 is Betty St. LaVille. On this show, we study film definitions, film trivia, and then we go straight into the movies. Today, we're going to start off with the mirror image, I call it. So when you see one star, you can think of another. So the list is kind of short today, but here we go. Edward Herman, get Fred Gwynne. James Franco, get James Dean. Michael Beck, get Nick Nolte. Anthony Laplagia, get Robert De Niro. Mary Castle, get Rita Hayworth. Lynn Berry, get Rita Hayworth. Elizabeth Scott, Lauren Bacall. Brian Dunlevy, get John Hodiak. And John Hodiak, get Brian Dunlevy. Brian Dunlevy and John Hodiak are kind of easy to mix up. They're both 40 film stars. And John Hodiak had actually been married to the gal who played the villain all about Eve. And her name is coming to me. But both John Hodiak and Elizabeth Scott were in this great movie with Bert Lancaster called Desert Fury. I suggest you check it out. And you'll see Elizabeth Scott amazing resemblance to Lauren Bacall. So our next list that I think that I should focus on is there is only one. And a few episodes I talked about the real deal in Hollywood. And so sometimes you see movie actors and actresses or movie stars that are there's only one of them. So hopefully you will agree with this list that I'm about to say. So there's only one Kurt Russell. There's only one Goldie Hawn. There's only one Robert De Niro. There's only one Sharon Stone, Holly Berry, Terence Stamp, Ian McShane, Richard Burton, Ben Johnson, Xiaoyun Fatt, Ima Thurman, Angela Bassett, Harry Bellifonte, Michelle Rodriguez, Idris Alba, Powers Booth, Russell Wong, Keanu Reeves, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Fassbender, Rosie Perez, Michelle Yeho, Tony Leong, Bridget Fonda, Elia. Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Timothy Oliphant, Cameron Mitchell, William S. Peterson, Alec Baldwin, Bill Paxton, David Carradine, Michael Carradine, Michael Madsen, and Virginia Madstone. And this list to me are the stars that you just can't replicate them. So in Hollywood, I can't remember if William S. Goldman said this, but if you do something really good in Hollywood, they want you to keep doing it. However, with these particular stars, not only could they break out of the mold sometimes, but no one can replicate them. That goes for Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen too. OK, so now we're going to go straight into some movies. So I told Chris and Zach here that I want to do LA part one and LA part two. I want to do some movies that serve in Hollywood. But as I was looking at my favorite LA movies, I realized that LA also will discuss the proletariat, the working class. So all of a sudden, all last week, I started looking at movies that featured Hollywood's image of the proletariat. So the first movie that I want to discuss concerning how Hollywood views the proletariat is this extremely corny, lifetime for woman, a lifetime on the big screen movie called Where the Heart Is. This movie is a scandal. It has an extremely excellent cast. Nellie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stalker Channing, Joan Cusack, James Frane, Keith David, and Dylan Bruno. This movie is based on, I believe, an Oprah Book Club book by Billy Letts. And I'm sure it's a great book. I've never read the book by the same name. Now, this is what happened. I got sat down for this movie. I'm visiting Ma in Arizona. She goes, oh, let's watch a movie. Now, here's the deal with watching movies with family members who haven't seen a television commercial in 30 or 40 years. A lot of movies to them are good. They will look at the movie, take the script writing, take in the editing, take in the cast, and really adore the movie. However, as I was watching Where the Heart Is, I started to squirm. Halfway through the movie, Ma goes, can you believe that happened? I'm like, yeah, Ma. And I said, I'm having a problem with the music booming up at certain times. And she said, yes, we're doing that for dramatic content. So the gist of this movie is, and if you haven't seen the movie, please change the channel. Please watch the movie if you're interested in it. But I'm going to do some plot spoilers. But basically, this is how it goes. Natalie Portman and Dylan Bruno are about to have a baby. They're driving across Oklahoma to go out to California to make their fortune. He leaves her at the Walmart. Now, this happens within the first four minutes of the movie. So I started to feel really strange anyway. I mean, she loses her shoes through the, he hasn't, pop riveted the bottom of the car on the passenger side of the floor. She loses her shoes through the floor and she has to run the Walmart to go to the bathroom. He ends up leaving her there. This whole story then becomes a morality tale. As he leaves beautiful Natalie Portman behind, the subplot centers on him trying to become a country and Western singer. We know that his part of the story is going to end in tears. So as Natalie, and her name's Noveli, Noveli Nation, as she's sitting in the Walmart, she realizes that he has left her and she ends up living in the Walmart at night and going outside during the day. This gal does not like the number five. Now, excuse me, Billy Letts. When you study numerology, you know that the number N corresponds to the number five and that the, oh pardon me, the letter N corresponds to the number five and that the letter O corresponds to the number six. So the fact that Noveli has this weird fixation about the number five is weird to me. I actually really dig the number five myself. It's all about change and transformation. So as Noveli is slowly drawn in the community of Sequoia, oh I can't remember to say, I think it's Oklahoma. Sequoia, she meets the crazy and on himself but wonderful librarian, Thornie, played by James Frane with a touching vulnerability. I love James Frane. I think he is so beautiful. And Ashley Judd, who plays her nurse after James Frane rescues her from the Walmart while she's giving labor during a thunderstorm. Now a lot of this plot, this could not happen in real life. However, lovers leave their lovers every day. That's a given. However, a lot of them don't happen to leave them at the Walmart barefoot and pregnant, all right? So as the movie progresses, we see Stocker Channing as her sort of fairy godmother and Keith David plays a photographer who teaches Noveli how to use a camera. A lot of this is a fairy tale. What I loved about the movie was that the sets were done impeccably. Like probably people who are lower income have a lot of plastic flowers around, okay? What I didn't, what disturbed me was the fact that there was some violence in the movie. Some of it seemed contrived to me. I'm sorry, I know it's only a movie. I know it's only a story. But there was lots of violence against women some nodding towards Christianity as being either good or bad. And the other thing that bothered me was Dylan Bruno, who plays, his name is literally Billy Jack Pickens. Dylan Bruno played the villain with such panache that you think, wow, there really are guys like that out there who would leave a gallon at Walmart. So he does get his just desserts. This movie is extremely corny. Everyone under 18, you're gonna squirm your seat when the music booms up. I'm sorry, you're going to do it. I would kind of maybe like to read the book sometime. Years later, this is about four or five years ago. I'm writing Yes, Tomorrow with my friend Mauck and my friend Sam Leitner who blows glass over at Mad River Glass. And I happened to say to Sam, I picked up a copy of the movie. And she said, oh, I'd seen the movie too. She's from Pennsylvania. As we started talking, Marcos, what are you talking about? I said, this is called, this plot, what we're talking about is called Lifetime for the Big Screen. He started to snicker. So I was trying to explain to him about Noveli Nation. I said, she had her baby in the Walmart and she named the baby, America's. And he said, wait, the baby's name is America's Nation. And I said, yes. So I ended up giving the book to Sam, Samantha there as a little gift, but I didn't bother reading the book. So I think it's Oprah's Book Club. It pains me that movies like this can be successful because of the corniness. But I will say this, the characters, the characters, the characters of the characters are done extremely well. The editing is fantastic. Natalie Portman looks radiant. I always kind of viewed her as a little elf child, especially when watching her debut in The Professional. I like movie stars like Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Eva Godna. And a lot of our modern stars don't act or look like that, but Natalie's okay. She did a really, really good job. I mean, her coot-os. Ashley Judd is a goddess. She's really funny in this movie. Some bad things happened to her. I didn't like that. And Stocker Channing has always been a genius. She's been around a long, long time. And hopefully some of them got a bit of a nod from the Academy. I doubt that they did though. Okay, so yeah, this movie is cheesy corny crap, but watch it on a Saturday afternoon when you don't have anything else to do. Okay, so that's my first movie of How Hollywood Views Pearl Territ. Roseanne Bauer said this extremely articulate well in a article that she wrote for The New Yorker. When Charlie Sheen had his breakdown, various journalists asked her to weigh in on the situation. She said a lot of pertinent things that had to do with Mr. Sheen. But what she basically said was that Hollywood does look down on poor people and that her TV show was the last TV show that actually showed working-class people acting like working-class people. She derided shows like The Real Housewives of All the Cities because that's not really real life. I think Roseanne's show is the closest in the modern era that comes to showing a simple working-class family, you know, putting up with bratty kids and trying to make ends meet. I don't think that Hollywood on the big screen does that good a job, but anyway, let's go to our second movie, which is the hysterically funny overboard with Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, and Roddy McDow, Edward Hoeman, and a few other people I can't remember. So I got sat down for this one too, but fortunately I got sat down for it here where it was, I think it was summer in Vermont, and I don't really like comedies all that much. Ma sat me down for this one. So basically we have Goldie, who, when I was a little kid, she was on Ron Maughlin Laughin, and she had her body painted with other actresses and they danced around. So Goldie is an icon for my childhood. Kurt Russell is also, when I was a little kid, I'd watch him in a lot of Disney movies. And one time I said to Ma, who's that guy? You know, I had a question on Kurt, even though he was probably like 16, 17, and I was like seven. And she said, oh, that pudgy kid, she kind of grown as Kurt Russell. But as Kurt grew older, I noticed that Ma owns a lot of his movies. I think kind of that Kurt must have bought all those Disney movies that were really kind of crap when he was younger, because I never see those anywhere. I mean, I can't even find that stuff on YouTube. So Kurt grew up to be a pretty handsome dude. He and Goldie getting together, my sisters and I, we were always like Kurt Russell, Kurt Russell. He's one of the family hot throbs, but as my sisters and I say, if we ever had to kiss Kurt, you know that Goldie would have to be standing right there watching, okay? So they're like married, even though they're not married. Watching them in this movie is a delight. Goldie plays the pampered spoiled wife of a millionaire and she herself is a millionaire. They happen to have to, their yawk needs some repairs up in Oregon in a place called Elks Cove. But throughout the movie, everyone calls it Elks Knot, or a snail, okay? But Elks Cove, Kurt is the hapless carpenter who's assigned to fix her closet on the yaw. When Goldie is dissatisfied with this splendid job that Kurt did, she pushes them overboard and throws his tools in the water too. Now, again, some spoilers, but you know, if you wanna watch the movie, don't listen to what I'm about to say next, but what occurs is that a few nights later, after she's pushed him overboard, she's found that she's lost her wedding ring where she was sun tanning. As she goes up to aft or a starboard, I don't know where it is, she goes overboard and she gets amnesia. The Elks Cove police, you know, they rescue her and take her to the nearest hospital, but no one knows who she is, and she has amnesia, so she doesn't know who she is. And her husband, Edward Herman, he shows up, but he pretends that, oh gosh, that's not my wife, okay? I don't know who she is. He'd seen the flash on the television as he was waking up in the yacht. When Kurt Russell at the bowling alley sees her, he's on a job, he sees her flashed on the screen, he goes, I'm gonna be able to get my money back. She can't remember who she is. I'm gonna make her work off every single thing, all the dollars that she didn't pay me, I'm going to take her home with me. So a buddy of his goes, that's kidnapping, Kurt doesn't care, he goes to the hospital, says that her name is Annie, her real name's Joanna, because Annie, and her main name's Cooley, and that they met at some donut place years ago when she was in the Navy, takes her home. Now he's a single dad of not one, not two, not three, but four boys. The place is a mess, all right? So what ensues is a lot of slapstick comedy, those boys torture her. She can't remember for love or money who she is, and the only way that she's going to get out of this predicament is that her mama, who's an heiress like her, knows that she's missing and she's about to come and look for her. So of course, Goldie makes an exemplary mother, but she knows at the same time that she doesn't belong there. She knows in her heart of hearts that she's a wretched debutante and that she has another life that's not filled with toilets that have turtles in them and popcorn that's stuck on the ceiling, all right? So we know that this is going to end extremely happily. What I do like about this movie is that even though the stereotypes about poor people, chainsaws, carpenters also have to work nights, hauling fertilizer to make ends meet, it also shows how rich people are like, really, are you kidding me? All you want to do is dance around and parade around naked on a yacht and be barely dressed and feed yourself caviar that must be totally perfect. So some of the stereotypes about working class people I didn't mind because the stereotypes about the rich people were holding true and fast as well. This movie is hysterical. The script is great. The editing is great. Everything's on fleek. And it's one of the few movies that makes me like a comedy, all right? So you should definitely check that out tonight. And please check it out on YouTube night. It was directed by Gary Marshall and I think it was made in 90. Ooh, I think it's like 82, 92, something like that, all right? Let's say it's like made in the late 80s and very pertinent to the time period. All right, so the last movie that I want to talk about and very briefly on how Hollywood views to proletariat is the wonderful, disturbing, fascinating, and chilling out of the furnace. I think I've talked about this movie before here at Orca. It has Christian Bale, just Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Solanda, Forrest Whitaker, and William Defoe. This movie reflects Hollywood's dark vision of the proletariat. Nothing will get better. Your heart will get broken. No one baves, no one takes bath. People like to fight. They don't know how to work through their trauma and revenge is a dish served cold, okay? So our first movie that we talked about, where the heart is, is a heartwarming, oh, view of the proletariat. Our second movie, Overboard, is a hysterically funny view of the proletariat and the upper class, but out of the furnace is heartbreakingly chilling. It is not a date movie. It's one of those movies where watch with some friends. If you have a squeamish stomach, don't go too close to it. Casey Affleck comes home from doing several tours and he doesn't do cage fighting. It's more primitive than that. There's no cage, it's just people watching. And Christian Bale plays his brother who gets a string of bad luck, but they're both held in the thraw by William Defoe, who's actually just some small town gangster who gets over, gets over on everyone. So I saw this movie a little bit over a year ago. It's actually one of my favorite movies in the whole world. I didn't like watching it the first time I watched it and it's an extremely hard movie to watch, but I said to my sister who I was watching it with the time, watching with her at the time, this is Hollywood's way of kind of looking down on poor people. Not people who are able to look at the catalogs and order something, but people who live in old mill or steel towns and work as hard to find. So what I also want to say is that one of the reasons I'm appalled at the way Hollywood will look down on poor peoples because a lot of producers, directors, actors and actresses, they have all come from impromptu lives also. And sometimes their savagery towards where they came from is an interesting mirror on how they looked at their own lives when they were growing up. However, there can be good humor as an overboard when it comes to dissecting the class warfare between rich and poor. So that being stated and said, I think that just about wraps it up for me. I'm your host, it's Betty St. Leveau. You've been looking at Celluloid Mirror. I hope you've enjoyed the show. I want to give a shout out to Gendron Building for its continued support over the years. And I'd also would like to thank my first film professor, Sharon Ardella Warfield Paris, which is on your cleric for helping me appreciate and being able to articulate myself concerning the silver screen. Until next time, darlings. Ciao and stay away from those bad movies.