B-Movies and Couch Classics: Cookie's Fortune • Pushing Tin

B-Movies and Couch Classics
Cookie's Fortune & Pushing Tin

by Arik Ben Treston

Cookie’s Fortune
USA FILMS, 1999
Although he’s a hit (M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player) and miss (Gingerbread Man, Ready to Wear) director, Robert Altman has always commanded great respect as someone who loves telling good stories. Cookie’s Fortune is a hit (though not really financially) for Altman and his great cast.

A wonderful ensemble —including Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Chris O’Donnell, Charles S. Dutton, Ned Beatty and the irrepressible Patricia Neal — inhabits the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. It’s Easter Weekend and everybody is busy. Willis (Dutton) is busy helping Cookie (Neal) around the house, getting ready for the feast, and cooking up his catfish enchiladas. Camille (Close) and Cora (Moore) are directing and starring, respectively, in the theatrical production of "Salome" (!) which is to be held at the local church. Jason (O’Donnell) is a young cop, looking for trouble or something to do, and Lester, the sheriff (Beatty), is trying to keep him out of his hair. Bad girl Emma (Tyler) has come back to town, but wants nothing to do with her aunt and mother (again, Close and Moore).

Not content to have a small, quirky southern town quiet and without scandal, there is a death. Or a murder? Who knows? … Well, we do. Willis becomes the suspect because he had the opportunity to commit the crime and his fingerprints are on the gun. Now, usually movies are very cliché when it comes to this point in the story. Typically, the wrongly accused (or is he?) man is suspected to have done a horrible deed and we have to endure his struggle as he tries to clear his name. In this case, however, Altman, along with writer Anne Rapp, manages to sidestep this conventionality by creating interesting characters that don’t all jump to the same conclusions. (It is also refreshing to not have Willis’ race pose any sort of a problem, or even an issue, in a small southern town. Instead, they are all too busy fishing and eating to worry about color. In fact, Beatty’s response to a prosecutor from the big city questioning Willis’ integrity is, "I’ve fished with him.")

If you’ve read my articles before, you know that I stay away from detail in describing the plot. There is plenty more in this movie to find and enjoy. The relationships that are formed in the film are fun to watch — especially as everyone tries to cope with this death in a small town

The entire ensemble cast delivers wonderful performances, especially Close, who chews up the scenery like you wouldn’t believe. She has a great time being a genuine weasel. Tyler gets to stretch a bit here, a little better than the sad-girlfriend-who-hopes-her-boyfriend-will-be-alright role she played in Armageddon. While never achieving true three-dimensionality, the characters nevertheless manage to portray a fun group of wackos with whom you wouldn’t mind hanging out … for a couple of hours at least.

Pushing Tin
20th Century Fox, 1999
Pushing Tin is a great look into a subject that is not often dealt with on the silver screen: Air Traffic Controllers. Plane … and simple. (Sorry.) More specifically, this film concerns the control center on Long Island that oversees all the air activity from Newark, La Guardia, and JFK airports. The immense stress that these controllers contend with each and every day is depicted with humor — even though the subject is extremely serious.

Mike Newell (Four Weddings & A Funeral, Donnie Brasco) directs this film, which originated from an article, "Something’s Got To Give," by Darcy Frey, and Glen and Les Charles (Writer/Producer team behind "Taxi" and "Cheers") collaborate on their feature-film debut. While sometimes stepping too close for comfort into sitcom territory, the duo manages to keep the script fresh and different. When the film centers around the breakneck speed at which the controllers have to maneuver and shout out coordinates at blips on screens, it is exhilarating. The veering into the love stories that involve Nick "No Fly Zone" Falzone (John Cusack) and Russell Bell (a mysterious Billy Bob Thornton) and their wives sometimes drags the story out a bit, but not to the point where you lose interest.

Cusack’s character is the best controller in the area. He has never had a situation he can’t handle — whether at work or at home. Along comes Thornton, a strange and quiet man. The other air controllers don’t know what to make of him, especially when they see his tart of a young wife (played more appealingly than a banana by Angelina Jolie: Gia, Playing By Heart, Girl, Interrupted). On a side note, Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), who plays Falzone’s Jersey wife, does so with such ease that one cannot believe that just a year ago she was playing the Oscar nominated role of Queen Elizabeth.

Overall, Newell keeps the film flowing fairly briskly — except for a slightly sluggish third act — and makes a subject that we would normally overlook seem thrilling and sexy. Tensions occur when Falzone keeps one-upping Bell creating a cocky competitiveness that leads to numerous problems — which can be pretty hairy when you hold the lives of thousands of people in your hands