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Showing results for tags 'Dede Allen'.
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I'd heard about "Little Big Man" since it was released in 1970, but had never seen it until the past two days. After having seen it through, I can say that it's one of the finest, little-known American films, post-1970, that I'm aware of. It's a magical story, and yes, I truly believe that it was a major inspiration for "Forrest Gump"; I don't see how it could have possibly been otherwise. Dustin Hoffman plays 121-year-old Jack Crabb - the oldest man in the world, and the only white survivor from the Battle of the Little Big Horn, i.e., "Custer's Last Stand." Hoffman's grotesque makeup is mercifully shown for only the small parts of the movie; the rest of it is shown in flashback, and what magical flashback it is, too - Hoffman's "right place at the right time" tendencies were surely an inspiration for "Forrest Gump" - once you see it, you'll notice the same thing. You'll meet General George Custer (nailed by Richard Mulligan) and Wild Bill Hickok (Martin Balsam) along the way. This fairly long film (about 2'20") is well-worth the time to watch, and is a wonderful "yarn" (as Roger Ebert puts it). This has a 96% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it deserves it. It is an *extremely* progressive film, dealing with Native Americans as intelligent, philosophical people, and even introducing what surely must be the first-ever gay native-American role in cinematic history (does anyone know of any earlier than this?) Bigamy plays a large role in one scene, and I suspect the two of these really pissed off some conservative critics, but not any more. This is a fine movie, that may be one of the better movies, post-1970, that you've never heard of - do yourself a favor and watch it. -
I never knew that Al Pacino told Sidney Lumet, before the filming of "Dog Day Afternoon" began, that he was too exhausted and depressed to take the role - he had just finished filming "The Godfather Part II." Lumet accepted his decision, and offered the part to Dustin Hoffman, whom Pacino considered to be "his rival" - and that was enough for Pacino to secrete enough adrenaline to do the part after all. Funny - while I think of Pacino and Hoffman as "contemporaries," I've never once thought of them as "rivals." I wonder if Lumet knew what he was doing, psychologically, when he made this move. Who knew? When Sonny was being interviewed by the television statement, and he dropped the F-bomb, they (apparently on a several-second delay), cut to the Looney Tunes theme song - now, *that* was funny. I had no idea that I hadn't seen this film before, but I hadn't. It's a fascinating movie - I thought after fifteen minutes it would be a real stinker (completely failed bank robbery - yawn), but then it started to get interesting, and Sonny started to acquire a Rambo-type of popularity with the general population, acquiring a folk-hero-like following, and there was still almost ninety minutes remaining. You know what? This movie is appropriate for these times (just as I'm sure other people have said about other times). People are so damned miserable that they view Sonny as a hero for their own crummy lives.
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I got the notion to start re-watching "The Hustler" today because I saw a couple excerpts from "The Color of Money," the supposed "sequel" and absolute disappointment to The Hustler - the two movies shouldn't be mentioned in the same review because The Hustler is a classic; The Color of Money is lame - I remember a friend of mine saying - when it was out in the theaters in 1986, "This could have been so good, and it was such a disappointment," and I could not agree more. Tom Cruise was an embarrassment in his role, and Paul Newman played a weak character, running on fumes, when he should have played a strong mentor, running on sagesse and wisdom. The Hustler is the opposite of a "chick flick" - it's a guy's movie, and a darned good one were it not for too much lag with the scenes between Paul Newman and Piper Laurie in the middle. What a fascinating premise - a young, cocky pool shark from Oakland, California travels the country in search of Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) only to find out what it means to "win" in a high-stakes pool game, with George C. Scott lurking, and making his true entrance later in the film. What a fantastic cast this was. Forget The Color of Money; this post is about The Hustler, and what a terrific movie and cast it was. You could say both that it was a "pool movie," and that it was a drama cloaked as a "pool movie," although when the rematch occurs, all drama take a backseat to pure, hardcore pool. I'm not going to go into much more detail because if you haven't seen it, you should, and if you have, I'd love to hear what you think. What an acting career Paul Newman has had - stretching in this genre alone from Jackie Gleason to Tom Cruise. "The Hustler" - a classic from 1961. Nine Academy Award Nominations, with two wins. A wonderful, entertaining film on multiple levels.
