Category: Comedy Drama

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

By Marc S. Sanders

When you make a new installment in a long-celebrated franchise, going on forty years, you have to reinvent the base material to keep it fresh and new.  I think the Jurassic Park/World movies are fun, but don’t they also feel like carbon copies of each other by this point?  I mean how much can you broaden the adventures that come with dinosaurs? The roar, they run, they eat.  

With the Ghostbusters films, there’s more flexibility in what you can do.  You can replace Saturday Night Live players with a fun, lovable leading man like Paul Rudd and he can team up with some brainy kids to fend off ghosts in the best movie jungle there is, New York City.  However, why drain all of the comedy out of the burger?  

The ongoing teenage troubles of the latest reinvention of the Reitman/Ramis/Aykroyd property hinges on so much teen angst that ghosts and ghouls only appear after we’ve endured one Breakfast Club moment after another.  Sadly, there aren’t many spooky critters roaming around the metro area anymore.  Who you gonna call? Doesn’t feel like we need to call anybody, really.

Here’s the pyramid food chain of Frozen Empire.  1) Sad, frustrated teens 2) Inevitable cameos of the celebrated heroes of the first two movies 3) Ghosts.  This movie needs to reexamine its priorities.  

The main storyline is carried by McKenna Grace as Egon’s granddaughter Phoebe who is grounded by Walter Peck aka Mr. Pecker aka Dickless (William Atherton).  I’m referencing what this guy is remembered as because the movie fails to do so. Phoebe is a minor.  Therefore, she can’t hunt after ghosts and thus builds a relationship with a sixteen-year-old friend named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind) who appears in the form of blue supernatural lighter fluid.  Melody died in a fire.  Sooooooo…much of these two young ladies’ sad sleepover conversations populate the film.

Then there is Dan Aykroyd returning as Ray to enlighten some back story on the main monster we can expect to appear in the third act.  He’s performing like an R.L. Stine adult in a second-rate Nickelodeon kid’s picture though.  Ray Stanz was always the guy who had loony science on his mind, but the comedy of the character shown through with Aykroyd’s boyish naïveté.  Remember how excited Ray was to go down the fire pole or when he thought up the giant marshmallow man?  What about when he talked back to the pink slime in the first sequel? It was downright ridiculous and now Ray is a midlife crisis depressant.  

Bill Murray is collecting a paycheck again.  The character is the same with the comedian’s special sarcasm, but if he’s in this film longer that ten minutes it’s a lot and he utters no more than five lines.  He serves one purpose to Frozen Empire – to be in the advertisements and draw a crowd.  Paul Rudd and Bill Murray have done two Ghostbusters and an Ant-Man movie together and somehow, they still have yet to share a great exchange of dialogue.  For the third time in four years, Rudd and Murray seem to be unaware that they are both members of SAG working on the same project.  If I ever need to deliver the argument that there is a lack of good writers working today, I’ll use these missed opportunities as an example of what I mean. 

Annie Potts wears the nerdy glasses, but I don’t remember a thing she says.  Ernie Hudson as Winston plays the financier of the modern Ghostbusters, but there’s nothing special going on with him.  Even the librarian from that fantastic opening of the 1984 film appears.  He talks to Ray for a moment and that’s it.

Why are these people here?  Just so we can say “Uh!  Look who it is!!!”  C’mon!  Surely, there’s something better to be spun here.

Part of the plot involves the threat that the storage container of all the ghosts ever captured over the years will be breaking down soon and set all of the paranormal prisoners free.  That’s brilliant!!!  Yet, why doesn’t the movie capitalize on that????? We are threatened by this terrible scenario over and over with music of impending doom and glances at a digital monitor.  Can the thing just break already?  

We see the slimer green ghost blob under a pile of candy wrappers in the attic.  Not bad.  Where are the other ghosts we had become familiar with?  Remember the cab driver, or the angelic apparition that seduced Ray in his sleep?  Where are they?  I’d rather see these guys than a boring Dan Aykroyd in a jean jacket.

The best parts of Frozen Empire occur in a turn of the century prologue with frozen characters in a formal dining room.  There’s also a fantastic pursuit following that scene showing all the cool tricks of the updated ECTO mobile as it races through the streets chasing after an eel like monster.  During the sequence a drone trap launches off the roof of the hearse!  That’s awesome.  The last good scene occurs midway when one of the stone lions outside the NYC public library comes alive. Everything else in this sleepy picture is very bland, however.

The original, and even Ghostbusters II and the Paul Feig lady comedienne reinvention worked as comedies like the franchise became known for.  I wasn’t crazy about those two sequels but at least the ghosts were the punchlines.  Now the main ghost needs therapy and so does the lead character.  It’s so dreary.  

Where’s the funny?  There is no longer a silliness or loony tune appeal to these monsters.  As well, there are no more jokes to tell about The Big Apple.  Don’t forget that Ghostbusters showed us that ghouls can pop out of drainpipes, drive cabs, gorge themselves on room service meals and hot dog stands and even cause the ghost hunters to wreck a posh banquet hall all in the service of the greater good.  The well of laughs that stem from New York cannot be all dried up just yet.  There are subways and buses to haunt. Broadway theatres. Cell phones. Parades. Ferrys. Morning News Shows.

I left Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feeling morose and melancholy.  When I got home, I knew for the first time that Zuul could never be living in my refrigerator and suddenly I was as sad as Melody and Phoebe.  If this movie is depressing, then is it me or is it the Ghostbusters of today?

THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (United Kingdom, 1982)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Peter Greenaway
CAST: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Ann-Louise Lambert, Hugh Fraser
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Fresh

PLOT: An insouciant young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to make a series of drawings of the estate while her husband is away.


The directorial debut film of Peter Greenaway at first feels like a mashup of earlier British period films, most notably Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones.  It contains much of the painterly beauty and some – not a lot – of the stateliness of Kubrick’s film, combined with the irreverence of Tom Jones, especially concerning sexual matters.  However, The Draughtsman’s Contract makes its own mark, particularly in the closing sequences when revelations occur throwing everything that has come before into a different light.  In behind-the-scenes interviews on the Blu-ray, multiple people say multiple times that the clues to the mystery that pops up unexpectedly are hidden in plain sight.  Well, kudos to the filmmakers, because I was fooled.

The story takes place in 1694 in one of the more beautiful portions of the English countryside.  A dimly-lit prologue establishes the particulars: Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins, whom you may recognize as Sherlock Holmes’s mentor in Young Sherlock Holmes [1985]) is a talented but arrogant draughtsman (pronounced “draftsman”), much in demand for the quality of his pencil drawings.  After much prodding from Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) and her married daughter, Mrs. Talmann (Anne-Louise Lambert), he is persuaded to enter into a contract to produce twelve drawings of Mrs. Herbert’s country estate while Mr. Herbert is away on business.  But because Mr. Neville is abandoning a previous commitment, he insists that his payment be his regular fee, full room and board on the estate…and one private visit each day to Mrs. Herbert so that she may “comply with his requests concerning his pleasure.”  I would say that this may have influenced Jane Campion’s masterpiece The Piano, except the favors in The Piano evolve into something deeper, while the favors in Contract have no deeper level than satisfying Mr. Neville’s appetites.

Given the reputed over-the-top nature of Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (unseen by me so far), I expected the scenes depicting Mrs. Herbert’s contractual obligations to be far more explicit than what is shown.  This is not a criticism.  I think, for this film, that kind of attention-getting device would detract from the narrative momentum Greenaway achieves.  Since the movie is extremely dialogue-heavy, we are better served by short scenes leaving no question as to the liberties taken by Mr. Neville, so we may return expeditiously to the plot.

(I stand corrected: there is one brief but potentially stomach-churning shot of Mrs. Herbert dealing with the effects of eating something that perhaps did not entirely agree with her…eeyuck.)

Leaving those interludes aside, the film is essentially a series of deliberately wordy conversations among Mr. Neville, his servant, Mrs. Talmann, Mrs. Herbert, etcetera, while we also watch Mr. Neville practicing his craft.  Using an ingenious device I’ve never seen before, he sets up a framed grid of wires on a tripod so that the object he’s drawing is divided into multiple squares.  Then he simply draws an expanded version of the framed object onto his sketchpad, grid by grid.  (My girlfriend and I used a variation of this same process to draw Timon from The Lion King at Animal Kingdom.)

His one guiding rule is: “Draw what you see, not what you know.”  As such, if the view has changed in any way when he returns to each site, he immediately incorporates those changes into his drawing, whether the changes be as simple as the addition of a ladder on the side of a building or more complex, like adding a dog standing outside a greenhouse.  This credo will come back to haunt Mr. Neville in ways he cannot anticipate.

A mystery arises.  Mr. Herbert never returns from his business trip.  His horse is found wandering the estate.  No one can confirm his arrival at his destination.  Articles of Mr. Herbert’s clothing suddenly appear here and there around the estate…and as such, immediately become part of Neville’s drawings.

And what’s the story with the occasional appearance of a naked man whom we, the audience, can see, but which the movie characters cannot?  True, he’s not quite in anyone’s field of vision, except twice, when a child can clearly see him, but his guardian cannot, and when a steward shoos him away off a bridge.  I have gone over his scenes in my head multiple times, and I still cannot grasp the significance of this anomaly.  Director Greenaway was a painter before he became a filmmaker (indeed, it is his hands we see making Neville’s sketches), so presumably there’s a reason behind it.  Is this man a Fellini-esque or Lynchian sideshow, intended to raise questions without answering them?  Or is this man a visual representation of the “paint what you see, not what you know” philosophy?  If we extend that rule to our lives, are we being encouraged not to ignore the fanciful, the odd, the unusual, simply because they may not fit in the limited framework of our beliefs and/or prejudices?  Perhaps the child could see this man because he did not yet have any prejudices that would exclude him from his awareness, whereas his guardian simply sees a wall, or a statue, because that’s easier to deal with.  Discuss.

Whatever this naked man represents is secondary, at least during the film, to what happens among Mr. Neville, Mrs. Herbert, and her daughter Mrs. Tallman.  I especially enjoyed just listening to them talk.  In its own way, The Draughtsman’s Contract reminded me of the films of Tarantino, where outrageous incidents or conduct are always framed by characters who talk and talk.  What a treat it is sometimes to just listen to dialogue that doesn’t feel like it was generated at the cliché factory.  Some examples:

  • “Why is that Dutchman waving his arms about?  Is he homesick for windmills?”
  • “When your speech is as coarse as your face, Louis, then you sound as impotent by day as you perform by night.”
  • “He doesn’t like to see the fish.  Carp live too long…they remind him of Catholics.”
  • “Your inventory, Louis, is unlimited, like your long, clean, white breeches.  There is nothing of substance in either of them.”

And so on.  Full disclosure: before the eventual resolution of Mr. Herbert’s disappearance and the subtle change in relationship between Mr. Neville and Mrs. Herbert, I was resigned to the idea that the movie had nothing else to offer, plot-wise, and I was mentally giving the film a more mediocre score.  But good things come to those who wait.  Give The Draughtsman’s Contract a chance, and you will find, as I did, that Greenaway has a few surprises in store for anyone who thinks they know how this story will end.

JERRY MAGUIRE

By Marc S. Sanders

Writer/Director Cameron Crowe loves all of the characters he creates.  He loves them so much that I bet he’s got volumes of background histories on each one ranging from a nanny – sorry Au Pair – to a cute seven-year-old kid to a brash, hot shot professional sports agent like Jerry Maguire.  Everyone, absolutely EVERYONE, in Crowe’s films has to have a substantial amount of dialogue to bring them attention.  Often it works.  Yet, it’s also his Achille’s heel. 

Roger Ebert called Jerry Maguire a very busy picture and I could not agree more.  Do not mistake me.  I’m quite fond of the film, but yeah, Cameron Crowe unloads a lot in its over two-hour running time.  The title character, played by Tom Cruise in one of his best roles, is the superstar agent who has everything going for him.  He’s engaged to a beautiful talent scout named Avery (Kelly Preston), he has a knack for negotiating the best contracts for the greatest up and coming athletes, and he’s loved – strike that…adored by everyone.  Well…not everyone.  A hockey player’s kid tells him to eff off after his dad suffers his fourth concussion and can barely recognize his family or remember his own name.  It’s only then that he has a revelation in the middle of the night to document a multi-page memo inspiring his colleagues to sidestep the need to make more money. Less clients, and more personal attention to the ones you represent.  Call for everyone in his firm to get behind him in this mentality.  Jerry Maguire will be their martyr.

Well, that gets him fired, and ultimately he’s deemed a loser which is something that poor Jerry cannot learn to live with comfortably.  His one last hope at redemption lies in a promising wide receiver named Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr – in a still very memorable role, likely the greatest of his career).  Rod remains committed to sticking with Jerry, but that is not going to make it easy.  He’s often uncooperative.  His pregnant wife, Marcy (Regina King) will not stand for any BS.  Rod is more concerned with obtaining the million-dollar contract, and it takes every last breath of Jerry’s to convince his client that it starts with getting back to just loving the game.

There is also another chance for Jerry to try his hand at love.  Wait, is it love, or is it that Jerry cannot handle being alone?  The test will lie in his relationship with his assistant Dorothy (Renee Zellweger in her breakthrough role), a twenty-six-year-old widow with the cutest kid (Jonathan Lipnicki, impossible not to fall in love with) for a son and a divorced sister named Laurel (Bonnie Hunt) who only has the support of her crying, pessimistic divorced wives support group.

Are you catching on yet to what Roger Ebert was trying to say?  There’s a lot of ingredients to make this stew.  Fortunately, all of it is good material with a great cast, but they are all distractions for one another as well.  At times there seems to be three movies going on at once.  Jerry the agent needs to get back on the horse.  Rod needs to humble himself and listen to his agent.  Dorothy needs to decide if this handsome guy who is the spitting image of Tom Cruise is best for her while she’s trying to be a single mother with a seven-year-old. 

The kid’s Au Pair has ten pages of dialogue.  Marcy has fifteen.  Avery has maybe five, but that’s quite a lot too.  It feels like Laurel and her divorced wives group have fifty pages.  Then there is the jerky antagonist who fired Jerry played Jay Mohr.  There’s just a lot of stuff here.

Jerry Maguire is a well-made film with a natural, feel-good comedic approach.  Cameron Crowe has feelings for all of his characters.  I think he doesn’t even want the Jay Mohr character to get hurt.  Crowe just wants to cradle everyone and kiss them goodnight and give them all a big part in the school play.  It’s a blessing the cast has terrific chemistry.  Anyone sharing a scene with Tom Cruise is doing brilliant work, especially Renee Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Crowe’s dialogue might feel schmaltzy during the love story aspect, but it’s captivating.  Cuba Gooding Jr performs like he wrote the character, not Crowe.  He must have invented more to his Oscar winning portrayal of a cocky wanna be football star than the writer could have ever imagined.  “Show me the money!!!!” is still hailed as an all time great scene, chartered by the actor. 

As a director, Cameron Crowe is doing some of his best work.  I recently watched the movie with my Cinemaniac pals and noted to them how much lighting is pointed at the handsome faces of the cast.  It could be Cruise making a negotiation with a promising football star and his no nonsense dad (Jerry O’Connell, Beau Bridges) around a coffee table, or it could be a seductive scene between the romantic leads on a porch.  You never saw so many faces with flawless complexions and the photography of the film looks great from beginning to end.

As overstuffed as Jerry Maguire is, the film ultimately belongs to Tom Cruise, and he delivers Cameron Crowe’s character arc beautifully.  It is such a dynamic portrayal with a lot for Jerry to redeem, learn from and surmise.  The conceit I expect from Cruise is evident.  Sure!  However, it is still a well-constructed portrayal. 

This movie makes me yearn for Tom Cruise to seek out those roles that would come from nowhere and with surprise.  The roles that on the surface never seem like he should be occupying.  Think about this for a second.  This guy has played the seductive Vampire Lestat which was initially poo poo’d by Anne Rice.  He was crippled Vietnam War veteran/protestor Ron Kovic, soon after he played fighter pilot Maverick.  He played the cruelly extreme chauvinistic motivational speaker Frank TJ Mackey amid another crowded cast of exceptional talents and characters. He’s also portrayed Jerry Maguire.  The range of this actor’s talent can only be stretched further and further.  I’d rather know what wonderous role Tom Cruise has in store next, rather than what ridiculous stunt he wants to accomplish for another Mission: Impossible set up. 

Jerry Maguire is a gluttonous picture, but fortunately every entrée is served with heart, genuine emotion, and relatable caricatures.  It’s one of Cameron Crowe’s best films.

THE HOLDOVERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers plays like a modern-day Christmas Carol.  Paul Giamatti is the Scrooge of the story set during mid-late December in 1970.  He’s an arrogant, unforgiving and unlikable teacher at Barton Academy, an all-boys Massachusetts boarding school.  Two other Scrooges round out the headlining cast.  Da’vine Joy Randolph is a cafeteria cook at the school.  Dominic Sessa is senior student – very bright, but also a troublemaker.  With uninvited circumstances facing the trio, they are the holdovers at the snow-covered school campus during the Christmas break, and they’ll have no choice but to get along or at least tolerate one another.

Alexander Payne often specializes in bringing attention to sad sack lonely souls like in Sideways, The Descendents, and About Schmidt.  His films begin with the characters seeming to accept their fates which lack a desire to smile and be cheerful.  Death or abandonment are common sources for their conditions.  Yet, with each of his wonderful films, it’s always fresh and new.  After an endless series of superheroes, I’m glad I get an occasional reminder of the humanity that can be found and treasured within entertaining films like The Holdovers.

Giamati is Paul Hunham.  Paul is disliked by everyone including his colleagues, the dean of the school (who was a former student of his), and especially the students.  Sessa is Angus who has a discipline problem but normally gets good grades. It’s most impressive that his B+ in Mr. Hunham’s class is leagues ahead of his classmates.  Randolph is Mary who recently lost her son, a recent graduate of Barton, after his entry in the Vietnam War.  These very different individuals have to share their lonesome disregard for one another.  Eventually though, their shields will whittle away and perhaps a couple of viewings of The Newlywed Game will open themselves up to each other.

I would be doing a great disservice to spoil the character backgrounds of these three who stem from different worlds and have nothing in common.  However, a theme found especially in Angus, and surprisingly in Paul, is a tactic of lying and exaggerating.  Within the context of the script written by David Hemingson, the untruths his characters tell work because it opens up further revelations that color in Paul, Angus and Mary’s current states.  The goal of The Holdovers is to scrape away the dirt on the surface in order to uncover the likable or sad nature hidden within. During a trip to Boston, Paul and Angus visit a museum and the irascible teacher finds an opportunity to remind his student that we do not study the past to only see what once was.  Paul tells Angus “…history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.” If The Holdovers were to have a mission statement, this is what the film stands upon.  Angus, Paul and Mary may all be a variation of a Scrooge, but this story explores what precisely added up to their respective states of misery.

The performances in The Holdovers are perfection.  Dominic Sessa offers one of the best film introductions in history.  This actor looks as if you have seen him before and it’s surprising that his only experience ahead of this picture were school plays, he’s done at his own Massachusetts prep school where he was discovered by the filmmakers who were scouting locations for this film.  He ranks up there with the debut performances of Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple and Lukas Haas in Witness.  Da’Vine Joy Randolph is heartbreaking, yet lovable as a grieving, chain smoking widow and mother.  Having also watched her bring out her acerbic funny side in Only Murders In The Building, she’s now one of my favorite eclectic character actors working today.  She is wonderful with either natural comedy and drama or just broad, satiric humor.  Arguably, Paul Giamatti occupies the best role ever written for him.  He finds the right beats during different plot points in the movie.  He’s positively unlikable but there’s an understanding to be found amidst the carnage of his past and present.  The sensitivity of Mr. Hunham eventually shines through, but Giamatti keeps it blended with the angry grouch he’s introduced as in the first few scenes of the film.  It’s a dynamic portrayal.

Alexander Payne reminds me once again that everyone we encounter in life is going through some form of turmoil and suffering.  Some of us can hide it well.  Others have given up concealing what’s not attractive or pleasing to our peers.  If we only take the time to look beyond what’s in front of us then maybe a person’s past will justify their present heartache, and we can either grieve, lend support or simply listen.  Payne will have you convinced to do anything except give up on a person.

As I write this last particular paragraph, I recall when Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character prepares to attend a Christmas Eve party.  She lays out a nice dress.  She does her hair up attractively.  She puts on makeup.  She brings fresh baked brownies and gives them to the hostess with a welcome smile.  A few minutes later though, poor Mary is breaking down in the kitchen and Paul and Angus are seeing a colleague at her weakest when she was doing her best to uphold a semblance of strength.  Mary’s past defines her present to both Angus and Paul.

Alexander Payne is a genius storyteller of the human heart.  He’s already been quoted as saying The Holdovers is not a Christmas movie and he despises the reference.  Mr. Payne will simply have to forgive me though.  His Oscar nominated piece is a wonderful film to watch ritually during the year-end holidays.  Christmas and New Year’s may be a time to celebrate with our loved ones and the fact that we’ve lived through another year gone by.  However, it is also the loneliest for many of us who can no longer celebrate with a family or friends.  It’s important to acknowledge the pain that comes with living under that circumstance.  Fortunately, Payne, with David Hemingson’s screenplay, finds the humor needed for these souls to shed their agony and proudly reveal the faults they carry and the suffering they had no choice but to endure.

The Holdovers is funny, touching, insightful and it’ll leave you embracing a new collection of characters that will not soon be forgotten within the enormous lexicon of memorable movie roles.  

This film will likely win Oscars for screenplay, supporting actress and actor.  A shame that Dominic Sessa was not nominated as well.  There could never be too many accolades for this picture.  It’s marvelous.

The Holdovers is another wonderful film.  Another best of 2023.

AMERICAN FICTION

By Marc S. Sanders

Cord Jefferson directs his first film and it’s a winning combination of Tootsie with the prose of Alexander Payne.  

American Fiction follows author/literature professor Thelonius Ellison, otherwise known as Monk (Jeffrey Wright).  He’s encouraged by his university to take some time off as his patience with the mindset of students and colleagues has reached its tipping point.  Upon his return to visit his mother (Leslie Uggams) and sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), he realizes that mother is beginning to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.  An unexpected tragedy also strikes, and now Monk has to figure a way to afford round the clock care for mother.

A side story also gnaws at Monk. His literary agent, Arthur (a hilarious John Ortiz) encourages him to write a book about “black life,” much like the current bestselling novelist Sintara Golden (Issa Rae).  Her book is celebrated, particularly by the middle/upper class white demographic, for its “authenticity” in urban black dialect and situations.  Monk is disgusted by this kind of reception.  He may be black, but he’s simply a novelist. Best to take his hard cover novels out of the African Studies section at the bookstore.

After a drunken binge of adopting Sintara’s approach, Monk writes a book, under a gang like pseudonym, as simply a gag to demonstrate how foolish consumers and the top publishers can truly be.  Arthur submits the manuscript to potential publishers and immediately fortune finds him.  A publisher is so moved by the book’s plight, she wants to gear it as a summertime bestseller and Hollywood wants to adapt the story.  It’s also a serious contender for a literary award, of which Monk is on the judging panel.  To Monk’s reluctance, he must don a persona of a fugitive criminal author, unwilling to disclose his identity or location.  White consumerism eats all of this up.  At best, all of this hoopla is covering the cost of his mother’s care. Otherwise, he despises being a part of this charade in front of his new girlfriend, Coraline (Erica Alexander) and his family which also includes his gay, undependable brother, Cliff (Sterling K Brown, another winning actor in this outstanding cast). 

American Fiction works on several levels, but the balance is between satire and relatable drama.  There’s a past that defines Monk’s character.  It defines what irritates him as a black man who is encouraged to digress from the sophisticated intelligence and formal education he possesses.  No one encourages him to live up to his disposition as simply a good writer.  Because he’s black, he can only be regarded as a black writer.   

Jeffrey Wright breaks free of his well-known character actor performances (James Bond films for example) to lead this stellar script adapted from a novel called Erasure by Percival Everett.  He wears multiple hats in this film, which include tender moments shared with Erica Alexander and Leslie Uggams, as well as more challenging debates with the sibling characters while addressing a common family problem of dealing with an elderly parent’s care.  His siblings sardonically address him as “Detective Dictionary” when engaged in a debate. As well, Wright’s comedy works as he’s the irascible author who is flabbergasted at how seriously his little prank takes him so far.  It disgusts him that this novel, this deliberate smack in the face to what readers embrace as black literature, generates a sensation. The further it’s regarded in hype, the deeper Monk has to hide as that urban gangster fugitive.

Thelonius “Monk” Ellison is one of the best characters to come out of 2023.  Ironically, the first film I saw this year was a dreadful comedy called You People with Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill.  That film attempted to poke fun at what presumed were the stereotypes of blacks and Jews when in fact it had no discernible concept.  American Fiction explores how black life and culture is perceived by a white populace only to genuinely demonstrate an unfair delusion, and it works perfectly.  It’s a very smart script with intelligent and likable characters, and the dialogue is never pandering but absolutely forthright.  

American Fiction pokes fun at perceptions.  How Hollywood addresses black history and culture and a sad truth of what garners attention for fiction with black characters and storylines.  For black actors and authors, like any of their industry peers regardless of race/demographic, there’s more than just stories focusing on life in the ghetto or on a southern plantation.

Cord Jefferson’s screenplay reveals a midlife crisis for Monk that allows a provocation to consider what is genuine in black and white people.  At the same time, while Monk only wants to reveal a false delusion, he also has to live up to unwanted responsibilities as a son, a brother and a boyfriend.  Jeffrey Wright is worthy of an Oscar nomination for his role.  

Nearly every scene in Jefferson’s film can prompt you to hit pause and think about what was just said or demonstrated.  This movie is also very, very funny in its honest truth of what consumers absorb.  Yes! I do believe Hollywood would likely make a revenge slasher horror picture on a Louisiana cotton plantation, complete with Ryan Reynolds as a slave owner getting beheaded by an Afro blade.  

American Fiction is one of the ten best films of 2023. 

GARDEN STATE

By Marc S. Sanders

The irony of Zach Braff’s Garden State is that the protagonist he portrays is heavily medicated to subdue any variation of depression or anger induced mood swings.  Yet, it seems like everyone else in the picture should be off the drugs, and those that aren’t taking any, should revert to some appropriate pharmaceuticals.  STAT!

Braff wrote and directed this quirky comedy-drama loosely inspired by his upbringing in northern New Jersey.  He plays Andrew “Large” Largeman.  He’s an actor living in Los Angeles when his father calls him to let him know that his quadriplegic mother has drowned in the bathtub.  Andrew seems like what Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off might have become a few years after he kicked his dad’s prized Ferrari out the glass garage.  This guy is sullen, sedate and when speaks or responds to a question, you might think he’s catatonic as well.  He’s just so numb from the medicinal products he takes.  They were prescribed by his psychiatrist, who also happens to be his father, Gideon, played with quiet tension by Ian Holm.

At the graveside funeral, Andrew comes upon some childhood friends who never left Jersey behind.  Peter Sarsgaard is Mark who vaguely remembers Andrew and invites him to a party later that night which is likely just like last weekend’s party and the weekend before that.  Mushrooms, weed, coke, alcohol.  It’s all there.

The next day Andrew meets a precocious young lady named Sam (Natalie Portman) who recommends he fend off a humping seeing eye dog by kicking him in the balls.  This unexpected introduction is what will meaningfully break Andrew of his stupor. The bond between Sam and Andrew will carve out the rest of Garden State following a meanderingly weird exposition.  I’m grateful for that because just when you think this film is going nowhere fast, even if it is told at a slow pace, the story absorbs a sweet narrative shared between two very likable characters.

There’s a lot of eccentricities in Zach Braff’s film which he admirably wrote and directed as well.  Living in New Jersey for fourteen years of my childhood, I don’t recall anything within my nearby Jewish suburban neighborhoods being this oddball.  Then again, Braff is maybe a little too ambitious to have one strange character turn up after another.  A woman at the funeral makes him a shirt that matches the wallpaper of the hallway.  A dim-witted cop asks how he did when he procedurally pulls Andrew over.  Another guy shoots flaming arrows into the air in the backyard of his mansion for Sam and Andrew to haphazardly dodge their descent. 

Mark is not only a grave digger in the cemetery, but a robber as well, stealing the jewelry from the remains in the coffins.  Sam lives with her mom and adopted Nigerian brother amid Dobermans and a hamster jungle gym that stretches the entire course of the house and serves as a hazard for one poor rodent after another.  Sam has a well populated little pet cemetery out back.

Amid all these strange visuals and discoveries, there is a background to Andrew’s need to be drugged by his father.  He was the cause of his mother’s disability when he was age nine and pushed her down, causing permanent paralysis. 

There are colorful backgrounds to Andrew and Sam and a curiosity to learn more about them.  Still, the film seems to stretch its running time with too much unusual, oddball material.  I responded to most of it with a smirk or chuckle, but I ask myself why.  Why is so much of this here?  It builds up a setting, perhaps.  I’m just not sure.  There’s an overt weirdness to every single character seen in this film.  Nevertheless, I don’t believe Braff’s intentions were to duplicate a Wes Anderson formula.

Fortunately, Zach Braff offers a wonderful character arc where Andrew becomes more and more awakened as the film moves on, while clinging to Sam’s company and abandoning his father’s prescriptions.  Natalie Portman seems to mature over the course of the picture. Sam’s quirk is that she tells tall tale lies in rapid succession.  That façade nicely breaks down to show the genuine person Sam truly is later.  When her mother boasts a video recording of an ice-skating routine that Sam did while dressed as an alligator, the embarrassment on Natalie Portman’s face is so naturally telling.

Ian Holm should also be recognized as he portrays the opposite of whatever dialogue Braff wrote for the father character.  That’s a great challenge.  A scene in the kitchen has Gideon dressed in a bland, beige sweater and tie and he seems to hide within the pale walls of the room.  There’s no life to the guy.  Nothing stimulating, despite how educated the man may appear.  So, it seems unjustified for Gideon to tell his son later that he wants them to be happy like they used to be.  Braff’s character wisely responds by being unable to recall any time when they were ever happy.  Moments like these are the strength and intelligence immersed in Garden State.  The assortment of side quirks does not have this kind of staying power, though.

I like Garden State but there’s no way I could love it or embrace it.  There’s just too much moroseness within the strange residents amid their sleepy conversations to make me want to stay with any of these characters.  The benefit of watching the film is to see what Zach Braff, Natalie Portman and Ian Holm lend to the picture – three wonderful performances.

ASTEROID CITY (2023)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
CAST: More Actors Than You Can Shake a Stick At
MY RATING: 5/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 76% Certified Fresh

PLOT: In the mid-1950s, a roadside motel in a fictional mid-Western flyspeck plays host to a junior stargazing event that unexpectedly escalates, changing everyone’s world view forever.  …sort of.


Asteroid City, Wes Anderson’s latest film, feels like a collector’s edition box of Cracker Jack with no prize inside.  Or a cake that has prize-winning decorations, but it’s hollow inside.  It looks phenomenal; one of my fellow cinephiles, Anthony, predicts it will be nominated for cinematography and production design, and I agree with him.  But where the heart of the film should be is simply a crater like the one around which the fictional town of Asteroid City was built.  This is yet another star-studded cast for Wes Anderson, but Anderson has given them very little to do other than wear colorful costumes, look solemnly into the camera, and speak in very precise phrases.

This strategy has served him very well…no…EXTREMELY well in the past.  Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) spring immediately to mind.  But some crucial piece of machinery is missing from Asteroid City.  The characters are colorful and quirky, but at the end of the day, I simply didn’t care about what they did or said.  (Well…except when actress Midge Campbell [Scarlett Johansson] decides to rehearse her nude scene for her next-door neighbor…I did care about that.)

The film opens with a pillarboxed segment in black-and-white.  Our host (Bryan Cranston) explains that we’re about to watch a staged presentation of the newest play from author Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), who proceeds to lay out the “set” for us.  “Upstage right is the crater…upstage left are the motel cabins”, etc.  Then the screen expands to full letterbox and we are treated to eye-popping Kodachrome desert landscapes as we follow a 165-car freight train as it passes by Asteroid City.  Well, “City” should be in quotes…the population is officially listed at eighty-seven.

This is some wacky city.  It’s as if Wes Anderson watched every Coen Brothers film set in the Midwest, from Raising Arizona to No Country for Old Men, and filtered them through a Looney Tunes cartoon written by Charlie Kaufman.  Vending machines on the porch of the rental office sell everything from snacks and drinks to martinis and parcels of local real estate.  (Cost for the real estate parcels: forty quarters…they’re not big parcels.)  An abandoned highway overpass lurks on the outskirts.  Periodically, a police chase roars down the otherwise empty highway, guns firing and sirens blaring.  The residents say nothing about this phenomenon.  And every now and then, the town shakes from nuclear testing being done hundreds of miles away, but close enough that the mushroom clouds are visible.

Man, I love this kind of thing.  The stage is set for one of the all-time great satires, or maybe just a flat-out fairy tale.  We meet the cast of characters who have congregated here to honor young geniuses who have invented everything from rocket packs to particle guns to a projector strong enough to project an image on the moon.  A full rundown of all these characters would wind up being a novella, but if you’re acquainted with Anderson’s work, they will all be familiar to you in one way or another.  (Not least because many of them have worked on Anderson’s other films.)  They have also gathered to witness a rare astronomical event: a solar ellipse.  Not an eclipse.  An ellipse.  The mechanism required to view an ellipse without damaging your retinas looks like something out of Brazil.

Again, I normally love this kind of stuff, really, I do.  But…okay, look, first of all, the film intermittently takes a break from the movie itself to yank us out of the story and show us an event in the playwright’s life that led to the casting of Augie Steenbeck.  Or to show us a rehearsal where an acting coach (Willem Dafoe) encourages the actors – that we’ve already been watching perform in the movie/play – to improvise what it’s like to wake up by first falling asleep.  There’s even a moment where the host shows up where he really shouldn’t be.  And when one of the actors has a moment of existential crisis concerning the character he’s playing, he simply walks off the set, goes backstage and asks the director (Adrien Brody) why he’s doing what he’s doing.

…I mean…what IS this?  Conceptually, I get it, even if it’s a little heavy-handed.  (“What’s my motivation?”  “You’ll have to figure it out as you go along.”  “That’s too hard!”  “Well, that’s life.”)  But…why is it here?  Anderson worked with non-linear structure before in Grand Budapest Hotel, and it worked marvelously.  Here, it feels indulgent.  In fact, many of the scenes in the movie feel that way.  There’s a moment where an army general (Jeffrey Wright) announces he’s going to deliver a speech he’s prepared for the occasion of the “ellipse.”  But this is no ordinary speech.  It’s practically beat poetry, delivered with the kind of conviction that only Jeffrey Wright’s magnificent voice can provide, but…but…why is it here?  Even in this weird, cotton-candy, retro-fever-dream of a movie, this “speech” felt out of place and just plain goofy.  In fact, quite a lot of the scenes between characters felt less like story and more like the kind of dialogues you find in source books for actors.  (101 Scenes for Two and Three Actors…that kind of thing.)

I will provide full disclosure and say the movie did deliver some decent laughs and chuckles.  There is an event that occurs during the ellipse (I’ll have to tread carefully here) that may not be entirely unexpected, but it’s executed and timed so well that I laughed pretty much through the whole scene.  It’s the kind of thing I imagine Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin would have thoroughly enjoyed, if I may be so bold.  There is also the problem of the disposition of a Tupperware container holding a valuable, ah, keepsake.  Oh, and that roadrunner was awesome.

But by the time Asteroid City rolled credits, I didn’t feel like I had seen one of Wes Anderson’s best films.  (The Royal Tenenbaums remains his best film, in my opinion.)  This almost felt like a movie made on a whim, kinda like, “Hell, I don’t know if this’ll work, but if I get enough star power behind it, this may turn out to be something.”  Alas, it did not.

LIFEGUARD

By Marc S. Sanders

Sam Elliott is Rick, the Lifeguard at a sunny Los Angeles beach in 1976.  He’s handsome with his trademark mustache and bronze tan.  He’s also in his early thirties and his parents as well as some friends think it’s time he moves on from his occupation into a more responsible and adult line of work.  Even Rick considers the fact that perhaps it is time to finally come of age.

This film from director Daniel Petrie is nothing special or necessarily memorable.  However, while I first thought it would be a wasteful story of just the various walks of life that peruse the beach, it turns out to be a personal story about a man well past the time when he should have transitioned into the next phase of his life.

Rick has been invited to his fifteenth-year high school reunion.  It’s pretty telling when he enters the ballroom.  Petrie does close ups of the other attendees who are all talking about their jobs, maybe their children and spouses as well, maybe even their divorces.  Rick arrives in his gorgeous bachelor ride, a Corvette Stingray convertible, donning a leather jacket and a shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest.  He’s a fish out of water with his former classmates, but he’s still admired and welcomed.  He rekindles a romance with an old flame, Cathy (Anne Archer) who’s a successful art dealer, and he’s welcomed to get to know her young son.  Cathy is ready to go the distance in a relationship with Rick.

At the same time, Rick is trying to hold on to his youth of a bygone time.  He warns his new, college age lifeguard partner, Chris (Parker Stevenson), not to get involved with a cute and precocious seventeen-year-old kid named Wendy (Kathleen Quinlan).  Wendy has her eye on Rick though, and for a moment he returns to when the beach and the surf were once new to him, and he welcomes her invitation for an evening of lovemaking.  Later, as Rick becomes more aware of people his own age doing more appropriate activities for his generation, does it become a challenge for him to reject Wendy’s ongoing attention. 

The legalities and morals of Rick’s involvement with an underage girl are approached but the movie doesn’t delve much deeper than that.  It’s a film of its time, made in the mid-1970s.  I thought of movies like Little Darlings and even the original Meatballs when the drama focused on the internal struggle of some of its main characters. 

Lifeguard starts out episodic as it shows the shenanigans of its beachgoers.  Rick and Chris laugh as two goofballs manage to strip a bikini top of a young blond.  They also fend off a couple of potheads picking on a teen regular.  They deal with a perverted flasher.  Then the movie improves as it gets personal with Elliott’s character and his performance. 

Rick is the guy that everyone looks up to, but he’s human and he can even falter on a team relay race, gasping for breath that just won’t come as he sprints out of the water.  This is a good moment in the film.  Rick is desperately trying to catch his breath and young Wendy is looking right at him trying to see if he’s okay.  Rick’s youth is speaking directly to himself fifteen years later. 

He’s encouraged by a classmate to become a Porsche car salesman where he could make good money.  A good dinner table scene with his parents also occurs when he’s pointedly told to grow up.  I remember a couple of conversations like that with my father.  The question is who does Rick have to grow up for, himself or those around him? At the same time, he’s a very responsible and good lifeguard, and he reminds us that being a lifeguard is also about being a literal life saver.

I appreciate the conclusion to the film.  It’s more realistic and grounded than other movies might have offered with similar themes.  Framed around acoustic guitar and vocals from Paul Williams, Daniel Petrie allows moments of silence for Rick to contemplate and think while gazing at a sun soaked beach and ocean, not talking with anyone about what his next step in life should be.  Don’t we all do that, where we just sit and think, pondering the possibilities of various outcomes for ourselves? 

Lifeguard may be outdated, nearly fifty years after it was filmed, but it is an honest account of a guy who may be content with his current state, even if he’s not ready to consider what’s to come as he continues to age. 

A MAN CALLED OTTO

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s A Man Called Otto who seems to be liked by everyone except himself. People in his neighborhood happily say hello to him every morning as he shovels the snow off his walkway.  They will try to chat with him on their morning jog.  He won’t even allow his work, where he was forced to retire, to send him on his way with a celebratory going away party. 

On the other hand, Otto prefers to occupy himself with insisting that the UPS truck driver not drive down their block, sniffing out whose dog left behind a present on his yard and scaring off the real estate agent in the fancy BMW who attempts to convince elderly residents to sell their townhomes and move into assisted living.  A new family moves in across the street and they appreciate Otto’s grumpy insistence of properly parking their car with a U-Haul trailer attached.  What Otto doesn’t appreciate is how one more attempt at a planned-out suicide is foiled by their disruption.

I’m told this late 2022 release is an adaptation of book called A Man Called Ove, which was also turned into a European film that is supposedly better than this picture.  I can’t offer an opinionated comparison as I have neither seen that other film nor read the book.

Tom Hanks is the title character in this film from Marc Forster.  He’s very good and right for the role.  I’m one of the few who find Hanks to be miscast on occasion.  Not here though.  His performance had me thinking back on a more subdued Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt.  Hanks has transitioned finally to the older generation of characters that are not as wide eyed with discovery, innocence and gusto that were depicted in films like Philadelphia, Big or Forrest Gump.

Marc Forster is striving to tug at the heartstrings.  Flashbacks of Otto when he meets his eventual wife, Sonya (Rachel Keller) hint at what led to his current state of nonstop crankiness.  Otto’s a widower but why is he so bitter with himself or any kind person who comes his way?  The younger Otto is portrayed by Truman Hanks, one of Tom’s sons in real life.  It’s inspired casting, because there is a consistency towards the mannerisms and personality within the two separate performances.  Truman Hanks and Rachel Keller pair up nicely as young adults from different backgrounds who convincingly fall in love.

The standout though is the pregnant wife/mother of the new family who’s moved in. Mariana Treviño is Marisol, and she is superb in her comedy as the Hispanic neighbor who is always getting in Otto’s way with prepared home made food to bring over while she relies on the grouch to babysit her children or give her a ride because she doesn’t have a license.  Eventually, a terrific scene arrives where Otto is teaching her to drive, and the two characters open up to one another despite their different backgrounds.  Treviño carries so much range with her part.  She’s ditzy but intelligent, sensitive, and very warm, lovable, and funny.  Every time she appears on Otto’s doorstep, Marisol is a new surprise.  You might think at first that she’s scatterbrained.  When you see her next, she’s intuitive.  Otto may think she knows this person from just one or two encounters, but Mariana Treviño’s performance is so well done and beautifully written that even the viewer really doesn’t know her until the climax of the film.  If A Man Called Otto had gotten a little more publicity traction upon its release, she could have been an Oscar nominated contender.  I think she was definitely worthy of more praise than I could uncover.

The script sets up a lot of questions that carry the film and keep it interesting.  Otto’s internal crisis is one thing, but there’s also a neighbor’s mute husband who apparently shares history with the title character.  There is also a scheme being plotted out behind this pesky real estate agent who blasts his hip hop music from his luxury car. (TRIVIA: Another son of Tom Hanks, Chet, is the rapper heard on the radio.)

I was never really convinced that A Man Called Otto could be a real-life story, however.  Call me a cynic, but the number of sweet natured people all living in one small space seems far-fetched.  These happy go lucky folks, including a transgender teen (Mack Bayda, wonderfully likable in his first film role) who was kicked out of his father’s house, find so much positivity out of life.  I’m not sure real life lays it on this thick!  Sometimes, the side characters appear like walking Hallmark cards.

I also felt uneasy about the suicide theme that is most prevalent throughout the picture.  I think I counted four different ways that Otto attempts to end his life (hanging, shotgun to the mouth, jumping in front of a train, carbon monoxide poisoning).  Each attempt is interrupted somehow and how it’s done is nothing so inappropriate or spoofed, but it is done with an intent of irony and humor. It started to feel comparable to another foiled attempt by the Coyote trying to capture the Road Runner.  Looney Tunes serve a purpose escapist slapstick.  Suicide, even when cheerfully disrupted, often doesn’t put a smile on my face. 

Otto does go through a character arc that I appreciate though where demonstrations of heroism and soul saving are captured.  The ending, while sad, is also quite rewarding.  With Marc Forster’s film, I’ve gotten to know a beautiful collection of well-intentioned and thoughtful people who do not give up on trying to rescue one of their own from a life currently mired in misery. 

A Man Called Otto is a good film worth watching.  The cast is absolutely wonderful and through the performances, everyone seems positively proud of what they accomplished with the final product.  I’d be up for seeing this exact same cast perform this script live on stage.  Still, I offer a warning of caution.  While it is trying to deliver sugary optimism at every turn, it is also coming off a little bit like artificial sweetener. 

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER

By Marc S. Sanders

Watching Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner had me reflect on a brief encounter I had many years ago.  I was a head teller in a bank and approached the drive thru window to collect a customer’s transaction.  The junior teller who was part of my team got there before me and as she reached for the checks and deposit slip she commented “That’s disgusting!”  I was so engrossed in a busy day that it didn’t register until later what she was referring to.  In fact, I’m proud it did not register.  The customers in the car were a mixed couple with two children in the back.  I guess I’m happy to be naturally color blind.  Sadly some others still live with such an ailment.  We’ve come a long way, but I think we have a lot further to go.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is a classic American film that should be watched by anyone with a pulse.  If not for anything else, then to realize that somehow our human nature is held back by prejudices that we can not keep from considering.  So, let’s learn to overcome whatever foolhardy thinking stands in the way of happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.

Sidney Poitier portrays Dr. John Prentice, a gentlemanly successful, polite, and brilliant physician with an educational background from Johns Hopkins, a professorship at Yale and internships with the World Health Organization in Africa and Asia.  He has just flown into San Francisco from a Hawaiian vacation with the young girl he has fallen madly in love with, Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton).  Joanna is the daughter of Matt and Christina Drayton (Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn).  She is a highly energetic twentysomething with an optimistic view on life.  Everyone else has to take a second look at the fact that Joanna is paired up with a Negro or a colored man (as the movie indicates).  Even their cab driver has to offer an odd glance while the happy couple kiss in the back seat.  John is even aware that it can be a little startling at first.  Joanna doesn’t give it a second thought as she was raised by liberal parents who taught her that no race or creed is better than any other.  Everyone is equal.

The test for Matt and Christina however is whether a black man can be a husband to their white daughter?  It’s much different when you are on the outside looking in.  How do you respond when such a scenario occurs within your own household.  Even the black loyal housekeeper to the Draytons, Tillie (Isabel Sanford), takes a serious contempt towards the situation, more vocally than Joanna’s parents.  For Tillie, this is a hairbrained stunt by a wild-eyed young girl.  John’s parents fly up to meet Joanna and they have reservations as well.  It does not help that John doesn’t share with his mom and dad that Joanna is white ahead of meeting her in person.  Joanna also did not offer the same courtesy to Matt and Christina about John.  Curiously, for Joanna it should not even make a difference.  For John, he’s hesitant because he knows this will not play out well, initially. John is okay with his new, loving relationship.  He’s wise enough to know that his parents, particularly his father, will not be, however.

What caught my attention more than anything was the difference in age between John and Joanna.  He’s 37.  She’s 23. 

In Stanley Kramer’s film, there isn’t so much a prejudice towards whites or blacks.  It’s more so that there is a reservation toward a mixed race couple.  Should blacks only belong with blacks, and whites only belong with whites?  Of course not.  However, biting sarcasm is tossed into the script suggesting that what Joanna and John are doing would be considered illegal in 14 states.  It wasn’t at the time of the release of this film in 1967, but this was just ahead of when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated amidst the civil rights movement spreading throughout the country.  Joanna even makes reference to the fact that she would not let go of John even if her mother was Governor of Alabama, who at the time was Governor Lurleen Burns Wallace, wife of notorious segregationist and former Governor George Wallace.  As well, let’s face it.  While it might be legal on the books, many in the United States were still intolerable of a living situation like this. Legally, a mixed marriage can happen.  Yet not everyone settles for just accepting what is law. 

Spencer Tracy as Joanna’s father Matt is the one who most prominently struggles with this situation.  He’s insisted upon to offer his blessing on John and Joanna’s upcoming nuptials.  However, he’s on a deadline to approve as they are flying out of town later that night and will get married in ten days while John is working in Geneva.  This is all contrived to contain the story within one day where a beginning is offered that must arrive at an end that provides closure.  It’s kind of sitcomy.  Christina warms up to the idea.  She likes John very much.  It’s Matt who has the problem.  It’s also John’s father (Roy Glenn) who takes issue as well.  His mother (Beah Richards) approves if the children are happy simply because she loves her son.

Spencer Tracy closes the film with his reasoning on the subject.  Arguably it is one of the most well thought out soliloquies in film history.  What I took away from it the most is that he stressed his concern for how hundreds of people across this country will look upon John and Joanna with unjustified derision.  Yet, the young couple will have to plow on and survive through those challenges. 

As a film, I could not help but account for a common theme in the picture which did not have so much to do with race as it did with a change in generations.  First, Kramer offers a quick escapist scene where a white delivery truck driver is bopping along to the latest rock music.  Tillie’s daughter joins in and hops in the truck for a ride with the fella.

Matt drives to a diner with Christina and orders an ice cream float.  Upon leaving, he accidentally backs his car into a young black man’s hot rod.  The older white man has to negotiate and accept fault with the younger, frustrated black man.  Once it is settled, Matt vents to his wife that he runs into one of them everywhere he looks.  Times have changed.  Matt has taught his daughter that no race is better than any other.  Does he realize that as well, though? 

Later in the film, Sidney Poitier as John has a stern conversation with his father.  John says in no uncertain terms that he owes nothing to his father.  He does not owe it to his father to not fall in love with a white woman.  His father owes everything to him for having him as a son, and he will commit that same mindset to his own children, if he should ever have any, regardless of the changes that come of that future generation.

There’s a reason Sidney Poitier is noted as a pioneer for black actors in cinema.  He was the first African American man to win an Academy Award for Lillies In The Field.  He also performed in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner in the same year he made In The Heat Of The Night, which focused on a black Philadelphia cop headlining a murder investigation in the racist state of Mississippi at the time.  Both films were nominated for Best Picture. Heat won.  Poitier was well aware of the racist strife permeating throughout the country.  Per his insistence for his own safety, In The Heat Of The Night had to be shot primarily in the state of Illinois, away from the southern states that were not ready to accept a black man in an authoritative role.  I recall reading that Poitier refused to be cast in roles as the clown where the black man was treated as the punchline for white people’s entertainment.  He kept to a policy of adhering to roles demonstrating the intelligence of black men the same as other colleagues in his profession who were of the Caucasian race.  What an influence he was because of his doctrine.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner does not take daring risks with its story.  Every single character is likable, other than the racist colleague memorably dismissed early in the picture by Hepburn.  At times, the story does play like a sitcom ready to welcome a laugh track.  Nevertheless, it is an important film to see nearly sixty years later when racism and prejudice remain uninvitingly prominent.  The script, written by William Rose, is so sensible.  What is so wrong with a man, any man, in love with a woman, any woman?  Yes.  It feels unconventional when your household has consisted of one race for so many years or decades.  However, despite the difference in the pigments of two people’s skin, happiness is what is most important.  Matt testifies towards his unconditional love for Christina in his closing remarks and determines that is the one true factor in a relationship that must always be questioned whether it is the start of something new or something that has reached its twilight years.

As I come to my conclusion, again I reflect to that incident I had working in the bank with that teller.  What exactly was so “disgusting?”

NOTE: On this second viewing of the film, I specifically paid attention to Spencer Tracy’s closing monologue.  George Clooney recalled on Inside The Actor’s Studio with James Lipton, a story he heard.  Tracy was very ill during the making of this picture.  So ill, that Katharine Hepburn contributed financing to making this film to appease the insurance company that was concerned about the actor being unable to finish the project.  She drove him to and from the studio and often left early with him when she could see he could not go on much longer in the shooting days. During Spencer Tracy’s monologue, you can see him looking down frequently as he delivered his dialogue.  He was reading lines and blocking cues on the floor.  Clooney was just so impressed.  Typically, an actor would be directed to avoid looking down so much and focus on the camera in front of him or the other performers in the scene.  Spencer Tracy was just so impressive with his timing in this moment.  His glances down at the floor were embedded into the behavior of the character.  Sadly, Spencer Tracy passed away 17 days after filming was completed on Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.  He received a posthumous Oscar nomination for Best Actor.  I like to think the challenge he endured lent itself to an adoring, beautiful and unforgettable performance.