Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I’ve seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I’ll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I’ll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Great comedians rarely get as much respect from the Academy as they deserve. Alec Guinness inhabits several characters infusing each with a distinct and entertaining identity. And while his isn’t the only performance in the film, it’s the only one worth cherishing. The others are good, but nowhere near the pinnacle that Guinness sets. The film tells the story of a man on death row for murder as he explains the various crimes for which he was guilty, killing the wealthy noblemen whose rejection of his and his mothers’ bid to become part of the family in an effort to retain the Dukedom he feels he was entitled to. It’s a clever and fun comedy that doesn’t go for the out-loud laughs, which is much to its benefit.

Blue Collar

Watching Richard Pryor in a rare dramatic performance is a real delight. Although his comic timing served him well throughout the ’80s, this is the performance I think I will always consider one of his best alongside the excellent performances of Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto. The film, about three union auto workers struggling to survive while the corrupt union keeps them from success. Although it was filmed more than three decades ago, its subject matter is incredibly fitting in the current political climate as union members are being stripped of their rights in states like Wisconsin and Ohio. While Paul Schrader’s director debut isn’t as good as his screenwriting effort for Taxi Driver, this is a pretty special film and would establish him as a unique voice in film.

Cool Hand Luke

An uneven film about a headstrong charmer who finds himself in a rural prison and part of a “chain gang” where his interactions with a colorful collection of criminals leads him to become something of a heroic mascot for them but never finding a place in the grand scheme for himself. Paul Newman does good work, but it’s George Kennedy who shines as the tough whose leadership of the inmates slowly succumbs to the powerful Charisma of Newman. The film itself owes a great deal to I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, a film of which I was reminded regularly while watching this. Cool Hand Luke holds no candle to that masterpiece, nor should it.