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SNAM Video Trailer Collection Alphabetical Listing
Video Trailers from picks on TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
“Coal Miner’s Daughter”(1980) IMDb employs the considerable singing and acting talents of Sissy Spacek along with those of Tommy Lee Jones. As might be expected, the biopic of singing star Loretta Lynn contains a full dose of country and western music. I’m with Doo on this one. I’m normally not partial to country, but I do like Loretta’s singing in this film. Of course the music is not the whole story here in this recounting of the ups and downs of Loretta’s life, but the singing obviously cannot be minimized. The film 
demonstrates that Loretta Lynn had a wealth of material to draw on from her own life’s experiences to both write and sing from the heart with all those "hurtin’ " songs you heard coming out of the radio.
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Catch the video trailer for “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980)
Compulsion (1959) Video Trailer
Compulsion (1959) - INDb is an interesting twist on the infamous thrill killing "Crime of the Century" by Leopold and Loeb. Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman play the rich young degenerates who engage in the most shocking of crimes while Orson Welles plays the Clarence Darrow figure who is responsible for helping them to avoid the hangman's noose. The award winning performances lead one through a thorough workout for the moral faculties on issues of captial punishment. <<Back to Midnight Oil main journal
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Catherine Savard
in 1950s movies, Drama, Saturday Night at the Movies 2008, Video Trailers
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Days of Wine and Roses(1962) Video Trailers
“Days of Wine and Roses” (1962)
IMDb looks inside the private world of an alcololic as Jack Lemmon plays the part of Joe
Clay. Lemmon convincingly portrays the struggles of the charming
and talented addict who quickly draws his young wife (played by Lee Remick)
into the predictable downward spiral with him. Although some might be tempted
to write the film off as a mere modern-day morality tale, I tend to see it as a
laudable attempt to deal honestly 
with the subject of alcoholism. The flavour is definitely
bittersweet. It’s a film that points toward the intensely human capacity for courage,
hope and redemption as well as for degradation.
This film was paired with “Clean and Sober” (1988) IMDb with Michael Keaton, another very powerful film about addiction. See the Saturday Night at the Movies preview for both films in the “Hooked” episode here.
View this retrospective on the acting career of the late Jack Lemmon set to Henry Mancini's Oscar winning song for the movie, "Days of Wine and Roses".
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Catch the video trailer for “Days of Wine and Roses” here.
Catherine Savard
in 1960s movies, Drama, Saturday Night at the Movies 2008, Video Trailers
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Dear Frankie (2004)
“Dear Frankie” (2004) IMDb is a real gem starring Jack McElhone as a young deaf boy and Emily Mortimer as his mom. Gerard Butler is the stranger who is brought into the picture in order to play the role of Frankie’s “dad” for a day. Things have a way of getting kind of complicated when the adults 
involved find they have to bend over backwards in order to maintain the charade for Frankie’s benefit. It’s a lovely tale told with much care and compassion for the plight of the single mom who tries to do her best with a very difficult dilemma.
TVO producer, Thom Ernst talks on his blog. about how this unusual and charming film came to be screened on SNAM.
See the TVO interview related to "Dear Frankie", in which the issue of telling lies in order to protect children is examined.
Real Life: Shannon deals with her fatherless childhood and leaves an abusive relationship.
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Catherine Savard
in 2000s movies, British Films, Drama, Garard Butler, Saturday Night at the Movies 2008, Video Trailers, divorce
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Dominick and Eugene (1988)
“Dominick and Eugene” (1988) has Tom Hulce and Ray Liotta play the parts of twin brothers, one of whom is slightly mentally retarded while the other studies to be a doctor. Hulce plays the slow witted brother. He exchanges comic books with an 11 year old boy on his garbage pick up route, loves pretending he is the Incredible Hulk and has problems remembering his responsibility to walk the dog. The brother played by Ray Liotta is saddled with some of the “adult” concerns of life; trying to plan his medical career, making progress in his love life and keeping his somewhat naïf brother out of trouble with drug dealers, hookers and neighbourhood thugs. Jamie Lee Curtis, the love interest for Gino, finds out that she really doesn’t know what she’s getting into by 
getting involved with her fellow medical student. She’s caught in the middle.
There’s a bit to work out in the space of two hours. Some startling revelations relating to manslaughter, child abuse and kidnapping could be interpreted by the overly cynical film critic to be contrived and overly predictable vehicles for sentimentality. I prefer to see the events and the characters as true to life. It may be hard for some to believe, 
but people like this and situations like this really do exist. I for one have met up with some of them. The interpretation of the movie may rest more with the inner state of mind of the reviewer than the actual skill of the actors, directors and writers involved in the movie making. It’s a film that could go either way. I personally put a full three hankie warning on the film (with lots of nose blowing and tear wiping anticipated for anyone who is the least bit emotionally engaged).
>>More to see: Looking for more out of life?
>>Real Life Story: Jimmy’s working class parents weren’t prepared that day when they sent their teenage son to the corner store. What happens in the families of an innocent victim touched by gang violence?
See a video clip from "Dominick and Eugene" (1988)