Anatomy Of A Voice Cameo: Robert Redford In White House Plumbers

One of the best elements of the highly entertaining HBO mini-series, White House Plumbers, about the bumbling team of ex-CIA and FBO operatives who broke into Watergate in 1972, is its strong cast.

Headed by Woody Harrelson, and Justin Theroux as Richard M. Nixon’s political fixers Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy; the five episode run, which premiered in May of this year, also features fine supporting efforts from Lena Headey, Judy Greer, Domhnal Gleeson, and Katherine Turner. 

But a surprise casting choice came in episode 4, “The Writer’s Wife,” from Robert Redford reprising, or literally phoning in his famous role as Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward from Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 classic, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN.

Sure, it’s an uncredited voice-only appearance, and it’s only a few lines, but its notable because they didn’t just use the audio from the 47-year old film, Redford newly recorded his end of a phone call with Harrelson’s Howard Hunt with a little change in the dialogue. So let’s compare the scenes side-by-side.

 

In ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, Redford’s Woodward tries to reach Hunt first at the White House, then the Mullen public relations firm, where he is surprised to hear Hunt pick up. In White House Plumbers, Hunt receives the call at home.

Agitated, as he was before he ever got on the phone, Hunt replies:

This is the line that’s a bit different, as it originally went like this:

 

And this is how it goes down this time around:

The difference being that White House Plumbers got Woodward’s question to be more accurate - the crucial evidence of the envelope with Hunt’s name on it doesn’t appear in the 1976 film. Also Redford says “The Watergate” unlike the earlier take. Next, we see a shot of Woodward’s yellow legal pad where he notes Hunt’s reaction.

Hunt’s comment is exactly the same in both versions:

And from Redford/Woodward’s end:

Hunt hangs up, and the cameo is done. Halfway through putting together this post, I found that someone had done a mash-up combining the scenes on YouTube - something I should’ve figured someone would do. I’ll leave you with it what one commenter calls, and I agree, an awesome Easter egg:

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A Drunk Emily Blunt Is THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, A Poor Man’s GONE GIRL

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

(Dir. Tate Taylor, 2016)

The set-up for this thriller based on Paula Hawkins’ 2012 British bestselling novel is sublimely simple. A young woman named Rachel, played by Emily Blunt, daydreams about the seemingly perfect life of a couple she’s never met that she watches from the window of her train on her daily commute to and from New York City.

We learn from her voice-over that Rachel used be married and lived a few houses down from the couple, but because of her raging alcoholism and inability to have a baby, her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) left her for another woman.

It starts getting complicated when we meet Megan and Anna, who, like Rachel, have their own voice-over narrations and chapter headings. Megan (Haley Bennett) is the woman of the couple Rachel has been watching, who just happens to be the nanny for Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), the woman that Rachel’s husband left her for, and they now live in the house that Rachel used to live in with Tom.

On one fateful train ride, Rachel sees Megan kissing a man who’s not her husband on the porch of her home and it shatters Rachel’s world. Rachel gets even drunker than usual, which isn’t difficult because she carries around a Camelback thermos filled with vodka, and she gets off at the stop near the couple’s house and her old home. Rachel sees a blonde woman walking that she thinks is Anna (Megan and Anna resemble each other from a distance because of their long blonde hair) and she yells “slut!” at her and follows her into a pedestrian tunnel.

What happens next is the movie’s mystery as Rachel blacks out, and when she comes to back at her apartment the next morning, she’s covered in blood and has no memory as to what happened.

Turns out Megan has gone missing and Rachel is a suspect in her disappearance as she gathers from the Detective, played by a smirking, skeptical Allison Janney, who comes to question her.

Rachel becomes obsessed with what happened that night, and contacts Megan’s distraught husband Scott (Luke Evans) to tell him that she saw his wife with another man. That other man is revealed to be Megan’s therapist, Dr. Kamal Abdic (Édgar Ramírez), who we see Megan trying to seduce in flashbacks.

The book was called “this year’s ‘Gone Girl’ by many critics, but the movie doesn’t have it in it to make the stylish statement that the movie adaptation GONE GIRL made so superbly. In over words, Tate Taylor is no David Fincher. The film is a poor man's GONE GIRL at best.

Yet, that’s not to say there isn’t style here, and there’s an unnerving tone present that underscores much of the film’s jittery energy. Much of it largely helped into shape by Blunt’s frazzled performance of the heartbroken mess that is Rachel, who spends the movie covered in layers of heavy, grey winter clothing (this helped to hide Blunt’s pregnancy during filming). Despite what we learn of Rachel’s past, and what we see of her questionable present, it’s hard not to feel for the woman, and hope she’s not guilty of murder.

As for the other woman, Bennett, who also appears in this season’s THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN re-imagining, makes an picturesque impression as the beautiful woman that you know doesn’t feel beautiful on the inside, while Ferguson is the most unattended to character here.

Unfortunately, the fluidity of the film’s first three thirds is replaced by a more routine and predictable wrap up, which we have to get through some blatant red herrings to get to.

Taylor, working from a screenplay adaptation of Hawkins’ book (which I haven’t read) by Erin Cressida Wilson (SECRETARY – yay!, MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN – boo!), has crafted a film that has the look and feel of a sophisticated, psychological thriller, but underneath lies a lot of familiar conventions, and tropes that Hitchcock, as well as devotees like De Palma have worn to death long ago.

The premise of not being able to trust yourself, or having trusted others too much is a compelling one, especially within a murder mystery in which one doesn’t know if they’re the murderer or not, but despite some intense imagery, and the somewhat intriguing inner monologues, I bet this material had a lot more impact on the page.

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WANDERLUST: The Film Babble Blog Review

WANDERLUST (Dir. David Wain, 2012)

There are a number of funny moments in David Wain’s WANDERLUST, the newest production off the Judd Apatow assembly line, but they don’t add up to a funny movie.

It’s a real shame because it has a couple of likable leads who have good chemistry together (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston who have worked together on Friends and the 1998 movie THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION) heading a solid comic cast in a premise with possibilities.

The premise: married yuppies Rudd and Aniston decide to ditch the rat race and live in a commune (sorry - “intentional community” as hippie commune leader Justin Theroux calls it) after their careers bottom out.

But how much free love, drugs, and door-less bathroom humor can a person take?

Well, with the gross-out nature of this weak material, I quickly found my limit.

The reason as to why Rudd and Aniston were charmed by this lifestyle and not creeped out by it escapes me.

They are welcomed into the makeshift village by nudist/aspiring novelist Joe Lo Truglio, the unctuous bearded Theroux who hits on Aniston immediately, a blonde nymph (Malin Åkerman) who will obviously be Rudd’s object of lust, and a befuddled Alan Alda as the commune’s original founder.

With its mini-reunion of members of the ‘90s sketch comedy troop The State (along with Lo Truglio, the film’s co-writer Ken Marino, and Kerri Kenney Silver, there are cameos appearances by Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and Wain as local news anchors) WANDERLUST plays like a misguided mash-up of WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER and LOST IN AMERICA, but it has neither of those film’s comedic visions.

The succession of one cheap weak gag after another really wore me down. With this many talented funny folks and this many attempts at provoking belly-laughs, there can’t help but be some chuckles, yet I can’t remember a single witty line or instance of hilarity (a bit with Rudd giving himself a sexual pep-talk in a bathroom mirror comes close though).

However, I can remember a slow motion shot of flabby full frontal nudity rushing the camera - so I can’t say this is a completely forgettable film. As much as I’d like to.

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