A 19th-Century Forrest Gump

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"I was an honored guest so they gave me a special treat: boiled dog. Now I will admit, dog is greasy, but you'd be surprised how downright delicate the flavor is — especially when you're starving."

Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman)

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The last time I watched Arthur Penn's "Little Big Man" — which premiered on this day in 1970 — it occurred to me that Little Big Man (Dustin Hoffman) was the 19th–century version of Forrest Gump.

He was always where big things were happening in the West — just like Forrest Gump kept showing up at the White House ... after he showed up on the infamous occasion when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door in an attempt to block the integration of the University of Alabama.

Forrest Gump was always rubbing elbows with the big names of 20th–century history, with presidents and would–be presidents, often in the news footage of the day. Little Big Man wasn't around too many big names. He was almost always around the practically anonymous Indians who tried without success to resist the invasion of the white Europeans.

The only big name I can think of who encountered Little Big Man was Gen. George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan).

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Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Little Big Man" was "an endlessly entertaining attempt to spin an epic in the form of a yarn." He was right.

"It mostly works," Ebert observed. "When it doesn't — when there's a failure of tone or an overdrawn caricature — it regroups cheerfully and plunges ahead. We're disposed to go along; all good storytellers tell stretchers once in a while, and circle back to be sure we got the good parts."

In "Little Big Man," they were all good parts.

"Hoffman, or Little Big Man, gets around pretty well," Ebert wrote. "He touches all the bases of the Western myth. He was brought West as a settler, raised as a Cheyenne, tried his hand at gunfighting and medicine shows, scouted for the cavalry, experimented with the hermit life, was married twice, survived Custer's Last Stand and sat at the foot of an old man named Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), who instructed him in the Cheyenne view of creation."

And that, in a nutshell, was Little Big Man's character — except he answered to Jack Crabb when he came West as a settler or when he found himself among other whites.

The "yarn," as Ebert put it, was told by Hoffman's character at the age of 121. Yes, you read that right. And it worked quite well. Extremely well.

"The yarn is the most flexible of story forms," Ebert observed. "Its teller can pause to repeat a point; he can hurry ahead 10 years; he can forget an entire epoch in remembering the legend of a single man. He doesn't capture the history of a time, but its flavor. 'Little Big Man' gives us the flavor of the Cheyenne nation before white men brought uncivilization to the West."

It would be hard to pinpoint what kind of movie it was. It was a comedy, a drama, a satire, a tragedy. Sometimes it was just one; at other times, it was a mix of two or more.

One thing it was not was literal history.

And Ebert observed that the story was circular. "All the characters who appear in the early stages of the film come back in the later stages, fulfilled. The preacher's wife (Faye Dunaway) returns as a prostitute. The medicine–quack, already lacking an arm, loses a leg (physician, heal thyself). Wild Bill Hickok decays from a has–been to a freak show attraction. Custer fades from glory to madness. Only Old Lodge Skins makes it through to the end not merely intact but improved."

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The really ridiculous thing about "Little Big Man" is how it was all but overlooked by the Oscars.

Chief Dan George was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (which he lost) — and that was it. Even the schmaltzy "Love Story" got seven nominations.

Well, it wasn't the first time that a more deserving movie got snubbed by the Oscars.

'Outbreak' Should Have Been Better

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Sam (Dustin Hoffman): Once in your life, take a chance!

Robby (Rene Russo): You know what, Sam? I did. I married you.

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It occurred to me that last fall, when the Ebola virus was making news in the United States, would have been an appropriate time for a TV network to show "Outbreak," a movie that premiered 20 years ago today about a similar but fictional disease and the effort to prevent its spread in a fictional California town.

But Ebola's progression is positively pedestrian by comparison. This virus was some kind of supervirus, turning a human to jelly within 24 hours of exposure.

Of course, the story fueled the fire of conspiracy theories, too, since it turned out that the federal government had been aware of the disease, which had first surfaced nearly 30 years earlier, had destroyed the village where it appeared to contain it and had kept samples of the virus in storage, all in an attempt to control access to the virus, making it a valuable biological weapon, especially since the government intended to develop a serum.

It was effective, too. When I saw the movie, I know I left the theater wondering how well equipped the government really was to respond to an unexpected outbreak of a deadly disease. Others must have felt the same way — and whether there might be some rogue element in the government that was capable of causing a widespread epidemic.

(Come to think of it, I thought of this movie a few years later when people were dying of anthrax exposure.)

The movie had a talented cast. It starred Dustin Hoffman as a virologist who was sent to investigate when this fictional disease resurfaced. His crew was played by Kevin Spacey (a few years before winning Best Actor for "American Beauty") and Cuba Gooding Jr. (a year before winning Best Supporting Actor for "Jerry Maguire"). The Army officers who had gathered the virus samples and destroyed the village nearly three decades earlier were played by Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman. Hoffman's ex–wife, also an expert in battling deadly diseases, was played by Rene Russo.

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The story of the outbreak of the disease and the frantic effort to prevent its spread was "one of the great scare stories of our time," Ebert wrote.

I think the scare story was helped considerably by the way the movie followed the spread of the disease. It's like what Alfred Hitchcock said about the difference between a horror movie and a suspense movie. In a horror movie, you see a bomb explode. You see a lot of carnage. You may even see bodies strewn about, some in bloody messes. In a suspense movie, you see the bomb that no one else sees. Perhaps it has a timing device, and you see it. It tells you there isn't much time. Everyone else goes about his or her daily routine, unaware of what is about to happen.

In "Outbreak," an infected smuggler, sweating and clearly ill, gets off an airplane and is greeted by his girlfriend. They share a deep kiss, and she becomes infected. In a dark theater, an infected person coughs, and the camera follows the germs as they swirl unseen among the unsuspecting patrons.

It was a reminder of how vulnerable we all are — wherever we are.

I believe it was that same feeling of vulnerability that prompted such strong reactions from the people around here to the thought of Ebola on the loose in their midst.

Ebert observed that he got hooked by the various stories — even though he knew he was being manipulated. I guess the thing that separated us was that he didn't mind being manipulated, and I kinda did.

Maybe that seems strange, given the fact that we have all come to an understanding that we are manipulated by images and sounds on TV as well as the movie screen. Believe me, I have been aware of that for a long time.

And I suppose Ebert makes a valid point that it's something of a guilty pleasure to allow yourself to be manipulated, all the while knowing precisely what was happening. That probably explains things like the popularity of romance novels — or horror/suspense stories, like the ones Stephen King has made a fortune writing.

"Outbreak" followed a tried–and–true movie formula. It was straight out of the old Westerns, complete with a showdown in the sky at the end. It was a faceoff between Hoffman and Gooding in a helicopter trying to prevent a bomber from incinerating the small, defenseless town. (Sounds positively "Dr. Strangelove," huh?)

"By then," Ebert wrote, "I was hooked."

Yeah, OK, I guess I was, too. But really I expected more from a movie with Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman in it — and Wolfgang Petersen in the director's chair — than shameless manipulation.

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Well, I guess if you're going to see a movie about the outbreak of a deadly disease, you should know you'll be manipulated.

But the stakes were so high in the story that I think I wanted more of an acknowledgement of that at the end of the movie — and I was disappointed that it was not forthcoming.

The Story of One Man's Family

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"There's a lot of things I didn't understand, a lot of things I'd do different if I could. Just like I think there's a lot of things you wish you could change, but we can't. Some things once they're done can't be undone. My wife, my ex–wife, says that she loves Billy, and I believe she does, but I don't think that's the issue here."

Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman)

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I remember many things about "Kramer vs. Kramer," which premiered on this date in 1979.

It was the first movie I ever reviewed for my school paper. (I'm not a film critic today so I suppose you can tell that didn't pan out.)

Looking back on it, it really wasn't much of a review that I wrote. I certainly hope I'm a better writer today than I was then, and I believe I am. (I'd just about have to be, wouldn't I?)

The thing that stood out for me then — and still stands out for me after having seen the movie again (for the umpteenth time) a few months ago — was its unflinching candor.

I knew many Ted Kramers when I was a kid. Most of the fathers of my friends were like Ted (Dustin Hoffman) — absorbed in their careers, left the child rearing to the mothers. Most of the mothers I knew did it without question. It's how they were all brought up. But one or two of the mothers I knew did what Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) did.

Joanna left her husband and son Billy (Justin Henry) — then, after 18 months, she came back into their lives wanting custody of her son.

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Prior to her return, the focus had been on Ted's relationship with Billy and his evolution from a distant father into an involved one.

At first, he was a father who didn't really know the first thing about domestic life — until his wife left him, then he had to learn things like how to cook and how to shop. One day he was held up by traffic and consequently was late to pick up his son at a birthday party. Billy was peeved. "All the other mothers were here before you," he told his father.

Ted became a father who may have been more nervous about Billy's brief welcoming monologue at his school's Halloween pageant than Billy was.

He had no private life to speak of. Once, when he brought home a co–worker (JoBeth Williams), the co–worker had an unexpected encounter with Billy, who seemed not to notice that she was naked. After their brief hallway conversation, in which they established that they both liked fried chicken, Williams returned to the master bedroom and told Hoffman, "Kramer, I just met your son."

He already knew.

He was a father who, when his son fell from some playground apparatus and suffered a cut near his eye, ran through the streets of New York to the nearest hospital with his bleeding and crying child in his arms. It was a truly harrowing scene, and one of the finest cinematic examples of the love a father feels for his son.

I remember being struck once by the sharp contrast between Hoffman strolling self–assuredly through the streets of New York in "Midnight Cowboy" and the Hoffman who ran frantically to the hospital in "Kramer vs. Kramer" a decade later.

For nearly half a century, Hoffman has been one of America's elite acting talents.

In what may have been the most honest moment in the movie, Ted and Billy discussed Joanna's departure. Billy wanted to know if his mother left because he had been bad. Ted assured him that was not what happened.

It would have been a perfect opportunity to brainwash his son, to poison his mind and turn him against his mother, to tell him that things were different than they had really been. The audience knew how he had struggled to balance the demands of work and home, demands with which single mothers have long been familiar. And I got the sense that the audience — even many of the women in the audience — would not have held it against him if he had. Hasn't everyone — or nearly everyone — had his/her heart broken at some time?

But he didn't do that. I admired the character's integrity.

"She couldn't stand me, Billy," he confessed. "She didn't leave because of you. She left because of me."

Jane Alexander, former director of the National Endowment for the Arts, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the sympathetic friend who started out as Joanna's confidante and became Ted's, but she lost the Oscar to Streep.

Hoffman took home Best Actor, and Robert Benton won his only Best Director Oscar. The movie won Best Picture. In all, "Kramer vs. Kramer" won five Oscars out of nine nominations. Well, I guess everyone knew it wouldn't be a sweep — unless Streep and Alexander tied, like Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand did in 1968 — but that certainly was a solid showing.

Nevertheless, I was sorry that Henry didn't win. He lost to Melvyn Douglas ("Being There"), who did a wonderful job, too, but I really felt Henry did a great job of showing what divorce does to children — and how they tend to perceive things.

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Adults often forget how things appear to children. Henry deserved some kind of recognition for reminding us.

Buffeted by the bitter winds of separation and divorce, Billy at first cried for his absent mother. By the end of the movie, he cried for his soon–to–be absent father. For a first–grader, he grew up a lot in between. Children don't perceive things as adults do. That should be obvious, but we adults frequently must be reminded of that. They have their own logic, and they reach conclusions in their own ways and in their own time.

Film critic Roger Ebert had a different take on it. "There is a child caught in the middle," he wrote, "but this isn't a movie about the plight of the kid but about the plight of the parents."

Ebert was right, of course. The movie wasn't examining Billy, at least not directly. It was examining his parents.

Considering the times in which we live, if someone decided to remake "Kramer vs. Kramer" today, I think it would be appropriate to examine things a little more from Billy's perspective.

Yes, I think Ebert was on to something when he observed that the movie, as its title implied, was about the parents, but divorce affects everyone in the family. Even if divorce is clearly the best long–term solution, it is often a tragedy for all concerned when it is being played out.

"Kramer vs. Kramer," as Ebert observed, was the kind of movie that could easily have demanded that viewers take sides. Whether a divorce — or a movie about a divorce — makes people take sides really depends upon what the people who are involved choose to do.

"[W]hat matters in a story like this (in the movies and in real life, too) isn't who's right or wrong," Ebert wrote, "but if the people involved are able to behave according to their own better nature. Isn't it so often the case that we're selfish and mean–spirited in just those tricky human situations that require our limited stores of saintliness?"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Telling Lenny's Story

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"Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig the clap?"

Lenny (Dustin Hoffman)

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Dustin Hoffman is probably one of the most prolific actors of his time.

He's been in so many movies in the last 45 years — and many of them were considered great when they were in the theaters and are still regarded as great today, like "The Graduate" and "Midnight Cowboy."

Hoffman has made so many great movies — I would be remiss if I didn't mention "Tootsie," and "Wag the Dog" is one of my favorite movies — that many equally deserving movies seem to get lost in the shuffle when the conversation turns to Hoffman's body of work.

The movie that premiered 40 years ago today, "Lenny," truly was one of his very best, yet I seldom hear it mentioned.

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As nearly as I can tell, it was pretty faithful to the story of the life of comedian Lenny Bruce.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the way critic Roger Ebert saw it. He felt Bruce was deified as a "liberating martyr." Maybe it's a matter of perspective. Maybe it is different if you are old enough to remember Bruce when he was alive.

I can't think of a great comedian of the last 50 years who wasn't influenced by Bruce. George Carlin is and always will be my favorite comedian, and he was quite open about the influence Bruce had on him. I've heard other comedians speak of Bruce as well, but I never saw him perform when he was alive. In fact, I did not see a documentary on his life until after I saw the movie starring Dustin Hoffman — and that was nearly a decade after Bruce died.

When I finally did see a documentary, I can say I felt two things: (1) that Hoffman did a great job of portraying Bruce — it really must be a considerable challenge to play someone whose memory is still fresh in the public's mind — and (2) Bruce really was a pioneer.

Ebert disagreed. "Lenny," he wrote, was guilty of "playing fast and loose with the facts."

I don't know to which facts Ebert referred. He isn't alive to ask; neither is Bruce, who could only speculate, anyway. So any points in the movie that don't seem clear are likely to remain that way.

To understand Lenny Bruce, I guess it is necessary to have a certain amount of understanding about the times in which he lived because Bruce's humor almost seems tame compared to the acts of some modern comedians I have seen. Quaint, even. It's like reading Walt Whitman was for me when I was studying journalism in college. It was nice, but it dealt with principles that seemed so basic. That was true, but it is the same way in any endeavor, I suppose. The basic principles have to start somewhere, and they have to be articulated by someone. Precedents must be established.

No story about Bruce would be complete if it focused only on his jokes because his life inspired his art. When he was arrested for violating obscenity laws, he read the transcripts of his trials to audiences who came to hear his jokes, not lectures on the criminal justice system — and "Lenny" pulled no punches in dealing with that part of his life.

Nor did it pull any punches when it came to re–creating his early struggles and his troubled relationship with Honey Harlow (Valerie Perrine in the movie), a stripper whom he married in 1951 and divorced in 1957.

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Through it all, Lenny had an interesting relationship with his mother (Jan Miner in the movie). She was responsible for giving him his start, but she was manipulative and controlling.

I thought Miner deserved a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but she didn't get one.

Interestingly, the movie never really explored the influence that Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame had on him. Hefner helped Bruce in the early days of his career and published his autobiography in a serialized form.

"Lenny" was nominated for six Oscars but didn't win any. It was the year of "The Godfather Part II," and, like its predecessor, it swept the Oscars in the spring of 1975. Still, no movie or director or actor wins an Oscar by default. There must be a loyal opposition of some sort. And "Lenny" played that role in six categories — Best Picture, Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

A Near Masterpiece

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"The two basic items necessary to sustain life are sunshine and coconut milk. Did you know that? That's a fact. In Florida, they got a terrific amount of coconut trees there. In fact, I think they even got 'em in the gas stations over there. And ladies? You know that in Miami, you got — you listenin' to me? — you got more ladies in Miami than in any resort area in the country there. I think per capita on a given day, there's probably 300 of 'em on the beach. In fact, you can't even scratch yourself without gettin' a belly button up the old kazoo there."

Ratso (Dustin Hoffman)

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"Midnight Cowboy," which premiered on this day in 1969, was "one of a handful of films that stay in our memory after the others have evaporated," wrote Roger Ebert 25 years after its debut.

But, after apparently taking the opportunity to revisit it after a quarter of a century, Ebert asserted that it was "a good movie with a masterpiece inside, struggling to break free."

When the movie was in the theaters in 1969, Ebert wrote that it "comes heartbreakingly close to being the movie we want it to be."

Perhaps there is a subtle nuance or two that I am missing, but it sounds to me like he had pretty much the same reaction to the movie in 1994 that he had in 1969.

It was a near masterpiece, I guess you could say. The American Film Institute ranked it 43rd on its list of the top 100 movies of all time — and AFI chose Ratso's iconic line, "I'm walking here! I'm walking here!" as its #27 movie quote (just ahead of "Play it, Sam" from "Casablanca").

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It may be something of an urban legend that Hoffman improvised that line. The producer disputed that account in the movie's two–DVD package.

While that point may be up for debate, there is no debating this: "Midnight Cowboy" holds the distinction of being the only X–rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Two other X–rated movies — also from the early days of movie ratings — were nominated for Oscars but did not win ("A Clockwork Orange" and "Last Tango in Paris").

Given the considerable changes in both the public's perception of and the requirements for an X rating, I feel pretty safe in asserting that an X–rated movie will never be nominated for — let alone win — an Oscar again.

"Midnight Cowboy" did not remain an X–rated movie. It was re–evaluated and given an R rating, which is more appropriate, on its reissue a few years later.

It did have a pretty strong sexual content (and most people probably would agree that sex is a must in the modern definition of X–rated filmmaking), but the sex was rather tame compared to today's movies. I have seen more explicit nudity in PG–rated movies than I saw in "Midnight Cowboy."

True, one of the characters, Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight), was a gigolo, and some of the story was about his adventures (and misadventures) in New York. But the sexual content that led to the X rating had more to do with the implication that Voight's character might have been homosexual.

That is the important distinction. In 1969, an X rating was treated like a legitimate film rating, which it was. It meant that the content definitely was not suitable for children, because of either extreme violence or extreme sexual activity, and that they could not be allowed to see such a movie, even if accompanied by an adult.

In those days, people who were at least 16 could watch an R–rated movie without an adult.

Then the adult film industry latched onto the X rating; over time, it ceased to be recognized as a legitimate movie rating. It became code for pornographic movie. Mainstream commercial theaters stopped showing X–rated movies, and reputable actors stopped appearing in them.

And the bar was raised on R–rated movies. The Motion Picture Association of America raised the minimum age for admission without an adult to 17.

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But sex wasn't the only consideration in 1969. The rating also was the result of the gritty, realistic depiction of New York street life in those days.

Ultimately, the R rating, as I say, was the most appropriate one for "Midnight Cowboy." The material wasn't anywhere near mild enough for a PG rating, but X was too extreme.

The acting really was impressive. Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Oscars but lost to John Wayne (for "True Grit").

The Next Level

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Mid–December has been a good period for Dustin Hoffman.

As I observed earlier this week, mid–December is when some of his best movies were released — "Tootsie" and "Wag the Dog" observed milestone anniversaries a few days ago.

Hoffman had been appearing on stage and screen for several years, but "The Graduate," which was released on this day in 1967, was his first major role.

It was a truly remarkable performance — especially since Hoffman was 30 when it premiered. If you're too young to remember the 1960s, that was the time when the admonition "Don't trust anyone over 30" was popular with young Americans, and Hoffman's character, from all appearances, was well under 30.

He gave every indication of being a traditional college student — i.e., one who entered and completed college after finishing high school rather than one who entered the work force out of high school and returned to school several years later. He came from an affluent family, the kind of family in which it would be expected that children would go on to college after completing high school.

It seemed to me, when I saw the movie for the first time, that "The Graduate" was all about expectations, what was expected of someone and what was not expected. And 1967, with the emerging "generation gap" and the growing rebellion of the young of that time, provided the perfect backdrop for such a story. The music of Simon and Garfunkel was the icing on the cake.

Now, just because one is a traditional college student does not mean one follows the same path as his/her classmates. And Benjamin Braddock's post–college path was almost certainly not like the one many of his classmates followed.

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"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"

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Benjamin was drifting, both in fact (in his parents' pool) and metaphorically, and he drifted into an affair with the wife of a family friend (Anne Bancroft), a situation that became even more complicated after he was introduced to her daughter (Katharine Ross) and fell in love with her.

It was already pretty comical. Clearly not very experienced in that sort of thing, Hoffman's clumsy meandering through the minefield of extramarital relationships was amusing in its way.

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"It's like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up."

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In hindsight, I guess, it was an unbeatable combination — Mike Nichols, not too far removed from his directorial triumph with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in the director's chair producing a film on a topic that was the hottest around.

Gender Bender

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Dustin Hoffman to Geena Davis: What kind of mother would I be if I didn't give my girls tits ... tips?

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Almost 15 years to the day after the debut of Dustin Hoffman's breakthrough film, "The Graduate," the moviegoing public was treated to a performance for which Hoffman had no apparent experience.

Of course, when Hoffman made "The Graduate," he wasn't exactly a perfect fit. He was 30 years old with one year of junior college under his belt, playing a recent college graduate.

But that was nothing compared to the movie he made that premiered 30 years ago today — "Tootsie."

No actor has a hit every time out, but, in the 15–year period between "The Graduate" and "Tootsie," Hoffman enjoyed what can charitably be called more than his share of success. He got four Oscar nominations (one win) and appeared in five movies that were nominated for Best Picture.

That bears absolutely no resemblance to the character he played in "Tootsie."

That character, Michael Dorsey, was an actor — but that really was where any similarity between Hoffman and the character he played ended.

Michael Dorsey was a struggling actor. Like Hoffman, he had a great deal of talent, but he was hard to get along with, and folks just didn't want to work with him.

That's not an exaggeration. His reputation was so bad that he had to assume an entirely new identity (and a different gender) to find work.

Enter Dorothy Michaels.

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As Dorothy, he was able to secure steady employment on a soap opera, and his masculine attitude (interpreted as a brand of feminism) was a surprise hit with the show's viewers.

But there were down sides.

One of Dorothy's co–stars was attracted to her, as was the father of another co–star (Jessica Lange) with whom Michael desired a relationship.

To be sure, there was some gender bending going on.

And what I liked best about "Tootsie" was its honesty. It acknowledged that both genders labor under misconceptions about the other — and both have something to learn from each other.

"I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man," Hoffman told Lange at the end. "I just gotta learn to do it without the dress."

That sums things up pretty well.

How to Change the Subject

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Tracy (Kirsten Dunst): What would they do to me if I did tell someone about this?

Conrad (Robert De Niro): They could come to your house in the middle of the night and kill you.

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I thoroughly enjoyed "Wag the Dog," which debuted on this day in 1997, and to no small extent because I understood and appreciated the nature of the title. But it did require a little explanation.

When I first heard the title, I thought it was the name of a character — you know, like Bozo the Clown. Logically, I figured that it was a dog named Wag and, if the title character was a dog, it must be a cartoon — you know, kind of like Felix the Cat — although perhaps not (this was around the time that "Babe" was in the theaters).

But then I discovered it was a variation of the old saying that "the dog wags the tail, the tail doesn't wag the dog."

When applied to a political context — as it was in this movie — it meant to distract public attention from a matter of great importance to focus on a matter of lesser importance — or, in the case of this movie, a matter that didn't really exist.

In the movie, the president is facing the voters in his bid for re–election. Foolishly, he sexually assaults a member of some Firefly Girl group that is visiting the White House in the closing days of the campaign, and he needs the help of a spin doctor played by Robert De Niro to get him over the hump (as it were) to Election Day.

(In my own defense, the plotline encouraged some really bad puns.)

De Niro, in turn, recruits a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman), who is bitter over never receiving the recognition he craves for the work he has done, to help him create a phony war to distract attention from the abuse allegations.

And, thus, an elaborate deception was born.

Hoffman's character put together such an impressive visual depiction of a war that he himself observed it was "the best work I've ever done in my life, because it's so honest."

Well, honesty was relative.

Or, in the words of the movie's producers, "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog."

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Hoffman's undoing was in not being satisfied with the knowledge that it was his "best work." He wanted the credit that had been denied to him throughout his career.

"You're playing with your life," De Niro's character warned him, but he wouldn't listen — and he wound up dying shortly thereafter, officially of a heart attack while sunning himself by his pool.

Overseeing all of this was Anne Heche's character, Winifred the presidential adviser who acted as the buffer between the president and everything else. At times, she was severely tested, as when she was informed that the hand–picked "hero" of the fictional conflict — played by Woody Harrelson — was an unsavory sort who had been convicted of raping a nun.

"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God," she kept muttering.

Hoffman assured her that, as long as the "hero" took his medication, "He's fine."

What if he doesn't take his medication, Heche's character wanted to know.

"He's not fine."

To be fair to Hoffman's character, he did design a credible war backdrop for the cover story, enlisting Kirsten Dunst to play a peasant girl running from assailants with a kitten in her arms (the kitten and the scenery and sound effects would be edited in later — Dunst was told to run through a sound stage carrying a bag of tortilla chips).

In a classic example of the misdirection used by the spin doctor and his associates, De Niro's character urges people like the press secretary to make up denials about non–existent rumors — such as the one about the B–3 bomber.

There is no such thing, of course, and no one had been talking about it, but De Niro's character still protests that he doesn't know how such rumors get started — and the direction of the conversation is changed.

Roger Ebert made an intriguing observation in his review of the movie in the Chicago Sun–Times: "It's creepy how this material is absurd and convincing at the same time. ... Even when a conflict is real and necessary ... the packaging ... is invariably shallow and unquestioning; like sportswriters, war correspondents abandon any pretense of objectivity and detachment, and cheerfully root for our side."

Coincidentally, the movie came out around the same time that Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was in the news, and he was facing impeachment. The Clinton administration also engaged in some saber rattling against Iraq — which critics alleged was an attempt to shift the focus of the public conversation. It was, they said, a real–life "Wag the Dog."

"['Wag the Dog'] is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible," Ebert wrote, "like 'Dr. Strangelove,' it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder."

It still does.

Hooked

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Every person is, of course, an individual, with unique personal experiences.

But some experiences, especially the ones from childhood, are universal. We all have them — eating ice cream cones on hot summer days, watching fireworks on the Fourth of July, going to school with the other children our age, learning to read and write and add and subtract — and looking forward to being allowed to go outside for recess on a sunny spring day.

And most parents read stories to their children. You know the stuff I'm talking about — "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," anything by Dr. Suess.

J.M Barrie's story about Peter Pan and the Lost Boys of Neverland certainly belongs on that list.

There is, of course, the traditional story that Barrie wrote — nearly everyone must have heard that one — but that story has been re–told in many ways over the years, perhaps none quite as cleverly as the film version that premiered on this day in 1991.

In director Steven Spielberg's hands, the story was given a new twist.

At least, I thought so.

The movie focused not so much on the children but on their father (Robin Williams), who, it turns out, was once Peter Pan but was adopted and raised by an American couple — and forgot all about Neverland.

He was forced to confront his past when his old nemesis, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), kidnapped his two children and took them to Neverland. With the help of Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts), Peter returned to Neverland to save them.

Like just about everything else Spielberg has done, "Hook" was enormously successful at the box office, but many critics complained that the movie failed "to find something new, fresh or urgent to do with the Peter Pan myth."

I disagreed.

It might have come as a surprise to the critics of 20 years ago, but Barrie apparently did conceive of something similar. In 2003, Andrew Birkin wrote that Barrie wrote some notes on the idea of a story in which Peter Pan grew up — but the idea never got past the note stage.

Spielberg apparently knew nothing of that when he made "Hook." His idea had its roots, he said, in his childhood when his mother read the original story to him. At the age of 11, he directed a school production of the story. You might say it's part of his DNA.

"I have always felt like Peter Pan," he once said. "I still feel like Peter Pan. It has been very hard for me to grow up."

Considering all the wonderful cinematic rides on which he has taken his audiences over the years, that's a good thing for the rest of us.

Taking Aim at History

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"There is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings."

Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George)

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Forty years ago, a film hit the theaters that was, in many ways, a departure from movies to which American audiences were accustomed.

In "Little Big Man," a 139–minute comedy/drama, 121–year–old Jack Crabb (played by Dustin Hoffman) tells his life's story, in which he was raised as an Indian and resisted numerous attempts to re–assimilate into the white world — and, in so doing, tells the story of the American West.

But it's not a literal history, although it does speak of actual events, like Custer's Last Stand and the killing of Wild Bill Hickok. It is a revisionist history that is not as racist in its handling of native Americans as were the actual soldiers of the 19th century. But it is typical, in many ways, of films of that period, which often expressed in subtle, symbolic ways opposition to American military policy, particularly in Vietnam.

Vietnam, of course, was never mentioned in "Little Big Man," but the film's racial portrayals represented a stark reversal from the past — and, in so doing, made statements about America's foreign policy and its treatment of non–Caucasians. The Indians, for example, were given a much more favorable treatment than was common in previous films — while the soldiers (and other whites) were treated as antiheroes.

The film told a tale that contradicted the concept of Manifest Destiny, the doctrine that permitted Americans to justify expansion into the West. Director Arthur Penn said that the depiction of the slaughter of native Americans was intended to evoke comparisons to the Holocaust.

That is not to say, however, that "Little Big Man" fails to teach viewers any little–known facts from North American history. The accuracy of the depictions of Custer's Last Stand and Wild Bill Hickok's killing may be disputable, but the movie, in its own way, introduces modern audiences to the "contrary," which was the name given to those Indians who chose behavior that was intentionally opposite the behavior of others in their tribes.

A contrary, for example, might choose to speak in a way that expressed the opposite of what he meant, or he might ride his horse backwards. One of the characters in "Little Big Man" lived as a contrary for awhile.

In many ways, the movie was like "Dances With Wolves," the Academy Award–winning film that came along a generation later — although, in my opinion, "Little Big Man" was a much better film.

And you can see it this Thursday on Turner Classic Movies at 8:30 p.m. (Central).

The Story of a Scandal

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I'm not really sure why Turner Classic Movies chose to show "All the President's Men" tonight at 10 p.m. (Central). After all, TCM's annual "31 Days of Oscar" salute concluded yesterday.

Perhaps it was in recognition of the fact that today is March 4, which was the regularly scheduled presidential Inauguration Day for more than 130 years. But I guess that could have been accomplished with any film about a president from the 19th century. A movie about Watergate wouldn't have a lot of relevance to March 4 beyond the presidency.

But the thing is that a movie about Watergate — indeed, the very subject of Watergate — has a great deal of relevance to the presidency — well, presidential power, at least. And Watergate was the story of how one president abused his power beyond the point that most Americans would have thought possible.

That's the thing I have always found remarkable about Watergate — the fact that so many people resisted the truth about Nixon. It was almost as if the nation had not just been through the many deceptions of Lyndon Johnson and his subordinates. In the days of Watergate, even those who hated Richard Nixon — and there were many — had a hard time imagining a scoundrel like Nixon occupying the Oval Office. Perhaps it was the residual effect of being taught, as most people who grew up in America were, to trust and respect authority.

It was as if the fact that a politician had been elected president, even if by a narrow margin, transformed that person into a saintly person, above pettiness, above the messiness of grudges and personal insecurity.

At his best, Richard Nixon was not a bad president. He possessed a mind that was often capable of conceiving original, creative solutions to the nation's problems. But it was a great misfortune, for both Nixon and the country, that he was at his worst far more often than he was at his best.

In many ways, Nixon was a textbook example of what a president should not be — a paranoid introvert.

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But "All the President's Men" wasn't really about Nixon. He wasn't even a supporting character. "All the President's Men" was about the crimes that were committed in his name, the men who committed the crimes — and the men who uncovered the whole ugly mess.

I have a soft spot in my heart for "All the President's Men" — both the book and the film. The story of Woodward and Bernstein (which was masterfully presented on the big screen by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford) inspired me to study journalism and pursue it in my professional life.

And it taught me a lesson about the vulnerability of freedom and democracy — and the vital role that a free press plays in preserving both.