I don't get Apple TV and, therefore, don't see each new episode of TED LASSO when it airs. Previously, I've blogged my high praise for this sitcom starring former SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE cast member Jason Sudeikis. Thanks to my being a paid-up member of Screen Actors Guild, I received the second season of TED LASSO on DVDs.
I binge-watched the second season and it left me in awe. The writing and performances are outstanding. What really caught and impressed me was how the characters had developed from the first season. We learn more about their motivations. We get to see more of why they are the way they are. The ensemble acting is some of the best I've seen since THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.
TED LASSO is the only current sitcom that could have me belly-laughing and then, a few minutes later, have me in tears when characters sing the Rick Astley hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up."
As you know, if you've seen the show's early episodes from the first season, Ted has a relentlessly positive attitude and personality as he, formerly a football coach in Kansas, now coaches a soccer team in London. He's definitely a fish out of water. We learn that underneath that sunny exterior is some serious heartbreak.
The show makes you wonder about the folks you know who always have a kind word for you, who lift your spirits and make you laugh, those folks you can count on in a crisis. Some of those folks could be in your immediate family. Do they have a hidden heartbreak they try to heal with their optimistic outlooks? Are you, as a family member or friend, so close to them that you don't see the hurt?
The second season of TED LASSO is surprising, funny, heartbreaking and heartwarming. I loved it. Here's a trailer for the show.
He was an actor I loved to watch. He constantly surprised me with his depth in his performances. From the goofy, fun 1980s sci-fi comedy, WEIRD SCIENCE, he went on to show his impressive acting skills in films such as ALIENS, ONE FALSE MOVE, TOMBSTONE, APOLLO 13 and TWISTER. I feel he was at his peak in the HBO series, BIG LOVE as the handsome, young patriarch of a strict Mormon modern-day family in Utah. It practices polygamy and he has three wives. There was all sorts of dramatic conflict in that series.
Today, February 25th, marks the anniversary of Paxton's untimely death in 2017 at age 61.
I want to recommend a rarely mentioned film of his that is fine for family viewing or father & son bonding time. Bill Paxton is not in the film. He directed it. First, here's a personal backstory that tells you something about corporate lack of imagination and little regard for the art.
The movie is 2005's THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, a sports drama based on real-life characters and a real-life event that made sports news. In the 1913 US Open for golf, 20-year Francis Ouimet played against his idol, the 1900 US Open champ. He was Britain's Harry Vardon. At that time, golf was a game for the upper class. Ouimet was a working class French Canadian.
A friend and I went to see a movie in New York City. Before the feature started, there were previews of coming attractions. One preview was for THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED. The way Disney marketers edited and narrated the trailer, the movie appeared to be a wacky teen comedy, sort of a CADDYSHACK set in the early 1900s. My friend whispered to me, "That looks cheesy." I agreed with her. The trailer made the movie seem like one big hunk of processed cheese.
When the movie was out on DVD, I was browsing in my neighborhood video store. The owner suggested I rent and watch THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED. "It's really good," he said. My response was "Really?" I rented it. I watched it. I loved it. It was not at all like that preview my friend and I had seen. It was a serious, beautifully directed film about breaking through social class barriers and about good sportsmanship. Bill Paxton did a commendable job of directing. Weeks later, on a national talk snow, Paxton candidly mentioned that he was displeased with how Disney initially promoted the film. As well he should have been. Shia LaBeouf stars as young Franics Ouimet. There's a heartwarming performance from Elias Koteas as Ouimet's father. Here's the studio's retooled trailer.
Here's a clip from the movie.
It was recommended to me. I now recommend it to you. Directed by the late Bill Paxton, it's THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED.
Have you ever seen a movie, drama or comedy, about a family and its challenges that leaves you smiling at the end and makes your heart feel light? A movie like THE MIRACLE WORKER, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS or Vincente Minnelli's MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS? Well, CODA is one of those movies. CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults -- and that's exactly what the main character, high schooler Ruby Rossi, is. She's the only one in her working class New England family of four who can hear. Her parents and her older brother are deaf. They all can sign and Ruby is the family interpreter.
The males in this close-knit family are fishermen. Disciplined, responsible Ruby gets up at 3:00 in the morning to go out with them and interpret for them when they bring their daily catch back to be weighed and priced. Then she goes to school. The family relies heavily on young Ruby. A challenge arises when Ruby is encouraged to apply to a prestigious music school to pursue talent. That would mean having to leave her Gloucester home and relocate to Boston. Also, dad's fishing community is faced with a change that could severely affect its income.
I saw segments about CODA with its cast of deaf actors playing deaf characters. The pieces understandably had an accent on that breakthrough casting and the deafness portrayed in the film. But those pieces didn't tell me that this sweet film is also funny, ethnic inclusive, moving and very musical. It has a generous scoop of classic R&B tunes plus a Joni Mitchell classic. When the film begins, we see a fishing boat at sea. On it are the Rossi dad and son and Ruby. While helping with the fish, she starts singing to herself. She will make you say, "Ooooh, girl! You could be a finalist on AMERICAN IDOL or THE VOICE." She is that good, but no one in her family can hear her.
At school, Ruby signs up for the choir. The music teacher/choirmaster is Bernardo Villalobos, a native of Mexico City and a stylish man with a pronounced accent. He has the students performing R&B tunes. She's shy in class, however he detects the real talent in her. In one scene, he asks Ruby "How do you feel when you sing?" We know her true answer would be the one Judy Garland as band singer Esther Blodgett gave early in A STAR IS BORN: "I feel most alive when I'm singing." But Ruby is too shy to say that.
Mr. Villalobos is from Mexico City but he is not a caricature. He's a strict yet committed teacher who respects talent. He is to Ruby what Annie Sullivan is to young Helen Keller in THE MIRACLE WORKER. He brings out her voice. He's played with humor, wisdom and compassion by Eugenio Derbez, a big star in Mexican cinema who is now crossing over to American films.
Ruby's father, Frank, is played to Troy Kotsur who got a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Tall, scraggly, unsophisticated Frank loves his family, his job, an occasional joint and gangsta rap. He can't hear it, but when he plays it in the car, the bassline has his "ass vibrating." He gets an easily curable inconvenience. Ruby has to accompany her dad at the doctor's office and interpret for him when he signs to the doctor "My nuts are on fire." Frank may seem like a hot mess. Yet, he's as devoted, loving and, ultimately, unselfish a father as Mr. Smith in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. His wife is wonderfully portrayed by Marlee Matlin, Best Actress Oscar winner for 1986's CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD. Then there's Emilia Jones. absolutely marvelous as the smart, loving, frustrated, talented Ruby -- the teen with a golden talent that no one in her family can hear.
Dig this. Actress Emilia Jones is from London. CODA has memorable scenes both funny and touching, Ruby brings her choir partner home to rehearse for a school show only to be embarrassed by the sounds of her parents making love in their room. Later, her dad explains to her choir partner/potential boyfriend that his middle-aged wife is still hot. There's a lovely scene with Rub and her mother as her mother reveals how she felt right after Ruby was born and doctors determined that the baby was not deaf. Ruby in the family's backyard singing a song so that her father can "hear" it is a beautiful scene and so is Ruby's rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" at a music school audition.
CODA doesn't just show us lives of some deaf people, it brings us into their world. This is a film that reminds us that some of the most extraordinary people we ever could meet are the ordinary people like those in our community. The last 15 minutes of CODA made happy tears stream down my face. I highly recommend seeing it. Don't be surprised if it wins the Oscar for Best Picture.
Based on a foreign film, CODA was written and directed by Sian Heder. Viva female filmmakers!
The Scottish play. If it was assigned a classic film category, it would be in film noir. It's one of two current films with Oscar nominations that's based on the work of William Shakespeare. There's WEST SIDE STORY, inspired by ROMEO AND JULIET. Ad there's this one written and directed by Joel Coen, one of the celebrated directing duo, the Coen Brothers. In terms of casting Black actors, there's been very little diversity in Coen Brothers films. Think of RAISING ARIZONA, BARTON FINK, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, FARGO, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and HAIL, CAESAR! as examples. I hated their stereotypical images of Black people in the characters for 2004's THE LADYKILLERS, the Coen Brothers remake of the delightful 1955 British film of the same name. In their remake, the Coen Brothers gave us dimwitted Black homeboys and Black senior citizen church ladies in a story now set in the Deep South. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS was set in New York City's Greenwich Village. It focuses on the folk singing scene of the early 1960s. Did we see renowned singers like Odetta and Richie Havens portrayed? No. We hardly even saw Black people as background actors in street, subway and nightclub scenes.
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, with Denzel Washington starringin the lead role, certainly makes up for the lack of inclusion of Black actors in the majority of previous films directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. This tale of murder, the obsession with power and how the thirst for power can warp one's mind, and the inescapable passage of time gets an excellent treatment from Joel Coen. His wife, Oscar winner Frances McDormand, is one of the film's producers and she has the lead female role as Lady Macbeth.
One of three witches predicts to the middle-aged Macbeth that he will become the next King of Scotland. This whets his appetite for power especially since he's, as portrayed in this adaptation, middle-aged and aware that time is relentlessly marching on. This also whets the appetite of the frighteningly ambitious Lady Macbeth. He will kill in order to make the witch's prediction come true.
The film is shot in gorgeous black and white cinematography. With its austere and minimalist sets, which add to giving the movie a film noir flavor, THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH has a look reminiscent of German expressionist films of the 1920s/early 30s. Films such as Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS and M, Murnau's SUNRISE and Joe May's ASPHALT. And the movie is foggier than London in the fall. It opens with Washington as Macbeth emerging out of the fog at a distance and walking into a close-up shot.
As for the performances in THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand secure their positions as modern-day cinema royalty. They are riveting. They command the screen.
Macbeth commits murder in the story. The victim is in bed. Joel Coen seems to have taken a director's tip from Alfred Hitchcock in that stunning scene -- Shoot the murders like love scenes and the love scenes like murders.
Denzel Washington is a Best Actor Oscar nominee for this film. The 2-time Oscar winner now has 10 acting nominations to his credit, making him the most Oscar-nominated Black actor in Hollywood history.
Strong performances also come from Corey Hawkins (previously seen in STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON and the musical INTO THE HEIGHTS) as Macduff, Moses Ingram as Lady Macduff and Kathryn Hunter is fantastic as the three witches. That's an astounding triple-play performance.
This bloody, good film runs 1 hour and 45 minutes.
It's a federal holiday. Today is Presidents Day. I'm a baby boomer and I miss the old days when we had two national holidays off from school and work -- Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday. Nowadays they've been lumped together into one day.
So here is a 2022 Presidents Day music break for you. First up is Fred Astaire performing one of the new tunes written for him to perform in Irving Berlin's HOLIDAY INN (1942). Astaire's dance partner is Marjorie Reynolds. His character is smitten with her but his best friend, played by Bing Crosby, is jealous because he too is smitten with her and does his best to keep them from kissing in this Washington's birthday nightclub number, "I Can't Tell a Lie."
By the way, another new song that Irving Berlin wrote for HOLIDAY INN was a yuletide tune for Bing Crosby to introduce. "White Christmas" is the name of it and it brought Irving Berlin the Oscar for Best Song.
In his filmography, Ray Bolger is undeniably most famous for playing Scarecrow in the 1939 classic musical fantasy adventure, THE WIZARD OF OZ. At Warner Bros, he made a musical with the studio's new star, Doris Day. 1952's APRIL IN PARIS had him as a government office worker in Washington, D.C. who recruits an all-American chorus girl to represent the U.S. at a prestigious arts festival in Paris. He dreams of one day running for the presidency. Here he is having a good day in his office.
I love the film version of the Broadway musical hit, 1776. This is one of my favorite numbers in it. William Daniels is John Adams, the man who'd become the second President of the United States. Howard da Silva stars as Benjamin Franklin and young Blythe Danner (the mother of Gwyneth Paltrow)portrays Martha Jefferson, the wife of another future President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Martha tells why she loves Thomas in "He Plays the Violin."
I know that the pandemic severely altered our regular moviegoing habits and the way new releases were promoted. Let me say right off that RESPECT, starring Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson as the late, great Aretha Franklin, would have been a most satisfying Saturday night date movie. As far as promotion, I do not recall seeing a lot of promotion on TV for the film. Until I watched it on DVD this week, I had no idea that RESPECT also starred another Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee who made history. In the movie, young new singer, Aretha Franklin, is extremely talented, but she needs respect from her reserved, controlling, strict father played by Forest Whitaker. Whitaker won the Best Actor Oscar for his amazing performance as dictator Idi Amin in 2006's THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. Mary J. Blige, recently seen by millions of TV viewers who watched the Super Bowl half-time show, got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her absolutely stunning dramatic film debut in 2017's MUDBOUND directed by Dee Rees. That story takes us to the Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression. Blige played a sharecropper's wife dealing with racism and what World War 2 service will do to her family life. Weeks after I saw MUDBOUND, still on Netflix, I was thinking of the power Blige subtly brought to her final scene. The same year Mary J. Blige got that Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, she was nominated in the Best Song category for writing "Mighty River," the song heard in MUDBOUND. Mary J. Blige made Hollywood history as the first person ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar and a Best Song Oscar in the same year.
It's a small role, but Mary J. Blige just about sets the screen on fire with her sensational performance as famed blues singer, Dinah Washington. Washington is a music great deserving of her own big screen biopic. She was so famous that her face was placed on a U.S. postal stamp. Blige's performance as the temperamental, candid vocalist who had a big hit record with "What a Difference a Day Makes" is one of the highlights of RESPECT. Mary J. Blige has got the acting gift.
RESPECT is pretty standard for a celebrity biopic. The young person has a major talent but hasn't found his or her individual voice. When that voice is found, success comes. The person's personal demons still exist as stardom takes over his or her life. Drinking and/or drugs enter the picture and the celebrity/star becomes irresponsible. The demons are fought and the star re-emerges with stronger, more meaningful work. We saw this in the fine WALK THE LINE with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, the also fine ROCKETMAN with Taron Edgerton as Elton John and, to a degree, RAY which starred Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles and got him a very well-deserved Oscar for Best Actor.
In RESPECT, little Aretha sings for guests at her preacher dad's Saturday night parties in their comfortable, middle class Detroit home. Her parents are separated. She has joyful visits with her musically talented mother -- played by Audra McDonald -- who teaches sweet little Aretha how to polish her musical gift. Tragedy strikes. Her mom dies and she's sexually molested by one of her dad's party guests. The molestation causes a pregnancy. Grown Aretha has a yen for men and her sexual affairs seem to be a rebellion against her dad who has her sing at the church pulpit after he preaches. He controls her career. He signs her with top record producer John Hammond in New York City. Hammond, who revered and respected Black talent, loved Aretha but had her cut three years of overproduced, posh albums that had moderate sales. Things change when she moves on, signs with Jerry Wexler and records tunes with some serious funk in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. When she sits at the piano, plays and tells the White musicians "Follow me," her real voice begins to emerge. The White bandmembers dig and respect her. It's Aretha's husband who turns out to be the racist -- and physically abusive. Eventually, dealing with all that and being shunned by her dad -- whom Dinah Washington tagged as a "proper Negro" -- recording "Respect" will make her an international star. She will drink, have more problems with men and relatives, be heartbroken and affected by events of the Civil Rights era and re-emerge triumphant. Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for 2006's DREAMGIRL, is good. Especially when she sings. Here's a trailer.
Stand-out performances are also delivered by Skye Dakota Turner as little Aretha, Tituss Burgess as supportive James Cleveland, Marc Maron as Jerry Wexler and Tate Donovan (who was the flamboyant, flirty owner of The Troubadour nightclub in ROCKETMAN) as the sophisticated, genteel John Hammond.
I've written before about the disturbing number of Black actresses who got an Oscar nomination, maybe even won the award, then had to turn to TV for steady employment because the nomination or win was not followed by more good Hollywood script offers. Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodward, Taraji P. Henson and Gabourey Sidibe are all in that category. Even after two Oscar nominations, Viola Davis turned to ABC primetime TV because Hollywood had no good script opportunities for her. RESPECT is not Jennifer Hudson's first biopic. After her Oscar win, she had the lead role in 2011's biopic, WINNIE MANDELA. That film, with Terrence Howard as Nelson Mandela, got hardly any promotion. It was released in the U.S. in 2013. For 20 years, Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg was the most Oscar-nominated Black actress in Hollywood history with just 2 nominations. She's on ABC's THE VIEW because Hollywood was not frequently sending her good script opportunities. That Hollywood discrimination is hugely under-reported.
How many good Hollywood script offers did Mary J. Blige receive after getting two historic Oscar nominations in the same year? Why wasn't there more talk about her brief but memorable performance in RESPECT?
RESPECT ends with Hudson as Aretha in her successful gospel church concert in Los Angeles. That concert inspired the excellent 2018 documentary, AMAZING GRACE. Take a look.
RESPECT, directed by Ms. Liesl Tommy, runs 2 hours and 25 minutes.
I saw the current Best Picture Oscar nominee, BELFAST, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. It's a semi-autobiographical story. First of all, I must mention that Branagh holds a nice place in my heart. When there was a premiere party in New York City for his 1993 version of Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, also written and directed by Branagh, I got him alone for a couple of casual minutes and said that Black filmgoers would go see the classical comedy because Denzel Washington had a major part in it. He smiled and replied that he exercises racial inclusion in his films for that very reason. He realized that representation matters. I appreciate him for that.
BELFAST is a drama that shows us life through a child's eyes, life that includes severe events that will impact the family life. Think of Jem and Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the big brother protecting his little sister in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER starring Robert Mitchum, and the boy obsessed with his ending his irresponsible parents' mounting debt trouble caused by their overspending in the British film, THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER. In BELFAST, the event is the religious civil war in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s.
The film opens with overhead shots of modern-day Belfast in color. Then the camera pans up to an overhead view in black and white. It's Belfast in August 1969. The rest of the film will be in black and white. We meet little Buddy, very well-played by child actor Jude Hill. Buddy's family isn't Catholic, but his father has stressed to him to be kind and respect other people. The opening has a gripping sequence, shot documentary style, of violent Protestant loyalists storming into town setting fires to buildings and cars and breaking windows. They shout for Catholics to get out. Buddy sees all this before his runs to him humble home where his financially struggling family watches news reports of this horror on the TV and then lightens up the mood by watching STAR TREK. Buddy's older male relatives are being forced by a local loyalist to join the anti-Catholic cause. They resist. Buddy has a crush on a Catholic classmate. His loving mother is increasingly stressed by the mounting bills they have to pay during that civil war.
Even little Buddy will be leaned on heavily to join the anti-Catholic protests. The parents realize that they just have to leave their home and Buddy's sweet grandparents in Belfast and relocate to a more peaceful location where jobs are available. Another thing that impacts Buddy's life -- in a very positive way -- is the movies he watched on TV and at the cinema with family members. Such films as HIGH NOON, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and CHITTY, CHITTY, BANG, BANG. In this section, I felt Branagh could've benefitted from a good co-writer. The storyline becomes more CINEMA PARADISO and strays from the underlying tension of the war. It sagged just a wee bit. Nevertheless, I did like the acting as Buddy learns about community, discrimination and the depth of family members. Here's a brief look at BELFAST.
Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench play the grandparents and got Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations. Caitriona Balfe is strong as the financially and emotionally troubled, devoted mother. Who really stood out to me is the actor who dances with her and played her rather heroic working-class husband. Jamie Dornan makes a great impression as Buddy's father. He's got movie star good looks, screen charisma and definite acting skills.
Overall, as a film, I was more fully emotionally engrossed by another black and white film. Granted it is about a different topic in a different place at a different time. Still, PASSING is a totally riveting drama that should be in the Best Picture Oscar nominee group and Ruth Negga should be an Oscar nominee, just like Judi Dench, for her devasting performance. PASSING is about racial secretiveness, acceptance and intolerance here in a country where matters of race once fueled a Civil War. BELFAST is good and the kind of film traditional, veteran Motion Picture Academy members love. It runs 97 minutes.
I'm positive that if you plucked silent screen star George O'Brien out of his 1920s films and placed him in modern-day Hollywood, he'd be a major movie and TV star. If a biopic was being made about him, the perfect actor to play him would be Jon Hamm.
I first became aware of George O'Brien in film classes during my university years. We saw the F.W. Murnau classic, Fox's SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS. He's memorable in that film. I've seen it several times since then. Also, about ten years ago, I saw more of his silent film. Wow. What a good, versatile actor he was. O'Brien, with his long muscular physique, started in films as a stunt man. Often appearing shirtless, he was nicknamed "The Chest." His handsome, expressive face with a terrific right profile and his soulful eyes and masculine "good day" cham certainly helped him make the crossover to acting roles. No Hollywood actor, in the silent screen era and decades afterwards, ever seemed as comfortable in his own skin as George O'Brien. No Hollywood actor was as free expressing male intimacy and love for a male friend in a movie as George O'Brien was. Even today, his onscreen emotional fluidity would get notice. You see this intimacy in John Ford's THE BLUE EAGLE (1926), NOAH'S ARK (1928) and in the movie I recently saw, EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1927). Notice how he touches and embraces a war buddy in NOAH'S ARK. There are tears in his eyes. In THE BLUE EAGLE, he's on a bed at the side of a civilian male relative in a bind. O'Brien rubs his relative's thigh reassuringly and touches his hand as if they're not related, but lovers. In the 1926 comedy, FIG LEAVES, he shows a knack for comedy in his physical carriage that you'd associate with Danny Kaye in the 1940s. O''Brien starred in action movies, westerns, romances, modern-day dramas and comedies. He possessed impressive depth and sensitivity in his performances. He had natural skills as an actor.
He frequently bared his chest in his movies. Like Jean Harlow in the 1930s, he gave off the attitude that his stunning body was a gift from Heaven that he could have fun with and put to good use. If moviegoers liked to see it, he'd happily show it to them. That was his job. He was a definite Hollywood star.
A few days ago, I found 1927's EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE. He's very good in it. The story and the action kept me interested. The film opens with him on the waterfront, seated, gazing at the Manhattan skyline with his back to the camera. His beefy butt looks like it should be a tourist attraction. He plays John Breen, a poor guy who lives on a barge with his mother and stepfather. He doesn't know who his father was. John dreams of being one of the men who helps build New York City structures.
There's a maritime accident. His mother and stepfather lose their lives in it. He winds up raggedy and on the city's lower East Side. A bunch a street hoods start punching but he fights back and proves to have hands of steel. He escapes and is taken in by a kindly Jewish family with a lovely grown daughter. John is smitten.
Eventually John becomes a prizefighter and is completely unaware that he's in contact with his real father, a wealthy man with a different last name. The wealthy man is single, lives on the fashionable West Side and has a ward -- a pretty and flirty young woman who gets attracted to John.
Another catastrophe happens. John and Becka, the young lady the lower East Side, wind up involved with some shady characters. Will John and Becka find each other again and heal each other's broken heart?
Besides George O'Brien's acting, it was great to see actual footage of New York City in the 1920s and the special effects of the catastrophe are thrilling. Here's sort of a music video taste of EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE directed by Allan Dwan.
When the sound era came in, George O'Brien proved to have a good voice. He did westerns in the 1930s and 40s. He served in the military. His last screen role was in 1964's CHEYENNE AUTUMN.
If you celebrate it, Happy Valentine's Day. I've been romantically unattached for quite some time now. But I do love Valentine's Day because, the next day, a lot of the Valentine candy in the nearest drug store is marked down to half price. For today, let's have some music and dancing. Shall we? First up is a cut from an album I grew up hearing. Mom and Dad had it in our record collection. It's from an album of Lena Horne recorded live at the Waldorf Astoria. It was recorded in the 1950s when Lena had moved on from MGM and was performing on Broadway and in nightclubs. Here she is singing "I Love to Love."
Lena performed with her acclaimed MGM music conductor/arranger husband, Lennie Hayton.
I love a Gershwin tune. How about you? Fred Astaire sang and danced to a Gershwin tune in the 1957 Paramount musical, FUNNY FACE. He played a top fashion photographer who discovers a bookstore bookworm clerk and helps turn her into a high fashion model. While on a photo shoot, he discovers that she's in love with him. She is played by Audrey Hepburn. Here is "He Loves and She Loves."
That was Audrey's first major Hollywood musical -- and she asked for Fred Astaire to be her co-star.
Singer Peggy Lee got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for playing the abused and alcoholic 1920s band singer in the 1955 Warner Bros. drama, PETE KELLY'S BLUES. She should have also been nominated for co-writing all the songs in Disney's 1955 animated feature, LADY AND THE TRAMP. Here's my favorite from the score -- "Bella Notte."
I have some buddies who will always watch football-inclusive movies, movies with lots of gridiron action, before the big Super Bowl festivities begin. These are buddies who, later in the year, will complain that the Oscars telecast is too long. Well, one year, I flew from New York to Minneapolis to visit a relative. It was Super Bowl Sunday. There was a TV monitor in the boarding area and the Super Bowl game was underway. When I arrived at my relative's apartment in Minneapolis, the game was still on. The Oscars are too long? Oh, please.
One of my favorite things to see every Super Bowl Sunday is Debbie Reynolds as a dancing football in the breezy 1953 MGM musical, I LOVE MELVIN.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER had a Saturday article about films that are popular viewing for Super Bowl weekend. The 1930s Marx Brothers madcap comedy, HORSEFEATHERS, was mentioned along with Adam Sandler's WATERBOY and JERRY MAGUIRE starring Tom Cruise. I'd like to recommend a classic film that never gets mentioned. It's a comedy based on a Broadway play. The action takes place during a Homecoming weekend at a Midwestern university. A big, brawny alumnus, who was once a football star at the university, returns for Homecoming. He visits the wife of a bookworm professor having trouble with university officials about a piece of writing he wants to read to his students. The brawny, ex-football star had a major crush in college on the professor's then-coed wife.
This comedy stars Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Jack Carson, Joan Leslie, Eugene Pallette and Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel. Underneath the football influence in this comedy, is a story about American freedom of thought and speech versus fascism. This old movie, in a way, could feel relevant in these post-White House insurrection times. The comedy, from Warner Bros., is 1942's THE MALE ANIMAL. Here's a clip.
The only thing that sets my teeth on edge about this movie is how Black groundbreaking actress Hattie McDaniel is presented. She's a maid and pretty much a bit player saddled with having to speak in that stereotypical way White Hollywood studio execs seemed to love. Hattie McDaniel and Olivia de Havilland had strong, important scenes together in 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND. In 1940, Hattie was the first Black person nominated for an Oscar and the first to win. In THE MALE ANIMAL, she's the only one amongst those fellow cast member stars I mentioned who had won an Oscar. You'd never know it from the quality and size of her role in THE MALE ANIMAL.
A drama that's full of football and muy, muy macho is Oliver Stone's is 1999's ANY GIVEN SUNDAY starring Al Pacino as a struggling NFL coach and Jamie Foxx in an excellent performance as a showboat NFL star. As in several Stone films, it poses as extremely heterosexual fare but is has homoerotic visuals in some scenes. In the overlong ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, notice the extensive full frontal male nudity in locker room scenes.
I suggest some guys stream this film and watch it again. I saw it in wide release so I could review it on TV. The film ended, credits started to roll and lots of folks in my particular cineplex audience left. The credits seemed to go on forever. But, near the end of the closing credits, there was a final scene from the movie and it had a major revelation.
The folks who left when the credits began, didn't know how ANY GIVEN SUNDAY really ended. Here's a preview of it.
My sister rarely recommends a movie to me. That changed recently when she urged me to see the new film, KING RICHARD, starring Will Smith. It falls into the biopic category as Will plays the father of two little athletic girls in Compton, California. The girls are Serena and Venus Williams.
I am so grateful to my sister for urging me to see KING RICHARD. The Oscar nominations come out very early tomorrow morning. If Will Smith gets an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, it will be a well-deserved nomination. (Also, the Academy adores biopic performances. From Spencer Tracy in BOY'S TOWN and Luise Rainer in THE GREAT ZIEGFELD in the 1930s to Raimi Malek as Freddie Mercury in 2018's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY and Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland in 2019's JUDY, look at how many actors won their Oscars for biopic performances.)
Richard is the devoted, benevolently forceful father of a large family in South Central Los Angeles. He's a loving, supportive man with a loving, supportive wife. The married couple has more girls than bedrooms in the house, so the daughters share rooms. About the daughters, they are a most lovable, polite, talented group of kids. This is a good family. My sister and I grew up very near Compton in South Central Los Angeles. Our family spent a lot of time in Compton. It was such a joy to see a Compton family presented in such a positive, warm light on the big screen. That family was like people we knew, people we had as neighbors.
Richard, who probably did not receive as much a scholastic education as his daughters are getting, pushes his young tennis phenom daughters to be champions on the tennis court. Venus and Serena never complain about his pushing and never resent it because they are seriously in it for the love of the game. They want to be over-achievers on the court. Richard is their coach, their promoter and their chauffeur. He's determined to get them an upscale coach, a chance to practice on upscale courts and the chance to move up from Compton. He gets them to their practice sessions in Compton and endures being beaten up by teen hoods because of his commitment to his daughters. A nosy neighbor will accuse him of over-working the girls.
His iron-fist commitment to his girls does make you wonder if it's generated by some lack he feels in his life. Some fear of being denied equal rights as he and his family strive to make history. He teaches his girls that it's not about the money and glory. He stresses humility and patience. He even uses Disney's animated classic, CINDERELLA, as a teaching tool for family viewing night. Richard is a good, complicated man. A man who may have to learn to step aside to let more professional coaches teach his daughters what they need to know to make the major league. Richard is a man who grew up being taught to step aside and be a second-class citizen.
Will Smith, with his different physicality vocal pattern, delivers one of the best and most moving performances of his career in this fine film. Here's a trailer.
Ultimately, KING RICHARD shows us the power of having a loving and supportive family, one that recognizes and respects your individual gifts. One that takes your dream and makes it bigger.
I would also love to see a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination go to Aunjanue Ellis for her smart, tender and tough performance as Richard's wife. The scene in the kitchen where she tells Richard he's been wrong about a few things and reminds him that she's been co-coach to Venus and Serena is memorable. I got as much excitement watching her performance as I've had watching Venus and Serena Williams on the tennis courts on network TV. Very fine work also comes from Tony Goldwyn as Los Angeles coach Paul Cohen and Jon Bernthal as Florida coach Rick Macci.
KING RICHARD runs 2 hours, 24 minutes. It's the quality of film our Rivers Family back in South Central L.A. would've gone to the Compton Drive-In to see for a family night at the movies.
This movie could have been called A STAR IS PORN. For three wonderful years, I worked under the Viacom/CBS corporate umbrella. I was a daily veejay and celebrity talk show host on VH1 which, back in the late 80s when I worked there, was sort of the "older sibling" in music, tone and programming to MTV. In the 1990s, MTV had a veejay named Simon Rex. It was discovered that he'd been a porn star who made adult films that were popular with a gay male audience. He didn't have co-stars in his films. He was seen in, what would be called, "hot solo action." This news sent MTV executives into a tizzy, having vapors over what this scandal could do to MTV's reputation. Well, nothing much happened. Remember, this was about the time when Madonna was posing naked on street corners for her SEX book.
Simon Rex now stars in an indie film called RED ROCKETS, written and directed by Sean Baker. Baker gave us one of my favorite films of 2015, the comedy/drama TANGERINE. It follows a Black transgender sex worker in the low-rent Hollywood area at Christmastime. She discovers her pimp/boyfriend has been cheating on her. RED ROCKETS does not tell as interestingly detailed a story as TANGERINE. Nevertheless, it is loopy and lively. Critics raved about Simon Rex's performance as the loser who returns by bus to the small Texas town he'd left 15 years earlier. He went to Los Angeles and became a porn star who once won an award. Hardly anyone is glad to see him return to Texas. He winds up living with his ex-wife, regaling guys with endless tales of his porn career coupled with dreams of making a comeback. He winds up selling pot out of a donut shop and dating a high school girl. Mikey Saber (Rex) has a big Foghorn Leghorn-like personality, he's irresponsible, mostly unskilled and doesn't realize he's on a road to nowhere.
Simon Rex deserved those rave reviews. What a surprise. Here's a trailer.
Justin Chang of VARIETY, one of the best film critics in the business, wrote that "Simon Rex gives the performance of his career."
Rex's previous screen credits include SCARY MOVIE 3, SCARY MOVIE 4, SCARY MOVIE 5, STUDENT BODIES and HALLOWEED.
