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.