Author: Marc Sanders

THE TERMINATOR

By Marc S. Sanders

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most famous role is The Terminator. The role made the muscle man a star simply based on his menacing appearance alone. Let’s face it. The guy looks pretty cool in the black leather jacket with sunglasses while riding a motorcycle. The shotgun and Uzi complete the appearance as well. All that he needs to do now is say “I’ll be back!” and you’ve got one of the most memorable film characters in history.

Director James Cameron with future wife and producer Gale Anne Hurd conceived this time traveling sci fi flick with next to no money and churned out what first feels like a Friday the 13th slasher film for USA Up All Night, but then became a little more thought provoking. You might work too hard questioning the time travel nonsense. However, the idea is so simple and yet so smart.

Schwarzenegger is a cyborg designed to look human with flesh and blood who travels from the year 2029 to 1984 to assasinate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a woman who becomes the mother of the would be leader of resistance fighters against a dominant machine army that has eradicated most of the human population. To fend off the Terminator and protect Sarah, a human fighter, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), has also travelled back in time.

James Cameron is a director of craftsmanship. He assembles riveting action sequences and his visual effects with makeup designs from Stan Winston are marvelous, especially considering the limited funds he had to work with. The dark, bleak future showing the war of the machines is well staged with vast lands of waste and crushed skulls. Laser beams dart across the screen with blaring Atari like sound effects. It’s not the most sophisticated, but it works.

The acting is very over the top however. Schwarzenegger is fine as he just needs to be robotic like the role demands. He hardly has any lines actually. Biehn and Hamilton needed a few more acting lessons though. Hamilton’s fear is terribly unconvincing and Biehn is overly dramatic. Their chemistry is also a little sour. They look great together if you saw them on a page of Tiger Beat or Starlog magazine, but their acting scenes fall flat. The script’s dialogue doesn’t help them either, but James Cameron was never big on dialogue anyway. There’s a reason that his masterpiece “Titanic” got all of those Oscar nominations except for screenplay.

Still, because the film is mostly steeped in wall to wall action that’s very well edited and the idea for this new kind of sci fi thriller is so inventive, The Terminator is one for the ages. It’s a film that can definitely be watched on repeat.

It’s best to take the story seriously while feeling exhilarated by the car chases and shootouts (especially in a police precinct with 30 cops), but it’s okay to roll your eyes at the ham on rye with cheese & mayo acting too.

JUST MERCY

By Marc S. Sanders

I’ve learned so much from movies. I really have, and I’m continuing to learn. An important lesson that I absorbed from Destin Daniel Cretton’s film Just Mercy is that we have a long way to go in this country. A racial divide is sadly still in existence. As I watched this film while the nationwide protest response to the killing of George Floyd is still prominent, it’s glaringly obvious that this story, taking place from 1987 to 1993, has likely only made a tiny dent in the reach for equal and fair justice between black and white Americans.

Just Mercy follows newly appointed Alabama civil rights attorney Bryan Stephenson’s (Michael B Jordan, who I still insist will win an Oscar one day) pursuit to overturn a murder conviction for Walter “Johnny D” McMillan (another magnificent performance from Jamie Foxx). Johnny D was easily ruled to have murdered an eighteen year old white woman. The trial hinged on the testimony of another convict (Tim Blake Nelson) pressured into making up an outrageous story that put Johnny D at the scene of a crime he had nothing to do with. All that mattered was that the all white jury believed this ridiculous testimony.

Bryan is newly graduated from Harvard University with nothing but righteousness and the intent of making a difference in this world. Against his family’s urging for fear of his life, he deliberately moves to Alabama with Federal Grant money to start the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) with Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), a passionate white southern mother who is prepared to face the danger of a prejudiced community that’s hypocritically proud to boast that it is the hometown of writer Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird). Bryan is informed that he can actually visit the Mockingbird museum and see where Atticus Finch actually stood. I question if the majority of Monroe, Alabama have even read Lee’s book.

Bryan’s intent is to research and represent those prisoners that likely never received a fair trial. One man is a Vietnam veteran who did in fact kill a woman with a home made bomb. Sadly though, his PTSD likely motivated this regrettable action. This man is more mentally ill than guilty and his country could care less.

Most of the film’s focus goes to the egregious acts that convicted Johnny D. While it’s plain to see how innocent he is, Bryan is faced with bigoted pushback from the local police force as well as the District Attorney (a very good and effective Rafe Spall). Bryan obtains a material witness but then that is compromised. Now he must rely on if the convict who originally testified against Johnny D will come clean with telling the truth.

There’s a lot you can become more aware of while watching Just Mercy. First, our legal system can be very tainted with extreme prejudice. Second, slavery may have been long abolished by the end of the twentieth century, but it’s racial underpinnings and need to dominate a black community still appears justified in many southern eyes. There’s a sad food chain that exists in the state of Alabama. It therefore becomes an impossible obstacle for Bryan and Johnny D when they take their case to the state Supreme Court. This doesn’t take a law degree to recognize such an apparent wrong. Yet, that means nothing if the judicial system won’t even read a simple and otherwise obvious explanation.

A third aspect that Just Mercy presents is police brutality against black men. It exists. A black man, such as a hard working tree cutter like Johnny D or a Harvard graduate in a suit, can get pulled over. The man can cooperate completely with hands shown and calm politeness when faced with an authority. Yet, with next to no action that black man will suddenly have a gun drawn on him and get slammed against a truck and put in handcuffs.

Moments like this continue to occur simply because of the color of their skin. It matters not where they were going or where they were coming from. If they just look guilty, then they must be guilty.

Just Mercy is a demonstration of a large menu of wrongs being committed against black America. Cretton’s script with Andrew Lanham, is a well edited and focused film that doesn’t drift into any side stories. Bryan Stephenson seemingly takes in a lot of cases all at once but for a two hour and twenty minute film, only so much can be presented.

Yes, Johnny D’s case is most prominent but time is also devoted to what could be his overall fate, a trip to the electric chair. Bryan Stephenson sees this first hand with another case. It is often a wrong and terrible outcome but it at least amplifies his motivation to represent these wrongly convicted men.

Bryan Stephenson is a tremendous hero portrayed by a humble yet passionate performance from Michael B Jordan. How many Harvard graduates would truly take their expensive Ivy League degree and put their lives on the line in an unwelcome community with no pay to save the lives of convicts who no one else has ever regarded?

Most especially during the current climate of our country, Just Mercy is an absolute must see film.

GOOD BOYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Jacob Tremblay, Keith L Williams and Brady Noon are the sixth grade Good Boys, a film directed and co-written by Gene Stupnitsky and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. This is a hard (very hard) R rated kids comedy adventure. Call it a prequel to Superbad.

Before sixth graders become aware of beer pong parties, the most important thing on their mind is perhaps a kissing party. At least it’s most important to Max (Tremblay). For Lucas (Williams, the MVP of the three kids) he’s broken up to learn his parents are getting a divorce. Thor (Noon, who needs a few more acting lessons) is feeling insecure on a scale of social popularity when all he really wants is to audition for the spring musical.

After Max loses his dad’s valuable drone while the boys are spying on some high school girls in a backyard, they end up stealing their girls’ “mollie” in an effort of blackmail to get the drone back. There’s the spine of the story.

My colleague Miguel E Rodriguez reviewed this film last year. He praised the picture for not making the gags the point of the film. However, I can’t agree with that observation. The thin plot of Good Boys serves as opportunity for one gross out or ridiculous gag after another. Okay. So the boys are unfamiliar with sex toys, particularly “a-nahl beads” or they mistake dad’s sex doll for a “CPR” doll. So when Max practices kissing on the doll, he’s confused as to why the lips feel so sticky.See, I found the main story to be getting the drone back before Max’ dad discovers it’s missing. So then why must I be subjected to imagining how much the beads smell like shit? Why must I see the kids try to cross a busy highway to get to the mall? These are detours, away from the plot. Yeah, they’re funny, but as funny as they are, they push me away from the ends that will justify their means.

An epilogue features one of the kids faking a snort of cocaine. Why? Miguel: these are set up gags. These are exactly the opposite of how you describe their ultimate purposes. None these jokes serve the plot. When I watch “The Goonies,” I get kids who pursue a chance at obtaining a treasure. The mission gets held up by booby traps. Those traps serve as obstacles to the mission at play. Anal beads and a sex doll are not obstacles. They are diversions.

If you want gags to come genuinely from the story then don’t make the mollie or the drone the MacGuffin. Make the sex toys the MacGuffin. These are no more than funny gags. Ultimately, they’re Saturday Night Live skits forced into a film. I laughed yes, but I also grew tired of these bits, that occurred every three to four minutes. What about the drone???? What about the mollie???? I dunno. Maybe with a better trio of boys, I’d be more invested in the film.

Tremblay is the most well known actor (from Room with Brie Larson). Brady Noon is supposed to be the wanna be rebel (he gets an earring), but the sensitive guy on the inside. Williams is the kid who still adheres to good behavior and is not so ready to move on from sleepovers with “Magic The Gathering” card games. Keith L Williams is the best performer of the three in fact. Great physical comedy and timing, as well as some authentic anguish. When the other two boys cry, it’s terribly, TERRIBLY, fake. The problem is the chemistry of three boys is lacking.

Stupnitsky’s coverage of scenes look like rehearsals before the real cameras started rolling. At times, it feels as if the boys, particularly Noon and Tremblay, are trying to think of their next line. When they can’t get the line right, I sense a fast thinking improv that includes shouting the F word. That’s not very funny for very long.

Foul mouthed pre teens are nothing new. Seen it before in The Bad News Bears and once again I say The Goonies. I’m not going to salute Good Boys because these three kids are given carte blanch to utter the F word on an endless cycle. That gets old. Boys uncover sex toys and handle them and naturally act perplexed by what they’ve found; okay, but is there anything more to that?

By no means is Good Boys acceptable for kids to watch. On the other hand, those that can watch a hard R rated flick like this might get a little tired of its material. I know I did. So then who is this film really aimed for? Best guess I could come up with would be a guy I know named Miguel E Rodriguez.

LATE NIGHT

By Marc S. Sanders

Mindy Kaling is a terrific writer. I first discovered her on The Office, where she scripted many of the best episodes as well as performed in front of the camera. She’s hilarious. She wrote and produced the film Late Night from 2019, and while I think it’s incredibly smart with ideas on prominent female identities and the status quo of race and gender within a fictional late night television industry, it does not forgive itself for wrapping up its ending in a pretty, pink bow.

Emma Thompson is fierce as Katherine Newberry, a late night network tv host approaching 30 years in the business. She’s become a staple for the 11:30 slot, even if she hasn’t kept up with the times of Twitter and You Tube. The network is ready to cut ties with her as she has become too outdated with her material, the guests she has on, and whatever semblance of a routine she’s awarded from her team of writers, that are all white males that might not have outgrown their fraternity years but only now complain about their miserable married or single lives. It’s brought to Katherine’s attention that she doesn’t like women. To mix it up, she demands her office manager hire a woman, any woman, immediately.

Enter Mindy Kaling, as Molly Patel, with zero experience in writing or television who leaves her job at a chemical plant. Like all office films that always seem to take place in New York, the new person does not get on great with the boss, endures some humiliation, cries, but then gets a brave epiphany that catches the boss’ attention out of nowhere. Molly writes a funny pro choice/anti Republican joke for Katherine’s monologue. It eventually goes over swimmingly.

A well acted side story occurs when we get to see some pains that Katherine has while living with her loving husband, Walter, played by John Lithgow, who has Parkinson’s disease. They have some outstanding scenes together. So while the Katherine Newberry with the tough exterior works her writing team to the bone to save her reputation and show, she is also dealing with a terribly sad domestic life. Unfortunately, a one time affair that she had with a writer unnecessarily creeps its way into the film. When it becomes material for public tabloid, her show is all but dead. Now by and large, Late Night is a comedy, so how do you think this film will end? Happily of course.

I don’t take issue with a happy ending. I love them, and it’s often why I go to the movies to escape. However, this is the cutthroat business of television. Shows get cancelled frequently. Kaling’s script even demonstrates that with the network president. As well, Katherine’s demeanor demonstrates this when she fires a writer simply for asking for a raise and to spend more time with his kid. Throw in a couple of lines, however, give a monologue from the heart for your audience and suddenly the show is saved! I wish it would work this way but I doubt it really does.

Another angle the film explores is Molly as an Indian American woman intruding upon a white male dominated occupation. The story had me convinced that she overcomes these demographic obstacles. I bought it. What was hard to accept was the “one year later” epilogue where the show’s staff is made up of every variation of gender and race demographic imaginable with Thompson’s character doing a quick walk through the office to the studio. Every desk is occupied by a different looking person. How touching…and unconvincing. Again, I wish it was that easy to flip a perspective on an office staff, in just one year. Yet I don’t think it’s all that simple. This is where Kaling’s script is pandering way too much.

The performances are excellent. Kaling and Thompson have great scenes together. Lithgow with Thompson as well. Following the reveal of the affair, there’s a magnificent scene between them where they come to a resolve. Only, I think this moment belongs in another film. The affair storyline is not correlated enough to the rest of the picture. I would have abandoned it altogether and simply focus on Katherine, Molly and Walter’s struggles; surviving the business, entering the business and living with illness. The affair intrudes on the last act of the film and as soon as it bleeds, Kaling’s script patches it up too neatly. Thus, we get a happy ending that just doesn’t feel very authentic.

Mindy Kaling needs to work even further. I think she’s one of the brightest writers I know of today. She writes what she knows; about working in television and being an Indian American woman thereby bringing those facts about her background as new strengths for storylines. She only now has to be careful about not patching up the conflicts she masterfully creates with simply a cherry on top. She might turn the APPLAUSE sign on for her audiences, but that is not necessarily going to get the crowd on their feet and clapping.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

By Marc S. Sanders

Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck directed the Captain Marvel installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film has some successes, but some failures as well. Fortunately, where it lacks happens early on and then the film continues to get better.

Boden & Fleck must have directed a film that was never released because this Captain Marvel begins in the middle of a story with exposition that’s terribly hard to follow. I’ve seen it three times now, and it’s still hard to piece the first 40 minutes together. The title character is known as “Vers” (pronounced “veers”) played by Brie Larson. She dons a green uniform space suit and is part of a civilization called Kree. Her mentor is Yon-Rogg played by Jude Law. They head a team on a mission to rescue a spy of their own held captive by the shape shifting Skrulls. The mission goes awry and Vers is captured. Small snippets of a life lived on Earth flash in her subconsciousness as the Skrulls study her mind. When Vers manages to escape, she ends up on Earth in 1995. Gradually, with the assistance of a young Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson with hair, a clean CGI complexion and no eye patch), Vers learns of her true history that she seems to have forgotten. Reader, I just summed up the first third of this film better than the movie ever did.

Boden & Fleck have some nice touches to this film but only in the second and third acts. Captain Marvel salutes the grunge music of the 90s while also taking inspired narratives from films like The Terminator. There’s some nice twists in the film too.

However, the whole first act should be thrown away and redone. It’s terribly confusing with dark cinematography on what is to be an alien planet at night and a dimly lit unfamiliar space ship. Hardly any characters are fleshed out yet but they talk in conversations that lose me. The Skrulls are shape shifters that can adapt the image of another person or creature but because it’s all so dark, it’s difficult to decipher who is who. Not much payoff comes when you are finally able to piece some material from this whole sequence later on, based on what Vers uncovers about herself, the Kree and the Skrulls.

Brie Larson is fine in the role while primarily playing it straight. Nothing special, but nothing terrible either.

Samuel L Jackson plays this Nick Fury with more naivety than seen before. He’s a younger version of himself after all. So that’s somewhat humorous, especially his chemistry with an odd cat called Goose.

Ben Mendelsohn continues to break into these mainstream film franchises as an antagonist of some sort but sadly no one remembers him, I would think. He needs to be regarded in the same league with guys like Gary Oldman and Christopher Walken. What’s next for him? How about a James Bond villain?

Annette Bening is a welcome presence as the “supreme intelligence” for Vers. Accompany her sashaying to Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” and I’m entertained.

There was a better film here. Due to a weak beginning, I can only mildly recommend Captain Marvel. Pop culture references and a redeeming two thirds of the film rescue it from utter confusion. Still, if I have to pause the film on occasion to explain to my wife and daughter what is going on, I think that is more an issue with the film than with the viewer.

PARASITE

By Marc S. Sanders

I first discovered director Bong Joon-Ho when I watched his futuristic sci fi adventure Snowpiercer. I loved that film despite how absurd the set up was. Absurdity, though, is a credit to his craft. That’s why his latest film Parasite is a hugely successful interpretation of class warfare within South Korea. It might all appear drastically unlikely. Yet, it’s all absolutely possible when you reflect on the film after you’ve seen it.

Parasite begins almost like a farce and ends in deep, realistic horror that you’d never expect, even after you surpass the films midway surprise.

It’s best I leave much of the film’s details out. The less you know the better. I knew nothing at all about the film beyond the numerous accolades it has received. I was better off for it.

Joon-Ho’s film makes its point quickly that there is always someone better off than us and always someone worse off. (This was a theme carried over from Snowpiercer.). A poor family living off scrap money for folding pizza boxes while living in a cramped, bug ridden basement is still better off than the drunk who pisses on the street, outside their window. Just as an upper class family with all the best things in life are better off than them.

It’s only when this poor family find opportunity to dupe their way into this wealthy home through jobs they are hired for that we eventually see how lighthearted material, compliments of Joon-Ho and his writing collaborator, Jin Wan Han, can convincingly escalate into class warfare politics that even their characters ever hardly acknowledge, or are aware of. Is the wealthy matriarch really aware where her family chauffeur stems from or where he lives? The off putting scent of someone’s presence can quickly turn a tide or an impression.

I might sound vague, but I have no choice. It would be a betrayal to the imagination of the best film of 2019 if I spelled the film out for you.

Simply know that I truly appreciate the symbolic research Parasite presents as it makes note of a Korean child’s fascination with Native Americans, and how their plight parallels the story. Even that drunk taking a piss on someone else’s territory. Even the gift of a stone sculpture told me how one can be crushed or weighted down by his own country.

Parasite begins as one movie and ends as maybe five other different movies. It’s a farce. It’s wry and conveniently ironic; maybe silly at one point. It’s suspenseful and surprising. It’s also shockingly horrific.

I recently declared Clint Eastwood’s film Richard Jewell the best film of year. I stand corrected.

Parasite is the best film of the year.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

By Marc S. Sanders

Michael LiCastri writes and directs The Best Laid Plans, a film shot on location in Tampa, Florida and available on Amazon Prime – https://smile.amazon.com/Best-Laid-Plans-Linnea-Quigley/dp/B07P83YB6K/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+best+laid+plans&qid=1580527934&rnid=2941120011&s=instant-video&sr=1-1

LiCastri also headlines the cast as Kevin. When Kevin’s parents are threatened to be evicted following losing their jobs, he recruits Allen and John (David Plowden, Keith Surplus) to carry out ridiculous schemes to get the money he needs fast. Naturally, the first thing to come to mind is to become a pimp.

A winning sequence has the boys do a little research to play their new roles. A trip to Ybor City has them observe a toughie pushing around one of his girls (Yvelisse Cedrez in a ditzy scene stealing role). The moment discourages them from following through with the plan.

Next up, how about kidnapping Tommy (Brian Ballance) a former friend who has won the lottery. Ballance plays the role smart with biting sarcasm and wit that becomes a challenge for the trio.

Bridging this comedy together is a lot of small talk inside dialogue like references to Buffy, and Dancing With The Stars, and an analogous reference to Jessica Alba and what she could do if she gets caught. As well, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a dick shaped bruise on a character’s thigh. Watch the film to understand why it’s featured. The efforts in making the film is reminiscent of Kevin Smith’s early films like Clerks and Mallrats.

The schemes of our three main heroes are absurd and it lends to the comedy. The dialogue doesn’t necessarily flow naturally though. It’s a little too stilted to appreciate. The delivery needs work.

Objections aside, LiCastri and his crew must not stop with their filmmaking efforts. The script for The Best Laid Plans has the seeds of something fun, but LiCastri’s script comes off like a first draft. It needs a second set of eyes to make it grittier or maybe sillier. Something to make it more outrageous in one direction or another.

It’s a good, short film, even if there’s a better interpretation waiting to present itself.

1917

By Marc S. Sanders

Sam Mendes’ World War I drama 1917 is a cinematic achievement in film artistry. Watching the picture, which I highly recommend in a Dolby theatre, is exhilarating, leaving me to ponder how this type of filmmaking was ever accomplished.

Mendes, along with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins (Blade Runner) primarily shot the film in one long-real time-take with no breakaway until about two thirds of the film is complete. Then, it resumes into another long take for its final act.

We accompany two British soldiers assigned to trek across the front line into enemy territory and warn a unit of 1600 fellow soldiers that a planned attack has been set up as an ambush against them by the German army.

Mendes is also credited as screenwriter with Krysty Wilson-Cairns and the story and characterizations remain pretty basic. Almost too basic, actually. Because the film is shot in close to real time, 1917 doesn’t allow for much complexity or dimension beyond the now of the mission at hand, and that’s where it suffers slightly. There are moments where we are just walking the countryside and are expected to look at the splendor of war torn Europe. We wind a corner and suddenly we are entering a bunker where a rat hanging from a ceiling enters the frame. We climb a ladder out of a trench, and we immediately come face to face with the aftermath of a violent battle that leaves behind torn up bodies and piles of shell casings.

The achievement with camera work is impossible not to admire and become in awe of it. Eventually, however the novelty wears a little thin. There’s little emotional connection to the two soldiers played by Dean Charles Chapman and George Mackay. Brief appearances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth and Mark Strong are fleeting for but a second.

I was highly impressed with 1917, but I was never moved by the film, even when an emotional confrontation comes up near the end. I never got to know these characters beyond the urgent sojourn they take. So much of the conversations didn’t matter much to me.

Again, this is a master class in filmmaking. Mendes will likely win a directing Oscar because I am dumbfounded with his accomplishment. His steady camera could not have been mounted on a ground track against the rough terrain. So how did he do it?

Oscar recognition must also go to Mendes’ team of 6 art directors. The battlefields are strewn about with corpses, barb wire, deep trenches, underground bunkers, dirt, mud, dust, blood, and so on. War is hell is what we’ve all heard. 1917 brings that mantra to life in sickening, shuddering detail.

I recommend the film while it remains in theaters, but I won’t say it is the best picture of the year because for each great feat of technical work, there’s a lack in the emotional punch that other war films have provided.

ABSENCE OF MALICE

By Marc S. Sanders

Maybe more often than not, the films I see about journalism seem to convey the reporters as heroes seeking the truth despite the threats and the strict laws of the first Amendment and so on.  They meet informants in dark garages and outrun speeding cars trying to run them down before the story hits the papers.  They accept being held in contempt of court to avoid revealing a source.  They’re heroes!!!! It’s movie stuff, right?  We’ve seen it all before.  What about films where the newspaper writer gets it wrong from the start, and then sees the ramifications of the recklessness committed?  Absence of Malice, from 1981, is that kind of picture.

Sally Field is a hungry thirty something reporter named Megan Carter with connections in the Miami prosecutor’s office.  When she gets a whiff of a story that implies a man named Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) is the prime suspect in the disappearance of union head, she runs with it and her editor is happy to make it front page news.  However, just because Mr. Gallagher is the son of a deceased and reputed bootlegger with mob connections doesn’t make him guilty of anything.  Also, has an investigation into his affairs even begun to happen yet?  Just because it walks like a duck, well….

Sydney Pollack goes pretty light on a serious subject matter here.  It’s just awful to see a film legend like Newman be a cold blooded killer.  Worse, it’s beyond reason to see Sally Field as a woman without scruples.  They’re too likable.  So, Pollack with Kurt Luedtke’s Oscar nominated screenplay, play it safe.  Forty years ago, when this film came out, I might have accepted what’s on the surface with Absence of Malice.  Today, however, I appreciate the conundrum, but the residual effects offered up by the film never seem to carry much weight.  The stress doesn’t show enough on Newman and Field.  A suicide of another pertinent character hardly seems monumental to either of them.  Heck, there’s even time for romance between the two leads despite the slander committed by one against the other.  Another film by Pollack, Three Days Of The Condor, committed this same mistake.  It’s hard to accept a romantic angle when the characters barely know each other and what they do know of one another is hardly favorable for each of them.  I can imagine the marketing campaign for this ahead of the film’s release.  If you got “Blue Eyes” and “The Flying Nun” in a film together, well then, they gotta hook up and never, ever make them ruthless.  Audiences would hate that!!!!

The film reserves the shiftiness of the situation for other actors in the film like Bob Balaban.  He certainly plays the part well as a manipulator in search of a guilty party, even if it means indicting an innocent person.  The best surprise is the appearance of Wilford Brimley in the big close out scene who sums what has occurred and then lays out who is responsible for what and who is not responsible.  It’s the best written role in the film and it reminds me what a shame it is that Brimley did not get any Oscar recognition during his career.  (I still say he was one of the greatest unsung villains in film for his turn in Pollack’s The Firm.)

Even the soundtrack music from Dave Grusin feels inappropriate here.  It’s too energetic and full of life with piano and trumpets.  When you consider the term “absence of malice” and what it means to a reporter questioning her journalistic integrity, and then furthermore what significance it has to a newspaper article’s bystander, it seems to hold a lot of weight with disastrous repercussions.  Grusin’s music says otherwise.

It’s always a pleasure to go back and watch Paul Newman, and Sally Field in her early career.  These are great actors.  They do fine here, but the material is not sharp enough for what they can do.  They’re too relaxed.  On the other hand, the subject matter is perfect for heightened movie drama.  I can only imagine what Sidney Lumet would have done with this picture, considering films like Network, Serpico and The Verdict.  The execution of Pollack’s film simply does not live up to the terrible dilemma of an innocent man being publicly smeared.  Think about it.  At the end of Absence of Malice, I don’t think the intent is to wish and hope and yearn for Paul Newman and Sally Field to sail away on his beautiful boat into the sunset.  Yet, that’s what Pollack and Luedtke seem to have left us with.

DRIVING MISS DAISY

By Marc S. Sanders

Mainstream films released by big studios suffer from a major problem these days.  Too often, they don’t allow their characters to breathe.  Films today rush to the climax or the action or the cliffhanger that’ll whet our appetites for a sequel or a crossover or a toy product.  Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy escaped all of those conventions.  In fact, I’d argue that Beresford made a buddy picture with his Best Picture Winner based upon Alfred Uhry’s well received play.

Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy, who won the Oscar, and held the record for oldest recipient) is an insistently independent old southern Jewish woman living in Georgia.  She drives her car where she wants to and whenever she wants to go somewhere.  However, following an accident in her driveway, her son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd in a very surprisingly good performance) breaks the hard truth to Daisy that her driving days are over since it’s likely no insurance company will ever affordably cover her.  Boolie recruits Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman in one of the most gentle and delicate performances of his amazing career) to chauffer the proud woman around her Georgia neighborhood.  Naturally, Daisy does not take well to Hoke at first.

The film begins in the 1950’s and then spans roughly 20 years from that point.  I love how Beresford presents the passage of time.  The cars that Hoke carries Daisy in change as the years go by.  As a new car is shown parked in Daisy’s garage, the relationship and eventual friendship of Hoke and Daisy become stronger and, on some occasions, franker and more honest.  With Hans Zimmer’s energetic score that seems to accelerate the speed of the automobiles Hoke drives, Driving Miss Daisy feels like a very sweet and tender film.  It is.  Moreover, it’s an alive picture.  However, the film does not ignore the prejudiced mentality that’s embedded within the south.  A telling moment occurs when Hoke is driving Daisy to a family gathering in Alabama.  Why would an elderly black man with an elderly Jewish woman sitting in the back seat be met with such disdain by policemen who question their presence while eating lunch on the side of the rode?  I won’t repeat the officer’s comment here, but it is ugly and a sad reflection of how things were.  Are things still that way?

Uhry’s script adaptation from his play does not stop there though.  He questions Daisy’s own stance.  She takes no issue with black people catering to her and her home on regular basis, and she becomes enamored with Martin Luther King’s inspiring wisdom.  So, when she is given the opportunity to see Dr. King speak in person, it only makes sense that Hoke will question why he was invited last minute to join her.  After so many years of servitude, why did Daisy wait until Hoke literally drove up to the location of the speech to invite him in?  I’d argue that it never occurred to Daisy, and I think Alfred Uhry believed that is part of the problem.

Both Daisy and Hoke experience anti-Semitism and racism in the mid twentieth century south.  Ironically, the film demonstrates that common victimization is one reason why they need one another.  I’m thankful that Beresford does not show a burning synagogue for dramatic effect.  Instead, he relies on Uhry’s dialogue as Hoke breaks the news to Daisy when they are on their way for morning Shabbat services.  How does Daisy feel in this circumstance?  The synagogue can be rebuilt.  The horror of knowing this kind of hate exists will never be erased.  That’s the terrible shock.  As well to empathize, Hoke describes how as a child he saw his uncle get lynched and hung from a tree.  Daisy and Hoke unite in the hate that surrounds them.

The performances of Freeman, Tandy and Aykroyd are exquisite.  Their dialect for each of their respective characters rings so true of the Georgian southern regions they stem from.  Freeman has an enunciation that rings of a black man who never learned to read.  He even develops a laugh that seamlessly works into his dialogue and reaction to Daisy’s stubbornness.  His posture is marvelous as an elderly gentleman who will walk slowly while hunched over.  It just looks so natural. Aykroyd is in no way doing one of his comedy characters.  He carries the gut of a well-fed southern man who’s become successful with his family business while not taking every fit that his mother has so seriously.  If any of us have had to tend to an elderly relative, then we can certainly relate to Boolie’s position.  Tandy is wonderful at method acting; it should be studied in performance art classes.  She was an elderly woman already when cast in the role.  Yet, as the years carry on through the story, she changes her gait to how this woman’s bones might become more brittle, or how she might speak slower or smile or frown or chew her food.  She has such a fire in every one of her scenes.  A heartbreaking scene where she appears to be having a frantic form of dementia is very eye opening as she paces her historic two-story home looking for papers she graded years earlier as a teacher.  The younger Freeman (playing a far older man) has to keep up with Tandy in this moment; even Beresford’s steady cam has to move quickly to keep focus.

Recently, I had reviewed Terms Of Endearment, and I alluded to the fact that not enough films about middle age people are focused upon, or at least given the commercial attention that they should be given.  Why is that?  So many middle age and elderly characters are so interesting.  I said it before.  Look at The Golden Girls sitcom.  After all, characters with more years behind them have had more moments to live and breathe. Actually, they have a longer history with more nuances and meaningful events they have already encountered, as opposed to twenty somethings with hot cars, pecs and guns.  Film studios are missing out on a wealth of great storytelling. 

Driving Miss Daisy is well paced story of friendship and fear, and often natural comedic material within its three lead roles.  It’s never boring.  It’s only more and more interesting as the years of the story pass by.  It’s simply an endearing buddy picture of the finest quality.