Withnail & I Movie Review: 25 Years Ago This Month

In its first 15 minutes I half expected Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical tale of two unemployed actors boozing it up in the English countryside, to become a Beckett-influenced sojourn into existential trappings. While the two titular characters wallow in misery in their wretched London flat it begins to feel like two souls trapped in an endless loop. A little more happens than a bit of Waiting for Godot.

This was Richard E. Grant’s film debut playing Withnail and here he perfected his signature sneer, off-hand sarcastic remarks, and general temperament of displeasure with everything. His friend, flatmate and fellow struggling actor’s name is never spoken, although Marwood can be seen on an envelope. Played by Paul McGann he is no less a brooding personality than Withnail, although he is more replete with angst and a general queasiness about everything.

25 Years Ago This Month: June 1987

Kevin Costner got his big starring break in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, written by playwright David Mamet, whose own directorial debut came the same year. Sean Connery won an Oscar for playing sidekick and mentor to Costner's Eliot Ness. Andy Garcia makes one of his earliest screen appearances.

Harry and the Hendersons was a beloved little family film most of us probably remember fondly. John Lithgow is the head of a family that hits a sasquatch with his car while on a camping trip (?) and then takes the man-bear-gorilla home for a bit of light family entertainment/comedy/moralizing. Kevin Peter Hall, who played Harry, is otherwise best known for playing the Predator in both Predator and Predator 2.

Speaking of which, Predator was released the same month! Now this is a movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka former California governor) gets called in for a Central American jungle mission with his elite group of commandos that includes Carl Weathers (aka Apollo Creed), Jesse "The Body" Ventura (aka former Minnesota governor), and Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black. Then they get eliminated one-by-one at the hands of a technologically advanced alien creature. Schwarzenegger faces him mano a mano in the finale. Classic!

The Age of Innocence Movie Review

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence, has not really received its due praise. Perhaps because at the time it seemed such a departure for the director of quintessential New York stories of Italian Americans, often involved in crime. Now that 17 years have passed and Scorsese has gone on to create a body of work with much broader settings and themes (Kundun, The Aviator, Shutter Island), it’s fair to say there is little unusual about seeing it as very much a Martin Scorsese Picture.

Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is one in a long line of Scorsese male protagonists trying to escape from the clutches of a world not of his own choosing. Consider Charlie in Mean Streets coming to terms with his lack of faith; Travis Bickle trapped in a sewer of crime; Jesus of Nazareth wrestling with the forces pushing him; Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island a prisoner of his own psychosis.