Category: Marc’s Reviews

TRAIN DREAMS

By Marc S. Sanders

Clint Bentley directs a script he co-wrote with Greg Kwedar, based on Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams.  It’s a gorgeous looking picture that covers an early 20th century logger and railroad worker within the dense woods of Washington state.

Joel Edgerton is Robert Grenier, a bearded logger with an unknown background. The soothing voiceover narration from Will Patton tells us that Robert never knew his parents and is unsure of his exact age.  

Unexpectedly, he quickly falls in love with Gladys (Felicity Jones).  They envision an idyllic life together in a log cabin next to a peaceful lakeside.  They have a daughter and could not be happier.  Yet, during logging season, Robert must leave his family behind to cut down trees for industry supply of a quickly evolving western civilization.  He takes other jobs laying down railroad tracks that lend to the conveniences of transportation and shipping (before the reliance of air travel), including the logs he cuts down. His purpose is circular to a thriving country.

His committed work is not always pleasant.  As a means of revenge, a friend is gunned down right in front of him.  The casualness of the act is the most shocking element of this moment.  Still, there is no time to grieve.  

When he’s working on the railroad, he bears witness to the cruel treatment that others deliver to a Chinese immigrant.  He can not stand up to these behaviors.  He has money that needs to be earned.  So the work takes precedence.

A mentor and demolition expert (William H Macy) meets an unfortunate fate, as well.

Tragedy personally befalls Robert upon his return home following a job. Now, the man is left to resort to isolation where little human interaction exists among the wooded areas.

It’s hard to take your eyes off Train Dreams, now playing on Netflix, and one of ten films Oscar nominated for Best Picture.  The screenplay speaks like a Robert Frost poem.  That’s a compliment and a shortcoming for me.  Will Patton says so much when there’s not much to be said.  Rather, Bentley’s film works visually as you watch a concentrated Edgerton focus on his character’s hallucinations and especially the loneliness he endures in the second part of the film.  

Regrettably, this movie is also a little boring.  Sometimes it feels like I’m watching one of those short nature films you look at while in a museum that a documentarian provided.  When I’m a tourist, a ten minute film like this can show the trees getting chopped as they make their slow tumble to ground.  Frankly, when it’s too hot outside is when I go into these theaters to get some air conditioning and a quick snooze.  Train Dreams teeters on that experience.  

There’s no denying how solid the film is considering the subject matter.  Technically it’s very impressive with expansive forest fires and artificial trees masked as tall pines to demonstrate the sawing of hundreds year old barks.  When the camera is pointing up through the green leafed branches into the wide blue expanse of sky, you want to freeze frame and perhaps paint a scenic skyline.  Adolpho Voleso’s cinematography is rich in color.  Definitely worthy of recognition.

I found it interesting how much I took Robert’s perspective for granted.  He uses a floppy aluminum saw that is pulled and pushed to cut through the wood.  As he gets older, a fellow woodsman relies on an battery powered chainsaw, thus making Robert’s skills more obsolete.  

Later, he meets a woman (Kerry Condon) who has been recruited to oversee the treatment of the forests from a high-rise lookout post; she just might the coming of the forest rangers.  Robert only knew of trees from what was way over his head.  Now he can look down upon them.  The ending goes even further and demonstrates how Robert’s self-absorbed isolation held him back from keeping up with a developing age of technology like automobiles and airplanes, far beyond the trains that had been the faster way to travel along the tracks that he built.

Train Dreams is an interesting issue of a National Geographic that I’d never have picked up had the Oscars not given it some recognition.  Now that I’ve seen it, it’ll go back on top of the tall stacks of magazines in my grandmother’s basement.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

By Marc S. Sanders

Blanche Dubois emerges from the steam of a New Orleans bus depot.  She looks worn and lost, but she once felt confidence in the glamour she evoked in and out of her family’s Mississippi estate called Belle Reve.   Now, with the aid of a chivalrous Navy shipman, she’ll board A Streetcar Named Desire to visit her sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski.  The estate is no longer owned by the Dubois family, and Blanche has given up being a teacher.  Blanche will be staying in the French Quarter ground floor apartment for quite some time, though no one knows how long.  Her life is stuffed in a large trunk with some fashionable suitcases in tow, and an infinite variety of colorful storytelling.

Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning play was a smash on Broadway and though it is checkered with, at the time, questionable topics ranging from mental illness to domestic abuse and rape, it was a smash hit on Broadway.  Other than Jessica Tandy, the majority of the play’s cast was hired for Elia Kazan’s film adaptation.  Marlon Brando, not yet a box office star, is the brutish and sexually appealing Stanley Kowalski, arguably one of his top five best performances.  Kim Hunter presumed her role as Stella, the meek wife against Stanley’s hulking build.  Karl Malden played Harold “Mitch” Mitchell.  Hunter and Malden won Oscars for their performances.

Vivien Leigh was the top billed actor, replacing Tandy, in the Oscar winning role of Blanche.  Leigh is working very hard throughout the course of the picture with long winded rants about what became of her teaching career and Belle Reve, along with her tales of conquests with all sorts of men.  At times she reaches into her trunk for the guise of a southern genteel lady with enormous amounts of experience behind her.  

Stella is concerned with her older sister’s behavior, but tolerant if it brings her comfort.  It’s clear that Blanche is not well.  

As he tries to uphold his drunken control over Stella while hosting Mitch and the guys for nightly poker games, Stanley is only agitated by Blanche’s intrusion.  He sees through all of his sister in law’s stories and is certain, as a husband to Stella, he has earned the right and proper possession of whatever monies and assets were collected from the ownership transfer of Belle Reve.

As the rundown two-bedroom Kowalski apartment is intentionally small and cramped, Kazan’s film often operates like a stage play.  There are some editing tricks like weaving echoed voices and triggering sounds to stimulate Blanche’s paranoia, along with a sleepy soundtrack to deliver a quiet, sticky, muggy jazz ambience, normally associated with the Square.  Even in the black and white photography of the film, you don’t have to try looking for the perspiration on Stanley and Mitch’s shirts and brows.  The heat also works towards Blanche’s moments of delusion.  

Early on, I had problems with Vivien Leigh’s portrayal.  She’s talking a mile a minute and had I not read Williams’ original play ahead of time I’d be listening to her with no idea of what she’s talking about.  I realize that’s the point, however.  When Blanche arrives, Stella is as confused because her sister is going off in so many fast-talking directions all at once.  Kim Hunter’s Stella is trying to keep up but fails to stay with Blanche.

Even though, his portrayal has been satirized too often (“STELLA!!!!”), Marlon Brando gives one his best performances.  He’s a giant on screen with a stylish, messy, short mousse-soaked hairstyle and t-shirts that adhere to his large torso.  This performance is unforgettable. Kazan’s set up of the apartment has old junk strewn about the place, but Brando can easily find a prop to vent his frustration or deliver frightening in-your-face anger and tantrums. As patterned mentality so often demonstrates, Brando is very skillful at turning his animalistic behavior into false regret and whiny need for his wife Stella to embrace his hulking mass and stay with him. As long as Stella comes back and holds him, he can carry on with his abuse and dominance. I never joke about Brando’s famous scene. It’s raw and natural. For Stella’s sake, it’s also terribly offensive and inappropriate. Yet, that’s Stanley. Marlon Brando knew that too well.

Elia Kazan had artistic challenges with this film.  Religious boards were insisting Warner Bros remove the film from distribution.  The studio’s compromise was to edit the film to appeal to organizations and general audiences. To his dismay, Kazan was unable to deliver the Final Cut as he envisioned.  At last, however, the film company recanted that order and in the late 1980s. Kazan’s original picture was released as intended.  

So interesting to watch Tennessee Williams’ story unfold for everyone to see.  As Stanley is a former Marine, I believe Williams was striving to show the never discussed diagnoses of PTSD.  Compared to today’s standards, the violence primarily committed by Brando’s character is nothing alarming and yet it builds tension every time he’s on screen.  To a movie going public, this is unfamiliar territory.  

Kazan deliberately made the set of the apartment smaller as filming persisted. This tactic evoked a cramped and claustrophobic lifestyle for Blanche and Stanley under one roof.  Making it smaller and smaller as the making of the movie went on, showed the troubled characters feel more pressured and inhibited, trapped among each other’s poisons. The characters cannot help but live practically on top of each other.  The tension amplifies with each passing scene until it all comes to a shocking boil.

Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois are a dangerous cocktail of different abnormalities clashing together with a helpless Stella caught in the middle and a shy, introverted Mitch looking in the wrong direction for a healthy dose of companionship.  These characters are very complicated with sudden shifts in mood and behavior.  Often, Kazan will have the characters emerge from dark voids into straight up-close frames.  One moment characters feel like they’ll pet you.  Other times, they look like they’re about to strike. Kazan strategically knows how to use the dark shadows of black and white photography to emote an assortment of personality.  It’s amazing, and something much more overt here than on stage or within the script.  Even when Blanche takes advantage of a young man who arrives on the Kowalski doorstep, we see the animal instincts of the woman about to pounce on innocent, unsuspecting prey.  Since it is often challenging to comprehend Blanche’s actions and rambling dialogue it’s all the more shocking to witness how she takes advantage of the young man when no one else is around.

The palpable discomfort of A Streetcar Named Desire upholds Tennessee Williams’ famous play.  Exploring the film in present day, his work defies changes in culture and mutual treatment because people are much more open and less remorseful about their sins.  Statutory rapes committed by teachers are reported nearly every month.  Alcoholism has never changed since the addiction first occurred long before this was a movie.  Here, the disease serves as a fuel to engines of tempers and weaknesses. 

Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams knew what buttons to push, resulting in an ending that still feels too hard to accept.  During the epilogue of the story, two strangers appear at the Kowalski home.  Who could they be and what are their intentions?  

For 1952, all of the gratuitous natures of the characters seem extreme and disturbing.  Tame compared to any kind of material coming out in 2026, following Presidential administrations where sex is weaponized and psychological research has been researched with viable proof for specific ailments.  Kazan’s film with Williams’ script seems pioneering.  How many other storytellers were going this far with their projects?

A Streetcar Named Desire will always be a classic passed down to future generations.  It’s fair to say that other than the black and white cinematography, very little of the film feels outdated.  Sadly, much of what is shown is authentic to details of domestic violence with smashed dishes, broken radios and torn t-shirts.

Tennessee Williams never explores why these people are this way.  Instead, he demonstrated that people are this way, and outside stimulants will only exacerbate personal challenges.  

A vehicle, such as a city streetcar trolley, of any form or embodiment will deliver a fly in an ointment.  People have all kinds of ways to respond thereafter, and some will never be able to find that vehicle to drive them back towards a peaceful salvation.  That is the sadness of A Streetcar Named Desire.

SONG SUNG BLUE

By Marc S. Sanders

Films that are based on true stories will always take theatrical liberties with the storytelling.  Look at Oliver Stone’s JFK.  Sometimes, if it is so skewed you absolutely should not approve of it.  Consider Bowling For Columbine which starts out with an offensive, bold-faced lie to draw you in.  

On other occasions, the alterations made justifiably serve the picture to obtain an emotional reach from the audience.  Craig Brewer wrote and directed Song Sung Blue, which he calls an incredible true story.  The set ups seem too perfect to convince me some of these events actually happened.  However, the major highlights ring absolutely authentic and with an entertaining pair like Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson leading the picture, this is a magnificent experience.  The audience I saw it with on Christmas Day was so wrapped in what was put on screen, with organic comedy, tragic setbacks and toe tapping harmonized energy from the two actors doing outstanding “impressionism” of Grammy winning singer Neil Diamond.  

Mike and Claire Sardina (Jackman and Hudson) meet while working as tribute performers at a local fair.  She’s doing Patsy Cline.  He’s refusing to be Don Ho.  They quickly fall in love, like literally on the next night after they meet, and brainstorm with his guitar and her piano how they can become a musical act on their own.  Mike wants to emulate someone that lives up to his energy and persona. He declares to an AA group that he’s a “superhero of music.”  He’s Lightning.  She’s Thunder.  Claire thinks Neil Diamond is the perfect facade.  Mike agrees so long as the unfavorable “Suleman” opens their shows, and they resort to other numbers besides “Sweet Caroline.”

Soon they are married while his daughter Angelina (King Princess) befriends her daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson).  Her son Dana (Hudson Henley) takes to video recording their performances.  One happy, blended family.  

Like most musician biographies, Lightning and Thunder get off to a rocky start performing in seedy venues with audiences who would rather they play Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Naturally, a following and a stride eventually build, and the act is somehow opening for a popular grunge band from the 1990s.  I won’t spoil who it is because Mike and Claire never heard of this headliner. This delivers a great gag.

Song Sung Blue is a warm comfortable journey through its first act.  It’s hard not to love anyone occupying this picture, including supporting turns from Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens and an unrecognizable Jim Belushi.  Once you’re settled into the story the dramatic weight of the piece enters, and it becomes heartbreaking for Lightning and Thunder.  Only after this unexpected change is introduced does the need for triumph work as the story’s conflict, and there is a lot to contend with for the couple, and particularly Rachel.

These characters are so likable that you’re apt to feel proud of them and Brewer does good work at showing the struggle.  Kate Hudson, with a Midwest accent, is especially effective.  She goes from offering a welcome personality to being cold, bitter and angry.  I wouldn’t object if she got an Oscar nomination.

Hugh Jackman is a magnificent entertainer.  Unlike his Wolverine films, his real age with wrinkles and grey hair deliver a twenty-year sober alcoholic living with a chronic health issue. However, Mike has an unstoppable drive of positivity through music with a microphone, a strumming guitar, and his flowing hair to compliment his colorful and sparkled stage outfits.  Brewer allows room for Lightning’s weaknesses, both physically and mentally.  

There’s a nice balance of both characters at the top of their game as well as far beneath the bottom rung of the ladder.

Song Sung Blue is very absorbing in the moment.  Only after I walked out did I question some of the set ups and wonder if certain events truly happened as assembled into the final edit.  I’m skeptical if the conclusion for one character truly played out like it did.  It’s just too neatly wrapped up like a Hallmark film or a soap opera episode.  That being said, the manipulations worked on me and the audience.  So, why should it bother us?

A twisted irony also happens though, which I had no choice but to believe.  It’s just simply too outrageous that Craig Brewer would work it into this story if it wasn’t true.  My wife exclaimed “No way!  You’ve got to be kidding me!”  Without knowing anything about the real Mike and Claire or seeing the documentary film this picture is based on, my gut insists this has got to be true and a reason why Song Sung Blue merits a movie presentation featuring two Oscar nominated actors.

When you see Song Sung Blue I urge not to frown on the film if you notice some of the truths are stretched a little.  Instead, absorb the outstanding performances of Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson doing electrifying interpretations of Neil Diamond’s collection of hit songs including “Better In Blue Jeans” and of course “Sweet Caroline.”

Song Sung Blue is marvelous entertainment.

YOUNG GUNS

By Marc S. Sanders

In the late 1980s a novel idea hit the screens.  An MTV interpretation of the Old West with a rock anthem soundtrack of electric guitars and drums. A far separation from Ennio Morricone’s unbeatable spaghetti western approach.  

The film was Young Guns, featuring handsome stars like Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips.  They were each different kind of gunslingers in their own right while delivering stand out personalities.  The film has some problems in editing, and some sequences do not work.  Yet, it remains stylish with impressive set designs, props, costume wear, and an especially appealing array of performances from the whole cast.  

Billy The Kid aka William H Bonney is one of the most notorious outlaws in American history.  Emilio Estevez brilliantly turns the gunslinger into a quick draw joker with an addictive cackle and an adorable smile.  William is taken in by the mentoring John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) who already oversees a collection of orphaned young men.  He’s teaching them to bear responsibility on his farm while they learn proper manners at the dinner table and how to read.

A neighboring industrial enemy, L.G. Murphy (Jack Palance) commissions his men to gun down Tunstall.  Billy and the rest of the gang are then deputized by the local Sheriff to issue warrants for the arrest of the killers.  However, Billy repeatedly exercises his own form of justice by killing one guy after another with his pair of six shooters.  Soon after, the boys are on the run by horseback while creating a whole bunch of mayhem.

I never considered Young Guns to be a perfect film, but I like it a whole heck of a lot.

There are moments that serve no purpose, like when the men get high on peyote, introduced by the Navajo, Chavez Y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips).  It’s not amusing.  It’s not quotable and the scene runs too long as we watch the cast walk and talk while in daze.  Frankly, most movie scenes of just watching people get high are boring.  Often, they go nowhere and I’m not sure how to respond. It’s like I’m the designated driver fiddling with my car keys at a drunken binge fest. This is no different.

As well, there seem to be gaps within the body of the story. I know it is inspired by the Lincoln County War, but it’s never entirely clear why Tunstall and Murphy are at odds with each other.  We just have to accept that the two elderly men of equal proportions are against one another.  Still, Palance versus Stamp is a very inviting conflict to look at. (Supposedly, the real John Tunstall was only in his mid-20s.)

Young Guns has a very cool polish.  These cowboys are downright attractive, sexy like Hollywood movies tend to offer, and I love how they handle each other, their horses and their pistols.  Every time a six shooter whips out of a holster and clicks, the movie becomes more alive.  The guys look well-worn within this environment, close to the Mexican border of the 1870s.  The image is just as effective as Clint Eastwood appears in his various assortment of westerns.  

Billy The Kid, over this film and its sequel, is Emilio Estevez’ best role of his career.  The actor has such a cocky, nervy way about him and his over-the-top laugh is impossible to forget.  A favorite scene in all of movies emerges when Billy toys with a bounty hunter in a saloon.  Estevez delivers much fun before gunning the guy down. I never tire of watching that moment.

Kiefer Sutherland is second in line with a graceful sensitivity as the educated and poetically romantic Doc Scurlock.  You worry about him and his courting affair with a young Chinese concubine that is owned by Murphy.  Lou Diamond Phillips specializes in knife throwing as Chavez, the token Navajo.  His presence belongs here as an unpredictable sidekick.  

The best surprise is delivered by Casey Siemaszko as the virginal, boyish illiterate Charlie.  Some gunslingers were afraid to ever become outlaws.  Charlie is ugly and dirty, bumbling and sweet, reminiscent of Fredo in The Godfather films.  Siemaszko never became as established as the others in the cast, but he’s a good performer who delivers panicked fear and brings the glamour of Young Guns down to a semblance of reality.  

Young Guns is a style over substance product.  It has potential for a stronger storyline, but the dialogue works and the cast is stellar, which also includes Dermot Mulroney, Terry O’Quinn and Charlie Sheen.  The sequel is actually better as it commits closer to the intrigue of Billy The Kid.  

Not perfect, but this is a fun escapist western experience.

RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II

By Marc S. Sanders

David Morrell’s literary character Rambo (no first name in the book, First Blood) cinematically survived his first post Vietnam adventure to spill buckets of bloodshed for many more follow ups.  Sylvester Stallone hit box office gold when he signed up for Rambo: First Blood Part II.  The Vietnam War was long over leaving an endless supply of storyline threads for Hollywood.  Who better to go back there with a ripped upper torso, a bow and arrow, a bayonet knife that won’t carve your steak but will hack up the cow, and a lot of firepower?

Green Beret John Rambo is specially recruited by his former C.O., Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) for a solo mission into a Viet Cong camp where American POWs might be held captive.  He’s got thirty-six hours to get in and out.  There’s a catch though.  A mercenary led operative named Murdock (Charles Napier), who hides behind a desk, a white collar and necktie specifically instructs Rambo to only survey the area and take photographs.  Under no circumstances is he to engage the enemy or escort any prisoners back to his rendezvous point.  Thing is that Rambo is not much of a photographer.  

James Cameron is credited as one of the screenwriters and apparently Stallone modified the script from there.  This bloody sequel is entertaining but I always found it a little mundane despite all the action.  

Just as the movie is about to grow a brain and intelligently debate with itself about how so many American soldiers were disregarded following the war, it stops talking and only resorts to one action set up after another.  Crenna and Napier potentially engage in a worthy debate focusing on government mistrust and moral servitude before the moment is cut short.  Trautman is the easily assumed ally of Rambo.  Murdock is the antagonist, but truly I have to ask why.  What is the motivation not to side with Rambo’s efforts to literally rescue half a dozen abandoned soldiers?  First Blood Part II cuts the argument short and never returns to settle the discord. 

There is perhaps only 5 or 6 lines in the last forty-five minutes of the picture.  There’s a melodramatic closing monologue from Stallone’s morose character.  Otherwise, this movie would prefer not to think.  Sadly, there is a lot to consider here, but the explosives and machine-gunning filibuster, insisting on holding the floor.

The action is categorized in a series of episodes.  A five minute section offers a variety of ways Rambo covertly takes out Russian military soldiers who are maintaining a stronghold with the Viet Cong.  It’s clever how one guy is taken by surprise when a mud caked Rambo guts him with his knife.  For another stooge, he’s literally sucked away into the mouth of a cavern.  You don’t even see Rambo.  How does the hero get around with enough time to set up these sophisticated traps?  This is all cool to look at but I would have liked to have learned more about how the Russian General (Steven Berkoff) formed an alliance with the Vietnamese.

Later, Rambo uses his endless supply of arrows to blow away acres and acres of marsh and tall grass.  I buy one man army tropes in movies.  Yet, I still question how a guy on two feet can set ablaze the equivalent of five football fields worth of territory.  How does he always manage to get in range? 

A war copter hovers over a river.  The henchman riddles the surface with bullets, and Rambo LEAPS from the depths INTO the chopper.  I mean he flies up like Superman.  Another moment has him submerged and then he pops out of the water with perfect aim to mow down a mob of men.  How did he know where to shoot?

I guess all of this is entertaining.  I just don’t relish it like I’m expected to because I’m asking too many “how does he…” questions.  My suspension of disbelief doesn’t have a high level of tolerance for what Rambo is apparently capable of.  David Morrell’s character was somehow blessed with superpowers, practically!  

With Rambo serving our country, how in the hell did we ever lose the Vietnam War? Seems damn near impossible.

First Blood embraced a common problem with veterans who were disregarded by the institutions they swore to defend and serve.  It’s a terrible blemish on our country’s patriotism.  An awareness was offered in that film amid all of the believably capable action scenes.  Part II clearly shows a lack of concern.  POWs get rescued but they are not even given an opportunity to reflect and speak.  Their bearded and malnourished figures speak for them in close ups.  I didn’t think enough was delivered for any semblance of a message that was asking to be heard.  Instead, we get a Stallone showing off a bronze, ripped chest, red bandana and a slew sophisticated weaponry. Rambo looks sexy here, and that does not sit right with me.

I can rewatch Rambo: First Blood Part II.  I just can’t feel for any of it.  I think I was entitled though.  Moreover, those that served in this awful conflict are deserving of a product that would better honor their sacrifices.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD

By Marc S. Sanders

When it comes to crime – New York crime – few directors come as close as Sidney Lumet to make an audience feel the authenticity of its trappings.  Maybe only Martin Scorsese can stand next to Lumet.  Either with crime on the streets (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico) or within the courtrooms (Find Me Guilty, 12 Angry Men), or both (Night Falls On Manhattan), Sidney Lumet hones directly upon how the plans should operate and when everything should unfold or derail.  

With the last picture before his death, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead zeroes in on crime within an educated Irish family nucleus.  Andrew (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has it laid out perfectly for his younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to commit the perfect robbery. No one will get hurt and the insurance company will cover any loss.  The approximate take is around six hundred thousand. These guys carry their own desperate reasons for even considering such an idea, but Andy knows nothing can go wrong.  Hank has some trepidation though, because the target is mom and dad’s jewelry store.

Kelly Masterson’s script shows how quickly everything comes undone with bloodshed and unaccounted for details that could lead straight back to the two brothers.  It’s all told through three different perspectives – Andy, Hank and their father Charles played by Albert Finney.  Often, Lumet will return to the very same scene you saw moments earlier to show two sides of a phone call or in what direction one character goes versus that of another following a particular action that has occurred.  The timeline even jumps back in time a few days to show the direct perspective of any of these three particular characters ahead of showpiece scene – the robbery. Charles was retaking his driver’s license test. Elsewhere, Hank was struggling to pay spousal and child support with an angry ex-wife (Amy Ryan). Andrew was scheming and committing other clandestine acts both at work and in his free time.

However, Masterson’s script weaves all of these side details into how much more complicated this botched robbery becomes in the aftermath. All of what they commit following the robbery compounds into potentially making it worse for everyone involved.

Some of the breadcrumbs don’t carry enough water at times though. You might have to tolerate the characters being more intuitive than they likely should be.  Andrew leaves a business card with a side character.  When the film circles back to this item, it seems a little too easy for someone else to get wise about what has transpired.  I just chose to go with it.

Marisa Tomei is also part of the cast, caught in a love triangle as Andy’s wife and Hank’s mistress.  Tomei is really good, lending some authenticity with unscrupulous nudity in scenes with both Hoffman and Hawke.  This storyline serves as character exposition and only briefly scrapes against the crime drama at play.  It could have been excised from the film, but because the dialogue and scenario is written and performed so well, it effectively held my attention.

Albert Finney is magnificent as the patriarch owner of the store.  Simply his devastated, echoey breathing and the way he fumbles to put his eyeglasses on to learn more about what has occurred is absolutely genuine.  A late middle-aged man discovering horrible truths.  Finney plays it beautifully.  That being said, I wish the film offered more backstory to his character.  There are few hints suggesting how he regarded Andy as the first born who needed be thrown to the wolves and learn to fend for himself.  Contrarily, Hank is the younger and more disappointing son.  Yet, the script is short on material that further explores the relationship between the father and his sons.  I felt the film demanded more because Charles is quite significant to the conclusion of the story, which carries an unexpectedly abrupt ending.  

The acting and assembly of time and perspective are so finely tuned by the whole cast under Lumet’s direction.  Still, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead needed another twenty to thirty minutes of storytelling.  One character runs out of frame with an unfinished storyline.  Another, seems too hasty in making a final decision with an easy convenience.

Don’t get me wrong.  I strongly recommend this last effort from Sidney Lumet.  It’s a unique crime yarn with an especially conniving Phillip Seymour Hoffman doing some of his best work.  The set up had me riveted and I couldn’t wait to see how all these terrible scenarios were going to fix themselves or make things horribly worse.

A SIMPLE PLAN

By Marc S. Sanders

“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”  – Benjamin Franklin, pictured on the one-hundred-dollar bill

A murder of crows is made especially prominent at the beginning of this dark, wintry fable from director Sam Raimi and writer Scott B Smith, based off of his novel, A Simple Plan.  

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve Day, Hank, his brother Jacob and Leon get swerved off a slippery Minnesota road while riding in a beat-up pickup truck. They come upon a crashed airplane buried under a blanket of snow in the woods.  Besides the pecking crows feasting on the corpse of a dead pilot, they uncover a duffle bag with over four million dollars; tons of bales of strapped hundred-dollar bills.  What should they do? Report the discovery to the police or secretly keep it to divide among themselves?

Hank (Bill Paxton) is the educated sensible member of the trio.  Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) is his dim-witted brother.  Leon (Brent Briscoe) is Jacob’s loudmouth drinking buddy.  After much debate, the men agree that Hank will hold on to the money until springtime.  By then, if no one is looking for the loot, then it surely can be shared among them.  

Easier said than done.

This is one of Bill Paxton’s best roles, not only because he’s a fine actor, but his character is constructed beautifully with one internal conflict after another.  He carries an appearance of a doting husband to his pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda, who I wish never retired from acting) and he’s well-liked by the folks of this town.  He’s also a protective brother to Jacob.   However, money changes people and hypocrisy and plotting turn this good man corrupt.

Billy Bob Thornton is brilliant in an Oscar nominated role. It’s not easy to portray the sweet dumb guy when your career has demonstrated how insightful you are as a winning screenwriter and actor (Sling Blade).  Jacob looks “lived in” within this sleepy town with a pair of broken eyeglasses, an old parka and boots.  He’s the troublemaker and the sheriff knows this schlub can’t take care of himself.  As Hank changes one way over the course of the film, Jacob literally transitions in a completely opposite direction of character.  Both approach their tests of ethics and morality differently, and it’s fair to say that a gift of simple logic and sensibility can be more of a curse rather than a blessing.

Bridget Fonda operates like a conniving Lady MacBeth as Hank’s wife Sarah.  She’s adorable and sweet as the happy couple await the delivery of their first child any day now.  What good fortune to come upon this money to help with living a lifetime of comfort and joy.  Sarah knows this is all going to work out, but what’s important is that Hank covers his tracks while also being especially cautious of Leon and Jacob’s reputation for carelessness.  Sarah has an answer for everything and a proactive approach to handle this surprise windfall.

Yet, the luck of one man is the demise of another, and another and maybe even another.  

A Simple Plan is anything but.  Too many people know what is discovered.  Even the inconvenience of snow-covered plains work against any kind of airtight solution.  Snow leaves tracks.  What if someone lets a simple, but curious, word slip?  What if someone wants his share sooner than agreed upon?  What if someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time? 

Scott B Smith changes the tune of his script over and over.  First, it questions the morality of man.  Later, it traverses into crime and cover up.  After that, A Simple Plan hinges upon survival while questioning a series of costs.

Because most of the characters in this small Minnesota town are blue collar and not formally educated, you might believe they lack the intuition to properly guard themselves or the ones they hold dear.  On the surface, this is a friendly community, and everyone bears a facade of innocence with Happy New Year greetings. Actually, desperation only enhances the thinking abilities of these people to do the most twisted of acts to protect what they consider their rightful, personal entitlement.  

Each act of extreme behavior seems justified in the eyes of Hank, Jacob, Sarah and Leon. I mean this is four million dollars we are talking about here.  Try to see it their way, and you’ll know what I mean.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

Benoit Blanc is back with a new mystery to solve in Wake Up Dead Man.  With three films, all directed by Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Glass Onion), Daniel Craig’s eccentric detective now belongs in the ranks of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.  He’s a pleasure to watch with a smirk on your face.  Ironically, he doesn’t make his entrance until at least a third of the picture is complete.

Josh O’Connor is Father Jud Duplenticy who first reveals a wide berth of exposition ahead of the murder mystery that awaits us.  He’s a catholic priest who works hard to contain his temper that might resort to raising his fists.  He’s been assigned as the assistant minister to a church in a small New England town where everyone knows one another, especially repulsive Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).

Whodunit mysteries should never be spoiled.  I certainly wouldn’t imply how this film wraps up.  I also do not want to reveal who the victim(s) is/are.  I urge you to see Wake Up The Dead Man because this puzzler of a story is as gleeful as the title itself.

Like the Agatha Christie film adaptations from the 1970s, Rian Johnson does his best to provide a lineup of suspects with celebrity familiarity including Brolin, O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Thomas Hayden Church, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner and a standout performance from Glenn Close who steals much of the film away from the rest of the cast.  After seven nominations spanning over forty years, give her the Oscar already.  She’s eerie and needling, spooky and fun.  As Detective Blanc continues his investigation, a character tells him this all seems like something straight out of Scooby Doo.  Glenn Close, donned in black with an elderly bleached facade certainly feels like she’d come in contact with the animated pup and those meddling kids.

Rian Johnson writes with that classic narrative that Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle adopted, only it’s modernized.  The director of The Last Jedi even throws in a Star Wars reference and the joke soars.  The writer/director crafted this script as an invitation for hair raising merriment with his design.  If you can’t be a part of a mystery dinner theater party, he ensures that you can participate in this one.

An old church, priests who curse, habitually pleasure themselves and confess to an abundance of sins, a gothic tomb, a dark basement with a repulsive bathtub, a bar with a photograph of clues, startling entrances, unconventional dialogue and a quizzical murder weapon function like page turning literature.  Even better is to understand how impossible the first murder can be under the limitations of a locked door mystery.  How can someone be killed right in front of our eyes when no one else is in room?  The answers await and thankfully the revelations are not far-fetched.

Wake Up Dead Man is a fun time at the movies.  It’s coming to Netflix on December 12, 2025.  Nevertheless, I encourage you to go your local cinema.  The crowd we saw it with was responding consistently with us, and that only enhances the experience.

TAPAWINGO

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s amusing to say that Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite) becomes a bodyguard in Tapawingo.  He plays a weirdo who headlines a cast of familiar faces, who also portray weirdos.  Yet, come what may, he is in fact a bodyguard named Nate Skoog (a weirdo with a weirdo’s name) who lives with his mom (Amanda Bearse) and her boyfriend (John Ratzenberger).  By day, he works in the mailroom for Amalgamated Insurance.  Nate has not hit the ranks of earning a shirt that bears the company name.  His boss gives him hope though as he assigns Nate the lofty responsibility of picking up his nerdy son, Oswalt (Sawyer Williams), from school.  Nate uses his dune buggy to handle the task.

The city of Tapawingo is notorious for its family of bullies known as the Tarwaters.  Nate is given a warning.  He’s to stop giving Oswalt rides to his tutoring sessions for their sister Gretchen (Kim Matula).  Let me be clear.  Young teen Oswalt tutors Gretchen, a twenty-something tough chick, dressed in black who moves with an attitude and a strut.  When Nate witnesses two Tarwater heavies beating up on Oswalt, he runs into action with his own technique of martial arts. Suddenly, he becomes protective of the kid.  It doesn’t help that Nate’s dune buggy runs over Gretchen’s Doberman.  Well, the Tarwaters move up the food chain and bring in their bruiser brother Stoney (Billy Zane) to make sure their policy stays in line.

Tapawingo is proudly oddball, strange, stupid, silly, slapsticky and really, really, out there.  Following the surprise response of the cult hit Napolean Dynamite Jon Heder moved into more mainstream fair and became a marquee name of sorts.  It’s fortunate he returns to his roots.  He’s on a very short list of comedians who could pull off this material.  Tapawingo is funny.  Very funny at times.  The blessing is that it does not overstay its welcome because of the stupidity of it all; how the actors portray the characters, how writer/director Dylan K Narang shoots his setups and close ups and how the absurdity of the script never stops to think.  Comedy like this only has so much fuel to drive a certain distance.  This gonzo kind of writing that lacks any kind of insight or symbolism operates like another kind of Abbott & Costello routine.  Eventually, you’ll want to move on.  In the moment, it’s a lot of fun though.

Jon Heder invents his own kind of character brand with a stoned kind of look on his face.  Nate Skoog doesn’t so much move.  Rather, the world around this nincompoop circulates around him.  With his buddy Will Luna (Jay Pichardo, playing a different flavor of weird with a Rambo wardrobe on his bearded scrawny physique) these dorks spend their time answering ads to serve as hired mercenaries.  They are marksmen at launching firework sparklers from a distance. Believe me when I say though that Nate and Will are the poster boys for gun prevention.  Maybe even butter knife prevention if there is such a thing.  Otherwise, they are playing bingo at the rec center or maybe wrestling by way of whatever they think wrestling should be.  A pair of overweight, goateed twins (George and Paul Psarras) demonstrate what the contact sport should look like in the foreground. 

Even Gina Gershon invests herself by hiding her signature glamour.  Caked in colorful makeup with a hairsprayed zig zag formation of dirty blond locks, I did not even recognize the actress who made big splashes in movies like Bound, Face/Off and Showgirls.  Her character’s name is Dot and I’d love to know if she took inspiration from Pee Wee Herman’s girlfriend, Dottie, in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  Dot resides in the background of Nate’s meandering life.  She’s seductive…I guess.  It’s another oddball within Nate’s world where stimuli is not so much a priority.  Nevertheless, Gershon is hysterical in a clownish, buffoon like role.

Billy Zane is the villain of this silly picture.  Bald, clean shaven, husky and dressed in black, I don’t think the guy has more than ten lines.  It’s his presence that says it all as he sits behind the wheel of an emerald, green Mustang.  I’m glad he’s here.  He headlined Waltzing With Brando (which I loved), while Heder played the supporting role.  Now the pair switch positions.  Newman and Redford, Lemmon and Matthau, Zane and Heder.  It works.  By appearance, method, and physique, these guys are so unlikely to work together, and yet that generates inventive comedy.

Tapawingo operates like one of those B-movie 1980s comedies (Better Off Dead, Real Genius) that you’d rent when The Goonies or Gremlins was checked out at the video store.  It carries no charm.  No sensitivity.  No romance.  The adventure is pratfallish and deliberately lethargic.  It’s strength comes from its characters that leap out of a comic book or a Saturday morning cartoon.  Jon Heder’s approach to live action animation is a winner.  He’ll make you bust a gut.  He doesn’t have to say a word.  Simply a close up of him staring into a void will generate the laughs. 

The brains lie in the bravery to do something as zany as Tapawingo.  Go into it with an open mind.  Better yet, take your thinking cap off and just observe.  It’s a lot of fun.

Oh yeah.  The soundtrack is killer with the help of Pat Benatar and Quiet Riot.

WICKED FOR GOOD

By Marc S. Sanders

Wicked For Good is a crowning achievement in fantasy and musical wonder.  It soars across a wide expanse of never-ending settings within the wonderful world of Oz and delivers a series of messages to walk away with.  Try not to think about Wicked the next time you turn on CNN or FOX News.

Jon M Chu directs again after Wicked Part One.  Both films were actually shot as one large project but then divided.  I was suspect when I heard this was how the Broadway musical was going to be done for film.  Was there that much material, interesting enough for two full-length movies?  With a pair of new numbers drafted by original composition writer Stephen Schwartz, the answer is a profound yes.  This may be Act II of the musical but it does operate as a sequel. The new film leaps in time from when our host of characters were young students at Shiz Academy.  All are adults now with respective responsibilities and therefore they’ve grown and changed.  Sadly, but wisely, the film moves in directions that are parallel to many current events happening today. 

The wise animals of Oz are being oppressed.  The first film hinted that animals should be seen not heard.  The second part of the story executes that mantra all too realistically as they lose their power of speech and are destined not to be free but rather caged like in internment camps.  Those that have not been taken are performing mass exodus under the newly constructed yellow brick road. 

Untrue propaganda sweeps through Oz as Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) uses the false influence of The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) to unite the kingdom into believing the empathetic green skinned Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is the Wicked Witch of The West, on mission of terror.  Citizens of Munchkinland and the Emerald City believe the lies and live in fear of her presence.  Glinda (Ariana Grande), decked in beautiful pinks with a sparkly wand and a convenient flying bubble craft, serves as a poster girl for hope with the illusion of having enchanting powers to protect.  Elphaba’s sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) succeeds as the governor of Oz following the death of the girls’ father.  Nessarose has grown coldhearted, particularly to her one true love Bok (Ethan Slater), who by decree must remain held captive under her authority.  He’s literally forbidden to immigrate by train. These are not the students of Shiz that we grew up with. 

I hate to use Wicked For Good as a metaphor for political purposes, but that’s exactly where my mind went to, and I’m grateful for it.  I believe there is much wrong occurring each day in the United States and throughout the world. I’m at least thankful that artistry like cinema and stage prevents us from burying our heads in the sand.  Conveniently, there’s a triggering and emotionally engaging storyline to hold on to.

Wicked was spawned off of L Frank Baum’s classic fairy tales. Part of the fun is seeing how these new stories are threaded towards his classic story of a girl from Kansas who arrives in Oz and befriends three unusual charmers while on her journey to meet The Wizard.  I’d argue that more people are familiar with the classic Warner Brothers film from 1939 than Baum’s series of books, and this Universal picture seems to adhere to the original production especially.  Elpheba delivers a new song called “There’s No Place Like Home” that’s woven beautifully into the picture.  Glinda sings about “The Girl In The Bubble” to emulate her personal conflict with how she is meant to serve.  Classic lines like “I’m off to see The Wizard” are provided.  Hints at a lion (voiced by Coleman Domingo) being fearful, along with a character’s heart becoming too small are referenced with weighty importance.  Another character is asked if he’s lost his mind.  It’s satisfying how original the Wicked properties are while being comfortably familiar.

The cast is sensational.  Cynthia Erivo is a wonderful performer who hides in her role with an American accent and her Broadway voice to belt.  She performs so convincingly that it becomes easy to look past the green skin and watch the woman who is challenged.  Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum have those unusual appearances and distinct personalities that serve a fantasy world like Oz.  Marissa Bode demonstrates tremendous strength as the disabled character who probably traverses through the biggest change of the whole cast.  Ariana Grande is a terrific actor and a lovely singer.  As I noted about the prior film, her Glinda is not my favorite, though.  The three others I saw on stage performed with a bubblier delivery and did not rely so much on Grande’s hair flip.  Jonathan Bailey is a dashing and charming hero, carved out for the prince of fantasy.  Ethan Slater’s Bok suffers through unwinnable oppression, and thus his character is more tragic this time.  It’s crushing to see, but his performance is completely relatable.

I watched the first film as a refresher ahead of seeing For Good and it occurs to me how triumphant these films are.  This whole story could have been contained in a ninety-minute Disney blueprint.  Yet, Jon M Chu, along with Stephen Schwartz want to entertain the audience through the narrative. So, it will stop where we are reading the movie, allowing us ample time to witness the world around us and what these characters of fantasy endure.  It’s odd sometimes to see the street toughs of West Side Story break into song as they are trying to knife one another in the streets.  In Wicked, it is never strange to see a witch or a munchkin or a prince break out into harmony to express their happiness, anger, sadness or wickedness.  The music and vocalizing build the vivid textures of the sets into grander designs. 

I can be told what happens next in the further adventures of Elphaba and Glinda and just move to the next chapter until they live happily ever after.  It’s better if the characters take their time to share as many thoughts and emotions as they can through song, dance, visual effects and action.  That’s what sets musicals apart from other fares of drama and comedy.

The Wicked films, and more importantly the musical, will remain timeless as much as Star Wars, Star Trek and Harry Potter.  They will never be dated.  They will only capture the hearts, laughs, tears and harmony of further generations to come decked in their favorite shades of green and pink.