Word: gazzara
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...little epic with a big brazen title, Happiness traces the discontents of three sisters--miserable Joy (Jane Adams); pert Trish, the pedophile's wife (Cynthia Stevenson); and best-selling poet Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle)--their beaux and parents (Louise Lasser, Ben Gazzara). The prime setting is New Jersey, which Helen describes as "a state of irony." The whole film could be said to live there--a place where vile acts rub up against a Mantovani rendition of You Light Up My Life...
Maybe this is the ultimate black comedy. Or it could be a loving story about the most unlovely folks. "In a way," says producer Christine Vachon, "it is the ultimate horror movie, where the people next to you at the office are incredibly evil." But the spookiest character, Gazzara's, is the man who feels nothing, is in love with no one, does not pursue happiness. And the sweetest, awfullest moments are in the connection between a normal kid (brave Rufus Read) and his mad, bad dad. "He's not a demon," Solondz says of the father; "he's possessed...
...just done a five-year stretch with three missions. The first, and most hilariously pressing, is to find a place to take a pee. The next is to find a girl willing to pose as his fiance and help him convince his sublimely indifferent parents (Anjelica Huston and Ben Gazzara) that he's been doing top-secret CIA work all the years he was in jail. The last is to assassinate the Buffalo Bills placekicker whose missed field goal caused him to lose the bet that led him into a life of crime...
That's a lot for a young man, pretty much incapacitated by rage, and not too bright to begin with, to handle. But Gallo, who also wrote, directed and scored Buffalo '66 , is a smart young filmmaker, not least in his casting. Gazzara, angrily mourning his lost career as a local lounge singer, and Huston, obsessing on the Bills' football frustrations, are glorious eccentrics. And Christina Ricci, as the tap dancer Billy forces to play his faux fiance, is just lovely. She falls into instant love with her abductor, and with a kind of patient ferocity redeems his sanity...
...hero of a David Mamet movie, of House of Games, Homicide, Oleanna or his newest, finest shell game, The Spanish Prisoner. In this diamond-hard, ice-cold thriller, young Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has developed a secret "process" worth billions to his company, whose chief (Ben Gazzara) is slow to give Joe credit and quick to worry about someone stealing the process. In the company Joe has an ally (Ricky Jay) and a No. 1 fan, a perkily sarcastic secretary (Rebecca Pidgeon). But Joe is tempted to confide in Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a mysterious fellow with a wise warning...