Bright Lights After Dark

Metropolis Now!

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Big news, folks - via GreenCine Daily - that I’m too excited about not to share. An *original* version of Fritz Lang’s 1926 sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis has been discovered in a Buenos Aires film archive, including scenes long considered to be lost forever. The Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation will be working with the Buenos Aires archive to restore the rediscovered scenes and make them available to the public. I can’t wait.

David W. Hudson provides the story and updates here.

Happy Birthday Lindsay Ronson!

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:47:00 +0000

As a longtime champion of the debauched Lindsay Lohan (who turns 22 today), I'm thrilled to see her in the arms of a good, solid club kid like celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson. While the spin doctors in the Lindsay camp are unwilling to call them a "lesbian couple" (for fear of spooking those album-buying crackers south of the Mason Dixon probably), it's pretty apparent that, if nothing else, they're a beautiful "faux-bian" couple and Ronson is undoubtedly a great influence on Lohan, since Sam's managed to spin records at clubs long enough to get famous, rather than, say, nodding off in the bathroom like so many of her contemporaries. She's an eye in the center of the drug-swilling hurricane, and as long as she stays by Ronson's side, I have a feeling our Lindsay's going to be just fine (and they both seem to know it, too; as inseparable as John and Yoko, and ten times cooler).

The best story so far is Lohan screaming at Ashley Olsen, as per Fox News: "Ashley Olsen said hello to Sam at [the Beatrice Inn in New York City], and Lindsay screamed at her, "Get your 15-year-old 'Full House' ass away from my girlfriend!"

That is so hot, like something Courtney Love might have shouted in the early 90s! At any rate, in a medium where tedium reigns (by which I mean one more baby for Angelina and other tired unconsciously patriarchal heterosexual missionary bullshit) the emotional rescue of Lohan by this funky little baby dyke DJ is about the coolest thing going. And today Lindsay is 22!! Happy birthday, Lindsay, you beacon of "petty morals"-free truth to a bogged-down generation!

The Happening (I)

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:58:00 +0000

Loved that line in Erich Kuersten’s review of M. Knight Shyamalan’s The Happening, to wit, that it "would be a great title if it starred Peter Sellers or Russ Tamblyn, and was made in 1967."

As happenings will happen, there was a 1967 film called The Happening. It was directed by Elliot Silverstein - fresh off the success of Cat Ballou - and it featured Anthony Quinn as an aging gangster kidnapped by hippies, one of whom was played by a pre-Bonnie and Clyde Faye Dunaway.

You never saw it? Me neither. But now we’ll all have a chance, since TCM has it on their schedule for Thursday, July 10th.

The Pantheon of Macho-Fey

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Sounds like some evil tournament Bruce Li would enter to find the man who killed his master, but no - "macho-fey" is a term coined by the celestial Kim Morgan (Sunset Gun) to describe the appeal of Roy Scheider/Bob Fosse in ALL THAT JAZZ. Fosse was, we must remember, a trailblazer in the art of being both a womanizing hetero-hedonist and a choreographer. Scheider is blazingly brilliant as Fosse's fictional counterpart, Morgan notes:

..the ultimate macho fey (and there’s not many of those out there) is really based on... Roy Scheider. Scheider is so bad and good and sexy and human, and he can move (and God, how I adore those black pants and black boots). I love his whole, greet the day—“It’s Show Time folks!” after his daily ritual of showering, popping Dexedrine, and facing his still sinewy and handsome but now grizzled image in the mirror every morning.

- from 3 Obsessions.

Now that we live in the era of the IRON MAN, I would think that macho fey has arrived in force. One of the keys is, apparently, facial hair and the ability to laugh in the face of authority. When doctors and mothers threaten in their sternest voices, the macho-fey guy merely shrugs them off the way a benevolent owner might ignore the concerned whines of their dog or cat. Also, he's confident enough that he can swagger to the point of being a bit "prissy." He might get muscular and sweaty and covered in a thin sheen of oil (ala fellow-fey Lewis in BLOOD after a strike) but he's not going to slow down his rapid-fire speech, his rumbling, cat-like purr; nor will he curb his tendency to act himself into a state of naked exhilaration, nor hide his ease around women, an ease that transcends sex to the point of seeming like a sister.

One of Stark's clever mottos is: "Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk." Only someone as permanently speed-addled as Downey could match the high intensity editing and optical overload that comes with the comic book adaptation territory. Downey could outmaneuver Bugs Bunny on a good day. When Stark wakes up and the first thing that happens is an array of information about the weather, stocks, international news, comes shooting in transparent screen whooshes across his balcony windows overlooking the Santa Monica surf. It's more information than we can possibly absorb as first-time viewers, but we believe that someone with the hipster acumen and hyperkintetic frequency of Downey could. When you think of how many times over the last decades Downey's career has been "wrecked," you have extra awe for him. My GOD! The man's conscious and insane and yet precision-controlled.

Do I mention this in time for Gay Pride week? Is Downey even gay? Should I go google and find out? No.. The beautiful thing is, it doesn't matter. In not shutting out the traits he inherently possesses because society labels them "feminine" he opens the door for "full" real character to emerge.

To contrast, imagine Tom Cruise as Iron Man. Yeeeech, right? And he really wanted the role. Imagine how smug and unbearable his Stark would be. Part of the reason would be that lack of femininity.

We can safely ignore the issue of Downey's private preference as unimportant, but to do so with Cruise courts risk of libel suits! in his big concern over the rumors going around he's gay, Cruise has even put ads in the Times. Meanwhile, what about the gay world he does a disservice to? He could spin the rumor into a chance to do good by preaching tolerance, instead he acts as if he were being accused of pedophilia or Nazism. It's one thing to deny, another to insult... and in this case, it's a missed chance to spread some universal tolerance.

Thus in contrast, we see how Downey nails it, how opening up to one's inner macho-fey can set you free to win both box office lucre AND a 94% on rottentomatoes. It's like throwing off a sandbag from your soul balloon. So Mr. Tony Stark, run and worry not about walking; speak as fast as your non-bionic tongue allows. Let even straight people realize there's a part of them that's closeted and it's time to open the door! And let the Tom Cruises sulk in their new age pavilions, alone with their precious macho sans feyness.

BLAD Top Tens by Genre

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:59:00 +0000

I guess I don't speak for all of the BLAD council, but figured I'd get the ball rolling (presuming its not already rolling somewhere else)

When making your own lists (and please post them in response to this) the important thing to remember is to follow the inane logic of the AFI lists - pick your arbitrary "weird" genres (i.e. exploitation as opposed to horror or action) and include questionable choices...

TEN BEST EXPLOITATION FILMS:

1. Night of the Living Dead (1967)
2. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
3. Spider Baby
4. Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
5. Suspiria
6. Halloween
7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
8. Valerie and her Week of Wonders (right)
9. Succubus
10. Species
MOST GLARING OMISSION: Evil Dead 2.

TEN BEST BAD MOVIES
1. Plan Nine from Outer Space
2. Glitter
3. Robot Monster
4. Showgirls
5. Myra Breckenridge
6. The Brainiac
7. Glen or Glenda?
8. The Apple
9. The Happening
10. Bloodrayne (pictured!)
MOST GLARING OMISSION: The Tingler

Other genres left out by AFI:

FOODIES :
#1: Like Water for Chocolate
Most obvious pandering to mass appeal:: Chocolat
Most glaring omission: The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and Her Lover

CLASSROOM INSPIRATIONAL:
#1: To Sir with Love.
Most obvious pandering to mass appeal: Dangeround Minds
Most glaring omission: Maedchen in Uniform (1931)

DRUG, DRINK & RECOVER:
#1: Lost Weekend,
Most obvious pandering to mass appeal: 28 Days
Most glaring omission: Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde (1931)

I made some lists also on Acidemic, the Acidemic top tens for, among other things, the Amok Children genre

AFI’s 10 Top 10 Genre Omissions

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:15:00 +0000

Last week, the American Film Institute announced its list of "America’s 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres" – Animation, Romantic Comedies, Western, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Gangster, Courtroom Drama, and Epic. According to Bob Gazzale, President of the AFI, "These countdowns are a collective opinion of leaders from across the film community," and "Any surprise about an omission would be entirely subjective." You can read the complete lists here.

When it comes to the AFI’s No. 1 choices, I’m pretty much on the same page. Who can argue with Vertigo or City Lights? However, their 2-through-10 choices are often confounding. According to President Gazzale, "Part of the fun of the film lists is the debate they prompt over which movies are included and omitted." An invitation to criticism if I ever heard one. So let the fun begin!

Animation - AFI’S NO. 1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938). Not as great as Pinocchio maybe (AFI’s No. 2), but still a good choice. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No. 8, Shrek (2001). On the one hand, Shrek is the only film on the list that wasn’t made by Disney or its subsidiary, Pixar. On the other, it’s hardly a *great* film in terms of either story or visuals. Particularly with so many other worthy candidates to choose from. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Disney’s Dumbo (1941) - Dumbo has some of the best character animation ever, a tightly constructed story that’ll tear your heart out, and a hallucination sequence, "Pink Elephants on Parade," that is still mind-boggling in its Technicolor inventiveness.

Romantic Comedies - AFI’S NO. 1: City Lights (Charles Chaplin 1931). I hadn’t thought of this as a romantic comedy, but it’s still a great film. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSIONS: No. 6 and 10, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. Two Meg Ryan movies?? MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks 1938). I’ve always preferred Hepburn and Grant to Hepburn and Tracy, and Baby is their funniest collaboration.

Westerns - AFI’S NO. 1: The Searchers (John Ford 1956). No argument there. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No. 10, Cat Ballou (Elliot Silverstein 1965). If the AFI wanted to include a "Feminist" Western, a better choice would’ve been Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray 1954) or The Furies (Anthony Mann 1950). MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (John Ford 1962). The culmination of Ford’s Western work, and his final comment on the facts versus "the legend." A masterpiece by any standard and, yes, a superior film to Cat Ballou.

Sports - AFI’S NO. 1: Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese 1980). A reasonable consensus choice and certainly Robert De Niro’s most committed performance. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No.4, Hoosiers (David Anspaugh 1986). I still can’t believe Dennis Hopper got an Academy Award nomination for this instead of Blue Velvet. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: The Set-Up (Robert Wise 1949) - 72 minutes in the life of a boxer (Robert Ryan) about to face his last opponent. One of the finest works of poetic realism the American cinema has ever produced.

Mystery - AFI’S NO. 1: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock 1958). The obvious No. 1 choice in a great category. (I would consider most of the films AFI listed here - Chinatown, Laura, etc. - to be film noirs. And since when is The Third Man considered an "American" film?) MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No. 10, The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer 1995). A talk-fest with a trick ending. Doesn’t belong on a list that includes 4 Hitchcocks. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Touch of Evil (Orson Welles 1958). As much a "mystery" as any of the other films on the list and an unqualified masterpiece.

Fantasy - AFI’S NO. 1: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939). The fact that this auteur-less movie masterpiece even exists is "magical." MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No. 6, Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson 1989). Shouldn’t this be in the Sports category? If you want a baseball-related fantasy, how about the more colorful, less sappy Damn Yankees (Stanley Donen & George Abbott 1957)? MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Not a single film by stop-motion animator, Ray Harryhausen, the man who inspired the visuals of Lord of the Rings and most of the filmic fantasies we see today. My favorite Harryhausen? The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Nathan Juran 1958).

Sci-Fi - AFI’S NO. 1: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick 1968). 2001 is the Citizen Kane of science fiction films - the monolith, its Rosebud. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: No. 10, Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis 1985). More a fantasy/comedy than science fiction per se. The best American time travel film is still The Time Machine (George Pal 1960). MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Videodrome (1983), David Cronenberg’s great exploration of "inner space." Probably too adult and/or Canadian for the AFI. The biggest omission of a film I expected to see on the list was the still aurally and visually stunning Forbidden Planet (Fred McLeod Wilcox 1956).

Gangster - AFI’S NO. 1: The Godfather (Francis Coppola 1972). Not as good as Godfather II (No. 3 on the list), but you already knew that. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: I like all the films listed in this category, but I don’t really think of Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino 1994) as a "gangster" film. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone 1984) with Robert De Niro and James Woods as characters loosely based on Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

Courtroom Drama - AFI’S NO. 1: To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan 1962). Quite a film, half courtroom drama, half coming-of-age film. (The purest and most authentic courtroom drama on AFI’s list is No. 7, Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger 1959). MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks 1967), a terrific movie, but one that spends hardly any time in a courtroom. It’s really a crime film or film noir. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: A Place in the Sun (George Stevens 1951), among the greatest courtroom scenes ever filmed with Raymond Burr as the relentless prosecutor and Montgomery Clift as his victim.

Epic - AFI’S NO. 1: Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean 1962). A classic film? Yes. American? I think not. It starred one Brit, was directed by another, and was shot in North Africa. MOST SURPRISING INCLUSION: Saving Private Ryan (Stephen Spielberg 1998). More of a war film than an epic and - let’s face it - after that great D-Day opening, it becomes pretty routine. MOST SIGNIFICANT OMISSION: El Cid (Anthony Mann 1961). Mann’s El Cid and Kubrick’s Spartacus (AFI’s No. 5) were films that defined the epic during the genre’s peak years, the early 1960s, before massive sets, location shooting, and literal casts of thousands were replaced by more convenient bluescreen and CGI.

The World's Greatest Sinner: Still MIA

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:50:00 +0000

A one man road show with a truly "garage-y" Zappa score, this allegedly terrible looking mess must be saved from the VHS oblivion its been locked into for years now! If you don't know Timothy Carey, well, yes you do. He was yelling at the Monkees in HEAD (1968), he was spouting epithets and shooting a horse in Kubrick's THE KILLING and then later played a soldier in Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY. In that sense--a two-fer Kubrick--you could think of him as an early American version of Peter Sellers, only Sellers at his most maniacal crossed with a rabid wildcat on acid and two rattlesnakes and Elvis. He rocked the house of Zipper in BEACH BLANKET BINGO and he was a sleazy Arab in a couple of early Charlies' Angels episodes. And man could he dance in POOR WHITE TRASH:

WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER was this madman's CITIZEN KANE, his PLAN NINE, his STREETCAR. But it was also his DON QUIXOTE-- a melange of brilliant scenes and lunacy of the highest order, suffering from budgetary problems and mismatched jump cuts, swamp rate, who knows.

Carey's son is holding onto his dad's legacy with the steely tenacity of a Russ Meyer or a Walt Disney. If you go to his site you see that his company works to professionally digitize and blah blah, so wither the DVD of Greatest Sinner? I remember writing them and hearing that a DVD was in the works, and this was back in 2002 or so. So I dutifully return, like a comet in a long eliptical orbit, to the site and lo, still VHS!

You can feel more than my pain at the AV Forum of DVD Maniacs on this subject. May I suggest Criterion step in? Perhaps they could partner with dear old Absolute and make a kick ass set of SINNER and the various unfinished works and pilots by this great and crazy man.

Til then, we have this:

Sunday Spiritus Cinemacticus: Fessing up to the Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:33:00 +0000

It may not be good, but it's great.

It's great in that it's gutsy way that no-holds-barred downers like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY are gutsy. It's one of those films where you think "what happened? why didn't anyone stop this?" Suits would know there's no money to be made in something so nihlistic and hopeless. Recall if you will the happy ending switch to his CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, for example.

Then there is the uncomfortable neediness and sexuality in the story itself. Vivien Leigh is a recently widowed Broadway star who just backed out of playing Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT, realizing she is too damn old to play a gamin. She moves to Rome and starts to drift... drift. A scheming deposed Russian countess-cum-madame drops in, as if to welcome Leigh to the neighborhood, but really to introduce young stud Warren Beatty. The scene plays out as uncomfortable as one could possibly imagine. The idea here is to get Viv to go out with this young man, and maybe shower him with kisses and then buy him jewelry (which the countess then pawns and they split the take). In short, without anything but small talk spoken, they are pitching a perfect and beauitiful business arrangement, sad only if you cling to your petty patriarchally-instilled mores. But our faded ingenue is still too vain and deluded to realize the faustian bargain implied by Beatty's apparently stringless interest in her. She just assumes she's still beautiful and he's the one who should pay for dinner.

Warren Beatty's limits as an actor suit the role perfectly; he pretends to act like a guy pretending to act. The layers of emptiness run so deep you feel his despair at his own flawlessness. In other words, he's a great gigolo, but not a very good business man or manipulator (this is his first job). Is Leigh ever going to wise up and just pay the man already? Will he ever get the guts to ask? Meanwhile, some rent boy by the fountain below her balcony keeps watching her... watching and waiting... everything is subtle and implied, but the thoroughly American Leigh refuses to read the writing on the wall.

Beatty's "madame," is played by Lotte Lenya--that dog-faced demoness of Weimar era cabaret and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (and SEMI-TOUGH)--and she alone seems to be "operating on the realistic level" as far as taking her pleasures where she may instead of clinging to delusions of youth like the old rich ladies she provides young Italian men for. There's some great scenes of her drunkenly cavorting through bohemian night clubs with her debauched pack of "waxworks," (to borrow SUNSET BOULEVARD's rent boy Joe Gillis' phrase) the type of creepy but very funny old hedonists you would later see cooing over ROSEMARY'S BABY. One of them is the wondrously bitchy Ernest Thesiger (Dr. Pretorious in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN). The links to horror movies of the past are no mistake; STONE is a horror movie dressed up in gloss and glamour, a knife in a pretty flower sheathe.

Director Jose Quintero is perhaps too clever for his own good with all the soap and Sirkian gloss. It's intended to be so sweet it becomes poisonous, ala the plants in Sebastian's garden in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER but it passes so well for the "real" thing that I can see audiences not getting it. As per the style of the time, there's lots of travelogue sunny Rome streets and market footage (cinemascope beating out the television for sheer spectacle, etc.) which contrasts brilliantly with the debauched sadness going on in the shade and Bava gel-lit beatnik caverns. I can see audiences recoiling from this combination, the worst of both worlds if you will... leading them to expect froth then awakening their knee-jerk patriarchal condemnation of this sort of old woman younger man cash for sex transaction. Meanwhile, were the genders and ages reversed, it would be socially acceptable! Leigh would even marry him and then divorce him and geit it ALL! She'd be a bitch, but respected. Beatty merely wrangling a rolex from some old trick who got more money than God, that's considered vile, shameful.

The extras on the DVD let you know the original book Williams wrote was his most naked attempt to depict his anguish over growing older and having to face death... there's also a subtextual sense of Williams' shame at feeling ashamed of being gay. He knows he should know better than to buy into the social conditioning that condemns his lifestyle, but these are deeply planted roots, hopelessly entangled with the pernicious superego. You can see why he would be so afraid when you encounter snickering from people who have learned to "read" gay men into clothes horse women via SEX IN THE CITY. But gay, straight or what have you, we all face this same sad fate if we were ever glamorous, young, pretty, in love, etc. and are aware of death approaching, a small black cloud as yet on our wide landscape, but in view. It's in view and no amount of snickering or renting of boys will stave it off!
P.S. The Sunday Spiritus Cinemacticus is an every Sunday championing of a forgotten film that deserves re-evaluation for its gutsiness, accidental Brechtian brilliance, vacuous beauty or its 5-dimensional breakthrough qualities. Special thanks to the quintessential British review site VIDEO BEAVER for their excellent screenshots.

Terrible things to the human spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:25:00 +0000

It's shameful and it's sad this en masse critical ass-whupping given to poor old M. Night Shyamalan over his second turkey in a row, THE HAPPENING (which would be a great title if it starred Peter Sellers or Russ Tamblyn, and was made in 1967). What do they expect, I wonder, from a man who started plastering his name around with a presumptuous solemnity befitting some long dead, highly prolific master, such as Poe, Kafka, Ozu before he even made a second decent film? SIXTH SENSE was a twisty ghost story that surprised all the people in the world who had never seen CARNIVAL OF SOULS. But then came UNBREAKABLE, THE VILLAGE (which I haven't even seen TEENAGE CAVEMAN and I could guess the ending for), and the odious SIGNS (aliens travel through space just to enjoy hanging out in pantries and crawlspaces like two dollar bogeymen.)

The SIXTH SENSE made millions, but that phat bank must have since gone up in several consecutive bombs and self-aggrandizement. Film after film, we see Shamaylan buying into his own hype-the pinnacle for which comes in the form of his infamous American Express commercial. We turn away in shame, because we recognize ourselves, how we might behave if fame came too fast too soon, as it did for the mighty Shyamalan.

As Cecil B. DeMille put it in SUNSET BOULEVARD, "A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit." For Shyamalan the press agents helped crown him the Indian-American king of rainy urban horror... hell, I wont argue that Shyamalan begot the whole genre of J-Horror as we know it (the rainy cities and VHS-watching dead people combo!) Seen via the warped lens of the press as ann Indian-American cross between Jean Cocteau, Stephen King and William Castle, Shamylan was suddenly a household word... the new press darling when the smart thing for him to do would have been to run away from all that pigeon-holing. The pigeons never realize that once the press gets them in a hole, they bury the cocka-roaches, but poor Shamalyan went for it like a duck to whiskey, if I may mix animistic metaphors and Scarface quotes.

He's not the only one to get all embarrassingly co-dependent and validation-hungry on celluloid... though I don't want to name names... Robin Williams, Kevin Spacey and Charlie Chaplin all had the same problem, but all seemed to have pulled out of it. We'll see if Shyamalan ever can. One worries that he's not in the same league as the Williams, Spacey, or even Waldo Lydecker. I haven't seen SENSE since it was in the theaters, but even then I knew most of its success as a film came from the brilliant ensemble work of Osment, Willis and Toni Collette and not the script, direction or dramatic impetus. I dated a girl from near Philly and Collette was so perfect as a Philly girl with that accent that my heart jumped. I thought Osment was MY kid, and no one told me. And I was dead, and any minute he could turn and see me watching from across the screen.

But from then on... what the fuck? see my point. And if you look at the script, the scenes and dialogue, THE SIXTH SENSE is horrible... that whole business with the tape of the mom poisoning her kid? That's the sort of plot a real writer hatches in grammar school, reading FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC with his cute cousins. They might act it out for the indulgent parents in a basement spook show, but they'd never dream of foisting it on the American public.

Now I'll say right out that there are good ways to go about with childhood arrested whimsical deluded "never had an editior" storytelling. That way is embodied in the oeuvre of the great Sam Fuller. But Samuel Fuller was too real a deal to ever need to pretend to the league of the esteemed honorable M. Night Shyamalan. Just give Fuller his typewriter and a cigar and he was fine. Shyamalan is so needy and bad one wonders if he can even write without someone to stroke his keys for him.

M. Night! it sounds like he's Batman's cousin or a spy in a Thomas Pynchon novel. Now, Samuel Fuller is a real name; Fuller landed on D-Day. Shamalyan would show D-Day by having the Nazis steal a teddy bear from Joaquim Phoenix. You feel me?

If I sound cruel, it's only for his own good in the long run. Bullies are needed to tease and taunt the favorited, for bringing down a peg or two is one of the great gifts you can give a person. Once an ego runs unfettered long enough to gain momentum, the only way to stop it is with a tackle and a dragging through the mud.

It's not M. Night's fault really, is my point. The siren song of media is sweet to the ear-- how simple and easy to become the set of easy signifiers the lazy journalists paint you in? The only problem is, they help you climb the perch and get a crowd to gather, and then they sell them eggs to throw at you. Oh Shyamalan, you fool! You eternal sucker at the troph of ego. Oh mighy critics, next time you throw a rock at a director who dared to dream too big for his britches, ask yourself, who convinced him he should? Wasn't it you? Shouldn't you have to go watch THE HAPPENING? Again and again and again?

See below that infamous American Express ad:

Cyd Charisse (1921-2008) - Still Dancing in the Dark

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Absolutely sublime dancing with Fred Astaire, above, in The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli 1953) and Silk Stockings (Rouben Mamoulian 1957). Equally well matched with Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen 1952), Brigadoon (Minnelli 1954), and It’s Always Fair Weather (Kelly & Donen 1955). Two spectacular solo numbers in Party Girl (Nicholas Ray 1958). Striking even in a non-dancing role opposite Kirk Douglas in Two Weeks in Another Town (Minnelli 1962). And so much more.

She was simply the greatest female screen dancer who ever lived.

A Lost Film by Brakhage?

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:41:00 +0000

Nope. These images come from the fascinating opening credits montage of Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003) examined by Rob Humanick here. (See also, Erich Kuersten’s piece below.) Humanick rightly considers Lee’s film to be "almost great."

So why did Marvel feel it needed to "reboot" the Hulk franchise only 5 years later with a "new" more kid-friendly version starring Ed Norton? Could this be the latest studio policy (following in the footsteps of Batman) where every superhero story gets at least two film versions, one for the adults and one for the kids? If so, when are we going to get an "adult" version of The Fantastic Four?

The "Radioactive" Farmiga Strikes Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:58:00 +0000

I've written about how much I love her in THE DEPARTED, JOSHUA, and DOWN TO THE BONE. Now I've just returned from seeing her in QUID PRO QUO and I can say it officially. This girl is the James Dean of our time. She is the Brando circa WILD ONE, the Monty Clift circa FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. She has that sort of poetry and intensity. But since she's a girl it's not the same kind of intensity and that's why the critics--their faculties dulled by overexposure to Will Ferrell movies--fail to encompass any of her brilliance in their witing. They merely mention it in passing, as if planting a marker in the sand and promising to return with more adjectives in the very near future.

Perhaps this is because what she is doing hasn't been properly written about. It hasn't been "covered" time and again by gushing writers following in each others steps like footprints through a snowy hedge maze.

While the aforementioned brooding 1950s males won our cinema over via showing a nation of buttoned down gray suited commie-bashers that you could be a very tough soldier and cry at the same time, Farmiga does is the feminine equivalent - she oscillates on an antithetical frequency between deer-in-the-headlights vulnerabilty and steely, lusty intellectual counterattack - she's like a beautiful sea anenome that breathes out into a beautiful bloom then breathes in and sucks up any fish drawn too closy by the beauty.

The lady seems to have no shortage of work, so I'm not saying "notice her!" I'm just pointing out the way critics are overly cautious in elevating her to the ranks of the greats. Is it that they have no confidence in their own opinions any more? Does the critic of today reserve their bandwagon praise for safe bets like Scorcese documentaries or Eastwood-directed Boston crime dramas?

In the NY TIMES, Stephen Holden calls Farmiga a "slinky blond [sic] bombshell" and a "Veronica Lake-style femme fatlae." He later notes that:

Ms. Farmiga’s performance might be described as radioactive — her character, in which she uncovers many conflicting emotional layers, has a glow-in-the-dark phosphorescence that is sexy, but also scary.

. That's a good start, but then Holden immediately zips off to another point... as if "sexy but also scary" was all he could muster. Tongue-tied by Farmiga's radioactive phospherence, he resorts to the most fundamental of adjectives.

On the other hand, Rex Reed notes that: "Ms. Farmiga’s range and diversity never cease to astonish." and his headline proclaims "Another fabulous performance by the underappreciated Vera Farmiga." But that's all he really says about her in the article, preferring to delve into plot minutiae. Still, we like Rex Reed; the man was in MYRA BRECKENRIDGE, for Christ Sakes. As far as I'm concerned, he has a lifetime ticket to say whatever he wants. Though he's often wrong.
I guess what I'm pointing out is that when the people who write about film for a living are too busy to capture the brilliance of someone like Farmiga in writing, then not only do they do a disservice to a medium they profess (presumably) to love, but she will remain "underappreciated" until they do give her the ink and ten dollar metaphors she deserves. Until then she will be like some kickass sleeping beauty. They need to stop bashing at Will Ferrell and bemoaning torture pornn long enough to realize that, otherwise they are like the parent who is so tired of cleaning up after the bad kids they never notice or praise the good ones.

Sadly, in our splintered, dumbed-down times, people have forgotten that poetry and beauty can be added to whatever they do, be it film criticism or floor-mopping. This beauty and poetry then goes out and comments on and enhances the work of all who encounter it. This is what is done in the art world all the time, but in the gutless world of mainstream film criticism, how rare and few are those who will stick their neck out and rise to the occasion when some pretty young actress breaks herself into the top levels of the canon, sending the old men scurrying behind their James Dean death masks!? Who will brave the establishment's smug dismissials, their snide tonesPavlovianly ingrained in us from birth to cause all but the staunchest to resort to droolish back-pedaling? Who amongst them, amongst you, shall rise to proclaim this hottie a legend in her own time!??!?! RISE NOW from your comfy screening room slumber and try... try to fully APPRECIATE!

FARMIGA YOU WILL BE AVENGED!

Great Dads of the 1970s: a Father's Day round-up

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:01:00 +0000

I've been blogging about the great movie father figures of the 1970s for what seems like years now, and figured what better day than today--father's day--for posting a handy round-up guide!

The criteria for these picks had less to do with the films being made in the actual 1970s, or even being fathers. Instead these subjects were chosen due to their embodying paternal-leadership traits which have become almost extinct since the clamp down on hedonism in the early 1980s. The 1970s dad was nothing if not hedonistic, but it was this very love of pleasure that made him a good dad, because he was not two-faced or hypocritical. He swapped wives and highballs right at the fold-out card table where he played bridge with the other young couples and kids like me went to steal peanuts and limes from the cute secretary's gin and tonics. He was--in a sense--free, and whole, and he had respect for himself and others because he had lived a full life. He was not hung up on what Keith Richards once described as "petty morality." This freedom permitted him to notice society's failures and act to correct them, with a vengeance!

Maybe we can get that crazy hedonistic love back, and if we do, it will be the movies that show us how. These characterizations are living fossils, reminders of a masculine psyche that may be dormant, but will never be extinct, only repressed until its inevitable return via the murky cthonic channels of the repressed! Viva Paglia!

#212 - Walter Matthau - Bad News Bears (this is the first of the posts, with intro to the series)
14. Roy Scheider - Jaws
34. Burt Reynolds - Boogie Nights
1. Jon Voight - Coming Home
13. Jack Nicholson - The Departed
10. Josh Brolin - Planet Terror
And then the Semi-Great Honoree section (Great 1970s Older Brothers?)
2. Kris Kristofferson - Semi-Tough

Man is that all I wrote? I could have sworn there were more. Anyone out there have any nominees I may have missed?

Well, anyway, I'd like to dedicate this to my own great 1970s dad, James Kuersten. And I'd like to ask that whomever you are, forgive and love your dad no matter how terrible he is or how much it makes you squirm... it's never too late to step out of your pre-conditioned roles and see each other as humans. Just think of Brolin... Nicholson... Voight... Kristofferson...Scheider.... Matthau.... how can you go wrong?

Oh and a special honorable mention to DANIEL PLAINVIEW!

Thoughts on a Frame - Screaming Mimi (Gerd Oswald 1958)

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:56:00 +0000

The frame is from Screaming Mimi (1958), directed by Gerd Oswald, based on Fredric Brown’s "The Screaming Mimi" (below), which also provided the inspiration - uncredited - for Dario Argento’s The Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

The image is a study in oppositions - left frame vs. right frame, light vs. dark, foreground vs. background, performer vs. audience, female vs. male.

It would be a mistake to call this either a long shot or a close up. It’s really both. The left side of the widescreen image is an extreme long shot of Anita Ekberg dancing. The right side is a medium close up of Philip Carey playing a newspaper reporter who is conspicuously not watching her.

The image is particularly startling in context. It comes toward the end of Ekberg’s first big dance number. (She plays a stripper with psychosexual problems arising from an earlier attempted rape, interrupted by her step-brother’s shooting of the would-be rapist.) Up to this point, the sequence consists of shots of Ekberg dancing (mostly in shots that show the full length of her body), intercut with shots of the band accompanying her, and of the appreciative audience, shown always from Ekberg’s viewpoint. The sudden cut to Carey at the back of the club – the only one in the audience who isn’t facing her – ruptures the previously established space.

It’s also the first time we see Carey - a brilliant way to introduce a leading man. His face is half lit, half in shadow, an obvious visual indicator of internal conflict. His mouth is tightly clenched, reflecting the effort he is making not to look at her, yet his cigarette (a phallic symbol?) points directly toward her. This single image of a man strenuously in denial of his attraction to a beautiful female body encapsulates the conflict of the entire film. The reporter thinks he is different from the other men who lust after Ekberg. He sees Ekberg as a damsel in distress, himself as a White Knight destined to rescue her from the similarly obsessed psychiatrist (Harry Townes) who has her under his control. Consistent with the film’s critique of the "male gaze," the reporter has no idea who he’s actually falling in love with.

Coincidentally, Screaming Mimi was released the same year as Hitchcock’s Vertigo, another noir critique of the male gaze. In both Screaming Mimi and Vertigo - as in the earlier Laura - a man becomes obsessed with the Mystery Woman he sets out to investigate. (Hitchcock’s Marnie is a later variation on the same theme.)

Gerd Oswald (1919-1989) was the son of German film director Richard Oswald (1880-1963). Though a fixture in Hollywood B movies from roughly the mid-‘50s through the early ‘70s, Gerd’s considerable visual talents shone most brightly in the German-produced Schachnovelle* (aka Brainwashed, 1960), and in the classic noir/sci-fi television series, The Outer Limits (1963-1964). I once had the opportunity to interview Gerd Oswald in connection with his inspired Outer Limits work. He was not a particularly articulate man, but his images spoke volumes.

* The title literally means, "Chess Novel."

Ang's Hulk Better Hulk!

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:53:00 +0000

(in the above photo, we can see Jennifer Connelly having to calm down Mr. Bana and explain to him why his Hulk is considered a no-good Hulk and the feds are parachuting in the voracious Ed Norton to fill his fringey purple trunks)

Man, it's a sad day on our bitterly defended-from-Galactacus earth when an Ang Lee Hulk film is just dismissed outright, and here it is a super and vastly underrated picture. Granted the CGI was a bit cartoony in the previews (I know I laughed at the time) but looked much better in real big screen life.

The Ang Lee version was innovative, operatic with Hamlet-sized father issues, and had a certain hottie named Jennifer Connelly in it. I could go on, but I see that my favorite blogger, Kim Morgan, has written in defense of the old Hulk far more aptly and passionately than I could in her "Obsessions" article over at Sunset Gun:

...this criminally underrated, unfairly maligned comic book picture managed to be serious and seriously fun. Musing on that green, mean Marvel comic fighting machine, Lee took a repressed Eric Bana and turned him into a frightening vision of male rage haunted by paternal alienation (via a crazed Nick Nolte). Shooting with exaggerated close-ups and with a keen eye for nature (something Lee's expert at -- check The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain) Lee purposefully created a CGI Hulk that ran through cement, sand and dirt with the agility of Shrek (Hulk trips around a lot). Lee made one of the first truly artistic comic book adaptations -- Shakespearean, really. Mark my words -- Hulk will be better appreciated through the years.

May I add a "Damn right" and wave my fist in the air? Note that Kim will be in the STARZ documentary Comic Books Unbound premiering tonight (8 PM PST and 10 PM ET), where she will be ranting more from her pro-old Hulk platform (presuming she's not cut) and then take your green-sized vengeance to the streets, shouting "New Hulk Bad Hulk!" and "Old Hulk Good Hulk!" and most importantly, "Free Eric Bana!"

DVD of the Week: Come Drink With Me (1966)

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:56:00 +0000

It's not the typical kung fu movie in that the action is not very well choreographed. I don't think actress Cheng Pei-pei could do too many stunts. But director King Hu turns his liabilities into assets by focusing more on the before and after of battle. Only in Sergio Leone's westerns or maybe Akira Kurosawa's samurai films is so much time spent on the "squaring off" portions of fight scenes.

If you've ever done much fighting yourself you know that it's all "in the eyes." That means that you keep your cool and your calm by deadlocking your opponent in the eyes, no matter what, which then betray their slightest plan or thought of movement. A good fighter learns to be poker faced about when they attack, squaring off for long stretches of time to wear down their opponent's focus, then suddenly launching into a furious assault.

I don't know, that's my strategy anyway. Now you know, but I'll still fight you. Why not? You chicken? Meanwhile, here's COME DRINK WITH ME, starring the chick who would grow up to play Jade Fox in Ang Lee's CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Thanks to some great colorizing and cleaning on the part of the Weinstein's Dragon Dynasty label, the film looks gorgeous, with a strong sense of 3-D spaciousness to the large sets, which include a spacious inn, a Buddhist temple and a kung fu master hideout replete with indoor on-set waterfall. Seeing it on my big screen projector, I could practically feel the mist. Mario Bava fans will be thrilled by the excellent use of blackness and colored gel spot lighting in the elaborate sets, and the way Hu keeps his camera relentlessly tracking into and out of buildings, following action up and down and red all over.

The bad fighting skills are all on display as little effort is made to "hide the seams" as it were, so we know for example how the throwing stars wind up in the wall next to our heroine, since the framing stutters around her (indicating they had her stand very still while they stopped the camera and a technician ran up and stuck a star in the wall, then ran out of the frame and they shoot, stop, repeat with another star, etc.) That's all for the good, as there's dozens of great Shaw Brothers action flicks, but only one COME DRINK WITH ME!

Summer is a time for Aldrich, but keep Sister George away...

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:41:00 +0000

It's been a few weeks since I laid eyes on it, but there's something still making me a bit sick whenever I think of THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE. So I have to share it, get if off me chest.

For those who don't know it, the film stars Beryl Reid as George, an obnoxious tweed-wearing bull dyke storming drunkenly around 1970s London, and making her baby dyke paramour, poor Childie (Susan George), eat cigars. With its garish London hues and unrepentant nastiness, it's like the BAD SANTA of its day, or even the MY FAVORITE YEAR. We're supposed to laugh because this lady is so nasty and she plays a prim church lady on the daily soaps (Sister George, of the title).

For the positive take on Aldrich's film, I recommend Gary Morris' excellent review in Bright Lights #28. He astutely points out that:

..though some commentators have seen it as homophobic in portraying George as a monstrous version of a lesbian and Childie as a goofy, unevolved babydyke. But it’s ultimately less a comment on lesbianism (though it is that) than an exegesis of the human condition.

While I agree I'd also point out that though its not directly anti-gay, the story freely presumes the "in for a penny in for a pound" theory of sexual transgression (Childie is a masochist who lets George abuse her and obsessively collects icky porcelain dolls; George guzzles gin, molests nuns and hangs out with the neighbor prostitutes). I'm not blaming Aldrich, whose love for the grotesque by then was etched in the celluloid unconsciousness (he must have been scared by a porcelain doll as a child). I'm merely pointing out that the film buys into the idea of homosexuality as an aberration. The sickness surrounding the characters here is perversion and emotionally arrested self-absorption first and foremost, with lesbianism thrown in, as far as I can see, for added shock value, and little more.

This especially refers to the climax, where the conniving new dyke in town, Mercy Croft (Laurel Brown) and Childie get it on. In this long, hideous scene, Childie gyrates and alternately recoils from and accept the Nosferatu-like attentions of Miss Croft, who looms over Childie in bed, staring down at her in expressionistic contortions representing naked desire. This is the controversial sex scene of the film and worse than amoral or shocking it's guilty of the crime of being "ugly." We are treated to long close-ups of a sweaty, excited Ms. Croft looking down at her squirming prey; we see the beads of sweat forming under Croft's thick white drag queen makeup; she looks like she just crawled in from a hard day of drinking on the set of Fellini's SATYRICON.

I don't see anything wrong with older and younger people getting together, but I can't imagine seeing a long horror show sex scene like this if it was a hetero couple, say, Danny De Vito and Hillary Duff. That's not cinema! We didn't have to see Henry Fonda and Kate Hepburn in ON GOLDEN POND! Kee-rist!

My point is that I think Aldrich intends us to recoil in horror at the thought of any two girls kissing, not just this freaky pair, and so he amps up the squirm factor to 11. Watching this sex scene gives us the same sense of discomfort Aldrich gave us watching Bette Davis sing and dance for a smilingly horrified Victor Buono in BABY JANE. It's the same discomfort that, well, if you ever wound up in bed with someone who physically disgusted you and had to just fake your way through for whatever reason, then you will recognize what's at play.

Certainly, SISTER GEORGE may have helped crack the glass on the gay visibility issue, one that would one day explode with Rock Hudson's AIDS. But dammit, I want my cinematic lesbians to be sexy!

If anything, KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE makes you realize why attractiveness and love are so important for the movies. Strip away the beauty and the delusion and this is what you are left with: trashed sets, hurt feelings, ugly, arrested egos; nauseous stomachs, and an angry, ugly old woman mooing into the void. That may be art, but I sure as hell don't want it in my house! MoooOO!

Bing Crosby 1930s Psychedelica

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:16:00 +0000

While searching for abstract animation in the style of Oskar Fishinger or Man Ray, I came upon this remarkable late ‘30s color short "animated" - if that’s the correct word - to a recording of Bing Crosby singing "When the Organ Played Oh Promise Me." (The song was recorded in 1937.)

So many questions. Who made this film? How was it made? Did the artist create any other films in this vein? Can you imagine seeing this in a 1930s movie palace as a prelude to something like Stagecoach or Bringing Up Baby?

Mel Ferrer (1917-2008) - A Truly Lucky Guy

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:42:00 +0000

Lucky indeed. Not only was Mel Ferrer married to the supremely beautiful Audrey Hepburn for some 14 years, he got to star opposite her as Prince Andrei in King Vidor’s 3½-hour epic War and Peace (1956, below) and to direct her in the hallucinatory romantic fantasy Green Mansions (1959).

Although Melchior Gaston Ferrer (no relation to actors José or Miguel) never quite achieved major stardom, he worked - first as a leading man, later as a distinguished character actor - for an incredible group of directors that included Vidor, Nicholas Ray (Born to Be Bad), Fritz Lang (Rancho Notorious), Michael Powell (Oh... Rosalinda!!), Jean Renoir (Elena et les Hommes), Roger Vadim (Blood and Roses), Anthony Mann (as the blind man who murders Alec Guiness’s character with a poisoned apple in The Fall of the Roman Empire), Richard Quine (Sex and the Single Girl), and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Lili Marleen). Fans of MGM musicals remember him most fondly for his role opposite Leslie Caron in Charles Walters’ Lili. Afficionados of apocalyptic sci-fi recall him as the last racist on Earth opposite Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens in The World, the Flesh and the Devil.

Ferrer directed Audrey Hepburn in Green Mansions like a man in love with her. No doubt he was. Her first appearance in that film, a jungle spirit emerging like a vision from the heart of the Amazon, was also the first time I remember seeing the actress, and I was imprinted by it forever. (The first woman I was engaged to was an Audrey Hepburn type – but that’s another story.) Critics were not kind to the film, impressed neither by its lush widescreen visuals nor by the equally lush musical score that accompanied them. Given its powerful ecological message, the film was arguably ahead of its time. Green Mansions may not be great art, but one can appreciate it for what is, an entertaining South American pulp jungle fantasy to place alongside the likes of The Naked Jungle and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Ferrer also produced Wait Until Dark (Terence Young 1967), again starring Audrey Hepburn, in which she gives an exquisitely masochistic performance (Academy Award-nominated) as a blind girl tormented by a villainous Alan Arkin.

And he lived to be 90.

The More Things Change ...

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:14:00 +0000

The Flowers of St. Francis (Roberto Rossellini 1950)

Sex and the City (Michael Patrick King 2008)

[Images via Camera Journal and Jim Emerson.]

Fire at Universal Studios - Bruce Almighty Sets Destroyed

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:25:00 +0000

God’s revenge?

Seriously, I love the Universal back lot. I used to work there and would drive around it in one of those golf carts they use. Nothing beat the thrill of stepping inside the original Psycho house which (thankfully) was spared.

To read the Los Angeles Times coverage of the fire, click here.

GIRLS (1968), CHE (2008) and other threats

noreply@blogger.com (Erich Kuersten) — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:53:00 +0000

Man, it was really disturbing on a metatextual level to finish watching THE GIRLS (1968) a Swedish intellectual feminist sex farce about a touring company of Lysistrata, and look online for reviews only to find one or two reviews, and a few hostile male dismissals. And barely any pictures (hence my off-projector screenshot, above)

Considering how deftly the (female) director, Mai Zetterling, plays off smug male dismissal (all the male actors react towards their female counterparts attempts at equality with conspiratorial snickering both on and off stage) you would think these "critics" might realize the extent to which they are metatextually hanging themselves by saying things like "stridently grrl powered" (Fernando Croce, Slant) and urging readers to see "George Cukor's LES GIRLS instead." Why, Mr. Croce? Because both have "girls" in the title? Gosh darn it, I would ask anyone who automaticallly labels "grrl power" as strident to examine their own feelings of being threatened by truly liberated women.

There were a few other little bits of condescension out there, but now I can't find them.

Then there's Soderbergh's CHE, recently premiered at Cannes. A four and a half hour epic, it will be cut into two halves (like KILL BILL!) I read some ignorant comments here and there, but I wont name no names this time. They're too big for that; they could smite me like an ant. No wonder they're threatened by CHE! He'll topple them, for sure, and us ants will rise.

I mean really, could there be a better casting choice in all of cinema than Benicio Del Toro as Che? I was rooting for this union since 2000, when I first saw him on the big screen in YEAR OF THE GUN (and TRAFFIC, of course). He couldn't be more... Che-ish?

I know a lot about Che, because I was married to a highly opinionated intellectual Argentine documentary filmmaker for five years. And yet, after all that socialist posturing, nagging and bossing around and being expected to shoulder the guilt of my country's, race's and sex's capitalist crimes (insert patriarchal snickering on my part), I STILL dig on Che! What better testament could there be?

Whatever fine shadings of character Soderbergh fails to etch out, I'm sure he'll do the saga justice, and keep it in Spanish with English subtitles. Que bueno y re un flash!

As Mr. Toro put it when receiving the best actor award at Cannes earlier this week: "I'd like to dedicate this to the man himself."

Damn! Can you even tell them apart?

Sydney Pollack (1934-2008) - Good Director, Great Actor

noreply@blogger.com (C. Jerry Kutner) — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:03:00 +0000

One of the best, certainly one of the most unusual, episodes of the half-hour anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was 1960's "The Contest for Aaron Gold." Directed by Norman Lloyd and based on a story by Philip Roth, it’s about a camp counselor, a teacher of ceramics, who observes a special talent in Aaron (Barry Gordon), one of the boys he is instructing in arts and crafts. While the other boys are using their clay to make crude snakes and pots, Aaron is making a finely detailed sculpture of a knight. But there’s a problem. The sculpture is missing an arm, and for some reason, Aaron refuses to complete it. The night before the boys’ parents are due to arrive, the counselor decides to complete the sculpture himself – with unexpected results.

I recall this episode today, among other reasons, because of the extraordinary natural performance by the actor who played the camp counselor. It was the late Sydney Pollack, and to see him in this role is to wonder why he didn’t have the major acting career of a Hoffman or a De Niro. Instead, of course, Pollack became a director, and - not surprisingly - directing actors was one of his greatest strengths. As the various obituaries that have appeared over the past couple days have shown, nearly everybody has their own favorite Pollack film. Mine is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), a terrific allegorical closed system melodrama (like 12 Angry Men, or any other dramatic work in which a group of characters interact within a narrowly confined time and space) about a dance marathon taking place during America's Great Depression. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? captures the emotional and economic desperation of the Depression far better than most films about the era, and features stunning performances from an ensemble cast that includes Jane Fonda, Susannah York, Red Buttons, and Gig Young - the latter winning an Oscar.

Eventually, Pollack did return to acting, at first in films he directed himself like Tootsie (1982), later in films by others, most memorably Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives (1992) in which he played the lead opposite Judy Davis, and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Tootsie and Eyes Wide Shut, in particular, demonstrate how Pollack’s welcome presence could anchor a film in reality, no matter how far-fetched the context.

In addition to his work as actor and director, Pollack was one of Hollywood’s finest producers. The IMDB lists 47 films on which Pollack was credited as producer. I will mention just three: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Michael Clayton (2007) in which he appeared, and Recount (2008), a smart, thoroughly engrossing, and (as you might expect) well-acted film about the 2000 election that premiered on HBO only two days ago. I never met Pollack, alas, but I miss him already.