I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #219 - Practical Magic (1998, dir. Griffin Dunne)

I don’t remember the first time I saw Practical Magic, it’s just always been in my memory. I was seven when the film came out, a little too young to see it in theaters but just old enough for it to become part of the regular rotation of films I rented from the local Movie Gallery. If I wasn’t renting Practical Magic it was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil or Interview with the Vampire - I couldn’t get enough of all things spooky. Over the years I continued to go back to Practical Magic, I even read the Alice Hoffman book the film is based on. It’s just one of those movies that has stuck around from my childhood. From a very young age I was introduced to all kinds of things that go bump in the night, so this story of cursed lovesick witches and a murder investigation was perfect for me.

A pair of sisters, Sally and Gillian, come to live with their eccentric - and by eccentric I mean they are clearly witches of the Stevie Nicks variety - maternal aunts after the death of their parents. Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing) and Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest) tell them of their family history: 1) that they come from a long line of witches and 2) there is a family curse - any man who falls in love with an Owens woman will die. Sandra Bullock plays the assertive, driven, Sally, the sister who wanted to never be in love, and she casts a spell for a man that couldn’t possibly exist to protect her from ever falling in love. But she eventually falls victim to the Owens family love curse, meeting a man, having children and then losing him. Nicole Kidman, who had just finished filming Eyes Wide Shut, was at the top of her game. She knew just how cool she was, and played Gillian as a wild child, always getting into trouble and falling in love with all the wrong men - like ultimate bad boy Jimmy Angelov (Goran Visnjic), who gets what's coming to him in the end. Visnjic is so good at playing a slimy sleazy creature that even after all these years if I ever see him in anything, I just think of Jimmy.

Aidan Quinn plays Gary Hallett, an investigator from Arizona who starts asking the sisters questions when Jimmy goes missing. He is stern but soft, and when Sally can’t seem to lie to him about what happened to Jimmy he confesses he had been reading a letter she wrote to Gillian, and that was part of the reason he came to investigate was so that he could meet her. Is he her impossible man? Or maybe just trying to get her to tell the truth about Jimmy? Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest really steal the show with their outlandish flowing witch outfits and their quick witted back-and-forth banter. It’s best shown in scenes where the aunts have midnight margaritas, then dance along to Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut,” or when they hilariously welcome a large group of townswomen into their grand Victorian witches' house. These are the same townswomen who, despite their fear of the Owens women, band together to help Sally rescue Gillian from Jimmy's evil spirit, Channing and Wiest guiding them all the way. Even the aunts' house could be considered a character, a Victorian home filled to the brim with antiques and every kind of knick knack you would expect two spinster witches to have, perched on a cliff overlooking some unnamed majestic body of water. The kitchen, garden and conservatory are as grand and spooky as you would expect in a witch's house - so grand that if I ever win the lottery you better believe I’m building a house with replicas of them. The film also has some choice late 90’s hits, including Faith Hill’s “This Kiss,” not one but two Stevie Nicks songs, and we can’t forget Elvis Presley’s “Always on My Mind,” making more than one appearance sung drunkenly by more than one character.

Even after all these years the film is still as magical and practical as it was when I was a kid. It was just spooky enough to really draw me in. The cast is pretty outstanding for a late 90’s movie - you got your superstars (Bullock and Kidman), handsome leading men (Quinn and Visnjic) and veteran actresses (Channing and Wiest). The film has plenty of moments that are spooky but it is also filled with light-hearted moments and an overall feeling of sisterhood, not just between biological siblings but all of the women of the small town who come together at the end. It is a wonderful introduction to witches, in a very innocent and fun way. To me the film is filled with bits of nostalgia, not just bits of pop culture from my childhood, but the nostalgic feeling of a film that was one of my first introductions to all things spooky and creepy. Without Practical Magic I don’t know that I would have ended up loving things that go bump in the night.

-         Anna Lathem

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #180 - Radio Days (1987, dir. Woody Allen)

In 1987 when Woody Allen made Radio Days, he waxed nostalgic for the days before television, when memories were formed and commemorated at the pace set by weekly radio programs, yet he could scarcely have conceived of the world of social media we inhabit now, where truth is lie and memories are discarded as soon as they are made. His incredibly heartfelt and masterful tribute to a slower time, when families sat together in living rooms and experienced life together as it crackled out of old vacuum tubes, feels like a prehistoric cave drawing compared to today’s reality. With hindsight, Radio Days is one of Woody Allen’s greatest achievements, and the movie that most exposes his sentimental attachment to his own childhood.

Taking place in the early 1940’s as World War II begins to permeate the consciousness of all Americans, our hero, Joe (clearly Woody as a child) narrates the story of his family’s combative but close living situation. An extended family of first generation Jews inhabiting tight quarters in Rockaway, Long Island, they, by physical necessity, experience everything together. No influence is more prevalent or central to their existence than the

constant warm glow of the radio. News of the day binds them emotionally, while talk shows and serials light their imaginations. No aspect though, is more present than the musical hits of the day. Along with the miraculous cast which includes Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner and Michael Tucker (with cameos by everyone from Diane Keaton to Wallace Shawn to Larry David), the most present character in the movie is the delightful and memorable soundtrack. Filled with heart-tugging melodies and hilariously obscure novelty songs, Allen weaves them into the plot of his movie in a unique fashion - they don’t just accent the action, they predict, dictate and drive it forward. The songs propel the plot and color the most memorable scenes with unimaginable emotional impact. And emotional impact is where Woody Allen is heading with this movie. This is not one of his slapstick outings, nor is it a philosophical treatise on Man’s existential search for meaning, nor is it a fantasy. In fact, it stands alone in his canon as a beautifully honest and wistful autobiographical depiction of family and childhood.

Radio Days is blessed with a simultaneously linear and random plot line. Like memory itself, which boils the endless moments of life down to certain indelible images and an overall emotional “flavor,” this movie is episodic, and each episode is deeply imbued with rich details of family life and unforeseen emotional outcomes. Through it all is Joe’s childish narration, reminding us that the events which move history have deep resonance on the family and individual levels. The romantic life of Joe’s perpetually single Aunt Bea (Wiest) feels like another episode of his Mother’s favorite show, Breakfast With Roger And Irene. Allen’s script completes this circle in such an artistically satisfying fashion, weaving the lives of the actors of those shows into Joe’s life. In the end, as Joe melancholically bemoans the loss of radio, and ultimately the loss of youth, innocence and familial connection, we can’t help but share his sadness. In losing the details of our childhoods: the shows, the actors, the classrooms, the holiday dinners, the lives of our parents, we ourselves actually start to disappear, in real time, as we approach our own demise.

In a career defined by such artistic greatness and equally by such personal and public failure, Radio Days stands out in Woody Allen’s filmography as one of his purest artistic expressions. He masterfully creates a series of touching, jewel-like moments from life, which will ring true to anyone with a heart, and then he creates narrative connective tissue with the sounds of the radio and the unbreakable bonds of family. It is his most emotionally satisfying film.

-          Paul Epstein