My Life In Movies Flashes Before My Eyes: Primary Colors, 1998

Primary Colors is quite possibly one of the greatest political films of all time, it typifies politics in the 1990s. It was based on a novel by Anonymous but I think they finally figured out who wrote it. It was directed by Mike Nichols and scripted by Elaine May. The film follows Adrian Lester as Henry Burton, an idealistic young political operative as he works on the primary campaign of Democratic Governor Jack Stanton from a state that's last in everything and has a problem with women. Sound familiar? Know anyone like that?

Well, there's also his wife, Susan, played by Emma Thompson, the power behind the scenes who struggles to turn a blind eye to her husband's infidelities in order to make history. Billy Bob Thornton plays a political operative, along with Maura Tierney and Kathy Bates just about steals the show as an idealistic old friend of Jack and Susan's. Oh, and Larry Hagman as Jack's opponent who may be the "real thing".

The film follows Henry as he slides further and further into a moral vacuum, deciding what he can sanction in order to make history and have an impact on people's lives. Travolta is great in this, so is Emma Thompson. The film is a little episodic as we follow each of Stanton's sex scandals in the primary race, but it features great character moments filled with the mood of the south. I especially like this clip because it exemplifies the world Henry has gotten into.



Also, this is the only film I have ever known to have a Krispy Kreme tie in. They had a Primary Colors doughnut with red, white and blue sprinkles. My brother claims it is his favorite Krispy Kreme of all time. I'm a purist, I like the glazed while they are HOT. There is no damn point in getting them if they are not HOT. There's a scene in the movie that takes place at a Krispy Kreme which really makes you want to forgive Jack for all of his son of a bitch-ness. And of course, there's Kathy Bates, her ending is so great and so emotional it breaks your heart, but here she is earlier in the film. I love how Nichols and May never waste a moment in this film.



So, questions, comments, concerns? Anyone else think of a Krispy Kreme tie in for a film?

My Life In Movies Flashes Before My Eyes: Working Girl, 1988

You know, some of these years are much harder to do than others. Apparently in 1988, there was Big, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Coming to America and the film that I've selected. It was difficult. Anyway, this movie stars Melanie Griffith and may surprise you in that it doesn't suck. I think the problem is that Melanie Griffith has been trying to play this same role every other time in her career and it doesn't work. Case in point: Shining Through. Take her character in this movie add Nazis and you've got Shining Through. Speaking of which, why is Liam Neeson a Nazi in that movie? I know that Schindler's List was after that, so they couldn't have seen it coming but it's still disturbing. I just don't want to see Liam Neeson as a Nazi, I watched that whole movie bothered that I still liked him.

Okay, on to the task at hand. Working Girl, directed by Mike Nichols, is the story of Tess McGill, a working class girl from Long Island with aspirations in finance. She finds these ambitions to be stifled by the lack of an Ivy League/blue blood pedigree. She feels like her life is turning around when she becomes the secretary to Katherine Parker. I love this part of the film because it plays on knowing someone who you hate/want to be. Tess brings her an idea for a deal and Katherine promises to use it to help her. Then Katherine gets in a ski accident and things change. Tess finds out Katherine intended to steal her idea, so Tess decides to take matters into her own hands and sets up a meeting with Jack Traynor played by Harrison Ford. Before that, she has an unfortunate incident with prescription meds and Tequila, which makes the business part of this awkward. So, Tess starts moving in business circles and pursuing a relationship with Jack, because you know, he's Harrison Ford before he started dating Calista Flockhart. Oh, also, Katherine thinks she's pretty much engaged to Jack. There are issues, which all come together nicely upon Katherine's return where Tess is able to show her for the fraud she is. The important part is really the ride along the way as Tess struggles with her identity: that of a secretary or a serious business lady. That theme is summed up in this one clip from Tess' best friend.

Okay, the best parts of this movie: the stellar cast, containing basically everyone. You've got Joan Cusack as Tess' best friend, Alec Baldwin as her boyfriend, an Irish guy from Long Island (Hey, wait a minute...), Olympia Dukakis, Oliver Platt and even Kevin Spacey in a memorable appearance. I love the way it captures the divide between blue and white collar, evidenced through the fantastic cityscape of Manhattan in the film, giving you the full gusto of New York in the 1980s. You know, at least h Also, there's a Carly Simon song in this film, evoked throughout the score. Another win. Carly Simon should write more songs in movies that we can sing driving to work.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Freaking Me, That's Who

It seems bad to say now, but I never liked Elizabeth Taylor. You know how sometimes in life you just meet someone and you don't know why, but you take an instant dislike to them? Elizabeth Taylor is the cinematic equivalent of that for me.

By the time I was born, Elizabeth Taylor was already a legend, having been in movies since she was a small child, the product of her mother's lost ambitions to be an actress. She somehow made the transition from child star to ingenue to leading lady to freaking movie boss, succeeding where so many other actresses got lost along the way. Indeed, I knew her more for her charitable works, eight marriages and perfume by the time I got around to knowing who she was.

The eight marriages gave me a reason to dislike her. By now, we all know of the Fisher-Taylor-Reynolds affair subsequently followed by the Taylor-Burton-Fisher affair. The first movie I seriously watched Elizabeth Taylor in was Cleopatra and it's easy to dislike her in that movie. I mean, every guy that likes her ends up dead by shanking. It's so easy to see her as a siren luring men to their downfall, certainly some of the evidence supports that. But take the marriage to her third husband, Mike Todd and his sudden death in an airplane accident during the making of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.



I'm sorry, it's just hard to hate a woman that's playing with a duck. Oh my God, did you see that outfit? How cool does she look? Why can't I look like that while I play with a duck while Edward R. Murrow interviews me? Oh, right. The tragedy of Mike Todd's death spurred Elizabeth on to one of her greatest performances, one I've covered already, in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.



I started to turn. Hell, this is tragic. You're married to Paul Newman and he's a depressed alcoholic with a weird fixation on his dead friend, so you can't even enjoy being married to Paul Newman. TRAGIC. I've started to think differently about the Eddie Fisher thing, too, like I'm pretty sure that Eddie Fisher could be the scumbag in that instance. Just a theory.

Yet, as quickly as Elizabeth Taylor could make you feel sympathy, she could scare the hell out of you. I am talking about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, probably the finest performance of a career full of fine performances and definitely the best collaboration between her and Richard Burton. If you don't know the story by now, it's this a young couple visits a university professor and his wife (Burton and Taylor) for an evening and finds out that you never know what's going on in people's marriages and sometimes you don't freaking want to.



This movie scares the hell out of me. I caution you to watch it, but do not start after midnight, intriguing as Taylor and Burton are in this movie, I had to turn it off just so I could be sure that I slept. It is a fantastic film, that perplexes you and keeps you guessing and I am seriously not ruining the ending here. Last Christmas, Turner Classic played this movie and I couldn't believe it. Worst Christmas Programming Ever. This movie is the opposite of a Merry Christmas. It might be better for Festivus, sometime during the Airing of Grievances. Accounts of their time on the set of this film differ. Director Mike Nichols insisted that they fought, but it was all in fun. Colleagues insisted that they weren't kidding, again, you never know what's going on in other people's marriages. Don't ask. Yet everyone asked, Liz and Dick were the thing, in their day making Brangelina look lame and uncool. When did Brad Pitt ever buy Angelina a 241 carat diamond?



Or what about the La Peregrina Pearl? Other owners include Mary Tudor, you know FROM HISTORY.



I mean, come on, Brad, step it up.

Their relationship, collaboration and two marriages would come to define both of them. I think about the tragedy of their relationship, that they loved each other desperately, hopelessly, but ultimately were not very good for each other.

So, what more can I say about Elizabeth Taylor? I hated her, then I kind of started to feel bad for her and she scared the hell out of me. Now I'm feeling bad for hating her as so often happens in life. Farewell, Elizabeth, I hardly knew ye and I get the feeling I never quite will. I guess that's just how it's got to be.

And from Turner Classic, a tribute from Paul Newman. See? I'm not entirely off topic.