Category: Drama

THE CHINA SYNDROME

By Marc S. Sanders

The China Syndrome explores the inherent risk that comes with a reliance on nuclear energy.  It also touches upon the moral choices within the field of journalism.  Most importantly though, it’s a hell of a thriller.

Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is an on the scene reporter doing light fare topics for the evening news, like the novelty of singing telegrams for example.  With her subcontractor cameraman, Richard Adams (Michael Douglas, also one of the film’s producers), they cover a story on how a nuclear power plant operates.  During their tour, a very frightening accident stops short at only being a threat.  While the top brass at the company downplays the incident, Richard manages to record the panic-stricken activity happening among the operators in their soundproof control room.  As Kimberly and Richard gather information about what really happened, they are told they only were so close to what can be described as a China Syndrome – the underground nuclear rods could have overheated, imploded and the blast would have ruptured through the core of the earth where even China could feel it on the other side of the world.  

The corporate elites (led by Richard Herd) are the villains of this picture.  The could be hero is Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon), a could be whistleblower.  Jack oversees the whole operation and following that frightening scene begins to do his own kind of investigation.  What happened only makes sense because due diligence was not upheld, and inconsistencies are being neglected. Problems are only expected to get worse because they are not contained. There would be an enormous monetary expense that will put the company at a loss.  Initially, Jack wants to remain quiet, but the idea of what he’s certain will eventually happen is conflicting him.  As well, Kimberly and Richard’s pursuit of what truths he holds is gnawing at him.  

Jack Lemmon is a frazzled, yet sensible, marvel in this film.  I love the unspoken subtleties of this guy.  Best I could see is that Jack Godell is unmarried and has no children, nor friends beyond the faint connections he shares with his work colleagues, particularly one played by Wilford Brimley.  This only enhances Godell’s isolation in a them-against-him matchup.  Lemmon is great at emoting a sorrow and regret to his character.  He tells the journalists that he loves that plant.  It’s all he has in life and now it spells a certain, eventful doom if the faults in operation are not exposed.  Like Michael Mann’s The Insider, which was released over two decades later, the unlimited resources of this company will do everything in their power to silence this liable peon who works for them.  

The other side of The China Syndrome focuses on Fonda’s character.  When this film was released in 1979, it was the norm to not take a woman reporter seriously.  They were best used as attractive figureheads with beautiful hairstyles and well applied makeup to shift the seriousness of the news over to stories about dogs who can do tricks or hot air balloon happenings.  This film could have made more of a campaign to embrace the female journalists with heavier topics.  Instead, Jane Fonda’s character is not a fighter so much for deserved recognition in a male dominated world.  She’s actually just trying to circumvent around the unspoken chauvinism of her industry and get to the heart of this story that she witnesses firsthand.  The news station would rather her efforts be focused elsewhere.

Richard, the cameraman, is not embraced by Kimberly’s news station and therein lies the debate of airing what appears to be a story of urgency for the benefit of the public.  Yet, the station does not want to face a lawsuit.  What do the principles of journalism mandate even when there’s a monetary and reputational risk to their institution?  

Plenty of films with these kinds of dilemmas have come out following The China Syndrome.  What’s remarkable is the authentic feel of this fictionalized account.  Ahead of the release, the real-life companies that were developing a need for nuclear power were lambasting this film, insisting there was no validity to this story.  They were adamant that the production and maintenance of nuclear power was completely safe and well monitored. Twelve days after this film hit theaters in March 1979, the Three Mile Island accident occurred in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania when a partial nuclear meltdown of a reactor occurred. Traces of harmful gases and iodine were released into the atmosphere, and the incident was rated a Level 5, an “Accident with Wider Consequences.”  I do not believe Michael Douglas and his co-producers/filmmakers necessarily set out to make a statement. Though there are protesting movements peppered throughout the film. It’s a frightening irony, however, when life imitated fiction. 

 Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon put the suspense of The China Syndrome into play. There’s an awareness to what could happen with technological advances in nuclear energy especially if they are not carefully observed and addressed.  

Over forty years later, do we really know what’s going on and even if we did, what could any of us do about it?

CONCLAVE

By Marc S. Sanders

conflict

noun

  • 1.
    a serious disagreement or argument,

conclave

noun

con· clave ˈkän-ˌklāv 

Synonyms of conclave

1

: a private meeting or secret assembly

especially  : a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope 

2

: a gathering of a group or association

As I watched Edward Berger’s new film, Conclave, the word “conflict” came to mind based simply off of the same prefix the two terms share.  This picture does not just depict a sequestered assembly to elect a new Pope for the Roman Catholic Church.  It goes further because nothing goes as expected for the Dean of the Conclave, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, doing Oscar caliber work).  

Now that the Pope has passed away, the various cardinals assemble, and all seem to have their own impressions of who should take the reins.  Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci, man I love this guy) is the liberal candidate, tolerant and supportive of the gay population and accepting of women in authoritative positions.  Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is on the conservative side believing the position should rightly return to an Italian with restrictions and containments of liberal ideals that have diminished what the church used to stand for.  There is also Bishop Tremblay (John Lithgow) who has an abundance of support to no one’s surprise. A few others earned some votes during the initial balloting, but it’s seemingly of no big consequence. Still, over the course of the film, multiple votes will have to be counted until the minimum majority necessary for a new Pope is collected.

The men of God convene in a formality of faith, swearing their handwritten votes before the Almighty.  Yet, Lawrence, as a dean of ethics and morality, is becoming apprised of some questionable irregularities among his peers.  While some of these men are earning more and more support with each passing tally, new developments present themselves forcing Lawrence to question if there should be some investigations to determine if some of these men are qualified to acquire the Papacy beyond an election.  Hence, the conclave is getting gravely interrupted by an overwhelming number of conflicts for Lawrence to consider.

I must stop there with my summary of Berger’s film, based on the novel by Robert Harris.  This is a top notch drama helmed by an outstanding cast.  At the very least the adapted screenplay by Peter Straughan will win the Oscar.  The dialogue is aggressive and forthright when it needs to be.  An institution like the Roman Catholic Church operates on secrecy.  However, it’s so interesting to see these devout men of God challenge one another. Just because they are the highest priests does not constitute them beyond sin or even corruption.  As Stanley Tucci’s character demonstrates, they might not be polite either.  Simply honest when their personal stance is challenged.  

The script is also quietly ponderous.  Ralph Fiennes shows an internal conflict between his duties to the church and how he truly characterizes some of his peers.  He even begins to wonder if he should continue as a priest. Has his faith remained uncompromised? Frankly, how can a priest of the highest order live satisfyingly knowing that no person is of an upmost perfection even if they swear by their faith? Still, the strict expectations of a widespread religion will demand contexts of that notion.

Constructively, Conclave has a gripping energy.  The performances from especially Fiennes, Tucci and Lithgow are magnetic as soon as they enter the piece.  Isabella Rossellini delivers an under-radar performance as a nun who works with a necessary audaciousness to her character.  She knows things that should never have occurred.  Yet, how will she confront these intimidating, stark, red-robed figureheads?  Does she even have a right or authority to speak?

The music from Volker Bertelmann could belong in Hitchcock thriller if Bernard Hermann wasn’t available.  It keeps you alert and never anchors your feelings as new developments come to light.  The composition only enhances the weight of the drama.  

Edward Berger is an observant director.  Ahead of the conclave he reminds you that even telephones are not permitted inside and tossed in a heap outdoors.  The priests are smokers. Personally, I find that surprising as cigarettes almost seem like a mild narcotic and a contradiction of how I envision a Catholic priest should behave.  Nevertheless, Berger also gives you a close up of a pile of cigarette butts tossed on the ground just ahead of being sequestered. These men turn off the world outside to focus on this important election. It’s as if they live in a submarine below the surface.

Conclave wil be a very divisive film.  Politically, it’s apparent that it favors one side (liberal vs conservative) over another.  In addition, it is not shy about showing its characters with their assortments of fault.  I am not educated in Catholicism.  Though I am well aware of the value it holds across its worshippers.   For many, their faith is held above all else and those people will find a discomfort with this picture.  I might even be understating that assessment.  Some folks of the Catholic order, and maybe other denominations of Christianity, will even take grave offense to this fictionalized depiction.

Conclave is truly conflicting.

Because I do not hold any value in Catholicism, much less any religion anymore (just a shred for the Judaic customs I was raised on), I did not hold any bias or objections to Edward Berger’s film. Rather I was engaged in how difficult it is to balance yourself as a Catholic priest.  For Cardinal Lawrence, Ralph Fiennes is neither likable nor unlikable but I certainly felt his character’s frustrations and the challenges he is obliged to navigate.  

Who is judging these Cardinals? 

God?  

Or is it each one of them?  

Conclave is built on one believable, yet shocking, surprise after another.  Still, when the big twist at the end arrives, it is completely blind siding and Straughan’s script leaves his audiences with a new question that’s practically impossible to contend or compromise.  

Again, Conclave is very, very conflicting.

Nevertheless, this is one of the best films I have seen in a very long time.  So much so, that I cannot wait to see it again.

Conclave is one of the best films of the year.

CARMEN JONES (1954)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger
CAST: Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 75% Fresh

PLOT: The Bizet opera Carmen is translated into a modern-day story (with an all-black cast) of a sultry parachute factory worker and a GI who is about to go to flying school during World War II.


Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones will be (or OUGHT to be) remembered for many things, but the thing I will remember it for the most is the dynamic presence of the sexy, sultry Dorothy Dandridge in the titular role.  She may not have done her own singing – nearly all the major characters’ singing voices were dubbed by opera singers – but, by God, she knew how to own a role.  In the first five minutes, she steals the movie lock, stock, and barrel when she performs that first aria in the mess hall.  It’s like watching a Marilyn Monroe film: everything around her pales in comparison to her sheer magnetism, although with Dandridge (at least with the character of Carmen), you can see an intelligence behind the sexiness.  Dandridge thoroughly deserved her Oscar nomination.  A quick Google check shows she had some stiff competition that year: Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, and Jane Wyman…although how Kelly pulled out a win over Dandridge AND Garland will forever remain a mystery to me.

ANYWAY.

In this modern retelling, Carmen Jones is a factory worker during World War II, making parachutes for the war effort.  During the opening aria, she sets her sights on Joe (Harry Belafonte), a naïve GI in love with a country girl, Cindy Lou, from his hometown.  If I’m being completely honest, nothing in the film matches the simmering sexual energy of this opening number.  Carmen slinks from table to table in the mess hall, modestly dressed, but with complete knowledge of exactly how to work with what’s available.  She flirts shamelessly with Joe, right in front of Cindy Lou.

Later, Carmen gets in a knock-down, drag-out catfight with Frankie (Pearl Bailey, the only principal actor whose singing voice WASN’T overdubbed) and is arrested by the MPs.  Joe, who was just about to elope with Cindy Lou, is ordered to drive Carmen to a town some 50 miles away, since the Army can’t put civilians in jail.  This sets up another opportunity for Carmen to flirt with Joe, as she does everything but unbutton his pants during their drive.  The more he resists, the more she wants him.

…but I don’t want to simply summarize the plot, which was a mystery to me since I have never seen a production of Carmen.  (The ending is mildly pre-ordained, because, hello, it’s an opera.)  I want to express my admiration of this film, particularly for its ambition.  I’m no film scholar, but I’m prepared to bet that in 1954, there weren’t an awful lot of big studio films being directed by A-list directors featuring an all-black cast.  The fact this film exists at all is, I think, a minor miracle.  I won’t attempt to put words in the mouth of anyone in the black community, but at that time in cinematic and American history, I have to believe this was seen as a giant leap forward, AND a giant risk.  (There is probably MUCH more to this story, but I do not want to turn this article into a research paper.)

Otto Preminger’s directing style in Carmen Jones also deserves recognition.  A factoid on IMDb trivia states: “This film contains just 169 shots in 103 minutes of action. This equates to an average shot length of about 36 seconds, which is very high, given the 8-10 seconds standard of most Hollywood films made during the 1950s.”  This is important because those longer shots create, in many places, an illusion of watching a stage performance.  For instance, if I remember correctly, that opening aria that I keep going on about – Dandridge is SMOKING – runs for about 4-5 minutes and has only three total shots.  Towards the middle of the film, there’s an astonishingly long take that travels from a bar across the room to a table, following a group of five people, all singing simultaneously at multiple points.  The shot lasts just under five minutes, but it feels much longer.  It’s a brilliant piece of work.

The tragic arc of Carmen Jones may seem inevitable, as I said before, but it remains an entertaining watch.  You can see the dominos falling, and you bemoan the choices Joe makes as he falls under Carmen’s spell, but I mean, LOOK at her.  There’s a scene that I’m sure would bear the Tarantino stamp of approval as Carmen paints her toenails and coyly asks Joe to blow on them for her so they can dry faster.  Dayum.  Show me a straight man who wouldn’t fall for that kind of treatment from a woman who looks like Dorothy Dandridge and I’ll show you a dead man.

If I wanted, I could get nitpicky about Carmen Jones.  Has it aged well?  Not exactly.  Does it feature great acting aside from Dandridge?  Not exactly.  Does it look natural to hear an operatic tenor burst forth from Harry Belafonte’s mouth?  Not exactly.  But Carmen Jones is a landmark of black cinema in an era when schools and government buildings still had segregated water fountains and restrooms.  Based on that fact alone, I consider Carmen Jones to be a vital step in Hollywood’s painfully slow racial evolution. (It is also a painful reminder of a career that might have been; Dandridge died 11 years later at only 42.)

MONTE WALSH (1970)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William A. Fraker
CAST: Lee Marvin, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Palance, Mitchell Ryan
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Fresh

PLOT: An aging cowboy realizes that the West he knew and loved will soon be no more – and that there will be no room for him, either.


Based on this film, Monte Walsh, and the other two films he directed, A Reflection of Fear [1972] and The Legend of the Lone Ranger [1981], I think it would be charitable to say that William A. Fraker’s best films are the ones where he served instead as director of photography, such as Bullitt [1968], WarGames [1983], and Tombstone [1993], among many other notable movies.  Am I saying Monte Walsh is a bad film?  No, but it’s certainly not as bad as Gene Siskel’s 1-star rating, nor is it as stellar as Roger Ebert’s 4-star rating.  I give it a 7-out-of-10 on my scale because of the way the second half of the film builds and builds so that the outbursts of violence feel earned and motivated instead of cliched.

Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin, grizzled as ever, even with a handlebar moustache) and his friend and partner, Chet (Jack Palance in a rare non-villainous role), come down off a mountainside after a rough winter keeping watch on Mr. Brennan’s herd of cattle, only to get news that Brennan’s ranch has been purchased by a corporate entity, Consolidated Cattle.  Brennan offers them a steady job, which they reluctantly take, but deep inside they know this means their prairie-roaming way of life is coming to an end.  Chet is prepared to accept this, but Monte chafes at the idea.  “I ain’t doing nothing I can’t do from a horse,” he warns Brennan.

We get entertaining glimpses of the ranch hand life, complete with the saloon fights and the stinky cook.  Monte dallies with a French madame, Martine (played by the exotic Jeanne Moreau).  At one point, Monte and Chet ride out and meet a weathered old ranch hand who is “riding fence,” or inspecting every foot of fence around the ranch for repairs…the only work he’s cut out for anymore.  “Looks like his life is over with,” they say, and you can tell they’re looking into their own future.

The thrust of the film is one I’ve seen in many other westerns before this one: “The old West is changing, and there’s no place in it for people like us anymore, so we’d better evolve or die.”  This theme is present in Once Upon a Time in the West [1968], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969], and especially The Wild Bunch [also 1969]…seemed to be a trend for westerns at the turn of the decade, for some reason.  Monte Walsh handles it in an episodic format, kind of like another Lee Marvin film, The Big Red One [1980].  It doesn’t quite tell a straightforward plot with a pre-determined story arc.  It skips around a little bit, painting a picture without telling a conventional story.

There can be a sense of freedom in this kind of storytelling.  Unshackled by traditional story beats – at least for the first half – the movie is laid back, asking the viewer for a little patience as it slowly lays down building blocks for the finale.  However, I must report that I found this section of the movie a little slow.  I grew impatient.  I felt I was being set up for something, but pretty soon I just wanted the movie to get on with it.  Butch Cassidy sort of works that way, but you had two of the most photogenic stars who ever lived as the two leads.  I struggled to care the same way for Jack Palance as I did for Paul Newman.

But then an unexpected scene of violence occurs, setting into motion a series of events that culminate in a tragic series of deaths that, I must admit, had me glued to the screen as they unfolded.  Because of the gangbusters nature of this section, I am inclined to forgive the film’s shortcomings in its first half.  Here, we see, yes, Monte must evolve or die, and even if it’s never in any real doubt what he will choose, it’s entertaining to watch him make that choice.

If not for the second half of the picture, I might not even be writing about Monte Walsh.  I didn’t care for the opening song (even if it WAS sung by Mama Cass), some of the movie felt ripped off from several other westerns, and I was borderline bored for the first half.  But if you stick with Monte Walsh until the end, I think you’ll agree it’s worth a look.

UMBERTO D. (Italy, 1952)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Vittorio De Sica
CAST: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An elderly man and his beloved pet dog struggle to survive on his government pension in Rome.


The greatness of Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D. is something I was only able to appreciate after it was over.  As the film plays out, I was waiting for something more to happen, something to add to the paper-thin plot of an elderly man struggling to make ends meet in a city whose government has forsaken him and thousands or millions like him.  When the screen faded to black at the end, my first thought was, “That’s it???  Well, what happens next?”  The fact that the film prompted me, not only to ask the question, but to attempt to come up with an answer, is probably one of the reasons why this film is widely regarded as a classic.  Not many films can claim to keep the story running forward in your head after it’s over.

Umberto Domenico Ferrari is an elderly man living in post-war Rome.  The film opens with him joining a crowd protesting the city government’s policy of cutting their pensions.  Umberto is in dire straits.  He’s behind on his rent, low on cash, his landlady threatens eviction, and he must somehow still feed his beloved dog, Flike (rhymes with “like”).  The film will follow Umberto’s tribulations over the course of several days as he berates his landlady, tries to get some cash by selling some of his books and other possessions, dines at a soup kitchen while furtively feeding scraps to Flike, and befriends the young maid in his building who has problems of her own.

Umberto D. is as good an example as any, and better than most, of Italian post-war neo-realism, a cinematic movement in which Italian film directors aimed to paint the silver screen with portraits of everyday life in their country, which was wracked with poverty and unemployment at the time.  Rather than provide an escape from such hardships, these directors felt it was their civic duty to bring the everyman (or everywoman) into the spotlight, to remind the audience that movies could be more than escapist entertainment.  They felt obliged to say, “There are more stories of despair and hardship ten feet out your front door than can be imagined by any Hollywood screenwriter.”

There are pros and cons to this approach, at least in my opinion.  On one hand, the neo-realist movement created such immortal classics as La strada [1954], Bicycle Thieves [1948, also directed by De Sica], and a little later, Rocco and His Brothers [1960]; these are films that have stood the test of time and will continue to do so for decades to come.

On the other hand, a quote from Roger Ebert comes to mind: “A man goes to the movies; the critic must admit that he is this man.”  In other words, learn to say exactly what you think about a film as opposed to what you think you should think.  And when it comes to Italian neo-realism, I’ll say this: give me a choice between a De Sica retrospective and a Christopher Nolan marathon, and it’s the Nolan marathon seven days a week and twice on Sunday.  Yes, I am aware of the place that neo-realism films have in cinematic history, and I can appreciate their greatness on a cerebral level.  However, on a gut level, I can usually only watch them once or twice, with very few exceptions.  La strada, for example, is heart-wrenching, but in such a way that I want to revisit it just to relive those emotional gut-punches at the end.

Umberto D. didn’t quite deliver those gut-punches, at least not during its running time.  …okay, there IS a moment when Flike runs away, and the possibility arises that he may or may not have been put down by the local pound.  There is a cringe-inducing scene when we watch hardened men roll a cage full of stray dogs into a large box where the dogs will be gassed; we are spared the sight of the actual procedure, but we see enough of it to get the picture.  Umberto watches the box with fear in his eyes.  Another man wants to retrieve his captured pet, but he falters when he lacks the money to pay for his return.  The look on his face as he repeatedly asks, “So, if I don’t take him, you’ll kill him?”  THAT is a scene where my emotional juices where stirred up.

(Okay, there is ONE other scene that got me a little riled up emotionally, but it happens near the film’s climax, so I can’t describe it without spoiling something.)

Aside from those very rare moments of heightened emotion, the film is mostly pedestrian, giving us more details of Umberto’s daily life as he tries and tries to find a way to get enough cash to pay his rent.  In one pathetic scene, he debates whether he should resort to panhandling like so many other men he sees on the streets.  At first, he tries it himself, practicing holding out his hand on a street corner, but when someone actually turns to give him some money, Umberto pretends he was just stretching – he just can’t bring himself to accept handouts from a stranger.  He tries to enlist Flike instead, getting him to hold his hat while sitting on his hind legs, but that doesn’t work out either.  He reaches out to former friends, to no avail.

As I’ve said before, DURING the film, these scenes, and others like them, didn’t stir me up the way I felt the director was shooting for.  It was only afterwards that I found myself pondering those scenes and Umberto’s actions.  I used to own a dog, a very long time ago.  If my dog were my only remaining connection, with no family or friends to reach out to in times of need, how would I feel if I learned he might have been captured and put down?  If I suddenly had no means of income, no way to pay the rent/mortgage/whatever, and nowhere to go if I got kicked out of my apartment/house/whatever, how would I manage?  Would I manage?  Late in the film, Umberto makes a couple of hard choices.  Would I make the same choices in his position?

As FINE appears on the screen, Umberto D. invites us to wonder about Umberto’s fate.  The last scene is, on the surface, a happy one, but somber music plays over it, and the scene does not address or solve Umberto’s situation.  This is in the neo-realist tradition.  If De Sica were asked, “But what happened to him at the end?”, I can imagine him saying, “The same thing that happens to all such men.”  If he was told, “But I don’t know what happens to such men,” De Sica might say, “Well, now you have something to think about.”  Q.E.D.

[Trivia: The lead actor, Carlo Battisti, was not a professional actor, but a professor of linguistics. Umberto D. would be his only film, and not many people can claim that kind of legacy with just one film.]

GLADIATOR II (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST: Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 72% Certified Fresh

PLOT: After his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, a rebel soldier becomes a gladiator and must look to his past to find the strength to return the glory of Rome to its people.


[SPOILER ALERT: There is a key plot point that I must divulge in my review, but it is not something I knew before watching the film, despite the fact it was supposedly spoiled in one of the trailers.  You have been warned.]

While I was being underwhelmed by Ridley Scott’s latest film, Gladiator II, I was reminded of his previous lapses in judgement.  Although he is the deservedly acclaimed director of masterpieces like Alien, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, and Thelma & Louise, he also helmed such misfires as 1492: Conquest of Paradise, House of Gucci, and the regrettable Robin Hood [2010].  My point is that Gladiator II is a reminder that Mr. Scott is human like anyone else and occasionally makes mistakes.

I’m not saying that Gladiator II is a terrible film, though.  It is not aggressively bad like some other films I could mention (*cough, The Counselor, cough*).  It has some amazing sights, like the rhino battle in the Colosseum, and it boasts a triumphantly over-the-top performance from Denzel Washington as Macrinus, a flamboyant trainer of gladiators with designs of his own for the city of Rome.  On those merits alone, Gladiator II is maybe worth a watch.

But…but…

While the story is interesting from a standpoint of pure plotting, and while we get the requisite nostalgia bombs of seeing Connie Nielsen back again along with periodic flashbacks to the first Gladiator [2000], I felt curiously distant from the film itself.  I have theories about this phenomenon, but nothing conclusive.

First, the lead actor, Paul Mescal, as [SPOILER ALERT] Lucius.  He looks the part, I grant you that, at least from a physical standpoint.  He’s built, he appears to do most of the physical stunts himself, and he delivers his lines with the appropriate gravitas.  But I never got behind him as the hero of the piece.  Maybe it’s because he’s a complete unknown to me?  Maybe because we barely got to know him before he was suddenly thrust into the main story arc?  (By contrast, in the first Gladiator, we got to know Maximus inside and out before he became a gladiator.)

My sympathies went entirely towards Pedro Pascal as General Acacius, the military mastermind behind Rome’s greatest victories.  He is the new husband of Lucilla (played by the returning Connie Nielsen), whose son, you’ll remember, was last seen following Maximus’s body out of the Colosseum, sixteen years before Gladiator II begins.  Acacius is dutiful almost to a fault, deferring all glory on the battlefield to the empire of Rome, even if it’s currently being run by a couple of brothers (Emperors Geta and Caracalla) who are entitled, bloodthirsty tyrants.  He is weary of the constant bloodshed and wonders if there isn’t a better way to restore Rome to glory.

And Denzel Washington…well, I’ll get to him in a minute.

So, the story, while it must have been compelling on paper, seems to be a healthy echo of the first film.  Another defeated soldier becomes a gladiator.  Another successful Roman general wants to restore Rome.  More spectacular, bloody battles inside and outside the Colosseum.  More political intrigue regarding power-hungry senators and double-dealing merchants.  Forgive me, but I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.  (And adding massive sharks to a Colosseum battle does not intrinsically make it better than anything from the first film.  However, some basic research does show that the Colosseum WAS occasionally flooded with about 5 feet of water to stage mock naval battles…so there you go.)

The undeniable highlights of the film are any scenes involving Denzel Washington.  Not since Training Day has he chewed the scenery with this much gusto (although his recent turn as Macbeth comes pretty close).  I’m guessing he still has traces of Gladiator II set pieces stuck between his teeth.  He can command a scene by his presence alone, but he adds these marvelous gestures of adjusting his robes and tossing in one of his dazzling smiles when you might least expect it.  He makes one of the greatest uses of a dramatic pause that I’ve ever heard.  (“I own…[beat, beat, beat, beat, beat]…your house.”)  In another scene, he uses an exceedingly gory prop as a punctuation mark during a speech; if he gets nominated for an Oscar for this role, that’s the scene they SHOULD use for a clip, but they probably won’t.  Shame.  The whole performance is a classic example of taking a smaller role, owning it, and turning it into a thing of beauty.  In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that he doesn’t have much screen time, because he simply outguns his scene partners at every turn.  You can’t take your eyes off this guy.

The drawback to Washington’s masterful performance is that I found myself marking time between his scenes, instead of falling into the world of the story.  I followed along, was able to keep track of which senator was doing what and why Lucilla was so distraught and so on.  But to the degree that I was able to follow along, I just didn’t care.  I was reminded of Troy, another sword-and-sandals epic, also told on a grand scale with innumerable extras and some world-class battle scenes, but which also left me apathetic for much of its running time.

Gladiator II improves on the first film only in terms of the complexity of its visual effects and the addition of Denzel Washington.  Aside from that, I’m afraid it does very little to make me care about its heroes, its plot twists, its unexpected deaths, and the glory of Rome.

(And I had to exercise superhuman restraint, at the final shots of the film, to keep myself from yelling out loud, “Talk to me, Goose!”)

AIRPORT

By Marc S. Sanders

Burt Lancaster described his participation in what would become the first of a batch of 1970s all-star disaster epics as the worst picture he’s ever done.  He declared it “the worst piece of junk ever made.”  Perhaps because of this assessment we were eventually blessed with the Airplane! spoofs a decade later.  

Airport is a sudsy soap opera drama from novelist Arthur Hailey.  It’s an indiscreet invitation to make fun of it, but I doubt it was meant to be regarded that way in 1970.  Then, Airport was likely celebrated as that new kind of picture like The Godfather, Jaws and Star Wars would pioneer in their own rights.   

The film was a box office smash for Universal Pictures, garnering an acting Oscar for kindly old Helen Hayes along with nominations for Best Picture, Cinematography and Screenplay.  It spawned three more films following its success.  Yet, it’s terribly cornball, drowning in floods of cheese, and coated in the thickest of sap.  You better swallow that Maalox now.  This airport is all backed up!

Lincoln International Airport is getting blanketed in one of the treacherous, most blinding snowstorms imaginable.  So naturally it’s the right time to launch passenger airlines into the night sky while also welcoming jets to land.  Were harsh weather conditions not so alarming fifty years ago for air travel?

Well, this blizzard is going to be the first of several problems starting with a plane stuck in the snow right in the middle of the airport’s major runway.  Burt Lancaster is Mel Bakersfield, Lincoln’s Controller, who once again puts aside his family and his troubled marriage to oversee the matter.  He recruits the grizzled, cigar chomping Joe Petroni (George Kennedy) to clear that runway.  Mel firmly believes Joe is the only man who knows what the hell to do.  (Best I could tell is that Joe picks up a shovel like everyone else.) Mel’s other issue is that his pesky wife is disrupting his happy affair with Tanya Livingston (Jean Seberg), the no nonsense, yet perky appearing, blond airline executive with the mini uniform dress hemline.

Further upholding the proud chauvinism of this picture is everyone’s favorite lounge singing lizard Dean Martin as Vern Demerest.  These names!!!! If this movie wasn’t taking place at an airport, I’d swear it was a news station.  Vern also has an inconvenient marriage now that he’s learned his cutie stewardess Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset) is pregnant.  Cue the squeaky violin music as Vern offers to cover the abortion.  Shocking!!!! Gwen might want to have the child, but she’s gracious enough not to make it an obligation for Vern.  She’s gonna let her dreamboat wonder of a man be, so he remains a doting husband on the side.

So we got melodrama for the airport staff, the pilot, the stewardess… Hmmm…Oh yeah!  The passengers!!!!

A mentally ill, down on his luck man (Van Heflin) spends six dollars cash on a life insurance plan for his wife Inez (Maureen Stapleton) before boarding Vern & Gwen’s plane with a dynamite bomb in his briefcase.  Can Inez warn Mel, Tonya and everyone in time before the plane takes off?

Of course, this kind of stressful tension requires some adoring comic relief, and Helen Hayes as kindly old Mrs. Ada Quonsett delivers an Oscar winning performance.  She takes pleasure in being a habitual stowaway on one flight after another.  Gosh darn it if Tonya is going to make sure to put a stop to this lady’s shenanigans.  

The Cinemaniacs (Miguel, Thomas, Anthony and I) watched this together and Mig pointed out the cinematography first.  It’s dull like straight out of a Sunday night TV movie.  Thomas reminded us that this was in the same vein as most of Arthur Hailey’s material, like Hotel – the book that became a movie that became a TV series.  The soap opera occupies the first two thirds of the picture.  Then a potential threat of disaster occurs, and you work to guess who lives and who dies.  

Directors George Seaton (also screenwriter) and Henry Hathaway work to get the audience invested in these people first while trying to educate us on the most up to date operations in a fully functioning airport.  If George Kennedy’s character is not shoveling snow on a runway and giving it all he’s got in the stuck plane’s cockpit, he’s telling the others what to expect from a potential bomb explosion aboard a jet.  And Look!!! There’s telephones in Mel and Vern’s cars.  Push button ones too.  All over the airport are red phones next to white phones.  There’s luggage.  There’s blankets and pillows for everyone on board the plane. There are also unsuspecting women wearing minks and smuggling jewelry into the country, but the seasoned custom security guard has got a good eye. He can see everything, except for the guy with the bomb. And there’s snow.  Lots and lots of snow but the cabs make it to the airport in the nick of time.  There’s also a message about the need for updating construction on our country’s airports with the most sophisticated traffic controls and operations imaginable.  Should the money be spent?  On top of all this, how are Mel and Vern’s wives and families holding up?

Maybe it’s unfair.  It’s hard to embrace Airport when I have already grown up watching the ZAZ team brilliantly spoof the picture with the Airplane! films.  Yet, I’m confident that had I seen Airport upon its initial release, I likely would not hail the romances of Lancaster, Seberg, Martin and Bisset as the next iterations of Rick and Ilsa.  The dialogue and scenarios are eye rolling at best.  The chemistry sputters as soon as we see the characters for the first time.  The men are twenty five years older than the women, but the love is supposedly passionate?

The extras who are granted snippets of dialogue look like they are reading cue cards and the major players truly look bored.  Watch the cast when the bomb goes off on the plane (like you didn’t think it wouldn’t happen).  There’s no adrenaline from Dean Martin.  He looks lost without his signature scotch and cigarette. The passenger extras never got the memo that they are supposed to be on board a plane with a gaping hole in the rear lavatory.  The priest on board slaps the guy next to him, but I need more convincing of the panic that is supposed to persist.

Fifty years later, the legacy of Airport hinges on only one purpose and that is to give it the ol’ Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.  More importantly, once you finish watching it, about all you want to do next is watch Airplane! 

“The cockpit!  What is it?”

“It’s the little room at the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that’s not important right now.”

UNSTOPPABLE (2024)

By Marc S. Sanders

The Oscar winning film editor of Argo, William Goldenberg, finally directs his first film and it’s a winner.  The true story of Anthony Robles, the one-legged NCAA world champion wrestler is brought to the screen in Unstoppable.  While the story is paint by numbers for a typical sports movie, because it is adapted from his real-life experiences during his time at Arizona State University, it cannot help but be embraced.  The cast is sensational as well, with not one weak link.

Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome, the Emmy winner of the HBO miniseries When They See Us) is a good kid.  Anthony is loved by his brothers and sisters, and his mother.  They cheer him on to persist and win.  He’s a hero to his younger siblings.  Anthony also gets much encouragement from his high school wrestling coach, Michael Peña, and his co-worker that he cleans airplanes with, played by Mykelti Williamson.  Still, he has a troubled domestic life.  His stepfather is an intimidating tyrant.  Bobby Cannavale plays one of the harshest villains in recent memory.  A towering monster with a voice that’ll make you wince.  He’s verbally abusive and eventually we learn physically as well to Anthony’s mother Judy (Jennifer Lopez). 

As the film begins, following a winning match, Anthony receives an all expenses paid ride to a Pennsylvania college.  However, that school does not contend in the NCAA and despite everyone telling him to take the free ride, he has his eyes set on Arizona State.  Even ASU’s Coach Shawn Charles (Don Cheadle, and dang is he ever good) is not confident in Anthony making the final cut for the team.  Yet, Anthony defies what everyone else thinks and scrounges up the monies with his family’s support to attend the local university.  Now the challenge is to make the team against all odds with his crutches to support him through rocky terrain hikes and laps around the track while carrying heavy weights.  How does a man with one leg stand upright and manage to climb mountainous terrains in the desert heat while staying in pace with the rest of the candidates?  How does he even hold a thirty-pound weight while running the track on crutches?  Anthony Robles will show you.

Unstoppable does not offer anything new or inventive.  Anthony even reflects on the fictional character Rocky Balboa a few times.  There are challenges to overcome, not just for Anthony, but for Judy as well.  The bank wants to foreclose on their home and her husband is monster of a jerk.  Plus, there’s Anthony’s handicap which can never serve as an excuse for falling behind with the rest of his squad. 

Some matches are lost.  There are scary episodes at home.  There’s the imposing undefeated champion that Anthony will eventually have to face.  There are the loving moments between mother and son.  It’s all textbook, and the ending is predicted as soon as the film begins.  Still, had I known Anthony Robles personally while growing up, I’d be saying this story is prime for a movie or a book and that is what became of it. 

At the 2024 AFI Film Festival, there was a Q&A following the film’s presentation.  Jennifer Lopez, Jharell Jerome, William Goldenberg, and Judy and Anthony Robles were in attendance.  To watch the film and then hear of these people’s real-life experiences afterwards is astonishing.  Both mother and son came from rock bottom scenarios mired in debt and abuse.  Now, long after Anthony has finished his career as a champion wrestler, we see that the two continue their crusades.  I won’t spoil what they went on to next.  The film provides a footnote ahead of the end credits, but it is nothing short of inspiring.  The Robles demonstrate that anything is possible and nothing works as an excuse.

Jennifer Lopez and Jharrel Jerome share a lot of beautiful scenes together.  Lopez might be easy fodder for gossip columns, but she is truly a wonderful actress.  Jerome reminds me of when I first saw Cuba Gooding Jr in Boyz In The Hood, which was an astonishing debut of a promising career.  This guy needs to be cast in a lot of beefy roles going forward.  He’s a sensation. 

William Goldenberg has made an under the radar film, but it has box office success written all over it like The Karate Kid or Rocky.  His vast experience in editing allows for a well-paced two hours so that even if you know what is coming next, you remain enthralled and wanting to cheer on the protagonists. 

The film will be streaming on Amazon Prime soon, and that is perhaps it’s only disappointment.  Again, as I have written in other recent columns, a movie like Unstoppable belongs in the theatres first and seen with well attended audiences who will clap and cheer at both Judy and Anthony’s triumphs.  Some of my fondest memories are watching the heroes I grew up with played by Ralph Macchio and Sylvester Stallone finally achieving that hard-to-reach gold crown, and suddenly there’s an overwhelming cheer from the audience within the darkness of the theatre.  Remember when Rocky sprinted up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum Of Art?  A cued response almost seems edited into the context of the film.  That kind of experience is absent from the private confines of a living room.

Unstoppable has joined the lexicon of amazing sports stories.  You can’t help but cry while you are cheering.

TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA (FRANCE)

By Marc S. Sanders

For a short film with a running time of only thirty-five minutes, Two People Exchanging Saliva (aka DEUX PERSONNES ÉCHANGEANT DE LA SALIVE) offers a lot to tell within its absurdist universe thanks to writers/directors Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh.  Reflecting on the film, which I saw during the After Dark collection of shorts at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, my list of imagery grows longer and longer and I am grateful for it.  There’s much to remember, even nearly a full week after seeing the film.

Shot within a department store located off the Champs-Élysées within the heart of Paris, the film is a gorgeous black and white presentation with striking lighting to illuminate a wide collection of settings.  Shoe racks never looked so ethereal.  A staircase leading upward feels very curious.  Piles of cardboard boxes feels terrifying before I even know what they are to personify.  Yet, the oddities that Musteata and Singh introduce are what tempts you to learn more about the rules they have set up for this fictional cosmos.

Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) is a salesperson at this store and like the rest of the staff, she must exhale her breath directly into the nose of a security guard before starting her shift.  She is suppressed by a domineering supervisor, Pétulante (Aurélie Boquien).  It cannot be more apparent that Pétulante feels threatened by her best customer’s favorability for Malaise.  That customer is Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi).  Among these three ladies, this comes off like a common soap opera love triangle that has been seen many times before.  Yet, the writers/directors throw some spice at this centerpiece.

Within this world, kissing is outlawed, punishable by death.  Hence the necessary requirement for a breath smell.  Ingest some garlic or other reprehensible aromatic food to divert any temptation from breaking the law.  Furthermore, products are sold at a cost of slaps to the face.  Several players exhibit the scabs and bruises, as well as nosebleeds, that evidence their purchases.  Looking at Angine it’s easy to see she is certainly a high-priced shopper.

With these set ups in place, the story can take off and rely on bold imagery.  We witness Malaise’s fear of what can happen if she commits to her attraction for Angine when the apparent crime of kissing occurs within the store.  We fear that Pétulante will pounce on prohibitive kissing in order to win her prized client back while getting her underling, Malaise, permanently out of the picture.  We see the great lengths of tormented slapping Angine endures in order to have another shopping experience with the innocent Malaise. 

The film serves reminders of the nature of punishment if a kiss is committed between two people.  The criminals are literally boxed up and disposed in a junk heap of other boxes that encase people just like them.  Musteata and Singh’s most powerful shots are of this pile of boxes dumped into a landfill toppling one over the other.  It’s like something from George A Romero film, like Night Of The Living Dead.  No big effects here.  Nothing that looks like a large expense beyond collecting a enormous supply of cardboard boxes.  Yet, when piled together in an outdoor area under the shine of their black and white cinematography from Alexandra de Saint Blanquat, it’s terribly haunting.

My wife and I got to speak with Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh on a few occasions during the 2024 AFI Film Festival.  They explained how the idea of this dystopian universe came to them while quarantining in their New York home during Covid.  They went through the steps of obtaining financial backing and they discovered that it would be more cost effective to shoot the picture in France than in the United States.  As well, they had access to a department store in Paris after it had closed for the night.  They went through the process of setting their scenes, rehearsing their actors, coordinating lighting and camera positioning within the few hours available to them before sunrise when the store would reopen.  Listening to them, I could envision the tight scheduling pressures they must have experienced in making this film.

I also find it interesting that they assembled this film during Covid. Simply shaking hands with others was highly discouraged to avoid a spread of disease. Highly charged debates on reproductive rights are so prominent right now too.  In Two People Exchanging Saliva, it’s not hand shaking that is impermissible, it’s something much worse, but also more intimate – kissing.  As well, in order to live off of materialism, one must fall victim to an abuse of their bodies, and they have the marks to show for it just beneath their eyes and across their profiles.  In this world, people are limited and exposed to the will of a domineering enforcement.  I salute the allegories found in the short film.  It may sound silly on the surface.  Natalie and Alex even laughed while explaining the plot of their film before we had a chance to see it.  Still, it is not altogether farfetched.  When can we live truly independently without a threat of punishment, when all we want is a will to live and love with one another?

Two People Exchanging Saliva was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, and I could not be happier for the filmmakers’ accolades.  It’s worthy of its merits.  If you can find this outstanding short film I highly encourage you to take a little over a half hour out of your day to experience something entirely unique, while beautifully presented. 

Seek out your local art houses for a film short festival coming soon.  Two People Exchanging Saliva should be included in any collection that’s being offered.  Now I’m hoping an Oscar nomination is on the horizon for Natalie and Alex.  Bon Chance!!!!

JUROR #2

By Marc S. Sanders

Since Unforgiven, director Clint Eastwood has sought out projects that have an intrinsic message or a question of morality.  That film seemed to channel the second half of his career that has spanned over a half a century.  Before, many of his films sensationalized the quiet killer or the silent tough guy with the six shooter gunplay and cracking fists. After the movie won Best Picture in 1992, movies like A Perfect World, Letters From Iwo Jima and Mystic River were not developed for simply the sake of escapist entertainment.  There was something to ponder after the stories wrapped up. 

Eastwood’s latest film, and supposedly his last, is Juror #2 and to the best of my recollection, I believe it is the first time the actor/director brings his experience to a courtroom.  Some of his more recent efforts have been questionable and not up to his best standards (Cry Macho), but Juror #2 is one of the best films he’s directed, and perhaps the best picture I’ve seen this year so far. 

Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, an expectant father with his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch).  He has just been selected for jury duty in a Savannah, Georgia courthouse.  Justin is Juror #2.  The case centers on trying a man for the murder of his girlfriend who was found bloodied and bruised in a rocky, wooded canal beneath a bridge.  Earlier that night, the couple were witnessed at a local watering hole having a drunken argument.  She walked off in the dead of night in the pouring rain.  The man was seen going after her.

Coincidentally, Justin was at this same bar.  He drove off in his car around the same time, but he accidentally hit what he thought was a deer.  The incident was hardly considered again until the opening statements were heard in court a year later.  Suddenly, the young man is putting two and two together and questioning if in fact he hit a deer.  Now Juror #2 embarks on a test of morality while sometimes adopting a Twelve Angry Men narrative.  Justin might appear as noble as Henry Fonda, but is he the culpable one?

Juror #2 assembles a good cast of characters.  Toni Collette is the prosecuting attorney, Faith Killebrew, who is also campaigning for an important election.  Collette has that deep southern twang, but the earth tone suits she wears along with her firm body language exude a tough exterior.  You believe Collete’s character is compartmentalizing this trial away from her chances of election.  The opposing attorney, Eric Resnick (Chris Messina, who I’d like to see in more films), is apt to imply the true motive behind Faith’s pursuit of trying his client.  Is it for personal gain, because Eric truly believes his client is innocent.  The evidence and facts add up to reasonable doubt.

Eastwood, with a script by Jonathan A Abrams, places his film in a variety of on set locations around Savannah.  Personally, it was fun recognizing certain areas following a recent weekend getaway my wife and I took to the storied town.  There are flashback pieces to the night in question at the bar and the crime scene.  Beautiful locales within the historic squares of Savannah are also covered in addition to the river boats near the docks.  Much of the picture occurs in the jury room where the group of twelve deliberate.  Leslie Bibb is charming as the Jury Foreperson.  However, Justin tries to find ways to allow his peers to consider other possibilities.  The only one on his side is a well-cast J.K. Simmons.  Simmons has the deep crackling voice that absorbs you into what he’s believes versus everyone else in the room.  Against him are jurors played by Cedric Yarbough and Chikako Fukuyama, also well cast.  What seems like an easy wrap up case of declaring a guilty verdict turns into a dead heat of 10 to 2, and eventually even Faith the prosecutor is personally questioning what occurred.

Juror #2 is very well cast film.  None of the actors are stand out marquee names, which works as an advantage.  They all appear common.  They don’t look like movie stars and thus it is easier to buy them in their roles.  After seeing the film at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, the gentleman sitting next to me had to surrender to a friendly debate we had.  He tried to point out plot holes in the film but I had an answer for each element he questioned.  Juror #2 is solid in its storytelling.  The motives that characters like Justin and Faith and even the respective jurors stand by all have a validity to their lines of thinking.  Therefore, Abrams’ script works well at arguing two sides of the same coin and the picture concludes with an opportunity to think about it long after it’s over.  Hanging threads to solid conundrums are a favorite factor of mine.

A story currently circulating in the trade papers is that Juror #2 is only being released in fifty theatres nationwide.  This is Warner Brothers’ decision and it’s a terrible shame.  When the debate of streaming versus exclusive theatrical releases is continuously being put into question, this is a sure sign of movie theatres eventually becoming obsolete. What a pleasure it was to watch Clint Eastwood’s film among crowd at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theater (aka TCL Theatre) in Hollywood, California.  The audience was completely engaged, applauding as names appeared in the credits and laughing at the intended cues provided by the director and screenwriter.  To see a film, any film in a theatre, is a unique experience when it can be embraced among a crowd of movie lovers. 

If Robert Zemeckis’ Here can be released nationwide in thousands of venues, there is no reason why a well-made Clint Eastwood picture can not have the same treatment.  Movie houses were never designed to offer only the latest Marvel or Transformers film.

My hope is that the ongoing, widespread positive reception that Eastwood’s final film is receiving is noticed thereby building some traction for Warner Brothers to consider going wider with exposure.  At the very least, the famed studio owes it to arguably its most prized filmmaker and actor.  Time after time, the WB logo appears just ahead of Eastwood’s own Malpaso studio credit.  There is no Warner Brothers without Clint Eastwood and to close out his legendary career commands a bigger recognition. 

At the very least, Warner Brothers needs to recollect what occurred with a film like The Shawshank Redemption.  No one saw it in theatres and it had a terrible initial box office.  Some argue it was the title that turned people off.  Maybe.  Yet, think about the admiration that movie continues to garner thirty years later.  Warner Brothers needs to pay more attention to the quality they possess in their library.

At any rate, my hat off to Mr. Clint Eastwood – a pioneer filmmaker and one of the last survivors of a filmmaking yesteryear.  He began directing in 1971 with the thriller Play Misty For Me, and at age 94, he has only enhanced his meticulous dedication to drawing a crowd in while directing sensational casts.  Along with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg, I have followed Clint Eastwood’s career all my life.  Beginning with seeing Dirty Harry at age 8, I grew up on his imposing stature and his reliance on silent performances.  The first R rated film I saw in theatres was Sudden Impact.  Beyond being a Producer, Director and Actor, he is also a film composer.  Clint Eastwood is one of the few multi-talented people within the history of Hollywood, but no one compares to him.  You’re likely never to hear someone say that guy reminds me of Clint Eastwood, because there is only one Clint Eastwood. 

I am only blessed because I still have yet to see every one of his films.  If Juror #2 is his last effort, it’s a noble and solid ending to his run.  Yet, I’m glad I know I still have more to uncover in Clint Eastwood’s celebrated career.

NOTE: The murder victim is portrayed by Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s daughter.  As well, look for a blink and miss it moment where the director makes his way down a staircase while JK Simmons and Toni Collette share a scene together.  Eastwood is full bearded but there is no doubt that’s the guy.

PERSONAL NOTE: On the closing night of the 2024 AFI Film Festival, I had the pleasure to meet actors Cedric Yarbaugh, Amy Aquino and Zele Avradopoulos following the film and it was such a treat to hear how much they appreciated Mr. Eastwood as a director. All three were consistent in their admiration for the filmmaker describing him as patient, quiet, and a master of his craft who continuously worked with the same crew on one film after another. It was a real treat to chat with them. I also saw Nicholas Hoult walk by me three times and because I simply didn’t recognize him, I regret not asking him for a quick chat and photo as well. Yet, he and Toni Collette introduced the film which included a quick impersonation of Clint on the phone offering the role to him. Everyone was positively charming. This was such a memorable moviegoing experience. I’ll treasure the memory always.