Holiday Movies

To those looking for the weekly legislative update, please be patient. The House alone introduced over 100 items of business this week and it is taking a bit longer than usual to retrieve the summary and figure out how to organize it in such a way that it is easiest to negotiate. A cold is adding to the delay. Check back tomorrow and I hope to have it done.

With the cold weather and post-holiday induced nesting and napping instincts kicking in, let me suggest a few good movies to settle in and watch.

Lion in Winter – not often thought of as a political thriller, this is an excellent visual exercise in getting, keeping, and challenging power, with great acting and a wonderful script thrown in. Peter O’Toole plays Henry II. Katherine Hepburn is his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their oldest son (Anthony Hopkins) grows up to be Richard the Lionhearted. Their youngest is King John. Even the historically ignorant will know those names from the Robin Hood stories. The middle son Geoffrey plays a role in the movie but if you don’t remember him it’s because he died before things got really interesting. Henry and Eleanor are separated (he has her under house arrest at a country estate) and their sons are squabbling over who will be king next. Timothy Dalton (the future James Bond) is the son of the French king, who was once married to Eleanor. One subplot is whether or not Henry will cut off his affair with John’s fiancée, Alice, and ever allow the two to be married. Does it sound like Dallas yet? The plots thicken. The alliances change. All in a very realistic and unromanticized medieval setting. Notice that the water freezes over in the hallways and bowls and the soldiers are sleeping in the great room on straw. There are allusions to the theory that Richard was gay and it is true that he was very seldom in the same country as his wife after they wed and no notable mistresses were kept. He also did very public penance for an unnamed sin. However, there aren’t any references to a royal “favorite” (translation: boytoy head of homeland security ala Jim McGreevey) either and things like that did get noticed and written down (see Edward II, who came to a very nasty end because of his clear preference for Piers Gaveston). It is just as likely that Richard wasn’t that interested in sex at all. No royal bastards are recorded, which was rare, among the happily and unhappily married alike. Even without all this, the movie would be worth watching if only to hear the great Hepburn contemplate hanging her jewelry from her nipples and then decide against it since it might alarm the children. Careful viewers will note the loyal family retainer who is sent to dispatch Richard and is seldom from the side of one or another of the royals. He is William the Marshall and his story is just as, or more, engrossing than that of the conniving Plantagenets. His entire life was devoted to public service, from a boyhood episode being held as a hostage by King Stephen, to serving as the guardian of King John’s son. There are a few books around on him. One of the best (and the shortest) is called William Marshall: The Flower of Chivalry by Georges Duby (he’s French so there is an “s” at the end of the George). It was written some years ago and may no longer be in print but definitely worth getting from the library.

Local Hero – a quick study in getting what you want, with the Scottish seaside thrown in for colorful background. Peter Riegert (who recently played a NJ assemblyman in the Sopranos) works for a Texas oil company, run by Burt Lancaster. He is dispatched to Scotland to quietly buy up the beach so a refinery can be built there. His local contact is innkeep and bartender Gordon Urquhart, played by Denis Lawson. (Local trivia: Lawson also played Wedge, one of the rebel pilots in the original Star Wars movies and made his 1995 American stage debut in Lust at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theater, in one scene his wardrobe consisted solely of a lady’s strategically placed hand). Riegert and Peter Capaldi, who works for the Scottish arm of the oil company, are unaware that the townspeople see them as a golden opportunity to cash in, and would gladly sell their land for as high a price as possible. The entire plan is held up by beach bum Ben, who, as it turns out, owns much of the beachfront property. The scene where Riegert and Lawson walk down to the beach to talk with Ben and make sure the locals don’t let their frustration evolve into mob violence, is a wonderful example of two men in conflict (over the lovely Stella) working together for a common goal. Neither finds it demeaning to sit and talk with Ben or to carry food down to him. The plotting by Lawson and the locals and by Riegert and Capaldi, with both sides trying to figure out what is going on with the other, is probably a microcosm of what happens in state government, with more manners and picturesque backgrounds. The mermaid subplot is a little distracting. The scenes with Lancaster and his therapist are hilarious. The brief conflict over Trudy the Rabbit is the second funniest rabbit-based bit in the movies (the funniest is in Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

Jackie Brown – I could tell you about the wheels within wheels of Quentin Tarantino’s narcotic / money laundering scheme. I could tell you about the fantastic acting by a cast including Robert DeNiro, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson. Robert Forster is wonderful as understated bail bondsman Max Cherry. But the movie belongs to the title character, played by Pam Grier. What appeals to me most about this film is that Grier’s Brown is sultry, smart, sexy, savvy, sneaky, over 40, and has a good sized rear end. What this world needs is definitely more movies featuring Angelica Huston and Pam Grier. These ladies have zing and sex appeal, but while their characters in The Royal Tenenbaums (Huston) and Jackie Brown (Greer) attract attention there aren’t any graphic sex scenes. They are clearly bright women taking care of business and charting their own course. They are also not stick thin. These are people you might see on the street. You’d turn to look at them, certainly, but it’s not outside the realm of reality to see someone like that on the street. Alien and Aliens also had a strong woman character who wasn’t relegated to a sex object role (if you don’t count the underwear scenes). Far too many of the middle-aged women in the media are either relegated to frumpdom or so surgically altered that they have as much in common with their viewers as space aliens.