SOUTHEAST ASIAN FILMS

THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (Australia 1982)— From director Peter Weir comes a work with realism so jarring that it stands apart from other war films.  Linda Hunt won a best supporting actress award for her part as Billy, the resourceful assistant to a reporter covering Indonesia’s civil unrest in the 1960s played Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson in a breakout role.) A non-fiction Guy Hamilton as handsome as Gibson was the American reporter in Southeast Asia, Jerry A. Rose.

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE UGLY AMERICAN (1963 Universal-Int’l) — In this fictional film based on a popular novel, Marlon Brando plays the conflicted US ambassador to a country resembling Vietnam.  Brando comments about growing addicted to risk and in an outstanding performance actor Eiji Okada says inescapable poverty is “water from the moon.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056632/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2

THE JOURNALIST: The real life Southeast Asia “adrenalin junkie” immune to risks was reporter Jerry Rose, who is profiled by Minnesota writer Lucy Rose Fischer in the book “THE JOURNALIST: Life and loss in America’s Secret War.”  Rose was reporting on the Vietnamese corruption and the ineptness of American diplomats and military brass in the early 1960s when the public and news media gatekeepers weren’t interested in Vietnam. By the time they got interested, their husbands, brothers and sons were coming home in body bags. https://www.mnvietnam.org/story/a-sleeping-child/

 

TERENCE DAVIES British films

SUNSET SONG and BENEDICTION —- “Poetic realism by Britain’s greatest living auteur,” according to the DVD notes about British director Terence Davies.   In Davies films characters exist out of the mainstream order living lives of quiet desperation. 

Outstanding in the Davies collection are “Benediction” and “A Quiet Passion” with the former about poet Siegfried Sassoon which was shown this month at St. Anthony Main.  In “A Quiet Passion” Cynthia Nixon is outstanding as poet Emily Dickinson.  World War One is a defining moment for characters in both “Benediction” and “Sunset Song.” 

Davies films are understated with minimal music scores while the landscapes create poetic moments.  More about Davies in this attached interview:

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/benediction-interview-terence-davies

 

CRY TERROR with Roy Neal at the Burbank Airport

CRY TERROR (1958) — A suburban family is held hostage in their home by a crazy man (Rod Steiger) and his drug-addled accomplice (Neville Brand).  There’s a bit of me in this story.  The crazy intruder was a popular film genre in the 50s.  Brand has a great scene when he explains his addiction to the hostage wife (Inger Stevens) who is memorable running along railroad tracks in a subway tunnel.  Likewise, the hostage husband (James Mason) appears quite anxious hanging onto a cable in an elevator shaft.  Whatever keeps you on the edge of your seat, you’ll find in “Cry Terror.” 

 For me I enjoyed cameos with NBC news reporters  Chet Huntley, network news anchor, and Roy Neal who covered aeronautics for NBC TV News when I was an editorial assistant at KNBC in 63-64.  Neal, who fancied a cigarette holder, was a bit stuffy but likable.  (Rockets, missiles, satellites and space travel were big news in the 60s).  I picked Roy up in my ’61 Plymouth Fury at the Burbank airport when he returned from an assignment.  The Fury had some space age touches with an aluminum fin running the length of the trunk and very Buck Rogers illusions, mostly dismissed by car buyers and industry critics.  As reporter Jim McLaughlin of The Idaho Statesman observed, it looked like it was going 30 miles an hour when it was sitting at the curb.  I now happily drive a Dodge Dart, a brand that found currency in SoCal with a “little old lady from Pasadena the terror of Colorado Blvd.”  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051501/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

https://www.broadcastpioneers.com/royneal.html 

JOHNNY GUITAR, CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, RAIN

JOHNNY GUITAR & CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA (1954) — Forget damsels in distress because ladies on horseback rule in these big budget westerns.   Middle aged ”golden era” actresses Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck play powerful cowgirls who literally call the shots.  Execs at Republic and RKO studios were staring into the abyss in the burgeoning TV era when they released these two dusty dramas.  Crawford as the saloon owner does a strip and is aggressive in her feud with Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) while Sterling Hayden as Johnny takes a back seat to Crawford’s theatrics.  Stanwyck is quite feminine in a romantic scene with incidental fading cowboy star Ronald  Reagan in “Queen” while giving bad boy land grabbers a taste of their own medicine.  Both were filmed in color in the Mountain West’s scenic locations and the soundtrack music in “Queen” is exceptional for a horse opera.  “Johnny Guitar” is cited in the NYT book as one of 1,000 essential movies to see.

RAIN (1932) — In a pre-code United Artists film, a married missionary Alfred Davidson (Walter Huston) is presumably making a tyrannical soul-saving attempt driven by lust in a sleazy hotel on behalf of prostitute Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford).  Davidson’s obsession soon becomes apparent in this south seas tropical drama.  In short, “men are men” Sadie quips for what transpires between her and the soul-saving traveler.  The pounding rain combined with an  incessant disorienting jungle drumbeat heighten the sexual tension as Davidson shivers and shakes in the shadows.  I didn’t fully understand this steamy cinema as a teen when I first saw it on an afternoon matinee in 1954 on KXLY-TV.  It’s from a W. Somerset Maugham short story that was originally filmed with Jean Eagles and remade in the 1950s with Rita Hayworth.  

TOP GUN MAVERICK, Laurel & Hardy, Scarlet St. + more

 TOP GUN MAVERICK (2022) — Old is new again and Tom Cruise, who would be eligible for AARP membership, has been resurrected 36 years after the original Top Gun for a wild blue yonder thriller.  I was less than thrilled.  Junior bird men and bird women duel it out in the sky against missiles to knock out the threatening installation of an unnamed country (I assume Canada).   Leonard Maltin wrote that Anthony Edwards was the reason to see the original, but his character was knocked off in the ’86 Top Gun.   Most Navy officers after 36 years have retired to a trailer park near San Diego, but not Cruise who is cast in yet another golden oldie, a Mission Impossible sequel.  The recycling of scripts won’t stop —at the Riverview a Jurassic Park sequel is next month’s feature.

“It could have been a 1942  film with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott,” said Rick Notch.

Howard Hughes made his mark with aerial warfare in the 1930 “Hells Angels” and tried again in 1950 with “Jet Pilot” but it was shelved until 1957 when RKO was gone and moviegoers weren’t interested in dueling pilots from cold war countries.

A few blocks form the river in a residential neighborhood is the Riverview Theater, a 50s mid century modern design with an oval shaped auditorium.  Very "modern" copper drinking fountain and furniture.

THE PLAYER — It was marketed as a ‘thriller” but it’s a subversive dark comedy where an unpleasant Hollywood studio executive murders a screenwriter but then who cares?  Overkill with cameos of celebrities.  Buck Henry is featured as a writer trying to sell the exec (Tim  Robbins) on a sequel to “The Graduate” which seems like a terrible idea.  Whoopi Goldberg plays the cop leading a dysfunctional investigation of the murder where a “reliable witness” identifies another cop (Lyle Lovett) as the perp.  Not to be missed. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105151/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SCARLET STREET (1945- Universal) — This is the drug of choice for film noir addicts.  Fritz Lang’s classic film noir is a biblical tale of lust in the garden of evil where the prostitute Kitty (Joan Bennett) dangles her ripe fruits under the twitching nose of the lonely artist/cashier Chris (Edward G. Robinson) who takes a bite.  Aided by her pimp played by a regular visitor to the dark side, Dan Duryea, they take the hapless Chris for all he has or can steal.  Kitty reveals her cheapness and vulgarity in the restaurant scene with Chris where a straw carelessly dangles from her lips while she nervously talks.  A contrived conversation amongst strangers on a train offers an opinion that Chris will have to pay a steep price for the wages of sin. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038057/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE HOODLUM (1951 Eagle Lion Classics) — Actor Lawrence Tierney was the reigning king of the bad boy genre and he hasn’t mellowed in this low budget film noir directed by Max Nossock (Dillinger).  After laying waste to his family, his dying mother denounces him thusly:  “What can momma do; go to the electric chair for you.  I was blind.  I always stuck up for you.  I should have let you rot in jail.  Your brothers’ girl friend died with your unborn baby in her.  You are the smell.  You are the stink.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043655/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

BENEDICTION (UK 2022) — A very sobering look at life in Great Britain during World War I, including discrimination against gays and staggering loss of lives.  Showing now at the Main theater on the river in historic St. Anthony Main with the Prime Timers.  Cobble streets are quaint but the Dodge Dart didn’t appreciate the ride.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6852178/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SWISS MISS (1938 MGM Roach) — Laurel & Hardy are moving yet another piano in this musical but this time it’s over the alps on a flimsy rope bridge with a menacing ape.  Not the best L&H but some great musical numbers including the flag throwing extravaganza and a sound stage full of dancers in town square.  In a droll British moment Eric Blore and Walter Woolf King sing “I Can’t Get Over the Alps,” which infers that the “miss” in Swiss is secondary to the mountains if you hadn’t guessed.  (Blore has some very amusing moments with Edward Everett Horton as a fussy butler in the 1930s Fred & Ginger RKO musicals.)  In July 1963 on a steaming hot LA day before air conditioners were standard in cars I was at the Roach Studios with John Miller of Ontario and his girl friend for the auction of props from L&H films, most of which went to the museum.  A sweet women on a camp stool shared L&H memories from her photo album when her husband Charles Rogers was music director at this Culver City studio — a sad movie land moment.

DAMN YANKEES & FOSSE VERDON, EXCELLENT CHOREOGRAPHY

 DAMN  YANKEES (1958) — Weary from the Washington Senators losing ways, a middle aged fan sells his soul to the devil (Ray Walston) and is transformed into youthful Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter), an MLB all star.  Bases are loaded with tempting Lola (Gwen Verdon), the devil’s femme fatale who chirps it’s “your heart and soul I came for.”  

Meanwhile the Senators find that “you’ve got to have heart” to win games.   Hunter writes in his autobiography that the studio thought Verdon “wasn’t pretty enough” and they wanted to replace her with Marilyn Monroe or Mitzi Gaynor although she had won a Tony for Damn Yankees.  

In the cable TV series “Fosse Verdon,” Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell are outstanding in their creative partnership that resulted in Yankees and more.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051516/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8746478/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

FLASH GORDON, 1980 CULT CLASSIC TURKEY

FLASH GORDON (1980 UK) — It’s a cult classic.  The writer of the script for this turkey (in an interview on the DVD)  candidly admits that the film is “campy and confusing.”  The Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis was only interested in making a “Star Wars” like film.  Screen writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. said De Laurentiis could neither read or speak English so he didn’t bother with the script which is a series of unrelated confrontations with evil forces.  Semple didn’t understand Italian so they worked through a translator who only spoke French.  The script could have benefited from criticism but that never happened, said Semple.  

Director Oliver Stone in his autobiography recalls difficulties working with De Laurentiis.   

I was a teen when the entertaining 1936 Flash Gordon serial with Buster Crabbe was shown on KXLY-TV at 3 pm weekdays so I hustled home from school to see the latest installment.  The movie is based on a 1930s comic strip.   In the 1980 version, credible actors were recruited for supportive roles — Max von Sydow as Ming and Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, but the lead is an unknown, Sam J. Jones.  Would Laurence Olivier as Flash have made a difference? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080745/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 

TRUMP, SUPREME COURT, SEPARATION CHURCH/STATE

 CHURCH STATE SEPARATION.  Protecting freedom requires a wall between church and state, which is crumbling, was the take away today (3/29) from a Univ. of Minn. Lifelong Learning class online.  Social justice activists from Cincinatti’s Jewish Humanist Congregation  Beth Adam spoke.   Pew Research:  55% of Americans support separation of church and state.  Supreme court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby to impose  their religious values on employees.  Everyone should be threatened  to the extent that these people succeed in breaking down the separation wall.  Upcoming case before the Court: Wash. State related to football coach requiring players to pray; should be a decision within a few months. https://www.bethadam.org/social-justice1.html

RAGE, 2020 book, several interviews by journalist Bob Woodward with No. 45 following Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House.”  The takeaway from “Rage” comes when Woodward asks Trump to define the president’s job.  Trump hedges and Woodward offers this:  “it’s figuring out what the next stage of good is for a majority of people in the country.”  Trump responds: “That’s good.”  Woodward writes: “As I listened, I was struck by the vague, directionless nature of Trump’s comments.  He had been president for just under 3 years, but couldn’t seem to articulate a strategy or plan for the country.  I was surprised he would go into 2020, the year he hoped to win reelection, without more clarity to his message.”  Woodward wrote 189 pages of Trump goofing off before becoming surprised.

Dracula, Taxi Drive, Youth v Gov and more

 HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945) — Dr. Edelman (Onslow Stevens) entertains uninvited guests Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman at his seaside mansion in this 1945 Universal bit of whimsy with creepy music, great photography and super special effects.  Dracula (John Carradine) lusts after the nurse (Martha O’Driscoll) while the gruesome trio drive the stressed out doctor to wild-eyed insanity and Frankenstein’s monster sets the mansion ablaze.  Recently available on DVD.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037793/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SHAMPOO (1975) — In the 70s we were in a lather over Warren Beatty playing a Don Juan hairdresser,  possibly inspired by real life Hollywood hair stylist Jon Peters who became a film producer and Barbra Streisand’s boyfriend. In this film,  Beatty & company attend a fund raiser for Nixon who is on TV mouthing empty rhetoric about bringing the country together.  Coincidentally after watching Shampoo on tape I turned to Dick Cavett on Decades with Beatty offering support for Sen. George McGovern’s presidential candidacy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073692/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

YOUTH V. GOV — Share, Connect, Act — that’s the message in the nearly 2-hour documentary (Netflix) on court cases brought by U.S. young people to prompt a government plan combatting climate change.  Yet another attempt to get this before the Supreme Court is underway by the young plaintiffs.  We need to know what are the actors in Minnesota who will advance this cause.  https://www.youthvgov.org

PLATOON (1986, US) — Director Oliver Stone in his autobiography wrote that his film told only a fragment of the true Vietnam war story.  Actor Charlie Sheen plays Stone who observes the disturbing actions of two non-commissioned officers. Stone’s script is based on his 1968 experiences when he drops out of Yale University and volunteers with the Army for frontline Vietnam warfare.  Stone’s manuscript for his biography could have benefited from heavy editing; his phrasing lacks polish throughout, but his recollections of Vietnam are well stated. 

RIDLEY ROAD (PBS)  four-episode drama set in a colorful but tumultuous time on Ridley Road, based on Jo Bloom’s acclaimed novel. Inspired by true events, Ridley Road is about a young Jewish hairdresser who fits right into London’s mod scene, while secretly infiltrating the British neo-Nazi hierarchy on behalf of Jewish antifascists,

The neo-nazi riots in London in 1958 are the subject of the 1986 film ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS featuring David Bowie, Sade and James Fox — a very stylish musical that wasn’t well received in the US but nevertheless is quite well done by director Julian Temple.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/ridley-road/

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER AT THE GALLOP (1963 MGM UK) — Classic British comedy mystery with Margaret Rutherford, Robert Morley and Flora Robson.  Available on VHS tape. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057334/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1

THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946) — A returning war veteran (Tyrone Power) is inspired by a holy man and forsakes the capitalist rat race for serenity which doesn’t set well with his shrewish girl friend (Gene Tierney).  I kept seeing Kathryn Hepburn as the Tierney character, but Bette Davis or Audrey Totter would have worked as well.  Excellent director, Edmund Goulding (Nightmare Alley.)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038873/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

TAXI DRIVER (1976) — Martin Scorcese brought a new kind of cinema to the screens in the 70s — raw, violent and real.  Robert DeNiro plays a psychotic racist gun-toting vigilante roaming the Manhattan streets.  The film is relevant today.  Scorcese and DeNiro got their starts at poverty row studio American International where DeNiro was the drug addicted son of Ma Barker in “Bloody Mama” (1970).  In another  AIP Great Depression gangster story,  Scorcese directed David Carradine and Barbara Hershey in “Boxcar Bertha.”  Very unsettling cinema. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

DOUBLE INDEMNITY, SLAM DANCE and more

 SLAM DANCE (USA 1987) — Director Wayne Wang spins a terrifying web of madness in this LA noir where Tom Hulce (Amadeus) plays an artist who slides in and out of the shadows and the prostitute’s world ruled by Bobby Nye (Millie Perkins).  Harry Dean Stanton is the cop, naturally, in this far out gem that may have escaped your purview.  A local angel is salting the Blue Box movie exchange with long lost treasurers.  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911061/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1

BEVERLY HILLS HILLBILLIES (the movie) — Zsa Zsa Gabor is in a police lineup for slapping a cop and Cloris Leachman is granny in the big screen nod to the popular TV show where we learned that there’s not much difference in stupidity density between the hillbillies and the Beverly Hills snooty cliche in their Bentleys. If they remade BH today the entire clan would have been elected to Congress and protesting against gays, lesbians, women and teachers.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962) —A ghost from cinema’s past has risen from the grave.  Cinerama has been restored on Blu-ray with a SmileBox bowtie shaped image and minus the separation lines.  It’s almost a 3-D sensation.  IMAX is heir apparent to the Cinerama legacy, giving thrill seekers something they can’t get on their 32” Sony.  HTWWW is a defining film in the careers of Debbie Reynolds and George Peppard.  I never saw it when it debuted in 1962 and I was a student at the University of Wash., Seattle, where the Cinerama theater is in limbo.  https://cinerama.com/

CODA (2021 - France, US, Canada) — Oscar winner; romance,  drama about uniqueness of hearing impaired families.  A remake of a French film.  Inspirational, entertaining. See it now at the Riverview Theater.   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10366460/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

 DOUBLE INDEMNITY  —  Every time Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) looked at her unpleasant husband she saw dollar signs and a rotting corpse.   Then libidinous insurance salesman Walter (Fred MacMurray) knocked on her door and this brazen femme fatale envisioned a pot of gold and a deceased mate.  But then nothing this gauche could happen in real life, huh?  Events leading up to the demise of an inconvenient husband are detailed by reporter Joan Didion in 1965 San Bernardino.  “This is the California where it is easy to Dial-A-Devotion, but hard to buy a book,” Didion writes in “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream”  where white suburban housewife Lucille Miller incinerates her clinically depressed dentist husband in hopes of $80,000 in insurance money and bliss with a local married attorney. https://www.criterion.com/films/30460-double-indemnity

Desperate, Good Neighbor Sam, Sci Fi and More

DARK CITY — A futuristic Kafkaesque thriller where reality is altered and discovering the truth can be fatal for the central character in this Australian film noir sci fi thriller.  Misguided alien/Stranger (Richad O’Brien of Rocky Horror) tries to understand humans but the central character John (Rufus Sewell) concludes that the answer lies in the heart; not the mind.  Several dark alleys are traveled and brick walls demolished before John finds serenity at Shell Beach.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE GIVER — In a dysfunctional futuristic utopia managed by the chief Elder (Meryl Streep) sameness is assumed to be equality.   The Giver (Jeff Bridges) informs the Receiver Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) of the truth which upsets the Elder.  A very grim look into the future. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435651/

MUNICH THE EDGE OF WAR (NETFLIX):  You know how this story ends but the drama leading to the ill advised Chamberlain/HItler Munich agreement gave the fascists the green light to invade Europe but also gave the UK time to get ready for war.  Two young buddies, one British and the other German, working in diplomacy in their respective countries conspire to derail the Munich talks and agreement.  Very well done drama with Jeremy Lyons as the hapless prime minister Chamberlain.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ7x8odi-OU

Casablanca is best scene with Munich.  Also the UK film “Darkest Hour” is instructive. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

ANNIE —  Peter Marshall, host of Hollywood Squares, is a reason to watch this unremarkable 1982 musical based on the stage play.  Marshall plays a singing NBC radio MC which is unrelated to Annie’s story.  Also catch Carol Burnett as the boozing guardian of small homeless children and Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks who worships capitalism, power and money in that order.  A family favorite following the success of the British musical Oliver! and followed by “Newsies.”  Destitute street urchins were fun. https://www.imdb.com/find?s=nm&q=peter+marshall&ref_=nv_sr_sm

MY BEST FRIEND ANNE FRANK (Netherlands, 2021)  — Hannah survived the death camp because she was in a section where she would be “exchanged” for German POWs.  Kudos to The Netherlands for this disturbing film based on the true story of Hannah, who became a nurse in Palestine, and Anne Frank. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10360772/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1

GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM (US) — Watch this romcom for Dorothy Provine who graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Theater Arts.  Sam (Jack Lemmon) is a captive sheep in sheep’s clothing as a Frisco advertising executive who creates a dreadful billboard campaign for a local dairy with a very pious owner (Edward G. Robinson).  It starts as a sendup on the sameness of white middle class suburban life with the requisite Dodge station wagon and veers off into a slapstick mess that’s 45 minutes too long.  Sad to say, Ms. Provine’s life ended in 2010 in Bremerton, Wash. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058153/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

JOHNNY MNEMONIC -- In a grim future where creatures are part robot and part human Johnny is a messenger who has 80 megabites of data drilled into a cranium with 40 megabite capacity — like putting a hemi V8 under the hood of a 2018 Dodge Dart. A drug company has hired Johnny to deliver data.  But then who hasn’t had similar in this world of invasive tech.  He bonds with a compassionate female. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

DESPERATE (1945) — A breakout RKO film noir for writer-director Anthony Mann where a sweet newly married couple (Audrey Long and Steve Brody) are pursued by the police and a very evil gangster (Raymond Burr.)  The couple head for St. Paul (where no one will find them) and nearby Mountain City (?) to blend into the simple rural Minnesota life.  The predators are partially hidden in closeup half shadow which heightens paranoia climaxing with a dizzying chase in a dark deep staircase resembling the swirling vortex.  “Desperate” is featured prominently in Eddie Muller’s book, “Dark City.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039313/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_9 

Beach Blanket Bingo, Caged, Extinction & More

EXTINCTION — A sci fi drama with social justice messages — “We’re evolving and not that different from each other and if we can see that we’ll have a future after all.”  I watched this on Netflix shortly after the first Zoom UMN OLLI class on science fiction and it relates precisely to that lecture about a caring society and how ethics is fundamental to a functioning democracy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3201640/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

HAIL CEASAR — A big wet kiss from the Coen Brothers to Hollywood’s Golden Era with a loose plot involving disgruntled screen writers and the kidnapping of a drunken has been actor (George Clooney.)  The Channing Tatum scene with the waltzing sailors is borrowed from the 1936 Fred and Ginger musical, “Follow the Fleet.”  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475290/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_4

LIL ABNER (1958) — Filmed in a Hollywood sound stage, the movie looks low budget and is based on characters created by cartoonist Al Capp who tilted to the far right politically.  Memories are stirred of my senior year at Lewis & Clark when our class staged a Lil Abner production with John Campbell as Abner and Bonnie ? as Daisy Mae.  (I was the publicity guy, which meant I made signs advertising the performance.) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053001/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO & DOUBLE DYNAMITE  — Sources of our discontent are the underlying themes making these 40s films worth viewing.  Guardians of the wealth don’t bother with eye contact when hearing complaints from underserving laborers. In “Dynamite” the bank manager fiddles with a pipe when the bank clerk played by Frank Sinatra states his case for a raise in pay. That he is surrounded by great amounts of cash is little comfort to Sinatra getting paid $42 but mobsters help him realize his dreams.   Civilians show cold indifference and open hostility to veterans returning from WW2 to hyper competitive capitalism and lousy jobs in William Wyler’s award-winning Best Years.  Mob hysteria prevails when a discharged ex-marine who never fought in the war is worshiped by town folks who demonstrate in the streets and then elect him mayor in Preston Sturges’ comedy Hail the Conquering Hero. https://www.filmsite.org/besty.html

BEACH BLANKET BINGO (1965 AIP) — The gospel according to Frankie & Annette: It may be -20 here but beautiful bodies are at Malibu now and Frankie is paying too much attention to blonde bombshell Linda Evans so Annette is making goo goo eyes at handsome John Ashley.  Jealousy!  (Hopefully all will be resolved before the closing credits.)  Don Rickles makes snide comments about Frankie being so short and silent era comic Buster Keaton is doing a fishing shtick in deep water.  Muscular Bonehed (Jody McCrea) has fallen for the mermaid (Marta Kristen.)  We’re swooning now as Frankie masters a smooth ballad with the Hondells Band doing backup.  Famed New York columnist Earl Wilson who chronicled Broadway’s golden era has a recurring bit part in Bingo.  Why?  Writer-director William Asher must have worshiped MGM musicals and adored celebrities.  Also featured is Timothy Carey who acted in the 1953 film noir “Crime Wave.”  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058953/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

CAGED (US) — Hope Emerson plays a quite unpleasant prison matron in this unsettling film noir where newbie inmate played by Eleanor Parker goes from relative innocence to hardened criminal.  So much for prisons as correctional facilities.  Agnes Moorhead is the crusading warden battling corrupt political cronies on the prison board.  Betty Grable is somewhere in  the mix of prisoners but I never found here.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042296/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2 

Home of the Brave, Call Me By Your Name & More

HOME OF THE BRAVE (2006)  Spokane never looked more inviting than it does in this excellent film that explores Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome affecting soldiers of the Iraq war, with a commanding Samuel L. Jackson performance.  From a vantage point, the downtown skyline is shown and there is a driving scene where I saw the Fox Theater and the Spokesman-Review tower lit up at night.  Spokane — an excellent choice for Americans coming home with scars that never heal. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0763840/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

K-PAX (2001).  A very understated film about a psychiatrist (Jeff Bridges) in a sanitarium who treats a mysterious vagrant Kevin Spacey) who makes a big difference in the lives of other patients in this facility.  It’s pure serendipity that I found this tape in the Blue Box exchange recently.  What a find! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272152/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER.  An award-winning film featuring Maggie Gylenhaal as a teacher obsessing over a student to a dangerous conclusion.  Smartly paced filmTo say more would spoil the ending. (Netflix).https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6952960/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

WONDER BOYS.  Prof. Tripp (Michael Douglas) perseveres in the face of tremendous odds and an entangled love life amidst a dreary Pittsburg winter.  Aside from his personal problems, he encourages a promising but confused student (Tobey Maguire) who is a brilliant writer living in the bus station and surviving on donuts.  Enter the mix and important in his writing career is a whimsical gay book editor (Robert Downey Jr.) who is yet another house guest.  Yet this is a diverting and amusing film and one that never gets old. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185014/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE ENDLESS SUMMER. (1965). It could be the cure for cabin fever.  It’s 11 degrees in Minneapolis but the surfers in this award-winning documentary are riding Nigerian waves in 100 degree heat with 91 degree water temperature.  You could boil an egg in that water.  On a day like today, the search for the ideal wave makes sense to me. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060371/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

BRIDGERTON. (UK).  I am watching this bit of nonsense for the second time wherein the mating game repulses Lady Daphne Bridgerton and the Duke of Hastings so they “pretend” to be engaged.  One can only guess where this will lead but the regal splendor appeals to me as I look at snow piled high outside my window.  (Netflix).  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8740790/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME.  Prof. Perlman (Michael Stulberg), admiring the statue found at the bottom of the ocean, states that it’s the work of Paxilites, the greatest sculpture artist of antiquity.  Oliver (Armie Hammer), looking at the photo, is struck by its resemblance to Elio (Timothee Chalamet).  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5726616/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

It’s a film about people left behind, the Cowboy and Rizzo, and was released in 1969 amidst counter culture street protests and sexual revolutions that Glenn Frankel backgrounds in his book, “Shooting Midnight Cowboy.”   With a bit of reluctance, some movie moguls were savvy enough to see the “writing on the subway walls” and funded “Midnight Cowboy.” Movie critic Vincent Canby of the New York Times in 1969 wrote that “it’s not a movie for the ages” but Canby was wrong; it’s a big slice of cinematic art and is listed in the Times “Book of Movies; 1,000 Films to See.”https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064665/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 

SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY: ART, SEX, LONELINESS, LIBERATION AND THE MAKING OF A DARK CLASSIC, a book by Glenn Frankel, journalist and former director of the University of Texas journalism school.  The lives and careers of the creative team involved in this 1969 film, from actor Jon Voight to the costume designer and more, are the guts of this exhaustive journalistic endeavor.  I recalled when movie goers lined up to see edgy films foreign and domestic in the 60s and 70s before super heroes and animation ruled today’s silver screens.