Category: Genre

BLACK HERCULES

By Marc S. Sanders

Black Hercules is a new documentary short showing at the AFI Film Fest 2024 in Los Angeles, California.  Directed by Emmy nominated director Rodney Lucas, the film manages to provide an in-depth exploration into body builder Craig Monson.  Mr. Monson was raised in the South Central area of Los Angeles where like many people of color he experienced the challenges of oppression and unfair treatment in an often unjust legal system.  Yet, Black Hercules takes an optimistic approach in part because of Craig Monson’s proud recollection of his life.  He did not live an easy life, but he only smiles about his ongoing survival.

In just under ten minutes, Rodney Lucas’ camera covers Craig as an elderly man, who still works out every day maintaining a muscular and healthy figure with a signature grey goatee that only feels as welcoming as Santa Claus.  This is someone I could have a beer with on a Sunday afternoon while listening to his various anecdotes.  With Craig’s voiceover describing his past encounters, Rodney Lucas offers a plethora of home movie footage and photographs that paint a colorful and engaging life that has been well lived among personal hardships.

I could easily tell how much Craig valued his mother.  In South Central, there are no luxuries like an indoor gym with top of the line weights and equipment.  Therefore, Craig’s mother made a gym in their backyard for both her son and the neighboring black men to work on building up their bodies.  The equipment they relied on are described as “concrete weights.” 

As Craig continues on, you not only get an idea of the challenges he faced, but a descriptive sense of what South Central is like.  Rodney Lucas provides quick cuts of people in the community dancing and working in the local beauty shop.  In order to survive, Craig had to resort to dealing dope and weed.  Eventually, he was incarcerated for five years within the infamous San Quentin Penitentiary.  He might have committed drug related crimes, but was his punishment just?  Nevertheless, Craig Monson makes the most of his time there where he earns the respect of his fellow inmates as one of the physically largest residents while helping them to work out as well.  His confidence in himself and the body he’s proud of is only infectious to his fellow peers within prison.

A new chapter arises for Craig upon his release and suddenly this ex-convict is working out with none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor on his way to stardom with his role in The Terminator.  Though spectators would cheer for the famed Austrian, Craig proudly declares that he was actually bigger than the super star. 

I recently had the opportunity to interview Rodney Lucas who has a deep passion for documentary shorts.  He explained that originally this film consisted of over eighteen minutes of footage, but he’s a filmmaker who prefers to take out a lot of the padding that resorts to only enhancing a message. Mr. Lucas finds a way to get a point across or a description included in a condensed period of time.  That’s where I truly appreciated how the short film wraps up.

A terrific and subtle invention of the film is the framing of the moving picture.  The cut of the film appears as if it is paper or photographs torn from a scrapbook or out of a spiral notebook.  With a wealth of pictures from Mr. Monson’s life and some home movies, Rodney Lucas finds a way right from the start of the film to show a scrapbook narrative of this man’s life.  The editing of the film briskly moves from childhood home life to time in prison and then onto the various show stages where Craig makes a name for himself in the world of bodybuilding competition.

With provided competition video, Craig Monson tells of how he had been adorned with titles of Mr. America Of Pasadena, Mr. Los Angeles, Mr. Orange County and so on.  Yet, he would always come in second place.  As one of the few black bodybuilders competing at the time, he could never achieve first place.  One tale that will make viewers smile though is when he knew the audience considered him the best, despite the final judging, and then later a first-place trophy was delivered to his hotel room. 

Black Hercules is an uplifting story of survival with a strong defiance to remain proud and confident in oneself.  Rodney Lucas found that exceptional subject. Anyone else who lived a life like Craig Monson’s would likely choose to carry on with anger, bitterness and regret.  Yet, Craig Monson had no regrets.  Now, an older man that Rodney confirmed for me was still working out on a daily basis, Mr. Monson declares without compromise that the life he’s lived thus far has been a “helluva run” and he will be remembered forever.

This is a triumphant film destined to inspire a health and drive for bodybuilding, but more importantly to maintain a life of confidence and self-assurance.   

Anyone who sees Black Hercules will never forget Craig Monson. 

Seek out opportunities to see Black Hercules and I invite you to check out the trailer for the film here: https://wdrv.it/0692c7495

BATMAN (1989)

By Marc S. Sanders

If Warner Bros was to abandon the campy familiarity of the Adam West TV series, Tim Burton was the best candidate to deliver The Dark Knight into the macabre gloominess of a bustling crime ridden Gotham City.  Burton is proud of his grotesque weirdness which is what this famed comic book character demands.  

Despite a story that always teetered on flimsy to me, this close-out picture of the decadent 1980s, has so many elements that work. It begins with the marquee cast to the richly deserved Oscar winning hell on Earth art designs from Anton Furst to silly pop/funk samples from Prince and the orchestral score from Danny Elfman.  This is truly the film that put Elfman on the map.

Jack Nicholson collected buckets and buckets of cash to bring Batman’s arch nemesis Joker to life.  He earned every penny.  There’s been copycat attempts (Hello Jim “Mr. Shameless” Carrey) to a handful of other interpretations of the psychotic clown, and still no one has overshadowed what Nicholson brought to the role.  His performance seems like a combined amalgamation of previous celebrated career roles from Easy Rider to …Cukoo’s Nest.  Prince served as his cheerleading entourage to compliment the purple and green color schemes.  This Joker is a perfect antithesis to the famed title character superhero.

Batman is portrayed by Michael Keaton.  Let the record show that when news broke of Mr. Mom occupying the part, I was not a skeptic.  I had seen the dark and dramatic side of the former standup comic a year prior (Clean And Sober, my review is on this site).  I knew he could pull it off.  His quiet pondering as either billionaire Bruce Wayne, whose parents were gunned down in front of him as a child, to the Batman under the cape and mask work on the opposite spectrum to Nicholson’s uncompromising insanity and hyperactivity.  

Keaton against Nicholson are a defined Yin and Yang.

The supporting cast have good moments too including the loyalty of Bruce’s butler, Alfred.  Michael Gough brings Wayne Manor alive and Burton, with a script from Sam Hamm, welcomes several spotlights from the expected council of the trusty character.  Kim Basinger is photojournalist Vicki Vale, Bruce’s love interest.  Frankly she has better scenes to share with Robert Wuhl as Gotham’s reporter.  The Batman fan in me stops short at Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon.  It’s not the actor’s fault however that the film offers little for him to do on screen.    Hingle never had much material to play with in the four films he occupied.  That’s regrettable.

The best supporting character is the setting of Gotham City.  With Burton’s penchant for a Vincent Price characterization, he relies on Anton Furst to bring the towering midnight blue steel, skyscraper pillars to enormous heights, reaching into the blackness of heaven.  Every street, alleyway, balcony, puddle, garbage can or mugger, policeman and cabbie that circumvent this city lend life to this hopeless, criminal world.  It’s astonishing how well constructed this Gotham is.  Designs go just as far with Wayne Manor, the underground Bat Cave and a chemical plant designed in hot steam,  with enormous barrels of rainbow, acidic liquids and rickety platforms. Even Vicki Vale’s apartment is gorgeous to look at as both Bruce Wayne and the Joker compliment it as having “lots of space.” Tim Burton and Anton Furst make certain the people who roam these environments are entirely aware of what they occupy.

Sam Hamm’s script doesn’t appear as solid as everything else on screen.  There’s never a cohesive beginning to end trajectory and a lot of the film feels like short story episodes.  Joker takes over the localized mob.  There’s that story.  Joker somehow concocts a chemical poisoning amid the various hygiene products.  Yet it only spreads to the local newscasters.  Gordon, Alfred, Vicki Vale, and certainly not Bruce Wayne ever gets exposed.  Once that storyline begins, it’s quickly disposed.  A little attention focuses on Batman’s beginnings.

The irony of Batman is that unlike other superhero films, this one does not hinge on an origin story for the good guy dressed in black.  That angle is devoted mostly towards Joker, and Nicholson makes the most of his large amount of screen time.  A favorite, sinister scene that maybe Edgar Allen Poe might have approved of is Burton’s invention for Joker to gradually reveal himself beneath the darkness.  He’s depicted sitting in a dirty office basement with an underground cosmetic doctor who witnesses a transformation in the gangster turned madman.  I just like it.  It’s hair raising.  The moment plays like Poe writing a new version of The Mask Of The Red Death.

For me, this is likely Tim Burton’s best film, just below his passion for detail in Ed Wood.  Batman offers up a lot of variety ranging from the darkness of the character to the disruptions revealed in the antagonistic, loudly dressed, Joker.  

There’s no denying how visually memorable the film remains and how quotable it is as well.  In 1989, when superhero movies were not the event release commodities they are today, the endless hype only enhanced the experience of finally seeing the movie on the big screen.  Over a year ahead of release, t- shirts, caps, action figures and costumes were of the highest demand among kids, teenagers and adults.  I actually miss the marketing blitz that overtook the finished film product.  Everyone you encountered was embracing Batman and Joker.  These might be pop culture phenomena, but they created a commonality among the masses of the world.  Batman was worthy of all its swag and endless mania.  It was a celebration of movies for people of all ages to take seriously.

Fortunately, the first half of the 1989 promotional partnerships were never squandered on a decidedly terrible movie.  The end product was immensely satisfying.

Tim Burton upheld his dedication while still a young director in a cutthroat and competitive industry.  As the later films, from a careless Joel Schumacher, demonstrated, it takes an endearing kind of passion to pull these eccentrics off on a silver screen.  Fanboys will happily toss that Bat logoed t-shirt away if they feel betrayed by the movie, they couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into.

An enormous sigh of relief came across the entire pre-internet world.  Keaton is great.  Nicholson of course.  Check out the Batmobile and Bat Jet as well!!! Prince’s music videos served as free commercialization to see the movie over and over again.  A separate record was released to highlight Danny Elfman’s work.

Rightly so!

The grand scheme of delivering Batman and Joker to audiences, was worth every second of the wait.

An astounding achievement of near perfect filmmaking, this Batman film was never overshadowed even with a better, leaner Dark Knight interpretation to arrive nearly two decades later.

Right this way Mr.  Nolan.  Your table is ready for you.

THE SHADE

By Marc S. Sanders

A ghost story works best when a mystery can be upheld.  Something so shocking or fascinating must draw you in and stay with you so that you want to look around every nook and cranny you see on screen and uncover clues that will eventually give you solid answers to the questions you have.  Writer/director Tyler Chipman, partnered on a script with David Purdy, to deliver The Shade.  His prowess with a camera had me darting my eyes from one corner of the screen to the next.

Newcomer Chris Galust portrays Ryan, a pot smoking student, who looks after his younger brother James (Sam Duncan) while his mother Renee (Laura Benanti) works the late shifts at the hospital.  When he is not delivering pizzas or working on his talents for tattoo artistry, Ryan is attending sessions with a mental health counselor (Michael Boatman) to discuss his attacks of anxiety.  Except that is an understatement.  Ryan awakens from night terrors where he encounters a ghoulish woman in skeletal white skin.  Charlotte Stickles portrays this phantom, known as The Harpy, and she puts on a terrifying performance to complement her grotesque makeup design.

These haunting episodes seem to amplify once Ryan’s disturbed brother Jason (Dylan McTee) returns home from school.  Jason is usually stand offish.  He’s disrupting the house in the middle of the night with loud death metal music blaring from his room.  He looks exhausted with a pale complexion and droopy eyes, and the two older brothers seem to get into bouts with one another very easily.

Chipman and Purdy plant a lot of intriguing seeds for a good campfire thriller.  I was curious through the whole course of the film.  The cast is especially top notch with an engaging performance from Chris Galust.  It’s easy to buy into all of his fear and panic. 

Tyler Chipman is also a promising filmmaker.  He’s got magnificent shots that made me blink twice because I am not a jump scare kind of guy.  So, when Ryan opens a medicine cabinet or the creaking door of Jason’s bedroom, for example, and there’s a change in angle, I got nervous for what would appear on the other side.  Camera shots loom on a darkened closet where something appears to be crawling inside of it.  All of this is very effective work in shot, editing and performance combined. 

The prologue to the film is positively eye catching.  Tyler Chipman depicts a late-night ride out to a cemetery and the whole sequence is cut beautifully, with a nervous, young boy staying back by the headlights of the truck, to the inebriated father who slovenly walks towards a tombstone and draws a gun from his pocket to a flame that goes out of control, and then on to the figures cloaked in black who emerge from the darkened woods.  The film had my attention from the start.

Yet, despite a solid cast, I wish the script for The Shade was stronger.  There’s too much written for the Ryan character from his job at the pizza place, to working on his tattoo art, and then providing scenes with friends at a campfire and sharing time with a girlfriend.  All the side characters in these various locations, do not serve much purpose.  Most of these people are unnecessary, including Ryan’s girlfriend Alex (Mariel Morino), who is never put in danger and never lends to the mystery at hand.  Morino is doing the job that the script demands of her but her character does not hold enough weight to belong in the final cut of the film.  Simply being a worrier for Ryan is not enough.

As well, Michael Boatman’s character works more like a collector of information than someone who can lend some clues or new intel to the mystery of The Shade.  During one of a handful of scenes with Boatman, Galust’s character only seems to relay an experience that the audience has already seen.  Once Ryan finishes his description, the moment ends and nothing new is established.  This is just repetitive.

Benanti’s character could have served more purpose, as the mother to these characters.  Not enough exposition is provided for the ghostly encounters that Ryan experiences, and I was hoping Benanti’s character would offer some Act 3 surprising insight and development. Renee always looked like she had a twist in the story to share.

Tyler Chipman needs to continue on with his filmmaking career.  He knows how to handle a camera that will lead to impactful edits with effective imagery, and he cast his film very, very well.  Yet, the writing of the script is too crowded with unnecessary characters that serve no purpose and weigh down the storyline.  Instead of arguing over who should be buttering a pizza crust or having a drawn-out drunken fight during a campfire outing, more attention could have been put towards the set up provided in the first few scenes of The Shade. 

As I understand through IMDb, Chipman first made this tale into a film short.  I’d be up for seeing a director’s cut of The Shade now that it is a full movie.  I want to learn more about The Harpy and her direct connection to Ryan and his family.  I imagine mom and Jason have more to share.  I simply wish they offered more of their knowledge in the finished product.

JOKER: FOLIE à DEUX

By Marc S. Sanders

Joker: Folie à Deux is an unnecessary sequel.  A lethargic bore.  That is its one problem, and it infects the merits the film clings to but never gets off the ground.

It amuses me, with a pinch of vitriol, that at the closing credits the picture is said to be based on characters published in DC Comics.  My perspective still stands as it did with Todd Phillips’ first film.  These characters are not consistent with any variation that appears with any superheroes/super villains who occupy the assorted comic books.  It is especially true in this new installment.  Just because the players are named Joker, Harley Quinn and Harvey Dent does not translate to where these folks stemmed from.  Joker: Folie à Deux stands on the shoulders of a hot, pop culture, geek property simply to bank on the residuals.

This sequel picks up two years after the original Joker left off.  Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix, returning to his deserved Oscar winning role) is imprisoned and awaiting trial for the murder of five people including the famed talk show host he shot on live television.  He’s abused both physically and verbally by the prison guards led by actor Brendan Gleeson, who is a better actor than this unoriginal dreck has to offer.  His attorney played by Catherine Keener believes in upholding a defense by reason of insanity.

Arthur normally keeps quiet while endlessly smoking cigarettes (boring stuff). Everyone else talks.  None of this goes nowhere for a very, very long time.  The one positive that enters his life is a fellow inmate named Lee Quinn played by Lady Gaga, another actor worthy of better material.  Lee is being held for setting fire to her parents’ house.  The two develop a quick kinship.

Within his psyche, does the clown image of Arthur’s Joker personality let loose in morose song and dance performances with Lee, also known as Harley.  Uplifting musical montages of classic numbers would normally invoke toe tapping cheerfulness.  Yet, that is not what happens for this disturbed man. Numbers like That’s Entertainment, Get Happy, and What The World Needs Now are given somber and depressing interpretations for these sad sack clowns to sing.  Singer Lady Gaga is not belting out the numbers.  Rather, she puts on a weakened, hoarse inflection to her performance.  Joaquin Phoenix works in tow with his co-star. YOU HAVE LADY GAGA!!!! YOU HAVE JOAQUIN PHOENIX WHO CAN ALSO SING (Walk The Line)!!!!! WHY WON’T YOU LET THEM REALLY, REALLY SING??????

The overall problem with Joker: Folie à Deux is that it remains very stationary.  Director Todd Phillips and Phoenix will set up a performance scene with building intensity of the original score.  You hear the treble of the string instruments build and build.  The camera will zoom on Arthur while signing a book or smoking cigarette as he gets taunted, and you think the animal inside is going to unleash, but then it doesn’t and the moment pancakes flat out.  Nothing means anything in this picture, and it looks like the script is being made up as the film goes along.

About halfway through the movie, the Catherine Keener character is simply dispatched from the film altogether with one line, never to be seen or focused on again. I guess this is supposed to be an impactful moment, but it seems to occur because the screenplay by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips had a bout of writer’s block and decided to “let’s try this!”.  I got to know this person, only to realize she’s pointless.  This is what an edit looks like within a finished product. 

The difference between this film and its predecessor is the Arthur Fleck character actually does not appear in every single scene of the movie this time.  The last film focused on Fleck’s internal struggle with an alternative personality and the cruel world he’s forced to live in.  This film seems to observe Arthur as a subject from the outside.  I believe Joaquin Phoenix has less dialogue this time as we get to hear from his attorney and the prison guards and Lee, and how each of them respectfully perceives Arthur.  So, I credit the film for going in that different direction.  It’s an alternate narrative.  Yet, there’s no advance in Arthur’s plight or story development.  The film just meanders and meanders.  You’d be drunk about ten minutes after the movie begins if you paced yourself by how often a cigarette is lit.  At the very least, Phoenix and Gaga could have exhaled smoke rings for a little fun.  Only Big Tobacco will be this film’s biggest fan.

Look there’s Harley Quinn!  Look there’s Harvey Dent!  He’s the one that becomes Two-Face, right?  Ha!  They said the word Gotham.  Oh, and check it out!  Arthur and Lee are being held at Arkham Prison!  Hold the phone!  Did I hear that witness’ last name is Kane, as in Batman creator Bob Kane? 

So what?

If you are seeking another DC Comics vehicle, look further please.  Joker: Folie à Deux is a possessor of someone else’s intellectual property and the film should surrender it.  Name drops from the universe of Batman does not constitute another variation of the celebrated Clown Prince of Crime.  As good as Joaquin Phoenix’ performance was in the first film (here, in the second film it is nothing special, just the same old same old), his Joker does not belong anywhere in the fraternity house that is shared with the likes of Romero, Nicholson, Ledger and yes even Leto.  Lady Gaga is doing the best she can here.  Beyond the sleepy song and dance numbers, this role is not up there with some of her other memorable performances though.  She is Lee, but she is not Harley Quinn.  No one will remember Lady Gaga for this film.

The original Joker was a box office smash that truly hinged on a very special and impressive performance from Joaquin Phoenix.  It also relied on the Joker label which Hollywood will never have enough of, despite Batman’s impressive vastness of villainous rogues.  That first film garnered a worldwide box office of over a billion dollars.  It stands to reason that Warner Bros would demand a follow-up film for more bucks to stuff under the mattress.  Whatever this new picture earns is not merited on anything but the theft of the brand names it incorporates.  This is a shameless cash grab that surges only to the top of that uncelebrated list. 

I recommend movie goers find a real Gotham City to step into.  Joker: Folie à Deux takes you on an endless detour you can’t find your way out of.

MEGALOPOLIS

By Marc S. Sanders

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is undeniably the director’s most ambitious project of his long career.  Like other films, Coppola put up the entire $120 million to finally make the picture, including selling his well-known vineyard to make it happen.  Every penny he invested is well spent.  Especially seeing it on IMAX, this is an absolutely gorgeous motion picture, like James Cameron’s Avatar films.  I mean…wow do the colors pop and shine.  

However, as beautiful as the visuals are in Coppola’s self-described “Fable” (it literally says that in the title card), it is mostly devoid of substance beyond the paint by numbers debates that cause conflict among these very strange characters.

In New Rome City, an alternative reality to the Big Apple (the Statue of Liberty holds the torch in her left hand), Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is a “designer” who recently invented Megalon, a substance that he believes is the answer to a utopian future.  It’s indestructible and it can be molded to serve practically any purpose.  For example, you don’t even have to walk to where you’re going.  Step on the Megalon puddle and it will move you there.  Not much of a departure from the flat movable floors you find in nationwide airports.  This is one of Megalon’s major innovations, designed to impress me?

Megalon can also be used for healing, and it has the ability of transparency.  It is more durable than wood, steel or concrete.  It’s truly the next greatest wonder of resources.  Frankly, I was more dazzled by the Vibranium found in Wakanda.

As Caesar the artist pushes his agenda for absolute Utopia, the hardened Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is the opposing side of the argument declaring Utopia to be an impossibility.  Caught in between the two figures is Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of Cicero and in love with Caesar.  Gotta have a soap opera element to this piece so the stubborn divide between these two men remains firmly in place.

Just as in typical political rings, the Mayor works to smear Caesar the idealist who is solely focused on his end goal design.

Outside the boundaries of their public quarrel are other overly colorful and garish looking characters such as the banker Hamilton Cressus III (Jon Voight), his wife, the gossip reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Constance Cassius Catalina who is Caesar’s mother (Talia Shire), a lone, crazed revolutionist and nephew to the Mayor called Clodio Pulcher (Shia LeBeouf) and Nush “The Fixer” Berman (Dustin Hoffman).

These names are exhausting.  Coppola’s film is even more tiresome.  The filmmaker truly must believe he is the second comings of both Nostradamus and William Shakespeare.  The ego of this picture could not be more apparent.  The director’s head must be THAT BIG to believe he has the nerve to tell this story of such biblical proportions.

Much of those character names, and the actors who play them, are here for show and tell.  Their value to this piece is nowhere near as prized as anyone living in Harry Potter’s world, though. Megalopolis only takes time to calm itself down when the three principal players have scenes isolated to themselves or when they only occupy the screen together.  Otherwise, this movie serves as vehicles for much of the cast to be adorned with updated and trendy Roman costume wear, from fig leaf crowns to golden armored chest plates.  At times, LeBeouf is so unrecognizable in hair, makeup and clothes you don’t even realize you’re looking at him.  

The performances are all over the place.  I never once believed that whatever Dustin Hoffman was talking about that he knew what he was even saying or representing.  Shia LeBeouf mostly runs with the privilege of getting to say “Fuck Caesar!” while finding motivation only in whatever weird appearance he’s dressed in.  Adam Driver can lead a picture for sure, but here he looks like he showed up for filming with a bewitching overnight hangover.  

This is a film that cannot be ignored for its technical achievements at Oscar time.  For no reason other than aesthetics, Driver and Emmanuel will share a scene while balancing themselves on swinging steel construction beams high above the city. The view is spectacular.  All undeniably eye opening.  You also cannot look away from the costumes or scenic art direction.  The sound mixing in an IMAX theater totally envelops you in this weird world.  It’s a digital film’s dream just like James Cameron banks on.  

Still, maybe none of these efforts will be recognized because frankly much of the visuals, audio and physical construction make zero sense or relevance to the central storyline that Coppola is striving for.  Namely, the possibility for Utopia versus the practicality of simply living through life with the necessity for economics, technology, healthcare, fuel and on and on and on.

Of all films I thought about while watching Megalopolis, my mind went to William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  Shatner had the idea to have the Enterprise crew meet face to face with the almighty God.  Well, if you’re going to deliver God to a movie house, without George Burns or Morgan Freeman in the role, you’re setting yourself up to disappoint at least half or maybe even one hundred percent of your audience.  When you factor in the tremendous assortments of beliefs and religions, I’d argue no two people who believe in God, see the ethereal, omnipotent entity in the same way.  The same goes for Utopia.  How can Francis Ford Coppola be so audacious as to believe audiences will accept Caesar’s vision of a perfect land?  

Reader, he can’t!

My Utopia is different than your Utopia.  This is practically an untouchable subject and Francis Ford Coppola is far from the fabled prophet that the world needs or will draw their attention to.

Still, I remained as open minded as I could with Megalopolis all the way towards the ending that finally arrived.  The Utopia shown on this giant IMAX screen was told by the film’s narrator (Laurence Fishburne, also paying Caesar’s chauffeur) that the world was showered in gold dust.  A far cry from the Bible’s claim of arriving upon a land of milk and honey.  Why should I ever need the nourishment of milk and honey when I can have gold dust?

Think about that for a second.  Gold Dust.  I know.  The narrator is being allegorical.  Still, couldn’t that be interpreted as a little too materialistic for the Utopia we yearn for?  Gold is only a precious metal the same way a diamond is only a precious stone, or the Atari 2600 is now an expired precious commodity among former twelve year old kids in the 1980s.  

I have little shame.  I’m an admitted materialistic kind of guy.  My Mustang and my flat screen TV and my Star Wars collectibles mandate that I am. Yet, none of these possessions have ever delivered me into a paradise of perfection.  The Mustang needs precious fuel to operate.  Try as I might, I can’t collect everything.  My flat screen TV is still on the fritz.  (DAMN YOU BEST BUY GEEK SQUAD!!!)

Coppola contradicts himself with the conclusion of his fantasy opus.  He pans over the extras who occupy this film with big toothy grins of enormous gratitude while the very well dressed and bejeweled surviving characters of his story seem to be shot from an elevated stage above me, the viewer, and all who occupy a brightly lit Times Square located within the heart of New Rome City.  I am meant to look up to these giants!!! 

THIS IS UTOPIA???  

No!  I could never accept this interpretation of grand decadence as the enigmatic paradise we have all envisioned in dreams and discussion and literature.  Shouldn’t Utopia consist of a life where stress is absent, and pain is a foreign unfamiliar word and feeling? I’m not even giving Utopia its fair due.  It’s practically impossible to describe, but I’m at least certain that the rich shades of gold and black glamours within a Times Square shopping district is not the way to go.  Yet, Francis Ford Coppola is suggesting this is all that it is.  A Times Square showered in gold dust.

Frankly, I normally would give much more credit to the man who pioneered the stellar Godfather films along with the bombastic Apocalypse Now and the intimate The Conversation.  He’s never been more short sighted though, than when he finally made his “fable,” Megalopolis.

The greatest flaw and tragedy of Megalopolis is the very broad contradiction that Francis Ford Coppola declares within his fictional, fantasy-like prophecy.  Once the “fable” is all over, I feel like I paid an enormous amount of money for a cult like weekend seminar meant to brainwash me into broadening heights of positivity and awareness, showered in gold dust of course.  

Where’s The High-Level Minister Coppola?  

I’d like my money back because this preach is no more believable than an L Ron Hubbard doctrine.  Battlefield Earth just might be a little more convincing Megalopolis.

REAGAN

By Marc S. Sanders

I read that Reagan completed shooting in 2021 during the height of Covid.  It was not released until three years later because it had trouble finding a distributor.  Everything happens for a reason, because it is more fitting that the cinematic biography of America’s fortieth President be released during an important election year.  I do not believe it matters what political party you lean towards, this telling of Ronald Reagan’s life demonstrates a man of principals with an adoring sense of humor, even when death’s door might be knocking. 

Reagan is one of the best films of 2024.

Dennis Quaid is an early Oscar contender for Best Actor as the title character.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of a Saturday Night Live impression or what Johnny Carson famously did on his show.  Quaid, with the assistance of some flawless makeup, finds Ronald Reagan’s crooked grin that shows a welcoming and open-minded figure, but also makes use of a slight scowl when the President emulated a need for tough policy, particularly with a bullying Soviet Empire and their possession of over thirty-five thousand nuclear missiles against America’s twenty-two thousand.  Like most of this cast, you absolutely believe that Dennis Quaid is Ronald Reagan, in a performance that quickly attracts a likability for the man, laughter when the film calls for it and earned sorrow when the figurehead is facing death or illness.  I cannot say I’m a big admirer of Dennis Quaid’s long career.  None of his films ever stood out to me, until now.

The film directed by Sean McNamara follows a pattern like another celebrated biography, Amadeus.  An outside observer narrates a person’s life to someone else.  This time it is a retired KGB spy named Viktor Petrovich portrayed delicately by Jon Voight.  Viktor claims that in the early 1940s he was assigned to penetrate the ranks of American activities to allow the Russians a leg up during pre-Cold War.  He thought a good route was through Hollywood as there were some connections between that industry and politics.  Viktor zeroed in on the eventual president of the Screen Actors Guild, a young Ronald Reagan, whose espouses of policy against Communist doctrine seemed to be overshadowing his budding acting career.  At the same time, he was frustrating his first wife, actress Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari).  Viktor could never anticipate this man would ever go from movie star to a life mired in divorce and bankruptcy, but then on to Governor of California and eventually a two term President of the United States.

It’s hard to find a way to get a biography off its feet and hit the ground running.  Where do you begin and how do you start the story? Fortunately, McNamara is working with a script by Howard Klausner and Paul Kegnor who find the most unexpected storyteller and Jon Voight is perfect in the role, perhaps a supporting actor nomination should be considered for his Russian interpretation that is utterly convincing.

After the film hops around in time for a bit, beginning with the day of Reagan’s assassination attempt (March 30, 1981) to young actor to early childhood when he was addressed with the nickname “Dutch,” does the story move on a straighter path.  The months, years and decades move in a chronological pattern.  I’m grateful for it because I can easily connect the dots.  

McNamara and Quaid show developments that lead to the next big moments, including time for Ronald to meet Nancy.  Penelope Ann Miller plays the First Lady and I’ve been missing her on the big screen.  She’s also perfectly cast and the picture allows her character to become fully developed so that a solid marriage of affection, love and image seems complete. 

Two stories I had heard before are included in Reagan.  Nancy enters the hospital just after the President has been shot and Ron tells his wife “Nancy, I forgot to duck.”  Years later, ahead of the very important Geneva Convention with Mikhail Gorbachev, Nancy insists that her husband not appear with a winter coat on when he goes to meet with the Soviet Prime Minister.  Ronald will be able to handle the cold air while Mikhail, the Russian, cannot.  It was an image of a strong, defiant leader standing in front of the world. 

In less than two and a half hours so much is covered in Reagan, but like any biography it cannot cover everything.  That is okay here.  A lot of details are explored and you do not need to be familiar with the history that was made during this man’s life.  Sean McNamara’s film never makes it overly complex.  News articles flash in front of you depicting some challenges that John F Kennedy faced which compounded on what Reagan would contend with nearly twenty years later.  Much of it has to be blink and miss it moments to allow other details and events to be presented.  You get an idea, but you do not need to reference an encyclopedia to understand the film. 

Reagan is primarily a favorable depiction of the famous President.  He’s almost always faced in a positive light.  I’d argue it is fair actually.  In his second election, he beat Walter Mondale by a landslide of forty-nine states to Mondale’s one.   Ronald Reagan remains a celebrated statesman among both sides of the aisle.  He was a bi-partisan man.  Room is allowed for Ron to have a friendship with the Democratic Speaker Of The House Tip O’Neill (Dan Lauria) despite their disagreements in ideals. 

I try to avoid getting too passionate and political as I write this article, and I know it is just a movie, but Reagan serves as a reminder when a political system was not hinged on the extremism that is demonstrated today.  The politicians did not seem to be running for themselves ahead of the party they supposedly represented on a ballot.  My family and I leaned Republican during the time of Ronald Reagan and Bush after him.  My ideals have had no choice but to change however, because as Reagan demonstrates, the Republican party of today is not what it stood for thirty and forty years ago. 

This film glosses over Ronald Reagan’s faults and shortcomings, particularly the scrutiny that came with the Iran-Contra Hearings and his possible negotiation with terrorists to rescue hostages.  However, while Reagan may have contradicted his line in the sand of no negotiations with terrorists, his intent steadfastly never remained with a personal self-interest.  Whatever he opted to do, he acted on behalf of the greater good of the nation he was elected to oversee.  That mentality is not easy to find today.  Presently, ego and self-entitlement drive many of the candidates to run for office, and at least I believe that is a very unhealthy mantra. 

Sean McNamara’s film is a sensational biography with a superb cast.  Many faces are familiar and only appear for minutes on screen to portray important members of Reagan’s cabinet or other political leaders.  Time of course is given to Gorbachev (Olek Krupa) as well as the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher (Lesley Anne-Down).  There’s also George Schultz (Xander Berkeley) and a California hippie named Dana (Derek Richardson in a scene stealing performance) who apparently was Reagan’s go to speech writer and created the line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!!!” Never heard of Dana, and he seems like a far cry from who would exist significantly within the President’s career.  However, McNamara and the writers allow for some entertainment in the picture.

You see jars of Reagan’s jellybeans on tables everywhere and you cannot help but grin.  A door-to-door campaign for Ron and Nancy has a hilarious outcome with a housewife.  As President, Ron is tasked with feeding a goldfish belonging to the daughter of the Swedish Prime Minister.  The Secret Service even has the challenge of finding an agent to ride horseback alongside the President. These are issues that people face and live with, and the attention that McNamara lends to Ronald Reagan shape the kind of person he was.

The most memorable sequence is circumstantial when it is quickly depicted how three Russian Prime Ministers in a row suddenly die ahead of Gorbachev taking the spot.  Jon Voight is especially funny here amid his subtle expressions.  McNamara is working in the same mindset that Robert Zemeckis did with Forrest Gump’s fictional history.  Ronald Reagan even has a zinger of a line in response to this series of unexpected deaths.  Trust me.  If you watch this film with a crowd, you’ll be laughing among the masses.  It’s so unbelievable that it could only be true.

It makes no difference where you stand politically to appreciate Reagan.  It’s another biography to take advantage of and quickly gather a lesson in history.  The film is favorable and not overly judgmental of the figure it depicts.  That’s okay. 

The United States of America and its leaders were never entirely great.  No President ever satisfied an entire nation of people.  Reagan was not favored among the young adults of his time in an MTV age faced with the adversity of an unfamiliar AIDS crisis.  He faced challenges from his opposing party and he could have been the President that led the world into a World War Three of nuclear destruction.  All of these considerations are touched upon in a two- and half-hour movie and any world leader must be scrutinized in the same way they can be celebrated.  Yet, for a movie, this is about all we can ask for.  If you want to dive deeper, then I encourage you to do your research, find a podium or a college class or forum and declare your passions. Use a website like I do.  You absolutely have that right.  A movie does not have that luxury of time to go that far into the entirety of a man’s near ninety years on Earth.

I reiterate just how accomplished Reagan is.  Sean McNamara is a director to lookout for.  If he does not receive award recognition for this picture, and frankly I doubt he will (though I want to be wrong), his time will come.  This is a guy who only recently was directing silly Nickelodeon and Disney TV shows.  Yet, this director has a great vision for film assembly and a telling insight.  Ahead of the movie, I saw a preview for a Holocaust picture that he recently completed called Bau: Artist Of War. Because of McNamara’s work here, that film is on my radar. 

The cast of Reagan is also outstanding, worthy of Oscar nominations for Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight and Penelope Ann Miller.  As well, a host of character actors really embrace their short time on screen such as Dan Lauria, Lesley-Anne Down and Xander Berkeley (always a celebrated character actor), plus this bearded hippie guy Derek Richardson.  At the very least, the SAG awards should recognize this cast with a nomination for Best Ensemble.

Reagan is a very important film to see regardless of whatever generation you stem from.  At the very least, no one can argue that Ronald Reagen lived his life touting his own name and his own special interests.  Like the greatest of Presidents, he willingly served, only to serve the best interests of a country.  Watch the film that explores the life of one of American history’s greatest servants. 

For our country’s own future and prosperity, Ronald Reagan needs to be remembered.

WHITE MEN CAN’T JUMP (1992)

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m not enamored so much by sports unless they are dramatized effectively in the movies.  If I can see Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes making magnificent trick shots with a basketball in White Men Can’t Jump, my attention will be had.  There’s lot of street corner basketball depicted in Ron Shelton’s film and for the most part it is sensational and quite funny when partnered with the on court ribbing that guys toss at one another.  This film arrived with the oncoming trend of “Your momma is so…” insults, which still bring out the sophomoric glee in me.

Fortunately, White Men Can’t Jump doesn’t just rely on the basketball antics. There’s a good set up here and some well-drawn characters.  It’s one flaw may be that I think the film overstays its welcome.  Just when you think the picture is over and every loose end is tied, a new development occurs.  That’s because every sports movie demands a final championship game.  Who made up that stupid rule?

Billy Hoyle (Harrelson) makes quick cash on the court by being the fish out of water on Venice Beach.  He’s the pasty white kid with the dorky rainbow-colored cap that any urban black athlete will happily challenge for a game of one on one or two on two.  That’s the trick to his con because he’s a magnificent player actually, and regular player and loudmouth Sidney Deane (Snipes) sees an opportunity for them to partner up and clean up.  Like most competitive sports, you gotta taunt your opponent and when they have gone overboard, you lay on your conceit and declare that you can beat them any day with any guy they choose to partner them up with, such as the blond, white guy sitting on the bench doing morning stretches. 

They each have their own motivations.  Billy is up to his neck in debt to some bookies who he wouldn’t throw a game for. They are ready to collect or shoot him in the head, or both.  His girlfriend Gloria (Rosie Perez in a standout performance) aspires to land a spot on Jeopardy!. Sidney lives with his wife Rhonda (Tyra Ferrell) and baby in the criminal area of Watts.  She’s pressuring him to get them out of the slums and buy a house in a nice neighborhood. 

At first, the cons work for the pair, but the question is can Billy and Sidney trust one another.  Will they scam each other while trying to work together?

Ron Shelton’s script works because it turns in various directions when you do not expect it.  These are unusual characters. Lovable, but not all that they seem either and they are built with flaws that will undo them while they try to make a further leap ahead.  Billy is a smart kid on the court but he’s not smart with money like Gloria.  Sidney is smart at putting up the façade of a dumb loudmouth on the court but that’s his M.O. for being a responsible family man.  Gloria seems like a zany dingbat on the surface but she may be the smartest character of them all.  It’s definately not because she has memorized every kind of food that begins with the letter Q for the game show.  She has true instincts and knows to see through the B.S. of people that her boyfriend Billy can’t. 

White Men Can’t Jump is a both a con movie and a sports movie, but it’s not the greatest of each of those categories.  Still, it’s very, very entertaining thanks to Harrelson, Snipes and Perez working in top form. Wesley Snipes is doing the fast-talking wise ass routine that Eddie Murphy built his career on.  You don’t see this kind of guy in every Wesley Snipes movie though, like you do in Murphy’s films.  That’s what impresses me with Wesley Snipes.  He’s not known to be an Eddie Murphy or a Chris Rock.  He’s an actor, not a comedian, and yet he’d convince me otherwise if this was the only performance I ever saw.  

Other than his obvious role in Cheers, Harrelson normally portrays smarter guys.  Billy is smart, but he lacks instinct and not just with money but with how he considers Gloria.  The best thing Ron Shelton could have done after perfectly casting this trio was to give these characters heart followed by the flaws that weigh them down.  All that maintains what could have been a one note and flat story.

However, the film runs a little longer than I cared for.  While basketball is at the forefront of the script, I believed the film was concluding when I saw the two guys had finally grown up and learned.  Only then, a new development occurs for Sidney and his family. Suddenly, it’s up to the two guys to get back together for one more game.  I didn’t need that one more game.  I had my fill and that final tournament is shot in slow motion – literally every shot the guys make, and I’m starting to lose my patience.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m impressed.  Harrelson and Snipes are not stunt doubled.  That’s them doing the doing the shots and accomplishing enormous efforts of agility to wow the audience.  They’re great, but by this point, I had seen enough basketball to deliver the message and I found the tacked-on twenty-minute epilogue mostly unnecessary. 

Granted some may argue that something occurs in that last game to justify the literal title of the movie.  I know what you’re talking about.  Yet, that could have been covered a lot more efficiently, I believe.  Less would have been more in this situation.

White Men Can’t Jump is great comedic entertainment, full of improvised dialogue and characters that are easy to like while keeping up a skeptical guard on them.  That’s good.  It states that Shelton’s characters are complex and that holds my interest.  Even the extras are ones to appreciate in their sweaty t-shirts while delivering urban vernacular to harass one another.  It’s a great culture to get a peek into.  I love the one guy who is a sore loser and whips out his knife, but then just as his girl calms him down, he says forget the knife.  He’s gonna get his gun. I challenge anyone not to laugh as all the other guys on the playground make a mad dash escape in a hundred different directions.  It would likely go down this way.  We hear of violent stabbings and shootings all the time. In this movie however, Ron Shelton and his cast find the natural humor of this opposing conflict.

I guess that’s the best compliment I can give the writer/director.  He didn’t sensationalize his characters.  Ron Shelton has a way of just letting his creatures of the court play.  Into—the—basket it goes. 

SWISH!!!!  It works.

THE HOT ROCK

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m a sucker for a good caper.  Capers play like strategy games.  An object (Hitchcock called them MacGuffins) needs to be acquired.  It doesn’t matter so much what the object is.  The importance falls within the pursuit. 

William Goldman wrote The Hot Rock, adapted from a novel by Donald E Westlake who penned a series of books focusing on the ex-convict John Dortmunder and his further adventures.  In the film, he’s played by Robert Redford. 

On the day that John is released from a New York state prison he’s picked up by his inept brother-in-law Kelp (George Seagel) who escorts him to Central Park.  Kelp wants John to be the fourth member of a team and steal a priceless diamond.  A man by the name of Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) sits about five feet away from them on a park bench.  Amusa breaks it down for the men, but they get interrupted by an elderly woman who sits between them to feed the pigeons.  This is what you can expect from The Hot Rock, a film structured under one pesky inconvenience after another.

This rock is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum, on loan by an African country who has no business having possession of the valuable.  The stone belongs with Amusa’s country and he’s ready to pay Kelp and his crew $25,000 each to pull of the heist.  He’ll also, reluctantly, front some funding monies ahead of the theft for preparations. 

Like in all of these kinds of movies, John is ready to do one last job.  Then he’s out for good.  However, one last job turns into four last jobs.  Without spoiling too much, the rock gets relocated from one place to another.  So, a late-night heist at the museum turns into a break in a prison, and then it’s somewhere else and somewhere else after that.

As Hitchcock describes, you never care about the MacGuffin.  For movie purposes, you see it on display in its majestic glory, encased in a glass box right in the center of the museum, but so what.  The question is to uncover how the guys are going to get it out of there.  The Hot Rock doesn’t work nice and neatly like Ocean’s 11 or The Score.  In those movies, there are things that don’t go according to plan.  In The Hot Rock, nothing goes the way it should. Honestly though, it should be funnier than it really is. 

I recall there was a movie called Quick Change with Bill Murray doing his best to get out of New York City following a bank robbery.  It was comedic all the way through and maybe that’s because it was Bill Murray of Caddyshack and Ghostbusters fame, not to mention Saturday Night Live.  Robert Redford is the rugged actor of the time in 1972, though.  Not a comic and he plays Dortmunder like a serious kind of thief, even with his famous blond locks and toothy grin.  George Segal along with Ron Leibman and Paul Sand are bumbling chatter mouths, but are they funny?  Segal’s character steals a car to pick up John and we see him trying to figure out how to drive the dang thing, nearly running over Redford.  I never believed he did not know how to not drive the car. 

BY THE WAY: Ever notice in movies that they’ll show someone does not know how to drive a car by having them accidentally turn on the windshield wipers?  That’s all that is done.  That and having the car drive in S shape patterns as if the steering wheel suddenly took on a life of its own.  Then the scene comes to a halt with a startling slam on the brakes.  Never fails.  This happens over and over again in the movies.

Zero Mostel appears as the father/attorney for Paul Sand’s character.  It’s Zero Mostel, but Goldman’s script doesn’t give him much material to play with.  It’s not a silly caper flick because suddenly Zero Mostel of The Producers makes an appearance.  Look at Ocean’s 11, and see what Carl Reiner is doing.  There’s an organic affection for Reiner’s character that Mostel never achieves here. 

Peter Yates directed The Hot Rock a couple of years after the car chase thriller, Bullitt with Steve McQueen.  He impressed audiences with what two cars pursuing one another across the hilly streets of San Francisco could accomplish.  In this film from the early 1970s, Yates attempts to dazzle the audience with a few more speeding car stunts but they just don’t cut the corners.  Everything on screen looks like Yates and his crew are trying too hard.  There’s a helicopter sequence and much time is devoted to seeing how the chopper flies low over the Hudson River and then soars above the Twin Towers, still under construction at the time.  Look everyone!  Ron Leibman is flying a helicopter and Robert Redford and the rest look woozy about it all.  Thing is that James Bond movies were already doing this kind of schtick (with special effects) year after year by this time.  Peter Yates just doesn’t offer up anything that looks like a new sensation.

I’m actually surprised The Hot Rock has not been remade like Ocean’s 11 or The Italian Job.  In this film, the tools and skills are left to the guys and their cons. There’s no computer overrides or laser sensors to assist them.  Today, all of the techno stuff would be there with lots of closeups of fingers tapping away on a keyboard and then data entries appearing on a monitor.  In between, would be the comedy and would you believe of all people, I thought Will Farrell would be the guy to play the straight man and lead the charge.  The comedy of the situations would remain, but the thieves would be nerdy geniuses, each having their unique abilities and quirks. 

The set up is there for a remake.  Who you cast and what is done with it is up to the filmmakers. 

TEACHERS

By Marc S. Sanders

I grew up watching the television show M*A*S*H with my mother and brother.  Don’t hate me but I have yet to see the Robert Altman film.  Perhaps that is because I was afraid of major disappointment.  The formula for many of the episodes and seasons of the TV show work so well at blending tidbits of comedy within a setting that is nothing else but bloody turmoil.   For those characters to survive required all of them to laugh and lampoon into the face of an uncontrollable situation where their lives could end at any time while they live in misery.

These thoughts came back to me as I watched an unsung and forgotten film from 1984, Teachers directed by Arthur Hiller.  John F Kennedy High School is only going in one direction which is very far south beyond the gates of hell.  A gym teacher is getting students pregnant, a kid shows up at the principal’s office with a stab wound in the arm, and the school psychologist has just lost her marbles because the old fart tenured teacher hogs the ditto copy machine (Remember those?  You could get high off the ink on the paper.).  A mental patient has managed to worm his way into a comfortably welcome substitute teacher position.  The driver’s ed car has been stolen and one student terrorizes another teacher in an assortment of ways beginning with biting and then moving on to theft.

Alex Jurel (Nick Nolte) is the admired social studies teacher who has lost his passion for the profession.  It’s not so much that the student body or the teaching staff is out of control.  The whole administration has taken to a new mentality of profit over proficiency.  The merits that come with an education are all but dismissed.  The assistant principal (Judd Hirsch) used to care as well.  Now, his job is to maintain a façade for the school and churn out one student body after another year after year.  The principal only knows to answer any questions with a genuine “I don’t know.” reply.  Bottom line is no student should ever be flunked from John F Kennedy High School.  If they can read enough, then it’s enough to get the diploma.

A former student of the school is Lisa Hammond (JoBeth Williams), now an attorney and representing a graduated student who is suing the school claiming he is an illiterate who cannot find a job or begin a future due to the negligence of the school. Lisa is a crusader.  She’s not here for the money to be earned from the case.  She’s here to make a change and her lynchpin deposition will come from Alex who will testify about the truth that’s occurring. Hopefully, he will also recruit other teachers in tow to back up the claim.  Naturally, as his former student with the nice ass, Lisa becomes involved with Alex on the side.  Like most movies, this one also does not question the conflict-of-interest circumstance.  We just have to roll with it.

I really take to the dilemma of the school and I understand both sides of the argument.  Now, more than ever, over forty years after the release of this film, I think our educational system is in dire straights with minimal funding, lack of support and respect for a teaching staff, parents who exonerate themselves of being responsible for their children’s lack of progress and behavior, and then of course there is the very real epidemic of school shootings and on campus violence. 

However, school is a necessary element to our society and its where all of us begin.  To uphold a reputation will involve both losses and wins.  Not every student will make it.  Not every student will miss out either.  As Judd Hirsch’s character insists, half of these students will not graduate with a proper education but half of them will.

Okay.  Enough arguing!  How about Arthur Hiller’s movie? Teachers has much to stand on and I wish it had garnered more attention.  It’s undoubtedly worthy of it. 

Like M*A*S*H, there’s organic comedy that comes from the film and a variety of teachers and students appear like they have been cut from familiar cloths.  Most of the comedy works especially well.  I love the ongoing joke of the one teacher who sits at the back reading his paper and dozing off, with the students facing away from him while they complete an assignment during the period.  The punchline to this joke may be predictable, but I’m still allowed to laugh as I watch it play out.  It’s funny. 

Richard Mulligan (Empty Nest) plays a mental patient that ironically engages his students when he conducts his classes dressed as famous historical figures like Lincoln and Custer.  Watch him reenact George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware with his students “rowing” the boat.  It’s an image I will not forget.  Nor will I forget his final scene in the picture as he encounters Nolte’s character in the hallway.

Where the film falls short is in the one student that is primarily focused on, played by Ralph Macchio, shortly after coming off his first Karate Kid movie.  Just like in The Outsiders, which I recently wrote about, Macchio relies on his dark complexion, stylish black hair, blue jeans and that popped up jacket collar again.  There’s also that strut he always has.  Forgive me for beating up on the kid, but too often I see Macchio donning the same image – that cool kid pose needed for the cover of Teen Beat Magazine.  Nick Nolte shares a lot of scenes with the actor playing the troubled kid with a sixth grade reading level.  However, Nolte is the only one working most of the time.  Another actor in this role would have served better.  It’s a necessary role as it attempts to awaken Nolte’s teacher character to try saving another kid before he gets lost.  Back then, maybe Emilio Estevez or Lou Diamond Phillips would have been more suitable.  Instead, we get Ralph Macchio being Ralph Macchio all over again.

Teachers is a comedy drama that mostly works.  It’s easy to get caught up in the comedy and, sadly, the absurd truth of what goes on in a metropolitan public school system back in the 1980s.  There’s also very dramatic and heavy elements to the film that stay with you.  Before school shootings no longer became shocking (a sad and current truth), Teachers explored the trauma of school bullying and the response the comes with that issue.

Arthur Hiller’s film did not invent the wheel on troubled times within school.  Heck, even The Sweat Hogs from Welcome Back, Kotter were troublemakers too.  Not to mention there are other school dramas to come before, like Blackboard Jungle.  However, Teachers is an very engaging film. I was completely absorbed as soon as the movie began, first in its comedy, and then later in its drama.  A near final scene of the film is eye opening and much like Steel Magnolias will leave you laughing and crying all at the same time.  That happens because you quickly begin to care for most of these characters and the turbulent times they live through as a teacher making next to no money while working under unfair and unreasonable scrutiny.

I think Nick Nolte is delivering one of the best performances of his career.  He has great chemistry with JoBeth Williams, who is good in her role.  The romantic storyline does not go overboard.  It does not get schmaltzy.  It is just enough, and it’s wise to include dialogue where they debate one another from two different sides of a coin.

Teachers also works as a great look back piece.  A lot of well-known, eventual recognizable actors round out this cast including Morgan Freeman, Crispin Glover, Laura Dern, Allen Garfield, and Lee Grant. Anytime Nolte is on screen, he only enhances the scenes he shares one on one respectively with most of these actors.  The moments between him and Macchio only work because of Nick Nolte.  Call Nolte the Alan Alda/Hawkeye Pierce of this picture. 

Teachers might look tame by the turmoil we see today in schools across the country but none of what is seen is untrue or exaggerated either.  Well, maybe except for the mental patient who arguably turns out to be the most engaging and influential instructor of them all.  That’s funny stuff, but you gotta be a little bit crazy to become a teacher nowadays.

A SERIOUS MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s never anything wrong with questioning the Almighty God.  At least that’s what I believe. 

There’s nothing wrong with being faithful to an Almighty God…if you can find comfort and solace in its doctrine.  At least I think that’s what I believe.

The Coen Brothers released A Serious Man in 2009 to solve a great mystery that frankly we should all know can never be solved.

In 1967, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a Jewish family man living in small town Minnesota.  He never steps out of line with his principles or morals.  He attends synagogue regularly.  He’s simply a good Jew; a good husband, father, brother-in-law.  Again, he’s a good Jew. 

Yet, he is also plagued with suffering through the results of what everyone around him commits as sin or violations.  His brother-in-law Arthur (Richard Kind) has overstayed his welcome in the house and is now under suspicion of committing illegal gambling in various bars.  His daughter is swiping money to get a nose job.  His son is listening to Jefferson Airplane in Hebrew school while getting ready to become a Bar Mitzvah.

Most prominently speaking, his best friend Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed) is gently counseling Larry through an unwelcome crisis at home.  Sy is encouraging Larry to agree to a “Get.”  Sy is ready to begin a relationship with Larry’s bitter wife Judith (Sari Lennick), and as they move towards divorce, Sy will need Larry to obtain a “Get” from the Rabbi. The Coens are admirably nervy in their writing because Sy addresses Larry like a child who he’s trying to get to swallow a bottle of castor oil so that he can finally make after two days of constipation.  That’s truly what it feels like.

I never read the book of Job, but I understand that A Serious Man was metaphorically inspired by its contents.  The question residing in both contexts is simply why must all of these unfortunate circumstances occur in Larry’s life? 

For Larry, it is best to get definitive answers.  After all, Larry is a physics teacher which is built on solid formulaic equations and never compromised because it’s a subject of exact science.  His giant blackboard bears the argument of solid answers from top to bottom with endless scribbles, diagrams and numbers.  It looks like incomprehensible gibberish, but at the end of it all, there’s a definite answer.  The proofs do not lie or compromise.

A South Korean student cannot comprehend that wrong answers on a physics test merit a failing grade.  It’s unfathomable because without passing Larry’s physics course, the student cannot obtain a mathematics scholarship.  Larry knows that is true, because how can you study physics without math? The two subjects hinge upon one another.  Larry sees no other way than to fail the student.  He won’t budge on that.  He sticks to his code of ethics.  He’s right all the way. Still, he’s accused of being prejudiced and then an envelope of bribe money is discovered on his desk.  It won’t sway him, but he can’t return it back to the student, if he can’t find him.  So, here’s another thing to weigh on him.

Larry is a healthy middle-aged father and husband, a devout Jew and somehow he’s the one suffering the most from the misgivings of everyone else.  Poor Larry even has to move with nebbishy Arthur into a local hotel.  Sy assures him it’s a lovely place with a pool (the pool is drained empty by the way).  His chance at tenure is also at risk.  There’s the divorce filing from his wife which causes him to hire an expensive attorney (Adam Arkin).  All this “tsouris!”  It’s too much to carry at once.

Midway through A Serious Man, the Coens opt to have their protagonist visit three Rabbis for the exact answers that will tell of his unfortunate circumstances.  The three visits do not so much lend to the story of Larry’s plight as they prove a point.  As satisfying as it might be for a physics teacher to arrive at the exact answer on the right side of an equal sign, one Rabbinical student (Simon Helberg from The Big Band Theory)- filling in for THE RABBI – will tell you to seek the answers you are looking for in an empty parking lot just outside the window.  ?????????

The second Rabbi played by favorite character actor George Wyner (Hill Street Blues, The Devil’s Advocate, Spaceballs) will tell a tall tale of a dentist and his goyish patient that leaves me wanting to know the end all be all.  What’s concluded may leave you shouting OY VEY!!!!

The third Rabbi is the mysterious Rabbi Marshack (Alan Mendall).  He is the elder, maybe the grand prophet, who is concealed in a private office with his long white beard and black hat, sitting behind his desk at the faaaaaarrrrr end of the room.  Will he finally have the answers to Larry’s questions?

This is reminiscent of that animated commercial that asks how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.  Did Mr. Owl actually have the answers the little boy was looking for?

A Yiddish told prologue that is seemingly unconnected to Larry’s story opens the film and it tells the story of a dybbuk knocking on a couple’s door in the “mitt en drinen” of winter.  The wife sees the curse of this dybbuk – the soul of a dead man meant to haunt them.  The husband does not.  It’s only after you watch A Serious Man from beginning to end that you’ll likely make the connection of a curse that future generations will never be able to escape now that the dybbuk arrived many years prior. Perhaps that is the answer that no Rabbi could clearly define for Larry.  It’s more apt to be my theory but it’s still not entirely clear.  Then again, perhaps it’s just the tale to resort to when a congregant like Larry Gopnik asks his clergymen why his life is in such turmoil.

I adore this film and it might be on a very personal level that others may not appreciate unless they have had an upbringing like mine.  Practically every single character in A Serious Man, all played by relatively unknown actors, look completely familiar to me. 

From Larry’s obnoxious kids (“I’m studying Torah asshole” with a defined middle finger raised), to his bitter wife that I routinely see a caricature of in Shull. Sy Abelman talks like my father-in-law (a great man, who I love by the way) does at Passover Seders, to his co-workers and even Larry himself.  Wearing nerdy black rimmed glasses, he hunches down to scribble on the blackboard with his fat butt sticking out just like my Hebrew teacher Mr. Katz did in my Yeshiva.  It’s all uncannily familiar and easily recognizable. 

There’s a very striking authenticity to A Serious Man that I’d be remiss in not complimenting.  Many may not see it.  You’d have to a be a northern practicing Jew or at least personally experienced with this secular environment to understand. That being said, seek out this unsung Coen Brothers piece and allow your patience to guide you through its various oddities.  It’s Joel & Ethan Coen.  So, you know it’s going to be odd. I expect that it’ll leave you thinking, though.

These actors that you may recognize, but cannot pinpoint what else you’ve seen them in, were meant for these roles. Only a certain kind of Jewish actor could play these people.

For example, no one else but Fyvush Finkle could play a Dybbuk arriving on a doorstep in the mitt en drinen of snowy winter!