Wide Screen World

Shut Up Little Man!

2012-02-28T12:58:00.000-05:00

Shut Up Little Man!
from John & Sue's DVD collection
2.25.12

Covert surveillance - catching people with their pants down doing silly, embarrassing or incriminating things - is an idea that's both titillating and terrifying, depending on which side of the recording device you're on. As technology has improved over the years, it has become easier and easier to do just that, as millions of YouTube videos will attest to. Is it a morally defensible act, however?

Living in post-9-11 New York, in which surveillance has been taken to great extremes, I try not to think about all the hidden cameras that follow one around almost everywhere these days - and I'm not even talking about for security purposes. Anyone with a cellphone can catch you on the record for whatever reason they like, and you don't even have to be aware of it. Maybe they think you dress funny and wanna make fun of you on their Facebook page. Maybe you got drunk off your ass at a bar last night and someone posted a video of you on YouTube. And these are the relatively benign examples.

It's disturbing, without a doubt. At what point does it stop becoming entertainment and start becoming an invasion of privacy? I have no idea. It's easy to blame technology, but technology is neither good nor evil. It's all in how it's applied. The truth is, we are little children playing with new toys. We have little sense of restraint and we're more concerned with self-gratification than with any notion of boundaries.

I certainly can't deny that videos and pics of this nature are amusing. I don't actively seek them out, but if I see one and it's funny, I'll laugh, secretly grateful it's not me getting punk'd while ROFLing at how stupid and/or gullible some people can be.

Sometimes seeing these images are necessary in order to negotiate behavior. There's a blogger who takes pictures of people eating like pigs on the subway, and after browsing through the site, I've been scared straight enough to practice more restraint (not to mention cleanliness) if I ever eat anything bigger than a candy bar on the subway (which is not even all that often). But do we need such shame-inducing tactics to get us to behave better? The more I see of people, the more convinced I am that the answer, sadly, is yes, because some people are simply without shame. But that's another post.

This brings me to the phenomenon that is Shut Up Little Man. In the 80s, two dudes living in a dirt cheap San Francisco apartment were subjected to the loud, vitriolic ravings and arguments of two old men (and an occasional visitor) living next door to them. Reasoning with them didn't work, so instead they chose to amuse themselves by secretly recording the old men's conversations - which was easy to do, since they were so loud. They made a bunch of cassette tapes and shared them with their friends, who shared them with their friends, and before long, a cult sensation was born. The title comes from a phrase one of the old dudes constantly repeats in his more agitated states.

The documentary Shut Up Little Man! is the story of how this all came to be. I watched it at John & Sue's place last weekend. Part of the reason they own it is that Sue knows one of the people interviewed (though not directly), but it's still the kind of movie they'd own anyway because it's such a bizarre story.

The appeal of the Little Man tapes is in the level of the unrestrained profanity, bigotry and bile unleashed in a completely real and authentic setting. (Apparently there's a name for this sort of sub-sub-genre: audio verite.) These two old men lived together, yet they bickered and fought on an epic scale, one that makes the Odd Couple look like the Get Along Gang.

The Little Man tapes led to a wide variety of spin-offs in other media, including a stage play, comic books (Ghost World's Daniel Clowes is among the interviewees), a puppet show, songs, and more, and Little Man the doc captures it all. The Australian filmmakers even create dramatizations of selections from the Little Man tapes, in which actors play the roles.

There's much more to the story, including what happened when the surviving old men learned of the Little Man phenomenon, the inevitable Hollywood involvement, the gay angle, and the morality question. It's an utterly fascinating tale, and well worth watching.

Why does the Lorax speak for the SUVs?

2012-02-28T09:01:00.000-05:00

...Yes, it’s come to this. Theodor Seuss Geisel’s 1971 parable about environmental stewardship is now being used to make people feel less guilty about purchasing Mazda-brand motor vehicles. The Mazda cross-promotion, it turns out, is one of 70 sponsorship deals that Universal has worked out to increase the return on its investment in a feature film version of “The Lorax.” Not pictured in the ad: The Truffula tree forest that was clear-cut to make way for the four-lane highway the Once-ler built to sell more Thneeds. (Today Mazda CX-5 owners use that highway to get to their outrageously wasteful, greenhouse gas-spewing subdivisions.)

I never read The Lorax as a kid, but I did see an animated version of it on TV (I forget who made it), so I have a general idea of what it's about. It's an environmental parable, basically, so to see such a story and such a character be used to sell SUVs, of all things, in a movie-tie-in commercial no less, is pretty much the definition of tacky. I urge you to not take your kids, nephews, nieces, rugrats, what have you, to see The Lorax this weekend, and if this really pisses you off, perhaps you'd like to sign this petition against it.

Oscar 2011: The winners

2012-02-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

Best Picture – The Artist

Best Director – Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Best Actress – Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Actor – Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer, Beginners

The rest.

My happiness at getting twenty out of 24 correct (which has to be a personal record for me) is mitigated by my disappointment at seeing Viola Davis lose, but then again, there's no real shame in losing to Meryl Streep, is there? Still, the injustice of having only one black woman win a Best Actress Oscar remains, and now that we know the demographics of the Academy, at least we have a better idea of what to expect the next time this happens. And whether she has a little gold man or not, the whole world now knows what kind of actress Davis is.

Sheesh. I went 20-for-24. I would've liked a little surprise at least. I guess Dragon Tattoo winning editing is perhaps the biggest surprise.... maybe? Possibly?

Eh. I'm just glad it's all over.

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Related:
Oscar 2010: The winners

The videos of Michael Jackson: Thriller

2012-02-25T23:19:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson made some of the most iconic, visually fascinating music videos of all time. Some of them were more like short films, especially given the level of talent he worked with. For this and every Saturday in February, we'll look at some of his videos as if they were movies and discuss them accordingly.

In watching "Thriller," one gets the impression that director John Landis really tried giving it the hard sell as a legitimate horror movie. Naturally, it invites comparisons with his An American Werewolf in London, a movie that, for all its scary moments, is also balanced with more than its share of dark humor. There's less of that in "Thriller," which is kind of a shame in retrospect. I would've liked to have seen a bit of that kind of senseibility.

Instead, "Thriller" hearkens back to the older, drive-in-era horror B-movies of the 50s, although perhaps that's more fitting, given the tenor of the song itself. The lyrics suggest a supernatural apocalypse of some sort, but in the end it's all a put-on - just another late night creature feature. I mentioned previously how this video came out during a period of parental unrest over alleged satanic messages in rock music, hence Michael Jackson's disclaimer at the beginning that this song is not about devil worship, though it probably would still get a pass today if it was!

This video, of course, has achieved legendary status. It's Jackson at the absolute apex of his popularity. The jacket, the zombie dance, the werewolf transformation (which compares favorably to American Werewolf) - in many ways, this is the video that defined the 80s, defined the MTV generation (ironic, given how long MTV resisted black music). When were videos more popular? When did they ever have more cultural cache? Whether you watched them on MTV or on video music shows (like I did before I got MTV), "Thriller" is emblematic of a time - maybe the last time - when pop music seemed more universal... though that may merely be my nostalgia talking.

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Previously:
"Ghosts"
"Smooth Criminal"
"Bad"

WSW @ The LAMB: Oscar preview

2012-02-24T14:51:00.001-05:00

So last year I employed my City Mouse character in a new strip for The LAMB's Oscar preview series, and I thought it was fun enough to bring him back for a second go-round this year. A lot of things went wrong in putting this together - I won't bore you with details - but suffice it to say I managed to get it in before the big show this Sunday. This year, my category is Visual Effects, and I think you'll like seeing CM and Collie in a variety of guises from these movies. Have a look.

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Previously:

WSW @ The LAMB, Oscar style

Oscar 2011: My predictions

2012-02-23T14:00:00.000-05:00

I've decided I'm not gonna bother watching this year but the least I can do is throw out my picks.

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Director
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descendants

Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Actor in a Leading Role

Demián Bichir, A Better Life

George Clooney, The Descendants

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Actress in a Leading Role

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis, The Help

Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Actor in a Supporting Role

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Actress in a Supporting Role

Bérénice Bejo, The Artist

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Octavia Spencer, The Help

Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants

Hugo

The Ides of March

Moneyball

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Original Screenplay

The Artist

Bridesmaids

Margin Call

Midnight in Paris

A Separation

Cinematography

The Artist

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Film Editing

The Artist

The Descendants

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo

Moneyball

Art Direction

The Artist

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

War Horse

Costume Design

Anonymous

The Artist

Hugo

Jane Eyre

W.E.

Makeup

Albert Nobbs

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

The Iron Lady

Original Score

The Adventures of Tintin

The Artist

Hugo

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

War Horse

Original Song

“Man or Muppet” from The Muppets

“Real in Rio” from Rio

Visual Effects

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Hugo

Real Steel

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Sound Editing

Drive

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

War Horse

Sound Mixing

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo

Moneyball

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

War Horse

Documentary Feature

Hell and Back Again

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Pina

Undefeated

Foreign Language Film

Bullhead, Belgium

Footnote, Israel

In Darkness, Poland

Monsieur Lazhar, Canada

A Separation, Iran

Animated Feature Film

A Cat in Paris

Chico & Rita

Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss in Boots

Rango

Short Subject Documentary

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement

God Is the Bigger Elvis

Incident in New Baghdad

Saving Face

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Live Action Short Film

Pentecost

Raju

The Shore

Time Freak

Tuba Atlantic

Animated Short Film

Dimanche/Sunday

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

La Luna

A Morning Stroll

Wild Life

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Related:
Oscar 2011: The nominees
The argument for Viola Davis
When will Meryl get her third Oscar?
Weighing Serkis' Oscar chances
Five reasons why 'Potter' probably won't get a Best Pic nom
AMPAS to play roulette with Best Pic field

Books: Barbara Stanwyck - The Miracle Woman

2012-02-21T16:21:00.000-05:00

Ordinarily I'm not much of a biography (or autobiography) reader. While I always see biographies of people I'm interested enough in to read, it's rare that I'll want to go back and re-read them. When it comes to film/TV autobiographies, I think I have a grand total of three: the recent Carol Burnett memoir This Time Together (which I adored), and two Trek ones by William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols (how can I be a Trekkie and not have one or two?). Of course, some people are more into them than others, but I tend to prefer reading about film history in general. Maybe one day I'll do a post about it.

I saw the news about the book Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman while looking at the Museum of the Moving Image's schedule of upcoming movies and seeing their twin bill of The Lady Eve and Forty Guns, which screened last Sunday. Author Dan Callahan was in attendance, signing copies as well as introducing the two films. Prior to this event, however, I read a galley version of the book, downloaded from NetGalley (thanks to Clint Kimberling of the University Press of Mississippi for pointing me in this direction).

Callahan's book goes straight to the heart of Stanwyck's long and distinguished career and analyzes her films in depth, grouping them in specific categories - her noirs, her Westerns, her films with Frank Capra, etc. Some films obviously get more scrutiny than others - an entire chapter is devoted to Stella Dallas, for instance - but in each case Callahan discusses the pros and cons of each film as well as his thoughts about Stanwyck's work in each. His analysis is very thoughtful and insightful. While I naturally know more about her big hits, like Double Indemnity and Ball of Fire and Sorry, Wrong Number, I also gained a deeper insight into her earlier films like Ladies of Leisure and The Bitter Tea of General Yen, which Callahan has high praise for as well.

Stany's personal life is given a minimum of discussion, though certain elements resonate throughout the rest of the book. Apparently she had an abusive first husband, which is so hard to believe when you consider all the tough-talking, no-nonsense dames she played. How could a woman like her let any man mistreat her so? But of course, the image on the screen doesn't always line up with reality. Thankfully she kicked him to the curb.

Still, you have to accept the bad with the good. I knew she was a political conservative prior to reading this book, for instance. I did not know, however, that she had an estranged relationship with her adopted son. Again, Callahan doesn't linger for very long on the personal stuff, but in discussing her roles, he often draws parallels with certain aspects of her life - her poor childhood, for instance - and how the one informed the other, and as a result, one gets a greater appreciation of what went into forming her most memorable characters.

I've admired Stanwyck for years, but now I feel like I have a better understanding of her as a woman, warts and all, so to speak. She worked on stage, screen and television, with some of the greatest actors and directors in Hollywood history, in a variety of genres, for a large chunk of the 20th century. Anyone with a love for classic film history will find much to love and appreciate about this book.

WSW @ Queens World FF 3/1 - 3/4!

2012-02-21T09:40:00.002-05:00

So after getting a taste of an actual film festival last fall, I decided I liked it enough to check out others. One of my goals for this blog in 2012 is to visit more fests, beginning with this one. The Queens World Film Festival is only in its second year, but it's local, obviously, and while I don't expect a lineup of celebrity filmmakers and actors, I do expect the films themselves to be worthwhile. My coverage of QWFF will begin with a brief preview on March 1 and continue throughout the entire weekend. Looking forward to it.

The Lady Eve/Forty Guns

2012-02-20T10:59:00.002-05:00

The Lady Eve
Forty Guns
seen @ Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens, NY
2.19.12

It's been a rather dull holiday weekend for me, at least the first half of it. I've mostly spent it catching up on my art and watching TV. (ironically, I just got rid of an older TV earlier in the week). Most of the time, I try not to get distracted by the boob tube because it's so easy to become addicted to it. I still haven't decided if I'm gonna bother watching the Oscars this year. There's only one race I care about and I can always YouTube the acceptance speech the next day. As for the art, I was up against a deadline, so I really had no excuse to sit enslaved by the idiot box for too long anyway.

The rest of the weekend, though, is different. Later today I'll hang out with Vija and friends. This will be the first time I've seen her this year and I've missed her, and besides, I'll get the opportunity to show her what I've been up to art-wise. She's currently in the midst of a long series of paintings of notable women in world history, and she's been posting them on Facebook. I hope she finds a gallery willing to exhibit them, so I can see them all at once.

Also, I had the great pleasure yesterday of returning to MOMI to catch a Barbara Stanwyck twin bill: The Lady Eve and Forty Guns. There's a new biography of Stanwyck coming out which examines her career in great detail. I'll review it tomorrow, but let me just say here that it's always a bit of a letdown to discover your idols are human after all, but reading about her life hasn't diminished my affection for her as a great actress.

Eve, with Henry Fonda, is a Preston Sturges joint about a con artist who falls for her mark. I own this film on DVD. Sturges has always been a favorite director of mine for his witty writing and the great comic performances he got out of his actors, and Stanwyck's is one of his best. Guns, a Western written and directed by Samuel Fuller, was Stanwyck's last film as an A-list movie star before she transitioned to television. I had never seen this one before, but unfortunately, I went to bed really late the previous night and the lack of sleep finally caught up to me while watching this one, so I can't tell you much about it. Stany rides around on a white horse a lot. There's a tornado. People get shot. (It does make an appropriate spiritual predecessor for her TV role in The Big Valley, though.) There's also a singing cowboy-type character who, every time he appeared, I kept wanting John Belushi to come along and smash his guitar against a wall and say "Sorry."

I don't think I've talked about MOMI's main theater. It's really nice - stadium seating facing a screen with a fairly wide stage that includes a podium off to one side. The curtain has an unusual trompe l'oeil pattern of elongated, multi-colored pyramids radiating outwards in all directions from the center. It looks like something you'd see in a modern art museum, which I suppose MOMI is, after all. The walls are a deep cobalt blue, curving upwards to the ceiling, with spotlights on both sides. The ramp leading up to the main door is also back-lit in blue. The aesthetic value of a place like MOMI cannot be underestimated; a lot of thought went into its architecture and it's a big part of its appeal.

At both screenings, there were a lot of people shushing each other in the audience, especially during Eve, which was a bit surprising. One would think that a MOMI crowd would be more respectful of the movie than your average multiplex audience, but maybe this was a fluke. Then again, unruly audience members have been popping up in unlikely places, and more and more people are demanding that theaters do something about it. I didn't think it was out of control yesterday, but this is a general problem that could kill the theater-going experience for good unless it's seriously addressed, and soon.

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Related:
Books: Barbara Stanwyck - The Miracle Woman

The videos of Michael Jackson: Bad

2012-02-18T20:53:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson made some of the most iconic, visually fascinating music videos of all time. Some of them were more like short films, especially given the level of talent he worked with. For this and every Saturday in February, we'll look at some of his videos as if they were movies and discuss them accordingly.

He's bad, he's bad, he's really, really bad. Gee, Michael, thanks for the tip. Very enlightening. As I mentioned last week in talking about "Smooth Criminal," whenever Michael Jackson tried to act tough in his videos, it never seemed completely convincing somehow, as if he were trying to convince himself of his masculinity as much as anyone else. In my opinion, anyway.

Bad the album represented a major image change at the time. The young man we knew and grew up with prior to both album and single came across as more innocent, comfortable around ladies but not quite so masculine.

"Bad" the video was different, not only for the black leather outfit and the gritty subway setting, but because of Jackson's facial transformation as well. His skin looked lighter and smoother, his hair was straighter, and his nose was smaller - all of which made him look less identifiably black. (The first time I heard the Kanye West lyric "Got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson/Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson" I laughed out loud.) Allegedly there were medical reasons for this, and maybe that was true, but the implications were too big to ignore. Jackson, a "crossover" success story if ever there was one, suddenly seemed to be denying his racial heritage.

I was too young to fully consider these implications at the time Bad came out, however. I was more interested in the video. Directed by none other than Martin Scorsese from a story idea by crime novelist Richard Price, it was set in an actual Brooklyn subway station (shortly after Jackson died, a local politician tried and failed to get the station renamed after him). Scorsese, of course, has always had a great facility for incorporating music into his feature-length films, and his style doesn't feel out of place here, amidst all the dance choreography. Once again, as in "Ghosts," Michael's character is trying to be molded into something that he doesn't want to be and he rebels (IMDB says that this was inspired by a true story), and he magically conjures up a posse to back him up (well, not literally in this case, but they do come out of nowhere).

It's a memorable, iconic video that has stood the test of time (as well as Weird Al parodies). One can't criticize it too much, in the end.

-----------------------
Previously:
"Ghosts"
"Smooth Criminal"

Bend of the River

2012-02-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Bend of the River
seen online via YouTube
2.15.12

The notion of redemption is a powerful one. As human beings, we know we're imperfect; we know we mess things up more often than not, but we like to think it's possible that we can make up for that somehow. Christianity, of course, is based on the concept of redemption - a single act of selflessness that cancels out all the wrongs we've ever done. But are all sins created equal? Are there some things that simply can't be forgiven?

Forgiveness, naturally, is a key component in redemption. One of the messages in last year's Kinyarwanda is that forgiveness begins with oneself; acknowledging the wrong done and one's role in committing it. That might be the toughest step. I've written about my own struggles in this area before, and I know how difficult it can be to live with the guilt - as well as how uplifting the feeling of forgiveness can be.

Jimmy Stewart's character in Bend of the River faces a similar dilemma - whether or not the good he does in the present can make up for the bad he's done in the past, though I thought the movie didn't go as deeply into this as they could have. Stewart plays a 19th-century cowpoke leading a wagon train of settlers into Oregon, while contesting with Indians, unscrupulous businessmen, and bad men with hidden agendas of their own. He and a fellow traveler he meets on the way both have pasts they're trying to get away from, but this other guy's past is known and as a result, he's not completely trusted. Stewart's character's past is not known to the settlers, and he wonders what they'd do if they found out.

The movie's a little vague about what exactly Stewart did; the implication is that he was some sort of outlaw who may have done a lot of killing. (Hard to believe of a Jimmy Stewart character, I know!) And like I said, while it's a thread in the tapestry of the story, it's not a big one. Maybe I could've believed he had the capacity to kill if we saw him do it. Early on, we see him about to stab a man to death, but someone stops him. Later, he's hunting down the bad guys, but his actions are mostly implied, which sucks because this is a point where he needs to be a total badass in order to save the day and we don't really get to see it. Maybe it was due to the limitations on violence in Hollywood films back then.

Bend is one of eight films (five of them Westerns) Stewart made with director Anthony Mann, whom I first read about at Peter Bogdanovich's blog. I found it quite entertaining, despite the presence of none other than Stepin Fetchit in a small role. His character is a good guy and is more or less accepted by everyone around him, but that voice of his, and his generally servile attitude, just makes me cringe and feel ashamed. But that's another post.

Whoops

2012-02-16T07:32:00.000-05:00

What was it about that song?

2012-02-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

I'm not gonna link to that song. You know what song I'm talking about. In the days since the tragic death of Whitney Houston, chances are you've heard that song somewhere on the radio or TV, repeatedly, by now. You know.

The Bodyguard came out at just the right time for its stars. Kevin Costner was two years removed from Dances With Wolves and couldn't have been any bigger or hotter. Houston was already an established megastar, with a trunkload of Grammys and poised to take Hollywood by storm. Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplay (fun fact: it was originally gonna be for Steve McQueen!), and while British director Mick Jackson may not have been a household name, he was just coming off of the delightful Steve Martin comedy LA Story.

The Bodyguard did not fare well with the critics. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called it "an outrageous piece of saccharine kitsch" and the New York Times' Janet Maslin called it a "long, sprawling semi-travelogue," but audiences loved it enough to make it the seventh-highest grossing film of 1992. (And good or bad, it deserves props for not making a big deal about the interracial aspect of the romance.)

And then there was that soundtrack. And that song.

Let's run the numbers, shall we: fourteen weeks at number one in the US alone. Number one in sixteen different countries. Quadruple-platinum-certified. Grammy-winner for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. The third-biggest-selling single OF ALL TIME from the biggest-selling soundtrack OF ALL TIME.

And technically, the song's not even hers.

Though she certainly made it hers.

I'm not gonna get into comparisons between the original version and Houston's version. I'm more interested in how The Song in Question got as big as it did.

Was it simply a matter of timing? I remember Houston at her late-80's-early-90's peak. I have some of her records; in fact, it was my father who bought me her debut LP. They still hold up. Prior to The Bodyguard, it did not seem as if she could get any bigger or more successful. She was everywhere. She, along with Michael Jackson, made MTV safe for black people. Did I mention the trunkload of Grammys? And then The Song in Question just catapulted her into the stratosphere. No, she already was in the stratosphere; it put her in orbit.

It's difficult to talk about The Song objectively, because we have all heard it too many times to be objective about it anymore. It's just become part of our collective unconscious, like The Brady Bunch and Smurfs and Tang: it's not a matter of liking it or hating it anymore. It simply is. In fact, I'd argue that The Song, and the way Houston sung it - the bombastic, hitting-all-the-high-notes, playing-to-the-crowd vocal calisthenics - helped paved the way for the American Idol era of music. I think Houston recorded better songs, but something about that one just drove people wild the way "My Heart Will Go On" drove people wild only five years later.

Today being Valentine's Day, it's worth pointing out the ultra-romantic appeal of The Song as well as the movie - which is ironic, because if you look at the lyrics, you'll see that it's actually a sad song. Funny how that gets overlooked most of the time, isn't it? But there have been other love songs from romantic movies, sung by equally talented singers. What made this one so very different?

Maybe it really does come down to timing. Who can say for certain why a certain song hits with people when it does, whether it's The Song in Question or "Don't Worry Be Happy" or "Hey Jude" or even "Friday"? That Houston had world-class talent is indisputable, though, and like so many other musicians before her, from Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker, through Karen Carpenter and Janis Joplin, and on into Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, her struggle with her personal demons consumed her before her time. But the music, as ever, remains.

The Innkeepers

2012-02-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Innkeepers
seen @ Village East Cinemas, New York NY
2.11.12

So once again I found myself watching a movie that I kept seeing written about on other blogs and talked about glowingly. I feel pretty certain in saying that if that hadn't been the case, I would've completely missed out on The Innkeepers, an entertaining and engrossing old-fashioned ghost story. To sum up: a couple of twenty-somethings are working at an old New England (?) inn during its final weekend of operation, one with a reputation for hosting a centuries-old ghost which they're determined to find.

It takes a lot to get me to pay to see a current (American) horror movie these days. It seems like the average horror movie fan's tastes are greatly out of step with my own, but then I'd imagine their tastes are more refined. I enjoy watching a good bloodbath every once in awhile, but these days most horror movies look alike to me, which is one big reason why the horror films I wrote about last Halloween were old ones.

This is why I'm so glad I chose to take a chance on The Innkeepers. I liked the main characters, especially perky Claire, the star, and I cared about what happened to them. The humor feels natural and the scares are definitely earned. Writer-director Ti West takes his time with the story, but when things start happening, they happen in a hurry. It was nice to see Kelly McGillis on the big screen again, even though I totally didn't recognize her. She's aged quite a bit from her Top Gun and The Accused roles back in the 80s, but she still looks good, and she has a plum of a supporting role here.

What impressed me the most about The Innkeepers is how it defied my expectations at every turn. This is a horror movie where everything is taken at face value, and I shouldn't go into any further detail about that because it would mean revealing spoilers. Let's just say that I kept expecting the story to conform to the expected horror movie standards, and it didn't, not out of meta-textual self-awareness, Scream-style, but because everything is presented so straightforwardly. You are led to believe that the danger is real and anything is possible, but even when what happens in the end happens, you still don't quite believe it because you keep waiting for a last-minute reveal or a fake-out of some kind, because that's what we've come to expect from most mainstream horror movies. Not here, though.

It was a busy Saturday night at the Village East. I got there early, and before the movie started, I snuck into a screening of The Artist for a few minutes. I saw the scenes where George and Peppy are rehearsing their dance and Peppy keeps laughing and messing up the take, and then later, when she's alone in George's dressing room and playing with the sleeve of his coat. There are other films I liked better in 2011, but if when this wins Best Picture, I won't be disappointed.

The videos of Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal

2012-02-11T10:12:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson made some of the most iconic, visually fascinating music videos of all time. Some of them were more like short films, especially given the level of talent he worked with. For this and every Saturday in February, we'll look at some of his videos as if they were movies and discuss them accordingly.

Michael Jackson's anthology movie Moonwalker never got a theatrical release in America, but segments of the film were released as music videos, such as "Man in the Mirror" and "Leave Me Alone." (It's worth checking out for the freaky Transformer sequence alone. Also, Joe Pesci.) Perhaps the best-known segment is that for the song "Smooth Criminal." Looking resplendent in a white suit with a powder blue shirt and a stylish slouch hat to match, Jackson infiltrates a lair of underground gangsters and molls and... um... controls them through the power of, uh... dance? Something like that.

Unlike the "Beat It" video, where he's out to defuse a violent situation, here he seems to be the instigator, which, I suppose, is consistent with the persona he adapts in the song. We never see anyone that answers to the name Annie, though, and as a result we never know for sure if she is, in fact, okay. You'd think the video would've answered that burning question.

As in the video for "Bad" - and Moonwalker came out around the same time as the album Bad - Jackson projects an air of hyper-masculinity and aggressiveness greatly at odds with the gentler, more androgynous image he had in life, and I have to admit, at times it's kind of amusing to see. I mean, only in a setting like a music video could a skinny little dude like Jackson stand up to dudes bigger and tougher than him and defeat, or at the very least intimidate, them.

Even when he whips out a machine gun and appears to shoot at the cops lurking outside, there's something about it that feels like a put-on. He's never as tough as he comes across in his videos; his well-known public persona made it impossible to take scenes like this completely seriously. (His character in "Ghosts" seems to be a middle ground between the two extremes.)

There's also a strange middle section where the music stops, the lights are dimmed, and Jackson and the others engage in a slow orgy-like groove that makes no damn sense. I don't know what that's supposed to signify, and frankly, I don't wanna think too much about it either.

And once again, lurking on the periphery are little kids who are easily awed at Jackson's antics. Gaining the approval of children was a thing for him. What it means depends, I suppose, on whether you believe Jackson had a weakness for kids. We'll never know the truth one way or another.

I should also mention the Moonwalker video game based on the "Smooth Criminal" video. I remember playing the arcade version. It wasn't bad, although I didn't play it that often. I do remember it being quite popular for a time.

----------------------
Previously:
"Ghosts"

The Contender

2012-02-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

The Contender
seen @ Sunshine Cinema, New York NY
2.7.12

So Gary Oldman finally got that Best Actor Oscar nomination after all. How about that? Even though he's not likely to win in a field with heavyweights George Clooney and Brad Pitt, plus the star of the likely Best Picture winner, a lot of people are still rooting for him, and not without reason. Though I personally wasn't that crazy about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he was certainly very good in it, and he's taken advantage of all the goodwill generated by his Oscar nomination by doing interviews and keeping himself visible. Here in New York, he recently made two appearances as part of retrospectives on his long career: one at the Walter Reade Theater and another at the Sunshine Cinema, where they not only had a Q-and-A with him, but played a bunch of his best films and gave away free tickets online. I couldn't make it to the Q-and-A, but I did go to one of the films the Sunshine screened, the political drama The Contender.

The film stars Joan Allen as a senator picked by the president to become his vice-president after the incumbent dies. Oldman plays the head of the committee holding hearings to determine her fitness to hold the office. When a scandalous secret from her past comes to light, Oldman really comes after her with both barrels, but she steadfastly refuses to publicly address the issue or even its veracity. Allen, like Oldman, has had a career of mostly supporting roles, and Contender, like Tinker for Oldman, was a rare opportunity for her to shine as the lead, and shine she does (though I don't like her as a blonde).

Oldman, with his scraggly, balding pate, looks a little like Paul Giamatti in this one, and with his flawless American accent, you'd never mistake him for the same guy who plays Tinker's George Smiley. As I've talked about before, though, his ability to disappear inside each role he plays is one of, if not his greatest, strengths. He probably won't win Best Actor, but it is nice to see him getting celebrated for his work.

Freeze Frame: The WSW roundtable take 5

2012-02-09T09:32:00.000-05:00

We're back once again for another round of film discussion. This time out there's quite a bit to discuss, too. Once again our panelists for this month are:

Rachel from Rachel's Reel Reviews
Courtney from Big Thoughts From a Small Mind
Jess from Insight Into Entertainment
Tom from Movie Reviews by Tom Clift

And here are the questions:

1. The studio-supported SOPA and PIPA bills have brought the matter of online piracyto the public's attention. What can be done to fight piracy?

Courtney:The issue of online piracy is an important one, but I think SOPA and PIPA aretrying to reach far too wide. The best thing studios can do is embraceonline streaming technology a lot more. We live in a world now where youcan not only stream movies straight to your home entertainment systems but youcan watch them on your phones as well. People are still interested inseeing films on the big screen as long as they think the quality iswarranted. Just look at how fast The Dark Knight Rises sold out midnight screenings… and it does not open until the summer! Another example on thesmaller side of things is the box office success of films like The Help andMidnight in Paris. Both were films that people when out of their way tosee. However, you cannot then turn around and expect people to pay full priceof films like Jack and Jill or Bucky Larson. Those are films people wouldbe more likely to watch on Netflix or other streaming devices.

Jess:Honestly, I'm not sure much can be done from a legal perspective to stop theactual piracy. Doing a much better job explaining to the public why it'sillegal would help. I'm a teacher and many of my students don't understand theconcept of plagiarizing when it comes to writing their papers, so how can theyreally understand what piracy means in a practical sense. Thosecommercials that show at the beginning of DVDs equate it to a crime, but don'tdo a good job explaining what actual activities we should stop. Does itmean not putting photos on our blog? But if Google has them catalogedand freely available how is that wrong? - I know it is, but given that thiskind of theft has become SOOOO simple, it's hard to recognize it as acrime.

Tom: Tryingto fight online downloading is a waste of time. Especially for the youngergeneration, the behaviour is not viewed as an immoral action. Meanwhile,legislation like SOPA will only limit the internet’s capacity to grow as a toolfor information and communication. The studios need to focus on figuring outways to earn money from downloads. Provide legal, high quality download optionsthat are more convenient than the illegal alternative, and also make themmoney. That said, I doubt people will be willing to pay very much for thisservice, as there is a mindset that exists that web content should be free, orat very cheap. Clearly other revenue models need to be explored (such asadvertising).

Rachel: Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is much to be doneas long as the content is out there. And frankly there are so many largerproblems in the world that piracy should be the least of our worries.

2. The layoff of longtime Village Voice critic J. Hoberman has once again broughtup the question of what value movie critics have in today's world. As a moviecritic, how do you define what you do and whom you do it for? How has thedigital era, and especially the rise of the blogosphere, changed film culture,and how do you see your role in that change?

Courtney:The funny thing is I do not view myself as a critic as I do not have the formaltraining in film. The only time I am aware of being somewhat viewed ascritic is when I am covering a festival as a member of the press. That iswhen I know that the eyes of both the festival, the studio, and the filmmakerswill be seeing my work. It is the only time where I really take care inthe phrasings I use, even if I do not like a film I try to express my reasonsfor my displeasure in a constructive way instead of just saying “that filmsucked.”

As ablogger, I know my audience is primarily other movie bloggers. While itwould be nice if the average Joe checked out my site for thoughts on aparticular film, I am always aware that I am mostly talking to like-mindedindividuals. The reason why the digital era, especially blogs andtwitter, has hurt professional movie critics is that it turns theirvaluable contribution into nothing more than a numbers game for theiremployer. Why pay a critic so much money (including travel expenses),when all these people are already doing it for free? Plus there isthe instantaneous-ness of social media sites to compete with. Audiencesare now starting to tweet during movies, which makes it harder for the critic'svoice to be heard when thousands of people are already debating about the filmon twitter long before the review is even written. This is sadconsidering that professional critics offer so much more value than bloggers,twitter etc. They can both inform you about a film but also educateyou on aspects of cinema that you might not have otherwise been aware of.

Jess:There has definitely been a change in movie culture - movies used to beavailable once, so a critic was really important to influence people to go seethat movie in a theater. Movies would run in a local theater for severalweeks so the 24-hour news cycle didn't matter. If you missed that film,you'd probably never see it. In our lifetime that has changed VERY dramatically- we had VCRs and could tape things on TV, then we could buy movies, then DVD,now streaming and on-demand. So the critic has become a bit less importantin terms of getting people to the theater. However, as a contribution tothe global intellectual discussion, I think the blogger and film critic hasadded enormous value - it might be harder to get your head around the entiretyof thought on a film, but at least there are a lot of thoughts to thinkabout.

Tom: It’san interesting question, especially because I have only begun film criticism inthe digital age, and have only ever really published online. Certainly theinternet has made a huge difference – there are now an enormous amount of highquality writers online working for free, which is making paid criticsincreasingly redundant.

Currently, I write primarily for my own enjoyment, although I do hope for it tobecome my career in the future. Hopefully by that time, online criticism hasbecome a more profitable endeavour than it currently is.

Rachel: I actually don't think of myself as a"critic" in the traditional sense, but simply a lover and(sometimes) reviewer of film. And I honestly can't remember the lasttime I read an entire review from a professional critic. I find myself moreinclined to read what my fellow bloggers thought of a movie more fortheir passion and personality that I've come to know over the years.I find there is more of a connection there than with some stranger who getspaid to love or hate a film. That being said, I still pay attention to thescores on Rotten Tomatoes, as a whole, because for some reason it's burned intomy subconscious that what the critics say in general influences my moviewatching most of the time.

3. This year's Best Picture Oscar lineup has been criticized as being toomiddle-brow, especially with the inclusion of Extremely Loud & IncrediblyClose, which only received one other nomination. Do you agree or disagree? Doyou believe the new voting rules left the procedure open to undue manipulation?Is it time to return to strictly five nominees again?

Courtney:I have not seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close yet so I will not commenton that. However, I will say that it does seem like a lackluster Oscaryear overall. The Academy really took a step backwards this year.It was as if they patted themselves on the back for nominating films like TheSocial Network, Winter’s Bone, Inception, and Toy Story 3 last year and decidedthat they had been progressive enough. The majority of the selectionsthis year are the type of things the Academy would have nominated back in the80’s. There is nothing too challenging, nothing too popular, mainlydramas that all feature uplifting endings etc. Look at the Best Song category:only two songs, both from family movies, get nominated? How is thispossible when the industry releases over a hundred films per year?

Clearlyall this rule changes are serving one side more than it is another. Just look at the documentary category. Many of the highly praised docsthis year - Senna, Project Nim, The Interrupters - were either not eligible or didnot make the final cut. I know they often keep the ratings of thelive telecast in mind when making rule changes but I do not see how any of therule changes will bring in more viewers this year. Besides The Help andMoneyball, the average person has not seen many of the films that werenominated. I am not saying go back to the five nominees for Best Picture, butthe Academy really needs to decide what they want to be? Are the awardingthe best in cinema? Or are they awarding who had the best academymarketing campaign. There is something inherently wrong with a systemwhere studios can lobby for their pictures/actors to win an award. It islike a parent campaigning for their son’s teacher to give the kid an “A+” onhis report card. Having said that, this is the first year in a long time whereI will actually be happy if the frontrunner, The Artist, wins the Best Pictureaward.

Jess: Idisagree that it's too middle brow. I think the increased number ofnominations only makes sense given the change in the number of films that comeout in a year. Are they any better at choosing them? Probably not,but I think that's okay. I think the new voting rules are a fairly strange wayof picking a best picture and probably does the opposite of what they intended(is War Horse really 5% of voters favorite movie of the year? Really? I believe it is a great picture, and deserves its nomination, butit only seems strange to me that people would actually place it on top). Ilike the fluctuating number and I hope they'll continue to refine how thatnumber gets chosen. As long as it's not the same as whoever is picking the Best Song nominees. That doesn't seem to be working at all.

Tom: WhileI’m not qualified to comment on the Oscar rules, I personally prefer have fivenominees. The last few years it seems as there have been several tokennominations, and this year it’s gotten even worse. The Academy has always hadvery middle-brow, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

Rachel: Though I have not seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close yet, it does seem to be the odd man out. Rather that's due to the Academy loving director [Stephen] Daldry or buying into the melodramatic 9/11 backstory is hard to guess, but the film is still the only one of the nine nominees on Rotten Tomatoes with a "rotten" score and hasn't found much more love among general movie audiences, unlike other potential contenders Drive and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. This perplexing inclusion is a huge question mark for the Academy's newest rules for Best Picture nominees, but I'd be willing to give it one more year before pulling the plug and saying definitely go back to only five nominees.

-------------------------

Previously:

Take 1 (3D films, video-on-demand, movies for adults)
Take 2 (Best Picture voting, int'l marketing, Bridesmaids)
Take 3 (Netflix, SONY's 3D glasses deal, Oscars)
Take 4 (Brett Ratner, 35mm film, Oscars)

A Separation

2012-02-06T09:14:00.000-05:00

A Separation
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY
2.2.12

My father maintained his faculties throughout the final years of his life, so I never got to know what it would be like to see him deteriorate mentally as well as physically. While I wouldn't necessarily call him an intellectual, he always kept his mind engaged and sharp for as long as I knew him, therefore I could never imagine him suffering the way the protagonist's father in A Separation does: afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, spending his life in a haze of lost memory, punctuated by brief moments of lucidity.

We had a number of different home attendants taking care of my father during the day, some of whom I liked, some I didn't. Still, they knew their job, and they knew their responsibilities, and they carried them out professionally. My father always did his best to be friendly with these women. He was a natural conversationalist, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy learning about their lives. He probably also knew that he could set them at ease this way, too - after all, it can't be easy attending to the physical needs of a stranger unable to do so on his own.

This is all a build-up to my point: I know exactly how I'd feel if I seriously thought that any of these women physically endangered my father in any way. None of them did, but when you bring a stranger into your home to take care off someone you love, that's the risk you take. You have to trust that this person will do their job properly, because the alternative is too frightening to contemplate. So when the home attendant in the story makes a grave error in judgment, I was on the protagonist's side completely - but then another twist in the story brings his honesty into question as well, and things get even crazier.

I was riveted throughout this whole film. Even though I didn't completely understand some of the aspects of Iranian culture and law, I understood just enough to follow along. (Most of what I know about Iran I learned through reading Persepolis.) This movie has the total package - directing, writing and acting. While it's not explicitly political, which one might think given the recent events in Iran (and how certain filmmakers have been treated as a result), it certainly says a lot about Iranian jurisprudence and how it ties to the Islamic religion.

And religion plays a huge factor in the story. I don't pretend to know everything about Islam as it's practiced in Iran, and I don't wanna sit in judgment on it (at least not here), but I did like how it provides obstacles for the characters that could not be easily overcome. It influences the law and how it's applied in this particular story. For some of the characters, they live their lives by it - and for one in particular, their faith ends up being used against them.

A Separation is a tough drama to sit through, but well worth it.

The videos of Michael Jackson: Ghosts

2012-02-04T12:37:00.001-05:00

Whether intentionally or not, "Ghosts" is surprisingly metatextual. Michael Jackson must have known how very different his life was from the rest of the world, but in this video, he seems to embrace his quirks even as he questions them. By portraying both the strange, mysterious outsider on the fringe of society and the straight-laced, conservative leader of the mob that tries to run him out of town, it's as if he's trying to reconcile dual aspects of his nature: the fun-loving free spirit who lives by his own rules versus the normal guy who just wants to fit into a normal life. We'll never know if this was something he really struggled with, but it's hard not to read such messages into this video.

Make-up whiz Stan Winston directed this video, based on a story idea by Jackson and Stephen King. If you recall, at the very beginning of "Thriller," there's a disclaimer by Jackson stating that the video doesn't endorse demonic beliefs. No such statement appears in "Ghosts," which ramps up the level of demonic and supernatural imagery to eleven - but then, "Thriller" was made during a time when parents were all upset about hidden Satanic messages in rock records. And the make-up work in "Ghosts" is remarkable. In addition to the mob leader, whom I didn't even recognize as Jackson until he starts dancing, there are all sorts of Gothic ghost dancers and Jackson himself, who gets twisted and contorted and reshaped different ways, in different guises. (Scariest moment for me? Near the end, seeing that plastic-surgery-altered face literally crumble.)

As in "Bad," there's a group of people trying to conform Jackson into a certain ideal, but he can only be had on his own terms, and one has to wonder, given how his childhood career was molded by his father, is this him acting out a revenge fantasy on some level? He wants to be free to indulge his idiosyncrasies - he makes a point of saying how he enjoys scaring people - but there's always an adult authority figure who wants to control him. And in this case, that authority figure is him.

But the children are the ones who understand the best, and given how Jackson spent the final years of his life defending himself from charges of pedophilia, one can't help but notice this as well. He always had that Peter Pan aspect to him, an image he consciously cultivated, whether to make up for his lost childhood or something else, we'll never know.

"Ghosts" the song isn't that great, I thought, and both song and video do feel derivative of older material - and did it really need to go on for almost 40 minutes? Still, it's so worth watching just to examine the many layers of subtext on display.

The Movie of My Life Blogathon: The posts

2012-02-03T22:03:00.001-05:00

Well, I guess I overestimated the amount of interest in this idea, because the turnout for this was way smaller than I expected. Still, I wanna thank those who did put something together; I appreciate it. Take a look:

Vain Minutia
The Great Movie Project
The Smoking Pen

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Related:
My Hometown Blogathon: The posts

The Wizard of Oz (Pink Floyd version)

2012-02-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

The Wizard of Oz (Pink Floyd version)

seen @ "Brew & View Movie Mondays" @ Hiro Ballroom, Maritime Hotel, New York NY
1.30.12

My first exposure to Pink Floyd, as I'm sure was the case for many people, was the song "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)." I remember there was a day camp I went to as a child in which some kids sung a version that mocked one of the head counselors. In high school, I got heavily into classic rock and naturally, Floyd was among the many bands I got deeply immersed into, though some of my friends were more into them than others. Of course, I saw the film The Wall during this period, and it freaked the hell out of me like it does for many people who see it for the first time. I'm not sure, but in college I think I went to one of those laser light shows that they used to do at the Planetarium, set to Floyd or other classic rock bands.

If I had to explain Floyd's initial appeal to me, I'd say that for one thing, their music was so unlike anything on the radio (and I grew up as a total Top 40 junkie): atmospheric, moody, and bleak, yet emotional and edgy, with virtuoso guitar riffs and haunting melodies. It's not always the kind of music one can rock out to, but it's artistic and highly refined, and attempts to say things about the human condition.

The first Floyd album I bought, sadly, was not Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall, but the post-Roger Waters 80s album The Delicate Sound of Thunder (which I still have). It's not bad, in and of itself: "Dogs of War" is a fierce cut, and if "Learning to Fly" was a radio-friendly ditty, complete with a video (I was also heavily into MTV back when they still played videos), well, to my way of thinking, there are worse sins. I didn't grow up listening to bands like Floyd when they were at their peak, so I can't help it if my view of them is a bit skewed to purists.

I do remember when Waters performed the entirety of the Wall album at the site of the demolished Berlin Wall in Germany, with an all-star band backing him. It was broadcast live on radio stations worldwide, including New York's old WNEW-FM, my station of choice during my high school years, so I was able to tape record the concert. (Wish I still had that!) This was back when rock really meant something, even though it wasn't that long ago. Linking a concert of this magnitude with a major event in world history seemed like the kind of thing only rock and roll could be audacious enough to pull off.

That's how much rock meant to me and my friends, and I suspect, to others of my generation. Sure, we may not have been around for Woodstock or Monterrey or Altamont; we may not have taken LSD or protested Vietnam or fought for civil rights, but listening to that music, particularly on radio stations like WNEW, which had a reverence for it and felt duty-bound to keep its spirit alive, we understood its importance and we made our own connection to it. Some of us picked up guitars, or in my case a keyboard, and made a go at being musicians ourselves. Some of us appropriated the fashions of the generation before us. I had a few friends in high school who fancied themselves neo-hippies. As visual artists, some of us even applied that aesthetic to our work.

But it always came back to the music - and not just the old stuff, either. Guns 'n' Roses, more than any other band from the 80s, pushed that spirit forward into the next generation - and later on, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and the grunge movement expanded it outward in a new direction. But that's another post.

I don't recall when or where I first heard about the notion that Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon LP could be played in sync to The Wizard of Oz. It might have been in college; I'm not sure. It was an idea that always interested me, though, and it was one of those things I figured I'd try one of these days. Well, wouldn't you know it, the opportunity finally came on Monday night. A local nightclub in the city called the Hiro Ballroom is currently hosting a free movie series of rock-themed movies. Most of them are the usual suspects (Purple Rain, Tommy, Streets of Fire, etc.), but it was the Oz/Floyd combo, sometimes referred to as "The Dark Side of Oz" or "The Dark Side of the Rainbow," that stood out for me.

Located in Chelsea, the Hiro is, as its name would suggest, a Japanese-themed club. Paper lanterns and Japanese calligraphy decorates the spacious room. The central dance floor has a disco ball hovering above it and constantly-moving spotlights flashing in all directions. The bar is to the far left as you enter, and dining booths are at the opposite end. Rows of cushioned benches were set up on the dance floor facing the screen for the occasion. The club's most bizarre feature, however, is what appears to be a dragon's head above the wall where the screen was set up, shrouded in darkness with red glowing eyes and periodically shooting bursts of dry ice into the air.

The crowd was smallish at the outset but grew as the show progressed. I took a bench in the rear of the dance floor area in a central position. The menu offered snacks with rock-themed names, like "Rockcorn" and "Lemmy Sliders" (as in Motorhead's lead singer). I had "Chocolate Chip UFOs," which were small (maybe a bit larger than a silver dollar) but fat and freshly baked. I had already eaten prior to coming there and hadn't planned on getting anything else, but I figured what the heck.

My impression is that this Oz/Floyd synchronicity idea may be overrated. Now I don't know the names of every Floyd song on the Dark Side album, so you'll have to bear with me. At first, I could see some parallels: when Dorothy is trapped in her house as the cyclone carries her up, there's a section on the album with a woman's voice wailing, and that goes together kinda nicely. When Dorothy opens the door onto Oz, that's approximately when the song "Money" kicks in. When she meets the Scarecrow, he appears to dance to "Brain Damage."

After awhile, though, the parallels didn't seem as obvious to me. I don't know if this is how it's supposed to be done or not, but when they're in Oz, sometime around the time the Wicked Witch of the West skywrites "Surrender Dorothy," the DJ brought the music back to "Money" again, which I thought was odd. Eventually I stopped paying attention to whether there was any synchronicity or not, except at the end when Dorothy's back in Kansas and the lyric "Home, home again" popped up. While it was fun to watch Oz this way, I think the Floyd parallels are questionable on the whole. But then, maybe I needed to watch it stoned!

While I'm on the subject, I may as well say a few things about Oz as well. The plot holes have been discussed at length elsewhere, to the point where it's difficult to watch the actual movie without thinking of them. What it comes down to is that Glinda is a poorly-written character with highly-questionable motivations, and Plot-Induced Stupidity abounds almost everywhere. But of course, with a movie as charming and fun as Oz, one's tendency is to overlook such things.

The scene where they walk down the long hallway and finally meet the Wizard always freaked me out as a kid - not so much the actual meeting as the build-up to it. Something about the combination of the hallway, the scary music, and of course the Lion's own reaction filled me with a sense of dread that I'm always reminded of whenever I see Oz.

And then there's Judy Garland. Even with Pink Floyd playing over the original audio track, it's next to impossible not to hear her singing "Over the Rainbow" in one's mind. (Indeed, that was true for a lot of the songs in the movie.) Much has been written about her tragic life, but seeing her here, we're reminded of what an exquisite talent she was - a beautiful young woman with a heavenly singing voice, acting her heart out in her most iconic role.

Five theories why Katherine Heigl is a leading lady

2012-01-31T12:38:00.000-05:00

I'm only half-joking with this post. While my original intent was to have some fun with this topic, the truth is that the more I think about it, the more it bothers me, because something like this seems to defy conventional wisdom.

Katherine Heigl had been kicking around film and television ever since the 90s prior to her role in the hit TV series Grey's Anatomy. (Apparently she had a part in one of my favorite Steven Soderbergh movies, the underrated King of the Hill.) Then, in 2007, came the Judd Apatow film Knocked Up, a huge hit. Suddenly she's in great demand. Understandable. Hollywood tries to market her as a leading lady, but she can't quite pull it off. From 27 Dresses (41% on the Rotten Tomatoes rankings) to The Ugly Truth (13%) to Killers (11%) to Life As We Know It (28%), it's been one long streak of fail, and now she appears to have hit a new low with her current film, One For the Money (an embarrassing 3%). She was also part of the god-awful ensemble comedy New Year's Eve (7%). Dresses and Truth did relatively well financially, but the box office numbers have dwindled considerably since then. She's certainly not making Reese Witherspoon numbers.

And then there's her controversial side.

Given all of this, one has to wonder why Heigl continues to be given all these chances to succeed as a leading lady in films - not as a character actress, but an above-the-title star, with a marketing campaign and everything. Posters for One For the Money are everywhere in NYC right now, and I recall recently walking past the AMC Lincoln Center where they were setting up a red-carpet premiere for Money that evening. Talent is not the question here. Heigl is an Emmy winner, so she presumably has the goods. It's more about why she not only makes bad movie after bad movie, but is allowed to make them.

You don't need me to tell you that women in general have a harder time succeeding in films than men, and that the older they are, the tougher it becomes. Yet here we have a case where an actress, propelled to stardom as a result of her television work and one big hit movie (one in which she was not the focus), has been continually permitted to make bad movies to diminishing returns at the box office, something you rarely see from an actress. Sarah Jessica Parker fits this bill also, but she doesn't have the bad rep as a constant complainer that Heigl has.

So what's going on here? Maybe it's one of these reasons - which are purely speculative and are not meant to be all that serious:

- She... gets around. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. Don't mean to be crass about it, but hey, she wouldn't be the first.

- She's a closet Scientologist. I'm probably more inclined to believe this, which tells you a lot about how much Hollywood has changed over the years.

- She has dirt on the studio heads. Blackmail! Always a great way to advance one's career.

- She and/or her agent have no taste in screenplays. Money appears to be a step away from the rom-com formula, at least, but it looks like that's not working either.

- Mind control. Though maybe that should fall under Scientology!

Of course, maybe it's possible she's just misunderstood. That wouldn't explain all the bad choices she's made with her movies, though. Perhaps you have a better theory you'd like to share.

Carrie

2012-01-30T09:19:00.000-05:00

Carrie
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey City, Jersey City NJ
1.28.12

My high school prom was on a boat, if you can believe that. For three hours we got to ride around the island of Manhattan on a little cruise ship rented for the occasion by my school. It was pretty awesome. I remember during the first few months of my senior year, I had a certain girl in mind that I wanted to take to the prom, but that went out the window once it became obvious that I was attracted to someone else. They say you never forget your first true love, and that certainly applies to my eventual date, a girl I fell deeply and passionately in love with and dated for a couple of years. On the big night, we even matched: she wore a gorgeous sky-blue dress and I had on a silver tuxedo with a powder-blue tie and cummerbund, and a blue top hat to match.

I've written here before about how "voguing" was in that year thanks to Madonna's song "Vogue" and how we all danced to it that night. We didn't have a live band, like you usually see in the movies whenever there's a prom, though that would've been great too. We did have a king and queen, though I'll be damned if I can remember who it was. No one I was friends with, that's for sure.

As much as any other movie about teenagers, Carrie works aggressively at portraying the feelings of importance surrounding this traditional high school event. The cheesy decorations, the lousy live band, and the outfits are naturally part of it all, but director Brian De Palma really pushes it as a girly fantasy through and through, from the bird's eye view of the ceiling decorations descending into the crowd, to the vertigo-inducing worm's eye shot of Carrie and Tommy spinning round and round as they slow dance, the super-slo-mo images of Carrie being crowned prom queen, and of course the music throughout it all. The bucket of ~~corn syrup~~ pig's blood descending down on her head is almost a relief, or would be if that moment wasn't stretched out to near-infinity.

I have no doubt that the high school prom (is it "the prom" or just "prom"? Apparently modern kids favor the latter) means more to girls than to boys. It plays to many romantic fantasies, as well as the idea of finally Growing Up and becoming a Full-Fledged Adult. And yes, that sappy stuff can apply to the fellas too; that's certainly how I saw my junior high school prom, for instance. I went stag, but I got to dance with the girl I was infatuated with at the time and I walked home light-headed and carefree, as if in a dream. It's a nice feeling, and I don't fault De Palma for trying to capture it. It's just a little too much to watch after awhile.

But of course, we all remember Carrie for what happens after that bucket falls. I've never read the book, but I imagine Stephen King goes into more detail into what the film makes implicit: that Carrie's telekinetic superpowers are a metaphor for puberty. Or perhaps it's not so implicit; after all, the film essentially begins with Carrie getting her period. It's been the impetus for many an X-Men comic book - heck, Carrie is more or less Jean Grey without the telepathy, right down to the red hair.

The X-comics always emphasize the need to work at controlling a mutant's powers, lest they get out of control. In Carrie, and indeed, many similar movies, this never seems to be a problem. We see Carrie's powers erupt spontaneously, but we never really see her work at controlling them. By the prom night climax, Carrie looks like she's ready to take on Magneto singlehandedly.

Carrie screened at the Loews as part of a twin bill tribute to actress Piper Laurie, who was in attendance. (The other film was The Hustler, which screened earlier.) Laurie recently came out with an autobiography called Learning to Live Out Loud, which she signed copies of. She still looks good at age eighty. Film historian and Loews regular Foster Hirsch was on hand for a Q-and-A with Laurie in-between movies, in which she talked about her early career under contract at Universal International and how unfulfilling she found it, and how she had to develop the ability to express her needs, which did not always come easily for her. She also talked about working with her Hustler co-stars Paul Newman (whom she was dazzled by) and George C. Scott (whom she was intimidated by), as well as Carrie director De Palma (she originally thought the film was a comedy!).

For pics of Laurie as well as shots of the Loews itself, be sure to go to the WSW Facebook page.

AFFRM to co-distribute 'Middle of Nowhere'

2012-01-28T13:53:00.001-05:00

Participant Media and AFFRM (African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement) have jointly acquired U.S. theatrical rights to MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, an elegant and emotional drama chronicling a woman’s separation from her incarcerated husband and her journey to maintain her marriage and her identity. Written and directed by AFFRM founder Ava DuVernay, the film was produced by DuVernay and Howard Barish with producer Paul Garnes.

The rest of the release.

Don't get me wrong; I want to see this movie and I'm glad it got to play at Sundance, but I can't help but be a little bit troubled over the fact that two of the first three films distributed by AFFRM are ones made by its founder. DuVernay has said that her plan was to get two films a year and now the first one for 2012 is another film of hers. I understand that she wants to get her films out there too, but I'd also like to see AFFRM acquire films from other filmmakers, especially if they're as superb as Kinyarwanda.

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Related:
Black film fests form distribution network
AFFRM's DuVernay: POCs are part of indie film too

Soundtrack Saturday: John Williams

2012-01-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

Let's be honest: if you're reading this blog, chances are you can hum at least three John Williams tunes, if not more. His scores have transcended the film world and have become part of the mainstream culture at large, and while he's worked with a variety of different filmmakers, in many people's minds he's mostly associated with Steven Spielberg. This is the last Soundtrack Saturday feature. I have something special planned for the next four Saturdays in February (also music related), and then a new regular Saturday feature will begin in March, so what better way to end than with a tribute to the undisputed king of film composers?

John Williams IMDB page

Amazon link to buy soundtracks featuring his music

Star Wars: Music By John Williams,

a documentary about the making of the Empire Strikes Back score
with a look at some of his earlier work from the 60s and 70s

Guardian interview from 2002

The argument for Viola Davis

2012-01-27T16:48:00.000-05:00

When I first wrote about The Help, I, like many people, believed Viola Davis would get recognized by the Academy for an Oscar nomination, but in the Supporting Actress category. The confusion, I suppose, was understandable. The film is very much an ensemble, with a variety of top-notch actresses, young and old, in pivotal roles, and at first glance, Emma Stone's character would seem to be the focal point, since she's the one writing the book that sets the story in motion. In truth, however, The Help belongs more to Davis' character Aibileen. Hers is the first and last face we see on screen, and hers is the voice that narrates the film, and this is why Davis has been placed in the Best Actress category instead, and deservedly so.

I'm not interested in dredging up the politics of the film again; that's been done repeatedly over the last six months or so, by better writers than me. I wanna talk about Davis. Her biggest competitor for the little gold man is, and has been, long before her movie even came out, Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady, the Margaret Thatcher biopic. Everyone's so eager to see her win her third Oscar after a drought of over 25 years, and with uber-producer Harvey Weinstein in her corner this year, it's looking like a real possibility this time. Streep and Davis are both up for the SAG Award for Best Actress as well, and the winner of that will have a major advantage in the race for the Oscar.

At the moment (though this could change) I'm leaning towards Davis winning both SAG and the Oscar. Both SAG and the Academy have shown deeper support for Help than for Lady. The former has both a SAG Ensemble and a Best Picture Oscar nod, in addition to Supporting Actress nominations. Aibileen is a more sympathetic character than Margaret Thatcher, and that counts for something when you're talking about a voting body - the Academy - that put films like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and War Horse in the Best Picture field ahead of more challenging films like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or Drive.

Also, and this really can't be ignored when you're talking about the Academy, if Davis wins, she would become only the second black woman to ever win Best Actress. (The first one, of course, was Halle Berry.) The injustice of a record like this speaks for itself. For all of the Academy's attempts to appear progressive throughout their history, they don't grok race as well as they like to think.

Still, in the past decade, they've attempted to recognize more actors of color, as well as foreign-language performances, and while I obviously can't say for sure that this issue at the forefront of their minds, I suspect the Academy is at the very least aware of what's at stake. Plus, one look at the awards The Help has picked up should show you that Davis and the film in general have been legitimately recognized in many other venues.

Like I said, this weekend's SAG Awards will make a huge difference in who wins the Best Actress Oscar (some people think Michelle Williams could steal it from both Streep and Davis), but as of now, I'm convinced that Davis will come up the winner by a slim margin.

Thoughts?

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Related:
'The Help' and black literature

We Need to Talk About Kevin

2012-01-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

We Need to Talk About Kevin
seen @ Lincoln Plaza Cinema, New York NY
1.24.12

I recently saw a commercial from European television - I forget which country, but it's the kind of ad that would never, ever get shown in America. A father and son are in a supermarket shopping. The son is maybe about four or five years old. The son wants to buy candy or some other kind of sweet, but Dad says no, and the kid throws a five-alarm-fire tantrum like you wouldn't believe. He's yelling and screaming and kicking things and generally raising a ruckus, and from the look on Dad's face, you can tell he's powerless to fully control his son when he's like this. And that's when we find out what this ad is for: Surprise! It's an ad for condoms!

Now even I'm willing to admit that that may be a bit unfair, but I also think it's indisputable that many people enter parenthood thinking it'll be more pleasant than it actually is. I dealt with this subject when I wrote about The 400 Blows, and in a way, We Need to Talk About Kevin is that movie from the mother's perspective.

One of the great Philosophy 101 thought experiments posits the question: what would you do with Adolf Hitler as an infant, knowing what he'll grow up to become? There's an implication within that question that suggests some people are simply born evil, but of course, one can't detect that. In Kevin, we're led to believe that the title character is indeed bad to the bone, and there's nothing Tilda Swinton's character, his mother, can do to change it.

Would I kill Hitler as a baby - assuming, of course, I had concrete evidence that this was, indeed, the child who would grow up to be that man? Probably not. I mean, c'mon, how can anyone kill a baby? I might opt to do something like keep Hitler's parents apart; make sure they never meet (as long as we're talking about time travel anyway). Or perhaps I'd steal him and bring him to America and raise him as a completely different person with no knowledge of where he came from.

As creatures of free will, we have the capacity to choose to do good or evil. The idea that anyone can be born bad can make for good fiction, as is the case with Kevin, but it smacks too much of predestination for it to be plausible in real life.

But let's stick with the movie's premise: that someone can be born evil. In Kevin, Eva, Kevin's mom, has a complete inability to connect with Kevin, practically from his birth. As an infant, he always cries whenever she tries to pick him up. (There's a great moment where we see Eva standing next to construction workers drilling into the street just so she can hear something other than the sound of Kevin crying.) As he gets older, Kevin seems to deliberately antagonize Eva, yet he gets along fine with his father, Franklin, who isn't convinced there's a problem with his son. Any kind of medical condition is ruled out, and there's no Omen-type of supernatural cause, either (it's not that kind of film).

When Kevin does the awful thing he eventually does, blame falls at Eva's feet. Is that fair? If Kevin was in fact, born bad, was there anything Eva could've done about it - except kill him? But how could she have known for sure? How could anyone know? If nature can't be changed, if who we are is determined from the day we're born, then conscience and accountability have no place. We can do what we like and not fear consequences because we're not responsible for our actions. Perhaps Kevin realizes this, because when he does that awful thing, he shows no remorse for it, nor is he able to rationalize it. Eva, however, still suffers the consequences, which is where the heart of this film's tragedy lies.

Oscar 2011: The nominees

2012-01-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

For Best Picture:

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

The rest of the nominees.

I find myself kinda underwhelmed by the overall choices. It looked like Dragon Tattoo had a legitimate shot at Picture, which I would've been in favor of, but they went instead with safe choices like War Horse and especially Loud, the latter of which had received unflattering reviews. (At least Steven Spielberg didn't get a Director nod.) Given a choice, the Academy will go with sentiment over innovation more often than not, and that's something I should've remembered. I'm glad I correctly picked Tree, even though I hated the movie, though I should've realized director Terence Malick would've gotten in as well.

No Michael Fassbender for Actor is very disappointing, though my disappointment is mitigated by the inclusion of Gary Oldman. I hated Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I did like Oldman in it, and it's great to see him finally get recognized by the Academy. Rooney Mara for Actress is a nice surprise. Shaileen Woodley and Ben Kingsley missing out in Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor is not as nice. I was feeling fairly confident that Melissa McCarthy would make the cut for Supporting Actress, so I'm glad I picked her.

I picked A Separation for Original Screenplay, but not Margin Call. Tinker got Adapted Screenplay, so I guess I must be stupid in not being able to follow that movie. Or perhaps I just need to be British. And only two Original Song nominees? Really?

In the end, I guess it doesn't matter what I think of the nominees, because The Artist looks like it's gonna win and win big. Whatever. I can't really complain if that does happen. It's a good, enjoyable movie. Just not what I would've voted for.

Like the nominees? Hate them? Let's talk.

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Related:
Oscar 2010: The nominees
AMPAS to play roulette with Oscar Best Pic field

Sherlock Jr./The Play House

2012-01-23T17:59:00.000-05:00

Sherlock Jr./The Play House
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey City, Jersey City NJ
1.21.12

The more I see of the work of Buster Keaton, the more amazed I am. I used to only know him as one of the giants of silent screen comedy - one third of the holy trinity of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. Now, though, I also see him as a remarkable filmmaker who, in some respects, was ahead of his time.

This past Saturday, when we got hit with snow for the first time this winter (not much), the Loews Jersey City showed a Keaton twin bill: Sherlock Jr. and The Play House. The former is Keaton as a film projectionist who fantasizes about being a detective; the latter portrays his misadventures behind the scenes of a stage production. While both of them were funny in their own ways, I found myself more amazed at the technical wizardry employed by the director-star.

In Sherlock, there's a scene where Keaton's character dreams that he's able to step into a movie, and then we follow him through a breathtaking sequence of ever-changing scenery, but Keaton moves from one to the other as if it were all one scene. I can't imagine how he could've pulled it off in 1924, especially since the transitions are almost perfectly seamless. There's also a hair-raising chase in which Keaton is perched on the handlebars of a motorbike with no driver, and he dodges cars in a manner that would require expert timing.

Play House, meanwhile, opens with a different dream scene, in which Keaton plays a variety of characters all at the same time, including the orchestra conductor, members of the orchestra itself, a bunch of stage performers (including, sadly, a couple in blackface), and audience members - male and female. Actors playing double roles within individual scenes has become almost commonplace in films, and to a lesser extent, TV (Eddie Murphy has practically made it a fine art) but this was made in 1921, when film was still relatively new - and again, Keaton made it look quite convincing!

As I've stated before, The Artist and Hugo have both done much to pay tribute to the silent film era, but there's nothing like actually seeing those films to appreciate the craft at play there. We've become so used to computer-generated effects and RED cameras and digital photography in our films that it's easy to forget that innovation in film is not something restricted to the last twenty years. The effects in these films may seem commonplace today, but the fact that Keaton was able to pull them off during a much earlier period in film history makes them even more amazing to look at.

It was good to be back at the Loews; I hadn't been there in months and I missed it. I went with Reid; it was his first time there and he seemed impressed with the place. He ran into an acquaintance of his while we were there; this old guy named Fred and his lady friend whose name escapes me. The two of them talked a great deal about old movies on the PATH train ride back into the city.

Soundtrack Saturday: Michael Kamen

2012-01-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

Theme from Highlander

"Sam Lowry's 1st Dream" (with Kate Bush) from Brazil

"Gruber's Departure" from Die Hard (my post on the movie)

My obligatory top 10 for 2011

2012-01-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

I wasn't gonna do this at first. Then I thought I'd do it, but post it on the WSW Facebook page instead. I used to do year-end top tens on my old comics blog and it kinda got old after awhile for me, and I didn't think there'd even be much of an interest in it here anyway. But I think people always have an interest in year-end top tens. And besides, I did see some really good films in 2011, and I'd probably regret it later if I didn't do at least one year-end top ten on this blog, so here we go...

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10. Higher Ground. A movie that I connected deeply with. It's not easy to question the ideals one has grown up with, especially if it has to do with religion. I just felt like this spoke right to me. Plus, it has made me a fan for life of the remarkable Vera Farmiga, who starred in and directed it while pregnant and gave one of the best, most overlooked performances by an actress this year. I really hope this is only the beginning of her filmmaking career.

9. Restless City. Easily one of the highlights of the Urbanworld Film Festival for me, Andrew Dosunmu's tale of African immigrants in the big city is visually breathtaking to look at, with a compelling character-driven story to complement it. I don't think this one has hit the radar of too many other film sites and critics, which is unfortunate. Perhaps it can find a distributor in 2012. I hope so, because I could easily see this as an art house hit, much the same way Steve McQueen's Hunger was a few years ago. Like McQueen, Dosunmu has an eye for artistic composition and color that shows through in his work.

8. Attack the Block. Another fine example of the power word of mouth can have on a film. The more I kept seeing people blog about this one, the more I thought I'd better give it a shot - and I'm glad I did. Why do studios feel the need to throw hundreds of millions of dollars on "tentpole" action movies every year when a smaller-budget film like this can do the job as well, if not better?

7. Hugo. Of course, big-budget movies can be great too, if done right! What can you say about Martin Scorsese that hasn't already been said? After over forty years in show business, he not only shows no signs of slowing down, he continues to push past his boundaries and discover new ways to express his love of film, and this one expresses it in a lively and unique way. A Scorsese movie shouldn't really qualify as such, but I found this to be one of the most pleasant surprises of 2011.

6. Martha Marcy May Marlene. It wasn't just Elizabeth Olsen's mesmerizing performance in this film that sold me, but John Hawkes' too. Together, they made for one killer combo in this strikingly original film in which what you don't see is every bit as important as what you do see. This was a film I had to be coaxed into, not being entirely certain what to expect - is it a horror film? A suspense film? There's an Olsen sister that can actually act? Sometimes, though, you just have to jump into the deep end and take a chance on a film. This was another one of those times, and it paid off.

5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Way better than it had a right to be, this was the best film of the summer by a longshot. By now, you're probably sick of hearing me rave about Andy Serkis' remarkable performance-capture role as ape of destiny Caesar, so let me just say this: while I don't honestly think he will get a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, in the end it doesn't matter, because the impact he has made, with his roles in the Lord of the Rings films, King Kong, Tintin, and this, has already been made and felt, and will continue to be felt. Should all movies use p-cap? No, but when applied the right way, it can make all the difference between a mediocre film and a good one.

4. Kinyarwanda. One of the great movie industry stories of 2011, without question, is the success of AFFRM and their ability to bring quality black films into major movie theaters in major markets nationwide. I Will Follow was first, but this one, I believe, was the best. A moving, suspenseful, funny and life-affirming story, its lesson - that forgiveness is a greater power than vengeance - is one that we all badly need to learn. Thank you, Alrick Brown, for directing it, and thank you, Ava DuVernay, for distributing both this and I Will Follow. Keep up the good work.

3. Pariah. I needed no coaxing to see this one; I was sold on it ever since I first read about it way back during last year's coverage of Sundance. Not that I can attest to what life is like for a black teenage lesbian, but it felt real, it felt honest, and it felt down-to-earth. Writer-director Dee Rees is a name I hope to hear a lot more of in the future, especially if she can make movies like this. In my dreams, this screenplay gets an Oscar nomination. Will never happen, I realize, but I keep seeing FYC ads for it so who knows?

2. The Descendants. I never said this in my original post, but a major reason why I loved this so much was because it made me think of my father. He wasn't in a coma, like George Clooney's character's wife, but there are things I would've liked to have said to him before he died and never got the chance to. Nothing earth-shaking, but small, personal things that perhaps would've made me understand him a little better. So in that sense I felt like I could relate to what this story was all about - and of course, Clooney was so wonderful in it. While his was not the best performance by an actor in 2011, in my opinion, I'm gonna pull for him anyway because my top choice in that category probably won't make the cut...

1. Take Shelter. ...and this is it. I have Kris Tapley of In Contention to thank for turning me on to this film. I was very reluctant about seeing it, but he kept going on about it and how great it was and how great Michael Shannon is in it, so I was like, okay, I'll see it. Descendants is the only 2011 film I gave five lambs to at the LAMB forums, but it's this that has stuck with me the most - especially that ending. Shannon and Jessica Chastain were both riveting in it, and it's certainly nothing if not reflective of the state of the world today. It can also be interpreted in more than one way, however, which is so amazing about it. A first-rate job from writer-director Jeff Nichols.

Agree? Disagree? Let's talk about it.

[FYI: Look for my Oscar nomination predictions this Friday on the WSW Facebook page!]

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Related:
Top 5 movie-related moments of 2011

Stella Dallas

2012-01-16T18:45:00.000-05:00

Stella Dallas
seen online via YouTube
1.16.12

The more I keep seeing trailers for Titanic 3D, the more I kinda feel like I maybe, MAYBE wanna see it. Viewing it on the big screen reminds me of the first time I saw it - and while a big part of its appeal, arguably the biggest, is the sheer epic spectacle of watching the ship sink, the tragic-love-story element is hard to resist too. (Perhaps I'll see it if there's nothing else worth watching.)

Melodramas have that uncanny ability to get under your skin. Sometimes it doesn't work, but other times it does. When I wrote about War Horse, my impression was that it tried too hard to sell its story - though, if I were to be totally honest, a lot of the classic "women's pictures" from back in the day were similar, if not the same.

But you know what? I wasn't gonna cop to this, but I guess I will: I cut classic films more slack in this area. Why? Maybe it's because I expect different things from modern movies - a greater degree of sophistication, perhaps? I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just plain biased in favor of classic movies? Possibly. Either way, I admit that when it comes to overt appeals towards emotion and sentiment, I tend to accept it more in classic films than in modern ones. Perhaps it's not rational or consistent, but it's the truth.

So it was that Stella Dallas made a play for my heartstrings and just barely succeeded in giving them a brief tug. Barbara Stanwyck was a major reason why, naturally; my love of her is well-documented in this blog. The film's about a working-class chick who marries into high society and struggles to fit in, as much as she wants to. The situation gets complicated when she has a child who develops a taste for the good life, too. It starts off as if it's gonna go down a similar path to Mildred Pierce (which this film precedes by seven years), but veers in a quite different direction before it's all over.

Stanwyck makes all the difference, as you can imagine. In Baby Face, she's also a social climber, but she's much more devious about it - and more successful at fitting in as a result. Here, her character has a tougher time adjusting to high society, and that's where the heart of the drama lay, both before and after she has her daughter. The sacrifice she ultimately chooses to make is a hard one, but once again, Stanwyck makes you believe it - and because she's Stanwyck and because I love her, I do believe it. What more can I say?

Soundtrack Saturday: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

2012-01-14T08:52:00.000-05:00

"In Motion" from The Social Network (my post on the movie)

"Hand Covers Bruise" from The Social Network

"People Lie All The Time" from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) (my post on the movie)

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

2012-01-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
seen @ reRun Gastropub Theater @ reBar, DUMBO, Brooklyn NY
1.12.12

There's a great old Star Trek episode where Mr. Spock, under the influence of alien plant life, loses his emotional control and is able to express his love for this human woman who has a crush on him. For an alien who practices stoicism as a survival method, Spock always managed to be attractive to the ladies - and that was as much true in real life as on the show. Of course, this can't last, and when Spock becomes himself again, the chick's all broken up, but he tells her he can't willingly change, even if he wanted to: "If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's."

Now, in Spock's case, he has to maintain emotional control because Vulcan emotions are so passionate and dangerous they can do serious harm, to himself and to others. The aliens of the indie flick Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same are similar, only their lack of emotional control is believed to have led to an environmental crisis on their planet. Three of their worst offenders have been exiled to Earth, never to return unless they can purge their emotionalism by having their hearts broken.

I was expecting this to be a parody of 50's sci-fi alien invasion movies with a post-modern sensibility, and while it kinda is in a superficial sense (the makeup, the costumes, the spaceship), it doesn't go far in that direction, though I suspect that wasn't really the intent anyway. As the title makes clear, the emphasis is on exploring romantic relationships, and of course there's a human woman who falls for one of these lesbian space aliens. There are also a pair of government agents on the hunt for the aliens.

While there are some mildly amusing scenes (the one where they're dancing in the bar is perhaps the funniest), I didn't feel like Space Alien explored its premise deeply enough. We're told stuff more than we're shown stuff. For instance, we don't get to see a lot of the past of Jane, the human protagonist (who rides a bike!), and why she would be more susceptible to falling in love with a female alien than with another human woman. We are, however, told quite a bit in her therapy sessions. The subplot with the two aliens who try to start a relationship with each other goes somewhere for a while, but then it fizzles for no good reason. And every time we see the G-men, they're yammering, Pulp Fiction-style, about minutiae not directly related to their mission. They're no Mulder and Scully.

I never felt like there was a great sense of risk. Tying the aliens' emotions to an impending planetary disaster that we don't even see the consequences of was a mistake. This is sci-fi! Instead of a hole in the ozone layer (Really? That's the best you can come up with?) how about having their world blow up unless they kick these overly-emotional aliens the hell out of there quick? How about dealing with the fact that by being true to their natures, these exiles can never go back home? And how about giving Jane a wider arc than "she meets an alien - she falls in love with her"? One with more at stake for her personally? And either get rid of the G-men or make them more a part of the story. They were dead weight.

Space Alien played at a new venue for movies in New York: reRun, a screening room that's part of the DUMBO restaurant reBar. It's particularly unique in that the cooking staff of the restaurant also provides eats and drinks for reRun, and it's a cut above standard movie theater fare: gourmet hot dogs and pretzels (!), stuffed baked focaccia, popcorn with flavored powder coatings, and more! And of course there's also a bar.

All this week at the Space Alien screenings (last night was the last night), reRun offered a deal where if you arrived a half-hour earlier or more and spent at least $7 on food (the same price as admission), the admission was free. I, naturally, chose to take advantage of this, but I didn't expect so large a crowd a half-hour before showtime. All told, there must have been 100-125 people in this small screening room and half of them were bellying up to the lone person behind the bar taking all their orders. A second bartender arrived later, and by then I was able to order my $7 popcorn.

reRun actually has stadium seating, if you can believe it, though last night they actually had to add folding chairs in the front to accommodate the large crowd. The seats were comfy - high-backed, just the way I like them - but the floor came up higher than usual, so my knees were almost up to my chest. Plus, my seat kept leaning back when I first tried to sit back in it, which made getting comfortable a bit tricky at first.

I sat next to an old dude who had a copy of the 2012 Leonard Maltin guide with him. He said he writes about movies too, but he just makes lists of his favorite movies for his friends. Going in alphabetical order, he's only on the B's so far, so we ended up talking about movies beginning with B, like Bringing Up Baby and Bridge on the River Kwai. He said he likes supporting indy films, but he wasn't too impressed with Space Alien either.

Space Alien writer-director Madeleine Olnek was on hand, along with several cast members and the makeup artist. Afterwards she talked about the movie, saying it was shot guerrilla style, without permits, all through Greenwich Village, which she said she wanted to make as much a part of the movie as anything else. She also talked about the venues she had to film in - bars, restaurants, etc. - and working with the owners to get their permission. She wouldn't discuss budget. Her elderly dad had a couple of scenes in the movie, and he was in the audience as well, though he left before the Q-and-A afterwards. The makeup artist said it took about two hours to get those bald-caps on the actresses playing the aliens, and she did a good job from what I could tell.

The Adventures of Tintin

2012-01-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

I'm having computer troubles so posting may be light over the next week or so. Please bear with me.

The Adventures of Tintin

seen @ Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas, Jamaica, Queens NY

1.10.12

In his seminal book about the history and unique nature of the medium, Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud posited that the appeal of Tintin creator Herge's art style lay not just in his "ligna claire" style - the ease and grace of his linework - but also the fact that the character is a simply-rendered image against a meticulously-rendered background. McCloud states that the simpler a character is drawn, the more universal its appeal, since the lack of specificity makes it easier for one to project themselves into the character.

As a visual artist, I can attest to this. In college, I learned the value of juxtaposing simple, less-detailed areas against heavily-detailed ones. When I started making comics, however, my inclination was to draw like most superhero artists, since I was under the mistaken belief that this was how one becomes a success in the industry. It wasn't until I changed my style to one closer in spirit to Herge's that I began to get noticed (not that I ever became a star or anything).

In North America, comics fans generally tend to prefer detail to a ridiculous degree, particularly in their superhero comics: every last vein and muscle on the bodies; elaborate costumes and weaponry; cityscapes in which you can see every window in every building. One popular artist pays so much attention to detail that he actually broke his wrist while drawing a highly-anticipated crossover mini-series featuring characters from Marvel and DC Comics. While such devotion is commendable, I was taught that in art, detail for detail's sake is less important than being judicious with it - knowing how to use it and where. Herge embodies this philosophy, which may be one reason why Tintin, as well as Carl Barks' Donald Duck comics, have historically been more popular in Europe.

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have said that they chose to make The Adventures of Tintin in computer-generated performance capture (I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not it should be called animation), in part, to pay tribute to Herge's distinctive style. The film is a marvelous hybrid of Herge's character designs with the photorealism capable with CGI. Tintin looks more or less like a real teenager, even with his distinctive duck-tail hairdo, but secondary characters like Haddock and Thomson & Thompson maintain their more distinctive features. And of course, with p-cap, their movements seem more fluid and natural.

I forewent seeing Tintin in 3D, though I'll bet it looks great that way. Still, I was quite taken with this film. The non-stop action has the feel of Spielberg's Indiana Jones movies. I confess, I've read very little Tintin myself, so perhaps the books answer a few nagging questions I had - for instance, if he's a reporter, why do we never see his office, or at least his editor (if he's only a freelancer)? Doesn't matter though.

The Room (2003)

2012-01-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

The Room (2003)
seen @ Sunshine Cinema, New York NY
1.7.12

There are many unknown filmmakers out there who believe their work to be of high quality - and some of them are. The odds against them achieving any kind of fame are long, but still they persevere. Now imagine yourself as one of them for a moment. You've taken film classes, you've studied the work of the great directors of film history, you've refined and reworked your screenplay over and over with the help of friends and teachers and you've got a solid cast and crew. You believe you've got what it takes to become the next Spielberg or Scorsese. Then along comes some guy who makes a horrible, horrible film by every stretch of the imagination - one that, against all logic, becomes a cult hit. How would that make you feel?

I don't believe anyone truly sets out to make a "bad" movie. Some filmmakers may aim for camp or parody or satire, and in so doing, deliberately lower their standards, but I don't think that's quite the same thing. That's more like being in on the joke. One is led to believe that quality will eventually win out over time - a statement that can apply to any creative medium. However, thanks to the Internet, we live in an age where both the good stuff and the bad stuff can not only be preserved, but analyzed and celebrated, to a degree, for all time - and word of mouth is much quicker.

Celebrating junk, preserving it and keeping it alive, isn't the same thing as learning from the mistakes of others, which is a vitally important part of the creative process, as any artist will tell you. I'm as guilty of it as most people. There are a number of websites I follow, such as this one, that revel in the silly, disposable pop culture detritus of the past, good and bad. I've written about bad movies here before and I'll continue to do so, occasionally. I find that after a long stretch of good movies, they make for a nice break every once in awhile, and yeah, if they're bad enough, they can be unintentionally funny and a trip to watch. But the lengths some go to in order to keep them alive boggle the mind sometimes.

Which leads us to The Room. I had heard bits and pieces about it a year or two ago, but didn't pay it much mind. Then, one night I was at Andi's apartment and I met her roommate Melissa. We got to talking about movies, among other things, and she brought up The Room and how much she loved it. So I figured okay, perhaps I'll keep an eye out for it. Last year I found out that it was playing at the Village East at midnight, and I had invited John and Sue to see it with me, but I had underestimated how popular it truly is: the film was sold out by the time we got there.

Curious about the film, however, John and Sue decided to rent it on their own and they got into it. When they read about another midnight showing, this one at the Sunshine last Saturday night, they invited me to it. So while this would be my first time seeing it, it would be their first time seeing it with an audience.

And what an audience it was. It looked like it was close to a sellout, with mostly young people. Like a typical Rocky Horror Picture Show outing, people came in costume (one hairy dude with a goatee came in a blonde wig and red dress, mimicking the lead female character Lisa) and they came bearing props - a few guys had footballs, for instance, which figure prominently in the film.

And then there were the spoons. Oh my god, the spoons.

There's not much of a plot to The Room. Set in San Francisco - which we're constantly reminded of - it's a simple love triangle story, in which one chick must decide between two different dudes. Most of the action is set in the living room of an apartment in which people come and go at a surprising frequency.

As a cinematic achievement, it fails on every level. The dialogue is banal, the acting uninspired, the ludicrously-staged love scenes go on for far too long (and are further undermined by make-out love songs that would be awkward in a blaxploitation movie), and the characters are uniformly one-dimensional and unsympathetic. However...

...the audience was not exactly made up of film students clinically dissecting the movie with a dispassionate eye. The overwhelming majority of them had seen The Room multiple times, and in true Rocky Horror fashion, not only did they recite lines of dialogue, but they hollered their own insults and one-liners back to the screen. In fact, in places the audience shushed each other before a particularly choice line was about to come up, which I found fascinating. There are several scenes in which some of the characters toss a football around, and sure enough, at one point a few guys ran to the front of the auditorium and did the same thing, to the cheers of the crowd. In the titular room, among the decorations include something that's easy to miss on DVD because it's so small and unimportant: a framed image of a spoon. While peculiar, it's never prominently displayed; still, that did not stop the audience from making it rain plastic spoons whenever it entered the frame (and sometimes when it didn't!). And they sung along with the love songs!

My enjoyment of The Room - and I did enjoy it - was purely based on the audience experience, though I'm pretty sure John and Sue also like it for its camp value. I tossed my share of spoons around, and I even ad libbed a call-back or two. It's impossible to not get caught up in an environment like that. To return to my original statement, however, is it right that a movie this bad gets so much attention lavished on it?

Whether you're talking about any of the Transformers movies or a recent low-budget horror movie that inexplicably took in $34.5 million dollars on opening weekend after getting lambasted by the critics, sometimes - a lot of times - bad movies defy the odds. One could make a distinction between a studio film that spends an obscene amount of money catering to the lowest common denominator and an indy film that aspired to greatness, but got irretrievably lost somewhere along the way, but I'd say the end result is the same; it's simply a matter of degree. In a bizarre way, The Room's unexpected popularity is actually inspiring - or would be, if it wasn't popular for all the wrong reasons. I don't know what the answer is, but I can't deny the level of affection the audience felt for the film, even if it may be misplaced.

A few other observations: there seems to be a belief that Lisa is fat. She's not; she's just not a stick figure like most Hollywood starlets... At Saturday night's screening, there was what appeared to be a homeless dude sitting in the back. He was probably looking for a place to get out of the cold for a couple of hours, but of all movies to pick, he picks this one? The funny thing is, from what I saw afterwards, I think he liked it!

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't say a word about writer-director-producer-star Tommy Wiseau, who has developed a cult following of his own. He's no sex symbol, yet we see far too much of him in the movie, if you know what I mean. John and Sue suggested the possibility that his European(?) accent and his public persona may be an act; I doubt it. If he did intend for The Room to be a serious film initially, he appears to have embraced its unexpected cult status. At this point, I doubt he has much of a choice. (Personally, I dread the possibility that one of my old mini-comics from the 90s will turn up on some comics website and get mocked.) Wiseau has been able to ride the "success" of The Room pretty far, but one can't help but wonder if he's learned anything about making better movies as a result. It would be a shame if he didn't - but if he became a better filmmaker, would he retain his popularity with the midnight movie crowd? Strange how these things work out, isn't it?

Soundtrack Saturday: James Horner

2012-01-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

Main title from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

"The Sinking" from Titanic (1997)

"Jake's First Flight" from Avatar

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Not film-related but it is music-related: my sister sent me a link to the blog of this cartoonist who does comic strip "music video" parodies, mostly of 80's videos. Pretty funny, too. Check it out.

Sister, Sister (1982)

2012-01-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

Couldn't find a poster for this TV movie, so here's a title card.

Sister, Sister (1982)
seen online via YouTube
1.5.12

I've never been big on poetry, so I'm not too familiar with most of the writings of Maya Angelou. I've read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, of course. I own a copy; it's a marvelous book. I'm probably more familiar with her career in Hollywood. As an actress, she was in Roots, which everyone's seen. As a director, she made a film called Down in the Delta with Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes, and that was pretty good. And as a screenwriter, she's mostly written a bunch of teleplays, including the adaptation of Caged Bird and a film called Sister, Sister that aired on NBC in 1982, three years after it was filmed. Supposedly the network was worried about low ratings - 'cause, y'know, who's gonna watch a black drama?

Basically it's about three sisters with family issues: uptight Jesus freak Diahann Carroll (who also starred in Caged Bird), struggling single mother Rosalind Cash, and oppressed little sister Irene Cara. Angelou's teleplay is more than a little too literary in places - certain lines that may sound one way on the page sound different when they're actually said out loud - but it's good overall.

To us 70s-80s kids, we remember Carroll from Dynasty (yes, I watched the nighttime soaps - Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest - even though I was probably way too young to understand much of them), but of course, she had a long career in mostly television before that, most notably for the TV series Julia. She was even in the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special, if you can believe that. (She was also in Carmen Jones.)

For all the craziness of today's reality TV, the 70s and 80s were a pretty trashy period for TV as well. You'd think a little kid wouldn't have much interest in adult shows like the aforementioned nighttime soaps, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, etc., but I did, and I'm sure there were plenty of others like me who watched them also. Why? Partly because we were little TV sponges who would soak up anything and everything on the boob tube, but also, I suspect, to catch a glimpse of adult life, or at least a distorted representation of same.

Fortunately, Sister, Sister is much more down to earth than the antics of the Carringtons and Colbys. I don't remember seeing any ads for this movie on NBC or in TV Guide, though I'm sure I must've come across them, especially in TV Guide. That's unfortunate, because I think I would've got something out of this, even as a kid. Better late than never, I guess. (BTW, here's a blog about TV movies from the 70s and 80s, if you're interested.)

War Horse

2012-01-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

War Horse
seen @ UA Kaufman Astoria Cinemas, Astoria, Queens, NY
1.3.12

I remember when my sister went through her horse phase. She had this one horse doll that she always kept on her shelf. It wasn't articulated; it was just a model of a brown and white horse. I don't recall if its tail was hair or not. Sometimes I'd play with it when she wasn't around. I think she had a horse calendar and maybe even a horse poster at one time too. I definitely remember going to see The Black Stallion with her and my mother when it came out. It was playing at the other RKO theater on Main Street in Flushing - not the Keith's on Northern Boulevard, but the other one, whose name I can't recall. Point is, my sister loved horses.

Myself, I remember going to the petting zoo in Flushing Meadow Park as a kid with my mother and seeing horses for the first time there. I think I may have even gotten to ride a pony. I would've been about six, maybe seven. The summer camp in Massachusetts I worked at had horses, which some of the kids would ride. There was this one camper - a 13-year-old girl named Claire; I'll never forget her - who allegedly once inquired as to whether or not the fenced-off area that the horses roamed in were only "psychological boundaries." I say allegedly because I got this quote second-hand, but it's exactly the kind of thing she would say. One day I'll have to tell you about her.

I never had pets growing up, but I've seen first-hand how devoted people can get with them. Bibi and Eric, for instance, have a sign near the front door of their house that says something like, "In case of fire, please rescue our cats." I've known other friends whose attachment to their pet dogs and cats is unshakeable. So the relationship between Albert, the main character of War Horse, and the eponymous horse Joey, is certainly nothing unusual on the face of it.

The original source of both this film and the recent stage play of the same name is a young adult novel, and War Horse the film does feel like the kind of story written for that audience, even if it hasn't been marketed as such. An animal's loyalty to its beloved master, tested through time and circumstance, hits many of the same notes as anything out of Benji or Lassie, only on a much bigger scale in this case.

Some people who have fully embraced this film don't like the fact that its unabashed emotionalism and sentimentality has been a turn-off for others. I admit, I was hesitant to see it for this reason, especially since director Steven Spielberg is a Grade-A master at it. Now that I've seen the film, I find that my initial suspicions were more or less correct: the melodramatic aspects of War Horse are given the hard-sell like I couldn't believe. Especially that ending!

So is this a bad thing? Well, I can certainly be a sucker for sentimental movies just like anybody else, and I got caught up with this story too. But yeah, in the end I'm afraid the hard-sell was a bit much for me in this particular case. Sometimes I'm willing to accept it, other times not, and this one was the latter. Still, Spielberg seems more guilty of this tactic than other filmmakers, and I suppose I was hoping for something different here.

Also, I'm willing to accept that I may be too much of a cynical bastard to take War Horse to heart. That's entirely possible. The manner in which Albert and Joey are eventually reunited (not a spoiler; this is a Spielberg film after all) literally had me going "Oh my god" as I saw it happen, as in "Oh my god is this really how it's gonna happen?" And again, I've been willing to go along with a film's melodrama on occasion, but this wasn't one. Spielberg does the emotional hard-sell better than anyone else, and it does not make his films inherently bad, but after all these years, it no longer comes as much of a surprise.

I thought I might have to get violent on somebody in the audience who talked on and off throughout the movie - a little louder than I would've liked, too. I don't think it was an older person; the old couple at the opposite end of my row did mutter intermittently as well, but not as loud as this other guy. Fortunately, the movie itself was generally louder, what with all the battle scenes. Also, the ticket clerk accidentally gave me a ticket for Tintin instead of War Horse. It wasn't a problem with the usher, though now I guess this means I'll have two Tintin tickets (after I see it, of course). Maybe I should've snuck into a Tintin screening afterwards, but I was really hungry and wanted to eat.

It's the Movie of My Life Blogathon!

2012-01-03T19:49:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that was kind of a last-minute thing, and certainly not one I intended to be taken seriously: imagining who would play me in the pretend movie based on my life story. Turned out that people liked it, for which I'm grateful of course, but also, the idea was floated that it would make a good subject for a blogathon.

Well, what can I say except that I'm game if you are!

So welcome to the Movie of My Life Blogathon! As in the original post, the main objective is to imagine who could play you in a theoretical movie about your life, but I'm gonna expand further on it. You can approach this in one of two ways: you can do what I did, and simply make a list of actors who conceivably could capture your essential nature on screen and why. One commenter suggested the I'm Not There route - going totally abstract with your casting. If you think you can do that, fine, but you'll definitely have to explain your choices!

Your second option is casting your family and/or friends in addition to yourself, but if you do that, here's the caveat: I want you to take a specific event from a specific period in your life - high school prom, wedding day, moving to a new neighborhood, etc. - and cast accordingly. So if you decide to pick a period from when you were, say, ten years old, or sixteen, you'll have to pick an age-appropriate actor.

Be creative. Maybe you're not the star of this movie. Maybe this is set in your future (if you think you can project that far ahead into your life). Maybe you can cast it with actors from the 50s. Whatever you like is fine as long as you keep it grounded in the real world; no sci-fi or fantasy elements.

Post it on your blog and send the link to me at ratzo318 (at) yahoo (dot) com, and on Friday, February 3, I'll put up all the submissions. Your banner is up above.

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Related:
My Hometown Blogathon

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

2012-01-02T19:31:00.000-05:00

Trouble in Paradise (1932)
seen online via YouTube
1.1.12

One of the most rewarding things about watching old movies for this blog is that sooner or later, after watching enough movies, I start to recognize certain actors that I've seen over and over and I make connections. For example: I wasn't too familiar with Miriam Hopkins. Then I saw her in Design For Living a couple of weeks ago, and Trouble in Paradise last night. I liked her in both, but as I watched her last night, I realized I'd seen her in something else too, and I struggled for a few minutes trying to figure it out. Then I went to IMDB and got the answer: she was Olivia de Havilland's aunt in The Heiress, a role from later in her career. Now this is one of my favorite movies ever. I've seen it so many times, but it's like I can appreciate it in a different way now that I know who she is.

So I'm continuing to check out the films of Ernst Lubitsch, obviously, and I liked Trouble a lot. I went into it without reading about it in advance. I didn't even know who was in it. It's about a pair of high-class thieves who try to run a game on a rich businesswoman. It's short - only 83 minutes - and yet it feels like there's a lot going on in it.

I think I'm beginning to understand this "Lubitsch touch" that people always talk about. He seemed to love setting his stories in Europe, for one thing, and made a point to use the native language wherever possible. Design begins with the main characters speaking French, and Trouble has Italian-speaking characters. Hopkins gets to not only speak French in the former, but Spanish and a little German in the latter.

There's always more than a little bit of glamor and sex appeal in his films. It's hard to explain why, but there's something about this movie in particular that feels palpably sexier than rom-coms made today. I think the glamor element may be a big reason why. Everybody dresses fancy, the ladies look fabulous, they run around European cities (or at least sets made up like those cities) and the situations they find themselves in, while important to them, never seem like a matter of life and death. Lubitsch makes it all seem... not so bad at worst. And it's genuinely funny.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

2011-12-30T09:32:00.000-05:00

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
seen @ Main Street Cinemas, Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, NY
12.29.11

SPOILERS

I've been waiting all damn year to get this off my chest and now I'm gonna say it: Tattoos and piercings, in my humble opinion, do not make a hot chick look hotter. I cannot begin to tell you how much it depresses me whenever I see some chick on the street who already looks good to begin with (and my definition of a good-looking chick is fairly broad), and yet she still feels the need to stick small pieces of metal through her lip or her brow or - gah! - her tongue, or cover her chest and arms with tats. It's like putting neon lights on the Mona Lisa because you think it looks cool.

There's a comic strip I read where the main characters start a tattoo and piercing business in order to make money off of gullible teenagers with more money than sense. They pierce them with crap like wire hangers and barbed wire and hang irons from their nipples and tattoo insults on them, but to their shock, the kids love it all, because they think it makes them look hipper and more "alternative" than ever. Sometimes that's how I see some of these people who do these things to their bodies - like they're suckers who'll follow any trend in the name of individuality. But how can they be "individual" and "alternative" if everyone's doing it?

And I don't find it sexy. One or two tattoos, maybe. A whole bunch, no. Plus, what will these chicks look like when they're 60 and have sagging boobs, cellulite and liver spots on top of those tattoos? But then, one wonders if that's even a consideration.

Still, I don't wanna sound like I'm blanket-condemning tattoos and piercings. If that's your thing and you wanna do that to your body, by all means, have at it. Go nuts. Just don't think it's gonna automatically make you look any hotter.

Of course, not everyone gets ink done for looks alone. I knew a girl who had a tat of wings on her back in tribute to a fallen friend, whose name was also inscribed with the wings. I can accept something like that. Though some people, of course, take that sort of thing too far as well. I read a story a few years ago about a father who had tattooed on his back a reproduction of a drawing his eight-year-old daughter made. (There's actually much more to that particular story, but I'll save it for another time.)

I missed about the first ten minutes or so of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because of an unusual incident that happened to me on my way to the theater. I was coming from a different direction than last time (this was only my second time at the Main Street), through a neighborhood I'm unfamiliar with, and as a result, I got lost. I asked a bus driver for directions and he set me back on the right path, but as I was walking down a residential street, I saw an old lady standing out the door to her house with an arm outstretched in my general direction. I couldn't tell for sure, but it sounded like she was saying something. Then I realized she was calling for help!

I backed up and approached her front door. I was the only one in the vicinity. She looked to be at least in her 70s, maybe even her 80s. She said her husband had dementia and needed help getting from the bathroom back to the bedroom. I asked if he needed a doctor, ready to dial 911. She said he didn't. Tentatively I walked into their place and she led me to the bathroom.

The old dude, probably around the same age as his wife, was sitting on the can in his boxers and a button-down shirt. (I was quite grateful there was nothing that needed cleaning up, if you know what I mean.) There was a metal cane, the kind with four prongs at the base, next to him. He seemed reluctant to use it to help him get up, or indeed, to get up at all. He seemed like his mind might've been out to lunch at the moment.

I slowly helped him up and eased him into the bedroom, little by little, though I had to keep urging him to grab his cane and use it to lean on, even as I held him up on one side. Eventually he made it. The wife thanked me as the phone rang, and that's when I chose to make a discreet exit, having helped solve the immediate problem and not willing to wait until she got off the phone to find out if she needed anything else. I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't have any neighbors they could rely on, or a nurse or home attendant, but then I suppose there could be a myriad of reasons, and thinking about it further just depressed me, so I moved on.

Anyway, by the time I made it to the theater, I considered waiting for the next show, but I thought I'd only miss the trailers. Well, I did miss the trailers - and the opening credits, and a bit of the beginning of the story, but I was able to catch up easily enough. And I could hardly complain about it, now could I?

So. That book... or should I say those books. I never read them, nor did I see the original Swedish film version. I might've mentioned here before how suspect I tend to get towards mega-popular things in pop culture - my lizard brain automatically thinks if it's popular, it must suck. That's why I never got into Harry Potter at its peak. Sometimes, of course, this belief is true, but not always.

I can't recall ever seeing a character quite like Lisbeth in the movies before. I knew she was gonna get raped in the story (some spoilers are impossible to avoid). It didn't surprise me that she'd take her revenge; I fully anticipated and applauded that. What I didn't expect was how quickly she'd be willing and able to have sex with a man (or a woman) again. Now, I'm not about to pretend I have any clue what rape is like for a woman, but the way the film presents Lisbeth, it seemed almost as if she didn't suffer any lingering psychological scars from the incident. Basically, she was raped, she suffered physically, she got her revenge (in a totally AWESOME fashion, I might add), and she moved on like it ain't no thing. I can't believe she could put it behind her so quickly and easily...

...but then again, Lisbeth is hella tough. Maybe it's one of those things you need to accept in the name of entertainment, like the hero shrugging off bullet wounds that would put anyone else outta commission. I did like the movie overall, so maybe I should forget about it. I dunno.

I'll say this much, though: I think I understand why many of the promotional images for Tattoo were as sexually provocative as they were: Lisbeth's sexuality is an integral part of her identity. She decides she wants to have sex with Blomkvist - and doesn't fool around about it, either. And while I initially thought it was just about sex, by the story's end it turns out she genuinely cares about him - another surprise.

That's it for 2011. See you next year!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-12-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY
12.27.11

Don't ask me to explain Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I can't - beyond, of course, the very basic premise of looking for the mole within England's MI6. I knew going into this movie that this wasn't gonna have any James Bond-type shenanigans, but I thought there'd at least be a healthy amount of action to it. Haven't we come to expect a little action in spy movies? I dunno. The worst part is that I was really looking forward to this movie.

Like many people, I saw this as Gary Oldman's Oscar bid - and he's excellent in it, though the odds do not look good for him getting that Best Actor nod right now - but I also believed it would be a good movie overall. It's well put together, and all the actors are top-notch (though John Hurt chews more than his share of scenery), but ultimately I was given no reason why I should care about any of it because there's a distinct lack of passion to these proceedings.

The theater was giving out these "cheat sheet" things to everyone seeing Tinker. Maybe you got one too, if you've seen the film - it's this great big fold-out that explains what "The Circus" is, who the characters in Tinker are and how they relate to each other, and what all the different code names mean. By the time I arrived, I had only a minute or two to look it over before the trailers started, so I didn't get a good look at it. I doubt it would've helped much, unless I was able to refer to it during the movie, which of course I couldn't (unless I had a pocket flashlight or something).

Maybe it was because of the holiday season, but there was a fairly large crowd for a late-afternoon midweek showing. The room looked half full. I had the misfortune to sit behind an older couple who felt the need to quietly chatter at every little detail, so during the opening credits I moved up an aisle. There was more chatter than usual during the movie, which I took to be people trying to figure out what the hell's going on in this movie, but I could've sworn I heard someone talking on a cell. Not sure. I did hear a cell go off, I know that. By contrast, I also heard a couple of people snoozing. Afterwards, I saw one dude comparing this to the BBC mini-series. He didn't seem to like this version much. In fact, I got the impression that much of the audience didn't care for it.

Not much more to add, except that I spent my time waiting for the movie to start in a cafe across the street which I had never been to before. I like it; I can't believe I've never been in there before, in fact. It's the perfect place to wait for the movie. The Kew, like many theaters these days, play a bunch of commercials before showing the trailers, so rather than sit through them, I wait until the last minute before entering whenever I go there. Getting a good seat usually isn't a problem when I go during the middle of the week, when it's cheaper. Now, though, I have a place I can hang out in first. Their tea is very good, and they even have soft, cushy lounge chairs, although I didn't get to sit in one because it was crowded. Had to settle for a stool. But that's okay.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2011

2011-12-27T09:13:00.000-05:00

Other movie blogs may give you a list of their top films of the year - and actually, I'll probably do that too, but unlike a certain film critics group, I'm in no rush to reveal it to the world (in fact, I probably won't get to it for another month at least). This being WSW, however, I have something different to offer. 2011 will be the first calendar year I've completed, and naturally I have quite a number of movie-going memories, whether alone or with friends - the kind of stuff that I do my best to write about here, in this blog that's more of a personal journal than a movie blog. These are the five moments that stand out most. Unlike my usual lists, this is an actual ranking - and it wasn't easy to rank these, either.

5. Singing oldies songs with Andi at a diner before seeing The Illusionist. I think I may have gone to more movies with Andi this year than anyone else. I may not have liked all of them equally, but she's always great company. Sometimes she talks me into some nutty things (remind me to tell you of the time we sneaked into a gated community pretending we were gonna buy a house there), but that's only because she has a great curiosity about the world and isn't shy about it. Why else would she go on a cross-country hike across half of Spain covering hundreds of miles? Or sing Motown songs in a Queens diner with yours truly just because?

4. Going to Vija's party in-between movies during the Urbanworld Film Festival. This being my first film festival, I thought I could see and do it all. Boy was I wrong! Still, Saturday proved to be the busiest of the three-day festival for more than one reason, and I knew that whatever else happened, I couldn't miss one of Vija's parties which, thankfully, was within walking distance of the theater. In the close-to-twenty years I've known her, I've always enjoyed her soirees because I like her friends! Andi is just one of a number of friends I've met this way. Some of them, like Vija and I, are artists; some are co-workers or neighbors of hers; some are old friends of hers that go way back, but I've always gotten along well with them. In fact, at this particular party I met this one woman whom I would've loved to have gotten better acquainted with had I more time; we had a wonderful, but sadly, brief conversation. (I sent her a friend request on Facebook, but I don't think she uses FB much.) Regardless, this was one day I won't forget for a long time.

3. Lining up on the red carpet for the first time at the Urbanworld Film Festival. I could've had a better camera. I might've liked a slightly better spot. And I was a bit star-struck at seeing the likes of Spike Lee and Chris Rock at first. Once I settled into my unlikely role as a paparazzo, however, it was truly exciting. UWFF took place at the same time as the Toronto festival, and I admit I couldn't help making comparisons in my mind (not that I've ever been there), even though Toronto is, of course, one of the biggest film fests in the world. Still, for a film fest novice, one could hardly ask for more: a central location in the heart of New York City, a plethora of film and TV stars to meet and greet, and an all-access pass to see some terrific films. My prior experience as a comics blogger helped prepare me some - going to conventions, interviewing writers and artists - but this was something else. (The glamor of the red carpet itself was dulled for me somewhat when I saw UWFF staffers tape it down to the linoleum floor... but that was a minor detail.)

2. Hearing the Alloy Orchestra perform their score for Metropolis. In a year in which a silent movie is favored to win Best Picture for the first time in many generations, perhaps it was the best time to have discovered this astounding band, doing what they do best - playing live music for silent movies. If you're ever in NYC in the summertime, make it your business to come to Brooklyn and see a show at the Prospect Park Bandshell. For three bucks you get one helluva bargain.

1. Seeing The Captains on the Intrepid with William Shatner and hundreds of fellow Trekkies. At the risk of sounding like a gushing fanboy, I can't express accurately enough how thrilling it was to be in the presence of The Man Himself for the first time, under these circumstances. The Intrepid, like many NYC landmarks, is not someplace I ever gave much thought to actually visiting one day - as impressive as it is, it's still a tourist trap, and an expensive one at that. So this was momentous on three different levels - the movie itself (which was interesting, but more for Trekkies than anyone else, I think), having the Shat there to introduce it, and being on board the Intrepid for the first time - and all of it for free! I was gonna go with a friend, but he couldn't make it at the last minute, so the only negative about this night was I didn't have anyone to share it with, but I had a great time nonetheless.

As for the blog itself, I have a few ideas for new stuff to add and experiment with in 2012. Once the Oscar season ends, I'm thinking I might cut back to two movies a week (not counting theme weeks). Cranking out three a week isn't always easy, and I'd like to diversify the content a little better. I have Skype now, so you may start hearing me on a podcast or two here and there. I would like to start one of my own also, as soon as I can decide on a film-related topic I'd want to discuss. And I'd like to bring my original art back in some form. Alex has kinda cornered the market on actor sketches, so maybe I'll do something different. I hope you'll stick with me throughout it all.

Design For Living

2011-12-26T12:59:00.000-05:00

Design For Living
seen online via YouTube
12.24.11

The first time I heard the word "polyamory" was over a decade ago. I was in love with a girl who used this to describe herself. She made it very clear that even though she already had one boyfriend, it didn't necessarily preclude the possibility of her getting involved with others, but she knew that this was a concept that was blowing my mind. Even today, it's still something that's difficult to wrap my mind around.

Having sex with more than one chick at the same time is perhaps the ultimate male fantasy, and I'm sure plenty of women have wondered what having two guys at once would be like too. This is not like that. Sometimes one person will date others simultaneously, without the other parties' knowledge. This isn't like that either. This is about open relationships - one person going with two (or more) lovers and everybody being aware of it and everybody being cool with it.

A dubious proposition? Maybe. But whether you're talking the free love movement of the 60s, or the wife-swapping key parties of the 70s (or much further back in time than that), it seems like for every streak of morally-induced prohibitions against sexual relations as imposed by some higher authority, there have been alternate groups pushing back against those restrictions.

I dunno... is it simply against our nature to commit to one person, long-term? At what point in human history was it decided that monogamy was how it had to be and anything else was taboo? A major reason why it didn't work out for me and that girl was because in my heart, I didn't really believe it was possible for her to love me and someone else at the same time - and she knew it. Was it wrong of me that I wanted her all to myself? I don't think so. I knew I couldn't change her, and as much as I tried, I couldn't change either. Maybe it would've made things easier, but it was a bridge too far for me to cross. I wish I could have somehow.

So I look at a film like Design For Living - a pre-Code film from 1933, if you can believe that - and while it's entertaining to a degree, I still find myself bemused and bewildered by its approach to what we now call polyamory. One chick falls in love with two dudes and doesn't feel she should have to decide between them. She agrees to forego sex in exchange for helping them pursue their respective careers in the arts, presumably to avoid jealous rages, but that doesn't quite work out the way it's supposed to. Also, Edward Everett Horton.

It's a comedy, so it's kinda mannered and... I dunno, tasteful, though I imagine 1933 audiences saw it much differently. Tom and George fight over Gilda at different points, but I never got the sense that it was all that serious. No one sees Gilda's behavior as truly unusual, and maybe that was intentional, but I think my own experience with being in a similar situation made me not completely buy this story - or perhaps, not this approach to this story. I guess this hits home too hard for me.

Soundtrack Saturday: Maurice Jarre

2011-12-24T09:28:00.000-05:00

Main theme from Lawrence of Arabia

"Lara's Theme" from Dr. Zhivago

Theme from Ghost

Soundtrack Saturday will return January 7. Enjoy your holiday weekend.

March of the Wooden Soldiers

2011-12-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

March of the Wooden Soldiers (AKA Babes in Toyland)
seen online via YouTube
12.21.11

Jacqueline from Another Old Movie Blog recently posted an interesting theory about Christmas movies. She says that modern ones tend to put Christmas at the forefront of their stories, which makes them less enduring than older ones that tend to use Christmas as the backdrop instead:

...As every classic film fan can tell you, we notice the backdrops. We study them. They are important just where they are. Bedford Falls is the backdrop; James Stewart and his stupendous meltdown and the reasons for it are the story. But through the telling, we know all about Bedford Falls, and it becomes a character in the movie. The Christmas climax is fitting because Christmas is not the nightmare; it’s just the time the nightmare occurs...

By keeping Christmas in the background, the classic Christmas movie becomes so much more meaningful than the trite “finding the true meaning of Christmas” or having “the best Christmas ever” stories we have today. The classic Christmas film is about life and death, prison and sickness, lies and deceit, and never getting what you really want. Then the Christmas scene -- like the thunderous ringing of church bells or the clash of symbols that accompany it, makes us feel triumphant in a colossal way, because we have discovered again we are human and survived being human, and have forgiven others for being human.

I suspect she's speaking in general terms; while I haven't seen very many modern ones, I can certainly think of a few that use the holiday as a background (Die Hard, Batman Returns, Lethal Weapon), but setting aside the modern-day-versus-classic aspect, I can't help but agree that these kinds of movies are definitely better to watch. I may find this time of year practically intolerable to begin with, but I can still appreciate a good holiday movie.

So I was stuck trying to find a Christmas movie to watch (the one I originally wanted wasn't available) when I came across this post about an old Laurel & Hardy film called March of the Wooden Soldiers. I'm a fellow New Yorker, but I'm afraid I don't recall seeing this on Channel 11 around Christmas. Then again, I would've been pretty young. (Brief aside: WPIX used to be great for showing old movies and TV shows. They'd run Honeymooners marathons and Twilight Zone marathons, and that's where my love of those old shows started. Sure, one can watch those shows online or on DVD now, but man, do I miss the excitement of seeing them on TV like that. When you can watch it anytime, it's not the same.)

Anyway, I figured at the very least it'd be an excuse to watch another L&H film and get better acquainted with them (earlier this year I watched my first L&H movie, The Flying Deuces). As it turns out, Soldiers barely qualifies as a Christmas movie; Santa Claus makes a brief appearance, but it doesn't actually take place during Christmas time.

To sum up: it's Toyland, where everyone's a nursery rhyme or fairy tale character, and the Boys are toymakers who must prevent the resident bad guy from taking over and marrying the heroine. For a kiddie movie made in 1934, it's about what you'd expect, though the obligatory musical numbers are worth sitting through in order to see Stanley in drag (not kidding). Still, who knew there'd be this much nightmare fuel in it? And I don't just mean the army of boogeymen that invade Toyland; they're gruesome, but they're supposed to be gruesome. I mean crazy stuff like this:

Those are supposed to be the Three Little Pigs on the left and the Cat and the Fiddle (as in "Hey Diddle Diddle") on the right. (Don't worry, purists; I watched Soldiers in black and white.) Folks, these stills don't really begin to capture the sheer, absolute terror of these creatures. I mean, I understand that make-up and costuming techniques weren't as sophisticated in 1934, but these costumes are seriously creepy. The faces don't move, for one thing. The cat in particular looks dead-eyed and lifeless. For another, they're this Dr. Moreau-esque hybrid of human and animal that look out of place in what's presented as a generally happy fantasy land. There's one moment where one of the pigs bites the hand of the bad guy, but of course, the mouth doesn't really move (thankfully, none of these abominations have any dialogue).

Even these devil-spawn, however, pale in comparison compared to this:

What in the name of all that's holy is that supposed to be?

It looks like somebody dressed up a monkey to look like Mickey Mouse and then set it loose - but who the hell thought that was a good idea?! Look at it! The unseeing eyes, the maniacal painted grin - that thing is waiting for the little kids watching it to go to sleep so it can creep up on them with a butcher knife!

So if this is indeed a de facto Christmas movie, then it's an extreme example: L&H are working on toys for Santa to distribute on Christmas, but that doesn't really factor heavily into the plot, such as it is, so I suppose this is the kind of movie Jacqueline was talking about. And that's cool. All things considered, it goes down a lot easier - nightmare fuel and all.

Shame

2011-12-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

Shame
seen @ AMC Loews Lincoln Center 13, New York NY
12.20.11

I wish I could say that I was any kind of authority when it comes to sex. My sexual liaisons have been few (and no, you may not know about them). I remember my first time, of course. Without giving away details, let me just say that it was with someone I loved, and who loved me. And while the mechanics of it may not have been perfect, I'm glad we did it when we did it and I still cherish the memory. Not everyone is so fortunate when it comes to their first time.

I can see how sex can be addictive. Hell, it's a wonder more people aren't addicts. Under the right circumstances, it's the most beautiful, transcendent, and yes, even spiritual - a word I do not use lightly - act (at least) two people can engage in. Throughout history, people have fought, killed and died for it, or lack of it. Of course, often people confuse sex for love, but that's another post.

I have a wandering eye, like many guys. I see a pretty girl on the street, on the subway, in the supermarket, sex immediately comes to mind. I have a friend for whom it's practically an unconditioned reflex. Doesn't help that he always complains about not having a girlfriend. Sex, or a lack of it, does things to people.

I knew that the sex in Shame would not necessarily be sexy. At first it kinda was... but ultimately it reached a point where it was simply disturbing and even a little bit stomach-churning. Part of it was the context of the story, of course; part of it was also the way it was filmed. There's a three-way near the end that under other circumstances might definitely be hot, but because of everything that came before it, definitely wasn't. At the film's end I felt empty and sad and depressed. (And then I had to go into the lobby and hear the end of a goddamn Justin Bieber Christmas song and that made it worse!)

The more I think about Shame, though, I can't feel too much in the way of pity for Michael Fassbender's character. Brandon is - ain't afraid to say it - phenomenally attractive, must make a fair amount of money to afford the kind of apartment he has, and can get any kind of woman he wants, but we're supposed to sympathize with him because he gets no pleasure from the copious amount of sex he gets! Alright, granted, not enjoying sex is certainly a legitimate problem, but, well, let me put it this way: I can't help but wonder what kind of movie this would be if it starred, say, Steve Buscemi, and was directed by, say, Jim Jarmusch, instead of someone as artful as Steve McQueen.

(Brief aside: I saw McQueen's first movie, Hunger, when I was in Columbus. Believe it or not, it played there before it came to New York, which made me very happy to know. I thought the film was absolutely mesmerizing.)

An unspoken aspect of Shame is that Brandon's affluent lifestyle, combined with his amazing good looks, enables him to get the kind of chicks he wants. He's barely even at his job for much of the movie (it's unclear what exactly he does; he's some mid-level office peon). He even plays hooky at one point for a tryst with a co-worker. Can you imagine him being able to do this if he was a manager at the Gap? My point is that Brandon's sex addict story doesn't have as much drama as McQueen seems to think there is, at least not by itself...

... which is why I was grateful for the presence of Carey Mulligan's character Cissy, Brandon's sister. This is where I thought the real heart of the drama lay - the push and pull between Brandon and Cissy. I wish there was more of it. If there was, maybe this would've been just an R-rated movie and not an NC-17.

The intensity of Fassbender's performance, combined with the corporate world Brandon inhabits (and even the 80s music) reminded me a little bit of American Psycho. At times, I expected Brandon to pull a Bateman on one of the chicks he scores with.

I'm pretty sure that Shame is the first NC-17 film I've seen theatrically. I half expected to get carded at the box office. I actually stopped shaving prior to seeing the movie as a precautionary measure, not that it was necessary; I've always looked older than I am.

Five actors I'd want for the movie of my life

2011-12-20T19:15:00.001-05:00

C'mon, who among us hasn't thought about this at one point or another in their lives? Especially as film fans? We're all movie stars in our own minds, and I'd say it's perfectly natural for anyone born into a culture that reveres and craves celebrity as much as ours to dream that one day their lives will be worthy of making into a movie. I mean, my god, reality television alone has made "stars" out of the stupidest people imaginable, so anything's possible, right? Or so goes the fantasy.

Me, I don't flatter myself into thinking my life's worthy of a movie. It's just a dream - but I do like playing casting director with my friends. I do it all the time. Just last week, in fact, after I saw Young Adult, I told my friend Dave that he looked just like Patton Oswalt. (He didn't think there was a resemblance, but I say there is. Trust me.)

Hollywood movies and TV shows, naturally, are the most well-known frame of reference; your level of knowledge of foreign films might lead you to conclude that your friend Rajiv may look like a certain Bollywood star, but he may or may not know that himself. So if you should decide to play casting director, do it with caution!

I could extend this casting call to friends and family members, but since you don't know them, nor what they look like, that'd probably be a waste of time (though I did recently suggest that Marisa Tomei could play Andi). Of course, you don't know what I look like either, but these five actors should at least give you a general impression.

- Ice Cube. For looks if nothing else, although the resemblance isn't that great. Among the vast amount of rappers turned actors, he's no Will Smith, but I liked him in Barber Shop, and of course, he'll forever be part of the great Boyz N The Hood, a film which celebrated its twentieth anniversary this year.

- Mekhi Phifer. Loved him in Clockers and Soul Food. Thought for awhile that he was gonna become a breakout star. It didn't quite happen, but at least he had a nice run on ER. And of course he's been forever immortalized in song thanks to Eminem.

- Omar Epps. He and I actually went to the same high school at the same time, though I didn't know him. I remember feeling a surge of pride when Juice came out. Another ER alumnus, he's apparently on House now, but I perhaps remember him best in Scream 2.

- Chiwetel Ejiofor. I don't even know how to pronounce his name, but I know that I've liked him in whatever I've seen him in, especially Children of Men. Younger than I thought - only 34. I thought he was much older. Sooner or later someone's gonna put him in a film that's gonna make him a star (though it probably won't be my hypothetical one).

- Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Sentimental choice. When I recently saw ads for his new sitcom Reed Between the Lines, I was a bit stunned to see that Theo Huxtable is old enough to play a husband and father. Where does the time go? Never liked him with the dreads! Thank god he got rid of them. The best part is that Regina King could play my sister!

So who would you want to star in the movie of your life?

Pariah

2011-12-19T08:52:00.000-05:00

Pariah
seen @ Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens, NY
12.17.11

So the last time I wrote about the Museum of the Moving Image was to talk about the Jim Henson exhibit currently on display. I didn't go much into the fact that MOMI plays all kinds of new and old movies on a regular basis, which is awesome because most of the time they come with a special guest or guests of some sort to talk about the film afterwards, be it the filmmakers or the actors or a film critic or historian.

I don't think I've talked about the surrounding neighborhood. Astoria, along with neighboring Long Island City, has become the hip part of Queens in recent years. There's a wide variety of restaurants serving food from many parts of the world, for one thing. MOMI, along with the Kaufman Astoria Studios, are the big attractions, and along with the UA movie theater and even, to stretch it out a bit further, the Silvercup Studios in LIC (remember that fight scene in Highlander?), the area is the place to be for film-and-television-related activity on this side of the East River. There's even a performing arts high school named after Frank Sinatra.

Steinway Street is one of the main drags in Astoria, and somebody, I don't know who, got it into their head that it would be a great idea to install speakers all along the street and pump holiday music out during this time of year. I am a grinch when it comes to the holidays; if I could, I would go into cryogenic sleep from Thanksgiving to December 26 every year and not feel like I've missed a thing. So you can imagine how I feel about heading into Astoria, for whatever reason, during the month of December.

This time, though, I had good cause. I was gonna pass on watching any movies this weekend when I saw on Twitter that MOMI was hosting an advance screening of Pariah, a film that was on my radar ever since I first read about its debut at Sundance way back in January. It's a coming-of-age story about a young lesbian girl trying to make her way in the world. Her parents don't know for certain that she's gay, but they suspect, and they subtly try to steer her away from it - not an easy task.

One can find a few surface comparisons to another recent Sundance hit, Precious: Black teenage girl in New York (Brooklyn, anyway) struggling to find her own path; normally-comedic actress in a dramatic role as the mother (Kim Wayans in this case, and she was quite good, though her character wasn't crazy like Mo'nique's); a schoolteacher as a positive role model. The differences end there, though.

Homophobia cuts across all racial and social lines, but I've found it particularly distressing when it comes from the black community. You'd think we of all people would know what oppression and discrimination in this country is like. So to see a film that portrays a young black lesbian with as much sensitivity and compassion as this does is encouraging. Of course, director Dee Rees is herself a black lesbian, so that's hardly surprising.

Producer Nekisa Cooper was on hand for a brief Q-and-A after the screening, and she talked about how Pariah, a film originally written in 2005 and evolved from a short, was shot in Fort Greene, Brooklyn in only eighteen days, using a single building for many interior shots of the characters' apartments. She also mentioned the support the film received from Sundance and from executive producer Spike Lee (with whom Rees had worked in the past).

Soundtrack Saturday: Max Steiner

2011-12-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

So many classic films he's worked on. Difficult to pick just three.

"Skull Island Overture" from King Kong (1933)

"Tara's Theme" from Gone With the Wind

Theme from Casablanca

Young Adult

2011-12-16T09:14:00.000-05:00

Young Adult
seen @ AMC Loews Lincoln Center 13, New York NY
12.15.11

Once upon a time I loved a girl. It didn't work out. I never thought I'd see her again, but time and circumstances conspired otherwise, and now she's back in my... sphere of influence, I guess you could say, but is no longer available. For a (very) brief period, however, I did contemplate the possibility of getting back together with her. Maybe she's not happy with this new man in her life, I thought. Maybe she'd be willing to try again, given the right excuse.

It was a total fantasy and I knew it, though. For one thing, she was and is perfectly happy with her man, and I know how I'd feel if an old flame tried to steal my girl from me. For another, I knew that what we had once could never be recaptured, no matter how much I might have wanted it, which was kind of ironic since from my perspective, she doesn't seem to have changed much.

Still, though, it's the knowledge that she's with someone new now that gets under my skin. I'm happy for her, but at the same time I was happier not knowing. After all, it does me no good in the long run and I was better off without it. But I can't fault her for it, either. I guess what I want is for her to be happy with her man and for us to still be friends, yet without that knowledge hanging over me, that elephant in the room that I notice but can't talk about. It's really frustrating.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like I can identify with Charlize Theron's character in Young Adult - not that I'd go to the lengths she does to try and win back her old boyfriend. Still, I can understand how living with the regret of breaking up with a lover can gnaw at you, how subsequent loves can never quite match up (though you may think they do at first), how convinced you become that your life will turn around for the better if you could correct this one mistake.

Which is why I was so disappointed that I was able to predict what would happen in this story! I remember thinking as I watched it, well, the cliche thing would be if she [SPOILER], but I'm sure something else will happen instead - and then the cliche thing actually happens (to an extent - but I was genuinely surprised that it even went that far). That really let me down, because I liked the movie up to that point, so when it ended, I was like, that's it? Oh well.

"Hype (I Don't Care, Babe)"

2011-12-13T15:48:00.000-05:00

... it’s four months before The Hunger Games hits theaters across the nation, and yet I’ve already seen…oh….a third of the movie through a mixture of set photos, ‘exclusive’ clips, and trailers that have hit the internet. (I’ve probably seen about half of The Dark Knight, too.) Our attention to films in production is not, of course, a new trend–gossip columnists like Hedda Hopper provided us with our juicy tidbits back in the 1930s. But now we have more than newsreels and newspapers to sate our gluttonous thirst–we have the internet. So now, whether we like it or not, we can learn everything there is to know about a film before it hits the theaters. (Hell, with leaked copies we could probably watch every film before it’s released, too.)

"Hype (I Don't Care, Babe)"

[sung to the tune of "It Ain't Me, Babe"]

Buy yourself the rights, babe

Greenlight the film right away

Cast it with some hot young things

Pick out the right release day

You say you've got a big movie

And that sounds swell, I just can't wait

But I wish I could get away

From all these sites you inundate

With trailers, pics and interviews and more

Well I don't care, babe!

No, no, no, I don't care, babe

The film's all I'm waiting for, babe!

Cater to the fanboys, babe

They'll make you rich every time

Add pretty girls and explosions

You don't need a reason or rhyme

You say you've got a blockbuster

I wanna see it, I really do

But when you promote it non-stop

I swear it makes me wanna spew

It's nothing but a constant stream of hype

And I don't care, babe!

No, no, no, I don't care, babe

Listen to me as I gripe, babe!

You say this film will be the best

A summer treat for all to see

But I feel I've already watched the flick

With all the hype you've thrown at me

Why should I bother paying for it now?

'Cause I don't care, babe!

No, no, no, I don't care, babe

You'll make money anyhow, babe!

[with apologies to Bob Dylan]

The Artist

2011-12-12T12:43:00.000-05:00

The Artist
seen @ Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn NY
12.10.11

I've written a fair share this year about performance-capture filmmaking and advances in 3D technology. An increasing number of prominent directors are experimenting with these new techniques, many of them to great success, which has led to speculation that this is where the future of movies lies. I think it's absolutely possible, particularly when this mini-revolution is being led by so many creative giants who have welcomed these innovations late in their careers.

The numbers don't lie: six of the top ten grossing films from last year were released in 3D, and while those are all cartoons and genre movies, 3D is being used for other types of films as well. And while p-cap has been slower to catch on, advances in the field have made the possibility of a p-cap performance getting nominated for an Oscar a plausible one, however slim.

One can imagine that to those within Hollywood, this explosion of technological breakthroughs in filmmaking might feel akin to the period when sound first came to motion pictures. Is it possible that some may find it threatening? Sure, but then neither 3D nor p-cap have yet to change film as fundamentally as sound did. Anyone who has seen a silent movie can tell you how different the experience is: in a way, silent films engage one's imagination more profoundly. It certainly forces you to pay attention more.

As charming and entertaining as The Artist was, I have to admit something about the attitude of George, the main character, struck me as a little off. I can understand someone in his position - a silent movie superstar - scoffing at the coming of talkies, but he doesn't even try to make one, not even when talkies prove to be immensely popular. If he was worried about how his voice would sound - a very legitimate fear, one many stars struggled with during the transition period - he never indicates it. Yeah, foolish pride and all that, but for someone who loves the spotlight as much as George does, you'd think he'd try to work harder at keeping it.

There has been sooooooooo much hype around this movie for so many months, I admit, I came into it thinking it would leave a greater impression on me than it actually did. This doesn't happen to me all that often, but when it does, it's kind of a drag because I always end up feeling suckered in some way. And again, I enjoyed The Artist and I would absolutely recommend it, but when you keep reading about how it won all these film festival awards and how audiences all over the world are eating it up and how it's sure to not only get nominated for Best Picture, but win... you see the problem.

Watching this, I found the experience slightly different than watching a silent film from back in the day. For one thing, I kinda wished there were a live organist playing the score (although the film's score was very good). Also, I found I could "hear" the voices of familiar modern actors like John Goodman and James Cromwell in my head, even though I actually couldn't. Reading the lips of the actors was a little easier, partly because the picture is so clear and clean and there are more close-ups, I think, than in your average old-school silent film. Also, any sound the audience made was magnified in a way that it probably wouldn't be if there were, in fact, live music, because live music, especially an organ like the one at the Loews Jersey City, has a way of filling up a room. Even when I saw Metropolis outdoors with the Alloy Orchestra performing, they were loud enough to drown out any audience sounds.

Soundtrack Saturday: Elmer Bernstein

2011-12-10T09:19:00.000-05:00

Theme from The Magnificent Seven

Theme from To Kill a Mockingbird

"Dana's Theme" from Ghostbusters

Freeze Frame: The WSW roundtable take 4

2011-12-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

We're back once again with the roundtable, to talk about what's going on in the film world. A new lineup of guest LAMB bloggers has been assembled this time around...

Rachel from Rachel's Reel Reviews
Courtney from Big Thoughts From a Small Mind
Jess from Insight into Entertainment
Tom from Movie Reviews by Tom Clift

And here are the topics:

1. BrettRatner was forced to resign as producer of the Oscar telecast due to insensitive remarks he made. How does this reflect on the Academy, who hadreleased a statement in support of Ratner prior to his resignation? Is there adouble standard when it comes to forgiveness of bad behavior in Hollywood? Giventhe changes to the Oscar presentation in recent years, do they really need tostay relevant, or is that just a myth?

Tom: I think there’s absolutely a double standard inHollywood. People are totally unwilling to forgive Mel Gibson for the(admittedly abhorrent) things he said in private, yet they have no problemhonoring Roman Polanski, a convicted sex offender, with Oscar nominations andshowering him with praise. At least part of it is a “the bigger they are, theharder they fall mentality” – just look at Christian Bale’s reputationfollowing his outburst on the set of Terminator 4.

As for theOscars’, I don’t think they’ve been relevant for quite some time, and theirflip-flopping on the Ratner issue is probably indicative of this. There’s such anoverwhelming need in Hollywood it seems to be politically correct and playthings safe; it really doesn’t seem like the Academy has the courage of theirconvictions.

Courtney: This whole incident looks worse onRatner than it does the Academy. You cannot mess around when it comes tothe Oscars. You can pull that stuff at the MTV awards but not theOscars. If anything, the Academy came out smelling like roses because theywere quick to respond and to calm the fires before things got out ofcontrol.

People will eventually forgive Ratner for this misstep butit will take a few months. Hollywood loves the comeback story but onlyafter the person has taken their lumps. Robert Downey Jr., Rob Lowe, andAlec Baldwin are all perfect examples of this.

As for the Oscarpresentations itself, they are continuously trying to keep telecast “hip andfresh” but they continually miss the most obvious solution. It is notabout how many movies you nominate but which movies you nominate. Youcannot ignore a small indie film because your voters were too lazy, or toobusy, to see it. Conversely you cannot ignore the creditability of bigbudget film simply because it was loved by the masses. Personally I likethat films like Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3 could be up for Best Picture at thesame time. The ratings for the telecast have been poor over recent yearsbecause the average person who watches the Oscars has not even heard of halfthe films nominated. How can you get excited for a film when it does notopen in your city at all? Or it is not being shown at your local multiplex?They keep tinkering with the show itself in hopes of getting a youngeraudience but then neglect to acknowledge any of the films that youngeraudiences watch.

This is why it is important to include films like ToyStory 3, Inception, Avatar and LOTR: Return of the King in the nominees. Iam not saying give the best picture award to the film that is the highestgrossing film of the year. However, if the film is both a critical andfinancial success then it deserves a spot at the table at least.

Jess: I think the Academy does need to pay attentionto its image, particularly given its inactivity so much of the year. As forrelevant I think it's a waste of their time. They should attempt to honor theirhistorical role more than attract new viewers. Probably naive, but transformingsomething just to keep up with the twitter generation seems silly.

Rachel: The Academy has been desperate foryears now to appeal to a younger audience. Last year's [host] duet of Hathawayand Franco bombed and so now the Academy really has to makenice. Younger Hollywood, as well as younger movie goers, aregenerally liberal and far more sensitive to gay rights and equality. Bysupporting Ratner and keeping him on as producer, the Academy would havebeen saying such behavior was acceptable, and that desired demographic wouldslip further away. Everyone says the Academy is run by stuffy old white men,and condoning such slurs would only confirm that belief.

2. 35 MM film is slowly being phased out in favor of digital film production anddelivery. Has its time finally come? If so, will it matter to the averagefilmgoer, or is it something only cinephiles can truly appreciate?

Tom: I don’t think the average filmgoer is aware of thedifference between traditional and digital forms of filmmaking and filmprojection. Personally I can appreciate the beauty of 35MM, and I hope itremains a tool filmmakers can use if they wish. But every year we see filmsshot on digital looking better and better, so I don’t think the transition isat all a bad thing.

Courtney: I honestly think this is an issuethat only touches cinephiles deeply. The average filmgoer couldcare less about how there movie is being presented to them. As long asthe movie looks good that will be all they need. While the supposed deathof 35 MM is sad, I do not think it will be gone forever. There willalways be directors trying to experiment with both formats. Havingsaid that I do not think the move to digital film is all that bad either. Cinema is constantly evolving and I think there is a lot that directors stillhave yet to explore in regards to digital film making. They are onlyscratching the surface right now.

Jess: As I have no ability to detect thedifference without it being explicitly pointed out it doesn't matter tome.

Rachel: I've never been one to get hung upon the mechanics of filming. When I go to the movies my attention isfocused on story, character, direction, acting, pacing, etc. I'm toobusy with all that to worry how the film was shot. Essentially, I'm prettyignorant when it comes to film versus digital. So the general filmgoer willlikely not notice or care, and I'm not sure how many cinephiles will either,thus it's probably time to say goodbye to 35mm.

3. Nowthat the contenders in the Oscar race have become clearer, how many BestPicture nominees do you think will be named (keeping in mind the new rules forthis year), and who will they be?

Tom: I think the new system of not having a set number of nomineesmakes it a lot harder to pick which films will get selected. Looking at thecurrent field though, I’m guessing the nominees will include Hugo, The GirlWith The Dragon Tattoo, War Horse, The Descendants, Extremely Loud andIncredibly Close, The Help, Midnight in Paris and The Artist.

Courtney: I think there will be seven filmsthis year. It will not go back to five right away but it will not be tenfilms either. I am pulling for The Artist to get a nomination because Ihave been raving about that film since I saw it at TIFF. As long as theaward season backlash does not set in for the film, like it did The SocialNetwork, I think it has a good shot for getting a nomination.

As for theother six films, I am going to guess Hugo, The Descendants, Tree of Life, WarHorse, Midnight in Paris and Moneyball. I think The Girl with the DragonTattoo will be too dark for Academy voters. Plus, with Billy Crystalhosting, I could see the Academy wanting to bring back some old Hollywoodglamour to the night. Imagine the various storylines that they could spinwith Clooney’s film and Pitt’s film going head to head. Woody Allen,Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg fighting [for] best director... who needs BrettRatner when all that stuff is going on?

Jess: Wow, so many things to consider. Ibet they will go with more than the previous 5, but fewer than 10, just to provethey can. As for predictions: War Horse [and] The Iron Lady are the only guaranteesI can think of. Maybe Midnight in Paris, Melancholia, Carnage and The Help.Hard to guess this year.

Rachel: It's been an odd year and I'm notall that convinced the nominees have become much clearer, especiallywith the change of rules for the number of nominees this year. My bestguesses at this point are Tree of Life, The Descendants, The Iron Lady,Midnight in Paris, The Artist, War Horse, and Moneyball. The Academy could stopthere or fill the last three spots with random, offbeat choices (Drive, TheGirl with the Dragon Tattoo). Neither would surprise me.

----------------------------

Previously:

Take 1 (3D, video-on-demand, movies for adults)

Take 2 (Best Picture voting, int'l marketing, Bridesmaids)

Take 3 (Netflix, SONY's 3D glasses deal, Oscars)

My Week with Marilyn

2011-12-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

My Week with Marilyn
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY
12.6.11

I didn't expect My Week with Marilyn to be spectacular, and it wasn't - far too much editing that takes you away from Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, who are both superb and make the whole thing watchable, especially Williams, whom I completely believed was Marilyn Monroe. I found the conflict between Monroe and Laurence Olivier, on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, to be particularly interesting because it represented, in its way, a clash of ideals.

When I wrote about Olivier's Hamlet, I remarked how his acting style was of another era, one much more stage-like and formal in comparison to that of the Brando Method generation, and indeed, the movie placed this dichotomy front and center. According to the movie, Monroe came to the set of Prince with an acting coach - Paula Strasberg, wife of Method master Lee Strasberg - and Monroe kept her within arms length at all times because she was so intimidated at working with a legend like Olivier, who also directed Prince. For his part, Olivier is depicted as being scornful of the Method; he briefly mentions how he disapproved of his wife Vivien Leigh working with Elia Kazan.

In Week, Paula Strasberg is constantly propping up Monroe's self-confidence, telling her again and again how great an actress she is, and I thought she was just soothing her ego. It turns out that the Strasbergs thought very highly of her acting ability, and Lee Strasberg apparently once said he believed her second only to Brando himself out of all the actors he worked with. At one point in Week, Monroe is so frustrated with Olivier's constant berating of her that she cries, "I want Lee! I want Lee!"

This is an aspect of Monroe's legend that people don't think of as much, and again, Week pays lip service to it when Olivier, frustrated, says to her at one point something along the lines of how she should just wiggle and pout and look sexy, since that's what she does best. (I think that's the point where she cries for Lee.) Developing her acting ability meant a great deal to her, and perhaps that's the true tragedy of her premature death: how much farther could she have gone? She was beginning to creep towards middle age at the time of making Prince; eventually her looks would begin to fade, a point Leigh makes in one scene in Week in talking about her own career. I suspect Monroe knew this in the back of her mind and worked on her acting to prepare for the day when her reign as a sex goddess would end.