View image A theory of relativity: "Into Great Silence."
From my review of "Into Great Silence" at RogerEbert.com:
We get a lot of movies about noise these days: gunshots, screams, explosions, fist thunks, thunderous roars, revving engines, squealing tires and those deafening sonic swooshes that accompany nearly every corporate logo before the feature even gets started. But we don't experience many moments of silence at the movies (and I'm not just talking about the audiences). "Into Great Silence," though devoid of narration, musical score or much at all in the way of dialogue, encourages us to listen closely: to the sound of snow falling in the mountains, a nocturnal prayer whispered in a small wooden cell with a knocking tin stove, a bell rope pulled in a chapel. Nobody yells. Nothing detonates.
The images also open up to us gradually and quietly. We're not bombarded with fusillades of shots: "Look at this! Now this! Now this!" "Into Great Silence" unfolds with its own gentle, unforced rhythms, designed, as German filmmaker Philip Groning has said, to be less a "documentary" than a meditation.
Groning spent six months living with the monks of the eremitical Carthusian order at the Grand Chartreuse Charterhouse, or monastery, in the French Alps. He brought with him only a camera and basic sound equipment -- no crew, no lights -- to capture the daily lives, prayers and routines of this most ascetic of Catholic orders, which was founded by St. Bruno in 1084. The monks, who have taken a vow of poverty, subsist on very little. They pray aloud at times and sing solemn Gregorian chants, but they rarely speak, except on their Monday walks. If cinema had existed more than a thousand years ago, this is quite like what it may have recorded.
I must confess my fondness for contemplative movies of this sort. The less frenetic onscreen activity you are forced to endure, the more you're able to notice. And the form of "Into Great Silence" is ideally suited to its subject. The monks lead a regimented existence (you can see a typical weekday schedule, and learn about their history, at their official Web site, www.chartreux.org), but time is allotted for the introspection and reflection that are essential to their devotion. You're given the opportunity to contemplate details, including ones you may overlook in the rush and routine of your own everyday life.
Ebertfest '07: "It's his happening and it freaks him out!"
View image Supergroup: The Carrie Nations jam with the Strawberry Alarm Clock in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." The latter band will also perform at Ebertfest '07, after a screening of the film.
Set your Strawberry Alarm Clocks: The annual spring ritual of Roger Ebert's Film Festival in Urbana-Champaign (now in its ninth year) runs April 24 -29, 2007, at the gorgeous old Virginia Theatre. The name of the fest has always been rather flexible: "Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival," "The Overlooked" (sounding like something from "The Shining"), "Ebertfest"... Next year, the event will been officially re-named: Ebertfest -- the Roger Ebert Film Festival.
The tradition of appreciating "overlooked" films (by any criteria Ebert chooses to apply) continues, however. The festival will climax with a closing-day screening of Russ Meyer's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (screenplay by Ebert himself) and a live performance by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the psychedelic rock band featured in the film (and in Jack Nicholson's 1968 "Psych-Out," as well).
Roger Ebert will be there, introducing the festival and watching the films with the audience, but because he's still recuperating from surgery, will rely on an "expert group of colleagues" to conduct the on-stage interviews this year.
Other guests of the fest will include Werner Herzog (appearing with "Stroszek," Paul Cox (director of "Man of Flowers"), actress Fatoumata Coulibaly ("Moolaade"), writer-director Joey Lauren Adams and festival favorite, actor Scott Wilson ("Come Early Morning"), director Andrew Davis ("Holes"), film scholars David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson and Samba Gadjido, musician Jim White, producer/distributor Michael Barker (Sony Classics), and plenty more.
The 13 films featured in this year's Ebertfest are listed below, with titles linking to Ebert's original reviews of the films, where applicable. Other blurbs come from the festival's official web site, where the complete schedule and details can be found: www.ebertfest.com.
Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule reports on Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse 2007 Festival at my former neighborhood rep house, the New Beverly Cinema (right by El Coyote!) in Los Angeles. Dennis includes an ebullient assessment of "Revenge of the Cheerleaders" (1976), a giddy teen sexploitation movie I have been very fond of since I showed in my college student film series. Writes Dennis:
There is no curriculum at the "morally compromised" Aloha High School, only figures of authority to disregard or blatantly undermine— these cheerleaders and the rest of the Aloha student body make Riff Randall and her crowd look like straight-A honor society members. The girls and boys only want to have fun, which translates into a heady brew of screwing, playing basketball, cheering, robbing students at a thug-happy rival high school of their drugs (during class!) and riding around in a cherry red 1955 Buick convertible with the top down, and their tops off, of course. (The nudity is democratic too—there’s more than a flash of full frontal male twiggery on view here, including Hasselhoff, though his Boner status, based on this evidence, is overinflated.)
It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered such a relentlessly likable feel-good-at-all-costs vibe in any movie, let alone one as low-rent as this one. Tarantino said in a recent interview, referring to discovering treasures in the world of exploitation movies, that not only do you have to drink a lot of milk to get to the cream, with exploitation fare you have to drink a lot of curdled milk to get to the milk. And that’s what "Revenge of the Cheerleaders" felt like to me Sunday night—the reward for having slogged through a lot of similar comedies that had the sex and nudity but none of the zip and tang and spirit this one has in buckets.
And there's so much more. Dennis also writes about Angie Dickinson and Rock Hudson in "Pretty Maids All in a Row," and other grist for the grindhouse...
My problem with Chris Rock (who belongs with Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia in the category of Comics I Don't Think are Funny) is that he too often fails to base his shtick on accurate or meaningful observations. It's just dumb shtick, and he'll say anything (no matter how pointless) to get a laugh. It's all about his hacky delivery rhythms -- Catskills via Brooklyn. What he says hardly matters as long as he sounds like he's being funny. He could be speaking Ancient Greek and he hits you so hard you'd still know exactly where you're supposed to laugh, whether it's funny or not.
Take the following, from his "SNL" appearance to promote his already-vanished movie, "I Think I Love My Wife." Most of his jokes are older than John McCain (and in the '80s these same jokes were told about Reagan and in the '90s about Bob Dole). His stuff about Giuliani being good in a crisis is fine, but the pit bull analogy is stretched to the point of desperation.
Then Rock sets up the race for the Democratic nomination: "Everybody's saying the same thing: Hillary or Obama? A black man or a white woman? It's so hard to make up my mind! Like it's a suffering contest. And even if it was, how can you compare the suffering of a white woman to the suffering of a black man?" I don't know, Chris. How can you? And who's making the comparison? Well, Rock is: "I mean, white women burned their bras. Black men were burned alive!" Lame set-up, phony-outrageous non-sequitur punchline. That's Rock in a nutshell. (This might have been funny, in a Colbert-esque way, if Rock had been in character as Nat X. Does Rock know the difference? If not, what's the point? Is anybody saying Hillary is more oppressed than Obama? It might have worked if Rock had cited an example that he could riff on.)
The line about nobody hating white women as much as white women do is pretty good. Women are certainly Hillary's main problem. And the crack about how blacks would elect Halle Berry for half a term was kind of clever, but the audience was still laughing at the idea that black voters would elect OJ.
I'd love to know what would happen if someone else -- say, Joseph Biden or Hillary or Obama -- were to toss off this line: "Is America ready for a black president? I say: Why not? We just had a retarded one!" Hey, folks: What the hell -- even black politicians are better than retarded ones, right? I wish I could say that Rock is an articulate comedian. Or an insightful one. Or a funny one. But I don't think he is. Does anyone want to explain if/why they think this monologue is funny?
So, OK, like I was over at The House Next Door because it's like one of my favorite blogs, right? And I was making an observation that, in the last episode of "LOST"-- it was called "The Man From Tallahassee" -- when Ben tells Locke the story about a big box on the island where you could imagine anything you want inside, that it was really like a reference to Schrödinger's Cat in quantum physics, eh? It's like quantum indeterminacy, 'cause anything could be in the box but you don't know until you open it, right? OK then, so until you can see what's in the box, all the possibilities exist at once. Whatever's in there is in a superposition because it's there and not there at the same time. And, like, so is everybody watching "LOST" because we don't know what's in the big box; we just know what's in the little boxes, like the hatch and the Virgin Mary statues and stuff. And the box factory. So, then I thought I should put in a link to something about Schrödinger's Cat and I Googled it and I found this awesome video that's, like, the best thing I've ever seen on the Internet! Especially when a dog like enters the equations. The guy is Gary Burgess (but not like the guy who played Radar on "M*A*S*H" because he was Gary Burghoff, OK) and I think he's like Canadian, like if Doug and Bob McKenzie were quantum physi-cizists -- oh, Jeez! -- or something like that. So, the topic is Schrödinger's Cat and this is the video, so click on it and that's all, so g'day. And hose off, eh?
Plus, Ben is like Henry Gale, too, so he's in two states at the same time, eh?
View image: "I will smite thee for being a dunderhead."
Or: That's Entertainment Reporting!
Have entertainment industry "reporters" lost all touch with the reality of the business they're supposedly covering? In a world where... "Entertainment Tonight," Entertainment Weekly, Variety, the New York and Los Angeles Times, the Star, the Inquirer, People, Gawker, Defamer, Perez Hilton and anybody else with a blog all recycle the same trivial non-stories, is there anything more overdone and superfluous than another entertainment reporter writing another trite, misconceived "trend piece" about (of all things) box office results?
OK, I'm being facetious. Kind of. Peter Bart, the editor of Variety -- who, it appears, has lost or at least misplaced his marbles -- started this latest round of "oh, the critics are out of touch" speculation (a non-story that will outlive all remaining film critics, just as it has the dead ones) last week with an inane diatribe worthy of, say, David O. Russell. (See how this stuff keeps getting recycled?) Bart wrote:
In reviewing "300" last week... A.O. (Tony) Scott of the New York Times, said the movie was "as violent as 'Apocalypto' and twice as stupid."
That comment reflected the consensus among critics not only on "300" but also on "Ghost Rider," "Wild Hogs," "Norbit" and the other movie miscreants unleashed on the public since Oscar time.
The situation underscores yet again the disconnect between the cinematic appetites of critics vs. those of the popcorn crowd. The kids who storm their multiplexes to catch the opening of "Night at the Museum" don't give a damn what the critics think...
Bart is four paragraphs into his piece and he's already writing in circles: The critics, he complains, don't like the big "popcorn" movies that are attended by kids who don't care what the critics think. So, the point is... what? What has changed over the last 80 years or so? Did the kids storming the multiplexes -- er, ornate movie palaces -- suddenly stop basing their moviegoing decisions on the New York Times reviews? (Bart neglects to mention that "300" got mostly positive reviews, and currently has a 61 percent favorable rating on RottenTomatoes -- and a 50 percent split decision among its "cream of the crop" critics, including those who write for the New York Times.) So, is Bart saying the disconnect is due to the fact that today's modern young a-go-go people don't read newspapers much anymore? Or that they used to pay attention to film critics, but now they don't?
Well... not really. Although any of those things might make more sense than what he does say. Here's what Bart gleans from the box office coffee grounds of "300," "Ghost Rider" and "Norbit":
The distribution gurus say they prefer "four-quadrant movies," but I"d suggest that there are only two: One quadrant consists of the hardcore fans who are propelled by "buzz" and the second embraces the rest of the filmgoing public who wait to learn whether the movie"s any good or not.
So several questions present themselves: If the established media want to stay relevant, should their critics make a passing attempt to tune in to pop culture? In short, should at least someone on the reviewing staff try to be relevant to both quadrants?
Oddly, the first question that presents itself to me is: If there are only two "quadrants" then wouldn't they cease to be quadrants and become halves instead? For a guy who sells himself as a bottom-line industry type, Bart is really bad at math.
By this point in his column, Bart is no longer talking about movies -- the kind critics review or "the kids" go to see. He's not listening to kids or crix -- he's listening (well, half listening) only to the "marketing gurus." That should tell you something about where he's coming from. (I wonder: Has he seen these wildly popular movies everybody seems to be enjoying so much?) Remember: Variety is a trade paper, written for people in the entertainment business. And its movie reviews are focused on business. Variety's reviews always begin with a bold-faced paragraph summing up the writer's learned speculation on how the film will fare financially in various markets. Although sometimes the writers of these reviews are quite insightful about the art and craft of filmmaking, they aim to do something virtually no other critic in the land pretends to do, which is to predict box-office fortunes.
Some of us would say that -- outside of, perhaps, trade publications -- it would be irresponsible and unprofessional of a critic to claim to like or dislike a movie based on what he or she guesses its popularity might be. Critics tend to file their reviews before the opening weekend (their editors like to have the reviews in the paper on opening day, usually a Friday). Nobody knows -- outside of those infallible market researchers -- how the film is going to do when the reviews are written. And a critic shouldn't care.
In general, here's how it works: The financiers (whether studios or independent producers or companies who agree to distribute finished films) place their bets when they buy a script and hire the people to make the movie. Usually, the money people (or the studio execs) have the "final cut." Depending on management's assessment of the film's chances (and on various contractual obligations), they may spend an enormous amount of money -- twice the budget of the film itself, perhaps -- on distribution and marketing (commonly referred to as "prints and advertising"). After the film's theatrical run (domestic and/or overseas), additional revenue is generated through what used to be called "ancillary" markets, such as home video, broadcast and network TV broadcast rights, etc.
None of this has anything to do with whether anyone will like the movie or not. The "studios" (for lack of a better term) spend millions upon millions of dollars in an effort to persuade potential moviegoers to buy tickets on opening weekend. (And what do you think is more persuasive or reaches more people: a blitz of advertising across TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet, magazines, billboards, busses and bus stops, fast food restaurants and whatnot? Or reviews?
By the second weekend, it's all going to depend on word of mouth. It's not uncommon for a movie's grosses to plummet by 50 or 60 percent in the second weekend. Is that because of negative reviews? No. Is it because people who have seen the movie don't like it, and tell their friends? Not necessarily. In many instances, this is by design. It's because the hype has been so effective, and the movie available on so many screens, that most of the people who would be interested in seeing that particular movie already bought their tickets on the first weekend. One reason for staggering showtimes across multiple mall-tiplex screens is so that, if one showing in theater 3 sells out, ticket-buyers aren't turned away; they just have to wait around another 20 minutes for the next show in theater 12.
In fact, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, "300" dropped 56.3 percent in its second weekend (even though it bulked up with an additional 167 screens, the box-office equivalent of steroids); "Ghost Rider" was off 55.8 percent in weekend number two; and "Norbit" was down 50.9 percent. Put another way: "Hostel," the top-grossing hit of January, 2006, did 41.3 percent of its total domestic gross in its first three days. It lasted only 39 more days in theaters. But, for the "distribution gurus," a flash-in-the-pan is a good thing. A modern major movie release has a planned obsolescence (of about six to eight weeks) built in to its distribution and marketing strategy from the start. The idea is the same as fast food. It's all about turnover: Push last weekend's movies out to make room for next weekend's Number One Box-Office Champ!
This is why platform releases, the old technique of opening a movie in a few major cities, building momentum and opening wider and wider over the course of weeks or months, is so rare nowadays, except for -- you guessed it! -- movies like "Little Miss Sunshine" or "Pan's Labyrinth" that rely less on advertising blitzes than word of mouth, awards recognition, and good reviews. These movies also tend to "skew" older. That is, they're not aimed exclusively at kids, but at adults who don't feel the same marketing-driven peer pressure (or, perhaps, don't have the energy or free time) to get to the theater on the very first weekend. Surprisingly, these more selective filmgoers also tend to pay more attention to reviews (and perhaps be more blasé toward aggressive saturation media campaigns) than the youngsters, though peer word-of-mouth is just as important.
A movie like "Titanic" becomes a mega-hit because of repeat business. Not because everybody sees it (although, in that case, pretty much everybody did -- on TV in some form, if not on a movie screen), but because those who like it go back again and again. And for "Titanic," the demographics show, that meant teenage girls.
So, what does this have to do with critics? Not much. We've always known that most kids and teenagers don't read reviews and never have -- not even Variety reviews that tell them whether they are expected to show up at the theaters or not.
I'm reasonably sure that Peter Bart knows all of this. It just didn't fit his thesis. Instead, he asserts the fallacy that a movie's popularity depends on "whether it's any good or not" -- rather than how many moviegoers can be persuaded to part with their money on opening weekend. Again, I submit the McDonald's analogy. It may be just fine for fast food, and the kids may even prefer it to a gourmet meal. But is a critic supposed to pretend that a Royale With Cheese is "better" than a beautifully prepared meal just because it is clearly evident that more people buy the former than the latter? Or so that the critic can pretend to be more "in touch" with the general readership?
If Bart really means what he says about how critics should demonstrate that they are tuned in to popular culture (as he is?), he might ask himself: Who shows a better grasp of pop culture: the critic who reacts to what's big right now, or the critic who divines and appreciates a sensibility before it becomes a trend? After all, by the time something goes mainstream in popular culture (if it ever does), its been celebrated by the bleeding-edgers for years. The stuff that makes it to the top of the box office charts is already old news by the time it gets there.
I've deliberately buried the lede here. Let me leave you with the main question I think is raised by Bart's column, and the one he studiously avoids raising. Never mind that the vast majority of movies are losers at the theatrical box office whether they get good reviews or not. Could it be (and I think I'd better switch to boldface here) that mainstream movies used to have a broader, longer-lived appeal -- to kids as well as adults, to the intellect as well as the emotions, to the heart as well as the gut -- than they do now?
The critics were disturbed by a host of issues [in "300"], not the least being the film's macho belligerence, cartoonish lack of interest in history and racial stereotyping of Xerxes' Persian hordes as dark-skinned, decadent club queens. But a key reason critics reacted so harshly is because they have been trained to value realism over fantasy, whether it is the stoic drama of Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" or the cool psychological precision of David Fincher's "Zodiac," which has flopped at the box office, despite critical raves.
Oh boy... Puzzle over that paragraph for a while (who has been trained to value what over what by whom?) and I'll get back to you...
John Malkovich is a terrible Stanley Kubrick. In "Color Me Kubrick" he plays the director of "Dr. Strangelove," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "A Clockwork Orange," "Spartacus" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" as a multiple-car collision of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, Miss Kirk Douglas, Quentin Crisp and Tony Soprano. Sometimes all in the same scene.
What, you say? Kubrick didn't direct "Judgment at Nuremberg"? Well, right you are, and Malkovich isn't playing Stanley Kubrick, the renowned film director. In "Color Me Kubrick," billed as a "true-ish story," Malkovich plays Alan Conway, the fittingly named con artist who improbably impersonated Kubrick -- well, not so much impersonated him as simply claimed to be him -- around London during the making of "Eyes Wide Shut."
The movie is structured as an episodic farce and a showcase for bad acting. As the cons get increasingly outlandish, so does Malkovich's Conway's Kubrick, who tries on more accents than all the characters in all of Stanley Kubrick's films put together, and gets them all wrong, too. He name-drops incessantly, and insists on referring to the star of "Paths of Glory" and "Spartacus" as "Miss Kirk Douglas," and the star of "Eyes Wide Shut" as "Little Tommy Cruise."
View image: My Polish "Chinatown" poster, designed by Andrzej Klimowski.
For more than 30 years, Roger Ebert has led a theater full of people in a group analysis of movies at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado in (the People's Republic of) Boulder. The film is shown in its entirety on Monday, the first day of the Conference (this is called the Uninterruptus), and then Roger goes over it with the audience -- shot by shot, as it were -- for two hours a day, Tuesday through Friday. This is called the Cinema Interruptus. Anyone can shout out "Stop!" to make an observation or ask a question or back up (slightly) at any time, and it's amazing what people come up with. As Roger always says: "Someone in this room has the answer to any question you can come up with." Or, if they don't, they will have it the next day.
Over the last few years -- at the CWA and on the Floating Film Festival -- I've seen Roger go through "Citizen Kane," "The Third Man," "La Dolce Vita," "The Long Goodbye," "Adaptation." (there's a period in the title) and others. Other films he's presented and analyzed with the audience in Boulder include "Amarcord," "Taxi Driver," "Casablanca," "Raging Bull," "3 Women," "Out of the Past," "The Silence of the Lambs," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "JFK," "Pulp Fiction," "Fargo," "Fight Club," "Vertigo," "Mulholland Drive," "Floating Weeds," "Dark City" and "The Rules of the Game."
It's a priceless experience to really watch a movie this way -- and it increases (sometimes exponentially) your appreciation of the film, because even if you've seen the movie before, there's always something you've never noticed, or some dots you hadn't previously connected.
Although it's hard for me to imagine the CWA without Roger, he won't be able to attend this year. So, I'm filling in, and will be guiding the Interruptus through one of my favorite films, Roman Polanski's "Chinatown", -- among the all-time great movie masterpieces and the ultimate Los Angeles film noir, in sun-baked Panavision color (and no less sinister for it). So, if you happen to be near Boulder, Colorado in a few weeks (April 9 - 13, 2007), come by Macky Auditorium on campus at 4 p.m. and join us to sit in the dark and talk about detective movies, noir, the history of LA, the Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland and the St. Frances Dam catastrophe, Johnny LaRue, eyes, doors and windows, venetian blinds, orange groves, fish, monstrous evil, kitty-cats, and the nose on your face. (And that's just for starters.) It's free, and, as they say, so much fun it's a wonder it's still legal.
View image: Why is this stuff coming out now? Coincidence?
Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has the best coverage anywhere of the whole "I (Heart) Huckabees" on-set "maelstrom" (as proprietor Dennis Cozzalio calls it), including the now-infamous YouTube clips of the battles between Lily Tomlin and writer-director David O. Russell. There's also an excerpt from the Playboy interview with George Clooney discussing various meltdowns during the shooting of "Three Kings," and an appearance by Tomlin and co-star Dustin Hoffman on "Good Morning America," promoting "Huckabees." Plus, there's a fantastic string of comments that you won't find anywhere else.
Dennis wonders:
Can working with a volcanic director actually be good for the creative process? If not, why (besides the money) would actors and crew members tolerate such behavior? Is this kind of threatening, off-the-rails, abusive behavior somehow actionable? And if not, why would anyone want to work with Russell again? "Huckabees" may be brilliant, it may be a mess, but one could hardly call it complacent—it’s in there scrapping for slivers of enlightenment and understanding right along with the people who made it and the audiences who choose to see it and run with it, and perhaps some of this striving, searching, reckless clashing of tones and spirits that are vital to the movie can be directly traced to this kind of passion, however misplaced it might seem. These are the questions. I have no answers.
Over at The Hot Blog, David Poland cites a few excerpts from Sharon Waxman's 2004 New York Times set-visit piece on the turmoil of "Huckabees" ("The Nudist Buddhist Borderline-Abusive Love-In"). Here's another piece from that story that sets the scene for one of the clips:
The actors do take after take in the crowded car, with Mr. Russell, as is his habit, constantly throwing new lines at them from a few feet away. The dialogue is poignant and bizarre at the same time, and the scene culminates with Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Tomlin weeping simultaneously and loudly.
While the cameras roll, Mr. Russell berates the actors: ''Where's the [expletive] reaction?'' he swears at Mr. Hoffman.
The actors look tired. As he has throughout the shoot, Mr. Russell is touching them -- a lot, and sometimes in private places. At one point, Mr. Wahlberg grabs the director's megaphone, shouting: ''This man just grabbed my genitals! It is my first man-on-man contact!'' At other times, the director whispers into the actresses' ears -- lewdly, they later say -- before a take.
So far, the actors have been remarkably tolerant of Mr. Russell's mischief. As Ms. Huppert later observed in a phone interview, the actors knew Mr. Russell was intentionally trying to destabilize them for the sake of their performances. ''He is fascinating, completely brilliant, intelligent and very annoying sometimes, too,'' she said. They also know he has created superb films from chaotic-seeming sets before. Besides, he's the director and the writer; now that they've cast their lot with him, they really don't have a choice.
My 2¢: It's inexcusable, counterproductive and unprofessional to berate anybody on a set in front of the rest of the cast and crew. If you have to scream or vent over "creative differences" (or personality flaws), then call the person aside and hash it out in your office or your trailer. Who does Russell think he is? Ari Gold?
Tomlin had worked with Russell before (on "Flirting With Disaster"), so perhaps she knew what she was in for. She pushed back pretty hard, but she wasn't cowed by Russell (as Dustin Hoffman seems to have been, at least in these clips). If you create a set in which tantrums are allowed or encouraged, then you're going to get incendiary blowback. Some actors feel these kinds of shenanigans by an "artistic genius" are just part of the process. Others would say it's absolutely unacceptable -- the kind of thing that wouldn't be allowed (or nobody would stand for) in any other workplace. (I knew a newspaper editor who screamed a lot and once threw a stapler at a writer, but management did not view this behavior as permissible.)
I recently re-watched Peter Bogdanovich's "Directed By John Ford," wherein John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda all recount stories of how Ford embarrassed and humiliated them on the set -- but (and this is key, I think) Ford didn't lose his temper. He may have been angry, or sullen, or grumpy, or he may have just been trying to knock them down a notch and re-assert his authority (as if anyone would ever question it!), but he didn't lose control of himself. He was firm -- maybe even cruel -- but not abusive.
OK, not everyone has the temperament of John Ford. Many directors are stern or harsh -- even "borderline abusive" -- when it comes to getting what they want from their cast or crew. Think of Robert Altman, Henry Hathaway, David Fincher (watch out for those directors named David -- they want lots of takes!), Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick... or David O. Russell. None of them has a reputation as a pushover.
But I have the same kinds of questions that Dennis has. It's one thing for artists to be assholes in their personal lives, but is it ethically acceptable for them to subject their collaborators, co-workers or subordinates to their self-indulgent, abusive behavior? I think not. Except, maybe, studio executives, who are too often (passive-aggressive) adversaries rather than collaborators. They're fair game. You can yell at them all you want, especially if they yell at you first.
Every now and then, there comes a time to make a pilgrimage to a sanctuary, a place of retreat where one can let oneself float unhindered in a sanative state. Now -- yes, right now -- is one of those times, and among my most beloved wellsprings of renewal and re-invigoration is "My Last Sigh" by Luis Buñuel, the most reverie-like of all directorial memoirs. (I think of it as my Buñuelian bible, and would never want to live without it.) Buñuel liked to have his reveries in bars, stimulated by a little alcohol (I reprinted the recipe for the Buñuel martini some time ago), but similar conditions can also be enjoyed with the aid of books -- or movies.
And so, a few (more) inspirational passages from "My Last Sigh":
... [The] proliferation of gutter words in the work of modern writers disgusts me. They use them gratuitously, in a pretense of liberalism which is no more than a pathetic travesty of liberty....
* * *
Foreshadowing "Fight Club": ... I've seen only one pornographic movie in my life -- provocatively called "Sister Vaseline." I remember a nun in a convent garden being f---ed by the gardener, who was being sodomized by a monk, until finally all three merged into one figure. I can still see the nun's black cotton stockings which ended just above the knee. René Char and I once plotted to sneak into a children's movie matinee, tie up the projectionist, and show "Sister Vaseline" to the young audience. O tempora! O mores!
View image Portrait of the artist as a young man. (by Dali, 1924)
* * *
I've often wondered why Catholicism has such a horror of sexuality. To be sure, there are countless theological, historical, and moral reasons; but it seems to me that in a rigidly hierarchical society, sex -- which respects no barriers and obeys no laws -- can at any moment become an agent of chaos. I suppose that's why some Church Fathers, Saint Thomas Aquinas among them, were so severe in their dealings with the disturbing aspects of the flesh. Saint Thomas went so far as to affirm that the sexual act, even between husband and wife, was a venial sin, since it implied mental lust. (And lust, of course, is by definition evil.) Desire and pleasure may be necessary, since God created them, but any suspicion of concupiscence, any impure thought, must be ruthlessly tracked down and purged. After all, our purpose on this earth is first and foremost to give birth to more and more servants of God.
Ironically, this implacable prohibition inspired a feeling of sin which for me was positively voluptuous. And although I'm not sure why, I also have always felt a secret but constant link between the sexual act and death. I've tried to translate this inexplicable feeling into images, as in "Un Chien Andalou" when the man caresses the woman's bare breasts as his face slowly changes into a death mask. Surely the most powerful sexual repression of my youth reinforces this connection.
You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing....
Our imagination, and our dreams, are forever invading our memories; and since we are all apt to believe in the reality of our fantasies, we end up transforming our lives into truths. Of course, fantasy and reality are equally personal, and equally felt, so their confusion is a matter of only relative importance.... I am the sum of my errors and doubts as well as my certainties.
So you may as well just click on that link and kiss today goodbye. (Actually, you can probably do it in a half-hour or so, but what would be the fun of rushing?) Don't forget, can't regret what you do for love, eh?
View image The "Searchers" shot from the ending of "War of the Worlds." Way more sentimental than John Ford's.
Can a lousy ending really ruin an otherwise good movie? There was a time in Hollywood history when phony "happy endings" were de rigueur. Even if they felt tacked on, audiences understood that they were a convention -- and, in many cases, knew not to take them seriously. So, for example, at the end of Nicholas Ray's "Bigger Than Life" -- a terrifying film about a father (James Mason) who goes berzerk with rage and disgust over his suffocatingly "normal" middle-class family life and comes to believe that his young son should be slain -- the family is reunited around his hospital bed (oh, it was just too much cortisone!)... while a flashing light blinks ominously, as if telling the audience not to buy the false conclusion.
View image "The Magnificent Ambersons": This is the happy ending?
Some have argued that the hollow ending shot by Robert Wise for Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" ruins the movie. I don't think so. It compromises the film somewhat (and I learned from the Criterion laserdisc how it was supposed to have ended in utter desolation), but those last few moments don't negate all the true magnificence that has come before, do they? Watch the last shot: As Eugene (Joseph Cotten) narrates a happy ending that has taken place off-screen, he's walking down the hospital hallway with Fanny (Agnes Moorehead, in maybe the greatest performance ever given by anyone in American movies), they each pass in and out of shadow at different times. He's telling one story, but we're hearing it through her. He's talking about his love for her sister (the love she and her nephew Georgie have sabotaged), and we know Fanny's always secretly loved Eugene. At the end of the shot, they are no longer even in the same frame. She moves into close-up, the camera pans over to him, then they both briefly enter the frame and pass by the camera into darkness. The whole image goes out of focus briefly as they disappear, and we're left looking down an empty, sterile hallway with a red cross lamp at center right. If you're paying any attention to the shot at all, it's still not much of a happy ending! It's an epilogue, an afterthought.
Likewise, the head-spinning ending of Fritz Lang's classic "Woman in the Window" strikes some as contrived, but to me it feels inevitable. In the tradition of noir, a man (Edward G. Robinson) makes one small mistake, one impulsive deviation from his normal path, that leads inexorably to ruin. The movie takes you, step by step, down his road to ruin, until there's No Way Out. Only then does Lang pull the rug out from under you. What's important is the experience you've been through, not where the movie chooses to stop.
Lesser movies, like "Fatal Attraction," can be more seriously damaged by studio-imposed endings. The movie is pretty good at balancing your sympathies up until its grotesquely overblown "the family that slays together stays together" slasher finale. You can feel that this wasn't the way things were meant to go, and the DVD version now contains the original ending that didn't test well with preview audiences, in which Glenn Close's character committed suicide and Michael Douglas was arrested for her murder. It was more of a true film noir ending -- even though there was still a deus ex machina twist when a taped suicide note is discovered.
More recently, Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" concluded with such a ridiculously upbeat happy-family ending (never mind that the world was pretty much destroyed) that it prompted hails of derisive laughter. (On the other hand, would it have been the mainstream blockbuster it was if it had ended in defeat and despair?) The movie sucked me in so deeply, that even when I started backing out of it (right about when things just miraculously -- and arbitrarily -- started turning around, about ten minutes from the end), I still believed the first 106 minutes of the movie, even if I rejected the last ten.
I had a similar problem with the ending of "Children of Men," which (although still ambiguous and in no way assuring the survival of all of mankind) I thought was too sappy and sentimental. The sound of laughing and playing children over the final fade out nearly ruined the whole thing for me, because it was a film of such drive and momentum that I felt it really needed to go somewhere. And it didn't. It tried to have it both ways -- leaving some things unresolved while still leaving the audience with a feeling of optimism -- and I didn't think it worked. (Look for the "Bigger Than Life" blinking beacon in the final shots.) But, again, it didn't make me feel that the entire experience had been negated.
Off-hand, I can think of one movie with an ending so horribly manipulated that it really did destroy everything that came before, and that's Roger Donaldson's "No Way Out" (1987), with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. This was a case where I remember feeling that the final "twist" actually did make mincemeat out of the whole picture. When the final piece of information drops into place, nothing that had happened previously made any sense.
What are movies that have been ruined -- or nearly ruined-- for you by bad endings? What about movies with bad endings that you were willing to overlook because the rest of the movie was so good?
View image "You're certainly a funny girl for anybody to meet who's just been up the Amazon for a year."
If you are in Chicago the next few weeks, and you feel like taking in a weekend matinee, then you are fortunate indeed because the Music Box Theatre is presenting a centennial celebration of the toughest, sexiest, smartest, snappiest dame ever to sashay across a cinema screen. By that, of course, I mean none other than Sugarpuss O'Shea, Phyllis Dietrichson, Lily Powers, Lora Hart, Stella Dallas, Jean Harrington, Jessica Drummond, Leona Stevenson, Sierra Nevada Jones, Martha Ivers, Thelma Jordan, Norma Miller Vale, Mae Doyle D'Amato... in other words, Barbara Stanwyck.
View image Sugarpuss presents the ball of her foot in "Ball of Fire."
Stanwyck could make you believe she was part of the everyday world we all live in, not just a fantasy on the silver screen. She could easily be the woman down the aisle in the supermarket, driving that car in the next lane, or working in the office down the hall. While other stars went for the "larger than life" roles, Stanwyck -- as an all-American working girl or a cunning seductress -- generally kept her feet planted firmly on the ground. In fact, she enters "Double Indemnity" feet-first, sauntering down the staircase wearing an anklet that snags Walter Neff (MacMurray) by the libido. (The anklet may be the hook, but she's the bait.) Stanwyck used that foot to lure Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda, among others. It's a peculiar erotic pattern in her work (see Babs' Foot Fetish Page for more details and images), but men who stooped to take her foot in hand found themselves on their knees before a passionate woman, not an unapproachable goddess -- and they fell, instantly and irrevocably, under her spell. (Fonda almost faints when she gets him to slip a pump over her tootsies!)
In both "The Lady Eve" and "Ball of Fire" -- two of her most dazzling and endearing comic performances, from the same year! -- Stanwyck acts as a leveling life-force, puncturing all pretensions and knocking her co-stars' bumbling intellectual noggins out of the hazy cerebral clouds. What she achieves is not unlike what a much ditzier, flakier, upper-crust screwball heroine, Katharine Hepburn, does for/to bespectacled paleontologist Cary Grant in "Bringing Up Baby." But Stanwyck brings salvation from the streets rather than the penthouse. Jean Arthur in "Easy Living" (1937) -- written by Sturges -- is a delightful working gal, but Stanwyck is far more streetwise. Tough, strong, and smart, but no less feminine than some of her screwball sisters, she has learned to survive in a cut-throat world, living by her wits. She's at her best when she's in control, and she usually is. In many of her most famous movies the unspoken truth of any given scene is that she knows exactly what she's doing -- until, perhaps, her emotions sneak up on her and overthrow her instincts, by unexpectedly allowing her to fall head-over-heels for her (relatively) naive and helpless male prey.
Stanwyck slices right through class conventions and social formalities, immediately addressing Gary Cooper's Professor Bertram Potts by the more casual nickname of "Potsy." Likewise, Fonda's Charles Pike, heir to the Pike's Ale fortune, becomes "Hopsie" (after a key ingredient in the family brew). The very notion of someone with such a direct, spontaneous, and unrefined disposition masquerading as a blueblood is, as Preston Sturges realized, a terrific premise for comedy.
In "Ball of Fire" (directed by Hawks and written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett), Stanwyck's Sugarpuss O'Shea, gangster's moll and nightclub singer decked out in a dress that produces spontaneous fireworks, unceremoniously thrusts her cold, damp foot at befuddled Professor Potts in an attempt to persuade him to let her spend the night. (She's hiding from a supoena; he's cloistered in a big house with a team of elderly academics, working on an encyclopedia article about American slang. Think of it as "Sugarpuss and the Seven Fuddy-Duddies.")
When one of Potts' fellow eggheads acknowledges a "slight rosiness" in her throat, she cracks: "Slight rosiness? It's as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore!" Turns out that Sugarpuss (as suggested -- among other things -- by what W.C. Fields would call her "euphonious appellation") is bursting with such vividly expressive language. Soon, she's sweetening the stale, academic air with her colorful lingo, inviting Potsy to feel her cold feet while melting his heart.
The clichés of conventional (screen) romance are too sappy, too corny (and probably too oblique), for Stanwyck's heroines. By being so forward, so daringly "earthy" and cutting through fuzzy romantic illusions, she forces her men to see and appreciate the living, breathing woman in front of them. In one of the funniest and most erotic scenes in movie history (all played out in a tight two-shot), Stanwyck's "Lady" Eve teasingly and seductively demolishes Fonda/Hopsie's safely abstract fantasies about the "ideal" woman he thinks he's never met and makes him face reality: "How are her teeth?" she quizzes him. "Well, you should always pick one out with good teeth. It saves expense later." Her own fantasy mate, she confesses, is "a little short guy with lots of money." "Why short?" asks Hopsy. "What does it matter if he's rich?" she explains. "It's so he'll look up to me, so I'll be his ideal." She's so pragmatic.
Barbara Stanwyck herself may have been the least idealized or glamorized of Hollywood's great leading ladies, but she's certainly someone to look up to. That scene from Sturges' incandescent "The Lady Eve" shows her in top form; it's just the sort of deliciously sly, double-edged material that she could bring to life like no one else. She was never more beguiling than when feigning conversation about some subject (whether dental hygiene or a sore throat or the speed limit) while the light in her eyes and the tone of her voice pierce right through the rhetorical smokescreen and speak directly, alluringly, of sex.
In most cases, that's seen as a healthy quality; but not always. At the climax of "Double Indemnity," Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) finally sees through Mrs. Dietrichson's deceptions and blows it back in her face. "Just like the first time I came here, isn't it?," he says, perching again on the arm of the couch in her shadow-streaked, spider-web living room. "We were talking about automobile insurance... only you were thinking about murder." Indeed, from the moment they meet, these two flirt by speaking in suggestive riddles. Stanwyck appears at the top of the stairs, wrapped in nothing but a towel, when MacMurray's insurance salesman comes calling about an expired policy: "The insurance ran out on the 15th. I'd hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you're not, uh... fully covered." "Perhaps I know what you mean, Mr. Neff," she replies. "I've just been taking a sun bath." Neff is a sucker in heat, another man doomed by his indiscriminate lust. But you can't fault him too terribly for his weakness. When smoldering Stanwyck cranks up the temperature, even the coolest of cucumbers has been known to break a sweat.
At another point in "Double Indemnity," Stanwyck's femme fatale skillfully negotiates a verbal high-speed chase through an obstacle course of erotic innuendo, with MacMurray's aggressively impudent insurance salesman practically riding her bumper in hot pursuit. Then she maneuvers to cut him off and shut him down (while, of course, simultaneously revving his already overheated engine): "I wonder if I know what you mean," she says with a caustic breath as cool and dry as air conditioning. "I wonder if you wonder," counters MacMurray as he slips out the door....
She's willing to let him have the last word this time, because she already knows she's got him by the gonads -- right where she wants him. So, for now, she releases him into the stifling heat and honeysuckle-scented air of another long Los Feliz afternoon. She knows he'll be back....
The Music Box series alternates masterpieces (Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity," Frank Capra's "The Bitter Tea of General Yen," Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve," Howard Hawks' "Ball of Fire") with darn good movies (Sam Fuller's "Forty Guns," Anatole Litvak's "Sorry, Wrong Number," Fritz Lang's "Clash By Night," Alfred E. Green's saucy pre-Code "Baby Face"). Check the full schedule here. But if you can only see one, make sure it's the Capra -- an exotic, erotic adventure epic like nothing you've ever seen (this side of Josef von Sternberg, anyway). It's amazing, a treasure just waiting to be rediscovered and acknowledged as a classic.
View image Trudy: "You certainly helped me out by taking me out tonight!"
Betty Hutton died earlier this week. She was 86. Her most popular movies were probably "Annie Get Your Gun," the 1950 Irving Berlin musical (directed by George Sidney) in which she played the title role of Annie Oakley; and the lumbering Cecil B. DeMille circus spectacle, "The Greatest Show on Earth" (Best Picture Oscar winner for 1952), in which she played a sexy trapeze artist.
View image Norval: "Except for getting into the Army I can't think of anything that makes me more happy than helping you out."
View image Noval: "I almost wish you could be in a lotta trouble sometime so I could prove it to ya."
But Hutton achieved immortality in 1944, as Trudy Kockenlocker (aka Mrs. Ignatz Ratzkywatzky) in Preston Sturges' "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek." The shot sampled at right is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in movie history. Not because it's a long dolly shot (in 1944!) that takes us all the way from the Kockenlocker's front door to the town movie theater (although, yes, that's part of it), but because it allows two splendid comic actors, Hutton as Trudy and Eddie Bracken as Norval Jones, to preserve the comic integrity of their repartee, without any cuts to destroy the rhythms of their performances.
View image Trudy: "We can't send them off maybe to get killed and -- rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air -- without anyone to say goodbye to them, can we?"
View image Trudy: "How about the orphans? Who says goodbye to them?"
When they leave the house, Norval thinks he's taking Trudy to a triple-feature at the movies, because her father (William Demerest) has forbidden her to go to a dance for departing soldiers. Between the front porch and the ticket booth, Trudy makes a personal appeal to the smitten, 4-F Norval, combined with a call to his patriotic duty and pity for orphan soldiers who haven't got any family to say goodbye to them, to talk Norval out of the date, and his car keys. He goes to the pictures, she goes to the dance, and... nothing is ever the same after that.
Later, when Trudy breaks the news to him that she is indeed in terrible trouble and needs his help again (after all, he did say he almost wished she'd get into awful trouble sometime so he could help her out of it -- and now he's certainly got his wish), their walk takes a different route. They don't turn at the corner to go past the garage to the theater, but continue walking down the same street, and this time the shot is broken up into several components (including two optical "close ups" that appear to be inserted in order to combine two different takes). But it still feels like one fluid take because it's three long shots joined with the two close-up inserts and one brief tracking shot where they change direction and start walking toward the camera.
View image "Papa don't preach to me, preach to me..."
Three years later, in the Technicolor Musical "The Perils of Pauline," directed by George Marshall ("You Can't Cheat an Honest Man," "Destry Rides Again," "My Friend Irma"), Hutton sang this song, "Papa Don't Preach to Me," which could have been sung by Trudy Kockenlocker herself.... Or maybe that was the Madonna version. Anyway, watch the YouTube clip.
Now papa don't preach to me, preach to me,
Papa don't preach to me.
Let my heart break while it's young
Papa don't preach to me, preach to me,
Papa don't preach to me.
Let me fling 'till my fling is all flung!
... I strolled through Paris
Today with Maurice.
The Rue De La Paix
Means "The Street of the Peace"!
Movies are just a little more than 100 years old. Many of them (some say maybe even most of them) are lost or gone -- discarded, intentionally junked or rotted away. Original nitrate stock is extremely volatile, and "safety film," which wouldn't decompose quite so easily, wasn't widely adopted until the mid-1950s. Just look at the filmographies in any movie encyclopedia and you'll be overwhelmed by how many movies, even by famous directors, that you've never seen, whether they still exist or not. (John Ford directed somewhere around 150 of 'em.)
So, I got a kick out of some of the comments about Andrew Sarris's Greatest Movies of All Time (below). Yes, no question, it's an Old White Guy List. Mainly because Sarris is an old white guy, and does not pretend to be anything else (except, maybe, an old white Greek-American New Yorker auteurist guy and champion list-maker). Remember, Sarris built the original "American film pantheon" with what's probably the most influential English-language book of film criticism, "The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968." So, is it a coincidence that "Belle de Jour" (1967) is the most recent film on his all-time greatest list? Maybe he just has a longer perspective. (He didn't start writing for the Village Voice until about 1960.) Think of the thousands upon thousands of movies he's seen in order to make up that list. We should all have such a broad film background to draw upon.
I think of it like this: When people decry the Western canon as being about dead white males, they're (partially) right. But there are other canons that are even more exclusive, and most of the greats are... well, still great. We live in an age where we know there's a lot more to art, and art history, than the Western canon, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't value it as much as ever.
At the risk of betraying my Old White Guy roots (I'm sure I've been one since I was about 12), what cracks me up is the assertion, by some people whose idea of film history extends as far back as, say, "Fargo" or "Star Wars" or "The Godfather" or "The Wild Bunch" or "Psycho," that Sarris must be misguided because nothing made in the last 40 years tops his list. (I'm not talking about any specific Scanners commenters here; this is just something I've heard from people for years -- like the ones who accuse me of disingenuousness when I say "Citizen Kane" is about as much fun as I've ever had at the movies -- and is demonstrably rich and profound, besides.)
What difference does it make when a movie was made? What does that have to do with whether it's a great movie or not? The late, great film historian and collector William K. Everson once told me he had little interest in movies made after World War II. Short-sighted? Maybe, but he was perfectly honest about what interested him. And you could easily spend the rest of your life just studying movies that were made before World War II.
Or just the movies made since 1967. In the 2002 Sight and Sound critics' poll, the most recent film in the top ten is "The Godfather, Part II" (1974), which is (quite properly) combined with "The Godfather" (1972). (I don't think "The Godfather" would belong in the top ten if it were not seen in conjunction with "Part II.")
...I don't think there's anything wrong with this being "an old man's" (or woman's) list. Film history is what it is-- it cannot be changed-- and the tastes of critics who came of age in a different era are necessarily going to reflect a more established series of films, the names of which are going to crop up in more than one list of this kind. I think Sarris' leaving off anything after 1966 from his list reflects a respect for history rather than his blindness toward what's been happening since then. And if I saw a bunch of "greatest films" that forwent a lot of the films mentioned by Sarris and everyone else here and were weighted toward the '70s and '80s, I might think that the critics polled needed to get a little more familiar with that history.
By excluding anything newer than Bunuel's "Belle de Jour," I think Sarris is merely acknowledging (without making a statement) that one of the most important tests of a film's greatness is the one put to it by the passage of time. I know Sarris thinks there were many great films made in the last 41 years, but perhaps he simply doesn't think they're great enough to supplant the ones that we're still talking about 81 years later.
Me, I grew up in the 1970s, so many of my favorite movies (like "Nashville" and "Chinatown") were those that had an enormous effect on me at the time. But I tend to love and admire movies that not only operate in relationship to a tradition (aesthetic or generic), but also display an appetite for inventing (or reinventing) the cinema. So (to throw out a few generalizations), in the '20s, it was the form of the feature film itself; in the '30s it was the talkie; in '40s it was noir and Italian neorealism; in the '50s it was wide-screen and Method acting; in the '60s it was the French New Wave and new frontiers in sex, language and violence in mainstream American movies... and so on. Those are gross oversimplifications, but the best examples are as exciting to watch now as they ever were...
View image Screeeeech! The "jewel"-encrusted Sidekick doesn't help.
Edward Copeland asks: Do certain performers affect you like the sound of nails on a chalkboard? He lists Danny Huston, Kevin Costner, Kate Capshaw and Kim Cattrall among his most shudder-worthy. Some have charisma on the screen, and some don't. Or, at least, some of us are mystified by what others see in them (I could never understand the whole Ronald Reagan-as-president thing; he always seemed to me like a minor audioanimatronic attraction at Disneyland: Doddering Moments With Mr. Reagan, the Non-Communicator).
For me, it really is an involuntary, visceral response. I'm not sure I can adequately explain my instinctive revulsion for the following (in some cases the reaction has developed over time, like an allergy, as if I've built up antibodies against them), but here they are, in no particular order:
Tom Cruise. Incapable of convincingly expressing any emotion beyond grim determination. Unless it's intensely focused ambition.
Adam Sandler. Pauly Shore, but with a more limited range. Always looks as though he's going to start laughing at how funny he thinks he is. (Yes, I make an exception for "Punch Drunk Love," but I still would rather have been watching someone else. And that one had Mary Lynn Rajskub. She saves America every week on "24," and she saved Sandler's behind in this movie.)
Robin Williams. Not well-cast in human roles. (See all of the above.)
Cuba Gooding, Jr. His career after he won an Oscar for "Jerry Maguire" has made it almost impossible to sit through any of the good stuff he did before then. Tried to watch "Boyz N the Hood" recently? It's so preachy and sanctimonious it almost looks like a Matty Rich film now, but in fairness that's probably more John Singleton's fault than Gooding's alone.
That blonde heiress with the dead-trout eyes who's famous for her night-vision porno video and being in the tabloids a lot. Perfect example of "horrisma." She's like Ann Coulter in drag. Or not in drag. I'm not really sure which. But both have all the appeal of impetigo.
Chris Rock. The comedy version of Tom Cruise. Always trying way too hard to convince you... of something.
Sandra Bullock. Like watching a coconut on a stick.
Mel Gibson. "Braveheart" finally did it for me (and that was a whole five years before "What Women Want"). He enjoyed torturing himself way, way too much. Just as there is Young Elvis and Fat Elvis, there's Young Mel (pre-"Lethal Weapon 2") and Creepy Mel ("Air America" forward). Watching "The Road Warrior," it's hard to comprehend what later became of that cool guy who once played Mad Max.
Harrison Ford. Once he had a sense of humor about himself -- on screen, at least. It doesn't help that he hasn't made a decent movie ("Clear and Present Danger") in 13 years. He's great in "The Conversation," though.
Katie Holmes. Zombified. Why do I even know who she is?
Shaved vagina girl. Has she made any movies or is she just on the Internets?
Lindsay Lohan. From Mean Girl to Lucky Girl (cast with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin in an Altman movie). Now it's over. She's the Alicia Silverstone of tomorrow, but without the comic timing. Ten years ago, John Waters might have been able to salvage her career. Now it's too late. (OK, I'm sorry: That Alicia Silverstone crack was too mean -- to Alicia Silverstone.)
Jim Carrey. See Chris Rock, above.
Natalie Portman. It's as though she aspires to be forgettable, like generic "citrus"-flavored Pixy Stix. For some reason she reminds me of Veruca Salt on Xanax and I want her to swell up into a big blueberry. But I feel that way about nearly everyone who appeared in the "Star Wars" prequels.
Poll: Andrew Sarris and Your Greatest Films of All Time
In his column about the revival of Max Ophuls' "The Earrings of Madame de...," the dean of American film critics, Andrew Sarris, proclaims Ophüls' masterwork the greatest film of all time -- edging out, as the headline puts it, "Welles, Renoir, Ford, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Buñuel, Mizoguchi." [Please note: Dave Kehr points out that there is no umlaut in "Ophuls" -- although that's how it was (mis-)spelled in Sarris's NY Observer piece.]
Writes Sarris:
If you’ve never seen this masterpiece, now is your chance—and even if you have, a second or third viewing is strongly recommended. If you don’t choose to take my word for the film’s sublimity, then heed the sagacious words of Dave Kehr instead: “Should the day ever come when movies are granted the same respect as the other arts, 'The Earrings of Madame de …' will instantly be recognized as one of the most beautiful things ever created by human hands.”
“Perfection,” proclaimed the late Pauline Kael, in one of her more perceptive pronouncements. And David Thomson delivers an eloquent encomium to Ophüls with a remarkably expansive entry in his much-honored "The New Biographical History of Film."
Curiously, I’ve had a much harder time convincing my students in film class of the “greatness” of Ophüls and "Madame de…". It may partly be a generation gap, and partly the youthful suspicion of romanticism in some of its less cynical guises. Then again, even among my contemporaries, I have become notorious over the years for my ecstatic—to the point of orgasmic—addiction to camera movement as an expression of the tyranny of time in the drama of human life. This predilection on my part may be something I picked up from the unified-visual-field theories of the late André Bazin.
On a personal note: My favorite Ophuls (among the greatest films of all time in my book) is "Letter From an Unknown Woman" (though "Madame de..." is indeed surely one of the most exquisite things that has ever appeared on the planet; I treasure my laserdisc "print" and hope it will be on Region 1 DVD soon -- along with all the other great Ophuls films that are already available in Region 2). I'd agree with Sarris on the Renoir ("Rules of the Game"), Ford ("The Searchers"), Hitchock ("Vertigo"), Murnau ("Sunrise") and, depending on what day of the week it is, the Welles ("The Magnificent Ambersons"). (On my 2002 Sight & Sound international critics' poll ballot I chose both "Kane" and "Ambersons" in my top 10.) I wouldn't have a Chaplin on my list, but "Modern Times" is tops in my book.
Though it's only a matter of degree, my favorite Buñuel is probably "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" or "That Obscure Object of Desire" or "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz" or "Nazarin" or "Simon of the Desert" or "The Exterminating Angel" or... -- OK, I have way too many favorite Buñuels. And my favorite Mizoguchi would not be "Ugetsu," which I'd put below "Sansho Dayu" and "The Life of Oharu." I love Keaton's "Our Hospitality," "Sherlock, Jr.," and "Steamboat Bill, Jr." even more than "The General" -- though I could probably make a case for ten Keatons as the greatest films of all time.
But if you had to choose from Sarris's top ten, which would you consider The Greatest Film of All Time?
A horror thriller, a political satire, a dysfunctional family comedy, and a touching melodrama, Bong Joon-ho's "The Host" is also one helluva monster movie. It's the recombinant offspring of all those science-fiction pictures of the 1950s and '60s in which exposure to atomic radiation (often referred to as both "atomic" and "radiation") or hazardous chemicals (sometimes also radioactive) results in something very large and inhospitable: "Them!" (giant ants), "Tarantula" (giant spider), "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People" (giant fungi), "The Amazing Colossal Man" (giant bald guy), "The Giant Behemoth" (giant behemoth -- both giant and a behemoth, but more precisely a radioactive ocean-dwelling Godzilla clone), "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (giant Frankenstein's monster atomically regenerated from the beating heart of the original monster after the A-bomb is dropped on Hiroshima), and so on.
In "The Host" (a k a "Gwoemul"), the mutagen is a simple aldehyde, HCHO (possibly even a radioactive variety). The movie opens in the year 2000 at the Yongsan U.S. Army base in Seoul, where an American mortician (the always superb Scott Wilson, clearly having fun) orders a Korean subordinate to dump dusty bottles of "dirty formaldehyde" into the sink ... which empties into the Han River. When the underling objects, the American insists, "The Han River is very... broad, Mr. Kim. Let's try to be broad-minded about this." Had Al Gore been present, he would have made a persuasive counter-argument with colorful charts and graphs about the dangers of poisoning our fragile planet, but an order is an order, so down the drain the noxious stuff goes.
(This scene is based on a notorious incident involving Albert McFarland, an American civilian mortician at the Yongsan military base, who in 2000 ordered his staff to pour 120 liters of formaldehyde into the morgue's plumbing. Although the chemicals passed through two treatment plants before reaching the Han, source of Seoul's drinking water, the scandal sparked an anti-American uproar in South Korea.)
At the movie's center is the Park family, a clan no less eccentric than the Hoovers of "Little Miss Sunshine." (Think "Little Miss Sashimi.")...
The creature -- just like (spoiler warning) the Moroccan kids who accidentally shoot the American employer of the Mexican nanny with the rifle formerly belonging to the Japanese businessman with the deaf daughter who is sexually provocative in "Babel" (end of spoiler warning) -- unknowingly precipitates an international incident. And in the ensuing pandemonium, the Parks are forced to fend for themselves....
View image Nicholson's gangster... in a straight jacket?
When I was in college, it was popular for English professors to insist that this character or that character in literature -- or even the authors themselves -- were what we used to call "latent homosexuals." So, for example, Hamlet (who definitely had some mommy problems and daddy issues and treated Ophelia like an old dishrag) was maybe gay. And homoerotic undertones were found in novels (and private letters) by nearly everybody, but especially repressed Victorian writers.
So, when I received a comment from a Scanners reader suggesting that Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello, in the (Oscar-winning) Martin Scorsese (Best) Picture, "The Departed," might be read as gay, I thought: "Yeah, OK, sure." And then I thought about it a little more and started laughing: "Well, yeah, of course!" Not that it's any great revelation -- especially for a director who's known for displaying rampant homoeroticism (in his "gangster pictures," especially) -- but there it is. (You think the Academy was subconsciously trying to make up for last year's surprise upset of "Brokeback Mountain"?) I mean, look at the guy's wardrobe.
And consider the final (R-rated) scene between Costello and his girlfriend, Gwen, which struck me as having some negative sexual tension:
COSTELLO Sweetheart, you’re giving me a hard-
on.
He starts to dial the phone.
GWEN
Are you sure it's me or all that
talk about whiffin’ and crawlin’ up
asses?
COSTELLO
Hey, watch your f---king mouth.
GWEN
You watch it.
She rises and as she crosses:
GWEN (CONT’D)
Let me straighten you out.
Here's part of the comment from Tam (and DVC mentioned it, too):
Costello and Sullivan [Matt Damon's character] are closeted homosexuals. There are so many implications of this in the movie, although subtle... Remember Costello raising some eyebrows at the restaurant with the priests? Yep, he was molested as a kid by a priest and his distaste toward the Catholic Church is evidence of this. Also, the scene right before Costello is shot and killed by Sullivan, if you remember the dialogue, Sullivan made it very clear that he was no "son" to Costello. "All that murderin' and f--kin'......." Just rewind your dvds to that scene.
I also researched this movie in depth and it seems that "The Departed" is part based on Irish crime lord, James "Whitey" Bulger's life. Most aspects of Whitey's life mirror the movie... [It] is documented that "Whitey" was [allegedly] bisexual and even had a relationship with FBI agent, H. Paul Rico. Back to the movie, remember when Costello had one of his many mistresses in the room and he threw out some cocaine onto the bed and told her to "get numb," -- well, by the position of their bodies, we can assume the obvious. [Note: Although Bulger has been photographed as recently as last February "dressed up like one of the Village People and ready to play" and "campier than a row of tents" (both descriptions courtesy of the Sunday Mirror he has eluded arrest by the FBI for a dozen years now and remains at large.]
[...]
Well people, you make your own opinions as I've made mine. Love the movie, I don't really care about the subtle hints of homosexuality in the film, I just find it incredibly genius of Mr. Scorsese's sneaking it in there.
Anybody else notice more evidence in the film that might support such a reading? If so, what do you think it adds to the movie? (Most important: We know Costello sports a dildo in a porno theater with Sullivan, but does he ever wear a blue hat...?)
Brian Robbins has been making himself and others quite rich recently as the director of the Eddie Murphy comedy "Norbit" and the co-producer of last weekend's top-grossing movie, "Wild Hogs." But guess what? He's distraught that his motion pictures were not accorded a more positive critical reception. (He's almost as upset that more music critics aren't fans of "American Idol," but can't bring himself to talk about that just yet.) As he complained in The Hollywood Reporter:
"How does a movie score in the 90s with an audience and get a 9% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes?" Robbins said, referring to "Norbit's" onslaught of negative reviews as summarized on the review compilation site, rottentomatoes.com. "How do you figure that? Is the audience that stupid? Is America's taste that bad? I don't think so."
While the jury may still be out on America's intelligence, Robbins has given up making movies for critics.
"If you read reviews on a consistent basis on all films, you realize that the majority of films just get murdered," Robbins said. "The only films that get good reviews are the ones that nobody sees. I just don't think you can make movies for critics."
Oh, Brian, Brian, Brian. You are so right... and yet, so wrong.
Let me ask you: Did you make "Norbit" and "Wild Hogs" to please critics? Did you expect those movies to get good reviews? Do you think moviegoers read the negative reviews and then just decided to buy their tickets anyway? If that's the case, then what are you complaining about? You want glory and money? How often does that happen in Hollywood?
So, consider this: Did you ever entertain the possibility that perhaps "Norbit" and "Wild Hogs" were neither designed for, nor marketed to, people who pay all that much attention to movie critics? Why in the world would you think that general audiences and movie critics should agree? (See ancient analogy about McDonald's and food critics.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe "Norbit" (the movie that some speculate may have cost Eddie Murphy his "Dreamgirls" Oscar because it was released during the Academy voting period) was screened for critics. I don't remember about "Wild Hogs" because, well, that was so long ago. Seems like they may have screened it on a Thursday night for an opening the next day. But, really, why did you bother? Do you think most critics would go see your movies if they didn't get paid to? Do you realize that critics probably make up 0.0001 percent of the moviegoing population -- or less?
So, if you don't pre-screen the movie, then what more are you gonna do? Keep critics from buying movie tickets like everyone else (because their editors want reviews, even of trash)? Make all moviegoers agree to keep non-positive opinions to themselves -- you know, in case they have blogs or friends or something and might spread negative word of mouth? Ask more rhetorical questions?
I like this: "If you read reviews on a consistent basis on all films, you realize that the majority of films just get murdered."
YES!!! It may be just a coincidence, but most movies are also crap! Even if they're relatively enjoyable at the time, they're forgettable and disposable, like yesterday's lunch. Imagine if you had to spend more time writing about movies than you actually do seeing them. Because most reviews take longer than 90 minutes to write, which is probably why many critics prefer writing about films that give them something to write about. Something that may be worth thinking about after you pay for your parking.
And then there's this: "The only films that get good reviews are the ones that nobody sees. I just don't think you can make movies for critics."
You are so right about that! Nobody sees "The Departed" (RT: 93%) or "Casino Royale" (94%) or "Little Miss Sunshine" (92%) or "Borat" (90%) or "The Devil Wears Prada" (76%) or "Cars" (76%) or "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (89%), to name some of the top-grossing and/or most profitable movies of 2006. ("Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" rated a 53%.) So, you should just stop right now trying to make movies like "Norbit" and "Wild Hogs" for critics. Don't waste your time on us ungrateful scribes who fail to sufficiently appreciate the joy you are attempting to introduce into our humdrum workaday lives! Here's the deal: You take the multi-million dollar ad campaigns and let the wretched critics scribble about those tiny little movies that can't afford those kind of expenses -- you know, "the ones that nobody sees" because aren't advertised in every conceivable medium for weeks before they are released. Deal? Deal!
From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a story that echoes the scandalous real-life inspiration for the Korean monster movie, "The Host," which opens in various US markets tomorrow (March 9, 2007):
When Daniel R. Storm, a University of Washington professor whose work includes studying the brain, found out that getting rid of potentially dangerous chemicals in his lab would cost $15,000, he decided to find a cheaper way.
Storm, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology, dumped ethyl ether down the sink.
On Wednesday, Storm, 62, pleaded guilty in federal court in Seattle to pouring the ethyl ether, which can explode or catch fire if handled improperly, down the laboratory sink in June 2006. Prosecutors say Storm then tried to cover up his actions.
He could face up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for knowingly disposing of a hazardous waste without a permit. But prosecutors are recommending probation, said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.
When the UW's Environmental Health and Safety Department told Storm that it would cost $15,000 to dispose of the solvent, he broke three metal containers with an ax and poured the liquid down the sink in his lab. He also disposed of an ethyl ether and water mixture in two glass bottles.
Storm then poured water and an ethanol solution down the drain to dilute the solvent, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
He admitted that he did not want to pay for the disposal from his laboratory account. The liquid was not used in his research, but was found in his lab.
Believe me, I will let you know if a giant, fire-breathing monster (or something worse) emerges from beneath the waters of Lake Washington, Lake Union or Puget Sound in about 2011 or so.
And from an editorial in the 2000 Korea Times regarding the similar precipitating incident that begins Bong Joon-ho's "The Host" -- South Korea's most popular movie:
"Would they dump toxic chemicals into the Potomac River?" This is the caption of an editorial by Korea's largest circulation daily on the shocking news that the U.S. Forces Korea admitted to dumping formaldehyde and methanol into the Han River through the drainage system at its Yongsan military base in Seoul. These toxic chemicals are widely known to cause cancer and birth defects.
The Han River supplies drinking water for over 10 million citizens residing in metropolitan Seoul and its satellite cities. Are Koreans disposable people? The materials in question were embalming fluids.
The news is ethically repulsive. Environmentally, the act is destruction-friendly. In psychiatric terms, it comes close to an act of quasi-murder. For, what matters here is the sick mind and attitude that made possible the dumping of the cancer-causing substance. Whether or not the quantity of the discarded, amount was enough to cause cancer is not the issue here. The USFK's clarification that it at one time dumped up to 20 gallons (75.7 liters) of formaldehyde in no way alters the ethical insanity of the people involved.
In "The Host," the toxic effect of that "ethical insanity" becomes -- quite literally -- monstrous. And in answer to the question posed at the beginning of the editorial: Of course "they" would dump toxic chemicals into the Potomac if it was cheaper and they thought they could get away with it. I have no doubt some of "them" are doing it right now. Many corporations and governments do not feel it's their responsibility to deal with the toxic biproducts they produce because it's not a revenue-generating activity, and their responsibility is to save (and make) money. They are beholden only to their owners, stockholders and/or campaign contributors.
If the public has to pay the occasional price (death, cancer, etc.), that's their fault for drinking the wrong water or breathing the wrong air. The price of cleaning up and disposing of these toxins might hurt these corporations' ability to compete in a free marketplace, and that would result in job cuts and declining stock prices. (Providing health insurance for people who develop these pre-existing conditions would be bad for insurance companies, too.) And all this might hurt the economy in the short-term, whereas releasing poisons into the great big outdoors probably won't manifest any noticeable effects for years -- long after the government has changed or the company has merged with some larger conglomerate, and then it's someone else's problem.
Hey, just look at Dick Cheney: When he was at Halliburton in 1998, he arranged the purchase of Dressler Industries. But --oops! -- it turned out Dressler had a host of asbestos-lawsuit liabilities. Enough to threaten Halliburton's existence. So, Halliburton had Dressler and other subsidiaries declare bankruptcy in order to limit their "exposure."
From a 2005 column by Allan Sloan in the Washington Post:
While Halliburton's all-stock takeover of Dresser was valued at $7.7 billion when it was announced in February 1998, it was worth only $5.3 billion when it was completed seven months later. The bankruptcy settlement is costing Halliburton just about that much: around $2.8 billion in cash, Halliburton stock with a market value of $2.3 billion the day before Dresser's bankruptcy was resolved and miscellaneous odds and ends and potential payments.
The bankruptcy resolution, which became final on Jan. 3, covered both the Dresser problems and the smaller asbestos problems that Halliburton already had. [...]
I give Halliburton's current management huge credit for pulling off this tricky maneuver. And I give them big credit for dealing with the problem rather than awaiting a miracle rescue from Congress. Almost from the day it took office, the Bush administration has pushed hard to get Congress to limit asbestos liability. That includes President Bush's visit to Illinois last week to push his "reform" proposals.
Halliburton, whose fortunes are tied to the oil industry, has profited from the surge in oil prices. Even though its stock has quadrupled from its asbestos-woe low, it's still below what it was when Cheney left in the summer of 2000. Imagine what Halliburton shares would fetch today had the Dresser problems never happened. Much more than it currently sells for, I'm sure.
A Cheney spokesman said the vice president wouldn't comment about Halliburton, and referred all queries to the company.
No doubt Cheney feels bad about leaving Halliburton with such a mess. Perhaps someday he can do something to make it up to them.
