214. The Late Shift

214. (20 Sep) The Late Shift (1996, Betty Thomas) 66



Daniel Roebuck's Jay Leno is the only weak link in an ensemble that's fairly perfect. Kathy Bates's aggressive, foul-mouthed Helen Kushnick is irresistible, but Treat Williams's charismatic Michael Ovitz and John Michael Higgins's spot-on David Letterman are also incredibly strong. The Tonight Show conflict is familiar stuff, especially following the 2010 repeat, but this is terse and exciting nevertheless.

175. Heart of Dixie

175. (27 Aug) Heart of Dixie (1989, Martin Davidson) 30



I can't imagine a more shallow premise for a movie that's seemingly about racism and civil rights, as a handful of sorority sisters occasionally experience the slightest bit of social consciousness between boy problems. Many late '80s and early '90s films tried to capitalize on '50s nostalgia, but few do it as incompetently as Heart of Dixie. Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen, Phoebe Cates and Treat Williams are perhaps too iconic as '80s screen stars to fit into 1957 Alabama. But Martin Davidson never establishes a particularly hostile atmosphere where racism is creating a divide, making this a character drama without any interesting characters.

049. Smooth Talk

049. (10 Feb) Smooth Talk (1985, Joyce Chopra) 60



Laura Dern makes a delightful impression here, especially in the strong first hour. As an alluring, lost teenager, you get a wonderful sense of how foolish and idealistic the age can be. She and her friends flirt with boys at the mall and put themselves in dangerous situations in attempts to win male attention.

When her innocence is lost as a mysterious stranger arrives, the film certainly loses its footing. The stranger is played intriguingly, but not brilliantly by Treat Williams. It's hardly his fault that the film loses itself at this point. It's being true to Joyce Carol Oates' story, though the ending is far less ambiguous.