The character: Frank Enley The actor: Van Heflin The movie: Act of Violence (1949) In modern movietalk, you can put any three movies together that have similar themes and the same director and call it a trilogy. Forgive me for being similarly tiresome. At least there’s a little novelty for me in applying that framework… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #36
The character: Barney Greenwald The actor: Jose Ferrer The movie: The Caine Mutiny (1954) In December 2018, a man who “attempted to spark an open discussion” on Twitter asked something very important. Sadiq posed the question, “Why do we bash ‘dead-beat’ dads for not being there for their kids but we never question if the… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #36
The character: Otto Hasslein The actor: Eric Braeden The movie: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) Genocide ought to be fairly easy to accomplish when you’ve only got to knock off two, maximum three individuals. Hasslein, the scientific advisor to the president, has a problem here not because he can’t accomplish it, but… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #37
The character: Rocky Sullivan The actor: James Cagney The movie: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus differentiates between the reward that a person receives for doing good publicly versus doing good privately. Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing, he tells us. It is… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #37
The character: Slim Dundee The actor: Dan Duryea The movie: Criss Cross (1949) Dan Duryea’s New York Times obituary phrases it this way: “As movie publicity agents loved to point out, Mr. Duryea’s personality was quite the opposite of the one he displayed in films.” Duryea was married thirty-five years, was a member of the… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #38
The character: Bub The actor: Sherman Howard The movie: Day of the Dead (1985) Organic posthumanism, a future in which humans will recede and some different product of the planet will fill our void, is much to be wished for. Better yet, it ought to be planned for. Nothing could vouchsafe the preciousness of human… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #38
The character: Long John Silver The actor: Tim Curry The movie: Muppet Treasure Island (1996) So maybe this isn’t our best use of time, but let’s take a walk together, go through some Muppet movies, and decide which human actors from each movie deserved Oscar nominations for their time. I’ve done a variation of this… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #39
The character: Annie Johnson The actor: Juanita Moore The movie: Imitation of Life (1959) “Annie” is a common first name, the diminutive of “Ann.” Not so Annie Johnson of Imitation of Life, whose given name must have been “Antigone.” The commitment to principle which leads to immuration befits Annie, who denies herself in front of… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #39
The character: Count Dracula The actor: Gary Oldman The movie: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) “I have crossed oceans of time to find you,” Dracula tells Mina. It’s been more than four centuries since he lost Elisabeta to suicide, and now he sees her, her face and body restored, something of the Romanian noblewoman within the… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #40
The character: Mary Stevens The actor: Kay Francis The movie: Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) Maybe it’s romantic to think so, but it seems to me that for beliefs or ideas to change, there have to be people who are willing to spill their own blood on the altar of convention. Someone has to starve to… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #40
Seeing Things Secondhand 