kingrat

Hey, are we still trash talking Scorpios? I'm Scorpio with Scorpio rising, Moon in Cancer.

Recently I listened to a Bob Dylan album for the first time in a couple of decades and the immediate reaction was, "I didn't remember his singing was that bad." I think Dylan tends to be sharp rather than flat, but not closely acquainted with pitch, in any event; I wondered if the songs had been remastered a bit sharp. Of course, Dylan has energy and power, but plenty of rock singers sound rough, raspy, and on pitch.

There's also Heartbreakers, where Peter Coyote plays a painter and his buddy/rival Nick Mancuso is a lawyer. Carol Kane is also in the film. Not bad, as I recall.

Because Episcopalians, unlike some Southern denominations, were not opposed to drinking alcohol (almost as great a sin as dancing, according to some fundamentalists), they were known as "Whiskeypalians."

Yes, Hedy Lamarr played a character named Marvin Miles. In This Our Life is the film where Bette is the sister named Stanley and Olivia is the sister named Roy.

What if there were a film from Golden Age Hollywood that showed a number of very strong women performing capably as administrators, teachers, health care workers, and religious leaders? There is. It's called The Nun's Story.

Arthur Penn had directed The Miracle Worker on Broadway, and he had already directed The Left Handed Gun, so he was able to do the film version as well. It's not the kind of film he's best known for. Hollywood is wasteful with talent. Penn could have capably directed a variety of films.

A side note about Arthur Penn: When Night Moves was not financially successful, and neither was his follow-up film, The Missouri Breaks, Arthur Penn's career was in ruins. As one writer put it, Penn was neither taken up by the auteurist critics who were prominent at this time nor valued by the new Hollywood establishment. He did make a few other films--Four Friends, Target, Dead of Winter, Penn and Teller Get Killed, none of them widely known--and eventually became an executive producer for Law and Order.

The Light That Failed, with Ronald Colman as a painter going blind, is excellent. A favorite of some of the posters here.

Sometimes I should read over my posts before hitting "Submit." Although the ending of Cutter's Way is ambiguous, that ending worked for me. Something important has happened: Bone has accepted the role Cutter wanted him to take. Arguably, John Heard, Jeff Bridges, and William Hurt (Body Heat) gave the three best performances by an actor in 1981.

Jeff looks good in Cutter's Way, too, and John Getz' hairy chest is on display in Blood Simple. Getz also gets to show off his posterior. For Another World fans: John Getz is one of the good-looking, talented actors hired by Another World during the 70s (Harding Lemay era, when AW expanded to an hour) and then criminally underutilized. Imagine having John Getz, John Considine, David Ackroyd, and Leon Russom and not featuring them in major storylines. This Neo-Noir spotlight is really outstanding. I'm going to have to rent the films I missed in the series. Again, I think it's important to emphasize that when these films were released, they were not called "Neo-Noir." No one would have thought of Cutter's Way and Body Heat as being of the same genre or same movement. Cutter's Way would have been seen as a Vietnam vet film. Really, this neo-noir theme is

#6: Whistle Down the Wind (1961) This is a seemingly simple film – but it’s filled with Biblical allusion, and it leaves deeper meaning up to interpretation. Personally, I think it’s a story about the power of child-like faith – and how easily it can turn complicated. Also notable for its large cast of remarkably natural non-actor children (Hayley Mills being one of the few with professional experience at the time), this movie provides the most understanding, well-rounded look at the whole of childhood – and all the positives and negatives of that stage of life – that I’ve ever seen on screen. Jillian, I'm glad you've had the opportunity to see this wonderful film which is hard to find these days. I love it as much as you do.

John Heard's performance really is great, and I agree, imagining how Rod Steiger would have played the role underlines Heard's excellence. I'm not sure that Marlon Brando at his 1950s peak could have played this particular part as well. Heard doesn't seem to have approached the role as a Method actor would. Heard gets the physicality of Cutter perfectly, and he has the vocal control to deliver the literary lines Cutter enjoys throwing off from time to time. Then there's that heh-heh-heh laugh he uses so much in the first half of the film: from most actors, this would be a bit annoying or a bit false, and from other actors this would be excruciating. For me, Heard's laugh works. Although I can appreciate Henry Fonda getting a career Oscar for On Golden Pond, Fonda should have won an Oscar for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940, and Heard should have won in 1981. Jeff Bridges is the perfect foil for Heard, and this is one of his best performances. Lisa Eichhorn's performance as the woman torn between the two men is largely a matter a perfect reactions, and this is the place to note that Ivan Passer and his cinematographer, Jordan Cronenweth, frame the shots of the conversations between the main characters perfectly. Appropriately, the characters are often in separate shots. Passer's direction of the actors is terrific; Jeff Bridges isn't at this level in Against All Odds, for instance. By the way, I also love the scene at the pier where Cutter destroys the stuffed animal, another scene many actors could not manage. I also agree about the overuse of coincidence, but Cutter does tell Bone that he knows where Cord is in the house. The film is very much about different kinds of nihilism and self-destruction: Mo's drinking and unwillingness to leave Cutter; Cutter's outrageous acting out; Bone's deliberate lack of commitment to anyone or any principle; Georgie's acquiescence in working for the man he believes killed his mother; Cord's lack of moral principle. Bone and Cutter feel a deep need to rescue each other, each convinced that the other is in even worse shape than he is. Among other things, doesn't Cutter's Way make the Bruce Dern part of Coming Home seem piddling? The Bruce Dern scenes show us an idea about PTSD, whereas John Heard's scenes give us an experience of PTSD.

For Sunday night/Monday morning: Heat Lightning (1934) packs a lot of story and good acting into its 63 minutes. Aline MacMahon runs a filling station in the middle of nowhere and tries to keep her younger sister (Ann Dvorak) from running wild. Aline's former lover, now a criminal (Preston Foster) shows up to complicate matters. Aline transforms from very mannish in her work overalls to quite womanly when he arrives. This may be Aline MacMahon's best role. And wouldn't it be more fun if Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly showed up as a couple of dizzy hot-2-trot divorcees? You bet it would! Even Jane Darwell shows up in a small role.

I also remember the ending of Night Moves as very confusing, particularly whether one character ends up alive or dead. It has that very 70s "We're MUCH too cool, or too stoned, to craft a clear resolution for this film" way. On the other hand, it is fun to see the very young Melanie Griffith and James Woods.