Mississippi Burning
Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: Nixon, The Landlord, The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr., and Mississippi Burning.
Nixon
Anthony Hopkins gives a surprisingly sympathetic and credible performance as Richard Nixon in this 1995 film. As with all of director Oliver Stone’s non-Vietnam historical films, it’s full of hypotheticals. And yet, the depiction of Nixon’s self-pity, awkwardness, class resentment and fear seems psychologically true. The new Blu-ray release includes the theatrical and director’s cuts plus bonus interviews and deleted scenes. Joan Allen plays Pat Nixon, and a strong supporting cast depicts all the president’s men.
The Landlord
Beau Bridges stars as Elgar, a naïve rich kid who buys a tenement with the notion of evicting the tenants and fixing it up as his home. Many details in director Hal Ashby’s 1970 comedy haven’t aged well, but others still seem acutely pertinent: Biracial identity? Gentrification? Black lives matter? The story moves to the rhythm of Al Kooper’s music and the voices of The Staple Singers with interesting cinematography by Gordon Willis (The Godfather).
The General / Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Unlike most silent movie comedians, Buster Keaton still seems like one of us—an ordinary person buffeted by calamity, pummeled by adversity, but still pushing on. In his greatest film, the Civil War comedy The General (1926), the poker-faced Keaton plays a railroad engineer pursuing—against all odds—a stolen train (his girlfriend is onboard). His ability to perform physical stunts remains jaw-dropping. The new Blu-ray release pairs The General with Steamboat Billy, Jr. (1928).
Mississippi Burning
The screenplay gets a bit Hollywood, but in its best scenes, Mississippi Burning (1988) visually dramatizes the danger faced by white freedom riders and African Americans in the South as the civil rights movement gained force. Mississippi Burning benefits from costars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as FBI agents pursuing justice down different avenues. Frances McDormand is another bright light as the abused wife of a racist deputy. American racism’s economic roots are cited.
