June 5 - My Left Foot

Today’s movie is a biographical drama with scenes that happen on June 5. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

MY LEFT FOOT                     

Christy Brown is taken to a charity event and meets his handler, a nurse named Mary Carr. She starts to read his autobiography. Christy Brown was born handicapped on June 5, 1932. [6:56 to 8:57] He could not walk or talk, but was loved and supported by his family, especially his mother. When his mother has a stroke, Christy gets help. His father who had never really believed in him becomes a supporter when Christy, age ten, uses his left foot(the only part of his body he can really control) to write the word ‘mother’ with a piece of chalk on the floor. The family celebrate his seventeenth birthday [28:47 to 30:08]. Christy starts painting. He is included by the young people in his neighborhood in their activities such as playing street soccer and even sessions of ‘spin the bottle’. However, when he paints a picture and gives it to a girl he likes, she returns it to him. His father is laid off from his job and times become really tough. Christy, to his mother’s dismay comes up with a plan where his brothers are able to steal coal.  Christy’s elder sister, who was always very nice to him gets pregnant and has to get married and leave home. Christy’s mother who had hidden her savings in a tin in the fireplace finally saves enough to buy him a wheelchair. He meets Dr.  Eileen Cole, who takes him to her school for cerebral palsy patients and persuades a friend of hers to hold an exhibition of Christy’s art. However, at a dinner afterwards he learns she is engaged to be married. Christy considers suicide. He and his mother build Christy his own private studio, but his father soon thereafter dies of a stroke. His wake degenerates in to a bar room brawl started by Christy.  Christy starts writing his autobiography, My Left Foot. Dr. Cole returns and they resume their friendship. Meanwhile, at the fete Christy asks Mary Carr to go out with him and they leave the fete together. An onscreen message tells us they later got married.     

A very uplifting film that you should watch if you’re feeling depressed. Afterwards you should be thankful for how small your problems really are. Daniel Day-Lewis certainly deserved his Oscar for bringing out Christy Brown’s personality without using words. 

Christy Brown: The Life That Inspired My Left Foot by Georgina Louise Hambleton (Mainstream Publishing, London, 2007) at page 20 gives his birthdate

Awards – The film won the Best Actor  (Day-Lewis) and Best Supporting Actress (Fricker) Oscars. The film was also nominated for the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars at the 62^nd Academy Awards.

Screenplay - Jim Sheridan and Shane Connaughton

Producer - Noel Pearson                        

Director - Jim Sheridan        

                                

Runtime – 1 hour 43 minutes     

Released  - February 24, 1989                                                           

Starring –

Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown

Brenda Fricker as Bridget Brown

Ray McAnally as Paddy Brown

Fiona Shaw as Dr. Eileen Cole

Kirsten Sheridan as Sharon Brown

Alison Whelan as Sheila Brown

Hugh O'Conor as young Christy Brown

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.

June 4 - Rapid Fire

Today’s movie is a martial arts crime drama with a scene that happens on June 4. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

RAPID FIRE            

Antonio Serrano, a mafia drug distributor travels to Thailand to visit his long-time heroin supplier Kinman Tau. Serrano is having troubles and wants to make himself Tau’s silent partner, but his request is not granted. Meanwhile, on June 4, 1991 [7:56 to 20:50] Jake Lo, an art student in LA passes a protest condemning the Tiananmen Square massacre, where his father was killed.  Jake is tricked into attending a party with Chinese pro-democracy activists. At the party, Jake sees Serrano killing party sponsor Carl Chang, an associate of Tau. He has to use his martial arts skills to survive. Jake is blackmailed into cooperating with the FBI and placed in protective custody. They take him to Chicago to testify against Serrano. Some of the agents watching him are corrupt and try to kill Jake, who manages to escape again by using his martial arms talent. Another effort to kill Jake is prevented by Lieutenant Mace Ryan, a Chicago cop who has been after Tau for 10 years. Ryan blackmails Stewart, the remaining corrupt FBI agent to help Ryan get Tau and he blackmails Jake, who is wanted for killing two FBI agents into helping him. A meet where Stewart delivers Jake to Serrano goes wrong and Stewart is killed. Jake has to use his martial arts abilities to escape and captures Serrano. Jake gets pissed when he learns Ryan already cleared him and decks him.  One of Ryan’s subordinates, Detective Karla Withers, gets the Army intelligence file on Jake’s father who was an agent. She and Jake have a romantic interlude. Ryan’s effort to intercept Tau’s drug shipment at his laundry is unsuccessful, but one of Tau’s henchmen penetrates the jail and kills Serrano. Karla persuades Jake to help Ryan get Tau in an unofficial operation.  Jake wears a wire into the laundry, posing as a worker.  Tau grabs Withers and Ryan. Jake saves the day and Tau is killed trying to get way from Jake. Jake goes back into the burning laundry to bring out an injured Ryan.

A passable martial arts film. The fights are believable and realistic. A pretty good crime drama. The romance between Jake and Kate seems out of place in this film. Still it’s entertaining, as long as you don’t expect an Oscar winning film.

Great Events From History, The 20^th Century, 1971-2000, Vol. 4 1985-1990 ed by  Robert F. Gorman (Salem Press, Pasadena, Ca, 2008) p. 2318

Producer - Robert Lawrence

Director - Dwight H. Little

Screenplay - Cindy Cirile and Alan McElroy

Runtime – 1 hour 35 minutes

Released – August 21, 1992

Starring –

Brandon Lee as Jake Lo

Powers Boothe as Lieutenant Mace Ryan

Nick Mancuso as Antonio Serrano

Raymond J. Barry as Agent Frank Stewart

Kate Hodge as Karla Withers

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014. 

June 3 - I Shot Andy Warhol

Today’s movie is a biographical drama with scenes that happen on June 3. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

I SHOT ANDY WARHOL             

On June 3, 1968 Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol [1:39 to 2:07]. While his friends hold a premature wake, the police interrogate Solanas. She has been committed and a nurse recounts Solana’s case history. She was born in a troubled family, including sexual abuse. At boarding school she had a lesbian encounter and considered herself one after that. Solanas got a degree in psychology and moved to New York where she wrote a misandrous and communistic manifesto. She lived with a transvestite, Candy Darling and prostitutes herself to men to earn money.  Through Candy, Solanas is introduced to Andy Warhol and the group of artists around him, collectively called “The Factory”.    She meets Maurice Girodias, a publisher, who gets her to sign a contract to write a pornographic novel. Much of the rest of the film concerns her efforts to get Warhol to produce a play she has written. Solanas hangs around the party scene at the Factory. One of the men she sleeps with has a gun, which she takes. Solanas goes on a TV show to promote her ideology and gets humiliated. She blames Warhol at least in part for this. Finally, on June 3, 1968, she goes to the Factory and shoots Warhol. Leaving the building she hands the gun over to a policeman. [1:28:51 to 1:33:31] Through onscreen print we learn that Solanas was committed for three years while Warhol did survive the shooting. 

           

A very bizarre film. I think even the most ardent feminist will agree that Solanas had serious mental issues. Her passionate hatred of Warhol seemed to have no basis in actual reality.

                

Andy Warhol by Arthur C. Danto (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009) at page 102 gives the date of the shooting

Producer - Tom Kalin and Christine Vachon

Director - Mary Harron

Screenplay - Mary Harron and Daniel Minahan

Runtime – 1 hour 43 minutes

Released – May 1, 1996

Starring –

Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas

Jared Harris as Andy Warhol

Stephen Dorff as Candy Darling

Martha Plimpton as  Stevie

Lothaire Bluteau as Maurice Girodias

Anna Levine as  Iris

Peter Friedman as Alan Burke

Tahnee Welch as Viva

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014. 

June 2 - The Queen's Sister

Today’s movie is a biographical drama with a scene on June 2. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

THE QUEEN’S SISTER                                

George VI dies. Queen Elizabeth II is crowned on June 2, 1953. [2:35 to 3:18]. The royal family lean on Margaret to end her relationship with Peter Townsend or be cut off without a cent. When Margaret can’t persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury side with her, Margaret ends the relationship. She becomes a party girl. She meets Anthony Armstrong-Jones and they begin an affair. When this becomes public they get married in an elaborate ceremony that engenders support from monarchists and criticism for its expense. Cracks soon appear in the marriage. Sometimes Margaret wants to be treated like a royal and other times to be treated like an ordinary person. The couple argue about everything, even the names of their children. The both have affairs while Tony fights back against the upper crust lifestyle Margaret wants to subject their children to. When an affair of Margaret’s becomes very public, she and Tony jet off to a tropic island to present a united front, but this causes criticism of their extravagant lifestyle.  Margaret heads to a friend’s country house to lay low.  She begins an affair with a younger man, Roddy Llewellyn but when this also becomes public Tony divorces her. She is hospitalized to cure her drinking and drug abuse. When she is released she learns Roddy Llewellyn is marrying someone else and is left to ponder her future.

A sad story about a girl who had everything but self-control. Margaret seems to have been on of those people who  always gave in to their sensual pleasures. Of course that brought her nothing but destruction. 

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith (Random House, New York, 2012) at page 79 gives the date of the coronation

Producer - Kath Mattock 

Director - Simon Cellan Jones

Screenplay - Craig Warner

Released - November 27, 2005

Runtime – 1 hour 36 minutes

Starring –

Lucy Cohu as Princess Margaret

Toby Stephens as Tony Armstrong-Jones

David Threlfall as Prince Philip

Aden Gillett as Peter Townsend

Dominic Mafham as Robin Douglas Home

Simon Woods as Roddy Llewellyn

Alex Barclay as Billy Wallace

Edward Tudor-Pole as Cecil Beaton

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.

June 1 - The Pelican Brief

Today’s movie is a political thriller with a scene that happens on June 1. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

THE PELICAN BRIEF             

Two Supreme Court justices are assassinated by Khamel. Darby Shaw, a Tulane University law student, who is having an affair with her professor, Thomas Callahan, investigates their deaths and writes a brief setting out a theory that they were murdered to replace them on the court before an environmental law case involving the President’s biggest political donor, Mattiece reaches the court. Callahan gives the brief to a friend of his, Gavin Verheek, who works for the FBI. Meanwhile Gray Grantham, a newspaper reporter, gets a call from “Garcia”, who says he has info about the deaths, but who never actually hands anything over. The President asks the FBI not to investigate Darby’s theory. Callahan is killed by a car bomb. Darby calls Grantham, and later Verheek. Darby is pursued by Khamel, who has killed Verheek and is impersonating him. She is saved when Khamael is killed by the CIA. Darby finally makes contact with Grantham and they decide their best option is to track down “Garcia”, of whom Grantham has a photo, but not a name. Darby thinks she knows which law firm in DC “Garcia” worked for, so they contact former summer interns, one of whom finally gives them a name, Curtis Morgan. They learn Morgan is dead, supposedly a suicide. His widow gives Darby and Grantham a key to a safety deposit box from which they retrieve an affidavit and a videotape. The pair barely escape a second car bomb and being shot.   The affidavit and tape confirm that Mattiece did order the justices killed. Voyles, the head of the FBI reveals that the President did ask him not to investigate Mattiece. He arranges for Darby to leave the country. On June 1, 1993 she arrives at her destination and reads a copy of that day’s  paper with Grantham’s story exposing the plot. [2:11:17 to 2:14:46] Mattiece and others are indicted and the President rethinks his political future. 

                    

Date given in movie at 2:12:50 on that day’s newspaper if you zoom in

Producer - Alan J. Pakula, Pieter Jan Brugge and Bryan D. Gilchrist

Director - Alan J. Pakula

Screenplay - Alan J. Pakula

Released – December 17, 1993

Runtime – 2 hours 21 minutes

Starring –

Julia Roberts as Darby Shaw, second year Tulane Law School student

Denzel Washington as Gray Grantham, reporter for the fictional ''Washington Herald''

Tony Goldwyn as Fletcher Cole, White House Chief of Staff

Stanley Tucci as Khamel "Sam", international assassin

Sam Shepard as Thomas Callahan, Tulane law school professor

John Heard as Gavin Verheek, special counsel to FBI director; friend to Thomas Callahan

James B. Sikking as F. Denton Voyles, Director of the FBI

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.

May 31 - Cold Turkey

Today’s movie is a comedy with a scene that happens on May 31. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

COLD TURKEY                

Merwin Wren proposes that the tobacco industry offer a town $25 million dollars to quit smoking for 30 days, to create goodwill a la the way the Nobel Peace Prize improved Alfred Nobel’s image, in the certainty that no town can do it. The town of Eagle Rock, Iowa is in the financial dumps because the local air base was closed. Colonel Galloway tells Mayor Wappler and local minister Rev. Brooks that the town needs to improve its industrial, social and educational facilities to get the base re-opened. They of course don’t have the money. Rev. Brooks wants to be re-assigned to Dearborn, Michigan, but his bishop won’t until things improve in Eagle Rock. When they hear about the offer there is a lot of opposition, but some people see the potential to get money for the town. Rev. Brooks becomes the cheerleader for the plan, even though his wife is a secret smoker. Rev Brooks starts smoking again to force a few holdouts to agree to sign the non-smoking pledge. On the last day, May 31, 1971 [31:29 to 44:52] Dr. Proctor is blackmailed into signing the pledge by the threat of foreclosure. The town’s “man-about-town”, Mr. Stopworth is sent out of town for the month. The members of a John Birch society clone agree to sign the pledge if they can enforce compliance. Eagle Rock gets everybody to sign up at the last minute. The tobacco executives are upset at this. Mayor Wappler and his wife start fighting the day the ban begins. All kinds of nuts start descending on the town. Wren goes to Eagle Rock and the smokers start going nuts without smokes. Rev. Brooks becomes a sex fiend with his wife to try and get over not smoking. Tempers flare in the town. Dr. Proctor almost cracks. Newscasters Walter Chronic, David Chetly and Hugh Upson arrive in Eagle Rock. The town starts to profit from billboards and selling souvenirs to the tourists who visit the town. The town council starts fighting over how to spend the money before they even have  the money. On the last night, a citizen proposes dividing the money equally among the town’s citizens. Wren pays to set the town clock ahead and drops cigarettes on the crowd. Dr. Proctor and Wren get accidentally shot. They get the money and the president shows up. The polluting Mercury missile factory moves to the town . 

This is a very dry social humor kind of movie but I do like it. It is full of biting satire that pokes fun at just about everything and everybody. Consumerism, hypocrisy, greed and even TV commercials and news anchors are deftly satirized.

At 22:29 the non-smoking pledge says the non-smoking period will start “beginning at midnight, June 1”.

Screenplay – Norman Lear and William Price Fox

Producer - Norman Lear                       

Director - Norman Lear    

Runtime – 1 hour 39 minutes    

Released - February 19, 1971  

Starring –

Dick Van Dyke as Rev. Clayton Brooks

Pippa Scott as Natalie Brooks

Bob Newhart as Merwin Wren

Vincent Gardenia as Mayor Wappler

Jean Stapleton as Mrs. Wappler

Tom Poston as Mr. Stopworth

M. Emmet Walsh as    Art

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014

May 30 - The Six Wives Of Henry VIII: Part 3 – Jane Seymour

Today’s film is a period drama with a scene that happens on May 30. I hope you will enjoy this motion picture and watch it tonight.

THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII: PART 3 – JANE SEYMOUR                           

A dying Jane Seymour is taken to the christening of her son, Edward. She thinks back on the history of her relationship with Henry VIII. Henry VIII visited her family on a royal progress. Henry later summons Jane to court. Jane reluctantly takes the oath of allegiance to Henry. Henry gives Jane a picture of himself, which arouses the wrath of Queen Anne Boleyn.  Henry is trying to force through a bill to secularize the monasteries. He also has to deal with what he thinks are treasonous plots involving his daughter Mary and the desire of Cromwell to secure an agreement with the Emperor Charles and the Pope.  Cromwell’s plot to get rid of Anne Boleyn succeeds and Henry marries Jane Seymour on May 30, 1536. [49:09 to 49:25] Jane persuades Henry to reconcile with his daughter Mary. The Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion breaks out. Henry and Jane argue when she speaks against the dissolution of the monasteries and in favor of mercy towards the rebels. Jane becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. However she dies only a few days later. Cromwell immediately pushes Henry to remarry. Henry does at least appear to be heartbroken by her death.

                

Jane Seymour was not as pedantic as Catherine of Aragon nor as immoral as Anne Boleyn. She genuinely tried to promote peace, as shown when she persuaded the King to reconcile with his daughter and spoke in favor of mercy for the rebels.  Probably the best of Henry’s queens.

Henry VIII by Lucy Wooding (Routledge, New York, 2009) at page 200 gives the date of the wedding

Awards -     The film won the Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Michell) Emmy award. It was also nominated for the Outstanding   Drama Series, Outstanding New Series, Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a leading role in a dramatic series (Michell) and the Outstanding Single Program, drama or comedy at the 24^th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Producer - Ronald Travers                

Director  - John Glenister                                  

Screenplay - Ian Thorne        

Released - January 15, 1970                                                          

Runtime - 1 hour 30 minutes

Starring –

Keith Michell as Henry VIII of England

Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk

Bernard Hepton as Thomas Cranmer

Sheila Burrel as Lady Rochford

Anne Stallybrass as Jane Seymour

Wolfe Morris as Thomas Cromwell

Daniel Moynihan as Edward Seymour

Alison Frazer as Lady Mary

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.