Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
Morgan Freeman been hard at work for a long time, appearing in large scale projects as well as smaller ones. This week’s release A Good Person is one of the smaller ones. In director Zach Braff’s latest small film, Florence Pugh’s world crumbles after an accident. Freeman plays the wizened old man who helps guide her back to solid ground. The film looks minor, but Freeman rarely is. Even when he’s working in some of the worst movies, he’s still an affable and appreciable talent and I’m sure he’ll be the same here. For this week, I had to narrow a rather large list of potentials down to the five that are on this list, but they are a solid set.
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
While I had always enjoyed movies of varying stripes, most especially horror, this is the movie that galvanized my love for film in general and the Oscars in specific. From there, it was a rabbit hole into which I fell, finding all manners of new movies, both recent and old. Yet, my love for these things being tied to this film isn’t my sole reason for loving it. This period drama was set during a turbulent time for Jews and Black Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. The story is of an aging Jewish woman (Jessica Tandy) who takes comfort in the company of her Black chauffeur (Freeman).
The film puts into perspective some of the relative similarities between persecution of various minorities. When two people can compare their lives and what’s happening around them and build an understanding, it becomes much easier to see which side it’s imperative to stand on. Tandy and Freeman deliver career-best work and the film is such a lovely testament to companionship an additional to being a searing indictment of violence as a means of oppression, even though all of said violence takes place off screen.
Unforgiven (1992)
Clint Eastwood has had one of the most productive late-life careers of any filmmaker. While he’s made some great movies, he’s also made some dross and his political views are abhorrent at best. Regardless, he did make some great movies, especially this one. Unforgiven is a revisionist western that paints the old west less in the sepia tones of Old Hollywood and more as a rough, dangerous, and pitiable period of history where lawlessness was a boundary to a peaceful existence. Here, Eastwood plays an aging cowboy whose best years are behind him, but he has one more job he has to pull and it isn’t likely to be a quick or easy task.
Freeman plays an old counterpart, a Black man who managed to survive in the Old West in spite of the persistent racism of the era. While he was able to eke out a living well beyond the plantations of the Antebellum south, his friendship with Eastwood’s character helped keep him alive and he pays that back with his assistance in Eastwood’s final pursuit of justice. While Freeman does a fine job, Eastwood is better, and Gene Hackman outclasses them both in one of his few late-career performances that will truly stand the test of time and not be forgotten in the ether.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Adapting Stephen King novels to the big screen is a crapshoot in how well they turn out. Some, like Carrie, The Shining, and Misery are shining examples of how to do it whereas disappointments like Needful Things and The Lawnmower Man proved the opposite. While he was best known for his horror works, a few of his non-horror novellas and short stories have turned out to be some of the better adaptations. Cases in point, Stand by Me and this movie, The Shawshank Redemption. It follows the story of a hapless husband (Tim Robbins) who goes to jail for murdering his wife and her lover.
The story paints a portrait of 1950s prisons that is a bit glossy, but isn’t entirely flattering. Freeman plays a fellow inmate who smuggles contraband into the prison under the watchful eye of the religious and cruel warden (Bob Gunton). Robbin’s Andy Dufresne plans to escape from Shawshank so he can live out life on the run with the money he secreted away. He spends his nights hollowing out an escape tunnel that he covers up with an ever changing series of posters of movie bombshells, most notably Rita Hayworth, the woman whose name was part of the novella’s title. It’s a well acted film with plenty of twists and turns and showcased King in a way that few movies have been able to.
No original review available.
Seven (1995)
Freeman had an amazing series of film appearances in the 1990s and this was one of a handful I can think of. It’s also one of the best films he’s ever been in and that’s thanks to David Fincher’s tight pacing and deft hand, revealing a compelling mystery thriller that follows a serial killer as he tries to outwit the police and the police try to outwit him. Brad Pitt and Freeman play the film’s detectives with the former playing the younger, short-tempered one and Freeman playing the aging, jaded one. Gwyneth Paltrow has a prominent supporting role as Pitt’s wife.
Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay is a fascinating blend of pulp excess with modern horror sensibilities. The murders are graphic and Fincher doesn’t shy away from that, preferring to let the audience experience the sadistic glee with which the killer slaughters his victims. The seven of the title refers to the seven deadly sins, which form the foundation for each of the grisly murders. Freeman and Pitt are strong, though Paltrow is ultimately forgettable…except for that ending, a twist that no one will see coming. Disgraced actor Kevin Spacey plays the serial killer.
No original review available.
Deep Impact (1998)
The best disaster films don’t just focus on the breadth of destruction that goes on in the film, they explore the lives impacted by those events. What made films like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure so captivating was their ability to draw the audience into the characters on screen and attach to them emotionally, whether it’s a doomed Jennifer Jones in the former or a doomed Shelley Winters in the latter. Deep Impact was one of two films released in 1998 that posited what might happen if an asteroid threatened to impact earth. Armageddon goes for rah-rah heroics and far-fetched science to sell its story, but Deep Impact brought the audience into the personal lives of the characters and showcased the devastation they faced.
Director Mimi Leder proved to be the perfect filmmaker to take on this film, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin. The cast is populated not only with Oscar-nominated and -winning actors from yesteryear (Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell), but also with prominent television actors (Téa Leoni, Laura Innes, Richard Schiff, Blair Underwood, Denise Crosby) who were able to bring their vast experience of making memorable characters on the small screen to bear on the film. All of the actors give committed and emotionally-impactful performances and other major stars who contributed include Elijah Wood, James Cromwell, Leelee Sobieski, Dougray Scott, and, of course, Freeman as the President of the United States.
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