Throwback Thursday takes us back to 1980 and a workplace comedy that would be a hit with both critics and audiences, create a hit number one single on the Billboard charts, and launch Dolly Parton into a new career as a movie star. The film would earn spots on three different AFI lists (including 100 Years…100 Laughs) and later inspire both a TV-series and a Broadway musical.
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Released in 1980, How to Beat the High Cost of Living starred Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, and Jessica Lange as an unlikely trio of friends who turn to crime to pay for the high cost of inflation slowly strangling each of their lives when Jane’s (Curtin) husband drains their bank account to run off with his secretary, Louise (Lange) is being sued by her husband (Richard Benjamin) fighting off an IRS audit, and the divorced Jane (Saint James) with a homeless father (Eddie Albert) and three kids is struggling to make ends meet with another baby on the way.
The goofy screenplay by Robert Kaufman involving the three women working to rob a giant glass ball full of money in the local mall during its anniversary sale isn’t exactly high concept, but the three leads, and a supporting cast that includes Benjamin, Albert, Dabney Coleman, and Fred Willard, somehow makes (most of) it work as a guilty pleasure heist flick most memorable for Jane Curtain’s striptease during the middle of the mall robbery.
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Guilty Pleasure – How to Beat the High Cost of LivingRead More »
Guilty Pleasure – How to Beat the High Cost of Living Read More »
I have a confession to make; my favorite Tom Hanks movie isn’t Forrest Gump, Big, Philadelphia, Apollo 13, The Terminal, Splash, or Sleepless in Seattle. My favorite Hanks film is 1985’s The Man with One Red Shoe. Now, I’d never argue it’s his best movie, but for my money its sheer enjoyment value is off the charts. A great farce, fun suspense, Jim Belushi losing his mind, Carrie Fisher in a leopard print bikini, and an off-beat love story make this a great addition to anyone’s DVD collection.
Richard Drew (Tom Hanks) is a concert violinist who is sleeping with his best friend Morris’s (Jim Belushi) wife Paula (Carrie Fisher). Richard leads a boring life of concerts and violin lessons.
That’s all about to change as CIA director Ross (Charles Durning) sets up a trap to catch the illegal operations of a competing CIA boss Cooper (Dabney Coleman). Ross plants a fake story about having a witness to Cooper’s activities and sends his top man Brown (Edward Herrmann) to pick a man at random realizing that Cooper will take a run at him and then they will have him.
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The Man with One Red Shoe Read More »
What an entertaining ride. Although rather messy and with more than a couple of flaws, Domino delivers one of the most enjoyable and watchable films this year. Comparison to Tarantino’s Kill Bill are probably inevitable, but this is a far superior film with actual heart. And damn, is it fun!!
Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley) is a glamour girl with a thirst for violence turned bounty hunter. As the film opens Domino is in custody telling FBI Agent Taryn Miles (Lucy Liu) discussing what went wrong and landed her handcuffed in the interrogation room. Something horrible happened on the last bounty and the movie is a series of flashbacks inter-cut with Knightley telling her story and finding her own understanding of what happened out in the desert.
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Heads You Win, Tails You Die Read More »
