"The Old Man & The Gun"

At some point last year, we started seeing trailers for "The Old Man & The Gun", and it seemed intriguing.  However, when it was released it only lasted about an hour and a half in the theaters, so it took until last night for us to watch this one via the magic of Amazon Prime Video.

Eighty-two year old Robert Redford, appropriately, plays the old man of the title, a gentlemanly bank robber who just can't help himself, despite spending numerous sentences in prisons from which he always seems to be able to escape.  I give Redford credit.  In his prime, there was no better looking leading man in all of Hollywood, and he has allowed himself to age gracefully, never, it seems, giving way to the knives of Beverly Hills' numerous plastic surgeons.  Yes, he's old and craggy now, but still pretty damn good looking guy, and still capable of giving a great performance in a not so great role.

Also, starring in this movie is 69 year old Sissy Spacek.  She, too, is a Hollywood star who has allowed herself to age gracefully, and I thought she was just terrific as Redford's semi-love interest in this one.  She also appears to have spurned cosmetic surgery over the years, and I thought she looked great.  

Also featured in this movie is Casey Affleck, playing the police detective who doggedly pursues Redford and his "over the hill gang".  Affleck basically portrays the same character that he did in "Manchester By The Sea" as he broods and mumbles his way through the movie.  To use a sports metaphor, Casey Affleck, despite that Oscar on his resume, couldn't carry Robert Redford's jock, not in this movie or in anything else he's ever done or, most likely, in anything he ever will do.

In summary, this movie won't be the greatest thing you'll ever see, but it's only 93 minutes long, so it won't take up much of your time.  It has also been reported and Redford himself has hinted that this movie might well be last on screen role.  That alone might make it worth seeing.  And there is that very nice performance by Sissy Spacek.

(By the way, Spacek also had a great role as Julia Roberts' mother in the Amazon series "Homecoming".  2018 was a good year for her.)

Two stars from The Grandstander.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

Thanks to the good people at Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events, we were able to see the 1969 classic movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", on the big screen at the Cinemark North yesterday.  I saw this movie when it was released in 1969, and have seen it, or at least parts of it many times since, but it has been a long time since I have watched it straight through, and, as we have discovered via these TCM/Fathom events showings, there is noting like seeing a movie like this on a big screen in a movie theater.

For example, do you remember how this movie starts out in sepia tones, transforms to full color, and then goes back to sepia at certain points?  I didn't, but seeing it again, it was stunning.  No wonder it won the Oscar for cinematography.

And how great is it to once again see just how stunningly beautiful Katherine Ross was.

And, of course, one of the most memorable "death scenes" in all of movies, didn't actually show the deaths of Butch and Sundance, but rather this freeze-frame:

What an absolutely perfect way to end that movie.

The showing of this movie yesterday was bookended by comments from TCM's Ben Mankiewicz.  He told of how the producers originally wanted to cast this movie.  Paul Newman was first cast as the Sundance Kid, and Jack Lemmon was to play Butch Cassidy. For whatever reason, Lemmon didn't do it, so Newman was moved to the role of Butch, and the producers approached Steve McQueen to play the Kid.  Disagreements about how Newman and McQueen would be billed led McQueen to decline the project.  The producers than seriously considered both Warren Beatty and Marlon Brando to play the Sundance Kid.  When those choices didn't work out, director George Roy Hill convinced the producers to cast the relatively unknown young Robert Redford for the role.  In baseball, they often say that the best trades are the ones that you don't make.  The same logic applies to how this movie was cast because in retrospect, you just can't possibly see anyone other than Newman and Redford as Butch and Sundance.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Director, it lost to "Midnight Cowboy" and Hill lost to John Schlesinger, but it did win four Oscars: Screenplay (William Goldman), Cinematography, Original Score (Burt Bacharach), and Original Song (Bacharach and Hal David).

The next big TCM/Fathom showings will include Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief" and the Bogart classic "The Maltese Falcon".  Watch for those.

And as for that Oscar winning Best Song?  It was "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", and here is how it played in the movie:

"The Company You Keep"

I hit the Redbox at Giant Eagle yesterday and rented a pretty damn good movie, "The Company You Keep", that I don't remember getting a whole lot of play when it was released in theaters earlier this year.  

The movie was directed by and stars Robert Redford who plays a single father with a private law practice in Albany, NY.  Turns out, however that he is really  former member of the 1960's radical Weathermen group who has been wanted for bank robbery and murder by the FBI for over thirty years.  A reporter for the Albany paper, played by Shia LeBeouf (and just how did he come up with that name) uncovers Redford's secret past and the manhunt begins.

While this is a fictional story, it does have some basis in truth since you often hear of such folks being discovered or turning themselves in after living 30 and 40 years past the date of their crimes, and those stories always fascinate me, and this movie does as well.

A terrific cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Nick Nolte, and Stanley Tucci make this a movie worth seeing.

Robert Redford, by the way is now 77 years old - and how he happens to have an eleven year old daughter is explained in the movie - and I salute him for not undergoing the ravages of horrifying plastic surgery to which so many of his show biz peers have succumbed, although I do suspect that he does dye his hair.  He can best be described as "craggy", and for that he is to be applauded.

Movie Review: "The Conspirator"

Took a trip to the Robinson Cinemark yesterday and took in the new Robert Redford-directed movie "The Conspirator." The movie centers on the trial of those who conspired with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, VP Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. More specifically, it centers on the trial of Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright), who ran a boarding house where the conspirators met. The other featured character is Frederick Aiken (played by James McAvoy), a union army hero who is also a lawyer and is conscripted to defend Mary Surratt in her trial by a military tribunal.

Aiken is at first reluctant to participate in the defense of a conspirator in the plot that killed the President. He soon comes to realize that while he may be uncertain as to Surratt's guilt or innocence, he is fully aware that she is being denied the rights of all citizens under the Constitution, which he fought to uphold: the presumption of innocence, and trial by a jury of her peers, all in the name of "national security" and the "greater good" of the nation. Here is where the movie gets a bit ham-handed. One can't help but see that Redford is drawing a parallel to events going on today. In fact, substitute Dick Cheney for Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and you get the idea.

All that aside, it is a very well done movie, and it certainly does raise questions about the fairness of the trial of Mary Surratt and as to whether or not justice was done. Wright and McAvoy are very good in their roles. Stanton is played by one of my favorite actors, Kevin Kline, and I have to admit that I didn't even realize it was him until the ending credits.

Any American history buff will enjoy seeing this movie.

By the way, as I watched The Conspirator, Marilyn was in another theater in the multi-plex watching "Water for Elephants." She gave it a thumbs up for any of you who might be interested.