Introducing Sunshine State

 The Quintessential Florida film: Sunshine State

When I first saw this film, I was not yet a film person but had likely just declared my major in geography: the study of humanity through looking at regional characteristics, definitions and groupings; the flow of people; the shaping of landscapes; and the flow of people.

One rule of geographic landscape reading is that no inhabited place is uninteresting. There’s something of value in studying the landscape of Allentown, Pennsylvania, even if you’re brain would be stimulated into overdrive trying to figure out how the hell Las Vegas ended up the way it did.

Still, Florida is more like a swampy Las Vegas with much richer news stories and even the non-geographically minded can get fascinated by it. It has spurned the Seth Meyers segment "Fake or Florida" and, in the age of the meme, the popular website Florida Man.

So where does it all begin?

Due to a combination of lack of valuable gems, inhospitable weather, and difficulty of developing on top of swampland (improbably turned into tourism), Florida was settled after the West.

However, air conditioning was invented and people like Henry Flagler provided the infrastructure, Florida paved the way for some of the early trends of vacationing, retirement, and winter snowbirds started appearing here.

Florida was heavily sold to tourists in the same manner of the first European to lay eyes on it: The Fountain of Youth. But every group that used Florida as its dream seemingly ran over the other: The Russian mob, the Quebecois, the Black population, New York snowbirds, and the Hispanic migrants.

National Geographic once described Miami as the modern-day Venice: Where art, wealth, and vice meet and sometimes produce spectacular results. One interesting factoid: When Joel Gurreau published the Nine Nations of North America in the 1980s, he divided North America into nine formal and functional regions, suggesting that state boundaries isn't really how things work. He suggested that South Florida was a unique Latin American bastion that wasn't really operated like America. At the time he wrote the book, Gareau noted nine deposed Latin American dictators were all living in South Florida. Indeed, a small group of Cuban ex-pats in South Florida wanting to save the cigar industry had enough lobbying power to persuade the US to get involved in the Bay of Pigs.

Florida has been mythologized a lot more through writing with the books of Dave Barry, Carl Hiassen, and Elmore Leonard who have ripped their stories from the headlines (the predecessor to Florida Man). Part of this is because Florida has the most lenient FOIA laws with regard to crimes, so crazy headlines are much more likely to make it to the front pages.

There are a lot of great examples of Florida films covering all those different views of Floridian life: Off the top of my head, there's the dysfunctional urban landscape of Miami in Barry Sonnenfeld's adaptation of the Dave Barry book "Big Trouble," the mob film "Scarface" (few know that Al Capone ran much of his Chicago mob operations from Florida), the portrait of Florida as an lavish 50's vacation spot for snowboards in "Some Like it Hot" and "Palm Beach Story," Miami as a happening singles scene in "Hitch," and the more backwater view of Florida as a small-town haven of eccentric characters in "Because of Winn Dixie."

"Sunshine State", mostly somber in tone, stands out to me as the quintessential Florida film, because it is the intersection of multiple Floridian versions in one Altmanesque whirlwind.

The underrated gem by John Sayles flew under the radar when it was released in 2002 (it grossed but it's worth a second look. Starring an ensemble that includes Mary Steenburgen, Edie Falco, Angela Bassett, Timothy Hutton, Alan King, James McDaniel, and Jane Alexander, the film centers around seaside town whose tranquil existence is threatened by an encroaching real estate developer.

Florida is largely a state where real estate development is the rule of the land. The city of Miami, for example, is no longer home to the Miami Dolphins, Miami Beach, University of Miami, Key Biscayne, or even Miami airport. As seen below, all those places broke off from the main city proper as the municipalities became dominated by gated communities and developments that encouraged voters to need the city less. Miami, in fact, survived a vote to dissolve the city entirely in 1997.

Steenburgen stars as a chamber of commerce head and overanxious real estate developer who is trying so hard to sell her latest development she doesn't even notice that her husband (King) is suicidal. In my years of local reporting, I have come across these Chamber of Commerce types and these jobs typically require very perky people who speak about wherever they live like it's shangri-la.


Bassett stars as former town pariah Desiree Perry who got pregnant by the local football star (McDaniel) before he made it big and is now returning to her hometown. She's deciding on behalf of her family whether to sell the land or preserve the special piece of her town. The theme here is Florida being a dream for so many conflicting groups of people is represented here.

For Bassett's character and her neighbors, the town represented the opportunity for blacks to have their little piece of the beach. The town also highlights the pockets of poverty found in many a Florida coastal town. or most traditional tourist traps.

Lastly, we have Edie Falco as Marley Temple who represents the state's evolving tourist industry. Temple, a sixth generation Floridian, used to be a mermaid in one of the seaside attractions that lined the highways before the corporate megaliths of Sea World and Disney World took over. What Temple is referencing, when she talks about her past life as a mermaid, is a real tourist attraction: The mermaids at Weeki Wachi Springs.

 
This is also a Florida thing, as the mermaid shows or the alligator shows that still populate the land today pose all sorts of questions as to how to promote nature, myth, and how not to step on past or future waves of progress in the tourist industry.  Falco is now an owner of the family motel who's sick of where she's living. Her tryst with a landscape architect hired (Timothy Hutton) by the prospective land developer. It's a metaphor for the past Florida going the way of the future.

As a tapestry of intersecting lives, Sunshine State works as a great scene piece that has aged well and will likely continue to be relevant.

It has a running time of 2:20 but it's a film that moves at a great pace. It can be found on Tubi.

The event can be found here. If you need, I can get you a code to reduce the price:
Film Talk and Discussion: John Sayles and Sunshine State (2002) Tickets, Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 9:00 PM | Eventbrite

Every Film I Saw in 2004 Ranked

1. Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson-Didn’t fare as well as some of the other Anderson films at the time, but the theme of enemies and friends and estranged family members overcoming their detachments because of a need to belong is still prevalent in a very touching way and it’s a feast for the eyes.
2. Aviator, Martin Scorsese-Everything about this film feels grandiose in a good way. It’s a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood from a man who’s arguably Classic Hollywood’s most prominent fanboy. The biopic is compelling, the hokey sentiment at the ending works, and I also like the lack of resolution. I went into the film knowing very little about Howard Hughes as well.
3. Sideways, Alexander Payne-The moment in history where Alexander Payne’s neorealist screenwriting style and critical tastes aligned. It’s a tense and funny story that treats its characters with gentleness and understanding.
4. Spanglish, James L Brooks-It’s high ranking with me is affected by the fact that it mirrors my own life story because I had a live-in Spanish-speaking nanny and her daughter stay with us when I was young. But seriously, I don’t understand the hatred for this film. Aside from that, I think it’s a very well-balanced story tonally and cleverly shifts audience loyalties between the neglectful wife, the nice guy husband, and the house interloper.
5. Anchorman, Adam McKay-My first bit of education that making a good comedy can entail the same degree of artistic difficulty as a good drama. The layers of absurdism, the strength of the characters, the timing of the jokes, everything clicked to the point that I was literally laughing throughout at least 80 to 90% of the film’s running time.
6. Ray, Taylor Hackford-The debate over whether to put Ray or Finding Neverland first was a tough one. Ray was a bit more of a known story, whereas Finding Neverland found a lot of nuance in the unknown. Ray was downright inspiring though and the redemption at the end (while not a complete redemption at all) was tear jerking. I remember leaving the theater thinking, “OK, I am not gonna let my disability hold me back.” The cast of characters rotated so often, the film felt like a series of vignettes but there was enough centrality to hold it all together.
7. Finding Neverland, Marc Forster-The film appeared a little stuffy but the theme of defining your own family resonated very well and, like, Ray, the film was quite a tear jerker.
8. Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore-Whether you agree with the politics or not, Michael Moore has really broken open the mold of a stale genre. Before Michael Moore, I wasn’t a fan of the genre at all: Talking heads, newsreel footage, self-satisfying photography. No thanks, I’ll go read a book.
9. Manchurian Candidate, Jonathan Demme-Yes, it’s a remake but the story’s one of my favorite of all time so I don’t mind seeing it again, it’s transported very appropriately to a new setting, it plays well like a thriller, and Denzel, Liev and Meryl are fantastic reinterpretations.
10. Kinsey, Bill Condon-A very interesting way to tell a story that’s largely about collecting data (even if it’s about very sexy data). The central conflict is about a scientist’s struggle to present a truth in the face of moral naysayers but it nicely meanders in talking about the man’s detachment from emotional love and his complexities. In delving into side characters, it’s an early template for so many of the great serialized shows (Dexter, Transparent, House of Cards, Orphan Black, Masters of Sex) that start with a subject and work their way out.
11. I Heart Huckabees, David O Russell-An extremely innovative and resonant form of comedy. The scene of Mark Wahlberg panicking about the state of petroleum in the world while he has a real-world problem right before him in the form of a wife leaving him, spoke to me so much as someone in my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scratch my head, but it was really something else.
12. Mean Girls, Mark Waters-The film that launched Tina Fey into the stratosphere still holds up very well as a quintessential teen movie. The dialogue is sharp, edgy and relatable to anyone who’s felt like an outsider in their adolescence. It also captures very well how all those cliques and aliiances that you’re obsessed with in high school seem to dissolve at some point and you realize what’s ultimately important.
13. Dodgeball, Rawson Marshall Thurber-Like Anchorman, this is a film that knows where to pin its jokes for maximum effect. It’s a brilliant sports parody, pure unadulterated fun and encapsulates Vince Vaughn’s screen persona better than any other film.
14. National Treasure, John Turteltaub-I probably would’ve ranked this more in the middle of the pack back in 2004, but it’s a more memorable film down the road and one I would rewatch in a heart beat. The premise is absurd but the marriage of history and adventure is done in a much tighter way than Da Vinci Code and it skates by on a sense of fun the whole way.
15. Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock-Morgan Spurlock’s grotesque piece of performance art is the only known example besides Michael Moore I’ve seen of a documentary breaking the mold and showing something you couldn’t get out of reading a book on the same topic.
16. Spiderman 2, Sam Raimi-Back in the day, this film got amazing reviews and topped (whatever would have been the equivalent back then of) the Rotten Tomatoes chart, and was even included in AFI’s ballot for the 100 Greatest Films of All Time. I’ve never been too keen on the Spiderman universe because the characters feel so rigidly drawn to archetypes (James Franco is the best friend but why? Can Kirsten Dunst be any more Girl Next Door?), but the story takes the hero into new territory, the special effects are very impressive and story relevant, and there’s a grandiosity to the whole film.
17. Silver City, John Sayles-A wonderful little satire and ensemble piece about government corruption and a peon in the system (Danny Huston) finding a little piece of political redemption.
18. Shrek 2, Andrew Adamson-Not sure if I loved this cartoon as much as Chadwick Bozeman’s recent SNL character but this was a great movie about how to deal with the aftermath of happily ever after. A thematically mature cartoon is pretty rare. The laughs weren’t AS strong as they could be because they were overly character-reliant and the characters -- an ogre who’s not that bad and a donkey who’s a vehicle for Eddie Murphy humor -- wore themselves out by the end of the first film.
19. Maria Full of Grace, Joshua Marston-I don’t watch foreign films nearly as often as I should because stuff like this does give me a nice insight into another part of the world. It was nice to see a protagonist like Maria here who wasn’t entirely helpless and could advocate for herself.
20. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry-It’s hard to separate the film from the critical love for said film. You know why it’s a great film. I don’t remember it as much. I believe a major distraction of the film was the focus given to the Elijah Wood-Mark Ruffalo-Kirsten Dunst-Tom Wilkinson as a separate B-plot rather than just a framing device. The jumps in time gave me whiplash and not in a good way (“500 Days of Summer’ steps into and out of time more gracefully). But, yes, it has a lot of great stuff in it as well.
21. Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich-It goes up several points based on how well I remember it. Even though it’s extremely implausible, the plot’s not nearly as flimsy as 2012. It fits well with Emmerich’s milieu of large-scale disaster and is a fine ensemble piece. Some of the visual imagery (such as the characters outrunning cold itself or the initial onset of the storm) is indelible.
22. I Robot, Alex Poyras-Like Kinsey, this is an extremely difficult story to adapt so I have to give the film credit for making a coherent story that’s somewhat thought-provoking (what the Asimov intended his work to be) and has a genuine element of mystery. The jaded cop angle was a little strained. There was also a bit too much exposition but it would be hard not to do with source material
23. Terminal, Stephen Spielberg-There were parts that were a little schmaltzy, but it played with some interesting cinematic and spatial space (re-thinking the airport as the setting of a movie rather than a transition point) and I found the film lined with quite a bit of philosophical depth if you consider the airport to be a purgatory of sorts. The film has a nice bit of tension between Stanley Tucci’s character and Hanks. One weakness is that Hanks is a bit Tom Hanksian in a been-there-done-that kind of way which is a shame since he’s based on an actual characterthis tough.
24. Wimbledon, Richard Lorcaine-It’s not a particularly ambitious film, but three things in the film’s favor: 1) A very endearing romcom 2) one of the few sports films dealing with staying in the game past your peak 3) making tennis (an already underrated sport) sexy and exciting through great action shots and the like
25. Welcome to Mooseport, Donald Pietrie-It has a reputation buoyed by its reviews of being bland and vanilla, and to make matters worse, it’s rumored to have scared Gene Hackman into retirement, but I don’t care. To me, the film is a pleasant throwback to the 90s era of wholesome family-friendly comedy. A bit of fish-out-of-water stuff and a nice love story
26. Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford-Hard to judge this super-objectively since I saw this for a literary class on Merchant of Venice and not really for pleasure. Al Pacino deserves accolades for going for broke here and doing Shakespeare. I’d much rather see him do this than a cop or mob member or robber. Visually nice.
27. Around the World in 80 Days, Frank Coraci-When I first saw this, I thought it was a shameful dilution of a great literary work simply to give Jackie Chan a vehicle for his blend of martial arts and children’s comedy. Then, I rewatched it and discovered how marvelously fun and virtuosic a Jackie Chan movie can be. The film’s humor can seem unimpressive at points but it’s consistently filled with the kind of jokes that would delight a 12-year-old and if you meet the material halfway, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to let your inner child out.
28. Troy, Wolfgang Petersen-When I first watched the film in 2004, I felt it was shameful that the film stripped the Iliad of its cultural specificity in favor of a more broad story. Looking at the irritating complexities of Game of Thrones or Westworld or Orphan Black, I don’t necessarily think simplifying a narrative is the worst thing you can do anymore. At the same time, the film loses a little by keeping this a tale only of humans when the source material was a more extravagant opera of Gods and humans on opposite sides of a battle. If you accept that this movie is just a watered-down Brad Pitt vehicle and lower your expectations as such, it’s an easily digestible epic.
29. 50 First Dates, Peter Segal-Not a fan of Adam Sandler’s man child screen persona but he occasionally puts his characters in solid enough plots that they cancel out the weakeness of his presence enough to make a good movie. The only three Adam Sandler films I liked were Mr Deeds, Big Daddy, and this one. Sandler films are juvenile in their jokes but they also are sincerely enveloped with a lot of heart. This is an interesting premise for a love story and it mostly works in spite of how little I like Adam Sandler as an actor.
30. After the Sunset, Brett Ratner-The film strikes just the right playful tone. Pierce Brosnan, who was as heavily associated with Bond as he would ever be, had an odd penchant for playing Bond-like figures in Tailor of Panama, No Escape, Matador, and this. All four characters are what I would describe as sleazy versions of Bond. This one is an interesting role for Brosnan because it’s laced with a playful sense of (very un-Bond-like) homoeroticism between Brosnan and Harrelson while simultaneously trying to aim for a monogamous love story. Like many of Bond’s most famous films, it’s also set in the Caribbean and has a chase scene in the Junkanoo just like Thunderball.
31. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Kerry Conran-My reaction is pretty much entirely neutral. It was pleasant and technologically innovative but the technological innovations were quite distracting.
32. Incredibles, Brad Bird-I just didn’t feel particularly inspired by this. I preferred “Sky High” or the underrated Ben Stiller vehicle “Mystery Men”
33. Taxi, Tim Story-One has to admit the scene of Queen Latifah breaking all laws of traffic (and perhaps physics) to get a passenger to Laguardia in fifteen minutes is pretty solid. And who doesn’t actively fantasize about a taxi driver (or perhaps an Uber) who actually cares about getting you somewhere on time? The premise is thin, the show is inoffensive and fun, and harkens back to the days when Jimmy Fallon didn’t make me want to stab someone. If he was better in films, he might not be imposing his annoying giggly fits on the late night landscape.
34. Stepford Wives, Frank Oz-A remake of a 1975 film starring Nicole Kidman is a burnt-out TV executive whose supportive husband moves her away from the city to a pleasant suburban enclave. This is an attempt at suburban satire that morphs into a Shyamalanesque eerie town mystery. The thru-line between the former and the latter is the peril of conformity but it’s a completely different picture in the second half which invalidates much of the first half’s thematic thrust. First, the film is about a woman learning to relax and open up; than bam!-- they’re all zombies or robots or something. The film does have a twist or two but by then it’s a little too late.
35. Garden State, Zach Braff-It’s an extremely typical coming-of-age story that doesn’t have a lot of forward momentum that is overly filled with quiet spaces. The protagonist has some issues to resolve but he’s so internal and broody, that it’s not translating on screen more than a guy voicing first world problems. Aside from an extremely typical romance with a young lady, who as far as I could tell seemed mentally ill (sorry Natalie Portman, you are an Oscar winner but I couldn’t swallow your interpretation here), basically amounts to a guy trying to decide whether to go off prescription medicine of not. There is one meaningful conversation he has with his dad and when I pulled the quote on IMDB, there was a sense of poetry to that one scene, but everything else was blah.
36. Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess-Napoleon Dynamite has some genuinely sweet moments between its central teenage characters but I don’t find the characters to be particularly iconic. I also don’t think Idaho (from my experiences in the state) deserves this portrayal as the capital of bland weirdness.
37. Catwoman, Pitol-It had some iconically cringe-worthy scenes (the basketball game choreographed by people who don’t know how the sport works) but it was moderately watchable. Not a high compliment, I know.
38. Ocean’s 12, Stephen Soderbergh-On the one hand, the film is crafted by Soderbergh with a genuinely impressive level of slickness that helps remind us why he won a Best Director Oscar in a competitive year. On the other hand, putting all the technical expertise in the world to an ending that basically says f--- you to the audience for caring about the story doesn’t absolve you. It’s also a self-indulgent mess. You think George Clooney and Brad Pitt are egoless actors? Nearly all of their dialogue is self-praise which is even more obnoxious considering that Pitt and Clooney are doing it on a meta-level and think it’s a wonderful use of our time to revel in their smugness.
39. Lady Killers, Joel and Ethan Coen-Part of my extremely low ranking here is high hopes. Like all Coen brothers films the sense of place is very strong and I very much enjoyed Tom Hanks’ acting here. His fast-tacking huckster is a delight and one of the best performances of the year. But no one else in the movie was remotely memorable (this was the second film that Spring I’d seen featuring a character who had IBM and I found it equally unfunny the first time) nor did the group have any discernable sense of banter. The pacing between the heist and the subsequent struggle against their landlady (Irma P Hall) was a bit abrupt which made their doom feel empty in a tragic way. The original felt less ambitious but the symmetry of the character’s success and demise made for an effective moral tone poem in its simplicity.
40. The Whole Ten Yards, John Lynn-I remember almost nothing about this film and what’s even worse news for this film’s chances of implanting itself into my memory 14 years later: I remember almost nothing about the original except that it features Amanda Peete naked and that Bruce Willis subverts the mold of a hitman by also being humorous and affable. When has Bruce Willis not been affable? I don’t even remember the decision that led to me thinking I want to put myself through a forgettable two hours.
41. 13 Going on 30, Gary Winick-I don’t believe in using the word chick flick because a movie with a female-centric character or a romance can always be appealing if made well. This is not one of those movies. The story, a gender switch on “Big” starring Jennifer Garner, is short on plot movement and overindulgent in a bath of cutesiness (makeover scenes, karaoke-filled sleepovers) that’s carried entirely on the back of Garner’s gifts for physical comedy. Garner is on screen nearly 100% of the time which gives the added disadvantage of denying us any narrative-breaking B story or plot meander.
42. Along Came Polly, Jon Hamberg-Philip Seymour Hoffman, you’re so much better than this. Why did you think channeling Jack Black was a good idea here? The film has little chemistry and the tension before the two get together was skipped which made me care less about these two. Also, could they think of nothing more sophisticated for a character trait than IBS?

Best Film Ensembles of All Time Part III: 11-20 Adam's List

This is Part III of a series in which Adam Spector of Adam's Rib and I count down out top 50 film ensembles of all time. Part I is here and Part II is here and the final ten are here. Because Adam and I went into so much detail, we split this entry into two with the other entry here. Part V is here.

Adam's List
11. The Sting 12. Dazed and Confused 13. Do the Right Thing 14. Eight Men Out 15. Fast Times at Tidgemont High 16. American Graffiti 17. Short Cuts 18. Glengarry Glen Ross 19. Prince of the City 20. The Royal Tenenbaums

 Orrin's Response:

In your attempts to disqualify certain films from my list for not being ensemble films, you make an interesting point. While we've both pointed to films with ensembles we admire (Dead Poets Society or Back to the Future fall into this category), the ensemble film itself is a genre of sorts both in how it's presented to the audiences and how those audiences look for familiar conventions (for example, the skillful spreading out of a narrative over several characters) within those films. 

Put in more commercial terms, an ensemble film is also how a movie is sold: Look at the posters to Grand Budapest Hotel or Emilio Estevez's Bobby and the main message is "look at how many stars we were able to get into one picture!"

I would argue that the "ensemble film" angle is pretty much the only reason anyone could possibly have gotten excited about the 2012 film The Avengers (or any of its subsequent sequels and pseudo-sequels) and why it's the fifth highest grossing film ever. 

Part of what we've applauded is bold ways of going about casting (in commercial terms, we can call this a gimmick although I don't think it deserves the pejorative connotation). Salt of the Earth used actual miners, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 used actual ex-convicts, Around the World in 80 Days loaded the cast with cameos, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (and Stephen Soderbergh's Informant also tried this) used a who's who of comic actors, but as you point out in the latter case, just putting in those people on screen doesn't equal great results.

An example is Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee's bold approach (or gimmick) was having a full cast loaded with more black people than I imagine audiences even knew of at the time. I imagine it was just Denzel Washington, Lawrence Fishburne (who worked with Spike Lee on his last film), Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman, and that guy who won an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman were the only black people audiences could name at the time, and he showed one could fill a great film with a dozen or so black actors all turning excellent performances. He even took a chance on his own sister and it worked! What's more, there's a lot of texture and color in all of the parts which must have been a game changer. And that's not to mention the humanizing turn of Danny Aiello.

Prince of the City, similarly, is a bold achievement in casting. It condensed a highly detailed police case with an incredibly dense source material, Robert Daley's 1978 account of an informant in the police department responsible for 52 indictments. The fact that the final screenplay has over 100 speaking parts must be a big deal as it's mentioned on both TCM and IMDB's trivia section (and pretty much any review of the movie if you google "over 100 speaking parts" "prince of the city"). But at the risk of offending the Sidney Lumet estate (and you for graciously lending me the DVD), this is another case where bold casting doesn't necessarily equal a great ensemble in my opinion. I don't really need to argue this through quantitative means because I got all the evidence I need when I went over to the IMDB page to write about the actors and couldn't remember any of them except for the ones I already knew (all three of them). All I remember about this film a mere three weeks after watching it is Jerry Orbauch has a sinister smile and that Bob Balaban is in the film with an inordinate amount of hair. And I'll go a step further and posit that because the ensemble fails, the film fails as a whole to justify its 3-hour running time (something that admittedly tries my patience more with home viewing). The film needed some of the color that say Danny Aiello or Ossie Davis bought to their parts.

A great example of a supporting role that adds color is in my favorite Coen Brothers film, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Charles Durning delivers a larger-than-life performance that plays on our imagination of Southern populist archetypes as Pappy O'Daniel. It was because of that performance that whenever I see Durning in a film's opening credits, I get a tinge of anticipation over what he will do. That's how character actors and ensemble pieces serve as gateways to other films. It's how Prince and the City (at least for me) failed to introduce me to a single intriguing actor, but how I started to get intrigued enough to decide to give The Sting a try. 

I'm glad I did because there are a million great things about both the film and its ensemble. Chief among them, Robert Shaw is a terrifying villain. His physical embodiment of the part was so masterful, that I half-believed he trained himself not to blink. It also helps that Charles Dierkop mirrors the gravity of his presence so well as a personal body guard. I also think it's interesting to note that Eileen Brennan is downright oozing with sexiness here and this is only seven years removed from her role in Private Benjamin where she's largely an asexual and menacing counterpoint to the happy-go-lucky troops under her command. There's also Robert Earl Jones in a part that treats race as such a non-issue, it almost feels like the part could have been written for a white person. I suppose that's good? But appropriately enough, this is largely about the lead and that's Robert Redford. I always found it odd that Paul Newman and Robert Redford are two actors of roughly equivalent caliber yet Paul Newman has nine Oscar nominations and Redford has one. I just looked it up and it's apparently this movie that Redford has his only Oscar nomination which is fitting since he really steals the show. His character is a guy who has to project confidence for a living, but Redford imbues the role with a definite sense of anxiety layered underneath and that adds a much needed sense of tension.

Lastly, Eight Men Out: I like this plenty as a movie, but I think I love it as an ensemble pick. It just looks so ridiculous on paper: Sherriff Pepper (the silliest character bar-none in the entire JamesBond series) as a baseball commissioner? You have rising stars Charlie Sheen and John Cusack in your cast but you're going to relegate them to supporting roles while having a nobody (D.B. Sweeney) as Shoeless Joe Jackson (the only character I knew of from this chapter in history)? Turns it out it's a far more interesting film to make Joe Jackson more of an uninteresting accessory and honing in on John Cusack as the main character because his character of Buck Weaver did actually have the free agency to at least decide something while Jackson sat on the fence. It's thematically appropriate to have the more charismatic actor steal the thunder. They don't have much Charlie Sheen here but after watching some episodes of Two and a Half Men, I don't mind never seeing that guy act again, though I found it a puzzling from a commercial perspective. Michael Rooker also is a striking image as first baseman Chick Gandil because he has the body type of a jock which is why it's understandable he might not have been cast in much else.

The other actor that I felt glued to here was David Strathairn who is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated turn in Good Night and Good Luck but who I have come to know on a weekly basis from the SyFy series Alphas (which made my top ten a few years ago) where he plays a Professor X type. It was really surreal to see him play a youthful athletic type and I was really impressed.

I didn't get around to watching Short Cuts, but, hey I've seen seven Robert Altman films at this point, and while I like his style just fine, I couldn't get myself to watch another one of his films because I know so much what to expect. To use a Passover reference, let me ask you the manishtana of movie questions (and feel free to imagine the voice of an 8-year old singing these words): "Why is this Robert Altman film different from all other Robert Altman films?, from all other Robert Altman films?"

The other film I never got around to watching was Dazed and Confused? Are you sure you're not confusing that with Slackers? They seem like the exact same thing?

Adam's response:

There’s nothing wrong with all-star casts in and of themselves, but like anything their worth depends on how they are used.  In 1974, Sidney Lumet directed Murder on the Orient Express, which came earlier on my list.  That worked because the actors although stars were right for their parts and served the story.  However, there were other films in that era, such as The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and other disaster movies, where as you noted the all-star cats didn’t really add much and were more of a marketing gimmick.  Some later Woody Allen films, such as To Rome with Love, felt the same way.   It can be used to mask a mediocre story or production.

By contrast, filling the screen with unknown actors, especially if they are indigenous to that area, can lend a film authenticity.  For example, I recently saw Tanna, set on the remote Pacific Coast Island of that name, where the roles were played by members of a local tribe.  That may be an extreme example, but for Matewan, also earlier on my list, John Sayles said that he cast many actors from areas of West Virginia similar to where the film was set.      

That brings us to Prince of the City, on which we will likely never agree. Lumet cast many unknown New York theater actors.  Many of them were not heard from again in any major way, but I don’t think that takes away from their performances.  For that movie and for those roles they succeeded.   Together, they all successfully portrayed an insular world gradually closing in.    Treat Williams didn’t become the major star he seemed destined to be at one point.   Still here he has both the cockiness and vulnerability to be the tragic hero the film needs.    And the film was not without standouts, including Orbach who fit as a tough sarcastic New York cop so well he would return to it often for the rest of his life, Lindsay Crouse, and the aforementioned James Tolkan.

So let me move to where we do agree.  The Coen Brothers are masters at finding the right actors to bring color to supporting roles.  It started with their first film, Blood Simple, with M. Emmet Walsh as the greedy private eye.    They worked with Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, John Carroll Lynch, Peter Stomare, Ben Gazzara, Jon Polito, Tim Blake Nelson, and so many other That Guy actors.  You could argue that they cast their films like no one else.  Charles Durning in O, Brother Where Art Thou?, as you noted, has fun with Southern archetypes.  He did the same thing in The Muppet Movie as the villain, Doc Hopper.   

Source: HelensDelicious.Blogspot.com

The truth is that Durning is a true supporting actor who made the leading men, and the films, better, whether it was George Clooney in O, Brother Where Art Thou?, Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, or even the Muppets.  I am glad that he led you to The Sting, which was his big break.   Ironically, The Sting is often grouped together with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as both were directed by Gorge Roy Hill, and of course featured Paul Newman and Robert Redford.  But those two films are very different.  Butch Cassidy is a true buddy movie centering on the two title characters.  The Sting, as you noted, has so much more than the two stars.  Someday I need to go back and see more of Robert Shaw’s films, as I have only seen him in four.  The physical embodiment you speak of is both Shaw’s talent and a happy accident.  Shortly before filming Shaw hurt his knee playing tennis.  With little alternative, Shaw made the limp part of the character, which somehow added to the menace.  Besides the actors you note, there’s also Harold Gould, who steals every scene as the elegant Kid Twist, and Ray Walston who performs verbal gymnastics as the fake race announcer.     You had an insightful take on Redford, projecting confidence but with anxiety layered underneath.  He did the same in The Candidate and All the President’s Men.  

John Sayles excelled at ensemble casting, and I could have included much more of his films than I did.  Eight Men Out was such a nuanced, complex take on the Black Sox scandal that it could have only worked with a wide range of talented actors.  Sayles has never relied on star power, and it’s no accident that he relegated Sheen to the background while Sweeney and Cusack did more of the heavy lifting. Before this Cusack had been doing mostly teen films.  Clearly Sayles saw something in him that others missed.  Cusack’s final monologue perfectly captures Buck Weaver’s love for the game and the bitterness at the way he was treated.  Sayles discovered Strathairn and cast him several times.  It looked like Strathairn might become a leading man after Good Night and Good Luck but you get the sense that he prefers to let others have the spotlight.  

Source: AMC.com

 

Let’s close with your two questions (we need two more to fully merit your Ma Nishtana reference, but there’s one more entry left).  Short Cuts certainly shared the ensemble DNA of many of Altman’s signature films, Nashville in particular.   I included this because each smaller story could have worked as its own film, largely on the strength of the acting.  Altman combines stars such as Jack Lemmon, some of his usual suspects, such as Lily Tomlin and Lyle Lovett, with character actors. Jennifer Jason Leigh pulls off playing a phone sex line worker getting a caller off while simultaneously taking care of her young kids which such aplomb that it should have gotten her an Oscar nomination 22 years before she finally got one.  

Finally, while Richard Linklater directed both Slacker and Dazed and Confused, both are set in the Austin era, and both feature excellent ensembles, they are not very similar. The former, as noted earlier, goes from one set of characters to the next, never to return.  The latter is more of an American Graffiti type ensemble film, where the characters have their own adventures but they all connect.  Dazed and Confused created the Matthew McConaughey persona while also providing an early showcase for Ben Affleck and Parker Posey.   Linklater filled out the cast with up-and-coming character actors, including Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Joey Lauren Adams, Rory Cochrane and Wiley Wiggins.    Give it a chance.

 

The 50 Best Film Ensembles with Adam Spector: Part I

What makes a great ensemble? A small slice of awards season is focused on a best ensemble award (which is gravely misunderstood) but there’s not a lot of actual discussion on ensembles which is why after mulling over a few ideas to explore this topic (there’s a poll I’ve been running as well), and settling on a cross-blogging project with my friend Adam Spector of Adam’s Rib. We each independently listed our fifty favorite film ensembles and will have four rounds of discussion as we reveal our lists from bottom to top. Over the course of the series, the hope is to point out surreptitious strokes in casting; explore the way films are enhanced by actors on the bench; appreciate how certain groups of actors bounce off each other in a way to be more than the sum of their parts; and remember how certain actors in the background enhance our favorite films. In other words, we'll discover what a great ensemble is as we go along:

UPDATE: Part II here, Part III is here and here
Adam's list 31-50
31.   Juno (2007) 32.   Day for Night (1973) 33.   Citizen Kane (1941) 34.   Grand Hotel (1932) 35.   Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) 36.   Murder on the Orient Express (1974) 37.   Bonnie and Clyde (1969) 38.   Love Actually (2003) 39.   Prairie Home Companion (2006) 40.   Slacker (1991)  41.   Breaking Away (1978) 42.   Stand by Me (1986) 43.   The Princess Bride (1987) 44.   City of God  (2002) 45.   LA Confidential (1997) 46.   Big Lebowski (1998) 47.   Office Space  (1999) 48.   Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) 49.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 50. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Orrin's Reaction:

Citizen Kane is obviously a masterpiece, but I feel like Magneficient Ambersons is the better ensemble. While Citizen Kane pretty much highlights a  single great performance, Magnificent Ambersons is a much more even-keeled piece and brings stars such as Anne Baxter and Tim Holt on board. It also allows Agnes Moorehead and Joseph Cotten more screen time and those guys are both kind of wasted in Citizen Kane. For me, Cotten (a native Virginian! 804 represent!) is the man who symbolized his era more than Welles as an actor. 

If I had to choose a Coen Brothers film, Fargo would take the cake over Big Lebowski. It was the more respected film before sun-dried West Coast pot aficionados (and wannabes alike) made this film not just a cult classic but a cult in its own right. In terms of the ensemble, the oddball criminal roles of Jerry Lundegaard and Carl Showalter feel like roles that Steve Buscemi and William H. Macy (neither conventionally good looking guys) are born to play and Frances McDormand is simply enormous in this Oscar-winning role (deservedly so). 

On the other hand, it's nice to see Philip Seymour Hoffman pop up during that period in his filmography where he could do no wrong with his script choices and if you like seeing John Goodman go over the top, it will never get better than this. I concede that these performances all work and if the comedy is as sweet for you as it is for the Lebowski heads, then this film works based on the performances, but I wonder if you're not being too caught up in the cult status of the film when comparing this to other Coen brothers films.

It's been too long since I've seen The Princess Bride (around 5th grade) but I agree it's a good comic choice when you consider physicality: There are a lot of different textures of comic actors with different stylings and the way they cast for size (If I'm not mistaken, there's a giant character in there as well as some very scrawny characters) is pretty effective in contrast. That Cary Elwes didn't have much of a career after this, makes his performances here more iconic as he's so well cast as an Errol Flynn type. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one that I have on my list as well. How can you not? The leads both won well-deserved Oscars so it's hard to argue against them, and the supporting class includes Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd in roles that really seem very un-DeVito and un-Christopher-Lloyd which takes on more meaning because I don't think audiences in 1975 had a way of knowing that DeVito and Lloyd would both establish strong screen personas: the former as a seedy (sometimes curmudgeonly) lowlife, and the latter as a wide-eyed crazy guy. And then Brad Dourif is really something else here.

Juno might be there if I expanded the list although I have trouble praising Michael Cera in anything. In particular, the way people bounce off each other is interesting. The uber-hip Ellen Page character contrasts extremely well against the famously gruff J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (and by the way, thank you for spelling out that name so I don't have to look it up) fits perfectly as a pragmatic middle ground in an understated role. Similarly, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner are roughly the same age and have generally played hippish yuppie types but there's a tension between them and their ultimate mismatch grows evident. They are a parallel to the Janney-Simmons pairing on the surface but a theme her is that relationships aren't just about surface-level matches (hence, the failed marriage).

Vanity Fair

LA Confidential is one I blanked out on but it's certainly worthy of inclusion. Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey play the three leads which is a pretty solid get (on two of those three fronts). Russell Crowe was on the verge of becoming the next big thing and Kevin Spacey was already at that stage. Character actor James Cromwell really is an extremely unlikely villain. And DeVito again! Ironically, I can barely remember what Oscar winner Kim Basinger did in this movie.

I never really thought abut Office Space until you bought it up but it certainly does have a multi-faceted and diverse  (if you count actor Ajay Naidu who seems to be pigeon-holed pretty badly into Indian roles) ensemble and David Hermann, who was a pretty solid sketch actor on the oft-maligned sketch series MadTV has one of his few visible roles as "Michael Bolton" there.  I was also not particularly impressed with Jen Aniston. Sure she's capable in the same way that successful sitcom actresses are when plopped on a marquee, but considering she showed even more depth and really could act in The Good Girl three years later. Retroactively, it makes her performance here look like Jen Aniston in her period of untapped potential. 

 

City of God is a good choice because casting child actors and unknowns is always impressive (although I can't speak to how well-known these actors were to the Brazilian film industry when director Fernando Meirelles cast them). It's similar to Mel Gibson's commendable way of assembling the cast of Apocalypto.

Orrin's List 31-50:

31. American Graffiti (1973) 32. Almost Famous (2000) 33. The Wild Bunch (1969) 34. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947) 35. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 36. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 37. Django Unchained (2012) 38. The Player (1992) 39. Five Easy Pieces (1970) 40. Road to Perdition (2002) 41. Ball of Fire (1941) 42. Manchurian Candidate (1962) 43. 12 Years a Slave (2013) 44. Anchorman (2004) 45. The Station Agent (2003) 46. 12 Angry Men (1957) 47. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) 48. The Birdcage (1996) 49. Salt of the Earth (1953) 50. Dreamgirls (2006)

Adam's Response:

First I had to define what a great ensemble was.  For me it’s a group of actors where many of them make an impression, from the leads, to the supporting players to the ones that you might only have for one scene. 

Comparing our lists, it’s clear that Robert Altman immediately jumps to mind.  I had Prairie Home Companion and you had The Player.  I have a couple of his other films higher on my list, and could have had more if we expanded. That’s fitting for a man known for his ensemble casting.  In the 70s, that’s because he cultivated a cast stock company of actors he discovered.   In the 90s it was also because stars would take well below their usual salary to work with him.   I highly recommend Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff.  The book quotes actors describing why they were drawn to Altman and his projects.  It also describes how Altman created a collaborative environment on the set where everyone felt valued.  It’s fitting that the Independent Spirit Awards named their cast award (that includes the cast, director, and casting director) after Altman. 

If you blanked on LA Confidential I did the same with 12 Angry Men.  It was Sidney Lumet’s first film and the only one Henry Fonda produced.  Going in Lee J. Cobb was the only other known star in the film besides Fonda.  But Lumet had worked in live television, and surrounded Fonda with talent.  Some of them were veteran character actors like Martin Balsam and Ed Begley, who later won an Oscar for Sweet Bird of Youth [editorial note: Martin Balsam also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for A Thousand Clowns].  Others were up-and-coming younger actors, who went on to have impressive careers, such as Jack Warden and Jack Klugman.   The actors gelled together, and with Lumet’s increasingly claustrophobic shooting, made the film just as riveting now as it was 60 years ago.  The Wild Bunch is another I should have included.  Holden and Borgnine were the stars, but it also helped propel supporting players Warren Oates and Ben Johnson to starring roles in the 70s. 

Ball of Fire is too often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be with Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, a young Dana Andrews and a fine supporting cast.  Road to Perdition is a bit uneven as a film, but it does have Paul Newman in his last great film role along with Tom Hanks, Jude Law, the always dependable Stanley Tucci, and of course Daniel Craig, showing his range four years before he became Bond.   

We both included comedies in our picks, and you’ll continue to see them in my selections.  As we have discussed in the Cinema Lounge, comedy skill often isn’t considered “serious acting” but actors themselves will tell you how hard it is.  Anchorman is an excellent choice.  Will Ferrell is always good at picking projects he doesn’t have to get all of the laughs.  The fight scene alone makes this one deserving, with Tim Robbins as the PBS anchor (“No commercials,no mercy.”) Luke Wilson, and Ben Stiller.   

Fargo, No Country for Old Men, O Brother Where Art Thou? or countless other Coen Brothers films are also terrific choices, but that does not take away from the stellar ensemble work in Lebowski.  Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are the standouts, but the film gives so many other fun performances for them to play off of, from Peter Stomare and his nihilists, Julianne Moore in her Viking outfit, David Huddleston as the other Lebowski, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the slimy yes man, and of course John Turturro as “The Jesus.”  The more you go back to rewatch the films the more these other actors stand out.  Speaking of the late, great Hoffman kudos for including Almost Famous.  You’ll see that on my list later, 

Regarding Juno, I view Cera as a plus for this particular type of role, just as he was for Superbad.  Plus Juno, besides Page in the lead role, had Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner and the two of my favorites, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons. 

Citizen Kane is much more than Orson Welles, cast-wise.  See it again, and watch how many of the other players stand out, even those that have limited screen time.   Everett Sloane, playing Bernstein, has a poignant scene as he describes a woman he never saw again but whose image is burned in his memory.  Cotten did not have as large a part as he did in Ambersons but he effectively serves as an audience surrogate as his character gradually grows disillusioned with Kane.  Dorothy Comingore is heartbreaking as the tragically untalented opera singer, while George Coulouris is hilarious as the textbook definition of an uptight banker. 

I never saw Salt of the Earth, but will look for it now. The only one on your list that I question is Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson had one of his iconic turns, but no one else really stood out.

Getty Images

Aside from its groundbreaking role in film history, Bonnie and Clyde boasts an abundance of talent.  Beatty and Dunaway (now also linked due to the Oscars mishap 50 year later) both give you the charisma and depth you expect from your stars.  Estelle Parsons deservedly won an Oscar for her turn as Clyde’s sister-in-law.  The film put Gene Hackman on the map and brought notice to a then little-known stage actor named Gene Wilder.   Michael J. Pollard also garnered an Oscar nomination as CW Moss, another member of the Barrow gang, and Dub Taylor is equally good as Moss’s father.   This brings me back to how I define an ensemble in the first place, where many actors play their part in making a great movie.  It’s the big names we notice at first, but one of the joys in going back and seeing these films again is experiencing the smaller, but no less crucial performances. 

Orrin: How to define a great ensemble is coming to me as I mill through this exercise.

There's a film with a deep bench supporting its stars like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or films by the Coen Brothers or Frank Capra which tend to surround stars with great talent. Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, Alfre Woodward and Benedict Cumberbatch are all so memorable in 12 Years a Slave you forget Brad Pitt is there. The flipside of that is a film like Road to Perdition where Daniel Craig, Stanley Tucci and Jude Law blend so seamlessly with such great performances that you hardly notice they're there. I only discovered the cast had such great actors in it retroactively, and of course this is (with the exception of Captain Phillips) the only time in the past 15 years or so that Tom Hanks has done something exciting.  

There are films which tend to deflect star power into something where a lot of people have a chance to shine like a Robert Altman film (The Player wouldn't fall into this as Tim Robbins gives such an enormous performances, but the rest of his films do), Grand Hotel  or Little Miss Sunshine. 12 Angry Men technically has Fonda as a lead but it's really everyone's film in a way. It's also a film in which one could argue that Ed Begley gives the most commanding performance.  

There's also great chemistry and the way certain stars bounce off each other. 

It's in this spirit that I selected Five Easy Pieces: To me the most striking contrast is between Susan Anspach and Karen Black. These two beautiful women of different classes represent entirely different things to Bobby and his struggle over which class he belongs in. I also like that many of the characters outside the two female leads seem to effortlessly fall into lower class or upper crust.

I also tried to highlight casting choices that are innovative or bold.  My pick Dreamgirls featured three big gambles among its five main principles: Beyoncee, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy and they were all extraordinarily successful. I agree that the three leads of Ball of Fire are great but I particularly like how they managed to cast seven actors of the older generation that meshed so well as the seven professors (which Hawks intended to be an allegory of the Seven Dwarves).

As for Salt of the Earth, the film was directed by blacklisted director Herbert Beiberman and a blacklisted screenwriter in 1953 which naturally meant it had no chance of getting distributed or funded by the studios it only played in 13 theaters despite great reviews. The film, about a mining strike, was co-produced with the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers and had only two union actors, Will Geer and Mexican Rusaura Revueltas who was deported mid-production. The rest of the cast was miners and locals (all of whom are surprisingly competent) and some of them were invited to review the dailies for accuracy and help out with production in other ways.

To close out this round, let me ask you one last question about a film I've never even heard of before: Slackers. I see muiltiple titles on it for IMDB and have never heard of such a film, so please fill me in.

Adam: I will need to find Salt of the Earth.  That had to have taken courage to make that film during the height of McCarthyism.   Since you enjoyed that, please see Matewan which I could have easily included on my list.  Directed by indie stalwart John Sayles, it’s also about a mining strike, this one in 1920s West Virginia.  

You asked about Slacker.  It’s the film that put writer-director Richard Linklater (whose work you will see again on my list) on the map.  He follows a series of strange people in Austin, going from one person to another.  It’s different from an Altman type of piece because there’s no larger story, and the film, for the most part, does not go back to characters it leaves.   These include an anarchist, a conspiracy theorist and a young woman trying to sell what she claims is Madonna’s pap smear.  The actors were unknown then and remain so 26 years later.  But each one of them present a vivid, fleshed out person who you enjoy spending a few minutes with.  You get a brief glimpse into their world and then move on to the next one.