Four Movies

I have watched four movies over the last week and want to share some thoughts on them with you.  Two are older movies, and two are brand new, released just this month on Netflix.

Marty, Life Is Short

This is a documentary about actor and comedian Martin Short, directed by Lawrence Kasden.   Short, of course, came to the attention of most people in the United States when he was a part of Canadian SCTV back in the late 1970's/early 1980's.  He went on to greater things on television (one season as regular on Saturday Night Live), guest appearances  on talk shows and acting roles in movies and countless television series.  I remember him in movies like "The Three Amigos" and "Father of the Bride", but I had no awareness of just how prolific an actor that he is (116 acting credits in IMDB), including his latest huge success in the streaming series "Only Murders In The Building".

This documentary includes home movies that Short himself made of both his family growing up and of his own family and friends.  And those friends are a Who's Who of show business today: Steve Martin, Stephen Speilberg, Catherine O'Hara, Tom Hanks, and many, many more.  The movie also tells of Short's resilience in the face of tragedy: his oldest brother was killed in an accident when Martin was 12, his mother died when he was 18, and his father died two years later.  Then, he lost his wife of thirty years, Nancy Dolman, to cancer in 2010.  His words about what he went through at that time and in the time that followed were particularly meaningful to me.  Not included in the film was the news of his daughter Katherine's  suicide earlier this year, which occurred after the film was finished.  It is dedicated to her.

Two great lines from the film that sum up Short perfectly:

Steve Martin: "Say you're having a dinner party and you invite Marty.  Then Marty tells you that something came up and he can't make it.  You then cancel the party."

Tom Hanks:  "Marty operates at the speed of joy."

You will laugh a lot watching this movie, and you will fell pain as well, but, ultimately, you will feel the "joy" to which Hanks refers.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Sally Field plays a widow working as an overnight cleaning woman at a public aquarium in Washington state.  It keeps her occupied and active.  Lewis Pullman plays an unemployed musician who arrives in town on a mission to collect money that he feels is owed to him. They're drawn together when his crummy van breaks down and he has to take a job as Field's substitute cleaning person at the aquarium.  They become tied together by their affinity for the aquarium's star attraction, an octopus named Marcellus, who serves as the voice-over narrator of the movie.

I know, doesn't make a lot of sense and it sounds terrible when you spell it out like I just did, but, trust me, this is a charming little story, and how it ends and how the characters tie together make for a delightful movie. 

A word about Sally Field.  She will turn 80 later this year, and she is wonderful in this movie.   She has over seventy acting credits in IMDB dating back to 1962.  She has done comedy and drama. She has won two Oscars and three Emmys and is a Kennedy Center Honors awardee.  She played Mary Todd Lincoln for crying out loud! She has come a long way from Gidget and The Flying Nun, and, as this movie has shown, she continues to do wonderful work.  She is a real treasure.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

The Outlaw Josey Wales

(1976)

Back in March, I wrote THIS PIECE about movies that will turn fifty years old in 2026.  While researching for that post, one of the movies that I found on every list for that year, but that I had never seen, was this western that starred and was directed by Clint Eastwood, and I finally got around to seeing it, fifty years after the fact.

It is classic Eastwood stuff.  Josey Wales seeks revenge on a band of renegade Union soldiers who murdered his wife and son and burned down his home as the Civil War was coming to an end.  Along the way he meets up with an all-by-himself Indian and a family of settlers from Kansas who are seeking a better life out west.  He also has to fight off various bandits, hostile Indians, and, of course, those soldiers who killed his family.  Lots and lots and LOTS of people get killed in this movie and there is a lot of shooting and somehow lone man Josey/Clint manages to out wit, out shoot, and out kill all of them, no matter how outnumbered he always seems to be.  

Josey Wales is the 1860's precursor to the 1970's Dirty Harry Callahan. If, like me, you are a Clint Eastwood fan, then this is a movie for you.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

The Bride Wore Black

(1968)

French film director Francois Truffaut was an unabashed admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, and this 1968 movie was his tribute to him.  If you watch it, you will see the influence that Hitchcock had on Truffaut in scene after scene.  (FUN FACT:  The Bride Wore Black is based upon a novel of the same name by author Cornell Woolrich.  Woolrich also write the short novel "Rear Window", which was, of course, adapted by Hitchcock into my favorite movie of his.)  Jeanne Moreau played the title  character.  We learn early on that her husband was shot and killed on their wedding day, and she then sets out on a mission of revenge against five men responsible for the killing.

I recorded this one off of TCM.  It was in the original French with English subtitles. I was anxious to see it because back in 1968, this movie was shown at the Forum Theater in Squirrel Hill, where the then seventeen year old Grandstander was employed as an usher.  I can remember that I liked the movie because "it was like a Hitchcock movie".  However, the movie was especially memorable because of this scene that featured a topless Miss Moreau:

In watching the movie this week, I realized that this scene took up about two seconds of actual screen time.  It ain't much by today's standards, but to a 17 year old boy in 1968, it was pretty hot stuff.

All that aside, it is still a pretty good movie.  A suspenseful thriller and an apt tribute by Truffaut to Hitchcock.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

New Movie, Old Movie (and Absent Friend), Streaming Series, Old Book

As a great man once said, "In the area of critical commentary...."

"What Happens Later"

Everybody loved Meg Ryan in what were perhaps the three greatest romantic comedies ever, "When Harry Met Sally", "Sleepless in Seattle", and "You've Got Mail", each of which bore the imprint of the late great Nora Ephron.  Well, Ryan has been off of the grid for it seems like the last twenty or so years, and in this movie, which she co-wrote and directed, Ryan tries to channel the magic of Ephron and recreate a classic RomCom.  In fact, the dedication of the entire film is "For Nora".  Sad to say, this one doesn't come close to anything that Nora Ephron ever did.

Two long ago lovers, played by Ryan and David Duchovny run into each other in some unnamed podunk airport where all flights have been canceled or delayed by one of those annual snowstorms of the century.  After having not seen each other for over twenty-five years, Willa and Bill (they are both named "W. Davis"; cute, huh?) are forced to talk and talk and talk about what happened then, what's going on now, and, of course, what happens later.

It wasn't very romantic, and it wasn't very comedic, and I was distracted throughout by the uncanny resemblance between Duchovny and the late, great Pittsburgh sports broadcaster, Stan Savran:

One Star from The Grandstander.

"Shaft" and Absent Friend, Richard Roundtree

Richard Roundtree

1942-2023

When actor Richard Roundtree passed away last month at the age of 81, I was not inclined to write an Absent Friends post about him, until, that is, I read what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote about him in his biweekly Substack column.  Rather that trying to paraphrase, let me just turn it over to Kareem...

Richard Roundtree died last week, and I felt his passing deeply. In 1971, I was sitting in a dark movie theater watching in awe and excitement as Roundtree, playing Black private detective John Shaft, swaggered, fought, sneered, and romanced his way through Shaft. Even as a 24-year-old, I knew then that this was pop culture history in the making: A new era had arrived in which Black men didn’t have to be polite, non-threatening “Good Negroes.” They could be badass muthas who stood their ground no matter who was pushing against them: White cop or Black gangster.

It was the beginning of the Black action hero trend known as Blaxploitation (though Roundtree and Shaft director Gordon Parks didn’t like that term). Watching Shaft for the first time gave me an injection of pride, and I walked out of the theater with a bit of Shaft’s swagger. Soon Black women action heroes were featured, including Foxy Brown, Coffy, and Cleopatra Jones. Interestingly, Black women became action heroes before White women did, probably because White women were still seen as physically passive gatherers (see above article). Black women, on the other hand, were seen as closer to the jungle, to the sensually primitive. Looking back, the whole trend was pretty sexist, but it was one small step for a Black man, one giant leap for Black culture.

Isaac Hayes created one of the best theme songs in movie history. I hear the first guitar-chainsaw notes and I’m right back on the crowded streets of New York City, black leather jacket and carefully groomed ‘fro, strolling confidently but with purpose. Knowing I “won’t cop out when there’s danger all about.”

So, reading Abdul-Jabbar caused me to seek out, find, and watch the movie for which Roundtree is most famous, 1971's "Shaft", a movie that I had never seen.  It is out there on Amazon Prime ($2.99 rental fee), and I got around to seeing it yesterday.  All that I can say is that it is a movie that is "of it's time."   It is a bit cheesy and dated, but Roundtree is quite charismatic in the role.  In fact, the best part of the movie might have been the opening credits that show Roundtree/Shaft walking the streets of New York City in his leather coat while Isaac Hayes' classic theme music plays.

Oh, and for you sports fans out there one of the "badass muthas" who Shaft must battle is played by none other than Drew Bundini Brown, one time cornerman and chief hanger-on to Muhammed Ali.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

"Only Murders In The Building"

We know that we are late to the party here, but over the last couple of months, Linda and I have caught up with the delightful streaming series from Hulu, "Only Murders In The Building".  Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez play neighbors in an old and stately New York City apartment building.  Martin plays a washed up television actor, Short plays a washed up never was Broadway director, and Gomez plays a late twenties young woman still trying to figure out where her life is going.  By accident, they learn that they are fans of the same true crime podcast, and they are then thrust into investigate a murder that has taken place in their apartment building.

Both Martin and Short are fabulous as they ham it up as the old show biz hands thrust into detective work, which, by the way, they are turning into a true crime podcast of their own, and Gomez is similarly delightful as she tries to cope with these two old guys who barely know how to operate a cell phone.  While all three are great in the roles, it is Short who is the first among equals in the cast.  And did I mention all of the oddball peripheral characters that they have to encounter as they pursue their investigations?

It all adds up to a funny and delightfully entertaining series, which is teed up for  fourth season sometime in 2024.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles"

A Kindle special price deal prompted me to spend $1.99 to purchase and then reread this Agatha Christie classic.  Fans of Dame Agatha know that this book was her very first novel, published in 1920, and it introduced to the world her famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot.

Agatha Christie published over sixty novels in her career, and I once tallied and discovered that I have read over fifty of them in my lifetime.  It was Agatha Christie who introduced me to the genre of mystery and detective fiction, and for almost sixty years reading such works has been one of my favorite ways to spend my leisure time.  I will maintain to anyone willing to listen that her novel "And Then There Were None" is perhaps the most perfect mystery ever written.

All of this is why it pains me to say that I found, upon rereading this one, that it was staid and just not all that good.  One needs keep in mind, I suppose, that this book was written over 100 years ago and was certainly unique and almost revolutionary for its time.  Times, however, have changed, and this one, for me at least, just doesn't quite hold up.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.