kgehebe
Joined Jun 2018
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Reviews29
kgehebe's rating
Twice in a Lifetime is about love: family love, romantic love, sibling love, love between two old friends. It has an all star cast who are unfortunately too big for the script which seems to have been written for television.
Gene Hackman is Harry MacKenzie, a man who married very young and took a job in the local steel mill which pays well but is a place where dreams go to die, at least for some. The movie opens on the occasion of Harry's 50th birthday where his adult daughters, their significant others and grandchildren are having a celebratory dinner in his honor. Its a small, working class home filled with love but has probably seen better days.
Ellen Burstyn is his wife Kate, a plain but hard working woman, who's devoted her life to her family. There's a moment where she gives Harry a kiss on the forehead at the birthday dinner and he brushes it away. It gives us the first indication that things are not as they seem.
Kate tells Harry at the birthday dinner to go meet the guys at the pub down the street for a few beers. He goes alone wearing a bow tie and dress shirt and meets his best friend, Nick (played by Brian Dennehy) where a group of friends are waiting for him. Its there he meets middle aged sexpot, Audrey, (played by Ann Margret), recently widowed and working her 1st day on the job at as a barmaid. They quickly begin an affair.
Harry realizes how unfulfilled he's been in his marriage to Kate for a long time. He's asks for a divorce and the rest of the movie is how she and his other family members deal with this life changing event.
I could really see this being a 90 minute TV pilot with Dick Van Dyke as Harry having a mid life crisis, later being developed into a weekly series in the Eight is Enough vein. Yet somehow you end up routing for everybody, with the exception of Amy Madigan who is really annoying despite having gotten an academy award nomination for the role. Burstyn plays the role of Kate with just right balance of emotional pain and spiritual growth. Hackman portrays Harry as sympathetic and relatable despite being a cad for leaving his wife after 30 years. I should hate the guy, but I ended up routing for him and Audrey.
Overall, its a bittersweet little family movie about the death of a long marriage. The characters come away changed but ultimately find a way to carry on and keep the family love going. Too much padding in certain areas and not enough character development but worth seeing.
Gene Hackman is Harry MacKenzie, a man who married very young and took a job in the local steel mill which pays well but is a place where dreams go to die, at least for some. The movie opens on the occasion of Harry's 50th birthday where his adult daughters, their significant others and grandchildren are having a celebratory dinner in his honor. Its a small, working class home filled with love but has probably seen better days.
Ellen Burstyn is his wife Kate, a plain but hard working woman, who's devoted her life to her family. There's a moment where she gives Harry a kiss on the forehead at the birthday dinner and he brushes it away. It gives us the first indication that things are not as they seem.
Kate tells Harry at the birthday dinner to go meet the guys at the pub down the street for a few beers. He goes alone wearing a bow tie and dress shirt and meets his best friend, Nick (played by Brian Dennehy) where a group of friends are waiting for him. Its there he meets middle aged sexpot, Audrey, (played by Ann Margret), recently widowed and working her 1st day on the job at as a barmaid. They quickly begin an affair.
Harry realizes how unfulfilled he's been in his marriage to Kate for a long time. He's asks for a divorce and the rest of the movie is how she and his other family members deal with this life changing event.
I could really see this being a 90 minute TV pilot with Dick Van Dyke as Harry having a mid life crisis, later being developed into a weekly series in the Eight is Enough vein. Yet somehow you end up routing for everybody, with the exception of Amy Madigan who is really annoying despite having gotten an academy award nomination for the role. Burstyn plays the role of Kate with just right balance of emotional pain and spiritual growth. Hackman portrays Harry as sympathetic and relatable despite being a cad for leaving his wife after 30 years. I should hate the guy, but I ended up routing for him and Audrey.
Overall, its a bittersweet little family movie about the death of a long marriage. The characters come away changed but ultimately find a way to carry on and keep the family love going. Too much padding in certain areas and not enough character development but worth seeing.
Sharky's Machine was released in December, 1981 in order that it would qualify for Oscar consideration that year. Timing is everything and the reason perhaps this classic has never received the recognition it deserves. It was Christmastime in 1981 and the public didn't have the interest in seeing the graphic violence in the film. Had it been released over the summer, with the kids out of school hungry for a superb action thriller, history might have been very different. Sharky's Machine received a lukewarm reception and Reynolds stuck to routine action formula after this, most of which are forgotten today, and rightly so. He might have had Clint Eastwood's career under different circumstances and we would have a wealth of material from Reynolds to remember today.
Based on William Dehl's gritty novel, Reynolds' plays an Atlanta undercover narcotics cop who's drug bust goes violently sideways in the opening scene. As a result, he is demoted to Vice, a place where good cops go to buy time until retirement with little of importance to do. We are introduced to a small rag tag group of cops supposedly past their prime, arresting cross dressers and street hookers in a the basement of police headquarters. Eventually, Sharky and his "Machine" stumble across a big time international crime syndicate with links to a gubernatorial candidate and the police department itself. When a cop and hooker are brutally murdered while in bed doing lines of cocaine together, instead of turning the case over the homicide, they wiretap the home of Dominoe played by Rachel Ward and Sharky conducts 24 hour surveillance. The scenes of Sharky growing fonder of Dominoe are done with taste and authenticity. The sex scenes are suggested as not to overpower the emotional balance Reynolds seeks to achieve.
Rachel Ward is stunning as Dominoe the call girl at the center of a dangerous racket. In lesser films, The Hero Gets the Girl storylines are thrown in like obligatory window dressing but it's much more complex here. The emotional connection to the developing love story draws the audience in. We see the nuance in each character...Dominoe the call girl who is also a dancer with a somewhat childlike essence (we later find out why)...Sharky is a tough guy who still needs to be loved. He is a guardian of innocence.
The supporting cast are top notch, Charles Durning is the lieutenant who spends a lot of time yelling to assert authority but also to remind everyone not to get to involved with anything important because he has 2 years left until retirement. Brian Keith, Bernie Casey and Richard Libertini are all gems who mix tough guy persona with humor and humanity. Burt Reynolds celebrates old school masculinity, the good, the bad and the ugly but most of all reminds us of the scruffy underdogs who cannot be bought, who get the bad guys in the end, (sometimes at a terrible cost) and take back their cities.
Henry Silva is just remarkable as a drug addicted hit man, one of the scariest killers in cinema history. The city of Atlanta is the backdrop as is the classy, unforgettable jazz score which includes Randy Crawford, Doc Severinsen, Sarah Vaughn and Joe Williams. I have the soundtrack downloaded on my phone to this day.
1981 was the year the Academy fell over themselves to honor Warren Beatty's long, boring, emotionally vacant ode to communism, Reds, yet overlooked Burt Reynolds because of his reputation as a gruff barbarian dope who was a superstar amongst the stinky unwashed. What a disservice to a great film, it's just fabulous.
Based on William Dehl's gritty novel, Reynolds' plays an Atlanta undercover narcotics cop who's drug bust goes violently sideways in the opening scene. As a result, he is demoted to Vice, a place where good cops go to buy time until retirement with little of importance to do. We are introduced to a small rag tag group of cops supposedly past their prime, arresting cross dressers and street hookers in a the basement of police headquarters. Eventually, Sharky and his "Machine" stumble across a big time international crime syndicate with links to a gubernatorial candidate and the police department itself. When a cop and hooker are brutally murdered while in bed doing lines of cocaine together, instead of turning the case over the homicide, they wiretap the home of Dominoe played by Rachel Ward and Sharky conducts 24 hour surveillance. The scenes of Sharky growing fonder of Dominoe are done with taste and authenticity. The sex scenes are suggested as not to overpower the emotional balance Reynolds seeks to achieve.
Rachel Ward is stunning as Dominoe the call girl at the center of a dangerous racket. In lesser films, The Hero Gets the Girl storylines are thrown in like obligatory window dressing but it's much more complex here. The emotional connection to the developing love story draws the audience in. We see the nuance in each character...Dominoe the call girl who is also a dancer with a somewhat childlike essence (we later find out why)...Sharky is a tough guy who still needs to be loved. He is a guardian of innocence.
The supporting cast are top notch, Charles Durning is the lieutenant who spends a lot of time yelling to assert authority but also to remind everyone not to get to involved with anything important because he has 2 years left until retirement. Brian Keith, Bernie Casey and Richard Libertini are all gems who mix tough guy persona with humor and humanity. Burt Reynolds celebrates old school masculinity, the good, the bad and the ugly but most of all reminds us of the scruffy underdogs who cannot be bought, who get the bad guys in the end, (sometimes at a terrible cost) and take back their cities.
Henry Silva is just remarkable as a drug addicted hit man, one of the scariest killers in cinema history. The city of Atlanta is the backdrop as is the classy, unforgettable jazz score which includes Randy Crawford, Doc Severinsen, Sarah Vaughn and Joe Williams. I have the soundtrack downloaded on my phone to this day.
1981 was the year the Academy fell over themselves to honor Warren Beatty's long, boring, emotionally vacant ode to communism, Reds, yet overlooked Burt Reynolds because of his reputation as a gruff barbarian dope who was a superstar amongst the stinky unwashed. What a disservice to a great film, it's just fabulous.
