Between the Lines

Between the Lines, and it's pleasant. BtL is one of those ensemble, renegade, rage-against-the-machine flicks that have always been with us, but were completely at home in Post-Watergate Land.

All I remember is that I enjoyed the actors (and if you look at the cast, it's an A-Team of talent), that Lindsey Crouse was really cute, and Jeff Goldblum insults some corporate suit or sell-out or whatever with "You pernicious eel-sh**!"

You can tell that Between the Lines didn't make much of a splash because--not counting mine--when I wrote this review, there were nine others.

I saw the movie, I think, on HBO in something like 1978 or 1979, right about the time FM came out. FM was another ensemble, renegade ratm flick, but with great music, and it was really dumb.

I don't remember Between the Lines being stupid. Unfortunately, I just watched it again on TUBI, and, although the movie isn't dumb, it's bland and predictable, an WKRP in Cinncinati kind of mish-mash of actors who have gotten old and, for the guys, bald.

I looked up Lindsey Crouse, and she has aged well. I think the last time I saw her on anything was Law and Order: SVU back in 2000. Jeff Goldblum looks like Jeff Goldblum, only with a shock of white hair. Steven Elliot did something somewhere that got him "canceled." If I'm wrong, I apologize.

John Heard died. The Venus Flytrap character was Joe Morton, and you'll remember him as the black scientist/voice of reason in Eureka. Michael J. Pollard? Passed away? Bruno Kirby? Don't know. Gwen Welles?

As you can see, Between the Lines was oozing with talent, the sort of movie that puts some oomph in an actor's resume.

I still like the movie. It's on TUBI. TUBI's free. You can afford to blow 100 minutes on a snapshot of what raging against the machine looked like in 1977.

You know what happens when you bite into unripe fruit. It is not sweet or juicy; but it is a bit sour. The same is true for this film. Most of the actors in this ensemble went on to much better roles later in their careers, but not the director or writer. That is because several of these actors had talent. But at the stage most of these actors were at when this film was made, most of them were still unpolished, unripe fruit.

Goldblum is good. Heard is interesting, but Crouse was still very raw; and would not peak until House of Games. Worth viewing only to see the development of these kid actors at a very early stage. An interesting side note for this film is the story of Bruno Kirby. He had a very good role in Godfather 2, which was a good three years before this piece of fluff was made. He actually looks younger in this film. Marylou Henner went on to do Taxi in 1978, and she was much sexier and funnier by that time. Sometimes, it takes time for fruit to ripen.

Standard ensemble dramedy about 60's "youth quake" hippies running a radical paper, trying to maintain their anti-establishment values in the face of encroaching corporate greed, with all the joys and conflicts inherent in the enterprise. Good performance from lotsa youngish stars that continued to deliver for years, Jeff Goldblum even today.

Standard.

The twenty-something staff of the erstwhile quite radical newspaper "Mainline" are struggling to keep their work relevant as the 1970s give way to the 1980s. I don't know if anyone remembers a television drama called the "Paper Chase" (1973) but a lot of the style and characterisations of that film are reminiscent here. Young people trying to make their own way, defiantly trying to hold on to values and commitments that may be largely on the wain. The thing with this, for me anyway, was I found them all rather shallow and selfish. The combination of their working and social lives are presented in a fashion that is very, very, verbose. Why use one word when you can use eight? As the story drifts along, I felt less and less interested in the characters and their semi-comic antics and started to notice silly continuity errors - that wouldn't ordinarily matter - and to focus more on the tangential aspects of the film - the big collars, bell-bottom jeans - all the things I used to remember from "Starsky and Hutch". Maybe the fact that I'm not an American means that this Bostonian story of intellectual maturity and liberating camaraderie doesn't resonate in the same way - because I found this all rather dull. Will their newspaper be subsumed into a bigger, commercial, enterprise? Well at the start I hoped not, but by the middle I was indifferent.

Joan Micklin Silver's ensemble masterpiece is watchable again and again! This is one of those rare films for which we can name 10 cast members. It captures the fading press counterculture of the late 60's and 70's in a memorable way. If you see it more than a few times, you will enjoy blurting out lines of dialog right before they are spoken... i.e. "some say 'whither rock 'n roll?...not at my house--I don't have the room" from Jeff Goldblum.

I'll wait a year or two, then watch it again. It's a 'cult' movie--at least with some friends I know-- along the lines of "Head Over Heels" a.k.a. "Chilly Scenes of Winter" another gem from Joan Micklin Silver.