Saturday Night
Saturday Night (Reitman). They got it right. What a challenge to make a film whose cast of characters includes so many well-known people from entertainment (Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Billy Crystal to name a few). Looking like who you’re playing is nice but acting like them is crucial and the cast here comes through. Jason Reitman’s direction is exemplary. This story of the ninety minutes leading up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live moves briskly with nary a dull moment. It’s funny, interesting and entertaining. One of those rare films that’s better than you hoped.
A Special Day (1977) Scola. A special movie. Marcello Mastroianni is transcendent opposite Sophia Loren as Gabriel, a gay man in 1938 Fascist Italy who’s about to be sent to an island reserved for “subversives.” The day in question is when Adolph Hitler visited Rome and the whole city turned out to fete him and Mussolini. Gabrielle is befriended by a neighbor (Sophia Loren) a beleaguered housewife who keeps a scrapbook about her beloved fascists. The pair have moments that are awkward, funny, angry and touching. Their day together forms the story and it is compelling from start to finish. This was my third viewing of A Special Day and it get’s better each time.
JFK (1991) Stone. New to the Kennedy Assassination? Watching Oliver Stone’s terrific film is an excellent start. No it’s not a documentary and shouldn’t be taken as pure fact. But it does pose questions aplenty about the who, how and most importantly the why of Kennedy’s murder. Stone’s direction, the editing and the cast are all first class. Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison the New Orleands D.A. who led the only investigation into the Kennedy assassination that brought anyone to trial, Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones in a brilliant performance) for complicity in the assassination. Garrison fails to make a case against Shaw but he convinces many that Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy and not by a lone gunman. JFK not only raises questions but it’s also bravura cinema.
Reality Bites (1994) Stiller. So does this film. For thirty blissful years I’d been spared watching this… I want to say, movie but is that what it was? By any name it was terrible. There had to have been the proverbial script problems from day one that were never resolved. What a waste of Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller (in his directorial debut and how he ever got another gig after this is beyond me). The characters were unlikable, the dialogue phony baloney and…..never mind. I’d prefer to forget it.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Spielberg. Always great fun and it raises the question: why can’t they make action/adventure films like this anymore? Story and character reign supreme, not CGI, not over the top action. Classic good vs. evil. Harrison Ford is excellent as Indiana and the cast of Nazi bad guys is perfect. The action is veritably non-stop but never excessive. Raiders inspired numerous sequels, the third of which was just as good, if not better, than the original, the rest we could have done without. Raiders of the Lost Ark never gets old.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock’s one foray into screwball comedy was a smashing success. Of course, it’s hard to go wrong when your film co-stars Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery but the the picture benefits from the great director’s framing and camera movement. The picture has a silly premise about a marriage not being legal or maybe it is but it doesn’t matter. In any event the wife hooks up (production code style) with hubby’s best friend/law partner. Husband wants the missus back and goes to hilarious lengths to that end. It’s a sure cure for depression.
Mermaids (1990) Benjamin. The missus and I enjoyed this film three decades ago when it was new. Neither of us had seen it since. We had doubts that it would hold up lo these many years later. What a pleasant surprise. Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci (then nine years old) along with Bob Hoskins make an entertaining and endearing cast. Cher plays a single mother forever on the move but maybe she finds true love in a small New England town. Meanwhile Winona as the teen daughter is asserting herself and falling in love. The movie’s flaw is her love interest, a totally uninteresting actor who should have looked like Josh Hartnett but more resembled Josh Gad.
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