In 1970 a plane carrying almost the entire Marshall University football team and staff crashed on its way back to Huntington, killing everyone on board. While some felt it was disrespectful to continue on the next season, a team led by new coach Matthew McConaughey managed to rebuild itself after the disaster. I do enjoy a good sports film, though I don’t relate to ones that rely on an entire community supposedly being transformed by a single team. Not that I doubt such towns exist, I’ve just never experienced one. Along with an impressive cast that includes Ian McShane, David Strathairn, and Anthony Mackie, what sets this one apart is its reflection on loss and shared grief. The actual sport takes a way back seat to this theme. 

Unmarried and lonely Sandy Dennis spies teenager Michael Burns stranded in the park across from her home during a rainstorm and invites him to stay with her. Regrettably for both of them, they do not know enough about each other for this arrangement to work. There’s a sense of impending dread that resonates throughout the film and I was fully expecting it to play out similarly to the end of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. There is absolutely no one else I can think of who could play the necessary aspects of the complex main character as Dennis and she carries this unusual film from its first moments.

Stefanie Martini invites former flame, private investigator Max Irons to her family’s estate to investigate the circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s death. Not surprisingly based on an Agatha Christie novel, the central mystery isn’t all that surprising and the little supposed romance between Irons and Martini fizzles especially since Martini comes across as a poor choice in her role. Luckily the rest of the female cast is incredibly strong with the always marvelous Glenn Close, Christina Hendricks, and Gillian Anderson, who for some reason are all hairstyled in uniquely garish colors. The film is an entertaining diversion, but it plays out as a poor man’s Knives Out.   

Having dropped out of yet another finishing school, Lizabeth Scott runs into gangster John Hodiak on her way back home. Despite her casino owning mother Mary Astor’s misgivings, she falls for the gangster despite various rumors swirling around him. The romance here, which is about the only plot available, is poorly sold with little reason given for its development or even for the disapproval from Scott’s family and friends other than Hodiak being a ‘bad’ guy. What really doesn’t help that relationship is the surprisingly, almost blatant same sex relationship between Hodiak and his partner-in-crime Wendell Corey. The two intimately share their work and home with Corey becoming possessively jealous as Lizabeth weasels her way in.   

Former children’s musician Matthew Broderick finds himself more and more isolated other than attempts at bonding with his young daughter chess matches with his sickly, philosophical roommate Michael Kenneth Williams. When Williams falls into a diabetic coma, his sister Sanaa Lathan arrives from Senegal and Matthew finally finds a new connection to life. A slight cliché of a movie which probably doesn’t do enough for its Black characters, its strengths lie directly in the hands of its central cast. Perhaps it’s just the nostalgic Ferris Bueller connection, but I find Broderick generally likable even in his most unlikable characters.

TVA administrator Montgomery Clift arrives in rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River, facing much opposition from the locals especially Jo Van Fleet whose family lives on one of the river’s islands. Clift is perfectly cast in this role. He’s equally determined to complete his task with a firm […]

Recently released from jail, Mark Wahlberg accepts a job working with his friend Joaquin Phoenix as muscle for his aunt’s new husband James Caan’s railway car company. It’s hard to watch any gangster work, especially The Sopranos, and not know about the corruption in the sanitation business, but it wasn’t until A Most Violent Year and now this film that I realized it oozes through all contract oriented services in New York. With an impressive cast that also includes Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway, and Ellen Burstyn, it generally follows the expected trajectory of similar stories. Wahlberg’s simple-minded, wide eyed schtick gets old after awhile which makes him a mostly unappealing protagonist.