Thriller meets thinker in Eye in the Sky, a parable from modern drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and with a wonderful final performance from the late Alan Rickman.
This week, I featured the documentary Last Days in Vietnam. If you miss it on PBS’ American Experience, you can still stream it from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
One of the most underrated films of the 1990s will be on Turner Classic Movies on March 29. Ulee’s Gold (1997) features Peter Fonda as a keep-to-himself rural beekeeper who finds himself in a thriller when actions of his no-good adult son threaten the rest of the family; watch for a 15-year-old Jessica Biel. For a more sordid choice on TCM, Sam Fuller’s typically sensationalistic psych ward movie Shock Corridor (1959) plays on March 30.
Winter’s Bone inspired me to think of other great movies set in a hillbilly milieu. If there is a Hillbilly Genre, these movies don’t fit because they aren’t about Being a Hillbilly. They are human stories that happen to be set amongst hillbillies. Winter’s Bone and Ulee’s Gold are about determined individuals determined to protect their families no matter the risk. Coal Miner’s Daughter is about an artist’s journey from naive teen to superstar. Harlan County USA is about a community banding together to find justice. And Deliverance is about men sharing an ordeal and secrets from it.
1. Deliverance: Four suburban guys seek a mild adventure – canoeing down a backwoods river before it is dammed. The adventure becomes an ordeal. The most horrible things happen to them, and they are forced to do horrible things.
I have watched this twice in the past few years, and it still really stands up today. In particular, the cinematography and editing are fantastic. Here is the famous banjo scene.
2. Harlan County, USA: This is the story of coal miners seeking a union contract with a hostile mining company. It won the Oscar as best documentary. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the strikers and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at.
3. Winter’s Bone: A 17-year-old Ozarks girl is determined to save the family home by tracking down her meth dealer dad – dead or alive. The girl’s journey through a series of nasty and nastier Southern Missouri crank cookers is riveting – without any explosions, gunfights or chase scenes. Every moment of this film seems completely real.
4. Ulee’s Gold: In his finest performance, Peter Fonda is a rural beekeeper who must enter a dangerous underworld to track down his druggie daughter-in-law. Here is how Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert saw it.
5. Coal Miner’s Daughter: Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Loretta Lynn in this successful biopic. In an early major role, Tommy Lee Jones plays Loretta’s husband Mooney. Levon Helm, the Arkansas-bred drummer for The Band has one of his rare but compelling film roles as Loretta’s Daddy. Besides the performances, the movie works because Loretta must grow from nobody to star, girl to woman and hick to worldly.
Levon Helm at left and Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter
