Category: Alec Baldwin

STILL ALICE

By Marc S. Sanders

Still Alice is the observation of a woman whose mind gradually deteriorates from the symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.  Julianne Moore won an overdue slew of awards, particularly the Oscar, for the portrayal of the title character.  It’s a magnificently sensitive performance that will have you in tears following the first twenty minutes of the film.

Alice Howland is a revered Columbia professor of linguistics.  She has three grown children (Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish) and John, her loving husband (Alec Baldwin).  The sad irony of Still Alice, adapted from Lisa Genova’s novel, is the fact that Alice specializes in teaching word origins and their formations, but she is stricken by the disease that will wipe her memory of the simplest vocabulary.  A highlighter becomes a “yellow thing.” 

The beginning of the film shows Alice functioning at her highest capacity following her fiftieth birthday.  She teaches her classes, does her daily jogs across campus, plays word games on her phone, travels across country delivering seminars and also tries to convince her youngest daughter, Lydia (Stewart) to abandon her dreams of becoming an actor and acquire a college degree.  Mixed in, however, are losses of train of thought, forgetting recipes, misplacing basic objects, forgetting appointments and getting lost during her jogs.  A quick glance over some visits with a neurologist (Stephen Kunken) set the wheels in motion of what we will witness Alice struggle with over the course of the film.  These doctor visits also teach the audience how one is examined for symptoms with simple memory tests and spelling questions. 

The film was directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.  After I watched the movie, I learned that Glatzer could not speak while he was directing.  Due to his gradual deterioration from ALS, he had to resort to a computer monitor that would express his instructions to the cast and crew.  So now I’m that much more impressed.  To home in on the sensitivity of Still Alice, it only seems fitting that someone with Glatzer’s condition could co-direct this story. 

This is not a glamourous film.  Sometimes we may laugh at ourselves because we cannot think of a word or we forget a year or a name or we put our car keys in the refrigerator as soon as we come home and reach for a cold beverage.  However, when we see Alice discover that she puts a bottle of liquid soap in the fridge it says so much more.  Illnesses like Alzheimer’s and ALS strip people of the basics in living.  Having recently witnessed a friend slowly suffer and perish from ALS, I know that one disease brings you to this point with complete mental capacity while the other seems to tease you with how your mind gradually deteriorates.  Yet, like Richard Glatzer, my friend Joe did not stop functioning and co-wrote a play with me in his final year of life.  He couldn’t speak.  He couldn’t walk, but the man could write.

I have to credit the supporting cast behind Moore’s performance.  The film begins with the ease of conversations between the family members.  Before you know it, the exchange of dialogue shifts and becomes more one sided.  Julianne Moore most often shares scenes with Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart respectively.  She hides so well in her character’s mental incapacity that eventually, it looks like Alice Howland is not even applying the intelligence she’s collected and earned over her lifetime.  A scene in a yogurt shop towards the end of the film seems like Baldwin is the only one working.  He’s consuming his yogurt and reminding his wife of where she used to work while she sits beside him in an absolute haze of emptiness.  He simply says she is the smartest woman he’s ever known and by this point, I know exactly what he is talking about.  Moore is so heartbreaking in moments like this that I have to give credit to Alec Baldwin for maintaining his own performance against a scene partner who cannot offer much in return.

Alzheimer’s first affects the victim but also the family.  Still Alice allows time to explore the inconvenience of the illness.  There is the expected residual squabbling among the siblings.  Alice needs to be overlooked more and more as she gets sicker.  Who can be with her?  John still has to earn a living and has an opportunity for career advancement that he cannot afford to pass up.  A relocation is questioned because will it be okay for his wife.  Lydia is on the other side of the country trying to build her acting career.  Anna (Bosworth) is a pregnant, busy attorney, while Tom (Parrish) is in medical school. 

It’s also much more serious when the family learns that the gene Alice possesses has a one hundred percent chance of being passed down to the children.  This angle is touched upon for a brief moment, but then is hardly reflected as the film moves along.

Still Alice is a difficult film to stay with because it feels genuine in its account of living with Alzheimer’s.  Simple mistakes are just as heartbreaking as the big developments.  Leaving a potato in a purse is as hard to watch as seeing a mother speak to her daughter backstage, following a live acting performance. The daughter is now a stranger to the mother. 

Yes.  At times, the film feels like schmaltz you may find on the Lifetime channel, but then again you are seeing authentic, relatable performances from a cast who make up this family, especially the Oscar winner, Julianne Moore.  Alzheimer’s is an unfair and cruel disease that strips away everything a person builds for themselves in a lifetime.  Pardon the pun, but Still Alice makes sure you never forget that.

TALK RADIO (1988)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone
CAST: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, John C. McGinley, Alec Baldwin, Michael Wincott
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 82% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A rude, contemptuous talk show host becomes overwhelmed by the hatred that surrounds his program just before it goes national.


Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio is entertaining and, at times, mesmerizing without being an altogether enjoyable experience.  I salute the craft of the film and the bravura performance by Eric Bogosian, reprising the role he created on Broadway, but despite my high score, I’m not quite sure to whom I would recommend this film.  I believe it’s an important placeholder in Stone’s filmography, coming as it does after Wall Street and before Born on the Fourth of July.  It shows immense faith in the material and portrays its characters with brutal honesty.  The closest comparison I can make is to the Safdie Brothers film Uncut Gems.  Both films are fraught with tension, featuring unlikable fast-talking main characters who tend to step on or over or around the people closest to them to achieve their goal, or sometimes just to get their own way.  They’re fascinating to watch and listen to, but I would not want to be stuck in an elevator with them.

Talk Radio centers on a Dallas radio shock jock named Barry Champlain.  Bogosian’s look and performance seems so closely modeled on Howard Stern that I’m surprised Stern didn’t sue the filmmakers for not obtaining his permission to do so.  (In fact, the Barry character is modeled after real life talk show host Alan Berg, who was gunned down by an ultra-right-wing group in 1984.)  The whole first “act” of the film takes place in and around the broadcasting booth where Barry holds court, listening to and berating callers from all walks of life on topics ranging from “I Love Lucy” to the war on drugs to Holocaust deniers to one dude who eats dinner with his cat every night.  If nothing else, this sequence boosted my respect for anyone in Barry’s line of work.  To be able to take calls from random folks with random issues, and to somehow spin their questions or problems into a mini-monologue or diatribe that manages to entertain or offend – usually both – the caller or the listening audience – usually both – is a skill I will never possess.  (Bogosian’s voice is tailor-made for the role, a nice sweet-spot baritone that sounds as if he’s been doing radio for years.)

Mixed in with the calls are the ones from clear-cut racists, warning Barry that they know where he lives, that they know “Champlain” is not his real last name, calling him Jew-boy and “f—-t”, sending him packages in the mail and claiming they’re bombs.  One loathsome item is sent to him wrapped in a Nazi flag.  Other callers don’t seem to have any affiliation at all aside from their utter hatred of Barry Champlain.  There’s a scene where Barry has been invited to a public event to introduce someone.  The moment he takes the stage, there are a few cheers that are eventually drowned out by a sea of boos and jeers in concert with a hailstorm of food and garbage thrown by the audience.  Barry has the nerve to look a little shocked.  I remember thinking, “How can you not expect this kind of reception?”

But then I remember thinking, about the audience members this time, “Well, if you hate him so much, why are you listening to his show?”  The movie is making a statement about the bizarre relationship between the general public and entertainment celebrities that they “love to hate.”  It seems to me their lives would be infinitely happier and less angry if they just switched over to NPR or smooth jazz once in a while.  No one forces them, or anyone, to engage with a TV show or movie or radio show or anything else they don’t like.  But with Barry, and presumably many other shock jocks in real life, people seem to need them, to use them as an excuse, I guess, to get riled up, to feel fueled by righteous anger.  The shock jocks are handy targets, especially because the callers can remain anonymous, much like social media.

There is a long rant from Barry himself about this phenomenon late in the film.  There was a plan for his show to go national, but it has been derailed for nebulous reasons, and so a broadcast intended for the entire country is still confined to the Dallas area.  After an ill-advised guest appearance by a stoned idiot (Michael Wincott!) and a couple of calls that go completely off the rails, Barry loses it and tells his listeners:

“You’re happiest when others are in pain.  That’s where I come in, isn’t it?  I’m here to lead you by the hands through the dark forest of your own hatred and anger and humiliation.  I’m providing a public service. … I come in here every night, I tear into you, I abuse you, I insult you, you just keep coming back for more.  What’s wrong with you, why do you keep calling?”

In another movie, that kind of rant might skew towards comedy.  Here, it serves as a painful peek into the psyche of a man who has a job that he’s good at, but there’s a part of him that despises himself for it, and that self-loathing has overflowed the boundaries of his own soul onto and over his listeners.  Even he can’t understand what his audience is thinking. I found myself wondering if any other shock jocks out there might feel this way.  I wonder if this might be one of Howard Stern’s favorite movies, or if it was one of Don Imus’s favorites.  I have never listened to either one of their shows because…well, because that’s my right as a human being.  But I wonder, nevertheless.

As I said before, I admire the craft of the film.  Stone and his collaborators (especially cinematographer Robert Richardson) do a great job with creative camera angles, lighting, and editing for those long stretches of the film where we simply sit and listen to Barry Champlain talking to that endless stream of callers.  Most of those calls end threateningly or are threatening throughout.  This has the effect of creating tension almost out of thin air, a tension that suffuses the entire film.  Are we going to get a maniac who takes Barry hostage on the air?  When Barry unwisely invites a listener to come down to the station and appear on the air, we’re thinking, “You idiot, he’s going to kill you!”  Even if none of that happens, we’re worried about it the entire time.  While this method is an effective use of cinema, as I said before, I cannot honestly say I had a “good time” watching it.  When the ending comes and the final credits roll, I will carefully say that there was a sense of relief, not at how it ended, but just relief that it ended.

Talk Radio is a well-made film featuring a stellar performance from Eric Bogosian.  If you sit down to watch it, I believe you will feel exactly what Oliver Stone meant for you to feel.  Just don’t expect it to tickle.

BEETLEJUICE

By Marc S. Sanders

On Friday night, we watched Beetlejuice the movie.  On Saturday afternoon, we watched Beetlejuice the musical, and as soon as the curtain was pulled on the stage and the performance began, I knew exactly what the movie did wrong and what the play did so right.

I saw Tim Burton’s much beloved spooky comedy for the first time just last year with my Cinemaniac pals, which includes the other Unpaid Movie Critic.  The guys were laughing and laughing until it hurt.  I was off to the side thinking how I remember seeing that scene while flipping channels on occasion.  Cute, but ultimately boring.  That’s how I feel about Burton’s second film, following a hilarious debut with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and just ahead of his blockbuster accomplishments with the first two Batman films.  Beetlejuice is full of big ideas but devoid of content, and I mean that literally, because the title character brilliantly played by Michael Keaton is scarcely in the film.  When he is not on screen, the remaining cast are quite bland or unwelcomingly weird.

Adam and Barbara (Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis) happily reside in a three-story Connecticut home.  Adam indulges in making a scaled model of their picturesque hometown and Barbara…well I can’t recall what she does.  On an errand trip, they haphazardly die and suddenly return to the house.  Yet, they realize quickly that they have expired and what is even less convenient is that they cannot leave the house lest they end up in a kind of limbo threatened by a monstrous sand worm and other unusual experiences. 

Shortly after, Charles and Delia (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara), appearing with the typical Tim Burton flavor, move into the house along with his suicidal daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) and their quirky interior decorator Otho (Glenn Shadix).  They plan to refurbish the house in their own way with Delia’s ugly art sculptures and Charles looking for a reading room.  Adam and Barbara want them out so they can roam free and avoid being contained within the attic. 

Upon discovering that Lydia can speak with them and following an entrance to the Netherworld, they get an idea to scare the new owners away.  Only whatever efforts they set out to make fails miserably and they consider reciting the name of the “ghost with the most” three times to carry him over to their side to do their bidding.

Great storyline.  Sounds great on paper.  So why didn’t it work for me?  Well, Lydia is resigned to her mostly miserable suicidal self and that is neither funny nor empathetic to me.  More importantly, conflict works best when different worlds clash and what I find lacking in several Tim Burton films is that the characters on both sides of the coin are not different enough from one another.  The ghosts or souls or comforts of the Netherworld do not look far enough apart from how Charles, Delia, Lydia and especially Otho behave.  Everyone is weird.  Where is the normalcy to ruin or undo or disagree with? 

Beetlejuice himself is a character to behold though.  Keaton is doing Jim Carrey better than Jim Carrey does and long before that guy was ever discovered.  The actor is working in the area of Robin Williams material, particularly as the Genie from Alaadin.  The issue I have is that Michael Keaton is seldom in the film.  It is a long first act with Baldwin and Davis not doing much of anything before they finally encounter Beetlejuice to have a couple of funny exchanges.  Then they leave him to have mundane conversations with everyone else in the film, particularly Winona Ryder who has nothing to do except dress in her signature, depressing black.  When Keaton finally is summoned, he takes possession of a dinner party with the beloved Calypso tune “Dayo.”  However, we don’t see Keaton in this popular sequence.  Instead, we get Jones and O’Hara with David Niven doing odd contortions to the music with some butt shaking and grotesque facial and body expressions.  I would rather have seen Keaton doing his funny best in a lip sync routine.  What’s in the final cut is just not funny enough for me. Kooky, yes.  Funny, no.

Eventually, the black and white striped suited ghost with green hair is called back for the final act and we get to see him pull all the tricks out of his hat.  However, it’s not enough.  Just as the routine is getting started, it’s over, and then the movie is over. 

There are some inventive sight gags.  Not enough though.  I particularly loved the shrunken headed ghoul with the googly eyes and the pink skinned prostitute whose legs are separated from her torso.  I love when Beetlejuice’s head gets shrunk, and I like when Adam and Barbara’s faces are contorted into odd shapes of gigantic beaks or zany skulls beneath their facial skin.  These are the highlights of this film’s Netherworld and the distance I travel to see it all is smaller than Rhode Island.  In the original Star Wars, I experienced what felt like thousands of alien races.  In Ghostbusters, New York is haunted by one different kind of afterlife from another and another.  In any episode of The Muppet Show, I get to see one breed of silliness before another ridiculous set up is put into play.  The Netherworld setting of Beetlejuice is simply not vast enough.

The stage musical makes up for the shortcomings I have with the film.  The spine of the story is what the two pieces have in common.  After that, the stage play takes more risks.  The musical numbers are absolutely winning.  More significantly though, all the characters are granted more depth and dimension.  The root cause of Lydia’s anguish is explored.  We see the snobbery of Charles just like in the film, but he is also a loving father who recognizes Lydia’s suffering following the loss of his wife/her mother.  Delia also has a desire to connect with her stepdaughter Lydia.  All the elements are given enough attention amidst the craziness offered by Beetlejuice himself who occupies the story from beginning to end.  The character works like a great two-hour stand-up routine with his unlimited imagination of ghoulish trickery and fun.

Burton’s film was released in the late-1980s when updated stop motion effects of the puppet kind were new to the medium of film.  The imagination was there, though it does not hold up as it is very outdated.  Still, Tim Burton was showing his gift for macabre creativity that he has become known for ever since.  Nevertheless, he did not go far enough with the vision of his film, and he did not award any of his characters enough ingredients to let them be unique.  It is not enough that they all speak weird and look strange.  It is better if we can know why they are so uncompromisingly odd.  Beetlejuice the film lacks its variety. More specifically, it lacks its Beetlejuice.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT

By Marc S. Sanders

Mission: Impossible Fallout is the best of the so far seven films in the series.  It is carried not only by the stunts that Tom Cruise insists on risking his middle-aged self to perform, for the sake of his fans. As well, the film’s casting and the puzzle twisting script from Christopher McQuarrie, writing with inspiration from his famed Oscar winning screenplay for The Usual Suspects is a treat for the eyes and mind.  If this were a novel, I’d quickly be turning each page to see what comes next.  Like McQuarrie’s well-known invention of Keyser Soze, this movie questions Who is John Lark?  Is Ethan Hunt (Cruise) John Lark? 

Hunt chooses to accept the mission of locating this unidentified Lark who is interested in purchasing enough plutonium to wipe one third of the world population, likely in and around Pakistan and China.  However, the CIA doesn’t trust Hunt’s cavalier instincts and insists he partners up with a hulking Henry Cavill playing an agent named Walker.  Benji and Luther (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) are back for hacking, field work and some clever mask trickery.  Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the dubious British MI6 agent from the prior film (Rogue Nation) is a welcome surprise and just as perplexing with her actions.  The big bad, Solomon Lane (a snake like Sean Harris), also returns.

Like all the M:I films, Fallout operates with the same kind of formula.  We have to accept the promise that there’s a world ending MacGuffin.  Ethan and the team are assigned to find who has it and who wants to buy it and can use it.  All of this is written outside of the lines of planning out the action scenes these pictures are recognized for.  It’s as if Cruise, with his producer hat on, sketches stunts with skydives, cars, motorcycles, trucks and helicopters and then assigns his writer/director to apply words for the donut filling within the movie.  Mustn’t forget a reason to include a running sequence for Ethan to perform on rooftops.  Fortunately, all of it works best here, more than in any of the other films.

What sells these pictures, and again Fallout is the best example, is the photography and editing applied to these scenes.  Two sequential car/motorcycle chases occur throughout the streets of Paris.  (Look!  I see our honeymoon hotel, The Hotel Regina located across from the Louvre, as Ethan races by in a BMW!!!!!)  A smashing three-person fist fight in an impeccably white men’s room is a brawl for the ages. 

The highlight of this installment is a helicopter chase above and within a mountain valley that first focuses on Tom Cruise himself climbing a rope up, up, up to a chopper and swinging his legs onto the railing to get a foothold.  There’s time dedicated to him falling and inching his way back into the vehicle.  Then it becomes a chopper chase followed by a collision that ends with the remains wedged within a narrow mountain crevice.  What a set piece this is!  Absolutely outstanding camera work.  The wide and close editing, sound and visuals work so perfectly in sync with one another.  I don’t want to watch the making of documentary for this picture.  The trickery of McQuarrie’s camera crew is such a treat.  I’d rather savor the finished product on repeat viewings.

Juxtaposing against this chopper fight are two other scenarios involving Ethan’s teammates.  This is where I’m especially grateful for Christopher McQuarrie’s writing.  Two bombs are rigged in line with each other, and a detonator also must be retrieved by Ethan.  The whole team has to work cohesively, otherwise it is sayonara to much of the Asian continent if both devices explode.  McQuarrie’s “impossible mission” is orchestrated beautifully with suspense cranked way up.  His imagination for adventure allows a magnificently edited third act.  To date, I consider the stakes here to be the highest in the entire series.

The presence of this collection of actors is marvelous with recognition deserving of Henry Cavill donning an untrusting mustache and looking like a brutal, blunt instrument against the superspy Ethan Hunt.  Cavill also plays CIA agent wisely.  He’s got a stoic expression for most of the film but that is because he trusts the audience will assume what a dangerous threat he can be.  Cavill occupies one of the best characters in the seven films.

Mission: Impossible Fallout is truly one of the most thrilling pictures you’ll find.  What’s most important is the action serves the story.  Action just for the sake of action is tiring like in the Fast/Furious films.  There has to be a cost and a tangible feeling to the speed, obstacles and pain that good action scenes serve their characters and the story as a whole.  When Ethan falls from a helicopter or has to jump out a window, I grip both arm rests and let out a collective bellow with the audience.  Films with the grandest of adventure must draw out responses like that.  Otherwise, it’s all just a ho hum journey to the end credits.  Fallout is anything but a stroll.  It’s an absolute balls to the wall, explosive crowd pleaser.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION

By Marc S. Sanders

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is as stunt filled as its predecessor. Perhaps even more.  The difference for me though, is that it is better than Ghost Protocol.  The stunts and action are at least equal in both films, but Rogue Nation also plays with its characters while not stopping at certain points to explain what must happen next.  Sure, the movie talks, but it speaks with developments and surprise, rather than starting the story all over again from square one (a shortcoming for me with the prior film).  Much of that is thanks to a new character, a disavowed British Intelligence Agent named Ilsa Faust played with perfect unsurety and mistrust by Rebecca Ferguson.  She’s the actress keeping me interested beyond the magnificent action scenes because I want to uncover what her game really is all about. 

Rogue Nation opens soon after Ghost Protocol ended.  A hearkening back to the original TV series has finally introduced the nefarious and clandestine organization known only as The Syndicate.  No one has been identified as heading this mysterious group.  A face or name has yet to be linked.  None of the major governments, including America, even believe they exist.  Tom Cruise as Super Spy Ethan Hunt is the only one certain that this Syndicate is responsible for a series of terrorists’ attacks and government overthrows occurring throughout the world.  By the way, I always call him Super Spy, because nothing gets past Ethan Hunt.  Not only can he run fast enough to hop onto a cargo plane taking off a runway, but he even has a talent for drawing as well as reading lips in various languages. Amazing!!!!  Incredible!!! Astounding!!!! ETHAN HUNT – SUPER SPY!!!!!

Don’t ask how we get there, but Ethan recruits his trusty pal and computer hacker Benjy (Simon Pegg) to attend an opera in Vienna where the leader of this shadowy Syndicate may be.  Complications and fistfights, along with sniper rifle assassination attempts ensue backstage during a performance, and now Ethan has convinced Benjy that his hunches must be true.  Ilsa is also there, but is she trying to kill Ethan or just fend him off, or is she working alongside of him?  Ferguson plays the role with a perfect poker face, and it helps keep the movie running along while wanting to find out more information.

Every Mission: Impossible film has that one especially heightened action set piece.  This time, Ethan has three minutes of inhaled oxygen while he enters an underwater vault to hack into a “safe deposit box.”  Benjy gleefully sees the simplicity in this.  “Well you can do that!”  As an extra bonus, we are treated to a kinetic motorcycle chase through Morocco.  The sound editing alone with revving engines and cars screeching, machine gun fire, and horns blasting is impressive enough.  Accompany it with well placed camerawork (nothing is blurry or shaky like in many other action films) and you have a set piece that’ll keep you alert.  Who needs dumb Fast/Furious junk when this stuff tops it?  Kudos to writer/director Christopher McQuarrie.

There are some standard motifs to Rogue Nation.  Once again, there’s a government official or two who does not trust Ethan Hunt’s intentions and thus he’s number one on the Most Wanted list.  How many times has this guy saved the world, already?  Give him a break! Also like before, most recently in the last installment, the IMF team has been shut down.  That does nothing for me anymore.  I wouldn’t expect anything less.  No IMF team, but Ethan and Benjy still get a hold of the most inventive gadgets and tricked out cars they can find.  So what’s the big deal if the IMF is on the chopping block?  Still, I like how this picture wraps its storyline up and defeats the villain.  It’s different and a welcome surprise.  Ilsa Faust’s character arc tidies itself up nicely as well.

Amazing stuff happening in this fifth chapter of the film franchise.  As long as Tom Cruise and company get more daring and aggressive with the impossible missions that need to be overcome, the staying power of these films holds.  Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is a fantastic piece of filmmaking.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

By Marc S. Sanders

The characters in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross are under terrible pressure.  They are salesmen who are consistently chasing insurmountable sales goals in real estate properties.  One of them has an ill daughter in the hospital.  Another has a temptation to rob his office as a means of earning some fast cash.  Another is in despair of his self-worth.  To be a salesman, of any kind of commodity, is a tough life to lead.  The payoffs can be enormous when a sale is successful.  However, once a transaction is complete, the response is often “what have you done for me lately?”  These guys are never happy.  However, they are also some of the cruelest, most insensitive, and thoughtless people you will ever meet.  They have no other choice but to behave that way.  It’s the nature of the business.

The film adaptation of Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning play contains a collection of outstanding actors doing some of their best work.  They embrace the brutal dialogue the screenplay hands over to them with relentless cursing and flaring tempers.  Glengarry Glen Ross has you believe that you run your sales career on your own with little help or encouragement from the people you slave for. 

Early in the film, Alec Baldwin, known only as a man named Blake (based on the end credits) visits the office where these salesmen are based out of.  He delivers an unforgiving and harsh reality of what these men must do.  They either get their sales numbers high on the board, where they can win a new Cadillac, or they settle for a set of steak knives for second place.  After that, they are fired.  Regardless of where they currently stand though, they should not even be pouring themselves a cup of coffee.  Coffee is only for closers.  The office manager, known as Williamson (Kevin Spacey), only provides the men with sales leads that have already been exhausted with rejection and hang ups. 

Director James Foley does a wise technique with color.  The first half of the film appears in drabs of greens and greys amid an evening of torrential rain downpour.  Before Blake finishes his threatening presentation, he dangles new leads, the “Glengarry Leads,” in front of the men saying these are not for them, because they are only for closers.  The old leads that Williamson hands out are on green index cards, nothing flashy.  Blake’s leads are bright pink with a gold ribbon tied around them.  Foley makes sure that even a prop tells a story.

The salesman that gets the most attention is perhaps Shelley “The Machine” Levene played by Jack Lemmon.  He’s elderly and past his prime with no numbers currently on the sales board.  Frequently, he is making calls to the hospital for an update on his daughter who is due for surgery, but if he can’t make a payment, then the procedure is likely not to happen.  Lemmon is fascinating in maybe the best performance of his career.  Many of his scenes are toe to toe with Spacey as he shifts from pleading to demanding to disingenuously threatening and ultimately bribing Williamson for the new leads. Levene is so out of touch now that he can’t even sell Williamson on helping him out.  Spacey as Williamson is terrific in his defiance to not lend any sort of aid to Shelley.

David Mamet added additional material to the script, not found in the stage play.  The Blake character is new to the film, for example, and I think it is a better, more fleshed out story because of it.  As well, Foley is able to go outside of the reserved settings of the bar and office, as he follows Levene making a knock-on-the-door sales call in the middle of the rainy night to a family man.  This may be Lemmon’s best scene of the film as he weasels his way into the home to quickly get his raincoat and hat off and get a seat on the sofa as he begins his “once in a lifetime” opportunity that the potential customer may miss out on.  It’s a sales pitch, despite Lemmon’s charm, and the patron can see right through Levene’s performance.  As the door closes on Shelley, you’re terribly sad for his desperation and failure.

On the other end of the spectrum is the current, most successful salesman named Richard Roma.  He’s played by a showy looking Al Pacino who initially doesn’t perform in the broad strokes he’s become recognized for as an actor.  Pacino does a quiet, delicate approach to his character’s sales presentation as he shares a table with a sap (Jonathan Pryce) who is weeping into his liquor glass.  Roma stretches the rainy evening out in the bar with this guy, talking about vague anythings, until he can subtly pounce on him with a brochure that’ll get his signature on a contract. 

Two other salesmen, Moss and Aaronow (Ed Harris, Alan Arkin) vent their frustrations elsewhere in the bar as they eventually segue into an idea of burglarizing the office for those tempting new leads.  However, are they working together as a team on this idea, or is one working something over on the other?  Mamet’s dialogue is chopped up perfectly with utterances and interruptions, that before a character reveals his intentions, you are left flabbergasted.  What is demonstrated here is that a skillful salesman is also an efficacious manipulator.

The second half of the film is set on the following morning where the sunlight has come through.  New revelations following the stormy night from before will present themselves as the men gradually arrive at the office to find it actually has been robbed.  The obvious of circumstances are there.  However, Mamet sets up an ending that’ll leave you breathless.  It did for me the first time I watched the film.  Just when you think you are watching a protagonist throughout the film, something else entirely comes up.

Glengarry Glen Ross has been regarded as a modern-day Death Of A Salesman.  Maybe it is.  I’ve worked in this kind of field before. There were months where I was good at it, and like everyone else, I would brag about my success with recaptured anecdotes and celebratory curse words flying out of my mouth.  There were also months where I would gripe about how uncompromising this life is. When I didn’t want to do sales any longer, I spent twelve years as an assistant to sales representatives.  They are not your friend.  They are only focused on the next contract to be signed and booked before month end, and they will ask anything of you with a seething f-word attached to their request.    Are we so terrible if we can not make an unreachable goal with tools that offer no help and supervisors that lend no encouragement or forgiveness?  To be a salesman means that any of your past accomplishments or education do not define you.  You are only identified as the one who must acquire the next thing, and then the next thing after that.  It will change your attitude about yourself and how you treat others.  It’ll alter your dialogue which is so vitally apparent in Mamet’s story.  It will even influence you to take measures you never thought you’d be capable of.

James Foley enhanced an already electrifying script from David Mamet.  He knew that if he was going to show how hard and challenging it is to be a salesman of boring, uninteresting, and practically intangible parcels of land, then he was going to have to be relentless in the art direction and settings contained in the film.  The first half of the film never, ever lets up with the rain storm going on outside in the city street.  The evening is as black as can be, and yet Williamson casually will ask Levene if he is going out tonight. Who in the dead of night in the rain is going to want to talk to a droning salesman about anything?  Yet, that’s what is expected of this life.  The office setting is unfriendly, decorated with ideals that hang from the walls with phrases like “A man must embrace further than what he can reach.”  Little touches like this only add to the uncaring and selfish nature the men really have for one another. 

Glengarry Glen Ross depicts a hard life for the man in a suit.  You may dress like what is expected of a professional, but you are also always scraping the bottom of another bottom.  The cliché that money can’t buy happiness is personified in a film like this.  You may get to the top and score a nice commission, but it’ll soon be forgotten and nothing you’ve done before will lend to your current state.  Next month, someone else will be standing where you are standing.  Worse, you may never be standing on top again, and then what will you do?

Sadly, I believe that Glengarry Glen Ross reflects what many people experience at least at one point in their lives.  We are all salespeople to a degree whether we are doing a job interview or even trying to impress the parents of someone we are dating.  It doesn’t always work out.  The question is where do any of us go from that point.

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

By Marc S. Sanders

John McTiernan’s adaptation of Tom Clancy’s first bestselling novel, The Hunt For Red October, might seem dated but it’s still a crackling good thriller. It’s one of those films where you truly feel like you’re walking through the secretive hallways of DC government buildings with their elevators accessed only by an Admiral’s key. Soon you’re in a dark, underground boardroom. You’re also there on the various naval crafts and submarines with alarming lights, shiny steel and glowing monitors. The biggest treat is being in the command center of the titled sub, Russia’s Red October, commanded by their captain, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery). All in all, Terence Marsh built a convincing production design.

Clancy’s story takes a different approach than most thrillers involving Cold War politics. Ramius might have been a James Bond villain in another film as he hijacks Red October, but there’s more to him actually. Rather, Ramius wants to defect to the United States. Most of his command crew is in agreement as well. America doesn’t necessarily see it that way; a Russian, missile equipped submarine quickly approaching the eastern seaboard with other subs following him?!?!?!? Let’s not polish the tea set so quickly.

Fortunately, one man had the pleasure of meeting Ramius once and doing extensive research on the General’s background; Jack Ryan (appropriately cast with a young Alec Baldwin). Ryan is given three days to catch up to Ramius and guide him safely to the United States while avoiding getting the famed submarine shot down by either power nation.

I must point out my favorite scene and it actually takes place in that secret boardroom where it dawns on Ryan of Ramius’ true plan. Baldwin is great here. The young guy who is green when it comes to military and political protocol. McTiernan gets his company of generals and high ranking officials into a large quarrel over what to do and then he zooms in on Baldwin thinking for the close up before he calls Ramius a SON OF A BITCH. It’s at this moment, that the movie going consensus and fans of Clancy overall determined that Alec Baldwin was the best of the cinematic Jack Ryans. (No slight to Harrison Ford, who was too middle aged for the role when he took the part).

Connery at least has the commanding appearance of Ramius’ stellar reputation. He is not very exciting or charismatic. Then again, I don’t think Clancy built the character that way. Connery plays the role as silent, yet wise and experienced as implied by his well groomed, white beard and hairpiece plus his square stature. If this man is standing in your presence, you better give him an update. You shouldn’t have to ask if he wants one.

Good moments are made available to Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Sam Neill and Stellan Skaarsgard as well. It is the talking scenes among all these fabulous actors that really build tension. The underwater scenes…not so much. The subs look like long, black blobs weaving their way through depths and avoiding missiles coming their way. It’s forgivable because McTiernan always keeps the characters at play. This isn’t a film that relies on the dog fights depicted in Top Gun or Star Wars. McTiernan keeps his audience away from drowning in the underwater murkiness.

The makers of this yarn really are a great combination of imagination. We got Tom Clancy and John McTiernan to thank for a gripping tale from 1990 that still holds up today. The Hunt For Red October is definitely a film worth revisiting.

THE DEPARTED

By Marc S. Sanders

Martin Scorsese finally won his Best Director Oscar with the 2006 Best Picture The Departed, from a script written by William Monahan. The film is a remake of a Hong Kong crime drama called Infernal Affairs.

Also known as the one film in Scorsese’s library with a linear plot, The Departed depicts the stories of two guys who grew up in the south end of Boston and joined the police academy to serve. Only difference is one is recruited to go undercover within the Irish mob, while the other is recruited by the same mob to become a highly respected police officer and supply an unlimited wealth of information to his criminal boss.

Leonardo DiCaprio is the undercover cop Billy Costigan. Matt Damon is the criminal cop Colin Sullivan. Jack Nicholson is the Irish mob boss in the middle, Frank Costello.

The Departed works because Scorsese and Monahan allow the audience in on every deceit playing against the characters. Pleasantly surprising is that there are even twists to this layered story, and cellular flip phones assist all the players with trying to remain in hiding or hoping to one up and trap the other. However, because everyone is getting tipped from their own respective sources, people are either not ending up dead, or arrested or caught red handed. As Costigan builds his case against Costello, Sullivan is worming his way to protecting his cover in the police force while also tipping off his true boss.

Performances from DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson are what you’d expect. Nicholson is chewing the scenery again appearing like the devil incarnate while hamming up the facial expressions. Damon is great at playing it like the Boy Scout cop in well-tailored suits, clean shaven and flirtatious within his department and earning respect among his peers, that is until it all seems to unravel. DiCaprio is wired as the cop who needs to show he’s a dangerous hood to be trusted among the mob cohorts. However, he’s getting more paranoid and unwound at the risk of being made.

Thelma Schoonmaker (one of my favorites) does a balanced approach edit to showing a parallel among the cops. She will insert a happening of Costigan for a snippet and then segue to Sullivan appearing to do honest police work, or reaching out to Costello with a warning of what’s coming for him.

Great support also comes from Ray Winstone as Costello’s right hand man, and Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson and Martin Sheen, all within the police department.

Ironically, the one Oscar nominated performance was bestowed upon Mark Wahlberg and I grew tired of his presence quickly as the cop who berates Costigan endlessly with yelling and fast one liners that involve someone’s mother. Could we just move on from this please?

I also found Vera Farmiga as a police psychologist to be mostly unnecessary until a contrived ending point needed to arrive. Her character naturally has affairs with both Damon and DiCaprio, who also attend her office for sessions. Of course they do! Whenever the film sidetracks to one of them with Farmiga, The Departed stalls for a moment. Her character carries no stake in the plot line and offers no further dimension to DiCaprio and Damon’s characters.

The film works best as the complications compound on each other. A great moment occurs between the cops when one of them picks up a bloody cell phone to dial back the most recent call. Silence on both ends of the line, and the moment just plays out until someone speaks or hangs up.

Moments like that is suspense similar to when a man is intruding in a dark house. However, this is suspense delivered by Martin Scorsese, and Martin Scorsese will film suspense that is anything but typical. Martin Scorsese’s suspense leaves you breathless.

BLACKKKLANSMAN

By Marc S. Sanders

Spike Lee has finally received a Best Director Oscar nomination for his film BlacKkKlansman. It is based on the book by Ron Stallworth. In the 1970s, Stallworth was the only black police officer in the Colorado Springs police department. He was always ready to face the backlash and criticism for his afro and skin color. He also orchestrated an infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan while developing a trust with their Grand Wizard and eventual Presidential candidate David Duke.

John David Washington (son of Denzel) portrays Stallworth with high intelligence, instinct and even tolerance to stay focused on the end goal of incriminating Klan members out to do more than just march. Stallworth partners up with Flipp Zimmerman, a Jewish cop who will make his presence as Stallworth among the ranks of the Klan. Call it a Cyrano set up. Stallworth does the talking over the phone. Flipp stands in their presence.

I’ve usually been hot and cold on Spike Lee. Forgive me but when a “Spike Lee Joint” debuts in theatres, my subconscious immediately expects a very biased and unfair viewpoint of racial tensions in America. I don’t care for Lee’s outspoken statements in the media at times and I shake my head at some of his misguided actions. That’s another conversation that I welcome to have with anyone at another time. However, Lee takes a very aware and balanced approach here. The film opens with Alec Baldwin as an evil messenger of hate attempting to record a sermon for his disciples. Lee films Baldwin very disturbingly among different color hues and jittery close ups and wide angles. It’s nauseating and it should be.

Then Stallworth’s story begins and he is assigned to go undercover at a former Black Panther member’s (played by Corey Hawkins, who I loved in the revival of 24) speaking event on a college campus. The police expect this will be an orchestration of violence among the black community but Stallworth sees it is anything but that. Lee commits a beautiful filmmaking effort as he shows the faces of black people listening to the speech in spotlights as Hawkins continues on. These are college students simply looking for a way to never succumb to anyone who considers them inferior. The speaker does hold the white man accountable, yes, and I don’t care for that as I’m a white man with no instinct of superiority. Therefore, don’t lump me in with a small sect of misguided people, please. Still, the scene is effective and relatable. America has its ugly histories and America is not settling for insensible and uncaring treatment of its people either.

From here, the film takes on a more linear story as Stallworth and Zimmerman build their case.

Lee offers good debates among his cast of characters. Stallworth becomes attracted to an activist named Patrice, played very well by Laura Harrier. Here’s hoping to a long, successful career for her. Patrice believes the police are the enemy and even questions if Stallworth will remain a police officer following this case. Stallworth takes pride in being a cop. Black Life vs Law Enforcement.

Stallworth and Zimmerman bear witness to the mentality of the Klan. Over and over the Klan members suspect Zimmerman of his Judaism. He denies it and goes to great lengths to disprove his heritage and yet the Klan continues to question him, despite some high level members truly believing his guise of white supreme devotion. White Supremicists vs. Judaica & Black Life.

Lee has offered a powerful film that left my wife and I up until two in the morning discussing its dynamics; discussing how many things have changed for the good since the 50s; discussing how many have gotten better, have gotten worse and how some things have sadly resurfaced in recent years.

BlacKkKlansman reminds me that Lee is truly an accomplished filmmaker. Beyond his messages and viewpoints, Lee knows how to edit a scene and offer inventive camera angles and direction. He’s a prize student of film, now a teacher. This latest effort is a reminder of how Lee’s production of Malcolm X in 1991 was robbed of recognition at the Academy Awards, a true injustice.

BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee’s best film since Malcolm X and one of the best films of 2018.