Gee, I wonder if the cops on the TV show Chicago P.D. like working under Mayor Brandon Johnson. Doubt it. I don’t think Johnson is as sweatily concerned about Chicago crime as Sgt. Hank Voight is.
In an interview on his morning program, Joe Scarborough never got Johnson to admit that Chicago crime would or might drop if there were more police officers on the streets. Say, 5,000 more, Scarborough said. Johnson replied that he doesn’t believe in “arbitrary” numbers. Is this arbitrary leadership?
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The Warren Beatty movie, Reds (1981), is a grabber about the American pro-Communist journalist John Reed (Beatty) and his wife Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). Often fascinating, it is also, alas, extremely faulty, and its biggest problem is the use of real-life elderly “witnesses” who yak about the John Reed they saw and knew about. Rebecca West, George Jessel and Will Durant among them, these people make observations that add nothing to the on-screen story, not least because they utter things the rest of us already know.
Beatty’s acting, though not memorable, is palatable. Keaton does her best to create a character, but some of what she has to do is plainly beyond her. Director Beatty—co-scenarist too—mostly wastes Jack Nicholson in the Eugene O’Neill role, and Paul Sorvino is sadly almost laughable.
Reds is sufficiently honest to affirm that the Russian Revolution did not liberate people; it oppressed them. It says, in addition, that political movements are (constantly) hindered or damaged by natural complexity and human variety, even, in fact, by going against nature (as Alfred Jay Nock knew). As it happens, Bolshevism, in its cruel determination, went not only against nature but also against people.
The Robert Zemeckis movie, Used Cars (1980) is a raw and foul-mouthed satirical comedy. Of course it satirizes the deceit and unscrupulousness of car salesmen and plenty of others. An obvious but often funny item, it stars Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, Gerrit Graham and Deborah Harmon—all of them rich in personality and never overacting. I don’t know how good an actor Cheryl Rixon is, but—her character undergoes a wardrobe malfunction, and Rixon is truly gorgeous in both her face and her bare bosom. No malfunctioning in Used Cars.
Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei are all savvy, amusing and sensual—indeed, wonderfully memorable—in Bent Hamer‘s Factotum, a 2005 picture based on writings by Charles Bukowski. Dillon’s Hank Chinaski is a would-be writer who cannot adapt to ordinary life and is sometimes a feckless jerk. In one instance, he slaps to the floor of a bar his “loser” girlfriend (Taylor), who nevertheless needles him. She often drolly thinks Hank is too big for his britches.
Hank needs the odd jobs he gets fired from. A heavy drinker inept at manual labor, like the pitiable Laura (Tomei), he is finally homeless. These people are oddities in a dull milieu confusing or disappointing to them. And what comic oddities they can be. Factotum—directorially and photographically impressive—is never depressing. Good show.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, Juror #2 (2024) is a poorly written legal drama. Nicholas Hoult adeptly plays a juror, Justin, examining a defendant who is being tried for a “crime” Justin himself is responsible for. Most of the trial’s jurors are made to seem stupid. Justin is simply weak and ignorant—too much so. The case is ridiculous, and there is an appalling witness whom everyone appears to find credible. (For those who have seen the film: Why wasn’t the witness asked in court to describe the defendant’s car?) Juror #2 isn’t boring but it isn’t good either.
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