Category Archives: Movies

Sign of the Wolf – 67 Year Old Spoiler Alert

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Once upon a movie night!

Janie and I have been binge-watching GAME OF THRONES and our raggedy dog Chloe has been joining us. Chloe is quite taken with the wolves in the series and is now demanding to be referred to as our “dire” pup.

Whatever.

She’s good company though, so I’m trying to nurture her new-found cinematic interest. I allowed her to choose our film one night.

Unsurprisingly, she chose a 1941 Rin Tin Tin/Lassie wannabe; Sign of the Wolf.
The title is totally misleading. There are no wolves in the film – not one – zilch – nada.

There are however, not one but two big athletic Alsatian Shepherds named Smokey and Shadow. And if you think about it, that makes a kind of sense. You can’t reasonably expect any one dog to replace Rin Tin Tin or Lassie and to be perfectly honest about it, Smokey and Shadow combined are not really up to the mark either. Oh sure, they can climb walls and fences. They can jump hurdles. They can survive plane crashes. They’re faster than a speeding bullet. For real! They actually seem to outrun the dozens of rifle shots taken at them in this flick – it’s uncanny…and un-canine. The dogs do all these things in the film. To quote that great philosopher, Groucho Marx; “It’s a hell of an act!” But in the personality department, they are sadly lacking. It doesn’t help that they spend most of the film running around in dirty snow. How charming would you be? In my world, the only thing worse than snow is dirty snow. It’s a black and white flick – I can’t tell if the snow is yellow…but it’s dirty.

This is a Canadian production which is okay by me, but it means Smokey and Shadow bark in Canadian accents. It changes things in subtle, but disconcerting ways. Using the identical barks that Lassie employed to say; “Come quick! Timmy’s fallen in the well!” Shadow’s rescue-seeking bark is interpreted as; “Come quick! Mantan Moreland is trapped in a plane crash!” Frankly, I was baffled.

The film also features Dobie Gillis’ brother, Darrell Hickman as the “Timmy” character. I find most child actors to be quite moving and effective…and awful. Hickman simplified things by going straight to awful.

Dire Puppy

The film is based on the story by Jack London but that’s alright, Mr. London had died by the time this film was made so he didn’t get to see what happened to his story.


Then of course the snow fell for real at our house the next day and Chloe spent the next morning running around in the new, clean snow, barking in Canadian, and looking for plane crashes.

The neighbors fear she’s gone mad.

Camille Claudel and “Me Too”

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A few days ago, I watched the film Camille Claudel again.

I think in these days of “ME TOO” and the obscene disparity in gauging the value of male and female work, this film has powerful things to say. Bullies and tyrants and narcissists do what they do “because they can” and “you can’t stop me”.

Resist them.

Shine the brightest of lights upon them and their actions.

Keep their path uneasy.

Point them out.

Stop them.

I’d also like to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable Isabel Adjani. Her performance in

this movie rips my heart out. The last shot of this ferociously talented character being carried away in a cage is devastating.

I am a big fan of Ms. Adjani.

Yes of course, she’s beautiful.

AND…

AND she’s given us other captivating performances in The History of Adele H., Nosferatu, Diabolique, and The Tenant.

Don’cha think it’s time we forgave her for Ishtar?

What THE POST is Not – Spoiler Alert

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My friends continue their assault. They are determined I should watch some films from this millennium. But you’ll notice the films are set in the 1960’s. They’re trying to ease me into it.

Tonight it’s THE POST. It’s real good. I liked it!

BUT, it’s not ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN…and that’s OK.

It certainly looks like ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN…happily so. Ben Bradlee was there, in his same office, with his feet up on the same desk…happily so. The news room looked and sounded the same…yes, happily so. Nixon is foiled…so very happily so.

But the stakes are different in the events depicted.

In THE POST, the object of intrepid journalism is “The Ellsberg Papers”, a collection of reports about the history and motivations of a war in Southeast Asia assembled by a team in the Secretary of State’s office mostly by simply asking the Pentagon for the information. It was devastating information confirming the worst fears of a movement of young people opposed to a conflict that killed one to three-and-a-half million people (depending on whether you consider Cambodia, Laos, and political assassinations as part of the casualties – I tend to do so).

In THE POST, this devastating information was not that hard to obtain. The drama…the courage…the journalism was deciding to publish in the face of threats of court action by the White House.

The lesson to be learned was in the question of why it took so long to assemble the information that had been gathering since the early fifties. The answer was in the cozy relationship that had developed (festered?) between the press and the people in government. Hard questions, awkward questions got delayed and forgotten in the warmth of golf with Ike and touch football on the White House lawn with Jack and Bobby.

THE POST makes this point. My hippie sensitivities might wish the point had hammered longer and harder but that’s not fair. It’s a movie, a work of art, and a damn fine one, and the point was made within that reality.

The events depicted in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN are about the clumsy burglary of the political office of an already defeated candidate. What’s the big deal?

– Only that the burglary was authorized in the office of the Attorney General of the United States.
– Only that the money paid to the burglars to buy their silence was raised by fundraisers of the President of the United States at his behest.
– Only that the President’s suggestion to the newly appointed head of the FBI was to drop his evidence in the Potomac.

I repeat; what’s the big deal?

I mean…no one died.

But two young nobody reporters sifted through files, pounded on doors, waited on recalcitrant elected witnesses, cornered reluctant participants, lingered in parking garages, and endured the public berating of the most powerful office on Earth to deliver a truthful report.

A report that a few years before might not have been published had not the Washington Post had the guts to publish “The Ellsberg Papers”.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is the better film.

How could it not be?

I might be the world’s biggest Meryl Streep fan and I can’t be far behind on Tom Hanks. But ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN has complete performances by Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Penny Fuller, Hal Holbrook, Ned Beatty, and Martin Balsam.

Wow!

I have confessed to being both an old hippie and a true geezer. I have lived through these events.

If you are interested in moving towards a relevant-to-today understanding of these happenings, may I offer a triptych?

– See THE POST, it’s real good.
– Read ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (Woodward/Bernstein).
– See ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN it’s even better.
– Read THE FINAL DAYS (Woodward/Bernstein).
– Read BLIND AMBITION (John Dean).

I have a writer friend who talks about the mystic power of three.

It seems much of my art-consuming life, I have encountered trilogies regularly (…and happily so); THE LORD OF THE RINGS, STAR WARS, Kieslowski’s THREE COLOURS, Clint Eastwood’s DOLLARS westerns, THE GODFATHER, and INDIANA JONES.

Might this be another?

THE POST, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, ……?

The Shape of Water – Spoiler Alert

Movies

I have friends who try like hell to drag me into this millennium.

It’s tough and thankless duty.

I immerse myself happily in “Thin Man” movies, and Casablanca, and Mexican monster movies, and 70’s/80’s giallo gems from Europe, and just about anything Fellini touched. My playlist includes Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (and Bing Crosby for that matter), Coltrane, Johnny Hartman, Joni Mitchell, Carmen McRae, and Luciano Pavarotti. I avidly devour books by Kerouac, Edgar Wallace, Tolkein, Didion, and Hurston.

But thankfully, my obstinate friends insist I read Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Neal Stephenson, listen to Anais Mitchell and Anat Cohen…

…and watch The Shape of Water.

I love this film.

It’s a love story with monsters…river monsters and 1960’s Cold War-driven human monsters.

It’s the logical extension of The Creature of the Black Lagoon sans the inexplicable white swimsuit or any swimsuit at all for that matter.

It’s a love story that finally answers the question; “Which came first, the chicken or…?” SPOILER ALERT; it’s the egg.

It’s as dark in palette as Blade Runner and as wholesome as Fred and Ginger.

Thank you to Guillermo Del Toro for directing and writing this film.

Thank you to my friends for tugging me out of the 20th century.

A Last Wave Unleashed

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Movie night!

I like Peter Weir movies and tonight I’m watching The Last Wave.

This flick gets ripped for being obscure and for not solving the mystery.

I will grant the latter. I think one of the responsibilities of artists who trade in mysteries in movies and books is they must, at some point, solve the mystery. Is that too much to ask? In both The Last Wave and Picnic at Hanging Rock. Mr. Weir chooses not to do so. I still like both films.

I will however, take issue with the accusation of obscurity.

Since my teens, I’ve had a literary addiction to novels and stories of the supernatural. One of my favorite British authors is from the early 20th century; Arthur Machen. Machen writes often of nature in revolt – of nature, thought to be tamed, but perpetually about to bust out and re-exert dominance over man in disorienting and disturbing ways. In this light, The Last Wave makes amazing sense.

Nature hovers. Disturbing and disorienting intrusions occur.

  • Baseball-sized hail falls from a cloudless sky.
  • From his protective bubble of a car in a torrential downpour, Richard Chamberlain sees;
    • A man with an extreme umbrella drinking from a water fountain. Why doesn’t just open his mouth? No, he chooses the “tame” water over nature’s wild water.
    • A poster for the local zoo featuring apes gazing back at Chamberlain in his car. Who’s really caged and on display?
    • Vehicles crawling through snarled traffic with icons on them featuring the image of a jungle cat; jaguars in the streets.
  • At Chamberlain’s home, with the maelstrom outside continuing to rage, turning the windows of the home into images like the inside of a dishwasher, water appears inside the house flowing down the stairs. We immediately assume there’s been a leak from the outside, but it turns out to be a bathtub overflowing. Water thought to be tamed…
  • Chamberlain’s wife admits that she’s a fourth-generation Australian, but she’s never met an aboriginal. She’s lived distanced from nature, behind societal barriers that now appear to be quite fragile.

This is not obscure. It’s mysterious and ominous, but not obscure. We think we’ve tamed and sealed out nature from our lives. (Climate change? Pshaw!)

But nature will persist. It will find a way past our barriers. It will win. How scary is that? Nothing obscure at all.

It’s a fine and effective film.

A Return to Sunset Boulevard

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I revisited Sunset Boulevard.

Make that “An American Story”

Not the whole street – 10086 Sunset Boulevard, the home of Norma Desmond to be precise.

Before my viewing revisit, it had been almost 40 years since I’d been there and it has changed…or probably, I have.

I remember seeing it before with a sensitivity short on life experience and fresh from a recent viewing of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, a callow and totally incorrect approach on my part. Hollywood madness played large and deadly.

I accepted the criticisms of many that Gloria Swanson’s “campy” performance to be accurate. (Cue the loud buzzer and the announcer’s voice; “Thank you for playing!”).

I believe the two most difficult things for an actor to play are;
1. Not pretty, and
2. Not smart.

Not so comfortable — not so safe

It’s not so hard to play ugly, and it’s not so hard to play stupid. It’s actually quite comfortable and safe. After all, audiences will surely know you’re merely acting and it’s not really you. Ditto with playing smart and pretty. But “not smart” and “not pretty”…that’s a little close to home. People MIGHT think you’re not having to act too much…maybe it’s what you are…not smart and not pretty. That’s not so comfortable and safe, eh?

I watched Sunset Boulevard with a group of movie lovers and one of them suggested that Ms. Swanson’s performance wasn’t campy at all. “This was how Norma Desmond and her colleagues acted in their silent roles, it only makes sense that this is how they act in life when they’re ‘on’.” That sounds right to me and Ms. Swanson’s performance seems perfectly plausible today. Now, keep in mind, I’m not averse to chewing my own share of scenery when the opportunity presents itself…or even when it doesn’t. Who am I to begrudge an actor their dose of over-the-top?

I think this is a brave performance by a 50-year-old actress in 1951 when there weren’t many roles for 50-year-old actresses. The character was exotic and glamorous…but not pretty. She was certainly not smart. And while she was not old, she was “not young”. Today, this performance could have unleashed subsequent movie offers galore. In 1951, Ms. Swanson was rewarded with few scripts and they, according to her, were merely re-channelings of Norma Desmond. Perhaps people were thinking she was not having to act too much? William Holden sprang from this film to box-office stardom. Ms. Swanson drifted into retirement…in her 50’s!

Rockin’ the threads

Speaking of William Holden, he is just fine in the flick, and he completely rocks the clothes…even the vicuna overcoat (“…since the lady’s buying…”).

But what about Joe Gillis, the character he’s playing?

I will admit to some relief when he was killed in the film. I was beginning to be teased by the outré possibility that Dobie Gillis might have been the bizarre offspring of Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis – not a good place to go.

Seriously, there is little to admire about Joe Gillis. The show opens with him in his bathrobe, in a maelstrom-designed apartment, three months behind on his rent and car payments, lying to his car re-possessors, and accepting the hospitality of a deluded older woman preparing for the funeral of her chimp.

There’s a job opening

Her chimp!
What’s that?
There’s opening for a chimp in this household? What is Joe Gillis thinking?

Joe has some of the best lines in the movie but they’re usually preceded by something amazing said by Norma. Thus, we miss his comments. For example;
Norma; “I am big! The movies got small!”
Joe (under his breath); “I knew something was wrong with them.”

It’s another of these mutterings that makes you completely write Joe off as an admirable human being. As Norma and Joe are out one evening in Norma’s remarkable car, Joe’s narration remarks; “By then, she had taught me to play bridge.” It’s a complete capitulation to comfort, clothes, chimp-dom, and the ultimately fatal swimming pool.

Buyer’s remorse

At least he has his moment of redemption. He finally jettisons the jewels, the clothes, the girl, the house, the car and the pool. BUT a Faustian bargain is made up front and there’s no going back. The terms are made early and the price of the transaction is not altered by buyer’s remorse. We have rooted for Joe in spite of his unworthiness of our sympathy, we resonate with his redemption, and we are saddened but unsurprised by his demise. Forget that $35-a-week editing job in Dayton – you bought the pool, mister.

Have I mentioned that I love this film?

Halloween Euro-Trash

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It’s Halloween season and it’s movie night!

I’m immediately hooked solid when a flick’s philosophical underpinnings are spelled out in the opening dialogue and are obviously words to live by.

In tonight’s film, a casual chitchat suggests;

“Dealing with a murderer is not only repugnant, but it can lead to…complications.”

While I accept the probable veracity of the statement, I have yet to have this sentiment pop up in any conversation. That’s most likely for the best. I suspect a life too-filled with “murderer”, “repugnant”, and “complications” in its language is directly linked to a reduced life expectancy.

But in a horror flick? We’re off and running!

Now that line sounds like something Charlie Chan might have said. But no, it’s one of the many pearls of wisdom included in the Euro-trash classic; The Hunchback of the Morgue. This is another inexplicably overlooked candidate for adaptation to a Broadway musical.

Check out this snappy exchange;

“Sulphuric acid!”

“Yes. We’ll be using it to dispose of the anatomical parts and other organic things.”

Let’s ponder that for a moment, shall we? …”other organic things”… what could “other organic things” possibly be? And do we really want to know?

This film has many of the basic elements of great bad film-making;

  • A secret cave with shiny, jagged rock walls but a perfectly flat floor (only in the movies can such a geologic miracle exist).
  • A fully functional mad doctor laboratory (with much gurgling and bubbling equipment) in said secret cave.
  • Sporadic electricity (besides most of the acting). This state-of-the-art laboratory is lit by torches, but the electrical equipment works – go figure.
  • Whispering. Everyone in the film whispers. Everyone, everywhere, all the time. I’m guessin’ the actors are actually moonlighting golf commentators.
  • A hunchback with a foot fetish and the ability to climb tile-roofs like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.
  • A student nurse whose apartment has dead animals and a Modigliani hanging on her walls. Clearly student nurses make damn good money in Europe and have a remarkable range in taste.
  • Grave-robbing, decapitation, artificial life (besides most of the acting).

The only thing missing in this epic is Godzilla!

Great bad Halloween fare

I loved it.

Vipers vs. Verdi

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Vipers vs Verdi

After my weekend immersion in Verdi with LA TRAVIATA, it might be good to “cleanse my palate” with some pure cultural junk.

I’m thinkin’ the 1976 made-for-TV-when-made-for-TV-was-NOT-a-recommendation “piéce de reptilian”; RATTLERS might be just the ticket.

Whatta film!

We’re talkin’ ludicrously poor child acting getting killed by the critics and the chemically-altered snakes in the first scene. This flick’s got nowhere to go but up from here. I can’t wait.

But first, a last few thoughts about LA TRAVIATA…

It was a beautiful production – beautiful to look at and beautiful to hear. It featured evenings of high C’s, crashing curtains (intentional), flying cutlery (intentional), and sexy flamenco dancing (damned intentional).

BUT…

I have a serious quibble with the second scene.

Yer tellin’ me, Mr. Verdi, that Violetta is gonna give up her bucolic “piéd a terrific” with her lover (with servants, no less) and return to the city to be exploited sexually and subsequently die because her lover’s daddy TELLS her to? This old hippie (look it up if you don’t know the term) is thinkin’ “that dog will NEVER hunt.”

Maybe…

…just maybe…

…if there were chemically-altered snakes in the country…

…but even then, I don’t know.

What’s in a Name? Not So Much.

Movies

Movie night!

Because an abominable virus cries for an abominable snowman to lift our spirits.

Shriek of the Mutilated is tonight’s delicacy. It’s so very bad and so very strange. In the extensive catalog of “Yeti” movies, has any film been good? This critter seriously needs a better agent.

The best thing about this film is the title.

Which sets me to thinkin’.

I can think of about a dozen or more movies that totally waste intriguing titles on totally less-than-intriguing flicks. Here are a few of my favorites;

  • They Saved Hitler’s Brain immediately comes to mind (ouch!). This beauty actually had two titles, the other being; Madmen of Mandragoras……I jes’ don’t know. Frankly, they coulda given it twenty titles and it wouldn’t have improved things a jot. Especially charming are the two spies who look like the Blues Brothers and do most of their high-powered stalking from a phone booth (remember those?).
  • Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. This is a Night of the Living Dead wanna-be. Unfortunately, it’s not near as interesting as NOTLD, though it does have the advantage of being shot in Miami instead of Pittsburgh.
  • The Iguana With a Tongue of Fire is a brutal giallo that actually is kinda interesting and features a brief, fascinating performance by Valentina Cortese.
  • Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Clowns, aliens, circus tent rocket ships, demonic ice cream trucks…what’s not to like……or……what’s to like?

Mind you, I’m not suggesting you rush out to see these films, but you can certainly savor the titles? Besides, you don’t have to watch ‘em. I already have.

Ew-w-w-w.

I Got Yer Frogs

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Frogs.

I got yer frogs.

I’m sittin’ in our library. The windows in front of me overlook a decorative pool with a quiet, reassuring fountain and four frogs, one of which is not quiet. He/she/it serenades with a repeated un-sweet burp that lies somewhere between a croak and a rasp. It is scarily reminiscent of the prophetic sounds my 1963 Mercury Comet used to make in 1969 on I-64 just before it lapsed into a defeated silence that prompted some serious pavement pounding on my part.

Tonight, my feet flinch in memory of that sad excuse for a car with each chirp of the frog.

Still, I like the sound.

It reminds me of other favorite frog moments…

  • The great frog hunt scene, deliciously narrated by John Huston in the film Cannery Row.
  • Walt Kelly’s political candidate frog whose answer to every question was; “Jes fine!” It was a novel and funny concept in the 50’s…mebbe not so novel and not so funny today.
  • Mr. Toad in Kenneth Graham’s THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
  • Kermit crooning “Rainbow Connection.”
  • In the ridiculous film Frogs, Sam Elliott (long before he reassured us at the bowling alley bar that “The Dude abides”) rescuing Joan Van Ark from the thousands of frogs angrily erupting from the muck to run amok (one hop at a time) and deal out some vague, ill-explained environmental vengeance against Ray Milland.
  • That jaw-dropping Gray Larson cartoon about frog legs.
  • And of course, those Budweiser frogs. Ah, Louie…I miss ye.

I think I’ll open the window.

R-r-r-ibbittt.