Category: Nichols, Mike

Reel 29: Pictures From a Revolution

There was a time, once, when movies had to have a certain look.

They needed to be bright so they’d look good at the drive-in theater. They needed to have a specific sound because of technical limitations when presented. They needed to avoid certain topics. They needed to tone down the graphic violence. They needed something else to complete the Rule of Threes.

But filmmakers began to chafe under those rules, and while 1967 wasn’t the year that everything changed—we’d argue that it was a more gradual thing over the few preceding years—it’s pretty much the year that the dam finally broke. That was definitely acknowledged during the Academy Awards, when In The Heat of the Night, a gritty crime drama with a heavy message involving racism, won the Best Picture Award. But also notable were some of the losers: Bonnie and Clyde, Dr. Doolittle, The Graduate, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. While Dinner also had a racism angle to it, it was still a very conventional film that had some weird problems (not the least of which is that some of the legal issues that were raised became moot about two days after the film was released). Doolittle was nominated despite being a critical and financial failure.

But Bonnie and Clyde, and The Graduate, were something different. While they didn’t win, the fact that they were nominated at all represented a sea change in the way that Hollywood perceived Hollywood, and it began to reflect in the years that followed, as the language of film changed. And that’s what we’re looking at in this overstuffed episode.

First we’ll talk about Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. It’s a modern-day fable version of the story of a pair of criminals and how they met a violent end. Don’t take it as a strictly biographical film, but more like The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde.

Then we turn our attention to The Graduate, Mike Nichols’ film starring Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross. Nowadays many people think of this film as the stars’ film debut, but they’d both been in several films before. However, this was certainly the one that put them on everyone’s map.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

In our next episode we check out two very different views of films based on the work of Elmore Leonard. First we’ll be chatting about Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Pam Grier plus a bunch of nobodies (heh). And then it’s on to Out of Sight (1998), directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Neither of them really burned up the box office but they’re both a great ride. 

Reel 19: War is Absurd

Sean went to Boston to visit family. I went to Nashville for a podcasting conference. He and I have had a hectic couple of weeks. But we’re back and better than ever, baby, as we take on a pair of comedies that outline just how insane war can be.

Our first entry is 1933’s Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey and starring The Marx Brothers. This was the last film in which Zeppo appeared, and also their last for Paramount Pictures. It not only pokes fun at various forms of nationalism, but the relatively small things that can lead a country into war.

From there we move on to 1970 and Mike Nichols’ Catch-22, starring Alan Arkin and a huge cast of (mostly) newcomers. The viewpoint here is just how out-of-control things can get once you’re in the thick of it, to the point of American planes bombing their own airbase because that’s how the deal went down.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Our next two films take place during the Great Depression, but fortunately they’re not designed to drag you down into a depression of your own. We’re looking at 1941’s Sullivan’s Travels, directed by Preston Sturges. It’s a comedy that takes a weird turn early on. We’re also checking out O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2000 entry by the Coen Brothers. It may or may not be a lift from Homer’s Odyssey. (Spoiler: it is.)

Reel 7: Sorkinfest, Part 2

Aaaand, we’re finally back, thank goodness.

SorkinFest continues with the two films that Aaron Sorkin wrote after his series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was cancelled after only one season. (Interestingly, the same people who seemed kind of disappointed in Studio 60 as it aired are viewing it a little more generously in retrospect.)

First we take a look at 2007’s Charlie Wilson’s War, the more-or-less true story of Congressman Charlie Wilson of Texas, who manages to almost single-handedly drum up political and financial support for the Afghan people in their battle against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This was Mike Nichols’ last theatrical film, and it was a great film to go out on.

We then move on to 2010’s The Social Network, directed by David Fincher. This film doesn’t hew quite as closely to the way it all went down in real life, but you do get the broader outlines of the story without casting a specific good guy or bad guy, and in that respect it’s a strong movie that’s easy to follow despite its non-linear structure.

Coming Attractions: Reel 8 will feature a pair of biographical films Sorkin worked on: Steve Jobs (2015) and Sorkin’s directorial debut, Molly’s Game (2017). Both films are available for streaming on Netflix, and can be rented or purchased through the usual outlets.