Here’s aother Thanksgiving movie post for everyone looking for a movie weekend! After Planes, trains, and automobiles, I wrote for Law & Liberty about Scent of a woman:
Al Pacino won his Oscar for Scent of a Woman, Martin Brest’s 1992 adaptation of an Italian story, The Dark and the Honey, first adapted in Italy in 1974 by Dino Risi, whence Brest got his title. The movie, now 30 years old, is worth remembering. Aside from Pacino, it received three other major Oscar nominations, Best Picture, Best Director, & Best Screenplay, & it grossed more than $130 million worldwide. It was one of the decade’s most memorable portrayals of personal integrity & its connection to a kind of moral innocence.
Pacino plays Lt. Col. Frank Slade, US Army, retired, a manly man who prepares prep school student Charlie Simms, played by the “aw shucks” Chris O’Donnell, to become spirited, the quality most needful in a time when the young have lost confidence in their future. & he does it over the Thanksgiving Day weekend by taking him from New Hampshire to Manhattan, a necessary adventure for the boy, & one which proves lifesaving for the man.
Charlie is a West Coast kid from small-town Oregon &, at seventeen, he has to deal with the pride & wealth of the East Coast elite WASPs, a social class that ran much of America’s institutions in the 20th century but had decayed by the 90s. He is bashful where his colleagues are brash, confident, sarcastic, snobbish—in fact, he seems hardly able to say or do anything.
I hope you’ve had a joyous day of celebration & that the weekend will be alike!
Thanks for these excellent recommendations Titus! Hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the Happiest of Holidays!