Heartland, Heathers, Heaven Can Wait, and a few more movies

Heartland (1979)
Streaming free at Tubi

Stoic, man. This movie is stoic as Zeno of Citium, and so's everyone in it. Also, it's excellent.

Heartland is a western without guns, about a widow named Elinore Randall, who takes work as housekeeper and cook for a hardscrabble rancher, one Clyde Stewart. He's a stranger who's paid her train fare to Wyoming, in exchange for her promise to run the house for a year.

Conchata Farrell plays the Widow Randall, and she's above excellent in the role. Rip Torn is unlike you've seen him before, un-flamboyant and un-Rip Torn, playing a farmer who has almost nothing to say, and calls Elinore "Mrs Randall" even mere seconds before they're married.

#326  [archive]
AUG. 25, 2024

And their wedding is the movie's biggest surprise, as there'd been not a hint of a spark between these two. Their matrimony seems to be more about stretching the farm's budget than any romance.

In one scene, long after they're married, Elinore collapses and starts screaming while hanging laundry on the line. Clyde's response is to call out, "Ellie!" It's one of the movie's few moments where either of them raise their voices or show any intense emotion, but when she stands up and stops screaming, there's no need for him to come out of the house to check on her, so he doesn't. It's a breakthrough moment, though, because he called her 'Ellie', instead of Mrs Randall.

This is a serious film about the difficulties of pioneer life, for two difficult people in a difficult time and place. It eschews any clichés, has no musical interlude, no big dramatic showdown. Nothing is sentimental here, and there's no hazy nostalgia.

My guess is that it was filmed on a working farm, because the farm and animal scenes are real, not 'realistic'. The actors slaughtered that pig, skinned that cow, and birthed that calf, all of which adds to the movie's almost-documentary feel.

Heartland doesn't brag up front, "Based on a true story," but it's drawn from 1910s letters written by the real Elinore Stewart, augmented by the recollections of her daughter. When this is mentioned in the closing credits, it's no surprise. More like, "Yup," because every detail, every scene feels authentic.

And of course, the film ends … stoically.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Heathers (1989)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

"My son's a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son."

Some movies are so well-known, it's silly to write a synopsis, but this is my self-assigned beat, so here goes:

Veronica has joined the "in crowd" at high school, a group of girls called the Heathers because the other three share that first name. They're vain and mean, but Veronica grows weary of their bitchiness and hopes to break free from the clique. She's helped by Jason, the impossibly arrogant and amoral new boy at the school, who suggests murder as a strategy.

Ryder does her young and looks-innocent-but-isn't act, delivering acidly acerbic lines with a twinkle, and sells it well. As Jason, Christian Slater does that Junior Jack Nicholson thing he did back then, exactly the same as his performance in Pump Up the Volume. It's the movie's weakest element, but Heathers rocks anyway.

It's a smart-ass satire of high school, with exaggeratedly snarky teenspeak, and hilarious murder, suicide, and terrorism. It's fat- and dweeb-friendly, gay-unfriendly, and not quite as oh-my-god rebellious as I'd remembered from seeing it in the '80s, but it's about as radical as mainstream movies are allowed to be.

Verdict: YES.  

♦ ♦ ♦  

Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche) is a wealthy man from a wealthy family who leads a life of wealthy leisure, but at least he has the good sense to know he's headed to Hell when he dies. And die he does, before the movie even starts.

It opens with Van Cleve descending to Hades, then explaining to Satan (Laird Cregar) how he richly deserves to burn for eternity. Curiously, Satan is the most interesting character in the movie, which then proceeds to flash back through Van Cleve's life. His big sin has always been chasing skirts, even during his marriage, and since he was born rich he usually snags the skirts.

This is a comedy by Ernst Lubitsch, who made some of the best — Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Trouble in Paradise — but this one flummoxed me.

Maybe it's the Victorian-era settings and costumes, which I've always found off-putting. The dialogue is very formal, the men have exaggerated mustaches, there's a woman with a silly and fake French accent, and I took an instant hating to the actor playing Van Cleve as a young man (grown-up child star Dickie Moore).

All the rich people are high-strung and shallow as ice cubes, their problems are of Park Avenue, and dang near none of this earns a chuckle or smile.

"I am struggling successfully against the gout, I'm waging a terrific battle with my liver, and I'm holding my own against asthma, but I doubt is I have strength enough to survive your jokes."

Nor have I.

Verdict: NO. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Streaming free at Daily Motion

Same title as the above, but this isn't a remake of 1943's Heaven Can Wait, nor related in any way.

Warren Beatty plays Joe Pendleton, backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, who's riding his bicycle and gets almost flattened by a drunk driver. Being an athlete and all, he adroitly steers the bike out of the way, but his guardian angel incorrectly assumes he'll die, and snatches him a moment early.

Suddenly the living Pendleton is in Purgatory, which looks like a fogged-in airport. To make amends for this big mistake, Pendleton's katra is plugged into the body of Leo Farnsworth, a rich fucker who's in the midst of being murdered, and deserves it.

Pendleton is a fantasy jock — brilliant on the field, great sportsmanship, eats healthy, says no to drugs and dames, speaks the right clichés to reporters, etc. He's a nice guy, but not too bright. Reincarnated in the body of bastard billionaire Farnsworth, he wants to do the right thing, which Farnsworth has never once done.

It's a story that sounds stupid, and it is, but it's stupid in a smart way, mixing fairy tale elements with corporate chicanery, football jockery, numerous murder attempts, and some mild jabs at capitalism.

Julie Christie plays an environmental activist who protests Farnsworth's new refinery so fervently that he falls for her, and everything happens at the speed of a screwball comedy, providing plenty of laughs and the required impossibly happy ending.

The cast includes Dyan Cannon, Charles Grodin, Buck Henry, James Mason, and Jack Warden, and they're all at their best. Co-directed by Beatty and Henry, from a screenplay by Elaine May and Beatty, and based on a 1930s play by Harry Segall, which was previously filmed as Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941), which is on my watchlist and coming soon.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

Heaven Knows What (2014)
Streaming free at The Roku Channel

This begins with two minutes of very annoying music, the same few notes repeated rapidly again and again, with reverb for added annoyance, while two very sad people kiss very sadly.

When the music and kissing finally stop, there's a whispered conversation in a library, between a teenage girl with homeless or strung-out-on-heroin vibes and her sullen, psychotic-looking boyfriend. They're probably the same people who were just kissing.

The girl is ready to kill herself, and writes a suicide note for her psycho boyfriend, who rips it up and forces it into her mouth.

Next the girl is outside the library, and here comes the boyfriend, whose look and manner seem inspired by Tommy Wiseau in The Room. He shouts at the girl, "Everyone told me that you are a fucking whore, that you're a fucking scumbag, that you're a fucking whore," on and on, and, "If you loved me, you would've killed yourself by now."

He says that last line a second time for emphasis, and adds, "Why are you still here?" 

That's at about eleven minutes into this, and the psychopath's question resonated with me, so I clicked the movie off.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

• Ballpark from A League of Their Own and Eight Men Out destroyed in fire 

• Movie about drunk, fornicating, and child-raping priests outrages politicians in Catholic Poland (and goes on my watchlist)

 8/25/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Heaven's Gate (1980)
Heavy Traffic (1973)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Heidi (1937)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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