'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.