“Listen,” he said. “I wish you’d do another column on those movies you like that no one has ever heard of. I think you call them sleepers.” Yes, I do. And yes, I will.
For Roseanna (1997), like many movies, requires that you don’t nitpick the story and just go with it. A man in a small Italian town has promised his dying wife that she will be buried next to their daughter in the village cemetery. But there are only three spaces left, and when they’re gone, she has to be interred elsewhere. So the distraught husband decides he must keep the entire town healthy until his beloved passes on. The lengths he goes to are quite funny, and the unknown ensemble cast is quite good.
Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent are a loving married couple in The Wedding Gift (1994). She is suffering from an undiagnosed nervous illness, and is shuffled from specialist to specialist without noticeable help. He is determined to help her and to get an answer. He is so busy taking care of her his business suffers. I can’t give much more away, except to say it’s about decent people doing the right thing and pulling at our heartstrings along the way.
A Family Thing (1996) has two of the great actors of our age: Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones. Mr. Duvall discovers that his real mother was black, and that he has a brother in Chicago. He decides they should meet. Mr. Jones, the brother, did not know of the existence of Mr. Duvall either. It’s a good story.
There have been several films, notably Lust for Life, about the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. I think you’ll like Vincent (1981), a filming of Leonard Nimoy’s one-man performance as Van Gogh’s brother Theo. Theo was Vincent’s manager and supporter, and tried to stabilize his genius brother. But Vincent spiraled into madness.
I’ve Loved You So Long (2008) is a very unusual French film. Kristin Scott Thomas is Juliette, just released from a long prison sentence for murdering her son. Her sister Lea takes Juliette into her home much to the dismay of husband Luc. Juliette has been so isolated and wracked with guilt that she has great difficulty dealing with people and with the modern world. It is a virtuoso performance by Thomas, and it demonstrates the terrible effects of incarceration, and that things are not always as they seem.
All of the movies in this column are available on DVD. All are for mature audiences.
Rusty Hammond has been writing the Mr. Movie column since 1996. It appears in several newspapers in North Carolina.
Voices
Mr. Movie - Sleepers you should watch
- Voices
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Hollywood has produced one real-life Princess in Grace Kelly.
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Ila Mae Williams can rest in peace.
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Asheboro’s Sunset (Avenue, not Boulevard) was the scene last Friday of cameras, sound booms, cables strung all over the streets and dozens of crew members acting like ants on a catered pizza slice dumped on the sidewalk.
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