DEAD MAN WALKING (1995)



The funny thing about Dead Man Walking (and, admittedly, “funny” doesn’t come up a lot in discussions of Tim Robbins’ excellent but grim 1995 adaptation of the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean) is the way its tale of a nun (Susan Sarandon) driven to become an activist against capital punishment in the wake of her experiences with death row inmates (embodied by Sean Penn’s fictional composite, Matthew Poncelet) did nothing to change my own views on capital punishment at the time. In the film, Sarandon (as Prejean) is contacted by Poncelet, a convict facing execution who swears he was only an innocent bystander to the crimes he’s been charged with and needs help with his final appeal. Yet for all her Christian charity, it’s hard for Prejean not to see Poncelet for what he truly is: an arrogant, ignorant, self-pitying racist thug...not to mention, as it eventually turns out, a rapist and cold-blooded killer. When his appeal is denied and Poncelet eventually gets lethally injected for his senseless, brutal crimes, I remember my thought at the time was...good. True, with death staring him in the face (and after weeks of selfless work by Sister Prejean), Poncelet finally starts acting like a human being and feels bad for his evil behavior, but...so what?  Without the catalyst of his own looming execution, it’s doubtful Poncelet would have shown any remorse at all, and his jailhouse conversion is too little too late: the victims are dead and even a last-minute call from the governor would only upgrade Poncelet’s remaining time on Earth to life in prison (while offering no closure for the victim’s families). Recounting my initial reactions, I realize I’ve mellowed a bit since 1995: given the inequities of the American legal system, I’ve come around to a generally anti-capital punishment perspective (except in extreme cases involving no-doubt-about-it Hall-Of-Fame assholes like Timothy McVeigh and...well, I'll get back to you on Cheney). But it’s a tribute to Sarandon, Penn, Prejean and Robbins (not usually known for his subtlety in political matters) that Dead Man Walking is even-handed enough to credibly illustrate both sides of a difficult issue without preaching exclusively to any particular choir.

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As part of Screengrab’s year-end List-a-palooza, we asked you, our imaginary internet friends, what topics you’d like to see featured in our weekly Top Twenty.

Janet immediately stepped up to the plate with the following suggestion: “Last week, Walker finally made it to the top of my Netflix queue, in my current reconsideration of all things Alex Cox. As I watched it, I kept thinking about My Best Fiend, which I had watched about a month ago. I realized that there were at least three films I could name that revolved around a White man traveling to Latin America and going crazy, and I started wondering if there were more. I'm not even sure if there are enough for a Take Five, but I count on your broader knowledge on the subject. So, if you would be so kind, I would love a list of White Man Goes to Latin America and Goes Insane movies.”

And so, in honor of Janet, this week’s list features plenty o’ white dudes livin’ la vida loca south of the border...but we also broadened our mandate to include all manner of fish-out-of-water stories -- from aliens in New York to city slickers in the Great Beyond -- as Screengrab travels the world (and the time/space continuum) to celebrate our favorite cinematic tales of STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND!

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My friends, last week in this space we paid tribute to the Top 10 films of the late, lamented Paul Newman, one of our favorite movie stars of all time...which, not surprisingly, got us thinking about the very qualities that separate the film industry’s classic, iconic Leading Men – the true gods of the silver screen – from, say, Shia LaBeouf.

My friends, I ask you: what is that special something, that ephemeral je nes sais quoi that makes for a truly great Leading Man? Is it talent?  Sex appeal?  Box office clout?  Are we drawn more to the stars who remind us of ourselves or those who embody exactly the qualities we lack (but do our best to imitate in hopes of meeting girls)?  Do the off-screen good deeds and/or drunken racist ranting and/or pro-Xenu proselytizing of the men behind the movies matter?  Do we forgive the occasional bombs and missteps in a long, prolific career, or do we prefer a shorter resume packed with performances of a generally higher quality?  And do foreigners count?

My friends, these difficult questions led to much consternation and debate within the hallowed halls of The Screengrab...but in the end, we all came together as a website, setting aside our individual differences to bring you this historic document, our bipartisan, multilateral picks for THE TOP 25 LEADING MEN OF ALL TIME!

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20. CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989)



Brian De Palma directed this fact-based story about a bunch of stressed-out American soldiers in Vietnam whose sergeant (Sean Penn) snaps after one of their number is killed and hatches a plan to abduct a young girl and carry her off into the brush, where she’s killed after having been gang-raped. Too painful to have achieved much commercial success, the movie is especially notable for having broken away from most other Vietnam films that came out around the same time, which to some degree or other adopted the line (increasingly fashionable as pundits and politicians insisted on putting that war behind us) that in the chaos of guerrilla war it was forgivable if our boys all went a little insane morally. The hero, played by Michael J. Fox, is the one soldier who won't participate in the rape and who does his damndest to try to get the criminals prosecuted. The irony is that, having been the only one in his crew who refused to shuck off his humanity, he's the only one who's haunted by what happened; he can't come to terms with the fact that he saw it all happen and couldn't do anything to stop it. That makes him the stand-in for everyone who knows that pointless wars are being hatched someplace and don't buy into them, but can't do anything to stop them, either.

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Local Hero is a perfect example of a soundtrack that, in many ways, outstrips the film it was meant to complement -- and in this case, at least, it's a pity.  Which isn't to say that the score isn't absolutely wonderful.  It is, or it wouldn't be listed here.  I'm not normally a fan of Dire Straits or of Mark Knopfler's solo work, but the stirring, sentimental but never overdone combination of blues-influenced electric guitar, sweeping synthesizer stings, and Scottish folk music he put together is perfectly suited to the visual, narrative, and emotional arc of the movie.  The soundtrack itself sold more copies than the movie sold tickets, and it became so popular amongst his fans that he began to incorporate some of its better tracks into his solo shows.  It's an amazing piece of work; the pity is that the movie has, over time, become far less known.

A movie of good grace, light step, and gentle humor, which pulls at the heartstrings in an exceptionally powerful way without ever becoming expressly manipulative, Local Hero is the lost Scottish director Bill Forsyth's best film -- and his last great one, as well.  It tells the story of Mac (Peter Riegert, charming as hell), an American oil and gas executive who visits a remote village on the Scottish coastline in an attempt to buy up property cheap and open it up for drilling.  Complications set in, as complications do, as the locals prove both quirky and reluctant, difficult to communicate with, seductive, crammed with local color, and worst of all, incredibly friendly and accepting of the alienated Mac, who more and more begins to think that throwing all of these people out of their homes on the cheap isn't what he wants to do with his life.  His dilemma lies in convincing his employer, the oil tycoon Felix Happer -- played with hilarious belligerence by Burt Lancaster in one of his best film roles -- to abandon his drilling plans, into which he's already sunk millions.

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Sydney Pollack has died at the age of 73, ending a recent struggle with cancer. As a young theater buff, Pollack, who grew up in South Bend, Indiana, went to New York after graduating high school and enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, where he first studied under and later served as assistant to the legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. Early in his career, Pollack appeared on Broadway in A Stone for Danny Fisher and The Dark Is Light Enough as well as on TV, incluyding episodes of Plyahouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and Have Gun, Will Travel. After Burt Lancaster, who he would later direct in the late sixties in The Scalphunters and Castle Keep, suggested that Pollack consider directing, he stepped behind the camera for work on several TV series and eventually broke into movies with the 1965 The Slender Thread. He brought a skilled rapport with actors and a taste for old-Hollywood glamour to his feature film work, and he became associated with certain high-caliber performers who placed a lot of trust in him--particularly Robert Redford, who he directed in seven starring roles, beginning with the 1966 Tennessee Williams adaptation This Property Is Condemned and including the winner of the 1985 Academy Award for Best Picture, Out of Africa. They also worked together on The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand, probably the most successful of Redford's old-style romances, Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, Havana, and The Electric Horseman, which paired Redford with Jane Fonda. Pollack was also an important figure in Fonda's career, having directed her in the 1969 They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which marked her transformation from sex-kitten comedienne to hard-edged dramatic actress. That picture went a long way towards establishing Pollack as a new-style Hollywood pro; it won Academy Award nominations for Fonda, Pollack, and Susannah York, and earned Gig Young a Best Supporting Oscar for his brilliant performance as a dance-marathon emcee.

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Paul Scofield has died, at the age of 86. He had been suffering from leukemia. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation, Scofield had a richer career in the theater than in the movies, where his recessive, slightly chilly presence as much as his devotion to the stage may have prevented him from ever becoming a major star. Yet he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his fourth film and second Hollywood-funded production, playing Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons (1966), director Fred Zinnemann Oscar-garlanded film version of Robert Bolt's play. (Scofield had earlier played the Nazi villain in John Frankenheimer's The Train, starring Burt Lancaster. Maybe he and Lancaster got on well, because one of his few other adventures in Hollywood hackwork came in the 1973 Lancaster vehicle Scorpio.) Scofield already had a Tony for the Broadway production of the play, in which he had made his American debut.

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