who would pull off one of the category's great upsets 19 years later for The Red Violin, is solid but again, not exactly to my tastes.  It's interesting, it fits the film, but it's not as iconic as you'd want from one of the rare entries into the horror genre nominated for Best Score.

1920's: The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera

1930's: The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, Mad Love, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London

1940's: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Cat People, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Invisible Woman, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Phantom of the Opera, She-Wolf of London, Son of Dracula, The Uninvited, The Wolf Man

1950's: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature

1960's: The Devil Rides Out, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead,Village of the Damned

1970's: The Amityville Horror, Black Christmas, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Don't Look Now, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, Phantom of the Paradise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man

1980's: Child's Play, The Evil Dead, The Fly, Friday the 13th, Gremlins, Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, The Thing

1990's-Present: Arachnophobia, The Blair Witch Project, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Candyman, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Paranormal Activity, Scary Movie, Scream

Black Widow (2021)

Film: Black Widow (2021)

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, William Hurt, Ray Winstone, Rachel Weisz

Director: Cate Shortland

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Scarlett Johansson has been playing Natasha Romanoff since 2010 when she first appeared in Iron Man 2, the first female cinematic Avenger, and basically since that time we have been hearing "when is there going to be a Black Widow movie?"  After a near-decade of pressure from comic book fans, who pointed out repeatedly the boy-centric nature of all of the titles that had gotten their own stand-alone films, Johansson finally got to have a sendoff for the character (presumably this is her final moment with the role), by giving her her own origin story/adventure.  Black Widow comes in an interesting situation, though, as it is the film most famously delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic-it was supposed to be released in mid-2020, but was bumped back over a year as a result of Disney not wanting to risk the lost box office dollars.  As a result, Black Widow represents the longest gap the MCU has taken from theaters since 2010 (when she first came onto the scene), since we last checked-in with the Avengers cinematically with Spider-Man: Far From Home two years ago.  Since then, though, the franchise has expanded into three different television series, that, rightly or wrongly, clearly have impacted Black Widow and the way it's perceived by audiences.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in 2016, though we do see some flashbacks to Natasha aka Black Widow's (aka Scarlett Johansson) childhood, which puts it roughly at the Captain America: Civil War point in the MCU timeline (we have not had the Thanos snap yet).  The movie is about Natasha trying to take down Dreykov (Winstone), a Russian general who controls an army of female super soldiers, one of which was Natasha, and two more of which are her "pretend" mother Melina (Weisz) and her pretend sister Yelena (Pugh).  Joined also with their faux father Alexei, the Red Guardian (Harbour), the four team up to take down Dreykov, while also in the process working through the abandonment issues the two girls felt when their "parents" surrendered them to an assassin program.

Black Widow, as I mentioned above, is a movie that should have come out two years ago, and that honestly wears on the movie.  It's possible that this film will play better years from now if you watch all of the MCU films back-to-back (that happens-occasionally when films are seen in rapid succession & viewed as one long story, similar to a TV show, they play better), but now we're a few years out and Black Widow's moment-in-the-sun feels done.  Johansson's character died in Avengers: Endgame, so we have already said our goodbyes to her, and she has been replaced in the years since by other Avengers with more compelling back stories such as Scarlet Witch & Black Panther.  There's just not enough intrigue left around this character for us to care about this coda, and in a similar fashion to Spider-Man: Far From Home, these feel like movies that don't really keep us interested in the longer-game storylines of the series in the way that we cared about the Thanos 'Infinity Stone' chapters as a collective unit.  The only time, honestly, we've seen a real urgent need to continue these tales has been WandaVision (full confession: I haven't yet caught Loki though I will), and I stand behind my initial assessment that it may be worth moving on from this series if we don't start seeing some growth in the tales (or some better mysteries unfolding within the series).

That said, Black Widow has its fun moments.  Pugh steals the whole picture wholesale as Yelena, Black Widow's spunky younger sister.  She consistently wisecracks-the broken, petulant sister of a world superstar, and Marvel wisely is putting her centerstage in its upcoming series Hawkeye.  Harbour's accent work is really bad (he shifts out of his Russian accent way too often), and as a result his scene-stealing isn't quite as worthy.  Johansson & Weisz are two of the most consistent screen presences, with the former eternally understanding the assignment (few actresses are better today at totally enveloping their character into the fabric of a film without ever needing to steal focus quite like ScarJo) and Weisz is the fabulous badass who you know will always get out of everything.  There's a lot to like in the chemistry between the four, but it feels somewhat disjointed, and it's hard to care about them when we already know the titular character's destiny (and that this tale will have little impact on the future of the Avengers franchise).

OVP: Supporting Actor (2005)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2005)

The Nominees Were...

George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt, A History of Violence

My Thoughts: We move now into the acting races.  The Best Supporting Actor race wasn't always a drag.  At one point performances like Joel Grey in Cabaret or Robert de Niro in The Godfather, Part II were winning here-performances that might qualify for the best of the year.  In the mid-aughts, though, this changed as we saw leading men slum it in this category to try and score nominations or co-leads get nominated, leaving out some of the more intriguing character work that under-sung actors might enjoy.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in this category, where we have five leading men (some of yesteryear, but still), getting into the category.  One of these men, in particular feels like a pretty big offender of category fraud, even if it's undoubtedly my favorite performance in the lineup.

Jake Gyllenhaal gives a heartfelt, beautiful performance in Brokeback Mountain.  While Ledger gets most of the credit in the years since, it's Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist who receives the most heartbreaking scenes during the relationship.  He finds something so powerful in the way he wants to push for a proper life with Ennis, not just something that he gets to have happen once every few years when they see each other.  Think of the anger & power that he puts into his Jack, especially when he lets rip more at the world than Ennis (but Ennis is the only one who knows), all of the frustrations about living in the closet.  But the thing about Gyllenhaal's performance is...it's 100% lead.  This is a co-lead romantic drama.  I've given one of our trophies to a lead (see here), but I am docking at least a star off of Gyllenhaal's ranking for category fraud so don't assume because I like him best that he's going to win.

Weirdly, George Clooney is, while obviously a leading man, not committing category fraud in his film (at least for my money-some others might consider it borderline), as he's part of an ensemble.  Clooney isn't doing as nuanced of work as Matt Damon is in this film (he's the standout for my money), but this was during that stretch where he was doing proper movie star work in thrillers & dramas (something he seems to have not been able to do successfully for roughly a decade now).  His Bob Barnes is intriguing because he's a man that so easy could do the wrong thing-everything is there, and he feels in attitude the same as the other characters.  Clooney sells him convincingly as someone we will learn to trust, not someone that we trust implicitly.  It feels bizarre that George Clooney's only acting Oscar is going to be for Supporting Actor, but he's one of the highlights of Syriana.

Matt Dillon is also part of an ensemble, though a much larger ensemble so the argument that he's supporting is even more muted.  It's hard to play a truly unlikable character, and there are moments he does it, but the sense of understanding that he gets...it just doesn't feel believable.  I remember the big scene he has with Loretta DeVine, where we're supposed to feel sympathy for his plight, that his father was a "victim of affirmative action," but Dillon's not able to sell the hate in his heart as justified (perhaps because no actor could have pulled off such a character arch), and his later open-mindedness feels off as a result.  Dillon is better than Crash, but Crash gives him a character that is impossible to play, and it's hard for me to give credit for elevating when the actual performance doesn't rise above passable.

Paul Giamatti gets an easier character arch, but he overplays his hand.  Giamatti is a strange actor because he plays the same performance so often, and it rarely requires him to be that "Paul Giamatti" type (and yet he works very consistently).  He is angry, hyper-masculine, and feels more like he's doing a parody of Burgess Meredith here than crafting his own new character.  Giamatti appears to have won this nomination solely based on the assumption that he should have been nominated for Sideways the year before, and as a result this is a career citation that doesn't hold up unless you are considering the bulk of the actor's work onscreen (we're going to hit more of these the further back we go as this was very common in the 1980's & 90's).

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Gyllenhaal is William Hurt.  Hurt, while a leading man of the 1980's, barely registers in this movie (he's in less than 10% of the film), making what amounts to less of a supporting role and more an awesome cameo.  Hurt's character arch is therefore nonexistent, but that doesn't mean he isn't doing superb work.  Think of the climactic "you could die Joey" scene, where he angrily, soullessly goes after his brother.  This role only works with someone of Hurt's caliber-it's the sort of cameo that requires a well-known actor to make it land, but he's superb and a great close to a good thriller.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes gave the trophy to Clooney, and dismissed both Gyllenhaal & Hurt for Bob Hoskins (Mrs. Henderson Presents) and Will Ferrell (The Producers).  The SAG Award went to Paul Giamatti, and here only picked one new name (Hurt was taken out for Don Cheadle in Crash), and the BAFTA Awards went with Gyllenhaal for the win, beating Dillon, Cheadle, and George Clooney (twice-he was cited for both Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, likely costing him the trophy-he's never won an acting BAFTA as a result).  All-in-all, I know the evidence points to Cheadle, but I'll be real-at the time there was a lot of sentiment that this would be a double nomination year for Terence Howard.  Those happened more often in those days, and so either of the Crash guys probably make the most sense.  That neither made it makes this one of the rare places where the "we should have seen Crash coming" lights weren't flashing.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I shouldn't entirely get mad at Oscar in 2005 for having a pretty lackluster lineup-it's not like this year was crawling with worthy performances.  As I said above, Matt Damon is my favorite part of Syriana, and for sure I'd put him into the lineup.  I'd also have time for Andy Serkis in King Kong, because even in motion-capture he is able to find a soul in the characters he plays.  And finally, I'd add in two unorthodox performances: Brendan Gleeson's genre-lifting Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Christopher Plummer's Captain Newport in The New World, both of which add a strong element to their movies.

Oscar’s Choice: A genuine horserace between Giamatti & Clooney, but Clooney's boffo year (and the fact that it was clear he wasn't winning any other categories), probably brought it home for him here.

My Choice: As I mentioned above, I'm knocking Gyllenhaal down a star for his category fraud...but that still puts him above the rest.  William Hurt (silver) and George Clooney (bronze) both put in a good fight, but they're not good enough to match Gyllenhaal, who gets my trophy.  Bringing up the rear is Dillon & then Giamatti.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you with me in Team Jack Twist, or do you find his category fraud Jack Nasty?  Will George Clooney ever win a Best Actor trophy?  And which guy in Crash was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2005: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005

Past Best Supporting Actor Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: The Village (2004)

Film: The Village (2004)
Actors: Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Cherry Jones, Celia Weston, Judy Greer, Michael Pitt, Jesse Eisenberg (seriously-this cast list is nuts)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're back to our reviews!  I took a week off to recuperate from some personal life things as well as to try and get my professional life in order, but we're back to our weekday reviews, and our (frequently Oscar-inspired) themes.  This week, the focus is going to be on music, specifically Oscar-nominated music.  All of this week's movies will have one thing (and pretty much that only thing in common)-they were nominated in one of the three Oscar music categories (either Song, Score, or Song Score...and in some cases a couple of those).  We're going to start off this category with a pretty recent nominee by our standards, The Village, which was during the period where M. Night Shyamalan was not only a bankable director, many were thinking he was about to rival Spielberg & Cameron in terms of becoming the rare director who could open a movie simply based on their own name.  While this film struggles in terms of quality years later, it didn't disprove that theory-The Village was a big hit, the final one before Shyamalan's epic fall-from-grace in the back half of the Aughts.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in a remote village in Pennsylvania, a 19th Century town where villagers live in fear of bizarre creatures in the woods who walk around in red cloaks.  The town is run by a group of elders, headed by Edward Walker (Hurt), whose blind daughter Ivy (Howard) is in love with a local boy named Lucius Hunt (Phoenix...btw, it is so weird to see Phoenix when he would still take romantic lead roles, and a bummer to remember he was so good in them).  After Lucius is stabbed by another young man in the village, Noah (Brody, playing a character with a developmental disability in a performance that would raise eyebrows today), Edward decides to let his daughter go out and find medicine from beyond the forest that surrounds their village, in hopes of saving Lucius' life.

This is where the film's twist happens, but, well, it doesn't feel like a twist.  Perhaps because The Village (as I mentioned, a huge hit at the time) has become so influential, I kind of assumed that we weren't in 19th Century Pennsylvania but instead a modern day time period but a group of people who were living as if time hadn't passed.  As a result, I wasn't really thrown by the twist, which isn't a bad thing (this was the era when the "twist" became the most important aspect of story-telling in a movie, frequently to the chagrin of the actual plot), but it feels pretty anticlimactic, and the movie never really recovers.  Some of the emotional tears this might have aren't fully explored.  The village elders founded the town because of traumas in their own lives, that they could no longer handle, but the film's final moments aren't grand enough or precise enough to get across a sense of the sacrifice they made by escaping the world, and what it means that they are willing to let all of the other children in the village continue living as if the world around them hasn't changed (and that the monsters aren't real).  As a result, I feel like The Village is less a bad movie and more a failure, something that could have been terrific but gets lost in the execution.

The score to the film is actually quite good on its own.  James Newton Howard creates a rich, elegant sound and frequently uses violinist Hilary Hahn to great effect, having her create a signature almost wave-like chill over the movie itself.  The problem for Howard is that the music, while gorgeous, doesn't fit the movie and frequently feels like it's telling a story that the film doesn't know.  The music is always building to something, some great reveal, and since I didn't feel like the movie's "surprises" (it's so essential to the script that these read as surprises to you in order for the movie to work) really added to the narrative, his music feels off-balance in the movie.  It's not really Howard's fault (I'm certain he composed the way that Shyamalan pitched the movie & hoped the film would turn out), but it doesn't land properly on the ear while actually watching the picture.

OVP: One True Thing (1998)

Film: One True Thing (1998)
Stars: Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, William Hurt, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham
Director: Carl Franklin
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Meryl Streep)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I've been really loving the theme weeks for reviews-we've done it twice now, and so I'm gonna make that official, at least as long as we're quarantining and I'm able to keep up the current pace I have of watching so many movies, particularly focusing on Oscar nominees.  Each weekday afternoon we'll have a movie that's based on a theme for the week, all five movies having nothing (intentional) in common other than a year or Oscar category or something else connecting them.  We'll still do regular articles in the mornings & on weekends (and possibly throw in the occasional review for a film that I can't find a theme for), but I like the idea of trying to link together some of my recent viewings during the week to keep you guessing on what might come next (and to keep me focused as I'm overcoming a mountain of movies while on quarantine).  This week, we're going to return to the theme of Best Actress, and have all five of our reviews come from that particular category, and what better way to kick off such a category than with the queen of Best Actress, Meryl Streep, in one of her less-remembered nominated performances, One True Thing.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is set in the late 1980's, and Ellen (Zellweger), is home for her beloved father George's (Hurt) birthday.  Ellen is trying to be just like her father-he's a well-known novelist and literature professor at Princeton, and she's now an ambitious journalist at New York magazine.  Her mother Kate (Streep) is the antithesis of Ellen, and Ellen doesn't do much to hide her disdain for her mother, a homemaker who gets great joy from her group of "Minnies" (they decorate and plan town events for holidays & charities).  We soon discover that Kate has cancer, and that George wants Ellen to move home to take care of her mother, as he cannot with his job as a professor (and while he's writing his long-dormant second novel).  While home, Ellen learns more about her mother, and has an appreciation for what she has done through the years for her family, and has a growing animosity for her father, whom she learns eschews responsibility, has a drinking problem, and frequently has cheated on her mother.  We watch this change-of-heart as Kate becomes sicker & sicker, eventually succumbing to her illness but during an autopsy report we learn that she died not of cancer, but of a morphine overdose, which the closing scene of the film let's us know was self-inflicted (Kate no longer wanting to suffer).

The film is fascinating to me in a narcissistic way as it takes a look at the relationship that you develop with your parents if you're lucky enough to live to know them in your thirties.  At that point in your life you realize that you're both adults, and while there is always a sense of "parents wanting to take care of you" the discipline/disappointment aspect has likely disappeared in some of your life choices, and you get to know each other not only as friends, but as people.  You get to learn that your parents are human beings with not only faults & foibles, but also ones who have different tastes & interests that aren't, well, you.  This is an under-explored topic in movies, and I liked that it felt fleshed out in the film.

The movie's central calling card, though, is Meryl Streep.  I love Meryl always, but I will admit that I prefer straight-up dramatic Meryl, a version of the actress that basically disappeared the second she became a box office icon with The Devil Wears Prada.  Meryl is always good, but I think since 2006 her performances have either needed some sort of wink or gimmick in order for Streep to sign on, and it's fascinating to watch her explore a character like Kate, seemingly simple without many layers, and not abandon that character as we learn that, like all people, there's something under-the-surface.  The great monologue late in the film, where she admits that she knows about her husband's infidelities and her daughter's antipathy toward her is dynamite, but it wouldn't work if she hadn't set us up with intrigue, about questions about a bright, open character.  It's a reminder of why Streep became a legend in the first place-she was really, truly that good.

The rest of the movie pales in comparison.  Zellweger & Hurt are both good actors, but neither of them bring the homework that Streep does to their portrayals, and with Zellweger that's a problem since she's really the "screen-time" lead (even though it's a two female lead film-today Streep might well have gone supporting in an era of category fraud).  There's not enough in-depth look at this character-for a character with a lot of intellectual curiosity, it seems odd that she waited this long to learn more about her mother, and the final sequences between she & her father don't have enough punch (the film flits away after Streep dies) because we aren't vested in these characters.  But this is still a terrific, earned nomination for Streep, one that is forgotten but really shouldn't be in her long pantheon with Oscar.

OVP: Broadcast News (1987)

Film: Broadcast News (1987)
Stars: William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Holly Hunter, Robert Prosky, Lois Chiles, Joan Cusack
Director: James L. Brooks
Oscar History: 7 nominations (Best Picture, Actor-William Hurt, Actress-Holly Hunter, Supporting Actor-Albert Brooks, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The 1980's will probably always be my least favorite decade of cinema.  The most lasting films of the era are in genres I don't gravitate toward (teen comedies, action flicks, biopics), and the decade seems to have become obsessed with its own nostalgia.  Perhaps it's partially this-the worst of modern-day cinema clearly stems from people still not over the 1980's (look at a film like Ready Player One for Exhibit A in such indulgences).  Whatever the reason, when I saw at a recent "Secret Cinema" night that Broadcast News was playing, I was like "well, at least I need to see it for the OVP" rather than getting genuinely excited about what was in store.  That's a pity, because Broadcast News is the 1980's at their very best-adult, funny, ruthless, but still knowing, and weirdly psychic about the future.  Examining the intricacies of a TV newsroom at the cutting edge of the cable revolution, the film shows the way that our lives revolve around work, and the unintended side effects of letting all of our personal lives slide in pursuit of success.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie's main focus is on Jane Craig (Hunter), a woman who, to quote John Mulaney, "is a busy businesswoman who only likes business."  Her entire persona and life are based around her successful work at a DC news station, where she works with her best friend Aaron (Brooks), a man who clearly views her as more-than-a-friend even though she doesn't see him that way.  They are forced to work with Tom (Hurt), a sports reporter who was hired not because he's a talented journalist, but instead because he's handsome & charming, a sign that the news is becoming less about the facts on the page and more about how pretty the people reading the cue cards are.  This upsets Aaron, who wants the news anchor job for himself, and feels he's earned it through years of solid reporting.  Unfortunately for Aaron, not only does his eventual on-air reporting go terribly, but also he starts to lose Jane to Tom, whom she falls in love with despite not really respecting him.  This all takes place in the backdrop of looming layoffs at the company, which means that many of the people that we see in the background (like Cusack's Blair), will lose their jobs, another sign of the impending downsizing of the news industry.  The film ends with Jane realizing that Tom staged himself crying in an interview with a rape victim to make for better television, and this is a bridge too far for her journalistic ethics.  The three meet years later, with Aaron now a father and Tom a considerably more successful news anchor (and Jane largely where she was, loving her career), watching as time has mended their past grievances with each other, but ultimately acted as a separator as they'll never feel a "part" of each other's lives again in the same way.

Like I said above, this film exhibits the best aspects of 1980's cinema, particularly since the characters are flawed, and don't necessarily need to be likable (even though they are).  This movie pretty much put Holly Hunter on the map (it was her first Oscar nomination, and along with Raising Arizona, made her a household name), and there's a reason for that-Hunter is magnificent as Jane.  The neuroticism feels authentic, the way that she stands by her principles, bending them occasionally, but never breaking them-Jane is the sort of figure you imagine is disgusted by today's news, the rare person who will continue working for smaller-and-smaller outlets just to continue to drive journalism's ethics into future generations, however fruitlessly.  Hurt & Brooks are both fun in her support, but it's Hunter who steals this show (real talk-Albert Brooks is way more a third lead than a supporting player here in a very early sign of category fraud so that the two male leads don't have to compete with each other in the top category).  Even in a year like 1987, it's going to be difficult for me to imagine her not making a serious play for the OVP statue come that year.

But the best part of Broadcast News other than Hunter is in fact its script.  The movie is funny, wry, and knowing, and omnipresent in the way that it treats news as simply another scripted television show rather than a public rite.  It's also telling about the way that the people we work with rarely become part of our actual lives.  I loved the bittersweet nature of the ending, where Jane, Aaron, & Tom all meet, old friends but that's it-just ready to discuss old times, but not really connected to each other's lives.  So often in film and television we get the fiction that close friends will be a part of our existences eternally, rather than just passing ships that meant something to us, but aren't there forever.  Jane has the option of making Tom or Aaron a part of her life forever, and chooses (correctly?) not to include them in her future because she doesn't think they fit...and director Brooks doesn't give us a hint that this will change.  Decisions have consequences, and Broadcast News gives us the reality of this when it separates these three people into their own paths.  Broadcast News is a loving film with a cynical bite, but it's at its best when it shows that we rely upon people for a time, and love them, but ultimately only a few (if any) stay with us for long swaths of time.  This is a smart movie, and one of the best the decade has had to offer in my cinematic sojourns.

OVP: The Good Shepherd (2006)

Film: The Good Shepherd (2006)
Stars: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert de Niro, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Joe Pesci, John Turturro, Billy Crudup, Tammy Blanchard, Lee Pace, Eddie Redmayne
Director: Robert de Niro
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Trying to recreate The Godfather is a fool's errand.  One of the truly perfect cinematic masterpieces, it hangs as a shadow over so many movies since it's creation, with really only one man (Francis Ford Coppola) able to duplicate it, and that was as a sequel (and that was only once-just ask any film fan).  A quiet, introverted epic about one family's journey, the movie is legendary for a reason-no one else has been able to achieve such a towering, studied look at an organized syndicate.  But that doesn't mean that people don't try, and perhaps few people should be allowed more leeway to pursue such a venture as Robert de Niro.  De Niro has only directed two films in his career, the first being the commercially-dismissed but critically-praised A Bronx Tale, and the second being this movie, a three-hour (fictionalized) look at the earliest days of the CIA.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie, at 167 minutes in length, is expensive, but it's main focus can be summed up in a few lines.  Essentially, we have Edward Wilson Sr. (Damon) who is working for the government during the Cold War in the 1960's during the Bay of Pigs invasion.  We alternate back to his present day, where we learn about his life, his early romances with a deaf woman (Blanchard) and the sister of a friend at Yale, where he's in the Skull-and-Bones, whom he gets pregnant (Jolie).  We also see as he happens, through luck and skill, to eventually be recruited into government channels not available to regular people, in counterintelligence that will eventually become the CIA.  While this is happening, we see others in his web betray him or be subsumed by scandal, and he watches as his wife and son (a very young Eddie Redmayne) struggle with his stoicism, eventually ripping his family apart in pursuit of his career.

This is all very, very similar to The Godfather, with Edward Wilson becoming our Michael Corleone, and while there's no Don (kind of William Hurt, but not really), it's interesting to see just how similar the films are considering that A) de Niro is a major component of that film series and B) how the film fails when it has so many of its components borrowed from a filmmaker who saw the original made first-hand.  The problem with The Good Shepherd is first that it never really justifies its length-the movie is overstuffed with oftentimes repetitive points (how many times can we see Damon's Wilson be betrayed), as if de Niro is trying to shove all three Godfather movies into the same movie.  The film becomes meandering, and while that is likely how it won its sole Oscar nomination (getting to cover decades of furniture, offices, and interiors we get at a "most art direction" sort of citation without ever getting into a traditional British costume drama or fantasy film, which is where "most art direction" is usually used as a criticism), but it makes the picture pretty dull, and takes away the few moments of intrigue it generally lays out.

The second problem is the acting.  Damon is one of those movie stars who has natural charisma, but does better work in lighter films as he confuses serious with lifeless, and his Edward Wilson is without personality in the worst way possible.  It's unfair to compare any performance to Al Pacino in The Godfather, but as they are so similarly structured it's hard not to see that while Pacino lets us into Michael's world and then slowly closes the door, Damon just keeps it closed shut, so all we see is this person whom we don't really care about for three hours.  Jolie's performance is bordering on terrible as his wife, her fight scenes becoming hyperbolic & she seems to have no connection to her other than "this scene I'll play her happy" or "this scene she should be sad."  It's underwritten, but it's hard to imagine that both of these people are Oscar winners based on just this movie.  The best part of the movie is arguably Pesci as a mobster in one single scene.  Pesci came out of his prolonged retirement to make this film, and it was worth it, showing he has lost none of his ability to land a scene.  But the rest, even de Niro himself, are underwhelming in a movie that just sits there, trying to be important but instead is a snooze.

Body Heat (1981)

Film: Body Heat (1981)
Stars: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, JA Preston, Mickey Rourke, Kim Zimmer
Director: Lawrence Kasden
Oscar History: Turner received a Best New Star trophy at the Golden Globes, but otherwise the only awards for this movie were green (box office).
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the Month of June, as a birthday present to myself, we'll be profiling 15 famous film noir movies I've never seen (my favorite film genre).  Look at the bottom of this review for some of the other movies we've profiled.


We will conclude our look at the film noir classics (I've never seen) with 1981's Body Heat, a neo-noir thriller that is most well-known today for launching Kathleen Turner from virtual unknown (this was her film debut, if you can believe it) to movie star overnight.  By 1981, the noir had almost completely disappeared from the film market, as we were seeing more action-adventures and slapstick comedies becoming the norm in theaters, which is why it's relatively surprising that this was a big hit back in 1981, making three times its budget and getting Turner Globe & BAFTA nominations.  Also, like all films of the 1980's, when they tried to reinvigorate classic Hollywood formulas that appeared long dead, the film's reliance on sex is omnipresent, showing nudity that would have been impossible in the heyday of Gloria Grahame and Gene Tierney.  As a result, the noir likely could never be the same again, which makes it the perfect close to our series.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Ned Racine (Hurt) a hapless lawyer who starts a steamy affair with Matty (Turner), the married trophy wife of businessman Edmund Walker (Crenna).  Early on in the movie, he hits on a woman named Mary Ann Simpson (Zimmer, in a rare pre-Reva Shayne role), which feels odd at the time but becomes crucial later in the film.  In a plot plucked out of Double Indemnity, Matty & Ned scheme to murder Edmund (she can't divorce him or risk losing the cash in a prenup), and Ned does this by meeting with Teddy (Rourke), an explosives friend who helps coordinate a bomb that can make it look like arson; Teddy tries desperately to convince Ned not to do this.  He does anyway, and after a clear series of missteps that feel perpetrated by Matty herself (where she basically was setting him up, upon the advice of a lawyer that hated Ned & thought he had some comeuppance coming for screwing him over), Ned is basically implicated in the crime by two investigators (Danson & Preston).  Ned's last shot at redemption goes up in smoke when Matty is supposedly killed in a boathouse explosion that was intended for Ned (or so we think at the time), sending him to jail.  From jail, we learn that Ned is convinced Matty was not Matty at all, but the real Mary Ann Simpson, who had taken on Matty's identity to marry Edmund for his money, and that the actual Matty Tyler (who is the Mary Ann Simpson we met at the beginning of the film) died in the boathouse explosion.  A look at her yearbook confirms this, and we see in the final closing moments of the film that Matty is now on a beach, her entire scheme working perfectly.

The film strays from the traditional noir trope in a couple of ways, almost entirely because of the lack of censors.  The film's sex scenes are extensive (though apparently they got even more lascivious in the initial cut of the picture), as we see both Hurt & Turner in various states of undress (they make a point, in a nod to Chinatown, to pronounce the weather being perpetually hot, matching the attitudes of the already randy leads).  Perhaps more damning is that Matty/Mary Ann gets away with everything.  In the days of Phyllis Dietrichson and Kathie Moffat, she'd either need to die or go to jail, but we aren't living in that world and as a result the film noir trope gets totally upended because the villain (though by far the film's most interesting character) is able to skate out of the room with no bruises, just a pile of money and a sexy new man next to her on the beach.

Turner owns the picture.  Hurt, Danson, Crenna, they're all good, but they don't come close to what she was doing here; about the only male cast member who comes near her is Rourke in a bit role, playing an undeniably sexy arsonist who is also the film's best voice-of-reason (that, because he's a convicted crook, no one listens to).  Turner would spend the next decade alternating between marital discord films like Peggy Sue Got Married & The War of the Roses and straight-up romantic comedies like Romancing the Stone & Jewel of the Nile, but she may never have been as good as she is here, playing Matty as the ultimate, successful femme fatale.  William Hurt never stood a chance the second she coyly jumps onto the screen-it's entirely her picture, and she nails a debut that hallmarked her as one of the 1980's most important screen idols.

Previous Films in the Series: The Long Goodbye, Sweet Smell of Success, The Killing, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, Gun Crazy, Night and the City, In a Lonely Place, They Live By Night, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Killers, The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep

Captain America: Civl War (2016)

Film: Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Stars: Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, William Hurt, Daniel Bruhl, Marisa Tomei, Alfre Woodard (seriously-what was the casting budget on this movie?!?)
Director: Anthony and Joe Russo
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I grew up with comic books in my house, and so I've always had a slightly weird reaction to the world of comic books becoming so common-place on the big screen.  Unlike other guys who will spend hours upon hours rehashing different multiverse theories and the intricacies of universes in the current Marvel world, I can't keep up there, but I do still read the occasional comic book (especially after one of these movies I'll sneak out and buy a few from my local store just to check in like fans of a soap opera), and feel a kinship with my youth when my brother and I would spend our allowance at the local Pamida buying up the latest installments.  We were definitively a Marvel household, and so seeing all of these characters come to life on the big screen, all of these Avengers that we had seen dance across the page, it's truly a wonderful experience and I try not to be one of "those guys" who name-checks facts and dates about every character on the screen to their friends who aren't as familiar and just want to go to the latest awesome superhero movie.

What continues to stun me, though, is how the movies have really reshaped in a lot of ways my thoughts on the comic books at large.  After all, the comic books that I loved growing up aren't remotely the same as the movies that I've gravitated toward.  X-Men, probably the comics I have read the most of through the years, never really felt right as they were too focused on a specific mutant at the cinema (Wolverine, then Professor X, and now Mystique), but what made that series so special was that it was a group of individuals, and you didn't know if the next story-line would center on one of the major headliners or just a sideline character getting their moment in the sun (who else is pumped that Jubilee is finally going to be in a movie?!?).  My favorite comic books as a child were Fantastic Four, and yet their movies have been a complete and utter travesty-I'm still flummoxed how they have managed to botch my beloved family of superheroes so often, and how I'll probably never get a definitive motion picture (though I'll eternally be indebted to Chris Evans for bringing my crush on Johnny Storm so perfectly to life).  Instead, the best movies have been centered around arguably one of my least favorite comic book heroes, Captain America.  I always found him to be a bit blase, not as morally complicated or interesting as a Wolverine or Incredible Hulk, and not as much fun as the Human Torch or Black Widow.  And yet, Chris Evans' incarnation of Captain America is such a joy, and his films are the ones that come the closest to reliving that magic of my youth onscreen, the comic books I fell so deeply in-love with and escaped into when I was feeling blue.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is a preamble to tell you that I once again left Captain America's third outing (from the looks of things his final outing as a solo venture) duly impressed.  The film centers around, once again, Captain America's complicated relationship with Bucky Barnes (aka the Winter Soldier), who is once again wanted for murder, this time for blowing up the United Nations building, and in turn killing the king of an African nation.  This is amidst a growing fear of the Avengers, and a powerful retribution for the destruction that they are bringing about to the world.  The idea of holding superheroes accountable for their actions is hardly new, but it's become the centerfold of almost every single superhero picture in recent years so I was curious how Civil War would handle it (there are people in those "Hulk Smash!" buildings, and they aren't just extras anymore).  There's a terrificly acted scene with Alfre Woodard early on in the picture (sadly, she doesn't become one of the Avengers later on), where she essentially admonishes Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark for destroying her world, even as he thought he was trying to save it.  It was arguably one of the most impressive monologues I've seen in a Marvel picture, and kudos to Woodard for not making it feel like a cliche.

Stark's newfound moral compass (though really-isn't Stark always finding his moral compass again and again in these pictures, only to seemingly lose it again by the start of the next movie?) leads to a break between he and Captain America, as Stark wants to be under the control of the UN while Captain America doesn't feel that he can be held down in that manner, despite the consequences.  Battle lines are brought forth, with alliances like Black Widow and War Machine joining Tony Stark while the likes of the Falcon and the Scarlet Witch go with Captain America.  All-the-while, at the center is the Winter Soldier, who is being framed for a series of crimes by an agent-of-chaos (Bruhl), whose intentions quite frankly never feel properly revealed, except that he wants to destroy the Avengers.

The film's best moments, and what was always so incredible about the comic books but hasn't been realized cinematically until now, is that you don't always needs a villain.  Frequently the infighting of groups like The Avengers (or X-Men or Fantastic Four) were the most compelling moments of the written pages, giving us insight into the desires of the superheroes that didn't just rely on them saving the universe.  That is true of Civil War, where we see Steve Rogers stand by his principles and his best friend of a hundred years or so even while Tony Stark, his new commander whose stance isn't without merit, becomes his enemy and they largely split up by the end of the picture.  The movie is, without question, the best Avengers movie that has been created so far.  Unlike the two actual films that claim the group in their title, Civil War feels like an ensemble, one that gives time to each character without it ever feeling like a checklist.  Perhaps because some of this film's stars aren't as large as the likes of Mark Ruffalo or Chris Hemsworth at this point (though it feels like Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland will soon be able to demand more respect in this regard) you are able to have a tale without an equal amount of story going to a different character, and since you know the central focus will be on Captain America, you aren't bummed you didn't get to have more time with a Thor or an Ant-Man.

The film is not without its faults, of course.  While the central Avengers vs. Avengers battle was truly wonderful, and I loved the introduction of Spider-Man, there are still problems.  RDJ can land a one-liner with aplomb, but his Tony Stark is constantly rehashing the same memories, and I know it's part of Tony Stark's origin story, but this episode felt a little bit too Batman for me toward the end.  For every character that felt fresh (Ant-Man-I haven't seen his stand-alone yet, but it's now on the To Do list) or interesting (the Black Panther was my favorite new character to the series, and I think Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow is still the best element of the original core Avengers), you are left with some characters that feel underwritten (War Machine, Scarlet Witch), and too preachy (Vision).  Also, I am still coming to grips with the television-like aspect of these films, which feels cool in the moment but I can't quite get my hands around the fact that it feels never-ending, and while that mirrors the comic books, most stories even there eventually came to an end.

Before I leave, I do want to say one thing because it's been highlighted a little bit in the press tour.  I think it's incredible that we have a major motion picture that has three black leads in the cast (Cheadle, Mackie, and Boseman), but the Marvel movies still haven't quite gotten to the diversity of the actual comic books quite yet.  I'm stunned, considering she's about to get her own stand-alone film that they didn't go for Captain Marvel in this picture.  Maybe they're saving Carol Danvers for a future picture-perhaps Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2?, but it's a bummer that we don't have a Bechdel Test pass for this particular movie.  My biggest qualm, though, is I wish we'd finally see a gay character in one of these movies.  For all of the talk (and there's a lot of it), about how actors and studios want to feature more gay characters in blockbusters, it never actually happens.  I'm sick and tired of clearly homosexual elements in films (come on, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are really close for friends), being the only thing that we get on-film.  My vote would be that they make Spider-Man gay or bisexual, even though Sony and Stan Lee aren't there for it, as it would make so much sense within the confines of his character (loner, outcast, really close with his aunt), but really it's time to have a gay character on the big screen that we can root for and not just see at an art-house or as a side character on an ABC sitcom.  The GLBT community deserves a seat at the table, and if Marvel/Disney want to put their (insanely huge amount of) money where their mouth is, it's time to go there.

Those are my thoughts (more of them than I initially thought I'd have) on the latest installment of the Captain America franchise.  What are your thoughts?  What are you hoping for next in the Marvel saga?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!