Silkwood (1983, Mike Nichols)

I wholeheartedly recommend Silkwood. It’s beautifully made, with a singular performance from Meryl Streep and great performances from its astounding ensemble. I need to remember to list all the supporting actors in the film. But I caution against reading up on the actual history. The film’s very accurate; the problem isn’t with veracity; it’s with the dramatic choices for the finale. The film refuses to make any claims about union organizer Karen Silkwood’s mysterious death, which occurred while she was on her way to blow the whistle on her plutonium manufacturing bosses. They’d been really shitty about telling people they’d probably get cancer and die from their jobs, plus doctored reports to make things seem safer.

Streep gets involved with the union after her first contamination; she’d been building to it, concerned about one of her friends at the plant, but experiencing it herself pushes her over. Her life quickly changes, as she’s instrumental in involving the national union in the Oklahoma plant’s business. But with Streep’s increasing involvement, her relationships suffer at home and work. Home is stud muffin boyfriend Kurt Russell and their roommate Cher, a lesbian who’s in love with Streep but also thinks Russell’s swell. They all get high, bitch about work, visit Streep’s kids, and get poisoned by their job together. The first act is all about the trio; the second is about breaking up the trio, and the third is about them having to get back together because it’s partially a medical melodrama.

A damned good one.

But the finish skips ahead a lot, focusing on Streep’s still hot and heavy relationship with Russell, ignoring both her work stuff and her increasingly strained friendship with Cher. Despite the film’s abrupt, tragic ending, there’s some kind of closure with Russell and Streep. There’s nothing with Cher. Even though Cher shows up in the ill-advised closing montage, apparently having been present for a scene the film implies but doesn’t show. Because to show it would be to take a stand on Silkwood’s death.

The ending’s frustrating—I mean, Silkwood gets away with doing an actual pre-made Oscar reel for Streep’s nomination video, so it can frustrate all it wants, actually—but knowing there was more potential content—historically solid content, too—is upsetting. The film proposes there’s just not enough information to do anything else with the finish. But the real story had some more information. There were other choices.

Before reading up on the actual history, I had intended to start talking about Silkwood in terms of staying too strict with the reality, except it didn’t even make that choice. It did something entirely different. And the film can’t get away with it.

Silkwood starts a somewhat standard outsider drama. Streep, Russell, and Cher are stoners; their coworkers think they’re a truple; they don’t fit in. For example, even though Streep’s okay with Russell’s giant Confederate flag, she doesn’t join in racist conversations with her coworkers. The film’s Americana, but that Americana. Given Russell eventually getting uncomfortable with Cher taking up with another lady is a plot point, the film is aware of that focus. It just entirely dumps it, like they weren’t allowed to cut anything throughout the film but had to stop at exactly 131 minutes.

The film’s mostly a technical marvel—Miroslav Ondříček’s photography, Patrizia von Brandenstein’s production design, Ann Roth’s costumes—but Sam O'Steen’s cutting is only just okay. It’s often good, but because of the content, not because O’Steen’s got a good feel for that material. Though the Oscar reel partially redeems the lackluster final montage; Silkwood effectively gets away with nostalgically repeating something from two scenes before. It’s not great, but it does the job–it reminds how Streep’s performance over the last two hours and eight minutes has been absolutely mesmerizing.

So cast your votes for her.

Before I forget, here’s that supporting actor costar list. It’s entirely men, but major shout out to E. Katherine Kerr, who plays the other woman in Streep’s work crew. Also, Craig T. Nelson plays a creep coworker, and he’s in the movie a lot, so I’m not counting him. Bruce McGill’s also got a lot to do but much less than Nelson. The biggest part otherwise goes to Fred Ward, and in continuing descending order of importance: Ron Silver, Charles Hallahan, David Strathairn, Josef Sommer, J.C. Quinn, M. Emmet Walsh, James Rebhorn, Bill Cobbs, Gary Grubbs, Anthony Heald, and Will Patton–the Nichols Thirteen or something.

Russell and Cher are both good but not great. Well, wait. Cher’s always good but never great, while Russell’s often good but never bad. He’s really good with the bump and grind scenes, where he and Streep slobber on each other, but he doesn’t really get a character arc.

Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen co-wrote the screenplay, which technically never runs out of stream since there’s no dialogue after a certain point. Silkwood doesn’t want to do a thriller sequence in the third act—supposition and all—and their solution of flashing forward into the epilogue is unsuccessful. Nichols loses track of the story at just the wrong moment.

But, like I said before, it doesn’t really matter. Silkwood’s already knocked it out of the park; Streep’s astonishing, Nichols’s direction—big thanks to Ondříček’s lightning—is excellent, and the story’s always compelling.

Though—and I promise I’ll get back to an uptick for the end—we need to talk about Georges Delerue’s score before we go. Delerue starts doing honky tonk, which is fine, but then it stops and never comes back. He does lots of melodrama instead, which is fine too, but just when the music should be figuring out how to combine those two genres, Silkwood punts. The film gives Delerue a vote of no confidence with the ending music choice; it’s a cold burn to Delerue.

But, of course, Silkwood makes it work because it’s a superlative piece of work.

This post is part of the Everything Is Copy Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Mr. Mom (1983, Stan Dragoti)

Approximately three-quarters of the way through Mr. Mom (approximately because the movie is a series of sitcom set pieces, not necessarily in sound narrative order), I realized it wasn’t just about sitcom set pieces; the whole thing is a situation comedy. With very low stakes. When the third act has to gin up the big drama, each resolution is a little more pat than the last, with Mom putting the whole weight on Teri Garr.

Sort of sums up the entire picture.

Mr. Mom opens with its pilot episode—Detroit auto engineer Michael Keaton gets laid off, even though his boss and carpool driver Jeffrey Tambor said it wasn’t happening. Keaton also works with Christopher Lloyd and Tom Leopold; Lloyd must’ve been doing someone a favor. Mom plays like a prestige sitcom in an era where the concept was before its time… except the script’s bad and the direction’s terrible.

Anyway.

Keaton’s laid off, so both he and Garr are going to look for work. They bet on it. After a commercial break, Garr’s got a job, and Keaton doesn’t. We get a little of their characters’ backstories throughout, without any actual insight, obviously. Garr went to college for something advertising-like and worked for two years before leaving to homemake for Keaton. Keaton was in the Army, then went to college, then got a job in Detroit designing cars. They can’t afford actual cars, just filming at the plant, so it’s not like there’s a failed supercar subplot. “Tonight on NBC Mr. Mom” doesn’t have supercar money.

Garr goes to work for Martin Mull, Keaton starts hanging out with her housewife friends. Mull’s a sleaze, but Garr doesn’t acknowledge it because it’s the eighties and it’s messed up. Garr’s Mom’s secret weapon. Like, it’s Keaton’s test run for sure—is Michael Keaton ready for his own “The Michael Keaton Show”? Most of his scenes are like he’s doing stand-up, presumably because director Dragoti hasn’t given him any other instruction or input. Mr. Mom has a lot of pitfalls—spoiler, the screenplay (credited to John Hughes) was worked on by a room of Aaron Spelling TV writers. And Hughes’s screenplay was only ever intended for television anyway, in that weird era of TVM comedies.

So Mom’s got a lot riding against it.

But nothing compares to Dragoti’s abjectly bad direction.

Obviously, some of the fault lies with Victor J. Kemper’s photography. Kemper’s not incompetent, just generic. But there’s better generic than what Kemper shoots for Dragoti. And Patrick Kennedy doesn’t know what he’s doing with his cutting, either. The technicals on the movie, outside Garr’s work outfits (they get the only costuming credit), are rough. I forgot about the hair and makeup on the housewives.

So why isn’t Mr. Mom the worst, then? Keaton and Garr are likable. Keaton never has to be particularly cute with the kids—any parenting mishap scenes are short, and the biggest plot arc for any of the kids is middle child Taliesin Jaffe having to give up his blankie. Though even it’s an incomplete plot arc, with Mom skipping the middle section. The movie does multiple montage sequences to cover the lack of story, including one involving Keaton growing a beard and being a layabout. The problem is the anti-beard coding doesn’t age well. Luckily he’s slobbing out in other ways… at least until Garr tells him a homemaker has to take pride in the home.

Plus divorced housewife Ann Jillian is hot to trot and after Keaton for absolutely no reason other than there aren’t any other men in the movie.

Garr’s coworkers don’t even get names.

And, of course, despite having such a limited cast of fellas… Mr. Mom doesn’t pass Bechdel. It fails proudly.

Do Keaton and Garr save it? No. But there aren’t any casualties among the cast—even with lousy sitcom bits and Dragoti’s bad direction, everyone makes it through. Eldest son Frederick Koehler gets less than Jaffe but is perfectly solid. Koehler and Jaffe are professional kid actors. They can do this job. Mull’s fine. It’s not a standout performance, but it’s not bad. Jillian’s fine. Not sure about that hair. After them, everyone else is basically just a guest star.

Nice cameo from Edie McClurg. Miriam Flynn’s good for barely having a name (it’s also unclear how well Garr knows the other housewives or if Keaton joined someone else’s gang).

I wish it were better. And not just because it’s somehow a long ninety-one minutes—you’re being forced to marathon a sitcom you didn’t agree to marathon. But there are some really obvious misses—Keaton and Garr never get to be together, which I know is a feature, not a bug, but it’d have been nice to see how they worked together. Especially since they’re then left running their own shows without reward.

Also… the final joke is dreadfully unfunny. There’s a good reason Aaron Spelling didn’t make sitcoms.

Sudden Impact (1983, Clint Eastwood)

At least a third of Sudden Impact is director, producer, and star Eastwood doing a Hitchcock homage starring Sondra Locke. Locke doesn’t speak during the Hitchcock homage sequences; she just walks silently, staring at various things, remembering her horrific origin story, then shooting some rapist in the balls and then the head. Now, Sudden Impact is Dirty Harry 4, coming seven years after the previous entry; Eastwood’s in his fifties now. There aren’t young chippies throwing themselves at him (I mean, Locke’s fourteen years younger, but she’s still a grown woman), but he’s still got to contend with unsympathetic police brass. They don’t understand how dangerous the world has become, and only a man like Dirty Harry can get results.

The movie opens with Locke offing her first rapist, but we don’t know he’s a rapist yet. She’s just killing some guy in a Hitchcock homage. Then it’s off to court for lady judge Lois De Banzie to disrespect Eastwood’s authority and let young punk Kevyn Major Howard back out on the street. Eastwood didn’t have any evidence. Then Eastwood goes and interrupts a coffee shop robbery where he kills the only four Black people in the movie so far, just before Locke has an interaction with some Hispanic toughs. Impact’s main villains will be all white, but the movie is determined to remind the audience cities are full of ethnic types who are just criminals.

Also, one of the main villains will be a lesbian. Audrie Neenan. She hopefully fired her agent after this one.

But we’re getting ahead because it takes Sudden Impact forty minutes to get the actual plot, which will be Eastwood investigating the secrets of coastal city “San Paulo” (filmed in Santa Cruz), where Locke just happens to have returned to kill all her assaulters. See, ten years before, Neenan brought coworker Locke to a party (along with Locke’s little sister) but as a set up for some local boys to rape them (occasionally under Neenan’s direction). Sudden Impact is Eastwood doing a seventies exploitation picture in the eighties, with the Hitchcock vibes, and then all Eastwood’s one-liners about how all those liberals, and intellectuals, and smooth-talkers don’t understand how policing needs to be done. From the business end of a very special .44 Magnum, because it’s the eighties, and there’s got to be some kind of tech angle to it.

Just to pad out the run time, Eastwood also stars a gang war with uncredited Michael V. Gazzo, so there can be lots of shootouts in scenic San Francisco. Eastwood, as a director, does a great job showcasing the locations. Impact’s got a great crew—Joel Cox’s editing is great, and Bruce Surtees’s photography is muted and lush—even if the action set pieces are a bit blah. It’s just Eastwood going from shootout to shootout. Occasionally, boss Bradford Dillman yells at him. Dillman’s back from the previous movie playing the same part but with a different character name. Eastwood’s only friend—his Black friend, no less—is played by Albert Popwell. Popwell’s back from the original Dirty Harry, where he was at the business end of a one-liner; apparently, since 1971, Eastwood rehabilitated him and turned him into a cop.

Better movie, no doubt.

Lalo Schifrin’s music varies from inspired to grating–his Hitchcock-y music for Locke’s great. The opening music’s weird, though, especially since the titles are an homage to The Maltese Falcon’s San Francisco Bay shots. Shame Eastwood didn’t realize they could’ve nodded towards movies with good stories for the plotting.

He’s not good. He’s bored all of the time, annoyed some of it. The director’s cut must be about him having to pass bladder stones. Locke’s awesome during her silent walking around scenes. Once she’s got to talk, she’s terrible. Except when she’s got the exploitative but prestige scene where she tells her catatonic sister how she killed the first rapist. From that scene, it seems like Locke will have some pay-off dramatically.

Not so.

Not even after Eastwood gives her an excellent thriller chase sequence on a carousel.

By the third act, Impact’s gotten over its intentional casual racism and dog whistling. It seems like there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the momentum, especially not after that great thriller sequence. But then it turns out Eastwood had one more homage up his sleeve; for some inexplicable reason, which either has a great story or a tragic coincidence, Eastwood directs his Dirty Harry action scenes like he’s the slasher in a slasher movie.

So bad.

Then it’s nice the end titles have a Roberta Flack song, but it’s not a good Roberta Flack song. Sudden Impact makes some very intentional references to the previous Dirty Harry movies, but only their very seventies technical choices.

Again, the whole thing’s fascinating. But certainly not rewarding. Certainly not any good.

There is—eventually—a cute bulldog, however. Though Eastwood really leans in on bulldog’s farting. Uncomfortably so.

Staying Alive (1983, Sylvester Stallone)

As Staying Alive celebrates its fortieth birthday, I’m sure there’s information on the web to answer some of my most burning questions. For instance, did they shoot John Travolta and Finola Hughes singing numbers for the in-movie Broadway show (Satan’s Alley), or was it always a rock ballet? And what about the Frank Stallone songs—did director, co-writer, co-producer, and very special guest star Sylvester Stallone always plan on using his brother’s bland early eighties soft rock, which saps the energy out of all their scenes, which are many—or at some point was better music on the table? The film’s got five Bee Gees songs (plus the title track; trivia note: Stayin’ Alive was abridged on the soundtrack album, not in the movie itself). Were the Brothers Gibb too busy, or did they just not want to continue the story of Saturday Night Fever lead John Travolta?

So many questions.

Staying Alive runs a somewhat long ninety-six minutes. Once the Broadway show rehearsals start, it’s too rushed, but until it gets there, it plods. It still plods during the rehearsals—Travolta has to listen to an entire song to understand he’s hurt love interest Cynthia Rhodes by eighties stalking Hughes—and then there’s an endless “romantic” dance sequence. But there’s theoretically potential during the rehearsals; they’re what Alive promised during the opening titles, a bargain basement All That Jazz. Except Stallone can’t direct the dancing scenes.

Or, more, he can direct them, but then he slows them down, which makes the dancing far less impressive. Unless the whole point is Travolta’s athletic exertion faces, which the film inadvertently showcases for most of the third act. The rehearsals ought to be a no-brainer—Travolta, Hughes, and Rhodes are preparing for a show while in a love triangle. There’s plenty of drama, but they also have to work together for the show to work. Maybe it’d work if show director Steve Inwood weren’t so wooden (despite wearing outfits too extreme for a “Thriller” knock-off video). The scenes where Inwood and Travolta “act” opposite one another are some of the film’s worst, which is saying something, because even though Inwood’s bad… he’s only got a half-dozen scenes where he talks. Hughes is just as bad but in the movie, so much more often.

She’s the rich girl rock ballet star who practices free love, something Travolta just can’t understand, though he definitely should be while he’s sleeping with lovestruck co-worker Rhodes; he’s also going home with various girls from his bar job. Travolta and Rhodes work at a dance studio by day, then he waiters at a club while she sings at another. He doesn’t like her working at the club because it’s skeezy, only once we see it… it’s fine? Like, if he knew about her lovestruck coworker at the club—Frank Stallone—he might have a reason to dislike it, but we see him see Frank for the first time. And he can’t be worried about it being dangerous. Despite it being 1983 and prime “dirty old New York,” the city’s incredibly safe. He’s going to let Rhodes walk at least forty blocks home at one point.

Alive also could be about two dancers—Travolta and Rhodes—and their troubled personal relationship but their success in their field of chosen professional pursuit. She’s a little older, which sort of makes her a stand-in for the Karen Lynn Gorney character from the first movie. Except it’s not because Stallone and co-writer Norman Wexler are astoundingly bad at the romance stuff. They’re slightly better with Travolta’s character development arc, which involves realizing he shouldn’t mistreat people (especially women), only for mom Julie Bovasso to tell him it’s okay, actually. It’s what makes him so awesome.

Bovasso is the only other actor to return from Fever. No one else gets mentioned except the dad character, who seems to have died between movies, and Travolta has left mom Bovasso alone in Brooklyn while pursuing his Broadway dreams.

Bovasso’s scenes all feel inserted later, raising even more production questions, especially about Travolta’s possible original character arc. Maybe he sings about it. The scenes’ tacked-on feeling goes so far as to forget the movie is taking place at Christmastime. Maybe. Definitely winter because Travolta never wears enough clothes (but neither does anyone else).

The eventual musical has to be seen to be believed, and if Stallone weren’t so bad at directing it, it would be a camp classic; it should be a camp classic.

Based on the opening titles, which feel like an All That Jazz rip-off (sorry, not calling it a homage, given it’s set to a Frank Stallone song), it seems like at least the editing’s going to be good throughout. Mark Warner, Don Zimmerman, and Peter E. Berger do okay with the editing, even after Stallone starts all the slow motion. The cinematography from Nick McLean is occasionally (and unintentionally) great. Stallone’s got some bad shots and a real lack of visual continuity, but McLean does a fine job with dirty old New York. He lights about a third of Travolta’s approximately 75,000 close-ups okay. The other two-thirds, he’s bored too.

Johnny Mandel does the “score,” which doesn’t even get mentioned in the opening titles, and produces at least one of the Frank Stallone songs. Is it one of the better ones? I don’t know; I was too busy dancing to Stayin’ Alive to pay attention during the end credits.

Acting-wise, Bovasso wins on the technicality she’s in three and a half scenes. Rhodes is likable, even if she weren’t so tragically sympathetic as she lets herself get played, over and over, by Travolta.

Travolta’s reasonably bad. He seems better during the Broadway rehearsal portion of the plot; shame it’s rushed.

Hughes is terrible. Also, Stallone’s really bad at shooting her dance, so when Travolta’s ostensibly impressed with her craft (in addition to her looks), it doesn’t seem legit. Though at least Hughes gets to dance. The movie forgets Rhodes wants something more than the chorus line too.

If it weren’t terrible, Staying Alive could be good. Given the setting’s inherent drama and potential visuals, it ought to be good. Shame Stallone turned it into a weird vanity project for his brother, and an even weirder “toxic masculinity is good, actually” commentary. Because the questions the film raises about Travolta being a Brooklyn disco king grown over are good ones, it’s just Stallone, Wexler, and Alive have bullshit answers to all of them.

Still, it’s ninety-six minutes of early eighties Hollywood ego train wreck; after all, sometimes you need to strut.

This post is part of the Fifth So Bad It’s Good Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)

Scarface is a film with a lot of problems. Most consequentially, there’s no character development for Al Pacino; any time there’s ostensibly character development, the film cuts ahead a month or three, or there’s a montage sequence. But the film is incredibly hands-off with Pacino’s character and arc. It leaves Pacino to vamp throughout to keep the energy up. He’s always doing something in the performance, which is simultaneously transfixing and tedious. He’s just making up for director De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone’s shortcomings.

It also means he never builds character relationships with the costars, like literal trophy wife, Michelle Pfeiffer (Pacino gets her as a reward for leveling up as a Miami drug kingpin), sister Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, or “best friend” Steve Bauer. Quotation marks because Pacino and Bauer have something like two scenes where Bauer’s not just an accessory. The film tries to bring it all together at the end when Pacino’s being performative about his relationship with Pfeiffer and then later feels regret for not supporting Bauer and Mastrantonio’s star-crossed romance. It’s already too little, too late, but De Palma ignores it so he can do a lackluster action finale. However, ignoring it means ignoring Pacino, whose performance is the only thing keeping Scarface afloat by the finale, so it dings the finish even more than the bad action does on its own.

But the other big problem with the film is De Palma runs out of ideas during the first act. He and cinematographer John A. Alonzo shoot some great crane shots. And then they repeat the same shots. They come up with a transition device. Then they use it over and over again. Except the first time they use the transition device and the crane shots, it’s during Scarface’s infamous chainsaw sequence and nothing else ever as intense. Though the chainsaw sequence isn’t particularly intense either, De Palma gets distracted by a girl in a bikini. Actually, wait, during the first act–when Bauer’s cruising for every girl in a bikini–De Palma’s far more interested in the film (albeit the girls in bikinis). Once the women are more or less dressed, De Palma checks out.

Though some of the problem is lousy cutting from Gerald B. Greenberg and David Ray. Outside the careful and through establishing shots—and De Palma and Alonzo do several great, long tracking shots—the editing is middling at best and sometimes much worse. Pacino’s got a scene where he’s bullshitting his way up the ladder with Bolivian cocaine playboy Paul Shenar and none of the cuts match. Pacino’s shoulders, hands, and body jump between every shot in a single conversation. It’s distractingly inept.

The film’s got three sections: Pacino and Bauer arriving from Cuba and getting established, Pacino working his way up the ladder (at boss Robert Loggia’s expense), then Pacino screwing everything up once he’s made it. The one time Pacino does something good, that single moment sets off his immediate downfall. There are three moments he shows any humanity, and one of them is something they kept in after De Palma called cut, and Pacino and Pfeiffer just had fun for a moment. Otherwise, they never have any fun.

No one has any fun, which the film might be able to do something with if it were willing to close that narrative distance on Pacino, but it never will. De Palma and Stone are incredibly noncommittal and superficial.

Something needs to be said about the soundtrack, particularly the terrible disco songs playing during the club sequences. Giorgio Moroder does the score and produced the songs. The score’s thin, but it’s got its moments, and it’s often at least adequate. If a single one of the disco songs isn’t the dregs of white disco… I must’ve missed it. The songs are really, really bad. So bad they seem like a judgment against the Miami club scene, which—like no one having fun—is definitely something the film could’ve done something with had there been a better screenplay.

Pacino’s acting’s technically superb. It’s all for naught, but he works his ass off. Ditto Bauer. Pfeiffer, Mastrantonio, and Miriam Colon are all fine in the lousy women’s roles. Mastrantonio gets the worst one. Loggia’s a little much but not bad. Shenar’s solid, but it’s a nothing part. Similarly, Harris Yulin and F. Murray Abraham have decent exaggerated cameos.

Excellent art direction and set design, Edward Richardson and Bruce Weintraub, respectively, though it never once seems like anything Pacino’s character would buy, covet, or install. By the final part of the film, when Pacino’s got his mansion—we don’t see his living situation when he’s on the way up because it’d be way too much insight into the character—De Palma’s just showcasing the interior decorating anyway (and showing off how well crane shots can work in mansions). Scarface at least embraces its excesses, for better and worse; it does commit. Just not as much or enough for Pacino’s performance to make the movie succeed.

WarGames (1983, John Badham)

All WarGames really needs to be better is a good script rewrite, a better director (apparently there are some leftover shots from when Martin Brest tried directing it but got fired), and more John Wood. The Arthur B. Rubinstein music is a little iffy too but has its charms.

And WarGames has its charms. Matthew Broderick is often nearly charming in the lead; he’s a teenage computer hacker who tries to impress a girl (Ally Sheedy) by changing her grades only to get them involved in… well, not espionage. Basically Sheedy helps Broderick convince a lonely computer it wants to play a game; she gives him the big clue, which is regular people love their children. Based on Broderick’s parents in the film—an oblivious William Bogert and a nagging vitamin-obsessed eighties working movie mom Susan Davis—it makes sense he wouldn’t know to try the programmer’s dead son’s name.

They play a quick game of Global Thermonuclear War, then Broderick has to go clean up after his dog. The computer keeps playing—they hook it up to a voice box but Douglas Rain it ain’t, though—and I know John Badham had seen 2001, watching WarGames, you’d think he’d proudly declare he hadn’t—anyway. The Feds figure out Broderick hacked them, kidnap him off the street, and take him to NORAD. Where they do regular tours.

We’ve already been to NORAD because the movie opens with this hook—General Barry Corbin, who’s so proudly ignorant and backwards he’s probably an accurate depiction of an Air Force general (when they have him on the phone with the President and you realize it’s Reagan, WarGames becomes absurdist comedy), doesn’t have enough men willing to kill Russian babies. Now, eighty percent will do it, but twenty percent are wusses. So Dabney Coleman says they should let a computer do it. Said computer, housed in Colorado at NORAD, is hooked up to an outside phone line somewhere in California so Broderick can happen across it.

Pretty soon Broderick’s not only got to convince the adults he’s not a Russian spy, he’s also got to find a way to stop World War III. Luckily he’s got his best gal Sheedy, though they have very little chemistry and their kisses on the cheek are the most natural parts of their relationship, and she’s got enough money and her own car to keep the plot going. Also Broderick is able to MacGyver his way out of any situation thanks to his hacker skills. Though he doesn’t know anything about anything except those things. We see his grades and he’s ever ignorant of things he’d know from watching any modern television drama.

Though it’s a little better than Sheedy, who seems to be around to decorate and be decorative.

Outside a flashing light sequence at the end, William A. Fraker’s (surprisingly Oscar-nominated but so was the script so whatever, she don’t lie, cocaine) cinematography is fairly tepid, which matches Badham’s direction. Tom Rolf’s editing is not an asset either. Again, WarGames just needed a better director and a good script rewrite.

Broderick and Sheedy are fine. They both have solid moments, Broderick more but because they stumble upon how to make Broderick a movie star and occasionally repeat.

Besides the surprisingly effective third act and trying to figure out what computer programmer Wood is thinking when he’s acting so goofy, the most amusing part of WarGames is spotting the character actors in the cast. I’m going to miss a few because I don’t recognize their names just their faces but this movie’s got… John Spencer, Michael Madsen, James Tolkan (didn’t that guy ever have hair, sadly he doesn’t call Broderick a slacker), Jason Bernard, Alan Blumenfeld, Maury Chaykin, Eddie Deezen, Stephen Lee, and Art LaFleur. I’m leaving out a bunch of the military guys but it’s like, Michael Ensign from Ghostbusters (but not Raiders, so I’m confused). But the listed folks, those I’m sure about.

Oh. And Broderick’s joke at teacher Blumenfeld’s expense is great, actually.

The Man with Two Brains (1983, Carl Reiner)

The Man with Two Brains does not age well. It’s a case study in not aging well, even more so because when the three writers—director Reiner, star Steve Martin, and George Gipe—can’t figure out how to do an ending so they just do an extended fat joke… well, it’s hard to continuing giving the film a pass. Not after a racial epithets joke, which the film doesn’t even realize is lazy.

Because it does recognize its easy jokes. There are a lot of easy, easy, easy jokes Brains wants to get away with and it usually is able to do it thanks to Martin or co-star Kathleen Turner, but the finale doesn’t use anyone well. In fact, it’s a call back to a completely different section of the film they probably don’t want to be recalling.

The movie’s got a really peculiar structure. The first act is about Martin falling for evil gold digger Turner (not knowing she’s an evil gold digger) and her refusing to consummate the relationship. So boss Peter Hobbs (who’s pleasantly sturdy and game for even the fail jokes) sends Martin off to Europe for a conference; a little continental seduction and so on.

In Europe, Martin meets mad scientist David Warner, who’s—oh, right. Martin’s the world’s premier brain surgeon. Anyway. He meets Warner, who’s a mad scientist who wants to transplant brains he’s been keeping alive thanks to hydroxychloroquine or something. Warner’s oddly disappointing in the film. I was expecting something from him and he never does anything. The film’s got problems with the supporting characters though; Warner’s butler, Paul Benedict, gets more personality than Warner in fewer scenes with less exposition. Reiner’s direction is… not great. He and Martin (and Gipe) are trying a lot of different things, some things are a lot less successful than others.

And even the big successes are often qualified. Like when Martin is prowling the streets to find a woman to murder so his soul mate—a disembodied brain voiced by Sissy Spacek—can find a new home. It’s all very complicated, with the brain stuff being Martin finally getting free of animate costars and getting to do his wild and crazy guy thing in the spotlight. It’s better when he does it opposite other cast, specifically Turner, who frequently can’t hold her femme fatale. Martin so funny she’s laughing. It’s brings Turner almost too much personality.

Back to that successful sequence—Martin lurking the streets of Vienna, looking for a woman to murder. All of a sudden the backlot shooting starts to work—Reiner and cinematographer Michael Chapman(!) shoot Two Brains like they’re trying to figure out how to not make it look like a sitcom but end up making it look more like one because of how they compensate. Like Joel Goldsmith’s ludicrously inappropriate synth score; it ups the zany so you don’t think too much about Martin’s premeditated murder scene and so on, but it’s also terrible. And doesn’t help the scene. Ever. In fact, it’s always actively hurting it.

Overall, Two Brains doesn’t have the pieces to succeed. The story’s not there. The plotting isn’t there. The pacing’s there. The direction’s not there. Martin and Turner do an excellent job doing absurd caricatures (at best, Martin does just mug occasionally), but it’s like no one’s curating the gags or even taking note of their successes. It’s got its ambitions just no idea when they realize.

Peanuts (1965) s01e26 – What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?

What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? is exceedingly intense. It doesn’t start intense, though it does start a little different. There’s this gradual shot–with Judy Munsen’s lovely score accompanying–moving through all the toys in Charlie Brown’s house before it gets to his bookshelf. The books with visible spines are heady classic novels; but Charlie Brown (Brad Kesten) is getting down his picture album. He’s got to put in some snapshots from his trip to France–Learned is direct sequel, time-wise not tone-wise, to the theatrical Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown–and Sally comes over to ask what he’s doing. So he tells her about the events of his trip after the movie.

His recounting starts as comedy. It’s Charlie Brown, Linus (Jeremy Schoenberg), Peppermint Patty (Victoria Vargas), Marcie (Michael Dockery), and Snoopy and Woodstock. Snoopy is driving because when it’s a bunch of eight year-olds without adult supervision, it’s best to let the beagle drive. Even if he does get into multiple accidents throughout the special. After Snoopy wrecks the car and gets into a fight with a flock of ducks, the kids have to rent another one. Good thing Marcie speaks French (she’s the only one who does).

Up to this point, Learned is well-produced–great animation, excellent direction from Melendez, that Munsen music, and a strong script from Charles M. Schulz–but nothing particularly special. Then the kids camp out for the night and Linus realizes they’re on the cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach. He goes down to the beach and, through rotoscoping, “sees” the D-Day invasion. The rotoscoping colorizes the black and white footage with bold, bright colors, creating a wonderful tonal contrast between the Peanuts kids’ adventure and the history they’re encountering.

Once the other kids wake up, Linus tells them where they are and all about D-Day. They explore the area, culminating in a walk through the American cemetery, with an Eisenhower speech accompanying them. Learned got intense starting with Linus’s beach visions. The cemetery tour, which is visually magnificent, just ratchets it up even further.

There’s some more humor–really good physical gags–to calm things down. Then they get to Ypres, a World War I site, and Linus tells the other kids about it. The WWI sequence is much shorter–no rotoscoped footage–and initially seems like it won’t be as affecting as the D-Day sequences. Then Linus starts reciting John McCrae’s poem, *In Flanders Field*, with accompanying visuals, and it devastates. Munsen’s music plays a big part, effectiveness-wise.

Schulz wraps it up–before a gently comedic bookend–with some succinct profundity. It’s all very intense.

Great script, animation, direction, and music. Schoenberg is excellent with the lengthy expository monologues. The rest of the cast is good, they just don’t have the heavy lifting Schoenberg gets.

What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? is spectacular.

Peanuts (1965) s01e25 – It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown

Despite being an anthology of eight different stories, It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown does not have many adventures. Well, not in the adventurous sense. They’re still good, they’re just not… adventures. The special runs forty-seven minutes, with the eight stories having differing lengths.

The first three stories are the most substantial. There are two Charlie Brown (Michael Catalano) stories and then a Peppermint Patty (Brent Hauer) and Marcie (Michael Dockery) one.

The stories all have titles, which nicely delineates them. The first is “Sack,” in which Charlie Brown becomes so obsessed with baseball he develops a rash on his head. The rash looks like baseball stitches. His solution is to wear a paper shopping bag over his head; his doctor’s solution is for him to get away from it all and go to camp. There he becomes incredibly popular… because he’s got a bag over his head.

It’s a good start to Adventure, with a nice performance from Catalano, and some great moments. Charles M. Schulz adapted all of the stories from the Peanuts comic strip, so the proverbial tires are in good shape throughout, regardless of story length. There’s also a wonderfully absurdist punchline to the whole thing.

The next story is “Caddies,” which has Peppermint Patty and Marcie working as caddies for a couple bickering golfers. Hauer and Dockery are both good, there are some strong jokes, and some rather nice animation. Again, not really an adventure, but a good bit. It too has a strong punchline, while the rest of the stories have far more unassuming ones.

Like “Kite,” the last of the three longer stories. Charlie Brown finally cracks and attacks the Kite Eating Tree, resulting in a threatening letter from the EPA. Like any sensible eight year-old, upon receipt of the letter, he runs away. He doesn’t get too far before he finds himself coaching a bunch of younger kids’ baseball team. It’s a really sweet story, as Charlie Brown bonds with the kids, particularly little Milo (Jason Mendelson) who’s so young he can’t hold a bat.

Then there are two much shorter stories, one with Schroeder (Brad Schacter) and Lucy (Angela Lee Sloan) fighting as he tries to play his piano, the other with Sally (Cindi Reilly) having school problems. Both are visually simple, but the one with Schroeder and Lucy is so spared down the focus is all on the characters’ interaction. It’s rather effective thanks to Schacter and Lee Sloan’s performances.

The next two stories–”Butterfly” and “Blanket” are longer, but not as long as the opening three. And “Butterfly” is almost stellar, it just ends too soon. A butterfly lands on Peppermint Patty’s nose. After she falls asleep, Marcie takes the butterfly off and coaxes it to fly away. Only then Marcie tells Peppermint Patty the butterfly turned into an angel before flying away, convincing Patty she’s a practical prophet. She goes from telling the various Peanuts kids about the miracle before deciding to take her message to houses of worship. It’s good and funny and all, but for a moment it seems like Schulz is getting downright ambitious with Peppermint Patty’s (still very Peppermint Patty-like) evangelicalism.

“Blanket” has Lucy getting fed up with Linus’s blanket–to be fair, the blanket does attack her multiple times–and trying to dispose of it in various ways. Obviously these attempts cause Linus (Rocky Reilly) considerable consternation–and panic–as he tries to save the blanket. It’s a good story, with a lot of excellent animation (Adventure goes all out animation-wise); Reilly’s decent and Lee Sloan is good, even if she’s exceeding unlikable. Lucy gets cruel.

Then the Adventure ends with a short “Woodstock” and Snoopy bit. It’s adorable and, like most of the special, reserved and subtle.

While It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown lacks in frenzied imagination, the good performances, good direction, good animation, and strong writing more than compensate. It’s never particularly exciting, it’s always assured and well-executed. The longer, ten or twelve minute stories are a rather good length for the segments. The anthology format works out well. It’s too bad the directors don’t get credit for their individual segments; it’d be interesting to know who did what.

Peanuts (1965) s01e24 – Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?

Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? opens with this gag of Linus and Snoopy fighting over Linus’s blanket. It doesn’t relate to the special’s story and has a completely different tone–and an almost cruel Linus (Jeremy Schoenberg)–but it does echo later on a little. Goodbye is about Linus and Lucy (Angela Lee Sloan) moving away; Linus gives his blanket to Snoopy in an unexpected and tender scene. So the opening works. Even if Linus is a little too intense during it.

The first half of the special is the moving away story. Linus telling Charlie Brown (Brad Kesten), Lucy telling Schroeder (Kevin Brando). Sally, played by Stacy Heather Tolkin, spends the van Pelt siblings last few days in town in utter denial. Not just about them moving, but about Linus making a date to take her to the movies. While Charlie Brown is all over the place trying to cope with losing his best friend–including a trip to Lucy’s psychiatry booth (she’s sold the practice)–Sally’s sitting on the steps waiting for her date.

There’s a nice scene where Lucy and Linus have a farewell luncheon and make the mistake of hiring Joe Cool Catering. No belly laughs, but some rather nice smiles. Goodbye is all about the emotions resulting from the move, with Peppermint Patty (Victoria Vargas) deciding she’s got to help Charlie Brown recover. But it then becomes all about whether or not she’s actually got a crush on him, which is most of the second half of Goodbye.

Really good performances from Kesten and Lee Sloan, but everyone’s solid. Charles M. Schulz handles the moving seriously, giving Tolkin and Brando some strong material as well. Vargas is probably the most uneven performance but she’s still good. Michael Dockery is fine as Marcie, who doesn’t get much to do but give Vargas a sounding board.

A rather nice score from Judy Munsen, good direction from Roman… Goodbye is a fine half hour. Schulz’s script is earnest and sincere and nicely realized by Roman and the animators.