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Robert Duvall

5.05 The Roar of the WIDOWS

December 9, 2018 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/5.05-Widows.mp3

When four men are killed on a failed bank heist, their widows are drawn into the criminal underworld to complete the job. Featuring an all-star cast, Steve McQueen’s WIDOWS is a gripping tale of betrayal, courage and power… but why isn’t it making any money? This week, Steve welcomes Julie and Paul Levac to talk about the strength of women and the truth behind the lies.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic or on Spotify! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or more!

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

5.05 Widows

Thanks Julie and Paul for joining us!

Filed Under: Film, Film Festivals, Podcast, TIFF Tagged With: #Metoo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Elizabeth Debicki, Golden Globe, heist film, Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Oscars, Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen, Viola Davis, Widows

Widows: When Lionesses Roar

November 16, 2018 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

What happens when those that are left behind are forced to clean up the mess of those that have left us?

Directed by Steve McQueen, Widows tells the story of a police shootout that leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows — Veronica (Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) — have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses’ criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, Veronica joins forces with the other three women to pull off a heist that her husband was planning.

Though Oscar-winner McQueen is best known for slower paced dramatic fare such as 12 Years A Slave or Shame, he brings a surprising depth to a film which could otherwise dwell in the sub-basement of pulp action films. Co-writing the script with acclaimed author Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), McQueen’s thriller proves to be both gripping and engaging from the outset. Though on paper some may liken the film to this year’s ‘other female heist film’, Ocean’s 8, thankfully the comparisons end there. Widows is a smart, energetic thriller that makes use of an extremely talented cast led with ferocity by Oscar-winner, Viola Davis.

A tight, well-written thrill ride, what is most interesting about a film such as Widows is where it falls in the cultural spectrum. As female-led films have finally begun to be recognized for their success, there seems to have been a theme building momentum where women are encouraged to ‘find their voice’. Recent films such as A Star is Born, The Hate U Give to, yes, Ocean’s 8 have all provided opportunity for women to offer their stories in a male-driven culture. However, if these films serve as cries from the desert, Widows roars like a proud lioness. There is a beautiful but wild energy permeating Widows that reveals the strength, courage and power that women can wield when caught in a world dominated by male-oppression. When we first meet our leads, their identities are tied closely to the men that they love (especially Veronica). However, when threatened by mob boss Jamal Manning to recover the money that their husbands stole from him, they are forced to learn who they are apart from their spouses.

As a result, there is a complexity to these women as they both grieve the loss of their loved ones yet also begin to step out into the light and discover who they are.

From Davis to Debicki (in what may be her breakout role), each female character finds different ways to stand-up against the emotional and physical barriers that have been placed on them by men misusing their power and authority. (With this in mind, it’s no accident that Davis’ Veronica growls that ‘no one thinks [they] have the balls to pull this off.’) Although they find themselves trapped in a ‘man’s game’, these widows prove that their identity and inner strength aren’t decided by a man’s world.

Armed with a whip-smart script and excellent cast, Widows is a film that will surprise you with its depth and emotional punch. Though more popcorn flick than Oscar-fare, the film shows the power of discovering who you are when you’re forced to start over.

Widows is in theatres now.

Filed Under: Film, Film Festivals, Reviews, TIFF Tagged With: #Metoo, Colin Farrell, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, feminism, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen, thriller, Viola Davis, Widows

M*A*S*H – Showing the Folly of the Times

January 5, 2018 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“This isn’t a hospital; it’s an insane asylum!”

I was in college, of prime draft age, when M*A*S*H hit the theaters in 1970. That probably says a lot about what I found so appealing about that film when I first saw it. It also explains why when it played at AFI Fest as part of a Robert Altman retrospective that I felt compelled to see it again and compare it to that first encounter.

The film was somewhat eclipsed by the TV series starring Alan Alda. And it is good to keep the two versions separate. The film version has an entirely different cast (except for Gary Burghoff who played “Radar” O’Reilly in both versions) and a very different tone and outlook than the more lighthearted (though often very poignant) TV series. The film is often described as antiwar (especially since it came out in the midst of the Vietnam War), but it really says less about war per se than about the iconoclasm of that particular time in American history. Even though the film is set in the Korean War, it was almost a given that viewers would read this as commentary on Vietnam.

The film synopsizes itself in a PA announcement at the end of the film:

Attention. Tonight’s movie has been “M*A*S*H.” Follow the zany antics of our combat surgeons as they cut and stitch their way along the front lines, operating as bombs — operating as bombs and bullets burst around them; snatching laughs and love between amputations and penicillin. Follow Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke, Dago Red, Painless, Radar, Hot Lips, Dish and Staff Sergeant Vollmer as they put our boys back together again.

Altman often put together ensembles that were more about the collected talent than any one person being the star. That is certainly true in M*A*S*H. The cast included Donald Sutherland (Hawkeye), Elliot Gould (Trapper John), Tom Skerritt (Duke), Robert Duvall (Frank Burns), Sally Kellerman (“Hot Lips” Houlihan), John Schuck (“Painless” Waldowski), Rene Auberjonoir (Father Mulcahy, aka Dago Red), and many others.

I think what made this film so appealing to a 19-year-old college student was the utter disdain the film had for all institutions. Altman had a reputation for being a maverick or subversive in his films. The military was the main butt of jokes in the film. The doctors were all draftees. All of the regular army officers were pompous and out of touch. They were more concerned with regulations than saving lives. Those who try to do things the Army way are constantly made to look foolish and impotent. At a time when many in this country were becoming increasingly anti-military in response to the war, that resonated strongly.

The film also skewered religion. Religion comes into play in various ways. Frank Burns is a zealot. When Hawkeye and Duke show up as new surgeons they are put into a tent with Burns. He is teaching a local boy to read using the Bible. He prays fervently only to be ridiculed by the other. In time he is shown to be a hypocrite. Father Mulcahy is treated more kindly, but only because he is seen as innocuous. His efforts as a priest are really ineffectual and impotent. It is almost as if he is seen by the doctors as a child. The height of the mocking of religion is the “Last Supper” scene which many may consider as bordering on sacrilege. In it the characters eat a final meal before Painless’s planned suicide. As they gather at a table in a tent, they are positioned exactly like Jesus and the Twelve in DaVinci’s painting.

The film’s anti-religious sentiment was also very much a part of the zeitgeist. Even though I attended a Christian college, this way of seeing religion reflected my own views of the institution of religion. In those days, we wanted to find a simpler expression of faith. This was also the time of the hippy-like Jesus People, and musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, all of which reflected attempts at new ways of understanding Christianity.

But all of these things I expected when I watched the film at AFI Fest. What struck me after nearly fifty years was the extent to which this film objectified women. The women served as the focus of lust. Even those who exhibited some kind of competence (Major Houlihan, Lieutenant “Dish”) all served to make life better for the men in the film. This was especially noteworthy since the day before the screening at AFI Fest, women gathered at Hollywood and Highland for a protest march about sexual harassment in the film industry. I expect that this attitude was also very much in line with the times. Women’s liberation existed only in a nascent form. This film would be criticized today for this treatment of the women characters.

In some ways this film may seem a bit anachronistic. After all the draft has been gone for over forty years. The all-volunteer armed forces are much different than the Vietnam and Korean War versions. And my generation has become a part of many of the institutions that we so wanted to tear down. (Hopefully, we’ve managed to change them more than they have changed us.)

But M*A*S*H still represents an attitude that needs to be a part of our culture. It looks at the foolishness that is nearly always found in things (like war) that demands to be taken seriously. It’s not a bad idea to step back from time to time and make note of the folly around us. And since I’m no longer that young would-be rebel, I (and my generation) may be in line to be the focus of the satire.

Filed Under: #tbt, Film, Reviews Tagged With: AFIFest, Donald Sutherland, draft, Elliot Gould, Gary Burghoff, Korean War, National Film Regisrty, Rene Auberjonois, Robert Altman, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, satire, Vietnam, war

Wild Horses: The Prodigal Father

July 21, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

wildhorsesWesterns, and Robert Duvall films, are in short supply these days. So I was all to eager to dive into Wild Horses, a western film that Duvall wrote, directed, produced, and starred in with James Franco, Josh Hartnett, and Duvall’s real-life wife, Luciana Duvall. What I found was a film that moves as fast as the eighty-four-year-old Duvall, but has some nuggets of wisdom from a lifetime of experience rolled into the mix.

In a shadowy prologue that hides some of the truths of the film in mystery, Scott Briggs (Duvall) chases his son, Ben (James Franco), and a ranch hand off his property when he finds them in a homosexual relationship. Fifteen years later, Ben reluctantly returns to the ranch, at the same time that a U.S. Marshal (Luciana Duvall) shows up investigating the disappearance of the ranch hand. Two stories diverge and converge throughout the film: can the Briggs family relationships be mended, and what happened to that ranch hand?

Duvall the director/writer seems intent on having us understand that sometimes, fathers get it wrong, and that fathers are microcosms of the decision-making in society. Duvall’s Briggs is a Bible-thumper (I think it might actually be a category in Duvall’s mind), akin to the preacher he played in The Apostle. “The Bible says it, and I believe it,” could actually come out of Briggs’ mouth in a way that everything else would fade away. So, Ben is wrong, and that’s all there is to it; because Ben is wrong, Scott can’t love him.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son came to mind as I watched the film, because Hartnett’s son is the “good one,” the elder one who stays home, while Franco’s Ben is the one who runs away. But the story is inverted because it’s actually the father, Scott, who chases Ben away, and it’s the father who needs to ask for forgiveness, to own his sins, and make amends. There’s a bit of ‘end of life’ restitution making, akin to someone who ‘gets’ why they’re in Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time. And the family dynamics are way more interesting than the ‘mystery’ we’re chasing on the other side of script.

Overall, the film is intriguing, but nearly too slow to be maintained. Duvall certainly has some things he’s reflecting on as he gets older, and Wild Horses is no different. Just don’t expect to have everything cleaned up in a nice package for you: life is messy, and wild horses are meant to run free.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: James Franco, Josh Hartnett, Robert Duvall

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