{"id":657,"date":"2014-04-12T23:37:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T23:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/?p=657"},"modified":"2021-02-19T20:33:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T20:33:13","slug":"secrets-dont-make-friends-at-home-or-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"Secrets don’t make friends at home or abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Topaz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Topaz<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(1969)<\/p>\n

After the successful premiere of\u00a0the first James Bond film<\/a>,\u00a0many people wanted Alfred Hitchcock to direct an entry in the series. \u00a0He had a history in the spy genre with films like Foreign Correspondent <\/em>(1940), Suspicion <\/em>(1941), and\u00a0The Man Who Knew Too Much <\/em>(1956), <\/i>he had a\u00a0dark\u00a0and subtle sense of humor, and his film’s reliance on elaborate Macguffins<\/a>\u00a0seemed perfect for a series of films which value character and atmosphere more than plot.<\/p>\n

While the dream of a Hitchcock directed Bond film would never materialize, Torn Curtain <\/em>(1966)\u00a0and\u00a0Topaz<\/em>\u00a0(1969) were clear attempts to capitalize on the popularity of the genre.<\/p>\n

Echoing the\u00a0Cuban missile crisis<\/a>, this film features Soviets shipping nuclear warheads to Cuba. Several scenes take place in Cuba and archival footage of Fidel Castro<\/a>\u00a0is used for authenticity.<\/p>\n

John Vernon, best known as the mayor in Dirty Harry<\/em>\u00a0(1979) and Dean Vormer<\/a>, <\/em>is\u00a0<\/em>Rico Parra,\u00a0the Cuban emissary to the United States. \u00a0Of interest to me, his daughter, Kate Vernon was\u00a0Ellen Tigh<\/a>\u00a0in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica<\/em>.<\/p>\n

John Forsythe is Michael Nordstrom, the CIA agent responsible for handling KGB<\/a>\u00a0defections.<\/p>\n

The movie is a mess and would have benefited from a tighter, more focused script. It begins with a defecting KGB agent, then there are\u00a0missiles in Cuba and Cuban dissidents, then suddenly it’s about a French spy ring,\u00a0and there’s a misguided attempt to stay relevant in the integrated world of 1969 with an elaborate sequence in Harlem with Roscoe Lee Browne (who I remember fondly from his later appearances on The Cosby<\/a> Show<\/a><\/em>)\u00a0as an undercover florist. \u00a0There’s a good movie about Cuban counterrevolutionaries somewhere in this film, but it’s buried under a lot of unnecessary stuff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"August:<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

August: Osage County<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2013)<\/p>\n

Based on Tracy Letts’s Pulitzer Prize winning play<\/a>, this is a claustrophobic movie about small-minded people in a small-minded family in a small-minded town.<\/p>\n

Meryl Streep is Violet Weston, the dying, evil matriarch of the most dysfunctional family, who hoards information to manipulate and injure everyone around her.<\/p>\n

Julia Roberts is her daughter, Barbara Weston-Fordham, a horrible mother who seems destined to become the latest in a long line of miserable women.<\/p>\n

Margo Matindale is Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae Aiken who puts a happy face on her misery and meanness to become a socially acceptable version of evil.<\/p>\n

Chris Cooper is Charles Aiken, Mattie Fae’s husband who is cruel to his vegetarian niece, but his sins are slight compared to the myriad evils surrounding him.<\/p>\n

Abigail Breslin showed more range in her debut as the awkward Olive in Little Miss Sunshine <\/em>(2006). \u00a0Her Jean Fordham is a stereotypical rebellious teenager.<\/p>\n

Juliette Lewis is Karen Weston, another one of Violet’s daughters, who’s\u00a0so dense and willfully ignorant it borders on parody.<\/p>\n

2013 was a very busy year for Benedict Cumberbatch. In addition to starring as Little Charles, son of Mattie Fae, he was in the immensely popular television program Sherlock<\/a><\/em>, Star Trek into Darkness <\/em>(2013),\u00a0The Fifth Estate\u00a0<\/em>(2013), and\u00a0The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug <\/em>(2013). He doesn’t do much here besides be pathetic. His mom is mean to him and it’s stunted his emotional development.<\/p>\n

An uncomfortable movie which revels in the discomfort it causes. The characters are one-dimensional and the film exists solely to remind us whatever our family situation, it could be worse. It’s tough to watch, but it makes you appreciate how minor your own family’s foibles truly are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Topaz\u00a0(1969) After the successful premiere of\u00a0the first James Bond film,\u00a0many people wanted Alfred Hitchcock to direct an entry in the series. \u00a0He had a history in the spy genre with films like Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), and\u00a0The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), he had a\u00a0dark\u00a0and subtle sense of humor, and his film’s… Continue reading Secrets don’t make friends at home or abroad<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,50,105,159,247,265,271,432,441,525,653],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-progress","tag-abigail-breslin","tag-alfred-hitchock","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-chris-cooper","tag-dysfunctional-family","tag-espionage","tag-ewan-mcgregor","tag-john-wells","tag-julia-roberts","tag-meryl-streep","tag-pulitzer-prize","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11569,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/11569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}