Movie: A History of Violence (2005)

In college I took a class called “The Body In Film,” a survey of the ways the human anatomy was treated in movies. It gave me the chance to see rarely-screened films like Nicolas Roeg’s BAD TIMING and Dusan Makavejev’s one-of-a-kind W.R., MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, which is half documentary about psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich and half ... well, I never actually worked that out. It was the only course where the opening day lecture included the phrase “fucking like puppies.” In the film school, at any rate. I can’t speak for the veterinary college.

Not that I told my parents what their tuition money was going for. When my report card arrived, my mother asked about the class. I said, “It’s about structure. You know, like the body of a letter?”

“Right,” my mother said. “That must be why you got an A.”

Much of that grade came from my term paper on the films of David Cronenberg. It was easy to write, because I truly loved the subject. THE FLY is one of the great movies of the 1980s, a decade in which the director also made VIDEODROME and DEAD RINGERS. He has a singular sensibility that makes his every film worth seeing. The notion of him tackling a contemporary pulp thriller was almost more than I could bear.

Imagine my surprise when it left me cold. At least at first.

The story of a seemingly peaceful man facing up to his dark past is a familiar one in several genres. So familiar, perhaps, that Cronenberg never seems fully engaged by it, using it solely as a carrier for ideas that interest him. But I think of myself as a genre guy, so the underdeveloped plot and inconsistencies of character were initially all I saw. Roger Ebert, in his rave review, notes that VIOLENCE “is not a movie about plot, but about character.” I’m old-fashioned enough to think that the two should be one and the same, especially in a thriller. I like a little text with my subtext.

Ah, well. Nobody’s perfect. I’ll console myself with the new 2-disc edition of THE FLY.

Silly me. Days passed and I couldn’t shake the movie. Cronenberg has packed its deceptively simple frame with concepts and moments that resonate:

- Acts of violence that, as in life, erupt with suddenness and never play out as expected, at times veering into the blackest of comedy

- Unruly sex scenes that deepen our understanding of the participants

- Discomfiting notions about the obligations of family, biological and otherwise

And on top of that, brilliant performances. Maria Bello is matchless; I would now like her to be cast in everything. And William Hurt comes along to blow the roof off the joint in the best scene I’ve encountered in any movie this year.

I should have known Cronenberg would never let me down. VIOLENCE is like a dinner in which the main course is undercooked, but the side dishes are divine. There’s still plenty with which to make a meal.

TV: Class Dismissed

Can’t anybody be low-rent on television any more?

The question is prompted by last night’s premiere of the ABC revival of THE NIGHT STALKER. The sometimes cheesy original series and the pair of genuinely scary TV movies it was based on have always been favorites of mine, and introduced me to the work of Richard Matheson.

The new version of STALKER, overseen by X-FILES producer Frank Spotnitz, is smartly made, with a visual style that draws on Michael Mann’s COLLATERAL. Do I miss the dry wit and seersucker elegance of Darren McGavin? Naturally. But I’m no purist. Stuart Townsend is a fine actor who brings an edge to his portrayal of reporter Carl Kolchak. And Spotnitz has updated the show in other inventive ways.

Except for one, which isn’t his fault because it’s endemic to modern TV. The new Kolchak has too much money.

In the old show, Carl was a stringer for a bottom-of-the-barrel news service. Which made sense: a guy with a regular byline isn’t going to chase after the supernatural every week. McGavin’s Kolchak, with his cheap suit and his straw hat, was past caring about his reputation. All he wanted was the story.

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina coverage, some on the right claimed that it was un-American to talk about class, that doing so was denying that the country was the land of opportunity. Firstly, bullshit. Secondly, like it or not, money or the lack thereof is going to have an impact on your decision making. That impact should factor into storytelling. Even on TV.

A reporter who’s never going to make the front page again will chase down stories no one else cares about. Just as a broken-down P.I. living in a trailer will take a different approach to the cases he investigates.

But the networks, in their compassion, don’t want to expose us to characters who might be seen as ‘losers.’ After all, it could affect us as consumers. So the new Kolchak isn’t just younger, he’s also a success, living in a gorgeous house that I’ve seen in at least two movies instead of a pressboard hovel in the Valley. His obsession with the paranormal still has to be explained – he can’t just find it interesting – so now he’s saddled with a tragic backstory involving his wife’s murder.

There are exceptions to this class-unconsciousness. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is about wealthy people being thrown off the gravy train, and much of the fun in the late, lamented (at least by me) EYES came from Tim Daly’s reveling in being rich. I’m convinced MY NAME IS EARL has scored in its initial outings because the character and setting are atypical for TV.

One other note on STALKER: I thought digitally adding footage of McGavin from the old show was ... kinda creepy. And not in a good way.

Book: Different Kinds of Dead and Other Tales, by Ed Gorman (2005)

Campfire stories.

I consider that phrase high praise, even though growing up in New York I never encountered campfire #1. There may have been a few in Florida, where I went to high school, but I was too busy huddling close to the air conditioner to go look for them.

One thing I did discover in Florida was Stephen King’s book NIGHT SHIFT. I remember copies being passed from one kid to another like samizdat. At first, I resisted; my snob impulses kicked in early. But eventually I succumbed, and as is so often the case the one who holds out longest falls the hardest. I still have my copy from those days. I don’t know which is scarier, the cover image of a bandaged hand studded with unblinking eyes or the list price of $3.95.

I read every story in the book, not just the one about the killer washing machine but the heartbreaking “The Woman in the Room.” Each tale featuring lean prose and a feel for character and place that made the scary ones even more terrifying.

Reading Ed Gorman’s latest short fiction collection was like revisiting those days of squeezing in one last shocker before study hall ended.

Ed’s a King fan, too, and dedicates my favorite story in the book to him. “The Brasher Girl” would not have been at all out of place in NIGHT SHIFT. Other influences turn up; “A Girl Like You” carries the melancholy sting of Ray Bradbury, and the elegant title tale reads like Henry James on the prairie.

Above all, the stories are pure Gorman. Ed has few peers when it comes to depicting small town Midwest life and working-class disappointment, and he has a direct way of dealing with matters of the heart. Plenty of writers can combine those elements, but only Ed would ad alien abduction to the mix as he does in “The Long Sunset,” and to powerful effect.

Halloween’s coming up. Do yourself a favor and spend part of your allowance on this book. I gotta go to gym class.

Miscellaneous: Link

Speaking of samizdat, unpublished articles never die. They just get circulated via email. From Arts & Letters Daily.

Movie: Blood On The Moon (1948)

I should have included westerns on the list of genres that the late Robert Wise knew his way around. He plays to his strengths in this one, blending a film noir plot with the moody visuals of a Val Lewton movie. (Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca shares Wise’s pedigree, having shot CAT PEOPLE and OUT OF THE PAST.)

With noir stalwarts like Robert Mitchum and Charles McGraw in the cast, it’s a good thing Walter Brennan is also on hand. Robert Preston plays an outright bastard. I’ve seen THE MUSIC MAN so many times that his performance here comes as the best kind of shock.

The Downside of Empathy

I’ve admitted to being hooked on Kathy Griffin’s reality series, which details the superhuman effort required to stay even marginally famous. My favorite aspect of the show was Kathy’s relationship with her non-showbiz husband. It was snarky but always supportive.

When I read via Defamer that they’re getting divorced, I felt genuinely bad. Then I felt genuinely foolish. I don’t even know these people.

The Upside of Illness

Thanks to a cold, I’ve spent the last few days staring at the TV. Which allowed me to catch a rerun of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY featuring Jerry Orbach as an intergalactic record producer (think a less evil Simon Cowell) who stirs up youth violence via subliminal messages. He carries out his scheme with the aid of Richard (NIGHT COURT) Moll and Judy Landers, one of the lovely Landers sisters.

Or at least I think I saw it. I may be much sicker than I think.

Bidi-bidi-bidi. Thanks, Buck.

Movie: The Big Gundown (1967)

As part of its tribute to Italian westerns, IFC aired this Sergio Sollima film regarded as one of the finest non-Sergio Leone examples of the form. I’m not about to disagree. It’s a terrific, tough-minded movie with Lee Van Cleef as a quasi-lawman who agrees to track an accused rapist and murderer into Mexico in order to jumpstart his Senate campaign.

IFC’s SPAGHETTI WEST documentary cites GUNDOWN as one of the political films that changed the genre. Van Cleef is essentially a tool for moneyed interests while his quarry Cuchillo, played by Tomas Milian in several movies, is a savvy peasant.

Maybe I’m getting more conservative in my dotage – or maybe it’s because Van Cleef was ridiculously magnetic onscreen – but I couldn’t root against the man. I figure if Dennis Hopper, the man behind EASY RIDER, can go Republican and vote for George W. Bush twice, then I can pull for Van Cleef to get the job done.

R.I.P. Don Adams

The actor passed away on Sunday at the age of 82. Like any kid with a warped sense of humor and a taste for James Bond, I devoured GET SMART. Here’s hoping the forthcoming DVD release of the series brings its pleasures to a new audience.

Let’s not overlook the actor’s contributions to animation. That’s right, Chumley, I’m talking Tennessee Tuxedo. INSPECTOR GADGET was my kid brother’s after-school cartoon of choice, and Adams’ pinpoint timing made the show fun for older siblings.

My fondest memory of the actor is the syndicated audience participation series DON ADAMS’ SCREEN TEST. Each week wannabe actors would recreate famous movie scenes with the help of celebrity guest stars like Milton Berle and Mel Brooks. It was a silly, cheesy TV show, and I loved every minute of it.

Miscellaneous: Links

The Los Angeles Times recounts how politics have affected what sounds like a fascinating project from Albert Brooks.

Josh Friedman weighs in on the psychological factors that determine the makeup of a screenwriter:

In short, writers whose parents ignored them so they became class clowns like to pitch first and write second. On the other hand, writers whose parents ignored them so they became awkward little geeks who stayed in their room and read Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators like to write first and pitch never.

Writers who were both class clowns and awkward little geeks like to create blogs.

In the words of Troy McClure: My God, it’s like you’ve known me all my life!

Movie: Lord of War (2005)

I shouldn’t be surprised that LORD OF WAR hasn’t set the box office on fire. Nobody ever got rich doing black comedy. I’m a little disappointed that the critical community isn’t behind it. You’d think a movie that was both wildly entertaining and deeply subversive would get a little love.

Andrew Niccol’s film is alive in every frame, viscerally and intellectually. It burns with righteous anger. And it’s eager to play with both form and content.

It’s structured along the well-worn lines of the modern criminal epic. Count down the elements along with me:

- The insinuating voiceover that promises to pull no punches

- The jukebox soundtrack

- The close friend/family member whose psychological problems threaten the organization’s stability (think Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS)

- The blankly perfect object of desire that will never fill the void, a la Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1983 version of SCARFACE

- The steady isolation of the main character, leading to a tragic comeuppance

And ... scene.

Niccol puts all these tropes in place only to turn each one on its head. He does this by having Nicolas Cage play an international arms dealer instead of a drug kingpin or mobster. Cage’s “crime” is in some cases legal and at other times tacitly approved by the world’s governments – but is always far more lethal than any caper the Corleones could cook up.

The knock on movies of this stripe is that they romanticize deviant behavior. It’s hard to buy the notion that crime doesn’t pay while watching charismatic hoodlums take whatever they want out of life. Niccol dynamites that conceit here. Cage isn’t some street-smart Machiavelli whacking his enemies on-screen while pushing horse to schoolkids off-camera. He’s just a salesman, a literal merchant of death – and yet thanks to Niccol’s kinetic storytelling, his life is exciting, compelling, even desirable.

For once, the voiceover doesn’t lie. Cage is never presented as heroic, or even anti-heroic. He’s a guy doing the one thing he’s good at, which happens to be sowing destruction wherever he goes, even in his own life. Forget THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE; if you want to meet the devil onscreen, look no further.

Every year, there’s at least one movie I spark to that no one else seems to care about. Remember, I’m the guy who called David Mamet’s SPARTAN the top film of 2004, and paramedics had to help me out of the theater when VANILLA SKY ended. So take it with a grain of salt when I say that LORD OF WAR is one of the best American films of the year.

Miscellaneous: Links

As everybody seems to be in a Bob Dylan frame of mind, I'll just say that you don't need this particular weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

So not only have I watched part of the first fall show to be canceled (well, it's obviously more than most of you did), I've also read Oprah's latest book club pick already. Finger on the pulse, baby. Finger on the pulse.

DVD: Cypher (2002)

1997’s CUBE is the working definition of a solid B-movie. The SF thriller about six people who find themselves trapped in a futuristic prison suffers from an obscure ending, but director Vincenzo Natali socks over the action with style. I eagerly awaited his next movie.

And waited. And waited.

Not that Natali wasn’t keeping busy. He got to work on this follow-up in short order, only to see it become caught in the logjam of Miramax releases as the company started its post-Weinstein transformation. A handful of those titles, like PROOF and AN UNFINISHED LIFE, will see the inside of theaters. Others are now surfacing on home video in bare-bones editions. Which is too bad, because CYPHER deserves better.

It’s a sly Philip K. Dick pastiche set in a near-future when everything looks vaguely ... Canadian. The ever-reliable Jeremy Northam plays a Silicon Valley milquetoast who feeds his yen for adventure by signing on as an industrial spy. His target: a software giant with a vast campus in the suburbs east of Seattle. I am sure it is in no way intended to resemble an actual company in this neck of the woods, one for which I have the utmost respect and that I do not fear in any way.

Northam soon discovers that the boring presentations he’s attending in global hot spots like Buffalo and Omaha are not what they appear to be, and that the truth may have something to do with mystery woman Lucy Liu. He lays on the Julius Kelp mannerisms a little thick at first, but it pays off.

Brian King’s script isn’t based on any PKD story, but the author’s influence is obvious. His great themes are now encoded in Hollywood’s DNA, and turn up in movies from THE TRUMAN SHOW to THE MATRIX. CYPHER’s low budget actually works in the movie’s favor. Most adaptations of Dick’s material, including the ones I like, ultimately become man-on-the-run thrillers. Financial constraints force CYPHER to keep the focus on ideas, as Northam’s character comes to question both his identity and his reality. Anyone familiar with Dick’s writing will spot the plot twists coming, but Natali’s smart, low-key approach is effective, and the closing scene packs a satisfying emotional punch.

The ‘No, Really?’ Item of the Day

According to Which John Cusack Are You?, I’m David Shayne from BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. I could have told you that without taking the test.

Movie: The Transporter 2 (2005)

Luc Besson has cranking out action movies down to a science: combine French style, American production values and the Hong Kong approach to fight scenes. This latest entry is pure, dizzy fun. It moves fast; at eighty minutes, it doesn’t have an ounce of extra fat – or a brain – to slow it down.

Besson’s action fare also has a willingness to embrace over-the-top emotion. One of the biggest surprises of 2005 is UNLEASHED, aka DANNY THE DOG, with Jet Li playing a man raised by crime boss Bob Hoskins (still my choice for villain of the year) as a pit bull. Li acts up a storm in this movie, and the ending is genuinely powerful.

Besson also borrows from the Roger Corman playbook by incorporating a soupçon (he’s French, see) of political content. A hit at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, BANLIEUE 13 is a gloss on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that manages to comment on the ghettoizing of immigrants across Europe while staging fight scenes that use the urban sport of parkour.

Many of these films are written by Besson’s frequent collaborator Robert Mark Kamen. 20 years ago, Kamen wrote THE KARATE KID. Now he’s at the center of one of the world’s most prolific film factories. I’d love to know how he and Besson got together and work together.

In the first TRANSPORTER, a woman prepares breakfast for star Jason Statham. Included on the menu are madeleines, the cookie that sparked Marcel Proust’s reverie.

Rosemarie, a huge Luc Besson fan, commented on the scene afterward. “You can’t just make madeleines. You need a special pan. I don’t believe an ex-Special Forces soldier in a technosuave house would have one.”

This passes for weighty conversation around Chez K.

But Besson must have heard her complaint, because in the sequel, when grizzled French cop François Berléand (the best thing about T1, shoehorned into T2) is shown cooking in Statham’s house, we clearly see that the Transporter does indeed possess his very own madeleine pan.

Which is proof that it’s always about the writing.

TV: Spaghetti West

I had a beautifully wrought post about this IFC documentary ready to go. But Ed Gorman says all that I wanted to say, only better. Every Saturday night in September, IFC is airing key films from the genre. This week: THE BIG GUNDOWN and THE GREAT SILENCE.

Post-Operation Travolta: Peter Weller

Guess the actor doesn’t need my help. According to Entertainment Weekly, he earned a master’s degree in Renaissance art history last year. Now he’s teaching at Syracuse University, appearing in documentaries on the History Channel, and about to start work on his doctorate at the age of 58, all while keeping up his acting and directing careers.

It’s official. I used to want to be Buckaroo Banzai. Now I want to be Peter Weller when I grow up.

Miscellaneous: Quotes of Note

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK – I know there’s supposed to be a period at the end of the title, but dammit, it just looks wrong – has already taken home best actor and best screenplay honors from the Venice Film Festival. In the October 2005 issue of Premiere magazine, director/co-writer George Clooney describes the rehearsal process:

“(The cast) would come in and type out the news of the day on a typewriter. And (David Strathairn) would sit there and read it; just every morning, he would come in and read some of the news. We were watching, going, this is today’s news read by Edward R. Murrow. Oh my God. How different it sounds.”

I can only hope that Clooney rolled film while this was happening, and that some of this footage will be included on the DVD.

In the New York Times Book Review, Joe Queenan offers a surprisingly positive review of FAN-TAN, the film treatment-turned-novel by Marlon Brando and director Donald Cammell:

“... it sounds like the boys had a heap of fun cranking out this page turner while throwing back a few hundred martinis. There’s a lot to be said for this approach; if you can’t write a great novel, at least write a peculiar one and have a few laughs along the way.”

I particularly liked Queenan’s take on contemporary fiction:

“FAN-TAN is the kind of high-seas extravaganza nobody writes anymore because everybody’s too busy churning out books about land-based serial killers, perhaps concealing the Spear of Longinus beneath the Shroud of Turin in the glove compartment of a Dodge Neon that once belonged to Mary Magdalene’s luckless descendant, Rhiannon Schwartz.”

He also compares the book to the Kevin Spacey movie BEYOND THE SEA, so I pretty much have to read it.

R.I.P. Robert Wise

The Oscar-winning director passed away at age 91. And another link to the era of classical studio filmmaking has been severed.

Wise began in the cutting room working alongside Orson Welles, and directed his first features for Val Lewton’s legendary B-movie unit. That training, which emphasized technique in service of narrative, would serve him well in one of the most remarkable careers in Hollywood history.

Consider the range of genres he tackled: noir (BORN TO KILL, THE SET-UP, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW), science fiction (THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN), horror (THE HAUNTING, proving he retained all that Lewton taught him). He also excelled at straightforward drama; I only recently discovered EXECUTIVE SUITE, still extraordinarily potent after 50 years.

And then, of course, there are the musicals that won him his Academy Awards, WEST SIDE STORY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

That last film also opened him up for a great deal of scorn from the critical community. Perhaps they never forgave him for his role in recutting Welles’ THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Or maybe they simply undervalued a director who made his gifts work for the movie instead of the other way around, who felt his first duty was to storytelling. We won’t see his like again.

Junk Mail Title of the Day

Enjoy Employee Discount + idolatry. I guess Lee Iacocca really is back at Chrysler.

Movies: 2046 (2004, U.S. 2005), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, U.S. 2005)

These movies are linked for one reason: I saw them on the same day. Being a film buff is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes, to catch what’s interesting, you’ve got to double up, to adopt a festival mindset on what is otherwise an ordinary Saturday.

Sometimes, this approach pays off in spades.

I’d heard the stories about 2046, the latest from Wong Kar-Wai. The protracted production, the missed festival screenings, the wedge it drove into the relationship between the director and his greatest collaborator, the cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Whatever went on, it was worth it. 2046 stuns. It’s a singular, transporting experience.

I could say it’s a quasi-sequel to 2000’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, but what would be the point? There’s a plot of sorts, but why go into it? Like all of Wong’s movies, it’s about desire, pain, and the moments when they overlap, whether they occur in late 1960s Hong Kong or the distant future.

It’s also about immersing yourself in an atmosphere, a feeling. To accuse Wong of favoring style over substance, as some critics have, misses the point. At his best, he’s a master of style as substance. He can express longing through the drape of a woman’s dress, convey a desperate romantic ache through the play of colors on screen. He sublimates emotions until the most intense of them – heartsickness, obsession – can be studied up close, like a cool, smooth pebble to be slipped into the pocket of a perfectly cut pair of slacks.

On top of that, you’ve got the actors. Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Faye Wong and Maggie Cheung, plus Tony Leung for the ladies. A more attractive cast you will never find.

Chan-wook Park’s film OLDBOY did more than make an impression on me. It may have left a mark. (It’s available on DVD now. Go get it!) I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to see his 2002 effort SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE at the Northwest Film Forum.

A thriller about a botched kidnapping, VENGEANCE isn’t as baroquely structured as OLDBOY. And while the director’s flair for startling images and plot twists is in evidence, he doesn’t employ them to the same devastating effect. But VENGEANCE is still a grueling, intense movie in which every shock is tied to genuine emotion. There are two characters who could be Mr. Vengeance in this movie, and you feel sympathy for both of them.

Plus, there were walkouts. Walkouts are always a good sign.

I spent Saturday morning working on a screenplay, then Rosemarie and I went out for a late lunch. After seeing these two extraordinary movies we met friends for sweet potato hush puppies and bourbon. As I turned in that night I realized that, for one day at least, I was living the life I had fantasized about when I was a teenager, stuck in a small Florida town.

Grab Bag: Dignity, Always Dignity

The other night I happened to flick from Bronson Pinchot on VH-1’s THE SURREAL LIFE to Bronson Pinchot on LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.

In the former, he’s acting as referee between two of the most deluded figures on the pop cultural landscape, Omarosa (formerly of THE APPRENTICE and the hyphenated surname) and Janice Dickinson, who will be the first to identify herself as a supermodel. On the latter, he’s matching wits with Vincent D’Onofrio as a sleazy dentist suspected of murdering his wife.

The problem is I’ve seen more than a few minutes of Pinchot’s stint on THE SURREAL LIFE, in which he reveals himself to be, ahem, an oddball with a penchant for sexually inappropriate behavior. Knowledge that robbed his legitimate acting of some of its power. Which is unfortunate, because it’s obvious in his scenes with D’Onofrio that he can still bring the heat.

I can understand an actor’s impulse to stay in the limelight in the hope that it will lead to more work. For all I know, his SURREAL LIFE casting led to the L&O gig. But you don’t want that exposure to diminish your ability to do your job.

Contrast this with the example of Steve Guttenberg. (I’ve waited years to write that sentence.)

One of the most satisfying magazine articles I’ve read recently was this Entertainment Weekly piece on the POLICE ACADEMY series. It wants to poke snarky fun at the movies, but is thwarted at every turn by Guttenberg’s polite refusal to play along. The ending even has the snap of poetic justice.

Like all careers, Guttenberg’s has had ups and downs. Most actors’ lows, however, are not immortalized in song on THE SIMPSONS. (Curse you, Stonecutters!) But throughout, Guttenberg kept his focus on the work. He gave a solid performance in Jodie Foster’s HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, and wrote and directed a low-budget adaptation of the play P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD.

This season, he joins the cast of the way-cool UPN series VERONICA MARS. Due in no small part to the fact that he’s held on to his credibility.

But nothing excuses the Goot’s appearance as a motorcycle-riding tough guy in the video for Michael Jackson’s “Liberian Girl.” Some things are simply beyond the pale.

Today’s TV Ad I Hate

The Verizon Wireless spot (which I can’t find online) in which the guy can’t work on his laptop in the coffee shop because of other people’s annoying behavior. Like ... sitting next to him. And drinking coffee. I think we’re supposed to feel his pain. I keep watching it in the hope there’s an alternate version in which he gets horribly scalded.

How Do You Feel About Cleveland?

I tried watching some of the John Roberts confirmation hearings on CNN’s The Situation Room today, but the show’s set made it impossible. Multiple screens on camera at once, all offering different angles of the same event. It was like watching a bad episode of 24. From one of the later seasons, when Jack Bauer finally goes to the bathroom.

Of course, maybe the real problem is that I miss Wolf Blitzer’s lead-in to his old show: Stand by for Hard News!

Book: Blonde Lightning, by Terrill Lee Lankford (2005)

In the interests of full disclosure, I will say that Terrill Lee Lankford is a friend of this website. Further, his previous novel EARTHQUAKE WEATHER was one of my favorites of 2004, a scorching, pitiless cry from the black heart of Hollywood that read like a cross between Jim Thompson and Nathanael West.

In BLONDE LIGHTNING, he picks up the story without losing a beat. EARTHQUAKE was set in the wake of the Northridge temblor of 1994. BLONDE unfolds amidst the L.A. tectonic shift known as the O.J. Simpson trial.

Ex-creative executive Mark Hayes is running out of money and is down to his last friend in Hollywood, faded writer/director Clyde McCoy. The two team up to make a low-budget thriller, the kind of movie where the most you can hope for is that it turns out better than it needs to be.

Mark’s duties as “associate producer” are vaguely defined. Mostly, he’s charged with keeping Clyde sober and his enemies away from the set. But trouble has a habit of following these two around, and their situation quickly goes from bad to worse.

In Mark, Lankford has created a slippery, borderline amoral protagonist who’s likable in spite of himself. He has just enough self-awareness to know how much of his soul he has left to lose. BLONDE is structured along more conventional lines than EARTHQUAKE, but brings these characters full circle in a richly satisfying way.

An earlier Lankford novel, the excellent SHOOTERS, features my all-time favorite blurb. From James Ellroy, it reads in part:

“This is a blood thriller that will vibrate your vindaloo!”

I’m still not sure what a “blood thriller” is. And if my vindaloo ever vibrated, I’d seek medical attention immediately.

TV: Navel-Gazing

Now that the cable networks’ coverage of Katrina is back in sensationalized, personality-driven mode – and plagued by the excesses itemized by Slate’s Jack Shafer here and here – I am once again someone who doesn’t watch TV news. I get by just fine without it. If there’s an emergency, I’m sure one of those nice people in the torch-wielding mob will fill me in on the details.

So I’m back to my usual TV diet: shows about show business.

HBO’s ENTOURAGE has been dismissed as shallow. Salon’s Heather Havrilevsky even said that the Katrina coverage pointed out how useless the series is. All I know is that a program where the biggest problem was whether a movie star would be able to commit to James Cameron’s AQUAMAN after Mandy Moore broke his heart came as sweet relief.

ENTOURAGE’s accuracy has never been in doubt. It’s also one of the best depictions of male friendship on TV. And Jeremy Piven continues to dazzle as superagent Ari Gold, particularly now that he’s no longer on top of his game.

I stuck out THE COMEBACK for Lisa Kudrow’s performance and the show’s hypnotic level of insider’s self-loathing. The later episodes tapped into some truly dark emotions and complex relationships, but the finale struck me as obvious.

It’s interesting to note that THE COMEBACK’s reality show within the show bears a striking similarity to Kathy Griffin’s MY LIFE ON THE D-LIST. Sitcom actress struggling to stay in the spotlight, wryly supportive civilian husband, gay best friend, fabulous house ... it’s all there.

My favorite thing about the slight but amusing HOPELESS PICTURES, IFC’s animated series starring several members of the Christopher Guest Repertory Company, is that each episode is only twenty minutes long. It’s like something on the old Dumont Network.

The best program about this business of show – and right now, the best thing on TV – is set in the theater. And in Canada. SLINGS & ARROWS, on the Sundance Channel, is about backstage shenanigans at a Shakespeare festival. The cast is stellar: DUE SOUTH’s Paul Gross, a young Rachel McAdams, Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney (also one of the writers). So is the breadth of its subject matter. It’s about art, commerce, drama, comedy, love, madness and ghosts. The series is available via On Demand, and Sundance will run a season one marathon on September 17.

SLINGS has me in the mood for the Bard lately. I finally got around to watching A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, which has been parked on the DVR for weeks. Rosemarie insists she recorded it because she’s a student of Shakespeare, not because it stars Christian Bale and THE WIRE’s Dominic West. I have every reason to accept this as the truth.

It’s a fun adaptation with a buoyant spirit and at least one instance of magic. Sam Rockwell, as an actor in a play that has gone off the rails, somehow goes from buffoonery to breaking your heart in a single take. The mystery of how he did it is why acting continues to fascinate me.

Miscellaneous: Links

I’ve put bullets in plenty of unproduced screenplays. I didn’t know you could get paid for it.

Here’s how writing for reality TV works. Personally, I’d rather sell Lady Kenmores at Sears.

This article on the zombification of grasshoppers freaked me out, and proves that if intelligent design is true, the intelligent designer has a warped sense of humor.

Music: Dive! Dive!

To mark Labor Day, I want to talk a little about work. Or what passes for it around Chez K, at any rate.

I don’t always listen to music while I’m writing, but at times it’s essential. Like when I need to drown out the sounds of the neighborhood, especially when the school down the street is in session. Those double Dutch tournaments can be brutal.

Occasionally, the accompaniment is related to what I’m working on. A few years ago I was hired to write an original screenplay based on the true story of a local criminal. The first thing I wanted to know was what kind of music he listened to. You know, to “get into the character.” Seemed like a writerly thing to do.

‘70s stuff, I was told. Southern rock. Specifically, the Marshall Tucker Band.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

It didn’t fit my conception of the man. There was a definite counterculture vibe to his life, including a pronounced tendency toward mythopoetic horseshit. Answer: the Moody Blues.

While writing the script, I listened to their album A Question of Balance. Over and over. It completely obliterated whatever affection Rosemarie had toward Justin Hayward and his rendition of 'Forever Autumn' on the WAR OF THE WORLDS concept album. I finished the final draft and haven’t played the record since. Although some of the more pretentious lines still come to me unbidden. “He took to himself an orange ...”

For inspiration, nothing beats movie soundtracks. Big music that encourages visual thinking. From Harlan Ellison, I cribbed the notion of listening to the great Ennio Morricone while writing. Danny Elfman also serves quite nicely.

Submarine movies often feature memorable music. I leave on the beginning of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and the end of CRIMSON TIDE whenever I come across them on cable so I can admire the work of composers Basil Poledouris and Hans Zimmer, respectively. Male choral singing gets me every time.

Rosemarie, of course, noticed this habit. To mark some recent success, she bought me the soundtracks as a gift. Then she went one better and threw in THE BEST OF THE RED ARMY CHOIR.

It’s great, stirring stuff that’s powering me through a new project. Plus there’s the perverse satisfaction of writing what could be a big Hollywood blockbuster – the very essence of American capitalism – to the strains of ‘Slavery and Suffering’ and ‘The Red Army Is The Strongest.’

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.