The Lion in Winter

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I enjoy good dialogue and there is plenty of it in The Lion in Winter (1968). James Goldman wrote the screenplay based on his play (and won a writing Oscar). The writing reveals the characters’ personalities while it entertains with its wit and ferociousness. In a way the movie is a medieval version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. The main desire here is ambition and power, and the hope of the royal offspring for acknowledgment. But also for the king and his wife it’s a game to keep them engaged in life in defiance of aging.

The titles are displayed with stone carvings of historical visages which suggest the iconic nature of these bigger-than-life people. Peter O’Toole reprises his role of King Henry II of England, an older version of the ruler he played in Becket which depicted the royal’s relationship with Richard Burton’s archbishop. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in both films, although I consider this performance the best in a distinguished career. The opening scene has Henry still strong enough to swordfight in his “winter” years as he says, “Come for me!” He is testing one of his sons, John (Nigel Terry), to see if he is worthy of the crown.

Henry wants his kingdom, and therefore his legacy, to last. He tells Alais (Jane Merrow), his young lover, that he doesn’t want to go the way of King Lear who divided his lands between three children and weakened the kingdom. In the twelfth century, the people thought the King was the closest individual to God. Thus, who held the position was of extreme importance. Unfortunately, in this story, the candidates are seriously flawed.

Henry flatters for the moment whoever he wants to win over and disdains those he wishes to lord over. He wants to reassure Alais by saying he has bedded many, including “countesses,” “whores,” “and little boys,” but he only loves her. He dismisses his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn, tying with Barbra Streisand for the Best Actress Oscar for that year), calling her “the gorgon,” who is “decaying” where he “dungeons” her and only releases Eleanor on holidays. She is a threat to his wishes, but as we see a threat he respects.

We meet Richard, who we know as “the Lion-Hearted,” in the form of Anthony Hopkins (in his feature film debut). This son, too, is introduced in combat games as he jousts. He knocks a foe off his horse and appears to be ready to kill him with his sword until interrupted. Richard’s face appears in turmoil, as he struggles with his bloodlust.

The film introduces son Geoffrey (Johns Castle) also engaging in battle, but not personally. He does not physically partake in combat, but he instead directs troops in war games. The scene shows Geoffrey to be intellectual, aloof, seeing others do the fighting for him.

Alais reassures Henry after a bout of lovemaking that he will endure the day’s obstacles because he is like the rocks at Stonehenge, and that “nothing knocks” him down. The reference recalls the stone figures displayed with the credits, suggesting the king’s almost mythical strength.

Eleanor wants Richard to be king, and Henry wants John. But their only motives may be that they want to fight each other as opposed to believing their selections are the best ones. John is an adolescent who according to Alais has pimples and smells. He runs around like a child at play or in fear. Henry is willing to have Alais marry John for her dowry while she will remain his mistress. It seems the powerful are exempt from rules of morality. Along with the children, Alais wants some recognition, saying she could be a threat to Henry if she discloses what he wants. He dismisses her importance after previously saying how she is the only thing he ever loved. He brandishes his power, telling her that whatever he says, goes, and that includes him saying they are through or that she is to marry John.

Henry says to Alais that there may have been an “era” when he adored Eleanor. The word evokes a person whose life is attached to the ages. In contrast to that sense of grandeur, Henry moves one hair on her ahead that is askew, saying “nothing in life has any business being perfect.” There is a cynical feel to Henry sometimes, as if life is not what it’s cracked up to be.

John talks like a child, saying daddy loves me best, while Richard declares that he will be the next sovereign. Henry says to Alais he has no problem with his boys plotting against him, because it’s politics, which is a skill necessary to lead. He says, “I’ve plotted all my life. There’s no other way to be alive, king, and fifty all at once.” There is that harsh reality that Henry acknowledges about the world of rulers.

When Eleanor arrives by boat, the first thing Henry asks is whether the water parted for her. She said she told it to stay flat. They revel in the majestic nature of their positions. They smile at each other as they banter, with her sarcastically saying how he keeps her young because he lets her out for the Christmas holidays, like a schoolgirl. She is frank in her language and blunt when she tells her sons that despite her superior position, her destiny as a woman came down to what gender babies she produced. If she had not produced only girls with her first husband, she would still be queen of France and never would have met these sons. “Such, my angels, is the role of sex in history,” she says.

Eleanor says she raised Alais so she has mixed feelings about her. Richard calls her the “whore,” and yet he wants her as his queen as does John. Politics and power reign, not love. Henry jokingly says he and Eleanor will fight “tusk to tusk for eternity.” He relishes the family fight, and there is the feeling that they believe they are beyond earthly constraints and will live forever.

King Philip (Timothy Dalton) is a young monarch, and Henry attempts to bully him about treaties, but the French leader holds his own in their initial meeting. Alais is Philip’s half-sister and the daughter of the previous king of France, Eleanor’s first husband, Louis. He had promised Alais to Henry’s heir to the throne. Philip wants that to happen so that France will have influence in England. Otherwise, Philip wants the area known as Vexin, which was Alais’s dowery, forfeited. Henry says he already occupies the land, so he owns it. But as he reveals to Eleanor later he does not want another war, and enjoys the actions of a peaceful king.

Richard has possession of the precious Aquitaine region and refuses to yield anything to John who he calls “that walking pustule.” John appears hunched over and decrepit, so Richard’s assessment of him is understandable.

Geoffrey says he will be John’s chancellor, which is a powerful position. He positions himself for that job because Geoffrey says, “no one thinks of the crown and thinks of Geoff.” He adds, “It’s not the power I feel deprived of; it’s the mention I miss. There’s no affection for me here; you wouldn’t think I’d want that, would you?” Geoffrey knows his place in his parents’ feelings, but he resents that he is not accepted by them. Thus, he must be content with being the power behind a week person sitting on the throne. So, John is his best choice to be king.

Eleanor says to Alais she prefers her to her boys, but it is just a setup to then remind her that Henry chose Alais and her land over his previous lover. The implication is that he will have no problem discarding her for his own purposes. She then says she wouldn’t hurt Alais, after she just did, and Alais understands how unscrupulous Eleanor is.

Henry and Eleanor rotate words of affection and attacks with whiplash speed. He asks how she is doing but then says he will never set her free since she led several civil wars against him. He also dismisses Alais as just an old man’s dalliance, while before he told the young woman he loved her. She says she does like seeing him again. Their respect for each other comes through here, as she says he is still “a marvel of a man,” and he says, “and you’re my lady.”

On the surface they go to dinner smiling, hand-in-hand, as they walk among the many guests. Eleanor says she will have Richard become king and cares about that because Henry cares who will succeed him. She readily admits it is just to vex him that she disagrees. He says he wants some peace, and she offers, “eternal peace,” a not-so-subtle death threat. When he says he will strike her any way he can there are dogs barking and growling in the background to stress the savagery behind his threat, and she looks worried. She asks if he ever loved her and he says no, another reversal of affections. She says it will make their fighting easier, but her asking implies that she feels hurt.

Eleanor asks Richard to see her. She says she hopes for a reunion since they have been apart. But she calls him “dull,” and when she states that his violence on the battlefield agrees with him, it is not a compliment. He doesn’t trust her, thinking he she might try to ambush him. He has the Aquitaine, but believes she wants it back. He says she’s “so deceitful,” that she “can’t ask for water” when she’s “thirsty.” She would lie even if her life was at stake. He goes on to say, “We can tangle spiders in the webs you weave.” Now that is a witty way of saying his mother can trap even those that are skillful in laying their own traps.

Henry says he is willing to give in to letting Richard be king because his son would fight him for it anyway, and at least England would stay unified. John, of course, feels betrayed.

Eleanor is always suspicious of her husband and says that the “second coming” will occur before Henry gives up on John and lets Richard marry Alais. Geoffrey has no loyalty to anyone but himself, so he quickly says he will help Eleanor if he becomes Richard’s chancellor by manipulating John. She sees his cruel selfish nature, and he acknowledges that he would sell them all out if he found a way. Geoffrey shows that Henry is right when he said that “power” is the only fact to face in the world as it is the preoccupation of all heads of state, then and now.

In another talk with Richard, Eleanor says she just wants to see him be king, but he says that all she wants is to get vengeance on Henry for locking her up, and he does not want to be used for that purpose. She goads him by saying how Henry was superior to Richard at an earlier age. She recalls when Henry was eighteen he had, “a mind like Aristotle’s and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.”  This daunting description again shows how the two envision themselves as grander than others. It also emphasizes Eleanor’s earthiness, which is noted when she says she rode “bare-breasted” while on one of the Crusades. After being pushed, she admits that what she really wants is the Aquitaine back, and Richard believes it because it is power she wants. She says she wants it only because she can use it to bargain with Henry. When she says she loves Richard, he is cold, saying, “You love nothing. You’re incomplete. The human parts of you are missing. You’re as dead as you are deadly.” His zombie-like description of her has truth in it, but we have seen varying emotions in her. She cuts herself on the arm and he melts, as she reminds him of pleasant memories when he was a child. Is she sincere about her affections? Maybe, at least in the moment.

                                    

The following scenes are labyrinthine in the moves and counter moves, as all the principles jockey for position. It’s not an accident that there is a chessboard with pieces on display. Philip, Geoffrey, and John plot a war against Richard and Eleanor to make John king. Eleanor tells Henry that perhaps Richard would not believe Henry’s offer to make him king. His witty response is, “There’s no sense in asking if the air is good if there’s nothing else to breathe.” Henry’s impression of his absolute power is evident here. He wants the Aquitaine for John, and she refuses. She says she’s like the earth, “There’s no way around me.” She refuses to bow under Henry’s threats. She knows she can still inflict emotional pain on him when she says she slept with Thomas Becket. When he shudders, she admits it’s a lie, but she can see she can hurt him. She even suggests that she may have slept with Henry’s father. He offers her freedom after ten years of imprisonment if she releases the Aquitaine to John. She counters with only if Richard and Alais marry immediately. Again, there are dogs barking and growling to mimic the bestial nature of these attacks on each other.

Henry acts as if he goes along with the marriage despite Alais’s protests. She has already expressed her disgust at being used as a pawn and doubts Henry’s stating he loves her. When they are at the altar, Henry lets out that he will get the Aquitaine so that Richard will hear it and refuse to go forward with the wedding. Philip may be young, but he realized Henry’s ploy to torpedo the wedding. John is back in the picture again as a possible king. And the scheming goes round and round.

Henry says he enjoys being king as he plays with the ambitions and emotions of others. It is sadistic. Eleanor takes on the role of masochist as she asks to see Henry kiss Alais. She says it’s an intellectual exercise because she imagines it and wants to see how reality fits her imagination. However, when she witnesses the act, she shakes, and her eyes become moist. Her sense of loss is palpable.

She feels defeated and resigned to going back to her jail. Her sons visit her. Cold Geoffrey is probably that way because, as he says, he only remembers indifference from his parents. Eleanor admits that at times they did not like any of the children, which explains the young men’s insecurity. There is sibling rivalry between John and Richard to the point that Richard draws a knife. Eleanor says they all have knives. Despite the current times (1183), “we’re barbarians … We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside ... For the love of God, can’t we love one another, just a little. That’s how peace begins … We could change the world.” Her words are timeless, as she lays all crimes of violence at the feet of leaders who rule countries and members of families who feud with each other.

John blurts out that he must see Philip because they had an alliance to wage war against Henry and Richard and he must stop Henry from hearing about it to stay in the king’s favor. Eleanor, feeling revived as she sees an opening to get what she wants, tells Richard to promise Philip “anything.” Her insinuation reveals that she probably knows of Richard’s homosexual involvement with Philip in the past.

An almost absurd scene follows in Philip’s chambers as all the males maneuver for political position. John, hiding, hears Geoffrey plot against everyone else with Philip. John’s dullness can be seen as he says to Geoffrey, “You’re a stinker, and you stink.” Whereas the more eloquent insult from Geoffrey is, “If you’re a prince, there’s a hope for every ape in Africa.” Richard arrives as the other two brothers hide. Richard wants Philip’s military backing to gain the throne. The conversation reveals what Eleanor hinted at, and the affection that Richard has for Philip under his bluster is evident. As Philip said, tapestries are for hiding, so Richard now hides as Henry shows up. Henry discovers Philip’s plans of pitting Henry’s children against him. Philip tells Henry about suffering Richard’s advances and allowing Richard to believe he loved him so he could lord it over Henry. The sons come out of hiding, and Richard is embarrassed and emotional for a change as he said he would have been loyal to Henry if his father had shown some affection for him. John’s willingness to wage war against Henry hurts the monarch, but John says Henry never loved anybody. Geoffrey says he’s all that’s left to choose from to be king, but he is loyal only to his own ambitions. Henry and Eleanor’s desire to control and adopt power plays left their sons warped in emotional deprivation.

Henry is shaken by the nature of his boys and denies them all. He says he married a woman “out of legend,” still showing his admiration for Eleanor. But he says he had no “sons,” and says his children are gone.

A meeting between Eleanor and Alais contrasts them and yet shows their mixed feelings for each other. Eleanor says she may have loved Henry “before the flood,” referencing Genesis, adding to her perception of a connection to ancient and biblical times. She doesn’t like that Alais would sit next to Henry because that is her place. Alais says that Eleanor loves the kingdom whereas she just loves Henry. She says her gift for Christmas would be for Eleanor to suffer. But then they embrace, since Eleanor and she were close for many years.

Henry enters and dismisses Alais. Eleanor is tired and says she just wants things over. She says she will sign her lands over to John, but Henry just applauds her, assuming it’s a performance. They have been so devious with each other they can’t even tell what’s true, He says that he doesn’t want her to sign anything. He delights in manipulating her and finally reveals that he will go to Rome for an annulment so he can marry Alais and she can give him more sons, the current ones being defective. He says Geoffrey is “a device. He’s wheels and gears.” John cheats, lies, frequents whores, and whips servants. She blames him for John, and he blames her for keeping Richard to herself and denying him complete development. They continue to spar as she says, “I adored you. I still do.” He says that’s the most terrible lie of all. She says she knows, “That’s why I saved it up until now.”

They momentarily relish the dynamic between them, hug, reminisce, and kiss. However, they can’t help themselves; they must keep battling. She says there will be no annulment because she will not let Henry go. He says there is no connection between them, no meetings, gifts, or communications. What she really wants still is Richard to become king, and she just has to wait as he grows old and feeble for it to happen. If a son is born to him, she’ll push Richard through “the nursery door,” to kill his “grotesque” offspring. She does not consider that scenario cruel after all that he has put her through. She says, “I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!”

As Henry is ready to storm off to Rome for an annulment from the Pope, Eleanor says that his sons will join with her and Philip to defeat him when the boys know his plan to marry and have more sons. He counters by saying he will lock them all up. She torments him by describing having had sex with his father. After he runs out, she says, in contrast to the previous exalted dialogue, “Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs.” It’s an ironic statement considering how we have been dealing with kings, princes, and a queen. Hardly a pedestrian bunch.

Henry imprisons the boys and convenes an entourage to take him and Alais to Rome for an annulment and a wedding. She wisely notes that he must keep the sons imprisoned or else they will revolt. And if Henry dies and they get out they will kill the new offspring. Eleanor bribes a knight so she can give the captives knives to escape. Geoffrey thinks the best move is to kill Henry, which horrifies Eleanor. She tells Richard it’s “unnatural” to be an assassin. He counters with the nihilistic view that exists in the story by saying, “If poisoned mushrooms grow and babies come with crooked backs, if goiters thrive and dogs go mad and wives kill husbands, what’s unnatural?” She says she is not responsible for what he has become, but he points out she was his role model.

Henry shows up in the wine cellar and when Richard grabs one of the knives, Henry tosses the other knives to John and Geoffrey. Henry now echoes what were the first lines of the film, “Come for me!” It is not just practice now, but it can be a test. Geoffrey doesn’t have the stomach for it. Richard has difficulty initiating the attack against the reigning king. John lunges for Henry, who sidesteps him and puts a knife to his throat. Eleanor surprises by calling Henry’s bluff. She says they are assassins and traitors so he should execute them. Henry slams the flat part of his sword onto Richard’s shoulder and finds that he cannot kill his own children.

He says he’s lost everything and blames Eleanor. She is unsympathetic to his complaints. She tells him to take responsibility. “If you break it’s because you are brittle,” she says. She has truly lost, she says, because she can’t have him back. She says she wants to die, and he comforts her. She says there is no hope in life, but he counters by saying they are alive and that is what hope is, a kind of reduction of the cliché, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” She says that they are “Jungle creatures.” Despite their intelligence, they figuratively claw and bite to survive.

He accompanies her to her boat, and she asks if she can come back at Easter. He says, “Come the resurrection, you can strike me down again.” They look forward to their political and personal jousts. He says as she sails away that he hopes they never die, and she feels the same. He says, “Do you think there’s any chance of it?” The two historical battlers laugh as they part, contemplating immortality again. And right they are, since they live on in texts and stories.

The Stunt Man

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

 The Stunt Man (1980) is about making movies and the sometimes demonic way that the process plays with reality. The opening has one dog blocking a car’s access, and another dog snarling and trying to bite someone in a diner. However, on a TV commercial playing in that restaurant, a perfectly trained pooch jumps through a woman’s bent leg. The images show how video alters reality to fit the filmmaker’s agenda. 

 

 Cameron (Steve Railsback) is in the diner. (His name, noted by IMDb, is a play on “camera on,” which stresses the fact that the actor, who is being filmed by a camera, plays a fugitive who will play a stunt man, who will also be photographed). He is a Vietnam vet wanted for attempted murder, which we discover much later. Policemen are in the diner, and they attempt to arrest him, but he escapes. He tries to hitchhike on a bridge. A car, a Duesenberg, which is an unusual anachronistic vehicle to be there, stops and he assumes he is to be picked up. But, the driver yells at him, telling Cameron to get lost. When the car reverses its direction, Cameron throws something at the car, but when he looks, the car disappeared (a bit of movie magic). A helicopter descends and hovers next to the bridge. It has a camera on it which shows Cameron has wandered onto a movie shoot. The director, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole, nominated for an Oscar for this role) stares intently at Cameron. His first name, Eli, means God in Hebrew, according to IMDb, and, of course, his last name conjures up Christ being crucified. Eli descends from the sky, like a deity, but he is ironically more like an anti-Christ as he controls destinies in his make-believe world which spills over into the actual one. IMDb points out that T-shirts worn by crew members show the title of the film Eli is making is “Devil’s Squadron,” which would clearly equate Eli with Satan.

 

 Cameron heads to a beach and as he strolls on a boardwalk, he notices someone painting the ocean and sand on a canvas. The shot emphasizes how art tries to recreate the actual world, but it is just a copy, not the genuine thing. He watches other people gathering to look down on the beach where the film crew is working. A WWI airplane flies by, which shows how movies within their own structure can warp time as they create their own representation of life. The people there applaud as supposed bullets are fired and explosions go off. We are the real audience and they are a fake one, our surrogates, since they are in a movie about the making of a movie. The special effects are so real that the audience, Cameron among them, are fooled into thinking an actor playing a soldier really had his leg blown off. But, they are relieved when they see makeup was used to create the effect. The scene shows how people automatically suspend their sense of reality when watching a story unfold.

 

An old woman approaches one of the actors and asks for an autograph. She then falls into the ocean and Cameron tries to save her. She turns out to be the leading actress, Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey), wearing makeup to see if she will pass for a senior citizen later in the film’s story. She not only fools Cameron but also those making the movie. It’s as if the film is suggesting that anyone is susceptible to accepting illusion for reality. She tells Cameron to follow through with rescuing her, as if to continue a scene from a film. He even comments on the verisimilitude of the activity by saying that it’s “just like the movies.” Even the master of illusion, Eli, says he was “scared” she might have been harmed.

 

Eli’s helicopter lands and he exits upset as he tells Ace (Philip Bruns) that the car that went off the bridge drifted downstream and the stunt man driving it drowned. True catastrophes occur while telling a fictional tale. This accident happened while Cameron was mistaking a phony event for a real threat. Eli tells Ace not to divulge anything about the accident since real life would infringe upon his imaginative creation, which is more important to him than anything else.

 

Eli saw Cameron on the bridge from his chopper and smartly deduces that he was running away. As cops arrive at the scene Eli observes how nervous Cameron becomes. He also notices that Cameron has the severed remains of handcuffs on his wrists, which Eli alters, as he does with other perceptions as a director, calling them “charm bracelets.” Eli knows he can use Cameron’s situation to help him concerning the loss of the stunt man. Cameron says the car was speeding toward him and he implies that his defensive reaction was one he adopted in Vietnam, where he evaded “gooks.” Eli says that he thought that racist term was just something made up by “Time Magazine.” His comment shows how what is taken as real some may believe just came from something an individual made up.

 

Jake (Alex Rocco) is the local police chief, and he is angry about Cross disrupting the everyday existence of the town because of the filming. He sees the film crew as a sort of invasion of his real-life domain. In order to avoid legal problems, that is, reality interfering with his creative project, Eli invents (what else?) a story. He says that Cameron is really the supposedly deceased stunt man, Burt (ironically played by Michael Railsback, which adds a real relationship to the fictional one). Since Cameron is wet from “rescuing” Nina, Eli can say that Burt was recovered from the submerged car. As the two are hoisted up on a crane, Eli tells Cameron that he can have the whole crew and actors greet him as “Burt,” which shows the extent of Eli’s power. His ascension into the air stresses Eli’s omnipotence. So, Cameron goes undercover, and deceptively plays multiple parts, one outside the film, that of Burt, and also as a stunt man pretending to be other actors within the movie. Eli says that people like to believe stories, they enjoy shedding incredulity, and since the cops are people, they’ll believe what Eli is creating. (Director Richard Rush said in an interview that having a story where a person is hiding on a movie set and is dominated by a director was, “a way to examine our universal panic and paranoia of controlling our own destinies.” In a way, that is what happens to all actors within the context of making a film).

 Eli says he will be on the set “in a minute.” His employee says is that “a real minute or an Eli minute,” stressing the two types of realities co-existing here. To emphasize this idea, Eli tells Cameron, as they approach a door, that the barrier is “a looking glass” and on the other side is “wonderland.” He tells Cameron to close his eyes, which he does. In a way, the director of the film we are watching, Rush, makes us close our eyes, too, since the screen goes dark, joining us with the fictional character. When the next lit scene is revealed, the hair stylist, Denise (Sharon Farrell) has cut Cameron’s hair, turned it blonde, and Cameron has lost his beard. He now resembles the dead Burt who was made to look like the lead actor, Raymond Bailey (Adam Roarke). The wizardry of the movies has resurrected a man, at least in the pretend world. Eli now calls Cameron “Lucky,” a term that at this point seems appropriate since he has escaped the cops.

 

Denise seduces Cameron and as they recline on the floor of the trailer, that shot is in counterpoint to the next one where we have an actor in a similar position playing a dead soldier. The contrast stresses how the same physical position can imply intense life and the end of one’s existence. In a scene with Raymond, Eli says the film is about how people put themselves in danger, just as Burt did, to give purpose to their lives. Cameron begins to learn stunts from the coordinator, Chuck (Charles Bail), who doesn’t seem thrilled to have an amateur to train. He asks Cameron how is he going to handle running across roofs while bullets are shot over his head? Cameron counters by saying that in Vietnam, he had to run while the enemy shot at his head, not over it, and he survived. His real-life experiences were more dangerous than the fake ones in the film. The effects in a movie do not replicate reality, but instead stylize it to produce the effect the director wants. Cameron wonders if Chuck is “putting” him on, and Chuck says, “I wouldn’t know how to do that.” But, that is exactly what he does for a living, presenting a false appearance. What follows are several scenes where Chuck shows the tricks (emphasis on that word) of the trade, including an awning that is a reinforced prop which is supposed to catch Cameron in a fall.

 

Ace complains about Eli being behind schedule because the director is not satisfied with certain scenes. There is the conflict here between the practical business aspect of moviemaking and the artistic desire to get the work done right. Sam (Allen Garfield), the screenwriter, tells Eli at dinner with the cast and crew that Eli missed his relevancy about making an anti-war film because it was now peacetime. But Eli says that Cameron thought the war was like a “plague.” Yet, he enlisted. Eli points out later that someone made a good anti-war movie, but when it was shown, enlistments increased, implying it had the opposite effect of what was intended. Cameron said earlier that he was just trying to get home for Thanksgiving, so sometimes he had to kill the enemy to do so. Eli says he is trying to show “that there is a reasonable and better way to get home for Thanksgiving.” Eli seems to be suggesting that he wants to show that there should be an alternative to engaging in war in the first place. Sam says that the studio will chop out the thematic parts and leave in the battle scenes. Eli likens that to having the fingers of one’s child cut off. When he asks Sam what he would do if the studio suggested that amputation be performed on his daughter, Sam says he would need to get a second opinion. It is a funny line, but it shows that although Eli has control on the movie site, there are those in the background that also want to have power over his destiny. He could be likened to a rebellious Lucifer showing his disdain for the god-like film company bosses. Police chief Jake interrupts the party and asks if anyone saw the fugitive, Cameron, and asks “Lucky” if his hair was always blonde. This scene adds suspense as to what might happen if Cameron is found out. Jake says that Eli must submit to someone in a higher position of authority to aid in the investigation of the car crash. Again, the filmmaker’s artistic vision is threatened by outside forces.

 Cameron, most likely feeling that he is in danger of being apprehended, packs a bag and looks like he is going to leave the hotel where the cast is staying. Eli, Denise, and Nina arrive. Cameron hides outside, and then he sees Nina through the oval-shaped glass of the hotel door. She looks radiant amid the chandelier in the background and the ornate wrap she is wearing that frames her. The view simulates a shot from a movie, and Cameron is attracted to her star appeal, which is an augmented illusion. He looks up at a tower that is part of the hotel and is surprised by Nina who asks if he is planning to rescue the “maiden” from that height, which is to occur in the movie. They have already played out a fake rescue and they revisit that make-believe scenario again, indulging in the escapism that movies provide. But, Cameron says Eli wouldn’t let him do the stunt if there was real danger. However, Eli has already lost a stunt man. Cameron says she can jump from the tower, and they go up to the ledge around the circular height. When up there, Nina becomes upset and angry and wants to escape as she can separate real danger from the imagined kind. When she realizes that Cameron is also frightened, his vulnerability draws her in, and they kiss. But then Eli focuses a spotlight on them. It’s a reminder that what we are watching as the audience is a scene from a film, not real life, but it also stresses Eli’s intervention in all of their lives.

 

Eli floats around on a crane, reinforcing his otherworldly persona. Cameron thinks Eli will sell him out to the cops if he shows footage of him on the bridge. Eli acts as if he is above all of that (literally and figuratively), as if regular rules don’t apply to filmmakers. He says that King Kong was a model that was only three feet, six inches tall. The illusion created by the movie presented him as an immense ape. Based on this power of altering perceived reality, the megalomaniac Eli says, “If God could do the tricks we can do, he’d be a happy man!” When Cameron asks why Eli would protect him, the director says the new stunt man is as “crazy” as the person he is making the film about. Eli adds, “I’ve fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.” These words point to Eli’s subversive nature. Later, Eli tells Sam that he wants to know what Cameron did that caused him to be wanted by the police, and that he sees him as being like a time bomb that can explode at any moment, which is what he sees as duplicated in the main character of his film. Eli’s fiction is inspired by actions and motivations of actual people.

 

When filming resumes Cameron performs numerous stunts, including jumping off of the tower and climbing over rooftops as bullets are shot and explosions go off. We wonder at some parts, as when Chuck hits him with a rifle butt and then Chuck falls off the building, if what’s happening is real or not. The sequence, which has great stunts for any film, ends with Cameron crashing into a brothel, which was substituted for an earlier scene in a mental institution. Even Cameron was surprised by some of the actions, and Chuck tells him that Eli likes the scenes to look spontaneous. There is a gray area here as to what is true of fake within the context of the movie within this movie. (Of course, we also know that there is a real stunt man filling in for the actor Railsback who supposedly is doing the stunts in the story). The cop Jake watches this action piece so he can be convinced that Cameron, alias Lucky, is Burt.

 

Sam says that when he read the original insane asylum part of the screenplay to his family, his son shook his hand for the first time out of admiration. But, Sam concedes that Eli’s “vulgar” brothel segment is more “moving” and “impassioned,” and he doesn’t know why. Eli says maybe it’s because, “the enemy may just be a poor horny slob, like yourself, falling into the nearest whorehouse.” Eli seems to be stressing the universality of behavior, and it fits in with his previous desire to offer an alternative way of thinking that may prevent wanting to go to war with others that are more alike than they are different. He says that he wants to show some of the madness behind the wartime action depicted. Eli asks Cameron what he would do to show that craziness if he were on the wing of an airplane about to die, and Cameron says he would dance. We see that scene being shot, and it looks as if Cameron is really on the wing of a WWI airplane high above the ground, and he dances. He then loses his footing which results in his hanging onto the edge of the wing. But then it is revealed that it is a special effect, and the plane is just a short distance off the ground and is being rotated, with Cameron safely tethered to the plane. It then appears that Cameron is being thrown form the plane and his face at first seems to reflect shock, but there is a transition, and he has really reached an orgasm while having sex with Nina.  Afterwards, the alarm clock goes off which Nina set to make sure they were on time on the set. Cameron also tries on her old- woman wig. She gets upset and wants the alarm turned off and for him not to ruin the wig. He wants her not to care about the clock and the wig, as a sort of defiance against Eli ruling her life, and thus having some control over her destiny.

 

There was a camera mounted in the car that filmed remote footage of Burt under water. Burt was supposed to get out but couldn’t escape. Cameron and Chuck watch the footage of Burt drowning, and it is a dark scene as they are an audience watching an actual death, not a fake one, as intended. Of course, it really isn’t since we are watching a movie. But, within the context of the story, an actual event substitutes for a contrived one. IMDb also suggests that Cameron here could be viewing his eventual drowning death. After all, he is the new Burt.

 Sam comes up with an idea that has the elderly character that Nina is portraying receive a gift from her love, the character who dies in the car accident. It is a collectible with figurines of a woman on a swing, legs apart, being approached by a bear. It suggests bestiality, or at least the merging of sweetness with danger, sort of the existence of opposites in life. As Nina acts out a scene with mementos at the unmarked grave of her deceased lover, Cameron learns from Denise that Nina and Eli were once romantically involved, which complicates how Cameron views Eli’s motivations toward him. At the end of the scene, Nina’s fondness for Eli is still evident as she hugs him.

 As Eli hands Cameron additional script material there is smoke surrounding them. It could be a special effect made from dry ice, but it lends a hellish element to Eli’s appearance. They head to a screening room where Jake and a FBI agent view footage of the car going off the bridge. Eli has someone state that he saw Cameron heading off elsewhere while the real Cameron sits there pretending to be Burt. Eli is directing real life now, not just a movie, as he has edited out Cameron’s appearance on the bridge. When Jake tells “Burt” that it’s surprising he survived, Eli says they must get back to work and still have time to kill Burt. He means in the movie, but it seems ominous, since Eli is jealous of Cameron’s relationship with Nina, and he may want to eliminate Cameron who can reveal that the director is covering up the real Burt’s death. As the two walk, Cameron voices his concern that Eli may make him drown as did the real Burt, thus getting his picture completed and just delaying knowledge of Burt’s death coming out. He says this while behind a closed fence, that makes him seem like he is trapped in Eli’s web.

 

After an involved war scene is cut short because of a lack of film, Eli’s wrath appears as he talks about how he can do all of these omnipotent activities within the film, including killing people, but he is frustrated that his minions can still ruin his movie. Meanwhile, in Cameron’s room, Nina plays out a scene, but Cameron is unresponsive, since he sees Nina as being deceitful about her relationship with Eli. She tosses him an apple and he takes a bite and then throws it away. The action appears to be symbolic of Eve bringing about Adam’s downfall.

 

Cameron shows up at a family birthday celebration for Nina, and they kiss and seem reconciled. Cameron learns from Henry (Jim Hess), the camera assistant, who is drunk at the bar, that Eli just let Burt drown so he could get the footage. Eli literally determines who lives and dies on his set. There is a switch to watching the rushes and Nina’s family gets to see her portraying someone else. But a nude scene appears, and Nina’s parents see the uncomfortable side of representing realistic images inside a fictional tale. The immoral Eli acts like it was a mistake that the shot was included, but he really allowed the image to be seen so Nina could portray “shame” on camera.

 Cameron confesses his fear to Nina that Eli may try to kill him when the shot of the car going off the bridge is recreated. He wants to leave, and she says she wants to know why he is being pursued before she commits to going with him. He tells her that the fellow soldier he was supposed to partner up with after the war was having sex with his girl. He broke into his comrade’s store and started to destroy it when a cop confronted him. Cameron threw a vat of ice cream at the officer, injuring him, but only causing frostbite of the nose and ear. However, he was charged with attempted murder. As he tells the story he revisits his violent wartime feelings as he did when he wrecked the store. He breaks and throws things in the prop room they are in, so we have a fake reenactment of an actual event, just like a movie. As they slide around on paint, they begin to laugh, showing how drama can turn into slapstick comedy, in movies and in life.

 

The two want to sneak out at night and they go to the garage, but Cross and the police have locked them down and secured the roads. Cameron says that Eli seems omniscient, knowing what he is planning to do. Cameron says he feels like he is in a story that Sam wrote, saying he doesn’t feel real and has to die because a “script says so.” Thus, again, art and life mix together. Cameron muses about how nice it would be if they tore out the last page of the script. He sees Nina’s smiling face reflected in the car window, as if it’s an image being projected on a screen, and they say they will do a “rewrite.” Instead of the car going off the bridge, he will drive away with Nina hiding in the trunk so that the two lovers can drive off and live happily ever after. They want the film’s story to end the way they want their own life to turn out.

 

Eli gives a film director’s god-like Sermon on the Mount as he bellows high up on a bridge (his usual default position, above everyone else) that no camera shall jam, and no cloud shall pass in front of the sun. They rig the car, another Duesenberg, for the last shot for the plunge into the water that Cameron wishes to avoid. Jake the police chief has his men there and they will be extras in the scene. It’s more blurring of the lines between fact and fiction. One of the deputies says that the rifles look too modern for WWI, which implies that movies can’t exactly replicate facts. Cameron says that the guns better have blanks, which shows his fear that actual danger may slip into the fabricated story. Cameron grabs the handle to the trunk where Nina was hiding. His double, the star, Raymond, seems to know that she is supposed to be in there and tells Cameron he doesn’t need to check, since it will not alter what action happens next. He seems to be the inability to alter one’s fate. Their faces are reflected in the car’s surface, showing how art mirrors life and vice versa, and it’s difficult to distinguish one reality from another.

 

The stressed-out Cameron mistakes a camera check for his cue to start driving. But there is a blowout of a tire, and the car goes off the bridge. Cameron is frantic, thinking that Nina will drown in the trunk. But, Cameron views Nina next to Eli on the Bridge. Cameron is able to get through the window of the car and swim to land. The cops dressed as soldiers approach menacingly and one says, “get him.” To Cameron, it sounds like he is being apprehended, but they are just there to help and congratulate him. Cameron laughs hysterically out of relief. There were divers in the water to help with his rescue. Nina tells him that Eli told her that Cameron changed his mind and decided to do the stunt, which, of course, was not the case, and was just another example of Eli manipulating those around him since everything must be subordinated to his artistic needs. She is delighted that he and Eli were now on good terms, another deception. She runs and messes up her outfit just to hug and kiss Cameron.

 Eli descends once again from a crane and implies that the possibility of him trying to kill Cameron was just for effect. Eli is taller and goes off flying in his helicopter, taking up his dominant stance. Cameron and Eli argue about how much Cameron should be paid. The fake stunt man appears like an angry Job incensed by how much suffering God has made him endure.

 

The next film is The Caine Mutiny.

Favorite Movie Lines, Part II

SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

Here are more not too well known movie lines that I like, and why I think they are noteworthy.

The American President:

Primarily a romantic comedy, this film, written by the man of many interesting words, Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing), also deals with the world of politics. Michael Douglas’ President Andrew Shephard (Does he have to ‘shepherd’ his country through the mire of negative politics?), who is a widower, must deal with the opposing party accusing him of undermining family values by becoming involved with a lobbyist, Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). She is depicted as a radical, who many years ago was at a flag burning, and is now pushing for environmental legislation reform. Shephard’s critics condemn him for having Wade sleep over at The White House, and thus exposing the president's young daughter to immorality.  Shepard’s speech at the end of the film addresses the divisive tactics of his political adversaries: “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight … The symbol of your country can’t just be a flag: the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.” He goes on to point out that instead of trying to solve a problem, some are only interested in gaining power, so they divert the population by “making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”

Given the current adversarial political environment in America, where people denigrate others, blaming all of the nation’s ills on groups of people, instead of reaching out to come up with workable solutions, Sorkin’s words are still quite relevant.

French Kiss:

Here we have a lighter romantic comedy. Canadian Kate (Meg Ryan) is in France to try to win back her fiance. She encounters Luc (Kevin Kline, who adopts a very good French accent) who is outwardly a crook, but turns out to be the romantic good guy, who just wants enough money to own his own vineyard. Of course, by the end of the film the two become a couple.

Before that happens, Luc hides a stolen necklace in Kate’s bag, and sticks with her, saying he will help her with her boyfriend problem. Kate tries to convince Luc that it is important to display one’s feelings. She tells him, “A healthy person is someone who expresses what they are feeling inside. Express, not repress.” Luc feels that Kate shares too much of what she feels, and his sarcastic observation of her advice that sounds like it was uttered by some TV shrink is “In that case, you must be one of the healthiest people in the world.” Obviously these two are initially separated by more than where they come from geographically. Luc has a more pessimistic view of what to expect out of life, which can be seen when he says, “When people tell me they are happy, my ass begins to twitch.” Kate makes fun of Luc’s attitude by predicting what will become of him. She makes her face appear sad and droopy, pretends to hold a cigarette, and says in a raspy voice, “You’ll become one of those hunchbacked lonely old men, sitting in the corner of a crowded cafe, mumbling to yourself, ‘My ass is twitching. You people make my ass twitch.’”

By exposing each other’s foibles, and their good qualities, the two draw closer, realizing their happiness resides in neither Canada nor France, but in the love they share for each other.

Forget Paris:

It looks like we have a trend here centering on romantic comedies and France. This relatively unknown film is one of my favorites. Billy Crystal was one of the writers, and he also directed and starred in this movie. There are lots of lines to choose from here, and I just picked out a few. Mickey Gordon (Crystal) is a professional basketball referee. His father, who abandoned his family, dies, but wants to be buried with his war buddies in France. Mickey takes the body there, but the airline loses it. That’s where Ellen (Debra Winger) comes in, because she works for the airline. The body has been quarantined for health reasons, which astonishes Mickey: “He’s dead. He’s been de-healthed!” Ellen is very sympathetic, they get to know each other, fall in love, marry, and then separate. Their backstory is related at a dinner party. One recollection is that of Mickey saying to Ellen, “I’ll never forget my father’s last words to me: ‘Get out of my way.’ You can’t buy memories like that.”

At the dinner, Andy (Joe Mantegna) gets into a fight with his fiance, and Craig (Richard Masur) tries to console him by saying, “Here have some bread. Everything will look better after bread.” I like this line, because I know that food among my fellow Italian Americans is considered a non-pharmaceutical antidepressant. So, I can definitely relate to the sentiment expressed here.

While hanging out with his fellow referees, one guy reads from a tabloid which says that they dug up Abraham Lincoln, gave him a shot of some kind of reviving agent, and brought him back to life. Mickey says, “What were his first words? How did the play end?” It’s just a witty remark about the absurdity of these so-called “newspapers.”

The couple reunite and show up at the dinner. What a funny, and feel-good, movie.

Sleepless in Seattle:

Yeah, I know, another romantic comedy. But, the late, great Nora Ephron wrote this movie, so you can see why I would choose it. Widower architect Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) is hoping to spend some romantic time with a woman he met while working. However, his son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), does not like the lady, and wants his dad to pursue the person who sent a nice letter to him after Jonah talked of Sam’s loneliness on a call-in radio show. However, Sam does not know this lady (Meg Ryan, who shows up in a lot of these types of films), and warns Jonah how dangerous a strange woman can be by pointing out the movie, Fatal Attraction. After Jonah reminds his father that he wouldn’t let his son watch it, Sam says, “Well I saw it and it scared the shit out of me. It scared the shit out of every man in America!”  I just think Sam’s line is funny, fierce, and sums up the the deep impact that cautionary film about marital infidelity made on men. Do you know where your pet rabbits are?

Cat Ballou:

Lee Marvin plays an alcoholic cowboy named Kid Sheleen who was once a notorious outlaw in this Old West comedy. He is hired by the the title character, played by Jane Fonda, to get revenge for her father’s death. Sheleen gets sober enough to help save the day, but reverts to his drunken ways by the end of the film. One of Cat’s friends, Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini) sees Sheleen on his cross-legged horse, both of who appear intoxicated, leaning against a building. Jackson comments about Sheleen’s eyes, and the outlaw asks what’s wrong with them. Jackson says, “Well they’re red, bloodshot.” Sheleen’s slurred response is, “You ought to see ‘em from my side.” A very funny sort of reversal joke that I didn’t see coming. When Marvin accepted the Oscar for Best Actor, he said that part of the award belonged to the horse.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

While on the topic of Western comedies, here is one of my favorites. It also addresses the theme of how progress can destroy those who no longer fit the current age. Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) try to rob a train for the second time, but it is now equipped with a modern safe. Butch, ignorant of how to deal with this new security invention, asks for more explosives. The result is that the whole railway car gets blown up. As pieces fly everywhere, Sundance uses understatement to comical effect when he says, “Think ya’ used enough dynamite there, Butch?” Not only funny, but also sums up how the duo are out of touch with the new world which eventually pushes them out of the West to South America, where they meet their demise. I know the plot doesn’t sound funny, but if you have seen this movie you know there are plenty of humorous lines exchanged between Newman and Redford.

Unforgiven:

Well there’s not much that is funny in this revisionist Western from Clint Eastwood, which earned him Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. The notorious Will Munny (Eastwood) comes out of retirement after the death of his spouse, who reformed him, supposedly as a hired gun to get revenge for some prostitutes who had one of their co-workers disfigured by a client. However, the money for Munny becomes secondary, as the story shows a variety of violent men incapable of freeing themselves from their pasts. Except, there is a new young man who wants to become an outlaw, The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvet), who has to face the horror of killing someone. Will tells him, “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” The words are plain, but they are powerful in summing up how death ends not only what someone is but it also denies all of a person’s possibilities for the future. The Kid tries to rationalize their lethal actions by using the cliche, “Yeah, well I guess they had it coming.” Will won’t let The Kid off the hook, as he says, “We all got it coming, kid.”

Fargo:

My favorite Coen Brothers film, that somehow manages to perfectly blend humor and violence in this tale of crime in one of the coldest parts of the country. Even though the weather conditions are harsh, and the bad guys commit gruesome acts of violence, the story holds out hope in the relationship between the characters of Marge (Frances McDormand, in her first Oscar-winning role), and her husband, Norm (John Carroll Lynch). She is the pregnant police chief, called early in the morning, to get on the case involving some murders on the road. Norm rises, too, to make sure his wife has her breakfast. The two say how they love each other, and then she walks out of the door to her police car. But, she comes back in the house and says, “Hon?” Norm answers with the oft repeated regional response, “Yah?”  Then she says, “Prowler needs a jump.” Her words deliver the right sound and economy that fits Marge’s world. But, beyond that, the exchange shows how these two, despite the frigid temperatures, and the crimes committed in cold blood (brought about in contrast by a family devoid of affection), are there for each other, ready to bring a new child into their heart-warming world.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Since we’re talking about the Coens, here’s another winner. George Clooney is great in this film about three guys who escape from a chain gang and embark on a variety of adventures, suggested by The Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz. Clooney’s character, Ulysses Everett McGill, has the gift of gab, and thinks he can talk his way out of any situation, but he can’t. The convicts’ car breaks down, and he needs a part that the local vendor says will take two weeks to arrive. He then also has no use for the hair gel that the store stocks, and wants his usual brand, Dapper Dan. The vendor says he can order it, but it will take two weeks. Everett, which is what he is called, says, “Well, ain’t this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!” The line exemplifies Everett’s way with words, and also shows that no matter how he tries, he usually winds up eventually saying, “Damn! We’re in a tight spot!”

Aliens:

Even in this sci-fi horror classic from James Cameron there is a pretty funny line. The Marines have entered the area of the complex where the amazingly lethal aliens have cocooned the human occupants. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has realized that the soldiers can’t fire any weapons because they might rupture the nuclear reactor beneath them. When the Marines are told they can’t use their weapons and they must hand in their loaded magazines, Private Frost (Ricco Ross) says, “What the hell are we supposed to use, man, harsh language?” It’s just a great example of gallows humor, since the only way to deal with a hopeless situation is to laugh about it.

Blade Runner:

Speaking of classic sci-fi movies, here’s another one, which, again, is primarily serious, yet still maintains a bit of humor. Here we have a future that has become dehumanized, in the sense that the real people show less empathy and elicit less sympathy from the audience then do the synthetic humans, known as Replicants. The rich and the genetically superior have escaped earth to live “off-world,” where Replicants are used as slaves, and this world has become a sort of futuristic ghetto. One character, Sebastian (William Sanderson), a genetic engineer, suffers from a condition which disqualified him from leaving the planet. His aging process is accelerated, a situation that he shares with the Replicants, who have a four year life span. Sebastian helped to make these androids, but he has also tainted them with the human limitation of a limited lifetime. In this dehumanized world, Sebastian, says, “I make friends.” This statement is a funny play on words, because he literally creates robotic toys to keep him company. They march around his apartment in an abandoned building, symbolic of the emptiness in his small world and the one at large.

The Dark Knight:

This movie is “dark” for a number of reasons, especially in the use of the character of the Joker, played by Heath Ledger (for which he won, sadly, a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar). This nihilistic clown dispenses only sick comic touches as he murders and blows up stuff on his ride down anarchy road in Gotham City. In one scene he explains how he, supposedly, received the upturned scars on his face that produced his deformed smile. He says his father, who “was a drinker and a fiend,” came at him with a knife and said, “‘Why so serious?’” He sticks the blade in my mouth. ‘Let’s put a smile on that face.’” The “s” sounds come out like the hissing of a snake, adding to the almost Satan-like quality of this villain. The inversion of comedy into horror is done by subverting the idea of showing happiness with a grin through mutilation. It is very effective writing, and acting.

The Ruling Class:

This is a film most people have never heard of, which is a shame, because it is a devastating satire on the British class system. Jack (Peter O’Toole, in a no-holds-barred performance) is a member of the aristocracy who is crazy, thinking he is Jesus Christ. He even has a huge crucifix in his mansion, where he literally hangs out on occasion. When asked how does he know he is God, he answers, “Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.” An irreverent, but funny line. The irony of the story is that in his benign Christ-like delusion he is rejected by his peers, but is later welcomed when he becomes a sinister character.

Manhattan:

Although quite intelligent, and a filmmaker who makes references in his films to great artists, Woody Allen, nevertheless, likes to poke fun at the his fellow New Yorkers for allowing their intellectual abilities to be undermined by over-thinking everything. In this movie, while at a party, Allen’s character of Isaac listens to a woman who says, “I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor said it was the wrong kind.”  Isaac’s rebuttal is, “You had the wrong kind? I’ve never had the wrong kind, ever. My worst one was right on the money.”

Isaac also mentions that there is going to be a rally by Nazis, and that they should do something about it. One party guest says there is a satirical piece about it in the New York Times that is “devastating.” Isaac questions how effective intellectual tools are in this situation when he says, “Well a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really get right to the point.” Yes, violence begets violence, but one could understand his outrage at how detached the purely cerebral stance can be.

Grosse Pointe Blank:

In this dark comedy about a professional killer who is losing his taste for his profession, we have John Cusack’s Martin returning to his home town after ten years for a high school reunion, hoping to reconnect with the person he once was, and also his girlfriend, Debi (Minnie Driver), who he split on. He has a difficult time accomplishing his goal. He has a humorous exchange about his cat with Debi, after he refers to the animal as “it.” She says, “It. You don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Martin’s response is, “I respect its privacy.” Funny, but also revealing, showing how Martin hasn’t been able to even have a close relationship with his pet.

He also feels frustrated that he can’t even see his old house, because it has been torn down, and a convenience store is now on the property. Martin, putting a twist on a famous phrase, says, “You can never go home again … but I guess you can shop there.”

At the end of the film, after some mayhem which involves the hilarious Dan Aykroyd, playing a hitman who wants to unionize assassins, Martin gets to drive off with Deb, who says in a prerecorded message on her radio show, “Some people say forgive and forget. I say forget about forgiving and just accept. And, … get the hell out of town.”

And that’s what I’m going to do now. The next film to be analyzed is Lifeboat.