RIP Clarence Williams III: Underrated character actor gone too soon

On June 4 we lost another actor legend -- Clarence Williams III -- who will probably always be best known for his breakthrough groundbreaking role in the hit '60s and '70s crime drama The Mod Squad. Ironically enough, he and his co-star on that show, Peggy Lipton, would go on to appear in Twin Peaks in totally different roles -- but I digress.

Williams III will be rightly remembered for his TV work but he did some impressive work on the big screen too, and while he never became a bonafide movie star, he always had great presence whenever he showed up. 

Frankly, I should have included him in my 'shoulda been a bigger star' post from a few weeks back.

Here are a few choices roles of his worth checking out:

Purple Rain (1984) - It could have been a nothing, one-note part but Williams III imbued his role as Prince's abusive father with so much power in a few short, haunting scenes. My favorite is a quiet, tense moment when he coldly tells his son to never have children. He elevates Prince's acting and the movie, too. He's unforgettable.

52 Pick-Up (1986) - A little known and scene thriller gem from director John Frankenheimer. Williams III plays a particularly terrifying villain tormenting Roy Scheider and his wife (played by Ann Margaret) as part of an elaborate blackmail plot. This was the kind of scene-stealing performance that should have led to bigger roles for him but alas it didn't happen.

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) - It's just one scene but one of the movie's funniest -- he plays a would-be black radical activist who has sold out -- to some degree -- by marrying a white woman and raising two, albeit radical, cherubic white kids. For some reason the running gag about all their food being bean based always makes me laugh.

Deep Cover (1992) - Williams III plays the conscience of this down and dirty film about an undercover cop. One of a couple collaborations with director Bill Duke, he has great chemistry with leading man Laurence Fishburne, and the fate of his good guy cop character lends the movie its tragic pathos in the end.

Hoodlum (1997) - He teamed up with director Bill Duke and Fishburne again here in an underrated gangster epic about the real life numbers runner Bumpy Johnson, who helped topple the powerful Dutch Schultz and became the kingpin of Harlem. He plays a pivotal role as a man who betrays Schultz and he would play Bumpy himself in another based on a true story film American Gangster a decade later...

Flashback 1981: My favorite films from 40 years ago

In some ways 1981 may represent the last gasp of iconoclastic 1970s filmmaking, the Reagan era -- for better or worse -- ushered in a golden age of blockbuster filmmaking and a more hit or miss period for the auteurs of the previous decade,

Still, '81 is a really strong year -- at least for me -- with at least three of my all time favorite films and several other greats opening wide (and some even being solid hits).

So here we go my personal faves from the year before I was born.

10) Scanners - One of David Cronenberg's coolest and most visceral early creations -- it's most famous for its still shocking head explosion effect -- but it also features the great Michael Ironside giving a terrific performance as the villain and just lots of engaging creepy energy that's made me revisit this one again and again. A nice bridge between his pure horror films and more intellectual genre films that would come later.

9) Prince of the City - Director Sidney Lumet expands on the police corruption themes of his earlier film Serpico with an even more epic film about a cop (played wonderfully by Treat Williams) who becomes a cooperating collaborator in an investigation into dirty cops and sees his whole life unravel in the process. A very unjustly unsung classic of the gritty detective genre.

8) Cutter's Way - Cult classic sleeper gem features Jeff Bridges as his laconic best and John Heard of all people in a role/performance that should have made him a star about a group of people on the fringes who find themselves embroiled in a murder by chance which ends up having ties to seedy members of the upper class. A '70s style cynical film that somehow ended up coming out in the '80s.

7) Atlantic City - Technically a 1980 release, but it wasn't seen widely in the U.S. until '81, is one of Louis Malle's most accessible films (he had another triumph the same year with his more experimental My Dinner with Andre). Burt Lancaster gives a tremendous performance as a wannabe gangster opposite a luminous Susan Sarandon in this surprisingly poignant character study

6) Reds - Warren Beatty's extremely ambitious and detailed biopic of American journalist turned Russian revolutionary John Reed should have taken home Best Picture at the Oscars (it did win Best Director). It's never boring -- despite its considerable length -- and it works as both a romance and as pointed political drama. It's a shame Beatty didn't direct more films -- this may go down as his masterpiece.

5) The Road Warrior - Also know as a Mad Max 2, this nearly perfect sequel builds on the first film and is even more eye-popping when it comes to its action and dynamic visual storytelling. In many ways, director George Miller's Mad Max Fury Road is a remake of this earlier film which is mostly one long chase scene punctuated by a few moments of apocalyptic downtime. The high point of the original Mad Max trilogy.

4) Blow Out - One of director Brian DePalma's best and a wonderful, underrated performance from John Travolta (his work here in part inspired Tarantino's decision to cast him in Pulp Fiction) as a terrific movie sound man who accidentally records a political murder. A dark, twisted film with a scene stealing turn from John Lithgow and a sweet one from Nancy Allen. Some of the director's best, Hitchcockian camera work and a gut punch of an ending.

3) Escape from New York - Quite possibly my favorite John Carpenter film and one of the best distillations of his unique aesthetic. He single handedly turned Kurt Russell into a movie star AND an action star with this film, which has one of the most stacked casts the decade in one of the most irresistible premises -- New York City becoming strictly a penal colony, and it also has one of the best synth-y soundtracks of all time. I love this movie!

2) Raiders of the Lost Ark - The perfect blockbuster and hands down the best Indiana Jones film. The blending of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's sensibilities works beautifully here, with the ideal leading man in Harrison Ford. Fast paced, funny and frequently inventive, this movie is iconic for all the right reasons. It's been oft-imitated but never topped.

1) Thief - Director Michael Mann's first film is still his best. A masterpiece of mood and substance -- as James Caan delivers a career-best performance as a genius safe cracker who is trying to go straight and start a family but he gets into business with men who won't let him. Gorgeous looking, incredible sounding and surprisingly emotionally resonant film is a personal favorite of mine.

PAST TOP 10 FAVORITE LISTS

1970 #1 movie - M*A*S*H

1974 #1 movie - The Godfather Part II

1975 #1 movie - Nashville

1976 #1 movie - Taxi Driver

1977 #1 movie - Star Wars

1978 #1 movie - The Deer Hunter

1979 #1 movie - The Jerk

1980 #1 movie - The Shining

1984 #1 movie - Ghostbusters

1985 #1 movie - Fletch

1986 #1 movie - Blue Velvet

1987 #1 movie - The Untouchables

1988 #1 movie - Coming to America

1989 #1 movie - Batman

1990 #1 movie - The Grifters

1991 #1 movie - Cape Fear

1994 #1 movie - Pulp Fiction

1995 #1 movie - Heat

1996 #1 movie - Fargo

1997 #1 movie - Boogie Nights

1998 #1 movie - The Big Lebowski

1999 #1 movie - Eyes Wide Shut

2000 #1 movie - Nurse Betty

2001 #1 movie - The Royal Tenenbaums

2004 #1 movie - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2005 #1 movie - A History of Violence

2006 #1 movie - Casino Royale

2007 #1 movie - There Will Be Blood

2008 #1 movie - The Wrestler

2009 #1 movie - Inglourious Basterds

2010 #1 movie - The Social Network

2011 #1 movie - Drive

The stale 'Conjuring' franchise needs to shake things up

The first Conjuring felt like a breath of fresh air. It was an exciting, grounded throwback to horror films like The Exorcist or The Omen that focused more on character than gore and told its story in a matter of fact way that made its more extreme elements that much more chilling.

It spawned a lot of imitators and its own spin-offs like The Nun and the Annabelle movies and by the time the second one came out it felt a little like the magic was gone. So much so that while I eventually got around to watching the second entry I remember none of it, other than I thought it relied too much on CGI special effects.

Sadly, the new film -- now in theaters and streaming on Netflix -- does nothing to enliven or shake-up the formula. It has a solid fast paced opener that has some truly creepy, unsettling moments, but even this exorcism scene doesn't feel all that different from ones you've already seen and yet again the movie resort to obvious digital effects that totally took me out of it.

In the horror genre you have movies that film you with existential dread like Midsommar and Hereditary, you have films with social satire like Us and Get Out and even fun gorefests like Freaky, and in comparison The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It doesn't have much too offer that's totally unique.

It once again centers on a supposedly true story for the case files of paranormal investigation could Ed and Lorraine Warren, played ably by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. These two likable actors remain committed to playing it very straight which might be part of the problem.There are just a couple chuckles to be had in this film which could use a lot more. It'd be interesting to see them confronted with some real vehement non-believers in the supernatural or just people who think they're batshit crazy, but instead most of the people they encounter take them at face value and treat them with reverence.

This film is set in 1981 and does an ok-ish job evoking the period. Wilson is constantly chasing after Farmiga and worrying that she's in too deep -- just like in the other films -- but this time he is given the convoluted malady of a bum ticker. Meanwhile Farmiga has her visions of killings and her spidey senses help her solve crimes, which she does earnestly, taking periodic breaks to have wide-eyed freakouts.

The supporting cast doesn't have many standouts, and while nothing in the film is rendered horribly and some scares are effective, it all felt a little boring and routine to me. Now that this is a full blown franchise I never really worried for the safety of Farmiga and Wilson, and while there's an attempt at world building around the origins of their relationship, I didn't really feel like either character evolved.

The movie also doesn't let its scares build through tension as much like the original did -- this one features a lot more predictable jump scares and flashy camera movies that are more disorienting than disturbing. I watched it at home and so it may play better on a big screen with an audience, as most horror movies do, but the must-see wow factor is definitely done.

It's probably a bad sign that besides the opening few minutes the best part of the film are its closing credits, now a signature of the series, where the real life figures and audiotapes get blended into the events of the film and we see that actors side by side with the people they were portraying. And while not spot on and almost certainly exaggerated, the attempt at realism is appreciated and gives the movie a lot more credibility after its over.

Still, if the ongoing adventures of the Warrens is going to continue to be a thing -- and I suppose the box office performance of this third film will be a determining factor -- I hope they bring on a director with a new vision both visually and substantively, because right now this franchise feels stale and played out, which is too bad because it was really onto something with that first film.

'A Quiet Place Part II' delivers thrills on par with original

A Quiet Place Part II is pure entertainment. Like the original film it has its gaps in logic and it doesn't really have much of a message, but it gets the job done with expertly crafted action set pieces and some really terrific emotive acting from its terrific cast.

John Krasinski has sole writing duties on this one and he effectively maintains the tone and the tension of the first film. The bravura opening attempts to do a little world building -- even though we still haven't learned where these nasty creatures came from and what they want, and that's fine. Really, these films are one long chase punctuated by human moments and when these scenes are delivered by actors like these it's hard to complain.

While Emily Blunt doesn't have as much screen time as you'd think, she owns the screen whenever she is on it. She is such a wonderfully expressive and heartfelt actress, she can do so much with so little, and she is a badass heroine whenever the film calls for it.

But the real stars of the film are Millicent Simmonds (the hearing impaired actress who was such a moving and momentous part of the original) and the consistently underrated Cillian Murphy. He supplants Krasinski as the male lead and with all due respect he's an upgrade. 

He gives this sequel depth and gravitas and whenever the movie threatens to be redundant he brings a certain vitality to it. Krasinski is also very good with his actors, although I was disappointed by how little screen-time Djimon Housou has in the movie.

He crafts several impressive sequences that build well on each other and introduces some wild new elements -- cannibals!? -- although I don't know how long the whole high pitch sounds are the creatures' kryptonite can be sustained. 

Still, this film is far more accomplished than it needed to be for a fairly hastily assembled sequel (it was due out in early 2020, which would have been just two years after the original). While the film doesn't end on an obvious sequel set up, its inevitable success suggests there will be a third film -- and while I enjoyed this movie, probably just as much as the first, I'm not sure where this series can really go from here.

But, this was my first good time at the movies since I saw Tenet in theaters last year. A Quiet Place II replaced the bad taste that Spiral left in my mouth and kept me, mostly, on the edge of my seat throughout.

Shoulda Been Stars: Actors who deserved A-list status

Lately I've been appreciating a lot of actors who had perfectly solid careers and even in a few cases headlined some big hits but they never quite fully made the leap for character actor to movie star, even though they arguably could.

A lot of this comes down to luck -- the right role in the right movie has made a huge difference for many actors. If Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan hadn't all landed choice roles in The Godfather they could have easily been relegated to supporting actor status for the rest of their careers.

Here are few actors I've been thinking are worth more love than they have historically gotten: 

Ronny Cox - A bit of an unsung legend. He first came to most audiences attention as the ill-fated and ironically most humane hero of Deliverance. But my favorite parts of his are even less showy. I have always loved his Lt. Bogomill character in the Beverly Hills Cop movies. He plays beautifully off of Eddie Murphy and just seems like a cool guy you'd love to hang out with. He also is great as a villain in both Robocop and Total Recall. He oozes gravitas.

Paul Le Mat - This actor is probably best known for his cool guy role in the classic American Graffiti, but his best work came seven years later in the wonderful slice of life comedy Melvin and Howard, directed by Jonathan Demme. He's incredibly touching and likable in that movie and I'm not sure why he never became more of thing -- perhaps poor movie choices like horror shlock like Puppet Master.

Nancy Allen - While she may best be remembered as Robocop's sidekick partner, I love her because of her brief period as Brian De Palma's muse and go-to leading lady. She nearly stole Carrie away from Sissy Spacek and then gave two back-to-back wonderful performances in Dressed to Kill (as a hooker with a heart of gold) and Blow Out (as... kind of a hooker with a heart of gold?). She pops up now and then (see her cameo in Out of Sight) but she's due for a Tarantino-esque resurrection.

William Devane - The angular Brahmin-y actor is best known for his work on television but he was a striking presence in the movies, particularly in the mid-70s. He is the best part of Alfred Hitchcock's final film Family Plot. And he's a terrific bad guy in the underrated classic Marathon Man. But 1977's Vietnam war veteran revenge thriller Rolling Thunder (apparently a Tarantino favorite) where he plays a mentally unstable man pushed to the brink.

Jason Miller - A playwright as well as an actor, the late Jason Miller only had one major movie role that caught on with audiences -- his stellar performance as Father Damian Karras in The Exorcist. He beat out bigger name stars for the role, which scored him an Oscar nomination and cinematic immortality but for some reason he never really capitalized on that movie's phenomenal success an actor, although he does turn up in a memorable cameo in the underrated Exorcist III.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio - Maybe it was because her name is such a mouthful or maybe it's just the prejudice against women in the industry, but somehow one of the most promising leading ladies of the 80s and early 90s faded into obscurity. She first turned heads with her over the top (and probably a little racist) portrayal of Tony Montana's sister in Scarface, but the real breakthrough was her terrific, Oscar-nominated turn opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in The Color of Money. She got more mainstream exposure in The Abyss and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, but she's just nowhere to be found now.

Albert Hall - Speaking of industry bias, this powerful actor almost certainly would have had a more prolific career had he been white. Re-watching Apocalypse Now recently I was struck by how effortlessly he took command of every scene and how authentic his acting was. Clearly, Spike Lee took note of his indelible presence, casting him over a decade later in a pivotal role opposite Denzel Washington in 1992's Malcolm X. Still, he deserved a lot more starring role opportunities.

Tuesday Weld - In many ways Weld resembles the prototypical Hollywood leading lady -- blonde, beautiful, buoyant -- but she was anything but. I fell in love with her off the strength of her performance in Thief opposite James Caan, where she more than held her own. But her best star performance, in my opinion, comes in the dark, dark comedy Pretty Poison, where she turns the her superficial image on its head.

Vonetta McGee - This gorgeous late actress (who coincidentally really resembles an ex of mine) is best known for her work in blaxploitation movies, but she has a much more eclectic than that. She was the love interest in the classic spaghetti western The Great Silence, she also turned up as Clint Eastwood's feisty leading lady in the 1975 film The Eiger Sanction. And film buffs will remember her from her small but still cool part in Repo Man.

Karen Allen - For most moviegoers, she will always be Marion Ravenwood, the first and still the best of Indiana Jones' female co-stars in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Her appearance in the much maligned fourth film was a nice nod but she deserved better. She had effortless luminous quality in movies like Scrooged, National Lampoon's Vacation and especially Starman, a touching underrated romance with her and Jeff Bridges.

Why both versions of 'Cape Fear' give me chills

I've written before about how Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller Cape Fear is one of my favorite movies of all time -- and it is. But the 1962 original is no slouch either. it's slightly more forgotten now because the DeNiro-Scorsese film has lived on more in the popular imagination and I do think the latter version is the superior film, but viewed in tandem they present a fascinating crash course in how best to remake a film.

We are awash in remakes now and forever. The latest news is that there's going to be a new version of the Willy Wonka story, I assume an origin version, starring Timothy Chalamet as the iconic chocolate factory empresario, 

I struggle with remakes because they're usually disappointing and they seduce you into checking them out because of your loyalty to the original. 1991's Cape Fear got it right because it was based on a film that wasn't necessarily already ubiquitous and the relaxing of censorship codes provided room for the actors and filmmakers to take the material in new, darker and more explicit directions.

Still, the 1962 original isn't without an edge. The key difference is Gregory Peck's stalwart hero is not as compromised and flawed as Nick Nolte's. Although viewed through a modern prism, his character is plenty bleak. He offers to pay off the Max Cady character (played wonderfully by Robert Mitchum) and towards the end of the film unapologetically conspires to murder him.

And while Scorsese's film is far more graphic in terms of DeNiro/Cady's sexual designs on the hero's wife and daughter, I was surprised by how many ways the original 'went there.' His attack on an innocent woman early in the picture is implied whereas in Scorsese's film we see the an unforgettable portion of the assault. But later in the film Cady makes it very clear and nearly does act on, his intention to sexually assault Peck's wife and daughter, in terms that were pretty shocking for a 1962 audience.

Apparently the 1962 film had to be cut to avoid an X rating and the word 'rape' had to be excised, and yet it was still seen as a fairly tawdry exercise because it involved sexual threats directed at a child. The remake is also still shocking in the directions it goes in. Scorsese throws everything in but the kitchen sink -- the film repeatedly alludes to and uses symbolism from the Bible -- and while the film was dismissed by some as a crass commercial exercise, it has always been one of my favorite of his films in part because he was willing to both make a more mainstream thriller without abandoning the themes he's obsessed with.

There are nods to specific scenes and story structure from the original -- enough to satisfy its fans but also not so much that it would alienate anyone who's encountering them. Do you need to know that Martin Balsam, Grgeory Peck and Robert Mitchum appeared in the original in order to enjoy their cameos in the new film, no, but it's nice to see them anyway.

Mitchum can't be quite as terrifying as De Niro is. He's not as physically imposing and Peck never seems as rattled by him as Nolte is. But he does have the same off-kilter sexual magnetism, which he also used to great effect in his most iconic role as the villainous preacher in The Night of the Hunter.

The Max Cady character, in both iterations, is one of the greatest of all movie villains because he is both self righteous and relentless. He's not supernatural (although the 1991 film suggests he is superhuman). And his singularness of purpose makes him both scary and appealing. The first film does a great job of realizing the terror a man like that could inspire -- and he newer version does what the best remakes do, it both enhances and doesn't harm the original.

Re-assessing 'Solo': The maligned origin story holds up well

Some people never gave Solo a chance. Re-casting the character of Han Solo (albeit a younger version) was risky enough but then there was the troubled production history of the film which saw its original directors, Chris Miller and Phil Lord, unceremoniously fired by Disney executives and replaced by workhorse industry veteran Ron Howard.

It's true that to this day when watching Solo there's always a sneaking suspicion that you're watching a compromised film. It's impossible not to be at least a little bit curious what kind of film the bright and funny Miller and Lord (whose excellent work on The Lego Movie was a breakthrough) would have turned out.

Still, I think Solo has always gotten a bit of a bad rap. It actually made a lot of money at the box office, although it was considered an under-performance by the studio -- which considering the ballooning budget and reshoots may be totally valid. But the film is not without its fans. In fact, in this period of Star Wars backlash culture, it's one of the few titles that has its share of ardent defenders.

For me, it's no classic -- it's flaws are too glaring and self-evident -- but I do think it was a promising start to what could have been a fun series of adventure films. Alden Ehrenreich's performance as Solo sort of reminded me of an actor's debut as James Bond. They don't own the role from frame one -- with the notable exception of Sean Connery -- they grow into it over the course of one or more films. By the end of Solo, Ehrenreich had begun to approximate a bit of Harrison Ford's swagger and I think it would have been neat to track that beloved character's evolution and perhaps his on-again off-again friendship with Lando Calrissian, played with a lot of joy by Donald Glover.

The movie also hinted at an expanded universe -- one that brought back one of the few intriguing characters from the woeful prequels -- Darth Maul. Now there's still a chance that this thread can and will be explored in the upcoming Kenobi miniseries on Disney Plus, but it's a shame that at least on the big screen it appears that this timeline is for the moment shut off.

The grimy aesthetic of the movie certainly influenced the popular Mandolorian television series -- even if the cinematography is too muddy for my taste at times. It had a great villain in Paul Bettany, it's a real shame they killed him off -- although no one is ever really dead in Star Wars. Still, the movie does have a tendency to prematurely kill off people who capture our interest, like Thandie Newton, who deserved a lot more screen time.

I think then and now the greatest flaw for me in the film (besides the silly implication that Lando and his droid L3 were engaged in some kind of sexual relationship) was the Emilia Clarke character. It wasn't the performance so much as how she is written. Her romance with Han is never really established or credible. Sure, they kiss a lot but there doesn't seem to be a lot of chemistry beyond that. We never really get a sense of who she is, other than that she has some secrets and for much of the film's running time she does little more than grin at Han in an almost maternalistic way.

In the last act's major reveal she finally gets to show some depth and intrigue but by then it's already too late. I only wish that if this relationship was supposed to be the driving force and heart of the movie that it was invested with more care. The Han Solo-Princess Leia romance is actually very quickly established (and by modern standards a bit too pushy) but it felt earned because the characters had always had a certain attractive banter and rat-a-tat repartee that sold you on them as a couple. Clarke and Ehrenreich have none of that. He is simply earnest and she is simply in awe. 

But in a series of films, who knows. Perhaps this could have been fleshed out and illuminated. Unfortunately, now, we may never know.

But what I do know is Solo is a perfectly fun time at the movies. It conjures up nostalgia for the best elements of the original trilogy while developing some nice rhythms all its own and most importantly it does nothing to detract from the Star Wars brand.