Tag: Chicago

50 Years, 50 Movies (1986): Running Scared

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1986

I will turn 50 in November of this year, so my project for 2023 will be to watch and review one movie from each year of my life.  The only qualification is that it has to be a movie I’ve not reviewed previously.  If you have any suggestions for movies from the past 50 years, please drop them in the comments!

Top Grossing Movies of 1986:

  • Top Gun
  • Crocodile Dundee
  • Platoon
  • The Karate Kid, Part II
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Best Picture Oscar Nominees and Winners of 1986:

Other Movies I’ve Reviewed from 1986:

Title: Running Scared
Release Date: June 27, 1986
Director: Peter Hyams
Production Company: The Turman-Foster Company
Summary/Review:

I saw Running Scared in the movie theater, possibly more than once, and then several more times on cable.  So I have a certain nostalgic fondness for this movie.  Watching with older and wiser eyes, the Reagan-era “law and order” ideology runs thick in this movie with all the copaganda to justify breaking the rules to get the “bad” guys.  If this were real life, these would be terrible, awful cops not lovable scamps.  Running Scared basically has all the grit of The French Connection with jokes.  In fact it one ups The French Connection’s thrilling car chase after an elevated train by having a car chase ON the elevated railway!

Ray Hughes (Gregory Hines) and Danny Costanzo (Billy Crystal) are undercover police detectives in Chicago. When Danny inherits a small fortune, they decide to retire and run a bar in Key West.  But they have one more job to settle, busting drug kingpin Julio Gonzales (Jimmy Smits in his film debut). Hines and Crystal are pretty funny with the quips and have a good camaraderie. The action scenes hold up pretty well too, and the film makes good use of its Chicago locations and winter setting.

Rating: ***

Movie Review: High Fidelity (2000)

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Title: High Fidelity
Release Date: March 31, 2000
Director: Stephen Frears
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures | Working Title Films | Dogstar Films | New Crime Productions
Summary/Review:

High Fidelity is a movie  I remember liking but revisiting it now I find it’s even better than I remember.  Based on a book by Nick Hornby, the scene is shifted from London to Chicago with the characters more enmeshed in the alternative hipster culture of the late 90s/early 00s.  I’ve read the book and I’ve got to say this is a rare case where the movie is better.

John Cusack stars as Rob Gordon, who narrates the story of his five worst breakups after his longtime girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) leaves him.  He revisits his exes (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sara Gilbert, Lili Taylor, and Joelle Carter) to try to learn what he does wrong in relationships showing minimal growth with each experience. The packed cast also includes Lisa Bonet, Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins and a cameo by Bruce Springsteen!

But the heart of this movie is the record store that Rob owns and runs with two music geeks, the acerbic Barry (Jack Black) and the shy Dick (Todd Louiso).  The three actors each do a pitch perfect performance of a different kind of emotionally-stunted manchild who find achievement in collecting rare records and making Top 5 lists.  Rob Gordon is frankly an insufferable person and it’s possible that the collective good will that Cusack has earned over the course of his career is the only reason he is sympathetic at all.

While the movie is ostensibly about Rob’s romantic woes, it is the everydayness of all these characters going about their lives that makes it feel real and great. Appropriate to it’s record store setting, the movie also has an excellent soundtrack of classic rock and soul tunes and contemporary alternative rock.

 

Rating: ****1/2

 

Recent Movie Marathon: Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

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Happy New Year! I’m kicking off 2022 by watching and reviewing a bunch of movies from 2021.

Title : Judas and the Black Messiah
Release Date: February 12, 2021
Director: Shaka King
Production Company: MACRO | Participant | Bron Creative | Proximity
Summary/Review:

Judas and the Black Messiah is a biographical story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), an FBI informant who infiltrated the Party.  The result of O’Neal’s work was the coordinated  assassination by the FBI, Chicago Police, and Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office  of Hampton while he slept early on the morning of December 4, 1969. The movie also depicts the budding romance of Hampton and Black Panther Party member Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), who would give birth to their child only 25 days after Hampton’s death.

I’ve long felt that Hampton is one of the great overlooked activists of American history with a unique  ability to unite people across across racial lines towards common cause.  Had he lived longer (Hampton was only 21 when he was killed), I believe that he and other people he inspired would’ve changed the course of American history for the better.  This of course is why he was targeted in the first place by J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) and others who wanted to preserve systems of white supremacy.

Apart from doing an excellent job of telling the story of Hampton and his betrayal with great performances by Kaluuya and Stanfield, and great direction by Shaka King, this movie is deft in its storytelling and characterization. Hampton’s fiery rhetoric while giving speeches is balanced by his quiet moments of love and dedication to the people. O’Neal is treated sympathetically, albeit not without judgement, and you can understand how he was motivated by fear and misinformation.  Even O’Neal’s FBI handler Roy Mitchell (a composite character portrayed by Jesse Plemons) is depicted as sympathetic to the Civil Rights Movement and suspicious of Hoover’s unbridled racist antagonism, although none of this prevents him from stopping the plan to assassinate Hampton.

Judas and the Black Messiah is a good introduction to Fred Hampton’s story and touches on many issues that remain sadly relevant today. If you like this movie, I also recommend watching the documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and reading the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas.

Rating: ****1/2

Recent Movie Marathon: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)

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Happy New Year! Today I’ll be sharing my reviews of a binge watch of recent films (released within the past 18 months or so)!

Title: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Release Date: November 25, 2020
Director: George C. Wolfe
Production Company: Escape Artists | Mundy Lane Entertainment
Summary/Review:

Adapted from the play by August Wilson and inspired by the real life of “The Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the story of one tense day in a record studio in Chicago in 1927. Viola Davis plays the celebrity blues singer with verve and command. She comes off as a bit of a diva, but in the nuance we learn that she’s learned that she has to give no quarter to white men when dealing with her work and her art. And capturing her voice on record is already something that they want more than she does.

The other man character is a talented and ambitious trumpeter, Levee (Chadwick Boseman in his final role) who hopes to start a band of his own. Levee argues with the other, more experienced band members (Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, and Michael Potts) on everything from musical arrangements to religion and dealing with racism. He also develops a mutual attraction with Ma Rainey’s young girlfriend, Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige).

The movie clearly exhibits its origins as a stage play with much of it being the heated conversations among the characters in confined places. But it also takes advantage of its filmic qualities, especially the way the camera moves to follow the musicians as they perform. And, ooh the music, it is absolutely brilliant. The movie comes to an absolutely stunning climax that I did not expect to happen at all. The movie is tragic and heartbreaking but really a tour-de-force of brilliant acting.

Rating: ****

Book Review: The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas

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Author: Jeffrey Haas
Title: The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
Publication Info: Chicago, Ill. : Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, c2010.
Summary/Review:

I learned about Fred Hampton around 25 years ago when watching the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize.  The more I learn about Hampton, who by the age of 21 had made considerable ground in uniting people of various racial backgrounds around shared causes, the more I believe that the United States lost the potential of his leadership when he was murdered by the Chicago police on December 4, 1969.

This book is the only one I could find available about Fred Hampton.  It’s written by Jeffery Haas, an acquaintance of Hampton’s who served as a lawyer for the People Law’s Office, an organization that offered legal representation for the Chicago Black Panthers and other clients who had their civil rights violated by the government.  At first I was put off at how much Haas centers himself in the narrative, but soon learned that this is less of a biography of Hampton and more of an accounting of Haas and his colleagues efforts to find justice for the survivors of the police raid that did not reach fruition until a civil rights trial in 1982.

Haas details the gruesome conspiracy of the FBI, through their COINTELPRO program, to have the Chicago police raid Hampton’s apartment in the early morning hours and carry out a summary execution. Part of this plot involved a FBI informer who infiltrated the Chicago Black Panthers and drugged Hampton on the night of the raid. Despite ballistic evidence that the Panthers were only able to fire off one shot in exchange of dozens from the police, the police successfully characterized the raid as a “shoot-out” and the officers involved were exonerated.

Haas and his colleagues spent twelve years in litigation on civil rights suits to find some justice for the surviving Black Panthers and Hampton’s family.  Trials were presided over by a judge with an unhidden prejudice against the plaintiffs, and the FBI and Chicago police deliberately withholding evidence.  That any measure of justice was achieved through $1.85 million settlement in 1982 is a testament to the determination of the survivors and the People’s Law Office.  Nevertheless, the clear imbalance of the government and the law towards racism and inequality makes it hard to believe in true justice in the United States.

Favorite Passages:

“Unlike the example of a centralized and hierarchical political party like the Panthers, BLM is a decentralized coalition of community groups with a common platform. They say they are “leader full,” not “leader less.” This has the advantage that the assassination, jailing, or silencing of one leader will not cause the devastation of an organization like the Chicago Panthers faced after the murder of Fred Hampton.”

“The message of Black Power resonated with Fred Hampton.  He saw Black Power not as a tool to attack whites but as a concept to bring blacks together and build their confidence.  Fred said that “blackness was what was in your heart, not the color of your skin.” But any symbol of black unity, including the modest Afro that Fred wore, threatened many whites.”

“Fred talked with particular satisfaction about seeing the children eating and Panther members serving them.  He explained this was how people could understand socialism “through participation and serving the people.”

“What good did it do to have lawyers and courts and a constitution and legal precedent if the police under the direct control of the prosecutor could murder you in your bed? I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lawyer fighting for justice inside an unjust system or on the outside exposing the legal system as a fraud, taking direct action against Fred’s killers.”

“It always pisses off victims of the police to learn that taxpayers foot the bill. ‘It isn’t right,’ I said. ‘But the police contract requires they be indemnified.  I wish we were getting money from them too. It might deter them next time.'”

Recommended books:

Rating: ****

Podcasts of the Week Ending June 20

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My favorite podcasts are increasingly becoming so focused on current events that I wonder if they’ll still be relevant on Saturday, but I’m pretty sure that all of these podcasts are still “fresh.”

All Songs Considered :: New Music Friday: Run The Jewels

A deep dive into the terrific new album, RTJF, and album that speaks to a current moment of reckoning with racial discrimination and policing.

Fresh Air :: Poet Eve Ewing Connects 1919 Chicago Riots To Today

Eve Ewing found poetry in the report analyzing Chicago’s “Red Summer” and uses it to draw parallels to systemic racism that persists 100 years later.

Have You Heard :: Arrested Development: How Police Ended Up in Schools

One of the worst aspects of overpolicing in the USA is the use of police to address school discipline issues and the perpetuation of a school-to-prison pipeline. The podcast traces the history of police in schools back to the 1960s and includes some commentary from some brilliant Boston Public School students

Here & Now :: #SayHerName Campaign; The State Of The Coronavirus Pandemic

The #SayHerName Campaign brings awareness to Black women who have suffered from police killings and police brutality, who are overlooked even as the world is focused on Black Lives Matters issues.

Planet Money :: Police Unions And Police Violence

Police unions are not like other unions, as police already have powers that other workers do not, and the existence of police unions helps perpetuate police killings and police violence.

Radiolab :: Nina

The music of Nina Simone and why it resonates with our times.

What Next :: A Politician’s Brush with NYPD Abuse

New York state senator Zellnor Myrie offers his first-hand experience with police violence during protests in Brooklyn, and how it’s translating into dramatic legislative action.

Classic Movie Review: A Raisin in the Sun (1961)

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Title: A Raisin in the Sun
Release Date: May 29, 1961
Director: Daniel Petrie
Production Company: Columbia Pictures
Summary/Review:

The Younger family share a small apartment on Chicago’s South Side that provides the setting for most of this film that explores the tensions within this family and the effects of institutional racism on them.  The central conflict of the story is how to spend a $10,000 life insurance payment.  The elderly mother and grandmother, Lena (Claudia McNeil), wants to fulfill her late husband’s dream of buying a 3-bedroom house with a yard.  Her daughter-in-law, Ruth (Ruby Dee), shares this dream, especially since she’s learned that she’s pregnant with a second child. Lena’s son Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier) has a different dream of purchasing a liquor store with two colleagues in hopes of earning the family’s way into prosperity.  Lena’s daughter Beneatha (Diana Sands) is attending medical school and hopes to become a doctor.

The majority of the movie takes place in the cramped two-bedroom apartment shared by five people, which would be challenging in the best of times. The movie takes advantage of the sense of confinement to highlight the family’s struggles.  A Raisin in the Sun is adapted from a play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry and many of the actors from the 1959 Broadway production return for the film, and the movie has a theatrical feel to it.  I particularly like the opening scene in which the youngest member of the family, Travis (Stephen Perry), reluctantly wakes up for school and the family (and their neighbors) compete to use the single bathroom.  It feels very relatable.

In addition to the family’s interior conflict, greater social issues are shown to affect the family.  Beaneatha grows a relationship with a classmate from Nigeria, Joseph Asagai (Ivan Dixon), who helps her connect with her African heritage.  Joseph is contrasted with George Murchison (Louis Gossett, Jr.), Beneatha’s suitor whose is prosperous and denies his African roots and the effects of racism.  Meanwhile, when Mama purchases her dream house, a representative of the all-white neighborhood attempts to buy the house from the Youngers to prevent racial integration.  This character is played by John Fiedler, who sounds very familiar because he is also the voice of Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh movies, which is very disconcerting.

A Raisin in the Sun veers into melodrama at times, but it features terrific acting performances by all its leads.  It is also significant for featuring an almost all-Black cast (except Fiedler) and screenwriter in 1961. I do wonder what the movie would be like with a Black director like the original play was directed by Lloyd Richards.  I was surprised that Daniel Petrie would go on to direct Fort Apache, The Bronx, a notorious movie that depicts white cops fighting against “savage” Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers.

 

Rating: ***1/2

Movie Review: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

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Title: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Release Date: June 11, 1986
Director: John Hughes
Production Company: Paramount Pictures
Summary/Review:

My 12 y.o. wanted to watch this movie which was a surprise since he rarely wants to watch movies at all, much less teen classics from the 80s.  Some things you notice when you’re watching a movie for the first time in decades with your children: 1. there’s a lot more profanity than I remembered, and 2. Ferris is really a jerk and deserves to suffer SOME consequences for his misbehavior.  Maybe not so much for skipping school, but  for how he mistreats his friends and family.  At least Cameron calls him out on it.

The story, should you not be aware of it or have forgotten, is that Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) pretends to be sick in order to skip school for the 9th time in his senior year in high school (we need 8 prequels to learn what he did on those days!). He picks up his chronically-depressed and hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck), who is also absent from school. Ferris basically steals Cameron’s father’s antique sportscar (Cameron has some good suggestions of renting a car or hiring a limo, something these kids had the means to do).  They pick up Ferris’ girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), from school on the excuse that her grandmother died.

The trio drive to Chicago for the geekiest day of truancy ever.  Impossibly, they are able to to visit Sears Tower and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, dine at a fancy restaurant, attend a Cubs game, visit the Art Institute of Chicago, and then see the Von Steuben Parade, which Ferris famously crashes to lead a sing-a-long and dance of joyous Chicagoans (and since I visited Chicago in 2018, I recognized exactly where those parade scenes were shot).  Meanwhile, the school principal Ed Rooney (played by real-life sex offender Jeffrey Jones), creepily tries to track down Ferris, going so far as to break into the Bueller’s home.  Simultaneously, Ferris’ younger sister, Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), angered at her parents’ favoritism toward Ferris, also tries to bust him for faking illness.

The movie works because of the generally wholesome activities the lead trio engage in on their trip to Chicago, a steady series of gags, and all-around great performances from the cast and great chemistry among the leads.  But as I noted above, Ferris is not a hero, but more of an agent of chaos.  The real protagonists of this movie, or at least the ones who change the most, are Cameron and Jeanie.  Cameron finally reaches a breaking point where he’s able to stand up for himself to Ferris, which leads him to gain the confidence to stand up to his neglectful father.  And by the way, watching is this as a parent makes me wonder just how monstrous this father is.  Meanwhile, Jeanie is able to exorcise her jealousy and righteous rage at Ferris and attempt to just take control of her own destiny.  This, of course, means that everything works out just perfectly for Ferris, the little twerp.

Almost 35 years after its release, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is still very funny and doesn’t feel dated.  Sure, there are boxy cars and big hair, but it doesn’t scream “EIGHTIES!” as much as John Hughes’ other movies. I do wonder what this movie would be like if Ferris had a cell phone, though, considering his ability to use technology to his advantage. More importantly, it doesn’t have the inappropriate moments that make one cringe at the sexual misconduct and racism that you find in 16 Candles and The Breakfast Club.  I also appreciate the directorial style, such as viewing Cameron debating himself about joining Ferris through his car window, or how Ferris running home at the end is directed like a Chuck Jones/Tex Avery cartoon, complete with zany sound effects and music cues.

If you liked it when you’re young, watch it with your (older) kids.  They may just enjoy it as well.

Rating: ****

Movie Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

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Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife
Release Date: August 14, 2009
Director: Robert Schwentke
Production Company: New Line Cinema | Plan B Entertainment
Summary/Review:

Based on one of my favorite books, the trailer for this adaptation never looked promising, but out of morbid curiosity I finally broke down and watched.  It’s basically a heavily-abridged version of the book.  Obviously an adaptation of a long book can’t include everything, but a good adaptation should over something for the movie viewer.  Clare in this movie comes off as far more passive than in the book, and the talents of Rachel McAdams are wasted.  Henry’s relationships with anyone else, including his father, are depicted as very superficial.  And for some reason the creepy aspect of adult Henry spending time with Clare as a child seems to be emphasized. The location shots in Chicago are pretty but other than that the best I can recommend is to read the book.

Rating: **

Podcasts of the Week Ending July 27

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BackStory :: Moon, Man, and Myths

The History Guys commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing with an interview with flight director Gene Kranz, among other things.

Code Switch :: Chicago’s Red Summer

Another anniversary, of a grim sort, of the race riots 100 years ago in Chicago and other American cities that targeted African American soldiers returning from the World War among others.

Fresh Air :: 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

This podcast includes interviews with astronauts Michael Collins and Alan Shepherd as well as test pilot Chuck Yeager.

Hub History  :: The Cessna Strafer

A bizarre incident in 1989 when a man who’d just murdered his wife took to the air in a small airplane and fired an assault rifle at people on the ground in Boston.  This seems like a very serious crime, and yet I only learned about it a few years ago, even though I was alive and living in an adjacent state at the time.

99% Invisible :: Invisible Women

An interview with Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, on how women are ignored in the design of just about everything, and the dangerous effects of this bias.

On the Media :: What, Me Worry?

Mad Magazine, the satire magazine enjoyed by decades of children going back to the 1950s, is going out of print.  Journalist Jeet Heer talks about the magazines importance and influence.

Running tally of 2019 Podcast of the Week appearances: