Reagan (2024)

We unfortunately live in a world where any sort of political position seems to result in backlash instead of discussion. There shouldn't be anything controversial about reviewing a biopic that covers the life of the 40th President of the United States. The man had a compelling story, starting with an impoverished childhood, running through the Golden Age of Hollywood, touching down on the Red Scare of the 50s, the counterculture of the 60s, and the threat of nuclear war as a result of the Cold War in the 1980s. The fact that there's so much to talk about May in fact be the key weakness of this film. The script tries to cover so much of Reagan's life and so many of the key events in his political career, that there's not really much time to reflect on any of it. This plays like a slideshow reminder for people who lived through the era, and a set of bullet points for younger viewers who only know Reagan from their history books or memes on the internet.

As I said, I hesitate to even discuss the film because people will have knee-jerk reactions to the mere mention of a political figure. On one side you'll have people who will react negatively simply because they identify with a different political philosophy. On the other side of course, worshipful fans might be too forgiving of the flaws of the film. Everyone will be looking to score some political points one way or the other from the movie. I remain committed to my goal of writing something about every film I see in a theater, so I'm not going to let the fear of opening a can of political worms keep me from putting some words down on this film.

Reagan is an interesting political figure because he was elected president with a 40 state Electoral College victory in 1980, and a 49 state victory in 1984. He was clearly a very popular president, and the film gives us several reasons to see why. The one thing that the film does which makes it worthwhile, is to focus on the character of the president, his sense of morality, and the ethos that drove him. Even if you don't care for that sort of philosophical bent, I think you'll have a better understanding of how it influenced Ronald Reagan over his lifetime. The other big thing that the film has going for it is the lead performance of Dennis Quaid. He's not quite doing an impersonation of the well-known president, but he does get his cadence and intonation pretty well covered. He also presents him as a cheerful advocate for his positions, rather than the impenetrable wall that many biographers have found. If there is a weak performance in the film it is probably Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan. Her performance feels a little brittle and stagy. Sometimes she seems to be shouting when it's not completely necessary. I'm sure she has Nancy Reagan's unfailing love for Ronald Reagan completely covered, but whenever her character steps out of the romantic entanglement and into the larger political sphere, it feels overdone.

There's a terrific supporting Cast in the film, many well-known character actors get a chance to shine in the spotlight during the course of the story. Nick Searcy is doing a great job as chief of staff James Baker. Xander Berkeley is George Schultz and Dan Lauria does a pretty reasonable impression of House Speaker Tip O'Neill. C. Thomas Howell is also in the film as part of Reagan's Cadre of advisors. The most significant role in the film, for an actor playing a character part, is the former Russian analyst portrayed by John Voight, using an accent it is a lot more clear than the one he used in Anaconda. This plot line is really the backbone of the film, in spite of its fictionalized nature. His character is telling the story of Reagan from the perspective of an adversarial spy, after the events have already occurred, in an attempt to explain the significance of Reagan's personality but especially his political ideology. Some of the things that get developed in the story might be the kinds of things that would justify some political shenanigans. This framing story however is not that central to the main character of the film.

Although the film comes from a specialty Film Production, the technical aspects of the film are very solid, and the effects, sets, and photography do not let down the professionalism of the movie. The story is a little schmaltzy because it is trying to cover the entire life of Reagan. It remains shallow as a consequence. I think this would have been a film which could be more successful artistically if it picked a significant event from Reagan's presidency and connected it to maybe his early anti-communist stance. That's the approach that Spielberg took with his Lincoln film, and it might have been a better choice for this movie. Regardless of the weaknesses of the script, I do think that the film achieves one of its objectives, namely making Ronald Reagan a real person for a large part of the audience that did not live in his times.

Midway (2019)

This was a movie that I really wish I'd gotten to for the Veteran's Day Holiday. It is a no frills salute to the Navy forces that sustained the fight in the Pacific in the months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It hews closely to the timeline of events and the key players in the Battle of Midway which happened just six months after the surprise attack and largely changed the fortunes of war for the American side. A combination of hard work, rage and intuitive luck resulted in a complete reversal of the naval status of the two nations in a very short time.

Director Roland Emmerich is known for the disaster films he has made. Whatever his dramatic limitations are, he knows how to blow things up and show destruction on a massive scale. With this subject he has found an effective outlet for his skillset. There is a reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle raid on Tokyo and subsequent Japanese attacks on China and in the Corral Sea. All of this is a lead up to the title battle which takes up the last part of the film.

There is a narrative that focuses on the life of Navy flyer Dick Best, a real hero from the period. The fact that ther is a personal story however does not make this like the other war films you have seen over the years. We get just enough of his homelife and personal doubts to see that he is a human being in this large scale picture of the war. Similarly, there is a slight story about the intelligence officer who had warned about potential dangers at Pearl Harbor before the attack, and his subsequent work with code breakers to try and determine where the next big event would be. Actor Ed Skrein plays Best as a no nonsense family man who also is fearless enough to intimidate those he is in command of. Patrick Wilson plays the quiet intelligence guy who's guilt over the Pearl Harbor mess forces him to challenge establishment thinking about the war.

There are not quite as many personal touches for the Japanese commanders but they are presented in honest ways, suggesting their commitment and honor in what is a truly tragic us of resources. This is not a propaganda film, it is an historical document of the events and it tries to steer clear of making one side or the other more virtuous, it simply tries to tell us what happened. As a history lesson it is pretty effective. It is not hard for us to follow events and see how the strategy for Midway was evolved by both sides. Of course the thing that makes it cinematic is the CGI spectacle that we see as the conflict plays out. It is clear that this is a CGI heavy film, the work is competent but it is at times noticeable. The scale of destruction that happens probably could not be presented any other way these days in a budget that is manageable. Unlike "Saving Private Ryan", "Midway presents the destruction without all the visceral horror that modern effects and make up are capable of. There are a few scenes where fire injuries are shown but there are no closeups on the wounded and the dead which are meant to turn our stomachs. This is a film that largely could have been made in the 1950s for it's sensibilities.

Woody Harrelson, Aaron Eckhart, and Dennis Quaid play major historical figures, but most of their work is really background, with only a little bit of drama involved. Once again, we are presented with a reason to be eternally grateful to the "Greatest Generation".  As far as I'm concerned that is justification enough to see the movie. The history lesson is also solid and it makes this a film that could be appropriately shown as part of a school curriculum. The drama is soft pedaled but the hard fought war and the losses that it entailed are worth a visit.

Movies I Want Everyone to See: The Right Stuff

Originally Published on Fogs Movie Reviews Fall 2013
 
Review by Richard Kirkham
Kids of my generation all had the same heroes, astronauts. We watched the launches and splash downs on television both at home and at school. Everyone knew who John Glenn was and the Moon landing in July of 1969 seemed like the greatest day in history. A lot of kids followed test pilots and experimental aircraft like they were ball players with statistics. By the time the Vietnam War was finally run out, and Watergate had drained us of much of the respect we had for our government, the space program had shriveled in size and Skylab had tumbled back to Earth. Astronauts had become at best technicians in the sky and often faceless. In 1979, Tom Wolfe published "The Right Stuff" which reminded us all of what it took to be an American Hero in the Space Race. The rights to the book were snapped up and plans for the movie began. Four years later emerged a film that would be called by many one of the finest films of the decade. It is not a forgotten film, but in many ways it is a neglected film. Readers on a site like this might know the movie intimately, but casual movie audiences are often unfamiliar with movies that lack a cult following or came out before they were born. Let's see if we can work on that.


"The Right Stuff" is a terrific entertainment that I think too many people think of as a history lesson. It traces the origins of the space program from the test flights of jet planes in the aftermath of the Second World War, to the most dramatic points of the Space Race with the Soviet Union. The fifteen years that span the story do include a number of historical events but they are told in an entertaining way, which while not always accurate may give us a clearer view of history than any textbook is likely to achieve. Part of the problem the film faced from the beginning was the tie in that was made to the political process. A year before the 1984 Presidential election, John Glenn was an active candidate for the Democratic nomination. Time Magazine featured a cover picture, not of Glenn as an astronaut but of actor Ed Harris playing Glenn. Rolling Stone did an in depth article on Glenn that they titled "The Right Stiff", making a connection between his Boy Scout reputation and the forthcoming film. By the time the movie came out, it was viewed by many as a political story that might have an impact on the election. The ad campaign did little to distance itself from such a perception, featuring as it did, press conference shots and dramatic images of astronauts walking down a hallway plus a couple of posters making the characters out as Mount Rushmore type figures rather than real people.

Phillip Kaufman was partially responsible for Raiders of the Lost Ark and is credited along with George Lucas for the story. He also did the excellent remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1978. He was not the first choice for directing this film and it appears that there were some contentious behind the scenes issues when it came to putting the movie together. Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman had his script dumped after a meeting with Kaufman and composer John Barry could not understand what Kaufman was looking for in the music for the film. He wrote his own version of the script, focusing on elements from Wolfe's book that seemed to favor the original test pilots out at Edwards Air Force Base as the last of the men who had "The Right Stuff". In the end he manages to bring the two parallel experiences together, and make all of the featured historical characters have that little bit of personal quality that defines them as real American heroes.

Perhaps his greatest directorial decision had to do with the way in which the flight scenes would be visualized on screen. Eschewing the use of animation and computer technology to a large degree, the flight sequences were largely done using techniques that had been pioneered during the days of Buck Rodgers in the 1930s. Models were flown on wires, chemicals were ignited on the outside of models, real jet flames were fitted into wooden life sized models of test craft. Real footage of rocket flights was combined with material produced for the film to give life to the successes and failures of the early space program.
Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier is the main hero in the film, despite the fact that he is limited in the amount of screen time his character receives.  Yeager is the real deal, last year on the 65th anniversary of the sound barrier breakthrough, he repeated the experience, at age 89. In the movie he is portrayed by playwright and actor Sam Shepard. The part earned him an Academy Award Nomination as a quiet man who had a keener sense of the destiny of manned space flight than many of those in the space program itself. (Look for the real Chuck Yeager in the bit part of Fred, the barman at the Happy Bottom Riding Club.) The other breakout role belongs to Ed Harris playing John Glenn.  We get to understand Glenn's quiet charisma through Harris' subtle work. The one scene where he breaks out in a human conflict works because he has been such a steady and quiet presence through most of the film up until that point.

The movie is packed with wonderful actors doing excellent work. Scott Glenn and Fred Ward are two actors I am always happy to see because I remember them from this movie. Glenn plays first American in space Alan Shepard. In addition to Tom Wolfe's book, I have read several biographies and autobiographies of the astronauts of the 1960s, Shepard's "Moon Shot" is a great read and I saw Scott Glenn in every story that Shepard shared in his contributions. Gus Grissom was one of the first American casualties in the space age, and I would like to think he was the surly yet good humored man as played by Ward. The other astronauts get brief moments, with Dennis Quaid's  Gordo Cooper receiving nearly as much time as the big three of Harris, Glenn and Ward.  Fans of "Aliens" , "The Terminator" and one of my favorites "The Quick and the Dead" will be able to pick out Lance Henriksen as Wally Schirra, who is mostly background for the Mercury Seven.   Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer have small roles as NASA advance men, David Clennon is a publicist for the Air Force, and Donald Moffat a very familiar character actor plays L.B.J.. Royal Dano, the sonorously voiced character actor who did the voice of Abraham Lincoln for the Disney attraction, has a part as the harbinger of death.

Let's not slight the ladies either. The cast of women who play Mrs. Honorable astronaut is equally impressive. The hugely undervalued Pamela Reed has one of her best parts as Cooper's long suffering wife. Veronica Cartwright who has worked in the business since she was a child (The Birds and Leave it to Beaver) has her best role outside of Alien playing Betty Grissom. Barbara Hershey is beautiful and tough as the woman that Chuck Yeager names the X-1 after. The wife of the cinematographer was cast in the part of shy and stuttering Annie Glenn, Mary Jo Deschanel is also the mother of Zoey Deschanel the "doe eyed It girl" of the decade. Oh yeah, Kim Stanley and Kathy Baker are also in the cast, it was Baker's first cinema role and Stanley's last.

What all these talented people managed to do was to bring history to life. Not the history of a textbook but the everyday drama of people who happen to be living through history. The seven Mercury Astronauts became famous before they ever went into space, but they were men who had strengths and weaknesses like any one else. Those characteristics are integrated into the film in a very effective way. The tender scenes between the Glenns feel real even though we were not privy to them in history. The struggle of the Grissoms, after Gus's capsule is lost, may be exaggerated but it feels like a slice of reality television as we watch them cope with a less than perfect mission. Most of the astronauts ended up in second and third marriages and we get to see how the strain of being an American Icon could contribute to a failed marriage. The movie is filled with humor as well. Some of that humor is of the gallows type as the astronauts face the dangers that were space exploration. Some of the humor is a little juvenile but reflects the way they tried to blow off the pressures they are faced with. The Air Force song and Marine Hymn have never competed in a more hysterical way than in the medical evaluation scenes in the middle of the film.

There are plenty of technical accolades to spread around as well. The costumes and sets were top notch. The sound and editing won the Academy Awards for that year. Bill Conti who is best known for writing the "Rocky" theme, won the Academy Award for best score for this movie. It is a somewhat controversial decision because much of the music was cribbed from other classical composers. Conti  made sure that all of them were credited so that he was not accused of plagiarism. The theme he came up with is integrated with the other music seamlessly and that probably accounts for his winning the award. Just as an aside, he was the conductor of the Academy orchestra who got ignored/dissed by Julia Roberts the night she won her Academy Award for Erin Brockovich.


There are some incredibly iconic moments in the film. There may have been earlier uses of the shot, but this was the first time I remember seeing the men walking abreast toward the camera shot in this manner. Clearly when they are all in their flight suits and helmets, moving down the long hallway, we have some men on a mission. Those men can be seen to be serious. The shot has been done a thousand times since and it is parodied quite often as well but this was the first time I can say I was impressed by the idea. I won't say it was invented here but I will say it was perfected.
Again, I don't know that it first appeared here but it was the earliest vivid image I can think of of a man walking away from a crash or explosion and not turning back.




Sam Shepard's Yeagar barely escapes from a fiery crash and he walks across the desert floor toward the rescue vehicle coming for him, he has a determined look and never glances backwards. Levon Helm, the drummer and sometimes singer for "The Band", played Yeager's buddy Ridley  gets a great come back line that tells us who really has the "Right Stuff" as the ambulance pulls up. Helm also did the narration of the opening and closing lines of the movie and his voice is perfect for the tone of the film.

Had the movie been a bigger financial success, I'm sure it would have mopped up at awards time. The lack of box office tainted the film a bit so that it is critical success that defines it today rather than awards. Those of you who have read my material before know that "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Jaws"  are my two favorite films. This would probably make my top ten list most days. More important however is the fact that this is the favorite film of my spouse of 33 years. Had I not made this recommendation I would have to answer to her. "The Right Stuff" is on regular rotation at our house with a couple of viewings a year. You should revisit it if it has been a while, and if you have never seen it before, what is wrong with you?


Richard Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.

A Dog's Purpose

I am aware of the controversy that has cropped up leading to the release of this film and I will have a few comments at the end of the post. We are going to start with what made it to the screen first. There is an immediate way to recognize how the story  in the movie and the marketing of the film rely on the audience who loves dogs to simply show up. The name of the Director is never mentioned on the teaser poster, in the trailer, nor any material I'd seen leading up to the events this week. In fact, in most of the writing about the behind the scenes video clips that have leaked, they never said the name of the film's director, it's Lasse Hallström. This is a two time Academy Award nominated director, who has a string of well regarded movies on his resume, and there is not one "From the Director of..." tag lines to be seen in the studio material. It was not until the credits that I saw his name. This guy made "My Life as a Dog", "The Cider House Rules", "Chocolat" and a movie that I admired very much from just a couple of years ago, "The Hundred Foot Journey". I can see why he was chosen to direct, and my guess is that his name will not put as many butts in the seats as a good picture of a dog.

People who love and own dogs will be able to identify with this film immediately. I think all of us have voiced our own dogs thoughts at least in our heads, but many, including me, have done it out loud with regularity. We anthropomorphize our animals all the time. With the right story line and voice casting, this movie should be catnip [yeah I know] to all the dog lovers out there. Who can resist the notion that our animals think about us and the things we do just they way we think about them. Comedic actor Josh Gad, who has several successful voice performances under his belt, manages to get the wistful, empathetic tone of a dog just right. "Bailey", the lead character in our story, is just that kind of dog. The screenplay then provides several lives for "Baily" to lead, while clearly indicating which story is the main spine of this work.

Frankly, this movie could be just a kids film, but it is really much more. Let's admit up front that it is an infernal machine. This device is designed to drain us of all moisture residing anywhere in our heads. Since the dog has several incarnations in the film, it is no spoiler to say that we get several on screen and off screen deaths of our hero. There are at least four times that a dog steps off the stage and it is likely to be accompanied by your tears. The dog is also a hero in the lives of most of his owners. He literally saves lives a couple of times, and also saves the heart of the people who's lives he has entered. There are moments of dog/people love that will force your eyes to well up again. In his soft and warm voice, Gad provides "Bailey" with humor, pathos and an opportunity to consider the foibles of human existence.

The director manages to make all of this happen in an atmosphere that is usually great to look at, even when the environment is not very appealing. "Bailey's" life as a German Shepard K-9 officer is not particularly warm except for two or three minutes. The warmth of the apartment and life he shares as a corgi is easier to relate to and see beauty in. It is however in the two most extended sequences, that pretty much bookend the story, that we can see Hallström do the thing that he is best at. He makes the countryside look like the farm life that city dwellers dream of and farm hands and rural types want their lives to be. Canada stands in for Michigan and the suburban scenes set in the sixties look like a fond memory of a mostly idyllic childhood. Ethan, the kid who loves and grows up with "Bailey" is played by three different actors. Both of the younger performers are engaging, but there are some story elements that are a bit much and they still seemed natural. The one place it fell down a bit was near the end of the first long segment. Ethan changes for various reasons but the performance does not quite get us there. It doesn't matter too much because we are crying our eyes out at the dog's story at that moment. This is a good piece of misdirection by the director from a plot point that feels a little artificial. In the last segment, things don't start out so well for our canine hero, and this is another time when the director manages to let a few well placed shots and a montage of time convey the events in the story. We are spared an even uglier look at human behavior than we might have had otherwise.

Denis Quaid is Ethan all grown up. His story gets a bit short shrift. Ultimately we see that much like the other lives "Bailey" has come into, Ethan is lonely and in need. I was pleased to see Peggy Lipton in the film. I am currently re-watching "Twin Peaks" in preparation for it's return this Spring, and Lipton as Norma is great. Her adult version of Hannah does not have a lot to do but it does work well with Mr. Quaid and it finishes off the movie in a way that should make audiences satisfied. My daughter read the book that the film is based on just last night. She told us after the movie about the ending of the book, and I'm glad that the film spared us another parting. There are just so many tears I can afford to surrender without having to give up my man card.

Addendum:

Now as for the controversy. The clips of the German Shepard in the water that have shown up on line are about the mildest form of "abuse" you can imagine. My dogs are more reluctant to get in the water at bath time and they are in greater danger than the canine star was. So either that makes me a heartlessly indifferent dog hater, or the world has gone mad with overly sensitized social media consumers. PETA, who is behind the boycott movement against this film, is an extremist organization that objects to animals being used for any entertainment purpose (or any other reason for that matter). It is in their interest to move mainstream thought on issues like this in their direction. Whales and Elephants are bigger targets (literally) but they have been more successful there. Pet ownership is something they also see as problematic. In a nation of pet owners, it's hard to find a wedge issue to gain entry with. This is their opportunity to push the outside of the envelope. Ultimately I hope they fail because this movie is more likely to inspire responsible pet ownership and thus better treatment for dogs. The twisted logic of this "Animal Rights" organization deems anything which makes dog ownership seem appropriate, is undesirable.