Showing posts with label Rita Wilson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rita Wilson. Show all posts

Classic Movie Review Sleepless in Seattle

Sleepless in Seattle (2023) 

Directed by Nora Ephron 

Written by Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch 

Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman 

Release Date June 25th, 1993

Published June 26th, 2023 

Losing my mother in 2013 was the hardest thing that I have ever endured. My mom was awesome. She worked three retail jobs, 80 to 90 hours per week, when I was a kid, just to make sure that myself and my sister had food and a good home. All that time, she remained unsinkable in her spirit and love. She was a human teddy bear, soft and comforting. Her worst quality was that when someone she loved was suffering, she would make that suffering her own, as if she could take our pain away by making it her pain. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a mom who was so loving and empathetic. 

My mom fostered my love of movies. I have a distinct memory from my childhood of my mother swooning over Cary Grant. I'd make fun of her for her reaction to Cary Grant movies and she would lean into it by talking about how handsome and charming he was in effusive terms. I can recall the first time I saw my mom cry was the day she was supposed to go see Cary Grant's one man show in Davenport, Iowa. That show never happened as Grant died the night before the show was to take place. My mom showed me that para-social relationships with celebrity weren't a bad thing, they were a human thing. 

The movie Sleepless in Seattle, which features prominent references to Cary Grant, became a favorite movie for my mom. She would watch it any chance she got. She didn't love Tom Hanks as she did Cary Grant, but her heart leapt seeing him fall for Meg Ryan at the last minute. She felt the same rush of emotion every time she watched the movie, even as she'd seen it a dozen times and was fully aware that the happy ending was coming. She always got teary when Meg Ryan took Tom Hanks' hand at the end of the movie. It showed me that being emotional about movies was not just okay, but something that just happens when you witness something beautiful. 

Sleepless in Seattle is a beautiful film. It's a celebration of magical romance and believing in something beyond yourself, the notion of fate. The characters of Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed were fated to be together. The universe conspires to unite them. Through the audacity and resolute stubbornness of Sam's son, Jonah, and the good luck that he has a best friend, played by Gaby Hoffman, whose parents are travel agents, Sam and Annie are brought dramatically together on the most romantic day of the year in one of the most romantic spots on the planet. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review: Auto Focus

Auto Focus (2002) 

Directed by Paul Schrader

Written by Michael Gerbosi 

Starring Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Maria Bello

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 19th, 2002 

As this website's self-proclaimed Oscar expert, I had proclaimed the Oscar race on when Red Dragon was released. However with that film's mixed critical response and quickly slowing box office, it's award chances evaporated quickly. Now, after seeing Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe's stunning performances in Auto Focus, I can once again start talking about Oscar.

Directed by Martin Scorsese's guy Paul Schrader, Auto Focus tells the story of the rise and fall of Bob Crane. For the unfamiliar, Crane was the star of the 60's sitcom "Hogan's Heroes." Crane got his start in radio hosting the number 1 morning show in LA when he was offered "Hogan's Heroes." He almost turned the role of Colonel Hogan down because of the show's controversial setting. However. after his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) read the script and told him she thought it was funny he took the role.

"Hogan's Heroes" was an immediate success, both a blessing and a curse for Bob and his family. Success means more money and security but it also means long days and less time for the family. It was during his run as Hogan that Bob Crane met the man who would change the course of his life. John Carpenter (not to be confused with the director of the same name), an engineer with the Sony corporation. One day as he was on set installing high end audio equipment in the trailer of Crane's co-star Richard Dawson, Crane and Carpenter struck up a conversation about their mutual love of photography and a new technology that Carpenter was peddling called the personal video camera. 

Spending time with Carpenter visiting strip clubs, where he actually preferred playing drums with the house band to watching the girls strip, Crane first began to stray from his seemingly normal life. At Carpenter's urging, Crane began using his celebrity to pick up women for the two of them, luring them to Carpenter's apartment where he videotaped them having sex, a practice that became a pattern and then an obsession.

The strange pseudo-friendship of Carpenter and Crane is the seed of the film, it's drama comes from the weird uncomfortable interaction between these two odd, lonely men. I say pseudo-friendship, because Carpenter as portrayed in the film isn't so much Crane's friend as he is a hanger on, a yes man. It was Carpenter who helped Crane to justify his self destructive behavior. Not that Carpenter was to blame for Crane destroying his two marriages or his twisted obsession's with videotaping his sexual exploits, rather, Carpenter was the devil on Crane's shoulder whispering in his ear telling him he was normal and healthy and there was nothing wrong with what they were doing. Carpenter was the classic enabler.

Greg Kinnear has certainly left "Talk Soup" in the rearview mirror and Auto Focus is very likely to bring him his second Oscar nomination, the first was for his supporting turn As Good As It Gets. Willem Dafoe as Carpenter is also likely to have a shot at Oscar gold. So far this year I have yet to have seen a more effective supporting performance.

Bob Crane Jr. consulted on Auto Focus, helping Director Paul Schrader and Kinnear understand his father's mannerisms and consulting with screenwriter Michael Gerbosi on events in his Dad's life. One thing Bob Crane Jr, or anyone for that matter, couldn't consult on was who killed his father. Though all available evidence points to Carpenter, who died in 1999, the police in Scottsdale, Arizona (where Crane was killed while sleeping in his hotel after a dinner theater performance) botched the case so badly that by the time Carpenter was finally investigated in 1997, evidence had been lost and prosecutors were forced to drop the case against him.

Bob Crane was one of those guys who had it all, charisma, wit, and looks. Unfortunately he lacked a moral center and his addiction to sex overcame him and likely lead to his death. Whether or not it was Carpenter who killed him remains an open question, the film does seem to posit the theory that he was the killer, though there is conjecture about the husband of one Crane's many conquests taking revenge on him. Whatever happened I guess it's fitting that the man's death should be as enigmatic as the man himself.

Documentary Review Fallen

Fallen (2017)  Directed by Thomas Marchese  Written by Documentary  Starring Michael Chiklis  Release Date September 1st, 2017 Published Aug...