Hook

Steven Spielberg’s Hook takes the world of Peter Pan and imagines what happened if he left Neverland and grew up.  Robin Williams plays Peter Banning, a lawyer who doesn’t put his children first.  When his family travels to England to attend a dedication for a hospital for orphans named after his grandmother-in-law, Wendy (Maggie Smith), Hook (Dustin Hoffman) kidnaps his children.  The authorities are no help and before Peter knows what is happening, he is whisked away to Neverland by Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) so he can save his children.

Among all his problems, Peter doesn’t remember, or even believe that he is the Peter Pan from the stories.  Everyone else recognizes him, Hook, Tinkerbell, some of the lost boys. Granny Wendy even tells him how they first met when she was a girl.  When he half-heartedly confronts Captain Hook, the pirate is so disappointed that his worthy adversary is no more than an uptight lawyer afraid of heights that he gives Peter three days before they fight for the children.  With only three days to remember how to be the Pan, Peter needs Tinkerbell, the lost boys and to find his happy thought.

In this film, Neverland is imagined more beautifully than I have ever seen.  Flying in, the island seems to on a living map, with compass rose visible in the water.  Captain Hook’s ship is a magnificent vessel with a skeleton holding a sword on the bow.  The forests where the Lost Boys live is a childhood paradise with skateboarding ramps, basketball hoops and a maze of draw bridges leading to their tree houses.  And under water are colorful mermaids, who can be helpful to anyone forced to walk the plank.  It all adds to the sense of wonder and adventure that can only happen in Neverland.

My favorite scene is probably a favorite for many; the imaginary dinner scene.  Everything plays out perfectly.  After a long day of training, Peter is tired, hungry and from the looks of things, a big meal is being prepared.  Once grace is said, it’s revealed that there is nothing but steam in all the dishes and the boys pretend to eat.  I especially love how one boy pretends to eat corn on the cob.  When Peter refuses to go along with it, an insult match brew up between Rufio (Dante Basco) and Peter.  I got some of my best comebacks here, “In your face, camel cake!”  And it all builds up to Peter letting loose a real zinger, pretending with the boys and a magnificent feast appearing before him.  Never had bowls of red and blue frosting looked so appetizing.

The dynamic between Peter and his children has always struck a deep chord with me.  As a kid, I understood Jack’s frustration with his father, not showing up to that baseball game seemed like the ultimate parent betrayal.  And Maggie’s devotion to her dad is especially touching, realizing that not all kids see the obvious flaws in their parents.  Now as a parent myself, I understand how easy it can be to let little moments with your children slip away.  Never before had Moira’s words hit me so hard, “Your children love you, they want to play with you.  How long do you think that lasts?”

Childhood doesn’t last long, but Hook can help adults remember what it was like to be a kid again.  We need that sometimes, especially to help us better understand our children.  I’ve recently started a list of movies to share with my son at certain ages.  Hook is one we will make time for in the height of his childhood.  It’s one I hope we can enjoy and cherish together.  From it I hope he sees a world of adventure, imagination and that parents may not be perfect but the good ones will save the day.  And that he will always be my happy thought.

“Dear night-lights, protect my sleeping babes.  Burn clear and steadfast tonight.”

Tootsie

In Tootsie, directed by Sydney Pollack, Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, an out of work actor in New York with a bad reputation.  The reputation comes from being difficult and taking stands against simple direction on stage.  He’s also an acting coach, his speeches give great confidence to inspiring actors, most of them also out of work.  One of the best things he tells them is, “Don’t play a part that’s not in you.”  Then he disguises himself as a woman, tries out for a role on a daytime soap opera, and gets it.  Suddenly, Michael is leading the lives of both Michael Dorsey and Dorothy Michaels

It’s isn’t enough for Hoffman to play Michael as Dorothy, but rather gives Dorothy a whole different personality.  In the story, we can credit this as Michael being a great actor, and really, it’s just Hoffman being a fantastic actor by not letting us see the layers.  While Michael is a bit of a schemer, womanizer and can loose his cool quickly, Dorothy is much more collected, kind and can command with a fiery elegance many women cannot attain well.  Perhaps Michael’s masculinity helps Dorothy pull that off just right.

A story of a man disguised as a woman is rarely done so well.  Usually, it’s only a gimmick that results in nothing more substantial than some mildly amusing situations of sexual awkwardness.  Here, there’s a compelling story driven behind the two halves of Hoffman that awakens some thoughtful social commentary as well as hilarious situations, ranging from Hoffman’s sudden voice changes to some Auntie Dorothy babysitting time.

Michael soon finds some unexpected female roles that come along with being Dorothy.  One of his first days on the show, he sees he has to do a kissing scene with the show’s doctor.  The look on his face when Julie (Jessica Lange) tells him, “We call him The Tongue,” is priceless.  Cunningly, he uses Dorothy’s strong, commanding side to improvise his way out of the scene.  It’s moments like that that bring Dorothy Michaels fame and launch her to become a modern icon of the strong proud woman.  But is Michael up to the responsibility of being a strong, female role model?  As much as he’s learning about being a woman, he is not a woman, yet he’s feeling a new kinship to women, but doesn’t realize the damage he could do with it if his lie is exposed.

There’s also the platonic relationship Dorothy forges with Julie, while Michael is attracted to her.  It’s this double-edged sword that gives Michael a chance to get to know Julie better than he probably would have known her as a man.  But we’re afraid that the friendship, trust and safety Julie feels with Dorothy can only be broken if the truth about who she really is comes out.  It’s really astounding how well this odd love triangle of multiple personalities pulls at our hearts and minds where there isn’t one person of the three that we find complete fault with.  We’re rooting for everyone, knowing that they can’t all win.

“I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.  Know what I mean?”

The Graduate

When you graduate college, it can feel people are expecting you to have the rest of your life figured out.  For Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), he’s dismayed and worried that he has no idea what to do with his life.  He comes from a well-to-do family, who throw him a big graduation party with all their swanky friends who have watched Ben grow up.  This just puts the pressure on Ben, everyone fusses over him and asks what he’s going to do over and over.  He just wants to get away, but Mrs. Robinson  (Anne Bancroft) interrupts his alone time and asks Ben to drive her home.

Ben is too nice of a young man to deny Mrs. Robinson this simple request.  But she manipulates the ride into requesting Ben to come inside and keep her occupied, alone in the house.  Ben politely, and nervously, lets this go on with a drink and music, until he can’t deny what this looks like, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.”  With those fatal words, the cards are on the table, there is not going back and Mrs. Robinson continues to lure Ben into her trap.  The lengths and boundaries Mrs. Robinson pushes as she tries to seduce Ben are shocking.  Ben narrowly escapes at first, but with a long summer of nothing ahead of him, it isn’t long until he takes Mrs. Robinson up on her generous offer.

Ben does not see or think of them at first, but there are huge consequences to his affair with Mrs. Robinson.  Later, when he plays with the idea of dating her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), she forbids it.  A young man, just starting out in the world adulthood isn’t going to listen to an aging woman who only wants to casually him for sex, so he takes Elaine out to spite her.  What Ben doesn’t plan on is genuinely liking Elaine and even falling in love with her.  But Mrs. Robinson won’t let Ben have her daughter and threatens to tell everyone about their affair.

This film shows pressures and pitfalls that many young people experience to this day.  When we hit a new level and come of age in some way, there are new expectations brought on and things we are expected to have knowledge of.  Ben is worried about where his life is heading and Mrs. Robinson expects Ben to be more knowledgeable about sex.  When an idle summer is thrown in, Ben grows complacent, bored and seeks out the one thing he knows he can attain at the moment: sex with Mrs. Robinson.

There are countless things I love about The Graduate.  The camera work and editing is wonderfully inventive.  The party scene stays close to Ben’s face, giving us that feeling that he can’t get away.  There’s the scuba gear scene that even goes underwater.  And during Mrs. Robinson’s first attempt at seducing Ben, there’s quick flashes of nudity edited in, bringing us into what Ben sees, in a sort of nightmarish way.  The soundtrack is one of the best ever, featuring unforgettable songs that define the era by Simon and Garfunkle, including my favorite, the obviously titled song, Mrs. Robinson.  Unless there was some technical reason that Mrs. Robinson could not be nominated for best original song, this is one unforgivable blunder by the Academy.

The Graduate is a wonderful, inventive, funny and honest film about coming of age and the complications of physical relationships that can still be admired for generations to come.  This is one of those films that everyone should see at some point.  And everyone gets a kick out of the nervous word play in the hotel lobby.

“Are you here for an affair, sir?”

Lenny

If you go to see most stand up comedians today, you’re likely to hear a few F-words or racy jokes.  Back in the sixties, Lenny Bruce was fighting to use those words and jokes in his act.  He wasn’t just trying to use his foul mouth simply for a shock factor.  His jokes, and the fact that he was arrested for obscene language when artists have a right to free speech, helped expose people to the hypocrisies within their society.

Directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffman, Lenny isn’t your straight forward biopic.  There are three different time-frames intertwined throughout the film.  First, there’s the point A to point B narrative look at Lenny’s life, starting from his early stand up days when he just met Honey (Valerie Perrine) , a stripper he later marries, has a child with and divorces.  Then there are cuts from Lenny’s stand up act that help shine more light on situations within the narrative.  For example, Lenny’s bit about why men cheat goes on while we see his own infidelities.  Finally, there are interviews of Honey, his mother and his agent, weighing in on narrative moments, often with the historical and biographical aspect.  Feels like an odd Citizen Kane tribute.  Plus, the film is all in black and white, feeling like a gritty sort of German Expressionism, which I found very beautiful.

If “bad words” blind you, you might want to tip-toe through this paragraph, because what I really loved about this film, is how Lenny uses his act to make his audience question what is considered indecent.  After Lenny is arrested for using the word “cock-sucking” in his act, he knows he is being watched like a hawk on stage.  So he decides to point out the police in the theater, now watching and waiting for him to trip up, and confess to his audience that he was arrested for a term that he now refers to as “blah-blahing.”  For the next few minutes, he discusses “blah-blahing” with the audience and the whole bit is ten times as dirty as when he just spoke the word as a noun once.  Yet, the police don’t move.  It seems they’re just waiting for an obscene word, ideas are fair game.

While part of me embraces this cynical, foul mouthed liberation of ideas onto the masses, it doesn’t feel like comedy.  It feels like preaching with a few punchlines.  You put Hoffman’s Lenny next to an evangelical preacher and you’ll find opposite words and messages united by a style that easily infiltrates softer minds.  Simply, if you don’t agree with the man with the microphone, then you look like the enemy.

As for Hoffman’s performance, there’s good and bad.  There is a beautiful energy and passion he puts into Lenny, mostly off stage.  His early chemistry with Perrine is wonderful.  The few moments we see Lenny falling hypocritical to his own stand up routine make him feel real.  For example, as a bit in his act talks about how ridiculous it is for men to “always expect women to be a combination Sunday school teacher, and $500-a-night hooker,” he suggests that Honey stop stripping.  I think he realizes how contradictory we all are.

While Lenny is a great way to learn about the infamous Lenny Bruce, it seems to build him up as this martyr for the future of comedy.  I hate to ruin the ending for everyone, but dying of a drug overdose doesn’t gain much sympathy from me.  The film is done well, the style is consistent and thoughtful, but the story of Lenny is not anything that stirs me, but thanks for taking a few hits so we can say all the things that just get bleeped on television.  And if you cover your ears at strong language or cover your eyes at risqué images, there isn’t much here left for you.

“If you just found those two words obscene you probably can’t come.”

Midnight Cowboy

In the film industry, an X or NC-17 rating for a mainstream film is a kiss of death.  When Midnight Cowboy first opened, many theaters would not show the film and newspapers would not run printed ads because of its X rating being associated with pornography.  Yet, the film went on to win the Academy’s approval and the award for Best Picture.

Culturally, this is a historic moment set right in the middle of the Sexual Revolution that was spreading in Western society.  The fact that a film dealing with such controversial topics so frankly and explicitly could win over critic acclaim shows the shift happening from within.  These topics suddenly had merit and could now be openly discussed, where just years ago they were called smut and swept under the rug.  Back in 1957, Peyton Place was pushing the envelope, but it just felt like an after school special and turned into a corny soap opera.

The film is about Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a naive young man from Texas who plans to make a living in New York as a male prostitute.  This seems to be the only job market he thinks he has potential in.  He’s got the cowboy look down naturally, but he doesn’t realize that that won’t win over his target audience: rich lonely married women.  Business doesn’t go so well mostly because Joe doesn’t know how to manage himself.  After having their initial disputes and running out of money, Joe teams up with Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) an outcast with a bum leg living in the most rundown apartment you can imagine.  A friendship grows between the two, not just over business but through their struggle for survival within the harsh city.

I found the portrayal of religion is more stirring, and perhaps more controversial, than the sexual nature of this film.  In the scene where Joe thinks he’s meeting someone to help him find more clients, the man is actually a preacher of some sort.  They have a conversation, where we assume this man is a pimp talking about the other boys working for him, ““I’m warning you Buck, I’m gonna use you.  I’m gonna run you ragged.”  The fact that he’s a preacher is not revealed until he asks Joe to get on his knees (where both our minds and Joe’s naturally go to the gutter), then the man opens the door to his bathroom.  On the other side of the door is a little alter, complete with a plastic glowing Jesus statue.  This sends us to a terrifying flashback of Joe remembering his baptism in a river.  As Joe runs away in fear, we hear the preacher yelling, “Don’t run from Jesus!”  From this scene, we can see that Joe views religion to be more unnatural and terrifying than sex.

It is never fully revealed in the film what the connection is between Joe, religion, an old girlfriend, his reasons for leaving Texas and new his career choice.  These are all in the past, so maybe it’s not the most important thing, but those are the dots and they can be connected in a variety of ways.  I’ve formed my own theories.

Please don’t skip Midnight Cowboy because you’re afraid you mom will scold you and drag you to church by your ear for watching an initially X rated film.  The more graphic scenes here are pretty tame compared to what some R rated films hold today.  In fact, Midnight Cowboy was only X rated for two years before being resubmitted to the MPAA and receiving an R rating in 1971.  So relax already and enjoy a film that is more about friendship and working through hard times than it is about sex.

“Frankly, you’re beginning to smell and for a stud in New York, that’s a handicap.”

Kramer vs. Kramer

In this day and age, divorce and single parenting are more common than ever, but no one will say that either are easy.  In Kramer vs. Kramer, Ted (Dustin Hoffman) is a hardworking husband and father, whose wife, Joanna (Meryl Streep) is so depressed and unsatisfied with herself that she decides to leave her husband and son.  She has clearly thought about this for a while and planned everything out, even making sure to give Ted a dry-cleaning ticket.  Now Ted has to figure out how to juggle his job and taking care of his son, Billy (Justin Henry) without any help.

The morning after Joanna leaves, Ted tries his hardest to act like nothing is wrong for Billy’s sake.  Attempting to be a cheerful super-dad, Ted tries to make French toast for breakfast with Billy watching.  The stress is starting to weigh heavier on Ted, and we wonder if he has ever done this before as Billy notices shells going into the eggs and realizes they’ve forgotten the milk.  The whole thing is a frazzled mess, ending with Ted burning his hand and cursing enough to upset his son.  So much for a good start.

At work, Ted’s boss doesn’t seem to care that his wife just left him.  He shrugs it off, reassuring Ted that she will be back, but just in case, he adds that Ted should think about sending Billy to live with some relatives.  It is clear that in that job, Ted is discouraged to let his family come first, and he may end up paying for that later.

As the months wear on with no Joanna, Ted and Billy bond more.  We’re shown moments with Ted nervous for his son in a classroom play and teaching Billy to ride his bike without training wheels.  These small scenes score big father-son points and soon the two seem to thrive with just each other.  Though at times it seems they have settled into a bachelor lifestyle; one of my favorite details of the film is when they’re eating TV dinners.

One of the most moving scenes is when Ted runs nonstop for what seems like miles carrying Billy to the hospital.  He has just taken a fall off the jungle gym, like most kids will inevitably do, and suffered a nasty cut on his face.  The way Ted runs with such urgency, barely looking for traffic, cradling his son but not letting his weight slow him down is an amazing portrait of a father’s love.

The issue the film brings up about single parenting was not new, but by having the mother leave, rather than the father, made this film more eye-opening at the time.  It broke boundaries and made people question the thinking that mothers are just naturally nurturing and fathers couldn’t possibly handle all the aspects of parenting on their own.  When Joanna and Ted fight for custody of their son, the film does not give us a clear-cut winner.  Instead, in the courtroom, we are shown each side of the case without a bias.  From the way we’ve seen Ted and Billy grow together, we have our own opinion.  But by only hearing the case, the verdict could be different, especially with the concept that mother’s naturally make better parents.

There are so many reasons to see Kramer vs. Kramer.  The acting is heartfelt and phenomenal, it had four acting nominations and took away two for Streep and Hoffman.  The stirring story of rising to the occasion of single-parenthood is moving and can capture the heart of anyone, whether or not you life has been affected by divorce in any way.

“How much courage does it take to walk out on your kid?”

All the President’s Men

All the President’s Men is hailed for being a movie of great historical significance, integrity in journalism and the power of the honest written word.  It is the story of two real life Washington Post investigative journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who slowly uncover details about the Watergate break-in that eventually lead to President Nixon’s resignation.  When the break-in first happens, Woodward (Robert Redford) was investigating just to write a typical story about it, but notices oddities.  Why would top lawyers be assigned to the defense so quickly?  Why are Republican fund raisers linked to this incident?  He and more experienced Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) investigate further, to find that many people are afraid to talk.  What are they hiding?  Could this go all the way up to The White House?

One of the most interesting parts of the film is when Woodward meets with the man with the most information, known then only as Deep Throat.  They meet in secret, in the shadows of a parking garage.  The anonymous source was the key to finding the truth and exposing the Watergate Scandal with the advice of, “Just follow the money.”

Though the sets my at first seem like an ordinary newspaper office in the early seventies, no detail went unnoticed.  About two hundred desks were ordered to match those from the Washington Post’s office and props were even made to look like out of date phonebooks.  And I’m sure a lot of meticulous hands went around that sprawling room to make sure every desk is ever so slightly disorganized with papers sticking out here and there.  That attention to detail is what won All the President’s Men the award for best art direction.

I hate to rain on this film’s parade, but I found it quite boring.  Watergate is old history to my generation and investigative journalism seems more controversial and colorful today than it was thirty years ago.  Think of the generation gap like this: back then Nixon’s Watergate was scandalous, but I grew up with Clinton’s Impeachment blown all over the news.  He helped us justify a difference between “sexual relations” and “oral sex” at the age of fourteen.  How much did your history teacher have to back-peddle over what Nixon said?

If you are interested in the events and reporting of Watergate, the infamous Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein or Deep Throat, I would completely recommend this film for you.  If you want a look at journalism in the 1970’s, this is also beneficial; I believe it is still shown to aspiring journalism students.  But if Watergate is old news to you and journalism seems a little dry, skip it.

“Howard, they’re hungry.  Remember when you were hungry?”

Rain Man

Remember that transcontinental flight from my first review?  Well, there was time enough to show Rain Man as well, only without the F-word, call and respond sex scene or gloomy airport statistics.

Tom Cruise plays Charlie, a selfish, fast talking business man with a short temper.  After his father dies, he is left nothing but a car and the prize winning rose bushes.  Some mystery man has been left the three million his father was worth.  Charlie discovers that the beneficiary is his long lost brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), whose been living in a mental institution since Charlie was three years old.  In a fit of selfish anger and stupidity, Charlie takes Ray away from the institute, pretty much like a hostage, hoping that once he returns Ray he can have his half of the inheritance.

It’s not easy to take a man like Ray on a cross country road trip.  You see, Ray isn’t really retarded, as most people label him, but autistic.  He has certain rituals he has to keep to, and if he deviates from them he freaks out.  Ray has to recite Abbott and Costello’s Who’s On First? every time they go anywhere.  If he doesn’t watch his shows right on time, he has a fit.  And he has to eat all his food with toothpicks.  Of course, these antics start to drive Charlie up the wall, but through the trip he discovers there’s more to Ray.  He finds an amazing brother to bond with.

This is Dustin Hoffman’s greatest role, and it’s always fun to see Tom Cruise play second banana to “a retard.”  The way Ray is so withdrawn from others and constantly babbling random facts and statistics is sight.  You can’t write him off as stupid, he can memorize half a phone book in one night.  Ray is always looking upwards, with a blank but curious stare, like a day dreamer who’s not quite sure what to dream about.  Hoffman doesn’t take one word or nod of the head for granted, it’s always perfectly Ray, and that deserves the Oscar.

Now most of the population considers Rain Man a moving triumph in film and others call it “that one about Tom Cruise and the retard.”  Where ever you may land on the cultural/geological map, Rain Man is worth the view.  It’s a sweet story about acceptance and appreciation of others, no matter their circumstance.  They might just surprise you along the way.

It’s also really funny, you will laugh at Hoffman’s performance, not because you laugh at the less functional, but because Ray is so genuinely adorable it’s funny.  On that flight, I remember laughing just a little too much at the scene were Ray and Charlie are stuck in a phone booth.  The old German man next to me didn’t quite agree, but nuts to him.  You don’t need a reason to watch Rain Man, it’s just natural for everyone.

“I’m an excellent driver.”