Coming Home

This 1978 movie won Oscars for both Jon Voight and Jane Fonda. A Hal Ashby film in the era when great Vietnam movies were being made constantly this movie was one of the strongest.

The movie focuses on Captain Bob Hyde and his wife Sally, played by Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern. What was quite amusing was seeing Bruce Dern, hearing his voice, and picturing him as Bill's father in Big Love.

Jon Voight plays Luke Martin, a paraplegic Vietnam Veteran at the Veterans hospital at which Sally volunteers. Sally as the movie begins had been a typical Conservative Military wife. Her husband Bob is about to be sent to Vietnam, a move he, as a career man, feels is just part of his progression. Sally, now living alone, volunteers at the military hospital.

At the hospital Luke is a frustrated, angry, patient. Sally and he realize that they were classmates in high school. As they spend more time together it becomes apparent that an attraction is present. Sally wants to improve the conditions at the hospital. She is rebuked by the society minded members of the volunteer committee.

When Luke is released he and Sally spend more time together. As a relationship develops they fall in love. Still, both agree, that the relationship will end when Sally's husband returns.

Sally's husband Captain Hyde though returns early from Vietnam, he is suffering from post traumatic stress and is not able to connect with his wife. When he is informed by military intelligence that his wife has been having an affair with an anti war radical he is shaken to the core.

An uncomfortable confrontation occurs. The ending of the movie can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. For instance both my wife and I felt that it symbolized two different things.

Voight, who in these times is perhaps best known as one of the lone Conservatives in Hollywood, the father on Angelina Jolie, and for fans of Seinfeld as the owner of a car that George Costanza covets, gives an incredible performance. It is easy to forget that with this and his iconic performance in Midnight Cowboy that Voight was a well regarded, well respected actor.

Fonda as well is Oscar worthy. The irony of her playing a Conservative Vietnam era Military wife cannot be overlooked, and her performance as the conflicted woman in love with two men is never melodramatic, always serious and believable. Fonda, because, of all the various controversies that have surrounded her at times, is also easily forgotten as the strong actress that she was.

I had this movie on my list of movies to see for along time. It takes awhile to develop, one wonders what all the fuss is about for a few minutes, but the scenes when Captain Hyde returns home and the three deal with their love triangle are very strong and different from what might be expected.

Added to the Vietnam canon of Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, and Platoon, Coming Home is a deserved member of this classic group.

Big Love Finale

About a year after the rest of the country but my wife and I finished Season 5 of Big Love this weekend. Interestingly, as much as I think I keep up on things, I had not heard about how the show ended. I was glad I did not know.

My wife said this show always made her tense and her blood pressure go up. Indeed it did seem over the last couple of seasons that the show was almost farcical. No family, even one with three wives, could have had as much going on as these people did.

Still the cast was strong. Gennifer Goodwin as Margene was consistently strong and Chloe Sevigny played a role that was never easy, varying between manipulative and sympathetic at the turn of the head.

The ending shocked me. The suspense over the last few episodes was strong. As we have spoken over the last few days my wife and I have agreed the ending was a good one. It fit the show.

This was a well done show, we will miss it.

Big Love on HBO Go

I have closely followed the battle between Time Warner and HBO over Time Warner's use of the HBO Go app on the Ipad. This is an incredible service. For those of us who enjoy the HBO series as much as anything they might see on television this is great news.

While allowing the on demand broadcast of the movies and programs being shown on any given month the real carrot in this programming is the feature that allows one to watch any of the series and any episode thereof on demand on their Ipad.

We in our house watched The Sopranos and thought it was a great show. My friends and i would dissect each episode each Monday at lunch. We never will hear the name Christopher again without hearing Tony's take on it.

The Wire and Six Feet Under were shows that we missed the first time around. The Wire especially is considered one of the best shows ever on television and I look forward to watching that. First and foremost however we are watching the final season of Big Love. Last night we watched the the final episode of Season 4 to reaquaint ourselves thought reacquainting may be too much for anyone on a show with this much going on. Still we look forward to watching the end of the series.

After that there will be two seasons of Boardwalk Empire to catch up on. The on demand feature is a great feature. This just takes us further down the the road of being able to watch what we want, when we want, where we want.

It is just the beginning.

Men of a Certain Age

In our quest to find interesting things to watch on that rare occasion where we get to sit down at the same time..usually around 10:30 at night my wife picked up the first disc in this series on Netflix. It was one of those shows we had always intended to watch but the truth is that more and more the idea of watching a show when it is originally on is completely foreign.

Today with the advent of DVD if you miss a couple episodes at the beginning of a show you can just wait for the DVD release. For us this year we did not hook up HBO for the last season of Big Love nor for Boardwalk Empire. In both cases we made this choice so that we could watch the show later on DVD. The fact is watching TV shows in four episode spurts is more convenient that waiting for a episode each week.

So that is my dissertation of the changing nature of watching television. On this show, Men of a Certain Age, Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher play three longtime friends meeting the quandaries of middle age.

I have earlier discussed my affection for Ray Romano. This show does not dissipate that like in anyway. Bakula is likable and Braugher is well known as a stellar actor from his days on Homicide.

One episode into the show I care about the characters. I want to know what happens. I want to know if Joe ( Ray Romano) ever meets the fantasy woman. And yes for those that have seen the show I do want to know if "they" are real. My guess is no.

This is a very good show.

Big Love Nears the End

We have watched Big Love since it debuted. However this season has not been enjoyable. This has been a year of change in our television viewing. I have stopped watching 24 ( sorry Jack, seen it before), Nip Tuck sits on my TIVO taunting me to crawl down into the gutter with it one last time, and now Big Love is a headache waiting to happen.

Perhaps it was the short season of only 9 episodes but there is just too much going on. Too much. In last nights episode Nicky found out from Barb that Bill told her that Joey had killed Nicki's father. Bill was going to tell her but never got around to it. Of course with all that Bill has going on he can almost can be excused. I feel like I need a scorecard for the multiple multiple storylines. It is almost too much.

We will keep watching, and hope next weeks finale somehow ties up some loose ends but when its over I will need the break.

Big Love

Watching the most recent episode of Big Love this week something unusual happened. Bill has finally done something that makes his character beyond reproach. He, in order to save his campaign, let his best friend and business partner take the fall as a bigamist. Of course it is just a television show and as my wife and I say so many things happen week to week that the show is exhausting. It can only be on for short spurts because clearly this show would burn its viewers out were it on for a half a year.

I enjoy the show. My wife loves it. I find it entertaining. I just liked it better when Bill was not as bad as everyone else. Clearly now for all his good intent he is.

Big Love returns tonight

Big Love returns tonight. I called the cable company and had to get HBO again this week so we were ready. Yesterday we watched the final episode from last season. It took me quite a bit to remember what all the plotlines were. By the end of each season usually so many things are going on your need a map to keep up. The show itself however captures your attention. My wife loves it.

When I called the cable company I let the representative know that I was getting HBO so my wife could watch Big Love. She doing her job very well let me know that even though I may not care for Big Love that much in the spring HBO would be airing a new Tom Hanks/Stephen Spielberg mini-series called Pacific. This will be a WWII story of the Pacific theatre of war much like the Band of Brothers series produced years ago.

I AM in fact looking forward to that series very much. I am sure it will be well produced and very well received.

Tonight at 9 however I will be watching Big Love with the Mrs. It won't be against my will however, it is a great show.

Lets not tell the lady at the cable company though.