A recent Variety entertainment news article, "TV's Acceptance of Gay Storylines Has Been a Long Time Coming," detailed how television gradually grew to embrace sexual diversity. It was written by Brian Lowry. The article took us back to the fine, groundbreaking ABC Movie of the Week presentation, 1972's That Certain Summer. Hal Holbrook starred as a divorced dad now living in San Francisco with his partner, played by Martin Sheen. His son lives in L.A. with his mother. She knows why she and his father really divorced. The young teen son doesn't and he wants to visit his father. She gently prepares her ex-husband for the visit. He will have to "come out" to his son. I don't know if you've ever seen the new Netflix sitcom, Grace and Frankie, starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. They play two longtime rivals whose business partner husbands seek divorces because they've fallen in love. With each other. Martin Sheen is a gay senior in this funny show. Talk about a full circle role. Columnist Brian Lowry mentions TV shows that addressed gay issues -- shows such as All in the Family, My So-Called Life, Friends and, of course, Will & Grace and Glee. This article was printed on June 26th during Gay Pride Month. Last month also marked the historic marriage equality ruling from the Supreme Court. Same sex couples now can legally wed all across the U.S.A.
When I've read other good articles on that same topic or have seen specials on TV about gay broadcast images, there is one actor in one sitcom who is always overlooked. And he shouldn't be. He played a gay middle-aged character on NBC years before Will & Grace and Modern Family came along. He was not a supporting character like in Friends or My So-Called Life. Tony Randall starred as the lead character on Love, Sidney. The series ran on NBC from 1981 to 1983. Tony Randall was a pioneer.
He did Love, Sidney after five years of success on the ABC sitcom version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (1970-1975).
That hit sitcom came after he'd had years of success on the big screen in films such as Pillow Talk (1959) and Lover Come Back (1961), two hit comedies starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson, and Let's Make Love with Marilyn Monroe in 1961. Randall was gutsy enough to play a gay character on a weekly series at a time when Hollywood actors were reluctant to play gay lead characters for fear it would cripple their careers. As for TV, you must remember that network executives were still timid. As I've written previous blogs, NBC executives didn't want to book Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Martin Luther King on The Tonight Show with guest host Harry Belafonte in 1968. NBC brass thought they'd lose sponsors. They felt Dr. King was "too radical" as one former Tonight Show producer told me live on CNBC. Belafonte challenged them, booked Dr. King and not one sponsor was lost. Soon after Dr. King's appearance with Belafonte in 1968, the singer/Civil Rights activist was a guest on Petula Clark's NBC music variety special. The British recording star was at the peak of her pop music fame. She and Belafonte sang an anti-war song during those days of the Vietnam war. "On the Path of Glory" was her composition. Chrysler was one of the show's sponsors. A Chrysler executive, according to print reports, did not want them to touch during the duet. He opposed "interracial touching" and felt that, if they did touch, they'd lose the Southern states. Clark's husband was the show's executive producer. The singer owned the rights to the show. She and Belafonte felt that the Chrysler executive's opinions were rubbish. They taped the song. Petula Clark held Harry Belafonte's arm during the number. The Southern states did not disappear into a giant sinkhole. The Chrysler executive, a World War II veteran who'd been a fighter pilot, was relieved of his duties. In 1975, when Mitzi Gaynor was taping her CBSmusic variety special, Mitzi and a Hundred Guys, an exec must have issued an order that she could kiss the other 99 but could not kiss black actor Greg Morris from the CBS hit series, Mission: Impossible.
If network executives were this narrow-minded about race, think how nervous they must have been with a lead character being gay. Sidney never said openly "I'm gay" like Ellen DeGeneres historically did on her 1997 ABC sitcom episode. Let's be real: In the 1990s, you could not have been an openly gay actor with a boyfriend and book the lead role as a hetero bachelor in a network sitcom like Neil Patrick Harris did on How I Met Your Mother. In the early 80s, Tony Randall's Sidney deeply missed his longtime male friend who'd died. His framed photograph was visible in Sidney's apartment. I lived and worked in Milwaukee when Love, Sidney aired. He may not have said, "I'm gay" but we in the Midwest all knew he was. Sidney was lonely and longed for a sense of family. Today, same-sex couples all over the nation adopt children. Mitch and Cam are gay dads on Modern Family. Tony Randall's Sidney has the opportunity to be a father figure to a sweet little girl. Look at the clip of the show's opening credits.
I was new to New York City in 1985 and worked on Channel 11/WPIX TV. I had the absolutely fabulous opportunity to interview Mr. Randall on our weekday local morning magazine show. He came in the studio and he was everything we hoped he would be. Impish, witty, wise, generous with advice if you wanted any and willing to talk, Tony Randall charmed our entire crew. During the interview, I asked him about Love, Sidney. He was quite enthusiastic about the show and was sad when it was cancelled. He felt that NBC executives wimped out and caved in to conservative Moral Majority groups. Here's Tony Randall talking about Love, Sidney for TV history archives.
Wow. Look at TV today. We've got openly gay network news anchors, TV talk show hosts, straight actors play gay men on TV, a gay actor played a straight ladies' man on a hit sitcom, there are gay characters in sitcoms and dramas -- and now gay people all across America can get married and be parents.
In the talk about groundbreaking gay characters on TV, the late Tony Randall should be included for his bravery and his commitment to playing a gay middle-aged and man who becomes a father figure on NBC's Love, Sidney in the early 1980s.
This Nina Simone documentary is one of the best I've seen in quite a while. It's revealing, relevant, surprising, sad and memorable. It doesn't treat the internationally famous music artist as an idol without faults. This one is honest Some of the honesty comes from people who knew and loved her. One person is her daughter who says that her mother was "brilliant" and could be a "monster." When I was a teen, my mother had a description of Nina Simone's stage power that I've never forgotten. Mom said, "Nina Simone is the only performer who does a show and the audience goes in hoping she'll like them instead of the other way around." I saw exactly what my mother meant in the section of the doc that has footage of her on stage singing the song "Stars" by Janis Ian. Miss Simone was fierce, majestic and unapologetically black. The title of this feature, by the way, comes from a Maya Angelou statement. This Netflix documentary opens with Simone being asked "What's freedom mean?" She answers, "No fear!"
Nina Simone was a fearless, beautiful performer who did not have the traditional look that mainstream society of the 1950s and 60s considered beautiful. She was a dark woman with alert eyes and a fullness of lips and nose. And talent. She knew segregation having grown up in the Jim Crow South. She knew it up North too.
She was classically trained pianist who could play Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. On stage, she blended folk music and jazz. After the 1963 racist murder of 4 little girls in an Alabama church bombing, a crime recalled by many after last month's racist killing of 9 black people as they sat in a Charleston, South Carolina church, Nina Simone blended politics and the Civil Rights Movement into her compositions and performances. This made her less commercially marketable on radio stations than other vocalists such as Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. Still, she kept the fire in her bones aflame. Said Simone, "How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?" Here's a trailer.
This dynamic genius entertainer took her stage name from the Oscar-winning French actress Simone Signoret. She won the Best Actress Oscar for A Room at the Top (1959).
Nina was called "The High Priestess of Soul." We learn of the personal demons she had the fight. She was a physically abused wife and mother. She had bouts with booze, depression, pills and smashing things up. She could be a physical menace when she lost her temper. There were periods when she wanted sex all the time. It took a while before anyone -- including herself -- discovered that she was clinically bipolar.
Director Liz Garbus acquired some excellent archive footage, plus she shows us the beginnings of the singer/activist. We see and hear what made her voice, her delivery, so unique and iconic. We come to know the social pressures that shaped it like heat shaping glass into a fine object. We see how Nina Simone became Nina Simone. This is what we didn't get in the recent HBO biopic on Bessie Smith starring Queen Latifah. Then we get the rockiness of her life. Nina was Nina onstage and off. Like other women with supersized legendary talent such as Bette Davis, Judy Garland and Edith Piaf, that probably could be exhausting for relatives.
She was friends with legendary people -- Dr. Martin Luther King, A Raisin in the Sun playwright Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin. She had to sing at Westbury Music Fair in New York just three days after Dr. King's assassination. She sang at the historic March on Selma. There's footage of both events in the documentary.
The question posed in the title in a statement from Maya Angelou is answered in this documentary. Thank you, Miss Garbus. Ms. Simone's gripping, politically edged work is just as fresh and relevant now as it was in the 1960s. That, when you think about it, is a sad statement on race relations in our country. But that's the way it is. The problems still exist -- and she, as an artist, did her damnedest, to make us face the problems and root them out. Plus, she could also be oh, so entertaining. Millions of us remember her singing in a popular TV commercial for Chanel No. 5 fragrances back in the day.
One last thing, the racial diversity -- or the lack thereof -- in Hollywood was a big topic earlier this year after the Oscar nominations came out. I thought about Nina Simone. Why? Viola Davis, 2-time Oscar nominee, is one of several black actresses who turned to television when Hollywood had no good scripts for her to consider.
Watch What Happened, Miss Simone? Tell me if you agree that this acclaimed singer's life rates a big screen biopic and Viola Davis should play her. That's my casting idea. See this Netflix documentary. You'll be amazed at how significant the work of this late entertainer is in these modern times in which we remind America that "Black lives matter." I leave you with a popular song by Miss Simone, one used in the Chanel No. 5 ad.
What a month June was. Last month was one that slapped us cold and hard across the face with the fact did America didn't instantly become a post-racial nation when President Obama was elected. We had the white racist terrorist killings of black people while they worshipped in a Charleston, South Carolina church. We had the controversy over the Confederate flag.
There were also golden breakthroughs in the color barrier. Lester Holt FINALLY got the network promotion long overdue him. And I'm not the only person who feels that way. He makes broadcast history as the first black journalist appointed anchor of a Monday through Friday evening newscast on any of the senior three networks -- ABC, CBS or NBC. He is anchor of the NBC Nightly News.
Back in the late 1970s through the early 80s when the late Max Robinson broke through the network anchor color wall, he co-anchored ABC's World News Tonight.
Robinson succumbed to AIDS in 1988. For some odd reason, ABC has pretty much ignored his groundbreaking work and legacy. Last month, in light of the Lester Holt appointment, an article in The New York Times put a spotlight on Robinson's accomplishments and reminded us that he helped open the door for other black TV journalists. It thrilled me that someone remembered and wrote about it. Mr. Holt becomes the first black journalist to anchor a weeknight network newscast solo. He's not a co-anchor. He's the first -- and we're 15 years into the 21st Century. Think about it. And he got the job because the white anchorman who had the gig acted like such a self-absorbed frat boy fabricating tall tales on TV about his journalism coverage in war-torn areas that he got suspended from his mult-million dollar job. Lester Holt replaced Brian Williams. Williams has been reassigned to MSNBC. Bravo, Lester!
"I want to bring more people to ballet, I want to see more people that look like me on the stage, in the school, and in the audience." Those are words from Misty Copeland, the American Ballet Theater's first African-American principal dancer. That quote appeared in The New York Times with the news of the historic breakthrough she's made in the fine arts. Again...we're fifteen years into the 21st Century and there had never been an African-American principal dancer in the American Ballet Theater.
Reportedly, Ms.Copeland was told she had "the wrong body type" for ballet. Yeah...right. When I heard that, I thought of Fame on TV. One episode of that NBC series, starring Debbie Allen as a fine arts school teacher in New York City, tackled the issue of that same limited view of black female dancers. Fame was a 1982 to 1987 series.
Misty proved to have the right body to dance the iconic double role in Swan Lake.
Making her Swan Lake debut was another first for an African-American dancer.
Brava, Misty! Here's her book for some good reading over the 4th of July holiday.
We've looked at breakthroughs in TV and the ballet. Now let's go to the movies. The reviews for Terminator Genisys have been mostly ho-hum. Arnold Schwarzenegger might be kicked to the curb at the box office. Folks may prefer male strippers to another Schwarzenegger sci-fi sequel. Magic Mike XXL has gotten happy thumbs-and-hormones up reviews from film critic friends of mine -- male and female -- whose opinions I respect. Magic Mike, starring the immensely likable Channing Tatum, was a fun popcorn movie. I hear that Magic Mike XXL is even better. More fun. If Magic Mike XXL is as hot as the trailer, it should bring in thongs...um, I mean throngs of moviegoers.
Can you say "Pepsi, please"? I think you can. Magic Mike XXL looks like the kind of movie that dreams are made of. Even the dry ones.
For laughs, seeSpy with Melissa McCarthy in one of her best comedy outings since Bridesmaids, the bawdy comedy that earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. The same director, Paul Feig, guides her through this send-up of man-driven action thrillers and James Bond spy movies. Take the old saying, "Behind every successful man is a woman." Spy shows the truth of that while replacing that man with the woman.
Susan Cooper is 40, lives alone and she was raised by women who taught her to blend in rather than be assertive. Her desk-bound analyst brilliance at the CIA basically keeps the vain, slightly chauvinist James Bond-type secret agent alive. Jude Law gives a refreshing funny performance as the secret agent who's totally oblivious to the fact that passive Susan has a crush on him.
Something goes wrong for him and she's thrust into spy action as his replacement. Jason Statham lampoons his own action hero movie image as the butch yet bumbling agent assigned to team with Cooper. She does not blend in. She's a bold and brassy rogue spy out to get the bad guys.
Most of us have had the experience of seeing a movie comedy only to be disappointed. We discover that all the funny moments of the 2-hour comedy were in the 2-minute trailer. That is not the case with Spy. McCarthy keeps us laughing in this clever, action-packed movie. She looks terrific, she's a pro at physical comedy and she's a mighty fine actress. A full-figured, 40 year-old female spy giving us action like we saw in Goldfinger starring Sean Connery as James Bond? Come on. I loved it!
If you want to stay in and rent a classic cult favorite, try Lady in a Cage. Itcame out the same year as Goldfinger. I add this 1964 thriller because it stars Olivia de Havilland, a movie star since the 1930s in such films as Captain Blood (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
The actress got her first Oscar nomination for the 1939 classic, Gone With The Wind.
She and Hattie McDaniel (seen above) were both nominated for Best Supporting Actress. McDaniel, the first black actor ever to receive an Oscar nomination, was the winner. Olivia de Havilland went on to win two Best Actress Oscars -- for To Each His Own (1946) and William Wyler's The Heiress (1949). The star from Hollywood's Golden Age has lived elegantly in Paris for decades. On July 1st of this week, she celebrated her 99th birthday. Olivia de Havilland has made the 90s look fabulous.
In the psychological thriller, Lady in a Cage, de Havilland plays a Los Angeles lady of comfort. She lives in a three-story mansion back in the day when folks had rotary phones. She has a disability so her home is equipped with an elevator to get upstairs and downstairs. She's alone on the 4th of July when her home is invaded by thugs. An electrical problem traps her in the elevator.
Making his screen debut as the head thug is new actor James Caan. He'd go on to play Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and sing to Barbra Streisand in Funny Lady. He's the dad of Scott Caan on the CBS Hawaii Five-O revival.
The dark-haired dude with Caan in the above pic is Dominican actor Rafael Campos. He played one of the tough New York City high schoolers in 1955's Blackboard Jungle. Off-screen, Campos was the seventh of singer Dinah Washington's eight husbands. Ann Sothern, also a movie star since the 1930s like de Havilland, had a supporting role as a old floozie in cahoots with the hoodlums.
Lady in a Cage runs about 95 minutes with definite suspense watching these cat-and-mouse characters played by Olivia de Havilland and James Caan match wits.
This low-budget 4th of July crime drama is pretty cool. You can find it on DVD thanks to the Warner Archive collection.
Be careful, be cool, be loved, and have a great 4th of July weekend. Save me a burger.
I saw the poster for JACKIE & RYAN and I expected this to be the kind of feature you'd see made for TV's Hallmark Channel. That is, until Katherine Heigl as Jackie drops an F-bomb during a very intense legal scene. And you cannot blame her character for dropping it one bit. Heigl has not had the most consistent film career and, as of yet, she has been as popular on the big screen as she was on ABC TV's Grey's Anatomy. I loved her in Knocked Up opposite Seth Rogen. That was a fun movie. But, as a film reviewer, I did not have fun enduring some of her films that followed. I sat in movie theaters watching 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth. I found myself feeling the arms of my cineplex movie theater seat, praying to Heaven that there was a fast forward button. I liked her recent NBC political drama/action series, State of Affairs, co-starring Alfre Woodard as the President of the United States. But the show was canceled during its first season. Jackie & Ryan is a small indie film. It takes place mostly in a rural, peaceful Utah. It was written and directed by Ami Canaan Mann. She gives us a new Katherine Heigl movie that I liked. Ben Barnes hit just the right note, musically and dramatically, as Ryan.
He's a drifter musician. He's a good musician who could be successful and be a guest on shows like National Public Radio's Fresh Air. He has a country sound and style that NPR would love. But Ryan chooses to hop trains and drift from one town to the next. You like Ryan. He's the kind of man who charges in to help someone in need. When he plays the guitar, you almost think you're in for a love story like that sweet, imaginative musical from 2006, Once. It's not musical love story but this film has that same sort of economy and pacing. Ryan doesn't give much thought to his future. Jackie once had a hit record but she also had a marriage that went sour. She took her child, left New York City and went back home to Utah. Financially, things have been better for her. But she doesn't give up. A small accident brings Jackie and Ryan together. They connect because they understand frustration and loss. She's grateful he came to her aid when she was down.
I was positive that Ben Barnes was from America's Heartland. I looked up the actor's information. He's British. From London. He pulled off that role very well.
I really connected to Heigl's character. She's the working class single mom, once a performer in New York City. Today, like many of us, she lost her insurance and needs a job. I've been doggedly pursuing work in order to climb back up over the poverty line. Because I've worked on TV in the past, there are some people -- even today as I job hunt -- who assume that I am still working on television and make thousands of dollars a week. They think my previous gigs were glamorous. Their faces always crack when I tell them that one ABC network TV job I had paid only $500 a week -- and that was the same exact amount I made when I started work as a weekly regular with Whoopi Goldberg on her national weekday morning radio show in 2006.
Jackie goes after a music teacher job only to get to the school and discover they really wanted an intern. That means they want someone to work for free. The chatty, plump woman doing the hiring recognizes Jackie. She's giddy to know all about show biz limos and what they were like. It's an honest scene. Trust me, I've been where Heigl is in that scene when I've applied for "real people" jobs.
Jackie sings one night in town. She sings for "good, smart, hard-working people" and about the "choices you make when you feel you don't have a lot to choose from."
Jackie and Ryan connect gradually, blend into each other's lives for a short time and things change. Jackie & Ryan is a simple, tender-hearted film carried by a satisfying script and nice chemistry between the two leads. It opens in limited release on July 3rd and will also be available on Video On Demand.
Amazing. An African American man is in his second term as President of the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples can be married legally all across the nation and Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for Best Actor. Did you ever think you'd live to see the day? And President Obama is the focus in two broadcasts that you need to hear. One is the podcast of smart comedian Marc Maron. His WTF podcast is highly popular and a favorite with folks at National Public Radio such as Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. The President, during a recent California trip, sat with Maron in the comedian's Los Angeles garage for a very special episode .
I shed tears of sadness, tears of joy and tears of pride over the last ten days. This month proved, yet again, that we are not in a post-racial America simply because we elected Barack Obama to office. I had a Facebook experience in which some of my liberal white buddies went clueless on me over the race issue. It was June 25th, 2009. In the morning, we got word that actress Farrah Fawcett, star of TV's Charlie's Angels, had succumbed to cancer. On my Facebook feed, many people of all colors had written the same thing in condolence comments: "Heaven has a new angel." Late that afternoon came the shocking news that music superstar Michael Jackson died. I posted my shock at hearing that news and added my deep sympathy. I'd been a fan ever since The Jackson Five hit the music scene during my South Central L.A. youth. Black friends had added comments under mine that he was a great black entertainer who will be deeply missed. A few of my liberal white male friends wrote, "He was black?" Heated comments from black and Latino friends on my Facebook went up in response to the "He was black?" wisecracks. I'd left my apartment for about one hour before that disruption. When I returned, I had to delete the thread. It was that intense. Some black and Latino friends thought I kept the wisecracks posted because I thought they were funny. No. I was offline and away from my apartment. As for my white liberal buddies, I couldn't believe they wrote that within minutes after the man's death was announced. Just to try to be funny. It came off as racially offensive.
In bygone days, why did black people try to lighten their skin and perhaps pass for white? So they could escape racial bigotry. So they wouldn't be abused or beaten or even killed for being black. When the news came out that actress Farrah Fawcett died, no one wrote "She was an actress?"
Fast forward from June 2009 to June 2015. One morning, Rachel Dolezal is being interviewed by Matt Lauer on NBC's Today Show. Ms. Dolezal lost her job as president of Spokane, Washington's NAACP when it was discovered that she lied about being black. She was born of white parents. In the interview, she claimed to "identify" with being black. So, on the Today Show, you basically had two white people on a network morning news show talking about how hard it is to be black in America. Rachel Dolezal was the big news story of the morning. That night -- we were hit with the horrible reality of what it can mean to really be black in America. A young white racist shot and killed 8 black people sitting in a church. He killed them because they were black. Yes, they were black. Yes, Michael Jackson was black. Do you get it now?
When I heard the news of the racist terrorist attack in a Charleston, South Carolina church, I gasped. Then I felt so, so tired. Drained of all physical and spiritual energy, as if someone had reached in and yanked the soul right out me. I cried and thought to myself, "They still hate us." Racism. And another multiple shooting because someone mentally unhinged had easy access to a gun.
President Barack Obama talked about that, about his anger with a disappointing Congress when he sought stricter gun laws, he talked about growing up with a father figure and he talked about being a father. You may have heard reports that President Obama said "the N-word" during the interview. Yes, he did. He used it in telling how we must root out that word and racist in America. He used it the way Atticus Finch uses it in To Kill a Mockingbird as he explains to his little girl that racism is bad. He didn't use it as a slurin a street slang way.
You need to hear the interview. Maron...how I dig him. He now has a TV show on IFC plus his hit podcast. Marc Maron interviews President Obama in Episode 613 of WTF. It aired June 22nd. To play it, go here: WTFpod.com.
I agree with Maron's description of our president after they'd wrapped the broadcast. He was "comfortable...casual...charming."
Friday morning came the historic decision from the Supreme Court. Same-sex couples can marry legally in all the United States. I heard the news and said, "Wow." I couldn't believe it happened. Then I cried with happiness and wished that my late partner had lived to share the moment with me. He'd have been a great husband. Friday afternoon, I cried tears of pride. President Obama was elected in 2008. But he came home with that eulogy he delivered for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a man he knew and a man of peace who was killed by the racist shooter. Trust of me on this...that eulogy will be one of the golden, shining moments of his legacy. He called it all out and wrapped it up by singing "Amazing Grace."
What a moving speech. What a month. And June isn't over yet. Happy Pride Weekend.
Three of my favorite films are tales about bank robbers. Two are based on real life characters in desperate situations. There was 1967'sBonnie and Clyde starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as two criminals in the America ravished by the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was a time when poor folks lost their homes to the banks. There's 1975's Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino as a robber desperate for money to pay for his boyfriend's sex reassignment surgery. And there's the under-appreciated clever 1990 comedy, Quick Change, in which Bill Murray and Geena Davis are hapless New York City bank robbers. He dresses up as a circus clown to commit the crime.
One of the best things I can write about 7 MINUTES is that it only robs you of 85 minutes of your time. Jason Ritter stars as one of three criminals. They were small town high school buddies. They didn't amount to much after graduation. One says, "The American dream? That ship has sailed."
The ex-high school football hero lives with the team's gorgeous ex-cheerleader who loves him. Their place is an absolute dump in the beat-down outskirts of Seattle. The three buddies come up with the big idea to rob a small local bank in seven minutes flat starting one day at exactly 8:30 in the morning. Of course, something goes horribly wrong.
They do this because money is owed to a drug lord. This is another crime flick with a gun-toting drug lord who wears a kimono-like robe as he threatens murder. When the poverty-stricken ex-high school football hero embraces his former cheerleader girlfriend, I thought to myself "I bet she's a waitress." Yep. She's a waitress. And a very pregnant one who has no idea her boyfriend's planning a bank heist. Also, we have a security guard and a local cop who look like they dropped out of Weight Watchers® meetings. Especially the local cop. Seriously? We got that in Jurassic World. A dangerous dinosaur gets loose and the security guard is built like Peter Griffin on Family Guy. The guard runs outside to protect folks but he basically becomes a dinosaur snack within minutes. The local cop in 7 Minutes has the same kind of Peter Griffin build. He has a crush on the shapely town slut. During the bank job, he becomes a hostage. We get a backstory to each robber as the crime occurs. Here's a trailer.
For me, the highlight was seeing hot senior papa bear Kris Kristofferson. The actor and singer/songwriter is only in the film for a few minutes. He's related to one of the bank robbers, a guy who did time before the bank job. The older man's advice is, "Don't get caught." Kristofferson turned 79 this week and looks great. Why is he in this mediocre movie? Hey...maybe he's got COBRA payments to keep up. A gig's a gig.
The three young robbers and the waitress girlfriend are four very attractive young adults. And the four actors have an intelligence that breaks through their low-income characters. They seem like people who could've gone on to college, perhaps even with some financial aid. Couple that with the fact that they're all very attractive and that makes for a story that doesn't jell. With their looks alone, those four young characters could've been doing local TV commercials and print ads in Seattle. They could've had jobs in a top Seattle hotel.
These three bank robbers must not have had any ambition whatsoever after high school graduation. You really can't have any sympathy for them. And she seemed too smart to be just a diner waitress. She could've been pregnant and working at a nice upscale office job. Leven Rambin, a good actress, played the waitress.
As for the story with the high school jock living with the pretty cheerleader and then being broke with a baby on the way -- it's like a John Mellencamp music video I would've presented during my VH1 days in the late 1980s. The director of this film, by the way, used to direct music videos.
7 Minutes opens June 26th and will be available on VOD. This tale of three golden boys gone bad is just average. There's a major shoot out with fatalities first thing in the morning at a local small town bank. And not one single TV news crew shows up to cover it. And no pedestrian tries to get a photo with a cellphone. For a better bank robber story, try one of the three older films I mention at the top of this review.
Colorful. Original. Imaginative. Touching. Those are my words for Disney Pixar's INSIDE OUT. I did not expect to get a few tears in my eyes during this animated feature, but I did. We go into the mind of a young girl. Riley is 11. The family moved from her beloved Minnesota to San Francisco. She's a sweet kid and the move brings up several different feelings. We see the feelings in the control room of her mind.
The move doesn't go as smoothly as her dear, disappointed Dad and Mom hoped it would. The family belongings didn't arrive as scheduled from Minnesota.
The little voices in her head watch her new life unfold. They see the adults in Riley's life and know exactly what her feelings are even if the adults don't. We're also taken into the minds of Riley's parents to see the little voices that give them personality. I'll just say that if Riley's mom was a television network, she'd be Lifetime TV and Riley's dad would be ESPN. He looks a bit like the "Soup Nazi" in that popular Seinfeld sitcom episode.
What Riley -- and we -- will learn is that feelings are important. They're significant. In fact, they lean on each just like passengers in the same seat on a rollercoaster ride as it makes a wild turn. This is especially true of Joy and Sadness. Sadness is a little blue.
Joy, with her pixie haircut, reminded me of Tinkerbelle from Disney's animated classic, Peter Pan.
As Riley's inner voices touch on core memories and venture through other parts of her mind, I felt it was a brilliant move to make the character 11. When you're 40, there will be a life-changing event that makes a big impact on your adult life. It may be marriage or divorce, relocating for a new job or the loss of a longtime job you had. It could be a new true love. Something memorable. That same thing can apply when you're 11 and teetering on the brink of puberty. Emotionally, adults seem to pass through a Valley of Forgetfulness when they become parents. They forget what it was like to be an adolescent. Riley's feelings are complicated and serious to her. She's moved from a place she loved in the Midwest. She's the new kid at a new school in a new city. That's major stress. She just wants to be liked. She experiences little heartbreaks and humiliations that her parents don't know about it. But her inner voices see them.
When I was 11, I was the new kid at a new school. A Catholic school. I knew exactly how Riley felt. I was a chubby, shy bookworm. One day at recess, three classmates (whose names I still recall) had a mean contest. The loser of the three would have to touch Robert Rivers, the new kid. I don't know if they realized I could hear them, but I could. Linda, a popular girl who never talked to me, walked over and pretended that she needed to ask me something. As soon as she touched me on the shoulder, her two male buddies started laughing loudly. She said to me, "Never mind." I vowed that I'd be popular one day and people would want to shake my head, give me a hug or otherwise touch me. That's a core memory that I kicked to the back of my mind. So I thought. I'm sure it leaned on and intensified my ambition to became a national TV talent.
Fast forward a few decades. Call it juvenile, but one of my dreams during the 20-something years I lived in New York was to have friends who'd throw me a birthday party. Nothing extravagant. I never had big birthday plans even though my friends assumed I would because I've worked on TV. When they had birthday parties, I showed up with a gift. I sang "Happy Birthday" along with the other festive guests and watched the friend being celebrated blow out the candles on the birthday cake. That's what I really wanted. A cake with candles. That's a sweet, illuminated symbol that says "You're special to us. We want you to make a wish and we want it to come true."
In months counting down to my 50th birthday, I casually mentioned to friends that I had no plans for my 50th. Some of them were tossed really swell parties for their 50th year. Well, I was certainly available to be taken out and sung to before I blew out the candles on a cake. One friend who lived a few blocks away called me on my birthday morning and asked if i had any plans. I didn't. She wanted to take me to dinner when she returned from a freelance job she had that afternoon in Connecticut. She was getting a ride with two other folks in Manhattan who booked the same job.
Unfortunately, returning from the job, their car broke down on a Connecticut highway. She called constantly to tell me they were still waiting for assistance. It was not her fault and she just wasn't able to get back to Manhattan to take me out. Around 9:00 that night, I took myself out to a favorite diner down the block. I told the manager it was my birthday, knowing that he'd probably give me a free dessert. He did. While I sat there, eating alone on my 50th birthday, I thought of those three mean kids in junior high and said to myself, "Well, I guess they won after all." See? That core memory came back as a comment on a new adult memory that hurt even more.
That's a painful birthday memory. It stings my heart. But what do I do with it? Whenever I have an actor audition for a serious scene, one with heartbreak, I pull that memory out and use it positively. Instead of letting it make me bitter, I use it to give truth to an audition so I'll get some work. When the audition is over, I kick it right to back of my mind.
That's what I mean about how feelings lean on each other and how they all serve a purpose if we handle them well. Is Inside Out an animated masterpiece like Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio? Is it as magical as The Wizard of Oz with young Judy Garland as a wistful Dorothy singing "Over the Rainbow"?This new feature is very fresh and very good but not quite a masterpiece in my book. There's so much pop psychology that it needed a splash or two more of whimsy for buoyancy.
Still, Inside Out is a winner. Pixar does calculated sentimentality with finesse. The little voices in my head recommend Inside Out for wonderful family entertainment.
