The Interstellar Adventures of the Steely-Eyed Moviegoer

For a guy who declared that April was a lousy month for movies, I sure have seen a lot of them of late.

Granted, that's partly because I spent the weekend at the theater,  not catching up with new releases, but with a lot of mostly older ones. I went to the Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon, which is exactly what it sounds like. And yes, that's a full day of movies in a theater, when the wee hours become the long hours.

I've been to eight or nine of these now and have had tremendous fun at all of them, At some I've even gotten to see, in person, sci-fi luminaries in front of and behind the camera. I saw Phil Tippett, best known for his stop motion effects on the original Star Wars movies, like the space chess pieces and the AT-AT walkers. I also has the great pleasure of listening to Patricia Neal, who is a goddess among sci-fi fans because she played the female lead in The Day the Earth Stood Still. (I would add she's a movie goddess period, for her stellar performances in movies like A Face in the Crowd  and Hud.)

In addition to the feautre-length movies themselves, the marathon also plays an impressively wide array of trailers and shorts. They have so many of these, in fact, that one year, the marathon was devoted to 12 hours of just trailers and shorts - everything from "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century" to the trailer for something as goofy as Disney's Moon Pilot. Hell, even this Disney nut had never heard of that one.

Here was the film line-up this year, along with the approximate times:

Noon - Blade Runner: Actually, the very fine 2009 film Moon was supposed to open the festival, but for some reason, a print failed to come through. So instead, we watched Blade Runner. That was a surprise in itself, but the even bigger surprise was that it was NOT the more widely screened directors cut, but the original 1982 version, complete with narration. This version was better than I remembered, but the "happy" ending is as lame as a guy with two broken legs, and the narration makes the film come across like "Blade Runner for Dummies." Yes, I know, the narration is like the old noirs, but what kills it is the fact that Harrison Ford was bored out of his mind when he recorded the lines under protest - and it sounds like it. Bogart was never that detached.  GRADE: B+ 

2:30 - Ink: The crowd seemed to like this bizaare Ohio premiere that felt like a weird cross between The Matrix and The Elephant Man. If only it were as inventive as that sounds. The plot and the logic are all over the map, as if the writers never bothered to sit down and work out the logic of their world and just made it up as they went. Many in the crowd liked it, and there were some clever visuals, but in the end it was a pretentious, indulgent mess. GRADE: C-

5:30 - Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission: Very entertaining documentary about the video game designer who got to follow in his astronaut father's footsteps and make a trip into space. A little dry, but enthralling overall. GRADE: B+

It was somewhere in here the marathon had its annual costume contest. Typically, this is won by either the cute kid or the girl showing the most skin. Disappointingly, we got neither this year.  The winner was someone in a King Kong costume who actually made a little mock-up of the Empire State Building on which to stand Although  I rather liked the guy who held up two pen lights and said he was "the assistant responsible for J.J. Abrams' lens flares" (in Star Trek).

8:20 - Sleep Dealer: Of the two feature-length premieres, this was by far the better of the two. Sort of a Mexican Strange Days, if you can believe that. It seemed to have far less of a budget than Ink, but it had more imagination.

11:00 - Godzilla vs. King Ghidora: In the myriad of "Godzilla vs. (Insert silly giant creature here) movies, this one was sort of disappointing. It was too serious to be silly and too silly to be serious. And yes, you can say that about a movie that has a monster with three heads. GRADE: C

1:15 AM - The Lost Skeleton Returns Again: Some of you might be wondeirng when I slept. The answer would be here. I zoned out periodically on some of the previous titles, but this was the only one I missed wholesale, and that was kind of an purpose, because I never saw the film to watch this is a sequel, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. So zzzz.

3:15  - Battle in Outer Space: Another cheeseball Japanese film that just wasn't  cheesy enough to keep me awake. More zzzzs.

5:30 - Star Trek (2009): Well, that woke me back up! Still ridiculously entertaining. One question, though: Since when was this film subtitled "The Future Begins," as stated in the program? GRADE: A

8  - Galaxina: Wow. Just ... man. Imagine if Star Wars were directed by a bunch of horny drunks on a combination of mushrooms and Quaaludes and you'll get the idea of what this abysmal dreck is like. It has some notoriety now mainly because it stars ill-fated Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten as a robot, and I won't comment further on her, because it is impolite to speak ill of the dead, and downright rude to speak ill of someone who was brutally murdered. So instead I will marvel at the fact this was badly shot by Dean Cundy, who went on to shoot all three Back to the Future movies, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Apollo 13, among others. And this was made AFTER he shot Halloween! Juat  .. wow. GRADE:  F

10 - 2010: The Year We Make Contact: Hmm. Can't imagine why they wanted to play this. (Kidding, folks.) It hasn't exactly aged gracefully (we still hate the Soviets, huh?) but as far as a sequel to the best science fiction film of all time goes, it works surprisingly well.  GRADE: B


And guess what? I'm still not done with April movies!  Coming soon - quick takes (or better)  on The White Ribbon, Diary of  a Wimpy Kid, The Runaways, and Kick-Ass.

Dede Allen, 1923-2010

Simply, put, an editor as important as she was - and as great as she was, deserves attention even from my meager little corner of the blogosphere.

Pioneering film editor Dede Allen dies at 86 - Yahoo! News

Turner Classic Movies host packs house at Miami Hamilton

My story on Robert Osborne's visit to Hamilton, Ohio.

Turner Classic Movies host packs house at Miami Hamilton

Scorsese to shoot 'Hugo Cabret' in 3D - Variety.com

Scorsese to shoot 'Hugo Cabret' in 3D - Variety.com

Some people may cry foul on this - Roger Ebert, the critic closest to the director, and a 3D detractor, chided Scorsese on Twitter, typing:

Marty! Marty! Can you hear me, lad? This is Father O'Malley. Don't do it, Marty! I'm beggin'. Don't jump!

I can see where Ebert's coming from - Scorsese has an "old school" vibe to his directing, which may make this venture seem like jumping on the bandwagon. But Honestly, the idea of Scorsese kid-lit fascinates me - and the idea that Scorsese will SHOOT in 3D (a la Avatar) and not just post-convert a la Alice in Wonderland, makes it all the more intriguing. Few people have as good a command of film as Scorsese - I trust him to get 3D right.

One friend of mine theorized that 3D may die by the time this film comes out in 2011. Perhaps. But then there was a director who made a movie in the original 3D craze who said something to the effect of "3D was an eight-day phenomenon, and I came in on the ninth day."

The film was Dial M for Murder. The director was Alfred Hitchcock. Didn't exacltly hurt him, did it?

Teaser: Sci-Fi Marathon

Just because the April theatrical slate is lousy doesn't mean there aren't lots of movies to see in a theater - you just have to go off the beaten path. Here's where I'll be going this weekend. More details coming ...

SciFiMarathon.com - Columbus' Best Sci-Fi Movie Marathon

Further evidence that Christopher Nolan RULES

He shot parts of his upcoming film Inception on 65 millimeter film and on Vistavision - two high-quality film formats that have largely been eschewed in today's digital-happy age.

Read the details here, and commentary here via Jeff Wells.

This only further cements Inception's status as the Summer Film I Most Want to See.

Random musings while things settle

Hi folks - I've been meaning to post more often than I have, but I've had a run of bad luck lately and have had no energy when I've gotten home. I've even tried to watch the musical Gypsy to cheer myself up and fell asleep both times, snoozing on the couch all night - the fault of my lack of pep and not the film, I'm sure.

Here are my quick reactions to some film-related pieces I've seen lately.

Can 'Iron Man 2' beat 'The Dark Knight'? | 24 Frames | Los Angeles Times

In the opening weekend? Yes. Total box office gross? No.

The Frenzy On ...J. Lo, You Coulda Been a Contenda

What happened to her? It's really quite simple. Once she was an actress named Jennifer Lopez who starred in the likes of Out of Sight. She then morphed into a celebrity called J.Lo who appeared in the likes of Maid in Manhattan. Actress > Celebrity.


MCN DVD Reviews: April 6, 2010


The only new DVD release I'm interested in seeing is Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The idea of Werner Herzog directing a Bad Lieutenant movie, coupled with Nicolas Cage in off-the-wall mode, is irresistible. But first I have to get through John Woo's Red Cliff, Warren Beatty's Reds or Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces. I only regret that Almodovar's Film isn't called Broken Red Embraces.

When is a Julian Lennon video also a Sam Peckinpah film?: 9 stylistically suspect music videos made by famous film directors 

This was a fascinating piece about film directors losing their mojo when they turned to music videos. The author is absolutely right about Brian De Palma's "Dancing in the Dark" for Springsteen and Sam Peckinpah's Julian Lennon videos - works that show absolutely none of the personalities of the directors.

But "Bad" does have Scorsese-an energy, even if it's not one of his better works. I was surprised to learn that David Fincher directed Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love," video, but stylistically it makes absolute sense - it's just surprising to see the director of Seven coming across as  horny. Maybe Tyler Durden made him do it.

Finally, the author of this piece is understandably amazed that Michael Bay's video for the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" isn't lewdly tasteless. But thinking about this makes me realize music videos and commercials are where Bay should have stayed. He directed the Aaron Burr/Got Milk ad, one of the cleverest commercials of all time, and it's visually stylish without being incoherent. It's when Bay has to direct anything longer than five minutes that he gets into trouble.

What I watched Easter weekend

New to me

The Nun's Story: On most Easter weekends I like to watch something with religious themes, and this film, one of the few major Audrey Hepburn vehicles I hadn't seen, turned out to be quite a fine choice. It took me by surprise at first. Seemed to me Fred Zinnemann usually directed more muscular films like High Noon or From Here to Eternity. But as I watched it, I realized it's a muscular film, it just exercises something we don't think of as a muscle: The heart. The film has just as much emotional punch as those other films, but this one is about the inner torment of Audrey as she struggles to live and serve rightly as a nun. She described this as her own personal favorite performance, and it's not hard to see why - it strongly echoes the real-life charity work to which she devoted herself. But it's also a performance of subtle power - there aren't many big emotional scenes, but Audrey, an excellent actress with her eyes -  handles them all with the grace and skill that came so effortlessly to her. GRADE A

The Uninvited: How this movie ended up in my mailbox I'm not sure; I thought it was further down in my Netflix queue. Still, I remembered why I put it there: I've always really liked Elizabeth Banks as an actress - she seems to me to have the makings of a major star, but works more like a character actress in a leading lady's body. At first I couldn't understand why she wanted to play in what I call the "[Blank] from hell" genre - in this case, she was the stepmother from hell. Or maybe just The Stepmother, since we've now had two versions of The Stepfather. Then, when I saw the film, I understood - because it's really not a "[blank] from hell" movie. I can't say what it really is without giving too much away, but I will say it's a decent little thriller. The "stings" are fairly rote - this film came at the tail end of Hollywood's fascination with Asian horror - but its well acted by Banks, and by Emily Browning, who first impressed as one of the kids in Lemony Snicket. GRADE: B 

Repeats

Apollo 13: For my money, still Ron Howard's best film. It never fails to amaze me that even though we know very well everything we turn out fine in the end, this film still maintains a great deal of suspense on each subsequent viewing. GRADE: A+

Hercules: Hadn't watched this 1997 Disney film in quite awhile, and I still think it's grossly underrated. Yes, I'm sure people who know me will call "bias" but I thought that even before I got to know one of the voice artists. And I still like it better than The Lion King. So there. GRADE: A

Standing in the Shadows of Motown: Supremely (pun intended) documentary about the Funk Brothers, the stellar session musicians who played on all the great Motown classics. I pulled this one out because the tune "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" had resonated with me lately - I think this version even tops the original. Certainly made me wonder why Joan Osborne didn't have more hits. GRADE A

My idea of a happy Easter

Cut from the film Easter Parade, if only because it was thought a suit that leggy was anachronistic for the early 20th century.

The same outfit was resurrected two years later for this more well-known number from Summer Stock, "Get Happy."

Wow! Movies in April SUCK!

Typically January hits the bottom of the barrel for moviegoing, but this year, with the warm weather here in Oho, April's movies feel like a chilling, unwelcome blast of Arctic air. There's exactly ONE film in wide release I really want to see this month - and that may be a record low for me.

This weekend

Clash of the Titans - Part of the charm of the 1981 original was its funky old-school feel. This remake looks like just another case of CGI overload. And to make it even less appealing,  the faux 3D is unwatchable, according to nearly every review I've read. 

The Last Song: No, Miley, I don't take you seriously as an actress.

Why Did I Get Married Too: Tyler Perry's movies have never interested in me, and this isn't changing the tend. That's Why I'll Skip This One Too.

April 9 

Date Night - I like Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. Too bad the director, Shawn Levy, is a hack who makes inexplicably popular fare like the Night at the Museum movies and the first Pink Panther remake.

April 16 

Death at a Funeral - I would rather see the Frank Oz version, thanks. And what in the WORLD is director Neil LaBute drinking when he selects scripts these days? He once made interesting movies like In the Company of Men and Nurse Betty. Now he makes trashier movies like the Wicker Man remake and Lakeview Terrace. Tis a puzzlement and a shame,

Kick-Ass - Here's the exception. This I will see. I have a feeling the geek crowd is going to overrated it, but the trailer is genuinely funny, and the director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust) has real talent. 

April 23

The Back-Up Plan: J.Lo in a glorified TV movie by the same outfit that made Extraordinary Measures. What, you mean you don't remember what that was?

The Losers - Zoe Saldana has great talent, but she alone is not reason to purchase a ticket.

Oceans: I skipped Earth, last year's Disney Nature film, so I see no reason to catch this.

April 30

Furry Vengeance: Brendan Fraser gets abused by animals, and by director Roger Kumble, the maestro behind The Sweetest Thing (one of the worst chick flicks ever made) and College Road Trip. Makes me long for Dr. Dolittle. 


Nightmare on Elm Street - Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger is inspired casting, but Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay's horror shingle, has yet to make a flick with any kind of acclaim. I rather doubt they'll start now.


Oh, well. The good news is that by that point, Iron Man 2 is only a week away. Till then, hellloooo Netflix and TCM!

Ouevres: John Ford

TCM recently played the excellent documentary Directed by John Ford, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Ford needs no help from me in getting his due, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at his work and see how it still resonates today. As Martin Scorsese so rightly says in the doc, "He is the essence of classical American cinema. And any serious person making films today, whether they know it or not, is affected by Ford."

(Which can only make me wonder how Ford plays into Michael Bay, but I digress.)

The documentary also tells one of my favorite Ford anecdotes. In the 60s, when asked who his favorite directors were, Orson Welles (himself no slouch) answered:

"Well, I prefer the old masters, by which I mean, John Ford, John Ford - and John Ford. He's a poet and a comedian. With Ford at his best, you get a sense of what the earth is made of - even if the script is by Mother Machree."

When Bogdanocvich showed this quote to Ford, Ford shot back "Where is Orson?" Bogdonovichh replied, "Well, he's over at the Beverly Hills Hotel." Ford muttered "Mm-hmm."

A couple of days later, Welles called Bogdonovich, asking, "Did you show that quote of mine to Ford?" Bogdonovich affirmed and Welles said he got a telegram from Ford saying: "Dear Orson - Thanks for the compliment. Love, Mother Machree."

Besides finding these stories very striking/funny, I chose Ford because, even though he's never been one of my absolute favorites, he IS one of the greats, and two of his films reflect great personal experiences of mine.

Please note this list is by NO means complete - it only represents the Ford films I have seen so far.

The Informer: Terrific suspenseful morality story with a robust, Oscar-winning performance by Victor McLaglen, Scorsese referenced the film in The Departed. GRADE: A

The Prisoner of Shark Island: Somewhat creaky but still fascinating portrait of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was given a harsh prison sentence after he dared to treat the broken leg of one John Wilkes Booth - and then ended up saving many lives in prison upon an outbreak of yellow fever. GRADE: A-

Stagecoach: If it's not the best Western ever made, it's the quintessential one - and even non-Western action movies owe it a debt. And it also contains the greatest of all movie star entrance shots. GRADE: A+



Young Mr. Lincoln: Wonderful look at the pre-presidential days of Honest Abe, with perhaps that most presidential of all actors, Henry Fonda.  GRADE: A-

Drums Along the Mohawk: Fonda again, this time starring in a lyrical story of frontier lift. This is the film that's playing on TV when E.T. has his drunken telepathic adventures with Elliott. To think that Ford made this, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Stagecoach all in the same year, is nothing less than mind-boggling. GRADE: A

The Grapes of Wrath: It's very different from the John Steinbeck book, yet is faithful to the spirit of it and works completely on its own terms. A model of adaptation. Oh yeah, and that "I'll be there" speech is pretty good too. It was Steinbeck's novel that inspired me to become a writer when I wrote an English paper on the book using similarly evocative prose. If only I could do something similar with film. GRADE: A

How Green Was My Valley: Heart-rending Irish melodrama, outstanding in every way - but it's not a better film than Citizen Kane, the film it beat at the Oscars that year. GRADE: A

They Were Expendable: Fine PT boat war story, boasting a particularly strong performance from Donna Reed as John Wayne's love interest. GRADE: A-

My Darling Clementine: Of all this films made about Wyatt Earp, this is still the only one I've ever seen - and I'm betting it's the best. GRADE: A

Fort Apache: The first of Ford's Cavalry trio. To be honest, it's been so long since I've seen this, I really don't  recall much about it, except that it's quite good, and Shirley Temple was awfully cute as a teenager. And maybe I only remember that because I just watched The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. GRADE: A-

3 Godfathers: I just watched this for the first time recently, and what should have been hokey is actually quite charming as Wayne, Harry Carey Jr. and Pedro Armendariz (who later had a memorable turn as 007's partner in From Russia with Love) play three outlaws who end up having to care for a newborn. Think of it as a prototype of Three Men and a Baby. Features some of the greatest desert photography this side of Lawrence of Arabia. No, really. GRADE: A-

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon: Cinematographer Winton Hoch strikes again with his glorious shots of the lightning over Monument Valley in the second of Ford's Cavalry trilogy. GRADE: A

The Quiet Man: Sure, it's a bit chauvinistic and full o'blarney. But there simply isn't a better St. Patrick's Day movie. Funny story: I went to see this in a theater on a rare day off from work during the week. I was about 32 at the time, and I was the youngest person in that audience by two country miles. Gray/white/blue hair as far as the eye could see. GRADE: A-

Mogambo: Ford remakes Red Dust with the same lead, Clark Gable, but with Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner instead of Jean Harlow and Mary Astor. Not a bad trade-up, and certainly not a bad film with those actors, but I really don't remember much about it now. except that the jungle footage looked fake. Not much of a distinction, is it? GRADE: B

Mister Roberts: Not completely a Ford picture, as he departed the production and Mervyn LeRoy took over, but Jack Lemmon later said, "Mervyn LeRoy would watch all of the rushes that Ford had shot prior to his temporary departure and decided to shoot them the way John Ford would have shot 'em." Wise man. GRADE: A

The Searchers: My second favorite western of all time, after only High Noon. And to heck with True Grit - Wayne never gave a better performance than he did here. The opening shots are absolutely masterful. GRADE: A+



The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Earns it place in film history on the strength of eight words: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." (Now there's a maxim too many outlets take to heart these days), Having Wayne and Jimmy Stewart in the film helps too. GRADE: A+ 


How the West was Won: I had the great privilege of seeing this film in its original three-projector Cinerama. Funnily enough, Ford's sequence, set during the Civil War, is one of the less interesting parts of the picture. Ford's best visuals were understated; Cinerama by its very nature is overstated. Still, it's grand entertainment on the whole. GRADE: A-

Want to know more about Ford? Don't count on the man himself to help you. Best to just watch his movies. They'll tell you all you need to know.

Reboot, reflect, review (Don't You Forget about Me)

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives - and the first day of a new life on this blog.

Upon personal reflection, I've decided to change my approach here. I will still review movies, on the big and small screens. I will still opine on movie-related matters as the mood strikes me. But the manner in which I will do so changes, starting with this post.

I've decided to get away from posts like my wrap-ups of the DVD releases and of the theatrical movies coming out every week. Creating those posts had begun to feel like a chore. I was writing them because I felt I had to - not because I really wanted to.  If anyone wants to know about a particular theatrical or DVD release, or wants to know my thoughts on a particular issue du cinema, you can always ask me, either via comments or email.

My blog audience is very small - about 20-30 readers a day, if I'm lucky, and that's OK. It's mainly friends, family and associates. One of the benefits of having a forum like this is the personal freedom it gives me. And that makes me feel comfortable in taking this blog to a more personal place.

I'm going to treat this blog more as a journal - a movie diary. Some posts will be long, others will be brief. Longer than a tweet, but shorter than a novel. Either way, I'm going to write more often, and more thoughtfully about the movies I see and why I see them. It will do my soul some good, I think, and I hope to continue to give you food for thought too. More to the point, I hope you like what I serve.

So with that in mind ....

Browsing around the movies available for "Instant Viewing" on Netflix, I made an interesting find this week - a movie called Don't You Forget About Me. If those very words conjure up a warm aural bath of synthesiszers and "hey hey hey heys," you've probably surmised the movie has something to do with the late John Hughes. You would be right.

The doc, which is mostly very well done, follows a group of filmmakers as they attempted to track down Hughes and get him to talk on camera about his legacy and why he became something akin to the JD Salinger of cinema. (Obviously, the documentary was made  before Hughes' sudden death in 2009).

While I understood the need to give the movie a narrative "hook," the "looking for John Hughes" segments of the doc are its least interesting. The filmmakers' attempts to find Hughes are well-intentioned but come across as creepy and stalker-ish. It's almost as if someone made the pitch "Hey! Let's trespass on the private property of the most reclusive filmmaker since Greta Garbo, and film ourselves doing it!"

Much more successful are the various interviews. The crew managed to talk to many of Hughes' collaborators like Ally Sheedy, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Judd Nelson and director Howard Deutch, who made Pretty in Pink and its gender-reversed counterpart, Some Kind of Wonderful. No, they're not exactly Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald, but that was OK - I liked hearing the viewpoints of the lesser-known Brat Packers.

Impressively, the filmmakers also scored sit-downs with Kevin Smith (who calls his flicks "raunchy John Hughes films"), Ebert and Roeper, Up in the Air director Jason Reitman (prescience!), and even Jim Kerr, the lead singer of Simple Minds. Most striking of all are interviews with contemporary teens who are big Hughes fans and say that today's teens movies hardly represent them at all. ("Who has sex with a pie?" one wonders.)

And then something strange happened to me. Watching the clips, I found they hit me harder personally than they once did.

Why is that? A little background is in order. When Hughes'  films originally came out, I really wasn't that much into them. With the possible exception of Ferris Bueller, I don't think I saw a single one of them upon their original theatrical release. I caught most of them on VHS later, and liked most of them but did not love them.  I remember giving The Breakfast Club points because it was cool enough to mention John Lennon.

But that was part of why Hughes' films didn't resonate with me as much as they did my contemporaries. In a subconscious attempt to forge an identity as something other than "the kid with cerebral palsy," I cast myself as "the kid who likes the Beatles." It wasn't very cool to like the Beatles in the mid-80s, so I didn't see myself as the kind of angsty teen that populated Hughes' movies. I  prided myself on being off the beaten track and was comfortable in my own skin.

But as I watched Don't You Forget About Me, I found those scenes from Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, et al, resonating me more than they did when I was a teenager. I think that's because in the intervening years, I became more of the angsty lost soul than I used to be.

In large part, this stems from my lack of success in finding a significant other, especially since just last week, I was dealt a bad hand in the dating game. That pill is bitter enough to swallow under any circumstance, but when you're pushing 40, you just about choke on it. Suddenly, all that loneliness and alienation in Hughes' films hit me  where I have come to live. Talk about being a late bloomer.

What does all this mean? Well, I don't expect Hughes' films to shine a bright light and quote Lennon with to an uplifting sing-along of "Love is the answer, and you know that for sure." But seeing that documentary made me realize that Hughes wasn't just speaking to teens - he was speaking to everybody.

Not everybody listened, but I'm starting to do so.   After all, I will always be grateful to Hughes for helping turn the Fabs' "Twist and Shout" into a top 40 hit again via Bueller. For one brief, shining moment in the 80s, everybody knew what I was talking about. Who's to say something like that can't happen again?

Movie grade: B+
Available on Netflix streaming.

Back from a respite, with multiple reviews

Hello, all. I'm sorry for the gap in posts, but I was on vacation and for one reason or another, lacked the wherewithal to write. 

But did I still watch movies? Oh, sure. This post will catch you up with most everything I've seen lately, and then I'll take this blog in a somewhat new direction. More on that later.  

Big-screen viewing

How to Train Your Dragon: Hands down, this is the best picture DreamWorks has ever made. Do I consider it a coincidence that it just happens to be directed by two guys who used to work for Disney? Oh hell no. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois made Lilo & Stitch, and some of the same "strange alien = endearing creature" sensibility reappears here, but this film is very much its own animal. While too many DreamWorks movies are iPod Shuffles of pop culture references, this one tells a story with real heart. Wall Street may say the movie underperformed at the box office last weekend, but I firmly believe the test of time will trump the test of short-sighted shareholders.  The animation is superb, both in its creative character design, and the absolutely breathtaking 3D visuals. It's the best use of the technique I've seen outside of Avatar.  Will young kids like it? Some scenes are intense, but the immensely charming 5-year-old I saw it with immediately started drawing dragons when she got home, if that's any indication. GRADE: A

Chloe: Pulpy sexual melodramas are director Atom Egoyan's stock in trade, and I liked this one better than most critics, thanks to excellent performances by the three leads: Julianne Moore as a woman who suspects her husband is cheating on her, Liam Neeson as the suspected philanderer, and especially Amanda Seyfried as the titular escort who taps into Moore's vulnerabilities. The climax felt a bit too much like it was drafted in from an Adrian Lyne film, but for the most part, the film works. GRADE: B+

The Ghost Writer: This film will forever be known as The Movie Roman Polanski was Making When he was Arrested, which is sort of a shame because it deserves notoriety for being pretty good. It takes perhaps a bit too long to get going and didn't feel very Polanski-esque in the first half, but the second half gains momentum as the director's knack for sinister mysteries takes hold. GRADE: B+

Small-screen viewing

American Pimp: I watched this documentary about pimps because it was directed by the Hughes brothers, who broke through with Menace II Society and most recently made The Book of Eli. The film doesn't do a lot more than say "Pimps are people too," but it does so in visually arresting fashion. 

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer: Solidly entertaining puffball of a comedy that's often mislabeled as a classic. It's not. Oh sure, it has classic stars in Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, but let's face it - they're A-listers working with B material. If they weren't in the film, nobody would remember it today. But since they were, it still endures. And it stands as proof that even though Shirley lost her star power as she got older, she was still damn cute as a teen. GRADE: B

An Education: I didn't actually see this again on the small screen, but it is available on DVD today. Watch it and discover Carey Mulligan, AKA The Main Reason I am Jealous of Shia LeBeouf. If my vote were the only one in the Oscars, she would have won. GRADE: A

Where the Truth Lies: More Atom Egoyan, which I watched in preparation for Chloe. This look at a murder mystery between a Martin and Lewis-like team is not as good as it could have been, largely because it tries too hard to surprise with its twists and turns. Still, performances hold it together, although the best work coms from the least-known name. Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth are good, as one would expect, and even though Alison Lohman is slightly miscast as a naive book writer, she makes a valiant effort. Outshining them all is Rachel Blanchard as the murder victim, who is alternately touching and alluring. GRADE: B

Holy hell! Michael Bay is RIGHT about something!

Michael Bay And James Cameron Skeptical Of 3D Conversions: “The Jury Is Out” – Deadline.com

Key passage: “I’m used to having the A-team working on my films, and I’m going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I’m not. Avatar took four years. You can’t just shit out a 3D movie. I’m saying, the jury is still out.”

PS - Not that I actually expect Transformers 3 to be any good, even if it does have Frances McDormand in it.


More on this issue here.

Review Catch-Up: Green Zone, The African Queen, etc.

Time for an extensive review catch up, on all fronts

In theaters now

Green Zone: Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass' latest collaboration isn't the great film I hoped it would be. By now, a look at malfeasance in Iraq feels like old news, and this was the first time it seemed like Greengrass was repeating himself. I found myself thinking"OK, we know you can do hyperkinetic action (Bourne) and mix it with contemporary history very well (United 93) - what else is in your arsenal?"  Slight staleness aside, Green Zone is still a gripping and extremely well-made thriller, with a terrific performance by Damon.  Many reasons have been bandied about for its underperformance at the box office, but people are missing a good story well told - and that's a shame, whatever the reasons are.  GRADE: B+

DVDs out today

The African Queen: Bogie and Kate. Simply put, no self-respecting movie fan has any excuse not to see this classic now that its finally out on DVD, in a newly restored edition. I'm getting the Blu-Ray box that comes with Kate's memoir about the making of the movie. GRADE: A+




Bigger Than Life: I first discovered this Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) film courtesy of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies. In a way, it's very much of its 1950s era, but it was also ahead of its time in even daring to tackle the dangers of prescription drugs. James Mason, whose talents history still has not fully appreciated, powers the film with an unforgettable performance.  GRADE: A-


Brothers: This drama about a military man's presumed death in Afghanistan has a rather large plot hole, in that the military would never lead a family to believe their loved one was dead, as this movie tells it. Regardless, powerful performances by Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and (in a small but key role) Carey Mulligan make up for any lack of credibility. GRADE: B+

The Blind Side: I can understand why people loved this movie, even if it never struck me as anything more than well-made hokum. Like so many films about the disadvantaged, it pats itself on the back too hard for being noble, but the story remains affecting, thanks in no small part to Sandra Bullock's Oscar-winning performance. GRADE: B+

Fantastic Mr. Fox: Think Wes Anderson's indie sensibilities wouldn't be entertaining for kids? Give this one a try and you might be surprised. His quirkiness meshes rather well with Roald Dahl's mordant humor. Great fun - and as an added bonus, it features one of the year's coolest soundtracks. Full review - GRADE: A-

The Men Who Stare at Goats: If this movie were as goofy as its title, it would have been one of the funniest films of last year; as it is, it feels curiously restrained. I wanted it to cut loose more. It's an amusing goof of a movie, no more, no less. Full review - GRADE: B

DVDs out now 

Astro Boy: Is it just me, or did this look like Frisch's Big Boy became an animated superhero movie?

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz are always worth seeing, even if this one doesn't have the reputation of Volver.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?: Yes, and I heard they sucked, thank you very much.

The Fourth Kind: Hm, strange, I can't find much to say about this Milla Jovovich sci-fi thriller. Even people who saw it can't seem to find much to say about it, best I can tell.

The Princess and the Frog: Better than even Disney thinks it is, given all the Rapunzel/Tangled foolishness. Full review - GRADE: A.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon: The very fact that there are dolls that show Pattinson's/Lautner's ripped physiques is enough to make me reject this franchise altogether. For a series that supposedly caters to teen girls, it's uncomfortably close to Playgirl territory.

Small-screen viewing

The Confederate States of America: Clever idea for a satire: what if the South had won? There's just one teensy problem with the faux documentary - it's not funny. GRADE: C-

The Diary of Anne Frank: Here is the very model of how to turn a stage play into a movie - George Stevens' insightful direction conveys the claustrophobia of the Franks' hideaway, yet very cleverly and cinematically opens up the action with skillful editing and camera moves. Some of the dramatics, especially the romance between Anne (Millie Perkins) and Peter (Russ Beymer) feel a little too "Hollywood,"  but the film is still very moving on the whole. GRADE :A-

Lady for a Day: One of Frank Capra's earlier films is also one of his lesser known works, and that's a shame - it's a very charming fable about a band of hoods who tries to pass off a beggar as an aristocrat to please her long-lost daughter. The story doesn't stand up to scrutiny if one thinks about it too hard, so it's best to just go with the improbable flow. GRADE: A-

Seven Days in May: When this political thriller was remade for cable in the 1990s as The Enemy Within, my best friend who once managed a video store told me a story about a guy who asked to rent the original. He promptly returned it saying "I don't like black and white movies." (Facepalm) That guy missed an excellent drama. Maybe it's a little dry in places, but powerhouse acting by Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Fredric March carries the film. GRADE: A-

'Zero Hour' is Airplane! Altogether!

Surely most if not all of you have heard of the 1980 comedy Airplane!  (Yes, the reference was intentional. And yes, I can hear the responses already.)

Well, as it turns out, there is another very similar movie that is almost as funny - only it wasn't meant to be. It's the 1957 film Zero Hour! And no, I'm not full of hyperbole - that title, too, comes with its very own exclamation point! 

Many Airplane! aficionados, myself included, know that Airplane! was based on Zero Hour! - which was also about a former pilot drafted to fly and land a plane when the crew and several passengers fall ill to food poisoning.


What I didn't know, until I just now watched it, was just how much Airplane! was based on Zero Hour! No, scratch that. Airplane! wasn't based on Zero Hour! Airplane! IS Zero Hour! - with jokes!


The Airplane! script doesn't merely borrow the plot of the earlier movie - it out and out steals it. I recorded Zero Hour! off of TCM, and was astonished to find that pretty much every "straight" line of dialogue in Airplane! was lifted DIRECTLY from the Zero Hour! script. Several dialogue passes in Zero Hour! match Airplane! almost verbatim - right down to lines as mundane as "Our survival hinges on one thing - finding someone who not only can fly this plane, but didn't have fish for dinner. "

The main character, played by Dana Andrews, is even named Ted Stryker (spelled with a sometimes vowel in Zero Hour! and with an always vowel in Airplane!) - although the twist here is Stryker is  the father of the kid who gets to go to the cockpit, but minus nudity, gladiator or Turkish prison references. 

The matches are so close, I'm astonished that Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker didn't mention Zero Hour! anywhere in the credits - not in the main titles or in the goofy end credits, where Charles Dickens does get his due as the "author of a Tale of Two Cities." 

It is a complete and total hoot to watch Zero Hour! and then fill in the comedic blanks - especially when Zero Hour! drops such gems as "It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking." Yes, that line IS in Zero Hour! -  without the escalation to drinking or sniffing glue. And I'm sorry to report that there are no jive talkers in Zero Hour, but there is a hysterically silly "Elvis" shown on one of the TVs. 

And the strange connections don't stop with the dialogue. Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, a  Pro Football Hall of Famer, was cast as the pilot in Zero Hour! - which may have given Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker the idea of casting basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar as the co-pilot in their movie.

This one has nothing to do with Zero Hour! vs. Airplane! but I found it intriguing that the cinematographer of Airplane! was Joseph Biroc who also shot Blazing Saddles. I guess he specialized in zany, oft-quoted comedies that broke the fourth wall.

But here's my favorite connection between the two films. Just as Fail Safe was the serious nuclear war movie to Dr. Strangelove's nutty nuclear war movie, it could be said that Zero Hour! is the serious airline disaster film to Airplane's nutty one - and what's funny about that is, in Zero Hour! the Robert Stack part is played by none other than Sterling Hayden - who played General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. That's enough to make me lose a precious bodily fluid right there. 

I'm not sure who owns the home video rights to Zero Hour! but both it and Airplane! were both released by Paramount. It would be a trip if those were put together as a double DVD package. If Paramount did that, there would be several people, including me, who would like to buy the home video cheif a drink and shake his hand. So there. 





Watch Airplane! vs. Zero Hour (2) in Comedy  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Previews Before Reviews March 19, 2010

The Bounty Hunter - Even before critics put out a hit on this film, I had already decided to avoid it because the ads made it look utterly devoid of humor, intelligence and appeal. Who would have guessed it would make one long for the high water marks of Along Came Polly and The Break Up? And is Gerard Butler made it his goal to appear in one lame Hollywood rom-com a year? Maybe THIS film should have been called The Ugly Truth.



Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Ordinarily I would pass on this one, but since I'm dating a teacher, I just might have to check it out. And as an added bonus, critics are grading this movie as better than decent.



The Ghost Writer - Goes a little wider this weekend, reaching Dayton. I'm always up for Polanski.



Repo Men: Sounds like a lame sci-fi version of Dirty Pretty Things. Pass.

2 Much 3D?

I've found 3D movies a lot of fun, but I worry that the bloom may not be comin' at ya - it may be coming off the rose.

Sure, we just had the great success of Avatar - but unlike most movies released in 3D, it was specifically designed for, and shot in the process. James Cameron shot his movie using at least two cameras per shot, to get the proper 3D effect. Tim Burton, directing Alice in Wonderland, did not. Instead. the 3D was done entirely in post production. I did not see the film in 3D, I saw it "flat" - but many reports I've read indicate the 3D is superfluoous at best, and distracting at worst.

In this piece I've linked to below, a pseudonymous CG supervisor at a prominent VFX house explains why the post technique is not nearly as effective.

The Movie Studios' Big 3D Scam - movie studios - Gizmodo

Key quote:

The process of making a movie 3D after it was shot is a complicated and time consuming process but can be somewhat convincing. The problem is it will never reflect the same results as if you were filming using two cameras, simultaneously, from slightly different perspectives. Endless rotoscoping provides layers that can be separated to fake a different perspective for the second eye, but that's what it looks like, layers. So yes, you can push things away and pull things forward and enhance the depth, but the content within each layer has no depth. We use our eyes everyday and whether you know the geek stuff or not it's just not what we are used to seeing. 

Now we have a bevvy of films coming in 3D. Some will be designed for the process, like DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon. Some will not, like the Clash of the Titans remake. As Cameron himself points out in this interview, 

You know, everybody is an overnight expert. They think, "what was the takeaway lessons from Avatar? Oh you should make more money with 3D." They ignore the fact that we natively authored the film in 3D, and decide that what we accomplished in several years of production could be done in an eight week (post-production 3D) conversion with Clash of the Titans. If people put bad 3D in the marketplace they're going to hold back or even threaten the emerging of 3D. People will be confused by differences in quality.

I've had a lot of fun with the new 3D wave, but it's clear the studios are starting to use it as a way to make more bucks without artfully adding more bang. I'm not going to be seeing Clash of the Titans in 3D - in fact, I plan to skip it altogether, since that will be less a movie than a greedy cash-in on 80s nostalgia. Part of the reason the original Clash was fun was because the effects (created by the legendary Ray Harryhausen) had that funky old-school charm, even back then. Clash of the Titans looks like just another case of CGI sensory overload - and even moreso in 3D.

Bottom line - unless I know a movie is shot with 3D in mind, I won't be bothering with the extra expense.

What do you think?

Why shortening the DVD window is 'dumb'

Per David Poland of Movie City News.

The Hot Blog: D'OH!!! Reasons Why Shortened Windows Are Dumb: #117

As someone who still preaches the value of the theatrical experience, I'm inclined to agree, especially in the wake of Avatar's mega-success. This is typical short-sightedness by Hollywood execs who can't see out any further than a fiscal year. I realize I'm among the dwindling numbers of people who go to the theater frequently, but to say that the theatrical experience is on the way out betrays a lack of vision and thought.

What do you think? Is shortening the window from theatrical to DVD a good idea or a bad idea?

More on the 'Rapunzel' tangle

All apologies, but a truly hectic work day Monday has turned my brain into the same word you use to get sled dogs to run. And I'm sorry to say this may be true throughout the week. I do not possess the presence of mind to write a truly thoughtful post, or to do even the formatting that goes with the DVD posts.

For the time being, however, I wanted to point your attention to this column by Kim Voynar at Movie City News, who, like me, calls bullshit on Disney's rationale that The Princess and the Frog disappointed because it didn't appeal to boys. She cannily sites box office evidence that gives the lie to that reasoning.

MCN: Voynaristic: From Rapunzel to Tangled? Disney's Dicey Decision

I do take issue with Voynar in her claim that the film failed because it wasn't appealing - most people who actually saw the film loved it. It got an A Cinemascore and an A- from Yahoo movie raters. I think the problem was two-fold: Disney was facing not only those damn Chipmunks (Squeakuel indeed!) but it was also fighting years of distaste that arose when many people found their  hand-drawn films lacking. 

As it happens, The Princess and the Frog comes out today for home viewing. I am more than confident that it will find the larger audience it deserves. Here's my full review of the film. Don't lump it in with the misfires. It's a step in the right direction for Disney. Give it a chance and check it out. I think you'll be glad you did.