Disney BFFs Turned Frenemies

Let me first start off by saying that I couldn't be happier that Netflix has finally reached a deal with Disney which will allow them to stream many of the Disney Studio's classic films, films I would much rather watch than the current crop of animated movies from Disney and other studios. "The Fox and the Hound" (1981) was always one of my favorite of Disney's older films and so I had to watch it again after having not seen it in years. I didn't realize the movie was based on a book and in reading up on the movie after watching it again, I realized the book was a little bit darker for all the characters concerned. Disney, of course, played it safe and created a light, family friendly version that appealed to kids and adults. Tod, the fox, is so named by the lonely Widow Tweed because, according to her, he's 'such a little toddler'. He's rambunctious and always getting into mischief as foxes like to do, I suppose. Copper, the hound dog, gets into trouble of his own, much to the annoyance of his owner's older hunting dog, Chief, who bellows 'you can't tell these young whippersnappers anything.' The pair (Tod and Copper) meet in the forest and soon become inseparable, frolicking and playing without a care in the world. Other woodland animals, such as Big Momma the owl can see that the two friends are 'such a funny pair' even though they can't see it themselves. After all these years, I always remembered the line where Tod says 'Copper, you're my very best friend' and Copper responds with 'And you're mine too, Tod.' Little do they know, their friendship will fall by the wayside because that's how nature dictates it should be. Copper is being groomed to be his owner Amos Slade's new hunting dog. He'll become 'a real killer' say the other animals, but naive Tod reassures them, 'oh no, not my friend Copper, he won't ever change.' Wise Big Momma tells him 'time has a way of changing things'. The dialogue in this film was very good for an animated film, which is probably why I am repeating so much of it here. As the animals grow up, they grow apart. Copper knows they can't be friends anymore. 'Those days are over,' he warns Tod. Tod's owner abandons him in the forest where he is left to fend for himself among the other forest animals. He doesn't do such a great job of this until meeting Vixie, a fellow fox. She's Tod's new friend, but his friendship with Copper is put to one final test before the film's conclusion. This film had an interesting attitude towards women, I thought. While Big Momma the owl is thought of by the other animals as wise and all-knowing, even singing her lessons to the other animals (in singer Pearl Bailey's voice) at times, Tod's owner Widow Tweed is called a 'meddling female' by the hunter Amos Slade. He also calls her 'female' and 'woman' as he blows his top at her and her mischievous fox. Tod himself, upon first meeting Vixie, calls her a 'silly, empty-headed female'. It's interesting that he thinks of her that way. Also, there is the fact that Tod's mother abandoned him at the start of the film and this made me think the character is supposed to resent females. He feels further abandoned when the female he does trust, Widow Tweed, leaves him on his own in the forest. Maybe the hunter feels the same way. He's alone, aside from the company of his hunting dogs and he likes to be by himself, so he resents the interference of his widowed neighbor. I enjoyed hearing the voices of the recognizable voice cast, most of them Disney Legends who had contributed voice work and in some cases, live-action work, to different films in the studio's library over the years. Mickey Rooney ("Pete's Dragon") played Older Tod and Kurt Russell (whose Disney legacy includes films too numerous to mention) played Older Copper. Paul Winchell ("Tigger" from the Winnie the Pooh films) voiced a wacky woodpecker doing his best to capture a green caterpillar for his breakfast in a small subplot and Winchell's Winnie the Pooh costar John Fiedler ("Piglet") who died a day after Winchell in 2005, voiced a timid porcupine who took Tod in during his rainy first night in the forest alone. Sandy Duncan (the live-action studio film "Million Dollar Duck") voiced Vixie and John McIntire (seen in the live-action "Herbie Rides Again") voiced an angry badger who turned Tod away before the porcupine came to the rescue. And lastly, Pat Buttram (heard in everything from "The Aristocats" to "Robin Hood" to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?") played Chief, the older hunting dog who resents young Copper, the new dog in town. This film, always one of my favorite Disney classics, was a lot of fun to revisit. Luckily, there are more Disney classics in the Netflix queue waiting for me to rediscover them.

Touched By A 'Christmas Angel'

"I'm not an angel." Della Reese, arguably one of TV's most famous angels from her nine-year stint on one of my favorite TV shows, "Touched By An Angel", barks this at a curious little girl several times in what is certainly not the first and probably not the last movie called "Christmas Angel" (2012). The little girl lives with her single and happy that way mother (Teri Polo, from the "Meet the Parents" films) across the street from a decrepit house with boarded up windows and a strange glow coming from behind the boards. Reese's character, a grumpy former jazz diva, a role I've seen her play on episodes of TV's "Picket Fences" and "That's So Raven" (two more favorite shows of mine), lives inside the otherwise uninhabited eyesore. The young girl, Olivia, convinces her friend and classmates to place wishes in a self-created box outside of the house and those wishes will come true in time for Christmas. Her own personal Christmas wish is that her mother will get a husband. Her fiercely independent, sports-loving mom doesn't really show any interest in finding anyone, until a doctor (Kevin Sorbo, formerly TV's Hercules) shows up. He owns the house with the strange glow, the one that appears to be granting wishes. Olivia's friend, Lucas, tries to plead Dr. Nathan's case, saying "he's a doctor, I thought girls liked doctors", but Olivia sets her sights on other men for her mom until realizing Nathan just may be the one. Nathan comes with his own baggage, past and present, that prevents him from truly wooing Olivia's mom, which feeds Olivia's own mistrust of the man. The movie was less than two hours long, but I thought it crammed a lot of small subplots and characters into that time and most of them didn't get resolved or if they did, it was all too quickly before the credits rolled.  Issues like alcoholism, throat cancer, kidney transplants and a mother-daughter reunion took place, but most of these themes seemed unnecessary to me when compared with the larger story of the mysterious house and the wishes that were being granted. I won't give anything away by saying which specific characters were affected by these issues. The actress who played Olivia, Izabela Vidovic, gave a great performance, I thought, and I usually don't like the performances of child actors, especially in sentimental Christmas movies like this one. Della Reese got to sing a little bit in this movie, which is something I always enjoyed when she did it on "Touched By An Angel." This was a good movie and one that apparently aired on the same Christian TV network as "The Heart of Christmas" (2011), which I watched last week. God is mentioned in this movie several times, including by Reese, which coupled with the angel talk made me have major "Touched By An Angel" deja vu. Several characters also hold hands and say grace before eating and Olivia prays before drifting off to sleep. It doesn't get any more wholesome and family friendly than that.

Missing

Nathan (Taylor Lautner, the "Twilight" movies) is a typical teenager and the star of 2011's "Abduction." He lays back on the hood of the car while his friend cruises down the street a la something out of "The Dukes of Hazzard", attends out of control parties and wakes up shirtless and drunk on the lawn the next morning, and finds himself dealing with a strict father and more sympathetic mother. His father (Jason Isaacs, "Nine Lives") spars several rounds with Nathan in his hungover state to teach him discipline. It is said that Nathan has rage issues and the boxing with his father and wrestling at school help him to deal with those issues and so do sessions with a caring therapist (Sigourney Weaver, "Aliens"). When assigned to do a 10 page research paper (who didn't love those in school?) about missing people with his pretty female neighbor (Lily Collins, "Mirror, Mirror"), he finds a picture of a boy that looks like himself on a missing kids website. The missing kids website is a cover for a group of Serbian criminals dealing in stolen government secrets. When agents come to the house looking for encrypted documents containing these secrets, Nathan's "mother" (Maria Bello, "A History of Violence") and "father" are killed. His therapist helps him to get away from the criminals even though he is also being trailed by the head of the CIA (Alfred Molina, "Spiderman 2"), who states "the currency of this war is information" (the documents Nathan has that the criminals want). When Nathan comes face to face with Koslow (Michael Nyqvist, an actor I've never heard of before), the head of the criminal group, the man threatens to kill everyone from Nathan's boring teachers to all his Facebook friends to get what he wants. This is also the same man who, when meeting Nathan at a Pirates game to talk about the documents, says "I don't understand this game at all, but I like popcorn" as he munches away. I won't give away any more of the plot or the ending. It's somewhat complicated, but not terribly so, however, I don't want to reveal anything else to ruin anything. I liked how Nathan's exasperated father in one scene mumbled the word "teenagers" as so many parents have done before him, but the CIA head does the same thing and uses the word "kids". Clearly, Nathan is a teenager, but it's interesting that he is referred to as a kid and in a movie of this sort you do expect someone older to be the leading actor (someone like Bruce Willis maybe or more recently, Liam Neeson). When Nathan's friend Karen goes to kiss him, she remarks "and no braces, either" which also references to the "kids vs teenagers" theme. Most kids would have braces whereas a teenager may not anymore. She happened to be referring to an encounter they had when they were younger. I enjoyed this movie. What started out as a "face-on-the-milk-carton" movie turned into a nice edge-of-your-seat thriller where no one was who they seemed. I'm sure "Twilight" fans will appreciate the fact that Taylor Lautner has a shirtless scene in the film. Oh yeah and he cries in one scene, tears running down his face as he says "I was dreaming about [my parents]", the same parents who were just bumped off. Aww, buff and sensitive, what a combination.

A Close to Home Christmas Story

The 2011 TV movie "The Heart of Christmas" isn't just any sickly sweet Christmas movie like the ones found on Hallmark and ABC Family every December. It is sweet at times, but also very sad, and it's based on a true story. It's based on the true story of a little boy who lived not far from me in Washington, Illinois. Dax Locke, a cancer patient, spends month after month in the hospital going through chemotherapy and radiation. His overwhelmed mother, Julie, finds support from other mothers whose children are also struggling with the big "C." She finds even more support from St. Jude's Children's Hospital, which takes care of her son as he fights the disease. Her neighbors also come to the rescue helping to speed Christmas up a couple of months early because Julie doesn't think Dax will live to see his second Christmas. The only real stars of the movie are Candace Cameron Bure ("Full House"), still as beautiful as ever, as an overworked wife and mom who finds herself touched by Dax's story and tells Julie this during a vigil; and George Newbern ("Father of the Bride") as a sympathetic doctor, or as he refers to himself, "a tone-deaf Jewish doctor" during a round of Christmas carols outside of the family's home. A less caring doctor steps in to help the family through the most serious parts of their ordeal and Julie's mom (the actress playing her looks to be nearly the same age or only a few years older than Julie herself) is there to offer love and support at those difficult times. Matthew West, the singer of the film's theme song (also called "The Heart of Christmas") also has a small role as one of the neighbors who helps decorate the Locke's house for Christmas in late October. The movie is very sad, but inspirational as well. It gives hope and teaches a great lesson, which is 'cherish the moment'. I especially enjoyed it because I know people that know Julie Locke and are familiar with the Locke's story. It definitely hit close to home.

'Cry' Me a River

70's leading lady Susan Blakely ("The Towering Inferno") stars as Polly, a frazzled single mom and speed addict in "A Cry for Love" (1980). In addition to balancing kids and an unsatisfying job as a radio host, she attempts to write a book about self-discovery. Her pill habit runs her life, allowing her to balance the mothering, radio-hosting and writing. When the money runs out, she runs to Daddy (a 'special appearance by' Gene Barry), a wealthy movie producer. Stumbling around on a beach after a party where she has scored more pills, she literally trips over Powers Boothe ("Deadwood") as a man very far off the wagon. He stays over and they begin a relationship. She experiences the highs and lows of her addiction while he is never without an alcoholic drink in hand, even in a bumper car where he holds a beer in one hand and steers with the other in one scene. He likes Polly and maybe more importantly, he likes the book she's writing that no one else seems to have faith in, not even her father. Despite her own addiction, she tells Boothe's character Tony, 'I like you better when you're sober.' He sees the truth of their mutual situation by telling her 'we're two peas in a pod.' Ultimately, the pills are Polly's downfall, causing her to lose her job (you 'Gloria Steinemed yourself right out of a job' her boss says when she delivers a political rant brought on by her drug high) and to lose face with her kids ('oh, stick it in your ear, Felicia', a mild insult Polly hurls at her daughter during an argument). She and Tony are left to make decisions that will change their lives for the better. This movie came out at the tale end of the 70s, 1980 to be exact, but it looks and feels very much like a 70s movie. Some of the decor in Polly's house has that vintage 70s look and design to it. References to feminist Gloria Steinem and TV talkfest The Mike Douglas Show are mentioned and so is a generic rock band called 'The Know', obviously some kind of riff on 'The Who'. I enjoyed the brief appearances by familiar character actors: Welcome Back, Kotter's Robert Hegyes as a pizza restaurant owner who becomes the victim of one of Polly's pill-fueled outbursts, Lainie Kazan as a guest on Polly's radio show, an author who has written a book on astrology and sexuality ('tell me about your sexuality, er, tell me about your book' Polly says absentmindedly), The Golden Girls' Herb Edelman as Polly's frustrated boss and Patricia Barry (no relation to her onscreen husband Gene Barry) as Polly's caring mother. This was a nice what used to be called 'disease-of-the-week' movie, this one dealing with the disease of drug and alcohol addiction. Very well-acted by two underrated actors, Susan Blakely and Powers Boothe.

Once A Killer, Always A Killer

Only a few years before assuming the role of a serial killer in 1993's "Kalifornia" and 1994's "Natural Born Killers", Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis played an uneducated 15-year-old named Amanda Sue Bradley whose life spirals and involves drugs, prostitution and murder. 1990's "Too Young to Die?", based on a true story, co-starred a young Brad Pitt, Lewis' costar in "Kalifornia", and it was interesting to see two future movie stars in a movie of the week. All the elements were there that led to this girl's downfall: a neglectful mother, a perverted stepfather, a failed marriage at 14. Pitt's hustler character didn't help her situation, forcing her into a job as an exotic dancer, where she met a nice guy soldier ("Caddyshack"'s Michael O'Keefe, I really like him as an actor) with young kids of his own. He claimed he wasn't after what she thought he was after when he let her stay with him, but his commanding officer saw things differently. "L.A. Law" lawyer Michael Tucker stepped in when Amanda Sue was thrown in jail after Mike was murdered and questions about the death penalty and charging a minor as an adult were raised before the credits rolled, so I won't give anything away. Lewis had the child-like qualities down in this role, since Amanda Sue was only 14 and clearly not very intelligent. She asked her lawyer for "candy-covered chocolate" that her absentee mother gave her when she was sick and she quickly became attached to the soldier's daughter's purple bunny, to say nothing of her closeness with the soldier's kids. Someone even referred to her as "15 going on 5". I liked the whole Midwest landscape of the movie. It took place in Oklahoma and you saw construction sites, trailer parks and other familiar landmarks of this part of the world in the film. Brad Pitt had a sizable role as the troublemaker who caused Amanda's life to take an ugly turn, but Lewis was really the star of this movie, although I did think she was a little over-the-top in some of the loud, emotional crying scenes. She was similarly loud, emotional and child-like in the 1999 film "The Other Sister", which I enjoyed. In that movie, her mother was very overprotective as opposed to being neglectful as was the mother in this film. I had seen parts of this movie on TV many years ago and when watching the whole thing last night, some of the scenes looked familiar to me. I was glad to be able to see the movie in its entirety.

Ready for a 'Close-Up'

A mentally ill mother and her devoted son were the focus of the 1990 TV movie "Extreme Close-Up", which is a movie I had heard good things about in an Entertainment Weekly review and I had wanted to see it for myself. Redheaded Blair Brown played the mother, but not in flashbacks, in video footage shot by her documentary filmmaker wannabe son, David (Morgan Weisser, an actor I'd never heard of before). David nursed many wounds, including skin grafts and the grief that his whole family, including widowed dad Craig T. Nelson (always a great actor, I think), and two younger siblings, all felt since their mother's passing. Nelson's dad character resembled TV's Mike Brady, I thought. He was an architect and a single father, but in this case a recently widowed one, as well. Dinners were burned, clothes filled up the hamper and drinks with female colleagues felt awkward. Nelson did his best to avoid dealing with his wife's condition, but cried openly several times remembering what he'd lost, telling his son 'crying helps it heal.' For David, healing came in the form of examining the many tapes of footage of his mother he had filmed as part of his hobby. He spent his time looking at them trying to understand the depression and paranoia that robbed her of a happy life. David seemed to understand his mother's condition better than anyone, observing 'life is a dark alley sometimes.' She seemed to hear doorbells and expect visitors at the front door when no one was there and she became convinced someone was after her in the forest when she and her family went hiking.  David's friend Laura (Samantha Mathis, an actress I love who appeared in "Little Women" and "Broken Arrow", among other films) attempted to break through his grief to help him cope with his family's tragedy. Ultimately, he let her see and in the footage he captured, he himself was able to see the mother he had always loved, despite her illness. Without giving away the ending, I will say that the great Van Morrison song "Queen of the Slipstream", one of my favorites, can be heard not long before the credits roll.

Without A Hitch

With a film like this, a remake of a classic film, the classic is always the best version, however, I still enjoyed 1998's "Pyscho" remake. One of the main reasons I enjoyed the film was the amazing cast, which included so many of my favorite actors, such as William H. Macy as the suspicious investigator, Julianne Moore as the concerned sister and Philip Baker Hall as the police chief. All three of these actors appeared in the 1999 ensemble film "Magnolia", another film which I highly enjoyed. Vince Vaughn plays creepy well, which is something he also does as a scary stepfather in 2001's "Domestic Disturbance", but instead of looking at all like original Norman Bates Anthony Perkins, Vaughn in some scenes resembled actor Kevin James. I loved the vintage feel of the film. The original film was in black and white, but this film still resembled something from the 60s with the pastel colors and vintage outfits. Macy, as the investigator, wore a hat similar to the one his 1950s era salesman character wore in the 2003 TV movie "Door to Door".  Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963) was somewhat referenced in this film, since Norman's office and the motel rooms were covered with pictures of birds and their stuffed corpses were mounted on the walls. A man resembling Alfred Hitchcock appears in the same scene in which the man himself cameoed in the original film. This film makes Bates out to be more of a perverted peeping tom than the original film does, showing him spying on Marion through a hole in the wall and pleasuring himself as he watches her undress. This is not something that would have been seen in the original film, of course. Nor would Macy have been able to spout lines like 'if it don't gel, it ain't jello' when facts about Marion's disappearance just don't add up. One thing that bothered me about this film is that the original "Pyscho" house was not used as the house in this film. If they can use it for a memorable episode of "Murder, She Wrote" which did indeed happen, then I can't imagine why it wouldn't be used for an actual reimagining of the original film. Oh well, despite that and other flaws associated with the remake of a classic film, this one wasn't bad. Again, so many great actors were in this and I loved seeing them all. Rita Wilson as a perky office girl, Robert Forster as a psychiatrist, Viggo Mortensen as the macho boyfriend, the late Chad Everett as one of Marion's clients, and even Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers as Mortensen's coworker, all made this one fun to watch.

C'mon Join the 'Joyride'

A young Melanie Griffith, Robert Carradine and Desi Arnaz Jr. starred as carefree rebels in Joyride (1977). Quitting their blue-collar jobs and heading for Alaska to start fresh wasn't as easy as they thought it would be. While the guys got drunk in the local bar, the girl wrangled jobs for them at the local pipeline. She refused to get a job there herself, knowing she would have to go the extra mile with the supervisor if she wanted a job, so waitressing paid the bills. Struggling to make ends meet, the trio took advantage of an in-progress store robbery committed by others to load their shopping cart with various cuts of meat and to make a getaway while the police apprehended the real criminals. Crime seemed to be the best option for the trio to make extra money, although none of them were a good shot with a gun. 'It must be the wind', Griffith said. 'There isn't any wind,' Carradine explained. The group were intimidated right out of their jobs by the locals, one of whom threatened 'it's really terrible what happens to tourists.' At their lowest, they were forced to eat 88 cent dog food out of the cans while freezing in an old shed and to engage in drunken pissing contests to earn a few hundred dollars. A pretty pipeline payroll philly (say that ten times fast) caught Scott's (Arnaz Jr.) eye and ended up as the group's hostage when they robbed the place. She wasn't your typical hostage, however, engaging in fun times with the law-breaking trio. The 'joyride' continued as the group grew tired of Alaska and set its sights on Canada as their new destination. This was an interesting late-70s crime movie, complete with nudity from both the female leads and minimal violence. I didn't think what was supposed to pass for Alaska looked much like that frozen state and I'm sure it probably wasn't filmed there, but who knows? An interesting piece of trivia is that all four of the film's main stars are the offspring of legendary Hollywood stars from the past: Melanie Griffith is the daughter of 'The Birds' star Tippi Hedren, Robert Carradine is the son of veteran horror film star John Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jr. is the son of comedians Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and Anne Lockhart (the pipeline payroll hostage) is the daughter of 'Lassie' and 'Lost in Space' star June Lockhart.

A 'Current' Event

Joseph Fiennes ("Shakespeare In Love" (1998)) found himself "Against the Current" (2009) in this great independent film I just watched tonight. He played Paul, a man grieving the sudden death of his wife and unborn daughter five years earlier who decides to swim the length of the Hudson River to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. At the end of the trip, he planned to end his life, not feeling that his pain was ever going to go away. As he made his way through the cold waters, he was accompanied by boat by his sarcastic friend Jeff (Justin Kirk) and Liz, a lonely female friend from their local bar. They tried to make him see that he had a lot to live for and with more time, he would heal. Despite his sudden closeness to Liz, he felt he had nothing left to live for because his family (whom he thought of as his wife and daughter, but whom Liz thought of as his parents when they talked about 'family') were all gone. A discussion was had about whether donuts existed in Heaven or whether people who took their own lives even ended up there. Paul managed to have enthusiasm for life's little pleasures even when he knew he wouldn't, by choice, be around much longer. Jeff, acting on Paul's sudden craving, said to some local fisherman in one scene, "We're looking for hot dogs." The older fisherman said "I don't have any" and Jeff replied "Fair enough." This cracked me up. There was a lot of funny dialogue and moments in this movie, and some of that came from the great Mary Tyler Moore, in a nice cameo as Liz's eccentric and nosy mother. She babbled on about the large, grand houses in her neighborhood and the scandalous histories of the previous owners. She encouraged her single daughter to remain that way and not to be held down by marriage or a family, much like her own most well-known character, Mary Richards, on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." She pushed Paul to reveal his plans post-swimming victory, saying "People don't just do nothing. You have to do something." She also believed Paul was "gooing" on her when joking with her until her more aware daughter explained the word is "goofing." Not since 1996's "Flirting With Disaster" has Mary Tyler Moore been so amusing as a clueless mother. This was a great 'current' movie.

Only A Couple of (Unshaved) Pits in 'Cherry'

Cherry (2010) is about a college freshman named Aaron (Kyle Gallner, a young actor I've enjoyed in "Red" (2008), "A Haunting In Connecticut (2009) and in several TV appearances) who meets a colorful cast of characters upon breaking free from the grasp of his cold, aloof mother and timid father. Aaron's roommate is a typical, horny guy who is always busy behind closed doors. Aaron is polite, educated and preppy. He keeps busy in an engineering class by working out an equation and a project that shows how man can 'walk on water.' He keeps even busier juggling the various women he meets on campus. A quiet coed seems like a good match, but her non-interest in shaving her body hair drives him away. He finds himself involved in a tug-of-war between an older woman, a lady in her mid-30s returning to school, and her feisty, angsty daughter. Both women are drawn to the former Boy Scout (he's polite and preppy after all), but one is too old and one is too young. He can't commit to either one, but he knows he cares about them. Issues are complicated by Aaron's mother's reaction to his relationship with this woman and her daughter and also by the presence of the older woman's volatile cop boyfriend (Esai Morales, "La Bamba"), whom the daughter despises. Things work themselves out as the boy navigates through them, attempting to literally walk on water, waiting for his teacher's approval. I enjoyed this movie, although some of the characters and situations seemed cliched, especially for a movie like this, about a naive freshman entering school and a whole new world for the first time. I haven't yet seen "The Perks of Being A Wallflower", but I would imagine that movie and this one might share some similar themes. As tied up as the cherry stem in anyone else's mouth but his own (since he lacks the talent for tying them), that's how tangled Aaron's freshman year is and how tangled it becomes.

De Plane!! De Plane!! De Pain!! De Pain!!

Cheryl Ladd played a strong female character that seemed like one out of a Lifetime movie in Aftermath (1990), an airplane disaster movie that dealt more with, you guessed it the aftermath, then with the disaster itself. The film touched on topics like "crib death" ("go ahead, you can say it", Ladd says to a friend afraid to bring up the subject) and "pilot error". The latter term was thrown around a lot due to the fact that her husband, one of the pilots and one of the few survivors of the crash, was due to take the fall for that very reason. As any good wife would do, Ladd fought to prove her husband's innocence by insisting there was a fire on board which brought the plane down. There were obstacles, of course, along the way, including a driven and determined reporter (played by Jim Metzler, also a star in a 1998 airline disaster film called "A Wing and a Prayer") asking tough questions about her husband's past. I'll admit I enjoy these 'women-in-peril' films that often appear on Lifetime now and Cheryl Ladd has filled her resume with plenty of them. This one is very good and also very touching in some scenes, especially the ones involving an elderly survivor of the crash who is mourning the loss of his wife. This movie was also more believable than most airplane disaster movies because it involved real drama and the very real ramifications and consequences of the pilot's flying of the plane.

Not A Weak 'Weeks'

One of my favorite actresses, Sally Field, played the matriarch of a family of adult children, who is dying of cancer in "Two Weeks" (2006). Seeing her in this role reminded me a lot of her role on TV's "Brothers and Sisters", which is one of my favorite shows and which also premiered in 2006. On that show, as in this film, she is the mother of very different, very independent adult children. I also saw similarities between this film and "Steel Magnolias" (1989), which also starred Sally Field. In that film, her daughter is dying of cancer, while in this film it is she who is dying from the disease. In this film, she is not alone, receiving love and care from her children and less of that from her second husband. Her friends make tuna casseroles that most of her kids hate and come to comfort her and remember old times. My favorite moments were when Field answers questions asked by her documentary filmmaker son as he films her with his camera. He asks questions like who is her favorite of her four children and does she have regrets? It was nice to see her smile and be happy talking about her life while the more grim scenes showed her fighting so bravely to cling to life.  Field's children didn't even grieve or emote while she was dying, but only after she was gone which I found interesting. This was a sad movie with great dialogue that was very meaningful, but I didn't cry watching this as I thought I would as I often do watching these kinds of movies. It was a comedy as much as it was a drama, though, and the movie did make me laugh on a few occasions. I remember wanting to buy this for my own mom for her birthday or Christmas, but I never did. I'm glad I finally got the chance to see it, though.

Within 'Reach'

"Reach for Me" (2008) starred Seymour Cassel, an Oscar-nominated actor who I've seen in a handful of films such as "Dick Tracy" (1990) and "Trees Lounge" (1996), as a cranky, dying old man sharing a hospice room with a not so cranky, also dying younger man. That really is the movie right there. LeVar Burton ("Roots", "Reading Rainbow") directed this movie and also costars as a gay male nurse, who in one scene paints his toenails what appeared to be a dark shade of green. Lacey Chabert ("Mean Girls") starred as the girlfriend of the dying younger man and even gets the chance to sing what I would say is the film's theme song (remember when movies had those?). She sings it quite well, too. Adrienne Barbeau (TV's "Maude") played another patient in the hospice who tickles Cassel's fancy when he starts going for walks around the place instead of staying in bed. Barbeau looked older with gray hair in this film, but that seemed to be something she did only for the film. As far as I know, she hasn't gone gray yet. One scene featuring Barbeau that might have been a turn-on twenty years ago was heartbreaking as she entered the tub room, revealing the top half of her body and also the reason she was at the hospice in the first place. Alfre Woodward ("Scrooged"-I love that one), who is always entertaining, played Cassel's nurse and one of her best lines directed at her cranky patient was 'Alvin, aren't you a little long in the tooth for a booty call?' I enjoyed this movie and although it was supposed to be a bit of tearjerker in some scenes, especially at the end, I didn't tear up like I usually do.

'Room' With A (Very Dangerous) View

Neil Patrick Harris, post-"Doogie Howser M.D." and pre-"How I Met Your Mother" starred as a loner outcast who is tormented by a sadistic bully at an alternative school for troubled kids in "Animal Room" (1995). It's interesting to see Harris as anything but the hip, popular character he plays now in movies, tv shows, awards shows and on and on. A pre-"Scream" Matthew Lillard played the bully and sported a hairdo very similar to Demi Moore's in the movie "Ghost" (1990). When he had his head turned down in some scenes, I kept thinking he would lift it up and I'd be staring at Demi Moore instead of Matthew Lillard. "7th Heaven's" wholesome mom Catherine Hicks played Harris' alcoholic one in this movie and Amanda Peet appeared as the girlfriend of one of the kids at the alternative school. I read that the movie was somewhat modeled after "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and although I've not seen that movie in its entirety, there is a scene in "Animal Room" that was very reminiscent of a scene I did see in "A Clockwork Orange." One thing I liked about the movie is that it took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There were several scenes of the boardwalk, although they didn't play a major role in the film. It was still nice to see them. And it was nice to see this movie, too. I had never heard of it before.

This One Was Kind of 'Corny' But I Liked It

I watched 1996's "Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering" tonight for the first time and just in time for Halloween, too. I've only seen the original "Children of the Corn" (1984) and none of the sequels up to this point. My main reason for wanting to see this film was to see the supporting roles of two of my favorite actors, quirky cult actress Karen Black, playing another hysterical wacko in this movie (in this case, an agoraphobe with gory premonitions), and the late, great Willliam Windom, once again playing a doctor, after his stint of many years as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on one of my favorite tv shows, "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Future Oscar nominee Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Drive", "21 Grams") is the star of this movie and she looks beautiful and gives a good performance, when you consider what she has to work with. She also uses an American accent in this one, as she has done several times since, even though she's Australian. The movie certainly has that whole hot, sticky Southern atmosphere down well. I enjoyed this one.