Random Movie Club

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 01:33:00 +0000

Your August Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: She was a bride when the violence happened... Now she's a widow and it's going to happen again

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOBBY SLAYTON: BORN TO BE BOBBY

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK
IS A TRUFFAUT MOVIE...
WITH A LITTLE HITCH

French New Wave (cool obscure French word alert!) progeniteur Francois Truffaut wrote the book on Alfred Hitchcock. No, really. He wrote a book called HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT which is simply Hitch being interviewed by Truf about every movie he ever made. I ate this book more than once. It's my Happy Meal. Anyway, when Truffaut's interest in Hitchcock peaked, he went out and made a couple of tip-of-the-hat movies. One's called MISSISSIPPI MERMAID (1969), and the other is THE BRIDE WORE BLACK (1968), which we watched tonight.

Keeping with Hitch's ingredients, Truffaut selected a story by the great alcoholic/writer Cornell Woolrich, who had scribbled out the short story on which REAR WINDOW was based. Truffaut even used Hitch scoremeister Bernard Herrmann for the music. So, all the elements are there, and it's all cool and fascinating, and it all works...just not perfectly.

TBWB begins the way I believe every movie should, with an image of a topless woman being printed repeatedly on a press. Then, THE WEDDING MARCH, which sounds like it's being performed on a PHANTOM-y pipe organ.

Our anti-hero, Julie, is played by Jeanne Moreau, who Orson Welles once dubbed The Greatest Actress in the World (remember, Welles died before he was able to witness Melissa Joan Hart in action). But why's Julie so crazy? Why is she trying to jump out a window (not a rear one, however). We won't find out for a while. All we know is Julie seeks out a few men, and kills them.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out there's a method to her clinical madness. Somehow, these men have ties to each other. But how? And why is she offing them? The real mystery here is why the hell does her mother let suicidal Julie leave town on her own. But Julie does leave town. Well, not really.

At 40, she's an assassin armed with a little black book of five names. Why she would need a book to remember five names escapes me. Hell, when I kill five people I do it without writing their names down. Anyway...

Her first stop takes her to a high rise, where a guy in a beret is mopping the front patio as if he's a clown mopping up the spotlight. Dolled up, she attempts to bribe him for entry into a Mr. Bliss' apartment and fails. So Julie crashes his pre-wedding party. Bliss is a womanizer, so he takes the bait, even with his wife at the party. Those French are so romantic.

Her next stop is a loner named Mr. Coral, a man who owes back rent in his shabby apartment, a man who checks his hair in windows and mirrors, yet a man who is embarrassed to admit he's had fewer than 10 women in his life, which I suppose is sad for a Frog.

It's just so odd that she creates these elaborate ruses just to kill someone. Why not just kill them? Well, the answer may be that she likes cold dishes. She wants them to be caught off-guard, and then she wants them to know why they are being killed. But it's just not clear. In a way, it seems these schemes were invented because it makes it a more fun movie.

One of the conceits of her murders involves a mandolin song on a record she carries around with her, sort of her Soundtrack to Murder. Me, I'd choose something more aggressive like Metallica or even Gino Vannelli, but okay, it doesn't matter, as this device inexplicably disappeared after murder number two.

Another oddity is that there are no heroes in this movie. I hear this line all the time in Hollywood - "Where's the 'sympathetic character?'" Of course, this is 1960's France and Truffaut would often break film law, usually to his credit; but sometimes when rules are broken we're left unsatisfied. You don't see Hitch making a movie without someone to root for. In a way, I suppose Julie is a hero by default, as the murderees all seem to be extraordinary cads. Also, when someone is arrested for the murder of one of her victims, she calls the police to tell them they have the wrong woman. So, there's a heart in there somewhere, it's just as black as the bride's dress.

None of the performances really stood out for me. Moreau was already soaked from swimming in the French New Wave pool with Truffaut with her lauded performance in JULES & JIM (she played neither), made six years earlier (hey, I wouldn't mind living on the Island of Jeanne Moreau). But here, she didn't quite punch through that much. I never had the sense of motivation or emotion, though there were a few scenes where she breaks down. The men, all swine over swain, were, you know, disposable. You just don't care if they die.

Truffaut incorporates the Hitch vibe with a sweeping, suspenseful REAR WINDOW/PSYCHO/VERTIGO soundtrack and characters that look straight into the camera or point a bow and arrow at us. Though I certainly felt the joy in Truffaut's love of Hitch, most of the time it just seemed easy, weak and occasionally, borderline parody.

Although a revenge movie, TBWB shows us how men act when they're alone, or with their friends, or with women - when they think they can get laid. Years after the movie, Truffaut himself would poo poo (that's French, right?) this movie. Yet I'd say that THE BRIDE WORE BLACK is worth seeing. It just should have been a little more fun, or at very least, playful. That's what made Hitchcock movies work so well.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOBBY SLAYTON: BORN TO BE BOBBY

I love Bobby. Since 1990. But now "The Pitbull of Comedy" looks in the camera and calls himself "The Pitbull of Comedy," so I had a bit of doubt about this Showtime special that first aired in March of 2010.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's something charming about his aggressiveness. Because, just maybe, it's not that aggressive. He says he is, but he's really just a funny guy who tells it as he sees it, and in an authoritative and confident manner. But in truth, he's saying a lot of what comedians have been saying all along. There's nothing new in talking about the differences between men and women or making racial jokes. Bobby just dresses it up in a punk attire. And does it really, really well.

WEST SIDE STORY

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 02:49:00 +0000

Your December Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: THE MOST ACCLAIMED MOTION PICTURE OF OUR TIME!

Pizza: Joe Peep's

Preshow Entertainment: None

HOMEO AND JEWLIET

Yep. It took four gay Jews to make one of the best (if not the best) modern musicals. Leonard Bernstein's score, Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, Jerome Robbins' choreography and Arthur Laurents' book have all conspired to create a masterpiece. Broadway and movie musicals have morphed (think MOULIN ROUGE) since the Golden Age (think OKLAHOMA), but boy, boy, crazy boy this film holds up exceptionally well for a 50 year old. And who'd have thought NYC gang members could get away with those terpsichorean moves. Imagine trying that in BOYZ N THE HOOD.

WSS opens with something you don't have too often in movie musicals these days - an overture. Hell, even Broadway musicals don't do much of that anymore. WSS's overture could win a rumble against any show, which means we hear Bernstein's genius at work before we see any characters. We're actually watching what looks like a UPC code transform into the Manhattan skyline.

And so begins the modern day (late 50s modern, that is) story, lifted from Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET. This version takes place in New York City, home of street gang the Jets, now led by Riff (Russ Tamblyn, Amber's dad and my future father-in-law). The Jets' territory is being encroached upon by the recently emigrated Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, and what starts off as a turf war (done in its new genre "tough guy ballet") becomes a love story. A love story that's doomed from the start.

Riff is just so cool. He was when I saw the movie when I was a kid and he is now. Riff in that jacket, speaking daddy-o lines, flicking that cigarette, balancing on that pole, he was the real Buddy Love. Riff tells us that you're a Jet "from your first cigarette to your last dying day." How cool is that?

In order to challenge rival Bernardo (George Chakiris) and his Sharks to a rumble, Riff must enlist ex-Jet top cat/now working-man Tony (Richard Beymer) to join him. Though Tony has hung up his street-gang ballet slippers, he agrees, out of their undying friendship. And it's at this dance that Tony and Bernardo's sister Maria (Natalie Wood) meet and instantly click. In the next two hours songs will be sung, dances danced and fights fought. And these violent delights will have violent ends.

Some changes were made when WSS transitioned from stage (1957) to screen (1961). Dialogue like "From sperm to worm" became "from birth to earth." And lyrics went from "My father is a bastard, my ma's an SOB" to "My daddy beats my mommy, my mommy clobbers me". And in the TONIGHT QUINTET, Anita's "As long as he's hot" became "As long as he's near."

Tame and almost laughable changes by today's standards (SHREK has more "offensive" language..."eat me!"), but I suppose they were needed. My favorite change is also in the TONIGHT QUINTET, when Riff and Tony are meant to yell out (once again) "sperm to worm", they now yell out "1, 2, 3!" I have to believe it was someone's "fuck you" to censorship.

A change that I'm wholeheartedly behind is the song order; moving the playful GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE from after the murders (why was it there to begin with?) to earlier in the film, leaving COOL in its rightful place. But all these structural and lyrical changes mean little when looking at the overall accomplishment.

Winner of ten Academy Awards, WEST SIDE STORY was directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The show itself was Robbins' baby, having come up with the idea in 1947. At that time, it was a religious wedge (Catholic boy/Jewish girl) that made the love forbidden, and it was called EAST SIDE STORY. It took a full ten years to retool, regroup, and launch WSS as what we know today.

When it came time to make the movie, Robbins demanded directorship or he wouldn't sell. The compromise was to co-direct with Wise, who would do all the drama while Robbins did all the dance numbers. But Robbins was a workhorse and a perfectionist. He was notoriously tough on dancers, who he pushed until they were injured, and in one case, hospitalized. It's said that after COOL was wrapped, the cast burned their kneepads in front of Robbins' door. And because he kept changing things on the set, it wasn't long before they were over-budget and behind schedule (a two week location shoot took over two months). Alas, poor Jerome was removed a little over halfway into the shoot.

Wise, who edited CITIZEN KANE and would soon direct THE SOUND OF MUSIC as well as genre-hop with movies like 1983's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (can you imagine McCoy doing that outstretched leap?), was more low-key. But who's to say that if Robbins wasn't there to drive those songs, WSS would still be what it is. Not me. Because the choreography is thrilling. Busting with energy ("Bust cool!"), it's really something special. Tamblyn tumbled (he was surely a gymnast), Chakiris was classy and Moreno a spitfire. And whenever the Jets and the Sharks were together (the winning prologue, the dance at the gym, the rumble), it was electric. ODD NOTE: Both Tamblyn and Beymer would appear three decades later in TWIN PEAKS.

I'm not sure any movie comes close to the number of showstoppers that WSS has. It's almost ridiculous to the point where you want to applaud your TV screen (audiences applauded in the theaters as well as at the box office, where WSS ran 77 weeks). Though it's hard for me to choose a favorite, COOL ranks way high, right to the very last note when the Jets are looking up and...right at us. But did they really break the fourth wall? After a cut, we see they're still looking up...at something. Us? Who knows? But it sure was COOL.

And now a word about the music: Wow.

Beneath Leonard Bernstein's jazz-soaked score you'll find lush strings, brassy mambo and melodic and emotional ballads, and you probably know most of them. Time signatures that fit seamlessly yet confounded the dancers. Memorable melody lines (when was the last time you saw a show and left humming one of its songs, let along all of them? I thought so...). Songs have been covered by just about everyone, from Barbra Streisand to Tom Waits, from Buddy Rich (whose live show often featured his WEST SIDE STORY MEDLEY, which I was fortunate enough to see a few times) to Todd Rundgren. From GLEE to prog rockers Yes. Hell, even Phil Collins tried but couldn't ruin SOMEWHERE.

After this viewing, I got such a bad case of Music From WSS Fever that I watched a DVD called LEONARD BERNSTEIN CONDUCTS WEST SIDE STORY. What a fantastic documentary. Yeah, so you've seen WSS and you don't want to watch it again (shame on you). Then at least watch this documentary (Netflix). It's thrilling. No joke. Thrilling. Perhaps the best thing I've seen all year.

When I was in 6th grade, we had an assignment to, well, I don't really remember what it was. All I remember was I read the novelization of WEST SIDE STORY and rewrote it as a science fiction story about two planets that didn't get along. There were the MontaSharks and the CapuJets. The planet was named Wesit, hence the story's title - WESIT STORY. I remember that novelization well. It was small and hard-covered and red. I wish I still had it. I wish I still had WESIT STORY. What happens to these things? In the trash with the now priceless baseball cards, I suppose.

If I had to find a weakness in WSS, it would be in the acting. With a few exceptions (Rita Moreno as Anita shines, and Ned Glass' Doc can make you whimper), it's all pretty flat. Save for Natalie "Meteor" Wood. Her performance in the last few minutes is killer. Metaphorically, of course.

Speaking of performances; though it's well known that singer Marni Nixon dubbed Wood's singing voice, I was surprised to learn that she wasn't the only one dubbed; Tamblyn, Beymer, even Moreno (only on A BOY LIKE THAT).

There are others to credit for WEST SIDE STORY, like lyricist Stephen Sondheim (don't get me started...I may not stop), storyteller Ernest Lehman (Really? This script and NORTH BY NORTHWEST?) and effects pioneer Linwood Dunn who worked with Wise on KANE (someone should name a theater after him). And the wonderful production design and colors provided by designer Boris Leven. Though most of the movie was shot on sound stages, many exteriors were shot where Lincoln Center stands today, before what was there was torn down (I think they paid the city to postpone construction so they could shoot freely on the streets).

You must be tired of me gushing, but the truth is you're getting off easy because WEST SIDE STORY isn't even my favorite musical. But it's up there at #5. And no, I didn't tear up this time. But when no one was around, I watched it again so I could work on this write-up and okay, it got to me. So yeah, I buggin' love WEST SIDE STORY. And if you don't, well then Krup you.

2012

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 05:59:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: We Were Warned.

PIZZA: Little Toni's

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: None

Because I couldn't decide on a headline for this write-up, I'll let you see all the contenders and choose for yourself:

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT,
AND I HAVE A MASSIVE HEADACHE.

NEVER HAS A TAGLINE BEEN SO TRUTHFUL - "WE WERE WARNED."

"I AM SUPER PROUD THAT WE'RE 45 MINUTES INTO THE MOVIE AND NOTHING
HAS REALLY HAPPENED YET."
--HARALD KLOSER, CO-WRITER/CO-PRODUCER OF 2012

I SURE HOPE THE MAYANS WERE RIGHT AND THE YEAR 2012 BRINGS A MASSIVE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY. ONE THAT MAKES FEWER SHITTY MOVIES.

THE REAL END OF THE WORLD CAN'T BE THIS HARD TO SIT THROUGH.

2012 ISN'T SIMPLY THE NAME OF THE MOVIE, IT'S ALSO THE NUMBER OF TIMES YOU'LL SLAP YOURSELF ON THE FOREHEAD.

For the 12th anniversary of Random Movie Club, we screened 2012, a big fat stupid effects movie. But that's okay, sometimes we want to see big fat stupid effects movies. But when your big fat stupid effects movie has characters who you have less-than-zero emotional investment in, then you're left with just the effects. And when your effects shots are always moving, like you're on THE SIMPSONS ride at Universal (but without the fun of actually being on the ride), you're in a world of trouble. This movie is an assault on the eyeballs, as we find ourselves constantly dodging falling buildings, lava flows, missiles, airborne trains, and pavement whose cracks follow us like bloodhounds on a scent, no matter which direction we're running in. And therein lies an additional, less visible problem; because this is yet another movie with countless first-person POV shots, we never, not even once, feel that the characters are in any jeopardy. Instead, we feel like we're playing...no...we feel like we are watching someone else play an 80's Atari game.

2012 begins with the (not quite Annette Bening) Columbia Pictures woman holding the torch...whose flame sort of becomes a supernova. So they got me. They played with a studio logo. Somehow they knew that this trick would put me on their side, like it did for RAIDERS, CAT BALLOU, MARS ATTACKS!, SERENITY and so many more. Oh, how I love when they do that. And oh, how I wish I would have shut the movie off when that logo shot ended and instead, nursed a pint of antifreeze.

THE BEGINNING

India, 2009, and Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) ("Say, what is a Chiwetel Ejio for, anyway?") a deputy geologist for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (which in real life has no geologists, yes I checked) is visiting astrophysicist Dr. Tsurutani (Jimi Mistry). Tsurutani takes Adrian 11,000 feet down into what used to be the world's deepest copper mine so he could show him...a video on his laptop?? Really? Okay okay, after that, he opens a 6,000 foot deep well to show him that solar flares are mutating the neutrinos (now with less sugar!) to act like microwaves and are heating the earth's core. And that's all the time they spend on the reason why. To be fair, that's probably a good move. We don't want science (especially if it's wrong) in a popcorn movie. We want to see iconic landmarks destroyed.

So Adrian travels back to D.C. He hasn't slept in two days (he couldn't sleep on the plane?), yet he is compelled to interrupt Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), a government bigwig whose last name is a veiled Bush reference, during a fundraiser. "You have to read this now!" he yells. Because apparently, after the party will be too late!! That means the world's going to end any second!!! So when this scene is over, we better cut to...six months later? In 2010??? And we're where? In...Tibet? To either relocate people or put them to work on an oppressive government dam project that's not really a dam project? Hmmm.

Later that year, President Wilson (Danny Glover, who really is too old to be doing this shit) informs the other world leaders that the world will end.

And now...poof!...it's 2011. Here's where I would have liked to have seen a scene where Adrian is feeling foolish for interrupting Anheuser's fundraiser two years ago with his "you have to read this now!" moment. But instead, we travel to London where a sheik is informed that something he is interested in will cost him one billion Euros per person (and he's got a big family).

France is next, where we witness the heads of the Louvre and some Heritage Organization replace the Mona Lisa and tell us that the original will be placed in a bunker in Switzerland.

See if you can guess what happens next. Go ahead. Try. Nope. Wrong. Try again. Uh uh. Also wrong! Okay, geez, will you calm down? I'll tell you. Next, we cut to...the opening credits. And that should give you some idea on just how much 100% USDA Certified Crap they've crammed into this movie. At best, it's all just silly, but it's rarely at its best. I won't bore you with all the subplots and details. They bored me enough for all of us. But I will tell you a little about the main character, Jackson Curtis, played by John Cusack.

Jackson's a 33 year old limousine driver/struggling author. When we first meet him, he has fallen asleep on the couch, in his clothes, with a laptop and a pad resting on his chest (struggling author, remember?) and the TV on (which happens to be running a breaking news story on a Mayan mass suicide). Jackson's awakened by an earthquake, though I don't think he ever realized it. He's late to pick up his kids, who he somehow lost custody of to his ex, Kate (Amanda Peet). She's got herself a new guy, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy), and he's a plastic surgeon, and...what the hell am I doing? Who cares? The world's going to end!!

And since the world is ending, there's really no need to tell you about bloated Russian billionaire Yuri (I bet they had fights whether to name him Yuri or Sergei) with two odd looking kids and his girlfriend, Tamara (more fights over Tamara vs. Svetlana?). Oh, and FYI - Jackson happens to be Yuri's limo driver. And I don't need to mention the cruise ship singing duo of Harry and Tony, played by Blu Mankuma (that's just too close to Blue Man Group) and George Segal. Tony won't speak to his son anymore because he married a Japanese woman, and they have a kid named, I shit you not - Yoko. I also won't tell you about the murders. Or Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a conspiracy theorist who happens to be right...and as cliche-eccentric (he enjoys eating pickles) as possible.

But all that's nothing. Here are the real reasons 2012 sucks.

DID YOU REALLY SAY THAT?

-Director/writer/producer Roland Emmerich: "We realized there was only one man who could play this part: John Cusack." Well, then how great is it for you that Cusack said yes? Because according to you, if Cusack turned you down, then you would have been forced to cancel your movie, since he was the only one who could play this part. Either that or say: "We realized there was only one man who could play this part - John Cusack. But he turned us down, so we got someone who stinks."

-Emmerich and co-producer Harald Kloser commented that their script was so good that people just signed on immediately. That means it had nothing to do with Emmerich's track record of multi-million dollar blockbusters featuring sky-high salaries. Do they really believe that cool, smart John Cusack would have done this movie for scale?

-Co-producer Marc Weigert: "We tried to do as much research as possible, so we watched the Discovery Channel shows."

DON'T INSULT MAYAN TELLIGENCE

-How does a geologist outrank security? Why would Helmsley, (who has the more pressing matter of saving the world) be in charge of someone who trespassed (Jackson)? Shouldn't he be looking at data and lava and a fissure or two? This man is clearly out of his bailiwick! (I finally got to use that word!)

-While the cruise ship is boarding, a large wave violently smashes the behemoth against the docks. Later, the ship is on its cruise. What the H? There was no damage?

-In one of the many getaway scenes, every single building and vehicle on the road is destroyed. Not one remains. Everything is either toppled or crushed. Except for the car that Jackson is driving. And because this is how they set the table, we're now sure that this family will be safe from anything thrown at them, except my pointed ridicule.

-QUESTION: If a 30 mile volcano was erupting, would you...
A) Stand in the danger zone with your family and watch it? or
B) Run the fuck away?
(Correct 2012 answer: A)

-And just how did the L.A. icon Randy's Donut roll 6 miles to El Segundo? That gives me an idea. This movie could have been this generation's AIRPLANE! (It actually did make me laugh a lot, when it wasn't angering me.) They could have used that Randy's Donut as a runner, popping up in China, Africa, wherever our players happened to be, and finally ending up as a giant life preserver that saves the world.

-I'm no geologist, but the idea of the earth's crust shifting thousands of miles and staying intact seems a bit implausible. But it's a summer movie, so okay. I'll let them have China moving 1500 miles. But how did the people survive? Was it like a giant People Mover? Was it like...land surfing?

-They're on an ark (they actually do call it an ark) at the end! Too on the nose? Well then dig this;

-The son's name is Noah.

-On the way to the arks, we see helicopters dangling giraffes and elephants underneath. Hysterical!!

-An alternate ending provides us with one of the biggest laughs. It turns out that George Segal and Blu Mankuna survived the overturned/sunk cruise ship. At the end, they're on one of the arks. Somehow, someone had spotted these two in the ocean, plucked them, and put them on the ark. And to drive home the extreme peril they were in, Segal's arm is in a sling.

"MORE RPMs THAN ANY MOVIE"

If there's one thing I hate in any movie, it's extraordinary coincidences. You know the kind; people bumping into people in weird places, like other states or countries. Sure, it can happen, so I always try and give a movie one or two passes. In 1985, I saw the movie REVOLUTION starring Al Pacino and Nastassja Kinski. That's the first movie that made me groan because of the coincidences. Pacino and Kinski bumped into each other everywhere, in different states, on battlefields, maybe even on the moon, I can't remember. From that point on, I've used the word "Revolution" to mean "far-fetched, movie-convenient coincidence."

I am here to tell you that 2012 wins for most "Revolutions Per Minute." Here, please sample but a few:

Adrian just happened to have read, and loved, Jackson's book, even though Jackson only sold 422 copies.
And if that's not enough of a coincidence, Adrian meets Jackson, who happened to be trespassing in the government restricted area of Yellowstone Park.
Because they can't make it to China, Jackson and his family (along with Gordon) land in what's left of Vegas. And who happens to be there, standing right on the tarmac? Jackson's boss, Yuri! This is a Double Revolution, because it turns out Yuri's girlfriend Tamara had her boobs done by Gordon.
On the ark, the crew turns on a monitor to check out the hydraulic gear shaft, and when it illuminates, who do they see? Jackson's family. In close up. "I know those kids!", says Adrian.
People on the ark look out the windows to see Air Force One floating by. That seems a little impossible, no? Especially with the earth now covered in more water than before.
With hundreds of thousands of people on the arks, Tamara and Yuri manage to spot each other.
While stopping at a convenience store near Yellowstone Park with his kids, Jackson's daughter sees a TV. Lily: "That's Mrs. Birnbaum, my teacher...on TV!" This is another Double Revolution, because Kate and Gordon were in that very same supermarket at the same time as Mrs. Birnbaum.
In Washington D.C., bodies are everywhere, covered in ash. But one guy manages to not die. He stands up. Hey! It's the President!

UNORIGINAL

-Sample dialogue: "When they tell you not to panic, that's when you run!!!"

-There are so many scenes where people call someone, and while they are on the phone they hear that person die. Then they put on a sour face of disbelief.

Laura (the president's daughter and head of that Heritage Foundation, played by Thandie Newton) talking to French Museum Director. (She gets to hear him die.)
Adrian talking to his friend Tsurutani. (He gets to hear him die)
Tony talking to his son (He hangs up right before he dies, so he doesn't have to hear it.)

-Then there's the hack dialogue-reversals, like:

Person A: "We're taking on an increase of almost .05%." Person B (incredulous): Per day???" Person A: "No. Per hour."
Person A: "One billion dollars is a lot of money." Person B: "I'm afraid the amount is in Euros."
Person A: "You're telling me that the North Pole is now somewhere in Wisconsin?" Person B: "Actually, that's the South Pole now."

-When it's all over, and the arks are floating to the new world (Africa, actually), Laura is in her room reading Jackson's book. Adrian asks her out, and Laura delivers Cliche Movie Line #1: "Are you asking me out on a date, Mr. Helmsley?" Awwww, how adorable. But that's not all. She continues, coyly, "You know, my diary is pretty full." WHAT? What the hell does that even mean? Doesn't she mean her "dance card' is full? Now maybe that's an expression I've never heard in my life (nor has Google), but even if it is, shouldn't they have gone with "dance card?" Did none of the thousand people working on this movie point that out?

-In the beginning of the movie, Jackson is unaware that his daughter still wets her bed at age 7 and that she needs to wear Pull-Ups. So what's the last line of the movie? Lily: "No more Pull-ups." Jackson: "Nice." I suppose one can argue that life will go on as usual. It's also lucky for Lily, as there are no more stores to buy Pull-Ups from.

THE END (OR IS IT?)

Out of curiosity (or maybe because of my abundance of masochism), I watched the knock-off movie 2012: ICE AGE. It was made by The Asylum, a production company that is defined by its intentional rip-offs of big budget tentpoles like TITANIC (theirs was TITANIC II) and SNAKES ON A PLANE (SNAKES ON A TRAIN). I'm here to tell you that as preposterous as the Asylum's version is, it's not any worse than the original 2012. It follows just one family (though the daughter is separated from them), instead of dozens of global characters and the attempted saving of the entire human race. We become more invested in this family unit, with one goal (meet up with the daughter and survive). Unfortunately, because of how insouciant the players were during the annihilation of Earth, it fell flat. But 2012: ICE AGE doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is - a low budget outing riding on the coattails of the movie 2012, whereas 2012 thinks it's not only a great movie, but an important one.

On the commentary, director/co-writer Roland Emmerich, no stranger to the disaster movie genre (INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) and co-writer Harald Kloser seem like nice enough guys, though because of their respective German and Austrian accents, it's kinda like listening to Siegfried and Roy tell us about the end of the world. I can't really blame them for saying how great this actor is or that shot is (or even when Kloser, who also co-produced and scored the movie, started a sentence with - "As good producers, we..."). I mean, they did score three-quarters of a billion dollars on the theatrical run. So really, anything I say, and advice I give, would probably lower that number, perhaps by three-quarters of a billion dollars. But I just can't help thinking, What if 2012 wasn't a big stupid movie? What if it was a big smart movie? Or at very least, a big cool movie?

Okay, I know. We all work hard and sometimes when we see a movie, we just want to watch mindless stuff. We just want to see buildings topple, the Earth split, and giraffes dangle from helicopters. So if that's what you want, then that's what you got. But it saddens me that so many talented effects people did some amazing work on 2012, only to have it feel invisible, wasted on a movie where the characters are in the same amount of danger whether they are in the movie or at home watching it. What the filmmakers needed to do was watch some Irwin Allen and learn that putting heart into your movie (and a dash of schmaltz) will make you care about the people. Let them watch con man Fred Astaire get a cat handed to him, signalling the demise of the woman he was falling for in THE TOWERING INFERNO, or Shelley Winters sacrificing herself to save the others in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Siegfried and Roy were absolutely right when they reminded me on the commentary that "when you look through the character's eyes...the action itself becomes emotional." Now if only they'd go out and make a movie that does this. Or they can just make another piece of crap like 2012. And another billion dollars.

THE FLY (1986)

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 16:49:00 +0000

Your March Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Cool Dialogue: “The medicine cabinet is now the Brundle Museum of Natural History.”

Pizza: Royal Pizza

PRESHOW: LADIES MAN

“DAVID CRONENBERG and JEFF GOLDBLUM: LORDS OF THE FLY”
OR
“WAITER! THERE'S A JEFF GOLDBLUM IN MY SOUP”

Random often has a sense of humor. At the last RMC, we got the movie WINGS. Now, we got THE FLY. What's next, CRAZY STUPID LARVAE?

David and Mel

Here’s something you may not know about the 1986 remake of THE FLY - it was produced by Max Bialystock, in a skewed way. It was, and I’m not joking, produced by Mel Brooks. Back in the 80s, Brooks produced dramas like 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and THE ELEPHANT MAN, both wonderful movies. He also produced THE FLY. Though he made many decisions, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t on set barking, “It’s good to be the producer!” Brooks was also responsible for the movie’s tagline, taken directly from its dialogue: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” He’d suggested that “Veronica would be afraid, she’d be very afraid.” And it stuck. Used a zillion times since, including by yours truly in something I wrote years ago - Stephen: I destroyed a beautiful thing between two people! Something they had going for eight years. I feel like I did the wrong thing, and I'm afraid I made a mistake. Mother: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I love THE FLIES. There’s the 1958 original with Vincent Price (which screened at RMC back in 2002) and tonight’s entry, director David Cronenberg’s remake. They’re both wildly fun movies, but not for the same reasons. That’s a bit odd, being their wacky yet perfectly fine sci-fi premise is the same. But we’re here to talk about the remake, which is a rare bird in the Hollywood sky because it’s as good, if not better (depending on how I feel when asked), than the original. Apparently, scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) never watched the 1958 version, or he may have heeded its warning – “There are things Man should never experiment with.”

Brundle’s teleportation project goes terribly wrong, placing himself and others in peril. It’s a stalwart premise in sci-fi movies as well as every single ride at Universal Studios. But one of the things I love about THE FLY is that in spite of its majorly preposterous premise, we start feeling sorry for Brundle. Therein lies the skill of good characters and storytelling. In fact, everything in THE FLY makes sense, except for the fact that teleportation was invented before we all had cell phones. Also making sense, Cronenberg’s interest in the project, having been fascinated with insects since childhood. In fact, THE FLY was his biggest moneymaker and most accessible film, having previously made the films RABID, THE BROOD, the cult-y and cool VIDEODROME, THE DEAD ZONE (I keep forgetting that was before THE FLY) and SCANNERS (best trailer ever! http://go.shr.lc/1KUNeeI).

THE FLY wastes no time with set up. We enter a world where Brundle’s invention has been completed and is in test mode. He’s a cocky yet likable scientist who, within minutes of the opening credits, has seduced Particle Magazine reporter Veronica (Geena Davis). He wants her to come back to his lab to see his invention that will change the world (a pick-up line that often works for me). When they get there, he makes a beeline for an upright piano (a move that has never worked for me), and it sure sounds like he’s playing a version of LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING. Why?? Because although THE FLY is wearing Horror Film clothes, it’s actually a love story, you know, like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, KING KONG and KOYAANISQATSI. (Okay, maybe not KOYAANISQATSI.) Brundle shows her his teleportation devices – two ‘telepods’ that look like Gemini space capsules – makes sense, it’s Man exploring a new frontier (in actuality, they’re patterned after the Ducati motorcycle cylinder from Cronenberg’s bike). They sleep together, of course; he’s charming and ripped, and she’s Geena Davis. (Goldblum and Davis were already a couple when they were both cast in THE FLY. They’d marry a year later and divorce three years after that.)

Despite his protestations, Veronica is going to write an article on Brundle’s teleportation device. And to make matters worse for Brundle, Victoria used to date Stathis Borans (John Getz) (I went into the anagram maker to see if this name secretly meant something, and the closest I got was ‘Satan robs shit’), who is her boss at Particle Magazine. And boy oh boy oh boy do boys get jealous. And petty; Stathis runs the story on Brundle out of spite, behind Veronica’s back, and so Brundle, well…Brundle decides to run the test on himself. But this is no the-funders-are-going-to-pull-the-plug-on-my-project-so-I-must-try-it-on-myself trope. He does so out of very human traits – jealousy and anger (is Veronica going back to her ex?).

And then, something happens. And we are afraid, we are very afraid. The upside of this new Brundlefly (half man/half fly)? Brundle now has the stamina of a man on a steroids & Viagra cocktail, emphasis not on the ‘tail’ syllable. There’s something fascinating about Brundle’s transformation, besides the physical mechanics. Goldblum (and/or Cronenberg and/or his first draft writer Charles Edward Pogue, or any combo thereof) chose not to make Seth Brundle a mousy geek afraid of women (Peter Parker, Clark Kent). Or a dark soul tormented and damaged by events in his past. No, Brundle starts off kinetic and hyper, so when he transforms, he can only become hyperkinetic and, urrr…hyperhyper. And, against my better judgment had I only seen it on the page, it works really well.

Cronenberg’s pacing is something to be admired. It makes Brundle’s transformation easy to digest in a story that has a danger of getting unintentional laughs (I wonder if they worried about that). The arc of Brundle’s mental and physical deterioration is handled so adeptly that it feels we’re not asked to buy any of it – it’s more like we’re asking for it. Even when he’s past the point of no return, he somehow holds onto his humanity, and even his humor.

For a popular movie (people actually talked by the water cooler about this movie), it’s great to see how small the cast was. It just shows you what you can do with a great story, a great director and great actors. There was no CG budget because there was no CG back then. And let me tell you, some of the effects are beyond slick. All the stages of metamorphosis are smart and fun, and that regurgitation/breaking-down-of-the-hand-and-foot was more awesome than expected. And the arm wrestling scene? Wonderfully grotesque; memorable movie moments. The Blu-ray has a multitude of how-they-did-its worth your time, even if you’re not an effects geek. It’ll make you appreciate the movie even more. Included; the monkey-cat, a sequence that was cut after previews. Too bad, because I liked the monkey-cat death (Brundle kills it with a lead pipe). It was a mercy killing that foretells the ending. Those involved in the film said it didn’t test well, that once your main character kills an animal, even a hybrid monkey-cat, it’s hard to still like him. I wonder if it were directed differently (Yeesh, Rich, are you really giving Cronenberg notes? On a nearly 30 year old film?); if we saw the extreme anguish on Brundle’s face after the mercy killing so we’d feel for him, and show how hard it was not only to commit the act, but also his frustration that his experiment didn’t work. However, I’m very glad they cut the “butterfly baby” coda (Veronica dreams of her child as half baby/half butterfly). Not only that, but she ends up with Stathis, which just makes me hate her. I wasn’t alone on this. Everyone, including the producers and actors, didn’t want it. Not sure about Cornenberg’s thoughts. Damn, I just went on a little too long about this. Why didn’t you stop me?

Many see THE FLY as a parable of addiction or disease and the steps users or victims go through. And the relationship of their loved ones. Run with that or not, you’d have to admit that the stages of sickness are there; the infection, the symptoms, the denial, the acceptance. The tragedy.

Cronenberg, who has a brief role as a gynecologist, adds plenty of smart touches throughout. I love that Brundle bites his nails, a call-forward to what happens to him later. Also love the irony of Brundle having motion sickness when he’s in the car at the beginning. In a loft scene where he’s discovering his new strengths, Cronenberg and Co. choose to do it all without music, which ends up being very effective. It’s like you’re watching a gymnast live.

The Blu-ray is comprehensive and spectacular, with features that clock in over four times the running time of the actual film. Along with the original short story by George Langelaan (first published in Playboy in 1957), the first draft that was written by Charles Edward Pogue, and the very different script that Cronenberg rewrote from the Pogue draft, there are interviews from nearly everyone; Pogue, the editor, producer, production designer, effects, and Goldblum, Davis and Getz (my law firm). Everyone except Cronenberg himself. However, he is featured in test footage, on set, donning goofy fly wings and antennae, as he rides the cylinder gimbal that rotated the set for one of the shots.

“Help me!” If you’ve seen the original, you surely know those two words. Not only has "Help me!" been parodied in such things as THE SIMPSONS and THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE, but even Frank Zappa references it in his 1971 opus BILLY THE MOUNTAIN. The narrator says, “Soon the (telephone) booth was filling with flies,” as other voices respond in high-pitched screams of ‘Help me’.” In Cronenberg’s FLY, it’s winked at in a scene in a bar where a Bryan Ferry song is playing, a song called HELP ME. Though truth be told, the song feels more like a James Bond opening credits song. (It was originally meant to be THE FLY’s closing credits song).

The original 1958 film spawned two maggots; RETURN OF THE FLY was released minutes after THE FLY (you know how fast flies gestate!), and in 1965 - CURSE OF THE FLY. I loved them when I was a kid, but now I have no idea how good they actually are. I do remember they were a bit silly (in one, the scientist had guinea pig or rabbit paws). Even Cronenberg’s remake had a sequel, 1988’s THE FLY II. I saw it in the theater and remember nothing about it. Pretty sure there were no rabbit paws, though. In 2008, an opera version of THE FLY, directed by Cronenberg, was performed with music by Howard Shore, who did the original 1986 soundtrack (it’s so full sounding and elegant, with a mix of spookiness and triumph).

THE FLY is a fantastic movie. Yes, it’s got Geena Davis, a really good bad guy, a message, and all the stuff movies are meant to have. But let’s call it like it is; Cronenberg’s vision and Jeff Goldblum’s chops carry this movie on their tiny wings.

Housefly as seen through a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).
Photo courtesy of the RMC Librarian.

PRESHOW: LADIES MAN (Pilot)

Alfred Molina starred as Jimmy in this sitcom that premiered in September of 1999 and went on for 26 episodes. The title refers not to his male prowess, but to the fact that his household is distaff-centric; wife Donna (Sharon Lawrence), ex-wife Claire (Park Overall), their kids Wendy (Katie Volding, who was replaced after this episode with Alexa Vega, seconds before she broke big in SPY KIDS), Bonnie (Shawna Waldron), another daughter on the way, and Claire’s mom Peaches, played by Dixie Carter. And that scene-stealer Betty White as Jimmy’s mother Mitzi. Somehow, show creator Chris Thompson, who created funny shows like BOSOM BUDDIES and THE NAKED TRUTH, manages to get the entire cast into the bathroom while Jimmy is trying to shave. Molina is likable (not like he was when he stole the idol from Indiana Jones), and so was the show. And funny, too.

Of course we’re going to get Y2K and “digital phone” jokes, but mostly it’s about their impending baby two weeks away, and Jimmy’s inability to have sex with Donna. It’s a throwback sitcom, more of the RAYMOND ilk than TWO AND A HALF MEN (LM’s penis jokes are more classy).

Original commercials from 1999 included Saturn, Calvin Klein’s Contradiction for Men, and the Ikea ad on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND. You can also take a poll on what you think of CBS shows by logging on to America Online, keyword CBS.

WINGS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 18:00:00 +0000

Your RMC II Results Are In!

Tagline: An Epic of the Air

Pizza: Numero Uno

Preshow Entertainment: TALES FROM THE WARNER BROS. LOT

“DOGFIGHTS!”
“STUNTS!”
“LESBIANS!”
IT’S 1927’S BEST PICTURE - WINGS!

Please don’t confuse tonight’s selection with McCartney’s post-Beatles band, or the 90s sitcom, or actor Wings Hauser, or the movie THE WINGS, about a gay sculptor. This is WINGS, the 1927 epic silent movie, famous for, among many things, being the first movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. What a fantastic movie choice the Gods of Random chose for us, especially after watching the preshow - TALES FROM THE WARNERS LOT. By accident, tonight was all about film history.

“Everything that I have, everything that I’ve ever accomplished, I have to credit a film called WINGS.” This was said by A.C. Lyles, Hollywood producer from the 1950s through his consulting work on HBO’s DEADWOOD (Lyles died at age 95, a few months before we screened WINGS). Lyles saw WINGS when he was 10 and was instantly thunderstruck. Not 10 years later, he moved to Hollywood and worked for Paramount, the studio that made WINGS. He worked in the movie biz for decades all because of WINGS.

I can see how in 1927, WINGS would hit anyone hard. It was an ambitious project, with thousands of extras, eye-popping acrobatic flying stunts and up-till-then unseen shots of planes and dogfights (to show perspective, they sometimes had to wait weeks for clouds to appear, rather than shoot against a clear blue sky). Of course today we’d hardly bat an eyelash because, let’s face it, we’re all CG-spoiled. But in 1927, moviegoers jaws must have hit the floor. Plus it had Clara Bow, the biggest star at the time. Bow was born in Brooklyn, on the other side of Prospect Park from where I was born, in 1905. I mean, she was born in 1905. I arrived later. She’s buried only miles from me here in California, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, resting with the likes of Forrest Ackerman and Billy Barty.

Though the backdrop of WINGS is WWI fighter pilots, it’s actually a love story. Okay, it’s a few tangled love stories. I’ll go on to say it’s even about the love that the two leading men have for each other. If WINGS had a Facebook page, under “Relationship,” it would have said “It’s Complicated.” Jack (Buddy Rogers, aka Mr. Mary Pickford) dreams of flying, while neighbor Mary (original It Girl Clara Bow) dreams of Jack. But Jack likes rich city girl Sylvia. (Fool! That’s Clara Bow you’re ignoring! She’s raking it in!) Meanwhile, wealthy David (Richard Arlen) is being wooed by, yep, Sylvia. Jack thinks Sylvia is in love with him, as Mary pines for Jack, and…yeah, it’s complicated. Toldya.

Jack and David, rivals in their town, find themselves at the same army training camp. There’s some cool stuff here, like machine gun target practice and mock cockpits that spin on gyros. And their bunkmate? Gary Cooper (Super-duper!), who is only in the movie for a short time. Also in training, Herman Schwimpf (El Brendel), a comic relief American soldier who becomes a punching bag, almost literally, when his loyalty is put to the test by nearly everyone he meets. Meanwhile, Mary answers a wartime ad for the Woman’s Motor Corps - “Those who can drive Ford cars are especially desired.” It’s almost 40 minutes before Jack and David even step foot in a plane.

There are a few great surprises in WINGS, like when one character makes a rash and fatal decision while thinking someone is dead. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it was done the exact same way 74 years later in that awful WWII movie, PEARL HARBOR. Rip-off? Perhaps. But it’s a story hook that’s been used forever. Can I get an amen, Juliet? WINGS goes on to feature a further twist which I will not reveal here. I will tell you that it’s wonderful storytelling and it may just break your heart. There’s also, despite its now outdated acting style prevalent at the time, a moment or two where you just may find yourself getting choked up.

Cockpit Selfie

I like the story a lot and love WINGS’s place in the history of film. But truth be told, I’m more impressed with the production itself. There are flashbacks, well-thought out match dissolves (one noteworthy one was from a parade baton spinning to a train wheel), and a zoom in and then back out (1927 also saw a zoom used in another Clara Bow movie, IT). And Wellman knew that if the audience wasn’t inside the cockpit with the pilots, it would look fake. So they put cameras inside the planes. Cinematographer Harry Perry used both cockpit seats of the plane - Perry in one/actor in the other. Other occasions saw the actors themselves flying and being their own cameramen, sort of like selfies. When cameramen weren’t in the cockpit, the cameras sometimes were activated by the pilot/actors themselves. They placed cameras on the wings facing into the cockpit and also outward to see other planes.

For a few months, in another lifetime, I lived in Oswego, a small town upstate New York. We got more snow than Buffalo yet, because Buffalo was the big town, they got all the news coverage. Makes sense, as the snow would impact more people in that region than in a small town. Similarly, because it was a high profile film seen by a large amount of people, WINGS often gets the credit for being the first to use flashbacks, cameras in cockpits, zoom lenses, nudity, etc. WINGS is like Buffalo N.Y. getting credit for the snow. But I assure you, there were plenty of “Oswego movies” (features and shorts) that employed these techniques before WINGS. All that said, their various uses here are wonderful.

Additionally, Richard Arlen learned to fly planes so it wouldn’t look cheated (Buddy Rodgers knew how, having been a pilot in WWI). The way they flew those airplanes is the way they were flown in WWI. Wellman, also a WWI fighter pilot (remember, WWI was only over for a few years when WINGS was being filmed), made sure that the way they flew the plane was the way they were actually flown in WWI. The aerial footage and stunts also featured some great crashes, sometimes with people crawling out of the wreckage.

Filled with action, WINGS also loads us up with melodrama. Take, for instance, the scene where Mary has apparently lost Jack to another woman. In the washroom (okay, it’s France, so it’s toilette), a female attendant takes one look at Mary’s sadness and knows it’s about a boy. Even as Mary denies denies denies, the attendant proceeds to try and help her. This scene (remember, it’s a silent film with titles) is beautiful. There are also some haunting images, like a soldier killed by a shell, laying dead on the side of the road as the troops, in shadows, walk past. Or a tank rolling over a foxhole, crushing its inhabitant. Wellman, in an uncredited role as a soldier, also dies in this movie.

But WINGS isn’t only, by a longshot, about planes and death and flying and stunts and crashing and cool footage. I said earlier that it was ambitious and I meant it. They sometimes had 19 cameras rolling at the same time in one shot. One moment saw hundreds of troops marching away from us at the bottom of the frame as a double exposure shows soldiers getting killed at the top of the frame. And then there’s the almost famous over-the-tables shot, where the camera moves “through” four tables before reaching our table. They used a crane, but even by 2015 standards, this is a wonderfully executed shot. But get this – I noticed that at one of the tables sit two women lovers. Who knew there were lesbians in 1927? I thought they were invented recently. Anyway, this segues well to:

Even though it was 1927, it was still a Roarin’ 1927. You’ll witness insert shots of a woman’s ass walking away, or one of a woman’s low neckline as she attaches a brooch. Not to mention two soldiers walking in on Mary, topless as she’s changing. Again, not the first instance of nudity in a movie. Certainly a scandalous moment at the time. And yes, you can find these precious images today on the Mr. Skin site.

There’s more to WINGS than its story, acting and production details. There’s what they did after the movie was made – both in 1927 and a few years ago, when they did a stunning restoration. There’s a playful use of tinting (amber, lavender, etc.), hand-drawn stenciled-in color (not terribly uncommon in silents) and animated champagne bubbles. Some of this was digitally replicated to match the original (they still had all the studio notes on what effects went where). They even recreated the score from all the original sheet music.

In 1926, Paramount (then still called Famous Players-Lasky Corporation) president Adolph Zukor didn’t want to put such a large amount of money into a movie about planes (the movie was shepherded by Zukor’s partner Lasky, who had discovered the story). It was a “roadshow” movie, slated to play in a few big cities. They were able to get the army involved - actually, it may have been the Army that approached them, as it was good PR for both sides - they got to use a Texas training camp, actual troops as extras, and, best of all, WWI planes that were not even a decade old. It’s estimated that WINGS received $3 million in men, goods, and services from the Army. I just looked it up and that’s $43 million by today’s dollar. On top of that, there was Paramount’s own $2 million (27m today). And while we’re talking pricing, a ticket to WINGS in 1927 cost $2. That’s $28 today. And though that’s a hefty price to pay for a movie, it was worth it for the moviegoer. It was a spectacle. Just the flying sequences alone were probably worth the ticket, as most of the world had never flown in a plane. WINGS was the highest grossing film of the year, and ended up playing in theaters with a live orchestra for two years.

Preshow Entertainment: TALES FROM THE WARNER BROS. LOT

I have my own tale of the Warner Brothers lot. I was walking around with my friend when we noticed that everyone on the lot stopped talking. And many stopped walking. It was, ironically, like a scene from a movie. A sci-fi movie. What was going on? Well, when we looked ahead, we saw a few studio suits walking with Clint Eastwood. Yup, Clint is the only one I’ve ever seen stop people in their tracks. Anyway…

TALES FROM THE WARNER BROS. LOT is a documentary that aired on TCM back in 2013. And it’s fantastic. Saluting 90 years of the studio’s history, the doc, along with some great stills of the lot being built, takes us on a tour of the studio that has more sound stages than any other lot in Hollywood. While actors, producers and directors like Martin Sheen, William H. Macy, Morgan Freeman, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck, Steve Carell, Christopher Nolan, and my good buddy Clint Eastwood tell us what the studio lot means to them, I found the stories of current and past employees to be the most interesting. It’s here that we learn of fascinating beginnings, and how the four Warner Brothers (no sign of Gummo anywhere) got into the business. Sadly, no interviews with Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner.

One employee, Dwayne Davis, is a 3rd generation Warners employee (his dad worked in construction, as does he, and his grandfather was a cameraman for Jack Warner). And Tour Guide Dean Ricca tells us a fantastic tale of Stage 16. I can’t tell you everything. You should watch it yourself. Look for it on TCM in its 53-minute version. There’s supposedly a 1hr 43min version, but that seems to be MIA. Love to get my paws on that.

Oh, by the way, also featured in TALES FROM THE WARNER BROS. LOT is Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. He was alive when we screened this, and died by the time I wrote all this up, proving once and for all that a man can die waiting for my RMC write-ups.

RMC FLASHBACK!

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 06:14:00 +0000

Your July 2009 Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

TAGLINE: Two men raised as brothers, divided by destiny.

THOU SHALT NOT KILMER!

In the Holyland (Hollywood and Highland), illuminated like a burning bush, is a large billboard TV, and back in 2004 it displayed images of Moses. Singing. On stage. And Moses looked a lot like...Val Kilmer? Wait a second...I believeth that IS Val Kilmer. And lo, the words did appear - "Val Kilmer IS Moses!"

How can I not see this show? How can anyone not see this show??? I mean, "Val Kilmer IS Moses!" With those four little words, I was sure this would be something I'd most likely remember for a long time.

So I grabbed a friend and he grabbed a friend and the three of us began our exodus. Our journey came to an abrupt halt when there before us stood formidable mountains. But suddenly, as if by divine intervention, the mountains parted and we were able to travel right through them, joining other caravans through the Cahuenga Pass on the 101 Freeway. Minutes later, we saw it. With its Egyptian decor, it loomed in the distance as if some omnipresent zoning department and developer waved a staff. And as part of this structure there was that large image of Val Kilmer again. We have arrived.
We approached the entry parched and ticketless, but our keen eyes spotted an oasis - card tables with people handing out tickets for those on guest lists. I see hundreds of tickets in neat stacks. I have to hand it to Moses for staying true and not...selling out. We spoke with these Tradesmen:

US: Can we get free entry to see Val Kilmer IS Moses?

TRADESMEN: What company are you with?

US: (Pause, then) Umm, what company do you want us to be from?

TRADESMEN: (With a wink) Variety.

US: We're from Variety.

TRADESMEN: Here you go. Three tickets. Enjoy the show.

So we got in for free so they can paddeth the house, for apparently Moses failed to make a prophet. But so what? Our journey was over. We would, like Moses himself, see The Ten Commandments with our own eyes. And we can spread the word.

And that word is SHIT. What the fuck were they thinking? Val Kilmer is Moses? In a musical? "Holy shit."

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better...I read the program. This show was directed by FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY helmer Robert Iscove. Actually, I can't really say if he did a good job or not, as it sure seemed as if he missed every rehearsal. This Branson-y show looked as if anyone did anything they wanted whenever they wanted, including but not limited to oversinging, high school choreography, chintzy effects, songs that would embarrass Jim Steinman and lyrics so laughable and god-awful that I believe the cast wore so much make-up just to conceal their humiliated faces.

And now, years later, it's RMC's 10th anniversary and what better way to celebrate than watch this spectacle which defying all logic, some idiot released on DVD in 2006.

The show starts off with a misstep that lets you know you're in for an evening of laughable mediocrity. After the Pharoah Seti, who is apparently radioactive (a cheesy post-production effect on the DVD), demands all Hebrew newborns be killed, Yokebad places her newborn doll into a really fake river downstage. But you can't see the doll moving across the river because Val's teleprompters (probably a necessary afterthought) were obstructing the view. Yes, the very first "effect" of the show didn't work. Way to open big. Anyway, at the other end of the stage the Pharaoh's daughter, Princess Bithia, adopts the doll. And not long after, Val Kilmer IS Moses.

What follows is a two hour schlock opera, and if you're not totally familiar with the story, the characters get lost and so will you. Sure, you can kind of follow along, but prepare ye to be confused for much of it. For example, when Moses is questioning his identity ("Suddenly I'm feeling alone. Suddenly I feel I'm not at home."), what the hell are the slaves doing? With the bottom halves of their bodies in holes in the stage? Someone said they were stomping grapes and we all laughed. But I think that's really what they were doing.

Some of the heartiest bellylaughs came from the stage effects. The plagues, especially. Oh, and the parting of the Red Sea, which they must have thought was called The Blue Plastic Sea With Wires. (Sing along with Moses! "Nothing we can do but take the leap into the deep!") And let us not rule out the burning bush and the voice of God, which sounded like the voice from that computer software that reads English. And please, don't get me started on the animated frogs...

One thing (okay, the only thing) they did right was cast amazing singers (Val's not terrible, but he is the weak link, sometimes sounding like Peter Gabriel, other times Neil Diamond, but mostly just sounding bland). In fact, about twenty minutes in, then unknown American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert appears as Joshua.

He sings IS ANYBODY LISTENING, a ballad as smelly and disposable as used Pampers ("You can tie a rock to my soul/but you can't build a prison for my mind, no.") Lambert is no False "Idol." His vocal skills are from another planet, as are those of a lot of the singers in the show, like Alisan Porter, who in another lifetime played the title role in John Hughes' film CURLY SUE ("She'll Steal Your Heart!"). But sadly, they had to screw that up as well. For there's not a note in the show that isn't oversung or screamed or overly emoted or brimming with enough melismata to make Mariah Carey yell, "Stop it already!"

As killer as the voices are, there's not a song in the show worth spit. It sometimes feels like a SIMPSONS parody of the story of Moses. In fact, I believe I found the animatic storyboards they used for THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: THE MUSICAL (click the last of the three videos in this link): http://tinyurl.com/dxw5hy

As we all know, there's nothing better than crappy songs that everyone sings with their eyebrows to make sure you know how sincere they are. And every song sounds like the overproduced songs from the 80s, with the bombast of Bonnie Tyler and the Lynn drum snare hits of a TOP GUN tune. So it's no miracle to learn they were written by 1980s Madonna collaborator Patrick Leonard. The orchestra was in a room somewhere. Why bother? Why didn't they just flip the switch to the drum machine and start the sequencer?

This was accompanied by such deep lyrics as "today the sun touched my face and cried a thousand tears." Didn't you write that poem when you were 7 and a half? Moses may have lived 120 years, but this Moses died in the first five minutes. Every damn song mentions either tears or sand. Many songs do both. And the endless empty and pedestrian similes are enough to make you cringe. Thank lyricist Maribeth Derry for that. She herself, on a DVD extra, beams to us; "...they gave us total freedom...(it's not often) where you have producers that really let you be artists..." Well, Maribeth, maybe not watching over you was the producer's egregious mistake. And if you think I'm being harsh, here's a quote from a review from Talking Broadway: "Maribeth Derry's lyrics are, at best, bad, and at worst, actually offensive."

"I wouldn't hire you to play Val Kilmer in 'The Val Kilmer Story!'" That was reportedly the line that director John Frankenheimer spat at Kilmer during the filming of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Though it may be Hollywood folklore, I believe it to be true. But I kind of like Kilmer. He supports many charities, often without the Bono press, and he redeemed himself the following year with his role as Gay Perry in KISS KISS BANG BANG. So what if he acts in movies that underperform (to be kind) and suck (to be direct). Does he really deserve to be a punching bag?

Well, yeah. When you sign on for this, you should get shot down. You deserve to be laughed at when you are quoted as saying, "I asked myself whether any project I could develop would have as much impact as playing Moses, and there was no way. I've really tried to capture the essence of the man." Val Kilmer IS embarrassing.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: THE MUSICAL is a fulsome endeavor of biblical proportions. A disaster. A catastrophe. And you can carve that in stone. Get it?

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Your February 2014 Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Behind these “nice” school walls… A TEACHER’S NIGHTMARE!...A TEEN-AGE JUNGLE!

Cool Dialogue: “You got 32 teeth buster, wanna try for none?”

Pizza: Maria’s Italian Kitchen

Preshow Entertainment: THE TWILIGHT ZONE episodes THE FEVER and THE AFTER HOURS

IN THIS TOWN, SCHOOL LETS OUT AT 4:20

The year - 1958. It was before Russ Tamblyn was Riff in WEST SIDE STORY, before Jackie Coogan was Uncle Fester in THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and before John Drew Barrymore had a daughter and named her after him. It was a year into Jerry Lee Lewis’s career, and five years after Joan Olander changed her name to Mamie Van Doren. It was between the time Michael Landon was a teenage werewolf and when he lived in that not-so-big house on a meadow. 1958 was also the year all of these people teamed up, along with the son of Charlie Chaplin, to make HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. It’s a fun teen exploitation movie, full of tough guys and chicks, oblivious parents, overzealous authority figures and a jazz piano-playing drug lord.

If you want to watch HSC just for Jerry Lee Lewis, you’ll only need to view the first few minutes, when he and his band play the title song of the movie from the back of a truck as it moves through town, ostensibly to sell records to citizens. What it’s actually doing is setting the movie’s mood; that rock and roll is anarchy, and there will be trouble in River City.

Transfer student and troublemaker (he’s in his seventh year of high school) Tony Baker (Tamblyn, whose daughter Amber keeps texting me. Girl, leave me alone! You’re married!) hops in his car on his way to school when he realizes he needs a shave…so he pulls out an electric razor and shaves while driving, which just makes me laugh uncontrollably. The first time I saw that was when Emilio Estevez did it in the movie WISDOM. Do people not have time to shave at home?? And are there no shaving-while-driving laws? Actually, there’s a reason Tony’s shaving on the way to school, but viewers won’t learn why for quite a while. Anyway…

Tony wants no part of the Wheeler Dealers, the student ‘weed-head’ suppliers on campus. No, Tony’s got no time to work his way up the delinquent ladder. He’s “looking to graze on some grass,” and wants to start at the top. And “before this crummy day’s over, every crummy stud in this whole crummy school is gonna know who Tony Baker is.”

Tony’s a tough guy, who in his first few minutes at school insults the office clerk, a teacher, and finally the school principal (waiting, Tony sits at the principal’s desk playing with a knife while smoking). Yet when he gets home, he has a glass of…milk. Hmmm. The principal’s seen kids like Tony before, and English teacher Miss Williams (Jan Sterling), who at first is angered by him, softens up to attempt to change him, even though Tony’s hot for teacher. Tony lives with aunt Jessica Rabbit, I mean, Gwen, a siren played by Mamie Van Doren, who enters with a muted trumpet on the soundtrack. And get this…she comes onto Tony.

And then the movie gets all preachy, with the police commissioner holding court with the principal and teachers, showing them what marijuana cigarettes look like, explaining the lingo (“let’s turn on!”) and telling them just how bad drugs are. And all the while, Tony is focused on finding the local drug kingpin known as ‘Mr. A,’ so he can cut out the middle man (especially leader J.I., played by John Drew Barrymore), buy wholesale, and push to his heart’s content.

Philippa Fallon

Serviceably directed by Jack Arnold (who also did one of my favorite family films of the 60s, HELLO DOWN THERE, as well as famous B-movie sci-fi/horror movies CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE), HSC is fun for many reasons. Sure, it’s campy (it was probably campy in 1958), which is always amusing, but it also has something not common in teen exploitation films – (supposedly) four writers and lots of drafts. Yes, there’s lots of stuff going on in here. Besides the already mentioned, we have Michael Landon as Steve, who is trying to recruit Tony for the football team. We have Tony not only muscling in on J.I.’s Wheeler-Dealer turf, but also on his girl Joan (Diane Jergens). We have a girl overdosing on heroin, a drag race right out of REBEL, and best of all, Philippa Fallon. We have to talk about beat poetess Phillipa and her poem, performed as a call and response with a jazz band. A poem called HIGH SCHOOL DRAG. It was written by Mel Welles, who also wrote for influential outsider Lord Buckley. Here’s a sampling: “I had a canary that couldn’t sing, I had a cat that let me share her pad with her. I bought a dog that killed the cat that ate the canary. What is truth? … Tomorrow is Dragsville, cats. Tomorrow is a king-sized drag.” Welles also wrote the hip dialogue about Christopher Columbus’s voyage that Barrymore spews to his class when the teacher’s away: “And after Chris met his boat connection and scored for three, he got some cats together with eyes for adventure and split across the Atlantic ‘no tomorrow’ style.”

John Barrymore

Which segues nicely to one of the movie’s many jollities - its slang. Almost non-stop, the phrases fly out of every kid’s lips (when I say ‘kid’, I mean actors in their 20s playing teens). And it’s not just the slang that’s fun, it’s other dialogue as well. When they discover one of the students is a heroin addict, Joan tells Tony, “I thought she was a weed-head like me.” His reply? “She was. She graduated.”

Anyway, it all builds up a head of steam in the last 20 minutes. Through a henchman named Bix (Ray Anthony), Tony finally gets to meet and deal with Mr. A. Ray Anthony was married to Van Doren at the time, although this was the year she asked Anthony, who incidentally wrote the song “The Bunny Hop,” for a divorce. Bix, who refers to himself in the 3rd person (“Bix likes it cool”) has a phone in his car. A car phone in 1958. He’s right. Bix likes it cool.

From what I’ve read, everyone involved in HSC was being serious about the subject matter when making the movie. They wanted to deliver an anti-drug message, though it didn’t really work. Director Arnold would later say that he thought marijuana was the gateway to heroin only because it said so in the script. It seems this ‘gateway’ idea will never go away. Ten years later, it was also mentioned in the similar exploitation movie MARYJANE, coincidentally screened at RMC a few months ago.

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL was produced by exploitation king Albert Zugsmith, who somehow managed to also produce the esteemed TOUCH OF EVIL that same year. It’s true, while he produced B-movies like the 1952 precursor to RED DAWN called INVASION USA as well as SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE and THE BEAT GENERATION, he balanced them out with more legitimate fare like TOUCH OF EVIL and WRITTEN ON THE WIND. Baffling, yet cool. Cool as Bix.

There’s another Hollywood tidbit about HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. It was the first gig for Hollywood car modifier George Barris, who still has a cool shop in walking distance to Random Movie Club Headquarters. Barris went on to help create, among many cars, the Munsters car and the Batmobile.

There’s a tag at the end of HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, where a narrator tells us in somber and important tones that the bad guys are in jail, and the good guys are all off drugs and happy (“Joan confines her smoking to ordinary cigarettes.”). I imagine this had something to do with appeasing the MPAA. I’ve also learned there was a prologue, where a doctor talks right to us, telling of the dangers of drugs. But that prologue seems to be lost. So for now, let’s just all hope that “this insidious menace to the schools of our country is exposed and destroyed.” Are you picking this up? Because I’m putting it down.

Preshow Entertainment: THE TWILIGHT ZONE episodes THE FEVER and THE AFTER HOURS

Lots of people love THE TWILIGHT ZONE. And everyone has their favorites. Even Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngvbQoJ5Mzo). I sure have mine, and one of them is THE FEVER. I love it for many reasons; its veiled story of how addiction can kill you (though it’s gambling here, it applies to every addiction), the amazing acting by Everett Sloane who, in 22 minutes, changes from a man who refuses to gamble to a man obsessed. But most of all, by Rod Serling’s perfect script. It gets me every time, especially the two speeches Sloane makes about gambling, speeches which I secretly, till now, imagined Serling wrote about Hollywood. Here they are:

Click to Play Video

THE FEVER was directed by Robert Florey, who also directed another of my Top Five Zones called PERCHANCE TO DREAM. He also co-directed the Marx Brothers in their first film, THE COCOANUTS, making my worlds collide.

We also watched THE AFTER HOURS, another great ZONE. This one has the personal distinction of being the first ZONE I’d ever seen. My dad was downstairs watching it, and I joined him…and was hooked. This is the story of Marsha (Anne Francis with porcelain skin that could belie the payoff) trapped inside a department store overnight, only to discover her fate. This is another Serling script, though perhaps plagiarized from John Collier’s 1940 story EVENING PRIMROSE. Oddly (or maybe not), THE CHASER, another Collier story, aired 3 episodes before THE FEVER on the ZONE. Makes me suspicious of some under the table deal (“Give me PRIMROSE and I’ll buy another one off ya…”) PRIMROSE would become a one-off TV musical in 1966 with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr (Liesl in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, her only other credit). The show’s songs were written by Stephen Sondheim. It’s on DVD, and it’s actually pretty great.

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Your January 2014 RMC2 Results Are In!

TAGLINE: Unmatched…in a half century of motion picture suspense!

PIZZA: Big Mama and Big Papa

PRESHOW: CRISIS IN MORALITY, BABYSITTERS' GUIDE

COOL DIALOGUE: Brogan-Moore: “Touching, isn’t it? The way he counts on his wife.” Wilfred: “Yes. Like a drowning man clutching at a razor blade.”

ARE AGATHA’S PLOT POINTS CHRISTIE CLEAR?
IS BILLY DIRECTING WILDER THAN USUAL?
DOES TYRONE HAVE THE POWER TO GET ACQUITTED?
DID LAWYER CHARLES JUST SAY, “THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAUGHTON?”
IS MARLENE A, UM…ERR…A DIETRICHMENT
TO HER HUSBAND’S MURDER CASE?

You can feel safe that I won’t be giving anything away. I try never to do that anyway, though I’ll sometimes give you a Spoiler Alert. But if it pleases the court, I will say this; you know how there are some movies that you forget just how great they are? This is one. Please watch this movie. Not only am I petitioning you, but I’m also begging you. WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION is guilty of being one of my favorite movies.

OPENING ARGUMENTS:

The crime we are talking about is a felony, for if you have never seen WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), you will be charged with one count of first degree cinemacide. I’ll try to be brief as I outline the case.

First, the writing. WFTP was written by Billy Wilder, Harry Kurnitz and Larry Marcus, adapted from the Agatha Christie play, which itself was based on her short story. We all know Christie was an amazing mystery writer. Some, myself included, credit her for popularizing the “One Location” mystery with her unbeatable story/play/masterpiece AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. It’s a genre more popular today than ever.

The acting. Charles Laughton as barrister Wilfred stuns me with his talents here, including his side-of-the mouth quip delivery system. He really does make Sir Wilfred one of filmdom’s most fun characters. I mean, has there ever been a character so full of contempt yet so lovable? Yes, I love Laughton in this movie, but everyone’s great. John Williams (no no, not THAT one) is fun to see, with his stoic British demeanor. And, of course, the unstoppable Marlene Dietrich, in all her Germanic Life is a Cabaret glory as Christine, the accused’s wife. Dietrich, who incidentally was the one who brought the project to Wilder, is a symbol of fierce independence; Christine is a solid soul who stands strong in all situations, stronger than her war-torn Berlin living quarters did.

The directing. Billy Wilder. Gosh. He’s made so many of my Top 100 films - THE APARTMENT, THE LOST WEEKEND, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, STALAG 17, ACE IN THE HOLE and SUNSET BLVD (yes, I do like SOME LIKE IT HOT and others, but I like these a whole lot more). This is the 5th Wilder movie screened at RMC (AVANTI – 2010, A FOREIGN AFFAIR – 2009, STALAG 17 – 2006, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES – 2000).

Next, I will provide evidence of the thoroughly appealing tone of the movie. It’s kind of amusing, me writing this review while on a looooong break in a Jury Room in Los Angeles, waiting to be called or not called. As I watch the judge in WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION on my laptop, I’m not sure I agree with the movie’s tagline of “Unmatched…in a half century of motion picture suspense!” Sure, WFTP is a courtroom drama/mystery, but even better, it’s a comedy. So disregard taglines and what Wikipedia says. WFTP is extremely funny. Hilarious funny. But if your idea of funny is watching Adam Sandler high-five a walrus, this may not be your movie. But who am I to judge?

And lastly, an array of exemplary characters, all smart, funny and wonderfully realized. It’s that look Sir Wilfred gives his nurse Miss Plimsoll in the opening scene, on the way back from his hospital visit as she chatters away. And if the look isn’t enough, he tells her “If I knew how much you talked, I wouldn’t have come out of my coma.” Within seconds, we learn this will be no ordinary courtroom thriller. This movie will be funny, too, which is rarely an easy balancing act. But like Nat King Cole or Eddie Van Halen, Billy Wilder just makes it all look so easy, so effortless.

But there are radical and risky things too. How many movies can get away with a 37 minute courtroom trial? Well, this one does, and it’s plot-driven and entertaining. Actually, about an hour of this movie takes place in the courtroom, and the other hour, with a few exceptions, takes place in law offices. And yes, I timed it out myself. Seriously, there is not 30 seconds of this movie where there’s nothing fun going on, and it’s not limited to sharp patter, as when Wilfred uses the reflection of his monocle as a makeshift interrogation lamp on the accused. Or witness the execution of a shot where the chief inspector walks from the back of the cavernous courtroom to the front. Wilder’s camera stays at the doorway, making us wait in real time for the man to reach the witness stand.

Another thing I love is how Wilder & Co. take things as mundane as eggbeaters and silly hats and make them into important plot points.

THE CASE:

Sir Wilfred has been in the hospital for two months and is itching to bring his corpulent cynical self back for one last case. You have to love how ornery he is, and how no one in his employ pays any mind. They’re all there to annoy him, and he’s there to annoy them, yet no one is annoyed, except for:

Elsa Lanchester (Laughton’s real wife/alleged beard) as Miss Plimsoll. I imagine they had a lot of fun playing these bickersons. “If you were a woman, Miss Plimsoll, I would strike you.”

Enter the specious Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power, in his last role), accused of murdering Mrs. French, a dowager who befriended Vole and added him to her will. This is just what Wilfred’s doctor didn’t order! Of course Wilfred wants this juicy case, having been relegated to a “diet of bland civil suits.” Mrs. French’s housekeeper Janet (Una O’Connor, fabulous here, her last movie as well) adds even more color to an already full spectrum.

We all love twists and turns, especially in courtroom stories (I’ve even written one myself), and WFTP has no shortage of them. Wilfred is even aware that something’s not right about this case, the same way Edward G. Robinson’s character Keys has his “little man” who would “tie knots in his stomach” when something wasn’t kosher in another great Wilder film that’s a must-see, DOUBLE INDEMNITY. (Sorry for that run-on sentence).

CLOSING ARGUMENTS:

So those are the facts of my case. Additionally, please witness how Wilder takes a dramatically rich court case and frills it up with amusement; Plimsoll’s watch going off to remind Wilfred to take his pill. The use of said pills as a device for the passing of time. The comedic tête-à-tête between Wilfred and the prosecutor. The nasty demeanor of Janet, right down to the stink-eye she tosses Vole. The obtrusive microphone Janet doesn’t want to use. This movie has more flavor than Starburst.

I’m halfway through reading the play, out of curiosity regarding how much was Agatha Christie. It seems she was responsible for most of the actual plot points and almost all the characters, while Wilder & Co. did the lion’s share of the dialogue. I know they also added Sir Wilfred’s heart problem, the Plimsoll character, and the cigars and brandy.

The Prosecution rests.

By the way, the case I just sat on in Los Angeles? We found the defendant not guilty.

PRESHOW: CRISIS IN MORALITY, BABYSITTER’S GUIDE

CRISIS IN MORALITY – This gem is brought to us by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA). It’s about the sickness in our society, “Degradation on every level.” It’s “the moral decay of the people” that will make America die. This documentary short is filled with quotes and statistics that seem either out of context or just plain made up. “Gang wars (not Bloods and Crips) - groups of teens who, in two more years, will be arrested in the rate of 1 million per year. Crime is one of the symptoms of the disease of sin in the heart.” Here’s another stat – “Out of 8000 teenagers who passed through the juvenile system, only 42 regularly attended Sunday school.” They also claim that nearly 20% of births in Los Angeles are illegitimate, 70% pregnant are Junior High School age.

And then they say “how tragic it is that we have taken the Bible out of the classroom. They actually say, with anger, that it’s “unconstitutional.”

Then there’s other sins like divorce, narcotics, gambling, alcoholism, profanity and obscenity and immorality (sex). All the things people love. Way to win over people, BIOLA!

BABYSITTER’S GUIDE – What’s odd about this one is that it’s from 1975. Usually these films go back to the 50s, sometimes even earlier. It starts with a scare; a headline screaming “Search for missing Babysitter.” Then the short tells prospective sitters to do things like to call the police if the person who calls you to sit can’t be found in the phonebook. They advise seeing the people you’re sitting for for a preliminary visit; bring a pad (preferably with a bunny on it) to take down the numbers for police, etc. And they tell you to bring a flashlight, but they don’t say why. Maybe to cram for a gyno test. In the course of a single night, our sweet babysitter puts a Band-aid on one kid’s finger, wipes the gook off the other kid’s mouth (who was left in the bathroom unattended), writes the license number of a persistent guy who wants to give her a ride, and yanks the kids out of the house when there’s a fire. Yipes! Good thing she saw this film so she knew to do that.

JAGGED EDGE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 03 May 2015 05:28:00 +0000

Click Photo to Enlarge

Back in 1992, I wondered how many times
Jeff Bridges ran his hands through his hair.

So I watched all his movies,
counted the number of times,
and sold this to Premiere Magazine.

It’s amazing how two people can see the same movie and write completely different reviews. To the left, a review I found on Netflix.

Below, my review.

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Cool Dialogue: “You think I killed my wife? Prove it.”

Tagline: When a murder case is this shocking, which do you trust... your emotions or the evidence?
Pizza: Joe Peeps

Preshow Entertainment: Jerry and Dean’s Television Party for MDA (1953)

IN JAGGED EDGE,
JEFF BRIDGES
THE GAP BY KEEPING
GLENN CLOSE

I’ve seen JAGGED EDGE (1985) a bunch of times. The first time, in the theater, I was blown away, just like Siskel and Ebert were, as well as almost everyone. I saw it again a few years later, on Video Home System (VHS, to you neo-Luddites) and found it pedestrian. Of course having known all the twists and turns from the first viewing certainly lessened the wow factor. Another few years go by and guess what? I watched it again…and liked it again. Years later, I didn’t like it, finding it not just routine, but actually cheesy, with ham-fisted clichés seeping out of my Sony and staining my carpeting. So when it was selected by the Random Movie Generator, I was curious as to which side my jagged taste would land on, which makes sense, as the movie itself is a guessing game. Suffice to say, this time it landed on the good side. So, for today anyway, I’m going to recommend JAGGED EDGE.

I have a theory as to why I teeter so much on this movie. When JAGGED EDGE first came out, it was new and refreshing, spinning the tired thriller into a bombastic yet super-fun joyride. And it hit big. So big that Hollywood did what it does best – produced a spate of bombastic yet super-fun thrillers, like SEA OF LOVE, FATAL ATTRACTION and BASIC INSTINCT. In fact, the first movie I sold (it was never made) rode on this very wave. But of course, mine was so much better than the others, right? Anyway, eventually, SLIVER was released, and the wave hit the breakwater…and that was that. So what was mildly clichéd then is now uber clichéd. Therefore, let’s be kind to JAGGED EDGE, since it did rebirth the thriller genre. That said, it’s also fun to make fun of things, so I’ve assembled a list of JAGGED EDGE clichés:

The “Is he innocent or is he a murderer?” character, who stands to collect millions from his wife’s death, and whose boyishness flies in the face of his alleged crime.
The female lawyer with a conscience. And a guy’s name.
The potty-mouthed P.I. named, of course, Sam, who wears a tee shirt with a rip in it and has a mini-fridge stocked with nothing but beer.
The slick D.A. who, when not in the courtroom, is sipping on a drink or puffing on a cigar.
Characters eating Chinese food out of containers.
The car that won’t start when someone is trying to get away fast.
The shower someone takes when they want to wash the “filth” off them.
Fake’n’forced dialogue spilling from the mouths of plastic kids.
The scene of the crime is a lone house…on a hill…by the ocean, waves crashing against the rocks.
The crime occurred on a dark and stormy night.
And cliché-i-est of them all: The janitor who reads Boudoir Magazine while at work and talks like a classic henchman in a noir radio play.

But please don’t get me wrong, for despite all the clichés, there’s a fun and suspenseful movie here.

JAGGED EDGE opens with a double murder, and though we’re present for it, we don’t get to see who the killer is. He or she is in a knit cap. Enter Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close, who, now that I think about it, has a guy’s name in real life, too), the lawyer who will defend Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), arrested for the murder of his wife (newspaper owner Paige Forrester) and their maid. Teddy, a tough and focused lawyer who gave up criminal law to wash herself clean of all the sneaky bullshit, is conflicted…till she meets Jack. She’s swept away by his candor, his looks, his charm and his horses (there’s a stable on the estate’s property). It’s not long before she falls for him, a cardinal sin both in the legal profession and the thriller genre. It’s rarely a smart choice. I’m not saying Jack is the murderer, I’m just saying it’s rarely a smart choice.

It doesn’t help Jack’s case that D.A. Krasny (Peter Coyote) is bitter towards Jack for writing scathing editorials against him in his newspaper. And if that’s not enough, Krasny and Teddy have a history – she knows he covered up evidence in the trial of one Harry Styles a few years ago, when she worked for Krasny, evidence that could have saved Styles from going to jail…and eventually hanging himself. That’s Teddy’s demon. And her want? Well, she’s a divorcee with two kids. You put the pieces together.

Helping her with the case is salty P.I. Sam Ransom (sure sounds like a noir nod – Sam Ransom, P.I.), played by juicy scene stealing Robert Loggia, who digs around for clues but mostly keeps Teddy in check (“Is that your head talking or another part of your anatomy?”). I’ve said it a million times, always get a funny foul-mouthed slob to help you if you’re ever accused of ripping your wife open with a hunting knife and writing “bitch” in her blood on the wall over her bed.

So those are the players, and that’s the set up. Did he do it? Well, that’s the mystery, as symbolized by Krasny slamming a nesting doll down on evidentiary documents, as if to say, “This is a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle.”

Director Richard Marquand only helmed 6 movies (including RETURN OF THE JEDI and the too-forgotten-about EYE OF THE NEEDLE) in his cut-short life (he didn’t quite make it to 50). He does a fine job here, though I wish he didn’t put in all those courtroom audience murmurs each time shocking evidence or testimony was revealed. It’s laughable, akin to that scene in THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (http://go.shr.lc/1fc4caZ). But as much as it pains me to say it, a lot of the success of JAGGED EDGE has to go to Hungarian bully Joe Eszterhas.

What can I say about writer Joe Eszterhas? A lot. But I won’t. Let’s just shortcut it by saying he was responsible for some of the worst movies (or best guilty pleasures, take your pick) ever made. Movies like, well, see if you can guess; Teenaged girl Alex (yet another guy’s name) is a welder by day, erotic dancer by night, lives in a warehouse-sized apartment, dates her older boss and dreams of being accepted into the dance academy though she’s never had a dance lesson in her life. FLASHDANCE was nominated for a Razzie that year, but Joe lost to THE LONELY LADY (screened at RMC in 2000 - we sure watch some fun movies!). But Joe redeemed himself later by getting Razzie nominations for both SLIVER and JADE, and winning – twice - for BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN and SHOWGIRLS.

JAGGED EDGE did leave a bit of an imprint on pop culture. For one, the folks at Adult Swim did a HARVEY BIRDMAN episode parroting (I went with the Birdman thing) JAGGED EDGE’s shower scene, discovery of the typewriter with the raised ‘t’, the horses, and other stuff that makes no sense if you’ve never seen the movie. JAGGED EDGE also had a personal moment for RMC. Towards the end of the movie, a bunch of reporters swarm to ask questions, and RMCer Jessie jumped up from the couch screaming - “That’s my dad!” He was an extra, playing a reporter.

There’s something else about JAGGED EDGE that became famous - its continuity and lack thereof. In the first courtroom scene, Glenn Close is wearing a gray pantsuit. Moments later, they cut to her in a black outfit. Then, during the first witness’s examination, she’s wearing a third outfit, a brown one. Then back to the black one. And Krasny’s breast pocket cigars come and go as well. But I’ve discovered a bigger problem. When I bring it up, friends tap dance around why they think it’s not a problem, but I never agree.

<SKIP THIS ‘SPOILER BOX’ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MAJOR SPOILERS>

Jack is wearing a black knit cap in the opening scene. But why? If he’s going there to kill both people in the house, what’s the point? Same thing at the end, when he goes to kill Teddy. If the movie were made today, the “maybe there are security cameras around the house” argument would hold water, but in 1985? Okay, we all know Jack covers his face for one reason only, and that’s because he was kind enough to realize there’d be no mystery if we saw him kill his wife. Nice of him to think of us! Here’s another. Jack claims the murderer hit him on the head and knocked him out, then killed the maid and Jack’s wife. Well, why did the murderer not kill Jack too? Even if it was person of interest Bobby Slade, who was vindictive and wanted to kill Paige; Slade killed the maid, so why wouldn’t he also kill Jack? Not a plot hole, per se, just sloppy. I mean, I suppose it’s possible that the murderer, for whatever reason, killed the maid and only knocked Jack out. And while we’re in the Spoiler Box, let me throw some plot holes your way.

If Jack set this whole thing up, he was sure counting on a lot. This was his plan:

A year and a half before I murder my wife and maid, I’ll brutally rape a woman in Santa Cruz using the same knife I will kill my wife with, so I could frame tennis instructor Bobby Slade.
I will hope Bobby Slade doesn’t die or move in those 18 months.
I’ll get Teddy Barnes to represent me. And then have sex with her.
To ensure that they’ll make the connection, I’ll send anonymous notes to Teddy, and with any luck, no one will investigate who is sending her these notes.
I’ll only type these notes on an easily traceable typewriter. I don’t even need to get the broken “t” key fixed, even though it can connect me to this crime.
To be safe, I’ll hide the typewriter in the most remote place possible, under some towels in the bedroom, a few yards from where I’ll have sex with Teddy.

Here are more holes, unrelated to Jack’s plan:

Jack is either super lucky or Teddy’s super dumb. At one point, Teddy thinks Jack is the murderer. She even tells him to his face. Yet not only does she continue defending him, she doesn’t seem the least bit afraid that he’s insane and can kill her whenever he chooses. She’s more hurt that he lied to her.
And how weird was it that after the trial, Teddy tells the press that she was complicit with Krasny in withholding evidence in the Harry Styles case? Surely she’ll be disbarred for that! (We assume Krasny gets disbarred.)
Teddy finds the typewriter in Jack’s closet! Okay, that hole’s big enough on its own, but what happens next? Later, when he realizes she knows it was him, Jack decides he must kill her. But why does he think she’s hasn’t already called the police? She didn’t, but she should have, and any sane man would have thought that she did. Oh, wait…

<SPOILER BOX ENDS>

So yes, I said this was a good script and yes, it’s Swiss cheese. But this just proves one thing; that when people buy a ticket, they want to take the ride, even if they can see the wires that make the Spook House skeleton move. They’re willing to not see things in the interest of having a good time. And with that said, JAGGED EDGE is indeed a fun ride.

Preshow Entertainment: Jerry and Dean’s Television Party for MDA

On Thanksgiving of 1953, ABC ran a variety show hosted by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. This was the precursor to the famous Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethons that began in 1966 and ran for decades. There were no tote boards here. The money would come via donations given to local letter carriers working after hours and on their days off to hit every house in every town.

Eddie Cantor began the show by introducing Dean and Jerry, who were the hugest stars in the country at the time, though their partnership would end bitterly in 1956. We only got to watch about 30 minutes of this 1 hour 40 minute time capsule of what live TV was like, and, for that matter, what entertainment was like in the Golden Age of Television. Here’s what we saw:

Letter Carriers of America spokesman Bill Dougherty made Dean and Jerry honorary members. I love that he said, “You’ll find that the pay isn’t so good, but it’s an outside job…” Then, four mailmen, The Minneapolis Letter Carriers Quartet, sang SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY barbershop quartet-style. Way to open big! Two of them looked like Burt Mustin and Charles Lane, so I’m pretty sure they’ve retired to their pine postal boxes by now. Dean sang THAT’S AMORE, which was currently on the charts and would become his signature song. Carol Richards came on next singing OVER THE RAINBOW with its introductory verse heard in many versions, but not featured in THE WIZARD OF OZ. The orchestra did a solid 4 minutes, followed by Phil Harris (Baloo in THE JUNGLE BOOK) singing MINNIE THE MERMAID.

We’ll have to watch the rest sometime soon!

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 23:12:00 +0000

Your RMC2 Results Are Finally In!

Tagline: A Loved Story.

Cool Dialogue: Riley to Celeste: “You think you’re smarter than everybody. And that is your dark little prison.” (Looks at Celeste’s shoes) “Nice shoes.”

Preshow Entertainment: CBS MORNING NEWS from August 1987

ANDY SAMBERG HAS A
RASHIDA JONES IN
CELESTE AND JESSIE FOREVER

Celeste and Jesse are silly Gen Y versions of Annie and Alvy’s intelligentsia couple from ANNIE HALL. They’re a goofy and playful pair, perfect for each other. They spend every day laughing at their antics - from reading menus in German accents to ejaculating a tube of lip balm. So why’re they getting a divorce? Because they get along better as friends than husband and wife. Though they see nothing wrong with this, their friends do. But Jesse counters to them, “You don’t have to choose sides! It’s the perfect break-up!” It’s been six months since announcing their divorce, and they’ve never had more fun. And it’s annoying not just to their friends, but to us too. No one should be that freakin’ happy. It’s unnatural.

Andy Samberg plays Jesse, perhaps (it’s hard to say) the less mature of the two. Like his BROOKLYN NINE-NINE’s Jake Peralta (I’m not familiar with his SNL work, but I’ll go out on a limb and say…“and like many of his SNL characters”), Jesse is silly. He’s not thinking of the future – says Celeste, he “doesn’t have a checking account or dress shoes. The father of my children will have a car.” We all know a Jesse – the guy who’s here not to simply amuse others, but to amuse himself. I fear myself a bit Jesse-y. Anyway…

Celeste, played by the less schticky Rashida Jones (who scripted, with Will McCormack), is the author of the new book, SHITEGEIST, about the dwindling creativity in culture, as if we need to read a book to know about that.

Jesse now lives in the guest house because, though the characters don’t realize it, he is now a guest in Celeste’s life. And when they say goodnight, it comes with an “I love you.”

This is the story of a love that works on paper, but not in real life. “Love” and “In Love” - two opposing forces that make things complicated, which is a fine thesis for a romantic comedy. Is Celeste jealous when Jesse tells her of an upcoming date with Yogurt Girl? And, a la ANNIE HALL, does she ask Jesse to come over to help with the Gen Y version of killing a spider – assembling a piece of Ikea furniture? Is that why she really called him?

Like so many romcoms, Celeste goes on a series of bad dates. Meanwhile, Jesse hooks up with a girl from his recent past, Veronica. And that’s when an interesting thing happens. Jesse works to become more mature. But that’s a thing you can't just do, it's something that comes naturally...and slowly. He does try, taking steps like going vegan, as if that’d do it. Meanwhile, Celeste remains in such deep denial about her emotional attachment to Jesse that even her date can see it. This is a real thing in life. You don’t need writing classes to know that stories that come from things that can happen in real life are more relatable. Even their fighting comes from truth, as the invisible things surface; Celeste’s resentment that she paid for everything while supporting Jesse, and Jesse’s jealousy over Celeste’s career. Here’s another thing you may be able to relate to. One late night, while in the same room, tipsy, they have a moment; a kiss, and they both know it’s not a good idea. You can see them thinking, wrestling with their impulses from their brains, from their hearts and certainly from elsewhere. It takes a long time for them to decide to go for it or not, and we’re there with them, understanding that feeling of it being simultaneously right and wrong.

And I have to say, as pesky as Celeste and Jesse can get, they are twice as adorable. They look like a real couple. They act like a real couple. And if they were in the room with you, I bet they’d smell like a real couple, whatever that means. Yes, somehow, and I don’t know how, the physics works. Jones looks like a girl and Samberg looks like a boy. I mean to say, an average girl and boy (soon they may graduate to woman and man). It’s all so… believable. Heightened, but believable, all because of the real world things they do. When she’s at a party, Celeste checks her face in the reflection of an ice bucket. Or the way she tosses her sunglasses off as if they were on fire when she realizes that her badmouthing of the person she is calling has been accidentally recorded on their voicemail. Of course, there are less subtle moments, like when Celeste uses her new friend/pothead/supplier Skillz’s stupid long bong. It looks like she’s playing a didgeridoo. Another broad scene has Jesse and Veronica catching Celeste red-handed inside their garbage container (she was curious). Sure, it’s a Romantic Comedy requisite, done in a million ways in half a million movies, but we laugh at this because we care about who she is, and what she’s going through (she also eyeballs Jesse’s Facebook page….go ahead…cast the first stone).

The supporting cast is wonderful. Elijah Wood plays the Romcom Gay Co-worker. He’s good, but man, it’s so in-your-face, what between his dapper vest and his dialogue (after saying something wildly inappropriate, he actually follows up with: “Sorry. I was trying to be your saucy gay friend.”). Emma Roberts plays Riley Banks, a Britney pop tart that Celeste’s company is now repping. And guess what? Roberts is good too. Other characters are peppered in, many showing up as Celeste’s misfire dates; the guy in her yoga class (an extremely funny turn for Chris Messina), sensitive folkie hipster (akin to ANNIE HALL’S “Touch my heart…with your foot.”) Rupert (Rafi Gavron), whack job Nick (Matthew Del Negro) and Max (Rich Sommer), the guy who knows Celeste isn’t ready to date.

There is such a fantastic moment in this movie, which I’m going to try to not give away. It’s when a character is so far down they have nowhere else to go, and as they walk away, heartbroken from what their life has become, something funny looms ahead…I mean, physically funny - a sight gag. It could have been played for laughs. It should have been played for laughs. And you think it will be. But there’s a stunning reversal that turned this potentially silly moment into a bucket of treacle.

Director Lee Toland Krieger does a very good job both technically and performance-wise, considering his scant credits (he’d only made two under the radar films before this). The DVD commentary with Krieger (or is it Toland Krieger?), Jones and McCormack (my law firm!) is a gabfest where every shot, scene, actor, light, wardrobe piece is the best shot, scene, actor, light and wardrobe piece in the movie. And telling us that grips and wardrobe were crying during an emotional scene smells of hyperbole. It’s like they made THE LEGO MOVIE - everything is awesome. A second commentary finds Jones and Samberg interacting the same way as Celeste and Jesse. They hardly talk about the movie at all. They kibitz and say the word “dope” a lot.

Don’t let this blip of a movie fool you. It’s funny, and at times, it’s really funny. And unlike the characters, the movie is put together well. I liked the cinéma vérité when it’s just the two of them, and the extreme silence when Celeste is by herself, thinking. Effective. Fellow SNL alumnus (with Samberg, not me), Jones has comedic chops, but also, and more importantly, she knows how to hold back when she needs to. Samberg is this generation’s Chris Elliot; the lovable, even though he can be annoying, buffoon (see his BROOKLYN NINE-NINE series. No, I mean it, see it. It’s funny.). Even he himself acknowledges - “It was a weird decision for me to actively pursue a movie that wasn’t just super-goofy.”

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (2012) reminded me of Joan Micklin Silver’s overlooked 1979 film CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER. Both low concept romantic comedies featuring “real” people. Both have characters that find it impossible to let go of each other, to the point where you want to shout, “What don’t you guys understand?!?” And the answer? Their feelings. We don’t always understand our feelings. And although the ending gives us hope for Celeste’s future, you won’t hear Carly Simon belting out a rousing anthem of empowerment.

Preshow Entertainment: CBS MORNING NEWS from August 1987

Attention old people! You know how you used to tape things on VHS? And when the show was over, it would keep on taping if you didn’t set the timer? That’s probably how I got this – a newscast from 1987. And it was fascinating. An amazing time capsule from a forgotten era…which many of us have lived in.

The first story was about a possible cure for AIDS…the first test of a vaccine on humans. The anchors were Faith Daniels and Harry Smith.
Mom Madonna Kennedy hangs on for dear life as her husband tries to drive off with their one-year-old. For thirty minutes with speeds up to 80mph, he took alleys, roads and even the 405, which probably slowed him down. I just found the story online: http://go.shr.lc/SFBLYk
There was also a story on Northwest flight 255, which crashed out of Detroit…and onto a street. All but one passenger, a 4-year-old girl, died.
Commercials included a Supercolor antenna from Radio Shack for $21.99 that’s easy to install (they show dad on the roof, and then watching the football game). I had taped this in NYC, so we got some local ads like Kitchen Beautiful, the Atrium Restaurant (two blocks south of the World Trade Center), and Caesar’s Bay Bazaar, all complete with NY accents.

THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 02:38:00 +0000

Tagline: On stage, Harry Crystal is sheer magic. In the wings, Artie Shoemaker is learning his tricks!

Cool Dialogue: “Good enough isn’t good enough. You gotta care enough. And I don’t.”

Pizza: Domino’s

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: MTV THE FIRST HOUR

MOZART AND DRACULA
TEAM UP IN A WONDERFUL BACKSTAGE
ROMCOM CALLED
THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES

Before he would wig out as Mozart in AMADEUS, Tom Hulce starred in a sleeper called THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES (1980). His co-star was Frank Langella, fresh off his performance as Dracula to Olivier’s Van Helsing in the John Badham film. You’d think the Hulce/Langella pairing would satisfy the critics, but it didn’t. Roger Ebert said Hulce was “disastrously miscast” and Vincent Canby called him an “unbelievable hero.” But this is why you shouldn’t listen to critics, or anyone for that matter. Even me. Because, with his boyish enthusiasm and wide-eyed optimism, I think Hulce is perfect. He plays Artie Shoemaker, a college student who is the polar opposite of Kroger, the student he played in the movie he made before this, ANIMAL HOUSE (he’s in a frat here too, though we never see it).

It’s 1951, a smallish town in Ohio. Artie’s pre-med, and he’d better do well. If not, his future lies in auto parts, the family business run by his dad, played by Jerry Stiller (before he played cantankerous grandfathers, he played cantankerous fathers). But will his summer gig as propmaster on a local summer stock production shake things up? Umm, yeah, of course. That’s our movie.

It’s not that he meets the savvy yet jaded Ramona (Glynnis O’Connor), a chorus girl in the troupe. Sure, that’ll unravel him at some point, but the heart of this movie is his relationship with the show’s lead actor Harry Crystal, played by Langella. I can’t really articulate what makes Langella so phenomenal here. The best I can say is that he finds that sweet spot between low-key and over the top, without leaning too far towards one side. Not easy. His choices are always fun (Langella’s eyes follow Hulce as he walks by, without turning his head). He’s also sexy as hell. Make no mistake, though it’s Artie’s story, it’s very much Harry’s movie. Langella doesn’t steal the scenes, he simply owns them, the way Peter O’Toole did to Mark-Linn Baker in MY FAVORITE YEAR.

The first thing we see in THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES is Harry backstage, applying a greasepaint foundation. When trying to light his Camel, he picks up a small pack of condoms instead of matches, then chuckles. Before a word is spoken, we know so much about him. Moments later, he takes an “I love you” note that he received from one chorus girl and passes it on to a different chorus girl. Smooth. Pathetic. He exploits the fact that he’s the star, mouthing off to the show’s director Sherman (sadly, a clichéd character here) and anyone else who crosses his path.

But here’s the fun part, the complex part. Harry’s actually a good guy. When Artie’s neophytism gets called on the carpet by the pompous Sherman, it’s Crystal who saves Artie. Crystal even lends money to a co-star so he can leave the show to audition for a radio soap (it’s all the rage) in another town. So then why’s Harry so angry? Because, like Ramona, he’s beaten up from doing roadshows. It’s not a physical toll, it’s mental and it’s eating away at him. Each year that goes by is a year viewed as unfulfilling at the very least, failure at most. He’s frustrated and angry, as you would be. And that makes him real. It would be so easy to render him as a prick instead of simply bitter.

Like so many in showbiz, Harry’s biding his time while waiting for The Call that may never come. Sort of like I’m doing right now as I write this. In one scene, Harry literally waits by the phone. He’s waiting for Broadway producer Mickey Bellinger (Kevin McCarthy…what a cast!) to call, then see him in the show, then place him back on Broadway. Something has to get him out of this no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel life, where his name is written in pen on a piece of colored paper taped to his dressing room door.

While Harry waits for his call, Artie has his sights on Ramona. And she’s looking back. As it turns out, props isn’t the only thing Artie is new at. It’s also not the only thing Harry helps him with. Artie’s an eager learner, and not just on the stage. And for a while, all the world’s a stage for Artie, until his grades start falling, his father starts yelling, Artie decides to drop out of school, a bully bullies him, and maybe worst of all, Ramona spills a secret.

So the dreams of the college boy finding love and the actor finding his way back to Broadway run on parallel tracks, but will either arrive at their stations or will they be relegated to auto parts and summer stocks the rest of their lives? Well, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out. But you’ve probably figured out that they help each other along the way.

Here’s a curiosity. Playing the part of Artie’s kid brother’s tutor is renowned acting coach (Pacino, De Niro…) Herbert Berghof . It’s a great inside joke when he lights up when he hears that Artie is working in the theater and says to himself: “A theater! I haven’t been to a…theater…” (trails off…) And later, “I am also summoned by the mysteries of the theater.” Yep, he gets a job in Artie’s theater. In a moment alone, he recites some MACBETH.

I was fascinated by moments in THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES that they’d never put in a movie today, like Harry’s speech to Artie explaining how to trick out props, or the two minutes of the stage crew striking the set. Aside from being a metaphor to break down walls, it’s actually one of the most amusing moments in the film, as we get to see the joy on the faces of otherwise bored kids backstage. And of our hero, who certainly has motivation for getting the work done quickly (looks like Artie may get lucky tonight). This movie is what I call “relaxed” – it takes its time, yet never manages to bore you, mostly because of the great acting and great characters. Yet, as lo-fi as it is, the movie manages to cover a lot of territory. It even has a bully named Cooky, whom Harry one-ups with his tour-de-force acting abilities, lapsing into ROMEO & JULIET to take Cooky down. Bravo. (You don’t have to pay royalties to use Shakespeare).

THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES is not a totally unknown film. In fact, a search on IMDB reveals close to a dozen hits from TV shows referencing the title (see picture at right). I have to assume they are referencing the title, as it comes from one of the shows the troupe puts on - the hardly seen 1925 show THE VAGABOND KING (“…and to swear allegiance to your lips your eyes your hair. Beneath your feet, what treasures I would fling if I were king.”). You’ll find puns on the title from L.A. LAW, CHEERS, MOONLIGHTING and ALLY MCBEAL. It seems to me that showbiz people have affection for this little movie about love and the theater, and how they both get into your veins.

I really enjoyed THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES. It’s sweet and real. I liked how Artie saw everything as a challenge, and Harry as a chore. I like how the movie was bookended with Harry putting on stage make-up before a performance and removing it at the end of the show (and movie). Yes, there are clichés. And yes, I do have extra love for coming of age and slice of life movies. So maybe this movie isn’t for everyone. But maybe it’s for you, you old softie.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: MTV THE FIRST HOUR

When MTV launched in 1981, its studios were in NYC. But if you lived in NYC, you couldn’t watch MTV. I’d have to visit my parents in Florida to see all those Journey and REO Speedwagon videos. Anyway…

This is the first hour complete with technical difficulties. The first 12 minutes is NASA’s first launch of the Columbia Space Shuttle – in real time. It was goofy, yet cool. Coverage was slow and not very good, so we sat and talked while we watched. But as the countdown got closer to zero, it got exciting.

And then, it cut from the Shuttle before it actually lifted off, to the now iconic shot of the rocket launch and moon landing with the MTV flag. The nostalgic and familiar theme went on, and presto - MTV. The VJs did their best to look casual (“casually” holding coffee mugs or sitting cool…but not really), and it was silly. Mark Goodman bopping as he watched the TV was especially comical.

I do believe they switched up the order of the videos, witnessed by Goodman intro-ing Styx after we saw the Styx video…unless that was part of their “technical difficulties”), but here’s the order they ran:

The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”
Promo explaining MTV and how cable TV and stereo would come together
Pat Benatar “You Better Run” (originally a Rascals song)
Rod Stewart “She Won’t Dance With Me”
The Who “You Better You Bet”
PH. D. “Little Susie’s on the Up”
Cliff Richards “We Don’t Talk Anymore” (I still hate this song)
The Pretenders “Brass In Pocket”
Todd Rundgren “Time Heals” (YAY!!!)
Styx “Rockin’ the Paradise”
Robin Lane and the Chartbusters “When Things Go Wrong.”

Included were the original commercials, one for The Bulk (a 3-ring binder), one for SUPERMAN II, one for Dolby noise reduction, Mountain Dew, Chewels (sugarless gum), Andron by Jovan (“pheromone-based fragrances scientifically created to attract”) and Atari. There was also a spot where Goodman told us to send away for the MTV Dial Position Sticker, so when you hook your stereo up to your TV, you know what station to tune it to.

“You’ll never look at music on television the same way again,” they told us over and over. Now they could run that and just cut the words “the same way.”

RANDOM MOVIE CLUB FLASHBACK!

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 22:22:00 +0000

Here's a write-up from March 2011, when we screened one of my favorite movies, MEMENTO.

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

Your March Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Some Memories Are Best Forgotten

Preshow Entertainment: GOOD EATING HABITS, A VISIT TO SANTA

Pizza: Big Mama's and Papa's

"NOW, WHERE WAS I?"
-LEONARD SHELBY

Most movies like this are 100% pretentious, out-hipping other movies to the point where they out-hip themselves. But MEMENTO never for a second comes across that way. Nope. It's invisibly hip. Okay, I've gone on long enough. Let me end by saying this; if you're going to watch MEMENTO, strap in and don't let go, because you're in for one of the best movie rides of your life.

Before I finish, there's one more cool thing about MEMENTO I'd like to tell you about, one that RMCer Dawn spotted. It's at the very end of the B &W/Jenkis story, when he is sitting in a chair in the home, happily oblivious. Someone walks between him and the camera, and for a split second (and I really mean split), Jenkis is replaced by Leonard. Yep, there's Lenny, sitting in the chair. Nicely done, Dawn and Christopher! But it also makes me wonder...what else have I missed?

MEMENTO is filled with irony ("I always thought that the pleasure of reading a book was not to know what happens next.") and comedy (when he gets ripped off by clerk Burt who tells him "Always get a receipt," Leonard responds with "That's good advice. I'll have to write that down."). Also, Pantoliano's delivery on just about every line will just make you laugh. My favorite scene, well, I can't give it away, but it has to do with Natalie sitting in the car, after she hid the pencils. Wow! But even if you've seen this movie, would you remember that scene now, Alanis? That's because there are so many details in MEMENTO that we can't possibly pick up on it all in just one sitting. I watched this movie three times this week and am still noticing things, which just makes this movie better with each viewing. Fortunately, we have a movie to watch back, which raises the question; Why didn't Leonard buy a camcorder instead of taking Polaroids? That seems a bit archaic. In fact, mere months after MEMENTO was released Polaroid filed Chapter 11. And with the digital age, haven't we already become a MEMENTO culture? How many of us have taken pictures of numbered/lettered columns in parking structures to remember where we parked?

Guy Pearce gives a stunning performance as the ever-determined Leonard, whose last retrievable memory is of his wife being murdered. Every stroke, every nuance, every tic Pearce does seems right on the money, down to the way he writes on the Polaroids (he makes an E with a top line first, then attaches an L, then finishes it by adding the middle stroke...which is probably the way Pearce writes, though who's to say?). Steven Tobolowsky, normally a comic character actor (remember his turn in GROUNDHOG DAY..."Phil!!"...another movie whose segments repeat as the protagonist tries to figure out what's going on) throws in a heartbreaking performance as does his movie-wife played by Harriet Sansom Harris.

Nolan directed the remake of INSOMNIA starring Robin Williams and Hilary Swank as well as the new wave of holy BATMAN movies (BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT and the upcoming DARK KNIGHT RISES) that seemingly everyone but me went batty over. But it's MEMENTO that will, according to my tattoos, be the best movie he'll ever make. No Riddler will ever create a puzzle this exquisite. MEMENTO is a writer/director's tour de force. Also check out his first movie called FOLLOWING. It's a 70 minute (does that make it a movie?) outing that is absolutely wonderful and a great stepping stone for MEMENTO. Trust me.

(Okay, it's time for me to play with time now. I just watched MEMENTO again, this time in chronological order. Less confusing? Wrong! It's the same jigsaw puzzle, but with different pieces. Amazing. )

Director Christopher Nolan slathers the film in neo-noir, exemplified in moments like when Leonard gets knocked out; as the blood seeps out of his skull the camera moves away from his head to a frame filled with the mosaic pattern of the bathroom floor (mosaic is a great image for this movie). And as Nolan juggles all these slippery balls, he covers the movie with quick inserts like the turning of a desk phone or the tossing of sunglasses on a table, jarring us, sometimes subliminally (yet another great word for this movie). The script (from a story by Nolan's brother Jonathan) demands that each scene is as important as the one before (err, after), which is good news for actors, as it's nearly impossible to wind up on the cutting room floor. Nolan's eye is sharp, and telling the story backwards isn't simply a gag for us to enjoy, it puts us inside Leonard's skin. And if you think the plot doesn't matter, think again. And again. And again. This story is great even if it were told chronologically, as I'm about to put to the test, as the 2002 "limited edition" DVD has a way to watch it so. That's the secret as to why MEMENTO is so momentous. It's not a gimmick movie. It's a clever movie that has a gimmick.

While this retro-plot continues, a whole other story is being played out, shot in black and white. These sequences, alternating with the color ones, go forward in time and introduce us to Sammy Jenkis (Steven Tobolowsky). We learn about Sammy from Leonard himself as he is talking on the phone (but to whom?). Sammy also suffered from anterograde amnesia, and Leonard was the insurance investigator assigned to his case, making Leonard fully aware of his own condition. It's this subplot (hmm, I suppose it's more of an anecdote) of Sammy's that provides the heartwarming and devastating arc of the movie, which is a terrific contrast to Leonard's psychotropic journey.

Not easily, that's how! Imagine waking up in a room, not knowing where, or who you're waking up next to (well, maybe you can relate to that). Imagine opening a closet door to find a man bound and bloodied, only to learn it was you who did the binding and bloodying (well, maybe you can relate to that, too). Imagine not being able to trust people who want to help you because the only proof you have is them saying they want to help you. And this happens to you every time you stop thinking about what you're thinking about. Additionally, you must constantly deal with the loss of your wife and this wicked, hellbent revenge you can't shake.

First up: Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), Leonard's obnoxious friend (though Leonard can't remember him) who is helping him find John G., the man who killed his wife. Then there's the fiery Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) who has also suffered the loss of a loved one (both miss feeling the warmth of the bed next to them when their mate leaves for the bathroom). Hotel clerk Burt (Mark Boone Junior), who decides to rip Leonard off by renting him two rooms, knowing he won't remember. And just who is this Dodd guy, and why is Leonard chasing him? Or is Dodd chasing Leonard? Can one of these people be setting Leonard up? Two of them? All of them? Hell, with his freak show condition, it could very well be none of them. How will Leonard untangle this knotty adventure?

As Leonard tries to unravel every riddle, he meets some not-so-usual suspects; all noir-y, all suspicious:

Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, which means his long term is fine but his short term memory is gone. That's why he pushes instead of pulls on a door that he's gone through before (Ted Baxter did that too, but he was just stupid), or puts on a shirt that isn't his, and bangs his arm against a wall when he awakens (whenever he awakens, it's in a strange room, no matter how many times he's been there before).

He can't make new memories, so in order to remember things, Leonard either takes Polaroids and scribbles notes on them, or tattoos info directly onto his body to make them permanent (a bit of a stretch, but way cool). Why so extreme for a guy with memory loss? Well, because someone clocked him when he tried to stop them from raping and murdering his wife. Now, he is attempting to piece it all together one short-term fragment after (or before?) another. So after each segment, we jump cut to what led us there (which happened previously, yet we see it after). That said, MEMENTO opens with the end of the story; Leonard killing a guy named Teddy, who he believes to be the culprit. And since we know how it ends, the journey itself becomes the real mystery. MEMENTO is a howdoeshefindoutwhodunit?

Before I even begin this write-up about MEMENTO, let's make sure we're on the same page here. MEMENTO is not that mint with the goofy 80s ads (The Freshmaker!). Nope, MEMENTO (or as its known in Canada, "Mémento") is a 113 minute jigsaw puzzle that uses tattoos and Polaroids as its pieces. And because this murder/revenge tale is told backwards (reverse increments, actually), while part is told in forward motion, it just makes it even more smart and fun. If you're confused watching this movie (or reading the previous sentence), you're not alone. With MEMENTO (2000), it's not only okay to be confused, it's required. It's a good kind of lost. No, it's a great kind of lost.

Preshow Entertainment: GOOD EATING HABITS, A VISIT TO SANTA

These are two ephemeral short films from 1951 and 1963. The first, GOOD EATING HABITS, is a cautionary tale about not eating slowly and chewing thoroughly, even if it's bacon with toast slathered with butter. You see, Father, Mother, Carol and Bill are having supper (I want to call it supper from now on, instead of dinner. It just sounds so much cooler.). But Bill's not hungry. Why, he can't even have fun playing with his train set before going to bed. Yep. Bill has a stomach ache. Why? Well, like MEMENTO, we'll have to go back and find out. If you want to find out why Bill has a stomach ache: http://tinyurl.com/3dfbthz

A VISIT TO SANTA (presented by Clem Williams, whoever he is) is about Dick and Ann, who wonder if Santa got their letter. He did, for there he is reading the letter up in the North Pole! And who could have guessed that the North Pole would look so much like a 60s living room!

Santa, a horrible actor, and his elf, even worse, decide it's okay for Dick and Ann to visit him. So the elf kidnaps the kids and takes them to the North Pole. Click HERE to see this film and its amazing pre-ILM North Pole effects.

A LITTLE ROMANCE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 22:55:00 +0000

Your RMC2 Results Are in!

Tagline: America is Having a Love Affair With “A Little Romance”

Preshow Entertainment: A CENTURY OF LIVING

Cool line: “I figured, What the hell, the booze is free and maybe I’ll get laid.” –Broderick Crawford, as himself, entering a party the hostess was sure he wouldn’t attend.

Pizza: Marcelino’s

A LITTLE ROMANCE
IS A CHIRPY TEEN
ROMANTIC COMEDY THAT TREATS ITS KIDS
WITH MORE RESPECT THAN ANY KATE HUDSON MOVIE
TREATS ITS ADULTS

I’m going to do something I’ve never done in one of these RMC write-ups. I’m going to place the movie’s trailer here for you to see. Because I can try and sell it to you with my yapping (which I’ll do anyway), but watch this and you’ll get to taste A LITTLE ROMANCE’s wonderful flavor. Maybe I’m a softie (okay, not maybe), but even the trailer makes me smile for a solid three minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPI1IRjonRE

Diane Lane (At 14...and playing 12-13...this was her first movie) is Lauren King, an American in Paris because stepdad Richard (Arthur Hill) works the European branch of his company. Also, her actress mom Kay (Sally Kellerman), always looking for the next thing to thrill her (Richard is husband #3), shoots movies there. A bookworm, Lauren is smarter than the average tween. Her favorite poet is Elizabeth Barrett Browning and she reads books on metaphysics...for fun. She’d rather read and study than watch her mom on a movie set or see the sights, until one of those sights is Daniel (Thelonious Bernard, in his first and also second-to-last movie – he went on to become a dentist), a French boy her age. Daniel spends his free time at the cinema, watching American movies (...isn’t that Butch and Sundance speaking French?). Okay, not just watching movies, drinking them. He loves them so much that we not only forgive him for stealing a Redford lobby card, but we root for him. Living (and dealing) with his ornery taxi driver dad, it’s clear Daniel is responsible and smart. With a constant smile on his face, he doesn’t see the bad in the world the way his dad does. No, Daniel is a happy optimist. There’s nothing in this world that can upset him.

They meet when Daniel’s class tours the same building where Lauren’s mom is shooting her movie. While Daniel’s friend points out an actress’s cleavage, Daniel is enamored with the film shoot, telling him, “All this (the film shoot) and you look at that?” Film geek. Ha!

Lauren and Daniel (he first wants her to call him “Bogie” since her name is Lauren, like Bacall) bond over things like existentialism (if they remade this movie now, they’d bond over Minecraft). So yes, they are two smart kids, but as we know, all the smarts on the planet don’t matter when it comes to love. In fact, they’d rather believe a fairy tale about how true love will last forever if you kiss in a gondola as you go under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice as the bells ring at sunset. And where did they hear such a legend? From Julius (Laurence Olivier, who’s fantastic, again), an affable, dapper yet spurious elderly man. The Bridge of Sighs story is just one of many things that spew from Julius’s well of stories. But are they all real, or is he making them all up? By the way, that whole Bridge of Sighs/Gondola thing is an actual legend, not one contrived for this movie. SECRET NOTE: Lane really did make a wish as she went under the bridge. To kiss John Travolta. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was just released and it was huge.

Lauren and Daniel’s courtship, which includes Daniel’s misstep of sneaking them into a racy movie, blooms fast. Meanwhile, mom Kay’s looking for adventure with the film’s director (or maybe it’s the other way around), and stepdad Richard isn’t paying attention to this. That said, he is also the better parent to Lauren. Natalie (Ashby Semple), Lauren’s best and only friend, is jealous yet in awe of Lauren’s new relationship. Add to this the Romeo & Juliet complications, as Kay doesn’t want Lauren seeing Daniel (they even refer to R & J in the dialogue). But these are small potatoes compared to the fact that Richard and Kay plan on not only leaving Paris shortly, but moving to Houston (“Houston???” whines Kay). So what happens?? That’s for you to find out. But I will tell you this: there’s wagers on horseracing, there’s a bicycle race (Olivier rules here!), there’s pickpocketing, there’s money lost and money illegally found. But in spite of all the plot points, A LITTLE ROMANCE remains a grounded romantic comedy.

Diane Lane is adorable. Thelonious Bernard is adorable. On screen, Lauren and Daniel are - okay here it comes again - adorable. Their eyes light up. They wave goodbye with shining smiles. Their relationship made me envious of youth and first loves, something you don’t ever get twice.

Here’s something else. A LITTLE ROMANCE is a lot funny. Snappy patter like when Natalie says she likes her cousin, she says: “Second cousin. The kids don’t come out funny or anything. I checked!” Even glances are funny, as when Daniel’s randy friend exchanges flirty smiles with Natalie. And the characters? Broderick Crawford, who plays himself as an actor in Kay’s movie, admires Daniel for punching the cocky film director. Daniel: “Like you hit Ward Bond in the movie SIN TOWN,” and Crawford doesn’t remember (“You sure it was Ward Bond?”). We should get SIN TOWN in RMC and find out for ourselves.

There’s little stuff too, like how Lauren knows her mom may stray again from her third dad (that’s why she calls him Richard instead of dad – “It’s easier to lose a Richard.”) and how Daniel takes his cues from old American movies (“Here’s looking at you, kid.”). But I’ll be damned if even the way Lauren and Daniel hold hands, or the way he wants to kiss her, but doesn’t, and so she kisses him, wasn’t real. And real comes with the bad as well as the good, like when Daniel is jealous not just of Lauren’s attention to Julius, but of Julius saving the day when it should have been him. And just when you think these wise-beyond-their-years kids are too adult-like…they do a volley of “is to, is not” bickering. Because, yeah, they are kids.

What a great start for Lane, who at the time Olivier called “The new Grace Kelly.” Everyone was great in this movie. And by great, I don’t mean tour-de-force acting, I mean in-the-pocket acting.

Based on the French book by Patrick Cauvin, A LITTLE ROMANCE was written by Allan Burns, one of the head writers and creators of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (as well as a writer on THE MUNSTERS and creator of the Cap’n Crunch character along with Jay Ward). Sadly, Burns was also responsible for scripting the horrid BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS that very same year. Speaking of sequels; wouldn’t it be great (or maybe it wouldn’t) if they made a sequel to A LITTLE ROMANCE? With Lane and Bernard now in their late 50s. Well, maybe it’s best to leave this story alone, but I did find out that author Cauvin wrote a follow-up in 2001, 23 years after the first one.

George Roy Hill directed 14 films in his career, and RMC has now screened four - BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP and THE STING, which also shows up in A LITTLE ROMANCE. I love all four of these movies. Sure, Hill’s made some clunkers (THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL was dreadful), but wow, BUTCH, GARP and STING. Chances are you’ve seen one, two or all three. And now it’s time for you to see A LITTLE ROMANCE.

Hill shot A LITTLE ROMANCE in sequence, so when the events in the last scene unfold, many of the cast members were really saying goodbye. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a bit misty myself.

A LITTLE ROMANCE is not a perfect movie. Some of the characters, like the director, are cliché (he has a sweater tied around his neck, a lens dangling in front of him, and he’s always barking about something), and Lauren’s friend Natalie is a textbook BYE BYE BIRDIE teen, but none of that matters, because it’s a beautiful movie; sweet, charming, and once again, it doesn’t aim for the lowbrow or the lowest common denominator. That said, I did learn how to say “nice boobs” in French.

Preshow Entertainment: A CENTURY OF LIVING

It’s so odd that we watched a documentary on people in their 100s talking about love, before watching a movie about tween love, and also, elderly Julius looking back at love with regret. Anyway, guess what? This documentary was also great. I mean, really great.

A CENTURY OF LIVING is a doc about and starring centenarians. As this was made in 1999, I’m pretty sure they’re all gone now, but man, it was beautiful. The stories they told. The memories that came back to them. Some of them tearing up about something that happened ninety years earlier.

We learned about chores (“I was in charge of cleaning the lamps, and making sure they had oil”). One woman was working at the Triangle Shirt factory when the famous fire broke out. One man was a porter on the presidential train, and told a story about how he gave Truman his coffee every morning, while another gets sobby reminiscing about Lindbergh’s landing. One woman learned about segregation by seeing two different lines for the bus. They talk of growing up, and boyfriends and girlfriends, and how sex was never talked about (one woman said she didn’t know where babies came from until she was 20). Of speakeasys, the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and bobbing their hair (“My mother did not approve”). Of a time before highways, where you’d follow the telephone poles. And recollections: “The first time, we were both of us virgins.” And “If you didn’t get married then, you would be an old maid. That was a terrible disgrace, not to be married at 18.”

Audrey, 104, said, “I’m happy. I wouldn’t be happy if I learned I was going to lose my job tomorrow.” She was a proofreader for the Independence Missouri Examiner. (I looked her up. She died a year after this doc aired.)

The stories are often heartbreaking and yet so much of this movie is about joy. The joy of life. The joy of their lifetime.

JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST STRIKE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Jackie Chan fights for America in his biggest action film ever.

Preshow Entertainment: GOOFBALLS AND TEA (1958)

JACKIE CHAN MOVIES
ARE LIKE PORN MOVIES.
DON’T MUCK IT UP WITH STORY…
JUST LET THE STAR
DO WHAT HE’S GOOD AT.

At this meeting of RMC, the Random Movie Generator chose JACKIE CHAN’S FIRST STRIKE. This is the third Jackie Chan movie selected in our 15 years of screenings (OPERATION CONDOR in October of 2001 and RUMBLE IN THE BRONX in January of 2002). I love Jackie, but some of his later movies like the RUSH HOURs and THE SPY NEXT DOOR are lackluster attempts by Hollywood to make a Jackie Chan movie. That’s not to say that the movies he made right before this era were historic. I mean, if Roger Moore could be OCTOPUSSY-silly, why can’t Jackie be FIRST STRIKE-silly? Answer? He can and he is. For example, you don’t have to live in NYC to see that RUMBLE IN THE BRONX was filmed 3000 miles from the Bronx. But that’s fine. In fact, it’s great. Because if you are able to not care, or perhaps even enjoy the silliness (as I do), then you will love FIRST STRIKE, because you’ll get loveable Jackie, stuntman Jackie, Martial Artist Jackie, and of course – The Jackrobat (I thought I just made that up, but it turns out to also be a character in THE CROODS).

This is the fourth entry of Chan’s POLICE STORY series (there are currently five; a sixth movie, POLICE STORY 2013, hasn’t been released in this country as of this writing). The POLICE STORY series is wildly popular in China and mildly popular here. That said, this entry had enough presence for it to get nominated for the Best Fight Scene award at 1996’s MTV Movie Awards. Probably would have won if the category had been Best Fight Scene Featuring an Aluminum Ladder.

This 1996 outing, with 20 minutes cut from the Hong Kong version, is surely fun. It was a tremendous hit in Hong Kong, with Wikipedia stating it was the third highest grossing film there...ever. FIRST STRIKE nakedly follows the Bond model. There are set pieces like warehouses, malls and funerals, and worldwide locations include Ukraine, Russia, Australia, submarines and the Underwater World Sea Life Aquarium…now Sea Life Center, in case you want to visit Australia. I’d like to add that Jackie’s suite in Brisbane has two levels, and comes with a sauna, a Jacuzzi and a live koala. I wonder if anyone mentioned that on Trip Advisor. Jackie himself references Bond (“I feel almost like James Bond, except no gorgeous girls.”), not to mention his dust-up with a huge Oddjob-like guy. Why, even the opening music is Bond-alike. And like 007, the McGuffins (Swiss bank account, briefcase, Russian mafia, uranium, yadda, more yadda) are not important. What matters is watching Jackie do his thing.

Jackie is Inspector Chan Ka Kui, AKA “Jackie,” from the Hong Kong police. He’s just been commended by the CIA for his assignment following Natasha, who is a (can you guess?) spy. They ask Jackie to go on one more assignment; to follow Natasha again, this time on a plane bound for Ukraine. After this non-eventful assignment is over, Jackie, while buying Ukrainian souvenirs, sees Natasha being carted away in a convoy of military vehicles. And because Jackie Chan is Jackie Chan, he follows. And he’s back on the case.

Jackie gets involved with the “new, improved KGB,” under a different name. “We’re connected to the Ukraine Department of Security.” There’s espionage and double crosses, and again, we don’t care. We just want to watch Jackie kicking ass in creative ways. And kick ass he does (one smart and funny sequence has Jackie on stilts, literally kicking ass). Stilts aren’t the only item he repurposes as weapons of self-defense. There are tables, ladders, scaffolds and even ashtrays. And how can you not love the way he evades henchmen via parkour (“He’s moving like a monkey!”). My favorite moment is when lissome Jackie slides down the outside of a building; his back pressed against the building as he walks down a palm tree. http://go.shr.lc/1tw6sg8

FIRST STRIKE also employs Jackie’s humor, which usually involves him being the brunt of the joke. By him having his everyman vulnerabilities (he tries to escape through a window that he doesn’t know is closed, only to smash his nose against it. This is called back later when he checks to make sure the window is open before jumping through it), he’s fashioned a character that is human instead of a martial arts machine. Some humor is on story, like his inability to understand Ukrainian writing, or being forced to wear, out of necessity, a goofy polar bear hat (it’s freezing on that snowmobile chase). Me, I liked when he was under icy water, patting his hands against his chest as if that would help him warm up. Speaking of which, I’d like to go on record to say that FIRST STRIKE’S underwater fight puts THUNDERBALL’s to shame. And Bond isn’t the only thing FIRST STRIKE lifts from; when Jackie’s in the shark tank, we hear not just their take on the famous 2-note JAWS theme, but the theme’s swirly strings as well.

But let’s face it, it’s Jackie’s character we love. His joy. His fun. It’s no wonder his influence was Buster Keaton. Sure, there are better Jackie movies, but that’s not to say I don’t recommend this one. I do. Even though the dubbing into English is awful. But then again, most of these movies are badly dubbed.

Here’s the theme song, sung by Jackie himself, not featured in the American version, along with outtakes of stunts gone wrong. http://go.shr.lc/1vEtGF7

Preshow Entertainment: GOOFBALLS AND TEA (1958)

Yet another ephemeral film about the perils of narcotics, GOOFBALLS AND TEA was made as a police tutorial. G & T is narrated by Art Gilmore, who aside from being the announcer on hundreds of TV shows from THE WALTONS to WALT DISNEY’S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR, did the voice of President Roosevelt in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY.

GOOFBALLS AND TEA tells us how hours of loneliness lead to years where “the young mind probes and experiments with life.” It’s all so silly and hyperbolic. And fascinating. Did kids really learn from these things?

The absolute best part of this short, the thing that made us all laugh, was when the cop took the three teens out of the car. He stands one up and makes him duck his head through the open window of the open car door, meant to prevent the prisoner from running away. What a funny visual. Killed us. But now that I’ve had some time to think about it, it’s probably a pretty good idea. But still funny.

We soon get into narcotics addictions. Barbiturates like Seconal (a/k/a Goofballs) and amphetamines like Benzedrine. But this short may have backfired, because it’s actually more of a tutorial, including things like a step-by-step guide not just how to roll joints, but the different methods on how to smoke them. I have never done drugs, but now that I know how much fun it all is, I may start.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 05:40:00 +0000

Random Movie Club Flashback - March 2012

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

Your March 2012 Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: May The Silence Be Broken!!

Pizza: Prime Italian

Preshow Entertainment: RICKY GERVAIS: OUT OF ENGLAND 2

HAVEN'T SEEN THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS LATELY?
DO YOURSELF A FAVA AND WATCH IT AGAIN.

First things first: You know that face-guard Hannibal Lecter wears? That fiberglass, half-a-hockey masky thing? The one Billy Crystal wore at the Academy Awards? I don't care what company manufactures them, what I really want to know is - why. Is there really that much demand for cannibal mouth guards? I mean come on, does this company sell more than three per year?

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is one of those movies that nearly everyone has seen, unless you went out of your way not to. I know some who don't like horror movies (which this isn't, but people often group psychological thrillers and horror together), so they won't watch it. Sometimes you need to face your fears to rid yourself of them, as Clarice Starling does. And it's too bad if you won't watch this movie, because you'll find few thrillers that are better. This is a film that should be (and perhaps is) studied in film school, or more specifically - script school. And if you disagree, that means you can't be my friend. Okay, you can be my friend, but I don't think I'll be having you for dinner.

Mention THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to someone, anyone, and they'll immediately picture Anthony Hopkins, probably saying the name "Clarice" as if he's in some West End farce. That's because Hannibal Lecter is the Fonz of this movie, the one who overshadows the main character. But here's the part you may not be aware of - Lecter is absent for most of LAMBS. In fact, his longest scene clocks in at a mere six minutes, while others are thirty seconds or a minute. And how many scenes feature Clarice and Lecter? Eleven. Ooops, I mean, nine. No, no...it was just four little scenes. Translation? This is how effective and memorable Lecter is. Maybe it's the reason Lechter's Housewares went out of business. That's like buying flatware from Bundy's Kitchen Supplies. And get this, Lecter is a villain, but he's not the villain. That would be a serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill. Damn, there's so many layers to this movie it kills me dead.

When Hopkins first heard the title of the movie from his manager, he thought it was a children's bedtime story. And you know what? He wasn't so wrong. This is a fairy tale about a little starling lost in the woods, and a big badass wolf with a mouthful of saliva-dripping teeth, a wolf who tricks her with his words. "The better to eat you with" indeed.

Clarice has the determination of an ant trying to move a rubber tree plant. She's brought herself up from white trash to FBI trainee, despite her lousy upbringing which included foster (no pun intended) parents. She's got grit and moxie, compensating for her internal damage. A seasoned psychiatrist could see it, and it so happens Dr. Hannibal Lecter is such a man. Lecter lives in a cell made of stone (can he huff and puff and blow it down? You bet your ass!) with a plexiglass front instead of bars, which is now available for viewing at the Max Factor Museum in Hollywood, along with Brendan Fraser's loincloth from GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE. But back to the matter at hand; Lecter is in the plexiglass cell because Hannibal Lecter kills and eats people. How fortuitous and convenient that his first name should rhyme with cannibal, though I suppose it's better than naming him Herial Hiller Lecter.

So if Lecter is behind bars, err, plexiglass, then why is Clarice visiting him? Because of his mind, that's why. Another serial killer, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), is leaving a trail of bodies, and Lecter might have some insight. Sort of like the "it takes one to know one" school. But no one's been able to crack Lecter's shell. Can Clarice? A young, attractive neophyte with a backstory the hungriest analyst would want a taste of?

LAMBS opens with a female in the woods, running, grunting, sweating. Is she running from someone...or something? Or to something? Or...wait a second, she's wearing an FBI Academy shirt. She's training! But her course gets interrupted (metaphorically, as well) when her boss, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), wants to see her. He has a job for her. "Not a job, really. An interesting errand." And twelve minutes into the movie, good meets evil for the first time.

Being an ambitious cadet is difficult enough (check out those sweat stains when she's training), but Clarice is managing it in a profession dominated by men who wear their egos and libidos like Polo shirts and aftershave. In an elevator at Quantico, she's the only female among the nine passengers, and those boys jogging at the training camp sure look like they're checking out her ass. Undeterred, she soldiers on, finding herself right in the lap of Lecter. "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head," cautions Crawford. But that's exactly what she does (there's a shot of Starling through the plexiglass while Lecter is talking to her - his reflection literally inside her head). I personally find the interactions between Clarice and Lecter the heart of the story, not to diminish the many compelling and brilliant suspense moments LAMBS offers up. But when it's just tea for two, it's stunning. In these quid pro quo scenes we witness the two trade information - she gets insight on Buffalo Bill, he gets inside her mind.

But there's another one besides Lecter who gets inside the mind of Clarice - Jodie Foster, who fosters her incredible acting chops to form a character so complex, so layered and so straight-up human. So make no mistake, though Lecter is the most colorful character in the movie (he's also on top 10 villain lists, most times in the #1 slot), this is not his story, it's Clarice Starling's, and even Lecter knows this. He's the voice in her head, leading her on a leash, planting the seeds to help her transform from larva to butterfly. In fact, we actually watch Clarice change in front of our eyes. It's in the scene where they're examining one of Buffalo Bill's murder victims who turned up in the water. At first, she turns away from the corpse; is she merely embarrassed she'll reveal her novicehood at applying salve under her nose to blot out the smell of the putrefaction? Or is she just avoiding seeing her first 'floater'? Or both?

Hopkins deserves all the praise he gets for this role. It would have been really easy to make Lecter a cartoon, and to be honest, he actually is a little cartoony (I wonder if they were afraid of that). Yet somehow, through a confluence of writing, acting and staging, Lecter is scary as all fuck. Even though he's confined to a cell, wearing unassuming muted, tailored coveralls, he's scary. He quotes Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius ("Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself?") and draws detailed pictures from memory, like the Duomo at the Belvedere (Clarice: "All that detail just from memory, sir?" Lecter: "Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view."). Once he was at the top of his field, giving lectures (you need to see the deleted scenes to know that). It's as if he himself knows he's a genius (he did graduate Harvard Medical School cum laude) and is playing it cartoony to amuse himself. He's like Einstein sticking his tongue out. He even tells her "Oh Clarice, your problem is, you need to get more fun out of life." This isn't to say he's not a dangerous man. We're given enough warnings about him, and if you're handy with a freeze frame button, you can read this on Clarice's pre-internet micro-fiche: "Cooked his victims for gourmet meals then served them to his friends," a charming subtlety here that's hit on the head in the LAMBS's prequel, RED DRAGON. But here's where the real magic trick in this movie lies; When his cellmate treats Clarice disrespectfully, the gentleman in Lecter appears, which actually, and unbelievably, humanizes him. LAMBS takes the most evil villain west of Hitler and makes us root for him. SPOILER: In the sickest, most twisted and unspoken subtext - it's psychiatrist Dr. Lecter that repairs Clarice. So what if he happens to enjoy an occasional human tongue sandwich on rye with a side of buttered sinew? Like you're so perfect?

Jonathan Demme does an amazing job directing this dark yet accessible (it did win all five of the major Academy Awards) film, especially considering that up till then he was known for fun and frivolous fare like SOMETHING WILD and MARRIED TO THE MOB (though I knew him from a COLUMBO episode, freak that I am). Demme, like most, is hit or miss. I enjoyed MOB and WILD as well as MELVIN AND HOWARD and THE LAST EMBRACE, but was offended by his takes on the MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and CHARADE (THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE) remakes. I may be one of the few who has seen the film he scripted, THE HOT BOX, at a drive-in (actually, it probably only played in drive-ins). And I think his STOP MAKING SENSE is the best concert film ever. Still, nothing comes within miles of LAMBS, and perhaps nothing he does ever will. That's the price you pay for making such an outstanding movie. It's the Godfather Syndrome.

While so many films run for the exits in their third acts, LAMBS gets stronger, providing a one-two punch where the punches are 180 degrees apart, yet equally cunning. The first is something that Lecter does, the other is a movie trick, a turn that the film itself negotiates that I'm not going to give away on the chance you're the person who hasn't seen the movie. And for those who have, how did it fool us so well?? There's a huge clue that pretty much tells us that this movie-ruse will happen, yet we ignore it. Again, I can't be too specific, so when you see it again, look for it. Actually, there are a lot of things I've either forgotten or never realized until I watched LAMBS again, like the thrilling moment Catherine (the girl in the well) realizes she's not the first victim of Buffalo Bill's. You say you've seen the movie, but do you remember how she knows this? Like I said up top, maybe it's time to see it again.

Manhunter

Hannibal Lecter made his first filmed appearance a few years earlier, in 1986's MANHUNTER, from LAMBS's author Thomas Harris's earlier book RED DRAGON. It's hard to believe the studios didn't want to make LAMBS because MANHUNTER was a loser at the box office (though many would agree it was a really good moody thriller). But not only did they make LAMBS, they ended up remaking MANHUNTER using the original RED DRAGON title. DRAGON (2002) is decent (though they never explain why Lecter looks ten years older instead of ten years younger), but nowhere close to LAMBS, or even MANHUNTER, says me. Just remember to avoid the silly sequel HANNIBAL (2001) and prequel-to-the-prequel HANNIBAL RISING (2007), a/k/a Teen Hannibal.

So much in LAMBS is strong. The acting (just think of how this would have been with Heather Graham and Matt LeBlanc), directing, cinematography and lighting (Tak Fujimoto), and the score (Howard Shore). And let's raise a nice glass of chianti to writers Ted Tally (script) and Harris (novel), who conspired to make the story so clever, with nary a wasted word (I wish I could say that about these write-ups of mine).

Am I seeing things, or does Buffalo Bill's dress pattern look
a lot like the ornate facade above the ice cream parlor
where Clarice interviews Stacy?

It feels like LAMBS' writing takes Lecter's Aurelius quote to heart - "Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself" - as everything in this movie is there for a reason, especially Lecter's parceling out of clues. Some, like his penchant for anagrams, are obvious, while others are hidden. Is he just doing a mind fuck when he says, "One more thing, Senator. Love your suit," or is he giving Clarice a clue? And why the hell does he say the word "simplicity" when guiding Clarice to find Buffalo Bill? Isn't that the name of a company that makes dress patterns? "Simplicity" is mentioned again later, when Clarice and her co-worker/friend Ardelia (Kasi Lemmons) are discussing the case. They also repeat the word "pattern" a few times, referring to the area where bodies are turning up. And those unnerving shots where Lecter looks right at us (supposedly Hopkins' idea), as if we're Clarice. And it's not just Lecter who does this. A victim's father does it too, as do local cops, her boss Crawford, Stacy from Ohio...it seems everyone's looking at Clarice ("Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice?"). Which means, everyone's looking at us, because who doesn't imagine themselves being the hero? We all think we're John McClanes and Harry Callahans, but the truth is we're all Agent Starlings, filled with ambition, drive, and enough vulnerability to get the living shit scared out of us.

Preshow Entertainment: RICKY GERVAIS: OUT OF ENGLAND 2

Here we go again. We loved Gervais's first OUT OF ENGLAND HBO special so much I decided to see this one. Though arguably funnier than most anything out there, this sequel (well, that could explain it) was not nearly as sharp, fast or clever. This time out, Gervais attacks things like acts of God, heroin and the bible for kids. But it's his bit on people's perception of fat people that seemed to ring the bell. But whatever. The truth is he's still the funniest out there right now.

Video of Hannibal Nathanson courtesy of Rocket Media Labs

MARYJANE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 02:25:00 +0000

Your RMC II Results Are In!

Tagline: 2 are in jail and the others have blown their minds!

Cool Dialogue: “Anything goes wrong in this crummy town, they blame pot.”

Pizza: NoHo Pizza

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: THE TROUBLE MAKER, WILD AT THE WHEEL, THE TERRIBLE TRUTH

POT FOR TEACHER

I know what you're thinking. I know because it's happened to me, too. "If only there was a movie starring Fabian, Teri Garr and Garry Marshall, and written by game show host Peter Marshall and GET SMART’S Dick 'Hymie the Robot' Gautier."

MARYJANE (1968) is a hard to find film (Showtime aired it so long ago that I have it on a VHS tape) from the American International Pictures library. Unlike most AIP exploitation films, this entry actually attempts to take its subject, the rampant drug use in high school, seriously. Remember, I said attempts.

It all starts with a bloody car crash that kills the driver and a pedestrian. And what’s to blame? Why, Mary Jane, of course, because weed makes people into carefree irresponsible members of society. (I’ve never smoked pot myself, but I don’t need to, because I’m already a carefree irresponsible society member.) Maryjane isn’t just slang for marijuana here, it’s also the name of this very high school’s pot smoking club, a club so badass that they wear dog tags that say ‘Mary Jane’.

But let’s not disturb the school principal and the chief of police, who are puzzled as to where this influx of pot is coming from. Also, please keep your voice down, because they are discussing it during a boy’s funeral. Later, when the principal and police chief meet with the mayor, they agree - marijuana is a gateway to harder stuff. And everyone’s to blame; from the cops who “aren’t doing enough” to the parents who are blind to their kids’ activities.

Teen idol Fabian, perhaps trying to break his squeaky clean image, plays Phil Blake, a can-relate-to-the-students teacher in a pool of old school teachers. He’s new and young, and he teaches art, which of course makes him open-minded. He’s even tried pot, an admission perhaps better left unsaid to the crusty mayor and strict police chief. This won’t be the only thing that gets Phil in trouble. Some things won’t even be his fault. Wrong place, wrong time, no good deed…

Jerry (Michael Morgotta) is the school’s sensitive student. If you make fun of him, he will destroy his own art project. In an effort to find himself, Jerry wants to join the Mary Jane gang, led by smart mouth Jordan Bates (Kevin Coughlin), who gives everyone he talks to a hard time, even his girlfriend. Jerry wants in so badly he’s even made his own Mary Jane dog tag to wear, even though he’s not in the gang. Phil suspects weak-willed Jerry’s path is going the wrong way, so he takes Jerry under his wing, telling him he could use his apartment if he ever needs to get away. Meanwhile, Jordan uses Jerry for his own amusement, making him steal things, ditching him, and ultimately, setting him up to fail big. Gang member Susan (original BAD SEED Patty McCormack, now a grown up brat), defends Jerry, but she’ll acquiesce once Jordan takes the power reins.

Meanwhile, the teachers go bowling, where we learn that Phil has the hots for new teacher Elli (Diane McBain). Later, the two go on a picnic where she confuses him with mixed signals. So Phil backs off. Wow, he’s just so righteous and polite! Fuck!

The mayor, principal and police chief call a meeting where they ask the teachers to spy on the kids. But our Phil will have none of that. “I’m a teacher, not a spy,” he said, around the same time McCoy told Kirk “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!” Anyway, it’s here that Phil admits he smoked pot once in college, and here where he’s shunned by his peers. Not long after, all hell breaks loose for Phil when the cops find pot in his car which was stolen and re-parked near his apartment. Why he was home painting when the cops arrived at 5am is just hilarious.

You don’t have to be an NYU Film grad to know things will go from bad to worse. But MARYJANE is fun and well worth a watch. And while doing so, keep on the lookout for barely out of her teens Teri Garr (as Terri Garr) and HAPPY DAYS creator Garry Marshall, who plays a gas station attendant. And if you enjoy the music while the gang hassles Marshall as they get gas, feel free to listen to the song GAS HASSLE on the movie’s soundtrack.

There are a few (too many) twists at the end, but for a movie like this, they’re actually kind of satisfying. As I mentioned, MARYJANE tries harder than most exploitation films. It’s shot really well, with forethought rarely seen in movies such as these. There are shots through sprinklers, through tires in racks and even pullouts from gargoyles (!), as well as some really creative smashcuts. One scene has the gang partying in a closed amusement park, getting the kind of high only actors in movies get. But it’s a cool scene nonetheless, as they hang in the bumper cars and on the merry-go-round. Director Maury Dexter (whose first job was acting in a Three Stooges short, so we love him) employs canted angles and a distorted imagery of the rides to a far out effect, while the score, by Mike Curb and Lawrence Brown, plays a prog-edelic mix.

When I was in high school, you could tell the stoners from miles away; the way they dressed, looked, behaved, shuffled and smelled. But in the 60s, right before things got looser, kids still obeyed dress codes in schools. So the potheads in MARYJANE look like clean cut Eddie Haskells. It’s just funny. Which brings me to my next point. Just because you’re trying to make an exploitation film with some gravitas, it’s still an exploitation film, which means - unintentional humor! Yay! Of course there are inadvertently funny moments, like when three guys ask the hot teacher if she’d like to make it a foursome (they meant a boat trip). But it’s always the unintentional stuff and clichés that are the funniest. Like the big drug dealer, who could have played the same role in a Cheech and Chong movie.

Speaking of funny moments, there’s a scene where Jordan makes Jerry prove himself worthy of Mary Jane status by shoplifting. It was like a game show! “Gotta get five things totaling $20.” But this makes sense, as HOLLYWOOD SQUARES game show host Peter Marshall wrote the movie (along with Dexter and Dick Gautier)! By the way, Gautier is hysterical in an uncredited role as a prisoner in the holding cell with Phil.

Also interesting, this was casting director Fred Roos’s first movie. Four year later, he was casting THE GODFATHER. He’d soon graduate to producer, and has since worked on nearly every Coppola (Francis and Sofia) film. On a sadder note, Kevin Coughlin was killed in a hit and run in 1976, while washing his car at 2am on Ventura and Whitsett in Studio City, walking distance from RMC Headquarters.

It was an incredible coincidence that right before the Random Movie Generator selected MARYJANE tonight, we watched these ephemeral films, one about high school kids and pot:

Preshow Entertainment: WILD AT THE WHEEL, THE TERRIBLE TRUTH, THE TROUBLE MAKER

WILD AT THE WHEEL – Both MARYJANE and WILD AT THE WHEEL begin with a teen crashing his car. Though in this case it has to do with reckless driving, the short we watched after this (see below) has to do with drugs, including marijuana.

Another Sid Davis presentation (he did a ton of these films, many of which we’ve seen at RMC). This one, from 1970 (dig those bellbottoms and that Pioneer cassette deck), has blood and dead teens, like Tom Robinson, 19, a/k/a Speedy. We learn about Dead Tom by visiting his friends, family and workplace. Oddly, the moral is less acute than the usual “don’t drink and drive” stuff. This one tells us there are many reasons kids drive recklessly. One may be that speeding might make us feel better because of all of our other shortcomings. Or a misdirected attempt to show superiority. (“There may have been others. If there were, he took them with him.”)

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH (1951) Sid Davis again, but an earlier one, from 1951. Here, an actual L.A. Juvenile Court judge appears as himself. The government has two hospitals just to treat addicts. With flowery writing like: “They just got their teenaged daughter back from a six month nightmare that even Edgar Allen Poe couldn’t have improved on.” Daughter Phyllis tells us, in VO, “I guess I knew about reefers, that’s marijuana, ever since junior high…” “They both smoke pot, that’s jive talk for marijuana.” Other fun lines: “In the United States of America, 20th century. Unbelievable, isn’t it, that such things can happen.” “Some say the Reds are promoting dope traffic in the United States to undermine national morale.” Wow, I guess I’m an ephemeral film VO addict.

THE TROUBLE MAKER (1959) – What happens when a high school student spreads gossip? Well, they post pics on Facebook and then the person has to switch schools. But if you wanted to be an asshole before there was social media, you had to do it in person. Take Mel, who spreads “guff” around like crazy…about the quarterback, and about Susan. “In almost every group, you find one.” This short was made by Centron Films, run by Herk Harvey, who would make the classic CARNIVAL OF SOULS in 1962.

A STAR IS BORN (1954)

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: The applause of the world – and then this!

Cool Dialogue: “Don’t settle for the little dream. Go on to the big one.”

Pizza: Joe Peeps

JUDY BLOOMS

There are movies that are lost forever, and I really mean lost. No negative, no footage, not even a frame. Then there are movies that are missing scenes or reels. But few movies are released for public consumption using film stills over the original audio track in place of these missing scenes. I can only think of two – Frank Capra’s LOST HORIZON and George Cukor’s A STAR IS BORN. Oddly, both movies have been screened at RMC - HORIZON back in November 2001, and now, 12 years later, the restored version of A STAR IS BORN.

A STAR IS BORN (1954) is a musical remake of the 1937 movie featuring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March about married movie stars, one on the rise, the other on the decline. What a great idea for a story, as this dynamic can happen to any couple at any time (though having them be celebrities adds extra Ego Factor). No wonder they made this movie three times (the third version, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, was made in 1978 - see panel below). For years there have been rumors of a fourth version starring Beyonce and Robert Downey Jr. At first blush it sounds appalling, but the more I think about it….maybe??? But we’ve gathered here today for the 1954 version, starring Judy Garland and James Mason.

The opening scene in A STAR IS BORN presciently mimics its real life premiere held at the Pantages in September 1954, as stars walk into a theater and say a few words into the microphones. In the movie, character Lola Lavery said: “And I know you’re looking forward to seeing your favorite star and mine,” and in the actual premiere, Debbie Reynolds told us: “I’ve never been so excited in my whole life.”

And not only that but Hollywood reporter George Fisher (not to be confused with George Fisher from death metal band Cannibal Corpse) is manning the mic in the movie’s opening scene and at the Pantages premiere in real life. Trippy, huh? Life imitating art, and vice versa, is all over this movie. Like when Norman Maine (Mason) meets Esther Blodgett (Garland) for the first time. He tells her, “You must have been born with that name, you couldn’t have made it up.” You mean, like Judy Garland’s real name Frances Gumm? Anyway…

Norman Maine is a box office star/drunk/womanizer (he skulks around clubs for fresh meat with the assistance of the club owner). He’s so big that his handlers are forced to put up with him. Maine’s office on the lot has a bed, which we’re pretty sure is used for starlets and benders. The story begins when Norman shows up drunk at a fancy benefit and hijacks the act that Esther is singing in. Later, Esther and cool gum-chewing bandleader/pianist/friend Danny (Tommy Noonan) play “for themselves” at an after hours club, where she sings THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY (you sure can see where Liza got her mannerisms). Little does she know; the man that will later be the one that got away is watching from the back of the club. Smitten with Esther and unable to procure late-nite tail, he has tracked her down.

Norman takes Esther under his wing and guides her, figuratively and literally (his hands guide her through rooms or sit her down). He convinces her to quit the band and take a chance with him; he will call studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) and see what he can do for her. As Esther and the band part, so does Norman, lost at sea, once again figuratively and literally…’cept for the lost part (funny, as Mason would play Captain Nemo that same year) for a six week shoot on the ocean…where there’s no liquor. It’s sort of like work-furlough rehab. Not a bad idea.

Anyway, so Esther’s got nothing now - no band, no screen test, no Norman Maine. She’s stuck in Hollywood like everyone, including yours truly.

Esther gets herself a singing job – but it’s the voice of a marionette in a shampoo commercial. (Earlier, she had told Norman – “When anything happens to me, good or bad, I head straight for the shampoo bottle." Norman’s go-to is golf putting in his living room.) But fear not, we’re only forty minutes into this three hour movie, and I’m sure you’ve figured out that Norman returns and things start going well for Esther (whose name is now changed by the studio to Vicki Lester). Norman helps her get a contract and she soon finds herself stuck in Hollywood’s revolving door (again, both figuratively and literally - see picture at right). It doesn’t take long for Vicki Lester to become the biggest star at the studio. And it’s all thanks to Norman.

Yes, they end up married (there’s a charming proposal scene) and Norman Maine watches his wife become a box office sensation. I love Mason’s take on Maine. Instead of playing him over the top, he plays him as a smart man who knows what he is (a drunk who’s washed up on the silver screen) and what Esther is, and isn’t jealous. He’s supportive of her.

While she’s out being a star, he’s home making dinner, playing solitaire, and yes…putting golf balls in his living room. One night, Esther comes home from a day of shooting and, seeing her man home alone, cheers him up with a playful number (SOMEONE AT LAST) from the movie she’s working on, using furniture and household items as props. Norman’s happy and amused by her performance. Again, not jealous. But no one can be that cool forever. All it takes is a delivery man to refer to him as “Mr. Lester” for Norman to start unraveling. The scene begins with him drinking milk and ends with him saying, “I think I shall mix myself a drink.” And as he walks away, Esther whimpers to herself something we’re all thinking - “no.” Eventually, Norman checks himself into a sanitarium, which is what they now call “rehab”. Ya know, ‘rehab’ has come to sound sexy. They should change it back to “sanitarium.” I mean, imagine a celebrity today saying “I’ve checked into a sanitarium.” Anyway…

Watching A STAR IS BORN I kept forgetting that I wasn’t watching a real story, a biopic. Credit original writers (more than 11) of the 1937 version (among them, William Wellman, Budd Shulberg, Ring Lardner Jr., Ben Hecht and Dorothy Parker), who based some of the characters on real actors and events. This 1954 version was written by Moss Hart.

A STAR IS BORN was directed by George Cukor, who besides directing CAMILLE, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and GASLIGHT contributed creatively to both GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ starring you-know-who. Many of the shots, including those in production numbers, were done in masters without cutaways. And for a three hour movie, Cukor makes it whiz by nicely (the lengthy BORN IN A TRUNK medley, which wasn’t his doing, is the exception here), from its opening where Norman disrupts the benefit to its haunting ending where Esther sings IT'S A NEW WORLD as Norman drowns his sorrows.

Cukor’s best skill, arguably, was working with the actors. Although playing it a bit melodramatic at times, Judy Garland is wonderful as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester, and when she hits, it really is out of the park. No small feat considering she hadn’t made a movie in a few years (this was her much touted movie comeback). And that suicide attempt. And those nervous breakdowns. And her alcoholism. And her drug habits (supposedly why Cary Grant turned down the Norman Maine role). And her no-shows and erratic behavior on the set which caused many delays. Which leads me to another ‘life imitates art’. There’s actually a line of dialogue where studio head Oliver tells Norman: “Those big fat lush days where a star can disappear and hold up production for two weeks are over.” Of course he’s talking about the fictional Norman Maine character, but I’m sure people on the set that day (Garland wasn’t in that scene) got a chuckle out of it.

Her behavior wasn’t the only thing that made A STAR IS BORN’s budget balloon. Part of the reason was that Warner Brothers (okay, Jack Warner, it’s been long enough that we can name names) decided to toss out weeks of footage, opting to reshoot everything in CinemaScope.

But back to acting, and specifically, James Mason and how he manages to get us to feel every emotion. In perhaps the movie’s most brutal scene, where Norman once again hijacks a moment (I don’t want to give it away), we feel hatred, love, sympathy and empathy. Mason’s performance is the secret glue that makes Garland’s work so well. What is it that actors say about other actors? He was very generous.

Jack Carson, who RMCers may remember from the Jack Lemmon movie PHFFFT (released only a few weeks after A STAR IS BORN), is fantastic as studio publicity agent Matt Libby, the man who did damage control for Norman and who finally got his shot to tell him off.

There is no shortage of s’wonderful musical numbers with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by Harold Arlen (WIZARD OF OZ), including a song that was introduced in this movie and would soon became a staple of Garland’s act - THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY. It took three tries (twice in ’53, once in ’54), using different sets, lighting and wardrobe (good thing…that second version was awful). The American Film Institute names it “The 11th Greatest Song in American Cinema History.” Here’s a (sort of) side by side comparison of all three versions, worth watching.

"Judy, Judy, Judy"

Some songs, like GOTTA HAVE ME GO WITH YOU and LOSE THAT LONG FACE are performed as part of a stage show or movie, while others, like SOMEONE AT LAST and IT’S A NEW WORLD are performed by characters who just start singing, because that’s what people in musicals do, especially if you can sing like Judy Garland. There is one sequence, a cluster of songs not by Arlen/Gershwin, that was put in after Cukor left the movie. It’s the BORN IN A TRUNK medley I mentioned earlier, and it clocks in at 15 minutes. A lengthy musical sequence was a product of its time, and so were lines like this, from a courtroom scene - Bailiff: “Cigarettes out, please rise.”

This wasn’t the first time Judy Garland played Esther Blodgett. Twelve years earlier, when she was a year out of her teens, Garland starred in a one-hour radio version...and it’s pretty fascinating. It follows the original 1937 version as the 1954 one wasn’t even thought of yet. Walter Pidgeon plays Norman Maine. Cecil B. DeMille does the introduction. And remember, it’s not a musical. But yeah, it’s pretty great. Give it a listen here: http://goo.gl/3QiP5G

The premiere of A STAR IS BORN was said to be the biggest premiere in movie history. Jack Carson greeted everyone saying, “I’m so nervous” nearly every time as he dabbed at the sweat on his face. Just about everyone was there; Edward G. Robinson, Hedda Hopper, Cesar Romero, Joan Crawford, Sophie Tucker, Virginia Mayo, Greer Garson, Jack Palance, Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh, Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz, Shelley Winters, Ray Bolger, Kim Novak, Lauren Bacall, the list goes on. George Jessel was there, bragging about how he was the one who changed Judy’s name from Frances Ethel Gumm. Liberace took his mom. And Raymond Burr? He brought a sailor with him…in his sailor uniform.

There are tons of movies about stardom and its trappings (RMC screened THE ROSE back in 2010), but what separates this one, besides the talent in front and behind the camera, is the idea that it’s really less about an unknown becoming a star and more about that star watching as the person she loves spirals down. I know I mentioned that earlier, but it’s what makes it such a fantastic character piece.

There’s a line in BORN IN A TRUNK that goes: “…I learned traditions, and the hardest one of all is that no matter what - the show must go on.” And that is what the movie is all about. And we relate to it because really, “the show” is “life.”

SUPERMAN II: THE DONNER CUT

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Your RMC II Results Are In!

Tagline: None

Cool Dialogue: “You ARE Superman, aren’t you!”

Pizza: Uncle Joey’s

Preshow Entertainment: None

PRIMA
DONNER

Have you ever bumped into a friend in another city? Or state…or even another country? That’s random, and random is everywhere. Hell, some bloated moron even has a club and its website just for random movies. And like meeting your friend while you’re on summer vacation in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, sometimes randomness is nothing short of amazing. You know, like creating the universe, or even better, winning the lottery. Our Random Movie Generator (RMG) selects movies from over 3000 titles. So what are the chances that it would pick both the theatrical release of SUPERMAN II (1980) and the alternate version - SUPERMAN II: THE DONNER CUT (2006) within 16 months of each other? I’ll leave that question for all the statisticians among us. And I’ll also ask them this – what are the chances that the RMG also chose, within those same 16 months, SUPERMAN III? And 8 years earlier (almost to the day) – SUPERGIRL? So either the RMG is rigged or it has a taste for the Superman franchise. It can’t possibly be random, can it? Anyway, who cares??? I’ve blathered waaaay too long. “Sorry.”

Also random, the fact that the RMG chose two Gene Hackman movies in a row (our last movie was THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE). Okay, I guess I had more random blathering, but this time I’m really done. “Sorry again.”

Since I’ve already written about SUPE II, I’ll have our Random Movie Club Archivist dig it out and paste it below for you. There’s not a whole lot to add to that, but I’ll give you some of the basics. Richard Lester was called in after Richard Donner was fired (after shooting most of the movie). The Lester cut is a mess compared to the Donner Cut. In Lester’s, they were unable to get Brando, Hackman (they used a double!), and score-meister John Williams to return. Rumor has it they were all loyal to Donner and Tom Mankiewicz (who wrote practically all of SUPERMAN and the first pass at SUPERMAN II). The Lester version is jokey and corny, with obvious pieces missing and plot holes. The Donner cut (assembled in 2006) makes complete sense, though there are a few scenes where screen tests are used (obviously, they couldn’t go back and reshoot a 26 year old movie, especially with Christopher Reeve gone). But because we know they’re screen tests (the actors look different), we’re okay with it. We just want to see how the movie was meant to be. As mentioned in the write-up below, “…film geeks/historians will see this as a rare case of a fudged movie being returned to its creators to make it right.”

One last thing. I want to share this story with you. It occurred between our two SUPERMAN II screenings. Terence Stamp, who played General Zod, shocks a bunch of kids who have just seen 2013’s THE MAN OF STEEL. http://go.shr.lc/1mbmiqn

* * * * * *

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Miraculously freed from eternal orbit, the three outlaws from Krypton descend to earth, for the ultimate confrontation.

Pizza: Guido's

Preshow: None

EVER NOTICE YOU NEVER SEE
RICH NATHANSON AND SUPERMAN
IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME?

On December 15th, 1978, I saw SUPERMAN at the Astor Plaza (now gone) theater in NYC, my favorite theater in the world. It was opening day and it was snowing. We waited hours. I was reading a newspaper, and when I turned the page, there was a two-page ad for SUPERMAN with the teaser line - "Tonight You Will Believe That a Man Can Fly." The guy reading over my shoulder loudly commented - "Shit! For three hours in the snow and six bucks, my man better fly!" And thus began my experience with the first SUPERMAN movie, an experience that kept me in the theater through its endless end-credits while my friends took off. They were probably home by the time the last seconds of SUPERMAN actually unspooled. That means they never got to see this - "Coming soon, Superman II". When the sequel came out two and a half years later, I was ready to enjoy it. But watching it again now, it clearly hasn't held up as well as the first one. SUPERMAN II is at times sloppy and inconsistent with many plot points left unexplained or simply abandoned. And I wholly believe the reason is:

There are two versions of SUPERMAN II, similar in plot yet radically different; one of which you've probably seen, the other, odds are, you haven't. Because as a distant planet was destroyed, so was the sequel to one of the best (perhaps even the best) superhero movies. Director Richard Donner horn-locked with producers on final cut, budget, the employment of producer Pierre Spengler, seemingly everything. Most of SUPERMAN II was shot in tandem with the first movie, but when it came time to shoot the rest, they replaced Richard Donner with Richard Lester (Dick Wars!). It gets really complicated, the how and the why, but the results were this: The 1981 theatrical release of SUPERMAN II had Lester's name on it, despite the fact that nearly three-quarters of the footage was Donner's. So as good as SUPERMAN II was, we never got to see the real movie, the Richard Donner version. And then, almost as if Earth spun backwards and we went back in time, Richard Donner and editor Michael Thau recut the movie to Donner's original vision, which became available on DVD in 2006. And I myself am thankful, for The Richard Donner cut is superior to the theatrical version of SUPERMAN II.

But since the Random Movie Generator spat out the theatrical version, that's the one we'll mostly explore now.

What would heroes be without villains? Nobody. That's why we need villains, be it a superhero movie, a spy story or the real world. A villain always makes the hero, and SUPE II has four of them. Besides Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), played with the gleeful obnoxiousness of Joe Pesci in LETHAL WEAPONs 2, 3 and 4 (also directed by Donner), we have three escaped convicts - the cold-hearted Ursa (Sarah Douglas), the manimal Non (Jack O'Halloran), and ringleader General Zod (recently voted #2 of Space Villains, right behind Darth, and wonderfully played by Terence Stamp). Escaped from where, you ask? Superman's home planet Krypton, now as defunct as the Astor Plaza. And who sentenced them to be imprisoned before their fortuitous and ironic escape? Superman's dad, Jor-El (Marlon Brando, criminally absent in this movie, but present and important in the Donner Cut). You don't want to piss these criminals off, especially when, on Earth, they have the same powers as you. They won't play fair. They'll steal your emblems and badges right off your uniforms and collect them. This, my mortal friends, is a story of revenge.

But before these Kryptonian Kreeps even escape from their 2D Phantom Zone, Superman must save Lois. In this outing, our intrepid and ridiculously careless, anything-for-a-story reporter finds herself clinging to the hurtling undercarriage of an elevator in the Eiffel Tower as it speeds to the bottom. Yeah, Superman saves her in time, but this event concomitantly leads to the escape of Zod, Ursa and Non. Unfortunately, we're the only ones to notice, and when these three kick some astronaut ass on the moon, we see just what they're capable of. But Earth will be safe. It's not like Superman is going to lose his powers or anything like that.

To balance the action, SUPE II amps up the love story between Superman (Christopher Reeve) and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder). Under the surface, this has always worked incredibly well because, generally speaking, both sexes can relate (Superman creators Siegel and Shuster tapped into this first). For the boys, here's a geeky guy, Clark, who falls in love with the cool girl, and she couldn't be more oblivious. For the girls, here's a hunky lifesaver filled with compassion. As in real life, the geek's competition for the cool girl's love is a jock, though in this case, the geek and the jock are the same person.

Eventually, Lois puts two and two together, and here lies the wonderful inner struggle of the movie; to be with Lois, Superman must become mortal. Is he willing to do that? Well, apparently, even men from Krypton fall in love. Although I just called this "wonderful," I'd like to add that it does yield a terrible consequence. It turns out that Superman is a bit selfish, choosing tail over thwarting evil and saving kittens. But what really irks me is how selfish Lois is. She knows Superman will lose his powers, yet doesn't object. Basically, so she can have the man she loves, she's signing a possible death warrant for humankind. They're both to blame. But what the hey, we all do crazy things when we're in love. This is explained much better in the Donner Cut, with Jor-El talking to his son, and Superman rebelling: "At least they (humans) get a chance at happiness. I only ask as much."

So there you have it. Zod & Co. bring the world to its knees ("Kneel before Zod!"), and Supe doesn't even know because he's in love, mortal, and hanging with Lois at his Fortress of Solitude, which, by the way, would make an awesome episode of CRIBS. And amid all this conflict, both physical and emotional, is one pizazzy movie.

There are lots of funny and amusing things in SUPE II: When Lex and Otis are walking through the prison laundry, Lex tells an inmate in an aside "I want my Liberace record back. Tonight." Unfortunately, there are moments that were simply over-the-top stupid, like when the Kryptonian badasses blow vehicles and people down the street with their hurricane-force breath, a phone booth with a man in it gets knocked over on its side, yet he keeps talking as he's being swept down the street. An ice cream comes off of someone's cone and lands on someone else. I could have done without that stuff. So could Donner, who snipped all of Lester's goofy comic touches. Now that I think of it, Lester had just directed BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS, a prequel to the original that had these same sort of cheap gags.

I remember opening night when, at the end of the movie, Clark returns to the diner where he previously got his mortal ass kicked by Rocky the house bully. As soon as they cut to Rocky, we all knew what was going to happen, and we all laughed and applauded in anticipation. Naturally, Superman, here as Clark, can't kill the guy even though that would have been okay with us. Hell, he isn't even supposed to hurt him. But he does, a little. And humiliates him. We loved it on a visceral level, but also because Zod killed and tortured innocent people, while Superman merely humiliates (okay, and breaks the hand of) a guy who really, really deserved it. That's our boy.

One thing I've always loved in these two movies is the casting, from bit parts like the two small town police officers, to the major players, to Superman himself. Reeve, an unknown, turned out to be an extraordinary actor who played both parts incredibly well. Kidder's portrayal of the chain-smoking, hot dog/hamburger chomping no-nonsense reporter makes it difficult for anyone not to fall in love with her. And then there's Terence Stamp with that calm yet effective stare. He hardly breaks character, so when he does in one scene, rolling his eyes at us humans, it's funny. Stamp played Zod, in his own words, like a "galactic Hitler." O'Halloran's great as the grizzly bear menace Non, and Sarah Douglas' Ursa is crazy sexy evil. In case you want to catch up with her, in 2012 she appeared in the movie STRIPPERS AND WEREWOLVES.

I don't want to bore you with my thoughts on the effects. We all know (or could guess) how cool they were at the time; and while many are still pretty great, others are cheesy. The lunar craft, for example, looks like a tin can wrapped in Reynold's. And why'd they have to crash that helicopter behind a barn so we can't see it? The first movie had a thrilling helicopter scene, why's it so chintzy here? And the big Metropolis (rumored to be a $4 million set) battle 'tween Supe and the villains now feels like a staged event on the Universal Studios tram tour.

SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II were originally meant to be two parts of the same movie, like the serials of yore. The first part was the origin of Superman followed by his dealings with Lex Luthor, and the second part was Zod. In fact, we were meant to see the villains escaping from the Phantom Zone at the end of the first movie, followed by the title "Coming Soon - Superman II." But deadlines turned out to be a real life villain, so much so that they decided to lift the ending of SUPERMAN II and make that (when he flies around the world to turn back time) the end of SUPERMAN. Mario Puzo, who knew a lot about powerful men (THE GODFATHER), did the original script(s), which I'm sure clocked in at 1.4 million trees (there's also a belief that father and son producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind bought Puzo's name to promote the movie before anything was shot, and Puzo didn't write much at all). Then, lovebirds David and Leslie Newman did their pass, as did Robert Benton, and finally, some major assistance (read: the bulk of both movie scripts) from Hollywood Dynasty member Tom Mankiewicz. When it came time to do the second tier of filming a couple of years later, Mank didn't return, opting to stay with the Donner party. Also not back for the second shoot was Hackman, though it didn't necessarily mean he refused. Word on the Hollywood streets said he was busy. But because of this, his Luthor disappears from the movie for long stretches, and when he is around, he's sometimes substituted by a stand-in with some mighty bad looping. Yet Hackman still manages to provide the comic relief that Otis (Ned Beatty, hardly here at all) provided in SUPERMAN. Hackman, despite his last name, is nothing but brilliant. Just watch when Ursa crushes his fingers. That's Comic Beat #1. Seconds later, he answers Zod's question while sucking his thumb to relieve the pain Ursa caused...Comic Beat #2. But it's that subtle glance he throws her, sort of like a "Seriously?" that does it for me, and thus, completes the comedic triumvirate.

Besides Hackman, DP Geoffrey Unsworth and Production Designer John Barry also failed to return for the Lester shoot, though their excuses of having died are somewhat valid. John Williams, although shown a cut of SUPERMAN II, declined to work on it (maybe he was hanging with Hackman). However, they did lift a ton of his wonderful and iconic score from the first movie, even though I always thought he himself lifted it from the song in this 60s toy commercial: http://bit.ly/bU9eOv

I love the first two SUPERMAN movies a lot (again, the Donner Cut of II). The pair's tone is close to perfect, never taking itself too seriously, yet at the same time being serious. Regular readers of these Random Movie Club pages know how ridiculously hard I am on superhero movies, and while I didn't find gaps in logic and plot in the first one, I sure did in the Lester version of II. When he becomes human, he is told - "Once it is done, there is no return. You will become an ordinary man." But we know, even as this is said, he will somehow become Superman again for Act Three; we just don't know how. But here's the thing - we never know how. In the wimpiest of conceits, he is able to get his powers back through a stroke of luck (a crystal beckons him). But what does the crystal do? I have no idea, except somehow it makes him Superman again. They never show or even tell us how. "Once it is done, there is no return," cautioned his Supermother, not "Once it is done, there is no return, unless you wanna use that green crystal over there." It's a total cheat.

Now as far as bad logic goes; In the big set piece of rebuilt NYC streets (as Metropolis), when the villains push a bus at Superman, citizens actually believe it kills him ("They killed Superman!"). Huh? This is the Man of Freakin' Steel. He can toss elevators into space, reroute missiles with his bare hands, turn back time by flying kinda fast...I don't see how a Greyhound pinning him against a Marlboro truck would kill him. It wouldn't even tear his tights. Come to think of it, it didn't. Oh, and why in tarnation, whatever tarnation means, was there a kid who spoke with an English accent in a small town of 123 people in Idaho? I mean, besides the fact that it was shot at Pinewood Studios in England where they got financial credit for hiring Limeys. Couldn't he at least try to fake an American accent? Instead of him begging General Zod "Please let my daddy down," he may as well have asked him, "Please sir, I want some more." And why does a town, Pop. 123, have a hotel? I also could have missed the religious allusions in these movies; the father sending his son to Earth, Zod walking on water followed by Ursa picking up a snake. But at least no one's watching and then joining the congregation at Temple Kal-El or Our Lady of a Thousand Supermen. Oops, my atheism's showing again. Anyway...

In the commentary of the Richard Donner Cut, Donner was clearly incensed that they tossed out all the Brando footage to save money. See? --> "They ruined the movie to save a couple of bucks." Well, that's both true and not true. The couple of bucks he's referring to was Brando's demand for nearly 12%...not just from the back-end but from the...entire...box...office. On the theatrical cut's commentary, producer Pierre Spengler (though it may have been Ilya Salkind, I got lost trying to remember whose voice was whose) said, "Enough years have passed that I think everyone should get credit for making this movie." So after 26 years (the span between the theatrical and the Donner Cut) there are still bitter feelings and people saying "I did this, but not that," and though it's fascinating on one level, it just doesn't matter to the average moviegoer (film geeks/historians will see this as a rare case of a fudged movie being returned to its creators to make it right). What matters is SUPERMAN II, in either version, is a totally fun movie. But yes, the Donner Cut is so much better. It makes much more sense, has fewer gaps in logic and even though some scenes are screen tests to fill in for footage never shot, it's the way to go. Though they do repeat the ending of the original movie. Must there always be something to baffle me??

Here's something else you may not know. I lied when I said there are two versions. There are a lot more. In the 1980s, TV stations around the world ran different versions, sometimes adding so much footage that they could make SUPERMAN II a two-night event so they could sell more commercials. I taped one of these versions, and yes, it sits in the Random Movie Club film vault along with the Donner Cut. That means that maybe one day we'll see one or both of these versions. Until then, we have to sweat it out. Like Superman did.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 24 May 2014 23:55:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: At midnight on New Year's Eve the S.S. Poseidon was struck by a 90 foot tidal wave and capsized.

Cool Dialogue: “You had a lot of guts, lady. A lot of guts.”

Pizza: Ameci Pizza

Preshow Entertainment: Movietone Newsreels 1934

SHIP HAPPENS

I’ll never know why the cast of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) took so long to get out of the capsized liner. All they had to do was walk through the gigantic hole they made from chewing the scenery. Even director Ronald Neame would later say he wished he’d tamed Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman down a bit. But he didn’t, and I for one and a half (I really need to diet) am glad for it. For I find the overacting to be part of what makes TPA such a great movie. Don’t believe that it’s a great movie?? Here’s some proof: after THE GODFATHER, it was 1972’s highest grossing film. Want more proof? When it was released, the critics hated it.

True, it wasn’t the first in the “Disaster Films With An All Star Cast” genre. That would be AIRPORT, released two years earlier. But it’s safe to say that TPA put disaster films on the map, and also helped spawn a slew of followers like EARTHQUAKE and THE TOWERING INFERNO (I remember when they were playing across the street from each other, the joke at school was calling it “Shake and Bake”). And then there was METEOR, which, in my opinion, brought an end to the (first wave of) disaster films. So huge was the genre that I remember this parody from National Lampoon (click pic at right), although I certainly didn’t remember the World Trade Center image.

Disaster films usually (or always?) have a bad guy, and in TPA it’s the rep from the ship’s new owner who orders the Poseidon full ahead, pushing it beyond its limits in a perilous storm. But the real villain here is water…water that, as the ship slowly sinks, follows the survivors up each level like a liquid stalker. But besides the bad guy from the company and the evil water, it’s the heated conflict between risk-taking Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) and short-fused cop Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) that is most important.

Before the gigantic wave hits we are introduced to the characters; Rogo and his ex-hooker wife Linda (Stella Stevens, who I just bumped into 2 days ago in the appropriately named Studio City). Alte kakers the Rosens (the wonderful Jack Albertson and the wonderfuller Shelley Winters), the “angry, rebellious, critical…a renegade” Reverend Scott (Hackman’s high turtleneck is both funny and now iconic). Lonely bachelor Mr. Martin (Red Buttons). Sister and brother Susan and Robin (Pamela Sue Martin and Eric Shea). Lounge singer Nonnie (Carol Lynley). And Roddy McDowall as Acres, the ship’s ridiculously polite English waiter. Not all of them will make it. They even tell us in the opening titles - “There were only a handful of survivors. This is their story.” Yet the most amazing thing about the trapped passengers is that Red Buttons’s bowtie stays on for the entire treacherous journey.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and everyone is celebrating in the ballroom, holding hands as they sing Auld Lang Syne. But they all won’t be holding hands for long. Instead, there will be infighting, death and girls in short shorts.

The wave, described to The Captain as so - “I never saw anything like it…an enormous wall of water coming towards us” – breaks both the ship and the movie’s Act, and the metaphor of having your life turned upside down becomes literal as well. It all happens exactly at midnight. Sure, the odds of that are slim, but wow, what a brilliant piece of drama, having the passengers, drunk with happiness and champagne, count down to “1”, never knowing (though we know) they are counting down the seconds to their possible death.

Even though this is an ensemble cast (an awesome one at that), this is mostly the story of Reverend Scott. It’s a story of faith and not giving up, and finding the good in people. The story of a reverend, all but de-frocked, who’s seeking relocation in Africa so he can be freer with his progressive ideals. He’s a man in search of a mission, and he has just found the mother of them all. While shooting TPA, Hackman won an Oscar for THE FRENCH CONNECTION. In the 2000s, he quietly retired without any fanfare. I guess I’d quit show business too if I had just starred in WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT.

But it’s not entirely Reverend Scott’s movie. Shelley Winters, you’d have to agree, often steals the show. Plus, she’s got the most memorable moment. It’s the swimming scene, where they all have to go underwater to get to the next area. Winters insisted on doing this herself (the entire cast did a lot of their own stunts, but this was truly above and beyond). In interviews, Winters claimed Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) taught her how to swim. Winters got around.

The trapped survivors in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, which my dad, who never got titles right (BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG BUILDINGS, THE PURPLE COLOR) called THE POISDEN AFFAIR, provide oodles of treacly moments while simultaneously trying to avoid fires, floating corpses and rising waters. And all the while they still manage to find plenty of time to argue with each other. Like water seeking its level, the characters show who they really are. The meek Mr. Martin, for example, turns out to have more logic than anyone. He also plays the diplomat when things get heated between the others, as well as taking on the task of helping the shell-shocked Nonnie. Robin turns out to be a boy wonder, with his extreme knowledge of the inner workings of the Poseidon.

Though much of the plot points are from the bestselling book of the same name by Paul Gallico, we must also credit Oscar nominated screenwriter Wendell Mayes (ANATOMY OF A MURDER) and Oscar winner Stirling Silliphant (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT). Besides writing a billion episodes for TV, Silliphant created (with Herbert Leonard, whoever the hell he was) the show ROUTE 66 which I coincidentally just watched an episode of yesterday. It featured, get this - Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. and Peter Lorre. What I wouldn’t give to have had those three badasses on the S.S. Poseidon. Anyway…

There are scenes in TPA that are so memorable that decades later, people can still call them up...like the Christmas tree! Yes, long before a drunken Kiefer Sutherland did it in 2006, our adventurers used the tree as a ladder to climb up (or was it down?) and escape to higher ground. In this sequence, we also get the Greedy Event - too many people going at once, forcing the tree to topple. It’s repeated in TPA’s follow-up, THE TOWERING INFERNO, when the trapped and panicked partygoers make a mad rush for one tiny outdoor elevator. Both films also had people willfully placing others in danger just to save money (POSEIDON) or embezzle it (INFERNO).

One thing people often forget is that The Captain is played by Leslie Nielsen. After seeing AIRPLANE! a thousand times, it’s so hard to take him seriously. Even Carol Lynley, Stella Stevens and Pamela Sue Martin agree on the DVD’s commentary. But a funny thing happens. You do forget he’s Leslie Nielson. When he looks at the wave in his binoculars and says “Oh my God,” it’s a bit thrilling. Of course if it came out today it would be less thrilling, with The Captain saying “OMG!”

It’s no secret the real captain of the S. S. Poseidon was producer Irwin Allen, whose rep as creator of sci-fi shows THE TIME TUNNEL, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, LOST IN SPACE and LAND OF THE GIANTS would morph, thanks to TPA, into the moniker of “Master of Disaster.” After TPA, Allen made THE TOWERING INFERNO (both great movies, but I can never decide which is better), and a slew of others (though mostly on TV). I’ll have to get around to seeing THE SWARM one of these days.

Director Ronald Neame, who managed to do a commentary for the DVD when he was in his 90s, was a softie in contrast to producer Irwin Allen’s brashness (Allen also directed the action sequences). Neame’s camera pitches and rolls, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, but always keeping us swaying. Likewise, moments can be subtle (when they come across another group of survivors walking silently to what they don’t know is their doom, it’s eerily lit from beneath as if they’re already ghosts) or not (as Borgnine hangs off a railing, he loses it, screaming at Hackman while flames dance behind him). And besides the Shelley Winters scene I mentioned earlier (she was nominated for an Oscar for this role), everyone remembers when the guy falls down (up?) through the skylight.

Of course a movie of this undertaking had its share of real problems. The production was almost shut down, even as the sets were being built, when Fox pulled the plug on the big budget ($5 million) movie. Fox was struggling at that time, bleeding from loser movies. Allen ended up raising half the budget himself in the 11th hour, though it’s unclear if they actually used this money. Running low on funds by the end of the sequentially shot movie, they were unable to shoot a huge finale. SPOILER SENTENCES: That’s why there aren’t 1000 ships and 500 aircraft there for the rescue. Just a lone helicopter. But I say because of this the ending is better. It’s about the characters and their struggles, not about how many people rescue them. So what if they had to shoot low and into the sky so you wouldn’t see the buildings on the Fox lot? By the way, problems weren’t limited to financial ones. They also had Shelley Winters calling “cut!” because she saw a piece of paper on the floor (a floor that wasn’t even in the shot).

The Queen Mary doubled for the Poseidon’s exterior when they weren’t using a model (which is currently on display at Los Angeles Maritime Museum). The interior sets and art direction were nothing short of fantastic. An upside down cruise ship? Think of the fun. Not fun, however, were the movie’s sequel (okay, okay, I haven’t seen it, but I’m pretty sure it’s terrible) called BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, and not one but two remakes oddly released within seven months of each other; a 2005 TV 2-parter so forgettable I swear to you that I forgot I had seen it, and the 2006 theatrically released POSEIDON.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is one of those movies that means a lot to a lot of people. Poseidonists have seen the movie dozens of times, and to this day attend screenings that often include appearances by cast members. It’s so prevalent in pop culture that in 2002, a musical parody show played in L.A. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen on stage; wall to wall laughter from Rogo’s non-stop larynx-losing screams of “Lin-daaaah!!!!!,” to the 3-girl “Greek Chorus” called The Posirens, to the floating turtleneck sweater. And in 2006, Netflix teamed up with The Alamo Drafthouse and held a screening on the Queen Mary.

TPA drowns in a wave of schmaltz, treads in corniness, and is sometimes funny when not meant to be. Plus it has a cheesy theme song called THE SONG FROM THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (though you know it as THE MORNING AFTER). Yet, in spite of, or perhaps because of this, it’s a really fun movie. It’s an important movie in film history. And it’s a movie that holds up much better than the ship did.

Rogo helps (himself to) Nonnie

Preshow Entertainment: Movietone Newsreels 1934

Every now and then we screen a year of old newsreels. This time, 1934, which featured:

The end of Prohibition.
The Quints. In Canada, “the Five Modern Wonders of the World” were born, which begat a tremendous amount of publicity. So huge was this story that they were referenced in everything from Marx Brothers movies to a song in DUMBO, and more recently, in a Sondheim song and an episode of SOUTH PARK. All five babies survived, which was rare and perhaps unheard of back then. The newsreel’s fun narration called them “These tiny mites of humanity…” I just checked, and two of the quints are still alive today.
The Dust Bowl. Sad footage of the plight that ravaged farms of America. Interviews included this South Dakota farmer: “I’ve been farming for 50 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Sylvester Harris, a black man who called Roosevelt to help him get his farm out of foreclosure. (Roosevelt did.)
Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Civilian Conservation Corp, which put half a million men to work (many on rockpiles), building things like the highway across Death Valley. The TVA, building flood control and irrigation for the Norris Dam and Wheeler Dam using ten thousand men.
The takedown of John Dillinger, as told to us by an eyewitness.
Anti-gangster NYC Mayor La Guardia smashing slot machines and dumping them in the water for the newsreels to see. That means that somewhere on the bottom of the river are hundreds of slot machines.
The arrest of Bruno Hauptmann, who (supposedly) kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. I’m sure we’ll see a story about his execution in the 1936 newsreel.
The assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in France by Croatian terrorist Vlado Chernosemski. This was maybe the first assassination caught on film, though the actual moment of the shooting wasn’t captured on camera. Also murdered, Foreign Minister Barthou of France, and the King’s Chauffer. Chernosemski died later, from wounds sustained after the crowd beat him.

HARD CANDY

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 05:46:00 +0000

Your RMC II Results Are In!

Tagline: Strangers shouldn’t talk to little girls.

Cool Dialogue: “The things you do wrong…they haunt you.”

Pizza: GUIDO'S

Preshow Entertainment: PERFECT CRIME, PARADISE

IN HARD CANDY, ELLEN PAGE HAS PATRICK WILSON
BY THE BALLS

When Ellen Page acts angry, the skin beneath her eyes does that natural rise and involuntary twitch that can only come from actually being incensed, or…from acting chops. Maybe Page was really mad or just maybe she’s a fantastic actress. I go with the latter, and that’s one reason why HARD CANDY (2006) works so incredibly well. Another is co-star Patrick Wilson, who, in a way, has a harder job of character definition. He builds and falls, like a sawtooth wave of emotion. Though as great as he is, we seem to get the sense that Ellen Page is carrying this movie on her tiny Canadian shoulders.

The movie opens with a computer exchange between Lensman319 and Thonggrrrl14. An hour later, when they meet for the first time, Lensman wipes the chocolate frosting off of Thonggrrrl’s lips with his thumb, which he then licks and follows with an innocent - “Mmmm.” It’s a flirt dance that would ordinarily be sexy, if Lensman319 weren’t 32 and Thonggrrrl14, you guessed it - 14. In the age of internet predators, HARD CANDY (a slang term for ‘underage girl’) is very much a story of our time, a tale spun from deceit from both players. This movie could very easily have been a play (I bet it probably will be one day), since it is, in fact, a morality play. But whose POV is being played?

Page is Hayley Stark, a whip-smart teen wise beyond her years. She reads Zadie Smith, so she’s certainly smarter than me (or is it "smarter than I?”). And apparently, she’s a speed-typist, too. She speaks of Elizabeth Wurtzel, and has to school Patrick Wilson’s Jeff on ganouche and Jean Seberg. Jeff tells Hayley just what she wants to hear, and…the trap is set. But what happens next may actually fool you, because this is far from a routine girl-in-jeopardy horror show, where the victim must escape from underneath the salivating mouth of the wolf. No, it doesn’t go there because HARD CANDY is a very cunning psychological thriller. It’s compelling and also disturbing. You’ll witness a scene so intense that even women viewers will cross their legs.

The casting of Wilson (a theater actor…good thinking) and Page is perfect. Hayley may be smart, but Page is smarter, which is good because this is no cardboard cut-out character. And although written brighter and snarkier than any 14-year-old on the planet, Page consistently delivers, especially towards the end, in the one scene where she gets to play off a third actor, Sandra Oh. For the only time in the film, Page is put on the defensive, and we get to see her un-cocky diffident side. And it’s great. Wilson was pretty unknown to moviegoers at the time, which really benefits the film. Although I’m sure they wished for someone more A-list for audience draw, I think the movie would have suffered for it. The actor in this role is better anonymous than Pitt-famous.

It turns out it wasn’t just Page and Wilson who were newbies (meaning, not very famous yet…this was pre-JUNO). CANDY’s core team were all first timers at features; producer David Higgins (his first solo gig after previously producing for others), director David Slade, writer Brian Nelson and editor Art Jones. Higgins (who I did a little work with long ago) wanted to make a very small film, one he could make in his own house if he had to (the script was written with Higgins’s house in mind, in case they couldn’t afford a sound stage), so he hired a playwright - Nelson. Wise, because, as mentioned earlier, it’s very much a play. Armed with just 18 days and a million bucks, they all conspired to make HARD CANDY.

Slade shoots much of the movie in intimate, sometimes uncomfortably so, close-ups. He often holds the camera on one actor, which is great, as we get to see them processing what the other is telling them. They drenched Jeff’s house with a bright palette of candy colors, making it look more like a toy box that invites children to come play. Yet it also provides us with a visual polar opposite of the stygian events being played out before our eyes.

I’m still not sure how I feel about some stylized choices, like speed-ups and jump cuts, wondering if this story would be better told without frills. But come on, if that’s all I could find to punch holes in, that’s saying a lot. If someone pointed a gun at me, I’d probably also say, “maybe Hayley’s artful barbs should have been tapered down. No one, especially at 14, is that Juno-meets-Blofeld when talking about their devious plans.” But I think I’m even wrong about that, because then it would all devolve into a shout-fest and lose so much of its dynamic.

HARD CANDY reminded me of one of my favorite plays, ‘NIGHT MOTHER, another two-hander where Character One has made up their mind to do something ghastly, and all the pleading in the world from Character 2 won’t stop them. “You can’t talk me out of this…” is from HARD CANDY, and from ‘NIGHT MOTHER - “Don’t try and stop me, Mama, you can’t do it.” And then, of course, there’s MISERY whose famous “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t” is replaced here with “Please don’t do this.” That feeling of utter helplessness is a great theme to capture the audience, who is there to try and help (in their heads). Nelson’s airtight script (and I mean that…every T is beautifully crossed) is a complete success, one that writers dream about. Even in structure; the act break occurs at the 21 minute mark, just like all those film courses teach you.

Though everyone involved with HARD CANDY (Wilson, Page, Slade, Nelson) swears up and down that Hayley’s wearing of a red hoodie like Little Red Riding Hood was purely accidental, it sure was a good accident. Sure, the wolf and the captive are here, but unlike Little Red Riding Hood, this tale is less of a bloody smorgasbord and more of a treatise on morality.

SPOILERS: There are really great moments in HARD CANDY, and one of my favorites is one I mentioned earlier. It’s when they meet, when Hayley has icing on her lips and Jeff wipes it off. On first viewing, we’re thinking, “Oh shit, he’s got her right where he wants her.” And on the second viewing, we’re thinking, “Oh shit, she’s got him right where she wants him.” Nice! And if that isn’t enough, if you prefer dialogue over visuals, after he tells her that “People’s faces lie,” she responds with, “Does my face lie?”

Preshow Entertainment: PERFECT CRIME, PARADISE

PERFECT CRIME – A short from 1955. Okay, this one’s a bit violent, opening with a robber (“bandit,” as the headline says) killing a shop owner and a little girl who just happened to be shopping there. But that’s just a preamble to the actual perfect crime - killing your wife and kid in a car accident while you survive. The whole idea of this piece is that car crashes are crimes, yet these “murders” go unnoticed because the public only cares about people murdered with guns.

The weapon here is speed, and anyone can be a murderer. Even you. But it’s not just speed by itself. There’s bad tires, alcohol, railroad crossings and…overcrowded roads. So is this just another cautionary tale about the dangers of our roads? You’d think so, but no, all this blood-on-the-streets stuff was produced by the Caterpillar Tractor company. It’s all about them asking us to make better roads by writing our congressmen, or asking to pay higher taxes for our roads. They pretty much tell us that we can keep the death rate down but won’t because we don’t care that roads can kill. Because of our lackadaisical attitude we share the guilt of murder while we watch victims removed from car wrecks and loaded into ambulances. “My wife and daughter died on a bad road. I killed them. You helped.”

The real interesting thing about this short is that it was directed by Robert Altman, before he directed tons of TV shows and way before he was a filmmaker.

PACIFIC PARADISE (1937) – Oh boy! This was great. Cliff Edwards (also known as Ukelele Ike), along with other performers, star in this 10 minute short. The last time we saw Edwards at RMC was back in 2003 when we screened the movie HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929. This is one of the shorts directed by George Sidney, who went on to make great movie musicals like KISS ME KATE and BYE BYE BIRDIE. Here, Sydney roves the hell out of the camera, and sets up elaborately choreographed shots. Pretty cool for a musical short.

RUDY

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: When people say dreams don’t come true, tell them about Rudy.

Preshow Entertainment: UNFOLDING STRUCTURES, JAR JAR BINKS: E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

Pizza: Pizza Hut

Cool Dialogue: “If you had a tenth of the heart of Ruettiger, you’d have made All-American by now!”

RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!

I know so little about sports that I first titled this write-up “And It’s Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! For The Home Team…”, not realizing I was referencing baseball in a movie whose backdrop is football. Football does have two things I love – blimps and cheerleaders, but I don’t know much more than that. The one thing I do know, however, is that you don’t have to be a gridiron-lover to know that RUDY (1993) is a great movie.

What’s funny to me is how abundantly schmaltzy RUDY is. It’s as if it had a checklist of movie tropes, from the unsupportive dad to the “slow clap”, a corny dramatic device previously used in 80’s teen neo-classics CAN’T BUY ME LOVE and the similar-to-RUDY underdoggy (and fantastic) LUCAS. So no, you don’t want to like this movie, which begins with young Rudy and his family, who live and breathe Notre Dame football. You detest that when there’s a game on, Rudy’s mesmerized by the TV. You dislike the part where he performs a memorized recording of a Notre Dame’s announcer. You don’t want to like the cliché of them stuck in a steel town where your choice is to work at the mill and, well, that’s it.

And you certainly sneer at Rudy’s singular goal - to play for Notre Dame, despite the fact that he is blue collar, short, and has bad grades. You hate all these clichés, you hate all the schmaltz, and most of all, you hate yourself for liking Rudy. No, for loving Rudy. So much so that by the time the movie’s running down the end zone and into its third act, you’re rooting for him. Inspired by him.

I myself was inspired by him. It happened just now. I’m sitting here working on this write-up, thinking about how many other things I have to do, when I hear an imaginary stadium full of people cheering me on - “Richie! Richie! Richie!” - and so, I’m gonna knock this one out of the park! For the Gipper! Wait, that’s baseball again. Anyway…

As ROCKY was to boxing, RUDY, based on the true story of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, is to football, specifically Notre Dame football. And even though, like Rocky, he’s a little slow and a lot sweet-hearted, kids like Rudy don’t get into Notre Dame. Just like boxers like Rocky don’t win matches.

But there’s something about this Rudy (played perfectly by Sean Astin). His belief that he can do this is an amalgam of innocence, optimism, naivety, and good ol’ American idiocy. I myself relate to the Rudy character, who walks that thin line between likeable underdog and nutty stalker.

Director David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo have once again crafted a heart-winning story, similar to their 1986 movie, HOOSIERS (Anspaugh and Pizzo were frat brothers in Indiana two decades earlier, dreaming of making movies…how cool is that?). TANGENTIAL STORY: In the 80s, Ellen Barkin came into my video store and asked me for a recommendation. I suggested HOOSIERS, and she actually did a pshaw!, walking away saying, “Well, if you liked HOOSIERS, then this is the last time I go to you for suggestions.” I said, “Oh, like that movie SIESTA you were in was a work of genius?” (Full disclosure, I said this in my head, not out loud.) Anyway…time to huddle up:

We’re in Illinois, in a steel town where life is all about mines and football. But what if you dream of playing football and you’re told you’re “too small to play anything else” but outside center? What if your family mocks you because you cling to the idea that you’ll be playing football for the Fighting Irish? What if your coach and your priest are also trying to talk you out of your dream? Dad, played by the great Ned Beatty, who I once saw taking his garbage to the curb, says, “Chasing a stupid dream causes nothing but you and everyone around you heartache.” (By the way, thanks dad!) And what if…you’re…Rudy? Well, after a life-altering (both bad and sad) event, Rudy packs the thousand bucks he’s saved, the Notre Dame Jacket given to him by his only real buddy Pete, the only one who gets Rudy (“You were born to wear that jacket”), along with all the determination he could carry, and heads for Indiana.

Once there, we meet the characters who will populate his life; the priest (Robert Prosky, who worked with director Anspaugh on HILL STREET BLUES) who suggests he enroll in nearby Holy Cross College; ND alumnus friend/geek D-Bob (Jon Favreau) who tutors Rudy in exchange for Rudy introducing him to girls (how geeky are you if you need Rudy to help you); groundskeeper Fortune (Charles S. Dutton) and a girl, Mary (Greta Lind).For quixotic Rudy, getting into ND and getting on the team aren’t the only challenges. It seems every step he takes there’s some defensive lineman (I looked that up) to block his goal, like his father who still thinks Rudy should work at the mill and give up his dream, and his brother who not only still ostracizes him, but it sure looks like he helped himself to Rudy’s hometown girl (Lili Taylor).

But Rudy will shine like the best of heroes, not because of his grit or skill, but because of his obdurate determination. And before you can say Jackie Robinson (I know, I know) his teammates will lift him up and carry him off the field. By the way, the scene where incredibly shy D-Bob asks Rudy to help him meet girls in exchange for tutoring is wonderful. TRIVIA: Vince Vaughan has a small role in RUDY. This is where he and Favreau met, releasing SWINGERS three years later, almost to the day.

Ironically, the movie itself is a bit of an underdog tale. RUDY didn’t do well when first released, but the story caught fire and the movie is now more popular than ever. Not only that, but, as the story goes, the real Rudy saw HOOSIERS and sought out Anspaugh and Pizzo, who declined involvement, saying they didn’t feel the story was for them. But Rudy didn’t give up. He even tracked Pizzo down by asking a mailman where he lived. Maybe there’s a reason the word ‘tiger’ is in ‘Ruettiger.” Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

Speaking of the real Rudy, here’s footage of his time on the field in 1975, along with players looking back on that day…from Notre Dame’s website:

RUDY was photographed in wintry grays by Oliver Wood (in his early career, Wood shot THE HONEYMOON KILLERS, which coincidentally…and randomly…screened last month at RMC). The highlight shot has to be when Rudy doesn’t have a ticket to a game and can’t get in. It’s an effective and even exciting shot using a crane, with a thrilling reveal – Rudy alone on one side of the stadium’s wall, while the unseen (to him) crowd cheers on the other side. The camera creeps up revealing the crowd on the left, Rudy on the right and the giant wall between them.

Okay, so yes, there are a few scenes that just may make a grown man cry. In fact, RUDY’s most tear inducing moment never happened in real life…it was written for the movie. I myself haven’t been this sentimental about sports since this beer commercial aired. Yet even though there are enough clichés (the priest calling Rudy “kid” comes to mind) for two Lifetime movies and half a Hallmark movie, writer Pizzo’s tight script along with Anspaugh’s directing are a winning team. (Anspaugh took his name off the cut-to-shreds TV version, which is now directed by “Alan Smithee”.) Okay, now I’m just running out the clock. So in closing; Everyone loves an underdog story. And everyone loves the son of a Duke (Patty), Sean Astin, for playing Rudy with such pure honesty. Players may carry Rudy off the field during the big game, but it’s Sean Astin who carries this movie to victory. Home run, Sean!!

* * * * * * * *

Preshow Entertainment: UNFOLDING STRUCTURES, JAR JAR BINKS: E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

Two VHS tapes from my “Where The Hell Did I Get These” bin. First up: UNFOLDING STRUCTURES - I believe this was a promo piece for inventor Chuck Hoberman. It’s pretty cool. He builds things that expand and contract, shape-shifting as they do. Sometimes metal, looking like the insides of an Underwood. Sometimes looking like a 3-D Spirograph. Some things are small, some unfold when hung, and some so large they need to be unfolded on a rooftop. Also on the tape, a profile of Hoberman on a show called INVENTION. Though this tape is old (Clue 1: It’s on VHS, Clue 2: The World Trade Center can be seen when they’re on the roof, Clue 3: the tape’s label says from 1990-1995), Hoberman’s still at it. Making toys that unfold, among other things. Here are his sites:

http://www.hoberman.com/fold/main/index.htm
http://www.hoberman.com/home.html

JAR JAR BINKS: E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY - I probably would have enjoyed this 12-minute E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY parody a lot more if I’d seen Jar Jar Binks in the space movie. That said, visual effect artist-by-trade Leif Einarsson did a bang-up job directing and co-writing (with David Estes). Hitting all the beats (birth, fame, drugs, etc.) and even voiced by a Peter Graves almost-soundalike, we hear the “true” story of Jar Jar Binks (nee Jarod Finkelstein), who “deep down knew he was different.” I couldn’t remember how I got this 1996 send-up until I saw my ex-manager in a small role (he also produced…and later, on Facebook, Unfriended me).

14 AMAZONS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:36:00 +0000

Your 14th Anniversary Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Hell hath no fury like 14 women scorned.

Pizza: Little Toni’s

Preshow: None

AMAZON WOMEN
ON THE MOVE

Each year, Random Movie Club celebrates its anniversary by screening a movie with our anniversary year in the title. As this was our 14th anniversary, it would be a movie with number 14. I really didn’t want to watch the Richard Benjamin/Paula Prentiss parody of slasher films, SATURDAY THE 14th, so I looked further and discovered THE 14 AMAZONS, a Shaw Brothers movie from 1972. In the 70s, The Shaw Brothers studio had more movies in production than any other studio. They’re still so much in the public eye that the Weinstein Company is set to remake two Shaw Brothers movies. And Run Run Shaw, who is one of the brothers, is still alive. He’s 106. [Update: Run Run Shaw died on January 7, 2014, between our screening of the 14 AMAZONS and me finally getting around to finishing this write-up.]

After watching both KILL BILLs last year, I learned of Tarantino’s love of the Shaw Brothers, so I watched a couple of their films - 36 CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN and LADY SNOWBLOOD. While I thought both were terrific, THE 14 AMAZONS is more of an epic, with large battles featuring hundreds of extras. Yes, we had fun making wisecracks (the outfits the bad guys wore resembled Santa Claus suits, so it sort of invited us), but let me assure you; AMAZONS is a really good movie. And just when some movies start losing their steam, about ninety minutes in, AMAZON throws its coolest scene at us; with no way to cross a chasm, a group of fighters form a human bridge. It’s much more fun on the screen than reading it here, believe me.

This is the story of the Yang family, who lived about a thousand years ago, during the Song dynasty. General Pao and his men are defending the border from Tien Feng, his five sons, and hundreds of loyal soldiers. Pao and his troops are being slaughtered, yet he refuses to surrender. Because of this, Pao gets shot with lots of arrows to the torso.

Back at home and unaware of his death, the Yang family are celebrating Pao’s birthday without him, wishing him longevity. Sitting at long tables, we find a great grandmother and a slew of “grandmothers”, a term obviously lost in translation as not only are they young, they’re Pao’s daughters. When word of Pao’s death reaches the Yang women there’s a very brief mourning sink-in. Then they become angry that the emperor did not send reinforcements, which left Pao and his men to get ambushed on the border. The women want to take revenge, but the emperor’s corrupt Minister Gao forbids it. But guess what? The Yang family goes anyway. Defying Minister Gao means they can’t use the Imperial Army, so the Yangs and some volunteers set off to find Tien Feng and his barbarians (good name for a band). Women fighting back had to be so ahead of its time, both in a 1972 movie and in 1000 AD China. I’m no historian, so someone may want to school me on that.

Another thing you can school me on has to do with the character of Yang Wen Guang, the only male of the family. You see, Wen is not only played by a female (Lily Ho), but they make no effort at all to make her look like a boy. She looks and dresses like all the other girls.

One theory was that she actually is a girl, posing as a boy so as not to lose the Yang’s lineage. Or maybe it’s just the way they cast things in these movies. Either way, it certainly threw us. Can anyone help out here? Anyway…

If Yang Wen Guang stays behind rather than go to battle, as Grandmother wishes, the Yang family might be able to keep their lineage. But he’s impetuous and throws a tantrum. Grandmother has Yang fight his mother, and whoever drops the spear loses. Suffice to say, Yang Wen Guang goes off to battle, making him the 14th Amazon (I think).

Since they are outnumbered, the Yang family must outwit the barbarians. They do so in a series of strategy meetings followed by some fun and bloody battles, including but not limited to falling rock zones and arrows in eyes.

If you watch AMAZONS, be sure to take a drink every time Tien Feng shouts “Kill them all!!” Two drinks for “Bury them alive!!” I should also point out that despite all his commands, Feng’s soldiers were never quite able to execute them. The Yangs are simply more cunning. One of the things they come up with is blowing up the dam. I’m hard pressed to know where they got dynamite (the subtitles said “dynamite”) 800 years before it was invented. Though I did just learn, after a few keystrokes on my magical computer, that the actual Song dynasty were the first people to use gunpowder. Maybe that’s what they meant.

TANGENT: Okay, so I know that it was a different time and certainly a different culture, but I’ll never get the whole honor and loyalty thing. That whole dying for your country and defending your honor is really not for me. I’ll give up government secrets before you can get within 500 feet of me. Who cares? Lives should be more important than honor. Anyway, in AMAZONS, you get a lot of people begging to die for their country.

And another thing!

Who kills people and laughs while doing so? I mean, sure, psychopaths in movies do (and perhaps in real life, though I have yet to be privy), but these are hordes and herds of people, all laughing. Were all humans psychopaths back then? Of course, these were barbarians…so maybe I’m over-thinking this. Anyway…

The aforementioned human bridge is worth the price of admission. They even do it forty years later, in 2011, in the remake (also from China) called LEGENDARY AMAZONS, produced by Jackie Chan.

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: One of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of crime.

Cool Dialogue: “If you love me, you’ll do it.”

Pizza: Joe Peeps

Preshow Entertainment: The 14th Annual Young Comedians Special

BEFORE CRAIGSLIST,
IF YOU WANTED TO BE MURDERED YOU HAD TO
ANSWER AN AD IN THE BACK OF A NEWSPAPER

Scorsese had only made one movie, WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR, before he started directing THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1969). But he was too detail oriented, which took too much time away from the production. Within a week, he had exited (on his own volition vs. fired, depending on who is telling the story). The film was made without him, and wound up making the New York Times Top 10 film list in 1970. Truffaut said it was his favorite American film. I can’t help but wonder how Scorsese’s version would have turned out.

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS lacks any professionalism whatsoever, yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) this, it’s gritty and captivating. There are reasons that prestige DVD label Criterion released a remastered edition, including bonus features. One reason is the story, because it’s not really about murders. No, it’s much creepier than that. It’s a story about love. It’s about what can happen when two twisted people meet, fall in love, and feed off each other’s maleficences. We’ve seen it a million times on TV, where it’s more popular than ever to dramatize murder in the form of True Crime documentaries, or what SOUTH PARK calls - Murder Porn. We all know couples like these characters (except for the part about them being murderers); people who love each other yet can’t stop fighting. It’s as if George Costanza’s parents were killers.

[Click Photo to Enlarge]

The movie is based on the true story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, a/k/a The Lonely Hearts Killers, who preyed upon single women only to fleece and occasionally murder them. Though they were believed to have committed 20 murders in the 1940s (the film places the events in the 1960s), they were tried and convicted of only three. They sizzled to death on the very same day in that famous prison - Sing Sing. This was no small story back then. In fact, the public’s (and police’s) hunger for justice was so furious that Fernandez and Beck were questioned not only without attorneys, but with reporters and photographers present. So famous, compelling, and even fascinating is their story that THE HONEYMOON KILLERS is not the only time it was told on a screen. At least three other movies were made (two called LONELY HEARTS, one called DEEP CRIMSON - see side panel), as well as episodes of such shows as DEADLY WOMEN and COLD CASE.

Alabama nurse Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler), frustrated with life (and perhaps her weight), has anger issues. In the first few minutes of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS, she’d lectured two employees, kicked a wagon off the sidewalk, and threw her bag of pretzels on the floor. She did that after her friend Bunny (believe it or not, played by EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND mom Doris Roberts) encouraged lonely Martha to sign up for a matchmaking-by-mail club, a Lonely Hearts Club. But she does sign up, and that’s how she meets Latin charmer Raymond Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco, months away from shooting THE FRENCH CONNECTION). Almost immediately, Martha gives Raymond money, and just as fast, he’s gone. But lonely (and insane, though we don’t know that yet) Martha’s had a taste of happiness and she’s not about to let it go. She goes to New York City to see Ray, who tells her everything – he’s a con man who preys on lonely hearts. We see just how sick this relationship is, because…she doesn’t care. She loves him. Enough to abandon caring for her mother (in real life, Martha left her two children) and stay with Ray. So now we have the scam artist and the woman who loves him unconditionally, and it doesn’t take long for her to join in on the crimes. She travels to each mark’s house with Ray, pretending to be his sister. No one ever mentions how this man with a Spanish accent has a sister from Alabama.

Martha’s only human (and insane), so it’s only a matter of time before jealousy sets in and her anger issues rise. And that’s when Raymond and Martha’s murder streak begins. Though the movie only has a few murders, they’re pretty brutal, one physically another psychologically - close-up on one victim’s eyes as she helplessly…because she was drugged…hears Ray and Martha’s plan to kill her, and watches them prepare. We don’t see them, instead we stay on the woman’s eyes, making it even creepier.

As time goes on, Martha’s jealousy doesn’t get any better. Refusing to let Ray sleep with their marks, she becomes furious with just the thought of it. One time, when she catches him, Martha actually tries to kill herself. (I’ve told you twice that she’s insane…maybe next time you’ll listen to me.)

In Albany to visit victim Janet Fay (Mary Jane Higby), Ray and Martha enter the Kenmore Hotel. I’m not sure if that happened in real life, but I do know this - the Kenmore is where gangster Legs Diamond was killed in back in the 30s. Anyway, they convince Janet to relocate to Valley Stream (30 minutes from where I grew up), and it’s here that the most horrific event occurs.

There’s an innocence to the way this film was made, so much so that I found myself forgiving some of the worst acting I’ve seen. That said, Lo Bianco is great as the toupee-wearing Ray, a man who’s always looking for the next scam. When dropping a victim off on a bus, he goes directly to a payphone to call his next victim. As he does so, he checks the coin return for change with such a matter-of-fact unconscious move, it’s as if it were part of the procedure of making a call. How can a murderer seem so normal? Stoler, a bit stiffer, is best when she gets hot-headed (years later, she would play the part of Mrs. Steve on PEE-WEE’S PLAYHOUSE).

This was Director of Photography Oliver Wood’s second movie, and he’s been working steadily ever since, DP-ing on such films as DIE HARD 2, FACE/OFF, the first three BOURNE movies, and most recently, ANCHORMAN 2. Given budgetary limits, Wood shows tons of promise with his stark B & W, and I daresay, “student film” technique. A shot of Lo Bianco descending the stairs comes to mind.

Leonard Kastle, who had never written or directed a movie in his life was practically handed the keys by default. He actually wrote operas. But in many ways, this movie is dramatically operatic, with its wretched characters, barbarous murders, and awfully dark story. THE HONEYMOON KILLERS was put together by Kastle and a TV producer named William Steibel, who was doing FIRING LINE with William Buckley at the time. Not knowing much about movies but wanting to make one, they got a guy to invest what they thought was enough money, but wasn’t. This is one of the reasons Kastle ended up directing (Who are they going to get on that kind of budget, Scorsese?) as well as writing. Having never written a script, Kastle procured screenplays from some of his favorite directors – Fellini, Pasolini, Truffaut…and having never directed a movie, Kastle (I surmise from the info I’ve read) shot a lot in a 1:1 shooting ratio. Kastle and Steibel’s inspiration was Arthur Penn’s BONNIE AND CLYDE, but in reverse. I’ll explain that. They thought BONNIE AND CLYDE was too fake because Beatty and Dunaway were so beautiful. They wanted their movie to be more real, even going so far as to pore through court records from the actual events.

After THE HONEYMOON KILLERS, Kastle wrote another script, WEDDING AT CANA, which he tried to get produced throughout the remainder of his life (even having a reading in 2001, 30 years after he wrote it). I bet he was trying to get it made up until the day he died in 2011.

Lonely Hearts Ads

Preshow Entertainment: The 14th Annual Young Comedians Special

We’ve watched a lot of these. It’s an HBO series that began in the late 70s (when it was called ON LOCATION) and went into the 90s. This installment, hosted by Richard Lewis, was from 1991.

Newcomer Drew Carey (this is his first IMDB credit) was one of the comics and he worked the crowd with confidence. Jeff Stilson was more of the Seinfeld ilk. His material held up well, even though he did the typical relationship stuff. Warren Hutcherson did nothing but black jokes.

The show was stolen by Jon Stewart and his, even 23 years ago, mostly political humor. Still in his late 20s, he looked like he was ready for his bar mitzvah. He had the sharpest jokes, including this gem: "I masturbate. A lot. And yet I don't floss because it's too much of a hassle. That's where I'm at emotionally. Ten seconds of joy over a lifetime of tooth decay."

PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: You will believe a man can ride a bike.

A: FUNNY!

Q: I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I?

Le Tour de France. Bicyclists racing through the French countryside. As we track with them, a bike rider in a grey suit and red bow tie pedals past them, accompanied by his trademarked giggle.

When I saw PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) in the theater (it was a sneak preview with NATIONAL LAMPOON'S EUROPEAN VACATION), I thought, wow, whoever this Tim Burton director feller is, I'm sure to love everything he directs. I was wrong. Besides PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (PBA, from here on in) and ED WOOD, I pretty much dislike everything Burton has done. Another thing I was wrong about, using the word "feller."

I probably thought "guy." That said, I'm pretty sure I liked PBA because of Pee-wee over Burton, though I do admit, Burton was a fantastic choice here.

Los Angeles Groundling improv group member Paul Reubens and his Pee-wee character were marginally famous for THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW, a one-off on HBO. But it was this movie that mainstreamed him...as much as Pee-wee could be mainstreamed. Pee-wee goes through life with an infectious and relentless happ-itude that makes us all jealous. Half man/half boy, in a funny (and at times mildly creepy...yet still funny) way, Pee-wee is unencumbered glee. He's the most lovable 98-pound (Don't believe me? When he hops on his scale, it stops at 98.) weakling around, and though he finds joy in just about anything, it's his bike that is his prize possession. His bike, hidden behind a secret motorized shrub accessible through a hidden button panel. Why, Pee-wee himself tells it, "you're the best bike in the whole world."

This movie is Pee-wee's A WIZARD OF OZ journey. Both movies even have sham (are there any other kind?) fortune tellers that go through the hero's possessions so they can lie to them. They also have small dogs, Toto and Speck, in bicycle baskets. There's even a moment where Simone, who he meets on his big adventure, gets to live out her dream, while Pee-wee stands, dejected, almost like he's going to ask the Wizard, "I don't think there's anything in that black bag for me." And instead of a horse of a different color, here we have a pink and a blue elephant. If you're still not sold, when Pee-wee rides his bike, composer Danny Elfman musically references OZ's Miss Gulch's bike riding theme. I wonder how PBA syncs up to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

So Pee-wee wakes from his dream of winning Le Tour de France, puts on his bunny slippers, plays with his toys, and makes breakfast using Rube Goldberg contraptions. And all the time, he's laughing and having fun. And so are we. Though I caution you, don't waste your time wondering why he goes through all that trouble when it's easier just to make breakfast the usual way. And don't question where Pee-wee gets the money to buy all that stuff, or for that matter, pay for his house - a house with a rocket ship and teepee in the front yard. Because this is Pee-wee's world. We just have fun in it.

After visiting the magic shop and bike shop, where Dottie (Elizabeth Daily) works, Pee-wee walks down the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica (yep, there was indeed a Woolworth's there), and right into Act II: When Pee-wee sees that his bicycle has been stolen!

It's a funny sequence, played like a VERTIGO moment, assisted by the Hitchcock-y score courtesy of Elfman (who is a Bernard Hermann fan), as a parade of bikes torments our hero; a unicycle, kids on trikes, one of those 1800s bikes with the huge wheel in front and small wheel in back, a bicycle built for five.

The fun of Pee-wee is that he takes things from real life - sayings, props, you name it - and makes them his, often by not even changing a word....just being Pee-wee. All the kid stuff is here. When taking a tumble from his bike - "I meant to do that." The to and fro of "I know you are, but what am I?," capping it with "Infinity!" The mimicking of your rival's words just to piss him off. And then, there's riffs on other things, like the movie tropes of dreams and love. And Large Marge. ("Did you say...Large Marge?")

What also makes PBA so much fun is the script's ability to invent things and to go anywhere, like we're inside a child's mind. It can go from giant dinosaurs to rodeos to biker bars (though you'd have to be an advanced child for that one). It's at this bar where he performs his signature Pee-wee dance in clogs to The Champs' TEQUILA. Every time I see this movie, I find something else to make me laugh. This time, it was the scene with the hobo on the train, singing songs. At first, Pee-wee loves it, but as time goes by his joviality wanes, and soon, Pee-wee throws himself from the boxcar. I also lost it when he sneaks around the bus to see if Andy (a giant man who was chasing Pee-wee) is still nearby. He is, and when Pee-wee sees him, he jumps in a cartoon move that, well, obviously doesn't translate here in text. On the more subtle side, the way he almost kisses Dottie when they're in the Warners exec's office is hysterical. But nothing, at least on this go-round, comes close to when Pee-wee, in a movie within the movie, plays the role of a front desk clerk at a hotel. First, he's dubbed. Second, he's an awful (on purpose) actor. And third, those bad actor glances he steals into the camera.

Tim Burton's touches are all here, from the stop-motion dinosaur to Pee-wee's Dali-esque fever dream to Large Marge's face. To Godzilla riding in a sleigh. A lot of the production was thought up by Burton, little things like the bathroom window which is actually a fish tank to the elaborate breakfast-making machinations. Credit must also go to David Snyder, the production designer. I imagine this was a really fun movie to work on, even though with its budget, it must have been a bit of a nightmare, prop-wise.

Though repetitive, Elfman's score was a great match for the Burton/Pee-wee feel. He nailed the meld of childlike themes and circus-y time signatures. Themes that he'd elaborate on in his upcoming movies like BEETLEJUICE and BATMAN, and of course, THE SIMPSONS theme song.

Written by Reubens, Michael Varhol and the late and very great (and fellow Groundling) Phil Hartman, PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE was a hit, especially for such a small budget feature. It led to the wildly popular PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE TV show. And although he worked, and still works, Pee-wee is what Reubens is known for, what his fans love, want, and can't get enough of (in 2011, he did an L.A. and Broadway stint...at 55 years of age). Whether he likes this or not, he certainly is aware of it. Even in this 1985 movie, the name Paul Reubens doesn't exist. The credit is "Pee-wee Herman - Himself".

I have two friends who know Reubens, and I myself have spotted him lunching one day. But I don't want to meet him. I want Pee-wee to remain Pee-wee. A loner. A rebel.

INCEPTION

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 02:35:00 +0000

Your RMC II Results Are In!

Tagline: Your mind is the scene of the crime.

Preshow Entertainment: None

Cool Dialogue: They say we only use a fraction of our brain’s true potential. Now that’s when we’re awake. When we’re asleep, we can do almost anything.

Pizza: L.A. Valley Pizzaland

THE INCEPTION
PROVES THE RULES

FIGHT CLUB had eight rules. GREMLINS three. BACK TO THE FUTURE one (88 mph). And when Butch Cassidy kicked Lurch in the balls, there were no rules. But INCEPTION (2010) has a billion rules. Someone actually counted the number of questions asked in this movie – 399. I don’t want to encumber this space with the rules, because they only exist to explain away the illogic of it all so we can take the ride. All we really have to know is that INCEPTION’s rules are plentiful and sometimes ridiculous. And I bought into it all. I liked INCEPTION from its inception to its conclusion. It’s like a set of Chinese boxes that fit within each other.

Entering someone’s dream is so common in fiction that there’s actually a word for it. Yep, it’s “Inception,” and writer/director Christopher Nolan (no relation to Kenny Nolan, who had the 1977 hit “I Like Dreaming”) appropriated the word for his movie’s title, though here its meaning is more specifically “the act of instilling an idea into someone’s mind by entering his or her dreams.” Emma Stone’s good at it. She does it to me all the time.

It makes sense that Nolan would be fascinated by dreams. He did, after all, make a similarly mind-bending film, MEMENTO, a Random Movie Club favorite. And those silly BATMAN movies sometimes have a dream-like feel. Nolan had been dreaming up a dream movie for a decade before actually scripting INCEPTION. I do that too. I sit for years on ideas, let them melt into my brain, scribble notes every now and then. Let the idea grow. Then write the story. The difference here is, he gets his made.

The Puppet Master of this story is Dominick Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, looking oddly a lot like INCEPTION’s Puppet Master Nolan). Cobb’s a single dad with two small kids he never gets to see, not because he’s like some Robin Williams character who doesn’t have time because he runs a giant corporation, and then must learn to connect with his kids. No, Cobb can’t go back to the USA because, well, something about a murder charge.

By trade, Cobb is an extractor; he can go into your dreams and get information. Because he wants to go home to see his kids, he strikes a deal with Saito (Ken Watanabe), a billionaire who can make it happen. In return, Cobb must get into the dreams of Robert Fischer (Saito’s competition played by Cillian Murphy) not to extract an idea, but to plant one inside of him. To do so, Cobb cobbles a crew together, sort of like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE’s force, where every player has their strengths (The TV show, not the movie franchise where everyone’s interchangeable). Cobb’s partner is Arthur (the always confident Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Joining them are identity thief Eames (Tom Hardy) and chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao). Needing a new “architect” to create the dreamscapes, Cobb enlists Ariadne (Ellen Page), who Cobb can somehow tell is qualified by having her draw a maze. She came recommended by Michael Caine, who plays Cobb’s father-in-law, a professor in France who is also wise with advice, you know, sort of like Cobb’s Alfred the butler. So now Cobb’s got his Dream Team.

But I can tell you from first-hand experience that it’s not easy planting information into someone’s subconscious while they’re dreaming. And this plan will eventually have them going into not one level, not two, but three (a dream within a dream within a dream). Level 1 involves a kidnapping, and in Level 2, the team must convince Fischer that his father’s partner is trying to enter his dream to derail him, and that Cobb is there to protect him…and…well, as they say in the relationship biz - it’s complicated. Suffice to say that there are many levels going on simultaneously, although we never reach Level 5, Ladies Lingerie.

If you’re planning an extraction, you should bring along a “totem” when entering someone’s dream. Something only you know how it feels and what it does. Cobb’s totem is a spinning top. If it keeps spinning, he’s dreaming. If it stops, he’s awake. Let’s not get into the reasoning of - If a dream can do anything, why can’t the top stop spinning in the dream? Once you start questioning the logic, you’re out. So either buy into it, or be one of the many who saw this movie as overblown and pretentious (which it is, but it’s also really, really good).

We get to see all these dream sequences play out, which is good since the rest of this 2 ½ hour movie is made up of three things – 1) Rules being explained 2) A large corporation hunting Cobb down for an unsuccessful extraction, and perhaps the reason this whole story is taking place - 3) Cobb’s ex-wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), who haunts his dreams (cause in his dreams, they’re still together) so badly it messes up both his real life and his dreams. And if you mess up your dreams while in the dream-sharing business it can jeopardize the extraction, as well as leave you in limbo for ten years (toldya there are lots of rules). Plus, there’s that whole can’t-see-my-kids-because-I’m-a-wanted-man-in-the-USA thing. Nicely done, Nolan. Give your hero as much conflict as you can, layer it on like dreams on top of dreams. And sure, while you’re at it, make him really good at fighting and being chased. I’m in.

If ever there was a movie that deserves to have the run of the FX house, it’s INCEPTION. By crafting a story about people in dream states (within dream states within dream states…), Nolan gives himself license to incorporate creative effects throughout, and they’re astonishing, be it a slo-mo explosion featuring minute details or an Escher-like city. This movie is truly a trippy masterwork. The scene where Cobb takes Ariadne through the dream is breathtaking, as we watch an entire city unfold into itself. It’s rewarding to see CG pay off so well. So many FX-heavy films are devoid of story and characters, making them passive videogames. But unlike most CG-heavy films, INCEPTION did not rely totally on computer trickery. Many of the effects were “in camera,” with actors and stuntpeople.

Making INCEPTION must have been like creating a magic trick. First you think up the result, and then you spend your time and money thinking how to achieve it. This was undoubtedly a ridiculously hard, challenging shoot, and on a huge scale - yes, the entire restaurant tilted at a 45 degree angle, and yes, that was downtown L.A. in the daytime for the extended car chase sequence, and yes, a train is speeding down a boulevard and crashing into cars, and yes that spectacular zero-gravity hotel fight was a set built inside a gigantic centrifuge…which should be a ride that anyone can take provided they sign an injury and death indemnity waiver. This sequence alone is worth the price of admission (though it’s cheaper to buy the Blu-ray than to have seen it in a theater).

Nolan shoots cityscapes like mazes in dreams where dimensions can shift and environments become Escher-y (maybe that’s why Robert’s dad is named Maurice Fischer…as in Maurits Escher). Nolan’s sets or filters (How would I know? I only went to NYU film school.) wash the screen in slaty tones. Or maybe it’s the inverse. Maybe it’s an absence of color.

INCEPTION’s grand finale plays out in three levels of dreams (plus a bonus limbo layer!), all occurring simultaneously and all action sequences with mostly the same players (some had to be left in previous levels to provide the “kick” that wakes everyone). Each dream moves at a different speed, and each dream has its own goal. Just as the city folded into itself earlier, the stories do now. With all this dreaming going on, it’s amazing no one bumped into Freddy Krueger.

Just like the dreams, INCEPTION itself is a movie with many levels. Yank away its plumes and it’s a heist movie. The next level reveals a love story. Dig deeper and you get a story about a man who hides his guilt and suffers on the inside because he can’t let go. This movie is fun but it’s also complex, and attention must be paid.

One night, amid the days it took to write all this up, I had a dream. I won’t go into it, but it was frightening, and when I awoke I told the dream to my girlfriend. I remembered it very clearly. I went back to sleep and had another dream. In this new dream, I saw the location where the first dream took place, and exclaimed to someone in my dream, “Look! I told you! This is where it happened! There’s the room with the sheet hanging up where a wall should be!” I’m sure trying to figure out how to write about INCEPTION while I was falling asleep was the reason these dreams occurred, but come on, it was just so weird. When I got into bed the following night I took a totem with me. Just in case.