Gene Autry vs. Roy Rogers

Singing cowboys (and cowgirls) have been around almost as long as sound in motion pictures. I can’t say I have much experience with them. I remember some of the country records my father listened to by self-styled cowboys—Marty Robbins, Freddy Fender, Tex Ritter—but as a kid, I never associated singing cowboys with the movies. I suppose my father must have watched singing cowboy movies growing up and then later, as an adult, but I don’t recall seeing any on TV.

If you had asked me back then, I would’ve said Gene Autry was the owner of the California Angels and Roy Rogers was the fast food restaurant. Even when I discovered who they were beyond those roles, I can’t say I cared much; westerns were what my parents watched. Now, many years later, as I re-examine westerns, it occurs to me that my education would be incomplete without a foray into the sub-genre of the western musical, and the two guys who dominated the field like oil rigs on the plains of Texas.

Here’s a top ten list of singing cowboys and cowgirls featuring some names you may not know. Here’s a history of the sub-genre, with a heavy focus on Autry and Rogers. With this post, I’m mostly interested in seeing their movies (and a bit of their TV shows) and seeing which one of them I like better. I realize I’m working from a small test sample, given the breadth of their careers, but I’m guessing their movies followed a formula and rarely strayed from that formula. My small sample will probably be enough.

Infinite links

Lynn discovered a website for something called New Plaza Cinema, and it looks like it's built from the ashes of what was the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. A group is looking to start up a new indie theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side. So far, they're still in the embryonic stage, but the fact this is in the works is encouraging.

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So last month I met a multiple Emmy winner. Now I'm not sure if I should mention who it is, because of the circumstances: I met her at her home, where she and her husband host a soiree for musicians on a regular basis, but I think it's a private function. Nothing illicit went on; in fact, it was very sociable, a party, basically, but I don't know them, and I don't know how private their private lives are, so in this instance, I'm gonna play it safe. She won her Emmys for a TV show you all know and love.

Virginia invited me to this gathering. She plays an instrument called a viola da gamba (it's kinda like a cello) and she was part of a number of musicians and singers who put on a variety show, basically, playing classical music and modern compositions that sound like classical music. She also sang with a small group.

The Emmy-winning hostess has her awards on display on a shelf. I looked closely at the statuettes, but I was too afraid to touch them, since they belonged to a stranger and all. They're about a foot tall, maybe a bit more, and they're as elegant as they look. And they were the real thing.

I didn't get much of a chance to talk to the hostess about them because she was busy with other stuff, though I will say she was quite nice. Virginia has known her for awhile; they seemed really familiar with each other, as the hostess was with many of the people at the informal recital. So in my own personal Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, I can connect to some pretty famous people now...

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Big thanks once again to everybody who came out and/or spread the word about the Time Travel Blogathon, and to Ruth for co-hosting with me. I knew time travel films didn't begin with The Time Machine, but there were more of them from the distant past than I realized, done in a number of ways, so this was enlightening.

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A few more words about Cynthia Nixon: I think it's absolutely fair to question her qualifications for holding such a high position as governor, especially New York governor, but at the same time, she's a citizen too, and if she thinks she's got the goods, then she deserves to take a shot. I admit, I'm giving her more of the benefit of the doubt than the former TV star currently in the White House, but then she seems to actually have a brain in her head.

That said, between Nixon, the Rock, Oprah, the girl from Clueless, and who knows who else, America does seem more preoccupied than ever with celebrities either running for office or flirting with the idea at least (though we're nothing compared with countries like India). If there weren't so many precedents, I'd suspect the current president opened the floodgates somehow; I dunno.

I would feel more confident about Nixon if I knew she had experience, I admit, but I'm willing to give her a chance to prove herself worthy. She's aware of the transportation crisis in NYC (which is about more than the local subways and buses and impacts more than just the tri-state area) and says she'll make it a priority of her campaign, but it's still way too early to decide if she can win.

Links after the jump.

It (2017)

It Chapter One
seen @ AMC Loews Fresh Meadows 7, Fresh Meadows, Queens NY

My childhood fear was dogs, and I had it for a long time. It's perhaps my earliest memory: me, at perhaps two or three, on vacation at my grandma's house in Florida, running away on account of her dog. It was the first time I had ever seen one; don't remember what kind it was. I just know it disagreed with me. I didn't get far - at least I'm fairly sure I didn't - but by the time my parents caught up with me the psychological damage was done.

For many years afterward, I could not be within barking distance of a dog, no matter what size, no matter if it was on a leash or not, no matter how friendly its owner claimed it was: if I saw one on the sidewalk coming toward me, I'd cross the street and continue on the far side. It took a combination of therapy and sheer willpower to overcome that fear. I'm actually starting to like them more. Recently, I was at Lynn's apartment and I played with her therapy dog Mackenzie like it was no big deal.

My childhood, all things considered, wasn't terrible. Sure, there were lots of things I wish I could change, but I had a stable home life with both parents, I did well in school, and I had good friends. Not the kind of material on which horror novels are based, or for that matter, movies.

I would guess the appeal of the Stephen King opus It lies not only with the demonic killer clown Pennywise terrorizing little kids; scary as he is, the real world threats within the story are almost as bad, if not more so. Watching this new film version, originally done as a TV mini-series, I realized Pennywise is little different from his cinematic forebears: Jason, Freddy, Michael, Jigsaw, etc. It's the contrast between him and characters like the sadistic bully, the sexually abusive father, the over-protective mother, that elevates this material, however slightly.

I remember the TV version, of course - no one who saw it the first time could forget it - but this cinematic remake has to have a CGI-enhanced showdown at the end like so many SF/fantasy/horror movies these days. I suppose it was inevitable. Still, the film was okay overall. I liked how Derry felt like a real place, with a history, specific locations, and an environment all its own. It was a smart idea to make this a duology: one film set in the past, one in the present. I'll probably come back for the second half.

King, it seems, is more popular than ever now. I've read little of his work because so much of it gets scooped up by Hollywood that I suppose I've never felt the need. The one King book I own is, oddly enough, one of the few that hasn't been adapted: Rose Madder. Mousy wife flees crazy abusive husband; he pursues. She acquires a certain painting... and things get weird. Jim Sheridan was attached to a film version back in 2011, but nothing has happened since.

I've seen it written that part of King's skill is in finding the creepy out of the mundane. Based on what I've read of him, I agree. He's also not afraid to make his villains truly evil - not just his supernatural ones, but his real-world ones too; It is the perfect example. 

I can't say whether he's coasting on his reputation or if he's still got it at this point in his career. Regardless, King has earned his reputation for sure, and as someone who's struggling with one novel, to see him crank out books as consistently as he does is intimidating, to say the least. I hope I can achieve a fraction of his success.

Lust for Life

The Kirk Douglas Blogathon is an event honoring the life and career of the actor-producer on the centennial of his birth, hosted by Shadows and Satin. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Lust for Life
library rental

When I ran a Google search on the name Vincent van Gogh, I was surprised at the number of recent articles about or related to him. For instance: there's a new book out containing previously-unseen drawings of his that some people say are fakes. Another new book about the 19th-century Dutch painter claims he cut off his ear because his brother Theo was getting married. A third new book claims the Metropolitan Museum of Art's VVG painting is fake too. Plus, there's an upcoming VVG biopic requiring over 60,000 original oil paintings to animate.

Over a century after his death, the strange life and brilliant career of VVG continues to captivate modern art lovers and incite discussion. Despite his talent, the dude had some serious mental issues. He was the original tortured artist. The theories as to why he was the way he was abound: he was bipolar; he was epileptic; he was a mama's boy; etc. It's unlikely we'll ever know the truth.

Cafe Society

Cafe Society
seen @ Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, New York NY

Ever since Vija took over our movie club, the one constant she's maintained year in and out is going to see Woody Allen's annual movie. He's been remarkably consistent in his filmmaking; I don't recall the last time he skipped a year, if indeed he has. 

Anyway, I always treat these outings as more of an excuse to be around friends rather than any great interest in Woody, although ever since I joined my writers group, I've had to leave early after the movie ends. Both groups meet on Sundays, you see.

My understanding is that after the movie, the party usually reconvenes at Lynn's, but the weather was drizzly this past Sunday, so she opted to go home by herself after the movie so she could walk her dog.

On Sunday, I asked Vija if all the things they say about Woody - his alleged improprieties with much younger women, the peculiar nature of his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, not to mention his dislike of bike lanes - if any of that bothers her. I figured it mustn't, because she lines up to see his movies every year. 

She said she wasn't entirely sure she believed the worst of it - and in fairness, it's not like what happened with Bill Cosby, where you had a conga line of women coming forward with accusations against him. That hasn't happened to Woody yet.

Franz, being Franz, spun this long-winded and didactic theory that whatever Woody chooses to do off a movie set is nothing more than human nature at work and should be regarded as such. I told him he sounded like he was excusing immoral behavior in general, but I imagine he believes there's no such thing as morality. 

Susan said she just ignores that stuff about Woody. I never got Lynn's opinion. Me? I figure we'll never know the absolute truth about Woody one way or another.

I was kinda eager to see Cafe Society after seeing the trailer in front of Les Cowboys, since it takes place in Old Hollywood. It actually alternates between Hollywood and New York. Jesse Eisenberg comes to Tinseltown to try and make a living, gets entangled in a love triangle with Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell, goes back to New York and becomes a society swell, etc.

The consensus opinion of the rest of the crew was, it was good until the ending, which sort of petered out into nothing. I didn't think it was such a bad ending at first, but upon further reflection, maybe it was underwhelming. I wouldn't have bothered to see it on my own, but then, I wasn't on my own - and that was the point of going in the first place.

High Sierra/On Dangerous Ground

High Sierra
On Dangerous Ground
TCM viewings

So the common denominator in both High Sierra and On Dangerous Ground is actress-director Ida Lupino. (That, and they both end with dudes falling off of mountains.) TCM devoted a day to her last week and I took advantage of it to watch a couple of her films as an actress. Alas, I wasn't able to check out any of her directorial efforts that day. I'd like to at some point.

I'd seen Sierra before. It still holds up - although in watching it again, something new occurred to me. It seemed odd that Bogey's character is pushing Lupino, who's totally devoted to him and wants to be with him, away on the one hand, talking about how dangerous his life is and how he can't take the chance that she might get hurt and all that, while at the same time he's thinking about settling down and playing house with that younger girl with the club foot. (Was she supposed to be younger than Lupino? She seemed that way.) Maybe it was unrealistic for Bogey to even think about marrying someone so young and innocent. I kinda wish that aspect had been played up a little bit more. As it is, I hadn't thought about it before, so it was nice to find something new in this movie.

That dog was certainly loyal to Bogey, wasn't he? Maybe it's because I never had a pet of my own growing up, but I always find it a bit suspect whenever a dog in a movie does all these amazing things out of loyalty to its master. I might be able to buy the dog following Bogey and Lupino driving down the road, but having it climb up the mountain just to be with Bogey before the police get him seemed a bit much (although apparently that was Bogey's real-life dog). To director Raoul Walsh's credit, however, it's not done in a cutesy way, which I appreciate. And I did like the dog otherwise.

And now, a few fun facts about Mount Whitney, the California mountain from the movie. It stands at a height of 14,505 feet, biggest in the continental US. Sequoia National Park lies at its western slope. I have been to Sequoia, when I was little, and it was pretty awesome, though I don't think we went anywhere near Mount Whitney. The Palute Indians, in their language, called the mountain Tumanguya, or "the very old man." The park rangers won't let you hike up there without a permit because so many people hike it on a regular basis. Walsh gets some terrific shots of Whitney and the surrounding Sierra Nevada area. I liked the car chase through the winding roads leading up to the mountain.

Ground was another movie Paddy recommended, but sad to say, I was not that thrilled with this one. For one thing, Lupino doesn't even appear until almost halfway through the movie, despite getting top billing. The real star is Robert Ryan, who plays a cop on the trail of a killer in the north country. Ryan encounters Lupino, who may or may not be harboring the killer. Ryan's really sick and tired of the violence surrounding his profession, the kind inflicted by himself as well as others, even though he's been a cop for over eleven years and you would think if he was that sensitive, he would've chosen a different career. But let's say the job made him this way.

The first half of Ground is a rollicking crime thriller, with Ryan going all Dirty Harry on dudes. I liked the idea of him being uncomfortable with violence even though he has to use it himself, and I would've liked to have seen this angle pushed a lot harder. But then they get to Lupino's house, and the action slows down considerably. Ryan tries to get her to tell him where the killer is and she won't say one way or another and they talk and talk about loneliness and stuff like that and did I mention that Lupino's character is blind? Ground felt like two different movies, and I preferred the first half.

Director Nicholas Ray does have some good cinematography. In addition to the location shots of the snowy terrain, there's some Gun Crazy-type shots from the back seat of a car on actual city streets and country roads, and even a tiny bit of hand-held action for a fleeting moment! Also, there are a few blurry, half-lit images meant to represent Lupino's perspective which don't do anything for the story, but were a nice bit of experimentation nonetheless - for 1951, anyway. According to IMDB, Lupino stepped into the director's chair for a few days when Ray was sick. One wonders which images are hers...

A fool and his links

So we're a quarter of the way into The One Year Switch and I think I've learned a few things so far. In terms of numbers, after the big January start, the amount of pageviews have settled down and are about on a par with 2014. The CinemaScope Blogathon was a very nice and very unexpected boost, to say the least.

One big difference, I find, is that I'm planning posts for a specific date as opposed to before, where I'd post whenever I was ready. With new releases, one naturally wants to get them up in a timely manner, while they're still playing in theaters, but I never had a specific time period in mind for that. Here, I'm more conscious of hitting dates, and not just for the blogathon posts...

...not that I always hit the ones I aim for. The Frank Capra post should've gone up weeks earlier, but I was kinda intimidated by the man's history. He had accomplished so much in his life that it was tough to find a focus, and then, between the blogathon and the Queens World Film Festival, it just became easier to put it on the backburner until I had to return to it. So that's why the Capra piece and the Bernard Herrmann one ran so close together. I fully expect to get back on track with the Joan Blondell piece this week. That's a blogathon post, after all.

Two blogathon posts this month, plus a new feature that you'll be able to participate in making. Also, I've got another guest post for you, from a young lady by the name of Maria Ramos. Even if you don't know the name, you might have seen her work on pop culture sites here and there, and I'm pleased to have her contribute a piece for me. She's planning to talk about Cold War-era sci-fi, so stay tuned for that.

Your links for this month:

The Japanese lettering for this month's banner, featuring the great Toshiro Mifune, was put together by Danny from Pre-Code.com, so if you like it, visit his blog and tell him so... 

...and while you're there, check out this post about the one and only movie featuring all three Barrymore siblings. (UPDATE 4.1: I've just learned that today is actually Mifune's birthday. I swear I did not know this!)

Ivan tells the tale of a rare 60s film about heroin addiction by a woman director.

Leah has a cat with a classic movie-related name.

Ruth saw Wings for the first time.

Glory hallelujah, Retrospace is back! Here is a collection of title screens.

The death of camerawoman Sarah Jones could've been avoided if someone had been able to say no to her director.

Blacklisted actress Marsha Hunt, whom I've talked about here before, is gonna get an award named in her honor this month.

Sounder

Sounder
seen on TV @ TCM
5.18.13

One of the earliest memories I have of my life is hanging out at my grandmother's house in Florida. I was probably around two or so. She had a dog - I don't recall what kind - and it was in all likelihood the first dog I remember encountering. I didn't take very well to it for whatever reason. Maybe it tried to lick my face; maybe it barked a little too loudly for me; maybe this big hairy creature just freaked me the hell out in general. Regardless, two-year-old me panicked and ran away. I doubt I ran far, though; my parents found me before too long...

...but the damage was done. I grew up with a perhaps-irrational, but nonetheless-real paranoia of dogs. If I saw one coming down the street, I'd cross to the other side. I could not get within arms length of one, regardless of size, and it reached the point where I wondered if I needed psychiatric help.

I didn't, though. It literally was as easy as deciding that I was tired of living this way, and making a conscious decision to not be afraid of them anymore. Wasn't easy, and it took some time, but I somehow built up the inner strength to be calm(er) around them. Living in New York, one sees people walking dogs all the damn time! It was either get over my fear or move to Montana or someplace like that - so it's not like I had a choice in the matter.

Funny thing is, many of my friends, both in and out of the five boroughs, are cat people. I imagine it's easier to keep cats as pets than dogs. For instance, Vija had two different cats for many years, and she's even cat-sit for other people. She was very fond of her cats, and since she lives in a great big loft, they always had plenty of room to roam. Andi has a cat now, but she's also a huge dog-lover like you wouldn't believe. I can't go anywhere with her without her stopping to ogle over someone's dog on the street. It's kind of endearing, actually.

Reid has a dog that I've actually become comfortable around. I've only been to his apartment two or three times, but every time I've been there, I've been amazed at how relaxed I get around his fluffy blond dog (please don't ask me what types of dogs and cats these are; I couldn't begin to tell you). He told me once that his dog was trained as some type of caretaker dog for his father, so that might explain it, but I see this sort of thing as progress. I couldn't have done it when I was sixteen.

Sometimes I regret not having a dog as a pet growing up. I think I could've done a halfway decent job with one: I lived in a very suburban part of Queens, in a two-family home very close to a park, with neighborhood friends. If I recall correctly, our landlord didn't allow pets, so it wouldn't have happened regardless, but I might've gotten over my phobia of dogs a lot sooner if I had learned how to be around one on a daily basis. I'll never know. (They don't allow pets where I live now, either.)

I'm not quite sure why Sounder is named for the dog in the story; he's not that pivotal to the plot. Nor does he do any Lassie-like feats of heroism, which I kinda expected when I watched this. Still, it's a very sweet movie, the kind that doesn't get played enough on TV anymore. Watch it with your kids if you have any.

The Black Stallion

The Horseathon is an event devoted to horses in the movies, hosted by My Love of Old Hollywood. For a complete list of participating blogs, visit the host site.

The Black Stallion
first seen in Queens, NY
1979

I have this memory of seeing The Black Stallion with my mother (and perhaps my sister too) when it came out, at a movie theater somewhere in Queens, possibly Flushing. The theater has been gone for many years, though, and I'm still not completely sure which one it was. I have a feeling that it was in Flushing. It could have been the RKO Keith's, which I've written about before, but it may have also been a different theater, a few blocks south along Main Street. The memory is old and extremely vague, but it's there in my mind, and it kinda frustrates me that I can't be sure about where. (I've already asked my mother; she doesn't recall a second theater on this stretch of Main.)


Today, there's a bunch of Chinese markets and businesses all along Main. Usually, the marquee of an old theater is kept when the building is renovated, but there's nothing resembling a marquee anyplace other than the former site of the Keith's. All I remember of the theater is the red carpet in the lobby. I think there was a balcony. It was a fancy old-school place, and the Keith's was certainly that. Flushing has changed so dramatically that I don't recognize much anymore, but like I said, the memory is there, and has been for a long time. It's certainly something that could have happened.

Anyway, let's move on to the reason we're here today: horses. When I wrote about War Horse, I talked about my sister's love of horses as a child. I have nothing against them. One tends to see them frequently in New York, whether they're being ridden by cops or pulling carriages full of tourists. Central Park is the best place to see them up close, especially the south end. It's also the best place to smell them; horse crap is as abundant as you'd expect, though it does get cleaned up fairly quickly. We also have two major horse racing tracks within the area, though, I've never been horse racing.


Favorite horse scenes in the movies: Joey wildly running across the battlefield in War Horse, naturally; Clint Eastwood struggling to get on his horse in Unforgiven; Kirk and Picard riding together in Star Trek Generations; Johnny Fontane waking up with the horse's head in The Godfather; and of course, Mongol punching a horse in Blazing Saddles. (I recently saw the old Henry Fonda/John Wayne film Fort Apache and that had a good scene of soldiers learning how to ride horses.)

The Black Stallion was based on a series of children's books by Walter Farley, beginning in 1941. The primary horse used in the film, and its sequel, The Black Stallion Returns, was an Arabian stallion named Cass Ole. As a show horse, he won over fifty championships plus over twenty reserve championships in seven years. He was recruited for the film at his San Antonio ranch on the condition, set by his owners, that he not be used for any running or swimming scenes. His forehead and pasterns had to be dyed black from their natural white for the role. Also, he had hair extensions woven into his mane to give it a fuller look. After both films, Cass Ole went on performances all around the world, including the White House, and would sire over 130 foals before being put to sleep in 1993.

Other horses in Stallion include: Fae Jur, Cass Ole's main double; El Mokhtar, the producers' first choice for the lead, though he doesn't appear until the sequel, by which time he was available; and Junior, who was also in Animal House.


Stallion is an excellent movie, with one of Mickey Rooney's best roles, though personally, I think if I were stuck on an island with a horse, I'd probably kill it for food before trying to tame it. I mean, who knows how long I'd be stuck on that island, you know? But then, I guess a little kid might not think of it that way. At least not at first.

War Horse

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.

Drunken Master

It's Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting Week! All this week we'll look at some notable martial arts films, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Drunken Master
seen online via Crackle
4.17.11

Bibi and Eric actually have a cat named Jackie Chan. It's one of three cats they own - they're huge cat lovers. One of the cats (I'm not sure if it's JC or not) loves to bat away balls of paper whenever you throw one at him, and he can do this fifteen, twenty times in a row. It amuses Bibi and Eric to no end.

One of the many awesome things about old Asian kung fu movies is that everybody knows kung fu in them. You can be some old woman who only appears for a couple of scenes, or a funny-looking comedy relief character, or even a fat dude, it doesn't matter - everybody in a kung fu movie knows kung fu and has the potential to kick your ass if you're not careful. It's hilarious and amazing at the same time.

I was never that much into them, but sometimes I'd watch one if it was on TV on a Saturday afternoon, back when local TV stations still played Saturday afternoon movies. I talked recently about dubbing versus subtitles in foreign movies and I briefly mentioned martial arts movies as an argument against dubbing in general. However, here in America, an entire generation grew up with dubbing in these films (not to mention Asian monster movies), and for us, it's part of their charm. In recent years, younger generations who have become more familiar with Asian culture thanks to anime and horror films have come to demand a higher standard - for instance, I watched Kamikaze Girls subtitled, not dubbed - but for me, and others like me I suspect, watching an old martial arts film subtitled seems wrong somehow.

That's why I was so happy to watch the Jackie Chan classic Drunken Master dubbed. I'd seen one or two of Chan's Asian films before, so I had an idea of what to expect with this. I still remember when he was being touted as The Next Big Thing in the 90s. I wasn't that impressed with his first starring role in an American film, Rumble in the Bronx, but I did like him - and in watching Drunken Master last night, I remembered why.

Chan is as serious a martial arts master as Bruce Lee, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, or any of them, but the comedic element he brings to his fighting style is breathtaking in its elaborateness. I love the way he'll take an object, any object, and balance it, play with it, or use it as a weapon or a shield in the middle of a fight. And his fights take on a level of slapstick that rivals the Three Stooges. While this was a fun movie, I thought it was a little too cartoonish at times. I prefer the humor when it comes from the characters and their personalities, like the early scene when Chan is trying to get a girl to kiss him, and not when it's punctuated with silly sound effects.

The term "over the top" doesn't seem to exist within the Chan oeuvre, but for the most part, that's okay if it means fights like the ones in this movie, of which there are many. That's another great thing about old kung fu movies - they never, ever forget what it is the people pay to see! Plus, it's such a nice change to see a fight filmed in such a way that you can actually follow what's going on, without a bunch of extraneous cuts or peculiar camera angles.

So where would you rank Chan amongst the all-time martial arts movie stars? I'm inclined to put him at number two, right below Bruce, despite the many crappy Hollywood movies he's made.

Back to the Future Part II and Part III

Back to the Future Part II and Part III
seen on TV @ G4, New Paltz, NY
10.3.10

I spent this past weekend upstate in New Paltz with my friends Bibi and Eric. This was a bit of a last-minute surprise trip. Bibi had e-mailed me last week telling me about a street festival going on in the historical district and would I like to come up for it? So we hung out there for awhile and then went apple picking at a farm on the outskirts of town. That was fun. There's this tool that you can use to yank apples off the branches; it has this wire basket on one end, with curved extensions on one end that you use to hook the apples off the branches, and once they do, they fall right inside the basket. I found it very useful. After that we went comics shopping, then back to their place for awhile, and then out for dinner.

Wouldn't you know it, though - we were at dinner for so long, I ended up missing the last train back home! We all knew it was at eleven, and we knew we had to drive to Poughkeepsie to get it, but you know how it can be sometimes when you're with friends you don't see very often - you know you have to leave, but you don't want to. This was actually a first in all the times I've visited Bibi and Eric, though. Bibi thought we could drive down to the next town and catch a different train into New York, but that didn't work out. I ended up staying the night in their spare bedroom, which would've have been fine if not for their cats. I've recently developed an allergy to cats, which meant a lot of congestion and heavy breathing through my mouth during the night, but I got through. (The worst part is, I like cats!)

I woke up a little after nine, went downstairs and watched TV with Eric, and what should I find but the Back to the Future trilogy on G4. I had missed Part 1, but I've seen that so many times it didn't matter. When I turned on the TV, Part 2 looked like it was about 15-20 minutes in. G4 is the geek channel; this was only the second time I'd ever watched anything on it. There are "hosts" that pop up during the commercial breaks and talk about facts related to the movies, as well as general geek-related items of interest. (One segment was about a new home video game and how to play it.) This being a Sunday morning, the commercials tended to be the same five or six ones over and over again.

Eric and I pondered the logistics of the timeline in the movies, especially Part 2, which has a great deal of back and forth from the future to the "present" (1985) to the past and back again. The first time I saw Part 2, it confused the hell out of me; now it's less confusing, at least. I remember wondering if there's a chart explaining all the moves back and forth through history throughout the trilogy (and sure enough, there is).

The summer Part 1 came out, I was vacationing with my mother, my aunt, and my cousin in California. We were in a hotel, and I was listening to the radio, and at one point a commercial for the movie came on. I was excited about it, but my aunt was less than impressed. When the commercial said, "Rated PG," my aunt said "That should stand for Put it in the Garbage!" I've never forgotten that; I'm not sure why. (She was actually a wonderful woman, even if she didn't care much for modern movies.)

Bibi woke up later on and caught the tail end of Part 3 as she played with her cats. One of them seems to love batting away crumpled bits of paper if you throw them at him, and Bibi and Eric get a kick out of watching him do it, even though it means balls of paper all over the floor.

I took the bus back to New York instead of the train, as Eric had housework to do and Bibi didn't feel like driving all the way to Poughkeepsie. While I didn't plan on spending the whole weekend in New Paltz, I can't complain. I get to see Bibi and Eric once, maybe twice a year, so any extra time with them is welcome, whether intended or not.