Category: 1980

Reel 76: The Gangster Film as Allegory

This episode and the previous episode have something in common, besides the word “allegory”. All of these films are specifically anti-Capitalism allegories based in genre films. Last week it was Westerns; this week it’s Gangster films. And the only reason I didn’t put that in the episode title is because that’s a LOT of words to put in your metadata.

We begin with The Long Good Friday (1981), directed by John Mackenzie and starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. While Hoskins had been around for a bit, this was pretty much his breakout role, and he does a terrific job with it, because he’s Bob Hoskins. Helen Mirren, as well, manages to elevate her role from someone who could easily be so much window dressing. But, of course, we talk about that in Part 1 of the episode. Likewise, I’m sure it’ll come up somewhere in Sean’s review when he posts it here.

From there we go to 1980’s Thief, starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld, and directed by Michael Mann. Now, if you’ve been paying close attention you may have a question. “Hey!” you’ll say. “Don’t you usually review the films in chronological order?” Well, yes, we do. But in this case The Long Good Friday was completed in 1979 and wasn’t released until 1981, so we flipped the order this time around.

At any rate, Caan plays a safecracker trying to get out of his life of crime, and Weld is his wife. And just like his filmic “brother” Al Pacino, just when he thinks he’s out, they pull him back in. But perhaps he knows a way to get out for good.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

I’ve actually been looking forward to this one for awhile, because I unabashedly love both of these films. Unfortunately, they’ve had an interesting side effect that likely wasn’t attended. We start with 1939’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and it’s a discussion that could easily have gone on for twice as long but (believe it or not) we DO have some restraint. From there it’s The Accidental Tourist, from 1988, and there’s an interesting story I tell about my experience seeing this one in the theater, long before I moved to the film’s setting of Baltimore. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 39: You Can Like Both, Part 4

Even if they haven’t seen it, most people know a little something about The Big Chill, the film released in 1983 that was directed and co-written by Lawrence Kasdan: a bunch of thirty-something types get together and stuff happens. And of course that’s true, but it’s also true that it goes a little deeper than that.

But what most people don’t know is that The Big Chill had a predecessor with a similar theme going on: 1980’s Return of the Secaucus 7, written and directed by John Sayles. This one deals with a slightly younger crowd, perhaps just on the cusp of turning 30, as they gather for a weekend event.

Now, if you’re a film buff you probably know that Secaucus 7 is a little more dramatic and The Big Chill is a little more comedic. But both groups have some old baggage that they need to work through. And for the most part we feel some resolution at the endings, even if they’re not necessarily the ones we thought the characters were going to have.

And, of course, there are plenty of people who vastly prefer one film over the other (as in, it’s not even close). But the fact is, You Can Like Both. The other fact is, we do like both. And at least this time around we can understand why there’s a comparison to be made (still looking at you, Reel 37).

Our recent decision to release an episode in two parts proved to be rather popular, since we’ve been getting into Epic Length shows lately. So what you’ll see in the future is more of the same: both halves will be released back-to-back, so that you can listen to each segment at your leisure. Plus it should make the downloading go a little bit more quickly.

Now, over the next couple of episodes we’ll still be talking as though there’s going to be a break and then immediate resumption of the show, unless Claude can get clever about patching in some new audio (as he was–nearly–for this one). Then once we’ve used up that backlog of episodes (three more, I think), we’ll be speaking more conventionally about the whole Part 1 and Part 2 of it all.

So if you listen through your podcatcher, you should still get stuff in order. And if you listen here, you’ll see that there are two links to click on (rather than one) in order to get the entire episode.