Tina's March Movies 2011

I had to take a break from March Madness basketball to squeeze in a few movies. Here is what I watched last month, with numbering picked up from February. Movies I haven't seen previously are indicated by an asterisk*.

25. Silkwood (TCM) – I generally bristle at movies that paint big business with broad strokes as the bad guy, but this Mike Nichols film makes a compelling case against real life nuclear company Kerr Magee. The brilliant Meryl Streep plays Karen Silkwood, who turns from an indifferent employee to an impassioned union activist fighting against the potentially deadly effects of handling plutonium. Streep is matched in her performance by Kurt Russell as her boyfriend and Cher as her lesbian roommate and fellow employee. This film is based on a true story, which I won’t spoil here, but it is a gripping tale delivered with subtlety and tenderness. 4½ cans.
26. The Last Detail (TCM) – Jack Nicholson plays a career sailor who draws the assignment to accompany a prisoner to a military jail. Together with another Navy lifer, he decides to make the trip memorable for the naïve young sailor (Randy Quaid). Nicholson, only 36 at the time of this Oscar-nominated performance, is a tough guy who doesn’t suffer fools gladly but takes pity on the inexperienced 18-year old and treats him to food and fun that he won’t have once his stint in prison begins. I can’t remember a film where Nicholson looks smaller – slim and short in stature – but he is the quintessential Jack, with the notable exception of the “killer smile” that he displayed in so many other movies. 3½ cans.
27. The King’s Speech (2010) – OK, I know it is kind of cheating to list this movie since I saw and reviewed it in December, but, after all, I went to the movies (in Hartford, killing time with RU basketball fans during the Big East Tournament) AND paid $8, so I think it is fair to at least list it. I won’t review it again except to note that seeing it all the way through without the film breaking (as it did twice when I originally saw it in Princeton) was a much better experience. Oscar-worthy. 4½ cans.
28. Four Seasons (TCM) – Alan Alda wrote, directed and stars in this very adult film (get your minds out of the gutter, that’s not what I mean) about three couples who vacation together each season. When Nick (Len Cariou) changes the dynamic among them by dumping his dull wife Annie (Sandy Dennis) and taking up with adorable and considerably younger Ginny (Bess Armstrong; why didn’t she have more of a film career?), resentments and jealousy abound. Alda casts himself in the least appealing role, as an outwardly affable guy with a judgmental and prickly nature. Like the seasons themselves, relationships among the couples and within each pair are constantly changing – sometimes warm and other times cold. Feelings and fears are exposed but there are enough laughs that you don’t mind when Alda’s character becomes priggish. 3½ cans.
29. The Harder They Fall* (1956) – This movie was Humphrey Bogart’s last. He plays a former sportswriter who becomes a press agent for a corrupt boxing promoter, hired to hype a giant South American boxer with minimal skills. In selling the boxer and his fights against hand-picked opponents who are just too happy to take the money and dive, he sells his soul. The boxer, an naïve and good-hearted soul who actually believes he can fight, comes to depend on Bogart as a manager and friend, not trusting (for good reason) the promoter, played with plenty of disdain by Rod Steiger. This film shows the corruption that plagues boxing and continues my recent run of boxing movies (starting with “The Fighter” and including “Requiem for a Heavyweight” and “Raging Bull”). Loaded with clichés, the movie is still an effective indictment against the business of boxing. 3½ cans.
30. Murphy’s Romance (1986) – The charming James Garner stars as a druggist in a small western town that becomes the new home of a much younger Sally Field. The spunky divorce and mother of Corey Haim is a down-on-her-luck would-be horse trainer, saddled with a deadbeat ex-husband who shows up in time to interrupt the growing May-December romance between Field & Garner. Garner can do everything from ride horses to make ice cream sodas to sew, and he spouts aphorisms that warm the heart of the plucky Field (who looks startlingly like Kristy MacNichol). Directed by Martin Ritt, who guided Field to an Oscar in Norma Rae, playing an even pluckier and more prickly character. I like her, I really, really like her. 4 cans.
31. Frozen River* (2008) – Melissa Leo lives with her two sons in a single-wide trailer in upstate NY just this side of the Canadian border, dreaming of a move up to a double-wide while working at the local dollar store. She can’t afford the double-wide, the rental company is about to take the TV and Christmas is fast approaching when she meets an equally desperate Native American woman who picks up extra cash by picking up illegals and smuggling them from Canada into the US in the trunk of her car. Despite her better judgment, Leo joins her in making runs that you just know won’t be as easy as she thinks. This was the first movie for which Leo gained acclaim before she won this year’s Oscar for her portrayal of Mark Wahlberg’s foul-mouthed mother in “The Fighter.” She is totally believable, desperate and dirty, yet a protective and wary mother. Serious, sullen and well done. 4 cans.
32. Network (1976) – I don’t think in 1976 I fully understood the satire created by Paddy Chayefsky in “Network,” and looking back on it now in the context of 2011, this movie seems more prophetic than I could have imagined. All of the madness of today’s reality TV was foretold in this story of a TV newsman (Peter Finch) who crosses the line into mental illness, exhorting viewers of the news to stick their heads out of the window and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Suddenly, his unpredictability leads to improved ratings, and his rants become fodder for a new network program exploiting him as the “mad prophet of the airwaves.” William Holden represents old-school news, dating back to the days of Edward R. Morrow, while ruthless network exec Faye Dunaway is so driven for ratings she prattles on about new show possibilities even as she beds down with the craggy Holden. Beatrice Straight won a supporting Oscar for what was the briefest winning role in the history of movies (nine minutes, or eight actual lines of dialog), and Peter Finch was named Best Actor, though the movie itself lost out on the Oscar to the popular underdog “Rocky.” This is not a movie I want to see every time it is on, but “Network” is a brilliant evisceration of TV and American culture that predates everything from Jerry Springer and Bill O’Reilly to “Cops.” My favorite scene shows a fringe group of activists negotiating with network brass for a show in which terrorists will stage weekly crimes for TV. 5 cans.
33. Just Wright* (2010) – I figured it was OK to take a break from March Madness to watch this basketball/romantic comedy starring Queen Latifah and rapper Common. The latter plays a basketball player who blows out his knee. Physical therapist Leslie Wright (Queen) is just right when it comes to rehabbing what ails him. Though he is involved with Leslie’s best friend, the player falls for his therapist when the gold digger dumps him. Only in the movies does a handsome rich man fall for a larger than life woman, and this fantasy expands further by making the hoopster’s Nets a playoff team. Latifah has a ton of personal charm that makes her easy to like to any movie she’s in, even a predictable one like this. 3½ cans.