Places in the Heart
A Soldier’s Story
A Passage to India
The Killing Fields
Amadeus

At the risk of sounding like a Philistine, those…are not movies. They’re films.

Places in the Heart, well, I like it, I really really like it – or wait, do I? Or was that The River that I liked? Or Country? Seriously, a tri-fecta of depressing farm movies? A Soldier’s Story is noteworthy for unleashing Denzel on the world, but the movie is fairly burdened with self-importance. I cannot recall one instance, one single moment, in my life, when I have ever had even a hint of desire to see A Passage to India. On the other hand, I remember wanting to seem smart and making my dad take me to see The Killing Fields. I get it, it’s important, but daaaaaaaamn, they might as well have had a warning, “You will neither need nor want popcorn while watching this movie.” Amadeus is more accessible and more fun than I, at 13, ever imagined it would be, but still, it ain’t no movie.

So, here’s the cheat. I’m not picking my favorite among these movies, er, films.

No, the Best Original Screenplay category, while itself lacking the awesomeness of Ghostbusters, Blood Simple, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8the Dimension, and/or Revenge of the Nerds, is nonetheless a much more fun category. Behold:

Places in the Heart
The North
Broadway Danny Rose
Splash
Beverly Hills Cop

Given that only one of these was nominated for Best Picture, it’s pretty easy to guess who won: Robert Benton for Places in the Heart. Love the guy. But this isn’t my favorite of his movies.

The North, never heard of it. Fire away, snobs.

Broadway Danny Rose, haven’t seen it in years, but it was my first Woody Allen movie and as a kid and I thought it was pretty damn funny.

Splash. Love that this got nominated, but I wonder if it has held up. Splash, if I recall, was Touchstone’s first movie. Writers Brian Grazer, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, and Bruce Jay Friedman take a very goofy premise and, with big assists from Director Ron Howard, and stars Tom Hanks and John Candy, make it way better than it should be. I would have rather Ghostbusters had taken this spot. It was, as I recall, one of the two or three real zeitgeist movies that year, another being…

Beverly Hills Cop. Has there ever been a fresher jolt of star power than Eddie Murphy in his first few starring vehicles? Starting with 48 Hrs, continuing through Trading Places, and capping the tri-fecta with Beverly Hills Cop, Murphy amazed audiences who seemed to intuit that he was too big for SNL. His many missteps between then and now disappoint and confound because with these three movies, he seemed unstoppable.

Beverly Hills Cop was the first time Murphy was asked to carry a movie, and carry it he does, and he almost didn’t get the part*. From the first time we meet his Axel Foley, he’s all confidence and swagger. Without a doubt, he elevates great material. I know he ad-libbed, but his ad-libbing would not have meant a thing if the story wasn’t there. Sidney Lumet recalls that Dog Day Afternoon was heavily improvised. So should its writer, Frank Pierson, return his screenwriting Oscar for that film? A resounding “No,” according to Lumet, Pierson deserved the Oscar – as much as anyone deserves a subjectively chosen award, of course. Lumet’s point, I think, is that we tend to slightly overrate the importance of dialogue as a storytelling device. None of Murphy’s ad-libbing changed the story that writers Danilo Bach or Dan Petrie, Jr. crafted.

Beverly Hills Cop proved to be a genuine cultural phenomenon. Its synth-pop theme song clogged the airwaves for six months. People went out and paid money, actual money, for T-shirts advertising a high school they had never heard of, because Eddie Murphy wore one. Up until The Passion of the Christ, it was the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time.

*The development of Beverly Hills Cop, from script to screen, could be a movie itself, full of studio politics, odd casting choices, misguided rewrites, and last minute fixes. Bits and pieces of this backstory are available on the movie’s Wikipedia page and its IMDB Trivia section, but they don’t tell the whole story.

And now, you come out with this “Whatever Works” film. What, you think that shemdrick Larry David who plays that louse Yellnikoff can out match me with a formula? Never happen! I created formulas. In one of his rants he tried to pull a fast one on the audience about Job. Yellnikoff whined that all that Job got for his piousness was suffering. So, why suffer? Right? Wrong. I was teaching Job how to be patient! Something you, Yellnikoff, and apparently that David character have never learned.Let me tell you something, Woody, as your father who has tried to give you everything you would need to make a nice life, your attitude hurts me, and I might add your mother, to the quick.  What? I don’t have enough aggravation with this pedophile Michael Jackson who now thinks he’s going to moon-walk into heaven,  that thief Madoff, Obama’s spending spree, and that little rat with a beard, Ahmenijadh! Now, I need tsuris from you too?
 
What got into that head of yours? First, you make “Broadway Danny Rose,” with Mia Farrow, whom your mother and I loved. It was a nice little film that did well in the art houses. If I remember correctly, Mia Farrow’s character, Tina Vetali, starts off with a “Whatever Works” attitude but learns through her acquaintance with your character, that schlamazel, Danny Rose, for whom every good and loyal deed is punished, that there is no solace to be had from acting like an animal, from getting what you can when you can no matter who you hurt along the way. Don’t you remember how she came back to celebrate Thanksgiving with you, Herbie Jason and his parrot, Barnie Dunn the stuttering ventriloquist, and that blind xylophonist?
 
Now, you make this stinker, “Whatever Works.” This, this Yellnikoff character is you. I saw that. Your mother saw that and had to leave the theater before the film ended while it was still dark she was so embarrassed. Everyone in the theater knew the truth.  
 
What? You think you can marry your adopted daughter then absolve yourself by making a movie in which some miserable reprobate tells the audience they’re a bunch of no-good-niks who worry about their vitamins, cholesterol, and their retirement accounts for nothing because life is just a series of mathematical anomalies void of any meaning? That wasn’t what I meant in Ecclesiastics.
 
Where did you ever learn that happiness is found, by “filching” a little something here or a little something there, no matter what the consequences, no matter who is hurt? You know who filches? Pigeons!
 
And, let me ask you this; if “filching” has made you so happy then why is it that you felt it necessary to make such a cynical and angry film? Have you forgotten about the three “L’s,” “Love, Loyalty, and Longevity.”
 
You read Ecclesiastes the wrong way, Woody. Kohelet, the narrator, did not mean that everything we do is futile, vain, void of meaning. He meant that our works, our choices, are a matter for me to judge and that you should fear me and obey my commandments! And for that obedience you will be rewarded with life. In other words, choose life and love. That means turning away from lust and avarice at every opportunity. Look what it got Madoff! Believe me, Kohelet was not saying that you should marry your daughter, adopted or not. I know, I asked him! He was as shocked at the news as we all were.
 
I know you, you’re probably not reading this any more. But, by some miracle if you are, let me ask you something: Would it hurt you to make your mother and I proud  by making a movie about something nice like that gentile Disney or one of the other nice film makers?
 
Woody, you’re nearly seventy-five. You’re too old for this. Whatever we did wrong was in the past. It’s time to forgive and forget. Walking around with a chip on your shoulder will never ever result in you’re finding happiness, filching or no filching.
 
Remember son, a man devoid of religion is like a horse without a bridle!

Your loving father,
 
God