Miscellaneous: Local Color

Here’s an inspired idea: Seattle’s Big Picture has arranged benefit screenings of THE BIG EASY, with all proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina victims. I’d love to see similar shows in other cities.

Emerald City readers still have time to take in the Isamu Noguchi sculptures on display at the Seattle Art Museum. As striking as the pieces are, they’re matched by the evocative settings created by artist and theater director Robert Wilson. The exhibit closes on Monday.

Movie: Cry Danger (1951)

“Occasionally, I always drink too much.”

There’s nothing like a meaty revenge drama. Unless it’s a meaty revenge drama that veers off in unexpected directions.

Dick Powell gets sprung from jail when a missing witness comes forward to back up his claim that he didn’t commit a robbery. Powell sets out to nail the guilty parties and comfort his still-incarcerated friend’s wife (my latest retro crush Rhonda Fleming).

But the plot goes screwy in the first five minutes, when we learn that the injured war hero providing Powell’s alibi has never clapped eyes on the man before. He’s a one-legged Marine stewing in whiskey and proto-hipster cynicism who realized that he fit the description of Powell’s savior. Now he’s going along with the gag in the hopes that Powell actually did pull the job and will feel like sharing the wealth.

Character actor Richard Erdman plays the role with a sleepy little boy delivery that is riveting. It helps that he’s been given some corkers like the line up top courtesy of veteran screenwriter William Bowers. The result is a sharply-etched portrait of a disaffected veteran, dropped right in the middle of a dandy crime story.

Miscellaneous: Link

On the day that A SOUND OF THUNDER skulks into theaters (yeah, I didn’t know, either), Slate tries to reclaim Ray Bradbury as a pulp god.

Miscellaneous: Miscellany

I’m going to open this post by linking to the FEMA-approved list of Hurricane Katrina-related charities. There are many things I could say about Katrina and its aftermath. Instead, I’ll point you toward the charities list again and stick to what I do best: the frivolous.

Like mocking vanity publishers. Several of these companies buy space in the New York Times Book Review, which is the only publicity their titles get. I seek out these ads because the copy is always a treat. It seems to be written by artificial intelligence software that has studied English as a second language.

Consider this gem-like prose from last Sunday’s ad:

“Fasten your seat belt for a truly unique experience. A one-chapter diatribe, XYZ is an alluring and startling look at one man’s adventures in living. Biting and emotional, acidic and humorous, it is a lively biography interlaced with moments of unsettling despondency.”

I do love a good one-chapter diatribe. And unsettling despondency is my favorite kind. Consider my seat belt fastened.

In other news, as an alumnus of Boston University’s College of Communication, all I can say is this: if you don’t put Howard Stern on the wall of fame, you can’t put me up there, either. It’s that simple.

Miscellaneous: Dog Days No More

I don’t know if Hollywood’s box office slump is for real. I ain’t no numbers genius. If it does exist, its root causes could be any combination of possibilities: lousy movies, the poor quality of the filmgoing experience, maybe even the price of gas.

I make no claims to being a distribution guru, either. But it seems to me that the industry’s release patterns should bear some of the blame as well.

The summer movie season now begins in late April. Studios jockey for position to claim one of the next ten to twelve weeks a full year in advance, and on each of those Fridays a behemoth is unleashed on the world.

But what if you have no interest in that Friday’s big new movie?

It happened to me more than once in the summer of 2005. Hell, there was one stretch where I didn’t go the theater for two weeks in a row. It’s as if the lesson of the summer of 1989 has been forgotten. Disney opened HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS opposite the BATMAN juggernaut and cleaned up on the overflow crowds. It seems like common sense: have more movies out when people are in the mood to go.

The madness ends in July. There are exceptions; THE FUGITIVE was an early August release. But generally the last month of the summer is given over to also-rans.

Except this year. August has brought a bounty of interesting films that has had me catching two or three shows per week. And not a sequel or TV spin-off among them.

The studios released two of the better movies of the season in RED EYE and THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, as well as John Singleton’s urban western FOUR BROTHERS and Terry Gilliam’s THE BROTHERS GRIMM. The documentaries MURDERBALL and THE ARISTOCRATS expanded to more theaters. From the indie world, we got the latest from auteurs Jim Jarmusch (BROKEN FLOWERS) and Wong Kar-Wai (2046), as well as the Sundance award winner JUNEBUG. The month ends with Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of the John le Carré novel THE CONSTANT GARDENER, the first legitimate awards contender since CINDERELLA MAN.

I’m not saying that all of these films are winners. But they are all worth seeing. I could have used a few of them back in July, when there was nothing in theaters to tempt me out of the house even though I would have welcomed the air conditioning.

Movie: The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)

The Steve Carell comedy deserves its critical acclaim. Any movie that namechecks David Caruso in JADE will win a place in my heart, but VIRGIN is hilarious, sweet, and boasts an array of rich supporting characters and offbeat moments into the bargain. It also prompts these thoughts:

1. The big Hollywood story of the summer is the box office slump, which may or may not exist. #2 on the list has to be the triumphant return of the R-rated comedy, offering a path out of the wilderness: focus on adult audiences instead of teenagers. Of course, it helps when the movies, like VIRGIN and WEDDING CRASHERS, actually deliver the goods.

2. Oh how we’ve missed you, Catherine Keener. The actress disappeared from the screen for a few years, but in 2005 she anchors THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE, provides some much-needed snap in THE INTERPRETER, and single-handedly elevates this movie from raunchfest to romantic comedy. More, please.

3. Asia, my favorite band in high school, is catnip to the ladies. Catnip. I speak from personal experience. “Heat of the Moment,” indeed.

TV: The Daily Show

Once upon a time I wouldn’t have linked to this clip. But I said I was going to make some changes around here.

It’s great television. A conversation between Christopher Hitchens – whose writings on Iraq and the war on terror are worth reading because they reveal a nuanced, evolving position – and Jon Stewart, who on some nights is all that keeps me sane.

Hitchens holds his ground, but Stewart is magnificent. He shucks the comic persona and lays out in simple, heartfelt terms what he expects and desires from government in general and this administration in particular: to be treated like an adult.

Movie: Executive Suite (1954)

Speaking of being treated like an adult, I cued up this film on Turner Classic Movies’ new On Demand service expecting soapy melodrama. Instead, I was utterly galvanized.

The president of a company dies, and five executives (including William Holden and Fredric March) scheme amongst themselves to succeed him. They must also sway the two other members of the board, a shady manager with plans to make a killing by selling the firm’s stock short, and the unstable daughter of the company founder who’s also the dead man’s mistress (Barbara Stanwyck). It’s like THE HUDSUCKER PROXY played straight.

The film made one hell of an impression on me, because it tells a complex story about important issues. It says that what a man does is important, but his motives and methods are equally so.

The late, great Ernest Lehman beautifully adapts Cameron Hawley’s novel; the climactic boardroom scenes are spellbinding. There’s a hint of Ayn Rand in Holden’s big speech – even his character’s name, McDonald Walling, sounds like something out of THE FOUNTAINHEAD – but I kind of dig Rand.

The direction by Robert Wise also shines. In a piece written for the 2002 Academy Awards, David Mamet observed that a film’s editor was the audience’s best friend, because the editor only cares about the story. Wise began as an editor – he’s vilified in some quarters for being the studio hatchet man on Welles’ MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS – and it shows in his clean, efficient storytelling.

Comedian Bill Maher often says that people either want to live in the 1950s or the 1960s. It’s a glib line that misreads the Eisenhower era completely. But when it comes to movies, I think he’s onto something. I used to be a huge fan of the films that came out of the ‘60s political and cultural movements, but now many of them seem indulgent. I find myself drawn more and more to the movies of the previous decade, which are disciplined, well-crafted, and every bit as personal.

TCM will be airing EXECUTIVE SUITE September 1st at 8PM Eastern. Set those DVRs now.

Miscellaneous: Feed Me

For all the time and energy I put into this website, you’d think that I would know something about how it works. You’d be wrong. No VCR I have owned has ever blinked twelve, but beyond that I am not the most technical person. The site’s been up and running for well over a year now, and I still believe that critical tasks in its operation are performed by gnomes.

But give me a little credit. I do know when things are amiss. I’d noticed recently that whenever I ran text searches in Technorati or other blog directories, the site never came up. All this deathless prose I’m cranking out, and no way for the unsuspecting masses to stumble onto it.

So I did what I always do. I mentioned it in passing to the site’s technical advisor.

Who immediately said, “It’s probably a problem with your Atom feed. I’ll take a look at it.” She did. Adjustments were made. And I am pleased to say that as of last night, people could actually find this site if they were so inclined.

Please note that the gnomes whose positions were eliminated (‘downsized’ seemed a poor word choice in this case) have found gainful employment at Northwest Airlines.

Miscellaneous: Links

I linked to Josh Friedman’s blog i find your lack of faith disturbing the other day, and I’m linking to it again. The man is just that good. His latest post contains two nuggets of wisdom for all screenwriters: “Don’t be your own hack” and “Smile a fucking smile.” Words to live by.

Goodies galore at GreenCine Daily, including Jon Stewart on the reinvention of television and the Onion on 10 bombs worth watching.

Mark Evanier reflects on the past and future of Las Vegas’ Imperial Palace. I never stayed there, but I can recommend the I.P.’s car exhibit, as well as the automotive museum in Reno that he speaks of. Whenever I’m in Sin City, I like to stop by the neighboring Barbary Coast casino. Fine nickel slots, and it’s where the locals go to gamble. I’m told that means something, but I’ve never been sure what.

I can’t decide if I like this portable toilet company’s name or its slogan better.

Movie: Red Eye (2005)

At last. A summer movie I can call my own.

Wes Craven forsakes horror for straight, almost Hitchcockian suspense. He keeps the action uncluttered; much of the movie consists of two people speaking quietly onboard an airplane. And a real airplane at that. Cramped, uncomfortable, complete with screaming babies and fat men wedged behind tray tables.

He casts phenomenally well, too, relying on relative newcomers Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy to carry the day.

Rosemarie, giddy when the movie was over, described it as “a feminist thriller about heroic competence.” And she’s right. The only reason good has a fighting chance against evil is that the film’s many women characters, from McAdams to her nervous assistant to the flight’s lead stewardess, know their jobs and do them well.

No one’s on their game more than Craven, who directs the film – and conducts the audience – with masterly skill. It’s the most fun I’ve had at a theater since last summer’s smart popcorn thriller CELLULAR.

To my surprise, the movie is racking up positive reviews. But there’s a curiously defensive tone to many of them. A well-told story is a well-told story, regardless of genre. So why does Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek, in praising RED EYE’s “dazzling obviousness,” say it “will have you jumping out of your seat on cue. And is that really so bad?” Then there’s this from the Toronto Globe & Mail:

“Sitting through RED EYE is like watching a master carpenter at work on a custom bookcase. No one would call the result art, but you’re sure bound to admire the sheer craft of the thing.”

Why do reviews contain this kind of depressing nonsense? Is it because Hollywood turns out so much crap that critics don’t know how to respond when they come across a piece of genuine entertainment? Or has film criticism fallen to such a lowly state that anything that delivers on its promise of old-fashioned thrills can only be seen as guilty pleasure?

The correct answer, I fear, may be C. All of the above.

R.I.P. Dennis Lynds, George Fasel

It seems strange to report that mystery novelist Dennis Lynds has died. I just read his novel ACT OF FEAR the other day, with writing so strong and fresh it seemed like the work of an up-and-comer instead of a gem from almost 40 years ago. His last piece of writing appears in the current issue of Thrilling Detective.

Not that it was my first encounter with his work. Lynds also wrote several titles in the Alfred Hitchcock & The Three Investigators series. What sparks your imagination as a child has a huge impact on the person you become, so those books easily rank among the most influential I’ve ever read. Lynds had recently become a fixture on the hardboiled fiction list Rara-Avis, where he was kind enough to offer hard-won wisdom from a long career as a writer. Would that I’d had my act together, I could have told him how much I enjoyed his work.

I also note with sadness the passing of George Fasel, the film blogger behind A Girl and a Gun. He had strongly held opinions and a deep love of cinema, and I always enjoyed reading what he had to say.

I have my share of problems with how the Internet has affected the way we communicate. We spend too much time reading what reinforces our own beliefs, and rely on email to stay in touch with friends. But these two men used the web to share something of themselves, to give back to that which meant a great deal to them. I never had contact with either one directly. But I’ll miss their reports from the world.

Miscellaneous: Links

Once something ends up online, it never goes away. As proof, consider this story of a six-year-old “comic” video by Seattle’s least funny disc jockey, which has only now triggered an international incident.

Screenwriter Josh Friedman (WAR OF THE WORLDS, the upcoming adaptation of James Ellroy’s THE BLACK DAHLIA) launches his blog with tales of movie premieres and unmet collaborators. Via Kung Fu Monkey.

Movie: The Crimson Pirate (1952)

After watching A FATHER ... A SON ... ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, the new HBO documentary about Kirk and Michael Douglas, I had the urge to see a movie starring ... Burt Lancaster. (Sorry. Those ellipses are catching.) Douglas père et fils come off great in the film – it even ends with them singing a song from 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA together – but the clips of Kirk sparring with Burt reminded me that it had been too long since I’d seen Lancaster in action. Fortunately, my DVR was way ahead of me.

I started with the 1973 espionage drama SCORPIO. Burt on the run from his CIA masters, Alain Delon as the assassin on his trail. How bad could it be?

I bailed 30 minutes in. Right after Burt eludes the Company by slipping onto an airplane disguised as a priest. In blackface. It’s the scene from SILVER STREAK played straight.

But the DVR had planned for that eventuality, too. (Frankly, this machine is beginning to freak me out.) Four months ago, it recorded THE CRIMSON PIRATE, in which every last buckle is swashed. No movie makes better use of Lancaster’s early training as an acrobat; his performance is gloriously physical and a joy throughout. Plus, a young Christopher Lee appears as a villain. Top that.

TV: News Watch

Bob Costas, subbing for Larry King, becomes the latest CNN anchor to balk at blanket coverage of Natalee Holloway’s disappearance when there are no new developments. True, the pot/kettle/black factor is at play here; King’s show aired with another host, and Nancy Grace is milking the story five nights a week. But at least the question is being raised by someone other than Jon Stewart.

Miscellaneous: Links

Whenever people ask me what the difference between a manager and an agent is, I always give the same answer: How did you get this number? Now, I will tell them to go to Kung Fu Monkey, where all will be explained.

More work that I’ve been saved: For months I’ve been meaning to write about Jack-FM, the new radio format that supposedly mimics the iPod. It’s killed oldies stations in New York and Chicago. In Seattle it just replaced one of many unfocused adult contemporary outlets, so no harm done. The Onion A.V. Club says all that needs to be said. Via Scrubbles.

Miscellaneous: Links

I’ve said before that Ed Gorman’s blog is one of the best places to read about the state of contemporary publishing. Further proof: this heartbreaker by western novelist Richard S. Wheeler.

Is JESUS coming to your mailbox?

Salon offers this must-read article on recently indicted Washington, D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s brief stint in Hollywood, producing grade-Z action flicks starring Dolph Lundgren. You’ll have to sit through an ad, but it’s worth it. What Ross Thomas could have done with this guy.

I never wrote up my out-of-town-screenwriter-skies-into-Los-Angeles-to-sell-a-screenplay trip of a few months back, and now I don’t have to. Diablo Cody has done it for me. The basic story is the same, only Diablo signed more deals, stayed in a better hotel, and has a much, much cooler name.

Plus, I have never worked as an exotic dancer. In spite of what you may have heard.

Book: The Man With The Iron-On Badge, by Lee Goldberg (2005)

One of the few things guaranteed to set my teeth on edge in a mystery is the lead character who constantly wonders how their favorite fictional detectives would handle the situation. It’s an amateurish way of building reader identification. “You read Kinsey Millhone? So do I! And I like Janet Evanovich, too. Isn’t she great?”

But a talented writer can not only take a hackneyed ploy and turn it on its head. He can build an entire novel around it.

Lee Goldberg is a veteran television scribe (DIAGNOSIS: MURDER) and author of both tie-ins (um, DIAGNOSIS: MURDER) and original novels. His BEYOND THE BEYOND is a personal favorite, a bitingly funny book about the TV business by an insider. When Lee tees off on fan fiction over at his must-read blog, it’s because the man knows whereof he speaks.

IRON-ON BADGE’s Harvey Mapes drifted into security work because he thought it would be like MANNIX or one of his Gold Medal paperbacks. He stays in it because it gives him time to read more Gold Medal paperbacks. When a resident of the gated community where he works hires him to tail his wife, Harvey finally gets his chance to make like Spenser.

The book is about Harvey’s discovery that real-life crime isn’t like the fictional variety at all. At first, the differences are played for laughs, but when Harvey’s case takes a tragic turn, Lee never loses his footing. Harvey actually matures on the page, a transformation made evident in the character’s distinctive voice. He stops wising off and starts wising up.

Miscellaneous: Feel The Burn

For some reason, the Giorgio Moroder theme to MIDNIGHT EXPRESS has been playing the last few times I went to the gym. It doesn’t seem like ideal workout music ... but whenever I hear it I see visions of Brad Davis at the airport in Turkey and start sweating buckets.

By that logic, the gym should pipe in “Dueling Banjos” or the theme from JAWS. Then the pounds will melt away.

Movies: The Aristocrats (2005)/Pink Flamingos (1972)

In which the author decides to test his personal standards and is startled to discover that he does indeed have some.

I’ve wanted to see THE ARISTOCRATS since Comedy Central aired the heavily-edited Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner, at which Gilbert Gottfried launched into a joke legendary amongst comedians. It couldn’t be cleaned up for broadcast, so the network simply cut it out. But it was still obvious that the atmosphere in the room had changed. Gottfried’s televised set was nothing memorable, yet the crowd was ready to bow down to him.

Actually, ‘The Aristocrats’ isn’t a joke so much as an excuse to let the id run amok. You’ve got a simple set-up and a shaggy-dog punch line. In between, fill the space with the foulest notions the imagination can provide.

It is no doubt a reflection on my poor character that I found the movie hilarious.

We hear versions of the joke from old-school comics like Chuck McCann and Larry Storch as well as younger performers like Sarah Silverman, who essentially deconstructs it – and still kills. Stand-up and SIMPSONS writer Dana Gould cites an epic rendition that included “white slavery and a zeppelin race.”

The joke also functions as something of a Rorschach test; which comedians lard on the scatological detail, and which ones focus on violence? Who adds a personal spin to the lame closer? And no recent sight in film is as perversely thrilling as watching Bob Saget kiss the family-friendly portion of his career goodbye by offering the filthiest take in the movie.

By coincidence, I caught John Waters’ seminal cult film PINK FLAMINGOS this weekend for the first time. Part of my make-up work in midnight movies class. FLAMINGOS, I realized, is a cinematic rendering of ‘The Aristocrats.’ Every form of moral turpitude is on display: bestiality, incest, bloodshed, all of it played for laughs. Worse, it’s dished out by hippies, and in Maryland woods so desolate that I kept expecting the cast to stumble onto those poor kids from THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

Parts of the film are deeply funny. But other parts ... I may be outing myself as a square here, but some of them I couldn’t even watch. Here I am thinking of myself as an unflappable man of the world, only to hide my eyes like the quivering Catholic schoolboy I once was. And not just because there’s a difference between hearing skillful descriptions of various depravities and seeing those acts enthusiastically performed.

Waters is a dazzling raconteur – why he doesn’t have his own talk show is beyond me – but let’s be honest: he’s never been much of a filmmaker. (I think even he’d back me up on that.) FLAMINGOS, from early in his career, shows an utter lack of artistry that makes some of the images unpalatable. Plus, they’re part of a story that has even less of a structure than the simplest joke. There’s no sense of release that’s provided by a punch line, even one of the worst in the annals of humor.

ARISTOCRATS producer Penn Jillette may be right when he says that in art, it’s always “the singer, not the song.” But it helps when that singer can carry the tune.

Book: Act of Fear, by Michael Collins (1966)

May was Dennis Lynds month on the hardboiled fiction list Rara Avis. The author, who also writes under the Collins name, graciously agreed to field questions about his work. I went right to my local mystery bookshop and picked up the first of his novels about one-armed P.I. Dan Fortune.

You’d think tracking the book down would be the hard part. For me it’s reading it in time to participate in the discussion. Three months too late, I finally got around to it. The important thing is that I read it.

FEAR is sharply plotted, with a wonderful feel for New York’s Chelsea in the 1960s. Lynds describes himself as coming “from an older school of writing,” exemplified by Chandler, Hammett, and Lynds’ friend Kenneth Millar (Ross MacDonald), where the focus isn’t on the protagonist but on the case and the characters involved with it. He views Dan Fortune as “a voice, a way of looking at the world.” For a voice, Fortune is remarkably fleshed out, and he imbues the story with a rough-hewn wisdom.

Magazine: Premiere, September 2005 issue

When I was in high school I would hike up to the record store on the day the latest Premiere hit the stands, then devour it in one sitting. This is back when the magazine styled itself after French film journals and came complete with movie poster cards. Now it’s simply another celebrity rag with a severe case of listmania.

Take the current issue’s article on ‘The 20 Most Overrated Films of All Time?’ (The link won’t help much. Only the intro is online. The actual list of titles is here.) That question mark is a dead giveaway; the piece features pro and con arguments on each movie, so it can be read as a list of justly-rated films. “GONE WITH THE WIND is bloated and racist!” “No, it isn’t!” “2001 is boring!” “Nuh-uh!”

On top of that, almost half of the films are less than 15 years old. 4 of them – A BEAUTIFUL MIND, MONSTERS’ BALL, CHICAGO and MYSTIC RIVER – were made after 2000. Academy Award wins aside, how can we have any perspective on these movies yet?

On the plus side, the magazine does include this quote from cover boy Matt Damon:

“(The) standard rule of thumb is, if you’re headlining and you make three bombs in a row, the amigos are out of the mansion.”

I thought I was the sole person who made ¡THREE AMIGOS! references in conversation. I knew I liked that kid.

Miscellaneous: Links

Rosemarie smells something fishy back home. From Hollywood Elsewhere, a tribute site to the titles of Saul Bass. The article with the worst headline I’ve seen in a while has a terrible lead-off sentence to boot. And in the 2008 election, my mind is already made up.

Miscellaneous: Let’s All Go To The Lobby

The August 12th issue of Entertainment Weekly has a long article on the sad state of moviegoing. There’s plenty of blame to go around: rising prices, pre-show ads, general boorishness and the home video boom.

It should be apparent by now that your correspondent sees a lot of movies in the theater. I’ve been able to keep these distractions to a minimum for one simple reason: I’ve gotten out of the habit of going to opening weekend evening shows. Probably because I was an usher for so long. Once you’ve cleaned up after a Saturday evening crowd, you lose your taste for being in one.

Last Friday, Rosemarie and I went to an evening show of the documentary MURDERBALL. Two weeks into the film’s run, the smallish audience was rather mellow. Although someone did hiss the Air National Guard recruitment ad, which irked me no end. Attention, Phantom Menace: you are not making a political statement. You are merely making a passive-aggressive ass out of yourself. Besides, you should save that ire for the Fantanas.

The Saturday matinee of the debuting BROKEN FLOWERS, on the other hand, was practically sold out. But the well-behaved crowd skewed older. It was odd to hear hardcore Jim Jarmusch fans bragging up their grandchildren, but STRANGER THAN PARADISE was more than twenty years ago.

You can’t completely avoid talkers. There was the quartet of teenage girls who broke into nervous laughter whenever Diane Lane got hot and bothered in UNFAITHFUL, and the member of the Troubled Loners’ Club recording his own commentary track at STATE & MAIN. What I find annoying are the people who fire up their cell phones the second the credits start to roll. (“Yeah, it’s over. Sucked.”) Don’t they need a moment to collect their thoughts? At least wait until you’re in the lobby.

The article ends on a hopeful note, saying that theaters will ultimately cater to those who are serious about film along the lines of Los Angeles’ ArcLight Cinemas. That theater is on a list of ten that do the moviegoing experience right. I wanted to see Seattle’s Cinerama on there, but sadly its single screen isn’t programmed very well. The Sith have lain siege to it since May.

My favorite statistic in the article: 98% of survey respondents think that ushers should be allowed to kick people out for bad behavior. I assume that these ushers will be armed. It’s hard to project strength when you’re wearing a clip-on bow tie, even if the darkness is hiding most of your acne.

Once when I was an usher, a woman complained about a man smoking in the theater. First I disoriented him by shining my flashlight into his face. It’s part of my patented Double-Dazzle approach: stun them with the beam, then the force of your personality. I told him he’d have to put out his cigarette. “What if I don’t want to put it out?,” he asked. Then his buddy chimed in, “Yeah, what if he don’t want to put it out?”

I couldn’t believe it. The guy actually had a sidekick. I thought that only happened in the movies.

DVD: Stone Reader (2003)

As if reading this V. S. Naipaul interview and accompanying essay on whether “nonfiction is better suited than fiction to capturing the complexities of today’s world” wasn’t bad enough, yesterday I watched SIDEWAYS again. Which opens with would-be novelist Paul Giamatti being told that reading fiction in this day and age is simply a waste of time.

Such pessimism would be enough to send me to my sickbed if I hadn’t spent a few hours watching Mark Moskowitz’s winning documentary and tooling around the accompanying website. This dense and textured film is a meditation on the power that novels have over their readers, an exploration of the fate of literature in the digital age, and an investigation into the fate of one particular writer: Dow Mossman, whose only book THE STONES OF SUMMER had a galvanizing effect on Moskowitz. It’s strange that a film got me more excited about fiction than anything that I’ve read in recent years.

The conceit of structuring the movie as a hunt for Mossman is corny but enjoyable; I’m sure I could have turned the author up in a day and half. (I believe it’s the destination, not the journey, which is why I’m not a documentarian.) I would have started at the University of Iowa, where Mossman studied. One thing the movie makes plain is that the Writers Workshop there is the center of American letters, a literary Holy See in the heartland.

It’s only fitting that writer, editor, and friend of both Dow Mossman and this website Ed Gorman turns up in the film, as his blog offers some of the best commentary on the current state of publishing. Not just from Ed but from novelists like Terrill Lee Lankford and Richard Wheeler.

R.I.P. Peter Jennings

I don’t have much to say about the late ABC anchorman that wasn’t voiced in this heartfelt tribute from the folks at Gawker.

Several years ago he did WORLD NEWS TONIGHT from Kerry Park in Seattle. When I wandered past early in the day Jennings was already there, taping intros for that night’s broadcast. The only word to describe his appearance was dashing; he was richly tanned, wearing one of his signature trench coats.

He spotted me hanging around and offered a smile and a cordial nod. I suppose I could have approached and said a few words to him, but I chose not to. I was content to watch one of the best in the business practice his craft in person.

DVD: Forty Guns (1957)

Further proof that you can never go wrong with a Samuel Fuller picture. Barbara Stanwyck stars as an Arizona ranching baroness who dresses in black and rides a white horse. She never goes anywhere without a whip and her army of the title desperadoes. They even dine together at the longest table in the southwest, which no doubt had to be shipped in by train and assembled in sections. Ideal for entertaining.

The movie also includes a twister; a swooning, romantic shot of a man’s true love framed through the barrel of his gun; a stark funeral scene filmed with the austerity of a Mario Bava horror film that gives way to a heartbreaking hymn, and dialogue like the following:

Gene Barry, to the beautiful blonde who has just, ahem, adjusted his rifle: I never kissed a gunsmith before.

Beautiful blonde gunsmith: Any recoil?

All that, and it’s only eighty minutes long. Sam knew how to get the job done.

Miscellaneous: Link

I violently disagree with Joseph Epstein on the work of Hammett, Chandler, and Cain, and I don’t buy his contention about the artistic merit of writers “who cashed in their chips for better money in movies.” But what he has to say in this Commentary article on three recent film books, his own experiences with Hollywood and the current state of the culture is worth reading.

Movie: Across 110th Street (1972)

Some movies are made to be watched on hot summer nights. Take this brutal pulp melodrama. A trio of gunmen disguised as cops take the Mafia’s Harlem operation for 300K. They’re hunted by an uneasy alliance of black and Italian gangsters, as well as a similar pair of detectives (Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn). It’s a nasty, fast-paced time capsule of New York’s Fun City days. You can practically smell the trash in the streets. And for the sartorially-inclined, there are some fine blaxploitation threads on display, particularly by Antonio Fargas in proto-Huggy Bear mode.

I felt a thrill when I saw the name Fouad Said in the credits. Said developed the legendary “whammy chart” popularized by screenwriting guru Syd Field. It showed that action movies need an explosion every ten minutes to hold the audience’s interest. In his book A POUND OF FLESH, Art Linson credits “some Egyptian who worked at American International Pictures” for passing the theory along to a pair of then up-and-coming producers. “(Joel) Silver and (Lawrence) Gordon live very well,” Linson wrote. “No one seems to know what happened to the Egyptian.” There’s one mystery solved. As for Syd Field, he’s now helping the Pentagon teach scientists to write for the movies.

Quentin Tarantino used the Bobby Womack title song over the opening credits of JACKIE BROWN. In a quirk of timing, that movie came on soon after I finished watching this one. Stranger still, the music plays as we watch Pam Grier pass the LAX tile mosaic that features memorably in POINT BLANK, which I also watched this week. Increasing the sense that all the movies I’ve seen are in fact one endless loop.

Miscellaneous: Link

Forget Syd Field. Write for Hollywood the Joe Eszterhas way!

TV: Kathy Griffin

The nuts-and-bolts of celebrity fascinates me. Not rarified, A-list celebrity, an alternate existence captured in the following sentence from this recent article on the subject: “Mariah Carey becomes a star at 18, and she never has to think about the weather for her entire adult life.”

I’m talking about the kind of fame exemplified by Rene Russo’s character in GET SHORTY: a one-time scream queen who goes to the supermarket to buy her own groceries.

That fascination is why, after one episode, I’m ready to watch Kathy Griffin’s MY LIFE ON THE D-LIST every week.

It’s not a reality show about people who were once famous or arguably never were; Griffin’s act about her run-ins with the great and near-great makes her a staple on the stand-up circuit. And unlike, say, Bobby Brown, she’s not deluded about the show affecting her place in the Hollywood pecking order.

If anything, D-LIST is a lot like Anna Nicole Smith’s horrible TV show. Only, you know, good.

It turns out being a semi-known name is hard work, and Griffin is completely serious about it. She’s careful about which events to attend, although at a kabbalah book party – I can’t believe I just typed that – she’s the only name there, a fact that depresses her mightily. She’s also frank about using her celebrity to get free (or at least cheap) stuff; to convince a designer to give her a custom-built sofa at cost, she unleashes her surprisingly thick press kit and almost beats the poor man into submission. Her life seems exhausting and not even remotely fabulous.

The show also has its share of only-in-L.A. scenes, such as Griffin’s husband strapping on ankle weights so he can reach the minimum weight to qualify for gastric bypass surgery.

I have to say that Griffin owns an absolutely beautiful home. If this is what being the third banana on a sitcom nobody liked can net you, I’m in the wrong business.

Miscellaneous: Links

Speaking of celebrities, Tony Kay weighs in with a terrific report from the Hollywood Collectors’ Show – complete with photos! And show biz types scream? Is that true?

Movie: Hustle & Flow (2005)

There’s plenty to love about this Sundance award-winner. Terrence Howard’s incendiary performance as DJay, a small-time pimp and drug dealer driven to make a name for himself as a rapper. Terrence Howard’s hair. The sultry vibe of backstreet Memphis. And the music; the lethal hook to DJay’s record (“It’s hard out here for a pimp ...”) will be playing in my head for the rest of the summer.

Best of all, writer/director Craig Brewer actively embraces the conventional aspects of his story, and in so doing gives them new power. He combines two schools of ‘40s melodrama, Up-From-The-Streets and Let’s-Put-On-A-Show, for a potent mix. The movie reminded me of the short Charles Willeford piece “An Actor Prepares,” about a dishwasher who turns to the stage so he can make “a small sound,” because “everyone wants to make one before he dies.”

Like all American movies, H&F includes scenes in a strip club. Here they not only make sense (DJay runs one of his girls out of the club) but are sharply observed (the dancers have to work around buckets because the roof is leaking). The location is so common in films now that it’s become boring. When the clones go to a sleazy bar that’s a half-step up from a strip club in THE ISLAND (Keenan’s One Word ReviewTM: air-conditioned), I found myself tuning out of the action. This raises the disturbing possibility that I’ve watched entire movies set in strip clubs and simply don’t remember them.

Miscellaneous: Urban Legend

According to Hollywood Elsewhere, there’s an episode of THE ODD COUPLE in which Oscar and Felix visit a talent agent. A family is leaving the office as they arrive. The agent tells the boys, “They’re called The Aristocrats. What an act!”

I badly, badly want this to be true.

Miscellaneous: Link

Bill Crider becomes a SLIGHTLY SCARLET fan. There’s a cult building for this movie, I can feel it.

DVD: Cat Ballou (1965)

Like Mr. White and Mr. Blonde, I’m a big Lee Marvin fan. For years I’ve been lobbying for membership in the semi-secret society known as the Sons of Lee Marvin, even though I’ve heard the dues are steep and the hazing brutal. I should be a shoo-in; I share the actor’s signature philtrum, and I’ve been told by those in the know that our calves are similar.

But until recently, I’d never seen Marvin’s Oscar-winning performance in this comedy western.

He gets not one but two roles, the drunken gunman Kid Shelleen and the hired killer Tim Strawn, complete with steel nose. Marvin is somehow able to underplay his overplaying; his Shelleen is broadly funny but always real. I also loved Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole as the wandering minstrels who narrate the story.

But honestly? I thought this movie was lousy.

Rosemarie, as usual, made a swift and accurate diagnosis: “There’s nothing worse than a star vehicle built around someone you don’t particularly like.” Jane Fonda, always a studied actress, is too modern for her role as a virginal schoolmarm. It doesn’t help that her character has been saddled with a tragic story in what is purportedly a comedy.

And that’s my main problem with the movie: it just ain’t funny.

Marvin doesn’t actually have that much screen time. I guess dual supporting roles equal a lead. I’m certainly not going to begrudge the man his Oscar, even though his competition that year included Rod Steiger in THE PAWNBROKER and one of my all-time favorite performances, Richard Burton in THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. Actors always win for the wrong movies. It’s not like the Academy was going to acknowledge Marvin for POINT BLANK.

Miscellaneous: I Like ‘Em Stacked

The local Tower Records celebrated its move to a new location by putting every DVD in the store on sale. Rosemarie and I went in with a specific agenda: pick up the new disc of John Boorman’s POINT BLANK as well as any bargain oddities we stumbled on, like a copy of Larry Cohen’s sublimely berserk GOD TOLD ME TO for only five dollars.

When we got home, I put our latest purchases on top of a few used DVDs we picked up the week before. On the floor, next to what we laughingly call “the entertainment center.”

And realized, to my horror, that I had created a stack.

Stacks in and of themselves aren’t bad. There’s nothing wrong with putting things on top of other things, as Monty Python has taught us. It’s where the stacks are that matters.

For instance, our first apartment in Seattle had a loft over what we laughingly called “the living room.” We used it to store books. Thousands of them, in dozens of piles. But as nobody could see them without climbing a ladder – which was impossible because we kept non-perishable foodstuffs on the rungs – those stacks didn’t count. Out of sight, out of mind.

We divested ourselves of most of those books when we moved to our new digs. Since then, I’ve acquired a small collection of older paperback crime novels. Stacks of them are balanced on the front of our shelves. But as they are technically on the bookcases, again they don’t count. I prefer to think of them as a creative utilization of space.

But this pile of DVDs on the floor, in plain sight? That’s a stack. Even if I find some nook into which I can wedge these discs, I know another stack can’t be far behind. Thus marking the start of the long slide toward GREY GARDENS territory.

Unless, of course, we move to a bigger place. Then we’re hipsters who own lots of cool stuff.

Movie: Lonely Are The Brave (1962)

Here there be spoilers. The movie should bear a similar warning, because it manages to spoil itself.

Kirk Douglas has cited this as his favorite of the films he made, and with good reason. He plays John W. Burns, a cowboy who rides the deserts of New Mexico, sleeping outdoors, living off piecework as a ranch hand. He rides into town primed for a bender, only to learn that his drinking buddy has been thrown in jail. Burns promptly gets himself arrested so he can bust his friend out. When the friend decides to stay and face the charges, Burns flees the law on his own.

It’s a solid plot for a western. The difference is that the story, based on an Edward Abbey novel, is set in the then-present day. Burns is an anachronism, living as if the frontier were still a reality. Actions that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in Tombstone or Dodge City only a few decades earlier come across as revolutionary. Burns tells the police he doesn’t carry ID because “I don’t need it. I know who I am.” No one would ever think of asking the Duke or Gary Cooper for his papers. When Burns heads into the high country with his horse and his rifle, local sheriff Walter Matthau pursues him with helicopters coordinated by radio.

It’s the clash of the Old West versus the New brought to vivid, brawny life, and Douglas has seldom been better. So it’s a shame that the movie shoots itself in the foot from the get-go.

Very early on, the film makes a baffling stop in the Midwest, where we meet long-distance trucker Carroll O’Connor. He’s hauling toilets, he says. Taking them down New Mexico way. You know, that state where Kirk Douglas is.

Throughout the film, the action cuts back to O’Connor as he booms his way southwest. He’s pushing that big rig hard, swilling coffee, trying to stay awake. I kept wanting to say, “Archie, pull over, get some shuteye. Let the Meathead drive for a while.”

What I actually shouted at the TV was, “Why the hell are we seeing these scenes?” I doubted that Kirk was going to come up with a clever, MacGyver-esque plan to escape that would require several dozen porcelain privies at exactly the moment O’Connor’s rig rumbled past.

Nope. When these two meet, it’ll be bad news. And you know that from the first frames, which drains the movie of all tension. What happens between Douglas and Matthau doesn’t matter. It’s what happens between Douglas and the truck that counts.

Maybe these scenes were in Abbey’s novel. I suspect they were added by screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a talented man who learned a thing or two about life the hard way. Perhaps he wanted to make a comment about fate, or the futility of fighting modernity.

All I know is they ruined an entertaining movie for me. It’s tough to be subtle with an idea that’s an eighteen-wheeler bearing down on the audience. Literally.

TV: Midnight Movies

Lately my cable box has been a greater source of entertainment than the multiplex. First the South Korean thriller MEMORIES OF MURDER makes its North American debut via On Demand. Then I discover that this documentary, fresh from the Cannes Film Festival, is available to Starz! subscribers.

Stuart Samuels’ film surveys the half dozen cult favorites that spawned the phenomenon of the midnight show: EL TOPO, the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, John Waters’ PINK FLAMINGOS, THE HARDER THEY COME, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and finally ERASERHEAD, which represents the movement’s greatest artistic achievement.

In a brisk, entertaining ninety minutes, Samuels talks to the makers of each film as well as distributors and theater owners. It’s clear that these movies existed in opposition to mainstream culture, down to the fact that audiences turned up to see them when most people were turning in. Now, as John Waters observes, that fringe mentality is the mainstream culture. Which sort of takes the fun out of it.

I risk embarrassment by admitting that I’ve only seen two of these six movies. I’ll limit the scope of the damage by not saying which ones.

Website Update: Links

I’m slowly gearing up to make some changes around here. I started by updating the links. Polly P.I. joins the permanent roster, as does Kung Fu Monkey. I was going to add Paul Guyot’s Ink Slinger, but he thinks we spend too much time in the blogosphere as it is.

Meanwhile, the missus has relaunched Lady, Make A Note Of This with a brand new focus. Stop by and make her feel welcome.

DVD: Slightly Scarlet (1956)

Is a Technicolor film noir even possible? It’s not going to be very noir, for starters. But if you are going to do it, play to the format’s strengths. Hire the great John Alton as cinematographer. And stock the movie with redheads.

Two, to be precise. The luscious Rhonda Fleming is more than a girl Friday to a reform candidate for mayor. Her sister Arlene Dahl, fresh out of the slammer, single-handedly keeps the DSM-IV in business: she’s an alcoholic, a kleptomaniac, and a nympho. Quite the trifecta. Both of them vie for the affections of fixer John Payne.

SCARLET, based on James M. Cain’s LOVE’S LOVELY COUNTERFEIT (and no, I don’t know what either title means), is indifferently plotted. I was still trying to figure out whether Payne was a sleazy P.I. or a political operative when next thing you know, he’s running the rackets. As for the sisters, their motivations are at times murky. Like it matters. Did I mention they’re redheads? (Sorry. Crimson-maned lovelies with loose morals are Irish kryptonite. Having two in one film damn near killed me.)

The movie’s an unhinged treat. It’s like a Douglas Sirk melodrama in which all of the sublimated emotion erupts on screen. You get the rich color and the craziness.

Payne, who began as a singer, is one of those “light” actors who proved startlingly effective in crime dramas. His romantic lead looks had curdled slightly by the time he appeared in movies like this and 1952’s KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL. That made him ideal for playing desperate men who can’t coast on their charm any longer.

Rhonda Fleming, who is still very active with charity work, has her own lovely website that includes tributes to her costars. It’s well worth a look.

Movie: Wedding Crashers (2005)

I don’t want to overpraise this summer comedy. I’ll just say that the sequence cut to the song “Shout!” is the greatest use of montage since Eisenstein.

Book: The Golden West: Hollywood Stories, by Daniel Fuchs (2005)

Novelist Daniel Fuchs went west in 1937 to become a screenwriter, and a damn good one. He worked on Elia Kazan’s PANIC IN THE STREETS and won an Academy Award for 1955’s LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, a musical bio of mobbed-up singer Ruth Etting. He not only wrote the legendary noir CRISS CROSS but received script credit on the remake that came almost half a century later, THE UNDERNEATH.

Thanks to TCM, I recently caught one of his first efforts, 1942’s THE HARD WAY. It’s an engrossing backstage melodrama with Ida Lupino stopping at nothing to turn her sister into a star. The film makes great use of the comedy team of Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan. Carson puts his antic mannerisms in service of a dramatic performance, while Morgan is a revelation as a cynical showbiz sharpie. They truly don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

Fuchs continued writing short fiction as well as occasional columns for Commentary about life in the movie business. Now those pieces have been collected in a book that’s a bracing take on the writer’s lot in Hollywood.

His stories show uncommon sympathy for stars (Fuchs knew his share) and for their behavior, motivated by the fact that “they didn’t know what they had ... or whether in fact they had anything at all.” In ‘Triplicate,’ he offers screenwriting advice that ranks with William Goldman’s: “Never write about people who can’t fiddle with their destinies.”

But it’s Fuchs’ non-fiction that makes the book essential. He tells of his encounters with William Faulkner, Frederick Faust (Max Brand), Harry Cohn and Samuel Goldwyn. He’s forthright about the question of money and addresses “the real grief that goes with the job. The worst is the dreariness in the dead sunny afternoons when you consider the misses, the scripts you’ve labored on and had high hopes for that wind up on the shelf.”

In a somewhat despairing introduction, John Updike wonders why a writer as gifted as Fuchs would abandon fiction for the movies. In one way or another, every piece in THE GOLDEN WEST is about that conundrum. Fuchs himself admits that his novels, which Updike greatly admires, didn’t sell until they were reprinted decades later, resulting in what he calls “a respectable following somewhere in the country.” In the meantime, the films he wrote afforded him a comfortable life and continue to find audiences even now.

Fuchs has a character in one of his short stories make the radical suggestion that perhaps that outcome is enough: “The whole idea is not to make great pictures but to enjoy life in the sun.” I’ve heard worse philosophies.

Miscellaneous: Link

Critic David Thomson recounts the fascinating tale of how he transformed an aborted collaboration between Marlon Brando and PERFORMANCE director Donald Cammell into a novel. Via Greencine Daily.

DVD: Clonus (1978)

Attractive young people clad in monochromatic running gear live in bliss and isolation, awaiting their chance to be sent to paradise. One of the innocents begins asking questions. When they’re not answered, he escapes into the outside world only to find somebody who looks an awful lot like him.

It’s not THE ISLAND, opening in theaters today, but CLONUS, aka PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR, aka THE CLONUS HORROR. (I suppose the next release of the movie will be called HORROR. Or maybe just THE.) Reports of the similarities between these films have been circulating for weeks. But as long as I beat PARADE magazine, I’m content.

This is where I’m supposed to say that CLONUS outshines its big-budget competitor, that it’s a triumph of scrappy ingenuity. Sorry. ’tain’t. The fact that it’s been featured on MST3K is a dead giveaway. Director Robert S. Fiveson does what he can with limited resources, but the script is simply too thin. I’d prefer to see this story done on a grand scale with attractive stars like Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.

Part of my problem is that the lead in CLONUS is Tim Donnelly, a member of the Jack Webb stable of players. He was a regular on EMERGENCY, but I know him from his numerous appearances on DRAGNET. In one episode he played Stanley Stover, a lonely geek who donned a homemade costume and fought crime as ‘The Crimson Crusader.’ Thanks to DRAGNET’s harshly clinical style, Stanley is one of the most pathetic characters I’ve ever encountered. So much so that I recoil whenever I see Donnelly in another role.

On the plus side, CLONUS does feature a true B-movie attitude toward nudity. Which THE ISLAND could have had but doesn’t, due to financial concerns over the movie’s rating. Sometimes capitalism simply doesn’t work.

According to the publicity material for THE ISLAND, director Michael Bay wants the movie to spark conversation. CLONUS certainly did the job around here. Assuming it were possible to develop a clone to be used for spare parts, I said I’d probably do it but would have moral qualms. Rosemarie said she’d have moral qualms but would probably do it. It’s the little differences that keep a marriage lively.

Book: The Men Who Stare At Goats, by Jon Ronson (2004)

Ronson writes about outrageous subjects in a deceptively personable way that allows you to see how serious they really are. THEM: ADVENTURES WITH EXTREMISTS is an incisive look at people who believe secret cabals actually run the world.

The title of his new book refers to a top secret program at Fort Bragg that trains Special Forces troops to harness psychic energy. It’s part of a post-Vietnam push to build supersoldiers using New Age concepts. The plan has gotten a new lease on life because of the War on Terror; some of the techniques developed in the program are turning up in the battlefields of Iraq. Along the way, Ronson meets an Army general trying to teach himself to walk through walls, and a martial arts/dance instructor with a government contract to baffle hamsters using only his mind. It’s about time my tax dollars were spent on something I approve of.

Miscellaneous: Links

My new favorite blog is P.I. Files, the adventures of Polly, a private investigator in the Midwest. Slate offers a fascinating give-and-take on Steven Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS, with Timothy Noah accusing the director of exploiting 9/11 and film critic David Edelstein coming to his defense. For what it’s worth, I’m on Edelstein’s side. And the Los Angeles Times declares that the era of the hipster is over. Thank God. I could use the rest.

Movie: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Now that SUVs come equipped with DVD players – America’s Roads: Getting Safer All The Time! – choosing movies has become another step in planning the family vacation. USA Today offers suggestions for several summer travel destinations. This 007 film is their children’s recommendation for Las Vegas.

I know today’s kids are sophisticated, what with the Internet and DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION. But this strikes me as a spectacularly bad idea, because DIAMONDS unnerved me as a ten-year old.

It’s largely due to the hit men/lovers Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint, played by jazzman Putter Smith and actor Bruce Glover. They have a childlike yet oddly formal relationship that makes their violence even more disturbing. It’s like watching the Goofy Gophers go on a killing spree.

DIAMONDS is thought of as the first Roger Moore Bond film even though it stars Sean Connery, because it marks the point when the series began to emphasize comedy and outlandish set pieces. The producers hadn’t perfected the balance, so the smarm factor is high. Another reason it’s not appropriate for kids. At one point Connery has to hide a cassette, so he slides it into the bottom of Jill St. John’s bikini.

I have no recollection of anything that follows.

Here’s my choice for a movie to prep the youngsters for Vegas: HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID, about a giant baby terrorizing the Strip. Wholesome fun for the entire family! After seeing the film, Rosemarie and I made a pilgrimage to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino so we could get a photo of the huge neon guitar that the kid rips out of the ground and strums like a ukulele.

Movie: Memories of Murder (2003, U.S. 2005)

On my bleary-eyed Friday morning march through the New York Times, I took special note of Manohla Dargis’ rave review of this South Korean film. I had missed it during its brief run at the Northwest Film Forum a few weeks back – one of the rare occasions when a movie opened in Seattle ahead of the Big Apple – and wanted to catch up with it.

I did the very next day. In the comfort of my own home. For free.

MEMORIES is part of Palm Pictures’ new video on demand film festival, run in conjunction with Comcast Cable. Palm asks viewers to vote for the films online to determine which ones receive theatrical and/or DVD release. So far their website keeps rejecting my vote, which would be to get this movie into as many theaters as possible.

It’s based on a true story and unfolds primarily in 1986, as South Korea gears up for a critical election. A serial killer begins preying on women in a rural section of the country. The lead local detective is a cagey brute content to force the most likely suspect into confessing. As the murders continue, he’s paired up with a brilliant but damaged inspector from Seoul determined to take a more intellectual approach.

All the stock elements are in place. Mismatched partners? Check. Depraved psychopath who kills according to an elaborate set of rules? Check.

But they’ve never been delivered like this before. Writer/director Bong Joon-Ho perfects a singular tone, one that incorporates deadpan black comedy – even the big city cop is woefully unprepared to investigate a crime of this magnitude – to chilly reverence. He also skillfully weaves in political commentary, as South Korea’s national upheavals play out in the background. It all culminates in a quiet, utterly devastating climax.

In the last few weeks, entrepreneurs as varied as Mark Cuban and Morgan Freeman have made noise about turning the mechanism of film distribution upside down. I’ve had my doubts. But if this is the future – having one of the year’s best movies debut on your cable box instead of falling into the cracks – I say bring it on.

Miscellaneous: Link

Patrick McGilligan, author of the indispensable BACKSTORY books, interviews my hero Larry Cohen. From getting in on the ground floor of blaxploitation films to directing Bette Davis’ last movie, it’s all here. Courtesy of GreenCine.

TV: Ultimate Film Fanatic

Looks like my 15 minutes aren’t quite up yet. Welcome to anyone who caught the rebroadcast of my UFF episode. Glad you stopped by. By popular demand, here are the Operation Travolta pieces on Michael Keaton, Sandra Bullock, Rutger Hauer and Peter Weller, as well as my behind-the-scenes take on the show. Feel free to come on back.

Books: The Glass Cage (1973) and The Venice Train (1974), by Georges Simenon

A conversation about last year’s film RED LIGHTS reminded me that it had been too long since I’d read Simenon. Any excuse to visit the remarkable downtown branch of the Seattle Public Library is fine with me. I grabbed two because his novels are so economical you can read them in one sitting.

Simenon personifies a key difference between the U.S. and European schools of suspense. In the typical American thriller, some external force threatens home and hearth, and our hero rallies to save them from harm. The protagonist of one of Simenon’s “psychological novels” gets into trouble and finds those bonds of marriage, family and society constricting.

VENICE is a pure exploration of this theme. A husband and father has a chance encounter on a train and comes into possession of a large sum of money. He realizes he can’t spend any of it without arousing the suspicion of those close to him.

“At home, in his own apartment, he, a man of thirty-five, married and with children, a man with responsibilities, did not have a single place where he could hide an object ... it meant that he was a prisoner of his household.”

Dark, unsettling stuff with an undercurrent of genuine sadness. Not exactly Hollywood material.

Miscellaneous: Link

I can’t help linking to this local story, which is in no way grimly hysterical. To keep it on-topic, I’ll call it a tribute to the Spinal Tap classic “Sex Farm.”

Miscellaneous: The Meme Generation

Not only did Bill Crider tag me with this meme, he also swiped the Fredric Brown tribute I wanted to use as a title. Someday he’ll get his.

Here are my answers. Prepare to be disappointed.

1. Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?

First: me, to see if any of my projects ever made it off the ground. I’m assuming this part won’t take long. Then a quick check of all the latest innovations in pornography. It’s not like it’s my computer.

I’d want a list of the Block and Westlake books I’d missed. It would be nice to know how many times Terrill Lee Lankford and Jess Walter hit the bestseller list in my absence.

There would be several political questions I’d want answered. I’d be curious to see how events playing out now would be seen ten years hence.

But the above is mere prelude for these two questions:

How many times have the Mets won the World Series?

How much will it cost me to replace all my DVDs with whatever the new format is?

2. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference? No names, please. Refer to “Professor X” or “Ms. Y” if you must. Double credit if you were directly affected. Triple if you then said or did something equally weird.

I’ve never been to a conference. I can say, though, that while I’ve heard all manner of shameful stories about Professor X, I have always found Ms. Y to be the salt of the earth.

3. Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.

David Mamet. In part because he’s been a huge influence. Mainly because I don’t want to blather in front of someone who uses language with such concision. Will you go to lunch?

4. What are two or three blogs or websites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?

I’m very unadventurous on this score. My usual stops are on the Links page. I don’t even have anyone I can tag. Whoever wants to answer next, step right up.

Miscellaneous: Link

We’re halfway through the year. Time to check the quote whore scoreboard.

DVD: Prime Cut (1972)

For all the talk of the 1970s (which for purposes of discussion run from 1967 to ‘75) as a golden age in American movies, how many great comedies can you name from that period?

Which is why I’ve always been a fan of Michael Ritchie. Starting with 1972’s THE CANDIDATE, he put together a string of sharp, character-driven films that didn’t stint on laughs. SMILE may be his best work, a backstage look at beauty pageants that’s one of the era’s most neglected movies. He followed it up with two sports films – THE BAD NEWS BEARS and SEMI-TOUGH – that work against all the genre’s clichés.

He got sucked into big-budget crap in the ‘80s, along with everyone else. On the plus side, he directed FLETCH. But he’s also responsible for the sequel.

He had a modest comeback by returning to form. THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER-MURDERING MOM is one of the best TV movies ever made. And 1992’s DIGGSTOWN is a ‘70s film in modern drag, about losers and hustlers and packed with twists. It didn’t fare well at the box office, but it found a long life on video and cable. Every guy I know has seen it at least twice.

Leonard Maltin describes this early Ritchie effort as “tongue-in-cheek trash that fans of sleazy crime melodramas should love.” Regular readers will know that this description applies to me. I was ashamed that I hadn’t seen the movie. When a bare-bones DVD hit the streets last month, I pounced on it.

At last I know why PRIME CUT seldom surfaces on TV. ‘Sleazy’ is the operative word; over the opening credits, we watch a man get ground into sausage.

There’s barely a plot. Enforcer Lee Marvin is sent by the Chicago outfit into the wilds of Kansas City to collect from a gangster known only as Mary Ann (Gene Hackman). That’s it.

In some respects PRIME CUT is a forerunner of this year’s SIN CITY, taking a stock hardboiled set-up and inflating it to the level of a cartoon. Mary Ann doesn’t just sell young girls, he auctions them off from pens in his slaughterhouse. And so on.

I hesitate to recommend PRIME CUT. I will say it’s outrageous enough to command your attention. I’d watch Lee Marvin in anything; nobody exits a room like him. And if, like me, you’ve ever wondered what would happen when a stretch Lincoln meets a thresher, well, this is the movie for you.

DVD: Seed of Chucky (2004)

Somehow I managed to miss the CHILD’S PLAY movies. The closest I’d come to seeing Chucky the homicidal doll in action was watching Jon Gruden coach during football season.

The series was revived with the emphasis on jokes in 1999’s BRIDE OF CHUCKY. I checked it out for one reason: Jennifer Tilly. She’s a terrific comic actress in the Judy Holliday mode who works against her sexpot image. She’s been a favorite since 1989, when she played a gambler’s moll who’s not as dumb as she appears in LET IT RIDE and auditioned memorably for THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS.

BRIDE OF CHUCKY is terrible. But Tilly, as usual, is very funny in it.

I had forgotten the movie completely until I was asked a question about it on the IFC game show ULTIMATE FILM FANATIC. Knowing the answer let me advance to the next round.

So out of gratitude I watched the series’ latest installment, a meta-epic in which Tilly plays herself as well as a killer doll.

I hereby declare whatever karmic debt I owe the Chucky movies to be repaid. In full. Many, many times over.

But again, Tilly is hilarious. Considering her new hobby, maybe now she can hold out for better material.

Message Movies: Silver City (2004)/Land of the Dead (2005)

Experiment in Viewing #12: Can agitprop hold up after it fails to do its job?

The filmmakers and cast of SILVER CITY made no bones about the movie’s intent. They wanted to help usher George W. Bush out of office. But the film debuted too close to the November election to have much impact. (Confidentially, I think some other film might have stolen its thunder.) I was curious, though, to see if it stood on its own merits past its expiration date.

The W surrogate is the dim bulb scion of a Colorado political family who’s running for governor. John Sayles often structures his films around a central mystery. Here it’s the question of whether someone is out to sabotage the campaign.

From the beginning, the story gets bogged down in issues. What’s worse is that the issues are so old hat that the movie itself can’t get worked up over them. Did you know that money influences politics? That businesses matter more than the voters? Why, in some cases lobbyists ... oh, never mind. It’s as if Sayles filmed an issue of MOTHER JONES.

Whatever you think of President Bush, it’s obvious that he’s given his opponents plenty of new material to work with. But SILVER CITY is content to stick with the Bleeding Heart Liberals’ Greatest Hits. Sayles should have taken his cues from Karl Rove. Attack your rivals on their strong points and watch them flail helplessly.

Plus, the movie’s a tad obvious. The candidate is named Pilager, for Christ’s sake. Chris Cooper does wonders mimicking Bush’s speech patterns, but having his character be a simpleton does the actor and the film no favors.

Contrast this movie with LAND OF THE DEAD. Like Sayles, George A. Romero loads his films with political content. His latest tackles the yawning gulf between the haves and have-nots and the use of fear mongering to keep the public in line.

Yes, there’s too much on-the-nose dialogue. There are also bracing action sequences shot in the efficient, muscular style of John Sturges or early John Carpenter. And zombies, zombies, zombies.

I’m all for reasoned discourse in politics. But in the movies, I want my issues served up with entrails and a kickass battle truck. They just help things go down easier.

TV: Watch The Skies!

This TCM documentary on 1950s science fiction films was somehow able to squeeze in the new version of WAR OF THE WORLDS. (Long story short: I liked it fine.) A mite convenient, I say. Still, it did give Steven Spielberg the chance to explain that business with the red vines, which didn’t exactly make sense to me. (Long story short: terraforming.) Initially I thought it was an extreme form of product placement, because I found myself craving Twizzlers.

The high point of the show was seeing James Cameron light up at the mention of THE MONOLITH MONSTERS. I’m glad someone else shares my affection for this low budget 1957 film, which demonstrated true ingenuity in having its villains be ... rocks. To this day, I have a lingering fear of minerals.

Ernest Lehman, R.I.P.

The screenwriter passed away on Saturday at the age of 89. One look at his credits makes it plain that he had one of the greatest careers in the movies. SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, WEST SIDE STORY, so many other classics. He always was and always will be an inspiration to me, and he shall be missed.

Book: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand (1943)

The New York Times recently described Christopher Cox, the California congressman nominated to the Securities and Exchange Commission by President Bush, as “a devoted student” of Ayn Rand. Raising the prospect that fifty years from now, one of President (Chelsea) Clinton’s nominees might be “a devoted student” of Dan Brown.

Later, George Will claimed Cox’s enthusiasm for Rand was overstated. The Rand Institute said that Cox’s first act should be to abolish the commission he’s been named to lead.

Rand has always seemed like something you should read at an impressionable age, like Tolkien or INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. I never got to those. Saw the movies, though.

Over the years I’ve picked up a little about Rand’s philosophy of objectivism. Most of what I know about her I learned from a guy who lived in my freshman dorm. Over Christmas break, he read both THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED and came back to school a changed man. I can still remember him striding down the hall upon his return, arms spread messianically wide. When he reached his room, he pulled a marker out of his coat and wrote EGO in huge letters on the door. Only then did he enter, smoke a few Winstons and doze off.

What made an impression on me was the fact that he’d carried the pen with him. No stopping to search through luggage for him. I respect anyone who inspires others to feats of showmanship, and vowed to read one of Rand’s novels.

What can I say? The last few years have been a little busy.

First, as a work of fiction: The only character who behaves in a remotely human fashion is the one Rand holds up to ridicule. In a book purportedly about architecture, her descriptions of the craft make no sense. The ending is ludicrous. Her style is turgid.

But I couldn’t stop reading. Rand’s tale spans decades and includes epic grudges, thwarted passions, dizzying rises and falls. She wrote in an era when authors strove to tell big stories, and the force of her narrative carries the day.

As a philosophical work, things get a tad muddled. But the core ideas – the power of the individual, the dangers of groupthink – resonated with me. It’s easy to see how they could be misinterpreted or misapplied. There’s a section on discrediting someone through false charges (“Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the unreasonable?”) that seems to have been grafted directly into contemporary political playbooks. I’d wager that free-market conservatives like Cox respond to Rand’s notion that there’s nothing evil about the desire to make money or even spending it to enjoy luxury. But they probably miss her larger point that money is only a means to an end, and that personal luxury eventually becomes a wasted effort to impress others.

I’m still immature enough to feel pride at finishing a book that’s over 700 pages long and doesn’t feature a boy wizard. Eventually I’ll tackle ATLAS SHRUGGED. I have to rest my arms first.

Miscellaneous: The Story So Far

Around the Fourth of July, I always like to take a look back at what the first six months of the year have wrought.

Scratch that. I usually like to do it. But not this time.

People are forever saying what a bad year it is for movies, and I’m the one who shouts ‘em down. There are good films out there, I say, but you have to seek them out.

I can’t muster up that kind of enthusiasm anymore. Maybe I haven’t been taking my own advice. Maybe I haven’t been adventurous enough. All I know is that by this point in 2004, I’d already seen ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND; SPARTAN, which ended up being my favorite film of the year; and a good half-dozen other titles of note.

I’ve enjoyed several of 2005’s movies. But I’ve only seen three contenders:

OLDBOY
KUNG FU HUSTLE
LAYER CAKE

Pretty thin. So I’ll fill out the list with a few odds and ends.

2004 Film That Would Have Made My Best-Of List If It Had Opened In Time: BEYOND THE SEA. So help me, I loved this movie, in spite of its flaws. And perhaps because of them. We’ll see how it holds up when I watch it again on video.

2004 Films I Caught On DVD That I Should Have Seen In Theaters: BIRTH and CODE 46.

On to books. I’ve been doing a lot of research reading the last few months, so I haven’t finished my usual quota of novels. Which made these gems shine all the brighter.

RED JUNGLE, by Kent Harrington
CAVALCADE, by Walter Satterthwait
CITIZEN VINCE, by Jess Walter

Read any of them. They will not disappoint.

DVD: Junior Bonner (1972)

Mmmm ... crow ...

A while back, there was a dust-up around here when I confessed that I didn’t get Steve McQueen. I tended to agree with the critic David Thomson, who wrote that McQueen’s “range was severely limited” and that he “did too much routine work in which his ... impassivity grew monotonous.”

Several McQueen fans rose to his defense. The recent revival of his films on DVD has prompted reappraisals, so I decided to join in.

BONNER seemed a good place to start. It has a director in Sam Peckinpah who knows how to harness machismo. (He and McQueen also collaborated on 1972’s THE GETAWAY, but the strange vibe between the actor and Ali MacGraw taints that movie for me. Let’s face it, McQueen’s not good with women onscreen.) It’s a contemporary western in which McQueen plays an aging rodeo rider, another plus because McQueen is at his best when doing something physical. Best of all, his parents are played by Ida Lupino and the great Robert Preston.

It’s one of those ‘70s movies in which little happens, but what does is beautifully observed. It unfolds over a few days in a small town, and by the movie’s end I was sure I could draw a map of the place from memory.

In this setting, McQueen’s minimalism doesn’t seem like a harsh affectation but an essential part of the character. And he’s gracious with his costars, hanging back in his scenes with Joe Don Baker as his ambitious brother, letting Preston walk off with the movie.

I’m not going to go overboard and say that I get McQueen now. But I’m beginning to understand Thomson’s point when he asks: “He may be brutal, or brutish, at times – but when is he fake?”

Miscellaneous: Links

I was going to write a post about my perverse fascination with the HBO/Lisa Kudrow misfire THE COMEBACK. Then I found this chart. And who took the sex out of popular music? Via Arts & Letters Daily.