Al's Omniflick at 350 and Mother's Day: 5 Memorable Moms

This post celebrates a milestone and Mother's Day, which just happen to fall on the same day. As of this blog-entry, Al's Omniflick boasts 350 posts! That's right, folks; it's no joke. That means 400 isn't far away but for now, let me take a moment and another posting to commemorate this hallowed event and to also wish Moms everywhere a Happy Mother's Day.

I thought it might be fun to compile a short list of moms you may remember from cinema past. You might notice the list is mostly composed of moms we might be glad to say aren't our moms but hey, at least they aren't dull.

I kept the list brief and have no doubt overlooked many other movie moms who were worthy of inclusion. If I omitted a favorite of yours, kindly inform me in the comment section below.

FIVE MOMS IN FILM:

Janine "Smurf" Cody (Jackie Weaver)--from the film Animal Kingdom (2010)
Jackie Weaver received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her role as the matriarch of a family of hard-nosed criminals. Behind this mom's sweet, sunshiny grin is a sharp razor blade; ready to cut those who would cross her or her family. A wonderful depiction of a not-so-wonderful mom.

Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway)--from the film Mommie Dearest (1981)
Based on the memoir of Christina Crawford, adopted daughter of screen siren Joan Crawford; Mommie Dearest is as close to being a horror film as a non-horror-genre film can get. If the film and Christina's memoir are to be believed, Joan was a abusive wreck who made her daughter's life a living, vivid hell. For Crawford the elder; maternal and infernal were interchangeable terms.

Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand)--from the film Fargo (1996)
Marge Gunderson isn't technically a mom, but her very pregnant body makes her a mom-to-be. Smart, perceptive and a better cop than her male colleagues, Marge's expectant mother quirks include sizeable food servings and a very funny moment of crime scene nausea, which we discover is connected more to her pregnancy than disgust for the bloody bodies strewn across the snowy landscape. We know Marge will be a terrific mom because her memorable moment in her police vehicle when she tsk tsks the brutal killer Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) en route to jail sounds like a parent castigating a child. McDormand is sublime in this role.

Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway)--from the film Chinatown (1974)
Faye Dunaway makes this short list twice for her other malign mom role. The problem with Evelyn Mulwray's character here is that she is more than a mom to her daughter. If you've seen the film, no further explanation is necessary. Evelyn isn't an evil mom, but a victim of an evil man; which makes her a tragically sympathetic character.

Mother (Susanne Wuest)--from the film Goodnight Mommy (2014)
The mommy in Goodnight Mommy is diabolically creepy in the early part of the film until she becomes an object of sympathy, which is a spectacular understatement. To watch this mom suffer unspeakable indignities at the hands of her "sons," is to suffer as an audience member as well. No breakfast in bed for this mother.

I hope you enjoyed this very quick list. Thanks to those who have visited this blog in the past and continue to do so and to those for whom it applies, an encore Happy Mother's Day. See you all soon.

Hail, Caesar!

**Spoiler Alert**

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen/Starring: George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Alden Ehrenreich, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

Joel and Ethan Coen have made exceptional films in their careers and some irredeemable time-wasters. One can count a fair number of comedies in their oeuvre but for me, I've always preferred their dramas, which sometimes contain their brand of dark humor. I realize my low opinion of their comedies is in the minority. People insist Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where Art Thou and Burn After Reading are hilarious but they only leave me cold. (I've heard some movie lovers even suggest that The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers are funny... not to me.) I'm still not wild about The Big Lebowski but I think Jeff Lebowski is a comic master creation. The Coen Brothers' comedies are too self-aware to be truly funny.
That being said, I found their new film; Hail, Caesar to be unfunny, unfocused and unfailingly tedious. I heard one woman laugh through the entire film but there is always that one person in the audience who can be counted on to find every gag and comic situation funny even when they aren't. In spite of the woman's compulsive laughter, the patrons in my immediate vicinity--and in most of the theater--were mostly silent. So it goes; everyone is entitled to laugh; it certainly isn't a crime, but maybe it's a case of sour grapes on my part, who knows?.

The Coen Brothers celebrate/skewer old Hollywood; the characters and genres that ruled the screen and the dramas that raged off of it.

Capitol Pictures' production manager Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) broad job description makes it necessary for him to also manage scandals that threaten to ruin actor's lives and derail movie projects. When the film begins, we see him visit a home where an intoxicated, high-profile actress is being photographed pornographically. Mannix, who seems accustomed to damage control of this ilk, manages to keep the situation from becoming headline fodder by pulling the starlet from the scene and paying off a couple of cops who arrive on the scene. When not defusing near-disasters, Mannix tends to studio production business. One film over which he presides is a big-budget, Ben-Hur-like epic called Hail, Caesar, which stars Hollywood mega-star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney).

During production, Whitlock is kidnapped; leaving Mannix to contend not only with a crime, but a situation that could conceivably become a media typhoon. Compounding his woes are the cost overruns Whitlock's absence creates for the the film. And yet another of Mannix's vexations are the Hedda Hopper-like, twin gossip columnists; Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, sporting great alliterative names); who skulk about the studio lot, sniffing for scandal and gossip.

But we also meet the film's other dramatis personae, like Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), the singing cowboy of the big screen, who Mannix eventually recruits in his effort to find Whitlock and DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson); an Esther Williams-like star whose personal troubles become studio troubles. We also meet Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum); a song and dance star who later plays a part in the kidnapping drama.

Whitlock awakes in a posh, seaside home and after wandering around, he finds his kidnappers, who turn out to be a disgruntled group of screenwriters who are fed up with the industry's obeisance to the bottom line. The audience learns what it may have suspected all along; the group's agenda is strictly communist.
Meanwhile, Mannix assembles a cash payment after receiving the group's $100,000 ransom note while trying desperately to keep the kidnapping from leaking to the studio, the public and the press.

The film reaches for laughs when Hobie becomes a substitute cast member for director Laurence Laurentz's (Ralph Fiennes) tux and gown drama; a movie for which his Texan accent and cowboy persona are hopelessly ill-suited. The film's most inspired comedic scene is Mannix's meeting with local religious figures to ensure the movie's subject matter offends neither Christians nor Jews. The exchanges between the rabbi and catholic priest are peppered with a few barbed, comments about scripture.

As the mystery behind the kidnapper's intent comes to light, Whitlock becomes an ardent believer in their cause before eventually returning to the set of his movie.

The various secondary character's stories never add up to much, particularly DeeAna Moran's and Hobie Doyle's, who are more representations of old Hollywood types than people.

The Coen Brothers' film seems like an opportunity to poke fun at the anti-communist hysteria of the time. We see a boat containing Whitlock's captors and Burt Gurney approach a Russian submarine, which surfaces near the California shore, awaiting the bag containing the $100,000, which is being offered up as a gift. The absurdity of the scene seems to reflect the outrageous, right-wing, Cold War paranoia that held America in its grip during that period.

I suppose the film will seem funny to those who are attuned to the Coen Brothers' sense of screwball. I went into the movie expecting to laugh but unfortunately, their film fell flat. It isn't the first time I've had that reaction to one of their comedies and it may not be the last.
I'll move on now and hope their next movie will be more fun than this slog.