A good spooky little movie. Gaslight was actually Angela Lansbury’s film debut for which she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Apparently she got the role and told the department store she worked at that she was quitting. They told her that she should disclose her new salary and maybe they could match it. She told them that she'd be making $500 a month--much more than the $65 a week she was making at the department store. They were a little surprised.
Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe for her role as Paula and there were Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Charles Boyer), cinematography, picture, and screenplay. The movie won for art direction/interior decoration.
It also has Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron (he’s the creepy Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and was a friend of Orson Wells—his second role was the lead in Citizen Kane)
Paula (Bergman) leaves London, 9 Thornton Square (“number 9”) in particular, as a child after her aunt is mysteriously murdered and her jewels stolen. Paula was the one who found her strangled aunt (her mother had died when Paula was born and her aunt was her guardian). She’s sent to Italy to study under the singing maestro who taught her aunt. She falls in love with an older pianist (Charles Boyer) who dreams of living in London which, of course, is a bit upsetting to Paula but she decides that she can face it with Gregory as her husband. So they get married and move into number 9. Gregory is a little shady, though. He incessantly tells Paula that she’s ill and inflicts all manner of psychological games on her to convince her that she’s going mad (telling her that she loses things, is forgetful, is tired, stealing things of his, etc. when she’s not and not letting her receive any visitors). All the while Gregory seems to know more about London than he should. Gregory also hires the saucy and impertinent Nancy (Angela Lansbury) as a housemaid who Paula thinks hates her. Brian Cameron (Cotten) gets interested in the situation because he sees the resemblance between Paula and her dead aunt. He and the busybody neighbor (who loves gruesome murder mysteries) try to get to the bottom of things. The title comes from the fact that the gaslights in the house dim which Paula notices every night (at the same time there are noises in the attic) but for which there is seemingly no explanation. All is explained, of course, but not until the very last minute.
Very 1940s to be supposedly set in an era of bustle skirts—kissing in the street, Paula threatening to go out to a party on her own. But it's a good movie. A tight psychological thriller with Bergman playing crazy better than Vivian Leigh did in Streetcar (and that's a lot for me to admit).
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Eastern Promises (2007) (nat)
Well, there's four minutes of Viggo Mortensen nude. Then there's four minutes of Viggo Mortensen nude. Then there's four minutes of what happens in this movie. And that's an entirely different thing.
So, even though Tracy is the only one who reads this and she sat next to me in the movie, the basic plot is a midwife, Naomi Watts, helps to deliver the baby of a dying 14 year old girl. Finding the family of the girl gets her involved with the Russian mob in London. Not nice guys who include Viggo, his "boss" (an appropriately slimy Vincent Cassel) and the dad of his boss who is a big player in the mob. Of course, the Russian mob is involved in the pregnancy and subsequent death of the girl and Anna (Naomi) gets herself in just a bit of danger by investigating a tad too much. Luckily, Nikolai (Viggo) has a heart and prevents her from getting in too deep. That's about all of the plot I can give away just in case there's another reader here.
There were four scenes where I covered my face. One was in anticipation of a dentistry scene that didn't appear. The four lengthy minutes of Viggo nude was another one of those scenes. I won't say what happens or when it the movie it happens just in case you don't see it coming (which you should, at least in the minute before it happens) but, oh boy, it's a scene.
It is a good movie, though. Good character development of interesting characters. Good solid plot with no noticeable holes. Respectable ending that's not too easy.
So, even though Tracy is the only one who reads this and she sat next to me in the movie, the basic plot is a midwife, Naomi Watts, helps to deliver the baby of a dying 14 year old girl. Finding the family of the girl gets her involved with the Russian mob in London. Not nice guys who include Viggo, his "boss" (an appropriately slimy Vincent Cassel) and the dad of his boss who is a big player in the mob. Of course, the Russian mob is involved in the pregnancy and subsequent death of the girl and Anna (Naomi) gets herself in just a bit of danger by investigating a tad too much. Luckily, Nikolai (Viggo) has a heart and prevents her from getting in too deep. That's about all of the plot I can give away just in case there's another reader here.
There were four scenes where I covered my face. One was in anticipation of a dentistry scene that didn't appear. The four lengthy minutes of Viggo nude was another one of those scenes. I won't say what happens or when it the movie it happens just in case you don't see it coming (which you should, at least in the minute before it happens) but, oh boy, it's a scene.
It is a good movie, though. Good character development of interesting characters. Good solid plot with no noticeable holes. Respectable ending that's not too easy.
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) (nat)
So, I've been reading. That takes longer than watching a movie. A lot longer.
I just finished this one a few minutes ago so I don't quite have all of my thoughts on it in order or straightened out but I wanted to write at least a bit while it was still fresh. So none of this is really organized and some of it is thinking in progress.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is by Junot Diaz who is a Dominican-American immigrant author. His only other major publication (besides short stories in journals and etc) is Drown, a collection of short stories published in 1996. I like Drown a lot. But not in a way that I usually like books. It's definitely an academic like--I'm not going to read it for fun--but it's also not really a plot/character like. It's a stylistic like. The short stories are all extremely violent, for the reader, and not necessarily because of gruesome acts within the story. The language is violent (but not in a active verb, curse word, yicky descriptions way). There is Spanish strewn throughout the stories. I can read Spanish fairly well, have been doing so for a long time, and, at the very least, I can use a Spanish dictionary efficiently and effectively. That only gets you so far in Drown. Not only is this the Spanish from the Dominican Republic but it's the Spanish from the streets, slang and made up colloquialisms. They can't be translated. It's one of the most effective ways of getting a white American reader to understand the immigrant experience. You can't understand it. There's no way to look it up or even to ask someone because it's a word with only an instinctual translation. And that's violent for a reader--to be pummeled with words you can't know. Anyway, another reason I bring up Drown is that Yunior, the narrator for most of Oscar Wao, is a recurring character in the stories. In short, after 11 years of no new work from Diaz, I had high expectations for Oscar Wao and I'm not 100% sure they were fulfilled.
The book jacket (we all know how reliable those can be sometimes) says: "Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku--the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim--until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last. With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Diaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, TBWLOW presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere--and to risk it all--in the name of love."
First, I don't think anything should end with "in the name of love." I mean Diaz is a smart guy (teaches at MIT), why didn't he stop the silly book publishing people? Second, the curse isn't "ancient." It goes back three generations (including Oscar) to the grandfather he never knew. Third, this "ill-starred" love is just stupidity. Both important instances are those in which Oscar/Belicia proceed to ignore common sense and mess with the Dominican government (nasty people), the older during the reign of a dictator, for people they did not really know. Fourth, Oscar doesn't get his first kiss until page 294 of 331. Fifth, he doesn't so much "decide to be its last [victim]" as put himself in a stupid deadly situation. He's in no way defeating the fuku. No one has any idea about how to do that, if the curse even exists. Sixth, his mother was a beauty, but not a beauty-queen. Next, no one but one family member "perseveres"--Lola is the only one left standing in the end (her grandmother, maybe, but she'd old and showing it much earlier). They succumb to the fuku, their own foolishness, cancer, whatever you want to call it. But they succumb. And, finally, I don't buy that any of them did it all "in the name of love" (I mean, really, a cliche on the book jacket of what should be an important literary book). Belicia dies of cancer, no love involved there. She has an ill-advised relationship with an important member of the Trujillo regime and ends up sacrificing a lot but she gains a great deal more from the end of that relationship--a life in America and a husband (about whom we're never given any information other than he fathered Lola and Oscar and then left). Oscar dies of bull-headedness in my opinion (the same that got his mother in the disastrous mess with the regime) but, ok, there was "love" involved. But that's only after he's tried to kill himself and harbors real fantasies of trying again. So he's got some serious issues to work through. Lola sacrifices very little for love and ends up just fine and the same with the narrator/Yunior.
I'm not sure whether I like the book or not. There are some inconsistencies that concern me. The narrator's knowledge seems inconsistent to me. He uses the geek boy references that Oscar would know and use but Yunior is supposedly not that much of a geek, quite the player and a bit of a jock though apparently an English major (not apparent, though, in the narration--only in background info given). Also, there is information included that shouldn't be known and no source is given for it--what happened in a death camp (in the DR run by a government that did not keep records "like the Germans") to a man who his family was told was dead 14 years before he died and from whom no handwriting or books survive--from where exactly did that info come? And I don't care about Oscar (whose last name is really "de Leon" but a college joke about Oscar Wilde is bastardized via the Dominican accent to "Wao"). I know he's dead in the novel's present. The title tells me that much. But his life isn't so much "wondrous" and the narrator does little to make me care about him. I was much more interested in his sister (as is the narrator--he only becomes "friends" with Oscar because Lola asks him to look after Oscar while she's out of the country) and his mother, hell even the brief appearance of his grandparents and aunts interested me more. I did miss the linguistic violence of Drown. This is a much more innocuous book and the slew of geek boy references didn't have the same alienating effect as the untranslatable Spanish. Those references were fun--it's fun to hear a bad guy called a ringwraith (I also like the line: "one of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away")--but they weren't the most effective thing really. I don't know. I liked them but I'm not sure they added as much as they could have to the story or characterization. I mean, you say "geek boy" and everyone gets it. Adding references to geek boy loves doesn't make him more or less of a geek boy. And since none of it is in Oscar's voice, the geek boy references seem odd coming from the narrator who isn't so much a geek boy as someone who has been briefly exposed to geek-boydom.
But for some reason the book intrigues me. It's not bad despite my litany of flaws. It's well written and I wasn't compelled to toss it aside, to relegate it to the "I'm not reading this" pile. I kept reading it and I'm more or less satisfied with the progress and ending, although I wish it has ended about 3 pages earlier than it did. I'm intrigued by the mythology of the mongoose that pops up as well as the repeated imagery of a man with no face (there's a story in Drown titled "No Face" that I'd like to revisit now). And I think it would be an interesting juxtaposition to Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (who is Haitian and friends with Diaz, his "querida hermana" according to the acknowledgments) because they both contain some brutal violence against women involving cane fields. But I'm still not sure about it. I'm going to have to think about it more.
Once last issue, I could have done without the 4 pages of acknowledgments. Really. Thank fewer people, it will mean more.
Someone should read it, though, and talk to me about it.
I just finished this one a few minutes ago so I don't quite have all of my thoughts on it in order or straightened out but I wanted to write at least a bit while it was still fresh. So none of this is really organized and some of it is thinking in progress.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is by Junot Diaz who is a Dominican-American immigrant author. His only other major publication (besides short stories in journals and etc) is Drown, a collection of short stories published in 1996. I like Drown a lot. But not in a way that I usually like books. It's definitely an academic like--I'm not going to read it for fun--but it's also not really a plot/character like. It's a stylistic like. The short stories are all extremely violent, for the reader, and not necessarily because of gruesome acts within the story. The language is violent (but not in a active verb, curse word, yicky descriptions way). There is Spanish strewn throughout the stories. I can read Spanish fairly well, have been doing so for a long time, and, at the very least, I can use a Spanish dictionary efficiently and effectively. That only gets you so far in Drown. Not only is this the Spanish from the Dominican Republic but it's the Spanish from the streets, slang and made up colloquialisms. They can't be translated. It's one of the most effective ways of getting a white American reader to understand the immigrant experience. You can't understand it. There's no way to look it up or even to ask someone because it's a word with only an instinctual translation. And that's violent for a reader--to be pummeled with words you can't know. Anyway, another reason I bring up Drown is that Yunior, the narrator for most of Oscar Wao, is a recurring character in the stories. In short, after 11 years of no new work from Diaz, I had high expectations for Oscar Wao and I'm not 100% sure they were fulfilled.
The book jacket (we all know how reliable those can be sometimes) says: "Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku--the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim--until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last. With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Diaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, TBWLOW presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere--and to risk it all--in the name of love."
First, I don't think anything should end with "in the name of love." I mean Diaz is a smart guy (teaches at MIT), why didn't he stop the silly book publishing people? Second, the curse isn't "ancient." It goes back three generations (including Oscar) to the grandfather he never knew. Third, this "ill-starred" love is just stupidity. Both important instances are those in which Oscar/Belicia proceed to ignore common sense and mess with the Dominican government (nasty people), the older during the reign of a dictator, for people they did not really know. Fourth, Oscar doesn't get his first kiss until page 294 of 331. Fifth, he doesn't so much "decide to be its last [victim]" as put himself in a stupid deadly situation. He's in no way defeating the fuku. No one has any idea about how to do that, if the curse even exists. Sixth, his mother was a beauty, but not a beauty-queen. Next, no one but one family member "perseveres"--Lola is the only one left standing in the end (her grandmother, maybe, but she'd old and showing it much earlier). They succumb to the fuku, their own foolishness, cancer, whatever you want to call it. But they succumb. And, finally, I don't buy that any of them did it all "in the name of love" (I mean, really, a cliche on the book jacket of what should be an important literary book). Belicia dies of cancer, no love involved there. She has an ill-advised relationship with an important member of the Trujillo regime and ends up sacrificing a lot but she gains a great deal more from the end of that relationship--a life in America and a husband (about whom we're never given any information other than he fathered Lola and Oscar and then left). Oscar dies of bull-headedness in my opinion (the same that got his mother in the disastrous mess with the regime) but, ok, there was "love" involved. But that's only after he's tried to kill himself and harbors real fantasies of trying again. So he's got some serious issues to work through. Lola sacrifices very little for love and ends up just fine and the same with the narrator/Yunior.
I'm not sure whether I like the book or not. There are some inconsistencies that concern me. The narrator's knowledge seems inconsistent to me. He uses the geek boy references that Oscar would know and use but Yunior is supposedly not that much of a geek, quite the player and a bit of a jock though apparently an English major (not apparent, though, in the narration--only in background info given). Also, there is information included that shouldn't be known and no source is given for it--what happened in a death camp (in the DR run by a government that did not keep records "like the Germans") to a man who his family was told was dead 14 years before he died and from whom no handwriting or books survive--from where exactly did that info come? And I don't care about Oscar (whose last name is really "de Leon" but a college joke about Oscar Wilde is bastardized via the Dominican accent to "Wao"). I know he's dead in the novel's present. The title tells me that much. But his life isn't so much "wondrous" and the narrator does little to make me care about him. I was much more interested in his sister (as is the narrator--he only becomes "friends" with Oscar because Lola asks him to look after Oscar while she's out of the country) and his mother, hell even the brief appearance of his grandparents and aunts interested me more. I did miss the linguistic violence of Drown. This is a much more innocuous book and the slew of geek boy references didn't have the same alienating effect as the untranslatable Spanish. Those references were fun--it's fun to hear a bad guy called a ringwraith (I also like the line: "one of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away")--but they weren't the most effective thing really. I don't know. I liked them but I'm not sure they added as much as they could have to the story or characterization. I mean, you say "geek boy" and everyone gets it. Adding references to geek boy loves doesn't make him more or less of a geek boy. And since none of it is in Oscar's voice, the geek boy references seem odd coming from the narrator who isn't so much a geek boy as someone who has been briefly exposed to geek-boydom.
But for some reason the book intrigues me. It's not bad despite my litany of flaws. It's well written and I wasn't compelled to toss it aside, to relegate it to the "I'm not reading this" pile. I kept reading it and I'm more or less satisfied with the progress and ending, although I wish it has ended about 3 pages earlier than it did. I'm intrigued by the mythology of the mongoose that pops up as well as the repeated imagery of a man with no face (there's a story in Drown titled "No Face" that I'd like to revisit now). And I think it would be an interesting juxtaposition to Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (who is Haitian and friends with Diaz, his "querida hermana" according to the acknowledgments) because they both contain some brutal violence against women involving cane fields. But I'm still not sure about it. I'm going to have to think about it more.
Once last issue, I could have done without the 4 pages of acknowledgments. Really. Thank fewer people, it will mean more.
Someone should read it, though, and talk to me about it.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Yay! Book Quiz
So I haven't watched any movies or read any books (I did read three weeks worth of The Chronicle but that's no fun to blog about) but I took a little "what book are you quiz" that was fun. I love the idea of the book but think the "interpretative" part leaves a bit to be desired. Here are my results:
You're Ulysses!
by James Joyce
Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.
Odd. Anway, you can take the quiz here: http://bluepyramid.org/ia/bquiz.htm
There are other quizzes too (oddly, the state quiz said I was North Carolina) but they aren't all that fun.
You're Ulysses!
by James Joyce
Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.
Odd. Anway, you can take the quiz here: http://bluepyramid.org/ia/bquiz.htm
There are other quizzes too (oddly, the state quiz said I was North Carolina) but they aren't all that fun.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Forbidden Planet (1956) (nat)
B—OR—ING! I’m not the biggest fan of sci-fi in that I don’t seek it out but I do like it when it’s well done and doesn’t break it’s own rules. Forbidden Planet is the sci-fi film that changed the genre—apparently taking it away from stupid scripts and bad special effects. I hope there aren’t any earlier sci-fi movies on the list because if this is the more “literate” script, I’m going to really hate the more poorly written ones. It’s not a good sign when less than 15 minutes into the movie, I’m online looking on IMDB to see the length (luckily a short 98 minutes), or that 1/3 of the way in, I wasn’t the least bit interested.
The plot is that a crew landed on the planet Altair to search for survivors of a crew that went there 20 years earlier. They find that there are no survivors except Dr. Edward Morbius (if that’s not a name for a villain, I don’t know what is). He has little explanation for how everyone but he and his wife died except that they were ripped limb from limb by some unknown force. His wife died of natural causes but not before they had a daughter, Altaira, who is, of course, blonde and hot. The commander, John J. Adams (a very young Leslie Nielson), and his two lieutenants along with other crewmembers (including a very young Richard Anderson) stay to investigate (despite not so veiled threats from Morbius). Meanwhile, one of the lieutenants tries to seduce the daughter with “old customs” without which “you can’t be in tip-top shape” like kisses to which she responds “is that all there is to it?” and “I haven’t noticed the least bit of stimulation” much to the chagrin of the commander (who, of course, later gets the girl). She has none of Earth humans’ scruples like wearing clothing while swimming or wearing an opaque dress longer than a shirt when visiting a ship full of lonely young men. And we can’t forget Robby the Robot who was later in everything from episodes of “Mork and Mindy,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “Lost in Space” to Gremlins and Earth Girls Are Easy. A race of aliens, pre-dating humans, the Krells, have gone extinct from the planet. They were, of course, far far ahead of humans in terms of technology, logic, knowledge, intelligence, ethics, etc. They left behind a “plastic educator,” which measures and teaches knowledge and on whose scale the mere humans barely make a mark. But there’s a monster loose on the planet . . . . . an invisible monster (that is sometimes red sketchy) . . . . . . it has something to do with the id . . . . . . ooooooooh. Still not that interesting.
It’s also apparently based on The Tempest. I’d suggest you just grab your Riverside and read the play.
The plot is that a crew landed on the planet Altair to search for survivors of a crew that went there 20 years earlier. They find that there are no survivors except Dr. Edward Morbius (if that’s not a name for a villain, I don’t know what is). He has little explanation for how everyone but he and his wife died except that they were ripped limb from limb by some unknown force. His wife died of natural causes but not before they had a daughter, Altaira, who is, of course, blonde and hot. The commander, John J. Adams (a very young Leslie Nielson), and his two lieutenants along with other crewmembers (including a very young Richard Anderson) stay to investigate (despite not so veiled threats from Morbius). Meanwhile, one of the lieutenants tries to seduce the daughter with “old customs” without which “you can’t be in tip-top shape” like kisses to which she responds “is that all there is to it?” and “I haven’t noticed the least bit of stimulation” much to the chagrin of the commander (who, of course, later gets the girl). She has none of Earth humans’ scruples like wearing clothing while swimming or wearing an opaque dress longer than a shirt when visiting a ship full of lonely young men. And we can’t forget Robby the Robot who was later in everything from episodes of “Mork and Mindy,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “Lost in Space” to Gremlins and Earth Girls Are Easy. A race of aliens, pre-dating humans, the Krells, have gone extinct from the planet. They were, of course, far far ahead of humans in terms of technology, logic, knowledge, intelligence, ethics, etc. They left behind a “plastic educator,” which measures and teaches knowledge and on whose scale the mere humans barely make a mark. But there’s a monster loose on the planet . . . . . an invisible monster (that is sometimes red sketchy) . . . . . . it has something to do with the id . . . . . . ooooooooh. Still not that interesting.
It’s also apparently based on The Tempest. I’d suggest you just grab your Riverside and read the play.
Vertigo (1958) (nat)
No. I’d never seen Vertigo. At least never all of it, or from the beginning. And I’ve still not seen Psycho. I think everyone has seen it but me but the basic plot: Jimmy Stewart is John “Scottie” Ferguson (not sure how you get Scottie from John but whatever) a detective with vertigo (San Fran couldn’t be a good place to have that with all of the hills) who is commissioned by an old college friend to follow his wife, Madeline (Kim Novak as the typical Hitchcock icy blonde). It seems she’s acting a little odd and the husband wants to know what’s going on. Madeline goes all over San Francisco with Scottie in pursuit in her apparent obsession with her dead great-grandmother, Carlotta Valdes. She doesn’t talk until about an hour in (hard to tell thanks to the commercials) but Scottie becomes more than a bit obsessed with her as she gets stranger and stranger. Meanwhile, Midge, who has been friends with Scottie since college and harbors a serious unrequited crush, sort-of hovers in the background as he pursues the mad woman but she disappears as Scottie really needs saving.
I am not a fan of the psychedelic color-changing dream sequence in the middle of the movie—just seems a bit overwrought and contrived. I thought the whole movie a bit tedious in that it seemed longer than the suspense could maintain (that could also be a symptom of the commercial breaks rather than the movie itself but it still seemed much longer than its two hour run time). This could have also been broken a bit because of the simple “cultural knowledge” of the movie’s plot. I sort of knew what happened—just not quite the details of it all. And he loves her but doesn’t know her at all and I find that incredibly frustrating and disconcerting every time it pops up in a movie. I’d like a little more character development to show why this otherwise seemingly rational man has fallen for a wacko, albeit a pretty wacko but a wacko nonetheless who more or less makes him an even bigger wacko than she is. It’s quite a warped Pygmalion story (well, not that Pygmalion isn’t already warped). And what about the nun makes her jump? Odd. This one isn’t terrible but there are movies I like much better from this director and from these actors.
I do love the shots of “driving” in old movies. I mean who really needs to move the steering wheel that much at that slow a pace? Also, this movie makes me want to watch Bell, Book, and Candle another Stewart/Novak movie (from the same year as Vertigo) in which she’s a witch who wants to get him away from his fiancée just for meanness but ends up falling for him . . . . another movie that’s not in the book. Let’s start a list of movies that should be on the list.
And now the commercials on AMC have switched to the “after hours” products . . . . “ExtenZe” (“it made me . . . he he he. . . a hell of a lot bigger”), “get connected to local hotties tonight” (because gorgeous models are just lolling around in their skimpiest lingerie waiting to get your phone call), “text flirt” (you even get a “free icebreaker”) . . . . . interspersed with ads for antacids and insurance . . . . . and followed by sleep aid ads around 3:30am . . . . that could be a fun analytical project. Oh well, off to bed to have what I’m sure will be interesting dreams after two Hitchcock films and more cheesecake than I should have eaten.
I am not a fan of the psychedelic color-changing dream sequence in the middle of the movie—just seems a bit overwrought and contrived. I thought the whole movie a bit tedious in that it seemed longer than the suspense could maintain (that could also be a symptom of the commercial breaks rather than the movie itself but it still seemed much longer than its two hour run time). This could have also been broken a bit because of the simple “cultural knowledge” of the movie’s plot. I sort of knew what happened—just not quite the details of it all. And he loves her but doesn’t know her at all and I find that incredibly frustrating and disconcerting every time it pops up in a movie. I’d like a little more character development to show why this otherwise seemingly rational man has fallen for a wacko, albeit a pretty wacko but a wacko nonetheless who more or less makes him an even bigger wacko than she is. It’s quite a warped Pygmalion story (well, not that Pygmalion isn’t already warped). And what about the nun makes her jump? Odd. This one isn’t terrible but there are movies I like much better from this director and from these actors.
I do love the shots of “driving” in old movies. I mean who really needs to move the steering wheel that much at that slow a pace? Also, this movie makes me want to watch Bell, Book, and Candle another Stewart/Novak movie (from the same year as Vertigo) in which she’s a witch who wants to get him away from his fiancée just for meanness but ends up falling for him . . . . another movie that’s not in the book. Let’s start a list of movies that should be on the list.
And now the commercials on AMC have switched to the “after hours” products . . . . “ExtenZe” (“it made me . . . he he he. . . a hell of a lot bigger”), “get connected to local hotties tonight” (because gorgeous models are just lolling around in their skimpiest lingerie waiting to get your phone call), “text flirt” (you even get a “free icebreaker”) . . . . . interspersed with ads for antacids and insurance . . . . . and followed by sleep aid ads around 3:30am . . . . that could be a fun analytical project. Oh well, off to bed to have what I’m sure will be interesting dreams after two Hitchcock films and more cheesecake than I should have eaten.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (nat)
The definition of “creepy uncle.” Charlie (fem.) Newton (a brunette! in a Hitchcock!) is niece to Charlie (masc.) Oakley. The latter comes to visit his sister’s (Emma, who is just a bit dim and infatuated with her baby brother) family (which includes Charlie (fem.)) after an interesting episode in which he outwits two men who want to see him—he says to himself that they have nothing on him. Dum dum dum. Foreshadowing? Perhaps. The family also includes the dad (Joe) who reads just a few too many murder mysteries, a daughter (Anne) that puts the precocious in precocious children who reads too much above her age level (Ivanhoe), and a son (Roger) who is just a little obnoxious in an exasperating way, and Herbert, Joe’s friend who likes to dabble in crime fiction in a way that’s a little too tangible (what he could put in coffee, mushrooms which could kill someone, etc). Throughout the whole movie is an odd and way creepy sexual tension between the Charlies. Charlie (masc.) is a bit testy and very secretive, taking random pages out the evening paper and not wanting his photo taken and doesn’t want to be involved in a survey being taken by two men (of course, suspenseful music tells us this is odd behavior). Those men (surprise!) aren’t survey takers but are detectives looking for “a man” in connection with the “Merry Widow Murderer” who strangles rich women. Charlie (fem.) gets involved with one of the detectives and, as a consequence, become suspicious of her funny-acting uncle (but not due to the off-putting sexual tension). It doesn’t help that Charlie (masc.) is a tad creepy and has a whole monologue about widows and his contempt for them. Suspense and danger ensue . . . .
Strangely interspersed throughout the scenes is a cut to couples in ball gowns and tuxedos dancing. I’m guessing this is connected to the fact that Charlie (fem.) hums the “Merry Widow Waltz” to which Charlie (masc.) reacts negatively, not allowing anyone to come to any definite conclusion about its title when Charlie (fem.) mentions the song being stuck in her head. And then later Charlie (fem.) gets testy when her mother hums the same song.
Overall a good movie in the Hitchcock tradition. An annoyance of a different sort, after being spoiled by my beloved Turner Classic Movies, this one was on American Movie Classics, which doesn’t do the informative introductions to the movies and has, gasp, commercials! Nothing like watching a movie that’s supposed to be suspenseful to have it interrupted several times for ads about credit cards, retirement plans, and flat screen TVs (and the switch from black and white to color is a bit jarring).
Strangely interspersed throughout the scenes is a cut to couples in ball gowns and tuxedos dancing. I’m guessing this is connected to the fact that Charlie (fem.) hums the “Merry Widow Waltz” to which Charlie (masc.) reacts negatively, not allowing anyone to come to any definite conclusion about its title when Charlie (fem.) mentions the song being stuck in her head. And then later Charlie (fem.) gets testy when her mother hums the same song.
Overall a good movie in the Hitchcock tradition. An annoyance of a different sort, after being spoiled by my beloved Turner Classic Movies, this one was on American Movie Classics, which doesn’t do the informative introductions to the movies and has, gasp, commercials! Nothing like watching a movie that’s supposed to be suspenseful to have it interrupted several times for ads about credit cards, retirement plans, and flat screen TVs (and the switch from black and white to color is a bit jarring).
Lust for Life (1956) (nat)
I do love a van Gogh painting. This movie is just like one big van Gogh painting after another (though sadly not in the 1001 book--I watched this one Friday night but didn't post then). Lust for Life is the biopic of Vincent van Gogh played uncannily by Kirk Douglas (apparently he was the favorite for an Oscar but Yul Brenner won for The King and I). Anthony Quinn makes an appearance (and won an Ocsar) as Paul Gauguin. Unlike The Russian Ark, this movie incorporates the paintings to the benefit of both the paintings and the storyline. And the movie does a magnificent job of showing us the landscapes as van Gogh must have seen them--we see the colors he used, see the fields, the workers, the cafes, his bedroom, etc. in a way that doesn't mimic the paintings but brings them to life. The story of his life is a little ho hum. He goes mad but I would have liked a little more to the "why" of that devolution into insanity. The cutting off of the ear is also handled nicely; we don't see the cutting on camera and then for the rest of the narrative, we don't see that side of his head except when it was bandaged right after the incident. I would have also liked a bit more about the art community of the time. We get glimpses of the other artists and the beginning of the impressionist movement and we get Gauguin's maddening interaction with van Gogh but we don't see the movement from the art before impressionist painting and we only get a glimpse of the versions of impressionist art coming out--vague glimpses at Gauguin's work but nothing up close. But it is a good movie and Kirk Douglas is wonderful as van Gogh.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Gilda (1946) (nat)
Another one I caught on tv--yay for Turner Classic Movies. Gilda is a Casablanca-esque film with Glenn Ford as Johnny Farrell (and narrator) a guy down on his luck but good at gambling (albeit via cheating) in Buenos Aires. Balin Mundson brings him into his illegal casino as a hired hand. Mundson is also in charge of an equally illegal monopoly of companies and is married to Gilda (Rita Hayworth, gorgeous and feisty) who is much younger than he and the former flame of Johnny (unbeknownst to Balin). Gilda is a bit of a spitfire--she likes to do what she wants when she wants to do it--and is a former "dancer." Apparently the relationship between her and Johnny went all sorts of wrong and both are a bit down on love--him on women entirely and she's just married to be married really. Johnny ends up in charge of all that Balin "owns" and this includes Gilda (Balin's not a very nice or stable man) and, of course, the power goes to Johnny's head. It turns out (surprise, surprise) that Balin's in a bit of trouble with the people who helped start his monopoly and so his life starts to head straight downhill while Johnny starts to gain power within the organization. Meanwhile Johnny and Gilda have a fantastic love/hate relationship that eventually comes to a head and explodes, although not really in the way I expected. The movie is a bit slow and Johnny's treatment of Gilda is annoying at points (but she manages to have a comeback for 90% of what he says/does) but I enjoyed it.
I also watched most of The Fountainhead the other night. Yick. It's like Orwell's Animal Farm but on steroids that have gone more wrong than usually after long-term use--I can take didactic, pedantic, overwrought speeches from pigs (that's funny and satiric) but from people . . .. ugh. I didn't think I wanted to read any Ayn Rand and now I'm certain (she wrote the screenplay, too).
I also watched most of The Fountainhead the other night. Yick. It's like Orwell's Animal Farm but on steroids that have gone more wrong than usually after long-term use--I can take didactic, pedantic, overwrought speeches from pigs (that's funny and satiric) but from people . . .. ugh. I didn't think I wanted to read any Ayn Rand and now I'm certain (she wrote the screenplay, too).
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Russian Ark (2003) (nat)
Oh dear. I know I took some cold medicine before watching this but I don't think that has really impeded my faculties all that much. Maybe I just don't know enough about Russian history but I really had no clue what was going on for most of this movie. The basic concept is a journey through the Russian State Hermitage Museum. There's an unseen narrator through whose eyes we see the movie and a "Stranger" (as credited) who we see but we don't know where either of these men came from, who they are, why they are in the Hermitage, or what exactly they are doing there. We go through the museum encountering various people, some historical figures (Catherine the Great, Anastasia, etc) and some people dressed in period costume and others dressed in more modern clothes. No on can see or hear the unseen narrator except the Stranger (and he can't always) and some people but not all can see/hear the Stranger. Sometimes we stop to look at a piece of art, sometimes we sort of dizzily go through the gallery. Sometimes we just stare at the piece, sometimes there is a little history given. All of it is sort-of odd. There's no discernible plot although there may be more metaphorical or symbolic meaning than I can gather. And there is certainly no character development.
Technically, it's a fantastic, ingenious, well-constructed movie. It's all one take. All 90+ minutes were taken in one go. The tag line is, "2000 Actors. 300 years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot." While the 300 years of Russian history were a bit over my head, I certainly caught the huge cast, many rooms, orchestras and that all of that was caught in one take with no editing. There are some very noticeable "oh, shit, don't look at the camera" moments as well as some "go completely dead eyed and pretend the camera/cameraman isn't there" moments--but obviously pretending to ignore a camera and cameraman you have to navigate around must have been difficult, I just fine the obvious darting eye-aversions amusing.
For the technical aspects, the movie is well worth watching. Just don't watch it for a plot or characters.
Technically, it's a fantastic, ingenious, well-constructed movie. It's all one take. All 90+ minutes were taken in one go. The tag line is, "2000 Actors. 300 years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot." While the 300 years of Russian history were a bit over my head, I certainly caught the huge cast, many rooms, orchestras and that all of that was caught in one take with no editing. There are some very noticeable "oh, shit, don't look at the camera" moments as well as some "go completely dead eyed and pretend the camera/cameraman isn't there" moments--but obviously pretending to ignore a camera and cameraman you have to navigate around must have been difficult, I just fine the obvious darting eye-aversions amusing.
For the technical aspects, the movie is well worth watching. Just don't watch it for a plot or characters.
The Killers (1946) (nat)
This Hemingway short story interpretation just happened to be on Turner Classic Movies tonight. It stars Ava Gardner in her breakout role as Kitty Collins and Burt Lancaster as "Swede" Anderson in his very first movie. Hemingway apparently thought this was the best movie made of any of his work (of course, Gardner was also a frequent house guest of his). And it is a quite good noir. Instead of the usual private eye, this one centers on an insurance man, Jim Reardon played by Edmond O'Brien, investigating a policy left to a chambermaid (nope, not for any of the reasons one could think for leaving money to a chambermaid). The Swede (who happened to work with Nick Adams) has been shot and killed by two unknown killers and his benefactor is a chambermaid who barely remembers him (not to mention the fact that she knew him by another name altogether). Reardon follows the clues to a gang of robbers and Kitty Collins. Twists and turns unfold and, of course, Reardon gets his man.
The movie is a huge expansion on the short story. The first 10-15 minutes (I'm guessing, I didn't time it) is almost word for word from the story. But that's the whole story--the short story ends with Nick Adams coming back to the diner after having seen the Swede--so the majority of the film (it's a little over an hour and a half long) is its own creation but it works with the set-up Hemingway offers. Anyway, it's a good whodunit with some good twists (even if they are vaguely predictable because of the genre).
The movie is a huge expansion on the short story. The first 10-15 minutes (I'm guessing, I didn't time it) is almost word for word from the story. But that's the whole story--the short story ends with Nick Adams coming back to the diner after having seen the Swede--so the majority of the film (it's a little over an hour and a half long) is its own creation but it works with the set-up Hemingway offers. Anyway, it's a good whodunit with some good twists (even if they are vaguely predictable because of the genre).
Friday, September 14, 2007
3:10 to Yuma (2007) (nat)
I like to think I don't like westerns. I can't really name any westerns that I don't like, or even any that I know I've seen, but I just don't think I like them. This one, I liked. Christian Bale is Dan Evans, a rancher losing his land and the respect of his family. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade, an outlaw who especially likes to rob stagecoaches carrying train company money and he has a very loyal gang of bandits. That gang includes Charlie Prince (played by Ben Foster who was Angel in the last X-Men movie) who is maybe my favorite character in the whole movie. We also get Peter Fonda as Byron McElroy who is a bounty hunter incessantly after Wade, Gretchen Moll as Evans's wife Alice, and Luke Wilson in an itty bitty part. I wasn't bored at all: nothing was slow, nothing seemed completely unbelievable.
I was irked by one moment when someone "proves" he'll shoot Wade by shooting into the air. That doesn't prove you'll shoot a person. That proves you'll shoot the air. Joel said he'll never question whether I'd shoot because I said that to prove you'd shoot someone, you'd have to shoot them, in the foot maybe. Shooting the air, or a tree, or an animal, or even another person doesn't prove that you'd shoot the person you're threatening at all. But that's just me.
The basic plot is that Wade is captured, after 22 robberies, and has to be taken across the wilderness/desert so he can be put on the 3:10 train to Yuma where there is a jail. Lots of people shoot guns and lots of people get shot. That's about all I can say because there are some turns in the plot. I do recommend it, though.
But to conclude, I'll borrow some of Tracy's criteria. This movie is bad for (in no particular order and maybe not all-inclusive): children, Apache Indians, Chinese people, black people, women (whore-ish bartenders and good wives alike), ranchers, the railroad and the people who run it, cows, stagecoaches, sons, people in stagecoaches, bounty hunters, buildings, bartenders, mothers, law enforcement, law breakers, people with a vendetta, heroes, outlaws . . . . . . . . . .
I was irked by one moment when someone "proves" he'll shoot Wade by shooting into the air. That doesn't prove you'll shoot a person. That proves you'll shoot the air. Joel said he'll never question whether I'd shoot because I said that to prove you'd shoot someone, you'd have to shoot them, in the foot maybe. Shooting the air, or a tree, or an animal, or even another person doesn't prove that you'd shoot the person you're threatening at all. But that's just me.
The basic plot is that Wade is captured, after 22 robberies, and has to be taken across the wilderness/desert so he can be put on the 3:10 train to Yuma where there is a jail. Lots of people shoot guns and lots of people get shot. That's about all I can say because there are some turns in the plot. I do recommend it, though.
But to conclude, I'll borrow some of Tracy's criteria. This movie is bad for (in no particular order and maybe not all-inclusive): children, Apache Indians, Chinese people, black people, women (whore-ish bartenders and good wives alike), ranchers, the railroad and the people who run it, cows, stagecoaches, sons, people in stagecoaches, bounty hunters, buildings, bartenders, mothers, law enforcement, law breakers, people with a vendetta, heroes, outlaws . . . . . . . . . .
Monday, September 10, 2007
A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Sssssuuusssshhhhhhhhhhh. These are silent. I actually watched ALL of the following:
Homage to Eadweard Muybridge: still shots (taken quickly to make a series of images that look like they're moving, like a flip book) of all sorts of naked women; naked women walking, naked women turning around to walk up stairs, naked women embracing naked children, naked women jumping . . . . .
The Kiss: older, ugly-ish people kissing
Serpentine Dances: a lady with a dress that flings around like a ribbon wand
Sandow (The Strong Man): a man flexing his muscles that are teeny tiny by today's standards
Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing): the title says it except it's not funny really
Cockfight: chickens, and they fight
The Barber Shop: getting a shave, "the new wonder haircut"
Feeding the Doves: again, very descriptive title
Seminary Girls: girls, in what is very clearly a staged set, having a pillow fight in their nightgowns and a den mother type woman comes to break it up, including dragging one of the girls by the feet from under the bed
Exiting the Factory: women, exiting a factory
Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat: yep, a train arrives
Baby's Lunch: a baby between a man and a woman, the woman drinks tea while the man feeds the baby
The Sprinkler Sprinkled: a man watering a lawn gets tricked into having the hose shoot water in his face, he then turns and chases the man responsible for the trick, drags him back to the foreground, and shoots him with water
Dragoons Crossing the Saone: men on horses crossing water
Promenade of the Ostriches, Paris Botanical Gardens: there are no ostriches, just people walking
Childish Quarrel: two babies of indeterminate sex fighting because one is mean and takes the other's toys
Lion, London Zoological Garden: a zoo keeper taunts a lion in an itty bitty cage
Demolition of a Wall: men knock over a wall
Transformation of Hats, Comic View: a man sitting on a short stool changes disguises (noses, wigs, hats)
Carmaux, Drawing out the Coke: coke in this case meaning "a hard, dry substance containing carbon that's produced by heating bituminous coal to a very high temperature in the absence of air"--something to do with mining; men at a mine and this stuff in a huge square mass comes out and they hose it down and break it up
Poultry-Yard: girls feeding large ducks
Snowball Fight: adults playing in the snow
Card Party: three men playing cards and drinking what looks like Guinness
New York: Broadway at Union Square: title tells you . . .
A Trip to the Moon: this is one that the book counts (the earliest one); an astronomer devises a plan to go to the moon and take 5 men with him; the genius method is more or less like a long canon and the men are enclosed in the bullet; they get to the moon, moon-men attack them but they can be defeated just by hitting them with an umbrella; the way to get home is just to fall off the face of the moon in the bullet; they fall into the ocean, are rescued, and go home
President McKinley at Home: apparently the first president on film
Pack Train at Chikoot Pass: it's a train
Sky Scrapers of New York City from North River: can't so much see the skyscrapers for the piers and whatnot
San Francisco: Aftermath of an Earthquake: after the big earthquake
The Dog and His Various Merits: he can spin a wheel like a hamster, pull a milk cart, etc
Aeroplane Flight and Wreck (Piloted by M. Cody): big pre-Wright brothers airplane that falls from the 6 feet of air it attained
The Great Train Robbery: this is the other one that counts for the book; men hit and tie up the railroad worker in the office, get on the train, detach the engine from the rest of the train, make the people in the cars get off the train and rob them, get on the engine, and run off only to be caught by other men who were just minutes before having something of an impromptu dance but had been told by the freed (by a little girl who carries a knife in her basket) railroad worker of the robbery
there were more on the disc but I was seriously having trouble staying awake . . . . They are something to see and some of them are amusing in an "isn't that archaic" way but my god, I can only take so many silent clips (even though these were way short for the most part). It's like watching someone else's home movies when you don't know the people in the film and they don't do anything very interesting.
Homage to Eadweard Muybridge: still shots (taken quickly to make a series of images that look like they're moving, like a flip book) of all sorts of naked women; naked women walking, naked women turning around to walk up stairs, naked women embracing naked children, naked women jumping . . . . .
The Kiss: older, ugly-ish people kissing
Serpentine Dances: a lady with a dress that flings around like a ribbon wand
Sandow (The Strong Man): a man flexing his muscles that are teeny tiny by today's standards
Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing): the title says it except it's not funny really
Cockfight: chickens, and they fight
The Barber Shop: getting a shave, "the new wonder haircut"
Feeding the Doves: again, very descriptive title
Seminary Girls: girls, in what is very clearly a staged set, having a pillow fight in their nightgowns and a den mother type woman comes to break it up, including dragging one of the girls by the feet from under the bed
Exiting the Factory: women, exiting a factory
Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat: yep, a train arrives
Baby's Lunch: a baby between a man and a woman, the woman drinks tea while the man feeds the baby
The Sprinkler Sprinkled: a man watering a lawn gets tricked into having the hose shoot water in his face, he then turns and chases the man responsible for the trick, drags him back to the foreground, and shoots him with water
Dragoons Crossing the Saone: men on horses crossing water
Promenade of the Ostriches, Paris Botanical Gardens: there are no ostriches, just people walking
Childish Quarrel: two babies of indeterminate sex fighting because one is mean and takes the other's toys
Lion, London Zoological Garden: a zoo keeper taunts a lion in an itty bitty cage
Demolition of a Wall: men knock over a wall
Transformation of Hats, Comic View: a man sitting on a short stool changes disguises (noses, wigs, hats)
Carmaux, Drawing out the Coke: coke in this case meaning "a hard, dry substance containing carbon that's produced by heating bituminous coal to a very high temperature in the absence of air"--something to do with mining; men at a mine and this stuff in a huge square mass comes out and they hose it down and break it up
Poultry-Yard: girls feeding large ducks
Snowball Fight: adults playing in the snow
Card Party: three men playing cards and drinking what looks like Guinness
New York: Broadway at Union Square: title tells you . . .
A Trip to the Moon: this is one that the book counts (the earliest one); an astronomer devises a plan to go to the moon and take 5 men with him; the genius method is more or less like a long canon and the men are enclosed in the bullet; they get to the moon, moon-men attack them but they can be defeated just by hitting them with an umbrella; the way to get home is just to fall off the face of the moon in the bullet; they fall into the ocean, are rescued, and go home
President McKinley at Home: apparently the first president on film
Pack Train at Chikoot Pass: it's a train
Sky Scrapers of New York City from North River: can't so much see the skyscrapers for the piers and whatnot
San Francisco: Aftermath of an Earthquake: after the big earthquake
The Dog and His Various Merits: he can spin a wheel like a hamster, pull a milk cart, etc
Aeroplane Flight and Wreck (Piloted by M. Cody): big pre-Wright brothers airplane that falls from the 6 feet of air it attained
The Great Train Robbery: this is the other one that counts for the book; men hit and tie up the railroad worker in the office, get on the train, detach the engine from the rest of the train, make the people in the cars get off the train and rob them, get on the engine, and run off only to be caught by other men who were just minutes before having something of an impromptu dance but had been told by the freed (by a little girl who carries a knife in her basket) railroad worker of the robbery
there were more on the disc but I was seriously having trouble staying awake . . . . They are something to see and some of them are amusing in an "isn't that archaic" way but my god, I can only take so many silent clips (even though these were way short for the most part). It's like watching someone else's home movies when you don't know the people in the film and they don't do anything very interesting.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
A Place in the Sun
First 1.5 hours: 3.5 stars; last .5 hours: 1.5 stars; average: 2.5 stars
Vomit scenes: 0
Good for women: Typical; simultaneously a repository both of all that is good and bad in the world
Because Netflix foiled my plans to see Reds today, I am determined to read this as an anti-capitalist movie, though not unproblematically so. I know Dreiser is a naturalist, and there's a good bit in Eastman's downfall that can be blamed on nothing more than bad luck (the only kind of luck most people seem to have in naturalist novels). However, I think that his love for Liz Taylor is pretty much inseparable from her class privilege. From the untouchable women on the Eastman billboards, to the flashing "Vickers" sign visible from George's rooming house window, to his assertion that he loved her "before he saw her," I don't think his attraction to Liz is totally due to her winning personality. The movie at least (having not read the novel) seems to be suggesting not that capitalism/money is bad--in fact, the most utopian scenes in the movie come when George is frolicking about on the Vickers estate--but that it is absolutely unattainable by and forbidden to the working classes in a way that drives them mad with desire and then kills them. Even though George tries to engage the Algerian myth of the American Dream, his blood, quite literally, prevents him from realizing it. I think all these interesting things happened pre-trial/prison/"Dead man walking" scenes, though. In a movie that seems wholly committed to maintaining the ambiguity of George's "crime," I felt that the trial, etc., was more of a long coda than a well integrated part of the movie. I wonder if Dreiser used those scenes differently?
Vomit scenes: 0
Good for women: Typical; simultaneously a repository both of all that is good and bad in the world
Because Netflix foiled my plans to see Reds today, I am determined to read this as an anti-capitalist movie, though not unproblematically so. I know Dreiser is a naturalist, and there's a good bit in Eastman's downfall that can be blamed on nothing more than bad luck (the only kind of luck most people seem to have in naturalist novels). However, I think that his love for Liz Taylor is pretty much inseparable from her class privilege. From the untouchable women on the Eastman billboards, to the flashing "Vickers" sign visible from George's rooming house window, to his assertion that he loved her "before he saw her," I don't think his attraction to Liz is totally due to her winning personality. The movie at least (having not read the novel) seems to be suggesting not that capitalism/money is bad--in fact, the most utopian scenes in the movie come when George is frolicking about on the Vickers estate--but that it is absolutely unattainable by and forbidden to the working classes in a way that drives them mad with desire and then kills them. Even though George tries to engage the Algerian myth of the American Dream, his blood, quite literally, prevents him from realizing it. I think all these interesting things happened pre-trial/prison/"Dead man walking" scenes, though. In a movie that seems wholly committed to maintaining the ambiguity of George's "crime," I felt that the trial, etc., was more of a long coda than a well integrated part of the movie. I wonder if Dreiser used those scenes differently?
Death at a Funeral (2007)
Ha! I thought the preview was funny but goodness. So Daniel's dad has died and everyone is gathering for the funeral:
his wife Jane who is trying to be helpful
his mother who is a bit of a bitch ("tea can do many things, Jane, but it can't bring back the dead")
his famous novelist of a brother Robert whom everyone expects to give the eulogy even though Daniel is giving it
his cousin Martha and her accidentally drugged (with an interesting combination of hallucinogenics) fiancee Simon
Martha's brother who created the concoction and put it in a Valium bottle and then repeatedly loses the bottle
Justin who thinks Martha should hook up with him again even though she tells him to leave her alone
Howard who is really very concerned about a tiny skin irritation on his wrist and who then suffers the worst fate of the whole movie (really, yick!!! I can't prepare you for it)
Martha's father who would rather her not see Simon much less marry him
Uncle Alfie who is old, angry, demanding, and wheelchair bound
the Reverend who has to leave by 3 but we don't know why
and then there's Peter the midget who had an affair with Daniel's dad and wants a little piece of the inheritance
And then hilarity ensues. Lots of it.
his wife Jane who is trying to be helpful
his mother who is a bit of a bitch ("tea can do many things, Jane, but it can't bring back the dead")
his famous novelist of a brother Robert whom everyone expects to give the eulogy even though Daniel is giving it
his cousin Martha and her accidentally drugged (with an interesting combination of hallucinogenics) fiancee Simon
Martha's brother who created the concoction and put it in a Valium bottle and then repeatedly loses the bottle
Justin who thinks Martha should hook up with him again even though she tells him to leave her alone
Howard who is really very concerned about a tiny skin irritation on his wrist and who then suffers the worst fate of the whole movie (really, yick!!! I can't prepare you for it)
Martha's father who would rather her not see Simon much less marry him
Uncle Alfie who is old, angry, demanding, and wheelchair bound
the Reverend who has to leave by 3 but we don't know why
and then there's Peter the midget who had an affair with Daniel's dad and wants a little piece of the inheritance
And then hilarity ensues. Lots of it.
Literary Miscellany
So a few random things:
Madeleine L'Engle died on Thursday--less than a week after I re-read A Wrinkle in Time. Creepy.
Toni Morrison has a opera, Margaret Garner, with Richard Danielpour. Apparently, it's a "heartbreaking story of slavery and parental love" (according to Vanity Fair).
Also learned from Vanity Fair: Arthur Miller hid away a son with Down's Syndrome and pretended he only had three children. It's quite the thing if you can get the article to read.
Madeleine L'Engle died on Thursday--less than a week after I re-read A Wrinkle in Time. Creepy.
Toni Morrison has a opera, Margaret Garner, with Richard Danielpour. Apparently, it's a "heartbreaking story of slavery and parental love" (according to Vanity Fair).
Also learned from Vanity Fair: Arthur Miller hid away a son with Down's Syndrome and pretended he only had three children. It's quite the thing if you can get the article to read.
sassafrass, cypress, & indgo (1982)
Ntozake Shange wrote this one. I'd read part of it in the Postmodern Anthology that I made a project the other summer. Turns out I like the selection much better than the entire book. Regardless, Tracy, you need to read it: one black girl comes of age, one is involved with a lesbian dance troupe which does a "clitoris"dance, another has a "cunt" poem written for her and is in an abusive relationship (then becomes involved with spirits), the dancer and the other are both sluts for a time being (more or less), there is also some child birthing, menstruating, dancing, etc. --all three girls are artists of some sort.
Ok, so a plot summary. Three girls, Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, grew up in Charleston SC (S&C are older and out of the house already). Indigo is a bit in touch with the spiritual world ("too much of the South in her"), she talks to her dolls (who supposedly talk back), and we see her become a woman. This first part includes the section I'd read that I liked. The narrative then turns to her older sisters, both in California to begin with. Sassafrass is in an abusive relationship and can't find her artistic voice while Cypress is a dancer and a coke dealer--both have to find their roots in their art in order to survive and be happy. It turns out that Indigo has done just that although she disappears after the first third or so of the book. That annoyed me. The reader had just gone through this incredibly important part of this child's growing up to have to leave her and look into the lives of her less sympathetic sisters.
This is very much a book from a child of the sixties. Shange was born in 48 and must have been influenced by all of the black power and back to Africa movements. She embodies those things in each girl differently while contrasting the younger generation against the mother who wishes they would all settle down a bit. Motherhood and blackness and womanhood are struggles for these girls and each comes at and comes to terms with the issues differently. It does seem a bit heavy handed at times, switching to poetry in the middle of the narration, the lack of substantive male characters, and the variety of solutions to the aforementioned struggles are a little too evenly spaced to be reality (she covers all the bases in terms of solutions).
That said. I did enjoy the book. It was a quick, fairly fun read and I think it would be interesting to teach against something similar like Mama Day (which is still the better book) or even Like Water for Chocolate (s, c & i also includes recipes) or something super-masculine like Fight Club. Doesn't work for my mean girls syllabus, though (although Indigo runs with the "Geechee Capitans" (no I didn't mis-type) for a little while and does some physical damage to men betting on cock-fights).
Ok, so a plot summary. Three girls, Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, grew up in Charleston SC (S&C are older and out of the house already). Indigo is a bit in touch with the spiritual world ("too much of the South in her"), she talks to her dolls (who supposedly talk back), and we see her become a woman. This first part includes the section I'd read that I liked. The narrative then turns to her older sisters, both in California to begin with. Sassafrass is in an abusive relationship and can't find her artistic voice while Cypress is a dancer and a coke dealer--both have to find their roots in their art in order to survive and be happy. It turns out that Indigo has done just that although she disappears after the first third or so of the book. That annoyed me. The reader had just gone through this incredibly important part of this child's growing up to have to leave her and look into the lives of her less sympathetic sisters.
This is very much a book from a child of the sixties. Shange was born in 48 and must have been influenced by all of the black power and back to Africa movements. She embodies those things in each girl differently while contrasting the younger generation against the mother who wishes they would all settle down a bit. Motherhood and blackness and womanhood are struggles for these girls and each comes at and comes to terms with the issues differently. It does seem a bit heavy handed at times, switching to poetry in the middle of the narration, the lack of substantive male characters, and the variety of solutions to the aforementioned struggles are a little too evenly spaced to be reality (she covers all the bases in terms of solutions).
That said. I did enjoy the book. It was a quick, fairly fun read and I think it would be interesting to teach against something similar like Mama Day (which is still the better book) or even Like Water for Chocolate (s, c & i also includes recipes) or something super-masculine like Fight Club. Doesn't work for my mean girls syllabus, though (although Indigo runs with the "Geechee Capitans" (no I didn't mis-type) for a little while and does some physical damage to men betting on cock-fights).
Friday, September 7, 2007
Cool Hand Luke (t)
2 stars
Vomit scenes: 0
Animal body count: 4
Good for black people: Apparently the only people of color in this southern town are very young boys.
Good for women: Women? Oh, you must mean those creatures that wax cars with their breasts and suck on garden hoses for the titillation of being ogled by a chain gang.
You know, I think I like this movie better when it's called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I was surprised at the comic overtones (and how they were summarily dropped), and thought the imagery was way heavy handed (opening violation sign and multiple crosses at the end, I'm looking at you). It was interesting that the movie suggests that the most effective form of resistance is that which only abuses one's own body (the prison fistfight, the eggs). I'm also not sure what to do with the end, where the naive but tough Drag is blithely spreading the Gospel of Luke (Heh. Just got that.) but wearing chains of his own. Is this movie profoundly nihilistic or just uneven? I did like the "Man with no eyes," though. It helps me love O Brother, Where Art Thou? on a whole new level.
Vomit scenes: 0
Animal body count: 4
Good for black people: Apparently the only people of color in this southern town are very young boys.
Good for women: Women? Oh, you must mean those creatures that wax cars with their breasts and suck on garden hoses for the titillation of being ogled by a chain gang.
You know, I think I like this movie better when it's called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I was surprised at the comic overtones (and how they were summarily dropped), and thought the imagery was way heavy handed (opening violation sign and multiple crosses at the end, I'm looking at you). It was interesting that the movie suggests that the most effective form of resistance is that which only abuses one's own body (the prison fistfight, the eggs). I'm also not sure what to do with the end, where the naive but tough Drag is blithely spreading the Gospel of Luke (Heh. Just got that.) but wearing chains of his own. Is this movie profoundly nihilistic or just uneven? I did like the "Man with no eyes," though. It helps me love O Brother, Where Art Thou? on a whole new level.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
A Wrinkle in Time (1962) (nat)
I first read this book when I was in the fourth grade and it's one of the few books that I have a memory of reading as a child. I only vaguely remembered parts of the book but very much remember the art on the cover--I hate that in grade school you don't get to keep the books--it had a winged centaur-like creature with kids on its back and black swirly galaxies. It's 200 pages and actually has some words I'd be surprised if I knew at 9 (omnipotent is the one I can call to mind at the moment) and ideas like the periodic table of elements, times tables (which I never actually learned . . . . they were the bane of my existence in third (?) grade), some mention of physics, other basic science stuff. It's also kind of scary with the main bad guy being a disembodied brain that can control your thoughts making you an automaton but that also creates a smog-like black cloud around the planets it controls.
Oh, right, brief plot summary for those who haven't read it since the 4th grade, or ever: The Murray family is made up of two genius scientists for parents, an oldest daughter, Meg, who is a bit of an angry misfit, twin boys, Sandy and Dennys (I didn't mistype), who are as normal as normal can be, and the youngest boy, Charles Wallace, who is special in a can read your mind and knows lots of big words way. So the father was working on a project for the government, essentially a sort of time travel amongst the planets and he goes missing. Meg, Charles Wallace, and their new friend, equally misfit (although superficially normal basketball player) Calvin must go and save him with the help of three "witches" (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which) who can take the form of humans (well, two of them can) but aren't human at all. The father is somehow kept away from home by IT (the brain which causes pollution) and they have to figure out how to save him and fight IT.
It's kind of amazing that I even read it in elementary school (as an assigned text) given that it was very frequently banned (in the top 25 of most frequently banned of the 90s. I would have read it just a bit before the 90s . . . .). It has references to witches, talking beasts, some sort of version of Stalinism/Marxism/Communism that I couldn't quite sort out (it's very Animal Farm--don't be like the herd because that's mindless), and a shaky Jesus allegory (all you need is love) along with some straightforward references to God.
I do think the book is well written and I was entertained enough for a quick read. I was incredibly annoyed with Meg's (brief) turn in character toward the end of the book (which also seemed to precipitate a change in the Mrs.Ws' characters) but she seemed to get back on track (as did the Mrs Ws). The little love affair between Calvin and Meg was cute but it sort of dropped off and that was disappointing (although according to the family tree at the back of the book, they get married and have 7 (!!) children). The "science" to explain the time/space travel was a bit foggy but I just skipped right over that. The plot line is good for girls in that Meg has to be the one to get some things done and she accomplishes this by virtue of her "faults" but I'm not so sure about the method of the final save, it's a little wishy washy.
Oh, right, brief plot summary for those who haven't read it since the 4th grade, or ever: The Murray family is made up of two genius scientists for parents, an oldest daughter, Meg, who is a bit of an angry misfit, twin boys, Sandy and Dennys (I didn't mistype), who are as normal as normal can be, and the youngest boy, Charles Wallace, who is special in a can read your mind and knows lots of big words way. So the father was working on a project for the government, essentially a sort of time travel amongst the planets and he goes missing. Meg, Charles Wallace, and their new friend, equally misfit (although superficially normal basketball player) Calvin must go and save him with the help of three "witches" (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which) who can take the form of humans (well, two of them can) but aren't human at all. The father is somehow kept away from home by IT (the brain which causes pollution) and they have to figure out how to save him and fight IT.
It's kind of amazing that I even read it in elementary school (as an assigned text) given that it was very frequently banned (in the top 25 of most frequently banned of the 90s. I would have read it just a bit before the 90s . . . .). It has references to witches, talking beasts, some sort of version of Stalinism/Marxism/Communism that I couldn't quite sort out (it's very Animal Farm--don't be like the herd because that's mindless), and a shaky Jesus allegory (all you need is love) along with some straightforward references to God.
I do think the book is well written and I was entertained enough for a quick read. I was incredibly annoyed with Meg's (brief) turn in character toward the end of the book (which also seemed to precipitate a change in the Mrs.Ws' characters) but she seemed to get back on track (as did the Mrs Ws). The little love affair between Calvin and Meg was cute but it sort of dropped off and that was disappointing (although according to the family tree at the back of the book, they get married and have 7 (!!) children). The "science" to explain the time/space travel was a bit foggy but I just skipped right over that. The plot line is good for girls in that Meg has to be the one to get some things done and she accomplishes this by virtue of her "faults" but I'm not so sure about the method of the final save, it's a little wishy washy.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (nat)
The Oscar winner for the year I was born has a dearth of hand washing. Hand washing is very important!! Both the kid and Dustin Hoffman pee when they first wake up after the wife has left—no hand washing (this happens at least twice!). Hoffman smears raw eggs all over his hands when he’s screwing up French toast—no hand washing—he then attempts to make coffee, gets some OJ out of the fridge—no hand washing even though he's still got raw eggs all over his hands. That’s no good at all. Giving the kid e-coli will certainly win the mother custody.
But, the plot: Meryl Streep is Joanna Kramer who decides her marriage to Ted (Hoffman) is not so hot. She leaves him and their 6 year old son Billy to find herself. I sound a little flippant because we're brought in on the story as she's leaving so we don't see any of her misery. Left alone, Ted has to learn to navigate fatherhood and a full-time job. But for quite a bit of the movie, it's more like Kramer v. Mini-Kramer or Three Men and a Baby but with just one man and a six year old. Mrs. Kramer doesn't resurface until 55 minutes in (well, for the first time it's a little more than five minutes before that but that time is just a brief glimpse of her) after she leaves in the first five minutes and then it is to initiate the court case from which the movie takes its title.
There are quite a few really sweet scenes between father and son as they get to know each other. They get into their morning routine sharing a box of doughnuts for breakfast while each settles into his own reading material at the table. And at one point Ted has to write out all of the pros and cons of keeping custody of Billy. As he is writing a huge list of cons (finances, etc) he's sitting under a wall newly filled with Billy's artwork. I was horrified at the doctor putting stitches in that child's face with him completely awake and aware of what's going on (but we know I have issues with needles and my face).
The movie is a bit one-sided, though. The audience is obviously cheering for Ted in the whole court situation because Joanne abandoned her son but I think it would have made it a much more complicated and true story if we had seen Joanna's side. I know the movie can only be so long and blah blah blah. But if the guy was a bastard or emotionally stunted during his marriage and/or was a partially or wholly absent father, she has more of a case than was presented in the movie. But, his case is stronger if she's just a flighty selfish whore as is sort-of suggested at one point by the lawyer. Meanwhile if they are both competent parents (aside from her leaving) the situation is much more complicated than presented. As it is, it is a sweet story about a guy finally bonding with his son and realizing that there's more to life than work and it does a great job at that story. It also does a great job at presenting the whole "fathers can be mothers, too" movement by showing the complications Ted faces when trying to care for his son while dealing with his boss who suggests he send Billy to live with relatives. So, for those reasons, good movie. In terms of confronting the reality of motherhood and Joanna's side of the marriage and the whole "mothers can be professionals too" idea, it's more than a bit skittish.
But, the plot: Meryl Streep is Joanna Kramer who decides her marriage to Ted (Hoffman) is not so hot. She leaves him and their 6 year old son Billy to find herself. I sound a little flippant because we're brought in on the story as she's leaving so we don't see any of her misery. Left alone, Ted has to learn to navigate fatherhood and a full-time job. But for quite a bit of the movie, it's more like Kramer v. Mini-Kramer or Three Men and a Baby but with just one man and a six year old. Mrs. Kramer doesn't resurface until 55 minutes in (well, for the first time it's a little more than five minutes before that but that time is just a brief glimpse of her) after she leaves in the first five minutes and then it is to initiate the court case from which the movie takes its title.
There are quite a few really sweet scenes between father and son as they get to know each other. They get into their morning routine sharing a box of doughnuts for breakfast while each settles into his own reading material at the table. And at one point Ted has to write out all of the pros and cons of keeping custody of Billy. As he is writing a huge list of cons (finances, etc) he's sitting under a wall newly filled with Billy's artwork. I was horrified at the doctor putting stitches in that child's face with him completely awake and aware of what's going on (but we know I have issues with needles and my face).
The movie is a bit one-sided, though. The audience is obviously cheering for Ted in the whole court situation because Joanne abandoned her son but I think it would have made it a much more complicated and true story if we had seen Joanna's side. I know the movie can only be so long and blah blah blah. But if the guy was a bastard or emotionally stunted during his marriage and/or was a partially or wholly absent father, she has more of a case than was presented in the movie. But, his case is stronger if she's just a flighty selfish whore as is sort-of suggested at one point by the lawyer. Meanwhile if they are both competent parents (aside from her leaving) the situation is much more complicated than presented. As it is, it is a sweet story about a guy finally bonding with his son and realizing that there's more to life than work and it does a great job at that story. It also does a great job at presenting the whole "fathers can be mothers, too" movement by showing the complications Ted faces when trying to care for his son while dealing with his boss who suggests he send Billy to live with relatives. So, for those reasons, good movie. In terms of confronting the reality of motherhood and Joanna's side of the marriage and the whole "mothers can be professionals too" idea, it's more than a bit skittish.
Salvador (t)
3 stars
Vomit Scenes: 0
Vomit-inducing scenes: 2; amateur tracheotomy and drooling out a bloody tooth after a rifle butt to the face
Good for women: Certainly not. It's an Oliver Stone movie, so they are passive, weak, and defined entirely by their sexuality. Even the nuns.
This movie was like a better, Central American version of The Last King of Scotland. You have naive whitey descending upon a civil-war stricken nation of brown people who ends up shocked--shocked!--that he will not be in control of the situation solely due to said whiteness. But like I said, it is better. Naive whitey, played by James Woods, is not nearly as unbelievably ignorant as Mr. Tumnus. (There is actually another naive whitey role, filled by James Belushi, but for obvious reasons both I and the movie chose to forget his existence as soon as possible.) The movie also helped me to understand both the logistics of Reagan's anti-communist Central American policy, and what it would be like to live within the parameters of it. All for the good. Oliver Stone's politics also become apparent pretty early on. They are best realized with a scene at the leftist rebel camp, where the men, women, and children are portrayed as idealistic humanists (which is, I imagine, a simplification). They are worst realized with a truly squirm-inducing speech by James Woods about America's belief in decency and truth and blah blah blah.
The movie is well done and doubtless quite important both for its time and now, but watching it made me realize that Oliver Stone is my latest candidate for director I'd wipe off the face of the planet. I just can't connect to any of his movies. I like Platoon and Wall Street, but not in an intense, I'd like to own them kind of way. Maybe he's my Woody Allen? I do still have a vaguely disturbing crush on skeezy James Woods, however.
Vomit Scenes: 0
Vomit-inducing scenes: 2; amateur tracheotomy and drooling out a bloody tooth after a rifle butt to the face
Good for women: Certainly not. It's an Oliver Stone movie, so they are passive, weak, and defined entirely by their sexuality. Even the nuns.
This movie was like a better, Central American version of The Last King of Scotland. You have naive whitey descending upon a civil-war stricken nation of brown people who ends up shocked--shocked!--that he will not be in control of the situation solely due to said whiteness. But like I said, it is better. Naive whitey, played by James Woods, is not nearly as unbelievably ignorant as Mr. Tumnus. (There is actually another naive whitey role, filled by James Belushi, but for obvious reasons both I and the movie chose to forget his existence as soon as possible.) The movie also helped me to understand both the logistics of Reagan's anti-communist Central American policy, and what it would be like to live within the parameters of it. All for the good. Oliver Stone's politics also become apparent pretty early on. They are best realized with a scene at the leftist rebel camp, where the men, women, and children are portrayed as idealistic humanists (which is, I imagine, a simplification). They are worst realized with a truly squirm-inducing speech by James Woods about America's belief in decency and truth and blah blah blah.
The movie is well done and doubtless quite important both for its time and now, but watching it made me realize that Oliver Stone is my latest candidate for director I'd wipe off the face of the planet. I just can't connect to any of his movies. I like Platoon and Wall Street, but not in an intense, I'd like to own them kind of way. Maybe he's my Woody Allen? I do still have a vaguely disturbing crush on skeezy James Woods, however.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Long Hot Summer (1958) (nat)
The Maltese Falcon is the second movie I've seen recently in which the bad guy pulls a gun on the good guy, good guy gets the gun away from the bad guy, they talk for a minute and halfway resolve the situation, the bad guy says "may I have my gun back," the good guy returns the gun, and the bad guy, lo and behold, turns the gun on the good guy again. I can't remember the other movie but I think it may be Harper, maybe (or The Big Sleep . . . .). That just struck me as funny.
So this one has a bit of a convoluted plot line but the basics are lots of people are in search of the Maltese Falcon (a gem-encrusted gold statue of a falcon) and they involve Sam Spade (Bogart) to sort it all out (well, not really--they all involve Spade because they think he can get them the falcon). Twists and double crosses ensue as well as Bogart inevitably falling in love with the damsel in supposed distress, Brigid O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor). It's definitely recommended.
I'd seen The Long Hot Summer several times before but it was on TV and I like it so I watched it again. It is an excellent example of a movie that's not in the book but should be. Based on stories and a novel by Faulkner, the basic storyline is something of a twist on The Taming of the Shrew (ANOTHER movie that should be on the list but isn't). Ben Quick (Paul Newman) comes to town and ingratiates himself in the Varner household (old old Southern money) through the patriarch Will (none other than Orson Welles). The family has one good-for-close-to-nothing son, Jody, who is married to the incessantly cat-called Eula who does little more than file her nails. Jody runs the family store until Ben shows Will that he can sell wild horses to poor people then Will gives it all over to Ben to run. Will also has a daughter, Clara (Joanne Woodward), who is an ancient 23 (maybe 24, I forget exactly), a school teacher, and a bit of a bookworm. Will wants her to marry now, right now, and give him grandsons, lots of grandsons. She's had a long term flirtation with Alan Stewart but he's too concerned with being a mama's boy to actually consider marrying Clara. Will gets fed up and decides that Clara will marry Alan ASAP or she's marrying Ben Quick. My favorite parts may be Angela Lansbury as Minnie, Will's pretty and saucy girlfriend who wants him to marry her but, instead of wasting her breath trying to convince him, she just goes ahead and plans the wedding (sending out invitations and all). Obviously I like this one quite a bit.
So this one has a bit of a convoluted plot line but the basics are lots of people are in search of the Maltese Falcon (a gem-encrusted gold statue of a falcon) and they involve Sam Spade (Bogart) to sort it all out (well, not really--they all involve Spade because they think he can get them the falcon). Twists and double crosses ensue as well as Bogart inevitably falling in love with the damsel in supposed distress, Brigid O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor). It's definitely recommended.
I'd seen The Long Hot Summer several times before but it was on TV and I like it so I watched it again. It is an excellent example of a movie that's not in the book but should be. Based on stories and a novel by Faulkner, the basic storyline is something of a twist on The Taming of the Shrew (ANOTHER movie that should be on the list but isn't). Ben Quick (Paul Newman) comes to town and ingratiates himself in the Varner household (old old Southern money) through the patriarch Will (none other than Orson Welles). The family has one good-for-close-to-nothing son, Jody, who is married to the incessantly cat-called Eula who does little more than file her nails. Jody runs the family store until Ben shows Will that he can sell wild horses to poor people then Will gives it all over to Ben to run. Will also has a daughter, Clara (Joanne Woodward), who is an ancient 23 (maybe 24, I forget exactly), a school teacher, and a bit of a bookworm. Will wants her to marry now, right now, and give him grandsons, lots of grandsons. She's had a long term flirtation with Alan Stewart but he's too concerned with being a mama's boy to actually consider marrying Clara. Will gets fed up and decides that Clara will marry Alan ASAP or she's marrying Ben Quick. My favorite parts may be Angela Lansbury as Minnie, Will's pretty and saucy girlfriend who wants him to marry her but, instead of wasting her breath trying to convince him, she just goes ahead and plans the wedding (sending out invitations and all). Obviously I like this one quite a bit.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Lola Montes (1955) (nat)
I picked this one out of the earlier movies (breaking my self-imposed chronological order) because I'd read a review about a new book about her (Lola Montez: Her Life and Conquests, James Morton: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n11/wils08_.html) and was interested in the book but can't find the damned thing anywhere.
Anyway, the movie tells Lola's scandalous life story through a series of flashbacks as she reenacts her life in a circus performance. As told in the film, she runs from her cheating husband and has a few affairs on her way up the social ladder to her final conquest of the King of Bavaria, Ludwig I. She gains quite the reputation and the Bavarians revolt (sort-of, they really only throw a few rocks) so she flees. Apparently the only option she has at that point is to join the circus (the offer was made to her years before) which creates a whole show depicting her life. We see her performing the act (which is really quite tame and boring but I guess the (French) 1950s depiction of the 1850s would be) while she is apparently quite ill. They never really tell us what's wrong except that she has a weak heart (uh-oh, might that be a metaphor?) but she's got a cough and we all know what that means in movies in which hoop skirts are worn.
The problems are:
1. she's become a circus show complete with "she'll be in a cage in the menagerie later so you can pay a dollar and kiss her hand"
2. there are strangely red-masked (as in burglar ski masks but red) midgets or children running around in the circus which were just odd
3. what looks like some very obvious blackface for no real reason
4. we have no idea how she gets from escaping Bavaria to the circus and we don't know why she has such an obligation to the circus
5. her character is a little inconsistent (one moment she's seducing a hitchhiker student, the next she's helpless)
6. there are two young girls in the show (depicting a young Lola) who may be her daughters. There is an interaction with the younger one that made me ask the question but the girl never reappears and there is no indication that Lola ever had children (or even another relationship after the king)
Besides those problems with the movie as it stands on its own, it seems to conflict with what I know about the actual woman. I watched the movie, after all, because I wanted to see something about the audacious, scandalous woman but I got a watered down version. Apparently she was the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (no undies and all) of her day and she got to the top with absolutely no talent for dance (which was her supposed profession) and was not quite pretty (the movie made her beautiful). She pretended to be Spanish (was actually Irish), essentially brought down a king, lectured in the US on slavery (she was all for it) and women's rights (not so much), performed in Australia (sans undies), captured the attentions of many important men who then applauded her dancing as if it were the best thing ever, married at least twice . . . yet none of this is in the movie. Hmpf. Someone needs to make a movie about her now or at least put the damned book in the Barnes and Noble.
Anyway, the movie tells Lola's scandalous life story through a series of flashbacks as she reenacts her life in a circus performance. As told in the film, she runs from her cheating husband and has a few affairs on her way up the social ladder to her final conquest of the King of Bavaria, Ludwig I. She gains quite the reputation and the Bavarians revolt (sort-of, they really only throw a few rocks) so she flees. Apparently the only option she has at that point is to join the circus (the offer was made to her years before) which creates a whole show depicting her life. We see her performing the act (which is really quite tame and boring but I guess the (French) 1950s depiction of the 1850s would be) while she is apparently quite ill. They never really tell us what's wrong except that she has a weak heart (uh-oh, might that be a metaphor?) but she's got a cough and we all know what that means in movies in which hoop skirts are worn.
The problems are:
1. she's become a circus show complete with "she'll be in a cage in the menagerie later so you can pay a dollar and kiss her hand"
2. there are strangely red-masked (as in burglar ski masks but red) midgets or children running around in the circus which were just odd
3. what looks like some very obvious blackface for no real reason
4. we have no idea how she gets from escaping Bavaria to the circus and we don't know why she has such an obligation to the circus
5. her character is a little inconsistent (one moment she's seducing a hitchhiker student, the next she's helpless)
6. there are two young girls in the show (depicting a young Lola) who may be her daughters. There is an interaction with the younger one that made me ask the question but the girl never reappears and there is no indication that Lola ever had children (or even another relationship after the king)
Besides those problems with the movie as it stands on its own, it seems to conflict with what I know about the actual woman. I watched the movie, after all, because I wanted to see something about the audacious, scandalous woman but I got a watered down version. Apparently she was the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (no undies and all) of her day and she got to the top with absolutely no talent for dance (which was her supposed profession) and was not quite pretty (the movie made her beautiful). She pretended to be Spanish (was actually Irish), essentially brought down a king, lectured in the US on slavery (she was all for it) and women's rights (not so much), performed in Australia (sans undies), captured the attentions of many important men who then applauded her dancing as if it were the best thing ever, married at least twice . . . yet none of this is in the movie. Hmpf. Someone needs to make a movie about her now or at least put the damned book in the Barnes and Noble.
Rebel Without a Cause (t)
3 stars
Vomit scenes: 0
Good for women: eh
Good for black people: not particularly
So I bet this is the type of movie that will mean radically different things depending on how old you are when you see it (ala Catcher in the Rye). Seeing it at my advanced age, all I could think about was how incompetent parenting thrust these kids into situations they were in no way capable of handling. For example, Jim can't tell the difference between a "chickee race" and owning up to his role in another boy's death in terms of being an honorable man, and his parents are in no position to help him know, though he desperately asks them for answers. Along these lines, the "playing house" sequences are my absolute favorite, as I think the three actors involved did a great job simultaneously emphasizing how childlike their characters were, and how adult they had to be, lacking any helpful models of man/womanhood.
I also really responded to this movie because it really tries to imagine a masculinity that is both efficacious and receptive/vulnerable. Dean's body language is obviously the best literalization of this. However, I wasn't totally happy with how this struggle ended up in terms of Jim's father. So he's clearly feminized throughout, with the apron and all, and at the end agrees to "stand up" and be strong for his son. All good. But the first manifestation of this "strength" is telling his harpy wife to shut up. And she likes it. Troubling. I think the best version of manhood is probably the police officer who offers to help Jim, but he's barely in it. I was also a little disturbed by Plato's "Mammy," but hey, it's a movie of its time.
Vomit scenes: 0
Good for women: eh
Good for black people: not particularly
So I bet this is the type of movie that will mean radically different things depending on how old you are when you see it (ala Catcher in the Rye). Seeing it at my advanced age, all I could think about was how incompetent parenting thrust these kids into situations they were in no way capable of handling. For example, Jim can't tell the difference between a "chickee race" and owning up to his role in another boy's death in terms of being an honorable man, and his parents are in no position to help him know, though he desperately asks them for answers. Along these lines, the "playing house" sequences are my absolute favorite, as I think the three actors involved did a great job simultaneously emphasizing how childlike their characters were, and how adult they had to be, lacking any helpful models of man/womanhood.
I also really responded to this movie because it really tries to imagine a masculinity that is both efficacious and receptive/vulnerable. Dean's body language is obviously the best literalization of this. However, I wasn't totally happy with how this struggle ended up in terms of Jim's father. So he's clearly feminized throughout, with the apron and all, and at the end agrees to "stand up" and be strong for his son. All good. But the first manifestation of this "strength" is telling his harpy wife to shut up. And she likes it. Troubling. I think the best version of manhood is probably the police officer who offers to help Jim, but he's barely in it. I was also a little disturbed by Plato's "Mammy," but hey, it's a movie of its time.
Amadeus (1984) (nat)
So this one is longer than I thought . . . . which is why I'm posting at 4am and why this may be a bit disjointed. Anyway, it's an interesting look at Antonio Salieri's (F. Murray Abraham) version of Mozart's (Tom Hulce) life. Told by the recently committed to an asylum for trying to slit his throat Salieri, the film looks at quite a bit of Mozart's life. The pompous Salieri deems himself chosen by God to play and produce music and does so for the Austrian court until Mozart shows up. Ironically, Salieri was inspired to love music by Mozart as a child but comes to despise the younger man because he lacks the "proper" reverence, which Salieri, of course, has promised to God (chastity, etc). Mozart goes through life like it's one big Bacchanalia and that just irks Salieri to no end so he pledges to destroy the much more talented artist to spite God for only making him mediocre when he promised God everything. It develops into quite the love/hate one-sided relationship with Salieri attending every performance of Mozart's work and experiencing some sort of orgasmic ecstasy when just looking at Mozart's handwritten work while he simultaneously attempts to undermine Mozart's every turn and eventually plots to kill him.
I liked this one. It's an interesting look at an unreliable narrator and the proliferation of the myth of a villain where there was likely only a slight rivalry. But, while I like the old delusional self-appointed saint of the mediocre Salieri as the one-sided selfish narrator, I wish the aging make-up were better. There are just too many close-ups where it looks like the stuff is just going to slide off his face.
I liked this one. It's an interesting look at an unreliable narrator and the proliferation of the myth of a villain where there was likely only a slight rivalry. But, while I like the old delusional self-appointed saint of the mediocre Salieri as the one-sided selfish narrator, I wish the aging make-up were better. There are just too many close-ups where it looks like the stuff is just going to slide off his face.
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