Tag Archives: J.T. Walsh

December 26, 2019 · 2:20 pm

The Set of 400: #180 – My Favorite Freedonia Shout-Out

Today! Because what if there is no God and you only go around once and that’s it. Well, don’t you wanna be part of the experience?

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Directed by Woody Allen (x5)

Starring Mia Farrow (x4), Michael Caine (x3), Barbara Hershey, Woody Allen (x4), Diane Wiest (x2), Max Von Sydow (x2), Carrie Fisher (x3), Maureen O’Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Daniel Stern (x2), Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Black, Julie Kavner (x2), J.T. Walsh (x5), John Turturro (x2), Richard Jenkins (x3), Fred Melamed (x2), Joanna Gleason, Sam Waterston (x2), Tony Roberts (x2)

With one of the best casts ever assembled, Hannah and Her Sisters in a lot of ways is the perfect Woody Allen movie. He made better ones, and he made funnier ones, but this is the rare hybrid between family drama and neurotic comedy, neatly packaged together as one film. Really, there are two plots running alongside each other, knitted together by featuring the extended family of sisters Hannah (Farrow), Holly (Wiest), and Lee (Hershey). Being a Woody Allen film, the B plot is entirely him – as Hannah’s writer ex-husband Mickey, going through a mid-life crisis where he may be dying of a brain tumor (this is the funny half!). The A plot features Hannah’s current husband – Michael Caine’s Elliot – in his escalating disenchantment with their marriage and his lust for sister-in-law Lee. Even this breakdown isn’t entirely fair, as they split time on these stories pretty evenly, plus a good amount of time spent on Wiest’s hilarious Holly, but the Elliot/Lee/Hannah portion does occupy with the emotional center of things.

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Tagged as Barbara Hershey, Carrie Fisher, Daniel Stern, Diane Wiest, Favorite Movies Ever, Fred Melamed, Hannah and Her Sisters, J.T. Walsh, Joanna Gleason, John Turturro, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julie Kavner, Lewis Black, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O'Sullivan, Max von Sydow, Mia Farrow, Michael Caine, Richard Jenkins, Sam Waterston, Tony Roberts, Woody Allen

November 19, 2019 · 2:19 pm

The Set of 400: #207 – My Favorite Strenuous Objection

Today! Because you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!

A Few Good Men (1992)

Directed by Rob Reiner (x2)

Starring Tom Cruise (x4), Demi Moore (x2), Jack Nicholson (x3), Kevin Pollak (x2), Kevin Bacon (x4), Kiefer Sutherland, J.T. Walsh (x4), Christopher Guest (x2), James Marshall, J.A. Preston, Xander Berkeley, Wolfgang Bodison, Cuba Gooding Jr., Noah Wyle, Joshua Malina, David Bowe

The 65th Academy Awards were the first that I really paid attention to – I had some movie-fan familiarity with prior ones, but this felt like the first year I made a point to see nominated movies, even in that limited, 1992, racing up Green Ridge Street to the Blockbuster in Dunmore, hoping copies were available, world we lived in. And as I’ve mentioned many times, 1992 is the most represented year on this list – this could certainly be part of the reason. Look at the wide smattering of films 12/13 year old Joe enjoyed enough to still remain in the consciousness now, 25+ years later – #262 The Crying Game, #389 Memoirs of an Invisible Man, #219 The Player, #242 Chaplin, #343 White Men Can’t Jump, and so on. And yes, there are still fully eight more movies to come!

Oh, the epochal shouting!

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Tagged as A Few Good Men, Aaron Sorkin, Christopher Guest, Cuba Gooding Jr., Demi Moore, Favorite Movies Ever, J.T. Walsh, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise

November 8, 2019 · 2:06 pm

The Set of 400: #214 – My Favorite Big Screen Tuberculosis

Today! Because there’s a cancer in the presidency and it’s growing –

Nixon (1995)

Directed by Oliver Stone (x2)

Starring Anthony Hopkins (x5), Joan Allen (x2), James Woods (x2), Paul Sorvino, Ed Harris, Powers Boothe (x3), Bob Hoskins, E.G. Marshall, David Hyde Pierce, David Paymer (x3), J.T. Walsh (x3), Mary Steenburgen (x2), Kevin Dunn (x3), Brian Bedford, Fyvush Finkel (x2), Annabeth Gish, Tony Goldwyn (x2), Larry Hagman (x2), Edward Herrman, Madeline Kahn (x2), Dan Hedaya (x3), Tom Bower, Tony Lo Bianco, Saul Rubinek, John C. McGinley, Michael Chiklis, George Plimpton, Marley Shelton (x2), James Karen (x2), Donna Dixon (x2), Sam Waterston, John Diehl, Robert Beltran

The last good-to-great movie Oliver Stone has made, Nixon is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the beleaguered 37th president, even while taking him to task for his many shortcomings as a politician and as a person in general. Throw in a bit of wild Oliver Stone-esque conspiracy speculation and a run time so bloated it manages to encompass decades of Tricky Dick’s life rather effortlessly, and you get a bombastic, overblown, sorta wonderful, sorta insane biopic unlike any other.

The performances carry through some of the more gymnastic directing – it’s a movie drowning in technique and style – with Hopkins’ amazing transformation into Nixon at its center. Many others have taken on this idiosyncratic role – Langella is fine in Frost/Nixon, Spacey a little less so in Elvis & Nixon, Dan Aykroyd’s terrific SNL take – but none were able to capture the manic nuance of the man, while also attempting to physically resemble him, the way Hopkins did. It’s magnificent. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Anthony Hopkins, Bob Hoskins, David Hyde Pierce, David Paymer, E.G. Marshall, Ed Harris, Favorite Movies Ever, J.T. Walsh, James Woods, Joan Allen, Kevin Dunn, Larry Hagman, Madeline Kahn, Mary Steenburgen, Nixon, Oliver Stone, Paul Sorvino, Powers Boothe

June 18, 2019 · 1:10 pm

The Set of 400: #317 – My Favorite Fully Loaded Lexus

Today! Because you took the purest thing in your life and corrupted it –

Blue Chips (1994)

Directed by William Friedkin

Starring Nick Nolte (x2), Mary McDonnell (x3), J.T. Walsh (x2), Ed O’Neill, Alfre Woodard, Shaquille O’Neal, Penny Hardaway, Larry Bird, Anthony C. Hall, Robert Wuhl (x2), Bob Cousy, Matt Nover, Dick Vitale, Louis Gossett Jr.

My favorite college basketball movie of all time (yeah, you heard me, Hoosiers), Blue Chips is a pretty over-the-top hoops spectacle that launched the epic film career of that acting titan, Shaquille O’Neal, the Hardcourt Olivier! The Big Thespian! Such a huge deal was Shaq when he entered the NBA that this film was billed as a Shaq/Nolte buddy picture, a 48 Hours set on a college campus, but no! While Shaq does have some acting tasks in the film – and he’s okay – what he really adds to Blue Chips is the ability to dunk, and in the big game, that’s all he does. Over and over and over. And if you like dunks – and who the hell doesn’t? – it’s pretty awesome, in a very 1994 kinda way.

But no, Nick Nolte is the driving force of this cheese masterpiece. His thinly veiled Bobby Knight impression is explosively crazy, and tends to overwhelm the ho-hum tale of teens getting paid to play at this college. There is a terrific series of scenes where Nolte shouts at players – upon finding out they took money or shaved points, where he shouts at referees – because obviously that’d be included, and where he shouts at scheming money-man J.T. Walsh, who shouts back at him just as much. And it’s all great, if you appreciate incessant shouting in your sports films, and again, who the hell doesn’t?

*unintelligible screaming*

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Tagged as Alfre Woodard, Blue Chips, Dick Vitale, Ed O'Neill, Favorite Movies Ever, J.T. Walsh, Larry Bird, Mary McDonnell, Nick Nolte, Penny Hardaway, Robert Wuhl, Shaquille O'Neal, William Friedkin

May 15, 2019 · 1:18 pm

The Set of 400: #341 – My Favorite Glinda the Good Witch Impression

Today! Because it’s time to rock it from the Delta to the DMZ –

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Directed by Barry Levinson

Starring Robin Williams (x2), Forest Whitaker (x2), Bruno Kirby, Robert Wuhl, J.T. Walsh, Noble Willingham, Richard Portnow, Juney Smith, Richard Edson, Tung Thanh Tran

Robin Williams had made movies, and some good ones, before 1987, but it all completely changed with Good Morning, Vietnam. It’s as though there was no concrete idea how to harness his stand-up/Mork and Mindy comedy into a feature film, so no one really tried. Popeye has glimmers of it, with the ad-libs, while The World According to Garp showcases Williams serious acting ability. And then everything converged into this wild war comedy, grounded very definitely in reality.

For those of us who grew up with his later comedies, Good Morning, Vietnam can tend to feel like nothing particularly special. This was the Robin we knew from virtually everything that was to follow over the next two decades. The non-sequiturs! That stream-of-consciousness pile of voices and characters! The virtually non-stop jokes! Sure, after decades, that tends to get taken for granted as his particular style, but this was the beginning of that for most cinema audiences, plus it is housed in a very real war picture, while still managing to work, for the most part.