120% effort with love

FILMWORKER (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If I could spend the rest of my life watching actors, associates, personal assistants and writers talk about working with one of the few masters (or taskmasters to some) of cinema, Stanley Kubrick, I would be more than satisfied. Kubrick was not just any movie director, he held the medium in high esteem, cultivating it for the maximum potential best he could get out of it. "Filmworker" is about Leon Vitali, a notable presence in any Kubrick film after his stellar performance in "Barry Lyndon," who devoted his life to do anything he could to uphold Kubrick's vision. It is a tremendous accomplishment and one that finally gets the attention Leon deserves.

Leon Vitali first came to prominence as an actor in various British TV dramas and movies. When he landed the role of Barry Lyndon's angry stepson Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," Vitali's acting career could've skyrocketed. Perhaps that was the perception by the media and the Hollywood industry yet Vitali had other ideas - he wanted to work behind-the-scenes for Kubrick. Vitali became the personal assistant to the perfectionist director, keeping a close eye (along with the director) on film prints from the labs, color correction and timing of prints, overseeing film trailers and packaging of home video from around the world, sending memos to actors who have been reassigned to different roles, and so on. Everyone was scared of Kubrick and had faced intense pressure on the set of all of his films ("Full Metal Jacket" was apparently a tougher film to work than most). Leon seemed to be the one who could face ungodly, 24 hour pressure without losing his own temper - the stress might have killed Leon but he loved Stanley as a friend and perhaps that is what carried him through. Clearly more than just an assistant - he was a "filmworker." That and he also helped with menial, non-film related tasks such as cleaning rooms at the Kubrick Estate or keeping track of the cat compound!

"Filmworker" is smoothly edited and structured by director Tony Zierra, establishing an intimate rhythm with Leon Vitali's skills as a storyteller - most of this documentary focuses on him and Leon's tremendous presence and lion-like voice keeps interest afloat. Though the film shies away a bit from Leon's life as a family man and those lengthy periods where Kubrick was not shooting a movie (though Leon was involved in other jobs such as locating all known Kubrick film prints and categorizing production details on the never-filmed "Wartime Lies"), it is established that his rigid work ethic was his life. "Filmworker" is also about a devoted friendship and loyalty between two hard-working men who did their best to make sure that the artistic vision remained true to the artist. It was not just giving 110% - it was giving 120% effort with love. And the cat compound.

Why can't you say I look nice?

LADY BIRD (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Lady Bird" is an example of a near-great film that could've been expanded and fleshed out closer to a 2 hour feature than the 1 hour and thirty-five minutes we get. But why carp when you got redhead Saoirse Ronan as a misunderstood Catholic schoolgirl who can't seem to find her footing in her world - her character is one of the more unforgettable teenagers we have seen in movies in a while.

Saoirse Ronan dominates every second of "Lady Bird" as Christine McPherson, a Sacramento teen who expresses doubt about most everything, and it is implied that she has doubts about God. She centers most of her doubt on her domineering mother who works double shifts as a nurse, Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf), and who is so bluntly honest that she tells Christine she will never make it to any Ivy League school because, well, she is not smart enough. Christine's rebelliousness extends mostly to her moniker - she prefers everyone call her Lady Bird. She is very close to her unemployed father (Tracy Letts) - they have their secrets such as when he helps his daughter with college applications. Lady Bird spends most of her time smoking in bathrooms, performing pranks on nuns, and has a keen interest in a charmless, humorless musician (Timothée Chalamet) who would rather go to clubs than the prom. Ladybird's best friend is Julie (Beanie Feldstein) but eventually, and regrettably, she avoids Julie for the "Heathers"-like crowd of sexually active girls who speak of their sexuality openly. What draws Ladybird to this crowd is hard to say except she is still trying to find her own place.

I cannot dispense with enough positive praise about Saoirse Ronan (who was truly divine in the excellent 2015 drama "Brooklyn") - she not only embodies Christine, she gives her soul, panache, humor, an air of vulnerability and sometimes she is not easy to warm up to. Christine is only human and wishes for acceptance and some measure of approval yet getting it from her aloof mother (who proves *SPOILER ALERT* otherwise in one stunning scene) is a heavy, laborious task. But it is also Lady Bird's ability to be compassionate and accepting of others (even someone like the loser musician, or the theatre actor who turns out to be gay) that gives her character humanity. As I said years ago about another talented actress, Jennifer Lawrence, Ronan will be one of the greats if she is choosy with her projects. After "Brooklyn" and "Lady Bird," expect my optimism to be a reality.

I am just as doubly excited by Laurie Metcalf as Lady Bird's mother, Marion - it is a tricky role yet she is able to convey her own doubts about her daughter. You sense that she loves Lady Bird yet she doesn't want to see her get hurt - perhaps Marion had many more obstacles and imagined her life would work out differently. Either way, one of Metcalf's final scenes will leave you weeping.

"Lady Bird" is a coming-of-age comedy/drama yet it is adult in its reflective look at teenagers who are anxious about their next stage of development and tough-loving mothers who want the best for their children. Director Greta Gerwig ("Nights and Weekends") bestows an immediacy, a quirkiness and an intimacy rarely seen in most films. I have a feeling that if Gerwig and Ronan make another picture together, it will be every bit as good as "Lady Bird." 

Movies and friendships, those are mysteries

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I first heard about "The Other Side of the Wind" back in 1996 when I read film critic and scholar Joseph McBride's fascinating book entitled rather appropriately, "Orson Welles." The film in question, an unfinished marvel and frustrating film-within-a-film-within-a-film was deeply surprising and confounding to read about and the most famous unseen film with a galactic cast. How could a major film by Welles starring John Huston in the lead role of a movie maverick of a director ("The Ernest Hemingway of cinema") not get proper financing from a Hollywood studio? Welles's notorious reputation, of course, was the answer - he was not trusted to direct films, only act in them. "I am subsidizing myself, in other words, I am crazy," Welles once said at the 1975 AFI film awards show that honored him. So, after more than forty years of seeking completion funds to edit and release "The Other Side of the Wind" first thru Welles and then after his death, through fellow director and actor Peter Bogdanovich and McBride and the late cinematographer Gary Graver, Netflix (that streaming giant) bought the rights to the film, had it finished and edited according to Welles' copious notes. Here we are with my review for a film I never expected would see the light of day. How is the film? It is a sensational, purposely messy, purposely confounding, unsettling and often mesmerizing work - perhaps Welles' most unusual film and one not likely to find mass appeal...at all. I am not putting that lightly because the film has a drunken, pot-hazing stupor about it - like a late-night boozy party where everyone who is everyone is discussing filmmaking and slowly finding out who their real friends are.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is mostly confined to the late-night birthday party for Jake Hannaford (John Huston), the wise, safari-shirt-wearing film director who is broke and hopes his budding friend, a hotshot film director named Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), can get a young studio boss (Geoffrey Land) to finish financing his work. Sound familiar? Of course anyone who has read about the titan of cinema, Orson Welles, knows he had a bad habit of not finishing some of his films, for one reason or another. Bogdanovich himself was a fan and friend of Orson's and it is mentioned in Josh Karp's wonderfully entertaining and distressing book, "The Making of The Other Side of the Wind: Orson Welles's Last Movie" that Orson had hoped for Peter's circle of Hollywood elitists to help with financing (this was not to be).

At this same party, we are introduced to the nosy, Pauline Kael-type film critic Juliette Riche (Susan Strasberg); an ex-alcoholic stooge of Hannaford's who has some history with him (Norman Foster), who's always eating gum drops so he won't drink; a striking Lilli Palmer as Zarah Valeska, an actress who had appeared in Hannaford's work and declares she never slept with the legend; Edmund O'Brien as another stooge and former actor of Hannaford's who uses the megaphone to announce screenings of the director's incomplete footage; Joseph McBride as Marvin Pister, the nervously awkward film critic who asks seriously misguided questions like if the camera is a phallus (what on Earth could that mean?), not to mention Mercedes McCambridge as Jake's secretary who tries her best to shield cameras away from Jake's private conversations, and actual film directors like Paul Mazursky and Henry Jaglom pretty much playing themselves. At this party, the young cineastes ask ridiculous questions to Hannaford and his "Mafia" stooges, or are overheard saying such incomprehensible remarks like, "He can make a bad film look atrocious." No doubt that Welles is poking fun at people who overanalyze a film director's work.

There is also curious, electrifying footage of Jake Hannaford's incomplete movie called "The Other Side of the Wind" with Oja Kodar consistently nude as a Native American wearing various beaded necklaces and carrying dolls with her who is either being pursued or actively pursuing a young man on a motorcycle (Bob Random, playing an actor named John Dale who split thus leaving Jake's film unfinished). Both actors never say one word throughout the film-within-the-film or when they appear as the actors at Hannaford's party.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is a powderkeg of a cinematic punch to the gut (excitingly and daringly edited with a great deal of cross-cutting, some by Welles and most by Bob Murawski, complemented with a jazzy score by Michel Legrand) and it is worth seeing for anyone who calls themselves a movie buff. For average audiences, the historic value of a 40-year-old movie may be all they see and may reject it on that basis (Social Justice Warriors have already decried the racial slurs and how women are objectified despite missing the satire of it all. We were living in an age of Existentialism, followed by Irony, then back to Existentialism to some extent post 9/11, to an age of Meta Nothingness where satire seems to have no place). This film should be a major event and will most likely be forgotten except by select movie fans and Wellesian completists. Shameful because Welles has made an autobiographical, deeply personal film about his love/hate relationship with Hollywood, the industry that shunned him after he made "Citizen Kane." As the 1970's approached, he was loved by the college crowd perhaps but he was not making the films that the new generation of Movie Brats were making (Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, Friedkin, Hopper to name but a few). Neither is Jake Hannaford, hence the tantalizing, sexually charged film he is making that is meant to either be a spoof of director Michelangelo Antonioni (who helmed "Zabriskie Point" back in the 70's) or youthful, rebellious pictures full of sex and violence that meant little or both.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is full of aloof, drunken regret encapsulated by John Huston's richly layered performance (only one of two lead roles Huston ever played). Any scene with Huston is remarkable due to his nuanced, detailed, often drunken expressions with the voice of a cigar-chomping God of Film - when has Huston ever been boring on screen really? Bogdanovich's Otterlake does his best to help Jake, just as Bogdanovich did with Welles. But the pervasive feeling in "The Other Side of the Wind" is that old Hollywood never catered to artists with knowing, admitted self-expression - they wanted directors-for-hire who knew how to complete a film on time and on budget and could make a killing at the box-office. Art existed only to serve commercial prospects in the studio-run Hollywood of the 1970s. That is Otterlake in a nutshell, as it was with Bogdanovich who later suffered the same fate as many of the Movie Brats at that time - box-office failures and fewer pictures to direct. It is only fitting that an older Bogdanovich narrates the opening scenes - he could best understand now what Welles and Jake were dealing with. 

Lycanthropy run amuck in bloody, noisy remake

THE WOLFMAN (2010)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is high time that someone revisited the doomed Laurence Talbot of the Universal Horror movie series. Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.), of course, was bitten by a werewolf and then becomes one, though he is suffering and wishes for it to go away. That was the principal plot behind the original 1941 classic "The Wolf Man," which also contained the always staggering presence of Claude Rains as Larry Talbot's father. The film had simplicity and was always too short for its own sake but it delivered the chills and an amazingly emotional finish. This 2010 version is longer, bloodier yet far less chilling and Benicio Del Toro's Larry Talbot is harder to sympathize with.

Larry Talbot is now some Shakespearean actor who has returned to the Talbot Estate after his brother has disappeared when, in actuality, he was savagely mutilated by a wolf. Well, we know this was a werewolf who did the mutilation. After some business involving the gypsies (there is a Maria Ouspenskaya-type character played all too briefly by Geraldine Chaplin), Talbot is bitten by a werewolf and, of course, slowly but surely becomes one. He becomes one rather expeditiously, almost too quickly (reportedly, in the uncut version, the transformation scene happens even sooner!) The werewolf appears and bites and kills innocent people. Del Toro is often seen in a reflective, angry pose, and then there is Anthony Hopkins as Talbot's largely unsympathetic, callous father who clearly has one too many skeletons in his closet. Who was that initial werewolf causing so much brutality? I dare not say but I am sure you will figure it out.

Most of "The Wolfman" is atmospheric and pretty to look at (how can it not be with the moors and the countryside all usually lit by moonlight) yet it can't compete with the black-and-white foggy landscapes of the original. The film tries too hard to be the Coppola version of "The Wolfman" (that is, Coppola's lavish "Dracula" from 1992) replete with grimly blood-soaked flashbacks and flashcuts that have already proven to be tedious in most horror films for the last decade. Danny Elfman's music score has flashes of Wojciech Kilar's amazingly thunderous score from Coppola's "Dracula" but the movie can never reach the heights of that heightened romantic horror tale. Everything in "The Wolfman" is a flash of something you have seen before and better (though, to be fair, the screenplay has more of a backstory involving Talbot's mother but none of it is seems to strike much of a chord). With a dull, indifferent leading man and a dull, indifferent father figure and only a small handful of chilling moments (the transformation scene is a keeper, despite CGI use), the movie is cut too together too quickly and abruptly - restless without any true momentum. Only Emily Blunt as Gwen (played in the original by Evelyn Ankers), the fiancee of Larry's brother, exudes some measure of emotion that resonates, especially in a tender final scene between her and the werewolf. You are not likely to howl at the moon after seeing this noisy, mediocre movie - you are more likely to look at it with indifference.

Trivial Battle of the Sexes

THE COMPETITION (2018)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Thora Birch is an actress with a rosy exterior yet her interior suggests less than rosy intentions. Here she plays a formula-devising scientist who has figured out a formula for men she temporarily dates - they will inevitably cheat within a 6-month period. It is actually a decent premise for yet another romantic comedy and Birch has the potential to deliver. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Kelsey Tucker is saddled with extraneous characters and a leading man who can suggest something less innocent than a rose, Chris Klein.

The formula, known as the PIG theory concocted by Lauren (Birch) on her popular blog, clearly suggests that no man is beyond cheating and that her theory is always correct. When she is on board a cargo plane with her boyfriend before he skydives, she exclaims, "We are breaking up!" Of course, we think this guy cheated on her hence why she ends the relationship. Then there is the initial encounter with Calvin (Chris Klein) who works at a law firm and, oh guess what, his boss is Lauren's sister! But this encounter is hardly accidental. Lauren's sister , Gena (Claire Coffee), for reasons only known to her, wants Lauren to quit her PIG blog and become less cynical and get married and settle down, or something like that (Gena doesn't seem to be involved with any man either). The only catch is that Calvin has to get Lauren to give up her cynical, misandrist blog, thus ensuring that his future as partner in the law firm is assured.

If "The Competition" ran along those lines, it may have sneaked past the shopworn cliches as a quirky romantic comedy of manners. There is potential there with Birch's Lauren trying to be convinced that not all men are, well, pigs. It could've been spirited fun seeing Klein's Calvin persuading her with endless attempts to prove that he is not like others. The initial premise is immediately shuffled aside when Calvin reveals the plot I just described to Lauren in the first 15 minutes! Calvin gets the bright idea that there should be a competition among his and Lauren's friends. If any of his male friends are tempted by another woman and act on it, he loses. If not, she loses and gives up the blog. There is much less urgency and tension when the movie is reduced to a few tedious set pieces that do not wring much in the way of laughs or romance, or shall I say any anti-romantic angles.

Chris Klein is somehow miscast though he works well with Birch, the latter who is capable of working up sparks with any leading man. My issue with Klein ever since his "America Pie" days is that he always suggest a demeanor of a calculating, smooth operator, and not some sensitive "I am not like other guys" attitude. Calvin's friends are virtually anonymous and free of any real passing interest. The women that Lauren approves of wooing Calvin's friends are mostly strippers (hmmm, what is the message here?) We also get an unnecessary subplot about Lauren's mother marrying a younger Latino man, and far too much time spent on Calvin's friendly (and married) female associate that involves flinging breast milk!

Thora Birch does work a few wonders with her Lauren character, though at times her role is left out of the story. When we get too many scenes of Calvin's group of non-idiosyncratic friends, I lost interest. "The Competition" is adequate time-filler (based on a short film called "The PIG Theory", also written by Kelsey Tucker) but it could have mined its initial premise for something more than a cheating contest. A battle of wills carries more urgency. 

A World of Zero Charisma

SUSPECT ZERO (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Viewed on August 27th, 2004

"Suspect Zero" is one of the most nonsensical and implausible thrillers I've seen in a long time. Actually, its plausibility is so dependent on obscure plot twists that human characters are at about the level of human waste.

Aaron Eckhart (who could certainly play a 1930's Indiana Jones, if anyone is interested) is the latest FBI agent in the movies, albeit one with problems in his career past. His name is Thomas Mackelway, who proves to be a loose cannon when we see him beat the living daylights out of a suspected killer before arresting him. Due to such unprofessional conduct, Mackelway is demoted to an Albuquerque, N.M. office, and his first case is a murder that occurs on the state line between Arizona and New Mexico. The murder victim is a traveling salesman found with his eye lids removed. Other murders begin taking place, including the killer that Mackelway tried to arrest. And he starts receiving faxes from someone who may be the killer, or not. His former partner, Fran
(Carrie-Anne Moss), tries to help him on this case, and to make sense of the endless faxes of missing persons. They are from a former FBI agent, Benjamin O'Ryan (Ben Kingsley), who has a telepathic ability, with the use of GPS coordinates, to find serial killers. In fact, Benjamin may be killing serial
killers. Or is Benjamin the killer himself who enjoys leaving clues for our less than stalwart G-man?

"Suspect Zero" is the kind of thriller where Dutch angles, grainy film stock, intense, sweaty close-ups and a murmuring soundtrack give the semblance of a moody thriller. Sometimes, the conceit works. Here, the story is impossible to follow thanks to a dozen loopholes and plot holes. For example, how on earth can GPS help Benjamin locate a killer? The movie shows that Benjamin's own FBI
training came from a secret government project ("Project Icarus") where telepathy was the main course of action to find serial killers. That's fine, but how does one develop telepathic capabilities where they see crimson-colored images of crimes that are about to happen? Is he more clairvoyant than telepathic? And how come Mackelway has the same ability? And does Benjamin's
ability extend to people related to a murder case, not just the killer(s)? And what's with the constant migraines? And how come Fran refers to paintings of Jesus as the work of a freak?

The problem is "Suspect Zero" develops next to zilch in terms of characters and a story worth caring about. As played by Eckhart, Mackelway comes across as indifferent and apathetic. Since he is the main protagonist, we are left wondering why his only noticeable trait is that he takes a mouthful of aspirin before his day begins. His relationship with Fran does have one touching moment
that is squandered by the actor's indifference. At least Carrie-Anne Moss is a unique actress who can project vulnerability in spades, so much that we wish she was the protagonist and Eckhart was second fiddle. As for Ben Kingsley, he seems to have taken part in an extended cameo where he mostly sweats, jots down numbers, and is concentrating deeply on something. He does have one humorous moment where he sees a truck and says, "I wonder what is inside that truck."

Director E. Elias Merhige ("Shadow of a Vampire") believes frenetic, gory, fulsome imagery in quick flashes is a substitute for suspense. It could have been with empathetic characters and a fleshed-out story, but the people in this movie live in a world of zero charisma.

Interview with Rutanya Alda: Championing the 95%

INTERVIEW WITH RUTANYA ALDA: 

CHAMPIONING THE 95%

By Jerry Saravia
Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Poster for 1968's Greetings

Most actors start their careers in grade Z garbage, either some exploitation film or a demented slasher flick or a silly monster movie. Helen Mirren's inauspicious beginnings were in the catastrophically bad "Caligula," a minor example. Jennifer Aniston began life in the horrendous 1993 horror film "Leprechaun." Latvian-born Rutanya Alda had one of the luckiest acting debuts of all time, in none other than Brian De Palma's 1968 cult classic, "Greetings." To follow that role with "Hi, Mom!," another De Palma film and one of the finest sequels ever made, and then a long list that includes "Scarecrow," "The Long Goodbye," "The Fury," "Rocky II," "Black Widow," "Amityville II: The Possession," "When a Stranger Calls," "The Dark Half," "The Deer Hunter," "Mommie Dearest" and many more proves that she is one of the finest character actresses, period. A 50-year-career that includes over a hundred roles in television and film is nothing to sneeze at. As Rutanya points out, no matter how many roles you get, there is still concern when you are not a superstar of Angelina Jolie's status who represent the 1% who never worry about their next acting gig. "We are the 95% who struggle, who worry when they will get their next job."

The De Palma origins remain fascinating for a director whose specialty became Hitchcockian thrillers. "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!" are counter-cultural late 60's satires that touch on everything from racism to porn to politics and even the Kennedy assassination! Rutanya counts both De Palma films as her "favorite film experiences." As for "Greetings," she states: "I had a really funny strip scene with Robert De Niro. Audiences always laugh at the scene. I am also on the poster for the film."

Following "Greetings" came the 1970 sequel, one of the greatest, shrewdest and funniest satires ever made, "Hi, Mom!" Rutanya had a memorable appearance in De Palma's "Hi, Mom!" as a member of a group of WASP's who enter a so-called theatre production of "Be Black Baby" - it is one of the more surprising, illuminating scenes about race ever. "It was gut-wrenching and powerful," says Rutanya. "It was a one-take scene, full of Brian De Palma's humor. All the dialogue was improvised - there was no script. Same with 'Greetings'." The controversial scene caused audience walkouts when she saw it a L.A. screening a few years back. "A woman was crying in the bathroom," explains Rutanya. "When I came up to her, I explained that the scene was not real, and I was not really raped. The woman screamed, 'It was real to ME!' I told her it was real to me too."

Rutanya Alda (right) in The Deer Hunter

Long before Oliver Stone's "JFK" arrived on the scene, there was a 1973 film called "Executive Action" where Rutanya was cast as a member of an assassination team. "The film opened and died at the box-office," explains Rutanya although she has no idea why the film didn't make it (according to imdb, the film was pulled because it was the cause of too much bad press). "The filmmakers were nervous throughout the two-week shoot. Everything was hush-hush, and a lot of the shooting locations were last-minute." [Footnote: Rutanya had been offered a role in Sidney Lumet's "Serpico" but she had to back out since she was filming "Executive Action" at the time.] Robert Altman, one of the premier iconoclasts of the 1970's and beyond, cast Rutanya in "The Long Goodbye." In the film she played one of Marlowe's neighbors (character's name is Rutanya Sweet, Altman's idea) and, though it is not shown in close-up, she shows some skin to say the least (not unlike her role in "Greetings".) "I had worked on the whole shoot," says Rutanya. "I was asked to stand in for Nina Van Pallandt" (Pallandt played the lead role of the wife of Sterling Hayden's character, Roger Wade).

One of Rutanya's first jobs when she moved to L.A. was in an episode of TV's "Cannon" entitled "Perfect Alibi," where she played a grieving widow, Mrs. Degan. The memories of working with William Conrad, who of course played Cannon, were a bit unusual. "You don't look at William Conrad, and he does not look at you. It was a rule," said Rutanya. "He was an odd duck."

Rutanya Alda (right) in Mommie Dearest

I did express curiosity about Rutanya's highly restrained performance in "Mommie Dearest," playing such a passive maid to Faye Dunaway's high-strung, explosive Joan Crawford, whereas in "Amityville II: The Possession" Rutanya played a highly emotional woman married to that abusive lout of a husband (Burt Young). I had asked about her preference when it comes to acting, raising it a notch or two or dialing it down. "It depends on what the script calls for. It is the job of an actor to justify the reactions of the characters," said Rutanya. "For 'Amityville II', director Damiano Damiani addresses the psychological terror of a family that is very dysfunctional. Even with 'Mommie Dearest', the input is on the actor." As for Diane Franklin's emotionally disturbing role as the daughter to Rutanya's mother character in the haunted house sequel, I had wondered if Diane clinged to her. "Diane was the most inexperienced of the cast yet she was wonderful," said Rutanya. "Damiano was on hand to help her emotionally."

I had not been aware until very recently that Rutanya was married to one of the grittiest character actors with the raspiest of voices of all time, the late Richard Bright. Being an actor married to an actor can result in petty jealousies and messy divorces, especially in Hollywood. "It was very tough," said Rutanya. "Two people have the same concerns and it is tough to be creative all the time. The best match for a couple is to marry someone who is not in the same business. It was fun to work on some of the same projects [1994's 'The Ref' was one of those projects as well as 1983's "Vigilante" with Robert Forster], though we did not share any scenes together. If you are committed actors in a couples' situation, you respect the same insecurities, fears and anxieties."

Lastly, I had to ask about Rutanya's small role as a museum curator in Bob Rafelson's 1987 suspense thriller "Black Widow" with Debra Winger and Theresa Russell (Rutanya considered Theresa a "doll to work with.") Aside from Winger's troubling relationship with Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment," I had wondered what was the experience of working with the notoriously difficult Debra Winger. "I saw Debra at an Academy luncheon at the 21 club. An academy member said,  'Look there's Debra Winger, didn't you work with her?'  Yes, I said. The member then said, 'Dont you want to go say hi to her.' No, I said. I think that says it all. I didn't need to elaborate then and I don't need to elaborate now. Shirley said it...that's all."

Be sure to read Rutanya's memoir of making "Mommie Dearest" at