Category: Drama

BLUE COLLAR (1978)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Paul Schrader
CAST: Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Ed Begley Jr.
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Three financially strapped automotive factory workers rob their own labor union, but when they get more than what they bargained for, their friendship and loyalty are tested.


There may come a day when I revisit Blue Collar and revise my current opinion.  It’s not impossible.  I’ll be a different person five or ten years from now.  I may have a different job with different bosses and co-workers, or I may be living in a different neighborhood in a different house.  All sorts of things could change that will affect my perception differently.  Until that happens, though, this is what I think:

Blue Collar, the directorial debut of eminent screenwriter Paul Schrader, author of Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and American Gigolo (1980), is a film with a good story to tell.  Not just good – important.  This is an important story about loyalty, friendship, and duty to your family.  Richard Pryor turns in a great performance, flexing his dramatic muscles as he seldom did, unfortunately.  Schrader’s screenplay, co-written with his brother, Leonard, and using source material from Sydney A. Glass, pulls no punches regarding corruption within the powerful auto workers union.  Character motivations are crystal clear from the opening scene to the final, cynical freeze frame.

But…but…I wish this story were contained in a film that made me care about these characters while the movie itself was playing.  Intellectually, I see the value of the story.  But as a moviegoer, I was less than moved.  Schrader’s direction is competent, but the film moves from beat to beat with the energy of a sloth.

Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto) are three working-class friends on the line at an automotive plant in Detroit.  Their closeness is established in a bar scene that gave me hope for the rest of the film.  It plays almost like an Altman film, with some overlapping dialogue, simple but clear direction, and conversations that give us an instant picture of who these three disparate characters are.

It’s unclear what Smokey’s financial situation is until later in the film, but Zeke has back-taxes to pay because he has declared too many dependents for the last three years, and Jerry has a teenage daughter who is so desperate for expensive braces that she tries making some herself, with exactly the kind of results you’d expect.  Their union, which is supposed to help them, is a joke as far as they’re concerned; they can’t even fix Zeke’s broken locker door.  So, after Zeke makes some observations at the union’s local office, he and his pals hatch a plan to rob the office vault.

What they find there drives the rest of the plot, so I’ll tread lightly from here on out.  But the vault robbery is a good example of where the movie is lacking for me.  The plan is simple and relatively risk-free, but I was hoping for at least SOME suspense during the robbery.  A moment occurs when they’re about to be discovered, so they don their masks…but the masks that Zeke bought aren’t masks.  They are, in no particular order, plastic vampire fangs and a funny hat, a pair of sunglasses covered by an American flag design, and a pair of googly-eye glasses – you know, the ones where the eyeballs are attached to the glasses by long springs?  This crucial moment was ruined by the utter ridiculousness of their “costumes”; it felt like a transplant from some other Richard Pryor comedy about incompetent criminals.

After that, the screenplay feeds us important chunks of information, but there is no dynamic energy to the editing or the direction or something.  It just felt…boring.  Which is a shame because, again, there is a good story here.  The union local blatantly lies about the contents of the vault after the robbery.  An FBI agent tries to get Zeke, Jerry, or Smokey to spill what they know about union corruption, but they are too loyal to turn stool pigeon.  Zeke has to make some hard choices in one of the movie’s better scenes towards the end.  Smokey displays strength when threatened by union thugs, but he pays for it later.  And Jerry just wants to do the right thing without anyone getting hurt.

But there was just zero energy to the narrative.  I never felt carried along by the tide of the story.  And without that forward momentum, every scene felt like it was just marking time before the next.  To the degree that I understood the plight of these blue-collar workers, the movie just didn’t make me care enough to feel anything about it.  I did feel empathy for Zeke, mostly due to Pryor’s powerful, angry performance, but even that empathy was turned on its ear by the time we got to the closing credits.

There is, I guess, something to be said about how the screenplay is constructed so that, at any given point, you could say that any of the three main characters are the true lead of the film.  The story is truly balanced, and I give it credit where it’s due.  I just wish the storytelling was more dynamic.  Like I said, the day may come when my opinion of this movie will change.

Today is not that day.

…tomorrow’s not looking good, either.

THE BOYS IN COMPANY C (1978)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Sidney J. Furie
CAST: Stan Shaw, Andrew Stevens, James Canning, Michael Lembeck, Craig Wasson, Noble Willingham, R. Lee Ermey
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: [no score]

PLOT: In 1967, five young men undergo Marine boot camp training before being shipped out to Vietnam. Once they get there, the experience proves worse than they could have imagined.

[This review contains MILD SPOILERS concerning the film’s finale.]


I remember a short while ago, when I watched the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) for the very first time.  I remember asking myself, “Why did it take me so long to finally watch this movie?  It’s fantastic!”

I’ve just had the same exact experience after watching Sidney J. Furie’s The Boys in Company C, which I think (someone correct me if I’m wrong) is the first attempt by Hollywood to provide a genuinely realistic portrayal of being a combat soldier during the Vietnam War.  There are some obvious parallels to Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Fuller’s The Big Red One (1980), but this one was first out of the gate.  Company C is just as visceral, just as riveting, and just as entertaining to watch as those other films.  I have only seen a handful of Furie’s other films (including Iron Eagle [1986] and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace [1987]), so I can’t make a 100% informed opinion, but in my limited experience, this is far and away his masterpiece.  It goes on the list of my favorite war movies ever made, and I think it’s a real shame that it appears to have been nearly forgotten.

Like so many other war films that came after it, The Boys in Company C begins at boot camp.  More properly, it begins right outside the recruitment center (I think?) in late 1967, as several young men – boys, really – kiss their loved ones goodbye before getting on a bus.  In a weird way, this sequence reminded me of the opening scene in The Breakfast Club (1985) as each student is dropped off for detention by their parents (except for Bender, of course).  We are introduced to the boys who will become the key players: Washington, the angry black man (Stan Shaw); Pike, the country boy (Andrew Stevens); Foster, the aspiring writer (James Canning); Fazio, the Italian American from Brooklyn (Michael Lembeck); and Bisbee, the pacifist who is put on the bus in handcuffs (Craig Wasson).  Stereotypes?  Sure, I guess.  But the screenplay doesn’t limit them to JUST their stereotypes.  Washington, for example, starts out in camp as a guy who is looking out for himself, but after a surprisingly passionate speech from his drill instructor (R. Lee Ermey in his film debut!), he assumes the mantle of leadership and wears it exceedingly well.

We get the by-now standard scenes of the recruits getting their heads shaved, struggling through exhausting training runs, being called names that would’ve made George Carlin blush, and, eventually, graduation, where their reward for making it through boot camp is being assigned to combat duty in the ‘Nam.  Their problems begin even before they disembark from their troop carrier when the Vietnamese port comes under artillery fire.  It all sort of goes downhill from there.

The movie so far is nothing incredibly new, at least not to someone watching in the present day, but I had to keep reminding myself that this was probably the first time American audiences had seen a relatively honest representation of combat that wasn’t filtered through layers of self-censorship and jingoism.  M*A*S*H (1970) did show us the bloody reality of surgery in the field, but it didn’t concern itself too much with actual combat – plus it was set in Korea, not Vietnam.  A minor quibble.

There are a LOT of plot details I won’t relate here – the clueless captain, the “vital” convoy, Washington’s drug trafficking plans – because of the soccer subplot that reveals itself to be the film’s beating heart and real cry of protest.  Much like Kilgore and the California surfer in Apocalypse Now (1979), the squad captain learns that Pike, the country boy, is pretty good with a soccer ball.  There is a squad of elite Vietnamese military men who are also good at soccer.  The captain dreams up a plan: put together a soccer team of American soldiers who will play the Vietnamese men in an exhibition match.  If the American team wins, they will get a reprieve from combat and go on a “goodwill” tour of southeast Asia, including Tokyo and Bangkok.

Sounds good, right?  But complications arise when, at the match, the American general watching the match is approached by his opposite number in the Vietnamese army.  With the Americans leading at the half, the order is passed to the team: lose the match so the Vietnamese can save face in front of their own people.  If they throw the match, they will still get reprieved from combat to go play mare matches against Vietnamese teams…and lose every time.

The Americans can’t believe it.  Pike (and everyone else) wants to get back home, but he is afraid he can’t live with the shame of intentionally throwing a match, no matter what the big picture looks like.  But the orders contain no ambiguity.  Throw the match and go on tour, or win and go back to frontline combat the next day.

This is what the movie has been driving towards the whole time.  The squad has to collectively decide what is more important: winning or surviving.  I hope I don’t come off like an amateur historian here, but to me, that is the same question that could have been asked about the entire Vietnam conflict.  As a country, we had a chance to ask ourselves: is winning this war worth the price we’re paying?  How much more are we willing to spend, in money and lives?  In the film, the squad is asked to balance that equation themselves on a smaller, but no less important, scale.

Is this about honor?  Should they win the match to preserve their own personal integrity, even if it means going back to fighting in the jungle and maybe never making it back home?  Or should they throw the match, increasing their odds of making it home alive and boosting morale for their Vietnamese allies, but leaving them with a stain on their integrity?  Is this kind of thinking the reason the American government participated in possibly the most unpopular war in American history?  Because losing face was worse than losing lives?

These are questions I would not presume to think I could answer.  I know, of course, what I would have done in that situation, but I can only speculate because I have never been a soldier in a time of war.  The Boys in Company C put me right there and allowed me to understand the whys and wherefores of each major character in a way that we’ve seen in every notable war film ever since.  This is an incredibly important artifact in the history of war films, and it deserves to be seen by every movie fan.

[Trivia note: this movie was executive produced by none other than Raymond Chow, the man behind Enter the Dragon (1973) and nearly 200 other Hong Kong films, and virtually the entire movie, including the boot camp sequences, was filmed in the Philippines.]

3 WOMEN (1977)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
CAST: Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Janice Rule
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 83% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Two roommates/physical therapists, one a vain woman and the other an awkward teenager, share an increasingly bizarre relationship.


Ever see the movie Big?  Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, directed by Penny Marshall?  YOU know.  Well, there’s a scene in Big, AFTER the hero boy has magically changed into Tom Hanks, and he’s now working as a toy-tester at a big toy company.  He’s invited to a focus group to give his feedback on a new toy that transforms from a robot into the Empire State Building.  The other suits are enthusiastic, but Hanks (because he’s a little boy at heart) is confused by it.  He raises his hand and tells the designers: “I don’t get it.”  They try to explain the demographics and the survey results, etc.  He nods, takes it in, and says, “I still don’t get it.”

That was me after watching 3 Women and reading about it a little.  I didn’t get it while I was watching it, and I still don’t get it after I learned more about it.

Robert Altman’s 3 Women is a dreamlike psychodrama that explores concepts of identity, self-discovery, and, I guess, femininity that reminded me, oddly enough, of the Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer (1968), mostly because a lot of it centers around water, but also because of the similar atmosphere created by both films: creepy and reluctant to give up its secrets.  There are numerous shots that are filtered through one of those store-bought wave machines that were so prevalent in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so the shot achieves a surreal effect that’s hard to describe.  It feels like foreshadowing, and in one respect it is, but for the most part it’s just there to either illustrate someone’s mental state or…I’m not sure what else.  I’ve had a day to think about this, and I’m no closer to interpreting exactly what those shots are supposed to mean.

Anyway.  We meet two women, Millie Lammoreaux (an impossibly young Shelley Duvall) and Pinky Rose (an even younger-looking Sissy Spacek).  We’ll get to the third woman later.  They both work at a physical therapy center, assisting elderly patients as they walk through a pool or sit in a hot tub – more water.  Millie is a wannabe sophisticate who is very friendly on the outside, but she doesn’t seem to have any actual friends.  Her co-workers and her neighbors at her hotel do their best to ignore her and her endless patter about articles in McCall’s and what she’s cooking for dinner tonight.  Pinky, whose real name is Mildred, is a young woman whose emotional maturity seems to have peaked around the age of fifteen.  She is immediately awestruck by Millie and contrives to be as close to her as possible at all times.  It’s essentially hero worship, though Millie hasn’t given her anything to really worship aside from being…herself.  They will eventually become roommates.

Millie is fond of yellow; Pinky dresses in, you guessed it, pink.  Millie will talk to just about anyone; Pinky is shy and introverted.  Millie has a large closet full of clothes; Pinky seems to own only one outfit, including underpants.  They are as opposite as it’s possible to be.  These points are drummed home in scene after scene.  The two women frequent a themed saloon called Dodge City, where we will eventually meet the third woman, Willie Hart (Janice Rule).  Willie, who is pregnant, communicates with glares.  She also paints these amazing, disturbing murals featuring what appear to be harpies or something like the mythological Furies.

I could go on with the story, but why bother?  This is not a movie about a story.  This is a movie about conveying a mood.  Altman literally conceived of this movie in a dream, pitched it to 20th Century Fox almost on a whim, and insisted on shooting without a finished script.  The pervasive mood of the film is one of suspense and foreboding.  There are a pair of twins who lurk in the background of scenes of Millie and Pinky at work.  Foreboding.  The musical score is atonal and creepy.  Foreboding.  Pinky starts to read Millie’s diary.  Foreboding.  You may have noticed that the last part Millie’s last name, Lammoreaux, is phonetically similar to Pinky’s last name, Rose.  Foreboding.

So, okay, Altman’s movie is about creating a mood.  To that degree, he succeeded.  It’s nothing if not creepy.  Events occur that were surprising.  Mystery abounds.  But…there came a point about halfway where it all became repetitive to me.  How many scenes of Millie being snubbed socially do we need to get the idea that Millie is not popular?  How many times do we need those shots that are filtered through the wave machine?  How many lingering panning shots do we need of those murals?  I’m just saying.  I got the point after five each.  Call me crazy.

And when we get to the final sequence…man, if I wasn’t confused before, I was completely at sea when the credits rolled.  I’ve seen some open-ended movies before, some I loved (Mulholland Drive, 2001), some not so much (The Lobster, 2015).  When it’s done right, I find it exhilarating to see a film that trusts a viewer’s intelligence so much that it doesn’t spoon-feed you.  But 3 Women gave me an ending that is so open to interpretation that it backfired.  Because it could mean so many different things, it ultimately meant nothing and left me feeling a little cheated.

I get it.  This is not that kind of movie, by Altman’s own admission.  Fair enough.  I give it 6 out of 10 based purely on the craftsmanship and sheer chutzpah of the film, and because the performances by Duvall and Spacek are worth the price of admission.  (And I just wanna say, Duvall may have won Best Actress at Cannes, but my vote would have gone to Spacek, who is utterly convincing as a woman-child in a state of arrested development.)

But I cannot really call this movie “entertaining.”  I don’t mean in the sense that I didn’t laugh or cry or whatever.  I just mean that watching it felt like a homework assignment, not an escape.  I never connected to it emotionally, so I ultimately didn’t care what was happening, or why.  I have enjoyed so many of Altman’s other films, but this one might have just become my least favorite Altman film that I’ve seen, finally replacing [name redacted so I don’t get doxxed].

TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING (1977)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
CAST: Burt Lancaster, Charles Durning, Richard Widmark, Paul Winfield, Burt Young, Melvyn Douglas, Joseph Cotten, Richard Jaeckel, John Ratzenberger
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 80% Fresh

PLOT: A renegade USAF general takes over an ICBM silo and threatens to provoke World War III unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War.


Twilight’s Last Gleaming, one of Robert Aldrich’s last films, is a cleverly constructed Cold War thriller whose pointed message about the Vietnam War nearly torpedoes the suspense.  The political message is hammered home in a scene that goes on for a bit too long with people speaking dialogue that feels hammy and trite.  But the movie surrounding this one scene is good enough that I would still recommend it to anyone in the market for something off the beaten track.

The movie is set in 1981, four years after it was released, so no one could draw any real-life parallels between the characters and people in real life.  In an opening sequence that feels reminiscent of Die Hard (1988), General Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) and his team of military ex-cons manage to infiltrate and take command of a US ICBM missile silo in Montana.  While I highly doubt it would be as easy as portrayed in the film, Aldrich films the sequence so that I got caught up in the suspense of the narrative instead of worrying about pesky details.  (If there’s a drawback to these and other sequences featuring military hardware and installations, it’s the overall low-budget feel to the sets and props; everything looks like it was shot on a TV soundstage instead of a big-budget film set.)

Once inside, Dell makes his demands: $20 million for each of his remaining team (Burt Young and Paul Winfield), the President must read the transcript of a secret meeting held just after the Vietnam war started, and the President must hand himself over as a hostage to secure their escape.  Otherwise, he’ll launch nine Titan ICBMs at their targets.

This creates a little tension among the would-be terrorists.  Winfield and Young couldn’t care less about the secret meeting, but Dell is adamant.  Meanwhile, General MacKenzie (Richard Widmark) formulates a plan to eliminate Dell and his crew using a “tiny” nuclear device, the President (Charles Durning) agonizes over the secret transcript, and his best friend and aide uses some “tough love” to get him to make a decision.

Despite the fakeness of the surroundings, I was absorbed by the thriller elements in Twilight’s Last Gleaming.  I would compare them to the best parts of WarGames (1983) and The China Syndrome (1979).  There is some impressively impenetrable technobabble about booby traps and inhibitor cables and fail-safe systems that I just rolled with.  The plan involving that “tiny” nuclear device leads up to a sequence that I would compare favorably with any contemporary thriller you can name.

One of the ways Aldrich achieves this effect is through the use of split-screens…LOTS of split-screens.  It starts at the beginning of the film with two screens.  Then there are moments with three split screens, two on top and one in the bottom section.  Then, during the most intense sequence of the film, we get four splits in each corner of the screen.  At first, I found it disorienting, but it absolutely works when it most needs to.  (I’m trying not to give away too many plot details, so excuse the vagueness.)  I don’t know that I would want to watch an entire movie like this (Timecode, 2000), but in small doses, it’s very effective.

Where the movie bogs down is the middle section of the film when the President expresses his disapproval of the contents of the secret transcript Dell wants publicized.  It’s a bit theatrical to believe a sitting American President would be this vocal about his feelings in the middle of a dire crisis.  I think the scene would have played just as well if we had gotten a general idea of the transcript, or even if the contents had NEVER been revealed to the audience.  It would have been a perfect Macguffin, leaving viewers free to imagine anything they want.  The truth about Kennedy’s assassination?  Area 51?  Pearl Harbor was an inside job?  The Super Bowl really IS fixed?  Who knows?

Instead, the President insists on reading a portion of it out loud to his Cabinet members, enlisting them to read certain lines.  While I admire Aldrich’s intent (to send a cinematic protest to the architects of the Vietnam war), the scene nearly brought the movie to a stop, which is deadly when dealing with a suspense thriller.

But, like I said, the rest of the movie is so good, I am compelled to let it slide.  Later, we get surprise attacks, snipers, helicopters, a crafty fake-out involving torture, and an ending that is as cynical as they come, but which felt like the best way out of the situation for everyone involved…except for the American people, but that’s another story.  Twilight’s Last Gleaming feels virtually forgotten, and that’s a shame.  Aldrich directs this movie with a lot of passion for the material and milks every ounce of suspense he can with the tools at hand.  If you’re prepared to overlook that middle section, you’ll get a kick out of this movie.

P.S. Look fast for an unexpected appearance by William Hootkins, aka “Porkins” from Star Wars (1977).

DODSWORTH (1936)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William Wyler
CAST: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor, David Niven
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 91% Fresh

PLOT: A retired auto manufacturer and his wife take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.


Melodrama.  It gets a bad rap in some circles.  Synonymous with “soap opera.”  Do it right and you get masterpieces like Terms of Endearment (1983) or fan favorites like Beaches (1988).  Do it wrong and you’ve got a sappy, soppy, shamelessly manipulative mess like [too many to mention].  In days past, I would take what I thought was the high road and say it’s not my favorite genre at all, too schmaltzy, blech.

But then I started expanding my viewing habits a little and started watching some older films.  I discovered hidden jewels like Peter Ibbetson (1935), a shameless weepie about separated lovers who connect in the spirit world.  I finally watched The Blue Angel (1930) with Marlene Dietrich as the semi-willing agent of a snobbish professor’s emotional and professional destruction.  Soap opera, but done right and very effectively.

And now here’s Dodsworth, a domestic drama about a middle-aged couple where the husband, Sam (Walter Huston), has just retired from running his immensely successful car company.  He’s looking forward to relaxing with his rod and reel, his golf clubs, “with nothing more important to worry about than the temperature of the beer…if there is anything more important.”  But first, his wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton), who is tired of spending her life in society circles, wants to see the world on a transatlantic cruise – on the Queen Mary, no less – to London, Paris, and wherever the spirit moves them.  “In Europe,” she says, “a woman of my age is just to the point where men begin to take a serious interest in her.”

At this stage, I felt like I was in the grip of a fairly standard plot whose signposts I could see a mile away: married couple on European vacation, wife going through midlife crisis is courted by a dashing young man who believes her husband is ignoring her, husband finds out, wife denies it, does some self-reflection, slightly farcical situations, some touching speeches on a moonlit balcony, and the married couple return home stronger than ever.  Even if this was going to be a well-made movie, I was pretty sure I would be bored.

Oh, how I do love being wrong.  Dodsworth takes this trope-ridden plot and drives it down some roads where I never expected a movie from the ‘30s to go, at least not when dealing with the sacrosanct institution of marriage.  Fran doesn’t get hit on when she gets to Europe, she gets hit on while still in transit in the Atlantic, by a British cad played by an indescribably young David Niven.  He makes no secret of his attraction to Fran, though later on it seems possible he was trying to take advantage of Fran’s situation.  He even kisses Fran, who offers no more than token resistance…after the fact.

During this semi-tryst, Sam is above deck enjoying the sea air when he has a kind of adult meet-cute with Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), an American divorcee who is younger than Sam by, oh, let’s say at least fifteen years, maybe more.  They have two conversations, and then circumstances send them on their separate ways, Sam to France with his wife and Edith to Naples.

A word about their two conversations.  This is some of the best adult, mature dialogue I’ve ever heard in a film, let alone one from the 1930s.  These are two mature adults who are speaking to each other, neither one with an agenda, but there is something intangible in the language and how the actors play it and how Wyler directed it.  The scene is pregnant with subtext, not sexual, but a sense of connection without being obvious about it.  I found myself starting to root for Sam and Edith to get together before their ship docked, but the movie played around with my own expectations multiple times.

In Paris, Fran and Sam’s relationship deteriorates.  Sam makes plans to sightsee, but Fran has made hair appointments and lunch appointments with her new French acquaintances, so he goes alone.  In her frantic desire to prove how cosmopolitan she is, as opposed to being a middle-aged woman from middle-America, Fran wants to spend more time on the town than being a tourist.  She meets another dashing European gentleman, this one a Frenchman named Arnold Iselin.  It seems as if Fran wants to have her cake and eat it, too: remain married to Sam while indulging in flirtations – flings? – with handsome men with foreign accents.

It all comes to a head one night when Fran suggests that Sam return to America without her.  She wants a “break.”  Sam fights for her, but in the end…but I’m not going to tell you what Sam decides.  Again, your predictions may or not be correct, but there are some deliciously written curveballs up this movie’s sleeve.

I should also mention the delightful discovery of Walter Huston as an actor.  Oh, sure, we’ve all seen him in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, made twelve years later, featuring his deserving Oscar-winning performance as the prototypical prospector with his little jig and his forever-imitated accent, but that’s how I ALWAYS pictured him.  In Dodsworth, Huston is, quite frankly, a revelation.  His performance is as far removed from Sierra Madre as it’s possible to be.  Sam Dodsworth is a respectable man of business, especially handsome when he’s dressed to the nines, congenial, and smarter than the average bear.  He is what they call, dare I say, a silver fox, the kind of man other women might willingly set their cap for, whether they’re his age or not.  Huston’s delivery and portrayal of this character make Dodsworth immediately likable, which is important in later stages of the movie when he seems on the verge of making a questionable decision.

Then there’s Ruth Chatterton as Fran Dodsworth.  Chatterton was in a strange predicament as an actress for this film.  At the time, she was desperately trying to revive her career at an age when, unfortunately, Hollywood (and society) was ready to put her out to pasture…by which I mean early forties.  And she’s playing a character who is also desperately trying to hang on to her youth.  So, there is a layer of authenticity, and courage, to her performance that cannot be overstated.  Even when she engages in some questionable behavior, I was still able to empathize with her.  She isn’t doing anything out of pure spite.  She is responding to impulses she can’t explain or ignore.

Dodsworth is one of the best films from Hollywood’s first golden age that I’ve ever seen, and yet I don’t hear too many people mention it in their lists of favorite films from the ‘30s.  It deserves to be mentioned alongside the greats, because it IS one of the greats.  And it’s melodramatic as hell, in the beginning, the middle, and especially that shamefully schmaltzy final shot…but you know what?  Dodsworth makes it work.  Soap opera?  Meh, who cares?

SING SING

By Marc S. Sanders

Coleman Domingo is that under the radar actor who is on his way to becoming a marquee name.  Of late, I’m loving everything he’s participating in. Check out the Netflix series The Madness and the acclaimed film Rustin for which he received a well-deserved Oscar nomination. His second Oscar nominated role in another of 2024’s best films, Sing Sing, is directed by Greg Kwedar.  As soon as this film begins, you will fall in love with Domingo’s role as he completes a stage performance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  However, the theatre that is bursting with applause is located within the infamous Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison.  Coleman Domingo portrays a resident here as wrongly imprisoned John “Divine G” Whitfield.

Divine G is a founder and one of a handful of prisoners who cope with their caged lifestyle as members of the Rehabilitation Through The Arts program (RTA).  Every six months, the RTA prepare a play to perform for the prison population and other local benefactors.  Their director is Brent (Paul Raci), a much smaller guy than anyone in the troupe, white, tattooed and on the tail end of a hippie middle age.  Yet, the men trust their leader and he is nothing but encouraging with theatre exercises to uphold their spirits and get everyone energized. 

A new member of the group does not appear to have much promise.  Clarence Maclin (played by Clarence Maclin) stems from a hard living street life of gang culture.  While he champions the suggestion of a comedy for the next production, he is nevertheless resistant to engage and perform as Hamlet with the famed To Be Or Not To Be monologue.  Divine G works to penetrate Clarence’s stubbornness and get him to recognize how the program can be beneficial and enriching.  Consider Divine a combination of Red and Andy from The Shawshank Redemption – a well-respected realist but also a teacher.  Divine even takes it upon himself to prepare Clarence for his upcoming parole hearing, while he’s getting himself ready, following new evidence that may exonerate him.

Brent collects ideas from all of the men who are enthused to stage ancient Egyptians, cowboys, pirates, Hamlet, and even Freddy Krueger.  Rather than pick one, Brent takes the weekend to write a 148-page script that has all of these elements.  The spine of the plot?  Time travel!  Makes sense, and as Clarence originally suggested, it most certainly is a comedy.

I read that Sing Sing is collectively owned by the cast and crew.  Many people who worked on this production play characterizations of themselves and use their actual names and prison monikers in the dramatization of this film.  They produced and wrote the screenplay, designed the characters based on themselves and their experiences, having been members of the RTA.  The auditions for the play you see in the film are the actual auditions the cast did to be part of the film. So, be ready to be impressed because these rehabilitated prisoners, now actors, are outstanding. 

Coleman Domingo in the leading role only makes the whole cast look even better.  He is absorbed in this environment.  B28, his assigned prison cell, looks like a sanctuary for the plays that he writes with inspiring and researched articles taped to his walls and a typewriter to click away on.  With his wise looking gold rimmed eyeglasses, he looks like a guy who knows every corner of every room, every chip on every wall, every blade of grass within the courtyards and auditoriums.  Divine G may not belong here, but he’s all the more familiar and depended upon by the men he resides with.  Partnered with Clarence Maclin, the two actors have duet scenes that work effectively with one relaxed in the comfort of hope and promise while the other is ready to give up on any kind of prosperity or semblance of a future.

Sing Sing is about the incarcerated men who put on plays to nurture the days of punishment they are sentenced to serve.  Yet, the actual film could also operate like a live stage play.  It has more of that feel than anything traditionally cinematic. These men converse and discuss like a committee seated in a circle while determining the next best thing for the program.  They are led by Brent in exercises that allow them to reflect on past moments in their respective histories.  They do the silly walks to shed insecurities that come with urging the brave face needed to perform in front of people.

An extra reward arrives during the end credits when personal cell phone footage shows clips of the various plays that have been produced among the prison population.  Everything from their inventive stage sets to their costumes and lighting along with their blocking is extraordinary.  To bring men who once lived among a world of violence towards the escape of theatrics seems unheard of.  I mean, really, a gang member can now perform Shakespeare? 

Films have the ability to show what’s unheard of and what’s daring. They are not just run of the mill Mission: Impossible movies with the wildest stunts imaginable.  A courageous feat also comes from the theatre. Sing Sing reveals the most unlikely people to accomplish what no one could ever envision they would relate to. 

Sing Sing is an inspiringly beautiful piece of performance work from every member of its cast, in addition to Oscar nominee Coleman Domingo.

SEPTEMBER 5 (Germany, 2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Tim Fehlbaum
CAST: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, the ABC Sports broadcasting team must adapt to providing live coverage of Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group.


Two of my absolute favorite true-life movies (United 93 [2006], Bloody Sunday [2002]) happen to be from the same director, Paul Greengrass.  Watching Tim Fehlbaum’s film September 5 felt at times like I was watching a Paul Greengrass film, and I can offer no higher compliment than that.  From the moment the first gunshots are heard coming from the Olympic village in Munich in the wee morning hours of September 5, 1972, this movie never lets up on the tension.  Over the next 24 hours, we will follow the ABC Sports broadcasting team as the managers and crew work through a tangle of journalistic ethics and operational logistics to report on the biggest news story of their lives while maintaining objectivity and their obligation to the truth, and ALSO keeping the safety of the victims and their families in mind.

The four major characters are legendary ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard); a then-unknown control-room functionary, Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), who was in the right place at the wrong time; ABC Sports producer Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin); and German-to-English translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), who is probably an amalgam of several different people who were most likely present during the actual events of the film.

One of the masterstrokes of September 5 is how it rachets up the tension by staying inside the claustrophobic control room and connected offices for the entire film, minus the opening and closing shots showing Geoff arriving for work and leaving the next morning.  Anything showing us the outside world is only visible on the banks of television monitors in front of them, which leads to much confusion towards the end of the film as reports of the Israeli hostages being freed begin circulating, but no one can actually see what the hell is going on.  This is one of the ways the film reminded me of some of the best scenes in United 93 when the people responsible for making the most crucial decisions of their lives were limited by what they could see and hear on the news.

I have never worked in a TV studio, but this movie carries a palpable authenticity that made me believe everything I was seeing.  I never knew, for example, that chyrons (those small captions on the bottom of a TV screen during the news) were analog back in 1972.  Whenever a new development occurs, the control room has to call up a woman in a completely separate room/mini-studio so she can manually place individual letters onto a physical message board, then get behind a camera and shoot the image so it can be superimposed back in the main control room.  Exhausting!

Peter Jennings is reporting remotely across the street from the Israeli apartments, but he cannot be heard live from his radio into the audio feed for the TV signal.  So, some random dude takes a phone handset, unscrews it, solders some wires, clamps it all together in front of a microphone, and presto, now Jennings is live.  The whole operation is put together with spit and baling wire.  It feels like it’s a miracle that anything was televised at all.

The other conflicts presented to us are no less important.  Marianne, a German woman, is drafted into helping with the translation, but first she must endure some brief accusations from Marvin.  The fact these Olympics are being held in Munich less than thirty years after the end of World War II is something many people are still coming to terms with.  He asks her if her parents knew about the concentration camps.  She stares for a second and gives the best answer possible: “But I am not them.”  After that, she earns the complete trust of the entire staff.

The subtext of the German guilt over World War II is bubbling just beneath the surface for the entire film.  A German maintenance worker won’t release replacement cables to a French tech until Marianne talks him into it.  It is theorized at one point that German military forces could possibly end the hostage situation within minutes, but the German military is constitutionally forbidden to operate within the Olympic village, for obvious reasons.  Roone Arledge watches Mark Spitz win yet another gold medal, and instead of going to a closeup of Spitz, he instructs the cameraman to cut to the face of the German swimmer who lost.  Someone asks him, “Do you really want to bring politics into this?”  And he replies, “It’s not about politics, it’s about emotions.”

Which brings in the other major point of retelling this story in this way.  There is a point where ABC’s cameras have great shots of the building, the balcony, and the entire complex, and they are broadcasting live (the first time the Olympics had been broadcast live, by the way).  Someone spots German policemen – non-military – getting into position with sniper rifles.  Marianne hears chatter on the police band about an operation getting the green light.  The press is ordered out of the area, but ABC’s cameras continue to broadcast live.  Someone notices that a TV appears to be on inside the apartment where the hostages are being held.  Geoff suddenly asks a reasonable question: “Are the terrorists seeing this?”  Minutes later, German police storm the ABC control room and demand the cameras be turned off, pointing a gun at the crew at one point.  The cameras get turned off and a furious Arledge kicks the Germans out of the building, but the point is made.  Minutes later, the operation is called off. 

“They should’ve cut the electricity to the apartment, it’s not up to us to double-check on them,” says Marv.  But Geoff makes a point: “Marv, it’s not okay if we made it worse.”  The fine line between the freedom of the press and general public safety could not be more elegantly portrayed than it is here.  Earlier in the film, just as the cameras have been set up with shots of the balcony of the apartment, someone asks, “Black September [the terrorist group responsible], they know the whole world is watching, right? …if they shoot someone on live television, whose story is that?  Is it ours, or is it theirs?”

It seems like an easy question to answer: “Public safety comes first.”  But who gets to decide what’s in the public’s best interest?  Those policemen who burst into the control room and shut the cameras off at gunpoint?  Perhaps it should be left to each newsperson’s individual conscience, but can that always be trusted?  These are questions I am not qualified to answer, but I appreciate films like September 5 because they have enough faith in the viewer to pose those questions and then refrain from providing a tidy answer.  It’s one of those rare thrillers that tells a crackling good story and also asks some big, relevant questions that you may not even think about until you’re driving to work the next day.

One of the last things we hear is Marianne talking to Geoff, who had sent her to the German airport where the hostages were supposed to have been flown out of Germany.  “I was there with hundreds of people, we stared into the night.  We were waiting for something to happen because we wanted to take a picture of it.”  While that’s a rather bleak way of describing a profession that has given us some compelling images that have swayed the world’s opinion on vitally important matters, perhaps it’s also a way to caution those who would exploit situations, like the paparazzi who chased Princess Di into that tunnel.

NICKEL BOYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys, is now an Oscar nominated film for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is based on a true story that needed the exposure of a film.  However, a better adaptation than what director RaMell Moss did with it should have been completed. 

The Nickel School of Southern Georgia is the setting for a boys school where various forms of abuse took place during the civil rights era.  Apollo 8 was making new discoveries in space, but racial prejudice and crimes of adolescent abuse were not being revealed to a greater public.

Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is a bright student who has been accepted to a prestigious school for gifted learning.  Upon walking to his destination, on the outskirts of Atlanta, Elwood inadvertently gets blamed for a crime he did not commit and is sent to the Nickel Reform School.  The black students are relegated “to the other side of the nickel” in less favorable quarters than the white students. 

At the school, Elwood develops a friendship with Turner (Brandon Wilson) and together they do their best to survive the harsh challenges that go with living at Nickel.  Elwood remains positive that he will be able to leave the school one day and return to his loving grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).  Turner knows differently.  These boys are never leaving, and they will be compelled to obey the harsh tyranny of living at the school.

What helped me get through the near two and a half hour running time is that sadly this is an all too familiar story, especially for black youth.  The challenge though is the construction of the film.  RaMell Moss takes an unconventional approach where the viewer is the point of view of the two boys.  For about the first third of the picture, we are seeing what Elwood sees.  When he nods his head to the floor, the viewer sees the floor.  When he looks up to the sky, we look to the sky above him.  When he is listening or speaking to another person, like Turner or Hattie for example, that’s who we see.  The viewer is restricted to a forced tunnel vision of only what Elwood’s eyes focus on.  Frankly, as soon as the film began, I said to myself, “Oy.  Two and a half hours of this!”

Shortly after Elwood arrives at Nickel and sits down for breakfast, the perspective finally changes to Turner when the boys meet for the first time.  Now we get to see what Elwood looks like because we are looking through the eyes of Turner.  At this point, I told myself to either fall asleep, walk out or get accustomed to this different way of watching a movie.  I selected option number three and I’m glad I did because I started to become engrossed in the picture.  It’s compelling and absorbing. Granted I was still unsure of what this story was about as the film keeps the viewer very limited as to what is seen and told.  Arbitrary moments are shown through the eyes of the boys that do not necessarily progress the story.  These adolescent boys are not directly tormented as much as they are simply living in a captivity they do not fully understand.

A third person perspective is eventually put upon us.  We are watching the film at a different time, during an internet age, as we see a black man with dreadlock hair surfing the internet and pulling up articles about the Nickel Boys School that once existed.  I had an idea of who I was standing behind as he spoke with his girlfriend, but still I was not entirely sure, and other than an attempt at inventiveness, it puzzled me why the film veers occasionally into this direction.

Nickel Boys has an eye-opening story to tell but the experimental narrative of this picture does not entirely work.  It’s more frustrating than admirable.  RaMell Moss works with a very good cast of young actors who are focused on upholding the first-person perspective.  They are speaking the language of his camera.  Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean as a viewer that I like it.  These young actors deserve a more conventional means of telling this story.  I am confident they can handle that kind of direction just as well.

Nickel Boys ends with a mild twist.  While it might not have seemed necessary, and with Moss’ unusual approach I was not even sure what happened, it’s interesting for at least a beat.  However, to be sure I understood what occurred I turned to my resident Cinemaniac, Thomas Pahl, for assurance that I was accurate in what I think happened. 

I also took issue with RaMell Moss breaking his own rule of filmmaking.  The film limits itself to three different kinds of perspectives: a first-person view from either Elwood or Turner, and a third person sight from a character we meet in a more modern time.  Yet, for one concluding and significant moment that occurs near the end of this story, Moss changes his camera angle for a standard conventional approach.  Why do this?  Was Moss finally at the end of his rope and could not fathom how to demonstrate the story’s end unless he broke away from his own unique approach?  For me this shows the filmmaker could not stay consistent all the way through with the final cut of his picture.

Forgive the presumption, but I recall the Academy considering nominating films only if there is a minority representation contained somewhere within the finished edit.  I’m uncertain if that remains an unspoken rule or if it is set in stone.  Honestly, I think it’s simply considered with a lack of justified merit. 

I do not find Nickel Boys to be worthy of the best of 2024.  A handful of films that were not as recognized did not get the accolades this film received.  Is the picture being honored because it depicted a black experience?  I cannot help but wonder.  It is not a terrible film because there are parallel ideas happening alongside the main storyline and the cast is especially good.  Real life tragic stories are especially appealing to The Academy.  The direction of the piece takes away from much of the benefits of the film though. 

Garner up your patience with the limited view you will have watching Nickel Boys.  I also say this without sarcasm, maybe take a Dramamine.  When watching a production in a first-person narrative, often people are prone to motion sickness.  Surprisingly, it did not happen for me this time.  It should have because I cannot play updated video games that rely on this angle.  Yet, a friend had a different experience with Nickel Boys, and he said it took all his strength not to get up and exit the film.

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1973)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: John Cassavetes
CAST: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Fred Draper, Matthew Laborteaux (for all you Little House fans out there)
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Fresh

PLOT: Domestic turmoil gets a whole new definition in director John Cassavetes’ landmark portrait of a family in psychological free-fall.


I am a newcomer to the films of John Cassavetes.  The only one of his films I’d seen prior to A Woman Under the Influence is Love Streams (1984), a character study of a woman, played by Gena Rowlands, whose determination to only be herself puts her in conflict with the people and expectations around her.  As a director, Cassavetes seemed only to be interested in putting real people on the screen.  I don’t mean that other great films don’t do that kind of thing, but few directors have made films with scenes so genuine that I had to fight the urge to cough and look away because I felt like I was intruding on a private conversation.

A Woman Under the Influence is about a woman, Mabel Longhetti, a mother of three, who is similar to the woman in Love Streams in that she is constantly waging a battle between how she wants to behave and what is expected of her.  The difference this time is that Mabel is clearly suffering from…well, I’m not going to embarrass myself by putting a name to it because I’m not a psychiatrist.  She seems to be overly anxious all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  Her husband, Nick (Peter Falk), appears to be sympathetic with her anxiety, almost to a fault sometimes, but he tends to explode at her when she tries to be the life of the party.

How has this relationship lasted through three children?  Nick promises Mabel a romantic night at home, but is unexpectedly called away when a city water line bursts.  (He works in construction.)  She assures him everything’s fine on the phone…and promptly walks out of the house, goes to the nearest bar, and picks up a random dude and brings him home to spend the night.  But hey, Nick’s no angel, either.  After a long shift at work, he impulsively invites his entire crew of roughneck buddies to his modest home for a spaghetti dinner…cooked by Mabel, of course.  Mabel anxiously tries to “act normal” by being friendly and chummy with Nick’s co-workers, but she overdoes it, and Nick blows up at her.

Later, there is a remarkable scene where Nick brings a doctor to the house to see if he can talk Mabel down from one of her episodes.  Gena Rowlands adds these brilliant physical tics and peculiarities to Mabel that, in someone else’s hands, would be showboating, but with Rowlands, they come off as so real that it felt like I was watching a documentary.  I read on IMDb that Cassavetes did very little rehearsing, if any at all, so a lot of what we see in this scene and elsewhere was improvised on the spot.  It’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.  Had it not been for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Rowlands would have walked away with the Oscar.

A Woman Under the Influence was one of the first movies to really make waves as a truly independent production, predating the modern indie movement by some fifteen years or so.  Is it a movie I enjoyed watching?  Yes, but not in the same way that I enjoy watching The Goonies or Avatar.  This was like watching There Will Be Blood or Sophie’s Choice.  It’s an amazing example of acting as a craft, as an art form.  Not a single scene felt scripted or contrived.  I never knew Peter Falk had this kind of range as an actor.  I’d heard that Gena Rowland’s performance was the stuff of legend, and now I understand the hype.  If I have to be honest, I didn’t care for the very end of the film, a scene that seems to indicate that nothing will keep Mabel and Nick apart, even though they are not good for each other, in my opinion, especially considering what happens in the scene immediately preceding it.

This is a shorter review than I might normally write, but words are failing me with this one.  I’ll start describing one scene, then another, then another, and soon I’ve just recapped the entire film, which I don’t want to do.  This movie is searing, uncompromising, authentic.  To do it justice, I’d have to go away for a month or two and write an old-fashioned research paper (remember those?) complete with outlines, bullet points, and a bibliography.  Whatever you may have heard about Gena Rowland’s performance is 100% true, and then some.  In an earlier review of Peter Hall’s The Homecoming (also 1973), I mentioned that I did not have a lot of space in my head for blistering dramas about dysfunctional families, but I’m glad I made room for A Woman Under the Influence.  It’s a master-class of direction and performance.

I’M STILL HERE (BRAZIL)

By Marc S. Sanders

Biographies of terrible truths are fascinating.  Haunting, yet fascinating that circumstances ever got as far as they did when unfairness, immorality and unspeakable tragedy occurs.  Walter Salles’ Brazilian film I’m Still Here recounts the abduction of Reubens Paiva in 1970 when Rio Di Janeiro was under the control of a militaristic dictatorship.  This is a moment in world history that I am completely unfamiliar with, and so I wished that Salles’ movie provided more backstory to paint a clearer picture.

Reubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is a father of four girls and a boy.  Despite a happy marriage to Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and a comfortable life across the street from the coast, the government stronghold of the island looms with planes flying overhead and check point searches at intersections.  Other than this dark overrule, life goes on for the Paiva family as they plan to build a new home, send their eldest off to London for college, and swim daily in the ocean blue.  Ice cream outings are also a treat.

Then Reubens is requested to go with a military escort.  He gets dressed in a jacket and tie and calmly leaves the home.  Eunice is also taken and placed in a dirty cell for days while being put towards intense questioning.  Their daughter, Verona (Valentina Herszage), is stopped at a checkpoint and searched while out with friends.  No explanations come their way for these encounters.  

Following a few weeks in captivity, Eunice is released back to her home.  Reubens is nowhere to be found and assumed to still be held prisoner.  The couple were friends with people much like them who apparently spoke out against the regime.  It is likely Reubens was taken due to his writings and vocal protests as a former Congressman.  It’s also concerning that foreign diplomats are rumored to be kidnapped as well.  There’s definitely an uneasy feeling happening. Now Eunice’s dilemma is to try keeping her children calm and sheltered from news of this arbitrary situation, including her worst fears about her missing husband.  

I’m Still Here is certainly an important story that needs to be told and was more than ready for the big screen.  I’m sorry to say though that Walter Salles’ picture is terribly boring.  Once the captivity sequence is over, Salles relies often on Eunice silently wondering what has become of her spouse.  Colleagues visit with rumblings of what they have heard and in between there is a lot of gazing at photographs and newspaper articles.  It’s challenging to embrace a character looking at documents and pictures over and over with no progress being introduced to the story.

There are moments of paranoia as Eunice observes people watching her and the family from across the street.  Tragedy befalls a loving pet as well.  Yet, I never felt the tension that I’m sure resided with this woman from one day to the next.  Eventually, the film takes two different leaps in time and an older Eunice is now played by Fernanda Montenegro (Fernanda Torres’ real life mother). 

I’m Still Here is very slow moving. I couldn’t help but feel lost with most of this story and it’s not until the second and final epilogue arrives that a televised newscast offers more clarity to what likely happened.  I was glad I walked away with a better understanding, but it does not make up for how lost I was during the first two thirds of the picture.  

I still do not understand how the military coup came into power. A prologue might have helped enhance the threat the family had to face.  I was never clear on what precisely Reubens stood for against this stronghold regime.  What was his platform?  What bothered him specifically?  Anyone could tell me it should be obvious, but again I know nothing about this story that arguably is not shared in schools and is hardly a current event.  Granted, Brazilians likely have a clearer idea.

Without enough knowledge, I’m Still Here is uninteresting.   Viewing characters staring at old photos is not stimulating enough on its own and I’m sure Eunice Paiva was at least a little more aggressive than Fernanda Torres’ performance implies.  I read that Eunice never cried in front of her children and that is demonstrated in Salles’ film.  So, I have to presume this real-life woman, who eventually earned a law degree she used to fight for human rights, would have been much more aggressive than what is on display in this movie.

I can only recommend watching I’m Still Here as another example of tragic unfairness towards human rights.  

Learn about the Paiva family.  However, instead of watching this film, it might be better to rely on the book it’s based on, written by Eunice and Reubens’ son Marcos Rubens Paiva.  I’d expect it to be much more insightful.