tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82535414292795253822024-03-23T03:15:15.703-07:00Popcorn OptionalJames H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-84730170015585374072023-07-26T12:00:00.001-07:002023-07-26T12:00:48.756-07:00Movies as MemeThis past weekend was something of a relief for the struggling box office of 2023. After several disappointing weeks, a massive hit landed with the one-two punch of <i>Barbie</i> and <i>Oppenheimer</i>. While studios and theater owners are celebrating, I can’t help but feel uneasy. <div>You see, “Barbenheimer” has become trendy. A hashtag. The latest “it” thing. People are flocking to the theater not because of the films themselves, but because they don’t want to miss out. I’m not here to question the quality of the films and I’m certainly not here to pontificate on the political slant of the films (I’ll leave that discussion to the idiots), but to point out that I think this recent box office bonanza is more about zeitgeist than cinema. </div><div>And to be honest, something about that makes me uneasy. </div><div>There’s little that these two films had going for them that other films this summer didn’t. True, much of this summer has been dominated by sequels and spin-offs and these two are originals (kinda, <i>Barbie</i> is a pre-existing IP and <i>Oppenheimer</i> is a biopic), but if people are really that starved for originality, then why haven’t other original films this year been bigger hits? Why did <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i> underperform? Or <i>Joy Ride</i>? <i>Asteroid City</i>? <i>Beau is Afraid</i>?<i> Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? </i>And so on. </div><div>Are these films simply popular for the sake of being popular? Are we looking at the cinematic equivalent of the Kardashians? If this is to be the new normal in Hollywood, what does this mean for future releases? Instead of relying on franchises and movie stars, is it now going to be about what’s trending, what’s a meme, what’s going viral? </div><div>Let’s be honest, most modern movies are regurgitated garbage. Overblown, huge-budgeted sequels/remakes that most folks want to wait for streaming to watch. I can’t say I blame them. I mean, I work at a movie theater and even I don’t bother watching that much. </div><div>I guess what I’m getting at is that while everyone else is celebrating and cheering this record-breaking weekend, I’m over here feeling uneasy. Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m seeing the writing on the wall. </div><div>Maybe…</div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-26425186961842388532023-06-29T06:21:00.001-07:002023-06-29T06:21:51.408-07:00Boldly Going…I am slowly becoming a Trekkie. <div>I grew up with <i>Star Wars</i>, and I’ve still got a great sentimental attachment to those films (primarily the first three), but I find as I advance in years that I am starting to prefer <i>Star Trek. </i></div><div>(I know that some of you will argue that they are fundamentally different franchises and that one is science fiction while the other is science fantasy but I am comparing the two as they are both major franchises that start with the word “Star” and feature aliens, spaceships and the like.) </div><div>Admittedly, some of the <i>Trek</i> movies are better than others (<i>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan </i>is still the best and I will not hear any arguments) and the shows can be uneven (the fact that “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” has both the worst and arguably the best episodes of the series in the same season speaks to this) but the overall franchise is one that I am enjoying more and more. </div><div>Perhaps it is the idea that we, as a species, finally grow up, embrace our shared humanity and strive to be better. The idea that future humans are altruistic, open-minded and care nothing for money, gender or sexual identity. The ideals of <i>Star Trek </i>and particularly the Federation are hopeful and make me look at the complete mess that is the modern world and think that maybe, just maybe, it will get better. </div><div>A reoccurring plot point in <i>Star Trek </i>is that (in the show’s cannon), the twenty-first century was a shitshow, full of hostility, greed and cruelty, which is not too far off the mark. However, also according to the lore (not Data’s brother), it is because of this awful century that humanity decides to pursue a better path. </div><div>Maybe, right now, a little hope is what I need. </div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-32462204891662259482023-06-21T21:42:00.001-07:002023-06-21T21:42:08.520-07:00The Language of Movies<div>*Potential Trigger Warning*</div><div><br></div>I recently had a conversation with a co-worker regarding “The F Word.” The co-worker was telling me how much she hated the word in question and I was somewhat perplexed, as I was certain that I had heard her use it before. As the conversation continued, I eventually realized that we were talking about different “F Words.” I was talking about the one that rhymes with “duck” and she was talking about the one that rhymes with “rag” (or “maggot”). <div>This got me thinking. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, that particular slur was commonplace, not only in the schoolyard but also in film and television. Hearing comedians casually say “faggot” or “retard” was not unusual and such words were met with little to no condemnation. Seeing a man cross dress or undergo sexual reassignment surgery was often the butt of many jokes. </div><div>Ethnic slurs were definitely out, unless your goal was to illustrate that someone was ignorant or cruel. This has been the case in Hollywood films for a long time, but there are other racist crimes that Hollywood is guilty of (hearing Humphrey Bogart say “It’s mighty white of you,” is unsettling- what the young people today call “cringe”). Sometimes slurs (particularly the dreaded “N-word”) can be thrown around casually by African-American comedians and entertainers and this is often given a pass. This can backfire, of course, if you’re a white kid in the suburbs reciting an Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor routine without really grasping what is being said. </div><div>Much has been made of the “woke mob” being too sensitive to appreciate a good joke and while I think that despising someone because they believe in the equality of all humans is peak right-wing stupidity, it does bring me back to a discussion I’ve had before: what to do <span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">about those older films that contain that sort of language or depictions? </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">I have long thought, and continue to believe, that the best course of action is a simple disclaimer. This alerts viewers while leaving the films themselves untouched. There are those (see “right-wing stupidity” above) who think that disclaimers are wrong but I find it interesting that they are often the same people who are horribly offended by the mere mention of an LGBTQ+ person in a Disney film. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">The films I grew up watching that contained that kind of language absolutely affected me and I am now trying to purge from my vocabulary the words that were okay thirty-odd years ago that are no longer acceptable. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">Is it giving into the “woke mob”? </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">No. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">It’s simply me trying to be a better person than I was. </span></div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-84602069119394938672023-06-02T10:10:00.001-07:002023-06-02T10:10:16.727-07:00The Safety of the MoviesThis one is going to be a little hard to write. <div>For many, perhaps even most, people, movies are entertainment and little more. Something to look at while you eat popcorn, a fun Saturday night and so on. For others, movies are an art form to be analyzed and studied. Neither of these approaches are wrong, but neither fully explains me and my approach to movies. </div><div>When I was growing up, we had a VCR, a big silver model that was top-loading with a remote control that was attached by a long cable. Because of this early 80’s technological marvel, we had lots of tapes full of movies we taped off TV. To this day, if I watch one of those movies that we had taped off TV (even if it’s on Blu-Ray), I still no exactly where the commercials are. Everyone in my family liked movies. We would recite our favorite bits at dinner and it was one of the few things that we did with each other. </div><div>For me, movies was where we didn’t argue, where we didn’t fight, where no one had screaming breakdowns threatening suicide. In short, they were safe. </div><div>I leaned into this safety. This bit of escapism wherein true love conquered all, where villains got their comeuppance, where families were dysfunctional but loving and where anything was possible. In those movies, I wasn’t woken up by my brother choking me. In those movies, I didn’t have to listen to my mother tell me for the umpteenth time that one day she was going to leave and that I’d never see her again. In those movies, I wasn’t fat, weak and confused. </div><div>I did what seemed right at the time: I watched more movies. LOTS more movies. Before long, I was watching films that others in my family had never even heard of. What my family saw was a fat, antisocial teenager sitting on his ass watching TV. What I saw was the entire world. I saw Samurai and silent clowns, sadistic gangsters and honest cops (sometimes the inverse), a place where the little guy could win, where the beautiful girl would find his idiosyncrasies and neurosis adorable rather than weird. </div><div>Is it any wonder why films became the great love of my life? </div><div>I know I’m not alone on this. Many people use art as a method of escape, be it music, books, paintings or what have you. My escape just happened to be movies. </div><div>These days, movies aren’t an escape anymore. I have a better wife than I could have ever hoped for and children that are wonderful. Now, it’s just a passion, a love that I try to share with others. I sit on the couch with my family and watch a movie just to share, just so they can enjoy it.</div><div> I no longer want to escape. </div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-59035701021259003292023-05-19T12:59:00.003-07:002023-05-19T12:59:38.049-07:00Blood, Devastation, War, Death and Horror<p> Recently I was having a conversation about violence in the movies. One of my coworkers is extremely averse to violence in film and television to the point where they find it incredibly upsetting. When confronted with a violent image, they react first with disgust and then with anger. "And they wonder why people are out shooting each other!" they exclaimed. </p><p>This got me thinking. </p><p>I've seen lots of violent films and television shows. Cartoonish violence, historical violence, realistic violence, violence that is meant to be stomach-churning, et cetera. And yet, I have never committed an act of violence. I own no guns and have no interest in ever firing one. I own a few pocket knives but they were all gifts. Am I the exception or the norm?</p><p>Fun fact: I'm the same age as the perpetrators of the Columbine School Shooting. I too was picked on by other students, I too wore a trench coat and I too saw films like <i>The Matrix </i>and <i>Basketball Diaries</i> (both of which were brought up a lot in the days immediately following the tragedy). However, in spite of all of this, it never even crossed my mind to bring a gun to school. Why would I? I was told that once I graduated, I would probably never see these people again and that turned out to be very, very accurate. </p><p>So, why were all of the ingredients there, but the recipe didn't work? Why is it that I can watch extreme violence in films and television and be unaffected by it? Or am I being affected and just don't know it? </p><p>Perhaps I should clarify the previous statement. When I say that I am unaffected by the violence, that doesn't mean that I view it in a state of numbness or apathy. I am disgusted when I see a graphic depiction of rape or war atrocities (as one should be). I tend to laugh off over the top cartoonish violence (like <i>Evil Dead 2</i>) and there is something satisfying about seeing a truly villainous character receive their graphic comeuppance. I never feel bad when zombies are destroyed in blood-soaked carnage. Watching Donnie Yen beat the everliving crap out of a group of people is pretty thrilling. <i>The Raid: Redemption</i> is thrilling and exciting. Conversely, <i>Come and See</i> or <i>Schindler's List</i> are extremely upsetting. The awful things inflicted on the protagonist of <i>The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo</i> is almost too much to watch. </p><p>Perhaps context is what matters. Anonymous bad guys being mowed down by John Wick can be shrugged off. A samurai slicing through a crowd of hired assassins is exciting. A Nazi officer shooting random people just because he can is disturbing. </p><p>An example: I've been watching <i>The Little Shop of Horrors</i> (1987) more or less since it first came out. Rick Moranis feeding people to a monstrous plant didn't bother me, but what did bother me, and still bothers me to this day, is watching Steve Martin's sadistic dentist slap around his girlfriend. Maybe it's simply because people-eating plants don't exist (as far as I know), but assholes who slap around their girlfriends do. Maybe because it's Steve Martin doing the slapping. The Wild and Crazy Guy, the goofy comedian, the Father of the Bride shouldn't be smacking a woman around (I mean, no one should, but you see my point). The plant can eat whoever it wants. </p><p>This is not very focused, and I'm sorry for that. I'm still weighing a lot of this in my mind and perhaps even I am a little unsure of what point I am trying to make. </p><p>Oh, well. It's not like anyone reads this stuff anyway. </p>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-62202942505365274152023-05-04T20:33:00.001-07:002023-05-04T20:33:55.533-07:00Inherit The Earth: The Most Mediocre Movie You Never SawNot many people know this about me, but half a lifetime ago, I made a movie. At the ripe old age of twenty-one, I wrote, produced and directed a feature film called <i>Inherit The Earth. </i>It was a coming-of-age drama about a seminary student who meets and falls in love with a free-spirited young woman who opens his eyes to the world. I shot it on digital video and made the whole thing for around $2,000 (yes, really). <div>So, where is this film now? </div><div>No idea. </div><div>See, the funny thing is, I never one hundred percent finished the movie. I shot all of the scenes I wanted to shoot and edited the film how I wanted it edited, but the guy who was supposed to write the score never came through. (That’s what I get for trusting my brother.) The final sound mix was never finished because we never got the music. </div><div>The film was screened three times: once at the church where we filmed a few scenes (Unitarians, nice people), once at an art house where cast and crew brought their friends and family and once at some old ladies house because I was looking for completion funds (all three women in attendance fell asleep). We used music that we had no legal right to, but thankfully, no one turned us in. </div><div>Eventually, the film I had worked so hard on wound up in a box at the back of my closet, a VHS that gathered dust until the day it was finally thrown away. I threw it away because looking at it made me sad. Not because the film was compromised (low budgets force you to compromise), and not because my ex-wife was in it (and dare I say she was actually pretty good, too), but because I viewed it as yet another failure. Not only was this incomplete, shot on video and wholly unmarketable movie sitting there with my name on it, more importantly, it was a constant reminder that I didn’t try again. </div><div>“So your first movie sucked. So what? Get over it and make another one!” you might say and <span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">logically, you would be right. But I didn’t try again. I was defeated and I slunk back with my tail between my legs. Even know, writing about it for the first time ever, the sadness is almost overwhelming. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">Making a movie is work. It can be extremely stressful, difficult and exhausting. It can ruin friendships, can turn anyone into a raging lunatic on set (like when I attacked a water fountain for turning on mid-scene and ruining the take- not my best moment) and can make you wonder why you even fucking bother. But, there is something wonderful about seeing your name up on the screen, about hearing an audience react to what you created and knowing that if you do absolutely nothing else with your life, at least you made <i>this. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">But now it’s all gone. Like tears in the rain, to borrow a line from <i>Blade Runner. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">If, by some miracle, a copy of my film were to turn up, what would I do? Would I hold on to it, for old times sake, or would I once again dispose of it, letting it dissolve in the dustbin of history ? </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; display: inline !important;">I honestly don’t know. </span></div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-44209014514239101172023-04-29T09:25:00.001-07:002023-04-29T09:25:58.698-07:00The Monsters and Me -or- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love HorrorGrowing up, we had lots of VHS tapes. Not store-bought movies, but blank tapes that we filled with movies taped off television. We had all kinds: science-fiction, drama, comedy, children’s films, classics and so on. What we didn’t have was horror. <div>Well, that’s not entirely true. We had exactly two horror films: <i>Poltergeist </i>and <i>House of Wax</i>. </div><div>Growing up in the 1980’s was a booming time for horror. It seemed like every few weeks there was a new horror film playing at the local theater, often the latest <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street </i>or<i> Friday the 13th. </i>On our frequent trips to Blockbuster, there would always be new horror films on the New Release wall, often with lurid, shocking (and enticing) artwork. </div><div>But these films were forbidden, by decree of Mom. </div><div>She didn’t (and still doesn’t) like horror, therefore we weren’t allowed to watch it either. In retrospect, it’s a little strange, considering what she <i>did </i>let us watch. I remember watching <i>The Color Purple </i>when I was about six years old and obviously not understanding most of what I was seeing. I saw both <i>Dances With Wolves </i>and<i> Schindler’s List </i>in theaters, at the ripe old ages of nine and twelve, respectively. Not that these are bad films, far from it, but I find that I, as a parent now, have the exact opposite view that my mother did. I’m more okay with my kids seeing monsters and fanatical horrors than real-life ones. </div><div>Anyway, as I got older and began broadening my cinematic knowledge, horror was still a blind spot for me. On Halloween, after trick-or-treating, my friends mom would let us watch Universal Monster movies like <i>Frankenstein </i>or<i> Dracula. </i>A few years later, I managed to sneak a screening of <i>Bram Stoker’s Dracula </i>when it came on HBO. I had even, when I was home alone, surreptitiously borrowed my older brother’s copy of <i>Army of Darkness, </i>a film I expected to completely terrify me. Imagine my surprise. </div><div>It wasn’t until I got to college, surrounded by other film nerds that I started really looking at horror and then it was just so I could keep up with the conversation. It was around this time that I discovered and embraced the films of John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and George Romero. I still hold a special place in my heart for the Universal Monster movies and the Roger Corman/Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe films, but I am also a huge fan of the <i>Evil Dead </i>franchise and Romero’s zombie films. </div><div>I believe that John Carpenter’s <i>The Thing </i>is an absolute masterpiece. I love that films like <i>The Wicker Man </i>and <i>Audition </i>don’t really become horror films until the third act, and then what horrors they unfold! While I’m still not a big fan of “torture porn” and most slashers leave me cold, I can now happily point to many horror films that I love and admire. </div><div>I just don’t show them to Mom. </div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-69846158770340138912023-04-25T09:13:00.001-07:002023-04-25T09:13:55.844-07:00In Search Of Something Different I go through phases in my film viewing. For example, last year I went through a phase wherein I was absolutely enthralled by early cinema, the works of the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies and W.K.L. Dickerson. I watched lots and lots of the earliest films, because the prospect of watching an art form be born and discover itself was fascinating to me. Currently, my attention has swung in a radically different direction: towards grindhouse and B movies. <div>I recently purchased Arrow Video’s wonderful box set <i>The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast </i>and I’ve been watching films that aren’t necessarily good, but at least they’re different and right now, different is good. </div><div>You see, I saw <i>The Super Mario Bros Movie </i>and <i>Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, </i>two films that the majority of people enjoyed. I stand outside those theaters and listen to people exiting them, with big smiles on their faces talking to each other about how great the films were and I inwardly (sometimes outwardly) roll my eyes. I thought <i>Mario </i>was dreadful, but mercifully short and I found <i>D&D </i>to be okay at best. As I look at the slate of upcoming films, I find very little to get excited about. I’m tired of Marvel movies and superhero movies in general (although, admittedly <i>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse </i>looks promising). I’ve never seen any of the <i>Fast and Furious </i>movies, so I really don’t care about the tenth (!) one. The last <i>Indiana Jones </i>movie was terrible, so I have little hope for the next one. </div><div>Even last year, <i>Top Gun: Maverick </i>did not “restore my faith in the magic of movies” (I found it boring because it was essentially a remake of the first film). </div><div>Am I turning into an elitist snob? </div><div>Probably. </div><div>But, it’s also that I just want something <i>different. </i>So, yes, I got more enjoyment out of <i>Blood Feast</i> than <i>D&D.</i> I’m looking forward to my next shipment from Vinegar Syndrome which has <i>From Beyond, The Cat Creeps </i>and <i>Curucu Beast of the Amazon </i>far more than anything hitting the multiplex in the next few months. </div><div>It’s not that I inherently dislike mainstream Hollywood films, I’m just getting bored with them. It’s like if every restaurant was a burger joint. After a while, a taco or some Chinese food sounds fantastic. </div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-52265569344021862222023-04-17T11:29:00.001-07:002023-04-17T11:29:43.986-07:00Boutique LabelsI’ve never been one for brand-name labels. When other kids (or even siblings of mine) stressed about having Tommy Hilfiger or Calvin Klein, I never cared. I was more interested in what was on my shirt than what was on my label. I freely admit that at awards shows, when vapid TV hosts ask “Who are you wearing?” I always think <i>Who cares?!?</i><div>However, I appear to be turning a corner on this issue. Not on my clothes, necessarily (although I am becoming a fan of Doc Martens), but on video labels. </div><div>It used to be, whoever put out the tape or disc was whoever made the movie: Universal, Paramount, Disney, whatever. Now, as physical media moves more and more towards collectors (as the average consumer is content with digital content) boutique labels are on the rise. </div><div>The front-runner, and arguably the king of boutique video labels is The Criterion Collection. Boasting films from Kurosawa, Bergman, Chaplin, Welles, Tati, Bresson, Fellini and so many others, their roster is incredibly impressive. This, coupled with their restorations, bonus features and packaging, it’s no wonder that they have the reputation that they do. </div><div>However, as great as Criterion is, Kino Lorber is also worth many accolades. While Kino has distributed wonderful Blu-Rays of the films of Truffaut, Spike Lee, Rian Johnson and many other contemporary filmmakers, I believe that where they really shine is when it comes to silent films. In addition to the complete films of Buster Keaton, Kino has also released beautiful restorations of the films of F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and Lon Chaney. Perhaps their greatest contribution has been in releasing <i>Pioneers of African-American Cinema </i>and <i>Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers. </i>These two sets are indispensable for anyone interested in film history. </div><div>Shout Factory/Scream Factory also does great work. They have released two collections of the films of Werner Herzog as well as some frankly amazing restorations of John Carpenter’s horror films. They are also the home of one of my favorite television shows, <i>Mystery Science Theater 3000. </i>Their box set of all five films in <i>The Fly </i>franchise is also worth checking out and it’s one of my favorites. </div><div>Arrow Video specializes in horror and science fiction and their Blu-Rays are something to behold. Around the same time that The Criterion Collection released their amazing <i>Godzilla </i>collection, Arrow Video put out two box sets containing every film featuring everyone’s favorite giant flying turtle, Gamera. Arrow is also where you will find the films of Takashi Miike, the <i>Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast </i>box set (featuring fourteen films from the Godfather of Gore), <i>Hellraiser, The Hills Have Eyes</i> and so many other great horror and science fiction films. </div><div>Last, but not least I want to talk about Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome. I’m putting these two together because they both specialize in off the beaten path releases and grindhouse fare (not exclusively, mind you. Severin released the amazing British TV-movie <i>Threads </i>and Vinegar Syndrome released Buster Keaton’s last film <i>The Railrodder). </i>Thus far, my favorite releases from these two labels are Vinegar Syndrome’s <i>The Films of Rudy Ray Moore </i> box set and Severin’s release of <i>Werewolf in a Girls Dormitory </i>(which just might be my favorite movie title of all time- no synopsis is required). These films look great, they sound great and they never fail to put a smile on my face. </div><div>There’s other, smaller labels I could talk about, like Blue Underground, Grindhouse Films, AGFA and others, but I really just wanted to highlight some of my favorites and come to terms with the fact that for the first time in my life, a label matters. </div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-10738191804756965042023-04-13T12:19:00.001-07:002023-04-13T12:19:41.375-07:00The Great ShuffleI keep my movie library in alaphabetical order…mostly. <div>Whenever I buy a new movie (or two or ten), I have to shift everything down to maintain the order of things. My wife likes to laugh at me about this, using it as an example of my selective OCD. </div><div>My book library, I should note, isn’t arranged in any special way. Often, but not always, books by the same author are together, but that’s about it. If I want a specific book, I have to <i>look </i>for it. </div><div>When I said “mostly” alphabetical, what I meant is that I will put all films in the same franchise together, regardless of their specific title (for example, all of the <i>Planet of the Apes </i>films are under P and all of the Marvel movies are under M, and in order of release). If it is a box set from a specific filmmaker or actor, it is under their last name (Marx Brothers are under M, Martin Scorsese under S). And all of my Buster Keaton films are under K and in order of release. My system works for me. It might seem silly or weird, but I do honestly enjoy shuffling them around. If nothing else, simply because it gives me the opportunity to look at certain films I own and go “Oh, yeah. That’s a good one.” </div><div>My collection is growing so large however, that I’ve had to start relegating certain DVDs to other places. I’ve put all my TV DVDs on a separate shelf and all of my <i>Mystery Science Theater 3000/Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic</i> DVDs and Blu-Rays have their own special video rack in my bedroom. I’m also using the top of the large video racks to store big box sets, like Criterion’s Ingmar Bergman or their <i>Godzilla: The Showa Era</i> set. </div><div>Why am I talking about this? </div><div>I dunno. </div><div>Maybe for the same reason that I organize my movies like I do: because I’m weird. </div><div><br></div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-67349196330755773092023-04-11T10:53:00.000-07:002023-04-11T10:53:19.464-07:00Five Film Book Recommendations Here’s five film books that I can easily recommend. This is not a definitive list, nor is it the Top Five, it’s just five that I enjoyed. <div>More to come. </div><div>Pace yourself. </div><div><br></div><div>1) <i>The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune </i>by Stuart Galbraith. This dual biography/filmography is exhaustively researched and comes with literally hundreds of pages of notes, appendices and lists. It’s great for anyone interested in what was arguably the greatest actor/director combination in cinema history. </div><div><br></div><div>2) <i>Conversations With Wilder </i>by Cameron Crowe. Rock journalist turned filmmaker Cameron Crowe sat down with the late, great Billy Wilder and this book is a wonderful, indispensable record of their talks. In it, Wilder talks not only about his films, his contemporaries, the actors, actresses, writers and studio executives that he had the fortune (or misfortune) to deal with over his multi-decade career but also, his tips for writers (which I used to have hanging over my desk) to his opinion on then-current release <i>Titanic </i>(“Have you ever seen such horseshit?”). It’s no wonder that after compiling this book, Crowe went on to make his masterpiece <i>Almost Famous</i>. </div><div><br></div><div>3) <i>Writing Movies For Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too! </i>By Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant. This witty, no BS book details the highs and lows of being a professional screenwriter in Hollywood. While being encouraging, it also reassures you in some of the hard facts of how movies are made (“you will get fired”). It also breaks down some of the more obscure jobs on a typical film set, gives you the addresses and menu recommendations for L.A. landmark In-N-Out burger and shares humorous stories of various celebrity encounters. </div><div><br></div><div>4) <i>The Lady From The Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick </i>by Mallory O’Meara. If you’ve never heard of Millicent Patrick, don’t feel bad, too few people have. This book is a long-overdue exploration of the woman who was instrumental in creating The Creature From The Black Lagoon be was subsequently uncredited in the final film. Interwoven with Patrick’s story is O’Meara’s, in which she doggedly pursues any and all information on Patrick while simultaneously dealing with critics (often men), who are either condescending or tell her that it would be better as an article rather than a book. I can honestly say that the moment I heard about this book, I preordered it. </div><div><br></div><div>5) <i>Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker </i>by Patrick McGilligan. Honestly, all of McGilligan’s biographies are great reads, but I’m picking this one because it’s the first book of his that I ever read and because at the time I read it, I had never heard of Oscar Micheaux before. Micheaux, one part entrepreneur, one part artist and one part conman, was writing, directing and producing Black-centered films back when being an independent filmmaker was a huge challenge, let alone being a minority one. Micheaux’s films have been collected on Kino Lorber’s excellent box set <i>Pioneers of African-American Cinema </i>and are often streaming on The Criterion Channel. It is a fascinating exploration of not only an individual, but a time when inclusivity was virtually nonexistent and people yearned for cinema that represented them. We’ve come a long way, but we’re not there yet. </div><div><br></div>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-86074312889624336812023-04-10T11:02:00.000-07:002023-04-10T11:02:00.626-07:00Six Years Later…<p> I’ve been through many things in my life. Three children, two wives, five states in three time zones, God knows how many jobs, etc, etc, etc. But, the one constant in my life has been movies. I talk about movies (a lot), I watch movies, I buy movies (probably more than I should), I read books about movies and so on. </p><p>More than once, in times of sadness, I’ve questioned my love of film. I’ve worried that others would view my love of movies as shallow, or indicative of a lack of literacy. I’ve re-enrolled in college to study literature, because that’s a “serious” art, unlike cinema (or so I thought). I’ve purged my physical media collection, telling myself that I should only own “great” or “important” films, that there was no room for schlock or simple entertainments. </p><p>Why do I do this? Why do I question my love of something? Why do I not simply acknowledge my love and move on with my life? </p><p>Put simply: I have issues. </p><p>It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve come to accept, even embrace my love of all things cinema. Sadly, I had to go through some pretty dark stuff to reach this point. Thankfully, I have a wife that understands, even if she doesn’t share, my passion. I can’t imagine my life without movies and I don’t want to imagine my life without her. </p><p>I’m going to make a point of updating this blog a bit more frequently (I know, I know: I’ve said that before), but now I want to focus less on academic analysis and trying to impress strangers and more on just being honest. This will be a place where I share my thoughts on all things movies: collecting physical media, boutique labels, the cinema experience, how films are intertwined with memory and anything else that happens to pop into my head. </p><p>Will I still talk about movies? </p><p>Well, obviously. </p>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-18137390479040008862017-10-02T22:18:00.003-07:002017-10-02T22:18:49.375-07:00Intermission Okay, so it's been a really, really long time since I posted. Sorry about that. In my defense, it's been a rough couple of years.<br />
Oh, sure there been some good stuff, too. My wife and I have another son, he's a year and a half and his hobbies include chewing on shoes and screeching. I've been writing, but, you know, books, not movie stuff.<br />
Let me tell you about some of the things rolling around in Ol' Duder's head. I have this theory (call it a mindset, if you will) that once you write something and put it out there for the world to see, it's etched in stone. It is sacrosanct. This mindset/theory causes me to be terrified of putting even the *slightest* toe out of line, for fear of looking foolish. This, my blog has always been (or at least tried to be) academic sounding, high falutin', fancy pants stuff.<br />
Well, no more of that.<br />
I love movies. I love talking movies with people. It turns a stranger into a friend. Even if (sometimes because) I disagree with them. Talking about movies makes me happy and I think that in the past on this blog, I've been so concerned with sounding smart that I neglected to sound happy.<br />
So, get ready for Happy Fun Movie Time! (Sounds like a Japanese game show.)<br />
<br />
Have you ever been to a movie with an intermission? I haven't (unles you count <i>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</i>). However, when I went to see <i>Gangs of New York</i>, the power blinked right after DiCaprio left the cave and hung the rabbit on the fence. We sat and waited. Some folks took the opportunity to hit the bathroom. Eventually, they told us that when the power blinked, it caused the bulb in the projector to blow. The (then) wife and I got some free passes and came back the next night, but we had to sit through the first two hours of the movie again.<br />
Oh, well.<br />
It's still one of my favorites.<br />
<br />
It's good to be back.<br />
<br />James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-5188418776927672592014-09-20T07:27:00.003-07:002014-09-20T07:28:30.294-07:00Remakes
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Remakes. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is there any word that creates more
animosity in the minds of filmgoers than this? </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Why can’t they just make something
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new</i> instead?” we complain, and
justifiably so. </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of the time. </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because, while it is as rare as
hen’s teeth, every once in a while, Hollywood cranks out a remake that stands
alongside it’s classic forefather, and, even more rarely, manages to surpass
it. Lest we forget, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i> with
Boris Karloff was a remake. As was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wizard of Oz</i> with Judy Garland. Oh, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Maltese Falcon</i> with Humphrey Bogart (twice over- once in 1931 and again in
1936 as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Satan Met a Lady</i>). </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A more modern example is 1982’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">John Carpenter’s The Thing</i>, a remake of
1951’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thing from Another World. </i>In
Carpenter’s film, the giant cabbage-headed alien (played by James Arness) is
replaced by a shape-shifting alien that copies anyone or anything it comes in
contact with and can exist entirely within a single drop of blood. The resulting
film is a masterpiece of paranoia, fear, claustrophobia, and mind-blowing
practical special effects (courtesy of Rob Bottin).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the original is nothing to sneeze at, a
side-by-side viewing will leave most audiences preferring the later film (I say
most, because there is no such thing as a movie that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everyone</i> likes). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another sci-fi remake worthy of its
predecessor is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invasion of the Body
Snatchers </i>(1978), which replaces the original film’s small-town paranoia
(and debatable Cold War metaphor) with urban San Francisco, as well as removes
the original’s happy ending (which feels tacked on) with a more terrifying
vision of the global loss of humanity. Stephen King in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Danse Macabre </i>explains why he prefers the 1956 vision of “people
who you know becoming people you no longer know,” and he makes a good case for
it. Again, much like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thing from
Another World</i>, the 1956 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invasion of
the Body Snatchers</i> is a great movie, one that is absolutely worth viewing
along with its 1978 copy. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would, however, avoid the 2007
version with Nicole Kidman. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Actually, maybe you should just
avoid anything with Nicole Kidman.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What these two films have in common
is that they take the original premise, and expand upon it, changing it enough
that it becomes its own film, rather than simply trying to ride the coattails
of a respected classic. When done correctly, this can vastly improve upon the
original story. (To be fair, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">John
Carpenter’s The Thing</i> is closer to the source novella <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who Goes There?</i> than the 1951 version, so his version was more of a
“going back to the well” remake.) Philip Kaufman realized that idyllic little towns
no longer existed, and that we were heading into the “Me Decade” of the 1980’s,
still riding the late 70’s ideals of “I’m Okay, You’re Okay,” and saw this as fertile
ground in which to plant his soul-stealing pods. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sure, it doesn’t always work. The
2008 version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Day the Earth Stood
Still</i> was terrible, even for a Keanu Reeves movie, and that’s saying
something. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psycho
</i>was 105 minutes of lip-synching. And 1976’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King Kong</i> had a giant mechanical ape going up against Charles
Grodin and Jeff “The Dude” Bridges (controversial statement- I like the 2005
version. There, I said it and I’d say it again if I had to). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Waters in an interview once
wondered why Hollywood remakes good movies, instead of the bad ones, perhaps
trying to get it right this time. It is an interesting idea and one wonders
what someone like Guillermo del Toro could do with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manos: The Hands of Fate</i>. James Gunn’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Robot Monster</i>? How about Martin Scorsese’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glen or Glenda</i>? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Okay, I’ve gone too far. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My advice to Hollywood when it
comes to remakes is this: unless you have a director with a vision, someone who
respects the original and sees areas that they can expand or improve upon,
perhaps you should just leave it be. If the original was a commercial and
critical flop, and you’ve got someone who know what to do with that material,
proceed, but with caution. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If what made the original so great
was the original director and/or cast, don’t do it (remaking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Good, The Bad and the Ugly</i> with
anyone else in front of or behind the camera). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the original is less than twenty
years old, don’t do it (you’ve done this before, mostly with foreign films.
Stop it.). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the original is not only a
classic, but a masterpiece, don’t do it (let’s remake <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casablanca</i>! Shudder). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you’re only making it to cash in
on a star’s popularity, and are looking for a good vehicle for him/her, don’t
do it (in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With</i>,
Jeff Garlin’s character stresses about a remake of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marty</i> starring Aaron Carter). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact, I’ll make it easier:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just to be on the safe side: don’t
do it. </span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-34954170085123707012014-04-12T17:11:00.003-07:002014-04-12T17:11:26.754-07:00An Open Letter to Gwenneth Victoria Lucas
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dear Gwen, </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Welcome to Planet Earth, little
girl. This is me, your father. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There’s a great deal out there to
see, all kinds of animals, plants and faraway places, ancient monuments and
modern marvels, the stars in heaven and the ground beneath our feet. Your
mother and I will show you a lot of it, and you will see even more on your own
one day. Your mom will teach you to bake, to sew, to sing, to do all the things
that she’s good at. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I will teach you about the movies. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve already taught your brother
Isaac a great deal, and he has turned into a bright and eager student. He can
already tell you about the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Bruce Campbell,
Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff and his self-proclaimed favorite director,
Guillermo del Toro. I hope you like the movies as much as he and I do. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’ll start off with cartoons,
Disney fare like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Jungle Book, Dumbo,
Cinderella</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Little Mermaid. </i>Then
we’ll move on to Pixar with stuff like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Finding
Nemo, Up, Wall-E</i> and my personal favorite, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Incredibles</i>. Maybe I’ll introduce you to Hayao Miyazaki and
films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Neighbor Totoro</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spirited Away</i> (they’re a little weird,
but I think you might like them). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As you get older, I show you
Chaplin, The Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton. It’s important that you never
develop a bias towards black and white films, as many of the best films ever
made are black and white. I’m curious to see if you are a Chaplin fan like your
mother or a Keaton fan like me. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Either is okay. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When Halloween rolls around, I’ll
introduce you to Universal Monster movies, so that you can experience <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein,
Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon</i>
and my favorite, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Phantom of the Opera</i>.
When you’re a little older, we’ll watch Hammer Horror, so you can see
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Horror of Dracula</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Curse of Frankenstein</i>. (Cushing is the best Van Helsing- in my opinion!)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At Christmas, we’ll watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Christmas Story</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s a Wonderful Life, </i>traditional
holiday classics, as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gremlins</i>
and the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” versions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Santa Claus Conquers the Martians</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Santa Claus</i>, which are not traditional, but they are a tradition
(for your mom , Isaac and I). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One day, when you’re ready, I’ll
show you my favorite movie of all time, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold
and Maude</i> and ask you what you think of it. I don’t expect it to be your
favorite as well, and that’s okay. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I wonder what your favorite movie
will be. It could be something that’s already old, it could be a movie that
hasn’t even been written yet. Only time will tell. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, movies being what they
are, there will be new ones all the time for us to discover together. I should
warn you now: some will be bad, some will disappoint you, and some will leave
you wanting your money back. It’s okay; it’s all part of growing up. Perhaps
you will, like your old man, develop a fondness for “bad movies” (what we
cineastes’ call “paracinema”) and we can watch and laugh at the films of Ed
Wood and Coleman Francis together. It would not surprise me if this turned out
to be the case, as your mother and I were watching episodes of “Mystery Science
Theater 3000” while you lay in the crib in the hospital, fresh from your
Mommy’s tummy. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just so long as you don’t forget
the good stuff. And I will teach you all about the good stuff, not only showing
it to you, but explaining <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">why</i> it is
the good stuff. This way, you can go out and tell your friends, maybe try to
infuse the next generation with a little culture. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am so
very excited about you, watching you grow and become the person you are. I am
also excited about sharing with you what I love, hoping that you will love it
as well.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Right
now, you are looking around the room with your newborn eyes, trying to take it
all in. I am already fighting the urge to sit down with you, all swaddled up in
a blanket, bottle at the ready, and begin showing you what the movies are all
about. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t
think I can fight that urge much longer. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s
all for now. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">-Dad</span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-76148004757853172812014-03-25T18:31:00.000-07:002014-03-25T18:31:29.756-07:00Rainbow with Egg Underneath and an Elephant: Thoughts on Harold and Maude
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold
and Maude</i> is my favorite movie. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I discovered it many years ago
while in high school, having heard about it once or twice through various pop
culture references (like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There’s
Something About Mary</i>). A friend of mind pointed it out to me in a video
store and told me I should buy it. “I haven’t seen it,” I protested. “I don’t
like buying movies I haven’t seen.” </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You’ll like this one,” she
insisted. “If you don’t, I’ll buy it off you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">How could I lose? So, I bought it,
took it home, watched it, and fell in love with it. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve watched it countless times and
have bought it twice more, first on DVD and then again on Blu-Ray (thank you,
Criterion!). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Whenever someone tells me what
their favorite movie is, I’m inclined to ask why. What is it about that
particular film that brings you back to it time and time again? For some, the
answer is simply entertainment. For others, it’s nostalgia. For me and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i>, it is because of the
film’s mindset, life-affirming but with a twisted sense of humor. The film is
rebellious, but sweet, a celebration of life that focuses on death and, on top
of all that, a love story that is about love, not just of another human being,
but of all humanity, of all that life and the world has to offer, the good and
the bad. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before I continue, I should warn
you: SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven’t seen the film, you might want to go do so
before reading any further. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The film opens with Harold, seen
only from the waist down as he makes his way through one of the many rooms in
his mansion. The mansion is dark, old and stuffy. Through a window we can see
the sun is shining bright, but little of it seems to enter into Harold’s home,
this itself tells you a great deal about the character. He is young, wealthy,
but clearly lives in a dreary antiquated home, full of relics, but no life. He
lights candles and makes out a nametag for himself, before stepping on and
stool and off again, his feet dangling. Upon first viewing, I wondered if the
film was to be told in flashback, telling us what brought this rich young man
to suicide. This theory was dispelled by the entrance of Harold’s mother, a
woman clearly used to the finer things in life, with no time for frivolity or
silliness. She could almost be Margaret Dumont’s daughter. She takes one look
at Harold and continues on her with her routine, making a phone call, chiding
Harold with, “I suppose you think that’s very funny.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Billy Wilder once said that if you
have a man come in the door, the audience doesn’t care, but if you have him
come in the window, the audience is fascinated. Harold has just “come in
through the window.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Harold’s days are spent going to
his therapist (whom he always dresses identically to), staging suicides and
going to funerals. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is at these funerals that he
notices Maude. First, at the outskirts, contentedly munching on an apple and
then offering him some licorice. They chitchat idly, at first Harold seems wary
of this strange old lady, but her charm wins him over, and we see him for the
first time, having a real conversation with someone. Harold is desperately
lonely, stuck in a world of dinner parties, attended exclusively by his
mother’s friends, indeed, he seems to feel like the protagonist of Ralph
Ellison’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>, and the only
way anyone ever notices him is when he is shocking. It is a mindset that some
may call unhealthy, but it is one that I identify with (perhaps more than I
should). As Harold and Maude make their way out of the church, following the
casket, a marching band goes past in the opposite direction, playing a jaunty
tune. This can be seen not only as a perfect visual representation of Maude’s
mindset, one of eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die, as well as the
single shot that sums up the whole film, one of contradictions, morbid humor
and an undeniably upbeat perspective. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At a later funeral, this one
outside in the rain, as the mourners make their way to their cars (or in
Maude’s case, to Harold’s- she has a bad habit of stealing cars), Maude, front and
center, carries a bright yellow umbrella, the other mourners carry dark blue or
black, while Harold carries none. If we view the rain as symbolic of death and
everyone’s umbrella as their attitude to it, we come up with three points:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maude’s outlook is sunny; she views funerals
as a way of celebrating life (yellow umbrella). The mourners view funerals and
death as a time of mourning, and wish to shelter themselves from thoughts of
their own mortality (black umbrellas). Harold, sees death as inevitable and
embraces it, allows it consume his every waking moment (no umbrella). Later in
the film, Harold asks about Maude’s antiquated umbrella which hangs over the
mantle, like a hunting rifle. She tells him that is was used for defense in her
youth when she was on picket lines, protesting against injustices, but it is
now hung up, retried, just as she is. “I don’t need it for defense anymore, I
embrace,” she tells Harold. Thus, Maude, like Harold, thinks about death a
great deal, but not as something that we should rush towards, rather, as an
inevitability and because it is inevitable, it is all the more important that
we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">embrace</i> life. When Harold tells
Maude that he enjoys being dead, and she says, “A lot of people enjoy being
dead, but they’re not dead, they’re just backing away from life.” </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is Maude’s mindset that causes
so many to be confused by the film’s climax, in which Maude commits suicide.
Why does Maude, who spends the whole film espousing the joys and wonders of
life, commit suicide at the end? Is it because she lives life on her own terms,
and death is a part of life? Does it related to her earlier comment about how
living past eighty is just “marking time”? Perhaps, it relates to her earlier
speech in the nursery about how she enjoys watching things grow, change and
become something new, for this is what she does to Harold. She watches him
grow, change and become someone new. Perhaps her greatest lesson to Harold is
in her last line to him. Harold, in the back of the ambulance, pleads with her,
“Don’t die, Maude, I love you.” She replies, “That’s wonderful, Harold. Go and
love some more.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i> may
not be about a young man learning to love an old woman, rather, it is about an
old woman teaching a young man to love life. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Earlier in the film, Harold goes to
a junkyard and buys a hearse. His mother is, of course, appalled. Behind his
back, she has the car towed and gives him a brand new Jaguar. Harold, rejecting
his mother’s gift, turns the silver sporty Jaguar into a sporty black hearse.
This vehicle acts as the perfect symbol of Harold’s mind. He is literally,
racing towards death. In the film’s finale, after Maude’s death, Harold is seen
speeding towards the coast and once again, fakes his suicide by driving his car
off a cliff. The camera pans up, revealing Harold, happily strumming on the
banjo Maude gave him, playing the tune she taught him. Some view this ending as
pessimistic, Harold returning to his old ways, but I disagree. Rather, what we
have is Harold throwing away the old way of thinking (by destroying his “racing
towards death” vehicle). His wardrobe has changed, from dark suits and ties to
lighter colors and a more casual look. As he dances away from us, playing “If
You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” we know that Harold will be okay. (The banjo
is not typically viewed as a dignified instrument and perhaps that is why Maude
presents it to him -taking away the guitar he clearly wants- to encourage a
little less formality in Harold. As she says, “Everyone has the right to make
an ass of himself, you can’t let the world judge you.”) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a scene that I used in my Cinema
Therapy group (see the entry “Schlock Therapy”), Harold and Maude are in a
field of flowers. Maude tells Harold that she would like to come back as a
sunflower. When she asks him what kind of flower he would like to be, he
gestures to some daises, saying “One of these maybe.” When asked why, he says
because they’re all like. “Oh, but they’re not,” Maude protests, “some are
tall, some are short, some lean to the left, some to right, some are missing
petals. There’s all kind of observable differences.” She holds up a single
flower, “Most of the world’s problems come from people who are this,” (points
to flower), “but allow themselves to be treated as that,” (points to field).
The camera then pulls back, revealing Harold and Maude to be in a cemetery, one
that seems to go on and on and on. It has been argued that this shot is meant
to be critical of the Vietnam War and the seemingly endless slaughter of young
men, who were turned from single flowers into a field of daises. Others see it
as a comment on life itself, that we often forget that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">people</i> is comprised of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">persons</i>.
(Personally, I subscribe to this latter theory.) When I showed this clip, I
asked the patients to come up with something unique or interesting about
themselves, reinforcing Maude’s philosophy, that everyone has something that
makes them different. The patients loved it. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i> is one of the most
anti-authority films ever made. Indeed, every traditional leader in society is
openly mocked, parents, doctors, priests and the military. Harold’s mother is
not only distant and shallow, she is incapable of understanding, or even trying
to understand, her son. The psychiatrist is not only always mirrored by Harold,
showing that the young man sees right through him, but he views Harold’s
relationship with Maude as a deep-seated psychological abnormality wherein he
wants to have sex with his grandmother. The priest is seen as humorless, and
extremely nauseated by the thought of Harold and Maude having sex. Harold’s
uncle, a one-armed super-patriot (General MacArthur’s right-hand man), like
most career military offices, believes that the military and war is what truly
makes a man a man, to him, Harold is nothing more than a possible recruit.
After Harold tells his mother of his intentions to marry Maude, we see these
three men, all voicing their objections to the union, all three of them are
framed identically (actor center frame, lamp and portrait in the same positions
on the desk and wall). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i>
tells us that authority is really all the same. Whether it’s God, Freud or
General MacArthur, authority simply wants you to fall in line and become a part
of the daisy field. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The one
feature film I made, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inherit the Earth</i>,
was heavily inspired by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i>
(put politely, rip-off might be more accurate). In fact, I attempted to get Bud
Cort to play one of the leads, sadly, his agent rejected my offer of nothing.
In fact, my most recent novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Widow
Wilkins</i> is tonally, if not plot-wise, very similar to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i>. As I said before, it is my favorite film. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And yet…</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was
not well received when released. Critics like Vincent Canby, Pauline Kael and
Roger Ebert all gave the films poor reviews, calling it tasteless, disgusting
and dull. Cort was criticized for his “wooden performance” and Ruth Gordon was
accused to repeating what she did to win the Oscar for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosemary’s Baby</i>. Obviously, I disagree. Cort’s performance is
hardly wooden. We are seeing a young man come to life. Cort portrays this by
having Harold slowly bloom <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>throughout
the film, and his moment s of levity, smirking at the camera or his barely
contained glee at telling his psychiatrist how many suicides he has faked for
his mother’s “benefit”, hint at the joyous spirit in Harold just waiting to
escape. The complaint against Gordon, that she was doing what she did in her
last film could just as easily be lobbed at John Wayne, Morgan Freeman or any
number of actors brought in to play a type. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
then, upsetting the establishment is part of what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i> is all about. It is timeless, and its influence
can be seen today, notably in the films of Wes Anderson. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
watched the film the other day in preparation for this piece, and now, having
written at length about it, I want to watch it again. That is what makes a film
a favorite, that feeling that it never gets old, it never ages, and it inspires
us, not only in our creative lives, but in our lives. I don’t always live up to
Maude’s example, in fact, when I don’t, I can picture the spritely old woman
gently chastising me (she would never go so far as to yell or harshly
criticize). But then, everyone has the right to make an ass out of himself,
right?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Harold
loves Maude.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maude loves Harold.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and Maude</i>. </span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-24815291788776072302014-03-10T17:53:00.002-07:002014-03-10T17:54:18.136-07:00Whatever Happened to the Spoof?
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The wise man says: “Dying is easy.
Comedy is hard.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today, friends, I am saddened to
announce the death of one of my favorite kinds of movie: The Spoof. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps, one day, it will rise and
live again like Peter Boyle’s monster, but, for now, allow me to eulogize this
lost form of filmmaking. I will speak not of what it has become, a meaningless
string of pop culture references, bodily fluid jokes and cameos by celebrities
who will do anything to get their names in print, but rather, for what it was:
a delicate balancing act of homage, roast and celebration, for the best spoofs
were only slightly removed from their serious precursors. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The spoof movie is nearly as old as
the movies themselves. Silent film comedians such as Ben Turpin, Charlie
Chaplin and Buster Keaton all did spoofs. Sometimes they were marketed as
“burlesques,” but that which we call a spoof by any other name would be as
silly. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The high-water mark of spoofs came
in the seventies and eighties, with such classics as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Airplane!,</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Naked Gun</i>. The spoof started showing
signs of wear by the nineties, with such lackluster pictures as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wrongfully Accused, Spy Hard</i> and the
increasingly awful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scary Movie</i>
franchise. Today, nearly a decade and a half into the twenty-first century, the
spoof as we know it is dead. It has fallen on hard times, a shell of its former
glorious self, it now parades across the screen like a half-drunken idiot, only
to realize that it is embarrassing itself, only to slink off the stage and
hide. Such unfunny (which is the most polite way I can describe these pictures)
movies like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meet the Spartans, Date
Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie</i> and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
Not Another Teen Movie</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, I came today to praise spoofs,
not to bury them. Perhaps, by remembering their former greatness, we can
resurrect the genre, bring the funny back to the forefront. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let us begin the resurrection by
examining the two greatest spoofs ever made: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young
Frankenstein</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I believe a good friend of my
summed it up best by saying this about it: “There’s nothing wrong with that
movie.” Once upon a time, another friend of mine said that there was no such
thing as a perfect movie, and I disagreed with him. Allow me to use <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> as Exhibit A. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, the jokes: While some of the
jokes are topical, (you don’t see Hare Krishnas around anymore, let alone at
the locked-down facility that is the modern airport), they are not trendy. They
still, over thirty years late, work. Whether it’s puns (the infamous “Don’t
call me Shirley”), visual gags (shit literally hits the fan in one scene),
movie references (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jaws, Saturday Night
Fever, From Here to Eternity</i>), or cameos (Barbara Billingsly, Ethel
Merman), every joke in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> hits
its mark dead-on. Now, let me talk briefly about the last two points in that
previous sentence, movie references and cameos, as it may seem contradictory to
praise them in one film while damning them in another. The movie references all
referenced movies that were not only years, sometimes decades old by the time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> was released, but, the
reference was a joke, not just a reference. Take a look at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disaster Movie </i>(or better yet, don’t). In that movie, there is a
scene in which a tornado is coming down the road and a parade of current movie
characters all come out, one at a time to face down the storm, only to die
stupidly. Hellboy, Batman, et all, come out, say one line and are killed off.
There’s no point to the reference, it’s just there to be there. Compare that to
the scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> when Ted and
Elaine are on the beach, recreating the famous Burt Lancaster/Deborah Kerr
scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From Here to Eternity</i>. Do
you know what’s in that scene, under the reference? Exposition. That’s right,
the scene is not only a reference, it also furthers the plot of the film. (And
furthering the plot of the film should be the point of any scene.) Now for the
second point, the cameos. Simply put, the cameos work because the joke doesn’t
necessarily depend on us knowing who those people are. When I saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> for the first time, I had no
idea who Barbara Billingsly was, but I got the joke of an old white woman who
could “speak jive.” It was still funny. Years later, when I found out who she
was, it became funni<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">er</i>. The viewer is
left with two choices, their either get the joke, or they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> get the joke. (The same principal applies to the guy stuck
in the taxi cab.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Second: the cast. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> is populated with character
actors who never did comedy before. Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Leslie
Nielson, Peter Graves; none of the actors were known for their comedic
sensibilities. The reason that the cast works so well is because everyone is
playing is straight. The actors all deliver their lines as if they really mean
what they’re saying, not as if they’re trying to be silly. To put it in
perspective, imagine a film like this being made today with a cast like Ralph
Fiennes, Idris Elba, Michael Fassbender and Daniel Day-Lewis. Serious actors
saying very silly things. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Third: Production. This might be
the point where I lose a lot of you. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i>
does not have great production value or special effects. The string on the
heart jumping around on the doctor’s desk at the Mayo Clinic is clearly
visible, as is the square of putty on the back of the guy who gets stabbed in
the bar. However, in spite of this, perhaps even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">because</i> of this, it makes the gag funnier. The filmmakers don’t
care if you see the strings, or the model work, because they aren’t there to
create a world you can totally immerse yourself in like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Avatar</i>, they are there to tell jokes, to entertain, to make what is
the cinematic equivalent of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MAD
Magazine</i> comic. My theory is this: if a film accomplishes what it set out
to do, then it is a success. In other words, if a comedy makes you laugh, if a
tearjerker makes you cry, if a horror film scares you, then it is a success. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now for part two. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young
Frankenstein</i> is a spoof masterpiece as it takes the source material and
tilts it ever so slightly, keeping its focus solely on the Universal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i> films of the 1930’s. It
doesn’t spoof Edison, or Hammer or anyone else’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i>, it takes careful aim and fires. The plot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young Frankenstein</i> is closest to that of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Son of Frankenstein</i>, which starred
Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. However, it does take elements
from both the original <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bride of Frankenstein</i> as
well. It does its job so well, in fact, that it is difficult for a modern
audience to watch the originals and not think of the spoofs. I was at a double
feature of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Bride of Frankenstein</i> last year,
and during the scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride</i> with the
old blind man, you could hear snickers throughout the audience and people
whispering, “Where are you going? I was gonna make espresso.” In fact, it’s
hard to take Lionel Atwill seriously after you’ve seen Kenneth Mars. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s interesting, is that while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airplane!</i> used a cast of serious
character actors to help sell the jokes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young
Frankenstein </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>does the opposite, and
casts comedians. Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Teri
Garr, Peter Boyle and Cloris Leachman and all wonderfully gifted comic actors
(even if Leachman does have an Oscar for a dramatic role and Peter Boyle was in
both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Taxi Driver </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Monster’s Ball</i>, neither of which were
what I’d call funny) who are at the top of their game. Feldman steals every
scene that he’s in, insisting on calling Dr. Frankenstein (pronounced
“Frahnk-in-steen”) Froderick and breaking the fourth wall on more than one
occasion. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As silly as the film is (and it is
that), it works because we genuinely care about the characters. The scene in
which the monster is chained up in the jail (after singing “Puttin’ On The
Ritz”), is quite moving, and I remember feeling true pathos for the character,
just as I did when Karloff played him. Again, this works because director Mel
Brooks and co-writer Gene Wilder love the original films and decided to make
one, just…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">funny.</i> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I showed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young Frankenstein</i> to my son (as he’s seen all the Universal films)
and he thought it was hilarious, even if he didn’t get the jokes about the
monster’s enormous “schwanzstucker.” What did he find funny? Inspector Kemp’s
wooden arm, the horse’s whinnying every time someone said, “Frau Blucher,” the
old blind man pouring soup in the monster’s lap, “Werewolf?” “There wolf. There
castle.” and so much more. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A spoof is a balancing act. And
perhaps, until a filmmaker comes along who can understand, appreciate and
replicate that balancing act, it’s time to put this genre to bed. I am certain
that it won’t stay down for long. I know that there are others out there, like
me, who long for the days of the funny spoof, and I encourage those with the
resources and the drive to make it happen. Please, for our sake. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Surely I’m not the only one who
feels this way. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t think I am. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And don’t call me Shirley. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-2609264100401297652014-03-03T16:47:00.003-08:002014-03-03T16:47:40.413-08:00Of Capes and Cinema
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Marvel<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>vs. DC. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To some, this argument is as
inconsequential as “Chocolate vs. Vanilla.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To others, this is as important as Republican
vs. Democrat or Protestant vs. Catholic. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To us geeks, it is a very important
argument. I have friends who are staunch Marvel fans, pointing to Marvel’s
deeper characters and struggles with real-life problems as evidence that their
title is superior. For DC supporters, the argument stands that without DC,
there would be no Marvel, and that the DC pantheon of heroes reads more like
the gods on Olympus than acrobats in tights. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, this is a movie blog, so, I’m
going to discuss Comic Book Movies, which is a whole other ball of wax. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First: What is a comic book movie?
Is it any film wherein the source material is a comic book/graphic novel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, than films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Splendor, Ghost World</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Road to Perdition</i> are comic book movies, but, when most folks think
of the term “comic book movie,” these films and others of their ilk are not
what spring to mind. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So then, is a comic book movie any
movie that deals with superheroes? Well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Incredibles</i> only became a comic book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after
</i>the success of the film. What about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Shadow</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hancock?</i> (Actually, the less said about that film, the better.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are we then, for the sake of this
blog, going to restrict our definition of “comic book movie” to any movie
wherein the source material is a comic book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
it deals with superheroes?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">300</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sin City</i>?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sigh. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As you can see, the very term
“comic book movie” is becoming obsolete, just as no one refers to a film based
on a play as a “play movie” or a film based on a novel as a “novel movie.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once upon a time (I’m looking at
you, pre-Twenty-First Century Cinema), a “comic book movie” was full of bright
colors, bad acting and was generally aimed at seven year-olds or their mental
equivalent. (Allow me to commit cinematic blasphemy and admit that I believe
that most people’s love of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superman: The
Movie</i> stems less from the quality of the picture and more from nostalgia.
There. I said it. Let the hate mail pour in.) However, when the kids that read
comics grew up to become filmmakers, they wished to bring their favorite heroes
to the screen in a serious and respectful manner. As a result, Hollywood looked
to their local comic shop for inspiration and found, much to their surprise,
that sequential art offered up a wealth of potential films. Everything from
action and adventure to biography, to love stories to horror to comedy to
westerns to, well…everything. Comics, in terms of genre, are just as varied as
the movies. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then the floodgates opened. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When you make a whole bunch of
films from one subgenre within a short amount of time (let’s say the last fifteen
years), you’re going to get some stinkers. For every <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dark Knight</i>, there’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elektra,
Ghost Rider, Catwoman </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i>. There are films that work as films, but let
down the fans due to unfaithfulness to the source material. And there are films
that please the fans, but leave the rest of us scratching our heads. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me speak for a moment about a
recent film based on a comic: last year’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man
of Steel</i>. This film polarized its audience, some loved it, some hated it,
some were indifferent towards it (such a statement is true of any film, but
hear me out). Audiences were expecting another whiz-bang, smirking adventure
film, like the first two <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superman</i>
films starring Christopher Reeve and were instead given <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Last Temptation of Christ</i> in a cape. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A great deal of criticism has been
lobbed at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man of Steel, </i>the majority
of which is, I feel, unfair at best and biased at worst. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Complaint: Superman destroyed half
of Metropolis fighting Zod. Think of all those innocent people and the property
damage!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Avengers</i> destroyed half of New York (a real city, by the way, unlike
Metropolis) and no one batted an eye. Prior to this carnage, Diane Lane, as Ma
Kent, is in her wrecked home, gathering photo albums together. Clark tries to
console her, apologizing for the destruction, to which she replies, “It’s just
stuff.” And that is all we see destroyed- stuff. Buildings, cars, etc. Never
people. People are in peril, Superman flies in to save them. The death of
innocent people is an assumption, devoid of empirical evidence. Oh, and while
he was flying around breaking all that stuff, he also saved the entire planet.
Small price to pay, the entire planet and all life on it for a few buildings.
It’s like complaining about the fireman chopping down the front door to get you
out of the burning building. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as for the argument that
Superman’s destruction of Metropolis will only fuel Luthor’s argument against
him…well, duh. Don’t you think that was kind of the point?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think the DC films are viewed as
failures because we, as a society, have grown so jaded and cynical that we can’t
accept these modern gods. We want our heroes like us (or at least how we think
we are), flawed, sarcastic people who bicker, argue and eventually do the right
thing. Marvel has always been about the people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">behind</i> the mask. Peter Parker’s crappy life, Tony Stark’s
alcoholism, Bruce Banner’s self-imposed exile. DC is about the mask. Bruce
Wayne exists to be Batman and there is nothing in his life that doesn’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>connect to his alter ego. In fact, there is
no Bruce Wayne anymore, just Batman and Batman without the mask. Just as
Superman is always Superman, even when disguised as Clark Kent. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I believe that we are nearing the
zenith of the superhero genre (if indeed we haven’t passed it already) and that
soon, the bubble will burst. Superheroes, like westerns, musicals and Biblical
epics will become just another subgenre rarely explored in cinema. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But before that happens, let me
tell you my idea for a Martian Manhunter movie…</span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-2571015190270205592014-02-21T17:47:00.003-08:002014-03-03T16:13:59.456-08:00Schlock Therapy<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For three years now, my day job (that is, the one I get paid
for) has been in Behavioral Health.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mental Heatlh. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A psych ward. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, at my previous facility (I
have since moved halfway across the country), I worked first and second shifts,
which meant that I had a lot of interaction with patients, something I kind of
miss now that I’m a third-shifter. Anyway, on Tuesdays from three to four in
the afternoon, there was a group scheduled, but there was no one to lead said
group, which resulted in the patients simply sitting in the dayroom and
watching a video. There were two problems with this: one, we only had two
videos that actually worked and two, any patient who had been there before (and
there were a few) or had been there for more than a week had probably already
seen both of them. I felt bad for the patients, having to sit through the same
two depressing videos over and over again, so I asked if there was something
else we could do. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Sure,” I was told, “you can lead a
group.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, it’s important to note at this
point that even though I work in psychiatry, I am not a psychiatrist. Nor am I
a psych major. Nor have I ever actually taken a psychology course in college. I
am, put simply, under qualified. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, doing a bit of poking around on
the old interweb, I came across a term that caught my eye: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cinema Therapy</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, the idea of art therapy is not
a new one. Using paintings, poems, dance and music in a therapeutic way have
been around nearly as long as the field of psychology. Using motion pictures in
this way is a more recent concept (as the prevalence of home video has taken
off in the last twenty-odd years). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most therapists who use motion
pictures use the whole film. Have a problem with alcoholism? Try <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">28 Days, Clean and Sober, When A Man Loves A
Woman </i>or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Days of Wine and Roses</i>.
Childhood trauma? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridge to Terabithia</i>.
Family issues? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ordinary People</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You get the idea. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here was where I hit my first snag.
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I said before, my group was from
three to four in the afternoon, which meant I only had an hour, not enough time
for a feature film. Showing part one of a film one week only to finish it the
next wasn’t going to work either, because what if the patient discharged
between now and then, or what if a new patient arrived between parts one and
two? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Therefore, I had to use clips,
rather than whole features. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a way, this was liberating, as I
could now select from a much wider variety of films (if you’ll note, the titles
mentioned above tend to be heavy dramas), in fact, I could use pretty much any
scene from any movie so long as I could tie it back to my topic. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ah, my topics, now that was the
next snag. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">No point in doing a group on PTSD
if no one in the group had PTSD (or worse, only one person did and they felt I
was singling them out), or addiction or trauma or suicidal ideations or so on.
This was what led to my decision to keep the topics more general (i.e. “Facing
Your Fears,” “Turning Negatives into Positives” or “The Power of Positive
Thinking”) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so, the following Tuesday,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>armed with a DVD and a stack of handouts
printed off the internet, I started my first group. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I chose as my first topic “Turning
Negatives into Positives.” For the clip, I selected the “nonsense song” from
Chaplin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern Times</i>. For those
unfamiliar (I pity you, go watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern
Times</i>), a bit of history:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Synchronized sound was introduced in motion pictures in 1927 with the
release of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Jazz Singer </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Jolson, not Diamond). Charlie Chaplin, the
world’s most famous comic actor and one of the biggest movie stars on Earth,
was nervous. Talking meant he would lose not only the American audiences, who
viewed him as one of their own (Chaplin was English and spoke with refined
accent, having lost his Cockney accent years prior) but also the worldwide
audience who could follow, sympathize and laugh with The Little Tramp because
pantomime is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a universal language. But,
by 1936, silent films were breathing their last, so Chaplin had to either get
with the times or go away. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">His solution was nothing short of
brilliant. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the film, Chaplin’s Little Tramp
gets a job as a singing waiter in a restaurant, but, he can never remember the
lyrics to the song he’s supposed to sing. Paulette Goddard, as “A Gamin” (his
female co-star in the picture) suggests he write the lyrics on his cuffs, which
he does. Taking the stage, he does a little dance, sending his cuffs flying to
parts unknown. Unsure what to do, he sings the song anyway in an entirely
fabricated language. Thus, there was A) no trace of his accent and B) the joke
was universal and C) the audience got what they wanted, they heard The Little
Tramp’s voice!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I used this clip, along with a bit
of impromptu film history for the group, talking to them about how, in their
own lives, they could turn negative situations into positives. The group shared
numerous examples from their own lives (I won’t go into specifics, as that
would violate patient confidentiality and that is No-No number one in the field
of psychiatry).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, best of all, the
patients told me how much they liked the group and asked if we would do it
every day. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was rather pleased with myself. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the ensuing weeks, I used <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Empire Strikes Back</i> and the
teachings of Yoda to illustrate The Power of Positive Thinking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(A patient told me that she had seen that film
“hundreds of times” but that message had never hit her before.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Black Knight scene from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Monty Python and The Holy Grail</i> to talk
about Denial. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young
Frankenstein</i> showed my patients what it meant to face your fears. </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of my favorites (partially
because it’s my favorite movie ever) was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold
and Maude</i>. In the clip, Harold and Maude are talking in a field of daisies.
Maude asks, “What kind of flower would you like to be?” Harold replies, “I
dunno. One of these maybe,” his rationalization being because they’re all the
same. “Oh, but they’re not,” Maude argues, “some are tall, some are short, some
are missing petals.” She then holds up a single flower and says, “Most of the
world’s problems are because people are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i>”
(points to flower), “but let themselves be treated as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>” (points to field of flowers). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had every patient in the room
write, on a small scrap of paper, something about themselves that was unique,
and it could be anything, from the city you were born in, to your hobby, to the
number of pets you have, to your middle name…anything. Then, every scrap of
paper was put in a bucket and I drew the out one at a time, reading them aloud
and everyone had to guess who it was. (As we got to the bottom, it got easier
to guess who it was, so I cheated and made up trivia.) They loved it. And I
loved doing it. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I started this group because I felt
bad for the patients, having to sit through the same video over and over again,
but as I got into the group I found that I truly enjoyed doing it, more so, I
came to realize that I believed what I was teaching. I truly think that movies
can help people. Sometimes, it is in the comfort of fiction that we can
understand reality. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I heard a story of a 9/11 first
responder who, after witnessing the tragic events of that day, did not laugh
for months, not even smile…until he watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Big Lebowski</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A father and his autistic son were
swimming in the ocean when the current separated them. To find his son, the
father repeatedly yelled, “To infinity” and using his son’s response “and
beyond!” was able to locate the boy. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s worked with me. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A movie can pull me out of a funk,
or help me deal with loss, or remind me that humanity isn’t as doomed as we are
often led to believe. As I’ve illustrated above, it doesn’t have to be the
powerful, award-winning dramas that change our lives, that illuminate us from
within, sometimes it can be something silly, something fantastical or a moment
of poignancy in an otherwise forgettable film. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s why I love movies. They can be
art, they can be entertainment and they can even be therapeutic. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-36700384630013244112013-05-22T10:06:00.000-07:002014-03-03T16:14:17.014-08:00Legendary Awfulness: Edward D. Wood, Jr.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are those in cinema who are
remembered and celebrated because of their genius: Hitchcock, Kurosawa,
Truffaut, Fellini, Wilder, and so on. But only one filmmaker is remembered and
celebrated for his lack of talent: Edward D. Wood, Jr., the mind behind such “classics”
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen or
Glenda</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the Monster</i>.
He was the Orson Welles of bad movies, writer, director, producer and actor,
but if Welles is one end of the spectrum, then Wood is the other. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Now wait a minute,” you might
argue, “there are far worse films than the ones Ed Wood made. What about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manos: The Hands of Fate</i>?”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">True. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manos:
The Hands of Fate</i> is far worse than anything Wood did (with the possible
exception of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glen or Glenda</i>), but Hal
P. Warren was nice enough to stop after one wretched film. Wood kept going. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What about Coleman Francis?” you
might argue. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What about him? Where is the big
budget Hollywood biopic starring Johnny Depp about Coleman Francis? Where are
the DVD box sets of the complete works of Coleman Francis? Where are the
biographies of Francis (who the good folks at “Mystery Science Theater”
nicknamed “The Cinematic Poet of Parking”)? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They don’t exist. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wood is the crown prince of bad
movies, the face of bad movies, the patron saint of bad movies, if you will. A
man whose personal life was just as bizarre as the pictures he made. Unlike the
others named above, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wood has made an
indelible mark on the history of motion pictures. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, at least a footnote. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are those who view Wood as
little more than a scam artist, a man who could talk people into anything,
including (but not limited to) funding his awful films. A man who took
advantage of a frail, all-but-completely forgotten actor like Bela Lugosi,
forcing him to appear in these terrible motion pictures. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But then there are those who view
Wood as a dreamer, a man who, like a child, so looked forward to the finished
product, he didn’t take the time to do it right. A workaholic, who wrote as
fast as Kerouac, but whose publishing history is more like Kilgore Trout’s. Someone
who never really grew up, who still viewed comic books and pulp novels as high
art in an un-ironic way. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Personally, I think the truth is
somewhere in between. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a film like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the Monster</i>, one can see that Wood, had the cards been cut
in his favor, could have built a career out of directing B pictures, the
programmers that Hollywood shat out to fill a bill. He might even have ventured
into television. You could view him as a precursor to Roger Corman, indeed, had
Wood lived longer, the two might have collaborated. Certainly, Roger could have
appreciated Wood’s breakneck speed. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride
of the Monster</i> is by no means a good movie, but it is arguably Wood’s best
film, the one with the most coherent plot and the one where the bad effects
leave the least sour taste in one’s mouth. Really, is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the Monster</i> any worse than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Revenge of the Creature</i> (released that year from Universal as a
follow-up to their massively successful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Creature
from the Black Lagoon</i>) or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Island
Earth</i> (also 1955)? Sure, the stock footage doesn’t match up and that is a
very, very rubber snake that Tor Johnson fights, but couldn’t you also point at
the laughably bad effects in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">World
Without End</i> (currently on DVD in the same set as Sci-Fi classics <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Them!</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms</i>)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer Space</i> may be
more popular, but I will argue that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride
of the Monster</i> is the better film. (But, what do I know? I also prefer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Strada </i>to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Dolce Vita</i>.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let’s talk about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer Space</i>, Wood’s crowning
“achievement.” The plot concerns aliens who use their technology to raise the
dead, turning them into zombies that attack humans. With the human race
destroyed, the effeminate aliens can conquer the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why the aliens only resurrect three people in
as many days is a mystery. As is why they concentrate all of their efforts on
one tiny cemetery that seems to be in the middle of nowhere (featuring the
infamous cardboard tombstones). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night of
the Living Dead</i> this is not. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet…</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The basic plot, the nugget of idea
that rests at the creamy center of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan
9,</i> is not a bad one. Really, in other hands, the idea of aliens raising the
dead to be their unholy army is kind of a cool one. What could James Cameron or
Steven Spielberg do with such an idea? Thus, we must come to the great truth,
whether we are talking about cinema, the theater, novels or even oral
storytelling: It’s not the tale, it’s the teller. This truth is the reason that
so many remakes are awful. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The stories of
the making of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer Space</i>
are well-known Hollywood lore, many of them recreated for the biopic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ed Wood</i>, including, but not limited to,
the cast and crew being baptized to secure funding from a church, Bela Lugosi
being doubled by another taller man, who no more resembled Lugosi than I do
and, of course, the cheap plywood sets. They are as famous as “the shark didn’t
work” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jaws</i>), “Bergman didn’t know
who she loved” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casablanca</i>) or “it’s
chocolate syrup” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psycho</i>). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, why hasn’t
Ed Wood been relegated to the dustbin of cinematic history? Why are there box
sets, retrospectives and biopics? Why isn’t Ed Wood forgotten? What is it about
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> bad movies that separate them
from others bad movies? Perhaps it is the boyish optimism, the sense that spook
houses and brutes with a heart of gold appeal to the ten year-old in all of us.
Perhaps it is because in spite of the wretchedness of the ones he made, you
know that Ed Wood loved movies, perhaps he gravitated more towards serials and
B-pictures, but then, so does Quentin Tarantino. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I first
discovered the films of Edward D. Wood, Jr., it was through the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ed Wood</i>, and then through “Mystery
Science Theater 3000,” both of which hold Wood up as an object of ridicule.
Lately, I find myself laughing at his films less and less, instead, I observe
them, as a curious species. Awful films that are well-known. When I saw a “Rifftrax
Live” presentation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer
Space</i>, the theater was nearly at capacity. Would such a turn-out occur for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunset Boulevard </i>or any number of so-called “great” films? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Ed Wood box
set I purchased contained <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the
Monster, Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Jailbait</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night of the Ghouls</i>. In one evening, my
wife and I watched every one of them, in order of release. My thoughts are
this: </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glen or Glenda</i> is, at times, completely incomprehensible,
random footage is inserted, in an effort to pad the film. Sadly, this padding
is so incongruous, it makes one feel like someone put the wrong reel on. It is
nearly Wood’s autobiography, the story of a closet transvestite, complete with
over-the-top Freudian sequences of Glen’s fears about coming out to his
girlfriend (the scene of him unable to lift the tree of her because he’s
dressed as a woman and therefore not a “real man” is particularly memorable).
Also in this film is a second story, one that is largely forgotten, about Alan,
who decides to have a sex-change operation. I felt that the reason this story
is so largely forgotten is because even Wood didn’t care about it. He wanted to
talk about transvestites, not hermaphrodites. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jailbait</i> is rarely talked about is Wood’s
canon, and it is easy to see why. It is the only Wood film that I would
describe as boring. The others, as awful as they are, are fascinating, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jailbait</i> is a pseudo-noir about
gangsters, plastic surgery and murder. What could have been a lesser episode of
“The Twilight Zone” instead becomes a dull picture that makes you wish you were
watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Out of the Past </i>or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rififi </i>instead. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Much has already
been written about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the Monster </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 From Outer Space</i>, so I’ll skip
them and talk briefly about Wood’s only “comedy:” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night of the Ghouls</i>. For the first time, Wood seems to be in on the
joke, as this film seems to make fun of itself. It is a quasi-sequel to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bride of the Monster</i>, featuring the
return of a scarred Lobo and numerous references to “what happened years ago.”
But, Wood’s jokes fall flat and the whole thing comes off like a high school
play that you’re only sitting through to see your child recite his lines. Is it
Wood’s worst film? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hard to say. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is Wood’s
worst film? Excluding the soft-core porn that he wound up directing, and
focusing solely on the feature films that he wrote and directed, it would be
hard to nail down one or another. A convincing argument could be made for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jailbait</i> for its insipidness and poor
pacing. You could also say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glen or Glenda</i>,
for its randomness and lack of coherence. Or is it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night of the Ghouls</i>, a picture that wanders around aimlessly for
sixty-nine minutes?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is the argument itself
silly? Is arguing Wood’s worst like arguing Kurosawa’s best, in that it all
boils down to personal preference? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The bigger
question is this: Why, after all these years, is the name of Edward D. Wood,
Jr. still around? Why is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> the
patron saint of bad movies? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And, perhaps
most puzzling, why do we still watch them?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe it’s because
we are all interested in the mysterious and the unknown, for that is why we are
here. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-39211903362705935752013-03-31T11:21:00.002-07:002014-03-03T16:14:42.204-08:00Icon. Cinema Icon.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s hard to find a person alive
who doesn’t know who James Bond is. He has so permeated our society, that every
spy movie made since his debut has compared itself to the franchise. He is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> spy, while Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan
and others are just spies. His name is also a genre unto itself; it’s easy to
describe a movie as being “a James Bond film.” The only other character I can
think of that has this distinction is Godzilla. (“It’s a Godzilla movie.” No
further synopsis required.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We can argue about what the best
Bond movie is (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i>) or the
worst (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Another Day</i>), but in the
end, we keep coming back to our gentleman spy, whether he is Connery, Moore,
Dalton, Brosnan, Craig or (god forbid) Lazenby. What is the attraction? Is it
the old cliché that “women want him and men want to be him”? Or is there
something deeper? Is the James Bond series popcorn entertainment personified,
or is there something about the alcoholic, womanizing assassin that speaks to
our deeper subconscious?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or is it simply that, while there
are many imitators, there is only one Bond? As Carly Simon sang: “Nobody does
it better.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For Christmas, I was given the Bond
50 collection, which included every James Bond film to date (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SkyfallI </i>was not on video when the box
set was released, but there was an empty slot, just waiting for it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Glancing at the titles, it dawned on me that
out of the twenty-two films included, I had only seen six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to watch them all. The wife was
none too happy about this, as, to her, they seemed to melt together into one
tuxedo-clad mass. “Didn’t you already watch this one?” she asked more than
once. “No, no,” I’d tell her. “This is a different beautiful woman with a silly
name and a different European actor planning global domination.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Truthfully, sometimes I get them
confused.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet, while the films are
cookie-cutter, seeming sometimes to simply change local and actors but
otherwise telling the same story over and over again, we (including me) keep
going back for more. Perhaps it is this consistency that is key to Bond’s
survival. We know, regardless of actor, that Bond is going to sleep with some
beautiful women (only half of which survive), we know he is going to be wined
and dined by his nemesis (played by a respected, often foreign, actor) while
being explained exactly what his nefarious plot is, we know he’s going to flirt
with Moneypenny and get cool stuff from Q (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casino
Royale</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantum of Solace</i>
excluded). We know all those things are going to happen, but what makes it
fascinating, is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how</i> it’s going to
happen. As the old saying goes, it’s not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
story</i>; it’s how it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">told</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bond, over the last 50 years, has
changed, while staying fundamentally the same. And that’s part of his appeal.
In an ever-changing world, where today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy (look at
Bond helping Afghan terrorists in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Living Daylights</i>), Bond will forever be on the side of the angels, getting
the job done and drinking and whoring it up the whole way. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, let’s talk about the Bonds. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sean Connery. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For many people, Connery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> Bond, everyone else is just a
pretender to the throne. Connery, with his Scottish burr, thick eyebrows and
often obvious toupee. He was calm, smart, confident, just as ready to place a
gentle kiss on a woman as go upside her head. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr.
No</i> set the groundwork for Bond. Crazy villain with weird body tic (metal
hands)? Check. Smoking hot babe (Ursula Andress)? Check. Card playing? Check.
An implausibly elaborate hideout for the villain? Oh, yeah. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From
Russia With Love</i> is the movie where James Bond fights Quint from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jaws</i> (it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spy Who Loved Me </i>where he fights Jaws from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eegah!)</i> and finally figures out that he’s a Russian agent because
he orders the wrong wine with dinner. (I’d probably be accused of being a spy
if I ever ate with Bond- I don’t know a thing about wine.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i>.
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Really, what can I say about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i> that hasn’t been said
already? It’s a classic. Not just a classic Bond, but a classic. It’s the most
quotable Bond: “My name is Pussy Galore.” “I must be dreaming.” Or, how
about:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do you expect me to talk?” “No,
Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” If you ever encounter a space alien that
doesn’t know what James Bond is, this is the movie to show them. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I honestly think the best thing
about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thunderball</i> is the Tom Jones
song at the beginning. But that’s just because I think Tom Jones is awesome.
(Also, this is the Bond movie that was remade years later as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Never Say Never Again</i> and it co-starred
Kim Basinger and Rowan “Mr. Bean” Atkinson.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You Only Live Twice</i>, James Bond got married, got a bad haircut and
some make up and became Japanese. It’s cringe-worthy. But, worth watching
because Roald Dahl (yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory </i>Roald Dahl) wrote the script. Also, Donald Pleasance pops
up as Blofeld, with scar, crazy eyes and a cat that looks like it can’t wait to
get away. If you can watch him and not think of Dr. Evil, then you are a
stronger person than I. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, we get to George Lazenby. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I suppose the nicest thing you can
say about George Lazenby is that he seems like an okay guy. You know, your
cousin who may not be so bright, but is always willing to buy a round of
drinks. He’s not suave, he’s not sophisticated. Actually, he’s kind of a putz. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, Bond has to fight Kojack, who,
since he lost his lollipop has gone nuts and now thinks he’s Ernest Blofeld. It
has the most downbeat ending of any Bond movie ever. As the end credits start,
you wonder if Ingmar Bergman took a crack at the script. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Connery returns!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just once. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diamonds
Are Forever</i> has gay henchmen, a moon buggy chase, female ass kickers named
Bambi and Thumper and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rocky Horror
Picture Show</i>’s Charles Gray as Blofeld. Oh, and sausage king Jimmy Dean as
Howard Hughes (kinda). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, we get rather silly. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Roger Moore, best known at the time
for the television show “The Saint” took over the role and brought both his
eyebrows with him. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Live
and Let Die</i>- even if you’ve never seen the movie, you know the song. Paul
McCartney (he used to be in this band called The Beatles, you may have heard of
them) provides us with possibly the most memorable thing about this movie. But
then, maybe that’s not totally fair, after all, it does have a pre- Dr. Quinn
Jane Seymour and a pre-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alien</i> Yaphet
Kotto. It also has what must be the longest boat chase in cinema history. But, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the less said of Sheriff J.W. Pepper, the
better. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Man With the Golden Gun</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why, you may ask? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two words: Christopher Lee. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lee gives us a villain we can hiss
at while secretly rooting for. We haven’t been this entertained by the bad guy
since <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i>. We’ve also got
Britt Ekland (of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wicker Man</i> fame)
in a bikini, Herve Villechaize in a tuxedo and M in a half-sunk boat
headquarters where everything is tilted to the right. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Spy Who Loved Me</i> has A) the coolest villain lair ever and B) Richard Kiel
as Jaws. Oh, and a catchy Carly Simon song. That’s about it. Well, that and
Bond’s Union Jack parachute, that was pretty cool. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moonraker</i>
has Jaws (again), and NASA’s own contingent of heavily armed astronauts. It was
James Bond trying to be Han Solo and not completely succeeding. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then we come to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For Your Eyes Only</i>, in which Bond
doesn’t sleep with a girl because she’s too young for him (you are starting to
look your age, Roger), James Bond’s good friend Tevye, and Bond at his most
oblivious. More than once, I found myself screaming at the screen, “How do you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not know</i> he’s the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bad guy</i>?!?”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Octopussy
</i>has the title song “All Time High” because nothing rhymes with octopussy.
At the climax, Roger Moore’s James Bond is disguised as a clown, which more or
less sums up Roger’s portrayal as 007. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
View to a Kill</i> has a Nazi-engineered Christopher Walken (!) deciding to
destroy Silicon Valley with Grace Jones. Apparently, Walken’s Zorin has also
seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superman</i>. This was to be Moore’s
last outing as Bond. Some say it was because he discovered that he was older
than his love interest’s mother. Some say it was because he didn’t like the
increased violence (in one part, Zorin machine-guns a crowd of people, their
bodies floating away in a flood he caused).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our next Bond is Timothy Dalton. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, some have said less than
stellar things about Dalton’s Bond. Personally, I think the man was ahead of
his time. His Bond is serious, a man who gets angry when his friend is killed,
and who has no qualms about pulling the trigger on a villain. I think audiences
at the time just weren’t prepared for the complete 180 from Moore to Dalton. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We start with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Living Daylights</i> which sees Bond <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> killing an assassin because he can tell by watching her that
she doesn’t know a sniper rifle from a hole in the ground. The plot is rather
complicated, involving a Russian defector who isn’t really defecting, an Aryan
henchman and Joe Don Baker (Mitchell!) as a war-obsessed gun runner, a man who
takes Risk seriously. Oh, and a cello case that becomes a toboggan. (And,
again, Bond helps out the Taliban, but let’s try to forget that part.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, it was Dalton’s second outing
as Bond, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Licence to Kill</i> that upset
most hardcore, longtime Bond fans, with its graphic depictions of violence,
earning the film a PG-13, a first for the series. In this one, Bond’s longtime
CIA buddy Felix Leiter is fed to a shark by a ruthless South American drug
dealer, something that royally pisses 007 off. Bond, against M’s orders, goes
on a quest for revenge. The villains in this picture (including a young Benicio
Del Toro) aren’t the over-the-top cackling super villains of the past; these
men are real, perhaps too real for audience comfort. The climactic tanker truck
chase is one of the highlights of the series. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dalton never did a third Bond and
was replaced by Pierce Brosnan. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Brosnan’s first outing was in the
better-than-most <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldeneye</i>, which
spawned the most addictive video game since “Tetris.” Brosnan managed to find
the middle ground between Moore’s eyebrow-wriggling camp and Dalton’s
uber-serious killer-for-hire. This time the villain is 006, Alex Trevelyan,
played by “Game of Thrones” and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lord
of the Rings</i> star Sean Bean (affectionately nicknamed “Seen” Bean by yours
truly). This is a return to classic Bond, tank chases, implausibly named women
(Xenia Onatopp) and space lasers used for nefarious purposes (actually, is
there ever a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good</i> use for a space
laser?). Brosnan was my first Bond, having watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldeneye</i> when it first came out on video, so it’s the role I will
always identify him with (sorry, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mama Mia</i>
fans). The best thing to come out of Brosnan’s tenure as 007 is Judi Dench, the
fantastic Oscar-winning actress takes over the role of M, turning the role from
simply “James Bond’s boss” into something truly memorable, she would play the
role in seven films. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tomorrow Never Dies</i>, Bond teams up with Michelle Yeoh to defeat Jonathan
Pryce, who is basically an evil Ted Turner. No space lasers, but Michelle Yeoh
will be the last good Bond girl until Eva Green in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casino Royale</i>, in fact, she’s so kick-ass in this movie, you have
to wonder why Hollywood didn’t offer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i>
a spin-off series instead of Halle Berry’s forgettable Jinx (from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Another Day</i>). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
World is Not Enough</i>’s most interesting character is not Bond, nor either of
the vacant but pretty girls (a decent Sophie Marceau and a god-awful Denise
Richards), but Robert Carlyle’s Renard, a bald, scarred terrorist with a bullet
lodged in his brain, making him not only stronger, but unable to feel pain (or
pleasure or hot or cold or…you get the idea). Carlyle plays the character with
an almost Karloff level of sympathy. He knows he is a monster, and to a certain
extent, we pity him. If this film is worth watching, it’s worth watching because
of him. And not Denise Richards as an atomic scientist (yeah, right) named
Christmas Jones. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Really. I’m not making that up. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last and least for Brosnan was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Another Day</i>, which starts off with
the worst Bond title song ever, performed by Madonna and a computer, sounding like
some sort of unholy hellspawn of Stephen Hawking and Moby. We then have a
Korean guy who turns into a white guy (DNA transplant. Oh..wait, what?), an
invisible car, yet another giant space laser, and Halle Berry who is an awesome
CIA agent because we are told this repeatedly (all evidence to the contrary). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet…</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet…</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die
Another Day</i> was a huge hit. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Go figure. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The series rebooted, went back to
basics, went back to Fleming, and brought us Daniel Craig, who is arguably the
best Bond yet (even die hard, old school fans will place him second to The Great
Connery). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casino
Royale</i> features Craig as the chiseled, not-terribly handsome, but supreme
badass Bond, a Bond who has a little problem with killing people before MI6 has
had an opportunity to interrogate them. He is, as M describes him, a blunt
instrument, not yet the suave man in the tux with the implausible gadgets. He
is still vulnerable in this film; we can see that brutally killing a man with
his bare hands gets to him. At one point, he decides to resign, telling Bond
girl Vesper (the beautiful Eva Green), that he should get out while he still
has any soul left. And Vesper, a smart, lovely, well-rounded character, easily
the best Bond girl ever. The plot revolves around a man who gambles with terrorist’s
money, thereby getting them more money and Bond has to enter a winner-take-all
poker tournament with him and the bad guy weeps blood, and a house sinks in
Vienna and…</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, it’s a bit complicated, but
worth the price of admission. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me say something controversial
here for a moment. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jack White and Alica Keyes recorded
the song “Another Way to Die” for the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantum
of Solace</i> and I, unlike many, love it. Partly because I’m a White Stripes
fan, and partly because I just happen to think that it’s a kick-ass song. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantum
of Solace</i> has the most unusual title of any Bond movie. I’m still not quite
sure what it means. Despite its long title, it is the shortest Bond ever. Bond
is out for revenge, trying to get those responsible for Vesper’s death. We have
car chases, a weird opera, a hotel in the middle of nowhere blowing up, a
sadistic dictator, a girl covered in oil (an homage to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i>) and Bond finally letting go of the past by leaving his
heart in the snow- metaphorically, of course. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last, but certainly not least is
last year’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skyfall</i>, with Javier
Bardem playing that special kind of crazy that he appears to excel at, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">28 Days Later</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pirates of the Caribbean</i>’s Naomie Harris confidently inheriting the
role of Moneypenny, a Q who looks like he stepped out of “The IT Crowd” and the
most emotional resonance of any Bond movie, ever. It is a film that reminds us
that while we know James Bond, 007, we know very little about James Bond, human
being. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skyfall</i>, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goldfinger</i>, is not just a great James
Bond picture, it’s a great movie, period. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, that’s it.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So far. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bond will always be out there,
whether he’s Scottish, Welsh, Irish, blond, brunette, bald, tall, short, young,
old, camp or serious, there will always be Bond. Possibly the truest words in
the history of cinema are these:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">James Bond Will Return. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We, the audience, are looking forward to it. </span>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-73152088971150829462012-11-29T06:41:00.002-08:002014-03-03T16:15:13.310-08:00Requiem for the Theater<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They say that the movie theater is
dead, that within a few years, the Cineplex will be a dinosaur; its insides
scooped out and turned into a bargain bookstore or a church. In this age of
wide-screen, hi-def TVs, Blu-Ray players, surround sound and bathroom breaks a
mere pause button away, why bother going out and fighting crowds, paying exorbitant
prices for snacks, sitting through twenty minutes of previews and having to
deal with people who don’t understand that “turn off your cell phone” means
TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
say that, and I don’t entirely disagree. It costs a lot to go to the movies.
Tickets where I live are $7.50 apiece for a matinee. So, if the wife and I go
to an early show, that’s $15. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but remember, that
same movie is going to be available for purchase in a few months for about $20,
or rent for as little as $1 (less if you’re a regular Netflix user like me).
So, you could see it now for fifteen, or wait a little bit and see it for a
buck. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not
exactly brain surgery, is it?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And yet…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just
before Halloween,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regal Entertainment
Group, in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies did a one-night only double
feature of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bride of Frankenstein</i>. I was so
excited. I begged my way into getting the night off of work, then begged my
ex-wife to let me take our son for the night and then paid twenty-five dollars
for the two of us to see a pair of movies <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that
I already own</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why? </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because I’m old-fashioned. Because
I remember being a kid and the thrill I’d get when I was taken to the movies,
sitting in the darkened theater, waiting for the show to start, that little
rush of adrenaline I’d get when the lights went all the way down, signaling
that it was time for the feature to begin. Say what you will, but there’s
nothing quite like going to a movie. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So my son and I sat in the theater
and watched a pair of movies that were both over seventy-five years old, we
stayed out until past ten on a school night, and we had a blast. My favorite
bit was my son being approached by various middle-aged men in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i> tee-shirts who told him how
fortunate he was to be there, seeing these movies on the big screen. One man,
who looked close to tears, said, “You are so lucky. I wish I had seen these on
the big screen when I was your age.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
it’s true, these movies which I had seen countless times, movies that even my
seven year-old was familiar with from repeated viewings, they, like the titular
monster, came alive again. The creation scene was more thrilling than ever, the
monster more unnerving, Dr. Pretorius’ bitchiness was funnier than ever. Same
movie, whole new experience. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it’s not just for monster
movies. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A few years ago, I attended an outdoor
movie screening of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casablanca</i>. It was
the first time I had ever watched the movie with a crowd and it was like watching
it for the first time. When Rick shoots Major Strasser and the police arrive,
we have that famous scene where Renault says, “Major Strasser has been shot”
(he and Rick exchange a glance) “round up the usual suspects.” </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The audience cheered. A thunderous
round of applause. I don’t know how many of those in attendance had seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casablanca</i> before, I would guess the
majority, but they reacted like fans at a rock concert, when the guitarist plays
the first few chords of their biggest hit. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps (and this will be my
controversial stance for the evening) the future of movie theaters lies in the
past. Let’s face it, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, and maybe theaters
should seriously consider showing more tried and true fare, as they say, a
classic never dies. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Hollywood, take note: maybe,
instead of remaking everything, you should simply re-release those popular
titles. And for crying out loud, DO NOT alter them, no CGI “improvements,” no
walkie-talkies instead of guns, don’t fix what ain’t broke. )</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Regal theaters uses the slogan “Go
big or go home.” Well, to paraphrase Norma Desmond, “The movies are big, it’s
Hollywood that got small.”</span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-36409819939332415392012-08-31T11:45:00.003-07:002014-03-03T16:15:37.917-08:00The Art House Strikes Back<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the past week, I’ve enjoyed a little “staycation” (that
is, a vacation where you don’t actually go anywhere) from my job at the Rainbow
Factory. I decided to take advantage of this by catching up on my movie
watching. To my surprise and delight, Hulu Plus offers a ton of Criterion films
commercial-free and unedited. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
those of you unfamiliar, the Criterion Collection is a video label that
specializes in art-house foreign films, as well as American films with a unique
vision or voice, films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rashomon,
Wild Strawberries, 8 ½ </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harold and
Maude</i>. These DVDs/Blu-Rays tend to be higher in price, difficult to find in
brick and mortar stores and (lately) even hard to get to on Netflix. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Thus,
finding a lot of them right at my fingertips, available to watch whenever I
want (for a low monthly fee of $7.99) was a godsend. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Oh, and
they have TV shows to, if you’re into that sort of thing. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
what did I watch?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
watched: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Phantom Carriage, The
Seventh Seal, Orpheus, Good Morning, The Naked Kiss, The Rules of the Game, The
Battle of Algiers, L’Atalante, Mon Oncle, Zero de Conduite, The Exterminating
Angel</i> as well as the documentaries <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Love Goddess, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, Direct Your Own Damn Movie!</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poultry in Motion. </i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(On
Netflix, I watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Persona, Arsenic and
Old Lace, Wet Hot American Summer</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sabrina</i>.
On DVD I watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Saphead, Midnight in
Paris, Brazil </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Sweet Smell of
Success</i>. As well as a wonderful double feature: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> followed by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan
9 from Outer Space</i>.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why am
I telling you all this? Why am I gloating about the fact that I spent the last
week and a half on my ass, doing nothing productive?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because
I feel like what I did is the cinematic equivalent of going to Lourdes. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I went
out and re-discovered cinema, I reminded myself why I love this stuff so much,
why movies captivate me, why I have decided to dedicate my life to studying
them, and teaching others about them. I feel cleansed. I feel refreshed. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sure, I
could have gone to the beach, gotten a sunburn, sand in uncomfortable places
and spent a lot of money I didn’t have, but that’s just not my cup of tea. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let me
tell you about some of the things I discovered. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First,
Jean Vigo, a French filmmaker, who sadly died at the young age of 29 from
tuberculosis. He only completed one feature-length film: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’Atalante</i>, which is a beautiful and touching film, but that wasn’t
the one that amazed me, the one that amazed me was his previous film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zero de Conduite, </i>with a running time of
only 45 minutes, Vigo shows us a strict school for boys and how while the boys
can be little hellions and get into all kinds of mischief, their teachers aren’t
much better. Full of surrealistic touches (the headmaster is a midget with a
bead down to his waist, dummies fill the stands at a rally), the film is poetic
and charming an anti-authority film that rallies not only against the
oppressive teachers and headmasters, but against cinema itself, a film that
dares to go its own way. The real surprise for me was discovering that the film
was released in 1933 (the same year as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King
Kong, Duck Soup </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Invisible Man</i>),
but if you had asked me while I was watching it, I would have sworn that it was
from the 1960’s, and that Vigo must have been a contemporary of Truffaut and
Goddard. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zero de Conduite</i> was truly
ahead of its time (the fact that it was banned until 1945 should tell you
something). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next, I
will commit cinematic blasphemy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Rules of the Game</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I didn’t
dig it. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Don’t
get me wrong, it’s a fine film, one that is well directed, well acted, well
written, but…well, it just left me a little cold. Perhaps it is because I’ve
seen so many drawing room comedies, where the rich gather at a hunting lodge
and hop in and out of one another’s arms. Perhaps it’s the film’s historical significance
that I’m not appreciating. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll look back on these
words, smack myself in the forehead and go, “What was I thinking? How could I
not appreciate that movie?”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wouldn’t
be the first time. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(Actually,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brazil</i> was a film that I had a hard
time getting into previously, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed once I actually
sat down and watched it this past week.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
this doubt speaks more to my own neurosis, that fear that I have, the one that
says that when I don’t appreciate something, the defect is in me, not in
whatever it is I’m viewing. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rules of
the Game</i> is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made and here
I am, rather bored with it. Is it because I’m an overweight, undereducated
American who wouldn’t know true art if it slapped me in the face? Or is it
simply a subjective choice? As my old screenwriting professor used to say, “That’s
why they make chocolate and vanilla.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyone
who knows me knows that I enjoy sharing my love of movies with others, exposing
them to films that they have never seen, but that I think they would enjoy. (My
batting average on this is fairly high). My wife, Sarah, and I decided to do
the mother of all double features (we enjoy doing this sometimes, making tacos
and watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Evil Dead Trilogy</i> or
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alien</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aliens</i>) in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>, considered by many to be
the greatest (or at least one of the greatest) motion pictures ever made. The
photography, the mise-en-scene, the lighting, the acting, the script,
everything firing on all cylinders and creating a remarkable motion picture,
one that can be (and has been) studied one frame at a time. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>, considered by
many to be the worst (or at least one of the worst) motion pictures ever made.
The cardboard sets, the obvious Astroturf in the cemetery, the piles of stock
footage that doesn’t match what Ed Wood filmed, Bela Lugosi’s double who
resembles the Lugosi as much as I do, everything misfiring and creating a
hodgepodge mess one that can be (and has been) laughed at and ridiculed time
and time again. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was
asked if the wife and I experienced mental whiplash from such a double feature.
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
that was my week, the great (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Battle
of Algiers, Orpheus, The Seventh Seal</i>), the awful, (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>), and everything in between (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wet Hot American Summer, The Saphead, The
Naked Kiss</i>). </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I said before, I feel refreshed, rejuvenated and one with the cosmos. </span>James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-92143494900099550542012-08-04T15:37:00.000-07:002014-03-03T16:15:57.595-08:00Movies I Dragged My Mother To<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kids are strange, particularly when
it comes to movies. Anyone who has spent any amount of time around a child will
tell you that they can watch the same movies over and over and over again, and
never get tired of them. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We, the current generation of film
geeks, were also guilty of this as children. As a young child, every time we
went to the video store (itself a novelty in 1985), we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had to </i>rent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Many
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh</i>. As much as my family hoped I would, I never
got tired of heffalumps, blustery days, or Tigger getting stuck in a tree.
Remember, this was before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">buying</i> a
video was an option (my generation still remembers commercials advertising
movies that were now “affordably priced to own,” which meant about $19.99). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ah, Pooh Bear. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that was video. My mother could
put that movie in and leave me right there for the next eighty-odd minutes,
knowing that nothing short of a nuclear war was going to interrupt my time in
the Hundred Acre Wood. She could cook dinner, paint the house, vacuum, do whatever
she wanted to. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She</i> didn’t have to
watch it for the hundredth time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, the theatre was different. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Going to the movies was a real
treat. If a movie was coming out that I wanted to see, I’d start bugging her as
soon as I could, letting her know in my oh-so-subtle way that I wanted to see
this particular motion picture, and, since it was not on video, she had to
suffer through it as well. I would be on my best behavior all week (as close as
I got, anyway) so that she’d be sure to take me. I remember the real thrill
that would go through me when we were finally sitting in the theater, waiting
for the movie to start, I felt a great sense of relief, all my being good had
paid off, and in two hours, when the movie was over, I could go back to being the
unholy bastard that I was, until the next movie came along that I wanted to
see. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that I have a son of my own, I
feel compelled to sit down with him and show him the films that meant so much
to me when I was his age. I’d like to tell you about three of these little
trips down Movie Memory Lane. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, when he was three, I showed
him <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Many Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh</i>. His response: “Meh.” But, I found myself regressing to my childhood,
remembering how the sight of Tigger, after Rabbit yelled at him, turning away
in the snow, his large chin quivering in sorrow, broke my little heart. As an
adult, you pick up on things you didn’t notice as a child, like, for instance,
Christopher Robin’s voice changes between the episodes (it’s true, three
different actors voiced him). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes, the heffalumps and woozles section
does feel like something out of Hunter S. Thompson. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fear and Loathing in Disneyland</i>, anyone?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I still have this one on DVD, but
now my little one is too old for it, and would probably balk if I suggested
that we watch it. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh, well. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before going on to the next film, I
have to tell you that when I was little, I loved dinosaurs. I had dozens of
dinosaur books, tee-shirts, toys, curtains, bed sheets, anything and everything
that had a dinosaur on it. My mother even crocheted a dinosaur rug for me. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Knowing this, it should come as no
surprise that when I was seven, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Land Before Time</i> was released, I began my usual ritual of behaving myself
in hopes of conning my mother to take me to see this one. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It worked. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I loved that movie. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For Christmas that year, I got all
the stuffed animals, my good friend Christy also got them, and she went the
extra step of making a “tree star” out of green construction paper, which, to
my seven year-old self, was pretty sweet. Pizza Hut ran a promotion wherein you
got <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Land Before Time</i> hand puppets if
you spent a certain amount of money. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Guess who begged to go to Pizza Hut
all the time?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Flash forward many years, to when I
put in the DVD of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Land Before Time</i>
for my son. His response: “I liked it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My initial reaction, after not
having watched the film in maybe twenty years, was this: “Has this thing always
been this short?”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s true. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Land Before Time</i> clocks in and just over an hour (sixty-nine
minutes, to be exact). I felt a little cheated and at once began inspecting the
DVD packaging, making sure that I hadn’t rented some truncated version of the
movie I so loved as a youth.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nope. It’s just a short movie. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And now, the bad one. The one that
my mother, to this day, has not forgiven me for. Maybe it’s because I dragged
her to not one, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> of these. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles. </span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, before anyone accuses me of
being an old fogie who has forgotten what it means to be a kid, I urge you to
go back and watch them again. Right now. I’ll wait. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Back?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pretty awful, aren’t they?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s okay, I forgot too. When I was
nine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i>
was awesome. It was dark, Raphael said dirty words, the turtles kicked serious
butt, and they said great catchphrases like “Bodacious!” Just like real
teenagers!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sorry. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But to a kid, they really were
great. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My mother, who is apparently
applying for sainthood, took me to see not only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i>, but also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze</i> (also known
as the one with Vanilla Ice and a dance sequence) and the really awful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III</i> (even
as a twelve year-old, I thought this one stunk). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sat down with my son a couple of
weeks ago and watched these films for the first time in at least fifteen years
(maybe longer). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He loved them, I found myself
cringing more than once. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When they were over, I turned to my
wife and said, “That’s why my mother never forgave me.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Often, the films that we clung to as
children, the ones that meant so much to our young minds, they didn’t age well.
Some do, but, for every <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Goonies,
Monster Squad</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Batman: Mask of the
Phantasm</i>, there are a lot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Baby: Secret of
the Lost Legend, Masters of the Universe </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mannequin</i>. Sometimes, we need to leave the past in the past,
because as an adult, there are few things worse than having “Ninja Rap” stuck
in your head. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On the plus side, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TMNT</i>, the animated Ninja Turtles movie
from 2007 is still pretty cool. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253541429279525382.post-33941655273457196292012-07-08T13:10:00.000-07:002014-03-03T16:16:18.542-08:00Buster Keaton: A Wonderful World of Slapstick<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Buster Keaton was a genius. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But you don’t need me to tell you
that. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the things I love about
movies is that there are so many of them, a galaxy of motion pictures of every
variety: some long, some short, some in color, some in black and white, some
silent, some talkie, there are comedies, dramas, war pictures, gangster films,
swashbucklers, romances, epics, science fiction films, horror pictures,
westerns, films that deal with the fate of the universe and films that speak of
the minutia of the soul. And because there’s so much out there, there’s always
something new to discover. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I recently discovered Buster
Keaton. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh, sure, I had seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The General</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock, Jr.</i> before, but, much like the man who found a huge gold nugget
and used it as a doorstop; I didn’t know what I had found. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton was
born in October of 1895, the oldest son of Joseph and Myra Keaton, a pair of vaudeville
performers who toured as The Two Keatons. According to legend, eighteen
month-old Buster took a tumble down a flight of stairs, shook it off, and
continued on his merry way. The fall was purportedly witnessed by none other
than a young magician touring with The Two Keatons named Harry Houdini, who exclaimed,
“What a buster!” The name stuck. As a child, Buster was constantly wandering on
stage in the middle of his parents act. Unsure what else to do with the
determined youngster, they finally simply added him to the bill, thus, The Two
Keatons became The Three Keatons. Buster learned quickly how to take a fall,
and was soon billed as The Human Mop. Joseph would toss young Buster about (and
sometimes off) the stage, including one incident where he used his young son as
a human missile, aimed at a rowdy man who had been heckling poor Myra. The
Three Keatons act was so violent, that frequent accusations of child abuse were
made against Joseph, who gladly handed young Buster over for inspection, and,
try as they might, they never found so much as a bruise on the young lad. In
his autobiography, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Wonderful World of
Slapstick</i>, Keaton had this to say about his act: “I did not cry because I
wasn’t hurt. All little boys like to be roughhoused by their fathers. They are
also natural tumblers and acrobats.”Part of his act, was that little Buster
never smiled or cried, he seemed to take his abuse in stride. This seeming lack
of emotion earned him the nickname The Great Stone Face. As Buster grew older,
the act grew rougher, eventually; Buster and his father would beat one another
with mop handles. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In February, 1917, Buster met
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the most popular silent film comics of the day.
Buster was fascinated by the cinema, even going so far as borrowing a camera,
taking it to his hotel room, and disassembling and then reassembling it. He
returned the camera the next day to Fatty, who promptly hired him. The big man
took little Buster under his wing and immediately put him in a short film
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Butcher Boy</i>, where Buster
takes a sack of flour to the face like a man. Buster began appearing in
numerous shorts with Fatty, his career delayed slightly by being drafted in the
US Army in June 1918. Shortly after returning, he was given the keys to the
kingdom and The Keaton Studios was born. What followed was one of the (if not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>) most impressive runs in Hollywood
history. Buster made short after short, each one a masterpiece: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One Week, The Goat, Cops, The Boat,
Neighbors, The High Sign, The Paleface, The Playhouse, My Wife’s Relations </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Balloonatic</i>, just to name a few.
Not only was Buster’s comedy a thing to admire, but so was his technical
brilliance. For example, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Playhouse</i>,
Buster plays every character on screen, including children, old women, an
entire orchestra, nine members of a variety act and even dances a with himself,
all this decades before modern computer effects. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon, Buster moved into features, writing,
directing and starring in such classics as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three
Ages, Our Hospitality, Steamboat Bill, Jr., The General, Sherlock, Jr., The Navigator
</i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seven Chances</i>. In these
films, Keaton turns falling down into an art form. We’ve all seen the gag where
the front of a house falls, and the person standing in front just happens to be
where the open window is, and the frame falls, narrowly missing our hero by
inches. Well, Keaton invented that (watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steamboat
Bill, Jr. </i>for the best example). Keaton fell from trees, down stairs, into
shallow ponds, swimming pools and into a girl’s dorm room (in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">College</i>). The mother of all chase scenes
serves as the climax of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seven Chances</i>,
where Buster is chased by a mob of angry would-be brides, boulders, and
anything and everything that can move (it’s greatest rival, is Keaton’s own
short, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cops</i>, where hundreds of
policemen chase an innocent Keaton through town). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Alas, all good things must end.
Keaton signed with MGM in 1928, making what he would later call “the worst
mistake of my life.” Gone was Keaton’s independence, gone were the days when
filming would start with only the beginnings and endings of a script (Keaton
believed that the middle would figure itself out). Keaton’s first film for MGM
was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cameraman</i>, which is (in my opinion)
the last great film from Buster (the look that he gives the office girl,
peeking over his little tintype is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
image of love at first sight. It recalls Norma Desmond’s comment in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunset Boulevard</i>, “We didn’t need
dialogue<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>We had<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> faces</i>”). MGM insisted that Keaton follow their formula, use their
people, all part of their factory approach to filmmaking. Keaton’s creativity stifled,
and his films became more and more lackluster. Ironically, unknown to Keaton
for decades, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cameraman</i> was used
by MGM for years as a training film; they would sit down would-be comedy
directors and have them watch the film, telling them, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This</i> is how you make comedies at MGM.” Many of Keaton’s classic
gags were recycled into Red Skelton or Marx Brothers comedies (the Marx
Brothers similarly bristled under MGM’s yoke). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Free and Easy, </i>his third film for MGM was a misfire, an uneven,
poorly plotted picture, slightly redeemed by the film’s bittersweet closing
moments. Eventually, Keaton was relegated to supporting roles in films that featured
the over-the-top stylings of Jimmy Durante. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luckily, Keaton discovered television,
which was still in its infancy. He embraced the new medium, and it brought him
a whole new generation of fans. Keaton would return to the big screen,
co-starring in films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s a Mad, Mad,
Mad, Mad World</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would be remiss if I did not
touch upon an issue that perturbs me and that is the Keaton vs. Chaplin argument.
Is there anything sillier? I have read where others have praised Keaton while
bashing Chaplin<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and vice versa. Must we
fight? Must we choose a side? They were both brilliant, but in different ways.
Both made amazing short silent films (Chaplin working first for Mack Sennett,
then for himself), both made some amazing features (can you really say anything
bad about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">City Lights</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern Times</i>?) and both made some
lackluster films towards the end of their careers (Keaton due to lack of
independence, Chaplin because he became more concerned with the message that
the laughs). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Come on folks, let’s bury the
hatchet. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After all, they certainly had no animosity
between them. Keaton’s autobiography makes numerous references to the
friendship they shared. More importantly, they shared a great (if all too brief)
scene in Chaplin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Limelight</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Buster’s legacy lives on. On
YouTube there are dozens of Keaton tribute videos, featuring his “best of”
moments. Keaton’s films have been lovingly restored and re-issued on
high-definition Blu-Ray from Kino, enabling third and fourth generations of
fans to embrace The Great Stone Face. The official Buster Keaton fan club can
be found at www.busterkeaton.com, and they have given themselves the moniker “Damfino,”
after the ill-fated craft in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Boat</i>.
(Say it aloud, you’ll get the joke.) Even Roger Ebert himself, in his ongoing
collection of essays dubbed “The Great Movies” has dedicated one such essay to
the films of Buster Keaton (this is, in and of itself, not very impressive
unless you realize that Keaton is the only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">artist
</i>who has an essay dedicated to his work. Ebert claims he did this because he
couldn’t decide which film of Keaton’s to highlight, so he chose them all). </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sat down and decided to
re-examine the films of Buster Keaton and found that there was a treasure
simply waiting for me. After kicking myself a few times for not finding it
sooner, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I eagerly showed the films to my
family, all of whom became Keaton fans. My wife and son and I now give one
another “the high sign” (thumbs to noses, fingers splayed, as though an eagle
was on our chin). I have gone out of my way to acquire all the Keaton Blu-Rays
I could, and have found them to be the perfect pick-me-up when I’m feeling a
little sad. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, what took me so long to
discover the genius of Buster Keaton?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Damfino. </span></div>
James H. Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01943631364163600024noreply@blogger.com3