On this day in movie history - Homicide (1991)

Homicide

directed and written by David Mamet,

was released in the United States on October 9, 1991.

Music by Alaric Jans.

Cast:

Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, Ving Rhames, Natalia Nogulich, Vincent Guastaferro, J. J. Johnston, Lionel Mark Smith, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Roberta Custer, Charles Stransky, Bernard Gray, Paul Butler.

Recommended reading: Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play

Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play 

Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play
by David Mamet.
 
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984.
 
Published by Grove Press.
First published 1983.
Paperback.
 
ISBN-10: 0802130917
ISBN-13: 978-0802130914
 
Description:
 
Comic Drama Characters: 7 males.
 
2 interior sets.
 

“Who needs caffeine when you’ve got Glengarry Glen Ross? … David Mamet’s play about a dog-eat-dog real estate office in Chicago feels like having espresso pumped directly into your bloodstream…. Mr. Mamet hears American scheming with an exactitude and delight still surpassed by any other dramatist.” – New York Times.

 

Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best American Play and the Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best American Play and the Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Glengarry Glen Ross is one of the most celebrated and widely performed plays of recent years. It is a scalding comedy is about small-time, cutthroat real esate salesmen trying to grind out a living by pushing plots of land onto reluctant buyers in a never-ending scramble for their fair share of the American dream. Here, Mamet is at his very best, writing with brutal power about the tough life of tough people who cajole, connive, wheel and deal for a piece of the action an existence where closing a sale can mean a brand-new Cadillac, but losing one can mean losing it everything.

 

“Wonderfully funny … a play to see, remember and cherish.” – New York Post.

On this day in movie history - Edmond (2005)

Edmond

directed by Stuart Gordon,

written by and based on the play by David Mamet,

was released at the Venice Film Festival in Italy on August 31, 2005.

Music by Bobby Johnston.

Cast:

William H. Macy, Frances Bay, Rebecca Pidgeon, Joe Mantegna, Denise Richards, Wendy Thompson, Vincent Guastaferro, Bai Ling, Matt Landers, Dulé Hill, Russell Hornsby, Aldis Hodge, Debi Mazar, Mena Suvari, Jeffrey Combs, Barry Cullison, George Wendt, Marcus Thomas, Lionel Mark Smith, Julia Stiles, Patricia Belcher, Wren T. Brown, Bruce A. Young, Dylan Walsh, Bokeem Woodbine, Jack Wallace, Michael Saad, Vanessa Born, Michael Calder, Mary Castro, Annette Harper, Elena Jovis, Steven Littles, Ryan March, Laurie Meghan Phelps, Blake Sherman, Patrick M. Strong, Saskia Vogel, Alexander von Roon.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – one way or another …

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – one way or another …

Review by Jack Kost

Hard times reveal peoples' true natures.

Often the worst side.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), was directed by Bob Rafelson, and released in the United States on March 20, 1981.

His previous notable directorial credits include: Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), also starring Jack Nicholson.

The screenplay, by David Mamet, was based on the 1934 hardboiled novel of the same title, by James M. Cain.

David Mamet’s writing and directing credits include: House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), Hoffa (1992), and Heist (2001).

Set during the depression era, Frank Chambers (Jack Nicholson) is a drifter with a criminal record, an opportunistic petty crook and conman, thumbing rides on his way to wherever he can make a fast buck.

He pulls a fast one at a roadside gas station and diner: conning the owner, Nick (John Colicos) into giving him a free meal.

Nick also sees an opportunity and hires Frank as cheap labor.

Nick’s beautiful wife, Cora (Jessica Lange), immediately catches Frank’s attention.

With no better prospects, Frank takes the job.

Frank and Cora are bad people.

Selfish to the point where it can be said they ultimately deserve each other.

Frank is the kind of man who will smile to your face and then knock you down for the cash in your pocket.

Cora makes up the trio of opportunists.

She married Nick not for love, but as a way out of hardship; only succeeding in marrying out of one hash house into another.

Cora is a scheming femme-fatale: a vamp, fully aware of her seductive power.

She is bored, dissatisfied, and unhappy in her marriage to Nick, an older and oafish drunk.

He’s no better; coarse and insensitive, selfish in his own way, taking Cora for granted.

Cora feels neglected, used, and trapped.

Nick tells Cora he has a surprise for her, but it turns out to be a silk robe he bought for himself.

When Frank and Cora first make love on the kitchen table, the coupling is as violent and desperate as it is passionate.

Frank is ready to leave, suggesting to Cora that they both just take off together and leave Nick.

Cora is worried that Nick would come after them and sooner or later he’d catch up and she’d face his retribution.

Frank and Cora see in each other a way out, a way to a better future, a life together, with Nick’s business as their own.

The dynamic of the situation can only go one way.

It was never going to end well.

Nick is in the way.

Nick may not deserve the brutal end Frank and Cora inflict on him, but it’s still difficult for us to feel any sympathy for him.

After a failed attempt to kill Nick, the balance of power shifts between Frank and Cora and, fearing she will lose Frank, seduces him into murder:

CORA:

I gotta have you, Frank. If it was just us. If it was just you and me.

FRANK:

What are you talking about?

CORA:

I’m tired of what’s right and wrong.

FRANK:

They hang people for that, Cora.

Beneath the passion, there is a coldness to this movie, as cold as Frank and Cora are to Nick and, at times, each other.

It’s this cold, cruel, selfishness that prevents us from sympathizing for how they end up.

The novel has been filmed several times, with plays adapted for radio and stage, including an opera.

The 1981 movie version is superior in its gritty realism.

The script and actors were not constrained by the censorship of previous times; they could tell it like it played out in the author’s imagination.

Although harshly criticized on its release, the movie has endured and stands as a high-point in the careers of all involved.

The supporting cast includes: Michael Lerner, John P. Ryan, William Traylor, Ron Flagge, William Newman, Albert Henderson, Christopher Lloyd, Jon Van Ness, and Brion James.

The color tones in the movie are subdued, mostly varying shades of brown, reflecting the drabness of the times.

The music, by Michael Small, evokes an atmosphere of the time, in a neo-noir setting of drama, seduction, infidelity, deception, and murder.

Frank and Cora’s doomed relationship swings from love to hate.

How can a relationship, borne out of infidelity and murder, marred by suspicion, hope to survive?

Frank has a lazy streak, and a weakness for gambling.

When Cora goes out of town to visit her ailing mother, Frank shirks responsibility when left alone.

He closes the diner, takes off, encounters a traveling circus, and cheats on Cora with a wild cat tamer, played by Anjelica Huston.

Cora discovers Frank’s betrayal and takes it badly.

It further confirms Frank’s true nature, adding fuel to the fire of their already unstable relationship: cheaters cheat.

If they cheat with you, chances are they'll cheat on you.

It also confirms a double-standard in Cora: it was one thing Cora cheating on Nick with Frank, but another thing entirely when Frank cheated on her with another woman.

What goes around comes around.

If events had panned out different for Frank and Cora, they might have become victims to their own nature.

Stuck in another rut.

Frank may have found himself meeting a similar end to Nick.

It’s an old story.

A cautionary morality tale of stupid, selfish people making stupid, selfish choices.

Highlighting a recurring bad choice many people make, generation after generation: the mirage of the grass seeming greener on the other side of the fence.

It isn’t.

They fool themselves into thinking the new lover will be the perfect partner, able to provide them with the perfect life.

They quickly learn the new partner comes with faults and problems of their own.

The trip to the other side of that proverbial fence is often one-way.

The wrong choice is made, the bridge is then burned and, like Frank and Cora, they find themselves in a worse situation.

They may cheat the hangman, but life, fate, justice, karma – whatever you choose to call it – has a way of ringing twice.

On this day in movie history - Hoffa (1992)

Hoffa

directed by Danny DeVito,

written by David Mamet,

was released in the United States on December 25, 1992.

Music by David Newman.

Cast:

Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Armand Assante, J.T. Walsh, John C. Reilly, Kevin Anderson, John P. Ryan, Frank Whaley, Natalia Nogulich, Nicholas Pryor, Robert Prosky, Paul Guilfoyle, Karen Young, Cliff Gorman.

On this day in movie history - Heist (2001)

Heist

directed and written by David Mamet,

was released in the United States on November 9, 2001.

Music by Theodore Shapiro.

Cast:
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Patti LuPone, Alan Bilzerian, Richard L. Friedman, Robert Lussier, Mark Camacho, Michelle Sweeney, Elyzabeth Walling, Mike Tsar, Jim Frangione, Christopher Kaldor, Danny Blanco Hall, Zodia McLean, Andreas Apergis, Tony Calabretta, Ted Whittall, Guy Sprung, Richard Zeman, Don Jordan, Pierre Leblanc, Richard Robitaille, Greg Goossen, Charles S. Doucet, Bill Rowat, Benz Antoine, Emile Cassini, Jennifer Morehouse, Marlyne Barrett, Emile Castonguay, Karen Cliché, Johnny Goar, Christian Maguire, Kent McQuaid, Henri Pardo, Mike Paterson.