You’ve probably noticed some news coverage of the 40th anniversaries of the Woodstock and the Apollo 11 moon landing. (Less so the 40th anniversary of Teddy’s
Chappaquiddick adventure.) Nobody seems to remember 1999’s
A Walk on the Moon, though. The pleasantly sappy drama stars Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, and Liev Schreiber—the latter being one of the few NYC actors to openly support Rudy Giuliani in the pre-9/11 days.
Lane stars as a New York City housewife who runs off to Woodstock with a hippie ragman (Mortensen) while her TV repairman husband (Schreiber) is busy getting everyone’s televisions ready for NASA’s big broadcast. The script is a lot more intelligent than you’d have gotten if, say, Hal Ashby had filmed the same story in 1978. The movie acknowledges the clear contrast between hippies rutting in mud and decent folk celebrating American ingenuity. By the end of the film, Lane’s romantic conflict isn’t presented as some kind of difficult decision.
(Not that I would’ve minded seeing
Richie Havens in 1969.)
But maybe that’s not trashy enough, so let’s also discuss Mortensen in 1990’s
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. (The guy’s built an exceptional filmography for such an annoying Leftist.)
Leatherface is an early starring role for Mortensen, and a plot twist is ruined now that everyone can put a face to the actor’s top billing. That’s not the filmmakers’ fault. There were other things that would lead to this movie getting bungled in its delayed initial release. That was a shame, too, since director Jeff Burr was coming off the surprisingly good
The Stepfather II and an impressive horror anthology called
From a Whisper to a Scream.
Leatherface is still pretty great as a late-80s slasher film. David J. Schow’s script has some fun characters crawling through the sleaze. That includes Ken Foree (also Keenan’s dad on
Kenan & Kel) as a savvy and soulful survivalist who’s properly trained to survive a film like Leatherface. Actually, it’s a slight SPOILER to note how that depends on you choosing the original theatrical ending on the DVD.
In either ending, though, Foree’s the kind of survivalist that you’d never see on the network news. His character comes after Paul Sorvino’s lovable militiaman in
The Stuff, but before Michael Gross supplies the citizenry from his home armory in 1990’s
Tremors. Hopefully, I won’t sound like Barbara Boxer when noting that the color of Foree’s skin still adds a nice twist to the guy. You also get a cameo appearance by Caroline Williams—who starred in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and continues to risk her own livelihood as an outspoken conservative in Hollywood. She’s in Rob Zombie’s upcoming
Halloween 2, as well. Maybe that’ll end up getting written about here.
