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Rob Edelman: Senior Stars - “Career-Defining Performances”

These days, the majority of theatrical films that come out of Hollywood are fashioned for children, teens, or twenty and perhaps thirty-somethings. The reason for this is obvious. They are the core consumers who abandon their TV sets and computers and willingly pay to watch a new movie at the local mall. But how do film producers lure the older viewer, the aging Baby Boomer, to the movie theater? Should this segment of the population simply be ignored? Will it be assumed that they are content merely to couch-potato it at home, gaze at the endless drug ads that overpopulate their TV screens, and spend all their savings on the latest medical miracles? Or are filmmakers willing to produce product that just may be of special interest to older viewers?

Well, one way to accomplish this is to populate films with characters who are aging, or are dealing with this fact of life. And they are played by name-brand actors who are themselves middle-aged, or even elderly. Additionally, the older moviegoers can be lured to theaters with the promise that these stars are offering must-see, career-defining performances.   

A few years ago, for example, Bruce Dern, an actor whose credits date from the early 1960s, gave a letter-perfect performance as a grizzled, alcoholic senior citizen in Alexander Payne’s NEBRASKA. Dern copped a host of best actor citations and awards, as well as the top acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival and a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. Most appropriately, however, he was the Best Actor recipient of the AARP Movies for Grownups Award.

These days, other stars who have been around for decades are appearing in new movies that are being hyped for their presences and performances. One is Richard Gere, cast as the title character in NORMAN, also known as NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER. The plug in the film’s trailer is that “Richard Gere has the role of his career,” and NORMAN... features “one of Richard Gere’s all-time best performances.”

Another is Sam Elliott. If you do not recognize his name, you surely will connect with his deep, distinctive voice. Elliott is cast as-- what else-- an aging movie star in THE HERO and, as noted in the film’s trailer, “Sam Elliot truly shines” in “a career-defining performance.” “You can’t take your eyes off him” because he “is perfect. A canon-worthy dramatic actor has arrived.” (Cast in support in THE HERO is none other than Katharine Ross, who is barely recognizable if you best recall her from THE GRADUATE and BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, which these days are a half-century old. Katharine Ross has been Sam Elliott’s spouse for over three decades, and here is a bit of trivia: In his debut feature, he had a small role as “Card Player #2” in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. Yet Elliott and Ross did not connect for almost a decade, when they costarred in THE LEGACY, a deservedly forgettable trifle.)

However, will Sam Elliott or Richard Gere be this year’s recipient of the AARP Movies for Grownups Award? Or perhaps Shirley MacLaine, who earlier this year played a retired businesswoman who is intent on contributing to her own obituary in THE LAST WORD? Only time will tell... But one who surely will be out of the running is Goldie Hawn, making her first big-screen appearance in fifteen years as Amy Schumer’s mother in SNATCHED, a snooze-inducing so-called comedy. SNATCHED is an instant candidate for a list of the ten-worst films released in 2017...

Rob Edelman has authored or edited several dozen books on film, television, and baseball. He has taught film history courses at several universities and his writing has appeared in many newspapers, magazines, and journals. His frequent collaborator is his wife, fellow WAMC film commentator Audrey Kupferberg.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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