FIVE CAME BACK for Memorial Day

 I was apartment-sitting for a friend in New York. While I was there at her place, I logged onto Netflix one lazy weekend summer afternoon and watched the 2017 documentary entitled FIVE CAME BACK. Narrated by Meryl Steep, it focuses on classic Hollywood filmmaker history -- but it's about much more than that. It's about how they recognized and realized the red flags invisibly waving in news of their day and how they responded to them,. Similar red flags are waving in society today,

Directors Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, John Ford and William Wyler were men in uniform during World War 2 and documented real life -- and death -- during the war. Discrimination was noted as America fought overseas for freedom and liberty. Our U.S. troops were segregated then.

Keep in mind that this was all occurring in the pre-television era. People got their daily news via newspapers and the radio. As for news footage, they saw newsreels at the movies that preceded the main entertainment features.

Modern-day filmmakers Guillermo del Toro, Francis Ford Cop[pola, Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg give excellent, insightful commentary. At the beginning of FIVE CAME BACK, one absolutely gripping section comes when we see how director Frank Capra realized the true, massive evil of the growing Nazi Party and Hitler's growing armies in Germany. The evils of this fascism slithered into our American cities before 1940. Democracy was threatened. It's chilling footage. And it's footage that, sadly, is relevant again today.

Click onto the link below to see a trailer:

https://youtu.be/5JuiCTz6Khw.

The wartime footage and documentaries from those five filmmakers heavily influenced the post-war movies that they made.

I was so riveted to and moved by FIVE CAME BACK that summer afternoon in my friend's apartment that I watched it again that same day. FIVE CAME BACK is still available on Netflix.

This fascinating documentary series, perfect for Memorial Day viewing, is based on a book of the same name by Mark Harris. Thank you, Mr, Harris.

The next time you watch 1959's BEN-HUR, directed by William Wyler, think of Jewish Judah Ben-Hur as a Berliner in the 1930s who's witnessing his non-Jewish boyhood friend be seduced by the wicked promises and power of Hitler.

THE COLOR PURPLE Movie Musical

 1984. I was a few years into my first professional TV job. I worked on the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee. I lived with a. groovy roommate in a groovy apartment on Milwaukee's East Side. On Prospect Avenue, to be exact. From where our apartment was situated, I could get one of the Chicago TV stations on my television. One morning, I watched A.M. Chicago, a local show that had long been in the basement, ratings-wise. The show had a studio audience and a set that looked like it cost about $49.95. 

One this particular morning, I watched the show with its new host. Her guests were Jackie Zeman, actress from daytime TV's GENERAL HOSPITAL, and a woman who wrote a pasta recipes cookbook. For the whole show, the three women talked and made pasta salads. I felt magnetized to the TV by the charisma, warmth, interest and spontaneity A.M. CHICAGO's new host. She was fresh. She was different. At a time when the typical female TV host was a perky young and slim Caucasian woman, this was a lively young Black woman with an unusual first name. Oprah. The show's ratings began to rise. DJs on morning radio shows were talking about her. Chicago residents were talking about her. She started getting terrific national publicity. The show got a new set and a new title. A.M. CHICAGO was renamed OPRAH. She was one of daytime TV's hottest new celebrities and the show was on the brink of going into what would be history-making syndication.

During this time, Oprah Winfrey had read and become obsessed with Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning 1982 novel, THE COLOR PURPLE. When she heard that Steven Spielberg would be directing a film adaptation, she was determined to get an audition for a role.

With all that in mind, watch the clip below with Oprah talking about her journey to an audition. Remember that, at the time, she was nationally popular, beloved in Chicago, and had her own daytime weekday talk show. But she was still a Black woman. Pay attention to what a casting director said to her.

TV host Oprah Winfrey got a part in Spielberg's 1985 film version of THE COLOR PURPLE.

Amongst the many Oscar nominations it received, which included Best Picture, Oprah Winfrey was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2005, THE COLOR PURPLE became a Tony-winning Broadway musical. 

Now, that musical version has been adapted into a movie that opens in December. Watch this trailer.

The power of Oprah. I wonder if she ever got an apology from that rude casting director?

For TED LASSO Fans

 On Twitter, I read a few comments from critics about this current -- and final -- season of TED LASSO. The critics felt that the current season was lacking in character development. Well...I'm of the point now in my life where I feel there are way too many critics who are basically writing to seem high-tone and impress other critics. There's no passion in their work but, often, there is passion in the imperfect but worthwhile work they criticize. I've been loving this current season of TED LASSO. We discover more about Coach Ted, the complicated optimist whose sunny disposition hides some of the storm clouds in his heart.

I just watched Episode 11 on Apple+. Ted's mother flies to London for a surprise visit. That's not a spoiler. We learn it in the first minute. Later in the episode, there's lovely moment involving a clip from a Tom Hanks romantic comedy. And Nate learns a big lesson in forgiveness.

I was so touched that I broke out crying in the last 10 minutes of Episode 11. The episode is about forgiveness and it touched a couple of sensitive areas in my heart that I'd pushed way, way back some years ago.

For those who've never seen the show, here's a taste of the current season.

I love this show.

More MARY TYLER MOORE

Keep this in mind for your TV viewing this coming Friday night, May 26th. HBO will premiere a new documentary entitled BEING MARY TYLER MOORE. We will learn new things about the woman who won national TV fame playing Laura Petrie on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, local newsroom producer Mary Richards on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and got a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for her dramatic performance in ORDINARY PEOPLE, Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1980. Terry Sims is the documentary's associate producer. He was Moore's executive assistant for 25 years. 

I met Terry and Mary when she was doing TV interviews to promote her new film work in 1982's SIX WEEKS co-starring Dudley. I worked on the ABC affiliate at the time, doing entertainment features for the city's edition of PM MAGAZINE. My interview of Mary Tyler Moore was one of my first celebrity interviews to air nationally. She and Terry brought me good luck.

Both of them were extremely gracious. I came away feeling that Mary was not only a strong actress but also a strong woman. There was a air of steeliness about her. Not meanness, mind you. But a strength and steeliness that was forged from years of hard work, disappointments, loss and perseverance. 

I'd read the novel, ORDINARY PEOPLE, when it was a hardcover best-seller. Initially, there was an entertainment news report that Lee Remick was a top choice to play the glacially sophisticated, emotionally guarded Chicago area housewife/mother who has suffered the loss of one son.

When I read that news that director Robert Redford gave Mary Tyler Moore the complicated role, I was young and stunned. Why? Because I was thinking of her as her sitcom characters and the dainty lady who did a dance number in an elevator with Julie Andrews in the movie musical, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE.

After I'd seen 1980's ORDINARY PEOPLE and after I'd interviewed the actress, I was fully aware of why Redford wisely cast her in the role. Here's trailer for the HBO documentary.

In New York City during my VH1 years (1987 to 1990), Terry Sims was a very cool new buddy and extremely kind to me. Sometimes, if I retuned a phone call to his office, Mary would answer the phone. That voice of hers was immediately recognizable.

When I was hired by VH1, I was given a 3-year contract. When I got good reviews in national publications for my veejay work and got my own prime time weeknight celebrity talkshow, my contract was extended to 5 years.

Three years into my job, new management came in and made some sweeping changes. One was to do away with veejay hosts. So I was notified that, come the end of the third year on my contract, I'd be released.

I called Terry to let him know and to thank him for his kindness and support. I told him I'd be job-hunting. He told Mary and, in background, she asked "Is he getting unemployment?"

I had never applied for unemployment in my life at that point. Applying for unemployment money had never even occurred to me.

Mary Tyler Moore got on the phone, asked me to tell her what was going on with my contract and, after I did, responded with "You'll be eligible for unemployment." She told me what to do.

That fact that "Mary Richards" was the one who informed me of my unemployment eligibility after I'd served my time under a broadcast TV contract will always be one of the most awesome moments of my career.

I will definitely be watching the documentary this coming Friday night. 

About HORSEPLAY

 HORSEPLAY, written and directed by Marco Berger, opens in theaters on June 2nd and hits digital platoforms on June 13th. This is a beautifully photographed, well-acted film that takes place during a modern-day summer in Argentina and has a strong undercurrent of homophobic machismo and some homosexual interest. It's subtitled. It will have appeal to the LGBTQ audience -- especially males who may crave a drama with a generous amount of full frontal and total backside male nudity. 

Berger focuses on a group of ten buddies who, at first, seem like members of a sports team -- like the team in the TED LASSO episodes. But this is basically a group of attractive, slim, well-built slackers who, collectively, display about 1/4th a cup of emotional depth and substance. They are quite languid in a large, roomy, rather elegant house which none of them ever attempts to keep clean. A female housekeeper does that. Due to the space, some of the buddies will sleep together on the same bed. Some are dressed. Some are totally naked. Their main daily activity is engaging in horseplay. They like to prank each other making secret homo-suggestive videos and then sending them to friends or posting them on Instagram. The material consists of one guy smooching another's butt, two pals pretending to fondle each other, wiggling one's johnson over the head of a snoozing roommate -- that sort of juvenile stuff. These guys have been engaging in that sort of behavior ever since they were 16.  They're now 25 and the horseplay carries on for such an extended amount of time that -- to the viewer -- it gets annoying. The young men talk about hot babes and make fun of homosexuals. We wait to discover which one is closeted. Well..one is. And he's attracted to a bisexual housemate.

Some young women, ready to party, visit the guys.  One interesting thing to note is that these females are also hormonally charged but their conversation is different. The guys talk about what pranks they've done and what pranks their planning. They smoke cigarettes, weed, and they drink. The females talk about sexism, science and environmental issues. One calls the guys out on the sexually-driven prank videos and how they view two shapely, gorgeous women making out as normal but view two shapely, gorgeous men making out as unnatural.

The girlfriend of one of the housemates has had it with his instigating some of the videos. As I wrote, this is a beautifully photographed film with a deluxe set location of a house with a pool. At times, HORSEPLAY looks like a David Hockney painting come to life. But, after a while, we long for a solid point to all this. Will there be a major revelation? Will these young men finally grow up? Will the closeted gay one come out? Here's a trailer for HORSEPLAY.

Initially, there seems to be a sexual fluidity amongst this group of friends. As I wrote earlier, several share a bed with one sleeping in the raw. They greet each other with a kiss. But you do sense restrictions and great immaturity in their conversations that accompany the pranks. At the beginning, one housemate declares "You know this is just horseplay." Later, during one nudity-infused prank cellphone camera shoot, they all chant "Home photo!" Eventually, this takes us to an ending that I felt...well, let's say we've seen that kind of ending before in dramatic films with a gay male storyline. 

But the Argentinian eye candy was tasty.

On DEBRA WINGER

It's May 16th. Happy Birthday, Debra Winger. Back in the 1980s, there were vert few new actresses as interesting, as feisty, as original and as gifted as Debra Winger. We loved her in URBAN COWBOY (1980), AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (1982 and 1983's classic TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. She went to do more solid in films such as 1993's SHADOWLANDS. We can see her be one of the best things in the kinda lame Netflix sitcom, THE RANCH. It's a production that makes he say "This is the best material you can come up with for Debra Winger?!?!?"

I want to recommend one of my favorite Debra Winger performances in a film that rarely gets mentioned. It's a 1988 soy thriller that, sadly, feels achingly timely in light of our country's current political turbulence. Directed by Costa-Gavras (who gave us Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in MISSING and the foreign thriller Z), this 1988 film is called BETRAYED.

Debra Winger plays an undercover FBI agent on the case of a Jewish radio host who was murdered by a suspected white supremacists. She has to infiltrate a rural community that may be harboring some of those suspects. The film co-stars Tom Berenger as the friendly single dad farmer who welcomes her into the community. 

Here's a BETRAYED (1988) original movie trailer.

Here's a short clip from BETRAYED.

You can stream BETRAYED on HBO Max.

On KATHARINE HEPBURN

 Kate the Great. As of yet, no actress has matched her record of four Oscar wins for Best Actress. Her first was for 1933's MORNING GLORY and her last for 1981's ON GOLDEN POND. My mother loved Katharine Hepburn. I grew up loving Katharine Hepburn. When I was in my last two years of high school in Los Angeles, fellow teens and college kids I'd encountered talked about hot new actress of the day -- Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda. They also talked about Katharine Hepburn. 1967's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER did very well at the box office. Young moviegoers were paying to see her in 1968's THE LION IN WINTER, a historical drama based on a Broadway play. Both of those 1960s films brought Hepburn Best Actress Oscars. And young moviegoers were also taking about Hepburn's now-famous impromptu TV interview with Dick Cavett. Her independence, her intelligence, her energetic Connecticut feminism and even her unique and well-tailored tomboy-ish fashion statement made this actress, a movie star since the 1930s, seem modern and hip to a new audience in the 60s and 70s. And there was her legendary screen teaming with Spencer Tracy -- a special relationship onscreen and off. One of their classics is George Cukor's 1949 comedy, ADAM'S RIB. They starred as married New York lawyers who wind up on opposite sides in the courtroom in this comedy about women's equality. 

From a buddy on Facebook, I learned that there's a new documentary on Netflix about Hepburn. CALL ME KATE was written and directed by Lorna Tucker. If you're a fellow Hepburn fan, you should check out the 90-minute feature. It's full of footage and information we don't usually see -- or have never seen -- in previous features on the fiercely private screen great. We see home movies, if you will, and learn about her parents in Connecticut and how Kate's mother was a major force in influencing how Hepburn crafted her screen image. We learn about her beloved brother who died by his own hand. We learn about her early Broadway flop performances from which she learned and carried on with a steely ambition.

In her early Hollywood years, we hear how she shook off rumors of lesbianism and had a romance with millionaire Howard Hughes. Then there's Spencer Tracy, Lorna Tucker's documentary delves deep into this 30-year relationship that obviously had its turbulence. Tracy drank too much, he was far from being as outgoing as she, he had fits of depression and was wracked with Catholic guilt because he was a married man with children. We hear from relatives of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. We also hear Hepburn in never-before-revealed taped interviews.

The documentary also addresses one Hepburn success that's rarely mentioned. She starred in a hit Broadway musical about famed French designer Coco Chanel. The 1969 show, COCO, had a score by Alan Jay Lerner and André Previn. Katharine Hepburn was a Tony nominee for Best Lead Actress in a Musical. 

I saw the show when it played in L.A. at the Music Center. I was in high school and a family friend gave me her ticket to a matinee performance because she had to be out of town. I was not the only one in the audience who was awestruck by Katharine Hepburn's magnetism, energy and her skill in the musical numbers. She talk/sang like Rex Harrison in MY FAIR LADY and Robert Preston in THE MUSIC MAN. She never missed a beat and her vocal delivery was a crisp as a ripe apple. You could hear every single syllable. It was her first and only Broadway musical -- yet she seemed born to do it.

The audience gave her a well-deserved and most loving standing ovation. This was back in the day when a standing ovation really meant something -- especially in L.A. where enthusiastic audiences tended to keep their seats because they were used to TV and being in movie theaters or cars at the drive-in. 

You will learn new things about the complicated, charismatic Katharine Hepburn in CALL ME KATE. Check it out on Netflix. In the meantime, click onto the link below to hear Katharine Hepburn as Coco Chanel on the original Broadway cast album of COCO.

https://youtu.be/A_fGSei3akQ.

It's May

 I am so ready for spring to really take hold where I am. We made it to a new month. I pray it's a great month for you filled with only pleasant surprises. Be cool, be kind, be safe. Let's celebrate with this tune from CAMELOT.