MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS - APRIL 2022

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1994) 

A kind-hearted New York City police officer (Nicolas Cage) shares his $4 million lottery winnings with a down-on-her-luck waitress (Bridget Fonda), despite the objections of his money-obsessed wife (Rosie Perez). The police officer and waitress begin a friendship that blossoms into something more.  

A potentially poisonous overdose of schmaltz is averted by the beguiling chemistry between Cage and the underrated Fonda. Cage’s character is as close as he ever got to playing Clark Kent. Rosie Perez gives a terrific Rosie Perez performance playing a character I imagine Rosie Perez would play. Director Andrew Bergman (co-writer of the much more acerbic Blazing Saddles) shows off a deft touch, balancing comedy with character-first moments. A rare romantic comedy that isn’t really about romance, but about people. That makes it stand above the rest. 

STREAMING: HBO Max 

THE OUT OF TOWNERS (1970) 

An Ohio sales executive (Jack Lemmon) travels to New York City with his wife (Sandy Dennis). What they think will be a pleasant getaway to the big city, turns into a succession of nightmare scenarios as everything and everything goes wrong during their trip. 

A rare Neil Simon script written expressly for the screen. Not close to the level of The Goodbye Girl but enough good laughs justify it for existence. Though the story becomes repetitive and Simon fails to create new conflicts to diversify the ongoings, it’s always a hoot to watch Lemmon loose his cool in high pressure predicaments. An on-brand quirky performance from Dennis is equally enjoyable. Worth a watch for the views of 70s NYC alone. If you like Planes, Trains and Automobiles, this once’s cut from similar cloth (albeit, less high quality cloth). 

AVAILABLE TO RENT: Amazon Prime 

ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)  

After the sudden death of her husband, Alice (Ellen Burstyn) hits the road with her bratty son (Alfred Lutter III) to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a singer. Along the way, she falls first for a violent, small town adulterer (Harvey Keitel) and then a divorced local rancher (Kris Kristofferson), who tries to win her jaded heart. Eventually, Alice winds up among the colorful characters at Mel’s Diner. 

Scorsese shows his skillful hand extends beyond gangsters, F-bombs, and shine boxes. Burstyn’s Oscar winning performance perfectly balances the jocular with the tragic. Kristofferson shows he was much more than the guy who trained Blade to hunt vampires, and Keitel casts a savage shadow. Scorsese’s best themes concern the ruinous pursuit of the American Dream. He removes this theme from his usual canvas, the mean streets, and spreads it across the dusty Southwest roads and small towns of this film. The result is the most underrated and relatable of Scorsese flicks. 

STREAMING: HBO Max

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981)

During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman (Steve Martin) cheats on his repressed wife (Jessica Harper) with a mild-mannered schoolteacher (Bernadette Peters), while escaping reality through the music he loves. In fantasy sequences, characters lip synch to popular songs of the 1920s-1930s and live out dance numbers reminiscent of era musical films. 

One of the most original movies I’ve ever seen. So unique that words cannot properly capture it. Dennis Potter’s brilliant script sets up expectations that then spin into a wildly dark arena, subversively countering both your presumptions and the genre it is homaging. Layering the naive innocence of the 20s/30s pop songs against the harsh cruelty of the Great Depression is an inspired and enormously effective juxtaposition. A serious Steve Martin is nearly as good as a funny one, being likable amidst dislikable behavior. Peters’ devolution from mousy schoolmarm to dirty trollop is honest, mesmerizing, and devastating. Harper draws humor and pity from sexual repression. But when Christopher Walken kicks up his heels in a spellbinding dance number, he steals the show. 

STREAMING: HBO Max

FREE WILLY 2: THE ADVENTURE HOME (1995)  

After an oil spill traps Willy the whale and his family in a cove, Jesse (Jason James Richter) and his friends and family, including long lost half-brother Elvis (Francis Capra), race against time to rescue the whales. 

One of two movies I was not allowed to watch as a kid (the other: Batman Returns). And I’m not sure why. Though not as effective as its predecessor, the film manages to rise about kid movie junk by continuing to parallel the familial struggles of Jesse and his aquatic pal. The last chance to see (most) of the original cast together again, including Michael Madsen (who I continue to forget is in these movies). Companionable and breezy, The Adventure Home is a perfect dose of nostalgia for those in need of some.  

STREAMING: HBO Max 

-T.Z. 

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS - APRIL 2022 - (MOVIE/SHOWBIZ BOOKS)

 Mosey on over to the film/TV section at your local Barnes & Noble and be deluged by the plethora of biographies, reference books, and histories. Deciding where to begin might seem like a daunting task. But never fear dear readers! I’ve read many of them for you and compiled a list of some favorites that I’m recommending. A few are newer selections, others have been out for several years.

THE COMEDIANS: DRUNKS, THIEVES, SCOUNDRELS AND THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN COMEDY (2015) by Kliph Nesteroff

Here’s one hell of a fun read. Kliph Nesteroff was a stand-up comedian himself before becoming the premiere historian on American comedy. Armed with interviews conducted with over 200 comedians— the well known, the unknown, and the never known —- and copious research from old Variety trade papers, Nesteroff gifts us a highly entertaining, relaxed, and straightforward account of comedy and showbiz, as told by the comedians themselves. 

Structured in chronological order, the book begins in vaudeville then traces comedy’s progression across radio, nightclubs, Las Vegas, comedy clubs, sitcoms and the New Millennium. Engrossing showbiz stories abound on page after page, many completely unheard of until Nesteroff unearthed them. Anecdotes range from the heartbreaking (the unexpected death of Harry Einstein, father of Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein, which occurred live on radio); to the horrific (mobsters savagely mutilating comedian Joe E. Lewis); to the humorous (Milton Berle’s ginormous schlong). Open to any chapter of The Comedians and absolutely loose yourself in the wonderful tales of classic show business.   

PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF NEW HOLLYWOOD (2008) by Mark Harris 

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. From the pen of former Entertainment Weekly columnist and editor Mark Harris, this tome is essential reading for any movie buff. Pictures at a Revolution explores the making of the five nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1968 — Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and Doctor Dolittle. The book masterfully traces the development, casting, production, and tribulations of each project. Harris adroitly weaves in and out, deftly stitching every strand into a captivating tapestry. 

With the skill of a superior novelist, Harris brilliantly places these films into the larger context of American society at the time. In the late 1960s, seismic social and cultural upheavals throughout the country were reflected in an equally transmutative time in Hollywood. While the old studio system was still churning out escapist musicals and frivolous Doris Day flicks, audiences turned to the more socially relevant films being imported from France. The French films of Godard and Truffaut better captured the essence of the moment with more truth than the pablum produced in Hollywood. The country had changed and so too did its tastes— and old Hollywood was not prepared for the cinematic revolution that came pounding on their studio gates. Harris powerfully captures this tectonic clash between the old guard of Hollywood and the young upstarts (Warren Barren, Dustin Hoffman, Mike Nichols, and many others) who would become the new generation of New Hollywood. 

This is an absolutely enthralling piece of work that I can’t recommend highly enough. 

THE JAWS LOG (1975; Expanded Edition, 2005) by Carl Gottlieb

Richard Dreyfuss initially turned down Jaws because he knew that “it’s going to be a bitch to shoot”. How right he was. Between the deleterious effects of filming on the ocean, to the many technical problems, to the studio’s lack of confidence in the young director (some guy named Spielberg), the production of Jaws was a nightmare. The term “the shark is not working” has nearly entered pop culture ubiquity as much as “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” has. Likely, you’ve heard these true legends secondhand. 

The Jaws Log is a first-hand account of the events from a man who not only co-wrote the screenplay, but who was on-hand for it all. Gottlieb was a comedy writer, tapped to add humor to the Jaws screenplay and ended up staying on set for the entire shoot, reworking scenes on the fly. Gottlieb’s book, published originally the same year the film was released, provides a vivid recounting of everything and anything that went horribly, horribly wrong. The Expanded Edition, celebrating the book and film’s 30th anniversaries, adds much appreciated bonus footnotes, providing additional hindsights and postmortems. Gottlieb’s book is a vital (and often hilarious) account of a troublesome production that yielded one of the greatest films ever. 

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS MONSTERS: A LEGACY OF HORROR (2021) by Michael Mallory 

This is the second post I’ve made recommending this book because I love it so much. Due to the beautiful black & white photography and the elegant way in which the book is put together, Universal Studios Monsters could unjustly be relegated to the stack of other glossy hardcovers on your coffee table. But it’s too good for that fate. Michael Mallory has written one of the best reference books I’ve ever read. It covers everything from Bela Lugosi to The Invisible Man’s Revenge to the founding of Universal Studios. A mix of summary, history, and analysis, I learned a lot about one of my favorite subjects and is a must-read for monster fans. 

RAISED EYEBROWS: MY YEARS INSIDE GROUCHO’S HOUSE (2015) by Steve Stoliar 

The better a book is, the faster I finish it. I read all of Raised Eyebrows in a single day. It was one of the most fascinating page-turners; a book I quite literally couldn’t tear myself away from. 

Author Steve Stoliar had an experience that every Marx Brothers fan (myself included)  would kill for: while a student at UCLA, Stoliar became an archivist and personal secretary to comedian Groucho Marx himself. This was a tough time in Groucho’s life. While he experienced a latter day surge in popularity thanks to younger generations discovering his films, a series of strokes blunted his once razor-sharp wit and left him increasingly frail. Complicating matters was his tumultuous relationship with a much younger woman named Erin Fleming, a controversial and complicated figure for Marx fans. Some praised her for renewing public interest in Groucho, boosting the elderly man’s ego, and reviving his popularity. Others saw her as a manipulator, who leeched off his fame, while allegedly abusing him physically and mentally. This culminated with a high profile legal showdown between Fleming and Groucho’s children over his conservatorship.  

Dancing in and around the Fleming drama are much happier stories about Stoliar’s growing relationship with the man he idolized, the colorful house-staff populating Groucho’s home, and the many visits from old friends like George Burns, Jack Benny, Mae West, and Elliot Gould. I particularly liked reading about Groucho’s dinners with his two surviving brothers, the much-less written about Zeppo and Gummo. And Stoliar was there for it all inside Groucho’s house, witnesses both Groucho’s deterioration and the remaining sparks of his legendary wit. Raised Eyebrows is not a trash-bag tell-all but a loving and bittersweet tribute by Stoliar, who loved and adored Groucho — as many of us still do. 

-T.Z.