Quiz Show (1994)

Director: Robert Redford

Cast: John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, David Paymer

Have I Seen it Before: Somebody mentioned to me that it was by far their favorite movie many years ago, so I went directly to the downtown library to track down a copy, and I remember thinking it was one of those classy, grown-up pictures, even way back when. For some reason it never got into regular rotation for me, and I don’t think I’ve seen it since.

Did I Like It: The movie strikes me in very much the same way now. We’re not really in a period where studios generally—and Disney or their prestige label Hollywood Pictures, specifically—are interested in making a thoughtful drama about intelligent people largely reckoning with their own insecurities.

Class, wealth, formal education, religion, looks. There’s this notion in American life, and probably never insisted on as stridently as it was in the first fifteen years after the second World War, that none of those factors should have any weight on the success of a man*, as long as that man maximizes his smarts (definitely separate from education), luck (someone will have to explain to me why that’s different than class, wealth, and looks, but we’ll leave that discussion for a different day), and hard work. Smarts and luck are on full display, but ease of work is what’s reached for by these people.

That’s the film’s greatest revelation, even if that revelation should have been self-evident: Our grandparents in the so-called Greatest Generation were just as obsessed with fame for the sake of being famous as we are. As with all great stories taking place in a bygone era, it’s just as much about the people of the 1950s and the Quiz Show scandals, as it is about the people of 1994 at the height of MTV and CourtTV, or the people of now with social media dominating their lives.

*The film insists it doesn’t have room to reckon with women’s angst in any real way, and given the balance of Stempel (Turturro), Goodwin (Morrow), and Van Doren (Fiennes), there’s probably a reason for that.

Mother (1996)

Director: Albert Brooks

Cast: Albert Brooks, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Morrow, Lisa Kudrow

Have I Seen It Before: Yes. I remember this film eerily well. I honestly think it aired on HBO, I recorded it, and I watched it over and over again.

Did I Like It: It’s odd to say that Brooks—and specifically Brooks’ character in this film—was something of an heroic figure for my adolescence. He made a living writing science fiction books. I wanted* to make a living at writing science fiction novels. What’s more, I wanted to just happen upon beautiful women out in public who are so windswept by my typing that she’s willing to follow me to what would be to any rational observer a meetup for serial killers, and that would solve all of my lovelorn problems.

Forget the fact that he has a painfully neurotic relationship—matched only by his brother (Morrow)—with his mother, is irretrievably blocked** on his next novel, and that he has been twice divorced. John Henderson had the life.

And he fixes his relationship with his mother (Reynolds)! What more could a man want out of life when he gets to his forties?

The humor of the film is lively, making conscious decisions at every point to not descend into sitcom cliché and make every beat not only emanate from the characters as we’ve come to know them, but be in service of the characters ongoing development. It’s an exceptionally, almost deceptively well-crafted comedy. So much so that by the resolution, there might be a flash of feeling cheated, but not everything has to end with one more punchline.

And if you think it was easy for me to admit that, you’re crazy.

The casting is also quite good. Brooks plays the same leading-man he has created for himself previously, but does it without any trace of a self-consciousness that you might come to expect from writer-director-stars. Look out for Lisa Kudrow’s near-cameo. I think we all get how good she really is, but opting to be “the blind date” in an Albert Brooks’ movie is a more purely comedic choice for an actress at that point in her career, when she could have just as easily been the second half of any cookie cutter romantic comedy, and made plenty of money in the effort.

Then there’s Debbie Reynolds. Picking up her career after several years away, she’s as natural as she was in decades past. It’s infinitely fascinating that Nancy Reagan (of all people) seriously considered playing the part before ultimately passing. She wouldn’t have been nearly as good—and indeed, never was—as Reynolds, but my, oh my, would that have been a fascinating version of this film.

*I haven’t given up the ghost on it, but… You know. I live in the real world.

**I get the need to introduce complications into the life of a main character, but blocks are for chumps. Throw him Grady Tripp’s (Michael Douglas) problems in Wonder Boys (2000) and then we have something.