Stella Dallas

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

"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

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

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)

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.

Soundtrack Saturday: James Horner

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)

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.)