July-August 2025

CARNEGIE HALL (1947)

    I feel incredibly lucky to have spent my formative years in the 20^th Century. Television, before it became an instrument of division, was the great equalizer, especially in the 1960s and ‘70s. With just three networks, PBS and a handful of local outlets, everyone was exposed to the same programming; limiting maybe, but it also created a broadly educated populace, exposing us to everything from novelists, painters, classical musicians to pop stars, athletes, movie actors, filmmakers and comics. Not just the latest arrivals to success, but the entire roster of the century, from before movies talked or radio existed.

      On any given weekday in the 1960s, Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, John Lennon, Salvador Dalí, James Baldwin, Henny Youngman, Marlon Brando, Wilt Chamberlain or Alfred Hitchcock could show up on talk shows hosted by Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett. And then, on Sunday evening, America’s ultimate ringmaster, Ed Sullivan, might have a lineup of comedian Shecky Greene, pop sensation Herman’s Hermits, opera star Joan Sutherland, a Bulgarian juggling act and Topo Gigio ((if you don’t know, don’t ask). Ludicrous, but as mind expanding as any psychedelic drug. (Worth checking out: “Sunday Best,” a new Netflix documentary on Sullivan and his role in promoting African-American performers.)

     While my generation embraced the rock ‘n’ roll of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and the films of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in our consciousness from these variety shows or news reports was Gershwin, Hepburn, Ellington, Stravinsky, Picasso and Capote---creating a palette in which 100 years of artistic disciplines mingled.

    Which brings me to “Carnegie Hall,” a compendium of classical music set in the New York City concert cathedral. This isn’t a documentary made for the classroom but a 2-hour and 24-minute feature that post-war hoi polloi went to see at their neighborhood theater, providing a chance to witness pianist Arthur Rubinstein, violinist Jascha Heifetz, conductor Leopold Stokowski, opera singer Lily Pons and many others perform on the recently refurbished Carnegie Hall stage.

     In between the lengthy musical sets, Marsha Hunt plays a woman who rises from Carnegie Hall cleaning lady to booking the talent in the early part of the century. The drama revolves around her son, a pianist (William Prince, later a busy character actor into the 1970s) who turns away from the classics after joining Vaughn Monroe’s big band.

     But it’s the collection of mostly European musicians who are the real stars and, of course, the music of Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Wagner as played in this legendary venue. The film is artfully shot by veteran cinematographer William Miller and directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, best known for his low-budget film noir “Detour” (1945).

     It’s one thing to enjoy a movie, but it’s another to be awe-struck by the actual existence of a production; “Carnegie Hall” is like the “Woodstock” of 20^th Century classical music, a monument to the power of great performances set in the Seventh Avenue concert venue that has remained a pillar of American arts excellence since 1891.

 

SUPERMAN (2025)

     I guess there’s no point in complaining about a basic fact of life: Hollywood will never stop remaking “Spiderman” and “Superman” movies. I have nothing against franchises but rebooting a movie series strikes me as a vast waste of talent and money. I half expect to hear about plans for another set of “Harry Potters.”

      I actually enjoyed the 2013’s “Man of Steel” that starred Henry Cavill as Clark Kent—it gave him an interesting backstory and featured a moving performance by Diane Lane as his adoptive mother. Of course, the late 1970s Christopher Reeve-Richard Donner pictures were landmarks of a sort, but, truthfully, haven’t aged well.

     As usual, in the new version Superman is played by a strong-jawed, male model type, David Corenswet, a Juilliard grad in his first major role, but for once the script—by director James Gunn from the original comic book by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—dispenses with the cat-and-mouse games between our hero and co-worker Los Lane (Rachel Brosnahan, star of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”). They are romantically involved when the film begins and, shockingly, she knows he’s a superhero.

      Nicholas Hoult (a rather dull actor who also starred in “Nosferatu” and “Juror #2”) portrays arch-rival Lex Luthor, who runs a high-tech paramilitary group deeply entrenched with the American government. (Any resemblance to 2025 reality is strenuously denied.)

      Luthor effortlessly convinces the public and political leaders that Superman is a bad guy who needs to be put down. Lex even has his own private prison he built in another dimension (well, almost Florida).

     The film is saved, or at least made tolerable, by Gunn adding a bit of the brand of humor found in his “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, when a trio of superheroes, called the Justice Gang (they’re still working on that name) jump into the fray. The gang’s Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) is the film’s real hero.

      This version also gives Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) something to do beyond saying “Gee Whiz Clark!” He plays an important role in undercovering Luthor’s evil plan and, actually, has a girlfriend.

     In 2035, when someone reboots “Superman” yet again, I’m hoping they age the Man of Steel a bit; have him face a middle-age crisis or even contemplate retirement. It certainly would be an improvement over telling the same story yet again as if a new cast and updated special effects make any difference.

 

EDDINGTON (2025)

     It’s been a couple of weeks since I saw this patched-together collection of incidents involving a slow-witted, loud-mouth sheriff in Eddington, a small, dusty town in New Mexico, and I’m still not sure what I think of it.

    Joaquin Phoenix stars as Sheriff Joe Cross, who vigilantly opposes mask wearing even as COVID starts spreading across the country, and then turns his rivalry with the town’s slick, politically connected mayor (Pedro Pascal) into a live-action version of the Elmer Fudd-Bugs Bunny feud. Adding to Cross’ chaotic world is his unstable wife (a slumming Emma Stone), a mother-in-law obsessed with internet-fueled conspiracies (Deirdre O’Connell) and a half-baked street preacher (Austin Butler) who muddles the sheriff’s already tentative marriage.

    I know writer-director Ari Aster (“Hereditary,” “Beau Is Afraid”) wants audiences to laugh at these clueless, occasionally racist, insistently uninformed characters but they cut a bit too close to what much of America has become, from one-stoplight communities to the White House, for me to be amused. Films usually offer at least one character who audiences can hang their hat on, providing either hope or at least of semblance of sanity as everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Not in “Eddington.”   

    Phoenix, who has a history of making confounding movies, manages to hold this jigsaw puzzle of a picture together, even as his character zig-zags all over the spectrum.

     At worst, “Eddington” is underhandedly racist (making light of Black Lives Matter protests) and uninformed (mocking those worried about COVID), but maybe it’s just poorly written and sloppily directed.

 

THE NAKED GUN (2025)

    Another week, another reboot.

    Thirty-seven years ago, David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, following their surprise smash hit “Airplane!” (1980), adapted their cult-classic television satire “Police Squad!” to create in one of the most original movie comedies of the era.     

     The new version plays like one of the less-successful sequels, which grew less and less clever and more reliant on the bumbling idiocy of Lt. Frank Drebin, played to perfection by Leslie Nielsen.

      The difficulty in replacing Nielsen was probably one reason it took more than a generation to get this guaranteed money-maker back in theaters. Liam Neeson plays the son (don’t do the math!) of Drebin, doing his best to capture the clueless inept detective, but he tries way too hard, turning too many set-pieces into half-baked SNL-like skits. And, needless to say, the actor is a tad too old for the role at 73. Surely, they could have found an actor in his 50s (Josh Brolin, Daniel Craig, even Hugh Jackman would have been good candidates) and avoided what felt to me like Harrison Ford in another “Indiana Jones.” Nielsen, despite his snow-white hair, hadn’t hit 70 when the final sequel, “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” was released in 1994.

     One can’t help but smile when at the center of the film is an invention to rule the world called “P.L.O.T. Device.” But the idea of a wealthy megalomaniac (Danny Huston) determined to control humanity is so omnipresent in American films that it’s tired even in a satire. But it leads Drebin and his sidekick Ed Hocken Jr. (son of his namesake who was played by George Kennedy in the 1988 movie) to femme fatale Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) and a flurry of double entendres.

 

     As Hocken, Paul Walter Hauser, terrific in “I, Tonya” and “Richard Jewell,” disappears for most of the film, but Neeson and Anderson work well together (they apparently are a couple now). But again, the writers try too hard: There’s a long romantic sequence between the two of them and a snowman that is more creepy than funny.

     Co-writer and director Akiva Schaffer overloads the film with verbal and dramatic irony but can’t get around the paper-thin plot and Neeson’s stiff persona.

       And sadly, there’s only one, very fleeting, O.J. Simpson joke (he played the third detective Nordberg in the first trilogy). Were they worried someone would think a “Naked Gun” movie was tasteless?

      “Police Squad!” lasted just six episodes on ABC in 1982 but remains one of the most admired TV series of the era, scoring Emmy nominations for Nielsen and the writers. Filled with goofy sight gags and non sequiturs, the show satirized the detective/cop shows of the 1960s and ‘70s.

       One of the highlights of every show was the introduction of the guest star followed by their quick demise. (Lorne Greene rolling out of a car after a drive-by; Florence Henderson gunned down in her kitchen.) The series opened the door for the more risqué and violence, all for laughs of course, sequences in the big-screen version.

  

CRIME IN THE STREET (1956)

    Judging by the motion pictures of the era, the only thing Americans of the 1950s worried more about than nuclear annihilation was teenage delinquency. Among the movies warning parents about their suddenly dangerous teens included “Rebel Without a Cause,” “The Wild One,” “Blackboard Jungle,” “The Delinquents” and “West Side Story” (knife-wielding dancers!).

     I had never seen “Crime in the Street” until it recently aired on TCM, but it actually is one of the more realistic, thoughtful looks at the phenomenon, superbly scripted by Reginald Rose, whose “12 Angry Men” is among the most insightful teleplays ever penned.

      John Cassavetes, a year away from his star-making role in “Edge of the City,” plays hot-headed Frankie, who’s angry at everyone he encounters and repeatedly ignores the overtures of a persistent social worker (James Whitmore). Living with his single mother (Virginia Gregg in an impressive performance) and his little brother, Frankie is happiest when he’s hanging with his gang (played by Sal Mineo and future director Mark Rydell) on the street corner.

      Near the end, Frankie’s mother offers an explanation of the family’s plight, delivered with the emotional gravitas of a scene from an Arthur Miller play. It’s the film’s high-water mark but the long scenes between Whitmore and Cassavetes are as heartfelt as anything in “Rebel” or “Blackboard Jungle,” despite its studio-bound sets.

      The movie solidified Don Siegel’s status as one of the most skilled directors of low-budget film, coming just a few months after “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” By the 1970s, Siegel was among Hollywood’s top filmmakers with hits “Dirty Harry” (1971), “Charley Varrick” (1973) and “The Shootist” (1976), while serving as Clint Eastwood’s directing mentor.  

  

F1: THE MOVIE (2025)

      While it doesn’t measure up to recent car racing movies—“Ferrari” (2023), “Ford v Ferrari” (2019) or “Rush” (2013)—this Formula One tale offers an engaging neophyte vs. veteran story that smartly spends most of its time on the track.

      While the movie would have benefitted from a 30-minute trim, the casually charismatic presence of Brad Pitt sustains even the repetitive scenes of racing strategy, juvenile bickering and inspirational speeches. Clearly, director Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy” and “Top Gun: Maverick”) is most at home meshing CGI with high-speed stunts.

      (As a pointless aside, I hope someone can explain the film’s title: is the point to not confuse it with “F1: The Novel” or “F1: The Aftershave”?)

    In “The Movie,” Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a driver whose career was short-circuited by a major crash that put him out of action for a decade, now drawn back into the sport by his long-ago mentor Ruben (Javier Bardem, despite, in real life, being six years Pitt’s junior). You’ve heard the dialogue between Sonny and Ruben in dozens of films as he tries to lure his aging protégé onto his team.

    This doesn’t go over well with Ruben’s No. 1 driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris, star of the FX series “Snowfall”), who is more interested in social media fame than finishing first on the track.

     The most interesting nonracing scenes are those between Sonny and the lead engineer of Ruben’s team, Kate McKenna, played with unpretentious command by Kerry Condon, who scored a 2022 Oscar nomination for “The Banshees of Inisherin.”     

     At this point in his career, Pitt, 61 but looking 45, doesn’t need much of a character to dominate a movie; in “F1” it’s as if Cliff Booth of “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” has taken up Formula One racing. (In actuality, director David Fincher is shooting a follow-up to Quentin Tarantino’s picture, focusing on Pitt’s character.)

     Though he’s been a movie star for decades, he’s grown into a more controlled, thoughtful actor starting with “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) and “Moneyball” (2011); I suspect his best work still lies ahead.

  

NO SUDDEN MOVE (2021)

      For the life of me, I can’t imagine why this well-written, atmospheric thriller filled with a nonstop twists and turns, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, went straight to HBO/MAX after screenings at film festivals. (Can we blame COVID?)

      While Soderbergh’s films can become overly wordy and his characters too often exude unearned cool (his latest, “Black Bag” left me cold), “No Sudden Move” allows two of the best actors in the business, Don Cheadle and Benicio del Toro turn the hostage story into a character study.

     Del Toro’s Ronald Russo doesn’t hide his displeasure when he’s partnered with a black man (the film is set in 1950s Detroit), but a job’s a job. He and Cheatle’s Curt Goynes, fresh out of prison, are tasked by a mid-level mobster (Brendan Fraser) to take an accountant (David Harbour) and his family hostage, demanding he steal a highly secretive report concerning the auto industry. The plan goes by the book until the gang’s third man (Kieran Culkin) removes his mark in front of the family and complications start gumming up the works every time a gun is drawn.

     Few contemporary directors are more accomplished at keeping audience guessing about the direction of the plot while giving his actors plenty of room to become more than chess pieces. The film was written by Ed Solomon, best known for “Men in Black.”

    Del Toro and Cheadle, both perfect exemplars of “world weary” acting, constantly glance at each other with that “we’re too old for this crap” look. And they have plenty of support, with Jon Hamm as a corruptible cop, Ray Liotta as the man behind the plot and longtime character actor Bill Duke, who shows up in the last act looking for his cut.

      Soderbergh can’t resist bring in an overly talkative figure near the end to provide the complicated backstory, but the film survives it.

  

 PHOTOS:

The poster for "Carnegie Hall."  (Bel Canto Society)

Joaquin Phoenix in "Eddington." (A24)

 Paul Walter Hauser and Liam Neeson in "The Naked Gun." (Paramount Pictures)

Benicio del Toro and  Don Cheadle in "No Sudden Move."  (HBO/MAX)

May-June 2025

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—THE FINAL RECKONING (2025)

     If a movie includes a scene every 30 minutes or so explaining what just occurred or what is about to happen, the script definitely needs a rewrite. While the plot of the apparent final entry in this mostly excellent action franchise isn’t that complex—I was more confused by “Dead Reckoning”—writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (his fourth “M:I”) and co-writer Erik Jendresen don’t seem to trust their audience.

      Yet despite the script’s overuse of exposition, there is plenty to savor about this daring, save-the-world adventure led by Ethan Hunt (the ageless Tom Cruise), including two lengthy, jaw-dropping sequences, below the ocean and in the sky, along with a cleverly plotted trip to a remote CIA station.

     If you saw “Dead Reckoning Part One” (and it’d be foolish to see this film otherwise), you know that the world, and, more importantly Hunt and his team, must find the source of the Entity before it unleashes the apocalypse. It’s a bit difficult to wrap one’s head around this AI foe; I preferred the old days when the source of evil was a mustache-swirling megalomaniac living in a luxurious fortress.

    While the (male) cabinet members demand drastic action, Hunt persuades President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett, once his CIA adversary) to trust him and his team to make it right without going nuclear. It takes a while to get to the movie’s major set-piece but it is worth the wait. When his team, now including pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell) and one-time terrorist Paris (Pom Klementieff), locates the CIA outpost in the Bering Sea, they transmit to Hunt the coordinates of a sub that went down long ago, the first victims of the Entity.

      Hunt dives down to find the key to disarming the Entity, swimming through the crumbling nuclear sub and barely avoiding getting entombed near the ocean floor. The entire sequence, Hunt getting there on a military submarine and then diving down, represents everything that has made this franchise so entertaining.

     The 62-year-old actor remains the same intensely determined hero he was at 32; his insistence that he still perform many of his own stunts makes the set pieces even more breathtaking. And, more than most contemporary pictures, the film’s muscular soundtrack, with Lalo Schifrin’s famous theme just waiting to take over at the most dramatic moments, remains essential to the movie-going experience. It was composed by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, the team that worked on “Top Gun: Maverick.” (The legendary Schifrin died this week at age 93.)

     Oddly, the movie features the kind of film-clip sequences, looking back on the previous seven films, that usually play at the Academy Awards shows honoring a series or actor, but not within a feature film. (Next year will be “M:I” 30^th anniversary so the Oscar producers can just cut and paste for its tribute). In “Final Reckoning,” the flashbacks play into the nostalgic mood, its heartfelt goodbye.

     I still maintain the best of the franchise is the Brian De Palma 1996 original—closest in spirt to the inventive TV show and filled with first-rate supporting work by Jon Voight, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Béart, Vanessa Redgrave and the indispensable Henry Czerny. But nearly as good are “Mission: Impossible III” (2006), featuring a bravado performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman while establishing the core team of Hunt, Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg); “Ghost Protocol” (2011), with its thrilling set piece that climaxes with the destruction of the Kremlin; and the globe-trotting “Fallout” (2018) in which the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) steals the picture as an alluringly rival.

     As much as I’ve enjoyed the series, I’m hopeful that Cruise sees his upcoming Medicare years as a reason to return to more challenging (acting wise) roles that he pursued in “The Color of Money,” (1986), “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), “Magnolia (1999) and, more recently, the underrated “American Made” (2017). While he’s not quite the last Hollywood superstar, it’s a dying tradition that he’s shown to be the best exemplar of since the 1980s.

 

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (2025)

     While working in that space somewhere between absurdist Luis Bunuel and Bugs Bunny cartoons, Wes Anderson makes the most interesting (only?) dioramas in movie history. This rigorously created series of comic set pieces (co-written by Roman Coppola), which owe much to the style and tone of “Asteroid City” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” are held together by the stoic, unflappable Zsa-zsa Korda (underplayed with supreme coolness by Benicio Del Toro), determined to find financing for his “scheme.”

     With his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), pulled out of a nunnery, and new personal secretary Bjorn (Michael Cera, in the role usually played in Anderson films by Jason Schwartzman), Korda tracks down relatives and one-time allies (played by Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson and Benedict Cumberbatch, among others) to aid him in a giant infrastructure plan for the desert country of Phoenicia. His lifelong dream, contained in shoe and sock boxes he carries around, is as nutty as his trust in acquaintances, who may be involved in various assassination attempts.

       Early in the film, Korda is aboard his private plane (an odd-looking contraption—the setting is the 1950s) when his assistant is blown out of the plane and it’s headed for a crash landing. He goes to the cockpit and after a brief dispute with the pilot, calmly hits the eject button, sending the pilot flying out of the plane (he survives). This cartoon-inspired moment typifies the dark, underplayed, offbeat humor that makes this one of Anderson’s best films.

     If the earthly adventures of Korda and his daughter aren’t enough, when the businessman comes close to death (which occurs regularly), he dreams of trying to enter the pearly gates of heaven, where Bill Murray (who else?) plays God.

      As good as del Toro is in this role, equal to his artist-prisoner in “The French Dispatch,” Threapleton steals the picture. This is the first major film role for the 24-year-old who is the daughter of Kate Winslet (tell me that doesn’t make you feel old?). Her flat affect and cold line readings make her a perfect Anderson actress. One of my favorite moments of the film is when Liesl starts smoking a pipe.

     No doubt, Anderson remains an acquired taste who seems to have little connection to contemporary Hollywood comedy filmmaking, which may be his best attribute. (If you have Netflix, don’t miss his series of quirky shorts, mostly starring Ralph Fiennes.)

  

THE SOPRANOS (1999-2007, TV)

     While it’s not my usual practice to offer commentary on television products, I feel compelled to weigh in, after all these years, on what has become the iconic series of the small screen’s cable era.

        Though I had seen the occasional episode of David Chase’s mob soap opera over the years, only in the past six months did I methodically watch all six seasons from start to finish.

       As someone who has read and seen more than his fair share of fictional and nonfiction accounts of La Cosa Nostra and ranks the first two “Godfather” films (referred to by characters in the series as simply “one” and “two”) at the top of his favorites list, not to mention multiple viewings of “Casino” and “Goodfellas,” I fully expected to be enraptured by “The Sopranos.” I was not.

      Or, at least, I was greatly disappointed by this overhyped series, finding fault with its fractured story, inconsistent performances and the reliance on similar scenarios year after year. There are moments, even full episodes, that rise to greatness but in full I’d be pressed to including the show in a ranking of the 20 best TV series.

       (For the handful of viewers who haven’t seen the series, read at your own risk—possible spoilers ahead.)

      And for those same readers: The series follows the difficulties faced by Tony Soprano, a depressive, brutal but also doting family man who takes control of the New Jersey mob family (“our thing” in gangster parlance) once run by his deceased father. Most of the action takes place in Soprano’s home, which he shares with wife Carmela and their two children, in his therapist office where he seeks help for his panic attacks and depression, and in his office at the strip club Bada Bing (a reference to “one”) where Tony and his underlings hang out when not out collecting money from their various nefarious enterprises.

      How many times did I need to see James Gandolfini’s Tony lumber down the stairs of his home in his robe to argue with his conflicted wife (Edie Falco) over coffee or listen to Tony and his captains discuss pedestrian issues at the bar or in the office? The show also offers an endless parade of funerals, where the mobsters stand around at the viewing of another of their “family” who has been killed (often at the hands of the mourners.)

      Adding to the highlight-reel feeling the show grows into, Chase and his phalanx of writers often turned the hour-long episodes into a potpourri of scenes only loosely connected by Tony’s presence.

      The first few seasons focus on Tony’s therapy sessions (Lorraine Bracco as Dr. Melfi), focused on his unhealthy relationship with his aging, spiteful mother (Nancy Marchand) and his troubled marriage, but these scenes quickly become redundant. In the last few seasons, Tony Jr. (known as A.J.), played by Robert Iler, becomes a major subplot, his life often used to explore social issues of the day. The series also spent way too much time on the ups and downs of the self-destructive Christopher (Michael Imperioli), Tony’s surrogate son; I’m surprised Chase didn’t turn it into a spinoff.

      The argument can be made—and certainly was during its original run on HBO (now MAX)—that viewers had never seen a Mafia chief deal with depression or fight with their children to stay in school.  (Imagine Michael Corleone meeting with his son’s school principal.)  It’s the every-day situations mixed with the usual collection of treats, beatings and executions that earned the series its acclaim (and an astonishing 21 Emmys).

       “The Sopranos” was among the first series to feature female nudity, at the family’s strip joint, what would be R-rated sex scenes between Tony and his various mistresses and unceasing profanity. I’m convinced that those were important reasons for not only its contemporary popularity but its critical acclaim.

      Yet despite all macho posing, the series dared to introduced a gay mobster (played by Joseph R. Gannascoli), who attempts to find a life away from the family before facing the intense homophobia of the mob—you won’t see that in a Scorsese film.

       While Gandolfini had the hang-dog look down pat, too often he does little to energize scenes that are begging for his presence; in fairness, the writing often failed him. I think he suffered the most from the changing directors (I counted 25 in the 86 episodes).

      While I always enjoyed scenes with Silvio, Tony’s consigliere, played with snarling sarcasm by rock ‘n’ roller Little Steven Van Zandt, you can count on one hand the number of impactful scenes he had in the six seasons. Not even at the end did Chase offer a meaningful last exchange between Silvio and Tony.

      In the same manner, Bracco had some memorable scenes early in the show but her importance to the show diminished in the last three seasons.

     The finest work in “The Sopranos” was done by Falco as Carmelo, the rare character who goes through changes over six seasons, as she struggles with enjoying the riches of the criminal life while living with the guilt over what her husband does. Also memorable is Aida Turturro, playing Janice, Tony’s unstable, mostly irritating sister who ends up marrying one of her brother’s lieutenants.

Early in the series Dominic Chianese as Uncle Junior, fighting with Tony for control of the family, and Marchand as Tony’s mother have great moments.

       The series is filled with lively guest performances, including movie directors Peter Bogdanovich as the therapist’s therapist and Sydney Pollack as a prison orderly; Annabella Sciorra as one of Tony’s mistresses and Steve Buscemi as a long-incarcerated cousin who wants back in the action.

       As for the much-debated final episode, it summarizes so much of what I disliked about the series: short scenes taking care of plot points rather than rising action leading to a dramatic climax. It felt like Chase needed another episode or two to bring this tale to a worthy conclusion. At the end, in the dinner, I still don’t understand the focus on daughter Meadow’s parking or the point of suddenly becoming so symbolic when you’re on the last page. I would rather have seen Tony taken away in handcuffs by the FBI; justice rather than the thought of another needless bloodletting.

      While I don’t regret the time I spent watching (the beauty of retirement life), considering the acres of praise the series has received over the past 25 years I felt a bit cheated. A story with great potential, unfulfilled.

  

A MODERN MUSKETEER (1917)

      One of the more amusing silents I’ve seen recently stars Douglas Fairbanks as a Kansas man who, after listening to his mother repeatedly read “The Three Musketeers” to him as a boy, becomes a modern-version of D’Artagnan.

     This Allan Dwan-directed picture begins with a scene of the 17^th Century swordsman taking on a room-full of bad guys so he can return a dropped handkerchief to a woman. In typical Fairbanks’ style, he flips and leaps all over the place, dismantling the room and the those who foolishly confront him. At first, I assumed this was an outtake from the picture that made Fairbanks’ a superstar “The Three Musketeers,” but that wasn’t made for another four years!

      After the intro, we meet Ned Thacher, an overly sincere 20^th Century man who will do anything to defend a female’s dignity and shows the same acrobatic and pugilistic skills as his French literary hero.

       Leaving his dusty small town for adventure, he runs into wealthy heal Forrest Vandeteer (Eugene Ormonde), who is headed for the Grand Canyon with Mrs. Dodge (Kathleen Kirkham) and her pretty, young daughter Elsie (teen actress Marjorie Daw) in tow.

      The real adventure begins when they arrive at the El Tovar Hotel (fascinating to see how the now very exclusive inn looked 107 years ago) and venture into the canyon, beautiful shot by cinematographers Hugh McClung and Harris Thorpe. The film doesn’t hold back on its racist portrayal of a Native-American tour guide, named Chin-de-dah and played by white actor Frank Campeau, who plans to kidnap Elsie and make her his “wife.”

    Along with Charlie Chaplin, Fairbanks was the biggest star of the silents, reportedly earning $10,000 a week by 1916 and all but inventing the movie action hero in hits such as “The Mark of Zorro” (1920), “Robin Hood” (1922), “The Thief of Bagdad” (1924) along with “The Three Musketeers.”

     Dwan’s incredible career spanned from 1911 to 1961, but, despite silent successes, was relegated to mostly B-movies in the sound era.

  

TWILIGHT (1998)

     Just before the last act of Robert Benton’s senior-citizen neo-noir, Paul Newman’s Harry Ross, a “retired” private eye, sums up the entire history of movie detectives, appropriately in the bathroom of a pair of murder victims: 

    “Ever strike you this is a lousy way to make a living? Start out thinking you are going to win a few, but mostly it’s, just like tonight, watching people run out of the little bit of luck that they got left. Think you are going to beat the odds, but you don’t or not very often.”

       The dialogue of “Twilight,” like most of Benton’s scripts (here co-written with novelist Richard Russo), captures his characters’ lifetime of struggle or, on the other side, the arrogance of privilege, and the poor choices they’ve made. In his best work—“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), “The Late Show” (1977), “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), “Places in the Heart” (1984) and “Nobody’s Fool” (1994)—Benton, who died last month at age 92, created people who were distinctly of a time and place but edgy enough to leave a memorable impression. Though he worked infrequently, directing only 11 pictures, Benton elicited more first-rate performances than most filmmakers with three times the credits. Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Sally Field won Oscars in his films; Art Carney, John Malkovich and Paul Newman gave performances among their best.

      Of course, it all began when his and David Newman’s script for “Bonnie and Clyde,” written while they worked for Esquire magazine, was turned into a seminal film of the 1960s by star-producer Warren Beatty and director Arthur Penn.    

       Benton took home screenwriting and directing Academy Awards for the child-custody drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and then won his second screenplay Oscar for the Depression-era farm tale “Places in the Heart.” He was nominated five times for his scripts.

      He might have deserved another for “Twilight,” which, on a second viewing, makes most contemporary films look and sound like cheap TV melodramas. To start with, the cast is a filmmaker’s dream: Newman, Susan Sarandon and Gene Hackman are the principals with exemplary supporting from James Garner, Stockard Channing, Reese Witherspoon, Liev Schreiber, Giancarlo Esposito, M. Emmet Walsh and Margo Martindale. In the first 20 minutes of the film, no one shows up on screen who isn’t a familiar face.

      After retrieving their underage daughter (Witherspoon) from a Puerto Vallarta love nest, Harry becomes house guest and handyman for one-time Hollywood actors Jack (Hackman) and Catherine (Sarandon) Ames. Seeing Harry eying her flirty mother, the daughter tells him, “You’re just the hired help.”

     The scenes between Newman and Hackman are priceless—two of Hollywood’s all-time greats in a game of deceit and confession. Harry finds himself knee-deep in a 20-year-old murder after Jack sends him to deliver a blackmail payoff.

      Not only is this one of the last great performances in Newman’s storied career (he was 73), but the older actors, including Sarandon, Garner and Channing, have rarely been more self-assured.

     One could argue that the plot is a bit too obvious, telegraphing the bad guys early on and relying on puzzle pieces from 1940s and 50s film noirs. So what?

       The pleasure of watching these veteran actors play out the intriguing machinations tops 90 percent of what Hollywood markets as mystery today.   

THE GODLESS GIRL (1928)

     Few would make the case for Cecil B. DeMille as a great director but his importance to the industry cannot be overstated. After directing the first movie in what would become “Hollywood” (“The Straw Man” in 1914, which he remade twice), DeMille all but created the movie melodrama, making more than 50 pictures before the coming of sound. He also was one of the founders of the movie company that became Paramount Pictures.

     The talkies slowed DeMille’s unsustainable pace, but he also produced and directed some of the biggest hits of the 1930s, including “The Sign of the Cross,” “Cleopatra,”—both with Claudette Colbert—and “The Plainsman.” When he made his final picture in 1956, the epic “The Ten Commandments” with an all-star cast, it was the year’s top box-office winner and soon became an annual Easter event on television.

     One of his lesser-known efforts, “The Godless Girl,” takes on two controversial issues: atheism and the harsh conditions of juvenile detention centers, the plot inspired by actual events at Hollywood High School in the late 1920s. The first-rate restoration of this silent is shown on TCM and available on YouTube.

       Lina Basquette, part of DeMille’s troupe before she was a teen, plays Judy (the credits call her “The Girl”), an outspoken high school student who leads the atheist club. Of course, this “disturbed” group is condemned by school officials and then psychically attacked by a group of conservative Bible-loving students. (DeMille plays the two sides somewhat evenly, but you just know Judy will eventually see her way to Christianity.)

    The clash between the two groups results in three of the students getting shipped to juvie, Judy, Bob or “The Boy” (Tom Keene, future star of B-cowboy movies, in his debut) and the jokester Bozo (Eddie Quillan, who was still working in the late 1980s). There they battle with The Brute (veteran bad guy Noah Beery), the facility’s unforgiving guard.

     The controversial picture was written by Jeanie Macpherson and features set designs by Mitchell Leisen, who worked with the director through “The Sign of the Cross” (1932), after which he became a director himself (“Death Takes a Holiday,” “Midnight”).

     It is somewhat ironic that Basquette’s stardom disappeared when sound came in as she was married to Sam Warner (one of her seven husbands), who was the real force behind Warner Bros. experimenting with sound films. He died of a heart attack the day before “The Jazz Singer” premiered in 1927.

PHOTOS:

Tom Cruise with Simon Pegg and Hayley Atwell in “Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning.”  (Paramount Pictures)

Michael Imperioli, James Gandolfini, Tony Sirico and Steven Van Zandt in “The Sopranos.”  (HBO)

Writer-director Robert Benton at the Venice Film Festival in 2003. (Wireimage)

Lina Basquette and Tom Keene in “The Godless Girl.” (Image Entertainment)