Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith are outstanding as the representatives, respectively, of good and evil. In my opinion, this movie contains the best acting of their careers. The accountrements of the late 1940s--automobiles, dress, and architecture--give the film a fine period feel. (The only mistake I could see was a Georgia state flag bearing the Confederate battle cross, seven years too early.) An added treat was June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife, playing a country conjurer who reads people's fortunes and communes with the dead, including her brother, who was killed in World War I. When Johnny Cash learns of her deceased brother and expressed his condolences, she tells him, "It's alright, we still talk "
Reviews
9 Reviews
Better than Grimm!
13 May 2023
As the title suggests--broadcasts, really--this is a fairy tale for grown-ups. If you had told me all the elements that are covered in Tarantino's epic, I would have given the film at best a 50-50 chance of working. But Tarantino hit it out of the park, making one of the greatest tributes to film and film making of all time, and ending it in the only way that allows us to consider what might have been. More than a film about Hollywood, it is a parable about the United States. The look and soundscape are pure magic, with many of the radio ads I actually remember from the time. The casting is a delight--Al Pacino is a thrill to watch and hear as the savvy agent; Julia Butters plays a child actress who becomes a muse; the lust goes on. That this was passed over for Best Picture at the Oscars for the silly Parasite was a MASSIVE insult, and shows how much Hollywood is still torn over Tarentuno's talent and notoriety.
The Freshman
(1990)
Godfather redux
3 April 2023
A warm, funny, and sly satire of The Godfather, with Brando resurrecting his Corleone character, again as a mobster, but with an affectionste, fatherly twist. Throughout, the film plays with mob tropes in ways that are knowing and playful. Broderick is exactly right as the out-of-town college student who is way, way out of his depth. Brando's daughter, Penelope Ann Miller, is a fetching and intentionally ditzy siren, and casting Maximilian Schell, who hilariously channels his inner Nazi gourmet chef, was a stroke of genius. Bert Parks even makes a cameo to sing (for the last time?) his retired Miss America song, crucially adapted for this movie. Given all the obvious references to previously copyrighted material, I have to wonder how this movie even got made. There had to be a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating by the producers!
Confederate irony
5 February 2023
Given the first Jubal Early's prominence as a major Confederate general, and a stalwart anti-abolitionist and proponent of the "Lost Cause" after the Civil War, naming a black character after him was pretty cheeky, and was perhaps Whedon's personal reckoning with his the Confederate general to whom he is related. I did find it odd that such a specific name from old Earth would have survived the centuries given how much of Earth's history seemed forgotten in the series. Apart from a few snippets, like the singing of "Amazing Grace" at a funeral, Earth is pretty much a faded myth. The strength of this episode lay in Brook's commanding presence as the bounty hunter, and I think it a shame we haven't seen more of him in this capacity.
Demolition Man
(1993)
Never gets old
4 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen this a thousand times, and it still makes me laugh. From Bullock's naive malapropisms to the take down of Taco Bell (how did Taco Bell agree to this?), the satire never stops. The action scenes are a little dated, but still hold up, and the jabs at politically correct "facism" (Stallone's word), vegan eating habits, and the criminal penalties for cursing seen even more relevant today. I don't know how the producers managed to pull together an all-star cast for what might have seemed just another action sci-fi flick (I mean, Nigel Hawthorne!), but my hat's off to them. Way better than Mel Brooks.
Carlito's Way
(1993)
A gangster's Great Gatsby
27 July 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Some reviewers faulted De Palma for the romantic aspects involving Penelope Ann Miller, but this is a clue to an overlooked source, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In Gatsby, Jay Gatsby tries vainly to woo his old flame, Daisy, and somehow redeem himself from a shady past. The same dynamic is clearly employed in Carlito's Way, with the same result: no hope of a successful courtship and the death of the protagonist, Gatsby/Carlito. At the end of each work, the same moral is trotted out, that we can't escape our pasts.
Brad Pitt's is the finest Jesse James EVER
1 February 2022
At last, a movie that sticks to the historical facts, with a feeling of almost Biblical fatalism. Brad Pitt is the silver screen's first realistic Jesse James, combining a charismatic charm with an aura of deadly lethality, capable of switching from one to the other in the blink of an eye. One of the finest Westerns ever filmed.
Life of Crime
(2013)
Missing Samuel L. Jackson
24 April 2021
Not a bad Elmore Leonard movie, but nothing new either. None of the cast pops out, like you see in Get Shorty or Jackie Brown. In the latter, Ordell was played by a sizzling Samuel L. Jackson, while here Mos Def plays him in a more subdued register.
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