Happy Birthday to the successful and exuberant Hollywood producer, Joel Silver. I've interviewed him a couple of times during movie junkets promoting films he'd produced. One time during either the junket for his CONSPIRACY THEORY or LETHAL WEAPON 4, I made a note to ask him about director, writer and producer Billy Wilder. In addition to the two films I just mentioned, Joel Silver also gave us DIE HARD, the previous three LETHAL WEAPON movies, 48 HOURS, PREDATOR and THE MATRIX.
So why did I want to ask him about Billy Wilder? Here's why: In some of my research, I read that one of Joel Silver's favorite films is Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning classic, THE APARTMENT, starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon.
It's one of my all-time favorites too.
I asked the Hollywood action movie producer a question about casting. If the shooting script for Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT landed on his desk, word for word as we know it today, and he had to cast current stars in the roles played by Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, who would he cast?
Joel Silver answered, "Julia Roberts...and Tom Cruise."
I felt my facial muscles and limbs kind of go numb for a moment. I needed someone to screw a good, stiff cocktail into my hand -- like in the movie AUNTIE MAME.
But that was just my personal reaction back in the 1990s. You might think Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts would've made mighty fine casting as the leads in Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT.
This movie musical, the adaptation of a hit Broadway musical based on Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, is a cinematic work of art. That magnificent score, the gorgeous orchestration, the choreography, use of color, the art direction, the editing, the performances, the humanity of the story....it all works. It all touches my soul. And it get my fingers to snappin'. I always wish I was dancing the Mambo with the Sharks, the Latino kids, in the gym.
WEST SIDE STORY aired on TCM recently. I watched it yet again, fully absorbed and so totally touched that tears did run down my face at the end. True, a few things about this 1961 Oscar-winning film are dated. Keep in mind it's based on a 1950s Broadway musical that was revolutionary in its day with street gangs as subjects. But when I watched it again last night, there was a frankness that felt achingly current and relevant. Simon Oakland played the openly racist and verbally abusive cop, Lt. Schrank. He's bigoted towards Puerto Ricans. It hit me that he was the kind of cop who would've shot an unarmed minority youth to death but would've been found "not guilty" because he claimed that he feared for his life and that's why he shot. Pair that with the immigration issue sung about in the "America" number. This was a modern-day reality and frankness movie audiences didn't experience in the Hollywood musicals and of the 1940s and 50s. It was a reality and frankness that holds up today in the era of "Black Lives Matter" and proposed Trump immigration bans.
Let's bring in the Hollywood "Oscars So White" controversy of the last couple of years. I thought of that watching the remarkable performance delivered by Rita Moreno.
She sang, she danced, she packed a dramatic punch. The gifted Puerto Rican star won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Then, because of Hollywood's racial exclusion and lack of equal opportunities for women of color, she did not get another major movie offer for seven years after she'd won the Oscar. As my mother would say, "That's just a sin and a shame."
Just like black actresses Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard and even Viola Davis -- to name a few -- Rita Moreno got an Oscar nomination and then had to turn to television because Hollywood had no quality script offers after she'd made Oscar history.
I worked on an ABC News live magazine show in 2000 called LIFETIME LIVE. Rita Moreno was an in-studio guest one day. I was off the day but went to the studio specifically to meet Ms. Moreno and tell her that she's been a role model to me ever since I was in high school. Backstage, after her interview on the show, I met Rita Moreno. She was everything I hoped she would be -- and more. Especially when I told her that I came in on my day off just to meet her. Rita Moreno treated me better than my agent at that time did...and he was taking 10% of my paychecks.
In WEST SIDE STORY, She played Anita. Anita is in love with Bernardo, the leader of The Sharks. In the original Broadway cast, Chita Rivera was Anita. In the winter of late 2005 or early 2005, a dear friend invited me to see Chita Rivera in her one-woman Broadway show. He was the musical director for it and he wanted me to meet some friends of his who'd also be in the audience. One of those friends was one of The Jets in the original Broadway production. He'd danced in the Broadway cast with Chita and repeated his role of "Mouthpiece" in the film version. I was thrilled to meet and talk to the lovable Harvey Evans. Look at this photo from the movie WEST SIDE STORY. See the trio of Jets at the far right of the picture? Harvey's the Jet in the middle.
Here's another photo from "Jet Song," the opening number in WEST SIDE STORY. Harvey is the first Jet you see in the lower right-hand corner.
WEST SIDE STORY won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1961. Decades later, Harvey Evans danced in another musical. Another movie musical that also got Oscar nominations.
A few years after we'd met and chatted after seeing Chita Rivera's opening night on Broadway in her one-woman show, I noticed Harvey in a movie I was watching at a critics screening. I'd be reviewing it onthe Whoopi Goldberg national morning radio show. The Disney movie was Disney's fantasy musical comedy, ENCHANTED. This 2007 release put Harvey back in New York City near where he'd danced in WEST SIDE STORY. He was in Central Park, seated next to Amy Adams in the "That's How You Know" number. Watch for Harvey. He's the senior gent sitting next to Amy Adams and working on a newspaper crossword puzzle. She's holding a sketchpad.
It doesn't end there.
ENCHANTED got three Oscar nominations. "That's How You Know" was a nominee for Best Song. When the number was performed live on the 2008 Oscars telecast by Kristin Chenoweth, Harvey Evans was in the number live repeating his ENCHANTED movie role.
In my long TV career as an entertainment reporter, I've never been assigned Red Carpet Oscar coverage nor have I been asked to be on a network morning TV news program the morning after to talk about the awards. If I had been on GOOD MORNING AMERICA the morning after ABC's Oscar telecast, I would have definitely mentioned that Harvey Evans, one of the dancers in WEST SIDE STORY, Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1961, had been onstage the night before dancing to a 2007 movie tune that got an Oscar nomination for Best Song. He'd danced to "That's How You Know" in Disney's ENCHANTED.
I think that's a great story. I am so lucky to have met Rita Moreno and Harvey Evans of WEST SIDE STORY.
I'm of that generation that mentioned reviews from Siskel & Ebert or critics of The New York Times and other respected publications when making their plans to see a new movie. Nowadays, I hear folks mention the percentage of favor a movie got online from Rotten Tomatoes. I prefer to stick with critics who have a track record, critics whom I respect. When Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times said lovely things on KPCC radio's FilmWeek show on a Friday edition of the station's AirTalk show, I was immediately interested. When I read the equally lovely review from Joanna Langfield of www.TheMovieMinute.com, my interest was doubled. Last month, I was watching Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL on cable and wondered why no one seemed capable of making a good romantic comedy anymore. I paid to see THE BIG SICK last week. That ticket was worth every single penny. THE BIG SICK is a romantic comedy that made me feel very, very good. I laughed, I cried, I loved it.
Lead actor and co-writer Kumail Nanjiani, a regular on HBO's Silicon Valley sitcom, and director Michael Showalter prove that the romantic comedy for grown-ups is not a lost art form. Nanjiani based the screenplay on his real-life experiences. He plays a Pakistani stand-up comedian who's finding his own life and career as a young adult American. He's veered of the life that his traditional Pakistani Muslim parents had planned for him. His family doesn't know that he's seeing a white American girl he met in a comedy club after his set. There's a culture clash. I could relate to it. Not that I'm Pakistani, but my mother had planned for me to marry a black Catholic woman and be a best-selling novelist like Hemingway. I became a TV performer and fell in love with a white Southern Baptist male. I totally understood the expectations, the conflicts, the heartbreaks -- and the humor.
Some folks may carp, "Why couldn't he fall for a brown girl?" Well, think of the "opposites attract" culture and/or class dynamic at play in romantic comedies. A Jewish Woody Allen neurotic fell for a shiksa Diane Keaton character in ANNIE HALL and in MANHATTAN. He fell for shiksa siblings in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS. Look at Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY or Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in KNOCKED UP. Look at wealthy Tom Hanks and out-of-work local bookstore owner Meg Ryan in YOU'VE GOT MAIL. All different characters in each film but of the same color. Plus, as I wrote earlier, THE BIG SICK is mostly autobiographical.
As you can probably tell from the film's title, an illness enters the picture. One that requires the sick person be hospitalized. I could relate to that too. Here's a trailer from THE BIG SICK. Zoe Kazan will charm you as Emily, the stricken girlfriend. Ray Romano and Holly Hunter play Emily's parents.
If you loved Holly Hunter in BROADCAST NEWS back in the late 80s, you will love her in THE BIG SICK. Do not be surprised if THE BIG SICK brings Holly Hunter an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Holly Hunter and Ray Romano are terrific together. And they're not a pair of wacky comedy movie parents like in MEET THE PARENTS or MEET THE FOCKERS. The movie doesn't give you that "They could've easily taken 15 minutes out for a tighter, better film" like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL and THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT did. Emily's parents have covered some emotional mileage in their relationship. Their marriage has depth and gravity. Romano and Hunter are reason enough to see THE BIG SICK. This was wonderful casting.
Kumail Nanjiani is handsome and soulful. Like the film, he is funny and tender. I hope Hollywood has more leading man movie opportunities for him. Rated R, THE BIG SICK is a great date movie. Justin Chang and Joanna Langfield were right. I wanted to give this movie a big, warm hug -- like it's a dear friend I've not seen in quite some time. THE BIG SICK is the best new romantic comedy I've seen in quite some time.
This morning I had one of those moments when I said to myself, "Man, GOOD MORNING AMERICA needs to have me on its staff as a segment producer or something." Today, one of the entertainment news topics focused on whether on not well-reviewed blockbuster action/fantasy hits will get some Oscar love come nomination time like the serious prestige films usually released in the fall season do. This segment was generated by the box office and critical success of WONDER WOMAN, directed by Patty Jenkins.
GMA and ABC News entertainment reporter Chris Connelly gave his opinions and, well, he pretty much dumped a bucket of cold water on the hot buzz of Oscar talk for action/fantasy blockbusters. He felt that action/fantasy blockbusters don't get Oscar nominations in the most popular categories.
Connelly is good man. I've never worked with him. But I've watched him over the years. Occassionally, I've disagreed with him. One morning live on GMA, a few minutes before the announcement of Oscar nominations for 2010, he made a statement about Javier Bardem. Connelly said that Bardem didn't have a chance to get a Best Actor nomination for BIUTIFUL because it's a subtitled foreign film and the Academy usually goes with actors who deliver performances in English. I'd seen BIUTIFUL, reviewed it, and felt Bardem had a very strong chance to get an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. I even tweeted my opinion on Twitter a couple of minutes after Connelly's live GMA statement.
Early in 2011, Javier Bardem's name was announced as a Best Actor Oscar nominee for the Spanish film, BIUTIFUL. Chris Connelly was wrong.
Today, GMA anchor Amy Robach mentioned to Chris Connelly that 2015's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD got 6 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. His response was that the other 5 nominations were all for technical work and not in top categories, aside from the Best Picture nod.
This is just my reminder that the blockbuster action/fantasy sequel ALIENS got 7 Oscar nominations including Sigourney Weaver for Best Actress of 1986 in the female-driven sci-fi horror thriller.
Years before that, STAR WARS won 6 of its 10 Oscar nominations.
Those 10 Oscar nominations included Best Picture of 1977, Best Director (George Lucas), Best Original Screenplay (George Lucas) and Best Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness).
I'm sure you know that STAR WARS was a major Hollywood blockbuster and became a pop cultural phenomenon.
By the way, early this year, minutes after the top Oscar nominations were announced live during GMA, Chris Connelly was on the panel with Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan. Connelly mentioned that Meryl Streep had just made Oscar history with her 20th nomination. However, in this #OscarSoWhite age of controversy regarding Hollywood's serious need for diversity and inclusion, he overlooked and never mentioned that Viola Davis had just made Hollywood history by becoming the most Oscar-nominated black actress since the Academy Awards were born. And it was her 3rd nomination. Viola Davis went on to win that Best Supporting Actress Oscar for FENCES. A record-breaking 3rd nomination compared to a record-breaking 20th nominations. Now there's a statement on Hollywood's need for more diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities. Viola Davis also stars on the hit ABC series, HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER.
So...Dear GMA...if you're hiring segment producers for your entertainment segments, contact me. I need a job.
When I'm able to on Fridays, I treat my ears and mind to a weekly film review hour that streams on news station KPCC out of Southern California. It's the 11am FilmWeek hour that airs during the weekday AirTalk show hosted by Larry Mantle. That's 11am Pacific time. On Fridays, Larry is host to a couple or a trio of film critics who deliver passionate, informed and non-snarky movie reviews -- reviews of big Hollywood, small indie and foreign films. The show is a treat for us film lovers. Not only that, Larry's show opens a door that, sadly, network TV news and syndicated entertainment programs failed to do for decades. He presents race and gender diversity in his selection of critics. I love this show. Recently, critics were very enthusiastic about a documentary called SCORE. To me, a great score can be a movie's best friend. The score itself can be a work of film art. One of my favorites is the score to a classic many of us watched annually on TV as a prime time network TV special. 1939's THE WIZARD OF OZ has a outstanding score starting with the overture for the opening credits. It's grand, it has sweep and it gives you a sense of wonder.
Then there's all the original, clever songs written for it. We have the wistful "Over the Rainbow" that became Judy Garland's signature tune for the rest of her career and life plus the witty songs written for Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. Watch that classic again and listen to how remarkable an original score it has -- and how lushly it's arranged and orchestrated. THE WIZARD OF OZ has music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by "Yip" Harburg. The music score was by Herbert Stothart.
Another great score can be heard in the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, PSYCHO. The high-pitched staccato strings in the Bernard Herrmann score give you a sense of attack and madness. They also sound like the crazed shrieks of birds.
Think of the birds demented Norman Bates has stuffed and mounted in his room. What a brilliant score. As for what I wrote about the fact that a great score can be movie's best friend...think about the theme to JAWS.
Those few, low, ominous notes from John Williams and the aquatic quality to his orchestration ...so memorable. That score was just the thing that Steven Spielberg's film needed.
SCORE, the new documentary, shows us the modern-day work that goes into creating movie music. Take a look at the trailer.
In the 1990s, not long after TITANIC had become a surprise box office blockbuster, there was a special re-release of the 1939 movie classic, GONE WITH THE WIND. Now there's another famous film score. I had a date. I asked him out to see a GONE WITH THE WIND showing in New York City. He was up for it. He'd never seen the movie. I'd seen it several times but was eager to see this remastered edition on a big screen with the overture, intermission music and exit music. I did not expect the theater to be packed, but it was. And not just with older folks. This was a theater full of film lovers. There was huge applause when Scarlett delivers the final line and the Max Steiner music swells up. The audience even stayed seated through the exit music.
I mentioned that to my date as we merged into the crowd and walked up the aisle to the door. I was so thrilled that folks stayed for the exit music.
He replied, "Yeah! That was something. And there was hardly any music in the whole movie." He wasn't kidding. He made his casual remark quite seriously.
It's Father's Day. It's typical to see film lovers and film critics online post a list of favorite movies to watch on Father's Day. On the list are features with great father figures such as Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, Robin Williams as the divorced dad who becomes MRS. DOUBTFIRE or Will Smith as the unemployed parent determined to take care of his little boy in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. There's a film that moves me so much thanks to its fine direction by Mira Nair. Couple that with the memorable performance by Irrfan Kahn as the loving immigrant father in New York who endured extreme hardships on his journey to America from Calcutta. I paid to see this movie at a cineplex when it was new. When the movie ended, I felt like writing a thank you note to director Mira Nair. What a beautiful job she did with THE NAMESAKE.
As for actor Irrfan Kahn, you may not know his name but I'm sure you have seen him in other films. He played a brute of a police inspector in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and he had a role in JURASSIC WORLD.
In the film adaptation of THE NAMESAKE, you not only see the immigrant experience but you also see a story about that moment when you, as an adult child, discover more about a parent or your parents. We grow up seeing Mom and Dad as older people who tell us when to do our homework, when to go to bed and what time we have to be home by if we don't want to get grounded. It doesn't occur to us that they were once young people who experienced dreams and disappointments, love and heartbreak, success and failure. All those experiences inform the quality of their parenting and the love they give you. In THE NAMESAKE, popular film and TV actor Kal Penn stars as the first generation American-born son who is doing pretty well for himself in New York City. Can he carve out his own identity and also blend in some of the ethnic culture and traditions that live on in his father? Here's a trailer for THE NAMESAKE.
Ashkoke Ganguli, so wonderfully played by Irrfan Kahn, is as much a loving film father as the ones I mentioned in the opening paragraph. And you don't have to be of Indian background to connect to and to be touched by this tender story. Word of mouth from friends in my neighborhood prompted me to see THE NAMESAKE in 2007 while it was still at the local cineplex. I'm very glad I did. Again, thank you to Mira Nair.
It's possibly one of the most perfect pieces of miscasting in a 1960s Hollywood movie. Audrey Hepburn may have been all wrong for Truman Capote's vision of Holly Golightly as she appears in his novella, but Audrey Hepburn was absolutely fabulous for millions who saw the movie adaptation. I'm one of those millions. I fall in love with her as Holly every time I see BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S The opening credits sequence alone seemed to skyrocket Audrey Hepburn from film fashion plate to international fashion icon.
It's been written that Truman Capote did not approve of that movie casting. He'd written Holly with Marilyn Monroe in mind. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S brought Audrey Hepburn a Best Actress of 1961 Oscar nomination.
That same year saw a much-troubled Marilyn Monroe in Arthur Miller's original screenplay drama, THE MISFITS, co-starring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. It would be Monroe's last completed film before her untimely death in August 1962.
I wrote an opinion on Audrey Hepburn's Holly that got mentioned on NPR about seven years ago. I feel that Hepburn, who reportedly had initial doubts about taking on the role, challenged herself and her image by playing Holly. Since her starring role as the princess in William Wyler's ROMAN HOLIDAY, a performance that introduced her to American audiences and earned her the Best Actress of 1953, she was the poised young lady who was attracted to mature older gentlemen instead of immature men in her own age category. She fell for Gregory Peck as the jaded American newspaper reporter in ROMAN HOLIDAY. Her other leading men would include Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Rex Harrison. As Astaire's character in FUNNY FACE describes her, she's "...a girl who has character, spirit, and intelligence."
Those aren't qualities you'd apply to Holly in Capote's story. The late TCM host, Robert Osborne, described Capote's novella Holly as someone who could be "vacant and vapid." But the screenplay adaptation flips the script on the early Audrey Hepburn movie template. In Blake Edwards' BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, she's the young woman who relocates to New York City to reinvent herself. She goes from country caterpillar to big city social butterfly. She seems to be living a fabulous hipstress life in Manhattan but it's really a rootless existence. Although not a hooker, Holly will occasionally go horizontal as sort of a "thank you" to an older visiting businessman to took her out, bought her dinner and gave her "$50 for the powder room" and she will unwittingly pass messages from a drug lord in prison.
In BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, the older men are leading her astray and complicating her life. It's the young man in her own age category who wants to save her from all that and give her true love, a substantial life.
So...with that in mind...if Audrey Hepburn had not played Holly Golightly, who would you have cast? I have two picks. My first choice is a highly respected actress who was quite easy on the eye. Martin Ritt, director of NORMA RAE, told me in an interview that she was one of the actress who was approached to play Norma Rae but passed on it. Reportedly, she also passed on BONNIE AND CLYDE. The actress is....Tuesday Weld.
Tuesday got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for 1977's LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR. She's great in 1965's THE CINCINNATI KID, 1968's PRETTY POISON, 1970's I WALK THE LINE and 1972's PLAY IT AS IT LAYS to name a few. I really dig her in 1963's SOLDIER IN THE RAIN.
The above pic is from a 1961 network TV production of BUS STOP.
My second choice is an actress who reportedly retired to have a happy family life. She made me happy seeing her on the big screen. Just like Tuesday Weld, Pamela Tiffin was a tasty dish who also had solid acting chops. Billy Wilder loved her way with comedy and cast her in ONE, TWO, THREE with James Cagney, a 1961 release.
She was wistful and charming in the 1962 remake of the 1940s musical STATE FAIR. She lip synced "It Might As Well Be Spring" and played the love interest opposite Bobby Darin. And she sizzled as the tempting teen stepdaughter wearing a bikini and dancing on a swimming pool diving board in the 1966 private eye crime thriller, HARPER, starring Paul Newman.
Tuesday Weld and Pamela Tiffin -- my two picks as a Holly Golightly if Audrey Hepburn had passed on the project. Who would be your alternate?
