Sketches: Jackie Chan

From The Karate Kid.

Sin City

Sin City
first seen @ Pavillion Park Slope, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
4.1.05

When Sin City came out I was working in a comic book store. It was both the best job I've ever had and the worst. The best in that I've loved comics most of my life, and I saw this as an opportunity to not only meet more fans like me, but to shill for them to an audience slowly re-discovering the medium. The worst in that my boss was, to put it bluntly, not a good guy. There's a reason why the comic shop owner character on The Simpsons has struck a chord with so many fans - he's not very far removed from reality. My boss wasn't as snobbish when it came to comics trivia and lore, but he did exhibit a similar level of disdain and indifference to many of his customers.

I did my best to try to improve the atmosphere of the place. I recommended buying popular titles that weren't corporate superhero comics. I created a "staff suggestions" shelf. I rearranged the order of the new releases on the shelves to make it easier for the customers to find what they want. I held contests. I booked local artists for in-store signings and promoted them around the neighborhood with money out of my own pocket. All of this was done singlehandedly, and while my boss consented to it, I never felt I had his support. He was content to push the toys and gaming cards - the bigger moneymakers - and do nothing towards bringing in new customers or even making the store more inviting for non-fans. You can imagine how that would make someone like me - as big a cheerleader for comics as you'd find anywhere - feel.

For all its inroads into the mainstream through works in other genres, the comics industry continues to be dominated by a single one - superheroes. Imagine if 90% of the movies Hollywood pumps out every week were romantic comedies: some of them genuinely entertaining and even artistic, but most of them rehashes of the same old thing. Imagine if moviegoers consumed them voraciously to the extent of everything else; filmmakers like Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers dictated the look and feel of American movies by example; and actors like Katherine Heigl and Paul Rudd were A-level superstars, while the Scorseses and Eastwoods and Bigelows had to struggle to get their work noticed simply because they choose not to make romantic comedies all the time - or at all. That's what the comics industry is like - and it has shown absolutely no signs of changing.

I saw Sin City after work at the Pavillion in Brooklyn's Park Slope. This theater gets a bad rap from the locals for a number of reasons, and yeah, while the seats are threadbare and the sound isn't always perfect, it's not the worst theater I've ever been to. The last movie I saw there was Precious, last year, and the theater wasn't unpleasant. Then again, I don't live in Park Slope, so maybe I'm not the best one to judge. It's the only theater in the otherwise delightful neighborhood, unless you wanna walk all the way over to Carroll Gardens or downtown Brooklyn, so I could see how locals who have been going there for years might be much more critical.

I never liked the idea of recreating the Sin City graphic novels to near-perfection in the movie. It's one thing to hear author Frank Miller's purple prose in your head as you're reading it, another altogether to hear it spoken aloud by Bruce Willis and Clive Owen. And shooting everything in front of a green screen made the movie look artificial and synthetic in a way that I found off-putting. Afterwards I wrote a "review" of the movie if it had been made in 1952. I cast Robert Mitchum in the Mickey Roarke role and Lauren Bacall in the Jamie King role. I still like my version better.

How Bogdanovich helped preserve 'Stagecoach'

...Suddenly, here before me, were 35mm prints of an awful lot of John Wayne movies: mostly brand-new-looking cases, boldly marked “RED RIVER,” “THE QUIET MAN,” “SANDS OF IWO JIMA,” “RIO BRAVO,” “SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON,” etc. For a movie buff, it was a heady moment. I said something like, “Jesus Christ, Duke, do you have 35mm prints of all your pictures!?” He said, “No, but just about. It’s been part of my regular deal for a long time—the studio’s gotta give me a print off the original negative.” A light went on in my head. I looked around and saw quite near me a canister marked “STAGECOACH.” Knowing the original negative of that classic film—-the one which turned Wayne into a major star—-had been lost or destroyed, I got excited: “Is that print of Stagecoach from the original negative?”

Veteran filmmaker and film historian Peter Bogdanovich recently started a blog at IndieWire, and in this installment he talks about one of my all-time favorite Westerns - and certainly one of my favorite movies - Stagecoach, and how an interview with its star, John Wayne, led to the film being kept in print. I first saw Stagecoach on video during my video store job in the late 90s, and was immediately taken by it. My father had always loved Westerns, though as a kid I thought they were cheesy, the way all kids scorn the stuff their parents like. This was one of the first films that made me really appreciate the genre.

Charade

Charade
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City, NJ
9.25.10

I was out all day Saturday, with some of my plans for the day coming through and some not. I spent the morning and early afternoon at a huge art festival in Brooklyn. From there, I had planned on going to a smaller art exhibit also in Brooklyn, but the trains made it difficult. It was partly my fault; I probably could've left DUMBO a half-hour earlier (that's Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass to you non-New Yorkers), but I was enjoying the day too much. Still, I had to take a completely roundabout trip to Greenpoint because the trains that would've gotten me there quicker weren't running normally. I knew when I got off the train that I wouldn't have had any time for this show, so I reluctantly chose to blow it off and head to Jersey City for the highlight of the day - a return to the Landmark Loews Jersey Theater.

I discovered the place completely by chance. I was in Jersey City a few years ago on other business, and when I got off the train, I couldn't help but see it, since it was across the street. You could say it was love at first sight. An old-style movie palace, still showing classic movies? How could it be anything else? The first time I went inside for a film was at a screening of All About Eve which must have been in either 2006 or 2007. They brought in Celeste Holm, the last surviving cast member at the time, as a special guest.

The Loews is the way you'd imagine a movie palace to look: a box office and marquee on the outside, followed by a carpeted lobby with a chandelier suspended from the ceiling, columns all around, and a grand staircase leading to the restrooms and the balcony (which is currently closed, pending repairs). The auditorium has a center aisle and two side aisles leading to the main stage, where off to the side there's a fancy old-style organ, and yes, a professional organist plays it prior to showtime. My descriptions don't do it justice; you need to go to the website and see the pictures for yourself, as well as the restoration process that the theater has undergone. If I lived closer, I'd probably volunteer to help keep it clean.

On Saturday the Loews had a double feature, Charade as the late show and Orson Welles' The Stranger as the early one. I would've gone to see both if not for the exhibit in Greenpoint, which I ended up missing anyway. To add further insult to injury, I forgot where to get off on the New Jersey PATH train! I got off one stop early, got out, didn't recognize the street or anything in it, went back inside the station and took the next train. It had been years since I'd last been to the theater, and it's not like I visit Jersey that much.

I'd only seen Charade once before, long ago. I had expected it to be a thriller in a similar vein to Notorious or Spellbound, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it's actually lighter than that. (Cary Grant taking a shower in his clothes? Definitely lighter.) Afterwards, there was a guy who came on stage to talk further about the film, but I left, thinking that the PATH was gonna stop running soon, when in fact it runs 24-7. I'm not always this unprepared when it comes to traveling, honest.

So that was my Saturday - fifteen and a half hours worth. Add to that hanging out at the San Gennaro Festival with friends Friday night and more of the art festival on Sunday and it was one of the busiest weekends I've had all year. Weather-wise, it felt like summer's last gasp, and sure enough, it's pouring rain today as I write this.

Soundtracks: Top Gun

I bought the Top Gun soundtrack (vinyl) even though I hadn't seen the movie at the time. "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away" were all over the radio, and me being a Top 40 nerd as a kid, I couldn't resist. I still love the soundtrack, cheesy and over-the-top as it is. What can I say? I'm a child of the 80s.

Cheap Trick, "Mighty Wings"

Sketches: Scarlett Johansson

From Iron Man 2.

The Town

The Town
seen @ Center Cinema 5, Sunnyside, Queens, NY
9.21.10

One thing about Hollywood movies that can be a bit of a drawback is that it's sometimes hard to forget you're seeing a Movie Star when all you want to see is the character in the story. I had been reading about The Town for weeks leading up to its release, and the emphasis was naturally on director/co-writer/star Ben Affleck. I've always liked Affleck, going back to his appearances in Kevin Smith's films, like Chasing Amy and Mallrats, and I think it's awesome that he's building a new career for himself as a director, with both this and his previous film, Gone Baby Gone. When I actually saw his new film, though, it took a long time for me to see his character and not himself.

To be honest, that happens a lot with most Hollywood movies, although it's not always a negative. There can be a comfort in seeing a favorite actor doing his or her thing in a movie you enjoy. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't need to submerge deep into a character, Method-style, in order for you to better appreciate his movies; he could more or less be "himself" and that would be enough. Other times, though, the role is as important or more so, and you wanna forget who the actor is so you can more readily give in to the fantasy.

Occasionally an actor's reputation precedes them even if you've never seen them before. This will come as a great shock, I'm sure, but I hardly watch television at all, and therefore have yet to see the hit series Mad Men. So I was seeing Jon Hamm for the first time in The Town - and yet, in the beginning, he only registered to me as the guy from Mad Men, even though I've never watched the show! (Which is not meant to be a knock against the show; like I said, I just don't watch a lot of TV.)

Fortunately, The Town was so good that I was eventually able to get caught up in the story. But that's not always the case with some movies and some movie stars.

I saw this with Reid. The theater is a tiny little neighborhood one, but they insist on checking your bags upon arrival. If they do have a history of violent activity there, I've never been witness to it, but then, I've only been here a handful of times. When the matinee showing began, the theater had maybe a half-dozen people; within the first ten minutes, maybe a dozen more showed up. Why aren't people able to arrive on time? Plus, Reid said he saw one person leave the theater five or six times. If those were all bathroom breaks, then that guy's got some serious problems.