Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review

Law & Order/Penny Marshall

Director’s Note: We are thrilled to have a separate newsletter apart from the weekly update, and hope you’ll enjoy this missive as a positive part of your work week.

Law & Order (NBC/Peacock)

In a week where so much of the outside world didn’t make any sense, there was something inexplicably comforting about the familiar “DUN DUNNN” and the start of one of the most venerable and beloved police procedural shows of all time, the original (not SVU, not Criminal Intent, not colon LA, or colon Great Britain), plain ol’ vanilla Law & Order. I was fired up, to say the least. And while they always throw that disclaimer up at the beginning of every show about how the story isn’t based on anyone, for reals, you guys, please don’t sue us, I have to say, it was a bold choice to murder Bill Cosby in the inaugural episode.

I mean, it’s not Cosby. This successful black man was a musician, see, and he only raped 40 women, and so it’s just not the same, you see...yeah, right, pull the other one. When they go to interview the grieving widow, the actress does a flawless Felicia Rashad impression—I mean, she sounds exactly like Claire Huxtable.

But the strength of Law & Order was always the balancing act wherein you gave the cops and lawyers juuuuuust enough of a personality and a hint of a personal life, and then focus and drill down on the case at hand. That’s what made the show so good, and it’s where SVU jumped the shark ten years ago (but it’s now the standard bearer, so what do I know?).

The cops in this first episode, Jeffrey Donovan and Anthony Anderson (reprising his role, along with Sam Waterston), do not really get along, and it’s Donovan who plays the bad-cop-asshole that the series always seems to need. The lawyers are all pretty and righteous, and Waterston dispenses his wisdom at key moments, as expected.

It was familiar, but it’s also very much in the now, with cell phones blossoming all around the verbal altercation that starts up when Donovan’s character doesn’t like the way he’s treated by a citizen. The show seems willing to play around in that gray area that a lot of the other cop shows on tv right now can’t swim in, because you can’t make Tom Selleck unlikeable, now, can you, because he’s got to be above it all, right? Donovan’s character actually says out loud that he says what he thinks, to which Anderson replies, very coldly, “Speak your truth.”

The ending wasn’t a slam dunk, but I don’t know how many of those we’re going to see if Law & Order keeps reflecting the news of the day. Time will tell, but if you’ve been missing the old show, this one will certainly scratch that itch.

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The 2022 NTAB Directorial Culture Exchange Update: Penny Marshall

Jes was the one who contributed Penny Marshall to the list, and I was initially baffled, but a quick glance through her credits showed she had more movies to her name than I remembered. The problem was, we’d seen most of them. So what to pick? Comfort food or new directions? We sorted it out soon enough with two favorites that neither of us had seen in years.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) and A League of Their Own (1992) may not seem to have much in common, but one of the things that a lot of directors do is, they don’t stray too far out of their comfort zone. Actors that they know they can rely on, or that they know very well, tend to get used over and over again. And while she’s going to be best remembered for Big (1988), her first movie, Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) is not without its charms, as well. It’s a lot of fun to see Whoopie Goldberg being funny, back when she was, well, funny. It’s a neat and tidy “fish out of water” spy thriller that only works during the Cold War, as personal computers became more and more popular. But it’s most fun to see the rest of the cast, including Phil Hartman, John Lovitz, Jonathan Pryce, Carol Kane, Annie Potts—basically a who’s who of 1980s comedians, including a fun little cameo with Tracy Ullman and her twit of a husband, played by an uncredited Michael McKean (you know, Lenny? From Laverne & Shirley?) Marshall even drags her old man older brother Garry into the act, letting him play a bored and grizzled detective in one funny scene.

After Jumpin’ Jack Flash didn’t quite set the world on fire, Marshall directed some smaller projects, including (ahem) an episode of the Tracy Ullman Show (what are the odds?). A League of Their Own (1992) is post-Big and, I think, the better movie by a considerable margin. I won’t bore you with the capsule review; you know what this movie is about.

It’s a good vehicle for Tom Hanks, who, up until that point, hadn’t gotten to play any really unlikeable characters. And even then, he cheats it, because his take on Jimmy Dugan can’t help but be lovable in his drunken befuddlement. Of course, he manages to hold his own alongside Geena Davis (in one of her better roles), Madonna (playing a part she was actually able to pull off), Lori Petty, Rosie O’Donnell (in probably the only thing I’ve ever liked her in), and Bill Pullman in a small role.

The women in the movie are the ones who bring the funny; again we see Marshall willing to let actors try things, resulting in a lot of slice-of-life moments that feel authentic. Oh, and the little kid in the movie, Stillwell, is a little gorilloid-looking incubus that is neither cute nor appealing. The adults spend a chunk of time trying not to murder him. I really appreciated that resistance to making the kid cute.

In the case of Marshall’s go-to bunch, John Lovitz is great as the wise-cracking talent scout, Garry Marshall gets to play the league’s founder, David L. Lander (Squiggy? From Laverne & Shirley?) does an uncredited turn as the bombastic sports announcer, and hey! In the big road house dance sequence? One of the two guys dancing with Madonna? The soldier on leave—it’s Eddie Mekka, aka Carmine “The Big Ragoo” Raguso, I shit you not.

These movies at some point turned into a Where’s Waldo? game of spot-the-TV-stars for us. Both of them are a nice blast of nostalgia that’s not too clingy, but a word of warning: A League of Their Own has a nice mix of period and vintage-sounding music in it, with two exceptions: the opening song, sung by Carol King, is legitimately god-awful, and the song played over the end credits, sung by Madonna, is inarguably the worst thing she ever did. You have been warned.