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Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category

The Long Lens

Posted in Culture, Movies, tagged , , , , , , , , on 21 Mar 2013| 2 Comments »

Fritz Lang’s 1931 film “M” has long been on my list of “Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to see that” movies. Last weekend, after screening of “The Maltese Falcon,” Peter Lorre’s presence reminded me, so I put it into my Blockbuster queue and popped it to the top.

Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (recently restored to its full magnificence) is on my Top Ten list. His innovation, his iconic long-shots, his metaphoric storytelling, I love it all. But somehow, I’d managed to miss seeing “M” for decades.

If I had seen this film before–even just a year ago–my reaction to it would have been different. Seeing it now, after the abominable crime perpetrated in Newtown, CT has entered our public consciousness, my reaction is very different.

Possible spoilers after the jump.

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Still Standing

Posted in Movies, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 14 Mar 2013| 1 Comment »

There are some movies that have entered the common vernacular. Say “The Maltese Falcon” and people react. Even if they haven’t seen the film, people can describe the Black Bird, probably know it’s Humphrey Bogart, likely know the main character is Sam Spade, and may even know the final line (or, technically, the penultimate line) of the movie.

Well, if you haven’t seen the film, your missing one of the true classics, a movie that stands tall, even now. While today we think it synonymous “film noir,” stacked with great names like Bogie and Huston, Lorre and Greenstreet, was at the time really quite the low-budget, almost “indie” affair. (more…)

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We Built This City

Posted in Movies, tagged , , , , , , , , on 11 Mar 2013| 2 Comments »

I don’t like musicals and I don’t like Tom Cruise. Thus, it was unusual to find myself sitting down of a Friday night to watch “Rock of Ages” which, I quickly learned, incorporated both.

It’s not that I dislike all musicals–I even have a few in my DVD library–but spending my first 35 years playing several musical instruments, I sweated in the pit during every school drama production, suffered through interminable summer “Pops” concerts, and endured nearly as many “Holiday Galas.” In short, of musicals I’ve had my fill.

As for Tom Cruise, well, he’s just one of those actors who can’t seem to get out of his own way. Again, my stance is not monolithic; I’ve liked him in a few films, but never as a leading man. When Cruise plays the chiseled-chin hero, the steely eyed fighter pilot lawyer spy covert operative race car driver, I always see the actor behind the mask. In every scene–especially in those critical, top-of-the-trailer tag-line scenes–behind that gritty, squint-eyed glare I see…Tom Cruise, thinking, working hard, working as hard as he possibly can to be that chiseled-chin hero, working his ass off trying to not be Tom Cruise.

At which he fails. But not here. Not in “Rock of Ages.” You see, I have learned a true Hollywood secret: (more…)

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Kevin Bacon, Meet Audrey Hepburn

Posted in Movies, Television, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 27 Feb 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s not often that I can tie together what is arguably the grittiest crime drama on network television with a 1966 rom-com–OK, I’ve never done it, so today’s a first–and I’ll be frank with you, tieing these two objects together is going to take some doing, so have patience. I’ll get there.

Yesterday during my workout I watched “How to Steal a Million” (1966), starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. It is a light-hearted bit of fluff about the daughter of an art forger and a purported art thief who need to steal something to protect a secret. It’s set in Paris, Audrey is swathed in Givenchy throughout, O’Toole sports around in an XK-E, and it has several temporal “shout-outs” to the stars’ previous hits, so I’m sure it was doubly enjoyable for folks back in ’66 who’d been following these two icons through their early careers. It’s a little less believable than most romantic comedies (which means it was totally farcical), but one doesn’t watch a rom-com for believability or with any doubts as to the outcome. We watch them for the interaction, for the play, for the fun of it, and in this respect, “How to Steal a Million” delivers, even today.

I thought it was out-dated, though, because of its treatment of Ms. Hepburn’s character. (more…)

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Солярис

Posted in Movies, tagged , , , , , , , , on 20 Feb 2013| 2 Comments »

A few weeks ago, another blogger and I were discussing the topic of “accessibility” in fiction and film, and by way of example of the “inaccessible,” Prospero brought up the 1972 film, Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. I had read the novel (by Stanislaw Lem, 1961) and had seen the Soderbergh/Clooney film (2002), but I’d never seen or even heard of this Soviet-era science-fiction film. So, tappity-tap-click-click, I went over to Blockbuster and found I could put it on my movie queue. It arrived last week, and I watched it over the weekend.

Solaris (1972) received critical acclaim on its debut, and at Cannes it won two prizes and was nominated for the Palme d’Or. Ingmar Bergman had nothing but praise for Tarkovsky’s work, and Salman Rushdie called Solaris “a sci-fi masterpiece.”

Now, I don’t give too much weight to awards (though if Red Sonya had been nominated for the Palme d’Or, I might have stayed for the second half), and if you’re talking about inaccessibility in film and fiction, then you can hardly find better wingmen than Bergman and Rushdie. I’ve also seen several Russian and Soviet films, albeit from previous eras (e.g., Alexander Nevsky, Battleship Potemkin, etc.), so I was prepared for the somewhat lugubrious pace that Russian directors prefer. And lastly, brought to my attention as an example of “inaccessibility,” I knew this wasn’t going to be a action-packed laugh-riot.

Thus prepared, cue the music.

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British Kings, American Cash

Posted in Culture, Movies, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 04 Feb 2013| Leave a Comment »

Two interesting articles out of the UK’s Guardian newspaper crossed my desk this morning. One was about bones, and one was about money.

First, a team of archaeologists and historians in Britain have uncovered the bones of Richard III. For real. The bones tell an amazing and horrifying story of the last moments of the last Plantagenet king, and the last British king to die in battle. And, for those who have been wondering just how much Shakespeare’s anti-Plantagenet propaganda was fiction regarding the king’s twisted form, we can now genuinely say that physically, at least, his depiction was accurate.

The team, working in a car park in Leicester, lifted the horribly severed skull, the arm and leg bones, and then the severely curved spine. The bones tell us something of his life, of his death, and of his treatment after death. Much of it was not pretty.

The second article I found of interest was an interview with Robert Reich and Jacob Kornbluth about the documentary that swept the Sundance Festival and will soon be in wide distribution. Inequality for All is being called the economy’s equivalent of An Inconvenient Truth.

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The View from Here: Marching Into the Detention Center

Posted in Movies, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 09 Jan 2013| 5 Comments »

Stack of BooksI was young, with a penchant for obsession. I studied musical performance and conducting, and ran with a cadre of like-minded scholars. I was a science-fiction/fantasy geek, and so were they. It was fated, then, that when the first Star Wars movie came out, we would band together for trips to The City. Week after week we would ride down Geary, invade The Coronet theater, outmaneuver all comers, and claim the eight seats at first-row-center. There, practically vibrating with anticipation, we would wait, hands poised, ready for the downbeat. Together, we would conduct the entire score (long ago committed to memory), cueing the chords of the Death Star leitmotif, pulling in horns and strings as we swept up to light-speed. It was grand. It was intoxicating.

Until Harrison Ford tried to get his mouth around the line, “Marching into the Detention Center is not my idea of fun.”

A lighthearted line, to be sure, but one that brought sniggers George Lucas did not expect. I mean, Harrison practically had to spit out his teeth to deliver that line. How did it ever make it through the table-read? What was that writer thinking?

Now, having cut my own writing chops, I know exactly what that writer was thinking.  He wasn’t.

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