Word: arkins
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...course, the old traditions are sometimes worth preserving. The two most provocative new shows of the fall revive a venerable genre that has been under-represented of late: the medical drama. CBS's Chicago Hope, created by David E. Kelley (Picket Fences), has name stars -- Mandy Patinkin, Adam Arkin, E.G. Marshall -- and provides familiar TV pleasures. It's a self-important but frequently entertaining mix of Ben Casey melodrama (should an operation be performed to separate two Siamese twins, even though both may die?) and St. Elsewhere-style modernism (the surgeons sing Midnight Train to Georgia around the operating table...
...fact that director James Foley sticks too close to play format deprives "Glengarry" the possibilities that film give it. Instead, only the mighty but topically depressing performances by Lemmon, Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and Pacino keep us interested. We receive no alternate stimulation by movement, day-light or more than the five principal actors...
...talk for a living, and they talk to keep from telling the truth. In their four-letter world, lying comes with the territory. As the Old Man says in Strindberg's Ghost Sonata: "Silence hides nothing. Words conceal." Two of the salesmen, Moss (Ed Harris) and Aaronow (Alan Arkin), sit in a bar, grousing about the real estate company. It is as much a part of their job as sounding stardusted with sweet reason while on a pitch. Moss sketches an idea for a theft of the office, and later tells Aaronow he is implicated in the scheme. Aaronow asks...
...always on hand for friends and in fact lives through them, sometimes in ways meddlesome or even Machiavellian. Boyd Gaines, who won a Tony Award as a saintly gay doctor in The Heidi Chronicles, balances amiability and creepiness in the role. He is ably backed by TV stars Adam Arkin (Northern Exposure), Laila Robins (Gabriel's Fire) and John Slattery (Homefront...
...Hanks lacked the slick stature of Wall Street wizard Sherman McCoy (Wolfe wanted Chevy Chase). Melanie Griffith was no slinky Circe (De Palma wanted Uma Thurman), and Bruce Willis was hardly a desiccated Brit (John Cleese said no thanks). Finally, for reasons of ethnic balance, Morgan Freeman replaced Alan Arkin as a righteous judge, who in the book was a Jew. The novel they said couldn't be filmed . . . couldn't. Not by these folks...